After several mediocre Howard Hawks films, my watching gets to a classic with his BRINGING UP BABY (1938). Cary Grant plays super-serious, head-centered paleontologist David Huxley, about to enter a largely passionate marriage (“There will be no entanglements.”). Then he meets heiress Susan Vance (Katherine Hepburn) who generates chaos in everything she does. She also drags him out of his dry-as-dust comfort zone and gives him one hell of a good time (a good bad girl in terms of a taxonomy I once coined).
The film is delightfully daffy and funny; Hepburn plays against her usual type (just as confident, a lot less tough) as does Grant and they’re backed up by a variety of colorful supporting characters, not to mention a pet leopard. Despite all of which, the movie bombed, ending Hawks’ relationship with RKO and killing Hepburn’s career (she bounced back a couple of years later with The Philadelphia Story). Hawks himself blamed it on having too many eccentrics and no normal people to serve as an anchor. Perhaps that’s it — but what’s more important is, 1938 audiences were wrong. The film is marvelous (and the inspiration for one of my personal favorites, What’s Up Doc?). “If one more person mentions that she’s got an aunt I’ll put you on bread and water for 20 days!”
HE’S ALL THAT (2021) is a teen rom-com built around a premise I’ve seen before, a Makeover Bet where a teenage influencer sets out to turn a dour outsider into the school’s prom king. Only it turns out there’s more to him than being surly and he finds she’s not as shallow as he thought — but will their love survive learning about the bet? Nothing I needed to see, but pleasant enough to fill 90 minutes. “Smelling my hand is the horse’s equivalent of saying hello.”
ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO (2008) when lifelong Dioscuri and current roommates Emily Banks and Seth Rogan decide that’s the quickest way to resolve their ongoing cash crunch. Fortunately their feelings for each other are completely platonic so having sex on camera with other people won’t bother either of them … right? Kevin Smith’s film has a rom-com heart under its raunch, though as usual I’m irked by the assumption straight opposite-sex friends can’t be really platonic. Brandon Routh and Deb Mazar play former classmates; Traci Lords plays a professional porn actor. “I call that look ‘Nickelodeon chic.’”
FIERCE CREATURES (1997) reuses the Fish Called Wanda cast in an unrelated story. When Rupert Murdoch-clone Kevin Kline appoints John Cleese to takeover a small British zoo, Cleese is under orders to weed out every non-fierce creature (I feel this is a parody of When Animals Attack videos). Can the zookeepers (including Michael Palin) change his mind? Kevin Kline plays a second role as the CEO’s marketing-expert son (“We have eliminated the non-event interest deficit!”) and Jamie Lee Curtis is a sexy career woman. A fun absurdity. “Contrary to all available evidence, you actually think people like you.”
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