THREE KINGS (1999)



By all accounts, writer/director David O. Russell is the kind of tantrum-throwing brat even Christian Bale would recommend for anger management classes. George Clooney came to blows with him on the set of Three Kings, and Lily Tomlin surely contemplated crushing his nuts during his notorious freak-out on the set of I ♥ Huckabees...but even Clooney admits the dude’s got chops, and Russell’s tale of U.S. soldiers attempting to heist millions in Kuwaiti bullion from Saddam Hussein during the Persian Gulf War is still the best (fictional) cinematic depiction of America’s poisonous love-hate relationship with Hussein and Iraq. I learned more about our nation’s cynical, fucked-up Middle East policy from Russell’s entertaining “comedy” caper than I did from ten years of Bush family press conferences. The moral of the story: there’s definitely money to be made in Iraq, if your conscience isn’t bothered (like Clooney’s Major Archie Gates) by the thought of letting innocent civilians die as collateral damage, or (like Nora Dunn’s TV reporter Adriana Cruz) by the sight of birds dying in war-made oil slicks, or (like Mark Wahlberg’s Sgt. Troy Barlow) the realization that even the bad guys (here represented by Saïd Taghmaoui’s electrifying Iraqi interrogator) are suffering while the war profiteers get plenty rich, plenty quick. (AO)

BOTTLE ROCKET (1996)



Wes Anderson’s debut boasts few of the stylistic hallmarks of his subsequent work, though that doesn’t make it any less distinctive. Bottle Rocket focuses on the misadventures of wannabe-criminal Dignan (Owen Wilson) and his best friend Anthony (Luke Wilson), both of them aimlessly searching for contentment, companionship and love in the Texas suburbs. Instead of Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums’ meticulously arranged compositions, Anderson’s cinematography is much more loose, which leaves the proceedings visually bland but, unlike the stultifying The Darjeeling Limited, full of ramshackle life. The director’s attempts at pathos are somewhat undercut by his scripting, most notably with regards to Anthony’s sketchy, preposterous relationship with motel housekeeper Inez (Lumi Cavazo). Yet if the film lacks a bit of polish, it nonetheless is both consistently funny and narratively efficient, two vital qualities that are most fully on display during Dignan and Anthony’s outstanding robbery of a local bookstore. (NS)

KIDS IN THE HALL: BRAIN CANDY (1996)



Sometimes a get-rich-quick scheme isn’t exactly a scheme, as such. Sometimes it’s not even intentional. All Kevin McDonald’s Dr. Chris Cooper and his team of pharmaceuticals technicians wanted to do was create a pill that helped chronically depressed people cope with their daily lives…chemically. What they ended up doing was creating Gleemonex, a drug that isolates your happiest moment and replays it over and over in your head, condemning you to comatose bliss forever. Naturally, Cooper’s employers recognize the potential to make obscene amounts of money, and the race is on to see if Dr. Cooper will be corrupted by the cash himself, or do the right thing. The first (and, so far, only) Kids in the Hall movie is inconsistent and occasionally pretty bad, but give it credit for one of the darkest-toned comedies of the last few decades, in which doing the right thing and condemning millions of people to paralyzing depression and sadness are synonymous. (LP)

LOST IN AMERICA (1985)



In Albert Brooks' anti-yuppie satire, Brooks plays an ad executive who is so programmed with his fantasy of how his career should go that when he isn't given the promotion he's expecting -- because, his boss explains, he's "too clever" to be wasted on the empty-suit job -- and offered a different promotion that involves a move to New York City, he blows his top and takes a flame thrower to every bridge in sight. Convinced that they've reached a stage in their lives where they're ready to move beyond conventional standards of success, Brooks and his wife (Julie Hagerty) liquidate their assets, including their house, and set out to explore the country in a Winnebago the size of Rhode Island with a $145,000 nest egg tucked in their purse. Unfortunately, Hagerty is seized by a gambling mania in Las Vegas and pisses away the bulk of their money, and Brooks makes a stab at using his professional skills to persuade the casino boss (Garry Marshall) to return their money; he improvises a whole campaign about how the casino can benefit from the free publicity it'll get once the story gets out that it's a gambling den with "heart." Technically, this is not a get-rich scheme but a desperate, sweaty, make-it-as-if-this-hadn't-happened scheme. But if more people would react this way to the loss of everything they have instead of turning ashen and wandering into traffic, the past six or seven months would have been a lot more fun. (PN)

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

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Nick Schager, Leonard Pierce, Phil Nugent