TARGETS
Your July 2006 RMC Results Are In!
Tagline: TARGETS are people...and you could be one of them!
You know, after last month's screening of NORA, even I was ready to skip this RMC. But I am glad I went. Really glad.
The Preshow Entertainment was THE TUBES VIDEO. Full disclosure: I love The Tubes. I've seen them maybe 6 times in their '80s heyday, and even twice in the last 15 years (when the shows were less than stellar, and the crowd was less than 70). But I'm loyal. Back in the day, I taped at least three Tubes pieces. Two, I think, are live shows (they were often better showmen than musicians), and one was a concept video, which is the one we watched.
It's a lot from their (almost) concept album called THE COMPLETION BACKWARDS PRINCIPLE, a great rock record with a funk edge. TTV was directed by Russell Mulcahy, who has yet to make a good movie, and is based on The Tubes live show choreographed by Kenny Ortega (now a director- HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL, THE GILMORE GIRLS) back in 1982.
Each song is a different stage show act, with frontman Fee Waybill hamming it up. The video opens with A MATTER OF PRIDE, then goes into SPORTS FANS. This is the infamous video where Fee lets his dick flop around as he dresses up in his baseball uniform. We've seen this video once before at RMC, on a compilation called RED HOT ROCK. Anyway, after the third song, AMNESIA, Prime Italian came knocking. We never even made it to song 4, which is called MR. HATE. More on that later.
THE TUBES VIDEO, as cheesy and dated as it is today, was nominated for a Grammy. Don't forget, this was right before Music Television exploded. And the Tubes were most successful as a live act, so you can understand how they work on video better than other bands.
The large pizza we ordered was 12 inches. Now I know I've griped about this before, but really- What the fuck is a medium pizza, 6 inches? And is a small 3 inches? Is a personal pizza bite-sized? I mean, who are they feeding, Fearless Fly?
The movie we saw was TARGETS. And no, it's not a doc on the evil of chain stores.
I don't know where to begin. Maybe here- TARGETS is a great movie. In 1967, Roger Corman let Peter Bogdanovich make a movie under two conditions: he must use Boris Karloff for 2 days (Karloff owed Corman), and he must use footage from the Corman film THE TERROR, starring Karloff and Jack Nicholson (at 26 years old).
Bogdanovich, a huge movie nut (critic, actor, writer, director, hobnobber), went and crafted something Hollywood rarely sees- a smart and original movie that triumphs in spite of weak acting, the absence of lighting, and a budget the size of a large Prime Italian pizza.
I'm going to give a lot away, so read on if you've already seen it or if you don't care about spoilers. But if you want to watch it fresh, get thee to your Netflix queue.
TARGETS is two stories that run concurrently and parallel each other until the last few minutes when, defying physics, the lines merge.
One story involves Bobby, a clean-cut, respectful all-American kid. He calls his father "sir." He has a beautiful wife, lives in a beautiful house, behind the wheel of a large automobile, and asks himself, how did I get here? His answers come in bullets, as first he kills his family, then random people on a freeway, and finally customers at a drive-in theater. He lives in suburbia, in a spotless house painted in dark blues. It's 1967, but smells like the 50s.
Bobby is the embodiment of such youth. He's a product of the '50s. He's June Cleaver's son they keep locked in the basement because he's wired funny. Bobby casually eats his Baby (get it?) Ruth bar as he buys boxes of bullets. He even brings a bag lunch with his duffel bag of weapons, so he can have a bite before murdering innocent people. Orlok is the aging antique. "It's a young world," rants Orlok.
And that sentiment would bite the movie on its ironic jugular, for it was ready to be released when Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy were shot. The studio didn't shelve it, but hardly released it. They also added some upfront disclaimers about gun control.
There are a lot of great scenes in TARGETS. The best, I'd say, is when Bobby and his father go out shooting. It's as tense as anything you'll see. There are other harsh images, like a young boy hush-weeping as we PAN TO REVEAL dad with a bloody hole in his neck. And it's not a slick movie, so these moments are more real. Another standout moment is when Karloff, in a single lengthy DOLLY IN shot, tells a little horror tale. A tale I'm sure he's recited more than once. If you hate the movie, it's worth watching for this one minute story. It's Karloff, who was dying at the time, simply taking it home.
And now a word about Bogdanovich. He is a film historian, often firsthand. His extensive knowledge of, for example, Hitchcock (who he knew), often comes with a really impressive imitation. His career as an actor and/or director, though spotty, is, as they say, illustrious. From THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (director), to THE SOPRANOS (actor). TARGETS is his first (or perhaps second, it's hard to say) movie. And his love affair with movies, like the more current Tarantino (who has thanked Bogdanovich in more than one of his movies), is evident in TARGETS. It's Peter B. himself who plays director Sammy (a wink to director Sam Fuller, who helped with the script). And as he watches THE CRIMINAL CODE (also in RMC) on TV, he shhh-es Karloff (whose breakthrough performance was in that very movie) when he speaks, and makes sure we all know that "Howard Hawks made this film." Then, in disgust, he drops, "all the good films have already been made."
Loosely based on Texas clock tower sniper Charles Whitman, TARGETS taps into that culture gene that makes us fascinated by senseless and random violence. There's a reason Harry Chapin wrote SNIPER, and Elton and Bernie wrote TICKING, and The Tubes wrote MR. HATE. And there's a reason they made THE DEADLY TOWER (also in RMC) with Kurt Russell, and a small blip of a film I saw last year called CHARMING BILLY. And that reason is- if John or Mary or even Dick and Jane can get shot walking down the street, then so can you.
SEE THIS MOVIE. Even if you have just read all this spoiler stuff. Me? I'm getting the DVD to watch Bogdanovich's commentary.
Tags: random movie club, targets-movie, the tubes, boris karloff, peter bogdanovich
