CURRY UP

Just last week The Wife and I watched a favorite of ours, the broadly played, badly underrated 1991 gangster farce Oscar...

It’s an ensemble piece with a huge cast led by Sylvester Stallone, with great turns by Peter Riegert, Ornella Muti, Chazz Palminteri, Harry Shearer, Martin Ferrero, Vincent Spano, William Atherton, Kurtwood Smith, Ken Howard and others. Vets like Don Ameche, Kirk Douglas and Yvonne De Carlo are in it, and it’s also one of the very first films of Marisa Tomei.

But probably the biggest reason The Wife and I love it is Tim Curry’s performance. Curry, who left us this week at the age of 80--just a day after the passing of the angelic Dolly Parton--plays the cheery linguist Dr. Thornton Poole, trying to teach Stallone’s gangster “Snaps” Provolone to enunciate properly. Dr. Poole savors each syllable he speaks with lusty relish, turning his pupil’s name—"Pro-vo-LONE-ay” into a joyous feast.

I think it’s Curry’s second-best performance, after Frank in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Or, possibly, it’s Curry’s third-best performance, after his work in 1988’s Pass the Ammo. This way-too-obscure send-up of televangelism, as far as I can tell, has never had an official DVD release. It ought to be more of a cult favorite, at least among Tim Curry geeks. If you fall into that category, seek it out.

Curry plays Ray Porter, who with his wife Darla (the heavenly Annie Potts) presides over a lucrative tele-church station in small-town Arkansas. Darla’s a sincere believer whose religious ecstasy tends to make her shed layers of clothing; Ray’s a priapic lecher and gleeful con man.

The trouble starts when a trio of rednecks (Bill Paxton, Dennis Burkley and Glenn Withrow) stage an armed raid on the station with the crazed idea of getting back the fortune that the grandmother of Paxton’s girlfriend (Linda Kozlowski) donated to Ray and Darla’s ministry. The plan goes awry and the station is surrounded by cops, then by a posse of arms-bearing locals, and then by the Arkansas National Guard. The desperate Paxton and his pals take the whole station hostage and start grandstanding on TV.

If you’re a Curry aficionado and have never experienced his turn as the grinning, honey-drawling mountebank Ray Porter, you really should try to hunt up an old VHS copy of this; you’re in for a treat. But he’s by no means the whole show. As with Oscar, this is an ensemble piece. Annie Potts is both delectable and touching as Darla; Burkley and Withrow are a riot as the good-ol’-boy accomplices and Leland Crooke is endearing as a sympathetic Cajun sheriff trying to resolve the mess without bloodshed.

The supporting cast includes such venerable veterans as Logan Ramsay, Richard Paul and Brian Thompson, but the real standout is Anthony Geary, in a performance that shows what he was capable of when you got him away from soaps, as Stonewall, the ministry’s sell-out hippie TV director, tolerated by the ministry’s management for his technical deftness and his willingness to exploit the visual splendors of Darla. I love the moment when one of the evangelicals indignantly tells Stonewall he doesn’t believe he’s saved, and Geary replies "You don’t?” in a delicately wounded tone.

Pass the Ammo is played very broadly, and it’s not without its detractors--Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide gave it a BOMB rating. But I’ve always found it trenchant without being mean-spirited. The essential decency of characters like Darla, the Sherriff and Stonewall, and even the zest and lovability of the unconscionable Ray, give the movie a generous heart. It could almost be called inspirational.

It also contains a (very) minor historical footnote, in the character of the weakling boy-Governor (Jim Holmes). It’s probably the first-ever movie caricature of the young Bill Clinton, just before people outside the south began to hear of his existence.

Anyway, as my friend Owen would say, Ave, Magister to Curry, and also to the glorious Dolly; The Wife and I just watched her in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Peace and joy eternal to them both.

DAVIDSON'S ISLAND

Streaming this weekend:

The King of Staten Island—Although undeniably funny in the right dosage, the Saturday Night Live comedian Pete Davidson never struck me as a having a broad range. But playing the semi-autobiographical title character in this, his first star vehicle, he shows the ease and emotional accessibility of, well, a star.

Working from a script he co-wrote with director Judd Apatow and Dave Sirus, Davidson plays Scott, a twenty-four-year old stoner and aspiring, though not very promising, tattoo artist, living with his weary but doggedly upbeat widowed Mom (Marisa Tomei) in New York's persistently unglamorous Fifth Borough. The son of a firefighter who died in the line of duty—Davidson’s real-life dad died in the 9/11 attacks—Scott is funny, intelligent, likable, even charismatic, but also traumatized, stuck in adolescence, and quietly, almost unconsciously desperate.

Even for Scott, though, change is of course inevitable. His younger, better-adjusted sister (Maude Apatow) heads off to college, and soon his Mom has started a relationship with another firefighter (Bill Burr). Scott responds to it all with bursts of edgy anger—something like Adam Sandler without the mannered eccentricity—offset by a peculiar gentleness that suggests self-awareness and the potential for growth.

Like many of Apatow’s works, the film meanders around at a dawdling clip, exploring subplots and secondary characters, setting up gags that will pay off far down the road, if at all. Not everything works, but it’s a natural approach for a movie about an aimless hero, and we keep rooting for him.

SPIDER-KID

Opening this weekend:

Spider-Man: Homecoming--The latest Marvel feature depicts the "Web-Head" still in high school in Queens. Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland) has taken part in one quick adventure with The Avengers, which we saw in last year's Captain America: Civil Wars, and now has an "internship" with Stark Industries.

Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.) clearly sees that Peter is a good kid with superhero potential, but also that he's impetuous, impulsive, reckless, in short, a teenager. He hasn't yet internalized the lesson that with great power comes...well, you know.

So Stark gives Peter a high-tech, interactive Spidey suit to replace the homemade costume he's been wearing, but encourages him to remain a "friendly neighborhood Spider-Man" for the time being, rather than a full-fledged Avenger. Peter makes a pest of himself to Stark and his employees, but he also stumbles across a genuinely world-threatening criminal enterprise right in his own back yard, involving the sale of alien technology. Plus, there's the matter of his schoolwork, and the Academic Decathlon team, and the girl he has a crush on.

What ensues is a lively, fast-moving hybrid of superhero action saga and teenage angst comedy. The two tones don't always gel perfectly, but this slight unevenness only adds to the film's loose, free-swinging feel. After several years of curmudgeonly grumbling about turgid, apocalyptic, buildings-crumbling-to-rubble superhero flicks, I'm glad to admit that I've wholeheartedly enjoyed the last three big releases in that line: Dr. Strange, DC's Wonder Woman, and this one.

Director Jon Watts, working from a script by a gaggle including Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, serves up some memorable grand-scale set-pieces, among them one at the Washington Monument and one on the Staten Island Ferry, that feel epic without losing a sense of playful, colorful wit. And the cast is good company.

Holland hits the right note as Peter, callow and heartfelt but light-footed. Downey has played a beleaguered, glamorous father figure already, opposite Anton Yelchin in  2007's Charlie Bartlett; he did it beautifully then, and he does it beautifully here. Zendaya only gets a little to do as Peter's socially conscious classmate, but she's set up nicely for future films. And Marisa Tomei is charmingly showcased as Aunt May, re-conceived as a sexy young "cool" Aunt.

But the real reason that even somebody who wasn't particularly a fan of this sort of thing might consider Spider-Man: Homecoming is Michael Keaton. Returning to comic book movies 28 years after Batman, he brings real bite and originality to the role of Adrian Toomes aka The Vulture, a startlingly no-nonsense, blue-collar mastermind who seems almost sheepish about the trappings of supervilliany. 

Keaton plays the role quietly, with no zany, over-the-top antics, but with a clear-eyed intelligence and directness that makes his menace unusually authoritative. When he levels a threat, he isn't gloating or grandstanding; he honestly wants Spider-Man to back off, but you never doubt that it's a final warning. He makes pragmatism and sanity scary.

SUPERFEUD

Opening this week: 

Captain America: Civil War—In March it was Batman and Superman that couldn’t get along; now it’s the gang over at Marvel. The U.N. wants the Avengers to agree to regulation. Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.) thinks it’s a good idea. Captain America (Chris Evans) doesn’t want anyone telling him what he should and shouldn’t do.

I’ve become a bit of a curmudgeon about the current run of superhero flicks; technically eye-popping though they are, most of them seem overlong and humorless to me. That’s true of Civil War too, but I will say I enjoyed it more than Batman v Superman. About midpoint the quarrel leads Iron Man and his pals into a brawl with Cap and his pals at an airport, and the goofy, semi-slapstick action and the trading of corny quips between adversaries really conjured up the fun of reading an old-school comic. For once, the movie didn’t feel like Wagner without the arias.

The point of contention between Iron Man and Cap is, I suppose, a fair dramatization of a central conflict in the American attitude toward the rule of law, especially international law. But whichever side with which you may sympathize ideologically, there’s little doubt of which leading man wins this Civil War from an acting standpoint—Downey is as manically vibrant as ever, while poor Evans is as pleasantly bland a leading man as you can find in American movies right now.

Also adding some liveliness is Paul Rudd, returning as Ant-Man, Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther, and Tom Holland as another new Spider-Man. Spidey gets a new Aunt May his time, too—Marisa Tomei. Yes, that’s right; since the first Spider-Man flick back in 2002 the role of Aunt May has gone from Rosemary Harris to Sally Field to Marisa freakin’ Tomei. It’s a bit of a jolt to realize that Aunt May is two years younger than I am (and looks at least ten years younger).

PARTY COOPERS

Opening this weekend:

Love the Coopers—The Coopers, and their extremely First-World problems, being:

Dad (John Goodman) wants to leave mom (Diane Keaton) because he’s sick of her putting the concerns of their grown kids ahead of their own relationship. She’s talked him into sticking around for one more picturesque family Christmas in their handsome suburban Pittsburgh home.

Meanwhile, Gramps (Alan Arkin) has bonded with a young diner waitress (Amanda Seyfried) and now she’s planning to move away. Son (Ed Helms) has lost his job, and is hiding it from his family. Daughter (Olivia Wilde), dawdling in the Pittsburgh airport, meets a handsome young solider (Jake Lacy) on his way to deployment and talks him into posing as her boyfriend for the holiday in hopes of avoiding the disappointed, disapproving, worried looks of her parents.

Gee, wouldn’t it be something if two of them actually fell in love?

Middle-class whining about what a drag it is to spend time with your family at the holidays is theme which the movies have pretty thoroughly explored over the last few decades. Indeed, Keaton has already starred in a similar ensemble comedy-drama, The Family Stone, back in 2005. She’s one of the executive-producers of Love the Coopers, so she must like this sort of thing, or at least like the sort of money it can make.

Directed by Jessie Nelson from a script by Steven Rogers (which went into production under the better title The Most Wonderful Time), Love the Coopers is slickly produced and more watchable than it really deserves to be. Partly this is thanks to a Starbucks-compilation-CD-style soundtrack of genteel holiday numbers, including Sting’s lovely version of “Soul Cake.” Partly it’s because of the underrated winter beauty of Pittsburgh.

But mostly, as you might guess, it’s because of the ability of that cast to engage, even with fairly blah material. Along with the above, by the way, the ensemble includes June Squibb as a dotty old aunt, and Marisa Tomei and Anthony Mackie as, respectively, Keaton’s shoplifting sister and the cop stuck with taking her in. This promises to become the most interesting strand—Mackie gives his role a little tension and sting, and he and Tomei have a nice rapport—but it peters out without a real payoff.

There’s also narration, but both the (unmistakable) voice of the famous speaker and the identity of the narrator seem meant to be a surprise until the end credits.

RAPID GRANDS

The Wife, The Kid and I took in a matinee of Parental Guidance.

Billy Crystal and Bette Midler are dismayed to find that they’re “the other grandparents” to their daughter’s three mollycoddled moppets, and are determined to change this status while watching the kids for a few days. Slapstick wackiness ensues.

There’s not much to it as a movie; it’s just another heavy-handed family-values comedy. But it’s a real pleasure to watch Crystal and Midler in action—both with each other and with some of the other actors, including the kids, acting as straightmen, they get fast old-school vaudeville rhythms going. It may be Crystal’s best star turn since When Harry Met Sally.

The movie takes on wussified modern parenting, with its “choices” and diplomatic catch-phrases instead of simply saying “no” and telling the kid what’s what. It’s an audience-pleasing, fish-in-a-barrel target, but at least, in Parental Guidance, the attitude is reflected in Crystal’s and Midler’s performing style—heartfelt but precise, direct and disciplined.