Film Review: BOB ROBERTS (1992, Tim Robbins)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 102 minutes.
Tag-line: "Vote first. Ask questions later."
Notable Cast or Crew:  Tim Robbins (THE PLAYER, TAPEHEADS), Giancarlo Esposito (DO THE RIGHT THING, THE USUAL SUSPECTS), Alan Rickman (DIE HARD, MICHAEL COLLINS),  Ray Wise (TWIN PEAKS, SWAMP THING), Gore Vidal (GATTACA, MYRA BRECKINRIDGE), Harry Lennix (TITUS, DOLLHOUSE), Tom Atkins (THE FOG, HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH), David Strathairn (THE RIVER WILD, SNEAKERS), James Spader (TUFF TURF, Pamela Reed (TANNER '88, THE RIGHT STUFF), Helen Hunt (TRANCERS, PROJECT X, TWISTER), Peter Gallagher (THE UNDERNEATH, MALICE, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO LITTLE), Lynne Thigpen (WHERE IN THE WORLD IS CARMEN SANDIEGO, SHAFT '00), Jack Black (THE NEVERENDING STORY III, DEMOLITION MAN), Susan Sarandon (THE HUNGER, THELMA & LOUISE), Fred Ward (REMO WILLIAMS: THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES, THE PLAYER), Fisher Stevens (SHORT CIRCUIT, MY SCIENCE PROJECT), Bob Balaban (CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, MOONRISE KINGDOM), John Cusack (TAPEHEADS, THE GRIFTERS), Jeremy Piven (DR. JEKYLL & MS. HYDE, THE PLAYER).  Cinematography by Jean Lépine (THE PLAYER, TANNER '88).
Best One-liner: "The times they are a-changin' back!"

I'll begin this review with a quote from IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE, a 1935 novel novel by Sinclair Lewis, which imagines America's first Fascist president. He's a fellow by the name of "Buzz Windrip," and his coronation takes place at a convention in Cleveland. I'll let Lewis describe him for you:

"[Buzz] was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his 'ideas' almost idiotic, while his celebrated piety was that of a traveling salesman for church furniture, and his yet more celebrated humor the sly cynicism of a country store. Certainly there was nothing exhilarating in the actual words of his speeches, nor anything convincing in his philosophy. His political platforms were only wings of a windmill. 

...Aside from his dramatic glory, Buzz Windrip was a Professional Common Man. Oh, he was common enough.  He had every prejudice and aspiration of every American Common Man. ...But he was the Common Man twenty-times-magnified by his oratory, so that while the other Commoners could understand his every purpose, which was exactly the same as their own, they saw him towering above them, and they raised hands to him in worship."

BOB ROBERTS––Tim Robbins' equally prescient 1992 political mockumentary––essentially picks up where Sinclair Lewis left off. It tells the story of a populist Pennsylvanian singer, Bob Roberts (Tim Robbins),

who is running for the U.S. Senate against a stereotypically intellectual incumbent (Gore Vidal).

Apparently Gore Vidal improvised much of his dialogue by reciting his own political positions.

Equally inspired by the panoramic satire of Robert Altman (with whom Robbins collaborated three times) and the comedic sensibilities of THIS IS SPINAL TAP, Robbins creates one of the more perceptive, mean-spirited, and amusing political films of our time. ...And, at the risk of quoting Richard Nixon, we need it "now more than ever."
 
This movie had been on my to-see list for some time, and when I read J.D. at Radiator Heaven's wonderful take on it this March, I knew I had to track it down.

A breezy corporate "folk" singer with the trappings of Bob Dylan and the lyrics of Jordan Belfort,

Bob Roberts traffics in yuppie syllogisms, evangelical pandering, white pride dog-whistling, and priggish sanctimony. The Sixties' pendulum has swung back; Bob (semi-sincerely?) considers himself a rebel patriot, and his campaign possesses all the civil apparatus of a social revolution, but he's fighting against ideals like tolerance, enlightenment, and general civility. This brash refutation of Sixties' youth movements feels like the natural outgrowth of the contemporary corporate "nonconformists" who brought us the profundity of a Nike ad using The Beatles' "Revolution" in 1988.

The lyrics of Bob's songs are brilliant in the way the lyrics in THIS IS SPINAL TAP are brilliant––what they're mocking (hair metal and nativist movements, respectively) already exists on such a plane of absurdity that it's nearly indistinguishable from the genuine article. Whether he's firing broadsides at the "nation of complainers" addicted to entitlement culture:

"Like this: / It's society's fault I don't have a job / It's society's fault I'm a slob / I'm a drunk, I don't have a brain / Give me a pamplet while I complain / Hey pal you're living in the land of the free / no one's gonna hand you opportunity..."

engaging in colonial cosplay:


or singing the dangers of letting "Godless men" in past our walls, who'll "take the jobs of the decent ones":




we've sort of moved beyond satire, and into "reenactment," a mirror reflection of the worst angels of our nature (with the fringe fantasies of 1992 existing in the limelight of 2016).

Tim Robbins perfectly inhabits the role of the neighborly fanatic, the apple-pie extremist; excellent at glad-handing, even as he lines you up against the wall. Certainly every politician carries a bit of the "poseur" about them, but the cold-blooded strain that flows through Bob Roberts is chilling, and all too real. The rest of the cast is wonderful, and fully in tune with the grotesque tendencies of the American political system––it's a veritable playground for character actors and glorified cameos, like:

Alan Rickman, as Bob's campaign chairman (and Oliver North stand-in), whose performance is filled with serpentine acting choices that hint at hidden menace:



Ray Wise as Bob's campaign manager, who's able to play off of Rickman's terrifying energy with one of the best glossy, soulless smiles in film history:

It's a veritable 'soulless smile' showdown.

Tom Atkins as Bob's jovial/oddly intimidating personal physician:


Giancarlo Esposito as an obsessive progressive journalist, who could very well be a character from an Oliver Stone film:


Jack Black as an unbalanced teen (you know the kind, the kid who carves swastikas into desks and burns you with paper clips) who finds in Bob Roberts what TAXI DRIVER's Travis Bickle could only dream he'd get out of the Palatine campaign:


Bob Balaban as a thinly-veiled version of Lorne Michaels (during a controversial Bob Roberts television appearance, with SNL transformed into "CUTTING EDGE LIVE") and John Cusack as a politically outspoken actor:


Peter Gallagher, Helen Hunt,  Lynne Thigpen, James Spader,

Fisher Stevens,

Susan Sarandon & Fred Ward,

and Pamela Reed as newscasters.

Pamela Reed, star of Robert Altman's political mockumentary HBO miniseries TANNER '88. Clearly, the Gary Trudeau-penned series was a major influence on BOB ROBERTS (though it is considerably less mean-spirited), and Robbins even hired the same cinematographer, Jean Lépine.

Essentially, Bob Roberts' candidacy begins as a joke, builds momentum,

balloons to a size that the responsibly rational can no longer ignore,



Roberts' goons rough up the protesters...

and ends in a dark, dark place––far darker than most satirical comedy dares to go. As usual, the true horror is in the way these Fascist tendencies mushroom and flourish among the mob, like a night-flowering vine, or at least like an episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE:


Five stars.

––Sean Gill

Only now does it occur to me... KING OF NEW YORK

Only now does it occur to me... in the wake of similar salutes to Ed Harris, James Remar, and Jean-Claude Van Damme– my tribute to Christopher Walken dance mania!

Junta Juleil's Top 100: #90-86

90. THE USUAL SUSPECTS (1995, Bryan Singer)

A heist film that's at once fun and fatalistic, it's cleverly written and incredibly well-constructed. However, its fanboyish following and unfortunate susceptibility to pea-brained parody certainly threaten to undermine any prospective "Greatness." But after a handful of viewings across the past decade and a half, I've come to the conclusion that it really holds up– John Ottman's flowing, occasionally beautiful, occasionally malevolent score; Christopher McQuarrie's razor-edged but never self-congratulatory dialogue; Kevin Spacey's furtive, crippled sad sack; Gabriel Byrne's classy Euro-gangster; Kevin Pollak's smartassed grease monkey; Benicio Del Toro's fashionable, generally incomprehensible sidekick; Pete Postlethwaite's ominous litigator; Chazz Palminteri's loud-mouthed, thick-necked cop; even Stephen Baldwin makes for a believably rugged gunman. And even beyond the intricacies of the now-notorious plot, there's plenty of layers to uncover here: blue collar (criminal) heroes overwhelmed by shadowy, international corporations; homosexual undertones fused with themes of criminality and counterculture that run far deeper than the surface gag of "going straight"; strange mirrorings of THE WIZARD OF OZ; and, hell, bit parts by Paul "EATING RAOUL" Bartel and Dan "COMMANDO" Hedaya. Yep, I still stand by this movie.

89. GREY GARDENS (1975, Albert & David Maysles)

Perhaps the ultimate experience in "cinéma vérité," GREY GARDENS observes the goings-on at the eponymous, ramshackle mansion which is home to a pair of reclusive, ex-high society Bouviers who go by the sobriquets "Big" and "Little" Edie. In turns funny, tragic, horrifying, heart-warming, and simply hard to watch, the Maysles brothers cross that sterile, journalistic boundary, going beyond simple exploitation and into a deeper truth; perhaps they even form a makeshift family along the way. It's a film about decay and aristocracy, sure, but its aims are chiefly humanistic– beneath each mould'ring shutter and crumbling wall we find alternations of genuine vibrancy and misplaced dreams. One of the great documentaries.

88. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971, Stanley Kubrick)

The sort of film that was my all-time favorite when I was seventeen, but now, apparently, it's somewhere closer to #88. Regardless, it's a work of operatic beauty and hideous ultra-violence, one of quasi-futuristic daydreams and elaborate linguistic fascinations, of oppressive institutionalization and unhinged criminality. Based on Anthony Burgess' novel of moral choice (a novel which I highly recommend, along with other Burgess classics like ONE HAND CLAPPING, ENDERBY, and THE LONG DAY WANES), Kubrick's film really feels like an event; a larger than life, more than occasionally grotesque extravaganza of free will and urban decay. Wendy Carlos' electronic reimaginings of Purcell, Beethoven, and Rossini lend the film an evocative, dystopian soundscape, punctuating the drama, in turns, with black comedy and Stygian dread. And how can I neglect to mention Malcolm McDowell, whose volatile, darkly enthusiastic portrayal has come to define the film and its place in history. Also, Patrick Magee's completely over-the-top, eyebrow-indicating appearance as a revenge-seeking writer is well worth the price of admission.

87. TALES OF HOFFMANN (1951, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger)

Hot damn– TALES OF HOFFMANN! The (Techni)colors, the sets, the choreography– pure, radiant, cinematic spectacle that has irrevocably and personally shaped filmmakers from George A. Romero to Martin Scorsese to Francis Ford Coppola. Powell and Pressburger's definitive adaptation of Jacques Offenbach's renowned opera is a smorgasboard of eye candy, enchanting harmonies, and morbid reverie. It's absolutely absorbing; I defy anyone to watch the first twenty minutes and not find themselves enthralled by the movement, by the dancers, by the overwhelming waves of joie de vivre and frenzied emotion... Eh, I'll shut up for now and let the damn thing speak for itself:

86. RIO BRAVO (1958, Howard Hawks)

John Carpenter's favorite movie and my most-beloved Hawks. One might accuse Carpy of overindulging in imitation (ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, GHOSTS OF MARS), but the set-up is too damned fun for even Hawks to resist– he remade it twice himself! (EL DORADO and RIO LOBO). What we got here is a stalwart sheriff (John Wayne) determined to make a solitary stand against a horde of voracious outlaws. Of course, there's a drunk (Dean Martin), a cripple (the adorably hilarious Walter Brennan), an up-and-comer-guitar-slingin'-show-off (Ricky Nelson), and a inscrutable, hard-drinkin' lady (Angie Dickinson) waiting in the wings, not yet sure what parts they'll play. The eventual shoot-outs and the gut-mashin' pay-offs are thrilling indeed, but the movie's not about them; it's about character development, it's about waiting, it's about the forging of regular dudes into men of action. It's got comic relief, silly romance, nail-biting suspense, but, most of all, a genuine depth of story, of character, of locale. It's the sort of movie that people mean when they say "Boy-o, they don't make 'em like that anymore."



Coming up next: Harry Dean Stanton, crumpled metal perversions, and eyeball-popping insanity!

Previously on the countdown:
#95-91
#100-96
Runners-up Part 1
Runners-up Part 2

Film Review: THE COTTON CLUB (1984, Francis Ford Coppola)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 127 minutes.
Tag-line: "It was the jazz age. It was an era of elegance and violence. The action was gambling. The stakes were life and death."
Notable Cast or Crew: Richard Gere, Gregory Hines, Diane Lane, Bob Hoskins, John P. Ryan, James Remar, Nicolas Cage, Gwen Verdon, Laurence Fishburne, Julian Beck, Tom Waits, Jennifer Grey, Joe Dallesandro, Diane Venora, Woody Strode, James Russo, Giancarlo Esposito, Sofia Coppola, Mario van Peebles! Not to mention Kirk Taylor- The Giggler in DEATH WISH 3! Music by John Barry. Cinematography by Stephen Goldblatt (THE HUNGER, STRIPTEASE). Produced by Robert Evans.
Best one-liner: "Blow that bughouse bastard to kingdom come!"

A lot of the knee-jerk negative reactions to Coppola's 80's output either center on the films being too avant-garde (RUMBLE FISH) or too obsessed with duplicating the celluloid past (ONE FROM THE HEART), but those are two key reasons why his 80's films, however flawed, are some of my favorites. Coppola, along with producer Robert Evans (CHINATOWN, POPEYE)- who was at one point banned from his own set due to heightening tensions between the men- crafts a dreamy, extravagant, maudlin, and occasionally brutal atmosphere that lies somewhere between THE PUBLIC ENEMY, 42ND STREET, and THE GODFATHER.


James Remar demands your attention.

Richard Gere and Diane Lane are our stars, but they are essentially muted: instead, it’s the rogue's gallery of supporting players that lends THE COTTON CLUB power: James Remar as 'Dutch Schultz,' at once exuding charm and childishness- and prone to Pesci-style bursts of violence:

Nic Cage undergoing a journey from stilted milquetoast to raving 'Mad Dog Mick' gangster:

Bob Hoskins as a horse-obsessed (!) impresario who lets you know he's not fucking around, even as he calmly arranges some flowers; Gregory Hines as undisputed king of the tap-dance; Woody Strode as a stoic doorman; Mario van Peebles as a hoofer (the same year as EXTERMINATOR 2!); John P. Ryan as a racist, seething Schultz rival:

Larry Fishburne as a no-nonsense Harlem racketeer who's been pushed around by the whites long enough:

Tom Waits as a nettlesome club employee; Joe Dallesandro as 'Lucky' Luciano, the new Mafioso on the block; and bit parts by everyone from Giancarlo Esposito to Jennifer Grey to avant-garde theater pioneer Julian Beck. It's an exquisite, exhilarating world seen through an amber-colored lens:

A classic 30's montage reimagined.


Shades of Vittorio Storaro?


If only the real Cab Calloway had employed Mario van Peebles (not pictured).


SCHLERP

garish, ostentatious fashion, waterfalls of spurting champagne, elaborate Art Deco setpieces, and swirling, nostalgic montages- at any moment, this heightened tranquility could be perforated by a stroke of repulsive barbarism or a whirlwind of fame, fortune, and your wildest dreams. This is not a gritty, historical document, per sé- it’s a paean to the endless possibilities and intoxicating escapism of the silver screen, and that’s just the way I like it. Four stars.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: CHELSEA ON THE ROCKS (2009, Abel Ferrara)

Stars: 4.5 of 5.
Running Time: 88 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Abel Ferrara, Ethan Hawke, Milos Forman, Grace Jones, Dennis Hopper, Giancarlo Esposito, Adam Goldberg, Bijou Philips, Stanley Bard, Shanyn Leigh.
Tag-line: None I could find.
Best one-liner: "Couldn't handle fame?! Try handling non-fame!"

Generally speaking, there are two types of tour guides: a stodgy, self-important numbnuts who'll tell you that "in 1879, so and so did blah blah blah," or an unhinged borderline madman who'll tell you who "combined uppers with downers and flung a junkie down these stairs, which is why there's a dent in the wall there, and by the way, don't step on that goddamned dog, he'll bite ya in the ass."

Abel Ferrara firmly falls in the latter category, and you should be able to tell by now if his stream-of-fuckin'-consciousness style will appeal to you.

Abel in action.

With his focus firmly on the ordinary denizens of the Chelsea (though celebs certainly get their due), Abel is far more interested in the organic nature of the space than in name-dropping, which he eschews almost entirely.

We hear tales of idealistic hippies with guitars turning into hookers within two weeks, drug-addled youth listening to the same song on loop for four days straight (until somebody finally noticed 'Heyyy, this song is reallly long'), a man's horrifying account of his own brain hemorrhage, Frankie the dealer in #921, string theory, 9/11, suicides, fires, and what-have-you.

Milos Forman tells an awesome fucking story while Stanley Bard looks on.

We hear of a world where artists could pay the rent with paintings, deadbeats could go years without paying at all, and everything was handled on a case-by-case, humanizing basis. Consequently, the film becomes a rumination on an ever-changing New York that's moving from individualistic sincerity to corporate sterility. Gone are the days where artists can live like Poe or Baudrillard, so unencumbered by traditional concerns (like rent, mail, or credit ratings) that they could allow their genius to thrive precisely in the moment. And Abel's rambling genius exists in that moment, even during ill-conceived detours like bizarre reenactments that involve Grace Jones in a bad wig

Ms. Grace Jones.

or Adam Goldberg as a hardass dealer. (In fact, one of my favorite moments is an edit which implies that one resident's tale of a ghostly encounter was actually a run-in with the spirit of Sid Vicious.)

Regardless, the film's as eccentric, ominous, comforting, and labyrinthine as the Chelsea itself, and that is a true achievement.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE (1986, Stephen King)

Stars: 3 of 5.
Running Time: 97 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Emilio Estevez, Yeardley Smith, AC/DC, Giancarlo Esposito.
Tag-line: "Who made who?" AND "Evil's wheels!"
Best one-liner(s): "Jesus is coming and he is pissed!" AND "If you don't get your hand off my leg, you're going to be wiping your ass with a hook next time you take a dump!"

Before I begin, I'd like you to take a gander at the poster pictured to the left. It's not often you get to see Stephen King emerging from a gash in the side of a giant bus and literally pulling the strings on the puppet that is Emilio Estevez. I think the last time a movie's director played such an absurd, puppet-master-type role in a film's marketing was when Cecil B. DeMille gave his little diatribe before THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. Or at least since Alfred Hitchcock's colorful commentaries during his trailers for his post-NORTH BY NORTHWEST output. Anyway. A scene from the MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE trailer: Stephen King stands before the camera, eyes bulging, beard neatly trimmed. Behind him is the Green Goblin big rig and main bad guy of the film. For some reason, music from HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH is playing. He turns to the camera. Turns to YOU. He outstretches his arm and points into your SOUL. The eyes on the Green Goblin turn BLOOD RED. King is bathed in crimson light.

He ferociously intones: "I'M GONNA SCARE THE HELL...OUTTA YOU!!!" So that, in a nutshell, IS "Maximum Overdrive." You'll note that the tagline, in eerie, watery script, proclaims... "Who made who?" Exactly. Man versus machine. Man versus soda machine, to be more specific.

That scene is brutal. This whole movie is brutal. Humans getting lawnmowered, pop-machined, tractored, steamrollered, run over, shot, zapped by Pac Man and Q-Bert, meat-sawed, tossed off bridges, burned, electrocuted, you name it. And then as if to pour salt into the wound of humanity's last gasp, the machines are totally rockin' out to AC/DC as they do it. Which is appropriate, because AC/DC means "Alternating Current, Direct Current," which is probably something machines would listen to.

-Sean Gill