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Lying in Wait (2001)
Props for Rutger Hauer
For those of you who haven't yet seen "Lying in Wait," please let me take a moment to list for you some props used by Rutger Hauer.
Accordion - Rutger Hauer plays the accordion on more than one occasion, one of which is a seduction scene. The other accordion scene occurs in the waning hours of a sexy party, complete with upright jazz bass accompaniment.
Cold hard cash - Rutger Hauer flashes a substantial wad of money he then bets on a horse. It's perhaps the most exciting moment of the first half of the movie.
Red helmet - Rutger Hauer wears a red helmet, the type the severely retarded or hyperactive will wear. After wearing the helmet a few times, he then dons non-protective headwear, specifically a woolen ski cap.
Motorized wheelchair - Rutger Hauer, avec woolen ski cap, implausibly forces another character over her own balcony by ramming her with his motorized wheelchair. Keep in mind this is a 3 1/2 foot balcony designed to keep people from falling, yet Rutger's wheelchair employs a type of metaphysics to thrust (was it Lois?) over, through, the railing to her doom below.
Thomas Newton - Rutger Hauer uses actor Thomas Newton as a sort of personal hand puppet while the two of them excitedly watch a horse race. The action is thinly implied, yet when one advances the film frame by frame, one can almost see an expression of terror momentarily flash across Newton's face. It is the unmistakable look of doom caused by having a big, old Dutchman's fist in his rectum.
Urea - Rutger Hauer goes to an art opening and pees on the floor from his motorized wheelchair, causing the uncaring art crowd to titter. While not technically a prop (urea may be considered a special effect,) it is an artistic choice agreed upon by the screenwriter, director, producer, art department, financiers, etc. and executed by Mr. Hauer in a convincing fashion.
Motorized wheelchair redux - Rutger Hauer pushes a TV actor into a swimming pool using the wheelchair, pinning the man to the bottom and drowning him. For all you doubters, know that there's more than just one way to kill with wheels. Paraplegics rejoice! You are the rolling hurt machines of woe for us all.
Bloody Nose - Rutger Hauer has a bloody nose in the penultimate scene. It trickles into his mouth and gets on his teeth.
Note - Rutger Hauer spends over half of this movie in a persistent vegetative state and the fact that he's able to use props at all is remarkable.
Listing props is the only way to get through the movie. Good luck.
Submarine X-1 (1968)
Midget submarines, not submarine crew made up of Midgets.
Remember how the Stones and the Who and the Kinks were all rebelling against the establishment in England around 1968? Apparently, the establishment was busy making movies like "Submarine X-1." This movie was a major step backward for cinema, bereft of innovation and dynamic action. I Tivo'd this movie because the description "a Canadian commander trains midget submarine crews" made it sound like there were little people in little subs. Alas, there are normal sized people only. And Jimmy Caan.
Caan plays the Canadian, which is only slightly easier to believe than if he were playing an Englishman. He's rugged and manly and wears great knitwear while he looks harshly at people, sailors, who then take offense at his harsh Canadianness. Caan looks harshly into the distance and, as his men train at cutting fences underwater, he looks harshly at the sea. THIS IS THE ENTIRE MOVIE. A whole lot of underwater fence cutting, harsh looks, sweaters and the aforementioned midget submarines. Thank god for the ill-conceived Nazi commando attack on the secret base which reminds the viewer that there ARE stakes, there IS a war and it's with the NAZIS, so everything better go as planned or else V-E Day might not happen until May 9th or 10th.
Aside from the submarine interiors tilting for realism, there's very little that's progressive about the movie's construction. The camera is just kinda there in the room, not doing anything remarkable. The pace is monotonous, the sets are stagy and the performances are mannered, except for the harsh staring, of course. William Graham did a lot of television both before and after "Submarine X-1," so it would be easy to write off the clumsy filmmaking at the hands of a TV director. But Richard Lester, Ken Loach and John Frankenheimer came up as TV directors and were busy inventing and pushing cinema forward in 1968.
Keep in mind that the rest of the world has been watching movies influenced by the French New Wave. In 1968 Hollywood made "Bonnie and Clyde," "Rosemary's Baby" and "2001: A Space Odyssey." In other words, there was a new filmmaking realism established by then that "X-1" refused to acknowledge. At a glance, someone could mistake this movie as being made twenty five years earlier. No wonder Pete, Mick, Ray and even Ringo were such angry young men.
Night of the Comet (1984)
Not to be confused with "Year of the Comet." Seriously.
HBO lists "Night of the Comet" as a parody of 50s sci-fi, but this movie aspires to so much more. Postapocolyptic zombies, pretty teenage girls who kick ass, engaging visuals, and overtly clever screenwriting make for a real gem of a movie. Kelli Maroney (aka Zoe Kelli Simon) is remarkably cute and shows off greater acting chops than one would expect from her scream queen reputation. Catherine Mary Stewart is so beautiful and genuinely engaging to watch, its a wonder she never became an 80s household name. And Geoffrey Lewis plays a zombie and doesn't wear any makeup in the role! Just kidding. No, really.
There's gunplay, sardonic commentary on the disenfranchisement of suburban youth, a hidden underground scientific laboratory and lots of desolate Los Angeles locations. Oh, and the bloodlusting, postapocalyptic zombies, did we forget about them? They wear crazy wraparound sunglasses, Van's checkered shoes and bolo ties. It's okay. Everyone wore funny things back then.
For good or bad, "Night of the Comet" is squarely dated, both artistically and politically, in the early eighties, so it fits nicely between "The Omega Man" and "28 Days Later," (the latter of which all but plagiarizes from "Comet." ) Director/ writer Thom Eberhardt is obviously smart and innovative, but ham fisted in excecution a few times, like the scene of the girls shopping and having fun set to the tune of, wait for it..."Girls Just Wanna Have Fun."
The movie's flaws are in its huge plot holes and ever-changing tone: hip and dry to clever and campy with ten shades of intensity throughout. Whatever. It's, like totally rad to watch.
Falling in Love (1984)
One Hundred and Six Minute Hallmark Card. With Bunnies.
A married man and married woman meet on the commuter train into New York and begin an affair. If this cast played baseball, it would be an All Star Team. Juliet Taylor and Pat McCorkle get the prize for assembling this cast, who prove that regardless of a movie's degree of wretchedness, the audience can be engaged by strong performance. Let's talk about the cast, and give a shout out when we get to someone you like, okay? De Niro, Streep, Keitel, Jane Kaczmarek, George Martin, David Clennon and Diane Wiest are all known for being excellent. This lineup is consistently great from top to bottom. With pinch- hitting Frances Conroy and 5 year old Jesse Bradford on the Bench. I'm telling you...All Star Team. Now let's take a moment to address the wretchedness. The script is written by actor, writer, director Michael Christofer, whose career arcs from the Pulitzer Prize for 'The Shadow Box' to the simply awful 'Body Shots.' The script for "Falling in Love" is the biggest problem. The story is remarkably dull, the ultra naturalistic dialogue is forced to play within an overly-precious dual narrative, and it all rests on the notion that, despite their destructive affair, our lead characters must remain sympathetic. Nothing says Christmastime like adultery. What will young Jesse Bradford do once daddy leaves home for Mrs. Soffel?
Director Ulu Grosbard doesn't help matters at all. The tone of this thing is all over the place. The pace is stagnant and mired squarely in the failures of the script. Confusing to watch also is Grosbard's love affair schmaltz in constant competition with the actors truthful humanity. This does not make for dynamics at all, quite the opposite. Oil and water, my friends. Murky, murky oil and water. Within the first ten minutes of the movie, when meeting at a restaurant, Harvey Keitel asks De Niro, "Can you please tell me what the hell we're doing here?" Good question. I hope you're getting paid.
The movie is shot beautifully by Peter Suschitzky, known for his work with David Cronenberg. The locations are pretty. There's a cool car drive in the rain involving life and death gravity, but the movie never earns the stakes to which it portends. Most disappointing, David Clennon and Meryl Streep do some of their all time best work when they're together in two scenes that total 40 seconds of screen time. One wonders what could have been if the story had spent more time with them, and less time commuting on the train. This All Star Game got rained out in the middle of the first.
The Toy (1982)
A Southern Billionaire buys a Black Man for his son.
"The Toy" is a remake of the French movie "Le Jouet," but writer Carol Sobieski and director Dick Donner have infused it with a racist theme that is specifically American.
US Bates (Gleason), a wealthy, powerful Louisiana industrialist purchases, Jack Brown, a janitor (Pryor) to perform as an object for his spoiled son's amusement.
After an initial period of friction due to young Eric's (Schwartz) obnoxious, selfish behavior, they agree to investigate Bates's personal and professional misbehavior in a home-made newspaper, called "The Toy."
Infuriated, Bates demonstrates to the two investigators that he owns the people who work for him by ordering his assistant named Morehouse (Beatty) to drop his pants on command (he later screams at another assistant "I told you to dance!")
The iconoclastic rebels who finally take down Bates at a Klan fundraiser are Eric's innocent generation who never knew Jim Crow and the truth-burdened, unemployed black man with nothing to lose because he's already at the bottom.
This movie is filled with enough Pryor minstrelsy to keep movie-going Whitey occupied and chuckling, but is at the same time digging deep into the reality and shame of this country's racist past, and, indeed, present. And we haven't even addressed the alcoholic indentured man-servant Barkley (Hyde-White) or the Fraulein-who-cries-Mandingo (Leslie-Lyttle.)
From the buying of Brown to the sycophantic staff to the Senator-for-hire Newcomb (consonance: Nuke 'Em,) US Bates proves that slavery isn't over...people just cost a little more these days.
In this day when skirting the issue of race and playing it safe at the risk of being offensive has crushed any discussion of racism in this country, it's nice to see that Hollywood once had the balls to make a movie that called a spade a...well, you get it.
Oh, and the kid grows up to be a porn star.