Partner and allegiance swapping between two trendy couples in contemporary London.

Because Closer is a Mike Nichols movie, and because it’s adapted from a successful play, has only four characters, and those four characters seem to lift the bar on just how dirty people are allowed to talk in an American movie, there were a lot of pre-release comparisons between it and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Nichols’ stunning directorial debut from so many years ago. But there the comparisons should end; it’s not just that Closer’s playwright, Patrick Marber, is no Edward Albee (nor am I saying he should try to be), it’s that the whole cultural landscape has changed irrevocably. The movies are different, obviously successful plays are different, and most especially, movie stars are different. (more…)

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

running time: 1 hr., 42 m. / original studio: RKO

produced & directed by Howard Hawks; screenplay by Dudley Nichols & Hagar Wilde, from story by Wilde; director of photography, Russell Metty; edited by George Hively

with: Katharine Hepburn (Susan), Cary Grant (David), Charlie Ruggles (Maj. Applegate), May Robson (Aunt Elizabeth)

A zany socialite sets her cap for a handsome paleontologist, but her plans are skewed by the arrival of an unwanted gift: a full-grown leopard.

The very essence of screwball comedy, and in many ways its zenith, Bringing Up Baby is an hour and three-quarters of stylishly choreographed madness, starring two of the most compelling and dazzling movie stars in the history of the medium, Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. A virtual catalogue of pratfalls, mistaken identities, outlandish double-entendre, continuous plot reversals and escalating comic mayhem, Bringing Up Baby is almost exhausting the first time you watch it, so much is being fired at you at any given moment. But it is well worth multiple viewings. This is among the handful of movies that just grow funnier and funnier, and frankly astonishing, each time you see them. (more…)