Film Review: RIDING THE BULLET (2004, Mick Garris)

Stars: 1.5 of 5.
Running Time: 98 minutes.
Tag-line: "The dead travel fast."

Notable Cast or Crew: Jonathan Jackson (GENERAL HOSPITAL, INSOMNIA), David Arquette (SCREAM, RAVENOUS), Barbara Hershey (THE STUNT MAN, HOOSIERS, BLACK SWAN), Chris Gauthier (FREDDY VS. JASON, INSOMNIA), Matt Frewer (MAX HEADROOM, every Mick Garris movie), Cliff Robertson (UNDERWORLD U.S.A., CHARLY, ESCAPE FROM L.A.), and Nicky Katt (THE LIMEY, DAZED AND CONFUSED). Makeup effects by Greg Nicotero, Rachel Griffin, and Howard Berger.  Written and directed by Mick Garris.

Best One-liner: "You're a ghost..." –"BOO!"

I'll try and keep this brief.  So I'm watching this movie, an adaptation of the lesser known Stephen King e-book/novella "Riding the Bullet,"  and I'm not gonna lie– I knew it was a Mick Garris flick beforehand, and I watched it anyway.
You've probably heard me talk Mick Garris/Stephen King before (DESPERATION, QUICKSILVER HIGHWAY, SLEEPWALKERS, THE STAND, etc.) and know by now that my condition is pathological.  It can't be helped.  Mick Garris is going to keep making bad Stephen King movies, King is going to keep sanctioning them, and I'm just gonna keep watching 'em.

 No exaggeration: that font might be the best thing about this movie.

So we got all the Mick Garris standbys- the Cynthia Garris appearance, the Nicolas Pike music, and the obligatory Matt Frewer role.  I've called Garris a one-man Frewer employment agency (they've worked together six times)

and his appearance here amounts to a walk-on as a groovy art teacher with a "cool" earring and a stiff turtleneck.  So yeah.
Anyway, with all these Garris-isms going on,  I started getting excited about seeing Steven Weber (ex-WINGS star and another Garris standby) put his unique acting "spin" on some role in this mess.
 
 Here he is, for instance, out-Nicholsoning Nicholson in THE SHINING '97.

I'm excited for Weber.  I'm jonesin' for Weber...  Where's my Weber?... and then I look it up on IMDb and find out that there's no Weber.  Could it be?  Could it be that there was no role for him?  No room at the inn for Weber? Then who is going to give us a Steven Weber-caliber performance?  We'll return to this pressing issue later on.

I read "Riding the Bullet" a few years ago (it's collected in EVERYTHING'S EVENTUAL) and still remember it pretty clearly.  It's a fairly satisfying, melancholy ghost story centered around an agonizing moral choice, and it plays around with the trope of the "Phantom Hitchhiker" for a while before coming in for a semi-emotional, King-ian climax.  This movie has been heavily expanded from the novella in ways that I don't really care about (which is classic Garris) and this definitely would have played out better as a 25-minute piece in a CREEPSHOW-style omnibus, but I suppose it's too late for that now.

Due to the feature-length padding, it becomes increasingly dull and most of the filler is only tangentially-related to the original story, being largely devoted to silly roadside scares and random fake-outs and dog attacks and killer hillbillies and did-it-happen-or-didn't-it moments and dream sequences that possess equal smatterings of FINAL DESTINATION and THE SIXTH SENSE.  This brings me to the wider question, which is "were people really clamoring to have 'Riding the Bullet' made into a feature-length movie?"  I have no problem with the original story, but I can think of probably forty to sixty as-of-yet-unadapted Stephen King stories that I'd rather see turned into movies.  And everybody knows that if you want to watch a Stephen King movie with "Bullet" in the title, you go for SILVER BULLET.

So this thing is a 60s period piece with an expensive soundtrack: Strawberry Alarm Clock, The Zombies, James Brown, The Chambers Brothers, The Youngbloods.  No idea where that cash came from.  (They shoulda spent it on Steven Weber!)  You can tell it's the 60s because people are referencing Tricky Dick and LEAVE IT TO BEAVER and "John 'I am the Walrus' Lennon" (yes, someone actually utters that aloud).  You can really tell it's the 60s though, because everyone has 90s haircuts and interior decoration

Pictured: The 60s.  (Shockingly similar to JAILBREAKERS' depiction of the 50s!)

 and Death smokes him some reefer, as he did in the 60s.

 This really happens, dear reader.

There's this whole terribly-thought-out narrative device whereupon our hero (Jonathan Jackson) has his internal monologue voiced by a CGI double, and it plays out in ineffective, head-scratching, and spit-take-inducing ways

That Cheech and Chong reference is a few years too early for the 1960s...  Also note: authentic beaded curtain.

that frequently plunge, headfirst, into a morass of unintentional comedy.

Would you believe that this actor came from GENERAL HOSPITAL?  WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT?!

Hey, at least CHRISTINE gets a cameo:


And speaking of cameos, we have two pretty good ones, likely responsible for all 1.5 of the stars I'm awarding this film:
There's the venerable Cliff Robertson, who shows up as an off-his-rocker, crotch-grabbing yokel:

Cliff: you deserved better.

and then Nicky Katt appears, exuding an enjoyable bit of manic energy as a VW minibus-driving fake hippie, and while he does his best to make this feel like a real movie, he only has about two minutes to do so.

Nicky Katt:  improvisin' up a storm.

Also, this movie co-stars Oscar-nominee and acting legend Barbara Hershey as our protagonist's mother.  She has been given the opportunity to utter scintillating Garris dialogue such as the following:


Wow.  Garris walked into a room with Barbara Hershey and said, presumably to her face, that "Today you will be saying 'Awful Damn Crapheads,' and you will be saying it on camera."  That takes balls, I suppose.  Or cluelessness.  And I don't mean to pile on Garris, even though I usually do– the man's contributions to CRITTERS 2, THE FLY II, and FUZZBUCKET are noteworthy, and he rather seems like a warm and enthusiastic man.  But wow.  "Awful Damn Crapheads."  It happened.  It happened and there's no taking it back.

Furthermore, I believe I have pinpointed the exact moment, on film, when Barbara Hershey fully realizes that her agent talked her into a Mick Garris movie–

It's sinking in: the contracts are signed and there's no backing out.  Study it for long enough and you can even see her internal pep talk at work: "I can handle this for two weeks.  I can handle anything for two weeks..."

Anyway, the movie's almost over when you realize that the main thrust of the novella hasn't even been addressed yet– the part where our hero is picked up by an undead messenger who (metaphorically) skewers him on the horns of a (moral) dilemma.

Said (ghoulish, zany) messenger is played by David Arquette.

Now wait one gosh-gadoodlin' minute!  Somebody call the police!  Arquette stole Steven Weber's role!  The above depiction was clearly intended for Weber.  It's in his wheelhouse.  That is Weber's wheelhouse.

The maniacal facial expressions, the vacant eyes, the dopey one-liners, the pain of WINGS that rests upon his shoulders like a shroud–  could it be?  Could it be that Arquette is playing the role as a Steven Weber pastiche?

Pictured: Steven Weber pastiche.


Pictured: actual Steven Weber.

That's my theory, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.  And despite my better judgment, I'm sure one day I will watch BAG OF BONES (the final Garris/King collaboration I have yet to see).  Whew.  Till that day comes...

 –Sean Gill

Film Review: THE STUNT MAN (1980, Richard Rush)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 131 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Peter O'Toole, Steve Railsback (LIFEFORCE, HELTER SKELTER, SAVE ME), Barbara Hershey (THE RIGHT STUFF, THE NATURAL), Sharon Farrell (CAN'T BUY ME LOVE, IT'S ALIVE), Alex Rocco (Moe Greene in THE GODFATHER, FREEBIE AND THE BEAN). Music by Dominic Frontiere (HANG 'EM HIGH, THE OUTER LIMITS). Cinematography by Mario Tosi (CARRIE, RESURRECTION). Stunts coordinated by Gray Johnson (ZAPPED!, THE BEASTMASTER). Additional stunts by myriad stuntmen, including Dick Warlock (THE THING, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, CHRISTINE, MR. MAJESTYK, THE ABYSS).
Tag-line: "If God could do the things that we can do, he'd be a happy man . . ."
Best one-liner: "Besides, I've fallen madly in love with the dark side of your nature." (Smarmily intoned by Peter O'Toole.)

THE STUNT MAN. Hot damn- what a specimen! One of the great films of the 1980s. It's a wild-pinball game of a movie, full of brilliant, inventive visual pops and gags that zig and zag and zing throughout, around, and across the movie with a demented, electric exuberance. As the film played out, I found myself brimming with primitive excitement: for the first time in a long time, I felt as if I was watching something alive, insane, full of pulsating energy– something NEW. (And naturally, the director, Richard Rush, has only directed one fiction film in the thirty-one years since– damn you, Hollywood, for rewarding the uninspired and punishing the innovative!)
Right off the bat, Rush lets us know exactly what kind of a mad, irreverent journey he's about to lead us on: a dog licks its own balls.

This sets off a chain-reaction of events which involves helicopters, electricians, a diner, an errant apple-core, an actual game of pinball, an arrest, an escape, and, in general terms, the subsequent events of the film. But allow me to take a step back for a moment: a movie that begins with a dog licking its own balls was nominated for two Oscars, and even more surprisingly– really deserved them. Obviously, this is a candidate for the Junta Juleil Hall-O-Fame.

Now I won't say too much about the plot of the film, but it involves a fugitive drifter (played by a rugged, fuzzy Steve Railsback, whose performance here occasionally has the feel of a young Tommy Lee Jones)

Railsback: Here, more HELTER SKELTER than LIFEFORCE.

who accidentally brings about the death of a stunt man as a war movie is being shot in a small town by a psychotic director (Peter O'Toole, in one of his finest hours). In return for not turning him in to the police, O'Toole requires the somewhat naive Railsback (who's excited to risk his life for $600 a go) to impersonate the deceased stunt man– dangerous, show-stopping feats and all. Simultaneously, Railsback builds a burgeoning romance with co-star Barbara Hershey as events spiral continuously and exponentially out of control. It's a film of döppelgangers and secret sharers, of lofty gods and mere mortals; of men who fight wars, men who fight windmills, and men who fight to make movies. Along the way, it toys with the many disconnects between reality and illusion in film, and more cleverly than any other movie I can think of– latex is peeled off, body parts retrieved, rugs pulled out from beneath us, and you're eternally left guessing as to whether the punch-line will take place in the real world or in the film-within-a-film.

Some of my favorite moments include a gaggle of gum-chewing tourists watching the brutalities of war being recorded on 35mm and applauding like they're at the State Fair, lens flares used as bizarre transitions, Steve Railsback doing the Charleston on the wing of an airborne biplane,

an extraordinarily visceral depiction of drowning, a shitload of mind-blowing stunts,


Dominic Frontiere's infectious Euro-style score, and, in general, Mario Tosi's breathtaking cinematography.


O'Toole, as always, deserves special mention– he floats about on a crane like an omnipresent cine-deity,

coming down from Olympus only to manipulate his insignificant cast, to blow smoke rings, and to drip sugar off of a knife while exuding utter disinterest.

Replace that bowl of sugar with a bowl of booze, and O'Toole might be able to muster some enthusiasm.

When he first appears in earnest, he embodies absolute, self-possessed lunacy without even opening his mouth.

When he does, it's usually to announce something incredible like "I'LL KILL THEM, AND THEN I'LL EAT THEM!" or bellowing orders that "NO CAMERA SHALL JAM, AND NO CLOUD SHALL PASS BEFORE THE SUN!"

Is O'Toole three sheets to the wind in this freeze frame? I'll leave that to the film historians to decide.

It's got the zaniness of HOOPER, the energy of Ken Russell, the groundbreaking creativity of films from the likes of Welles or Buñuel, and a shocking amount of class– not to mention that it's from the director of FREEBIE AND THE BEAN (which had a rumored feud between director Rush and actor Alan Arkin pertaining to... the performing of dangerous stunts). In short, it's the kind of movie that I really think you should see. Five stars.

-Sean Gill

Side note: In 2001, Richard Rush made only the second film he's made in the last thirty-one years: a documentary on THE STUNT MAN called THE SINISTER SAGA OF MAKING THE STUNT MAN, which I'll have to check out forthwith.

Film Review: FALLING DOWN (1993, Joel Schumacher)

Stars: 3.4 of 5.
Running Time: 113 minutes.
Tag-line: "The adventures of an ordinary man at war with the everyday world."
Notable Cast or Crew: Michael Douglas, Robert Duvall, Rachel Tictotin (TOTAL RECALL, CON AIR), Tuesday Weld (PRETTY POISON, LORD LOVE A DUCK), Barbara Hershey (THE RIGHT STUFF, THE STUNT MAN), Raymond J. Barry (COOL RUNNINGS, BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY), and Frederic Forrest (APOCALYPSE NOW, TRAUMA, THE CONVERSATION). Music by James Newton Howard (WATERWORLD, UNBREAKABLE, ER). Cinematography by Andrej Bartkowiak (PRINCE OF THE CITY, Q&A, TWINS, SPEED).
Best one-liner: See review.

Despite its famous rant pertaining to certain golden-arched dining establishment (well, technically it's 'WhammyBurger'), FALLING DOWN is kind of like McTAXI DRIVER.

We've got our white male rage, our paramilitary transformation, and our casual racism; but instead of delving deeply into our hero's mind to see the deadened core, the writhing frustrations, and the bubbling violence firsthand (like in ROLLING THUNDER, HARDCORE, or RAGING BULL), we've got ridiculous situations, clichés, and a parade of one-liners. On an intellectual level, this film is a failure. It tries to mimic the mere trappings of past masterpieces (the Schrader flicks I’ve named, the snowglobe breakage from CITIZEN KANE, the hypnotic traffic jam that opens 8 1/2), in my opinion, so that it doesn't have to ask the tough questions, and instead would sorta just slide into the pantheon of greatness like a slick little puzzle piece. Well, that didn’t work. So why almost three and a half stars?

Well, as Freddy Krueger would attest, I am a sucker for one-liners. And these one-liners are damn solid. And they’re all delivered by a horn-rimmed, wearily psychotic Michael Douglas.

I am also a sucker for scenes that could have easily been culled from a classic Golan-Globus flick. Scenes like this one.

To a convenience store owner, as he trashes his overpriced goods: “I’m just standing up for my rights as a consumer!” To a would-be drive-by artist: “Take some shooting lessons, asshole!”

To a rich, crusty golfer: “You're gonna die, wearing that stupid hat. How does it feel?”


FOOOSH

As such, the entertainment level is where FALLING DOWN succeeds. Most of the time, it feels like a straight-up comedy. Hey––it’s from the director of D.C. CAB, not THE SEVENTH SEAL. And, even in 1993, it adheres to that ironclad rule of 80’s cinema: if there’s ever a fancy, special order cake present, it must not be eaten: someone will be sucker-punched and –KER-SQUASH- land right on top of it. Frederic Forrest gets a horrific bit part as a closeted Neo-Nazi:

Frederic Forrest: terrifying.

Rachel Ticotin plays––gasp––a tuff Latina cop, Tuesday Weld sends a postcard from Nagsville, U.S.A., and Robert Duvall’s a worn out detective on that clichéd last day before retirement (but still manages to imbue his cardboard role with an abundance of humanity) .

Rounding out the talent is hazy, sweltering, evocative L.A. cinematography by Sidney Lumet-lenser Andrej Bartkowiak. I'm getting sweaty just thinking about it. In all, I'll pass along about three and a half stars.

-Sean Gill

Junta Juleil's Summer '10 Movie Series
1. HELL IN THE PACIFIC (1968, John Boorman)
2. KUFFS (1992, Bruce A. Evans)
3. THE OUTFIT (1973, John Flynn)

4. FOR Y'UR HEIGHT ONLY (1981, Eddie Nicart)

5. A*P*E (1976, Paul Leder)

6. BLIND FURY (1989, Philip Noyce)
7. HIS KIND OF WOMAN (1951, John Farrow)
8. HIGH SCHOOL U.S.A. (1983, Rod Amateau)
9. DR. JEKYLL AND MS. HYDE (1995, David Price)
10. MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL (1997, Clint Eastwood)
11. 1990: BRONX WARRIORS (1982, Enzo G. Castellari)
12. FALLING DOWN (1993, Joel Schumacher)
13. ...