Saturday, March 31, 2012

West of Eden

SPOILER ALERT. Some movies like All Fall Down are just doomed to obscurity, especially in our icon-centric internet consciousness of today. But I dare say that, as being part of a family myself once, I found it quite moving. The acting is top notch, and the writing is downright insightful. This is one of those movies where the author is knee deep in the action, like Wonder Boys or The Caine Mutiny. And even though All Fall Down is a bit off-off Broadway in terms of the big icon guns, you can rest assured that it's got a fine pedigree, as the author James Leo Herlihy is also responsible for Midnight Cowboy.
Here, the author surrogate is Clinton Willart, who spends the days chronicled in the movie away from school, and constantly filling notebooks with overheard dialogue. As fine a setup to establish the film's authenticity. We begin the proceedings with the following establishing episode: Clinton's traveling to Louisiana to find his brother Berry-Berry, played by the young Warren Beatty. And while Berry-Berry is a dashing young man with a strange name whom all ladies young and old instantly fall in love with, he's a bit deficient in the character traits that make up a lifelong husband. Clinton ends up bailing Berry-Berry out of jail, and Berry-Berry ends up sending Clinton home with some money he gets out of a rich woman in a bar. Clinton's hopes of sharing an adventure with his bad boy brother will have to wait.
Then, the plot thickens. Enter the dame: Echo O'Brien. She's just about twice as old as Clinton: she's 31 and he's 16. (Clinton gives the numbers at one point) Still, a romance blossoms between this unlikely pair. We see Berry-Berry slowly making his way home, and sure enough... Berry-Berry and Echo eventually link up. Even though the plot may be a tad predictable, the actors make it fascinating to watch. I wouldn't dream of giving any more away!

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Friday, March 30, 2012

Goodbye, Emerald Forest... Hello, Hanna!

This is what I get for not staying on top of my movie load. Anyway, greetings, my ten followers! I'm just on my way out the door, but before I go, a word or two about the new thriller Hanna. It is of course equal parts of everything we expect out of our movies these days, and a few moments we don't... but I tend to lean towards the 'shame on you' column this time. Okay, let's dig into the plot now... SPOILER ALERT... just like Hanna dug into that giant pile of steaming caribou intestines. The Empire Strikes Back, eat your heart out! Might as well get my harshest observation out of the way first. Just as Hancock is a meditation on Superman, Hanna of course owes quite a lot to the X-Men backstory, but doesn't push into R territory like Cronenberg's Videodrome.
The actors and the acting are all top notch, of course. This may be the one role that Saoirse Ronan was born to play... actually, that's not true. She's damn good in everything she does. But ultimately it's as Itaril in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey that she... WHAAA?!! Wha happan? Apparently that's the one role they cannot abide, or maybe some internet prankster came up with that one.
But back to the nitpicking. The precise moment that the film's credibility was lost on me is when Hanna grabs on to the bottom of the moving tank. I'm sure it's all part of her X-Men-type powers, but still. As if kids her age aren't already self-conscious enough. But even Hanna can't exist alone in this world for long. Soon enough she falls in with a delightful family of quirky best friends, but Hanna bonds most closely with the girl her age, the cute and precocious Sophie. The way their relationship culminates in the platonic kiss is handled as sweetly and as matter-of-factly as possible, but the South still doesn't care, and I'll bet it made even dirty ol' Phil Kaufman blush a bit. And was I the only one that thought of the Mystery Men's trek out to Tom Waits' carnival in the desert when Hanna makes her pilgrimage to the Grimm house in Germany? I thought so, but I wanted to bring it up anyway.
Well, I guess that's about it. Oh, right, I forgot... a brief shout out to the leader of the bad guys, Tom Hollander. I'm pretty sure he was channeling the spirit of Thomas Lennon for this one. People get ready for the headache-inducing sequel.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Monday, March 26, 2012

This week's Stooge film...

I don't think I've ever seen Three Smart Saps. And I've even got the DVD! They've got a theme DVD with Three Hams on Rye, Three Loan Wolves... you get the idea. Meanwhile, the ad campaign for the new Farrelly bros. movie begins in earnest. With a mere PG rating, no less. Hard to believe considering that most of the cast of Jersey Shore's in it.

ACT ONE

Time for a setup with a twist. I probably shouldn't call it unusual. Usually the three are engaged to be married, usually to three babes WAY out of their league. Usually it gets called off... but this time's a little different. The girls (three sisters) call off their wedding because their father's in jail. Curly unhelpfully says "We know he's in jail! He's been the warden for years!" Apparently, the father got framed for a crime he didn't commit, and is now an inmate of said prison. Curly dries the girls' tears at 1:38. I should probably point out there was an hilarious doorbell gag at... ah, skip it. Meanwhile, Moe gets a bright idea: they'll save the girls' father if they have to go to prison to do it!... and they do, too. The second quest to go to jail begins.
We start with a street cop. They kick the cop in the ass... but it doesn't work! The old coot... I mean, old cop says "Our jail is for imPORtant PEOple!" I put emphasis on those two syllables just like the actor did. A delivery worthy of James C. Morton, but alas, not as good as if JCM himself were to do it. Larry's turn for an idea: they'll get arrested if they throw some rocks through a window. Curly gets mad at himself for not thinking of the idea and starts beating up on himself. Moe asks "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Curly says "I'm mad at myself!" Moe says "So am I!" and starts beating up on Curly... I know, I know, but in this case, the "I" also refers to Curly. If I were an English major, I'd know the tense, or the gerund... whatever. Curly says "Listen, you!" and it ad-libs from there until the next scene.
SPOILER ALERT. Next scene: some genius invented an unbreakable window. (Take that, M. Night!) This guy's never been in a Stooge film before: what a voice!... I guess he'll have to remain anonymous for now. Maybe he can do like Marty Martyn and invade the life of an Oklahoma boy from beyond the grave. Anyway, back to the window. The boys arrive to this comedy window with a lot of rocks. Time to stall for time a little as Moe quibbles about his marching orders. Right face. Only the Stooges can put a comic spin on such an ordinary phrase. The rocks are thrown. The rocks bounce off the unbreakable window. The rocks bounce off Moe's head. DOWN GOES MOE! Curly says "I get the..." and notices Moe on the ground. At 4:11, one of the strangest exchanges to take place between Stooges... okay, maybe not. But they do break that Stooge 4th wall sort of, right? Right? ...Anyway, Moe tells Curly to use his head. He does, but on the wrong side of the store. Incidentally, if you're wondering why an unbreakable window's being used on a simple grocery store, it's either a mob front or a Mossad front. Curly ends up in eggs and takes it like a man. He didn't use Joe Besser's line, anyway. When Besser ends up in eggs he says "Raw egg. I hate raw egg!" Much like Treat Williams in 1941, but I digress. Curly does the first half of a Durante impression, and the second half he does all the time, all with a strategically placed egg on the end of his schnozz.
Next scene: in front of a jail. The boys have trouble shush-ing at about 4:54. And now... time for a documentary-worthy moment, at least for me. The Stooges are at the back door of the jail, and the guard lets an inmate out, on condition he comes back later in the night. The genius part of course is that the Stooges raise their voices first, and the door opens. If you were like me, you thought someone was going to poke their head out and see what the noise was all about. Another convict is returning from a nightly sojourn. Moe's had enough; time for the Stooges to enter. They knock, but Moe gets punched in the face. Curly finds this terribly amusing, and laughs heartily at about 5:26. Curly tries himself, and also gets punched. To move the plot along, Curly leans against the door and falls inside. The jail looks more like a nightclub. Larry sees the pinball machine and exclaims "Look! A marble machine!" Anthropologists have gotten their Ph.D.'s on stuff less strange. Another time stretcher, but it's not too blatant in retrospect. As we find out later, it's the rudest sounding "marble machine" in movie history. The spell is broken, the mission is reasserted, and the boys get to work.

ACT TWO

The search for the father in-law, Warden Stevens, played by veteran Stooge actor John Tyrrell, is very brief indeed. They find him right away and lay out the plot for the boys. Then, from inside his cell, Stevens hands the boys a camera and tells them to get some pictures of the shady dealings going on in the prison! This will set him free and he'll be reinstated as Warden. There's some Tom-Stoogery with the camera, but they're off, with Moe snapping a couple establishing shots of the hallway. The boys stumble onto the casino portion of the prison, where a doorman tells them they can't be admitted without formal attire. This sorta reminds me of the Jeff Altman movie Doin' Time... I guess that means I didn't really watch it. Anyway, the boys take this edict seriously, so Moe uses his bag of tricks to knock the guy out, taking care of his formal attire. Larry and Curly are on their own, but their search doesn't take that long thanks to Vernon Dent and his tailor.
Next scene: the boys are at work in the main room. Curly tries to pitch some woo with a lovely lass, but she's part Stooge herself and she barks at Curly. Curly retreats. Now maybe it's just me, but whenever the boys have to take some pictures, Curly uses his deep voice. See also: Crash Goes the Hash. As far as I know, those are the only two examples, but I was influenced by the Stooges at an unhealthy young age and it made some kind of impression on me. And so, we come to another time stretcher: Curly dancing with that same woman from before. As it happens, she's taller than him. Also the lesson from 2002's About a Boy: you can date a girl older than you and taller than you, but not both. Sorry, another digression. They've used that conga/rumba music before, haven't they?... I should know that one. I'll get to it eventually. Here's a pretty noteworthy part: at about 1:46, Moe avoids getting kicked in the ass by Curly a third time by turning his girl towards Curly's foot. Ever the gentleman, Curly avoids kicking Moe's girl in the ass. Not one to soon forget, Moe arranges for a kick in Curly's stomach. Dude, that's cold. Meanwhile, Larry's behind a curtain enjoying some "spirits." What a quaint individual. Back to the dance floor. There's some clothing-related shenanigans, and Moe's girl's dress gets torn off, revealing her silk slip. Even in this prison place of low moral fiber, it draws laughs. The girl asks, "Say, is there a draft?" Good phrasing, right? ...sorry, my bad. She indeed asks "Do you feel a draft?" Moe eventually says "No, I was exempted?" Bad phrasing. That's what's wrong with this Stooge short: the damn script!

ACT THREE

We're about at the second/third act break, so I'm going to call it that. Larry's totally sloshed, falling-down drunk while still on his feet, and now he's going for the cigars. Curly is still all hot and bothered about the severed sleeve of his coat, and motions the drunk Larry to stitch it back together. Larry grabs a needle and thread... I'm going to let that sink in for a second. Let me repeat that: Curly motions to drunk Larry to reattach his torn sleeve to his coat. What could a drunk seamstress possibly do wrong? You guessed it. But happen it must, as we've got a ways to go to finish this picture. Curly loses his coat entirely after Larry stitches it to the curtain. The lady notices the coat is now missing, and wittily observes "Oh! A striptease, eh?" She's a keeper, I tells ya! Curly's pants start to rip, so back to the emergency tailor we go. Curly looks like he seriously dings his head with his chair at 5:06. Painful to watch. Moe returns with a camera full of damning pictures, and the boys make a hasty getaway, with Curly in polka-dot pajama bottoms. And finally! We get to some all-text! Sheesh.
Next scene: the boys are getting ready for the wedding again... what does Moe call Curly at 6:09? Thank God for the Hays Code, that's all I gotta say! Curly can't find a belt, so Moe unwittingly gives Curly a "chastity belt" of sorts; probably just what he needed, too. No offense. Curly gobbles like a turkey, hits the wall, and is off to be married.
Next scene: the fastest wedding ceremony in movie history. Well, really, we've been waiting about 15 minutes for it, so why not make it brief? Moe gets hit with rice offscreen at about 7:18. Must've been a real humdinger! Curly starts getting hit with shoes. He winds up to throw his shoe, but gets hit with a shoe instead. This happens all the time when he's getting ready to throw a pie. Anyway, for those of you expecting a payoff gag for Curly's chain belt, it wasn't meant to be. Man, did they not know how to end this one. Maybe that's what's good about it, I don't know... nah, still not good. The ending, anyway.

***1/2
-So sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Mick and C.J. Strawn

Sorry about that, but I was watching The Hidden recently... No love in Bob Shaye's heart for the Strawns? Don't they get to live out the Peter Principle and become directors, even just once?

Sunday, March 25, 2012

J.K. Rowling, eat your heart out!

I hate to divert from the most important news of today, but Yahoo! News keeps asking me "Is Cheney too old for a heart?" Do they really want to go to Guantanamo Bay? I say thank God he finally has a heart! I think it finally means that there won't be a chance that, when he is brought into the emergency room again, he won't be mistakenly taken to the morgue because he doesn't have a pulse. Worth every penny. God bless the organ donor program, and may it continue to be a horrible, horrible beacon for the rest of the world. Then again, look what happened to Robert Altman. I hope Cheney's surgeon was better than that guy. Anyway, yes, on to the big news... in a world where chaos reigns and evil flourishes, every once in a while a movie comes along and gives the box office a nice purifying cleansing and TOTALLY BLOWS AWAY the competition! I guess this means that The Hunger Games Part One is the one percent, taking the top 75% of this week's box office total and leaving the other 25% for the other nine losers to divvy up amongst themselves, including the other debut this week, October Baby. Hardly an October surprise, this is the best the Christian right can do on the unlevel playing field of Hollywood. Does former Duke boy John Schneider get to throw in a part about protecting the American flag from getting burned? If so, the directors are weak-willed.

Al Pacino's "The Verdict"

I haven't seen all of Paul Newman's 1982 film The Verdict, but I do know two things: 1) he does play pinball in it, and 2) the trial ultimately ends up convicting the entire judicial system. So really, things don't change all that much... MAMET! I also know that when Valerie Curtin and Barry Levinson put their pens together, magic happens. Toys happens, and 1979's ...And Justice For All. happened. Finally watched all of it tonight. The only thing I vaguely remembered was Jeffrey Tambor going to a party with a shaved head. What a stir it caused back then! Well, it was easier to be a groundbreaker back then, but maybe we should go back to those days. Just think of a man's bald head as guy cleavage: it's just not sociable to show too much.
...where was I? Oh, right. In this post-internet era of snap judgments of a director's entire career, I'm starting to second guess Norman Jewison. The Onion's working on degrading Fiddler on the Roof as we speak, and In the Heat of the Night is just blatant South-baiting, frankly. And I begin to question any film where the wheels of justice turn on what's in one guy's pocket. In the Heat of the Night has a scene like that. Billy Bathgate has a scene at the end like that... help me out here, people. What else? I won't, however, question A Soldier's Story's credentials, but in the similar vein of The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming!, we've got And Justice for All. Is the film a comedy? Is it a tragedy? Frankly, it wants to be both, but doesn't go about it in a good way. Jack Warden was delightful as the Good Judge, however... that's about it. My viewing companion would probably be a lot harder on this than I, but it's already pretty late, and my cat is sitting on me as I type, so it's probably time to hit the hay here. I probably won't be seeking out the Blu-Ray of this one. It was on the Sony HD Movie Channel, and while the print looked crisp enough, there seemed to be a lot of greens missing. Maybe some film lab geek could check in with me on that. What's the deal? Pacino seemed to get some of his Dog Day Afternoon and Godfather II cast and crew together again, but only Jewison would dare sit in the director's chair on this one. I gotta go...............
...but now that it's Sunday morning, I would like to mention this one part I suddenly recalled. Jack Warden's presiding over the case of a man accused of assault and battery, and foul language... something like that. The defendant says he did what he did because he's a diabetic. Warden says "I fail to see the connection between diabetes and assault." The defendant tells Warden "That's because you're a douchebag." Laughter in the court. Ripped from last week's Daily Show, was it not?... damn! Not everything's on YouTube. If nothing else, hopefully ...And Justice For All reformed the Baltimore area judicial system, or at least made it become a little less like incompetence on steroids.

Good Double bill with: Author! Author!

**1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Stoogi Ite Domum

I always get that wrong. You know, there's only three Stooge films with variations of "phony" in the title; there just seems like there should be a lot more. There's Phony Express, the Curly classic Micro Phonies, and this week's Stooge short, Matri-Phony. According to IMDb movie trivia, we're now into the accordion-based faster Stooge theme. I was wondering when we'd get to it! Sooner than Dizzy Pilots, that's for sure.

ACT ONE

Scene: Ancient Erysipelas... seriously, don't Wikipedia that word. A writer was getting back at his ex-girlfriend... something like that. The boys play pottery and stone men in this "ancient" civilization, yet their sign declares them to be the biggest chiselers in town. I thought lawyers were considered that! As usual, Moe and Larry always try to put a damper on Curly's excitement. Sight gags are plentiful, and a recurring gag is established early on: Curly will hit his head on the swinging wooden sign many a time before this particular 16 minutes is up. Larry's ear ignites a clay fight. As any dedicated Stooge short watcher will observe, this happens far too early in the film, but the plot's going to cut this short anyway. The boys run afoul of one of the Emperor's henchmen who has hung one of his proclamations on their business wall. The boys start to take it down. Obviously, they forget whose rule they live under, but are quickly reminded and so Moe begins to hang it back up. Curly gets a faceful of paste that he wasn't ready for at 3:11. The sign ultimately ends up getting destroyed, but this is overlooked for the time being as the henchman spies the goal of the banner's message. The Emperor wants to wed a young redhead, and one apparently walks by. All the girls' hair is black and white in the Stooges' world. The boys get back to work. Curly avoids hitting his head on the sign, but Moe teams up with the sign to prolong the insult. The redhead doubles back and tries hiding in the Stooges' shop... I guess this means Act Two begins, if a little early... nope, Act Two begins with the big fadeout and fadein. In the meantime, the boys start trying to hide the redheaded girl. Curly uses the ... I don't know how to spell it: "Bene-foo-ja-timiny-horonjy" line. Is this the first known instance of it? Maybe the second. "See what I mean?" asks Curly a second time. He's getting so heartfelt these days, especially the "the back of the drapes!" section at 5:33. Priceless. The girl is eventually discovered hiding in the giant vase. Well, it's no The Front Page, but there's some kind of genius plotting involved.

ACT TWO

We fade in upon Emperor Grabus, played by Vernon Dent. Vernon... I mean, the Emperor is squinting his eyes... and if you're cynical like me, you can guess what's going to happen in Act Three already. Grabus puts on his glasses, as directed by Monte Collins. I guess the rule is if you write the Stooge script, you have to act in the Stooge film as well. The readhead... redhead is dragged into Grabus' court and introduced by a complete anti-Thespian as "the fairest redhead of them all." She's also the feistiest, as she hits that guy and tries to make her getaway. The Stooges are also brought in, with sharp spears pointed at their glutes. Larry ends up not being guarded at that moment, and tries to make his getaway, ass first, but quickly ends up with a spear pointed at his ass, and so he reluctantly rejoins his fellow Stooges. What a traitor. And now... the part to pad out the film. Curly gets his chance to make a getaway, but can only back out of the palace. He ends up with a sharp leaf in his glutes and rejoins his compatriots. What a traitor. The confusion is drawn out for as long as possible.
Emperor Grabus eventually gets the redhead under control, declares she's the new queen and orders her dressed in royal garb. His attention eventually turns to the Stooges and quickly orders them thrown to the lions. The guy who turns and looks plays a gladiator. He's apparently the first that gets hit on the head.
There's an awful lot of riffing in this one! Note how Moe slaps Curly in the face at 0:03. It goes downhill from there, of course. A second guard comes up and starts asking the first guard questions. Ventriloquism time! Unfortunately, the second guard's a little bit smarter than the Stooges and he figures out what's going on. Larry ends up saving the day, however, making up for his earlier transgression. With the two guards knocked out, Moe and Larry get a costume change... but what about Curly? The Stooges end up in the girl's room. Turns out her name is Diana. I must've not been paying too close attention to the film or something. And now... time for another BLATANT time-killer. While Moe and Larry console the girl... I think she's about as nutty as the Stooges are! Look how she joins in the Stooge huddle at 1:47... anyway, while that's going on, Curly goes over to the food table, and heads right for the traif, of course. There's a giant crab as the centerpiece of the table. As we come to find out, it's not quite cooked, and it starts grabbing things off of Curly's plate. Thankfully, Curly holds very, very still so the crab can very slowly work its comic magic. Curly eventually gets the better of the crab, and sets Texas food trends for the rest of forever with his World's Largest Crab Sandwich. However, the crab's not quite dead yet.........

ACT THREE

The ruse is ready. Curly's all dolled up in queen garb, and the Emperor's come to pitch some serious woo. Moe assures Curly in his deep threatening voice that everything's going to work out all right. Moe tells Curly, "Go on! Get sexy" at 3:52. Rephrase: the Emperor calls Curly a 'kelpfish.' Moe, disgusted at seeing what little he has to work with, says "Kelpfish!... Go on, get sexy." Curly does a massive double take, and rightly so... and so, the Emperor is let in to chambers. Needless to say, all comic hell breaks loose. There's comedic conflict over poisoned wine, and as it turns out, that crab's still got some life left to give, taking it out on Curly's finger. The three of them end up knocking the Emperor unconscious and try to make their escape, but are forced to run back into the chambers. Curly uses his pivot foot to turn around. The Stooges jump out the window and we hear the sound of spear on glute. I hate to spoil the ending, but it's similar to the ending of the much better Dutiful but Dumb. I guess Diana made her escape after all... or earlier, one of the two. Why do I get the feeling we're going to see clips of this edited into future Stooge shorts? ...guess not.

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Monday, March 19, 2012

Auteur Watch - Colin and Greg Strause

Short on time again, but what I said about the Spierigs applies here as well.

The Jackass Games

You know, they often say that any publicity's good publicity... but this may be the exception. Yes, Disney's going to lose 200 million on John Carter. Or maybe they can make it disappear by taking some of Pixar's budget away! That'll learn those greedy computer nerds over there. Gotta hand it to James Cameron in a way: who else can get away with an unrated version of Avatar with Na'vi bumping uglies, yet maintaining the dignity of family-oriented Hollywood storytelling? Reminds me of Larry Niven's Ringworld novels. They'd be perfect if not for the Halo adaptations on the horizon. Then again, the novels themselves are rife with sex scenes! There's inter-species sex used as a greeting, there's Teela and Louis Wu getting it on a couple times... what else? Louis and Prill too, if I remember correctly (Ringworld Engineers). What price dignity, John Carter? 200 million, that's what. That was also the problem with Disney's other box office dinosaur, 2000's Dinosaur. The budget has come down in the interim but it was supposed to be another $200 million turkey. So much for advertising. Should've taken a page from the The Land Before Time series... are they up to Land Before Time XIII yet?
So the family entertainment's not selling during Spring Break, go figure. The Spring Break-type stuff, on the other hand, is doing gangbusters business. 21 Jump Street jumps to #1. The 80s live on anew, and the new thin Jonah Hill is still riding high off his Oscar nomination. Take heed, Seth Rogen... take heed. Meanwhile, in other bad publicity news, Project X (2012) joins the ranks of Fight Club, The Program and Natural Born Killers, as someone has died as a result of life imitating this "art." I didn't even bother to read what the prank was, but I did think of that one Simpsons where Homer's watching a similar movie. A character says to another character who thinks he tapped a beer keg, "Dude! You tapped the septic tank!" Homer says "If he really did that, he'd be dead!" When Homer's smarter than you, there's a problem. And of course, the untold story of this box office: Safe House crosses the 100 million mark. Yeah! Safe House! Denzel! 100 million! Someone's getting a career boost, and it probably ain't Fuqua. And last but not least, Will Ferrell's fair weather fans abandoned him in his hour of need. Hard to say if Casa de mi Padre is one of those indie films he does in between the big comedy blockbusters, but Will seems to think it's a big comedy blockbuster, despite the mere $6 million budget. I guess he freaked out his anti-immigrant fan base too much... not that he can legally admit to having one, but they're not going to see this one, that's for sure. No way! No way, José!

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Hawaii Five-Oh

George Clooney, Vanity Fair and GQ Magazine's Man of the Millennium, is turning 50. And while his 2011 has probably not been as good as his 2005, it was WAY better than his 2009... I'm guessing. But really, what better way to celebrate than to get a heads up on Jack Nicholson and basically remake About Schmidt in Hawaii? Of course, this is not the Hawaii we catch picturesque glimpses of in, say, Forgetting Sarah Marshall or any other number of movies. We get backstory, and nothing less than the backstory of the first Hawaiian royalty that White Man came into contact with, in the Biblical sense. The descendants of this first get together 150 years later have fallen on clearly less regal times, but there's still one big parcel of virtually untouched land to squabble over. Meanwhile, Clooney's wife lies in a coma in virtually the second scene of the movie. As with About Schmidt, we find out that the wife was a bit of a bad girl, but even more so here. As with Fracture, the wife in a coma is the lit fuse of this dynamite stick that will burn for the length of the entire movie. Will the mourning process go smoothly? Or will there be bumps in the road along the way?
Clooney does what he can here. This isn't as emotionally involved as Solaris, after all. The narration is kinda similar to Up in the Air in a way: terse bits of wisdom parceled out Mamet style, but without all the swears... maybe about half the swears. I know Shailene Woodley came highly praised by the critics, but I dunno... maybe I wasn't in the right mood, but she didn't totally blow me away. This isn't exactly a debut for her anyway, judging from her rather lengthy IMDb résumé. The younger daughter Amara Miller was a sweetie pie, however. Look for her in the next Adam Sandler pic as the scene-stealing daughter/granddaughter. As with Sideways, director Payne gets a nod for screenwriting. As for one of his co-writers holding his Oscar like an erect penis after winning, well... still better than Roger Avary's acceptance speech in 1994, right? I'm sure he's going to have a long fruitful career.

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

..with The Three Stooges as Themselves

As we continue this long march through the Stooge shorts, we're going to find that they started playing themselves... as in, celebrity entertainers caught up in one damn thing after another, especially that one with the "Niagara Falls" sketch. For now, it's time once again to head to the Casa del Estereotipo with What's The Matador?

ACT ONE

The Stooges are eco-conscious comedians, recycling certain jokes over and over again. Three Jewish names and one Irish name on a door... does it ever fail to entertain? Notice it says "Latin American booking offices." Working backwards from the title again. The boys walk up to the door, Curly shifts his hat, and says in his normal voice "C'mon, fellas." The secretary looks familiar... ah, yes, it's Dorothy Appleby, just rotated in through that rapidly spinning revolving door to the Stooges' casting office. She plays the secretary of the booking agent(s) and tries her hardest to discourage the boys, but to no avail. They have a new act! A bullfighting act... Moe gets in a nice suggestive line of dialogue. Learn from the Stooges, kids. It's a lot like Hitchcock's lesson about the cinematic qualities of the suitcase bomb under the table. Get your audience involved. Sure, Moe could've just blurted out that Larry's the ass end of the bull, but there's three good reasons not to say that. One, it's a given; two, Moe's a gentleman when it comes to the ladies; and third, get the audience to use their imagination! Get them to imagine the word "bull's ass." Priceless. O'Brien comes out, and the boys spin him back and forth. Moe calls the act "mediocre," normally Curly's job. Didn't O'Brien just play Walter Twitchell? Man, what a comedown for him! Acting with the Stooges cuts some lives short, unnaturally prolongs others. Just then, O'Brien gets a very important phone call. God bless him, he makes the mistake of letting the Stooges within a mile of that phone call. Time to trot out that TIRED OLD CLICHé... (what's the Alt+4 digit code for a capital e with an accent aigu? Damn, but I need an assistant) ...where was I? Oh, yes, when someone has to say into the phone "No, not you." Mr. Fabulous did it in The Blues Brothers... that's the only example that comes to mind. Surely some a$$hole on the web has a list... never mind. I'm getting "Do Not Call" registry. And to think I want to get a job with the state! Why, I don't know the first THING about finding stuff online! Anyway, O'Brien's talking to this guy who wants a great act: "Money is no object, as long as it's cheap." The Stooges didn't hear the qualification part. O'Brien chases the boys out of the office. Stunt Double Curly crashes through the glass door at 1:52. Gotta watch that part at least twice. Their glass ceiling is yet to come.
Next scene: telegraph office. This is the part where they refer to themselves as "The Three Stooges"... in telegraph form, no less! Eddie Laughton looks on in horror as the Stooges conga out of the office. (Curly 2:22 - thank God they didn't have 3D!) Their ploy to get money wired to them apparently worked, and in the next scene we see the boys arriving somewhere in Mexico by bus. (According to Babelfish, the "station of trucks") It's at this point where the Stooges once again borrow from... take a plot cue from Laurel & Hardy, specifically Beau Hunks/Flying Deuces, but with a twist. Curly has found love on a bus by the name of Dolores. Dolores gets off the bus, hitting her mark perfectly in the process. Unlike Flying Deuces, Dolores makes it clear up front that she's married to a very jealous husband. The Stooges collectively understand and head off on their merry way. Then, the fatal error occurs, just in case you thought that that wrapped up a little too neatly. The Stooges end up between the moon and New y... between Dolores and the husband. Dolores sees the husband and sweetly calls out to him. Curly turns around, runs back to Dolores and says "Nyuk, nyuk, I knew you'd change your mind!" and they are clearly nyuk nyuks of love. Frankly, if the husband's going to so easily get pissed off, I say full steam ahead. Does Curly say "God damn it!" at 3:16? No one will ever convince me otherwise. The ultimatum is issued: if the husband ever sees these three caballeros again, he will KILL them!!! Curly rages at 3:30, after the dude's safely gone, of course. Curly eventually gets poked in the eye by Moe for what seems to you and me like a minor infraction. But as with Lucy pulling away the football from Charlie Brown, even the Stooges like to have a fresh ruse for the eye poke. This time, Moe declares he will poke Curly in the eyes with "new fingers." Curly asks "Have you got new ones?" And then, more genius plotting: Dolores and husband have taken the Stooges' suitcase by accident! They JUST BARELY miss them getting into a cab and taking off. Moe says "How do you like that lowlife?" Justified to me in this case; on the other hand, it's just plain racist. For once, Curly uses a bit of his brain at the same time Larry tries to be the Moe. Larry finds the address on the suitcase and orders the boys to go to said address. Curly says "The husband will kill us!" Moe and Curly negotiate. Thank God they're standing next to that taco stand with wheels. Moe takes some chile powder and, while Curly's got his eyes closed and his tongue out, Moe coats Curly's tongue with chile powder. Curly is forced to DRINK THE WATER! It was probably just good ol' Hollywood swamp water, of course... damn, another racist observation my part. Larry reiterates the task at hand, and gets poked in the eyes by Moe. Curly parrots Larry, but uses the block. The block works, of course, but why bother? Moe ups his game and uses both pointer fingers... I forget if this is the first instance of that. Probably not. Again, Excel spreadsheet if I was real good. Well, it's about 4:50 into the proceedings, and there's a cross-fade, so I dare say it's time for our first Act break.

ACT TWO

Scene: a Mexican mall. The boys try waking up a sleeping vendor... hoh boy, here we go. The dude speaks pretty good Spanish, and needles to say there's a culture gap... actually, he seems to ONLY speak Spanish, but his face screams the universal language of Stooge-induced frustration. We quickly move on to the next customer... hoh boy, here we go for real. The Mexican dude that will eat up most of the rest of the film: he's got 'hello' and 'goodbye' mixed up, for one... actually, that's about it. Fortunately for us, the Stooges already happened upon the courtyard of Dolores, so we can keep this delightful comedy of errors on track. Curly has an existential moment: "If her husband kills me, I'm coming back to haunt you!" Moe thinks of something to say, and comes up with "Haunt that house!" Curly: "How many rooms?" Moe: "SEVEN!" Curly: "With bath?" Priceless. Curly tries pulling the door open, but it's locked. Curly leans on the door and, like Michael Moore in Canada, finds it open, but with a sinister haunted house creak. Seeing as how this review's gone on long enough already... I'll skip to the part that haunts my brain cells, where the husband counts off the stooges like the Count on Sesame Street. (about 2:30)

ACT THREE

Sorry, folks, but I gotta cut this short again. Probably just as well. As you would expect, the Stooges do their act, and the Stooge bull gets replaced by a real bull. But what excuse to make this exchange happen? That's the genius part, for that's where the jealous husband comes in! He bribes a couple of the stagehands and the exchange takes place. But the bull's no match for Curly when it comes to a head-to-head confrontation, just like in the cartoons. What does get Curly, though, is a low-hanging bar right at the end of the... sorry, SPOILER ALERT. Maybe I wasn't in the mood for it, but What's the Matador didn't do much for me. See also: Bully for Bugs.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Auteur Watch - Karen and Jill Sprecher

Without a doubt, Jill Sprecher is obviously the alpha sister of this duo. Karen doesn't even have a photo of herself on IMDb! Oh, dude. I saw Clockwatchers and liked it well enough, and parts of Thirteen Conversations about One Thing, just before McConaughey entered his stoner dude phase. It probably started with this movie. Then again, there's something wrong with all of us when Parker Posey plays the office's Omega Bitch. And it's not to be confused with Star Trek Guy's Clockstoppers... damn! Another sibling pair to profile. But some auteur pairs weren't meant for the sliver screen. No, some go on to HBO greatness. In this case, Big Love. Oh, is there nothing Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman won't produce? No wonder Hanks was worried about his financial future one time on Letterman. He's got a wife and a twin brother to support... is Big Love's run finally over? For shame. Say it isn't so. I think it's coming back. In the meantime, Jill's got a cinema itch to scratch, so it's back to the 3D multiplex with her latest... her version of Fargo! Why not? Sam Raimi did it. Robin Williams did it. Melissa Leo did it. Even Carmela did it! I gotta go.................................

The X's have it

...sort of. Shame on me! I forgot to fill in my Excel spreadsheet for last week. But for the most part, it's family entertainment that rules the box office this week, as well as the continued dominance of CGI. Dr. Seuss, Hollywood's finest poet, once again proves himself a mainstay of our modern box office with his Lorax. To show you how complicated the CGI biz is getting at this point, it's no longer possible (for me) to know which company's doing what these days merely by glancing at the "company credits" section for a given movie. I mean, I thought Blue Sky and 20th Century Fox had the Dr. Seuss contract sewn up! Not so. Apparently, the Seuss library's been broken up and sold off in far more pieces than even MGM. Kudos to Danny DeVito for once again making the box office his bitch. It's the late 80s-early 90s all over again. In second place, not to be outdone by Brad Bird, Pixar director Andrew Stanton takes a tentative step into the real world... sorry, "real" world with the uber-expensive John Carter (of Mars). Is this the year Peter Gabriel gets an Oscar? If not, let's face it. He's still one Oscar behind Phil Collins, but tied with Sting. I was shocked! Ebert gave John Carter a less than 4 star review. I guess they didn't have the Pixar vanity logo or something. The other debuts this week: Silent House, the latest horror flick. I guess the budget wasn't low enough or something, because the actors are obscure enough! People just don't want to go to the movies to be scared anymore. Real life is already scary enough with this endless Republican campaign. And finally, John Landis can STILL go to hell, because Eddie Murphy's found a new white director who works cheap that he can really push around, and doesn't have all these 70s-based auteur pretensions and sh... stuff. With Norbit and Meet Dave, the Brian Robbins-Eddie Murphy trilogy is complete and ready to be sold at Costco in six months. Their latest, A Thousand Words, couldn't be more timely, considering the unexplainable popularity of The Artist. In this movie, Eddie Murphy apparently goes for long stretches of celluloid without speaking at all! You'd think that would make the movie do better at the box office, but these cult films take time to gain popularity. I'm certainly keeping my fingers crossed!

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Hate the Players

Whoa, dude! Ease back on the aggressiveness! I know, sorry about that. But I did just see Game Change... I guess that means we're going to lose our HBO pretty soon. Not often we get all excited about the world premiere of an HBO movie. I think we might have done the same thing with Roach's 2008's Recount. For those of you who don't know my politics, I found the ending of that one bittersweet. I found the ending of Game Change a little more hopeful.
It's probably too soon for objectivity, of course. Depending on who you ask, there's varying degrees of whitewashing here for the sake of efficiency in storytelling. For example, John McCain comes across as very white-glove, idealistic and cordial, which at the very least goes against his public image, or his image on the floor of the Senate. (The actress playing Cindy McCain looks too normal! Oh, snap!) And frankly, I'm starting to question the whole thesis of the piece that the staffpersons working with Sarah Palin and prepping her for her public appearances really had such high standards. After eight years of George Bush? Why should a president have to know anything, let alone a vice president? But there was one thing we could all agree on, at least in my household: award time for Julianne Moore. You may remember her as Maude Lebowski, or for that one scene in Short Cuts... just me? I thought so... but she really nails Palin here... okay, another bad choice of words. An Emmy, a Golden Globe, she's well overdue for a statue or two. But who knows how her peers feel. Was she too desperately making the talk show rounds leading up to the HBO premiere, outlining her method? Do they just not like her husband, or his body of work? She should at least get Charlize's and Jennifer Jason Leigh's vote. While I hesitate to give Sarah Palin credit for anything, I thought Julianne channeled her spirit quite well. I even felt sorry for her during the rough parts of the campaign. Ed Harris also does a similar excellent channeling job, although he didn't say "my friends" or was whiny enough. Nor did they show him walking around the debate floor like a crazy person. So many parts left out. A close friend of mine wanted to know if they had the part where Sarah got a prank call from that dude pretending to be the president of France... That detail escaped my mind, but it didn't detract from the film as a whole, I felt.
What else? Oh, the Bristol Palin actress, wow... was that really her? Damn, Sarah's kids have strange names. I feel sorry for Trig; I'm assuming the family is anti-math... oh, I get it. Trig as in "trigger," right? Oh, that's a giveaway right there, innit? I thought it was for trigonometry. God, I'm such a dork.
So the film focused mainly on the human dimensions of the story, that McCain wanted a star for a V.P. instead of picking from the stable of boring old young white men. Although, the part where Julianne says "In what respect, Charlie?" out of the context we all know and love, I hope that was based on the book, because it seemed like a blatant greatest hits line, much like this part in Casino Jack where Scanlon says his thing about rolling people up into a rug... well, I thought that was in an email to a bunch of Republicans, that's the main thing. Tom Hanks was one of the producers of Game Change, and people made similar complaints about Charlie Wilson's War, that it wasn't enough of an indictment of the Bush Administration. But then again, what is? Transformers 1? Eagle Eye? Brokeback Mountain? The 2000s are going to keep film historians busy for a long, long time. As for me, I didn't have high expectations from Game Change, but I thought it was a very well-made film. A governor plucked from absolute obscurity, gets a taste of the national stage and wants more... despite her powerful lack of knowledge. Did you notice she was the only one watching Fox News? Was that accidental?

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Your Friends and Neighbours, circa 1900

You know, I believe it was filmmaker and provocateur extraordinaire John Waters who once issued a challenge to other filmmakers, one that he obviously could never accomplish himself: to make an X-rated film with no sex, violence or profanity... I think all three of those. Maybe I'm just getting squeamish as I get older, but Woody Allen's 1982 notch in his personal filmography A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy is what that film just might look like. Now I've circled around the Herbrand Universe that is the collected themes of Woody Allen for a while here now, and patterns are slowly beginning to emerge. Of course, he also deviates from the formula in a few places, especially with the character he plays here. Fondly recalling the giant inflatable suit of Sleeper, we start off the film... the Woody Allen portion of the film with Woody flapping a giant pair of Man Wings. He runs off camera and we hear a crash. You won't usually see Woody, one of the Kings of the Hypochondriacs, trying stunts like this. Later on, we see a flying machine that he pedals to stay aloft in the air. Also a fine excuse for blatant crane shots.
Anyway, I mention the 1998 Neil LaBute pic because both feature six characters, and both focus on the sexual habits of those characters. Woody's characters are a little more developed, as they don't have names that rhyme, for one. There's some depth to the characters, but for the most part they represent philosophical opposites: Woody and Tony Roberts (he's the Max this time!) differ about fidelity and the purpose of marriage. Jose Ferrer and Mia Farrow are at opposite ends of the age spectrum, Jose Ferrer and Woody Allen (and pretty much everyone else) are at opposite ends of the Belief in the Supernatural spectrum, and, well, Mary Steenburgen and Julie Hagerty are at opposite ends of the spectrum of, let's say carnal knowledge. At first, anyhow. Sorry... SPOILER ALERT. Julie seems to be playing the opposite of what she did in Airplane!, it's probably safe to say. Then again, there's the auto pilot... ah, skip it.
I wonder if there's ever been cast reunions of any of Woody's films. This one would be an interesting one. I mean, Mary Steenburgen? Julie Hagerty? Mia's probably busy, but the other two haven't done any other Woody pics, have they? They didn't stick around as long as Caroline Aaron, that's fer sure.
I guess there's a fair amount of food for thought here, and of course there's the lush locations of what I'm assuming is upstate New York. Walden's backyard! With blatant animals to boot. DP Gordon Willis worked harder than he wanted to, let's put it that way. Then again... there is a blatant "midnight" scene. Full moons sure are brighter in New York!
Woody seemed to be taking a break from his usual angst-ridden film here, which is kinda nice in a way. A rare celebration of the outdoors, and of course probably a challenge to the crew to make a period piece, with period cars and a lack of modern conveniences. But the same old themes are there: can there be passionate Platonic love? Is marriage really "the death of hope"? Are man and wife doomed to grow into brother and sister? (my extrapolation; at least the South cuts to the chase and eliminates the middleman, am I right?) Woody himself channels the spirit of Groucho Marx and sums it up beautifully: "I think love and sex are two different things. Sex relieves tension, love creates it." Might as well end with that.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Friday, March 09, 2012

Scorsese's "The Terminal"

As usual, I'm devoting more time to my Stooge films and less to actual films. But much like the hipsters over at The Onion, I'm of two minds about Hugo. On the one hand, it's a nice-looking film (that $170 million budget seems to be all up there on the screen), and I do like the subject matter of early cinema... on the other hand, it seems more like an ad for the Oscars, and to a lesser extent, The Film Foundation. Maybe I made the mistake of watching the Oscar telecast first. And Borat? Really? Apparently he was talking with the kids between takes. BAD IDEA. VERY BAD IDEA.

SPOILER ALERT. Not that it doesn't have its moments. Asa Butterfield does well as Hugo, the main child protagonist of the story, as he has the tough job of being a kid and projecting some adult angst as well. He has a dream within a dream, for God's sake! Traumatic enough in my book. If he plays his cards right, maybe it's not too late to take over as Frodo in Hobbit 2! He's the new Freddie Highmore. The girl from Kick Ass does fine here as well. Her thing is using big words! Did you pick up on that? Ben Kingsley has the thankless job of trying to be the mean old coot here; not enough Don Logan, Ben. And of course, the endless visual feast, all taking place mostly in the train station, or at Ben's flat, which evidently you have to walk through a cemetery to get to.
And then, the nitpicks. Somehow the kids' discussion of how great the movies are isn't enough like kids, and not enough like a period discussion of the cinema. It seems like it could've fit in perfectly with the other 2012 testimonials of celebrities' first encounters with the cinematic arts. Aren't movies great? Aren't they an important part of the economy? And while I hate to ruin the mystique of the 'automaton,' the nerd part of me kicked in as I thought about how complex a robot would have to be... first of all, building a robot that can dunk a pen into ink, then place the pen onto paper... somehow, I don't think that early 20th century technology could make a machine as small as that automaton that could draw such complex pictures, or frankly, a machine of any size. And I'm sure my artist friend would attest to that as well... later.
Still, the Academy seems to be warming up to Scorsese. Unlike the Weinstein-produced Gangs of New York, which was completely shut out and won zero of its ten nominations, Hugo won just under half of its Oscars. But frankly, Scorsese's got a ways to go for that second Best Director Oscar. 2006 was his big year, of course, getting the Oscar he should've got for GoodFellas. I guess that means Scorsese's got to make another Hugo to get the best director statue he should've gotten for THIS Hugo. Face it, man! The youth are taking over. Oscar wants The Artist! Oscar wants the young, vibrant Frenchman, not the old decrepit Frenchman.
As for Cohen, well, I did like his mini-homage to that scene in Borat where Borat falls down and destroys about half of the antique shop's inventory. Here, it's priceless antique musical instruments that suffer. Also, his dog seems to have trouble running around the slick floors of the train station. Crazy. I gotta go.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Wednesday, March 07, 2012

The knucklehead doesn't fall far from the tree

TV sitcoms these days are like a family... I'm not any happier about it than you, of course. But as with any marriage, eventually comes that tragic time when you meet the rest of the family. And with sitcoms, we will also eventually have a 70s flashback, and everyone will be dressed like Saturday Night Fever and have afros and high-heeled shoes with goldfish in the heels. Even Airplane! tried to warn us. The 70s fate missed the Stooges, but with Cactus Makes Perfect, we get our first glimpse a couple branches up the Stooge family tree. And apparently longtime member of the Stooge acting troupe Monte Collins is as big a nut as they are, writing himself the ultimate Stooge role, or so we thought... SPOILER ALERT... he abandons the awful hairpiece of Woman Haters and puts on a mop of a matronly blond wig to play THE STOOGES' MOTHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ACT ONE

Scene: A country house, with a cow and chickens in the front yard. A bumpkin house, if you please. This is the establishing shot. Cut to the kitchen, where Ma Stooge is chopping some firewood in the kitchen. And by firewood, I mean a hunk of a California sequoia. I will leave it to the rest of you to decide if it should be Ma Howard or Ma Fine. Perhaps to simplify things in a Costco-bundling sense, we'll just call Larry Fine Larry Howard for the purposes of this film review. Anyway, Ma raises the mighty hunk of wood with the ax stuck in it over 'her' head, dislodging the ax from the wood, and causing the wood to break into kindling pieces over her head, further causing Monte Collins to earn his stuntpersons union card right there in the kitchen. Ma lands with a mighty oof sound that we've heard somewhere before... oh, right! Gymkata! To rub more salt into the wound, a picture lands on Ma's head. She starts to break it, but is overcome with sentimentality by the picture: three head shots of the Stooges. The one of Curly sure looks like one of those publicity photos that don the lowliest of the public domain collections that breed like rabbits these days: I honestly don't need that many copies of Malice in the Palace!
Ma's moment of sentimentality is quickly cast aside by the sound of the boys snoring away upstairs. The boys are too asleep to hear Ma's pleas. This situation must occur quite often because the spirit of Rube Goldberg has offered an elegant solution to get those lazy loafers out of bed. There's a rope that, when pulled, makes the Stooges' mattress spin around to dump them out of bed. They're ready this time, and spin around a few times without falling out of bed. The mattress is even perpendicular to the floor at one point! No Stooges on the floor. The filmmakers went to pains to show that the boys are actually being spun around... at least, until the mattress starts spinning very very VERY VERY VERY fast! The boys are then on the floor, still asleep, all stacked nice and neat like, well... like kindling! I know, I know, but I'm comfortable enough in my heterosexuality to admit that. Larry's on top... sheesh... Anyway, Larry's on top of this sleep stack, Moe's in the middle. Larry rolls over and onto the floor. This wakes Moe up, and Moe gets mad. Moe doesn't stop to consider that maybe Larry got the worse of it, of course. Moe winds up to punch Larry... seriously? No pointer and middle fingers extended? I have to double-check that... I can't tell. He's holding his hand at a bad angle. They don't hear mom start to repeat her cry from before, but Larry figures out that, duh! She was trying to get them up. It's a race to declare first who'll get ready first. Larry wins by declaring he's going to brush his teeth. Curly comes in a distant second, but gets style points for saying "I'm going to change my socks! What an experience." Larry briefly becomes the alpha Stooge by hitting Moe with the door, and by hitting Curly with Moe by proxy.
Oh, for heaven's sake! Look at all the words and time I'm wasting on this, and I haven't even gotten to the two minute mark yet. Speaking of wasting time, here comes a part where the Stooges have to pad out the action for time: a shaving sequence. Curly starts the fun by trying to wriggle his way into the tiny bathroom that's already full to capacity with Moe and Larry. It's so crowded that Larry ends up brushing Moe's teeth. Curly has difficulty applying shaving cream, and by the third elbow hit from Moe, angrily n'yuk n'yuks because of it. Moe then takes over the shaving of Curly. I don't know how it got past the censors, but the brute force removal of a couple of Curly's nostril hairs warrants a xylophone accent. Larry gets the degrading job of hanging on to the used shaving cream with his face, even though Moe put a bib on him. Well, work's work! Some people would KILL for that job in this post-Dubya economy. Sorry, sorry, there I go again with the politics. The shaving is aborted when the audio of Ma's cry is repeated YET AGAIN. The boys remove their pajamas and go downstairs in their best casual suit and pants.
The boys slide down a pole into the kitchen. This was apparently done at 12 fps, as it appears to actually be them in lieu of bad-looking stunt doubles, and they fall on the kitchen floor in a heap, (same grunting sound!) and line up for a triple slap from Ma. But the plot must go on, as this is no ordinary day in the Stooge family kitchen. Curly gets a letter from the Inventors Association. The IA has declared Curly's Gold Collar Button Retriever to be a failure. Well, Curly's no Zeppo when it comes to inventions. Undeterred by rejection, the boys celebrate and Curly demonstrates the invention for Ma. Curly takes a gold collar button and throws it in a "random" place... in Ma's hairdo. The arrow sure enough hits Ma right above the scalp, but as with all these comedy injuries, she's okay. Just a little emotionally bruised, but it's still the last straw. The boys must leave the house, and seek their fortune in the big city. Ma offers to give them some money, then screams "YOU WOULD TAKE IT!" A very bi-polar farewell. Curly says goodbye to Bessie the cow, and gets in the way of its tongue. Ma slaps Moe, which Larry finds hilarious, so Moe slaps Larry. Eventually, they leave the confines of their front yard and end up in the big city, right in front of oncoming traffic. You gotta see it for yourself to believe it (about 5:24); they take one of the chickens with them! Sounds like an Act break to me......................

ACT TWO

The boys wind up in the city. Fortunately for the plot, Moe moves things along by saying "We gotta get somebody to buy that gold finder. (TM)" Enter classy Brit Eddie Laughton, playing an unsimilar role in the similar gold-themed Cash and Carry. He tells the boys that he has a map to the "lost mine." Boy, the Stooges must've run afoul of their share of flim-flam men in their day. Their films are rife with 'em! Either that, or they're just trying to keep up with everyone else's flim-flam men. Curly gets the opportunity to pretend to be an adding machine. I know I keep saying this, but I think this is the first instance of that. Time to start making an Excel spreadsheet! Even though they'd only make $27 in profit, minus income taxes, Curly lets slip that he's got FIFTY dollars on him. Fifty?! That's like... fifty thousand today. "I'll take it!" says Eddie, cheerfully. Larry says "It's a deal! Pay 'im!" Knuckleheads. To rub more salt in it, Curly says "He don't know I got another fifty!" While we're unclear what exactly the first fifty was for, the second fifty is for the MAP to FIND the lost mine. Time for another time stretcher: Curly has the fifty somewhere on his person, and Moe and Larry begin their public molestations to find out. This should eat up about a minute of screen time. Seems to, anyway. The Stooges catch a cab... or should I say the cab catches them! At 6:55, some special effects magic is at work. I'm thinking they did a very slick edit, filming the scene twice: once with the Stooges, once without, making sure the cab was driving at the exact same speed both times. (Did Larry say woo-hoo at 6:50?)
Act 2.5. Scene: the desert. This is usually where they'd have words to describe the scene, but not this time. The Stooges have left the comfort of civilization behind. Goodbye, Square Deal Paints and Hardware. Goodbye, George's Lunch. Hello, buried tin cans. "That ain't no gold finder, it's a scavenger!" exclaims Moe. Of course, tin cans were just about to become worth their weight in gold, cuz of the war and all. Curly's wearing a Daniel Boone cap made out of a SKUNK, for God's sake! Meanwhile, we meet the next bad guys: Vernon Dent and Ernie Adams. They play two gold prospectors who've managed to maintain their dignity and aren't acting like gold-crazed spoiled brats like the Stooges. Vernon puts a small pouch of gold into his back pocket. Curly launches another gizmo-addled arrow and it hits Vernon right in the pouch, and in his glute as well, causing him to cry out in pain. The Stooges run up to the prospectors, get scared, then demand their arrow back. Vernon shoots Curly in the skunk cap, causing it to turn 180 degrees. The boys run off. Moe hits Curly, causing Curly to fall backwards and land ass first into a cactus. Time for another reel stretcher. Moe gets pliers and starts pulling the cactus needles out of Curly's ass one at a time. Curly's in a very, very great deal of pain. Larry starts cutting off the ends of the cactus thorns with a pair of scissors, because "they don't show!" Moe sloppily hits Larry in the face with his hand. Larry himself gets a small dose of Earth karma when he gets his own assful of cactus thorns. The comedy ante is upped when the cactus hugs larry. Iconic. Game changing.... what else? Epic? Nah, too small a scale to be epic.

ACT THREE

SPOILER ALERT: I'm guessing that technically this is Act Three, because Curly's down to his last arrow. But Curly's smart, and he ties himself with a length of rope to his last arrow. It usually doesn't work for me; the arrow usually bounces back and hits me in the leg, but it ends up working out great for Curly, even though he ends up getting a little bit hurt after sailing through the air. We see Curly's head under a sign that says "Lost Mine." In the 1:51 region, Curly sounds a bit like Pee Wee Herman, for what that's worth. Moe and Larry try pulling Curly out of the mine entrance by his legs. Curly vehemently protests, while Larry gets lightly kicked in the chin. Larry says "We'll have to blast!" Moe agrees, but finds a crowbar and says "Maybe we can pry him out." Larry says "It'll take longer, but go ahead." Time ONCE AGAIN for YET ANOTHER Scene Stretcher. It's Curly v. Crowbar. Who do you think wins that one? Personally, I like the part at about 3:37 when Curly says "Go ahead! Keep it up!" Does that make me a bad person? I thought so. Somehow, I knew that all along.
They eventually decide to push Curly into the mine. Perhaps Act Three should start here proper. We've got about five minutes to go. Curly tells them to throw down the tools. We then see Curly caught in a barrage of falling tools. If only every Stooge film had a scene like this. Don't worry, Moe ends up getting the worst of it. After Moe and Larry join Curly at the mine floor, Moe starts getting a taste of shovel handles at 4:50, and it seems to go on forever from there. No configuration of shovel handle and Moe's face is left out. Moe finally has had enough and pretends to hit Larry then Curly with his shovel at 5:04. The pantomime on Curly is especially bad, especially if you have the sound turned down. To be fair, they had small shovels to work with, unlike Laurel and Hardy in Dirty Work.
Fortunately for the Stooges, this mine seems to be a lot more user friendly than, say, the treasure of the Sierra Madre. It had a ladder which the Stooges quickly broke, and as we'll see later on, its gold has been conveniently pre-packaged for easy dispersal. In the meantime, Moe ups the ante against himself when he calls for switching the tools of choice from shovels to picks. Concurrently, the bad guys have found the entrance to the mine that Curly found with his head a few minutes earlier. Unfortunately for the Stooges, their tool of choice for obtaining gold is neither shovel nor pick, but gun and bullet.
We see the boys at work. Curly reenacts a similar situation from A Plumbing We Will Go, taking Larry's place this time. The pick gets caught up in Moe's suspenders, and Curly keeps tugging on it until Moe tells him to let it go. Curly then quickly gets the pick snagged on a wooden beam, and Curly keeps tugging on it until the beam hits Moe in the head. Moe has clearly had enough abuse by this point, and breaks out into tears. Soon after, Curly runs afoul of a wooden handle in the mine wall. Curly really REALLY hates getting hit in the head with it. Curly pulls on it, and we hear the sound of machinery at work. As it turns out, this mine is some sort of walk-in slot machine that's easy to win. Seeing as how remote it is from civilization, that's pretty cool! I think it's supposed to be a metaphor for FDR's New Deal. The Stooges hit the jackpot, and Curly gets hit in the face with part of it. Moe digs through Larry's hair to find part of the jackpot. It's obviously the principle of the thing, and it probably won't be the last time.
And so, much like Uncle Ben, the Stooges walk out of that lost mine with a giant bag of 1933 Double Eagles, and by God, they're rich. Time for society to take their cut. It begins with those two evil Redistributionist gold prospectors who attempt to sneak up on the Stooges. Fortunately, a giant bag of gold can double as a blunt instrument to hit throne pretenders with! The boys take off running with the two desert rats close behind. The thin one trips on his own camping supplies at about 6:36.
Scene: an abandoned hotel, where cobwebs are the only guest. But somehow the spirit of the Stooges was behind its manufacture, as Moe gets hit in the face with a door right away. As with Some More of Samoa, somehow Curly magically broke free of the triumvirate, and is now doubling as the hotel clerk. The gold is "safe in the safe," but before they can divvy it up amongst themselves, the Stooges hear the bad guys approaching. They make ready for imminent ambush. In one of my favorite sequences, Curly goes to a window, looks up, and sees the two desert rats, but they're in no mood to play the Duck Soup mirror routine. Curly pulls down the curtain, but pulls so hard that it falls down completely. Curly gets a second eyeful of the desert rats, and still doesn't like what he sees. Vernon exclaims "WHERE'S THAT GOLD?" Curly pokes him in the eyes of his hat and takes off.
The Stooges have run out of options at this point, so they hide in the safe with the gold. The desert rats drill a hole in the steel door to pass dynamite through. They hit Curly in the ass with their drill for good measure. One stick of dynamite is lit and passed into the vault with the Stooges. Arguably, the battle to keep the dynamite on the other side of the vault door is a little weak, but the Stooges ultimately decide to tempt fate with the stick of dynamite with equal measure heroism and cowardice, with Curly the main baton holder, as it were. They get one false ending, but the dynamite does indeed blow up... why is it that no one ever thinks to just... I don't know... EXTINGUISH THE FUSE OF THE DYNAMITE? As for the final scene, it seems a bit anticlimactic, or perhaps it's the perfect metaphor.
After the explosion, we see the Stooges lying on the floor of the vault in a daze, their three bodies having made body-shaped impressions in the valut wall, with a brick wall behind them. Gold coins are raining down from the ceiling, and it appears that the gold has made them prisoners of fate, for with great (spending) power comes great responsibility. Or it could be that they just didn't know how to end it, so why not end it like this, and on to the next Stooge short we go. For me, I still think it's one of the greats, time stretchers and all. A vast improvement on Cash and Carry, for example.

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Tuesday, March 06, 2012

Auteur Watch - Michael and Peter Spierig

I hate to be glib at a time like this, but the Spierig brothers represents everything wrong with the future of cinema today. Special effects wizards-turned-directors, why does every film have to be about zombies and vampires these days? You've never seen a Merchant-Ivory film about zombies, have you? Is this all cinema's going to be from now on? A yearly homage to Night of the Living Dead and Dracula in 3-D forever and ever, Amen? At least Michael Bay has Transformers! Wait til he gets into the zombies and vampires game! Oh, right... he just PRODUCES those movies.

Box Office 3/4/'12

Yeah yeah yeah... Any movie with an X in the title did well. The Lorax, Project X... guess that's it. Wanderlust is 10... ain't out of the game yet!

Friday, March 02, 2012

From lawsuits to Dinner Theatre

Damn. Still couldn't find an adequate title for this one. I don't have time to do my usual in-depth analysis this week... I keep meaning to do it piecemeal, but somehow I just couldn't bring myself to do it. But in this week's Stooge pic, Loco Boy Makes Good, the Stooges pull off a rare feat of benevolence. While they're not exactly "job creators" in the traditional, Founding Fathers sense, they're more like the colonizers that... oh, my professor's going to kill me for this. They're more like the plants that go in after a disturbance, like a fire or an earthquake, and pave the way for larger organisms to come in and make the disturbed land hospitable once again. Again, usually the Stooges cause the disturbance, but not this time. This may be the only time.
It all starts with a newspaper. A random newspaper literally at Moe's feet. Sorry, "random." He reads about a lawsuit settlement where a guy got paid for slipping on a bar of soap. So, the Stooges get the idea to do the same thing. They pick a hotel lobby to try the same trick, but they end up finding out that the hotel's owner is a kindly old lady who's falling behind on the bills. The Stooges end up helping her renovate the place. Despite the usual comedic mayhem when the Stooges try to repair anything, the place flourishes and becomes a cultural hot spot. Why, the public domain equivalent of Walter Winchell even stops by! The pressure's on to make a good first impression. Hard to say if that impression's made, but the assembled audience seems to be having a good time. Vernon Dent plays a magician whose coat gets swapped with Curly's. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it, but it didn't seem like one of the great shorts to me.

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan