6/22/14: It Came From Space! (Circa 1983 or Thereabouts)

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alien impregnation, alien invasion, aliens, Almost Human, Anthony Amaral III, B-movies, body horror, cinema, directorial debut, drive-in fare, extreme violence, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, Friday the 13th, friendships, gory films, Graham Skipper, Hobo With a Shotgun, horror, horror films, horror movies, Jami Tennille, Joe Begos, John Ethier, lights in the sky, low-budget films, missing friends, Movies, period-piece, psycho killers, sci-fi, sci-fi-horror, science-fiction, set in the 1980's, slasher films, The House of the Devil, UFOs, Vanessa Leigh, violent, writer-director

It’s not much of a secret that modern horror productions seem to be particularly enamored with the 1980s. Whether filmmakers are crafting straight-up remakes of popular ’80s titles or crafting films that are, basically, homages to ’80s horror, such as Gutterballs (2008), The House of the Devil (2009) or Hobo With a Shotgun (2011), the decade between Friday the 13th (1980) and Puppet Master (1989) certainly seems to be fertile soil, as of late. My theory on the reasoning behind this is pretty simple: as the folks who grew up on ’80s horror get older and move into positions where they can begin to create their own content (directors and writers, for sure, but I’m thinking specifically of producers and studios, here), it’s only natural for them to return to the stuff that first fired them up as kids. Whereas previous generations might have been influenced by weekly serials, ’60s-’70s pop-culture/societal issues and the Cold War, the generation of filmmakers who came of age in the ’80s were influenced by their own particular set of issues and found comfort in their own “new” subgenres, such as slasher films and graphic sci-fi/horror combos like Creature (1985) and The Fly (1986). When it finally came time for the “children of VHS” to make their own films, it shouldn’t be surprising that they returned to their formative era: once the folks who grew up in the ’90s begin to take over, we should be seeing lots of rebooted ’90s properties (there’s already a Scream TV series in the works, so the cycle appears to have begun a little early). Life, as Stephen King so eloquently put it, is such a wheel that it always, in the end, comes round to the same place again.

One-man wrecking crew, Joe Begos, is a little young to comfortably fit within my above theory (he was born in 1987, making him a good decade younger than his “peers”) but he fits the bill so perfectly that he must be an old soul. The writer-director-producer-cinematographer-camera operator behind Almost Human (2013) announced his entry to the world of feature filmmaking with a sci-fi horror movie that could have fit perfectly within the ’80s, sandwiched somewhere between Xtro (1983) and The Hidden (1987). Far from being just a clever approximation of a bygone decade, however, Begos’ film manages to combine all of the necessary ingredients (rudimentary acting, gory practical effects, plenty of action sequences, goopy makeup, intense violence) with a loopy sense of energy and comes up with something that’s suitably rough but just endearing enough to make you want to write Begos’ name on your Trapper Keeper. If ever there were a new genre filmmaker to watch, this guy might just be it.

Set in 1987, Almost Human kicks off in sci-fi high-gear with our terrified protagonist, Seth (Graham Skipper, looking like a slightly doughy Daniel Radcliffe), rushing to the cabin of best friend Mark (Josh Ethier) and his wife, Jen (Vanessa Leigh). Seth has just watched as mutual friend Rob was sucked up into the sky, via a shaft of blue light, and the event has him a little unsettled…actually, he’s in a complete panic but why split hairs? Mark is a burly, Brawny Towel-kind of a dude, so he doesn’t seem too ruffled over Seth’s jibber-jabber. Too bad, since Seth is absolutely right: there’s something otherworldly out there and it sucks Mark straight up into the sky, leaving his terrified wife and buddy standing around as the air is filled with intense screeching and blinding, flashing lights. Smash-cut to the title, white letters on a severe, black background and you might be forgiven for thinking you’d booted up the VCR instead of the Blu-Ray.

Two years later and Seth has been cleared as a suspect but nothing else has really gone right for him: Mark and Rob never turned up, Jen moved on to a new guy, Clyde (Anthony Amaral III) and Seth is prone to headaches, nose bleeds and a generally shitty lifestyle. After two years of relative “peace,” however, things have started to happen again: power outages have become common-place again and folks have been seeing weird lights in the sky. Something appears to be brewing and a pair of unfortunate hunters stumble, literally, right into the middle of everything when they happen upon Mark’s naked body in the middle of the woods. Mark seems to be alive but doesn’t seem quite right (he appears to be covered in amniotic fluid which, for a grown, naked man is usually a dead giveaway that shit is not, in face, okay): his eyes look weird, he seems to be in shock and doesn’t say much more than “Jen,” over and over. He also ends up killing the two hunters with his bare hands, which is probably as good an indicator as any that the Mark we now see ain’t the Mark we once knew.

After taking some clothes and a rifle, Mark proceeds into town, cutting a bloody swath through anyone unlucky enough to confront him. His goal appears to be some kind of reconciliation with his former wife but to what end? As Seth finally reconnects with Jen, the two are forced to team up against a truly otherworldly force: you see, Mark is finally home but he’s both a lot less and a lot more than he used to be. What exactly does he want? Why, he just wants what anybody wants: he wants to start a family with the person he loves, that’s all. Unfortunately, Mark’s notions of fatherhood are more in line with Alien (1979) than Leave It To Beaver, leading to a desperate, all-in fight to save humanity from an evil, insidious force from beyond the stars…a force that, like a shark, knows only a few imperatives: eat…procreate…repeat. Can Seth and Jen survive? Can any of us?

From the above description, one could be forgiven for believing that Almost Human is a pretty traditional Alien/Xtro clone about an alien creature that uses humans for feeding and breeding: in reality, the film is actually much closer to a traditional slasher film dolled-up in sci-fi trappings. This actually allows Begos to do two different things: he can create a more traditional slasher, right down to the emphasis on varied methods of death, and he can throw in enough body-horror/sci-fi ickiness to make sure that this doesn’t just read like a Friday the 13th clone. How’s it work out? Pretty damn nicely, to be honest. The slasher elements are strong and well-done, if not particularly inventive (axes, close-range shotguns, scissors and knives all get workouts) but they’re given an additional shot in the arm by the sci-fi elements. While this definitely helps reign the film’s budget in (Begos, like other low-budget horror filmmakers, has learned that the cheapest villains are always the ones who look the most like us, even if they’re filled with aliens/ghosts/mystery juice/a dose of the crazies), the mixture is good enough that it never feels like a cop-out. Indeed, Bego’s sci-fi elements lead to some of the film’s strongest, strangest scenes such as the ooky “pod people” and Mark’s attempted rape/impregnation of Jen via nasty alien tube thingamabopper. Too many scenes of Mark trooping around with a glare and an ax and we get a pretty generic “dead teenager” film: too much outer space mumbo-jumbo and we get the equivalent of one of Corman’s micro-budget ’80s sci-fi curiosities (many of which were the Asylum/Syfy films of their era, as it was). It’s to Begos’ immense credit that the film always feels perfectly balanced: it always feels like a cheaply made B-movie but never feels awkward or disposable.

From a filmmaking standpoint, Almost Human can be hit-or-miss but most of the issues can be chalked up to “first-time filmmaker jitters” or any of the woes normally associated with micro-budget productions: the acting is pretty iffy, the sound mix is absolutely awful (when will low-budget filmmakers ever learn that sound is too fucking important to be handled by whoever has a free hand?) and some of the plot developments felt completely arbitrary, even for a low-budget horror film. That being said, Almost Human never feels sub-standard and is never difficult to watch: whatever minor flaws the film may have, Begos’ cinematography and the film’s editing style aren’t two of them. I’ve seen plenty of low-budget horror films that are practically painful to sit through: wildly inconsistent acting, poor lighting, crappy camera-work, lame scripts and ridiculous CGI effects. While Begos’ film isn’t a masterpiece, it also doesn’t fall prey to any of these potential deal breakers. The acting may be rough but it’s consistently rough, which makes it a lot harder to notice, ironically enough. The lighting and cinematography are good, as are the practical effects (truth be told, the effects work is actually very good, budget notwithstanding) and the script is solid, if less than spectacular.

Ultimately, as a life-long horror fan, it was impossible for me not to be suitably impressed by Begos’ feature-film debut. While the film was far from perfect, it also revealed a genuine love of the genre and an inherent ability that speaks extremely well for future projects (Begos interned with Stuart Gordon, which may go a long way towards explaining not only the younger filmmaker’s “older” aesthetic but also his affinity for nasty effects work). Begos may have been all of three years old when the ’80s slid into the ’90s but his aesthetic (both visually and thematically) is strictly old-school video store. When a 27-year-old writer/director includes a credit listing for a “Fake Shemp” in his debut film, let’s just say that it’s pretty obvious his head (and heart) is in the right place. Anyone who grew up in the era of direct-to-VHS shockers, low-budget slashers and ultra-gory sci-fi chillers should find something to like about Begos’ Almost Human. If you require the relentless polish and shine of “modern,” CGI-endowed horror films, however, look elsewhere: Begos ain’t for you. For me, however, I’m gonna be sure to keep the kid in my sights: after all, if Almost Human is the first lap, I can’t wait to see how this race progresses.

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6/21/14: When Brothers Attack

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actor-writer, Alex Rennie, Awful Nice, Brett Gelman, brothers, Christopher Meloni, cinema, co-writers, comedies, dead father, estranged family, estranged siblings, feuding brothers, feuding families, film reviews, films, Hari Leigh, home renovations, independent film, independent films, indie comedies, James Pumphrey, Jon Charbineau, Keeley Hazell, lake house, Laura Ramsey, male friendships, Movies, sibling rivalry, The Money Pit, The Odd Couple, Todd Sklar, will, writer-director

For anyone who grew up with a sibling, Charles Dickens’ famous quote from A Tale of Two Cities may be all too accurate: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” While there may be no truer, closer friend than a brother or sister, these are also the people who know how to push our buttons better than anyone in this big, crazy world. An older sibling may prove to be a tyrant, while a younger sibling may have been a constant source of annoyance while we were young. The frustrating thing about families, obviously, is that we rarely (if ever) get to pick ours: that particular lottery was taken care of well before we had any say in the situation. Writer-director-actor Todd Sklar’s sophomore film, Awful Nice (2013), takes a look at a pair of estranged brothers who may just come to realize how invaluable they are to each other…if they can keep from beating the crap out of each other, that is.

Jim (James Pumphrey) and Dave (co-writer Alex Rennie, channeling Charlie Day) are estranged brothers who end up forced back into each other’s lives after their father dies and leaves them a dilapidated lake house in his will. Jim is the marginally more mature/responsible of the two, given that he actually has a wife, kids and full-time job, while Dave is more prone to eating donuts out of trash cans, stealing complimentary breakfasts from motels and living so far off the grid that he kinda seems…well…like a vagrant. Even though Jim and Dave haven’t seen each other in years, they manage to handily pick up their former sibling rivalry as if no time had passed, including all of the stupid challenges and dares from their childhood (the dinner scene that begins with a drinking challenge – water, beer, gravy – before turning into an arm-wrestling match that morphs into a fist-fight is a particular highlight). Jim has no time for Dave’s foolishness, while Dave can’t stand Jim’s condescending, superior attitude: nothing’s changed since they were kids except for the addition of facial hair.

After visiting their father’s lawyer, Jon Charbineau (Law and Order’s Christopher Meloni in an absolutely ridiculous wig and glasses), the brothers receive some money to renovate the house, along with an offer for Charbineau’s “personal” construction team to take over the renovations. Jim is all for the idea, wanting nothing more than to get the hell away from Dave and back to wife Michelle (Hari Leigh), who’s becoming increasingly annoyed over his absence from home, thinking he’s just using this as an excuse to bail on familial responsibilities. Dave, on the other hand, is so positive that he and Jim can renovate the wrecked house (think The Money Pit (1986) with better wiring) that he spurns Charbineau’s offer and jumps in headfirst, as it were. Taking the bait, Jim decides to stay and renovate the house, naively believing this to be a fairly simple task. Poor, poor, stupid Jim…

As Jim and Dave continue to work on the house, more and more things begin to go wrong: Dave’s flighty inability to focus on the task at hand leads to untold complications (he begins the renovation by spending $900 of their money on an arcade game, which doesn’t bode well); Charbineau’s construction crew, led by the quietly sinister Ivan (Brett Gelman) appear to be made up of Russian mobsters and don’t take kindly to Dave’s obnoxious attitude or desire to do the job himself; Jim runs into an ex-girlfriend, Lauren (Laura Ramsay), which complicates his present marital difficulties; and Dave falls for a waitress, Petra (Keeley Hazell), who may or may not be a Russian prostitute. In time, many of these disparate issues will come together in a perfect storm, forcing Jim and Dave to finally fix their hopelessly fractured relationship. Will it be too little, too late or will family always win out in the end?

While there’s absolutely nothing unique, ground-breaking or particularly fresh about Awful Nice, it does have a particularly potent ace up its sleeve: the film is very, very funny. Uproariously so, if I may be so bold. The script is exceptionally sharp and witty, which helps do a lot of the heavy lifting, but let’s give credit where it’s due: Pumphrey and Rennie are absolutely perfect as the feuding brother. Not only are the two actors individually funny (as mentioned, Rennie channels Charlie Day’s spastic insanity to near perfection) but they work beautifully as a comedy team. They actually seem like brothers, which is no mean feat, but they’re a perfectly synced combo, which is even more important. While the dialogue is consistently great, much of the film’s physical comedy is completely sold due to how in-tune the two actors are with each other’s comedic style: it’s the kind of complimentary acting that can be found in the best “buddy” films, such as The Odd Couple (1968) or Crosby and Hope’s “Road to…” pictures. The rest of the cast is just fine (although Meloni is so silly as to be almost trifling) but the film is dominated by its charismatic, dynamic leads.

When Awful Nice is funny, it’s very, very funny: there were moments during the film where I laughed harder than I had in some time (the bit where Dave sets off the airbag in Jim’s car by jumping on the hood is a neo-classic, as is the running gag where Jim constantly bops Dave in the head with an umbrella, to Dave’s growing irritation ). The film is never dumb, however (aside from Meloni’s ridiculous get-up), and just as apt to blindside with a genuinely impactful observation about Jim and Dave’s childhood or their miserable adult relationship as it is to throw in a scene where Dave gets his ass beat by a couple sneering yuppies. It’s this expert melding of the emotional and the silly that really drives the film: it’s never so lightweight that it floats away but this sure as hell ain’t On Golden Pond (1981), either. It’s a pretty perfect mix and one that I wish more modern “dramadies” would get right.

For the most part, Awful Nice is a pretty exceptional, modest little film. Not everything works, mind you, and there are a fair number of plot developments that just don’t go anywhere (in particular, the bit with Jim and his ex-girlfriend amounts to a red herring and the Russian construction crew is woefully under-utilized) but the film hits more than it misses and is genuinely funny, which can’t be stated often enough. I also appreciated the little absurdist elements that popped up here and there, never enough to take focus off the rest of the action but just enough to let you know that Sklar and Rennie have got more on their minds than just churning out a low-budget film. Awful Nice is gut-bustingly funny, full of heart and surprisingly sweet without ever becoming cloying: in other words, it was a pretty great little film and I eagerly await Sklar and Rennie’s next full-length. Let’s just hope that if Meloni’s in that one, he gets to keep the rug and Groucho glasses at home.

6/19/14: Uncle Walt Wouldn’t Care

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Allison Lees-Taylor, amusement parks, Annet Mahendru, bad fathers, black-and-white cinematography, cat flu, cinema, Danielle Safady, directorial debut, Disney, Disney World, Disneyland, Elena Schuber, Epcot Center, Escape From Tomorrow, fantasy, fantasy vs reality, father-son relationships, feature-film debut, film festival favorite, film reviews, films, guerrilla filmmaking, independent film, independent films, indie dramas, infidelity, Jack Dalton, Katelynn Rodriguez, Lee Armstrong, lost at Disney World, low-budget films, missed opportunities, Movies, pop culture, princesses, Randy Moore, Roy Abramsohn, sci-fi, science-fiction, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, subversive films, surreal, surrealism, the Happiest Place on Earth, the Wicked Witch, unauthorized film, underbelly of America, Walt Disney

There’s certain things that you’ll only ever get one chance to do. You only get one chance to make a first impression, after all, and you only get one chance to see your first sunrise. You only get one chance to sneak up on someone (unless they’re critically careless, of course) and you only have one chance to perform certain orbital procedures, if you’re an astronaut. You only get one shot at a once-in-a-lifetime moment (if there’s truth in advertising) and certain celestial events will only come by once in any given person’s lifetime: be there or be square, as it were. To this list of one-time events, you could certainly add “covertly shoot a subversive sci-fi/surrealist film at Disney World,” since, for all intents and purposes, filmmakers will only ever get one chance at this particular feat. The filmmaker who beat everyone else to the punch? First-time writer-director Randy Moore, whose guerrilla film, Escape From Tomorrow (2013), will probably stand the test of time as the first and last film to be shot in the Magic Kingdom without the express permission of the Disney Corporation. Does Escape From Tomorrow have any real value, aside from the curiosity factor of its genesis, or did Moore’s shot across the bow spoil the party for other, more subversive filmmakers who might want to take a shot at the house that Mouse built? Tack on your wings, grab some fairy dust and let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Jim (Roy Abramsohn) has just taken his family, including wife, Emily (Elena Schuber), daughter, Sara (Katelynn Rodriguez) and son, Elliot (Jack Dalton) to Disney World for a much-needed vacation when he gets a call from his work: due to some sort of vague restructuring, Jim has just been laid-off. Fantastic. Rather than spill the beans to his loving family, Jim decides to keep the bad news to himself and give everyone the chance to enjoy one last family vacation before things, presumably, go to complete shit. The problem is that Jim seems to be going a little cuckoo: for one thing, he’s become obsessed with a pair of underage French teens (Danielle Safady and Annet Mahendru) and has taken to stalking them throughout the amusement park, his young son in tow. Jim has also begun to see very strange things, including some clichéd “scary faces” on the It’s a Small World ride and assorted “odd” images elsewhere. Is the stress making Jim crack or is he, somehow, seeing through the smooth, happy, plastic veneer of the “Disney dream” and into the cold, dead eyes  that lurk beneath it? Why does he keep running into the same strange people, including an obnoxiously leering man in a motorized scooter (Lee Armstrong) and a strangely beguiling, if rather witch-like woman (Allison Lees-Taylor)? And what, exactly, lies below Spaceship Earth at Epcot Center? Before it’s over, Jim will find himself in a waking nightmare of malevolent fairies, demonic little children, strange scientific procedures, absurd medical maladies and enough surrealism to choke Dali. Welcome to the happiest place on Earth: stay as long as you like, just don’t go poking around in the darkness too much…you might not like what you dredge up.

Right off the bat, let me get the kudos out of the way: against absolutely all odds, Randy Moore was able to covertly shoot a film at one of the most “shenanigan unfriendly” places on Earth, get it edited in secrecy (supposedly in South Korea) and get it released into theaters, all without bringing Disney’s eternally sharp ax down upon his noggin. For these facts alone, I can only say: Bravo to you, good sir, bravo. Escape From Tomorrow is a film that should not exist, by any stretch of the imagination, yet it does: this, in itself, is more accomplishment than many films ever see. Moore and his cast and crew were able to shoot the film on the run (certain shots were planned out months in advance and actors rode the rides over and over in order to perfect the takes) and the finished product doesn’t necessarily feel like an ultra-low digital video feature (not all the time, at least). The black and white cinematography looks quite good, most of the time, and Moore is able to use some surprisingly evocative lighting, which must have been no mean feat under the shooting conditions. This is a film that could easily have ended up looking like someone’s covert concert footage (“Quick, security’s coming: stuff the camera under your coat!”) but it rarely, if ever, does: that’s a pretty big achievement all by itself. If Escape From Tomorrow were a children’s’ book, it might be “The Little Engine That Could.”

On the other hand, despite its back-story, genesis and intent, Escape From Tomorrow just isn’t a particularly good film. Moore had a great idea (shoot a film at Disney World, guerrilla-style, that exposes the seamy underbelly of the American dream) but his execution ends up being muddled, clichéd and, worst of all, decidedly uninteresting. For one thing, the film isn’t nearly as surreal and odd as it thinks it is: much of the “creepy” imagery takes the place of decidedly old-hat things like “scary faces” on animatronic dolls (yawn), suddenly jet-black eyes on people (double-yawn) and surprise “demonic faces,” ala the Paranormal Activity films (again?!). There are a few genuinely surreal moments/images once Jim descends below Epcot Center but these end up being a bit “too little, too late,” by that point. Some of the Disney imagery is used to good, surreal effect (the witch is a nice touch, as are the hazy, druggy scenes that surround her) but a lot of it is pretty trite and wasted: the whole “cat flu” angle is aggressively stupid and seems tacked on, to boot, while the closing fairy image has surprisingly little impact.

By its very definition, Escape From Tomorrow was always going to have some inherent filmmaking issues: if there’s one thing that guerrilla filmmaking doesn’t really lend itself to, it would definitely be polish and fine-tuning. To that end, the acting in the film is pretty awful, across the board, with Jim and his family being some of the worst offenders. Roy Abramsohn is a thoroughly unlikable presence as Jim, which has equal parts to do with his off-putting acting style (“big and dumb” come to mind) and the rather icky character, itself. There’s no point in the film where Jim following the teenage French girls ever comes across as anything more than creepy and pervy: if there was some kind of deeper meaning Moore was going for, it was completely lost on me. For the most part, Jim just seems like a scuzzy jerk and his various fantasies involving the young girls are both pathetic and severely creepy: if I was his wife, my first call would be to the police and my second one would be to a good lawyer. Moral questions aside, however, is the basic notion that Jim is a truly odious character: whiny, self-absorbed, neglectful of his wife and kids, prone to extramarital affairs at the drop of a hat, callous…none of these qualities seem designed to endear him to the audience, which seems to be the point…but to what end? Like everything else in the film, Jim’s constant assholery seems to exist “just because.”

Despite the film’s voluminous shortcomings (it’s basically just a great concept and a few nicely atmospheric shots, the very definition of “style over substance”), there are inklings of the film this could have been. For one thing, nothing at all is made about the inherent link between crushing consumerism and the “Disney dream,” nor is there any insightful commentary regarding the homogenized “Disnified” vision of the world that the amusement park conglomerate foists upon the globe. If Moore avoids any “big” issues, he also manages to completely miss the small ones, as well: there would have been a truly interesting, nightmarish story here if we could only have focused on Jim’s mental breakdown, exploring his fractured psyche as he begins to fall to pieces midst the hustle, bustle and happy families of the Magic Kingdom. There are some genuinely disturbing avenues to explore with Jim and the French teens, as well, but Moore is all too content to just give us some surface ookiness before retreating to the “safer” ground of stereotypical “demonic” activity. The part where Jim and his young son exchange a lascivious leer while ogling the young girls is at least 1000 times more disturbing than the one where the girls get “creepy faces”: any examination of this angle, however, runs the risk of becoming truly subversive and Moore never gets anywhere close to that particular demarcation.

Ultimately, Escape From Tomorrow will stand as a curiosity and missed opportunity, more than anything else. Owing to its truly unique genesis, Moore’s film stood a very good chance of becoming one of those pop culture milestones, like Jodorowky’s Holy Mountain (1973) or Banker’s Toad Road (2012). Instead, the film ended up being fitfully engaging, occasionally interesting and fairly atmospheric, none of which are praise enough to keep it in the cultural zeitgeist for very long. To be honest, I’m not surprised that the Disney corporation chose to respond to Moore’s film by summarily ignoring it, rather than attempting to suppress it through legal avenues. With the proper focus and a truly subversive goal, Moore’s film could have been the kind of thing that would give Disney executives nightmares for a lifetime, let alone the residual effect on a generation of filmmakers raised on the notion that “Walt Disney” is synonymous with “purity.” What Moore actually turned in, however, was a rather tired sci-fi/fantasy that happened to utilize Disney as a location but failed to dig any deeper into the actual mythology.

There’s a truly terrifying, subversive and harrowing film that could have been shot at Disney World, a film that would be impossible to forget or deny, something that would play on the public’s positive association with Disney while reminding them that large corporations tend to grind up humanity for fuel. Escape From Tomorrow isn’t that film, however, which is a pity: thanks to Moore’s film, we’ve probably lost any chance to really peel back the skin and see what makes the mouse tick.

6/18/14: Every Group’s Got One

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Amanda Lund, Barry Burke, Brett Gelman, cinema, comedies, comedy, Damon Wayans Jr., Damon Wayons Jr., Ed Helms, father-son relationships, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, Frances Shaw, friends, Greg Germann, Hayes MacArthur, J. Robin Miller, Lucy Punch, male friendships, Melanie Miller, modern dating, Movies, obnoxious friends, Our Time is Up, relationships, Rob Pearlstein, romantic-comedies, Someone Marry Barry, Thomas Middleditch, true love, Tyler Labine, writer-director, Wyatt Oleff

Every group has one, whether they want to admit it or not: that hyperactive, obnoxious, vulgar “life of the party” who always manages to say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing and drag everyone down with them. These are the kind of people who get their friends thrown out of bars for starting fights with karaoke machines, punch police horses in the face and wear cargo shorts to fancy cocktail parties. They’ll be all too happy to blab your innermost secrets to the nearest available ears and have the special ability to attract more attention while out in public than firecrackers in a bubble-wrap factory. These people are embarrassing, crude, rude, loud-mouthed jerks and, more often than not, are supremely pleased by this: there’s no notion of changing these folks because they’re quite happy as they are, thank you. Every group has a name for these “special” individuals, these life-long friends that will always have your back, seemingly so they can concoct new ways to mortify you. We’ve all known people like this and, just perhaps, we’ve even been people like this. In the case of Rob Pearlstein’s uproarious new film, Someone Marry Barry (2014), this particular “someone” is named Barry Burke and, boy…is Barry really something!

Kurt (Thomas Middleditch), Desmond (Damon Wayans Jr.) and Rafe (Hayes MacArthur) are lifelong best friends with a bit of a problem: namely, Barry (Tyler Labine), the fourth member of their group. Kurt is trying to take his fractured relationship with longtime on-again/off-again girlfriend Camille (Frances Shaw) to the next level, Desmond is trying to find ways to balance his crushing work-load with spending more time with his neglected wife, Rachel (Amanda Lund) and Rafe is trying to balance the trials of modern dating with being a single father to precocious tyke J.T. (Wyatt Oleff). On their own, any of these tasks would be full-time jobs: throw in the frequently outrageous antics of best friend Barry, however, and things become that much more intolerable. After a particular humiliating experience at the funeral for Rafe’s father, during which Barry manages to not only reveal the deceased’s affairs in front of the assembled mourners but also manages to work in references to Kurt’s previous experience in an adult theater (Kurt the Squirt), the friends decide that something must be done with their boorish best friend. Since bumping him off is out of the question (despite Kurt’s continued protests), the friends decide to do the next best thing (in their minds, at least) and get Barry married off. If Barry has someone to keep him in line, like Desmond and Kurt do, they reason, he won’t be able to get them all into as much trouble. If wishes were horses, of course, we’d all ride away. In this case, Kurt, Rafe and Desmond might be wise to wait before investing in that stable.

Throwing themselves headfirst into the task, the trio try everything they can to help Barry find true love, including a disastrous speed dating session (turns out Barry is actually harder to take in small doses, fancy that) and an attempt to purchase a mail-order bride that could best be described as “potentially terrifying.” Just when all else fails, however, true love appears to rear its bizarre head in the form of one Melanie Miller (Lucy Punch). Mel, for lack of a better descriptor, is a female Barry: we first meet here in the middle of a date with the unlucky Ben (Ed Helms) which involves her graphic description of her yeast infection (her “beast inspection”), as well as the lovely declaration that she needs to take a shit. Turns out that Barry is on an equally successful date at the same restaurant and ends up sharing a cab with Mel after their respective dates run for cover (with each other, ironically enough). Barry and Mel hit it off like penguins and polar bears, at first, with each person trying to one-up the other in terms of sheer unpleasant foulness. In short order, however, a grudging respect has been forged: neither Barry nor Mel has ever met anyone quite like the other person. It’s almost like they were made for each other…although, if not for each other than, quite frankly, for whom?

In no time at all, sparks are flying and Barry and Mel seem to be head over heels for each other. Seeking to bring all of the friends together, as it were, the group plans a nice weekend away at the cabin: what should be a perfect opportunity for Kurt, Camille, Desmond, Rachel and Rafe to meet their “savior” for the first time devolves into abject horror once the group realizes that Mel is just a female Barry. After a car-trip filled with tag-team farting, annoying techno music and irritating laughing, the group is just about ready to pull their hair out. Is putting up with another Barry worth the price of preserving their childhood friendship? Should they all tell Barry how annoying Melanie is? Just what, exactly, is true love and does everyone have the right to experience it…including the truly irritating? At what point do friends need to sever ties and go their own ways…and does the needs of the group ever outweight an individual’s desire to be happy?

There are a few things that I ask of comedies but the main thing is pretty basic: I ask that they be funny. Comedies can be subtle, provoking a few chuckles and some smiles, or they can be explosively hilarious, prompting belly laughs and doubling-over on the floor. While either approach is valid, they have to at least broach the subject in order to get me on board. How does Someone Marry Barry stack up in this regard? Explosively. Quite frankly, Pearlstein’s film is one of the absolutely funniest I’ve seen in quite some time: I started laughing early on in the film and ended up laughing all the way through. Without putting too fine a point on it, Someone Marry Barry is a pretty great film but the humor is one of its strongest attributes. Pearlstein’s script is exceptionally sharp, full of tons of great dialogue, vulgar but hilarious situations and outrageous but sympathetic character development.

Actually caring about the characters in a film like this is paramount to its success and Pearlstein knocks it completely out of the park in that regard. Not only are the characters in the film funny, on their own, but they work together amazingly well as an ensemble. I actually felt like Kurt, Rafe, Desmond and Barry were life-long friends, with all of the baggage that such relationships require. Since the friendships felt justified and real, it was a lot easier to take Barry’s outrageous behaviour in stride: watching the film, I would often think back to my own churlish actions and how my friends reacted, which weren’t so far off the mark. The acting in the film is really top-notch: Damon Wayans Jr. is a dependably put-upon performer and Silicon Valley’s Middleditch brings just the right amount of pathetic “puppy dog”-ness to his portrayal of Kurt (his ultimate meltdown with Camille is one of the highlights of the film).

While the acting is superb across the board, especially from the principal actors, Someone Marry Barry ends up being a complete tour de force for Tyler Labine and Lucy Punch. I’ve always really enjoyed Labine as an actor: in fact, he’s one of those guys, like Ray Wise or Ron Perlman, that will draw me straight to a project, regardless of what I know (or don’t know) about said film. In the case of Someone Marry Barry, his prominent place on the box art was 100% responsible for my choosing the film in the first place and, as usual with Labine, I wasn’t disappointed. Quite simply, Labine is one of the very finest comedic actors in the business right now and is perilously close to approaching “living treasure” status: if you don’t automatically watch all of his films, correct that mistake immediately. While I really can’t praise Labine enough, however, I’d be a complete fool to deny Punch any of her own glory in the film. Punch is a vibrant, vulgar, loud-mouthed, brash, completely obnoxious, thoroughly alive and absolutely indispensable character. She’s one of the most joyous, realistic female characters I’ve ever seen portrayed and is absolutely the match for any bloke in the house. Were there a belching contest involved, I’d put my coins on Punch’s Melanie. First person to help out a friend in need? I’m more than willing to wager Melanie would be there, too. Far from being just “one of the guys,” Punch’s Mel is just “a person” who happens to be female: as she reminds us (frequently) throughout the film, women shit, swear, fuck, pick their noses, make mistakes and act like total assholes…just like guys.

While the film functions superbly as a buddy-comedy focused on male relationships (I hesitate to use the “bro-mance” tag but if the slipper fits…), the messy, wonderful romance between Mel and Barry serves as its big, beating heart. While Barry and Mel might be fairly awful people, in many ways, they’re perfect for each other and there’s something truly magical (and kind of old-fashioned, which ends up suiting the film well) about watching these two soulmates find each other. It’s to the film’s immense credit that despite the endless jokes about bathroom habits, sexual functions and inventive swearing (Barry and Mel bond over their mutual use of the portmanteau “twunt,” which you should be clever enough to figure out), all of the typical romance film beats (finding love, getting separated, re-finding each other) are delivered with such energy and genuine interest. This is isn’t a filthy comedy that threw a romance in to “even things out.” Rather, this is an honest-to-god romance that just seems to come wrapped in a pretty degenerate casing: think There’s Something About Mary (1998) but with a much more likable lead.

Writer-director Pearlstein makes his feature-film debut here, although he already comes with a pretty decent notch on his filmmaking belt: his 2005 short film, Our Time is Up, was nominated for an Academy Award. Pearlstein is completely self-assured behind the camera, although the film has the occasional tendency (never overly so) to be a tad bit silly. With a little more focus on the sharper, more incisive aspects of his very funny script, Pearlstein would have had an unmitigated masterpiece (no hyperbole intended): as it stands, however, he’ll just have to be satisfied with one of the funniest, big-hearted and impressive comedies I’ve seen in quite some time. While I’ve been a fan of Labine’s for years, Someone Marry Barry was my first experience with Rob Pearlstein: after this, however, I’ve made sure to add him to my “Ones to Watch” list. I’m a guy who really likes to laugh and Pearlstein managed to hit all the right buttons: here’s to hoping this guy has a long, fruitful career ahead of him.

6/15/14: The Face of Things to Come

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A Brave New World, A Tale of Two Sisters, Adam and Eve, Antarctic Journal, anthology films, Biblical references, Buddha, cinema, comedies, Doomsday Book, dramas, emergency shelters, end of the world, enlightenment, film reviews, films, foreign films, Fritz Lang, Go Joon-hee, Happy Birthday, Heavenly Creature, horror films, I Saw the Devil, Jin Ji-hee, Kim Jee-Woon, Kim Kang-woo, Korean films, man vs machine, meteor, monks, Movies, multiple directors, multiple writers, online shopping, Park Hae-il, philosophical films, robot dogs, robots, Ryoo Seung-bum, sci-fi, science-fiction, short films, South Korea, technological advancement, The Last Stand, vegetarian vs carnivore, writer-director, Yim Pil-sung, zombies

Since as far back as humans have been creating technology, other humans have been worried about the effects of said technology on the rest of humanity. Computers, machines and technology make our lives possible, in certain ways (pacemakers, modern medical equipment and airplanes, to name but a few), while making them immeasurably more enjoyable in other ways (the internet, streaming movies and digital watches spring to mind). On the other hand, it’s hard to shake the nagging notion that we might be biting off a bit more than we can chew, technologically speaking. As machines, computers and artificial intelligence continue to evolve and become faster, smarter and more independent, will we eventually come to that nightmarish sci-fi scenario where the machines will become our masters? Should we even attempt to create a machine that thinks, let alone feels (providing this were possible) or is the resultant competition with humanity just a little too close for comfort? Or, to frame it in a more pop culture savvy way: at which point do we move from Robby the Robot to Demon Seed (1977)?

Films have been examining this question of “machine vs man” for at least the past eighty years, by this point, and the resulting consensus usually isn’t great: if left unchecked, technology may very well stomp the rest of us into the ground. One need look no further than The Terminator (1984) or The Matrix (1999) to get some notion of Hollywood’s take on this but overseas filmmakers have been dealing with the same subject since at least Fritz Lang’s visionary Metropolis (1927). Technological dystopia is perfect fodder for the movies, allowing filmmakers to not only traffic in the inherent fears associated with increased technological advancement (We’re going to be replaced!) but also in the inherent sense of wonder associated with fantastic new technological advancements (Look how neat and shiny our replacements are!): it’s a real “have your cake and eat it” scenario which, in certain ways, is what pop culture is all about. The recent South Korean science-fiction anthology film, Doomsday Book (2012), takes this technological conflict and runs with it, coming up with three separate, unique but, ultimately, cosmically intertwined tales that look at the Venn diagram where humans, machines and the unknown overlap.

While there’s been quite an abundance of horror-related film anthologies over the years, with films like Creepshow (1982), The Theatre Bizarre (2011), Chillerama (2011), V/H/S (2012) and The ABCs of Death (2012) stepping up for the Amicus-related anthologies that sprang up in the ’60s and ’70s, sci-fi-related film anthologies have been a bit fewer and further between. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to think of any sci-fi related anthologies at all, unless one wants to count The Twilight Zone television series. As strange as it seems, Doomsday Book really does seem to be the first of its kind or, at the very least, the first of its kind to surface in any kind of really accessible way. Unlike horror anthologies like The Theatre Bizarre or V/H/S, there is no wrap-around story in Doomsday book: rather, each of the three stories within are loosely connected in that they depict the various ways (albeit fantastic) that mankind might meet its end in our technologically advanced future. The first and final stories, A Brave New World and Happy Birthday are written and directed by Yim Pil-sung, while the middle (and best) story, The Heavenly Creature, is written and directed by Kim Jee-woon. All in all, Doomsday Book ends up being a fascinating, thought-provoking and extremely well-made film: if this really is one of the first sci-fi anthology films, let’s hope that it spawns a wave of worthy imitators.

The anthology kicks off with its most traditional, least sci-fi-oriented story, A Brave New World. Poor Yoon Seok-woo (Ryoo Seung-bum): he’s a nerdy military research scientist who’s been left behind to take care of his parents’ filthy house while his mother and father (Lee Kan-hee and Kim Roi-ha) take his bratty little sister (Hwang Hyo-eun) on a vacation. Seok-woo tosses all of the nasty kitchen refuse into the waste disposal bin and we follow the progress of one particular apple, which appears to be more rot than fruit, as it moves through various stages of the recycling process. In a supremely ironic development, the apple ends up coming back home to Seok-woo in the form of fertilizer that was fed to cattle that he consumes at a fancy restaurant with his girlfriend of three days, Kim Yoo-min (Go Joon-hee). Suffice to say that the food ends up disagreeing with Seok-woo and Yoo-min in the worst way possible, eventually leading to a full-scale onslaught of the walking dead. Writer-director Yim Pil-sung manages to craft a “traditional” zombie film in a highly unorthodox way, making for a consistently engaging and intriguing offering. Fusing a half a dozen disparate themes (ecological safeguards, food safety, vegetarian vs carnivorous lifestyles, familial responsibilities vs personal freedom, loss of inhibitions leading to a higher state of being, evolution of the human race) with an often unflinching level of gore and some sharp, incisive humor, A Brave New World is a pretty exemplary little zombie film. At 39 minutes, the film is actually about 10 minutes too short and could have used a punchier finale (although the under-lying symbolism is spot-on and really well-executed), but it’s a nice dispatch about the million little ways in which humans will eventually wipe ourselves from the planet.

Moving from the fairly ridiculous to the positively sublime, Kim Jee-Woon’s Heavenly Creature follows and must certainly stand as some of the more intriguing 40 minutes I’ve managed to spend in some time. Jee-woon’s film is a slow, solemn, hushed mini-masterpiece about the microscopic differences between man and machine, at least as far as enlightenment goes. The short ends up being the best kind of film in that it absolutely demands contemplation and reflection, not only during but also afterwards: I can’t imagine anyone being less than fully engaged with the short at all times. Heavenly Creature concerns a particularly vexing case for a young robot technician named Park Do-won (Kim Kang-woo). Do-won is a nice enough, if rather put-upon, robot expert who’s fully prepared to deal with the excruciating minutiae of life (an exceedingly daffy next-door neighbor and her malfunctioning robot dog) but is woefully unprepared to deal with the really big questions. One of these big questions rears its ugly head, however, when Do-won is sent on a service call to a local monastery in order to check on their RU-4 series robot named In-myung (Park Hae-il). It seems that In-myung has achieved enlightenment (or at least claims to) and the monks want Do-won to make sure that In-myung isn’t defective. As Do-won complains, however, you can open up a robot and fix a short-circuit, but you can’t run a system check to see if it’s actually Buddha.

In-myung is an exceptionally intelligent, well-spoken robot, however, and seems so sure of itself that, in short order, Do-won isn’t sure what to believe. Things become more complicated when his superiors from UR International show up and want In-myung powered-off, one way or the other. Seems that the powers that be are a little nervous about a robot being able to achieve enlightenment: if the RU-4s can do, well…they can probably do just about anything, including replacing humanity as the dominant “species.” In-myung may be more human than it seems, however, and the notion of self-preservation can be a powerful one: what might a supremely intelligent robot that thinks it’s Buddha do when its back is to the wall? What if, as the corporate bigwigs fear, the evolution of one group comes at the inevitable demise of another? But, most importantly: can a machine achieve enlightenment?

There are no shortage of big discussions going on in Heavenly Creature, which makes it all the more astounding that the short (only 40 minutes) manages to also be such a visceral, dramatic experience. While I would never dream of giving away any of the short’s numerous surprises and delights, suffice to say that In-myung leads to some truly thrilling moments, balanced out with some genuinely sad, powerful ones. In-myung is a truly awe-inspiring creation and any of the numerous scenes of him engaging in regular activities such as praying and talking inspire as much wonder (albeit in much smaller doses) as such classic works like 2001 (1968). Heavenly Creature is a deeply philosophical, poetic film but it’s also, in its own way, a deeply cautionary tale. We may marvel at the notion of In-myung achieving a higher state of being but we must also, at the end, ask ourselves what the notion of that really means for humanity and if we might already be a little too far out on the path to turn back now. An extraordinary film, under any circumstances, and certainly the highlight of Doomsday Book.

Following up the lofty heights of Heavenly Creature struck me as potentially problematic but, fortunately, Yim Pil-sung’s Happy Birthday is (mostly) up to the task. An impossibly strange, esoteric, occasionally frustrating but endlessly fascinating short, Happy Birthday takes our current fascination/obsession with online shopping and pushes it to its illogical extreme. In this case, young Park Min-seo (Jin Ji-hee) is in desperate need of a replacement 8-ball after she accidentally breaks the one belonging to her pool-obsessed father (Lee Seung-joon) and uncle (Song Sae-byeok). She tosses the damaged pool ball out the window (where we watch it roll ominously into a nearby hole) and frantically orders a new one from a suspiciously convenient, cheap and very odd website. Flash forward two years and South Korea is now being threatened with imminent destruction via a rapidly approaching meteor. Conspiracy theories and rumors of the meteor’s origin abound (everything from divine intervention to North Korean fuckery is discussed) but poor Min-seo thinks that the unidentified falling object looks awfully familiar. With the help of her confused but amiable uncle Hwan, Min-seo must do everything she can to prevent the upcoming apocalypse, save her parents and fix her terrible mistake. As Min-seo will find out, the internet can be just as vast and boundless as the farthest reaches of space and the concept of customer service is not a strictly human concept.

Of the three shorts, Happy Birthday is definitely the oddest and also, by contrast, the funniest. Truth be told, there’s some awfully funny stuff in here, whether it be the ridiculous commercials advertising the emergency shelters (the bit where the model gets stuck in the bunker is absolutely priceless), the outrageous TV news segments, which seem to be equal parts Benny Hill and Samuel Beckett or Min-seo bizarre family and their decidedly haphazard emergency shelter. While Happy Birthday is a decidedly lightweight concoction, especially when compared to the cerebral Heavenly Creature, it ends up being a more than suitable way to finish the anthology. For one thing, the short’s humorous tone (more so even than Pil-sung’s opening A Brave New World) helps to provide a nice contrast to the more somber, serious mood of the preceding film. Happy Birthday also manages to combine a post-Apocalyptic, dystopic future with a more hopeful tone (ala Firefly), giving viewers the impression that while everything may be other (relatively speaking), it doesn’t necessarily mean that humanity is over.

From a craft standpoint, Doomsday Book is one massively impressive offering. The shorts all look and sound amazing, particularly the chilly, brittle grace that is Heavenly Creature. Writer-director Yim Pil-sung was also responsible for the impressive, if frustrating, polar-themed horror film Antarctic Journal (2005) but co-writer-director Kim Jee-woon is probably the better know of the two: Jee-woon was responsible for the amazing gut-punch that was I Saw the Devil (2010), still one of the most powerful, horrific films I’ve ever seen, as well as the equally impressive A Tale of Two Sisters (2003), The Good, The Bad, The Weird (2008) and the Arnold Swartzenegger-starring The Last Stand (2013), Jee-woon’s English-language debut. Jee-woon is a true artisan, a craftsman who’s able to fold pain and beauty together into some truly exquisite creations and Heavenly Creature is a consistently fine addition to his canon.

Throughout Doomsday Book, there’s almost a progression, a notion of evolution that leads us through the worst of mankind’s excesses (abuse to animals, the environment, ourselves and others around us) into the best (internal awakening that leads to enlightenment and benevolence, regardless of connection to any belief system or lack thereof) and, finally, to the most frightening step: whatever comes after. As Doomsday Book ends and the characters step off into the dawning of an entirely new kind of day, filled with the knowledge of not only our insignificance within the grander scheme of things but also the comforting notion that it’s okay to be insignificant, there’s a sense of optimism and hope to everything. The characters in Doomsday Book may have completely botched things up but, as long as there are more humans left to try, there will always be another time. This, of course, is the beauty (and the curse) of humanity: we’re nothing if not survivors.

6/14/14 (Part Two): When Legend Becomes Fact, Print the Legend

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1960's films, American Old West, Andy Devine, auteur theory, cinema, classic films, classic movies, Denver Pyle, Edmund O'Brien, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, flashback narrative, gunslingers vs lawyers, James Stewart, James Warner Bellah, John Carradine, John Ford, John Wayne, Ken Murray, lawyers, Lee Marvin, Lee Van Cleef, legend vs reality, Liberty Valance, Movies, Ransom Stoddard, senator, Shinbone, statehood, Strother Martin, the law vs the gun, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the myth of the Old West, the Old West, the taming of the Wild West, the Wild West, Tom Doniphon, Vera Miles, Westerns, Wild West, William H. Clothier, Willis Goldbeck, Woody Strode

In many ways, the American “Old West” is just as mythical a location as Tolkien’s Middle Earth or Lewis’ Narnia: composed of equal parts real history, tall tales, folk legends, personal myth-building, self-rationalization and flat-out malarkey, the Wild West has become so absorbed into the fabric of pop culture, by this point, that is hard to say where the stories end and the truth begins. Much of this mythologizing is thanks to the work of American filmmakers like John Ford, Howard Hawks, Sam Peckinpah and Fred Zinnemann, directors who helped shape the public’s opinion of the American Old West as a rough-and-tumble, lawless land where the six-gun was the only jury and where a strong-willed man could carve out an empire with his bare hands. Classic Hollywood Westerns such as Stagecoach (1939), My Darling Clementine (1946), Fort Apache (1948), Broken Arrow (1950), High Noon (1952), Shane (1953), The Searchers (1956),  Rio Bravo (1959), The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Wild Bunch (1969) have long posited the West as just such a brutal, beautiful and untamed wilderness, America’s last refuge against the relentless march of progress and industrialization that swallowed the rest of the nation part and parcel.

Nothing, of course, can withstand the march of time for long and the “Wild West” was no exception. Once the railroad began to unite far-flung settlements into something that resembled a larger community, as well as linking the West with the much much-maligned, industrialized East, it was only a matter of time before the formerly untamed frontier would fall to the natural progress of the modern world. As someone who became one of the mythologized West’s biggest proponents, it likewise fell to auteur John Ford to write its eulogy, once the time had passed. To that end, Ford tolled the funeral bell with The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), a film that purported to bring together two of the Westerns biggest stars, John Wayne and James Stewart, even as it brought the curtain down on traditional notions of the Old West.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is structured as a flashback narrative, beginning in the “present-day” and moving backwards in time to show us the events that led us to where we are. In the present, Senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) and his wife, Hallie (Vera Miles), have returned to the tiny frontier town of Shinbone in order to attend the funeral of one Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). Once there, Ransom and Hallie reconnect with old friends, including Shinbone’s former marshal, Link Appleyard (Andy Devine) and Doniphon’s faithful manservant Pompey (Woody Strode). When the local newspaper editor pressures Stoddard for a story concerning his return to the dusty hole-in-the-wall that is Shinbone, Stoddard deigns to give him the full scoop, telling the story of how he first came to Shinbone as an idealistic lawyer fresh out of law school and met Tom, his future wife, Hallie, and the miserable human being that would end up helping Stoddard secure his reputation: the outlaw Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin).

Stoddard describes how he came to Shinbone after being waylaid, beaten and robbed by Liberty Valance during a stagecoach holdup. Despite the continued advise of the cowardly Marshall Appleyard and all-around good-guy Tom, Stoddard is determined to bring Valance to justice with the letter of the law, rather than the vengeance of a six-gun. Easier said than done, however, as Valance and his minions, Floyd (Strother Martin) and Reese (Lee Van Cleef), pretty much run the town, keeping everyone scared (including the Marshall) and under the thumbs of the local land barons. When the topic of statehood comes up, Valance and Stoddard end up on opposite sides of the issue: Stoddard knows that statehood will lead to modernization, industrialization and law and order, whereas Valance’s employers know that statehood will spell the end of their unchecked land rights. Neither man will back down, sending everyone in Shinbone, including Tom and his then-girlfriend Hallie, hurtling towards a violent confrontation that will signal the end for some while heralding a bold, new beginning for others. Liberty Valance is the second fastest gun in the territory, however, and Stoddard is the epitome of the “citified dude” – he’ll need more than justice on his side to take on Valance…he’s going to need a guardian angel.

As with any elegy, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is an exceptionally sad film, not only for the events which take place on-screen but for the greater significance that these events held for our society. Although Ford’s film is full of rousing action set-pieces, lots of sharp humor and some nice, broad characterizations (Andy Devine is particularly goofy as the whiny, constantly eating sheriff), there’s a muted, toned-down feel to the proceedings that mark this as the furthest thing from one of Ford’s more “traditional” Westerns, such as Fort Apache or Rio Grande (1950). There’s very little in the way of celebration here, even in those moments where the “good guys” are succeeding (the saloon scene where Tom kicks Valance’s guy right in the face, the statehood representative meeting), since the film seems to be all too aware that these successes will, ultimately, spell doom for the old-fashioned Old West. If Tom Doniphon stands for the traditionally rugged Western settler/survivor, he also stands for the mythologized Western director, as well: whereas artists like Hawks, Ford and Zinnemann plied their trades for a particular mindset in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, auteurs like Peckinpah, Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood were dealing with not only the “death” of the traditional American Old West but also changing audience expectations and perspectives.

Your particular stance on progress and industrialization will probably color your particular view of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance as being more or less a tragedy. On the one hand, Ransom Stoddard’s relentless quest to bring law and order, along with the niceties of “polite” society, to the untamed West is a noble (if slightly naive) pursuit. Industrialization in the American West led to a number of irrefutable benefits, such as the proliferation of better medical practices, educational institutions, the creation of a justice system that was wholly dependent on mob justice, etc… but it also led to the marginalization of hard-scrabble folks like Tom Doniphon (and Liberty Valance, if we want to split hairs), folks who would be completely out-of-step in a newly “Easternized” West. After all, this was their land, too, and there’s something inherently sad about the notion that a fundamentally good person like Tom (at least as portrayed in the film) will be allowed to lose everything, including the love of his life, in order to uphold Stoddard’s “new order.”

This notion of “the good of the many vs the good of the few” seems to be foremost on Ford’s mind, as the film makes no bones about the fact that Hallie and Tom were the “truer” couple, whereas Hallie and Ransom are the more “proper” couple. Hallie and Tom’s love is portrayed as passionate, romantic and messy, whereas Hallie and Ransom’s marriage seems to be more convenient, albeit more clinical. This, in micro, is the argument between the messier, more wild and more “authentic” Old West versus the more restrained, civilized and law-abiding “New” West. It’s the cactus rose versus the actual rose…Tom Doniphon’s antiquated notions of right and wrong versus Ransom’s Stoddard’s stubborn reliance on the rules of law and order…the emotion versus the intellect.

While The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is full of great performances, particularly John Wayne’s out-of-place cowboy Jimmy Stewart’s pompous, blowhard but well-meaning lawyer, the film really belongs to Lee Marvin’s dastardly villain: Liberty Valance is easily one of the greatest cinematic monsters to ever slime across the big screen and Marvin brings him to terrifying, shuddering life. He’s able to spit out “dude” with the same venom that others might reserve for “motherfucker” and the scene where he horsewhips Stoddard is as horrifying as something from a fright film. Marvin, ably backed up by Peckinpah mainstay Strother Martin and the one and only Lee Van Cleef, is a true force of nature in the film but he’s anything but a one-dimensional villain. In many ways, he functions as the flip-side to Doniphon’s “noble cowboy” character, showcasing the dark side of the Wild West that made Stoddard’s brand of law and order such a necessary, if game-changing, development in the building of the West.

Elsewhere, on the acting front, Edmund O’Brien provides some welcome comic relief as the besotted local newspaper editor/newly-elected statehood rep Dutton Peabody, while Vera Miles is an expressive, eternally sad presence as Tom Doniphon’s beloved Hallie, who ends up embracing both Ransom Stoddard and the change that he embodies. Truth be told, the only performances that grate a bit are Andy Devine’s ever-foolish Link Appleyard and Woody Strode’s ever loyal Pompey. Devine’s whiny schtick gets old quick, although he has some really nice, emotional beats in the “present-day” part of the film, particularly his quietly lovely scenes with Hallie, whereas Pompey is pretty much a non-entity, serving only to follow around and support Tom without much characterization of his own (the most we get is the rather on-the-nose bit where Pompey is able to remember everything about the Declaration of Independence except for the “All men are created equal” part).

As with all of Ford’s films, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance looks great, a truly panoramic vision of the Old West that still manages to convey a sense of muted sadness. The black and white cinematography, courtesy of William H. Clothier (who shot several dozen other John Wayne Westerns), is always crisp and clear and there’s a typically expert use of directional lighting and shadows, particularly in the climatic scene where Stoddard and Valance face-off in the streets of Shinbone. Fittingly, the film often feels slightly oppressive, as if there’s a hanging sense of doom over everything: it’s the sense of tension befitting something like High Noon but with none of that film’s sense of release. Even after Valance is dead, Doniphon isn’t (personally) victorious and Ford’s film doesn’t seem particularly interested in celebrating his failure to preserve the old way of life.

Despite it’s status as a classic Western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is just as much a character drama or tragedy (Doniphon’s fatal flaw is his inability to change with the times, which ends up being Stoddard’s biggest strength) as it is a traditional oater. While John Ford was responsible for some of the most iconic visions of the Old West put to film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is just a little bit different. Rather than a celebration of a by-gone era and the people who forged a nation, Ford’s opus is a quiet, serious meditation on the unflinching nature of progress, industrialization and the “taming” of the Old West. In any other film, the moment where Ransom and Hallie end up together would be the culmination of their struggles and a source of joy for the audience. In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Ford asks viewers not to focus on the “winners” in the foreground, but the “losers” in the background, those men and women, including Tom Doniphon, who triumphed over a harsh landscape but ended up being shot straight in the heart by that most unavoidable of all enemies: the modern age.

6/14/14 (Part One): That Sparkling Film of Gold

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1960's films, Arthur Hunnicutt, auteur theory, based on a book, Charlene Holt, Christopher George, cinema, classic films, Cole Thornton, drunk sheriff, Ed Asner, El Dorado, favorite films, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, friendships, George Alexander and the Mellomen, gunfighters, Harold Rosson, Howard Hawks, iconic film scores, James Caan, John Wayne, Leigh Brackett, male friendships, Michele Carey, Mississippi, Movies, Nelse McLeod, Nelson Riddle, ranchers, Rio Bravo, Rio Lobo, Robert Mitchum, romance, Sheriff Harrah, The Big Sleep, The Empire Strikes Back, The Long Goodbye, the myth of the Old West, the Old West, the Wild West, The Wizard of Oz, theme songs, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, water rights, Westerns

If you’re anything like me, selecting one film as your “favorite” is probably a pretty impossible task. My likes can change based on mood, time of day, the weather outside, research I’ve done, other films I’ve seen and conversations I’ve had with other cinephiles. If 100 different people were to ask me the same question, they might receive any of seven or eight different answers, depending on any of the above. Rankings, of course, are a strictly arbitrary construction: if it seems difficult to select your favorite film of all time, try choosing your fourth favorite film of all time…at some point, it all just comes down to a question of personal preference. Truth be told, I don’t know that I could ever come up with a definitive answer to the question, although I’ll make damn sure to take a stab at it on my deathbed. By that time, hopefully, I’ll have been able to make up my mind a little better.

While it may be all but impossible for me to ever choose a “favorite” film, however, it’s a whole lot easier to choose the possible candidates. From my childhood all the way up to the present day, there have been some films that just get more attention from me than others. This group of films (more than five but less than ten…I think) still gets watched on a regular basis, at least once a year if not more often, despite my ever-present desire to continue to see as many new and previously unseen films as humanly possible. Some of this group of films tends to be seasonal (Carpenter’s original Halloween (1978) and Dougherty’s neo-classic Trick ‘r Treat (2007)), whereas others are good to go anytime, anywhere (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Goodfellas (1990)). The one common thread that all of these films share is that I never get tired of them, regardless of how many times I’ve seen them. Each viewing of these favorites bring me some deeper understanding of the films and solidifies my notion that these films are, for better or worse, the very best (at least as far as I’m concerned). If you’ve spent nearly 30 years watching the same film and aren’t tired of it, I think you can pretty much assume you never will be. In this vein, Howard Hawks’ legendary El Dorado (1966) must surely take a position of honor in my list: I first saw the film when I was a little boy and have loved it unconditionally ever since. After 30-odd years, El Dorado is still as fresh, fun, thrilling and fist-raising as it ever was.

I like to think that I’m able to view films with a particularly critical eye but there are still certain movies that produce an almost Pavlovian response in me: Halloween and Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) get me with their scores, The Man With No Name trilogy and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre get me with their openings and Dirty Harry (1971) gets me pretty much every damn time Eastwood is on-screen. With El Dorado, my adrenaline starts pumping the second the opening kicks in and that glorious theme song, performed so perfectly by George Alexander and the Mellomen, begins. For my money, El Dorado may just have one of the most perfect opening credit sequences in the history of film: as Alexander’s tuneful baritone begins the tune by referencing Edgar Allen Poe’s eponymous poem, we get a series of old-fashioned oil-color paintings that depict various mainstays of the Old West: the range-riding cowboy, covered-wagon riding settlers, stampeding herds of mustangs and dusty twilight landscapes. Alexander’s mellifluous voice continues to rise, creating a truly cinematic moment: you feel not only the history and “reality” of the Old West but you feel the myth and legend, as well. Never mind that the song is absolutely brilliant, perhaps the best Western theme song ever: when combined when the paintings, the tune manages to not only tell a story (in some ways, the whole of the film is in there, writ small) but to flood the viewer with the notion that what we’re about to see is just as much glorious make-believe as it is reference to a real era. Regardless of my mood on any given day, just watching the opening credit sequence for El Dorado is enough to put a smile on my face and keep me humming along for the next 24 hours.

We begin with Sheriff J.P. Harrah (Robert Mitchum), the sardonic, dead-eye sheriff of the frontier town of El Dorado. Harrah’s best friend, the plain-talking hired gun Cole Thornton (John Wayne), has come through town in order to go see land baron Bart Jason (Ed Asner) about a potential job. Turns out that Jason wants to use Thornton to help steal water from the MacDonald family, in order to help with his own developments. Harrah talks Thornton out of taking the job and Cole hits the road, leaving behind his “best girl” Maudie (Charlene Holt) and Sheriff Harrah to keep the peace. On the road, Cole is forced to gut-shoot Luke MacDonald (Johnny Crawford) after the startled lookout starts shooting at the gunslinger. After the boy ends up taking his own life, Cole brings the body back to the MacDonald ranch: “Never send a boy to do a man’s job,” he tells the elder MacDonald and he’s right. So right, in fact, that MacDonald’s fiery, take-no-shit daughter Joey (Michele Carey) decides to head-out and wait for Thornton on the road. While her ambush doesn’t kill Cole, as planned, it does leave him with a bullet in his back and plenty of residual pain.

Seven months later, Cole returns to El Dorado and finds the place in a bit of an uproar: Sheriff Harrah has turned into the town drunk (and laughing-stock) thanks to a bad relationship and Bart Jason rules everything with an iron fist. He’s brought in a ruthless gunslinger, Nelse McLeod (Christopher George), to finish the job that he tried to start with Cole. Things aren’t looking too good for Cole, who’s still experiencing pain and loss of feeling from the bullet which is still lodged near his spine. Things get a whole lot better when Cole happens to meet young Mississippi (James Caan), however: Mississippi is a bit of a hot head and is completely wet-behind-the-ears but he’s also whip-smart, fiercely loyal and absolutely lethal with a hunting knife. If he can’t hit the broad side of a barn with a sixgun…well…that shouldn’t be too much of a problem: as Cole points out, you don’t need to aim with a sawed-off shotgun…you just gotta point and shoot. After cleaning up the sloshed sheriff, Cole, Mississippi and Harrah join forces with Harrah’s deputy, former “Indian fighter” Bull (Arthur Hunnicutt), in order to bring down the villainous Bart Jason. The bullets are gonna fly as Cole and his friends seek to bring peace to El Dorado one way or another.

In many ways, El Dorado functions as a remake of Hawks’ own Rio Bravo (1959): the basic plot is the same and many of the characters in El Dorado seem to be slight variations on the characters from Rio Bravo. John Wayne plays, essentially, the same character in both films, while Robert Mitchum, James Caan and Arthur Hunnicutt are just variations on the characters that Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Walter Brennan first established in Rio Bravo. That being said, however, El Dorado is anything but a pale imitation of Hawks’ earlier film. For one thing, Mitchum is miles above Dean Martin as far as acting goes: sorry, Dino, but them’s the facts. When Mitchum was on point, he was pretty much invincible and Sheriff J.P. Harrah might be his best role besides Night of the Hunter (1955). I’ve also got nothing against Ricky Nelson, whose Colorado Ryan is a nice addition to the “naive, wet-behind-the-ears gunfighter” club but compared to James Caan? Sorry, Ricky…lights out on this one. Caan is absolutely fantastic in El Dorado, striking a perfect synthesis of “newbie jitters” and ridiculously self-assured braggadocio.  His plain-spoken, painfully honest declarations would be the highlight of any lesser film but, here, are just another brick in a pretty amazing wall. And as for Brennan versus Hunnicutt? This is a tougher call but c’mon: Bull is such a kickass character that Hunnicutt almost wins by default.

On top of those stellar four, we get a virtual constellation of glittering stars to support them. Ed Asner does villainy up right with the merciless Bart Jason but Christopher George is a revelation as Nelse McLeod, the second-best gunfighter in the area (after Cole Thornton, of course). Coming off as a more handsome, if no less nutty, Willem Dafoe, George is able to make McLeod more than a worthy adversary for Wayne’s Thornton. One of the best moments in the film is the part where McLeod watches in curiosity (and admiration) as the “unarmed” Mississippi steps up to one of McLeod’s men and demands retribution for a previous killing. George could have played the scene any number of ways but the quiet, slightly amused tone to his delivery and his obvious interest in seeing the outcome of the skirmish mark him as a much more complicated villain than simply another “black hat.” Likewise, the part where McLeod tells Thornton that “with two like us in the same batch, sooner or later we’d have to find out who’s faster” is a masterpiece of economy, giving us not only a little good old-fashioned foreshadowing but some great character development, as well. McLeod’s laid-back, if ruthless, attitude also leads to one of the film’s funniest, most tense moments as Thornton has McLeod exit the saloon first, in order to foil Pedro (John Gabriel) and Milt’s (Robert Donner) ambush attempt. His arch, slightly bemused delivery is pitch-perfect, going miles towards establishing his begrudging respect for Thornton.

Phenomenal acting aside, El Dorado is a marvel of filmmaking craft, which shouldn’t be surprising considering that Hawks produced and directed the film. A true film auteur in every sense of the word, Hawks was an amazingly adept filmmaker who, along with John Ford and Sergio Leone (go ahead and shoot me but I’ll be damned if Leone isn’t at least as responsible for the modern Western as his American counterparts) was pretty much responsible for the entire world’s view of the American West during the Golden Age of cinema. Here, Hawks is pretty much flawless: working with legendary cinematographer Harold Rosson, he’s created perhaps one of the finest evocations of the “mythical Wild West” ever put to film. El Dorado would actually be Rosson’s last film, capping off an astounding 51 year career that included such mainstays as The Wizard of Oz (1939), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944), Duel in the Sun (1946), The Asphalt Jungle (1951), Singin’ in the Rain (1952) and The Bad Seed (1956). While the photography in El Dorado is absolutely gorgeous, full of bright, vibrant and crystal-clear images, Rosson’s use of lighting really makes everything stand out. Favoring hard, directional lighting, Rosson often produces shots that resemble German Expressionism which, when combined with the beautifully artificial sets, tends to create a real fairy tale atmosphere. It’s heady stuff and none more so than towards the end of the film, where Thornton, Harrah and Mississippi stalk the deserted streets of El Dorado, picking off McLeod’s men one by one.

One aspect of El Dorado that can’t be lauded enough is the excellent, witty script, courtesy of screenwriter Leigh Brackett (Rio Bravo, Hatari! (1961), Rio Lobo (1970), The Long Goodbye (1973) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980)). The script is tight and filler-free (at slightly over two hours long, it actually feels like about 90 minutes), full of great dialogue, one-liners and asides. One of my favorite parts of the movie is the scene where Mississippi finally meets Maudie, Cole’s kind-of/sort-of girlfriend. Up to that point, Cole had been pretty tight-lipped about his past, frustrating his young partner’s attempts to get to know him. After laying eyes on the comely Maudie, Mississippi lets out a low whistle: “Well, I found one thing out,” he tells Cole. “What’s that,” the laconic gunslinger snaps back. “You know a girl,” Mississippi replies, without missing a beat. It’s a great moment between Caan and Wayne and but one example of an exceedingly fun script.

In all honesty, I really can’t find enough good things to say about El Dorado: it’s been one of my all-time favorite films since I was a boy (this and Clint Eastwood’s Westerns were the only ones I truly loved, as a boy, and I really couldn’t stand John Wayne until I was much older) and my love and appreciation for the film have never waned. Not only is it my favorite Howard Hawks film, it’s also my favorite John Wayne film and one of my favorite Mitchum and Caan films, which actually says alot. When I went to re-watch the film for purposes of my recent “film festival,” I went into it with the goal of being as critical as possible: it’s often too easy for us to simply accept our childhood loves unconditionally, without giving them proper critical consideration. I was ready to tear the film to pieces: after all, I used to love Clerks (1994) and find it to be absolutely pointless as I approach forty years on Earth.

But then, of course, a funny thing happened: the more critical I became, the better the film held up. The movie looks and sounds gorgeous, is filled with instantly memorable characters, has tons of iconic set-pieces (like Mitchum and his crippled quarry in the saloon) and has some really insightful points to make about friendship and duty. Wayne, Mitchum, Caan and Hunnicut make a perfect team, Asner and George make perfect villains and Michele Carey is one of the most amazing spitfires to ever grace the silver screen. In short, El Dorado is an absolutely perfect film. If I had my way, everyone would be required to see it at least once, regardless of their feelings about Westerns, in general. If you haven’t seen it yet, you really should. If you’ve seen it in the past, go ahead and watch it again. In many ways, El Dorado represents the very best that “film as entertainment” has to offer: it might not change your life but it may just make it a whole lot happier.

6/12/14 (Part Two): Those Darn Ninjas

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'80s action films, 1980's, action films, action star, Art Hindle, bad films, bad movies, Chuck Norris, cinema, Eric Karson, Ernie Hudson, film reviews, films, Good Guys Wear Black, heiress, Karen Carlson, Kurt Grayson, Larry D. Mann, Lee Van Cleef, Leigh Chapman, martial arts, Movies, ninjas, Scott James, secret agents, so-bad-it's-good, Tadashi Yamashita, terrorism, terrorist training schools, terrorists, The Delta Force, The Octagon, Tracey Walter, Truck Turner, voice-over narration

When last we left Chuck Norris, he was bumbling around the jungles of Vietnam, kicking as many people as possible. As our Chuck Norris double-feature concludes, we jump forward a couple of years into the onset of the ’80s and the glorious mess that is The Octagon (1980). In many ways, The Octagon is a great example of the “so-bad-it’s-good” school of filmmaking: featuring scads of anonymous ninjas, lots of kicking, more stereotypes than an old Disney cartoon and one of the worst voice-over narrations in history, The Octagon could never be considered a good film. That being said, it’s quite a bit of fun (providing one can turn their brain off) and is actually a better made film than Good Guys Wear Black (1978)…which, admittedly, is pretty faint praise. For lovers of bad cinema, however, The Octagon may just be a lost diamond in the rough.

Wasting no time, The Octagon kicks off in truly gonzo form with an introduction to a school that trains terrorists: not just any terrorists, mind you, but one seriously clichéd group of terrorists. Let’s see: we get an Irish terrorist whose brogue is slightly more pronounced than the Lucky Charms leprechaun; a “soul-sister” with a huge afro; a cowboy, complete with 10-gallon hat and denim shirt; an Arab sheikh and a Mexican guy with a headband and flannel shirt (only the top button buttoned, natch). That’s right, folks: the film begins with the visual equivalent of one of those “X, Y and Z walk into a bar” jokes. With the bar set this high, astute viewers will realize something: it can only get goofier from here. And it does. Boy, does it ever.

We first meet our dashing hero, Scott James (Chuck Norris), at the ballet. Chuck at the ballet? The mind boggles! Turns out Scott is there to pick up the lead ballerina, a feat which he handily accomplishes thanks to some simply stellar game: “I liked your performance”…”Thanks.”…”You’re welcome.”…long pause as they stare at each other. In case you couldn’t tell, this is what love feels like. Scott and the dancer head back to her place, which leads to the one development that no guy looking for a one-night stand wants: ninjas. Do you mean those silent, deadly assassins swathed in black from head to toe? Did I stutter? Of course I mean the black-clad killers or, as the film reminds us, “those unholy masters of terror.” The dancer’s place is full of ’em, which means ol’ Scott’s kickin’ foot has to work overtime. By the time he’s kicked at least 300 ninjas into submission, the dancer has already been killed. Bummer. When Scott turns on the light, however, he realizes the full breadth of the horror: the dancer’s family is lying dead, as well. This, of course, means that Scott would have had to meet the parents on the night of the first hook-up: yikes! Scott’s voice-over, however, knows what this really means, as it dramatically whispers, “Oh my God…Ninjas!” The “Ninjas” part even has an echo effect on it because…you know…ninjas!

We then get some flashbacks which establish that Scott and the leader of the terrorist training school, Seikura (Tadashi Yamashita), actually grew up together but were forced to become enemies after their master basically told them to hate each other. Brother against brother for a reason? Sad times. Brother against brother for no reason? Let’s just say that Seikura ain’t cool with that (although poor Scott just seems bemused, most of the time). We also get to meet a few of Scott’s friends, including A.J. (Art Hindle), McCarn (Lee Van Cleef) and Quinine (Ernie Hudson). Lee Van Cleef’s very presence in the film should elevate it several miles above similar dopey fare but, alas, he ends up being fairly misused despite his inherent asskickery. Ernie Hudson actually fares much better, despite his lack of screentime. In fact, Hudson’s few minutes of screentime are actually the highlight of the film (give or take a really nifty car chase) and I really found myself wishing this was a buddy picture instead of a ninja-kicking picture. Maybe in an alternate reality. Of the three, we get saddled with A.J. the most, given that he’s also Scott’s best buddy. Unfortunately, he’s also a fairly uninteresting character, which is kind of a downer. Onwards and upwards, however!

Scott stops to help a sassy rich woman who appears to be having car trouble. When Justine (Karen Carlson) purposefully keeps Scott’s keys, he’s forced to go back to her place to retrieve them, which ends up in a car chase (the aforementioned nifty one, which is hands-down the film’s best action sequence). Turns out Justine’s publishing magnate father was the guy we saw get blown away at the beginning of the film and she wants revenge on the person who trained the killers: Seikura. Scott doesn’t seem to mind acting as executioner for his former blood-brother, so he goes about passing himself off as a mercenary in order to infiltrate the school for assassins. To that end, Scott meets his mercenary contact, the ultra-oily Mr. Beedy (veteran character actor Tracey Walter, the third best thing in the film), at a card table set up in a convention center where a square-dance class is simultaneously meeting. I shit you not. Just like that, Scott is now “undercover.”

Lest we forget about the reason for the season, all of the aforementioned action is intercut with scenes from the school for terrorists which include such heartwarming bits as exercises, battle-training, some sparring and a seriously sinister red-clad ninja asskicker. After the training, Seikura tells the terrorists that they will now be watched for the rest of their lives. If, at any point, they attempt to tell others about the school or reveal its secrets in any way, not only will they be killed, but their entire families and all of their friends will be massacred, as well. After delivering this rather harsh dictate, Seikura and the other trainers then wave happily at the terrorists as they leave: no hard feelings guys, see you next summer and stay totally fresh!

If you guessed that Scott would end up infiltrating the school, give yourself a gold star. If you guessed that Scott would have a romantic scene with a young female revolutionary that begins with the two of them in separate beds before the young lady rises to join him, revealing that she was wearing jeans and a turtleneck the whole time, go ahead and give yourself all of the stars. If you can explain why the comely young revolutionary wore a turtleneck and jeans to bed, however, you might be a slightly clearer thinker than script scribe Leigh Chapman (who also wrote the much better Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974), which this resembles not at all). Nonetheless, Scott finds romance, a metric ton of ninjas get kicked to absolute death, the red-clad ninja does lots of kinda cool hissing, Seikura displays the sourest puss since the “Bitter Beer Face” commercials and Lee Van Cleef gets a few more opportunities to look slightly confused. Oh yeah: we also get to finally see the Octagon, which ends up being a sort of ninja obstacle course, looks kinda cool and occupies around five minutes of screen time. Better title for the film? “Ninjas: Unholy Masters of Terror or Misunderstand Mimes?”

Honestly, there’s not much more to say about the film than what’s already been said. The Octagon is goofy, full of plot holes, loaded with silly kung fu scenes and ridiculous dialogue, flagrantly un-PC and severely dated. It’s also fast-paced and surprisingly likeable, although the ridiculous whispered voice-over narration spoils any attempt the film makes to take itself seriously. It’s impossible not to burst out laughing when you hear Chuck Norris whisper, “Oh my God…Ninjas!” The voice-over is everywhere in the film and almost makes it seem like poor Scott is schizo and keeps hearing whispery Chuck Norris in his head. Thanks to this handicap, the film is never any better than an enjoyable, silly kung fu film. Gotta dig Ernie Hudson, though!

After my experiences with Good Guys Wear Black and The Octagon, I might need to delve into the mystique of Chuck just a little deeper, cuz I ain’t seeing much cinematic evidence to back it up. Sure, he was a total bruiser in Bruce Lee’s classic The Way of the Dragon (1972), but he’s almost a non-entity (albeit an exceedingly good-natured one) in both GGWB and The Octagon. I know that I enjoyed both Lone Wolf McQuaid (1983) and The Delta Force (1986) quite a bit when I was growing up but I don’t recall ever seeing the others. Since Delta Force also featured Lee Marvin, who could make tissue paper awesome, I’m not sure that I can give the victory to Chuck on that one, either. Perhaps the future will call for a Chuck Norris movie marathon, in order to settle my internal debate vis-a-vis Chuck’s cultural immortality.  Chuck Norris may be able to cut through a hot knife with butter but he couldn’t do a whole helluva lot for either Good Guys Wear Black or The Octagon.

6/12/14 (Part One): Chuck Norris Can Divide By Zero

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'70s action films, Aaron Norris, action films, action star, Andy Sidaris, Anne Archer, Anthony Mannino, auteur theory, bad films, bad movies, Black Tigers, Bruce Cohn, C.I.A., Chuck Norris, cinema, commandos, covert military action, Dana Andrews, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Good Guys Wear Black, hand-to-hand combat, James Franciscus, Jim Backus, John T. Booker, Lawrence P. Casey, Lloyd Haynes, Mark Medoff, martial arts, Movies, P.O.W.s, prisoners of war, Soon-Tek Oh, Ted Post, Texas Ranger, The Black Tigers, The Delta Force, Viet Cong, Vietnam vet, Vietnam War, Walker

At what point, exactly, did Chuck Norris go from just another ’80s tough guy to an honest-to-god cultural phenomenon? Was it around the time of Lone Wolf McQuade (1983) or did it happen closer to The Delta Force (1986)? Was Chuck just another karate-kickin’ action star when Missing in Action (1984) was released or had we already decided he was a force of nature by that time? Maybe Chuck’s ascension to the pantheon of cinematic tough guys didn’t come until he’d infiltrated the small screen as the goody-two-shoes/ass-kicking Walker, Texas Ranger (1993-2001). Whenever the time and for whatever reason, however, Chuck Norris seems to exist more as an Internet meme these days than an actual person. After all, before he made his big “return” to the silver screen with The Expendables 2 (2012), it had been seven years since Norris appeared in anything: that’s virtually an eternity in the life-span of an action star.

For whatever reason, we need Chuck Norris…or, at least, we need someone like him: an incorruptible force for good that protects the innocents, whups righteously on the wicked and maintains a stoic sense of zen through it all. Norris has always come across as the most laid back ’80s action star: Willis was more sarcastic, Ahnald was thuggier, Sly was harder to understand, Gibson was nuttier, Seagal was greasier but Chuck? He was kinda the Big Lebowski of karate: he just was, man…he just was. As my personal movie marathon continues, I chose to focus on a couple of Norris’ lesser known films (at least as far as I’m concerned): Good Guys Wear Black (1978) and The Octagon (1980). While I recall seeing the poster/video-box art for Good Guys Wear Black, I couldn’t remember anything about The Octagon at all. Would the roots of Chuck Norris’ invincibility lie here? Journey with me back through the layers of time and let’s find out.

After an incredibly odd opening credits sequence that features awful, glitchy computer graphics (possibly from a cutting-edge Atari) and one of the worst slow-jazz tunes in recent memory, we get tossed head-first into the Vietnam peace talks in Paris, circa 1973. Sleazy Undersecretary of State Conrad Morgan (James Franciscus) is negotiating a cease-fire with Major Minh Van Thieu (Soon-Tek Oh) and hanging in the balance are the lives of several American P.O.W.s, including several CIA operatives. Morgan has arranged it so that the U.S. can send in a special ops unit, called the Black Tigers, in order to rescue the CIA operatives. Coordinating with head CIA-man Murray Saunders (Lloyd Haynes), the Black Tigers hit the jungle for a nice, quiet rescue mission. Led by John T. Booker (Chuck Norris), the Black Tigers encounter no resistance until everything goes ass over tea-kettle: in short order, Booker and his men are surrounded by Viet Cong and engage in the kind of dubious fire-fight that Andy Sidaris made famous in Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987), minus the gratuitous T & A, of course.  Despite the terrible odds, Booker and a small handful of his men are able to make it out alive. As Booker notes: “It takes careful planning for things to be this screwed up…we’ve been set-up!” Indeed!

Flash-forward five years and Booker is now a race car driver who also happens to be a grad student pursuing his PhD in Political Science: in other words, he’s your basic, well-rounded type of guy. When a comely reporter named Margaret (Anne Archer) approaches him about doing a story on the Black Tigers’ failed mission from five years earlier, Booker gives her the brush-off: he’s already gotten over the “betrayal” and moved on. Way to be the bigger man, John! The situation changes, however, when Booker’s old friend Murray Saunders gives him a call and let’s him know that someone has put a hit out on Booker “in the system.” As the surviving Black Tigers get picked off one-by-one, Booker must figure out who would want them all dead and why. The answers, of course, go all the way back to that failed mission and involve a government cover-up, a vengeful Viet Cong officer and lots of feet to the face. The odds may be stacked against him but no one puts Booker into a corner…after all, this is Chuck Norris we’re talking about here.

Good Guys Wear Black is many, many things but a quality film is not, unfortunately, one of those things. While the film’s rampant stupidity can be forgiven (the world is full of vapid, action-packed films that are tons of fun despite being virtually brain-dead), it’s exceptionally shoddy action sequences can not. The opening gunfight between the Black Tigers and the Viet Cong has no sense of drama whatsoever, resembling nothing so much as a backyard war epic helmed by pre-teens: it couldn’t have been less realistic if the actors had run around pointing their fingers at each other and yelling “Bang!” Truth be told, none of the action sequences and fights are really worth a hill of beans, more often than not amounting to Chuck Norris kicking someone repeatedly until they fall down: it’s kind of like that old button-masher Karateka in that regard.

So…the film is completely inane and features lame action sequences: what else is there? Unfortunately, not a whole lot: as expected in films like this, the acting is pretty over-the-top and silly, although Norris nicely underplays his role (does he have any other acting style?). The problem with Norris is that his only reaction to things, whether it be his girlfriend getting blown up in an airplane or his best friends getting shot, is to kind of shrug his shoulders and go about his business. At no point in time does Booker ever seem overly worried about anything, which meant I spent a good portion of the film likewise disengaged. Look, it’s as simple as this: if the main characters can’t be bothered to care about this mess, why should I?

And what a mess it is, too. The screenplay, by Mark Medoff and Bruce Cohn, is both stupid and overly complex, which is a most lethal combination. Medoff would actually go on to write the screenplay for Children of a Lesser God (1986), so perhaps we can chalk this up to growing pains. Cohn, on the other hand, would go on to write one other screenplay, for a ’90s-era TV movie: this pretty much speaks for itself. There are so many double-crosses and switch-arounds that I completely lost track of who was doing what by the midpoint: good thing, then, that I was already pretty checked out, by that point. Director Ted Post is actually responsible for some of my favorite films of all time, including Hang ‘Em High (1968), The Baby (1973) and Magnum Force (1973): I’m not sure what happened here but I’m willing to cut Ted a little slack, based on his impressive resume. The screenwriters, on the other, definitely don’t have those laurels to rest on.

In the end, Good Guys Wear Black ends up being a thoroughly average (although tilting towards the terrible), if completely non-nonsensical film. Chuck Norris is consistently amiable but the film, itself, is alternately goofy, corny, stupid and boring. While Chuck Norris’ might reign as some sort of action demi-god nowadays, the proof definitely wasn’t in the pudding back in ’78. As far as our current experiment goes, the search for the genesis of Chuck Norris’ badassitude continues. Next stop: The Octagon.

 

6/11/14: Workin’ on Something Big

Tags

abusive relationships, bad cops, Bitter Feast, character dramas, cinema, con-men, Dennis Farina, dignity, dramas, film reviews, films, Gary Cole, getting back in the game, growing old, grown children, Ian Barford, Jamie Anne Allman, Joe Maggio, Joe May, Matt DeCaro, Meredith Droeger, mobsters, Movies, old age, precocious kids, respect, short money con, sick characters, single mother, The Last Rites of Joe May, writer-director

And it wasn’t no way to carry on

It wasn’t no way to live

But he could put up with it for a little while

He was workin’ on something big.

“Something Big” — Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

At some point or another, everybody has felt that they were on the cusp of “making it big.” Some people are born with that feeling, the notion that the universe has something greater in store for them. Others come into that notion more organically: maybe you hear about a “can’t fail” money-making proposal…maybe you’ve got a line on a big con…maybe you’ve been promised a position of power and authority in exchange for unfailingly loyal service…maybe you’ve got the winning lottery ticket in your pocket, even though the numbers haven’t been drawn yet…regardless of the situation, we’ve all felt, at some point, like we were just one move away from winning the game. We may feel stuck right now but when that big break comes through…buddy, the sky’s the limit!

But what happens when you keep working on that “big break” your whole life and it never materializes? While we might all feel like we’re destined for more than Point A-to-Point B drudgery, the truth is probably a little less optimistic. Getting that “something big” might take self-confidence, sure, but it also takes hard work, dedication, drive, sacrifice, an innate ability to keep getting up after getting knocked down and more than a little luck. No one is guaranteed a big, important life, although those born into royalty and family dynasties might take issue with that. Sometimes, we can work on “something big” our whole lives and still come up empty. Writer/director Joe Maggio’s understated but powerful drama, The Last Rites of Joe May (2011), takes a long, hard look at just such a lost soul, a man who has spent so long trying to “make it” that he’s forgotten how to actually live.

Joe May (Dennis Farina), an aging small-time con man, has had better days: he’s just been released from the hospital after spending the past seven weeks recuperating from pneumonia, his only friend, Billy (Chelcie Ross), has just been moved to an assisted living facility and his only other “friend,” the neighborhood bartender (Matt DeCaro), lies about even knowing Joe was sick. As we see, Joe is pretty much all alone in this world but he seems to like it that way: he’s a tough, sardonic old bastard with a thick skin and a hair-trigger bullshit detector. As long as he still has a place to call home and another scam, Joe can make anything work. Life, however, has other plans for Joe: when he returns home to his apartment, Joe discovers that his sleazy landlord has rented his place out to a single-mother, Jenny (Jamie Anne Allman) and her precocious young daughter, Angelina (Meredith Droeger). He’s also thrown out all of Joe’s belongings, which leaves the guy homeless and with nothing to his name but the clothes on his back. As Joe tells Angelina on his way out the door, “Life sucks.” And it certainly can, although life still has a lot more in store for Joe.

After seeing Joe aimlessly riding the city bus, Jenny takes pity on him and invites him to spend the night: in a cruel twist of fate, Joe is now a guest in the home that he’s lived in for 40 years. Refusing any further “charity,” Joe hits the road but ends up right back on the same bus bench where Jenny finds him after another long day of work. She comes up with a solution: Joe can stay with her and Angelina if he pays them $100/week. Joe gets a place to stay, Jenny gets some extra money and Angelina gets a much-needed father figure…it’s a win/win/win situation. In no time, grumpy old Joe has become the most fascinating person in the world to young Angelina and, despite his constant exclamations that he hates kids, Joe really seems to be warming to the little rugrat and her mom. Jenny is a perpetual survivor, just like Joe, but she’s also saddled with an abusive, hateful, obnoxious shit of a boyfriend named Stan (Ian Barford). Stan just happens to be a cop, which gives him an unbearable God-complex to go with his flying fists. When Joe comes home drunk one night, Stan berates and slaps him, getting his kicks from bullying a helpless man who’s about 20 years his senior. Like Joe, Jenny seems to be trapped in a drab nightmare but, at the very least, she’s “working on something.” Aren’t we all?

Turns out Joe is “working on something,” too: he wants to get back into the short-money racket and goes to see his old friend, Lenny (Gary Cole), to see if the “organization” has anything for him. Turns out that Joe isn’t just a relic among the regular folk in the world: he’s also a relic among his own brotherhood of mobsters, con men and shadowy underworld figures. Joe is a throwback to an older, simpler time and Lenny decides to throw him a bone (literally) by having him pick up some “merchandise” from one of Lenny’s connections. If Joe can sell the product and get Lenny his cut, Lenny will get him something bigger next time…and on and on until Joe is “officially” back in the business. He’s only ever wanted to be a “big” guy and if it doesn’t happen until he’s in the final act of his life, who’s Joe to complain? When the “product” doesn’t end up being quite what Joe expected, however, in a scene that manages to be both heartbreaking and uproariously funny, Joe is right back at square one. At this point, everything looks stacked against him: no one seems to respect Joe, his health is getting worse, Stan is becoming more violent towards Jenny and a reunion with Joe’s estranged son, Scotty (Brian Boland), goes as poorly as possible. Don’t count ol’ Joe out just yet, however: even the oldest, mangiest hound can still bite, if backed into a corner, and Joe doesn’t plan to leave without sinking his teeth into something big.

In many ways, The Last Rites of Joe May is as much of an old-fashioned throwback as its titular subject. It purposefully seems to echo those gritty, small-scale, character-driven dramas from the ’70s and ’80s that featured actors like Walter Matthau, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson. These were films where quietly strong, beaten-down loners were finally able to strike back at the world around them, trying desperately to carve out a place for themselves, usually resulting in bloodshed and heartbreak. While The Last Rites of Joe May isn’t quite as gritty as those films, it certainly comes from a similar mindset, which goes hand-in-hand with the film’s themes of being slightly out-of-step with the times.

While so much of The Last Rites of Joe May will seem familiar for different reasons, the film is actually pretty good at subverting expectations, setting up situations that seem “old hat” but having them pay off in unexpected ways. The film’s central male-female relationship seems to be building into a stereotypical “May-December” romance but takes a sharp turn down a different road. The mafia subplot about “getting back into the game” seems to be a tired bid for redemption but ends up bearing more bitter fruit. We’ve seen lots of films where a “white knight” tries to protect a “damsel in distress” from an abusive relationship but The Last Rites of Joe May is more interested in the pathology behind the abuse than any kind of ass-kicking revenge. Joe isn’t some kind of superhuman thug: he’s an old man who’s just getting over pneumonia, has a terrible cough and has been a survivor for almost 70 years. The climax could have played out in many different ways but, to its great credit, it feels authentic: there’s a bit of wish-fulfillment here but it’s tempered by some surprisingly bittersweet, but not cloying, emotional heft.

In many ways, the key to the film’s success is Dennis Farina. Over the course of some 33 years and 70-odd roles, Farina proved himself to be not only one of the most iconic actors of his generation but one of the best. While my favorite role of his will always be Mike Torello in Crime Story (1986-1988), I never actually saw Farina in anything where he wasn’t thoroughly impressive. Farina, like Newman and Matthau, was an actor’s actor, someone who submerged himself so completely in each role that no trace of the man behind the mask could be seen. Thanks to Farina’s innate skill, Joe May doesn’t come across as pathetic: we feel his pain and want him to succeed but we also see the steel and fortitude that enabled him to survive as long as he did. Farina may be playing an aged tough guy but he plays like him like a real person, not a caricature. This, in some ways, will always be Farina’s greatest legacy: his death in 2013 left a void that will, most likely, never be filled.

While the film belongs completely and totally to Farina, a more than capable supporting cast helps keep the material elevated, even during the rare moment where things become to soggy and predictable. Jamie Ann Allman is the perfect synthesis of vulnerable and tough as nails, while Meredith Droeger manages to prevent Angelina from straying into “ultra-precious poppet” territory, particularly as her friendship with Joe grows. Ian Barford is suitably despicable as the abusive Stan, one of those characters who seems to solely exist as a lightning rod for the audience’s negativity. Character-actor Gary Cole has a nice, if too-short, appearance as Lenny and manages to make the character impressively three-dimensional using as few brushstrokes as possible. Again, this was a character that could have been strictly “Screenwriting 101” but Lenny gets several nice moments, including a subtly powerful closing moment that manages to tie everything together.

While I’m not familiar with most of writer-director Joe Maggio’s filmography, I have seen the film that preceded The Last Rites of Joe May, Bitter Feast (2010), and found it to be a quite interesting, if ultimately disappointing, take on the torture-porn subgenre. Despite the film’s flaws, Bitter Feast had an exceptionally sharp script, which is something it shares with his most recent film. Maggio is good at setting a quiet, reserved mood, accented by moments of explosive violence, and The last Rites of Joe May utilizes this loud/quiet aesthetic much better than Bitter Feast did. While Maggio is not quite “there” yet, he’s definitely a filmmaker to keep your eyes on.

Ultimately, The Last Rites of Joe May ends up being a fairly old-fashioned movie about a pretty old-fashioned kind of guy. Joe May might be out of step with the modern-era and as “unhip” as they come but he’s also a principled, pragmatic, self-assured and undefeatable type of guy. Regardless of what the world throws at him, Joe pulls up his collar, digs his heels in and keeps fighting the good fight. Joe may have spent his whole life looking for his “big break” but the irony may be that he’d already found it: living your own life, under your own terms, for better or worse, may be the biggest break of them all. Joe might have been looking for something big but I’m willing to wager that you’ll remember The Last Rites of Joe May for all the little things.