Adventures in Netflix #3-Gabriel Ricard
Adventures in Netflix #3
By Gabriel Ricard
Number three?
Really?
I know I didn’t see this one coming.
In any case, we’re still here, and we’re still running down my own little corner of the movie-reviewing universe. It may not be the big new release, and it may not even be very popular, but it’s definitely what’s going on in my hardwired little brain at that specific moment in time.
And that’s all that really matters, right?
Well, hopefully, anyway.
Since I can’t think of much to get into today, we’re just going to go ahead and launch right into the thick of it, dig up some titles that you may not be sure about, or even better, stuff you’ve never even heard of before. Because the downside to being a movie geek is the problem of getting entirely too worked up when you meet someone who hasn’t seen this movie or that cancelled-before-it’s-time TV series.
“What do you mean you haven’t seen Holy Mountain?!”
“You don’t know what Cowboy Bebop is?!”
“But Shock Corridor is one of the best movies about mental institutions ever made!”
And so on. Which makes me realize that this is one of the things about the column that appeals to me personally. Instead of doing my passive-aggressive flipping out thing and coming off like one of those guys who goes through Bob Dylan’s garbage because I can’t get anything further out of Like A Rolling Stone, I get to run through the stuff that’s going through my mind, the titles I want other people to be at least aware of, and I can more or less walk away from the whole self-inflicted assignment and keep my inevitable nervous breakdown on the backburner for at least another day.
One way to look at is therapy for a loser with entirely too much free time on his hands.
And apparently, I’m a liar for saying that there wasn’t much for me to get into today. Clearly, I have a lot that I feel like ranting and babbling about. But because we’re on a self-imposed restriction for how long this damn thing can/should run, we’re not going to get into everything today. And that’s probably just as well. I have a habit, a long standing problem of taking things like film much too seriously. To read this column or even hear me speak, you’d be amazed to find out that I’ve ever had a girlfriend. Basically, I’m the Kennedy Assassination nut from Slacker. Avoid me at the video store, or risk losing precious moments of your life that you will never, ever see again in this or any other lifetime.
Anyway…
Rocky Balboa (2006)
Directed by: Sylvester Stallone
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Milo Ventimiglia, Burt Young
There’s a soft spot in my heart for the Rocky series. The first one is consistently amongst my top ten all-time favorites, I thought the second and third ones were near-perfect sequels, and I even found things to like about the fourth and fifth installments. I’m what you’d call a fan, to put it nicely. When word got out last year that Stallone was finally getting a sixth and final Rocky film out the door, I was surprised to find myself amongst the small contingent that believed he was going to turn in something special. Critics and the like expected nothing but disaster and shimmering crap from Stallone’s final note on his career making character, in which a sixty-year-old Rocky comes out of retirement to fight the world champion of the moment (Antonio Tarver) and his own feelings of age and loss. I chose not to listen to some of the arguments suggesting this movie had no business being made. For whatever reason, I held onto the idea that I was going to enjoy it, and that I would reserve final judgment for the final product. The movie rolled into theaters for Christmas 2006, and I was there on opening night. And guess what? I was indeed quite surprised. Not because the movie let me down in some way. It would’ve had to go pretty far down the toilet for that to happen. What surprised me was how it came out as not only being as good as I had been hoping, but a hell of a lot better. Not since the original had I seen Stallone put as much of himself into the Rocky character as he did here. I’ve come to realize that Stallone’s best work seems to come out of those moments when he feels that he has something to prove as an actor, a writer, or a director. Rocky, Cop Land, or hell, even Cliffhanger are all pretty good examples of this. And Rocky Balboa, which is Stallone’s best work in almost a decade, is quite possibly the best example of them all. This is a well-shot, well-paced movie, and those generally aren’t terms you associate with Stallone and directing. His work in that particular field has generally run somewhere between fine (Rocky II) and awful on a truly inspiring level (Staying Alive). But here, it all manages to come together, with only one or two cringe-worthy moments in a story that succeeds in walking the line from solid drama into unintentional comedy. A story that also features some great work from a strong supporting cast combination of veterans (Tony Burton and Burt Young) and new faces (Milo Ventimiglia and Geraldine Hughes). Everyone shines in this thing, though Tarver as Mason “The Line” Dixon doesn’t make for as good a Rocky opponent as Carl Weather’s Apollo Creed or Mr. T’s Clubber Lang. But it works well enough. For the most part, everyone adds something important to the point I suppose Stallone’s trying to make. And it’s a corny one, but Rocky himself has always been a little corny, so we’ve kind of come to expect that from the guy. But the point I like to think Stallone was making here was the one he makes throughout this beautiful conclusion to a legendary story. The last thing to age on a person is their heart. And Rocky Balboa has heart in spades.
The Comedians of Comedy: The Movie (2005)
Directed by: Michael Blieden
Starring: Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, Maria Bamford
Hopefully, you’re familiar with Patton Oswalt already, from stuff like King of Queens and Ratatouille. If not, then you’ve been sadly missing out on one of the most talented comedians working today. Same goes for Brian Posehn, who can also be seen in Just Shoot Me, Mr. Show, and films like The Devil’s Rejects and Meet The Parents, Maria Bamford, who has sadly not seen much TV or film work, and Zach Galifianakis, an oddball in the clearest sense of the word whose screen credits include Tru Calling, Bubble Boy, and Below. These are all people who have been in the business for a long time, worked all the possibilities that a successful comedian can hope for, and came out on the other side to remain as funny as they ever have. Which isn’t something you can say for a lot of comedians who break through into television and films. In 2004, Oswalt came up with the idea of doing a tour consisting of himself, Galifianakis, Bamford, and Posehn. The intention of which was to bring their comedy to places other than actual comedy clubs. The tour was a tremendous success, spawning a concert film, a series on Comedy Central, and this documentary, which not only captures the best bits of the tour, but the enormously talented, funny people behind it as well. There have been documentaries on stand-up before, but nothing with quite this much honesty and love of the business itself. You know, the kind of things you don’t really pick up with people like Dane Cook, Larry The Cable Guy, or Carlos Mencia. It’s the part of the documentary that’s going to stick with you the most. Because although this certainly falls under the heading of “Funny as hell,” it also succeeds on the strength of the performers themselves. Even if they weren’t funny at all, you’d have to admire the fact that they’ve been around for a long time, and yet still love what they do, and still wanted to find new ways of getting their own odd messages out there into the world of comedy. Thankfully, everyone on the tour is/was hilarious, so you don’t have to worry about it too much. You get the insight and passion for comedy, and you also get some brutally funny stand-up material. Although if it’s just the stand-up you want, you’ll have to look to the Comedians of Comedy: Live at El-Ray DVD for assistance. Comedians of Comedy seeks to be a little more than the standard deal. That was the whole point of the tour, and it’s a point that translates perfectly into this documentary.
The Ninth Gate (1999)
Directed by: Roman Polanski
Starring: Johnny Depp, Lena Olin, Frank Langella
Anything more than a star and a half is probably a little too generous for what is easily one of Polanski’s worst efforts, but in the end, the movie does manage to wrangle a couple of stars out of some fairly dull proceedings. Depp provides the movie’s biggest saving grace with a strong performance as Dean Corso, the unscrupulous book dealer who finds himself drawn into a supernatural conspiracy when a client entrusts him to prove/disprove the authenticity of a book purportedly written by Lucifer himself. It’s obvious that Depp actually read Arturo Perez-Reverte’s El Club Dumas, the book in which The Ninth Gate draws its characters and story from. He plays the character with restraint, and just the right touches of humor. But Depp’s work is about as far as you’re going to get in the way of acting. Lena Olin, who’s usually much better, comes off as stiff and irritating. Emmanuelle Seigner is just flat, fairly dull, as the mysterious (though you’re going to pick this one apart about fifteen minutes after she appears on the screen) girl who aids Corso in his quest. And then you’ve got Frank Langella, doing his Christopher Lee bit as the client who gives Corso the assignment. The problem with this cast isn’t really the performance side of it. Everyone tries their best, and the story in of itself is an interesting one, but with the exception of Depp, it just can’t rise about the absurd dialogue, the complete lack of surprises, the confusing plot, and the overlong running time that wears out its welcome long before the credits save the day. Some directors, you could let this slide, but with Polanski, the Oscar-winning legend who’s brought us films like The Tenant, The Fearless Vampire Killers, and Rosemary’s Baby, you’d think to expect a little more. I know I did, and maybe, that’s my problem, but even then, it doesn’t change the fact that Depp’s performance and the occasional clever touch from Polanski combined are far from enough to make this anything but an unfortunate miss. Read the book, look elsewhere for your Roman Polanski needs, or maybe just go out and buy an H.P. Lovecraft collection. In the end, he does this type of thing better than anyone within a thousand miles radius of this weak horror film.
Tokyo Godfathers (2003)
Directed by: Satoshi Kon
Starring: Toru Emori, Aya Okamoto, Yoshiaki Umegaki
Loosely based on John Ford’s 3 Godfathers, this wonderful gem from the director of Perfect Blue and Millennium Actress is the kind of thing you should show to someone who thinks Anime is limited to the stuff that comes on Cartoon Network. People who think anime consists of nothing more than Naruto, Pokemon, and the like need to understand that not only is this not true, but it’s painfully ridiculous in the face of films like Tokyo Godfathers. Satoshi Kon weaves a beautiful story of three homeless people, three outcasts in a Tokyo of perpetual ice, snow, and freezing cold, whose small world of maintaining their odd family unit and struggling to come to terms with their individual tragic pasts comes to a sudden halt with the discovery of a crying baby in a dumpster. Suddenly, the focus changes to caring for the baby and trying to find its parents, while at the same time, solving some of these problems out three characters have been putting off in favor of pathos and just trying to get by in a world wholly different from the ones they each left behind in their former lives. It may sound a little melodramatic, but Kon, who has repeatedly shown a remarkable gift for combining the warm with the tragic, always keeps the story centered and moving forward. He cares about our three central characters, and he wants us to care about them and their circumstances as well. That’s not going to be much of a challenge on your part, since there’s something worthwhile in all three of them. You’ve got Gin, an alcoholic who abandoned his family after losing everything to a bad call at the gambling table, Hana, a transvestite who has never really felt as though he/she belongs anywhere, and Miyuki, an eleven-year-old girl who ran away from home several months ago after a fight with her father. There isn’t a weak link in the bunch, as far as depth and appeal go. Part of that is the great voice acting work on the part of the cast, but the majority comes from the moving, powerful script. Again, it avoids going overboard, drowning us in misery or sympathy. It gives these three characters with their three stories, it gives them a catalyst, the baby, to move them forward, and it gives us a story that’s all too easy to get lost in. The style works towards this as well. Memorable animation, particularly, the character designs, which pull the difficult task of going from beautiful to horrible to unpleasant to an occasional combination of the three, only adds to the strength and head of steam this builds up in pursuit of the best ending this movie could’ve hoped for. The final result of which is that this movie stands as a concrete testament to the creative potential and endless possibilities for human drama and cinematic beauty that exists within not only anime, but within the entire scope of animation itself. Watch this and wonder how in the hell it could’ve been overlooked for an Academy Award nomination.
All About Eve (1950)
Directed by: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Starring: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders
If the age of this movie or the fact that it’s in black and white are deterring you from watching it, then you’re an idiot and should stop reading this column immediately. Because once you’re gone, the rest of us can enjoy one of the essential classics of its own time and any other era, for that matter. Bette Davis shines in one of the greatest performances of her career as aging Broadway actress whose new star-struck assistant, the wonderfully conniving Anne Baxter, is secretly trying to further her own budding career and the expense of her employer’s. And it wouldn’t be right to forget about George Sanders, who made a career out of playing the kind of guy you (still) want to push in front of a moving car. An Oscar for Best Supporting Actor went his way for a vicious and just a little funny performance as most brutal theater critic in town. Toss in Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, Thelma Ritter, and Hugh Marlowe as your supporting cast, and you’re already in good shape. But when you get one of the funniest, sharpest scripts ever written for a film (by director Mankiewicz, who made a career out of writing stuff like that) to give the actors and their character some room to move around, kick the place around, and just have a really good, tongue firmly in cheek kind of time, it’s hard to imagine anything but a classic. And this film certainly fits that mold. It moves beautifully. There’s no wasted motion in this film. Everything has a point. Every line is delivered for a reason, and every scene gives it that much more of a leg to stand on. The film scored fourteen Oscar nominations, walking away with six (including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay) and cementing the comeback of Bette Davis, who got a new lease on life thanks to this film, and got the chance to continue working in major films well into her seventies. If you haven’t been properly acquainted with Ms. Davis and the Hollywood she and just a handful others controlled, this is easily one of the best places to start. It’s not her only brilliant role, and of course, there’s other classic Hollywood films to look into. But a quick look around some the television shows that are doing big business these days, and it’s hard to imagine that they couldn’t be even a little inspired by All About Eve. Anne Baxter is not to be denied in this either, but in the end, she’d have other films to run the show in. This time, it was Bette Davis. From start to finish, she maintains a quality she had in her first film, and a quality she had even in the worst of films. She is absolutely mesmerizing, and when she’s on the screen, it’s hard to do anything but pay attention to what she’s saying, how she’s saying it, and the look on her face when she’s putting some poor son of a bitch in his/her place. This is one of the great classics of old Hollywood, and if it isn’t on your must-watch list, then it should be.
And that’s going to wrap things up on my end.
Next time, I’ll go into the terrible secret behind why you haven’t seen a newly-released DVD reviewed thus far.
Take care, and as always, I welcome comments and hateful suggestions of all kinds at magazine@feeltheword.net
Thanks for reading.
Copyright C 2007 Gabriel Ricard