Random Movie Club

HOME MOVIES

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Your Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: Brian De Palma's comedy that catches every body in the act!

Pizza: Danielle's Woodfire Pizza

Preshow Entertainment: Norm MacDonald: ME DOING STAND-UP

DE PALMA SHOULD HAVE REMEMBERED RULE #1 IN LIFE -
NO ONE WANTS TO SEE YOUR HOME MOVIES.

I love every movie Brian De Palma's directed. From his popular stuff like MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, DRESSED TO KILL, CARRIE, CARLITO'S WAY, BODY DOUBLE, BLOW OUT, THE UNTOUCHABLES and SCARFACE, to his lesser-knowns like CASUALTIES OF WAR and SISTERS, to early stuff like GREETINGS and HI, MOM!, to his oddities like GET TO KNOW YOUR RABBIT, and even to his crap like REDACTED, SNAKE EYES and RAISING CANE. Yes, I love every film De Palma's done. Except HOME MOVIES (1980). And sadly, HOME MOVIES is what the Random Movie Generator selected tonight.

HOME MOVIES was a cooperative effort between De Palma and his film students at Sarah Lawrence, where he was teaching a class. It's hard to say how many people actually had their say in writing and directing this awful movie (he shared writing credit with 6 students), though De Palma has claimed that 5% of the finished film was directed by the students. So if you directed 95% of this movie, that means you blew it, Brian. And if others directed it with you, you were in charge, so...you blew it, Brian.

Keith Gordon (who I really like) is our protagonist, a film student named Denis Byrd. If you think your family is nuts, wait'll you meet Denis'. His doctor dad (Vincent Gardenia) is fooling around on his mom (Mary Davenport), a non-stop, querulous sad sack. His brother James (Gerrit Graham, who I just saw play a dentist on an old WONDER YEARS ep.) runs an EST-like camp that practices "Spartanetics," and likes saying things like, "Those who know, know." Denis' only hope is his film school teacher, The Maestro (Kirk Douglas), an egotistical meta character that often pops up out of nowhere (once in a tree!), like he's Gazoo helping Fred Flintstone. When The Maestro teaches his film class, he begins by making an entrance, which is followed by his proteges giving him a round of applause. Douglas plays The Maestro like a typical 70s acting coach - teacher-as-therapist. But the idea (and slight logline) of this is - If Denis can just make a film that is honest, maybe he can turn his life around. The Maestro preaches an existential technique called Star Power, which transcends filmmaking by teaching you how not to "be an extra in your own life." Because "the camera never lies!" He goes on to tell his class that Denis' story is a "tragic example of someone who refused to star in his own life." So just how did Denis wind up being an extra in his own life? That's the story. The wacky story.

Denis is the neglected one in the family. When his mother overdoses on pills because of his father's extracurricular nookie, Denis is there to help her. Lying there with a (really funny, but not to her) framed 8 x 10 of son James by her bed - MOM: "James. I need James." See? Neglected. Not that mom's the epitome of stability and logic. When Dad pumps her stomach, she sees it as "He saved my life!" But he's the reason she took the pills in the first place. The trouble really begins when James brings his fiancee Kristina (Nancy Allen) home for the first time. James is an asshole, and with his New Age malarkey and "don't eat anything" edicts, he controls Kristina's every move. While pounding potatoes in the kitchen, Denis sees Kristina walking towards him in slo-mo, accompanied by a Pino Donaggio score reminiscent of (or lifted from) his music from CARRIE. Most of the movie, the shy "extra in his own life" Denis pines for Kristina. So what if she's marrying his brother? So what if she's a total airhead? And was a prostitute. And "did a lot of sex acts with a rabbit." Moving on....

When Denis screens rushes of his film for The Maestro, he gets a bad review and is sent back out with a three day deadline. Meanwhile, James, a man who has yet to touch Kristina (because he's apparently gay, and clueless about it), catches her with dried mustard under her nails (evil food!). He declares the wedding off unless she agrees to a "Temptation Marathon" where he places her in situations to see if she's seduced by things like sex and food (two of my favorite things, but not in that order). Can she resist cheap sex with bikers? We'll never know, because Denis rescues her (as Gordon does to Allen in De Palma's DRESSED TO KILL, released a few months later).

This mess of a movie becomes even messier when, at the halfway mark, Kristina gets a call from Bunny, whom we hear but do not see. But the phone is unplugged. Bunny, it turns out, is a rude bunny puppet. It's clear at this point that HOME MOVIES has ridden thousands of miles off the rails. Maybe two thousand miles, as not once, but twice this movie finds Denis in blackface and an afro wig, spying through the window on his philandering father.

From its animated overture to its horror film cliche comedic coda, HOME MOVIES is a sloppy effort. I think its biggest problem is its tone, in large part due to its annoying and abrasive characters, none of whom you can get behind. Mom spends all of her screen time crying in agony, like Brenda Blethyn with no emergency brake. But she was a mere runner-up to the winner of the Most Annoying Thing About HOME MOVIES Award (and with so many nominees, too!) - brother James. Accepting the award is Gerrit Graham, performing James as if he were a camp counselor in a silent film version of MEATBALLS 4. I can't say I'm surprised Kirk Douglas did this movie (and even invested in it), not just because he was the lead in De Palma's THE FURY two years earlier, but because he had just done SATURN 3 (where you get to see his ass) and was about to do THE FINAL COUNTDOWN, two suck-fi movies. I like Keith Gordon (now a DEXTER director), but he was such a wimpy thing in this movie that I couldn't really root for him. Believe it or not, it was Vincent Gardenia who had the least offensive performance. But not by much. Gordon, Douglas, Davenport, Graham and Allen were all De Palma alumni (Allen was also his wife at the time). And speaking of Nancy Allen:

Yes, this is another story about when I worked in a New York City video store in the 80s. Here's the set-up; all of the movies are on the walls behind the counter, on shelves. Their spines are facing the store, so to see what movies are available, all you have to do is look. But of course, some people would come up and ask, "Is GHOSTBUSTERS in?" As your friendly neighborhood clerk, I'd assist them by looking at the wall behind me - "Why yes. Here it is right here, between GHOST and GHOSTBUSTERS II." At this point, they'd catch on and just look for themselves. Except one day, this girl came in and kept asking for one movie after another. That's when I snapped and became rude to her. She must have really pissed me off because she was cute and I still got mad. Anyway, I said, "Let's play a little game. Instead of asking me if a movie is in, see if you can find it on this alphabetical wall." Man, I was an asshole. I still am, but I'll stick to this story. Anyway, at this time, Lee, a customer that I became friendly with socially, came in. Before I knew it, Lee and this girl were chatting each other up. Asshole Loses Cute Girl to Customer - Story at 11. I pick up on some of their dialogue. "....movie....Sarah Lawrence....producer...." Turns out Lee was a student at Sarah Lawrence, talking to this girl about HOME MOVIES, a girl who turned out to be Nancy Allen. Maybe one day I'll tell you the story on how I insulted David Byrne and Ellen Barkin. At least it wasn't at the same time. Anyway...

HOME MOVIES is said to be a parody of De Palma's childhood family life (his father was a doctor). But who cares what it's a parody of if it's never funny? And the repeated use of classical music cues to prompt a "funny" moment doesn't help any. The conceit of HOME MOVIES, being a movie by The Maestro about Denis making a movie about himself, never really works (The Maestro calls shots by turning to us and barking things like "Medium shot!"). In fact, I'm not totally sure that's the idea here. It's not clear, maybe on purpose, maybe not. But it was made in 1979, which was still the 70s, so, I suppose all bets are off. Every now and then the movie does treat us to a signature De Palma moment, like those jump cuts that move closer to the person (once again, like CARRIE), usually to the meter of the soundtrack; but honestly, this is just a bad student film. Remember, "The camera never lies."

So kudos to De Palma for making and releasing a feature film using his film students (wish I was in that class), but boo!-dos for making a movie that's so crappy that even a big fan of his found it terribly hard to sit through. This class project was an experiment that failed. It should not have been released to the paying public with the name Brian De Palma stamped on it. HOME MOVIES is something that De Palma should torture his friends with in his own living room - just like you do with your home movies. Only his have Kirk Douglas in them.

Preshow Entertainment: Norm MacDonald: ME DOING STAND-UP

How much do I love Norm MacDonald? Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis muuuuuuuuuuuuuch. There are so many levels to his comedy. The smirk. The stammering. The pretend he doesn't know he's saying something wrong. The delivery; a mix of stand-up and him sitting on your couch talking to you. His wiseass-ed-ness. His angle on how he sees things, which is skewed yet somehow, ridiculously correct. His use of words that sound spontaneous, like "endive" and "Janice." And his ability to make me laugh for an hour, non-stop.

His hunks go on forever (the one on the heart and death went on about 15 minutes, and the one on network news 10), and they're all delivered with gleeful (and fake) spontaneity.

I had just seen him live last week and loved him so much, decided to screen this special, which was loitering in the DVR. It turns out I wasn't the only one laughing. We all loved him. TOTAL RECOMMEND.

2012

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Your Unrandom Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: We Were Warned.

PIZZA: Little Toni's

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: None

Because I couldn't decide on a headline for this write-up, I'll let you see all the contenders and choose for yourself:

IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT,
AND I HAVE A MASSIVE HEADACHE.

NEVER HAS A TAGLINE BEEN SO TRUTHFUL - "WE WERE WARNED."

"I AM SUPER PROUD THAT WE'RE 45 MINUTES INTO THE MOVIE AND NOTHING
HAS REALLY HAPPENED YET."
--HARALD KLOSER, CO-WRITER/CO-PRODUCER OF 2012

I SURE HOPE THE MAYANS WERE RIGHT AND THE YEAR 2012 BRINGS A MASSIVE TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIETY. ONE THAT MAKES FEWER SHITTY MOVIES.

THE REAL END OF THE WORLD CAN'T BE THIS HARD TO SIT THROUGH.

2012 ISN'T SIMPLY THE NAME OF THE MOVIE, IT'S ALSO THE NUMBER OF TIMES YOU'LL SLAP YOURSELF ON THE FOREHEAD.

For the 12th anniversary of Random Movie Club, we screened 2012, a big fat stupid effects movie. But that's okay, sometimes we want to see big fat stupid effects movies. But when your big fat stupid effects movie has characters who you have less-than-zero emotional investment in, then you're left with just the effects. And when your effects shots are always moving, like you're on THE SIMPSONS ride at Universal (but without the fun of actually being on the ride), you're in a world of trouble. This movie is an assault on the eyeballs, as we find ourselves constantly dodging falling buildings, lava flows, missiles, airborne trains, and pavement whose cracks follow us like bloodhounds on a scent, no matter which direction we're running in. And therein lies an additional, less visible problem; because this is yet another movie with countless first-person POV shots, we never, not even once, feel that the characters are in any jeopardy. Instead, we feel like we're playing...no...we feel like we are watching someone else play an 80's Atari game.

2012 begins with the (not quite Annette Bening) Columbia Pictures woman holding the torch...whose flame sort of becomes a supernova. So they got me. They played with a studio logo. Somehow they knew that this trick would put me on their side, like it did for RAIDERS, CAT BALLOU, MARS ATTACKS!, SERENITY and so many more. Oh, how I love when they do that. And oh, how I wish I would have shut the movie off when that logo shot ended and instead, nursed a pint of antifreeze.

THE BEGINNING

India, 2009, and Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) ("Say, what is a Chiwetel Ejio for, anyway?") a deputy geologist for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (which in real life has no geologists, yes I checked) is visiting astrophysicist Dr. Tsurutani (Jimi Mistry). Tsurutani takes Adrian 11,000 feet down into what used to be the world's deepest copper mine so he could show him...a video on his laptop?? Really? Okay okay, after that, he opens a 6,000 foot deep well to show him that solar flares are mutating the neutrinos (now with less sugar!) to act like microwaves and are heating the earth's core. And that's all the time they spend on the reason why. To be fair, that's probably a good move. We don't want science (especially if it's wrong) in a popcorn movie. We want to see iconic landmarks destroyed.

So Adrian travels back to D.C. He hasn't slept in two days (he couldn't sleep on the plane?), yet he is compelled to interrupt Carl Anheuser (Oliver Platt), a government bigwig whose last name is a veiled Bush reference, during a fundraiser. "You have to read this now!" he yells. Because apparently, after the party will be too late!! That means the world's going to end any second!!! So when this scene is over, we better cut to...six months later? In 2010??? And we're where? In...Tibet? To either relocate people or put them to work on an oppressive government dam project that's not really a dam project? Hmmm.

Later that year, President Wilson (Danny Glover, who really is too old to be doing this shit) informs the other world leaders that the world will end.

And now...poof!...it's 2011. Here's where I would have liked to have seen a scene where Adrian is feeling foolish for interrupting Anheuser's fundraiser two years ago with his "you have to read this now!" moment. But instead, we travel to London where a sheik is informed that something he is interested in will cost him one billion Euros per person (and he's got a big family).

France is next, where we witness the heads of the Louvre and some Heritage Organization replace the Mona Lisa and tell us that the original will be placed in a bunker in Switzerland.

See if you can guess what happens next. Go ahead. Try. Nope. Wrong. Try again. Uh uh. Also wrong! Okay, geez, will you calm down? I'll tell you. Next, we cut to...the opening credits. And that should give you some idea on just how much 100% USDA Certified Crap they've crammed into this movie. At best, it's all just silly, but it's rarely at its best. I won't bore you with all the subplots and details. They bored me enough for all of us. But I will tell you a little about the main character, Jackson Curtis, played by John Cusack.

Jackson's a 33 year old limousine driver/struggling author. When we first meet him, he has fallen asleep on the couch, in his clothes, with a laptop and a pad resting on his chest (struggling author, remember?) and the TV on (which happens to be running a breaking news story on a Mayan mass suicide). Jackson's awakened by an earthquake, though I don't think he ever realized it. He's late to pick up his kids, who he somehow lost custody of to his ex, Kate (Amanda Peet). She's got herself a new guy, Gordon (Thomas McCarthy), and he's a plastic surgeon, and...what the hell am I doing? Who cares? The world's going to end!!

And since the world is ending, there's really no need to tell you about bloated Russian billionaire Yuri (I bet they had fights whether to name him Yuri or Sergei) with two odd looking kids and his girlfriend, Tamara (more fights over Tamara vs. Svetlana?). Oh, and FYI - Jackson happens to be Yuri's limo driver. And I don't need to mention the cruise ship singing duo of Harry and Tony, played by Blu Mankuma (that's just too close to Blue Man Group) and George Segal. Tony won't speak to his son anymore because he married a Japanese woman, and they have a kid named, I shit you not - Yoko. I also won't tell you about the murders. Or Charlie Frost (Woody Harrelson), a conspiracy theorist who happens to be right...and as cliche-eccentric (he enjoys eating pickles) as possible.

But all that's nothing. Here are the real reasons 2012 sucks.

DID YOU REALLY SAY THAT?

-Director/writer/producer Roland Emmerich: "We realized there was only one man who could play this part: John Cusack." Well, then how great is it for you that Cusack said yes? Because according to you, if Cusack turned you down, then you would have been forced to cancel your movie, since he was the only one who could play this part. Either that or say: "We realized there was only one man who could play this part - John Cusack. But he turned us down, so we got someone who stinks."

-Emmerich and co-producer Harald Kloser commented that their script was so good that people just signed on immediately. That means it had nothing to do with Emmerich's track record of multi-million dollar blockbusters featuring sky-high salaries. Do they really believe that cool, smart John Cusack would have done this movie for scale?

-Co-producer Marc Weigert: "We tried to do as much research as possible, so we watched the Discovery Channel shows."

DON'T INSULT MAYAN TELLIGENCE

-How does a geologist outrank security? Why would Helmsley, (who has the more pressing matter of saving the world) be in charge of someone who trespassed (Jackson)? Shouldn't he be looking at data and lava and a fissure or two? This man is clearly out of his bailiwick! (I finally got to use that word!)

-While the cruise ship is boarding, a large wave violently smashes the behemoth against the docks. Later, the ship is on its cruise. What the H? There was no damage?

-In one of the many getaway scenes, every single building and vehicle on the road is destroyed. Not one remains. Everything is either toppled or crushed. Except for the car that Jackson is driving. And because this is how they set the table, we're now sure that this family will be safe from anything thrown at them, except my pointed ridicule.

-QUESTION: If a 30 mile volcano was erupting, would you...
A) Stand in the danger zone with your family and watch it? or
B) Run the fuck away?
(Correct 2012 answer: A)

-And just how did the L.A. icon Randy's Donut roll 6 miles to El Segundo? That gives me an idea. This movie could have been this generation's AIRPLANE! (It actually did make me laugh a lot, when it wasn't angering me.) They could have used that Randy's Donut as a runner, popping up in China, Africa, wherever our players happened to be, and finally ending up as a giant life preserver that saves the world.

-I'm no geologist, but the idea of the earth's crust shifting thousands of miles and staying intact seems a bit implausible. But it's a summer movie, so okay. I'll let them have China moving 1500 miles. But how did the people survive? Was it like a giant People Mover? Was it like...land surfing?

-They're on an ark (they actually do call it an ark) at the end! Too on the nose? Well then dig this;

-The son's name is Noah.

-On the way to the arks, we see helicopters dangling giraffes and elephants underneath. Hysterical!!

-An alternate ending provides us with one of the biggest laughs. It turns out that George Segal and Blu Mankuna survived the overturned/sunk cruise ship. At the end, they're on one of the arks. Somehow, someone had spotted these two in the ocean, plucked them, and put them on the ark. And to drive home the extreme peril they were in, Segal's arm is in a sling.

"MORE RPMs THAN ANY MOVIE"

If there's one thing I hate in any movie, it's extraordinary coincidences. You know the kind; people bumping into people in weird places, like other states or countries. Sure, it can happen, so I always try and give a movie one or two passes. In 1985, I saw the movie REVOLUTION starring Al Pacino and Nastassja Kinski. That's the first movie that made me groan because of the coincidences. Pacino and Kinski bumped into each other everywhere, in different states, on battlefields, maybe even on the moon, I can't remember. From that point on, I've used the word "Revolution" to mean "far-fetched, movie-convenient coincidence."

I am here to tell you that 2012 wins for most "Revolutions Per Minute." Here, please sample but a few:

Adrian just happened to have read, and loved, Jackson's book, even though Jackson only sold 422 copies.
And if that's not enough of a coincidence, Adrian meets Jackson, who happened to be trespassing in the government restricted area of Yellowstone Park.
Because they can't make it to China, Jackson and his family (along with Gordon) land in what's left of Vegas. And who happens to be there, standing right on the tarmac? Jackson's boss, Yuri! This is a Double Revolution, because it turns out Yuri's girlfriend Tamara had her boobs done by Gordon.
On the ark, the crew turns on a monitor to check out the hydraulic gear shaft, and when it illuminates, who do they see? Jackson's family. In close up. "I know those kids!", says Adrian.
People on the ark look out the windows to see Air Force One floating by. That seems a little impossible, no? Especially with the earth now covered in more water than before.
With hundreds of thousands of people on the arks, Tamara and Yuri manage to spot each other.
While stopping at a convenience store near Yellowstone Park with his kids, Jackson's daughter sees a TV. Lily: "That's Mrs. Birnbaum, my teacher...on TV!" This is another Double Revolution, because Kate and Gordon were in that very same supermarket at the same time as Mrs. Birnbaum.
In Washington D.C., bodies are everywhere, covered in ash. But one guy manages to not die. He stands up. Hey! It's the President!

UNORIGINAL

-Sample dialogue: "When they tell you not to panic, that's when you run!!!"

-There are so many scenes where people call someone, and while they are on the phone they hear that person die. Then they put on a sour face of disbelief.

Laura (the president's daughter and head of that Heritage Foundation, played by Thandie Newton) talking to French Museum Director. (She gets to hear him die.)
Adrian talking to his friend Tsurutani. (He gets to hear him die)
Tony talking to his son (He hangs up right before he dies, so he doesn't have to hear it.)

-Then there's the hack dialogue-reversals, like:

Person A: "We're taking on an increase of almost .05%." Person B (incredulous): Per day???" Person A: "No. Per hour."
Person A: "One billion dollars is a lot of money." Person B: "I'm afraid the amount is in Euros."
Person A: "You're telling me that the North Pole is now somewhere in Wisconsin?" Person B: "Actually, that's the South Pole now."

-When it's all over, and the arks are floating to the new world (Africa, actually), Laura is in her room reading Jackson's book. Adrian asks her out, and Laura delivers Cliche Movie Line #1: "Are you asking me out on a date, Mr. Helmsley?" Awwww, how adorable. But that's not all. She continues, coyly, "You know, my diary is pretty full." WHAT? What the hell does that even mean? Doesn't she mean her "dance card' is full? Now maybe that's an expression I've never heard in my life (nor has Google), but even if it is, shouldn't they have gone with "dance card?" Did none of the thousand people working on this movie point that out?

-In the beginning of the movie, Jackson is unaware that his daughter still wets her bed at age 7 and that she needs to wear Pull-Ups. So what's the last line of the movie? Lily: "No more Pull-ups." Jackson: "Nice." I suppose one can argue that life will go on as usual. It's also lucky for Lily, as there are no more stores to buy Pull-Ups from.

THE END (OR IS IT?)

Out of curiosity (or maybe because of my abundance of masochism), I watched the knock-off movie 2012: ICE AGE. It was made by The Asylum, a production company that is defined by its intentional rip-offs of big budget tentpoles like TITANIC (theirs was TITANIC II) and SNAKES ON A PLANE (SNAKES ON A TRAIN). I'm here to tell you that as preposterous as the Asylum's version is, it's not any worse than the original 2012. It follows just one family (though the daughter is separated from them), instead of dozens of global characters and the attempted saving of the entire human race. We become more invested in this family unit, with one goal (meet up with the daughter and survive). Unfortunately, because of how insouciant the players were during the annihilation of Earth, it fell flat. But 2012: ICE AGE doesn't pretend to be anything more than it is - a low budget outing riding on the coattails of the movie 2012, whereas 2012 thinks it's not only a great movie, but an important one.

On the commentary, director/co-writer Roland Emmerich, no stranger to the disaster movie genre (INDEPENDENCE DAY, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW) and co-writer Harald Kloser seem like nice enough guys, though because of their respective German and Austrian accents, it's kinda like listening to Siegfried and Roy tell us about the end of the world. I can't really blame them for saying how great this actor is or that shot is (or even when Kloser, who also co-produced and scored the movie, started a sentence with - "As good producers, we..."). I mean, they did score three-quarters of a billion dollars on the theatrical run. So really, anything I say, and advice I give, would probably lower that number, perhaps by three-quarters of a billion dollars. But I just can't help thinking, What if 2012 wasn't a big stupid movie? What if it was a big smart movie? Or at very least, a big cool movie?

Okay, I know. We all work hard and sometimes when we see a movie, we just want to watch mindless stuff. We just want to see buildings topple, the Earth split, and giraffes dangle from helicopters. So if that's what you want, then that's what you got. But it saddens me that so many talented effects people did some amazing work on 2012, only to have it feel invisible, wasted on a movie where the characters are in the same amount of danger whether they are in the movie or at home watching it. What the filmmakers needed to do was watch some Irwin Allen and learn that putting heart into your movie (and a dash of schmaltz) will make you care about the people. Let them watch con man Fred Astaire get a cat handed to him, signalling the demise of the woman he was falling for in THE TOWERING INFERNO, or Shelley Winters sacrificing herself to save the others in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE. Siegfried and Roy were absolutely right when they reminded me on the commentary that "when you look through the character's eyes...the action itself becomes emotional." Now if only they'd go out and make a movie that does this. Or they can just make another piece of crap like 2012. And another billion dollars.

MILK

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Your July Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: His life changed history. His courage changed lives.

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: Scopitones!

THE HUMAN KINDNESS
OF MILK

I hate biopics. They rarely capture the person they're biopicking. Sometimes they even backfire and I leave the movie hating the person. I liked Johnny Cash, Ray Charles and Jerry Lee Lewis until I saw the movies and realized what assholes they were (still love their music, though). But now and then, a movie like MILK (2008) punches through and actually inspires. Admittedly, when MILK came out, I prejudged it. "Oh wonderful...lefty activist Sean Penn doing yet another 'This Way to Oscarland' character where he gets to chew scenery while glued to his soapbox." And then, when it won some Oscars (Penn and writer Dustin Lance Black), it became "there goes Hollywood, rewarding its 'important' movies again." But I was wrong this time, or better yet, they were right. MILK is an important movie. A well-made, bittersweet, uplifting and important movie. And Sean Penn? Well, he's just perfect playing Harvey Milk, not only one of the first openly gay politicians, but a man who wound up helping to shape our society.

MILK begins during the flashpoint in gay rights. For those who don't remember or weren't yet around; The late 60s, a time when, depending on where you lived, a gay person could be charged with being a homosexual in a bar, or if you're a bartender, serving alcohol to a homosexual. Police routinely raided gay bars; harassing, clubbing and arresting. The American Psychiatric Association listed "homosexual" under "mental disorder." And get this - The New York Times wouldn't even print the word 'gay'. So it was no small wonder that gays were closeted. You'd have to be brave and crazy to tell the world you were gay. Harvey Milk shouted it through a megaphone. Harvey Milk was brave and crazy. In a good way.

It's 1978, and Harvey, alone in his kitchen, is speaking into a tape recorder - "This is only to be played in the event of my death by assassination." Following this, actual footage of Diane Feinstein's announcement that San Francisco mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk have been murdered. Even though I knew the key points to this story, this opening one-two punch drew me into the movie in record time.

Harvey's tape recorded account leads to voiceover, which takes us on the journey, beginning in 1970. Harvey, an insurance worker-bee a few hours south of 40, meets Scott (James Franco), and with a few moments of flirtation, they're making out in the subway station. Smart move, get the gay physical stuff out of the way so that the story can be told, a story springboarded by this line of dialogue that Harvey tells Scott - "Forty years old and I haven't done a thing...that I'm proud of." Together they move to the already progressive city of San Francisco, to an area called The Castro, one of America's first gayborhoods. Harvey and Scott settle in and open a camera shop. After the liquor store owner across the street meets Harvey and shakes his hand, he wipes it off with a handkerchief. But if you didn't do commerce with the neighborhood (read: gays), your business would eventually die. If you did, you'd flourish. The liquor store owner ended up staying. The times they were a-changing, albeit a-slowly.

Harvey's activism crept in as if it was unplanned (can't say it was, as Harvey could surely be cunning...more on this in a moment, or longer if you're a slow reader like me). Pretty soon people were coming to him, like teamsters who supported the Coors beer boycott (Coors was under fire for being non-union and also for firing gays). And as there's power in the union, there's also power in people sticking together for a cause. Still, the police were continuing to raid bars, and when someone got murdered for being gay, Harvey realized, "If we had someone in government who saw things the way we see them." Well, it doesn't take long for him to jump on his soapbox (Harvey is a funny and charming guy, so he actually stands on a homemade soapbox), and gives a speech on a street in The Castro announcing his candidacy for City Supervisor. He's dubbed "the Mayor of Castro Street" (even he's not sure who said it first - "...perhaps I invented it myself."), and people are listening. The irrepressible Harvey Milk saw a hole and filled it. Errr, maybe I could have put that better.

Harvey tries to win the election, and fails. The next year, he fails again. But then fate steps in as neighborhood boundaries are changed and so are the laws which now allow people to vote within their district. With the success of this election, he and his ragtag platoon of recruits ("My name is Harvey Milk and I'm going to recruit you!" was how Milk opened a lot of his speeches) knew they were in for a very steep uphill climb. But what they didn't know was that Harvey would be slain not by an anonymous homophobe, but by fellow supervisor Dan White (Josh Brolin). See, as Harvey's star rose, White's burned out. White, like others before him in his family, was a fireman with a Hallmark family. Suddenly, gays were shaking up his world. He tried to play ball, but eventually, with his morals threatened, he snapped. And so the fireman took action to put out the fire.

Harvey Milk died in 1978, and it was only four years later that I found myself in Times Square watching a sneak preview of a movie called BAD BOYS (not the Michael Bay movie) where Sean Penn played a vicious street thug named Mick O'Brien. I couldn't believe my eyes. This was the same guy who, one year earlier, played, with unmatched brilliance, stoner/surfer Spicoli in FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, and he was scary good in both (though scarier in BAD BOYS). I remember thinking, this guy can do anything (...and he did, including WE'RE NO ANGELS, which was a little unforgivable and a lot bad). But let's face it, Sean Justin Penn can act circles, and I'll be a monkey's aunt if he didn't really become Milk.

If you think his performance is exaggerated or untrue, then I command you to watch an amazing documentary called THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK (1984). Actually, everyone should stop reading this and watch it now. Okay, are you back? Where was I? Oh yeah...With Harvey Milk, what you saw was what you got. He was as true to himself as he was to the world. There was no phoniness in him, and likewise, there's no phoniness in Penn's performance. I enjoyed all the actors in MILK, but I'd like to single out a few. Emile Hirsch as Cleve Jones, a street urchin until Harvey takes him under his wing to become an activist ("My name is Harvey Milk and I'm going to recruit you!"), and Alison Pill as Anne Kronenberg, the lesbian biker chick who replaced Scott as Harvey's campaign manager (Scott couldn't take Harvey's devotion to activism, and neither could Harvey's next boyfriend, the playful but unhinged Jack, played by Diego Luna). Both Cleve and Anne have a waggish admiration for each other in the movie, and today are still big LGBT activists. All these characters, and more, unite for the cause, which could be anything from SF's pooper scooper law to the mega-important defeat of Prop 6, a/k/a the Briggs Initiative, which if it had passed would have made it legal to fire gay teachers (how do they know?) in order to "protect our children from these perverts and pedophiles who recruit our children to their deviant lifestyles."

Also bringing some major chops to the film is Josh Brolin, who played Dan White with such brilliance that his character should be studied in Psych 101 classes. He was a conflicted man, trying to be good, but ultimately unable to disregard his beliefs. When Harvey doesn't pull through on a promised favor, you can just see the inner torment on Brolin's face. Some say the real Dan White was gay and he either didn't come out or didn't know it (the movie even touches on this), which would explain why he acted out so much. In one scene, Harvey's quip to White, which would have seemed harmless and amusing to the open-minded, must have seared through White's skin -

MILK: "We're not against that (the family)."
WHITE: "No?? Can two men reproduce?"
MILK: "No, but god knows we keep trying."

I think if I saw Josh Brolin on the street, I'd tell him I hate him. But really, I love him in this. It's his Dan White I hated. That's how good he was. Later, when White started unraveling, I actually felt sorry for him. And then, when he passed the point of no return, I found myself worrying about Harvey's safety, even though I already knew White was going to kill him. White killing Harvey Milk led to the origin of the Twinkie Defense, an excuse so reprehensible that I can't even think about it right now. Of course, for me the Twinkie Defense is "It wasn't me.", as in "Hey! Who ate my entire box of Twinkies!!?" Anyway, Brolin nails it all, but he couldn't do it without a good writer (Black) and director (Gus Van Sant). They made us gasp at Harvey's demise, even though we knew going in that Harvey would be...demised.

Van Sant has had a heralded yet spotty career. He splashed with DRUGSTORE COWBOY, and followed up his hit GOOD WILL HUNTING with that shot-for-shot remake of PSYCHO, which his bio calls "controversial," though everyone else calls it "baffling." But here, Van Sant's work is skillful. His use of real footage (the anti-gay Anita Bryant stuff is disgusting, and it would be funny now if there weren't people still like her) is both effective and either amusing or devastating, and it integrates perfectly with the way this oft-verite film is shot. Van Sant was also able to use many of the same locations where the events happened, like Harvey's actual apartment and camera shop (redressed from its current gift shop) and San Francisco's City Hall. Also, among the extras in the film's candlelight vigil were participants in the original vigil over 33 years ago. It's a solid film, even though Van Sant breaks the tone at one point using a corny yet fun shot of at least a hundred people filling the screen, each in their own "Brady Bunch box", spreading the word of an upcoming rally on their phones BYE BYE BIRDIE-style. This was a gay network bigger than LOGO. Maybe part of the reason MILK is so good is that it was written, directed and produced by gays. I'd like to think that many straight directors, writers and producers could have made MILK (big deal, so do cows) (Sorry, I couldn't help myself), but I'm guessing being gay gave it lots of authentic moments and choices unavailable to breeders.

Now, back to Harvey being cunning. As heroic as he was, he was also a businessman, politician and entertainer, all professions under the umbrella of manipulator. I suppose you have to be to get your points across. Take for example the "pooper scooper" law. Though I'm sure he was really for it, he damn well knew it would get him noticed. So would his take on outing vs. privacy. Milk insisted everyone who worked with him came out, an idea that potentially has serious consequences regarding privacy and family. But Milk was always looking at the big picture: "If their families don't love them for who they are, for who they really are, then they should lose them." I can't pretend to imagine what coming out back then felt like, with the threat of losing jobs, family, friends, houses, and being beaten. And if you didn't come out, you were probably ripping yourself apart inside, perhaps even suicidal. And if you think it's easy, remember, Melissa Etheridge didn't come out until 1993 and Ellen DeGeneres 1997. Elton was more of a trailblazer, outing himself in 1976. Of course, Charles Nelson Reilly didn't have to say a word.

But the times are still a-changing. 1978's Prop 6 begat 2008's Prop 8. We all still have a long way to go. There'll always be some issue to fight about, and when there is, I want someone with the spirit of Harvey Milk there, because he proved to the world that one person can indeed make a difference. And just as he got people to be true to themselves and come out, maybe the movie MILK will do the same. Of course now we live in a time where it's more acceptable. Also, people have venues to look to, like Gay-Straight Alliances, Gay Student Unions and the slushie-happy GLEE. It's a time where movies like MILK can be made (imagine trying to make this film in the 1950s). Plus, being gay is not nearly as forbidden as it once was (thank you, Harvey). In fact, it's kind of voguish. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: Scopitones!

Aaah yes. Scopitones. Those mini-film precursors to rock videos made to be watched on a specialized Scopitone jukebox in bars and other establishments in the 50s and 60s. These short music clips were usually filled with go-go girls. Sometimes, an act had a motif that was counter-intuitive to the song. Sometimes it was the artists themselves that were odd. No matter, for Scopitones are made of the stuff that makes my heart soar. They are goofy, fun, entertaining as hell and hot hot hot. No wonder I love them. I just described myself!

A vocally bland version of LAND OF 1000 DANCES by brother and sister team April Stevens and Nino Tempo. While girls danced, some in sailor outfits with bikini tops, Nino and April sang. Nino wore a black leather jacket which just looked wrong.

Gary Lewis (that's Jerry's son) and the Playboys did their Beach Boys-ish (so it makes sense they're at a marina) LITTLE MISS GO-GO. Yep. That's Teri Garr dancing around in this one.

WHEEL OF FORTUNE, with Kay Starr, who, and I'm just speculating here, had no idea there'd be girls doing stripper moves behind her as she sang.

Okay, next is Dion doing RUBY on an Air France plane (I guess that means he's in the Mile High Club). For some reason, he's the only passenger. And he's the pilot, too.

Bobby Vee (he did several Scopitones) is next, trying to act macho on a moped while singing THE NIGHT HAS 1000 EYES as couples dance and smooch behind fake rocks.

Bobby Vee (toldya he did several) is up again with PRETTY GIRLS EVERYWHERE. And he's right.

And, of course, Nancy Sinatra's famous THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR WALKING is a Scopitone.

We saw a bunch more, but I'm going to let you go YouTube fishing for some on your own.

DAUGHTER OF HORROR

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Your June Unrandom Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: None

Pizza: Quickies

Preshow Entertainment: THE PRICE IS RIGHT

FILM NOIR CHECKLIST FOR
DAUGHTER OF HORROR

✔ NIGHT TIME
✔ BLACK & WHITE
✔ OVERWROUGHT SCORE
✔ CALCULATED LIGHT AND SHADOW
✔ VICTIM
✔ AMNESIA

AND...

✔ ED MCMAHON??

The movie we watched tonight was DAUGHTER OF HORROR (1955), and no, it's not the Dina and Lindsay Lohan movie on Lifetime. You've seen DAUGHTER OF HORROR, right? No?? Oh, then perhaps you know it by its original title, DEMENTIA. Still no? Well have you seen THE BLOB? You have? Well, then you've seen DAUGHTER OF HORROR...or at least a part of it. DAUGHTER OF HORROR, which from this point on will be referred to as the Homer-friendly DOH, was the movie that was playing in the scene where The Blob was in the movie theater. But is DOH a cool movie? Well, I think you'd agree that any movie beginning with twinkly starlights against a black screen as a narrator asks us - "You! You out there! Do you know what...horror is?" has got to be cool. "Come with me into the tormented, haunted, half-lit night of the insane," the narration continues. "Sure, why not, I'll come with ya," says I.

With a running time of 56 minutes, DOH is a short movie, and very low budget as well. It was shot (entirely?) MOS. (Wow, MOS! That quarter of a mil I dropped at NYU has finally paid off.) And nothing is looped, meaning there's no dialogue, just the non-deigetic (I learned that one post-NYU) sound effects, music (both on the track and played on screen by a jazz combo in a club scene, which sure looked like it was filmed live), and a Criswell-like narration provided by...hiyo! - Ed McMahon.

Adrienne Barrett (who made her next movie, which was also her last, 30 years later) plays an unnamed character (on IMDB, she's called "The Gamine"), who, when we first see her, awakens from a nightmare where she is walking into the ocean. You call that a nightmare?? Feh. I can do that while daydreaming at a red light. Anyway, she wakes up in bed still in her clothes, and dangling from her neck, a pendant that would make Flavor Flav jealous, and surely gave her neck pain (as if she won't soon have enough problems). She's in a small hotel room on the wrong side of the tracks. We know this from the neon sign that blinks in on her. She walks to the dresser and opens the top drawer revealing its contents - a switchblade. She smiles.

Later, she accepts a ride and a night on the town from a Rich Man (Bruno VeSota, or Bruno Ve Sota, I'm not sure anyone knows for sure), who, after visiting a few clubs, brings her back to his palatial apartment. There, he plays piano and eats chicken, much to her disdain. But I'm with The Gamine on this one. The Rich Man's fat and sweaty face, dripping with chicken grease, is enough to disgust anyone. So is the way this movie treats women; as things to sell flowers in the wee hours on a desolate street, or on their hands and knees scrubbing a floor that looks like it would take years to finish, or, in more than one case - for cigar chomping fatsos to slap around. To be fair, it treats men as pigs, molesters and murderers. But is it all real or is The Gamine insane? What are we seeing exactly? Her point of view? The narrator's? The film's director's? A conglomeration? None of the above?

It's okay that there's no dialogue in this film, because words can no longer help her as she unravels. It's almost as if we're allowed to watch someone else's cheesy nightmare. But even a cheesy nightmare can be scary (or it wouldn't be a nightmare). The Gamine's dreams are populated with elfin newspaper vendors and spooky flower peddlers. It's a world where shadows of giants climb the sides of buildings, winos get beaten beyond repair by cops with blackjacks, and police allow wife-beaters to go back in their apartment to get their coats before being arrested without handcuffs (Fox's COPS wasn't around yet, so there was no danger in doing that). This is not a world for the nyctophobic. It's truly a psycho nightmare, one featuring guilt, anger and paranoia, all leading up to why DOH is called DOH.

Part of DOH's creepiness is because of its Expressionism, as seen in a flashback where deceased characters act out how they became...deceased characters. This play-within-a-movie occurs in a graveyard featuring minimalist sets and props, like a couch and a bed, all while the actors sit among stones of death. There are other ghoulish moments, those of the amoral kind, like when a character laughs while watching someone get beaten to a pulp or even killed.

Unless you count the severed hand, DOH is not a horror film. It's a Beat psychological thriller. Specifically, it's Freudian (the same actor who plays her abusive father also plays a policeman), but calling something a Freudian thriller sounds dull. There may be a murder or two in DOH, but it's the lead's psyche that bleeds.

For the music, experimental composer (though not so much in this venue) and way interesting cat George Antheil paints a picture of madness with his wonderful yet repetitive score. Complementing the music, vocalist Marni Nixon (best known for singing Natalie Wood's Maria in WEST SIDE STORY). Nixon's vocalizing is like a "human theremin" meets Pink Floyd's ANY COLOUR YOU LIKE. Almost a demonic version of the 60s STAR TREK theme. It's haunting and yes, cheesy. Yet effective. Yet cheesy. Later in the movie, when visiting a club, we find jazz combo Shorty Rogers and his Giants (I so much love that it's "his" and not "the") playing themselves (billed in the credits under "New Concepts in Modern Sound"). Besides working with Perez Prado, Woody Herman and Stan Kenton, Shorty went on to work on lots of TV shows including THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY, THE MONKEES and more importantly, THE UGLIEST GIRL IN TOWN. Because there's no dialogue in the movie, and it's not quite a silent film, the music from the combo makes this jazz club scene even eerier (is that even a word?). ODD NOTE: Comedian Shelley Berman (now Larry David's father on CURB) is in the club, credited as "stoned beatnik"

I can't tell if the production company, Exploitation Productions Incorporated, is named ironically or not, but DOH is not a so-bad-it's-good movie (even though it was shot by frequent Ed Wood cinematographer William Thompson). Often called a borrower from THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI and a precursor to REPULSION, DOH has a legion of fans, like directors Joe Dante and the late Preston Sturges, and now, me.

DOH is a film that does things differently and succeeds on many levels (and also fails on a few). But I love that they went for it. I love that they did what they wanted and it turned out really cool. I love that writer/director/producer John Parker never gave up on his cheap-o, bang-out, but very cool Expressio-noir film that no one paid attention to when he tried to get it distributed. Censorship boards repeatedly turned it away, though today, you can probably see this movie on Teen Nick. Originally titled DEMENTIA (it was five minutes longer and there was no narration), Parker could only get this film in one theater in NYC, where it came and went. But three years later, BLOB producer (Hey!! That's my nickname!) Jack Harris bought it, renamed it, and added the narration. In fact, legend has it (wait, "legend has it" sort of nullifies "In fact," right?) that although Parker is listed as director, it was none other than that chicken-slobbering Rich Man Bruno VeSota who directed the movie (some are convinced Parker was VeSota's pseudonym). At this point, not even Maury Povich could tell us who fathered this DAUGHTER. Either way, congratulations are in order. It's a daughter. A cool and creepy, creepy daughter.

Preshow Entertainment: THE PRICE IS RIGHT

THE PRICE IS RIGHT STARTED NOT ONLY BEFORE DREW CAREY
TOOK OVER, BUT BEFORE DREW CAREY WAS BORN

THE PRICE IS RIGHT is the game show that just won't die. Since 1956, it's been on NBC, then ABC and then CBS, where it is today.. The episode we watched was from January 1964, which was the pre-"come on down!" era. Bill Cullen was the host and Johnny Gilbert (still working at 87 years old...on JEOPARDY!) was the announcer. There were three contestants and a celebrity guest contestant, in this case - Arthur Treacher. This was the same year he did MARY POPPINS and THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, even though he insisted he was unemployed at the time. Treacher, although stating he had watched the show before, was totally lost...or totally drunk, which was sad (and of course, funny). He was the only contestant that didn't win anything.

THE KILLING

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Your June Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: These 5 Men Had a $2,000,000 Secret Until One of Them Told This Woman!

Pizza: Pizza Italia

Preshow Entertainment: BEST LEGS IN THE 8TH GRADE

THE KILLING MAY NOT BE STANLEY KUBRICK'S BEST MOVIE,
BUT IT SURE IS HIS COOLEST

THE KILLING (1956), no relation to the TWIN PEAKSian show on AMC or the CD by Danish metal band HATESPHERE, is the first studio-funded film made by Stanley Kubrick. Make no mistake, though THE KILLING went south when it was (barely) released, it garnered enough attention from the right people to send young Stanley on his way to making his movies - PATHS OF GLORY, SPARTACUS (which Kubrick himself disowned: "The only film I don't like is SPARTACUS"), LOLITA, DR. STRANGELOVE, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, BARRY LYNDON, THE SHINING, FULL METAL JACKET and EYES WIDE SHUT. Not only are all of those movies (except that last one, says me) spectacular (not sure about the spectacular-ity of BARRY LYNDON, as I've yet to see it...but my friends Lou and Max love it, if that means anything to you!), but, aside from his two pre-KILLING non-studio movies, that list is his entire body of work. Yes, you had to wait for his movies, but they were almost always worth it. Not that I knew this. Although I saw my first Kubrick film in high school, I never really appreciated him until later on. "About five years ago," he sheepishly confessed.

This noir entry opens at a racetrack, which, thanks in part to Gerald Fried's appropriate score, is turned into a suspenseful menace. This is a place that should be exciting, thrilling. Instead, we can feel the impending dread. Something's up. Something big. Something...not too nice. It's 3:45pm.

And now...it's 2:45pm. And now it's 7pm. And now it's 6:30pm. That's the kind of movie THE KILLING is. It moves time around like checkers on a board, jumping to where it sees a good opportunity. And though I can't recall a film that did this (to this extent) before THE KILLING, I can sure think of plenty of pulpy, fictional movies that have done so after. More on this later, because now we jump back in time to the story...

Throughout these time-skips we meet our most unusual suspects; Randy the cop (Ted DeCorsia), who owes 3k to a shady figure. Marvin Unger (Jay C. Flippen), who bet on every horse in the same race. Why? George (Elisha Cook Jr.), the meek cage cashier at the track who's married to Sherry (Marie Windsor), a dame furlongs out of his league. Bartender Mike, who serves Canada Dry in a vintage bottle (oh, yeah, right...), with his sickly and bedridden wife. And finally, ringleader Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden). And it's all intro-ed by narrator Art Gilmore's newsreel/DRAGNET-y patter (Gilmore was a pro announcer who actually wound up acting on DRAGNET).

When we first see Johnny, he is with his girl Fay (Coleen Gray), who has waited for him during his five year stay at the state farm. Johnny explains to her (and us) - make sure the risk is worth the reward, because they can "put you away just as fast for a ten dollar heist as they can for a million dollar job." That's Johnny Clay for ya. He must have something up his sleeve. Maybe, just maybe it's a...

Caper! Johnny has assembled these noirriors for a caper! And with Johnny Clay spearheading, nothing can go wrong, right? Wrong!! This is a movie, so something has to go wrong. Someone has to gum up the works. Maybe some femme fatale (not a spoiler, it's in the damn logline) with an assist from mild-mannered milquetoast George. He doesn't do it on purpose, you see. He's just trying to impress Sherry (and perhaps himself) who knows a thing or three about how to pull his strings. Strings that will soon become tangled. Strings that will soon unravel. Strings that begin with her affair with Val Cannon (Vince Edwards, not yet in med school to become TV's Ben Casey). It's a fascinating parallel; George loves Sherry, who doesn't even look at him when he talks to her, and Sherry loves Val, who doesn't want to be tied down and keeps no secret that he's seeing other women. George tries to ensnare Sherry with the promise of heist money, as does Sherry with Val.

If you've guessed that the caper involves the racetrack, then you are right. But you won't guess the who, what, where, when and how. Nothing's telegraphed. It unfolds like an actual caper - with precision and a 100% chance of unpredictability.

What's interesting about the gang is they're not all hoods. One's a cop, another a cashier, another a bartender. But in Noir World, anyone can turn bad. I love all the characters in this movie to death, but if you put a gat to my head, I'd tell you that Elisha Cook's George steals the movie with his Frightened Mouse demeanor and dinner plate eyes of concern and fear. And the guy sure knew how to take a slap in the face. There are also great ancillary characters, heist-sistants, if you will; sharpshooter/hit man/aptly-named Nikki Arcane (Timothy Carey), chess-player/bruiser Maurice Oboukhoff (Kola Kwariani), and Joe (Tito Vuolo), the lovable Italian bungalow proprietor.

Even frequent ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN villain Richard Reeves, who plays a racetrack worker and only has a few lines, is great. THE KILLING is one of those films made up (entirely?) of character actors. ODD NOTE: IMDB credits Rodney Dangerfield as an onlooker. But this was 15 years before he started making movies. If it's true, my guess would be that Rodney just happened to be at the racetrack that day.

And now a few words about Sterling Hayden's sterling performance as Johnny Clay. Hayden (you know, Captain McCloskey, the guy Michael shoots in the neck in THE GODFATHER) commands the players (and the movie) with cool, cocky defiance. I can see why people like Johnny so much ("There's nothing I wouldn't do for Johnny." - Marvin). Hayden's performances in movies fly in the face of the man himself, who as it turned out, was a nut. This was a man who got into acting accidentally, considering it a less than virtuous profession (okay, maybe he's not a nut). "You don't need talent to star in a motion picture. All you need is some intelligence and the ability to work freely in front of the lens." He was a man who named a name or two to the FBI and HUAC and regretted it until the day he died. He was a gruff guy who made movies only so he could make money to buy...wait for it...sea vessels. You read that right. Sterling Hayden's true love was being a skipper. But if you ask me, even in his movies he was always a little piratical.

In a way, Kubrick rehearsed for THE KILLING a year earlier with KILLER'S KISS, a short (67 minutes) movie that started off slow and, like THE KILLING, got better as it went along. He shot it himself (he was a photographer for LOOK magazine before he was a filmmaker). In THE KILLING, his knowledge of photography coupled with his creative boho style and sense (much of it unseen and misunderstood at the time, making it an honest-to-goodness trailblazer) would create friction with cinematographer Lucien Ballard.

Ballard had shot over 50 films by this time (and would go on to shoot THE WILD BUNCH and the original TRUE GRIT), so I can only imagine what went down. But I have a decent imagination, so I'd say that Kubrick wanted things a certain way (read: unorthodox) and Ballard vetoed what he saw as ridiculous requests. I must be close, no? In spite of this, THE KILLING is beautifully lit and photographed. It's got all the noir elements of light and shadow, like in the shot where Sherry and Val read a note while standing over a table lamp whose light and shade point upward, onto their faces...the cinematic equivalent to holding a flashlight under your chin. And his tracking shots (the one of Johnny walking through the rooms of the apartment while talking to an unseen Fay comes to mind) are creative and beautiful. His eye for composition soars; the dolly shots at the track, and the placement of the extras. Even the use of an unseen ticking clock during a George/Sherry breakfast scene on the morning of the heist. And again, the Gerald Fried score. Fried also worked on Kubrick's two earlier films (FEAR AND DESIRE, KILLER'S KISS), and then PATHS OF GLORY, launching his career (along with Kubrick's). In the 60s, he went on to do a ton of movies and TV shows, including the original STAR TREK, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE and even GILLIGAN'S ISLAND.

Though THE KILLING was based on the novel CLEAN BREAK by crime reporter/author Lionel White, it sure looks like we'll never know how much was written by Kubrick, and how much by pulp writer Jim Thompson, who Kubrick had commissioned. When it was released, Kubrick got the writing credit while Thompson got "additional dialogue by". So I can't really say which one of them wrote the one line of dialogue that made us all gasp.

There's one bit of disappointment for me regarding THE KILLING. For years I've been trumpeting Kubrick's anti-structure in the film, but I've come to learn that this was the device used in White's novel. Wa-a-a! Oh well. But I suppose it could be argued that Kubrick and producer James B. Harris (who initially found the book) were so attracted to this broken timeline (that's true) that that's why they bought the book in the first place. Ironically, after a screening, they were pretty much told that the movie didn't work because of these time jumps, so they went back and edited it chronologically. Then, they decided they were wrong for doing that and went back to the original cut. That said, audiences were confused by this discontinuity editing back in '56, and United Artists buried it under bigger features.

THE KILLING isn't the first movie on people's lips when they hear the name Kubrick. It often gets lost in the cavernous interiors of the Overlook Hotel and in the shadows of the monolith. But I'm here to tell you THE KILLING stands on its own two feet, and it is better than most movies in the theater today. Not too shabby for a low budget movie made in 24 days by an unknown. Oh, and one more thing; the last 30 minutes are terrific. And the ending, which producer Harris takes credit for, is one of the best in all of Movieland.

Preshow Entertainment: BEST LEGS IN THE 8TH GRADE

SURE, THE 1984 PLAY THE BEST LEGS IN THE EIGHTH GRADE
IS A PRODUCT OF ITS TIME.
BUT IT'S ALSO A PIECE OF SHIT.

An odd and sucky 48 minute (seemed like 1hr 48m to me) one-act play shot on video, THE BEST LEGS IN THE EIGHTH GRADE fails beyond compare. The acting is awful, and the writing by Bruce Feirstein, who wrote on some Bond films and the book REAL MEN DON'T EAT QUICHE, is worse. I don't know whose idea it was to put this on video, or for that matter, on stage in the first place.

It's Valentine's Day, 1981, and an asshole named Mark (Tim Matheson) has done something romantically rotten to Rachel (Annette O'Toole), and it's going to take another asshole, St. Valentine, to help him. St. Valentine (James Belushi playing James Belushi) appears in Mark's living room, and after a few parlor tricks proffered as proof, Mark realizes it's really St. Valentine. Me, I'd get out of Dodge if St. Valentine magically appeared in my living room. Hell, I'd run like hell if James Belushi magically appeared in my living room.

Scene Two finds us in 1984, in a gym. Mark and Rachel, now a couple with some years behind them, are working out together. When Rachel leaves for a run, Mark meets Leslie (Kathryn Harrold), a bimbo that only exists on TV shows like HAPPY DAYS or in writers' heads. It turns out Leslie used to sit in front of Mark in high school, and although Mark knows Leslie up and down, it takes Leslie a long time to remember ex-nerd (now asshole) Mark. Leslie symbolizes the unattainable past for Mark. And hey, I'm all for that. Except when it's done poorly.

I suppose the moral of LEGS is that sooner or later we have to become responsible adults, witnessed by Mark's apartment; neon beer light, barber pole, Simon (remember that toy?). Anyway, Mark not only hits on Leslie, but makes a dinner date with her. Well, that doesn't sit well with Rachel. Did he think it would? I was right - asshole. It gets worse. Somehow, he turns it into Rachel's fault. "You don't know what this girl (Leslie) means to me!"

Shot on stage with no audience, this play falls, no...drops dead. Maybe I was a bit harsh when I said how bad the acting is. These thespians are trapped in a god-awful script. Yet, shouldn't they be held accountable for saying 'yes' to the project in the first place? When push comes to shove, I didn't hate these characters because they were assholes. I hated them because they were idiots.

I dare you: http://tinyurl.com/3k8mzyn

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sun, 15 May 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Your May Unrandom Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: We are not alone

Pizza: Joe Peeps

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: FREDDY'S NIGHTMARES

"HOW COME I KNOW SO MUCH!?"

-R. NEARY, 1977
-R. NATHANSON, 2011

"Mr. Neary, I envy you." That's what alien-hunter Claude Lacombe tells Roy Neary when it's clear Neary is about to embark on a magical journey. And that's what I too was thinking when I realized RMCer-In-Attendance Jessie had never seen CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND before. There's nothing like seeing this movie for the first time. "Miss Jessie. I envy you."

So, okay, remember when (or did you even know that) movies would play longer than a week? Sometimes months? Sometimes half a year? That means if you liked a movie, you could see it again in a few weeks or months. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977) is the first movie I remember where people went back to the theaters the next day. I know because, you guessed it, I was one of them. And like the film's main character, Roy Neary, people I knew thought I was nuts for going back to see the UFOs again. Neary got to see them in the actual sky. Me, I had to drive into NYC to see them at the Ziegfeld theater. I understood Roy really well. I still do. Hell, I even took a road trip to Devil's Tower a few years ago.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS opens with a gimmick that surely looks cheap on paper but works astonishingly well in the movie. A black screen along with the distant rumbling of an orchestra, as if the projectionist forgot to turn the volume up. But soon the orchestra crescendos (use your 5.1 and crank that subwoofer) to a pizzicato hit (sort of like the end of A DAY IN THE LIFE, but a bit more atonal), and we're slapped in the face with white light which dissolves to a sandstorm in the Sonora Desert. Steven Spielberg has just set the table for his delicious movie.

Richard Dreyfuss is perfect at representing the average guy; wife, kids, dog, suburbia, pudgy. Roy Neary is an electric company employee, lost on a road when he has a close encounter of the first kind - a sighting (the second is physical evidence, the third is contact). He gets his reluctant wife Ronnie (Teri Garr, whom Spielberg had noticed from a coffee commercial) and kids to follow him back to the desolate country road, but the UFOs don't show. And that can only mean one thing - dad is nuts. But he's not, because we saw them too. And what's with the massive power drain that blacks out the entire landscape, one grid at a time, displayed in a breathtaking shot over the Indiana countryside and done in near silence? It's not just that Neary has to try and convince his family he's seen UFOs, he's also obsessed with an upside-down cone shape; in a pillow, formed in shaving cream, a dirt mound. Why, even the mashed potatoes on the dinner table confound him with some sort of implanted memory he can't call up. He only knows it means something. "This is important."

Though this is clearly Roy's story, two other plots unfold concurrently. Frenchman Claude Lacombe (Francois Truffaut, the only time he's acted in an American film) leads a UFO-hunting task force who discover WWII planes in the desert. How did they get there? Where are the pilots' bodies? How the hell are the planes still operational?? Though we don't yet have the answers, we know we're going to have a fun ride getting there. Not too far from Roy's house are single mom Jillian (Melinda Dillon) and her son Barry (Cary Guffey). At three and a half, Guffey actually looked a bit alien-y but with a face full of wonder. This was famously achieved by Spielberg unwrapping gifts off camera (that's why Barry says "Toys!") or someone wearing a gorilla suit, only to reveal himself by removing the head.

There are so many wonderful scenes in CE3K that it would be like me giving an Oscar speech (again??), meaning, if I listed them, I'm sure I'd accidentally leave a few out. Also, they're so much fun, why would I sit here and ruin it for you? But I will mention a few without giving anything away. Like when Roy waves the car behind him to go around. Or when Barry opens the door. Or - Air traffic Controller: "TWA 517, do you want to report a UFO?" Or when the glass breaks in the tower. Or "I saw Bigfoot once." Or the little Tinker Bell-ish ship that trails the others like a caboose. Or the great line of dialogue which I believe to be original: "You can't fool us by agreeing with us!" Or the battleship. Or - TWA pilot: "Negative. We don't want to report." Or the scary flashlight. And of course...those mashed potatoes.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS is a movie about aliens no more than THE DEER HUNTER is a movie about Vietnam. It's about a blue collar guy from middle America with a wife and three kids, whose marriage seems to have some minor wear on the edges. They are a family living in the Spielburbs, a territory that Spielberg was so much better at displaying, ironically, before he himself had a wife and kids. It's a family where the TV is always on even if no one is watching. And they can't really control their kids, as witnessed by one of them hopping in the playpen and beating the shit out of a doll until its head pops off. Sure, Roy and Ronnie still wear their wedding bands, and when they find themselves in a familiar location, RONNIE: "We used to come here to snuggle," for a moment, it looks like it may go back to things as they used to be. But then, while kissing, Roy steals a glance at the night sky. It's a small moment yet it tells us everything. Roy has an obsession he can't shake. He's a hellbent crusader who finds himself on a path he can't help but choose, as if he was summoned (toldya I understood him!), one that will test his family as well as his very existence.

Hiding under the surface of the story is the bond of family. After Ronnie and the kids leave him, Roy goes on his adventure not only leaving them behind, but taking Jillian, another UFO-spotter (with a more tragic backstory) along with him. I never really saw this as Roy being unfaithful to Ronnie (though there is a minor flirty scene were Jillian shows Roy where she got burned by the UFO lights).

No, these people have been fatefully welded together. However, Spielberg himself said that if he made the movie today (he had no wife and kids back then), he never would have let Roy leave his family. So then what? His family would reunite at the end? Because you have kids, suddenly the fictional story needs to change?? Pshaw of the third kind!! Why not go and digitally erase the guns in the hands of the government agents in E.T. and replace them with walkie-talkies while you're at it!

NEW THOUGHT: I don't know how come I have all the DVDs I own. I don't buy many, having long ago decided to skip the DVD Age after tiring of rebuying the same movies in multiple formats. But Amazon had the 30th Anniversary Ultimate Edition (Blu-ray) for $10, so I snapped it up. Normally, owning a DVD is the kiss of death for me, for I find that whenever I acquire a DVD, it sits on the shelf, sealed. So even as I bought this, I knew I'd never see it. Sometimes, I guess, a DVD is like a book; they make us feel good to own them. They're there for you and your guests to see. Really, how many books are on your shelf right now that you know you will re-read? Anyway, against all odds, I finally decided to actually watch the Blu-ray. By the way, I just checked, and the set (at the time of this writing) is still at a stupid low price of $16. BUY IT.

There are three versions of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, and the 30th Anniversary Ultimate Edition has them all. First came the 1977 theatrical release. Three years later, they released THE SPECIAL EDITION because Spielberg felt rushed when releasing the original version. His deal with the devil (Columbia Pictures) was that he could shoot new footage, as long as he added scenes of Roy Neary inside the mothership at the end. Well, I'm not the only one to say that although there were some terrific new scenes in this version (Oh...that battleship!!), this was an evil, horrible thing to do. The tacky, tacked-on ending of Roy inside the spaceship with that dumb smile removed all the magic, awe and curiosity of the original and...pissed me off big time. And although they raked in millions more, they painted over the Mona Lisa to do it. Spielberg himself has remarked, "I should never have gone there." The third version, never released in theaters, is the Director's Cut. Though the purist in me wants to vote for the original theatrical version, in my eyes, it's the Director's Cut that works best. Not only did he remove the offensive ending, but he also added the few scenes from The Special Edition that I liked. GEEK NOTE: There is actually a fourth version, if you count the one they once ran on TV, which I believe included every scene from the first two versions.

I'd like to also point out that this Blu-ray set has some wonderful extras, including a 1hr 43 min documentary, deleted scenes, trailers...lots of stuff. Here's where you'll learn things like at one point there were cubes of light that were to act as "scouts" for the mothership. And the failed attempts at alien-making, like using marionettes and (ready for this?) how they tried to push an orangutan wearing a spandex alien costume and roller skates down a ramp. Too bad that footage isn't included, huh? Guess we'll have to wait for the 35th Anniversary Special Deluxe Platinum Super Premium Special (again) Limited Edition 14 Disk Blu-ray/DVD Combo + UltraViolet Digital Copy for that.

Written before, during and after JAWS, CE3K credits Spielberg as sole writer. But others did work on it at different stages, including ODD COUPLE TV writer Jerry Belson (not the first time Spielberg used a writer from THE ODD COUPLE. Carl Gottlieb co-wrote JAWS.). Richard Dreyfuss heard Spielberg yapping about his next movie while on the JAWS set, but he wasn't approached until other actors passed, like Steve McQueen (he said he couldn't cry on cue), Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino. Dreyfuss won the part because, as Spielberg would later explain, Dreyfuss is Spielberg. He's the child who won't grow up (not so true anymore, MUNICH-boy). This isn't the only Peter Pan thing (remember my earlier reference to Tinker Bell?). When we first meet Roy, he is trying to persuade his kids to see the reissue of PINOCCHIO in the theaters (they out-voted him in favor of Goofy Golf). And, in the Special Edition, you'll hear traces of WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR in John Williams' score during the end titles.

CE3K is one of the few movies where I actually enjoy product placement. There was enough plantings of Coke to scrub the mothership clean, and this was five years before the Coca-Cola Company bought Columbia pictures. Here's what I spotted: 1) A neon Coke sign, the only recognizable icon in the opening Sonora Desert scene. 2) A government big-rig disguised as a Coke truck (Piggly Wiggly and Baskin Robbins trucks as well). 3) There's even a can of Tab (a Coke product) in one of the trailers (an actual trailer, not a movie trailer). But something about these products provided a grounded normalcy for me. While all the unexplained phenomena are occurring, The Real Thing is there to make it a real thing. In the county-wide blackout scene, it's McDonald's that goes dark. The iconography of America, again, making it all real... and oddly comforting.

One thing always niggles at my thick skull; what was the point of Jillian taking pictures of the Brobdingnagian mothership with her Instamatic camera. Why is that in the movie? It never gets paid off. Was Spielberg already thinking sequel? If he was...or is...(and he shouldn't be)...he could certainly start with Roy's' return. The aliens seem to bring you back 34 years later (WWII pilots returned in 1977). Also, we can learn exactly how much the experience messed Barry up for life.

CE3K holds up very well. I think it's as new today as it was 34 years ago. And although I've seen the movie dozens of times (which answers the "How come I know so much?" question), I hadn't seen it in maybe 8 years. It was great seeing my old friend again. Man, he just gets better with age. Even the effects hang tough. I think these effects are better than most anything they make using CG today. This movie got everything right. But let's face it, though the effects are unbeatable, Vilmos Zsigmond's (and others) cinematography magical, John Williams score one of his best and Dreyfuss' performance, also, one of his best, its Spielberg who is the star of this movie. Why? Because although it is gigantic in scope, it's really a deeply personal movie (when he was a kid, his dad yanked him out of bed in the middle of the night to a field filled with strangers...all there to watch...a meteor shower.). In fact, it was James Lipton on INSIDE THE ACTORS STUDIO that asked Spielberg if communicating with the aliens through a computerized musical keyboard was an homage to his mom and dad (mom was a concert pianist, dad a computer programmer). This took Spielberg by total surprise. He'd never thought of that.

CE3K was made during his Blockbuster Era. This was a period when Spielberg's movies boiled over with emotion while entertaining the hell out of us. I mean, within five years he made JAWS, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and E.T. WOW! Let's see you do that! (Okay, he also made 1941...unWOW!) Additionally, with CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, he made a movie about aliens that are...friendly. Gone are all the Cold War metaphors and the fear and paranoia. Fear is replaced by joy here, and that takes skill. I'd like to see him make JURASSIC PARK with friendly dinosaurs.

After all these years, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND still fills me up. So much of what makes it work so well for me is that although it's technically a science fiction film, it's rooted in a real world with real emotions. There are moments of sadness (when his son silently cries while watching his dad go bananas at the dinner table, it can tear your heart out), but CE3K is joy-saturated, and made with, as the man himself said, "the optimism of childhood." And that's not just in the big picture sense but also in specific moments in the movie. Witness the way Roy tries to get his son to learn fractions or his giddy reaction after his close encounter. (AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is where Roy and I differ. I would have hid in a spider hole in Tikrit after witnessing what he did.) Also, Roy wasn't a cop (he was, in an earlier version of the script) and he wasn't played by whoever was the hot actor that year. He really was an average schmoe, just like you. This point leads me to:

In the great STAR WARS vs. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS debate, I always fall on the CE3K side. I'm not a fantasy guy (well, movie fantasy, anyway). STAR WARS, which came out only six months earlier, never did a thing for me. I mean, it was fun seeing it in the theater, but it takes a lot for me to care about robots and characters with nonsense names. For me to care about a character, he has to bleed and cry and laugh and, at very least, have feelings. Yes, he has to be human or possess human qualities, like E.T. and WALL•E. So yeah, STAR WARS doesn't excite me, but CE3K does. It makes me laugh and cry. It fills me full of wonder. It's one of my favorite movies, and if you're anything like me, a nut that never gets tired of the child-like wonderment not only in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS but in life itself, well I'm here to tell you - we are not alone.

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: FREDDY'S NIGHTMARES

We watched one of the 44 episodes of this late 80's low budget anthology show. Why? Because it had a pre-famous Brad Pitt, who was looking a tad Wham-y. What a piece of crap. Brad plays Rick, who has just eloped with Miranda...both determined to make it on their own. But in this ridiculous story, anything can happen (or are they dreaming? Or do we care?). It's one cheesy scene after another, with the synth music often mixed louder than the dialogue. Popping up in the show (literally, out of a manhole cover) is Freddy. But his appearances are meaningless and just silly. Yuck.

THE LAST TYCOON

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Mon, 02 May 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Your May Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: He has the power to make anyone's dream come true... except his own.

Pizza: Marcelino's

Preshow Entertainment: TREASURE ISLE

"GOD-DAMNED MOVIE EVEN PUTS THE EDITOR TO SLEEP."
-ROBERT MITCHUM AS PAT BRADY IN THE LAST TYCOON

I've always wanted to see THE LAST TYCOON (1976). It's got an amazing cast featuring De Niro, Nicholson, Mitchum, Milland, Tony Curtis (you can't just say Curtis, right?) and John Freakin' Carradine, yet the fact that this isn't a movie that everyone talks about all the time, or at all, made me suspicious as to its quality. It turns out that my suspicions were well founded. THE LAST TYCOON is a criminal outing whose makers (sadly, the ON THE WATERFRONT director-producer team of Elia Kazan and Sam Spiegel) should have been blacklisted. At first I thought it was me, that I had sat on the remote and pressed "pause" by accident. How dare anyone make such a somniferous movie, considering the people who were on board. There were enough red flags to restart the Soviet Union, but here are just four:

The only thing missing from this recipe for disaster is eye of newt.

Ironically, THE LAST TYCOON is the story of a movie studio honcho who has a Midas touch for making successful movies. Robert De Niro plays Monroe Stahr, studio cheese during Hollywood's Golden Age. It's no secret that this part is based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's friend Irving Thalberg, who was head of production for MGM. They even refer to Stahr as "The Boy Wonder," a nickname Thalberg had. Like Thalberg, Stahr has the knack for making movies that work, so says studio chief Marcus (Morgan Farley, who actually started acting in silents), a man so ancient that he must be carried in and out of rooms. Although he's the head of production for the studio, Stahr's life is dead. He lives alone (unless you count his manservant) in a Bel-Air mansion that's as drab as he is.

He even slept through an earthquake as plasterboard dust fell on him. But that temblor does end up shaking his world up. While inspecting damage to the studio, he spots extra Kathleen Moore (the beautiful Ingrid Boulting, now an artist based in Ojai), who reminds him of his dead wife. It's here that TYCOON takes a jarring turn and becomes a totally different movie. Suddenly, Stahr's obsession with Kathleen becomes a psychotic storyline as these two characters play a junior high tug-of-war for affection that's so labored and soapy that I found myself saying, out loud, "These two morons deserve each other."

Meanwhile, complications arise when the Writers Guild of America begins its battle with Hollywood over things like collective bargaining, credits and residuals for internet downloads (wait, I think those came later). Stahr won't have any of this ("I'll give them money, but I won't give them power."), but he's distracted by Kathleen. Thalberg himself actually said "The guilds will be established over my dead body."

Hey look! A trained seal! Why am I saying "a trained seal" out of nowhere?? Because out of nowhere comes a scene with a trained seal...on the dock in a restaurant. That's just goofy. This whole fucking movie belongs on the deleted scenes section of the DVD. Anyway...

So union strong-arm Brimmer (Jack Nicholson) is coming to town to meet with Stahr. Don't let me mislead you - Jack and Bobby (yeah, I know) are only in the movie together for maybe 15 minutes, which these two powerhouse actors spend doing a metric ton of nothing. SIDENOTE: De Niro would do this again in 1995's HEAT with Al Pacino...a three hour movie that had them sharing the screen together for a colossal six minutes.

Anyway...besides the union, more conflicts arise. Studio exec (it's unclear where the seniority lies) Pat Brady's (Robert Mitchum) daughter Cecelia (Theresa Russell, in her first role) has a crush on Stahr. Rodriguez (Tony Curtis), the star of one of Stahr's movies, comes to him with his problem of impotence, though I'm not sure what he expected Stahr to do about that. And Stahr himself is sick, witnessed by his pills and his doctor saying, "Any pain?" For a movie filled with conflicts, you'd think there would be some emotion, something to give us a reason to care. About anybody. But nothing creates any wind. It all just lays there, and then evaporates.

Eventually, Stahr's obsession with Kathleen begins to affect his business, as he repeatedly cancels appointments and leaves parties before he's meant to.

I suppose the subtext is that Stahr's old school mogulicious ways are over (hence the title), giving rise to a new Hollywood. This is symbolized by Kathleen's entrance; atop a giant Egyptian head that is floating off the set, due to a flood caused by the earthquake. A giant head, out of control and helplessly floating away. But the heavy-handed symbolism doesn't end there. Stahr is building a house by the ocean, a house that's right now just a shell. The house he can't seem to finish, the life he can't seem to complete. And what are Stahr and Brimmer doing while opposing each other's views? Playing a game of ping pong, of course.

Stuck in this squib of a movie that should have been an M-80 are some fine actors, all trying to CPR this corpse. I'm sorry if I'm going overboard here, but come on - De Niro had just done GODFATHER II and Nicholson ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. We didn't deserve this. Or better yet, they didn't. De Niro's not even near good in this movie...answering people's questions as if he were being given a lie detector test. At times he even seemed to be channeling Pacino (who passed on the role).

Tige Andrews (MOD SQUAD boss) and Ray Milland (it took me a while to recognize him with his absence of hair) played studio suits (again, it's never made clear what the pecking order of authority among the moguls were). Angelica (that's how she spelled it then) Huston played Edna, the girl Stahr accidentally called when he was searching for Kathleen. Tony Curtis and Jeanne Moreau (who we saw last year in THE BRIDE WORE BLACK) played the actors, Dana Andrews (the lead in RMC super-fave HOT RODS TO HELL) was emasculated director Red Ridingwood (his last name was never mentioned in the movie, but he does get eaten by the wolf - Stahr). John Carradine was a tour guide, and Seymour Cassel the seal trainer.

THE LAST TYCOON'S disdain for writers is boundless. From the "bastard" writer dating Cecelia, to Brady saying that "writers will sell each other out for a nickel", to Stahr saying "All writers are children. Fifty percent are drunks...", to staff writer Wiley (Peter Strauss) being useless in Stahr's eyes, to alcoholic novel writer Boxley (Donald Pleasence) who's out of his depth writing screenplays. Perhaps, no, not perhaps...surely this is because Fitzgerald himself couldn't quite connect to being a screenwriter, though he did connect with the alcohol part. In fact, the more I ponder, the more it seems like the entire film is an in-joke that drowns in the Ironic Ocean. Permit me: Stahr explains to Boxley that movies should use action over words. He even acts a scene out by himself to demonstrate. Yet, THE LAST TYCOON itself is devoid of any action whatsoever (okay, someone gets punched once). There's also a time when Stahr complains about a line of dialogue in a film being screened; "'Nor have I?' Who talks like that?" Well, nearly everyone in THE LAST TYCOON does. Also, as mentioned, producer Spiegel didn't let Kazan change the script, yet Stahr spends his days doctoring scripts.

I counted only two amusing scenes (and that was by comparison) in THE LAST TYCOON. One was the one I just mentioned, where De Niro acts out a scene for embittered and embattled screenwriter Boxley. The second is a movie-within-a-movie, parroting CASABLANCA to clever and even comic effect. "Wow, this could have been a good movie if there were more scenes like this," says I.

I love Elia Kazan, even though he named names. I just saw PINKY recently. What a great movie. Not as good as ON THE WATERFRONT or A FACE IN THE CROWD, or my favorite, A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN (an astonishing first feature). Kazan understood people. He was an actor's director (he co-founded the Actor's Studio). He knew how to tell a story, usually while crusading for something. Yep, Kazan knew how to do everything. Except stay retired.

Preshow Entertainment: TREASURE ISLE

This was a game show from the 60s. I don't know how or why I remembered it so well. In fact, I've been trying to track it down for years. I even went to the Museum of Broadcasting to see if they had it in their catalog. They didn't. Maybe because I thought the name was TREASURE ISLAND and not TREASURE ISLE. In any case, I finally got my hands on a few episodes. It cost me ten bucks but it was well worth it.

Shot on film and in black and white weren't the only cool things. This game show was shot outdoors, on a series of small man-made islands. Two young couples went through three rounds of games involving skill (though I remember jet skis, this episode had the men rowing boats, while the women popped balloons they found in the water). Then they had to piece a giant jigsaw puzzle together. The winning couple has the final round to themselves, choosing compass points to dig under, revealing clues to locate tiny, prize-bearing treasure chests in the sand.

The show was hosted by John Bartholomew Tucker, who I remember thinking was so cool. He wore a large mike on a lanyard, and had scruffy hair. His announcer called him JBT.

Researching the show now, I've come to learn that it was filmed in Singer Island, where my parents wound up getting a timeshare. Hell, if I knew I stayed on the same land that they shot TREASURE ISLE on, I would have, well, I guess I wouldn't have cared all that much. But it's sort of a cool thing. And now that I saw the show again, for the first time since I was 10 years old, I feel like I've unearthed my own buried treasure.

BART GOT A ROOM

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Your April Unrandom Movie Club results are in!

TAGLINE: NONE

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: BOOKED FOR SAFEKEEPING

PIZZA: Big Mama's and Big Papa's

I LIKED BART GOT A ROOM.
IT'S A COMING OF AGE FILM
WE'RE HUGHES TO.

BART GOT A ROOM (don't let the title foolya, Bart is hardly in the movie at all) is a charming and funny movie. A high school senior, Danny Stein (Steven Kaplan), needs a prom date. Confused about the whole love thing, Danny turns down the invite from his best friend for half of his life, Camille (Alia Shawkat), in favor of...anyone else. The hot cheerleader, the Asian whose writing assignments are borderline porn and whose prom rules are insane, and a blind date set up by friends. Anyone but Camille. But you see, that's a real life moment. It's your prom, and that picture, well, it lasts forever. And the legacy of what happens that evening as well. Why not try for the hot chick? Not that Camille isn't hot (especially if you have a thing for freckles), she's just kinda...like family. I mean, they met when they were nine. Plus all the guys are renting hotel rooms for the night. What would Danny do with his friend Camille? Play a drunken game of Boggle?

What I'm trying to say is that this scenario has played out in high schools since proms were held in caves and boys asked girls by hitting them over the head with clubs. But we don't have to go back that many years, as BART is a fictionalized version of actual events that happened to writer/director Brian Hecker. I myself am not a prom promoter, as I never went to mine. By that time, I was already years into my career as an anti-traditionalist snob, but I digress...

So Danny's confused and Camille's hurt, and it doesn't help either of them that they are running the prom committee. They seem to always be blowing up balloons, making centerpieces and reporting on the prom as they co-anchor their school's morning bulletins. Also not making things easier, the pressure Danny's feeling from every angle. His friend Craig (Brandon Hardesty) is the one who plants the bigness of the evening into Danny's brain. Even Danny's relatives chime in, with his grandmother (I'm guessing) verbally pecking at him (as all Jewish grandmothers must do) - "ya got a cute girlfriend??", and his grandfather (also guessing) declaring at the breakfast table; "Cause that's a big night! I lost my virginity that night!"

Danny's parents have recently divorced, which means they too are looking for their own versions of prom dates. His mom Beth (Cheryl Hines, Larry David's CURB ex-wife) has settled on Bob (character actor Joe Polito, who is in the movie because he's in everything ever made). And while she seems to have settled less on looks and more on pragmatism, Dad Ernie (William H. Macy, the highlight of the movie, chewing up the scenery just right), plays the numbers game, even going so far as chatrooms. Ernie's a bit tilted, often offering his son less than appropriate advice. He brings a lot of his dates (they don't seem to make it to Date 2...even Jennifer Tilly!) with him when he sups with Danny. Like his son, Ernie is trying to snag something, and perhaps as Danny's prom clock ticks, so does Ernie's middle-aged-ness. Talking about his own upcoming blind date, Ernie, who is now desperate, says, "She may turn out to be hideous, but at this point...you know..." SIDENOTE: The deadpan looks on his dates' faces as Macy delivers his lines are killer funny.

BART takes place in Hollywood Florida, a place I'm more than familiar with. Home of Early Bird specials and retired Jews in golf carts or walkers and pants-suited women waiting on deli lines for sturgeon. It's Alta-Caca-Ville. The look of the film, with its abundance of flamingos (or are they egrets?) and Deco pastels (the wardrobe, too), forced me to think this was a period piece at first (the cell phone was the giveaway). And that goes for the music as well, opening up with Danny and his school orchestra playing Louis Prima's SING SING SING in the bandshell by the beach for whoever happens to be there to listen. Hell, Danny even takes care of himself while I'M GETTING SENTIMENTAL OVER YOU plays on the soundtrack.

So Danny is stuck, not just in this town where he's reminded it's not uncommon to see someone leaving their house in an ambulance (sometimes even in a body bag), but he's also just plain stuck. Case in point; when his geeky car breaks down, he transports himself by riding his geeky bike, which also breaks down. He can only get so far in this geriatric town. So yeah, Danny's stuck in general, but the prom, that's more pressing at the moment.

For his first choice, Danny shoots miles over his head with Alice, a cheerleader he drives to school every day, who tells him that he's like his car - "a reliable old Buick." Alice is played by Ashley Benson, who made BART between movies BRING IT ON: IN IT TO WIN IT and FAB FIVE: THE TEXAS CHEERLEADER SCANDAL, making her the go-to cheer-actor. But does he have a shot? Alice has told Danny what a nice guy he is, and even hinted about the prom. She's also reading (highlighting the Cliff's Notes, actually) ROMEO AND JULIET, and feels comfy enough to change her clothes in the car while Danny drives. And let's not discount the way she works her Baskin Robbins cone. But she turns him down in a scene borrowed from Woody's PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM ("How did I misread those signs?").

His friends, chunky Craig and rail-thin Abby (Garfunkel and Oates member Kate Micucci) set him up on a blind date, cautioning him that whatever he does, do not be late. So our little mensch shows up 45 minutes early.

Newcomer Kaplan plays Danny like a pro. So much of a role like this is reaction over action, which is harder, says me. But Kaplan, a young Patrick Dempsey/Michael Imperioli mutt, is comfortable with the character (perhaps he can relate), so he does fine carrying this movie. But the big credit goes to writer/director Brian Hecker. I have no idea who he is and why he's only made one film. Well, I suppose he's only made one film because with BART, they didn't even turn the radar on for it to fly under. In spite of that, Hecker made a completely amiable movie, and though it doesn't exactly conquer new countries, I laughed out loud many times.

BART, which had a limited theatrical release in 2009, is a short (79 minutes, and 10% of that is end credits) and sweet movie obviously influenced by Woody Allen (Cheryl Hines sure seems to be wearing a Mia Farrow wig and Macy a Tony Roberts one) and John Hughes (lots of SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL/PRETTY IN PINK here). But I'd say Hecker learned (and took) from them while keeping the tone of the movie just right. So yes, hijinks ensue (perhaps it's more like mediumjinks), but not to AMERICAN PIE boiling points. BART's tone is movie-exaggerated. Sure, Macy is over the top at times, but it's all very digestible.

The only times I thought this movie went a bit too far was when Danny's mom buys her son a hotel room for prom night and his dad buys him a hooker for a prom date. Though I may buy the former (since mom learns that even Bart, the campus hobbledehoy, got a room), I have a really tough time with Ernie buying a hooker for his kid's prom date. But it doesn't matter, because BART is chockablock with little moments. I particularly loved one of Ernie's date's babies in that odd hoodie.

Here's the trailer: http://tinyurl.com/cbc3rr

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: BOOKED FOR SAFEKEEPING

This is sort of a PSA, but it's not. It's more like an instructional film, or maybe training film or an educational film. Whatever it was meant to be, it's one of the oddest things I've seen in a long time. What makes it so nuts is that this short is acted by actors who don't really seem to be actors...and if they're not, well, they don't seem like real people either. Confused? So am I. The combination of the way everyone speaks and moves - the overall woodeness - as well as the lengthy (practically real time) scenes give BOOKED FOR SAFEKEEPING a parallel universe feel.

The half-hour short recreates New Orleans police officers dealing with mentally ill people, like the woman stealing fruit or the man who locks himself in his apartment with a knife, sure that those damn neighbors are after him.

BOOKED FOR SAFEKEEPING was written and directed by George Stoney, who was a documentary film teacher at NYU when I was there. I just looked him up. He's 96 and still active in the film community. There's even a George Stoney Award each year.

The moral of the story - patience, talking and reasoning will help diffuse the violent actions of disturbed people. But the truth is, after watching this movie, I'm a little disturbed myself.

Here it is, if you dare: http://tinyurl.com/3tgq42q

AFTER HOURS

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Your April Random Movie Club Results Are In!

TAGLINE: What if that date you thought would never end, didn't?

NICELY DUNNE, MARTY

Before I get into Martin Scorsese's movie AFTER HOURS (1985); a story. I once worked with this guy Bob who liked Danielle, another employee. Bob expressed interest in her drawings, so she brought them in to show him. We all knew Bob couldn't give a shit about Danielle's drawings, but when he looked at them, he said things like "I can't believe how great these are!" and "You are so talented!" It was pitiful and transparent...and the same thing any guy would say to get into Danielle's pants. It didn't work for Bob. It rarely works, but we do it anyway, because all guys are Bob. All guys are Poor Dumb Schmucks. Speaking of which:

Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) sits in his unsatisfying job where he's training someone who actually tells him he won't be staying with the company much longer. When Paul leaves his office building, two custodians in matching jumpsuits close the gigantic gates behind him. It's as if he was released from Shawshank. Bromidic Paul needs to breakout, but as is well known, some inmates don't survive on the outside.

He stops at an eatery where he spots a woman, Marcy (Rosanna "Why hasn't anyone written a song about me this week?" Arquette), sitting alone. Seeing an opportunity (easier, as they bond on the book he is reading - TROPIC OF CANCER), he makes his move with some awkward talk about Henry Miller. And like my ex-co-worker Bob, Paul pretends to be interested in buying a bagel paperweight from Kiki (Linda Fiorentino), a sculptress whose loft Marcy is staying at. All would have been fine if Paul would have just gone home, but instead the Poor Dumb Schmuck, in hopes of getting laid, calls Marcy. This act sets off a Rube Goldberg chain of events that gets more preposterous (in a fun way) as the evening wears on. And like Dorothy over the rainbow, his journey won't be so easy.

Nearly everyone who crosses his path seems to want to help Paul, but ends up turning on him.

Among these neurotic nocturnal nutcases are John Heard (his kicking-the-register scene makes me laugh out loud), the comically delicious Catherine O'Hara as Gail who is an ice cream vendor with an obnoxious view of playfulness, Will Patton (most memorable as Gene Hackman's wingman in NO WAY OUT) as Kiki's leather-vested friend Horst and Teri Garr as waitress Julie, with go-go dancer chic and an apartment to match (witness the lava lamp, inflatable lips and cans of Aqua Net...and just wait'll you see what she keeps by her bed).

Also making things hard on Paul are Richard Anthony Marin and Thomas B. Kin Chong, a/k/a Cheech & Chong, who provide the rhythm of the film. Oh! And horror film ubiqui-tite Dick Miller plays the diner guy! Miller can be seen in four billion movies, largely because it is considered good luck to cast him in your film. Just ask Tarantino, Cameron, Dante, Scorsese, and especially Corman.

I've always loved Griffin Dunne. Maybe it's because he produced and had a small part in CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER, a sleeper film I adore. Or maybe because he and producing partner Amy Robinson were customers at the video store I worked at. Or maybe it's because he always gives just the right amount of acting, not too much, not too little. He was so much fun in AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and other movies, though I never did see his performance in ME AND HIM, where he plays a guy whose penis talks to him. How did I miss that? Never mind that, how did I not sue?

Roseanna Arquette was on fire from DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN out only months earlier. Her portrayal of Marcy is spot on. I mean, who hasn't known a ditz'n'damaged girl like this? Arquette must have, because she sure nailed it. It makes you want to scream, "Paul! I know you want to get some Marcy-tail, but...run!!!" CASTING NOTE: John Heard and Catherine O'Hara would later play Macauley Culkin's parents in HOME ALONE.

So much of AFTER HOURS comedy is dry and lo-fi, like when Paul suspects Marcy of being a burn victim only to have her enter seconds later holding a candle with a ridiculously high flame. Or when Paul goes to take the subway home and the subway clerk informs him that the fare went up at midnight and won't let him pass. Paul begs him, "Who'd know?" The clerk responds, "I could go to a party, get drunk, talk to someone, who knows?" Another great moment, towards the end, when Paul's just about given up on life. He puts a quarter in the jukebox, and seconds later, from the speakers in the empty bar - Peggy Lee's IS THAT ALL THERE IS?

Then there are the more overt moments, like when the events of the night hit a crescendo, and Paul witnesses through a window, a la Hitchcock, a woman shooting a man multiple times. After a beat, he says to himself, "I'll probably get blamed for that." Another bright spot is Arquette's monologue about her ex-husband, a WIZARD OF OZ freak who would yell out "Surrender Dorothy!" when he orgasms. Toldya Paul was Dorothy.

If you ever wondered what it would be like if Scorsese made a student film, I mean, besides the student films he made when he was a student, this is your movie. It was, from what I've read and heard, exhilarating for Marty, whose AFTER HOURS experience confirmed that not every picture has to be a huge shoot with big budgets and even bigger actors.

He was hungry to go back to his beginnings, like, say, MEAN STREETS. In fact, AFTER HOURS was made only because THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST was killed (he'd go on and make it three years later). But don't let the fact that this relatively short (eight weeks) shoot make you think it was easy. AFTER HOURS is a deceptively complicated film. For one, it was almost entirely a night shoot, from sundown to sun-up. Also, Scorsese had storyboarded all 600 shots, the final one (in the film) being the antecedent to the Copa Shot in GOODFELLAS. Though a few of the deleted scenes are on the DVD (I thought they were all funny), they ended up cutting at least 45 minutes out for pacing's sake. Killing your babies is probably a good idea in a movie like this.

Personally, I'd much rather see Scorsese make more movies like this instead of, well, anything he's made in the last 20 years (see my uncontrollable Scorsese rant here). A personal story where we get to watch things happen to an average guy, instead of Daniel Day Lewis with a funny mustache, DiCaprio with a funny accent, or De Niro with yet another gun.

AFTER HOURS has become a bit of a time capsule. Two leathery guys making out and groping at the bar was a bit more rare in a 1985 film than today. Hell, gay bars, or gays for that matter, and S & M clubs were rug-swept topics. Today's noses won't smell AFTER HOURS' 1980's New York City, specifically, SoHo.

Watching this movie again, 25 years later, made me realize how ahead of its time AFTER HOURS was. There weren't many films made with a character like this; an everyman sad sack who spirals downward, usually because of themselves. Perhaps Jaques Tati and Peter Sellers. But since then, we've had Steve Carell, Ricky Gervais, Larry David, and on and on. Not to mention the too many teen movies where a guy, trying to get a girl, gets himself into more and more trouble. I suppose the formula's been around since the caves, but for me, AFTER HOURS was one of the first ones to work so well. Maybe because instead of going for the laughs, they went for the tone. It's not a balls out comedy. In fact, the comedy is subtle and mildly absurdist.

I suppose it would be remiss of me to not mention the lawsuit AFTER HOURS got slapped with. From what I understand, writer Joseph Minion cribbed the whole set-up (first third of the movie) from radio personality Joe Frank's story called LIES. I don't know how this could have happened, unless Minion lied about LIES (he didn't...I think Minion's script was actually called LIES). Maybe he never thought he'd sell the script, and when he did, he never thought they'd make the movie. Or maybe he just never thought to tell anyone, and no one would notice. But Frank noticed, and although he still gets no writing credit, he's said to have been paid well (read: paid off).

AFTER HOURS is more than an all-nightmare of events. Like the night itself, there are things lurking out there that we never notice. This is what can happen when we step out of our comfortable (or dull) lives to pull back the Wizard's curtain.

By the way, remember my co-workers Bob and Danielle? Well, here's how that story ended. Bob turned out to be a major asshole, and I ended up going out with Danielle. The moral of my story is the same as the one in AFTER HOURS - Don't be a Poor Dumb Schmuck. Be yourself. Not Bob.

MEMENTO

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Your March Unrandom Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: Some Memories Are Best Forgotten

Preshow Entertainment: GOOD EATING HABITS, A VISIT TO SANTA

Pizza: Big Mama's and Papa's

"NOW, WHERE WAS I?"
-LEONARD SHELBY

Most movies like this are 100% pretentious, out-hipping other movies to the point where they out-hip themselves. But MEMENTO never for a second comes across that way. Nope. It's invisibly hip. Okay, I've gone on long enough. Let me end by saying this; if you're going to watch MEMENTO, strap in and don't let go, because you're in for one of the best movie rides of your life.

Before I finish, there's one more cool thing about MEMENTO I'd like to tell you about, one that RMCer Dawn spotted. It's at the very end of the B & W/Jenkis story, when he is sitting in a chair in the home, happily oblivious. Someone walks between him and the camera, and for a split second (and I really mean split), Jenkis is replaced by Leonard. Yep, there's Lenny, sitting in the chair. Nicely done, Dawn and Christopher! But it also makes me wonder...what else have I missed?

MEMENTO is filled with irony ("I always thought that the pleasure of reading a book was not to know what happens next.") and comedy (when he gets ripped off by clerk Burt who tells him "Always get a receipt," Leonard responds with "That's good advice. I'll have to write that down."). Also, Pantoliano's delivery on just about every line will just make you laugh. My favorite scene, well, I can't give it away, but it has to do with Natalie sitting in the car, after she hid the pencils. Wow! But even if you've seen this movie, would you remember that scene now, Alanis? That's because there are so many details in MEMENTO that we can't possibly pick up on it all in just one sitting. I watched this movie three times this week and am still noticing things, which just makes this movie better with each viewing. Fortunately, we have a movie to watch back, which raises the question; Why didn't Leonard buy a camcorder instead of taking Polaroids? That seems a bit archaic. In fact, mere months after MEMENTO was released Polaroid filed Chapter 11. And with the digital age, haven't we already become a MEMENTO culture? How many of us have taken pictures of numbered/lettered columns in parking structures to remember where we parked?

Guy Pearce gives a stunning performance as the ever-determined Leonard, whose last retrievable memory is of his wife being murdered. Every stroke, every nuance, every tic Pearce does seems right on the money, down to the way he writes on the Polaroids (he makes an E with a top line first, then attaches an L, then finishes it by adding the middle stroke...which is probably the way Pearce writes, though who's to say?). Steven Tobolowsky, normally a comic character actor (remember his turn in GROUNDHOG DAY..."Phil!!"...another movie whose segments repeat as the protagonist tries to figure out what's going on) throws in a heartbreaking performance as does his movie-wife played by Harriet Sansom Harris.

Nolan directed the remake of INSOMNIA starring Robin Williams and Hilary Swank as well as the new wave of holy BATMAN movies (BEGINS, THE DARK KNIGHT and the upcoming DARK KNIGHT RISES) that seemingly everyone but me went batty over. But it's MEMENTO that will, according to my tattoos, be the best movie he'll ever make. No Riddler will ever create a puzzle this exquisite. MEMENTO is a writer/director's tour de force. Also check out his first movie called FOLLOWING. It's a 70 minute (does that make it a movie?) outing that is absolutely wonderful and a great stepping stone for MEMENTO. Trust me.

(Okay, it's time for me to play with time now. I just watched MEMENTO again, this time in chronological order. Less confusing? Wrong! It's the same jigsaw puzzle, but with different pieces. Amazing. )

Director Christopher Nolan slathers the film in neo-noir, exemplified in moments like when Leonard gets knocked out; as the blood seeps out of his skull the camera moves away from his head to a frame filled with the mosaic pattern of the bathroom floor (mosaic is a great image for this movie). And as Nolan juggles all these slippery balls, he covers the movie with quick inserts like the turning of a desk phone or the tossing of sunglasses on a table, jarring us, sometimes subliminally (yet another great word for this movie). The script (from a story by Nolan's brother Jonathan) demands that each scene is as important as the one before (err, after), which is good news for actors, as it's nearly impossible to wind up on the cutting room floor. Nolan's eye is sharp, and telling the story backwards isn't simply a gag for us to enjoy, it puts us inside Leonard's skin. And if you think the plot doesn't matter, think again. And again. And again. This story is great even if it were told chronologically, as I'm about to put to the test, as the 2002 "limited edition" DVD has a way to watch it so. That's the secret as to why MEMENTO is so momentous. It's not a gimmick movie. It's a clever movie that has a gimmick.

While this retro-plot continues, a whole other story is being played out, shot in black and white. These sequences, alternating with the color ones, go forward in time and introduce us to Sammy Jenkis (Steven Tobolowsky). We learn about Sammy from Leonard himself as he is talking on the phone (but to whom?). Sammy also suffered from anterograde amnesia, and Leonard was the insurance investigator assigned to his case, making Leonard fully aware of his own condition. It's this subplot (hmm, I suppose it's more of an anecdote) of Sammy's that provides the heartwarming and devastating arc of the movie, which is a terrific contrast to Leonard's psychotropic journey.

Not easily, that's how! Imagine waking up in a room, not knowing where, or who you're waking up next to (well, maybe you can relate to that). Imagine opening a closet door to find a man bound and bloodied, only to learn it was you who did the binding and bloodying (well, maybe you can relate to that, too). Imagine not being able to trust people who want to help you because the only proof you have is them saying they want to help you. And this happens to you every time you stop thinking about what you're thinking about. Additionally, you must constantly deal with the loss of your wife and this wicked, hellbent revenge you can't shake.

First up: Teddy (Joe Pantoliano), Leonard's obnoxious friend (though Leonard can't remember him) who is helping him find John G., the man who killed his wife. Then there's the fiery Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss) who has also suffered the loss of a loved one (both miss feeling the warmth of the bed next to them when their mate leaves for the bathroom). Hotel clerk Burt (Mark Boone Junior), who decides to rip Leonard off by renting him two rooms, knowing he won't remember. And just who is this Dodd guy, and why is Leonard chasing him? Or is Dodd chasing Leonard? Can one of these people be setting Leonard up? Two of them? All of them? Hell, with his freak show condition, it could very well be none of them. How will Leonard untangle this knotty adventure?

As Leonard tries to unravel every riddle, he meets some not-so-usual suspects; all noir-y, all suspicious:

Guy Pearce plays Leonard Shelby, a man with anterograde amnesia, which means his long term is fine but his short term memory is gone. That's why he pushes instead of pulls on a door that he's gone through before (Ted Baxter did that too, but he was just stupid), or puts on a shirt that isn't his, and bangs his arm against a wall when he awakens (whenever he awakens, it's in a strange room, no matter how many times he's been there before).

He can't make new memories, so in order to remember things, Leonard either takes Polaroids and scribbles notes on them, or tattoos info directly onto his body to make them permanent (a bit of a stretch, but way cool). Why so extreme for a guy with memory loss? Well, because someone clocked him when he tried to stop them from raping and murdering his wife. Now, he is attempting to piece it all together one short-term fragment after (or before?) another. So after each segment, we jump cut to what led us there (which happened previously, yet we see it after). That said, MEMENTO opens with the end of the story; Leonard killing a guy named Teddy, who he believes to be the culprit. And since we know how it ends, the journey itself becomes the real mystery. MEMENTO is a howdoeshefindoutwhodunit?

Before I even begin this write-up about MEMENTO, let's make sure we're on the same page here. MEMENTO is not that mint with the goofy 80s ads (The Freshmaker!). Nope, MEMENTO (or as its known in Canada, "Mémento") is a 113 minute jigsaw puzzle that uses tattoos and Polaroids as its pieces. And because this murder/revenge tale is told backwards (reverse increments, actually), while part is told in forward motion, it just makes it even more smart and fun. If you're confused watching this movie (or reading the previous sentence), you're not alone. With MEMENTO (2000), it's not only okay to be confused, it's required. It's a good kind of lost. No, it's a great kind of lost.

Preshow Entertainment: GOOD EATING HABITS, A VISIT TO SANTA

These are two ephemeral short films from 1951 and 1963. The first, GOOD EATING HABITS, is a cautionary tale about not eating slowly and chewing thoroughly, even if it's bacon with toast slathered with butter. You see, Father, Mother, Carol and Bill are having supper (I want to call it supper from now on, instead of dinner. It just sounds so much cooler.). But Bill's not hungry. Why, he can't even have fun playing with his train set before going to bed. Yep. Bill has a stomach ache. Why? Well, like MEMENTO, we'll have to go back and find out. If you want to find out why Bill has a stomach ache: http://tinyurl.com/3dfbthz

A VISIT TO SANTA (presented by Clem Williams, whoever he is) is about Dick and Ann, who wonder if Santa got their letter. He did, for there he is reading the letter up in the North Pole! And who could have guessed that the North Pole would look so much like a 60s living room!

Santa, a horrible actor, and his elf, even worse, decide it's okay for Dick and Ann to visit him. So the elf kidnaps the kids and takes them to the North Pole. Click HERE to see this film and its amazing pre-ILM North Pole effects.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE (1942)

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Your March Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: None

Pizza: Papa John's

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: IT WAS 40 YEARS AGO TODAY

BENNY HAHA

Don't ask me why I've never seen the original version of TO BE OR NOT TO BE (1942). I have no idea. It was just one of many movies that seemed to slip through the cracks, though I did manage to find time to watch LITTLE WITCHES five times. But tonight, the Random Movie Generator was kind, and it spat out this classic movie. And it was well worth the wait.

'Twas another fun crowd, which was perfect because TBONTB is a fun movie starring Jack Benny (one of my all-time favorite comedians) and Carole Lombard. It begins with two misleads (see for yourself, I'm not telling) featuring a bunch of funny lines and visuals, especially the first exchange between Benny and Lombard. Only five minutes had gone by when I found myself hoping this movie would go on forever.

Benny stars as thespi-ham Joseph Tula, an actor in a Polish theater troupe caught in the act, literally (though I'm not quite sure if it was Act 1 or Act 2), when war breaks out. His wife, the equally vain Maria Tula (Lombard), has a young admirer, Sobinski (Robert Stack), which irks the hell out of Joseph - not so much that Sobinski is interested in his wife, but that Sobinski leaves the audience every time Joseph begins his HAMLET soliloquy. It's a laugh-out-loud moment and luckily, happens more than once.

But then...bum-bum-buuuummmm...the movie gets serious. It actually goes from comedy to spy movie then circles back to farce as the movie pits a troupe of actors against troops of Nazis. TO BE OR NOT TO BE is funny and serious, making it a Prius of entertainment. Benny himself is absent from the screen from minutes 21 through 43. That's a lot of time for a comedy to go without any comedy. But when he's on, he's on.

Odder than having such a funny/serious movie is the fact that it works so well. I laughed at the funny parts and followed the dramatic ones intently. Suffice to say that there's a spy among the Polish bomber squadron, and Sobinski is rushed back to Warsaw to expose him before the spy demolishes the underground.

Joesph Tula, on the other hand, has both of his problems to deal with - Germany moves in on Poland and Sobinski moves in on Maria. And Sobinski's declaration that he "can drop three tons of dynamite in two minutes" is one helluva aphrodisiac for her.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE isn't the only movie that switches genre gears. It was common back then. Why, even here at RMC we watched a movie called ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON which did the same. Watched now, these movies seem a bit queer by today's standards. Not many hold up. But this one does, and credit goes to everyone, starting with writers Edwin Justus Mayor and Melchior Lengyel, who built a really funny story around such a serious subject...that was still in full swing when the movie was released. Directed under the masterful hand of Wilder/Wyler contemporary Ernst Lubitsch, a man who knew comedy and how to make it. I even loved the score by Werner R. Heymann (with an uncredited assist from the great Miklos Rozsa), which sounded to me like a cross between Max Steiner's KING KONG and any Marx Brothers movie, which makes sense because...Prius, remember?.

Then there's the actors, like the always funny Sig Ruman (I actually recognized him from his voice), a German character actor that you may know from many things, like (speaking of Marx Brothers) A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA. My buddy Sig does an hilarious take as Gestapo agent Ehrhardt. Robert Stack was more like Robert Lack, but that was more because of his role - a young and naive soldier with bravado. All the players were so much fun, like Felix Bressart as Greenburg, relegated to carrying a spear instead of performing the role of Shylock in HAMLET. But fear not, for soon his world would be a stage.

But the real jewel is the team of Benny and Lombard. For amid all the shelling and spying, they have their own problems, and these two pros play it all perfectly. Lombard's Maria Tula is wonderfully crafted, written and acted. She's funny and sharp while often pretending to not know it. And Benny fits perfectly into the shoes of the jealous husband/overdone actor.

Sadly, Benny didn't fare nearly as well in movies as he did on radio and later on TV. Back in December 2003, RMC picked HOLLYWOOD REVUE OF 1929 featuring Benny as the emcee...and aside from the time capsule of it all, it was kind of painful for us to sit through.

TBONTB is probably Benny's most revered movie, but when it was released it was a critic's feeding frenzy, or as they'd say in the movie - "a catastrophe!" Another reason it was a wash at the time (besides, as mentioned earlier, that it was a comedy about the war while the war was on) was because of costar Carole Lombard, who didn't even get to see it open. Her plane crashed into a mountain while she was on a war bonds tour of the states. So the movie had a bad taste for a few reasons.

Benny, a Jew born Benjamin Kubelsky, dons a Nazi uniform in the movie. As odd a choice as this seems to someone who wasn't alive at the time, it wasn't uncommon, as everyone from The Three Stooges to Bugs Bunny riffed on the Fuhrer during the war. And they were all Jewish (well, Mel Blanc was....not sure about the actual rabbit).

This movie is so much better than the Mel Brooks unsubtle, uninspired and painfully schtick-laden 1983 remake, with featured jokes a blind man could see coming from a continent away.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE certainly deserves its 'classic' label. It's clever and funny and holds up incredibly well. It's sad that its original release had to suffer the slings and arrows of the concurrent war as well as Lombard's recent death. I suppose in a way the film plays better now than it did then. Not that I would know for sure. I'm not that old.

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: IT WAS 40 YEARS AGO TODAY

There's something spectacular going on in a high school in Huntington Beach, California. The music program has its very own Rock School (APA MMET - Academy For the Performing Arts, Music Media and Entertainment Technology), where students perform an evening of entertainment that will make you cry tears of joy. I've seen a few of these live (most recently, they did the a "The Beatles Go to The Movies" show, performing the whole LET IT BE chunk on a rooftop set). Fortunately, they produce and sell DVDs of their shows, and I thought it was high time we watched one without having to schlep down to HB. We chose a Beatles performance from 2007, skipping an assortment of songs in Act One for the SGT. PEPPER show in Act Two. The kids performed exact arrangements of these songs. The Beatles themselves never did that live.

Out of the gate, the title track rocked with lead singer Cameron Cornell fronting drums, bass, three keyboards, guitars and two backing vocalists. Swapping out singers and players throughout the evening, these high schoolers schooled us. They even wore hair and wardrobe of the era, and some gave their songs a Liverpudlian bend ("I have to admit it's getting be-tah").

I thought all the performances were terrific (some more than others, as with any band). When SHE'S LEAVING HOME came on, a violin and upright bass joined in. I can't imagine how incredible it must feel to be a part of this.

Even the DVD itself is professional, letting you download mp3s of the show.

We made it halfway through before the pizza arrived and we had to shut it off and start watching TO BE OR NOT TO BE.

Now, I don't have kids, so I can't really experience those genuine moments of parental pride. But if I'm sitting here watching a DVD teary-eyed, I can't imagine what actual parents go through. I surely would have embarrassed my kid.

PAPER HEART

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Your February Unrandom Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: A story about love that's taking on a life of its own.

Pizza: Valley Pizzaland

Preshow Entertainment: JANEANE GARAFOLO: IF YOU WILL

LIFE IMITATES ART IN PAPER HEART,
A KAUFMANESQUE
(CHARLIE AND ANDY)
LOVE STORY

What an oddball and totally likable little movie. So many stories are about people trying to find the true meaning of love, but PAPER HEART (2009) does it with a punchy ambition and with a pseudo-mockumentary style. Like CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM meets Albert Brooks' REAL LIFE, PAPER HEART is a mix of reality and scripted; it's a dishonest honest movie.

Co-writer Charlyne Yi plays herself (maybe), a girl who claims to have never been in love to the point where she questions its very existence. So along with her friend Nick (Jake M. Johnson, playing PAPER HEART's real director and co-writer, Nicholas Jasenovec), she sets out, mic in hand, to interview people. She's a counter-intuitive choice to be interviewing people because she seems afraid of what they might say. Or better, what she may learn. She holds her mic out as if she's feeding an alligator.

But two funny things happen along the way. One is she finds love (no matter how hard she kicks and screams), and the other? She exposes her lack of understanding of love, and it's these moments of nakedness that make you root for Charlyne. How can someone be so clueless? So inexperienced? So...tragic? Especially because she's the most adorable roving reporter in history.

The movie opens with its best footage; Charlyne, mic in hand, asking passersby about love. It's not so much their answers but her caught off-guard reactions. She's shouting "Has anyone been in love?" on the Vegas strip, with the Excalibur looming behind her as if she's a Disney character waiting for her turn to become a princess. And although it's a visually and aurally cute moment, we realize she's all alone in a sea of people who don't have time to talk to her, perhaps because they already know about love, or that they're all shitfaced and in Vegas. Either way, the table is set; Charlyne is helpless and alone. But fear not Charlyne, for someday your prince will come.

The road ahead will be bumpy for Charlyne, as her friends tell us that she's stubborn and probably won't find love. Even Charlyne herself admits that she's only had one boyfriend, and when someone mentions spooning in conversation, she says, "What's that?" Then, at a party, she meets actor-slash-hoodie model Michael Cera (Michael Cera). He's interested in her, and she's in denial about it. But yep, love gradually creeps into Charlyne's pores. This is where the movie really bends reality and fiction. Obviously, this is a scripted story point, but just how much more of PAPER HEART is...and isn't? Digging deeper, were Charlyne and Michael really dating during the filming as word of mouth would like us to believe?

When they hit Little Rock, they find a fireworks store, and Nick and Charlyne suddenly become 12 years old. That's when it hit me; Charlyne is going through life (in the movie) as a 12 year old, trying to understand the one thing that cannot be understood at that age. She has to experience it to understand it. The fireworks in Arkansas are just for amusement, she needs the real ones.

Not all her interviewees are people she runs into. Some are planned. There are professors (who explain the biological and chemical processes of love), bikers, Elvis (in the Graceland Wedding Chapel), divorced people, couples who have been in love for 50 years, engaged high school seniors and celeb friends like Seth Rogen ("Your love glass is half full."). Most of the real people are indeed real, telling stories about their love as Charlyne tries to process it. She is often perplexed by it all, as when she remarks to country music couple Bill Warner and Kirsti Manna, "I think everyone's definition of love is so different."

While some tell their stories, we cut away to various puppets and paper cut-outs (surely they have paper hearts) that reenact the tales. You can't get any indie-er than that. Still, it's a fun and chirpy device, used best in the one scenario that is obviously fiction.

Through the course of her travels, Charlyne, or Chuck as Nick calls her, hears a lot about love. But no one schools her more than the kids in a playground in Atlanta, where she fits right in. The girls seem to all be in love with Chris Brown. Later, when the pack discovers Charlyne has a boyfriend, a girl accuses her of being in love. Charlyne denies denies denies it with a laugh and an "I am not in love!" Then she accuses the kid with, "You're in love...with Chris Brown." And after a beat, that little girl tells her, "At least I admitted it."

Let's make no bones about it, Charlyne Yi carries this movie. It's really more about her reactions than anything. She's awkward and miffed by it all, and she shows it. She's an intensely lovable goofball who laughs like a real person laughs and at the right times. That's why this seems so real...even if it's not. Like David Byrne wearing the big suit, Charlyne is in on the creative joke, she's just not breaking character. You have to go to the DVD extras to see that.

Charlyne tells us early on the only thing she knows about true love is from movies. Well guess what, Chuck? You're in a movie.

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: JANEANE GARAFOLO: IF YOU WILL...

I remember Garafolo doing stand-up in the early 90s, then being in the cast of four on THE BEN STILLER SHOW and as Paula on THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW. Man, I just really liked her. It was easy to ignore her movies. Though they were plentiful, they were, for the most part, awful. Can you name five of them? You can't? That's pretty bad, especially since she made 35 movies by 2001. Comic Jeffrey Ross once told her, "Let me give you some career advice. You're allowed to turn things down."

But sadly, her latest stand-up show was pretty dull. Her personality has changed throughout the years. She's no longer the hip outsider who made observations like, when stuck at a red light behind a truck with gardeners in the back, there's only so long I can pretend to be adjusting my radio. Now it's about the TSA.

BRIDGET JONES: THE EDGE OF REASON

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Your February Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: Same Bridget. Brand new diary.

Pizza: Spark Woodfire Pizza

Preshow Entertainment: CBS and NBC promos for their 1968 and 1969 seasons.

BRIDGET OVER
TROUBLED WATER

Who said sequels are never better than the originals? Was it you? Or you, or you?? Because if you did, you were right; sequels, with very few exceptions, don't measure up, and BRIDGET JONES: THE EDGE OF REASON (2004) is undeniably a wonderful example.

"Everyone knows that diaries are just full of crap," Bridget herself declared at the end of the first movie, BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY (2001). Even the tagline for this movie alludes to the word 'shit' ("Same Bridget. Brand new diary."), yet the powers that be created a sequel anyway. At least in the first movie her diary was a plot point, for not only did she use it to start her new life, but it was also nearly her undoing when the man she loved read things in it that weren't meant for him to see. In the sequel, however, the diary is simply a canny excuse for wall-to-wall voiceover. Sadly, that's not the only difference between these two films. BJD was a funny and charming movie, as warm and cozy as your favorite stuffed animal, and it featured the age-old slam-dunk of female empowerment. No such luck with BJ: TEOR, which peels away everything that made the first one so likable and reduces Bridget to a whining baby who stands for (and up for) nothing.

But at least they kept the secret weapon - Renee Zellweger. She just about saved this poor excuse of a script from drowning by her head-to-toe embodiment of Bridget, an insecure, slightly gullible girl trapped in the roly poly body (The Zell famously added poundage for the role) of a dust-yourself-off woman. Bridget is trying to make sense of love the exact same way we all do - by making mistakes. The big difference is that Bridget has no real thought-to-mouth filter.

The entire cast in this rerun is also back (as is the return of Bridget's granny panties), and if you look closely in the opening credits, they bring you up to speed; hearts are attached to Renee Zellweger and Colin Firth's names, while Hugh Grant's has a devil's trident.

EDGE takes place only six weeks after the original, and plays out entirely in Safe Mode. Even the opening is a clone of the original, with Bridget on her way to her mum's for a get-together featuring turkey curry. Bridget is as ecstatic as a schoolgirl, bragging about her new man, human rights lawyer Mark Darcy (Firth), with super-cad Daniel Cleaver (Grant) nowhere in sight. Things are just perfect! And that's the problem, for both comedy and drama are injected so forcefully that Bridget's situations are either preposterous or they just die right before our eyes.

Worse, there's such a disconnect that the film feels like a series of vaudeville vignettes, there just to display something goofy or show someone making a bad conclusion in the hope of achieving something funny. This is often done using dishonest filmmaking by director Beeban Kidron, like not telling us things we'd know if we were in the room. But Bridget is in the room; did the camera angle fool her as well? What I'm getting at is that the whole movie is hung on misunderstandings and people making wrong conclusions...and no one ever attempts to say or do anything to fix them. It's like watching Lucy Ricardo. Beeban! You got lots of splaining to do!

I don't want to get drunk, but if you do (and I mean, really, really smashed), here's how. Every time there's dialogue followed by a smashcut to a reversal of that statement, knock one back. You know, like this: DANIEL: "The view from my balcony. Perhaps you'd like to come and take a look?" BRIDGET: "Absolutely not." SMASHCUT TO: Daniel and Bridget on the balcony. And it's endless, like when she's on her way to the law council dinner, BRIDGET (VO): "The most important thing of course is to look absolutely wonderful and make a wonderful entrance." CUT TO: Bridget with makeup misapplied to her face due to the car bumping as she was applying it. And on the broken heels of arriving at the chic dinner looking like The Joker; "Alright, tiny makeup mistake. But I always have wit and conversation to fall back on." Guess what happens next.

Also, I kept asking myself this - just how many times can Mark put up with her constant faux pas without walking (or running) away? First she says saucy things to Mark while unknowingly on his speakerphone with a bunch of lawyers and diplomats (why did he take the call in the first place, or at very least, not tell her she's on speakerphone?). Later, when she thinks he's cheating on her with his assistant Rebecca (Jacinda Barrett, who I'm pretty sure wants me), Bridget, covered in leaves and dirt from trying to spy through the windows, yet again walks into a room...with lawyers and diplomats. Worst, we're miles (kilometers, I suppose) ahead of the gags. She may not know what happens next, but we sure do. The ridiculous number of times these "set 'em up to knock 'em down" bits treats us like rodents in a Skinner box.

The movie also comes equipped (as did the first movie) with standard yappy know-it-all "movie" friends, including chick flick requisite - the gay guy. Why she listens to them is beyond me. But that's just one small "why" in a sea of whys, like - why does Bridget even like Mark Darcy? Unless she saw the Oscar on his mantel. Though he seems a nice enough guy, he's a bit of a boring sod. And why doesn't everyone love Bridget? She's actually a pretty cool person. Yet nearly everyone in the movie seems to have something to say about her. And if she mistrusts Darcy so much (and so often), why does she want to marry him?

So there it is. Director Kidron and her four writers made a terribly unsatisfying movie, failing to capture the frivolity of the original. Because of this, Bridget is often a puling sadsack who yaps incessantly, and that just makes her borderline annoying. Yet, in the interest of full honesty, I really did like Zellweger's bouncy performance of a character who, depending on the situation, can be daffy or smart. Weak or strong. Vulnerable or defiant. Yep, I understood Bridget just fine. Maybe it has something to do with me being a pudgy, puling sadsack who yaps incessantly and is borderline annoying.

Preshow Entertainment: CBS and NBC promos for their 1968 and 1969 seasons

Oh do I love this stuff. We should watch these more often. And since I am the king of this club, then so it shall be done.

There were network promos for shows I've heard of, like MAYBERRY R.F.D., and some I haven't, like LANCER, about two sons who are not only opposites, but each didn't know that the other existed. Also on the reel, THE GOOD GUYS starring Bob Denver, Herb Edelman and Joyce Van Patten. The sitcom for BLONDIE looked just awful. The pilot for HAWAII FIVE-0, a series that ran for 12 years (let's see the new version do that!) was represented as well. CBS called the campaign "The Winner's Circle."

The NBC reel featured MY WORLD AND WELCOME TO IT, about a cartoonist who imagines scenarios that aren't really there. Next up, Michael Parks in THEN CAME BRONSON (I remember the Mad Magazine parody), a loner biker who doesn't know, or care, where he's going next. Ah, the sixties. BRACKEN'S WORLD starred the great Eleanor Parker. Also featured, THE ANDY WILLIAMS SHOW, THE BILL COSBY SHOW (he played a high school phys. ed. coach), and THE BOLD ONES, which was a rotating group of three shows that ran once a week; THE NEW DOCTORS, THE PROTECTORS and THE LAWYERS, which featured Leslie Nielsen in one of his four million TV shows.

This wasn't the only time NBC used this wheel model for rolling out shows. NBC's Mystery Movie rotated MCCLOUD, COLUMBO and MCMILLAN AND WIFE. And although I can't find anything about it (though it's not like I searched thoroughly), I seem to remember NBC running NIGHT GALLERY's second season as part of a wheel of four shows called 4-in-1. I wish they still did that wheel stuff today.

BEING JOHN MALKOVICH

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Your January Unrandom Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: Ever wanted to be someone else? Now you can.

Pizza: Valley Pizzaland

PRESHOW: INDUSTRIAL LIGHT

7 1/2
or
WHEN CHARLIE META JOHNNY

BEING JOHN MALKOVICH is yet another in a spate of tired movies about a puppeteer with a chimp-owning wife who accidentally stumbles on a door on floor 7 1/2 of the Merton-Flemmer Building that houses a portal that catapults you inside actor John Malkovich's head only to spit you out 15 minutes later near an on-ramp of the Jersey Turnpike. I mean, come on, can't Hollywood come up with something original?

Hip and trippy as a Fellini film yet somehow as grounded as a Hollywood film, BEING JOHN MALKOVICH is a fun movie that should not be missed, and that's due in large part to its author, Charlie Kaufman. Charlie began his career as a staff writer for the TV show GET A LIFE, a show that was as much of a dreamlike pastiche as a living room sit-com. It often turned on a dime into anywhere it wanted to, and it was insanely funny the whole time. So it makes absolute sense that Charlie wrote this movie.

It's odd that Charlie and I don't know each other. We grew up 19 minutes away from one another. We were in the same class at NYU film school. We both moved to L.A. in 1991. But somehow, he was working on GET A LIFE while I was working on getting a life. But am I jealous? No sir. Because Charlie's (I can call him by his first name because of our many imaginary interactions) writing is nothing short of brilliant.

BJM begins with an overture (we actually hear the orchestra tuning up and see the curtains part on the stage). But what we are about to see is not a human performance but one involving marionettes, and pulling the strings is out of work puppeteer Craig Schwartz (John Cusack, does anyone hate him...for any reason?). Though there is applause on his soundtrack, it's clear Craig is unhappy performing his artistry in his sad basement. We know he's less than thrilled because of the somber and dark show he puts on, which we later learn is called "Craig's dance of despair and disillusionment." We also know by the way his unkempt self swigs his bottle of Miller. And doesn't that marionette look like him?

Craig likes puppeteering because, as he confides to Elijah the chimp, "...perhaps the idea of becoming someone else for a little awhile. Being inside another skin. Thinking differently. Moving differently. Feeling differently." Well, be careful what you wish for, puppetboy.

Craig is indeed a tortured artist, and worse, a trapped man, living with wife Lotte (a nearly unrecognizable, on purpose, Cameron Diaz). Lotte keeps a small menagerie in their apartment, and also wants a baby. But Craig doesn't seem to be interested in that, or anything.

Forced to take a job due to financial hardships (like I said...puppeteer), he answers an ad to be a filer at a place called LesterCorp, located on the 7 1/2 (or is it 7th 1/2? Or 7 1/2th?) floor of the Merton-Flemmer Building in NYC. And this is just one reason why the movie works so well. Because the 7 1/2 floor, or any oddball occurrence (and there seem to be thousands) is never questioned. Not just by us, mind you, but by the characters. Using a crowbar to pry the elevator doors open between floors 7 and 8 is just something he raises an eyebrow at. It's almost as if he's seen a woman walking a turtle on a leash; it's odd, but not impossible (for the record, I've witnessed that). Yet it is impossible, and because he (and everyone in the movie) is cozy with these absurdities, then so are we. And things just get more wacky as we go on, as you know if you've seen the movie, or have surmised by reading the first line of this write-up.

Remember I said Craig wasn't interested in anything? Well, that changes when he meets Maxine (Catherine Keener, in her breakout role), who also works on the 7 1/2 floor. Craig's world begins to percolate. Sure, feisty and overly alive Maxine (the polar opposite of Craig) is a challenge, but here's his chance to escape, even if it means through a small door and a muddy flume ride into John Malkovich's being. I suppose I should mention, in case you didn't know, that John Malkovich plays himself.

But even the serious side of the movie gets an extreme workout when it turns out Maxine is in love with Lotte, but only when she's inside Malkovich. This leaves Craig out in the cold (not to mention any hope of a 3-way). Meanwhile, Maxine and Craig are exploiting John by selling the twisted Warholian prophecy of 15 minute timeshares inside Malkovich's head. When it's over, you simply fall in a ditch near the Jersey Turnpike. A little research reveals that the Merton-Flemmer Building is maybe 700 feet from the Hudson River, not far from another famous conduit, the Lincoln Tunnel.

Believe me when I tell you, I'm only scratching the surface here. There are tons of other things going on in this deceptively complex movie, like a puppeteer puppeteering a man who is, by trade, someone who acts the part of someone else (BTW, Malkovich gives a howling performance). And to go one step further, when Malkovich himself becomes a puppeteer, holding a marionette that's operating another marionette, well, then we're walking on Droste effect territory, a concept that always thrills me (did you not see ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES?).

But at the heart of the movie, underneath all the meta stuff, lies a story of a man who feels trapped in a marriage, trapped in an underappreciated artform that others ignore or even get violent about (think ten steps below mime), trapped in a new job with TWILIGHT ZONE quirkiness, and therefore - wholesale-ly trapped in the city of Claustrophobia. I suppose those low ceilings and dark muddy tunnels are the visual representations of his claustrophobic life. And the movie itself is 95% interiors, which perhaps some of you philosophy majors can discuss amongst yourselves.

My good friend Charlie took a real story, one we've seen in real life as well as movies, and gave it a push, creating a genre- and mind-bending comedy out of a pedestrian premise. I don't know why people call it dark. It ain't. It's just clever and funny. BJM is everything a Terry Gilliam movie is supposed to be.

I know a couple of people associated with this movie, including the gal who championed it when no one in town would touch it. That's sort of understandable, as BEING JOHN MALKOVICH is certainly an unpitchable movie, one that someone must read to really get, and even then it's no slam-dunk. But rock video director Spike Jonze (let's not discount his stupendous work here, especially as a first feature!) and my buddy Chucky went off to meet with Malkovich and snared him. Good for them, and double-good for Malkovich who took a chance on an unknown feature director and writer. Not to mention that if this thing tanked, or at very least, didn't go as planned, Malkovich may have been egg-scraping his face for years. But he climbed aboard, and once he did, others followed.

Also in the cast of quirkiaries, the always wonderful Orson Bean playing Dr. Lester, Craig's boss who is a 24-hour horny 103 year old, and not shy in his descriptions of sex acts. Mary Kay Place is his secretary (corporate liaison, actually) Floris, who mishears everything said, as well as having Dr. Lester convinced he has a speech impediment.

A movie like this could easily ride off the rails, but every time it feels like it's got nowhere to go, it makes an acute left. There's no way in the world anyone can guess what'll happen next in BEING JOHN MALKOVICH. This movie is so full of joy I think I may have shed a tear. It's also chockablock with surprises, like say, Malkovich not being the only actor who plays himself...and makes fun of himself. Even the dialogue is snappy and dry, like Craig's, "Nobody's looking for a puppeteer in today's wintry economic climate." And the orientation film about the history of the fictional Merton-Flemmer Building's 7 1/2 floor is a work unto itself. And taking Elijah to a chimp shrink, well, that yields a payoff scene that is my favorite funny moment in the movie.

Chucky-baby went on to pave some other metaphysical roads with ADAPTATION. (which features Malkovich shooting BEING JOHN MALKOVICH), a movie so good that I like it even though Nic Cage is in it, ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, and SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK, which I've yet to see (I have friends who adore it and others who abhor it). They say in writing that there are only five stories to be told, and they're wrong. There are five and a half. Thanks to my good friend, The Kauf.

PRESHOW: INDUSTRIAL LIGHT

"I'll never forget the first time I saw STAR WARS." That's the line a lot of people say, including Pixar founder John Lasseter. When he tells us this, it's a joyful moment. Here's a guy who took that inspiration and helped change the movie world.

In 1975, STAR WARS begat Industrial Light & Magic. It's that simple. There was no way to do the effects George Lucas wanted without creating new methods. So he brought in effects guy John Dykstra, who brought in others, and these mad scientists worked in their lab in Van Nuys. They bought old equipment...for cheap, and went to work inventing.

This documentary, which we only got to see a little of (the pizza got here really fast!), is lean and mean. Narrated by Tom Cruise, it goes behind the scenes, not just showing you some cool shots, but also telling you the history from the voices of those who were there; besides obvious rock stars like Lucas and Spielberg, we hear from effects supervisor (and original EQUINOX director!) Dennis Muren and visual effects D.P. for STAR WARS Richard Edlund, who said, "We would paint ourselves into a corner and have to invent a way out of it."

Good thing they did. They went on to do RAIDERS, ROGER RABBIT, BACK TO THE FUTURE, JURASSIC PARK, MEN IN BLACK, JUMANJI, AVATAR, IRON MAN, you name it. Hell, they somehow even got their fingers in THE LOVE GURU, but I'd imagine they don't exactly trumpet that on their reel.

Anyway, see this doc, if you can. It's wonderful.

CAMP

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Your January Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: A Comedy About Drama

Preshow Entertainment: AMERICA SINGS!, Griffin Dunne on The Tonight Show (1985)

BUMMER STOCK

It's really quiet. The camp is deserted. The lake is still, ominous. Teens are making out, some even going round the bases. Then - that music. That signature breathy music. An axe is being dragged on the jagged ground while the teens remain happily oblivious in their world of sin, and...ooops...that's Crystal Lake. This is Camp Ovation, where the axe is swapped out for the acts. This...is a performing arts camp.

The irony behind CAMP, a 2003 movie about said performing arts summer camp, is that the actors are playing actors, and neither incarnation are very good at acting. Performances are weak, awkward and self-conscious, all which reveal the players' inexperience. Yet in spite of, or because of this, CAMP flies its flag high. In an atmosphere of pap like CAMP ROCK and the HIGH SCHOOL MUSICALS, CAMP is a small breath of fresh air, though it's unfortunately not enough to save anyone's life.

The story takes place at Camp Ovation, a movie version of the actual Stagedoor Manor upstate New York. Manor, referred to as a "breeding ground for talent," saw the likes of Natalie Portman (EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU), Mandy Moore, Bijou Phillips (BULLY), Jennifer Jason Leigh (FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH) , Bryce Dallas Howard (SPIDER-MAN 3), Helen Slater (SUPERGIRL), Robert Downey, JR. (KISS KISS BANG BANG) and Lea Michele. It also sprang Todd Graff, who wrote and directed CAMP.

CAMP cold opens with a gospel musical number, HOW SHALL I SEE YOU THROUGH MY TEARS, from the musical THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS. This was jarring for me. Though I've never seen the musical, I know the song (and album) well. So when they started singing this obscure song from a show that only played a few months on Broadway in the 80s, I was already confused. It was like meeting a friend on the street while you're in another country. The performance is intercut with kids saying goodbye to parents, getting on buses and traveling to Ovation where they will go through the pains of a FAME-like boot camp and being a misfit teenager. But does it all have to be such a bummer? Every character carries some sort of woe, especially when it comes to the prom; one took her brother, one watched from the bushes, one stayed home eating cookie dough and one was beaten up. It's the subtext of CAMP - misfits will always have it hard, not only in school but also in the world. Except when on stage, where they get to be someone else.

Ahh, if only they were someone else, instead of characters plucked from the Cliche Casting Corporation of America, like pint-sized ALL ABOUT EVE Fritzi (Anna Kendrick), resident bitch/hottie Jill (Alana Allen), attention whore Vlad (really? Vlad?) (Daniel Letterle) who is one of the few straight kids (at his audition, one of the teachers says to another; "A boy! An honest-to-god straight boy!"). There's also double queen (prom and drag) Michael (Robin de Jesus), and fag-hag Ellen (Joanna Chilcoat). These guys make the Breakfast Club look like the Whiffenpoofs.

But I'm not done. There's alcoholic teacher (he's a teacher who is an alcoholic, not someone who teaches alcoholism) Bert Hanley (Don Dixon), and the character beyond the realm of believability...Jenna (Tiffany Taylor), whose parents had her jaw wired shut to stop her from snacking. Okay, first, why send her to a performing arts camp with a wired jaw? Second, what's the number for CPS? Anyway, also cast - the dancing teacher drill sergeant whose character is so FAME-y that someone actually says something like: "We've all seen FAME!"

So although CAMP is about performing, it's really a melodrama. A king-sized melodrama. Particularly excruciating is a scene involving Vlad and his secret flaw. But also, Jill likes Vlad, Michael likes Vlad, in fact, everyone seems to like Vlad, especially Ellen, who tries to make her feelings known. And good guy Vlad? Well, he turns out to be a great big asshole. But don't take my word, he says it himself.

And the adults are not exempt. Has-been Bert Hanley is a Broadway one-hit wonder who is offered a gig as a rehearsal pianist for a small production of his own show, THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE (he doesn't take the job). In other words, everyone's baggage at camp isn't only of the duffel variety.

With CAMP, Graff has created a world where individuality is confusing and where Stephen Sondheim may as well be called Jesus Sondheim (actually, for reasons I won't divulge here, you should see this movie if you're a Sondheim fan). It's a world aimed at the highest common denominator, meaning, you really have to know your theater, or even better, be a stage brat in order to really understand what Graff's CAMP wants us to feel. Most lines fall flat on their Max Factored faces, and even the good ones will get lost on the non-theater crowd. Cases in point, 1: "What are you singing for auditions for the first show?" "Don't Rain on My Parade." "Oh, that's original." "With...the tugboat?" 2: When 12 year-old Fritzi says to her roommate, "Don't you remember me (from last year)? We were in 'NIGHT MOTHER together." It's the best line in the movie, but if you don't know what 'NIGHT MOTHER is, you're probably lost. By the way, if you don't know what 'NIGHT MOTHER is, see the play. If you can't, rent the movie. Trust me.

And if the script's characters and inside references don't boggle you to your satisfaction, there are preposterous "let's put on our own show in the barn!" moments that'll make your eyeballs spin. CAMP's also teeming with Hallmark-y resolutions, both happy (though many of these are forced and/or cheated) and sad, and there's more corn than Kansas in August. Too bad. This movie could have popped into our hearts...if it only had a heart itself.

It's a good thing some of the musical numbers are peppy and borderline fun. Ellen's I AM TELLING YOU I'M NOT GOING from DREAMGIRLS, Jenna's rendition of Lynn Ahrens and FAME songwriter Michael Gore's HERE'S WHERE I STAND, a formulaic song of triumph worthy of an AMERICAN IDOL contestant (which did eventually happen), and the finale (details in a moment) stand out. But leading the pack is Fritzi's LADIES WHO LUNCH, from Sondheim's COMPANY, a tough song even for a seasoned pro. This was Anna Kendrick's first movie, before she did UP IN THE AIR and those TWILIGHT movies where she plays Jessica. Not many of the other cast members went on to anything big, except for Robin de Jesus, who has found his niche on Broadway.

The movie's ending is weak and wrong. I didn't believe it for a moment. I didn't believe a character would talk or act like that. So anyway, the movie is over. I mean, it's really over. And then, they come out and do one last song as a curtain call. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I'm a bit of a Todd Rundgren fan, so imagine my shock when, once again (like they did with the opening song), CAMP hits me with the obscure THE WANT OF A NAIL from Todd's NEARLY HUMAN album. CAMP sure hit me with its bookend numbers.

I heard they made many cuts of CAMP, the theatrical one being the one they were happiest with. I can't imagine what the other cuts looked like. And two years after CAMP came STAGEDOOR, a documentary on the real camp which is infinitely better (though offers few surprises).

It seems wrong to compare CAMP with its more popular sister, GLEE. While they both hit the same "we feel like we don't belong, yet we come alive when we're on stage" theme, with GLEE I feel like an audience member when they perform, and an invested viewer when the drama is in gear. CAMP's songs are not nearly as much fun, and the story arcs feel less (here it comes) gleeful. That said, if you're a kid who wants to be a theater nerd, you should see this movie. You'll love it. Everyone else? Season 1 of GLEE is waiting for you.

Preshow Entertainment: AMERICA SINGS!, Griffin Dunne on The Tonight Show (1985)

We watched two things while waiting for the pizza. First up was a 1985 segment of THE TONIGHT SHOW. These were the days where the show would have four or five guests, and when Johnny took a day (or weeks) off, someone else would sit in for him rather than showing a rerun (today, they sometimes rerun talk shows only a few weeks later). Sitting in for Johnny tonight was frequent guest host Joan Rivers. This was 20 years after she had debuted on THE TONIGHT SHOW, and one year, almost to the day, before she had her own talk show on Fox opposite Johnny, the move that prompted Carson to sever his friendship with Rivers forever. Can we not talk?

I recorded this segment because Griffin Dunne not only produced and had a small role in one of my favorite movies (CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER), but was also a member of my video store...so in my eyes, he was a friend. We even talked a few times about CHILLY SCENES and other things, which made us better friends than Johnny and Joan.

We also watched most of an episode of AMERICA SINGS! A friend of mine thought I would like this show, and sent it to me about 18 years ago. I think this was either a public access show or a local late-night show from the Boston area.

I believe this was one of the last moments of the once thriving song-poem movement, where a "record company," in this case, Columbine Records (probably to confuse people that they were Columbia Records) will put your poem to music. They'd start you off with a great deal, but by the time you paid for record jackets, photos, distribution, etc. you'd be out a fortune. Well, I believe this was stepped up a notch here, so if you paid even more, you got someone to lip sync your song on television in the middle of the night. Hosted by two unlikely schmoes (one's the owner of the "record company") who try and act as if their wraparounds are unscripted...to hilarious sketch comedy results (but they're not joking). They're just bad and it's all so goofy. Anyway, they introduce singers (perhaps local?), who perform these poems-turned-songs sent in by rubes while the Columbine Gypsies, dancers in skintight unitards, jump around with ill-choreographed movements.

If you're fascinated by this, and why shouldn't you be, here's more info: http://www.songpoemmusic.com/news.htm

I should also add that one of the performers was a guy named Buddy Mix, now selling singers workout CDs and DVDs. I found him here: http://www.buddymix.com/

WALL-E

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Your December Unrandom Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: In Space, No One Can Hear You Clean

Pizza: Joe Peeps

Preshow Entertainment: THE 15TH ANNUAL YOUNG COMEDIANS SHOW

"HELLO, WALL·E!"

Here's how stupid I am. WALL·E has been out for years, yet I just realized (before we watched the movie) that Wall·E really means Wally. I'm not sure, however, if that's a nod to studio founder Walt Disney. So if you want to keep reading, remember, I'm stupid.

I loved this movie. I had little-to-no idea what it was about. I'd seen pictures of Wall·E, of course, but that's about it. WALL·E (2008) is just about one of the warmest movies I've ever seen. All that happens in the first third of the movie is a thing of beauty, visually and emotionally. I could have watched that stuff for hours.

WALL·E is the story of a robot left behind on Earth, so let's get this out of the way right now - yes, there are similarities to E.T., but they're more of the hat-tipping kind; from the plant Wall·E finds (E.T. was a botanist, remember when he first comes to Earth and takes a plant out of the soil?) to him camouflaging himself among his surroundings (Wall·E used trash, E.T. did it with stuffed animals), to the child-like excited way he demonstrates Earth's artifacts (Elliot showed his toys to E.T.), to the title characters reanimating. Even their body type, including the telescoping neck, is similar. But that's okay. The universe is big enough for both of them. Sadly, it even has room for MAC AND ME.

Wall·E is a robot, a Waste Allocator Load Lifter - Earth class (good thing he wasn't a Superior Lifting Unifying Trashmasher). He's the last of the Wall·E's, yet still cleaning up all the refuge left behind by an uncaring human race, now forced into living in space. Apparently, nobody told him he doesn't have to work anymore, and after 700 years, he still does it with the glee of an intern. Wall·E is adorable, mainly due to his unrobot-y ability to be inquisitive, to be scared, to try and figure things out, and...to feel...emotion. He watches a VHS tape of HELLO, DOLLY!, just one piece to a puzzle of the past he's never known. He even listens to it while working. At night, he uses a hub cap as a hat to mimic a song and dance scene from DOLLY.

It's been 700 years since humans have lived on Earth. You see, that's when garbage got so out of control (the film's original title was TRASH PLANET) that life became unsustainable. So now we're living in a giant space vehicle called Axiom, where we've become a race that no longer knows how to walk.Instead, our obese Baby Huey frames glide around on hover-chairs as we text with the person next to us. We eat lunch-in-a-cup, and if you fall off of your lounge chair, you have to wait for stewards to help you back in. The statement here, to me, is less a cautionary one and more like...this is how we are today, just exaggerated. Anyway, the ship is run by same mega(and only)-company Buy n Large, the same people responsible for Earth becoming a garbage dump. Sure, that's the conflict, but the real story in WALL·E is a love story.

Wall·E is going about his 9-5, compacting the Earth's refuse while collecting some choice vestiges of human artifacts for himself. He seems to have a curiosity about the human race. Perhaps being alone all these years, he's just seeking some sort of connection. Something's coming...

One day, a mysterious ship lands, deploying, in intricate and comic fashion, a droid named Eve (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator). Wall·E is at first scared (jeepers, did they animatically nail that), then curious, and alas...in love. All he wants to do is hold Eve's hand, another thing he learned from HELLO, DOLLY! At first Eve is not interested (I guess things never change), but soon, they end up liking each other, and our adora-bot Wall·E has never been happier. But then, Eve shuts down.

WALL·E was conceived in 1994, before Toy Story (and here I thought I was a slow writer). But I can tell you this; all that waiting sometimes pays off. It gives the mind time to think and develop ideas, often when you don't even realize you're thinking about it. Plus, the R & D didn't stop there. Director Andrew Stanton & Co. would watch Buster Keaton movies on a daily basis, as WALL·E is essentially a silent movie. Which brings me to the next point...

A one hour and forty minute kids film with hardly any dialogue, and references to HELLO, DOLLY! sure seems like a huge risk to me. Would I love to see this movie? You bet your life. But would I have greenlit this movie? No way in the universe. And that, children, is why I don't run Disney. That and the fact that they don't know who I am. In the past decade, we've seen animated features grow up. Writers and directors got smart and put in things to amuse the adults, things that went over kids' heads, but not enough so they felt lost. But WALL·E, to me, did just the opposite. It's really made for adults, with stuff to amuse the children. So everyone wins. This same maxim was used in TOY STORY 3, which had kids laughing as their parents sat beside them weeping sentimental tears.

I have to look hard to find an unforgivable fault in WALL·E, but if you made me nitpick, the only thing I can say is that the movie slowed down for me, ironically during the chase scene. At that point, it could have been any chase movie, where the characters don't matter. It's a bit of a quagmire, because at some point in these movies, you need action sequences. I get that. But even Buster Keaton had chases and retained his character. This was a problem I had, in much greater proportion, with THE INCREDIBLES. But again, when I say "problem," I most likely mean "my problem."

Fun, however, are the numerous and sometimes invisible in-jokes, like Sigourney Weaver playing the part of the ship's computer's voice, a reversal of her ALIEN role where her ship's computer was called Mother. Also, the appearance of both things that "they" say will survive a nuclear blast: Roaches and Twinkies (here called Kremies). They nicknamed the roach HAL (though it's never actually said in the movie), after legendary silent comedy producer Hal Roach. Or the usage of A113, which was the classroom at Cal Arts where many Pixar employees are from.

So much of WALL·E's success is due to Wall·E himself. His anthropomorphic character is as cute as a puppy and as curious as a kitten. At times Wall·E can even be stubborn (not getting on the pod) or playful (purposely creating a line of shmoosh for the Microbe Obliterator to clean). But best is when he's boyish, like when he sits in the pod, feet not touching the ground, and pats the cushion next to him for Eve to sit on.

Then there's the brilliance of his interaction with the world, like not knowing how to classify a spork

(a nod to THE LITTLE MERMAID's dinglehopper, perhaps?), or his wrestling with a fire extinguisher as if it's an Acme product that backfires on Wile·E. Coyote. That fire extinguisher, by the way, has a great payoff, which gobsmacked me when I learned it wasn't reverse engineered. Also amazing is how much I (I can't speak for you) am beginning to take animation (the actual art) for granted...and shouldn't. It's come so far that it almost seems like a live action movie. But every now and then I'm reminded of the craft and how good these Pixaridians are, like when Eve gets stuck to a giant magnet and tries to fly away.

Pixar. Remember when they started out with that LUXO JR. short, with the hopping lamp? The one that's in their logo? (After the end-credits of WALL·E, you'll see an update on this.) And then the wonderful KNICK KNACK, with the horny snowman (what male wouldn't be, did you see that sunny Miami chick?).Pixar's revenue to date must be, I dunno, at least $6,000? Wait, let me check. Nope. It's 6,000,000, and I think that they, oops, wait, that decimal point is...oh, okay, got it now. Pixar has made over $6 billion dollars. That's more money than I've made in my entire life! How did they do that? By never making a bad movie, that's how. TOY STORY, TOY STORY 2, TOY STORY 3 (the best of the three, says me), UP, RATATOUILLE, CARS, FINDING NEMO, THE INCREDIBLES, MONSTERS, INC.and A BUG'S LIFE. Pixar is now owned by Disney, so I couldn't help drawing a parallel to WALL·E's omnipresent Buy n Large, the company that owns everything, therefore running everything.

Director/co-writer Andrew Stanton does an A+ job on his commentary, telling you not only what he wanted the movie to look like, but also what he wanted it to feel like. I can't recommend Stanton's track enough. Andy, baby, in the 1 in 6 billion chance you're reading this, e-mail me. I'd love to take you to lunch, which works well because I live near Disney. We can grab some lunch-in-a-cup or a maybe a Kremie or two.

If you have the Blu Ray, rejoice, for not only is it stunning, but the features are wonderful. From silly games to informative and entertaining making-ofs to a five minute piece featuring Wall·E engaged in Scrat-like scenarios with everything from magnets to basketballs. And if there's a film geek inside you (he should be so lucky!), I recommend the behind the scenes feature on sound design.

So will Eve keep following her programmed directive or will her feelings for Wall·E help her break out? Well, you know, love does conquer all, even in the robot world. Who cares if humanity is saved in the process? "So nice to have you back where you belong" indeed.

Preshow Entertainment: THE 15TH ANNUAL YOUNG COMEDIANS SHOW

We watch these a lot. I have maybe a dozen of them, from different years. We've already watched the 6th and 8th annual ones, so we rocketed ahead, for no particular reason, to the 15th, from 1992 and featuring Bill Bellamy, Judd Apatow, Janeane Garafolo, Andy Kindler, Ray Romano and Nick DiPaolo. The host was Dana Carvey, who opened doing some Hans and Franz (which one was he again?), George Bush, the Church Lady, and Garth from Wayne's World. No surprises there, and not much funny either. Perhaps back in '92 it was fresh (or perhaps not), but now it's just stale. Bill Bellamy did a set so embarrassing I'm pretty sure he'd agree if he watched it back today. Then came Hollywood wunderkind Judd Apatow who looked young enough to be giving his bar mitzvah speech. And he killed. He was just so funny. I can see how he kept that momentum going after leaving stand-updom for TV and movies. I was proud of my hometown boy (we're both from Syosset).

The pizza arrived, so we didn't get to see the others.

ROCKY II

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Your December Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: He was one punch away from the heavyweight championship of the world. Now he's one heartbeat away from losing the woman he loves.

Preshow Entertainment: CIRCUS, SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE

Pizza: Old Sicily

HEY ROCKY! LET'S WATCH YOU PULL A RABBIT OUT OF YOUR HAT. AGAIN.

I think people forget just how good ROCKY II is. It was the second highest grossing movie of 1979, besting heavyweights such as APOCALYPSE NOW, ALIEN and the Dom DeLuise starrer HOT STUFF. And remember, Sylvester Stallone wasn't only playing Rocky Balboa, he also wrote and directed ROCKY II. So say what you will about Stallone (and with STOP! OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT, I suppose you can say stuff), but he's got the last laugh. You know that's true, so we don't have to have the argument. Stallone's directed 8 movies and written 23, including decades-later follow-ups of his Double R (ROCKY and RAMBO) franchises. I haven't seen the last RAMBO, but I have to say, ROCKY BALBOA is one great movie...yet Stallone still seems to be a go-to punching bag. But the truth is he's really a talented and smart guy. I'd be thrilled to have him in my movie...if I ever make a movie. And speaking of punching bags...

I'll go on the record and say that ROCKY II is just as good as the original. If he had made ROCKY II instead of ROCKY, no one would have noticed. Part of the reason, though some may see this as a problem, is that ROCKY II is less of a sequel than a remake of ROCKY. They both even clock in at 1:59. And while many see the ROCKIES as boxing movies with heart, they're really just the opposite. ROCKY II isn't about boxing, it's about life, and Stallone has tapped so deep into lovable everyman Rocky Balboa that we can't help but root for him, because he...is you. He's the underdog, stuck with a hand he doesn't particularly love, and now he has a shot at his dream. How can we not love that? If you counted the minutes he actually boxes, you'd be KO'd. Toldya he was smart.

I love that ROCKY II begins with the actual end of ROCKY...the last six minutes, repeated. That means that you can splice these two movies together (digitally, of course), not repeating those six minutes, and get one story. I can't think of one sequel that does that, though there may be one or two floating around somewhere.

All the cast members have returned; Rocky's friend Paulie is played by Burt Young, who I often think is exactly like his character in real life. That's a compliment, unless he really is like that in real life. Talia Shire is Adrian. Even Butkus the dog and turtles Cuff and Link are back, as is crusty old sailor-ish manager Mickey, played by the great Burgess Meredith. And yep, Carl Weathers is once again Apollo Creed.

After Rocky loses due to a split decision, he and Apollo are whisked away to a hospital. And even though Apollo said "there'll be no rematch," in which Rocky replied "don't want one," he wastes no time badgering Rocky with sting-like-a-bee words from his wheelchair. Must have been those ambulance-chasing TV cameras that set him off. But loyal and lovable Rocky made a promise to girlfriend-slash-mouse Adrian to swear off boxing for fear he'll get some permanent damage (that eye did look kind of...icky). But if Rocky can't fight, then what can he do? Commercials?

Yes! But his attempts end up humiliating, for not only does he think the ad for Beast Aftershave is ridiculous, but also, Rocky's a bit illiterate. He has trouble getting through a sentence, let alone engaging in, well, you know, sesquipedalianism. Still, that doesn't stop him from buying gaudy (not to him) jackets, expensive watches, cars he can't drive, and a home for himself and new wife-slash-mouse Adrian.

And there's a little Rockette on the way. When all else fails, Rocky gets work scraping meat shavings off the slaughterhouse floor, and if that's not humiliating enough, he's verbally abused by other fighters at his old gym. In classic storytelling, Rocky has fallen to the lowest of lows, to the point where his pregnant mouse has to get her job back at the pet store where she can be among her kind. That boxing ring might as well grow a mouth and call Rocky's name. But again, Rocky promised Adrian.

Meanwhile, Apollo becomes obsessed with his fan mail which accuses him of throwing the original fight. So besides the external conflict of a physical fight (doesn't get much more external than that), both fighters have inner conflicts as well. And it's these inners that bestir the outers. Now, let's see you find that last sentence elsewhere. Anyway, while Rocky still hangs in the old neighborhood and lives a simple life, Apollo lives in a huge house, and has publicists and businessmen at his beck and call. So he has them beckon and call Rocky out for a rematch. And Yo, Adrian won't like that one bit.

Here's something I learned while watching ROCKY II - we, as humans, can't get enough schmaltz. It's a dangerous ingredient if handled without proper precautions, right Robin Williams? But in the right gloves, schmaltz is really what we all want, and ROCKY II has plenty of it. It's amazing how paint-by-numbers and cliche this movie is, yet how absolutely effective it is. It's storytelling as simple as its protagonist.

I'd like to go back to Screenwriting 101 and talk structure. On minute 14, Rocky proposes to Adrian The Mouse. Minute 16 - married. Minute 20 - making a baby (off screen, toldya he was smart!), Minute 22 she's nagging him about his spending habits (for the record, she's right), and by Minute 28, she's preggerino. Even Adrian herself says, "Everything happens so fast." And at the 30 minute mark, Act 1 ends with Rocky saying "Yo Adrian, we did it." It's a perfect set-up, Slyly done.

And the cleverness isn't limited to story and characters. The fight scenes in Act 3 are edited brilliantly, and let's not overlook (again, in the fight scenes) the sound editing. Listen to the music and crowd chants go in and out. And while we're talking aural - the very first thing you hear in ROCKY II is the famous Rocky Fanfare by composer Bill Conti.

This bugle-y call-to-arms is the beginning of the franchise's song, the Philly soul-ish, disco-ish and triumphant (as in, inspires triumph, not that the song itself isn't a thing of triumph), GONNA FLY NOW. And what do we see during this fanfare? Letters as tall as your screen (or the screen in the movie theater) of the film's title moving from right to left. It's already getting exciting and nothing's happened yet. Now, back when I used to run, I had GONNA FLY NOW on my Walkman (the cassette kind, which gives you some idea how long it's been since I used to run). I had it timed about 20 minutes in, so after I was warmed-up by walking fast around Washington Square Park in NYC, GONNA FLY NOW would come on, and I'd be off like a rocket. Of course, sometimes my rocket backfired, and I ended up running right into the doorway of Ben's Pizza. But at least I'd listen to GONNA FLY NOW as I walked home.

One of my favorite moments in ROCKY II is at the beginning, when Rocky and Apollo are in the hospital. It's late at night and no one's around. Rocky asks him if he gave him his best, and Apollo says he did. It's honest moments like these that give this movie a beating heart. And there are subtle moments that will make you melt if you think about them, like when Adrian loses her hat as she makes her way into the ring after the first ROCKY fight. Amid all the tumult, through his funked-up eye, Rocky sees her and says, "Where's your hat?" It doesn't get any warmer than that.

Forgive me, but I just have to make this observation; what Rocky saw in that mouse is way, way beyond me. But you know something? Even that works. Sure, I would never love the mouse, but because Rocky loves her (he sure tells her often), we love her too. This was one of three movies Shire was in in 1979. How the hell do I remember these things? Or better yet - why???

And now, a few words about that montage. That fabulous montage that occurs on the exact 3/4 mark, as if edited by a computer program. Those one-handed pull-ups and one-armed push-ups and the sledgehammer and the deep knee bends with a log on his back and when he (and you) thinks he's had it he picks that damned log up again...and...and...the chicken! That montage is only two minutes long yet it defies you to not smile, or throw your hands in the air, or jump out of your seat. It trains you as if Mickey himself was barking at you in that old salty voice of his.

But what? The sequence isn't over? Those few seconds of Rocky putting his kid in the crib are just an intermission? Yo, yes. Because...here it comes...that Bill Conti fanfare means Rocky will go running through his neighborhood, eventually putting it into high gear and ending at the steps he made famous in the first movie. Only this time, hundreds, maybe a thousand, kids follow him there. Schmaltz at its zenith.

I read the script to ROCKY II before the movie came out because I'm really cool. My buddy Tony Lodaro gave it to me. He was Stallone's stand-in for the movie (or at least that's what he told me). That's how I knew Stallone jumped over the same bench twice (most likely, they just used two takes or repeated the same shot). You can see Tony in his blue medic shirt when the ambulance pulls up to the hospital in the beginning. I still have the script somewhere, I'm sure. It was called ROCKY II: REDEMPTION. ***SPOILER: I remember reading the part after Adrian comes out of her coma and says, "Rocky, there's something I want you to do for me." Rocky replies, "What?" And Adrian says - "Win!" I remember thinking, Oh man, people are either going to laugh that right off the screen or jump out of their seats and applaud till they're deaf. Well, I'm here to tell you that when I saw ROCKY II at the RKO Warner Twin in Times Square, I went deaf.

Preshow Entertainment: CIRCUS, SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE

I had these old TV pilots that never made it to air...hanging around on VHS. So I dusted them off (really) and we watched them. It's amazing how much sitcoms have mutated. Though they were from 1994 and 1993, they both felt so much earlier (GIVE looked like 80s, CIRCUS like 70s).

SOMETHING GOTTA GIVE was a vehicle for Lisa Ann Walter, and I could see why they wanted to give her one. This non-airing pilot was retooled, and launched a year later as MY WILDEST DREAMS. A brassy housewife who had to give up her rock star dreams when she got married and pregnant. We enjoyed it, though it was so old school. Stephen Root stole a lot of the show in his one scene as a teacher. The show we saw also featured Kelly Bishop (Emily Gilmore!!!!) and Laura Innes.

Not so enjoyable was Kevin Curran's (writer on and voice of MARRIED...WITH CHILDREN's Buck the Dog and currently on THE SIMPSONS) show, CIRCUS. An unfunny clusterfreak of characters and sub-par plotting. Yuck! I remember, way back, when I had an office on that studio lot and my partner and I would go onto CIRCUS' soundstage and sit in the circus trailers (they were sets). That was much more fun than this train wreck, which starred CHEERS' Robin Colcord (Roger Rees, who, BTW, was in STOP! OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT) as Kelso the clown and Charlie Schlatter as his young protege Josh. Also on the show, Phillip Baker Hall as the ringmaster, Lisa Edelstein and lead HEATHER Kim Walker, who I once saw in a performance of SEXUAL PERVERSITY IN CHICAGO (Sadly, Kim died of a brain tumor at 32). The special guest was ancient but likable stand-up Jack Carter, who is now ancient-er...celebrating his 88th any day now.

CIRCUS features comedic lines like- JOSH: "Kelso's not going to let this get to his head." KELSO: "Anyone have a straight razor?" Or insults like, KELSO: "Grimaldi, that bountiful wit is only matched by the bountiful hair that grows out of your ears."

Must I go on or are you getting the idea?

GOODFELLAS

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Your November Unrandom Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: Murderers come with smiles. (Really? That's the tagline???)

Pizza: Guido's Pizza

Preshow Entertainment: None

IF YOU ASK ME,
GOODFELLAS WAS THE LAST TIME DE NIRO AND SCORSESE MADE AN EXCEPTIONAL MOVIE... ALONE OR TOGETHER.

Thinkabouddit! What has Bobby done in the past two decades that comes close to being hailed as blow-you-out-of-the-water amazing? Let me help you; RIGHTEOUS KILL? GODSEND? SHOWTIME? 15 MINUTES? MEN OF HONOR? THE FAN? Or perhaps it was THE ADVENTURES OF ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE? Oh wait, wasn't it when he played The Creature in Kenneth Branaugh's version of FRANKENSTEIN? Okay, sure, De Niro's been good in some movies like RONIN, THIS BOY'S LIFE and CASINO (a/k/a GOODFELLAS-lite), but has he ever really packed a Jake La Motta punch since 1990? I suppose you can argue that his turn as Max Cady in the CAPE FEAR remake was decent...and if you look at me the right way, maybe I'll agree it was only a little cartoony. As for his comedy performances; all that ANALYZE THIS, THAT and the other FOCKER things seem too Robert De Zero. I'll go out on a limb to say that if another actor had made these same movies, no one would bat a skull. We're brainwashed to think De Niro = Greatness, and I'm here to tell you in my sweet yet condescending way - wake the hell up. So come on, say it along with me, out loud, with your blinders on the nightstand - De Niro isn't a gunslinger anymore.

The same applies to Marty. If we gloss over crap like BRINGING OUT THE DEAD, we're left with B.O. hits like THE AVIATOR, THE DEPARTED, GANGS OF NEW YORK and SHUTTER ISLAND. Sure, people flocked to them and loved them. But me? I found them little more than overblown pomp. It seems Scorsese likes to make movies in the style and substance that he grew up with in the 1950s and give them his stamp. There's certainly nothing wrong with that if you're offering up something exciting. But I meant what I said. GOODFELLAS (1990) is the last thing either of them did that knocked me out.

But wow did it knock me out, to the point where it may actually be my favorite Scorsese movie. Say, have enough years gone by that we can call GOODFELLAS a classic movie? It's everything you want; violent, funny, serious, smart and suspenseful. And what great characters; everyone from De Niro's menacing Jimmy Conway to Joe Pesci's out of control Tommy DeVito to Ray Liotta's unforgettable Henry Hill to bit players like Jimmy Two Times ("I'm gonna get the papers, get the papers."). But this movie is not just a brutal and honest portrait of colorful characters trapped (for better and ultimately for worse) in a lifestyle, it's also a dizzy and dazzling display of filmmaking. GOODFELLAS kills, or perhaps I should have said - whacks.

Based on the Nicholas Pileggi book (which I actually read) WISEGUY (they changed the title so it wouldn't be confused with the TV show WISEGUY...a terrific show that arguably launched Kevin Spacey's career), GOODFELLAS is the true story of gangster Henry Hill. It's a biopic with vignettes strung together (not always chronologically) tracking the years 1955-1980, and the rise and fall of a guy who "as far back as I can remember" wanted to be a gangster. The movie is so much of a character study that even though the real players pulled off the biggest cash getaway in U.S history at the time (the Lufthansa heist), we never get to see a single frame of it on screen...just the set-up and the aftermath. What other movie can get away with that?

With all its violence and brazen criminal activity, the underpinning of the film is the seduction of the gangster lifestyle - "For us, to live any other way was nuts. To us, those goody-good people who worked shitty jobs for bum paychecks, who took the subway to work every day and worried about their bills, were dead. They were suckers." I mean, who wouldn't want that? Of course, it comes with a monkey's paw: the real Henry Hill is on the DVD's extras, and he tells us that he is "thankful to still be alive," largely due to everyone who would want him dead being incarcerated (thanks to him) or dead themselves. "I lived in fear constantly at that time...and you couldn't show it because that was a sign of weakness." Suddenly our bum paychecks don't seem so suckery anymore.

Hill was born half Irish, so he could never be a made man, but he came as close as he could. As a tween, he parked Caddies for the wiseguys, and soon graduated into burning down the competing cab stand. Then came black market cigarettes, Kennedy (at that time called Idlewild) Airport robberies, truck hijackings, beatings, murders (funny how Hill doesn't seem to implicate himself in these as much as he does others), the aforementioned magnitudinous Lufthansa heist, and finally, his drug commerce and addiction. And with him through it all are fellow Irish gangster and feared guy Jimmy Conway and crazy/dangerous sociopath Tommy DeVito, an underling to capo Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino). Although Henry, Jimmy and Tommy were often a rogue team, they saw to it that Paulie would get a cut.

On the non-criminal side, Hill marries Karen (Lorraine Bracco), yet like all goodfellas, also has a girlfriend, Janice (the late Gina Mastrogiacomo, who I think may have been Italian). At the Copacabana, Saturdays were for the wives, Fridays were for the girlfriends. Ya know, now that I'm thinking about it, maybe fearing for your life every single day is worth the trade-off.

GOODFELLAS is fueled by its voiceover, which some people find fault with. Me? I can't get enough of it. Henry is telling the story to us...to me. Actually, Liotta got a sound guy who happened to be in the studio, sat him in a chair, and did the VOs to him. But still, it becomes personal. The writing and performance of the VOs are gold class. But about 40 minutes into the film, a funny thing happens; that VO switches from Henry's to Karen's. It's an odd yet effective thing to do (Marty), for now we are invested in two people's lives. We understand him and we understand her, and we see how it all happened. And our dark sides root for them.

There is a blood-spattered laundry list of violent scenes, each one memorable and...real, mostly due to the natural and largely ad libbed dialogue they did in rehearsals that were, for the most part, locked-in by the time they were shooting. The most real scene in the movie for me is when Henry goes after Karen's neighbor Bruce. It's brutal and raw and so believable that I actually think the actor bled (though I'm sure he didn't). But it's what happens moments later that is important. This incident cements Karen's excitement regarding the wiseguy lifestyle.

So much of the movie has no real story on the outside. It's Henry's seduction, then Karen's. And once they're in, we get a few pivotal, game-changing moments. One is when Tommy kills someone for practically no reason at all, and we see that look on Henry's face (for the first time, he's got our look of disbelief). The rules are different now. All bets are off. Loose cannon Tommy is emblematic of the volatile lifestyle, and if Henry didn't know it up to this point, he sure does now. And so do we.

The last fifth of the 2 hr 25 min. picture deals with the effect drugs have on Henry, both selling them and using them. And once again, the movie changes, though this time it's in the filmmaking rather than the story. To match Henry's hyper paranoia, GOODFELLAS becomes more frenetic, with quick cuts (some of them jump cuts), and faster scenes. Towards the end, besides that damned helicopter that seems to be following him, all Henry cares about is smuggling the coke and stirring the spaghetti sauce.

GOODFELLAS is like a racehorse. It gallops out of the gate (that first scene is disgustingly delicious) and keeps moving until it's over. And the jockey here is Martin Charles Scorsese, who, how can I put this - knew what he was doing. Every shot, every word, every piece of music (more on that in a moment), every detail right down to the color of someone's tie. Aside from his own talents, Scorsese (pronounced scor SEH zee if you know him or are pretentious) effectively incorporates French New Wave rule-breaking attitudes that give GOODFELLAS a flavor not often tasted in America, but would soon be copied en masse. Of course there's the legendary Copa Shot which everyone goes gaga for (just YouTube "Copa Goodfellas"), but let's dig deeper.

Scorsese himself has cited the Truffaut-influenced JULES AND JIM-y opening sequence and frame freezing. One particular powerful freeze frame comes when young Henry sets fire to the cab stand. He runs towards the camera and as the cars explode behind him, the freeze catches Henry mid-run, arms outstretched, reminiscent of the famous Vietnam still. Scorsese also employs Fellini's pre-Wave I VITELLONI to intro the wiseguys (if you've seen these films, you'll know he's right). Also, let's applaud the camera work. Whether it was drawing on or extinguishing a cigarette, snorting coke, or simply tightening their eyes, Scorsese's use of accelerated push-ins on faces is thrilling.

Then there's the little touches, like the Steadicam shot revealing two dead people in a car. The camera keeps moving to show the price sticker still glued to the passenger side window...smeared in blood. Another shot has Henry walking off the courtroom stand and talking to us, as if putting a visual button on his VO.

Scorsese sure has his own way with music. Often, he'd play the actual songs right there on the set as they filmed the scenes. Other times, he'd scribble the song choices in his script. And I don't know how he does it, but the songs always seem to fit perfectly into the scene, almost as if they were written expressly for the shots. I'm reminded of just how important A WHITER SHADE OF PALE was to Scorsese's LIFELESSONS segment in NEW YORK STORIES, made a year earlier, and how it seemed to me that no other song could work there. From old school Italian songs through LAYLA, Scorsese timelines the movie using no anachronistic music. (SIDENOTE: GOODFELLAS is the second film at RMC this year featuring Dino singing AIN'T THAT A KICK IN THE HEAD...OCEAN'S 11 being the first).

Also under the Scorsese umbrella? Casting! Liotta's performance is often overshadowed by heavier-hitter De Niro's and scene-stealer Pesci's, but I have to say, it's Liotta that carries the whole movie on his back. His Caesar-Romero-as-The-Joker laugh would make you smile if it weren't putting a chill down your spine. He used it when his mother-in-law yelled at him for coming home at dawn, and he used it when Tommy smashes a bottle over a restaurant owner's head. That laugh meant that this man, and the men around him, can do whatever they want and not only get away with it, but laugh at it. Oh, that Liotta Laugh. It's the worst kind of evil - it's cavalier evil.

And De Niro. When he gets into a bad guy character's skin, he's unbeatable. It's always his bad guys that make him shine for me. FALLING IN LOVE, STANLEY AND IRIS. Feh and meh. Gimme Vito Corleone and Jimmy Conway (it helps that this sounds like Jimmy Cagney).

Lorraine Bracco's also pretty amazing as the conflicted Karen, who ended up getting turned on by the danger of it all. In a way, her arc changed more than the others, who were either born into gangsterdom or fell into it as a kid. She went from innocent Jewess to mobster wife, showing a range including love, betrayal and an internal moral conflict. I love the scene where she's defending Henry to her mother in a screaming match. As she leaves the room disgusted, she shouts out, "Da-a-ad!," as if daddy, who never says anything, will side with her. It was such a small moment (does Lorraine even remember it?), yet so honest.

In a subdued yet menacing performance is Paul Sorvino, who regretted being in GOODFELLAS after watching the first screening. He's had a change of heart since, saying he was "so blown away by the movie I was in a state of shock."

These were early roles for Bracco, fellow Soprano alum Michael Imperioli (in the small yet critical part of Spider), Debi Mazar, and even Ray Liotta, who really only had one high profile movie (SOMETHING WILD, the movie where Scorsese noticed him) behind him.

There are also a batch of characters with names that sound like they're in SEUSSFELLAS - Johnny Roastbeef, Joe Buddha, Billy Batts, Frenchie, Freddy No Nose, Pete the Killer and Frankie the Wop. Okay, maybe those last two would be a little edgy for Seuss. But what I'd really like to know is what the hell happened to Christopher Serrone, the kid who played young Henry? Man, he was just so good. You totally believe he grows up to be Ray Liotta. But GOODFELLAS is his only movie. Yet another crime he's committed. But wait! He's got a part in a movie that...was supposed to come out in January 2011? Uccch.

If you've seen GOODFELLAS, then you're well aware of the notorious "How am I funny?" scene. Though widely thought to be an improvised scene, it was actually born out of improvisation stemming from a real incident that once happened to Pesci. By the time they were ready to shoot, the scene was pretty solid. I know this because I was on the set that day. Well, no, I wasn't there, but Ray Liotta told me. Okay, he didn't really tell me, but I did read it in a magazine. But whatever, that scene is just one of the many that give you a feeling of utter dread, because every time someone opens their mouth or looks at you funny or smiles at you reassuringly, you feel like something very bad is about to happen. And sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't. It's an intellectual cat-scare.

At the end of his commentary, Hill cautions us that "some of the scenes in the movie may look good but I tell ya, you don't want to live that kinda life." And he's right. Why would you want to look behind you everywhere you go? And wonder if you're going to be whacked by your enemy, or worse, your friend? Because, as Hill/Liotta tells us at the end of the movie when he's in the Witness Protection Program: "I'm an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook." Welcome to my world, Henry.

Man, it's just so weird listening to that commentary, where he tells stories about the actual crimes which include murders, and says things like, "When we opened the trunk, Billy just looked at me....begging...it was horrible...he knew he was dead." And by his side on the track, Edward McDonald, the Fed who actually placed Henry and Karen in the Witness Protection Program (and played himself in the film). There they are, sitting next to each other (I assume) going over Henry's crimes as they unfold (another extra has a brief visual moment of Hill and Liotta sitting side by side). But yeah, okay, if it weren't for Hill's rat-laden testimony, they wouldn't have snagged so many big fish (hey, doesn't pesci mean fish?). And let me tell you something, Hill still talks like a goodfella: "We was able to get away with so much shit." Hill's since been kicked out of the WPP, battled drugs and alcoholism, visited rehab more than once, worked as a chef at his restaurant, and currently sells his GOODFELLAS-related artwork and other items on eBay. So now that the gun smoke has cleared, he's just trying to make a living. You know, like the rest of us schnooks.

LITTLE WITCHES

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 21:20:00 +0000

Your November Random Movie Club results Are In!
And Boy Oh Freakin' Boy Are You Going To Be Sorry You Didn't Join Us!

Tagline: Forgive Me Father, For I Am Sin

Pizza: Pagliacci's

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: JAWS: THE INSIDE STORY

LITTLE WITCHES HAS BAD ACTING, BAD DIRECTING, BAD WRITING, BAD LIGHTING, BAD MUSIC AND BAD TEENAGE GIRLS IN CATHOLIC SCHOOLGIRL UNIFORMS
TAKING THEIR CLOTHES OFF.
IT'S A PERFECT MOVIE.

The movie we watched tonight, LITTLE WITCHES, was filmed in two weeks, which raises the question, Why did they need that long?

I actually own this guiltiest of pleasures movie on a prerecorded VHS. Why? Because I caught it on cable in the 90s and fell in love with it. I fell in love with the trashy music ("Who's gonna make it rain...."). I fell in love with the way the movie just sort of ends, out of nowhere, with nothing really explained. I fell in love with the demon, which looks like a rubber head you can buy in the $8.97 bin at Party City (and it's not even worn on someone's head!). I fell in love with the brilliant decision to name the one girl who has faith Faith. But mostly, I fell in love with actress Sheeri Rappaport, who besides being hot as any hell that a Horned Demon would rise from, embraced the fact that she was in an MST3K-worthy movie, yet still gave it her best. Amid all the crap that is LITTLE WITCHES, Rappaport's performance is a standout. The only standout.

LITTLE WITCHES (1996) begins with girls walking in a circle around a well while doing incantations. Soon, a beast emerges from the well. Well, not a beast, more like a latex glove with long nails. Just as the girls are about to sacrifice a virgin, the day is saved by the Lord's guardian (an unseen woman in a robe), and we're told that "the Horned Demon cannot come while I am alive." This is all well and good had we paid attention, as this scene occurred over the opening credits and appeared to be background filler. But we were wrong. Turns out this was waaaaay important. I mean, if plot's your thing.

But that was then (it was a flashback) and this is now. It's present day in a catholic school and Sister Sherilyn (Jennifer Rubin) is teaching her class, which of course has a troublemaker...Jamie (Sheeri Rappaport-Nathanson). And because of Jamie's attitude, she finds herself with an assignment to write a paper on Macbeth (I believe there were a few little witches in that play as well).

A group of girls are all staying behind at the school during Easter break. Besides bad girl Jamie, there's good girl Faith (Mimi Reichmeister, does that translate to Mimi Master Empire?), Nicole (Zoe Alexander), Kelcey (Clea Duvall, in her first and most embarrassing role), Erica (Melissa Taub) and Gina (Lalaneya Hamilton). This crafty coven of Catholic schoolgirls take turns in the confessional in a contest to see who will receive the most minutes to think about "the immensity of God!"

This punishment is handed out by Father Michael (Eraserhead himself, Jack Nance). Of course, my girl Sheeri wins, racking up a full 20 minutes by merely unbuttoning her shirt, spilling out her left breast, lifting her skirt and writhing as she toys (not in that way!) with the Father.

Luckily, a construction crew featuring a guy named Daniel (Tommy Stork) is at the school to do earthquake restructuring. Daniel takes his shirt off, and...ya know...the more I write this up, the more it feels like I'm writing a porn film. Anyway, from the look on Faith's face (licking her lips was the giveaway), we see that she fancies Daniel. He enters the kitchen that night saying to Faith, "I should have listened to you." Listened to her about what, you ask? Well, we don't know either, as they obviously cut that scene out. But it sure looks like Faith, who's never had a boyfriend, might just get lucky with this hunk/dullard. Wait...she's never had a boyfriend? That makes her a...oh wait, I don't want to give away the ending.

Meanwhile, somewhere in this academy lurks the seldom seen Mother Clodah, who gets her meals left at her door. Clodah is played by POLTERGEIST "housecleaner" Zelda Rubinstein.

Soon, we learn that this academy has a skeleton in the closet. Not their actual closet, but in a secret area under the church that is discovered by the construction crew. It's the skeleton of one of the illuminati girls we saw in the prologue. Anyway, Jamie and crew are actually standing there when the police remove the blanket from the rotted corpse. Why the girls are allowed to watch this grotesque reveal is beyond me. Must be the same reason the ambulance drives away with the mummified corpse in the back...with its siren on.

So the restless girls decide to hold a seance down in the no-longer-secret room. When the seance doesn't work, they decide that if they take their clothes off, they'll have a better chance. Finally...something makes sense in this movie.

One of the many things that remains unexplained, and not in a good way, is why these girls want to summon the Horned Demon in the first place. The only excuse they have is when Jamie says, "Do you have anything better to do?" And what about when one of the girls secretly moves the clock back from 7:50 to 7:25? It's apparently a move to sabotage Faith's date with Daniel, but we never see that plan in action, so I'm not quite sure. Plus, when they cut back to the clock, it's back at 7:50. Huh?? This movie is bananas. And how is it that when Faith calls 911, our girls are on the extension pretending to be the 911 operator. Telephones don't work that way. Oh? They're witches, you say? Well maybe they are, but I didn't know witches had the power over telephony, but perhaps I'm just wrong about that. Other shenanigans include the world famous "salad exchange," where they swap a salad out for a poisonous salad, and a scene involving strangulation by fishing line. And at one point, taking a page from the Lenny and Squiggy Playbook; at the moment they realize they need virgin blood, in walks Faith.

LITTLE WITCHES makes an attempt to have us understand these characters (Jamie's been physically abused by her dad and Faith's dad recently died), but it's all thin and ultimately unsatisfying. Writers Dino Vindeni and Brian Dimuccio have written themselves into an abyss of Who Cares? Director Jane Simpson (a guy would have been criticized for making such a wonderfully hot, I mean, such an obvious exploitation film) makes a crappy script crappier with endless cutaways to a beach to show the passage of time. Although arguably accurate, having a banner in the opening credits read "A Film By Jane Simpson" made me laugh the hardest. On that note, my favorite part of the movie, hands down, was when Jamie is at the window, trying to get the construction workers' attention. She growls, "Hey baybee!!" It's surely a "you had to be there" moment, but man, it just kills me dead. If it does nothing for you, perhaps you'll be entertained by her striptease that follows.

Rappaport's career didn't flourish all that much post-WITCHES, but she did have recurring roles on both NYPD BLUE (Officer Mary Franco) and CSI (fingerprint guru Mandy Webster). You know what I wish? I wish she would break big, because as I said earlier, she's good. And how cool would it be if she was huge and had LITTLE WITCHES in her early career. It sure would give a lot of people hope.

Clea DuVall's made a little career for herself, working steadily (most recently on TV's THE EVENT). Sadly, this was the second to last film for David Lynch stable/staple Jack Nance, who supposedly died from a punch to the face after an altercation at a doughnut shop at 5am.

Here's an amazing fact about LITTLE WITCHES. It's not on DVD. It was, once, but not anymore. I don't think it even made it to the millennium. But that's not the amazing part. Check out eBay and Amazon Marketplace. At the time of this writing, the DVD is going for $224 new and $98 used.

LITTLE WITCHES was released straight to video on December 23, 1996 (talk about a stocking stuffer), only months after its grown-up sister THE CRAFT hit theaters. While THE CRAFT was an okay movie, in a way, WITCHES gives you more bang for the buck with its unintentional badness and fun moments. It was nominated for an International Fantasy Film Award, which is idiotic, unless they meant "fantasy" not as in sci-fi but as in sexual. How can a film like this win any non-Razzie Award? I mean, come on, the creature looks like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.

Okay. I believe it's taken me more time to write about LITTLE WITCHES than it took for them to make it. And in the interest of full disclosure, I'm not 100% sure if that "Hey Baybee!" is before or after the striptease that I mentioned earlier. I better fire up the VCR and check. Don't wait up.

___________________________

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: JAWS: THE INSIDE STORY

I won't go into a whole 2000+ page dissertation on how much I love JAWS, and how it changed the whole movie business. I don't have to. It's all in this spectacular documentary, featuring all the main players they could get (Spielberg, Dreyfuss, producer Richard Zanuck, studio big gun Sid Sheinberg and lots more).

JAWS is an amazing movie, yes, but equally amazing is what they went through to get it made. While the documentary harbors (pun!) nothing any Jaws-loving geek doesn't know, it's so enjoyable to hear it from the mouths of the people who made it. Between Spielberg thinking he was getting fired...every day (he didn't even want the gig in the first place) to Dreyfuss' many refusals to be in it (he only agreed after he thought his career was over when he saw his performance in the just released THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ), to the famously non-working shark. Yep, they were working "without a script, without a cast and without a shark."

There are so many good stories told, like the one about author Peter Benchley who was broke (I did say author, right?) and sitting on the beach when the idea came to him. And how writer Carl Gottlieb, fresh from THE ODD COUPLE, came in to give the script some humor and personality. And by far, the best story is how director Dick Richards, who was on the project before Spielberg, kept calling the shark a whale. He was shortly swapped out with Spielberg.

As much as I recommend LITTLE WITCHES, I recommend JAWS: THE INSIDE STORY more. But with WITCHES going for so much money (http://tinyurl.com/4mbeqxv) and JAWS: THE INSIDE STORY for $25 (http://shop.history.com/detail.php?p=268714) , maybe if you made it to Random Movie Club, you wouldn't have all your financial problems.

SLEEPER

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 17:00:00 +0000

Your October Unrandom Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: A love story about two people who hate each other. 200 years in the future.

Preshow Entertainment: ALL TOGETHER NOW

Pizza: Valley's Pizzaland

I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE, AND IT'S FUNNY AS HELL.

Crap! Did I not just say, only one month ago, that LOVE AND DEATH is the funniest movie I've ever seen? What was I thinking?? Was I just caught up in the moment, having just watched it? Nope. The truth is, I do believe that LOVE AND DEATH is the funniest movie I've ever seen. But I think that its lead-in, SLEEPER, is also the funniest movie I've ever seen. But you can't have two funniest, right? Well, you can, depending on what mood you're in when asked. It's like having two favorite pizza places. But really, if you want to buy some laughs, I'm here to tell you that SLEEPER sells.

Great. I wrote the words "sleeper sells," so now all my e-mails will be read by the NSA (even though I used "sells" and not "cells"). And now that you're reading this, yours will be read as well. Coincidentally, that's the o-, re-, and unim- pressive government that Woody Allen wakes up to in 2172, after being cryogenically frozen for 200 years. It's an H.G. Wellsian/Orwellian/Asimovian totalitarian world of telescreens, robot servants and a populace that plays follow The Leader. And everyone's okay with it. Of course, Woody makes his commentary in words ("What kind of government you guys got here? This is worse than California.") and sight gags (that Wile E. Coyote-like Federation Security team never seems to get their gun to work), and it all makes as much sense now as it did when SLEEPER was released in 1972. Maybe more so.

I remember seeing SLEEPER in the theater. It was wall-to-wall laughter. I'd never heard anything like it. When the gay robot enters or when the two Jewish robot tailors bicker, well, you couldn't hear any dialogue for what seemed like years. Then, when HBO was young, with just one channel that wasn't even 24 hours, SLEEPER seemed to play every day. They played it so much that a lot of us high school kids had it down word for word. Me and Michael Gerrity would stroll down the halls of Syosset High School reciting lines, doing bits, and even questioning character motivations. I lost touch with Michael over the years (if you're reading this, Mike, contact me...we'll do some SLEEPER schtick!), but I never lost the fact that SLEEPER means so very much to me. It was a part of my Wonder Years. It even taught me a shaving trick - purse your lips, cover your entire face with shaving cream, then remove the shaving cream from over your lips by gliding your index finger across them.

For a balls-out comedy, SLEEPER starts off very serious. But the stage is set, and once Woody enters from the wings (or in this case, from frozen inside a tree stump), all bets are off. But that's one of the things I love (and have learned) from SLEEPER - for as silly and infantile as a premise can be ("My god, I beat a man insensible with a strawberry."), it works as long as everyone commits and plays their roles with the utmost respect. Plus you have great actors in bit parts, like Don Keefer (who'll be 95 in August and lives near me!) and Mary Gregory.

In the year 2172, 1973 health food store owner Miles Monroe (guess who) is being thawed out from his cryogenic state (he's actually wrapped in aluminum foil). The thawing crew is part of the Underground who needs an unregistered person to join the Resistance, and Miles becomes their unwilling candidate. He's comedy's version of NORTH BY NORTHWEST's Roger Thornhill, an ordinary, innocent guy who suddenly finds himself pursued by people who want him dead. And what wrong man wouldn't be complete without a wrong woman along for the ride, though against her will. Luna (frequent Woody love interest Diane Keaton) is kidnapped by Miles, but just so he can get away from the Federation and join the Resistance. But again, like in these wrong man movies, these two will learn to understand each other. Perhaps even fall in love. "Come along, Mrs. Thornhill."

Miles escapes by ducking into a Domesticon van, a company that manufactures robot servants. When Security stops the van, Miles disguises himself as a robot, only to be delivered to Luna's house. This is some of the funniest stuff there is, which I suppose you have to take my word for...or better yet, see for yourself. Later, in a role reversal, Miles gets caught and reprogrammed while Luna escapes and becomes part of the Underground. And if things aren't complicated enough, Miles gets cock-blocked by rebel leader Erno (DALLAS stud John Beck).

Together, they'll try and thwart the Federation's "Aries Project", which plans to clone The Leader (to mention cloning in 1972 was ahead of the curve, especially for a comedy) from his nose. NOTE: The term The Aries Project was slyly used in the American version of the TV show LIFE ON MARS, itself a time-bending show.

At one point, the Underground deprograms Miles back to his old self by reenacting his life in Brooklyn at his parent's house. And if that yid-centric scene isn't funny enough, they then reenact a scene from STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, with Diane Keaton doing Marlon Brando, which is great as she was actually between the two GODFATHER movies at the time.

The future is a perfect place to mine humor. Not only can you joke about how things turned out, but also about how things were back in the past (1972). Woody does a lot of both, turning our civilization on its head. When declining a cigarette, the doctor says to Miles: "It's tobacco, it's the healthiest thing for your body." And when Miles requests wheat germ (he owned a health food store, remember?), one doctor is surprised - "You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or hot fudge?", only to have the other doctor reply, "Those were thought to be unhealthy. Precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true."

When Miles first awakens, he's a mess of neurotic rebellion (I believe I lived through The Neurotic Rebellion in the 80s). Here are some tidbits:

"I can't believe this! My doctor said I'd be up and on my feet in five days. He was off by 199 years."

"I knew it was too good to be true, I parked right near the hospital."

"I wanna go back to sleep. If I don't get at least 600 years, I'm grouchy all day."

When Luna comments that "it's hard to believe that you haven't had sex for 200 years," he responds, "204, if you count my marriage."

"I never did anything wrong in my life. I ran a health food store in Greenwich Village. Occasionally a customer would get botulism but that was very rare."

Two of my favorite sight gags are a McDonald's sign displaying "Over 795,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 served and never, I repeat, never has a movie featured a "slip on a banana peel" scene so hilarious. See for yourself: http://tinyurl.com/39a296

There's also a (maybe?) improvised scene where Miles is explaining to a doctor from the Underground about people from the past by looking at their photos and videos. When Howard Cosell pops up in his mono-drone, the doctor tells Miles "We've developed a theory. We feel that when citizens in your society were guilty of a crime against the state, they were forced to watch this." And after a beat, Woody happily concurs.

SLEEPER no longer takes place 200 years from now. Now it's more like 161 years, and just like the flying cars promised and not delivered to us by the year 2000, I'm skeptical about having things like the Orgasmatron booth (in the future everyone is frigid, except those whose ancestors were Italian). Or getting high by rubbing a metal sphere called The Orb. But he was on the mark, for just like after the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks (are you still reading, NSA?) when people said everything is going to change...nothing has changed. In 2173, we'll get high, have sex, and people will still question the government, just like they did 1973, 1873 and 1787. Also remaining unchanged, the pseudo-intellectuals, poets and artists who have parties every day. I guess until we blow ourselves up, there will always be fabulous people.

Among all the futuristic gizmos in SLEEPER, like hydro-vac suits, jet packs and other flying machines, for reasons unbeknown to me (except that it's really funny), there'll be an anachronistic whisk broom or an aluminum ladder. Also, you'll notice that the sets will feature the out-of-element grandfather clock or a pitcher and wash bowl. And speaking of design, for a low budget like SLEEPER, it sure has some great (okay, and some not-so-great) props, wardrobe and production design. Even the vehicles are cool. And most of the people (and many of the sets) are dressed in black and white. A statement on the future or a nod to the silent films Woody is updating?

SLEEPER holds up well, though you can't help but sometimes grimace at obscure and outdated references to things like Albert Shanker and the A & P Gypsies, which I just looked up online so I, at last, can understand the joke. Sadly, it wasn't worth the wait.

I've noticed that TV viewings cut out lines like "Pope's wife gives birth to twins." and when he murmurs "Goddamn cheap Japanese flying packs" when his jet pack refuses to fly. Maybe the networks were afraid of offending their Japanese sponsors.

SLEEPER's the first movie Woody co-wrote with Marshall Brickman (ANNIE HALL, MANHATTAN). I heard Marshall Brickman cry once. Perhaps if you're nice I'll tell you that story one day. But what makes me cry is that the wonderful ragtime score featuring the great Preservation Jazz Band and the New Orleans Funeral ragtime orchestra, with Woody himself on clarinet, has never been released...ever...at all...in any format. Good thing I know the movie so well and can use my Head CD Player to play it whenever I like.

Okay, I'll stop swooning. Because really, SLEEPER doesn't need me to romanticize it. And as I sit here deconstructing Woody, I realize there's no way for me to actually relay how funny this movie actually is. I probably just sound like anyone who is in love.

Preshow Entertainment: ALL TOGETHER NOW

I can be stubborn. A pig-headed pinhead, I. So when people I know told me how much I'd hate Cirque Du Soleil shows, I decided they were right. Wait, that's not even stubborn, that's just dumb. I like to think I make my own decisions on my likes and dislikes, and here I was taking people's word as if it were my very own. I would even call the shows Cirque Du So What or Cirque Du So Little. Then I thought about it. I don't let Entertainment Weekly tell me what I should like, why do I let my friends? And then I thought about it some more...

I love bombast. I love spectacle. And Cirque shows, from what I know, are loaded with both. I'm not even sure there's anything else but. So why haven't I gone? I mean, besides those ridiculously high ticket prices.

But now I'm curious. Being twenty years late to the party (I was once told to always arrive at a party late), I recorded a documentary called ALL TOGETHER NOW about the making of Cirque's Beatles show called LOVE. I want water flowing and stages moving and hydraulics hydraullicking, but I was spectacle skeptical about this incarnation done to a Beatles show.

We're told at the beginning that it was George's idea to collaborate with Cirque. There are new interviews with Paul and Ringo, and footage of the genesis of the show from the first listening session on. Original producer George Martin is on board and he brought his son Giles to be his ears (George is pretty deaf these days). And they brought cameras, too, so we could watch. All this is cool, as The Beatles (and their estates and handlers) are notorious for not letting people exploit their material and images.

We only got to watch the first 30 minutes of the show before our pizza arrived, but that was long enough to see some clips from the movie LET IT BE, which isn't available to the public. But I have it, so stick that up your jumper!

ALL TOGETHER NOW also features Olivia Harrison and Yoko Ono who are partners in the show. You just know when they're all sitting around discussing the staging of LOVE and one of them says, "Can I speak freely?" there's gonna be trouble...just not on camera. But it turns out The Beatles were wrong. For when it comes to launching a show like this, love is not all you need. You'll also need, as Cirque did, a 180 million dollar budget.

RONIN

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 17:00:00 +0000

Your October Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Preshow Entertainment: The Death of Vinyl

Pizza: Zach's

THE FIVE SAMURAI

There are a lot of giant monsters that have invaded Japan. There's the three-headed Ghidorah, giant moth Mothra, giant turtle Gamera, and of course...giant dinosaur Godzilla. And then there's Ronin, a giant pterodactyl, and a mean sunuvabitch at that. Most people are likely to assume that there is only one Ronin, but there are actually two. Unearthed, it's no surprise that they both proceed to wreak havoc on the Japanese landscape (which is largely models, and no, I don't mean of the Devon Aoki variety). Anyway, these two birds of a deadly feather...wait, what the?? Ooops. I was thinking about RODAN! Sorry...

RONIN is a 1998 action thriller by the late John Frankenheimer filled with great car chases and a story you have to pay attention to.

Sam (Robert De Niro) is walking cautiously down a Parisian street, ducking into crannies a la a young Vito Corleone stalking Don Fannuci (which may have been intentional, as it sure looks like he's wearing the same hat). He enters a cafe. But why does the cafe employee say "we are closed" when Sam enters, especially when moments earlier, we watched the counter woman enter and start her shift?

Actually, all the characters in this cafe look a little too suspicious; the woman bartender, a patron who smokes next to a "no smoking" sign and a man at the bar. The counter woman, Dierdre (Natascha McElhone), shepherds them into a waiting, nondescript van which in turn takes them into a nondescript warehouse where two other shady characters are waiting. But don't worry, they're all as clueless as you and I. In fact, we learn just about everything in RONIN at the same time they do.

Sam's ex-CIA, so he has some cool tricks up his sleeve. He's constantly testing and fooling people, as in the way he covertly takes pictures of the villains by asking a stranger to take a picture of him and his "wife." Explaining how to use the camera, he snaps away at the bad guys. His partners in crime are the mild yet serious Vincent (Jean "The Professional" Reno), ex-KGB Gregor (Stellan Skarsgard), impetuous Spence (Sean Bean) and laid back driver Larry (Skipp Sudduth). It's a great band of outsiders. That's where the movie's title comes from; Ronins were samurai who lost their masters, so they worked alone. Not all five of these modern-day ronins will be loyal to each other. I'm just sayin'. Crap...did I just say "I'm just sayin'?" I'm sorry, I won't ever do that again.

The next morning, Dierdre briefs the five on their mission. Yesterday, they were all strangers. Today, they're the A-Team. They're to steal a suitcase. You know this will be trouble, even though, or perhaps especially because, the suitcase is a McGuffin.

The big cheese that Dierdre answers to is Irish, and if you don't believe me, his name is Seamus O'Rourke (Jonathan Pryce, being very Martin Landau-y). But others want the suitcase as well, like traitors and those pesky Russians. There's a lot to think about. Like I said, on your toes, soldier, if you want to follow the plot (I mean that in a good way).

But as confident and capable as these merry men are, they are sometimes a bumbling bunch. Their plans don't always work, usually because of carelessness or betrayal. Someone will even get shot, sort of by accident, in the pterodactyl-less RONIN, and then retreat to a French man's house for help. And if you don't believe that he's French, his name is Jean-Pierre (Michael Lonsdale, another great performance). Jean-Pierre likes painting his miniature ronins as well as cementing the theme. The shot person must operate on himself. While it doesn't have the extreme gore of, say, HOSTEL or even the self-preservation/mutilation of 127 HOURS, it's still pretty real and cool.

The many different factions of bad guys also have their share of misfires. It seems every time someone holds a gun to someone else, the other person can just run away. And after a while, it gets not just tiresome but downright silly.

But sometimes in a movie like RONIN, you just have to look the other way. Like how can this group of people, who had just met, hatch their plans (that's plural because one mission leads to more) so fast? And what about when Sam leans a sign up against a luggage cart so when the bellhop moves the cart, the sign will fall and mimic a gunshot which will force the villains to react? How could he have been so sure it would have played out that way? Or that there'd even be a sign near a luggage cart. Sure, I suppose he's ex-CIA and they know how to improvise, but sometimes I felt he was a little too confident. Any CIA guy will tell you that there's no sure-fire plan. That's what they all tell me, anyway. Also, people get shot or are involved in car crashes, emerging bloody, then hours later are involved in a foot chase. Me? When I'm shot, I like to spend the minimum of a few days recovering.

Here's the question I kept asking myself while watching RONIN; why would you choose a job where you can get killed? I mean, other than selling Quick Picks and questionable hot dogs at 7-11. Everywhere these guys go, people are getting shot, stabbed, slit, punched and mangled. What kind of job is that? Plus your odds of living a long life are kinda wee. These guys probably wouldn't have lived this long in real life. For the love of Pete, maybe it's time to settle down. Crap...did I just say "For the love of Pete?" What the hell is with me today? If I say "It is what it is" I may just kill myself.

MINOR SPOILER: Man, it's great that one of the main players leaves the mission...and... never returns. We're so programmed to know that if a character walks away, he'll be back later to save the day. Not so in RONIN, which is just one of many pleasant surprises.

But ask anyone who's seen it, the true highlight of RONIN, hands down, are the exciting car chases and stunt work, which include collateral damage of a rare movie kind. Car chases that make you remember the chaotic finesse of movies like BULLITT and THE FRENCH CONNECTION instead of the epilepti-cam work of a BOURNE movie. Frankenheimer lets the shots breathe so we can see the car-eography (I appear to be hyphen-happy today). And even the characters realize the danger, unlike so many movie chases. Witness the man in the passenger seat who is on his way to be killed (he knows this). When he puts his seatbelt on, you know you're in for a ride.

However, RONIN's numerous high-profile chases and double crosses fail to ground it in real life. Not to mention the dozens of people, many innocent, who are killed while these factions are trying to obtain the suitcase (which is more of a box, if you ask me). A number high enough to make national news for years, so you sort of know this can never happen in real life. But who cares? RONIN is a movie that keeps you on your toes while letting you have fun.

And along the way, Frankenheimer, no stranger to the genre (SEVEN DAYS IN MAY, THE original and freakin' amazing MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE), brings us a checklist of old school action items; hand held devices that change traffic signals, cars that signal each other by flashing their lights, and that old standby - kissing the girl (who may be the enemy) as a cover when the authorities spot them (they did this in ZEPPELIN, which we saw two months ago, as well as my favorite Hitchcock - NOTORIOUS). Frankenheimer, who cut his teeth in live TV's Golden Age, storyboarded all 2200 shots (I lost count at 2196, so I took his "director's commentary" word on it), even (or especially) in the car chases. Some of those chases used 300 stunt drivers. Christ, I didn't know there were that many in the world. I also like that there were subtitles in French and Russian, keeping it real.

But the booming elephant thumps of music washes over the movie like a production assistant wetting down the streets, sometimes creating a suspenseful moment, but more often making you wish you can shut the music off and keep the rest of the tracks intact.

RMC CONNECTIONS: RONIN is the second movie in a row featuring actor Feodor Atkine, who played Woody Allen's brother in last month's LOVE AND DEATH. Also, we just saw Michael Lonsdale two months ago in a suffocating performance in Truffaut's THE BRIDE WORE BLACK.

RONIN is a good movie. One that makes you pay attention, even if it occasionally cheats too much. I guess it is what it is. Oh, crap...

Preshow Entertainment: The Death of Vinyl

Apparently, this was part of a show on Al Gore's network Current TV called VC2 (Vc squared, meaning VCC, meaning Viewer Created Content). The show is in segments with a timebar on the bottom to let you know how far along the segment is. But the show itself is a bit of a misnomer. I expected a documentary on the end of records, and instead got a hodgepodge of thinly-related, mildly interesting pieces.

The first segment visited two record stores, Park Ave CDs and Rock N Roll Heaven, where employee/music enthusiasts rhapsodized (or perhaps they eulogized) about how buying music should be a social event rather than a process involving sitting home downloading. The next segment was an animated piece featuring Gorgon the Awkward Alien trying to buy Phil Collins records from an uncaring record clerk (a species that's all but extinct). The third segment, about a guy from Queens who uses albums to create art, just started when the pizza arrived.

LOVE AND DEATH

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 17:00:00 +0000

Your September Unrandom Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: The Comedy Sensation of the Year!

Preshow: None

Pizza: Little Caesars

IN LOVE AND DEATH, WOODY PERFORMS A PERFECT BALANCING ACT OF MATURITY AND JEJUNOSITY.

ALSO, IT'S THE FUNNIEST MOVIE I'VE EVER SEEN.

You're probably sick and tired of me saying stuff like, "This is the funniest movie ever" or "This is the most important movie ever" or "Why did that guy just pull out right in front of me, forcing me to slam on my brakes? There are no cars behind me. He couldn't have waited three more seconds??" I'm well aware that there can't be more than one "funniest ever" or "most important ever" as I'm also pretty sure there'll always be some asshole cutting us off. That said, LOVE AND DEATH (1975) is the funniest movie ever.

The first time I saw LOVE AND DEATH I was still on my SLEEPER high. I'd been waiting for this movie forever (under a year, actually). I took the Long Island Railroad into NYC, then walked to the Paramount that used to be in Columbus Circle and watched LOVE AND DEATH. And I laughed...once. Just once. When Boris hands Sonja a gift-wrapped box about six feet long. Boris: "I got you a present." Sonja: "What?" Boris: "Remember those earrings you wanted? The long ones?" Anyway, I felt ripped off. I wanted my money back for the movie and for the LIRR trip. I couldn't believe it! This from the guy who made SLEEPER? I was robbed!! No, actually, I was a moron. I just didn't get the movie at all. I was a stupid teen who wanted slapstick and got what appeared to be a history lesson. I was blind to the jokes and ignorant of the source material. It was amazing. Thinking back on it now, I can't even believe that was me.

But then they ran it on HBO. And ran it and ran it and ran it. And then, they ran it again. I couldn't get enough. I taped it onto an audio cassette and would listen to it in the darkroom while developing pictures. LOVE AND DEATH was my reason to live. And when I see a comedy made today, I realize that LOVE AND DEATH is still...my reason to live. I promise to try my hardest not to sound like a teen girl with a crush...

This time, writer/director Woody Allen takes on Russian literature and film. References to Dostoyevsky abound, which makes sense when you realize L & D is about a common man struggling with his conflicting philosophies in 1800s Russia. Visually, Woody nods to films like Eisenstein's BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN with imagery of the carriage rolling down the stairs, the lion statues, and the woman's broken glasses and bloody face, though here she's swapped out for a man (Whaddya know, that expensive NYU film school finally paid off.). He even uses Prokofiev for his score. All of that is brilliant, but believe me, you don't have to be a Muscovite to appreciate this giddy movie that may have more jokes per minute than any movie out there.

Woody plays coward (surprise!) Boris Grushenko, a man in love with his cousin Sonja (apparently, Soviet Georgia has a lot in common with American Georgia) played by Diane Keaton. Sonja's in love with Boris' caveman of a brother, Ivan, who marries someone else. Out of spite, Sonja marries Voscovec, the herring merchant, but only after 103 year old Minskov drops dead during the proposal.

Boris, seemingly the only Russian without facial hair, finds himself conscripted in the army ("I'm not the army type, I slept with a light on till I was 30."). He assumed his mother would protect him from the horrors of war, but instead: "You will go and you will fight and I hope they put you in the front lines!" As a private, and just like Captain Parmenter in F TROOP, Boris accidentally saves the day and gets promoted. Now a big shot, he has caught the eye of Countess Alexandrovna (Olga Georges-Picot), and for this, he must duel her jealous lover Inbedkov (I heart Harold Gould). Countess: "You are the greatest lover I've ever had." Boris: "Yes, well, I practice a lot when I'm alone." Because Inbedkov is a marksman, Sonja agrees to marry Boris, should he survive the duel. Much to her dismay, he does.

Eventually, as in any love story, Boris and Sonja become happy together and plan on having a family when once again, war interrupts. Boris wants to flee, but Sonja has a bigger plan - "Let's assassinate Napoleon!" This leads to just one of many philosophical debates Boris and Sonja have about, well, love and death...particularly the murder kind.

Remember, all this happens within a super-funny world, where Young Gregor's son is older than Old Gregor ("Nobody could figure out how that happened."), and Minsk holds Village Idiot conventions. Where, although it's Russia in the the early 1800s, you'll find black drill sergeants, "uppers," cheerleaders and T.S Eliot poems. There are colorful characters like Father Nikolai who always dressed in black with a black mustache ("For years I thought he was an Italian widow."), and the killed-in-action Maximovich (Tony Jay, who went on to do hundreds of cartoon voices) who comes back from the dead to talk to Boris, only to haggle with him about the price of a ring.

LOVE AND DEATH is a really smart movie. It's just dressed in a clown suit. By smart I mean, instead of going totally POLICE ACADEMY or AIRPLANE! (which are fine ways to go), it addresses philosophies about God and murder and love and the meaning of life. While awaiting his execution, Boris is visited by an angel of God who tells him his impending firing squad will be canceled due to Napoleon's change of heart. But Boris does die, and when Sonja asks his spirit what happened, he shrugs his shoulders and says, "I got screwed." And when Sonja says that we are made in God's image and he responds, "You think I'm made in God's image? Look at me, do you think he wears glasses?" to which she replies, "Not with those frames." And, "If I could just see a miracle like a burning bush or the seas part or my Uncle Sasha pick up a check." Yet sometimes his ponderings aren't meaningful; While thinking about Christ, he says, "If he was a carpenter, I wonder what he charged for bookshelves."

And then there's sex.

Sonja: "Sex without love is an empty experience. Boris: "Yes, but as empty experiences go, it's one of the best." And when Boris makes a move on her when they're in bed - Sonja: "No. Not here."

The comedy in LOVE AND DEATH is fast. So fast that he actually gets away with lines that aren't funny, but because of the rhythm of the jokes, they "feel" funny. Case in point,Mikhail: "It seems my brother has a yellow streak running down his back." Boris: "No, it's not down, it runs across." On its own, that line is sort of empty, a silly retort that at best is mildly amusing. But because it came after a rapid-fire spewing of jokes, we can laugh at it.

Now, at this point I'm sure it's obvious that I've seen LOVE AND DEATH dozens of times. Yet there's one thing in it that bugs me. Maybe you can help, you know, in the way you'd help anyone who is nerdy about something. Woody's character's name is Boris Grushenko. It's even spelled out on a sign at one point. Yet Sonja calls him Boris Dimitrovich (twice), and Inbedkov calls him Grushenko and then Dimitrovich. And to add even more confusion, someone calls Boris' father Dimitri Petrovich. Is this merely a mistake? Does "dimitrovich" mean something, maybe shorthand for "Dimitri Petrovich"? I must know. I need my life to be complete.

At the risk of repeating myself (as if you're actually reading this), BANANAS (1971) was mostly slapstick. SLEEPER (1973) was slapstick mixed with verbal jokes. And LOVE AND DEATH (1975) was more verbal jokes. The trajectory was clear. There'd be little-to-no slapstick in Woody's next movie, and that came to pass with ANNIE HALL (1977). The slapstick was gone, but his "grounded in real life" years began. Woody grew up, and he should have. And as much as I love much of his work from this point on, I sure miss the killer slapstick and fast one-liners, or as he says himself in his movie STARDUST MEMORIES - "The early, funny ones." Like Boris, Woody was fighting with himself to make his life have more meaning.

BUTCH AND SUNDANCE: THE EARLY DAYS

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 17:00:00 +0000

Your September Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: The Days Before The Fame When Fun Was The Name Of The Game.

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: Movietone News, 1930-1932

Pizza: Numero Uno (I think that means "Number Uno.")

WHEN HARRY MET BOBBY

I remember when I first moved to NYC. I took the subway everywhere. And I remember that poster. It haunted me at nearly every stop, especially at my 8th Street stop on the Double R (now the R). I adored BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, so I was torn. It was my curiosity more than anything. The poster was advertising a prequel about how Butch and Sundance met. But I just couldn't bring myself to go. I mean, you just know it's going to stink. I suppose the deciding factor for me not going was right there on the poster: Tom Berenger and William Katt were playing, well, Newman and Redford.

That curiosity never faded, for one day, a cable station that had nothing better to do ran BUTCH AND SUNDANCE: THE EARLY DAYS, and I recorded it onto a Digital Versatile Disc. And tonight, it came up randomly, as if the fates said, "Rich, you're going to watch this movie even if it kills you." For the record, the fates were almost right, for BUTCH AND SUNDANCE: THE EARLY DAYS is a garbage dump. If only this were a sequel, beginning with their bullet-riddled bodies being consumed by flies and maggots. That would have given us so much more bang for the buckeroo.

We all know what happened (in the movie world, at least) to Harry Longabough (alias The Sundance Kid) and Robert Parker (alias Butch Cassidy), and if you don't, well then shame on you. But what happened before they met is another story, or should I say, lack of story. I'm guessing "Early" in BUTCH AND SUNDANCE: THE EARLY DAYS is a euphemism for "really shitty."

Missing is the fun, the flavor, the repartee (replaced here with bickering), essentially, the entire essence of what made the original so...original. This is a Stepford movie, and worse (if that's possible), it was written like a sitcom, with "outs" at the end of each and every scene. Sure enough, sitcom writer extraordinaire Allan Burns was the culprit here, odd, as I adore the hell out of Burns. His body of work includes GET SMART, THE MUNSTERS and co-creating THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW (I actually watched one of the episodes he wrote last night). But everyone needs a NORTH, meaning; Elvis Costello made a bad record called NORTH, Rob Reiner made a bad movie called NORTH, so maybe this was simply Allan Burns' NORTH.

BUTCH AND SUNDANCE: THE EARLY DAYS, or if you're into initialisms - BASTED, was directed by Richard Lester, who made HELP! and A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, as well as the sleeper ROBIN AND MARIAN (starring The Dumb Bastard) and the underrated comedy THE RITZ. He also did SUPERMAN II, reshooting original director Richard Donner's footage. So how do Burns and Lester, two guys with such great work behind them, come together and muck it up? Perhaps it's a bit unfair to judge a film based on its predecessor. But my argument is, that's what they're selling us. So there.

We first meet Butch as he is being pardoned by the governor (Arthur Hill, in a bit part). See, he's such a righteous criminal that he can be released if he promises not to commit crimes in Wyoming. Free, he buys a jacket (I think it's the one he'll wear later in life, in the original movie), and gets his picture taken, bargaining the photographer down to $2 by using a gun. See? Righteous. He could have stolen it and not paid the $2 at all.

So the credits are over and Butch stops into a saloon where he witnesses an idiotic Sundance Kid pull a moronic robbery. Well, the two meet up later to discuss a partnership which doesn't take, at first. And even when it does, it feels like they're at worst, your neighbors who fight every night, and at best - The Odd Couple with guns. I suppose they could have called this movie SPATS.

So Butch meets up with his ol' friend O.C., and things go awry. The law arrests O.C., who now believes Butch set him up as part of his early prison release.

There's no real reason to go on. It's just painful for me, and will be for you as well. But just to give you an idea, we'll learn that one is married...with children, one kills a man, one gets diphtheria, and the whole shebang-bang culminates with a not-so-great train robbery which looks like they found film scraps to an unreleased episode of F TROOP. There's also a "coming up with a nickname" scene that went on forever. And there's Sundance saying he's smart, but he's not.

The original movie's semi-classic bicycle scene, which conveyed a love for the era and an inherent joy for the players, is replaced with a skiing scene (skis were new in the West, as bicycles were in the first movie). But the skiing scene is cheap, using bits like showing them skidding on their asses, an inability to stop and, you guessed it, getting hit in the balls with a ski. Also replaced, the "who are those guys?" posse is now O.C. and his men, and in an egregious error by O.C. or the filmmakers...or both...has O.C. finally locating Sundance and shooting at him. And then he...leaves?? After tracking him all this time, he just leaves? Yippee Kay HEY!!!

And there's dialogue that was hack, even for the late 1800s, like:

Sundance: "You know, I've been thinking..."

Butch: "That could be dangerous."

Katt and Berenger try their hardest to be "dry" funny, sort of like the original movie. But they too fail, again, because of the script. But I will say that a few times in the movie, it was almost uncanny how much they looked like they could have been Newman and Redford.

As far as the rest of the cast, great actors do pop up throughout the movie, but they all suck, stuck in this silly movie. The half-deaf O.C. is played by Brian Dennehy. Christopher Lloyd played Carver, John Schuck was Kid Curry, Jill Eikenberry was Mary Parker and Vincent Schiavelli was a guard. Just about all of these roles felt like Mack Sennett characters.

The whole movie is spent trying to make us sympathetic to the boys. Along with the opening "parole bargain" and "photographer shakedown" scenes, there's also scenes like the duo transporting diphtheria vaccine, Butch spending time with his wife and kids, and because he wants to go straight, Butch just stealing what he needs from the safe filled with money. But none of these things make either of them a likable person, because they actually transport the vaccine to get away from O.C. And why doesn't Butch live with his wife and kids? And stealing less is not noble, it's still thievery.

Here's a realization I just had. The original movie from 1967 was made not even 50 years after the real Butch & Sundance died. I don't know why that seems so wrong, it's not like they were from the Neanderthal Age. Anyway...

So there you have it. Butch and Sundance sucks. Surprise, surprise. Honestly, I've already forgotten this movie. But I'll never forget that damn subway poster.

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: Movietone News, 1930-1932

Once a twice a year, I break out another year of newsreels (on video) from days gone bye-bye. This time out, 1931. Here are some of the highlights:

1) The Roosevelts. Four generations of them, actually. They were posing for a photo and trying to have fun. One of the little kids even chimes in that he's a democrat. It was probably Franklin's granddaughter.

2) Thomas Edison, right before he died, in what looked like home movies, with sound! Go figger. He died in '31, so this was the last footage of him, I believe.

3) Count Von Zeppelin, including stunning footage of the D-17177 over the Swiss alps. I believe this was the Graf's Polar Flight. About 16 years ago, I saw a doc at UCLA called AROUND THE WORLD WITH THE GRAF ZEPPELIN. I sure would like to get my paws on that movie.

4) World's largest plane lands (on purpose) in the Hudson river. Take that, Capt. Sulley! Here's some footage I found of the plane. Pretty cool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71D1S8-1kUY

5) Some Mahatma Gandhi footage, which pleased me to no end as I got to do my Indian hat check joke (Mahatma Coat!). Sadly, it didn't please anyone else.

6) Hitler building up in Germany, but he was still an "obscure figure" in the USA.

7) Japan invades Manchuria. (Just like in Risk!)

8) Gershwin performing I GOT RHYTHM (he sure did).

9) Marion Roberts, with her mother, in an awkward and probably rehearsed interview following the hit on her married boyfriend Legs Diamond. Her mom was glad to have her back. And Marion asked young women not to fall in with a bad crowd. Uh huh.

THE BRIDE WORE BLACK

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 17:00:00 +0000

Your August Unrandom Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: She was a bride when the violence happened... Now she's a widow and it's going to happen again

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: BOBBY SLAYTON: BORN TO BE BOBBY

THE BRIDE WORE BLACK
IS A TRUFFAUT MOVIE...
WITH A LITTLE HITCH

French New Wave (cool obscure French word alert!) progeniteur Francois Truffaut wrote the book on Alfred Hitchcock. No, really. He wrote a book called HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT which is simply Hitch being interviewed by Truf about every movie he ever made. I ate this book more than once. It's my Happy Meal. Anyway, when Truffaut's interest in Hitchcock peaked, he went out and made a couple of tip-of-the-hat movies. One's called MISSISSIPPI MERMAID (1969), and the other is THE BRIDE WORE BLACK (1968), which we watched tonight.

Keeping with Hitch's ingredients, Truffaut selected a story by the great alcoholic/writer Cornell Woolrich, who had scribbled out the short story on which REAR WINDOW was based. Truffaut even used Hitch scoremeister Bernard Herrmann for the music. So, all the elements are there, and it's all cool and fascinating, and it all works...just not perfectly.

TBWB begins the way I believe every movie should, with an image of a topless woman being printed repeatedly on a press. Then, THE WEDDING MARCH, which sounds like it's being performed on a PHANTOM-y pipe organ.

Our anti-hero, Julie, is played by Jeanne Moreau, who Orson Welles once dubbed The Greatest Actress in the World (remember, Welles died before he was able to witness Melissa Joan Hart in action). But why's Julie so crazy? Why is she trying to jump out a window (not a rear one, however). We won't find out for a while. All we know is Julie seeks out a few men, and kills them.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out there's a method to her clinical madness. Somehow, these men have ties to each other. But how? And why is she offing them? The real mystery here is why the hell does her mother let suicidal Julie leave town on her own. But Julie does leave town. Well, not really.

At 40, she's an assassin armed with a little black book of five names. Why she would need a book to remember five names escapes me. Hell, when I kill five people I do it without writing their names down. Anyway...

Her first stop takes her to a high rise, where a guy in a beret is mopping the front patio as if he's a clown mopping up the spotlight. Dolled up, she attempts to bribe him for entry into a Mr. Bliss' apartment and fails. So Julie crashes his pre-wedding party. Bliss is a womanizer, so he takes the bait, even with his wife at the party. Those French are so romantic.

Her next stop is a loner named Mr. Coral, a man who owes back rent in his shabby apartment, a man who checks his hair in windows and mirrors, yet a man who is embarrassed to admit he's had fewer than 10 women in his life, which I suppose is sad for a Frog.

It's just so odd that she creates these elaborate ruses just to kill someone. Why not just kill them? Well, the answer may be that she likes cold dishes. She wants them to be caught off-guard, and then she wants them to know why they are being killed. But it's just not clear. In a way, it seems these schemes were invented because it makes it a more fun movie.

One of the conceits of her murders involves a mandolin song on a record she carries around with her, sort of her Soundtrack to Murder. Me, I'd choose something more aggressive like Metallica or even Gino Vannelli, but okay, it doesn't matter, as this device inexplicably disappeared after murder number two.

Another oddity is that there are no heroes in this movie. I hear this line all the time in Hollywood - "Where's the 'sympathetic character?'" Of course, this is 1960's France and Truffaut would often break film law, usually to his credit; but sometimes when rules are broken we're left unsatisfied. You don't see Hitch making a movie without someone to root for. In a way, I suppose Julie is a hero by default, as the murderees all seem to be extraordinary cads. Also, when someone is arrested for the murder of one of her victims, she calls the police to tell them they have the wrong woman. So, there's a heart in there somewhere, it's just as black as the bride's dress.

None of the performances really stood out for me. Moreau was already soaked from swimming in the French New Wave pool with Truffaut with her lauded performance in JULES & JIM (she played neither), made six years earlier (hey, I wouldn't mind living on the Island of Jeanne Moreau). But here, she didn't quite punch through that much. I never had the sense of motivation or emotion, though there were a few scenes where she breaks down. The men, all swine over swain, were, you know, disposable. You just don't care if they die.

Truffaut incorporates the Hitch vibe with a sweeping, suspenseful REAR WINDOW/PSYCHO/VERTIGO soundtrack and characters that look straight into the camera or point a bow and arrow at us. Though I certainly felt the joy in Truffaut's love of Hitch, most of the time it just seemed easy, weak and occasionally, borderline parody.

Although a revenge movie, TBWB shows us how men act when they're alone, or with their friends, or with women - when they think they can get laid. Years after the movie, Truffaut himself would poo poo (that's French, right?) this movie. Yet I'd say that THE BRIDE WORE BLACK is worth seeing. It just should have been a little more fun, or at very least, playful. That's what made Hitchcock movies work so well.

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: BOBBY SLAYTON: BORN TO BE BOBBY

I love Bobby. Since 1990. But now "The Pitbull of Comedy" looks in the camera and calls himself "The Pitbull of Comedy," so I had a bit of doubt about this Showtime special that first aired in March of 2010.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, there's something charming about his aggressiveness. Because, just maybe, it's not that aggressive. He says he is, but he's really just a funny guy who tells it as he sees it, and in an authoritative and confident manner. But in truth, he's saying a lot of what comedians have been saying all along. There's nothing new in talking about the differences between men and women or making racial jokes. Bobby just dresses it up in a punk attire. And does it really, really well.

ZEPPELIN

noreply@blogger.com (Rich) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 17:00:00 +0000

Your August Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: The Great War's Most Explosive Moment!

Pizza: 2 For 1

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: ONE GOT FAT

OH THE TEPIDITY!

A few months ago when we watched THE ROCKETEER, I confessed my love of blimps and dirigibles, collectively known as airships. I have salt and pepper shakers, cards, banks, posters, a piece of actual Goodyear blimp skin, a dozen inflatable ones and (almost) countless hours of footage. I was inside the ones in Houston and Los Angeles. I've been fascinated and obsessed since I was a child. Hell, it just may be the reason I'm a Led Zeppelin fan.

In the movies, there are airships in THE HINDENBURG (duh), BLACK SUNDAY and TWO MINUTE WARNING. I can also tell you they've made appearances in tons of films, like SCARFACE (1982), ONCE IS NOT ENOUGH, MURDER IN THE AIR, INDY AND THE LAST CRUSADE, and a 1932 western I saw called HIDDEN VALLEY, where the day was saved by a mail-carrying Goodyear blimp! So imagine my glee when the Random Movie Generator selected ZEPPELIN (1971). I've had this movie for years, and now, finally, I got to see it. So...rock and roll!

ZEPPELIN features three things of extreme beauty - Michael York, Elke Sommer and a Zeppelin. The movie starts out kind of cool. A couple making out hear it first. Then the patrons of a bar. It's the distant hum above the clouds. Englanders knew what that meant. As if ascending a stairway to heaven, the giant beast, which flew higher than planes and was therefore untouchable (hard to believe, but true), was overhead...and it can drop bombs on you. Zeppelins were indeed great weapons of mass destruction back in World War I. These sky monsters could puncture a town, then turn back to Germany. Because of Zeppelins, Britain was royally screwed.

So what better plan than to convince Geoffrey (Michael York), a half-German now living happily in England, to go back to Germany with the pretense of spying for them. But he's really spying on Germany for England. Personally, I would have had a back-up plan, as even though Geoffrey is loyal to England, he was once loyal to Germany. What if, while he's there, that loyalty returns? Anyway...he's now a spy, out to learn about the LZ-36, the new Zeppelin that the Jerries are building. And it's fortuitous, because, unknown to Geoffrey (and us), the Germans need his expertise in identifying British, particularly Scottish, terrain from the air. All for a plan both preposterous and cool, and involving the film's title character.

With all this wartime posturing and betrayal of allegiances, you'd think this would be a boy's club movie, but as luck would have it, Professor Altshul's (Marius Goring, as if you cared) is spearheading the Zeppelin project and he is married to a hottie! Erika (Elke Sommer, now you care!) is no trophy wife, but instead, a scientist. You know, like nuclear physicist Denise Richards in THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH.

And before they know it, all three find themselves on board the Zeppelin...and airborne. But is it possible this flight is more than just a test voyage? Uhhh, yeah, it is. It's a secret mission that not even Altshul and the hottie (New! This Fall on Fox! "Altshul and The Hottie!") know about. All three have been railroaded, and although Erika suspects Geoffrey of spying, the truth is that he too has no idea what the mission is. They eventually learn that it involves mustard gas, and Altshul wants no part of it. Sadly, there's nothing he can do. He's an old guy and he's outnumbered nein to one. This character was surely modeled after Hugo Eckener, the WWII Zeppelin company honcho who took over after Ferdinand Zeppelin died. Eckener detested Hitler and the Nazis' use of his dirigibles for wartime purposes. Okay, okay, I won't ramble on about airships anymore.

Before the movie ends, there will be betrayals, murder, and a 40 foot model of a zeppelin soaring over the ocean during a night flight, through awful looking smoke that doesn't quite pass as clouds. And there'll be a storm-the-castle climax that includes actually storming a castle that is over the hills and far away, on the black mountain side. And radioing for help won't work because they cut the wires, causing a communication breakdown.

I like Michael York. He's always good, right? And his (kind of) recent visibility on shows like CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM and GILMORE GIRLS makes me happy, as does his funny turn in the not so funny AUSTIN POWERS movies as Basil Exposition. We've seen him here at RMC in THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, his first movie. Teen au pair(simmer down, guys)-turned-actress Elke Sommer is lost in a role any actress would be lost in. It's a silly bit of casting for such a serious picture, but I suppose even back then the studio mandate was "either you put a hot chick in it or we're not making it."

ZEPPELIN was directed, a bit weakly, by some frog named Etienne Perier, and written by Arthur Rowe (who wrote TV shows like GUNSMOKE and FANTASY ISLAND) from a story by Owen Crump, whose name sounds like some sort of Michael Cera indie character. It was shot by Alan Hume, who would shoot more blimp footage in the Bond film A VIEW TO A KILL. Sadly, Hume died just 24 days before tonight's screening. Also sad, five people were killed while making this movie when a biplane crashed into a helicopter. Shouldn't people die on good movies? At least there's some sort of contribution. Why're people always dying in the crummy ones (VAMPIRE IN BROOKLYN, GONE FISHIN', TWILIGHT ZONE)?

Though ZEPPELIN is slow at times, there were some really good moments, like when the airship can't climb fast enough to get away from the lower altitude planes and they must jettison everything they can, even the dead. Also cool, the biplanes circling and shooting at the LZ -36 as if it were Kong on the top of the Empire State Building (NOTE: the building's spire was originally a mooring mast for dirigibles to dock on, but high winds ended up making this impossible).

But ZEPPELIN really missed the mark with the poor job they did with Michael York's character. After all, he's a half-German who left Germany, losing some adoration from friends and family in the process. Now loyal to England and pretending to defect back to Germany, he'll surely lose more friends, this time on the English side. Plus, and this is a big plus, he's not a spy, and they are putting him in a spy position. So he's got all that to deal with, which equates to a ton of inner conflict that should be boiling over. Yet the movie barely touches on this. What's going through his head? Just where are his loyalties? How is he being ripped apart?

Also odd, a scene at the beginning where Geoffrey is on a balcony facing the street, where he sure seems to have some major acrophobia (I think Major Acrophobia may have been his commander). Yet it seemed to go away once he got up in the old Zep. We even joked "remember that for later!" And we did...but they didn't.

I love the way all of the information, be it from the English or the Germans, is explained to Geoffrey and us. They just talk, without the usual movie snark, condescension or attitude. It's all very real and natural. Sometimes interesting, sometimes not, you know, like real life. And because of this and other things like the pacing, I found ZEPPELIN somewhat earnest and entertaining. Sure, it's easy to make fun of it, and I don't have a whole lotta love for it, but despite all that, I kinda/sorta enjoyed watching it. If only the stupid marketing department didn't put pictures on the back of the box (we watched this on VHS, as there is no mass market DVD, just a burn-on-demand version from Warners) which give away little moments, like the end of the movie. If I did that, it would be nobody's fault but mine, thank you very much!

PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT: ONE GOT FAT

ONE GOT FAT is a short, perhaps one of the oddest shorts I've ever seen. It's a bicycle safety film from the early 60s. But...

All the kids have monkey faces and tails. And not funny ones, scary ones. You see, all the kids die, one at a time, because they're not following safety rules like not stopping at stop signs and poor bike maintenance. There's only one kid who survives, because he obeyed all the rules. So he got to eat the lunches of the seven dead kids, so there you go - one got fat.

Narrated by Edward Everett Horton, the short has characters with names like Mossby Pomegranate and Stanislaw Hickenbottom, which may have been cute storybook names... if they weren't wearing those freaky, freakin' masks and tails.

I suppose the reason they're all in masks is because they didn't want to show children getting hit by cars (they didn't really do that with the monkey-kids either). But man, did they have to look so grotesque and Stephen King-y? If I were a kid, I would have had nightmares for months and never ridden a bike again. This thing is a creepshow. See for yourself: http://tinyurl.com/22majc