Mobsters

Year 2, Day 212 - 7/31/10 - Movie #578

BEFORE: I spent today catching up on television - spending 5 days in San Diego meant that my DVR was near its capacity, and I had 2 weeks of "Jeopardy!" and "Late Show with David Letterman" to watch, plus a week of "The Daily Show", episodes of "Last Comic Standing", "America's Got Talent", plus all the silly TV I like to speed through, like "Wife Swap", "24-Hour Restaurant Battle", "Chopped", "Chefs vs. City", "Man vs. Food", "Dinner: Impossible" and "Kid in a Candy Store". Essentially, if a show is a food-based reality show or challenge, I'm there. I'm really looking forward to August, because it seems like all the new and premiering shows are outside of my comfort zone (except for "Rescue Me", "Futurama" and "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations"), and hopefully this will give me a shot at catching up on the TV I've stored on tape since March, which includes a lot of "Law & Order", "CSI", "Simpsons", "Family Guy", "Kitchen Nightmares", and "Smallville". I wasted some time today watching a ridiculous History Channel show called "Apocalypse Island", which I'll discuss further after watching the movie "2012".

Tonight it's another film about the Mafia, which is silly, since as we all know, no such organization exists.

THE PLOT: The story of a group of friends in turn of the century New York, from their early days as street hoods to their rise in the world of organized crime...

AFTER: This film shows the early days of organized crime, and suggests that it wasn't as organized as you might think - since all the various bosses were usually trying to kill each other. The film is set from 1917 to 1931, depicting the bootlegging of the Prohibition era, the first attempts to infiltrate the American unions, and the formation of the "Five Families" of the mob.

Again, I'm struggling to enjoy a film where every character is a criminal. I can't wait to get back to cop films, where I feel there's (usually) a better definition of good vs. evil, and it's easier to root for a rookie cop than, say, an up and coming mobster.

This film centers on the friendship between Charles "Lucky" Luciano, played by Christian Slater (last seen in "Broken Arrow"), and Meyer Lansky, played by Patrick Dempsey (last seen in "Enchanted"). We're meant to root for this pair of thugs, not just because they're young and good-looking, but because Luciano is Italian and Meyer is Jewish, so they're progressive, and therefore somehow less evil. But the film just doesn't completely sit right with me, since it justifies and glorifies the gangster lifestyle. Racial acceptance and religious tolerance don't make up for bootlegging, murder, and other vices.

Yes, I realize that some of the best films ever made, including the "Godfather" films, feature anti-heroes like Michael Corleone...but those are deep, rich, complicated films, and this, by comparison, just seems like a shoot-em-up. There's plans within plans, and vengeance for past hits, but the motivations are still pretty simple - making money by whatever means are necessary.

Another drawback is the way the movie skips over a lot of details - we see the four main characters celebrating that they've made their first million dollars together - how? We presume it was made from illegal liquor sales, but how does one grow an illicit business, what hurdles did they have to overcome? I'm reminded of "The Untouchables", which was set in the same era, and we got to see Eliot Ness's first, unsuccessful attempts at stopping bootleggers - which made his later successes feel more deserved.

There are a few little parts that get inside the heads of these characters - explaining why Luciano avoided most romantic entanglements, and why the married Lansky preferred to stay in the background, but these moments are unfortunately few and far-between. A lot of details seem to have been glossed over here in order to bring the picture in at a neat 105 minutes. And I guess all it takes to rise to the top of organized crime is just to play rival crime-bosses off against each other. Can it really be that simple?

Also starring Richard Grieco (last seen in "A Night at the Roxbury"), Costas Mandylor, Michael Gambon (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"), Lara Flynn Boyle, F. Murray Abraham (last seen in "The Sunshine Boys"), Christopher Penn, Anthony Quinn (last seen in "Jungle Fever"), with cameos from Seymour Cassel (last seen in "Animal Factory"), and Titus Welliver (from "Lost") as Al Capone.

RATING: 6 out of 10 tommy-guns

The Freshman

Year 2, Day 211 - 7/30/10 - Movie #577

BEFORE: If you count back to the film "Lucky Numbers", then mathematically I'm halfway through my summer of cops and robbers, right around the mid-point of actual summer, too. I'll get back to cops in a couple days, I swear - but for now I'm sticking with criminals.

THE PLOT: After a small time crook steals all his belongings, a film school student meets Carmine Sabatini, an "importer" bearing a startling resemblance to a certain cinematic godfather.

AFTER: This was an odd little film - I think I avoided it because at the time it was released, I had just graduated from film school, and didn't have much interest in seeing a film about someone still in film school. Matthew Broderick (last seen way back in "The Cable Guy") plays Clark Kellogg, an NYU film student - and having been one myself, I can confirm that my experience was almost nothing like what's depicted in this film. For one thing, we never see Clark actually making a film - and NYU required that all freshman film students take a Super 8 production course, or at least a still photography class.

There were three components to the film degree back at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts - production, writing and film criticism. The only classes we see Clark taking in this film are criticism classes, so at least they got one small part correct. Wouldn't you know it, his class is studying "The Godfather" around about the time that he gets involved in an import magnate who looks exactly like Don Corleone. Now, having your real life reflected in the films you're watching, that's a topic I happen to understand.

How Clark ends up working for a reputed mobster, and the concept behind the cargo they ask him to transport, are farfetched at best. And we're led to believe that Marlon Brando's character is 12 steps ahead of everyone else, which is also quite unlikely. He's essentially reprising his role as Don Corleone, with the explanation that the movie character may have been based on the well-known, yet still under-the-radar Sabatini. But you can't have it both ways - he's either well-known or he's not...

Once again we've got mobsters AND corrupt cops, and it's tough to find a horse to root for. What's worse - smuggling and eating endangered animals, or scamming people into believing that they're doing so? Mobsters committing crimes, or feds taking payoffs for looking the other way?

The movie seemed to lose its focus about midway through - God forbid that the mobster-like character turn out to be a true mobster, and be engaged in something unquestionably immoral, like drugs or prostitution. But as it is, there was some plot redemption near the end, so it finished a little stronger.

Also starring Bruno Kirby (last seen in "Modern Romance"), Penelope Ann Miller (last seen in "Along Came a Spider"), Frank Whaley (last seen in "Broken Arrow"), Jon Polito (last seen in "American Gangster"), B.D. Wong, and Kenneth Welsh (who I remember best as Windom Earle from "Twin Peaks") with cameos from Bert Parks, and Paul Benedict (aka the "Mad Painter" from Sesame Street) as the film teacher.

RATING: 5 out of 10 espressos

The Real McCoy

Year 2 Day 210 - 7/29/10 - Movie #576

BEFORE: I'm deep into heist films now, so I might as well stick with it. I think I recorded this one thinking it was about art theft, maybe to go with "The Thomas Crown Affair", then I didn't end up watching it. So I'll bat some clean-up now.

THE PLOT: A woman is released from prison, an expert bank robber who wants to settle down and go straight, but her parole officer and her former employer try to get her to pull one more heist.

AFTER: This film has a lot in common with last night's film - but it was made first, so maybe I should go easy on it. After all, a lot of elements are fairly common to Hollywood's imagining of what bank robberies are like - we've got the retired safecracker who's trying to go straight, but gets convinced to pull off JUST one more job, the contemptible crime-boss who finances the operation, the assembling of the special team, drilling into the vault from the chicken restaurant or bakery next door, etc. etc.

The twist here is that the expert bank robber is a woman, newly released from six years in prison, and determined to go straight. But she can't get a decent job with a criminal record, and everyone from her parole officer to her new boyfriend (also a thief) is pushing her to go back to work for the boss who led her last bank job - the one that put her in prison. Though she refuses at first, her son is kidnapped to make her comply.

So there are plenty of questionable morals among all of the characters - so how do we, the audience, decide who to root for? Thinking that certain characters should prevail just because they're coerced to commit a crime seems a little arbitrary - are they slightly less evil than the people holding the guns? Should we just root for the main characters, or the beautiful people, because it's more convenient? It all seems kind of murky to me. I know who the filmmakers WANT me to root for, but you have to believe that two wrongs make a right in order to do that...

Of course, the WHY of the heist is easy to figure out - everyone's either motivated by the money, or by the concept of saving a family member held hostage. But it's the HOW that makes a heist film interesting - and there are a few interesting tricks here, like intentionally setting off the bank's security system to condition the police to think they're responding to false alarms. But just as often, this crack team seems to just be able to invent the exact doohickey needed to do a particular thingy - because there couldn't possibly be bank vault technology that's ahead of the thieves skills...

Starring Kim Basinger (last seen in "My Stepmother Is an Alien"), Val Kilmer (last seen in "Deja Vu"), and Terence Stamp (last seen in "Get Smart")

RATING: 4 out of 10 moneybags

The Bank Job

Year 2, Day 209 - 7/28/10 - Movie #575

BEFORE: Sticking with the bank robbery theme - reminds me of all the money I counted up during Comic-Con...

THE PLOT: In September 1971, thieves tunneled into the vault of a bank in London's Baker Street and looted safe deposit boxes of cash and jewelry worth over three million pounds.

AFTER: A good and twisty plot, and it didn't waste too much of my time. But the plot was a bit confusing, with so many factions - similar to the structure of "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" and "Snatch", which also starred Jason Statham.

I've seen the concept of drilling or tunneling into a bank many times, but in this case the crew robbing the bank is interested in safe deposit boxes - a smart move, since so many of the bank's customers are storing very personal items there...ones that they wouldn't even want to report as stolen.

I wasn't sure that I'd followed the plot very well, since there are so many items found in the safe deposit boxes - money, jewels, incriminating photos, OTHER incriminating photos, and a ledger of payouts to corrupt cops. It's not smart to rob a bank and end up with a number of items that other people are willing to get back at any cost.

Supposedly based on a true story, the 1971 robbery of a bank on Baker Street in London - but since most people wouldn't have wanted to reveal the contents of their safe-deposit boxes, I'm assuming that those details have been manufactured for the film. There's a real fondness for the simpler time known as the 1970's displayed here (how quaint, no one has a cell phone...), but I'm sure there are some anachronisms.

Bottom line, it's not bad for a movie with no discernable stars, except for Jason Statham - and he doesn't really count to me, since I haven't seen "Crank" or the "Transporter" series. It's proof you can still make a good twisty thriller on the cheap.

RATING: 6 out of 10 walkie-talkies

Firewall

Year 2, Day 208 - 7/27/10 - Movie #574

BEFORE: Now, where was I before I left for San Diego? That's right, bank robbery. So let's get back into it with this bank robbery film, starring Harrison Ford - who I guess was at Comic-Con, though of course I didn't see him...

THE PLOT: A security specialist is forced into robbing the bank that he's protecting, as a bid to pay off his family's ransom.

AFTER: This turned out to be a tight, tense little thriller. I guess what I'm looking for in a cops-and-robbers film is something not too long (this one's a very manageable 105 minutes) so it doesn't waste my time, and something sort of twisty, which this is.

Harrison Ford plays Jack Stanfield, the bank security expert, who lives something of a routine life - but the problem with falling into any routine is that if one's life can be predicted, there could be people willing to take advantage of those patterns. The group of bank robbers, led by Paul Bettany's character, use their extensive knowledge of Stanfield's position and his family's routine to break in and hold his wife and children hostage, forcing him to comply with their demands to steal millions from the bank via electronic transfers.

It's a smart plan, targeting the bank's richest clients, each of whom probably won't miss $10,000 from their accounts - but put enough $10,000 transfers together, and you're talking about some serious green.

The plot turns into a mindgame between Stanfield and the robbers, trying to outsmart each other with schemes and various electronic devices. I don't want to give too much away here - this movie didn't waste a lot of my time, so I don't want to waste a lot of yours. I've still got three more weeks of cops-and-robbers films left.

Also starring Virginia Madsen (last seen in "A Prairie Home Companion"), Robert Patrick (last seen in "Walk the Line"), Alan Arkin (last seen in "Get Smart"), and Robert Forster.

RATING: 7 out of 10 surveillance cameras

Armed and Dangerous

Year 2, Day 207 - 7/26/10 - Movie #573

BEFORE: Wrapping up my tribute to security guards with this film. I flew back from San Diego late last night, and arrived early this morning. San Diego is a crazy town, at least the parts I'm familiar with - but New York is just as crazy, in its own way. I slept on the plane, and on the bus from the airport, so I actually put in a few hours at the office, then left at 3 to come home and nap. I woke up at 8:00, unsure if it was 8 pm or 8 am - curse you, Comic-Con!

THE PLOT: A fired cop and useless lawyer sign up as security guards and find they've joined a corrupt union.

AFTER: Nothing too complicated for my first day back. This film was an attempt in the mid-80's to make Eugene Levy and John Candy the latest thin guy/fat guy comedy team, like Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, or Aykroyd and Belushi. But Levy is just too offbeat to play a straight man, and John Candy ended up with more success playing somewhat darker roles in "Uncle Buck" and "Only the Lonely" - so it just wasn't meant to be.

There's a lot of slapstick in this film, mixed with car chases and crashes that were obviously influenced by "Beverly Hills Cop" - Candy and Levy have to rely on each other's skills as an ex-cop and ex-lawyer to expose the bogus security firm they work for, which is robbing warehouses and the union's pension fund at the same time. Wacky mishaps ensue.

Also starring Meg Ryan (last seen in "Kate & Leopold"), Robert Loggia, and Kenneth McMillan (last seen in "The Pope of Greenwich Village"). Cameos from Tito Puente, Judy Landers, Tommy "Tiny" Lister (last seen in "Meteor Man") Brion James (last seen in "The Fifth Element") and James Tolkan (the principal from "Back to the Future")

Comic-Con wrap-up report: I bought some Star Wars flash drives, but found no new autographs for the wall - Ms. Portman doesn't seem interested in signing for Lucasfilm, but give her a couple of years without a hit film, and she may come around. Harrison Ford was allegedly at Comic-Con, but I've got his autograph already. Now if Liam Neeson or Ewan MacGregor would have done a signing, I would have made arrangements...

So maybe it was an off-year for my personal time at the Con, but the boss had a great year in DVD and animation art sales, perhaps his best, and we even pre-paid for next year's booth to get the best discount. We had a successful panel and a gallery show, hung out with friends, (one or two that we shared a booth with in years past), went out to some great dinners and I had three beer floats in 5 days, so that's got to be a win. I got a neck massage from my booth-mate Kevin (that wasn't creepy or awkward in any way), so my shoulder actually feels better than it has in months, even after dragging my luggage back home.

I broke down the booth, shipped DVDs back by FedEx Ground, went to dinner at the Tin Fish (thanks for closing early, you jerks) and got a late flight out - I felt like I was on the last helicopter out of Saigon, though I'm sure a lot of conventioneers stay over an extra night and leave on Monday.

RATING: 4 out of 10 armored cars

Paul Blart, Mall Cop

Year 2, Day 205 - 7/24/10 - Movie #572

BEFORE: It's Saturday Night, Day 4 of Comic-Con, and it was a long day yesterday, between setting up, selling DVDs, then closing the booth and selling a few more over at the Chuck Jones Gallery, where we had an event. Today I was mostly walking around, taking pictures of people dressed in sci-fi and superhero costumes, and my feet are feeling worn out. Usually at this point I'd take a nap in my hotel, then head out for a late dinner - but there's some kind of promotional event taking place (the hype-fest around the Con seems to get bigger every year) - and it sounds like fireworks or explosions, or a loud thumping sound of some kind, followed by a crowd cheering after each blast. Either it's a rave, or they've stormed the Bastille...either way, a nap is out of the question. So I'll put my tired feet up and watch a movie on the computer.

This was the 2nd of the competing "Security Guard" films that got released last year.

THE PLOT: When a shopping mall is overtaken by a gang of organized crooks, it's up to the a mild-mannered security guard to save the day.

AFTER: There are many, many similarities to last night's film - if I worked for whichever film studio got ripped off by the other, I'd certainly tighten up security (Oh, the irony...). Kevin James plays Paul Blart, and like Seth Rogen he's a doughy guy, playing a character who's naive or delusional, and has another affliction (bi-polar disease last night, hypoglycemia tonight).

But I'll give the edge to tonight's film due to better villains. Seth Rogen's character only went up against one flasher and some drug dealers, and Kevin James' unlikely hero goes up against a band of high-tech thieves, who are robbing the mall on Black Friday. It makes sense, that's when a mall does so much business...

The cleverness (and I use the term loosely) comes when Paul Blart has to take down the skateboarding, BMX-bike riding or parkour-jumping crooks, using the resources he has on hand, found in the various stores in the mall.

Also starring Jayma Mays (from the Fox show "Glee"), Adam Ferrara (from the FX show "Rescue Me"), Bobby Cannavale (from "Will & Grace"), veteran actress Shirley Knight, and character actor Peter Gerety (last seen in "Inside Man"). Cameo from Gary Valentine (Kevin James' brother) as a karaoke singer.

Comic-Con Report continued: If Comic-Con is a promotional war, then Saturday is its Tet Offensive. And just like in a real war, those of us in the trenches see a very, very different battle from what you might see on TV... However, this means we're over the hump, with just one day of floor sales to go. By Saturday our promo events are over, and I get a little more time to walk around.

Which is good, because even though the Con was mainly a sausage-fest on Thursday, by Friday the girls (and girlz, and gurls...) started to show up. Friday seemed to be "wear a corset" day, there must have been a memo, and by Saturday more of the busty superheroines showed up, along with a fair amount of Slave Leias.

Comic-Con is a great place for vendors to meet customers, for stars to meet fans, and for exhibitionists to meet picture-takers such as myself. I'm strictly "look but don't touch", but I bet there are a lot of costumed hook-ups here. You just know that Superman and Wonder Woman (or Superman and Batman, I don't judge...) are going back to the hotel and getting freaky with it after. Once again, rumors abound about superhero and/or Star Wars burlesque shows taking place in after-hours clubs, but I always seem to learn about the location two days later.

Though I did see Natalie Portman from a distance - she got snuck in to sign some posters for a film called "Hesher". I had my picture taken 5 years ago with her arm around me, so I wasn't as impressed as some of the other people in the crowd. We also saw TV's Pauly Shore, and our booth was visited by acclaimed animator Ralph Bakshi, but that was about it for celebrity encounters this year. I missed Penn + Teller's appearance, and also the "Mythbusters" panel, since they both started at 7:15, and I have to remain at our booth after the main floor closes at 7, until I get the "all clear" from security.

I seem to have taken the role of Ian Faith from "This Is Spinal Tap" - he's the band's manager, and he has this great rant about how he's always called upon to find lost luggage, or mandolin strings in the middle of Austin. And how there's no sex and drugs for Ian... Similarly, I'm called upon to be the first one at our booth each morning, to do the set-up, and the last one to leave at night, and in between I have to get sandwiches and sodas, and search for mylar sleeves to hold animation art, which are never available from any vendor at the convention. That's the job...and if I do it well, I get to do it again next July.

My first batch of Comic-Con photos, in a chronological set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/66064297@N00/sets/72157624592163498/

RATING: 6 out of 10 security codes

Observe and Report

Year 2, Day 203 - 7/22/10 - Movie #571

BEFORE: It's Thursday, Day 2 of Comic-Con (if you count Preview Night, and I do...). I've observed a lot, but there's not much to report... I bought my weekly Wednesday comics - out of hundreds of booths, there are only 2 or 3 that sell this week's comics, and fortunately I know where to find them. Other than that, I've been selling DVDs, taking some pictures, and dining out at some of my favorite restaurants - there's a 5-block area of San Diego that I know very well by now, my 8th trip here.

Choosing this film tonight gives me a chance to send a shout-out to the men and women of Elite Security, who patrol the convention center at night, which allows us to leave our merchandise at our booth, making our set-up and breakdown each day much, much easier. Thanks, guys and gals, if not for you I'd be trucking merch back and forth to my hotel every day, putting a strain on the old back...

THE PLOT: Bi-polar mall security guard Ronnie Barnhardt is called into action to stop a flasher from turning shopper's paradise into his personal peep show. But when Barnhardt can't bring the culprit to justice, a surly police detective is recruited to close the case.

AFTER: I think I'm going to reserve most of my judgment until after viewing tomorrow night's film, which looks to be very similar. I do like Seth Rogen, but I don't know if I can build a chain of films around him. And I'm not sure if he can carry a picture, without a James Franco or a Jason Segel or a Bill Hader to play off of.

There's a fine line between making a character naive, and making them delusional - the main character her seems to be more in the delusional category. He also has bad luck with women, largely because he ignores the quiet, dependable girl in favor of the more flashy, yet obnoxious bombshell (Anna Faris). Dating is like prize-fighting - don't try to hit outside your weight class, that's how you get hurt.

There are some funny moments here, but it's all a bit more slice-of-life comedy than laugh-out-loud comedy. Maybe you'd call this a dark comedy? Still, too much male nudity for my taste.

Also starring Ray Liotta (last seen in "Turbulence"), Michael Pena (last seen in "My Fellow Americans"), Dan Bakkedahl, Aziz Ansari (of NBC's "Parks & Recreation"), and Celia Weston (last seen in "The Village"?), with cameos from Patton Oswalt (last seen in "Zoolander"), and Danny McBride (last seen in "Land of the Lost").

More of my report from Comic-Con: We had to scramble for a new hotel this year, since my regular hotel for the last 4 years went out of business in November. I got an internet deal on a place that used to be a YMCA, and was converted to a hotel 6 years ago. Although the price is right, this meant I was staying in something just one step above a youth hostel, with shared (but private) bathrooms and showers down the hall. Turns out the Village People were wrong - it's not much fun to stay at the YMCA. There were a lot of slamming doors all the time, and I left the lights on all night just in case - though I was so exhausted that getting to sleep at 11 wasn't a problem. Admittedly I don't need many amenities during Comic-Con, since I'll be out most of the day, and eating at restaurants at night - I just need a room with a bed, a closet and a phone, and that's essentially what I got. I had a TV, but I never even turned it on - since I chose to watch movies on the laptop I brought.

But it occurred to me that my room was much, much smaller than even a tiny New York apartment - it was more like the size of a jail cell. Come to think of it, take away the phone and the TV, and add a toilet, and that's pretty much what it was. But with my bathroom down the hall, a jail cell might have even been more convenient, except for the fact that I could go outside whenever I wanted.

Oh well, it's not the Ritz, and I'm not here for luxury, I'm here to work the con (in both senses of the word...) make some money for the company, and grab a beer float when I can. Andy's 5-2-1 Rule of Comic-Con is in effect, which means that every day I should try to get 5 hours of sleep, 2 full meals, and 1 shower. No exceptions, no excuses. But I do prefer at least 6 hours sleep, 3 meals, 1 shower if possible, and I also try to add 2 beers each day, or at least 1 beer float.

Tonight (Thursday) our booth staff went out to eat - unfortunately the Broken Yolk Diner was closed, or I might have attempted the 12-egg omelette challenge. Instead we went down the road to a new place (for me), Brian's 24, where I had a peanut butter and bacon cheeseburger, and a beer float with vanilla ice cream in Guinness. Fantastic!

Photos available on my Flickr site:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/66064297@N00/

RATING: 5 out of 10 cups of coffee