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.

STALLONE AGAIN, NATURALLY

Happy Friday! Check out my review of Rambo: Last Blood...

...online at Phoenix Magazine. Have a great weekend everybody!

A LONG STRANGE TRYPTOPHAN

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Check out my reviews, on Phoenix Magazine online, of Creed II...

...and the Milestone Films Blu-Ray release of the exquisite 1926 animated film The Adventures of Prince Achmed...

...as well as a preview of the "No Festival Required" showing of the Rural Route Film Festival Touring Shorts at Scottsdale Center for the Arts.

Eat hearty!

THE CHANGING OF THE GUARDIANS

Opening this weekend:

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2—Back in 2014, I was delighted by Guardians of the Galaxy, a Marvel movie based on a comic I had never read. I don't think I had ever even heard of it prior to the movie version, and this comparative obscurity has been a sign of success, for me, among Marvel productions. Some of their most charming efforts have been adaptations of their less prominent titles, like Ant-Man or Dr. Strange. Possibly the less-familiar characters afford the filmmakers more creative latitude then icons like Spider-Man or the Hulk.

In any case, Guardians of the Galaxy the First was driven along by a sensational soundtrack of '60s and '70s pop hits, sourced from the "Awesome Mix Tape" in the Walkman of goofball Earthling hero Peter Quill. More importantly—though only a little more importantly—the movie had a droll sense of incongruity between epic space action and the petty bickering of the title heroes, a motley crew of thrown-together interstellar mercenaries.

They're all back for Vol. 2: In addition to Peter (Chris Pratt), there's the sensible, green-skinned Gamora (Zoe Saldana), the burly, inappropriately mirthful Drax (Dave Bautista), the talking racoon Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and Baby Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), an endearing juvenile cutting of the talking tree from Part One, jointly parented by the other Guardians. Michael Rooker is also back from Part One, as Peter's scurvy space-marauder stepdad. 

The story this time has Peter, whose late mother was an Earth woman, at last meeting his alien father, Ego, the humanoid incarnation of a protean planet. Ego is played with effortless geniality by Kurt Russell, under a godlike mane and beard. Sylvester Stallone turns up in a small role as well, but those hoping for a Tango & Cash reunion (are there any?) will be disappointed; Stallone and Russell have no scenes together.

There's a lot to like about this sequel, directed, again, by James Gunn. It retains the strong acting of Part One, and it's maybe even more visually imaginative and lush—I especially liked the shiny, Plasticine look of Ego's planet. The plot, which suggests elements of Lem's Solaris blended with one of David Mitchell's fevered fantasies of narcissistic, predatory immortality, had promise as well.

On the whole, Vol. 2 is reasonably entertaining, but it suffers from sequel-itis. It's too long and too grandiose, the pacing is slack, and gags which worked beautifully in Part One because they were silly throwaways are played self-consciously here, and too many of them go thud. This extends, alas, to Peter's second "Awesome Mix Tape," which, though another superb collection, is unwisely brought center stage in its psychological importance to our hero.

That said, it's hard to disapprove too much of any movie paying such heartfelt tribute to the 1972 Looking Glass hit "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)." After the two Guardians soundtracks and the use of "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys in last year's Star Trek: Beyond, someone may get an interesting term paper out of the symbiotic affinity between space opera action and nostalgic radio standards.

OFFICER JUDY

Opening this week:

Zootopia—The title refers to a city that looks like a theme park, with frozen tundra, desert, rainforest and other ecosystems all conveniently connected by highway exits. The inhabitants, you see, are animals—anthropomorphic, bipedal, civilized mammals of every sort, from pachyderms to rodents, living side by side.

It’s not Utopia, however. Inter-species tensions continue, especially between predator and prey species, and there are glass ceilings in certain professions. Our heroine Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin), for instance, is a bunny who has internalized the high-minded idea that “Anyone can be anything,” and she wants to grow up to be a police officer, normally a job for the likes of tigers and rhinos and cape buffalo.

Through determination and resourcefulness, Judy realizes her dream, but as with many pioneers, she gets stuck with traffic duty. Before long, however, she’s caught up in a mystery involving missing predators, and develops a tense alliance with Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), a wily vulpine con artist.

The buddy-picture plot that ensues is surprisingly dark and noir-ish at times, and in some ways Zootopia is one of the least sentimental Disney movies I can remember. It’s fraught with unmistakable racial and class subtext, and although it has the struggling underdog protagonist standard to animated features, it honestly grapples with the complex and painful realities behind the believe-in-yourself platitudes of the genre. Thus, the movie’s ultimately positive conclusions feel hard-won, and all the more uplifting.

Zootopia is delightful, but I did have a complaint: the freakin’ 3-D. At least at the screening I saw, it dimmed and washed out the images, and added not one effect that I thought was worth the eyestrain. See it in old-fashioned 2-D.

In case anybody still cares, a few notes on the Oscars:

It was gratifying for me to see the number one movie on my Top Ten list, Tom McCarthy’s low-key powerhouse Spotlight, win Best Picture at the Oscars this year. It was even more gratifying to see the great, 87-year-old Ennio Morricone, who had never won an Oscar for Best Original Score (he won an honorary Oscar in 2007), take the statue for his superb music for The Hateful Eight. It makes up, sort of, for Morricone not even being nominated for his greatest score, for 1970’s Two Mules for Sister Sara.

But most of the satisfactions of this year’s surprisingly enjoyable Oscar show had little to do with the nominees, and more to do with the host. Interest in the Oscars was high this year, less because of any particular suspense as to who would win, and more because of what the great Chris Rock would say and do. While the telecast was glacially paced and overlong as usual, Rock, who had not too memorably hosted the show in 2005, brilliantly managed his tricky duties this year.

What made it a tricky gig was, of course, the controversy over the lack of racial diversity among this year’s nominees. Some African-American industry notables had boycotted the show, and Rock himself had been urged to decline the job.

His approach was marvelously disarming. From the very first line of his monologue, he attacked the subject straightforwardly, good-naturedly and in all directions—his jokes were at the expense of the Academy, the boycotters, and himself, and they ranged from daringly tasteless to thoughtful. A high percentage of them were genuinely funny, and all of them put the controversy into perspective, without disrespect to the validity of the boycott’s grievance.

Perhaps most amusingly, however, was that Rock wouldn’t let it go. I expected he’d try to dispense with the subject with a few jokes at the beginning of his monologue and then move on to a business-as-usual Oscars, but bit after bit kept coming back to it. The show was so single-mindedly devoted to the controversy that, ironically, it probably brought attention to racial inequities in Hollywood in a way that no number of minority nominations could have, deserved though they might be. And it seems pretty unlikely that this would have been the case if Rock hadn’t hosted.

A couple of disappointments: Names eyebrow-raising-ly omitted from the “In Memoriam” segment included Abe Vigoda, Geoffrey Lewis, George Gaynes, Tony Burton and Pat Harrington, Jr. Also, while the brilliant Mark Rylance entirely deserved to win Best Supporting Actor for Bridge of Spies, I still found it slightly disappointing—I wanted to see Stallone win for Creed. But I suppose it’s in the spirit of the original Rocky, where even though he didn’t win, Rocky triumphed just because he got to the Main Event.

GLOVE STORY

Opening today:

Creed—The title refers to the son of Apollo Creed, Rocky’s opponent-turned-friend in the Rocky films. Our hero, Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan) is the posthumously-born and then orphaned product of an extramarital affair by the fighter, rather graciously raised by Apollo’s widow (Phylicia Rashad). Adonis grows up a rich kid, but pursues a boxing career anyway, not using his Dad’s name initially because he wants to make it on his own. Unable to get L.A. trainers to take him seriously, he travels to Philly and talks his dad’s old pal Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), now a widower and restaurateur, into training him. Word of his lineage leaks, and this leads to a heavyweight title bout in Liverpool with a Brit brute (Tony Bellew) desperate for a payday.

This seventh Rocky movie is the one that most reminded me of the original, and that’s probably not by accident. Except for Rocky the first and Rocky V, it’s the only film in the series not directed by Stallone. Creed’s director is the talented Ryan Coogler, of 2013’s intense yet lucid Fruitvale Station. His naturalistic touch is similar to that of John G. Avildsen, who gave such a lived-in, convincing atmosphere to the 1976 Rocky.

Creed needs this edge, because it’s every bit as melodramatic, sloppily sentimental and realistically dubious as any other Rocky movie. And as with the original, knowing this isn’t likely to help you resist. Creed is a hair overlong—it has a plot complication or two more than it needs—but it quickly pulls us into investing in the hero’s fortunes, and Coogler’s handling of the fights is speedy and supple.

Stallone slips easily into his classic old role and is very entertaining. After four decades his line readings have become such a cliché that it's hard not to chuckle at them, but the chuckles are affectionate.

Probably the biggest key to the film’s success, however, is Michael B. Jordan, who also starred in Fruitvale Station. His Adonis is both wary and callow in a way that’s disarming; you can believe that Rocky would take an avuncular interest in him. He’s also given a love interest, a club singer (Tessa Thompson) who lives in the apartment downstairs. This strand felt obligatory at first, but the two play their scenes together with such directness that I came to care far more about their relationship than about the silly fight.

Victor Frankenstein—“You know this story,” we’re told. “A crack of lightning. A mad genius. An unholy creation.” This retelling has all of the above, but is, of all things, a buddy picture. The buddies are the mad visionary of the title (James McAvoy) and Igor (Daniel Radcliffe), here not a toadying assistant but a brilliant collaborator, liberated from cruel servitude as a circus clown and self-trained big top physician. The doc even cures his new pal of his spinal curvature.

The two of them get up to all manner of gruesome mischief in 19^th-Century England—piecing together a flyblown chimpanzee-creature is barely the start of it—while they are stalked by a pious, obsessed police detective (Andrew Scott). Igor even gets some romance this time, with a beautiful trapeze artist (Jessica Brown Findlay) from his old gig.

It isn’t the first movie to push the “Igor” character to center stage; the idea goes back at least as far as the 2008 animated feature Igor. Nonetheless, this nutty, headlong gothic, directed by Paul McGuigan from a script by Max Landis, is a spin on this story you haven’t seen, throwing staggeringly improbable character development—when we first meet him, Igor doesn’t even have a name and says he’s never known any kindness, yet he can read, has somehow taught himself human anatomy, and draws like Albrecht Durer—together with 21^st-Century-style psychobabble and self-esteem boosting, gore, theological conflict and wild melodramatic action. It’s often ridiculous, but I never found it dull, and McGuigan and Landis lace it with enough sly gags to reassure us that we aren’t being asked to take it seriously.

Radcliffe, with his sympathetic everyman quality, is pleasant company as usual. But it’s McAvoy who really puts on a show. Dashing and manic, he has some of the droll ebullience of the young Tim Curry. McAvoy is the true zap to this movie’s neck-bolts.

Still in theaters: 

Brooklyn—This simple, straightforward account of a young Irish girl’s immigrant experience in the title borough gently grips like the reminiscence of a relative. Based on Colm Toibin’s  novel and directed by John Crowley, it follows Saoirse Ronan as Eilis, who sails from County Wexford in the early ‘50s, through seasickness, homesickness, love with an Italian-American guy, family tragedy and a choice between her old and new worlds. Ronan is luminous and sympathetic, the period detail has an idealized radiance, and the plot, though believable, isn’t predictable. You can take your grandparents to this one—it might be their story.