So I was watching Taxi Driver back in '76, and I got a look at that guy who hits on the Cybill Shepherd character in Senator Palatine's campaign office, and I was like: "Dude, you just KNOW he's a talented comic writer waiting to happen."
And you know what? I was right!
That guy, of course, was (and still is) Albert Brooks, an actor/writer/director who has lurked in the comedy background for years, surfacing occasionally as an actor -- in Finding Nemo, The Simpsons Movie (and, more memorably, a few Simpsons episodes), and James L. Brooks' Broadcast News (the Albert version of Brooks got a Best Supporting Actor nomination for that one).
As a writer-director, Brooks appears less frequently. But when he does, it's often worth paying attention -- he's something of a more-bitter Woody Allen. He hasn't made the Complete Great Film like Allen, but he's usually good for some sharp laughs and astute observations.
Sadly, the YouTube pirates couldn't quite come up with the best clips from his two best offerings -- Lost in America and Mother -- but here's a good one from his clever, low-key 1999 film The Muse:
*First, let's hope the confession doesn't end up like the one at the beginning of this.
1) I'm not old enough to remember seeing basketball great Wilt Chamberlain play.
2) I'm not old enough to remember Wilt Chamberlain live (much)*.
*Aside: Although we're referencing Chamberlain, we won't talk much about this little detail.
3) Repeat 1 and 2, only in 1 replace "basketball great" with "filmmaking legend" and "Wilt Chamberlain" with this guy:
Yeah, so it's not exactly an original position for some film nerd to admire Orson Welles. But my point is this:
Welles' pre-1960s work wasn't just good for its era. Films such as Touch of Evil (the re-done 1998 version ... wow) and Citizen Kane are still good now. Like legitimate good, not "influential" good.
Which brings us to our Wilt Chamberlain/1962 analogy. Sure, during the 1961-62 season, the 7-foot-1 Chamberlain played alongside Hall of Famers like Oscar Robertson (Billy Wilder), Bill Russell (Alfred Hitchcock), Jerry West (Frank Capra) and Elgin Baylor (Elia Kazan). But come on. In '61-'62, Chamberlain averaged a league-record 50.4 points per game (Citizen Kane) and added 25.7 rebounds per (Touch of Evil). He was simply better than everybody else, even if he didn't win the MVP Award (Best Director Oscar) that year (during his career).
No tengo ni idea de qué se trata esta película. También, sólo he visto una y un tercio de las películas de Almodóvar. Pero, estoy un poco excitado de ...
(Back to English) Which brings up the whole Pedro Almodóvar thing. Previous incarnations of The Film Official were averse to subtitles, so many great foreign films from years past got passed over. Then we (I; the royal we) happened upon this one accidentally, and everything changed.
Which brought us (me), recently, to Hable con ella*, the Oscar-winning 2002 film that starred two guys and two comatose women and had one of the most bizarre/original scenes imaginable (and one that's so NSFW I won't even remotely link to it). The plot, the dialogue, the characters -- OK, so they weren't quite as original as that one scene, but they were close, which placed Hable con ella alongside a number of great '02 releases.
*Literally: "Talk with her," but for some reason translated to "Talk To Her" for English crowds.
Subsequently I caught the first 45 minutes of Volver, the 2006 film that netted Penélope Cruz her first Oscar nomination. Intriguing stuff; hoping to see the rest soon. Then Los Abrazos Rotos ("Broken Embraces"). Then maybe, belatedly, I can take up residence in Almodóvarlandia.
*Note: The title of this post was brought to you in a very NSFW way by "Hey Now!" Hank Kingsley.
So in another one of my lives I'm into sports or something. Guess you might be able to pick that up considering the referee pic on the right side of this blog.
Anyway, as a sports junkie, I frequent this one little website from time to time, and often read this humor columnist named Bill Simmons. In a recent e-mail exchange with readers, Simmons (a regular pop-culture in-joke machine) talked movie bromance (he declared Shawshank's Red and Andy the "greatest bromance ever"), and he discussed many, many other things of varying topics.
One topic was bold predictions. One prediction was this:
"America will turn against Judd Apatow."
I agree.
Not that Apatow didn't bring us one of the most likable gross-out comedies imaginable in The 40 Year Old Virgin -- which also pretty much resurrected the genre -- but I think we're nearing the saturation point. Too much, too fast.
It seems each passing Apatow film -- or at least each one that features members of The Judd Apatow Troupe (Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Jason Segal, Jonah Hill, et al) -- gets a little less hilarious, and a little more derivative. Not to say films like Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Pineapple Express weren't laugh-out-loud funny at times ... it's just, ya know, the shtick isn't as good as it was four years ago.
Now there's this:
Funny, sure. But a Deer Hunter joke?
And one more thing: Let's hope Funny People avoids the forced (and mostly unbelievable) ending that turned Knocked Up into a "grown-up" movie with "values" (or something like that). Less maturity, more (incredibly NSFW) Mooj.
Comcast's On-Demand lineup has offered a lot of Woody (no snickering!) lately. And watching some of his works again, it's pretty hard to argue* with the career of everyone's favorite nebbishy comic/philosopher. He's won all sorts of awards for all sorts of films -- from the most serious of dramas to the most ridiculously stupid** of comedies.
*Unless you're one of those types who holds someone's personal life -- like Allen's -- against them when it comes to assessing their work; better stop being a sports fan while you're at it, too.
**Stupid in a very, very good way.
Lately there have been lamentations about how his work is slipping, not nearly up to his standards and blah blah blah*. Here's hoping the teaming of Allen with the angrier, taller, 21st-century version of him breaks that trend. But even if it doesn't ... so? That's what Netflix is for. Or cable, if the On-Demand Library gods feel like being kind.
*Reminds me of a quote from author Joseph Heller, when told he had never written anything as good as Catch-22 after releasing that legendary novel. He retorted: "Who has?"
Not that Woody is inarguably the best ever or anything. But even if he never makes another masterpiece, he's near the top.
Here's why (note -- these aren't all of Allen's good films, but they're among his greatest):
-Annie Hall: The Best Picture winner isn't his best, IMO. Still, it's up there, offering Allen's typical mid-career mix of hilarious lines and interesting life (and, especially, relationship) insights. Extra points for the scenes where Allen's character interacts imaginarily with people in his flashbacks or with strangers out in public, and for the line "Everything that our parents told us is good is actually bad -- like the sun, milk, red meat, and college," and for hilarious early appearances by Christopher Walken and Jeff Goldblum*.
*"I forgot my mantra."
-Bullets Over Broadway: John Cusack is a blocked playwright and Chazz Palminteri a gangster with an unusual gift -- play writing. Palminteri, Dianne Wiest (who won) and Jennifer Tilly grabbed Oscar nominations; extra points for a great role for one of The Film Official's favorites, Jim Broadbent, as a gluttonous actor smitten with Tilly.
-The Stupid Comedies: Again, "stupid" is a compliment here, a word meant only to separate the likes of Take the Money and Run (1969), Bananas (1971), Sleeper (1973) and Love and Death (1975) from Allen's more "serious" later works, or at least the ones that don't involve Woody beating a man insensible with a strawberry.
These are the closest to Allen's hilarious books. Personally, it's hard to pick a favorite among the first three I listed, which are slightly superior to Love and Death. Let's go with some favorite scenes, instead:
It's beyond me why the bit at about 1:20 of this clip isn't more well-known.
Oh, the social commentary:
And finally...
-Crimes and Misdemeanors: This 1989 film is dark. Funny. Tragic. Pretty much bleak. Moralistic, but far from annoying about it. Two story strands are at play here, linked only by a mutual acquaintance of both protagonists.
One of those protagonists is Judah (played by the ever-outstanding Martin Landau, known to Entourage-ophiles as Bob Ryan). He's upstanding and upstandingly married, but an affair with a woman (Angelica Huston) is coming back to haunt him. Meanwhile there's Cliff, played by Allen as sort of a less-successful version of himself (he's a low-level documentary filmmaker). Cliff is stuck in a loveless marriage and falls for a TV producer (Mia Farrow). Cliff's story is tragically funny. Judah's story is tragically not.
A lot is made about how Do the Right Thing wasn't nominated for Best Picture in '89, and I can't argue with that. But let's not forget that Crimes and Misdemeanors -- one of the few exceptional films made in the disappointing 1980s -- also didn't make the cut. Not even for offering this profound ending (spoiler alert) or a joke for the One-Liner Hall of Fame*.
*"Last time I was inside a woman was when I visited the Statue of Liberty."
P_T_D once went to film school, but left because he found the job landscape too bleak. Now he is comfortably employed in the rock of stability known as journalism, and surely shall remain so until the end of time.
A: The Film Official is home to all of P_T_D's film-related thoughts, feelings, notions, opinions, and other synonyms that can be found on Thesaurus.com when you type in the word "thoughts."
Q: You're not just going to review movies and do nothing else, are you?
A: No, I'm also going to crack jokes about your mom.
Q: Who is P_T_D?
A: That's what your mom said.
Q: How often will The Film Official be updated?
A: Jeez, whenever I feel like it, OK? Stop hounding me all the time! You people are so needy!
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