Jungle Cruise

 Year of Release:  2021

Director:  Jaume Collet-Serra

Screenplay:  Michael Green, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa from a story by John Norville, Josh Goldstein, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, based on Walt Disney's The Jungle Cruise ride

Starring:  Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Édgar Ramírez, Jack Whitehall, Jesse Plemons, Paul Giamatti

Genre:  Fantasy adventure

Running Time:  127 minutes

1916: While the First World War rages in Europe, Dr Lily Houghton (Blunt) and her brother MacGrgeor (Whitehall) arrive in Brazil intending to head down the Amazon in search of the legendary "Tears of the Moon", which has the ability to cure illness, heal wounds and lift curses.  They hire steamboat captain Frank Wolff (Johnson), who conducts cut-rate jungle cruises for tourists, to ferry them down the Amazon.  Along the way they encounter various natural and supernatural threats, as they are pursued by the ruthless Prince Joachim (Plemons) who is determined to claim the Tears of the Moon for the German war effort.

Inspired by the popular Disneyland theme park ride, Jungle Cruise hearkens back to old school adventure films.  Mixing elements from Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, The African Queen (1951) and the Uncharted video game series, it is a mixed bag.  The story is pretty disposable and unoriginal, there is an over reliance on CGI effects, but it works due to the chemistry between Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, both of whom are hugely charismatic and engaging performers.   Édgar Ramírez is buried under layers of CGI as an undead conquistador, but Jack Whitehall is funny as Lily's foppish posh brother.  It's a funny, charming film and there are some exciting sequences.  However it is overlong, and there is a lack of a strong villain.  It's the kind of film that in years to come will probably be a staple of bank holiday weekend TV.  It's certainly worth watching and enjoyable, but really nothing special.

  

Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson in Jungle Cruise   

Man on the Moon

Year of Release:  1999
Director:  Milos Forman
Screenplay:  Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski
Starring:  Jim Carrey, Danny DeVito, Courtney Love, Paul Giamatti
Running Time:  119 minutes
Genre:  Biography, comedy, drama

This film tells the story of American entertainer Andy Kaufman (Carrey).  His bizarre performances fail at nightclubs, where the audiences want traditional comedy, but intrigue Hollywood agent George Shapiro (DeVito).  Despite his disdain for sitcoms, Kaufman rises to fame as Latka in the popular comedy show Taxi (1978-1983), which leads to appearances on Saturday Night Live, Late Night with David Letterman and others.  However Kaufman's live set, which is more performance art than comedy, as well as his taste for bizarre elaborate practical jokes and pranks, including appearances as his alter ego, the obnoxiously rude and untalented lounge singer Tony Clifton, and wrestling women in the guise of a professional wrestling villain, offend and alienate his audience and co-workers.

Outside of the sitcom Taxi Andy Kaufman never achieved mainstream acceptance, but he became kind of a cult figure, inspiring the REM song from which this film takes it's title.  He is portrayed here as a talented, if unconventional performer, who there was never really a niche for, and probably still isn't.  Carrey turns in a superb performance as Kaufman, and has great support form Danny DeVito as his loyal but frustrated manager (DeVito starred alongside the real Kaufman in Taxi), ass well as Courtney Love who is underused as Kaufman's long-suffering partner Lynne Margulies, and Paul Giamatti plays Kaufman's sidekick Bob Zmuda.  The cast from Taxi also make cameo appearances as themselves.  The film is stylishly made, starting with Carrey as Kaufman interrupting the film's opening credits to tell the audience the film is already over and they should go home.  It never really gets under the skin of Kaufman and, if you want to find out what made the man tick you won't learn it here.  In fact after the film, it's unclear how much of Kaufman was real and how much was just an elaborate put on.  Which probably would have pleased him no end.
A documentary about the film's deeply strange production was released on Netflix in 2017 called Jim & Andy:  The Great Beyond.        

Jim Carrey in Man on the Moon

American Splendor

Year: 2003
Directors: Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini
Screenplay: Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, based on the comic series American Splendor by Harvey Pekar and Our Cancer Year by Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner
Stars: Paul Giamatti, Hope Davis, James Urbaniak, Judah Friedlander, Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner
Running Time: 100 minutes
Genre: Drama, comedy, biography

Summary: In 1970s Cleveland, Ohio, Harvey Pekar (Giamatti) works a dull job as a file clerk in a hospital and spends his time collecting jazz records while searching for some kind of purpose to life. After befriending underground comic-book writer and artist Robert Crumb (Urbaniak), Pekar decides to write a comic-book series based on the ins and outs of his own daily life. The resulting comic, American Splendor, makes Pekar something of a celebrity including appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman in the 1980s. The comic also brings romance to Pekar's life in the shape of comic store worker and sometime prison teacher Joyce Brabner (Davis).

Opinions: This film is possibly one of the strangest and most original comic-book movies of recent years. The film essentially works as a biography of Pekar but it also adapts several of the stories from the American Splendor comics (which was in itself something of an autobiography). The drama is also frequently interspersed with interviews from the character's real-life counterparts and their comments on the action (in one scene Pekar states that Giamatti looks nothing like him), and the look of the comics themselves are brought to life by animated sequences. The film is funny, moving and often dark with a succession of memorable supporting characters including Robert Crumb, who created comics such as Fritz the Cat and Keep on Truckin' and who was himself the subject of a documentary film called Crumb (1994), and also Pekar's co-worker Toby Radloff (played by Judah Friedlander), who appeared on MTV during the '80s as "The Genuine Nerd From Cleveland" and starred in the slasher movie spoof Killer Nerd (1991). This film really encapsulates the best of American independent cinema, it may be episodic and lacking in a strong narrative thrust but it is memorable and entertaining.
By the way, the American Splendor comics themselves are a must read. Pekar was a genuinely talented writer and they were well illustrated by a diverse selection of comic artists, including Crumb, Chester Brown, Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. The comics managed to make poetry and art out of simple things such as riding the bus and going shopping. They were published between 1976 and 2008 and are available in a number of graphic novel collections.

This post is written as a tribute to Harvey Pekar who died on July 12 2010.