BEFORE: Well, it's Flag Day, and I just watched a movie based on a comic-book, so the next logical movie would be the "Captain America" film, so I'll just...wait, it's not released yet? Well, that's a missed opportunity right there for a holiday tie-in. I guess I'll have to watch another cowboy film, though a different kind - anyway, this one helps me transition back to city life.
Of course, now I wish I'd watched "The Electric Horseman", because I could have so easily linked from Jane Fonda to Jon Voight through "Coming Home". But I lucked out anyway, since Megan Fox from "Jonah Hex" was in some movie with big transforming robots (haven't seen it, don't want to) with Jon Voight (last seen in "Four Christmases").
THE PLOT: A naive male prostitute and his sickly friend struggle to survive on the streets of New York City.
AFTER: This film is 42 years old, and you can still feel how scandalous it probably was in 1969, what with all the sex and the drugs, and more sex (the gay kind). Trivia buffs know it's the only X-rated film to win the Best Picture Oscar - though if released today it would probably only warrant an "R".
Joe Buck (Voight) comes to NYC with dreams of being a hustler (way to aim high) because he figures that the city's full of rich, lonely women, and there are so many gay men in town, there's no one to satisfy them. There's a flaw in that logic somewhere... But he apparently lacks the social skills to connect with any...umm, clients, at least not of the preferred gender, and he himself gets swindled by his customers, a man he meets at a bar, and, well just about everyone.
But he forms an unlikely friendship with Rico "Ratso" Rizzo, who's got a sweet deal squatting in a broken-down building, and they find out that two can live as cheap as one. They also learn a few tricks, like how to load up at the buffet on a film shoot (I figured that one out myself while working as a P.A. in the early 90's).
I don't know, I'm just sort of whelmed by this one. It feels like a one-act play drawn out to movie length, there's no real third act, and it's ultimately depressing - yes, I understand sometimes life is depressing, and movies reflect life, but still...
Plus, what's with the weird dream sequences, what did they bring to the table? We get some glimpses of Joe's early years in Texas, but since they're a dream it all seems very cryptic. He had a freaky-ass grandmother, and there was some sort of incident with a teen girl (Crazy Annie?) but I just couldn't latch on to the specifics.
And how come prostitution is the only viable career choice? I can understand if he doesn't want to wash dishes, but if times are tough there must be some odd job you can do in the vast island of Manhattan to raise some cash - why is it hustling or nothing? Is this some character flaw, caused by his past sexual experiences, or is he just not qualified (or interested) in doing anything else?
I always tell the college kids, when they ask me for career advice, never make your avocation your vocation. I see aspiring chefs on the Food Network who say they've always enjoyed cooking, so they plan to open a restaurant. OK, come back after a few months working the line in a busy kitchen, and tell me if you still enjoy cooking. For Joe Buck, if he enjoys having sex with older rich women, that's fine - but it's a hobby! If you try to make a career out of it, you will come to hate it - ask any woman making x-rated films or working in the sex trade if they still enjoy sex, and you'll see where I'm going with this. I enjoyed movies as a teen, so I figured I'd make a career out of it (though I admit at 17 I was a little fuzzy on the details), and went to film school. After graduating and working in the film industry for a decade, much of the magic of watching movies was gone - I say now that movies are like laws and sausages, you don't really want to see how they're made. After another decade I started to come around, and I carved out some time to watch films again, but still it takes a big-budget effects-driving spectacle like "Watchmen" or "Avatar" for me to truly appreciate the wonder. This is why I don't go work for companies that make comic books or beer, because I want to maintain my enjoyment of those things.
Why can't Joe Buck learn a few guitar chords, and strut around Times Square singing in his underpants? Because I hear that works. Actually, if this film did inspire our local celebrity, the "Naked Cowboy" - who is neither naked nor, I'll wager, an actual cowboy - then I'm afraid I'll have to hold it accountable for that and deduct at least 2 more points.
It works as a portrait of New York City in the late 1960's, a time when you could get just about anything on the streets, legal or not, when there was an underground culture of sex and drugs (not skateboarding and bootleg DVDs) and Times Square was seedy, and not filled with family-oriented theaters and chain restaurants. Back when you could play three-card monte on the streets, and get hustled by small operators, not by large corporations (have you SEEN the price of a Broadway show these days?).
I moved to NYC in 1986 to attend college, and at that point Times Square was still pretty nasty (but nasty in a good way, if that's your bag...) but the sleazier businesses were relegated to the edges. The big clean-up took place in the mid-1990's under Mayor Giuliani, arresting drug dealers, closing porno theaters, and I'm guessing that any remaining cowboy-themed hustlers were relocated along with the "squeegee men". Now it's a tourist mecca and an advertising nightmare (just walked through there on Monday, and didn't see one blank square inch of space) and hey, all it cost us was our personal freedoms. Was that really too much to ask?
Also starring Dustin Hoffman (last heard in "The Tale of Despereaux"), Brenda Vaccaro (last heard in "The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones"), cameos from Sylvia Miles (last seen in "Wall Street") and Bob Balaban (last seen in "Absence of Malice").
RATING: 4 out of 10 saltine packets
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