Film Review: LOOSE CANNONS (1990, Bob Clark)

Stars: ? of 5.
Running Time: 94 minutes.
Tag-line: "A comedy with personality... lots of them."
Notable Cast or Crew: Gene Hackman (THE CONVERSATION, UNFORGIVEN), Dan Aykroyd (DOCTOR DETROIT, GHOSTBUSTERS, DRIVING MISS DAISY), Dom DeLuise (THE CANNONBALL RUN, MUNCHIE), Ronny Cox (ROBOCOP, TOTAL RECALL, DELIVERANCE), Robert Prosky (CHRISTINE, LAST ACTION HERO, GREMLINS 2), Paul Koslo (VANISHING POINT, FREEBIE AND THE BEAN, ROBOT JOX), Leon Rippy (STARGATE, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER), David Alan Grier (IN LIVING COLOR, JUMANJI), Tobin Bell ("Jigsaw" in the SAW movies), Bill Fagerbakke (Mick Garris' THE STAND, SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS).  Music by Paul Zaza (PROM NIGHT, PORKY'S).  Written by Richard Matheson (THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN, I AM LEGEND, THE TWILIGHT ZONE), Richard Christian Matheson (THREE O' CLOCK HIGH, AMAZING STORIES), and Bob Clark (BLACK CHRISTMAS, A CHRISTMAS STORY, PORKY'S).
Best One-liner: "Humpty Dumpty's back on the wall!"

How do we imagine our art will be digested?  At the perfect time and place, by the perfect audience?  When I was eleven years old, I watched AMERICAN GRAFFITI, because I loved George Lucas and his STAR WARS.  I liked it, but didn't really get it.  I wasn't old enough.  Saw it again when I was nineteen.  I was beginning to understand.  Take Noah Baumbach's KICKING AND SCREAMING: it's a film about listless college graduates entering the real world.  I rented it with my friends, on VHS, the last week of college before commencement.  We loved it, but I didn't realize how hard it could hit until I watched it four months later, scraping along in a dirty, rented room.  I don't think they should assign THE GREAT GATSBY to high school kids.  I don't think you can properly unravel it until you've had a dream and tried to chase it.
Naturally, all of this begs the question: when is the proper time to watch LOOSE CANNONS?

LOOSE CANNONS purports to be a loose and zany collection of scenes arranged into a buddy cop comedy involving split personalities.

Indeed, the film itself suffers from multiple personality disorder: it is produced by Aaron Spelling and René Dupont; the former built a television empire founded on garish, bourgeois romantic fantasy (THE LOVE BOAT, MELROSE PLACE, DYNASTY, BEVERLY HILLS 90210, SUNSET BEACH, etc.) and the latter produced films for Charles Chaplin and Stanley Kubrick (A KING IN NEW YORK and LOLITA, respectively).  It is written by horror/sci-fi legend Richard Matheson (who wrote some of the best TWILIGHT ZONES and serious novels like SOMEWHERE IN TIME and WHAT DREAMS MAY COME) and his son, Richard Christian Matheson.  It is directed and co-written by Bob Clark, who brought us family fare like A CHRISTMAS STORY, teen sex comedies like PORKY'S, holiday slashers like BLACK CHRISTMAS, and indescribable musical trainwrecks like RHINESTONE.  It stars an A-list dramatic actor (Gene Hackman) and a (then) A-list comedic actor (Dan Aykroyd).

It co-stars Dom DeLuise and an entire battery of "that guy!" character actors from gritty crime flicks of the 70s and 80s.  It features a soundtrack from Paul Zaza, who oversaw the horror-disco-sanity of PROM NIGHT.  The plot involves Nazi sex tapes and S&M and one-liners and mental illness––hey, what is this, anyway?  Who was this made for?  Who was meant to digest it? And when? 

In 1990, Siskel and Ebert described it as "the cop-buddy comedy that hits new lows in an undisputed field."  It was a financial failure, recouping only $5 million of a $15 million budget.  In 2015, it holds a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.  As far as I know, it has not secured a cult following in the interim, even among bad movie aficionados.  For twenty-five years, unmoored, adrift, LOOSE CANNONS has not found its audience.  It has not yet discovered its proper time and place.  How does one judge such a film?  I'm not even quite sure it is a film; it may very well be a ghost on the haunt.

Gene Hackman's cat is named "Camus."  Dan Aykroyd is afraid to go to an S&M club, "not that I'm a Trudy Prudy or anything like that."

Do we blame this for EXIT TO EDEN? 

The club has go-go dancers wearing KISS-style body paint and this is distressing to Dan Aykroyd.

Aykroyd says "I always annoy people.  I don't mean to."  It is something of an understatement.

At different points throughout the film, Aykroyd "becomes" The Road Runner, Scotty for STAR TREK, The Cowardly Lion, and The Wicked Witch.  It is explained that he is only this way because he was tortured by a Columbian named "Armando."

We, however, were tortured by a Canadian named Aykroyd?

Aykroyd and Hackman drive around in a battered old station wagon full of kitty litter.

 "I have a hole in my ass."  ––"That's why they call you an asshole!"
 
Later, the station wagon smashes into a stack of crates filled with chickens.

 Gene Hackman wields a blunderbuss.
 
Dom DeLuise appears, looking like latter-day Orson Welles, wearing a King of Hearts costume

and, later, vests made from the upholstery of grandmothers' couches.

He exclaims "They're fucking with the wrong Jew this time!"

This is because he's involved in a international conspiracy searching for a snuff/pornographic/ritual sex-suicide film starring Adolf Hitler and the guy (Robert Prosky) who's going to be the next German chancellor.


"I saw a movie, XXX-style, only this one starred Hitler and a couple of other guys!" 

Paul Koslo plays a Nazi, who waves a gun around and does Nazi things.

Ronny Cox plays an FBI handler, who sure has his hands full with these two.

David Alan Grier shows up and tries to pretend he's not actually in the movie.

"How do you know the killer's German," asks Gene Hackman.  "Because there's no peepee hole on the boxers," says Dan Aykroyd.

Dom DeLuise is rolled around in a wheelchair.  This is supposed to make us smile because he is a fat man.  It actually makes us smile because Dom DeLuise is a warm and sympathetic human being who inspires warm feelings everywhere he goes.

We begin to wonder if GHOSTBUSTERS would have been insufferable if it didn't also have Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson.

"Let me know if you ever find yourself, kid, cause I'd love to meet you," says Gene Hackman.

And somewhere between it's first and ninety-fourth minute, the film ends.  What was it?  I 'm not sure.  It all happened so fast, officer...

So when and where was LOOSE CANNONS' proper time and place?  If I had watched it on some other evening, at some other point in my life, would it have really "clicked" with me?  For all I know, this film is a triggering device for some as-of-yet-unhatched MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE-style plot, and that's it's proper time and place.  Or perhaps it was Calgary in 2013, when frames from a discarded reel of LOOSE CANNONS were discovered in a Canadian landfill, prompting an employee to believe he'd stumbled upon the remains of an actual snuff film.  It was finally determined to be a staged murder when Calgary police realized the man doing the murdering was Dan Aykroyd.

His name cleared, Aykroyd said "The movie should have been left in the landfill where it belongs."

Perhaps that is it's time and place.  This impossible confluence of writers, actors, and producers––arthouse, grindhouse, and studio system alike––converging on a genre that was mostly played out by 1990, on a film that was seen and loved by almost no one.  Rotting away, unseen, unsung...  Perhaps this landfill copy of LOOSE CANNONS, this temporary piece of crime scene evidence, ought to be screened as-is, DECASIA-style, as an art installation piece reminding us of this fine line between fiction and non-fiction, between sanity and madness.  What's the half-life of celluloid?  We'd better screen it while there's still something left, before we can no longer properly loop the reel across the spools and project.  Maybe the cannons are loose, not because they're a hot-doggin' cop and his mentally ill partner; maybe they're loose because the cannons are fleeting, life is fleeting, the cannons are slip, slipping away.

LOOSE CANNONS, ladies and gentlemen.

–Sean Gill

GIANT OSCAR MESS: Best Puppet

In my continuing coverage of GIANT OSCAR MESS (best described HERE), I present to you the nominees for final category: BEST PUPPET IN A MOTION PICTURE

And the winner was...

...Lorenzo Lamas, a win made all the more shocking because he wasn't even nominated. Mr. Lamas himself (impersonator Eric Schmalenberger) even accepted the award, in character. It's a live ride!

Junta Juleil's Top 100: #95-#91

95. ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS (1938, Howard Hawks)

I'm not sure anyone has ever matched the skill with which Hawks integrated exposition, character development, and sheer entertainment. He makes it look so damned easy, too. He often sets up a situation where men are doing a serious job, a dangerous job, and then events simply unfold. As they unfold, we learn everything we need to know about the characters because we've been there with them, in the trenches, seeing how far they can be pushed, and how hard they can push back. You don't feel as if you're watching something contrived by sheltered Hollywood-types, because it's not– he's incorporating details, the way his men act under pressure, the way he directs a picture, even, from his real-life experiences as an aviator, a race-car driver, an army man, and a factory worker. This is the sort of film to which I give my highest recommendation; I don't even think I have to tell you about the plot. Just another one of his immaculately constructed tales of men's men and ladies who pull no punches. Did I mention that Hawks' middle name was WINCHESTER?

94. MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW (1937, Leo McCarey)

"It would make a stone cry."

–Orson Welles.

Sweet God in heaven, I'm not sure that any movie has ever jerked as many tears from its audiences, per capita, as MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW. Leo McCarey, who won a Best Director Oscar the same year for the well-made, but far lesser film THE AWFUL TRUTH, said in his acceptance speech: "Thanks, but you gave it to me for the wrong picture." It'd be a difficult movie for audiences to 'enjoy' in any time or place because it asks difficult questions about the relationship between parents and their children; how we care for them, how they cared for us, and what fate is to be earned for all "as the long day wanes." Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi play the elderly couple at hand, delivering a couple of the most purely, emotionally reactive performances in the history of the medium. The clock ticks, the children wait, and the old couple relive youthful memories, a moment of respite before moving on. Dr. Samuel Johnson said it better than I ever could: "We never do anything consciously for the last time without sadness of heart..." And so I join the ranks of viewers who find themselves grasping for the telephone as the final reel ends, calling up loved ones, contemplating these fleeting moments, and hoping for the chance to have more of them.

93. ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968, Roman Polanski)

From producer William Castle– yeah, you heard me right!– comes one of the finest horror films of the 1960's, or of any other era. Castle recognized his dramatic limitations (handing the reins ultimately to master of claustrophobic/metropolitan/conspiracy-horror, Roman Polanski), but he does show up for a brief, wordless, yet somehow amazingly hammy cameo during the phone booth scene. Regardless, this is really Polanski's film, and he spins the tale with paranoid gusto and eye-popping imagery; swirling, hallucinogenic dream sequences and off-kilter quotidian happenings. It's a hotbed of primal fears and existential dread: Polanski has got his finger on just the right nerve, and he plucks and twangs it unceasingly– rape, domestic terrors, body horror, the things we try to hide, the things we don't understand, our fear of doctors and the elderly and babies and enclosed spaces and antiquarian objects and of failure and of seeming crazy and of going crazy; and it all begins to collapse upon you like a black hole and a cry unto the pit– SWEET GOD, WHAT A MOVIE!!!

Also, Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer are just about the most adorably frightening and frighteningly adorable elderly actors I've ever seen (not to be confused with the elderly actors from #94!). And I have to say that John Cassavetes' "I didn't want to miss baby night" has got to rank as the most hilariously inappropriate excuse ever uttered, on or off a camera. (You'll know what I mean if you've seen the film– yikes!)

92. FAIL-SAFE (1964, Sidney Lumet)

It's difficult to incorporate methodical, systematically structured storytelling with genuine emotional stakes, but goddamn, does Lumet pull it together, and with the fate of the human race in the balance, no less! Most prefer DR. STRANGELOVE, which is sort of a loose, parodic retelling, but for my money, FAIL-SAFE's the stronger film. Some have said that STRANGELOVE's satire cuts to the bone, but I say FAIL-SAFE cuts to the bone, then fractures the bone, and then looks down at the bone, somberly, as tears well up in FAIL-SAFE's eyes. FAIL-SAFE then clenches its jaw; anguished, but with an abundance of dignity. As a side note, by and large, though your average fictional president is more appealing than your average actual president, I have to say that Henry Fonda's portrayal in this film goes beyond that– he is so sincere, so thoughtful, so determined, so damned invested, that you wish he really was the president. Also: Dom DeLuise in a serious role– chew on that for a little while.

91. BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986, John Carpenter)

"Have you paid your dues, Jack– yessir, the check is in the mail." I've written a few observations about BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA before, saying "it's about the exhilaration of being ALIVE in a world of unfathomable mystery," and, of Kurt Russell's performance, "he's a runaway train of swagger, guts, and bluster...I never tire of his maniacally youthful cackle, or his proclivity toward moaning 'Awwwwww, CHRIST!'" In short, it's one hell of a time, written, directed, and performed by artists and craftsmen who are having one hell of a time. But it's no mindless shoot-em-up: it's a Hawksian ode to the bonds of friendship, the measure of character, and those ecstatic moments of temerarious action, where, against all better judgment, you feel damn near invulnerable. (Also, you just drank from the six-demon bag.) And, while we're at it, how 'bout that kickin' song over the end credits?


Coming up next...
George Romero's favorite movie, a legendary documentary, and... a movie with a lesser Baldwin!

Film Review: THE END (1978, Burt Reynolds)

Stars: 2 of 5.

Running Time: 100 minutes.

Tag-line: "Are there laughs before death?" Apparently not.

Notable Cast or Crew: Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise, Sally Field, Norman Fell (THE STONE KILLER, THE KILLERS), Joanne Woodward (THE THREE FACES OF EVE, THE FUGITIVE KIND), Myrna Loy (THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, THE THIN MAN), Carl Reiner (THE JERK, SUMMER SCHOOL), Strother Martin (COOL HAND LUKE, THE WILD BUNCH), Kristy McNichol (WHITE DOG, THE PIRATE MOVIE).

Best one-liner: "That man's nuts! Grab 'em!"

Oh, no. Tell me this isn't happening. I love Burt. The giggle, the goosing, the impetuous smarm. I love Dom even more. The chubby cheeks, the playful demeanor (never has someone been quite so mischievous without an ounce of malice), and the unfettered optimism, even in the wake of getting slapped by Burt, nonstop. Put 'em together, and you've got gold.

Well....I hate to break America's collective heart, but not always. Let me lay it all out for you. It's a tale of terminal illness and suicide. Burt directs, and Burt stars. The director seems to be playing it straight. The star is playin' it strictly for laffs. Allow me to reiterate: THEY ARE THE SAME PERSON.

Why the disparate agendas? Burt's got the beard, and Dom's clean-shaven. That's gotta throw some people off, but forget about that for a second. The problems are fivefold:

#1. The pacing. The pacing is HORRIBLE. It is excruciating. Simple scenes that don't advance the plot, don't develop character, and don't contain laffs should not be lasting in excess of ten minutes.

#2. Where is Dom? Dom doesn't even appear until around the half-way mark. Even after that, he's only really a supporting character.

DOM IS GOLD. YOU DO NOT WASTE GOLD. I thought you knew this, Burt! Dom gives it his all. If Dom were onscreen the whole time, this might have been a fine film.

#3. Stop playing with your chest hair, Burt. I'm, trying to eat a snack. I like it better when you're –schwink– goosing Loni.

#4. Groan-inducing jokes. Burt insinuates that his last meal might be Sally Field's–

MEOWWWW!, her cat interjects. Simply rib-tickling. On the Laff-O-Meter, I'm reminded of the near necrophilia from STROKER ACE. Then there's the slew of racial gags– from Burt pulling out the old derogatory chestnut, "beaner," to the stock 'Asian-style' music that accompanies the whacky gardener, the movie's full of wince-worthy would-be knee-slappers. And now, since I've used the phrase "wince-worthy would-be knee-slappers," I am as big a douche as Burt was for making this movie.

Burt Reynolds in a ladies' housecoat, drinkin' a Coors is not in and of itself, funny. Sure, it could LEAD to something funny, but that would require some form of additional effort.

#5. Wasting legends. Aside from Dom, there's stars like Myrna Loy, Joanne Woodward, and Norman Fell.

(Now Norman Fell's not a legend, per sé, but acting alongside the likes of Lee Marvin, Clu Gulager, and Charles Bronson has certainly made him more endearing.)

Myrna Loy: "I acted with William Powell, I drank martinis with William Powell. William Powell was a friend of mine. And you, Burt, are no William Powell."

Give these actors something to do, dammit! Kristy McNichol, on the other hand, acquits herself with twee charm.

In fact, her brief scene with daddy Burt is probably one of the best parts of the film.

Whew. How to end such a film? Well, Burt could always end with a weak FROM HERE TO ETERNITY parody, some sped-up footage inspired by Benny Hill, and call it a day.....

...Annnnnd he does. Two stars.

-Sean Gill

Television Review: HAPPY (1983, Lee Philips)

Stars: 4.1 of 5.
Running Time: 96 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Dom DeLuise, Henry Silva, Dee Wallace, Jack Gilford, David DeLuise, Carol Arthur DeLuise, Peter DeLuise, Michael DeLuise. Executive Producer Dom DeLuise.
Tag-line: "A suspense thriller!"
Best one-liner: "This is me– I'm a clown called Happy."

"Who's gonna make ya smile?" -"Happy!" "Who's gonna make ya laugh?" -"Happy!" "What's my name?" HAPPY. Give Dom Deluise's tender paunch a big 'ole bear hug and hold on tight as you're transported into a world of endless, lighthearted delights, courtesy of Executive Producer Dom (and it's a family affair- his wife and three kids are all involved). Dom plays 'Happy,' the eponymous, washed-up clown who once had a TV show, but now entertains children for sometimes four hours at a time at shoe store openings ("We were only booked for 2!").


The autograph hounds want Happy to sign everything from a tamborine (center) to a Bible (right)! Not sure why there's so many autograph seekers given that his show's been off the air for five years. And I think it was a local show, too.

A holdover from an older, more versatile performer's era (song, dance, puppetry, magic, vaudeville etc.), Dom's natural buoyancy is infectious, and he never turns it off- he NEVER turns it off! His life is one big euphoric stream of consciousness and we're just along for the ride. Also, I gotta say that I've never seen so much confetti in my life. Dom's even flingin' it in patron's drinks!

What do you suppose the odds are that this is the freeze frame that ends the movie? Well the odds are very high, because this IS the freeze frame that ends the movie.

We get to see Dom dressed up in his Chef duds (but he spends 90% of the film, inexplicably at times, in his clown suit);

Jack Gilford doing his impersonation of pea soup coming to a boil (with croutons!);

Jack Gilford- Happy's manager, partner, and best bud- operates Doofer the Rat and the poor man's Madam.

and an awkward, burgeoning romance with sculptor/waitress Dee Wallace (E.T., CRITTERS).

Everything is fine and dandy– until an opera-luvin' Henry Silva, in BLACKFACE,

blows away half of Happy's audience, his manager, and an unlucky chandelier.


The cops are looking for a black man, and Happy's the only one to contradict them ("I know makeup- I've been doin' it for 20 years!").

As a side note- they even refer to him as Happy in court and on the record:

"Well, Happy, while you haven't quite earned the keys to the city, or even Burt's TransAm, you have earned the right to lean on Sharky's Machine for exactly fifteen minutes."

So anyway, Happy begins a one-man crusade to bring the leather-clad Silva to justice, and it all begins with his sculptin' gal Dee making a PUPPET BUST OF SILVA as per Happy's eyewitness account.

I desperately need one of these for my bureau.



AHHHH, SHITTT!

This leads to an enchanting game of cat and mouse (Dom flicks on a flashlight to reveal his clown face in the darkness– "Hey MISTAH KILLLLAH!")

"HEYYYY, MISTAHHH KILLLLL-AHH!"

which leads to a TV studio showdown because Happy got his old show back and there's a piano-playing rabbit who keeps turning around incredulously and a guy in the chicken costume from STROKER ACE and the cops are en route because "The clown was right- I don't believe it!" and the kids are getting impatient and the rest of the cast can only ad-lib for so long and Silva wrestles Happy in an epic backstage brawl and there's a switchblade


and Happy flings confetti into Silva's eyes and a player piano is playing and Happy whaps Silva with an enormous pencil prop and the show must go on and THE SHOW MUST GO ON! and, by God, this is fucking fantastic! Dom– you've done it again. You've gone and made me HAPPY! Even Silva is smiling.

Wait, why is Silva smiling?! And why didn't he blast Happy when he had the chance? Wait a minute... could it be– could this take place in the same universe as CANNONBALL RUN II? Could Silva be playing the same mobster he plays in CANNONBALL RUN II?

Does this mean that his shadowy boss, Don Canneloni (played by DeLuise):

is Happy's twin brother, hence the knowing smile?! Holy shit!

And there ya have it, folks: incontrovertible evidence that watching CANNONBALL RUN II could add an entire new dimension of meaning to your life- or at least your HAPPY experience- and why should the two be mutually exclusive?

-Sean Gill