Bad Trips

Vanishing on 7th Street: written by Anthony Jaswinski; directed by Brad Anderson; starring Hayden Christensen (Luke), John Leguizamo (Paul), Thandie Newton (Rosemary), Jacob Latimore (James), and Taylor Groothuis (Briana) (2010): Vaguely enjoyable, apocalyptic horror movie in which nearly everyone vanishes because the darkness seems to be eating people. The movie remains steadfast to the end in its refusal to offer a succinct explanation of what's really going on. The cast is fine but perhaps too recognizable for this sort of low-budget horror movie -- they kept pulling me out of the world of the movie. On the bright side, this isn't found-footage and it is set in Detroit. Lightly recommended.

Tommy Boy: written by Bonnie and Terry Turner; directed by Peter Segal; starring Chris Farley (Tommy Callahan III), David Spade (Richard), Brian Dennehy (Big Tom), Bo Derek (Beverly), Dan Aykroyd (Zalinsky), Julie Warner (Michelle), and Rob Lowe (Paul) (1995): Chris Farley's incandescent star turn as the titular screw-up elevates Tommy Boy to a near-classic. Barely two years after this movie's release, Farley would be dead of alcohol and drug-related issues. The three films he did after this would represent the law of diminishing returns in stark fashion. But Farley's comic genius and leading-man sweetness survive here, helped by able supporting work from David Spade, Brian Dennehy, and the always-game Rob Lowe. Also, Fat Guy In A Little Coat. Highly recommended.

Scoop: written and directed by Woody Allen; starring Woody Allen (Sid Waterman), Scarlett Johansson (Sondra Pransky), Hugh Jackman (Peter Lyman), and Ian McShane (Joe Strombel) (2006): Amiable minor comedy from Allen during his British phase (that thanks to where his funding was coming from in the early 2000's). ScarJo plays a journalism student who stumbles onto a story involving a British peer who may be a serial killer. She enlists the help of stage magician Woody to catch the killer and get the story. She gets the tip from Ian McShane, whose award-winning journalist character is dead. But that doesn't stop his ghost from helping out. Johansson is far too pretty for the part, but she gamely riffs on Diane Keaton's mannerisms, especially in scenes with Woody. Allen wisely declined to make his stammering magician ScarJo's love interest, leaving that to Hugh Jackman as the possible killer who's also a real charmer. It's Wolverine romancing Black Widow! Recommended.

Threed Murray

The Sting: written by David S. Ward; directed by George Roy Hill; starring Paul Newman (Henry Gondorff), Robert Redford (Johnny Hooker), Robert Shaw (Doyle Lonnegan), Charles Durning (Lt. Snyder), Ray Walston (Singleton), Eileen Brennan (Billie), and Harold Gould (Kid Twist) (1973): The Sting won 7 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director, while also making a ton of money (domestically and adjusted for inflation to 2015, it sits $100 million or more ($2015) above The Dark Knight and Jurassic World as of August 2015). A twisty caper/scam comedy pits grifters Robert Redford and Paul Newman against New York mobster Robert Shaw in a complicated con game involving race tracks, gambling, poker, Western Union, assassins, and vengeance. 

The actors are all terrific from the leads to all the fine character actors like Eileen Brennan, Ray Walston, and Charles Durning who fill out the roster. They don't really make Hollywood blockbusters with clever scripts like this any more -- it's a relic of a more elegant age, the early 1970's... Highly recommended.

Groundhog Day: written by Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis; directed by Harold Ramis; starring Bill Murray (Phil), Andie MacDowell (Rita), and Chris Elliott (Larry) (1993): One of the more philosophically interesting of all comedies past or present, and a fantasy-comedy bracingly buttressed with despair and existential anomie. Of all the great comedies Harold Ramis wrote, co-wrote, and/or directed, this is probably the greatest. That Bill Murray didn't get a sniff of a Best Actor Oscar is yet another example of the ridiculous lack of respect the Academy has for comedy. Highly recommended.

Mad Dog and Glory: written by Richard Price; directed by John McNaughton; starring Robert De Niro (Wayne 'Mad Dog' Dobie), Uma Thurman (Glory), Bill Murray (Frank Milo), David Caruso (Mike), and Mike Starr (Harold ) (1993): Enjoyable dramedy sees introverted, lonely police photographer Robert De Niro save gangster Bill Murray's life and in return receive Uma Thurman as a "friend" from Murray for a week. Richard Price's screenplay is surprisingly pungent yet humane (which sounds like the description for the worst wine ever made). 

Murray conveys a fair bit of menace in his handful of scenes as a mob guy who dreams of being a stand-up comic. De Niro is painfully withdrawn, and Thurman charming. The movie doesn't avoid the tougher issues raised by its premise, though it does sugarcoat them -- and anyone tired of the massive age gaps between male and female leads in Hollywood movies could use this one as Exhibit A. Recommended.

St. Vincent:  written and directed by Theodore Melfi; starring Bill Murray (Vincent), Melissa McCarthy (Maggie), Maomi Watts (Daka), Chris O'Dowd (Brother Geraghty), Terrence Howard (Zucko), and Jaeden Lieberher (Oliver) (2014): One can see how this movie won the People's Choice Award at the 2014 Toronto Film Festival. It's a crowd-pleasing dramedy with a fine performance by Bill Murray as the grumpy Vincent of the title, a hard-drinking retiree who's just been either blessed or cursed with new next-door neighbours for his Brooklyn home, Melissa McCarthy as newly divorced Maggie and 12-year-old Jaeden Lieberher as Oliver.

Everything stays just enough on the comedy side of things to forgive the movie some of its improbabilities, not to mention its occasional resemblance to Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino. The leads are all winning. Murray is irascible but occasionally serious and haunted. McCarthy seems to be relieved to be playing an actual sympathetic character instead of a caricature. Jaeden Lieberher is extraordinarily good as the small but feisty Oliver -- it's a totally non-annoying kid performance. Hallelujah! Naomi Watts is funny in the somewhat thankless role of a wacky, malaprop-spewing, pregnant Russian prostitute with a heart of, perhaps, copper. You'll see most of the prop beats coming, but they are well-handled, and Murray's character is never forced to undergo a complete domestication of his often unlikable character. Recommended.

Manhattan Murder Mystery: written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman; directed by Woody Allen; starring Woody Allen (Larry Lipton), Diane Keaton (Carol Lipton), Jerry Adler (Paul House), Alan Alda (Ted), and Anjelica Huston (Marcia Fox) (1993): Amiable, somewhat overlong mid-career Allen comedy sees bored married couple Woody and Diane Keaton fall into investigating what Keaton believes to be the murder of one of their Manhattan apartment neighbours. Happily, pursuing a murderer spices up their marriage. The narrative spins its wheels a lot for the first 45 minutes before getting traction, at which point it becomes something of a romp recalling Allen's earlier, funnier work. Alan Alda and Anjelica Huston offer humourous supporting work. Recommended.

Russian Dressing

Love and Death: written and directed by Woody Allen; starring Woody Allen (Boris) and Diane Keaton (Sonja) (1975): Allen's last pure satire/comedy before Annie Hall moved him into more dramatic film-making, Love and Death sees Allen broadly parody Russian literature and philosophy and movies, along with a healthy dose of Ingmar Bergman references.

The war sequences recall Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator in their attention to battlefield slapstick. The peace-time sequences satirize village life, court life, Napoleon, and the philosophical tendencies of 19th-century Russian literature. One doesn't have to be a film buff to find all this funny -- the sequences work on their own level of ridiculousness first. Knowing that a sequence of stills of different stone lions is a nod to Sergei Eisenstein's seminal Battleship Potemkin, or that another sequence plays with Bergman's Persona, only adds to the humour -- it isn't required.

The Allen character's frequent encounters with a robed Death recall both Bergman's The Seventh Seal and the Alastair Sim version of A Christmas Carol. How's that for a mash-up? Unlike the many victims of the plague who engage in the Danse Macabre at the end of The Seventh Seal, though, Allen goes dancing off alone with Death.

Keaton is also very funny as Allen's mostly unrequited love. Allen's only film to be shot at least partially outside the U.S. for 20 years, until 1996's Everybody Says I Love You. Recommended.

Grotesque

Stardust Memories, written and directed by Woody Allen; starring Woody Allen (Sandy Bates), Charlotte Rampling (Dorrie), Jessica Harper (Daisy) and Marie-Christine Barrault (Isobel) (1980): "Tell funnier jokes!", the aliens tell filmmaker Sandy Bates during this movie. Bates is plagued by the feeling that he needs to move beyond comedy into more meaningful drama. Of course, Allen himself was plagued by the same feelings in the late 1970's, which led to the depressing, Bergmanesque Interiors (1978), which Allen did after his biggest commercial and critical success, Annie Hall.

And pretty much everybody hated Interiors.

Stardust Memories uses Bates's attendance of a weekend celebration of his movies at the Jersey Shore Hotel Stardust as the loose frame for a tour through Bates's memories, dreams, nightmares, and creative problems. It's a riff on Fellini's 8 1/2, and Allen and his casting director fill the movie with grotesques. This is one of the ugliest, weirdest looking crowd of extras and minor roles ever assembled. Is this how Bates and, by extension Allen, views his fans and critics? Good question.

But the movie also pokes and prods the pretensions of Bates, who is not, the film also seems to suggest, the deep thinker he wants to be. There are some very funny setpieces throughout this film. There are also some tedious sections. The whole thing seems fascinating but somewhat inorganic, though the ending clarifies a lot of the prior murkiness. Recommended for Woody Allen fans.

Don't Drink the Water

Bananas, written by Woody Allen and Mickey Rose; directed by Woody Allen; starring Woody Allen (Fielding Mellish), Louise Lasser (Nancy), Carlos Montalban (General Vargas), and Howard Cosell as himself (1971): Allen's second movie as (co-)writer, director, and star is a jolly romp through military dictatorships and the CIA agents who propagate them.

Allen's Fielding Mellish starts off as a tester of ludicrous products, moves on to being an anti-war protester to satisfy his girlfriend (Lasser), and eventually becomes the leader of a small Central American country through an improbable series of events.

Like the Marx Brothers at their peak (Duck Soup comes to mind), Allen just keeps throwing verbal and physical humour at the screen -- if one joke fails, don't worry, another will be along in a few seconds. What may surprise many viewers unfamiliar with early Woody Allen is what a gifted physical comedian he was both in and of himself and in terms of setting up ridiculous situations for slapstick. The political satire of pretty much every portion of the spectrum still holds up today.

Also welcome is Howard Cosell as himself, delivering colour commentary on political rebellions, assassinations, and sex acts for ABC's Wide World of Sports. Highly recommended.

Newton Sleep

Sleeper, written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman, directed by Woody Allen, starring Woody Allen (Miles Monroe) and Diane Keaton (Luna Schlosser) (1973): Allen's early days as a comedic filmmaker showed as much influence from the slapstick end of film comedy as they did from the word play of the Marx Brothers or the neurotic, sometimes surreal musings of Allen's own stand-up act.

Sleeper is a lovely comic dystopia set in the New York of the late 22nd century. 20th-century health-food-store owner Miles Monroe goes in for an ulcer operation and awakens 200 years later, having been frozen after something went wrong with the operation. The Resistance, who thawed him, needs him to help overthrow the Big-Brother-style dictatorship of the U.S. Miles agrees, and the rest of the movie follows him through various misadventures aimed at toppling The Leader.

The Leader's dictatorship isn't too threatening, its soldiers and police mostly being bumbling boobs. The Resistance isn't much better. Along the way, Miles falls in love with 22nd-century poet Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton), whose poetry is amazingly awful. Allen gets in zingers against himself and various other targets, including the health-food industry (in the future, scientists have discovered that sugar, fat, chocolate and cigarettes are the real health foods. "Have some tobacco. It's the best thing in the world for you!", one scientist tells a flabbergasted Monroe.

The sybaritic dystopia of Sleeper (one of Neil Postman's "pleasure-based dystopias", the Ur-model of which is Aldous Huxley's Brave New World) occasionally looks a lot like our world. Then again, often it doesn't. The movie barrels along through its 90-minute length, throwing jokes and pratfalls at the audience and thankfully eschewing sentimentality or a sudden speech about human destiny. The young Keaton is as cute as a button. Highly recommended.