Only now does it occur to me.... STAR WARS: EPISODE VII––THE FORCE AWAKENS (2015)

Only now does it occur to me... that since I've amply demonstrated the inspiration that the STAR WARS sequel trilogy drew from something as humble as old random episodes of DROIDS, it's time to officially acknowledge that Oscar Isaac's character "Poe Dameron"

is clearly inspired by Nicolas Cage's character "Cameron Poe" from the masterpiece CON AIR.

That is all.

Film Review: CON AIR (1997, Simon West)

Stars: 4.5 of 5.

Running Time: 123 minutes (director's cut).

Notable Cast or Crew:  Nicolas Cage (WILD AT HEART, VALLEY GIRL), John Malkovich (EMPIRE OF THE SUN, DANGEROUS LIAISONS), John Cusack (BETTER OFF DEAD, ONE CRAZY SUMMER), Steve Buscemi (KING OF NEW YORK, MILLER'S CROSSING), Ving Rhames (PATTY HEARST, JACOB'S LADDER), Dave Chapelle (BUDDIES, 200 CIGARETTES), Rachel Ticotin (TOTAL RECALL, FALLING DOWN), Danny Trejo (KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS, DEATH WISH IV: THE CRACKDOWN), M.C. Gainey (LOST, FATAL BEAUTY), Doug Hutchison (LOST, THE X-FILES), Fredric Lehne (LOST, DALLAS), Colm Meaney (UNDER SIEGE, DICK TRACY), Mykelti Williamson (HEAT, FREE WILLY, FORREST GUMP), and a possible vocal cameo by Powers Boothe (SOUTHERN COMFORT, TOMBSTONE).  Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer (THE ROCK, TOP GUN).

Tag-line: "Welcome to Con Air.  They were deadly on the ground.  Now they have wings."

Best one-liner:   "Cy..."  –"Onara!"  [man is burned alive]

Alright, ladies and germs.  We all know CON AIR already, and we all know that it's glorious.  Certain elements have been discussed to death, and I'm sure I could zero in on Cage's mullet, his distressingly bad Southern accent, or his doing origami for the love of a daughter he's never met:

or Steve Buscemi being zanily creepy and singing "He's Got the Whole World (In His Hands)":

 or the enormity of all the hare-raising-stuffed-bunny-related setpieces.

But in such cases where a film– notorious for its singular, over-the-top flavor– has been often discussed elsewhere (á la, say, a BLOODSPORT or a COMMANDO), it would likely behoove me to discuss the elements that you don't think about every day when you reach that point in the afternoon that you reserve for thinking about CON AIR.  Therefore, I am proud to present my ten newest and most absurd observations– nay, revelations– that materialized upon my latest viewing of CON AIR.

#1.  Danny Trejo's intention to fuck your whole family.

Playing the rapist "Johnny-23" ("one heart for each of my 23 bitches"), Trejo's had a lot of experience playing convicts– both in real life and in the movies THE HIDDEN, RUNAWAY TRAIN, PENITENTIARY III, LOCK UP, MANIAC COP 2, WEDLOCK, JAKE AND THE FATMAN, LAST LIGHT, AGAINST THE WALL, ANIMAL FACTORY, and a bunch of others.  In fact, after recently seeing him in Cannon Films' KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS, I now am actually afraid that Danny Trejo is going to fuck my whole family. 

Anyway, my point is that I guess it isn't really an action movie unless Danny Trejo is in it, portraying some kind of imprisoned ne'er-do-well. 

#2.  It's not technically an action movie till you blow up a gas station.

I've held this theory for a while, but I'm just impressed that CON AIR, a movie whose logline would lead you to believe that it must take place entirely in a prison and on an airplane, manages to do so by about the halfway point.

#3.  It's not an action movie till there's a vanity license plate.  

One day I'm going to do a feature on vanity license plates in horror and action movies of the 80s and 90s, but until that day, we'll just have to take 'em one at a time.  It's no AWESOM50 from COBRA, but AZZ KIKR firmly receives the Junta Juleil seal of approval.  Here, it doesn't actually belong to John Cusack, it belongs to his hateful boss Colm Meaney, who's playing an aggregate of every bureaucratic authority figure from all of the DIE HARD films combined.

#4.  John Cusack's bizarre cultural references.

Speaking of DIE HARD, Cusack's function here is basically to be the Reginald VelJohnson (Carl Winslow) role from DIE HARD– a.k.a. the only man on the ground who fights the FBI/DEA bureaucracy and believes in his anonymous action-buddy helper who's trapped in the building/airplane fighting thieves/hijackers, and then, ultimately, proves himself as he saves Willis/Cage from that pesky Godunov/Malkovich who you thought might be dead already but then of course he wasn't.  Whew.  Anyway, I guess my original point was to say that it's an odd choice to have the Cusack character quoting Dostoyevsky and enthusing about the PLANET OF THE APES Pentology, but it's a choice that I appreciate.

#5.  Q:  Are Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman CON AIR fans?

A:  Difficult to say, but all of the main characters from Kaufman's first two screenplays to be directed by Spike Jonze (Cusack & Malkovich and Cage & Cage in BEING JOHN MALKOVICH and ADAPTATION, respectively) come from the top billing of CON AIR.  Makes ya wonder.

#6.  I never thought in a million years that I would ever see Dave Chappelle's corpse plummet to Earth

 

and land atop the hood of Don S. Davis' car in a bit intended to be comic relief. 

Also, it's never explicity made clear whether or not Don S. Davis is still portraying his character from TWIN PEAKS, Major Briggs, so for the sake of argument, I'm just going to assume that he is.

#7.  There's an extremely bizarre connection to TV's LOST.  Okay, they're not just both about airplanes that happen to crash.  It goes deeper.  In CON AIR, only two characters actually fly the eponymous airplane: the original, pre-hijacking pilot; and the prisoner who takes the controls post-hijacking.  The original pilot is none other than Fredric Lehne, who on LOST plays the Marshal Edward Mars, the only true authority figure on the plane.
 
After the convicts– or CON AIR's 'Others,' if you will– take over, M.C. Gainey mans the controls.

Fans of LOST will recall him as the memorable, mysterious character Mr. Friendly who is the initial face of the "Others" and one of the primary antagonists throughout several episodes.  Pret-ty strange, I say.  [Also, Doug Hutchison ("Horace Goodspeed" on LOST) has a bit part here, too. ]

#8.  The look in Nic Cage's eyes after he reveals his intention to prove that God exists.  You see, at one point, it doesn't look like Cage's prison buddy (Mykelti Williamson– Bubba from FORREST GUMP) is gonna make it.  He's been shot, maimed, and needs insulin. 

And all he can think about is, like, there ain't no God.

Cage says, "I'm gonna show you God does exist," and then commences to kick some ass and cause a crash landing and a number of slow motion explosions.  But before he commences with the requisite Bruckheimerian antics, he does this with his face:

Maybe Cage attempting to will God into existence, or it's Bruckheimer's kind of deus ex machina, with Nic Cage as literally a god in the machine.  Or maybe it's something else entirely.  Who can say?  Regardless, I applaud it with the same slow-clap used by faux-Gorbachev in ROCKY IV.

#9.  Strange surface similarities to David Lynch's WILD AT HEART.  For those, not in the know, that's another movie with frequent slow motion flames where Nicolas Cage has an ambiguously terrible Southern accent and serves a prison sentence while a blonde waits patiently for him and upon his release introduces him to his own beloved child that he's never met in the flesh before.   

#10.  The idea that this film was born as the filmmakers absentmindedly daydreamed while watching THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and decided that wouldn't this be a lot better as an action movie?  Think about it.  Combine Steve Buscemi's gnawin' mask and Malkovich's intellectual psychopath and you've basically got an American Hannibal Lecter.  "Hannibal the Cannibal."

  That's perfect!  Wait-  they couldn't call him that, though– copyright issues!  Damn!  How 'bout "Cyrus the Virus?"

Then– they co-star Colm Meaney as the "annoying, undermining-the-whole-operation-through-his-own-dickery bureaucrat" character.

He functions and looks like the Irish version of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS' American counterpart, Anthony Heald!

However, all of this simply proves that I have too much time/character actor knowledge on my hands.  Ah, well.

Four and a half stars.

-Sean Gill

Only now does it occur to me... SNAKE EYES

 Only now does it occur to me...  that Nic Cage once played Rick Santorum in SNAKE EYES, the biopic focusing on his lesser-known early career as a sleazy Atlantic City cop.

Junta Juleil's Top 100: #45-41

45. THE CRIMINAL LIFE OF ARCHIBALD DE LA CRUZ (1955, Luis Buñuel)

One of the wildest and weirdest films in Buñuel's entire oeuvre. Often, cineastes delve into Buñuel from one end or the other (either from his early, surrealist works like UN CHIEN ANDALOU and L'AGE D'OR, or from his latter-day international arthouse successes like THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE or BELLE DU JOUR) and neglect the lesser-well-known films of his Mexican catalogue (roughly 1947-1960). There's some real gems in there, films like EL, FEVER MOUNTS IN EL PAO), SUSANA, NAZARIN, and THE CRIMINAL LIFE OF ARCHIBALD DE LA CRUZ. Following a daydreaming milquetoast who believes himself responsible for a series of murders (and maybe he is...), the film delves deeply into thought crimes and 'the murderous urge.' Is it aberrant? Perverse? Can it be healthy if not acted upon? Toss in some insane, uncomfortable imagery and a wicked sense of humor and this is one of Buñuel's finest works.


44. KICKING AND SCREAMING (1995, Noah Baumbach)

I first watched KICKING AND SCREAMING the weekend before I graduated from college. I thought it was funny and quotable, sure, but I can't say it had too much of an impact. Then I watched it again about eight months after graduation, and suddenly it was relevant, it was poignant, it was real and it was true. I can't really think of a better example of a film that improves with real-life context, and perhaps it can all be summed up in one critical line of dialogue: "What I used to be able to pass off as a bad summer could now potentially turn into a bad life." But it's hilarious, too, and the whole pre-SQUID AND THE WHALE Baumbach gang is here, and in top form: the deadpan, crossword puzzling Chris Eigeman who at one point faces off with his trashy teenage girlfriend against a man who "ALREADY would rather be bow-hunting," Carlos Jacott's propensity for pajama tops and hiding from the cookie man, Eric Stoltz as the aging perpetual-college-student-bartender dispensing nuggets of wisdom and overseeing an awkward two-man book club, Baumbach himself accusing you of cow-fucking. We've got Parker Posey as the typical (but always welcome) lovably bitchy character that she plays, Elliot Gould as another cypher for Baumbach's own father, and Josh Hamilton and Olivia d'Abo as a doomed(?) couple that forms the emotive core of the picture. In the end, it seems that either you'll connect with the subject matter in KICKING AND SCREAMING, or, like the cacophony of anti-Baumbach voices that accompanied it when it entered the Criterion Collection, you plainly just won't get it. But it doesn't matter– for its target audience, KICKING AND SCREAMING (like other early Baumbachs like HIGHBALL and MR. JEALOUSY) initiates you into a devoted cult where the members say things like "Ding!" and "Gotta have id" and "There's food in the beer" and then chuckle and remember how damned good this film really is. Alright– two last selling points: it features Dom DeLuise's son as a bouncer and the line "Is that copy of DR. GIGGLES letterboxed?" is uttered. Okay, I'll stop now.

43. SEVEN BEAUTIES (1975, Lina Wertmüller)

I don't know what happened to Lina Wertmüller. In the 1970s, she was a top dog in the art film world, she became the first woman ever nominated for the Oscar for Best Director, and her films were adored by critics. In 2011, when I try to have a discussion about her, invariably I have to mention that she did the original version of a terrible Guy Ritchie/Madonna movie (SWEPT AWAY) before I see a flicker of recognition. It's a goddamn shame, because SEVEN BEAUTIES (her masterpiece, as far as I'm concerned) is one of the finest films ever made about the Second World War. Giancarlo Giannini (who would be Wertmüller's De Niro if she were Scorsese) is Pasqualino "Seven Beauties," a pompous, struttin' two-bit hood with seven ugly sisters who becomes wrapped up in a picaresque plotline which ferries him from vicious murder to an insane asylum to a conscription in the Fascist army to the shivering, cold, hard realities of a concentration camp. Darkly comic throughout, it frequently meanders into the grotesque– a starving man must seduce an obese Nazi Shirley Stoler, whose character is based on the notorious "Bitch of Buchenwald;" Buñuel-crony Fernando Rey gives a partly hilarious, partly terrifying performance as a concentration camp prisoner who may have the greatest exit line in filmdom ("I go into the shit!"); and Tonini Delli Colli (who worked with Leone, Fellini, Malle, Polanski, et al.) films for us grand, operatic, colorful images (which are occasionally intruded upon by bodily fluids). Could make for a good double-feature with THE TIN DRUM if you're interested in hastening your own suicide. Regardless, it's a bold vision of passion and hate and war and survival, and it really deserves an exalted position in the canon of world cinema.

42. TENEBRE (1982, Dario Argento)

Oh, boy. TENEBRE. How is it possible that I haven't reviewed this? Where do I even begin?? The ludicrously long crane shot around a piece of modern architecture which has curled the toes and blown the minds of the likes of Brian De Palma and Quentin Tarantino? The skillfully crafted twists and turns which make it, alongside DEEP RED, the most exquisite and hilariously twisty giallo ever written? The stylized murders, which eschew the typical expressionist Argento colored lighting in favor of pure imagery– dilating pupils, the black glove, spurts of blood, and Antonioni-style locales of urban alienation? The tough cop who says he only drinks on duty? The mind-blowing, arcade-frequenting Italo-lesbians? Goblin's pulsating disco score, which, with a roll of synthesized timpani somehow nullifies and transcends all of their prog rock roots? The mind-blowing, transgendered flashbacks? Tony Franciosa's amateur detective work and gosh-darned likability? John Saxon's sleazitude? Daria Nicolodi's endless, endless, endless screams? The incredibly and outrageously self-reflexive plot, which begs the question: DOES DARIO ARGENTO ACTUALLY KILL PEOPLE? Yessir, TENEBRE is all this and more. A dark, bold statement from a master of horror who pulls no punches in his dogged pursuit of cinematic truth and, uh... artistic murders of beautiful women.

41. WILD AT HEART (1990, David Lynch)

As I have said before: Magnificent, beautiful, and disturbing, Lynch's Palm d'or-winning adaptation of Barry Gifford's novel, filtered through the emerald lens of THE WIZARD OF OZ, is certainly as fiery and unpredictable as the slow-motion flames that are wont to erupt intermittently from the screen.
A masterpiece of style, a frequent complaint is that the whole is less than the sum of the parts. I can concede that this film is not for everyone. It's not. But how can you say 'no' to a Nic Cage that's so intense, he karate chops the air when he dances and wears thong underwear; a Laura Dern so sultry, she's posing with her hand sweeping through her coiffure for most of the film; a Willem Dafoe so creepy his gums cover half of his teeth (and whose first appearance, a slow stroll amid Christmas lights and morbidly obese porno actresses- is one of the most comically terrifying entrances in film history); a Harry Dean Stanton so endearing he tugs at your heartstrings even as he yips and yaps at hyenas on TV; a crippled, lipstick-smeared Grace Zabriskie who is so goddamned freaky that she'll make your hair curl; or a Diane Ladd whose tremendous performance is punctuated by the real-life mother-daughter relationship? There's a cameo by Crispin Glover that packs more material and layers of performance and meaning in a mere two minutes than most actors can aspire to in a feature. There's John Lurie in a Confederate flag hat. There's Jack Nance with an invisible dog. There's Angelo Badalamenti making the most blood-curdling use of a brass section, ever. There's homage to Jacques Tati (involving a giant red pipe in Big Tuna) and Akira Kurosawa (the feed store dog with the severed hand like in YOJIMBO). It's 124 minutes of exhiliration, dread, and magical Americana. And there's as much oddness, terror, love, and joy as there really is in this world that's so "wild at heart and weird on top," and to give any more away would do the film a disservice. One of the greats.


Coming up next: Magic glasses, nosey noses, and my favorite ghost movie!


-Sean Gill