This was a dumb, dumb film from the late 80s. Tate Donovan and Grant Heslov star as two college students who lose a Porsche in San Diego and then have to get it back. Fortunately, the Porsche is the grand prize in a beauty contest so Donovan and Heslov just have to hope that their friend Michelle (Danielle van Zernick) wins. This should have been fun because it featured a hot car and several hot girls in bikinis but it also featured Tate Donovan and Grant Heslov as our “heroes.” Donovan plays the uptight college student and comes across like one of the flunkies who helped Ted Kennedy cover-up Chappaquiddick. Grant Heslov plays the carefree college student who constantly ruins everyone else’s life. Neither one has the screen presence necessary to make us overlook how stupid their characters are. On the basis of Dangerous Curves, it’s easy to see why Heslov went into producing and Tate Donovan went into doing character roles in films produced by Grant Heslov.
On the plus side, Robert Stack and Leslie Nielsen are funny in small roles. And the car is hot and the film features as many bikinis as a typical episode of Miami Vice. Watching the movie might remind you of the fun you had playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City back in the day.
Three years after starring in Grease 2, Maxwell Caulfield starred in another (albeit far different) film about teenage delinquents, 1985’s The Boys Next Door. Directed by Penelope Spheeris (who also did Suburbia, another film about wayward youth), The Boys Next Door is a frequently harrowing film about a road trip gone very wrong.
The film opens with a series of black-and-white photographs of real-life serial killers, so you know what you’re about to get yourself into before the main action even begins. Caulfield plays Roy, a not-very-smart teenager who lives in an industrial town in the southwest. With his generally bad attitude and violent temper, Roy is one of the least popular kids at the local high school. In fact, his only friend appears to be Bo (Charlie Sheen). Bo is just as stupid as Roy but he’s not as violent. Bo’s problem is that he’s a follower, the type who is incapable of making his own decisions. If Roy says, “Let’s beat the Hell out of someone,” Bo is going to agree because … well, why not?
When Roy and Bo graduate from high school, they don’t have much more to look forward to than a life of working in a factory. After an angry Roy violently lashes out at a graduation party, he decides that he and Bo should get out of town. Fortunately, Bo has received $200 as a graduation gift. Roy and Bo decide to use that money to take a trip to Los Angeles.
On the way to L.A., it quickly becomes obvious that Roy is more than just an angry kid. When he and Bo rob a gas station, Roy savagely beats the attendant. When they get to Los Angeles, all Roy can talk about is how much he hates the city and everyone who lives in it. Roy is especially vocal about how much he hates anyone who he perceives as being gay…
Of course, even as Roy is loudly expressing every homophobic thought that pops into his tiny mind, it’s hard not to notice that he seems to be rather obsessed with Bo. In fact, he is so obsessed with Bo that he basically kills anyone who shows the least bit of interest in Bo. Paranoid that Bo is going to abandon him, Roy is willing to do anything to keep that from happening.
The Boys Next Door is one of those films that really took me by surprise. It may start and look like your typical low-budget thriller but The Boys Next Door ultimately reveals itself to be a disturbingly plausible portrait of a sociopath. The film suggests that, as individuals, both Roy and Bo are somewhat laughable but, as a team, they’re deadly. It’s no wonder that Roy is so insistent that Bo always stay with him because, without Bo around, Roy wouldn’t have any motivation to do anything. Everything that Roy does — from theft to murder — is largely to impress Bo. Unfortunately, Bo is too stupid to understand what’s going on in his friend’s head.
Especially when compared to some of the other performances that they are known for, both Sheen and Caulfield do surprisingly good work as the two murderers. Penelope Spheeris wisely directs the film as if it were a documentary and the end result is a harrowing film that deserves to be far better known.
One of my favorite episodes of South Park is called Smug Alert! As you may remember, this is the episode where the citizens of South Park all buy hybrid cars and end up getting so self-satisfied that a dangerous cloud of smug forms over the town. At the same time, another smug storm is racing across the United States. This smug storm was created by the speech that George Clooney gave when he won the Oscar for Syriana. When those two clouds of smug meet, it’s the perfect storm. It also ends up destroying San Francisco.
The same year that Clooney was named Best Supporting Actor for Syriana, he was also nominated for directing the 2005 best picture nominee, Good Night, and Good Luck. In his speech, Clooney specifically said that he felt he was winning supporting actor to make up for not winning director and proceeded to give the speech that he would have given if he had won director.
And looking back, I think that we do have to admit that it was a very smug speech.
Fortunately, Good Night, and Good Luck has aged better than Clooney’s speech.
I do have to admit that, when I recently rewatched Good Night and Good Luck, I was a little concerned. I always manage to forget that the film starts on a really bad note. The year is 1958 and news anchorman Edward R. Murrow (played by David Strathairn) is receiving an award. As Murrow stands behind the podium, he proceeds to give a long and self-righteous speech about how television should be used not to entertain but to educate as well. And, quite frankly, he comes across like such a pompous blowhard that I was dreading the idea of having to spend the next 90 or so minutes with him.
But then, fortunately, the film entered into flashback mode and, until the final few minutes of the film, we didn’t have to listen to anymore of Murrow’s speech. The majority of Good Night and Good Luck takes place in 1953. U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy (who appears in archival footage throughout the film) has declared that he has the names of communists who hold important positions in both the government and the media. Murrow and his producer, Fred Friendly (George Clooney) defy the corporate overlords of CBS and bravely investigate and challenge McCarthy’s claims. McCarthy and his henchmen respond by trying to smear both Murrow and one of his reporters (Robert Downey, Jr.) as a communists. As always seems to happen in films about McCarthyism, another supporting character reacts to the change of communism by committing suicide. And, in this particular vision of the fight against Joseph McCarthy, Edward R. Murrow and the media save America.
Of course, if you actually make the effort to learn history, you’ll discover that it wasn’t just Edward R. Murrow who stood up to McCarthy. In fact, you’ll discover that Murrow stood up to McCarthy after several other prominent people — on both sides of the political divide — had already done so. If anything, the real-life Murrow seems to have more in common with pompous scold seen at the beginning and end of the film, as opposed to the one that we see standing up to McCarthy.
One can very legitimately debate whether or not Murrow deserves all of the credit that he’s given in this film. Still, the film does make a larger and very important point. We, as Americans, have to always be on guard against witch hunts and against demagogues and the forces of fear and paranoia that are always trying to shape our politics. And, whether or not Murrow was a hero or just a bystander, one cannot deny that the larger message of Goodnight, and Good Luck remains as relevant today as when the film was originally released.
Judging from some of his other films — The Monuments Men and the Ides of March — I don’t particularly feel that George Clooney is that good of a director. But he does do a good job with Good Night and Good Luck. (In fact, he does such a good job that you can’t help but feel that it’s the exception to the rule as far as Clooney the director is concerned.) Filmed in wonderful black-and-white and full of good performances, Good Night, and Good Luck remains surprisingly watchable.
Just avoid any George Clooney Oscar speeches while watching it. San Francisco has never recovered.
The race for Awards Season film releases has begun to heat up with trailers for American Hustle and The Butler already showing some major front-runners for the major awards at the end of the year.
We now have another trailer release for a film that looks to join in on all the end of the year awards scramble. It’s the latest film from George Clooney (doing a trifect as writer, director and actor) which sports an impressive ensemble cast that includes Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, John Goodman, Bill Murray, Jean Dujardin and Bob Balaban.
The Monuments Men is based on the true story of archivers, museum directors, art restorers turned soldiers tasked with saving the cultural and fine arts treasures stolen by Hitler’s Nazi forces during World War II. As the war begins to turn again the Nazi’s this group of unconventional soldiers must prevent these treasures from being destroyed as part of Hitler’s “scorched earth” policy when it comes to the cultures he has deemed unworthy.
The film itself is adapted from the book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel. There’s a camp out there who doesn’t look at Clooney’s work as anything but OScar-bait whenever they come around every other year, but there’s no denying that the man can direct and act. The question now is whether The Monuments Men will finally give Clooney that final push into getting his first Best Director Oscar.
The Monuments Men is set for a December 18, 2013 release date.
Through the Shattered Lens 