The Mighty Quinn

Year 2, Day 197 - 7/16/10 - Movie #565

BEFORE: The weather has been cooperating - meaning that it's been insanely hot the last few days, but at least it's provided the perfect backdrop for last night's film, set in the Florida Keys, and tonight's film, set in Jamaica (?) Once again, Denzel Washington plays the chief of police...

THE PLOT: When police officer Xavier Quinn's childhood friend, Maubee, becomes associated with murder, The Mighty Quinn must clear his name. Or try to catch him, which could be even trickier.

AFTER: This film was based on an old Bob Dylan song of the same name, but I seem to remember that the Mighty Quinn in the song was an Eskimo - so right off the bat, we've got some continuity issues... Is setting the film on a tropical island meant to be ironic, or was it just a much more enjoyable place to shoot a movie?

I'm just not a fan of reggae music, so that's two strikes against the film right off. I can't decide what's worse, the music or the fake "Yah, mon" accents that the cast were forcing. Should I find this offensive? I'm not sure. Denzel's accent seems to mysteriously disappear when he sings a blues song in a bar though. But I guess he's spent time in the States, so maybe that's where he learned to sing?

Tonight, it's not the cop being framed, it's his childhood friend, Maubee - at least, that's what Quinn suspects, but can he prove it? A mysterious murder leads to a very complicated explanation - I'm not sure it made justifiable sense in the end.

Also starring Robert Townsend (last seen in "The Meteor Man"), Sheryl Lee Ralph, Mimi Rogers, Esther Rolle (last seen in "My Fellow Americans"), and character actor M. Emmet Walsh (last seen as the swim coach in "Ordinary People")

RATING: 4 out of 10 Red Stripe beers

Out of Time

Year 2, Day 196 - 7/15/10 - Movie #564

BEFORE: Tonight Denzel plays a police chief in the Florida Keys, and we move the Denzel Washington Commemmorative Comic-Con Countdown Clock (patent pending) to 6.

THE PLOT: A Florida police chief must solve a vicious double homicide before he himself falls under suspicion.

AFTER: Denzel plays Matthias Whitlock, who ends up in a situation with so many conflicts of interest that I lost count of them all. He's in the middle of getting a divorce from a female police officer, and he's sleeping with another woman, who's married to a hospital security guard. His girlfriend has terminal cancer, and is trying to get money for experimental treatments - but when she can't sell her insurance policy, she makes Whitlock the beneficiary (wouldn't that just raise a lot of questions, after she dies?)

Whitlock makes a really bad decision, giving her evidence money, I suppose he's figuring that by the time it's needed for trial, he'd have the money from her insurance. (This makes no sense, since the exact money would be needed for the trial, serial numbers and such, and he completely destroys the chain of evidence)

Without giving away too much, let's just say that Whitlock ends up needing to find that money, and figure out what exactly happened to his girlfriend - before the other cops in the investigation (led by his ex-wife, of course) realize that he's got means, motive, and opportunity. But when evidence starts pointing to him, Whitlock destroys evidence, removes evidence from a scene, and obstructs justice in other ways - how is all that better than coming clean and admitting that he knew this woman?

This is the second film in a row where Denzel plays a cop being framed - is this a coincidence or the start of a trend?

So many elements here are either predictable, or ridiculous, or both - they're prediculous! Whitlock keeps ending up at the wrong place at the wrong time, and key witnesses keep identifying him. Pointing out that some people think all black men look alike only goes so far - did he ever think of, I don't know, changing his shirt or something? And when a body is found, no one even thinks to check dental records, despite the fact that the deceased worked in a DENTIST'S OFFICE!

Poor Dean Cain (as the wife-beating husband) - after playing Superman on TV for years in the 90's show "Lois & Clark", it seems like he thought he had to play a bunch of scumbags to break out of his squeaky-clean image...

Also starring Eva Mendes (last seen in "The Spirit") as the ex-wife cop, Sanaa Lathan (last seen in "Alien vs. Predator"), John Billingsley (Dr. Phlox from "Star Trek: Enterprise"), with a cameo from Nora Dunn.

RATING: 5 out of 10 bungalows

Fallen

Year 2, Day 195 - 7/14/10 - Movie #563

BEFORE: The Denzel Washington-countdown clock to San Diego Comic-Con is at 8 - after this film, it will be 7. 7 Denzel movies, 7 days, and then I'll leave the hot, sweltering confines of NYC for the slightly less sweltering confines of a large convention center filled with 125,000 geeks, nerds, and dweebs (including myself).

I've blocked out my movies through Oct. 31 - I wanted to see if I had JUST enough movies to form a chain that would take me through to Halloween, and I do, provided that I find a way to watch 2 movies while I'm away for 5 days. It should be possible, if I bring the office laptop to my hotel room, even if I'm exhausted from working at the con, I just need to watch 1/2 of a movie each day for 4 days, to stay on track.

THE PLOT: Homicide detective John Hobbes witnesses the execution of serial killer Edgar Reese. Soon after the execution the killings start again, and they are very similar to Reese's style.

AFTER: This is a twist on the cop vs. killer dynamic, in this case the killer appears to be a demonic spirit, who can be passed from person to person by touch - after leaving the serial killer's body, the demon sets out to corrupt the detective who arrested his last host. (I sort of wish I'd known the gimmick, I might have saved this one for October...)

It's an innovative idea - how does a cop take down a killer who can look like anyone, be inside anyone? And if God works in mysterious ways, how much trickier can a demon be? This film suggests that people who murder or commit suicide might not be responsible, due to their inner demons, which could be actual demons.

If you choose to believe in angels, it's only fair that you believe in demons as well - so this film is sort of the opposite of "Michael" for me. Though that film didn't exactly reveal why Michael the angel came to earth, we all know why a demon is here - to corrupt, to destroy.

And when the Devil comes to corrupt you, do you think he's going to look like he does in cartoons - with a red suit, horns and a pointy tail? Heck, no, he's going to look like your best friend, or perhaps a centerfold model...and you'll fold like a cheap suit, won't you? This movie sort of carries that idea to the extreme - even the main character's friends and co-workers could be temporary hosts for his demon foe, and they won't even remember what they did while they were possessed.

So this film touches on some of the issues I've been considering lately - matters of the soul, the possible afterlife, and the meaning of existence. I suppose it's a little silly to look for answers in a cop film, but what else am I supposed to do, go to church? That ship has sailed - anyway, movies are my church right now, and I'm attending daily.

I didn't really find anything here about the meaning of life, anyway, just some neat tricks to defeat demons, should I ever have the need. Though this was a unique idea for a film, I have to deduct for the repeated use of "demon-vision" - the strange camera angles that are used to show the demon's P.O.V. from within the host.

Also starring John Goodman (last seen in "The Babe"), Donald Sutherland (last seen in "Ordinary People"), James Gandolfini (that's FOUR times this week, I swear it wasn't intentional), Elias Koteas (last seen in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"), Aida Turturro (sister of John Turturro, from last night's film), and Robert Joy (last seen riffing on Stephen Hawking in "Superhero Movie")

RATING: 7 out of 10 late-night phone calls

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009)

Year 2, Day 194 - 7/13/10 - Movie #562

BEFORE: Oh, and George Steinbrenner died also. "Sic semper tyrannis."

Which is an odd tie-in since Gen. Stein-grabber made his bones in the Bronx, and the title train of tonight's film is a #6 train, out of Pelham Bay in the Bronx. I watched the original version of this film last year, after deciding I couldn't wait for the remake to watch them back-to-back, so I'll be closing out my Travolta chain with this one.

THE PLOT: Armed men hijack a New York City subway train, holding the passengers hostage in return for a ransom, and turning an ordinary day's work for a dispatcher into a face-off with the mastermind behind the crime.

AFTER: It starts out pretty similar to the original film, Travolta replaces Robert Shaw, and Denzel Washington replaces Walter Matthau (Matthau's character was named Zachary Garber, so changing his name to Walter Garber is probably an homage to Matthau). But there are some new twists - obviously the use of cel phones, webcams, and traffic cameras in the plugged-in world of 2009 has to be addressed in the plot. But no way would a laptop webcam work on the subway - and it's a major plot point, too. To date the NYC subway has NOT been wired for cel phone or wi-fi access (thank God...).

Also in the original film, Matthau's character never leaves the subway control room - but here Walter Garber forms something of a connection with Travolta's Ryder, the leader of the kidnappers, so when plans go awry, Ryder demands that Garber be the one to deliver the bags of cash. So there are some new twists to the plot that I won't reveal here, but I mostly approve of them.

Where the movie lost me was in the continuity of the New York City geography. Forgive me, but I think I know my way around the Grand Central area pretty well. The purloined train gets stopped somewhere just north of 42nd St. on the 6 line - which means that it's under Grand Central Station. Garber is in the main control room at Grand Central, yet when he is called on to deliver the money, he leaves Grand Central Station to drive to a heliport, and the helicopter takes him to the train's location, which is a few blocks from where he started. Huh? Is this trip really necessary to take by helicopter?

Then once the train starts moving again, it travels from Grand Central to 34th St./Herald Square, which is under Sixth Avenue - how did the train get from the Lexington Avenue line at 42nd over to Sixth Ave and 34th? Impossible. OK, I figured maybe they got onto the N/R track somehow - later the dispatchers say that the train is speeding downtown in Manhattan toward Coney Island. OK, I'll give you that, since the N track actually goes to Coney Island (but it takes a really long time...Coney's at the end of the line...) so why does the diagram on the wall say that the train is heading toward Bowling Green, which is the end of the 6 track, in lower Manhattan?

While this is going on, an exterior shot shows the speeding train on an elevated track (impossible, since there are no elevated tracks in Manhattan, except for the defunct High Line), and it clearly passes by Shea Stadum (now-demolished), which is in Flushing, Queens! Did you think I wouldn't recognize that distinctive blue-colored stadium? That's some train, it went from midtown to Queens to Coney Island in about 5 minutes, even though there are no tracks connecting those places in that order!

Was anyone doing any sort of subway research, or paying attention to any continuity at all? (I know, Spider-Man 2 made the same mistake, showing elevated train tracks in Manhattan - but it's still inexcusable.) Furthermore, the Waldorf Hotel is nowhere near 34th St., it's on 49th/50th St. - so someone went up a ladder and teleported 15 blocks somehow. Also, I don't think you can get out of a car on the Manhattan Bridge and get yourself over to the pedestrian path. That's impossible, since you wouldn't want pedestrians on the bridge to be able to walk where the cars are driving.

The original film did a better job of working the plot around the actual logistics of the reality of New York City, but I will admit that the remake/update was more exciting, faster-paced, and more of a thrill-ride. So I guess that's a wash.

A line from Travolta's character, to sum up my feelings regarding George Steinbrenner, and Harvey Pekar too, while I'm at it: "You live, you die, you either go with the current or you fight it, but you all end up in the same place." This film is a great example of the dichotomy between the villainous priveleged upper-class (Ryder is possibly some sort of disgraced stock trader) and Garber's working-class hero, who turns out to be capable of more than he thought.

OK, enough of John Travolta and his cockamamie schemes - I could pick up on the "heist" aspect of this film and watch some bank robbery films and such, but I think I'll follow up the Denzel Washington angle instead - I leave for San Diego in 8 days, and I just happen to have 8 films on the list that feature Denzel Washington as a cop (or a criminal). I realize he didn't play a cop in tonight's film, but the connection is still valid.

Also starring James Gandolfini (3rd appearance this week!) as the NYC mayor, John Turturro (last seen in "Being Human") as a hostage negotiator, Luis Guzman, and Michael Rispoli (last seen in "Death to Smoochy")

RATING: 6 out of 10 walkie-talkies (see what your continuity mistakes get you?)

Be Cool

Year 2, Day 193 - 7/12/10 - Movie #561

BEFORE: Last night's film was very meta, meaning it was a film about people making a film, and the film-within-the-film was very similar to the framing film around it (minor correction: the film within "Get Shorty" was not called "Get Shorty", but instead it was "Get Leo", apparently...) Another film that used this concept was "American Splendor", which won't be part of my countdown, since I've already seen it - but it's the life story of Harvey Pekar, Cleveland file clerk, indie comics writer, record collector, jazz critic, frequent talk-show guest and professional grumpy-pants, who passed away yesterday at the age of 70. So I'd like to send out a long-distance dedication tonight...

I met Harvey once, in an elevator at NBC, behind the scenes of the Letterman show, since my BFF Andy had done a tech favor for Harvey's wife Joyce, and she invited Andy to the show, and Andy invited me. Given the choice between the green room and the audience, we chose to sit in the audience for what would turn out to be Harvey's penultimate (I think...) appearance on Dave's NBC show.

Here's what a professional, Joanna Connors of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, wrote about Harvey:

"Unlike the superheroes who ordinarily inhabit the pages of comic books, Pekar could not leap tall buildings in a single bound, nor move faster than a speeding bullet. Yet his comics suggested a different sort of heroism: The working-class, everyman heroics of simply making it through another day, with soul -- if not dignity -- intact.

R. Crumb said Pekar's work examined the minutia of everyday life, material "so staggeringly mundane it verges on the exotic."

Pekar himself summed it up as revealing "a series of day-after-day activities that have more influence on a person than any spectacular or traumatic events. It's the 99 percent of life that nobody ever writes about."

Me again:

People tend to say a lot of nice things about the deceased, but I'll be honest, (and I think Harvey would agree with me) he was a cynical, cantankerous curmudgeon, and proud of it. I wish the world had more professional grumps in it, and as a fellow cynic (or so people tell me - but what do THEY know...), and a (hopefully) future curmudgeon myself, I'm feeling the loss.

See, Harvey was a sort of a blogger before there even were blogs. He took his life - every last detail of it - and put it into his ironically-titled comic book, "American Splendor". Please seek it out if you get the chance, or at least view the film and send a thought or two Harvey's way. Especially when your office routine is getting you down, or you're feeling cynical about life. It could be worse - you could be a V.A. hospital file clerk in Cleveland diagnosed with lymphoma.

The story of Harvey Pekar comes with a lesson, and a warning. The lesson is, you can always take whatever life throws at you - failing health, a bad relationship, a dead-end job, and you can process it, flip it around, and turn it into art, or at least humor. Look at me - I turned my insomnia and my obsessive list-making skills into the very blog you're reading now!

And the warning is - if you're a cranky sort of person, by all means, channel it and own it. Be the best darn cranky-pants you can be. But be aware that some people are the gatekeepers, talk-show hosts among them, and if you overplay your hand, you can wear out your welcome. I'm curious to see if Letterman gives Harvey a shout-out, since he was essentially banned from the show back in the late 80's, for criticizing General Electric and refusing to answer Dave's questions. (see also: Andy Kaufman, Crispin Glover and Joaquin Phoenix...)

In the end, this was a man who had every right to be mad at the world...and he took full advantage of that. I don't know if there's an afterlife, though I hope there is - and if there is, it's easy to imagine Harvey already complaining about the accommodations...

THE PLOT: Disenchanted with the movie industry, Chili Palmer tries the music industry, meeting and romancing a widow of a music exec on the way.

AFTER: I realize that Elmore Leonard has probably written quite a few books that feature the Chili Palmer character, but it only took two movies for the franchise to run right off the rails...usually it takes 3 or 4 sequels for a franchise to devolve this much.

We're led to believe that the music industry, like the film industry, is filled with contemptible people, from the executives to the managers to the producers, right on down to their posses. I'm sure there might be a few bad apples in the bunch, but this depiction seems sort of extreme. Very few characters in this film aren't packing heat - and we get to see what happens when "Gangstas" bump up against real gangsters.

Again, everyone wants to be famous, and everyone wants to be rich - doesn't anyone just want a simple, adequately-paying job with some health insurance and maybe a 401K?

The trouble starts when Chili's friend, a record executive, gets taken out in a drive-by shooting, and Chili hooks up with his widow (Uma Thurman) to shepherd the career of a young singer named Linda Moon. Problem is, she's already under contract as part of a girl-group with a manager named Nick Carr (Harvey Keitel, who cameo'd in "Get Shorty" as himself, but plays a different character here...)

This all puts Chili at odds with Nick's posse, and also a black record producer and HIS posse, plus the Russian mob, and he has to come up with a plan to play all the factions off against each other and not get caught in the crossfire. And you just KNOW he'll come up with a plan...

In "Get Shorty", Chili had this move where he'd break into someone's house, turn on the TV, and wait for his target to wake up to turn the TV off, then get the drop on them. Well, in this sequel it seems that everyone else uses this trick too, to the point of ridiculousness. Maybe Chili worked it into the plot of "Get Leo", and people copied it, but that's a bit of a stretch.

No, the pieces didn't really come together for me on this one, or maybe they came together a little TOO well, since all the loose ends got tied up pretty neat and quick. Of course, having a successful hit record is portrayed as the solution to all of life's little problems, but as we've seen too many times in real life, achieving fame is more often the START of people's problems. I'm just sayin'.

It's a little interesting to see Travolta and Uma Thurman play off each other in a movie that isn't "Pulp Fiction", but that's really only novelty value.

Also starring Vince Vaughn (last seen in "Zoolander"), Andre Benjamin (last seen in "Semi-Pro"), Duane "The Rock" Johnson (last seen in "The Scorpion King"), Cedric the Entertainer (last seen in "Cadillac Records"), Danny DeVito (carrying over from "Get Shorty"), James Woods (last seen in "The General's Daughter"), Robert Pastorelli (last seen in "Michael), with cameos from Debi Mazar, Aerosmith, the Black-Eyed Peas, Seth Green and Scott Adsit (from "30 Rock").

RATING: 4 out of 10 back-up dancers

Get Shorty

Year 2, Day 192 - 7/11/10 - Movie #560

BEFORE: Today was the first lift at the Feast of the Giglio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn - it's a giant statue that sits on a platform, with a brass band, and a bunch of Italian men from the parish of Our Lady of Mount Carmel carry this 3-ton structure through the streets. Actually, there are two platforms, one with the statue and one with a boat, to commemorate the Feast of St. Paulinus - and they lift, carry and "dance" them, while the spectators enjoy the calzones and sausage heroes, and drink Manhattan Specials (espresso soda) to beat the heat. My brother-in-law is one of the lifters, and it's a big annual event for the Italian community in NYC.

On a completely unrelated note, tonight's film is a comedy set in the world of organized crime.

THE PLOT: A mobster travels to Hollywood to collect a debt and discovers that the movie business is much the same as his current job.

AFTER: John Travolta plays Chili Palmer, breaking out an accent similar to the one he used back when he played Vinnie Barbarino on "Welcome Back, Kotter"...

Chili is a Miami loan-shark who follows a dry-cleaner (who had faked his own death) to Las Vegas and then L.A., in order to collect the money he still owes. Why the man's wife would accept a large cash settlement from the man's insurance and then NOT pay off his loan-shark, I'm not quite sure. I guess they thought that his death would clear his debts - but since he wasn't actually dead, I say you can't be too careful about these things...

While in L.A., Chili takes another gig that puts him in contact with Harry Zimm, a small-time movie producer, and Chili's got a plan to get in to the movie business, (which is weird to me, since I know so many people who would like to get OUT of the movie business...) along with a half-written idea for a movie. The film-within-the-film is about, you guessed it, a loan-shark who follows a dry-cleaner (who faked his own death) to L.A. in order to collect. Actually there are a couple of screenplays floating around, but the really meta one is the one that Chili doesn't have an ending for, since he hasn't tracked down the dry-cleaner yet.

This is sort of similar in tone to last night's film, in that everyone is making deals and scheming against each other, and everyone is motivated by the possibility of getting rich, either through making a movie, investing in a movie, or completing a drug deal. And like last night's film, things start to go wrong and spiral out of control, and of course John Travolta's character has to have a plan, then revise it, then try to stick to it. But this film is more complicated than "Lucky Numbers", there are schemes within schemes, and there seems to be much more of a point. Characters have more specific motivations than just getting rich, and that's a good thing.

I love a good double-cross/triple-cross film, and this one doesn't disappoint. It's a little convenient in that everyone seems to know each other already, and in the way that the schemes seem to all intersect, and in the way that things get wrapped up. But I still have to say that it's an original, clever idea - it's based on a book by Elmore Leonard, who admittedly I don't know much about, but since other movies like "Jackie Brown" and "3:10 to Yuma" are based on his stories, I'm intrigued. Perhaps I should check out some of his books, when I'm done watching movies.

Also starring Gene Hackman (last seen in "The Poseidon Adventure"), Rene Russo (last seen in "The Thomas Crown Affair"), Danny DeVito (last seen in "Death to Smoochy"), Dennis Farina (last seen in "Snatch"), Delroy Lindo (last seen in "Broken Arrow", with Travolta), James Gandolfini (last seen in "A Civil Action", also with Travolta), David Paymer (last seen in "Mr. Saturday Night"), with cameos from Bobby Slayton, Harvey Keitel (last seen in "Bugsy"), Penny Marshall, Bette Midler (last seen in "The Rose") and Alex Rocco.

RATING: 7 out of 10 strawberry frappes

Lucky Numbers

Year 2, Day 191 - 7/10/10 - Movie #559

BEFORE: It's time to see if there's another side to John Travolta's roles - perhaps a darker side, a criminal side.

THE PLOT: A television weatherman scams a local lottery.

AFTER: Essentially this is a "heist" film, which is great because it kicks off a number of heist/crime films, which will lead me into my "cops + robbers" films, a theme which will carry me through to about mid-August. (There is a rough plan in place through early November, but it is slightly flexible...)

Travolta is still the "Man with the Plan" here - at least one of them, his character teams with his sort-of-girlfriend/co-worker, who is the local lotto numbers girl, and a shady strip-club owner. Weatherman Russ Richards, local celebrity and owner of a failing snowmobile store, is down on his luck, deep in debt, and can't even fake a robbery of his own store correctly to collect the insurance.

So the plan unfortunately keeps changing, after a series of mishaps, accidents, blackmail attempts, and double-crosses. Then more people find out about the plan, and things spiral out of control. You see, employees of the TV station would be ineligible to collect the PA state lottery, so their whole plan hinges on finding someone trustworthy to collect the winnings for them, and only take a small share for themselves.

This was directed by Nora Ephron, who also directed "Michael", and in a similar fashion, there's not much of a point to the proceedings. Sure, a lot of stuff happens, some good, some bad, but there's no clear message - rigging the state lottery is a bad idea? People will screw each other when a lot of money is involved? It's more like a series of random occurrences got strung together.

For better movies that detail how crazy people can get over large sums of money, check out "Brewster's Millions", or "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" - or even "How to Beat the High Cost of Living" - all better films. I may have to ban Nora Ephron films from the project, based on my reaction to the last 2 films - and I was so looking forward to "Julie & Julia"...

This film just doesn't go far enough in any direction - not funny enough to be a comedy, not dramatic enough to be meaningful. Not exactly action-packed either - jeez, make me laugh or make me think, entertain me or thrill me, but please, please, don't waste my time. I've still got miles to go before I sleep...

Also starring Lisa Kudrow, Tim Roth (last seen in "The Incredible Hulk"), Ed O'Neill, Michael Rapaport (last seen in "Men of Honor", I think), Daryl Mitchell (last seen in "Black Knight"), Bill Pullman (last seen in "Casper"), Michael Moore (in a rare acting performance), Richard Schiff (seen last night in "Michael), with cameos from Ken Jenkins (from "Scrubs", not the Jeopardy! winner), Sam McMurray as a police chief and Colin Mochrie as a host in a Denny's.

RATING: 4 out of 10 baseball bats