Tuesday, October 01, 2013

 

From the Vault: Natural Born Killers

BLOGGER'S NOTE: I originally wrote this review (with some additions for this event) upon Natural Born Killers' original 1994 release. I'm re-posting it for The Oliver Stone Blogathon concluding Oct. 6 at Seetimaar — Diary of a Movie Lover

As Mickey Knox lies on his motel bed, watching various violent films while images of Josef Stalin appear in the window behind him, he asks, "Why do they keep making all these fucking movies?" Good question, Mickey, but perhaps you should pose your query to the director of your movie because no amount of Oliver Stone's rationalizations will make Natural Born Killers original or worthwhile.

Forget The Doors. This film from the ever-controversial and increasingly dull (in all senses of the word) director marks the most extreme example yet of Stone spanking the monkey perpetually perched on his back. Quentin Tarantino* originally wrote the screenplay for Natural Born Killers, but Stone and co-conspirators David Veloz and Richard Rutowski butchered Tarantino's script to the point that he's now credited only with its story.

The film contains two halves: The first hour deals with a murder spree that companions Mickey and Mallory (Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis) undertake; the second chronicles the duo's incarceration and a live TV interview with Mickey by the host (Robert Downey Jr.) of a fictional tabloid TV series. The problems with Natural Born Killers accumulate at such a rapid pace that a thorough dissection of the film could end up as a thesis instead of a review. Stone, using what I assume must be either black magic, hypnotism or extortion, still manages to keep many film writers in his thrall to the point that they can't admit what a botch he's produced with Natural Born Killers. It's not that Stone can't be effective. He even made the silliness in the three-hour plus JFK entertaining despite the absurd claim that Kennedy was killed in order to stop the president from preventing the Vietnam War and, by extension, the need for Oliver Stone's film career. Stone's point-of-view concerning Natural Born Killers doesn't register anywhere near the realm of coherence.


The real subject — and I'm merely guessing — of Stone's awful opus aims at media obsession with sensationalism, certainly as timely as ever in the age of Tonya and Lorena, O.J. and the Menendez brothers. The number of usually reliable film fans who praise Natural Born Killers as original and fresh when no original idea resides in its empty little head amazes me. As usual, Stone proves as subtle as an 8.0 earthquake and twice as shaky (Exhibit A: See film still above). All the movie's points have been made before and better, from films dating back at least to 1967's Bonnie and Clyde, 1976's Network and even through the looking glass to 1931's The Front Page, which itself has been remade three times, the greatest being 1940's His Girl Friday

Stone also experiments more with film styles, alternating as he did in JFK between color, black and white, 16 millimeter, Super 8, video and even adds animation akin to graphic novels. Unlike JFK, these switches serve no purpose other than to distract the audience. He also trots out other weird devices such as treating scenes with Mallory's monster of a father (Rodney Dangerfield) as if they exist in a TV sitcom, complete with laugh track and bleeped profanity — except for some reason some cuss words get bleeped and others don't. Of course, he can't resist tossing in some mystical Native Americans, just for good measure. It's hard to fault the performers (except for Tommy Lee Jones' inexplicable decision to play a prison warden as if he's imitating Reginald Van Gleason) since saving this mess would have been impossible for the greatest of actors, but at least Downey's wry performance injects some much-needed levity into this often tedious film. Downey appears to be the only actor aware that he's — in theory — signed on to the satire Stone believes he's making, but it's never a good idea to place a satire in the hands of someone without a sense of humor.

In the end, it's ironic that Natural Born Killers stars former Cheers regular Harrelson since a paraphrase of a question Frasier once asked Cliff on that show immediately sprang to my mind while watching this mess: "Hello in there, Oliver. Tell me, what color is the sky in your world?"

*BLOGGER'S NOTE: Shortly after seeing Natural Born Killers, I had the opportunity to interview Quentin Tarantino who was promoting Pulp Fiction. He shared his thoughts about how Stone changed his screenplay.

"Actually, to give the devil his due, he was very cool when I said I wanted to take my name off the screenplay. He facilitated that to happen. He could have caused a big problem, but he didn't. When it comes to Natural Born Killers, more or less the final word on it is that it has nothing to do with me. One of the reasons I wanted just a story credit was I wanted that to get across. If you like the movie, it's Oliver. If you don't like the movie, it's Oliver."



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Wednesday, September 21, 2011

 

With the exposition out of the way,
will a story be starting soon?


By Edward Copeland
I didn't think it was possible for a movie that's 1 hour and 50 minutes long (including end credits and requisite Marvel teaser scene) to end up spending all but about the last half-hour of that time on exposition, but indeed that's what Thor plays like.

As the comic book empire continues to expand its movie franchises for an inevitable film that brings the Marvel characters together under the leadership of that mysterious SHIELD organization which allows Samuel L. Jackson to earn a living by making cameos while Clark Gregg wears suits and travels from film to film so he can report to Jackson's Nick Fury. (Have no fear — there's the required Stan Lee cameo as well.) When they toss Robert Downey Jr. in as a reformed arms maker in Iron Man and Iron Man 2, it turns out to be great fun. With Thor, you literally get an hour and 20 minutes of gobbledy-gook followed by about 25 minutes of yawn-inducing action and it's over.

Kenneth Branagh directs. Yes, that Kenneth Branagh. The man once spoken of being the next Olivier in terms of bringing Shakespeare to film but he can't even be the new Olivier on an entertaining level of whoredom. His acting for cash is sporadic and not hammy enough to be a hoot and his non-Shakespeare direction results in films such as a remake of Sleuth that no one was asking for and the godawful Mary Shelley's Frankenstein where both he and Robert De Niro were so over-the-top that it turned out that John Cleese gave the film's best performance. He even marred his Shakespeare films with stunt casting that probably made the Bard in the afterlife wish the stories were true that he weren't the true author of his works.

Fortunately, Anthony Hopkins is on hand to pick up some of that U.K. actor "I'll blow anyone for cash" spirit to his role as Odin, Thor's father, the king of Asgard, the realm from which Thor (Chris Hemsworth) comes. Not that Hopkins gets much emoting to do: His job — other than making certain the check clears — consists of little more than standing (and lying) around in a fancy metallic-looking suit with a patch on his eye and seriously imparting information to both the audience and to his sons, Thor and Loki (Tom Hiddleston).

Thor tends to be a bit of an arrogant hothead and when a group of Asgard's enemies (I'd look up their names if I truly gave a damn, but I don't. They're sort of blue and icy) somehow invade their realm and violate a sacred area with sacred relics, Thor leads an unsanctioned raid on them which Odin did not approve. As a result, his father banishes Thor to Earth for his actions and, because all the exposition hasn't been revealed yet, decides this is the best possible time to let Loki know that he was adopted (though stolen seems a more accurate description) from the same realm and while he doesn't look blue and icy, he belongs to that enemy's race. Loki, now next in line to be king anyway since Thor has been jettisoned, in a fit of spite, plots a coup and throws Odin into a coma.

Meanwhile on Earth, Thor lacks his powers, but he does fall for a young researcher, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), when he lands on the RV of her and her scientific team Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) and Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings, who was so good in the woefully underrated Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist). Gregg's SHIELD agent promptly steals the RV and their research and holds Thor who can't lift his sacred hammer, which has been embedded in the desert. (Speaking of hammered, getting drunk might make Thor go by quicker.)

Though it will be next to impossible, don't blink or you'll miss that Rene Russo plays Odin's wife Frigga, which as far as I know is not Norse for friggin' as in "give me a friggin' break." Poor Idris Elba, who has been good in so many things but most memorably as Stringer Bell in the first three seasons of The Wire, gets hidden by an elaborate costume as Asgard's gatekeeper who controls "the bridge" between different realms.

In fact, the costumes and design of Asgard really offer the only good things about Thor. Those parts are gorgeous to gaze upon. Bo Welch's production design and Alexandra Byrne's costumes on Asgard do leave quite an impression even if the film itself doesn't. In theaters, the film, which was shot regularly, was converted to 3-D for some showings and I can't imagine how exciting exposition plays in three dimensions. Wow — Thor and Jane lie by a campfire and point to a paper so he can show her where he comes from. It's like I'm in the scene! Their "romance" has about as much believability as the little kids' attachment to Frosty the Snowman when they've known him for about 15 minutes.

As the credits roll, before we get the requisite teaser scene with Nick Fury and the next Marvel movie, words tell us that Thor will return in The Avengers. I imagine that movie will at least have a story and, if nothing else, the IMDb cast list promises Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, so that at least holds the promise of some entertainment.

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Tuesday, September 20, 2011

 

Gilliam's Other Holy Grail Movie


By Damian Arlyn
In a perfect world, not only would I see every film on the big screen but I would know absolutely nothing about them beforehand. Once in a while I am reminded that the best way to see a movie is with no foreknowledge whatsoever as to the film's genre, cast or plot. To go in having no preconceived notions about how one ought to feel or what one ought to think about it — no expectations for how impressed one is supposed to be by the performances, sets, costumes, budget, etc. — but to simply approach the work on its own terms and be either carried away by the reality it creates for itself or be alienated from that reality based solely on the competence with which it weaves its tale would be my ideal. Of course, I realize that we do not live in such a world. Even if it were possible to see every film in the theater (which, for many people it is not, due to physical limitations or economic difficulties) I'm not sure I'd want to given how awful so many movies are nowadays. If I could somehow be guaranteed ahead of time of a film's quality, I'd be willing to go into every film-viewing experience completely "pure" and uncorrupted by any outside information or influence. As it is, I can recount the exact number of times I went to a movie under such circumstances. It has happened precisely twice. The first was The Fisher King. The second was The Usual Suspects. Since the former celebrates its 20th anniversary today, it is that title with which I will be concerning myself.

My dad took me to see The Fisher King when I was 15 and, as I've said, I knew very little about it outside of its enigmatic title and the fact that it starred Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges (a fact I was able to glean from the marquee poster on the outside of the theater). I had no idea that the story involved a cynical, egotistical Manhattan radio "shock jock" named Jack Lucas (Bridges) whose careless on-air remarks prompt a disturbed caller to open fire with a shotgun in a restaurant full of yuppies before turning the gun on himself.

Racked with guilt, Jack descends into a deep depression and alcoholism for three years during which time he shacks up with a self-assured New York woman named Anne (Mercedes Ruehl) who owns a video store. On a particularly bleak night, Jack attempts suicide but two young hoodlums who find him and start pouring gasoline on him intending to set him ablaze interrupt him when he is saved by Parry (Williams) a homeless man who believes he's a knight sent on a quest from God to find the Holy Grail. Jack soon learns that Parry's insanity stems from his traumatic experience in the restaurant the night of the shooting when his wife was one of the seven people killed. Feeling responsible and, in a desperate attempt to ease his conscience, Jack resolves to help Parry in some way and thinks he may have discovered how when he notices Parry pining from afar for a mousy woman named Lydia (Amanda Plummer). I didn't know any of this going in.

Despite (or perhaps because of) my ignorance of the film prior to seeing it, I was positively captivated by it from beginning to end. Somehow it weaved a magical spell over me. As the cliche goes, I had never seen anything like it before. It quickly became my favorite film and remained so for a couple of years. I bought the soundtrack, which featured segments from the wonderful score by George Fenton, and even found a copy of the novelization to help enrich my understanding of the story and its themes, all of which resonated quite strongly with me: love, loss, forgiveness and especially redemption.

I also did not know who Terry Gilliam was. I didn't even really know about Monty Python yet, so I certainly didn't know that The Fisher King wasn't his first cinematic foray into the subject of the Holy Grail (though I was at least acquainted with the Grail having seen Indiana Jones search for the thing two years prior). I didn't know that this was a rare occasion where Gilliam, who normally writes his own screenplays, was really a director-for-hire. After the debacle that was The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Gilliam was looking for a smaller and more intimate story to tell and he found it in the unique and spellbinding screenplay written by Richard LaGravenese (who would go on to pen The Ref, Beloved and The Bridges of Madison County). Interestingly, when I watch the film now — having seen the rest of Gilliam's oeuvre and being a big admirer of his work — it seems like a project tailor-made for Gilliam and his personal pet interests such as reality versus fantasy, imagination as an escape from tragedy, medieval knights in shining armor, etc.

The film is filled with dozens of entrancing and unforgettable scenes. The sweet and hilarious double date that begins with Lydia clumsily knocking things over (with Parry doing the same in an attempt to make her feel less awkward) and ends with everyone in hysterics before Williams sings a sweet and simple rendition of "Lydia the Tattooed Lady," the frightening chases involving the Red Knight, the climactic sequence where Jack attempts to retrieve the Grail from its "castle" (all the while commenting to himself on how crazy it is), the nightmarish flashbacks to the murders at the restaurant and Michael Jeter's audacious Ethel Merman-style musical number delivered to a flabbergasted Lydia are just a few. However, my all-time favorite sequence from the film occurs in Grand Central Station. It begins with Parry looking through the crowd for Lydia. When he finally glimpses her, he smiles and the music starts. She walks right past him and suddenly a couple dances by in the background as the cute little ditty that was playing transitions into a beautiful waltz. Soon that couple is followed by another and another until everyone in Grand Central is waltzing around Parry as he follows Lydia across the floor. It's a charming sequence and apparently was not in the original script but was the brainchild of Gilliam, who needed a way to visually capture how bewitched Parry is with his fair maiden. It's sublime.

The performances by all the actors are excellent. Jeff Bridges may be enjoying somewhat of a rejuvenation in his career currently, but at the time of The Fisher King he was just another solid, respected but somewhat underrated actor (like Johnny Depp before Pirates of the Caribbean or Robert Downey Jr. before Iron Man). His portrayal of the selfish, cynical jerk is actually the emotional anchor of the story. He's the straight man off of whom Williams can play his performance as Parry, a variation on his usual manic screen persona, though here it is put to good use in the guise of an insane, but brilliant, former history professor who even in madness has an entire library of references from which to draw upon in his ravings (one can almost imagine that had Williams' character from Dead Poets Society lost his mind, the results might look something like this). What makes Williams' performance superior to his usual fare are the quieter, more sensitive moments such as when he finally confesses to Lydia that he loves her. Williams earned a best actor nomination for his turn as Parry, but alas he would not receive that Oscar until years later for his stellar supporting work in Good Will Hunting. Mercedes Ruehl, however, did take the best supporting actress statuette home that year for her indelible turn as Jeff Bridges' sassy girlfriend and it was well-deserved. She embodies the self-assured, no-nonsense New York Italian woman perfectly. Amanda Plummer plays Lydia with just the right amount of sweetness and eccentricity and the late Michael Jeter as a gay cabaret singer does what is perhaps the best Ethel Merman impression I've ever heard in a film (except perhaps for Lt. Hurwitz in Airplane!). Also, David Hyde Pierce, Harry Shearer, Kathy Najimy and John de Lancie all play supporting roles.

Generally speaking, The Fisher King was well-received by critics and did respectable business at the box office (making $42 million on a $24 million budget). In the 20 years that have elapsed since I first walked into that theater completely unaware of what I was about to experience, other films have gone on to replace it as my "favorite," but it will always have a special place in my heart. Its story still moves me, its music still delights me, its action scenes still thrill me and its characters still charm me. To this day when I watch it I want to believe that Parry is not totally crazy, that he really is "the janitor of God" and that the chalice they retrieve truly is the Holy Grail, "the symbol of God's divine grace." It may not be Terry Gilliam's best film (I tend to be unoriginal and go with Brazil on that point) but it is probably his most enchanting and more than any other film, shows off his gift as a romantic, honest-to-God storyteller and not just an eye-dazzling satirist/rebel.


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Wednesday, August 03, 2011

 

Fighting aliens in Old West,
Bond brings out best in Indiana Jones


By J.D.
Jon Favreau has certainly come a long way since his independent film roots with Swingers (1996), the film he wrote and starred in. Over the years, he’s increasingly spent more time behind the camera than in front of it, directing Made (2001). The modest success of that film transitioned him to studio films with larger budgets such as Elf (2003) and Zathura (2005). Then came Iron Man (2008), his most ambitious effort to that point, and he rolled the dice on casting Robert Downey Jr. as his leading man. The gamble paid off and the film was a massive success, paving the way for the inevitable sequel. Rushed into production, the end result was a commercial success but a critical failure, which upped the stakes for his next film, Cowboys & Aliens (2011), an adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg.

The premise is an intriguing hybrid of the science fiction and Western genres with an alien invasion set in 1873 New Mexico. To hedge his bets, Favreau corralled Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford to headline his film, which caused epic seismic ripples through the fanboy community at the prospects of seeing the actors who played James Bond and Indiana Jones in the same film together. As a result, expectations were understandably high. Could Favreau and company deliver the goods or would this be another Wild Wild West (1999)?

A man wakes up in the middle of nowhere wounded and with a strange futuristic device strapped to his wrist. He has no idea who he is or how he got there. Three men on horseback show up assuming he’s an escape convict and try to take him in. He quickly and brutally dispatches them, taking their gear and heading towards the nearest town — the former mining colony of Absolution. He eventually learns that his name is Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig), a notorious outlaw wanted by the law for a variety of offences. One of which was robbing local cattle baron Col. Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) of his gold. When he learns that Lonergan is in Absolution, Dolarhyde and him men intend to lynch the outlaw in retribution.

However, a strange light appears in the sky just as Dolarhyde arrives into town. The device on Lonergan’s wrist activates and the light turns out to be several alien spacecraft that proceed to blast the town to smithereens and kidnap several of its townsfolk. Lonergan discovers that his wrist device is a weapon, which he uses to take down one of the alien craft. The film sets up Dolarhyde as a mean son of a bitch while Lonergan is a no-nonsense criminal. They represent two unstoppable forces of nature and one of the pleasures of this film is when they have to put aside their differences, repel the alien invaders and rescue the kidnapped townsfolk.

For years, Harrison Ford has made bad choices in the films he’s decided to be in and phoned in one-note performances, playing the same gruff character, but with Cowboys & Aliens acting against someone like Daniel Craig has inspired him to bring his A-game. Ford actually looks interested and engaged in the material and the role. It’s great to see him go up against Craig and their scenes together crackle with intensity and tension. Best of all, Ford has two scenes that expose his character’s gruff exterior and reveal a more vulnerable side. They are poignant and heartfelt because we’ve become invested in these characters by this point. This is the best Ford has been in years and reminds one when he used to play characters we cared about.

Craig adds another impressive man of action to his roster. He excels at playing edgy tough guys and is well cast as the enigmatic outlaw. Favreau does a good job of surrounding Craig and Ford with a solid ensemble cast of character actors. You’ve got Clancy Brown as the upstanding town preacher Meachum, Sam Rockwell as Doc, the mild-mannered saloon owner, Keith Carradine as Sheriff John Taggart, the always watchable Adam Beach as Nat Colorado, Dolarhyde’s right-hand man, and Olivia Wilde as a mysterious woman named Ella whose exotic beauty gives her an almost otherworldly aura. Hell, Favreau even throws Walt Goggins in for good measure as a member of Lonergan’s gang.

Favreau has all the traditional Western iconography down cold and the fun of Cowboys & Aliens is seeing these motifs clash with the science fiction elements. So, we see cowboys on horseback being chased by fast-moving alien spacecraft. This film doesn’t stray from the conventions of either genre or try to reinvent them but instead merges and fulfills them in a crowd-pleasing way. Cowboys & Aliens has impressive special effects, nasty-looking aliens, several exciting action sequences, and two cool heroes to root for. This may not be the classic that people were hoping for but it is a very entertaining film in its own right and sometimes that’s enough.

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Monday, June 13, 2011

 

Giving Rodney some respect


By Edward Copeland
There used to be a story that recurred year after year in Rodney Dangerfield's later years where someone would nominate him to become a member of the Actors Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and each time, his application would be rejected. It sounds like a setup for one of his jokes that would end in how he "don't get no respect," but it wasn't a joke, it was true. When you look again at his performance in Back to School, which was released 25 years ago today, there's a real actor there. His Thornton Melon is quite different from his Al Czervik in Caddyshack. Oh, and the movie itself holds up pretty damn well too.

Aside from the 1971 film The Projectionist, a 1977 TV movie and uncredited work as an extra in Stanley Kubrick's The Killing, 1980's Caddyshack truly marked the beginning of Dangerfield's acting career — when Rodney was nearly 60. Of course, his career as a comedian got a similar late start. After an unsuccessful early try, he gave it up for regular work until he tried again at the age of 40. In a movie full of funny people, Caddyshack really boosted Dangerfield's image. Unfortunately, his next film, 1983's Easy Money, didn't quite work, though no one could say his Monty Capuletti was a repeat of Al Czervik either.

As a rule, the more names you see credited with writing a film, the more likely the movie will be a mess. Back to School turned out to be a great exception to that rule with three people, including Dangerfield, receiving story credit and four people named as writing the screenplay. The four credited screenwriters were Steven Kampmann, who wrote seven episodes of WKRP in Cincinnati and played Kirk, the compulsive liar who ran the diner in the first two seasons of Newhart; Will Porter, who co-wrote two films with Kampmann and an episode of Newhart; Peter Torokvei, who wrote eight episodes of WKRP as well as co-writing Real Genius and Guarding Tess; and Harold Ramis, whose resume runs too long to list. With the exception of Torokvei, everyone, including the other two people who have story credit, Greg Fields and Dennis Snee, had ties to Dangerfield, often through TV comedy specials. Many also had separate ties to each other through other projects, so I think this familiarity helped Back to School break the multiple writer curse. What surprised me just looking up things for this post is that I forgot what a huge hit Back to School was. It grossed more than $91 million at the U.S. box office and in its opening weekend, beat Ferris Bueller's Day Off (though Ferris had a two-day head start, opening on a Wednesday) by $2 million. By comparison, Caddyshack's total gross was merely $39 million. (Ferris only ended up around $70 million.)

Not too long ago, Back to School was being shown on commercial TV a lot and I caught much of it many times, but re-watching the uncut version for this anniversary tribute was the first time I'd seen it from start to finish in a long time. I had noticed that the TV versions never showed the scene where Dangerfield sings "Twist & Shout" in the bar (and what strange synchronicity that two films that opened within two days of each other in 1986 both had that song in it, one sung by the star, the other with its star lip-synching The Beatles' cover), but there were quite a few scenes that seemed to have been excised from TV versions. I was relieved that "Twist & Shout" remains on the DVD. I feared it was another example of money-grubbing music industry strong arms forcing them to remove it because they didn't keep paying them extortion and the movie's producers and copyright owners were being threatened with broken legs and cement boots if they didn't keep coughing up the dough. Television does this re-editing of movies quite often and, surprisingly, it's not for content. Edward Norton's underrated Keeping the Faith has its entire framing device removed from the TV cut as well as the hilarious blind date scene Ben Stiller's character has with a woman played by Lisa Edelstein, better known as Cuddy on House. I know they do it to shorten films to squeeze more commercials in, but some of the cuts just seem odd and I wonder who makes these decisions.

My mind may be blanking, but I certainly don't remember the TV cuts opening with the nice black-and-white prologue. The first image we see is an old style phonograph player with the needle coming down to play some opera. We then see a city street scene identified as New York 1940 and a young boy (Jason Hervey, the older brother on The Wonder Years) admiring a fancy car pulling out into the street before he steps into Meloni's Tailor Shop, where his father (Boris Aplon) is busy working. He asks young Thornton how school was and he reluctantly hands over his report card, which does not contain glowing grades. His immigrant father expresses outrage — how does his son expect to go to college unless he gets good grades? Young Thornton says he doesn't want to go to college. He wants to work with his dad in the family business. Mr. Meloni gets angry and tells his son, "No matter how rich or successful a man is, if he don't got no education, he got nothing." Hervey even does Dangerfield's signature move and pulls at his shirt collar. As the rest of the credits roll, it's a great mockup of Thornton's coming of age into Dangerfield, changing his last name to Melon and transforming that little tailor shop into a successful chain of Thornton Melon's Tall and Fat Stores. Among the mocked up clips of Melon acquiring wealth and fame, they even sneak in a shot of him from Caddyshack, only in black and white. It then goes from the credit montage to Thornton's latest television commercial, which starts Dangerfield's verbal entrance in the film with a rapid series of one liners:
"When you go jogging, do you leave potholes? When you make love, do you have to give directions? When you go to the zoo, do the elephants throw YOU peanuts? Do you look at a menu and say, 'OK?'"

We realize he's watching the ad in the back of his limo, driven by his faithful chauffeur/man for all purposes Lou (Burt Young). You hear the ad espouse the store's sizes such as "heavy, stout, extra stout and their new Hindenburg line." It closes with his slogan: "If you want to look thin, hang around with fat people." Melon is en route to a board meeting at his corporate headquarters, where everyone at the conference table is chowing down. Among the ideas offered include a toy to compete with the-then popular Cabbage Patch Kids, only the Melon Patch Kids, instead of being adopted have been abandoned. The meeting gets cut short when Thornton gets a call from his son Jason (Keith Gordon) from college. His dad asks him how his fraternity and the diving team are going and Jason tells his father that everything couldn't be better, though we can see that he doesn't belong to a frat and he serves only as the towel boy for the diving team, where he's tortured by one of the team's members, Chas (William Zabka, the lead adversary in The Karate Kid). Then, Melon has Lou take him home to prepare for a party his wench of a wife Vanessa (Adrienne Barbeau) has planned and which he's dreading. As he confides to Lou, "She gives good headache." When they arrive, he tells Lou that he can't believe they've been married for five years. "It seems like yesterday — and you know what a lousy day yesterday was."

As Thornton says to a potential romantic interest later in describing his marriage to Vanessa (after decades of bliss with Jason's late mother), "I was an earth sign, she was a water sign. Together, we made mud." He hates her and she feels the same toward him, basically using him as a bank account to throw trendy parties where people come to suck up to her. She doesn't try too hard to hide her infidelities. Thornton even catches her at the party with Giorgio (Robert Picardo). Melon does his best to embarrass her, saying how he hates tiny food and taking most of the hors d'oeuvres off a table and turning them into a sandwich. When she introduces him to a couple she's trying to impress and compliments the woman's dress and its lovely shade of green, Melon's response is "If that dress had pockets, you'd look like a pool table." That's the final straw for Vanessa who asks to see Thornton in private where she demands a divorce. "I knew we had something in common," Melon says, whipping out divorce papers he's already had prepared. Vanessa vows he won't get off that easy — it'll cost him. Melon disagrees and starts showing her Polaroids he has of Vanessa and Giorgio in various places, though he asks for an explanation on one. "There's you, there's Giorgio…What's with the midget over here?" Vanessa storms out and Thornton takes a swim, tells Lou he's free and decides to visit Jason at college.

At Grand Lakes University (mascot: The Hooters), things aren't going well for Jason. In addition to not making the diving team or being accepted into a fraternity, his grades aren't doing well either. He's telling his iconoclastic dorm roommate Derek Lutz (a hilarious Robert Downey Jr., with splashes of blue and purple in his hair) that he's thinking of dropping out of the whole enterprise. It doesn't help that he's got a mad crush on Valerie Desmond (Terry Farrell), a girl who is sort of dating Chas and who Derek reminds him is far out of the league of dorks like the two of them. Farrell, who would go on years later to be Lt. Dax on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the movie's weakest link in a cast that otherwise amazes with the depth of its great collection of character actors. When Lou and Thornton arrive, Thornton first starts walking blindly into Greek houses looking for Jason, learning that he doesn't belong to a frat, and checks out the diving team, where he finds out he's really the towel boy. So, when Jason and Derek get back to the dorm, Thornton and Lou surprise them by already waiting inside. Jason's dad confronts him about what he's discovered and wants an explanation. Jason gives a straight-forward response, "I lied." His father hugs him but tells his son, "Jason, you don't lie to me — you lie to girls." When Jason tells Thornton that he's thinking of dropping out, Melon won't have it and repeats his father's words to him. "If you don't have an education, you don't have anything" and he decides, he's going to go through the process with him — Thornton Melon is going to enroll as a freshman at Grand Lakes University.

Now, Thornton can't just waltz into enrollment. He never finished high school, has no records or GED, ACT or SAT scores that the university can take into account when considering him, explains Dean Martin (admittedly, a cheap laugh they use too often) played by the always reliable Ned Beatty. Melon finds a way around those problems by suggesting he donate the money for construction of the future Melon School of Business, which introduces Thornton's villain for the film, business professor Philip Barbay (Paxton Whitehead), who holds Melon in disdain and feels his admission makes the accomplishments of students who worked hard to get there lack meaning. He shows up at the groundbreaking to protest to Dean Martin, who replies, "In Mister Melon's defense, it was a really big check." The rivalry grows worse when Melon becomes a student in Barbay's class and embarrasses him when he proposes the class set up a pretend business and Thornton corrects him on all the steps he left out that you have to go through to build a factory in the real world. The final straw though comes when Melon starts wooing his English teacher Dr. Diane Turner (Sally Kellerman), who had sort of been dating the stuffy Barbay.

Back to School was directed by Alan Metter and it can't really be said that he directed any notable films before or after this one (his most recent credit on IMDb is a 2005 Olivia Newton-John video) with a filmography that includes Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Moving, Police Academy: Mission to Moscow and, for television, The Growing Pains Movie. However, he has one bona fide winner on his resume with Back to School. It's almost wall-to-wall jokes, but it also has heart as well. No one can accuse it of being terribly original or having surprises in its plot (except for one delicious one which now, 25 years later, I'm sure every knows about). Thornton, who becomes a true party animal on campus treats college like he does his business: He delegates, bringing in experts to do his homework. When Jason tells him that he's got a paper due on Kurt Vonnegut and he hasn't read any of the books, his dad tells him he tried, but he just didn't get them. Then, there's a knock on the dorm room door and who's standing there but Kurt Vonnegut himself. Then, to add another layer on the joke, Dr. Turner gives Thornton an 'F' on the paper because she says she can tell he didn't do it and "Whoever did write this doesn't know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut!" For the final punchline, cut from TV because of language, we see Melon calling Vonnegut up to complain about the grade. "And another thing Vonnegut, I'm gonna stop payment on the check. Fuck me? Hey, Kurt, can you read lips? Fuck you! Next time, I'll call Robert Ludlum."

What really holds Back to School together, other than Dangerfield himself and the high joke quotient, and helps it overcome its paper-thin, predictable plotting is the amazing cast assembled for it. In addition to the aforementioned Gordon, Young, Beatty, Whitehead, Kellerman and Downey, we also get supporting actor extraordinaire M. Emmet Walsh as the diving team coach and a single scene of Edie McClurg (who appeared in both films with "Twist & Shout" that 1986 weekend) as one of Thornton's secretaries that he sends to Barbay's class to take notes on a dictation machine. Gordon really has the hardest role of them all because he's basically playing straight man to an entire cast as well as trying to shoulder the more "dramatic" parts of the story as he deals with the embarrassment his father causes him on campus. It doesn't help that Gordon must also moon over his would-be love interest Valerie, as played by Farrell, which provides the film's dullest moments since, to be blunt, Farrell's acting is horrid. That plot also entangles Zabka, whom you can't really judge since he's just there to be a one-dimensional frat boy asshole the same way he was a one-dimensional karate school asshole in The Karate Kid two years earlier, though we do get spared a moment at the end where his character suddenly has a turnaround and shouts, "You're alright, Melon!"

Perhaps the most memorable appearance of the film — though it was the only film in which the comedian ever appeared — is one that should ensure that the legend of the far-too-short career of Sam Kinison will go on. Discovered in his club by Dangerfield, he insisted on finding a place in the film for the brilliant wildman. There never was and never has been another comedian quite like Kinison, who was a huge influence on my friends and I during our high school years. I remember the night when I learned of his death and calling up a friend with the news, crying out, "Why couln't it have been Dice?" In Back to School, Kinison has a brief role as American history Professor Terguson, a shell-shocked Vietnam vet who has a tendency to explode into the type of rants you'd find in a Kinison standup routine. It's a hlarious, brief encapsulation of the comic's style that hopefully encourages people to seek out his actual comedy. Gone far too soon.

Of all the supporting performances that deserve special recognition, more must be said about the wonderfully droll work of Burt Young as Lou — driver, bodyguard, confidant and whatever job Thornton needs to be done. He's a man of few words, but he can earn so many laughs with no words at all, whether he's crushing a napkin holder before proceeding to single-handedly beat up the university's football team or just laying in a chaisse lounge after Thornton and Vanessa finally split. He pulls off his one big speech when he tells Jason that he's being a big hard on his father, who needs his help for a change. "I know your pop 30 years. He understands. He's a nice guy and he's tough," Lou tells Jason. "Like me. I'm nice and I'm tough. I'll give you an idea what I mean. My two boys — I put one through college and the other I put through a wall. Your papa loves you. He's lookin' out for ya. Look out for him." Then, in one of my favorite moments, Lou gets to sit in the stands at the diving team event next to Derek who comments how no one heckles divers and blows an air horn when the opposing team dives (another scene cut for TV since it's an illegal act) prompting Lou to tell Derek, "I'm beginning to like you kid."

Back to School also offers one of the earlier Danny Elfman film scores, but it goes one step further. Elfman appears in the film himself with his band Oingo Boingo singing their song "Dead Man's Party" at a huge blowout that Thornton throws in the revamped dorm room that he, Jason, Derek and Lou share.

In the end though, this is Dangerfield's film and he deserves credit for giving an actual performance that goes beyond being a mere joke machine. True, Thornton Melon doesn't go too long without delivering a punchline, but he's also a character with depth, a man whose love for his son truly comes through, who can register hurt. It's a shame that in his lifetime the Academy were such snobs to always refuse him entry, especially when you see some of the people who they have allowed to join. (Hell, they allowed Barbra Streisand to join before she had her first film even released). Dangerfield made some bad movies, but he did show he could act, even in a film I despised such as Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers. Back to School though I believe contains his best performance and it was his biggest hit. There was talk before he died about trying to do a remake. Don't even try. I can't imagine them finding an equal to Dangerfield or the rest of the cast. Leave well enough alone. If you've run out of new ideas, stop making new movies and just re-release the old ones. It would be better for the studios' bottom lines and audiences would be better served.


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Sunday, January 02, 2011

 

From the Vault: Richard III


And therefore — since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair, well-spoken days, —
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Richard III, Act I, Scene I

Prove a villain he does in what may be the most imaginative, entertaining film adaptation of a Shakespeare play ever.

Adapted from an acclaimed stage production, Richard III transplants the Bard's historical play from the 15th century to a fictionalized England of the 1930s, where a bloody civil war rages and the pseudo-fascist Richard of Gloucester conspires to seize the throne from himself — at the expense of many family members.

When we first see Richard on screen leading an attack on reigning King Henry and his troops, a gas mask hides his face and causes Richard to breathe heavily and evoke a far more humanistic movie villain — Darth Vader. The allusion to Star Wars ends up being wholly appropriate because this is Shakespeare revised to be a movie, not just a filmed version of the play.

Sir Ian McKellen plays Richard, repeating his stage triumph and showing why he often earns the label of the foremost Shakespearean actor of his generation. This is Shakespeare delivered conversationally with as much respect for the context as the poetry. McKellen doesn't cradle the lines as if he fears they're so delicate that they might break: he charges full throttle and brings Richard to brilliant, rousing life.

An excellent cast supports McKellen, including Annette Bening as Queen Elizabeth, Nigel Hawthorne and John Wood as Richard's brothers Clarence and Edward and Maggie Smith as his mother, the duchess of York.

Lesser known but recognizable performers such as Kristin Scott Thomas as the widowed Lady Anne and Jim Broadbent as Lord Buckingham, Richard's co-conspirator, also add to the fun. The cast's weak spot turns out to be Robert Downey Jr. as Earl Rivers, Elizabeth's brother. Downey's line readings sound so awkward that it comes as a relief when he's dispatched by Richard's henchman (Adrian Dunbar).

Richard Loncraine directs Richard III at a galloping pace and though some purists may dislike cuts in the text, the omissions do not come at the expense of the story's flow, unlike the recent film of Othello.

Too often people of all ages treat Shakespeare as if his plays are museum pieces, treating them more like medicine they have to take than entertainment. With this film, perhaps that view can change as its stunning visuals and realistic action manage to keep reluctant viewers' attention while McKellen's exquisite acting helps the words penetrate their mind.


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Tuesday, November 30, 2010

 

Sometimes you need some mind candy


By Edward Copeland
Though I saw it during one of the blog's hiatuses and didn't review it, I really enjoyed the first Iron Man. Based on the reviews, I expected a little less from its sequel, but damn if I didn't enjoy Iron Man 2 just as much as the original. This is my kind of mindless, comic-book inspired entertainment: sleek, funny, well-acted and just the right length, resisting the urge of so many action films to pad their running times.

As in the first film, the key to its success is Robert Downey Jr. as weapons magnate turned peacenik/Iron Man. He's charming, witty and really has more personality than any other superhero in the history of superhero screen incarnations. He's rich and fun loving, still loves to knock back some drinks or to race in the Monaco Grand Prix and he gives very entertaining witness testimony at a Senate hearing. (If Downey weren't enough to make the scene a blast, they cast Garry Shandling as the jackass senator to ensure that the sequence is a hoot.) Stark may save the world, but he doesn't mope like Batman, he's not perfect like Superman and you know he's having a good time saving the world and probably getting laid as well.

When it was announced that Jon Favreau was directing the first Iron Man, it was viewed as an odd choice, but really Favreau, who repeats those duties here as well as playing Stark's driver, makes perfect sense. He's the man who wrote Swingers and the Tony Stark character as portrayed by Downey is so money and he knows it, only he's not a pretender as Favreau and Vince Vaughn's characters were in the film that begat that phrase, Stark's the real deal.

Ironically, in another funny performance, the would-be "swinger" of Iron Man 2 is Sam Rockwell playing rival weapons magnate Justin Hammer who dreams of living the Stark lifestyle, both businesswise and otherwise. He's the corporate villain of the movie, but he's just as funny. In fact, the action scenes when they happen, though they deliver, mostly are by the numbers. It's the comic tone that makes this series so much more fun than the brooding or goody-goodness of the others in this genre.

Terrence Howard has been replaced in the role of Lt. Col. James Rhodes by Don Cheadle and while Howard is a fine actor, Cheadle actually is an improvement because he has an innate levity that Howard doesn't so he meshes better with Downey and the rest of the cast.

Of course, the real villain of Iron Man 2 is Mickey Rourke as Ivan Vanko, a Russian physicist whose family feels ruined by Stark's father (the great John Slattery, who only appears in old film footage — and with brown hair!) and vows to seek revenge on Tony Stark, a task Hammer unwittingly helps him to carry out while he thinks he's using Vanko to gain an edge in the arms business.

There also is a story strand involving Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, which I guess has something to do with a league of comic-book heroes called The S.H.I.E.L.D. that Stark's father helped to form and The Avengers Institute (though I don't think it involves Emma Peel), but I'm not up on my Marvel history to know that backstory, though it hardly matters. However, Jackson does deliver Fury with the same vocal cadence he used as Jules in Pulp Fiction.

Still, there isn't a weak link in the cast which includes Gwyneth Paltrow, who I tend not to like outside of The Royal Tenenbaums. If this weren't a sequel to a comic-book adaptation, saying it deserved consideration for ensemble acting awards would be taken seriously.

Justin Theroux wrote the screenplay and also came up with the story for Tropic Thunder, but many may know him best as an actor, especially for his roles in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive and as Brenda's neighbor on HBO's Six Feet Under.

I tend to frown upon endless sequels in series. I liked the first two X-Men movies, but the third one stunk and I didn't even bother to see Wolverine. Still, I had so much fun turning off my brain and enjoying both installments of Iron Man, I wouldn't object to another even though I know the odds are against a third time being a charm.


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Friday, October 01, 2010

 

What happens when I'm not discerning


By Edward Copeland
As a year grows older, I get impatient, especially as my age odometer turns over more miles and my access to new releases in the theaters dry up. As a result, my usual finicky standards for what to rent on DVD begin to lower a little, just so I can say I've seen more of a particular year's releases. As a result, a half-read comment saying it was OK and the all-too-rare presence of Jason Patric convinced me to add The Losers to my Netflix queue. Its greatest achievement: I made it to the end without giving up.

Apparently based on a comic book series, The Losers begins with lots of graphic touches so you're clear about its comic origins if you didn't know otherwise. Too bad the screenplay by Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt wasn't so blatant, but that might require director Sylvain White to aim for coherence occasionally instead of aping every music video-inspired shot designed for the ADD generation, at least long enough to try to explain the story.

On the other hand, that might stretch The Losers' running time even more than its mercifully short 90 minutes or so. In a nutshell, it involves a team off CIA black operatives led by Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who looks uncomfortably like Robert Downey Jr. at times, only minus the talent) who are set up for a mission gone wrong and presumed dead.

A mystery woman (Zoe Saldana) contacts the team to help her get revenge on a mysterious mastermind (Patric). (Patric, not surprisingly, provides the film's few bearable moments with his delicious line readings as the supervillain. Let's face it: It takes an actor of his talent to get anything out of dialogue this atrocious. Some of the lines are so cliched that you can practically say them before the characters do.)

Wasted as part of the team is Idris Elba, so great as Stringer Bell on The Wire, then again most of the film is a waste. In the end, I wondered exactly how they came up with the title The Losers then I realized that it referred to anyone who had the misfortune of sitting through this muddle.

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Saturday, May 01, 2010

 

From the Vault: Short Cuts


Helicopters hover in the night, spraying Los Angeles with pesticides in hopes of exterminating the dreaded Mediterranean fruit fly. In Short Cuts, Robert Altman's Raymond Carver-inspired vision of L.A., it's humanity that seems on the verge of extinction as the master director uses Carver's wonderful stories as a springboard for his epic look at modern life.

Fresh from the triumph of The Player, Altman returns to the style of filmmaking he mastered in the 1970s, creating an astounding cinematic canvas of memorable characters and sly observations.

Twenty-two main characters populate the L.A. of Altman's screenplay, co-written with Frank Barhydt. Unlike the movers and shakers of Hollywood depicted in The Player, Altman zeroes in on the people who surround Hollywood's elite in the suburbs — working- and middle-class citizens struggling with marriages and jobs, natural disasters and human tragedies. Singling out some cast members above others in this top-notch ensemble seems unfair, but the standouts in my mind are Jack Lemmon, Tim Robbins and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Lemmon plays a long-absent father who pays a surprise visit to his estranged son and embarks on a funny, touching and wholly inappropriate confessional in a hospital cafeteria. Lemmon makes each syllable of his dialogue resonate to the point that the consonant B rings out of the word robe to hilarious effect.

Robbins similarly straddles the line between humor and pathos as a chronically unfaithful husband who hates the family dog and distrusts his cheating mistress.

Leigh, who always turns in an interesting performance, soars as a phone sex operator who works at home while taking care of her children and her husband.

Picking out those three actors should in no way diminish the accomplishments of the rest of the cast which includes memorable turns by Andie MacDowell, Bruce Davison, Julianne Moore, Matthew Modine, Anne Archer, Fred Ward, Chris Penn, Lili Taylor, Robert Downey Jr., Madeleine Stowe, Lily Tomlin, Tom Waits and still others.

The weak points of Short Cuts stem from the storyline involving a lounge singer (Annie Ross) and her cellist daughter (Lori Singer). That strand is the only one that Altman created from scratch instead of being drawn from Carver and it stands out as somewhat standard and predictable in comparison.

For Carver fans, Altman doesn't render a faithful adaptation but merely uses the writer as a launching pad for this incredible work. The story that most closely resembles its Carver origins is the one based on "A Small, Good Thing," but the quick intercutting of the various tales slightly undermines its emotional payoff in the film. However, only readers of the story will probably notice.


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Wednesday, November 26, 2008

 

More is less


By Edward Copeland
When you are in a situation such as I am, restricted to watching new movies on DVD, it's always a bit of a disappointment when you find out you're not watching what people saw in theaters. I don't examine the discs that closely and since they come in a by-mail service, I don't get the DVD case pointing out extended cuts. This was the case with Tropic Thunder.

I thought the film seemed a little flabby, but I didn't realize it include extra footage edited back into the film until I listened to the commentary by Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr.

What's amazing is that the material added wasn't stuff deemed too racy or over the line but scenes that director Stiller admits slowed down the pace. Even more puzzling is they were recording the commentary for this longer cut on the same day of the shorter version's premiere.

If Stiller admits these added bits slow things down, why not just file them in a deleted scene extras? Even better: Why not do as other films such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall did on its DVD and give the viewer the option of watching either the theatrical version or the extended cut. As a result, can I fairly assess Tropic Thunder the way a critic who saw it in the theater would have?

There are many funny bits and Downey is a riot (and am I not mistaken, or is that a deadon Russell Crowe he's doing when he talks in his character's real Australian accent?).

Tom Cruise's extended cameo is funny but I never for a minute forgot it was Tom Cruise.

Still, I keep going back to the fact that it should have been tighter and since I can't compare it to the way people saw it in the theater, I'll never know the answer.


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Thursday, August 09, 2007

 

Crossing a line into obsession

By Edward Copeland
My virtual relationship with David Fincher has been an odd one. I didn't care much for Alien3 or Seven. I thought The Game was a mixed bag as well. Then came Fight Club, and he won me over to the point that I seem to forget that it was the first film of his I liked. (Something that stayed in place even after having a mixed reaction to Panic Room.)

Now, I've finally caught up with Zodiac and I can proudly say that Fincher has made two films I think are great. In fact, for me, Zodiac seems to be his penance for making Seven.

There's no romanticizing of the serial killer in Zodiac, helped a great deal by the fact that he was real and his identity remains a mystery to this day. There aren't any extended setups for clever kills that are only an excuse for the final climax, as in Seven, where most people had to know what was coming.

Zodiac is a nearly emotion-free procedural, covering the series of California slayings from the points of view of journalists and police without the requisite pumping up of emotion. It's a film of observance more than investigation.

Now, Zodiac isn't as strong as Fight Club, but the fault of that I think lies mainly with some of his casting decisions and the way some actors chose to play their roles, especially in the case of Jake Gyllenhaal who I've yet to find a particularly interesting actor and who clearly is someone who should not be cast in roles where he is supposed to age more than a decade over the course of the film.

They made the same mistake with him and Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain, though since Ledger's a stronger actor, he got away with it a little easier. Asking Gyllenhaal to age substantially in a role is like considering Keanu Reeves for a period piece: For God's sake, don't do it. Mark Ruffalo, an actor I usually like, seems too soft-spoken in his role as one of the lead detectives on the slayings.

Still, Zodiac works in spite of these portrayals. A lot of that credit goes to Fincher, who approaches the screenplay by James Vanderbilt in almost clinical way. Zodiac plays like many of the police procedurals that seem to dominate television these days, except you know that there won't be a neat resolution since the real-life Zodiac murders were never solved.

Fincher, along with cinematographer Harris Savides and production designer Donald Graham Burt capture the time period of the 1960s and 1970s perfectly, avoiding any touches that might play like camp. At times, the San Francisco newsroom looks as if it could have been lifted straight from All the President's Men.

However, the performance that almost makes the entire film, even though it's the briefest of the three "leads," is Robert Downey Jr. as the lead police reporter, determined to make a name for himself off the Zodiac killings. That is, if he can put down his drink long enough. Downey is great and I almost wish there had been more of him.

There also is a nice turn by Brian Cox playing famed lawyer Melvin Belli, who got involved in the case as well and also sought to feed off the notoriety.

Still, what makes Zodiac work so well is that it's an exercise in mood and style. Often, those types of films fall flat for me, but Fincher keeps such strong control of his material that I never got bored despite its running time of more than two-and-a-half hours.

Some may be disappointed by the ending, but this is a story that had no end, so the film couldn't manufacture one. In a way, it's similar to the finale of The Sopranos, only this ending didn't take time to grow on me because I knew that this real-life story couldn't have a resolution and still be true.


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Tuesday, December 12, 2006

 

A Guide to Recognizing Anachronisms


By Edward Copeland
The old adage says "Write what you know" and I guess that applies to movies as well, but it helps if what you are telling doesn't seem like some kind of Frankenstein's monster, stealing parts from better movies here and there. It also hurts when your movie constantly belies its own chronology.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, the autobiographical tale written and directed by Dito Montiel, a former musician, doesn't move forward more than a scene or two before it reminds you of better films from Mean Streets to Saturday Night Fever. The film is narrated by Robert Downey Jr. as a grown Dito in 2006 flashing back 20 years to when he was portrayed by Shia LaBeouf.

Though the film claims to be set in 1986, you can't tell it from the film itself, where all the cars seem to be from the 1970s and every single pop song that plays on the soundtrack — from Elton John to John Sebastian to Gerry Rafferty — were hits in the 1970s. Sure, there is a line of dialogue referring to Lionel Richie's "Hello" video, but that honestly is the closest the film comes to acknowledging that it is supposed to take place in the 1980s.

On top of these anachronisms, most of the characters seem to be dressed out of the 1950s. The time discrepancies even extend to characters as a teen played Melonie Diaz, who in real life was born in 1984, grows 20 years later into Rosario Dawson, who was born in 1979.

While I know the cast has talent, including the wasted Chazz Palminteri and Dianne Wiest as Dito's parents, the story seems like such a retread that it's truly a chore to sit through even though it's less than 100 minutes long.

Like many indie films in this genre from first-time filmmakers, many critics have a tendency to overpraise the work instead of acknowledging that independent doesn't automatically equal good and first-time filmmaker doesn't always mean prodigy. A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints should best be forgotten.


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Thursday, September 07, 2006

 

Three balls, two strikes, two outs


By Edward Copeland
Having read some positive reviews and wondering what a Don DeLillo screenplay would be like, I looked forward to the release of Game 6 on DVD, since the film never played near me. My expectations weren't really that high, but it didn't help. While the movie contains some positive attributes, it never quite jells. Michael Keaton stars as Nicky Rogan, an award-winning playwright whose latest work is about to premiere on Broadway at the same time that his beloved Boston Red Sox are playing in the 1986 World Series. Keaton's performance really is the best thing Game 6 has going for it — he's looser and more wry than I've seen him in a long time.

The great novelist DeLillo has touched upon baseball and America before, most notably in Underworld, and this is his first filmed screenplay, but it feels more like a one-act play — and not a particularly interesting one.

Rogan frets about the play's opening, worrying about a potentially damning review from a harsh theater critic named Steven Schwimmer (Robert Downey Jr.), who has offended so many with his reviews that he basically lives in hiding out of fear for his life, and dealing with a leading man (Harris Yulin) who can't recall his lines because of a brain parasite he caught while in Africa.

Rogan also finds himself estranged from his daughter (Ari Graynor) and dealing with a down-on-his-luck theater associate (Griffin Dunne) who feels Schwimmer destroyed his career.

Directed by Michael Hoffman, Game 6 comes off more as an essay than a movie, though its thoughts on criticism, theater and baseball aren't particularly insightful or entertaining. Thankfully, the film's running time of less than 90 minutes is mercifully short.

In the end, Game 6 puzzled me more than it engaged me. Keaton does deliver his best performance in quite some time, but once the film ended, my main reaction was a ho-hum one. I've already forgotten that I've seen it.


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