The Scoop: This ultra-low budget parody of 1950s movie musicals, released by Troma, is an early effort by "South Park" creator Trey Parker. It plays very fast and loose with the real-life story of frontiersman Alferd Packer, who killed and ate the rest of his traveling party while snowbound in the Rocky Mountains in the winter of 1882-83. And, true to the title, there are musical numbers (including a love song to a horse), though not nearly enough to sustain the somewhat amateurish storytelling. While there are some pretty funny parts (the Japanese Indian tribe, for instance), the quality of humor is nowhere near the brilliant levels Parker and co-conspirator Matt Stone later reached in "South Park." It's worth a look for hardcore fans, but otherwise a bit tedious. For great non-"South Park" work from Parker and Stone, check out "Orgazmo" instead.
Best Line: "Fudge, Packer?"
Side Note: Parker and Matt Stone were students together at the University of Colorado at Boulder while filming this movie in 1993. The short order grill at the university student union is named after Packer.
Companion Viewing: "Orgazmo" (1997) and "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut" (1999).
The Scoop: We Americans sure like to dream big, don't we? This is the nation that gave birth to the notion of social mobility. We like to think that we, too, can be rich, famous or powerful, no matter what our humble beginnings. Of course, we Americans also don't think that we could possibly have any shortcomings that could possibly get in our way. So, while we may be a nation of Bill Gateses, we are also a nation of Mark Borchardts.
"American Movie" is a terrific documentary from Chris Smith that follows demented Wisconsin hoser Borchardt and his best buddy Mike Schank as they try to make Borchardt's "great American movie," titled "Northwestern," and a short film, "Coven" (pronounced "Coh-vin"). The result is a hilarious (often unintentionally) look at a typical American schmuck with big dreams.
If Borchardt can ever get his shit together long enough to finish a film, he could well make his mark as the Ed Wood or Coleman Francis of his generation. Unfortunately, shit keeps getting misplaced.
"American Movie" offers a rare first-hand glimpse an outsider cinema artist of the Wood/Francis type at work. And in the process, it shows us a little bit about our own dreams as well.
Best Line: "There's some corny dialogue that would make the Pope weep."
Side Note: The soundtrack, performed Schank, features covers of music by Bach, Metallica and "Mr. Bojangles."
Companion Viewing: "Coven" (1997) and "Ed Wood: Look Back in Angora" (1994).
The Scoop: Let's cut to the chase. Gavin Grazer and Joe Wein's film "Scorched" is just another one of those self-consciously quirky indie comedies that tries too hard to be clever for its own good.
In a nondescript California desert town (apparently named Desert, California), three disgruntled employees of the local bank each plot come up with their own plans to rob the bank, and execute their heists on the same weekend. There's Stewart (Paolo Costanzo) and his numbskull pal Max (David Krumholtz) who "borrow" $250,000 from the mini-vault to use on an all-or-nothing roulette bet in Las Vegas. Sheila (Alicia Silverstone) enlists new firefighter pal Max (Ivan Sergei) to empty out the ATMs to get back at her ex-boyfriend, the douchebag bank manager Rick (Joshua Leonard). And then there's Woody Harrelson in the role he was born to play -- Woods, the spaced-out desert rat assistant manager who wants to get revenge on infomercial con artist Mr. Merchant (John Cleese) by cleaning out his safe deposit box. Also mixed up in the shenanigans are new employee Doleman (Marcus Thomas) and his free-spirited pal Shmally (Rachel Leigh Cook).
The plot, which relies on such improbabilities as the banks lack of 24/7 video cameras and the fact that ducks live wild in the desert, plays out pretty much as you'd expect. The comedy is pretty half-baked, unless your idea of fun is watching Woody Harrelson try to hold his own while acting opposite various animals. And, except for Silverstone and Costanzo, everyone else pretty much mails it in.
Sure, there are worse ways to spend 90 minutes of your life. But there are also lots of better things you can do with your time than spending it on this well-meaning but forgettable trifle.
Best Bit: Jeffrey Tambor's cameo as the spaced-out bank executive.
Side Note: The horned toad Woods is talking to in the desert at the beginning is actually an Australian bearded dragon, which is not native to California.
The busy minions at Desuko World HQ are taking a well-deserved summer vacation, so in the meantime, enjoy these favorite posts from the past. [Originally published Dec. 14, 2006]
The Scoop: While "Targets" presents the story of a moral crossroads, it also represents a cinematic crossroads -- the end of the brilliant Boris Karloff's career and the start of Peter Bogdanovich's.
In his writing and directing debut, Bogdanovich crafts this cautionary, semi-autobiographical tale of aging horror movie star Byron Orlok (played by Karloff), who decides to leave the business when he realizes his life's work can't compare to the real horrors taking place on America's streets everyday. The clips of Orlok's past work are taken from the classic performances of Karloff, and to complete the real-life parallels, Bogdanovich even casts himself as the young director making Orlok's last film. There is also a parallel plot concerning a troubled young man who goes on a shooting spree that is sadly all too familiar in our post-Columbine world. These two plot strands cross when the young shooter takes refuge in a drive-in theater that turns out to be the site of Orlok's last public appearance before retirement.
This film offers an interesting exploration of the role of the entertainment media in the social upheaval of the late-'60s (it was released in the late spring of 1968, shortly after the assassination of Martin Luther King, but before the shooting of Robert Kennedy) that has grown even more prescient today. And Bogdanovich challeges the viewer by filming from the point of view of the shooter, putting the audience in the killer's shoes.
Despite his obviously failing health, Karloff gives the strongest, most human portrayal of a career marked my more depth than most horror actors'. In a perfect world, this swan song performance would've been recognized with an Oscar. Instead, the poverty-stricken Karloff followed his performance here with appearances (confined to a wheelchair) in a quartet of bad Mexican cheapies, filmed over the course of a couple weeks, before dying in 1969. But forget those duds -- this is the true, final summation of one of the truly great acting careers in film.
Best Line: Karloff's summation, "Is that what I was afraid of?"
Best Bit: The staging of the freeway shooting scene.
Side Notes: 1) Bogdanovich originally offered the lead role to Vincent Price, who turned it down. 2) The film showing in the drive-in at the end of the movie is "The Terror" (1963), in which Karloff costarred with a young Jack Nicholson. 3) The victim who dies in the phone booth is none other than Mike Farrell, who went on to a more distinguished career in television, starring in "M*A*S*H" and "Providence."
Companion Viewing: Two of this film's cinematic descendents -- "Taxi Driver" (1976) and "Natural Born Killers" (1994).
The Scoop: How could something with such a great premise be so bad -- so earth-shatteringly, jaw-droppingly bad?
A convicted killer (Charlie Sheen) escapes police custody in Los Angeles, takes an heiress/socialite (Kristy Swanson) hostage and begins a high speed chase to Mexico and freedom. Tons of cops wind up on his tail, as do several TV news crews, who broadcast the chase live.
The television news' obsession with high speed freeway chases should be such a perfectly ripe topic for parody -- a softball any idiot could hit out of the park. And yet this movie utterly fails at its mission. It's not just that the script and acting are bad, because those are fairly run-of-the-mill problems. This movie tries hard to cross the boundary into full-scale Ed Wood style ineptitude -- all the freeway signs are obviously fake (what was wrong with the real freeway signs, anyway?), none of the police cars or uniforms match, and the list just goes on and on.
Writer/director Adam Rifkin, who was coming off the hilarious "The Dark Backward" (1991) really blew it here. The definitive parody of freeway chases is still waiting to be made.
Best Bit: The best part isn't even in the movie proper -- it comes after the end credits, with Charlie Sheen in a clown suit reciting the "I love the smell of napalm" speech from his dad's film "Apocalypse Now" (1979).
Side Note: Punk icon Henry Rollins has a supporting role as a cop, but watch for the cameo appearances. These include Anthony Keidis and Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Cary Elwes and porn star Ron Jeremy.
Note: With this post, we'll be taking a short holiday break. See you in the new year!
The Scoop: A sort of upper-crust version of "The Full Monty," this hilarious (though sometimes aggressively quirky) little film follows the travails a group of oddball actors who try to mount a Christmastime production of "Hamlet." It is, of course, a colossally ill-thought out idea because, really, who wants to be that depressed on Christmas? But, as written and directed by Kenneth Branagh, it makes for a great, intimate film and a touching tribute to the struggles and idiosyncrasies of community theaters, whether in Britain or the U.S.
The cast of British theater veterans seems to be having great fun in this back-to-basics production by the usually over-elaborate Branagh. It's easy to see Branagh's attraction to this material, considering the many parallels between his life and the character of the director in the film. In fact, Branagh used this as the warm up for his wonderful uncut film version of "Hamlet."
Best Line: "Is this whole production going to be based on innuendo?"
Side Note: Costars Michael Maloney, Richard Briers and Nicholas Farrell all went on to star in Branagh's "Hamlet," but in different roles than their characters play in this movie's production of the play.
Companion Viewing: "The Full Monty" (1997) and "Hamlet" (1996).
The Scoop: Writer/director Neil LaBute is becoming one of cinema's most astute chroniclers of the social estrangement of white males, and this, his debut feature, contains the seeds that would flower in his later work.
Two young business executives (Aaron Eckhart and Matt Malloy) who are both having relationship trouble decide to vent their frustrations on an extended business trip by intentionally seducing and then destroying the emotions of an insecure woman. The subject they find is a deaf secretary in their office (Stacy Edwards) and things wind up being stickier than they ever intended.
Despite a few slow parts, this is a scathing portrayal of misogyny and rampant, misplaced testosterone. Sharp, but not for the faint of heart.
Best Bit: The entire "He's a prick" scene.
Side Note: The screen if full of people pulling double duty. In addition to Malloy also serving as executive producer, most of the actors used in the bit and extra parts were members of the crew.
Companion Viewing: "Your Friends and Neighbors" (1998).
The Scoop: John Waters' satirical look at the art world also operates as a drama about the destructive quality of fame.
Edward Furlong is the title character, a happy-go-lucky kid from Baltimore with a strange family and a passion for street photography. Art dealer Rorey Wheeler (Lili Taylor) discovers his work and brings him to New York, where his whole life (and the lives of those around him) is turned upside down. Christina Ricci gives one of her most charming performances as Pecker's girlfriend Shelley, and Waters fixtures Mink Stole and Patricia Hearst are also along for the ride.
Waters' usual raunchiness is toned down in favor of messages about the power of art and the true nature of success. Like most of the rest of Waters' post-Divine work, "Pecker" doesn't quite come alive with iconoclastic energy of his earlier films. Many of the gags fall flat and some of the characters are just a little too self-consciously quirky. But enough of Waters' trademark touches shine through to make the film fun, even if this winds up being only a minor addition to the Waters canon.
The most compelling reason to see "Pecker," though, is its ruminations on fame and art -- particularly in their effects on a funky, non-mainstream creative personality who just wants to follow the visions in his head. Because Waters' much-chronicled career path followed the same trajectory, "Pecker" is by far the most serious and self-reflective of the filmmaker's works.
Best Line: "What they call art up in New York, young man, looks like just plain misery to me."
Side Note: Yep, that's art photographer Cindy Sherman playing herself in the Soho gallery scene.
The Scoop: Today is March 14 (3/14), which the math geeks among us celebrate as Pi Day. Hence, today's post.
Rarely has intellectual genius been so compellingly displayed on film as in "Pi." This edgy, hyperkinetic blast from the underground is like a splash of cold water in the face. It is also a tour de force debut for writer/director Darren Aronofsky.
Max Cohen (played by cowriter Sean Gullette) in a reclusive, unbalanced mathematical genius in New York obsessed with discovering the underlying numerical patterns of the stock market. Because these patterns can hold the secret to predicting the behavior of the financial markets, a group of corporate heavies is after his secrets, willing to use force if necessary. Also on his trail is a radical Jewish sect that wants him to uncover the numerology of the Kabbalah. Max just wants to be left alone with his precious numbers, but his pursuers keep him on the run, as well as make him question his relationship with his Jewish heritage and, eventually, draw him mysteriously toward the number pi.
Math is everyone's least favorite subject in school, but Aronofsky makes it exciting, thrilling stuff. Jewish mysticism gets its due here, too. (As Aronofsky once put it in an interview, “I wanted to make a movie about God, math and badass Jews.”) The combination, accented with gritty black and white cinematography and an alluring electronic music score (by Aphex Twin, Orbital and others), is captivating.
Best Line: "11:15, restate my assumptions: 1. Mathematics is the language of nature. 2. Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. 3. If you graph these numbers, patterns emerge. Therefore: There are patterns everywhere in nature."
Side Note: Despite the heavy (and mostly accurate) mathematics in the script, Aronofsky did have to take a few liberties. For instance, Max's attempt to list all 216-digit numbers would be impossible -- it would take even the fastest computer longer than the lifetime of the universe to accomplish the task.
The Scoop: Today is Leap Day, an oddity and trick of the calendar. So it seems only appropriate to mark it with a cinematic oddity.
"Eraserhead," David Lynch's first feature-length film, is a bizarre cornucopia of visual and audial treats. And while it may seem amateurish in comparison to his later work, many of the familiar Lynch themes are evident at this early stage, along with his usual indebtedness to Luis Buñuel and the other early surrealist filmmakers.
Lynch stalwart Jack Nance is the title character, a loser who wanders around a bleak urban landscape caring for a deformed baby (the product of an unwanted pregnancy), abandoned by his girlfriend and having weird dreams. Mostly, though, it is a completely indescribable (albeit fascinating and slightly disturbing) film that plays like a waking nightmare.
Along with "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," this was one of the pioneering midnight movies of the '70s and a unique viewing experience. If you've never seen it before, nothing can really prepare you for it, except maybe a spirit of adventure. But don't rely on me to tell you about it -- just go see it yourself.
Best Bit: The dancing woman stomping bits of organic-like... stuff.
Side Note: The film was shot off and on over the course of five years. Nance kept his character's bizarre haircut the entire time.
Companion Viewing: "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1919), "Un Chien Andalou" (1928) and "Pi" (1998).
The Scoop: The main thing to recommend this middling, faux-edgy romantic drama is some generous flashes of nudity from the luscious, though marginally talented, Asia Argento.
She plays the title character in this British production about a sweet and decent grade school teacher/frustrated musician Alan (Jared Harris) who gets involved with a sexy former thief (Argento, in the title role) who can't quite put her past behind her (nor fully mask her thick Italian accent). The robbery sequences provide the only real energy in the movie, which also features a great performance by Rupert Everett in a wasted role as B.'s former partner in crime/bisexual lover.
Watch it just to ogle Asia, or for the odd other little touches, like Alan's nighttime job as a jazz DJ in a hospital (huh?).
Best Line: "Whoever thought I could find happiness in the middle of fucking nowhere?"
Side Note: Asia is the daughter of Italian horror/suspense meister Dario Argento, and she got her start appearing in his films. I guess you could call her an Italian Sofia Coppola, since she has also moved on to directing films that have been generally better received than her acting.
The Scoop: The title is especially appropriate given how much the actors blab in this film.
Shot by Wayne Wang and Paul Auster along with their film "Smoke," "Blue in the Face" is nothing more than a series of improvised vignettes in and around the smoke shop run by Harvey Keitel's character in the first film. Keitel is the only holdover from "Smoke" and the film is entirely improvised.
And boy does it show.
Most of the scenes meander to nowhere in particular, and the only interest comes in seeing so many big name actors and musicians try to ad lib off each other. Some aren't too bad (such as Madonna delivering a singing telegram, or Lou Reed's discussion of his fear of travel), but most of them just plain suck.
It's like an acting class exercise gone wrong, but if you're in the mood for pointless indulgence, this is the film for you.
Best Line: "Yes, I am smoking cigarettes and some of my friends have died of them, but I am not downing a quart of Scotch in fifteen minutes. Looked at that way, cigarettes are actually a health tool."
Side Note: This was shot in just five days. Wang and Auster claimed to take their inspiration for the move from Roger Corman.
Take a Look: This series of clips should give you a pretty good idea of the feel of the movie. And just because it's a random, patched-together string of clips, don't think that the full film is any more coherent. It plays just like this, but with more aimless cameos.
The Scoop: James Mangold's film packs a punch. Oh, sure, it has it's flaws -- namely, Sylvester Stallone's lunkheaded acting (the role presented a bigger physical stretch for him, with its self-induced "flabbiness," than an acting stretch), the mere presence of Michael Rapaport, and that constant pet peeve of mine, having characters talk to themselves as a means of exposition -- but these shortcomings don't amount to much when compared to the rest of the movie.
Sly's character Freddy is the sheriff of Garrison, New Jersey, a small town just across the river from New York City and populated almost entirely by crooked NYPD officers. An old injury has kept Freddy from realizing his dream of working in the City, so he must occupy himself with turning a blind eye to the actions of the cops on the take. Eventually, the moral abuses pile up too high and Freddy must make a critical decision.
The cast of Oscar-caliber heavyweights do what they do best, and it's great to see Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel play off each other again, two and a half decades after "Mean Streets" (1973), even if it is only for one scene. Unfortunately, De Niro's small role does not also give him the opportunity to reunite with Cathy Moriarity, who plays Keitel's wife and was De Niro's costar in "Raging Bull" (1980).
Despite the "Joisey" trappings and the heavy debt to Martin Scorcese's '70s work, the film is, at heart, a classic western -- the sheriff must clean up his small town by taking on a gang of gun-toting desperadoes by himself. Here, the "cowboy" mentality of many cops is given a more literal rendering and the elastic conventions of the movie western are enlarged even futher.
Best Line: "Being right is not a bullet-proof vest, Freddy!"
Side Note: Stallone gained 40 pounds for the role, and was only paid scale.
The Scoop: Is there a more overrated indie director than Abel Ferrara? Now that I think of it, anything's possible, but Ferrara's name certainly would be near the top of the list. Aside from "Driller Killer" (1978) and maybe "Bad Lieutenant" (1992), he's been shelling out crap for the past three decades that pretends to be provocative, but it really just pretentious.
Case in point... "The Addiction."
Starting with an intriguing premise -- the parallels between vampirism and drug addiction -- Ferrara and screenwriter Nicholas St. John manage to deliver neither the shocks or eroticism we've come to expect from vampire stories, nor any of the insights promised by the premise. Instead, the audience gets talked to death. (Sample dialogue: "Essence is revealed through praxis. The philosopher's words, his ideas, his actions, cannot be separated from his value, his meaning. That's what it's all about, isn't it? Our impact on other egos." Whew!)
Lili Taylor plays a graduate student who gets bitten by vampire Annabella Sciorra, which leads to a cavalcade of intellectual angst. There's really not much more plot than that, just 84 minutes of deep philosphical speculations on what it "means" to be a vampire. I thought it meant you got to look sexy while stalking and killing people in an elaborate coital analogy. But everyone involved with "The Addiction" seems to have rejected that answer out of hand, leaving them spinning their wheels and not answering much of anything at all.
Best Bit: There are actually two good scenes in the film -- a snooty cocktail party that turns into a vampire orgy, and Christopher Walken's cameo. They're the only reason you should even consider watching this mess.
Side Note: Co-produced by Def Jam mogul Russell Simmons.
Companion Viewing: The similarly-themed "Nadja" (1995) manages to be a more successful merger of vampire and art house sensibilities -- but just barely.
The Scoop: While "Targets" presents the story of a moral crossroads, it also represents a cinematic crossroads -- the end of the brilliant Boris Karloff's career and the start of Peter Bogdanovich's.
In this writing and directing debut, Bogdanovich crafts this cautionary, semi-autobiographical tale of aging horror movie star Byron Orlok (played by Karloff), who decides to leave the business when he realizes his life's work can't compare to the real horrors taking place on America's streets everyday. The clips of Orlok's past work are taken from the classic performances of Karloff, and to complete the real-life parallels, Bogdanovich even casts himself as the young director making Orlok's last film. There is also a parallel plot concerning a troubled young man who goes on a shooting spree that is sadly all too familiar in our post-Columbine world. These two plot strands cross when the young shooter takes refuge in a drive-in theater that turns out to be the site of Orlok's last public appearance before retirement.
This film offers an interesting exploration of the role of the entertainment media in the social upheaval of the late-'60s (it was released in the late spring of 1968, shortly after the assassination of Martin Luther King, but before the shooting of Robert Kennedy) that has grown even more prescient today. And Bogdanovich challeges the viewer by filming from the point of view of the shooter, putting the audience in the killer's shoes.
Despite his obviously failing health, Karloff gives the strongest, most human portrayal of a career marked my more depth than most horror actors'. In a perfect world, this swan song performance would've been recognized with an Oscar. Instead, the poverty-stricken Karloff followed his performance here with appearances (confined to a wheelchair) in a quartet of bad Mexican cheapies, filmed over the course of a couple weeks, before dying in 1969. But forget those duds -- this is the true, final summation of one of the truly great acting careers in film.
Best Line: Karloff's summation, "Is that what I was afraid of?"
Best Bit: The staging of the freeway shooting scene.
Side Notes: 1) Bogdanovich originally offered the lead role to Vincent Price, who turned it down. 2) The film showing in the drive-in at the end of the movie is "The Terror" (1963), in which Karloff costarred with a young Jack Nicholson. 3) The victim who dies in the phone booth is none other than Mike Farrell, who went on to a more distinguished career in television, starring in "M*A*S*H" and "Providence."
Companion Viewing: Two of this film's cinematic descendents -- "Taxi Driver" (1976) and "Natural Born Killers" (1994).
The Scoop:
