While some of these movies work well enough to gather a decent-sized cult following (Living in Oblivion and Swimming With Sharks to name two), most quickly fall by the wayside after being dumped to video, usually after a year or two of being shelved. I mean, have you seen much of Mistress, Hijacking Hollywood, My Life’s in Turnaround or Burn, Hollywood, Burn lately?
Tinseltown and Starstruck (a Blockbuster Video exclusive title, changed from the less Blockbuster-friendly Starfucker) are movies about struggling screenwriters, and they both look like they were a lot of fun to write. Starstruck is the better of the two, if only because it’s got a more amusing variety of performances and a darker tone. Jamie Kennedy plays George, a struggling screenwriter who moves to L.A. with his two friends. While his friends pursue their movie careers (Bridgette Wilson quickly becomes an erotic thriller fixture, while Bruce Ramsey gets cast as an action film victim), George works as a temp while shopping around his screenplay “OOOPS! I LOVE YOU.”
Things change for him when he meets washed-up sitcom star Kyle Carey (Loren Dean in a perfect brain-dead performance) who greets George with the question, “Got any coke?” Thus begins an odd L.A.-set variation on Love and Death on Long Island, where George’s desire to be on the Hollywood inside as friends with a big-name actor overshadows the fact that Carey is, well, a drug-addicted hack actor with lots of bad ideas. Carey’s girlfriend (a well-cast Carmen Electra) enters the picture and asks George if he was “named after that monkey in those books?” but she soon vanishes. Kyle’s career capsizes and he moves in with George, spending most of his time on the couch, making notes of how much money he “lost” on long-distance phone calls being made on George’s line, and promising that Faye Dunaway owes him.
The whole tale is told in flashback, with George explaining himself to a self-described bad lawyer (Clarence Williams III) who quickly resorts to drinking. Several moments of sheer satirical genius pop up, and the relationship between Kyle and George quickly turns possessive, with George acting like a spurned lover after catching Kyle with Wilson. It’s a very funny play on heterosexual relationships, and George’s lack of any defined sexual orientation leaves a lot to the imagination.
Okay, sure the movie takes some easy pot-shots, and the bad screenwriter’s action movie ending, while funny, does go on a bit too long. Kennedy is excellent, and a strong supporting cast (including character actor vets Matt Malloy as a fellow temp and Spencer Garrett is a producer) helps quite a bit as well. IT’s never as sinisterly witty as, say, Swimming With Sharks, but it’s a worthy entry into the film-about-film field that’s definitely worth a look.
The same can’t
really be said for Tinseltown, which is must viewing only if you’re
a Ron Perlman fan. Perlman’s always been an under-appreciated actor,
as enjoyable as a villain as he is as a hero, and in Tinseltown
he gets to play both. It’s a great role for him, and one he obviously
had lots of fun with, chewing up scenery like they were going to stop building
sets tomorrow. He’s brilliant, really.
The movie? The movie is... okay.
Tom Wood plays Tyger, a struggling screenwriter who moves to L.A. with his friend Max, played by Arye Gross. Left without a place to stay, they end up sleeping in a storage facility overnight in hopes of having a meeting with a producer (Joe Pantoliano, the best part of the director’s The Last Word) in the morning. They soon suspect that Cliff the janitor (Perlman) may be the Costume Killer, a serial murderer that’s claimed several victims in the area. After Tyger’s script is rejected by Pantoliano by nature of its’ lack of “freshness,” they get the idea that Perlman’s story would make a much more interesting film.
Things don’t make a hell of a lot of sense from here on in, the same problem that plagued The Last Word. They convince Cliff to tell them his story, but, predictably, it’s all a ruse, and the duo soon come across a film student (Kristy Swanson) who wants in on the project. The ending, natch, involves the real killer and a big-time Hollywood money man. Dreams are made. Sort of.
The film is at its best when it ignores the plot completely and concentrates on snide sarcasm of the film industry, epecially Perlman’s revelation that he could have been Bob Denver. When the plot kicks in, however, it just serves to point out the glaring holes: What about legal ramifications? What’s so original about a serial killer picture? Why would a serial killer consent to this sort of thing anyway? And where does the writer of If Lucy Fell get off think he’s get something to say about originality?
Other than Perlman and Pantoliano, the rest of the cast is merely okay in a well-they’re-not-bad sort of way, though David Dukes puts in a great cameo. It’s all pretty tame stuff, neither dark enough to have any bite nor amusing enough to overcome the obvious flaws. It’s based on a stage play, and the stageyness of the thing shows in bland blocking and disinterested camerawork. It also features Arye Gross in drag, and that’s not good for anyone.
Still, it’s got a great Ron Perlman performance,
and that’s something. If only it was in a different movie, like,
say, Starstruck.