Only now does it occur to me... HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE (2003)

Only now does it occur to me... that it's hard to imagine a more awkward turn-of-the-century buddy cop movie than HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE. Written and directed by Ron Shelton––a minor master of the modern sports pic (BULL DURHAM, COBB, TIN CUP, WHITE MEN CAN'T JUMP) and someone who, one year previous, managed to make an actually decent LAPD movie (DARK BLUE)––HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE serves up a true smörgåsbord of clumsy plotting, wooden gags, character actors trying their hardest, and stars who clearly hate each other. It's also the only buddy cop movie I can think of that spends at least 1/3 of its run-time making in-jokes about property values and the L.A. realty scene.

I could begin with Lou Diamond Phillips' baffling appearance as an undercover cop/trans prostitute:


a role that nevertheless ends with the audience muttering, "Well, in the eyes of history, it's still possible that LDP actually conducted himself less shamefully than Harrison Ford."

Which leads us to HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE's centerpiece: "Doesn't-Give-A-Shit Harrison Ford." And before you tell me that this is simply Harrison Ford's default state, might I remind you that this wasn't always true.

I suppose the reality is a little more nuanced than that. Perhaps this is better described as "Miserable Harrison Ford." And even though I am a Harrison Ford fan who grew up on Han Solo and Indiana Jones, there is something essentially and magnificently funny about seeing Ford undergo trials of pure agony for a paycheck he doesn't even need. However, I think we can all agree that this can't really be the backbone of a successful motion picture.

Take, for instance, this scene of L.A. cop Harrison Ford coming home after a long day of busting bad guys to drink some Scotch. It's basically a retread of his domestic scenes in BLADE RUNNER. And yet. The script calls for Ford to unwind with a weird little solo dance of relaxation. Obviously, Harrison Ford hates this.





Hates it with every fiber of his being. He's clearly restraining himself from murdering everyone on set. But Harrison: why aren't you back home then, in Wyoming? Shut away from this world of troublesome people and public places, hermetically sealed, just the way you like it, ya lovable misanthrope? Maybe he's just a masochist.

...As depicted in these sex scenes with THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING's Lena Olin.


"Bad cop, no doughnut?" HE HATES THIS.


Time for the blindfolds. Of course this is a set up for an excruciating, doughnut-devouring sexual climax:

HE IS SO UPSET RIGHT NOW. It's probably a violation of the Geneva Convention to put Harrison Ford through this much mental anguish. I'm trying to imagine Harrison Ford hosting SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. Seems like he should've at this point, right? But he never did. I think that's because the strain of being zany in skits he wouldn't understand might just kill him. They probably should have saved Natalie Portman's "she lost the will to live" dumb STAR WARS death for Han Solo. Harrison Ford definitely could have pulled that off.

And we haven't even come to the matter of Ford's co-star, the yoga-teaching rookie cop Josh Hartnett.

Apparently they couldn't stand each other whatsoever, with Ford constantly calling Hartnett "punk" and Hartnett calling Ford an "old fart." They should have at least tried to put some of that antagonism in the movie! Instead poor Keith David is over here holding the bag, trying to act while they avoid eye contact.

 

Some of us are professionals

And whatever happened to Josh Hartnett? He was hot shit for a minute there. If you're not considering "Harrison Ford Revenge Plot" then you haven't been paying attention.

Hey, look, it's Bruce Greenwood!

It actively makes me sad to see him trying so hard. Hang it up, Bruce. Save that good shit for Atom Egoyan.

Also trying, Lolita Davidovich (RAISING CAIN, COBB, GODS AND MONSTERS)

who does pretty well for herself despite being saddled with a $20 wig. Oh, okay, maybe it's a $35 wig.

C'mon, Martin Landau? He was old. You producers made him get out of bed to be in a movie this bad? Shame on you.

I don't even have time to show you all the celebrity cameos, from Gladys Knight to Eric Idle to Andre 3000 to Robert Wagner. THE PLAYER, this ain't. Anyway. You were probably a lot happier before you learned about HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE, weren't you?

"Rejected Alternatives to Roy Batty's 'Tears in Rain'" in Queen Mob's Teahouse

Since it's 2019, the year in which BLADE RUNNER takes place, my latest humor piece––"Rejected Alternatives to Roy Batty's 'Tears in Rain'"––pays homage to Rutger Hauer's famous monologue and is available to read online at Queen Mob's Teahouse.

Only now does it occur to me... GETTING STRAIGHT (1970)

Only now does it occur to me... to say a few words in praise of Harrison Ford's "schmacting"...but mostly to extol the bountiful virtues of not giving a shit.

In 1970, Harrison Ford's credited screen performances included episodes of THE VIRGINIAN, IRONSIDE, MY FRIEND TONY, THE F.B.I., and LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE; and a pair of Westerns nobody saw, one of which was ghost-directed by Roger Corman. Suffice it to say that he wasn't quite yet setting the world on fire. One could theorize that his relative lack of commercial success thus far was rooted in a kind of desperation to give the best, most noticeable performance imaginable, even if the role didn't call for it. In GETTING STRAIGHT––a counterculture campus film by the incomparably creative Richard Rush (THE STUNT MAN, PSYCH-OUT, FREEBIE AND THE BEAN)––Ford plays an art student, and in his brief screen-time he runs the gamut of widened eyes and indicating eyebrows and slack jaw and furrowed brows... it's an entire encyclopedia of trying too hard––known to many as "schmacting."



(It must be noted that while there are moments of levity throughout, GETTING STRAIGHT is not a screwball comedy, and in fact, its major setpiece is a police crackdown on unarmed campus protesters––furthermore, it was released to theaters a mere ten days after May 4th shootings at Kent State University.)

In Ford's three brief scenes––two of which, where his main character motivation is to invite Elliot Gould and Candice Bergen to a party in his apartment––he overreacts to every happening and tries to imbue each line with an accompanying, on-the-nose facial expression. I've found this sort of thing to be quite common among anxious, eager young actors who sometimes pin their hopes and dreams and desperation onto "under-five" roles that were never intended to be the center of the film's universe. The result is a roller-coaster ride of disparate reactions and maniacal acting choices––which is something that I obviously enjoy quite a bit, in the right context.




The world had not yet broken young Harrison––he hadn't yet bombed out of the movies and turned back to carpentry (from which he would be notably rescued by George Lucas during AMERICAN GRAFFITI), and he had not yet perfected his James Garner-ian tonal authority, his Lee Marvin-style physicality, or his Bob Mitchum-esque art of not giving a shit.


Harrison Ford, giving all the shits, so many shits, WHYYY AM I SO MISUNDERSTOOOOD, MAN

Compare this to the opposite end of the Fordian spectrum––perhaps the voiceover of BLADE RUNNER (mercifully unused in the director's/final cut), where he was actively trying to be terrible... which is certainly awful in its own way, but again note that it involves "actively trying." I think Ford is at his cocky, lazy best when he's coasting through the universe like he owns it (Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Rick Deckard etc.). The best part is that I think Ford himself is well-aware of the acting tendencies he had as a young man, because the only other times I've see it is when Ford's character is "acting"––i.e., when Indiana Jones pretends to be a Scottish tapestry enthusiast in INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE or when Rick Deckard impersonates a nerdy moral crusader in BLADE RUNNER.

Anyway, I think there's a lesson here about detachment and confidence and self-awareness and nervousness and desperation; in short, the art of letting go––and the grand and mysterious power sometimes vested in not givin' a shit.

Only now does it occur to me... INVITATION TO LOVE

Only now does it occur to me.... that TWIN PEAKS' soap-within-a-soap INVITATION TO LOVE must be set in Los Angeles, 2019...because it takes place inside Rick Deckard's apartment from BLADE RUNNER!

INVITATION TO LOVE...


...and BLADE RUNNER.

Those familiar with Frank Lloyd Wright (and perhaps Hollywood in general) may recognize the unique architecture of Ennis House, which has been used as a location (and sometimes recreated on set) in everything from THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL to THE ROCKETEER to THE GLIMMER MAN to BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER to THE DAY OF THE LOCUST.  I have always personally associated the distinctive tilework with BLADE RUNNER, and somehow, despite having watched TWIN PEAKS in its entirety at least five times, had never noticed Ennis House's presence on INVITATION TO LOVE until just this week.

Also, David Lynch must have been quite taken with the architecture, because he duplicated the tiles on the doorway to the Club Silencio in MULHOLLAND DRIVE.

Film Review: KING SOLOMON'S MINES (1985, J. Lee Thompson)

Stars: 2.5 of 5.

Running Time: 100 minutes.

Tag-line: "The Adventure of a Lifetime"

Notable Cast or Crew:  Starring Richard Chamberlain (SHOGUN, THE MUSIC LOVERS), Sharon Stone (BASIC INSTINCT, SLIVER), John Rhys-Davies (RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING), Herbert Lom (THE DEAD ZONE, SPARTACUS).  Written by Gene Quintano (POLICE ACADEMY 3, POLICE ACADEMY 4: CITIZENS ON PATROL) and James R. Silke (REVENGE OF THE NINJA, NINJA III: THE DOMINATION).  Music by Jerry Goldsmith (THE OMEN, GREMLINS, ALIEN).  Produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus.  Directed by J. Lee Thompson (CAPE FEAR, DEATH WISH 4: THE CRACKDOWN).

Best One-liner:  "I'll take that rug!"

KING SOLOMON'S MINES is an unabashed, unrepentant rip-off of the Indiana Jones series, sloppily orchestrated by everybody's favorite 1980s production company, Cannon Films.  The utter shamelessness of the effort is staggering... and brilliant... and absurd. 

First, a little background.  Cannon Films wanted to celebrate the centennial of Henry Rider Haggard's famed adventure novel, KING SOLOMON'S MINES (1885) and make a few dollars along the way by ridin' the Indiana Jones gravy train.  They shot two movies (this and ALLAN QUATERMAIN AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD) simultaneously to maximize the profit (as was the case with 1970s classics like THE THREE MUSKETEERS/FOUR MUSKETEERS and SUPERMAN/SUPERMAN II, among others).  Tobe Hooper was originally slated to direct, but instead used his Cannon Connections to do LIFEFORCE the same year.  In his absence, resident director and Charles Bronson-wrangler J. Lee Thompson took over.  Apparently the shoot proved to be so cursed that he (possibly apocryphally) hired a witch doctor (!) to make sure things didn't get any worse.  

As our Indiana Jones– er, I mean, Allan Quatermain– they hired Richard Chamberlain who so brilliantly portrayed Tchaikovsky in Ken Russell's THE MUSIC LOVERS, but Cannon was probably excited he'd made some recent success in the TV miniseries department (SHOGUN, THE THORN BIRDS).  

 

Chamberlain and Stone encounter the natives in KING SOLOMON'S MINES.

Ford and Capshaw encounter the natives in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.

Sharon Stone is our female lead, and any similarity to TEMPLE OF DOOM's Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) is surely coincidental.  

  

Sharon Stone as  Jesse Huston.

  

Kate Capshaw as Willie Scott.

When I saw Golan speak a few years back he said (with utter charm) "Sharon Stone is our discovery.  She was a nobody before us."  And I think this exact quote from the IMDb trivia page says it all:  "Sharon Stone was hired by mistake Golan had wanted another actress instead of her."  That's perfect.

But back to the movie.  This thing is awful.  But it is also spectacular.  I'm not even sure how I feel about it.  It often plays like goofball parody, but it's got that sincere Cannon moxie, too, mixed with plenty of non-sequiturs. I suppose the major question here is this:  Is Cannon Films taking the piss?  Is this an elaborate joke on the audience?  I genuinely can't tell. On the one hand, it's directed by stiff-lipped Englishman J. Lee Thompson (CAPE FEAR, THE GUNS OF NAVARONE), who managed to make a scene where Bronson assaults a man with a dildo feel earnestly grim.  On the other, it's co-written by the guy who did POLICE ACADEMY 3 &4.  Hmm.  

Let's look at the opening scene as a case study.  RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK-alumnus John Rhys-Davies (who is a fan of paychecks) is trying to force some poor sap into translating the writing on a mystical artifact. 

The poor sap translator's buddy makes a run for the door, whereupon he triggers a deadly trap that skewers him against the doorway with what is essentially a giant meat tenderizer.

It's sort of gruesome, and is not played for a laugh.  Then John Rhys-Davies' crony, who apparently owns the building they use for intimidating potential artifact translators, pops up and exclaims, "MY DOOR!"

like how Charles Bronson says, "It's MY car!" in DEATH WISH 3.  Why is he so concerned?  If he owns the building, he already knows that he had a giant meat tenderizer hanging from the ceiling, ready to destroy his door if someone tried to escape.  Is it supposed to be funny?  Like, "wow, he is overly concerned about the property damage right now."  Or is it supposed to be harsh character-building, like "gee, these guys are tough customers– they just murdered somebody and only care about the holes in the door."  Or is it supposedly to be morbidly and cretinously 'funny' in a BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD vein, like "Hah ha!  That guy got skewered!"  It's difficult to assess.

Most of this film is difficult to assess.  It's packed with racist, imperialist attitudes (replicated from the original 1885 novel) but they're handled with the bizarro Cannon approach, the same one that brought us colorblind gang violence in DEATH WISH 3 and the "It's A Small World" of rap videos in RAPPIN'.  This movie is racially problematic to the point where you begin to wonder if it possesses a spoofy-self awareness, applying a post-modern lens to Nineteenth Century attitudes.  But in the end,  you can't approve of a movie where every person of color is either a buffoon, a cannibal, or someone who desires to feed you to crocodiles for sport.

This movie came out in 1985.

So let's pretend that KING SOLOMON'S MINES is a spoof of classic adventure novels, cultural appropriation, racist caricatures, etc., etc...  so then why is it trying so hard at times to be an Indiana Jones film?  In this regard, I mean that it drops the jokey façade and attempts to recreate, nearly shot for shot, several setpieces from the first two Indy movies.  [Of course this is all rather like an ouroboros (the snake eating its own tail), because the Indy movies are inspired by the Republic serials that were inspired by the original Quatermain novels, but no matter.]

There's the "Basket Game" scene from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, whereupon Indiana Jones tries to save Marion from the Nazis in Cairo after she's whisked away in a basket by Egyptian goons on the German payroll.  The same thing happens in KING SOLOMON'S MINES, except they throw Sharon Stone in a carpet roll instead of a basket.

 
 Indy shoves his way through the crowd in RAIDERS.

 
 Quatermain shoves his way through the crowd in MINES.


The basket's getting away in RAIDERS.


The carpet's getting away in MINES.


Then, take the famous "Ark Truck Chase" scene from RAIDERS.  Indy is flung through the windshield, over the hood, under the truck, and dragged from behind while clinging to his whip.


In MINES, the exact same thing happens– except it's on a train, not a truck, so it's totally different.



My final example (I could go on) is from INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.  Indy and Short Round find themselves trapped in a chamber where spikes descend from the ceiling after a large stone lever is pressed.

The exact scenario arises in MINES, except the budget's lower, so we get papier-maché stalactites instead of the aforementioned fearsome iron spikes.

So that would seem to close the book on that– it's not parodying Indiana Jones– it wants to be Indiana Jones.  Though we cannot neglect the major point here:  this is a Cannon Film.  It can't be Indiana Jones, no matter how hard it tries.  It's not going to be competent enough to do so.  But in trying, you would assume that it could stumble upon some unintentional movie magic.  And, on a few occasions, it does:

SEE!  A giant, rabid spider eat a poor extra wearing a fez:

It comes with the Cannon guarantee that you've seen better special effects on your neighbor's lawn last Halloween.

BEHOLD!  An evil sorcerer thrown down a pit like the Emperor in RETURN OF THE JEDI and exploding in flower of matted-in flames!

GAZE UPON!  A Nessie-style dinosaur chomping on a man while Sharon Stone looks on in terrorized disbelief!

Sharon Stone, Oscar-nominated (...for CASINO).

In the end, as I said, I'm not sure what to do with this.  It comes nowhere near the heights of the Cannon classics (like BLOODSPORT or THE APPLE or REVENGE OF THE NINJA), and is probably most comparable to FIREWALKER, another J. Lee Thompson-directed Cannon rip-off of Indiana Jones.  But, being part freak show and part train wreck, I sorta can't believe this thing exists, and for that I must award it about two and a half (extremely awkward) stars.

–Sean Gill