No, I can’t think of anything I didn’t like about Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Favorite scene? Maybe when a paranoid, strung out Chuck Barris puts a gun to the head of The Unknown Comic demanding to know his name. I hope every word of it was true.
Category Archives: Film & TV
BMW Films: Hostage
And I thought you had to watch them in a theater or TV. But I was wrong. A few weeks ago I kept seeing a movie trailer for a film called Hostage. “We gotta see this movie,” I told Barb. Then I noticed it was showing at BMWfilms.com. Oh, shit. It’s a commercial. Never mind. No…mind. Go to BMWfilms.com and watch this eight minute… (movie? film? cinema? commercial?). I don’t what you call it but I watched three of these (about 8 minutes each) and I don’t remember when I’ve seen anything more entertaining. I won’t try to review these. Or categorize them. Just watch them. If these are commercials, they’re not like any commercial I ever saw. They did make me think about owning a BMW and that’s probably what it’s all about. My, my, but these were good. Directors like John Woo and Tony Scott (Spy Game, Crimson Tide, True Romance, Top Gun)…actors like Gary Oldman and James Brown. And I’m sitting here in front of my little Thinkpad watching these stream on a DSL connection thinking, “I could watch 90 minutes of this, easy.” So. Is this the advertising of the future? I don’t know now. But I’m thinking I would have paid to watch this BMW commercial and I’m already paying to not watch lots of other commercials. The winds of change are blowing.
Cliff’s Buffalo Theory
“Well you see, Norm, it’s like this….a herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, the regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. And that, Norm, is why you always feel smarter after a few beers.”
— Cliff Clavin (Cheers)
“I’m just here to regulate funkyness.”
Winston Baldry (James Gandolfini), The Mexican.
Two-Lane Blacktop
“Two men live for only one thing: racing their car, which has been stripped down to its barest essentials in order to give it maximum speed. Things like heaters and rear seats have been removed… steel has been replaced with fiberglass. And as they have done with their car, they have stripped away all “extraneous” elements from their lives, and from their very selves.”
I’m not a car guy either but I loved this movie. And, as far as I can determine, the only movie with James Taylor and Dennis Wilson (playing characters other than themselves).
Minority Report
I really wanted Minority Report to be a good movie. Directed by Steven Spielberg…based on short story by Philip K. Dick (as was Blade Runner). What I came away with were some very good scenes that –somehow– just didn’t add up to a great movie.
The doctor that replaced John Anderton’s eyes (“Don’t scratch!”). The scene in the green house with the co-creator of Pre-Crime was fine (the actress also played Helen Hunt’s “Aunt Meg” in Twister). Did you recognize Gideon, the wheel-chair bound jailer? Tim Blake Nelson from O’ Brother Where Art Thou?
Just help me with this… after living in the pool for all those years, why weren’t Agatha’s fingers all wrinkled? I’m gonna rent the DVD in hopes it includes the behind-the-scene I really want to see. When they bring in the chair for Tom Cruise to stand on so he can be eye-to-eye with Max Von Sydow (“Somebody give Mr. Curise a boost up there, will you please?”) Surely they didn’t make Max Von Sydow get on his knees or stand in a hole or something.
I think it’s just very hard to make a good science fiction movie which might be why it’s rarely attempted. Go see Minority Report but stop by Block Buster on the way home and pick up 12 Monkeys.
“He’s gone. He’s escaped into the system.”
— Max Headroom
What did he do?
If Sean Combs makes the leap to actor (or even movie star) you gotta think he’ll drop all the hip-hop shit. “Puff Daddy,” “Puffy,” “P. Diddy”… I mean, the studios aren’t gonna play that game. And I thought he did a nice job in the movie Monster’s Ball. A powerful opening scene in which he says good-bye to his wife (Halle Berry) and his son… a quiet, powerful scene where he sketches his guards… and, finally, his execution in the electric chair.
Days later I found myself wondering, “What did Puffy’s character do to get the chair?” But then, the movie wasn’t about capital punishment, so it really didn’t matter. P. Diddy getting the chair was a necessary plot element and there was no suggestion that he was innocent. Maybe the long, smoking, frying execution scene was simply telling us that lethal injection is more humane. And, having witnessed the execution of James Henry Hampton (March, 2000), I can tell you that it is. Mr. Hampton went very quietly, indeed.
My first thought was to do a Google search for websites dealing with capital punishment in the movies (The Chamber, Dead Man Walking, The Green Mile, I Want to Live, True Crime). I havn’t found such a site yet but remain convinced there has to be one. What I’m wondering is, in how many of those movies, do they show us or tell us the crime for which the condemned is being executed?
I understand that, from an artistic standpoint, the writer or director is under no obligation to provide that background. If you feel that capital punishment is wrong in an of itself, you probably think the crime doesn’t matter. But I’m not sure we can reach morally suportable conclusions about capital punishment without looking squarely at the crime.
I decided to witness the execution of James Henry Hampton, in part, because it seemed like something I should be willing to do if I was going to be part of a society that put certain criminals to death. Doesn’t it follow that those opposed to the death penalty should be willing to visit a fresh crime scene? Step around the fresh blood and talk to the victim’s family? Just once. If you still feel that capital punishment is wrong, fair enough.
Maybe I should cut some slack for the writers and director of Monster’s Ball. The movie is about redemption, not capital punishment. Lawrence Musgrove told his son, “I’m a bad man. Don’t be like me.” And no matter how you feel about capital punishment, the electric chair is a bad way to go.
“I want more life, fucker.”
I had my 54th birthday a week or so back and this line (from Ridley Scott’s 1982 scil-fi classic, Blade Runner) kept running through my head. Replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) goes to see Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel), the scientist that “designed” the not-quite-human Roy. Tyrell attempts to comfort Roy:
“The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long – and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy.”
But Roy’s not having any of it and proceeds to poke Tyrell’s eyes out. As Roy observes,
“It’s not an easy thing to meet your maker”
…but I thought he handled himself pretty well. He came for some answers –if not a solution to his problem– and he was damn well gonna get them.
The replicants of Blade Runner only got four years (I think Sean Young’s character got more than that) but it wasn’t so much how many years they got as that they knew when they were going to die. Maybe in the end, Pris (played by Daryl Hannah) got it right:
“Then we’re stupid and we’ll die.”
We are and we will.
Boiler Room
A great “sales” scene from Boiler Room (2000), written and directed by Ben Younger and staring Giovanni Ribisi, Ben Affleck, Scott Caan, Vin Diesel and Nia Long. The movie was just so-so, but the scene in which Ben Affleck’s character (Jim Young) explains things to a bunch of trainees in a small-time brokerage house is… chilling.
Jim Young: “Goddammit, you fuckin’ guys. I’m gonna keep this short, okay? You passed your sevens over a month ago. Seth’s the only one that’s opened the necessary forty accounts for his team leader. When I was a junior broker I did it in 26 days. Okay? You’re not sendin’ out press packets anymore. None of this Debbie the Time Life operator bullshit. So get on the phones, it’s time to get to work. Get off your ass! Move around. Motion creates emotion. I remember one time I had this guy call me up, wanted to pitch me, right? Wanted to sell me stock. So I let him. I got every fuckin rebuttal outta this guy, kept him on the phone for an hour and a half. Towards the end I started askin him buying questions, like what’s the firm minimum? That’s a buying question, right there that guys gotta take me down. It’s not like I asked him, what’s your 800 number, that’s fuckoff question. I was givin him a run and he blew it. Okay? To a question like what is the firm minimum, the answer is zero. You don’t like the idea, don’t pick up a single share. But this putz is tellin me you know, uhh, 100 shares? Wrong answer! No! You have to be closing all the time. And be aggressive, learn how to push! Talk to ’em. Ask ’em questions… ask ’em rhetorical questions, it doesn’t matter, anything, just get a yes out of ’em. If you’re drowning and I throw you a life jacket would you grab it? Yes! Good. Pick up 200 shares I won’t let you down. Ask them how they’d like to see thirty, forty percent returns. What are they gonna say, no? Fuck you? I don’t wanna see those returns. Stop laughing, it’s not funny. If you can’t learn how to close, you better start thinkin about another career. And I am deadly serious about that. Dead fuckin serious. And have your rebuttals ready, guy says call me tommorrow? Bullshit! Somebody tells you th-they money problems about buyin 200 shares is lying to you. You know what I say to that? I say, hey look, man, tell me you don’t like my firm, tell me you don’t like my idea, tell me you don’t like my fuckin neck tie, but don’t tell me you can’t put together 2,500 bucks. And there is no such thing as a no-sell call. A sell is made on every call you make. Either you sell the client some stock, or he sells you on a reason he can’t. Either way, a sell is made. The only question is: who’s gonna close? You or him?! Now be relentless. That’s it, I’m done.”
Kind of makes me wonder if Ben Younger liked the Glengarry Glen Ross scene as much as I did.