Wednesday, May 29, 2013
"My Rifle, My Pony and Me" (Rio Bravo tribute, Part II)
While Sheriff Chance took on a major task by arresting Joe Burdette and incarcerating him in his small Presidio County jail, with Stumpy left to guard the bad guy most of the time, he still bears the responsibility for maintaining the law elsewhere in his town, something he accomplishes through street patrols and his nights staying at The Hotel Alamo (of all the names to pick) run by Carlos Robante (Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez) and his wife Consuela (Estelita Rodriguez). One night, a poker game piques his interest as two of the players (Angie Dickinson, Walter Barnes) fit the profile of two hustlers warned about on handbills. After a cursory investigation, Chance arrests the woman, who goes by the name Feathers. She declares her innocence and Chance fails to find the crooked cards on her after she's left the table following a huge winning streak. When he returns though, he does find the stacked deck on the man, who has raked it in since her departure and tells him to return his ill-gotten gains and be on the morning stagecoach. He suggests that Feathers do the same, but she decides to stick around.
That next day, the Burdettes arrive as expected, led by Joe's smooth brother Nathan (John Russell, the gaunt, veteran actor of mostly Westerns where he usually played the villain. His second-to-last film was as the cold-blooded killer in Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider). He asks Chance why the streets appear so full of people. Chance offers no explanation, but suggests that perhaps gawkers came to town, drawn to the possibility that the Burdettes planned to put on a show.
Chance makes his nightly trek to the Hotel Alamo. When he gets there, Spencer pulls him over for a drink. The wagon master has heard of the trouble Chance faces. "A game-legged old man and a drunk. That's all you got?" Spencer asks in disbelief. "That's what I got," Chance responds. Spencer offers himself and his men as help against the Burdettes, but the sheriff expresses reluctance to take responsibility for others. He does ask about the confident young gunman Colorado that Spencer has hired. If he is as good as he thinks he is and lacks the family ties of the older men, Chance would be willing to take him on if Colorado agrees. Spencer calls Colorado over, but the young man politely declines, earning Chance's respect for being smart enough to know when to sit out a fight. Not long afterward, while Feathers flirts again and Chance urges her to get on the morning stage, shots ring out on the street and Spencer falls dead. Later, Nathan Burdette makes his first visit to see his brother Joe, despite Stumpy's withering verbal assaults, at the jail. First, Nathan wants the sheriff to
explain why his brother looks so beat up. "He didn't take too kindly to being arrested for murder," Chance tells Nathan while Joe denies the shooting was murder. Nathan asks how Chance can be so certain or, at the very least, why Joe isn't being tried where the alleged murder occurred. Chance nixes that idea, content to let the U.S. marshal handle Joe Burdette and try him elsewhere. Nathan silkily makes no overt threats, but certainly implies that Joe might not remain in the Presidio County jail by the time that marshal shows up, especially if the sheriff relies on a drunk and an old man as his backup. Chance isn't in a mood to hide his cards. "You're a rich man, Burdette. Big ranch, pay a lot of people to do what you want 'em to do. And you got a brother. He's no good but he's your brother. He committed 20 murders you'd try and see he didn't hang for 'em," the sheriff spits out. "I don't like that kinda talk. Now you're practically accusing me," Nathan Burdette says, but Chance continues. "Let's get this straight. You don't like? I don't like a lot of things. I don't like your men sittin' on the road bottling up this town. I don't like your men watching us, trying to catch us with our backs turned. And I don't like it when a friend of mine offers to help and 20 minutes later he's dead! And i don't like you, Burdette, because you set it up." If war wasn't brewing before, it was now.
The murder of Spencer fully incorporates the last two major characters more fully into the film and the action. With his boss dead, Colorado at first finds himself content to take his pay from the slain wagon master's possessions and remains determined to mind his own business. Once he witnesses some more of the Burdette brutality, Colorado decides to join up and Chance deputizes him. Colorado becomes part of the team and helps Chance escape an ambush, an ambush for which the sheriff seems prepared to occur, quickly pumping off rounds from his rifle. "You always leave the carbine cocked?" Colorado asks. "Only when I carry it," Chance replies. Originally, Hawks opposed casting Ricky Nelson, though the director admits he probably boosted box office. He had sought someone popular with young viewers, but felt Nelson — who turned 18 during filming — lacked age and experience for the part. Hawks had chased Elvis Presley for the role, but as often was the case, Col. Tom Parker demanded too much money for his client and the Rio Bravo production had to take a pass. The pseudo love affair between Feathers and Chance also heats up, though Wayne's discomfort with the romantic scenes with Dickinson is readily apparent. Wayne felt uneasy about the 25-year age gap between him and Dickinson. On top of that, nervous studio bosses wanted no implication made that Chance and Feathers ever sleep together. Double entendres and innuendos abound, but truthfully more sparks fly in brief scenes between Martin and Dickinson and Nelson and Dickinson than ever produce friction in the Wayne-Dickinson scenes. What becomes most interesting about the relationship between Feathers and Chance is Feathers' transformation into the sheriff's protector, keeping watch over him as he sleeps to make sure that no Burdette makes a move on him.
You don't need to know how the rest of Rio Bravo unfolds. Besides, part of what makes the film so fascinating and more than your ordinary Western comes from the multiple tones Hawks balances. A viewer seeing Rio Bravo for the first time couldn't positively predict what mood shall prevail by the final reel: light-hearted, tragic, heroic, romantic, some combination of those elements. At any given moment, you might change your mind. Most of this uncertainty reflects the nature of the character Dude. With the possible exception of Feathers, almost every other character in the film stays on a static path. Dude captures our attention the most because of the dynamics within him. Will he maintain the upper hand in his battle with booze or will he fall off the wagon again and if he does, what consequences does that
have for the others? Even sober, he's prone to depression, low self-esteem and self-pity. Still, he can croon a song or be a crack shot. A part this multifaceted requires a talented actor and back when Rio Bravo was made, Dean Martin wouldn't be one of the first names to jump to your mind. However, in the years 1958 and 1959, soon after the end of his partnership with Jerry Lewis, Martin turned in two impressive performances (perhaps three, but I haven't seen 1958's The Young Lions). In 1958, he gave a great turn as a professional gambler Bama Dillert in Vincente Minnelli's adaptation of the James Jones novel Some Came Running starring Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine. He followed that with his astoundingly good work in Rio Bravo. While Martin continue to make entertaining films, for some reason those two years stand out as an aberration and he never got roles as good as Bama Dillert or Dude again.Hawks' behind-the-scenes collaborators provided as much of the magic of Rio Bravo as its cast. From Russell Harlan's crisp and lush cinematography to Tiomkin's score that complements Hawks' leisurely pacing well. Tiomkin also teamed with lyricist Paul Francis West for the film's songs — "Cindy" and "My Rifle, My Pony and Me" in the extended musical interlude by Dude, Stumpy and
Colorado as well as the title song. Reportedly, Wayne joined the singing at one point until they decided it inappropriate for the sheriff to take part (and also because the Duke allegedly could not carry a tune). In another instance of borrowing from past work, at Wayne's suggestion, Tiomkin actually reworked the theme to Red River into the song "My Rifle, My Pony and Me." Tiomkin also composed "Degüello," aka "The Cutthroat Song," which the Burdettes play to psych out the good guys guarding Joe. The film claims the music comes from Mexico where Santa Anna's soldiers played it continuously to unnerve those holed up inside the Alamo. Wayne loved the music and the story so much, even though the tale wasn't true, he used it in his film The Alamo the following year. His screenwriting team of Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett both had worked with Hawks as a team and separately before and after Rio Bravo. Previously, Furthman and Brackett co-wrote Hawks' classic 1946 take on The Big Sleep. Furthman also co-wrote Come and Get It and To Have and Have Not and did a solo turn on Only Angels Have Wings. The legendary Brackett, despite her extensive screenwriting work, made a name for herself as a novelist, largely in the male-dominated field of science fiction. In Schickel's commentary, he refers to Brackett as an example of a real life Hawksian woman. In fact, before her death, the last screenplay she co-wrote was The Empire Strikes Back. In another non-Hawks project, she returned to Philip Marlowe when she wrote the screenplay for Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye. In addition to the Hawks titles already mentioned for Brackett, she also wrote the screenplay for 1962's Hatari! and co-wrote 1970's Rio Lobo. The DVD commentary also includes director John Carpenter, who names Hawks as his favorite director, and paid tribute to Leigh Brackett by naming the sheriff in the original Halloween after her.Tweet
Labels: 50s, Altman, Angie Dickinson, Blog-a-thons, Dean Martin, Eastwood, Elvis, Hawks, Jerry Lewis, John Carpenter, MacLaine, Movie Tributes, Sinatra, Star Wars, W. Brennan, Wayne
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Sunday, May 15, 2011
“Tired of ordinary television?” Oh, you have no idea.
By Richard von Busack
Thirty years ago today, SCTV began broadcasting on NBC as a replacement for the Friday night music show The Midnight Special. Titled SCTV Network 90 (the 90 eventually was dropped), NBC conceived SCTV as another Saturday Night Live, just on tape and a different night. Though SCTV had comedy sketches and variety, that’s about all it had in common with SNL. SCTV Network followed the programming day of a small and strange Canadian TV network, essentially a mom-and-pop operation broadcasting in Melonville and the Tri-County area.
That loose theme allowed them to have movies of the week (elaborate, brilliant film parodies conducted on the show’s teeny budget). Just the mention of the titles is enough to make some people start laughing: Grapes of Mud, The Man Who Would Be King of the Popes, Lust for Paint, Scenes From an Idiot’s Marriage. Best remembered is the Godfather parody that cast the actual John Marley (the unfortunate owner of the racehorse in Coppola’s film) re-creating his most famous on-screen moment.
I could go on; happily the show’s run is preserved on Shout Factory!’s fine, comprehensive and expensive DVD set. Let’s also get something out of the way. Sentimental as people are about their Killer Bees and their Blues Brothers, in all categories except the all-important ratings, SCTV smoked Lorne Michaels’ much-vaunted SNL.
In Canada, SCTV had been on the air since 1976; a bare bones production rooted in the improv scene of Chicago and Toronto. For tortured financial reasons (the finances of the show went through everything but waterboarding, as Dave Thomas’ book on the show outlines), SCTV was filmed for a while in Edmonton. We can only guess how much that prairie city gave to our notion of Melonville.
SCTV shared performers with SNL, losing some talent to 30 Rockefeller Plaza (most irreplaceably Martin Short); the actors, writers and directors were lured to Hollywood. Harold Ramis was following his own successes all the way up to Ghostbusters for instance.
Certainly early 1980s SNL had its moments and it loosened up the concept of what could be done on comedy television, but I do have a grudge and I’ll air it. When I see the likes of Tina Fey — a witty performer who also is one of those endless legions of relatively normal people who consider themselves an outré weirdo…when I hear her called a comic genius, who single-handedly fractured the glass ceiling as a writer for a show that is, when all is said and done, a sitcom…and ultimately, when I compare the very best work I’ve seen Fey do with, say, Catherine O’Hara in even a middling SCTV sketch circa 1980…or when I compare Fey to the memory of the soulful Andrea Martin in leopard prints and cat’s-eye glasses as Miss Edith Prickley, snorting back a nasal laugh marinated in smoker’s phlegm…more than the usual embitterment sets in at the end of the day.
It is the women of SCTV that strike my memory most — Robin Duke was one of them and should be mentioned — but Martin and O’Hara were ultimately what one loved about SCTV first.
The lovely and talented O’Hara came close to an Oscar not too long ago for A Mighty Wind. The scarifying For Your Consideration was O’Hara’s rich payback for not being nominated. I’m planning on watching that film before every Oscar broadcast just like I watch Bad Santa before every Dec. 25.
In A Mighty Wind, O’Hara played it seriously as a lightly masked version of folk singer Sylvia Tyson. Her partner, the phenomenal Eugene Levy was mostly Ian Tyson, but also Phil Ochs in his crazier stage as well as some other shaky performers. Of course, most of our colleagues in the critical fraternity went, “Uh, are they supposed to be Sonny and Cher?”
Key to the poignancy of this film about folkie has-beens and never-weres was the real-life backing beneath the fiction. Indeed, O’Hara and Levy were performers who had worked together back in the day, who had been loved, but who hadn’t ever made the big time. In a just world, O’Hara would have been huge. In this one, she was merely one of the greatest comic actors of the last 50 years. It is O’Hara as tight-nerved and sadly overmedicated chanteuse Lola Heatherton that I think of, when thinking of the single finest moment of SCTV’s six-season run.*
In the familiar two-camera double-exposure fades used on daytime variety shows, O’Hara’s Lola has a splendid meltdown while performing a parody of Carly Simon’s hit, “That’s The Way I Always Heard It Should Be.” What was the song title? Of course: “You’re All Just Parasites Draining Me For Love.” Miss Lola, ripped to the pectoral muscles on some kind of pharmaceuticals, is in a semi-autobiographical fugue. The song is aimed like a ninja throwing star at the jittery president of the SCTV Television Network Guy Caballero (Joe Flaherty), a snazzy-looking spiv who uses a wheelchair. He doesn’t need it — it’s for respect.
O’Hara loved “cheesers” as she called them, odd ducks who’d never have a place anywhere outside of show business. Below, her performance as “Dusty Towne,” a Rusty Warren-style red hot mama hosting a completely inappropriate Christmas special. Martin, about whom there’ll be more in a moment, plays the zonked adagio dancer in the bleached fright wig.
Andrea Martin’s people were Armenian. I have the received idea (I received it from Armenians) that they are great storytellers, who prefer a method of storytelling in which parts of a story are nested in other parts…in the way a Russian grandmother doll contains doll after doll. (The Armenian who told me this said it explained Atom Egoyan’s films, particularly Family Viewing, Ararat and Adoration.) How this affects Martin’s comedy style is a matter of opinion, though SCTV was nested like that; you could follow threads, mull over backstories, glimpse the personal abysses of the characters. Martin was dark and could be either glamorous, or the old babushka on the back of the bus. She was good looking enough to be the smoldering Italian in the Fellini parody Rome: Italian Style). And she was also capable of tragedy, as suicidal pop singer Connie Franklin. She also was a superb physical comedian. There’s things Martin does in the movie that comes closest to the madness of SCTV, Harold Ramis’ 1986 Club Paradise, that are as good as anything Lucille Ball did.
“Bob and Doug were not the cleverest thing we did, by a long shot. Other characters we did were much smarter and more worthy of recognition. But Americans love dumb characters…”
That’s Dave Thomas in his book SCTV: Behind the Scenes on his partnership with Rick Moranis. Made up almost on the spot to fulfill the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the likable half-wits Bob and Doug McKenzie, emissaries of “The Great White North” became the mascots of SCTV. They deserve respect in a way. The two fools are essential to the growing concept of nationhood in a country where 90 percent of the people live within 100 miles of the U.S. border. The idea that Canadians say “eh?” is a result of that bit.
And if Americans like comedic saps (we still do: what are South Park’s Terrance and Phillip but descendants of Bob and Doug?) the two toque-wearing, Molson guzzling layabouts were even more popular north of the border. “I had never experienced any contact with the audience during my three years at SCTV.” That changed when he and Moranis were mobbed at the Edmonton airport by fans of “The Great White North.” The resulting fame of these two characters contributed to the jealousies and strain at the show. John Candy was gone to Hollywood, working in movies that were often beneath him; he deserves an article all his own, that comedian whose rise and early death makes him a figure you could mention with the same reverence as Fatty Arbuckle and Curly Howard.
Martin Short’s own ability to do classic Hollywood (and the most devastating impersonation of Jerry Lewis ever) served him well on Broadway and TV specials. (I, Martin Short, Go To Hollywood is the masterpiece among them). Levy and Flaherty, the utility players on the program, are as funny now as they were then.
Looking over the Shout Factory! discs, one notices that a lot of the topical references decayed with time; the barking voice of the KTEL-like salesman (Thomas, that was) hawking “Gordon Lightfoot Sings Every Song Ever Written” may seem hard to believe, but it’s strange how much of this stuff has aged well, and the fascination with old films and TV keeps them current: the divine sparkle of these performers still is remembered by a relatively few but rabid fans.
Richard von Busack is the longtime film critic for Metro Newspapers. His book The Art of Megamind was published last year.
EDITOR’S NOTE: By saying SCTV ran six seasons, it requires a bit of complicated explanation, since it doesn’t equate to six years or fit the standard definition of a television season. The original Canadian television incarnation debuted as a 30 minute show 35 years ago on Sept. 21, though it did eventually make it to America in syndication. It wasn’t a weekly program at first, airing just once a month for its first six episodes. When the next batch of seven Canadian TV episodes began to air in February 1977, it was shown once every other week. When the Global Television Network, the Canadian network on which SCTV aired, ordered another 13 installments in September 1977, it finally had a weekly slot – at least until December of that year. This surreal scheduling of its first 26 episodes (produced over the course of 15 months) were considered SCTV’s first season. Its second Canadian season was more conventional, airing weekly from fall to spring 1978-79, though it lost original cast member Harold Ramis as a performer after the third episode, though he retained the title of head writer for the rest of the season. (The other original performers were Candy, Flaherty, Levy, Martin, O’Hara and Thomas).
For the 1979-80 season, SCTV didn’t air at all on Canadian television. However a deal was reached for a third Canadian season for 1980-81 without Candy, O’Hara and Ramis. As replacements, Robin Duke, Rick Moranis and Tony Rosato joined the cast. Less than two months after the third Canadian season wrapped, NBC launched SCTV Network 90. Candy and O’Hara were lured back and Duke and Rosato were given their walking papers, which actually included directions to eventual spots on SNL. NBC practiced fuzzy math as far as what counts as a season as well, calling the episodes produced between May 15, 1981 and July 16, 1982 the fourth season, so long that Martin Short joined the cast during the latter part of it as O’Hara left once again, this time joined by Moranis and Thomas. Unfortunately, NBC only gave SCTV Network one more season, its fifth, which ran from October 1982 until its final NBC episode aired on March 18, 1983.
The reason SCTV is considered to have had a sixth season has another quirky explanation. After its NBC cancellation, it moved to pay TV (Superchannel in Canada, Cinemax in the U.S.). It also was rechristened SCTV Channel and only Flaherty, Levy, Martin and Short remained, though Candy, O’Hara and Thomas did some guest appearances during the sixth and final season’s 18 episodes that ended July 17, 1984. So that’s how a show can run six seasons over nearly eight years.
Tweet
Labels: 80s, Animation, Books, Coppola, Fellini, Jerry Lewis, L. Ball, Nonfiction, Oscars, Ramis, South Park, Theater, TV Tribute
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Tony Curtis (1925-2010)
In a strange way, Tony Curtis resembled his great role (I'd argue his greatest) as Sidney Falco in 1957's Sweet Smell of Success. Not that he was overly ambitious to the point of having no scruples, but that for every bit of good fortune Curtis had in his career, it didn't quite seem to stick and now that he has died at the age of 85 though he leaves a legacy of many good performances and great films, somehow he didn't end up having the career that his talent deserved.
He made his film debut in a short film directed by Jerry Lewis in 1949 called How to Smuggle a Hernia Across the Border but, thankfully, features and real roles would come his way. The next year the former Bernard Schwartz got to join the Cavalry in a classic Western: Anthony Mann's Winchester '73 starring Jimmy Stewart, though his credit read Anthony Curtis.
Three years later, he showed his knack for escaping tight spots by taking on the title role in Houdini. Three years later, he teamed with Burt Lancaster in Carol Reed's colorful but silly circus melodrama Trapeze. The next year he and Lancaster teamed up again in what may be his best work, the wonderfully cynical Sweet Smell of Success. As a press agent in Alexander Mackendrick's masterwork, Curtis and Lancaster were a great acting twosome and they had that great Elmer Bernstein score and James Wong Howe cinematography that really brought 1950s Manhattan alive in glorious black-and-white.
In 1958, he and Kirk Douglas teamed up as The Vikings. The same year, he received his only Oscar nomination as an escaped prisoner chained to another inmate, Sidney Poitier, in Stanley Kramer's The Defiant Ones. As was the case with many Kramer films, the social messaging got ladeled on a bit too thickly, but Curtis and Poitier's realism helped to temper that aspect so the film went down a bit more smoothly.
1959 brought him the chance to work with Cary Grant twice in a way. He did it for real in Operation Petticoat. Then, in the film of his that will last the test of time most likely, Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot, he should have earned his second Oscar nomination for essentially playing three characters: Joe, the musician on the run from the mob with Jack Lemmon; Josephine, the female character he assumes in hiding; and Shell Oil Jr., the playboy who sounds suspiciously like Cary Grant as he tries to seduce Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe). He's a riot in all three personas. However, the Academy only nominated Lemmon for the film.
Two years later, he had a small role in Stanley Kubrick's largely disowned Spartacus, where his most famous scene, a bathing encounter full of sexual innuendo with Laurence Olivier, was lost on a cutting room floor for decades.
The rest of the 1960s saw Curtis still work steadily but in projects less worthy of his time. He got hidden under heavy makeup as did many others in John Huston's mystery The List of Adrian Messenger; he co-starred with Natalie Wood in the adaptation of Helen Gurley Brown's best seller Sex and the Single Girl; he showed off a killer instinct as The Boston Strangler; he got to joke around with Lemmon again in The Great Race; and without him in Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies.
Before The Simpsons made it a habit to have famous guest voices, Curtis' voice turned up on The Flintstones, which turned 50 today, as Stony Curtis.
His career really started to cool in the 1970s, thanks in no small part to a cocaine habit, and it led to bad film roles such as The Bad News Bears Go to Japan and lots of television, such as a regular role opposite Robert Urich on Vega$.
His last feature role of interest was probably Nicolas Roeg's 1985 film Insignificance, based on a play, where he played a fictionalized version of Sen. Joe McCarthy encountering Einstein, Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe in a hotel room.
He also appeared on a later episode of Roseanne as a frisky dance instructor who sparks jealousy between Jackie and her mother.
During his marriage to the actress Janet Leigh, they had a daughter who became an actress in her own right, Jamie Lee Curtis.
It's a shame that a career that started so strongly, sort of petered out, but Curtis left so much good material in those early years that he'll still be remembered.
RIP Mr. Curtis.
Tweet
Labels: Animation, Anthony Mann, Carol Reed, Cary, Huston, J. Stewart, Jerry Lewis, K. Douglas, Kubrick, Lancaster, Lemmon, Marilyn, Obituary, Olivier, Television, The Simpsons, Tony Curtis, Wilder
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Henry Gibson (1935-2009)
To paraphrase Haven Hamilton's anthem "200 Years" in Robert Altman's Nashville, Henry Gibson must have been doing something right to last as long as he did. Unfortunately, Gibson didn't make it 200 years, dying five days short of his 74th birthday. Not only did Gibson star as Haven, my favorite role of his, he also wrote the songs Haven sang as most of the actors in the Nashvile cast did. Gibson's TV and film career both began the same year in 1963, with roles in several episodic TV series and in Jerry Lewis' The Nutty Professor. His real entry into the public consciousness came in 1968 as a member of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. He delivered a hilarious fake public service announcement in Kentucky Fried Movie on behalf of the dead. Nashville was far from his only work with Altman, working with the director in The Long Goodbye, A Perfect Couple and HealtH. Pretender to the Altman throne Paul Thomas Anderson even cast him as a barfly (named Thurston Howell no less) in Magnolia. He led the Illinois Nazis chasing Jake and Elwood in The Blues Brothers. He was the evil doctor conducting experiments and holding former Laugh-In co-star Lily Tomlin hostage in The Incredible Shrinking Woman. He was a member of the supremely odd family living across the street from Tom Hanks in The 'burbs. He did recurring voicework as Bob Jenkins on King of the Hill. His last role turned out to be his frequent appearances as the exasperated judge who frequently saw Alan Shore and Denny Crane (James Spader, William Shatner) in his courtroom on Boston Legal. However, of all his prolific work, he'll always be Haven Hamilton to me. R.I.P. Mr. Gibson.
Tweet
Labels: Altman, Hanks, Jerry Lewis, Lily Tomlin, Obituary, Shatner, Television
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Monday, August 10, 2009
No matter where you go, it's 25 years old today
By Edward Copeland
There's no set formula for concocting a successful cult classic. Many a film has flopped when its specific aim was to be some sort of underground or small-level phenomenon. When it hits though, as The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension did 25 years ago, it seems as if it were all part of the plan. I can't even remember what excited my friends and I to the theater to for this film on opening weekend or to get into its unique groove, but after re-visiting it for this piece, I found we were mere pikers in the Banzai obsession which grew to be more elaborate than I ever knew. Much of this new knowledge came from the DVD I rented which was released in 2001 and was loaded with extras but, alas, is no longer in print. The commentary track by director W.D. Richter also includes the "real Reno," one of Buckaroo Banzai's faithful team played in the film by Pepe Serna. The commentary track alternates between real tales of the making of the film such as arguments with David Begelman over how many times Banzai could be shown wearing red spectacles in the film to Richter talking about how he didn't realize until he was filming that the story and characters were "true" and giving insights into "real" events before and after the movie takes place and how some violence was "toned down" from the truth to avoid an R rating.
Buckaroo Banzai (Peter Weller) is a neurosurgeon. He also plays with a band in unannounced concerts on the side. He's also a scientist interested in all sorts of fields related to physics and a noted adventurer, frequently
saving the world with the help of Team Banzai and the Banzai Institute for Biomedical Engineering and Strategic Information. He even gets help from his own sort of militia called Blue Blaze Irregulars, trained civilians who are called upon in a pinch like Army Reserves. Buckaroo has even inspired his own series of comic book adventures. His scientific interests are an inherited one from his Japanese father and American mother (played in a deleted scene by Jamie Lee Curtis). As the film opens, after finishing some surgery, Banzai is ready to test his Jetcar and its oscillation overthruster to see whether it can pass through the solid matter of a mountain, enter the 8th Dimension and emerge from the other side unscathed. According to the commentary, he takes only three items with him: the overthruster, a turkey sandwich and Einstein's brain. (An interesting sidenote: Part of the equipment inside Buckaroo's Jetcar resembles the flux capacitor
that will be the key to time travel in the following year's Back to the Future.) It's an experiment that killed his parents (perhaps due to sabotage by the evil and mysterious Hanoi Xan) and even earlier in an attempt gone wrong by Dr. Emilio Lizardo (John Lithgow) who was possessed by nasty aliens from Planet 10 who reside in that dimension and brought many of those aliens back to Earth with him back in 1938. Banzai's experiment succeeds and he returns unharmed and with evidence of a the simultaneous plane of existence within our own. The crazed Dr. Lizardo sees news of Buckaroo's success from his place in a mental hospital and thinks it's time for him to gather his forces and return to Planet 10 where he is known as Lord John Whorfin. The other bad aliens (known as Red Lectroids, but who look like humans without a key formula) who were released during Lizardo's 1938 experiment created and operate Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems, a major U.S. defense contractor. Did you follow all that?
Of course, "truth" or fiction, describing Earl Mac Rauch's screenplay proves to be somewhat of a pointless exercise and that's what makes Buckaroo Banzai such a fun ride, though admittedly an acquired taste, for viewers such as myself. It's a deadpan action movie, a Zen adventure, a feature-length nonsequitur. It's one long MacGuffin with a helluva cast to boot. Dialogue has taken on a life of its own such as the immortal "No matter where you go, there you are" or the seemingly pointless "Where is that watermelon from" followed by the reply "I'll tell you later." The members of Team Banzai come with unique names and even snazzier costumes such as new recruit Dr. Sidney Zweibel (Jeff Goldblum), rechristened New Jersey, who wears the
cowboy costume of his grandfather, a silent film star. New Jersey uncovers a key piece of the film's puzzle when he realizes that all the Red Lectroids working at Yoyodyne appeared in Grover's Mills, N.J., on Nov. 1, 1938. Meaning, that Orson Welles' fabled War of the Worlds radio broadcast on Halloween 1938 wasn't a hoax at all but Welles was brainwashed into saying the alien invasion was one. Among the aliens at Yoyodyne waiting for Whorfin's return are John Bigboote (pronounced BigbooTAY) and John O'Connor (played by Christopher Lloyd, right, and Vincent Schiavelli, left). I feel as if I'm spending far too much time trying to describe the plot of Buckaroo Banzai instead of making a case for why it deserves a tribute, but it's such a unique hodgepodge, it almost defies praise as much as it's difficult to describe what it's about. It is what it is. “Nobody is nobody,"
Buckaroo says at one point. "Everybody has something to offer.” That certainly is the case with this movie, which really is a miracle for being made at all. Its origin could have gone two ways: As a feature or as an idea for a weekly TV show, but Rauch's script grew so long, the film won out and it actually got financed somehow. The film comes loaded with its own mythology, which is even expanded on the DVD, which even included spoilers for later chapters that were never filmed or told. For example, Penny Priddy (Ellen Barkin), the depressed woman Buckaroo rescues in the film who turns out to be the long-lost twin sister of Banzai's murdered wife Peggy will be slain two years later by his archenemy Hanoi Xan.
One thing I think I'm failing to emphasize about Buckaroo Banzai is what a funny film it is, even though its humor is no more conventional than its action or its plot. Even the score by Michael Boddicker, which at times
comes off sounding like an electronic whistle, seems to be composed for laughs. Every line Lithgow utters in his crazed pseudo-Italian madman guise comes firing at the audience as if it came from a maching gun loaded with gags. "Sealed with a curse as sharp as a knife. Doomed is your soul and damned is your life," Lizardo spits. Everyone gets in on the act though, as the confused and suicidal Penny Priddy confesses to Buckaroo, "You're like Jerry Lewis, you give me hope to carry on, then you leave me in the lurch while you strap on your six-guns." There are even sight gags as when the president, afraid that a possible war will be triggered with the Soviets by the Black Lectroids of Planet 10 (the good ones) if the Red Lectroids aren't stopped, whips out the Declaration of War — The Short Form. There is even more fun to be found on the out-of-print DVD which includes an extra where subtitles from Team Banzai member Pinky Carruthers gives you astounding facts about Buckaroo's life and the institute. Did you know that Banzai's mobile unit runs on hydrogen and the institute gets many requests from SUV owners who contact the institute to see if they can turn their vehicle into more environmentally friendly modes of transportation? Of course, the movie ultimately ends on a sad note because it had a teaser for the next chapter, a chapter we've never seen and now, 25 years later, it seems unlikely that we ever will. Still, on the off chance that this really was a true story, I think we best be training as Blue Blaze Irregulars since the DVD reports there still may be Red Lectroids out there and Lizardo/Whorfin may have survived that explosion. Even if that's not true, the evil Hanoi Xan remains at large. Try to rent the DVD and acquaint yourself with the backstory.Tweet
Labels: 80s, Barkin, Jeff Goldblum, Jerry Lewis, Lithgow, Movie Tributes, Welles
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Monday, February 23, 2009
Oscar post-mortem
By Edward Copeland
They promised a "new" Oscarcast, determined to enliven a moribund show and (hopefully) attract those long sought-after young viewers. Did they succeed? The show may have been a Rorschach test, because skimming comments from average folks, it seems split (as it always is) with some loving it and some hating it. My opinion: eh.
First off, it was clear Billy Crystal wasn't there or he would have rushed the stage and kicked Hugh Jackman in the balls as he did a variation of his best picture medley bit, only adding props that included Anne Hathaway.
Hugh Jackman was fine and personable and served as a really good Tony Awards host. Unfortunately, the Oscars were the awards being handed out. Now, I've complained for years about the production numbers surrounding the song nominees, but what's the point of condensing the songs into a four minute or so segment if you are gonna kill more time that that with a completely irrelevant number with Jackman, Beyonce, a couple of those High School Musical kids and the young lovers from Mamma Mia! under the premise that "The musical is back!" at which point all the young viewers either turned their Wiis back on or started fantasizing about the new Grand Theft Auto.
Producer Bill Condon also said at one point that supposedly this Oscarcast was supposed to have a narrative, to tell a sort of story. If anyone out there noticed one, please let me know. The clip packages usually defied reason and because of the staging and camerawork were sometimes impossible to read. My dad asked me after the show what was up for best picture, because he couldn't tell from the clip montage.
My big question was what the hell Butch Cassidy had to do with Benjamin Button.
In the In Memoriam section, you couldn't even see some of the names, let alone figure out the plentiful list of notables they left off. As with every year, I have to complain that they don't turn off the mics in the audience so it turns into a popularity contest. More applause for Paul Newman means they like him more than that other dead guy. Also, while in theory I don't mind the idea of someone singing a song, is "I'll Be Seeing You" the right choice? Not unless you are barely hanging on and are seeing the white light.
I was surprised Jerry Lewis gave such a short speech. I couldn't tell if he was in pain or pissed off. Sean Penn and Dustin Lance Black gave the best speeches of the night. I haven't seen Waltz with Bashir, but I don't know why everyone was so surprised it lost. Where did it belong? Foreign film? Documentary? Animated feature? All three? If it can't be easily categorized, it's too difficult for the voters to wrap their heads around.
I did enjoy the Judd Apatow short, if only because I think people should be laughing uproariously at parts of The Reader.
As for Jackman as a host, for the most part, he did what I think a host should: Open the show and then stay mostly the hell out of the way the rest of the night. Why do the Oscars even need a host? The Globes do without one. Want to save some time? No host. Announcer introduces presenters. They give awards. That's it.
Of course, the usual critics whine about categories they don't care about: the shorts, makeup, etc. However, the true Oscarphiles such as myself love each category. The Academy and the network it can't tear itself away from would be better served if they stopped obsessing about expanding their audience and worried about catering to the audience they already have before they give up the Oscars in exasperation. Movie buffs and those obsessed with celebs and fashion always will be there. Your average youngster never will be and why would you even want them? You make the same mistake that most newspaper publishers and editors make: You seek an audience that doesn't exist.
Tweet
Labels: Apatow, Awards, Hugh Jackman, Jerry Lewis, Newman, Oscars, Sean Penn
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Monday, February 18, 2008
The bottom's a perfect place to start
By Edward Copeland
When you think of the great De Niro-Scorsese collaborations, one immediately recalls Travis Bickle or Jake La Motta. It seems sort of appropriate that Rupert Pupkin slips through the cracks in these conversations, but he shouldn't and neither should his film, The King of Comedy, which was released 25 years ago today.
Re-visiting the film for this post, it seemed to me as if The King of Comedy serves as a bridge between the intense, psychological dramas that had given Scorsese his reputation and his next film, After Hours, among the darkest and tensest comedies ever made. De Niro's Rupert Pupkin may seem a lot less dangerous than Travis Bickle, but he is a man willing to kidnap a talk show host at gunpoint to achieve his dream of being a stand-up comic. The essentially comic bent of The King of Comedy allows you to laugh at Rupert in a way you'd never dare laugh at Travis. Still, the taxi driver and the comic wanna-be do have many similarities.
Compare the two awkward dates in their respective films: Travis may not realize that it's a bad idea to take Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) to a porn film for a date, but Rupert is so self-absorbed he spends his date with Rita (Diahanne Abbott)
showing off his autograph collection and warning Rita not to "become a Marilyn." Both achieve positive notoriety as a result of their criminal acts, though Travis is still driving that cab while Rupert achieves his dream of success following a prison term. You can even see a little bit of a future Scorsese-De Niro psycho. When Rupert laughs maniacally during a fake talk show he's holding in his basement, there are echoes of the sounds Max Cady will emit in 1991's Cape Fear while watching Problem Child. If Pupkin had just waited a while longer, he could have been among the many weird "celebrities" our culture sprouts now without having to break the law. Aside from criminal intent, what really separates a Pupkin from a Sanjaya or William Hung? At its core, The King of Comedy, as well as the ending of Taxi Driver, are about the nature of celebrity. The crucial difference: Travis didn't have a hunger for fame while Rupert certainly does. The target of Rupert's obsession, whom he views as the key to success, is late-night talk show host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis). 
The role originally was offered to Johnny Carson, who turned it down for obvious reasons, though his real-life producer Fred DeCordova plays Langford's producer, but I don't think the film would have worked nearly as well as it does with Lewis. Lewis really has to play multiple versions of Langford: There is the on-air jokester, the man who does his best to appease fans, the complete fantasy version that Rupert imagines and the real Jerry Langford, a sheltered asshole who wishes he could avoid public contact as much as possible. Lewis excels at all of these. It's easy to see how Langford could get so tired of adulation as in one case where a woman on a N.Y. street asks for his autograph and he gladly complies. However, when she then tries to get him on the phone with a relative and he cites time constraints, she shouts that she hopes he gets cancer. There is a real level of hostility lurking beneath the admiration of many so-called fans. If Lewis ever deserved an Oscar nomination, this should have been the film that got him one.
Of course, Rupert isn't the only psycho Langford has to deal with: There is also his partner in delusion, Masha (Sandra Bernhard), whose obsession with Jerry seems to be purely a warped sexual one, something she tries to indulge in when she's given the task to guard him while Rupert extorts his way on to national TV. What's particularly interesting in looking at the film again is not only a degree of prescience about the celebrity culture to come, but also other touches that would show up elsewhere. All the scenes of "The Jerry Langford Show" seem to be on video while the other scenes are on film, a technique eventually used on the late, great HBO comedy The Larry Sanders Show.
Scorsese's direction is top notch as always with many memorable shots and sequences. Watch Jerry's stage door exit, which is filmed as if it's that slow-motion footage of the Reagan assassination attempt. Then there is a scene where Rupert is doing his routine to massive laughs, leading to a long pullback revealing a wall-size photo of an audience. One thing that isn't as apparent unless you watch the deleted scene of Langford's full monologue is that his material isn't that markedly better or funnier than the jokes Rupert is eager to tell. The King of Comedy isn't a perfect Scorsese, but it is a very good one and looking at it again and thinking about After Hours, which came next, it really makes me wish that sometime Scorsese would try his hand at more purely comic material again. Certainly, nearly all of his films have ample humor (Goodfellas especially), but I'd love to see him explore that realm again.
Tweet
Labels: 80s, Carson, Cybill Shepherd, De Niro, HBO, Jerry Lewis, Larry Sanders, Movie Tributes, Scorsese
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
