Opened 30 Years Ago: KING OF NEW YORK (9/28/1990)

 

KING OF NEW YORK
(Italy - 1990)
Directed by Abel Ferrara

On Blu-ray/DVD/VOD: THE JESUS ROLLS (2020) and ARKANSAS (2020)

THE JESUS ROLLS
(US/France - 2020)

The Coen Bros. have made it clear that there's never going to be a sequel to their beloved 1998 cult classic THE BIG LEBOWSKI, but they did give John Turturro their blessing to move forward with his labor-of-love spinoff THE JESUS ROLLS. Turturro's Jesus Quintana, a trash-talking bowling rival of The Dude, Walter, and Donny and a convicted pederast ("Eight-year-olds, Dude"), only had a couple of scenes in THE BIG LEBOWSKI, but the actor turned a minor character into a fan favorite, complete with his teasing lick of the bowling ball, his triumphant strike dance, and his catchphrase "Nobody fucks with the Jesus!" Jesus was funny in those two very small doses, but is there enough there to carry his own movie? Turturro certainly thought so, and spent years writing this during his downtime between other projects before finally shooting it way back in 2016. The fact that it took this long to get a limited release followed by VOD is the big red flag that this is decidedly not THE BIG LEBOWSKI II: THE JESUS ROLLS. It is, however, a remake of Bertrand Blier's controversial 1974 French film GOING PLACES, about two road-tripping buddies and petty criminals (one of them a young Gerard Depardieu) and their sexual exploits, with the two of them eventually sharing a young hairdresser's assistant who tags along on their aimless journey.

In THE JESUS ROLLS, Jesus is paroled from Sing Sing (wasn't it Chino in LEBOWSKI?) after serving six months for indecent exposure, with a farewell conversation with the warden (Christopher Walken, dropping by for two minutes to play "Christopher Walken") revealing that the whole pederast charge was a misunderstanding when an eight-year-old kid two urinals over in a men's room caught a glimpse of Jesus' huge dick and asked him about it. Greeted by his ex-con buddy Petey (Bobby Cannavale), the two immediately steal the muscle car of obnoxious hairdresser Paul Dominique (Jon Hamm) and take his girlfriend Marie (Audrey Tautou) with them. So begins an episodic road movie, with homoerotic overtures between Jesus and Petey (Jesus tries to seduce him at one point, telling a reluctant Petey "Take it easy, man...it's OK between friends"), and the two eventually forming a throuple with Marie, who's slept with 374 men but has never experienced an orgasm (among those 374 is Jesus' bowling sidekick Liam, who's mentioned but never seen). They get separated on a few occasions--Jesus and Petey end up having an expensive dinner and a motel threesome with "767" (Susan Sarandon), who's just been released after a long stretch in a women's prison, and later touch base with her just-paroled son (Pete Davidson), who becomes the first man to bring Marie to orgasm.

THE JESUS ROLLS

GOING PLACES

You think Turturro showed this to Joel and Ethan Coen? Because I'd pay to see their reaction to it. Watching the Coens watch THE JESUS ROLLS has to be more entertaining than just watching THE JESUS ROLLS. There's just one moment in its seemingly endless 85 minutes that I found even remotely amusing (Petey looking at a porno mag and declaring "Vanessa Del Rio is underrated!"), and it's hard telling why Turturro thought dropping Jesus into a ponderous remake of GOING PLACES was a good idea. Did he really want to direct a remake of GOING PLACES but found that shoehorning Jesus Quintana into it was the only way he could secure funding? You think it's a bad sign that THE BIG LEBOWSKI, arguably the most quotable comedy since CADDYSHACK, gets a spinoff with a memorable character and still takes over three years to find a distributor? The closing credits still display a 2017 copyright. Turturro tries to placate the LEBOWSKI superfans, blowtorching through Jesus' greatest hits in the early-going with numerous references and callbacks to give everyone what they came for (there's the mention of Liam, and Jesus says "Nobody fucks with the Jesus" twice, threatens to stick a gun up someone's ass and "pull the fucking trigger till it goes 'click,'" and does his cunnilingual bowling ball tongue move). But once he fulfills those obligations, THE JESUS ROLLS just becomes a miserable slog and an utterly pointless Turturro vanity project. A little of the Jesus goes a long way, and even the always-charming Tautou grates in the worst performance of her career. Turturro called in some favors from actor friends (Sarandon, Walken, Hamm, JB Smoove as a mechanic, Sonia Braga as Jesus' prostitute mother, Gloria Reuben as a restaurant owner, Michael Badalucco as a store security guard, Tim Blake Nelson as a doctor), but the ill-advised THE JESUS ROLLS--which technically isn't a sequel but still deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as other decades-late, legacy-defiling hosejobs like EASY RIDER: THE RIDE BACK and RAGING BULL II before its court-ordered title change to THE BRONX BULL--is a tedious, self-indulgent, borderline unwatchable disaster. Turturro shouldn't have fucked with the Jesus. (R, 85 mins)


ARKANSAS
(US/UK/Luxembourg - 2020)

Based on a 2009 novel by John Brandon, ARKANSAS belongs to that moody BLUE RUIN and BAD TURN WORSE subgenre of dark crime films. It wears its influences on its sleeve, with its Tarantino-inspired multiple narratives jumping between 1985, 1988, and the present day, and being a bleak Southern noir with doomed and frequently dim characters making bad decisions, it recalls the bleakly comedic crime sagas of the Coen Bros. It's also not the kind of film one would have expected to be the writing/directing debut of HOT TUB TIME MACHINE/late-period OFFICE co-star and hipster dweeb Clark Duke. A man-bunned Duke also co-stars as Swin who, along with Kyle (Liam Hemsworth), are two low-level drug couriers for Frog, a feared crime lord in the Dixie Mafia (described by Kyle as less an organized crime outfit and more "a loose affiliation of deadbeats and scumbags") who they've never even met. They're taking a shipment from Little Rock to Corpus Christi when they're intercepted by Bright (John Malkovich, who also starred with Hemsworth in the 2015 Coen riff CUT BANK), a Frog associate who uses his full-time job as a park ranger as cover. Under Frog's orders, Bright puts the two of them to work at the park, but a series of incidents--starting with the idiot grandson (Chandler Duke) of a Louisiana drug distributor (Barry Primus) deciding to follow Kyle and Swin back to Bright's house and retrieve the money they collected--sends things south. Complicating matters is that, despite being told to avoid socializing with the locals, the irritating Swin has taken up with cute nurse Johnna (Eden Brolin, Josh's daughter), after a meet-creepy in a Piggly Wiggly, in what co-writer Clark Duke and director Clark Duke no doubt thought was the perfect plot development for the character played by Clark Duke.

The early going is interesting enough, and Malkovich gets to Malkovich it up in his brief screen time, but ARKANSAS really comes alive when Duke goes for two long flashbacks to 1985 and 1988, showing the establishment of Frog's criminal empire. Frog is played by Vince Vaughn, who appears in the present day scenes a mystery man running a junky pawn shop, and though the viewer knows he's Frog, Kyle and Swin do not, and while Duke might've thought that would be a source of suspense, it's an aspect that sort-of fizzles. But it's the flashback sequences detailing Frog's origin story that are the best parts of ARKANSAS, showing his almost accidental rise from running a tiny pawn shop/flea market in West Memphis to becoming a major player in the Deep South drug trade under the tutelage of fireworks store owner Almond (Michael Kenneth Williams). Duke really establishes a hypnotic mood in these sequences, augmented by some hauntingly ethereal and strangely eerie Flaming Lips covers of Hank Williams Jr's "A Country Boy Can Survive" and "In the Arms of Cocaine," and The Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." The film's tone and style give it the same feel that a lot of movies have nowadays--that of an entire season of a cable series that's been whittled down to two hours--but Vaughn's character is so intriguing and his sections so well-executed (The Flaming Lips really need to release these songs on a covers album) that the rest of ARKANSAS can't help but pale in comparison when Duke returns to the comparatively ho-hum main plot involving Kyle and Swin. Some occasionally funny dialogue helps (Kentucky-born Swin complaining about how his many sisters are destined to be working in a strip joint and quipping "One's already named Cinnamon!"), but it's hard to watch this and not think a stronger film could've resulted had it just been about the rise of Frog, as Vaughn does a much better job of commanding the screen than either Hemsworth or Duke. Originally intended to screen at the 2020 SXSW before the festival was canceled over coronavirus concerns, ARKANSAS was ultimately relegated to a same-day VOD/DTV release by Lionsgate. It's a mixed bag when it's all over, and while it doesn't always work, it makes a much more credible case for itself than you'd expect from Clark Duke directing a downer crime saga more in line with a Jeremy Saulnier or a Macon Blair. (R, 117 mins)

Retro Review: AT CLOSE RANGE (1986)

AT CLOSE RANGE
(US - 1986)

Despite significant critical acclaim and spawning a huge radio and MTV hit with Madonna's "Live to Tell," AT CLOSE RANGE only made it to 83 screens at its widest release in the spring of 1986. Orion undoubtedly had a hard time figuring out how to sell this extremely dark, bleak, and depressing crime saga to a mainstream audience. Inspired by true events and set in rural Pennsylvania in 1978 (The Rolling Stones' "Miss You" and A Taste of Honey's "Boogie Oogie Oogie" make soundtrack appearances), the film follows delinquent Brad Whitewood, Jr (Sean Penn), who gets reacquainted with his white trash criminal father Brad Sr. (Christopher Walken), and is seduced into his dad's dangerous gang only to realize too late that he's in too deep and that not even bonds of family and blood mean a whole lot to Brad Sr if it gets in the way of his business. Brad Jr's situation is further complicated by his falling in love with farm girl Terri (Mary Stuart Masterson), with Brad Sr determined to stop them from running away together, especially after Brad Jr, his brother Tommy (Chris Penn)--who may or may not be Brad Sr's son--and their buddies (among them Crispin Glover and FRIGHT NIGHT's Stephen Geoffreys), are pinched committing their own half-assed burglary, get bailed out and promptly subpoenaed by the grand jury, with Brad Sr. stopping at absolutely nothing to keep the boys from telling what they know about his activities.

Though the similarities are on the surface, the presence of Glover arguably makes AT CLOSE RANGE a bit of a dry run for the even more hopeless, fucked-at-birth horrors of 1987's RIVER'S EDGE and, at least in terms of its presentation of lost youth and utterly worthless parenting, Larry Clark's Glover-less 2001 film BULLY. Brad Jr and Tommy drink, cause trouble, and deal weed, all out in the open as their mom (Millie Perkins, almost 30 years after THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK) and grandma (Eileen Ryan, Sean and Chris' mom) look the other way. The only person who attempts to instill some responsibility and discipline in Brad Jr. is his mom's blue-collar, working-man boyfriend (Alan Autry), who promptly gets dumped for his efforts. The opening hour is draggy and a bit meandering, but the more it goes on, the darker and more unsettling it gets, going from downbeat to suffocating as everyone feels the wrath of a housecleaning Brad Sr. Walken is unforgettable in one of his most powerful and surprisingly restrained performances, absolutely terrifying while significantly dialing down his eccentric Walkenisms and using them as sparingly as he ever would. His dead glare as you look in the eyes of a heartless sociopath who has zero hesitation about killing his own son is the stuff of nightmares. Make no mistake, Walken's Brad Sr is one the most chillingly diabolical monsters you've ever seen in this type of film, and that's saying something considering the same calendar year gave us Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth in BLUE VELVET. He's matched by Penn, and their final confrontation is almost overwhelmingly intense, especially in a moment of genuine terror on Walken's face when Penn switched prop guns just before the cameras rolled--Walken was obsessive about checking the safety of prop guns used in his scenes--and stuck an unchecked one right in Walken's face to get the response needed ("Whoa! Don't!"). Penn and Madonna were married at the time (this was also the year of SHANGHAI SURPRISE), and the film's biggest flaw is the incessant instrumental invocation of "Live to Tell," which sounds too 1986 contemporary for the otherwise accurate period setting (it was originally intended for the Craig Sheffer/Virginia Madsen thriller FIRE WITH FIRE but was nixed at the last minute and used here instead). The film was written by Nicholas Kazan (son of the legendary Elia Kazan) and directed by James Foley, who would direct Madonna in the 1987 bomb WHO'S THAT GIRL? before going on to better things with 1990's AFTER DARK, MY SWEET and 1992's GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS. Also with Candy Clark, Tracey Walter, David Strathairn, J.C. Quinn, R.D. Call, and a young Kiefer Sutherland as one of Tommy's buddies. AT CLOSE RANGE isn't mentioned a lot these days, but it stands the test of time as one of the most powerful films of the late '80s, and necessary viewing for Penn and Walken fans. (R, 111 mins)

In Theaters: JERSEY BOYS (2014)

JERSEY BOYS
(US - 2014)

Directed by Clint Eastwood. Written by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice. Cast: John Lloyd Young, Erich Bergen, Michael Lomenda, Vincent Piazza, Christopher Walken, Mike Doyle, Kathrine Narducci, Renee Marino, Freya Tingley, Steven J. Schirripa, Erica Piccininni, Joseph Russo, Donnie Kehr, Lou Volpe, Elizabeth Hunter. (R, 134 mins)

JERSEY BOYS, the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, became a Broadway phenomenon in 2005, going on to win the Tony for Best Musical and Best Lead Actor for John Lloyd Young as Valli. Young recreates the role for Clint Eastwood's big-screen version, which is not quite the adaptation that fans of the original musical or its many touring permutations might be expecting. The Broadway production, with a book by 1970s Woody Allen collaborator Marshall Brickman (ANNIE HALL, MANHATTAN) and Rick Elice, was anchored by a "Rashomon structure," which told the group's story from the vastly different POV of the four members, each under the guise of spring, summer, winter, and fall to make up the Four Seasons, supported and propelled by the group's songs. It all tied in together nicely, but Eastwood, working from a script by Brickman and Elice, almost completely abandons that concept other than occasional fourth-wall-breaking comments, but mainly, the focus is whittled down to just Frankie Valli. Eastwood also jettisons the whole "musical" element.  On the stage, JERSEY BOYS uses the music of the Four Seasons to tell the story, but on the screen, it's a standard-issue backstage biopic where the live performances and studio recording sessions essentially function in the place of where a montage might go.  A lavish musical with big production numbers might've been a challenge for Eastwood, but his vision of JERSEY BOYS is pretty much a Scorsese-lite gangster saga peppered with some timeless Four Seasons songs, glossing--sometimes quite sloppily--over details, cutting corners, and taking dramatic license when it's convenient or when something might make co-executive producer Frankie Valli look bad.  On the surface, it's a reasonably entertaining film and the musical performances are fine, and, unlike of a lot of Eastwood's directing efforts, it moves rather briskly, but by the end, it's all surface: if you want a BEHIND THE MUSIC breakdown of the Four Seasons, you'll learn more from their Wikipedia page than you will here.

Opening in 1951 Newark, Valli is introduced as 16-year-old Francis Castelluccio, a neighborhood kid with a killer falsetto and plans to attend barber school.  He has strict parents (there's an inspired running gag where random people keep asking him "Hey, aren't you supposed to be home by 11:00?"), but runs with a rough crowd led by would-be gangster Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza), who plays guitar in a group called the Varietones when he isn't planning half-assed burglaries and trying to get in with local mob kingpin Gyp DeCarlo (Christopher Walken). Tommy recognizes Frankie's talent and gets him to join the band, along with another trouble-prone buddy, bassist Nick Massi (Michael Lomenda). They change their name to The Four Lovers and get some local recognition, but that changes when their buddy Joe Pesci (Joseph Russo)--yes, that Joe Pesci, Tommy clarifies, with young Pesci even asking "Funny how?" at one point--introduces them to former Royal Teens keyboardist Bob Gaudio (Erich Bergen), who wrote the hit song "Short Shorts."  Gaudio has the songwriting chops they need, and coupled with Frankie's voice and the production expertise of Bob Crewe (Mike Doyle), the Four Seasons are born, despite the objections of Tommy, who sees himself as the leader of the group and constantly resorts to the bullying tactics of the Newark streets in order to maintain that authority. What follows is a strictly connect-the-dots chronicle of the band's rise, fall, and eventual rise again at their 1990 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction:  they get screwed by a record contract, life on the road takes its toll, marriages get ruined, Gaudio and Tommy butt heads over the direction of the band, Tommy's excesses cause the whole thing to implode, etc, etc.

After the "1951" title card, the time element in JERSEY BOYS is handled atrociously.  It's completely abandoned by Eastwood, so there's often no way of telling if days or years have gone by. A character in 1951 is talking about wanting to see THE BLOB, which was made in 1958. Frankie marries tough-talking Mary (Renee Marino) and has a daughter.  Then he gets back from a tour and has three teenage girls at home. Sometimes you can only tell that a long period of time has passed because the sideburns get longer, the lapels get wider, and Gaudio's goatee gets more unkempt. Mary says she's sick of Frankie's serial adultery, but we never see it. After the marriage ends, Frankie has a fling with a Detroit reporter (Erica Piccininni), who vanishes only to reappear much later talking about "all the things we've been working for" as she dumps him. What things? Where have you been?  And do we even know your name? Characters appear and disappear throughout with no explanation, and not in a way that feels like their scenes were just cut, but more in a way that these scenes just never existed in the first place. There's little sense of context:  we're told Gaudio wrote "Short Shorts," but we're not told that he was 15 when he wrote it.  As played by the 28-year-old Bergen, Gaudio is introduced like he's some older, experienced musician who can offer them guidance and who knows his way around the music industry, when in fact, he was only 17 when he hooked up with the decade-older Frankie and the even-older Tommy, who was already past 30 when they hit it big. With that in mind, it's easy to see Tommy's resentment of this Gaudio kid taking creative control, but that noteworthy age difference never comes up.  Also, Tommy, Frankie, Nick Massi, and Tommy's brother Nick DeVito had some minor success as The Four Lovers, releasing two albums and several singles on a major label. JERSEY BOYS presents them as music industry novices who had no idea how the business worked prior to Gaudio replacing Nick DeVito and turning them into The Four Seasons. In reality, Valli and Crewe worked together during the Four Lovers era, but the film has Gaudio introducing the band to Crewe.  Crewe would become the band's lyricist and de facto fifth member, but the movie shows Gaudio as the guy who wrote everything and Crewe as their producer, except much later when Gaudio says something about "Bob needing to write some lyrics." Then there's the issue of Frankie's oldest daughter Francine.  At 17, Francine (Freya Tingley) runs away from home and Frankie has to fly from Vegas to Jersey to find her. He does, and tells her that Gaudio will write some songs for her and they'll get a voice coach to help her be the singer she always wanted to be.  It's supposed to be a powerful moment of emotional bonding between an estranged father and daughter, but because we've seen Francine for maybe 30 seconds prior to this and know nothing about her, the whole incident comes out of thin air and falls completely flat.

Perhaps most egregiously, JERSEY BOYS implies that the Four Seasons broke up after some Tommy-instigated money problems at some point in the 1960s (I'm guessing--the timeline isn't really clear). It's a huge blow-up that prompts a frustrated Massi to quit the band and stay home with his family, which would put it in 1965 if we go by actual history, which Eastwood, Brickman, and Elice apparently don't have the time or the inclination to do. Tommy exits the story at this point, and Frankie becomes a solo artist to pay off Tommy's debts, but in reality, Tommy was in the band for another five years, and while Tommy and Gaudio would eventually quit (though he retired from recording and touring, Gaudio continued to work behind the scenes as the group's songwriter), Valli never disbanded the Four Seasons and has remained the sole constant member.  The film doesn't even mention the successful late '70s incarnation of the group, with future drummer Gerry Polci handling lead vocals on the 1976 hit single "December 1963 (Oh, What a Night)," a song that JERSEY BOYS portrays, along with Valli's 1975 solo hit "My Eyes Adored You," as belonging to the original Four Seasons lineup.  Perhaps this is how co-executive producers Valli and Gaudio see things in their own Rashomon structure, but there's a fine line between dramatic license and rewriting history.

Young has this role down, so it's no surprise that he's fine as Valli, even if it's asking a bit much to buy the now-38-year-old performer playing 16 in the early parts of the film. Bergen and Lomenda are both vets of the touring versions of the musical, and handle their roles reasonably well, considering their relative newness to the medium.  Bergen has an odd Jeff Goldblum-meets-Michael Shannon demeanor that indicates he'd do well in character parts if he chooses to pursue a career in movies, while Lomenda, who plays Massi as a bit of a lunkheaded lug, more or less gets relegated to the background but does get a couple of instances where he does an effective job of playing not-very-articulate guy struggling to get his feelings across.  Piazza, the only non-musical performer of the quartet, goes for the standard "tough mook" act that he does as Lucky Luciano on HBO's BOARDWALK EMPIRE, but isn't asked to do much other than be the self-centered asshole of the group. Walken has a few scenes where he gets to be Walken, which is always fun, and at least a couple of his lines feel improvised (especially "Don't use my bathroom!" which, in context, sounds like a hilarious ad-lib). The cliched scenes of Frankie's home life do nothing but slow the film to a halt, especially since we have no idea who the women in his life really are, whether it's his wife or, after the divorce, the reporter.  Like Bergen and Lomenda, Marino is a veteran of the touring version of JERSEY BOYS and played various female roles on different tours, but her performance here as Mary Valli is embarrassingly bad.  Perhaps she's too accustomed to theatrically over-projecting for the live-on-stage factor and didn't adjust to the different medium like Bergen and Lomenda, but her shrewish, booze-swilling, bitch-on-wheels act is unbearable and more fitting for a WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? production staged by Tommy Wiseau. She's overwrought and completely over-the-top, snarling and shrieking her way through her scenes, but given the liberties that the story takes with other elements, perhaps Marino should be given the benefit of the doubt.  Is it possible that her performance is the way it is because that's how Valli wanted his ex-wife portrayed? JERSEY BOYS has some good performances, from both acting and musical perspectives, but it suffers from the same issues that plague several recent Eastwood films:  known as the most efficient director in Hollywood, one who always comes in under budget and ahead of schedule, perhaps he's getting a little sloppy.  He throws in some nice touches--I liked his attempts at sticking to filming techniques of the era, like a blatantly fake process screen background in a car scene, the kind you'd see in a 1960s movie, and the obvious backlot used for the early Newark neighborhood scenes--but he doesn't really seem fully committed here. The Eastwood of 40 or even 20 years ago wouldn't have allowed a performance as mind-bogglingly awful as Marino's to happen, regardless of her inexperience or (hypothetically) Valli's wishes. An engaged Eastwood would've seen during production that it wasn't working. It's one thing to think it's a good idea to cast Raul Julia and Sonia Braga as Germans in a dumb action movie like 1990's THE ROOKIE, but this is something else entirely. Around the time of INVICTUS--his worst film as a director--I had a discussion with some friends and we concluded that perhaps Eastwood was cranking his films out a little too quickly. Eastwood need not prove anything to anyone, and at 84 and in his seventh decade in the movies, it's great that he can work so frequently, but if he's going to rush through them and not give a shit, then what's the point?

On DVD/Blu-ray: WOULD YOU RATHER (2013); THE POWER OF FEW (2013); and CRAWLSPACE (2013)

WOULD YOU RATHER
(US - 2013)

If you enjoyed Jeffrey Combs' iconic turns in 1985's RE-ANIMATOR and 1986's FROM BEYOND, then you'll definitely want to take a look at his inspired performance in WOULD YOU RATHER.  Combs, an actor whose talents have been too frequently squandered in subpar DTV horror movies and on the convention circuit, lets it rip as sinister philanthropist Shepard Lambrick, who hosts a dinner game for financially-strapped guests looking for a way out of their desperate situation.  Iris (Brittany Snow), forced to drop out of school to deal with her late parents' mountain of debt and take care of her cancer-stricken younger brother (Logan Miller), ends up at Lambrick's mansion with other participants and the festivities begin with Lambrick offering the vegetarian Iris $10,000 if she eats a steak ("A lifetime of discipline...gone in an instant for $10,000!" he mocks).  After goading recovering alcoholic Conway (John Heard) into ending 16 years of sobriety by downing a decanter of scotch for $50,000, the stakes get higher with a twisted game of Would You Rather where it quickly becomes apparent that Lambrick and his goonish butler Bevans (Jonathan Coyne), a former British intelligence interrogator, are going to make them kill each other until only one remains.  Director David Guy Levy and screenwriter Steffen Schlachtenhaufen do a nice job of keeping the tension high and the pace swift, considering that most of the film takes place around a dining room table.  While it has grisly moments, Levy also wisely keeps the gore to a minimum, showing an understanding that what's implied and maybe only heard offscreen can be far more unsettling than seeing it up close.  It's a pretty misanthropic, feel-bad kind-of film that does occasionally succumb to cliché (of course, someone will scream "You sick fuck!" at Lambrick) and has some loose ends (Robin Lord Taylor, as Lambrick's sniveling son, disappears from the movie), but it's surprisingly engaging and Combs, bringing that "Who's going to believe a talking head?  Get a job in a sideshow!" condescension to his character, is just terrific.  (Unrated, 93 mins)

THE POWER OF FEW
(US - 2013)

Here's yet another post-CRASH, "everything is connected" ensemble collection of vignettes and it's one of the worst.  Produced, written, directed, and self-distributed by "groundbreaking" would-be indie auteur Leone Marucci, the New Orleans-shot THE POWER OF FEW gathers a group of unlikable characters into a 20-minute time span--replayed from different perspectives--where fate causes their lives to intersect.  There's a homeless ex-news anchor (Christopher Walken) and his sidekick (Jordan Prentice), who come into possession of a dim cop's (Caleb Moody) misplaced firearm; a teenager (Devon Gearhart) attempting an impromptu robbery of a carryout because he needs to buy medicine for his infant brother; two undercover agents, one by-the-book (Christian Slater) and the other a hot-tempered cokehead (Nicky Whelan) in pursuit of a suspected terrorist (Navid Negahban); a quirky courier (co-producer Q'orianka Kilcher) hired by the suspected terrorist to deliver an important package, but she gets distracted by a meet-cute (Jesse Bradford) who's got bad people after him; and two thugs (Anthony Anderson, Juvenile) in pursuit of Bradford, only to be distracted by Few (Tione Johnson), a teenage girl with wisdom beyond her years, stowing away in the backseat of their car to plead with them to stop the violence and the killing. 

Announced in industry trades as far back as 2006 and shot in 2010, THE POWER OF FEW was hyped as an "interactive" community filmmaking experience, where fans would get to edit the movie.  That ended up being just a bit of a chase scene involving Kilcher and Bradford, though perhaps Marucci, not likely to be mistaken for Akira Kurosawa anytime soon, would've been better off letting random anonymous people on the internet work on this RASHOMON FOR DUMMIES.  Pompously self-important and gratingly self-indulgent, the amateurish THE POWER OF FEW never gets going because Marucci can't stop showing off, whether it's a POV shot from a gunk-filled bathroom sink or dizzying over-the-shoulder shots when people are running.  The writing is terrible (Slater: "We have to follow the law!"  Whelan: "WHOSE LAW?!"), there's a ludicrous MacGuffin subplot about the missing Shroud of Turin and what's actually in the mysterious package, Larry King appears as himself, and several actors get long monologues that just go nowhere.  Walken's might've worked if it wasn't painfully obvious that he's reading cue cards.  Walken is a guy who's breathed life into his share of shitty movies and when even he's bad, you know the project is doomed.  Put it this way:  thanks to THE POWER OF FEW, KANGAROO JACK is now the second-worst movie that Walken and Anderson have appeared in together. (R, 96 mins)


CRAWLSPACE
(Australia - 2012; 2013 US release)

CRAWLSPACE is somewhat of an Australian horror summit:  produced by WOLF CREEK and ROGUE director Greg McLean, co-written by Adam Patrick Foster (the brutal revenge thriller CLOSURE) and featuring a score by STORM WARNING and NATURE'S GRAVE director Jamie Blanks, it's also the feature directing debut of veteran makeup effects artist Justin Dix, who worked on films like LAKE MUNGO and RED HILL.  Dix gets a lot right with CRAWLSPACE, namely the sense of claustrophobia and his use of practical makeup and splatter effects, which in this era is almost an act of defiance, and he has a plethora of ideas, but whether it's meant to be twisty misdirection or just a fusing on influences, they all end up coming off as half-baked and unfocused, causing the film to drift into incoherence.  The Australian government has lost contact with a secret underground military base located in the desolate Outback and sends in the requisite elite unit to locate personnel and exterminate any quarantined prisoners that may have escaped from a certain level.  They also find a clearly non-human life form as well as Eve (Amber Clayton), an apparent amnesiac with a recent brain surgery scar.  Eve has no recollection of how she got there, and her existence is also of interest to squad leader Romeo (the awesomely-named Ditch Davey, which is perhaps Australian for "Almost Jason Statham"), who recognizes her as his dead wife.  The creature angle is quickly abandoned as the team, with Eve in tow, finds a couple of scientists who tell them of secret experiments involving memory implants and a new kind of espionage, a sort-of "psychic combat," where soldiers are trained to telepathically turn their enemies against themselves. 

Dix borrows/steals from a lot of other films here and can't really settle on what kind of movie he wants to make:  it starts off as an action-packed throwback to '80s fare like ALIENS mixed with the more recent RESIDENT EVIL, but then goes into a weird SCANNERS/UNIVERSAL SOLDIER hybrid, with elements of EVENT HORIZON and psychological horror tossed in at random.  It's always watchable and certainly competently-made, but the plot is all over the place and around an hour in, you'll just stop caring and give up trying to make sense of it.  Dix obviously has a knack for this sort of thing from a directing standpoint and he wears his love of these movies on his sleeve, which buys him a little breathing room, but it would be really interesting to see what he could do with a more disciplined script that didn't feel like it was bound with the pages in random order.  (Unrated, 87 mins)

In Theaters: STAND UP GUYS (2012)

STAND UP GUYS
(US - 2012)

Directed by Fisher Stevens.  Written by Noah Haidle.  Cast: Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, Alan Arkin, Julianna Margulies, Mark Margolis, Lucy Punch, Vanessa Ferlito, Addison Timlin, Craig Sheffer, Katheryn Winnick, Weronika Rosati. (R, 94 mins)

There's a famous Gene Siskel quote where the legendary film critic said that one of the criteria in his reviewing a movie was "Is this film more interesting than a documentary of the same actors having lunch?"  That's not to say that STAND UP GUYS is a bad movie, because it's not.  And in all fairness, most movies released these days aren't as interesting as the notion of sitting in on Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin kicking back and bullshitting over a meal together.  While STAND UP GUYS offers some laughs and some drama and a chance to see three living legends doing what they do, the film seems fully cognizant of its ability to just coast through 90 minutes without really making much of an effort, because with 72-year-old Pacino, 69-year-old Walken, and 78-year-old Arkin onboard for approximately 140 combined years of movie experience, 90% of the work is pretty much done.  Seeing these guys onscreen together is an absolute joy for any serious film fan.  It's too bad they weren't given much to work with other than essentially being GRUMPY OLD GOODFELLAS and Pacino walking around with a giant hard-on after scarfing down a fistful of boner pills.

When mid-level mobster Val (Pacino) is released from prison, his best buddy Doc (Walken) is there to pick him up.  Val served 28 years, taking the fall for a botched job that resulted in the death of the son of powerful and bizarrely-nicknamed mob boss Claphands (Mark Margolis).  Claphands gives the long-retired Doc 24 hours to kill Val.  Val knows it's coming and the conflicted Doc decides to take him out for one last party.  The pair visit a brothel, break into a pharmacy to steal some Viagra, go back to the brothel, steal a car, bust their old emphysema-stricken wheelman Hirsch (Arkin) out of a nursing home, and take on the lowlifes who own the stolen car and gang-raped a young prostitute (Vanessa Ferlito).  All the while, the clock's ticking and Doc, under increasing pressure from Claphands and his goons, has until 10:00 am to whack Val and can't bring himself to do it.

Pacino and Walken work so well together that they make it easy to overlook the deficiencies of Noah Haidle's script.  Both do their distinct "Pacino" and "Walken" routines while admirably not overdoing it.  Pacino avoids his "Hoo-aah!" histrionics and Walken is nicely subdued as the quiet Doc, who spends his days painting and watching "the cable TV" (which, like most things, is awesome when said by Christopher Walken), and visiting an all-night restaurant where he's befriended a sweet graveyard-shift server (Addison Timlin).  Walken is given the film's most interesting character and underplays it quite well, looking appropriately weathered and worn-down after a long life nickel-and-diming it as a blue-collar working stiff gangster (these guys were probably friends of Eddie Coyle).  STAND UP GUYS focuses primarily on the relationship between Val and Doc, and Arkin really gets shortchanged in what basically amounts to an extended cameo.  His Hirsch doesn't even turn up until halfway through and even then, he doesn't really prominently figure in before a highly implausible departure that doesn't make a whole lot of sense (Julianna Margulies has a couple of scenes as Hirsch's daughter, and she's given even less to do). 

STAND UP GUYS, which expanded this week after opening on one screen in New York and Los Angeles for a week in December 2012 to qualify for the Oscars (that was hardly a necessary maneuver, Lionsgate), has a lot of quiet and introspective moments that really work but just as many silly elements that don't, and as a result, it struggles to find a consistent tone.  Arkin is a national treasure, but even he can't sell the idea of his character hooked to an oxygen tank gasping for breath in one scene, and leading the cops on a wild chase in the next before going to a brothel and fulfilling his lifelong dream of "two women at the same time."  Old guys doing young guy things can be funny, like Kirk Douglas in a Red Hot Chili Peppers mosh pit in 1986's somewhat similar TOUGH GUYS, but STAND UP GUYS too often panders to the lowest common denominator by going for the cheap "geezers being vulgar" laughs, and a dazed Pacino pitching a tent in his pants is about on the level of Burgess Meredith talking about "taking the skin boat to Tuna Town!" in GRUMPY OLD MEN.  But with these guys working together, Haidle and director Fisher Stevens clearly realize that most of their work is done for them.  It's really hard to dislike the admittedly slight and forgettable STAND UP GUYS, but one still wishes it exerted itself just a little and gave these still-vital gentlemen something a little more substantive.

On DVD/Blu-ray: DARK HORSE (2012) and [REC] 3: GENESIS (2012)

DARK HORSE
(US/UK - 2012)

Easily the least confrontational film yet from WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE and HAPPINESS misery auteur Todd Solondz, DARK HORSE still has some of the expected excruciatingly uncomfortable moments, but shows signs of its maker perhaps mellowing with age.  Jordan Gelber (who looks like he could be the younger brother of CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM's Jeff Garlin) is Abe, an overweight, obnoxious, self-deluded 35-year-old suburban New Jersey man-child who lives with his parents (morose dad Christopher Walken, sporting a hilarious wig, and enabling, coddling mom Mia Farrow), collects toys and action figures,"works" at his dad's real estate company (meaning, he sits in his office all day perusing eBay, not getting his work done, and coasting on the fact that he's the boss' kid), drives a garish bright yellow Hummer, and angrily lives in the shadow of his younger, successful doctor brother (Justin Bartha).  Abe meets Miranda (Selma Blair) at a wedding and makes awkward conversation.  She also lives with her parents, suffers from crippling depression and is overmedicated to the point of near-catatonia, but she somehow doesn't run when Abe pursues her, and even accepts a marriage proposal after one evening of hanging out at her house.  Solondz repeatedly blurs the line between reality and fantasy and maybe for the first time since Heather Matarazzo's Dawn Weiner in WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE, actually feels some empathy for his central character.  Sure, Abe is kind of a dick, talks a lot of shit, and brings much of his troubles on himself, and while Solondz refuses to allow him a happy ending, he also seems intent on showing us that deep down, Abe's really not a bad guy and still could be a winner--a dark horse (all underscored by uplifting and gratingly cheesy pop songs).  Solondz has had some ups and downs in the years following his masterpiece HAPPINESS.  DARK HORSE feels like a minor and forgettable film, but all things considered, it's one of his better recent works, certainly a step up from the dismal HAPPINESS sequel LIFE DURING WARTIME.  Over his last few films, it seemed like Solondz's misanthropic, poking-people-with-sticks act was running out of gas, and DARK HORSE at least finds him trying something a little different, almost like he took some kind of reflective, self-imposed time out.  Who knows?  Maybe there's an uplifting crowd pleaser somewhere in Solondz's future.  One point of interest is the closing credits listing Blair as "Miranda (formerly 'Vi')," Vi being the character she played in Solondz's 2002 film STORYTELLING, and if they are the same character, the events of STORYTELLING would certainly explain some of Miranda's current mental state.  (R, 86 mins)

[REC] 3: GENESIS
(Spain - 2012)

Pointless third entry in the Spanish found-footage horror franchise about a viral demonic possession outbreak in an apartment building. Directors Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza had a hard enough time stretching the film out to the disappointing first sequel--now Balaguero sits this one out and lets Plaza fly solo, and he doesn't even seem interested in making a [REC] film. Set at a wedding reception for Clara (Leticia Dolera) and Koldo (Diego Martin) that's ultimately revealed to be taking place at the same time as the events of the first film, [REC] 3 opens with a 22-minute pre-credits sequence of standard-issue found-footage shaky-cam courtesy of a professional wedding photographer (Sr. B) and his steadicam unit and Koldo's teenage cousin (Alex Monner) and his handheld. All hell breaks loose when Koldo's uncle (Emilio Mencheta) turns out to be infected from a dog bite, spreading the demonic virus among the partygoers. Plaza abandons the found-footage element altogether after 25 minutes or so, which sort of renders the whole [REC] element meaningless and the film becomes standard issue zombie fare (owing a little to Lamberto Bava's DEMONS and Michele Soavi's THE CHURCH), and only a semi-serious one at that. The first [REC] (remade in the US as QUARANTINE) still stands as one of the best in the recent endless string of found-footage films, but Plaza approaches this entry using a vastly different tone. Sure, some of the humor works, like the comical sight of Koldo spending half the film in medieval armor that he finds in a nearby church, and a childrens entertainer with a cheap sponge costume calling himself "SpongeJohn" to avoid copyright violations is funny a couple of times until he completely wears out his welcome. By the time Clara finds a chainsaw, slices off part of her wedding dress and repeatedly shouts "This is my day!" as she slices through the skulls of demonic ghouls, turning into a Spanish Milla Jovovich by way of Bruce Campbell, Plaza has effectively jettisoned any semblance of straight-faced horror and it plays out like a tired EVIL DEAD knockoff.  Was this even supposed to be a [REC] film? For all its faults, it's still a marginally more entertaining film than the previous entry (which lost its way midway through and never recovered), though it has just as little reason to exist.  And yes...Balaguero is apparently returning to direct [REC] 4.  For some reason.  (R, 80 mins)

In Theaters: SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS (2012)

SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS
(UK - 2012)

Written and directed by Martin McDonagh.  Cast: Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, Tom Waits, Abbie Cornish, Olga Kurylenko, Zeljko Ivanek, Harry Dean Stanton, Gabourey Sidibe, Michael Pitt, Michael Stuhlbarg, Kevin Corrigan, Linda Bright Clay, Long Nguyen, Brendan Sexton III. (R, 110 mins)

Writer/director Martin McDonagh's follow-up to his acclaimed IN BRUGES (2008) again demonstrates his deftness at mixing the comedic and the dramatic and doing so without jarring or uneven shifts in tone.  SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS adds a "meta" element that's somewhat reminiscent of Shane Black's 2005 cult favorite KISS KISS BANG BANG (a great film totally abandoned by its distributor).  With rare exception--KISS KISS BANG BANG, for example--self-reflexive meta films of this sort tend to exude a certain air of smugness about them, almost as if the filmmakers are too busy marveling at how preciously clever they're being.  For the most part, McDonagh does a good job at keeping that element in check, but it doesn't always work as well as it should, or as well as McDonagh thinks it is.  Contrary to what the trailers, TV spots, and poster art are selling, this isn't exactly the wacky comedy about a ragtag group of criminal miscreants that it appears to be.  It's *A* film like that...just not the one being advertised.

In Hollywood, hard-drinking Irish screenwriter Marty (McDonagh's IN BRUGES star Colin Farrell) is having a hard time finding inspiration for his latest script, titled SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS.  He's got one:  the Jack of Diamonds serial killer, who happens to be going around wiping out mobsters and leaving a jack of diamonds card behind.  Marty's best friend Bobby Bickle (Sam Rockwell) is an out-of-work actor who makes a living in a lucrative scam with aging, dapper, cravat-wearing criminal Hans (Christopher Walken), where Bobby kidnaps a dog and after a few days, Hans returns it to the owner for the reward.  Things spiral out of control when Bobby kidnaps Bonny, a Shih Tzu owned by hot-tempered, trigger-happy crime boss Charlie Costello (Woody Harrelson), who thinks nothing of killing anyone who gets in the way of him retrieving his beloved dog.

That's the essential "plot," and that's where a typical Hollywood points A-to-B-to-C story would focus.  But McDonagh takes things in unexpected directions with various sidetracks and detours as he cinematically demonstrates the stages of the writing process as Marty and Billy (who wants to help write the script) brainstorm and the film turns into a running commentary on itself.  These are tricky waters for a film to navigate.  If it's done right, it's brilliant.  If it's not, then it's pompous and insufferable.  SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS isn't brilliant as a whole, but it seems headed that way for the first half.  It's filled with sharp writing, witty and profane dialogue, great characters, and inspired situations that often border on silly but are immensely enjoyable.  McDonagh weaves together hilarious comedy, devastating drama, and some surprising scenes of shocking violence with confidence and energy, but once Marty suggests, instead of a big shootout, the characters in his script should just go to the desert and talk, that's exactly what McDonagh has his characters in the film do.  While it's nice watching Farrell, Rockwell, and Walken explore these characters and give them added dimensions, there's no denying it kills the momentum for a while.  There's certainly an argument that subverting that expectation of a big shootout (which we eventually get) is McDonagh's whole point, but it's the only time the film threatens to become one of those meta movies where the winking gets a little forced and you start to feel like the filmmakers think the material is beneath them.  There's some good stuff after this section, but SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS never returns to being as entertaining as it was for that first hour.

Even if it doesn't quite hang together all the way through, SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS does boast a terrific ensemble cast.  Rockwell has rarely been better, and Hans is easily Walken's best role in years.  Whether he's doting over his cancer-stricken wife (Linda Bright Clay), making odd facial expressions, or saying things like "Fuck the cops!  Fuck 'em!" in ways that only he could say them, Walken turns in a marvelously inspired "Christopher Walken"-y performance that's great fun to watch.  Rockwell and Walken are the standouts, but Farrell and Harrelson do fine work, and there's also memorable supporting turns by Tom Waits, Harry Dean Stanton, and, of course, Bonny the Shih Tzu.  SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS functions on multiple levels and is the kind of film that probably requires more than one viewing to catch and process everything.  It's one of those films where subsequent viewings will likely bring other things to the surface to enrich the experience.  I certainly enjoyed enough of it to pick up the eventual Blu-ray and spend more time studying it in greater detail.  It's just that kind of film.

Cult Classics Revisited: KING OF NEW YORK (1990)

KING OF NEW YORK
(Italy/US - 1990)  Directed by Abel Ferrara.  Written by Nicholas St. John.  Cast: Christopher Walken, Larry Fishburne, David Caruso, Victor Argo, Wesley Snipes, Giancarlo Esposito, Janet Julian, Joey Chin, Paul Calderon, Steve Buscemi, Theresa Randle, Roger Smith.  106 mins.  R


The 1990s began with a period of fierce productivity and widespread acclaim for indie NYC bad boy Abel Ferrara, but by 1999, his career was virtually in ruins and his films had routinely extensive shelf time before getting dumped on video. With KING OF NEW YORK's release in 1990 and with BAD LIEUTENANT in 1992, Ferrara established himself as a unique voice in independent film just when the Tarantino/indie auteur explosion was happening.  But Ferrara is rarely grouped among the same movement, possibly because he's older and had a journeyman career that began in early 1970s porn.  KING OF NEW YORK has acquired a cult following over the last 20 years and resonated somewhat in rap culture, though not to the degree of Brian De Palma's SCARFACE.  That's likely because, despite its commercial storyline, it's an odd, eccentric film, and that's due as much to Ferrara's style as it is to Christopher Walken delivering one of his most "Christopher Walken" performances.


Just released from prison, drug lord Frank White (Walken) sets up his operation at the Plaza Hotel with plans to go legit and fund a children's hospital, but not before wiping out the competition.  There's a bizarre, sometimes dreamlike feel to the opening half hour, but the film settles into a groove with the introduction of three NYC detectives obsessed with shutting Frank down:  weary, rumpled, chain-smoking Roy Bishop (Victor Argo) and his two hotheaded partners, Gilley (David Caruso) and Flanigan (Wesley Snipes).  Unable to play it by the book as Bishop demands, Gilley and Flanigan use their own time to go after Frank and his thug crew, led by the fast-talking enforcer Jimmy Jump (Laurence Fishburne, when he still went by "Larry") with disastrous results in a long, stunning chase sequence in a driving rain.

As good as Walken is here, whether he's gunning down rivals, jawing with the three cops, or busting a move to Schoolly D's "Saturday Night,"  the performance that's always stuck with me is Victor Argo as Bishop.  Argo, who died in 2004, was a veteran character actor of stage, screen, and TV who was a regular fixture in several Ferrara films as well as many of his friend Harvey Keitel.  Argo rarely got a chance to play major roles in films, and despite his fourth billing, he's actually the second lead in KING OF NEW YORK.  Argo does a lot of acting without saying much and you just see the fatigue in his face and hear it in his gruff voice, even when someone else is doing most of the talking.

Argo perfectly embodies a rage that's turned to burnout, and he's almost matched by a pair of intense performances from Caruso and Snipes, when they were hungry young actors and long before they succumbed to self-parody (Caruso) and general apathy (Snipes).  Years before Caruso's breakthrough on NYPD BLUE and even before KING OF NEW YORK, Ferrara used him as the Mercutio stand-in "Mercury" in CHINA GIRL, his largely forgotten 1987 modern-day, NYC street gang ROMEO & JULIET update.  Snipes was coming off a breakout role as Willie Mays Hays in MAJOR LEAGUE and was a year away from his star-making turn as Nino Brown in NEW JACK CITY.   Aside from an occasional  BLADE outing, Snipes has spent the better part of the last decade or more doing bad straight-to-DVD timewasters, though he did deliver a strong supporting performance in 2009's underrated BROOKLYN'S FINEST before his highly publicized incarceration for income tax evasion.  With all of Caruso's now-comedic Horatio Caine tics on CSI: MIAMI, and Snipes' personal and professional implosion, it's fascinating to go back 20 years and see them in KING OF NEW YORK.  As silly as CSI: MIAMI is, Caruso at least seems to be enjoying himself, but it's interesting to see that distinct intensity before it became a punchline.  And once he gets his life together, Snipes is an actor who's still capable of great work when he cares.


Ferrara stayed busy throughout the '90s, going on to make  BAD LIEUTENANT (1992), DANGEROUS GAME (1993), the major-studio remake BODY SNATCHERS (also 1993), the offbeat vampire film THE ADDICTION (1995), and reunited with Walken for 1996's THE FUNERAL and 1999's NEW ROSE HOTEL.  By the time the unwatchable NEW ROSE HOTEL came around, Ferrara had all but lost his momentum:  THE BLACKOUT was released in 2001 after four years on the shelf, and 2002's 'R XMAS was a pale retread of past glories. The religious drama MARY (with Juliette Binoche, Matthew Modine, and Forest Whitaker), made in 2005, had a brief one-week run in L.A. in 2008 and still hasn't received a DVD or Blu-ray release, and the comedy GO GO TALES (with Modine, Willem Dafoe, and Bob Hoskins) made in 2007, played at film festivals and a couple of special event screenings, but has yet to receive an official US theatrical or home video release. Ferrara's most recent work to released in the US was 2009's CHELSEA ON THE ROCKS, a rambling documentary about NYC's Chelsea Hotel.  A long-planned KING OF NEW YORK prequel with Michael Pitt as a young Frank White never made it past pre-production, and the latest Ferrara news is that he's planning a film based on the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal.  Going back to his early efforts like 1979's THE DRILLER KILLER, 1981's MS. 45, and 1984's scuzzy masterpiece FEAR CITY, Ferrara has been a hellraising cinema maverick of the highest order, but somewhere in the late' 90s, after THE FUNERAL, he simply lost his way and has yet to recover.  KING OF NEW YORK, a truly one-of-a-kind gangster film and one of the last chances to see old-school Times Square on film in all its glory before it was cleaned up, is the perfect place to witness the beginning of prime Ferrara.  Here's hoping there's more to come.