Bungle in the Jungle

Arguably one of the most scandalous narratives to come out of the pre-code era, Alfred E. Green’s notorious 1933 romantic drama Baby Face was one of the films that was so very controversial that it ended up giving the Motion Picture Production Code (Hays Code) its bite – the reigning moral guide for the next thirty plus years. With a story from Darryl F. Zanuck (yes, the powerhouse studio head of 20th Century Fox – written under his pseudonym, Mark Canfield), the story follows Lily Powers (Barbara Stanwyck), aptly described by the bawdy tagline – “she had it and made it pay”.

Ah, classic Hollywood – no, not one of those gems of yesteryear, rather, I’m talking about their love of remakes. . . specifically, A Star Is Born – this being the fourth time it has been remade (following the 1937 original starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March, you have the 1954 version with Judy Garland and James Mason, then the 1976 rock musical version featuring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, and lastly, at least until this year, was the 2013 Bollywood effort led by Shraddha Kapoor and Aditya Roy Kapur). All sarcastic joking aside, despite this 2018 story having been reworked more times than the excuses students have tried to come up with when showing up to school without their homework, it is one of the main Academy Award hopefuls this awards season. Co-written and directed by Bradley Cooper (his first directorial effort, his co-scribes are Eric Roth – Forrest Gump, and Will Fetters), Cooper himself plays the role of Jackson Maine, a country rocker with an affinity for pill-popping, and, if you notch that up a few more levels, you’ll find his addiction to alcohol.

A meditative piece on aging, Rúnar Rúnarsson’s 2004 short film The Last Farm, out of Iceland, depicts a situation in which many of us will one day find ourselves in. . . old and decrepit, losing our freedom as we are forced out of our homes for a much more costly imitation of it. Hrafn (Jón Sigurbjörnsson) is an elderly man who has done it his way. Loving life on his little plot of farmland, it is stark yet beautiful, cold yet alive – a frigid ocean property surrounded by hilly mountains and dales, the meeting of land and sea picturesque in all of its challenges. . . unspoiled water and terrain for as far as the eye can see.

An oft-used motif in the sports genre is the underdog story – Rocky, Rudy, Miracle (about the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team), and so many others feed off of the audiences love of cheering for the expected loser (as is the case with the stories these films are often based on). One such feature that follows this well trodden path yet finds some new ground to surprise is David O. Russell’s 2010 feature, The Fighter. Based on real life boxer “Irish” Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), the Lowell, Massachusetts native has become a stepping stone for other boxers making their way up towards a title opportunity. Managed by his domineering mother, Alice (Melissa Leo), and trained by his character of a half-brother, Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale) – a former boxer who had potential (going head to head with Sugar Ray Leonard in 1978 – actually knocking the icon down. . . the legend makes a cameo in the film), but has become a crack addict.