SHELL IS FOR HEROES

With Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tearing up the box office this past weekend (Friday, June 3, 2016 has already been announced as the opening day for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2) a chelonian creature seems in order, so…

Monster-of-the-Week: …here's the gigantic Archelon (“Ruler Turtle”) animated by Ray Harryhausen in 1966’s One Million Years B.C.:

Many years ago I read an anarchist comic with an uncharacteristic streak of self-deprecating wit in which the old professor had a tiny pet turtle, complete with dish and little plastic palm tree, named “Anarchelon.”

ROBIN'S BEST

Like everyone else, I was shocked and saddened by the death of Robin Williams, apparently by his own hand after a lifelong struggle with depression and addiction. I’m a big fan, but his signature hits—Dead Poets Society, Good Will Hunting, Mrs. Doubtfire, Good Morning, Vietnam—aren’t, on the whole, my favorites. Some of what I think is his best, funniest, least sentimental, most ebullient work was in films that were ignored by audiences and panned by critics.

Below are some examples of the underrated or neglected “other” Robin Williams, which I would encourage you to give another look.

The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen—In his brief role as The King of the Moon, whose head and body are disconnected, in Terry Gilliam’s uneven but fascinating 1989 fantasy, Williams may have taken his fast talking, haywire routine as far as he ever did; he was like Mork squared, or like a live-action version of the Genie in Aladdin. This is one of several films on which Williams worked under a pseudonym—Bob Goldthwait’s notorious Shakes the Clown was another. Under his own name, Williams later gave an immensely touching performance in Gilliam’s The Fisher King.

Hamlet—Williams was just right for the foppish, fawning courtier Osric in Kenneth Branagh’s full-text version of Shakespeare’s masterpiece. Pity he didn’t get to do more Shakespeare. He was also terrific in a funny, quietly intense turn as the psychiatrist in Branagh’s Dead Again.

One Hour Photo—Mark Romanek’s odd little thriller about a lonely, alienated snapshot developer who becomes fixated on a seemingly picture-perfect family of customers is sad, unsavory and ultimately unsatisfying. But Williams brings so much gravity and pathos to the part that it’s essential viewing.

The Birdcage—This hilarious and sweet American version of La Cage aux Folles was a hit, certainly, but much of the attention went, rightly, to Nathan Lane as Albert, the maternal drag queen. It’s possible that the quieter excellence of Williams as the father posing as straight for his conservative future in-laws was a little overlooked. His scene with Lane on a bench, while a ship passes behind them, is one of the best he ever played.

Being Human—Bill Forsythe’s reincarnation drama, in which Williams played five people—or rather, the same person in five different lifetimes—doesn’t quite add up, but Williams is great in all five. As a prehistoric man in the opening segment he has a shattering moment, screaming “Mine! Mine!” as he sees his family being abducted.

Cadillac Man—Williams is a philandering, hustling car salesman who finds himself frantically trying to manage a hostage situation when jealous husband Tim Robbins brings a gun into the car dealership where he works. This 1990 comedy with dramatic overtones from director Roger Donaldson shows Williams as an irresponsible but essentially humane guy trying to stave off disaster.

Moscow on the Hudson—Williams plays a Soviet circus musician who defects in the middle of Bloomingdale’s in New York in Paul Mazursky’s comedy-drama. This performance was one of the first to demonstrate his remarkable range.

Popeye—Williams is buried in the title character’s persona in Robert Altman’s live-action version of the cartoon. But he gives amusing, stoic line readings, and his warmth and sweetness shine through the makeup.

The Survivors—Michael Ritchie’s satire of survivalists and gun nuts was poorly received, but its picture of the sort of chaotic modern life that breeds such reactionaries is mercilessly funny and original—it starts with Williams getting fired from his job by a parrot. Williams was rarely as precise in his manic style as he is here, and he seems all the crazier with Walter Matthau as his straight man.

The Best of Times—This football comedy, directed by Roger Spottiswoode from a script by Ron Shelton, is my favorite Robin Williams movie, but it doesn’t seem to be anybody else’s. It’s about a group of middle-aged men who get bamboozled into replaying a high school football game in Taft, California, by the bank manager (Williams) who dropped what would have been the game-winning pass back when. Williams is at his very best here. He never seems to be self-consciously playing the sad clown—something that, for all his great talent, he was quite capable of doing—and thus he’s truly lovable and poignant. And, of course, magnificently funny.

CURRYING FAVOR

New this week:

The Hundred-Foot Journey—If Oprah likes your book, you’ve got it made. A few years ago she took a shine to Richard C. Morais’ tale of a rivalry between an established upscale restaurant in provincial France and the upstart Indian place a hundred feet across the road, showed it to Steven Spielberg, and now it’s a lavishly produced movie directed by Lasse Hallstrom, with a cast led by Helen Mirren and Om Puri.

After leaving Mumbai under tragic circumstances, and a brief stay under the flight path at Heathrow, the Kadam family settles in a small town in southern France, mainly because the brakes on their wreck of a vehicle fail there. Gruff, handsome Om Puri plays the widowed patriarch, who insists on opening “Maison Mumbai” in the ruin across the road from Le Saule Pleureur, a classical-French place with a Michelin star. It’s presided over by Mirren as the elegant, imperious Madame Mallory, who at first attempts to sabotage the new enterprise. But the star of the Kadam family is Papa’s son Hassan, a culinary prodigy so gifted that Madame Mallory wants him to cross the road and learn the Ways of the Heavy Sauce, in hopes that he can help her to a long-coveted second star.

Lushly photographed by Linus Sandgren and goosed along by another rousing score from A.R. Rahman, The Hundred-Foot Journey is, I suppose, the most calculated and shameless sort of unthreatening cross-cultural feel-good/foodie movie. But it gives good value as such; the setting is idyllic, the cast is splendid—not just Puri and Mirren but also Manish Dayal as the open-hearted Hassam and the charming Charlotte Le Bon as his besotted love interest—and there’s just enough conflict to keep the story going but not so much as to spoil the pleasant atmosphere. And, of course, the food looks wonderful: The movie left me with a serious taste for sea urchin.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles—Like the Transformers, the TMNT came along in the mid-‘80s, when I was already old enough to find them annoying, so I don’t have a nostalgic attachment to them. I was surprised, therefore, to find myself sort of enjoying this new film version.

Concocted by artists Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird as a send-up of by-the-numbers comic book clichés, the Turtles were soon turned into the very kind of marketing and merchandising juggernaut they originally sought to spoof. The four are sewer-dwelling New Yorkers, each named, for some reason, after a Renaissance Old Master: Raphael, Leonardo, Donatello and Michaelangelo, and parented by a sagacious old rat, Splinter, who trains them in martial arts, he says, as an alternative to the distractions of pop culture—the best, and nerviest, joke in the movie.

The lads are pitted here against a villain in hulking robotic samurai armor and his legions of henchpersons, who are trying to do something terrible to the Big Apple for some stupid reason that doesn’t matter. Their clashes provide headlong action, and their jabbering and antics, while they aren’t exactly on the Oscar Wilde level of wit, keep the energy level high.

The Turtles also have allies, especially in their Lois Lane equivalent: plucky TV reporter April O’Neill, played in the new film by Megan Fox. In what appears to be an attempt to market the film to girls, April is very much the lead role here, and this approach proved effective with regard to my own 12-year-old, who grumbled about the prospect of sitting through a movie for boys but got caught up in it all the same.

This TMNT is also a minefield of really bald-faced product placement. Pizza Hut and Orange Crush are the most heavy-handed, but there’s a surprising—and amusing—nod to Victoria’s Secret, in anticipation, presumably, of the fast-approaching days when the target audience loses its interest in turtles.

CROCFIGHTING

RIP to Marilyn Burns, departed at 64.

A native of my beloved hometown of Erie, Pa., she was unforgettable as the hapless heroine of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and as Linda Kasabian in the original Helter Skelter TV miniseries. She also appeared in Tobe Hooper’s lurid, little-remembered giant crocodile shocker of 1977, Eaten Alive. So…

Monster-of-the-Week: …in her honor let’s give the nod to the hungry leading reptile of that bizarre swamp melodrama…

TANK STOP

Screening Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, as part of No Festival Required’s “Summer of Suburbia Films” series, is Cul de Sac: A Suburban War Story.

Garrett Scott’s 2002 documentary, which runs less than an hour, chronicles the sad end of Shawn Nelson, an Army veteran who, one evening in May 1995, stole an M60 tank from a National Guard Armory near his home in Claremont, California and took it on a joyride through the neighborhood, trashing dozens of vehicles but, miraculously, injuring no one except Nelson himself, who was shot to death by the police.

A broke, unemployed meth user on the verge of losing his house, Nelson had dug a 15-foot hole in his back yard earlier that same year, in the delusion that he could mine for gold there. Scott’s film consists of news footage of the tank rampage and its aftermath, intercut with talking-heads footage of Nelson’s friends and family, who seem like they’ve stepped out of a Sam Shepherd play. In the manner of a non-facetious Michael Moore, Scott also presents a sketch of the social and economic history of Claremont and other San Diego-area communities, former defense-industry boomtowns declining to meth-infested near-slums since the Cold War, in an attempt to link Nelson’s weird tragedy directly to the Military-Industrial complex.

I think it’s possible to share the political sentiments implied in this approach (as I do) and still find this an overreach. But Cul-de-Sac is nonetheless an absorbing and painful story, well told.

HOT AUGUST BLIGHT

Happy August everybody!

While The Kid hung out at a pal’s house for the evening, The Wife and I betook ourselves to Chase Field last night for Zombie Bobblehead night, to watch the Diamondbacks take on the Pittsburgh Pirates. Despite a pretty solid performance by starter Chase Anderson, it ended up a wretched 8-3 rout of the reptiles by the Bucs. Reliever Randall Delgado plunked poor blameless Andrew McCutchen in the back in the 9th inning...

...apparently in retaliation for Ernesto Frieri’s pitch that broke Paul Goldscmidt’s hand Friday night, but we even missed this bit of ugly spectacle, having left in disgust by that time. We heard it on the car radio on the way home. But it was a fun evening out anyway, and since the Pirates were my Dad’s beloved team it was nice to picture him smiling at the outcome.

I was pleased, anyway, to see that the local boys managed a 3-2 win over the Pirates this afternoon, albeit on a controversial walk-off play.

Speaking of August, check out my story on page 98 of this month’s Phoenix Magazine, on hot Valley neighborhoods.

DEBUNKER MENTALITY

New this week:

Magic in the Moonlight—Colin Firth plays Stanley, an English stage magician, in this latest from Woody Allen, set in the late ‘20s. Stanley buries himself in the disguise of a stereotypical Chinese—he looks like Henry Brandon in Drums of Fu Manchu—and performs his spectacular tricks in high style, to the strains of Stravinsky or Ravel or Beethoven. But, like many of his trade, he doesn’t buy into magic in any sense beyond the theatrical. He’s a hardcore nonbeliever when it comes to the metaphysical, and he’s sneeringly contemptuous of faith in any form.

Stanley is invited to the south of France to debunk Sophie, a young American clairvoyant played by Emma Stone, who has enchanted a wealthy American family there. Sophie’s manner is corny and unconvincing, but her revelations are startling, and Stanley finds his skepticism beginning to waver.

It’s a perfectly good set-up for a romantic comedy, and, as usual with Allen’s work in this mode, there’s much to like in the movie. The period detail and settings are sumptuous, Firth and Stone are funny, and the supporting cast is full of capable types like Simon McBurney, Marcia Gay Harden, Jacki Weaver and Eileen Atkins, who’s especially good as Stanley’s doting aunt. Also memorable, as the ukulele-strumming rich kid infatuated with Sophie, is Hamish Linklater, who seems to be flawlessly channeling the young Bradford Dillman.

But Magic in the Moonlight isn’t quite magical. It starts off wonderfully, and for about a half-hour looks like it’s going to be a real gem. And Allen does come up with some inventive flourishes. But the dialogue dithers and dawdles, and the romantic connection between Firth and Stone never becomes urgent or convincing. Allen’s movies don’t always come off, but I can’t remember one, at least in the last twenty years or so, that was this uneconomical.

Guardians of the Galaxy—This is the movie with the talking raccoon you’ve been seeing TV ads for recently. It’s based on some Marvel comic series I never read, and is about a motley quintet of minor league space fugitives who band together under that rather grandiose title.

Chris Pratt, excellent in Moneyball and as the voice of the everyman hero of The Lego Movie, is the earth-born leader, a bland, less-than-brilliant ladies man with a fondness for ‘70s-era soul-funk-pop connected to a trauma he suffers in the film’s prologue. Zoe Saldana is the gorgeous and much smarter green-skinned warrior-woman, and Dave Bautista is a literal-minded strongman seeking revenge. There’s a guileless ambulatory tree voiced by Vin Diesel, and Bradley Cooper is the fast-talking raccoon. There’s a talking raccoon in this movie.

The villain is a standard, growling Darth Vader type. The McGuffin they’re all chasing, called “The Orb,” is staggeringly uninteresting, and the long, explosion-filled climactic battle is almost—but only almost—as tedious as the similar finales in the Thor and Iron Man movies and The Avengers and Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the other superhero flicks of recent years.

But I still found Guardians of the Galaxy, co-written and directed by the gifted James Gunn, very entertaining, because of its central joke: The unassuming, colloquial manner of these characters against the backdrop of all this cosmic bombast. It would be hard for me to dislike any movie in which the hero dances to “Come and Get Your Love” on the surface of a distant planet under the opening credits. Or, for that matter, a movie with a talking raccoon. Did I mention that this movie has a talking raccoon?