Top 10s - New York Movies
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Top 10 New York Movie Oddities
by Jon Cross
I love movies, spend 30 seconds on this site and I hope that’s abundantly obvious. I also love New York. The city I have called home for almost 7 years has been good to me and I sincerely feel like I belong here.There are a ton of films I watched growing up that have defined New York for me. Travis Bickle’s cab going through the steam on a sleazy 42nd Street, Manhattan’s monochrome skyline accentuated by the strains of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, Dustin Hoffman’s "I’m walkin’ here!” from Midnight Cowboy, the Ghostbusters taking down a marshmallow sailor over on Central Park West, Harry dropping Sally off at Washington Sq Park, Robin Williams trying to get to Amanda Plumber among a sea of waltzing commuters in Grand Central Station in the sublime Fisher King and so on and so on.
There are plenty of blogs and lists out there that will rightfully sing the praises of these and other, famous, New York moments on film.
As I got older though, I discovered some New York films of the 80s that have a different sensibility to them. Genre films, grindhouse movies or gonzo filmmaking that used the run down and grimy corners of New York not to their detriment but as a back drop for weird and wonderful stories featuring a surprising cast of characters. I became familiar with filmmakers such as Bill Lustig, James Glickenhaus, Frank Henenlotter and Larry Cohen. So I wanted to put together a list that celebrated them and other oddball movies set in this fantastic city.
I probably love all the New York films you do, of course, but here are some that I think you should probably check out, if you haven’t already, that may not appear on many other, similar, lists.
Interestingly enough, John Heard and Daniel Stern would later work with Macaulay Culkin and he would prove a much harder foe to destroy.
On a side note I got to see C.H.U.D. out the back of the divey-est of dive bars, near the port authority bus terminal and spitting distance from 42nd street. It was a tremendously ‘authentic’ experience!
In the case of Basket Case, director Frank Henenlotter dreamt up a monster that looked like something he may have sneezed out during a particularly heinous case of the flu but which is meant to be the once conjoined twin brother of our lead protagonist, Duane Bradley (played by the unlikely named Kevin Van Hentenryck).
Belial, the evil twin beast, goes on a sexually frustrated rampage around the city while Duane holds up in the scummiest and seediest hotel that 42nd Street had to offer.
Starring the strange faced, mumbly anti-hero you can’t help but root for, Robert Ginty, The Exterminator is sort of an even grimier Taxi Driver but with all the tormented, inward philosophising taken out and replaced with flame thrower interrogation, leaving thugs to be eaten to death by rats and dropping a guy into a meat grinder.
Hot on Ginty’s trail is police detective, love machine and budget William Shatner, Christopher George. If only Ginty wore less distinctive, special made footwear they may never have figured out who The Exterminator was.
Hear me talk with the legend James Glickenhaus on The After Movie Diner Podcast
7. Of Unknown Origin - One of many 'adulterous executive' roles for the thinking lady’s lord of the jazz, Peter “Buckeroo Banzai” Weller as he goes head to head with every New Yorker’s worst nightmare next to bed bugs, a giant, brownstone wrecking rat.From the director of Cobra and Tombstone, George P. Cosmatos, this is a tense, repetitive but joyously mad 'man versus beast’ movie. In fact it hardly deviates from the rodent based, destructive mayhem, apart from a brief and unecessary affair with his secretary and an amazing dining room scene where Weller quotes endless, incredible rat facts to a startled room of stiff collars in his perfect, iconic drawl.
As one of the better films in the horror monster sub-genre of ‘rat movie’ the whole thing just becomes a bizarre, gonzo oddity with an ending that will leave you both bemused and applauding wildly.
Hear co-host Jon Wallace and myself talk about Of Unknown Origin on The After Movie Diner Podcast
Taimak plays Leroy Green, the highly trained, disciplined but nerdy kung fu fighter embroiled in a war he doesn’t want with the larger than life Sho’nuff (A.K.A "The Shogun of Harlem”) played by the heroically hammy Julius J. Carry III. One of them has to be the supreme master and old Sho and his army of similarly ludicrously attired hench-people will stop at nothing to find out who. The also mono-named Vanity plays the dancing diva with a heart of gold who falls for the naive Leroy.
Considering the Blaxploitation heyday was 10 years passed by the time this was released, it stands tall and virtually alone as a favourite for anyone who grew up in the 80s but especially young African Americans who would rarely see themselves depicted as a lead in a movie like this, at that time.
It has been touring throughout 2015 celebrating its 30th year and even got a fantastic Blu ray release.
Hear me talk about The Last Dragon and diverse, action cinema with creator of the Urban Action Showcase, Demetrius Angelo on The After Movie Diner Podcast
It has delicious subplots, a complicated but fantastically, cliche riddled back story for its villain and is filmed, very often completely guerrilla style, on the streets of New York, including during the St.Patrick’s Day parade!
It even has a cameo from Sam “For The Love Of The Game” Raimi and spawned two fantastically nutso sequels!
Hear me talk to Bill Lustig all about the Maniac Cop trilogy and his career on The After Movie Diner Podcast
You don’t get much cooler than the genre icon double act of Robert “The alligator slayer” Forster and Fred “The Hammer” Williamson going after a bunch of Che Guevara wannabes on the dangerous streets of the outer boroughs of the big apple.
Bill Lustig again directs and the ante is upped by not only featuring the, legitimately shocking, murder of Forster’s 8 yr old son but also by his wife leaving him. The judicial system is filled with corruption and villainy itself and so, with nowhere else to turn, Forster joins The Hammer’s neighbourhood crime stopping efforts to hunt down the people who destroyed his life an enact furious vengeance all over their stupid bodies.
Hear Dr.Action and me talk to Fred “The Hammer” Williamson about Vigilante and other films in his awesome career on The After Movie Diner Podcast
Based on a book, which I haven’t read, the movie features some hilarious dialogue, some really odd sight gags and a slightly dark sense of humour. It only falters when it attempts to become actually romantic, which it thankfully doesn’t do much (and even then with a knowing wink) but for the park bench dialogues between Grodin and Martin alone the film is worth its inclusion here.
This film is all over the place, action, New York Exploitation brilliance from its low key Central Park start through to its Sam Elliot hanging onto the wheels of a plane, gloriously implausible ending.
It doesn’t get better than the escape from a flea pit, movie theatre on the deuce and the ensuing motorbike and sidecar chase through a cardboard city by the river and ending with Sam Elliot making a car explode by shooting it a bit.
The movie is so utterly bonkers and fast paced you joyously throw your hands up and go along with the ride safe in the knowledge that you’re in the good hands of Elliot, Weller and Glickenhaus. This should’ve been a franchise.
Hear me talk with the legend James Glickenhaus on The After Movie Diner Podcast
AND
Hear co-host Jon Wallace and me discuss Shakedown on The After Movie Diner Podcast
Michael Moriarty’s insanely well played, skittish piano player and a prehistoric, giant, flying, lizard god terrorise New York and only Shaft, Caine from Kung-Fu and an undercover mime can stop them!
Larry Cohen’s bonkers monster movie may be the very best film to ever come out of a premise like that. The acting from Moriarty should seriously win awards for the finest in all of Exploitation cinema and, considering the budget, the effects and location work are excellent.
Like all of Cohen’s work and, indeed a lot of the films on this list, there are comments and subplots throughout that either deal with city corruption or the crumbling society. None of these films are simple exploitation and all either have something to say about the times or are an incredible catalogue of the times when, some feel, New York City WAS New York City before Disney moved in.
I, personally, feel that you can still find corners of the city with dive bars, diners or where B Movies are playing and yeah you may have to look a little harder but the experience is still there to be had, for the most dedicated of fan. Also you can live that lifestyle with very little threat of being stabbed in the face, harassed by a sex worker or stuck with a hypodermic full of either disease or drugs. So, bonus! Come to New York!!
Read my full review of Q The Winged Serpent HERE
and hear Doug Tilley, Moe Porne and myself discuss the film on Drunk on VHS
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So this whole 'Top 10 of New York movies' idea came from a conversation I was having with poet extraordinaire and guest blogger Kylie Goetz. So I invited her to present her list and she also managed to get another list from her co-worker Andrew Morgan.
By way of contrast then and to bring up some other excellent suggestions of New York movies, here are Kylie’s and Andrew’s lists!
Kylie’s 10 NY Movies
by Kylie GoetzWhittling it down wasn’t easy because there are so many New York movies and so many New York movie lists, I have chosen these simply as mine. I, of course, have left out many, many, many. It would be easier to name 100 than 10.
There maybe other iconic NY movies that are better made, better written and worthier films than the ones I picked but these are the ones that resonate with me.
My criteria was as follows:
- This one seems pretty obvious, but the action must predominantly take place somewhere in the five boroughs of NYC.
- The setting is integral to the story; it can’t be moved to Ft. Lauderdale and work just as well.
- There are some movies that are on everybody’s most iconic NY movie lists. I didn’t feel the need to repeat them. How could you leave out King Kong or Breakfast at Tiffany’s, you ask? I just did. Deal with it.
- I like it. (Dammit, it’s my top ten and while Coyote Ugly certainly fits my first two criteria, I’m not putting it on my freaking list.)
1. When Harry Met Sally - The Washington Square Arch, Katz’s, the Central Park Boathouse, not being able to catch a cab on NYE, lugging an xmas tree down the sidewalk, the Met’s Temple of Dendur, Billy Crystal and Bruno Kirby in too tight exercise pants speed walking in Central Park, I love all of it!
Also in my top 3 movies of movies. Possibly the greatest rom-com of all time.
2. Both Ghostbusters - I’m combining 1 and 2 under this because while the first is my preferred, the second has a stompy Lady Liberty and that’s pretty awesome. Also gooey rage sewers, that’s pretty New York.
3. Coming to America - It’s set in Jackson Heights. I live in Jackson Heights.
****It’s also very funny. In case you didn’t know.****
4. The Muppets Take Manhattan - Gregory Hines on skates in Central Park, Joan Rivers as a perfume counter salesgirl, diners and Broadway, frogs and dogs and bears and chickens and... and whatever!
This movie has everything.
5. The Clock - I definitely felt the need to include something older and I heart classic films. I considered more well-known choices like 42nd Street or On the Town, but I unabashedly love this movie. Joe Allen is a soldier with two days of leave and meets Judy Garland. She shows him around New York and they get married before he ships off for WWII. It’s sappy and I’m a big sap. Also, my folks have a similar story but in a different city and a different war. Pivotal scene and titular clock is at Grand Central.
6. Miracle on 34th Street - There’s a miracle and it’s on 34th Street. What else do you need?
7. Annie Hall - So, I debated this with someone… and while I agree that Manhattan might be considered more iconic and is freaking titled Manhattan; that movie creeps me out and Diane Keaton is fantastic, so I am sticking with Annie Hall.
8. Crocodile Dundee - This is one of my favorite outsider comes to the big city films. (May be biased as a half-Australian.)
9. Working Girl - Again, it certainly doesn’t need to be on anyone else’s NY movie list, and of course, the movie has flaws. Some people seriously hate it and, honestly, my favorite characters in this movie were always the secondary ones. But when I was a kid, nothing said New York to me more that Joan Cusack’s sneakers/heel shoe change and Carly Simon singing, “Let the River Run.” Also, Alec Baldwin at the height of his deliciousness.
10. Brighton Beach Memoirs - This was a bit of a toss-up for me. Neil Simon had to be on this list somewhere and Barefoot in the Park is very New York and also delightful but Brighton Beach Memoirs encapsulates growing up in the city in such a specific and amazing way – it won out.
Movies that would be on my larger list: Beat Street, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, Scrooged, Do the Right Thing, How to Marry a Millionaire, The Apartment, 3 Days of the Condor, the rest of the Neil Simon movies… And still there’s Wall Street, Gangs of New York, Guys and Dolls, Arthur, Saturday Night Fever, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum.
Kylie has an excellent 'word of the day' poetry blog where she writes a whole new poem every single day! It’s awesome. Check it out HERE
You can also follow her on Twitter to keep up with each poem and each word!
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Andrew’s Top 10 Iconic NYC Films
I echo all of the criteria elements suggested by Kylie’s list with the exception of these being films I like, not that anyone else will:
- Predominantly taking place in one of the five boroughs
- Setting integral to the story
- Not necessarily on everyone’s list
- I like it
2. American Psycho (2000) – what screams NYC more than white collar sociopathic murder, graphic sex, and a Huey Lewis soundtrack?
3. Wolf of Wall Street (2013) – there were certainly others before it, but this one nails it. Perfect balance of humor, drama, and wit showcasing the popular success/failure theme of Wall Street ambition.
4. Requiem for Dream (2000) – Coney Island isn’t all fun and sun. No better film explores the dark corners of the human psyche as driven by the influence of addiction.
5. The Godfather (1972) – the pioneer film of organized crime dramas and Italian immigrant influence on popular American culture.
6. RENT (2005) – the struggle is real.
7. Big (1988) – you only have to look like you’re old enough to make it here, no one ever said you have to act like it. This is basically my life philosophy.
8. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) – we all wonder about what’s really down under the manhole covers. This film seems like a reasonable suggestion. I must admit it doesn’t fully meet criteria B, but I get one freebie. It was an integral part of my youth.
9. Finding Forrester (2000) – subtle take on themes of race and friendship through the perspective of two writers facing adversity in different ways.
10. Friends with Benefits (2011) – had to include a NYC rom-com and well....Justin and Mila just do it for me a lot more than Tom and Meg.
Honorable Mentions: First Wives Club (1996), Ghost (1993), Cruel Intentions (1999), Harriet the Spy (1996), Inside Man (2006), The Squid and the Whale (2005), Black Swan (2010), Whiplash (2014), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), You’ve Got Mail (1998), Great Expectations (1998), Ghostbusters (1984)
*The only film I really wanted to include but wasn’t sure if it qualified based on the criteria outlined, was The Royal Tenenbaums. Parts of it were certainly filmed in NY and the setting certainly has NYC elements, I don’t think the location is ever actually confirmed in the film and some iconic landmarks are intentionally removed
Blue Jasmine
Lots of people will tell you that he hasn't made a good film since the 80s and box office (and a lot of critics) will tell you Match Point, Vicky Christina Barcelona and Midnight In Paris are his best movies of recent times but I completely and wholeheartedly disagree with both those statements.
I watch every movie he makes, have done, every year, for years and my favourite to put on and watch of his recent period have been Whatever Works and Scoop but recognise he may not have bashed out a truly great film since 1999's Sweet and Lowdown.
You may, at this point, have stopped reading having thrown your hands up in disgust at the fact that I just mentioned, what are considered, two of his weakest films of recent years.
Well, if you have and you feel the rest of this review has no validity because of that then, sorry, I can only assume you are humourless and only believe what is fed to you from the pages of the colour supplements by snooty, strokey chin, attention starved critics which are quick to jump on bandwagons without seemingly really watching the films properly. If that's a snap judgement of who you are then I apologise but stop making snap judgements about me or Woody Allen, for that matter and go back and watch a few of the titles you may have missed. Scoop, for one, is a bit of a missed comedic gem in its own way. Ignore You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger with every fibre of your being as it's worse even than Match Point, which was woeful and while Midnight in Paris may have looked great and appeared, with the cinematography, to be Allen back on form, the writing and the performances were spectacularly lazy. Don't tell the financiers that though, it made a shed ton of money compared to Allen's other output.
With all that said and the usual myths about Allen, that critics are quick to repeat, dispelled let's get back to Blue Jasmine. Blue Jasmine is a Streetcar Named Desire inspired piece about the wife of a financial crook who, after the arrest, trial and the husbands suicide in prison finds herself, practically penniless, having to stay with her adopted sister, who has a much less glamorous lifestyle, in San Francisco.
Jasmine is a woman very accustomed to a certain, high-society, way of life that is unable to accept her situation and refuses to, in both a delusional way by lashing out at others, refusing to give up things like first class air fare and matching luggage and drinking while popping painkillers and antidepressants and in a defiant, noble, almost heroic way by trying to get her life back on track in as many ways possible like attending school, working reception for a dentist and aspiring to be an interior designer. She's also going slowly and sadly mad.
She's a tragic character, a despicable character, a loser character, an inspirational character and a sympathetic character all rolled into one and yes it's Blanchett's unwavering tour de force performance that nails her but it's also Woody's astute, intricate writing and subtle directing that brings her completely to life.
Her sister, played excellently by British actress Sally Hawkins, is a different person altogether. She's working class, engaged to a mechanic, with no prospects and two unruly kids. She is also, in some ways, in awe of her adopted sister and believes strongly that helping her is the right thing to do as family is family, despite a greek chorus of her friends, boyfriend and ex-husband telling her that Jasmine's no good. In fact Ginger, Jasmine's sister, is one of the few characters in the film that actually defends Jasmine and even attempts, unsuccessfully, to emulate her and follow her lead, believing that the grass may, in fact, be greener and if she, as Jasmine prompts, applies herself, she could get more out of life. What the film partially examines is the idea that, is 'more' what she really wants or needs ultimately?
Despite Jasmine never, directly, having a hand in her husband's, Bernie Madoff like, exploits she is seen as culpable in the loss of some lottery winnings that her sister and ex-husband, Augie, invested with Alec Baldwin's white collar crook, Hal. Also there is some question of how much she knew and didn't know of the swindling, that returns throughout the film.
When she had the wealth, a period of her life we see interspersed throughout the film in flashback, she was a horribly selfish and self involved person, no more so than in a sequence where Jasmine sees a trip that sister Ginger and ex-husband Augie, played by the fantastic Andrew Dice Clay (seriously!), take to New York as a horrible imposition to her dinner plans.
It is in these 'before the bubble burst' flashbacks that Allen has any fun with the film, writing the opulent lifestyle and smug, arrogance of the wealthy with a quiet disgust that seeps through every exchange. The rest of the film's tone hovers around more sombre, ultimately doomed Husbands and Wives territory.
The film is not a comedy and although there are some funny bits in there the film is much more of a deep character study, the likes of which we haven't seen from Woody since Hannah and Her Sisters and, the aforementioned, Husbands and Wives. The characters in this are rich, developed, deep and you see each of their own personal dilemmas and can empathise or sympathise with each and every one of them, you can also condemn them just as fast. You watch, helplessly, as a combination of her own, often forgivable, mistakes, her own lies and a cruel-ish outside world impact on Jasmine's life and tear her down off the big steps she's desperately trying to climb up. The film's basic metaphor is that money can't buy you happiness. Jasmine is lost with or without wealth, it's just with money she is able to bury her unhappiness behind cocktail lunches and fine interior furnishings but really she has a philandering, crook husband, fickle friendships and an empire built on quick sand.
The other warning is do not go and see this movie for Louis CK as he is only in it for a very few minutes. It's an odd cameo to be honest. His sequence took me out of the film a little bit. Also the lack of a true comic relief, like Allen's own brilliant turn in Hannah and Her Sisters, to break up the serious side to the film it can grind you down just a little. The flashbacks are supposed to be the, slightly more, frivolous side of the picture but, really, post the financial collapse, it's difficult to do anything but despise these hollow cheats.
There is so much going on in this film and you can read a lot into it. There is also plenty to relate to in any one of the great ensemble of characters. It's not quite the scathing satire on the surface that you want it to be but look a little further into the subtext and its as scathing an attack on the fake wealth and opulence of Wall Street fat cats that you're likely to see.
The writing though, throughout, is fiercely and surprisingly good, the direction, as expected, is assured with an emphasis on simplistic realism and the performances are a little more uneven, but luckily the film focusses on Jasmine and Ginger, with both actresses who portray them being the best things in the film by a mile with Andrew Dice Clay very close behind them.
Apart from a couple of mild later-Woody-Allen style plot contrivances, that don't jar or annoy as much as they had the potential to do in less competent hands, you leave the theatre far from happy, this is a tragedy after all, but also wandering just where the hell THIS Woody Allen has been for so long and who either woke him up or, more exactly, who got him to do a few drafts of the script and get it right.
8 out of 10 very depressing but expertly made cocktails
Girl Most Likely
However, if you chose not to see the film or dismiss it out right because of that opinion, like some almighty snob, in favour for a ridiculously awful movie in which CGI things hit each other then not only are you thoroughly misguided but also you missed out on one of the funniest and most charming movies of the season.
Every so often one of these films is squeezed out into the summer schedule. Up until that annoyingly bad sitcom The New Girl, Zooey Deschanel was practically making a career out of starring in them. This one, however sits alongside Dan In Real Life, Stranger Than Fiction (or more recently, Everything Must Go), Admission or 50/50 and don't worry if you don't really like any of those films either, because while it's similar in terms of Hollywood output, casting, tone etc. it's also very different.
The plot would not look out of place in one of Woody Allen's lazier, later comedies. A playwright turned play blurb writer, living in, fairly high society, New York thinks she has her life together, loses everything, more or less, in one day and, through a plot contrivance, ends up living with her kooky mother played, predictably, by Annette Benning in Atlantic City, surrounded by a cast of wacky characters, only to, eventually, break her writer's block and turn her experience into an award winning, critically lauded play. In fact, I think, Woody Allen may have already made that film.
So, you may be thinking, how does a quirky, self indulgent, predictable and cliche riddled plot amount to one of the funniest and most charming movies of the season? Well it's simple. It's the thing that most films, usually, get staggeringly wrong. The cast and, more importantly even than that, the script are tremendous. Kristen Wiig does the sort of performance that Judd Apatow crushed and destroyed but some of us saw lurking, between the horrendously misjudged poo gags, in Bridesmaids and, actually, even betters it. Annette Benning is, for the first time in her career I think, not annoying and instead turns in a funny and nuanced performance as Wiig's obsessive mother. Matt Dillon is priceless as a sort of beardy and dishevelled Steven Seagal type character, who, hilariously, seems to be lying about being in the CIA and a whole bedtime storybook full of long-winded, tall tales about bizarre and adventurous experiences he says he has. Finally, I found Christopher Fitzgerald as the mollusc obsessed, slightly inward and agoraphobic brother, a delight to watch.
So, to the script and while every seemingly-negative point I said earlier might be true, the script is still fantastically written. The dialogue, scenarios and observations are laugh out loud funny and the jokes are actually ABOUT something or are just joyously odd, much in the way the best Woody Allen scripts used to be, which is a breath of fresh air in this world of easy and sad dick and fart jokes. The characters are wonderfully, and yes sometimes obviously, written with the clue to the script's greatness lurking in the little details. The gag involving the boardwalk crush that Ralph has, played by the always watchable Natasha Lyonne, and the glittery make up tears she gives Wiig or the quick shot of the fridge full of sandwiches towards the end, for example, add little rye laughs to an already hilarious script.
Don't be put off by your impression of what you think it is and don't be too cool for it or too cynical for it, just go and see it and support a film that isn't a sequel, a remake, made for the GDP of a small Eastern European nation and doesn't have enough CGI in it to drown James Cameron's ego.
Even if you don't like it like I did, you'd still be showing the ever increasingly mindless and redundant studio bosses that not everything needs to be a big spectacle, sometimes people want to laugh, cry and have their cockles warmed.
7.5 out of 10 cheese and ham sandwiches
Oblivion Review
The just second time director (also creator of the graphic novel on which this is based) has vision by the bucket load but no sense of timing within the story telling and can't really mount an exciting action sequence.
Loved the design, though and Tom cruise's performance was tremendous. It's crazy that I like him more and more as an actor but with this, Jack Reacher and the Mission Impossible films he's proving himself to really just be a watchable, enjoyable and, in this, a damn fine actor. Having seemingly dropped the annoying, chest thumping earnestness that plagued his younger, dramatic roles. In this he is just the right level of wistful, cheeky and action man so as to be intriguing and an engaging protagonist for us to be stuck with for 2hrs plus. Good thing too as the entire film hangs on his diminutive shoulders. Also a good thing that his space suit mirrors those collarless leather jackets his prizes above all others.
I didn't much care for the English redheaded actress in the film, Andrea Riseborough. She seemed too young, too serious, too annoying and just not well matched to the subject matter or her leading man. True her part doesn't really give her much to do and yes a certain reveal in the film later explains away some of her characters inability to embrace Cruise's character's romance with Earth but even so, while it's clear she is a talented actress, her performance grated with me and felt out of place.
The rest of the performers in the film were satisfactory considering the one note parts they had been handed out. Morgan Freeman has a cool "Oh look it's Morgan Freeman" entrance that they sadly ruined in the trailer but apart from that his purpose is to be the kindly, wise but strong African American sci-fi character cut from much of the same cloth as Lawrence Fishburne in The Matrix.
Overall the film is literally every science fiction film ever made rolled into one but with a great design and enough new for you not to mind what it's got in common with previous films such as 2001, Moon and even Independence Day.
In a film that needed to balance lofty ideas, a few twists, an epic sense of romance and explosive action I am not sure it 100% succeeded and the score, sadly, doesn't help this by being flat and instantly forgettable but for a second time director, if you like proper Sci-Fi and want to see a riveting Cruise performance, well you can't go wrong.
A flat 7 out of 10 cool 70s looking airline lunch.
The Muppets Take Manhattan - 24th November 2010
The Muppets, for me are one of the handful of things on this planet that make life worth living. They are one of the very few times that this sarcastic, cynical, uptight Brit revels in sheer, unapologetic joy.
The movies, especially, have this incredible dynamic that includes sarcastic humour, slapstick, groan-worthy gags but also, through all this and because of all this, I suspect, you grow to really love and believe in the characters so that when they break into a song about love or friendship, that in a Disney movie would be some doe eyed, trite, vomit inducing ballad, it is genuinely touching and, in the best sense of the word, heartwarming.
Now, I will admit that the Muppets have lost some of their edge of late but in the early four films, The Movie, Take Manhattan, The Caper, Christmas Carol and some scenes in the underrated Muppets from Space, you get some of the most surreal and very often, bordering on, adult comedy in what is, essentially, a children's orientated film that definitely paved the way for the mature work Pixar does now.
For example in 'Take Manhattan' there is a scene where Gonzo gives mouth to beak resuscitation to a chicken and when asked if the chicken is alright Gonzo says "I don't know but I think we're engaged!" and then goes right back to, essentially, snogging the chicken! brilliant!
After all, we are talking about a series of characters, geared predominately for children, where one of them is called Gonzo, who takes his name, presumably, from the word most often used about Hunter S Thompson's style of first person, character based, drug induced journalism but that also has come to mean anything weirdly real, gritty, extreme and, in a circular development, can now mean 'with reckless abandon', surely because of the character from the muppets. He, obviously, loves chickens, is something of an exhibitionist and masochist, has weird and wonderful ideas about stuff and despite, until Muppets from Space, only being referred to as a 'whatever', shows that even the outsider can fit in perfectly with the right people.
This illustrates, again, the perfect balance the Muppets have between anarchic and sentimental that is an excellent reflection, in felt, sometimes animal based, puppets, of the best of humanity. It is that level of intelligence and focus on excellent entertainment that, for my money, makes the Muppets the very best 'for-all-the-family' entertainment there has ever been.
Now enough blabbering on about the genius of these character based hand puppets and on to reviewing the movie.
Well, firstly, I would like to state that out of the first four, what I consider, classic Muppet movies I think 'Take Manhattan' is, definitely, the weakest.
There just isn't a huge amount going on, apart from Kermit and Piggy a lot of the other characters are relegated to the side lines, or flashbacks and there isn't really a song in it that compares to Rainbow Connection from the first film or Happiness Hotel from Caper but it still has moments of sublime lunacy: the cafe owner Pete's insane ramblings, Kermit as a west coast agent with open shirt, medallions and a 'fro, Piggy on roller-skates, The swedish chef's version of 3-D and Kermit's amnesiac alter ego Phil and his friends from the ad agency. It also features the introduction of Muppet babies, a genuinely happy Muppet wedding featuring the fantastic and diverse casts of both Sesame Street and The Muppet Show and enough laugh out loud moments to compensate for other areas where it is sadly lacking.
The pace is very slow in places, the actress who plays Jenny is spectacularly wooden and it's a bit unnerving, in a Lea Thompson/Howard The Duck type way, to see her hug Kermit so much and there isn't really a good celebrity cameo in it, although Dabney Coleman gives it his best shot.
All in all though, the happy-go-lucky Muppet spirit is on display all the way through the film and it was great to see it with friends at a midnight screening in New York.
6 out of 10 it's tomatoes, it's city, it's peoples, it's cheese, it's potatoes.
Morning Glory - 20th November 2010
The poster for this movie, see left, states that breakfast TV just got interesting, well that, at least, gets one thing right, Breakfast TV has never been interesting but as for it getting interesting in this movie? that doesn't happen either.
As I have said before, sometimes you have to go watch a film because your wife wants to go see it and this was one of those but, considering I liked the actors involved and I can sit through these sort of 'little person with a big dream' movies pretty easily and let it wash over me, I wasn't dreading it too much.
Written by the same writer behind The Devil Wears Prada, which was 'ok' and 27 Dresses, which was unlikable bilge, this is the same sort of cliche'd, obvious, undemanding, bland, repetitive, you saw it all in the trailer, throwaway tosh you've seen 100 times by someone who once owned 'The Idiot's Guide To Screenwriting' and, sadly, followed it to the letter.
Rachel McAdams, who is in every bloody scene, even when you don't want her to be, is the single, hard working but chirpy young woman who gets laid off from her producing job at a local New Jersey TV station because of those evil corporate suits and in one of many particularly uninspiring and limp montages, manages, finally, to get a meeting with another nonchalant, corporate bigwig played by a surprisingly serious, and therefor nowhere near as good or watchable as he should have been, Jeff Goldblum. On her way out of an interview, she thinks she didn't get because The Goldblum turned out to be a condescending bastard with, unusually for Jeff, no sly grim letting him off the hook, she bumps into both her future squeeze, the underused, under developed and pointlessly tedious Patrick Wilson and future nightmare, Harrison 'did I have a stroke?' Ford, in the elevator. Why yes, of course she does, how fortuitous.
She goes on to get a job trying to revitalise a fatuous morning show on fictional network IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome?) where the talent hate her, namely Diane Keaton's well played but thinly drawn diva presenter, and the staff don't expect her to last a week. She then goes on to hire Harrison Ford's irascible old "serious news" pro, which he over plays to the point of teeth grinding annoyance, after she fires the first male co-anchor who, out of nowhere, is orange, a huge egotist and an internet pervert.
So far so obvious, of course she's going to tame the old codger, get the ratings up to some magical number before they cancel the show, find the right balance between work and home and learn some ridiculous hogwash about how people are what matter and not the job she's wanted since she was a child and oodles of cash.
Ford's character gripes, grumbles and walks about being a smart arse looking like he constantly needs a poo or a heart attack, Keaton's character bitches or occasionally does embarrassing things like dance with a rapper or wear a sumo suit (get Woody on the phone Diane!!!), McAdams flaps her arms about, talks too fast, changes her hair, cries, takes off her clothes and runs through some pigeons in slow motion, Wilson is the underdeveloped and irrelevant 'bit-of-stuff' and Goldblum talks in such a monotone nasal drawl he may well of actually slept through his entire part waking only momentarily to get paid. The laughable and unbelievable thing is the whole film is stolen, from under the various blocked noses of these hollywood royalty, by a bald weatheman character and the farcical and very funny situations McAdams, as the producer, puts him in. Just as I was thinking 'I am not sure I can handle much more of this', the scenes of him being tortured in ever increasingly hilarious ways for the sake of ratings came on and I actually found myself laughing.
The direction is all Hollywood gloss and that's fine but it's an absolute sin the way it darts around various bits of New York with no effort made to hide the fact that it's both geographically incorrect and they are doing it to show off flashy locations. At least most films have the good decency to try and disguise their tourist book version of the city but in this film, for example, I did find myself asking 'sorry, why is this work meeting with boss Jeff Goldblum taking place on the steps of The Met with an unexplained red head when A) there's no reason for it and B) it's later divulged that he's actually sleeping with the dumb girl who presents useless segments on confused mysticism and uses words she doesn't understand on the show?' or 'why is she, again, discussing ratings with ol' Jeff, surely an office based practice too, comically trying to keep up with his jogging round the reservoir in Central Park?' Absolutely none of it makes any sense at all.
The whole sorry mess is an overly-long, by-the-books shambles with 15 endings you see coming from about 20 minutes in, some homespun, obvious philosophy passed off as wisdom, an entirely irrelevant and completely shortchanged romantic subplot, so many montages featuring wishy washy pop music that are so badly put together, you'd rather saw your own ears off and some thoroughly unrealistic nonsense farce jarring with moments of supposed serious emotional stuff. Also, it has no sophistication about it at all, it tries to, for example, in some of the insulting banter that goes back and forth between Ford and Keaton, attempting, I suppose, to conjure up the rapid fire comical jibes of a 1940s Hollywood comedy but then chooses to end, and believe me I am not spoiling anything at all, with McAdams and Ford walking into a, might as well be, cartoon sunset discussing a prostate check! Oh how hilarious, a prostate check gag! how original! They should have gone the whole hog, had a little circle wipe come down, single them out and have a cartoon pig lean out of the screen and stammer "That's all folks" followed by the Benny Hill music, as Patton Oswald would say "whackety schmackety dooo!"
It just never knows what it wants to be and can't decide when to end, which is funny because I can answer both those things, it wants to be The Devil Wears Prada in a TV Station and it should have ended before it began.
The screenwriter is to blame for all of it because most of the actors try, Goldblum aside, the director tries, throwing filters, camera glare, dutch angles and slow motion at it to try and make it interesting but ultimately with such a trite, obvious plot line, that has absolutely no idea where it's going for the first two thirds of the movie, there's not much you can do but wait for the whole sorry thing to be over.
In certain circumstances (see my Soul Men review) I don't mind a cliche'd Hollywood storyline, in fact most times I expect a certain amount of it but, for this screenwriter at least, all they've done is dusted off a former hit, changed the names and the setting and then presented it again. It's so very annoyingly lazy.
The plus points, and there aren't many, actually come in the form of two secondary characters, one the kindly jewish, second-in-command producer who is genuinely likable and two, the aforementioned, put upon weatherman and also, as always, the city of New York. Even if it is the postcard image of this diverse and varied city, as one astute and, no doubt, bored patron muttered behind me during one of the helicopter shots of Manhattan at dusk, 'wow New York is a beautiful looking city'.
That it is, it's just unfortunate it seems to have lately become the back drop to an endless run of uninspiring rom-coms, so terribly awful, that it gives us all a bad name.
Oh well.
3 out of 10 rotten fruit platters
Points from The Wife 4 out of 10