DEATH NOTE (2006) - A Review

 

AKA: DESU NOTO

 

 

So, you're walking down the street and you find a black notebook laying on the ground. Even though it's raining, the notebook is resting inside a mysteriously dry circle. You pick up the notebook and take it home. Later, upon opening the notebook, you find instructions explaining that this is the Death Note, and if you write a person's name in the notebook, they will die within ten seconds of a heart attack.

 

That's the fantastic but believably presented scenario for Death Note, and this is the situation the main character, Light Yagami (Tatsuya Fujiwara), a college student, finds himself in. Not surprisingly, he doesn't believe what he's reading, but, when he sees a news report about a vile criminal on TV, he impulsively writes the man's name in the notebook before going to bed. In the morning, the newspaper reports the sudden death - by an apparent heart attack - of the criminal whose name Light wrote in the Death Note.

 

In case that's not enough to convince Light that he's in possession of the real deal, he's soon visited by Ryuk, the God of Death, who dropped the notebook and explains that it's Light's to keep - and use - for as long as he likes. Ryuk quickly becomes a regular presence in Light's life, seeming to take a deep interest in how this human wields his new death dealing power. Generally, Ryuk neither advocates for use of the Death Note, nor argues against the use of it, though he does ask Light the occasional probing question as the young man's life becomes more and more centered around the lethal notebook.

 



At first, Light does what he sees as a public good, by targeting and eliminating criminals who seem to have escaped being punished by the legal system. He reasons that ridding the world of these despicable individuals is an inherent good, and, hopefully, will send a message to other would-be criminals that just because they escape the law doesn't mean they will escape justice.

 

Soon enough, dozens of rapists and murderers around the world are dead, and the authorities are both interested in how this is happening, and concerned that it will continue. As the investigation into the deaths grows, it becomes clear that the person or persons behind them are in or near Tokyo. So, in order to try to get the authorities to back off, Light begins targeting various law enforcement investigators, hoping their deaths will frighten those who remain away from continuing with their efforts to find him.

 

And this sets up the central dilemma in the film: How much bad can you do in the pursuit of doing good, while still being able to convince yourself that you're still doing good? It's watching Light try to navigate this moral quandary that seems to engage Ryuk. Even though he's the God of Death, and literally takes his life force from those who die, he appears to be genuinely surprised at the lengths to which Light goes (killing numerous members of the law enforcement community) in order to continue with his supposedly righteous crusade (killing numerous members of the criminal underground). So, sure, this is a fantasy film with teen appeal, but that doesn't mean it couldn't spark some interesting conversations about the nature of good and evil.

 



In the end, the film offers some nice twists and surprises, and there are a lot more details about the Death Note itself offered, all of which I've avoided talking about here, and this film certainly seems perfectly calibrated to appeal to the youth market. So perfectly, in fact, that as we were watching this, I found myself marveling that it hasn't been remade by an American filmmaker. Well, oops! As soon as I looked this up online, I discovered that a remake is indeed in the works, directed by Gus Van Zant, of all people. Sounds like Mr. Van Zant knows he needs a more commercial property on his resume right about now.

 

Though, unlike my wife, I was less than taken with the character of "L," a young, brilliant super sleuth (played by Ken'ichi Matsuyama), he made perfect sense from a commercial angle. Personally, I found Ryuk to be more believable and engaging, even though he is an over-the-top CGI creation. It took me a few minutes to buy into his super stylized and cartoonish appearance, but once I did, the humor and observations he brought to the story worked well. As Light becomes more and more of a one-note(book) character, bent on enacting his personal justice, Ryuk comes to be the more thoughtful and nuanced personality of the two. What's more, despite Ryuk's monstrous appearance, he doesn't behave in any of the ways that a typical (American) CGI creature would be expected to. He doesn't growl or threaten, or act aggressive in any way, really. He just hangs out talking with Light and eating apples.

 

It is perhaps needless to say that this film ends with a perfect set up for a sequel - and one did indeed come out later the same year, one of the three films that director Shusuke Kaneko helmed in 2006. (He's also directed projects with characters that should already be familiar to American audiences: three Gamera movies, one Godzilla movie, and multiple episodes of an Ultraman TV show from the 2000s.) We certainly enjoyed this enough to seek out the sequel, and I'll be curious to learn a bit more about the American remake as well. In the meantime, if you're looking for something that mixes fantasy, humor and the moral issues surrounding the power of life and death, well then, I'd say this is the film for you.

 

Just be sure to have plenty of apples on hand when you're watching it - just in case.



LAUREN BACALL (1924-2014) - A Tribute

 

Bye, bye, Baby - The Look has left the building. When someone is nearly 90 years old, it's not exactly surprising to hear that they died, but it's still sad to lose Lauren Bacall - though, up in Movie Star Heaven, I'm sure that Humphrey Bogart is looking forward to having her company again. As for the rest of us, well, we still have her films.

 

The general outlines of her biography - young model makes her first movie with big star Humphrey Bogart and they live happily ever after together until his death - are pretty well known, so there's no need to go into the details again here. Little Betty Perske became Lauren Bacall in the time when Hollywood was still forming real, honest to goodness Stars, and goodness knows, they certainly created a hot celestial body with her. While I think she was somewhat limited as an actress, there's no denying that she had magnetism and Star Power to spare. Those eyes, that voice, that attitude - who could resist?

 



Such was her appeal that it's not much of a stretch to say that Lizabeth Scott started her career as a sort of Bacall knock-off. (A statement that is not in any way intended as a knock of Lizabeth Scott, mind you.) Both co-starred with Humphrey Bogart early in their careers, and both had bedroom eyes and distinctive husky voices - but only Bacall managed to achieve the status of being an A-List Star and Hollywood Legend.

 

To be sure, the films she made with Bogart are all infinitely watchable and enjoyable. I've seen them all multiple times, and have even made the pilgrimage to the very cool art deco house in San Francisco that her character in 1947's Dark Passage lived in.

But my absolute favorite Lauren Bacall film is a little obscure - in more ways than one. It's The Cobweb (1955), an all-star oddball that I still marvel at. I am not joking when I say the plot is all about the conflicts that erupt at a ritzy mental hospital over getting...new drapes. Richard Widmark is a psychiatrist, Gloria Grahame is an oversexed nut, and Oscar Levant is a neurotic nut. Trouble ahead! Bacall is the calm in the eye of the storm in a movie that is often over the top, totally inexplicable, and highly entertaining.

 



Still, no matter how long her career, or what other projects she was involved with, it's likely to be the films she made with Bogart that people remember the best. Much of the press about her passing has focused on the four films she made co-starring with Bogart - but they actually appeared in five films together. Yes, five. There are the four iconic ones, and then there is Two Guys from Milwaukee (1946), a Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan vehicle in which she is mentioned throughout, and then, at the end, she and Bogie make cameo appearances as themselves. (See video clip below.)

 

 

So long, Slim. You'll be missed, but very fondly remembered. 

THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS (1970) - A Review

 

Or, in a sense, The Purge for two, in a film that is really just one joke played out in multiple ways.



The set up is simple. George Kellerman (Jack Lemmon) has to fly from the Midwest to New York for a job interview. His wife, Gwen (Sandy Dennis), goes with him. And from the moment their plane lifts off, everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. Rerouted landings, missing luggage, missed trains, canceled room reservations, a transit strike and a garbage collectors strike, crooks, conmen and a really big dog - these are but a few of the things to plague the unlucky couple.

 

So yes, it's one joke, offered up in a variety of ways, for an hour and a half. In most cases, this would probably be a fairly effective recipe for boring or annoying an audience. But in this case, with the truly great Jack Lemmon in the lead, the film manages to be funny nearly all the way through, as Lemmon does a feature film-length slow burn, before finally melting down completely. His comic skills save the day, and elevate the script (by Neil Simon) to a higher level. (He had already done this same trick a few years earlier, in 1967, in Simon's The Odd Couple - a DVD of which I picked up just this weekend at a thrift shop.) I personally think that a little Neil Simon goes a long way, and I fail to completely understand his sterling reputation as a writer. But this is a case of "It's the singer, not the song," as Jack Lemmon tucks into the simmering fury of the ever more frustrated George Kellerman.

 



Further adding to the fingernails on the chalkboard fun is Sandy Dennis. A nasal, toothy presence, she adds immeasurably to the aggravation Lemmon's character is visibly feeling every time she whines his name - "George." Though in the end she manages to maintain her composure better than Lemmon, it's only because he has to bear up under everything she is also experiencing, while also bearing up under her. And, while she may not get as many laughs as Lemmon does, she does manage to perfectly nail several laugh lines, including one or two ("Oh my god, the children!") that aren't necessarily, in and of themselves, that funny, save for her delivery.

 

I would never call this a great film, but it does offer a fairly choice leading role to the great Jack Lemmon, who more than makes the most of it, ably supported by Sandy Dennis. It's no stone cold comedy classic, but you could certainly do much worse than this for entertainment. (Say, for example, watching the remake of this? Hmmm?)