The Limey

Somewhere in Steven Soderbergh’s 1999 subtle masterpiece, “The Limey”, the seemingly wealthy record producer, Terry Valentine, played by Peter Fonda, has a brief monolog about the 60’s – the decade where this Phil Spector-inspired character earned his wealth and fame; “Did you ever dream about a place you never really recall being to before? A place that maybe only exists in your imagination? Some place far away, half remembered when you wake up. When you were there, though, you knew the language. You knew your way around. *That* was the sixties.” ‘That’ is also what “The Limey” is all about.

The titular limey is a man named Wilson, played by Terence Stamp. Prior to seeing “The Limey” for the first time, I had never seen or heard of Stamp, but after viewing the film, I knew I wanted to be him. Stamp is James Bond if James Bond never gave a fuck about anything; both suave and cockney, and limitlessly engaging. As Wilson he plays a career criminal who has just been released from his longest stint in prison and arrives in America to investigate the shady death of his daughter.

“The Limey” is the hazy memory in the mind of a tired man, who after years of working off his sentence, only wants to rest. The murder mystery takes him through the decadence and corruption of Los Angeles, introducing the viewer to some of the most well rounded characters I’ve ever seen – even the throw-away hitmen are given their own unique and humorous personalities, - your typical black and white / good-guys versus bad-guys cookie cutter caper this ain’t. Peter Fonda, already a poster child of the ‘60’s himself, plays the corrupt Terry Valentine brilliantly, capturing the emotions of a man who knows his brand of music makes him a has-been, but refuses to give up the Hollywood dream.

Soderbergh cuts the film in a disjointed style, with almost every scene being shot in 3 different ways, often in 3 different locations, and then recklessly edited together in an almost lazy montage. It took a second viewing of the film for me to realize that this is due to the movie really being a flashback, memories of Wilson’s that he mulls over in his mind on the airplane back to England.

“The Limey” is fast becoming one of my favorite films, and upon each rewatching, I notice more details in both the screenplay and the acting that make me only love it more. For anyone who’s looking for a good crime-caper, or an interesting exercise in story telling, I highly suggest this film.

American Splendor

With yesterdays passing of comic book writer Harvey Pekar, I've been thinking a lot about the biopic on his life called "American Splendor". Is it actually a documentary? I certainly think so. The film was directed by a pair of documentary film makers, Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini. It is a based on Pekar's own autobiographical underground comic book that goes by the same name. Yes, it does 'star' Paul Giamatti in the role of Pekar, a role that allowed the great actor to flesh his talent into a brilliant figure of comic neurosis and pessimism. However, the film also features real documentary-style interviews of the actual Harvey Pekar interspersed throughout, which I suspect are there secondarily to actually commend Giamatti's portrayal of a real life caricature. Lastly, the film also features cartoon renderings of the great curmudgeon, which highlight the various styles and takes of Pekar that the comic book artists utilized over the years.

Harvey Pekar is America's greatest antihero, a file clerk in a veteran's hospital by day, a slacker turned comic book artist by night. Pekar is a man from the gritty streets of Cleveland where he's lived all his life. In the 'American Splendor' series, Pekar has turned himself into a comic book hero, a man who fights the daily struggle of finding your house keys, filing papers, and taking out the trash. When Pekar's writing caught on and he began getting featured as a guest on the Late Night with David Letterman, Pekar just found more fodder for his comic, transcribing every detail of his life into a graphic novel.

Featured in the film is his wife, Joyce Brabner, portrayed in the film by Hope Davis. Joyce was actually Pekar's third wife, but the single most significant person in his life, and she helped him co-author the American Splendor special, "Our Cancer Year", which focuses on Pekar's battle with testicular cancer. From the near death encounter came a daughter, Danielle, a foster child, thus fulfilling Harvey Pekar's own American Dream.

"American Splendor" is a deeply layered film, from the brilliant acting to the disjointed storytelling. The film is warm, dramatic, and very funny. perfectly capturing the essence of a man who had the audacity to declare: "Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff".

Diva

According to IMDB.com, the tagline for Jean-Jacques Beineix's 1981 French film, "Diva", is "A Comedy. A Thriller. A Romance." and that tagline perfectly sums up the playful ambiguity of the film. Just because you may not be able to properly categorize "Diva", doesn't mean the film doesn't know exactly what it itself is all about. Climbing out of the rubble of the French New Wave movement, "Diva" is a film that stays away from the emotionally driven human dramas of Godard, and returns to the roots of cinema by once again embracing action, spectacle, and, most importantly, plot.

"Diva" follows a young mailboy, named Jules, who lives alone in a garage and loves classical music and opera. When his favorite American diva is performing in the city, he attends her concert and illegally records the show (possibly the first example of music piracy being used as a plot device in cinema. Come to think of it, I don't think it's been used since). The plot thickens when a prostitute turned police informant, on the run from mysterious assailants, drops a cassette tape in Jules' mailbag while he isn't looking. The cassette, containing a confession that could take down a criminal empire, thrusts Jules into a web of confusion as he's chased all over the city of Paris by police, hitmen, and mysterious Taiwanese, while all he wants is a chance to actually meet and spend time with the diva of his dreams.

"Diva" is a lavish and humorous thriller that introduces the viewer to an array of characters; an ultra-cool new-age bohemian, a chic young Vietnamese girl, a pair of bickering police officers, and Wilhelmenia Fernandez in the role of the diva. The film seems to follow in the footsteps of American thrillers of the time, such as de Palma's "Blow Out" and "Carlito's Way", yet the variety of characters, as well as the tongue-in-cheekness of the film reads like a Coen Brothers flick. Had the film been released any later in the decade, I'm afraid it may have fallen victim to that processed, synthetic cheese that consumed everything else in the 80's, but being released in 1981, Beineix's aesthetic flourishes and the juxtaposition of synthesizer music and opera serve as primary examples of "style".

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Nicholas Cage has the most divided fan base of any actor in Hollywood. There are those who love him for the quirkiness and borderline psychosis that he brings to his film roles; there are those who hate him for the series of flops that he's produced over the past ten years, and there are those who have engineered a cult following specifically due to his quirkiness and poor choice of film roles. There is even a website now which will add every single Nicholas Cage movie to your Netflix queue instantly, with the click of a button (http://wonder-tonic.com/cageyourqueue).

Say what you will about Nicholas Cage; under the direction of a smart and creative director, Cage becomes a powerhouse. And under the direction of veteran German director, Werner Herzog, a man whose movies almost always focus on people with irrational passions or borderline psychosis, Nicholas Cage becomes a burning meteor, something both destructive and beautiful that only lasts a moment, but you're not likely to forget anytime soon.

As Terrence McDonagh, Cage plays a police officer operating in a post-Katrina New Orleans. After injuring his back during the hurricane itself, while rescuing a left behind prisoner in a flooding cell, McDonagh is promoted to lieutenant and prescribed a life-long dose of vicodin. Six months later McDonagh is the walking, or should I say 'lumbering', embodiment of police corruption; Habitually popping pills and snorting coke on the job, McDonagh has taken to frisking bystanders on the street for petty change as well as marijuana and crack, all to fuel his addiction. All the while McDonagh investigates the gang land execution of an immigrant family at the hands of a local drug lord, causing the full extent of McDonagh's corruption to be tested.

Bad Lieutenant is a movie for people who love movies. Part satire, part character study, Herzog fills the movie with small, artistic flourishes - such as shooting some scenes from the fish-eye lens POV of a lizard - some which will make you laugh, while others may cause you to scratch your head in bewilderment. Afterwards you may want to take a long, hot shower to cleanse yourself of the experience, and while that may help in the short term, I promise you, you will never look at Nicholas Cage the same way ever again.