Beyond The Sea

From Feb 26th

Drama,Biography/Us/English (Japanese Subtitles) 121 Mins.
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Kate Botsworth, John Goodman,
Director: Kevin Spacey
Lion's Gate Films

In the five years or so between Elvis joining the army and The Beatles invading The Ed Sullivan Show, it seemed as though every teen idol in America was called "Bobby." Bobby Vee/Curtola/Vinton/Helm/Fuller, even Bobby "Boris" Pickett who sang The Monster Mash, all came and went with admirable speed.

The exception, for a time, to the cookie-cutter mould was Bobby Darin. Having paid his dues with novelty songs, like Splish-Splash (which, ironically, is still one his most famous tunes), Darin went beyond the Bandstand crowd to winning over their parents with serious international hits like Beyond the Sea and Mack the Knife.

He was a headliner in Vegas (where every sidekick and arranger was called Sammy, and answered to Frankie), which in those days was quite a leap; he made movies and was nominated for an Oscar. It didn't last long, though: like many singers of the day, his career tanked during the British Invasion of the early 60s. He was making a comeback of sorts when he died at 37 in 1973. Although that sounds untimely, he was never expected to live past 15, due to childhood rheumatic fever. Well, I guess he showed them.

Kevin Spacey is 45. If you can forget that he's playing a man who's career peaked in his mid-20s, you're halfway home. Still, when I first heard about this movie, I immediately thought of the old Tom Lehrer line: "When Mozart was my age, he'd been dead for five years."

This is not just a vanity project, though: Spacey directed, co-wrote and starred in this movie. He performs all the Darin songs on the soundtrack, and acquits himself quite nicely. Whatever you might think of the schmaltz of the 60s lounge-lizard world of Hollywood and Las Vegas (if anything at all), Spacey re-creates it meticulously and (we assume) accurately. Amidst all this, Darin's failed marriage to the teen actress Sandra Dee (Kate Botsworth) also comes under the microscope (with Dee's evident approval or remuneration, because she's still alive and so are her lawyers). This is a labour of love on Spacey's part, and that tends to make up for the so-what-ness of it all.

Alexander

From Feb 5th

Adventure, Drama/War/US/English (Japanese Subtitles)/175mins
Starring: Colin Farrell, Jared Leto, Angelina Jolie
Director: Oliver Stone
Warner Bros.

Alexander the Great doesn't need a movie to be a controversial figure. Even today, the Greeks and Macedonians who live in Toronto have words during certain ceremonies in front of Alexander's bust on Danforth Avenue. And of course, there's still some controversy about just who or what a Macedonian is. Alexander still frays tempers thousands of years after his death. He is, in other words, Oliver Stone's kind of guy. You'd think he could have done more with him in this movie.

The story unfurls for hours on end, as most Stone movies do.
The difference here is that you feel it. Part of the problem is the interminable narration by Anthony Hopkins (as Ptolemy), but perhaps the biggest mistake was the casting of Colin Farrell as the blond-rinsed Alexander. In fairness, though, Farrell could only be as good as the work he was given to do. Stone's lead characters are often on the brink of madness or obsession (Jim Morrison, Jim Garrison haunted by Kennedy's assassination, Richard Nixon, the lead couple in Natural Born Killers employing their natural born talents), but Farrell's Alexander just goes out and methodically invades countries until he can't anymore and dies at 32. And talks a lot. And broods. And rides horses. And invades (the battle scenes are much more interesting than those of last year's Troy, but still).

His "controversial" love life doesn't amount to much either. Alexander is shown getting into the rough stuff once with his pagan wife (Rosario Dawson), and sharing a few chaste cuddles with his lifelong male companion Hephaistion (Jared Leto), but our hero doesn't seem to be having much fun either way. If you go to the theater with high hopes of being shocked by the depravity, you'll be disappointed. I was more intrigued by Alexander's ambiguous relationship with his powerful mother (who is, after all, Angelina Jolie), but in our confused age, the sight of two historically accurate guys hugging gets a director denounced by the Greek government. He might as well have passed Farrell and Leto the breath mints and told them to go to it.

Film Reviews by Colin Doyle

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