Cynical Cinema

          Spike Lee made a fairly lousy movie a few years ago.  It was called Summer of Sam and starred John Leguizamo and Mira Sorvino, and it pretty well sucked.  It was all about New York, in the summer of 1977, when Son of Sam was terrifying the people.  And although it was a fairly bad movie, it did one thing very well.  That being the fact that the movie didn’t really focus on Son of Sam at all.  Oh, he was there, killing people with his pistol, and showing up now and again.  But the movie dealt with a bunch of young people doing a bunch of stupid young-people things while the killings just happened to be going on at the same time.  It was a nice device to put the serial killer in the right perspective.  People talked about it, they worried about it a little, but it existed on the periphery.  And a new TV miniseries called The Bronx is Burning does the same thing.  It will be released tomorrow, June 3rd, by Alliance Films, and it’s all about the New York Yankees in the summer of 1977. 

          Now, before I start my review, I must state, for the record, that I am a Red Sox fan.  A big fan.  And I therefore am against everything Yankees-related.  However, I still enjoy John Goodman as The Babe, and I still cry at Pride of the Yankees, and I really enjoyed this miniseries.  I can still revel in the successes and the history of the enemy.  I would love to see an interesting documentary on Rush, or a fascinating retrospective on Coldplay’s career, such as it has been.  And it was with great pleasure that I watched the behind-the-scenes 1977 Yankees season.  Some great actors came together for this ESPN special series, including John Turturro as oft-fired and oft-rehired Yankees manager Billy Martin, and Oliver Platt as oft-insane Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.   

          Now, I must say it’s a bit tough to watch Platt’s Steinbrenner, because he seems to be channeling the “George Stenbrenner” of Seinfeld fame.  And every time he talks, or makes a big speech, I’m always a little surprised when the camera turns away and George Costanza isn’t shaking his head and waving his hand and walking out of the room.  The combustible and crazy relationship between him and Martin forms the dramatic centre of the series, but there are other story lines at play here as well.  The friction between Reggie Jackson and the rest of the team, particularly Thurmon Munson, is a big one.  And then there are the
New York-in-1977 stories that set the Yankees story in context.  The Son Of Sam.  The devastating power blackout.  The hotly contested mayoral race.  And the fires and looting and violence that plagued the streets of the Big Apple that year. 

          Steinbrenner comes off as the villain of the piece, with his craziness and his impossible demands and his need to control everything that goes on within the organization.  Turturro’s Martin, in an odd way, despite his lascivious and fractious behaviour and volatile temper, therefore becomes the hero of the show.  And Reggie Jackson, although in real life his transformation may not have been so dramatic, is the person who grows the most over the course of the season and this six-hour miniseries.  Now, I don’t think I’m giving too much away by saying the Yankees won the World Series in 1977.  I think most people who were alive at that time know this.  And those who weren’t, like me, also know this if we are baseball fans. 

          Although me, being a baseball fan, and having six hours to watch, I would have liked to see a little more baseball.  I would have liked to see more players than just Munson and Jackson and Bucky Dent.  I was hoping to learn more about Catfish Hunter, Ron Guidry, and Dock Ellis (who is of particular interest, because on June the 12th, 1970, pitching for the Pirates against the Padres, he threw a no-hitter while completely bombed on LSD.  See - fun baseball stuff.)  Also fun stuff - Graig Nettles, who was with the Yankees that year, said in 1977 “the best thing about playing for the New York Yankees is that you get to see Reggie Jackson play every day”.  Nettles (played by Alex Cranmer) is barely mentioned in the series, but
Jackson is portrayed excellently by Daniel Sunjata as he really was.  More of a Star than a great player, a larger-than-life sports figure.  While exceptionally talented and passionate about baseball,
Jackson was always more of a Star than he was a great player.  He was the Joan Crawford of baseball. 

          But what makes The Bronx Is Burning great is that you don’t need to be a baseball fan to appreciate it, (although it helps), and you don’t need to be a New Yorker either.  You don’t need to have lived through it, and you don’t need to know anything about the city, the summer, the team or the sport to enjoy it.  The actors are very good, the dynamics on the team are believable and rarely stray into the realm of cheesy re-enactment, and the characters are well drawn.  And the Ramones-intensive soundtrack is both awesome and a-propos.  The
Bronx is Burning comes out June 3rd, from Alliance Films, and it is worth the trip to the video store.

Margot At The Wedding is about a woman named Margot who goes to a wedding. It comes out from Alliance Atlantis on Tuesday the 19th of February and it’s sort-of worthwhile. Margot is played by Nicole Kidman, who is a very uptight, scathingly bitter-tongued ice queen. She drags her son along with her to her sister’s (Jennifer Jason Leigh) wedding to unemployed musician Jack Black. The dialogue is very smart, the acting is terrific, and the family is believable. The big problem with the movie is the lack of likeable characters. Kidman gets to her sister’s place, and immediately makes herself unlikeable as she attacks everything around her, questioning her sister’s choice in a husband, exacerbating the war between her sister and her neighbours, and visiting the man with whom she is having an affair. Jennifer Jason Leigh has just figured out she is pregnant, but hasn’t told anyone yet. She tells Kidman, who then tells her son, who then tells his cousin, who then asks her mom about it. The whole family harbours intense bitterness and hard feelings toward each other, much of which is not fully explained in the film.

A lot of scenes ring very true, especially in the little details. My favourite little detail is when Jason-Leigh’s young daughter tells Jack Black he has to hide his King Crimson album. It is the In The Court Of The Crimson King album (shown below), and I have had to do the same thing myself. It was initially up on the wall with the rest of my favourite vinyl albums. Welcome To My Nightmare, The Kids Are Alright, Johnny Cash at San Quentin, Over-Nite Sensation, The Melodians Rivers of Babylon, and King Crimson. But I had to take it down, because my wall of albums is in the area downstairs where the kids play, and it really freaked out our 8-year-old. I can certainly understand why. This is just one in the many small details in Margot At the Wedding that ring so very true. Which is an indication of the intelligence of the movie. And some of these scenes are very funny, especially the Jack Black scenes. This is the kind of movie that suits him best. Where he is not the centre of attention, where he does not have to carry the comedy all on his own, but where he can add understated fat-sloppy-guy comedy to understated prim-proper-people type scenes. Think of the scene in High Fidelity where he laments the fact that the customer does not own Blonde On Blonde.

But Margot at the Wedding can only go so far on wit and intelligence and fine performances. For most movies, that should be enough. But the one adult character who is actually likeable is John Turturro, as Kidman’s husband, and he shows up for about two minutes of screen time. So by the end, the movie’s message is a decent one - no matter how lousy things get, or how lousy life is, you always have family to count on. But after watching the whole thing, you think “not THIS family!” These poor kids! Jennifer Jason Leigh is a space case, Nicole Kidman is a passive aggressive, unfaithful, clingy jerk of a mother, and Jack Black is a slovenly, childish, out of control deviant. (Which is funny, but not exactly laudable.) You wouldn’t wish this family on anyone, and you end up feeling pretty sorry for the kids. With more Turturro, this movie could have potentially been a 9/10. As it stands, it is very smart, but tough to watch in parts. And it jsut feels like a standard, well-written, indie dark comedy with nothing new to say.

When I rented Romance and Cigarettes, I did so because of the cast and director. John Turturro directed this film, and it stars James Gandolfini, Kate Winslett, Susan Sarandon, Mary-Louise Parker, Mandy Moore, Eddie Izzard, and two of my favourites - Steve Buscemi and Christopher Walken. Based on that cast alone, I picked it up and watched it. So imagine my surprise when James Gandolfini, in the first scene, Tony Soprano, began to sing. Yes, Romance and Cigarettes is a musical! A bonkers, insane, weirdly entertaining musical. Everyone sings, and the musical numbers feel unnecessary, but they are the most entertaining part of the film. The basic premise is that Gandolfini is married to Sarandon, but cheating on her with the much-younger Kate Winslett, who has never looked sexier in a movie. Sarandon catches him, and effectively ends their relationship, which has an effect on the children (Mandy Moore, Mary-Louise Parker and Aida Turturro - who plays Ton’y sister on The Sopranos…weird).

Gandolfini’s character is named Nick Murder, a strange name, and he comes off as a modern, filthier Ralph Kramden. His buddy at work, Steve Buscemi, is a modern, much filthier Ed Norton. Every character is a bizarre weirdo, and they each have twisted and strange relationships with each other. And the movie is filthy. There is a weird but effective scene where Winslett talks to Gandolfini in an incredibly dirty phone call while Sarandon sings Janis Joplin’s Piece of My Heart. Christopher Walken, as “cousin Bo” (of course) has several of the best scenes, including a demented take on My Delilah, which ends with him using a knife to stab his wife, then singing into that knife as though it is a microphone. He is one of the strangest of the cast, in that he talks almost exclusively in movie lines and song titles. Mandy Moore’s creepy take on the song “I Want Candy” is mercifully cut short.

Overall, Romance And Cigarettes is fun and exuberant while still being tragic and sad. There are parts that are downright gloomy, which sort of takes away from the more entertaining moments. But watching these terrific actors, especially Walken, do their thing is more than enough reason to rent this film. It is not perfect, or even great, but it is more than enough fun for a Sunday afternoon.

Anthony Hopkins should feel good about his new movie Slipstream. He directed the film, as well as starring in it, and I am going to go ahead and assume that it turned out exactly the way he wanted it to turn out. That is, weird. I respect the fact that as long as his movie fit his vision, he didn’t care at all whether the rest of us got it or not, and even may not have cared if we enjoyed it or not. Slipstream seems to be about a movie script-writer whose mind is going, and who lives half in reality, half in his mind. Somehow, when I watched the trailers, I got the sense that this movie was about time travel. Maybe it was supposed to be about time travel, and I just didn’t get it. Hey, for all I know, this film could have been about a rabbit and a butterfly. Frankly, there’s no good way to tell. I have the sense that if I watched this film five or six times, I would be able to figure out what’s going on. But I don’t feel like doing that. Frankly, I don’t feel like watching it twice. I also have the sense that if David Lynch was allowed to make an entire movie while on PCP, it would look something like this one.

It’s OK to make a movie that doesn’t make perfect sense. Look at Lynch - Mulholland Drive, for example. And some of the greatest films are almost as bonkers as this one. Like, Weekend, for example, or Fellini’s stuff. But you have to either go all out, or wrap things up in some way. Slipstream starts out with a bunch of scenes that don’t fit together, a series of weird moments, one after another, slight changes in scenes that seem to indicate there is something bigger going on…and all of a sudden we’ve hit the 40 minute mark. And we still have no idea what’s happening. At all. Then things start making a little more sense. But by then, no one cares. We’ve completely given up on trying to make sense of anything, and when stuff sort of starts coming together, we just want it to wrap up and the movie be over. And this one never really comes together at all. Individually, each scene is likely compelling. Hopkins is quite good at creating a memorable image, or phrase, or moment. But taken collectively, this is just too much for your average viewer. Or your sub-par viewer, or your above-average, gifted viewer. Any viewer.

There are some great performances in here. Hopkins is terrific, and John Turturro is awesome fun as a maniac movie producer. The film also stars Camryn Manheim, Christian Slater, Michael Clarke Duncan, Jeffrey Tambor, and in the most bizarre cameo of the year, Kevin McCarthy as himself. For some reason, Slipstream continually refers to the 1956 classic horror film Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers. And Kevin McCarthy, who was the star of that film, shows up as himself, now at age 84, in order to sit in a car with Hopkins. Since the movie ended, I have been trying very hard to understand the references to Bodysnatchers, but I have yet to figure it out. And I’m not willing to watch it again to help me understand. Slipstream is a ballsy film to make, it’s as experimental and avant-garde (if that’s even a real term) as anything made this year, but it doesn’t work. When it was over, I suspected that it was a movie designed specifically to confuse me, rather than to make me think. It’s like having one of those magic-eye pictures, the ones you stare at for a long time until you see a sailboat or a tiger or whatever. Only, this one has no underlying picture. So you can stare at it for as long as you like, but you’ll never see anything. And you will be frustrated and angry.