Short Cut Review: Bernie

A Short Cut Movie Review is normally less than 400 words, but in some cases may go slightly over. This is my attempt to keep writing about as many films as I see without getting bogged down with trying to find more to say. They are meant to be brief snapshots of my reaction to a movie without too much depth.

Bernie has a lot of fans behind it. People really seem to love it. Not me. It's an amusing satire, or black comedy, or however you want to classify it. It's such a bizarre story that if it weren't based on fact, I wouldn't believe it. Bernie, the Texas funeral home director who befriends a cranky old woman and becomes her full time assistant/benefactor before murdering her in a fit of frustration, is surely one of the year's great cinematic characters. Jack Black got a lot of buzz for his performance. Just because he plays against type doesn't necessarily mean he's acting great. All in all, it's a cinematic trifle, a mild diversion that moves a little too slowly at times and never adds up to the revelatory experience I awaited.

Classic Movie Review: Billy Wilder's The Apartment

Billy Wilder made a great career out of handling delicate subject matter in surprisingly frank ways. From murder for profit and marital infidelity in Double Indemnity (1944) to sexual politics in Some Like It Hot (1959). In his last great film, The Apartment (1960), he deftly crosses the serious subjects often present in his previous directorial efforts (most, if not all, of which he also wrote) such as infidelity, sexual politics, attempted suicide with a light-hearted and well-intentioned touch. This film, which pushes its 2 hour running time along at a brisk pace, brought Wilder his second directing Oscar, his third for screenplay and his first as a credited producer of a Best Picture winner (his The Lost Weekend won Best Picture, but Wilder did not win a statuette).

Jack Lemmon earned his third Oscar nomination as C.C. Baxter, a low-level accountant in a firm that boasts a city’s worth of employees in one building (so many that the start and finish times of the workday are staggered by floor so as not to overrun the elevators). He is a pushover for several executives to whom he lends the key to his Upper East Side bachelor pad so they can engage in their extra-marital flings. He enjoys a carefree lifestyle and the eventual benefits of being in the good graces of company execs until he witnesses firsthand the damage that can be inflicted on the young women who are led to believe (however naively) that these men might leave their wives.