December 16, 2002
Towering Above the Rest
As much as we celebrated this place's "half-birthday" last time around (well, by "celebration," I mean, I mentioned that fact and a couple people responded to it. We're not into the big parties around here.), tomorrow is the ACTUAL six-months since we started on June 17. Meaning...well, that either last week's column was full of it, or that this date is ultimately pretty meaningless. Or both.
Now...there's evidently an embargo on discussions of THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS until it opens later this week. And since I've been doing this, I've been hacked and been hit with a restraining order, but never embargoed. Until now...now the stupidest hat trick in the world is complete.
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Not that the movie needs the help (and hell, reviews of the flick showed up in EW over a week ago, and pretty much every free paper worth the dirty store-front ground it lay on, so I'm not sure who's being "embargoed" here. Just us on-line refuse, I guess. People like to use the on-line crowd since, you know, we're down with the people and we don't make up false reviewers and we speak "street," know'm-sayin'? But they don't have any respect for us, that's for sure. "Sir, this is a print journalist screening only! The on-line community screening will be in a month, three weeks after the movie has opened, at the Dollar Theater in Watts." But still, I'll respect this embargo for what it is and not mention the movie, which I saw (with fellow Pooper Michael Dequina) last week.
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I won't mention my awe at the flick, at my amazement that the movie was better, stronger, faster than the first one, and my anticipation for the final chapter almost bringing back the feelings that EMPIRE gave me as a kid. At least the third movie will be out in a year, not 3+ years, like JEDI.
I know Jeff Wells hated the first one. And he left the latest one with a full hour left to go, head full of problems of the "good vs. evil" thing being too cut-and-dried for his tastes. So knowing how he's not impressed, this informed my views while watching this one. I know one of his primary complaints with the first flick is that this tiny band of warriors and Hobbits runs afoul of huge masses of supposedly unbeatable villains on horseback, and they run roughshod over these Orcs/whoever without any real threat. And I can see this movie adding fuel to that--the odds the group runs up against in the flick make the battle scenes in BRAVEHEART look like a rugby match. But...that doesn't diminish the movie for me at all. I don't know if it's a fantasy and so you can suspend disbelief, even within the movie itself, more easily or the fact that it's all just done so damn well. But I loved the movie -- loved it. Good vs. evil...it's fantasy. That's what fantasy has always offered, so I tend to think that, if this is what bothers someone, the untextured bits of mostly good people fighting mostly pure evil, well, these really ain't the kinds of movies I even need to hear that person's opinion on.
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Since Jeff Wells seems to be informing my every thought lately (see, me, I'm not surprised by an $18 drink in LA), I also think of his TITANIC column a couple weeks ago. I can see these RINGS movies having the same impact on people in a few years -- like, it probably won't be cool to admit that you love these movies. Points like the odds being too great, as well as maybe there not being enough grey-shaded areas in the movies, will no doubt become stronger in peoples' reviews (Owen Glieberman mentioned the same complaint in his EW review), and some of the effects, as great as they are, still point out some limitations with our current technology. And I don't care--the story is captivating, the characters and scenery and the effects, to me, are amazing. If the last hour of this movie doesn't make you forget any minor quibbles and just get swept up in what's going on then you have no business even seeing this flick.
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Oh, and Gollum, did I mention him? How there's finally an all-CGI character who's as expressive, interesting, funny (at times), scary (at times) and pathos-inducingly pathetic (often times) as any living, breathing character? I'm probably not supposed to talk much about him -- the official sites have been pretty careful not to show him or his amazingly expressive eyes too closely -- but he's just one more reason why this movie blew me away. Leaps and bounds over Jar Jar, whatever your opinion of him in the movie. But I'll stop now, so I'm not tempted to talk about the movie at all before it opens.
Now You Know
Jeff Anderson, whom most of you know better as Randal from CLERKS and Kevin's other "Jersey" flicks (not to be confused with Kevin's JERSEY GIRL flick), has a new movie out right now. Well, out in the New York area, anyway. The movie, NOW YOU KNOW, is written and directed by Jeff, and also stars in the flick (along with Jeremy (SIX FEET UNDER) Sisto, Rashida (BOSTON PUBLIC) Jones and even our own Kevin Smith. It opened this past Friday there (and hopefully some of you caught Jeff's Q&A after the evening showing). I watched it this past weekend.
The film opens in Vegas, on a typical bachelor party (although, at this particular party, it's attended by, among others, Kevin Smith, and the, er, "lady of the evening" in the back room is played by a certain former Miss Schwalbach. The bachelor party is for Jeremy (played by Jeremy Sisto (psycho brother Billy on SIX FEET UNDER), but little do the attendees know (or, most likely, care) that Jeremy's fiance Kerri (Rashida Jones) has called off the wedding.
Only...Jeremy has no idea why. And he can't quite bring himself to tell his friends that night, so he goes through with the flight to Jersey, where the wedding was to take place. He hooks back up with his old friends Gil and Biscuit (Anderson and Trevor Fehrman and tells them the truth. These two, shiftless slackers who spend their days mowing lawns (and one unfortunate chihuahua), washing cars and drinking beer, couldn't be happier to have their friend back. Jeremy isn't so happy...
Kerri, as she explains to her vampy friend Marti (Heather Page Kent), just doesn't want to be married to a guy she thinks doesn't love her any more. Anderson said about the movie that he was inspired to write it after a lyric from a matchbox 20 song, "Push" -- "I want to take you for granted, I will. I will."
Out at a bar, where his friends are determined to get Jeremey "back in the game," he meets Lea, played by Paget Brewster. (Incidentally, I could swear this is the same bar frequented by George Carlin and his buddies in JERSEY GIRL -- unless every bar in 'burban Jersey looks the same. I'm from CA, so what do I know?)
The thing with this sort of story is...it's not going to surprise anyone -- it follows the traditional romantic comedy rules of guy and girl having problems, guy getting bad advice from mostly mindless friends who vehemently sell single life while secretly pining for more, girl getting advice from female friend who doesn't think guy measures up, and, hopefully, a satisfying resolution. But also with this type of movie, it's not about the destination at all, it's about the journey, and the characters who populate this world. And to that end, it's a wholly satisfying, sweet, perceptive and well-acted movie. Which is more than most romantic comedies deliver nowadays.
Anderson wisely cast himself as the friend rather than the lead -- while he's good as always, his "Randal-like" ability to talk quickly and funnily (yeah, I'm sure that's a word) is better suited to the part of advice-giving friend. And he and fellow guy's guy Biscuit share some funny moments. But it's Sisto who really sells this flick--he brings nice grativas to his role, same as he does on SIX FEET UNDER. All in all, it's a cute, clever movie that deserves to be seen by more people than just the New Yorkers who can currently check it out. Anderson has developed into a very capabale writer and his direction is pretty solid, too--on top of it all, it's a good-looking flick. I realize this flick will be hard for most of you to see right now, but hopefully it gets picked up for wider distribution.
For more information on the flick, which opens tomorrow in New York, check out NowYouKnowTheMovie.com and LPFilms.com
And now that I've given New Yorkers something to do, let me do the same for the other coast, so I can alienate everyone in between (and anyone else not in NY or CA).
Star Wars Trilogy in 30 Minutes
So let's say you're a big STAR WARS fan. Like the rest of us, you've found the past few years of SW movies a bit lacking when compared to the original trilogy. In fact, that original triptych of movies has been burned into your mind all these years; you can quote the movies, you know the scenes, you cringe about the superfluous moments (like Greedo shooting first...so what's a fan to do until these movies show up on DVD and offer that all-important scene selection?
You let Patrick Gorman pick the scenes for you.
Patrick, you see, is an accomplished writer and playwrite who just happens to be offering his newest play to LA denizens right now. And I have to say, if you're lucky, this thing will travel to a theatre near you. There may just be no better way to spend a half-hour than at Patrick's STAR WARS TRILOGY IN 30 MINUTES.
Which is where I spent my Friday night. Well, a half hour of it, anyway. Patrick invited me earlier in the week -- it seems he and some of the other cast members (like Jason Major, whom I also met -- Jason plays, uh, a Tauntaun, as well as Greedo, a Jawa and Lando Calrissian. He's nothing if not versatile.) are fans of this site. And having read a rave review of the play in the LA TIMES about a month earlier, I was pretty damn happy to check it out.
The play is held in the upstairs of the Coronet Theatre (the same place PUPPETRY OF THE PENIS is currently being held), right on La Cienega near Melrose. Hell, e-mail me and I'll give you directions to the place--that's how highly I recommend anyone in LA, and even parts of Arizona that can make the drive in less than a day, come and check this play out.
The girlfriend and I got there about fifteen minutes before, and the STAR WARS LINE STARTS HERE cordon was pretty empty, so we grabbed a beer at the bar on the same property--figured we had a little time and it didn't seem to be too crowded. Of course, ten minutes later when we got there, the line was out around the corner. Still, we got good seats (in a little theatre, all the seats are good), although not as nice as the two Patrick taped off for us -- didn't even go looking for that, so hopefully someone else used those seats.
The lights go out and the speakers fill the room with the THX sound effect, which is a nice touch. Then the entire cast fills the stage, bringing us "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." Then C-3PO (scene-stealing Steve Josephson, who also plays Grand Moff Tarkin and a hilarious Dorf-like Yoda) reads the rest of that familiar Epsiode 4 refrain, and we're off.
From there, the pace is blistering, and constantly hilarious. Most everyone outside of Luke (James Snyder, perfectly cast), Leia (Maia Peters, earthy and great) and Han Solo (Mark Kelly, snide and very funny) play multiple parts. So you have Scott Walker Mullin playing Darth Vader at the beginning and then hiding his cape to reveal a mat of mur on his chest, primed to play Chewbacca.
The scenes Gorman (Uncle Owen) picked are all the ones that you could quote along with the cast, if the speed and pacing wasn't so quick. Scenes jump into one another and the cast does an admirable job of running around exhaustingly in order to act out the scenes and keep things moving.
Honestly, talking about this play doesn't begin to do it justice. The actors all do a high-wire act between homage and parody, and it works so well -- seriously, it needs to be seen twice to hear dialogue over the laughter. Each movie is compressed into 10 minutes, and yet you'd be hard-pressed to complain that they left out your favorite scene. Hell, even a hilarious Admiral Ackbar (played by the vanity-free Michael Cornacchia, who also did a bold Jabba -- the tongue only looked like a special effect) makes an appearance, as do Wedge, Greedo (he doesn't fire first), Boba Fett ('natch), Bib Fortuna and even the Cantina band from Episode 4.
It's important to also talk about the low-tech nature of the props. You've never seen a T.I.E. fighter like one that is actually a man in black sprinting across the stage ("toward the Death Star") holding two silver pieces of cardboard while other members of the cast provide sound effects.
The pictures, and my descriptions, I'm sure, really don't adequately discuss how funny the whole production is, and how good the household items work as props in this context. Luke using the "Force" to get his lightsaber back (someone tosses it to him), the walls of the trash compactor moving in (the walls are actually people in black surrounding the cast and movign forward) and Luke seeing his face reflected back in the felled Vader on Dagobah (Vader holds up a mirror) felt so comically right that the cheap props are as important to this production as the cast members themselves.
After it was all over, I talked a bit to Patrick -- his troupe has performed the play for George Lucas and Frank Oz, and the fact that Lucas smiled during and after it I think can be taken as a reaction akin to college kids celebrating Mardi Gras--I've met the man and he seems determined to hold that poker face. Frank Oz (whose Yoda now seems lacking compared to the work Steve Josephson did) liked it, too.
The play is staying put at the Coronet Theatre through this month, with a possible extension in January. They do two shows Friday and Saturday nights, and that might not sound like much, considering each performance only lasts 30 minutes...but the cast works harder than any other play I've seen in a long time. It's actually more like a classic SNL skit, with the exceptions being that it's not mocking and, if anything, you'd like it to run longer. Check out SW30.com for more information. And please, if you're in LA, take a half-hour away from holiday celebrations and check it out. if you do, drop me a line we'll run in the Mail Shoot--I'd love to hear what other people think of it.
Hail to "The Prez"
Govenor Ellie Spencer is a pretty charismatic guy. He's parlayed his public persona, that of a nice, driven family man complete with spunky twin teenage daughters, into making a serious bid for president. He doesn't let little things like character attacks from New York Senator Spinelli slow him down.
Rather, he kidnaps Senator Turnbill and slowly tortures him to death.
And so opens the unproduced script THE PREZ, written by Jerry Michael Procanik. Now, I've made a point to say to those who asked that I just don't have the time to read scripts and discuss them in any sort of regular fashion. The last one, Jason Appleman's LOVE AND A CREDIT CARD took me four months to get to, just because I can't seem to find the time in the day. So it was a bit of a surprise that I glanced through this one and ended up reading the entire thing pretty damn quickly. I know everyone has an unproduced script or three, but every now and then, you read one that just grabs you and says "yeah, dammit, I could be a pretty fun, interesting movie."
The problem is, everyone seems to want to write The Great American Movie, you know? Not that lofty ambitions are bad -- hell, I'm guilty of the same -- but sometimes, you want a script that knows its place. And this one aspires to be nothing more than a B-Movie of the Highest Order. The basic pitch? A sick sonofabitch and his twisted family somehow fool the public into putting him in the White House. And no, it's NOT in any way a parody of GW Bush or anyone that's come before.
It's basically a fun slasher flick, funny and full of gallows humor and almost no redeemable characters. At first, you're not sure who to root for, since the whole family is such a mess -- the president and his old friend/bodyguard Jim go around kidnapping and killing people who speak out against them. Meanwhile, the soon-to-be First Lady is screwing anyone who glances in her direction; her son is doing the same to one of Ellie's twin daughters.
However, as the story progresses, you start to see that the daughters, while basically immoral and messed up (how could they not be?) aren't aware of their father's murderous ways. Likewise, his wife. The vice-president, Darlene, is a kind, good woman (like any proper fictional vice-president), and her son soon starts to pick up on just how off Ellie really is, and things degenerate from there.
Along the way, Procanik's script really features some funny moments, notably in Ellie's dialogue. He really has a good ear for dialogue, and even people's nastiness comes off as blackly comical.
The people Ellie punishes throughout are none too good themselves -- the whoremongering Reverend Roberts meets a nice, gruesome end that you're not too upset to see -- so that you really don't root against Ellie too much. Rather, it's funny and interesting to see just how far he'll go in order to preserve his presidency.
Like I say, it's not the kind of script that would become a festival darling or anything, but it's perfectly content with that. What it IS, though, is the exact kind of movie you'd like to flip on cable late some weekend night. If I wanted to be trite, I'd say THE PREZ gets my vote, but of course I'd never type anything so corny. Fun script, though, really.
