JANUARY 1998:

MY '97 MOVIE DIET

It's the end of 1997 and the start of 1998, and we're all re-evaluating the past year and looking for lessons to better guide us through the next 12 months. Yeah, right. Anyway, it is time to look back on the year in films and judge whether 1997 was vintage... or vinegar. As a result, everybody from critics to couch potatoes seems to be making their '10 Best' lists, on which the same films tend to keep popping up: TITANIC, GOOD WILL HUNTING, AS GOOD AS IT GETS, MR. MAGOO. All films that seem worthy of recognition. (Okay, okay - but MR. MAGOO does deserve recognition: As a sign that FLUBBER could have been worse.)

I'll be honest with you, I didn't see enough films this year to make a fair '10 Best' list. I've been working on a script. And the problem with writing screenplays (at least for me) is that you're either working, and don't have the time to go see movies... or you're not working and are too broke to go see movies. Unfortunately, this year both applied. You can say, "But Dave, you're a screenwriter, which means you write for the screen, shouldn't you go see the latest movies to keep abreast of the marketplace, its trends and directions?" And I'd have to answer, "Yeah, yeah..." (I'd also have to suggest that you speak a little more naturally, but that's nitpicking.) But facts is facts, and I was too busy to head out to the local zillion-plex every weekend. So no '10 Best' list. Instead, I thought I'd list some of the films I did manage to catch that made an impression on me... good and bad.

Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith mercifully erase VISION QUEST
from Linda Fiorentino's memory bank.

MEN IN BLACK: This is perhaps the most perfect comic book movie ever made. Not that it's a perfect movie, just that it's most like a comic book: Bright, funny, wild, short, and completely gone from your mind an hour after it's over. Which is not a criticism. All MEN IN BLACK aspired to be was a comic book movie, and it achieved that goal splendidly. (Note to myself: You are allowed to use the word 'splendidly' once in your life - this was it.) The script was witty, the direction stylish, the performances jaunty (Note to myself - Re: 'jaunty'. See 'splendidly'.) Now I don't know if it deserved to be the #1 grossing film of the year, but it did deliver - something most of the other big summer releases couldn't manage. It's nice to see a film that knows exactly what it wants to do, and accomplishes that goal. What can I say? I wish I'd thought of it.

CON-AIR: This movie contained something I'd never seen before. Something I thought I'd never see in a movie... a boring performance from Nicolas Cage. From the prologue and title scene narration (And has there ever been a more protracted title scene? I think the director's credit finally came right before the fade out...) Cage's slow Southern drawl and laid back demeanor cause your eyes to begin to glaze. And they never un-glaze, not through all the pyrotechnics and (surprisingly crummy looking) special effects. I think what bugged me the most about CON-AIR was the fact that they'd managed to wrangle together a bunch of really talented actors (Cage, John Malkovich, John Cusack) and dump them in a typically shallow and untypically boring bang-bang movie. And then there's the issue of the Steve Buscemi, Hannibal-Lector-ripoff character: Let's see if I've got this right... he's the most sadistic serial killer in the world, who preys on children ("I wore that little girl's head for a hat through three states.")... we watch as he leers and drools over a little girl (who is playing in possibly the least believable place on Earth for a little girl to play)... and because he doesn't kill this one particular child we're supposed to be happy and laugh that he gets away and is last seen gambling in Vegas? The people who made this film didn't only make a crappy movie, they're screwed in the head.

John Cusack looks stunned that he actually managed
to get a good film made by Hollywood Pictures.

GROSSE POINT BLANK: I really enjoyed this movie, particularly its script. The idea of a hit man returning home for his high school graduation sounds dangerously one-joke, but this film manages to use the main character's distance from the 'normal' world he's returning to as a springboard for some very pointed observations about the choices we all make in life. Sure, Martin Blank (John Cusack) is a hit man - but he could be any of us. Disillusioned, burnt-out, looking for direction, a part of him wanting to erase the past ten years and start over. That he's a hit man fuels the comedy, but the filmmakers haven't allowed Martin's job to overshadow Martin's character, or the other characters in the film. This is easily the smartest comedy I saw this year.

How was the script to LOST WORLD? Well, there's a
very good reason audiences said "Oooh! Dinosaurs!"
and not "Oooh! People!"

JURASSIC PARK 2 - THE LOST WORLD: Okay, so it wasn't very good. The script was simply there to link together the setpieces, the characters made the characters from JURASSIC PARK look like they were written by Chekov, and Spielberg's direction wasn't much better than any other action hack working today. But I still kinda liked it. So sue me. It reminded me a lot of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - a bunch of really fun, spectacular setpieces masquerading as a movie. But I enjoyed the setpieces enough to make it through the film. Besides, what were you expecting? It's a dinosaur movie. More to the point, it's the sequel to a dinosaur movie! You want art, go see... go see... uh... something else.

CHASING AMY: Another smart comedy, this one from Kevin Smith. In CLERKS, MALLRATS and now CHASING AMY, Smith explores characters who inhabit a world that is rarely explored in the movies. Like Richard Linklater's great SLACKER, Smith portrays men and women in their twenties struggling to find direction while trying desperately to hang on to their sense of individuality. The problem is, the real world - usually in the form of relationships, and responsibility to another person - tends to intrude. In CHASING AMY Smith explores the effects a new relationship can have, not only on the couple involved, but their friends, peer groups, and business partners. That the relationship is unusual and challenging only heightens the emotions felt by all involved. CHASING AMY is brutally honest, very funny, and obviously heartfelt. It's also tremendously sad... in the way that real life is often tremendously sad. We don't always learn our lessons before the final fade out, and we don't always get the happy ending.

Bad teeth, bad clothes, strangely hairy...
finally a hero we can identify with!

AUSTIN POWERS - INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY: Ah! The joy of pure, uncut dumb comedy. And by 'dumb' I don't mean stupid. Here, lemme give you an example: 'Dumb' comedy is actually smart, it's just very silly (see BLAZING SADDLES, BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, AIRPLANE, any Farrelly Brothers movie). 'Stupid' comedy, on the other hand, is actually, medically, stupid (see ED, BIO-DOME, DUNSTON CHECKS IN, THE SON-IN-LAW... aw hell, any movie featuring either Pauley Shore or a monkey - it's up to you to tell the difference). Clear enough? Good. AUSTIN POWERS is gloriously dumb and very, very funny. I have an especially soft spot in my heart for this film, because my writing partner loves 60's spy movies. And not just the good Sean Connery Bond films, either. The guy actually likes things like CASINO ROYALE, as well as the Flynt and Matt Helm movies. Okay, maybe he likes them in an ironic way, but that doesn't change the fact that HE'S MADE ME WATCH EVERY DAMNED ONE OF THEM! So any movie that comes along and so deftly pokes fun at those films makes my hours of torment seem worthwhile. Almost.

KICKING AND SCREAMING: All right, so it didn't come out this year - but I saw it this year. Writer-director Noah Baumbach's funny and touching examination of life after college was an unexpected gem. It's another of those films (like CHASING AMY) whose characters I felt I'd met before, because they were so well drawn and true to life. One thing I really liked about this script was that everyone got their moment - even seemingly peripheral characters surprise you with a bit of wisdom, a little sass, their own very distinct personalities. A further bonus for me is that the film boasts yet another terrific comic performance by Chris Eigeman (from Whit Stillman's METROPOLITAN and BARCELONA). Eigeman is a master of deadpan comic delivery, who is currently being wasted (while, I assume, making a pile of cash) in TV commercials for telephone calling cards. Why he's not in more films I'll never know. And why this film didn't get a wider release I'll never know. But it's now on video, and it shows up on cable occasionally, so check it out. It's wonderful.

John Travolta torments Nicolas Cage with my review of CON-AIR.

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