2/15/14: Jocks Gone Wild

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1980's, Beavis and Butthead, Boner the Barbarian, celebrities, Charlie Harper, Charlie Sheen, Christopher McDonald, cinema, Film, film reviews, Gregg Araki, high school grads, killing spree, Los Angeles, Martin Sheen, Maxwell Caulfield, mental illness, Movies, Penelope Spheeris, road movie, road trips, serial killers, spree killers, The Boys Next Door, The Decline of Western Civilization, Wayne's World, William Friedkin

To paraphrase the late, great Rick James: celebrity is a helluva drug. The whirlwind of celebrity crash-and-burn has claimed many formerly good actors (Anyone remember the time when Gary Busey wasn’t the punchline to a joke? As hard as it may be to believe, there once was such a time.) and will probably continue to grind up performers until the sun finally winks out of existence. One of the biggest casualties? The current wild-man/former actor known as Charlie Sheen.

Once upon a time, way before “winning,” “warlocks” and “Denise Richards,” Sheen was a promising young actor who seemed poised to follow in his father’s footsteps. Young Sheen appeared in a string of successful films, including Platoon (1986), Wall Street (1987), Young Guns (1988), Eight Men Out (1988), Major League (1989), The Rookie (1990), Hot Shots! (1991) and Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993). David Twohy’s above-average alien-encounter flick The Arrival (1996) would be Sheen’s last “big” role before he made the move to TV, doing two years as Michael J. Fox’s replacement in Spin City before playing the part of Charlie Harper on Two and a Half Men for the next eight years.

Somewhere in that timeline, Sheen made the decision to put his acting on the back burner and focus, instead, on partying, drug use and general debauchery aka “The Robert Downey Jr. Plan.” As such, Sheen had already become something of a public joke before his very public meltdown and removal from his hit TV series made him a complete joke. Since that time, Charlie Sheen has existed as a sort-of meta-celebrity, an actor who only plays himself (A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III) and who seems to only be famous for being famous and saying outrageous (although increasingly less so) things.

Back at the beginning of his career, however, absolutely anything seemed possible. As the son of similarly hard-charging Martin Sheen, Charlie seemed to be a natural fit to follow in his dad’s footsteps (he even had a walk-on in Martin’s Apocalypse Now). The Boys Next Door, only Charlie’s second starring role, isn’t a great film but it is an interesting one and a pretty quaint look back into a time when Sheen was known more for his acting then his antics.

The film opens with sobering talking-head footage about serial killers, the consensus being that they usually end up being people who know and interact with on a regular basis, seemingly normal people who end up being less than human. We then cut to Roy (Maxwell Caulfield) and Bo (Sheen), a couple of knuckle-headed, prank-loving, high-school graduates acting like complete pains in the asses. They irritate their peers, giggle like flesh-and-blood versions of Beavis and Butthead, draw dirty pictures in class and crash pool parties that they’re not invited to. Once they appear to have exhausted their supply of home-town fun, the meat-heads steal a classmate’s dog, re-name it “Boner the Barbarian,” and hit the road for L.A. At this point, the film seems like any number of schlocky, ’80s teen road-movies, albeit with that aforementioned Beavis and Butthead vibe. Soon, however, the film will attempt to pull the rug from underneath our feet and will (to varying degrees) succeed.

As the two friends (and Boner the Barbarian) drive to Los Angeles, Roy quickly reveals himself to be a complete psychopath, a severely damaged individual who wants to join the army just so that he can kill something. As they travel about, Roy’s rage continues to bubble to the surface and, before long, he’s begun to violently lash out at everyone they come across: a gas-station attendant is beaten senseless…an old lady is hit in the head with a bottle. Before you know it, Roy is killing people and Bo (distinctly non-homicidal but so ineffectual as to become an unwitting accomplish) is “helplessly” along for the ride. Once the police get involved, the film becomes a headlong rush to a pretty inevitable fate: if you’ve seen one “fugitives on the run” film, you’ve probably seen at least 50% of them.

In certain ways, The Boys Next Door is an extremely strange film and at least some of the credit for this must be due to director Penelope Spheeris. Fans of transgressive ’80s cinema will recognize Spheeris from both 1981’s The Decline of Western Civilization (still one of the very best documentaries/looks into the burgeoning 1980’s U.S. hardcore scene) and Suburbia (1983), a look into disaffected youth that would seem to directly presage Gregg Araki’s nihilistic ’90s films. On the flip side, more modern sensibilities may recall that Spheeris also directed the original Wayne’s World (1992) before disappearing down the rabbit-hole of increasingly crass comedies and remakes: The Beverly Hillbillies (1993), The Little Rascals (1994), Black Sheep (1996), and Senseless (1998) all seemed to put the fork into a career that started out fairly interesting before sputtering out.

It’s definitely the “pre-PG13” Spheeris that we get in The Boys Next Door, however, which certainly accounts for much of the film’s psuedo-Repo Man look and vibe. At times, especially once Roy goes batshit, the film also reminded me of William Friedkin’s strange spree-killer/courtroom-drama Rampage (1988). Since Spheeris’ film preceded Friedkin’s by several years, it’s rather tempting for me to think that she might have had a little influence on his (decidedly) better film but I’m not sure if he would have been paying attention: Friedkin would have been working on To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) by that time.

One influence that can be seen in The Boys Next Door, however, is a bit of future influence: you can actually see shades of Wayne’s World, as bizarre as that may sound, in much of the film. Whether it’s in scenes like the goofy ones where our two “protagonists” drive around the city and gawk at “punk-rockers” or the real head-scratcher where Roy and Bo are chased by an angry mob of bikini-clad women after pelting an old lady in the head with a bottle, the film definitely recalls (at least in feel, if not tone) the antics of Wayne and Garth…minus all of the killing, of course.

Despite its frantic pace and Looney Tunes-sense of energy, The Boys Next Door still manages to run out of gas before its (inevitable) conclusion. After several scenes that managed to surprise, if not exactly shock, the conclusion is just about as lazy as it gets: a cheesy butt-rock guitar solo wails as Roy and Bo flee, first by car, then on foot, with the police in hot pursuit. The whole footchase essentially consists of anonymous shots of Roy and Bo running down generic hallways inter-cut with other anonymous shots of cops running down equally generic hallways. Between the frenetic noodling and the endlessly repetitive hallways, the finale feels like being stuck in purgatory, which may have been Spheeris’ intent all along.

As far as craft goes, The Boys Next Door holds together fairly well but certainly is nothing to write home about. Sheen is very good, if constantly bemused, as the “saner” of the two friends, while Caulfield pours his all into a role that frequently feels like a bone-headed update of that other Caulfield, the one who sulked through Catcher in the Rye. There’s a pretty hilarious (albeit unintentionally so) performance by a very young Christopher McDonald as a square, weepy cop. Older viewers will probably remember McDonald from any number of character turns over the past 30+ years but younger viewers will almost certainly remember him as Shooter McGavin, Happy Gilmour’s arch-enemy in the eponymous film. It’s a real hoot to see McDonald playing such a simpering, “nice guy” character, even if he doesn’t get much to actually do in the film. While the acting is decent, much of the film’s look and sound is strictly of the era, including a ridiculously clichéd and rather annoying score. As mentioned, the film frequently seems to be trying to mimic the look and feel of Repo Man (1984) but without a tenth of writer/director Alex Cox’s invention or gritty eye for absurdity.

As it stands, The Boys Next Door is a pretty-decent example of the “serial killer road trip” sub-genre but is, ultimately, pretty light-weight and forgettable, bar a few disturbing scenes (the one where Roy kills the girl that Bo is having sex with is a real corker). One big plus? The film has the temerity to introduce a dog but then never bothers to kill it: what were the filmmakers thinking? Any film that lets Boner the Barbarian live to rampage anew is just okay enough to deserve a look, in my book. Plus, you know, that whole Charlie Sheen thing. Winning, indeed!

2/10/14: The Dude Slums It

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'80s action films, 8 Million Ways to Die, Andy Garcia, Angel Moldonado, auteur theory, B-movies, bad films, bad movies, based on a book, Being There, cinema, David Lee Henry, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Hal Ashby, Harold and Maude, Jeff Bridges, Jesus Quintana, Matt Scudder, Movies, Oliver Stone, Randy Brooks, Rosanna Arquette, The Big Lebowski, To Live and Die in L.A., William Friedkin, Z-movies

Sometimes, it’s easy to figure out why a film turns out bad. It can feature a hack director (Uwe, despite your vicious left hook, I’m looking right at you), an obnoxious “star” (anything with Tom Green) or a terrible script (take your pick): it might even feature all of those, like some form of noxious cinematic goulash. Sometimes, however, it can be a little more difficult to peg why a film turns out less successfully than intended or even (worst case scenario) why said film fails completely. A film can seem to have everything going for it or, at the very least, enough to at least be an enjoyable romp, yet still wildly miss the mark and flail around like an octopus in tap-shoes. Such is the case with 8 Million Ways to Die, an empty-headed ’80s actioner starring Jeff “The Dude” Bridges and directed by Hal Asby (Harold and Maude, Shampoo, Being There). You’d think that their combined pedigrees would amount to something at least marginally entertaining: you would be quite wrong, indeed.

Plot-wise, 8 Million Ways to Die resembles quite a few other action films, both from the ’80s and beyond. Matt Scudder (Bridges) is a former alcoholic/ex-cop who gets approached by a mysterious woman (Alexandra Paul) at an AA meeting. It turns out that she’s a hooker and wants Matt’s help in leaving her pimp, Chance (Randy Brooks). Since nothing is ever as easy as it first seems, poor Matt is soon involved with a kooky drug-dealer named Angel (a very young Andy Garcia in one of his first feature films) and his “girlfriend” Sarah (Rosanna Arquette). Along the way, Matt must avenge Sunny’s death (for some reason), bring her killers to justice and woo Sarah before they’re all killed by the completely unbalanced Angel.

In many ways, 8 Million Ways to Die resembles a brain-dead re-do of William Friedkin’s far-superior To Live and Die in L.A., a film which came out a mere six months prior. The film is filled with all of the studied cool, washed-out pastels, garish neon and cheesy synths of Friedkin’s film but everything seems to fall flat in 8 Million Ways to Die. Even Bridges, always one of the most reliably interesting actors in the business, seems both bored and bemused by the chaos around him.

Bridges is reliably good, if tuned-out, but he’s completely surrounded by a crowd of actors going for broke in ways that seem to indicate there was some sort of over-acting competition going on behind-the-scenes. Obvious winner? Andy Garcia as the absolutely ludicrous Angel Moldonado. He chews up so much scenery that I’m surprised he didn’t gain 100 pounds on-set. With his ridiculously tiny, greasy ponytail, childishly foul mouth and blinding white suits, Angel seems to be the spiritual forefather for John Turturro’s Jesus Quintana in The Big Lebowski. Imagine “the Jesus” as a James Bond villain and you have some idea of the sheer stupidity on display here. Toss in a performance by Arquette that could best be described as “probably high” and a jaw-clenching shoutathon from Randy Brooks as Chance, the nicest pimp on the silver screen and the whole things seems like a particularly bad dinner-theater production that Bridges somehow stumbled into.

Thus far, we have a few potentially toxic ingredients in this little stew: over-the-top, unlikable acting; a stereotypically cheesy score; absolutely dated mise en scene; a Scooby Doo level of mystery-solving that involves finding the cat ring that matches a pair of cat earrings. Where the film really begins to distinguish itself, however, is with its abysmally terrible script. Not only is the film needlessly confusing (I found myself needing to draw a chart of the various characters’ relationships until I realized that this was more work than the filmmakers point into their project and I tore it up in disgust) but the sense of cause-and-effect is broken, to say the least. Characters act in whatever manner seems handy to the story, at the moment, with no regards to how anything actually fits together. There was so much random activity going on that it seemed both silly and insulting to even attempt to tie it into a traditional “private eye” framework: with a story this nonsensical, what’s there to investigate and solve?

With a bad script, of course, comes some bad dialogue and 8 Million Ways to Die gives us some real howlers. Bridges explains the film’s title and needlessly ties the movie into The Naked City when he states that, “In this city, there are eight million ways to die.” Awesome. Sunny hits on Matt by telling him that “The street light makes my pussy hair glow in the dark,” a line which she delivers in precisely the same manner as one might give directions to a stranger on the street. The big “climax” of the film involves a stand-off between Angel and his gang, Matt and Chance and predominantly involves the cast yelling, “Fuck you!” “No, fuck you!” for the better part of 10 minutes. Ironically, this actually counts as some of the best, canniest writing in the entire film. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Jeff Bridges and Andy Garcia yell “Fuck you” at each other like they were cycling through emotions in an actors’ workshop. Now show me confusion…good! Show me boredom…excellent! Now pretend that you’re hungry…fantastic!

As I mentioned earlier, 8 Million Ways to Die seems to be a pretty curious failure. There’s a great director (Ashby’s Being There and Harold and Maude are cinematic staples) and a good cast: what went wrong? In this case, if I may pop on my deerstalker and play detective, I thing I might know where to lay at least a little of the blame. When one examines the credits, one notices that 8 Million Ways to Die is adapted from the book of the same name by a couple of screenwriters: Oliver Stone and David Lee Henry. Stone should be familiar to just about anyone but David Lee Henry is actually the more illuminating of the two: Henry, you see, is also the genius scribe behind Charles Bronson’s The Evil That Men Do (easily one of Chuck’s worst, meanest films), Patrick Swayze’s Road House and Steven Seagal’s Out For Justice.

And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen: the auteur behind Harold and Maude and Being There, two of the wittiest, liveliest comedies ever made, once directed a dumb ’80s action film starring Jeff Bridges and written by the lunkhead who brought us Out For Justice. Was there ever any way this thing could have been a contender?