Six Word Movie Reviews: Part Two

Old Man Duggan is soon to be out of the country for the next couple of weeks and left us in charge, so to honor all hell breaking loose (and the return of misused ellipsis in our Breaking Down posts) Craig and I are releasing another round of six word movie reviews. Saddle up, honkeys.

Dead Man Walking: total bullshit, not one single zombie

Behind the Candelabra: gayer than cum on a mustache

What About Bob?: Who gives a fuck about Bob?

Hoffa: Guess what? They don't find him.

The Big Lebowski: dude, you got the wrong Lebowski

Leaving Las Vegas: drinking, drinking, titties, drinking, drinking, drinking

Drive: Dude gets murdered with a hammer

Dumb and Dumber: John Denver is full of shit

There's Something About Mary: you'll never zip again without looking

The Raid: most bad ass movie ever...  EVER!

Vanilla Sky: you won't see the end coming

Mallrats: kid is back on the escalator

Man on the Moon: Jim Carrey shoulda won an Oscar

Sideways: magnificent shot of flapping man jibbles

Sling Blade: retarded serial killer on the loose

Home Alone: mouse trap: the full house version

American Beauty: it's just a fucking plastic bag

Snatch: last one alive gets the diamond

The Game: it really is just a game.

American Psycho: I've got movies to be returned

  

Battleship: I’d let Rihanna sink my battleship 

Spiderman 3: emo spiderman can go fuck himself

The Break Up: Aniston has a magnificent turd cutter

Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never: I’ll go ahead and say never

Basic Instinct: you will wear out pause button

Glengarry Glen Ross: Glengarry Glen Danzig would be better

Pretty Woman: Watch out for gold digging prostitutes

Cabin in the Woods: there’s a cabin in the woods

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil: honestly, those guys are totally innocent

Killer Joe: suck on that chicken wing baby

The Man Who Wasn’t There: he is actually there all movie

Bullet to the Head: the title could not be truer

What Dreams May Come: disappointment, thought it was a porno

 

Goodfellas: that helicopter is really following you.

The Godfather: it's too fucking long, fell asleep

My Left Foot: big deal, elephants paint with trunks

Field of Dreams: if you build it…ghost invasion!

The Godfather Part II: woke up in middle of it

Big: She fucked a 13 year old

A League of Their Own: there’s no fucking crying in baseball

Cast Away: should have just fucking hung himself

The Godfather Part III: How long is this fucking movie?



Follow Craig Scholes @anaveragegatsby and Stan Earnest @StanEarnest

Man on Film: Boy Friends and Hundredaires

Today I get to toss some cyber-love out to two of my pals who have projects coming your way in some way, shape, or form.

First up is my friend and collaborator (on a project that I'm waiting to talk about until it's a little more real), Hugo Vargas-Zesati. Hugo's debut as a writer-director has been accepted to SXSW. It's a deliciously demented short film entitled Boy Friends. Hugo is also the dashing gent on crutches. Showtimes during the festival can be found here.



Then there is long-time friend Sean McGrath, who some of you may know/recognize from his work on Twilight or Everyman's War or as a writer/on-air personality on Oregon Public Radio's variety show Live Wire. Why we've never completed any collaborative project likely boils down to my laziness and/or relative unease in the screenwriting medium. He is writing on Hundredaires, one of new bits of original programming that the French Kiss Records video site FKR.TV and one on which David Cross is an Executive Producer. Hundredaires is one of the projects featured in this trailer. Be sure to subscribe to keep up to the minute on FKR.TV updates.

Man on Film: Every Time You Go Away, A Stewart Parker Film

Every once in a while, I like to use this platform to highlight the works of some of my most deserving friends. Budding filmmaker--and I intend that tag to be read in the most lascivious and lecherous way--Stewart Parker toiled over this project for months, pouring nearly every imaginable bodily fluid into the making of this short film.

With the seed first setting whilst aboard a boat with co-story by guy, Anthony Maranca, Stewart set off to make his and your wildest dreams come true. This is the tasty culmination--the fruit that aforementioned seed eventually bore out--the mini-masterpiece, a calculated meditation on masculinity and its fading place in society, Every Time You Go Away.

Rediscovering the Past: Out of Bounds, A Sign of a Better Time

All, this week's Wordy Old Men on Downton Abbey is going to have to be put off 'til next week as Wordy's pricey laptop issues and my sickness and likely death from my head exploding next time I sneeze has gotten in the way. So here is a peace offering. Another oldie but goodie (and this one is slightly touched up). This one originally appeared back on March 29, 2009 and ended up leading to none other than Keith Coogan visiting the comments section with a great snippet about himself and a certain look-alike.  

1986 was a better time in American history. I high point, really. ALF premiered. The Burt Reynolds Heat--you know, the good one that that hack piece of shit Brian De Palma is going to ruin but at least it will have some Statham in it--came out. The two best movies ever, Highlander and Howard the Duck, both were released that year. And of course, Out of Bounds was released. You may be asking yourself, "Wait, what the fuck is Out of Bounds? Am I this far out of the loop?" Yes, you are. Get your shit together.

Basically, if you are looking for the perfect marriage of the Youth in Revolt and Wrong Man genres, then the 1986 Anthony Michael Hall star vehicle Out of Bounds is your fucking movie. Yes, that's right, 1986 was a time in which Anthony Michael Hall was getting star vehicles. Shit was just better then.

AMH plays Daryl Cage--surely a cousin of Nic Cage, especially after considering AMH's Out of Bounds co-star Jenny Wright dated my favorite Cage for two years--an Iowan teen who goes to live with his brother in Los Angeles (which, when I just typed it, I pronounced in my head in the same manner that Sam Elliott does in The Big Lebowski) after his home breaks. When they land at the airport, he and his brother grab the wrong duffel bag (no, there are not eight heads in it).

Of course, it happens to be full of drugs, and this sets Daedalus from "Kindred: The Embraced" on a murderous rampage that seems to the authorities (whose efforts are led by Mayor Royce, Glynn Turman) to be the work of the Daryl. Honestly, Jeff Kober is one creepy looking hombre and this casting decision works. Think a scarier version of Robert Davi or Andrew Divoff, or if you're a Heat fan like me (yes, the aforementioned good one), a young Henry Silva, and you've got your villain.

Perhaps the most awesome aspect of this film--and trust me, there are plenty--is how dead all the dead people look. They don't just look like they were freshly killed. No, it would be a damn shame if you confused that body with a live person. No, these corpses look like zombies mere hours after they've been offed.

Of the myriad other badass aspects of this film, Jerry Levine (the sleazy Keith Coogan) makes an appearance, which is really cool, but pretty much as soon as he appears you know somehow Kober is going to kill Stiles, and no one wants Stiles dead. I know who you're going to ask next, and no, he's not wearing the "What Are You Looking At Dicknose" shirt.

Also, there's a performance in the film by Siouxsie and the Banshees, Dewey Cox's dad/Arlo Givens plays a crooked DEA agent, a Meat Loaf appearance (acting, not performing), and sweet fucking Night Ranger song, "Wild and Innocent Youth". Unfortunately, this is the best video I can find for it:

I know it's not easy to find. From what I can tell, it never got released on DVD, but it is on Amazon Instant Video. Your life will be improved in every way for having seen the world at its apex, with AMH as a star. I know you like this place, but what the fuck are you still doing here? Get watching.

Rediscovering the Past: Blade Runner: The First Cut Isn't The Deepest?

Q:  “What was the tallest mountain before Mount Everest was discovered?”

A:  Mount Everest. 

           

I always loathed that Trivial Pursuit trick question. The assumption that reality exists outside of the current human construct is something I’ve always been interested in exploring, but not when it costs me a piece of plastic pie. It does seem fairly brazen when one considers the magnitude of info that is outdated in every Trivial Pursuit board game.  

After vehemently avoiding Blade Runner for years, I succumbed to a first-viewing upon weighty recommendations from friends. I’m not much of a sci-fi fan. Let me rephrase that: I’m not much of a sci-fi-for-the-sake-of-being-sci-fi fan, but I enjoy art that makes me consider larger philosophical issues, such as the aforementioned questioning of truth. Call me a sap, but I also don’t mind an explosion or two thrown in. Blade Runner forced me to reconsider what constitutes human existence, and I loved it. The problem is the version of Blade Runner I watched was not the same version of Blade Runner that was shown in the theater in 1982. I was taken by a restored, reedited, re-shot, CGI-ed version of Blade Runner, “The Final Cut”, including a starkly different ending than the original. 

Robo Hobo sans shotgun

In many ways, I’m glad I watched “The Final Cut” version of Blade Runner. It highly affected how I perceived the film. A slicked-up, errorless film kept me fixated enough to follow the story line, which is what mattered to me. Immediately after the viewing, I surfed YouTube for clips of the original version and was taken aback by how dastardly dated the clips seemed, the original ending fiercely atrocious, unbefitting of the rest of the film. Researching further, I discovered that “The Final Cut” wasn’t just glossed-up with a new ending, but rather completely reworked, sometimes with Ridley Scott even shooting extra scenes and CGI-ing others to make the film look more modern and cover up any incongruities that existed in the original. 

There is something very odd to me about two people discussing two different films as if they have seen the same film. It bothers me that to discuss Blade Runner with another, I have to first ask what version was witnessed--not to mention there is more than two versions--before discussing a highly intriguing, submersed plot point that changes between versions, polarizing the film even further. I don’t even know if I would have liked Blade Runner if I viewed the original version. I’m rather confident the original ending would have spoiled the rest of the film for me, but I will never know. Dated sci-fi can make for some really bad intake.  Futuristic flying cars become model cars with wires pulling them along, realistic humans met with violent endings become comedic mannequins spewing strawberry jelly, and dreary, metallic versions of Los Angeles become dull, grey movie sets. Suddenly belief isn’t suspended, and the viewer checks out. 

2001: A Space Odyssey is one of my all-time favorites. It works on so many levels. That movie, to my knowledge, has never been doctored, other than maybe brightened by a DVD transfer. If that movie was altered, in any way, it would cause me a gruesome annoyance. It would change how I think about the film, and I saw it for the first time in 1998, complete with pastel spaceship interiors and bizarre psychedelic 60s movie effects. It was far “ahead of its time”, made before the 1969 moon landing, but still managing to capture the proper effects of space physics. The proof is in the sequel; 2010 explained everything, and it was disastrous. 

Google goggles ruin children

I watch a lot of Disney movies with my kids. Disney is always proud to release varnished versions of classic films, $29.99 at a clip. It certainly makes the viewing of these films a more pleasant experience, but in some weird way it does seem to be rewriting history. I imagine a futuristic toddler watching a 3D, holographic version of Snow White through a pair of those newfangled Google glasses and thinking, “Man, they were high-tech back in 1937!” 

I don’t blame Ridley Scott; I would have done the same. From everything I’ve read on the interwebs, Ridley Scott’s original ending was the ending of “The Final Cut”, but studio executives nixed it for the proverbial happy ending. How am I to fault him for perfecting his original vision to tell the story the way he thought it should be told? But where does it end? What if Tarantino cut his own racially explicative scene out of Pulp Fiction? What if Michael never caps Fredo? What if Andy never escapes Shawshank? What if Mona Lisa was given a boob job and some ruby lipstick? Far-fetched indeed, but what if art museums found a way present the art in 3D form without retouching the paintings? Would we be so willing to walk around the Louvre with 3D goggles intact?

            

Rating redone art poses problems. Without revision, 2001: A Space Odyssey can be compared to other films of the time. With those comparisons, value can be assessed. I think this is why Waterworld was met with such widespread condemnation: simply because it cost so much to make in comparison to other, more acclaimed films of that time. “The most expensive movie ever made” cost $175 million, and that was appalling to moviegoers in 1995. I don’t think Waterworld was that bad, at least now that every summer is filled with its share of over-budgeted critical bombs. 

If people truly enjoy 99 cent cheeseburgers at the exorbitant rate they are consumed at, and that enjoyment isn’t solely monetarily based (as recent studies show that middle-class America eats more fast-food than lower-class America), then that food is tasty, right? Do we judge how good Elvis was based on the records he sold? Certainly, some do. Are art and economics independent of each other? When we criticize Waterworld or place Blade Runner on a pedestal, what are we truly considering? After all, 50 dollar bottles of wine only taste better than 5 dollar bottles of wine if the taster knows which bottle costs more. It can be said that all history is revisionist, and, yes, I knew that I was watching a different version of Blade Runner. I just didn’t know how different.

Q: What science-fiction thriller, released in 2007, features Rutger Hauer as a genetically engineered bio-robot searching for its maker?

A: Blade Runner

Rediscovering the Past: James Cagney: Not So Much Yankee, A Lot Doodle Dandy

Another oldie but goodie, this one originally appeared in November 13 of 2008 and marks another instance in which I irrationally dwell on some actor of yesteryear, focusing an unhealthy amount of energy on someone who hasn't been relevant in roughly fifty years. 

Not buying what he's selling.

I don't know if I could count the times I've engaged in a conversation with my friend Chad about how difficult it is to buy guys like Edward G. Robinson or James Cagney as tough guys.

Chad hates Edward G. Robinson. Loathes everything he stands for. Thinks EGR is a mama's boy. Begrudgingly allows for him to have been all right in Double Indemnity but won't go further than that. I pretty much agree with those sentiments. If you need to hate the man, here's a clip:

What the hell is with him here?

Where Chad hates every fiber of what was Edward G. Robinson's being, I fucking despise James Cagney. Now, I don't hate him as much as I hate Ray Milland. That's simply not possible, but I would like to re-animate James Cagney's corpse just so I could kick his zombie ass. In every movie he was in, he just oozes overacting dandy trying to come across as a tough guy. Moreover, look at the guy.

How did anyone think that little POS was tough?

It is possible that I should have prefaced this entry into the annals of retarded blog entries by stating that I have quite a few old school Hollywood figures that I hold an irrational hatred for--Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, the aforementioned Ray Milland--but the point still remains that these two "tough guys" are dandies through and through. The thing I don't get is how the Greatest Generation bought these little douchebags as tough. I honestly think anyone who came up during the Great Depression could kick just about anyone's ass nowadays. They were tougher times, and it was probably a lot more common in regular society to have to get into a scrape here and there. Hell, most of these guys would have been ashamed if they couldn't go off to war. None of us pussies want to go off to war. But these tough old motherfuckers--these tough Robert Mitchum-like dudes--bought James Cagney as a tough guy.

What the fuck?

Rediscovering the Past: The Inspiration of Kenneth Lonergan

Here's another 'classic' post that largely fell on deaf ears. This was originally published way back in 2008, on October 7th to be exact. I'd imagine many or most of you weren't coming around to these here parts back then, as this was still a raw work in progress at that point. The seemingly doomed Margaret finally came out this past fall with Anna Paquin drawing raves and a small segment of the critic community vociferously singing its praises. 

I was just struck with the certain notion that Kenneth Lonergan (By the way, nine goddamn years, Kenny boy? Took you long enough...) was definitely driven by the powerful 80's sitcom with the following theme song of epic proportions:

Now, some might say (No, not you Liam. Pipe the fuck down.) that there's no way that the brainchild of Michael Jacobs (who in addition to being the Executive Producer of this fine program and "Boy Meets World", penned the afore-embedded theme song and perhaps more importantly the theme song to "Charles in Charge" which surely needs no embedding) and Danielle Alexandra (who I had never heard of but apparently wrote G.I. Jane--clearly the next step in the career of the co-creator of "My Two Dads") could possibly have been the inspiration for the great 2000 Scorcese-produced Lonergan debut below.

To this I say, "Screw you, you short-sighted chimp."

Think for just a moment. Pretend Loggins doppelganger Greg Evigan isn't wearing a trenchcoat. And he isn't bearded. And he's really of Italian heritage. And he mumbles a ton. In fact, pretend you can't understand a word he says, but he's from Wisconsin, so he's intrinsically likable. Now embue that man with all of the carefree irresponsibility and sexual looseness of Evigan's Joey Harris. Eliminate the moralizing as we're talking about an indie film, not a network sitcom, and you've got Terry Prescott.

(L to R) Rock-bottom Reiser, that girl from Going Places, and poor man's Loggins

Now, take Paul Reiser (no, I won't denigrate the work of a certain musician by linking him here, Mark--fuck it, yes I will, check that caption), imagine him having sex with Matthew Broderick, and you've got Laura Linney's Sammy Prescott.

To take it a step further, add a sense of hope for a legitimate future in acting to Staci Keanan (Seriously, what the fuck happened to her?) and you've got Rory Culkin as Rudy.

Florence Stanley's Judge Margaret Wilbur is swung away from the secular and turned into a priest, but to maintain indie-cred he's hapless where she's omniscient, and Lonergan casts himself in the role.

Dick Butkus is a big dude and is therefore the rest of the supporting cast in the film.

There you go. And to further my theory, Lonergan's movie that is to come out next year is called Margaret, no doubt an ode to the late Florence Stanley.

All right...

I know you wanted it, so here you go. Powells not Pembrokes.

Man on Film: Finally a Trailer for The Tree of Life

So this is kind of a weird week at Inconsiderate Prick.  Two trailers for movies that I'm really looking forward to that appeal much more to my high-brow side have found their way into my corner of the enternetz.  First it was the Norwegian Wood trailer that I just became aware of. 

Then we got the first trailer for next Terrence Malick film, The Tree of Life.  Living in Austin, it seemed like every couple of weeks you would happen across someone working on the film in some facet of the process, as Malick lives here and much of the film was filmed in and around Austin.  Yes, Malick famously works slowly, but it seems like The Tree of Life went into production fifteen years ago, yet we all wait.

This all matters, of course, because there may not be another filmmaker alive who can bring me to my knees (in praise, not a sexual way) while watching his films without sound.  Without the bells and whistles of other auteurs, Malick works in his quiet pastoral realm, preferring to turn his contemplative gaze to building mood.  His films captivate you with running time not mattering at all because time is a concept that does not apply to you while watching a Malick film.

Judging by the trailer, The Tree of Life should ably follow in the footsteps of his already stunning catalog.  Without further ado...
 
Next week, I won't have been pulling a 28 hours of work over 36 hours, killing my Wednesday and Thursday.  There is a bit of catch up to do, and I've got some ideas for some year-end columns that may or may not happen.  Stay tuned.

Man on Film: Norwegian Wood is Coming! Norwegian Wood is Coming!

All right, so this is sort of filler*, but it's something I'm excited about nonetheless. 

*I am working on some other stuff (write-up of a Grace Kelly bio and a Henning Mankell book, for starters), and hot stove has reinvigorated Royalscentricity a bit.  Don't worry, the actual start of baseball season will surely kill off any energy I have for the Royals...

Haruki Murakami's novel Norwegian Wood has been adapted by Vietnamese-French director Tran Anh Hung. While reviews have been lukewarm--anything less would be surprising given the reverence of the source material--it is apparently blessed with stunning cinematography.

Perhaps more importantly, the beautiful Rinko Kikuchi plays Naoko, and her performance has been lauded.  Known to most of us for her turns in Babel and The Brothers Bloom, Naoko provides her with a rich character to embody, serving as a long overdue follow-up to her Oscar-nominated turn as Chieko Wataya in Babel.

As if Rinko Kikuchi were not enough, Jonny Greenwood has apparently composed the score.  Given his phenomenal score for There Will Be Blood, I am curious as to what he has done for this one.  

I am kind of excited, as Murakami is one of my favorite authors, and the book was great.

The trailer that follows is not the highest quality that I could find, but it did have subtitles.

The release date in the US has to be announced, but the UK date is March 18th.  Hopefully the US date is right around then, too.

Man on Film: The Trailer for The Mechanic Remake is Up

For those of you who are not familiar with the source material--quasi-trailer that doesn't do the film justice here:

--the original film, The Mechanic, follows a hitman (played by Charles Bronson) as he mentors a young protege who seeks an education in the art of contract killing.  The 1972 film is great, starting things off with a miraculously compelling 19 minutes of film featuring no dialogue whatsoever.  Directed by Michael Winner, who seemed to only work with Charles Bronson, The Mechanic really only has one shortcoming, the leaden Jan-Michael Vincent.

Now, Sylvester Stallone had wanted to do this remake for years, but I have to say that I'm just as excited to see what the director of what is inarguably the most important movie of the 1990s (Con Air, of course) will do with this project.  With Simon West at the helm and the immensely likable Jason Statham as its star, the only potential hitch would have been in the casting of Jan-Michael Vincent's role.  Ben Foster?  Sign me up.  In addition to seeming legitimately insane, Ben Foster has strung together a list of stand-out supporting turns in 3:10 to Yuma, 30 Days of Night, Hostage, Six Feet Under, and X-Men: The Last Stand (an altogether abysmal movie).  One could easily presume that he was great in both Pandorum and The Messenger, but I've not seen either film yet. 

Regardless, The (new) Mechanic looks intriguing enough for me.  Moreover, it makes me want to go back and watch the original.  Until its release, there is one vital question that the movie-going public will be losing sleep over:  Will there be a handball scene in this one?

At least Airwolf is nowhere to be seen...

Man on Film: Affleck News

My apologies for not quite getting around to the Shutter Island film review as I had intended. I was initially planning on seeing it Thursday night at an advance screening, but life got in the way. I didn't end up seeing it until Sunday, and I've been working on another gargantuan column for Sports Grumblings about the teams that ESPN forgot exists. I fully anticipate getting to that write-up as soon as Thursday night, after which I have a queue of things I need to cover ranging from another Tim O'Brien-related Reading Rainbow entry, the newest season of "Friday Night Lights," and my first foray into the works of Jonathan Lethem.

Since I've not got the time at present to complete those tasks and more (namely, more Munch My Benson content), I did feel I should stop in and drop some ka-nowledge on y'all. To longtime readers this will come as no surprise, but your faithful Inconsiderate Prick is what could mildly be called a "big fan" of Ben Affleck. In recent years, he has made good on my consistent defense of him through trying times by being fantastic in such films as Hollywoodland, State of Play, and Extract, while also stepping behind the lens (figuratively) to give us the superb Dennis Lehane adaptation, Gone Baby Gone.

Coming out later this year (tentative release date of September 10th), we will get to see Affleck's directorial follow-up to Gone Baby Gone: The Town, another crime drama which will feature Blake Lively, Jeremy Renner, Jon Hamm, Chris Cooper, and the inimitable Ben Affleck.

Now while nothing about the above (and it's adapted from a Chuck Hogan novel, 2004 Hammett Prize Winner Prince of Thieves) doesn't get my hopes up insanely, what is perhaps even better news is that the infamous wife-trading* story of former Yankees' teammates Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich, The Trade. More details on the film can be found here and here, but the script was written by former "Seinfeld" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" scribe Dave Mandel.

*I hesitate to use the term wife-swap as theirs was a full-on trading of each others wives, on a permanent basis.

The first time I heard this story, which I think I first read about here, I thought, "Holy shit is that weird." When you think that about a true story, you can't help but think it would make a sweet-ass movie. Seriously, read that last link, and tell me you don't want a Red Sox fan making (and allegedly co-starring in it with friend, Matt Damon) that film?

Thank you, Benjamin Geza Affleck, for rewarding my loyalty with your greatness.

Reading Rainbow: The Iowa Baseball Confederacy by W.P. Kinsella

My apologies for the false promises I made when I said that I would be able to turn more of my focus to this blog. There are extenuating circumstances, I assure you.

Regardless, here I am.

Now, for those of you not even remotely familiar with the genre of fantasy baseball fiction (and I mean fantasy in the literary genre sense of the word, not the fantasy sports sense of the word), W.P. Kinsella is the man who wrote the novel Shoeless Joe--which one of my favorite sports films Field of Dreams was based upon.

Maybe Field of Dreams rubs some the wrong way, but there is something about the quest of reconnecting to one's father through the glory that is baseball that strikes a chord with me. Introducing a supernatural element to the plot does not bother me in the least.

That last part was integral to my enjoyment of The Iowa Baseball Confederacy.

Given to me while working the counter* at Little City and talking baseball with Travis, I was actually looking forward to reading the book. Chronicling a man's quest to prove truthful some information that he and his deceased father preternaturally possess, The Iowa Baseball Confederacy features time travel, supernatural immortal Native Americans, a 2000+ inning exhibition baseball game between the 1908 Chicago Cubs and an amateur all-star team, and a flood of biblical proportions.

*I don't know about you, but it always feels like such a homework assignment when somebody hands me a book. When I look at the book initially, there is a hesitancy for me. And it's not like I am not open to reading books that people hand to me (as KRD** can attest to). It is just that there is this sense of obligation that I'd rather avoid when embarking on a book.

**Where the fuck have you been? It would appear that you have not been on the internets even more than myself.

Maybe you read that description, and you think to yourself, "That sounds fucking stupid."

If you don't, though, and love the spirit of Field of Dreams, The Iowa Baseball Confederacy is a worthy read.

Man on Film: Cusack Cousins

Do you think that David Gordon (John Cusack's character in Martian Child) and Rob Gordon (John Cusack's character in High Fidelity) are related?

I mean, they look enough alike to be relatives.

Rediscovering the Past: The Kim Richards Edition

Apparently the world is conspiring to force Kim Richards back into my life.

Now Kim Richards' name may not be instantly recognizable to many, but I think just about any straight male or bi-curious/lesbian female who hit the magical age of ten years old between the years 1975 and 1990 probably had a crush on her, even if her name does not ring a bell.

For those who may need a reminder, Kim Richards was Tia in the original Witch Mountain series and starred in a slew of Disney movies in the mid-to-late-70s and branched out into other work like the original The Assault on Precinct 13 and The Car. She also landed the role of Ruthie Adler in the "Diff'rent Strokes" spin-off "Hello, Larry".

While you might think that it was the new Witch Mountain movie that has stirred up memories of a childhood crush, it actually is almost entirely coincidental. About a week and a half ago, Chad and I went to The Legend of Billie Jean (which I've actually been meaning to post about) at the Alamo downtown and before the movie they showed a bunch of Youth in Revolt trailers one of which was for Tuff Turf, which was more or less an 80s re-imagining of Rebel Without a Cause starring James Spader. Since seeing the trailer, we have been itching to see the movie. Well, last night Meatballs II was on and this was the first film in which Kim Richards looks like this:


Well, I saw Tuff Turf tonight with Chad, Mark, and Jack Attack, and it was pretty damn awesome. When I first saw the trailer a little while back, Spader's love interest looked very familiar, but the film was very of its day, and Richards was made up in such a way that I did not immediately recognize her. She spends the entire film being pretty damn hot. And the film--aside from its somewhat unconventional usage of performed music in the film (songs performed in their entirety--and that is plural songs)--is honestly pretty badass. While Spader certainly seems to have suffered from Campbell Scott Syndrome* as a young man, he is about 1,000 times cooler than Campbell Scott could ever have dreamed of being and quite successfully pulls off the semi-aloof rebel character--complete with leather jacket and a sidekick (although I don't think anyone would ever say Robert Downey, Jr. was lame, while the same can not be said about Sal Mineo).

*As I think I have stated in this space before while talking about Singles, I think, Campbell Scott seems to have been born as a 35-year-old man. I think it is safe to say that James Spader sort of suffers the same affliction. While he certainly was age-appropriate to play the part of a high schooler (under 25), he still didn't look it.

But back to Kim Richards, she looked really great in the film, which led me to begin wondering what ever happened to her? Well, Tuff Turf was essentially the last movie she did before having kids. She did one more movie five years later, Escape, but after that left acting for the next decade-plus. Well, while I was trying to find out what happened to her I discovered perhaps the weirdest part of her story. Her sister? Paris Hilton's mother.

I can't say I have ever liked listening to Paris Hilton talk because she is, quite frankly, a bit on the vapid side. That being said, I have always found her kind of oddly attractive. I mean, she repulses me with her actions and demeanor, but there was always something about her that kind of appealed to me. Finding out that on some level, there is a bit of Kim Richards in her DNA makes me feel a whole lot better about that.

Now to get back to it, here is a clip from Tuff Turf:

The credits only list Jonathan Elias as a songwriter on the soundtrack listing, so I have to hope that Spader was singing there. Here is the real reason that you would want to watch this movie, though.

The weirdest thing about both of those clips is that the music is kind of out of sync, tonally, with the true nature of the film, which is actually quite a bit darker than the Jack Mack and the Heart Attack in the trailer, too.

Rediscovering the Past: Two Types of People

So if I have one burgeoning social theory, begging to be fleshed out even more entirely than I will endeavor to undertake in this entry, it is that there are two types of people in this world. No, not cat people and dog people. Not Type A and B personalities. Not even men and women--hermaphrodites, anyone?

No, the entire world can be broken up into two kinds of people:

• those who prefer Back to the Future Part II for the complexities that arise from screwing with the space-time continuum and the chilling vision of Dark 1985 as brought to life by Robert Zemeckis
  
• those who prefer Back to the Future Part III for the rollick of our beloved characters Marty McFly and Doc Brown in the Old West and the beauty that is Seamus McFly

I can understand both sides of this argument that shall forever plague the world, causing insufferable strife between the warring factions eternally grappling with one another over this divisive issue. I can certainly see the appeal of the in-depth exploration into the temporal complexities inherent in jumping around from 1985 to 2015 to 1985 to 1955, and the suspense derived from watching Marty tiptoe around the progress made through acts of space-time manipulation already performed. I can understand the horror that one feels when the see the effect of what can happen to the world if one corrupt soul uses the gift of time travel to his own selfish benefit.

I get that.

I am not in that camp.

At the end of the day, I want the inception of the frisbee. The action on horseback. The Wild West shootouts. The ingenuity of the modern man in a frontier setting. The overcoming of a crippling inability to rise above goading and peer pressure. The modification of the steam engine into a time machine. The riding of the hoverboard off into safety as the train is hurtling towards the canyon. The juxtaposition of ZZ Top in 1885. The actual fear that a Tannen is able to instill in the relative lawlessness of 1885 California.

These things grab a hold of my imagination and tickle my fancy.

The coup de grace, though, is the stellar turn of one Michael J. Fox as Seamus McFly. It is his revelatory portrayal of Marty's great-great grandfather, the even-keeled Irish Catholic immigrant who is not susceptible to the same flaws that often get his four-times-removed descendent into trouble and got Seamus' brother, Martin killed. It is the love Seamus is effortlessly able to summon for the stranger from a strange land that overwhelms me. Seamus has a concern for his fellow man and a willingness to open up his home to those in need that gives hope to me for a better future, even if it does all occur in the past.

So, yes, I am a Seamus McFly Man. What do you plan to do about it, naysayer?

Rediscovering the Past: One Small Problem with "Say Anything..."

During the Super Bowl, my friends and I got to talking about how we all actually quite liked what Cameron Crowe does when he's at his best. Obviously, "his best" does not include or Elizabethtown or Vanilla Sky. I would extend that exclusion to the likes of Jerry Maguire and even Singles*, which I can understand other people liking but never did much for me. But, much to my surprise, we all were fans of Almost Famous, Fast Times at Ridgemont High (yes, I know he only wrote it, but he also fucking lived it, so I'll give it to him), and Say Anything...

*One of my main qualms with Singles is the fact that none of the cast strike me as being even remotely twenty-something. Matt Dillon seemed much more like a 33-year-old in the grunge scene. Campbell Scott was born 35 years old and had the job of a 35-year-old. If he walks like a duck, and talks like a duck... Has Kyra Sedgwick ever seemed young? I guess maybe Bridget Fonda seemed that young, but if she's the only one of the principle cast then I think my complaint is legitimized. Side-note (within a sidenote--I know--ironic): Jim True-Frost (Prezbo from "The Wire") was in this movie. It's weird when you find out that someone you grew to appreciate so much later in their career turns out to have been in something like Singles.

Now, I absolutely loved Say Anything... I think Cusack is fucking great in it. He really captures the vulnerability and uncertainty of being a high school grad with a blank slate for a future. Ione Skye is plain-looking enough that you can actually buy her as "the brain" that would have felt like just enough of an outsider to warrant her lack of popularity, while being attractive enough for Lloyd Dobler to have become infatuated with her from afar.

My love for the film aside, I happened to catch it the other morning on TV and noticed a problem with it. At the end of the film, Lloyd and Diane go to prison to visit her father. Lloyd and Diane started dating as school let out, after graduation. She was expected to leave early for school in England. They had, what, two months together?

Now for a good chunk of that two months--or for the sake of narrative leniency, let's say three months--Lloyd and Diane are together. Then they break up, and she gives him a pen. She discovers her dad (does this also mean that Diane Court is Frasier and Niles' sister?...) has been stealing from the elderly. Then suddenly, his lawyer is cutting a deal and Mr. Court is in jail.

It just seems to me that he is escorted through the bowels of the American legal system way too quickly. Obviously, it's a movie and there's a timeline that needs to be met. This isn't even an issue that bothers me enough to take away from the immense enjoyment I derive from the film, but it seems like Cameron Crowe did not have a firm grasp on the lethargy inherent in the proceedings of the legal system when he wrote the screenplay.

Rediscovering the Past: Cool Runnings

While watching Cool Runnings last night the ending was called into question as being too Hollywood. As much as I didn't want it to be true...

Doug E. Doug?...

Leon?...

New York Undercover?...

Carlton?...

You hurt my feelings. You betrayed my trust. You DID NOT carry that sled to the finish line. You lied to me.

Moreover, none of the characters were real. What the fuck Walt Disney? Goddamn you. Goddamn you to Hell, you purveyors of falsehoods.

FUUUUUCCCCKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!

So this all means there was no Yul Brenner, and there was no Sanka Coffie.

My life is ruined.

Wait.

Wait...

Does this mean that those swimmers in Pride weren't real?

Oh, shit. Wait. Was Rocky Balboa not real, too?

My life as I knew it is over.

Man on Film: What?

I think it's only appropriate that for my 300th post on this blog, I bring news of Sylvester Stallone. After all, for months, this blog was loaded with Rambo content. Upon the release of the film, that dedication was rewarded handsomely by the most brazenly badass movie in the history of time.

Sly is about to start shooting his next project, The Expendables, and this is what he looks like right now (thanks to AICN for posting this picture):


Holy fuck.

The dude is 62. I'm totally serious. 62.

And because I had to...

Man on Film: Hilarious Crying, etc.

Obviously, Forgetting Sarah Marshall relies far more upon awkward moments for its comedy than most American-made fare, but I'm not sure I've laughed as much at one character's tears than I have at Peter's tears. Perhaps, the most hilarious non-nude crying laughing I derive is from the scene in which Peter breaks into a sobbing fit while playing the theme from "The Muppet Show". Fucking hilarious.

On an sort of unrelated note, I hope Paul Rudd is as happy as I am about the Scott Pioli hire.

I would also like to reiterate how hot Mila Kunis is in FSM which is weird because I never thought she was superhot in "That 70's Show" but now?... Maybe she just had to separate herself from the role by playing a serial killer to shed the burden of being associated with a character in a long-running series.

Someone somewhere is saying something about a "Veronica Mars" movie. That would be neat.

Rediscovering the Past: Hiding Out

In an effort to bring a sense of direction to the inherent ramble that any product of my mind is going to be hampered with, I am going to try to re-brand (or more precisely, brand) this something that more closely resembles thematic unity. This will mark the first such foray into the scary world of focus. In any entry bearing the first three words listed above, you can expect to find me delving--in the manner of a modern Christopher Columbus--into the realm of the previously discovered, as if it were new and exciting.

In this edition, the subject will be Hiding Out. For those of you not familiar with the film, it is the product of a better time. A time in which studios cast Jon Cryer in the lead in not one, but two films. That time was 1987.

Now, I feel I should clarify. I do not want that statement to be read as though I believe Jon Cryer should never have been cast as the lead in films. My beliefs stray as far from that assertion as you could imagine. I prefer Predator 2 to Predator for the precise reason that it is a Danny Glover star vehicle. I love Action Jackson because it stars the man studios decided was a supporting cast member in action films. The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up work in their own respects largely because the Jon Cryers of this generation were entrusted to star in films, not complement the "stars". Sadly, these films are much more the exception than the rule these days.

In 1987, though, things were different. Things were better. Studios were bolder. Jon Cryer was handed the reins to two films: Dudes and Hiding Out. To get an idea as to what that might mean here is a link to the trailer (embedding disabled by request... bastards) for Hiding Out.

As for the film, it is the story of a stockbroker, Andrew Morenski, who ends up knowing too much and is forced to testify against a mob boss. Luckily for the viewer, the mob tries to take him out, leading to Cryer's Andrew going into hiding in a small midwestern town with his cousin (the inimitable Keith Coogan) and posing as a high school student under the pseudonym, Maxwell Houser--lifted from a coffee can in the principal's office. Needless to say, this is a recipe for an awesome fucking movie.

While the story is pretty fucking sweet in the best way possible, there are a couple of weird things going on in the movie that are frankly disturbing.

First, in the film's opening Jon Cryer has a beard. It does not look, well, real. Once he goes on the run, he decides to ditch the beard and the stockbroker hair for an odd dye-job (if you didn't watch that trailer, this is where you'll want to so you can see it in motion) that creates a hair-do rivaling his coiffure as Ducky in Pretty in Pink.


Second, this twenty-something stockbroker, when hiding out, falls for a high school senior played by Annabeth Gish. Of course it is perfectly natural to need to insert a love interest for our hero, but someone decided that Hiding Out needed to become a platform through which the filmmakers could sell the acceptability of statutory rape to those fabled residents of Peoria. I'm not blaming Jon Cryer here. He's beyond reproach. These filmmakers, however, seem to have had a hidden agenda...

As perhaps the only good personal post-script I will ever have on this website, about three weeks after I watched Hiding Out I ran into Jon Cryer. Not being able to pass up the opportunity, the following exchange (paraphrased very slightly) took place:

me: So, I actually just watched Hiding Out a couple of weeks ago.
JC: Really? That's one I haven't thought about in a while. Was it on cable?
me: No. I rented it.
JC: Oh... Sorry.
me: No. It was fun. I mean I wasn't expecting Citizen Kane, but it was fun. I liked it.