8/16/15 (Part Two): Two Against the World

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A Most Violent Year, Abel Morales, Albert Brooks, Alessandro Nivola, Alex Ebert, All Is Lost, American Dream, Ben Rosenfield, Bradford Young, capitalism, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Christopher Abbott, cinema, corruption, David Margulies, David Oyelowo, dramas, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Elyes Gabel, family business, film reviews, films, Giselle Eisenberg, heating oil, heists, hijacking, husband-wife relationship, husband-wife team, immigrants, J.C. Chandor, Jason Ralph, Jerry Adler, Jessica Chastain, John Procaccino, Margin Call, Movies, New York City, oil industry, organized crime, Orthodox Jews, Oscar Isaac, period-piece, personal codes, Peter Gerety, Pico Alexander, Quinn Meyers, Ron Patane, set in New York City, set in the 1980's, snubbed at the Oscars, suicide, the American Dream, writer-director

While most people will freely admit to having some sort of unalterable moral code, the reality is much less black and white: I’m willing to wager that we’ve all compromised our personal codes, from time to time…that’s just what life is about. Perhaps you’ve tolerated prejudicial beliefs from an otherwise beloved relative. Perhaps you’re an environmentalist who’s taken a soul-killing corporate job with a King Kong-sized carbon footprint in order to pay the bills. When faced with the choice between suffering for our “code” or bending our beliefs in order to achieve some measure of happiness, it’s tempting to say that we would all be able to stand firm in the face of adversity. It’s tempting, sure…but is it true?

Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac), one half of the married couple that stands at the exact center of writer/director J.C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year (2014), is a man with one of those aforementioned “unalterable moral codes,” an individual who prides himself on always taking “the path that is most right.” Abel is a man with principles, with drive, ambition and an internal compass that always keeps him oriented towards true north…or, as it turns out, his own personal notion of true north. When his world begins to collapse around him, however, Abel will be forced into a rather unenviable position: greet his massing enemies with the violence and corruption that they’ve shown him or stick to his code and, quite possibly, become nothing more than a minor footnote in someone else’s story. As Pink Floyd so eloquently put it: “a walk-on part in the war or a lead role in a cage”…Abel can have either one but he can’t have both.

Kicking off in the Big Apple during the titular “violent year” (also known as 1981), Chandor’s newest opus concerns Abel and his wife, Anna (an absolutely ferocious Jessica Chastain), as they try to carve out their own piece of the American Dream. They own a heating oil company and have just started the process to acquire a prime piece of seafront real estate, all the better to bring in their own shipments directly and cut out the middle man. While Abel tries to pull together the $1.5 million that he’ll need for the deal, he also must deal with a raft of other problems including his mercenary competitors, a nearly non-stop barrage of violent fuel hijacking and an overly zealous district attorney (David Oyelowo) who’s been investigating the Morales’ company for several years.

After another series of thefts, including one where one of Abel’s drivers, Julian (Elyes Gabel), gets his jaw broken, the head of the teamsters (Peter Gerety) insists that all of Abel’s drivers be issued handguns: he refuses to put his men into any more unsafe situations, despite Abel’s protests that faked gun permits are only going to add to his legal woes. As this is going on, Abel surprises an intruder in his home, a shady individual who drops a gun as he flees. Anna, putting two and two together, realizes that the attempted invasion might not be part of the year’s “crime wave” but actually related to their current problems with the company. The message is clear: the Morales’ aren’t safe anywhere, including their own home.

As Abel watches his carefully constructed plan fall apart, piece by piece, he’s goaded by his loose-cannon wife to take more drastic, unsavory measures: she’s the daughter of a mobster, after all, and those guys always know how to take care of business. Abel has that aforementioned “personal code,” however, and he’s determined to do everything on the up-and-up, even if it means putting his family and business through the wringer. When Julian gets attacked again and takes matters into his own hands, however, it forces Abel to scramble and try to put all the pieces back together before his time runs out on the real estate deal. Will Abel stick to his code or will he give in to the violence around him and respond in kind? Will he become the monster that he fears in order to get the life that he deserves?

Extremely stylish, beautifully shot and as cold as an iceberg, A Most Violent Year packs plenty of punch but still manages to fall short (to this viewer, at least) of Chandor’s previous film, the “Redford on a boat” mini-epic, All is Lost (2013). There’s plenty to like and respect here, no doubt: Chandor is a sure-hand as both writer and director, displaying an admirable ability to cut the fat and get right to the meat of the situation. That being said, A Most Violent Year feels too long and bloated for the relatively simple story beats involved: the structure and pacing feel off, leaving too much “dead air” and sapping some of the film’s forward momentum.

One aspect of the film that manages to shoot for the moon and score brilliantly, however, is the extraordinary performances. Front to back, A Most Violent Year is loaded with so many memorable performances and masterfully acted scenes that he handily establishes itself as a real actors’ showcase. The supporting cast, alone, would make the film worth a watch under any other circumstances: Albert Brooks turns in another great, weary performance as Abel’s lawyer/confidant; Oyelowo is solid as a rock as the dogged D.A.; Gabel offers up some genuine anguish as the conflicted Julian (the parallels between his failure and Abel’s success are one of the film’s most subtle motifs) and Jerry Adler (perhaps best known for his recurring roles as Hesh in The Sopranos) brings a surprisingly gentle, paternal quality to his performance as the Orthodox Jewish owner of the property that Abel and Anna are trying to buy.

The real stars of the show, however, are undoubtedly Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain. For his part, Isaac downplays the character of Abel masterfully, allowing all of the anger, frustration and fear to bubble and boil just below the surface until it finally explodes skyward in a truly volcanic display. He’s a case study in restraint and chilly resolve and Isaac works wonders with nothing so much as a soft word and piercing glare.

Chastain, on the other hand, is a completely unrestrained force of nature, the raging hurricane that tosses the rest of the cast around like so much flying junk. To not put too fine a point on it, she’s absolutely astounding in the film: it’s impossible to look away whenever she’s onscreen. From the stunning showpiece where she blows away the wounded deer to the fist-raising moment where she tells Oyelowo’s D.A. just where he can shove it, Chastain’s Anna is, easily, one of the most memorable modern cinematic creations.

Less Kay Corleone than Ma Barker, Anna is the true power behind the throne and Chastain tears into the role with absolute gusto. The fact that she wasn’t nominated for an Oscar only goes to show how vapid that particular process is: the fact that her performance was considered a “supporting” role in other nominations only goes to show how flawed that rationale is. Quite plainly, Chastain is as much a part of A Most Violent Year as Isaac is…perhaps more so, to be honest.

Despite the top-shelf performances, gorgeous cinematography (Bradford Young also shot Selma (2014), giving him two prestige pictures in the same year), great score (despite not caring for Alex Ebert’s main gig in Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, his score is absolutely perfect) and effective mise en scene, I still found myself slightly let down by the whole thing. Perhaps it speaks more to personal choice than any major flaws in the film (short of really trite ending to Julian’s arc, there aren’t many major missteps) but A Most Violent Year never quite struck me as “essential,” merely very well-made.

In truth, short of two chase scenes (one decent, the other a real showstopper), the whole film ends up being rather uneventful. Sure, Abel and Anna are faced with a seemingly insurmountable array of problems but each issue ends up being resolved a bit too casually to provide much tension. The resolution of the Julian storyline, the resolution of the fuel hijacking, the resolution of the property deal…in each case, it feels as if Abel and Anna are plucked from the stew-pot just as the water begins to get nice and hot. One of the things that really struck me about the chase scene between Abel and the hijackers is how unhinged and dangerous it felt: for that brief time period, I really found myself questioning the outcome. Were that overriding sense of danger more present throughout the film, perhaps it might have gripped me a little tighter.

Ultimately, A Most Violent Year is a film that deserves no small amount of praise: the performances, alone, are enough to make this a must-watch. That being said, it’s also a film that never quite sunk its claws into me, never quite demanded my complete adoration. Perhaps, in the end, A Most Violent Year is a perfect case of “different strokes for different folks”: extremely well-made and quite evocative, there’s nothing overtly wrong with the film, yet it never quit kicks like it’s supposed to.

That’s quite alright, however: I’ll keep looking forward to Chandor’s films just like I have ever since All is Lost proved him to be a modern master. In an age where “bigger, louder, dumber” seems to rule the box-office, we could always use more films like A Most Violent Year. Essential? Not quite. Worth your time? Without a shadow of a doubt.

3/3/15 (Part One): On the Beat

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2014 Academy Awards, 87th Annual Academy Awards, abusive relationships, Austin Stowell, based on a short, Best Adapted Screenplay nominee, Best Film Editing winner, best films of 2014, Best Picture nominee, Best Supporting Actor Winner, C.J. Vana, character dramas, cinema, Damien Chazelle, dedication vs obsession, dramas, drummers, dysfunctional family, egomania, father figures, father-son relationships, favorite films, film reviews, films, J.K. Simmons, jazz musicians, Justin Hurwitz, Melissa Benoist, mentor, Miles Teller, Movies, multiple award nominee, multiple Oscar winner, music school, musical prodigy, Nate Lang, New York City, obsession, Oscars, Paul Reiser, protege, romance, set in New York City, Sharone Meir, teacher-student relationships, Tom Cross, twist ending, Whiplash, writer-director

For musicians, there’s a thin, almost invisible, line separating “dedication” from “obsession.” On one side of the line, adherents remove all unnecessary outside distractions, focusing almost exclusively on their craft. They practice endlessly, never stop learning and live, eat and breathe their music. For dedicated musicians, it’s not necessarily a sacrificial move: when you live for music, what else would you rather be doing? On the other side of the line, it’s a similar story, with one major twist: when you’re obsessed with your craft, you eschew any and everything, zeroing in on your music with a frightening degree of tunnel vision. Turning their back on friends, family, relationships (both romantic and professional), societal niceties and any concept of a well-rounded life, obsessed musicians live for only one thing: their craft. Removing their music from the equation would be as deadly as dropping a goldfish on the floor.

The world is full of amazing, talented, dedicated musicians. The irony, of course, is that the only way to be a legendary musician, the kind of performer that other players idolize, copy and envy, the kind of musician who achieves immortality through their art, is to be obsessed. There are plenty of normal, well-adjusted musicians covering virtually every square inch of the Earth. The geniuses? I’m guessing you’ll only need one hand to do that math.

Damien Chazelle’s vibrant, kinetic and endlessly thrilling Whiplash (2014) takes a good, hard look at the dividing line between “dedication” and “obsession,” at the difference between being “your best” and “THE best.” Our entry-point into this world is Andrew (Miles Teller), a 19-year-old drum prodigy who idolizes Buddy Rich and wants to be the best damn drummer in the world. As such, he’s currently studying at the prestigious Shaffer Music Conservatory: when he’s not in class, he’s behind his kit, pummeling his way through one endless practice session after another. Andrew is a fine, upstanding young man, with a good head on his shoulders and a supportive father (Paul Reiser) who only wants the best for him. At this point, our hero is standing firmly on the “dedicated” side of things.

While practicing one night, Andrew happens to attract the attention of Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), the Draconian, hot-tempered, much feared “local god” who commands (conducts isn’t quite strong enough) the much-vaunted Shaffer Academy studio band. Getting selected for Fletcher’s group is kind of like an amateur getting invited to spar with Bruce Lee: it’s a huge honor but you’re gonna get your ass kicked. While Fletcher doesn’t give Andrew the nod right away, he does pop into his class the next day, gives everyone an impromptu audition and whisks our young hero from obscurity into the upper echelons.

Once he finally gets a chance to sit in on Fletcher’s class, however, Andrew comes to a massive revelation: his wannabe hero is an abusive, violent, savage, mean-spirited shithead who believes that the only way to achieve greatness is to be battered until you’re broken. For him, the only way to test greatness is with fire…lots and lots of fire. As Andrew and Fletcher slam heads like bighorn sheep, each one attempting to exert their authority over the other, it seems that Fletcher’s tact is working: under his exacting, abusive, obsessive tutelage, Andrew is getting better and better, faster and faster. When it finally comes time for the student to challenge the master, however, Andrew will come to find that not all obsessions are created equal: his obsession to be the best might just get crushed into dust by Fletcher’s obsession with MAKING him the best. Will Andrew scale the heights that he so desperately wants, joining the esteemed company of his hero, Buddy Rich, or will Fletcher break him just like he broke everyone else?

Let’s get one thing out of the way, right off the bat: Whiplash is a pretty amazing film. Smart, relentless, brutal, simple, streamlined…if Chazelle’s film was a fighter, it would be the silent, pensive and cold-blooded tough guy that doesn’t need to brag: he just wipes up the street with you. In every way, Whiplash is an old soul: the film’s simplicity and style handily recall similarly single-minded dramas from the ’60s and ’70s, so sparse and frill-free as to be a complete breath of fresh air in this increasingly fractured modern era. This is a no bullshit character study which, at the end of the day, is exactly what it needs to be.

As a film, Whiplash is as single-minded and laser-focused as our young protagonist: in fact, the only element of the film that ultimately falls flat is the obligatory romantic angle involving Andrew and Nicole (Melissa Benoist), the concession-stand worker that he falls for. I understand why the relationship is there: it provides a nice, first-hand illustration of the relationship sacrifices that obsessed musicians make. Thematically, it holds water just fine. On a filmmaking level, however, the side-story actually dilutes some of the film’s power: watching Andrew and Fletcher battle is like watching Godzilla go ten rounds with Ghidora, while the awkward courtship feels like the padding in between the “good stuff.” It also doesn’t help that the scenes between Teller and Benoist are some of the most conventional and static in the film, featuring basic back-and-forth coverage and mundane dialogue.

Quibbles aside, however, Whiplash pretty much knocks everything else out of the park. Teller is fantastic as the young prodigy, able to portray naivety, vulnerability, anger and obsession in equal measures. Whether facing off against Fletcher, his backstabbing peers or his own condescending family, Teller is more than up for the task. While I believe that this is the first film I’ve actually seen him in, I’m willing to wager that I see lots more of him in the future.

There’s a reason why J.K. Simmons took the Best Supporting Actor Oscar over Edward Norton’s fiery performance from Birdman (2014): his performance as Fletcher is one of the most intense, incredible and uncomfortable acting tour de forces that I’ve ever seen. There’s no denying that Simmons is an absolutely essential actor: he’s one of those guys who seems to be in everything, including TV commercials, yet he never wears out his welcome…he’s like Ron Perlman or Bruce Campbell in that you just want more of him, regardless of the production. As an acting job, it’s practically a master-class in the craft: veins popping, spit flying from his hard-set lips, throwing chairs, slapping the shit out of students…if you don’t jump the first time he really lets loose, you might be watching a different movie. Simmons performance is so good that it’s the kind of thing that could easily get lost in hyperbole: it really is one of the best performances in years, no two ways about it.

Aside from the kinetic style and tremendous performances, Whiplash is a marvel of filmmaking technique. The score, sometimes foreboding, sometimes playfully jazzy (in a “Times Square circa 1970” way), is used sparsely but to great effect. There are no leading musical cues, no heart-tugging orchestral swells (I’m glaring at you, The Theory of Everything (2014)) and no hand-holding. As befits a film about jazz musicians, Whiplash is expertly edited on the beat, making the jazz an integral part of both the film’s narrative and its DNA. Editing is often (and rightfully so) an invisible art-form but we all owe Tom Cross a debt of gratitude for his stellar editing job here. There’s a reason why Whiplash won the Best Editing award and the proof is definitely in the pudding.

The film also looks great, with plenty of atmospheric shots and some wonderfully slow, measured pans. There’s a tendency towards extreme close-ups, which really heightens the film’s tension, as well as drawing attention to the film’s incredible performances: Teller and Simmons do so much with their faces (particularly their eyes) that one well-timed close-shot says as much as a scene full of expository dialogue. Again, this is a film that purposefully recalls an older style of filmmaking: the assumption, here, is that we’re all smart enough to follow along…no need to telegraph, over-explain or “connect the dots,” as it were.

You can have a good film with a terrible script but, in my opinion, you can’t really have a great film with a terrible script: good thing for us that Chazelle (who wrote the script) is also the genius behind the screenplay for Eugenio Mira’s extraordinary Grand Piano (2013), one of the smartest, best written films I’ve ever seen. With two fantastic script under his belt (I might even be forced to check out The Last Exorcism 2 (2013), since he penned that, as well), Chazelle is officially a force to be reckoned with.

In every way, Whiplash is a simple story told exceptionally well: in other words, my favorite kind. By cutting out all the unnecessary minutiae that clogs so many similar films, Whiplash hums like a live wire and never releases its grip on the audience. From the brilliantly stylized, simple opening, to the awesome visual of Andrew plunging his bleeding hand into a tub of ice water, all the way to the genuinely surprising twist ending that manages to throw conventionally clichéd “triumphant” final performances right out the window, Whiplash is one delightful surprise after another. As an ode to the impossible dedication and obsession that go hand in hand with creating beautiful music, as well as the universal need to be accepted by those we look up to, Whiplash has few peers.

One of Fletcher’s favorite retorts, snarled in his typically polite, bulldog-with-a-smile way, is “Not my fucking tempo”: no matter how good his students are, they’re never good enough for him…or for themselves, as far as he’s concerned. I’d like to think that, if it could “talk,” Whiplash would have the same withering contempt for most of its peers: not my fucking tempo, indeed. The rest of ’em are welcome to play along but they’ll never be able to keep up.

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.

6/2/14 (Part Two): From the Sublime to the Rocket Launcher

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'80s action films, 1980's, action films, Alex Winter, Assault on Precinct 13, bad cops, Charles Bronson, cinema, crime wave, Death Wish, Death Wish 3, Deborah Raffin, Ed Lauter, film franchise, film reviews, films, Fraker, gang rape, gangs of punks, Gavan O'Herlihy, gun enthusiasts, guns, Jimmy Page, Kirk Taylor, liberals vs conservatives, Mad Max, Marina Sirtis, Martin Balsam, Michael Winner, misogyny, Movies, New York City, over-the-top, Paul Kersey, post-apocalyptic wasteland, revenge, rocket launcher, sequel, sequels, set in the 1980's, the Giggler, The Warriors, Tony Spiridakis, Troma films, vengeance, vigilante, vigilantism

As a youth, many of my favorite films tended to be of the ultra-violent action variety. While I watched a lot of different things, there was a certain group of films that seemed to get rewatched endlessly, as if on a loop: Magnum Force (1973), Pale Rider (1985), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), Death Wish 3 (1985), RoboCop (1987) and Die Hard (1988). Most of these could probably be chalked up to the fact that Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson were two of my parents’ favorite actors, thereby gaining plenty of airtime in our household. As for RoboCop and Die Hard: what 11-year-old boy wouldn’t love those? As time passes, I find that my opinion on most of them still holds up: for one reason or another, these are all fundamentally solid films.

Of the group, Death Wish 3 is one of the ones I watched the most, while younger, but have revisited the least as time goes on. As part of my personal film festival, I decided to finally revisit the film, pairing it with the original (if I had access to the second film and hadn’t just watched the fourth a few months back, this would have been the whole quadrilogy). As seen in my previous entry, I found that the original Death Wish (1974) still holds up some forty years later, retaining lots of subtle power among the flying bullets. How, then, would one of my formerly favorite films hold up? Journey behind the curtain and let’s find out.

As far as genre franchises go, the Death Wish series actually tells a continual story, give or take the rather large lapses in time between the first and third entries (8 years). In the first, we were introduced to the character of Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson), a mild-mannered, pacifistic New York City architect who becomes a vigilante after a gang of punks rape his daughter and kill his wife. The second film continues the storyline as Kersey and his daughter, Carol, move to Los Angeles in order to start a new life. After Carol is once again attacked and ends up killing herself, Paul picks up his revolver and hunts down the creeps responsible. By the end of the film, we see Paul all alone, the last of his family gone: the assumption is that he will continue to hunt the streets, cleaning up the criminal element. Since there ended up being a third (and fourth) film, that assumption would be right on the nose.

After some time has passed, “legendary” vigilante Paul Kersey boards a bus and returns to New York City, the place where it all began. He’s on his way to visit an old war buddy, Charley (Francis Drake), but this isn’t the same New York City from a decade before: this is the ’80s, baby, and shit’s bad…real bad. It seems that roving gangs of punks, similar to the creepazoids from Max Max (1979) or Troma’s Class of Nuke ‘Em High (1986), have taken over the city and Paul gets to his friend’s apartment just after the punks have beaten him nearly to death. Charley dies, the cops burst in and Paul is hauled off to the station house for a little good-natured “interrogation.”

Once there, Paul catches the eye of Lt. Shriker (Ed Lauter), who just happened to be a beat cop when Paul went on his initial “cleaning” spree in NYC. Seems that Shriker is fighting a losing battle against the punks on the street and he needs something that his entire police force can’t provide: he needs the “bad guys” to start dying. Shriker knows that Paul used to handle that particular “job” quite handily and offers him a deal: he can return to the streets, killing as many punks, criminals and ’80s metal-heads as he wants, as long as he keeps Shriker in the loop and throws him a few choice busts every so often. When the alternative is a hefty jail sentence, Paul agrees: time to hit the streets, once again.

As Paul wanders the post-Apocalyptic neighborhood outside Charley’s apartment (seriously: the place is like a cross between The Warriors (1979) and Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) on a bad day), he starts to figure out the hierarchy. Seems that Fraker (Gavan O’Herlihy), the platinum-blonde psycho that Paul briefly encountered in lockup, is the ringleader, ruling everything with an iron fist and really sharp knife. With his gang of goons, including The Giggler (Kirk Taylor), The Cuban (Ricco Ross) and Hermosa (Alex Winter), Fraker has the entire neighborhood terrified and paying protection money in order to stay alive. It’s a bad bunch of dudes…but there’s big trouble coming.

Paul also meets the residents of Charley’s apartment building, including Charley’s best friend and fellow war vet, Bennett (Martin Balsam), Manny and Maria Rodriguez (Joseph Gonzalez, Marina Sirtis), Eli and Erica Kaprov (Leo Kharibian, Hana-Maria Pravda) and Mr. and Mrs. Emil (John Gabriel, Mildred Shay). To complete his merry circle of friends, Paul also becomes romantic with Kathryn Davis (Deborah Raffin), the attractive young public defender that he met at the police station. It would all be so lovely, of course, if Fraker wasn’t so dead-set on running Paul out of the neighborhood, one way or the other. In short order, the place becomes an absolute war-zone and death comes to visit them all: it comes for the punks, of course, because Paul is one helluva shot. It also comes for the innocents, of course, because this wouldn’t be Death Wish without a whole lotta revenge. As the body count rises on both sides of the line, one thing remains clear: Kersey ain’t leaving until he’s either outta ammo…or targets.

Right off the bat, there’s absolutely nothing subtle or subtextual about Death Wish 3 whatsoever: this film is all raging id, rampaging from one extreme to the other. Unlike the basically good but ineffectual cops from the first film, every cop in DW3 comes across as a steroid-addled, trigger-happy goon, particularly the incredibly dastardly Lt. Shriker. Hell, he was technically only one twirled mustache away from a Perils of Pauline-era villain. He bashes Paul around, snarls that he could have him killed at any time and punches him square in the face just because it’s “his” jail.

Whereas the punks from the first film weren’t exactly multi-dimensional (Jeff Goldblum’s sneering mug was about as much character development as we got), the gangs in DW3 are completely over-the-top and cartoonish. Many of them do seem to have been lifted wholesale from The Warriors, right down to the odd matching outfits for certain groups within the gang (Gang subgroups? What nightmare of micro-management is this?!) and by the time we get to the finale, where gang members ride around on motorcycles while hurling grenades willy-nilly, it will be pretty impossible to not expect Mad Max to come zooming over the horizon. Fraker is so evil that he easily surpasses Bond villains, winding up somewhere in the neighborhood devoted to Marvel villains.

In many ways, there’s definitely a consistent through-line from the first film to the third: after all, director Michael Winner was on board for the first three films and the overall message (a good man with a gun trumps a bad man with a gun) is unwavering. Where Death Wish was careful to portray both sides of the issue, even if it obviously only gave credence to one side, DW3 dispenses with this facade completely. Paul isn’t on any kind of journey in DW3: he’s already there. While the first film grappled with the disparity between wanting to defend yourself and taking revenge, there’s no question as to what needs to be done by the time the third film opens. If Death Wish and its first sequel could be seen as drama-suspense hybrids, DW3 is almost entirely an action picture. In the first film, Paul has to deal with both the police (polite society) and the criminals: the police didn’t condone his activities, they just ran him out of the city. In the third film, not only do the police condone Kersey’s vigilantism, they actively push him into it. By the time we get to the finale, where Paul and Shriker run down the street, side by side, merrily gunning down anonymous bad guys (the body count in this thing, for the gangs alone, has to be in the mid-hundreds), DW3 is the furthest thing from the original film it could possibly be. The thought-provoking, gut-quaking violence of the first film has been replaced by a Ren and Stimpy-level of carnage that certainly befits most mid-’80s action sequels but makes it impossible to take anything seriously.

Perhaps the biggest issue with the film, however, and one that continually flew over my head as a kid, is the rampant misogyny. Admittedly, the first and second films were precipitated upon the sexual assault of a young woman but they also featured peripheral female characters: in DW3, every single (good) female character is either assaulted or killed. It’s such an obvious part of the film that it’s hard to believe the filmmakers didn’t intend it but it’s unpleasant, nonetheless. ’80s action films were never known for their progressive gender politics, in the best of situations, but the female characters in DW3 all seem doomed from their introductions. When combined with the over-the-top, testosterone-fueled action sequences, the absolute lack of surviving female characters makes this very much a “boys’ club.” To be honest, it’s probably no wonder that this film appealed to me so much as a kid: this movie was pretty much made for boys in their early teens, rating be damned.

And yet, despite its inherent flaws and ham-fisted politics, there something kind of charming about Death Wish 3. The parts that I remembered loving as a kid (blowing away the purse-snatcher, Paul’s ingenious booby traps, Fraker’s delicious villainy) were just as enjoyable this time around. Sure, the film may be full of holes and uses a disturbing amount of fantasy to glide over the rough patches (the cops are nowhere to be found, while everything is blowing up, until they’re needed for the big finale, at which point they all swoop down, en masse: were they all on break or something?) but it also has a gonzo sense of energy and vitality to it. The film looks pretty great, full of rich, vibrant colors and the soundtrack, by Jimmy Page (yep, that Jimmy Page), is pretty awesome: it’s a keyboard-heavy, funky batch of tunes that perfectly evoke the theme songs to various ’80s cop shows…in the best way possible, mind you).

Unlike Death Wish, which operated in shades of gray, Death Wish 3 is very much a black-and-white film: the bad guys are all absolutely bad, the good guys are all absolutely good. Guns are not only good but absolutely necessary. When the law fails you, take measures into your own hands. There’s no room for dialogue or division here: you’re either standing with Paul, shooting at the creeps, or you’re getting shot at…simple as that. When I want to watch something thought-provoking and visceral, I’ll undoubtedly return to the original. When I want to turn my brain off and root for the white hats, however, there’s no doubt that I’ll be returning to Death Wish 3. After all, any film that features a reverse mohawk, giggling purse-snatcher and death by (close-range) rocket launcher can’t be all bad. It was the ’80s, after all.

6/2/14 (Part One): Taking Back the Cities

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'70s films, '70s-era, 1970's cinema, actor's debut, based on a book, Charles Bronson, cinema, crime film, cult classic, Death Wish, debut acting role, drama, electronic score, film franchise, film reviews, film series, films, gang rape, Herbie Hancock, Hope Lange, iconic film scores, Jeff Goldblum, Kathleen Tolan, liberals vs conservatives, Michael Winner, Movies, muggers, New York City, Paul Kersey, rape, Robert Kya-Hill, Steven Keats, Stuart Margolin, vigilante, Vincent Gardenia, violence against women, William Redfield

A middle-aged husband and wife frolic on a tropical beach, very much in love and having a blast. As they fall into each others’ arms, the wife asks her husband if he’d like to go back to their hotel room. “What about right here?”, he slyly asks. She rebuffs hims gently, reminding him that they’re “civilized now.” With a small sigh, the husband responds: “I remember when we weren’t.” Far from being just a wistful rumination on the trials of aging and the permanence of love, however, this reminder of our civilization has a far different meaning: we are civilized now…but at what price? For, you see, this isn’t just any tale of love (whether found, lost or unrequited). This, after all, is Michael Winner’s incendiary, though-provoking Death Wish (1974), one of the most popular, bracing meditations on vigilantism ever brought to the big screen. While it may have eventually turned into a rather silly action franchise, the original film is powerful, painful and asks the kind of questions that we, as a society, don’t usually like to ask: How far would you go to protect your loved ones? How many would you kill to avenge them?

The husband in the opening, Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson), is a loving family man, architect and “bleeding heart liberal,” at least as far as his co-workers are concerned. He shares a modest little home with his wife, Joanna (Hope Lange), and has a grown daughter, Carol (Kathleen Tolan), who’s happily married to Jack (Steven Keats). In most ways, Paul is living the American dream. He’s also living in New York City in the mid-’70s, however, several decades before Times Square morphed into a family-friendly playground. As his co-worker, Sam (William Redfield), is only too happy to point out, there were 15 murders in the city while Paul was on vacation: if it were up to Sam, he’d “put all of the underprivileged into concentration camps.” It’s a war-zone and they need more cops…but no one will pay for them. Paul brushes it all off, knowing in his heart that punishment and confinement won’t do anything to stem the tide: you need to attack the core problems, deal with the crushing poverty, disenfranchisement and isolation that lead desperate people to commit crimes. For Paul, there are no lost causes, just people who have given up the fight.

Paul receives the ultimate test of his convictions, however, when his wife and daughter become the victims of terrible crimes within the “safety” of his own home: after a vicious gang of punks (led by a very young Jeff Goldblum, in his first acting role, wearing a ridiculous Jughead hat) follow her and Carol back their place, the monsters beat Joanna and brutally gang-rape Carol. When Joanna ends up dying from her injuries and Carol is reduced to a catatonic state, Paul sees his entire world (and everything he believes in) come crashing to the ground. When the police tell him that there’s “always a chance” that they’ll catch the animals responsible for the crimes but “just a chance,” the message is loud and clear: in this world, you really are on your own. Paul decides to head out into the night, wielding a roll of quarters in a sock. After a would-be mugger receives a sockful of quarters to the face and flees (his expression is priceless), Paul suddenly feels like a million bucks: he’s been reborn, reconnected with his “primitive roots” and rampages about his home like a frat boy on a bender. Taking charge of your life, as we see, is a helluva drug.

After Paul’s company sends him to Tucson, Arizona, to work on a project, the next step in his “evolution” begins. Paul meets Aimes Jainchill (Stuart Margolin), a well-spoken, folksy and intelligent local land developer who’s a study in contrasts. He’s an uber-wealthy individual who wants to keep as much of the desert intact as possible, even if it means cutting into his profit margin. He’s a plain-spoken, quiet man who becomes a friend (and father-figure) to Paul. He’s also, perhaps most importantly, an outspoken supporter of the NRA and a gun enthusiast. After taking his “citified” friend to a shooting range, Aimes is surprised and delighted to discover that Paul is actually a crack-shot: he did grow up a hunter, after all, even if he hasn’t touched a gun since his father was killed in a hunting accident. “Somebody once said he never looked back, because something was gaining on him. What’s gaining on you, Paul?,” Aimes asks, although we already know: Paul’s primal self is gaining on him…and looks set to take the lead.

Upon returning home, Paul opens a mysterious wrapped package from Aimes and discovers that his friend has given him a gun: time to hit the streets and take back the city. As Paul walks his own nightly beat of the city, baiting and gunning down the muggers, creeps and thugs who rule the night, the NYPD finds themselves with a bit of a problem: they seem to have a vigilante on their hands…and the locals love it. Soon, Lt. Frank Ochoa (Vincent Gardenia) is in a bit of a bind: the crime rate is plummeting, civilians have become emboldened to take matters into their own hands (whether a hat-pin wielding granny or a mob of irate construction workers) and the unknown vigilante is becoming a bit of a folk hero. As the Police Commissioner (Stephen Elliot) and District Attorney (Fred Scollay) pressure Lt. Ochoa to “deal with” the issue, Paul goes deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole, putting his own life (and freedom) in jeopardy, all in his desperate quest to clean up his city and bring some meaning to the pointless death of his wife and abuse of his daughter.

In a way, Death Wish and Don Siegel’s Dirty Harry (1971) are a matched-set: both came around early in the ’70s, when the crime rate in metropolitan cities was on the rise; both films spawned franchises that became, over time, increasingly silly and action-oriented; both films take extremely black-and-white views on criminals (spoiler: they all suck); and both films see pacifism and anything short of Draconian law enforcement techniques as wins for the “bad guys.” In many ways, however, Death Wish is the much more subtle and intriguing of the two (although I’ll go to the grave calling Dirty Harry one of the single best films in the convoluted history of cinema), mostly because Bronson’s Paul Kersey is much more sympathetic and “relatable” than Eastwood’s “Dirty” Harry Callahan. While Dirty Harry is, for all intents and purposes, an “action hero,” Paul Kersey is a broken, sad man who’s attempting to regain control of his life. Whereas Dirty Harry comes into everything with a cynical attitude (when we first meet him, he’s got a sneer on his lips and an implied eye-roll that most teens would kill for), Paul actually begins in a place of love and acceptance, before being hardened and made “feral” by the evils of the world. At the beginning, there is no joy for Paul in killing the muggers: he celebrates clocking the first guy with his “club” but pukes his guts out when he actually shoots his first bad-guy.

Despite Paul’s initial reluctance to kill, however, it’s important to note one thing: at no point in time do the filmmakers ever hedge their bets or waffle on their initial premise. Death Wish is very much about what happens when “civilization” fails and “good people” are forced to resort to brutal tactics. Although the police are usually depicted as being fairly benevolent in the film (especially the character of Lt. Ochoa), they’re never portrayed as particularly effective. In this case, the message is pretty clear: buy into the fantasy about “law and order/punishment/rehabilitation” and get wasted or take matters into your own hands and survive. At the beginning, Sam’s hardcore conservative bent seems to be played for laughs (this is the guy who advocates putting the “less fortunate” into concentration camps, after all, which seems kinda…well…bat-shit crazy) but we’re later given a much more reasonable, well-spoken advocate for a similarly hard-line approach: Aimes Jainchill. Not only is Aimes one of the most well-spoken, charismatic characters in the film, he’s also an avowed gun enthusiast and avid supporter of the NRA. In one of the film’s least subtle scenes, Aimes takes Paul to an Old West gunfight re-enactment, where we get the necessary reinforcement about law and order back in the “good ol’ days.” As Aimes explains to Paul, the West is much safer than New York City: out here, you can just carry a gun and blow away the bad guys, before they get a chance to harm you.

This, then, becomes the true focus for the film: when society has degraded to the point where the traditional mechanisms of law and order no longer work, men and women must take the law into their own hands. At one point, Paul argues with his incredibly ineffectual son-in-law about the ramifications of self-defense versus “cutting and running.” “If we’re not pioneers, what have we become? What do you call people who, when faced with a condition of fear, run and hide?” “Civilized?,” Jack responds. Paul snorts, derisively, shaking his head: “No.” The point is clear: you can only back away for so long before you get pushed into a corner. Paul has decided to be pro-active and shoot his way out of the corner.

While the film does nothing to obscure its ultimate premise, it actually functions as a more thought-provoking than didactic. For one, the film is quite clear to spell out the inherent limitations of revenge/vigilantism: namely, people are humans and humans make lots and lots of mistakes. It’s not difficult to cheer on the old lady who wards off a would-be mugger with a hat-pin but it becomes a little fuzzier when we get to the construction crew that chases down and enthusiastically “subdues” a would-be purse-snatcher. This, of course, is the gray line between legitimate “policing” and “retribution.” It’s quite interesting to note, in addition, that Paul never actually gets to kill the punks who destroyed his family: he shoots several people in the course of the film but we never get to see him take revenge on those particular individuals. In a way, perhaps this is the film’s most subtle critique against vigilantism: ultimately, it can do nothing to bring back the dead.

Craftwise, Death Wish is gritty, tightly paced and well-acted. Bronson, obviously, is one of the chief draws here and he manages to blend just the right amount of “average, everyday Joe” with “steel-eyed, flinty killer.” There’s a reason why Bronson has always been considered one of the “old guard” of classic cinematic tough guys, along with Clint Eastwood: there’s a vulnerability to him that’s never completely subsumed by the fire inside. He’s the epitome of the retired gunslinger, called back into battle for “one last fight,” and his world-weariness marks a potent contrast to wise-cracking action heroes like Bruce Willis or Ahnald. The rest of the cast provides able support, with Vincent Gardenia being nearly a match for Bronson, as the equally world-weary but much more cynical Lt. Ochoa. His police-station address to his officers as the vigilante story blows up across the city is great (“We want to tell the American public that we’re looking for this vigilante and have definite clues…we just don’t want to tell them that we have about a thousand definite clues.”) and Gardenia goes a long way towards putting a human face on the issue of law enforcement.

Unlike many popular “action” films, there’s a dark, disagreeable heart that beats deep within Death Wish. The film is not simply one visceral thwarted mugging after another and, on occasion, can be downright difficult to watch. In particular, the scene where the punks bust into the apartment and attack Joanna and Carol is almost impossible to sit through: the rape scene is just as terrible, violent and graphic as any that came before or after (in particular, I was reminded of the rape in Irreversible (2002) and the pain and fear is almost too “real” for a fictional film. Similarly, many of the scenes where Paul “defends” himself are skewed to be more about chaotic activity than cinematic “badassery” – Paul is no trained killer, after all, but just your average dude.

For all of its lasting power, there are still several issues that I have with Death Wish. While the film is always careful to take a more even-handed approach, there really aren’t any viable viewpoints on display, save the call for vigilantism. The police are never portrayed as effective (at one point, they seem to send a whole squad-room to tail Paul, which seems a little stupid since, you know, there’s all that other increased crime to deal with) and any arguments for pacifism pretty much begin and end with the cowardly Jack, one of the most simpering creations in modern cinema. There’s also no blurring of the line regarding Paul’s actions: even if he baits his victims, each and every one of them obviously has it coming. At one point, Paul even steps in to prevent a group of men from assaulting another: his vigilantism is always more effective than law-and-order, mostly because the argument in the film is so one-sided.

From a filmmaking perspective, I found the film’s score (composed, conducted and performed by Herbie Hancock) to be rather underwhelming and, occasionally, completely baffling. Whereas something moody and bluesy, like the score for Dirty Harry, would have helped to pull out the emotion, Hancock’s score is too often experimental and propulsive, sort of like discordant cocktail jazz. While I have nothing but respect for Hancock, I can’t help but feeling this wasn’t his finest hour. There were also a number of scenes (in particular the repellent rape scene and the Old West shootout) that seemed to go on forever: whereas there’s probably a spurious claim to be made regarding the overall impact of the rape scene, the shootout scene makes its point early and then beats it into the ground for what seems like an hour. It went on for so long, in fact, that my mind wandered from the actual film and began to consider the intense irony of veteran Western actor Bronson appearing in a film where he played a modern man watching an Old West gunfight. As a rule, the scene’s not working if you have the opportunity to ponder the metaphysics of the actor involved, rather than the actual scene, itself.

Ultimately, Death Wish is one of those rare films that’s managed to lose very little of its original power as the passage of time puts it more and more in the rear-view mirror of life. Unlike the increasingly insipid (if much more action-packed) sequels, the original Death Wish is a film that asks some very serious questions (In an increasingly “civilized” world, what happens when you need to become “uncivilized”? When does “retribution” become murder? If the police can’t protect you, does that mean you get to do whatever it takes to protect yourself? Can criminals be rehabilitated or is a bullet to the brain the best we can hope for?). If the movie already has its answers lined up (the film makes no bones about the fact that it is, in some ways, a love letter to the NRA), it at least has the courage to ask them in the first place. If you’re one of the people who grew up thinking that Death Wish was simply a one-dimensional, gunpowder-scented, revenge fantasy, you owe it to the film to give it another look. Regardless of which side of the law-and-order debate you land on, Death Wish has been fostering conversations and discussions for the past 40 years: as our “civilized” society keeps evolving, I can only imagine that it will continue to be relevant for the next 40 years, as well.

3/20/14: When Jackasses Attack

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arrogance, based on a book, based on a true story, celebrities, celebrity, celebrity journalist, cinema, comedies, Danny Huston, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, fish-out-of-water, Gillian Anderson, gossip rags, Hollywood, Hollywood satire, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Jeff Bridges, journalism, Kirsten Dunst, magazines, Megan Fox, Mother Teresa biopic, Movies, New York City, obnoxious people, Robert B. Weide, Sidney Young, SImon Pegg, Sophie Maes, Toby Young, unlikable protagonist, workplace comedies

As a modern society, we’ve become pretty obsessed with celebrities and the private lives of these glitterati. In a classic case of “the grass always looks greener,” it’s very inviting to look over the elegantly wrought-iron fences, past the armed security and straight into the beating heart of the American dream. This, of course, is a steaming load of horse pucky: the grass is greener because it’s Astroturf and the beautiful people look a lot like everyone else do first thing in the morning. This, of course, hasn’t stopped an entire cottage industry of gossip shows, tabloids and paparazzi from springing up to document every celebrity faux pas, grocery store visit, nose job and million-dollar deal under the sun. While it often seems that these purveyors of celebrity “news” are jaded outsiders looking to blow holes in the rhinestone-bedazzled Hindenburg that Hollywood often resembles, the Simon Pegg-starring How to Lose Friends and Alienate People posits a slightly different theory: these paparazzi are just as obsessed, envious and in love with these folks as everyone else is supposed to be.

Based on Toby Young book about his real-life experiences, HTLFAAP introduces us to the character of Sidney Young (Simon Pegg). As a boy, Sidney was obsessed with the idea that all celebrities lived together in some sort of Shangri-La…a 24/7 Copacabana where the drinks were always comped, the makeup was always immaculate and the people were all cool as ice. If he could just get there, he reasoned, he would be one truly happy young boy. As the opening voice-over lets us know, however, “celebrity journalist” is as close as he’s gotten to this imagined paradise. As he sits with starlet-of-the-moment Sophie Maes (Megan Fox) at an award show, one Best Actress award away from some promised pity sex, Sidney reflects back on the events that led him to this particular moment in time. The flashback takes us into our movie proper: one part workplace comedy, one part Hollywood satire, one part old-fashioned romance.

We see Sidney as a scrappy, ultra-combative tabloid journalist, prone to celebrity attack pieces and raging against the machine of the big corporate fluff rags. He ends up on the radar of Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges), a gossip-rag magnate, after he crashes one of his exclusive A-list Hollywood parties. Sidney reminds Clayton of himself, at that age and economic level, so he does the only thing that a respectable gossip-mag baron would do in a situation like this: he puts Sidney on the payroll. This puts Sidney into direct contact with your usual rogues’ gallery of assorted oddball characters: Lawrence Maddox (Danny Huston), Sidney’s slimy boss; Alison (Kirsten Dunst), the prickly co-worker that would never, in a million years, fall for a jerk like Sidney; fame-hungry starlet Sophie Maes, her little dog Cuba and reptilian agent Eleanor (Gillian Anderson); and colossal jackass/director Vincent Lepak (Max Minghella).

As Sidney navigates these treacherous, shark-filled waters, he finds himself falling for Alison (natch), although she has a mysterious absentee boyfriend that makes getting together seem a little impossible. There also seems to be some interest from Sophie, although she seems more than willing to do absolutely anything that would push her career one step closer to the big time. Sidney’s old rebel spirit begins to fight back as he’s asked to do a puff piece on Lepak, a black-hole of vapidity so dense that nothing can escape his crushing stupidity. When Sidney rebels, it seems like the only thing holding him back is himself: as Harding told him earlier, he’s standing in the first room and is fully capable of getting to the last room…if he wants it bad enough. Sidney must reconcile his own core values with his lifelong desire to fit in with the “cool kids,” all while trying to figure out just what, exactly, he really wants to do with his life.

My biggest beef with HTLFAAP is that the film ends up being so schizophrenic. On the one hand, it wants to be a snarky, razor-sharp satire on the inherent ridiculousness of Hollywood, complete with an epic Mother Teresa biopic starring Megan Fox. On the other hand, the film wants to be one of those ubiquitous workplace dramadies where co-workers conspire against each other, ideas are stolen, comeuppances are had by all and a quirky parade of characters engage in utterly quirky behavior. On the third hand, the movie wants to be an old-fashioned romance, one of those Cary Grant-starrers where the guy and gal don’t see eye to eye, you see, until they do, at which point they fall madly in love with each other and live happily ever after. As you can see, there’s about one hand too many here. This is a big reason why the film ends up being a bit of a tonal mess: one moment, it’s a frantic, ultra-high-strung slapstick comedy, the next moment, it’s a stereotypical “indie comedy,” with Juno-esque dialogue and sardonic voice-over. The film also gets serious, from time to time, mostly to remind us that Sidney is constantly in danger of losing his core values.

For my money, the most tired aspect of the film (and the one that I would have cut first) would have to be the hackneyed romantic angle. The romance steals the focus of the film almost entirely, especially by the final third, where Sidney is madly rushing about trying to win the hand of Alison. In fact, the final denouement has virtually nothing to do with any of the celebrity-chasing that came before, breaking everything down to that time-honored (and ultra-trite) notion that all you really do need is love. How nice. Were there some actual chemistry between Pegg and Dunst, the romance might carry a little bit more weight. As it stands, however, it felt very much like “Character A must like Character B”-level plotting and never felt authentic.

What worked? The film seemed to wring the most success from the celeb-mocking stuff (the Mother Teresa gag is, quite simply, one of the funniest jokes I’ve seen in quite some time) and the performances were pretty sturdy. It’s always nice to see The Dude in something but I kinda wish Bridges had been given more to do than bluster and offer the occasional bit of sage advise. Pegg did a decent job playing a shithead character but this kind of smug, self-absorbed nitwit is starting to seem like old hat for ol’ Simon: it would be nice to see him branch out a little. Ditto for Dunst, who’s been on this kind of autopilot for his last few roles. She’s a great actress but, too often, she’s just required to be withering. Huston and Anderson are great in some meaty supporting roles: Anderson, in particular, is a blast to watch and neatly wrestles the film away whenever she’s on-screen.

At the end of the day, is How to Lose Friends and Alienate People worth a watch? It really depends on your expectations. If you’re a Simon Pegg fan, you could probably do worse (like Mission Impossible III) but you could certainly do better (see a Fantastic Fear of Everything, instead). I’m not familiar with the original book, or the person it was based on, so I can’t really vouch as to the authenticity of either, at least as represented here. My personal take is that Sidney comes across as a self-absorbed douchebag but, then again, what do I know? I do know that the romantic aspect drags the film down, however, and that it would have been a lot better had it been a lot shorter and tighter. I also know that, despite my intense dislike of Megan Fox, I would pay very good money to see her play Mother Teresa in that promised biopic: I kinda wish the filmmakers had given us an hour of that instead of two hours of this.

3/13/14: Ain’t No Love in the City (Oscar Bait, Part 15)

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2013 Academy Awards, 86th Annual Academy Awards, auteur theory, Barton Fink, Best Cinematography nominee, Best Sound Mixing nominee, Carey Mulligan, cats, cinema, Coen Brothers, couch-surfing, Ethan Coen, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, folk music, Garrett Hedlund, Greenwich Village, indie dramas, Inside Llewyn Davis, Joel Coen, John Goodman, Justin Timberlake, Llewyn Davis, Movies, musical numbers, New York City, Oscar Isaac, Roland Turner, set in the 1960's, snubbed at the Oscars, the Coen Brothers, unlikable protagonist, winter

There’s a very fine line between being a gruff, disagreeable, yet essentially human being and being a complete horse’s ass. On the one hand, you have a set of individuals who just don’t feel like towing the party line, the kind of folks who follow their own rules and don’t always have to have a plastic smile glued to their faces. These folks may be curt, short-fused, unapologetically honest and kind of a drag but, for the most part, they’re good people: someone else’s “theme song” isn’t necessarily noise, just different from our own. The world is full of unpleasant people who do lots of good deeds and are responsible for some very essential/beautiful/hilarious/moving things. On the other hand, however, some people really are just horses’ asses and there isn’t much more that can be said about them.

The question at the center of Inside Llewyn Davis, the Coen Brothers’ latest film, is just what kind of an individual Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) really is: is he a gruff, unlikable, immensely talented artiste or is he just a spoiled-rotten horse’s ass? As with pretty much every Coen film since their debut, nothing here is ever as clear-cut as that, although Inside Llewyn Davis tends to be almost as obtuse as Barton Fink, which is no mean feat.

We’re first introduced to Llewyn, a New York folk singer, as he’s doing one of the two things he’s best at: singing his heart out at a small club. In short order, however, we’re introduced to Llewyn’s other talent, as a mysterious man kicks his ass in the parking lot for heckling during another performance. Even as he’s getting stomped, Llewyn is completely unrepentant: if he regrets anything, it’s probably that he didn’t get away quick enough. We then follow Llewyn on an epic journey of minimalism and aimless drifting as he couch surfs across Greenwich village, letting loose a beloved family pet here, bringing discord to a relationship there and never once wavering from his steadfast devotion to say it like he means it. Jean (Carey Mulligan), one half of a local folk “power” couple with Jim (Justin Timberlake) may be pregnant with Llewyn’s kid but she’d rather abort it than take the chance: “You’re a shit person and everything you touch turns to shit.” Jim gets Llewyn a gig with him in the studio, only for Llewyn to spend the whole time ridiculing the song and being a jerk: “I’m happy for the gig but who wrote this song?” Jim’s unhappy reply? “I did.”

Time and time again, Llewyn acts in the most selfish, self-serving ways possible, navigating through life as if it were a highway and his was the only car in sight. He talks shit about Al Cody (Adam Driver) during the studio session but still manages to ask him to crash on his couch. Not only does Llewyn let out the Gorfeins’ (Ethan Phillips, Robin Bartlett) cat, he also explodes during a dinner, causing Mrs. Gorfein to burst out crying. Nonetheless, Llewyn still shows up on their doorstep later, looking for a place to stay. In any given situation, Llewyn does just what he wants to but then seems surprised when everybody reacts negatively.

As previously mentioned, however, there seems to be a lot more going on here than a simple look into the life of a jerk. For one thing, Inside Llewyn Davis is structured very much like a quest/road-movie, although the ultimate goal never seems quite clear. In some ways, the film reminded me of Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, although the underlying connection of the latter to the Odyssey is much clearer than any classical allusions I can draw from the former. This is not to say that the Coens’ intention is muddy, necessarily, just that I wasn’t able to get it the first time around. There’s definitely something going on internally, especially once we learn that the Gorfein’s cat is named Ulysses, but my initial viewing wasn’t quite sufficient: as with all things Coen, I expect multiple viewings to help clear this up.

We also get the odd introduction of Johnny Five (Garrett Hedlund) and Roland Turner (John Goodman), a beat poet and jazz musician, respectively, who embark on a short, ill-fated car trip with Llewyn. Goodman is absolutely amazing as the crass, boorish, Santeria-practicing, smack-shootin’ jazz musician but it’s a curious role and seems to serve a rather undefined purpose in the film. At first, I was inclined to think that this was a commentary on the inherent differences between jazz and folk during the early ’60s but that felt to reductive. I’m more inclined to think that Roland factors more prominently into the “real,” underlying story beneath Inside Llewyn Davis (I automatically think of Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came but that could just be me).

There’s also the curious business of the beginning and end of the film, sections which seem to hint at some sort of deeper, almost symbolic meaning. By the end of the film, I was left wondering if, perhaps, this were some form of a purgatory, with Llewyn Davis doing eternal laps around the track as some sort of punishment for past deeds. Did the mysterious, ass-whuppin’ man in black represent some sort of cosmic retribution, the universe’s way of making sure that Llewyn earned some measure of comeuppance for his blatant disregard towards everyone else? Was this some way of saying that omnipresent negativity can only breed more negativity, leading Llewyn to wander in a maze of his own unpleasant creation? It honestly stumped me but I won’t admit defeat until I’ve had a little more time with it.

My confusion notwithstanding, Inside Llewyn Davis marks something of a return to form for the Coens (at least as far as I’m concerned) after the disappointment of Burn After Reading, A Serious Man and True Grit. This is a much simpler, quieter film than productions like Oh Brother and True Grit but it doesn’t have the restrained sense of tension inherent to early films like Blood Simple or Fargo, either. For me, this “slow-burn” zone is my favorite mode for the Coens, so watching this felt like the cinematic equivalent of comfort food, in a way. As usual, the ensemble cast is fantastic: like Woody Allen, the Coens have a natural gift with bringing out the best in actors and they have quite the group to work with here. As the titular “hero,” Oscar Issac is simply marvelous and was egregiously snubbed of a Best Actor nomination at this year’s Oscars. Mulligan and Timberlake, as Jean and Jim, are great, with Timberlake continuing to impress me with another simple but spot-on characterization. As previously mentioned, Goodman is a whirlwind of chaos and easily steals every inch of celluloid that he appears on.

Ironically, despite being denied several obvious Oscar nominations (Best Actor, Best Picture, Best Director, for three), Inside Llewyn Davis was nominated for a pair that I just couldn’t agree with: Best Sound Mixing and Best Cinematography. While the cinematography was good but nothing special, I actually found the sound mixing to be rather awful, with the kind of vast gulf between dialogue and music that mars many films/TV shows these days: I found myself riding my remote’s volume more than I liked and certainly more than should have been necessary in a film with “supposedly” exemplary sound mixing.

At the end of the day, due to my lifelong love of their films, it’s always a bit difficult for me to be truly subjective regarding any new Coen Brothers productions. Unlike certain filmmakers like Nicholas Winding Refn or Ben Wheatley, I don’t love every Coen film in their canon: in fact, there are a few that I actively dislike. Very few filmmakers besides the Coens, however, would make me repeatedly watch a film that I don’t care for in an attempt to get me to understand and appreciate it better. While Inside Llewyn Davis is nowhere near my least favorite Coen film (hands down, that would be True Grit), it’s also nowhere near my favorite Coen film (Blood Simple/The Big Lebowski would be the conjoined twin/winner here). I’m willing to wager that, given some time, I’ll understand and appreciate this a lot more. At the very least, I’ll never get tired of watching Roland bluster or Llewyn chase that darn cat all over town.

 

2/12/14: We All Write Our Histories

Tags

1940s-era, actor-director, based on a book, based on a true story, Big Night, bohemian lifestyle, character dramas, cinema, drama, Film, film reviews, homeless, Ian Holm, Joe Gould, Joe Gould's Secret, Joe Mitchell, journalist, mental illness, Movies, New York City, New Yorker magazine, oral history, Patricia Clarkson, Professor Seagull, sad, Stanley Tucci, Steve Martin, Susan Sarandon, The Imposters, the Joe Gould Fund

Our impressions of people, as knee-jerk as they may be, often guide our interactions with them. If we perceive someone as somehow powerful, weak, gentle or assertive, we tend to treat them, and react to them, as such. Nowhere is this more evident than with our daily interactions with the homeless and destitute. In many cases, all we have to go on are surface impressions, since most never get close enough (emotionally rather than physically, as it were) to get to know somehow in these situations. If we see an obviously homeless individual dressed in multiple layers, pushing a loaded shopping cart down the road and carrying on both halves of a conversation with themselves…well, we do tend to think that these individuals might have a screw or two loose. This is only a surface impression, of course, but that’s often all that we get.

But what if we actually got to know one of these individuals, to care about them? What if we realized that there’s not a huge chasm that separates us but a small crack, a crack just large enough to fall through? Stanley Tucci’s Joe Gould’s Secret (based on the magazine article and book by Joe Mitchell) takes just such a look at just such a person, in this case the titular Joe Gould (Ian Holm).

Tucci portrays Joe Mitchell, a ’40s-era writer for the New Yorker who has begun to grow tired of “puff-pieces” and yearns to write something weightier, something more impactful. This something, in the form of Joe Gould, wanders into the diner where Joe is eating and proceeds to upend his life in a charmingly whimsical manner. Mitchell gets to know Gould, a neighborhood eccentric who is constantly collecting for the Joe Gould Fund, while in the middle of a lifelong project: an oral history of the world that is several times longer than the bible. In the meantime, Mitchell meets many of the locals who care about (and for) Gould, including a generous gallery owner (Patricia Clarkson) and Alice (Susan Sarandon), a kindly artist who seems to take a special interest in Gould.

Gould can be the life of the party (sometimes literally, as in one scene where he strips to his underwear and sings songs from atop a table) but he is also completely obsessive and prone to nasty mood swings. He latches onto Mitchell with both hands. Mitchell, for his part, is initially very open to Gould: after all, Gould is the source of Mitchell’s extremely popular “Professor Seagull” article and Mitchell genuinely likes him. Once Gould has begun to pop into Mitchell’s office for daily, lengthy b.s. sessions, however, poor Joe has definitely begun to wear out his welcome. Mitchell hangs on through it all, however, his eyes on the (possibly) mythical oral history that Gould dangles just out of reach like a phantom carrot. Will Mitchell be able to keep his cool? Is Joe Gould an eccentric, fractured genius or a kindly madman? Does the oral history, in fact, actually exist?

Aside from being an exceptionally gifted actor, Stanley Tucci has also proven himself to be quite the writer/director. Joe Gould’s Secret is Tucci’s third directorial effort, following his stellar debut Big Night (1996) and the energetic screwball comedy The Imposters (1998), and is just as accomplished, technically, as those films with the added pathos inherent to the film’s subject matter. At its heart, Joe Gould’s Secret is a deeply sad film, even before the truly sad resolution. This is a film about the outcasts of society, those who’ve fallen through the cracks and exist on a fringe that most of us only visit from time to time. The film never gives easy answers to the question of Joe Gould’s sanity (or lack thereof). We certainly see enough evidence to make the assumption that Gould is mentally imbalanced, possibly schizophrenic and maybe a little dangerous. We also see him as a friendly, loud, kindly eccentric, however, so the picture is never as lop-sided as one or the other.

Joe Gould’s Secret is a very quiet, solemn film, which certainly befits this look back into the gauzy past of New York City. Since the film is, essentially, a two-person show (Tucci and Holm), there’s a tendency for the proceedings to occasionally take on the feel of a stage-play. To be honest, this really isn’t to the film’s detriment, since this impression certainly puts the audience’s attention where it belongs: on the excellent performances of Tucci and Holm. Holm is certainly the flashier of the two roles, given to lusty ranting, raving and carrying-on counter-balanced by quietly devastating moments that really drive home the character. The scene where Holm stands naked, in a line to enter a homeless shelter, is so raw and powerful that it nearly grinds the film to a complete stop. When Holm is on (which is most of the film), he’s an awe-inspiring blend of cocksure absurdity and blistered vulnerability. It’s an intense performance that only occasionally veers into the “actorly.”

If Tucci’s performance is quieter and more reserved, however, it’s no less inherently powerful or commanding then Holm’s. Tucci is saddled with the unenviable task of being the guy who has to spoil the party: everyone else gets to deal with Gould’s hijinks on their own timeframe but poor Mitchell has to be the one to show him to the door. Tucci’s perfect combination of sad-sack acceptance (pretty much a Tucci trademark thanks to those bottomless eyes of his), eager interest and gentle sarcasm (there are many points where he seemed to be channeling none other than Mark Twain) are key to the film’s success: if the actor playing Mitchell had been any less genuine or sympathetic, Gould would have come across as insufferable rather than tragic. In a film where not much happens, Holm and Tucci continually find ways to make their interactions kinetic.

The rest of the cast fares well, although no one really gets to hold a candle next to the two leads. Sarandon is excellent in the kind of supportive, slightly bemused role that should probably best be called “Sarandon-esque” from now on. There are few actors working who portray genuine warmth and love in the way that Sarandon does and the film is all the richer for her performance. One of the film’s biggest surprises (and pleasures) is Steve Martin’s cameo as a partner in a publishing house. He only gets one scene, where Mitchell tries to introduce him to the increasingly squirrely Gould but it’s a helluva scene: beginning comically, the scene gradually to seem more and more desperate and sad. Martin’s Charlie Duell honestly likes Gould but realizes, as the conversation continues, that Gould is already a lost soul. The sad, sweet, bemused expression on Martin’s face is testament to the fact that this guy just doesn’t act enough nowadays.

Joe Gould’s Secret is a quiet, sincere film that becomes exceptionally powerful and sad in the final half. There’s a moment, at the end, where Mitchell goes to visit Gould in the Pilgrim State Mental Hospital. He finds Gould to be calmer, obviously saner but much less alive. Even though Mitchell knows that this is, ultimately, better for Gould, the pain and sorrow in his eyes is unmistakable. No matter how infuriating he might be, Mitchell is witnessing the death of his friend’s spirit before his very eyes. The final shot of Gould shuffling away from Mitchell, clad only in a hospital gown, is almost unbearably sad, a real gut-punch.

A postscript at the end of the film informs us that Joe Mitchell published his book, “Joe Gould’s Secret,” in 1964. For the next 32 years, he went into the office everyday but never wrote another article. I don’t mind saying that I just can’t quite shake that thought from my head. It’s to the film’s immense credit that I don’t really want to, either.

1/22/14: A Little Noir and a Lotta Dumb

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bad films, bad movies, Barry Fitzgerald, bars, cinema, Citizen Kane, comedies, crime film, Danny Devito, ensemble casts, Film, Girl Walks into a Bar, Gothika, Jimmy Halloran, Jules Dassin, Los Angeles, Lt. Daniel Muldoon, Mark Hellinger, Movies, New York City, Robert Forster, Rosario Dawson, Sebastian Gutierrez, Snakes on a Plane, terrible films, The Naked City, voice-over narration, Z-movies, Zachary Quinto

As a rule, I like to counter-program whenever I watch multiple movies: too much of any one thing can get tiring. There are exceptions, of course, such as my annual horror movie marathon in October: that’s pretty much just an entire month of horror films. Other than that, however, I usually like a little variety. Sometimes, however, I counter-program without even knowing it. Such was the case last Wednesday when I inadvertently paired up a pretty good film-noir (The Naked City) with a god-awful skid-mark called Girl Walks into a Bar. None of the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Not all films deliver the goods in big ways. Some films (many films, if we’re being completely honest) are more about small moments, individual pleasures. You could probably fill an airplane hangar with the “pleasant diversions” that I’ve watched over the past 30 years, although I doubt if I could remember much about most of them save the titles. Sometimes, a film isn’t groundbreaking, vital or earth-shaking: sometimes, a film is just pretty good…and that’s good enough.

The Naked City is a pretty good film, less a film noir (which it at first resembles) than a police procedural. Ostensibly, the film is about the police manhunt for the individual (or individuals) who murdered a young, blonde model in her apartment. Lt. Daniel Muldoon (played with so much mischievous energy by Barry Fitzgerald that the character is practically a leprechaun) and officer Jimmy Halloran (a wide-eyed Don Taylor, evidently pretty fresh from the farm) are on the case, tearing the city apart in their quest for answers and justice.

Right off the bat, there’s something a little off about The Naked City. The film begins with an aerial view of New York City as producer Mark Hellinger (who doubles as the film’s narrator) explains to us that the film was not shot on sound stages but, rather, on the gritty streets of New York, itself. This is a film, he lets us know, that is as much about the city as the people who live there. It’s an interesting tact that makes sense when you consider the staged nature of most films released in 1948.

This attempt to get into the heart (and mind) of the city is, at first glance, quite disorienting. We spend almost ten minutes jumping around from cleaning lady to switchboard operator to late-night radio DJ and back, hearing their (mostly mundane) thoughts on their lives, jobs, etc…It’s an almost documentary-esque technique that is only shattered when the camera strays into the victim’s apartment and we witness two mysterious men kill her. For a time, the film really does seem like it will consist of day-in-the-life vignettes.

Another trait that marks The Naked City as a bit of an odd duck is the oftentimes intrusive narration by Hellinger. Much of the time, Hellinger functions less as narrator than as Greek chorus, color commentator or surrogate character in the unfolding drama. As Officer Halloran is scouring the city for clues, Hellinger’s narration is a constant companion: “Look at your city, Halloran;” “The dress shop is next, Halloran.” This can become a bit distracting, particularly once the action picks up in the latter half and Hellinger becomes a TV commentator: “Run over there, Halloran…he turned to the left…look up above you!…what’s that over there?” To further confound things, Hellinger’s narration and inflection seem rather inappropriate for a crime film. It’s hard to describe but anyone who grew up on old Disney films will, presumably, know what I’m talking about. Imagine the kindly-voiced narrator from Dumbo narrating a crime drama and you begin to get the picture. This could be a hold-over from old radio programs but Hellinger’s narration is always either too flip or snide to convey any sense of mystery.

Structure-wise, the film is very much indebted to Welles’ Citizen Kane, released a scant seven years before The Naked City. Officer Halloran travels about the city, talking to anyone and everyone that knew the dead girl, in an attempt to piece together just who she was. It’s an effective structural-choice and lends the film a sturdy framework that helps immeasurably when it (occasionally) decides to spin its wheels.

There are little moments in the film that I enjoyed quite a bit: a discussion between Halloran and his wife about spanking their son turns, out of nowhere, into a really interesting argument on gender roles; the public’s fascination with every detail of the unfolding murder-mystery was the same then as it is now; there’s a blind man and his seeing-eye dog that reminded me immediately of the blind man and dog in Argento’s Suspiria, right down to the type of dog and the man’s clothing (could Argento have been a fan?); Barry Fitzgerald’s absolutely joyous portrayal of Lt. Muldoon (rarely have I seen an actor not named Richard Harris or Robert Downey Jr. tear his teeth so lustily into a role like this) and the ending is very strong.

All in all, The Naked City was really fun to watch, albeit kind of weird and a little silly, at times. While nowhere near a great noir or crime film, The Naked City is a perfectly fine way to whittle away 90 minutes. As Hellinger states at the end: “There are eight million stories in the Naked City…this has been one of them.” Damn straight, Mark: damn straight, indeed.

Full disclosure: I absolutely hated this film. Positively detested it. In fact, I dare say that I have seen few films that I actively disliked as much as this hackneyed, pretentious, stupid, blissfully unaware, towering horse manure-monument to narcissism. I can’t even say that I was glad when it was over, since I then had time to focus my disgust inwards, wondering what mental deficiency necessitate that I spend even one minute with this aggressively brain-dead waste of trust funds. I, by association, was as guilty as Sebastian Gutierrez and every other misbegotten individual involved with this cinematic abortion.

Sebastian Gutierrez…Sebastian Gutierrez…why does that name sound familiar? Had the name sounded more familiar before I began, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. You see, writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez was also the genius who wrote Snakes on a Plane and Gothika. A little history: those two films are fucking terrible, pardon my French. Snakes on a Plane may have had Sam Jackson and a big pop culture push but, in reality, it was an awful film, a self-aware bit of stupidity that strove for cult status without ever realizing what made cult films “cult” in the first place. Gothika was an aggressively stupid, unpleasant, worthless supernatural thriller that starred Halle Berry and, by itself, would have been enough reason for me to curse Gutierrez’s name from now until the stars burn out.

So, we have one of the worst writers in the biz: not good so far. But we also have huge stars like Danny Devito, Zachary Quinto, Rosario Dawson, Robert Forster (!), Gil Bellows and Josh Hartnett, you might say. Of course, we do. We also have them spewing the filmic equivalent of baby diarrhea: you don’t want a big cup of that, do you? I felt bad for every actor in the film but reserved a special reserve of pit for Robert Forster. I mean…really? Robert Forster…in this? My heart hurt for him, I won’t lie. The rest, barring Quinto (who’s still got time), have been in their fair share of embarrassments but this must be an all-time career low for Forster, even including his stellar turn in Scanner Cop II.

How about the plot? Well, there’s a hit woman and she has to go to ten different bars because she’s looking for the guy who stole her wallet while playing pool and each person she meets gives her another clue until she…oh, who gives a shit? Plot is, quite frankly, the last thing that anyone involved with this debacle is interested in. Plot holes? More like a smidgen of plot surrounded by the black hole of deepest space. To add insult to injury, the whole thing is episodic, taking place entirely in first one bar then the next then the next ad infinitum. I kept thinking this must have been an adapted stage play but who am I fooling? I’m pretty sure that the last play Sebastian watched was his elementary-school Christmas pageant. More likely, it’s just a really sloppy, lazy way to tell a story.

At this point, I would normally list all of the things that I really liked about a film. In this case, why don’t I just list the elements that made me black out from anger?

— the long, tedious, drawn-out fantasy sequence where Terri the stripper imagines one-upping the scuzzy guys in the club. A perfect example of a scene that thinks it’s exceptionally clever when it’s actually drooling in the porridge.

— Danny Devito’s entire time in the movie consists of him telling a dumb joke…what a waste.

— “What are you good at? You look like you’re really good at something but I just can’t put my finger on it.” — I can’t believe a human wrote this line: this has chimp fingerprints all over it.

— every single second of film that Rosario Dawson was in. How one individual could manage to be so annoying is a question for the ages.

— the nudity in the swinger’s club is censored with black bars because…it’s clever, I guess? Again, this was a case of Dumb and Dumbererer thinking it’s The Seventh Seal.

— Terri and the hit-woman play a game that consists entirely of them coming up with “imaginative” euphemisms for cunnilingus. I don’t laugh at these scenes when they involve boorish men and this was equally tasteless and stupid.

— the film ends with the three main characters country-line dancing in an empty bar because, honestly, how the hell else would you end something so offensively stupid?

I’ll leave you with the very last note that I took as I finished watching this cinematic masterpiece: Fuck you, Sebastian Gutierrez…fuck you very much.