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The Wrong Guy
This is a laid-back comedy which is conceptually very similar
to the early Woody Allen movies, except with Dave Foley playing the Woody role
as the hapless, wimpy schmuck with an inflated view of his own skills. As
the film begins, Dave enters his office one morning, filled with confidence that
he will be named his company's next president. When he hears that the position
is going to a rival named Ken, he protests because he has gone so far as to
become engaged to the chairman's daughter. Turns out that Ken has one-upped him
and is engaged to the chairman's favorite daughter. Dave keeps whining
and the chairman is finally forced to tell him that he's a complete schmuck and
a weakling who could never run a big company, whereupon Dave goes ballistic and
threatens to kill his future father-in-law.
Funny thing about that.
A short time later, when Dave marches into the chairman's
office to offer another piece of his mind, the big kahuna is lying there with a
knife in his neck. Dave tries to pull it out, then realizes that the man is
already dead, while he's standing there with a bloody knife in his hand and his
clothes soaked in blood, and that all this has happened about an hour after he
threatened to kill the guy. So he runs - out of the office and into a life as a
fugitive, assuming he'll been hunted as a desperate, violent criminal.
Only one problem with that assumption. The police have access to the company's
24-hour surveillance tapes and know that Dave has nothing to do with the murder.
In fact, the police detective keeps calling Dave "the woman who found the body,"
because the same security tapes show Dave's reaction when he sees the knife, and
he's wailing and shrieking like a 13-year-old girl at a Beatles concert. That's
what the movie is about: Dave's perception of himself as a big-time wanted
criminal on the run, as contrasted to the world's perception of him as a
unimportant witness and a complete pussy. In order to make things a bit more
interesting, Dave's flight keeps crossing paths with the real killer and the
screenwriters construct the scenes in such a way that Dave thinks the police are
actually after him.
Pretty funny idea.
It's a ten-year-old Canadian film which took five years to get
to video and was never released in the States at all. Furthermore, I had never
heard of it. As you can imagine, I had minimal expectations. Frankly, I only watched it for the Jennifer Tilly
nightie scene. It turned out top be a pleasant surprise. While this is no comedy
classic, it has some moments of real inspiration. It's basically a
Kids in the Hall sketch expanded to feature length, but I have to say I got a
big kick out
of it. It deserves much more than the total obscurity to which it has been
consigned. If you liked the offbeat
cable show "The Higgins Boys and Gruber," you may enjoy this since it was
written by the same guy, with Dave Foley as his co-author. It was directed by
David Steinberg, who was one of my favorite comics back in the day.
It's rated a surprisingly high 6.9 at IMDb, and has somehow
developed a fan club, as reflected in the IMDb comments and the message board.
The Jennifer Tilly nudity is not really nude at all, just a
see-through, but it is one of the
sexiest non-nude scenes of all time, and one of the rare cases of a
genuinely funny and sweet "nude" scene. I recommend it highly. The
stills do not do the scene justice. You have to watch it.
The other film clip is just
a silly sequence from the film in which the cops finally corner the real
killer (Colm Feore), who is by then holding Dave and Jennifer Tilly as his hostages. This has
no nudity of any kind, and is just for laughs, but if you enjoy it, you might
consider buying or renting the movie, because this clip nicely reflects the
film's offbeat sense of humor.
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* Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe).
* White asterisk: expanded format.
* Blue asterisk: not mine.
No asterisk: it probably sucks.
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OTHER CRAP:
Catch the deluxe version of Other Crap in real time, with all the bells and whistles,
here.
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The Machinist
The Machinist is a mysterious mind-fuck film about a man who hasn't slept
in a year. Scoopy, in his review, did
a good job of walking the fine line between discussing the plot of this film and revealing
too much, so I see no point in repeating that exercise.
The Machinist was written on spec by Scott Kosar out of film school, and
made the Hollywood rounds. Eventually, Brad Anderson attached himself to the
project and started looking for financing. He finally had to go to Spain to
make the film. The producers wanted to use local Spanish talent for minor
roles and then dub, but Anderson resisted, and hired mostly expatriate
Americans and Brits, with Aitana Sanchez-Gijon
rounding out the cast.
Scoopy covered me pretty well in his conclusion. "I don't mean to imply
that the film's narrow appeal indicates a lack of quality. Not at all. The
Machinist has an intriguing story, and is performed well, especially by
Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Michael Ironside. I was not only
hooked into the mystery plot, but I also admired all the work that went into
the film's sights and sounds. The director, the cinematographer, and the
composer managed to do an excellent job on the look and tone of the film,
allowing the audience to share the machinist's distorted perspective. The
script allowed the audience to understand more about the delusion than the
machinist could understand, yet not too much more. By never fully pulling away
the veil of madness, the director allowed the mystery to unravel at the proper
pace. Although I can see why the film would be unattractive to most filmgoers,
I thought it was terrific."
In contrast to Scoopy, who liked it and could see why many people would not, I
didn't like it so much but can see why many would. I often dislike overly dark
material, and I don't like the constant feeling that the director is playing
games with me. This sort of manipulation works much better for me when the
director does it the way he did in Fight Club, where I had no idea I was being
tricked through the entire film, but on watching it a second time, saw that
all the subtle clues were there. In The Machinist, the manipulation was too
obvious, and therefore a turnoff. In the opening scene, we see Bale unroll a
carpet containing a body into the water. There is no doubt, as we see shoes
and ankles sticking out of the blanket. This is the first clue to not believe
a thing the director shows.
IMDb readers have this at 7.7, which makes you wonder why the box office
was so weak at $1.08M. It garnered many awards and nominations for the look
and feel and for Christian Bale's uncanny commitment to the part. Bale not only lost a full third of his body weight to play this
role, but managed a perfect American accent, and Jennifer Jason Leigh
supported him with a fine performance as the stereotypical hooker with a heart
of gold.
The proper score is C+, as lovers of this sort of film will like
it very much.
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Fair Game
It's a "Babe In Bondage' day. The Time Machine goes back to 1986 for an
Australian flick called "Fair Game." This is not the one with Cindy Crawford,
but another with the same title starring Cassandra Delaney, an Aussie-born
actress who is also a singer-songwriter. Cassy was married at one time to John
Denver and they had a daughter together but divorced before his tragic death.
Caps and four clips of Cassandra as the bad guys tie her topless body to the
hood of their truck.
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Notes and collages
The Ladies of
Sci-fi/Fantasy
The Omega Man
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When Charlton Heston was in the Sci-Fi phase of
his career he starred in "Soylent Green" and "Planet of the Apes," both of which
stand today as classics.
He also made "The Omega Man" which is so bad it seems like a parody
...but on the good side there is Rosalind Cash...
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"The Hunger"
Episode "I'M DANGEROUS TONIGHT"
A fashion designer is enthralled by a piece of red fabric, so designs
and makes a dress with it, leaving everyone who sees it under its spell.
Mimi (Marie-Joseé Croze), who works there, steals it. Her boyfriend Tony
(Esai Morales), who is a criminal, asks her to do a favour for him, but
the dress has other plans.
Marie-Joseé Croze was already in the "A MATTER OF STYLE" episode,
where she looked great but didn't do any nudity. She looks and acts very
hot in this episode and shows a fair amount of T&A. The only thing that
sucked was the red dress, which is pathetic. If it was going to be the
center of the story they should have done better than that.
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