Ask 411 Movies 01.25.10: War is Hell and Love Isn’t Much Better!

Posted by Leonard Hayhurst on 01.25.2010

Ravenous, Battleground, Heartbreak Hotel, Burn Notice, After Hours and chewing scenery

I have tickets for RAW this week. I'll let you know how the show was next week. Although I'm thinking I drew the short end of the guest host list with Dule Hill and James Roday of "Psych." No offense guys, but you're no Don Johnson.

To finish out Elvis month on YouTube, a clip from the fairly obscure 1988 movie Heartbreak Hotel. When Marie Wolfe (Tuesday Weld) is in a car accident and his family gets in trouble financially, Johnny Wolfe (Charlie Schlatter) and his band kidnap Elvis Presley (David Keith) and bring him to his small town. It's 1972 and the King was in major need of getting back to his roots. It's an interesting alternate tale of Elvis Presley that so much doesn't focus on Elvis as a caricature, but as a man due to fame and excess lost his way. I remember a distinct scene where Elvis objects to Johnny having an American Flag on the back of his jacket and he rips it off and shows the proper way to fold it, which Elvis learned in the Army. Little touches like that make him a three dimensional character.



Q: For the life of me I can't remember the name of a movie from the mid-to-late 90s where during the trailer some guy yells, "HE WAS LICKING ME!" I think it was set around the Civil War time and some dude ate people to take the "life power" or something like that. Any clue?
-BFF

A: As pegged by Mario, your film is the 1999 horror, kind of comedy, Ravenous. Capt. John Boyd (Guy Pierce) is promoted during the Mexican-American War and sent to Fort Spencer, which is filled with generates such as Col. Hart (Jeffrey Jones), Col. Ives (Robert Carlysle), Pvt. Reich (Neal McDonough) and Pvt. Cleaves (David Arquette). Boyd finds that all is not as it seems as he told an ancient Indian tale of how warriors would eat the defeated to gain strength and spiritual power. The film was filled with production problems as director Milcho Manchevski was replaced two weeks into filming by Antonia Bird. The finale fight overtop cabins while they burned was scrapped as being too difficult to film and instead Pierce and Carlysle just beat the snot out of each other in an improvised fight until they ran out of fake blood. The movie is bizarre with a unique premise based on the time and setting. A cast that gets the script helps as it tows a line between horror and camp.



Q: How did the term "chewing scenery" start?
-The Great Capt. Smooth

A: Chewing scenery, or similar phrases, can refer to overacting or an actor that is attacking a part with spirit and vigor. According to theatrecrafts.com, the term first appeared in 1894 in "Coeur D'Alene" by Idahoan novelist Mary Hallock Foote. Those in a mining community refer negatively to lead character Jack by saying, "Lads, did ye hear him chewin' the scenery, giving' himself away like a play-actor?" As to where Foote might have got it from is hard to say, but that's the earliest reference I found. What it means metaphorically is that an actor, whether good or bad, is going so hard and so energetically at their part that it's almost like they are ‘attacking' or ‘eating' the scenery with such bluster.

Q: Hey, Leonard. What is your opinion of Burn Notice? How do you think it compares to Miami Vice?
-Spaghett

A: "Burn Notice" is currently working on its third season on USA Network with 39 episodes so far shown. Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan) is a spy who is given a ‘burn notice,' or blackballed, from the spy community. He's stuck in Miami where his only allies are his mom (Sharon Gless), a trigger happy ex-girlfriend named Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar) and Sam (Bruce Campbell) who used to inform on Westen to the feds. The first season Westen searched for who put the burn notice on him. He found the people and worked for them in the second season. In the third season, he is out from under the thumb of those who burned him, but now everyone with a grudge against him is coming out of the woodwork. In between all this, Westen takes on cases of those who could use his special skills.

As far as a comparison to "Miami Vice," it's mainly the use of Miami the city as a character in and of itself with quirky minor characters as residents, slick fashion, fast cars and bright colors. If anything, I would compare the series to "The A-Team." Westen is framed for a crime he didn't commit and is now hired by people to fix problems that require his unique skills for violence and con artistry. And to think, it was originally to be set in Newark, N.J.

I really like the show as I think it's smart and well acted while being a throwback to the fast paced, slick action series of the eighties. It's a good blend of action, mystery and how-are-they-going-get-out-of-this-one as Westen in voiceover gives good tips on how to run cons and read people.



Q: Every year when the 24-hour A Christmas Story marathon is running, my dad and I geek out for the mention of Terre Haute, Indiana.
-neverAcquiesce

A: Other references to Terre Haute:
* It was the target of the Nazis in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.
* Shirley MacClaine asks Frank Sinatra to honeymoon there in Some Came Running.
* It's the hometown of Cissy, Jody and Buffy in "Family Affair" before moving in with their uncle.
* It's also the hometown of Mrs. Quick on "Sabrina the Teenage Witch."
* In the "I Love Lucy" episode featuring George Reeves as Superman, Reeves originally can't play Little Ricky's party because he's going there.
* In Blue Brothers, Matt "Guitar" Murphy said he was in jail there.

Q: Leonard,

1)Martin Scorsese just got honoured at the Golden Globes. He's got a lot of great movies, but what's arguably his worst film?

2) Do you listen to DVD commentaries? Who do you find an enjoyable listen? I've always found the Simpsons/Futurama crew to be highly enjoyable, and the people who do the Disney and Pixar animated features, while you're never going to hear any juicy gossip, are really informative on their whole process, and they like to point out some freeze-frame gags, like the skulls in Gaston's eyes just before he falls to his death in Beauty & the Beast.

3) (I probably asked this question before, and if I did, I'm sorry). Ebert once said that remakes should happen to movies that had good concepts, but poor execution (or something to that effect). 3:10 to Yuma being a good example of a film that was made better by different people. Are there any older movies that you thought they could have done so much more with, and would have liked to see the material in more capable hands?

Keep up the good work,
-Vince

A: In comments last week IFB went with Gangs of New York and Spaghett said Kundun. Both made very logical arguments. I used to not like King of Comedy, but it's grown on me with repeat viewings. Especially as celebrity stalkers and how the infamous can become just regular famous has increased. Some critics get on Color of Money, but as I mentioned before, it's my all time favorite movie for a myriad of reasons. I don't go crazy over Taxi Driver like most do, but I do recognize it as a great film. For me, Scorsese's best would be Raging Bull.

Now, back to the worst, I would say After Hours from 1985. Lot of spoilers here, because I need to show how convoluted and nonsensical it is. Paul (Griffin Dunne) plays a regular joe in New York who meets Marcy (Rosanna Arquette) at a coffee shop and goes up town to see her. His money blows out of the cab and he can't pay the fare. He finds her apartment and meets her roommate sculptor Kiki (Linda Fiorentino). Paul finds medication that leads him to believe that Marcy is scarred from burns and he leaves. Later it's revealed that she's not, but it's never told where the medication is from. Paul can't pay the subway fare either and seeks money from a local bar owner, Tom (John Heard), but he forgot the cash register keys at home. He gives Paul his house keys to go get the register keys and on the way he runs into two thieves (Cheech and Chong, I kid you not) with a sculpture from Kiki. He gets it back and returns it to the apartment to find that Marcy killed herself, apparently out of being rejected by Paul. Paul goes back to Tom, who is Marcy's boyfriend and in grief. Paul goes to another bar to find Kiki and her boyfriend (Will Patton), but he winds up getting mistaken for a burglar and is chased by a mob of homosexuals and two women he met earlier (Teri Garr and Catherine O'Hara). Another sculptress, June, (Verna Bloom) coats Paul in plaster to hide him as a sculpture, but then won't let him go. You think that is weird shit, get this, Cheech and Chong then steal Paul thinking he's a real statue and he falls out of their van near his office building just as day breaks and the plaster shatters to let him loose. The end.

Tim Burton was to be the original director, but he stepped aside when Scorsese showed interest after reading the script when The Last Temptation of Christ was held up in shooting. Alternate endings had Paul forever trapped in the plaster and another had him climbing into June's womb to hide and then being ‘born' out later. Scorsese has admitted that he tried to emulate/parody Alfred Hitchcock in the film with the intricate camera movements and tracking shots. There's a problem there, Scorsese wasn't being Scorsese but was trying to ape someone else. Overall it's just a weird, incoherent mess that has gained a cult following. I found many references to it being underrated. These people are on PCP.



I listen to some DVD commentaries, it just depends what I'm in the mood for. Kevin Smith and his crew usually do good ones. Bruce Campbell in character as Elvis for Bubba Ho-Tep is brilliant. I've got Joe Bob Briggs on Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter that is informative and funny. I think commentary tracks are one of the best features to proliferate with DVDs because it allows a more deep viewing experience that delves into the what and why of a film that can often clarify or at least entertain on a new level outside the movie itself.

I would agree with Roger Ebert's comment. If you want to remake a film it should be because you think you can approve upon the original in some significant way. I would like a remake of Something Wicked This Way Comes. Several segments from the movie were cut because the use of computer generated effects and traditional animation didn't work to be convincing enough. One was the carnival emerging from the smoke of the train and natural landscape, another was the boys being terrorized by a large mechanical hand. Author Ray Bradbury said that he was very unhappy with how the film came out as many sequences were changed or deleted. With the leap forward in cgi since that time the movie could be made to the original intentions.



Another remake I've said I would like to see is Hannie Caulder. This western casts Raquel Welch in the title role as a woman who was raped and her husband murdered. She meets up with a bounty hunter played by Robert Culp who trains her to be a gunfighter to get revenge. I thought this would be a great film for Quentin Taratino to tackle. I would like to see him do a western and the storyline is certainly something up his alley. There are plenty of minor parts for him to put his usual cast of cronies in to.



Q: It was a wet cold day last Saturday, and I happened to flip by TMC. I was almost immediately pulled into the movie they had on. The movie was called, "Battleground", and was the story of a group of soldiers surrounded by Germans in a dense fog in Bastogne in WWII, After watching it I did some research and found out it came out in 1949.

The movie surprised me with its tone. Most of the WWII movies that came out in that time frame have plucky All- American boys fighting the evil Nazis. This movie had scared, lost, hungry, and cold soldiers fighting and dying in very realistic ways. To me it was similar to "Saving Private Ryan" without the blood, language, and heavy handed message.

Have you seen this movie? I'd recommend it highly.
-gkctex

A: I caught it on TCM as well. The Essentials have been interesting this go around with Alec Baldwin's influences on the picks. The 1949 war drama traces the 101st airborne trapped in Bastogne, Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge toward the end of World War II. Screenwriter Robert Pirosh served in the infantry and used his real life experiences to craft the script. Director William Welman served in World War I as a pilot and was known for his gritty, realistic style of filmmaking. If you enjoyed Battleground I would suggest also checking out Welman's The Story of G.I. Joe and his western The Ox-Bow Incident. The ensemble cast is solid, particularly Van Johnson as the smart aleck and James Whitmore in a break out performance for him. I think you can see in the movie in how the cast plays off of each other, the realism injected into the action and the stylish use of light, shadow, snow and fog the influence on later war movies, as you mention with Saving Private Ryan. The film comments on war and violence in general, but not in a total negative fashion. It realizes that war is sometimes a necessary evil and that heroes can be made out of the most common of men.

Oddly, the clip below has the chaplain claiming to be from Chillicothe, Ohio. Remember a few weeks ago I pointed out a few movie instances where the city popped up. The one guy says he's from Buckeye Lake, which is about half hour from me.



Don't die.

"Eat to live. Don't live to eat."