WRAP STAR

In one of his smack-talk riffs in the lead-up to his 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle…”

…the great Muhammad Ali famously dubbed his opponent George Foreman “The Mummy,” for his immobility, and prophesied (accurately) that he, Ali, would be “The Mummy’s Curse” that night (you can hear it about three minutes into this David Frost interview).

So, in Ali’s honor (and Foreman’s, for that matter)…

Monster-of-the-Week: …the nod goes to the Mummy Kharis, aka Lon Chaney, Jr., in 1944’s The Mummy’s Curse…

That’s what made Ali The Champ, I guess. Unlike him, the Mummy always scared the crap out of me...

LORD OF THE RINGS

OK, now it’s my turn to tell my version of the story about that time I met Muhammad Ali:

This was at a soup kitchen in South Phoenix somewhere, I don’t remember when exactly, but it would have been in the late ‘90s or very early 2000s, when I was at New Times. It was late on a Friday afternoon, and I think it was around the holidays, as Ali was there to put in some volunteer work and promote the place.

He showed up right on time, got out of the limo, hobbled over to the surprisingly few media people who had shown up, smiled, shook our hands, and mock-punched at a few of us, including me. Then we followed him into the kitchen, where he was adorned in an apron and toque, and started serving diners.

Lots of people have better stories about Ali than this fleeting encounter, especially here  in the Valley where he became such a public part of the community (some years later I glanced up while walking across a parking lot and saw the words “HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHAMP” sky-written over Paradise Valley). And my take-away from it isn’t anything special, either: Simply that the man had charisma. Even limited by his illness—he didn’t speak at that event, at least not while I was within earshot of him—he had a riveting presence.

Inconsequential as this meeting was to anyone else, however, it meant something to me, because even though I’ve never been a boxing fan, I had been a fan of Ali since childhood. I vividly remember the early ‘70s, when Ali’s bouts with Joe Frazier were talked about constantly, and the boys I went to school with in mostly white and heavily racist rural Pennsylvania, undoubtedly following what their dads told them, rooted for Frazier, because Ali was seen as uppity. I always preferred Ali, however, because he was funny. I was terribly disappointed when he lost the “Fight of the Century” in ’71, and my classmates crowed triumphantly.

Lots of people are also far better equipped than I am to discuss Ali as athlete, activist and man. But in ensuing decades, during which he became one of the most widely admired people in the world—one of the few people toward whom the Irony Generation seemed willing to show some reverence—I have also wondered at times if it’s Ali we have to thank for the culture of “trash-talk” and braggadocio that in recent years has largely replaced modesty and civility as the ideal in sportsmanship, and now other spheres, notably the political.

Ali’s boastful riffs are in the ancient Plautine tradition of the Miles Gloriosus, the Braggart Warrior, but Ali took this persona to a different level—he gave it validity and beauty. He sometimes took his act too far, by his own admission (he apologized publicly, albeit years later, for some of his taunts at Frazier, for instance) but his routines, delivered in that mellow yet subtly provoking voice, were always witty, playful and—most important—undergirded by a palpable love of humankind. If contemporary athletes, celebrities and political figures imagine that their blustering self-aggrandizement and mindless insulting of rivals are somehow Ali-esque, they’re very much mistaken.

RIP Champ.

SHELL HATH NO FURY

Opening this weekend: 

 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows—The title characters, four talking adolescent turtles oddly named after Old Masters of the Italian Renaissance, were parented, and mentored in martial arts, by a talking mutant rat. They live in the sewers of New York, and secretly defend the city from freaky wrongdoers, abetted only by fetching TV reporter April O’Neil and a few other allies.

This sounds crazy, but if you can look past the fact that the characters are turtles (and a rat), is it really any crazier, in terms of plausibility, than the X-Men or the Justice League? In any case, the quartet has been popular, in everything from comics to cartoons to live shows to movies, for about thirty years now, and in 2014 the movie series was “rebooted,” enjoyably enough.

In this sequel, directed by Dave Green, the villainous Shredder (Brian Tee), captured at the end of the previous movie, gets sprung from an armored vehicle by his motorcycle-borne minions. He’s then recruited by a repulsive alien warlord for a plot to, what else, take over the world.

The bad guys get a hold of some purplish gunk that transforms two of Shredder’s henchmen into monstrous rhino and warthog mutants, respectively. This same gunk also has the potential to turn the Turtles human, which might allow them to come out of the shadows and be accepted by the people of the Big Apple. Disagreement over whether this is a good idea sows dissension among the quartet.

In the midst of all the ensuing chases and fights, such pros as Laura Linney, as a police honcho, and Tyler Perry, as a nerdy scientist on Shredder’s team, struggle to hold their own against the CGI characters, and mostly succeed. Megan Fox is back as April, this time provided with Stephen Amell as love interest Casey Jones. Will Arnett is back, too, as April’s wacky sidekick Vern.

The finale involves a big time-space portal opening over Manhattan and the alien’s war machinery pouring out. We’ve seen this shtick at least twice before, in The Avengers and in Mr. Peabody & Sherman, and now it needs a nice long hiatus. But overall I enjoyed this silly summer movie. It couldn’t be less consequential, but it’s speedy, action packed and good natured.

It’s a hair more violent than I would have expected from a movie for kids in this day and age, but then I’m not sure to what extent younger kids really are the target audience here. The franchise began, after all, in the mid-‘80s. Many of the TMNT t-shirts I saw at the screening were worn by thirty- and forty-somethings.

I'M WITH THE BANDERSNATCH

Well, Alice Through the Looking Glass opened last weekend, and since the Jabberwock has already been an honoree…

Monster-of-the-Week: …this week let’s honor the frumious Bandersnatch, another creature mentioned in Lewis Carroll’s classic. John Tenniel didn’t do one of his marvelous illustrations of the Bandersnatch, alas, but here’s how the 2010 film depicted it…

And here’s an example of the creature’s frumious mayhem, described in Lewis Carroll’s later work “The Hunting of the Snark”:

     But while he was seeking with thimbles and care,

          A Bandersnatch swiftly drew nigh

     And grabbed at the Banker, who shrieked in despair,

          For he knew it was useless to fly.

     He offered large discount—he offered a cheque

          (Drawn "to bearer") for seven-pounds-ten:

     But the Bandersnatch merely extended its neck

          And grabbed at the Banker again.

     Without rest or pause—while those frumious jaws

          Went savagely snapping around—

     He skipped and he hopped, and he floundered and flopped,

          Till fainting he fell to the ground.

     The Bandersnatch fled as the others appeared

          Led on by that fear-stricken yell:

     And the Bellman remarked "It is just as I feared!"

          And solemnly tolled on his bell…

A FRANK DISCUSSION

Opening in the Valley this weekend:

Weiner—In case you’re wondering whether the title of this documentary about the Anthony Weiner scandal has a double meaning, the filmmakers open it with a quote from Marshall McLuhan: “The name of a man is a numbing blow from which he never recovers.”

For the whole first decade of this century, Anthony Weiner was the Congressman from New York’s 9^th District, after a couple of terms on the New York City Council, to which he was first elected at just 27. He had what looked like a hugely promising future as the sort of Democrat that Democrats often pray for—passionate and flamboyantly combative, possessed of the common touch, smart without seeming feckless or elitist. Put simply, he wasn’t a wussy.

How far Weiner would, or should, have gone in national politics is debatable—the short fuse that helped make him popular with New Yorkers could have been a problem for him in Iowa or Wisconsin. It’s also a moot point, as Weiner resigned from Congress in 2011 over a scandal that arose from “sexting”—he tweeted a picture of his…well, you know, to a woman not his wife, along with other sexually explicit messages, and some of these were leaked to the media.

Then he ran for Mayor of New York in 2013, and for a while was in the lead in the Democratic primary. But more dirty tweets from him showed up in the media, dating, insanely, from after the initial scandal. As far as anyone can tell, Weiner never had any actual contact with the recipients of these messages, nor were any laws broken, but two times was one time too many for New York voters. Weiner doggedly stayed in the race, but was crushed, and Bill De Blasio went on to be elected Mayor.

The film, directed by Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg, mostly focuses on the Mayoral race. Weiner and his wife, Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, gave the filmmakers extraordinary, reality-TV-like access to their lives. In private, Weiner shows little of the swagger and bravado he does in his public appearances. Padding around his apartment in shorts, under the disapproving stare of Abedin, his face a mask of sheepish chagrin, he looks like a prematurely old man—when he’s playing with his baby son, he looks like he’s playing with his grandson.

There’s an inevitable comic edge to much of Weiner, and I wish I could have found the movie funnier. Mostly it made me furious, at a variety of targets.

The first, most obvious and perhaps most deserving is the title character himself. However outrageously hypocritical you may find the prudish response to Weiner’s tweets, however much you may think it was nobody’s business but his and his wife’s, he, like Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal, should simply have known better. The movie raises, without offering an answer, the question of the judgment of powerful men when it comes to sex. It also offers no insight into the urge so many men seem to feel to send women pictures of their junk.

Having said that, and without minimizing Weiner’s disgraceful recklessness in the least, there are plenty of other directions toward whom the film arouses anger. Where, for instance, is the pressure on the current Republican front runner to drop out of the race, in light of public statements about women compared to which sending a picture of your dick seems almost sweet?

But the scene in Weiner that most infuriated me takes place at a campaign event. A large contingent of media is there, and Weiner begins by asking if anyone has an “on-topic question”; that is, a question about the relevant issue he’s there to discuss. Tense silence. A few seconds later, of course, they’re all babbling dick-picture questions at him simultaneously.

Really? Not one? Not one of those assholes who call themselves journalists could muster one on-topic question? If you asked them separately, I bet many if not most of them would bemoan the state of contemporary journalism, but it didn’t seem to occur to them that they had a clear shot at practicing real journalism, and declined. Maybe, just maybe, if somebody had started with a question or two about an actual issue, it would at least have made the first guy to ask a dick-picture question feel a little stupid.

CATO INSTITUTE

RIP to Burt Kwouk, passed on 85.

 
No doubt best known as “Cato” in the Pink Panther series, Kwouk shared the screen with icons ranging from James Bond to Fu Manchu throughout his long career.

So, just because Kwouk is in it…

Monster-of-the-Week: …this week’s honoree is this creepy mutant from 1965’s Curse of the Fly…

LOOK BEAK IN ANGER

Opening this week:

The Angry Birds Movie—The Angry Birds franchise began in 2009 as a video game, the object of which was to launch roly-poly little birds from a slingshot at little green pigs. The pigs have stolen their eggs, you see. The game led to more than a dozen spin-off games, and merchandising ranging from toys to clothes to TV cartoons, and now, inevitably, to this animated feature.

Our hero, voiced by Jason Sudeikis, is Red, the scowling, cardinal-like bird you’ve been seeing on kids’ hats and t-shirts the last few years, if you’ve been paying attention. He lives on an island inhabited by oddly flightless avians—it’s the entire Universe, as far as they know. Most of these birds aren’t inordinately angry, so an outburst, early on, lands Red in court, and he’s sent to an anger management class, where he meets other…well, you know.

Then huge ships arrive filled with green pigs. The guileless birds are taken in by their friendly overtures, except for Red, who’s suspicious of them. He turns out to be right, of course. The pigs steal the island’s eggs, and it’s up to Red and his anger management classmates to rouse the ire of the populace, and lead them to the land of the pigs to try to rescue them from the Pig King’s kettle.

The high-ticket voice cast, which includes the likes of Josh Gad, Danny McBride, Bill Hader, Maya Rudolph, Peter Dinklage and even Sean Penn—amusingly cast as the Angriest of the Birds—more or less ensures that there will be a few laughs. There’s some ingenious visual shtick, too. But overall The Angry Birds Movie is tiring—too many of the gags and situations seem artificially extended, as if the filmmakers knew they didn’t have much story to work with, and were trying to pad for time.

More than this, there’s the whole matter of the theme of anger. Anger is funny. Most comedy is based on some degree of anger. Anger also resonates with children, who feel it intensely but in most cases impotently.

But there’s anger and then there’s anger. There’s legitimate, mature outrage at, say, rudeness or injustice, and then there’s the anger that can arise from annoyance at other people’s cheerfulness, or from changes in our world with which we’re uncomfortable, or simply from daily inconveniences.

We’re all subject to this second sort, of course, and it’s always a good source of comedy. But it shouldn’t be mistaken for wisdom, and I fear that’s how The Angry Birds Movie wants us to see it. I certainly don’t think the film is intentionally reactionary, but I’m also unconvinced that a celebration of anger—resolving itself in war on foreigners—is what our society is most in need of just now. We have plenty of angry birdbrains already. 

 The Lobster—Having been dumped by his wife, David (Colin Farrell) checks into an elegant but cheerless resort hotel for singles. He has forty-five days to find a new partner, and if he fails he’ll be transformed into an animal. This happens often: David shares his room with his dog, who used to be his brother.

David is asked what kind of animal he wants to be if he doesn’t pair off, and he chooses to be a lobster, because of their longevity, and because he loves the sea. The hotel manager congratulates him on his thoughtful choice; the staff’s manner is always one of brisk, patronizing politeness, with contemptuous pity just under the surface.

Compatibility in a relationship is judged by shared impairments—nearsightedness, or a limp, or a tendency to nosebleeds, or sociopathic heartlessness—and people regularly try to feign these limitations to attract a mate. The guest activities include hunts of the neighboring forest, where “Loners”—feral single people—are shot with tranquilizer darts and brought back to undergo their transformations. Bagging a Loner adds days to your stay at the hotel, and thus to your chances of pairing off.

In other words, this is another of those Kafka-lite pop absurdist comedies, sort of a European spin on the likes of Being John Malkovich or Cold Souls. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, the Greek known for Dogtooth, from a script he co-wrote with Efthymis Filippou, the film is seamlessly imagined and entirely coherent on its own strange terms.

The pace is a little slow, and it seems to slow down even more in the second half. Other than that, the movie really can’t be faulted in terms of execution. The cast, which includes John C. Reilly, Rachel Weisz, Lea Seydoux, Olivia Colman and the excellent Ben Whishaw, maintain admirably straight faces, and Farrell, remaining quietly shellshocked throughout, makes you care about his plight.

It might even be fair to call The Lobster brilliant, but for all its whimsicality, it isn’t much fun. The atmosphere is dark and desperate, and many scenes are horrifically violent—those sensitive to violence toward animals are particularly warned to leave this one alone.

The premise seems to have arisen from a genuine, vitriolic bitterness toward the societal pressure to pair off, and the implication that those who can’t, or don’t want to, are regarded as subhuman. This avoids coming off as a hipster pose because Lanthimos pointedly shows us that life in the woods among the Loners is no less oppressive—romance and sex are forbidden there, and severely punished.

So The Lobster isn’t sentimental. It fully acknowledges that there’s a price to going it alone, or two-by-two, and that the price can be high either way. It also implies that our motivations, either way, are generally selfish. It’s possible to be both cynical enough to respect this viewpoint and romantic enough to be unable to fully agree with it. In any case, this Lobster, though admirable in many ways, brought me less pleasure than one served with butter and lemon.