Friday, January 27, 2012
I'd rather be lucky than smart
By Edward Copeland
More than two years after it was announced that Michael Mann would direct the pilot for a possible new HBO series written by Deadwood mastermind David Milch and starring two-time Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman (Kramer Vs. Kramer, Rain Man) and three-time Oscar
nominee Nick Nolte (The Prince of Tides, Affliction, Warrior), that series — Luck — makes its official debut Sunday on HBO at 9 p.m. EST/PST, 8 p.m. CST. The premiere episode of Luck's nine-episode inaugural season actually debuted in December following the second season finale of Boardwalk Empire. Mann and Milch both serve as two of the series’ executive producers and Hoffman bears the title of producer as well. Thanks to my good friends of HBO, I've seen all nine episodes of Luck and will be able to post full-fledged recaps the moment each episode has finished airing. For now, I offer this brief, spoiler-free preview of the series that I've found to be a nice addition to the HBO family of dramas. Having that unmistakable rhythm of Milchian language resonating in my ears again certainly pleases me. On top of that, Luck captures the excitement of horse racing, particularly in a Mann-directed/Milch-written sequence in the premiere, like nothing I've seen before. As someone who enjoyed going to the track (even being clueless as far as handicapping horses goes), watching Luck made me miss being able to go. With only its brief run of nine episodes as a barometer, the show's forecast looks good with its future chance at greatness hovering around 75%. Luck isn't there yet. It's no Deadwood — but few things are. More importantly, it's no John From Cincinnati either. As I write this, the first two episodes are the only installments I've watched more than once but, unless I missed others, viewers will get through all nine episodes with only two utterances of cocksucker. 
What makes that racing sequence in the Luck premiere mimic the experience of a real race parallels the premise of this new drama. The race gets shown from the various perspectives of those involved in horse racing and Luck tells those sides outside of race scenes as well. Its large cast encompasses owners, trainers, jockeys at different points in their careers, jockeys' agents, track veterinarians and the serious gamblers — and those just include regulars. The world David Milch has created also will cross paths with other track officials and employees. In their own ways, the horses develop distinct personalities as well. While scenes occur away from the fictionalized Santa Anita Park that serves as the focal point of the series, all stories lead back there in some way. As for that race sequence, much of the credit for it has to fall to Michael Mann's direction and the editing team of Michael Brown, Hank Corwin and Kelley Dixon. The cutting of that race should earn the pilot next year's Emmy in that category now.
Mann steered two of the '80s most influential crime dramas to the airwaves — Miami Vice and Crime Story — though he hasn't produced for television since the short-lived Robbery Homicide Division in the 2002-2003 season and he last directed for TV when he helmed the 1989 telefilm L.A. Takedown. It's not that Mann has been loafing — he's directed and/or produced several feature films including Heat, The Insider, Ali, The Aviator and Hancock. The Insider brought Mann three Oscar nominations for producing, directing and co-writing the film. He also was nominated for producing The Aviator.
Milch created Luck, which marks his first new work to air since John From Cincinnati. He wrote a pilot for a series called Last of the Ninth in 2009, but no one picked it up. Milch forever holds a place in the hearts of quality television fans as the maestro behind the prematurely ended Deadwood, whose two two-hour wrap-up movies never came to be. Milch has received an astounding 24 Emmy nominations for writing or producing for Deadwood, Hill Street Blues, Murder One and NYPD Blue. He won four Emmys, two for writing NYPD Blue episodes and one as a producer of that series when it won outstanding drama. He earned his fourth Emmy (actually his first) for writing a Hill Street Blues episode.
In addition to Mann and Milch serving as executive producers and Hoffman as producer, Luck's behind-the-scenes producing team also includes Carolyn Strauss (Game of Thrones, Treme) as executive producer; Henry J. Brochtein (The Sopranos, where he also directed) as co-executive producer; and Eric Roth (Oscar-winning screenwriter of Forrest Gump and Oscar-nominated writer of The Insider, Munich and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) as co-executive producer.
Hoffman is the series' ostensible lead, though Luck boasts 13 regulars in its opening credits who all get screen time as well as many recurring characters. In fact, in the premiere, some of the other character get more scenes than Hoffman's character, Chester "Ace" Bernstein. We meet Bernstein first as he leaves federal prison after serving three years. The audience won't learn why Ace, a wealthy man who has spent his life operating around gambling enterprises and organized crime, ended up incarcerated in the first episode other
than the fact he took the fall for other people. While imprisoned, he spent $2 million to buy an Irish race horse, using his faithful driver/bodyguard Gus "The Greek" Demitriou (Dennis Farina, star of Mann's Crime Story) as a front, acting as the thoroughbred's owner. One of Luck's strongest assets proves to be that chemistry between Hoffman and Farina, especially in the duo's late-night bull sessions in the hotel suite that Bernstein calls home. They board the horse, named Pint of Plain, at Santa Anita, the race track located in Arcadia, Calif., about 14 miles northeast of downtown L.A. Bernstein's motivation for picking Santa Anita turns out to have two purposes. The first figures in with long-term plans he's had to purchase the track and add casino gambling while getting even with some of his shady business associates, played by guest star Alan Rosenberg in the premiere who's joined in later episodes by Ted Levine and Sir Michael Gambon, returning to a character closer to his Thief in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover than Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films. The second reason resides closer to Ace's heart. Santa Anita serves as the home track for a talented and temperamental Peruvian-born trainer, Turo Escalante (John Ortiz).In my eyes, Escalante — and Ortiz — could prove to be the breakout character and actor on Luck. Ortiz's name may not be as recognizable as Hoffman, Nolte or even Farina, but he's worked with some big name American directors since making his film debut in Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way in 1993. He also appeared in Ron Howard's Ransom, Steven Spielberg's Amistad and Ridley Scott's American Gangster. Luck's
premiere doesn't mark Ortiz's first time being directed by Mann either — he acted in the 2006 film adaptation of Miami Vice as well as Public Enemies. Ortiz also executive produced and repeated his stage role in Philip Seymour Hoffman's directing debut, Jack Goes Boating. The play originated as an off-Broadway production by the theater troupe LAByrinth, where Ortiz served as co-artistic director. It's impressive, but if Luck succeeds,
Turo Escalante will be the vehicle that launches Ortiz's career to the next level. Not only does Ortiz give a phenomenal performance, but Escalante, by far, shows himself to be the most fascinating part of the series as well as the character that interacts with more of the other players than anyone else, including the track's head veterinarian Jo Carter (Jill Hennessy), who turns out to be Turo's secret girlfriend. As with everything created and written by David Milch, he implies key things as much as he verbalizes them. Viewers will get the distinct impression that Escalante may be covered in infinite layers that could be peeled and examined in future seasons. In the meantime, Turo will be there, lashing out at jockeys for not following his instructions on how to run a horse during a race — even if the horse won anyway or acting as if he's a polite servant to a new horse's owner. Ortiz, as the best performers on a Milch show must know how to do, is as adept at making Escalante funny as frightening and even touching when needed.
Nick Nolte, whose stardom took flight on television in the 1976 miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man, returns to the medium for the first time since for Luck — just days after receiving his third Oscar nomination (his first as a supporting actor) in Warrior. As Walter Smith, the
grizzled veteran horse trainer-turned-owner from Kentucky, Nolte's role on Luck plays as a supporting one as well. In fact, he's absent from one of the nine episodes. Called "The Old Man" by many at the track, Smith shares something in common with Ace
Bernstein: the first episode plants seeds of a mystery surrounding his story. In Walter's case, it has nothing to do with a prison sentence, but questions concerning the origin of his "big horse," Gettn'up Morning, that will be resolved rather quickly though the issue will hover over Smith and Gettn'up Morning through the show's short season. Walter also has an important decision to make about the horse — picking the jockey who will ride Gettn'up Morning once he's ready. The two main contenders are his exercise girl, Irish lass Rosie Shanahan (Kerry Condon), who longs to be a jockey, and Ronnie Jenkins (real-life National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens), who used to be a great but has moved into a universe of drink and drugs. Condon should be familiar to longtime viewers of HBO dramas from her role as Octavia on Rome or to moviegoers as Tolstoy's daughter in The Last Station. While acting isn't Stevens' first career, Luck isn't his first role. He played the famous 1930s and '40s jockey George Woolf (who happened to be based out of Santa Anita) in Seabiscuit. 
Trying to keep Ronnie Jenkins sober and secure him the mount on Gettn'up Morning is his stuttering agent Joey Rathburn (Richard Kind) who also represents an apprentice jockey at the track, Leon Micheaux (Tom Payne), also
known as Bug, the name given to most beginning jockeys because the asterisk by their names in racing forms resembles an insect. Joey's career as an agent isn't going well and we get hints that his personal life has crumbled into disarray as well. Leon hails from Louisiana and has problems maintaining the weight he needs to qualify for races. He also doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut — so he manages to keep pissing off Escalante, much to Joey's annoyance. Leon also has a mutual attraction with a certain red-haired girl — who may become a professional competitor down the road. Kind's a familiar face from film and television including his regular role on Spin City, his recurring role as Larry's cousin Andy on Curb Your Enthusiasm and as troubled Uncle Arthur in the Coens' great A Serious Man. Leon may be from Louisiana but Payne hails from England and most of his credits so far come from British TV. Payne's best-known work in the U.S. may be the film Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.
The final quartet of regulars belongs to a syndicate, but it's not the kind of syndicate that's crossing your mind. It's just the name given to a group of serious gamblers who
pool their money so they can make bigger bets that cover more options and, hopefully, reap big benefits such as the more than $2 million payout that would go to someone lucky enough to correctly handicap the races involved in the Pick Six contest in Luck's premiere. The four men make for a colorful group, to say the least. The unofficial ringleader, Marcus Becker (Kevin Dunn), suffers from a variety of health conditions that force him to use a wheelchair and take frequent hits of oxygen from the tank attached to it. He's rude to everyone and seems as if he were born in a cranky mood. The true brain of the group belongs to Jerry Boyle (Jason Gedrick), who possesses a true gift for picking the right horses. Unfortunately, he likes to gamble all
the time so anything he wins at the track he's liable to lose that night playing poker at a casino — and when Jerry gets tapped out, he becomes easy prey for a track security guard (Peter Appel), who works as a loan shark on the side. Marcus calls Jerry a degenerate, but the two of them have a special relationship that's almost
like a father and son or two close brothers. The other two members of the group truly are misfits and you have to wonder how Marcus has let them hang around. The first is Renzo Calagari (Ritchie Coster), who lives on disability checks that he takes straight to the track. The newest member that Renzo has recruited is Lonnie McHinery (Ian Hart), a man who never gets the point of what's going on and has stumbled upon a bankroll supposedly from two women who are paying him to be their personal gigolo. Dunn has been a familiar face in lots of movies and TV shows since the mid-1980s. Even though he didn't have any scenes with Nolte, he also appeared in Warrior. Gedrick has appeared in a lot of television series either as a guest or in shows that didn't last long. He was the murder defendant in the first season of Murder One and one of the police officers in Boomtown, the NBC series that started out great until they mucked with its premise and destroyed it. Coster and Hart, like Payne, are Englishmen playing Americans. Name any crime procedural on TV and Coster has more than likely played a role on it. On the big screen, his films include Let Me In, The Dark Knight and American Gangster. Early in his career, Hart took on the role of John Lennon in two films in a row: The Hours and the Times and Backbeat. He's also made four films with director Neil Jordan including The End of the Affair, where Hart was especially good as a private detective with problems of his own.Even with such a short season, Luck — already full of award winners and nominees in front of and behind the camera — attracted even more for recurring guest roles including Oscar nominees Joan Allen and Bruce Davison and Oscar winner Mercedes Ruehl. There's also guest appearances by Barry Shabaka Henley, Jurgen Prochnow and W. Earl Brown (Deadwood's Dan Dority).
When the credits roll for the first time on Luck, in case you don't recognize the song playing beneath the images and artists' names, it's a trimmed version of "Splitting the Atom" by Massive Attack. Below are the lyrics, the show uses. Click here and you can see the video on YouTube for the complete song. Every listing of the lyrics (including the captions) insists that the band sings "eternited leave." I find no evidence of such a word as "eternited" and almost changed it automatically to eternal, assuming it was a misprint but apparently songwriters Robert Del Naja and Damon Albarn invented a word for their song.
The evening it chokes, the candle, it burns
This disguise covers bitter lies
Repeating the joke, the meaning it dies
It's easy, don't let it go
Don't lose it
The bankers have bailed, the mighty retreat
The pleasure it fails at the end of the week
You take it or leave or what you receive
To what you receive is eternited leave
It's easy, don't let it go
It's easy, don't let it go
It's easy, don't let it go
Don't lose it
As readers who have followed any of my previous series recaps know, my format has evolved. The first show I covered was the great fourth season of The Wire, but I basically just regurgitated what happened with a little criticism tossed in. I didn't go crazy and learn all I could about Baltimore.
My recaps for the first seasons of Treme and Boardwalk Empire pretty much followed the same pattern until I noted historical moments on Boardwalk Empire I suspected casual viewers wouldn't get, so I added explanatory links. For the second season of Treme, I started seeking explanations to references that I didn't get and each recap became like a puzzle, adding the context of real New Orleans events, info on the music — I even began to learn the geography of that city without ever having been there. When the second season of Boardwalk Empire premiered, I beefed up those recaps as well, not only on historical points and characters but even the origins of words and phrases.
Now, I start the nine-episode run of Luck. The recaps will evolve as I write them, but I suspect that if you didn't know the ins and outs of horse racing and betting before the show premiered and parts of the series leave you in the dark, I'll do my best to help fill in those gaps as I learn as well. The first recap ended up in two parts, but that had to do with exposition I believe. I do have to say it's probably a good thing that AMC didn't think me worthy enough to receive Breaking Bad screeners or I probably would know how to make crystal meth.
Luck premieres on HBO Sunday at 9 p.m. EST/PST, 8 p.m. CST with each of the subsequent eight episodes in the nine-episode first season airing at the same time.
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Labels: Boardwalk Empire, Breaking Bad, Coens, Curb Your Enthusiasm, De Palma, Deadwood, Dustin Hoffman, Farina, Gambon, HBO, Luck, Michael Mann, Milch, Nolte, P.S. Hoffman, R. Scott, Spielberg, The Sopranos, The Wire, Treme
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Friday, September 02, 2011
What you've seen on the big screen (but not in its original release)
By Edward Copeland
As my readers can no doubt tell, my contributors and myself don't have much in the way of original copy to offer this week (that's why you've seen three days in a row of From the Vault posts of old reviews written when the films in question originally came out prior to this blog's existence). I'm taking this "week off" because I have several projects coming up that require lots of watching and writing so I can more or less place ECOF on autopilot. It then occurred to me that this would be a great opportunity to me to run something I've always wanted to and that really isn't labor intensive.
Since seeing movies in a theater, for the most part, is a logistical impossibility for me now, I've always wanted to list the films that I was fortunate enough to see in a theater through re-releases that I either wasn't born when they originally came out, I was too young to see in their original release or somehow I missed the first time and they happened to come back. I figured that would be a great comment starter. I've only linked to reviews I wrote based on being able to see the films in a theater the way God intended. Of course, I didn't count The Rocky Horror Picture Show since it never stopped playing. I just went with alphabetical order. I hope I've recalled them all.
Hamilton Luske & Wolfgang Reitherman
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Labels: Altman, Browning, Buñuel, Coppola, Curtiz, Fellini, G. Stevens, Godard, Hitchcock, Kubrick, Landis, Lean, Peckinpah, R. Scott, Renoir, Scorsese, Welles, Whale, Wilder, Wise
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Sunday, August 28, 2011
The Mystery of the Missing Movie (or Body Heat at 30)
By Damian Arlyn
There’s a kind of freedom that comes in knowing you're about to die. A lack of fear. Once you’ve finally accepted that your number is up, a strange sort of detachment comes over you. I’ve always been a pretty apathetic fellow, but I’d never experienced anything like what I felt standing in that alleyway, staring down the barrel of a .38, two fresh corpses sprawled on the grimy ground beside me, knowing full well that my next breath would be my last. I found that I didn’t give a damn about anyone or anything anymore. Not only that, but I’d lost my ability to B.S. There's no deceit in death. A man who lies to save his own skin does so because he still thinks there’s a chance he’ll live. A man who resigns himself to his fate cannot lie. So, in those last few moments of my life, as I reflected back on the twisted course of events that led me there, I knew it was the absolute truth.
It all started two days ago. It was a hot August evening in the city. I sat in my chair watching the ceiling fan spin, which did nothing to cool things off. It just blew the hot air around. The Venetian blinds in my window cast long shadows across my desk where a nearly empty bottle of bourbon sat comfortably next to an empty shot-glass. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost closing time. Suddenly the door to my office opened and a tall, thin brunette dressed to the nines strolled in and closed the door behind her. “Are you Joe Cannon?” she asked.
“If I’m not, then one of us in the wrong office,” I said indicating the name on the door window that clearly read "JOSEPH CANNON: PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR." She sat down in the chair in front of my desk and crossed her legs giving me a swell view of them. "So, what can I do for you, Miss…?"
“My name isn't important. What matters is that I need your help. I would like to hire you to find…" she hesitated, took a deep breath and said, “…a movie.”
“Come again?”
“I need you to help me find a movie.” Now, in all the years I’d been a snoop, I never had a request like this. I’ve educated various women in the extracurricular activities of their husbands. I’ve helped locate missing persons. I’d even tracked down and fingered the occasional blackmailer, thief or murderer, but finding a movie? That was a new one.
“Not my line of work, doll,” I uttered. “Why don’t you try Blockbuster? There’s one down the street.”
“It closed down,” she said. I really need to get out more, I thought. “Besides, I know precisely what movie it is I’m looking for. All I need is a name. I caught it late one night on cable many years ago. I thought it was an excellent example of that genre known as film noir. It involved a man who had fallen in love with a dangerous blonde. Together they plotted to kill her husband but after the deed is done, he starts to suspect that she’s just using him for her own selfish purposes and —”
“I know that film,” I interjected. “It’s Double Indemnity.”
She shook her head. “No, that’s not it. I’m familiar with that film too and although it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that it was used as a source of inspiration given the many similarities, the film I’m looking for has some distinct differences. First of all, Double Indemnity was made in the '40s and is in black and white. My film
was made in the '80s and is in color. The protagonist of Double Indemnity is an insurance salesman while the protagonist of my film is a lawyer. That one is set in Los Angeles while my film takes place in Florida in the middle of an intense heat wave. In fact, because of that I believe the title has something to do with ‘heat’ or ‘hot’… also because it’s a very sexy film. There are several love scenes that are quite erotic, though it never crosses the line into becoming pornographic. There is some nudity, but far more is implied than displayed. Whoever made it knows that the most powerful tool in making something appear sexy is the audience’s imagination.” She suddenly stopped talking, a little embarrassed that she’d just gone on for two minutes about this mysterious film. “Please, I have to find it. It means a great deal to me. I was told that if anyone could help me, you could.”
I was about to tell her that I had better things to do than help some needy broad (who wouldn't even give me her name) track down some random flick she’d had a late-night fling with years earlier, but there was something about her eyes that grabbed me: a look of desperation in them that I couldn’t shake. That’s when I made a mistake that you never make in my line of work. For the first time in a long time, I felt sorry for a client. I told her I’d help her out. Her face lit up. As I discussed my pay, she jotted down some more information on a scrap of paper (along with a number where I could reach her) which she handed to me. She rose and sauntered to the door. “Thank you, Mr. Cannon,” she said looking over her shoulder with a smile.
"Call me Joe," I said. "What do I call you?"
"I'm known to my friends as 'The Siren.'"
So, a Greek mythological creature hired me to find a movie. I guess I'd had weirder cases. I decided to start with my old Army buddy Matt Zoller Seitz. Matt was such a film freak that he had forgotten more about movies than I would ever know. The next day I called his workplace. He wasn’t there, but his office told me where I could find him. I caught up with Matt at a local park playing with his kids. He was pushing one of them in a swing when he saw me coming toward him and smiled. “Joe,” he said holding out his hand as I approached him. “It’s been a while. What’s new? You still in the gumshoe business?"
I shook his hand. “Still. In fact, I’m on a case right now. I’m looking for a movie.”
“Well, I’m your man. What do you got?”
“It’s film noir. Story involves some sap who gets mixed up with the wrong dame. Together they kill her husband and then things start to go bad for him.”
“Sounds like Double Indemnity. Released in 1944. Directed by Billy Wilder.”
“Nah, this one’s more recent,” I said pulling out my notepad and looking at the details The Siren gave me. I told Matt that this film was made in the '80s. I mentioned it featured William Hurt as the sap, Kathleen
Turner (in her first movie role) as the voluptuous vixen he falls for, the late great Richard Crenna played her husband, J.A. Preston was the investigating cop, Ted Danson (in what apparently was one of his best performances) portrayed a sleazy rival lawyer who is always dancing wherever he goes and a very young Mickey Rourke was an explosives expert. I went on about what the lady had told me regarding the film’s visual style: how the camera could glide with confidence and grace but also know precisely when to let it rest in a static shot. As I read more and more details off, I noticed Matt’s smile slowly fade away. It was replaced by a look of concern. He was clearly getting uncomfortable. “I…uh, I don’t know that one. Sorry. It just doesn’t ring a bell.”
“You not knowin’ a flick? That doesn’t sound like you, Matt.”
“Well, I guess you can’t know ‘em all, huh?” he said wiping the sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta take the kids home.”
“What’s wrong, Matt?”
“Nothing. Just…let this one go, Joe. Let it go.”
Matt’s warning echoed in my head as I drove all over town talking to other friends of mine who happened to know a lot about movies. Everywhere I went I got the same answer. They didn’t know. Of course, I knew they were lying. They did know and they weren’t talking. They were scared. Someone had put the fear of God into them, but who? And why? As the evening rolled in, I was no closer to finding this flick than I was to finding Nick Jonas’ talent. I decided to try the local library. Not only did they have a very extensive collection of
movies to check out, but I happened to know a girl who worked there. Her name was Sheila O’Malley. She was a blonde, bookish type with whom I’d had a thing going a while ago, but she wanted more so I got out while the getting was good. Since then she’d had a string of casual boyfriends, but I still think she was waiting for me to come to my senses again and I was able to use that sometimes to my advantage. I caught up with her as she was getting ready to lock up. “Well, look at what the cat dragged in.” she said smiling wryly. “What brings you here, Joe?” I told her everything I knew about the movie and she agreed to help me out, for old time’s sake. She typed the information into her computer database. “Ah, yes. Here we go. The film you’re looking for is called Body Heat. It was released on August 28, 1981 and was written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan. He’s the guy who wrote the screenplays to Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back. He later went on to direct The Big Chill, Silverado and Mumford, but Body Heat was his first film.”
“Yeah, fascinating," I said suppressing a yawn. "Do you have it?”
“As a matter of fact, we do.” She led me to the area where they kept their movies. As she looked through the numerous rows of plastic cases for it, I decided to ask her if she had ever seen the film herself and if so what she thought of it. “Oh, sure. I saw it a long time ago. I quite liked it. I remember thinking that the music in particular was very good. John Barry, the fella responsible for such great scores as Midnight Cowboy, Somewhere in Time and many of the James Bond films, wrote a very lush, sensual jazz score. It captured the steamy essence of the story quite effectively I thought. In fact, it’s one of his best scores.” She stopped and looked off nostalgically. "I can still hear that sultry sax solo playing over those opening credits." I cleared my throat, she snapped out of it, pulled out a case with an image of a mustached guy and a hot blonde dressed in white on the cover. “Here we go.” She opened it and her brow suddenly furled. “Well, that’s strange. It’s not in here.”
“What?” I asked.
“It should be here, but it’s not. There’s no movie in the case. Someone stole it.”
This just gets more and more bizarre, I thought. “Something’s going on here, Sheila. I don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t feel right. Can you tell me who the last person was to check it out?”
“Sure.” She led me back to her computer where she looked up the film’s rental history. “Someone named Ross Ruediger.” I thanked her and headed for the door. “What are you getting’ yourself into here, Joe?” she called out to me. I pretended not to hear.
So, I had a title and I had a name. I decided to pay a visit to this Ruediger fellow and see what he knew. I found his address in the phone book and the following morning showed up at his home. It was a nice suburban house with a perfectly mowed lawn and a white picket fence. As I approached the front door, I
noticed that it was slightly open. I drew my piece and cautiously entered. The living room had been ransacked. Someone was looking for something. Chairs were overturned, couch pillows were cut to bits and dozens of opened movie cases were spread out all over the floor. It was quite the collection: L.A. Confidential, Brick, Devil in a Blue Dress, The Long Goodbye and many more. What was most striking about this residence, however, was the dead body lying face-up in the middle of the floor. He looked like he had been shot in the chest. I leaned over, pulled out his wallet and checked his I.D. It was Ross. There was very little else in the wallet aside from a couple bucks, a library card and a scrap of paper with some random letters and numbers that looked like they'd been scrawled hurriedly on it: "D.B. 5552314 82881." I pocketed the cash and the paper, rose to my feet and made my way to the kitchen. Unlike the living room it was immaculate. The floor had been swept, the counters were clean and there were healthy potted plants everywhere throughout it. Suddenly something hit me over the head. I fell forward and everything went black.
When I woke up, my ears were ringing like the national anthem and my head felt like it had gone 12 rounds with Tyson. How long had I been out? I opened my eyes and found myself staring up into the faces of two of my least favorite people in the world: Lt. Dennis Cozzalio and Sgt. Jim Emerson of the police department.
“Hey, sleeping beauty. Welcome back to the land of the living,” Cozzalio said. Together, the two of them picked me up and threw me into a chair next to a small table in the middle of the kitchen. They told me that when they received a call from some neighbor who heard a gunshot in this house, they never expected to find me here. They then proceeded to ask me a series of questions in rapid succession, each one taking a turn. It was like watching a tennis match — and I was the ball. I told them everything I knew but decided it was wise to leave out a few little things, such as the truth. Cozzalio wasn’t buying my yarn.
“That’s some story,” he said rolling his eyes. “If I ever enter a fiction-writing contest I’ll have to remember it.”
“Now, why would I lie?”
“To protect your client maybe. Tall, thin brunette. Goes by the nickname 'The Siren?'” I froze. How did he know about her? Cozzalio pulled out my notepad. "It was found on the floor next to you. What's this Siren want with you? And what does it have to do with all these details about some neo-noir movie?"
"You know I can't tell you about what goes on between me and a client, Lieutenant."
"Well, you're not going to be doing her any good by keeping quiet. We just got a call that her body was found in her apartment across town. Looks like she was plugged with a .38.”
“Same weapon it seems was used on Mr. Ruediger here,” Emerson added.
"So, you see, Cannon," Cozzalio continued. "This is a double homicide. Somehow you’re connected to both of them and you damn sure know more than you’re tellin’ me. So, give…or am I gonna have to haul you in on suspicion of murder.”
He was bluffing. “Oh, come on, Lieutenant. You think I came in here, popped this guy and then decided to take a nap until you boys showed up?”
“Then give us something, Cannon.” Emerson barked. “What can you tell us about this Ross Ruediger?”
“He liked neo-noir?” I joked. Cozzalio wasn't amused. Emerson looked confused.
“What’s neo-noir?” he asked.
Cozzalio turned to him. “Neo-noir is a term used to describe a recent sub-genre of movies that attempt to replicate many of the same elements seen in classic examples of film noir from the '30s, '40s and the '50s. Some have said that noir was a genre distinctive to a particular historical era of cinema. Others have said that the genre is more defined by its content (style, themes, etc). Neo-noir tries to imitate the form, if not perhaps the function, of traditional noir and sometimes it’s highly successful, as it was in Chinatown. Other times, such as The Black Dahlia…well, not so much.”
“Can I go now?” I asked. Cozzalio glared at me. He knew he had nothing he could hold me on.
“Don’t leave town,” he snarled.
So, The Siren was dead. Probably shot by the same gun that killed Ruediger. What was going on? What was so important about this movie? I walked the streets trying to figure it all out, but my head hurt. I stopped at a drugstore a block from my office and bought an ice pack. My head was still throbbing as I trudged up to the stairs to my office. Before I could get my key in the lock, the door flew open and a hand pulled me in and threw me to the floor. “Good evening, Mr. Cannon,” a polite but sinister voice said. I looked up and saw a small, extremely well-groomed man in a suit that cost more than a year’s worth of my rent sitting in my chair with his feet up on my desk. I wasn’t sure how, but there was something familiar about him. “I hope you don’t mind that we let ourselves in.”
“Not at all,” I muttered as I slowly stood up. “Make yourself at home.”
“Thank you. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is David Bordwell and this is my associate Odie.” I turned around and got a good look at the goon who pulled me in. He was easily twice my size with hands as big as cocoanuts. He grunted a greeting. The little guy in the fancy suit pulled a tiny clipper out of his pocket and started to trim his nails as he spoke to me. “Word is that you’re looking for a movie that goes by the name of Body Heat? Is that true?”
“What’s it to you?” The mountain slapped me upside the back of the head and my knees became acquainted with the floorboards once again.
“Let’s just say that I am also interested in obtaining that particular motion picture. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but it is very hard to find these days. All existing copies seem to have vanished. If one is indeed located, it could be very valuable. I was wondering if I could retain your services in finding it for me?”
“Thanks, but I’m not interested.” Again, his henchman smacked me to the floor. That’s it, I thought. I’m tired of being knocked around on this case. As I slowly rose to my feet I shot him a dirty look. “Touch me again and you’ll regret it,” I threatened.
“Easy, Odie.” the suit remarked. “I don’t think you realize how important a person I am. I could reward you very handsomely for it.”
“I don’t know who you are and I don’t care.” I said. Odie took another swing at me, but this time I ducked and brought my knee up into his groin. He went down like the walls of Jericho. “I warned you.” I gloated as he rolled around on the floor whimpering. The suit rose from my chair and walked around the desk toward me.
“It’s so hard to find good help these days.” He reached into his jacket, pulled out a small pad and a pencil and started writing something on it. “If you are ever interested in becoming a rich man, ring this number here. It's my private line.” He ripped the slip of paper from the pad and held it out to me. Reluctantly I took it. With a bow, he was gone, taking his limping sidekick with him.
I sat down at the desk and removed my hat. Who was this guy and why did he seem so familiar to me? I glanced down at the paper and was about to crumple it up when I noticed something. The phone number he wrote was "555-2314." I pulled out the paper I got off Ruediger's body. "5552314." It was the same number. That's when I noticed the letters. "D.B." David Bordwell! Ruediger knew Bordwell! Not only that, he had his private number. The only thing that I had left to decipher on the sheet was the remaining number: "82881." That's when it hit me. I grabbed my phone and called the library hoping Sheila would still be there. She was. I asked her when she had said the release date was for Body Heat. "August 28, 1981," she immediately responded. 82881. It was a date! 8-28-81! Thirty years ago today! In a flash, it all suddenly made sense. I remembered where I'd seen Bordwell before and I knew where to find the flick.
"Sheila, I need you to do something for me," I said. "I need you to call the police department. Ask for a Lieutenant Cozzalio or Sergeant Emerson. Tell them to meet me in 30 minutes at this address."
"What's going on, Joe?" Sheila asked.
"Just do it, Sheila," I asserted. "I know who murdered Ruediger and The Siren. I also know where to find the missing movie." I gave her the address to tell the police and she agreed to call them right away. I hung up and immediately dialed Bordwell's private number to set up a meeting. First, however, I had to make a quick stop somewhere else.
A half-hour later I was standing in the middle of an alley between Cain Street and Chandler Boulevard. My hat's brim dipped low, my trench coat's collar rose high. It wasn't that I was cold. This was just the kind of neighborhood in which you didn't want to draw attention to yourself; the kind of place where the sound of gunshots were so common that neighbors weren't reporting them to the police. I looked around nervously as I waited. Suddenly, I heard a voice behind me.
"Well, that didn't take long, Mister Cannon," I turned around and standing before me was the little guy and the big guy. "Is that it there?" he said pointing to the disc I held in my hand. I nodded. "Where did you find it?"
"At Ruediger's house. When you tossed the place you forgot to look in the potted plants in his kitchen…one in particular. When a man takes great care to mow his lawn and see that his plants are watered and healthy, it should stand out to you when one plant is dying. It means he's got something else hidden in there." Bordwell looked impressed as he held out his hand. "Before I hand it over, I was wondering if you could tell me what would someone with unlimited access to the Warner Bros. movie archives want with a copy of Body Heat?" He smiled and asked me when I realized who he was. "I knew your face when we spoke in my office earlier, but I just couldn't place it. Then I remembered reading an article in Variety a few months ago about how you had taken over the DVD/Blu-Ray division at Warner Bros. studios. I just couldn't figure out why someone in your position would so badly want to get their hand on a copy of this or any other Warner Bros. title."
"Have you ever seen it, Mister Cannon?" he asked. I shook my head. "Well, it's a fine film. A damn fine film. It was well-received by critics back when it was released and the years have been very kind to it. It's one of the treasures of our library and were it to be re-released on DVD and Blu-ray in a special 30th anniversary collector's edition it could make us a fortune…but only if people didn't already own it. The economy has hit everyone hard, Mister Cannon. Consumers don't double-dip anymore. They're tired of having to repeatedly purchase their favorite films in new formats. Just as Ridley Scott's FINAL CUT of Blade Runner promised closure to so many cinephiles, so would this definitive release of Body Heat be the last chapter in the life of a significant piece of cinematic history."
"That's why it's so hard to find nowadays," I continued. "You've been snatching up every available copy out there so that demand would be high for your release of Body Heat with all its 'bells and whistles.' You also bribed or intimidated reputable cinephiles, such as my buddy Matt Zoller Seitz, so they'd keep their mouths shut. Tell me, why did you kill Ross Ruediger? Was he refusing to give up his copy of it? Did he love neo-noir movies so much that he couldn't bear to part with it? Or was he just threatening to spill the beans on the whole operation? And what about The Siren? She was just a woman in love. What did she ever do to deserve what she got?"
"You know, I'm bored with this conversation," he said casually pulling out a .22 and pointing it right at me. "Now, if you don't mind, Mister Cannon, kindly hand over the disc." I tossed it to him. "Thank you."
"Are you going to kill me too? Just as you killed Ross Ruediger and The Siren?"
Bordwell chuckled. "This may be hard for you to believe, Mister Cannon, but I've never heard of this…'Siren.' I didn't kill Mister Ruediger either. In fact, he and I had an understanding. He was very keen on selling me his copy of Body Heat. That's why I gave him my private number. He was supposed to get in touch with me by today, but he never called. However, it's no matter now. Goodbye, Mister Cannon." Bordwell bowed and turned to leave. Odie grunted his usual response and turned with him. Was he telling the truth? Did I have it all wrong? If he didn't kill them, then who did? At that moment two gunshots rang out and both Bordwell and his henchman fell to the ground. The shots came from behind me. I whipped around and standing there holding a smoking .38 was the last person I ever expected to see.
"Sheila?"
"That's right, Joe," she said smiling at me.
"What the…? I don't get — How? Why?"
"It's a long story, Joe, but it goes back several years…to the day that you dumped me. I was heartbroken, devastated. I invited my best friend over to comfort me. I believe you two have met. She called herself 'The Siren.' Anyway, we ended up watching a movie on late night television together. It was Body Heat. I didn't quite know what to think of it that first time. I enjoyed it but was not blown away. Over the years, as I went
through relationship after relationship with other men, I couldn't get certain images and lines of dialogue from that film out of my mind. Kathleen Turner in that gorgeous white outfit standing alone on the pier staring off at the ocean, William Hurt admiring his new fedora in the reflection of the car window, the haunting sound of those beautiful wind chimes…All these moments stuck with me. That's when I decided, a few months ago, I needed to watch it again. By this time I had the job at the library and checked out our copy of it. It was then that the film's greatness became apparent to me. I fell in love with it. Its style, its elegance, its romanticism. It is an impeccably-made motion picture. I realized that I didn't need a man as long as I had Body Heat. But Bordwell and his greedy friends at Warner Bros. were making sure that nobody could get their hands on it. I knew it was only a matter of time before they tried to take the library's copy away too. I had to make sure that didn't happen. So, I chose a sap whom I could seduce into checking it out permanently."
"Ross Ruediger," I said.
"It was a cinch picking him. I saw him in the library all the time. He loved neo-noir and when I came on strong to him one day, he folded like a pup tent. Men are so easy to manipulate. In a few weeks, he would do anything for me…even hold on to my movie for me, hiding it so that nobody could find it."
"And you were able to make sure that it was constantly checked out, so that nobody could ever take your precious Body Heat away from you. Clever." Sheila wore a somewhat triumphant expression. "So, why'd you kill him?"
"Because he was weak. The day after you came by the library, I went over to his house bright and early hoping to get him to give me the movie before you showed up and strong-armed him into handing it over to you. The man loved good movies, but he had no backbone. Bordwell had already gotten to him, as Ross tearfully confessed to me that morning, and talked him into selling it back to the studio. He could no longer be trusted. He had to go."
"So you shot him and then ransacked the place looking for the movie. Is that when I showed up and you ambushed me?"
"You guessed it. I have to admit that I was a little surprised to see you turn up at the library looking for it, Joe. I couldn't figure out why you were suddenly interested in the film, so while you were out cold I went through your pockets, found your notepad and saw the name and phone number of your new client: my old friend, The Siren. I guess the same thing had happened to her. She also had fallen in love with that film that we were both introduced to that night. She must also have became obsessed with having it. Well, I couldn't let her. This movie was mine and mine alone. Nobody was going to take it away from me. Ever." She raised the gun. "I guess I owe you some thanks, Joe. Not only did you locate the movie for me, but if you hadn't broken up with me all those years ago, I never would've even found out about it. Now, get the disc."
"You'll never get away with this, Sheila. The police will be here any —" I stopped when I realized that I had asked her to call the police. She smiled at me. I sighed, walked over to the Bordwell's small body which lay on the ground behind me, took the disc out of his hand and turned back to face Sheila. "Throw it to me."
"Don't do this, Sheila," I pleaded with her. "No movie is worth this."
"You don't know that. You haven't seen it."
"And I guess I never will." I crunched the disc in my hand before dropping it to the ground and stepping on it. Sheila let out a noise like nothing I'd ever heard. It was more than a scream. It was the sound of a person's soul being crushed. She looked at me with tears streaming down her face and a look of intense fury in her eyes.
"You bastard!" she said cocking the gun.
This is it, I thought. This is how you die. I closed my eyes and waited for the gunshot that I knew was going to end my life. There was a loud boom. I actually heard the sound of my own death. So, where did she hit me? I couldn't tell. I felt nothing. Did she miss? I opened my eyes just in time to see Sheila fall forward. At that moment, Sgt. Emerson emerged from around the corner holding his gun. He asked me if I was OK. I told him I was fine. Just in shock. "Cozzalio's been having me follow you around ever since you left Ruediger's place this morning. Good thing too."
"Where were you when she killed the other two?" I asked.
"I was…um, indisposed at the moment," he said looking a little embarrassed. "I ran over as soon as I heard the gunshots and that's when I saw her pointing that .38 at you. Don't worry. I heard her whole confession. You're off the hook, Cannon." Within 10 minutes, there were a dozen cops at the scene, the alley was quartered off and Lt. Cozzalio was taking my statement. This time, I decided to tell him everything, leaving nothing out.
"Well, it's only a shame you had to destroy the movie too, Joe. We could've used that."
"I didn't destroy it." I said pulling another disc out of my pocket. "While I was picking up Body Heat at Ruediger's place I grabbed another disc just in case. I don't even know which one it was. Sin City I think." I handed it to him.
"All this trouble over a movie," he said holding it up and looking at it. "I hope it was all worth it." I asked him what would happen to it. "Oh, it's evidence now," he answered. "It'll get put away with all the other junk for a long, long time. Why? Were you interested in watching it?"
"No, thanks," I replied lighting a cigarette. "Too many people have died for that thing." Cozzalio was still examining it as I turned to exit the alley. I stopped, however, and glanced back over my shoulder one last time before walking off into the night. "But I hear it's damn good."
A special word of thanks to all of my film-blogging friends who allowed me to use their names in this crazy, but amusing, little endeavor of mine:
Matt Zoller Seitz
The Self-Styled Siren
David Bordwell
Jim Emerson
Ross Ruediger
Odie Henderson
Sheila O'Malley
Dennis Cozzalio
Black-and-white image courtesy of Jim Ferreira Photography.
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Labels: 80s, K. Turner, L. Kasdan, Mickey Rourke, Movie Tributes, R. Scott, Wilder, William Hurt
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Monday, July 18, 2011
This Time It's War
By Damian Arlyn
In 1979, Ridley Scott unleashed one of the scariest, goriest and greatest sci-fi/horror films ever made. Alien was a huge box office hit that turned its virtually unknown lead actress Sigourney Weaver into a major motion picture star and its primary antagonist, an intelligent and extremely deadly creature called the xenomorph, into an iconic figure of nightmares. For years 20th Century Fox had wanted to make a sequel to Alien but it took a 30-year-old Canadian by the name of James Cameron to finally make this a reality. Cameron's resume at the time consisted primarily of special effects work on films such as Escape From New York, Battle Beyond the Stars and Android as well as the screenplay to the hit action blockbuster Rambo: First Blood Part II. His directorial debut (Piranha II: The Spawning) had been a bust but his sophomore effort, a sci-fi thriller called The Terminator which he also wrote, was incredibly successful. Nevertheless, Fox was still taking a bit of a risk turning one of its most potentially lucrative franchises over to such a relatively untried filmmaker. The gamble, however, paid off as Aliens was premiered in theaters 25 years ago today and proved to be one of the most exciting summer movies ever released, a benchmark in the area of special affects and a standard by which Hollywood sequels would be measured for decades to come.
Aliens chronicles the ongoing story of Ellen Ripley, the sole surviving crew member of a ship called the Nostromo which was plagued by a nasty alien critter who systematically eliminated every single one of her companions. At the climax of the previous film, Ripley dispatched the unpleasant baddie and entered hyper-sleep (along with the ship's only other survivor: Jones, the cat) hoping to be picked up in a matter of weeks. As the sequel opens, Ripley is indeed found but soon discovers that it is 57 years later. In the interim, the planet where Ripley's ship picked up the alien had been colonized and Earth has recently lost contact with the colonists. Ripley is sent, along with a unit of tough-talking, ass-kicking space Marines, to investigate the cause where they find, no surprise to Ripley, a whole army of those terrible monsters and one lonely little girl named Newt who has managed to stay alive by avoiding them. Before the film ends, Ripley, Newt, a Marine named Hicks and an android named Bishop manage to blow up all the aliens, escape in a ship and go into hyper-sleep just as Ripley did at the conclusion of Alien.
One of the many things that makes Aliens work so well is the fact that, although it does a fine job continuing the story set in motion by Alien, it is a very different kind of movie from its predecessor. Ridley Scott's film was, first and foremost, a horror story in a futuristic setting. It was an outer space version of Halloween where the mindless, soulless killing machine on a rampage was a horrifying extra-terrestrial instead of a
mask-wearing, knife-wielding psycho and the victims were a crew of interstellar truckers rather than a group of doomed horny teenagers. Cameron had the wisdom to understand that while a sequel should provide a similar viewing experience for its audience, it should also be its own wholly distinct product with its own style, vision and set of strengths and weaknesses. Sequels that simply re-hash everything done in the original might make a lot of money, but they rarely become classics. Intent on not just doing a carbon copy of Scott's masterpiece, Cameron decided to go for pure, unadulterated thrills. Thus, by changing the tone, amplifying the action and quickening the pace, Cameron ensured that his film would satisfy moviegoers' expectations for a visceral experience while still establishing his own unique vision. If Alien was the haunted house, Aliens is the roller coaster ride.The cast is uniformly good. The anchor of the film is, of course, Ripley and Sigourney Weaver manages to instill her with the same hardened, no-nonsense tenacity seen in the first film. Though perfectly willing to
show fear, Ripley always was able to act in the face of incredible danger and that quality serves her well once again. This time around, however, she is allowed some emotional vulnerability in her dealings with the young Newt (played decidedly non-precociously by Carrie Henn), to whom she becomes a sort of surrogate mother. In a scene that was cut from the film's theatrical release (though restored for the home video "special edition"), we learn that Ripley actually has a daughter, who had passed away while Ripley was in hyper-sleep. Apparently Ripley had promised her that that she'd be home in time for her 11th birthday. It is unfortunate that this scene was deleted because not only does it add an extra level of dimension to Ripley's character but it helps to explain the psychology behind the relationship Ripley forms with the orphaned girl.A pre-Mad About You (and even pre-My Two Dads) Paul Reiser plays the sneaky company executive who plans to bring a live specimen back to Earth — further pushing the concept established in the first film that greedy, power-hungry corporations are willing to sacrifice their own low-level employees — with just the right amounts of charm, odiousness and evil. Lance Henriksen plays the android Bishop with a pitch-perfect unemotional demeanor and yet seems to have even more warmth and humanity than Reiser's cowardly villain (he also has one of the film's best scenes involving a table, a hand and a knife). The rest of the cast is basically comprised of the Space Marines. It's very easy in a "combat" picture to make all the characters look and sound so alike that they are virtually indistinguishable, but Cameron and his actors avoid that trap here by giving each grunt his/her own distinct look and personality. The ones that stand out most in the memory, however, are probably Hicks, played by The Terminator's Michael Beihn (who was a last-minute replacement), the buff but sexy Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein) and the comically afraid, though at times somewhat annoying, Hudson (Bill Paxton) who spends most of the film complaining and freaking out. If there is one weak spot in the film, he would be it.
Though it still was relatively early in Cameron's career, many of the elements and themes that would characterize much of his later work were already beginning to take shape in 1986 and can be found in Aliens. Firstly, his dependence (and some would say over-dependence) on technology. Not only do all of Cameron's
films push the boundaries of special effects techniques, but all seem to focus to a large degree on hardware, machinery and industrialization (even the period piece Titanic spends an awful lot of its three-hour running time discussing, debating, and exploring the mechanical inner-workings of the ship itself). One of the film's most memorable set pieces is the climactic battle between the queen alien and Ripley. Forgetting for a moment that this particular piece of equipment would make a noticeable re-appearance in Avatar, the image of the all-too human Ripley engulfed in the massive power-loader serves as a perfect symbolic representation for Cameron's ruminations on the progressive fusion of man and machine. It also provides the film with one of its most iconic pieces of dialogue ("Get away from her, you bitch!"). I didn't see Aliens in the theater as I was too young (although it did become the first R-rated film I ever watched on video), but I suspect that line was probably greeted with thunderous applause.Furthermore, his environmental conscience, though not as heavy-handed as it is in films like Avatar and the special edition of The Abyss, is nonetheless present. It's no stretch of the imagination to speculate that had humans never attempted to explore and/or inhabit the alien's planet to begin with, none of the tragedies seen in any of these films would've ever happened. Finally, his simultaneous worship and criticism of the military. There is little doubt that Cameron admires the Marines in the film and yet, despite their excessive boasting, their inability to perform is highlighted even more by Ripley's extreme competence. By the time Cameron gets to Avatar, the military have flat-out become the bad guys.
Aliens went on to gross more than $85 million at the box office and actually earned, among other categories, an Academy Award nomination for best actress (a rarity for that genre of film). Weaver may not have walked away with the statuette, but the film itself won best visual effects and best sound effects editing. Many have even hailed it as one of those rare Hollywood sequels that actually surpasses its original. I personally don't agree with that as I think both films are equally excellent for the kinds of movies that they are trying to be, but whether you prefer Scott's dark, disturbing scarefest or Cameron's raucous, intense thrill ride, Aliens certainly remains endlessly exciting and thoroughly entertaining to this very day. It also, for better or for worse, helped cement James Cameron as a force to be reckoned with in the motion picture industry.
Game over, man.
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Labels: 80s, Cameron, Movie Tributes, R. Scott, Sequels, Sigourney Weaver
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Tuesday, May 24, 2011
When a Star Went Swingin' and Landed With a Thud
By Damian Arlyn
Once in a blue moon, Hollywood releases a movie which, in spite of its huge expectations, fails on such a massive scale that its name becomes indelibly associated with the word “flop” forever after. Films such as Ishtar, Heaven’s Gate, 1941, Howard the Duck, North, Battlefield Earth and Gigli are all notoriously remembered for how embarrassingly they tanked at the box office, how universally they angered critics and how completely they alienated audiences that they have achieved a level of immortality no less enduring than their more acclaimed counterparts (such as Casablanca, Gone With the Wind, Citizen Kane, Star Wars and The Godfather). Well, on this day in the summer of 1991, while Ridley Scott was unveiling Thelma & Louise to critical and financial success, Tri-Star Pictures was releasing another film by the name of Hudson Hawk to theaters and it quickly joined the very exclusive club of infamous box office bombs. For those who have neither seen nor heard of this film, here is a brief description of what it is, how it came to be and why we are still talking about it 20 years later.
Hudson Hawk was the brainchild of Bruce Willis, who in 1991 was at the peak of his popularity. The recently cancelled television show Moonlighting had turned him into a star but the 1988 blockbuster Die Hard (and its equally profitable 1990 sequel) firmly established him as a major box office draw and gave him the kind of clout he needed to produce his own vanity project. As it turns out, for years Willis had been developing a story involving a cat burglar in which he would play the title role. With his action flick-producing buddy Joel Silver footing the bill, Heathers director Michael Lehmann on board to give the film a subversive sensibility, and a hand-picked cast (including Danny Aiello, James Coburn, Andie MacDowell and many more) what could possibly go wrong? Well, as it turned out, everything. The film was plagued with all sorts of problems (many of which are chronicled in Richard E. Grant’s book With Nails) including cost overruns, cast replacements, location difficulties and creative tensions. Although these things were well covered in the press and no doubt helped contribute to the perception that the film was in trouble long before its release, it seems no amount of bad backstage buzz could’ve prepared anyone for what Hawk was actually trying to sell audiences.
I vividly remember looking forward to the movie myself. It was the summer before my sophomore year in high school. I was (and, quite honestly, still am) a big Bruce Willis fan, I was (and, once again, still am) a lover of action/caper movies and the trailers made this one look fun and exciting. My father was planning to take me one afternoon to see it but through a series of mishaps it just didn’t happen. As a fluke, he ended up going
with a friend of his soon thereafter and he, to put it bluntly, hated it. Absolutely hated it. He hated it so much that he, knowing how much I wanted to see it, actually felt bad for me and tried to inform me with the utmost delicacy how truly awful it was. I had never, up to that point, seen my dad have such a visceral hostile reaction to a film (though I’ve seen it since). Naturally, I was heartbroken and didn’t end up viewing it until much later when it came to video. I admit I was certainly disappointed by it, but did not think it was quite as bad as I’d heard. It’s actually taken two decades and dozens more viewings for me to formulate a coherent final opinion on it. First of all, while I can admit to having some affection for it and actually enjoying watching it once in a while (Hudson Hawk is one of the few films I consider a genuine “guilty pleasure”), I can simultaneously admit to what a colossal miscalculation it is. The film is indeed bad, but it's bad in such a uniquely strange and jaw-droppingly surreal way that it’s actually hard to put into words what makes it so (although if you're looking for a very extensive analysis of what's wrong with the film, try this scene-by-scene critique at the Agony Booth).Bruce Willis plays Eddie Hawkins (aka the "Hudson Hawk"), a smarmy, self-satisfied thief — presumably the best in the world — who, after being released from a 10-year stint in prison, tries to go straight but ends up getting blackmailed (though he really doesn’t put up much of a fight) into stealing again. Who precisely is blackmailing him can be confusing as there are far too many villains in the film. These include a psychotic billionaire married couple (the incessantly annoying Richard E. Grant and Sandra Bernhard) and their lethal British butler, four rogue CIA agents named after candy bars (yes, you read that right) and their arrogant leader (gamely played by James Coburn), two Italian mobsters called (sigh) the Mario brothers, a corrupt parole officer, a pair of silent twins and a deadly little dog named Bunny. Furthermore, what Hawk is stealing and why he's stealing it also is somewhat confusing as the plot for Hudson Hawk is so convoluted it's virtually incomprehensible. Suffice it to say, it involves some art treasures of Leonardo DaVinci, a giant machine that can turn lead into gold and a top-secret Vatican organization.
The plot is ultimately unimportant because Hudson Hawk was clearly conceived as a series of comic-action set pieces. Some of them are admittedly unique and memorable (such as an ambulance and hospital gurney chase across the Brooklyn Bridge), but many of them, unfortunately, are outlandishly bizarre and embarrassingly grotesque. It has the feel of a movie where every single idea was considered clever and thrown into the pot
while nobody bothered to ask "Hey, are we going too far here? I mean, does any of this make any sense?" For example, one particularly absurd, yet admittedly amusing, conceit is that Hawk and his partner Tommy (the always charismatic Danny Aiello) time their heists by singing songs to which they each know the exact running length. The end result is an honest-to-God musical number wherein two burglars are crooning Bing Crosby's "Swingin' On a Star" while cracking safes and dodging guards. Besides being an utterly ridiculous concept for a variety of reasons (it's an imperfect way to time something given that songs can be sung at different tempos or it can actually be rather noisy when silence might be the best approach to performing a robbery, etc), it's just another example of the wildly inconsistent tone that the film has. One second the characters are belting out showtunes, the next second they're in a thrilling action sequence. In one scene they're involved in a wacky bit of physical comedy, the next they're witnessing a rather ugly act of brutal violence.Alas, much of the blame has to be directed at Willis himself as many of its flaws clearly originate in the conception stage and Hudson Hawk was his baby from beginning to end. Willis seemed to want the film to be a very specific thing and his ego just got the better of him. This is just speculation on my part, but I suspect Willis was probably spoiled by his experience on Moonlighting, a show that successfully played with the conventions of television (constantly breaking the fourth wall, throwing gags at the audience at lightning speed, etc.) while still telling stories that engaged viewers emotionally. Willis probably thought he could bring the same zany, anarchic spirit to the big screen with a satirical take on action movies that still retained the thrill that great stunt sequences can provide (Joel Silver, John McTiernan and Arnold Schwarzenegger would attempt a similar feat two summers later with Last Action Hero with about the same level of success) and the end result is a rather schizophrenic picture that just can't seem to decide what kind of movie it truly is ("Is it an action-thriller? Is it a comedy-spoof? Is it a musical?") or who it's intended audience would be. ("Who's this for? It's too silly and cartoonish for adults yet too violent and vulgar for kids.")
Willis' career managed to recover from the debacle of Hudson Hawk, but he continues to defend the film to this day (as do the members of its small cult following). It's always interesting to hear filmmakers attribute a film's poor reception to audiences not "getting" their film. On the Hudson Hawk DVD commentary, for example, director Michael Lehmann talks about how the film was not well-received because people, based on the film's advertising, were not expecting a comedy. While this is certainly true, it never seems to occur to Lehmann or Willis that perhaps they also just made a bad movie. Speaking for myself, I think I "get" what they were trying to do. I'm just not sure that what they were trying to do was such a good idea. Yes, I know they were poking fun at the cliches of action movies and deliberately twisting the conventions of the cinematic language (such as changing the time from day to night in the middle of a scene), but those conventions exist for a reason and if you knowingly violate them then you run the risk of confounding your audience who need such conventions to orient themselves to what they're seeing. If, for example, you have a character fall from an enormous height and simply walk away unharmed (or, as in the case of this film, survive an explosion in the back of a car because a sprinkler system was installed), then you remove any element of the threat of danger from your equation. Thus, with nothing at stake there's no suspense and with no suspense there's no emotional investment on the part of the audience. They had to know this was at least a possibility when they decided to break these rules. Either they didn't know or they just didn't care and it's that kind of blatant disregard for logic and sense that got their film trashed. A lot of Hollywood movies require us to suspend disbelief. A lot even ask us to accept nonsense as if it were sense, but very few expect us to accept nonsense simply because it is nonsense. They must have either been giving audiences too much credit or not nearly enough.
So, what's my verdict on Hudson Hawk? Well, despite the fact that the film does possess some stellar elements (such as the gorgeous production design by Jackson DeGovia, the striking cinematography by Dante Spinotti and the wonderful music score by the late great Michael Kamen) and a few truly funny moments that can't help but make me laugh (I get a kick out of the gag where the Italian night watchman pours spaghetti out of his thermos instead of coffee), I mostly enjoy Hudson Hawk precisely for its sheer brazenness in flaunting the well-known and well-established rules of visual storytelling. On those rare occasions when I do watch it, I always wear a big goofy grin on my face as I simultaneously shake my head in disbelief. Twenty years later, Hudson Hawk is perhaps the best "worst movie" I've ever seen and one of the most perfect examples Hollywood has ever produced of how NOT to make a film.
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Labels: 90s, James Coburn, Movie Tributes, Nonfiction, R. Scott, Schwarzenegger, Star Wars, Television, Willis
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