Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. How are you all holding up as we march into February? It’s been a busy week on my end, as I’ve been hammering a bunch of ambitious drafts into shape, and trying to keep this streak of long-form essays going. A few months ago I couldn’t have imagined maintaining this sort of pace, but rearranging my schedule and simply embracing the challenge has carried me through so far, and I frankly feel a lot better mentally now that I’m tackling all these major projects.
Work aside, I’ve also continued storming through the original Mobile Suit Gundam, and at this point have just a handful of episodes to go. The show continues to impress me at every turn; by now you can really feel the weight of exhaustion hanging over the whole crew, making each new battle feel that much more desperate and unpredictable. I’ll likely take an opportunity to ramble about Gundam at length sometime soon, but for today, let’s explore a fresh selection of films. It’s time for the Week in Review!
First up this week was another classic Ford Western, My Darling Clementine. The film stars Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp, chronicling his relationship with Doc Holliday (Victor Mature) in the days leading up to the shootout at the OK Corral. You might think that’d make for something like a High Noon-style pressure cooker, but My Darling Clementine is actually far more rambling in its drama, and the better for it. A gun in hand means the negotiation has failed, and Fonda’s Earp is a thoughtful, patient negotiator: as Tombstone’s new sheriff, he briefly shines a light in the darkness, proving paradise can be found even at the end of the world.
The contrast between Earp’s optimism and Holliday’s fatalism is the fundamental struggle of the film, played out across half a dozen different conflicts starring a variety of charming bit characters. Earp entered Tombstone with hopes of turning a profit on cattle, and even after his cattle are stolen, he approaches his new job of sheriff with an eye towards the future, and a genuine fondness for Tombstone. In contrast, Holliday fled from Boston and high society due to his developing tuberculosis, and sees Tombstone as his well-earned burial mound. Their diverging trajectories are further exacerbated when Holliday’s old flame Clementine arrives in town, incensing Holliday’s self-destructive tendencies while inspiring Earp with the hope of love.
Earp and Holliday clash similarly over a variety of local dramas, developing something close to respect along the way, and in the meantime giving the film’s generous cast of stock characters plenty to chew on. There is a poignancy in both their arcs, and the film’s meandering structure allows moments like Holliday’s brief interaction with a Shakespearian actor to add human texture to their larger thematic struggle. Those side characters also have plenty of substance of their own; to take one example, the film’s most tragic character is undoubtedly Chihuahua (Linda Darnell), who plays Holliday’s local squeeze, and briefly seems intent on developing a sitcom-ready repartee with Holliday and Earp. I spent much of the first half of the film trying to plot out any sort of happy ending for her, as she attempted to negotiate a future between herself and a man who sees her whole world as a shuttle to the grave. But of course, convenient futures are even more scarce for barmaids than cowboys; even the return of the long-lost Doctor Holliday is not enough to save either of them.
So yeah, no complaints from me. Ford films are always exceptional, and this one happened to be exceptional in my preferred sort of way, boasting plenty of incidental character texture, ambiguity, and melancholy. If you enjoy good films, you’ll probably enjoy My Darling Clementine.
We then checked out a classic post-Halloween slasher, the largely self-explanatory Prom Night. The film offers a much clearer motive for its killer than its obvious inspiration, but otherwise presents a fair simulacrum of Halloween’s thrills, even down to Jamie Lee Curtis’ performance in the lead role. Sadly, Prom Night can’t really match up to the best slashers in terms of its cinematography, and is further undercut visually by a sort of gauzy filter that makes it feel almost naturally out of focus. A neat effect for Picnic at Hanging Rock, but not exactly appreciated here – although I do have to commend the film for one particular chase sequence, which effectively turns the cast’s high school into a stifling labyrinth, and boasts color design flourishes with a hint of Argento intelligence behind them. Still, I wouldn’t recommend watching this one unless you’ve already run through the big canonical slashers.
Continuing with our Kingdom Hearts-inspired Disney viewings, we then watched Tangled, Disney’s adaptation of Rapunzel. The film’s narrative is a pretty standard “rogue meets princess, both are harassed by evil stepmother” affair, though it moves well, and crucially fosters a convincing chemistry between its leads. As two people who’ve each had to perform an inauthentic self in order to survive in their worlds, it’s easy to believe in the attraction between them, and how each assuages the other’s worries about who they truly are.
The film’s CG animation is starting to show its age a bit; the expression work is sometimes less than convincing, and it always feels like the characters are floating over the backgrounds, rather than standing within them. On the other hand, I actually loved the background design work – rather than generic fantasy structures, everything in this world feels reflective of the same ornate, Robin Hood-adjacent design space. It’s all competent enough to provide a perfectly charming movie experience, though I do wish the songs were better. It was really only the comedy number that made an impact, while key tunes like the big romance song just made me think of a less tuneful A Whole New World. A lesser but generally endearing modern Disney feature.
Last up for the week was True Lies, a James Cameron action-comedy starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as an international superspy, and Jamie Lee Curtis as the wife who believes he’s no more than a mild-mannered sales rep. When Schwarzenegger suspects Curtis of cheating on him, he employs all the might of America’s surveillance apparatus to discover the truth, only for both him and his wife to be captured by actual terrorists. What should probably be resolved through couples therapy is thus instead handled via action spectacle, as Schwarzenegger and Curtis learn to embrace honesty in their relationship while blowing the crap out of America’s enemies.
True Lies’ perspectives on marriage and terrorism are both wincingly dated, but the rougher elements of its script fail to undercut the sheer fun both Schwarzenegger and Curtis have with their roles. Schwarzenegger is naturally comfortable in this blend of action and comedy, but it’s Curtis who steals the show, offering a persistently hilarious, occasionally poignant transformation from mild-mannered suburbanite to action hero. Her passionate performance carries us through the film’s awkwardly mean-spirited first act, and into the dynamite-stuffed outposts where Cameron can thrive. A somewhat messy film on the whole, but Schwarzenegger and Curtis are such winning on-screen presences that I still had a fun time.
