Movie Monday. cougars and the undead.
Saw Talladega Nights yesterday. I was fairly impressed, but we walked into the movie 10 or 20 minutes late because my group (who ordered the tix online) decided to take the 405 north on a Sunday. When we came in, we didn’t sit in a group of 6 but in 2 of 3, which for bothered me out of the movie a bit, not being able to crack wise with friends during the film can hurt.
If dragged to the theater, I’d see it again, but since I am probably going to buy the DVD, I'll save the 10 bucks unless I am going to score.
First off, the parts in the movie that are shown in the trailers and TV bumps are among the least funny of the film. That’s always a big plus.
Even the knife in his leg which was already burned out by the previews gets a hell of a second life with where they go after the bit in the commercials.
My initial reaction was: “It was better the first time than Anchorman.”
While I have come to really like Anchorman, I am still not enthralled by the movie because it still seems like it could have been a lot better. There may never be a better role for Will Ferrell than Ron Burgundy, the pompous, idiotic, newsman is a perfect fit for the man-child that Ferrell owns. The problem with that movie is that the visual gags are terrible, relying on goofy mustaches and a needless jazz flute scenes. The movie’s saving grace is that it’s very well written, the obstacle is that the main characters delivery is intentionally flat, and lines like “I'm a man who discovered the wheel and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn. That's what kind of man I am. You're just a woman with a small brain. With a brain a third the size of us. It's science.” Instead of delivering the line with a definitive roar or a angry rant, Ferrell delivers with little emotion, only adding direct bluntness to the “it’s science.” The problem with Anchorman is that the part looks and is written perfectly for Will Ferrell, he just doesn’t take it where he could have, playing Ron Burgundy like the straight man when he should have stolen every scene.
Which is why Ricky Bobby is a more enjoyable performance, it’s built with foibles and the structure of the film allows for ups and downs within the characters emotional range where as Ron stayed stoic, Ricky Bobby goes from arrogant, to delusional, to goofy, to terrified, and then a full man. Part of this comes from the fact that Ferrell is doing an extension of his George W, which already gives him the rhythms and facial ticks that Ron was missing most of the time.
Like Anchorman, Talladega Nights gets the most mileage out of it’s other stars, notably John C. Reilly and Sasha Baron Cohen.
While I am not going to give a full recap, I’m going to note:
Mos Def and Elvis Costello. Well done.
Andy Richter, underused. Maybe the problem is that he has to support his 4 brothers after the run in with the poisonous Muffin Man.
Gary Cole constantly drinking Laughing Clown beer in 24 ounce Mexi-cans.
Leslie Bibb – Absolutely Smoking hot.
Ricky Bobby praying to Baby Jesus and the dissertation of the best version of Jesus to pray to, one of those scenes where I would have paid up to a grand to see them work out the jokes on set.
While it’s not even in the same league, this is the closest I have seen a movie come to Caddyshack in a while. What made Caddyshack great was that it is a simple sports movie jammed with comedians playing their best roles and to their best skills. Michael Clarke Duncan playing a buffed up madman, Sahsa Cohen playing a weird foreigner, Will Ferrell doing Bush, and John C. Reilly playing a comedic version of the quiet, restrained sidekick, all tied together loosely with a basic sports plot.
Ricky Bobby and Cal Naughton Jr. talking on the phone, with Ricky getting continually sucked in to the conversation, which lead to my favorite joke in the movie:
Cal: I think this house is haunted.
Ricky: It’s a new house, the lumber’s settling, lots of creaks and noises. *hangs up phone and cuts to Cal*
Cal looks around the house and hears paranormal noises.
I really wish they ran with this a little bit more, having Cal run into a few ghosts would have been fantastic.
Which is probably why this afternoon I watched a movie I have seen close to 10 times all the way through again:
Beetle Juice – 1988.
(note this is written in a passive, I don’t want to do a 7 page overview a la my Fight Club style)
Watching this today, I was awestruck by the very nature of the film, it’s almost structure-less. With the exception of the death of the Maitland’s (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) the movie doesn’t have any act breaks; it simply moves on with the Maitlands as the guides. We follow them as they die, move into the afterlife, meet the new tenants of their house, go into the afterworld, try to scare the new family, befriend Wynona Ryder, capture the imagination of Wynona’s parents, contact Beetleguise, fail, kill Beetleguise, become a happy household.
It’s a story arc that I can’t find a parallel to except with documentaries; it’s completely unpredictable because it’s not playing to any genre or conclusion at all. It’s almost like a twisted version of “It’s A Wonderful Life” with what happens from the opening to the conclusion, with obvious differences, of course.
Remarkable too, is that the film is crammed with classic moments, characters, and loads of little bits that could be taken on their own into separate movies of their own. Explaining this film and what it’s about completely could take a person 45 minutes, which is half of the run time of the movie itself. Creating a synopsis or tag line is almost futile, because the essence of the film is that it’s all over the place, dealing with the afterlife, kooks in the art world, a depressed teenager, a couple trying to find their way, and the title character who is an Anti-exorcist.
While Beetlejuice is the title character and much of the movie revolves around him, he’s not in 75% of the film.
The main characters are Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis, but only by the tiniest of measures. In lieu of a real plot, the film simply adds in characters and locations.
We get a nutty Catherine O’Hara, complete with her own gay, weirdo sidekick in Otho (Glenn Shadix).
Jeffery Jones as a man post-nervous breakdown doing a Green Acres escape to the country. Just one of those actors who gets an immediate reaction from an audience, whether it’s groans (Devil’s Advocate, one of the best bad films of the 90’s) or love to hate (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), there isn’t an actor who is more despicable and yet a gas to watch.
Dick Cavett! Robert Goulet! Sylvia Sidney as the afterlife’s accountant!
A football team too dumb to figure out their all dead, with the guy from Little Big League, The Program, and Necessary Roughness (boy did he get all the black jock bit player roles in the 80’s and 90’s or what).
This all works because of Tim Burton. The man has made some great films, but his biggest strength is that he’s a master orchestrator and stylist, but he can’t tell a story to save his life (see Sleepy Hollow, one of the most gothically beautiful films ever made, but it goes nowhere), he has said he wouldn’t know a good script if it bit him in the ass. And that’s precisely why he is the perfect director for this film; he takes everything given to him and makes it more interesting for that moment yet doesn’t have to worry about cohesion from scene to scene because the story just happens, no foreshadowing is needed to add to the potency of the arc, no throughline needed, and so he can play with the train set, decorating, accessorizing, and directing his talent with no worry about the destination.
Tim Burton has a huge following of people who like Goth and darkness, just like his favorite leading man, Johnny Depp. I couldn’t care less about what he’s about as long as the film is good.
Beetlejuice is a classic, because it’s a little bit of everything, and it’s tremendously fun to watch. The only film of his I find better is Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, but being Cal Naughton Jr. to Pee Wee‘s Ricky Bobby-esque #1 is a hell of an accomplishment.
If dragged to the theater, I’d see it again, but since I am probably going to buy the DVD, I'll save the 10 bucks unless I am going to score.
First off, the parts in the movie that are shown in the trailers and TV bumps are among the least funny of the film. That’s always a big plus.
Even the knife in his leg which was already burned out by the previews gets a hell of a second life with where they go after the bit in the commercials.
My initial reaction was: “It was better the first time than Anchorman.”
While I have come to really like Anchorman, I am still not enthralled by the movie because it still seems like it could have been a lot better. There may never be a better role for Will Ferrell than Ron Burgundy, the pompous, idiotic, newsman is a perfect fit for the man-child that Ferrell owns. The problem with that movie is that the visual gags are terrible, relying on goofy mustaches and a needless jazz flute scenes. The movie’s saving grace is that it’s very well written, the obstacle is that the main characters delivery is intentionally flat, and lines like “I'm a man who discovered the wheel and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn. That's what kind of man I am. You're just a woman with a small brain. With a brain a third the size of us. It's science.” Instead of delivering the line with a definitive roar or a angry rant, Ferrell delivers with little emotion, only adding direct bluntness to the “it’s science.” The problem with Anchorman is that the part looks and is written perfectly for Will Ferrell, he just doesn’t take it where he could have, playing Ron Burgundy like the straight man when he should have stolen every scene.
Which is why Ricky Bobby is a more enjoyable performance, it’s built with foibles and the structure of the film allows for ups and downs within the characters emotional range where as Ron stayed stoic, Ricky Bobby goes from arrogant, to delusional, to goofy, to terrified, and then a full man. Part of this comes from the fact that Ferrell is doing an extension of his George W, which already gives him the rhythms and facial ticks that Ron was missing most of the time.
Like Anchorman, Talladega Nights gets the most mileage out of it’s other stars, notably John C. Reilly and Sasha Baron Cohen.
While I am not going to give a full recap, I’m going to note:
Mos Def and Elvis Costello. Well done.
Andy Richter, underused. Maybe the problem is that he has to support his 4 brothers after the run in with the poisonous Muffin Man.
Gary Cole constantly drinking Laughing Clown beer in 24 ounce Mexi-cans.
Leslie Bibb – Absolutely Smoking hot.
Ricky Bobby praying to Baby Jesus and the dissertation of the best version of Jesus to pray to, one of those scenes where I would have paid up to a grand to see them work out the jokes on set.
While it’s not even in the same league, this is the closest I have seen a movie come to Caddyshack in a while. What made Caddyshack great was that it is a simple sports movie jammed with comedians playing their best roles and to their best skills. Michael Clarke Duncan playing a buffed up madman, Sahsa Cohen playing a weird foreigner, Will Ferrell doing Bush, and John C. Reilly playing a comedic version of the quiet, restrained sidekick, all tied together loosely with a basic sports plot.
Ricky Bobby and Cal Naughton Jr. talking on the phone, with Ricky getting continually sucked in to the conversation, which lead to my favorite joke in the movie:
Cal: I think this house is haunted.
Ricky: It’s a new house, the lumber’s settling, lots of creaks and noises. *hangs up phone and cuts to Cal*
Cal looks around the house and hears paranormal noises.
I really wish they ran with this a little bit more, having Cal run into a few ghosts would have been fantastic.
Which is probably why this afternoon I watched a movie I have seen close to 10 times all the way through again:
Beetle Juice – 1988.
(note this is written in a passive, I don’t want to do a 7 page overview a la my Fight Club style)
Watching this today, I was awestruck by the very nature of the film, it’s almost structure-less. With the exception of the death of the Maitland’s (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) the movie doesn’t have any act breaks; it simply moves on with the Maitlands as the guides. We follow them as they die, move into the afterlife, meet the new tenants of their house, go into the afterworld, try to scare the new family, befriend Wynona Ryder, capture the imagination of Wynona’s parents, contact Beetleguise, fail, kill Beetleguise, become a happy household.
It’s a story arc that I can’t find a parallel to except with documentaries; it’s completely unpredictable because it’s not playing to any genre or conclusion at all. It’s almost like a twisted version of “It’s A Wonderful Life” with what happens from the opening to the conclusion, with obvious differences, of course.
Remarkable too, is that the film is crammed with classic moments, characters, and loads of little bits that could be taken on their own into separate movies of their own. Explaining this film and what it’s about completely could take a person 45 minutes, which is half of the run time of the movie itself. Creating a synopsis or tag line is almost futile, because the essence of the film is that it’s all over the place, dealing with the afterlife, kooks in the art world, a depressed teenager, a couple trying to find their way, and the title character who is an Anti-exorcist.
While Beetlejuice is the title character and much of the movie revolves around him, he’s not in 75% of the film.
The main characters are Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis, but only by the tiniest of measures. In lieu of a real plot, the film simply adds in characters and locations.
We get a nutty Catherine O’Hara, complete with her own gay, weirdo sidekick in Otho (Glenn Shadix).
Jeffery Jones as a man post-nervous breakdown doing a Green Acres escape to the country. Just one of those actors who gets an immediate reaction from an audience, whether it’s groans (Devil’s Advocate, one of the best bad films of the 90’s) or love to hate (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), there isn’t an actor who is more despicable and yet a gas to watch.
Dick Cavett! Robert Goulet! Sylvia Sidney as the afterlife’s accountant!
A football team too dumb to figure out their all dead, with the guy from Little Big League, The Program, and Necessary Roughness (boy did he get all the black jock bit player roles in the 80’s and 90’s or what).
This all works because of Tim Burton. The man has made some great films, but his biggest strength is that he’s a master orchestrator and stylist, but he can’t tell a story to save his life (see Sleepy Hollow, one of the most gothically beautiful films ever made, but it goes nowhere), he has said he wouldn’t know a good script if it bit him in the ass. And that’s precisely why he is the perfect director for this film; he takes everything given to him and makes it more interesting for that moment yet doesn’t have to worry about cohesion from scene to scene because the story just happens, no foreshadowing is needed to add to the potency of the arc, no throughline needed, and so he can play with the train set, decorating, accessorizing, and directing his talent with no worry about the destination.
Tim Burton has a huge following of people who like Goth and darkness, just like his favorite leading man, Johnny Depp. I couldn’t care less about what he’s about as long as the film is good.
Beetlejuice is a classic, because it’s a little bit of everything, and it’s tremendously fun to watch. The only film of his I find better is Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, but being Cal Naughton Jr. to Pee Wee‘s Ricky Bobby-esque #1 is a hell of an accomplishment.
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6:30 PM
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