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June 15, 2013

THE PROJECTIONIST

Your Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: None

Pizza: Lenzini's

Preshow Entertainment: THERE'S A MESSAGE IN EVERY BOTTLE

THE PROJECTIONIST
FEELS LIKE A SURREAL VERSION
OF A HIGH CONCEPT ADAM SANDLER MOVIE

At an hour and twenty-five minutes, THE PROJECTIONIST (1971) is an hour too long. Perhaps if this were a five minute short, or even ten. Because this is a one trick pony that can wear out its welcome. However - never in my life have I been so fascinated by a movie that bored me this much. So why is it so captivating? So interesting? It's not the story, or the acting, or the cinematogra...errr, I mean, the less-than-student-film way it's shot. Nope. It's just that...that...that it's such an oddity. No - a curiosity. And lead Chuck McCann gives a beautiful and honest performance playing an existential version of his real self.

THE PROJECTIONIST opens with a mislead - a GERALD MCBOING BOING cartoon. PULL BACK TO REVEAL: The cartoon's being run in a movie theater, and when the film breaks, the audience gets angry, and it's up to the projectionist (Chuck McCann) to be the hero and come to the rescue, which is also the theme of this movie. Sure, I wish they explained why the people in the theater look less like ones you'd find watching a cartoon and more like porn theater clientele (lots of single men), but I'll chalk that up to this movie being so very low budget that they just grabbed strangers and tossed them in some seats. But out of the projector's gate, THE PROJECTIONIST, a film that is preserved by The Museum of Modern Art Department of Film and Video, is telling us we're going to see snippets from other sources. And that it's going to get nutty.

The projectionist is an avuncular nerd with a paunch. His whole life is the movies, relating to stars' pictures on the projection booth's wall more than relating to real people. He doesn't even have a name in the movie. That is until later, when he's called "Chuck" by the candy counter guy. Moments later, Chuck exits the theater, where the marquee displays "Now Playing Chuck McCann as The Projectionist." Surreal. Toldya.

When Chuck hears a news story of an elderly man getting mugged, he plays the scenario out in his head. It's a B & W silent movie version (smart move, considering the budget), where he becomes Captain Flash (more like Flash Gordon than The Flash), a disheveled superhero, but a superhero nonetheless. With no real powers, even changing his clothes in a phone booth becomes a formidable task due to the confines and his girth. You'd think if you were fantasizing about yourself being a hero, you'd give yourself some powers. That's telling right there.

Captain Flash meets a girl (filmed all over NYC, using seemingly stolen shots, this segment was shot at Audubon Terrace), but it's all in Chuck's head. For this is just the projectionist's projection. With a love song featuring sweeping strings and a melody close to the original STAR TREK theme (already canceled by this time), our hero is swept away. But first, he must save her father, a scientist (he's the candy counter guy in the movie's real life segments) from those muggers, who suddenly turn out to be henchmen of a megalomaniacal villain called The Bat, played by Rodney Dangerfield (his first movie). In the non-fantasy parts, Dangerfield plays Chuck's dictator theater owner Renaldi. (Are you getting all this?) Renaldi treats his ushers with an iron hand. They're his troops (employees at this theater are older, unlike the teen ushers of today) lined up for inspection. This fascism parallels nicely with the candy counter guy (Jara Kohout), who was forced out of films in his native Czechoslovakia in this story as well as in real life. To hear him tell his backstory, well, that may be my favorite part of THE PROJECTIONIST. A quick internet check (Czech check?) proves that Kohout did make movies in Czechoslovakia, and that his story is true.

Chuck's Captain Flash finds himself in many situations, some using footage not only from actual movies, but huge movies, like CASABLANCA, CITIZEN KANE and EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS. Sometimes Chuck interacts with Bogie and others, like Steve Martin did in DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID. The difference is, I don't see how THE PROJECTIONIST did it legally. I'm pretty sure they didn't have any money to pay for the rights to those clips. And it's certainly not Fair Use. Maybe they had a billion dollar budget and used it all to acquire rights, which left them with fourteen cents for the film's actual production. I did read somewhere that the studios gave permission for the usage of these clips in exchange for some of the movie's revenue, but even that seems like a stretch to me. Some of these scenes integrate Chuck into things like an actual Flash Gordon movie, with mole men and monsters and people writhing in torment on a gigantic idol, while others are more passive; while strolling by the premiere for the movie STAR! starring Julie Andrews, Chuck imagines himself interviewed for, get this, the movie he just made called THE PROJECTIONIST (Chuck to reporter: "We had a lot of fun making it."). This is followed by him telling the reporter, "I've got to get up to the booth, get this one started."

And it's not just the usage of films. Posters and glossies line both the projection booth and his sad apartment, giving THE PROJECTIONIST license to talk to dead movie stars' images, (McCann's a pretty good impressionist, so this conceit was also to the film's advantage) like Bogart, Stewart, the Duke, Gable, Laurel and Hardy and Taylor Lautner....okay not Taylor Lautner. In his apartment, saturated with memorabilia, he reaches for his ashtray without looking, unable to unglue his eyes from his TV set. He goes from the isolation of his projection booth to the isolation of his apartment (which in a way is is a bit of a projection booth itself). He stays till the end of the TV day, past the minister's sermon and station sign-off of THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER over images of lynchings, protests, and assassinations.

Often, there's little rhyme or reason why Chuck goes into fantasy moments, and why they are triggered. They just happen. He can look at a highway and bam! He's in a fantasy. And they don't always have to do with him being a hero. In a porn store, sad sack Chuck thumbs through some girlie magazines which intercuts with a naked girl on a bear skin rug talking to him. I'm pretty sure this was a parody of a commercial or print ad from the time.

Chuck's great at being Chuck. Like Gleason, he's hammy when need be or can exude a pathos that can break you in pieces. He had already appeared in 1968's THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, but this was his first lead role, and possibly his only. (He's also an Aristocrat!) But I, like boatloads of others, knew Chuck from his kids shows. Many have a soft spot for Chuck, and they should. He was our babysitter on Sunday mornings. I spotted him once on the set of SABRINA, THE TEENAGE WITCH, walking around between takes with his tail between his legs. I mean it. He had a tail. I guess the story line had him turn into a raccoon or something. Or maybe he's a furry who's now been outed. I'm not sure. But I thought, how sad that this great man, so much of so many kids' lives, is now sporting a humiliating tail. And within a nanosecond, I corrected myself. No! This is exactly what he should be doing. Entertaining the next generation of kids. What was I thinking? Shame on me. Chuck, you rock. And you just keep on rocking. Even though THE PROJECTIONIST baffles me. SIDENOTE: Two years after this movie, Chuck would appear in a great episode of COLUMBO playing...a projectionist. I suspect that was on purpose.

Having grown up in the New York area, I sure did love the city's grittiness coming through here. Nothing like 1970's Times Square. Certainly nothing like it is today. And the movie palace they shot in? Just beautiful. It was called the Midtown Theater, and it's on Broadway between 99th and 100th. Coincidentally, sometime next year (2014), it's opening as part of the Alamo Drafthouse movie theater chain. When I was in NYC a few weeks ago, I coincidentally walked by there on my way to meet a friend and snapped this picture (left).

You should know that projectionist Chuck has a second fantasy life. It turns out the girl from his Captain Flash fantasy is a girl he spotted in real life. And when co-worker/usher Harry (director Harry Hurwitz) asks him about her, Chuck tells his tale. Again, we see it in B & W, so that's what it is - a tale. Or is it? As the final reel winds down, Chuck's real life and fantasy life collide. And though he is having the time of his life, we're a bit confused, yet happy for him. After all, he is a hero, and heroes, by definition, need to win.

Preshow Entertainment: THERE'S A MESSAGE IN EVERY BOTTLE

Another cautionary ephemeral film about underage drinking. You gotta love these things, with their grandiloquent narration - "Some doctors believe alcohol beverages are the safest tranquilizers readily available to man" and "Most adults respect alcohol the same way they do a sharp knife or a loaded rifle" and "One out of five adults don't touch it at all. And they're happy and successful."

Here's the story of four teens who do a lot of waterskiing (this could have been a ten minute short instead of 20). They also snap their fingers as they dance on the beach to a record on the record player that's not plugged in. I guess the adults making this movie were also not plugged in to youth culture. They did manage to put some gray tape over the record's title, so they knew about copyright laws. Anyway, they go out for cocktails...and when I say cocktails, I mean they order a Tom Collins and an Old Fashioned. And if this isn't wacky enough, suddenly this little tale takes a turn, as the four tipsy teens are transported into fantasies (seems to be a theme of this evening's fare); one's an astronaut, another a movie star, another a lion tamer, and the fourth runs a corporate board meeting. Why? Because the teens think that the positives of alcohol (in order of these aforementioned fantasies) are the experience of visiting an unreality, or being the life of the party, or being courageous, and the fourth, well I wasn't clear on that board room one. Something about how teens should be able to make their own decisions.

Then, it veers into that ephemeral fave - winning through intimidation. "When you drink illegally, you are merely showing your instability, your immaturity. That your character is weak. You lack self control. You are showing the world you can't shoulder the responsibilities of youth. Making it obvious that you'll certainly not be able to bear the much heavier responsibilities of adulthood."

Yeah, that must have worked.

Posted by Rich at 9:00 AM | Permalink |

June 01, 2013

FEMME FETALE

Your Unrandom Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: Nothing is more desirable or more deadly than a woman with a secret

Pizza: L.A. Valley Pizzaland

Preshow Entertainment: None

IN FEMME FATALE, REBECCA ROMIJN HAS
ANTONIO BANDERAS IN DE PALMA HER HAND

With the exception of HOME MOVIES (1980), I like or love every film Brian De Palma has made. Sure, he's been rightfully accused of lifting from Hitchcock, but so what? He's not simply great at that, he's also great at understanding film, and in turn, making them. So make no mistake, this movie is not about Rebecca Romijn (then Romijn-Stamos) and Antonio Banderas, nor is it about the fun yet ludicrous plot teeming with buys and coincidences. FEMME FATALE (2002) is all about the craft of Brian De Palma, and for that alone, it's worth it.

FEMME FATALE opens with a hot naked girl smoking in bed while watching maybe the best noir film, DOUBLE INDEMNITY...with French subtitles. I suppose it's plausible, but it also tells us the absurdities are only going to get bigger. Much of the upcoming ridiculousness comes after this preamble in the opening heist sequence. Suspense is De Palma's strong suit, and this is one of the most fun scenes in the movie. That said, it's silly. No criminal in their right mind would hatch a plan with this many ways to go wrong. That bothered me. For as fun as FEMME FATALE is, it trips itself up with its over-the-top-ness, not to mention perhaps the corniest last line in film history. Oops. I mentioned it.

FEMME FATALE is the hypnopompic story of Laure (Romijn), a heartless, double-crossing sizzler who, at the Cannes Film Festival, steals 10 million dollars in diamonds by removing them from a model's body while making out with her in the restroom. (Coincidentally, real thieves made off with over a million dollars of jewelry at Cannes just a few weeks ago - http://goo.gl/gSkni). Then, instead of sharing the diamonds with her heist crew, she takes them all for herself. Later, the bad guys catch her, but because of a series of absurd and impossibly lucky events (one or two would have been okay...forty or so's a bit much), she's able to escape, change her identity, and live happily ever after. No, that's not entirely true. Seven years later, the bad guys find her. But Laure, who is now Lily, is whip smart with feline survival impulses. To save her hotass ass, she uses anyone she can, like Puss In Boots Banderas, who plays paparazzo Nicolas Bardo.

De Palma saturates the film with invisible details as well as clues that, when displayed for us, we don't know are clues. Even the bad guy known as Black Tie winks at us in the very first scene, a wink we can only figure out retrospectively, once we have more information later. And because we don't yet know what the heist is all about (De Palma is amazing at this...remember all that great MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE stuff going on simultaneously?), and who's who, we don't know that he's giving away a major plot twist right before our eyes. Of course, having two hot girls deep tongue kissing may have distracted a few of us.

But because things in FEMME FATALE often get silly, we don't take these details seriously, and because we don't take them seriously, we don't watch for them with the keen eye that we should. That's why FEMME FATALE is both so good and so frustrating. Had we been more deeply invested, we'd wonder why it's 3:33 on the clock when Laure's taking a bath and 3:33 on the clock when Bardo is being interrogated by the police. Coincidence? And why is that fish tank overflowing?? So, if you haven't seen the movie, I would urge you to take it seriously...if you can, because there's so much fun in the details. Everything means something, so pay attention. And it's okay to be confused. It's intentional. It'll all start to make sense as things unfold. Yet - not everything will be explained. I'll never know why Laure gives a soliloquy in English to Lily, who is French. And just how did Nicolas get to the street so fast after witnessing the accident from his apartment at the end? Also, as a photog, why does he choose not to bring his camera with him when he runs to the accident? This is not to say De Palma doesn't know what he's doing. Au contraire. There's great stuff here besides the aforementioned opening Cannes sequence, like when (the real) Lily returns to her house to kill herself. Not only is it a suspenseful and even intense full five minutes - with no dialogue - but it holds the movie's wonderful morality moment; Laure, who is hiding and watching Lily, knows she will be able to get Lily's identity if Lily kills herself. But...Laure has to stand there and...watch Lily kill herself. I love that. This eventually leads to the movie's theme - if you had a chance to do something over again, something that you did that was bad...would you?

Other things I love, a scene where two characters each pretend to be someone else, without the other one knowing. And oh, that final scene (De Palma bookended the movie with his two best scenes), featuring so many things working as a coalition (the photographer waiting for the sunlight, the same sunlight that will change the course of the story by shining its light on something once owned by the real Lily). It's a sequence worthy to be in the same De Palma's Greatest Hits reel as THE UNTOUCHABLES staircase. Speaking of which, FEMME FATALE harkens back to some of his most playful films like BODY DOUBLE and DRESSED TO KILL, and finds De Palma once again utilizing split screens, slow motion, isolated sound effects, and lengthy, balletic, dialogue-free VERTIGO-y scenes. And I, for one, welcome them all.

Here's another love/hate thing I have for this movie. LOVE: There are moments sprinkled throughout where characters like Lily's husband Watts (Peter Coyote), Watts's security guy Shiff (the always fun De Palma stable actor Gregg Henry, who is Gregg Lee Henry when he performs his music), maids and bartenders simply walk by in scenes they don't belong in. HATE: But why? Well, I won't give that away here in writing. But here's my clue - it's Cliche 101. Even De Palma himself was aware he was probably "splitting your audience down the center," but he went for it anyway. Good for him. Good for half of us.

Here's something really cool I uncovered while digging around about FEMME FATALE. The screening they go to in the opening Cannes scene is for a real movie, made a few years earlier, called EST-OUEST, and the real director (Regis Wargnier) and star (Sandrine Bonnaire) play prominently in the scene (the model wearing the diamonds is their companion).

Unfortunately, despite having shadows of blinds on the wall, FEMME FATALE never really felt like noir to me, though noir is clearly its intent (the name of Laure is close to Gene Tierney's classic femme fatale Laura in the Otto Preminger film called - LAURA). And just because you dress Romijn like a Hitch woman doesn't mean she is one. So the question remains, is Rebecca Romijn a match for the steeliness of say N X NW's Eva Marie Saint or INDEMNITY'S Barbara Stanwyck? The answer is no and no. Her reads on her lines feel like that of a friend at your dinner table putting on a gangster's voice while trying for a laugh. She seemed anti-sexy here, like she was trying to be alluring and sexy instead of being alluring and sexy. She even failed at trying to look tough smoking a cigarette. And how about Banderas? Does he have the gravitas of Fred McMurray? Again, no. He seems dreadfully miscast, feeling to me as if he were acting in a comedy instead of a thriller. This doesn't mean that FEMME FATALE is a failure. For on its own water-seeking level (that's a pun, as this movie overflows with water - fish tanks, baths, drinking glasses, shadows on ceilings, and even the opening shot of movie-within-a-movie EST-OUEST), it manages to walk the line between Hitchcock and cheese. Fortunately, I'm okay with both.

Posted by Rich at 9:00 AM | Permalink |

May 18, 2013

ZOOLANDER

Your Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: 3% Body Fat. 1% Brain Activity.

Pizza: Maria's Italian Kitchen

THE MOVIE ZOOLANDER IS A LOT LIKE ITS CHARACTER -
IT'S VACANT AND DRESSED UP IN FUNNY CLOTHES

What is it about him? I want to really like him, and when Ben Stiller plays the Everyman, I sort of do. But when he does characters, he's just Mike Myers to me.

I've never been a fan of movies where people make big faces, wear funny hats, speak in odd accents and have funny names. I need more. The movie could still be silly, but it needs to be more. I know I'm in the minority when it comes to ZOOLANDER (2001). I'm aware people love this movie. One RMCer, sitting on the couch behind me, was even quoting things before they happened, and the late Premiere Magazine voted it as one of the 50 best comedies. ZOOLANDER ranks high in the Clueless Character Collection so popular back then (DODGEBALL, BALLS OF FURY, BLADES OF GLORY, TALLADEGA NIGHTS, ANCHORMAN, etc.). "But Rich, you just said it ranks high, and in the sentence before, you sort of said it left you wanting more?" You're right, I did say that. And I stand by both those statements. You want clarity, read a science blog. This write-up, I warn you in advance, is all over the map.

Plot-wise, ZOOLANDER is THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE meets JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS; vacuous male model Derek Zoolander becomes an unwitting pawn in a plot to assassinate Malaysia's Prime Minister.

Derek became a worldwide star by utilizing his trademark modeling expression called Blue Steel. But, as in any profession, his star is about to fade. Owen Wilson plays Hansel, a fur-coated Razor scooting Zoolander rival. After a move that humiliates Derek on the public stage (as much as any model can be humiliated), Derek exiles himself from the biz. Sulking in his feety pajamas (Hey! I have feety pajamas too!) prompts the character's inner struggle - "Did you ever think there's something more to life than being really really really ridiculously good-looking?"

To find himself, he goes home, to coal mining country - in southern New Jersey, to his family; dad Larry (Jon Voight, who with his expressions of disdain and later, love, stole the movie), and brothers Luke (Vince Vaughan, uncredited) and Scrappy (Judah Friedlander, credited). But even that goes bad. Well sure it does, how can it go otherwise? A male model working in a coal mine? Anyway, when Larry sees his son Derek playing a mermaid in a commercial: "I just thank the Lord she (your mom) didn't live to see her son as a mermaid." Now although I laughed at that line (and Derek's comeback - "It's a merman!"),

I found myself exhausted at ZOOLANDER's relentless attempts at making a joke every nanosecond. There's only so much I can take of dumb male models' antics, like malapropisms, misspellings (their sign that says "Congradulashions") or their actions (they smash a computer open because they heard that the files are "in the computer"). Or when Time Magazine reporter Matilda (played by Stiller's wife, Christine Taylor) admits that when she was young she "became bulimic ," and Derek's awestruck response? "You read minds?!" Also incredibly assaulting, the runner of "Earth to (fill in character name)", which is repeated ad nauseam, so much so that a character in the movie actually tells them to stop doing it. And then there's the dick joke which actually features Andy Dick. I guess this is my problem with ZOOLANDER - it seems to rely on low rent gags. Again, this is not to say there's nothing funny in ZOOLANDER. When looking to recruit an assassin: "What about Fabio?" "Too smart." I also like the idea that both Stiller and Wilson play guys who are "professionally good-looking." Also fun, the statement/reversal on the typical female model stereotype. And small moments, like Derek's read of Time's headline - "A model, idiot," rather than "a model idiot."

Rising above the lowbrow, David Duchovny doing an appearance as a conspiracy whistleblower (trust no one?). I loved that he looked like Kevin Costner in the conspiracy-laden JFK, though the filmmakers claim it was more akin to Gene Hackman in ENEMY OF THE STATE - another conspiracy film. I'll tell you who I also liked. Christine Taylor playing the straight woman. With all the over the top costumes and face-making, it was nice to have a real person in there...and...she was good. She was the anti-Will Ferrell, who, in his silly hairstyle as designer Mugatu, chewed the scenery even more than the others. I also liked Milla Jovovich playing a Natasha to the hilt. Her name? Katinka Ingabogovinanana. I thought both actresses committed, at opposite ends of the acting spectrum, and found their perfect places in this inane and sometimes funny movie.

ZOOLANDER is rife with cameos, from Christian Slater to Lenny Kravitz to Winona Ryder to Natalie Portman. There's also an uncredited Anne Meara (Ben's mom, and half of legendary comedy team Stiller & Meara) was on hand (father Jerry has a much bigger part). Even Bowie appears in a set piece where Derek challenges Hansel to a "walk-off" on the runway.

One thing I thought they did great was the packages they put together for the VH-1 Fashion Awards. Finally, a parody worth parodying! And kudos to VH-1 for making fun of itself (they were one of the producers of ZOOLANDER). The idea for the movie was appropriated, appropriately, from a couple of skits from the VH-1 Fashion Awards, where Derek made his first appearances, though others will claim it was stolen from novelist Bret Easton Ellis's book GLAMORAMA, about a dim supermodel who unwittingly becomes entrenched in an international conspiracy (that suit was settled out of court). Baffling more than this possible pseudepigraphy incident is that ZOOLANDER's script "took years" and "millions of drafts," according to its three writers, Stiller, John Hamburg and the late Drake Sather.

ZOOLANDER, directed by Ben Stiller, is ridiculously heavy on plot. For a broad comedy, there's more plot here than in its template, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. Personally, I think it would have worked better if the plot were smaller and not about brainwashing models to be assassins. But yeah, that's just me. Don't listen to me. This movie did great (the sequel comes out 2014), and people love it. I would have messed it up with my notes. Still, I can't help feeling that Stiller & Company thought this movie was funnier than it really is. Underneath the window dressing, there's not much there. It's like the emperor has no designer clothes.

Posted by Rich at 10:00 AM | Permalink |

May 04, 2013

KILL BILL: VOL I and II

Your Unrandom Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline for Vol. 1: Here comes the Bride

Tagline for Vol. 2: The Bride is back for the final cut

PLEASE SIR, I WANT SOME GORE

"This is the 254th Movie Write-Up By Rich Nathanson."

If the old Klingon proverb is true, and "revenge is a dish best served cold," then the two KILL BILL movies are frozen stiff. And fantastic. True, they're like those cover songs you didn't realize weren't originals, but they're fantastic. What I mean is that Quentin Tarantino borrows boatloads of ideas from movies he loves and offers them to us with the giddiness of a 9-year-old on a trampoline. My logline review of every Tarantino movie remains the same: He and his troupe are having fun, and they want us to have fun too. Except for GRINDHOUSE (which, for some reason, didn't do a thing for me...maybe I should see it again), I love everything he's ever done, and although there have been better filmmakers, I can't say their batting average beats QT's.

BILL was originally meant to be one movie, but at four hours and change, Miramax and Tarantino wisely split it into two (KILL BILL VOL. 1 and KILL BILL VOL. 2), and released them a few months apart in 2003 and 2004. I saw 1 in the theater, but never got around to 2 until now. I'm here to report, as so many have reported before me, that this "double Bill" is astounding. It's bloody fun; truly a "roaring rampage of revenge."

The KILL BILL saga is told in ten chapters (five per movie). These chapters are luscious vignettes that play with us, toy with us, like a cat not killing its prey, but showing it off...and then killing it. Some scenes don't even move the story along, like Budd's (Michael Madsen) strip club scene; however, if you extract it, you'd lose Budd's strip club scene. It's almost as if QT is Scheherazade avoiding her (or Bill's) execution by telling 1,001 tales while keeping us amused, non-stop. It's some of the best stalling in film history. Directors worldwide should learn from this. Scenes and characters need to breathe. We need to know them, so when they die, we can cry or clap, or both. Otherwise, you're killing mannequins. Remember how effective that first scene in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS was?

Right out of the gate, QT slaps us around as if we were a character in his film:

Using the Shaw Brothers logo. They're the studio that made the Hong Kong chop-socky films that QT weened himself on and homages the shit out of in his films, especially this one.
An old choppy "Our Feature Presentation" movie theater intro.
Uma Thurman as the character "The Bride," all battered and then, shot in the head.
The title card "The 4th Film By Quentin Tarantino," perhaps a nod to critics and fans who had griped why it takes him so long between movies.
Nancy Sinatra's darker-than-Cher's rendition of Sonny Bono's BANG BANG.
Then, a dazzling (but not the dazzling-est) fight between The Bride and Vernita Green (Viveca Fox), a former hit woman, now a mommy in Pasadena. (This first sequence, told to us out of chronological order as QT is prone to do, is bookended and echoed in Bill's final chapter.)

Vernita is just one of the redoubtable Deadly Viper Assassination Squad that she was once a part of. There are four more. Darryl Hannah plays Elle Driver, who, on the way to an assassination, walks the hospital floor like a model on a runway. Yakuza boss O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), who when she was 11 years old had her own story of revenge, told in an 8-minute anime that's both violent and poetic. Budd (Bill's brother), assassin-cum-strip club bouncer. And then there's Bill.

I don't want to get too much into the plot. Why spoil the fun? Plus, honestly, the plot is simple - kill Bill. Yes, that's what's so wonderful about these movies. It's a simple revenge story dressed in pimp clothes. The Bride wants to kill Bill for what he did to her. That's it. Nice and clean. And QT takes us on a blood-splattered ride as she kills her way to Bill, filling us in on backstory when necessary, or not.

BILL flits around locations like a Bond movie on acid; Pasadena, El Paso, Japan, Mexico, Los Angeles, Barstow. Yet, as said earlier, it's really ten set pieces; ten mini-movies, each its own wonderful sub-story/puzzle piece. Each one carefully realized not just in text, but in everything. ART DIRECTION/SET: I love that Budd's trailer has records, an old stereo receiver, a TV with an antenna, a rotary phone, a MR. MAJESTYK poster, a stringless guitar, a can of chili. And those tiny dents in the trailer door's bottom, from where he must've kicked it open, perhaps while carrying grocery bags (with chili) home.

And as if we're being cautioned, the entire movie is painted in yellows - walls, ladders, trucks (the Pussy Wagon!), the inside of a casket, even Uma's HAIR and WARDROBE: that (perhaps?) iconic track suit, making her the meanest thing between Bruce Lee and Sue Sylvester. MUSIC: Yipes! QT's choices are, though at times incongruous, always surprising and always welcome. Sure, he nods to Asian themes when needed, but also manages to display other loves like apparently 60s and 70s soul, which are referenced in the dialogue and on the soundtrack, with groups like Kool and the Gang, The Bar-Kays and The Three Degrees. He even has an Isaac Hayes song playing during a fight. And then there's...

CASTING: Well, let me continue my QT lovefest with telling you how much I love his casting choices. Instead of going for bankable A-listers (okay, he does do that now and then), he opts for TV stars from the 60s and 70s. Can I tell you how much I love this? These actors are often forgotten, in favor of younger ones. No secret there, Hollywood's been doing that forever. It's a young town, a young market, I get it. But why exclude them carte blanche? So here we have Michael Parks (THEN CAME BRONSON, 69-70), David Carradine (KUNG FU, 72-75) and Bo Svenson (HERE COME THE BRIDES [The Bride??? Hmmm], 68-70).

All these actors play cool characters, like they did way back when. Parks and his real son James play father/son cops here, Earl and Edgar McGraw (Michael Parks played the same character in the Tarantino written/Robert Rodriguez directed FROM DUSK TILL DAWN). Parks (the elder) also shows up a little unrecognizable in another role in BILL as Esteban, one of Bill's father figures. And martial artist Sonny Chiba is on board as sword craftsman Hattori Hanzo (a character based on the [maybe] real life man that Chiba had previously portrayed decades ago). There's also Gordon Liu who played O-ren Ishii's lead henchman in 1 and Pai Mei in 2 (a character with a storied past in Shaw Brothers films from the 70s on). So you see, QT takes what he knows and loves, and runs with it. He runs with it hard and fast. One last thing I'll say about being an actor in a QT film; you better not be concerned with your vanity. You will, perhaps more often than not, look ugly and gritty.

Of course there's the overall filmmaking too. Sure, he uses Hong Kong-style zooms both in and out, but there's so many genres used in BILL that I'm surprised there's no musical number (though many of the fight scenes are balletic). In Blockbuster (remember them?), it would be in the Action section; but we also have Spaghetti Westerns, martial arts (kung-fu and karate), anime and even a touch of De Palma. Tarantino himself declares Vol. 1 the question and Vol. 2 the answer (True, but action-wise, I think he has it backwards; Vol. 1 is the answer, then Vol. 2 is the question). He was right about this, though: 1= East. Kung Fu. 2 = West. Spaghetti Western.

QT makes no secret about what he's taking from. In fact, he advertises it. That's how deep his love goes for these movies, especially the plot of 1973's LADY SNOWBLOOD, a somber, smart and blood-geyser-y revenge story also told in chapters featuring - duh - a lady and snow and blood. And 36 CHAMBERS OF SHAOLIN, a great kung fu movie, considered by many to be the one by which all others are judged. And as far as the Bruce Lee inspired Bride's jumpsuit? Was QT paying homage to Lee or did The Bride buy a Bruce Lee jumpsuit knowing she was going to kick some - okay, not some, a lot - of serious ass?

Okay, I can obviously yap about this for over four hours, so I'll start winding it down. Here's a few more things I wanted to mention.

BILL, like all of Tarantino's films, overflows with fun moments. Here are but a few: The whistle-blasting theme that comes up whenever The Bride finds her next kill (it's actually a snippet from Quincy Jones's theme from IRONSIDE!). The BLEEPs when The Bride's real name is mentioned because the audience isn't meant to know it (doubly amusing since, is there really a reason we can't know it? It wouldn't have given anything away if we did). The Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, as used by the same character, Pai Mei, in his earlier incarnation (though Pai Mei's been around since the 60's, I think he didn't use this technique until the 70s). That overhead shot in the suburban house, between foyer and kitchen, and the Kaboom cereal. Everything is playful, right down to the sound of the dirt being shoveled on to "Paula Shultz's" coffin. But the most spectacular set piece for me, clocking in at half an hour, is the Showdown at the House Of Blue Leaves. Culminating in a snowglobe-y fight (again, borrowed from LADY SNOWBLOOD), this segment, which can shift from color to B & W with the blink of an eye, is astounding. We watch The Bride decimate her attackers like a thresher in a field.

The only thing I don't like about the two BILL movies is that, after saying there would be a third, in December 2012 Tarantino said there wouldn't. But even that's okay. Because his movies are always fun. He does whatever he wants. It's like he's unchained.

Posted by Rich at 5:45 PM | Permalink |

April 20, 2013

PHFFFT!

Your Random Movie Club Results Are In!

Tagline: Don't Say It! See It

Preshow Entertainment: The 2000 Academy Awards Preshow

Pizza: Dominos

PHFFFT IS, WITHOUT A DOUBT,
THE BEST VOWELLESS JACK LEMMON MOVIE EVER.

When the title to this movie first came up, I thought it was that 70s movie about a snake. But that one's called SSSSSSSS. Someone should program these movies as a double bill, so people can ask the box office, "Can I get one ticket to PHFFFT and SSSSSSS please?" Anyway, before we go further, let me explain that silly title, as I'm almost sure you don't know what it means (we didn't). It was the catchphrase to signify a celebrity couple were divorcing, used in Walter Winchell's gossip column (which is shown in the movie when the two leads split). I imagine at the time of its release in 1954 they thought that was a keen title, but time would prove that wrong. It would be like naming a movie GANGNAM STYLE today. By the way, the studio had to debate for hours over whether to use three F's in the title or 4. The movie is listed with an exclamation point on Wikipedia, but without one on IMDB (for the record, Wiki is wrong). This may be the worst title everrr!

But not the worst movie ever. PHFFFT is a fluffy movie featuring Jack Lemmon, who was just becoming Jack Lemmon. You know what I mean; the stammering everyman that he did so well....so well that he sort of made that character his. I'm sure there's a Lemmon Law joke in that. Anyway...

All lawyer Robert (Lemmon) wants is some peace and quiet, to relax on his couch, sip coffee and read a murder novel (HE STOOPED TO KILL). He's half of the soon to be split couple along with his wife Nina (Judy Holliday) who is a writer for the NBC soap opera SERENA NOBLE, DOCTOR'S WIFE. Nina broaches the subject and he agrees. It's so casual that while arguing on who thought of the divorce idea first, he opens a bottle of beer and, without asking, pours two glasses and hands her one. So natural, without thinking. That's how comfy this couple is. As their divorce conversation continues, they get undressed and ready for bed. This isn't schtick, it's subtext.

So it's off to Reno! Back then, Reno was the place to go for a quickie divorce due to their lenient residency laws. Even stars like Rita Hayworth went there. Anyway, PHFFFT follows the basic screwball mandates as divorcees Robert and Nina engage in one-upsmanship, each trying to prove how great they are doing without the other...when they're really not. It's a good thing people in relationships don't know they can actually talk to each other about their feelings. Otherwise, there'd be no romantic comedies. Although in the movies, things seem to always work out. I guess that's what people want to see, instead of the real life version, where your soul is crushed and your heart ripped to shreds. Anyway...

Robert moves in with his old navy buddy Charlie (Jack Carson), a player who tries to get Bobby back in the game. He shows him a statue he's named Sam, who, when you turn it around, means your roommate has a girl in the room. Sam is their Sock or Scunci-on-the-doorknob. Meanwhile, Nina and her mom go to dinner, and who should be there? Bob and Charlie. And the games begin. One of these games involve each of them dating someone else; she the male lead of SERENA NOBLE, and he Charlie's friend Janis, played like Marilyn Monroe by Kim Novak. By the way, there's a gag where Janis knows about turning Sam around, signaling to Robert that she's been with Charlie. This exact gag is repeated in the movie TRIBUTE, also with Lemmon. In that movie, Kim Cattrall, who claimed to have never been in the apartment, pressed the button to reveal the hidden bar.

Of course, these forays don't work out well for either of them. Neither do Nina's language lessons and Robert's art lessons, nor their mutual rhumba lessons they're unaware the other is taking. This leads to a fun dance showdown, perhaps the highlight of the movie. Lemmon's antics (grow a moustache, buy a sports car, take dancing lessons) are knee jerk reactions to losing yourself. It's nice to know that emotionally, we still act as kids when we don't get our way. And since we're privy, we see that they are both doing the same things, just not in each other's company - singing the same song, dining at the same restaurant, dance lessons, these are two peas in a pod.

Because this was Lemmon's second movie, he lost out on top billing to Judy Holliday. His first movie, the funnier romcom IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU, was released earlier that same year and also starred Holliday. I imagine PHFFFT was a bit ribald for its time, with its quickie divorce, women who ask strangers to turn their backs so they can change their clothes, and dialogue like when Charlie says "You're gonna have a ball" when he sets Robert up with a sure thing. A bit of casting that I found just a tiny bit odd, only because of Holliday's BORN YESTERDAY role, was having Kim Novak as the bimbo. This was Novak's third movie, and like Lemmon, her first year on screen.

PHFFFT was written by the great George Axelrod (MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S), who stated that Holliday, Carson and Lemmon were brilliant comedy actors - it was the director (Mark Robson) that was miscast. I believe he was right. Regardless, this was by no means the greatest movie ever made, but it's not bad either...and it's great to see Lemmon volley with Holliday. Axelrod fills the script with snappy patter, like Robert's "I can tell everything about a person from their cancelled checks" and his marriage proposal of "If we were to file a joint return..." "Boobs and Boobs" (Dumb men and...you know, sexy women) is how Axelrod termed so much of his work. That's what people want. Boobs and boobs. My, how times haven't changed.

Preshow Entertainment: The 2000 Academy Awards Preshow

Don't ask why I have so much crap. I mean, who tapes (in the age of VHS) and keeps, the preshow to the 2000 Academy Awards. Ucch. Laura Diaz and Marc Brown. Man, do I despise awards shows.

So we have George Pennacchio and Roger Ebert interviewing Douglas Wick, the producer of GLADIATOR. I still haven't gotten around to seeing GLADIATOR...but maybe since I've seen the AA Preshow, I now have license. We didn't get to watch too much of the show, but we did get to see, in a retrospective package, a few celebs say it best. Heather Graham: "Tonight it's all about the dress." Richard Dreyfuss: "Twelve months from now, honestly, you'll make a lot of cash betting that no one can remember who won."

Posted by Rich at 8:00 AM | Permalink |

April 06, 2013

LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER

Random Movie Club is on vacation for two weeks in the Catskills. Please enjoy a (revised) blast from the past. Back in 1999, we screened The Rolling Stones in Hal Ashby's LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER.

Your October 1999 Random Movie Club Results Are in!

Tagline: Let's Spend the Night Together . . . live it!

"I LOVE THE STONES.
I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY'RE STILL DOING IT
AFTER ALL THESE YEARS.
I WATCH THEM WHENEVER I CAN. FRED, BARNEY..."

-STEVEN WRIGHT

I'm with Steven. I love the Stones too. I met Mick and Keith once, when they were recording VOODOO LOUNGE. I thought, What can I say that everyone hasn’t already said to them? I was pretty sure “Pleased to meet you, won’t you guess my name” had been done. So I just looked at Mick inquisitively, squinted my eyes as I shook his hand, and said, “You look really familiar.” He liked that. And I got to shake hands with the devil. Afterwards, it made me think, he's probably more recognizable around the world than George Washington, but not as recognizable as Mickey Mouse. Doesn't that just about sum the world up? Mickey Mouse, Mick Jagger, George Washington.

I may love The Rolling Stones now more than ever. I’ve only seen them live once. It was at Shea Stadium, and, well, if you’re not in the first few rows, you have to watch the screens more than the stage. But you’re there. You’re there and you and the other 60,000 fans have connected. So it doesn’t matter how far back you sit. You’re now part of the tribe experiencing a Stones concert. Unless you're close. Then everything I just said is bullshit rationalization. Anyway, seven years before I saw that show, director Hal Ashby and crew shot LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER, using performances culled from three shows; two at the Meadowlands in Jersey and one in Tempe, at the beautiful 71,000 seat Sun Devil Stadium.

The first thing we see are balloons and “A Hal Ashby Film – The Rolling Stones in Let’s Spend The Night Together” in bubbly and crooked letters reminiscent of a screwball comedy, indicating we’re in for a party. Then, some backstage shots seconds before the curtain parts. Mick’s in his second-skin tights (they may be football pants made for 13 year old boys) with knee pads, a look I constantly try to pull off and can’t. He doesn’t run to the front of the stage, he races. Was there ever a better front man? And then, they open with one of my favorite songs of theirs, UNDER MY THUMB.

Then, a thrilling shot, sailing over a mountain (this is the Tempe stadium), where we see the balloons rising into the heavens (there’s another shot later, tilting down from the nearby mountain). You can’t tell where the mountain ends and where the people begin. It's just a wall of people…like in those videogames that have a fake crowd in the stadium. They all turn into one large mass.

So Mick’s ass is shaking, Charlie’s doing his signature not playing the hi-hat on the 4, Bill Wyman's there looking sort of interested, and Keith is wearing enough guyliner to make Tammy Faye rise from the dead just to get jealous. Both he and Ron Wood are bobbling cigarettes from their lips. If Mick wasn’t Jagger, he’d surely have been beaten up in school. Wait, he wasn't Jagger in school, so maybe he was. Anyway, changing from white to yellow tights helps enhance his anthropomorphic chicken look, and, I swear, between the outfit and his moves, he should have just committed and strapped on the beak. But he’s Mick Fuckin’ Jagger, a guy who was already a rock god in 1967, so much so that Woof, a character in the Broadway musical HAIR, tells us that he "wouldn't kick Mick Jagger out of my bed." Helping out on keyboards (largely out of sight in the movie) are Ians McLagan and Stewart, the latter of which looks a lot like Leno, which is just funny.

Cranking out hits and non-hits back to back like a non-stop jukebox of cool, the show can sometimes feel like it’s one long encore. To balance it a little, they occasionally cut away from the performance (during the NEIGHBORS sax solo they stay on Mick most of the time) as well as cherry-picked from all three shows (Why does Mick have that football jersey on again? Didn’t he toss that away earlier?). This is the 1981 concert they released on CD as STILL LIFE, if you want to hear it and not watch it.

Here's the setlist, with some occasional notes:

UNDER MY THUMB
LET’S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER
SHATTERED – Adrenalin-infused ode to NYC
NEIGHBORS – We're treated to some backstage stuff, like Ron Wood getting made up. Also included, a shot of Wood running around the stage, clearly from later in the (or at another) performance, as it was night time.
BLACK LIMOUSINE
JUST MY IMAGINATION - With Mick kinda on guitar.
TWENTY FLIGHT ROCK
LET ME GO
TIME IS ON MY SIDE- Featuring a slide show of the Stones, including ex-members Mick Taylor and Brian Jones then and now (1981). Well, not all of them now. And some B & W footage of them, sunk up, doing the song years earlier.
BEAST OF BURDEN- A song I used to bus tables to at a restaurant.
WAITING ON A FRIEND – An often under-appreciated song.
GOING TO A GO-GO- Featuring fast motion shots of them setting the tour up at another venue, this time indoors. Here, you get a glimpse at just how much work goes into this deceptively simple show. The sped-up footage continues, showing a performance, but good luck trying to keep your eye on hummingbird Jagger. He’s like the Flash (not the Jumping Jack kind).
YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT- Finds Mick not just sweating through his shirt, but through his sport jacket as well.
LITTLE T & A – Keith’s song and his vocals, about one night stands. I'm guessing it's not fiction.
TUMBLIN’ DICE
SHE’S SO COLD – Shot through this one in record time, it's intercut with antics, onstage and off, all with rapid-fire editing.
ALL DOWN THE LINE
HANG FIRE
MISS YOU
LET IT BLEED
START ME UP
HONKY TONK WOMAN - A line of girls a mile long, all in Nawlins’ wardrobe. Probably locals?
BROWN SUGAR - Mick hops a motorized riser.
JUMPING JACK FLASH - Mick is in the cherry picker.
SATISFACTION - Man, did Keith know how to write a riff.

LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER was directed by Hal Ashby, who made some neo-classics like HAROLD AND MAUDE and one of my favorite movies, BEING THERE. The concert was shot mostly by Caleb Deschanel, who, among his many achievements like THE NATURAL and the more recent JACK REACHER, fathered Zooey and Emily. It's pretty much a live concert. If you want more than that, I highly recommend the documentary CROSSFIRE HURRICANE. It's filled with amazing footage from the early years, stuff you'd never have guessed even existed. Bad boy stuff, like drugs and tushies.

Oddly, it’s easier to understand the words here than on the albums. That said, the Stones stumble about with the swagger of drunken Caribbean pirates armed with a couple of chords. They toussle each other’s hair like avuncu-rockers while (possibly) trying to get a smirk out of Bill Wyman. They're professional showmen, but part of that showmanship holds some really genuine moments, like when Keith smiles after LET ME GO. When I was a kid, I remember telling a friend that "Keith Richards will not make it to 1980." Wow, was I wrong. And it just might be truth and not hyperbole when they're often introduced as "the world's greatest rock and roll band."

Posted by Rich at 10:00 AM | Permalink |