Whew! Lotsa good film buff stuff to share. First off the great movie magazine Premiere has a current issue celebrating "the 100 greatest movie characters of all time". It's a great feature you ought to check out.
HELLBOY reigns at the box office followed by WALKING TALL and SCOOBY DOO 2. Breathe, film babble peeps - breathe in and out - all will be all right.
The DVD release of CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN this week was a huge seller - my guess is that it was an impulse buy for the kids while picking up Daddy's awaited MATRIX REVOLUTIONS disc set. Whatever the case it's a horrible unfunny family film that will surely soon collect dust as it's target audience moves quickly on. Kind of like Martin's last film BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE that wasn't the low denomitor crap that CHEAPER is but still came off like an exercise in commercial blandness despite some funny moments courtesey of Eugene Levy.
There is possible redemption ahead with the prospect of Martin's excellent book Shopgirl's film adaptation but unfortunately that's overshadowed by the news that he is set to start filming a new Pink Panther movie next month. That news is met with concern and doubt. Very few, myself included think it is a good idea to try to revive a series that is over 20 years dead with 3 failed awful attempts to revive it since long buried. Maybe Martin can pull off playing the famous part of Inspector Clouseau defined by the late great Peter Sellers (#67 on Premiere's Greatest Movie Characters list, Martin's Navin Johnson, a.k.a. the Jerk is #66 interestingly) but judging by his strained slapstick work and the forced physical comedy that dominates CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN - I wouldn't put money on it.
In my estimation the last truly good Steve Martin comedy was BOWFINGER (1999) It had a good premise - aspiring filmmaker scams a cheapie sc-fi movie out of a actor (Eddie Murphy) who doesn't know he's being filmed, good writing - starlet Heather Graham flirtaciously offers - "I love Smashing Pumpkins and Martin's Bowfinger excitedely responds - "I love to do that!" !, and it a good nature to it even with the swipe at self promoting lesbians which made everyone think Martin was getting back at former love Anne Heche. To get to that gem though we had to suffer SGT.BILKO, THE OUT OF TOWNERS, and MIXED NUTS. Hiding behind those flops was a little seen David Mamet movie THE SPANISH PRISONER (1997) which featured a rare mannered dramatic performance by Martin. Another failed foray into this direction was NOVOCAINE (2001) which was silly but I have to admit I enjoyed quite a bit after the fact.
We here at film babble all voted on our favorite and least favorite Steve Martin movies. It's an unsurprising but essential list :
10 GREAT STEVE MARTIN MOVIES :
1. THE JERK (1979)
2. THE MAN WITH TWO BRAINS (1983)
3. ALL OF ME (1984)
4. DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID (1982)
5. ROXANNE (1987)
6. PLANES, TRAINS, AND AUTOMOBILES (1987)
7. L.A. STORY (1990)
8. BOWFINGER (1999)
9. THE SPANISH PRISONER (1997)
10. LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1986)- Just a cameo but his scene and song "Dentist" steal the whole show.
SPILLOVER :
11. PARENTHOOD (1989)
12. THE LONELY GUY (1984)
13. MY BLUE HEAVEN (1991)
14. LEAP OF FAITH (1992)
15. PENNIES FROM HEAVEN (1980) - C'mon! Give it another chance.
And now our least favorite. It was scary how quickly these all tumbled out.
10 BAD STEVE MARTIN MOVIES
1. DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS (1988)
2. THREE AMIGOS (1986)
3. TIE - FATHER OF THE BRIDE I & II (1991 & 1995)
4. HOUSESITTER (1992)
5. SGT. BILKO (1996)
6. MIXED NUTS (1994)
7. SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND (1978) - Just a cameo but still!
8. THE OUT OF TOWNERS (1999)
9. A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE (1994)
10. LOONEY TUNES - BACK IN ACTION (2003)
We haven't given up on you Steve - we're all hoping you can do some good with SHOPGIRL (now in post production) and that you will prove us wrong on the Pink Panther deal. We all loved when in your only bearded role as a schlock movie producer in Lawrence Kasdan's GRAND CANYON (1991) you said to Kevin Kline:
"That's part of your problem: you haven't seen enough movies. All of life's riddles are answered in the movies."
And if you don't agree with that or any of this, well EXCUSE ME!!!!
- Edward Callistan
Editor's note : Ed has all of Steve Martin's albums on vinyl (even that weird half bluegrass "The Steve Martin Bros.") and all of Steve's books even books on tape, and he can recite just about any routine at the drop of a pair of fuzzy bunny ears. He wrote this piece after being so depressed after watching CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN that he contemplated suicide by means of an arrow through the head. I encouraged him to put his Martinized feelings on paper. He decided to do both. May God have mercy on his soul.
Cult Movie Catch-up
Since this blog is relatively new we like to catch up with older films and appraise their recent special edition DVDs. Anderson Moran gets re-acquianted with a couple of old friends :
REPO MAN (1984) Dir. Alex Cox. A young punk (Emilio Estevez) becomes a automobile reposession man and stumbles upon a car with dead space aliens in it and an entire low-life network bent on stealing it. Harry Dean Stanton puts in a great gruff performance as Estevez's partner and has many pivotal lines that build his character as a master of poor man philosophy. Songs by the Circle Jerks, Iggy Pop (who wrote the theme song), the Plugz, and the Juicy Bananas among many other punk staples all line the frames of this flick perfectly. I saw this movie on cable many times in the '80's and love almost everything about it - especially the way every product - whether beer can or soup can is generically labelled i.e. with a white label and the word - "food" or "drink" printed alone. The new DVD has a print of the film that looks better than I ever remember it looking and the overcrowded commentary with director Cox, executive producer Michael Nesmith (the Monkees!), three of the actors, and the casting director is fun too.
- Anderson Moran
SUBURBIA (1984) Dir. Penelope Spheeris. I can't remember if I actually saw this movie back in the day. I remember the commercials for it with one punk saying "wake up and smell the coffee man" and that being the first time I had ever heard that expression but I don't remember it or other Roger Corman produced movies for that matter being in circulation on '80's HBO or Showtime. Not like PORKY'S or POLICE ACADEMY or even BUCKAROO BANZAI. This movie about kids who squat on the outskirts of the suburbs in abandoned tract housing sure feels familliar but maybe I'm thinking of OVER THE EDGE with Matt Dillon. I loved that flick. This one has more roaches, rats, and rawk music in it so it go was further over that supposed edge. It's funny that from this cast the most well known player here is Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Chris Pederson who recited the "smell the coffee" line was later in PLATOON and POINT BREAK but I doubt he'd really register with today's movie watching crowd. This disc released as part of a Roger Corman Director's series (despite the fact he didn't direct it) on New Horizon video has great commentary by Spheeris on the DVD "the kids today look exactly the same" she says more than once talking about the resurgence of punk movement. With blueprints like this and SID AND NANCY getting the special treatment in rereleases and spiffy new digital transfers the punk kids of 20 years from now will look the same too.
- Anderson Moran
"I will not be ignored, Dan!" - Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) FATAL ATTRACTION (1987) * Alex Forrest is # 36 on Premiere's Greatest Movie characters list by the way.
* One of my favorite movie lines ever and not just because it has my name in it.
One late night jaunt to Biscuit-Time Theater somewhere out Route 54 a few film babble bloggers got into a heated debate about what was the definitive "erotic thriller". The golden age of the genre was undoubtedly the '80's with the glossy ironic twists of such classics as FATAL ATTRACTION, NO WAY OUT, and the immortal BODY HEAT but beame a joke in the '90's with such embarrassments as BASIC INSTINCT, BODY OF EVIDENCE, and well just about everything that has Joe Eszterhaus's name on it. My personal favorite movie of this ilk is :
SEA OF LOVE (1988) Dir. Harold Becker. This was originally embraced as a return to form for Al Pacino after such forgetful fare as AUTHOR, AUTHOR and REVOLUTION in the first half of the '80's. It was indeed great to see him in a gritty sometimes even pathetic part as a hard drinking police detective dealing with divorce and obsessed with tracking a serial killer. He compares notes with partner John Goodman and they decide to set up a sting operation through meetings with possible suspects made from personal ad connections. Ellen Barkin's character is the outgoing as hell is-she-a-vixen?-is-she-not? parable that the plot hinges on. A lot of this is predictable and at times can be awfully generic but the amount of well placed and well paced humor, good acting, and sharp dialogue makes this still in 2004 a good watch. Also just about everyone in it is somebody you will surely know from something else - Samuel L. Jackson has a small part at the beginning, West Wing actors John Spencer and Michael O'Neill, Six Feet Under's Richard Jenkins, and the always intensely creepy Michael Rooker from JFK and HENRY - PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER all add to the must-see value of this mostly overlooked time-killer. Available on a Universal special edition DVD with director's commentary and scratchy deleted scenes.
- Daniel Cook Johnson
More later...
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