High colonic, low ebonic (3/28/97)
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Fierce Creatures: not exactly a sequel to
A Fish Called Wanda, but not exactly not: John Cleese, Kevin Kline, Michel Palin, and Jamie Lee Curtis save a zoo from an evil billionaire. Cleese does definitive work on the Freudian slip; Jamie Lee could still stop traffic on other planets.
Flirt: another effort by the remarkable Hal Hartley: three versions of the same story [with the same dialogue!] run sequentially, once in New York, once in Berlin, once in Tokyo. — Not as good as
Amateur, but as good as anything else you’ll see this year.
Dead Man: Jim Jarmusch tries his hand at a Western: Johnny Depp plays an accountant named William Blake who rides the train West from Cleveland to the end of the line at a town called Machine [filled I need hardly add with many dark Satanic mills] where he’s supposed to have been offered a job. When he arrives no one will admit to having heard of him. Then he takes a bullet in the heart while shooting the industrialist’s son in accidental self-defense and a band of psychopaths chase him and his Indian guide through the wilderness. — Starts out like Kafka; turns into Little Big Man; ends up as King Arthur taking that last canoe ride to the isle of Avalon. I kept expecting Depp to cast his rifle into the waters to be caught by the Lady of the Lake. — Interesting, but more than a little scattered. — A beautiful piece of blackandwhite cinematography nonetheless. With Lots Of Stars, including John Hurt, Lance Henriksen, and [sheesh] Robert Mitchum.
The Whole Wide World: an odd but original piece about the early Thirties romance between a Texas schoolmarm and the famous pulp writer Robert [
Conan] Howard. If nothing else another opportunity to be charmed by Rene Zellweger, whom last I admired as Cruise’s girlfriend in Jerry Maguire.
Zombies From Pluto: Johnny Cocktail’s investigation of the Ramsey murder; Boulder as Alphaville. I should probably hide this under a rock, but the
Globe is offering me a lot of money.
Laser Tech Color: after two-and-a-half hours of interviews on Monday they apparently decided I’m too smart for the job, and indicated to the recruiter that they want to keep looking. Though of course if they give up on finding someone dumber they may call back. Go figure.
Meanwhile I guess I’d better talk to the
Globe.
____________Somebody stop me, before I eat popcorn again (2/23/97)
