Hollywood Humiliation

Adios, Dennis Hopper

2010-05-29T16:27:00.006-05:00

You freak, you demon, you basically weird cat. When I think of you, I remember watching you tell this story in a TV interview:

“In the 50s, when me and Natalie Wood and James Dean and Nick Adams and Tony Perkins suddenly arrived… God, it was a whole group of us that sort of felt like that earlier group – the John Barrymores, Errol Flynns, Sinatras, Clifts – were a little farther out than we were… So we tried to emulate that lifestyle,” Hopper said. “For instance, once Natalie and I decided we’d have an orgy. And Natalie says 'O.K., but we have to have a champagne bath.' So we filled the bathtub full of champagne. Natalie takes off her clothes, sits down in the champagne, and starts screaming. We take her to the emergency hospital. That was *our* orgy, you understand?”

And also this scene, one of my favorites in the movies:

So see you later. Can't say I enjoyed Catchfire, or Backdraft... whatever it's called. I know you said they screwed you over on it. And it's too bad. I could see what you liked in that off-kilter but still deadly hitman.

Get out of there!

2010-05-12T19:43:00.007-05:00

In roughly eight days since it was posted to YouTube, this video has had more than 250,000 views, which is about the number of visitors we get here at Hollywood Humiliation every week.

But still, it's popular (the video, not us). And for good reason. From the same guy who compiled all those Arnold Schwarzenegger quotes a few weeks ago, it's all about one of the most ubiquitous of all movie phrases (not that I had realized it before watching this video).

Cleaning up after Paste magazine's "Lost" Kubrick casting mess

2010-05-08T02:14:00.005-05:00

For a guy who one only one Academy Award (for special effects) and is currently dead, Stanley Kubrick still gets his fair share of action in the headlines. For instance, the mind boggling bulletin that appeared recently announcing a lost 90 page treatment of a film noir story Kubrick commissioned in the late 1950s called Lunatic at Large had been found... and is about to be made into a movie starring What's His Face (Sam Rockwell) and Bewby Girl (Scarlett Johansson).

Right on the heels of this announcement came a story in Paste magazine, where a well meaning writer took the five "lost" Kubrick projects and tried to cast them ("well meaning" here standing in for "hack").

Or this.

Needless to say, in the best tradition of Indiana Jones movies, he chose... poorly. Even for a hack. And now it's left to our Fearless Leader to right these grievous wrongs in the Crusader Justice League of internet blogging.

So thus, allow me to present the...

Only Annual Lost Kubrick Project Cast-a-Thon.

Seriously, I just trademarked that.

The Project: Napoleon

Plot: You know, the life of Napoleon. This project became Kubrick's obsession even before he filmed A Clockwork Orange, and he fully planned to film it afterward. Kubrick read hundreds of books on the French emperor and according to legend could tell you what Napoleon was doing on virtually every day of his life.

Why it failed: The movie Waterloo, about the same subject. Despite having Herbert Lom in it, the movie failed critically and at the box office, leading Kubrick to use his period research to make Barry Lyndon instead.

Paste casts... Tom Cruise?

Are you fucking kidding me? Tom Cruise? First of all let's clear up a few things. Despite the syndrome named after him, Napoleon was of perfectly average height for his time. If anything, he was of above average height. Casting Tom Cruise just because he's 5'7 and has a touch of insane megolomania in him is just ridiculous.

By all accounts Napoleon in his personal life was a detail oriented workaholic without much in the way of people skills. "The death of a hundred thousand men means nothing to me," he once said. Though he had the ability to inspire, he was a ruthless cold fish with ambition too big for the small planet we live on.

That doesn't sound at all to me like charming, bizzaro, Thetan hunter Tom Cruise.

Hollywood Humiliation casts... Christopher Walken.

Ok, not really.

It appears Kubrick had considered Nicholson for the role before settling on relatively unknown English actor David Hemmings, best remembered for his role in Antonioni's Blowup, for the part.

This is basically the right strategy, in my opinion, as it's generally harder for audiences to believe big name actors as historical figures they're already very familiar with (Kevin Costner's role in the Cold War drama Thirteen Days as an underling -- rather than John F. Kennedy -- is a particularly good example of this principle).

But if we're going on relative unknowns, here's one I'll throw out: Ben Foster. Now, Foster is only 30 and very lean, but watch him in 3:10 to Yuma and in Alpha Dog. He's the best and most intense thing in both movies. Strip off the hair, pack on the pounds and teach him French, and I think you've got Napoleon.

The Project: God Fearing Man

The Plot: Based on the true story of a priest who becomes a bank robber and a suspicious bank teller who tries to convince the bank manager to close his account before it's too late.

Why it failed: This was one of many treatments Kubrick and producer/collaborator James Harris wrote in the 1950s and pitched to the major studios. Given the time, it's not hard to imagine the religious content being the culprit for it's demise. Given the climate, it's pretty amazing a movie like Night of the Hunter ever got made. Then again, they buried Night, so maybe Kubrick was better off.

Paste casts... Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep

Another lazy pick, as Hoffman and Streep just starred together in a movie about the clergy: Doubt.

Their quote: "Hoffman as the clergyman putting to rest all doubt as to whether he was a good priest or a bad priest."

All Doubt! Haha. Good one!

This is the fifth image that comes up when you do a Google search for "assclown."

The problem for Hoffman is he's been down this road too many times before. Especially in Owning Mahony, where he played a bank executive who abused his position to gamble obsessively. And also in Before the Devil Knows Your Dead, playing a broke finance executive who schemes to rob his parent's jewelry store with the help of his dimwitted brother (Ethan Hawke).

Hoffman clearly specializes in playing characters on the edge of morality who slip over and find themselves in over their head, so it's frankly hard to argue against the casting except to say that eventually as an audience we get tired of seeing the same thing over and over again. I mean, we got tired of Harrison Ford as an action hero, right? We can get tired of Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a man whose morals are corrupted under the strain of constantly looking like he's about to have a heart attack.

Penciling in Meryl Streep for a role is always a good idea, because she can pretty much do anything, but the problem is it's like forming a band and going, "yeah, and we'll get Jimi Hendrix on guitar."

Only Streep's alive. We think.

Hollywood Humiliation casts... Peter Sarsgaard as the priest and Dianne Wiest as the clerk. Sarsgaard has Hoffman's wide, open face and his morally unbalanced energy. He also projects the kind of sneakily charming intelligence you always read about in the great thieves.

Wiest is something of a sentimental pick, as I think she's one of the most underused actresses around. No one plays the cheerful, tired, working woman better. The kind of person stuck in a rut but just waiting to unfurl their sail on the wind. Wiest's dogged pursuit of the thief against the backdrop of the troubles her face always implies would be fun to watch.

The Project: Blue Movie

The Plot: In the midst of the Civil Rights era, critically acclaimed director Rusty Shakleford tries to make a beautiful, big budget porno. In the midst of all the glitz and glamour, two of the male performers fall in love.

Why it failed: A plot featuring a critically acclaimed director who tries to make a beautiful, big budget porno. Do I even need to mention the homosexual part?

Paste casts... Bill Murray as Shackleford and one-note nerd actors Michael Cera and Jesse Eisenberg as porno "performers."

First of all, according to the Bureau of Actual Scientific Studies, if Cera and Eisenberg were ever to appear in a movie together, there would be a Back to the Future-esque temporal paradox resulting in the rupture the space time continuum and be, uh... bad. And these dorky dopplegangers kissing? Anyone who would rather watch that than stick their head in a vat of flesh eating bacteria should be put to death immediately.

Casting Murray is also all wrong, even as much as we at the ol' HH love him. Murray really only has two modes as an actor: his joking, mugging side -- ala Ghostbusters, and his vaguely suicidal melancholy side -- ala The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

The role of Rusty Shackleford would require someone of deadly earnestness and determination. Cast in a satire with himself in the middle, there's no way Murray makes it all the way through without winking at the camera at least once. And right there, when he does it, there goes the movie.

Hollywood Humiliation casts... Ed Harris as Rusty Shackleford.

Harris is usually cast as a strong, moral type, but he has unexplored range as an extrovert and has the command presence of both an artist and a director. Peter Weir recognized this when he cast Harris in The Truman Show and Harris recognized this when he cast, um... himself, as Jackson Pollock.

I'm tempted to put down failed Superman Brandon Routh as one of the performers after his funny performance in Zach and Miri Make a Porno, but that's the easy way out. Frankly, most male performers in pornographic movies are grotesque trolls rolling along in life on the strength of one, uh, attribute. Given this, we reluctantly pick Vincent Gallo and Danny Trejo for the roles of the two performers and hope this means we don't have to think about it anymore.

Danny Trejo. When you've just got to have a guy who looks like he clubs baby seals for a living, accept no substitute.

The Project: The Aryan Papers

The Plot: A Jewish boy and his aunt are forced to flee across Poland after the Nazis invade.

Why it Failed: Conceived during the late 80s and 90s, Aryan Papers failed for the same reason every Holocaust project (including one in the works by Billy Wilder) failed: Schindler's List. Spielberg's masterpiece made any additional statement temporarily unnecessary, shelving pretty much every major project on the subject until Roman Polanski's The Pianist in 2002.

Paste casts... Kate Winslet as the aunt and Bill Milner as the boy.

This is once again classic lazy casting, ripping the top two names from the WWII drama The Reader and putting them in another WWII movie because, uh... that's the easy thing to do.

When Aryan Papers was nearly made in the early 90s, Uma Thurman had been considered for the role of the aunt and production actually got far enough along that Joe Mazzello -- he of the annoying-kid-from-Jurassic-Park fame -- was actually cast as the kid.

Blearrgh.

On the one hand, that sounds awful, but the alternative was Eyes Wide Shut, so beggars can't exactly be choosers.

Hollywood Humiliation casts... Lily Taylor as the aunt and... crap, this is another case where an unknown usually does the trick. Is it out of bounds to pencil Spencer Breslin in here? Probably. Does Judd Apatow have any male children, because his daughters are certainly pretty good actors? No, huh? Damn you.

Probably the best choice right now would be Jimmy Bennett, who gave a pretty crappy performance as a young James T. Kirk in Star Trek but has been hailed for his role as Michelle Monaghan's son in Trucker, a movie we at Hollywood Humiliation were keen on when it came out but somehow missed and are now hustling to catch up on.

The Project: The Down Slope

The Plot: Written with Civil War historian Shelby Foote, you can sort of guess the subject (10 demerits for anyone guessing aliens). The movie would have been set in the late stages of the war in the Shenandoah Valley, when according to Foote, the war got particularly ugly (we at Hollywood Humiliation are still waiting for a Civil War comedy).

Why it Failed: The Down Slope is one of the least known of all of Kubrick's lost projects. Foote wrote to a colleague reporting a finished script in 1956, but the contents of the movie are barely known. One account has the movie dealing with a guerilla Southern force. All accounts label it a strongly anti-war film, lending credence to the idea that in the mid to late 1950's Kubrick had it in mind to make an anti-war film and decided against Foote's Civil War script in favor of 1957's Paths of Glory.

Paste casts... Michael Moore.

Double Bleaargh, with Cheese.

Jesus. I can barely stand this anymore. Putting down Michael Moore's name because it's an anti-war movie goes so far enough beyond unconscionable it sinks to the level of the pathetic.

And besides, as anyone who enjoys The Outlaw Josey Wales knows, roles of a Southern guerilla force have already been cast. And while John Vernon, Sam Bottoms and company might be somewhat dead these days, their legacy lives on. I'd look into a mix of the old and young. Say... a list of guys like Peter Skarsgard, Zach Quinto, Peter Stormare, Nathan Fillion (who's descended from Confederate general Jubal Early) and Josh Charles, who's fallen off the national map since Sports Night for reasons passing understanding.

Oh, and Christopher McDonald.

Seriously, people. Give the man a job!

I'm not dead (yet)

2010-05-07T21:54:00.003-05:00

So it's been so many ages since I've updated the blog I feel sort of ashamed to crawl back here on my knees and beg for forgiveness.

So I won't.

Haha! Just kidding. I'll beg on my knees for just about anything. Including bread.

Seriously, if you've got bread, send some.

The main culprit here is a new, time consuming job combined with the decision to make the next article a very long and involved thing. I've been working on it off and on for the last two weeks, and rest assured, HH World, it ain't worth it.

Don't even hope.

Principia Filmatica

2010-04-18T12:46:00.004-05:00

...via friend and HH Nation reader Liz. Thanks, Liz.

This hilarious video should strike knowing and painful fear into the heart of anyone who's ever thought seriously about writing a movie.

But as funny as that video is, and as skillfully as it exposes the bland repetitiousness of many movies, I still think it's important to remember something that most people seem to want to reflexively disagree with: most movie formulas are good things.

I'll give you an example of what I mean. Back when I was living in Gainesville, there was a local band I saw a few times whose name I can't remember, so let's just call them Phantom Talent.

Phantom Talent were an example of a music style called "dischord," which gets it's particularly creative name from the fact that as a rule it eschews discernible chords and progressions, and from the fact that the "singing" generally consists, melody wise, of random yelling.

You see where I'm going with this. Here clearly was a band out as much to send a message as to make music. And their message was: fuck the conventions of chords, fuck the conventions of style, fuck the conventions of singing! Indeed, fuck you, audience!

The only reason Phantom Talent was even listenable was because it featured three of the best musicians in town, and because as much as they were trying to make a point about staid musical conventions, what they actually were was full of shit, since their songs still consisted of basic verse/chorus structure, and they were well rehearsed and tight through the changes.

There's an urge you've always got to fight as a creative person, and that's the urge to defy convention just for the sake of defying convention. Just because there's a formula out there that's worked for hundreds or thousands of years doesn't mean that formula is bad. Formula's are formulas for a reason. If you set out to break them for the sake of breaking them, more than likely you will be producing intolerable shit.

One of the first big things I discovered on my own as an adult was the Blues. Like a lot of kids who discovered it in the 60s, I was drawn in initially by the music of the English Blues Boom of The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Clapton and the like, and from there immersed myself in the music of guys like Son House, Leadbelly, Freddie King and Howlin' Wolf. Especially Freddie King.

I learned to play the guitar because of the blues. And one thing you learn pretty much right away is that every blues song is essentially the same. From a progressions standpoint, from an on-the-paper standpoint, there is very little flexibility in the blues.

And there's nothing wrong with that. The Blues is fundamentally an interpretive art, rather than a creative one, if you get my meaning. Put another way, it's not really about what you're playing, it's about how you're playing it. And that how is really all that separates the dingy, talentless lounge bands of the world from it's Eric Claptons.

These same lessons apply directly to moviemaking. You do not have a movie without conflict. You do not have a movie unless people want things and obstacles stand in their way. You do not have a movie unless it has surprises. You do not have a movie unless certain things are resolved.

What separates the men from the unemployed men is how you accomplish those things.

A particularly useful example of what I'm talking about is something called "Kierkegaard's Narrative," a existential plot outline that's been followed in movies such as American Beauty, Harold and Maude, High Fidelity, Sideways and many more. Great films all, but different films. But different in the how, rather than the what.

For a more comprehensive look at Kiekegaard's Narrative, click here.

So maybe this is all just me being an old fashioned stick in the mud, but I'm firmly of the opinion that moviemakers are first and foremost storytellers, not innovators. The goal of telling the story well should always take precedence over any other factor. And if that leads to innovation from a technical standpoint (Barry Lyndon being filmed by candlelight), editing standpoint (Rashomon's repeated subjective realities), or any number of other standpoints (The Empire Strikes Back making a key character a puppet), so much the better.

But let's not take a dump on movie formulas because of those lousy hacks who follow them in ways that are completely without imagination. They've done us well so far.

The Church of TCM, plus a few words about Adam's Rib

2010-04-14T02:03:00.002-05:00

There are many fine Religions out there. Take Sufism, for example, an ancient mystical sect of Islam whose followers believe in a return to the "primordial state of fitra," a word than translates roughly to mean "insight" or "intuition."

For instance: my intuition telling me to stop reading about Sufism.

Growing up, my folks were both fairly religious, but thankfully this didn't translate into going to church a lot. I say thankfully because as all of you who go to church regularly know, there's nothing a physicist can teach you about relative time you can't learn by going to a one and a half hour church service that clearly lasts four hours.

In my house we had another religion. One we worshipped and pledged ourselves undyingly to. And it's one I've followed to this day.

The Church of TCM

Pictured: Jesus crossed with Mr. Rogers

Since it launched on this day (April 14th) in 1994, Turner Classic Movies has become a dominant part of my family's life (I'm pretty sure we tuned in the first day). Of the 1200+ movies I've seen, it's a reasonable guess I saw 400-500 or so for the first time on TCM, and chances are if you had a time machine and picked a random day these last 16 years and walked into my parents house, a TV somewhere inside of it would have TCM on.

It's quite frankly the Indispensable Channel, and it's programming is so wide and varied you can enjoy it on multiple levels of movie knowledge, from the casual fan who wants to watch Casablanca once a month... or, like they did last month, wants to watch every Akira Kurosawa movie ever made (in honor of what would have been his 100th birthday).

But despite all of that watching, now and then I come upon a widely beloved classic that for some reason I've never seen. So, as part of this TCM anniversary I'd like to talk about how I did this recently with a beloved classic and why I, uh... hated it.

Hated Classic #1: Adam's Rib

A vehicle for Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn, who if they had lived in this day in age probably would have probably had their relationship dubbed "Hep-C", Adam's Rib is the story of married attorneys who end up on the opposite sides of an attempted murder trial.

The case: a woman has shot at and wounded her husband, who she thinks is cheating on her.

The way the movie presents the facts the whole thing seems pretty open and shut. The woman is caught at the scene, there are two witnesses, it's her gun and she admits to stalking him up to the apartment and pulling the trigger.

All is well. That is, until Hepburn installs herself as the woman's lawyer (Tracy is given the case as a prosecutor) and proceeds to throw the movie for a vomit-inducing loop.

Hepburn works herself into a real lather, gets into court and throws the following bombshell of a case at a jury: my client (the admitted shooter), a) was just trying to protect her family, and b) if a man had shot his wife under similar circumstances, no one would have a problem with that.

No really, read that again. She admits her client not only did the crime, but had motive and premeditation. Her argument is that if a man had done it, he'd go free. Therefore this woman should go free.

Obviously, Hepburn's tactics lead to marital strife, as Tracy objects to Hepburn trying to shove a traffic cone into the butthole of justice, and Hepburn not understanding why Tracy would want to stand so intolerantly in the way of a woman's right to shoot her cheating husband.

Even in the light of the O.J. trial, where some black people openly rooted for O.J. to go free just because he was black, Adam's Rib cannot be endured as anything approaching the way the justice system works. Johnnie Cochran might have been manipulative and occasionally full of shit, but even he didn't say that O.J. should go free because if it had been a white athlete killing his black girlfriend and her black lover, he'd get off no problem.

Also, that defense strategy doesn't rhyme, which would have been a problem.

Adam's Rib is not really pitched at the level of realism, though. The court scenes are not believable in the slightest and sort of treated as farce (Hepburn at one point puts a series of "accomplished" women on the stand, one of them a circus strongwoman who does backflips in front of the judge before lifting a protesting Tracy in the air with one arm).

But make no mistake, it's farce with a message: women should be equal in the eyes of law and society.

And that's a case worth fighting for... unless you cache it in a legal strategy so dangerously stupid you could use it to justify anything from speeding to, you know, actual murder.

The movie's final kick in the head? Hepburn wins the case. Maybe you guessed that by now, but it still floored me.

Yup. She wins. She fucking wins!

What a profoundly dumb movie.

Day of the Triff-vids (get it?)

2010-04-05T22:57:00.005-05:00

This SNL-esque funny-or-die video really has nothing to do with movies, except that it stars Marion Cotillard (Public Enemies), Leslie-Anne Warren (Clue) and William Fichtner (Heat).

Thankfully not making an appearance: William Fichtner's titteas.

And while I'm just throwing a video out there for no reason, for those of you who haven't seen it, here's a magnificent collection of Arnold Schwarzenegger quotes compiled by someone with way too much time on their hands.

Yes, even more time than you, blog reader.

Next time on Hollywood Humiliation: a psychoanalytical deconstruction of the gender modes in Mrs. Doubtfire.

The 10 "Best" Anti-Heroes Thrilling Conclusion!

2010-03-30T12:47:00.009-05:00

Back in the late Cretaceous period, when I started this series of posts on anti-heroes, I had a few simple goals and expectations.

1. To come up with a clear and firm definition of what an anti-hero is.

2. To have no one agree on that definition, no matter how clear and firm I was.

3. To be called a moron (I even posted a picture of Forrest Gump).

4. To write about 10 of these anti-heroes.

5. To regret coming up with the idea after a while.

6. But still enjoy it.

7. Sort of.

But now that I have written nine of these things, it is time for the grand finale. The big tamale. The last hurrah. Time, indeed, for me to unleash my very best rhetorical wordisms in praise of that greatest of movie anti-heroes.

Anti-Hero #1: J.J. Sefton, from Stalag 17

Long time fans of the blog (and it really bears noting how strange that was to type) might remember that the penultimate entry on my "Movies about the Movies" series was also a Billy Wilder production, in that case Sunset Boulevard. Some of you might groan at the idea of my picking another Wilder movie/character as the top entry on a list, but according to a recent study by the New England Journal of Actual Scientific Things, people who dislike Billy Wilder movies are generally also found to rape their pets.

ANTI: It's midnight in a German prisoner of war camp, and two desperate men are about to attempt a blitz out. The other men gather nervously around. The barracks commander gives the two a few last terse instructions, makes them repeat the plan. And when there's nothing left to say they're suddenly gone, out through the floorboards and into an escape tunnel.

The men pace around. It's the longest night of the year, one says. I hope they make it to the Danube before dawn, says another. The murmurs swell. One prisoner, especially young looking, can't contain himself. "I bet they get all the way to Switzerland!" he blurts. The men all smile.

Except one. He frowns.

"And I bet they don't even get out of the forrest," he says.

They all look at him. "Now what kind of crack is that?" one says.

"No crack. Two packs of cigarettes say they never get out of the forest."

The men are appalled. Many call his bet. He'd make book on his mother getting hit by a truck, one of them says.

Outside, the two men reach the end of the tunnel and pop out on the other side of the wire. The coast seems clear and escape looks certain, but it isn't. They've been set up. A German machine gun nest is waiting for them, and as the two men stand to run one and then the other is mercilessly mowed down.

Inside the barracks, the men are horrified. Except one. He sighs and gathers the cigarettes. One moves to stop him.

"Hold it. So we heard some shots. Who says they didn't get away?" he says.

The man looks up. "Anybody here want to double their bet?"

Nobody does.

So begins the greatest prisoner of war movie ever made, Stalag 17 (yes, better than The Great Escape and Bridge on the River Kwai), and brings the calculating, amoral, selfishly opportunistic J.J. Sefton to the screen, in a performance that won William Holden the Academy Award.

Where most of the prisoners in Stalag 17 spend their time trying to escape or otherwise resist the Germans, Sefton doesn't bother. The only thing he cares about is making life easy for himself. He builds a telescope so the men can spy on a women's camp nearby. He builds a distillery. He builds a racetrack for mice and takes bets. For every service he charges cigarettes, which he turns into food, cigars and preferential treatment from the guards.

Not quite this preferential, but you get the idea.

Sefton snipes at everyone. The barracks chief. The two barracks clowns. No one is safe from his cynicism. One day two new men come into the barracks. Sefton recognizes one of them -- a Lieutenant Dunbar -- as being a rich kid from Boston. He and Sefton had gone into officer's training together, but Sefton was washed out, and now he taunts him mercilessly.

SEFTON: Look, Lieutenant. All your money won't help you here. Because here you're on your own. And no mother to throw you a lifeboat. Now let's see how good you can swim.

The lieutenant has managed to blow up a munitions train while being transported across Germany, and it doesn't take long after he tells his fellow prisoners about it that the Germans swoop in and lock him up. Between that, the two slaughtered escapees and a radio the Germans cheerfully confiscate, it seems inescapable -- there's a spy in the barracks.

No prizes for guessing who they accuse, pin to his bunk and then beat mercilessly.

Sadly, no.

HERO: Only Sefton isn't the informer. And lying in his bunk, bruised and bleeding, he resolves to figure out who it is.

Some watch Stalag 17 and see Sefton's pursuit of the real informer, which takes up most of the rest of the movie, as an act of selfish revenge and nothing more. But this interpretation ignores the deeper complexity of a character who's not just an amusingly cynical bastard, but in my view, a wounded idealist whose passion is finally aroused.

First he tries desperately to buy off a guard.

SEFTON: You better talk, Schultz, because I'm going to find out with you or without you. Because I won't let go for a second. Because they'll have to kill me to stop me! So talk!

Holden's performance here is truly inspired. Watch as his battered face burns with an anger it never showed during the first half of the movie.

But buying off the guard doesn't work, so he's forced to watch. To scheme. Finally, in a sequence that for my money ranks among the best ever filmed, Sefton lies in his bunk while the men sing "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again" on a borrowed phonograph. The spy (I won't say who) watches the men from a distance, then goes over and uncovers a note the guards have hidden in the barracks. He reads the note and hides it before anyone knows, but Sefton sits up in time to catch the signal (a light cord) still swinging. He sits up and turns to look at it, and a flash of recognition goes through him. He's got it.

With that piece of puzzle, he bides his time until the signal is tripped again. This time he hides out in the bunk during a phony air raid and catches the spy in the act, explaining how the lieutenant blew up the train.

But now that he knows who it is, that doesn't mean it's over.

SEFTON: You tip your mitt and the Jerries pull him out of here and plant him someplace else, like Stalag sixteen or fifteen. Or you kill him off and the Krauts turn around and kill of the whole barracks. Every one of us. So what do you do?

Sefton bides his time. When the Gestapo shows up to take Lieutenant Dunbar away, the men stage an impromptu rescue and stash him in the camp. The spy offers to distract the guards, but Sefton smoothly interferes and prevents him from spoiling the plan. Dunbar is safely hidden, but only the barracks chief knows where. The Germans try desperately to find him, but without any inside information they're helpless to find him.

Finally it's time. Dunbar has to be moved. In another midnight meeting, the men draw dog tags to see who'll bust him out. But when the dog tag is drawn, the spy grabs it and makes the case it should be him.

With that, Sefton steps in. In a speech that would have been home in an episode of Columbo, he confronts the spy, shakes him up, reveals how the system works and gets him to crack. When the spy dives for the hole in the floor and cries out in German, the men restrain him.

Sefton's biggest enemy steps up to him. "Brother, were we all wet about you," he says. Sefton looks at him, grabs a cigar and strikes a match on his face.

"Forget it."

Sefton suggests a plan. He'll get Dunbar out of his hiding place, and when they're ready to go the men will throw the spy out of the barracks. The men in the goon towers are trained to shoot anyone out of the barracks after lights out, and the distraction should allow the two of them to escape.

Sefton grabs the clothes and the wire cutters. Every eye in the barracks is on him. When he gets down into the hole, he stops and addresses them.

"Just one more word," he says. "If I ever run into any of you bums on a street corner, just let's pretend we never met before."

According to Wilder, Sefton was his favorite of the characters in his movies -- the one he missed having around -- and it's not hard to see why. Sefton is smart, acerbic, funny and totally and unashamedly his own bastard self, just like Wilder. And he also suffers the indignity of being an outcast and the final vindication of proving everyone wrong, which is something we all, if we're lucky, have that fierce joy of feeling now and then.

I suppose it's obvious by now that I love the character of J.J. Sefton, too. He might be my favorite character in all the movies, for in that shock of being an outcast he rises to the challenge of being more than a self-obsessed heel.

He becomes a hero.

Note: The entirety of Stalag 17 can be watched on YouTube. It probably goes without saying that if you haven't seen it, stop what you are doing right this minute, even if what you're doing is pulling a knife out of your chest, and watch the movie.

Star Wars vs. The Hidden Fortress: a myth debunked

2010-03-22T15:32:00.030-05:00

There's no doubt that the films of Akira Kurosawa have been very influential in the West, sometimes to the point of all-out imitation. His Seven Samurai was turned into John Sturges' The Magnificent Seven. Yojimbo was turned, virtually shot for shot, into Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars. Rashomon was remade in 1964 as The Outrage (starring Paul Newman) and its non-linear storyline has influenced everything from Courage Under Fire to Pulp Fiction.

Yup. The guy was good.

But perhaps the most misunderstood of these influences is the legend of the impact The Hidden Fortress had on Star Wars.

Do these movies have similarities? Sure.

The Hidden Fortress is the story of a general trying to smuggle a load of gold and the princess of his beaten homeland across hostile territory with the help of two lowly goofballs, who as much as the princess and the general are the main characters.

Sound familiar?

The movie is also just a fun romp, with plenty of chases, sword fights and humor. And like Star Wars, it was a huge international hit. The biggest of Kurosawa's career.

But despite all the hubbub, and all you've probably heard, that's really where the similarities end.

For example, let's take the character of the general, Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars and Rokurota Makabe in The Hidden Fotress. Kenobi is very old, almost ancient. More wizard than general. Reserved, patient, with secrets to tell. Also -- and this is a point really worth noting -- he gets killed at the end of the first act.

Makabe is mysterious, but forceful. He always seems on the edge of killing the two goofballs. His duty and shame at being defeated has led him to sacrifice his own sister so the princess could more easily escape, and at one point he nearly sacrifices himself. But above all he is a fierce, strong, youthful warrior. By my count he kills at least 10 people in hand to hand combat by the time the movie is over.

The characters of the two princesses in each story are more of a comparison. Both are young, entitled, well... bitches. But where the princess in Star Wars is captured and has to be rescued, and is a loudmouth, the princess in The Hidden Fortress is merely in hiding (in a hidden fortress, get it?), and has to be smuggled across enemy lines to help restore her kingdom. Also, for much of the movie, she passes as a mute, to hide herself better.

Perhaps the most celebrated similarity between the two movies, and the one George Lucas readily points to, are the characters of the two lowly goofballs. Kurosawa's characters were called Tahei and Matakishi. Lucas made his into robots and called them R2D2 and C-3PO.

"My main influence," Lucas says. "Was Kurosawa's decision to tell his story from the viewpoint of the two lowest characters."

Though not quite this low.

And we see this from the opening shot of both movies. Kurosawa starts with Tahei and Matakashi wandering in the wilderness, complaining and arguing about a war they fought in -- and lost -- and the fact that they haven't eaten in days. As everyone who's seen Star Wars knows (which means pretty much everyone. Except my friend Eric Thelen), Lucas also starts with his bickering robots, wandering the ship during a battle, complaining about those things robots complain about.

But even here, the difference are vast. C-3PO and R2D2 are comic characters who do a bit to drive the plot. But basically, like most movie robots that aren't the villain, they're good natured servants who are basically there to add sci-fi window dressing and make the well-trained actors who portray them feel like idiots.

"I. Will. Get. You. For. This. Compute."

Tahei and Matakishi, though they're amusing fraidy cats, are not good natured or well meaning. They're desperate thieves who take any opportunity to fight with each other, abandon the group, steal the gold or sell out Makabe and the princess, leading of course to Conflict.

The only reason they stick around is because they think they're going to get some of the gold they're transporting, and the only reason Makabe doesn't kill them is because they think of a route to the homeland any idiot should have been able to think of, and because he needs someone to help carry the gold.

None of this sounds like the comparably lovable and loyal R2D2 or C-3PO, and it shouldn't.

So despite all of the myths, calling Star Wars a rip off of The Hidden Fortress really boils down to lazy scholarship of the worst kind. Scholarship that seems to be repeated without end.

The two Criterion Collection essays on The Hidden Fortress refer to it as "the major influence on Star Wars" and owing "much of the scenario" to it, respectively. The second essay even seems to think that Han Solo is the general character comparable to Makabe.

Humbug.

Perhaps most egregiously, this line of thinking completely ignores the fact that Star Wars is not a story about Kenobi, or the princess, or the two droids. It's first and foremost Luke's story, which borrows from a hundred Boy-King legends -- especially the Arthur legend -- none of which The Hidden Fortress has nothing to do with.

The Hidden Fortress doesn't even have a Luke character, for crying out loud. Or an Emperor character. Or Darth Vader. Or Han Solo. Or Jabba the Hutt.

On the plus side, it doesn't have Ewoks, either.

So how about we all (again, not including Eric) stop this totally out of control myth, huh? And get back to just enjoying movies for what they are.

The 10 "Best" Anti-Heroes, part 5

2010-03-14T00:27:00.022-06:00

Whew. I mean, has it been some kind of hard week or what?! I don't like to go much into personal details here on the ol' HH, but here's a rundown.

1. Flew to Jamaica, where I was accosted on the beach by a group of thugs and had to fight them off with coconuts.

2. Went to jury duty, where I was dismissed because it was a drug related case and I showed up in costume as Dr. Gonzo from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

3. Was stuck in a waiting room with some guy on the phone having the "yeah, I've got AIDS" conversation... which quickly devolved into a plan to go his ex-boyfriend's house, throw a brick through his front window, and murder him.

4. Wished my life was as interesting as those things, because I made them all up.

Except the AIDS thing. That actually did happen to me once. Just not this week.

But we're not here to discuss whether there's enough Weird in my life, we're here to discuss anti-heroes. Specifically, the 2nd best anti-hero of them all, according to the crack team of scientists, scholars and dope fiends who came up with this list.

Anti-Hero #2: Ethan Edwards, from The Searchers

Most movies that rise to legendary status are like those rare jewels that never come from behind glass. They are pure... nearly divine, flawless in every move, every motive, every line. They seem to have arisen perfectly formed from the consciousness of a genius and then been miracled to the screen without interruption.

John Ford's The Searchers is not like that. It's premise -- a gunfighter and a young half-breed go on a five year search for a young girl kidnapped by Comanches -- is rudely interrupted by a series of pointless diversions dealing with the half-breed's girlfriend, played by Vera Miles, who's pissed he's been away for so long.

Intended as comic relief, these scenes only serve to annoy us, as we wait impatiently for the return of the dark force that sustains the movie and lifts it beyond these missteps, one of the greatest characters ever put on the screen: Ethan Edwards, the gunfighter, played by John Wayne in undoubtedly his greatest performance.

ANTI: Did I say gunfighter? I meant a bitterly racist, extremely violent gunfighter. A Confederate soldier who never gave up his gun or his sword. It's hinted he's spent the three years since the war fighting as a mercenary for the French in Mexico, and as the movie opens he's come across the great Texas wasteland to his brother's home.

A great impromptu welcoming is made for Ethan, but he's uncomfortable with the attention. His greeting to his brother's wife implies a past relationship. Then an old friend up shows up and asks him to join the Texas Rangers, but Ethan says he took an oath to the Confederacy, and a man's only good for one oath at a time. Listening to him, we suspect the truth: Ethan's only true oath is to himself.

Shortly after Ethan's arrival, cattle belonging to his brother's neighbor are stolen, and a posse, including Ethan and his half-breed nephew Martin, is formed to go after who did it. They follow the trail, only to realize the theft of the cattle was a ploy by Comanches to lure them away from their homes. By the time they can rush back to the Edwards homestead, the Comanches have slaughtered everyone except two of Ethan's nieces, who've been abducted.

They quickly pursue the Comanches, catching up with them at a river where a small skirmish ensues. After the Comanches flee, they follow the trail and come upon the grave of a dead Comanche warrior. Ethan pulls out his gun and shoots his eyes, gunfire echoing in the valley.

Reverend Clayton: What good did that do ya?

Ethan: By what you preach, none. But what the Comanche believes, ain't got no eyes, he can't end the spirit land. Has to wander forever between the winds.

The posse pursues the Comanches a while longer, but eventually most of the men either peel off, get killed or return home, and it's down to Ethan and the half-breed Martin. Martin's sister and Ethan's niece Debbie is still with the Comanches, and the rest of the movie takes the form of their five year search for her.

It's hinted that Ethan's mother was also killed by Comanches years before, and with the assault on his brother's house and the capture of his niece Ethan's hatred becomes all consuming. He's cruel to Martin because he's a half breed, treating him like a child, refusing to let him drink, trying to ditch him. When one night Ethan suspects men will come up on their camp and kill them, he uses Martin as bait before shooting one of the men in the back.

Martin takes the abuse and refuses to leave Ethan's side. Not because he has any love for Ethan, but because of a terrible suspicion he keeps in his heart that grows with the years: Ethan no longer plans to rescue Debbie. He plans to kill her. "She's been living with a buck," Ethan says. And that's not being alive.

Link: things that are uncool.

HERO: After five years, and many close calls, Ethan and Martin finally catch up to the Comanches that captured Debbie. The chief has taken her as one of his wives, and when she runs out to tell them to leave, Ethan pulls out his gun.

"Stand aside," he says. Martin shields her with his body and pulls out his gun, but before anything can happen a Comanche comes over the hill and shoots Ethan with an arrow, and the two men escape.

When they return, it's with a Texas Rangers raiding party. The force attacks the Comanches. Martin kills the chief and scalps him. Debbie flees the battle, but before Martin can do anything, Ethan is after her on a horse. She runs down a hill and into a cave with Ethan close behind. She stumbles suddenly, and flops against the wall of the cave. Ethan comes up and dismounts, gun in hand, and approaches her.

She's been living with a buck.

He looks into her wide and terrified eyes. Her terror is almost childlike. This is the face he's been searching across five years for. First to find, if she was still young, and then to kill.

To kill. He's told himself over and over again. She's not Debbie anymore. She's a Comanche.

By this point, we know Ethan. His hatred is terrible. It consumes him, almost against his own will. But faced with this helpless sight of his own niece, something suddenly softens within him, and he scoops her up into his arms.

"Let's go home, Debbie," he says, and with the battle won they ride the long journey back to the Edwards homestead. They approach slowly, with Debbie on Ethan's horse, and then in his arms. Martin's girlfriend comes out to greet him. They'll soon be married. The sun is setting, a meal almost certainly awaits.

Ethan carries her all the way to porch, where she's greeted by relatives she's long forgotten. They lead her inside.

Standing on the porch, Ethan takes one longing step forward, wanting to join the family, but stops himself. He doesn't belong in there, in all that warmth and happiness. A song swoons with lyrics so perfect they almost seem to have inspired the movie, "his peace of mind, he knows he'll find. But where, oh Lord, Lord where? Ride away, ride away..."

Ethan gives one more mournful look, and turns, as he must, toward the wilderness. Even after all he's been through, he' still not a man at peace with the world or himself. But through his heroic act of mercy, he's managed to restore a sense of harmony to his family. And maybe that's enough.

Greatest closing scene in a movie ever? Perhaps.

The 10 "Best" Anti-Heroes, part 4

2010-03-03T20:05:00.028-06:00

So if you're anything like me, over the last week and a half you've been on a day trip to Tampa to watch the US defeat El Salvador in a preliminary World Cup match, and then you spent the next four of five days watching coverage of the NFL Scouting Combine, which you of course do every year.

Or perhaps not.

And it was fun while it lasted, wasn't it? But now that it's over, it's time to get back to the task at hand, the last double entry of my Profiles in Courage Award winning series on Anti-Heroes.

Anti-Hero #4: Harry Callahan from Dirty Harry

You've got to ask yourself one question: Is this huge, phallic gun covering up for something?

ANTI: My selection of Harry for the list is something of a cheat, since I'm not particularly enamored with the character but his presence allows me to talk about a kind of character that was a one time very popular, and still somewhat is now.

But cheating or not, Harry's not a good dude, nor is he a good cop. Consider this scene, between Harry, Harry's new Mexican partner -- hilariously named Chico Gonzales -- and a fellow cop, De Georgio.

Gonzales: There's one question, Inspector Callahan. Why do they call you "Dirty Harry"?

De Georgio: Ah, that's one thing about our Harry, doesn't play any favorites. Harry hates everybody: Limeys, Micks, Hebes, Fat Dagos, Nigger, Honkies, Chinks, you name it.

Gonzales: How does he feel about Mexicans?

De Georgio: Ask him.

Harry: Especially Spics.

The only person Harry hates more than his superiors, or his new partner, is the Scorpio Killer, a over-the-top lunatic played by Andy Robinson who claims he will shoot people from rooftops until the city pays him $100,000.

Harry and a fellow cop (Gonzales has been wounded in a previous shootout) eventually get a vague tip that Scorpio might live in Kezar Stadium. But instead of waiting for a warrant or even having probable cause, Harry breaks in. Kicking down the door to the greenskeeper's room, he finds the sniper rifle, and then a chase ensues where Harry blasts Scorpio in the shoulder at the 50 yard line and proceeds to beat a confession out of him on where he's keeping a girl he's kidnapped.

Pictured: standard police procedure.

Unfortunately for Harry, who's supposed to be a cop, he apparently hasn't heard of, you know, the law, so when the DA tells him what he did was grossly illegal and Scorpio will have to be released, Harry's reaction, rather than to feel bad for fucking up so enormously, is to say, "the law's crazy!"

Later, Scorpio kidnaps a bus full of children, and demands to be driven to the airport where he wants a plane and $200,000 to be waiting. And if I see any cops, or any funny stuff, he says, I'll start killing children.

In a move that really should go in the "what the fuck were you thinking?" Hall of Fame, Harry's chief asks Harry, who by this point is so angry he's ready to chew asphalt, whether he wants the job of bag man. I mean, why would you do that? Harry doesn't follow orders. Plus, he fucks everything up!

Thankfully, Harry turns him down. Not so thankfully, he chooses to attack the bus alone, waiting on an overpass and then jumping on it's roof as it passes. Nevermind there's a psychopath inside who could murder every child within reach while you're playing Mission: Impossible on the roof, but Harry is so determined to kill Scorpio he doesn't seem to care about anything else, including dead children. Or maybe he's just an idiot.

So the bus crashes, and Scorpio leads Harry on a chase through some kind of factory. They shoot at each other a few times until Scorpio finally makes it to a nearby lake, where he grabs a kid who frankly must be deaf to have not heard either the bus crash or the multiple rounds of gunfire before now.

Scorpio puts a gun to the kid's head and orders Harry to drop his .44 Magnum. At first Harry looks like he'll do it, but then he remembers how little he cares about children so he pulls a Quick Draw McGraw and miraculously shoots Scorpio in the shoulder, allowing the kid to flee. Harry walks up, asks Scorpio if he feels lucky, and proceeds to blow his head "clean off."(Editor's note: "Off" I buy. But I'd wager "clean" is the last word you'd use to describe shooting someone in the face with a .44 Magnum.)

With Scorpio now dead and shredded pieces of police procedure manuals floating around in the breeze (metaphorically speaking), Harry pulls out his badge, looks at it, and throws it into the lake.

Credits roll.

HERO: Born in a time where public concern over violent crime had reached it's peak, Dirty Harry became a symbol of the kind of avenger who could bring justice when the system -- more concerned with the rights of the accused than the rights of victims -- had failed.

Written mostly by military enthusiast and infamously outspoken right winger John Milius, Dirty Harry sought to show a world where you know who the good guys are (you), who the bad guys are (them), and the laws that stand between you bringing the bad guys to justice are not laws that need to be respected. If you need to use excessive force, well, what's excessive? If you need to plant evidence (not that Harry does this), well, you know he did it, that's what's important.

It's particularly interesting watching Dirty Harry after you watch a movie like Sidney Lumet's Q & A, which features a cop played by Nick Nolte who starts the movie by shooting a drug dealer in cold blood and then rigging the scene to make it look like self defense.

But in Lumet's world, the cop who goes outside the law to get the bad guys doesn't stop there. Once you're willing to break the rules, Lumet argues, where do you stop? As an investigation into the shooting progresses, Nolte's cop is revealed to be a part-time mafia hitman perfectly willing to kill the lawyer investigating him.

And that is taking it a step too far, in my view, but I'd have to say my sympathies in this matter lie largely with Lumet. Ours is not a world of good guys and bad guys. The road to tragedy, as they say, is paved with good intentions. Dirty Harry tries to argue that Harry is good. Not because he is necessarily ideal -- though knowing Milius' work, it's not hard to imagine him arguing that -- but because bad guys are bad, we're know they're bad, and anyone who stands in the way needs either to be ignored or punished.

The movie cheats this point of view by never showing anything negative arising directly from Harry's recklessness. In an early scene, he freely fires his .44 Magnum at a group of criminals robbing a bank, despite the fact that civilians are running all over the street in a panic. Real police officers never, ever do not do this. The money isn't worth the potential loss of life. But Harry shoots away, and wouldn't you believe it, no civilians get hurt.

Dirty Harry doesn't concern itself with these kinds of shadings, and I have to say I find it's moral certitude really sort of naive and quaint. I would argue, as many of Lumet's movies (and movies written by legendary screenwriter David Webb Peoples) do, that people simply do not get to declare who they are. You show your worth by your adherence to the rules of morality, and it is that which guides you to who is good and who isn't.

So is Harry good, or does he just think he is?

Frankly, I'm not sure. As you can imagine from the above, I don't particularly think so. But like my entry on Travis Bickle, I think the question is the thing worth asking, though in this case I don't think the question was particularly on the mind of the filmmakers.

Two things, though, that I'm sure of.

1. A guy like Scorpio is better off dead (or at minimum, in prison).

2. Though Harry throwing his badge into the lake was meant to show his frustration with the justice system, I was personally happy to see him do it for a completely different reason. As Jack Nicholson's character in A Few Good Men might say, "he puts people's lives in danger." There's got to be something heroic about giving up something you're terrible at.

Anti-Hero #3: Sanjuro from Sanjuro

Yes, it's a samurai movie.

ANTI: Rude and unkempt, a killer with a saunter does Sanjuro come into the movie. Nine young samurai have gathered in a room. They are in earnest. Corruption has gripped their clan and they meet to decide how to dispose of it. The boldest one, their leader, says they have discovered that two elders are definitely corrupt. He has reported this to an official, Mutsuta, who says he cannot help them. The eight other samurai start muttering. Bastard Mutsuta. But it's okay, the leader says. He's reported this to the leader of the clan, and he's agreed to help. The samurai mutter cheerfully. The leader, what a great guy!

Then, from the next room, they hear laughing. It is Sanjuro. You are fucking idiots, he tells them. The leader of the clan is the true mastermind, and he will send people here to kill you. And you have also put Mutsuta in danger, by telling the leader you told Mutsuta of the corruption.

Oops.

Sanjuro is a killer for hire, we learn later. He seems to live most of his life in the countryside. Where the young samurai are proper and clean, Sanjuro is rough, unshaven and given to violence. There is almost a Bogart quality about Toshiro Mifune's performance, in that we sense a basically honorable man who has now and then lived dishonorably and feels the shame of it. When he decides to help the earnest, young samurai, who would otherwise surely be killed, we get a sense he's trying to make many old wrongs right.

Late in the movie, when forced to kill an evil man he's double crossed, he warns the young samurai, who by this point see him as nearly a God, "he was exactly like me."

HERO: Sanjuro's heroic act is a lot less subjective than Harry's. Seeing the nine young, basically helpless samurai, he decides to help them. To advise them. In a corrupt world, their sense of direction is valueless, and it takes a man with long experience in underhanded business to know what to do. His talent for killing is unmatched, and he sees the moves of the corrupt coming, and though the young samurai at first oppose him, the more he is proven correct the more they begin to follow him.

He volunteers to pose as a double agent, joining the clan against the nine young samurai. He plans and executes a rescue of Mutsuta's wife and daughter. The wife seems cheerfully oblivious of the situation, but she manages to see into Sanjuro's soul.

Mutsuta's wife: You're too sharp. That's your trouble. You're like a drawn sword. Sharp, naked without a sheath. You cut well, but good swords are kept in their sheaths.

Sanjuro marks his attempt to sheath his sword, so to speak. Rather than profit from death, for this one moment he finds the courage to save lives (eve though he ends up killing a lot of people in the process, each one more reluctantly than the last).

At the end, when he's killed the last enemy, the nine young samurai implore him to stay and be their master. But he refuses. He has found it within himself to act honorably, but in the end he does not belong. His destiny, like so many of these characters, is to wander.

A few words about Roger Ebert

2010-02-20T22:06:00.004-06:00

I'll get back to my Ansari X-Prize Winning series on Anti-Heroes in my next post, but for now I thought I'd bring whatever small attention this blog brings to things by posting a link to the Esquire profile on Roger Ebert that's been making the rounds.

Roger Ebert: The Essential Man

As many of you probably know, or perhaps you do not, Ebert has been suffering from major health problems over the last few years, one after the other, leading eventually to the permanent removal of his jaw and his complete inability to eat, drink or speak.

But, as the story shows, where his mouth has stopped his fingers have come alive, as the always prolific Ebert has thrown himself into his new and different life with boundless energy and vigor.

It's a pretty bittersweet thing to read, especially for a long time fan of Ebert like myself. Though he's derided by some as just a TV critic, I've always found him to have a true passion for the movies. His Website is a particularly valuable resource for archived reviews (he began in 1967), and his Great Movies series has not only been a guide for me of how to just come right out there and say you love a movie -- snickering be damned -- but also helped me discover all time favorites like Being There, Nashville, and La Dolce Vita.

You know, being a critic of any kind is really a funny enterprise, because the truth is that for the vast majority of people, criticism is irrelevant. There have been times I've implored some of my very best friends to watch a movie, and still, you know, they don't. Why should I or anyone else assume you wonderful people out there in the dark are going to be moved to change your opinion or go see a movie just because some cheesedick in a magazine or a newspaper or in the vast Chum Sea of the internet said so?

And that's sort of the thing you learn. Don't think of it that way. Think of it for what it really is: a conversation. When Ebert writes a review of a movie I've seen, I read it, think about it. Consider his argument. About 70% of the time (higher for drama, lower for comedies), I'll agree with it. But if I don't, I still respect his opinion. I let it dwell in there.

Sometimes he hates an ending and I think it works. Sometimes he loves the casting and I hate it. And sometimes we can both just sit there in the aftermath of a great movie and simply bathe in the glow of it. Either way, we have a conversation, and no matter how much we disagree, we still walk away as friends.

Roger Ebert is my friend.

The funny part about all this is that his fans have actually sort of benefitted from his illness, as he's filled in the gaps of his life with a huge outpouring of written material. He retreats there, where his voice can still be heard, same as always. It's his personal friends who never get to speak to him again. Never get to hear his voice. His wife never gets to hear him say, "I love you" again. Though when you read the story, you realize how little the sound matters when compared to the reality of it.

It's us out here in cyberspace who reap the rewards, but the truth is that we all still sort of grieve and hurt for what he's going through, no matter how little he says we should.

After all, he's our friend.

The Worst Movies... Ever -- Wax and the Discovery of Television Among the Bees

2010-02-16T22:40:00.033-06:00

I suppose it is inevitable that there have been many more bad movies made in the not-so long history of cinema than good ones. After all, being good at something takes time, dedication, skill and luck. Not too many people have those things, and even the very best fuck up every once in a while.

Making a piece of shit, though, is easy. I should know. I mean, look at this blog.

So I suppose the point is that I will probably never run of out movies to write about for this series. And even if I managed to write about every shitty movie that has ever been made (which of course is impossible), they're still cranking out new ones every week.

So far I've tried to be selective, to weed out those well-meaning hacks whose only sin was to get caught in the buzz saw of their own inescapable hackitude. After all, who but a bastard enjoys kicking an old, sagging dog in the balls?

What I've tried to focus on, rather, is people who either had some sort of really fucking evil/stupid intent, or were just trying to make an easy, exploitative buck, or who managed to fail on such a grand scale of every level of moviemaking it makes you wonder if they'd ever watched a movie in their life... and if they have, whether they've had poisoned dog shit injected into their brain stem since then.

Today's movie is like that. And man oh man, is it a doozy.

It's....

Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees (1991)

Go ahead, read that title again. I'll wait.

Doesn't help, does it? Believe me, I can sympathize. I watched this movie in college for a class called Writing Through Media, one of those classes that's supposed to be easy but ends up, in my case, being taught by a 95-pound grad student who I'm sure went home every night and smashed his shriveled nuts between biographies of Ingmar Bergman.

So anyhow, he sat us down at made us watch Wax, and I'll be damned if it wasn't one of the most befuddling experiences of my life.

This is the first image that comes up when you do a Google search for "befuddling."

Anyhow, the movie starts with James Maker, a member of the Supernatural Film Society (motto: fuck you, audience!), whose goal is to film the spirits of the dead walking among the living.

Because clearly this isn't a subject that's been covered before.

Suddenly we cut away from James Maker and are introduced to his grandson, Jacob, a flight simulator programmer who also moonlights as a beekeeper of Mesopotamian bees he inherited from his grandfather.

With me so far? At least sort of? Good, because this is where things sort of go sideways.

One day, Jacob's bees decide to drill a hole in his head and insert a television.

Seriously.

The bees start using the television to show Jacob various things (though I'm willing to wager it isn't things freakier than this movie). For instance, Maker has a statue of Cain and Able on his front lawn. The bees show the Cain statue murdering the Able statue and then being branded with an X, forcing you to wonder: what really counts as dead for a statue?

This next part I'll just quote directly from a summary of the movie I found:

"Then at work, Jacob wonders why his co-workers never wonder what happens to the missiles they launch that don't come back (never mind that a programmer probably doesn't deal with missile launches), and he realizes that they turn into flying saucers which fly to the moon where the dead live."

At about this point, sitting there, wondering what the fuck is going on, realizing I'm going to have to write about this thing and get a grade, I began to wonder whether someone was going to burst in and tell me I was on Candid Camera.

Sadly, this didn't happen. And by "sadly" I mean, on Candid Camera they usually stop whatever shitty thing is going on.

Wax just went on and on. And on and on, and into (if you can believe this) ever weirder areas. The bees start showing Maker what are supposed to be very strange images, but what are actually just piece-of-shit computer effects that look as though they were rendered in CorelDraw. These are then crossed with stock footage of bombs crossed with stock footage of bees crossed with stock footage of audiences burning themselves to death rather than continuing to watch the movie.

At some point, Maker decides to make a pilgrimage to the Garden of Eden Cave. And by pilgramage I mean like really long, totally inexplicable shots of Maker walking across the desert. In his beekeeper's uniform.

Don't believe me? Click this, if you dare. And yes, you can use this link to watch the entire movie. Speaking as your attorney, I would advise you to avoid this and do something more worthwhile, like clubbing baby seals.

Back to the summary, whose matter-of-factness betrays the sheer insanity of the movie better than anything else possibly could:

"When arriving at the cave, Jacob learns that the cave is actually the entrance to a planet inside of our planet where the bees live. There, he dies and goes to join the world of the dead. For a while, he becomes the X symbol. Then he becomes a poem in the language of Cain. Then he travels to some other planet, including the Planet of Television. Next he decides it's time to fulfill his destiny, which is to kill someone. So, he becomes a bomb and blows up two Iraqi soldiers in a tank. Then he becomes the X symbol with himself, his grandfather's arch enemy, and the two soldiers he blew up."

I've discussed/made fun this movie so many times with friends it's been at different points suggested to me that the movie must have some sort merit to be have been at least so memorable.

These people are wrong.

I mean, I'm sure the director, David Blair -- who spent six years making this filmic equivalent of dead babies -- was trying to make some really serious, deeply felt points about missile launchers, the after-life, and, you know, beekeeping.

But seriously, the thing makes absolutely no sense at all. Watching it, you realize the magnificence of it's ineptitude can only be topped by those rare, majestic turds that rise ever so gracefully out of shitty toilet water.

I wish I could find the essay I wrote that night about the movie. The only thing I remember was that I wrote it in this very Baroque English style, like Dickens, and was bursting at the seams to control myself from what I've been doing right now, and then went downstairs and got drunk with my chums.

Other than that, I don't have the slightest clue what we did that night, but of this I'm sure: a movie about it would have been a lot better than Wax.

The 10 "Best" Anti-Heroes, part 3

2010-02-08T16:15:00.017-06:00

Boy, that was some Superbowl, eh? A game so good my brother vomited all day Monday, though it probably had more to do with undercooked buffalo hot dogs than the game.

Anyhow, back to the matter at hand: anti-heroes. Specifically, these two anti-heroes.

I have sort of paused here at my keyboard a minute wondering whether I really have to repeat my definition of what an anti-hero is. As this is my third entry, I've already written it twice. And since I have four more to go, that would probably get even more tiring for me than it would be for you.

So can I trust you to go back and look at what I wrote before/remember it? Good.

I'm glad we're friends.

Anti-Hero #6: Travis Bickle, from Taxi Driver

Yes, I'm talking to you. Now stop looking at me like that.

I hemmed and hawed and thought and wondered more about including Travis Bickle on this list than anyone who made it or didn't. I put him on, I took him off. I stared at the wall. I punched myself in the head. At the end of the day, I decided my indecision reflected a virtue in the movie itself. More on this below.

ANTI: I sort of have to laugh at the start of a paragraph about why Travis Bickle is unlikable, since he is, in my view, one of the least likable characters in the history of cinema.

We get no real sense of Bickle's uprbringing as the movie begins. He tells people he was in Vietnam, but nothing about what happened. Now he's a taxi driver. We don't know for how long (too long, apparently). He is alone. He tells us he's been alone most of his life. What he doesn't tell us -- but we sense anyway -- is that something is very wrong with him.

Has Bickle separated himself from society or it from him? It's almost certainly both. When he's not out patrolling the streets as a taxi driver -- a job completely unsuited for the sociopath he is -- he stays in his room. He exercises. He schemes. Now and then he goes to the movies... always muttering about the scum on the streets.

Bickle: I think someone should just take this city and just... just flush it down the fuckin' toilet.

Bickle has retreated so far into himself he's lost all sense of society and it's rules. At one point Bickle meets a blonde in white (Cybil Shepard) who works for a politician. He comes in and makes bold conversation. When she agrees to a date, he takes her to a theater showing a porno. Why does he do this? Her objections totally confuse him. He tries to call her, but she's through with him. Later, he attempts to kill her boss.

When his mind finally snaps, it retreats into the rules of the movies: bad people deserve to die, and good people are justified in taking the law into their own hands to kill them. Bickle thinks of himself as a good person. An avenger. But is he?

Either way, he's better than these two assholes.

HERO: Now here's where the interesting part begins, and why actually watching the movie is so important, because on paper, Travis Bickle is without a doubt absolutely the hero of the movie.

I mean, he meets a 12-year-old girl who's working as a prostitute (Jodie Foster).

A 12-year-old. As a prostitute.

Even Bickle is appalled. She jumps into his cab for a moment, saying she wants to be taken away. But she just as quickly jumps out, and when he tracks her down she brushes it off as just having been strung out. Bickle wants to take her away, take her back to her parents. No, she says. She's happy with her life, though how could she be? Bickle persists. He goes to meet her pimp, a freak named Sport played by Harvey Keitel.

Bickle asks about Foster's character, who's also Sport's "steady" girl, and Sport replies with, for my money, one of the most shocking speeches in the movies.

Sport: Well, take it or leave it. If you want to save yourself some money, don't fuck her. Cause you'll be back here every night for some more. Man, she's twelve and a half years old. You never had no pussy like that. You can do anything you want with her. You can cum on her, fuck her in the mouth, fuck her in the ass, cum on her face, man. She'll get your cock so hard she'll make it explode. But no rough stuff, all right?

Jesus.

Later, after his mind has broken completely, Bickle buys what seems like 10 guns and storms Sport's place High Noon-style, killing Sport, Foster's client and another man in an attempt to set Foster free. In the process, Bickle is (seemingly) mortally wounded himself, leading to the famous shot of him sticking a bloody finger to his temple and pretending to blow his brains out.

We then cut to the the movie's intriguing last scene, where Bickle has survived his injuries and been declared a hero, receiving the commendation of the city and the return of Foster to her parents.

Is this real, or just a fantasy of Bickle's... his last thoughts before death? I'm inclined to think the latter, even though the movie doesn't say. Presumably it wants us to think about it.

When you get down to it, the question of Taxi Driver is really one of context. In objective terms, is it morally justified to kill three men in order to free a 12-year-old from the bonds of prostitution?

Killing three men for pie is harder to justify, unless, of course, it is really good pie.

In High Noon, to use an example, Sheriff Will Kane (Gary Cooper) systematically tracks and kills three men. In the movie named after him, Nevada Smith (Steve McQueen) hunts down the three men who killed his father and raped, skinned and murdered his mother. And war movies... sheesh. Bodies pile up by the thousands. The guy who wipes out an enemy platoon by himself gets a picture with the president.

The trick, of course, is in the above examples we're never unsure who the good and bad guys are. The point is clear and in bold. Will Kane tries to get help from everyone to face down the gang, but he's ignored. Killing those men is an act of sheer courage. Nevada Smith learns to act like a bad guy and even causes the death of a woman, but his need to avenge the death of his parents is as old as literature. And besides, he even spares one of them (to ride off to the swell of heroic music).

The fact that Bickle is a crazy, racist sociopath short circuits our perception of the moral force of his actions. In effect, the movie asks us to consider what's really important -- the deed, or the man? Bickle believes completely that his actions are morally justified. His failure is that he doesn't see himself as we see him. Otherwise, he would doubt as we do.

At the end of the day, I didn't put Bickle on the list because I'm sure he's a hero. I don't really think the question can be answered, or is intended to be (though if you put me on the spot, I'd probably say no). Bickle goes on the list because I respect the ability of director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader to ask the question in a way that is endlessly and brilliantly fascinating.

Anti-Hero #5: Sam Spade, from The Maltese Falcon

Adam Savage from Mythbusters loves that falcon prop so much he made his own. Clink that link, by the way. Savage is batshit crazy.

When I first started thinking about the possibilities for this list, one actor jumped immediately into my mind -- Humphrey Bogart. But the longer I thought about Bogart's career, the more I realized he tended to play either certified assholes (The Petrified Forest, The Caine Mutiny, Treasure of the Sierra Madre), or, if not genuinely good guys, then certainly not bad guys (The African Queen, To Have and Have Not).

Only a few movies seemed to break the mold. Casablanca, where his words speak a callousness his actions betray. In a Lonely Place, where his abusive, alcoholic character is proven not to have committed a murder, but he's such a dick that whatever, he might as well have. And then this one -- The Maltese Falcon -- for my money, Bogart's greatest role (with a nod to his turn as Captain Queeg in the aformentioned The Caine Mutiny).

ANTI: In his review of The Maltese Falcon for his "Great Movies" Roger Ebert put the dark character of Spade as well as it can be put:

"Spade is cold and hard, like his name. When he gets the news that his partner has been murdered, he doesn't blink an eye. Didn't like the guy. Kisses his widow the moment they're alone together. Beats up Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre), not just because he has to, but because he carries a perfumed handkerchief, and you know what that meant in a 1941 movie. Turns the rough stuff on and off. Loses patience with Greenstreet, throws his cigar into the fire, smashes his glass, barks out a threat, slams the door and then grins to himself in the hallway, amused by his own act."

The movie's plot centers on a long lost falcon (from Malta), covered in jewels, being pursued by a number of lowlifes and criminals. Once Spade is involved, he dives in like Kirstie Alley into a doughnut ocean, playing the angles and dividing the criminals against each other.

Meanwhile, the police are still investigating his partner's murder. They wonder if Spade did it. We don't blame them. When Spade gets control of the falcon, we wonder if he'll decide to keep it and screw over the others.

HERO: But he doesn't. And moreover, he finds out who killed his partner, in a last act that shows Spade's charade for what it is: a means to an end.

The Sam Spade character is perhaps the ultimate example of the film noir anti-hero: cutthroat, intelligent, sometimes cruel, sometimes murderous, but ultimately redeemed in the eyes of the audience by a code of conduct he holds to that the "villains" don't.

In Rififi, Tony le Stephanois was a thief who cruelly beat his ex-girlfriend for taking up with a rival. But he believed in honor among thieves and was willing to both kill and die for that honor.

Sam Spade doesn't have to kill or die for honor. But he believes, as he says to his secretary, that "when a man's partner is killed, he's supposed to do something about it." And he does, wading neck deep into a band of criminals willing to do anything to find the invaluable falcon and using their desperation against them, even though this puts him at grave risk.

At the end of the movie, when he finds out the killer is one of the criminals after the falcon -- a woman he's sort of fallen in love with -- he turns her over to the police anyway.

"I hope they don't hang you, precious, by that sweet neck," he says. "The chances are you'll get off with life. That means if you're a good girl, you'll be out in 20 years. I'll be waiting for you. If they hang you, I'll always remember you."

Cold, sure. But Spade makes sure his partner gets justice for his murder. He even turns over the money he was paid by the criminals as evidence. He may be untrusting and manipulative, willing to screw another man's wife even after he's been murdered, but he has a code, and that's enough. In the dark world in which he travels, it's even heroic.

Merry... Superbowl?

2010-02-06T20:15:00.009-06:00

So as you all know, or by now have figured out, normally I like to keep to a sort of once a week policy around here. Back in the good ol' days of the blog, I updated much more regularly -- say, every other day. But as this thing has evolved I've moved to longer and longer (and better) posts, which obviously take a lot longer to write.

So right, boo hoo. I get it. The point is: yesterday was my day to do it and well, I managed to get sick and suffer through a fairly serious phlegm exodus and decided instead to watch an excellent documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now called Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse.

Seriously, if you're an Apocalypse Now fan, go watch it. They went crazy-go-nuts making that movie.

Anyhow, this would normally leave today as my day to write about Anti-Heroes, but since tomorrow is the Superbowl -- and that to me is a far better thing than Christmas, the Kentucky Derby and the Lower Oakland Roller Derby Finals all rolled into one -- who would seriously be reading?

I mean, I know I won't. I have a full day planned. The refrigerator is stocked with beer and my head is stocked with plans to drink it.

So allow to me to violate my own rules and wait until Monday finish/work on my next crackerjack update, okay? Thank you. I won't let you down (at least, probably).

In the meantime, via Life on the Bubble, where I first saw this, a clip from what looks to be an excellent documentary on screenwriting -- Tales from the Script.

And yeah, I know, this blog is like 98% about movies and only 2% about screenwriting.

But there's a funny story about a vagina in here, so that makes it okay.

Prediction totally unrelated to this: Saints 31, Colts 28.

The 10 "Best" Anti-Heroes, part 2

2010-01-29T20:54:00.024-06:00

So after a week off to discuss the fairly shitting nature of The Book of Eli, it's time to get back to my series of posts on Anti-Heroes, which wasn't really a series since there was just the one post before now, but let's not be dicks about this, shall we?

Anyhow, by way of recap:

1. I dig Anti-Heroes.

2. Therefore, Anti-Heroes are cool.

3. An Anti-Hero is a character that despite being an asshole, douchebag or even evil most of the time, manages by the end of the movie to perform a truly heroic act, either because they've changed their character, or more likely, because a kink in that character followed it's logical way toward an act of heroism.

4. This definition is not like everyone else's, but this is my blog, so they can suck it.

5. Larry Flynt and Barry Lyndon are Anti-Heroes.

6. Larry Flynt likes boobies.

So now that that's out of the way, allow me to present, with no further ado....

Anti-Hero #8: Walt Kowolski from Gran Torino

Get off my plane, err... lawn!

ANTI: Racist, violent and bitter, Korean War veteran Walt Kowalski chugs Pabst Blue Ribbon and stalks his front porch, shotgun never far away, hurling insults at anyone -- priests, family, neighbors -- who comes near.

As the movie starts, Walt's wife has just died. No one in his family respects him, and he hates all of them. His granddaughter waits for his death, hoping to inherit his 1972 Grand Torino and a couch he keeps in the basement. One of his sons and his wife ask him whether he's ready to move, so eager are they to sell his house. In this way the movie invites us to sympathize with Walt. Sure, he's a racist asshole, the movie says, but everyone around him is just as a bad.

And he is bad. Every non-white person he meets is a "gook," "zipperhead," "spook" or the like. Any sign of disrespect he seems to consider an offense worthy of execution. When given the chance to tell a joke, he says:

"A Mexican, a Jew and a colored guy go into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, 'Get the fuck out of here.'"

Later, he tells a gang member, "I'll blow your head off, go inside and sleep like a baby."

Deleted scene.

HERO: But Walt's heart is eventually melted by a family of Hmongs (Asians) who live next door. Well, not really the whole family, just a kid (Thao, who Walt calls "Toad") and his sister, Sue (who Walt calls "Dragon Lady").

Sue he admires for her strength in facing down three black hoods (Walt comes to her rescue in what's probably the best scene in the movie), and she ends up inviting him to a party and introducing him to the family.

His relationship with Thao is more problematic. Young and aimless, Thao's pursued by a local Hmong gang who want to make him a member. His initiation: stealing Walt's Gran Torino. But when Walt catches him in the act, Thao only barely gets away with his life. Later, his mother and Sue come back to Walt with a request: let Thao work off the debt.

Well, those of you who haven't seen the movie can guess where this is going. Walt and Thao become friends (to the point of Walt getting Thao a job), the gang intimidates Thao, Walt fights back, the gang rapes Sue (so maybe you didn't guess that part) and Walt, though haunted by memories of Korea, knows he must respond.

But how? How does one foul-mouthed septugenarian take on a six or seven gang members without ending up like, well....

This.

The answer is (uh, Spoiler Alert): he doesn't. Walt chooses to sacrifice himself by walking onto the gang's front lawn, threatening them and then pretending to pull a gun out of his jacket. When the gang mows him down in the presence of neighborhood full of witnesses, the cops are called, who promptly haul the gang off in chains.

For Walt, who the movie implies is about die from lung cancer anyway, they bring the meat wagon.

Now I personally have some problems with the logic of Walt's plan. If the gang has truly been terrorizing everyone as much as the movie implies, why would shooting someone on their front lawn be the thing that suddenly makes the neighborhood decide to stand up to them? And even if you're Walt and you assume there's a reasonable chance of this (which given that he is still a racist and despises most of the Hmongs shouldn't be something he assumes), it's pretty hard to gamble your life on just a reasonable chance. I'd have to be sure. Especially since if you die and the gang gets away with it, there's nothing to stop them from terrorizing Thao and Sue without end.

But despite those nagging problems, Walt's choice cannot be called anything but heroic. His revenge is total without being bloody. By sacrificing his own life, he gives his Hmong neighbors (by this time, his surrogate family) the freedom to live theirs in peace.

Anti-Hero #7: Tony le Stephanois from Rififi

Portrayed by Jean Servais

I've already written a bit about the great movie Rififi, so hopefully this will be somewhat shorter than the fucking opus the above turned out to be.

ANTI: A career criminal and ice-cold killer, Tony is simply not to be fucked with. Aging, just released from prison after five years for a jewel heist and stricken with tuberculosis, a friend finds him playing poker in a smoke-filled room in the early hours of the morning. This friend is Jo the Swede, genial and loyal protege of Tony's, who has a son Tony dotes on.

Tony asks about his old girlfriend, Mado. Jo tells him she's taken up with a rival -- scumbag nightclub owner Pierre Grutter. Tony goes to the nightclub and finds Mado a kept woman, dressed in expensive clothes and glittering with jewelery. Tony invites her back to his run down apartment, where he forces her to strip and then savagely beats her.

Tony, Jo and two other men plan an elaborate jewel heist, the 30 minute execution of which has become the inspiration for countless other heist sequences, and which originally got the film banned in some countries for being too realistic. Anyhow, the heist goes perfectly, except for one thing -- one of the men, a safecracker named Cesar Macaroni, has fallen in love with a singer involved with Grutter -- and when he gives her a jewel from the heist, Grutter figures out what happened, captures Cesar and learns everything.

Now in pursuit of Grutter and his men, Tony finds the Cesar tied up alone backstage at Grutter's club. Tony walks up, squints and coldly pulls out his gun.

"I liked you, Macaroni," Tony says. "But you know the rules."

Wrong kind of "rules," dickhead.

HERO: Jo the Swede knows where the jewels are, and when Grutter finds out, he conspires to steal them for himself. His plan? Kidnap Jo's son.

This springs Tony, coughing but still deadly, into action, as he begins a desperate search for the boy before Jo inevitably gives in to Grutter's demands. His search leads him first to find Cesar, who he kills in cold blood, and then out to a house on the outskirts of town where Grutter and his men are hiding.

Knowing that Grutter will simply kill Jo and his son once he has the jewels, Tony launches a one man assault on the house, killing each man in turn before (Spoiler Alert) being fatally wounded himself.

But he grabs Jo's son, and instead of rushing to a hospital, he drives at breakneck speed back into town, dying as soon as he's delivered the boy. Like Walt Kowalski, he sacrifices himself for an innocent, and despite being a violent sociopath and hardened criminal, achieves a moment of heroism.

A few words about The Book of Eli

2010-01-23T12:39:00.021-06:00

I'll get back to my Award Winning series on anti-heroes for my next post, but right now I'd like to talk a bit about The Book of Eli, a kodachrome-colored post apocalyptic mess starring Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman and Mila Kunis.

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a stupid plot and cliched characters!

Now a few words about the circumstances under which I watched this movie. First of all, it was the first night of my week long trip to Dallas, which just ended -- visiting my good friend/wildabeast Matt Hickman.

Second of all: we'd... uh, been drinking.

We started at a Mexican restaurant, which are of course pretty rare in Texas, but not before we'd hit a liquor store and a Wal-Mart (and I know what you're thinking -- in Texas that's not neccessarily the same thing) to buy cheap horrible whiskey and flasks.

As Bill Cosby once joked about the huge needles they use to numb your jaw during dental surgery: "this will deaden the pain."

Well, this whiskey, ironically titled Ancient Age (since your chances of become old, much less ancient, decrease every time you drink it), was poured into flasks in the parking lot of the Mexican restaurant, after which we drove to a fancy part of Dallas where the movie theater was, found a nearby bar, and began to... well, you know.

We saved the flasks for the movie. And boy did we need 'em, because The Book of Eli, let's just say, proved that if you fool me once (Avatar), shame on you; if you fool me twice (Sherlock Holmes) shame on me... and well, if you fool me a third fucking time, I guess it's time for my nuts to be ripped off and thrown down a well.

Though for the record, it wasn't my idea to see any of these movies. Thanks, friends!

Anyhow, now that I've rambled on enough about what it was like to sit there and down Ancient Age/Coke in a packed Dallas movie theater with Matt, my brother and three girls I'd just met that night, I suppose it's time to talk about the plot.

So okay. We begin with a slow tracking shot of a forest that seems to be raining human skin, where a diseased cat has discovered a dead human body (missed soundtrack opportunity: the Benny Hill theme). The cat comes up, sniffs the body. It looks hungry, ready to feed, only it doesn't realize that closeby a hunter (Denzel Washington, at least we assume, it's never made clear), is waiting to kill him with a comically huge bow and arrow.

Actual screenshot.

After the arrow hits and the opening credits roll, we're greeted with an image that will become mind numbingly repetitive as the movie drags on:

Denzel Washington. Walking.

And walking.

And walking some more.

If nothing else, The Book of Eli proves the wisdom George Miller had to at least give Mad Max a car. Walking, The Book of Eli helpfully teaches us, is incredibly boring.

So anyhow, Denzel has been walking for 30 years. This means that even if you give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he started in Maine, it's taken him 10,950 days to go the 3,300 miles to San Francisco, which means that buff, badass Denzel has been averaging just (uh, wait, just a second, checking my math) 500 yards a day.

Forrest Gump laughs at you, Denzel. He laughs hard.

So anyhow, Denzel rests for the night, "showers" with a handi-wipe, eats his cat, and listens to his iPod. Yes, an iPod, which he's somehow kept recharged and working for 30 fucking years (iPod battery lifespan: 500 charges. Warranty: one year).

Despite the obvious difficulties in maintaing his iPod, Denzel falls asleep with it on and drains the battery, proving once again my theory: people who would survive in a post apocalyptic world for 30 years are incredibly careless.

So on his search for a charger for his battery, and also some water, Denzel begins to encounter bad guys, who he either a) avoids as they rape a woman, or b) murders. Eventually he comes up on a town run by Oldman.

Oldman's character is your basic crime lord -- complete with a bald henchman -- who's been sending roving, illiterate gangs out to look for a very special book (a spoiler I will reveal later on). Apparently all of the "books" of this kind were destroyed in the apocalpyse (a move that, once you know what the book is, seems even more baffling).

So yeah, no prizes for guessing who has the last of the books (Denzel, you idiot), and what happens next (Oldman wants it and Denzel won't let him have it, you idiot).

While in town, Denzel meets the proverbial hooker with a heart of gold (played by Mila Kunis), who's sent up to his room to seduce him and tries to get a look at the "book."

Denzel turns her down. Proving once again my other theory: a man who's been alone for 30 years would definitely pass up a chance at Mila Kunis.

It's about this time that the filmmakers let you very subtly onto the fact that the "book" everyone keeps talking about is, yes, ugh... a Bible (this is achieved with the very subtle visual device of a foot-long cross painted on it's cover). Oldman wants it because he feels he'll be better at controlling the town once he has a hold of it's spiritual vocabulary or something (his point is never made very clear on this, which is probably a good thing since it's moronic).

Anyhow, after a few close calls and a few vaguely stupid action sequences, Denzel manages to get away from the town. After they realize he's gone, Oldman's men try to follow him in a convoy of trucks, only they can't catch up to him.

Remember when I said Denzel averaged 500 yards a day? Even if you're only going 5 miles an hour, that only takes 4 minutes to drive. I mean, even if we're saying he walked 20 miles (which he certainly doesn't, because at one point he has to stop to kill people), the filmmakers expect you believe he got away from them on foot without explaining, you know, how the fuck that happened.

So anyhow, Denzel and Kunis hide out for the night in what looks like an old nuclear silo and manage by the next day to get to a house where a couple of fine old cannibals live. Oldman finally shows up and a huge shoot out ensues where, after a standoff, Denzel is forced to give Oldman the book in exchange for Kunis' life. Oldman then shoots him in the stomach and drives off.

So now, finally possessing the book he has sought for years -- the key to his continuing rule of his shitty border town -- does Oldman actually look inside of it? No. And why? Because that would ruin a stupid surprise the movie leaves for the end (the Bible is in Braille. Gasp! Does that mean Denzel has been blind all this time? Frankly, I dare you to give a shit).

As Kunis drives away with Oldman's men, she decides she doesn't want to be with them anymore, so she makes both trucks crash horribly, though she's miraculously okay, and drives back to be with Denzel....

Who is still. Fucking. Walking. Despite the fact that he should be bleeding to death from a massively infected wound in a stomach he hasn't cleaned for 30 years. I mean, am I wrong about this? How far can the average person who's been shot in the stomach walk? Five hundred yards, maybe?

Anyhow, Kunis comes back to pick Denzel up, and she drives him into San Francisco and toward -- where else? -- Alcatraz. Once they find a boat, Denzel -- gut shot, bleeding -- starts rowing, instead of Kunis, leaving us to imagine what must have been the following conversation:

"I mean, jeez, Denzel. You're bleeding to death. I should really row."

"No way. I'm the hero. I'll row until I pass out, then you row."

"But why don't I just row now? I mean, if you're just going to pass out."

"You ever hear of foreshadowing, bitch? Plus, it turns out I might be blind."

"What? You're blind? But I watched you fire a gun. And beat up some guys. And look at my rack. How have you been doing all of..."

"Don't ask questions. I'm the hero. You ever seen Batman? That's me. I've got Spidey sense, too. And the Force."

So once Denzel passes out, Kunis starts rowing. And fuck if I'm tired of typing out this stupid plot, but, well... a curator (Malcolm McDowell) of things from before the apocalypse on the island takes Denzel and Kunis in, Denzel recites the entire fucking Bible from memory (!) and then of course dies from his stomach wound.

Average time of death from a gunshot wound to the stomach? Fifteen minutes.

Time it takes to recite the Bible? 77 hours, 22 minutes.

The End.

Final thoughts: Despite the clumsy spiritual mumbo jumbo and occassional that-was-fucking-stupid moments, the main failing of the movie is really none of those things, or even the movie's glacial pace (though none of those things help). It's the fact that there's nothing interesting or clever about Denzel's character. These kinds of movies and characters have been done many times before -- The Omega Man, Solyent Green, Jeremiah Johnson, even Tom Hanks' character from the middle section of Cast Away. They're men of action, using their wits and experience to survive in a hostile and dangerous world. Denzel's character does none of that. Besides showering with handi-wipes and looking for water and new boots, we get no sense of the mechanics of his world and how he survives it. I mean, even a comedy like Zombieland (a much better movie, by the way) shows more of an interest in post-disaster rules and ethics. As much as anything, it's this lack of creativity that dooms The Book of Eli to occilate between the boring and the preposterous.

The 10 "Best" Anti-Heroes, part 1

2010-01-13T23:56:00.009-06:00

So the last time I did a list-based series of posts, things turned out pretty well. Part of that, I think, was due to the fact that the subject matter -- movies about the movies -- is fairly modest in size and scope. There just aren't that many movies to cover, so the chance of missing something or just generally coming off like a douchebag is not really that much higher than normal (granted, this is not saying much).

This series of posts will be nothing like that. The subject of anti-heroes in the movies is, well, huge. A simple Google search for "movies" and "anti-hero" provides more lists than you can shake a wiener at.

As a result, I'm fairly sure I'm a moron for tackling it, a fact I'm sure at least a few of you fine people will remind me of.

Not an anti-hero.

So it will happen this way. Keeping with the human fascination with lists that are divisible by five (for example: five things), this list will cover 10 of the best anti-hero characters in movie history, with the first four entries covering two characters each, and the last two getting their own entries.

At least, that's the plan. Even with just five entries last time, I still managed to fuck things up.

Now a few words on the term anti-hero. It seems that everyone has their own definition of it, so for reference here's mine -- an anti-hero is a character who, despite being immoral, selfish, a killer or whatever, manages to accomplish the chief heroic act in (this case) the movie.

This definition helps separate out a lot of sundry characters we just end up rooting for because they're clever, or put upon, or think they're doing the right thing -- from characters who are mediocre or even bad human beings but who manage in the world of the story to rise at least for a moment to the level of a hero (for whatever reason).

This distinguishes them from characters like Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange or Blondie from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, who despite the fact that we root for them can not be called anything but, you know, protagonists. Which is of course different from a hero.

So now that's all been covered, let's get into it.

#10 -- Larry Flynt

As seen in: The People vs. Larry Flynt

ANTI: In the movie (as in real life), Larry Flynt is a mostly uneducated, philandering smut peddler. Facing a run of bad luck running a strip club in Cincinnati, he publishes the first Hustler magazine with pictorials of the women who dance in his club.

He becomes involved with Althea Leasure, a runaway turned stripper played by Courtney Love, publishes nude photos of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, and generally goes out of his way to offend every measure of taste and decorum possible, including, famously, publishing a cartoon that implies conservative icon Jerry Falwell lost his virginity to his own mother in an outhouse.

In court repeatedly on obscenity charges, Flynt is a disaster. He yells repeatedly, fires his own lawyer, wears diapers and at one point throws an orange at a judge.

HERO: But -- beyond the fact that he's portrayed, and by all accounts is in real life, as a completely classless asshole -- Flynt is right. The obscenity laws of the United States are ludicrous. As Flynt at one point says, you can get a Pulitzer for printing a picture of a murder, which is illegal, but go to jail for printing a picture of a sex act, which is legal.

This is madness, and by railing against it, even in his cartoonishly immature circus act fashion, Flynt does a public good.

Though he loses most of his obscenity trials, by the end of the movie Flynt has triumphed in the Supreme Court over the legality of his Falwell ad, solidifying a relaxed standard for satirizing public figures that still influences public satire today, enabling everyone from SNL to stand up comedians to do what they do.

Though he remains someone you'd probably never want to meet, by paying the price both in jail time and lawyers fees, Flynt proves himself a hero. Not just to people who want to look at fake and/or skanky boobs, but to anyone who thinks it's important to make that choice for themselves.

"If they'll protect a scumbag like me," Flynt says. "They'll protect anyone."

#9 -- Barry Lyndon

ANTI: A boobish, naive teenager turned ruthless gambler and profiteer, the story of Barry Lyndon is often described as the odyssey of an opportunist, tracing his humble beginnings in Ireland -- a lost love, a duel, and an escape from the law -- to his eventual profession as a gambler and his cold-hearted seduction of a widow.

As directed by Stanley Kubrick and portrayed by Ryan O'Neal, Barry is anything but sympathetic. Forced to join the Army to survive after being robbed while on his way to Dublin to escape a murder he didn't actually commit (I know, it's complicated), Barry deserts at the first opportunity, stealing the costume and papers of a messenger.

When a Prussian officer discovers Barry's lies, he's forced to join the Prussian army, which is even worse than the British one. Eventually he's brought back to Prussia and told to spy on a chevalier (whatever that is), who the Prussians think is an Irish spy. Instead, he and the chevalier join forces as a gambling team, cheating rich nobles at cards all over Europe (and fighting duels to collect when necessary).

By this point, as the Narrator puts it:

"Five years in the army, and some considerable experience in the world, had by now dispelled any of those romantic notions regarding love with which Barry commenced life. And he began to have it in mind, as so many gentlemen had done before him, to marry a woman of fortune and condition."

Stripped of his innocence, Barry seduces the widow Lady Lyndon, who falls hard (and stupidly) for him. Once they're married, and he has charge of their finances, Barry essentially throws her away, engendering the undying hatred of his adopted son, Lord Bullingdon.

After Bullingdon -- now a teenager -- insults Barry one too many times in front of a party of guests, Barry beats him mercilessly, rendering Barry a social outcast among the upper crust he's been trying so hard and so expensively to join.

HERO: The only good thing in Barry's life, other than money, is the son he and Lady Lyndon have, an annoyingly precocious kid named Bryan, who softens Barry's cool facade.

When Bryan dies in an accident, Barry falls into a prolonged drunken stupor, giving Bullingdon an opportunity to challenge Barry to a duel over mastery of the Lyndon estate.

The duel scene -- justifiably famous -- proves to be both Barry's undoing and his greatest triumph as a human.

Despite having both reason and opportunity to kill Bullingdon, and a lifetime of war, gambling and murder to harden him to the idea, he chooses not to. Bullingdon accidentally fires into the ground, so Barry -- weary and aging -- does as well. After trying to buy his way into the title and style of a gentleman and failing horribly, Barry finally finds a measure of grace and nobility in his mercy toward Bullingdon.

Bullingdon, though he has the bloodlines of a Lord, fails the moral test. Though in a twist that's very Kubrick, his very act of failing a moral test leads to the passing of a social one, since Barry's resulting injury allows Bullingdon to take control of the Lyndon estate and banish Barry to Europe.

But even though he loses the duel, Barry rises for that brief moment into heroism, showing mercy on a young kid who is clearly shitting his pants. The cold world of the movie punishes him immediately for this act, but still, after a lifetime of being a heel, Barry finally rises above.

More secrets of Avatar revealed!

2010-01-05T10:43:00.004-06:00

Thanks to my buddy Ryan for sending me this...

Sherlock Holmes: Brilliant detective -- dumb movie

2010-01-03T20:58:00.008-06:00

No, not that one.

I'll admit, right up top, that part of my problem with Guy Ritchie's version of Sherlock Holmes is irrational. After all, as someone somewhere has certainly said, "this isn't your father's Holmes." Which of course can be translated as, "yeah, we changed, uh... everything. All we left is the name because, you know, that's good for marketing."

So my problem is with that general idea, which I despise. But strictly in terms of the Holmes character, I shouldn't really care, since I've never read a Holmes book or seen a Holmes movie.

But at the end of the day, a reboot like this isn't as much about how much is changed (The Mask of Zorro changed a lot about Zorro and was still pretty good), but whether the movie itself is, you know, a piece of shit.

Fortunately for everyone involved, Sherlock Holmes is not (at least completely) a piece of shit. But all things considered, it's a pretty lousy movie that gets even worse the more you think about it and the more you compare it to the movies it's trying to be.

For instance:

Plot Point: Holmes and Watson's partnership is coming to an end because Watson is getting married. Holmes uses every opportunity to sabotage Watson's plan to leave.

Done better in: Zero Effect

Starring Bill Pullman and Ben Stiller in a modern takeoff of the Holmes/Watson dynamic (of which, of course, there are many), Zero Effect probes this same assistant-leaving situation in a much more satisfying and motivated way. Pullman's Darryl Zero, for one, is a much weirder and worse boss to Stiller's character than Downey's Holmes is to Watson. Also, Stiller's character is a lawyer and has a fiance who doesn't like Zero.

The point is: he clearly has a future without Zero, making his reluctance to leave him (Zero is helpless without him, and Stiller digs that) an interesting character point to explore.

Jude Law's Watson isn't given anything like this to play. We're simply told he's leaving Holmes' employ for reasons like he's messy and a bad roommate. Why the lack of a real reason? Because it's only there to add some tension and give them something to talk about. Beyond that, the movie can't be bothered to answer.

Plot Point: Holmes is a drug addict of some kind. At one point he's high on something used for "eye surgery," leading to the obvious question, was there really eye surgery in Victorian England?

This will hurt, and then you'll die.

Done better in: House, among other places.

Wikipedia helpfully informs me that Holmes' drug of choice in the original stories was cocaine (then legal in England), injected in a seven percent solution as a way to alleviate his boredom when he wasn't working.

In Sherlock Holmes, he drinks and does (mostly unnamed) drugs, simultaneously flailing about and inventing things, as in one particularly useless scene, where he observes he can get flies to fly in semicircles when he plays discordant notes on his violin.

Unfortunately, the "brilliant man who's also an addict but can somehow keep it together" has been done so many times before that it's hard to do anything new with it, and Sherlock Holmes proves over and over again it's not up to doing anything hard.

In the TV show House (which is based in many ways on the Holmes character), his addiction to painkillers is a direct result of a medical misdiagnosis of an infarction of the leg, making his limp, and his addiction, a constant reminder of the importance of getting the right answer. This is obviously more interesting than a brilliant guy who abuses drugs because he's bored (and when he's not bored, can instantly snap out of it).

At the root of all this is simply a problem of the movie being dumb. Holmes and Watson are supposed to be brilliant and innovative, but instead of gathering clues and deducing things logically, they mostly seem to arrive at a place and say a few things that don't make sense until the bad guys show up, at which point a big fight starts that lasts long enough for the screenwriters to go, "whew, that was close. We almost had to write something clever there."

This is in stark contrast to the best kind of mystery fiction, where the clues are laid at least partially in view, drawing the audience in in their attempt to solve the mystery for themselves. Sherlock Holmes can't be bothered (or the filmmakers simply weren't talented enough) to do that, so the movie decides leaves you in the fucking dark about everything.

For instance (and this is a spoiler), at one point a character is revealed to have not been dead because (you didn't guess it) he had ingested a suppressant derived from a rhododendron plant.

Uh, what? Was there any way for me to know that (they do show a leaf to a rhododendron plant at one point. Or at least, I thought it was a rhododendron plant. It just looked like a leaf to me)? I mean, is such a thing even possible to extract from a rhododendron?

Apparently not.

The whole end of the movie is like that, where in one long, breathless speech, Holmes tries to explain the totally confusing things we've been watching in ways that are either totally implausible or just goddamn made up.

No, we're told. A character didn't spontaneously combust. An odorless, colorless flammable liquid was dropped on him by some kind of Victorian-era rain machine, and his gun was rigged to spark so that he exploded into flames. No, this didn't also ignite the long stream of droplets he left behind him on his way in here. What makes you say that?

You get the idea. As my brother said, "Don't bother to explain it if you're going to do it with bullshit like that. I didn't really need to know."

I'll take it a step further.

I didn't need to see the movie at all.

One and a half stars out of five.

Postscript: it also bears serious noting that in getting the great Robert Downey, Jr. to play Holmes and the also pretty great Jude Law to play Watson, they really had the chance to do something interesting with the material. Having those two actors eschew interesting dialogue in favor of what it by my count at least three fight scenes is a crime to celluloid that someone should be punished for.

A Christopher Walken bedtime story

2009-12-25T20:24:00.001-06:00

This really has nothing to do with Christmas (or any holiday for that matter), but somehow it seems appropriate to post.

Here's Christopher Walken (in an absolutely crazy sweater) reading "The Three Little Pigs."

Enjoy.

A few words about Avatar

2009-12-19T19:52:00.016-06:00

Note: contains spoilers. Namely, that Avatar is pretty much a hunk of shit. But seriously, I'm going to reveal a few plot points. Especially any that I can make fun of. Which would be most of them.

As I write this, Avatar has an 83% positive rating on Rotten Tomato's famed Tomatometer. A few days ago, it was 95% (the ratings from the "Cream of the Crop" reviewers is still 94%). For the past two weeks, every guest on The Tonight Show (whether they were in the movie or not) has raved about it. Everywhere you go, magazine articles, TV reports and the general buzz have told you this movie is so fucking amazing it will revolutionize the way we watch movies. To call it a quantum leap, indeed, would be to diminish it.

Perhaps not surprisingly, none of these things ever get around to mentioning what the movie's actually about. All the trailers indicate is that there's lot of explosions. And, uh, blue people. Oh, and that this movie is so fucking amazing it will revolutionize the way we watch movies. To call it a quantum leap would be to blah blah blah.

Sitting at home, we absorb all of these stray pieces of information (James Cameron hasn't directed a movie for a while because he's been doing this) and that makes our brain go, "hey, this thing might be a work of genius." And of course we take this into the movie and it makes us more likely to like it. It's been a truly brilliant marketing campaign, executed at the level of the best political campaigns, and someone somewhere should get a medal for it (or a punch in the face... either way).

So okay. With all that out of the way I'll say right here at the top that as spectacle -- in terms of the effects -- it's a very good movie. Top quality effects. Movie changing or even mind blowing? No. We've seen it all before. Imagine a bunch of Golems from the Lord of the Rings movies -- only blue and tall and heroic -- and that's what it is. They haven't crossed that threshold toward making it look actually real, but there's a reasonable chance they never will, so who cares?

Either way, that's not what I'm going to talk about. My issues were with the story.

We start on a spaceship that has traveled 4.3 light years to Alpha Centauri in the year 2154. Nevermind how it got there going the speed of light looking, well, like something that can't go anywhere close to the speed of light.

Does it at least come with a supercharger?

Anyway, once we arrive at Pandora, it's time for the Incredibly Obvious Metaphors to start flying around. Pandora is populated by the Na'vi (Native Americans), who use bows and arrows (um), engage in mysticism (yeah), and at one with their environment (yep).

Sadly, Pandora is rich in the hilariously named fake element unobtanium (standing in for oil), which is necessary toward solving the economic and energy crisis on Earth (a crisis you would imagine might be somewhat less severe if we hadn't spent all that cash to built spaceships that can fly at the speed of light to Alpha Centauri and hold what seems to be an almost limitless supply of helicopters, gunships and men, though of course no one asks me about these things).

Anyhow, the most concentrated source of unobtanium on the entire planet happens to be right under the home tree of the Omaticaya Clan of the Na'vi (and no, I can't believe I just typed that). Obviously, they'll have to be moved.

Or won't they? I mean, you just flew a spaceship at the speed of light part way across the galaxy, and you have the technology to establish a perfect telekenetic link with a Na'vi whose DNA has been combined with that of a human and then grown in a test tube. You can do all that, and I'm supposed to believe that you still have to strip mine this ore out of the ground like we're back in West Virginia (strip mining here standing in for strip mining)?

At the center of all this is a disabled marine named Jake Scully, whose identical twin brother was a scientist specializing in the Na'vi and who managed to get killed just before the mission (and this is really only a minor quibble, but is it really all that common for one identical twin to end up as a marine and the other identical twin to end up as a scientist who, if I remember right from the flaccid dialogue, had a few Ph. Ds?).

Anyhow, Jake's brother's specially grown Na'vi just can't go to waste, so they let Jake use it, and of course the first thing that happens on a mission after he plugs in telekenetically (and it really bears pointing out just how ludicrous the whole idea of that is), is that he gets separated from the group.

Of course he meets a Na'vi woman, of course she hates him (but not for long!), and of course he'll have a rocky introduction to Na'vi culture, but of course eventually he'll get the hang of it, and of course he'll eventually get everyone's respect and pass a ritual and marry the Na'vi woman and become part of the tribe and begin to hate his original employers and fight on their side of what's right against the imperialist blah blah blah.

I mean honestly. This movie is supposed to be so fucking amazing it will revolutionize the way we watch movies. To call it a quantum leap, indeed, would be to diminish it.

And it can't do any better than to completely rape the plot of Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai and like, 50 other movies? Give me a break. The plot, the motivations, the villains and the resolution are all totally obvious from, well... from 4.3 light years away (25 trillion miles or so). I mean, the main villain even has a bunch of scars on his head. How much more un-revolutionary can you get that to copy just about every Bond villain ever created? Did Cameron have to be physically restrained from putting an eyepatch on him, too?

Here's another example of what I mean. Late in the movie, Sigourney Weaver's character is wounded. The Na'vi tell Jake they might be able to transfer her consciousness into a Na'vi body, making her a Na'vi permanently. Only, it doesn't work. She was too wounded (big shock). Can anyone guess what will happen to Jake at the end of the movie? Will he become a Na'vi permanently?

And can anyone guess what will happen when one character says a huge flying beast has only been mastered by five Na'vi since recorded Na'vi time began? Yup, here comes Jake Scully. He's been a Na'vi for a few months. Clearly he's the best guy we have. If anyone can master the un-masterable beast, it's the guy with the funny accent who just got here a little while ago.

And you know what makes it that much worse is that there are actually serious issues at play in Avatar. Gross over-miliarization, deforestation, the Iraq war and the destruction of native peoples are real things. Many of the indigenous people of the Earth have been systematically wiped out by people in need of land and resources who were greedy enough, as one character says in the movie, to make anyone who stands in their way an enemy, and thus justifiably wiped out.

That's a real truth of history, and a hard one. And the destruction of the natural world, even for someone like me, who's far from an ecologist, is a tragic thing.

But by sticking to the most cliched of plots, the movie cheapens the issues to the point of demeaning their seriousness, rendering it, say, an open letter for peace and conservation written in crayon and filled with internet slang.

And about those robots...

1.) Was I the only one who laughed out loud at the bi-pedal robot, controlled by a human, who was carrying what looked like a huge machine gun? Carrying it in it's arms, like a human would, rather than having it as part of the design? What kind of bumblefuck would expect us to believe that?

Oh.

2.) And as bad as that was, they managed to top it by having the robot pull out a fucking knife and engage in hand-to-hand combat! I mean, a knife! Who designed this goddamn robot? Who looked at the plans and said, "yeah, this is a pretty cool robot.... but, it's missing something. Hmm. Oh, I know! It needs a two foot bowie knife and a knife sheath! Why? Because at some point, I envision this robot getting into a situation where the gun will be knocked out of it's 'hands' and it's 'hands', which are apparently just 'hands' and don't do anything, will really need to grab a knife and start stabbing something. No no, don't make the knife just come out of their hands, like Fulgore. Are you an idiot? Make it have to hold the knife, like we do. Waaaaay cooler that way!"

Netflix cont'd cont'd (and also cont'd)

2009-12-12T00:08:00.012-06:00

So even though the erstwhile (whatever that means) topic of this blog is the fact that, you know, one of these days I hope to be a Hollywood screenwriter so rich and fabulously successful I could, as Lewis Black once dreamed, hire someone just to wash my balls, I haven't really talked much about what I'm actually working on.

And I know what you're thinking about that. So yeah, you're welcome. After all, who (besides me, presumably) gives a shit? This blogging crap is self involved enough as it is.

But for the purposes of this entry, I'll say that the totally original, totally plausible, totally commercial but totally artistic project of mine has something (though not totally) to do with gangsters and the underworld.

And it should. I'm a huge fan of gangster/crime movies and always have been, so I can think of no better place for a bumblefuck like me to start.

With this in mind, I've been using most of my Netflix queue to rent and watch gangster/crime movies. Mostly foreign ones, as I've seen many of the American ones already. A few of these, like Rififi and Shoot the Piano Player, I've written about already. Here are a few more:

Bob le Flambeur (1956)

Longest. Trailer. Ever.

Translated as "Bob the Gambler" or "Bob the High Roller" (rather than, I dunno, "Bob the Flammable"), Jean-Pierre Melville's noir story centers on the eponymous Bob, an ex-con and compulsive gambler who, after years away from crime, plans a casino heist.

Bob has hit a bad run of luck but can't stop gambling. Even the slot machine in his apartment won't pay out. As his money ebbs to nearly nothing, an old friend who works for the police begins to get suspicious. Don't do it, Bob. Bob takes the rest of his money and goes to the track to bet on horses. He loses it all. Then, at his absolute ebb, he hears about the safe at the Deauville Casino, which holds a fortune, and suddenly, forgetting everything, he decides to gamble the one thing he has left: his freedom.

Surrounding Bob is a young man -- Bob's protege -- who desperately wants to be like the smooth, cool Bob, a young girl who's bored by everything, including sex, a longtime fixer and friend of Bob's, and a whole galaxy of safecrackers, con men and street criminals, all of whom Bob orchestrates in a plan so detailed that, in a famous scene, he draws out the floor plan of the casino in a field to practice.

But all is not destined to go well. The wife of the inside man at the casino wants more money for her husband's part in the crime, and in the best tradition of film noirs, he is weak and she is greedy, and will try to sabotage everything if she can't get her way. The girl Bob's protege is sleeping with thinks they're all just pretending and tells a rival mobster who's in debt to the police for information about the plan. The policeman who's been friends with Bob ever since Bob saved his life is heartbroken and tries to warn him, but Bob can't be reached.

The director, Melville, loved everything American. He wore Ray Bans and listened to American radio and drove a big American car. But especially, he loved American movies, and even more especially film noir (a term invented by the French to describe the gritty American crime dramas that came out of Hollywood -- mostly Warner Brothers -- in the 40s and early 50s). He shot Bob le Flambeur sporadically over two years, working a few days at a time whenever he had the money to film.

His innovation was to combine the basic plot of American film noir and combine it with the free-wheeling camera, on-location shooting and naturalistic acting style of French and Italian neorealist movies of the time. The result was what most people consider the first film of the French New Wave, a group of movies directed mostly by French film critics -- Godard, Rohmer, Truffaut -- all of whom loved American crime movies and strove on meager budgets to make their own versions.

The movies they made eventually found a way back over the Atlantic, sparking a mini-movie revolution known as the New Hollywood of art-house American movies in the late 60s and early 70s (Bonnie and Clyde being one particularly notable example).

But that history aside, Bob le Flambeur really is a fine movie. Watching it, I was struck by how much P.T. Anderson had borrowed from it for his first movie Hard Eight, also a story about a world weary professional gambler and the protege who wants to be just like him (and the woman the protege gets involved in that puts everything at risk).

Roger Duchesne, with his dome of silver hair, perfectly projects Bob's world weary cool. Though he's a hopeless gambling addict, he really seems cares about people, especially his eager protege. When a violent pimp comes into the restaurant he's in with a new girl, Bob confronts him and forces him to leave. Bob has already done prison time for trying to rob a bank, we learn. Bob's just a gambler now. Everybody likes Bob. But Bob's cool, we sense, and his distaste for carelessness and danger has been slowly eroded by his run of bad luck and his inability to stop gambling (not that he even entertains the idea).

The final sequence -- the attempt at the casino -- takes on the style of a Greek tragedy, in which Bob, assigned to watch the casino from the high roller's room, can't help himself but sit down for a hand, and when he does, finally hit a run of luck so huge he loses all track of time and his role in the robbery.

Very good movie.

4 out of 5 stars

Drunken Angel (1948)

A different kind of crime movie, this one from Japan, directed by Akira Kurosawa, probably best known to the West for his Seven Samurai (1954), which was later remade as The Magnificent Seven.

Anyhow, Drunken Angel centers on a House-like asshole doctor played by Takashi Shimura, whose practice is in a slum on the edge of a poisonous scum pond. Shimura's doctor drinks too much and yells at anyone he thinks is being stupid or careless -- which is everyone -- especially a young yakuza (Toshiro Mifune) who comes in for treatment for a wound in his hand.

The hood tries to pretend he hurt his hand innocently, but Shimura wearily pulls out a bullet, and after the hood, looking pale and sickly, starts to cough, Shimura pulls out a stethescope, listens to his chest and crudely tells him he probably has tuberculosis, and with the way he lives his life, that means he's dead man walking. Mifune's hood is mortified, beats the shit out of the doctor and leaves, but a few days later he comes back. Shimura tells him to go get X-Rays to confirm the diagnosis and to clean up his sorry-ass. Mifune beats the shit out of him again and leaves.

But a few days later Mifune comes back, drunk as hell, but with the X-Rays, which confirm the tuberculosis. He wants to live. He wants the doctor's help.

And it's really at this point where things begin to get interesting. Mifune's amoral murderering mob boss has just been released from prison. He has a history with a nurse who works for Shimura and comes looking for her.

But when he shows up, Shimura basically tells him to fuck off -- you were terrible to her and you're a shithead yakuza -- a move that will almost surely get him killed. Mifune, now an outcast with the organization due to his illness and with a sort of grudging respect and gratitude for the doctor, decides he must intervene. He goes to a meeting of his bosses to beg for the life of the doctor, but all they do is throw money at his feet and kick him out.

What Mifune does after that, which I won't reveal, says a lot about what Kurosawa thought about the immediate post-war and American occupied Japan during which the movie was made.

"The Japanese love to sacrifice themselves for stupid things," the doctor says at one point. And Kurosawa's portrayal of the yakuza as a bunch of hedonistic murderers who care a lot more about getting drunk and screwing dance hall girls than rebuilding their bombed-out shithole of a city. They profess to have a code of loyalty, but when Mifune gets sick they throw him out. His girlfriend leaves him for his boss. He's nothing.

All that's left is the doctor, with his rudeness, his over drinking and his rigid honesty, which at first repels and then slowly begins to make us admire him, even though it takes someone else's sacrifice -- this time, not for something stupid -- to keep him alive.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Note: sorry about the long delay between posts. I wish I had a better excuse than I have (which would be none). Anyhow, I'll be back in a few short days to talk about a few noirs that were, uh, not so good.

The Underused Actors Club: Christopher McDonald

2009-12-02T22:44:00.010-06:00

The noted philosopher Tommy Lasorda once said: "the difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person's determination."

And here I thought it was impossible for an old fat guy to flip that way.

Anyhow, it's not just ol' Tommy. This quote (or others like it) have entered the common usage to the degree that we just take them as an article of faith.

Fortune favors the bold. Winners make their own luck. Success is one percent inspiration and 99 percent copying off people smarter than you.

Or something like that.

Anyhow, these quotes are crap. And the reason they're crap is because they don't recognize what is almost certainly the most important part of success: luck. Sometimes blind, sometimes stupid, sometimes out of the blue, but always luck. Without it, even the most phenomenally talented piano player to have ever been born couldn't transcend, you know, being born on a reed island on Lake Titicaca.

Or how about this. You, you out there reading this. You could be the most talented person who's ever walked the face of this Earth at, uh, playing the harmonica. Your harmonica playing could revolutionize the world of music (which would be quite a feat, considering the harmonica). You could be celebrated throughout the harmonica playing world as a goddamn DiVinci of the harmonica.

Only, you've never played the harmonica, have you? Too bad. If only you'd grown up next door to a guy who played one. He might have showed you how and encouraged you.

And just in case I haven't made my point, try this sometime for fun: go up to the next paralyzed person you see and ask them why they don't have the determination to just get up and run a marathon.

Yeah, not so much. The truth is that in any profession, in any walk of life, to have the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time is at least as important as having the right skills, and it's only when all of those things come together that you have success.

So what does all of that have to do with Hollywood?

Well, a lot. And it's in that spirit that I'd like to start a new series here on the ol' HH: The Underused Actors Club, a tribute to actors whose luck has (so far) not truly matched up with their talent.

First up?

-Christopher McDonald-

Where you (might) know him: Dirty Work, Happy Gilmore, Requiem for a Dream, Spy Kids, Star Trek: TNG, The Faculty, Quiz Show.

Oh, that guy!

Yes, that guy.

A character actor with a career spanning 30 years (his first role was in a 1978 TV movie as an usher), McDonald has become mostly known for playing douche bags in movies made by guys who were on SNL (this is just a long way of saying he was the bad guy in Happy Gilmore and Dirty Work).

Awesome.

These movies and those roles are harder than they look. Compare McDonald to, say, Bradley Whitford's performance as the bad guy in Billy Madison. Whitford -- a fine actor, as his work on The West Wing proves -- falls into the hammy minefield of broad comedy and in my opinion ends up sort of looking like an idiot.

I mean, we all remember Shooter McGavin, right? But can anyone name Whitford's character? I thought so.

So while McDonald was pretty great in those movies, he's also done a few other things (for instance, those above things).

But for every role in a really good movie like Quiz Show (playing vapid game show host Jack Barry) or The Faculty (playing Elijah Wood's dad) he's slogged out in the shitty bog of Hollywood tripe, appearing in such stinkers as Fair Game, The House Bunny and American Pie presents Beta House (as Mr. Stifler).

Sigh.

Only now and again has he been able to show that he could do more than this crap. Take for instance his role in Requiem for a Dream, where, in a mostly improvised performance, he plays TV pitchman Tappy Tibbons, whose "Month of Fury" secret to losing weight is abstaining from red meat (yeah), processed sugar (uh huh) and orgasms (uh, what?!).

So okay, then. What kinds of roles should he be doing?

Well, how about a real person, for starters? The only time McDonald seems to get a part of any size is either as the villain in a broad comedy or as some kind of television personality, where his bland good looks and smooth voice are put to effective use. As good as he is in Requiem for a Dream, he's still playing a TV pitchman, it's just a twist on the role. Darren Aronofsky (who directed), uses his casting as a kind of shortcut, expecting us to believe him as the pitchman because that's the role we usually see him in.

But me? I see him maybe as the adulterer sidekick in a Woody Allen film. Say, Michael Murphy in Manhattan. If he were somewhat younger, I think he could have played Aaron Eckhart's role in Thank You for Smoking, that of an amoral cigarette company pitchman.

But while McDonald has a very effective lying smile that's he's combined with a jackass attitude, you know, a lot, I really think he could also play a genuinely good guy (by all appearances, he's one in real life, which helps). He guest starred on the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Yesterday's Enterprise," believably portraying a heroic junior officer and love interest (McDonald had been a finalist for the role of Riker three years before), and he's been used many times for voiceover work, notably as Jor-el (Superman's father) in Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League Unlimited.

But, you know, what do I know? I'm neither a casting agent, a director or a studio head, and unless these people are a lot more interested in Hollywood blogs than I think they are, this is probably falling on deaf ears.

But it shouldn't. Look at Robert Forster, whose career had gone completely to the shithouse before Quentin Tarantino put him in Jackie Brown (he's great in the movie, by the way). And how about Gloria Swanson, a second rate Golden Age of Hollywood actress who made it in the business 70 years before she won an Oscar for Titanic.

That's all I'm saying. Give McDonald a chance, people.

A few words about Frost/Nixon

2009-11-25T17:28:00.013-06:00

So I was watching Frost/Nixon the other day, having seen it once before, and I couldn't shake this odd feeling.

Sure, the movie's good. It's a compelling story, well acted, well directed, and mounted with seriousness of purpose. But still, you know, something was missing.

Too soon?

Then, when the movie was getting closer to the end, and much of the action was taken up by verbatim recreations of the actual Nixon interviews, it finally hit me:

This. This interview part. This is the most interesting part of the movie. It's the only reason you give a shit. It's about these two men talking, sparring, fighting verbally with each other. Why can't the whole movie just be this?

I mean, sure, the backstory is interesting. I know quite a lot more about Richard Nixon than I really care to, to be honest with you, having read at least somewhat in depth on, you know, that whole plumbers/CIA/Cambodia/Ellsberg/break-in/cover-up thing.

But that really gets to the heart of what's wrong with Frost/Nixon. By being made now, when most people have no fucking clue who David Frost is and a the only thing people know about Richard Nixon is that he had to resign the presidency because of something called Watergate.

Not the most attractive man, either.

By having to give all the background, Frost/Nixon robs you of some of the story's essential power -- these two men talking to each other. One, a venal interviewer stepping up to the plate for the first (and it must be said, only) time in his career (even though Frost himself admits that the "interviewer beating down the interviewee" aspect of the mythology about the interviews is totally overblown, giving primary credit to the behind-the-scenes prodding of Nixon's handlers for Nixon's confessions). And the other, a fallen president, trying desperately to stop himself from going down in history as a cheat, liar and failure, before finally admitting, yeah, he was kind of a cheat, liar and failure.

So as I've said, the interview recreations are the most interesting part of the movie. And though Michael Sheen and Frank Langella do a fine job as Frost and Nixon, respectively (though I'm personally more partial to Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Nixon in Oliver Stone's, uh, Nixon), the truth is it's just not as good as the actual interview.

I mean, how could it be? What could live up to the actual pain and anguish on Nixon's face as he describes what went on in his last days in office? Or the way he skirts on the razor's edge of, well, truthiness, in his claims that obstructing justice must have a criminal intent, and, well, he had no criminal intent, only political intent, and that makes everything OK (no really, if you listen, that's pretty much what he's saying).

Anyhow, the point of all this is that I actually found a 97 minute feature condensing the Nixon interviews into their most interesting and gripping sections (which I think is part of the DVD release, though I could be wrong about that).

Apparently, I'm too internet stupid to link this video -- which looks like it's on a Web site in someplace like Bulgaria -- without cropping half of it, so just click here.

Anyhow, I found this version to be more interesting than the movie, especially if you already have the basic idea of what happened. So enjoy, those of you with 97 minutes to spare, and enjoy Thanksgiving.

The Trouble with Creating Harry

2009-11-18T23:40:00.009-06:00

One of the first things you learn as you go through all of these books on writing is that there really are no rules. Some people will argue you've got to start with a hook -- the plot, the situation. Others say you've got to start with character -- the people, their motivations.

Some people even say that character and plot are the same thing, which sounds all well and good right up until you look at the blank page and realize this leaves you with nowhere to start.

Anyhow, at the end of the day the truth is you've really got to do a good job with both phases, since the results when you don't are... well, bad.

So the other day I stumbled upon this character checklist from Done Deal Pro, a movie business/screenwriting web site. Basically, it's a (long) series of questions that, according to them, you should be able to answer about any (major) character you're creating.

Go ahead, check it out. I'll wait.

Long, isn't it? It's 58 questions, with numerous sub questions ("numerous" being code for: I didn't feel like counting 'em).

And all sarcasm aside, it's actually a pretty comprehensive list, so I've started using it. And I can report that while some of the questions are valuable, some of them are just, well, stupid.

Example:

What animal would they (the character) choose to be?

Now, I can understand how this might be an important question to answer if the character you're trying to create is, you know, Bambi (or a 12-year-old girl, in which case the answer is almost certainly "pony"). But it's pretty clear that certain questions appear suited to only the most specific kind of character, while to everyone else they're just goddamn irrelevant.

For instance:

When and where was their first sexual experience?

Good character to ask this of: John Holmes

See what I mean? The first time Holmes got his wang some action is a particularly important part of his character. Did the woman run away in sheer horror, afraid of internal injuries? Or did she, you know, keep a line of erotic bowling pins under her bed and was unimpressed?

Either way, it contributed significantly to his life and character, and if you're going to write about him, it's probably something you should know about him.

On the other hand...

Bad character to ask this of: Ellen Ripley (from the Alien series)

Right. I mean, who gives a shit? When you think about it, Ripley really isn't much of a character, particularly in the first movie. Her function is to be practical and resilient (meaning she lives), and to just be stupid enough to search through a spaceship that's about to explode for a fucking cat.

But her first bang? Does it matter? No. And the writers didn't, either.

How do I know that? In the initial drafts of the script (and I'm not making this up), the character of Ripley was a man (baby).

Are they smart? Intelligent? Savvy? Slow witted?

Good: Forrest Gump

I mean, this is the whole goddamn banana. Forrest may not be a smart man, but he knows what love is, right? His I.Q. is so low his mom has to bang a horny school administrator so he won't have to ride the short bus. The whole story is about this good and decent (and stupid) man whose goodness and decency trump his complete inability, for example, to comprehend the rules of football.

Bad: Topper Harley

Or, you know, any character in a broad spoof like Hot Shots!. Topper is a fighter pilot with daddy issues and a history with an Air Force psychiatrist. Everything else is just for fucking laughs. I mean, it's sort of like that scene from Who Framed Roger Rabbit when Roger gets out of his handcuffs.

Eddie Valiant: Do you mean you could get out of those handcuffs at any time?

Roger Rabbit: No, not any time. Only when it was funny.

The characters in spoofs are very much like cartoons. The only rule that matters is if it's funny. If need be, Topper could do calculus. Or he could accidentally take a dump in the sink. Either way.

What is their health like?

Good: Kanji Watanabe

Ok, this one requires a bit of explanation. Watanabe is the lead character in the great Akira Kurosawa movie Ikiru -- the story of a bureaucrat who discovers he has a fatal stomach cancer. The prognosis makes him realize how valueless his life has been, and he sets off to on a journey to find some meaning. This hokey sounding story actually becomes quite powerfully meaningful as Watanabe first tries hedonism, but finding that lacking, is inspired by a woman he meets who makes toys for children.

So, getting back to the question. His health, as you can imagine, is pretty important to the story. It's what sets him off. Like the rest of his life, he's been ignoring it, going day to day in a kind of mindless fog. The sudden diagnosis that his life will soon come to an end brings his day-to-day life to an end, and sets him upon the story of the movie.

Bad: Everyone else

The truth is that the health of a main character very rarely is an issue in a movie, and when it is, it's usually for the plot rather than character.

Consider this cliche:

The main character, a talented but troubled youth, spins his wheels in frustration until one special day, when he meets a wise and powerful master of the talent the youth has. The master mentors the main character for a while, teaching him life lessons. When the main character has almost fully matured, the mentor starts to suffer from headaches.

Uh oh, right? We know what's coming. The mentor is going to die, leaving the main character to use what he taught him to defeat his Archenemy and dedicate himself to the pursuit of truth, justice and the American Way (credits roll).

So all in all I think it's still a fairly good questionairre. Except for one particular question:

What is the most traumatic thing that ever happened to them?

Oh, man. As a writer, whether it be for the screen or stage or whatever, you're in the job of creating conflict. A movie without conflict is totally impossible (or totally boring). And if that's true, the answer to this question -- especially for the main character, if not everyone of value in the story -- better be "THIS MOVIE!" (or play, or radio show, or mime act).

If it isn't, my friends, you'll probably find that you're writing the wrong story. And if you're doing that, shame on you. You asked us to pay attention. We deserved better.

The Worst Movies... Ever

2009-11-09T20:41:00.016-06:00

You generally only have the misfortune of watching a truly terrible movie once. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you're able to figure out what you're watching is a mangled pile of rhinoceros shit in time to turn it off and do something valuable.

But then there are movies like this one, the kind of movie you loved as a kid and one day saw coming up on TCM and went "awww" and decided to record and watch. Well, I did this recently. And the result?

So yes, today's unendurable shit fest, hate crime to celluloid and embarrassment to Volkswagen Beetles everywhere...

Herbie Goes Bananas (1980)

Right up here at the top, I would like to mention that to both my and my brother's credit, this was our least favorite of the original four Herbie movies (the others being The Love Bug, Herbie Rides Again and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo).

But, you know, to our not-so credit, we probably watched the movie 10 or 15 times anyway.

This particular entry into the history of the irascible, anthropomorphic Beetle and former race car focuses on two dimwits (played by Stephen W. Burns and Charlie Martin Smith), who've inherited the car from Burns' uncle and original owner, Jim Douglas (Dean Jones).

Quick tip that the movie you're watching probably sucks: they couldn't get Dean Jones to be in it.

Anyhow, our two dimwits have traveled to Mexico to retrieve the car, since as we all know, Mexico is where all legendary and magically "alive" race cars eventually end up. There they meet street urchin stereotype Paco (no really, that's his name), who cheerfully steals their wallets while snorting cocaine, eating a taco and vomiting violently from food poisoning (okay, so not those last parts).

Paco also manages to pick the pockets of a few bad guys (played by Animal House's John Vernon and The Godfather's Alex Rocco, humiliating themselves), one of which contains microfilm that is important to the plot, though don't ask me how.

Herbie Goes Bananas educational traveling tip: When traveling in Mexico, don't keep your secret microfilm in your wallet.

In a sequence that should be more legendary than it is for being, you know, fucking stupid, Herbie and Paco cause a lot of trouble on the cruise ship bound for Buenos Aires. In response, the captain (a desperate looking Harvey Korman) sentences Herbie to walk (well, slide) the plank.

That's right. Herbie Goes Bananas expects us to believe that if you cause trouble on a cruise ship, you can be fucking executed.

Or sort of. Herbie is rescued from the ocean by Paco and drafted into service as a taxi.

Thereafter follows the Inca gold stealing portion of the movie (no seriously, there is one, featuring those microfilm guys from before), a sequence where Herbie gets into a bullfight (!), and Herbie being covered in bananas as a "disguise" to hide him from the microfilm guys, who are still pretty mad at Paco.

No, really, it's a great disguise. Nothing suspicious here.

This leads to the final sequence of the movie, when Herbie foils the Inca gold stealing by flinging bananas at the bad guys, who slip and fall down (seriously). Then, when they try to make their escape, Herbie repeatedly smacks into their plane until it's left with no tail or wings. This leads to a chase between Herbie and the tail-less, wing-less plane.

Don't believe me?

I'd give a lot to have been at the story meetings where they dreamed all of this up.

So at this point I know what you're thinking:

"Dude, it's a movie about a car that thinks and can drive itself. Since when does it have to be logical?"

And I get what you're saying, even though you're kind of being a douche about it. But the fact is that while the universe of the movie is one in which Herbie can be "alive", the rest of this shit is just stupid and ridiculous.

I mean seriously. The car gets in a bullfight. If you're asking people to sit there for two hours, do better than that.

Either way, Herbie Goes Bananas proved to be the end of the line for Herbie. At least for 17 years, when Bruce Campbell starred in a TV remake of The Love Bug, and then in 2005, when booze professional and acting enthusiast Lindsay Lohan starred in the almost certainly horrible Herbie: Fully Loaded.

In case you're wondering: no, I haven't seen those movies.

Watching Herbie Goes Bananas so many times growing up taught me my lesson.

Allow me to explain myself, part 2

2009-11-02T09:18:00.006-06:00

By now, I have been writing about this subject -- movies about the movies -- for more than a month, and if there's anyone more tired of it than you people out there in the dark, it's me.

So I suppose it's a good thing that this will be my last entry on the subject for a while, and that instead of having to be effusive in my praise of this brilliant movie or that, I'll get to do what I do best: rip someone a new asshole.

So with that, here's a movie that didn't make the cut:

Barton Fink

On paper, Barton Fink would appear to be just my kind of movie. After all, it's the story of an idealistic screenwriter (John Tuturro), who is lured to Hollywood to write a movie, only to find a horrific world of compromise. Add to that the fact that it was written by one of the great filmmaking teams of all time -- the Coen brothers -- and you can guess I was understandably excited to watch the movie the first time.

And, you know, it was alright for a while. Tuturro's playright character is an idealist, sure, but he's also a hypocrite and a boob. He talks constantly about his love for the "common man," but when he actually meets a common man -- his salesman next-door neighbor (John Goodman) -- all he talks about is himself.

Tuturro's character struggles with writer's block, meets a William Faulker stand-in, and battles with studio types. All standard stuff, sure, but with one major difference: the strangely inappropriate tone, which instead of being a) light and comic, or b) strangled and dramatic, is actually c) freaky and ghoulish.

Tuturro's character hears things. His room seems haunted. His hotel, the rundown Hotel Earle, has the creepy sliminess of an infected wound. He learns the John Goodman character is actually a serial killer.

All of this is wrong for the story and the characters, and sort of inexplicable. And then this happens.

Ugh.

You want to write a story about a barely talented Broadway playwright who goes to Hollywood and falls on his face because he didn't have the talent he thought he did, fine. You want to write a horror movie, you know, also fine. But shuffling back and forth like this isn't cute or clever. It's just annoying.

In the above clip, the Goodman character is trailed by fire and shoots down two policemen while shouting "I'll show you the life of the mind!" over and over again. So, you know, what does that mean? Is this a fantasy sequence in the head of Tutturo's character, meant to represent the tumultuous inner life of an artist? Who knows? Is the Goodman character, then, even real? Is the Hotel Earle?

Barton Fink apologists point to these unanswerable questions as proof that it's completely open to interpretation. Well, what's good about that? Despite what a legion of surrealistic movie fans will tell you, confusing does not mean good. It means confusing.

In a very real sense, a movie is a contract between it's makers and it's audience. When the movie starts, it tells the audience what it's going to be like, and it's duty, as William Goldman said, is to "give the audience what it wants, but in a way it doesn't expect."

Surrealistic movies like Barton Fink (and 8 and 1/2, which was left off my list for similar reasons) are an affront to that idea.

Allow me to explain myself

2009-10-25T21:15:00.013-05:00

So... to my great surprise/honor, the penultimate entry of my whole "Best Movies about the Movies" series of posts was chosen over the weekend to be part of the IMDB's awesomely awesome "Hit List."

As a dedicated reader of the Hit List, and as someone who has just recently joined the thriving write-about-movies-on-the-internet industry, getting chosen to be part of the Hit List is sort of like getting an award at one of those big award shows, only this doesn't happen.

I'm not usually wearing a dress, either.

Anyhow, what I thought I would do here is talk a little about a few of the more notable movies that, for one reason or another, didn't make the cut.

Now, I realize that this is an inherently stupid idea, since in the list making business talking about why you made a list the way you made it and what you may or may not have left off of it is well... it's just not done. For one thing, by revealing your underlying methodology, it leaves you that much more open to being called an ignorant douchebag.

Pictured: me, apparently.

But that's okay. Because, as one of my favorite philosophers once said: "I'm Chevy Chase, and you're not." And whatever else might be said about this hill of beans, well... to paraphrase another famous philosopher: this is my hill, and these are my beans.

So keep in mind, gentle readers, that I certainly haven't seen every movie in this particular genre. And know that I am well aware of how stupid I am for having missed, you know, whatever it is I've missed.

The Nearly Made-Its

The Player

As I documented in my entry on Ed Wood, The Player nearly made #2 on my list. Sadly there was a clerical error (read: I screwed up), and I had to omit it. But suffice to say I truly love The Player -- the story Griffin Mill, a jackass Hollywood producer played by Tim Robbins who begins to get threatening messages from a writer he once dismissed. When he confronts the man he thinks has been doing it (Vincent D'Onofrio), Mill kills him in a rage. Later, he learns the D'Onofrio character had nothing to do with it. Will he get away with murder?

Directed by Robert Altman, The Player is a truly brilliant and completely fearless movie that, not unlike Adaptation, dares to deliberately flirt with the form. As Mill's predicament gets more and more melodramatic and he's saved by senseless hairpin turns of fortune (like the movies he produces), we sense the laughing hand of the filmmaker, grinning at the cliche that's transpiring on screen.

Like all great movies, it's a high wire act. And Altman, always one of the most inconsistent of directors, navigates the minefield here flawlessly.

Why it didn't make it

Well, like I said, it almost did. But at the end of the day, when forced to chose between it and Ed Wood, I just felt like Ed Wood was a better (and, for the purposes of a countdown, a more different) movie. Besides, I'd already written about The Bad and the Beautiful, a movie about a similar (and, with all due respect, better exectued) character who faces more realistic circumstances.

Bowfinger

A mostly forgotten satire starring Steve Martin (who also wrote the script) and Eddie Murphy and directed by Frank Oz, Bowfinger has never gotten it's due respect.

The story of flea pit level producer Bobby Bowfinger (Martin) and his desperate, clandestine attempt to film a major movie star (Murphy) and put him into his movie with the star knowing it, Bowfinger hones in on the desperation of the talentless hustler willing to do anything to get his movie made.

Why it didn't make it

Well, it's basically the same story as Ed Wood, and Ed Wood's a better movie. Bowfinger also works against itself, shoehorning a funny but unnecessary series of digs at the Scientology stand-in Mind Head, with which the Murphy character is obsessed.

Bowfinger is at it's best when, like Ed Wood, it focuses in on the weird troupe of people Bowfinger surrounds himself with: an awkward kid named Jeffery who looks exactly like the Murphy character (played, of course, by Murphy, who somehow manages to avoid getting into a fat suit in the movie), a fresh off the bus actress looking for her break (Heather Graham, playing a roller skates-less and clothes-on version of her character from Boogie Nights), and a series of other, you know, losers.

Essentially, Bowfinger's problem is that it doesn't quite have the guts to go far enough, settling instead for more surface jabs that, in the end, also rob the movie of a truly enduring heart.

State and Main

Leaving State and Main off this list was another hard choice, as it's one of the few movies that really delves into what it's like to be on location, trying to actually shoot a movie.

Written and directed by David Mamet, the story focuses (if you can really call it that) on a writer, director, star, producer and Local Educated Townsperson played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Alec Baldwin, David Paymer and Rebecca Pidgeon respectively.

Written and acted in Mamet's mile-a-minute style, State and Main's true attribute is in showing how little about the act of shooting a movie is about art, giving life to that old notion that directing a movie and getting art out of it is like trying to write War and Peace in the back of a taxi cab.

Macy's director character, in particular, navigates problems with ruthless efficiency. After they're kicked out of one town because of the star's relationship with an underage girl, they move the production (called "The Old Mill") to another town. As the title suggests, an old mill features heavily into the plot of the movie, and the new town is supposed to have one.

The problem? Well, uh... the old mill burned down years ago.

The solution? Rewrite the movie.

Macy's character wants a certain shot dolly shot of a firehouse. He's insistent. The problem? A valuable stainglass window on the firehouse the town won't let him remove.

The solution? A brick through the window in the middle of the night.

State and Main is filled with little moments like this, but the main thread of the movie happens when the Baldwin character starts a new relationship with a new underage girl (played by underage girl specialist Julia Stiles). Driving drunkenly back from what in polite society is called a "dalliance" but what I'll just call "banging," Baldwin and Stiles get in a car accident that's witnessed by the neurotic writer played by Hoffman.

Their relationship (and the accident, which is quickly covered up) could ruin the movie, but when the stereotypical dickhead local politician gets wind of what's happened, it falls to the Hoffman character to uphold the story or tell the truth.

Will he live up to the principles of his script, which he claims is about "purity," or will he succumb to the pressure of douchebagdom?

Why it didn't make it

It's hard to talk about without ruining the ending, but suffice to say the decision Hoffman makes, and what happens after, sews things up in a gimmicky manner that's too cute by half. It might have worked if the intention -- like The Player or Adaptation -- was for the ending to be a commentary on the movie making (and watching) world's obsession with happy endings. But in a movie that deals at least fairly realistically (if sarcastically) about the movie business, it strikes the wrong note.

Stay tuned (if you can really call it that) for Part 2, where I'll bash a few well-known, well-respected movies about the movie business that I nonetheless thought were shit. Buckle your chin straps. You will be offended.

The Best Movies About Movies (part 5 of 5)

2009-10-21T01:16:00.013-05:00

Finally! Decisively! Definitively! Inexorably! Eventually! Irrevocably! Inescapably!

We have reached the end of our countdown of the best movies ever made about the movies.

So who has earned this title of distinction, this term of endearment, this crowning of achievement, this...

Ok, I'll stop now.

Sunset Boulevard

Look out, she's craaaazzzzy!

Allow me to be honest here for a moment. Sunset Boulevard is really the reason I come up with this whole "best movies about the movies" thing. This is not to say there haven't been a bunch of great movies about the movies. There have, obviously. A few of them didn't even make the list (a fact I'll have to rectify at some future point).

But really, it begins and ends with Sunset Boulevard.

Co-written and directed by one of my favorite co-writers and directors, Billy Wilder, the story of Sunset Boulevard is really two stories. On the one hand is Joe Gillis (William Holden), a down-on-his-luck hack screenwriter evading collection agency stooges who want to repossess his car. Unable to sell a script, Gillis is close to moving back to his hometown with his tail between his legs to restart his career as a newspaperman.

On the other hand is Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a silent screen star whose fall from grace has left her teetering on the edge of madness. Cooped up in her crusty Sunset Boulevard mansion, tended to by her protective butler (and former director and husband), Desmond broods delusionally about what's happened to her.

On the verge of bankruptcy and unable to raise quick cash from anyone he knows, Gillis finds himself literally on the run from the repo men when he blows a tire and swerves suddenly into the driveway of what he assumes is a deserted mansion. Only it's not deserted. It's the home of Norma Desmond.

Dun dun dun!

Desmond sees Gillis and calls him into the house, assuming him to be (and this should tell you something) an undertaker sent to prepare her recently deceased pet chimpanzee for burial. After talking to her for a minute, Gillis recognizes her, setting up this famous exchange:

Gillis: You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.

Desmond: I am big. It's the pictures that got small.

Forgotten in Hollywood, Desmond has been plotting what she has come to believe will be a triumphant return. And as soon as Gillis tells her he's a screenwriter, Desmond immediately tries to hire him to write a movie she's been plotting. She still has plenty of money, but though Gillis is aware of the weirdness of the situation, he's too desperate to avoid a sure payday.

He accepts.

Note: this sound effect doesn't actually play in the movie.

This leads to the creepy second half of the movie, where Gillis, unable to go back to his apartment, moves into a spare room over the garage and begins working with Desmond on the script. Desmond begins to dote on him, buying him clothes and food, at first over his objections and then not. The spare room floods during a rainstorm and Gillis moves into the room of the house where Desmond's husbands once lived.

You see where I'm going with this.

Finally Gillis realizes she's in love with him, and he rejects her coldly. He flees to a friend's apartment, but when he finds out Desmond's tried to slash her wrists, he comes back voluntarily, finally surrendering to the notion of being a kept man.

All the while, Desmond meets with famed director Cecil B. De Mille (playing a much nicer version of himself). She thinks it's about her and Gillis' awful script, but all De Mille really wants is to use her old, expensive car in a movie he's planning.

Believing DeMille's evasions to be confirmation of a deal, Desmond throws herself into a grueling beauty regimen. Meanwhile, a friend of Gillis' is a script girl at Paramount who's desperate for a break and begs him to work on a story with her. They have chemistry, and when Desmond finds out she flies into the jealous rage of a 14-year-old, calling the girl, threatening her and telling her about where Gillis spends his nights.

The resulting confrontation -- what Gillis does and what happens after -- I dare not reveal, only to say it leads to one of the most famous scenes in the movies; Desmond descending the stairs among a haze of reporters and news cameras, so finally and completely insane she thinks she's on the set of a De Mille movie, beckoning towards the camera and "all those wonderful people out there in the dark" (us).

It's the source of that picture up there, if you're wondering.

Anyhow, Sunset Boulevard is the best movie about the movies because it's one of the few to unflinchingly explore the sad and crushing reality of one minute being a big star and the next minute being a has been. The other movies on this list talk about it's cutthroat nature, or the zany pseudo families it creates, but Sunset Boulevard dares to explore the really icky side of it's sudden and ruthless abandonment.

The movie sees with such clarity and honesty we cringe at times. Desmond's sanity is held together with packing tape. Her loyal butler (played by has-been filmmaker Eric Von Stroheim) writes fake fan letters for her to read. Desmond doesn't (or can't) realize that the handwriting is the same in every one.

She screens her own movies every night. Her house is covered up in pictures of herself. All the door locks and knobs have been removed from the house because, as the butler notes ominously to Gillis early on, "the madam is prone to fits of melancholy."

Swanson's performance as Norma Desmond is one of the best performances I've ever seen from anyone. It's a true high wire act, as she slams, in the flamboyant manner of a silent movie actor who can't stop acting like one, from arrogance and self importance to wounded pride and helpless, pitiable agony. And that final scene. Oh, man.

It helped that Swanson knew her character inside and out. After all, she was a silent movie star who'd had a fall from grace once the talkies came in. When Wilder finally asked her to screen test (after being aggressively rejected for the part by the likes of Mae West and Mary Pickford), she refused, claiming in a way that reminded Wilder of Norma Desmond that she'd done twenty pictures for Paramount and no longer needed to test for anyone. It took famed director George Cukor to finally convince her, telling her "if they ask you to do ten screen tests, do ten screen tests, or I will personally shoot you."

Holden's Joe Gillis, on the other hand -- a hack writer without prospects, finally giving in to an easy life -- represents a wholly different colony of Hollywood failures. The battle with Hollywood to make it has worn his principles completely away, and his act of surrender to Desmond makes me think of a man on a battlefield who decides he doesn't want to fight anymore, so he looks up, sees someone charging at him and drops his weapon with a shrug, welcoming death.

He nearly pulls himself back from the brink as he works on the script with his friend's girlfriend, but he can't even do that without fucking things up. First of all, it's a stupid idea for a movie. And secondly, they fall for each other. So Gillis then not only betrays himself, he betrays his friend. And when forced to choose, he betrays his friend's girl, too.

Wilder, once of the best (and most cynical) writers and directors around, treats these two deeply flawed people with a measure of sympathy. Poor Norma, we say to ourselves. Poor Joe.

Of course, it's also not lost on me that one of the movie's main characters is a failed screenwriter named Joe who gave up on the journalism business for dreams of Hollywood and struggled to the point of giving in.

Maybe that's why I look at Sunset Boulevard as a horror movie, where instead of fighting zombies or aliens people fight their own failures and personality flaws as they simultaneously fight the exploitative nature of Hollywood. It's a sobering, brilliant movie, and as I look ahead to what awaits me out there in the town o' tinsel, I can't help but hope I'll meet the trials, tribulations and, yes, humiliation, better than Joe Gillis did.

Because, as the movie proves, the cost of failure can be steep.

The Best Movies About Movies (part 4 of 5)

2009-10-08T14:33:00.013-05:00

Well, it's been more than a week since I've been able to update the blog, and there's a good reason for that.

I've also been absorbed in the first season of Dexter, though not while at the urinal.

But more important than even that is that I've been struggling to decide which of two movies to put at number 2.

I know what you're thinking here. Wasn't I supposed to figure that out before I started doing this? Well, uh... yes. I guess you're right about that. But what happened is, uh.... Well. You know.

I fucked up.

Sorry.

Here's what happened: when I came up with the idea for this series, the first thing I did was make a list of every movie dealing with the movie business that I had seen. This numbered about 20 or so titles. I got rid of the ones I didn't like, of course, and then over the course of a few days began to whittle it down to the ones that were actually pretty good. This list numbered about eight or so, and then the hard part began.

I knew right away which one would be at the top of the list. But figuring out two through five took a while. I would rearrange and change the list every time I looked at it. And eventually what happened was that I accidentally made two different movies number two.

So I've spent the last week trying to figure out which one of those two would make the list and which one wouldn't. And, well, here's my pick.

Ed Wood

Not making the cut: The Player.

The (mostly true) story of a massively untalented director, Ed Wood is nonetheless a great movie directed by the far more talented (but massively emo) director Tim Burton.

Starring Johnny Depp as the eponymous Wood in probably the best performance of his I've seen, Ed Wood is the story of a director who had a lot more ambition, determination and optimism than he had little things like, you know, ability.

The movie starts during the filming of the (in)famous Glen or Glenda, a totally unsubtle movie about transvestites that starred Wood himself (who, as you probably can guess, was a transvestite). Despite the movie being shot for the cost of a Happy Meal, Wood is elated to be shooting it, printing every take no matter what happens (short of feces being thrown at the camera, though probably not even that).

Glen or Glenda was also the first collaboration between Wood and Bela Lugosi (played by Martin Landau). By the 1950's (when the movie takes place), Lugosi was long past his glory days of playing Dracula and was deep in a heroin-induced fog.

But at their bottom was where Wood met people, and as the movie goes along it becomes a story about the relationship between the upbeat, talentless Wood and the bitter, foul-mouthed Lugosi (Landau deservedly won an Oscar for his hilarious portrayal).

Awesome.

Like Boogie Nights, Ed Wood shows how the movie business creates its own fucked up families. When Lugosi goes into rehab for drug addiction, for example, Wood watches out for him, stays with him. Lugosi, in turn, encourages Wood, relies on him, and gives his name to Wood's string of terrible movies.

Surrounding those two is an equally oddball cast of characters. There's John "Bunny" Breckenridge (played by Bill Murray), a flamboyant queen who wants a sex change but is too scared to go through with it, Criswell the Amazing, a worse-than-average psychic who dressed up in crazy costumes and predicted totally bizarre futures, Vampira, an unemployed TV host who agrees to be in the movies as long as she doesn't have to talk, and Tor Johnson, a huge Swedish wrestler whose English is unintelligible.

These people make their own dysfunctional family, held together by the notion, sure -- Wood's movies are terrible -- but without them, they wouldn't be working at all.

The second half of the movie deals with the story of the making of Plan 9 From Outer Space, a movie so legendarily bad it is generally considered, you know, the worst movie ever made (this is really saying something).

First, Wood shoots some footage of Lugosi outside his home. An old man in a cape, he reaches down, plucks a flower, smells it and looks up at the sky. Suddenly distraught, he crushes the flower in his hand and begins to cry.

Shortly after shooting this scene and a few others for a completely different project, Lugosi died. Wood had him buried in his Dracula cape (that's not made up. The real Lugosi was actually buried in a Dracula cape. Peter Lorre, who attended the funeral, is said to have wondered whether they "should drive a wooden stake through his heart, just in case").

With this small roll of film in hand, Wood spins an entire (and it must be said, ludicrous) movie out of it, dealing with an alien plan (number 9 in their little alien takeover manual) to raise people from the dead and make an army out of them. In the movie (which I've seen), this process is apparently done by shining lights at the ground in cemeteries.

Wood got the funding to make the movie after coming in contact with a preacher who wanted to make a series of religious movies. After hearing this, Wood convinces him that if he makes a monster movie, they'll have enough money for all the religious movies he wants to make.

The preacher agrees, as long as:

1) Wood changes the name of the movie from Grave Robbers from Outer Space to Plan 9 from Outer Space (grave robbing is sacrilegious, after all).

2) Wood and his crew get baptized.

Wood quickly agrees, takes the money, gets he and his friends to get baptized in a pool in Hollywood, and proceeds to make a tremendous piece of shit. With Lugosi dead, Wood casts his wife's chiropractor, Dr. Tom Mason, who, besides being bald, taller, thinner and younger than Lugosi, looks exactly like him (except not at all).

Woods solution for this? Mason covers his face with a cape.

Seriously.

Once the movie's finished, Wood actually gets to premiere it at a low rent theater in Los Angeles. Watching it, he says, "this is my masterpiece. This is the one I want them to remember me by."

Once the movie is finished, the angry audience hates it so much they tear up the theater and chase Wood and his friends out of the building.

But Wood has made his movie, and he's happy with it. And that's part of why he's so endearing. At least he got to do it. And as shitty as Plan 9 is: it's more than any of us have done. And though people remember Wood for being talentless and inept, at least they remember him.

As optimistic as he was, Wood probably would have been just fine with that.

The Best Movies About Movies (part 3 of 5)

2009-09-29T11:16:00.006-05:00

So far on this wearying series we've covered Boogie Nights, the definitive story of the porn business, and Adaptation, the definitive story of a socially inept writer putting a fictionalized version himself in his screenplay and ending it with an ironic deus ex machina (this is a pretty short list).

With this entry, however, it's time to change it up again. Instead of actors and writers, we'll focus on on a movie about that most loathsome Hollywood character -- the Producer.

The Bad and the Beautiful (1953)

Like this, only in Hollywood. (Ok ok, it's nothing like this. Except sort of)

Based on the lives of a number of real Hollywood people (but especially David O. Selznick), The Bad and the Beautiful is the story of Jonathan Shields, an asshole producer played by Kirk Douglas, tracking his rise to fame as the son of a director who'd been such a prick Douglas had to hire extras to come to his funeral.

Determined to dominate Hollywood, Shields starts by manipulating a low budget producer (Walter Pidgeon) into letting him and a director friend, Fred Amiel (Barry Sullivan), work for him. They work on a number of weird low budget movies (one of which mimmicking the real life Cat People) After a while -- and a few hits -- Amiel decides he's ready to direct his dream project, and Shields goes off to make a deal.

Which he does -- with a big studio and a big budget. The only catch? Shields allows Amiel to be replaced with a more experienced director as long as he still gets to produce.

Urban dictionary: Dick Move.

Next, Shields comes across the alcoholic daughter of an actor he admired, Georgia Lorrison (played by Lana Turner). Shields realizes she has talent, builds up her confidence, and shoehorns her into a movie over everyone's objections. He even lets her fall in love with him because he believes it'll help her performance. But after the movie's a hit she finds Shields with another woman. When she confronts him, he rejects her, telling her he doesn't want anyone having the kind of control a true romance would mean over him.

Next, Shields finds a novel he wants to make into a movie that's been written by James Lee Bartlow (Dick Powell). The only problem? Bartlow's pea-brained high-maintenance Southern Belle wife (Gloria Grahame, who won an Oscar), who constantly distracts Bartlow from his work.

His douchebag instinct kicking in, Shields sends a well known movie star seducer after Bartlow's wife. Once she's gone (Bartlow thinks on vacation), Bartlow finishes his script easily, but when she and the movie star try to run away together, they die in a plane crash. Bartlow is distraught, and in a moment of weakness, Shields confesses his involvement. Bartlow punches Shields out and leaves (leaving behind the script, which turns into a hit).

Anyhow, the movie begins with these three: Amiel, Lorrison, and Bartlow, now at the top of their professions (the movie is told in flashback), while Shields has become bankrupt after directing a movie that ended up a monumental piece of shit and he refused to release it.

Shields wants to make a movie with them. Will they help?

In each case they're asked to reflect on the fact that, though Shields definitely screwed them over, he also made their careers. Without Shields, Amiel would have never gotten a break as a director. Shields brought Lorrison out of alcoholism and into movie stardom. And now that his wife isn't around, Bartlow is producing hit novel after hit novel (his first had taken seven years).

And that's the handle, I think, and what makes it a great movie about the movies. Sure, people get screwed over in Hollywood. And yeah, there are a lot of examples of amoral shit-kicking world-beaters who roll over mere mortals in their path like bugs. But these people have to ask themselves: are they really worse off because Shields was a part of their lives?

After the Pidgeon character makes his final pitch, the three characters sit there and think about it. And their collective answers, and what happens after -- which I won't reveal -- says a lot about that fine balance between business and the personal that the movie business seems to test at all times.

In addition to all that, The Bad and the Beautiful is one of the great portrayals of the kind of personality you need to be a successful producer. Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM, upon whom Shields is partly based, was widely regarded as -- even more than stars like Spencer Tracy and Greta Garbo -- the best actor at MGM. He cajoled, screamed, cried and fainted -- sometimes in the same conversation -- if that's what it took to get what he wanted.

One famous example involved actor Robert Taylor, who came into Mayer's office early in his career to get a raise. Instead of saying "yes," or even "no," Mayer told Taylor to work hard, respect his elders, and in due time he'd get everything he deserved. Then Mayer hugged Taylor, cried, and showed him to the door. Asked afterwards whether he'd gotten his raise, Taylor said, "no, but I found a father," and proceeded to spend the next 25 years as one of the most underpaid actors on the MGM lot.

The Bad and the Beautiful touches on all of that. Shields takes people into the sphere of his magnetic personality and for as long as he needs them, he's as good and dynamic a friend as you could ask for.

But when he's done with you, he's done. And in that he personifies all of Hollywood. Ask an actress approaching 40 what happens to offers. Ask a director who makes a flop. It's the name of the game.

The Bad and the Beautiful (terrible title and all) is the warning.

The Best Movies About Movies (part 2 of 5)

2009-09-24T21:01:00.011-05:00

In my last entry in this series (see below), I discussed Boogie Nights, the story of a porn star's rise and fall.

For entry number 2 (making it, confusingly, fourth place in the rankings), we have something completely different: a movie about the fucked-up process of writing a movie, rather than about what that fucked-up process does to your personality over the long term.

Adaptation

Talking about the plot of Adaptation and the story of how Adaptation got made is sort of a strange exercise, since it's, you know, exactly the same story.

For example:

Adaptation (the story) begins when Charlie Kaufman (the screenwriter) gets a commission to adapt Susan Orlean's book The Orchid Thief into a movie. He struggles neurotically for a while, going through intense periods of self loathing, before finally figuring out how to end it.

Adaptation (the movie) begins when Charlie Kaufman gets a commission to adapt Susan Orlean's book The Orchid Thief into a movie. He struggles neurotically for a while, going through....

You get the idea. The plot of the movie isn't just like the story of it's making. It is the story of it's making. Kaufman received the commission to write the screenplay in 1994 and struggled for years to adapt it into a movie (the movie was finally released in 2002).

He tried at first to write a straight adaptation, but eventually he realized he had failed (in his defense, stealing orchids is a fairly fucking boring idea for a movie), so he decided to write a movie about a guy named Charlie Kaufman trying to adapt a book about stealing orchids into a movie.

Kaufman's explanation?

"I thought it was interesting because that's what I was thinking about. I find I write best when I write what I'm thinking about. What I was thinking about was that I was completely unable to write this script."

Uh, okay.

Now if it sounds like I'm being pithy about the movie, well, that's because this is as loony an idea for a movie as has ever been attempted (including this, which is saying something).

All of this makes it even more remarkable that Adaptation is even watchable, much less a great movie. I mean, can you imagine a less cinematic image than of a man staring at a computer (or typewriter), wracked with self-loathing and indecision?

We can't either.

But somehow Adaptation makes it work, and it's an interesting exercise itself to try and figure out how it does that.

Part of it, I think, is that we respond to the sheer audacity of the concept. Adaptation is one of a kind, and watching it navigating the minefield of it's own making has a kind of thrill. We sort of keep expecting it to go awry, and then finally at the end, when it does (on purpose!), there's a kind of delight in it.

Second is that the movie is just so goddamn well written. Kaufman writes a version of himself who tries so hard but is yet so pitiful and socially inept as to come completely around and be likeable again.

VALERIE (movie producer): Laroche is a fun character, isn't he?

Kaufman nods, flipping through the book, stalling. There's a smiling author photo of Susan Orlean on the inside back cover.

KAUFMAN: And Orlean makes orchids so fascinating. Plus her musings on Florida, orchid hunting. Great, sprawling New Yorker stuff. I'd want to remain true to that, let the movie exist rather than be artificially plot driven.

VALERIE: Okay, great, great. I guess I'm not exactly sure what that means.

KAUFMAN: Oh. Well... I'm not sure exactly yet either. So... y'know, it's...

VALERIE: Oh. Okay. Great. So, um, what --

KAUFMAN: It's just, I don't want to compromise by making it a Hollywood product. An orchid heist movie. Or changing the orchids into poppies and turning it into a movie about drug running. Y'know?

VALERIE: Oh, of course. We agree. Definitely.

KAUFMAN: Or cramming in sex, or car chases, or guns. Or characters learning profound life lessons. Or characters growing or characters changing or characters learning to like each other or characters overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end. Y'know? Movie shit.

Kaufman is sweating like crazy now. Valerie is quiet for a moment.

VALERIE: See, we thought maybe Susan Orlean and Laroche could fall in love during the course of --

KAUFMAN: Alienated journalist writes about passionate backwoods guy and he teaches her to love. I mean, it didn't happen. It wouldn't happen. It's Hollywood.

When you watch the movie again you end up laughing at this scene, because of course all of the "Hollywood shit" Kaufman hates in this scene ends up in the movie.

The question you end up asking yourself after you've seen the movie a few times is this:

Is the character of Donald Kaufman (Charlie's invented by-the-numbers screenwriter brother) and the intentionally cliched ending intended completely as a commentary on trumped up action and cliched endings in general, or did the real Kaufman just find he was completely unable to make a watchable movie out of the material, and designed the meta-movie device and the ending because there was no actual way to end the movie?

I mean, there's a bit of difference between that ending being a thought out, intentional critique of the movie business, and Kaufman coming to the conclusion there's no other goddamn way to end the movie, so here's something that might knock down a few buildings.

Frankly, I've seen the movie a few times, and I still don't know. While writing this blog entry, I did some reading to try and find out, but I could never find a statement that cleared it up. All Kaufman seems willing to say is that he tried adapting the book straight and what became the final draft evolved from months and years of writers block about how to do it.

But despite not having a clear answer, just the fact that Adaptation poses the question is enough to rank it with the best movies about movies ever made. I mean, how many movies give you the opportunity to consider such a freaky thing... or any of the other fascinating questions the movie poses (for instance: is Robert McKee -- featured in the scene below -- really that big of an asshole?)

Probably.

And beyond all of that, when you're sitting there watching it, the movie just works, despite being strung together out of what seems to be little bits of duct tape, laughing and shrugging all the way down to the last frame.

What a movie!

The Best Movies About Movies (part 1 of 5)

2009-09-22T01:50:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure exactly where it was along the evolutionary trip that humans developed a powerful attraction to lists, but if I had to guess I'd place it somewhere during our reptilian phase, since it is the reptilian brain where the truly reflexive and involuntary aspects of human behavior are born.

I mean, everybody loves lists.

You. Me. Them. Everybody. Everybody.

The only thing better than a list of things, it seems, is a list of things that's divisible by five (for instance: five things). In the List Making Guidebook, it strongly advocates doing this, even if, say, you're trying to rank the Seven Dwarves (seven is not divisible by five. I think).

Another tenant of the List Making Guidebook? The only downside to making lists -- which is that no one (and we do mean fucking no one) will entirely agree with your picks. And they will (and we do mean fucking will) let you know about it.

So it is with this in mind that I devised this clever little five (!) part series, to be published (if you can really call it that), over the next 10 days.

And what's to be listed, you ask patiently?

Ah, yes. A favorite/speciality of mine: Movies about movies (or meta-movies, if you want to get all douchey about it). This is a fairly unusual genre but one (as a lover of movies) I really, uh... love. I make a point to watch these kinds of movies whenever I can and have watched enough of them I feel qualified enough (or maybe just douchey enough) to attempt a list.

To trim the list into a workable five I had to be sort of stringent about what constituted a movie about the movies (which is why, say, Who Framed Roger Rabbit didn't make the cut, since it uses the movie business principally as a setting rather than a subject). I also had to leave out a couple of pretty good movies that fit my guidelines -- the subject of an "Honorable Mention" post I'll do at the end.

Anyhow, my methodology should be fairly self evident as I go along. And if it isn't, we recommend you direct your complaints to the proper place.

Movie about Movies #5:

Boogie Nights

If you only knew how many captions I've written for this picture.

The story of a fucked up kid blessed with "one special thing" (his wang), Boogie Nights tracks the rise and fall (get it?) of his entry (get it?) into the "golden age of porn" of the 70s.

Starring Mark Wahlberg as Eddie Adams (who eventually changes his name to Dirk Diggler), Boogie Nights is, essentially, a classic tragic story, featuring a rise to fame, the corruption of fame leading to a fall on hard (get it?) times, and a redemptive ending where lessons are learned and relationships mended.

That story -- of a meteoric rise and fall -- is common to movies about movies for reasons that are actually sort of obvious: it's the story of Hollywood.

A few years ago, after all, Diablo Cody won an Oscar for writing Juno. This year, her movie Jennifer's Body took a huge dump at the box office, placing sixth (out of four).

For me, the chief attribute of Boogie Nights is in it's details: the direction, characters, acting, sets and tone are all brilliant. And then there's this sequence -- as hilarious, terrifying and awesome a scene as I've seen in a movie.

The main difference between Boogie Nights' story arc and the normal rise and fall Hollywood story is that Boogie Nights actually ends sort of happily. After nearly getting killed in the above scene, Wahlberg returns to his porn "family," begs for forgiveness and is accepted.

As we'll see by some of the upcoming movies on this list, that's actually somewhat unusual. Movies about movies usually end on a downer for their protagonists. And that's, you know, probably appropriate, since if William Faulkner wasn't exactly right in saying that the problem with American lives is they have no second acts, he's almost entirely right if you confine it strictly to Hollywood.

After all, John Holmes (upon whom the Wahlberg character was based) fell into drug addiction and died of AIDS. He didn't make a comeback. Neither did John Belushi or Chris Farley. We'll see about Diablo Cody (though as a former stripper she'll probably land on her feet. Or her tits).

The redemption of a guy like Robert Downey, Jr. (or, to a less talented extent, Charlie Sheen) is notable in part because it's so unusual. It's so hard to get there getting there in the first place getting back must seem even harder than, uh... even harder than avoiding making dick jokes has been in this post.

But it works in Boogie Night because the characters are drawn so well and so precisely that by the end they're just kind of a fucked up family, loving and protective of each other. When Wahlberg's character "returns," it isn't to glory, but to his adopted family. It's where he belongs. And in it's own twisted way, it seems right.

My friend Matt, plus a few words about Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

2009-09-17T12:57:00.004-05:00

This is my friend Matt.

Matt came into town about a week ago to visit my brother and myself, and we've spent the last several days driving all over the state, visiting friends and whooping it up in a very childish manner.

Not pictured: a man trying to throw a baby through this.

All this weirdness has led me to remember movies that chronicle this same kind of demented journey. And of course when you do that one movie rises to the forefront:

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Despite the fact that I was a journalism major when I arrived on campus for my first day of college, I had still never even heard of Hunter Thompson. And I still hadn't heard of him until I watched this movie (thanks, Ryan).

Anyhow, I loved the movie, and I immediately set out to learn everything there was to learn about Thompson.

Not pictured: his ears, which I snuck into his funeral home and cut off.

So why is Fear and Loathing the best roadtrip/freak out movie ever made? Well, it's right there in the dialogue.

"Our trip was different."

Rather than being a Euro Trip-esque story of a bunch of dimwitted college students getting drunk and falling down, Fear and Loathing turns the run amuck story into a kind of hilarious rebellion thing, played out with wit and anger rather than befuddled stoner-ism.

I mean, sure, as with pretty much all of Thompson's work, it's rooted in a a kind of male fantasy adventure (after all, who wouldn't enjoy tearing up a hotel room, ordering massive amounts of room service and skipping out on the bill if they could?), but it was also mixed with a strong dose of righteous outrage and sadness.

After all, Fear and Loathing the book was designed as part craziness and part love letter. In the book, Thompson and Acosta go on a poorly executed, only semi-conscious search for "the American dream" (they skip over it in the movie). After a conversation with a girl in a fast food joint, they find there was a dentist's office called "The American Dream," but it had burned down a few years ago.

For Thompson, this was a strongly important metaphor. In his mind, the American dream of Berkley and Kennedy had died after Kent State, Chicago '68 and the political assassinations of the late 60s, and the hope of a new permanent psyche had been lost forever.

At it's heart, Fear and Loathing is the story of a guy who's had dreams and seen them burned away. And now that they're gone, he's pissed off and sad about it and ready to wreak havoc as a way to stay occupied. His target: Las Vegas -- American destination spot, fun factory and excess capital. Duke and Gonzo hate everywhere they go in Vegas and destroy everything they see. The only thing treated with tenderness is memories of California in the middle sixties, "the kind of peak that will never come again."

So while most people who watch the movie now probably don't know the background, it's still a relatable story. We all have dreams that fall away. We all go through the various stages of grief after they die. And we all hope we can be liberated from our sadness -- even if only for a little while -- by engaging in a little hilariously anarchic debauchery.

A Few Words About Inglourious Basterds

2009-09-09T02:16:00.012-05:00

So last weekend I went out to my local megaplex and watched Inglourious Basterds, the new Tarantino movie.

And I've got to tell you, the movie didn't surprise me one bit. Every plot twist, every nuance. Shit, even most of the dialogue.

I saw it all coming.

Am I a psychic, you ask?

Surprisingly, no. I just... you know. I'd read the script already.

Anyhow, this was a new experience for me. Most of the time I read a script after I've watched the movie. A script, after all, is best described as the blueprint for a movie, and reading one before you've watched the movie is sort of like looking at a set of blueprints before you've seen the building.

But that's what I did with Inglourious Basterds anyway, to see what it was like, to see how different it would be and if my opinion of it would change. I'd heard the final draft of the shooting script had leaked so I secured myself a copy.

Then I sat down a read it, knowing I'd be sacrificing some of the joy of watching the movie for the first time in the process.

So what was it like, you ask patiently, hoping I'll move on to another topic?

Well, the truth is I probably should have picked a different script, because the Inglourious Basterds script, with few exceptions, was exactly like the fucking movie.

With the exception of an extensive beer pong sequence.

That is, of course, without all the typos. The goddamn script was riddled with them. Tarantino is apparently some combination of dyslexic, lazy and a bad speller. For instance: Adolf Hitler is spelled "Adolph Hitler."

At the end of the day, though, my experience of reading it was, like I said, almost exactly like my experience of watching it (sans the music, of course, and the smell of farts). And when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense why.

A Tarantino movie is inevitably talky (and whatever you think about it, Inglourious Basterds is a very talky movie), to the point that many scenes essentially boil down to a few talking heads. The drama is carried out by the situation and the inventiveness of the dialogue (which I can report was nearly line for line), and all of that is in the script.

Thinking back over it, I actually think the movie would have worked just as well as a radio play, since you realize after doing what I did just how few of the scenes were carried primarily by the visuals (like this scene from Pulp Fiction).

And that's fine. Glengarry Glen Ross is non-visual, too, and it's one of my favorite movies.

In the final evaluation, I think it's a useful exercise. But the next time I do this it'll have to be something not quite so talky (that means you, Zach and Miri Make a Porno!)

Oh, and my grade on the movie (since I can tell you were all eagerly awaiting that): 3 stars out of 5.

The movie was only so-so, I thought. The first sequence is amazing and the rest sort of fizzles. The Hans Landa character really stood out in the script and I'm glad he was well played (though I honestly thought he read better).

I'd say it goes in the Death Proof file, though Inglourious Basterds, for all it's gung ho weirdness, wasn't nearly as playful as that movie.

The Worst Movies... Ever

2009-09-06T11:37:00.002-05:00

Congratulations, May!

If you know me at all, you take one look at that poster and say, "Joe, why the fuck did you watch that movie?"

And that's a pretty good question. After all, I don't particularly like horror movies. And when I'm not laughing at them, I can't say I think too highly of goth people, either (though to be honest, that's why I'm laughing at them).

So why did I watch this monumental piece of shit? Well, take a look at this picture.

This is Natasha. No really, that's her name. Once upon a time, Natasha and I were roommates, sharing an apartment at one of the worst apartment complexes in Gainesville (which is really saying something).

The story of my time living there with Natasha as my roommate is a incredibly weird, vaguely fucked up affair, but for purposes of this story only one thing really matters.

May is her favorite movie.

Of course, I'd never heard of it, and when she asked me whether I'd like to see this "really awesome movie," I should have said, "uh, no fucking way," but instead I said "sure". And man did I fucking live to regret it.

The Plot

May is the story is a lonely, awkward girl (named May) with a lazy eye whose only friend is a freakishly weird-looking doll named Suzy.

Yeah.

Anyhow, May works at a veterinary hospital and becomes infatuated with a local mechanic named Adam, played by Jeremy Sisto. She's particularly interested in his hands. Strangely, a magical pony does not at any point show up.

May and Adam begin dating, and at some point he shows her a movie he's made for school called "Jack and Jill" about a young couple who go on a picnic only to end up eating each other.

As you can imagine, that makes May's special parts all tingly, and when the movie's over she attacks him, biting his lip to the point of drawing blood. May apologizes, blaming her doll. For some incomprehensible reason, Adam is surprised by this behavior, freaks out and leaves.

At this point, May gives in to a lesbian colleague played by Anna Faris. Sadly, this promising sequence does not particularly go anywhere.

But Wait, it Gets Worse

I won't bore you with too much more of the minutiae of the plot. The basic idea is this: May accidentially kills a cat given to her by the Anna Faris character. Instead of burying it, she keeps in her freezer. When some skater punk comes over, he makes the unforgivably stupid mistake of looking in a freaky person's freezer and finds the cat. He freaks out, and May stabs him in the head with a pair of scissors.

What happens next really deserves to be quoted from the plot summary:

At Polly's house, (May) and Polly carry on a normal conversation about work until May pulls out a couple of scalpels she stole from the animal hospital and puts them in each side of Polly's neck. Polly laughs at her, thinking this is a joke and stating that she knows that May would never hurt her until May actually starts cutting her neck, much to Polly's astonishment, before dying.

Yeah. Anyhow, May keeps killing her friends, believing that if she just takes parts from each of them, she can create some kind of horrific "super friend."

So she kills a friend of hers with long legs and cuts off the legs. She kills Adam and cuts off his hands. And at home, she assembles her, uh, friend, calling her Amy.

And then this happens.

(Once it's) finished, (May) realizes that Amy can't actually see her. So, in a rush of misery, she gouges out her right eye (the lazy one) with the scissors. Crying in pain, she puts in on Amy's head and sobbingly begs for the toy to look at her. Exasperated and in pain, May leans her head against Amy's shoulder. May sees her friend suddenly come to life and touch her face lovingly, with Adam's treasured hands. May smiles, and the credits roll.

So imagine for a second being in my shoes. The movie has just ended, and you look over at your roommate, the person who recommended it, a freakish goth person named Natasha.

This is her favorite movie.

The main character, who she clearly identifies with, just butchered and mutilated a bunch of people.

Oh, and you just spent the last two hours of your life watching an incredibly shitty movie.

Yeah.

I remember just sort of backing away slowly and making a note to lock the door to my room. Natasha and I weren't roommates for much longer. I moved out with three months left on the lease.

Celebrity Birthday of the Day

2009-09-02T11:25:00.008-05:00

Happy Birthday, Hal Ashby!

Hal Ashby's story is one of the great (ie tragic) rise and fall stories of Hollywood.

Born in 1929 in Ogden, Utah and raised as a Mormon, Ashby put his fucked up childhood this way:

"I was... the last of four children. Mom and Dad divorced when I was five or six. Dad killed himself when I was 12. I struggled growing up, like others, totally confused. Married and divorced twice before I made it to 21. Hitchhiked to Los Angeles when I was 17. Had about 50 or 60 jobs up to the time I was working as a Multilith operator at good old Republic Studios."

Ashby parlayed his various jobs at Hollywood studios (he started as a printing press operator at Universal) into being a freelance assistant film editor. While doing this, he made friends with an MGM messenger by the name of Jack Nicholson (who he would later direct in The Last Detail).

Talented, driven and weird, Ashby was soon a full-fledged editor, and it only took until his fourth movie to get his big break: editing Norman Jewison's In the Heat of the Night.

It's much more exciting edited together.

He won an Academy Award for editing the movie, and three years later he directed his first film, a Beau Bridges vehicle called The Landlord. The next year he released the tender/creepy story of a romance between an incredibly old woman and a teenager -- one of the great love stories of our time: Harold and Maude.

They bang. They bang hard.

Ashby made a number of noted (code for: I haven't seen them) films after Harold and Maude, including Shampoo, a movie about a hairdresser that stars Warren Beatty (the reason I haven't seen it should be fairly evident).

But before the decade was out, he managed to direct one of my very favorite movies, Being There, starring Peter Sellers in his last major role.

The story of a functionally retarded gardener whose generalized ramblings about plants and the seasons are mistaken for profundity, Being There cracked open the world of politics and celebrity in a hilariously bitter way, prodding us to pay attention to content rather than superficial assumptions about who someone is and how they look. The controversial ending (which I dare not give away), remains one of my favorite moments in the movies, since (in my reading of it) it plays the same trick on the audience that so far been played on everyone else in the movie. It's conceit dares you to look through it, and the implication is that if you don't, then you're no better than the dopes you've been snickering at the rest of the movie.

Sadly, Being There marked the effective end for Ashby. Though he had for most of his life been charitably described as an eccentric, he now began the slow slide into madness. Drugs and obsessive behavior began to take their hold. He refused to eat in front of other people. He began to take so long in the editing room several projects were taken away from him so they could be finished.

By the time he had straightened himself out, he was diagnosed with cancer that quickly spread throughout his body. He died on December 27, 1988.

But he left behind a series of totally unique movies (many of which, especially from his 1971-79 phase, I will surely get around to watching), filled with idiosyncratic characters, intelligent concepts and sly humor.

As a parting video, I present this funny scene from Harold and Maude.

Note: If you haven't seen this movie, this is one of Harold's fake suicides, which he stages to try to get a reaction out of his mother.

Netflix cont'd

2009-08-30T09:17:00.003-05:00

A little more than two weeks ago, I wrote my first entry about Netflix. At that point, I had 145 movies in my queue and 579 rated movies, both of which seem like a lot.

Uh, not so much. These days I'm up to 193 movies in the queue and 769 rated movies. This would seem like showing off if it wasn't actually saying that I clearly spend way too much time watching movies (769 movies, assuming I've only watched them all once, which I definitely haven't, translates to more than 64 straight days).

Anyhow, as last time, I thought I would review a few of the movies that I've been working my way through.

#1 Shoot the Piano Player (1964, Francois Truffaut) tells the story of Charlie, a once famous concert pianist (played by 5'3" Charles Aznavour, looking amazingly like a water rat) who, driven to depression after his wife's suicide, has been reduced to playing in a parisian bar under a pseudonym.

Now, the movie's description says that "when his brothers get in trouble with gangsters, Charlie inadvertently gets dragged into the chaos and is forced to rejoin the family he once fled."

And that's the part that grabbed me. Sadly, however, the movie wasn't really like that, choosing to spend most of it's 84 minute running time focusing on Charlie's past and his budding romance with a waitress in the bar, who fortunately doesn't look at all like a water rat.

But once I got over my disappointment, I found Shoot the Piano Player pretty enjoyable. It switches back a forth a bit between comedic and noir touches. But, aside from the end, where Charlie's son gets kidnapped by mobsters who are looking for his brother and Charlie is forced to go after them, the movie is mostly a portrait of a damaged guy who, rather than dealing with his problems, has escaped into a level of existence low enough he hope he can hide from them.

But, as the movie proves, eventually it catches up with you.

My rating: 3.5 stars out of 5.

#2 The Verdict (1982, Sidney Lumet) is the story of Frank Gavlin, a down on his luck alcoholic lawyer played brilliantly by Paul Newman. Reduced from his once promising career to stalking funeral homes and giving his card to the bereaved, Gavlin is on his way out.

Then a friend of his (played by Jack Warden) shows up, offering him an easy case: a woman was given the wrong anesthetic and ended up with brain damage. Gavlin sees an easy payday, but while investigating the case, something in him suddenly snaps, and he decides he wants to try and win it in court rather than settle.

Standing in his way is an attorney dubbed the "Prince of Darkness" (played with charming ruthlessness by one of my favorite actors, James Mason), who will stop at nothing to beat Gavlin, and an antagonistic judge.

Now if you're thinking this story sounds a bit cliche, well, you're right. But the movie doesn't play that way. Newman, Lumet and legendary screenwriter David Mamet conspire to make the plot seem to spring from the peculiarities of the characters. And while the story and character seem grim, Newman's charm makes its way through his portrayal of the damaged Gavlin.

The character's final summation is one of the most famous in the history of the movies.

My rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.

#3 Rififi (1955, Jules Dassin) is a wonderful French crime movie. Directed by the expatriate Dassin, an American who had been forced to flee the US due to HUAC, Rififi tells the story of a group of thieves who plan and execute an elaborate jewel heist.

The key character is Tony le Stephanois, a serious-as-a-heart attack ex-con riddled with tuberculosis played Jean Servais with tired, lethal authority (Servais himself was an alcoholic).

In a sequence that would inspire countless heist films to follow, the burglars cut through a hole in the ceiling above the jewelry store, crack the safe and escape with the jewels. The sequence is done without music or dialogue and takes up a quarter of the movie's 115 minute running time. And it's fantastic. It was realistic enough to get the movie banned in Finland and Mexico, where it was thought that similar burglaries would be attempted because of it.

But as exciting as the burglary is, the movie is still only half over. Due to carelessness by one of the team, a ruthless nightclub owner with a longstanding feud with le Stephanois finds out about the team, and he goes about tracking them down. Eventually, the son of one of the men is kidnapped. This springs le Stephanois, coughing and brutal, into action, and he begins to hunt the men down, tracking them to a house in the country.

Rififi is the perfect example of a well executed crime/noir film. Though the protagonists are thieves and killers, they're loyal to each other and to a code of conduct. As hardbitten as le Stephanois is, in earlier scenes he's gentle with the young boy who eventually gets kidnapped, making his desperate search for him something we can identify with.

So yeah, it's a great movie. And a bonus, to you folks who want to see it, is that someone's posted a high quality version of it on YouTube. Embedding has been disabled, but it's available at this link:

Rififi part 1 of 12.

Part 2 is here, to give you an idea how the titles have been formatted.

Needless to say, Rififi gets a 5 out of 5.

So that's that. I didn't get a chance to review Buster Keaton's Seven Chances here. But if you're interested, it was good, but not great. Say a 3 out of 5.

The Importance of Remembering Ernest

2009-08-27T01:32:00.006-05:00

An abbreviated (ie, half-assed) post today, inspired not by a birthday or even a death day, but by this funny video I found today.

As a kid, I loved the Ernest movies. I remember going to see Ernest Scared Stupid in the theater (dragging one of my parents along). I would have been nine years old. After a few months went by, I wanted to rent it, so we went to the video store. Being a shy kid, I asked my mother to ask the person behind the desk if they had it.

Now, my mother is a wonderful woman. I love her dearly. She is the most giving, self-sacrificing person I have ever known.

Her response to my (forgive the pun) earnest plea?

"If you want to know whether they have it, go ask them yourself."

Yeah. My mom wasn't a fan of ol' Ernest. And how could you blame her? We watched the shit out of those Ernest movies.

To give you an idea, let's say I'd developed incurable cancer and my dying wish had been to meet Jim Varney. I'll bet you anything that if he'd actually showed up and started doing that whole "knowwhutimean?" schtick, there's no way she would have been able to restrain herself from kicking him square in the balls.

Fortunately for everyone, that didn't happen. Unfortunately for me, however, they didn't have Ernest Scared Stupid. As a matter of fact, they never had it. I went back a few times and always made sure to ask, and then at some point (like two weeks ago) I just stopped asking, having grown out of it.

But I'm a big ol' nostalgic softy, so these movies still hold a place in my heart.

At some point I'll probably Netflix Ernest Goes to Camp, which has this adorable/ridiculous scene in it.

It's a good thing the Germans never thought of this. They could have captured the world.

Fun Fact: The character of Ernest P. Worrell was created by an advertising company for use as a versatile pitchman. Among the companies Varney did commercials for as the character was Kroger's, a grocery store chain that's apparently big in Tennessee (speciality: sows ears).

Fun Fact Part Deux: Jim Varney (who died in 2000) had a near genius I.Q. level. When people would come up to him and begin to treat him as though he were actually Ernest, his normal response was to shout equations at them until this happened.

Fun Fact 33 1/3: The "P" in Ernest P. Worrell stands for "Powertools". No seriously. That's what it stands for.

Fun Fact Brett Favre: These "fun facts" are a lot easier to write than paragraphs with transitions.

Knowwhutimean?

The Worst Movies... Ever (with a Miscasties on top!)

2009-08-24T22:06:00.011-05:00

Congratulations, Batman and Robin (1997)!

When I started making a mental list of movies to include on this series, Batman and Robin was, of course, one of the first that occurred to me. But despite that, I've avoided it until now.

Why? Because making fun of Batman and Robin is almost too easy.

Talking about this hunk of monkey turds is more than anything an exercise in superlatives. I mean, exactly how many ways can you say "it sucks" before you run out of ideas?

For instance: does it suck "like a starving Ethiopian whore"?

Or is it's terribleness better expressed by the notion that if movies were US presidents, Batman and Robin is probably Stalin.

I distinctly remember the experience of watching Batman and Robin in the theater. I was 15 and had really liked Batman Forever, and even though they had replaced Val Kilmer as Batman, you know, who gave a shit? Val Kilmer was a mediocre Batman. I remember reading a story where some actress said all you needed to play Batman was great lips, and "George has great lips."

Yeah, not so much. From frame 1, you could tell Clooney had realized he'd made a mistake and had decided to phone it in. Hard. If Rule #1 of acting is to believe every line of dialogue you give... well, Batman and Robin proves George Clooney's capacity to be a terrible actor.

In retrospect, it should have been obvious he'd be terrible. Clooney's chief attribute as an actor is his ability to display a kind of ironic amusement. His entire performance in Ocean's Eleven is built on this.

As Batman, this is all wrong. After all, Batman is an inherently ridiculous concept. If you don't sell it, you make everyone in the audience sort of realize, "hey, that guy's wearing a rubber bat costume!"

This is not to say, of course, that even Laurence Olivier could have made Batman and Robin into a good movie (though I'd have paid good money to watch him try), or that Clooney is the only one terrible in it. I mean, the truth is that almost the entire cast of Batman and Robin could be given one of my coveted Miscasties.

After all, we're talking about Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl. And also Uma Thurman, as Poison Ivy, who clearly didn't learn her lesson from appearing in this piece of shit.

And then, of course, there's Arnold Schwarzenegger, as criminal supervillain Mr. Freeze.

On paper, casting Arnold as Mr. Freeze made some sense. After all, the script calls for Mr. Freeze to deliver a lot of cheesy one liners, and if there's one thing Arnold's good at, it's one liners.

But on Batman and Robin, they forgot something pretty important: the one liners have to be, you know, good.

Upon busting in:

Mr. Freeze: Ice to see you!

After hearing Poison Ivy's plan for them to rule Gotham together, despite the fact that one of them wants to turn the Earth into an iceberg and the other wants to turn the Earth into a giant greenhouse:

Mr. Freeze: Adam and Evil!

To his henchmen:

Mr. Freeze: Let's kick some ice!

I realize at this point I haven't even described the plot. Do I need to? By this point, you get the idea. The whole thing's a shit sandwich. And all of us who went and watched it in the theaters? Well, we all had to take a bite.

What do we get in return? Well, this.

A Few Words About the Title of the Blog

2009-08-22T01:08:00.008-05:00

So I've been doing the blog for about three months now, and those of you who read it regularly are by now fairly attuned to what it's about: rude jokes, weird trivia, snark and a celebration/recognition of people who don't get enough celebration/recognition.

All that's all fine. But as a matter of semantics, at this point the blog's content doesn't really have anything to do with the title, which of course is Hollywood Humiliation.

Now I explained this in my first post all those moons ago, but it bears repeating: I've decided to make a rather significant life change and pursue the ridiculous dream of working in Hollywood, you know, on movies and stuff.

That explains the Hollywood.

The Humiliation refers to the most likely outcome of such a desire, which is that I get in one way or another humiliated, ie fail miserably.

Like this, only in Hollywood.

And, you know, this seemed like a pretty good title for it at the time. Amusing, but self-deprecating. And I was pretty happy with it until I discussed it with my good friend Liz, and we had this exchange.

"So, what are you calling it?" she asked.

"Hollywood Humiliation," I said. Then I explained the above.

Suddenly she's laughing.

"What?" I said.

"What if people think by humiliation you mean, you know?"

This.

"Oh shit!" I said. "I didn't think of that!"

By then, it was pretty much too late to change it, and by now it's certainly too late. Here at the ol' HH we're up to about 600 unique page views per month, which isn't great or anything, but it's certainly more than you would expect from one dumbass and his funny, funny jokes.

So it makes me wonder whether, you know, people come to the site expecting to find something that isn't here (like, for instance, funny funny jokes).

So for the record, to all of you freaky ass people out there: this blog will never make reference to ball gags, chains, whipping, hot wax, slaves, masters, furries or the like, unless in a humorous context (though when you think about it, how could those things not be humorous, no matter what the context?).

That is all. Feel free to go about your incredibly fucked-up business.

Signed,

Management

Celebrity Birthday of the Day

2009-08-19T00:12:00.006-05:00

Happy Birthday, Philo T. Farnsworth!

Farnsworth is not particularly remembered today, but he should be. Why? Because that picture up there, of the TV, he's responsible for it.

The TV, I mean. Not the picture.

What I'm trying to say is: Philo T. Farnsworth invented the television as we know it. As in, you know, came up with it.

Pretty cool, huh?

Well, it wasn't quite so cool for Philo, who eventually came to regard the TV as a monster that wasted people's lives (also known as "having fun"). Philo so despised television programming he wouldn't even have one in his house.

Oh, and he died essentially penniless. And is forgotten.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's go back to the beginning.

Philo Taylor Farnsworth was born in 1906 near Beaver City (in what we can only hope is called Coochie County) Utah. The town had been founded in 1859 by Farnsworth's grandfather on the orders of some person called Brigham Young. I believe they founded a University named after him or something.

When Philo was 12, his family moved to a ranch in Idaho four miles from the nearest school (this seemed a lot farther when even if you had a car -- which the Farnsworth's didn't -- it looked like this). A huge nerd, Philo was fascinated by electrons and electricity, and asked to take extra courses at the school in technology.

Well, that electronic stuff just made sense to ol' Philo. Watching a field being plowed when he was 14, Farnsworth dreamed up the the cold cathode ray tube, a device still in use in many TV's today.

You and I see a corn field. Farnsworth saw television.

Not unlike Doc Brown (who has a hilariously long Wikipedia entry), it took a few years (in this case, seven) before Philo had the money to build one.

Once he built it, he gave it a terrible name: the "Image Dissector." Televisions at the time used mechanical scanning devices known as "Nipkow discs" which were combined with photoelectric cells. Farnsworth's Image Dissector was completely electrical, and by 1929, two years after debuting it, he was making the best TVs on the planet.

Oh, and he was just 23.

Things probably would have ended pretty well for ol' Philo if it hadn't been for a man named David Sarnoff, the head of RCA at the time. Sensing the potential of television, he sent his chief engineer, Vladamir Zworykin, to take a tour of Philo's laboratory.

Impressed by what he saw, Zworykin cheerfully copied Philo's advancements and combined them with a design of his own called the Iconoscope.

Then, as you can probably guess, all hell broke loose.

I won't bore you with the boring details (since I have read them and can confirm they are indeed boring), but it took until 1935 before Farnsworth was awarded "priority of invention" for the electrical TV. Sarnoff and RCA appealed, but were eventually forced to pay Farnsworth $1 million in royalties.

But not for long. The patents for Farnsworth's major advancements expired shortly after WWII (when sales of TVs had been suspended). As soon as they did, RCA took control of the television business, and with a energetic public relations campaign, promoted Sarnoff and Zworykin as the "fathers of television."

Things kind of went downhill from there. Farnsworth began drinking. He suffered from depression. In 1947, his house burned down.

But he kept on inventing. By the time of his death, he held more than 300 patents, helping to create radar, infra-red night vison, air-traffic control systems, the electron microscope, baby incubators, and the astronomical telescope.

Oh, and he invented a process for nuclear fusion. But development went slowly, and when investors started cashing in their loans, Farnsworth went broke and died shortly after of pneumonia at the age of 64.

So there he was, one of God's own prototypes, and I think it's past time we celebrate Philo T. Farnsworth for giving us the opportunity to waste so much time. What would any of us do without him?

Oh, that's right.

The Worst Movies... Ever

2009-08-15T23:19:00.014-05:00

Congratulations, The Thin Red Line (1998)

Pictured: a piece of shit

The Thin Red Line is that incredibly rare breed: the intolerably boring war movie. Why? Because the director, Terrence Malick, took his superb cast (Sean Penn, George Clooney, John Caviezel, Adrian Brody, John C. Reilly, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Nick Nolte, and John Travolta), and the WWII battle on Guadacanal and used them to ask a bunch of lazily philosophical and totally unsubtle questions about the nature of war and existence.

Take for instance this snippet of voice over from Caviezel's character:

Private Witt: This great evil. Where does it come from? How'd it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us? Robbing us of life and light. Mockin' us with the sight of what we might've known. Does our ruin benefit the Earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed to this night?

Uh, what? And how about this:

Japanese Soldier: Are you righteous? Kind? Does your confidence lie in this? Are you loved by all? Know that I was, too. Do you imagine your suffering will be any less because you loved goodness and truth?

I mean, yeah. This is the kind of pretentious rambling brain diarrhea you expect to find from a freshman year philosophy student doing mushrooms for the first time, not a war movie that's supposed to be, you know, entertaining.

The making of the movie itself is one of the great fucked-up stories of the cinema.

The story of the movie begins in the late 1970s, when a pair of producers, Barry Geisler and John Roberdeau, approached Malick (who had made a name for himself with Badlands and Days of Heaven) with an offer of $250,000 to write an adaptation of James Jones' book The Thin Red Line.

Malick agreed, but his first draft, delivered five months later, was more than 300 pages (translating to about five hours of movie), and featured research Malick had done on pacific reptiles, Japanese drummers and Navajo code talkers.

Instead of realizing they were clearly dealing with a crazy person, Geisler and Roberdeau (neither of whom, it bears noting, have produced a movie since, though in Roberdeau's case it probably has something to do with dying in 2002) jumped in with both feet, spending long hours discussing the film with Malick.

According to Barry Geisler, who we imagine to be a well meaning but naive sort of guy:

"Malick's Guadalcanal would be a Paradise Lost, an Eden, raped by the green poison, as Terry used to call it, of war. Much of the violence would be portrayed indirectly. A soldier is shot, but rather than showing a Spielbergian bloody face we see a tree explode, the shredded vegetation, and a gorgeous bird with a broken wing flying out a tree."

For some reason, no one bothered to ask whether the audience would know what the fuck was going on if you did that. Speaking as someone who's seen the movie: yeah, they do that. And yeah, it's baffling.

The project languished for a few more years, during which time Malick worked on other projects for Geisler and Roberdeau, eventually pocketing more than $2 million for his efforts. By 1995, Geisler and Roberdeau were broke, and Malick was off somewhere alternating between laughing at them and crying himself to sleep on books of teenage poetry. Finally they went to Malick to ask him to just fucking choose something.

20th Century Fox eventually agreed to put up $39 million for The Thin Red Line as long as Malick would cast five movie stars from a list of ten who were interested. As Malick's previous movies were apparently artsy fartsy, but good (not that you could pay me enough to watch them at this point), movies stars, sensing a reclusive "genius" in their midst and not wanting to miss an opportunity to get up all on 'dat, lined up 10 deep in every direction to do whatever Malick said.

"Give me a dollar and tell when to show up," Sean Penn, for example, told Malick. At various times, everyone from Kevin Costner to Leonardo DiCaprio to Brad Pitt to John Depp showed interest. None of them would end up in the movie.

Pre-production went slowly, as Malick, in a move pretty consistent with a guy who hadn't made a movie in 20 years at this point, had a tough time making decisions. Eventually they settled on the North Australian jungle as the location. But when it came time to shoot, Malick, in a hilariously dickish move, told Geisler and Roberdeau -- the two guys who had gone broke trying to get Malick's movie made -- that they weren't allowed on set, apparently over a dispute they'd had with other producers on the project over whose name would go over the credits.

The shoot itself ran for 100 days, which Wikipedia described this way:

"Malick's unconventional filming techniques included shooting part of a scene during a bright, sunny morning only to finish it weeks later at sunset. He would make a habit of pointing the camera away during an action sequence and focus on a parrot, a tree branch or other fauna."

The original cut of the movie, as you can probably guess, ran five hours. It took (and I'm not making this up) more than two years to edit it down to just three hours, during which time parts filmed by Billy Bob Thorton, Martin Sheen, Gary Oldman, Bill Pullman, Lukas Haas, Viggo Mortensen and Mickey Rourke were completely cut from the movie, and other appearances (like Clooney's and Travolta's) were trimmed until they were essentially cameos. Adrien Brody, told his character would "carry the movie", instead saw his part cut down to two lines and five minutes of screen time.

The end result was a seriously fucked up mess, wherein you have moments of extended voice over, shots of animals walking around, snippets of battle scenes and movie stars popping up and disappearing for no reason (like, say, Jennifer Garner showing up in Catch Me if You Can, except a whole movie like that).

I suppose, as much as anyone, I should blame the reviews, which were actually inexplicably good (79% on Rottentomatoes.com). Martin Scorsese actually called it his second favorite film of the 1990s (behind what, Cool As Ice?). Based on them, I bought the movie without having seen it or talked to anyone who saw it (ugh). And I still have it. A few days ago I rearranged my DVD collection, and there it was, laughing at me.

But through all of this, the movie does have at least one redeeming quality.

In one scene, Woody Harrelson gets his ass blown off. Literally.

@2:30

Netflix to the Rescue

2009-08-12T12:26:00.006-05:00

So I've sat here for a few minutes trying to think of something sarcastic to say about Netflix, but I can't. It's a great service. I've had it now for a week or so, and I have nothing but good things to say about it.

Currently I have 145 movies in my queue to go along with 579 rated movies, identifying me as someone who clearly has too much time on his hands.

Not quite this much, but pretty close.

So I'm liking the service. It gives me a chance to watch movies I've wanted to see but not enough to go buy on spec. So far, I've watched three of these, with another (Shoot the Piano Player) here on my desk, and I thought, in my capacity as a person who writes about Hollywood and movies, that I'd briefly review them. So here goes.

Movie #1, La Notte (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961), is a boring movie about bored people. That's it's not phenomenally boring is actually something of an achievement, since it's protagonists, a married couple played by Jeanne Moreau and Marcello Mastroianni, go through the movie phenomenally bored by everything: parties, restaurants and especially each other.

They float about in a kind of haze. Always polite to each other, but never more. Mastroianni's character gets involved in little flings. He tells his wife about one and she brushes it off as though she doesn't care. She takes a taxi to the dilapidated building they lived in as newlyweds but doesn't smile, and when Mastroianni comes to pick her up she observes it will probably be torn down soon.

You get what I'm saying? It's like that. Later they go to a party at the house of a rich man. Mastroianni gets a job offer and tries to seduce the rich man's daughter. Meanwhile Moreau wanders the property, briskly walking away when anyone gets near her.

I started watching the movie last night when I was tired and I had to turn it off 35 minutes in when I nearly fell out of my chair and hit my head on the side of my bed. I finished it this morning mostly out of habit.

My grade: 2 stars out of 5

Go West (Buster Keaton, 1925) was made during Keaton's "golden era" during the 1920s, but it's not one of his better movies. Keaton stars as "Friendless," a down on his luck drifter who gets a job on a cattle ranch even though he knows nothing about being a cowboy. Though this sounds like a potentially comedic situation (or perhaps it doesn't), the movie is only occasionally amusing and doesn't really go anywhere, even after Keaton makes friends with a cow named Brown Eyes and tries ineptly to save her from being slaughtered.

The final sequence, with Keaton dressed in a red devil's costume leading a herd of cows through the streets of LA to a slaughterhouse (if the cows don't get there, the man who owns the ranch will be ruined, and Keaton has become sweet on his daughter), is the best part of the movie, even though, when you think about it, it's just a lot of walking.

My grade: 2.5 stars out of 5

Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 1948), the legendary neo-realist movie, was the best of the three. With a cast of non-actors, the movie (also known as The Bicycle Thief due to a translating error), is about a poor man and his son searching the streets of Rome for his stolen bicycle, which he needs to work.

Though it drags here and there and features a notably bleak ending, I found it a fascinating portrait of an honest man stuck between his principles and his need to work. In 1952, four years after it was made, it was deemed the best movie of all time in the first Sight and Sound poll, now held once per decade (in the latest poll, held in 2002, it placed sixth).

Now, it's not as good as that, but I found it a well constructed morality tale. In the Alewine household, however, I was in the distinct minority, as my brother (whose idea it was to watch the movie in the first place) declared after it was over that he would have turned it off after 20 minutes. My father, who came in for the last 45 minutes or so, turned to us after when the credits started rolling and said, "uh, whose idea was it to watch this movie?"

My grade: 4 stars out of 5

So there, assholes.