Another movie that isn't noir but shares a lot of noir characteristics. Really, the only thing missing is a murder. It features the perfect noir victim and he dies but he doesn't get killed, although the movie attributes guilt for his death.
Here is our hero:
That's an exterior of the building where he has his apartment. A lot of the scenes take place in his apartment. Others take place at work and yet others in a bar. The whole thing could have been done on stage and probably more convincingly.
Anyway, he looks like a noir hero. He wants to be a writer and he writes a letter to his Uncle Darr, who seems to have raised him in the absence opf any real father. Uncle Darr writes back,
And hard work and discipline went missing in the writing of this film. For example, the filmmaker, George Hickenlooper was a guy who grew up in St. Louis and then went to Yale and then went to LA to make it in the film business and the hero is a guy from St. Louis who went to Yale and then went to LA to make it in the film business.
There are some great shots of LA though. This is a gem:
If you look carefully in the foreground, just right of the highway, you can see the famous Capitol Records building. All covered in smog.
But, wait a minute, what year is this supposed to be? The movie was made in 1995 but LA hadn't seen smog like that for a long time by them. You have to go back to the 1970s to see smog like this. On the other hand, there are computers in one office scene, so maybe it's supposed to be the mid 1980s (not coincidentally, the same time our director was trying to make it in LA.) And then ... well, who cares, the film sucks. It could have been great but it isn't because it was made by people who have absolutely no understanding of humanity.
By the way, there are four Yale graduates in this movie all living the low life because this movie is set in that year when all the Yale grads couldn't get work so they had to wait tables or work for temp agencies. You remember that year right?
Lets talk women. Here is one, in a great bar shot worthy of noir,
That's Suzie. She's a Yale grad working as a waitress. She is young and beautiful and she ought to be happy except that her love life is a perpetual mess because she has an irrational attraction to British guys and so keeps closing the door on good bets for love.
Next girl,
That's Bevan. She is from the south (I think they told her to study Janis Joplin interviews to get her character down). She is young and beautiful and she ought to be happy except that her love life is a perpetual mess because she has an irrational attraction to French guys and so keeps closing the door on good bets for love.
There you have the breadth of humanity you find in this movie. After a while, I started thinking that maybe it would be a good thing to make all Yale grads work at crappy jobs with temp agencies because if this is an example of typical Yale competence, the world would be better place if they didn't get any real jobs.
Between them, Suzie and Bevan generate enough sex appeal to power a small tricycle, provided it is going downhill. In any case, you could eliminate both characters in their entirety because the movie is really about the relationship between these two guys:
The guy on the right is our hero and the guy on the left is Andrew who is this terminally geeky guy who tries to be our hero's friend but keeps getting brushed off because he is such a weird little geek. And all our hero's friends mercilessly exploit Andrew. And then Andrew ends up dead and our hero finally gets that this was a human being and he failed to be his neighbour, in the biblical sense of neighbour.
Oh sorry, were you planning on watching it? Oh well, you didn't really want to see it anyway. Trust me.
After the death, our hero hitches a ride to Modesto to go to the funeral. And he cries at the grave side. He doesn't speak to anyone. He doesn't tell any of Andrew's family he is sorry for their loss. He just cries and feels sorry for himself. Because that is apparently moral development.
Our film maker, George Hickenlooper, also died by the way. He mixed a lot of alcohol and a lot of painkillers in his stomach and that, predictably, killed him. The coroner charitably called it an accidental overdose and we'll charitably assume he was right.
There is one very nice touch at the ending. The minister at graveside reads from Ezekiel 34, wherein the LORD, speaking through the prophet, condemns the irresponsible shepherds.
Here is our hero:
That's an exterior of the building where he has his apartment. A lot of the scenes take place in his apartment. Others take place at work and yet others in a bar. The whole thing could have been done on stage and probably more convincingly.
Anyway, he looks like a noir hero. He wants to be a writer and he writes a letter to his Uncle Darr, who seems to have raised him in the absence opf any real father. Uncle Darr writes back,
Good to hear your plans. I know we'll have a writer in this family yet, no matter what your mother thinks. But don't forget, discipline and hard work are what counts. The petty seductions of this world are best left to other people.Somehow, that advice gets translated into, "Don't care about other people and don't get involved in their lives anymore than you have to". How is that accomplished? My guess is that the people who made the movie think hard work and discipline are the mark of a cold, uncaring person.
As ever, Uncle Darr
And hard work and discipline went missing in the writing of this film. For example, the filmmaker, George Hickenlooper was a guy who grew up in St. Louis and then went to Yale and then went to LA to make it in the film business and the hero is a guy from St. Louis who went to Yale and then went to LA to make it in the film business.
There are some great shots of LA though. This is a gem:
If you look carefully in the foreground, just right of the highway, you can see the famous Capitol Records building. All covered in smog.
But, wait a minute, what year is this supposed to be? The movie was made in 1995 but LA hadn't seen smog like that for a long time by them. You have to go back to the 1970s to see smog like this. On the other hand, there are computers in one office scene, so maybe it's supposed to be the mid 1980s (not coincidentally, the same time our director was trying to make it in LA.) And then ... well, who cares, the film sucks. It could have been great but it isn't because it was made by people who have absolutely no understanding of humanity.
By the way, there are four Yale graduates in this movie all living the low life because this movie is set in that year when all the Yale grads couldn't get work so they had to wait tables or work for temp agencies. You remember that year right?
Lets talk women. Here is one, in a great bar shot worthy of noir,
That's Suzie. She's a Yale grad working as a waitress. She is young and beautiful and she ought to be happy except that her love life is a perpetual mess because she has an irrational attraction to British guys and so keeps closing the door on good bets for love.
Next girl,
That's Bevan. She is from the south (I think they told her to study Janis Joplin interviews to get her character down). She is young and beautiful and she ought to be happy except that her love life is a perpetual mess because she has an irrational attraction to French guys and so keeps closing the door on good bets for love.
There you have the breadth of humanity you find in this movie. After a while, I started thinking that maybe it would be a good thing to make all Yale grads work at crappy jobs with temp agencies because if this is an example of typical Yale competence, the world would be better place if they didn't get any real jobs.
Between them, Suzie and Bevan generate enough sex appeal to power a small tricycle, provided it is going downhill. In any case, you could eliminate both characters in their entirety because the movie is really about the relationship between these two guys:
The guy on the right is our hero and the guy on the left is Andrew who is this terminally geeky guy who tries to be our hero's friend but keeps getting brushed off because he is such a weird little geek. And all our hero's friends mercilessly exploit Andrew. And then Andrew ends up dead and our hero finally gets that this was a human being and he failed to be his neighbour, in the biblical sense of neighbour.
Oh sorry, were you planning on watching it? Oh well, you didn't really want to see it anyway. Trust me.
After the death, our hero hitches a ride to Modesto to go to the funeral. And he cries at the grave side. He doesn't speak to anyone. He doesn't tell any of Andrew's family he is sorry for their loss. He just cries and feels sorry for himself. Because that is apparently moral development.
Our film maker, George Hickenlooper, also died by the way. He mixed a lot of alcohol and a lot of painkillers in his stomach and that, predictably, killed him. The coroner charitably called it an accidental overdose and we'll charitably assume he was right.
There is one very nice touch at the ending. The minister at graveside reads from Ezekiel 34, wherein the LORD, speaking through the prophet, condemns the irresponsible shepherds.
And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.All of which suggests that there was a good, and possibly even a great movie waiting to be made here. But it didn't get made.
And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing.
And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bands of their yoke, and delivered them out of the hand of those that served themselves of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment