The Screengrab : john cusack

The Best & Worst Get Rich Quick Schemes In Cinema History! (Part Three)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:00:00 GMT

FARGO (1996)

Any number of Coen Brothers movies revolve around bumbling get-rich-quick schemes, many of them involving kidnapping, but few characters in film history have gotten in as far over their heads as car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy). Jerry’s not looking to make a big score just for the sake of accumulating wealth; as the movie begins, he’s already in deep financial doodoo, although we never find out the exact nature of his troubles. To his credit, one of his schemes is not so boneheaded: a property investment proposal he brings to his wealthy father-in-law Wade Gustafson. In fact, the plan is so good Wade decides to take on the investment himself rather than lending the necessary money to Jerry – though he does offer a nominal finder’s fee. In Jerry’s mind, this betrayal may make his alternate plan more palatable – arranging for the kidnapping of his wife and bilking Wade out of the ransom money. This plan goes much, much worse, however, and before it’s over Wade and his daughter are dead, Jerry is led away in handcuffs and Steve Buscemi is fed into a wood chipper. All that for a little bit of money. (SVD)

THE GRIFTERS (1990)

Stephen Frears’ tight little modern noir is immeasurably aided by strong efforts at every level: the source novel is one of legendary noir novelist Jim Thompson’s best, the screenplay is provided by Donald Westlake, another crime novel pro, and of course, the cast is dynamite, from the leads to bit parts to Pat Hingle’s chilling mob boss, Bobo Justus. But one of the least-noticed thematic bits of brilliance is how it treats the different layers of confidence games, and how getting rich quick through the art of the con means very different things to different people. John Cusack’s Roy Dillon is strictly a short-con operator: pulling little hustles, tricks and sleight-of-hand jobs that keep him in nice suits and decent hotels as long as he keeps moving. His mother, the determined Lilly, is much more the get-rich-quick type, handling her mobster employer’s money as he manipulates the outcome of horse races through cleverly spread-out bets. And the seductive Myra Langtry is a long con type – although she’s reduced to hustling, her specialty is big-money cons that take months or years to pay off, but when they do, they pay off in the millions. It’s a fascinating look at the economics and expectations of the day-to-day life of the habitual criminal. (LP)

HOUSE OF GAMES (1987)

There’s no heist in David Mamet’s House of Games, but there are more cons than one film should be able to support. That Mamet’s debut delivers its endless barrage of tricks and ruses with exhilarating proficiency is a tribute to the writer/director, whose interest in hard men living hard lives and pulling off very hard endeavors is encapsulated by this tale of a psychologist (Lindsay Crouse) lured by a master crook (Joe Mantegna) into a web of lies. As with most of Mamet’s work, women – in this case, Crouse’s protagonist, the lone female in a story full of men – don’t fare very well. Yet there’s something fascinating about the way the writer/director stages Crouse and Mantegna’s duel as a sort of primal battle of the sexes, the latter’s attempts to swindle the former coming off as a conflict of both gender and education (she the intellectual, he the graduate of the school of hard knocks). House of Game’s psychological warfare may not always be pleasant, but the head-games played by Mamet remain magnetic, so skillfully constructed and executed that one relishes the opportunity to be duped. (NS)

X: THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES (1963)

This Roger Corman sci-fi flick stars Ray Milland as Dr. Xavier, whose experiments give him the special X-ray vision that he first uses to turn a suburban dance party into his own personal stag show, only to find himself reduced to plying his trade at a carny operated by Don Rickles. Finally, though, Xavier makes the trek to Vegas to use his creepy peepers to clean up at the tables, using perhaps the best method of outsmarting Sin City that the movies have ever come up with, since it doesn't require knowledge of advanced math or buying a suit for Dustin Hoffman. We eagerly await the day when some gifted film student has the brainstorm of doing, as his thesis project, a mash-up of this movie and Scorsese's Casino, so that the haunted Xavier can flee from Don Rickles only to find himself running into Don Rickles. How could Hell be any worse? (PN)

Click Here For Part One, Two, Four, Five & Six

Contributors: Scott Von Doviak, Leonard Pierce, Nick Schager, Phil Nugent

Screengrab's Favorite Movies About Music: Fiction Edition (Part Five)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:00:00 GMT

HEAD (1968)

I think just about anyone who’s familiar with the Monkees’ sweet, goofy Peter Tork was bummed by the actor/musician’s recent diagnosis with head and neck cancer (although, apparently, the prognosis is currently good). And I think no matter how silly or cynically conceived hippies found the Pre-Fab Four back in the sixties, the songs the TV band had written for them (“I’m a Believer,” “Daydream Believer,” “Steppin’ Stone,” etc.) are a helluva lot better than most of the songs being written for today’s prefabricated music industry shills, most of whom don’t even have the self-awareness to be self-deprecating and more than a little embarrassed by their place in the pop culture firmament. To their credit, Tork and his bandmates Mickey Dolenz (the funny one), Davy Jones (the cute one) and Michael Nesmith (the smart one) tried their best to rebel against their corporate overlords with Head, a big-screen attempt at image-smashing phantasmagoria that plays like an LSD-inspired episode of the group’s small-screen show, i.e. a brainy, mostly well-behaved mind-fuck that’s actually a lot more entertaining and thought-provoking than some of the more “authentic” freak-outs of the era, what with the underwater imagery accompanying the haunting “Porpoise Song,” the burlesque meditations on fame and the peculiar cameos by the likes of Victor Mature, Annette Funicello and Frank Zappa with a cow.

HIGH FIDELITY (2000)

That High Fidelity is playfully self-conscious and yet not overly precious is a testament to both director Stephen Frears, here smoothly segueing between goofy comedy and sobering drama, as well as star (and co-writer) John Cusack, whose turn as romantically challenged record store owner Rob stands as one of his finest performances. Retaining the ragamuffin spirit of Nick Hornby’s source novel, Frears’ funny and incisive adaptation boasts two superb supporting players in Jack Black and Todd Louiso as Rob’s employees, as well as a script that refuses to sentimentalize the stunted-maturity failings of its protagonist. Rob is a man-child whose compulsive habit of concocting lists – about favorite songs and past break-ups – speaks to the vital role music plays in his romantic life, while also serving as his means of engaging in self-analysis through a safe, detached filter. A bit too much of Cusack’s narration and dialogue (taken verbatim from Hornby’s novel) lands with a writerly thud on screen, but the actor’s warts-and-all performance – unafraid to posit his protagonist as a navel-gazing prick, and still capable of making him endearing – is so energized that it overshadows any occasional missteps.

LAST DAYS (2005)

The high point of Gus Van Sant’s Béla Tarr-inspired “death trilogy” (following 2002’s Gerry and 2003’s Elephant), Last Days charts the final, pedestrian events in the life of a Kurt Cobain surrogate (Michael Pitt) in and around his Pacific Northwest estate. A ruminative, melancholy work with little interest in traditional narrative, Van Sant’s evocative gem aims mainly to situate viewers in a particular physical environment and headspace. In this case, that’s the remote residence and fuzzy mind of a shuffling, head-downturned, shaggy-haired rock star who wanders about his property like a ghost burdened by some ill-defined psychological and emotional misery. Rife with ambiguous religious overtones that contribute to an atmosphere of spiritual malaise, obliquely addressing the relationship between image and reality, and depicting its protagonist – constricted by claustrophobic full-frame compositions – as beset by hangers-on and record studio execs who take but don’t give, Last Days operates as a richly textured, arrestingly evocative avant-garde hypothesis about the forces that might have contributed to Cobain’s suicidal demise.

SINGLES (1992)

No one will mistake Singles for a great rom-com, but viewed as a snapshot of a very particular musical era, Cameron Crowe’s 1992 film holds up surprisingly well. The story has to do with two on-again, off-again couples (Campbell Scott and Kyra Sedgwick, Matt Dillon and Bridget Fonda) attempting to navigate choppy romantic waters. However, despite Crowe’s reasonably sturdy dramatization of twentysomethings in search of love and their post-collegiate identities – as well as his inconsistent (but far-from-disastrous) decision to have characters break the fourth wall to deliver commentary – the film’s lasting appeal has as much to do with timing as with storytelling. By setting the action in a Seattle grunge scene on the brink of exploding, Crowe hopelessly dated his film. Yet that turns out to be a good thing, since Singles, bolstered by cameos and performances by various members of the bands (Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains) that would temporarily make Seattle the epicenter of rock, while comfortably rooted in the damp, sleepy, basketball-loving atmosphere of his Pacific Northwest milieu, proves an engaging, enduring time capsule.

GRACE OF MY HEART (1996)

This movie is character actress Illeana Douglas's best role to date. As in Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine and I'm Not There, Grace of My Heart attempts to create a transcendent reality for the stories about Carole King, who some readers may need to be reminded was one of the Brill Building songwriters of the early '60s who later went on to have commercial success as a singer-songwriter with her album Tapestry. Perhaps you saw her on Stephen Colbert's show. In this movie, she is known as Denise Waverly. Denise comes to work in the Brill Building for a Phil Spector-alike played by John Turturro, writing songs for girl groups. She takes up with her co-songwriter, a Gerry Goffin-alike played by Eric Stolz (among the real-life Goffin-King compositions: "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," "The Loco-Motion," "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman"), but their marraige falls apart. Later, she moves to California and takes up with a Brian Wilson-alike played by Matt Dillon. Even though it's not as smart as the Haynes rock fictions, it's quite a lovely little movie with lots of nice touches to people familiar with the characters portrayed. I especially enjoy the faux-Wilson's mental breakdown while working on the movie's version of Smile, the real-life album that broke Brian Wilson's spirit for a time.

Click Here For Part One, Two, Three & Four

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Nick Schager, Hayden Childs

Morning Deal Report: Diablo Cody’s Zombie Lament

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:45:00 GMT

Diablo Cody will produce an adaptation of Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament, a new novel by S.G. Browne. The romantic comedy “centers on a recently deceased Everyman and newly minted zombie who is having trouble adjusting to his new existence. All that changes when he goes to an Undead Anonymous meeting and finds kindred souls,” Variety reports.

John Cusack and Rob Corddry are soaking in the Hot Tub Time Machine. “The script, by Josh Heald, follows a group of guys who have grown frustrated with their adult lives. They return to the ski lodge where they partied as teens to find answers and are transported to 1987 via their hot tub, a bubbly time machine,” per The Hollywood Reporter.

Best Actor Oscar winner Sean Penn is in talks to join Naomi Watts in Doug Liman’s Fair Game, a drama about the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. Penn is in talks to play Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who “watched his wife's CIA status become compromised after he wrote op-ed columns that accused the Bush Administration of manipulating intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of Iraq.” Weird – it’s not like Penn to get all political.

Related:
Diablo Cody Unwraps "Jennifer's Body"
John Cusack: Political Poet

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: Nov. 8-14, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:00:00 GMT

Lazenby. George Lazenby. You know, I like to think I’m a good sport. I played James Bond once forty years ago, and I’ve never heard the end of it. How would you like to wake up at 3 a.m. to answer a ringing phone and hear “You suck, Lazenby!” Not just once, but many, many times. And just this week, the Screengrab abounds with Bond material. James Bond’s Top 007 Cocktails. Quantum of Solace review. Bondage Bloggage. And the Best and Worst James Bond Movies of All Time (Parts One, Two, Three, Four and Five). And in all of that, I get only one mention – where I’m referred to as “an Australian underwear model.”

I’ll have you know I have a distinguished acting resume that extends far beyond Bond. I played Jor-El in the short-lived 1990 Superboy series, and a burglar on an episode of BJ and the Bear. I starred in The Man from Hong Kong, coming soon to Ozsploitation! And I’ll almost certainly appear in one of The Top 50 Movies of 2009.

Ah well, no sour grapes on my part. Just to show what a good sport I am, let me direct you to a few of my favorite Screengrab posts of the week:

John Belushi’s Screen Test

John Cusack: Political Poet

Unwatchable #62: “Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie”

Take 5: Character Actors Who Take The Lead

Russell Crowe Will Not Wear Tights

Yesterday's Hits, Veteran's Day Edition: The Best Years of Our Lives

Star Trek Showdown III: The Search for Shatner’s Sanity

John Cusack: Political Poet

Andrew Osborne — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:00:00 GMT

As a senior in high school, I fancied myself a John Cusack-y sort and loved The Sure Thing (oh, Daphne Zuniga, we hardly knew ye), and since then, the guy with the boombox has generated a pretty impressive body of work: Stand By Me, Eight Men Out, Say Anything, The Grifters, Bullets Over Broadway, Being John Malkovich, High Fidelity...

...but somewhere along the way, Cusack also contracted a bad case of Garafolo Political Syndrome, exacerbated by symptoms of the acute humorlessness and self-regard usually associated with stage one Sean Pennitis.

Sadly, rather than sending the condition into remission, the inspiring victory of Barack Obama may actually have made things worse, if Cusack’s recent douchey outbreak of post-election poety on The Huffington Post is any indication:

Real Shock And Awe
By John Cusack

More powerful than was imaginable,
We are almost in a state of collective shock/awe.
The promise -- Antigone before the king comes to mind -- wonderfully hard to process.
He looked as a man with providence; the opposite mirror of Bush.
There was humility inside it.
He was even careful not to get too frenzied -- gave a soft landing.
Sober, reflective, determined... emotional beyond words.
The world looked to America... we showed our best.
For one night at least, the world was sane.
The planet sighs in relief and deserves a righteous party.
We have beaten back the worst in ourselves, the old and inevitable forces of cynicism and greed.
No more patriotic primates to rule the roost.
Real change will take sacrifice, vigilance and will.
The bailout of Wall Street, the wars and the final gorge of the right wing must be stopped now, a return to Keynesian balance.
Bottom up instead of top down.
The gold standard that every human has value -- be awarded respect, dignity and opportunity --
The currency of grace.
A wave of renewal and possibility.
And now the real work begins.

The Screengrab wishes Mr. Cusack a speedy recovery, and hopes the poetry doesn’t spread to Joan.

Related Stories:
When Good Directors Go Bad: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
The Barack Obama Film Festival

When Good Directors Go Bad: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997, Clint Eastwood)

Paul Clark — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Forty years ago, the idea that Rowdy Yates from TV’s Rawhide would turn out to be a talented director would have seemed ridiculous. Yet it came to pass, with Clint Eastwood proving to be one of Hollywood’s most celebrated filmmakers. In addition, he’s also one of its most prolific, churning out an average of one film almost every year over the past decade. But in spite of making such well-regarded films as Unforgiven, Mystic River, and Million Dollar Baby, the truth is that when a filmmaker works at such a rate, there are bound to be some clunkers in the bunch. Surely enough, Eastwood had his share of mediocre or even subpar films throughout his career, even in the fertile period of the nineties. In the case of movies like True Crime and Blood Work, the middling quality of the films wasn’t too big a deal, as they were disposable adaptations of forgettable airport novels.

Then there was Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. A far cry from the likes of Absolute Power, Midnight was based on an honest-to-goodness acclaimed work of literature. John Berendt’s book, based on an actual Savannah, GA murder case, was a publishing phenomenon, residing on the New York Times bestseller list a full four years. For the first time since his Academy Award-winning Unforgiven, Eastwood was making an honest-to-goodness prestige project, and he devoted all his attention to directing the film, handing over the acting duties to the likes of Kevin Spacey and John Cusack. Anticipation was high, especially among fans of the novel who were curious to see how Eastwood would translate it to the screen.

Trouble is, like many really good books, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil doesn’t exactly lend itself to being adapted. While most good adaptations are inspired by books with strong, tight stories, much of the appeal of Berendt’s book is anecdotal, with plenty of fascinating characters orbiting around the story’s center, the trial of Jim Williams. Unfortunately, Eastwood is generally at his best when working with a relatively straightforward plot, and consequently, his attempts to mix the court case with the incidental dramas in Savannah just don’t quite work. It doesn’t help that Eastwood never really allows Savannah to become a natural element of the story like it ought to be. Watching his more successful adaptation of Mystic River, it’s hard to imagine the story taking place anywhere else, but I almost never got that vibe from Midnight, in which the city feels more like a backdrop than an actual setting.

Part of the problem is that Eastwood shies away from one of the book’s most important themes- the hypocrisy of Savannah’s upper-class when confronted by Williams’ homosexuality. Berendt’s novel addresses the almost tangible sense of abandonment that Williams felt when his “friends” refused to testify on his behalf once word of his sexual predilections came to light. But while it’s mentioned in passing in the film, Eastwood makes far too little of which should be a central issue. Without this undercurrent, the trial loses most of its energy, becoming little more than a mediocre courtroom drama with a few mild twists.

Also disappointing is the film’s treatment of the friendship between protagonist John Kelso, a Berendt surrogate played by John Cusack, and the story’s most famous supporting player, The Lady Chablis, who plays herself. In both the book and the film, the two characters- one a straitlaced northerner, the other a local transsexual- get to know each other as the story progresses, and while it’s pretty clear that nothing sexual ever transpires between them, there’s a tantalizing ambiguity about Chablis’ feelings toward Kelso. Sadly, Eastwood and screenwriter John Lee Hancock seem skittish about the possibility that audience members might think their hero is gay, so they concoct him a love interest who wasn't in the book, played by Eastwood’s daughter Alison. The romantic subplot is a complete waste of time, never advancing the story or working in any other way other than to reassure the audience that John Kelso is all about the ladies.

That said, both Cusack and The Lady Chablis are actually quite good in the movie. Cusack plays his usual charming, brainy type, but then, the story needs a levelheaded character in the middle of the eccentric locals. And The Lady Chablis is pretty priceless, especially when she’s playing off Cusack- I can’t imagine a more established actor playing the role even half as convincingly, no doubt because she’d already been playing the role for years even before the book, let alone the movie. And most of the rest of the cast is also fine- Spacey is courtly but subtly menacing in one of finest performances, and Jack Thompson has fun as Spacey’s defense attorney, a local hero (he’s the owner of the University of Georgia’s mascot “Uga”) who’s surprisingly neither a blowhard nor an over-the-top rube. The weak links are Alison Eastwood (who to her credit has almost nothing to do) and Jude Law as the murder victim, who when we see him in flashbacks is too mannered by half.

More than most filmmakers working today, Eastwood works in the classic tradition, allowing the film’s story to dictate his directorial decisions. Unfortunately, it never feels like he got a handle on the story. The courtroom scenes have no momentum, there’s too much gratuitous material involving Alison Eastwood’s character, and the local color just doesn’t work like it does on the page. After all, it’s one thing to imagine a guy walking a nonexistent dog or tethering flies to his clothing, and another entirely to actually see them. And late in the game, Eastwood abandons his low-key and realistic style to inject some magical realism into the film, but the moment doesn’t work because it feels so out of place with his style.

In the end, one gets the sense that Eastwood’s brand of filmmaking just didn’t mesh with Berendt’s story. Perhaps someone like Robert Altman could have pulled it off, given his gifts with ensemble casts and Southern settings, or even the documentarian Ross McElwee, chronicler of the Deep South in films like Sherman’s March and Bright Leaves. I might have suggested Errol Morris, considering his ability to portray eccentrics without condescending to them, but then, Morris' previous fiction feature didn’t turn out so well, did it?

Morning Deal Report: Dueling Sherlocks

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:00:00 GMT

As if Guy Ritchie didn’t have enough problems, what with the gossip sheets running wild with rumors that A-Rod is shtupping his wife. Now it turns out that his Sherlock Holmes feature will face competition from Borat himself. Per Variety, Columbia Pictures has announced “an untitled comedy that will star Sacha Baron Cohen as master detective Sherlock Holmes and Will Ferrell as Watson, his crime-solving partner.” According to Columbia president Matt Tolmach, this re-teaming of the Talladega Nights stars is a sure-fire knee-slapper. "Just the idea of Sacha and Will as Sherlock Holmes and Watson makes us laugh…having them take on these two iconic characters is frankly hilarious." Thank you for speaking frankly, Mr. Tolmach. Of course, this is not the first time rival productions involving the same iconic character have gone head-to-head, as we recall from the great Robin Hood war of the '90s. But then, that was a war nobody won.

The cast of Roland Emmerich’s latest rendition of the end of the world is coming together. Triple threat Thomas McCarthy, who most recently wrote and directed The Visitor, will join John Cusack, Amanda Peet and Danny Glover in Emmerich’s 2012. “As an actor, I've never worked on anything with this scale before, and I always go see these movies,” McCarthy tells the Hollywood Reporter. “This does have a big budget and I do make more money, which is nice, but I know if you take a job like this just for the money, you'll be miserable.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell it to Nicolas Cage.

Meanwhile, the French hit Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (Welcome to the Sticks) is being remade not only in America (Will Smith will star for Warner Bros.) but in Italy. Variety describes it as a “heart-warmer about a postal worker forced to relocate to a small town in the north where he can't understand the patois, the food or the many quirks.” We’ll wait for the Portuguese version.

Related:

No Shit, Sherlock: Guy Ritchie Reimagines Holmes
1949 vs. 2012: John Woo/Roland Emmerich Deathmatch!

Trailer Review: Igor

Paul Clark — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:00:00 GMT

You know that family-friendly computer-animation is a box-office winner when every studio has its own animation wing. Here, it’s MGM getting in on the act with the animated adventures of everybody’s favorite hunchbacked science partner, Igor (that’s EE-gor, not EYE-gor). A little odd to hear John Cusack voicing the title character, although after flops like The Martian Child and Grace Is Gone I’m guessing he figured an easy paycheck job in a likely hit would make it easier for him to churn out more Ice Harvests, so more power to him. That says, this looks like it might be a fairly painless kids’ movie, with plenty of “don’t judge a book by its cover” sentiments in the Shrek tradition- although hopefully, not as much bodily-function humor.

Vanishing Act: Savage Steve Holland

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:30:00 GMT

If you’re not of a certain age, you’ve probably never even heard of Savage Steve Holland – or if you have, you may be under the impression that he was a professional wrestler back in the '80s. Well, you got the right decade: for a little while there, Holland was second only to John Hughes as American cinema’s foremost purveyor of comedic teen angst. I honestly couldn’t tell you whether I’ve seen one of his movies in its entirely (though I’m sure I’ve channel surfed through them hundreds of times), but some people my age still swear by the guy.

An animator who studied at CalArts (and who, according to wikipedia, designed the Whammy on the game show Press Your Luck), Holland’s legacy rests entirely on two movies he made with John Cusack: Better Off Dead (1985) and One Crazy Summer (1986). In the former, Cusack gets dumped by his girlfriend, makes several suicide attempts, then hooks up with a foreign exchange student. In the latter, he’s a cartoonist who spends an eventful summer on Nantucket with the likes of Bobcat Goldthwait, Demi Moore and Curtis “Booger” Armstrong. Neither movie set the box office on fire, but both were cult hits with long afterlives on video and cable, thanks to 80s-style wackiness like Cusack’s creation of a claymation Van Halen hamburger:

Or Bobcat Goldthwait wreaking havoc in a Godzilla costume:

Alas, the magic could not last. Holland’s third directorial effort, 1989’s How I Got Into College (which he did not write), was a certifiable box office bomb, and that was it for Holland’s movie career. He found a niche on television, however, directing episodes of Encyclopedia Brown, Shasta McNasty, Lizzie McGuire, and my one-time late night guilty pleasure, V.I.P. But as Indiana Jones is here to remind us, all things '80s will return to haunt us, and that includes Savage Steve Holland. He has no less than three comeback vehicles in the works: a straight-to-video sequel to Legally Blonde, a National Lampoon movie called Ratko: The Dictator’s Son, and The Big One 3, described by the director as the sort-of third part of the Better Off Dead/One Crazy Summer trilogy. But that’s not all. Holland is attached to yet another project, one that can only be summed up by its three word title:

Howard Stern’s Porky’s.

Didn’t I say something about all things '80s returning to haunt us?

1949 vs. 2012: John Woo/Roland Emmerich Deathmatch!

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:30:00 GMT

It’s deal-making time on the Croisette in Cannes, and while some deals are more ill-advised than others, we’ve rounded up a few notables worthy of mention.

John Woo is set to direct 1949, which we are assured is not a sequel to Steven Spielberg’s 1941. Variety reports it is a “big budget romancer that will crank up as soon as he has finished his epic Red Cliff.” A Chinese-language epic “based on true events at the end of WWII and the final years of the Chinese Civil War, pic will star Chang Chen and Korea's Song Hye-kyo.”

Leap ahead 63 years and you’ll find Roland Emmerich’s 2012. Once again, Variety is on the case, reporting that John Cusack and Redbelt’s Chiwetel Ejiofor will star in the apocalyptic thriller, “whose title refers to the end days of human civilization as foretold by the ancient Mayan calendar. Story kicks off with a global cataclysm, which brings an end to the world as we know it, and chronicles the heroic struggle of the survivors.” Emmerich has already ended the world once, of course, with The Day After Tomorrow. We’re beginning to think he has issues.

And what the hell, since we’re already plundering Variety for this post, we might as well pass on the news that Steve Buscemi is joining the cast of Youth in Revolt, playing the father of Michael Cera in the film based on a novel by C.D. Payne. “Cera plays teenager Nick Twisp, who meets the girl of his dreams on a family vacation and destroys the trip trying to be with her.”

The Return of Mark Leyner

Phil Nugent — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Perhaps the biggest surprise in the forthcoming John Cusack movie War, Inc. comes in the opening credits, which reveal that the movie's screenplay is by Cusack, Jeremy (Bulworth) Pikser, and Mark Leyner. Leyner, now 52, was that rarest of things, a genuine literary star in the 1990s, when such books as Et Tu, Babe and My Cousin, My Gastroentesterologist were both critically acclaimed and commercially trendy. Leyner, whose writing danced on the line between experimental meta-fiction and stand-up comedy, was a popular get for magazine profiles and a welcome guest on the David Letterman and Conan O'Brien talk shows. But after his 1998 novel The Tetherballs of Bougainville, he slipped from view. Where's he been all this time? Trying to break into writing for TV and movies, it appears. He developed "a pilot about a kilt-wearing, punk rock surgeon for MTV called Iggy Vile, M.D." and wrote scripts for the acclaimed mental-health-ward network drama Wonderland, which ABC cancelled almost instantly--before, in fact, any of the episodes Leyner worked on had a chance to air. One upshot of that was that he met the show's medical consultant, Billy Goldberg, who would collaborate with Leyner on two books of goofball medical questions-and-answers, Why Do Men Have Nipples? and Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex? That must have seemed an amusing goof for someone who'd been touted as an important, form-redefining writer and a doctor who'd gotten one foot into show business via a cause celebre' TV series. The books sold better "than all of Mr. Leyner’s books combined" and were "spun off into a desk calendar."

Leyner's association with John Cusack began, Cusack says, when the actor "called him up, kind of as a fan, and said, ‘Let’s do something together? Can we do something?’” Today, they worked on a doomed treatment of a movie version of Et Tu, Babe before hatching the idea for the Iraq satire War, Inc. As Leyner sees it, he brings something a little different to the table than his worthy collaborators. “What John and Jeremy might see as the foreground of the movie, I kind of saw it as the background. I’m more interested in other aspects of the movie. The sort of critique of heroic iconology. The idea of a person who’s actively in conflict with himself.” He and Cusack are working on another movie idea, but Leyner has also sketched out a new work of fiction. (No fool, he is also working with Dr. Goldberg on another book of funny medical lore.) Regarding how long it's been since he had to dodge book reviews, he says, “Whatever this period of time has been, I’ve needed it. Given the extremity of my personal identification with that work, I think 10 years is probably sort of minimal. … I made a very conscious decision to try to do other things.”

Tribeca Film Festival Review: "War, Inc."

Phil Nugent — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 14:00:00 GMT

John Cusack gets his smug on in War, Inc., a satiricial action comedy with a touch every bit as light and precise as its sledgehammer title. Cusack, who co-produced the movie with Grace Loh for his New Crime Productions, and splits the screenplay credit between himself, novelist Mark Leyner, and Bulworth scripter and Huffington Post blogger Jeremy Pikser, plays a hit man who is hired by Tamerlane, a Halliburton-like corporaton that is staffing America's first war that has been fully outsourced to the private sector. The movie intends an attack on how big business profits from, and may even influence, American foreign policy, but its ideas about how that's reshaping the world seem to have only gotten as far as slapping company logos on the sides of tanks and in smoking urban war zones, a device that mainly results in some really questionable product placement deals. (The Get Smart-style entrance to the lair of the American intelligence officers is through a Popeyes chicken joint, arguably the most prominent space that franchise has been awarded in a major Hollywood production since the Adam Sandler vehicle Little Nicky established that the denizens of Hell thought quite highly of their product.) The movie hits its targets only once in a great while, particularly when it goes after the gullibility and culpability of the media. There's a choice sequence about an imbedded group of reporters who get a taste of what it's like in a war-ravaged country by being treated to a Sensurround-style simulated ride through rough terrain. (They cheer with excitement, just like Geraldo every time he sees his name in the paper spelled right.)

War, Inc. positions itself as a sort-of-sequel to the 1997 New Crime Production Grosse Pointe Blank; it doesn't continue that movie's story or revive its characters, but it does reunite some if its key personnel while aiming for something similar in tone and approach. Cusack's emotionally confused master assassin with a streak of white in his dark hair is Martin Blank with ten years on him in all but name; Joan Cusack is once again his personal assistant (but this time, infuriatingly, is subjected to unflattering lighting and funhouse lenses and camera angles), and Dan Aykroyd turns up to do his Dick Cheney impression as the self-satisfied master of the universe dealing Cusack his orders. (They are joined by Marisa Tomei, who, as usual, pumps an incredible amount of sexiness and vitality into her corner of the vaccuum, and Ben Kingsley, who attempts what I think is meant to be a Texas accent, though it could just as easily have labeled his character as an Australian, a Venusian, or just a raving nut.) This is actually a clever approach--just as it was when the cast of A Fish Called Wanda did it in Fierce Creatures, a movie that didn't work either--but it mainly serves to highlight how opportunistic the difference between the two pictures feels. Grosse Pointe Blank, which came riding in on the last fumes of the Pulp Fiction bandwagon, treated murder as a hip slapstick joke. War, Inc. has the same kind of what-me-worry approach to violent chaos and the same admiring attitude towards its hero's murderous prowess, but it expects to be taken as being on a deeper, more meaningful level of smirking cynicism because Cusack has sunk to working for Republican CEOs. (In both films, Cusack is paired with a heroine--Minnie Driver in Grosse Pointe Blank, Marisa Tomei here--who expresses horror at his violent side until she needs rescuing.) War, Inc. is set to go straight to DVD after a non-victory lap of the festivals and a token New York/Los Angeles theatrical release, and Cusack and company are welcome to console themselves with the thought that their movie was punished for the sharpness of its bite. But its "satire" is the kind of thing that The Daily Show regularly makes fun of.

Trailer Review: War, Inc.

Paul Clark — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:00:00 GMT

In theory, I support any film that takes on the hot-button topic of war profiteering. So why do I have absolutely no interest in seeing this? Could have something to do with the assault of shrill satire in this trailer- repeated shots of a Popeye's Chicken in the middle of a war zone, a dance line of people wearing prosthetic limbs, the final LeBron James reference, etc. The wayyyyyyyyyy-over-the-top supporting turns don't help matters. Joan Cusack and Marisa Tomei appear to have been directed to outdo each other in terms of volume and quirkiness, while Ben Kingsley scarcely seems to have been directed at all. Meanwhile, John Cusack could give this performance in his sleep by now. But hey, if you're a middle-aged guy who's been jonesing for Hilary Duff to show off her naughty side in a movie you won't feel weird about paying to see, then War Inc. is the movie for you. It's just, y'know, not the movie for me.

Geek Love: The Ten Sexiest Nerds in Cinema, Gen-XX Edition (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:00:00 GMT

With Smart People, Ellen Page reprises her wise-ass, brainy-sexy persona from Juno, reaffirming her place as the current It Girl for a brand new generation of future I.T. professionals and I.T.T. graduates.

Lord knows I enjoyed the standard-issue sex dolls of my Gen X adolescence, from Catherine Bach’s Daisy Duke to Sylvia Kristel’s steamy French maid in Private Lessons (which my parents naively allowed me to go see all by myself because it co-starred that nice Dr. Johnny Fever from WKRP In Cincinnati).

But horny fantasies aside, I knew from the get-go I was far too much of a Starlog-reading, drama club-joining, Honor-Roll attaining nerd to ever wind up with the hot blondes or the Bond babe, and so it was always the relatable, approachable freaks and geeks of cinema that gave me hope. And while most of the actresses on the following list were actually gorgeous starlets in real life, it was reassuring to believe the following characters, at least, would maybe lend you their panties if you ever needed to win a bet for a dozen floppy disks. (And don't worry, we'll get to the GUY geeks next week...but suggestions are certainly welcome!)

10. MOLLY RINGWALD AS SAMANTHA BAKER IN SIXTEEN CANDLES

Sure, she wound up with the hunky popular guy at the end, but she WAS nice enough to lend Anthony Michael Hall’s Geek her underwear, and I was always hot for Ms. Ringwald, especially when I read in later interviews that she eventually grew up, fell hard for a French guy and became quite the sex enthusiast.

9. ALLY SHEEDY AS ALLISON REYNOLDS IN THE BREAKFAST CLUB

A pivotal character in my early development, who inspired a life-long love of freaky Goth girls but also broke my heart, dropping the knowledge on my adolescent ass that even the misfit girls would usually choose the Jocks over the Brains of the world if given half a chance. Traitor!

8. MEG TILLY AS CHLOE IN THE BIG CHILL

Sexy, exotic and a little odd-looking, Chloe made me want to be the kind of cool, smart rebel her soulful misfit would dig (a.k.a. William Hurt’s drug-dealing Vietnam vet Nick) as opposed to the gabby neurotic Jeff Goldblum-y type I actually was (and am).

7. HOLLY HUNTER AS JANE CRAIG IN BROADCAST NEWS

Friends still mock me for my obsession with Holly Hunter’s t.v. producer character, but Broadcast News was the movie to beat in 1987 for nailing the friends vs. lovers dilemma faced by supportive, dorky guys in love with female “friends” who think of them as brothers. The scene where Albert Brooks’ character finally tells off Jane, then dumps her from his life is still one of my all-time favorites, finally teaching me the best way to avoid “nice guy” syndrome with girls was not to be so goddamn nice all the time.

6. DAPHNE ZUNIGA AS ALISON BRADBURY IN THE SURE THING

This Gen-X version of It Happened One Night dramatized the other side of the friends vs. lovers dilemma: once you finally figure out how to attract girls, do you go for great sex or great conversation? With Alison Bradbury, John Cusack’s Walter Gibson found the perfect balance.

Click here for part 2!

DVD Digest for February 12, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:00:00 GMT

This week, one of 2007's best films comes to DVD, and a master's musicals get the box-set treatment.

DVD of the Week: Most of the most beloved films of Ernst Lubitsch's career come from its final years, when the Lubitsch touch had already become well-established. But it's easy to forget that the master had already had a fruitful career long before Ninotchka, The Shop Around the Corner, and To Be or Not to Be. With the films included in this box set, Lubitsch was one of the first filmmakers to integrate song and narrative after the advent of talkies. But this would mean little today if the films themselves didn't hold up, and they do, with all of Lubitsch's trademark charm and Pre-Code sophistication. Eclipse has given their typical treatment (no extras, but lovely transfers) to the films The Love Parade, Monte Carlo, One Hour With You, and The Smiling Lieutenant, which boast some of the era's quintessential stars — Maurice Chevalier, Claudette Colbert, and Jeannette MacDonald. As always, Eclipse and parent company Criterion succeed in filling in another hole in cinema history.

Incidentally, today is my birthday, so if anyone out there is looking for a suitable gift, you could do a whole lot worse than this.

A bumper crop of more recent films being released on DVD this week, including: Ben Affleck's surprisingly great Gone Baby Gone (Buena Vista, also Blu-Ray); James Gray's searing crime drama We Own the Night; Becoming Jane (Buena Vista, also Blu-Ray), the second Austen-themed dramedy in as many weeks; John Cusack in The Martian Child (New Line); No Reservations (Warner, also Blu-Ray), the Catherine Zeta-Jones-starring remake of 2001's Mostly Martha; Tyler Perry's latest hit, Why Did I Get Married? (Lionsgate); the Apollo-mission documentary In the Shadow of the Moon (ThinkFilm); and John Turturro's polarizing star-studded quasi-musical, Romance and Cigarettes (Sony). In addition, this week finally sees the DVD release of Amy Heckerling's long-delayed I Could Never Be Your Woman (Genius Entertainment), starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Paul Rudd, and Atonement Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan. If nothing else, now we can see what all the fuss was about.

Back to classics, this week also brings Sony's The Stanley Kramer Film Collection, a collection of five films Kramer directed and/or produced. The centerpiece of the set is a new 40th Anniversary Edition of Kramer's once-controversial interracial-marriage drama Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Also in the set is the Kramer-directed Ship of Fools, as well as The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, A Member of the Wedding, and The Wild One, all of which he produced.

Other older films coming to DVD include: The Joan Crawford Collection Volume 2 (Warner), which includes Sadie McKee, Strange Cargo, A Woman's Face, Flamingo Road, and Torch Song; Fox's Charlie Chan Collection Volume 4; and Kenneth Branagh's 1991 dramedy Peter's Friends (MGM), boasting an enviable cast, including Branagh, then-wife Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, and Imelda Staunton. For some reason, MGM has seen fit to package the film in a box set alongside the misguided Elmore Leonard/Paul Schrader satire Touch, the 1988 Patrick Dempsey-Jennifer Connelly vehicle Some Girls, and Scott Baio and Willie Aames in Zapped! Strange bedfellows indeed.

Finally, if you're jonesing for TV on DVD, this week sees the release of season 1 of The Equalizer (Universal), as well as the Vern-approved Blade: the Series (New Line). But fear not — only one more week until the release of Walker, Texas Ranger: The Complete Fourth Season, the rare DVD that can be enjoyed by both Chuck Norris fans and Conan O'Brien watchers.

Morning Deal Report: Honest to Blog, Juno Gives Birth to Large Profits

Peter Smith — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:50:00 GMT

Juno continues overwriting its way into America's heart — it made as much as I Am Legend this weekend, weirdly enough. To quote Variety, "I liked the movie, but it seemed to me Juno talked [less like a pregnant teenager, and] more like a 30-year-old ex-stripper trying to make a name for herself as a screenwriter." Hey, that's just how the Facebook generation talks, homeskillet!

Michael Showalter will direct Night of the Living Dorks, a German-horror-comedy remake described as "Revenge of the Nerds meets Shaun of the Dead." Given that Shaun of the Dead was already George Romero meeting John Cusack (or someone). . .

Marlon Wayans is Ripcord in the new G.I. Joe. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is also circling, weirdly enough. Maybe he'll play Serpentor. Where's that Cheat Commandos movie I'm waiting for?

Take Five: Mockumentaries

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 20:45:00 GMT

It can't have been long after the first documentary film was made that some enterprising wise-ass with a cut-rate kinetoscope hit upon the idea of making a fake documentary. After all, since it's an age-old comedy trope that reality always outstrips satire, it only makes sense to create satire that apes reality as closely as possible. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story opens wide this weekend, and there's plenty of reasons to believe it'll be a fine entry into the mockumentary canon; it's directed by Jake Kasdan, co-written by the red-hot Judd Apatow, and stars the talented and eminently likable John C. Reilly (as well as a boatload of potentially amusing guest stars, including Jack White as Elvis, Frankie Muniz as Buddy Holly, and, as the Beatles, Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Justin Long, and Jason Schwartzman!). We figured it might be a good time to bring up some of our other favorite pseudo-documentaries, and, as an extra challenge, do it without mentioning any of the films of a certain Mr. Christopher Guest. (To top it all off, I'm not even going to discuss Albert Brooks' amazing Real Life. Well, except right then.)

THE RUTLES: ALL YOU NEED IS CASH (1978)

Yes, Screengrab readers, there actually was a time when goofing on the Beatles wasn't the most played-out thing a human being could do! That time was about thirty years ago, when Monty Python alum Eric Idle penned, starred in, and co-directed this made-for-TV movie about the rise and decline of the Prefab Four, the most famous band ever to come out of Rutland. George Harrison liked it enough to funnel some money into producing the film, even though he's savagely parodied as Stig O'Hara, the group's dullest member, who doesn't appear to speak any English, accidentally sues himself, and is eventually replaced by a wax dummy. It features a few other Python members as well as some Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time SNL alums — the only filmed collaboration between the two groups — and as such, contains more than its share of hilarious dialogue and situations. What really elevates it above the level of standard rock 'n' roll pseudo-documentary is the music, written entirely by co-star (and former Bonzo Dog Band front man) Neil Innes. The songs so closely resemble Beatles originals that it's easy to miss the absurdly funny lyrics.

BOB ROBERTS (1992)

Tim Robbins' mockumentary about the rise of a right-wing demagogue who rises to fame on the strength of a bunch of pseudo-populist folk hits directed at the underclass was a labor of love, growing out of his sincere liberal political beliefs and his fear of the then-growing power of conservative radio talk shows. Sincerity and deeply held beliefs, though, can be death to comedy, and the worst parts of Bob Roberts are the ones where he tips his hand too much or allows his characters to devolve into one-dimensional caricatures, whether on the left or the right. But it's still a very worthwhile film, with a smart script, some excellent and sure-handed direction, and a few terrific performances and cameos from the likes of Gore Vidal and John Cusack. Robbins wrote the Bob Roberts songs himself, and they're catchy enough to make you believe that they could actually catch the popular imagination, though they play like parody, and whoever heard of a right-wing folksinger, anyway? Also of interest, if for no other reason than its prescience, is Alan Rickman as a Karl-Rove-like figure.

FEAR OF A BLACK HAT (1994)

As the East Coast-West Coast wars heated up and gangsta rap swept the nation, fans were waiting for just the right man to come along and make the quinessential hip-hop mockumentary. As it happened, they got two — but while Chris Rock's CB4 was the bigger hit, Rusty Cundieff's Fear of a Black Hat was the better film. Universally broad in its targets, merciless in its self-parody (particularly biting are the scenes where Cundieff's Ice Cold attempts ham-handed political justifications for his bottom-drawer lyrics: "See, the butt is like society..."), and dead-on in its use of songs that cleverly mirror then-popular hip-hop trends, from g-funk to Native Tongues to Miami bass, it's the best satirical treatment of the rap world to come along so far. It's not perfect; it goes on about a half hour too long, and some of its targets are ridiculously dated (how much comic mileage can you get out of making fun of Kriss Kross?), but it's still worth seeing, and the three lead actors — Cundieff, Mark Christopher Lawrence as the goofy mystic Tone Def, and a coked-up, paranoid Larry B. Scott as Tasty Taste — are pitch-perfect in their roles.

DILL SCALLION (1999)

Every other musical genre seems to get its own fake documentary, so why shouldn't country? Well, possibly because country so often plays as self-parody. Or maybe because it would be almost impossible to top Henry Gibson as Haven Hamilton in Nashville. Still, Jordan Brady's Dill Scallion gives it the ol' dropped-out-of-grade-school try, and is carried for quite a while by a charismatic lead performance by Billy Burke. Some of the gags are real killers (Dill's producer, played by Henry Winkler, strives to create a "barn of sound", and his signature dance requires him to dislocate his own ankle); some are subtler jokes that require a fairly intimate knowledge of country history; and others are just flat-out failures. But the songs (by Sheryl Crow, of all people) work quite well, and there are a ton of winning cameos — everyone from Willie Nelson to Jason Priestley, who's truly funny as the amusingly named Jo Joe Hicks. At its best when it's smart and self-referential and at its worst when it takes easy laugh-at-the-hillbillies cheap shots, Dill Scallion is only half a good movie, but it's a pretty good half-a-movie.

IT'S ALL GONE PETE TONG (2004)

Attempting to do for the world of DJ culture what This is Spinal Tap did for metal, Michael Dowse's It's All Gone Pete Tong (the phrase is rhyming slang for "it's all gone wrong") scores largely on the strength of some blindingly funny dialogue and a handful of near-perfect performances. Paul Kaye is both ridiculous and hilarious as DJ Frankie Wilde, whose stellar career is derailed when he starts to go deaf, and Neil Maskell nearly steals the movie as a callous record company executive. The movie goes off the rails with a few obvious jokes and a detour, late in its run time, into taking itself a bit too seriously, but it's worth watching for the comedic moments that score, an outstanding score (including a few songs by the actual Pete Tong), and a refusal to tip its hand to the bitter end.

Cusack Heads for the Middle

Peter Smith — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 20:00:00 GMT

Grace is Gone is a bad movie with a halfway decent premise that could have succeeded if it weren’t so damn cowardly. John Cusack plays a conservative father of two, a patriot with a shameful military past who receives word at the beginning of the film that his soldier wife has died in Iraq. The rest of the ninety-minute runtime follows his struggle to find a way to tell his daughters, aged twelve and eight, that their mother is dead. There’s an opportunity here to say something about the half-decade war we remain embroiled in, and director/writer James Strouse studiously avoids saying it. The Iraq War could be subbed out for any conflict from the past fifty years and the same limp story could be told. What’s even more frustrating is that Grace is Gone's line-toeing is intentional — it's a film, on a political subject, so desperate not to offend that it avoids politics completely.

It is short though. That was nice.

When I arrived at a roundtable Q&A with Cusack, all I was armed with was a fresh blank tape and a burning desire to know why this man hated Better Off Dead. But once Cusack walked in, looking and moving exactly like John Cusack, the Egon-Spengler-esque critics hogging the front of the table set in, and for forty-five minutes it was impossible to get in a question. The one I finally got in was this: "You have a large, rabid cultish fan base that is predominantly young people who don’t yet have families, and also have very strong opinions about the war. What do you want your younger fans to take away from this? How do you think they’ll relate to this?"

"I don't really know what they'll take away. Hopefully, as more of being conscious. Consciousness. Compassionate," said John Cusack.

Softballed! And that's appropriate for a promo of Grace is Gone — a thirty-mile-per-hour softball, right down the middle.

— John Constantine

Morning Deal Report: Step Up for Scorsese Pic

Peter Smith — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 16:00:00 GMT

Mark Ruffalo has joined Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese's Dennis Lehane adaptation Shutter Island.

John Cusack may star in Weinstein Co.'s period drama Shanghai. Gong Li is already attached. Sort of a departure for him.

Remember the Tom Swift books? Neither do I, but if you do have fond memories of the series, prepare for them to be trampled.

— Peter Smith

Take Five: Resident Aliens

Peter Smith — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 20:00:00 GMT

The ever-busy John Cusack stars in Martian Child, opening wide this weekend. Based on an award-winning novel by legendary sci-fi author and Star Trek scribe David Gerrold (who also executive-produced the film and had final approval on the script, ensuring that, if nothing else, it’ll be loyal to its source), the film focuses on an older man — Cusack, essentially playing a straight version of Gerrold himself — who, battling his own personal demons, adopts a disturbed young boy who thinks he’s from Mars. It’s not your typical science-fiction scenario, but it’s one that echoes a number of other films in the genre that play on the ambiguity, or at least strangeness and charm, of the idea of an alien among us. As with many other types of genre films, science fiction is often at its most successful when it eschews the gimmicks, special effects, and labyrinthine plots and focuses instead on drama, revelation and humanity, even if the human is very possibly an alien. Here’s a fiver of films to get you in the mood for Martian Child.

THE BOY WITH GREEN HAIR (1948)

Directed by film-industry trouper Joseph Losey, The Boy with Green Hair gives us the spectacle of, well, a boy with green hair. Not technically an alien-among-us sci-fi story, it nonetheless functions in that same sort of parable mode, bringing us what is now a terribly dated and hokey message of tolerance. At the time, though, it probably seemed a lot more subversive; it was made even before the Hollywood blacklist was in full swing. Its post-war setting and refugee metaphors also must have scored some points about Jews and blacks that weren’t likely to be made explicit at the time. And despite how archaic it may seem today, it’s worth seeing for one reason: the ten-year-old protagonist is played by a young Dean Stockwell.

QUATERMASS AND THE PIT (1967)

The Quatermass series was something of a predecessor to Dr. Who, with many of the same themes and concerns, but the good doctor has never come close to cranking out a story this unexpected and unsettling. In it, a scientist discovers a Martian spacecraft, millions of years old, buried beneath the London underground, and as soon as it’s unearthed, it bequeaths the aliens’ final legacy to us: violence, madness and directionless hatred. Quatermass eventually discovers that it was these ancient astronauts who shaped us into the dominant species on Earth, by carefully guiding our predilection for mayhem; in this underseen and underrated sci-fi thriller, we have met the alien, and he is us.

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH (1976)

In a role originally intended for Peter O’Toole, David Bowie — who was simultaneously, in his music career, playing at being an alien — puts in one of the finest, creepiest performances of his career. In this supremely weird, often affecting Nic Roeg vehicle, Bowie plays an urbane visitor to Earth who’s come here in search of water, establishing himself as a multimillionaire (using high-tech gadgets entirely familiar to the modern viewer) in order to do so. Admirable support is turned in by Rip Torn and others, but it’s Bowie’s ultra-frosty, near-reptilian performance, shot through with transcendent humanity at just the right moments, that will have you wondering if the guy really was an alien after all.

THE BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET (1984)

John Sayles made this movie to raise a few bucks and bide the time while making Matewan, but it’s quite an accomplishment on its own. The story of a stranded alien who arrives in Manhattan wearing a black man’s skin — in which he is surprised to discover he merits different treatment — The Brother from Another Planet manages to rise above its exploitation origins (and often goofy genre conventions, such as grade-Z special effects and bizarre superhero subplot) and deliver some fine acting and interesting insights into matters of race and class. Taken on its own, it’s worth seeing, but it especially works in the greater context of Sayles’ work.

STARSHIP TROOPERS (1997)

Forget Showgirls — director Paul Verhoeven’s most misunderstood film is this adaptation (and subversion) of the classic Robert Heinlein novel about total war in space. Verhoeven, in typical black-comic style, takes the creepy, quasi-fascist tone of the Heinlein book and completely upends it, making one of the most damning statements on film about the futility and stupidity of war. It also functions, in its treatment of the utterly inhuman and thus utterly disposable buglike aliens, as a presciently barbed statement about our human tendency to dehumanize the enemy in times of war.

— Leonard Pierce

Today in the Nerve Film Lounge/From the Nerve Film Issue

Peter Smith — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:00:00 GMT

In the Film Lounge:

American Gangster: "It's not just that other movies and TV shows have been here. It's that they've done it better."

Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten: Review coming soon.

Help!: "It's the weakest Beatles movie, but that's not to deny its pleasures."

And from the Nerve Film Issue:

The Manhood Behind the Mustache: Ada Calhoun interviews Rob Perri, the director of a gonzo "documentary" about Mets legend Keith Hernandez.

To Sleep With Anger: Bilge Ebiri traces the long, strange career of Kenneth Anger.

Character Types: Nicole Ankowski figures out which Drew Barrymore or John Cusack archetype you're dating.

We're All Replicants Here: I finally get to wax rhapsodic about Blade Runner.

— Peter Smith