12/30/14 (Part One): Behind the Eight-Ball

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Arthur French, Bridget Barkan, Caleb Landry Jones, Christina Hendricks, cinema, dark comedies, Domenick Lombardozzi, drama, Eddie Marsan, film reviews, films, God's Pocket, John Slattery, John Turturro, Joyce Van Patten, Molly Price, Movies, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Richard Jenkins, secrets, step-son, working-class neighborhood, workplace accident

You gotta feel for Mickey Scarpato (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the patron-saint of palookas in God’s Pocket, South Philly: he’s just pulled off a heist and been rewarded with a slab of raw beef at the exact time that his shithead, racist step-son, Leon (Caleb Landry Jones), gets himself killed in what may or may not have been a workplace accident. Mickey’s wife, Jeannie (Christina Hendricks) wants her beloved boy to have the best funeral possible but mercenary mortician Smilin’ Jack (Eddie Marsan) only takes cold, hard cash, which is in rather short supply for unlucky Mickey. He could go to his best buddy and fellow con man, Arthur (John Turturro), if only ol’ Arthur wasn’t the guy who stiffed Mickey with the beef in the first place. Arthur’s got plenty of his own debts all around town, however, and is in no mood to pony up for Leon’s coffin, although his cold-blooded aunt, Sophie (Joyce Van Patten), is just the kind of person you want on your side when the break-a-legs come calling. To put a cherry on his shit sundae, local legend/legendary drunk newspaper columnist Richard Shellburn (Richard Jenkins) is sniffing around both Leon’s workplace and his grieving mother…just the kind of trouble that Mickey needs when he’s just trying to get square with everyone. Ah, God’s Pocket…you cruel bastard, you…

There’s a lot going on in actor/first-time director John Slattery’s God’s Pocket (2014), maybe enough for a couple of films, although that seems a little odd considering the relatively short run-time. Nonetheless, Slattery, adapting Peter Dexter’s novel, crams in enough oddball characters, bleakly comic setpieces and shocking bursts of violence to ensure that we’re never bored, even if character motivations often seem as arbitrary as the whimsical hand of fate that so often flips poor Mickey the bird. God’s Pocket also bears the onus of being one of legendary actor Philip Seymour Hoffman’s final performances before his untimely death in February 2014. For this reason, alone, Slattery’s modest little noir-lite would deserve a watch: passing up any Hoffman performance is the dumbest of dumb moves. How does the actual film hold up, however, especially considering Slattery’s usually in front of the camera as Mad Men’s sleazy Roger Sterling, not behind it? Turns out, God’s Pocket isn’t perfect, by any means, but it’s just quirky enough to work, anchored by another massively impressive performance by Hoffman as a sad sack loser who just can’t quit losing, even as victory dangles so mercilessly close.

Slattery’s debut is a an actors showcase, above anything else, and there’s almost a laundry-list of great performers turning in some spirited performances. Turturro can (and does) do this kind of likable loser stuff in his sleep but there’s something particularly interesting about his Arthur, a thoroughly worthless mook who still manages to be the most loyal guy on the block, even as he repeatedly screws over Mickey. Marsan has rarely been as slimy as he is here: Smilin’ Jack has to be one of the nastiest, crassest individuals on Earth but it’s also impossible to tear your eyes off him. Caleb Landry Jones, so interesting in Brandon Cronenberg’s Antiviral (2012), really tears into the character of Leon: there’s nothing sympathetic or likable in his performance whatsoever…Leon is complete slime, from beginning to end, and Jones looks like he’s having a blast.

If I had any real issue with any of the performances, it would have to be with Hendricks and Jenkins. Although they both turn in some solid work here, I found them to be more than a little stagey, especially once Hendricks really lets loose in the film’s final third. I also admit that the subplot involving their relationship made no sense and served as a constant source of confusion for me: minus that inexplicable bit, I might have liked the individual performances a bit more but it always felt a bit off to me. I’ve enjoyed Hendricks in the few roles I’ve seen her in outside of Mad Men and wish that her Mad Men co-star had found a little more for her to do. To be honest, it would have been kind of cool to see Hendricks tear into the Sophie role, as it would have given her the opportunity to be more than dour and upset.

And then, of course, there’s Philip Seymour Hoffman. A tremendously varied actor, Hoffman was never relegated to just one type of performance or character: he could play everything from a nerd to a blue-collar Joe, from a saint to a sinner, and bring the same sense of lived-in verisimilitude to any and all of them. Here, he plays Mickey with a kind of roiling, seething frustration, a wide-eyed, lunkheaded refusal to accept that life is really this bad and that he really is that screwed. There are moments here, such as when Mickey finally kicks the shit out of Smilin’ Jack or the jaw-dropping meat truck crash, that easily rank with Hoffman’s best work. At his best, Hoffman was an effortless mimic and there’s nothing about his portrayal of Mickey Scarpato that feels inauthentic in the slightest. This is a perfect example of a gifted actor bringing his A-game to a smaller production, treating the proceedings like this was the only game in town.

It’s a shame that Slattery’s debut will probably be over-shadowed by Hoffman’s death, since it’s a really well-made film that deserves to be taken in on its own merits. From a production standpoint, Slattery hits all of the familiar notes but manages to imbue everything with an underlying sense of humor that really helps the grim proceedings. The script is tight and the film looks and sounds good: nothing here reinvents the wheel but it’s a pretty slick ride, nonetheless. Since this is one of Hoffman’s final performances, however, everything achieves a sort of shimmering mythology, almost as if the film is pulled from its modest perch to attain a slightly higher elevation than it might actually need. As a film, God’s Pocket is a modest, highly entertaining and exquisitely acted little character drama that throws a lot of elements at the wall, many of which stick. As a Philip Seymour Hoffman vehicle, however, it’s yet one more example of he’ll be so sorely missed.

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12/26/14 (Part Two): Woody the Pimp

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best friends, cinema, dramadies, Fading Gigolo, Film, film reviews, gigolos, indie dramas, John Turturro, Liev Schrieber, low-key, male friendships, Movies, New York City, Orthodox Jews, pimps, rabbis, romances, Sharon Stone, Sofia Vargera, Vanessa Paradis, Woody Allen, writer-director-actor

If you were asked to come up with a list of actors who would seem like natural fits to play a pimp, I’m willing to wager that actor-director Woody Allen is probably the very last person you would think of: hell, there are probably dead people that would seem more appropriate for that kind of role. Allen, the patron saint of nebbishy, fidgety, neurotic indie-film characters since the mid-’60s, may be many things but a pimp? C’mon, already. For better or worse, however, that’s exactly the roll that Allen’s Murray fulfills in writer-director-actor John Turturro’s Fading Gigolo (2013), a modest little film that often feels like “Woody Allen-lite,” even as it approaches the material from a decidedly more earthy direction than Allen’s own films.

Murray (Woody Allen) and Fioravante (John Turturro) are best friends who also seem to be the two most low-key, laid-back guys in New York: Murray runs the dusty old bookstore that he inherited from his father (who inherited it from his father, before him), while Fioravante works a few hours a week in a little flower shop. After Murray has to close his shop, however, they take a look at their respective bank accounts and realize that they’re each uncomfortably close to the poor house, a prospect that causes the aging friends no end of worry.

After being approached by a doctor friend (Sharon Stone), however, Murray comes up with a new business strategy: he’s going to set his buddy Fioravante up with local women in need of some “adult” companionship. That’s right: Woody wants to pimp out his buddy to New York’s cougar population. Although initially hesitant, Fioravante quickly agrees, even adopting the nom de plume “Virgil Howard” as a way to keep both halves of his life separate. In short order, Fioravante is a very, very busy man and Murray is becoming a very wealthy one, as we find out in one of those montages that’s pretty de rigueur for this type of thing. Complications arise, however, when Murray sets Fioravante up with Avigal (Vanessa Paradis), a local Orthodox Jewish widow. This ends up raising the ire of Dovi (Liev Schreiber), one of the Orthodox neighborhood’s resident “patrolmen” and the poor schmuck who’s been admiring Avigal from afar for years. As Fioravante and Avigal appear to be falling for each other, Dovi conspires to uncover the truth about Murray’s activities, with the goal of hauling him before the neighborhood’s Orthodox rabbinate. And let’s not forget Dr. Parker and her friend, Selima (Sofia Vargera), whose only goal in life appears to be roping Fioravante into a threesome. What’s a nice, Italian boy to do when everybody, including his best friend, wants a piece of him? Why, keep smiling, that’s what!

For the most past, Fading Gigolo is the kind of modest, low-key film that doesn’t make much of an impact, even if there’s nothing especially wrong with it. The acting is solid, with Allen and Turturro reasonably convincing as friends and Stone and Vargera quite fun as the hot-to-trot cougars. The film is reasonably well made, with a great score, although the overly muddy color contrast is a bit of a bummer. The whole thing moves fairly quickly, although some of the machinations involving Schreiber’s character tend to make the film unnecessarily confusing and cluttered in the final third. For the most part, Fading Gigolo hits all of the required beats, even of most of them come and go without much fanfare.

This, then, is kind of the rub: while pleasant enough, little of Turturro’s film makes much of an impact…the whole thing is so breezy and lightweight as to be almost completely inconsequential. The subplot with Avigal and Fioravante never quite pans out as promised, making the whole thing feel a little extraneous, and there’s something a little too convenient about the way that Stone and Vargera’s ravenous characters are completely tamed in the presence of Turturro’s kind-hearted lover-man: this is a film where true love beats all because…well, just because.

While I’ve always been a huge fan of Turturro’s acting (I think he’s easily one of the most criminally under-rated actors around), this was actually my first experience with him as a writer-director and I must admit to being slightly underwhelmed: again, there’s nothing critically wrong with Fading Gigolo (aside from the inherently silly storyline, that is) but there’s also not a whole lot that sticks to the ribs, either. For the most part, Fading Gigolo comes and goes without making too much of a ripple, which might be some sort of parallelism regarding the two main characters but is, more than likely, just the mark of a film that’s decent enough but hardly relevatory.

4/1/14: Lesser Than Zero

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actor-writer, Adam Sandler, Amy Brenneman, bad films, bad movies, bookies, channeling Adam Sandler, cinema, cops, Dayton Callie, Detective Iggy, drama, Elizabeth Perkins, film reviews, films, gangsters, George DiCenzo, J.B. Smoove, Jersey Shore, Jimmy Smits, John Spencer, John Turturro, Lesser Prophets, Michael Badalucco, Movies, Paul Diomede, Robert Miano, Scott Glenn, Steve Harris, stupid films, suicidal brothers, tedious, terrible films, The Practice, William DeVizia

As someone who watches a lot of films, I certainly watch my fair share of flops. As someone who patently refuses to turn off even the worst film, however, I also suffer through a lot of bad films. In most cases, these films end up being merely colossal wastes of time (which, by itself, certainly isn’t a good thing). Sometimes, however, films can be so aggressively terrible, so massively flawed in every conceivable way, that it’s almost as if the universe is issuing me a personal challenge: make it through this…if you dare! In roughly 98% of these instances, I’ve emerged victorious, if hopelessly scarred from the battle. Every great once in a while, however, a film comes along that completely breaks me, wearing me down to the point where continuing would be futile torture and the only sane response would be to throw the damned thing into the nearest trashcan. The Last Rites of Ransom Pride was the closest that a terrible film has come to making me throw in the towel in quite some time. Lesser Prophets, however, ended up being a film so tone-deaf, so wholesale awful, that I almost gave up. Key word, of course, being “almost”: if Last Rites couldn’t reduce me to mindless jelly, there was no way in hell I was going to let this monstrosity beat me. That, after all, is how the bad guys win. And I am not about to let Lesser Prophets win.

There are a lot of ways to make a bad film but one of the surest, most obnoxious ways is to take a simple story and make it needlessly complicated with excess characters, pointless activity and endless red herrings. If you really want to knock one out of the park, throw in a bad script, especially if it features some of the most bone-headed dialogue in recent memory and give us some actors who are in an active competition to see who can emote the hardest. The cherry on top? This one is only for professionals but is guaranteed to make your production nigh impossible to watch: make sure that the tone of the film is constantly at odds with its individual scenes. Need an example? Replace the classic Friday the 13th score with music from My Little Pony but keep everything else the same. Still foggy? How about adding fart noises and a xylophone to a torture scene? Need a better example? Sit through any 10-minute portion of Lesser Prophets and consider yourself enlightened.

Since this is (technically) a review, I suppose that I should at least attempt to summarize the plot. To the best of my limited abilities, here goes: Detective Iggy (Scott Glenn) is trying to bust three bookies, Jerry (George DiCenzo), Charlie (Michael Badalucco) and Eddie (John Spencer). Iggy’s brother, Sal (Robert Miano) owed money to the bookies and killed himself when he couldn’t pay up, leading Iggy on a quest for revenge (kind of/sort of). The bookies “tolerate” local guy Leon (John Turturro), who appears to be just a few cards short of a full deck. Leon keeps an eye on his neighbor (Elizabeth Perkins) and her son, who are being resoundly thrashed by husband/father Bernie (Dayton Callie), a slimy art thief. Mike (Jimmy Smits) is a smug neighborhood asshole who owes lots of money to the bookies but refuses to pay, since he’s decided to move away (ask the Federal government how well that works). He and his racist friend (who appears to be the prototype for most male characters on the Jersey Shore) end up running afoul of a black gang leader, played by The Practice’s Steve Harris, and who gets the single most descriptive name in the entire film: Giant black man who throws brick…I shit you not. Somehow, all of these disparate “characters” (I use the quotes since none are actually fully developed enough to be considered characters, merely lazy symbols) come together in a tsunami of absolute suckage, leading to a finale that is as outrageously cheerful as the rest of the film is cheerfully terrible (Spoiler alert: everybody who’s still alive gets a happy ending, regardless of what awful acts they committed in the film…call it a reward for making it to the finish line, I guess). Cut to credits.

There are, as briefly stated above, about a million reasons to dislike Lesser Prophets. In the interest of space, I’ll list just a few of the nearly limitless group:

— The acting ranges from “just there” to “bizarre” to “dinner theater”

— John Turturro channels the bone-headed-jerk era of Adam Sandler so eerily that it must be on purpose

— Wipe-cut transitions and “zany” music seem a bit goofy when used between suicides and gangster scenes

— There were about seven main characters too many: at times, this seemed to have one of DeMille’s casts of thousands, even though it looked like a Poverty Row direct-to-video release

— Scott Glenn is an amazing actor and seeing him ham it up in this hurts my heart

— The film tries way too hard to be both cool and funny but it is neither

Ultimately, Lesser Prophets is a terrible film, devoid of even the unabashed craptasticality that can save similarly terrible films like Megalodon 3 or The Room. Tellingly, Lesser Prophets’ writer, Paul Diomede, is also one of its “actors”: he makes an appearance as someone named Cheddar Fry. Full disclosure: I don’t remember anyone named Cheddar Fry. Perhaps he was Jimmy Smits’ racist friend…perhaps he was one of Steven Harris’ “tough” gang members. He might have been playing Leon’s bicycle, for all I know. I will tell you one thing, however: I ain’t watching the movie again to find out.