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Posts Tagged ‘Michael Ballhaus’

What About Bob?

Tuesday, May 18th, 2021

May 17, 1991

If we agree with director Bill Duke that A RAGE IN HARLEM is “no god damn comedy,” then we have now come to Summer 1991’s first actually funny comedy. WHAT ABOUT BOB? is also the first ’91 release we’ve come to that seems arguably too problematicTM to be made now, at least quite like this.

You see, Bill Murray (following SCROOGED, GHOSTBUSTERS II and QUICK CHANGE) plays a person with multiple debilitating psychological disorders who follows his psychiatrist to his vacation home and, as they say, drives him crazy. Of course this is uncomfortable because we know so many horror stories of stalkers – troubled people crossing boundaries with results that are less hilarious and more tragic. But what really feels of-a-different-time is just how much poor Bob Wiley’s struggles are played for laughs. As he squirms and winces while struggling just to step outside of his apartment or touch a doorknob or get on an elevator, the score by Miles Goodman (TEEN WOLF, K-9) makes sure we know that it’s cute and funny. That seems kind of mean, or just off base when I think about how much Bob reminds me of a much less lovable Bob I dealt with for years at my day job. (read the rest of this shit…)

Wild Wild West

Tuesday, July 18th, 2017

a survey of summer movies that just didn’t catch on

Big Willie Weekend, 1999

Two summers after their hit film MEN IN BLACK, director Barry Sonnenfeld (d.p. of BLOOD SIMPLE) and star Will Smith (SUICIDE SQUAD) tried to bring a similar comedy/special-effects/adventure mix to the old west. It’s like a western in that there are cowboy hats, guns, railroads and occasional horses, but also not really because it’s about two top agents for the president going undercover and then having a big battle against a giant mechanical spider that’s on a rampage and headed for the White House. Not a type of story I’ve seen done with John Wayne or Clint or anybody.

The basis is The Wild Wild West, a western-meets-spies TV show that lasted four seasons, ending thirty years prior to the movie. It was actually cancelled not due to a lack of popularity, but controversy over violence on television, and did have two followup TV movies. But the last of those was in 1980, and nineteen years later it was at best a cult show, and not yet available on DVD. So this is another expensive blockbuster based on characters that most of its intended youthful audience had never seen, or in this case even heard of.

But they didn’t have to know it was based on anything. Waning interest in westerns may have been a bigger problem, but that could’ve been overcome by the popularity of Smith, or the fun gimmick of the gadgets and steampunk type robotics, or the energetic style and cartoonish humor of the director of the ADDAMS FAMILY movies.

But that didn’t happen. (read the rest of this shit…)

Under the Cherry Moon

Thursday, December 22nd, 2016

Remember in the ’60s when Prince starred in that French romantic comedy? Well, I guess that didn’t happen per se, but it’s kind of what his 1986 directorial debut UNDER THE CHERRY MOON feels like. It’s not really a period piece, but it’s filmed in gorgeous black and white (grain perfectly preserved on the excellent new Blu-Ray transfer), has a goofy old fashioned tone and doesn’t have many contemporary styles or references outside of the amazing soundtrack by Prince and the Revolution. The many songs we know as the album Parade (biggest hit: “Kiss”), but there’s also plenty of great instrumental music in there that’s sadly not on the soundtrack.

Prince plays Christopher Tracy, a slick gigolo type from Miami, currently on the Riviera living off of rich French women who he seduces during his job as pianist at a restaurant. He has it down to a science. Best friend/roommate/possibly brother Tricky (Jerome Benton from The Time) is a very effeminate fellow pussyhound who is in awe of Christopher’s skills as he lays in the bath tub improvising love poems over the phone. He’s designed to deliver a certain type of pleasure to a certain type of woman, and it helps that he looks like Prince.

The romcom formula kicks into gear when these love vultures learn of a party for the 21st birthday of the heiress Mary Sharon (Kristin Scott Thomas, ONLY GOD FORGIVES, in her first role), when she will inherit $50 million. They crash the party with plans for Chris to figure out how to marry her. (read the rest of this shit…)