Holiday cheer (12/5/98)
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The Waterboy. [Frank Coraci, 1998.]
Adam Sandler plays a cretin who miraculously makes good. One must suppose this is not a stretch.
Detective. [Jean-Luc Godard, 1985.]
Paris. A hotel. A detective. A mystery. Guns, money, mobsters. A boxer gorges himself on chocolate. A braless girl takes her shirt off and puts another on; takes her shirt off and puts another on. No one seems to notice, probably because she is sitting next to the television. — “I’ll KO Tiger Jones!” the fighter exclaims. “But isn’t he Tiger Jones?” a girl asks. “A champion always fights himself,” his manager replies. — “We are taking Sicily as a metaphor,” Uncle William is saying in the next room. A girl bursts into tears. — “Why are pornographic movies called X-rated?” a girl asks. “Why ‘X’? as in mathematics.” “Exactly,” someone answers, off. “Oh yes,” she says after a pause. “The unknown.” — “You think the killer will be back?” “History keeps repeating. It’s one long stammer.” — Room service sends up a dead rat on a plate. — “Ah, young girls’ breasts...” a man is sighing. A cut. A woman is folding a wad of bills. “Ah, men’s money... .” — Nobody does it better; nobody ever did.
Les Vampires. [Louis Feuillade, 1915/1916.]
A miraculous survival from the dawn of the cinema, a seven-hour serial shot on location in the streets of Paris during the First World War about a blackgarbed company of gangsters led by a succession of criminal masterminds [Feuillade kept killing them off, I think to head off contract renegotiations] but undoubtedly starring the archtypical femme fatale, Irma Vep. [Yes, it’s an anagram.] A favorite of the Surrealists, and you can certainly see why: fabulous, sinister, beautiful, inspiring. Available at last on video [I’ve looked in vain for years]; check it out.
Hugo Pool. [Robery Downey, 1997.]
Robert Downey Senior directs like an actor; Robert Downey Junior acts like a director. Malcolm McDowell has a jones for horse; Cathy Moriarty has a jones for the horses. Alyssa Milano has a blue Chevy truck and Sean Penn has a pair of blue suede shoes. I’ll pass on the shoes, the junk, and the sport of kings; but tell the babe to leave the engine running.
____________Booger nights (11/10/98)
