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DVD The Singing Detective
If you can pull The Singing Detective out from under the long shadow cast by the acclaimed 1986 British miniseries, Keith Gordon's 109-minute film version achieves its own distinction. It was a daring (and some might say foolhardy) assignment to film Dennis Potter's screenplay, written out of Potter's desire to see his semi-autobiographical drama in feature-length form, but Gordon rose to the occasion with a superlative cast led by Robert Downey, intense as ever as Potter's on-screen alter ego. Bedridden with an excruciating case of skin-rotting psoriasis, pulp novelist Dan Dark (Downey) escapes into his vivid imagination, where gunmen and gumshoes pursue their pulpy agenda, casting himself as the titular "warbler" whose pain and anger is focused like a laser on his cheating wife (Robin Wright Penn) and anyone else who's made his real and imaginary worlds unbearable. Coproducer Mel Gibson appears under heavy makeup as Dark's condescending psychiatrist, and supporting roles are played with stylish flair by Adrien Brody, Katie Holmes, Jeremy Northam, Carla Gugino, and others. While many critics called this a noble failure, The Singing Detective captures the essence of Potter's story, offering a welcome alternative to the acknowledged superiority of the miniseries. --Jeff Shannon
Great Cast & Direction Drive Compelling Potter Update
The 2003 film version of THE SINGING DETECTIVE is by turns funny, scathing, and poignant, a woefully underrated look into a writer's psyche. If you don't have time to watch Dennis Potter's landmark TV miniseries (also available on home video), Potter's screenplay for this movie version (written 2 years before his untimely death) does a great job of condensing the story of novelist Dan Dark's (Robert Downey Jr.) battle with severe chronic psoriasis and personal demons. Throughout the movie, the bitter, suffering Dark weaves in and out of reality and delirious re-imaginings of the people and events in his life as they'd appear in the titular novel starring Dark's tough private eye alter ego. Actor-turned-director Keith Gordon stages this wild ride through Dark's mind with a style that owes as much to David Lynch and the Coen Brothers as it does to Potter. The British miniseries' lip-synched 1940s musical set pieces are retooled as American 1950s rock 'n' roll numbers -- call me a Philistine, but I think the updating works even better than the original (and believe me, I loved the original)! As a writer, I found THE SINGING DETECTIVE to be a fine example of how one's life and experiences creep into one's writing no matter what genre you write in. Each and every member of the stellar cast is letter-perfect, with particularly good, sharp chemistry between Downey and, respectively, Robin Wright Penn (I've always loved her name; it's especially appropriate for someone playing a writer's wife :-), and producer Mel Gibson (as Dark's seemingly goofy but astute and compassionate therapist, Gibson is all but unrecognizable in bald drag; Greg Cannom's F/X makeup serves both Gibson and Downey well. In fact, Downey's psoriasis makeup is so good you might not want to watch this while eating!). It's a shame THE SINGING DETECTIVE didn't do better with critics or at the box office, or Downey probably would've been a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination. I could empathize with Downey as the angry, clever, pain-racked (physically and emotionally) Dan Dark even when he wasn't particularly likable. The versatile Downey could be a Bogart for the Aughties if he could keep his own personal demons under control. I also enjoyed seeing our household fave Adrien Brody in a relatively lighthearted (for this film :-) role as one of a pair of Dark's fictional hoods with a bumbling streak. Jon Polito completes the pair; he and Brody are like an amoral Abbott & Costello. Their repartee cracked me up, especially their "Patti Page" exchange early in the film (just watching Brody mouthing the barks in "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?" is worth the rental price! :-). Give this new SINGING DETECTIVE a try next time you're in the video store and in the mood for something different. If you rent the DVD and like it, watch it again with Keith Gordon's commentary track on; he has lots of intriguing and entertaining things to say about the making of the film, particularly about the cast and how he and his crew got those great surreal effects on a low budget.
Robert Downey Jr., is The Singing Detective
After having watched the original TSD six-part mini-series and read some of the bewildered comments about this film when it first screened at the Sundance Film Festival, I prepared to see this movie with some trepidation. Fortunately for us, TSD was included last fall at the Toronto Film Festival, where it played to a packed house of over 1200 people. Director, Keith Gordon was in attendance, along with the film's star, Robert Downey Jr. (Dan Dark) and Katie Holmes (nurse Mills.) Five minutes into it, I knew this was something special and unique as I found myself laughing, clapping out loud and even shedding a few tears.
The film was everything Gordon described it to be and then some. (And so was the original.) The 2003 DVD of The Singing Detective is a revised and sharper version of the mini-series and rewritten by Dennis Potter himself. It's a comedy, film noir, musical, intense microscopic character study and surrealistic detective story, with the film's hero slipping in and out of hallucinatory daydreams, as he reluctantly wrestles demons from his childhood. This is accomplished with the aid of one Columbo type, Dr. Gibbon, terrifically underplayed by Mel Gibson. The beauty of the journey is in observing how Dark gets from A to D, while trying to distinguish his angels from the devil. The emotionally and physically ill Dan Dark, unwittingly achieves this task while imagining himself as the tougher, fearless, ladie's man hero of his detective novels. To boot, this detective likes to croon a tune in the after hours clubs.
After having watched the film at the Toronto festival and then seen it again this weekend by renting the DVD, I have to confess this is one of the most fascinating and brilliant films to grace movie screens. It wasn't just an apparition. The critics who didn't care for it, most likely didn't understand it, as it is a challenging film. Even Roger Ebert admitted he had to give it a second look in order to assimilate what he'd initially seen and liked it. (If you're excpecting Chicago, this film is not for you.) In spite of the fact that it wasn't completely understood, almost all critics were unanimous in their praise of Downey. He is superb. Forget Chaplin. (The biopic in which Downey excelled and was nomimated for an Oscar.) This is his complete virtuoso performance and it's worth renting the film just to observe his work alone. No wonder Sean Penn verbally acknowledged Downey in his short list of actors who were not nominated for an Oscar this year, when he received his own statue for the award. With an excellent supporting cast, this DVD is definitely worth the rent, but a few words of caution. Watch it twice and you'll be delighted and amazed by what you might have missed the first time around. In the words of Dan Dark. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.
A great mix of film noir, musicals and human drama
Author Dan Dark is trying to recover from a severe case of psoriasis, which causes him immense physical pain and sometimes the occasional hallucination. As he re-works his first novel, "The Singing Detective," in his mind -- sometimes imaging the people surrounding him as characters in this book, sometimes breaking out in song -- Dr. Gibbon, a psychlogist, tries to help Dark get at the root of his ailment by examining the events of his past.
Writer Dennis Potter re-works his TV mini-series into a fine film, mingling musiclas, film noir and a good human drama. Robert Downey, Jr., is excellent as Dan Dark, suffering both with the terrible skin condition an with his deep-seated emotions behind the characters in his first book. His delivery of Potter's fast-paced dialogue as well as his finesse with the character are amazing. Probably one of his best performances. The supporting cast also gives fine performances that truly enhance the film: Mel Gibson as Dr. Gibbon; Adrien Brody and Jon Polito as the two bumbling hoods; Katie Holmes as Nurse Mills; Jeremy Northam as Mark Binney; and Robin Wright Penn as Nicola/Nina/The Blonde. The makeup is also wonderful, especially both the work done to give Downey, Jr. psoriasis, and the almost unrecognizable Mel Gibson.
My only gripe is that the editing is sometimes a bit choppy making some scenes not flow as well as they could. Other than that, this is a great movie, filled with fine performances and a sharp, strong script.
Sean Penn and Benecio Del Toro, two of the most gripping actors around, play wildly different men linked through a grieving woman (Naomi Watts, Mulholland Drive, The Ring) in 21 Grams. Del Toro (Traffic, The Usual Suspects) delves deep into the role of an ex-con turned born-again Christian, a deeply conflicted man struggling to set right a terrible accident, even at the expense of his family. Penn (Mystic River, Dead Man Walking) captures a cynical, philandering professor in dire need of a heart transplant, which he gets from the death of Watts' husband. 21 Grams slips back in forth in time, creating an intricate emotional web out of the past and the present that slowly draws these three together; the result is remarkably fluid and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Sean Penn - Naomi Watts - Benicio Del Toro Director(s): Alejandro González Iñárritu DVD Release Date: Released the 16 March 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Jennifer Connelly followed up her Academy Award for A Beautiful Mind with this dark but moving story of small mistakes that escalate, with tragic necessity, to disaster. In House of Sand and Fog, Kathy (Connelly) gets evicted from her house for failing to pay a tax she never should have been charged in the first place. The house is swiftly put up for auction and bought by a former military officer from Iran named Behrani (Ben Kingsley, Sexy Beast). When legal efforts fail her, Kathy turns to a sympathetic cop (Ron Eldard, Bastard Out of Carolina), who wants out of a loveless marriage and who's willing to step over legal boundaries if it might give him a fresh start. Topnotch performances by the entire cast make House of Sand and Fog a compelling... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Jennifer Connelly - Ben Kingsley - Ron Eldard Director(s): Vadim Perelman DVD Release Date: Released the 30 March 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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After a string of mediocre movies, director Tim Burton regains his footing as he shifts from macabre fairy tales to Southern tall tales. Big Fish twines in and out of the oversized stories of Edward Bloom, played as a young man by Ewan McGregor (Moulin Rouge, Down with Love) and as a dying father by Albert Finney (Tom Jones). Edward's son Will (Billy Crudup, Almost Famous) sits by his father's bedside but has little patience with the old man's fables, because he feels these stories have kept him from knowing who his father really is. Burton dives into Bloom's imagination with zest, sending the determined young man into haunted woods, an idealized Southern town, a traveling circus, and much more. The result is sweet but--thanks to the director's dark... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Tim Burton DVD Release Date: Released the 27 April 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The plot of Pieces of April, a sweet independent film, couldn't be simpler: As a raffish young woman named April (chipmunk-cute Katie Holmes, Wonder Boys, Dawson's Creek) struggles to cook Thanksgiving dinner in her dingy, cramped New York apartment, her estranged family slowly drives toward the city, stopping now and then to question why they're going to a meal they expect to be not only bad to eat, but awkward and unhappy. The writing, acting, and directing of Pieces of April ranges from straightforward to clumsy--and yet the movie builds to a surprisingly potent emotional conclusion. Much of the credit goes to wily Patricia Clarkson (High Art, The Station Agent), who plays April's cancer-ridden mother with a compelling mixture of sadness,... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Katie Holmes - Patricia Clarkson - Derek Luke - Oliver Platt Director(s): Peter Hedges (II) DVD Release Date: Released the 24 February 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The premise of this swinging Vegas picture is enough to carry it over its narrative rough spots. The unluckiest sap on the planet (William H. Macy) is employed as a "cooler" at a casino; his very presence can chill the hot streak of any patron on a roll. He's valued by the old-school manager of the place, a role given a two-fisted, bourbon-swilling incarnation by Alec Baldwin. Macy means to quit, but then he falls for a waitress (the excellent Maria Bello, from Permanent Midnight)--might his luck be changing? The subplots are pretty much a mess, but the frank sex scenes between Macy and Bello give the movie a truly offbeat feel. The tawdry air of a second-rate casino is also nicely done: This is not the new family-friendly Las Vegas, but a tough place of superstitions, sinister... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): William H. Macy - Alec Baldwin - Maria Bello Director(s): Wayne Kramer DVD Release Date: Released the 27 April 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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