An Orson Welles Wannabe Responds

I got some cool comments on my post A Birthday Tribute To Orson Welles With 10 Welles Wannabes (May 5, 2008) but the one that really takes the cake is from one of the Orsons - #10. Jean Guérin to be exact. I had written that I could find very little info about Guérin's 2 performances of Welles in HEAVENLY CREATURES and LA VENGEANCE DE LA FEMME EN NOIR so it is great to get it right from the source. Here’s what he wrote along with a few great photos he sent along as well:

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Hello,

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jean Guérin. I am a film teacher/writer/actor residing in Montreal, Canada.

Recently, I was alerted to your blog's posting regarding fake Orsons where I made #10.

Thank you for giving me credit. A recently published book states that Peter Jackson used computer technology to bring Orson back to life. Seems I don't exist but am some sort of virtual construct.
Coincidentally, this pic was taken on OW's birthday 15 years ago.

Creatures was a silent part in a fantasy sequence. Jackson & Walsh recruited me at a film festival in Montreal, where I had volunteered to drive them around. I wasn’t an actor at the time. I got teased a lot in film school about my resemblance to OW but hadn't heard it in a few years until Fran Walsh brought it up. Originally, the plan was to pull OW out of footage of The Third Man but PJ found himself limited in his action choices.Our chance meeting not only saved the scene but enabled Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh to play with it and expand on it.

The scene involves notorious teenage lesbian schoolgirl murderers Parker and Hulme, played by Kate Winslet and Melanie Linskey going to see The Third Man and pretending Orson is stalking them outside the theatre. They run home where Mel morphs into Orson and seduces Kate (technically making me the first guy to kiss Kate Winslet in a movie).

In order to further the illusion, PJ made OW “monochrome” and shot close-ups of me to substitute for those of OW in the Third Man footage. As a film buff, this was totally cool. Especially when I got to shoot “M” (Bernard Lee).

The subterfuge worked. At the 1994 Venice film festival , Robert Zemeckis approached PJ to ask him how he managed to do the reverse of what he had done in Forest Gump. It was an ice breaker which led to RZ producing PJ’s next feature, The Frighteners.

The best part of working on the film is that no one believes it. On occasion, I do get a student inquiring if it's me and I tend to brush it off by saying “I get that a lot”.

I do get a great kick out of mentioning the movie in a context where people think I'm joking and/or won't believe me. “The director of Lord of the Rings flew me to New-Zealand to play Orson Welles in a lesbian love scene with Kate Winslet”. When you phrase it like that- who would?

As a lifelong Orson buff, this remains one of the best experiences of my life.

The same cannot be said of my other Orson portrayal.

La Vengeance De La Femme En Noir is a 1997 Quebec production directed by Roger Cantin. It is a sequel to his popular L'Assassin Jouait Du Trombone.

Again, Orson is used as a figment of the character’s imagination. In the film,the main character Marleau (Germain Houde), imagines his conscience (himself) talking to him. In the climax, his conscience abandons him, leaving “Harry Lime” in his place. It was supposed to explain the character's change of heart in the unfilmed sequel. Only a few people got the reference , and even then, it's because the director explained it to them personally. The film is full of visual references to classic film noirs which are wasted in this broad humour farce.

The film is in French. Despite doing a really good Orson voice (deviated septum and all), I was re-dubbed over because Welles’ real voice is not familiar to French speaking audiences. The result is awful, with Orson sounding Haitian. The director has since apologized for the choice but the damage is done and the scene is a cringer- especially to Orson buffs.

Fortunately, the film played less than a week theatrically and was never released on DVD. It does show up on late-night cable in Quebec from time to time to haunt me.

On the practical side, it allowed me to break into the local actor's union.

However, it does give me the distinction of having played OW twice and in two languages.

I actually played OW a third time on a segment of a local magazine show where I finally got to do the voice.

Hope this was informative or at least entertaining.

Regards,
Jean Guérin

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Wow, that indeed was incredibly informative and extremely entertaining! I emailed Mr. Guérin to thank him for writing and ask for his permission to post it here which he nicely allowed. He also added that in the color photo above that he had “prosthetic makeup on this film which made me look more like Karl Malden as the day progressed. The New Zealand make-up artist did way better with stage makeup than all that rubber.”

Man, what it takes to recreate Welles!

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New DVD Diatribes For A Dreary Rainy Day

Yep, a few NetFlix envelopes torn open and their contents digested on a cloudy drizzly May day goes somethin' like this:

MY KID COULD PAINT THAT (Dir. Amir Bar-Lev, 2007) Is Marla Olmstead just a regular 4 year old who likes to paint or is she a artistic genius on the scale of the great masters? Bar-Lev's documentary filmed a few years back follows the Olmsteads - a family from Binghampton, NY whose youngest daughter's abstract canvasses cause a sensation in the art world. Her paintings are sold for thousands attracting media attention and then controversy. A 60 Minutes piece claims that Marla's father (Mark Olmstead) actually coached the work out of her or actually produced the paintings himself. This is where the narrative arc becomes “a story about a story” as Elizabeth Cohen (the columnist who first broke the original story of Marla as child prodigy) says. Parents Mark and Laura Olmstead are outraged at the accusation that they are exploiting their child and attempt to prove that Marla is the sole author of her work by filming her with a hidden camera. The plot thickens even more as filmmaker Bar-Lev has growing doubts and voices them, at first alone to his camera in the car driving from the Olmstead home then directly to the parents in an extremely uncomfortable but still compelling scene in their living room.

The cleverly named MY KID COULD PAINT THAT is one of the best of the current crop of documentaries and one that leaves you guessing about what really went down much like CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS or the more recent THE KING OF KONG. Having been introduced to these folk through these visual essays, whether or not they are balanced portraits, we can follow up through the further internet coverage and make our own conclusions. In Marla's unique case we are shown many of her paintings and much footage of her at work. Her father Mark does seem to have a controlling influence and her work when filmed on her own appears to be different by style and method to the previous examples. Mark Olmstead also seems overly defensive and makes some 'digging a hole' type comments like: “I don't want this documentary to be about 60 Minutes although everybody wants to talk about 60 Minutes but I'm not! Because I don't talk about it ever until you guys are around!” Still, as Bar-Lev sensitively stresses through-out the film Marla and her family seem like nice people who got caught up in the craziness of modern art marketing and manipulation. It's hard not to have sympathy for their situation but if the attacks on the arts authorship have truth to them it's pretty damning nonetheless. Mother Linda at a frustrated moment says “documentary gold” right before tearfully walking off camera - she says it extremely sarcastically but it may be the most truthful remark made in this movie. When Marla comes of age it will be interesting to hear what she says about her parents and painting dominated childhood - a prospect that I'm sure Bar-Lev is looking forward to.

CONSPIRACY (Dir. Adam Marcus, 2008) I've been working on a book about conspiracy movies for some time so I feel obligated to see every such related movie so it's obvious why this made my NetFlix queue. A quasi-remake of BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK this awful unimaginatively titled film features a chunky Val Kilmer acting as wooden as possible returning from Iraq to seek out a fellow soldier friend from the war. He travels to a town in the South West which is being re-built as a corporate-run old timey tourist trap by an evil millionaire played by the slimily charming Gary Cole. Kilmer, suffering from constant over dramatic Iraq flashbacks, finds that his friend is missing and everybody is mum on the subject and of course that Cole wants him out of town. One cowboy hatted cliché even says: “ Throw in local hottie Jennifer Esposito, a Keystone cluster of corrupt cops, the most predictable shoot-outs this side of YOUNG GUNS II and the result is craptacular.

Cole, an under-rated actor (TALLADEGA NIGHTS, OFFICE SPACE, THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE), is the only one who seems to be having fun with his hackneyed character. His smirking scene stealing makes me think that they should have handled this material satirically. Kilmer can do comedy too, as his performances in TOP SECRET, THE REAL McCOY and even in his overblown impression of Jim Morrison in THE DOORS (well, I laughed) attest so really I wish they had gone that route. Instead all we have is this predictable retread through the leftover plot devices of the before mentioned BAD DAY... mixed with the lowbrow aesthetics of the WALKING TALL series and severely sucky remake. As a lover of both good and bad conspiracy themed movies I couldn't even make counting the clichés a fun game with this being just downright dreadful and well deserving of its Direct-To-DVD status.

I WANT SOMEONE TO EAT CHEESE WITH (Dir. Jeff Garlin, 2006)

Garlin's debut as triple threat leading man, writer, and director is somewhat slight but like Garlin himself - it's a lovable schlub of a movie. Best known as Larry David's manager Jeff Green on Curb Your Enthusiasm Garlin has a long list of credits in comedy and casts lots of longtime buddies from his Second City days and sitcom background in this film. Garlin plays a guy not unlike himself - had he never left Chicago and lived with his mother (Mina Kolb - an original Second City Player). He hears about a remake of the classic Ernest Borgnine movie MARTY, a film he's convinced he's perfect for, and pines for an audition. He meets a quirky ice-cream parlour clerk played by comedienne Sarah Silverman and he pines for her too. Then there's Bonnie Hunt as a “chubby chaser” school teacher (as Amy Sedaris labels her in a nice cameo) who actually may be a more sensible choice for Garlin. That's about it for what we've got here plotwise but Garlin makes it a breezy affable affair at an economical 80 minutes with a nice helping of heart.

I'm glad that I watched MARTY (Dir. Sydney Lumet, 1956) for the first time not long ago. I think it's the definitive good, not great, movie to win the Best Picture Academy Award. Garlin's I WANT SOMEONE TO EAT CHEESE WITH references MARTY so often that it posits itself as a companion piece. It indeed would make a good double feature. If you want to make it a triple feature throw in John Candy in ONLY THE LONELY (1991) - another film about a frustrated fat man that owes something to Ernest Borgnine's turn. I, like many, can relate to Garlin's struggles with his weight, love-life, and crumbling career. The tone and timing with so many recognizable comedy folk including Dan Castelletta (Homer Simpson!), Tim Kazurinsky (SNL in the 80's), and Richard Kind (Mad About You, Spin City), all hitting their marks is right on the money - and I mean the low budget money. Jeff Garlin says on the commentary that he feels he made a good, not great movie. He's right - like the movie he's giving props to (MARTY of course) it is good and while it would never get an Oscar I'm sure it'll gain a lot of fans. Now I'm gonna go check out if I have any cheese...

More later...

A Birthday Tribute To Orson Welles With 10 Welles Wannabes

“I'm not very fond of movies. I don't go to them much.” - Orson Welles

Tomorrow is Orson Welles' birthday (May 6th, 1915). Since he died of a heart attack hunched over his typewriter in Los Angeles in 1985 his legend has grown immensely. The accolade “cinematic genius” as well as sayings like “larger than life” feel like they were coined for him. CITIZEN KANE still tops critics' lists, including mine, of the greatest movies ever and the rest of his fascinating filmography (what's available, that is) is both passionately studied by scholars and enjoyed by movie-lovers by the millions. Along with his birthday there are also a few notable anniversaries this year to pay tribute to - the classic thriller TOUCH OF EVIL turned 50 a few weeks back (it was released on April 23rd, 1958), his magnificent MACBETH hits 60 (Oct 1st, 1948), and this Halloween will be the 70th anniversary of the famous War Of The Worlds broadcast (Oct. 31st, 1938) that put Welles's name on the media map. Since, as the saying goes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery I thought it would be fun to look at Orson Welles as played by others. Many films and television shows - both live action and animated, have had actors portray the mighty moviemaker. IMDb even lists a separate page: Orson Welles (Character). Some of course pull off the impression better than others but they are all amusing attempts to capture the offbeat charm of one of the most well known figures of the 20th Century. So let's take a look at the men who would be KANE:

10 Orson Welles Wannabes
1. & 2. Maurice LaMarche & Vincent D'Onofrio - Why am I listing 1 & 2 together? Because LaMarche and D'Onofrio have both played Welles more than once and one time they played him together! LaMarche, a gifted mimic, has provided his pitch perfect approximation of Welles' voice to The Simpsons, The Critic, and his character of the Brain on the cult favorite cartoon Pinky And The Brain is heavily based on Welles. D'Onofrio who has a striking resemblence to Welles also played him in the short film FIVE MINUTES, MR. WELLES but in Tim Burton's 1994 tribute to the twisted filmmaker ED WOOD D'Onofrio appears with LaMarche's voice dubbed in - that's right it took two people to play Orson Welles. Tempting to make a fat joke here but I'll let it go. Ed Wood (Johnny Depp) spies Welles sitting at a table in a bar nursing a cocktail, smoking a cigar, and working on pages of a screenplay. Wood introduces himself and shares his movie production frustrations with Welles who sympathizes offering: “I'm supposed to do a thriller at Universal, but they want Charlton Heston to play a Mexican.” It's a good line but highly inaccurate - Heston insisted on Welles directing the project which was TOUCH OF EVIL but this doesn't marr the scene. Wood's meeting with Welles is relevatory to the aspiring director - the light of inspiration that glows in his face when Welles tells him: “Ed, visions are worth fighting for, why spend your life making somebody else's dreams?” is a nice touching effect. Burton pulls off a bit of movie magic - for a brief instance we have Welles back and it's the young robust Welles not the bloated wine swigging caricature that most people think of when his name is dropped. Watch the scene on YouTube.

3. Angus Macfadyen in CRADLE WILL ROCK (1999) Far from as convincing as D'Onofrio & LaMarche, MacFadyen does have plenty of Welles's theatrical flair as he moves like a storm through Tim Robbins' romantised re-creation of the world of the theater in 1930's New York. Based on the true story of a troubled production for the Federal Theater Project, Welles with the aid of John Houseman (more accurately portrayed by Cary Elwes) he fights to get the play of the title staged. Macfadyen does at key moments have the right Wellesian swagger though as Roger Ebert, a huge Welles scholar himself, wrote “Welles comes across as an obnoxious and often drunken genius in a performance by Macfadyen that doesn't look or sound much like the familiar original.” Very true and also Macfadyen is too Scottish for the part too. Still though in the context of Robbins' fine film he somehow makes his Welles work.

4. Liev Schreiber in RKO 281. This a bit of stretch but a tasty one. This telefilm made for HBO tells the story of the making and aftermath of CITIZEN KANE. Schreiber is in way over his head for the role and the facts are fumbled with ferociously. Still, the talented Schrieber does a fair impression of Welles speaking voice though only when imitating his soft spoken tones. RKO 281 (named after KANE's studio issued working title) is so littered with annoying inaccuracies and cheesy cliches that Welles expert (and longtime friend) Peter Bogdanovich said that it "was poorly acted by just about everybody" and that “It had about as much connection to the Orson Welles I knew as the man in the moon.” Ouch! Okay, let's move on...

5. John Candy on Second City TV (1976-1979) - Of course the obvious reason that Candy was cast as the later day Welles in many SCTV sketches is his ginormous girth. He didn't really look like him facially and his voice doesn't quite sound like him but the material was funny and Candy could definitely bring the battered bombast. Check out this clip of Candy as Welles in a bit based on a tape of Welles recording a British frozen-peas audio advertisement (which you can listen to here).

6. Eric Purcell in MALICE IN WONDERLAND - I haven't seen this TV movie from 1985 about the gossip columnists Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper played respectively by Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Alexander. Obviously I can't judge Purcell's performance - nor can I find any info about it online but I'm including it here because the film has Tim Robbins as Joseph Cotten! Maybe it's just me but that sounds like pretty juicy casting. Anybody out there seen it?

7. Danny Huston in FADE TO BLACK (2006) - Another I haven't seen but did locate the trailer. Judging from the preview Huston doesn't really seem to have the Welles vibe going. That's only based on 1 minute 46 seconds of footage mind you. From one of only a few reviews that are online of this British production set in Rome, Xan Brooks of the Guardian U.K. writes: “The role of one great director falls to Danny Huston, the son of another, who comes weaving through the action with his theatrical bearing and disreputable air, a cigar between his teeth and his pockets rattling with slimming pills; every inch the faded Hollywood idol.” Sounds like it may be worth a viewing - that is if it were available on NetFlix.

8. Paul Shenar in THE NIGHT THAT PANICKED AMERICA - I saw this TV movie years ago and I do recall that Shenar did a pretty decent job of mimicing the master. He should also get props for being the first actor on film to play Welles. Dramatising the historic War Of The Worlds broadcast inside and out this sadly isn't available on DVD but I hear that it pops up on TV from time to time. That's good 'cause I'd love to see it again.

9. Christian McKay in the upcoming ME AND ORSON WELLES - Richard Linklater's next film (set for 2009) like CRADLE WILL ROCK depicts the theatrics both onstage and off of Orson's literally go-for-broke 1930's lifestyle. McKay has portrayed Welles on stage and the word is that he has got the delusion of grandeur goods. Of McKay's performance in the Broadway production of “Rosebud: The Lives Of Orson Welles” The Daily Telegraph wrote: “Christian McKay plays this celluloid colossus to perfection… anticipating the many facets of Welles’ personality that then sparkle through the show… The stories are so fantastical and various that Rosebud would mesmerise someone unacquainted with his work as much as a film buff. The arc of his career, from overachieving wunderkind to an overweight clown who endorsed frozen peas in television commercials, has the simplicity of classical tragedy and makes for compelling theatre.” Since Linklater is one of my favorite current directors and Orson is a ongoing obsession for me I'll be really looking forward to this one.

10. Jean Guérin in HEAVENLY CREATURES (1994) - It's been a while since I've seen this movie and to be honest I don't remember Guérin as Welles in it. He makes the list because he also played Welles in LA VENGEANCE DE LA FEMME EN NOIR (1997) - another film I haven't seen and can find very little info on. Sigh.

There you go - 10 Orson Welles impersonators. It should be noted that Linklater's film isn't the only Orson related activity on the horizon. Reportedly Peter Bogdanovich is looking to finish work on one of Welles last films - THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND. The excellent site Wellesnet has this insightful article about the project.

That's all for now - Happy Birthday Welles wherever you are! Such a great if compromised career - from Martians to the Muppets! Hope you're grandly laughing it up at the great moviehouse in the sky.

More later...

IRON MAN = AWESOME And Some Other Random Babbling

IRON MAN (Dir. Jon Favreau, 2008)

Now, you ordinarily wouldn't think of Robert Downey Jr. as an action movie star - particularly a comic book hero-type, right? And you you wouldn't think of Jon Favreau (MADE, ELF) as an action movie director, would you? What about Gynneth Paltrow as a girl-next-door-type sweetie that is obviously overlooked by our hero or even the idea of Terrence Howard as the black-guy best friend? Hold on, how about Jeff Bridges (the Dude, man!) as the villain? Sounds all pretty improbable as far as Summer blockbuster premises goes, huh? Well, IRON MAN throws all those folk and a bunch of seamless CGI craft into the mix and it all, and I mean every single bit of it, works. And remember this is coming from a guy who is not a big fan of the big ass comic book action genre.

Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark - a billionaire industrialist famous for creating nuclear weaponry and every kind of arms used in the war on terror. He gets captured by terrorists after a demonstration in Afghanistan and is forced to build them a version of his powerful “Jericho missile”. Instead, with the help of a fellow prisoner - Dr. Yinsen (Shaun Toub), he constructs an elaborate but crude suit of armour which he uses to escape from captivity. Back in the States he announces that his company will no longer manufacture weapons to the intense displeasure of Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges). In a funny series of scenes Stark works on a new suit with better technology, more firepower, and a cooler looking shininess that, yeah, is a pretty sweet design. Stark's best friend Colonel Rhodes (Terrence Howard) finds out about his suit in the middle of a killer sequence involving his return to Afghanistan to destroy the terrorist gang's weapon stockpile. Stark's assistant, and of course possible love interest, Pepper Pots (Gywneth Paltrow) suspects something is up and gets caught up in his major mechanical antics of which I will speak no further.
IRONMAN is a blast - the right amount of humor, the precise assembling of a neat narrative, and a great cast. As I'm sure every review will label Robert Downey Jr. an “unlikely hero” but he is perfect in the part - slickly engaged and slyly sarcastic, he plays all the right notes. A bald bearded Bridges is dead on too in a role that's not just un-Dude it's incredibly non-TRON! Going in I was not at all familliar with the comic book it's based on but a friend who I attended with filled me in a bit concluding that the movie is fairly faithful to its source. Obviously that didn't matter because it stands alone as a superior formula super hero movie. I usually use the word “formula” as a criticism but here its a good solid thing. Favreau has surprisingly done a excellent job with the tried and true framework and its his best film by far. IRONMAN indeed transcends the summer blockbuster film form but simply said - it's a lot of fun.

Some Random Babbling:

MovieZeal wrapped up their excellent April Coen Brothers Blog-A-Thon (though with their banner displaying a different cool Coen Bros. screen capture it seems like it's still going on. It's well worth your while with a stable panel of great film bloggers contributing reviews of all their movies, articles about the Brothers, and a very well compiled The Top 10 Most Memorable Coen Brothers Scenes. I wrote Part II of my Musings on the Coens' Music which I hope you check out.

I recently joined The Large Association of Movie Blogs - I'm LAMB #82! Please visit and sample some of the other movie blogs. LAMB lists a lot of good ones so click away.

I also took part in a survey for Buck On Film. It's a column in Academia - an online magazine and resource for academic librarians. It was about “what are the Oscars to you?” Please visit that too.

Okay, well more summer movies are coming and the birthday of a long gone legendary actor/director is to be celebrated when Film Babble Blog returns so please stay tuned.

More later...

A Marvellous Minimalist Movie Before The Blockbuster Bombast Begins

As you well know we are on the verge of the Summer blockbuster season. We've got IRONMAN, INDIANA JONES, BATMAN, SPEED RACER, and many many more multi-million dollar platters to contend with so it seems apt to have a small scale appetizer of an independent human interest story to snack on beforehand:

THE VISITOR (Dir. Thomas McCarthy, 2008)
Richard Jenkins, best known as Nathan Fisher Sr. - the father on Six Feet Under, finally gets a leading role in this quietly compelling movie. After tons of movie and TV roles in which he perfected a weathered hangdog demeanor, Jenkins wears his character in THE VISITOR like an old comfortable suit. Being that his character is a familiar one - a widowed college professor toiling for years on an unfinished book, isolated from social life and going through the motions in severe need of a wake-up call. Yes, it's a ‘wake up and realize you're alive’ movie like ABOUT SCHMIDT (or even HOW STELLA GOT HER GROOVE BACK) and a good one at that with its lack of flash and abundance of grace. Jenkins returns to his little used in apartment in New York City to find 2 illegal immigrants (Haaz Sleiman and Danai Jekesai Gurira) living there. Realizing they had been rent-scammed they pack up to leave but Jenkins allows them to stay. He forms a friendship with Sleiman who teaches him to play the bongos. Scenes showing a business-suited Jenkins and the paisley attired Sleiman drumming away in the park are particularly smile inducing. The good times are short lived as Sleiman is arrested and detained with deportation imminent. Jenkins does what he can to help his new friend and in the process courts Sleiman's mother (played wonderfully by Hiam Abbass).

Writer/Director Thomas McCarthy's first film THE STATION AGENT was a pleasing personable picture and THE VISITOR is a fine follow-up. So subtle that it may leave some movie-goers with a “with just happened?” feeling but I believe most will savor its subtle charms. Jenkins' measured performance lingers and the straight-forward framework is refreshing in these days of quick-cuts and contrived narrative gimmicks. “Please step away from the glass” Jenkins is frustratingly told repeatedly by a immigration station desk jockey in a sober 3rd act scene, and it's a chilling moment; the sad reality of how people are tragically separated for purposeless political reasons inhales all the air of the room and leaves our protagonist on the verge of existential limbo. Finding one's own rhythm - to maybe the beat of a different drummer as the expression goes, is the only way back into the human race. There among the beats, both inner and outer, can be found a sense of soul and way of life that Jenkins learns shouldn't just be visited.

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Second Hand Smoke: Catching Up With Harold And Kumar

When I heard that my local hometown theater, where I work part-time, was going to be showing HAROLD & KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY I decided to give in and finally watch the first one. I had heard that HAROLD & KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE was funny from various friends but just never got around to seeing it. Since the sequel has been getting fairly decent reviews (and is #2 at the box office right now) I'd put the first one in my NetFlix queue and thought I might make a double feature out of it by going to see the second on the big screen directly after viewing the first one on DVD (yes, I have no life). Of course this plan depended on whether I liked the first one. Well, let me tell you:

HAROLD & KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE (Dir. Danny Leiner, 2004)

In the four years since this was released I got the picture from trailers and friend's quotations that this was basically a crude comedy about a couple of geeky Asian stoners who get caught in a silly series of mishaps while trying to get to a fast food restaurant to satisfy their extreme bout with the munchies. Yep, that's exactly what is - a base teen demographic-aimed R-rated raunchy romp filled to the brim with profanity, gross scatological humour, and every stock stereotype you could put a stamp on. The fact that the DVD has a featurette entitled “The Art Of The Fart” says it all, right? That's not to say it doesn't have a certain clever charm to at times. The leads - John Cho and Kal Penn (as Harold & Kumar respectively) are likable and carry the tone with a crisp chemistry. A bevy of B and C-list film folk appear in cameos - Fred Willard, Ryan Reynolds, and Jamie Kennedy are on hand to randomly pop up and provide punch to the proceedings but the cake is taken by Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser!) playing himself. NPH, as some refer to him, is a horny Ecstasy-fueled celebrity ego exaggeration who throws one of many wrenches at the feet of our THC-driven burger-craving heroes and steals the movie just like he steals their car *.

* This cameo came up before on this blog - The Cameo Countdown Continues (7/20/07)

This kind of comedy isn't really my thing - the bathroom base-ness of it all wears intensely thin with every compromising situation easy to predict but there are a few decent laughs and a loosy-goosey go-with-it flow that doesn't feel forced. A dream sequence/love montage featuring Kumar romancing and going on to marry a gigantic bag of weed set to Heart's “Crazy On You” comes close to hitting that hilarious-line on the comic circus bell pole and there are at least 3 or 4 other crazy bits that Judd Apatow would be proud to call his own. Comparisons to Cheech & Chong, Wayne & Garth, Bill & Ted, and even Beavis & Butthead (oh wait, also the dudes in DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR?) are inevitable meaning the stoner duo mis-adventure can now be fully recognized as a legit genre. Like I said, HAROLD & KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE in the end may not really be my bag (get it?) but as throw-away profoundly stupid commercial, not kind-bud, comedies go - you can get a decent buzz off of it.

So, since the first in the Bong Crosby and Bob Dope road pictures breezed by me somewhat entertainingly I thought ‘sure, why not?’ I walked up to the theater putting the NetFlix envelope containing the frist one in the mail on the way. So let's take another toke:

HAROLD & KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY (Dirs. Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Sclossberg, 2008)

The tagline for this sequel which takes place right after the events of WHITE CASTLE is: “this time they're running from the joint!” Sure it's obvious pot-minded spoof pandering, but we're not exactly talking David Mamet territory here! Well, except in that Mamet's screenplays are filled with an equal amount of profanity but anyway such a slogan is pretty expected. What's expected is pretty much the game for Harold & Kumar's second time out. I mean this builds predictably on what was a sketch-piece patchwork by having even more flagrant racist-panic sex-centric pro-recreational drug antic-mania! Taking it up another notch is the mistaking of our slacker stoner heroes for terrorists because of a self-invented smoke-less bong that Kumar (Kal Penn) smuggles onto a flight to Amsterdam - “It's a bong - not a bomb!” Kumar exclaims. After The Daily Show's Rod Corddry (funny here but not funny enough) as a obsessively prejudiced Homeland Security agent labels them as North Korea and Al Queda working in cahoots and that lands the flippant leads in for a stint in Guantanamo Bay. Through a disgusting passage of predictable scrapes they escape and withstain the usual lot of farcical flukes including more stereotypes (if a backwoods redneck archetype jokes that he has a inbreed son in the basement you can be sure that he really does have such if you get my drift), more nasty non sequiturs, and of course the reliably drugged-up Neil Patrick Harris again to make sure the formula is solidly in place.

In the annals of unneccessary but still somewhat passable sequels this is equal to REVENGE OF THE NERDS II: NERDS IN PARADISE. Or maybe, as Beverly D'Angelo's cameo as a whorehouse madam here suggests, NATIONAL LAMPOON'S EUROPEAN VACATION is a better likeness. As for non-sequel quality status Kumar says early on “it's going to be exactly like EUROTRIP, except its not going to suck” - I'll give HAROLD & KUMAR GO TO GUANTANEMO BAY that - it is better than EUROTRIP but that is so far from saying much that it's not funny. Also not funny is the before mentioned inbred hillbilly humor or a wretched Ku Klux Klan sequence that is as slapdash an attack on racism as the likewise lameass swipes in FLETCH LIVES (1989) or even the morally misguided Richard Pryor vehicle BUSTIN' LOOSE (1981). James Adomian as a goofball version of (like there's any other comical prospect) President George W. Bush (Adomian has almost made a career out of impersonating the Commander-in-chief on low level shows like Mad TV) appears in the 3rd act to offer some sort of poli-parody statement - thats he's a stoner too with a slacker perspective to be admired. Of all the notions in this fitfully funny but still unneccessary sequel that's the most unfunniest.

Okay! I think the amount of time I've spent with Harold & Kumar today has been a bit much. Still, though laughs - we've had a few...

More later...

Odds & Ends With Some More Politics Schmolotics

Hey folks - I haven't been posted this week 'til now because I've been busy with a few projects. First, writing my long-in-the-works book “Crime & Popcorn: An A-Z Guide To Conspiracy Cinema” which I may take some time off the blog soon to finish. Second, the marvelous MovieZeal.com are having an April Coen Brothers blog-a-thon with reviews and articles about their incredible oeuvre. I am contributing a 2 part piece on the music in the movies of the Coen Brothers for the fine site. You can read Part I here.

After my post Nitpicking on NetFlix (March 17, 2008) I was surprised to be approved as a NetFlix affiliate after applying a long time ago. So I proudly welcome NetFlix into the Film Babble Blog fold. However don't think I'll stop bitchin' though - I mean you guys still don't carry the much written about and heavily advertised BONNIE AND CLYDE: 2 Disc Special Edition and that after waiting for 4 months (very long wait from Dec. to April) for what I thought was the 2 LANE BLACKTOP: CRITERION COLLECTION DVD I got the old 1999 Starz/Anchor Bay version! C'mon! Uh, sorry to go off there...anyway welcome.

I watched a movie the other day that I knew was going to be bad but I just couldn't resist. When LIONS FOR LAMBS was released in theaters last November I wrote: “I wanted to see LIONS...but just about every critic is telling me not to - though I probably still will”. Well, I guess I never lost the lust for lameness that I had late last year. Even that its current rating is 27% on the Tomatometer couldn't stop me from putting it in my Netflix queue.

So it is what it is:

LIONS FOR LAMBS (Dir. Robert Redford, 2007) This is so much of a high class dud that I don't even want to write a conventional review. I mean I can't really add anything to the criticisms that this is a putrid preachy bore and I sure don't want to recount the plot threads that involve Redford as a heart of gold professor, Tom Cruise as a hot-shot Republican Senator, and Meryl Streep as a old school liberal journalist. So what I thought I'd do is take a look at one aspect of the film that particularly stuck in my craw. It's less than a scene actually; it's a few moments of dialogue-free melodrama in which Streep left alone in Cruise's office takes a look at the framed photos on his wall.

We've seen this many times throughout the history of cinema - in the background of the offices and residencies there are often photos to show that these are real people with lives beyond what we see on the screen. Sometimes these are pictures taken from the actors' personal life - baby photos, school portraits, stills from their previous movies, etc. and sometimes they are art department fakes. Streep gazes at a few career defining pictures - Cruise's character with Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and, of course, President George W. Bush. These are obviously but competently photoshoped and it's funny to note that Cruise has most likely really been photographed with these folks but those pictures would be of real-life movie star Cruise not the Senator act we're supposed to swallow here. As Streep's eyes and the camera scans the wall we see a picture of a young Cruise in military duds - hey, it's a still from his 1981 movie TAPS! Better pan faster so people don't notice that. Her eyes finally fall upon a fictitious Time Magazine cover - too bad it wasn't the Man Of The Year mirror that the Dude (Jeff Bridges) starred at in THE BIG LEBOWSKI in a likewise scene with phony photos on the wall. Yep - I know, any excuse to bring up THE BIG LEBOWSKI.

The pictures on the wall in LIONS FOR LAMBS would be fine if they were only in the background and never given close-ups but when prominently displayed they call attention to the seams in the film's fabric. Redford points out a picture on his office's wall as well. He does so to illustrate to a apathetic student that he was a solider in the Vietnam war. Redford remarks “3 of those guys never came home” or something like that - I was too distracted by how unreal the picture looked and that it was a picture of somebody taking a picture of a group of guys. I know the points these pictures are supposed to make just like I got all the points the film was trying to make but the Devil sure wasn't in these details. LIONS FOR LAMBS is the cinematic equivalent of “blah blah blah”; the phony photos the polish on a tedious turd.

More later...