How To Get Away With Murder

Reversal of Fortune

Director: Barbet Schroeder

Cast: Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, Ron Silver, Annabella Sciorra, Fisher Stevens, Christine Baranski

Released: November 9, 1990

Oscar nominations:

Best Direction - Barbet Schroeder (lost to Kevin Costner for Dances With Wolves)

Best Actor - Jeremy Irons (won)

Best Adapted Screenplay - Nicholas Kazan (lost to Michael Blake for Dances with Wolves)

While watching this movie, I found that pretending it's a sequel/spin off to The Lion King really heightens the movie experience and makes it much more enjoyable. I know what you're thinking: what does a movie based on the true story of a man accused of trying to murder his wife have to do with an animated Disney movie about safari animals? Absolutely nothing, except for the fact that Jeremy Irons is in both of them and every time he spoke, all I could hear was Scar! (Let's be honest, Jeremy Irons will always be Scar to me). It was especially prevalent when we don't see him, but can hear him in voiceover when he's about to tell a story in a flashback scene. All I could think of was that it sounded like Scar was narrating the story and that's when it hit me! What if, after Scar was eaten alive by his hyena minions (I know he killed his brother, but I always thought his death was a *tad* harsh!), he was reincarnated into a skinny Danish-born/British-raised man named Claus von Bulow? (The only thing that doesn't really work is that Claus von Bulow is a real person and obviously real people can't be reincarnated from dead animated villainous lions! That's the ONLY reason why this theory couldn't really work!) But seriously, watch this movie and pretend that Scar has been reincarnated as a human. It totally works too because Claus is a bit of a shady character, and, like I mentioned before, is accused of trying to kill his wife. If this doesn't scream Scar, I don't know what does! There's even a flashback scene where he's petting a baby tiger! And there's a scene where his lawyer tells him he's a strange man and he replies, "You have no idea." Isn't this the same reply he has to young Simba after the cub tells him, "You are so weird." Obviously this is probably a shout out to this movie. 

During the opening credits, I noticed that the movie was based on a book of the same name by Alan Dershowitz and I was thinking, Why does that name sound familiar to me? Then, a few scenes later, it is revealed that the author is in the movie and he is played by Ron Silver. There was something familiar looking about him and I knew he was supposed to be somebody famous and then it clicked. He was one of the lawyers on the OJ Simpson trial and honestly, if I hadn't watched the Ryan Murphy miniseries a couple years ago, I would not have remembered him at all.

This was a murder trial I was not familiar with. And speaking of the OJ Simpson trial, before that, THIS one was the first major criminal trial to be televised in the United States. I guess Alan Dershowitz likes the limelight.

There were two incidents that involved Claus's wife, Sunnny von Bulow (played by Glenn Close), both of which happened very close to Christmas. In 1979, she fell into a coma, but came out of it within twenty-four hours. The doctors were sure that she had suffered from hypoglycemia and told her not too eat too many sweets or go too long without eating. The same thing happened nearly a year later in 1980 and this time Claus was accused of trying to murder her. She was found unconscious in the bathroom in the morning and when taken to the hospital, they discovered she had suffered enough brain injury to keep her in a vegetative state.

Sunny's adult children from her previous marriage thought that their stepfather may have injected their mother with insulin and wanted to have him investigated. They were suspicious of him the first time Sunny fell into a coma. Sunny was an heiress with a lot (A LOT!) of money and they lived in this huge mansion in Newport, Rhode Island. The two had been having marital problems for awhile now and Claus was having an affair which he didn't even keep a secret. I'm not gonna lie; Claus von Bulow comes across as being super shady (and if you come from the school of thought where he's Scar reincarnated, then of course he has the means to kill his own wife if he's already murdered his own brother!) But, on the other hand, Sunny had her own demons and did not follow her doctor's strict orders of no alcohol or overindulging on sweets. She did not take care of herself at all and it is easy to see why she would have ended that way...of course, all the more reason for Claus to have a very good motive to try to kill her! It's understandable to see why Claus was acquitted at his second trial; there was a lot of evidence pointing to Sunny did this to herself, unintentionally. But personally? Eh, I think he probably did it. Even though the movie is based on Dershowitz's book, it doesn't paint Klaus as being innocent, it more or lets you decide if he's guilty or innocent. We're just given the facts they presented themselves in the case. I would have to do some more research on the case, but my instincts says he is guilty.

The movie starts after Sunny is in her permanent coma and we hear from her in voiceover as she explains what had happened to her the first time. The maid was concerned that Sunny had been sleeping all day (to which Claus told her she had been up all night) and insisted she was not sleeping, but rather unconscious. She pleads to Claus to call a doctor, but he only does this after he notices Sunny's not breathing right. A bag of insulin was found in his closet. Of course his lawyer is able to talk it away during the trial.

After he was tried and sentenced to thirty years, he appealed and hired Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz. In the scenes we see him in with his students (which include Annabella Sciorra and Felicity Huffman) it reminded me of the first season of How to Get Away with Murder. Felicity Huffman's character voices her concern about defending Claus since he is "obviously guilty", but Dershowitz tells her it's their job to defend him. One of his students says, "I agree von Bulow is guilty, but that's the fun; that's the challenge" to which Dershowtiz replies, "Now there is a lawyer." Claus doesn't help matters when he repeats jokes he's heard about him with the law students, asking them, "What do you get a wife who has everything? An injection of insulin."

When Sunny was found unconscious, she was facedown on the bathroom floor with her nightgown hiked up. We see scenarios from the defense team of how she could have gotten there with or without Claus's help. We first see the scenario where Claus injected her with the insulin in their bedroom, then dragged her to their bathroom, then we see the scenario where she had been drinking too much the night before and hit her head on the edge of the toilet when she got dizzy and fell while she was in the bathroom. One of the students ask how did her nightgown get hiked up (which would have been been the result of Claus sliding her across the floor if he had done it), and Dershowitz comes up with the possibility that she was about to use the toilet, but hit her head before she sat down.

The real Sunny von Bulow was in her coma for 28 years; she died at the age of 76 in December 2008. I don't know why her family kept her like that for almost thirty years; maybe they thought she would wake up and then be able to accuse Claus of killing her? I feel like after a couple of years, it might be time to pull the plug. It is a little weird to think that when this movie was released (in 1990), she had been in her coma for ten years by then...and would remain in it for another eighteen years. It is a little chilling when we hear Glenn Close's voiceover as the comatose Sunny say, "I never woke up from this coma and I never will." We see nurses in the hospital massage her fingers and give her sponge baths and roll her over so she won't get bed sores. I don't know anything about comas, but it almost seems like abuse to keep someone in one for so long.

While researching this case, (this wasn't mentioned in the movie), I discovered that the daughter Claus and Sunny had together (who was 13 when her mother was found unconscious the second time) stayed loyal to her father, while, of course, her older step siblings thought he was guilty. Awkward! I also read she was disowned by her maternal grandmother because of this, which is sad. At the time of this writing, Claus von Bulow is still alive at the age of 92. Who knows if he'll ever confess if he ever did it before his time on this earth is up.

Be The Flame, Not The Moth

Casanova

Director: Lasse Hallstrom

Cast: Heath Ledger, Sienna Miller, Jeremy Irons, Oliver Platt, Lena Olin, Natalie Dormer, Charlie Cox

Released: December 25, 2005

Viewed in theaters: January 12, 2006

This movie had a bit of an unfair advantage when it was released because it came out around the same time as Brokeback Mountain and that was the movie Heath Ledger was (rightfully) getting all the attention for. I saw Brokeback Mountain two days before I saw Casanova and the former is so, so, so, so good and the latter is....not so good. It's an enjoyable little film in its own right and it's probably unfair to compare it to Brokeback Mountain just because they both star Heath Ledger and came out around the same time. So I'll compare it to some of Lasse Hallstrom's other works and say I didn't like it as much as I liked Chocolat, The Cider House Rules, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, or Hachi: A Dog's Tale. The problem with Casanova is that it has no substance. First and foremost, this movie is pure eye candy: the setting (the film is shot and takes place in Venice and it definitely makes you want to visit the historical Italian city); the costumes (SO gorgeous!); the location they used for the Bruni's home (I loved the pink walls of their living room); and the classical music (ear candy?) And the casting director must have had a daughter who was a teenager circa 1999-2001 because if you asked any high school or college aged girl around that time who her Hollywood crush was, I'm willing to bet nine times out of ten she would say Heath Ledger. (Every tenth girl would probably say Freddie Prinze Jr. (blah!!)) In fact, if you go back and read my review of Ten Things I Hate About You, you can read about my experience when I watched it when I was in college with a bunch of other girls for our dorm's movie night. Good times, good times. So what I'm saying is that Heath was a good choice to play Casanova, however I am surprised he took the role because he liked to challenge himself and wanted to get away from just being another pretty face. This role for him seemed pretty simple and didn't really require any heavy lifting, so to say, on his part. I'm sure a big incentive for him to take the role was because it was filmed in Venice! 

Of course since this movie is about the famous lover (or manwhore, whatever you want to call him!), Giacomo Casanova, then you need the strong, beautiful, feminist woman who is against everything Casanova stands for. This is Francesca Bruni who is played by Siena Miller. Francesca is a big advocate for women's rights and writes books about feminism under a male pseudonym. She is engaged to be married to a man named Paprizzio (Oliver Platt) who she has never met. Her mother (Lena Olin) wants her daughter to marry him because he is rich. Francesca is about the only woman in Venice who doesn't fall for Casanova's charms, so of course he ends up falling in love with her. He knows she is to be married to a man named Paprizzio and reveals himself as her fiance. 

Young Margaery Tyrell

While it's pretty predictable how the movie will end, there's many cases of mistaken identity, especially with Casanova pretending to be Francesca's betrothed. Meanwhile, as himself, he's engaged to the beautiful, young blonde virgin who Francesca's brother, Giovanni (Charlie Cox) is in love with. This was my third time watching Casanova, but the first time that Victoria, the young blonde virginm looked familiar to me. I looked her up and she is played by Natalie Dormer aka Margaery on Game of Thrones. The last time I saw Casanova was in 2009 and Game of Thrones didn't premier until 2011 (although I only just watched the first four seasons of it last fall). 

There's a funny/amusing scene where Casanova's at Carnivale and he comes across Francesca's mother and Victoria's father, and of course, they both think he's marrying their own daughter so he has to be careful of the conversation and keep it ambiguous. He does confess his true identity to Francesca and she becomes angry with him because she could never love a man like him, but of course she does still love him (and meanwhile the real Paprizzio has ended up with her mother...though he was a bit older than Francesca!) 

Jeremy Irons plays Pucci, someone who has a lot of authority around that time in Venice and arrests Casanova because he has taken the blame for writing the illegal books that Francesca wrote. (This was when she knew she was in love with him). However, she confesses she wrote the books so both she and Casanova are set to be hung. Since his true identify was revealed, he is sentenced to death for his promiscuity. But his mother and stepfather come to the rescue when his stepfather pretends to be the Cardinal and reveals that since it's the Pope's birthday, he has granted a pardon to all people sentenced to death on that day. While Casanova is escaping with his parents, Franesca, her mother, Paprizzio (who is helping them escape on his large boat), Giovnni, and Victoria (yes, it does get a little muddled with all those characters!), the real Cardinal arrives and Pucci and his men try to chase after all of them. In the end, Giovanni decides to stay back and be Casanova so the real Casanova can escape with the woman he truly loves and spend the rest of his life with her, awww. And even though Giovanni did marry Victoria, the girl he's been in love with for so many years, he continues on Casanova's legacy and sleeps with many other women...even though he's married to the love of his life! What a jerk!!! But I guess he has to keep up his reputation for being the famous manwhore. 

Lasse Hallstrom said the movie had an R rating because of the under the table, uh, fellatio scene, even though you don't actually see anything beside the table being knocked around. I saw The Ugly Truth a few months ago and there's a scene where Katherine Heigl is wearing these panties with a vibrator that is controlled by a remote control and while she's out to dinner with a bunch of people, a kid gets his hands on the remote and starts pushing the buttons (don't ask!) and that scene was a lot more obvious that something was going on with her and a lot more raunchy! The sex scenes in this movie make the sex scenes in Game of Thrones look triple X rated! While you know what's going on, there's no nudity and every thing is strategically covered. If anything, Casanova should have received a PG-13 rating or they should have just gone all out if they had already gotten an R rating with that one scene.

While a very visually stunning movie, it is very forgetful. 

His Royal Douchness

The Man in the Iron Mask
Director: Randall Wallace
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, Gerald Depardieu, Gabriel Byrne
Released: March 13, 1998

Like The Count of Monte Cristo, this movie is also an adaptation of an Alexander Dumas novel. Even though there are some similarities, I liked Monte Cristo a lot better. In The Man in the Iron Mask, King Louis XIV (Leonardo DiCaprio) rules France as a total jerk. He is pompous, sleeps with many women, and only cares what he looks like as he's always pawing at his locks and wearing fancy silk frocks. (Ha, that rhymes!) Basically he rules the country like if any of the Jersey Shores idiots were the POTUS. (Ugh). He does not care about anybody but himself.

Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, and Gerald Depardieu play the Three Musketeers (another Dumas-penned story) - Aramis, Athos, and Porthos, respectively. Athos has a son who is engaged to be married to a woman that Louis decides he wants for his own and has him sent to battle where he is killed. Louis then takes Christie into his home...and his bed! Seriously, he sleeps with her, like, the next day!

The King does some more appalling things and the Musketeers decides it's time to overthrow the little a-hole. Aramis has the perfect plan. He knows that Louis has a twin brother, Phillippe, who has been imprisoned for six years. Louis didn't want the country knowing that he had a brother so he ordered for an iron mask to be made for Phillippe to wear so nobody would ever know his identity. Since it covers his entire head, it's more of a helmet, but The Man in the Iron Helmet just doesn't have the same ring to it. Put anyone in an iron helmet and they're going to look ridiculous. And it does look ridiculous. Just look at him in that picture and tell me it doesn't make you laugh just a little! The Musketeers teach him what he needs to know to be King, including family history and what to do in social situations and their plan is to lure Louis out of a party, kidnap him, and replace him with Phillippe. There's a few snafus, but by the end of the movie, Phillippe becomes the true King of France without anyone realizing that one brother has been swapped for another.

You would think with such an interesting premise, this movie should work, but it just doesn't. For one thing, even though I thought the mask, er, helmet was ridiculous, you really don't get the sense that Phillippe was wearing it for six years and he seems to accept becoming a King just like that. I don't buy it. They also try to make this movie into too many things: a romance! A comedy! An action picture! If you watch the trailer, they advertise it as all three back to back. It starts out decent enough, telling the general plot of the movie, then it goes into Louis courting his women, then we get a bunch of jokes, then some action shots. It is so bad! The "comedy" portions of this movie is the worst - I did not laugh once. Now I don't think The Count of Monte Cristo is the best movie ever, but compared to this movie, it's a masterpiece.

However, if Leonardo DiCaprio had never been in Paris filming this movie, then I never would have had this "amazing" story to tell. Click the video to hear my "amazing" Leo story!

The Circle of Life

The Lion King
Directors: Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff
Voice Talent: Matthew Broderick, James Earl Jones, Jeremy Irons, Whoopi Goldberg, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Nathan Lane, Ernie Sabella, Moira Kelly, Robert Guillaume, Cheech Marin, Rowan Atkinson
Released: June 24, 1994

Oscar nominations:
Best Score - Hans Zimmer (won)
Best Song - "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" by Elton John and Tim Rice (won)
Best Song - "The Circle of Love" by Elton John and Tim Rice
Best Song - "Hakuna Matata" by Elton John an Tim Rice

I don't remember what movie it was, but I was at the movie theaters (with my mom probably), about a year before The Lion King was released and one of the previews they showed was for it. It wasn't a trailer in the traditional sense, but the opening "Circle of Life" scene where they play that song and all the animals are coming out for Simba's first appearance after being born and bowing to him as Rifiki holds him up. (Have you ever noticed there are no other wild cats besides lions there? I guess the leopards and cheetahs were jealous the lions were getting all the attention!) Then the song ends with a big boom as the screen goes dark and the title shows up in red letters. One of the coolest title cards ever. My mom and I were like, "Whoa, that was cool!" That had definitely got our attention and apparently everybody else's as it is the highest grossing animated Disney movie. I saw it twice in the theaters: the first time with a friend and her brother and the second time with my mom.

Scar

Mufasa! 

The Lion King is a simple story. It starts out happy, becomes sad, and ends triumphant. Young Simba (voiced by Jonathan Taylor Thomas who was at the height of his popularity with Home Improvement) is destined to become the next King of Pride Rock. His father, Mufasa (voiced by none other than James Earl Jones) is the current King and teaches his son valuable life lessons. His brother, Simba's Uncle Scar (voiced by Jeremy Irons, who shares a birthday with me!) is not fond of Simba because he is jealous he is going to become King. For two lions who are brothers, Mufasa and Scar do not look alike at all. Mufasa has a solid bulk to him and has a healthy and beautiful mane of red hair and golden fur while Scar looks like skin and bones and has a mangy black mane. Maybe they are half-brothers? Well, you know Disney, they have to make the villain as obvious as possible! Simba wants desperately to be brave like his father and grow a mane and roar and almost gets himself and his friend, Nala, killed when they go somewhere they shouldn't.

:*-(

Scar tells Simba he has a surprise for him, a surprise "to die for". The surprise turns out to be a trap when Simba is in a gorge and a herd of wildebeest are about to trample him. He is saved by his father, but Mufasa is killed by Scar, who tells Simba, who didn't witness Scar pushing his father off the cliff, that it's his fault that Mufasa is dead. Simba, ashamed of what he has done, runs away where he meets Timon, the meerkat (voiced by Nathan Lane) and Pumbaa, the warthog with gas problems (voiced by Ernie Sabella). Simba grows up with them until he and Nala are reunited and she tells him how Scar has taken over Pride Rock and how awful everything is. Simba refuses to go back and help and acts like a selfish brat (kinda like he was when he was a cub and disobeyed his father about not going to the elephant graveyard). Eventually he gets some sense knocked into him - literally - by the baboon, Rifiki (voiced by Robert Guillaume - Benson!) He defeats Scar and Pride Rock becomes his kingdom.

I think this movie did very well because it appealed to both boys and girls. Usually Disney movies seem like they're more targeted toward girls like Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid, with their main characters being a female. That said, The Lion King is not my favorite animated Disney movie. That honor would go to Beauty and the  Beast. It's not even my second favorite. That goes to another movie I have not reviewed yet, so I will reveal what it is when I do! It's probably my third favorite - I keep going back and forth on whether The Lion King or The Little Mermaid should get that spot.

The music is very solid. Usually in Disney movies, there might be one - maybe two -  songs that I don't particularly care for and they're just like, meh, but all five songs in The Lion King - "The Circle of Life", "Can You Feel the Love Tonight", "I Just Can't Wait To Be King", "Hakuna Matata", and "Be Prepared" are all really good, solid songs. Elton John did his own renditions of the first three songs. Usually only one song from a Disney movie is covered by a famous artist, but The Lion King had three, two of which were on the radio.  "Be Prepared" is my favorite villain song from any Disney movie. I also really like the villain song from Anastasia, but that's not a Disney movie! "I Just Can't Wait To Be King" is a really cute song and I like the African-style music in the background. My favorite part is when Simba sings, "Everybody look left, everybody look right. Everywhere you look, I'm standing in the spotlight!"

And with the success of the movie, which turned into a successful Broadway play he really is!

Even my own cat has a connection to The Lion King!