Only now does it occur to me... A STRANGER AMONG US (1992)

Only now does it occur to me... I'm pretty sure that once upon a time in the late '80s, somebody was watching a Harrison Ford double-feature: WITNESS and WORKING GIRL. They were left with the sensation that they wanted to remake WITNESS, but they also wanted to see Melanie Griffith continue doing her WORKING GIRL schtick. So they pitched the following: How 'bout WITNESS, except instead of Harrison Ford we have Melanie Griffith, and instead of the Amish we have the Brooklyn Hasidim?

Furthermore, it's directed by Sidney Lumet, who I have to imagine was a hired gun to give it "gritty NYC flavor." The problem is, instead of the next SERPICO or PRINCE OF THE CITY or DOG DAY AFTERNOON we have something a little closer to THE WIZ.

 

Well, if Club ZAP! is in a movie, it can't be all bad

So we have Melanie Griffith as a hard-boiled hot-doggin' cop who is totally subjected to the classic "next time you act like such a goddamned maverick I'm gonna need your badge and gun on my desk!" speech

only she's making no effort whatsoever to appear tough n' gritty, opting for the "Marilyn Monroe-via-BODY DOUBLE" baby voice throughout. Which is frankly kinda great.

Anyway, there have been some murders in the Flatbush Hasidic Jewish neighborhood, so she's sent in to go undercover (!) by a screenplay that A. thinks it's definitely going to win some Oscars, B. is dedicated to the idea that Melanie will learn a lot from the Hasidim and the Hasidim will learn a lot from Melanie, and C. really wants to shoehorn a bodice-ripping romance with a rabbi in here somewhere. This is obviously a recipe for success, if by success you mean alienating the religious community you are attempting to depict as well as causing a variety of audience members to snort their beverages through their noses. Allow me to demonstrate what I mean:

They're a regular Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant, aren't they. And that's right, her name is "Detective Eden"... like the garden from that book

She shore is a sassy shiksa

First, note Mia Sara (FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF, LEGEND, TIMECOP) playing Hasid. Second, note that Melanie Griffith's character, when informed that someone "died in the camps," does not know what the camps are.

HEY WHAT DO YOU MEAN "YOU PEOPLE"

This is just poetry, a Song of Songs if you will

If FLEABAG brought us "Hot Priest Summer," truly A STRANGER AMONG US brings us "Lukewarm Rabbi Summer." The crux of it is that she doesn't even want to date him, it's just kind of an experiment to prove a point about repression or something

Along the way, in attempts to summon some New York-realness, we have young James Gandolfini as a low-level mobster:

 

John Pankow (TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A.) as a likably dorky detective:

some full-FIDDLER dance scenes:

use of the brilliant catchphrase "Okey-dokey":

and an amazing scene where for some reason Melanie Griffith deputizes the rabbi:

This whole thing is so absurd that you end up being slightly more puzzled than offended. Also, they totally tried to sell it like it was from the same genre as BASIC INSTINCT:

 

a desperate early '90s decision that tells me they knew they had a real winner on their hands. 

Only now does it occur to me... LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD

Only now does it occur to me...  that the Willis vs. Schwarzenegger "rivalry" runs deeper than the EXPENDABLES.

I've followed the semi-fictitious "rivalries" between action stars on this site such as "Bronson vs. Eastwood" and "Schwarzenegger vs. Stallone," rivalries that pop up probably due to the actors being up for the same roles and generally expressing themselves in onscreen, good-natured ribbing and obscure references for the benefit of the diehards (no pun intended).  Being as they'd never really taken the spotlight together, I assumed that the Schwarzenegger vs. Willis jocularity in EXPENDABLES 1 & 2 was manufactured for the series, and befit their "major star in bit part" pairing.   Now, that I stand back and look at it from afar, it seems this "feud" has been brewing for years.

I got to thinking, and began to wonder– John McTiernan made DIE HARD and THE LAST ACTION HERO.  Willis had even worked with Shane Black's writing before on THE LAST BOY SCOUT.  Was Willis jealous that he wasn't 'the Last Action Hero?'  And afterward, when its financial losses became apparent, was Schwarzenegger peeved that it hadn't been Willis in the role?  Did Willis gloat?  That seems like something he would do.  Did Schwarzenegger mock him for his "Bruno" musical career and those Seagram's Golden Wine Coolers ads?  The possibilities are endless.  Of course, that's just speculation.  But look at this:

Willis, Schwarzenegger, and Stallone appearing together on British television in 1993.  Notable for  their spectacular 1993 fashions (for instance, Stallone's Planet Hollywood baggy stonewashed jean vest and Schwarzenegger's Hawaiian shirt that proves that he's actually playing 'himself' in TWINS),

Willis' clear but thinly veiled distaste for the host (Terry Wogan),

Stallone's insistence that he does not deliver one-liners well (ask COBRA about that!), the special presumably drunken appearance by Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith,

 Wogan's creepy request that Willis show off his left breast

as well as Wogan forcing him to awkwardly talk about INDECENT PROPOSAL in terms of Demi Moore and his personal life, and finally the simultaneously childlike and depraved way Arnold's eyes light up when INDECENT PROPOSAL is discussed, as if the idea of asking a woman to sleep with him for a million dollars is just then hatching in his mind.

In short, this is magnificent.

Anyway, now knowing that their friendship and rivalry has existed for many years, that brings me to the actual point of this entry.  Which is that in LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD, Bruce Willis (while protecting Justin Long from the bad guys)




takes out a TERMINATOR (figurine) as collateral damage and smirks about it!  If that ain't a shot across the bow, I don't know what is!


As a side note, I only rewatched LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD (4) in order to pump myself up for seeing A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD (5) in theaters.  Though not horrible, seeing DIE HARD 4 again sufficiently disheartened me to the extent that I think I'm gonna wait on 5 for DVD.  Ah, well.

Film Review: BODY DOUBLE (1984, Brian De Palma)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 114 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Craig Wasson (MALCOLM X, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3), Melanie Griffith, Gregg Henry (PAYBACK, RAISING CAIN, UNITED 93), Dennis Franz (DIE HARD 2, NYPD BLUE), and Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
Tag-line: "A seduction. A mystery. A murder."
Best one-liner: "I'd buy THAT for a dollar!"

Well, Hitchock pastiche/rip-off week fittingly continues with more De Palma.

Brian De Palma's films generally attempt to maintain a careful balance of fanboyism, pretentiousness, homage, morbid exuberance, and practical jokery. That balance can be skewed all too easily, and then the house of cards comes tumbling down- luckily, that's not the case here. It's full of scenes that we've all seen before, be it following the mystery woman and kissing her at the seaside (VERTIGO), spying on the neighbors with a telescopic lens (REAR WINDOW),

or seeing a sexy lady skewered by a ginormous drill (SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE),



but, like the best of Argento, De Palma strings it all together with an sincerely compelling whodunit, eye-popping visuals, and some ridiculous, tongue-in-cheek payoffs. Craig Wasson is our cuckolded hero, swept up into a mind-blowing mystery. He's likable, in a Bill Maher kind of way, and he organically finds himself in a series of increasingly sleazy, darkly comic scenarios (peeping, panty-stealing, contacting porn stars, etc.).

[Also of note are Melanie Griffith's cheerful, X-rated celeb, Dennis Franz's d-bag director, and Deborah Shelton's doomed ingénue.] In a sea of films that offer commentary on the seedy side of Hollywood, BODY DOUBLE manages to stand out, offering clever parallel scenes of adult movie and Shakespeare company auditions or presenting a scenario where 'acting' must be channeled in order to survive a hellish predicament (when earlier, personal trauma had to be harnessed for a role). Stunning images include a UFO-style L.A. mansion;

a glam-rock vampire suffering a bout of claustrophobia-induced paralysis (on set of a movie called 'VAMPIRE'S KISS'); and a music video of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Relax," punctuated by bold purples, yellows, leopard print, and assless chaps!

Pino Donaggio's soundtrack gives us the Italian touch, as well- it alternates between Bernard Herrmann-style strings and Tangerine Dream-style (RISKY BUSINESS) synths- the former a deferent nod to the types of films De Palma would like to be making, and the latter a playful jab at the 'safe sleaze' Hollywood was doling out at the time. Say what you will about BODY DOUBLE, but it never takes the safe route. In all, it's a fun 'dark side of Tinseltown' exposé, an unhinged, self-reflexive look at filmmaking, and it's got a few genuinely creepy moments. Four stars.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: NIGHT MOVES (1975, Arthur Penn)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 100 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Gene Hackman, James Woods, Melanie Griffith, Dennis Dugan,(NORMAN...IS THAT YOU?, THE TOUGHEST MAN IN THE WORLD), writer Alan Sharp.
Tag-lines: "What private eye Harry Moseby doesn't know about the girl he's looking for... just might get him killed."
Best one-liner:"He'd fuck a woodpile on the chance there was a snake in it."

"Who's winning?" "Nobody. One side is just losing slower than the other." Arthur Penn's NIGHT MOVES is one in a slew of neo-noir character studies that hit Hollywood from, say, 1967-1981 (including POINT BLANK, THE LONG GOODBYE, THE OUTFIT, CHINATOWN, THE DRIVER, CUTTER'S WAY, BODY HEAT, etc.). NIGHT MOVES isn't really one of the ABSOLUTE best of these, with extraordinarily high standards being set by the likes of Polanski and Altman, but it's a very solid movie. The script by Alan Sharp (THE HIRED HAND, DAMNATION ALLEY) is witty, fast, and rather Samuel Beckett by-way-of Raymond Chandler. The acting is top-notch, as well: our depressed, cuckolded, ex-football player private eye hero, Gene Hackman, like always, has incredible presence and depth.

As one of the cogs in the noir-plot machine, a very young, very slimy James Woods shines, as does Melanie Griffith, also in one of her first roles.

There's not a great deal of 'action,' in the traditional sense, but NIGHT MOVES is at it's best when the former Broadway director Penn is in "play" mode and the plot is slowly unfolding like a chamber piece (as when Hackman joins the "family" unit living in the Florida Keys).

It all leads up to a denouement that is as existentially devastating as it is shockingly abrupt, with one final grotesquely beautiful image involving the view from a glass-bottomed boat. Overall, a very well done film with an atmosphere that is sometimes undermined by peculiar choices in upbeat music, and, oddly, in terms of critical longevity, it seems that NIGHT MOVES is destined to be primarily remembered for it's oft-quoted, off-handed barb about the films of Eric Rohmer. Four stars.


-Sean Gill