The Screengrab : jason schwartzman

Screengrab's Ultimate Exploitation Films!!!!!!! (Part Five)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:00:00 GMT

SPUN (2002)

If not for the evidence of the YouTube clip above, I’d be willing to believe I simply hallucinated this sleazy little movie during a hot, sleepless night in the San Fernando Valley. For example, all during the recent Awards Season, I kept hearing about Mickey Rourke’s years in the wilderness when he couldn’t find work as an actor...and yet, there he is in 2002, playing crystal meth guru The Cook alongside slumming Young Hollywood types like Jason Schwartzman and Mena Suvari (as well as Debbie Harry and Eric Roberts, who apparently did something really terrible fifteen years ago). Not that this icky, hyper-pixilated film (which, according to my pal Wikipedia, holds the Guiness Record for most edits in a full-length motion picture) would have served as much of a heartwarming comeback vehicle for anyone involved. Every character is vile, from Schwartzman’s strung-out tweaker who keeps a naked stripper (played by a very brave or very masochistic actress named Chloe Hunter, who also played the naked stomach on the American Beauty poster...thanks again, Wikipedia!) chained spread-eagle on his bed for most of the movie...to Suvari, who method acts explosive diarrhea...to Patrick Fugit, sporting really, really gross acne...to an even more spastic than usual John Leguizamo, who seems to be jerking off vigorously into a sock in the aforementioned YouTube clip (though, thankfully, I don’t really have any vivid memories of that particular plot development). Which is not to say Spun is a bad movie, exactly...at least not in the sense of being poorly made. It's just bad.

SHOWGIRLS (1995)

It’s a testament to the eternal power of this truly bewildering big-budget sexploitation potboiler that even today, a lot of critics simply can’t figure out what to make of it. Oh, it’s not good – in fact, it’s insanely, jaw-droppingly bad. But how much of that badness is by design? After all, the director, Paul Verhoeven, is a talented filmmaker who has certainly suckered us in the past, delivering sly satire on American culture disguised as blockbuster entertainment in movies like Robocop and Starship Troopers. Then again, the writer is Joe Eszterhas, who has penned a lot of shitty movies like this with no apparent irony. The story of a cheap tramp who comes to Las Vegas in a quest to determine exactly how cheap and trampy she is willing to become, Showgirls features scenes that are so horrible that they can’t possibly be serious, but which are played so seriously that there’s no way they’re a joke. What to make of the scene where Nomi (played by Elizabeth Berkley, who goes the entire movie without ever exhibiting a single recognizably human behavior) angrily eats French fries and vomits in a parking lot out of sheer rage? What to make of the scene where she has sex with a floppy-haired, floppy-souled MacLachlan as if she’s trying to banish him to another dimension? What to make of the scene where she and Gina Gershon, who has clearly sized the whole movie up as a no-win situation, debate the merits of brown rice and vegetables? If Showgirls was made by a bunch of nobodies on a shoestring budget, it would at least be comprehensible, but the fact that it was made by Hollywood heavy hitters for a king’s ransom can only leave you wondering if it’s some kind of insanely good parody of a terrible movie, or something so mind-peelingly bad that it goes, like Nietzsche, beyond good and evil.

SHAOLIN MASTER KILLER (1978)

Also known as Shao Lin San Shi Liu Fang, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, The Master Killer, and about a half-dozen other titles, this is the movie that made a huge star out of Hong Kong kung fu actor Gordon Liu, and led indirectly to the founding of the Wu-Tang Clan. (If you can, pick up the DVD version released by the Weinstein’s Dragon Dynasty company, with astonishingly geeky audio commentary by the RZA!) Before anyone started taking wushu movies seriously, they were generally meant to be exploitative grindhouse fare for urban audiences, as evidenced by their former moniker, “chop-socky flicks”. But Shaolin Master Killer was one of the first wave of post-Bruce Lee wushu epics that started to tip off critics that maybe there was something genuinely worthwhile happening in these punch-‘em-ups. The plot couldn’t be simpler: during the oppressive Manchu dynasty, a young man enters the Shaolin temple to learn kung fu, and, after passing the grueling training exercises required of a monk, uses his martial arts expertise to pursue the secular goal of freeing his people from tyranny. But even with the thin plot, there’s some great acting going on (Shaolin Master Killer features appearances by some of the greatest Hong Kong character actors of the day), and, of course, lots of the most exciting fight scenes ever put on film. You can tell what you’re in for before the movie even starts: its opening credits feature one of the most thrilling sequences in the history of wushu cinema, with the charismatic and emotional Liu performing exciting moves as the soundtrack blares, of all things, a bit of incidental music from the score to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

GOD TOLD ME TO (1976)

For some four decades, the writer-producer-director Larry Cohen has been a never-ending Roman candle of feverish activity, spitting out one punchy, high-concept idea for horror, sci-fi, and action movies and TV series after another and dressing them up with political conceits and crackpot notions that might have been filched from pamphlets found in a Greyhound men's room. His efforts are consistently undermined by low budgets, sloppy execution, and his own sledgehammer touch, but at least he's given us a filmography that can make you wonder what it might look like if its maker had been blessed with resources and talent. This bizarre take on the end-of-the-world religious-horror theme that the big studios were mining with big-budget junk like The Omen is perhaps his most tantalizing project, which means that it's the one that is most plaintively calling out to be remade by somebody who could really do justice to its sick, sick heart. People without past histories of violent criminal behavior are suddenly flipping out all over New York City, committing murders and signing off with the explanation, "God told me to." (One of the killers is a cop played by Andy Kaufman, in his film debut.) The paranoid set-up is juicy and disturbing enough to give you the willies even without Cohen's climactic twist, which basically suggests that Jesus was the product of rape by an extraterrestrial.

IF FOOTMEN TIRE YOU, WHAT WILL HORSES DO? (1971)

In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, there was a subterranean wave of so-called “Christploitation” movies coming out of the American south – cheaply made, often gory and tawdry tales of sensationalist sin, usually with more than a bit of Apocalyptic flavor. A number of these made their way to the Southern Baptist church of my youth, and by far the most demented of these was If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?. Directed by Christploitation superstar Ron Ormond and based on a sermon by the wonderfully named Rev. Estus W. Pirkle, a Tim Kazurinsky lookalike who appears in the film reading in his hysterical hillbilly squeak, the movie posits itself as a dire warning. If America does not undergo a massive church revival in the next few years, Pirkle bleats, it will surely signal the beginning of an invasion by Communist forces that will spell the end of Christianity as we know it. That’s only the beginning: as a fallen churchwoman overacts madly in the pews, Pirkle and Ormond paint a woozy picture of the nightmarish future America under Soviet rule. People are forced to stomp all over a glossy portrait of Jesus! Those who do not renounce their faith are beheaded, machinegunned, or forced to have bamboo rods jammed into their ears until they vomit! Schoolchildren will be compelled to pray to Fidel Castro for free candy! Featuring a no-star cast of locals from Pirkle’s church portraying badly dressed commisars, and a Communist invasion force so ill-equipped that they drive their victims around in a beat-up old pickup truck, If Footmen Tire You is really something to behold. To 11-year-old me, it was terrifying; to anyone grown up enough to see it for what it is, it’s utterly laughable.

Click Here For Part One, Two, Three, Four & Six...and don't say we didn't warn you!!!

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce, Phil Nugent

OST: "Rushmore"

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:45:00 GMT

Wes Anderson, whatever his other faults as a filmmaker -- and I, for one, would argue that they're plentiful -- has developed a justified reputation as a consummate crafter of motion picture soundtracks. Unlike other directors who simply leave it to the judgment of whoever's writing the score to make sure sound and vision are properly attuned, with a complementary mood and tone, Anderson personally supervises the selection of the music that goes into his films, painstakingly matching existing songs and original scoring to make sure every scene is perfectly matched, that viewers not only see what he wants them to see, but hears what he wants them to hear. This gift of blending original music, extant pop music artifacts, and film is one that he shares with a handful of other directors of a distinctly post-modernist bent: Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino, and the grandaddy of them all, Martin Scorsese. All four men have a positive passion for blending rock, pop and other musical forms into a lively mix and then folding them delicately into their movies. Tarantino, the consummate pastiche artist, may be the most adept at this form of cinematic mix-tape, but Wes Anderson may be the most inspired, and both musically and cinematically, Rushmore is his masterpiece.

For a movie as distinctly modern as Rushmore is, it has a curiously archaic quality. The music borrowed from other sources is intensely retro; the finished product sounds like a mix CD put together by a quirkily aggressive friend who's obsessed with the music of the British invasion. And while that might seem pretty odd for a movie about a kid who came of age in the late 1990s, it's less odd than it might seem once you've seen Rushmore: Max Fisher is undoubtedly one of those insufferable kids who's utterly scornful of any band containing people close to him in age, and ostentatiously listens only to music that was composed before the invention of the cassette tape. In the album's liner notes, Anderson claims that he originally wanted the soundtrack to contain nothing more than Kinks songs, but a combination of legal issues and the pleading of his collaborators made him change his mind. It's probably for the best -- such an extravagant gesture would be too relentlessly outre, more in keeping with Anderson's later, crazily idiosyncratic work than Rushmore, a movie that keeps a relatable and recognizable human heart beating beneath its ironic hipster exterior. And while Quentin Tarantino might have cast Bill Murray as some sort of flamboyant bit of revivalism, Anderson, here, does it because Murray is the only actor who can deliver the blend of sly, wicked humor and melacholy that is reflected in the soundtrack.

Of course, Wes Anderson did more in putting the music of Rushmore together than comb through a couple of late-'60s Britpop anthologies. The music he selects ranges from smash hits to rarities obscure enough to stun newcomers and surprise experts. Beyond that, he does break up the monotony of endless pop snippets by allowing the wise presence of a score -- and a score composed by another '70s throwback element, Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh. There are bits and pieces of Mothersbaugh's original music -- mostly burbling, optimistic electronic pieces of the sort that used to show up on bachelor-pad hi-fi samplers in the sixties -- on the Rushmore soundtrack, and they're both brief enough to not be intrusive and skillful enough to not be superfluous. An entire album of them would be pretty intolerable, but used like this -- as leavening for the pop gems that surround them -- they show that Anderson still has confidence in traditional film-music usages, but is clever enough to give them ann interesting twist. Since the making of Rushmore, Anderson's films have gotten more abstract, more arcane, more personal in a way that is almost inaccessible and alienating, and while they still feature some gems (like Seu Jorge's terrific Bowie covers in The Life Aquatic), he's never topped the cinematic and musical magic he displays here.

BEST TRACKS: Aside from a flat track or two and some inessential incidental music from Mark Mothersbaugh, there's hardly a dud in this whole stack. "Making Time" is an absolutely crushing track from the forgotten Creation, a Who knockoff so skillful it could have slipped onto The Who Sell Out without anyone noticing; and the Who themselves are well-represented by one of the slicker, cleaner versions in existence of their charming mini-rock opera, "A Quick One (While He's Away)". Although only one Kinks song remains on the soundtrack, it's an absolute killer -- the quiet, sweetly sinister "Nothin' in the World Can Stop Me Worryin' 'Bout That Girl" -- and two of Cat Stevens' best tunes, "Here Comes My Baby" and "The Wind", make an appearance before the whole thing winds down with the Faces' flawless "Ooh La La".

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OST: Beetlejuice

OST: Pulp Fiction

Face/Off: Judd Apatow and "Pineapple Express"

Phil Nugent — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:00:00 GMT

["Face/Off" is an irregularly scheduled recurring segment in which two Screengrab regulars have an exchange of views on some recent fixture of the movie scene. In the exclusive behind-the-scenes photo below, taken at a typical Screengrab "pitch" session, Andrew Osborne [l.] and Phil Nugent [r.] persuade their delighted editor to allow them to revive this much-loved feature.]

PHIL NUGENT: Andrew, I might as well come right out with it. I grew up as one of the most socially maladjusted members of our society: the comedy geek. So I feel a certain kinship with Judd Apatow. In some ways that do not include material success and worldly achievement, we're even kind of alike. We share the same birthday and have both had dirty thoughts about Leslie Mann. He actually got to marry her, so he may have gotten to act on some of his by now. And as a fan, I go back quite a ways with him. And I'm not talking about no Freaks and Geeks, neither! I'm talking The Ben Stiller Show, baby! It was on that series and the longer-lived The Larry Sanders Show, both of which appeared at a time when I was about to be greeted at my door by a mob wielding flaming torches who had dropped by to suggest that my presence might no longer be welcome at grad school and so was sorely in need of a few chuckles, that Apatow developed his chops as a producer and screenwriter and started making the lasting connections that continue to appear in his work. And last year, when Knocked Up made him an official Hollywood player and Superbad made him a name brand, I was happy for him. After all, for a long time, this was a guy who was best known for creating TV shows (also including Undeclared) that inspired devoted cult followings but couldn't stay on the air for more than a year, or (as with the case of Sick in the Head and the other Apatow pilots that became staples of the "Brilliant but Cancelled" phenomenon) couldn't get on the air at all. Although the Internet has given us a great many wonderful things, I still think that the single best use of it that anyone has ever made came when it was used to publicly disseminate the notorious e-mail exchange between Apatow and Mark Brazill, the small crawling thing best known as creator of That '70s Show, and who thought that, by including a mash-up parody of The Monkees with a stereotypical '90s grunge band on an episode of The Ben Stiller Show, Apatow had ripped off his hackish notion of doing a similar show as a "real" sitcom. It's still a hilarious exchange between a clueless dolt with too much money and a genuine and humane wit (who, okay, probably also already had too much money). But I remember when part of the context of the whole thing was a world in which the dolt was seen as more successful. Not anymore.

Apatow has out his name on a lot of stuff since then, and some of it has been, well, a lot less successful than his best stuff. Pineapple Express was preceded into theaters by Step Brothers, which mostly serves as an announcement that it's time for John C. Reilly to, (A.) put some clothes on, (B.) get back to straight acting roles for a while, and (C.) put some clothes on! Last fall, Reilly was unable to hold together Walk Hard, which tried its damndest to sustain the parodic-skit nature of The Ben Stiller Show for the length of a feature film. One of the most discouraging things about Pineapple Express is that it reminded me of that e-mail exchange, but this time, it's Apatow playing the Mark Brazill role. The idea--and it's what we used to call real "high concept" back before someone decided that it would be the honorable thing to bury that phrase with Don Simpson--is a conventional action comedy with conventional L.A. locations and conventional gunplay and chases and explosive fireballs and shit, but with these stoned doofuses at the center. The movie works best when it suggests pure parody: when Seth Rogan and James Franco stay up late babbling about the plan they're going to implement the next morning, and wind up oversleeping by ten hours, and when they then walk off to begin the busy work of saving their asses, only to get distracted by playing leapfrog and trying to get a caterpillar high. (This lyrical interlude may be the only part of the movie that's as fully charming as the movie's trailer, which made phenomenal use of M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes", and which was edited in a way that suggested more visual freshness than you get from the film itself. I am of course familiar with the standard criticisms that have been made of Apatow and the work he's been sponsoring as a producer: that he's running a boys' club, that it's politically tone dead and too insular by half, that John C. Reilly really fucking needs to put some clothes on!! But this is the first thing of his that I've seen that strikes me as struggling to meet the conventional halfway, to just take some of his and his performers' quirkier interests and skills--which here basically just comes down to stoner antics--and trying to shoehorn them into a tired action-comedy formula that neither he nor the hired-gun director, David Gordon Green, could care less about even executing with any degree of skill. Yet you, my man, have gone on record as liking this thing! In the name of Cheech and Chong--have you heard they're threatening a comeback movie, which may be something else I'll decide to blame on Judd when I catch my breath--why, sir, why!?

ANDREW OSBORNE: Since you started your critique with praise, I’ll start my defense of the Apatowniverse with my own critiques. For one thing, I thought Superbad was funny but wildly overpraised, and actually (more than Pineapple Express) a prime example of the strained, one-joke dangers of a too-limited thematic range. Jonah Hill’s Seth, Michael Cera’s Evan and, of course, Christopher Mintz-Plasse’s McLovin were all funny and charming, but sophomoric boys club humor without a corrective balance of mature XY and XX perspective eventually just feels like hanging out with sophomore boys (which got old pretty quick even when I was fifteen). A related criticism and possible symptom of Apatow’s more facile bent is his tendency to work with the same dudes over and over again while leaving his female actors (with the notable, understandable exception of Ms. Mann) out of the loop. Busy Phillips was just as funny and awesome as James Franco, Seth Rogen and Jason Segel on Freaks and Geeks, but she’s doing TV guest spots ever since while her former male co-stars are headlining one Apatow project after another. Ditto Sarah Hagan, Linda Cardellini (who’s got a steady gig on ER, but still...) not to mention poor Carla Gallo from Undeclared, who at least got cameos in later Apatow projects, although one of them (“Toe-Sucking Girl” in The 40-Year-Old Virgin) I don’t remember and the other (“Period Blood Girl” in Superbad) actually made me feel embarrassed for her. (And, really, would it have killed them to find a place for Knocked Up’s hilarious Charlyne Yi in Pineapple Express?)

I mean, there may be any number of perfectly good reasons why Apatow’s boys keep showing up in movie after movie while the girls fall by the wayside, but it does raise certain troubling questions (except maybe in the case of Katherine Heigl, who got a nice career boost with Knocked Up, only to later denounce the whole notion of a hot chick hooking up with an ugly guy as sexist before reaffirming her feminist street cred by starring opposite dreamy James Marsden in 27 Dresses as a strong, independent woman whose life revolves around fantasies of Prince Charming whisking her off to a perfect wedding).

Yet here’s why I defend the Apatowniverse in general: for one thing, it’s rare for anyone to be associated with even a single outstanding TV show or movie, let alone two of the greatest TV shows in the history of the medium (Larry Sanders, Freaks & Geeks) and a slew of smart, funny, eminently quotable and wildly popular comedies like The 40 Year Old Virgin that aren’t just funny but also have a distinctive personality and philosophy (as opposed to high-concept, anything-for-a-laugh joke factories like the Scary Movie franchise).

Even relative misfires like Walk Hard are fairly innocuous, with occasional classic moments (like Jack Black, Justin Long, Paul Rudd and Jason Schwartzman riffing as the Beatles, a scene I could have watched for hours). But it’s the egalitarian humanity of the Apatow brand I find most appealing (and most troubling when it’s missing): in his best work, there are no real villains or laughingstocks: everyone’s an asshole, everyone is foolish, everyone gets a moment of glory. The laughter is with, not at. Mintz-Plasse may be a pencil-neck geek, but he is McLovin, dammit. Mann may come across as shrewish in Knocked Up, but she’s also righteously, hilarious indignant and vulnerable by turns.

There’s much less empathetic character development in Pineapple Express, of course: Craig Robinson’s walk-on performance as a bouncer in Knocked Up was considerably more nuanced than his larger role as a drug dealer in Express, Gary Cole and Rosie Perez (both generally excellent) are essentially wasted as cardboard cartoon characters and the less said about the film’s regressive sub-Long Duk Dong Asian stereotypes the better.

But Apatow’s other strengths are on full display (and by Apatow, of course, I mean his influence on collaborators like director David Gordon Green and writer/star Rogen). Most importantly, the movie had me laughing the whole time, with nary a squirm of boredom or impatience. The action scenes may have been artless when compared to real action movies...but, first of all, Express is a parody and, to be honest, with all the CGI excesses of most 21st century action movies, it’s nice to reconnect with the simple old school pleasures of, say, a simple, straightforward car chase (especially one with distinctive but suspenseful just-this-side of realistic elements like James Franco’s panicky attempt to navigate a speeding vehicle with one foot stuck through a windshield he inadvisably attempted to kick out).

Another Apatow trademark is a certain respect for his audience: unlike any number of movies that cynically recycle tired clichés, situations and phrases (“You the man, dog!”) as if we’re too dumb or lazy to notice, Pineapple Express makes a concerted effort to be as entertaining as possible, surprising us and/or tweaking expectations whenever it can. Rogen’s character doesn’t just survive a near-miss gunshot: there’s also the ickily amusing aftermath. Conversations veer off in loopy, unpredictable directions. And did I also mention it’s just plain funny?

Sure, That ‘70s Show had funny moments despite its flaws, too, and Judd Apatow may be something of an asshole (like many if not all rich, successful people)...and indeed, I’m even willing to believe the humor and humanity of his projects may drop and his asshole quotient may rise the longer he swims with the sharks of Hollwood...but I think it’s still way too early to equate him with a genuine douch-nozzle like Mark Brazill (or at least Brazill’s evil e-mail alter ego)...so let the Apatow backlash backlash begin!

PHIL NUGENT: Your point about the way that Apatow has failed to demonstrate the same stubborn devotion to such female talent as Linda Cardellini and Carla Gallo that he's shown, say, Seth Rogen and James Franco, is well taken, so much so that I regret that I, in my role as the guy trying to start some shit here, didn't mention it myself. When it comes to some comedy writers, I don't feel like complaining about a boy's-club atmosphere because I sort of dread the results if they were to try to write about women, just because they felt they should. (I might think more highly of them as artists and as human beings if natural curiosity compelled them to experiment in that direction, but politically mandated inclusiveness is no friend of comedy.) In Apatow's case, though, there's plenty of evidence that there's a much broader side of himself that he hasn't been exploring. It happens to be the same side that didn't pay the bills for many years. There are many ways to fail in show business; with Freaks and Geeks, Apatow failed the My So-Called Life way, with Internet petitions and reruns on basic cable and reviewers decrying the stupidity of an industry that would just throw away this gem. That's got to be one of the nicer ways to go down, but at the end of the day, you're still someone who couldn't provide job security for all the people who'd turned down other offers to work with you. (Of course, many of the people who are now rich celebrities thanks to their association with Apatow will be quick to tell you that before they met him they couldn't get arrested, but still.)

Looking at the flurry of activity that Apatow has initiated in the last couple of years--including getting projects green-lighted that were based on scripts that had been waiting in the back drawer for some time--I get the impression that he's been trying to create work for his "family", paying them back for sticking with him through the rough times. (Superbad was written so long ago that Seth Rogan had orginally conceived the Jonah Hill role for himself.) In the process, he may be spreading himself, and not just himself, a little thin. You mention Craig Robinson, who in his scene with Leslie Mann outside the club in Knocked Up was able to create a surprisingly full character in one cussword-filled monologue. I expect that he was much happier when he got the script for Pineapple Express and saw that he had a lot more screen time in it, but it comes to so much less. Apatow still has moments of startling inspiration in deciding how best to use these performers; he reportedly made the call that Franco should play the role in Pineapple Express that Rogen had, again, written with himself in mind, and the result is easily the best work that Franco has done in movies, probably the best he's been since, yeah, Freaks and Geeks. And the movie makes terrific use of my man Danny McBride, who in less than three months--the period of time bracketed by the release of The Foot Fist Way and Tropic Thunder--has emerged as the new bad-hair king of Hollywood. (I have a hunch that if Ben Stiller had invited Apatow to the read-through of the Tropic Thunder screenplay, McBride would have walked out of the room with Jack Black's part.) But in his recent productions, there only seems to be two kinds of casting--the outrageously inspired and the by-the-book routine. The cast of Pineapple Express consists of a few people who are squarely in the zone and several talented performers who look as if they're in denial about this being the final draft of the script.

Almost everybody I know loved Knocked Up while confessing to having had "a problem" with it. My own biggest problem with it was a little different from the usual ones I've heard expressed, such as that it gave short shrift to abortion as an option, or that it was implausible that a woman who looked like Katherine Heigl could ever get drunk enough to fuck Seth Rogen. My problem was that, while I had no objection to Rogen's character growing up enough to take on his share of responsibility for raising the child, I didn't think they should have gotten married. I couldn't imagine that union turning out in any way that wouldn't be hellish. Not because Rogen wasn't conventionally attractive enough for Heigl, but because Heigl, unlike everyone else in Rogen's circle, and indeed unlike just about everyone else in the whole movie, her own sister and brother-in-law included, didn't seem to have a funny bone in her body. It says a lot about the cult of standardized beauty that a lot of people felt comfortable saying out loud that Rogen wasn't good-looking enough for her but that I heard very few people ask what the hell he was going to do to keep from dying of boredom after they'd been trapped together for awhile. The fact is, movie audiences have traditionally accepted romantic partners in comedies who looked physically mismatched, such as Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, if both of them were funny; that's the real soul partnership. Heigl herself must have belatedly realized this, since her offscreen complaining about the movie has largely come down to the fact that she didn't get any laughs in it, but based on how eagerly Apatow has jumped to the task to serve funny women when he had them to work with, I have to believe that he sized her up as nice, pretty packaging and choose not to tax her. (You want to see what it looks like when a gorgeous-looking performer who's also gifted and funny is wasted by filmmakers who just want to exploit those physical assets, look at James Franco in thr Spider-man movies.) Since Apatow isn't one of those jackasses (like Al Franken) who's on record as believing that women just aren't funny--he probably gets a reminder of just how funny they can be every time he pisses off his wife--the casting of the dull but handsomely assembled TV soap star as the "normal" one in Knocked Up must be his commercial side talking; it's the part of him that probably thinks that the mass audience won't accept a romantic comedy in which the woman can hold up her end in the quirky wise-cracking department. In Pineapple Express, the commercial side of him is the part that thinks that more people will turn out to watch two comedians doing a stoner routine if somebody is firing machine guns at them, and I think that this time, the commercial side clearly outbalances the quirky, personal side. Which is an ominous development, in my view. Because if Apatow doesn't get back in touch with the side of him that once cared less about audience share and more about making the best use possible of his talents, he's never going to get around to making the movie I really want to see from him: a romantic comedy in which the woman is every bit as funny, maybe as indifferent to conventional definitions of success, and maybe even as much a challenge to conventional standards of attractiveness as the man.

ANDREW OSBORNE: First of all, let me offer you a hearty cyber-handshake for providing the definitive closing argument in the case of Heigl vs. Rogen. It’s so absolutely dead-on, I’m sorry I didn’t think of it myself, but I intend to correct that mistake by taking credit for the idea in every single future argument I have with anyone, for the rest of my life, who bitches about the Rogen/Heigel pairing in Knocked Up. I myself refused to wed 'til I found myself a comical lass who could banter with the best of ‘em...and, frankly, I can’t imagine any better qualification for spousal consideration than a solid sense of humor (which Heigl's Alison Scott definitely lacked, though Rogen’s character, Ben Stone, at least wound up with some pretty cool in-laws)!

And, since you brought it up, I feel the April 2008 Vanity Fair article, “Who Says Women Aren't Funny?” more or less gave the definitive closing argument in the whole tiresome case of “Women Vs. Humor.” As Nora Ephron says in the piece, ““There is no question that there are a million more funny women than there used to be...but everything has more women. There are more women in a whole bunch of places, and this is one of them.” Sounds good to me, though I also agree with the sociological wisdom of a later quote from humorist and Harvard Lampoon alum Patricia Marx: ““Maybe pretty women weren't funny before because they had no reason to be funny. There was no point to it—people already liked you.”

So, there are funny women out there, and I’d like to see Apatow do a better job of utilizing them, because his best stuff isn’t the bad boy buzz of exploding cars and gunplay (however entertaining some of those moments may have been in Pineapple Express, though I thought the entire “crazy cops” subplot in Superbad was tedious)...no, Apatow’s gift is capturing modern day relationships with spot-on, up-to-the-minute clarity: Franco and Rogen hanging out in Express, Jonah Hill and Michael Cera hanging out in Superbad, Busy Phillips and Linda Cardellini hanging out in Freaks & Geeks, etc., etc.

And, while I agree I’d like to see Apatow do MORE comedies where the male and female relationships are evenly matched in terms of comedy chops, I wouldn’t say he’s NEVER delivered those particular goods. Steve Carell was a scream in The 40 Year Old Virgin, but Catherine Keener was certainly no slouch in the funny/unconventional department (and, in the supporting cast, Jane Lynch went toe-to-toe with Rogen, Paul Rudd and Romany Malco without breaking a sweat). And Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which Apatow produced for his boy Jason Segal, featured pretty funny turns from Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis (the dirtiest name in show biz).

Were Keener, Bell and Kunis as funny as their respective romantic comedy co-stars? Well, no, not quite: by way of comparison, my ultimate celebrity crush, Alyson Hannigan, was far more outrageous and funny playing off Jason Biggs in American Pie (a movie that would fit quite snugly into the Apatow-verse, come to think of it). And, yes, in the first American Pie, Hannigan wasn’t exactly a romantic lead, but rather a funny supporting player, like Lynch in Virgin, Leslie Mann and Charlyne Yi in Knocked Up and Amber Heard in Express.

So, okay, point taken: let’s get Apatow, Tina Fey and Paul Rudd together for a remake of Barefoot In The Park, stat!

But in the meantime, I’m not even close to giving up on Judd Apatow (yet), because, while some of his projects may fare better than others, he’s never really burned me as a viewer, meaning he’s built up quite a lot of credit in the ol' Bank of Osborne.

And I can’t really fault the man for trying a bunch of different genres (romantic comedy, action, parody, etc.) and using his newfound (and, given the nature of Hollywood , no doubt ephemeral) power to launch a bunch of projects (some good, some not as good, same as with any producer) that would never otherwise get made. Nor can I fault the man for possessing commercial self-preservation instincts...though it’s not like he’s Michael Bay, for God's sake, or even the aforementioned Nora Ephron, who gives good quote, yet also hacks up soulless Hollywood hairballs like Bewitched and Hanging Up with depressing regularity. (And, if you think about it, “stoner action comedy” isn’t exactly a sure thing/sell-out commercial genre anyway...even with all the blanks and explosions, Pineapple Express was still a personal movie, in that it directly reflected the distinct sensibility of Apatow and his collaborators.)

So, in conclusion, yes, I think Judd Apatow certainly has the capacity to go to the Dark Side – but aside from an executive producer credit on the odious Will Ferrell “comedy” Kicking and Screaming, I don't really see any evidence that he’ll be picking out a secret Sith name anytime soon. His upcoming projects (including a biblical comedy, a Sherlock Holmes comedy and a semi-dramatic film about stand-up comedians) seem to indicate a healthy willingness on his part to experiment. But, most importantly, Apatow's name on a movie poster usually means I’ll be entertained, either a little or a lot...and there are VERY few names in Hollywood that inspire that kind of brand loyalty these days.

As for Pineapple Express, which got this whole discussion rolling in the first place, my definitive closing argument is simple: "it brought the funny" (as the comedy geeks would say)...

...and for a fellow comedy geek like Apatow, that's pretty much the point.

--Contributors: Phil Nugent; Andrew Osborne

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When Good Directors Go Bad: The Darjeeling Limited (2007, Wes Anderson)

Paul Clark — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Wes Anderson is something of a polarizing figure among cinephiles. For every one who believes he’s a gifted filmmaker with an irresistible comic sensibility, there’s another who finds his work too self-satisfied. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground, and Anderson seems to be fine with this, as his style has become quirkier and more eccentric with each film he makes. For years I’ve been in the pro-Anderson camp, and I’ve often found myself defending movies like The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou against those who found them insufferable. But when I first saw The Darjeeling Limited, I had to admit that the naysayers had a point.

Still, at the time I was reluctant to write off Darjeeling as a failed effort on Anderson’s part. Yes, I didn’t respond very well to it, I wondered if my reaction was based on my disappointment at the film being somewhat less than totally awesome. I decided to give the film a little distance and revisit it after it was released on DVD, so that I might be able to approach it with some perspective. And so I watched it again this past weekend, and this second viewing mostly confirmed my initial misgivings. The Darjeeling Limited isn’t a total botch, but it’s definitely the least of Anderson’s films, and the one in which the limitations of his style really come through most clearly.

One of the most common objections that’s raised to Anderson’s work has to do with his visual style, in which he situates his characters in storybook-style tableaux. In Anderson’s films, there’s always some curious knick knack or peripheral detail at the corner of the frame. But while in previous films, all of these sly little jokes added up to create convincing and original environments for the characters- remember the underwear painting in Eli Cash’s house?- here they just become oppressive. Anderson and production designer Mark Friedberg let their imaginations run wild in creating a colorful version of India, but the small bits of design business don’t really add up to anything, so instead of creating a delightful world for the film, the style instead becomes oppressive, like it’s been art-directed to death.

Of course, some of this problem might have been alleviated had the world created by Anderson been populated by vivid characters, but sadly, it’s not. Darjeeling focuses on the travels of the Whitman brothers- played by Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman- as they venture across India in an attempt to reconnect with each other and have a shared spiritual experience. However, none of the characters is drawn with very much depth, with each being defined primarily by his quirks. Faring worst is Schwartzman as little brother Jack. Jack is meant to be a sensitive writer who is still reeling from the disillusion of a longstanding relationship (part of which we see in the film’s companion piece Hotel Chevalier), but I never felt a thing for the guy. Part of the problem is Schwartzman’s performance- perfect as he was for Rushmore, he’s not a very expressive actor, certainly not soulful enough to pull off a character who should by rights be an emotional linchpin for the film.

All of Anderson’s recent films are in some way or other about family, whether the bond is one of blood or, more commonly, a surrogate family arrangement. The Darjeeling Limited is no exception, but what it lacks is a character who stands outside the family unit, grounding the more whimsical and dysfunctional aspects of the family unit. Frankly, Darjeeling needs a character like this, because without it the story becomes a parade of quirkiness. Even Adrien Brody’s Peter, who appears most likely to become the pragmatist of the group, ends up getting caught on the wavelength of the other characters.

But perhaps most annoying is how on-the-nose certain elements of the film are. Anderson has always had a tendency to use symbolism in his work- like the shark that represents death in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou- but never have the symbols clanged so loudly as they do in The Darjeeling Limited. For example, as if Owen Wilson’s bandaged head doesn’t make it clear enough that he’s been psychologically scarred, Anderson includes a scene in which Wilson removes his bandages in front of his brothers, looks at his scars, and says, “I guess I’ve still got some healing to do.” The train itself is pretty clearly meant to symbolize life, which Anderson makes explicit in an admittedly pretty neat scene in which various supporting characters are shown living their own lives in individual train cars. But the most egregious use of symbolism gone haywire is the use of the Whitmans’ dead father’s custom-made monogrammed baggage, which they carry along with them. The film’s climactic scene finds the boys chasing down a departing train and finally having to leave behind their baggage in order to catch it. Needless to say, the thundering obviousness of the scene is sort of insulting.

All of this is not to say that The Darjeeling Limited is without any merit whatsoever. Anderson is too talented a director to make a worthless, uninteresting film, and Darjeeling contains its share of delights. For one thing, its opening scene is brilliant, so much so that the rest of the film is all the more disappointing in comparison. In addition, the film has another of Anderson’s characteristically wonderful soundtracks, this one packed full of music from films directed by James Ivory and Satyajit Ray. However, these delights are modest compared to the film’s many faults. Hell, I haven’t even gotten around to mentioning the parallel scenes in which Wilson is taken to task for ordering dinner for his brothers, and the one where the boys’ long-lost mother (Anjelica Huston) does exactly the same thing. Hardly subtle, and sadly, all too typical of Anderson’s approach here.

Most filmmakers have a comfort zone as far as style and material are concerned, and many of the films I’ve written about so far in this series have failed because their directors have stepped too far out of this comfort zone. But The Darjeeling Limited is exactly the opposite- everything about the film resides so squarely in Anderson’s wheelhouse that it practically feels like an inside joke. I still believe Anderson is a gifted filmmaker, but if he wants to grow as an artist he needs to find new wrinkles for his style, because if The Darjeeling Limited is any indication, diminishing returns have begun to set in, which if you’re an artist is the last thing you want to happen.

Take Five: Lennon

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:45:00 GMT

Hollywood loves John Lennon. It loved him when he was alive, and ever since he had the good taste to die and stop being such a crazy troublemaker, it's loved him even more. Playing Lennon in the movies is almost as profitable as playing Elvis in Las Vegas; as you'll see below, there seem to be no less than two professional actors who more or less make their living portraying the charismatic ex-Beatle. Still, the gig isn't without its problems; only a few years after his death, Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, helped produce a (mediocre) TV movie called John and Yoko: A Love Story. All seemed to be going well until it was discovered that Mark Lindsay, the near lookalike they'd cast to play Lennon, was actually named Mark Chapman -- which, er, just happened to be the name of John Lennon's assassin. Friday, New York and L.A. will see the premiere of The Killing of John Lennon, Andrew Piddington's big-screen directorial debut, which tells the story of that Mark Chapman, but which doesn't actually feature anyone playing John Lennon; here's a few worthwhile films that do.

A HARD DAY'S NIGHT (1964)

Although many have tried, the fact remains that nobody does a better job of playing John Lennon than John Lennon. Moreso than any of the other Beatles, Lennon's combination of unassuming good looks (in contrast to the pretty-boy cuteness of Paul McCartney) and genuine charisma (as opposed to the merely amiable Ringo Starr) made him almost as compelling a figure in real life as he was on record. Richard Lester's irresistably fun day-in-the-life pseudodocumentary is a great showpiece for Lennon's natural likeability, even if Ringo tends to get the funniest lines, and it also serves as a virtual blueprint for rock star vehicles; it continued to be echoed on down through the years, with even movies like 1997's Spice World following its basic premise and format. Lennon would make a handful of other movies before his murder in 1980, but nowhere else is it as obvious why the public so took to the Beatles back in their heyday. No subsequent hagiography, conjuration or commentary could possibly do a better job than A Hard Day's Night of illustrating exactly what it was like to be there, and why John Lennon became so important to his generation.

THE HOURS AND TIMES (1991)

A little-seen but extremely accomplished independent film by Christopher Munch, The Hours and Times is only an hour long, but it manages to capture some of the most intriguing moments of John Lennon's career (albeit ones that may never have actually happened) in a distinctive and skillful visual style that apes the look of A Hard Day's Night, but to an entirely different purpose. One of the most-speculated-upon -- and enigmatic -- periods of Lennon's career was a youthful trip to Spain he took in 1963 with the Beatles' then-manager, Brian Epstein. Epstein, a well-known homosexual in what was not yet Swinging London, never made a secret of his attraction to the young Lennon, but neither did he explicitly spell it out, or tell anyone whether or not it was reciprocated in any way. In the absence of any evidence either way, Munch chooses to make the journey on film as part of his own personal fantasia, ably abetted by two outstanding performances by a vulnerable and nervous David Angus as Epstein and a cocky, charming Ian Hart as Lennon. Worth seeking out both on its own merits and as a curious bit of Beatles fantasy.

TWO OF US (2000)

As illustrated by The Hours and Times, a number of filmmakers -- whether because of personal obsession or the outright exhaustion of actual historical anecdotes -- have chosen to make movies about the Beatles not as they were, but as they might have been. (We wouldn't be surprised if there's a thriving underground trade in alternate Beatles history.) Two of Us is odder than most, if for no other reason than the pedigree of its makers: directed for television by British aristocrat and stage veteran Michael Lindsay-Hogg and written by playwright Mark Stansfield (his only filmed credit), it takes a more or less chance meeting in 1976 between John Lennon and Paul McCartney and uses it as a springboard for a speculative dive into what basically amounts to My Dinner with the Walrus. Not always successful and featuring a distinctive lack of Beatles music, it's nonetheless noteworthy because of the casting: Paul McCartney is played by a callow-sounding, jumpy Aidan Quinn, and Lennon is portrayed in a surly, almost growling manner by Rex Harrison's kid, Jared Harris, fresh off of portraying fellow '60s icon Andy Warhol. A curiosity.

CHAPTER 27 (2006)

In one of those bizarre coincidences that hit the movie business every few years or so, The Killing of John Lennon isn't the only film about the killing of John Lennon floating around at the moment. In fact, it's not even the first. That honor goes to J.P. Schaefer's Chapter 27, which made quite a splash when it debuted at Sundance last year (with Jared Leto's performance as assassin Mark David Chapman being singled out for praise), but had some difficulty finding a distributor before finally securing a March release date with tiny Peace Arch Entertainment. It might be the presence of actress/singer/train wreck Lindsay Lohan, but then again, maybe not: unlike The Killing of John Lennon, Chapter 27 does feature someone playing the ex-Beatle -- and it's none other than Mark Lindsay Chapman, the guy who was fired from John and Yoko: A Love Story over twenty years ago for failing to disclose his rather unfortunate coincidence of a name. It's not clear whether the release of Andrew Piddington's movie will increase or decrease Chapter 27's chances of netting a distributor, but we're hoping it's the former; the cast alone makes it sound pretty intriguing.

WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY (2007)

It's not that the Judd-Apatow-written, Jake-Kasdan-directed mockumentary about the rise and fall of rock non-legend Dewey Cox isn't enjoyable enough on its own. With a hilariously confident lead performance by John C. Reilly and a ton of goofy songs (which Reilly is now touring around the country with a hand-picked live band), it's well deserving of its current success. But the most fun thing about it is that since it gives us a lead character who lived through most of the formative years of rock 'n' roll, there's plenty of opportunities for ridiculous cameos, both by celebrities playing themselves and inspired impersonations. While Forrest Gump brought us the sight of John Lennon portrayed with dull precision by professional Beatles impersonator Joe Stefanelli, Walk Hard brings us perhaps the most hilariously perfect Beatles impersonators in movie history: Jack Black as Paul McCartney, Justin Long as George Harrison, Jason Schwartzman as Ringo Starr, and the indefatiguable Paul Rudd as John Lennon. Not since Yo La Tengo fulfilled their destiny of playing the Velvet Underground in I Shot Andy Warhol has there been such a groovy bit of casting.

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.