The late filmmaker was never boring, and his overkill puts contemporary modesty to shame.
Heavenly choirs, aggressive clouds, copper-colored sunlight at magic hour, rows of statues jittering in time-lapse.
Everything about him is too big: His clothes, his hair, his attitude.
Credit: Everett Collection (2)
“Today’s a good day to die,” he says.
It’s a marvelous, ludicrous opening to a marvelous, ludicrous film.
The cast is sexy and snarly:Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin,Julia Roberts, Sutherland.
(The latter two started dating; everybody looks turned on by everybody.)
His filmography sparkles with newly-discovered stardom.
He defined the Brat Pack with 1985’sSt.
He was an equal-opportunity sensualist who loved fresh faces and big sets.
Sometimes the actors were tapestry, true, but sometimes the tapestry could really act.
Schumacher was openly gay and extremely successful when those two descriptors together were pioneering.
There’s a temptation to read his over-the-top style as an extension of high camp into the mainstream.
Certainly, that explains the ongoing reclamation project around 1995’sBatman Foreverand 1997’sBatman & Robin.
Freeze declaring “ICE TO SEE YOU!”
But Schumacher could be sincere, or genuinely shocking.St.
Elmo’s Firehas a real sweetness even if all the guys are zeroes.
It’s a political mess and a visual feast, with another opening scene for the ages.
Michael Douglas sits in traffic, not just gridlock but the absolute Platonic un-Ideal of SoCal gridlock.
Horns, always horns.
His moment passed after the ’90s, but he worked steadily in reduced circumstances.
and Gerard Butler (thank you?).
Today the movies' excess, like the release strategy, trends digital.
Schumacher was a flesh-and-blood sensationalist.
We need that instinct now, or Hollywood will flatline.
