Celebrating Lewis Litt: The MVP of SUITS

There are some TV shows which, if one element were removed, would be almost unwatchable. Entourage would be a recent example. Without Jeremy Piven's Ari Gold, would anyone care to watch a bunch of obnoxious assholes bombing around LA in sweet rides with beautiful women? Okay, bad example. Moving on...

Suits is a drama-comedy series that has been on-air since 2011. It tells the story of Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams, Helena's (Tatiana Maslany) unlucky BF on Orphan Black), a college drop out with a near-perfect memory who works as a law associate for high-powered attorney Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht) despite never attending law school.

Suits has not quite achieved the cultural relevance of Entourage. It's an entertaining show brought up by a good ensemble of actors augmented by some sharp comedic banter. In short, it is a perfectly decent piece of entertainment. On its own, it might be a little forgettable, but like Entourage, it is brought up by one truly great character.

Played by Rick Hoffman, Lewis Litt is Harvey and Mike's on-off antagonist. He is also the best character on the show. In the first season he is the Big Bad, constantly attempting to undermine our heroes at every turn. As the show matured, Lewis moved from villain to anti-hero -- a flawed man who is undermined by his inability to overcome his own ego. In recent seasons, Lewis's struggle to not be his own worst enemy often became the centre of the best storylines, from Harvey's battle to oust co-founder Daniel Hardman (Breaking Bad's David Costabile), to Mike's attempts to stay out of jail when his cover is blown.

And then there is his ongoing friendship with Harvey's sparky assistant Donna (Sarah Rafferty), which contrasts comically with his incompetent, offscreen secretary Norma. Though she is never seen, Norma's death does provide one of the more hilarious and touching episodes (Season 4's 'Not Just a Pretty Face') as Louis tries to disguise his pain by continuing his abuse toward her while he and Donna painstakingly put together her funeral. Litt's ability to be a massive tool and the most sympathetic character on the show is especially strong here.

Of all the characters on the show, Lewis continues to be a fascinating, frustrating presence on the show. One can only hope he does not get written out, because without him Suits would be pretty poor viewing.

Flashdance: The birth of Eighties Style

Even if you have not seen it, you know what Flashdance is.

This movie by itself is not that interesting. A girl is a welder. She wants to be a dancer. She falls in love. She gets her dream. Freeze frame. Credits.

I had not seen this film since I was a kid. Watching it again, I was struck by what a time capsule it was. And not just for 80s hair and fashion.

However, as a portent, Flashdance is a fascinating sign of the direction Hollywood was to take in the post-New Hollywood era. This is thanks to several behind-the-scenes players.

Firstly, Flashdance is the first major credit for Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, and signalled the rise of the power-producer.

While on the surface, Flashdance may seem like an unlikely project for the duo, it is filled with images and concepts that would return in their later work:

•  the garish visual style, with a focus on music-assisted montage
• a threadbare plot that shunts the character forward without any real conflict or character development

The most important part of the Simpson-Bruckheimer template is the theme of a protagonist who is the best, but wants to be acknowledged as the best is an idea that returns again and again in their films (see Top Gun, The Rock, and Con Air for other examples). Alex (Jennifer Beals) is a self-taught dancer who wants to become a real professional dancer. She's acknowledged as a good dancer from the beginning of the film. She faces no real obstacles, and when she does finally get a chance to audition, she succeeds.

The other important players are the co-producers, Peter Guber and Jon Peters. Between them, these duos would go on to major hits (Caddyshack, Top Gun), start franchises (Beverly Hills Cop, Batman) and re-define the role of the executive in the creative process. With his background in the music business, Peters is especially notable due to his experience with the promotion of movie-related soundtrack albums.

Flashdance is the first major credit from Joe Ezterhas, later to become Hollywood's most highly paid screenwriter and the creator of a series of erotic thrillers that would dominate Hollywood in the early 90s. It was directed by Jonathan Lynne, he was inspired by the visual style of music videos to make the movie a glossy series of set pieces.

Flashdance's major influence is its effect on popular music, especially on MTV. On a stylistic level, the narrative stops for a series of dance sequences to early 80s pop songs. It is a testament to how self-contained these scenes were that they were later released on MTV as music videos. With these 'music videos' and a soundtrack that shot up the charts, Flashdance set off the fashion for every major movie to have a hit theme song.

As stated at the outset, as a film Flashdance is pretty innocuous. However, as a testing ground for the production techniques and stylistic flourishes that would define Hollywood-style entertainment for the next quarter-century.      

BITE-SIZE REVIEW: The Star Chamber (1983)

Opening with a terrific foot chase, featuring great performances from Michael Douglas, Yaphet Kotto and Hal Holbrook, The Star Chamber (directed by Peter Hyams) sets itself up to be a great 70s-style thriller before losing its way with a too-neat ending which neuters what had come before.

Douglas stars as a newly-minted judge who has become disillusioned with the limitations of the system after a vicious criminal is let go due to a legal loophole. He falls under the sway of Holbrook's  older judge, who lures the younger man into a small, secret group of jurists -- the Star Chamber of the title.

The Star Chamber has tasked itself with re-trying cases in which guilty suspects were let off on technicalities. Once a verdict has been decided, a hitman goes out and kills the target.

When Douglas bungles a case, and the hitman is sent after innocent parties, he realises the error he has made and tries to foil the Star Chamber's plans.

I've always been a fan of Douglas. Unlike so many of his contemporaries, he always seems to take on unconventional projects no obvious commercial possibilities. Films like The Star Chamber and The China Syndrome (1979), while not as strong as his later work, show that he was always willing to take chances on interesting concepts. 

It is rare that a movie starts strong, builds well and then completely falls apart at the end. Like another movie I reviewed last year, Betrayed, I spent the first hour wondering why this movie was not more well known. By the end, it was pretty clear why.

  

Still, unlike Betrayed, this movie's final act is not as big of a dip in quality, and the movie is still worth a look. 

Batman v Superman review: Who am I kidding, you're going to see it anyway

[WARNING: Lots of rambling]

I did not like Man of Steel. I thought it lacked character development, suffered from rushed plotting and repetitive, overlong action sequences. 

Still, going into this movie, I tried to hope for the best. It's pointless to pre-hate a movie before you've seen it. 

Mundanely, it turned out to be what I was expecting: a bloated, overly serious music video promoting a whole series of sequels.

Like MoS, it has a good cast stranded with no characterisation to work with. I still don't understand or care about Cavill, and Affleck, though he looks the part and has some good scenes, comes across as a collection of promo clips for the upcoming sequels rather than a character. 

I wonder why Amy Adams even bothered to turn up -- she spends the whole movie playing a professional hostage. Dump and run, lady -- you're better than this!

The only one vaguely unscathed is Gal Gadot as Diana/Wonder Woman. She gives her part a little bit of spark, but once again she feels like a motion poster for her solo movie.

The plot jerks from one scene to another with no rhyme or reason, flirting from one inconsequential character to the next, with several bizarre ellipses only further muddying the waters.

Everything is art directed to death. The score seems to be played by an orchestra of thrash metal drummers. Snyder crafts every frame like a money shot -- seriously, they all look the same. 

And Snyder seems to confuse a dark tone with dark colour grading.

This movie is filled with silly, comic book stuff, yet plays it with such unblinking, one note seriousness it comes across as parody. Or an Evanescence video.

That's the problem  ultimately -- this movie is just hard, glistening surface with nothing real to draw you in. 

Though fanboys may cheer that whole scenes are lifted from Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, they amount to almost nothing -- which is par for the course. Every choice in this movie is all in service of a confusing, limp story with no stakes or human characters to get the viewer over its narrative weaknesses.

There were only two scenes that made a mild impression -- Bruce's infiltration of Luthor's mansion was fun, with Affleck pretending to be a drunken bore, and getting sidetracked when a beautiful woman walks past -- it felt like an old school heist movie, or a Bond flick. The other was Bruce meeting Diana (Gadot) at the museum, which was one of the rare moments where the movie quietened down (not really selling this I know, but it's really hard to think of things I liked). 

Other than those bits, this thing is a slog that left no real impression. 

While you might enjoy the spectacle, the running time is too long for me to recommend it as dumb fun.

BvS is DOA. Or BS. 

BITE-SIZED REVIEW: Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010)

This movie is genius. Bloody genius.

Starring Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil might be the smartest horror comedy to come along in recent years. I'd even put it a few notches above Cabin in the Woods.

Inverting the traditional 'teens go to the woods and get preyed upon by inbred hillbillies', this movie puts the hillbillies front and centre.

Through an unfortunate chain of events, Tucker (Tyduk) and Dale (Labine) get mistaken for backwoods psychos by a group of hard-partying teens.

As the moronic teens stumble to their own demise, Tucker and Dale are left to try and clean up the mess and ward off increasingly skeptical law enforcement.

Co-starring Katrina Bowden from 30 Rock, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil's humour is pitch black but leavened by the warm, sympathetic performances from its leads.

An overlooked gem. Boot that po-mo Whedon nonsense to the curb, and check this little beauty out.

BITE-SIZED REVIEW: The Final Girls (2015)

Starring a variety of your favourite TV stars, The Final Girls came as a real surprise.

I had not heard of it until early this year, and that was based on Alia Shawkat being part of the cast. She plays Gertie, the sardonic best friend of main character Max (Taissa Farmiga, American Horror Story).

Max is still dealing with the death of her mother Amanda (Malin Akerman). Gertie's brother Duncan (Thomas Middleditch, Silicon Valley) forces the pair to go to a revival screening of her mother's biggest film, the 80s slasher classic Camp Bloodbath. Midway through the screening, Max and her friends find themselves transported into the movie. While the group has to contend with Billy Murphy, the film's antagonist, Max is forced to deal with the character played by her mother, Nancy.

This is a short, sweet genre hybrid. It has a great cast, plenty of laughs, a strong script filled with clever ideas and a surprisingly strong emotional spine in the relationship between Max and Nancy.

This is one slasher movie where I would actually look forward to a sequel.

P.S. Maeby is Funke-ing awesome in this movie.

BITE-SIZED REVIEW: Sleep Tight (2011)

Over the last 20 years, Spain has built a fine tradition of cinematic nail biters. I had heard about Sleep Tight a while ago, and finally got a chance to check it out.

A quiet, unassuming doorman at an apartment complex (Luis Tosar, Cell 211) has a secret: he is unhappy. He is so unhappy that he frequently stands on the roof of the building and contemplates suicide.

The only thing that keeps him going is making other people unhappy. His latest target is a young woman whose optimism and high spirits drive him insane with rage. He makes it his mission to break her -- by any means necessary.

This movie is excellent. I have not spoiled what the protagonist does, but suffice it to say that it is extremely odious. It is a testament to how well this movie is made that it never comes off as exploitive.

Luis Tosar, so arresting as the head inmate in Cell 211, delivers an extremely brave, unsympathetic performance as an irredeemable sociopath, an alien predator who watches his unassuming victims without ever betraying his hand. While we learn little of his backstory, the filmmakers fill the film with incidental details through which viewers can infer some very nasty ideas.

From the director of the classic zombie found footage movie REC, Sleep Tight is a disturbing, arresting thriller that is deserving of more exposure.

Check it out. With the lights on.