Airplane! :: James Hong :: Blade Runner

James Hong also gets me from Airplane! to my next movie, Blade Runner.

Blade Runner is great science fiction. Dystopian future. Androids. Action. Philosophical introspection on what truly makes us human. What was really interesting for me is that I literally watched Blade Runner and the series finale of Battlestar Galactica in the same weekend - both shows dealing with many of the same issues... and both starring Edward J. Olmos.

I'm not going to get into the debate over whether Harrison Ford's character Deckard is a replicant or not. I personally think he's human. But I can see both sides, especially depending on which version of the film you watch. The original U.S. theatrical release makes it fairly clear that he's human. The 1990's "Director's Cut" and the more recent "Final Cut" make it more ambiguous. Buy the 4-disc Collector's Edition and you can watch four different versions of the film and decide for yourself.

The other thing to really pay attention to with Blade Runner is the effects. Today, we see massive futuristic cities on the screen, and it's all done with computers (see the Star Wars prequels). But Blade Runner was made in 1982 with real models, sets, matte paintings, and all the other conventional tricks... and it still stands up really well against modern CGI effects. Ridley Scott really knew his shit back in the day (couple Blade Runner with the film he released three years earlier, Alien, and you've got a sci-fi one-two punch that may be unrivaled). But I still can't forgive him for crap like Gladiator and Hannibal.

Chinatown :: James Hong :: Airplane!

Another great character actor, James Hong, gets me from Chinatown (Evelyn's butler) to Airplane! (suicidal Japanese general).  Looking at his resume, Hong seems to have been the go-to actor for the token Asian role in every film or TV show of the past four decades.  All in the Family, The Rockford Files, Starsky and Hutch, Charlie's Angels, Taxi, St. Elsewhere, The A-Team, Big Trouble in Little China, The Golden Child, Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, Miami Vice, Tango & Cash, MacGyver, Wayne's World 2... and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Where do you start with a movie like Airplane!?   (And yes, I'll be including the exclamation mark every time).  It stands alongside Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and Shaun of the Dead (all films I own and will be discussing later on this blog) as one of the greatest parody films of all time. Airplane! re-launched the career of Leslie Nielsen as comedic actor, giving us the Naked Gun series of films.  Airplane! showed us Mrs. Cleaver speaking jive, Lloyd Bridges sniffing glue, Kareem Abdul-Jabar threatening a small child, an inflatable co-pilot receiving oral service from Julie Hagerty, and two Girl Scouts beating the holy hell out of each other in a bar fight.

And it has some of the most quotable lines of any film, ever:

• We have clearance, Clarence.  Roger, Roger.  What's our vector, Victor?
• The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in the red zone. 
• "The fog's getting thicker."  "And Leon's getting laaaaarrrrger!"
• "A hospital?  What is it?"  "It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now."
• Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?
• Oh, it's a big pretty white plane with red stripes, curtains in the windows and wheels and it looks like a big Tylenol. 
• "Johnny, what can you make out of this?"  "This? Why, I can make a hat or a brooch or a pterodactyl..."
• Oh stewardess! I speak jive.
• Do you know what it's like to fall in the mud and get kicked... in the head... with an iron boot? Of course you don't, no one does. It never happens. Sorry, Ted, that's a dumb question... skip that.
• Wait a minute. I know you. You're Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. You play basketball for the Los Angeles Lakers.
• I just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you. 
• I am serious.  And don't call me Shirley.

I can't think of much more to add right now.  Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

Cuckoo's Nest :: Jack Nicholson :: Chinatown

From one great Nicholson role to another - connecting One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to Chinatown through Jack Nicholson.

OK - first things first. Let me get the whole Roman Polanski controversy out of the way. Yes, he directed some amazing movies. Yes, he won an Oscar. And yes, he drugged, raped, and sodomized a 13-year-old girl. As far as whether he should go to jail or not, I think the third one kinda trumps the first two by a landslide. Check out this article at Salon.com for a pretty clear-cut look at the situation.

That aside, Chinatown is still a brilliant movie. It starts like your typical film noir from the 1930's with private detective J.J. "Jake" Gittes (Nicholson) being hired to follow a suspected adulterous husband. Things of course get very twisted from there. Mistaken identity, a mysterious girl, land, water, murder, corruption, and a VERY screwed up family all come into play. By the end, there are so many layers to the mystery that it's tough to wrap your head around... but you'll really want to.

Forget it Jake. It's Chinatown.

Fast Times :: Vincent Schiavelli :: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

From his role as Mr. Vargas (who just switched to Sanka), I'm connecting Vincent Schiavelli - one of the best character actors ever - to his role as Fredrickson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

I love Cuckoo's Nest. Apart from Jack Nicholson's fantastic R.P. McMurphy, this film is stacked with some of the best character actors of the past 30 years.

You've got Schiavelli of course, who was not only in Fast Times, but also in Amadeus, Batman Returns, and hundreds of other roles on TV and film.

Plus of course Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, Scatman Crothers (notable for another film with Nicholson - The Shining), Brad Dourif (Grima Wormtongue from the Lord of the Rings movies - and also the voice of Chucky from the Child's Play series), and one of my favorite performances in the film from Sydney Lassick as Charley Cheswick.

But I can't discuss Cuckoo's Nest without discussing one of the greatest villains on film: Nurse Ratched. Louise Fletcher plays the role with perfect icy malevolence thinly veiled behind a mask of compassion. What's so chilling about her character is the subtle way in which she shames her patients or manipulates the group into shaming each other. She is more concerned with maintaining her power by making these men feel bad about themselves than in helping the men under her care.

Check out more on Nurse Ratched in the Villains episode of my At Home Film Festival Podcast by clicking here.

Pulp Fiction :: Eric Stoltz :: Fast Times at Ridgemont High

From one stoner role to another, I'm connecting Eric Stoltz from Pulp Fiction where he played John Travolta's drug dealer and the guy who helps revive an overdosing Uma Thurman - to his role in Fast Times at Ridgemont High where he played one of Jeff Spicoli's stoner buddies.

No shirt. No shoes. No dice.

I grew up in the 80's, but never saw Fast Times until I was in college... I was too young to see it in theaters, and I suppose my older brother had never taped it off of HBO (which was how I got exposed to most other 70's and early 80's classics).

Sure, Fast Times looks dated, and you could dismiss it for the clothing styles, music, and mall-culture references that plant it firmly in 1982. You could also dismiss it as a stupid teen comedy or a stoner film. But still every time I watch it I'm impressed by the real issues that the characters have to go through, especially Stacy (Jennifer Jason Leigh). While most teen comedies revel in the "Yeah! Let's get laid!" mentality, Fast Times actually tackles how teenagers can get scared and confused about the realities of actually having sex and dealing with its consequences.

Plus, it's got Spicoli. Come on, there may not be a better stoner character on film. Sean Penn is great. And Mr. Hand as his nemesis is brilliant.

But who cares about any of that... It's got Phoebe Cates naked.

The Commitments :: Bronagh Gallagher :: Pulp Fiction

So Bronagh Gallagher isn't a huge name to start with for a connection, but like I said, the Commitments doesn't really have any big names in it, so I have to start somewhere.

She played the short-haired backup singer, Bernie McGloughlin, in The Commitments. In Pulp Fiction, she's Trudi, the friend of drug dealer Eric Stoltz's wife (the one without "all the shit in her face" as Travolta puts it in the movie).

I had rented Reservoir Dogs (or more likely had "borrowed" it without paying from the convenience/video store where I worked... don't worry I returned it) and loved the movie, so was excited when Quentin Tarantino's second movie was about to hit theaters. I didn't realize at the time that Pulp Fiction isn't exactly a good date movie, so I took my girlfriend Emily Safford to see it. I don't remember if she enjoyed herself or not, but I was floored. The retro soundtrack. The haircuts on Travolta and Sam Jackson. The fascinating dialogue. The interlacing stories. Drug use. Jack Rabbit Slim's. Christopher Walken. Marvin's head. Uma Thurman's overdose. Ezekiel 25:17. The Gimp. I had no idea what the hell I had just seen, but I knew I wanted more.

Pulp Fiction is by no means a perfect movie. (I usually find myself fast forwarding through large portions of the Bruce Willis part.) But it without a doubt changed my idea of what movies were allowed to do.

Start :: The Commitments

OK - first movie entry. These will probably change a lot in format from film to film. I may give a straight-up review. Maybe some memories about the movie and why I have it in my collection. I may talk about the actor that's connecting the two films, but since this is the starting point, there's no connection yet.

I love The Commitments, so it makes for a fun kick off to the project. It's also got a cast of relative unknowns, leaving me with only one other DVD in my collection that I can connect it to (which you'll see in the next post), which is perfect for the starting point.

I was in a band similar to the Commitments when I was in high school. It was the last day of junior high, on the bus ride home, when my friends Pete Benson and Jeremy McCormick said to me, "We should start a band. Like the Blues Brothers." I played drums, Pete played piano, Jeremy played alto sax. Our friends from junior high band would all be in: Scott More played guitar, Ray Callender played trumpet, Russ Johnson played trombone. Steve Madura was in choir, he could sing for us. Once high school rolled around at the end of the summer, we had scrounged up a bass player and second guitarist, plus pegged Sean McLean to play baritone sax. We had a 10-piece band, jamming on some old Blues Brothers songs and whatever else we could find with a horn section in it. We practiced every week in either my basement or Jeremy's (his brother also had a drum kit). We played the annual AFS Revue talent show at the high school to rave reviews ("Peter Gunn" and "Sweet Home Chicago"). Everything was great.

But of course not everything worked out well. We could never decide on a name for the band, going with Untitled one year. Third Rail another. Black and Blues for awhile. Untitled again for our senior year reunion show. Some members of the band left or graduated school. Replacements Jim Windelborn and Andy Vanatta came in on bass and guitar. Scott moved to trombone when Russ left the band. Tim Campbell played harmonica for a couple songs. We started having band meetings to discuss the direction of the group more often than we practiced. Some of the horn players wanted to do more jazz. Others wanted to rock more. Side project bands started eating up everyone's time. That and girlfriends. Meetings were held to decide who should be in or out of the band. It was high school. It got ugly.

But in the midst of all this, I rented The Commitments for the first time. I watched, saying, "That's us!" A few of the other guys in the band watched it too. We even tried playing a few songs from the Commitments soundtrack albums. It was one of the first movies I remember really finding myself identifying with. Of course our band didn't fare any better than the one in the movie. But we still had a great time trying.