MacGruber

Saturday is traditionally the night for "Saturday Night Live" and...."Take Out the Trash" Day

"Making Something of Spit and Bailing Wire, and Getting...Spit-Covered Bailing Wire"

The track record for any movie coming out of the sketch-comedy of "Saturday Night Live" is pretty abysmal. The Blues Brothers and Wayne's World did fine, but their sequels didn't. We won't bring up A Night at the Roxbury, The Coneheads, The Ladies Man, It's Pat!, Stuart Saves His Family, ad infinitude. The reason is as obvious as a Mike Myers first-draft (are there any others?)—a concept that can, at most, sustain itself for under 10 minutes has chances of "slim" and "none" of being any good stretched to 90 minutes, let alone two hours. Thank God we've never seen "Subliminal Man" made into a movie...or "The Continental."

As a 5-minute sketch idea, MacGruber fits the bill for an "SNL" skit, although it's concept is the same week after week, the minutest of details being the only things changing. Will Forte plays a dorky McGyver-type, who has mere moments to defuse a bomb by creating something...bomb-defusing...using icky stuff that no one wants to touch let alone re-configure. And, of course, there are complications while Kristen Wiig does a panicked clock-check. The sketch ends with a building blowing up. Cue the Band. Christine Aguilera comes up after the break.

Same joke, every week. If something works once on "Saturday Night Live," they'll keep doing the sketch until that comedian quits or is canned. Somewhere along the way, some exec thought it a good idea to turn that well-tread idea into a feature.

It's sporadically funny in a "I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I" kind of lameness. And it boasts Ryan Phillippe (in slow-burn mode), the usually drop-dead-funny Wiig, and such good actors slumming as Powers Boothe (good to see him) and Val Kilmer, trying to re-capture his youth with a goofy comedy role (I'm suddenly waxing nostalgic for Real Genius and Top Secret!--the name of Kilmer's character is Dieter von Cunth, which shows you the level of humor, but doesn't clue you in that they will use it over...and over...and over...and over...for a rapidly declining chance of a laugh).

In this, MacGruber is coerced out of retirement ("I thought you were dead, MacGruber.." "So did I") in a remote native village (where he can find peace), when it's learned that von Cunth may be up to something no good.* Stuck in the 80's with his mullet, his plaid shirt, tan utility vest, and his Blaupunkt removable in-dash tape-player (he takes it everywhere). One wishes there were more entertainment value in seeing the usual action cliche's—the ones that turn up routinely (and straight) in Michael Bay films—played for laughs: the slow motion team walk, the fiery mega-explosions that have no hearing loss attached to them, the smug banter that passes for dialog, but the laughs are few and far between. You'd think given the time and budget they'd have come up with a grander concept—maybe even come up with a clever gadget or two—but there's nothing like that here. The best idea MacGruber (and the movie) can come up with is creating a distraction by going commando and parading around with a celery stalk up his ass.

No. Really. And they do it twice.

They couldn't even think up a "gadget." For pity's sake.

Save yourself. The clock is ticking. Don't go anywhere near this bomb, and watch these "MacGruber" video's instead.

* ...Like the rest of the movie.

Top Gun: Maverick

Almost There. Al-most Theeere....

or 

"What Were You THINKING?" "But, You TOLD Me Not To Think!!" 

Controversial yet factual opinion: Anthony Edwards is hotter than Tom Cruise in Top Gun. First of all, the mustache? WORKS. Second of all, he's fun! Third of all, Maverick is such a desperate, narcissistic, posturing, alienating, twerpy little prince that I find myself disorientingly at odds with a former self who long ago considered Tom Cruise to be attractive. Who was she? That woman who could look at a picture of young Tom and not flash immediately to this jittery rat terrier with a barely contained rage problem, a monomaniacal fixation on personal glory at the expense of the safety of everyone around him, and an approach to women that can charitably be described as Biff-esque? I don't know her.* Fourth of all, Maverick's hair is bad! It needs to be EITHER SHORTER OR LONGER.

Maverick is the villain of Top Gun.

 

* Paradoxically, I do think that Tom Cruise is an excellent movie star, and I also enjoy his movies!

Lindy West

"I'd Prefer a Highway Away from the Danger Zone, but Okay"

"Shit, Actually"

copyright 2020 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

I can see why there would be a sequel to Top Gun thirty six years after the first film, beyond economic gains. The original was a recruitment poster for the military, and right now there is a shortage of airline pilots creating disruptions of flights. What is interesting about that shortage is that it is due to a changing military. Airline pilots usually came from a military flying background. But, there are less of those pilots being trained now because we're training more drone pilots than military pilots.

 

Plus, Tom Cruise needs a hit. His two big franchises that bring in money are Mission: Impossible and Top Gun—probably his biggest hit. Nobody went to see The Mummy (killing Universal's proposed "Monsterverse" series) and American Made. Jack Reacher is now a streaming TV series. Tom needs a hit.

But, as Lindy West pointed out in her idiosyncratic review of the first film, Tom Cruise's Pete Mitchell was, if anything, the villain of Top Gun. Narcissistic, cocky, heedless, and anti-authoritarian, Mitchell was the military's nightmare—the hot-head not broken by basic training. His actions killed his wing-man, "Goose" and 

I've thought—not very often—that if Mitchell wasn't killed in subsequent flying, he would have become the protagonist of American Made, a pilot for nefarious purposes. I mean, rules are made to be broken, right?

So, this is the guy the Navy wants to train fighter pilots?

Apparently so. Well, not precisely. The Navy doesn't want him. An Admiral in the Navy wants him, that Admiral being Tom "Iceman" Kazansky (Val Kilmer), from the first film. It's easy to get movie-sentimental about that, but it made me think that it was because of an Old Boys Network that got this flame-out back in the cock-pit with any kind of authority. This is wrong thinking. In fact, Top Gun: Maverick doesn't want me to think...at all.

That got me into trouble immediately with this sequel that repeats the first movie's opening minutes with Harold Faltermeyer's theme starting over the same opening text from the first film, then transitions into Kenny Loggin's "Danger Zone" over a "thumbs-up and launch" montage, which reminds people that there are aircraft carriers and take-offs from the flight-deck and that the Navy—for their cooperation in helping make the movie—needed some footage that involved them and not Tom Cruise.

Cruise's Pete Mitchell has been shopping himself out as a test-pilot to an aerospace firm—a very small one, it seems—that has a contract with the navy to supply a hyper-sonic fighter and today is the test to push it to Mach 9. The thing is the Navy brass (in the form of Ed Harris) want the thing to perform at Mach 10. So, what does Maverick do? First, he takes the thing out early—even before Harris' Admiral (who also showed up earlier than scheduled)—and buzzes the guy before taking it to Mach 9. But, no, that's not good enough: Maverick takes it to Mach 10. Okay. Then, he takes it Mach 10.3 before the plane breaks up from the stress and disintegrates.

At this point, I believe, Top Gun: Maverick continues as a dream sequence because...no. No way does Mitchell walk away from this. But, he does in the movie. It's a bit of a mis-step because the flying sequences are CGI (the plane prototype does not exist) and it kind of undercuts the impressive in-camera work done by the flyers and actors in the later F/A-18 sequences. But, it also shows the Maverick hasn't changed that much, pushing everything to the limit until he breaks something, leaving his employers with going back to the drawing board. He's admonished by Harris' Admiral, but then informed that he's been picked to train a class in the Top Gun school for a seemingly impossible mission.

That mission is to take four F/A-18 Super Hornets into forbidden air-space—in a safely-unidentified country, but it probably ends with an "A-N"—flying under any sort of radar detection that would launch SAM attacks, fly up a steep escarpment, take out a uranium enrichment plant nestled in the valley then climb an even steeper escarpment (with heavy G-force consequences) where they may be met by "fifth generation" fighters, if they haven't already been neutralized by the two F/A-18's trailing them to destroy a nearby air-base. 

So, it's basically, the Star Wars "Death Star" trench run (which, admittedly, is a crowd-pleaser) but Star Wars wasn't a two hour film about training for it. Here, the complications are: one of the pilots-in-training is "Rooster" (Miles Teller) Bradshaw, son of "Goose" (from the earlier film), which places Maverick in a position of responsibility and guilt, a re-kindled romance with an Admiral's daughter (Jennifer Connelly) "from the old days"—it's like nothing happened between the first film and this one (No attachments? No kids? Is there some psychological "thing" about this guy?), and the mystery of why Kazansky picked Maverick—of all people—to do this job.

That scene—with Kilmer unable to talk due to his battle with throat cancer—is (apart from the the admittedly well-executed flight scenes) the highlight of the film. Kilmer doesn't have to do much to eke out any audience sympathy, but there's an old sageness to his performance (done with just knowing looks) that's hard to resist, and Cruise pulls off one of those moments where he stops being a movie star and crumples into acting. Nice to see, and that, more than anything, made me want to salute.

The acting is all good. From the by-the-book sourness of Harris, Jon Hamm and Charles Parnell to Connelly's "sure-it's-a-'Girlfriend'-role-but I'm-still-gonna-'Girlfriend'-this-guy-right-off-the-screen" spunkiness. But, ultimately it comes down to that mission—top secret because it isn't sanctioned and probably illegal under international law—where two "miracles" have to happen to pull it off (I counted six) and where the best advice Maverick can offer is "don't think...DO." It is this mantra that saturates and permeates the entire movie, further embedding it in Star Wars mythos, right down to evoking a spirit for guidance at a critical time. At least they had the grace to make a joke about the inanity of that advice and its genuinely funny and well-played.

But, oh boy, it sure apples to this movie. Yeah, it's a good time, and 'gung-ho' and propels itself along at a good clip and the shots in the cock-pits are so amazing, it doesn't matter that the actors are in the back-seats. It delivers the payload and gets away clean without having to answer for anything just like the mission parameters.

 

As long as you don't think about it.

Alexander

Written at the time of the film's release...

Alexander (Oliver Stone, 2004) In the two-way race getting the story of Alexander the Great to the screen between Baz Luhrmann and Oliver Stone, the latter got there first, having worked on a screen-play since 1989. Luhrmann's announcement of an "Alexander" project was probably just the thing Stone's film needed to get off the ground, and his thorough planning shows (historical inaccuracies aside): this is one of Stone's deftest film--a combination of his macho liberal ethics and his pre-disposition to turn everything into braying Myth. 

Here he's dealing with Gods and Titans and men who reach beyond their grasp, and if one thinks this one has a political agenda talking about a King wanting to chase his Persian prey into the mountains, you're only scanning the surface for easy targets.*

Stone's going for epic statements here of dreamers and the pains they inflict on Society** and a pretty good tying up of some major themes in several of his films without descending into his fall-back of the "Good and Bad Fathers of our Soul." Oh, there is familial stress going on constantly with two of the more watchable stars as Alexander's warring father and mother King Phillip and Olympias (Val Kilmer and Angelina Jolie***). Their battles for the betterment of Alexander (Colin Farrell) make up the intrigue that Stone keeps flashing back to once Alexander reaches Babylon and established his first Alexandria city-state. But the main focus is Alexander and his battles from Ireland**** Macedonia to Persia to India, each one given their own specific vantage point. The desert combat in Persia is given a neat over-view by a mythic hawk, the latest in a long line of familiars haunting Stone protagonists. The India battle is an epic jungle gore-fest between man and beast that turns into a red nightmare, but is affectionately begun with an old-time movie iris-out.

The film is so full of "rules of thumb," you begin to wonder if there's not a training manual with the thing ("A commander never gives an order he wouldn't carry out himself," "Don't surrender your reason to passion," "Moderation in all things" and the film's mantra "Fortune favors the bold"), and as gritty as Stone makes it (and there's a lot of blood-spatter flying through the battle scenes), it has the pristine quality of those Hollywood sword-and-sandal epics where even the Persian city of Babylon seems immaculately free of dust. Stone seemed inspired by the look of The Lord of the Rings and its way around a vast story-line, but seems to favor his Myths well-scrubbed.

Still, it's an epic that was filmed in 93 days, despite far-flung locations and looks miraculous despite the tight schedule. For all the things that could conceivably have gone wrong, Stone's Cecil B. DeMille styled dream project managed a lot of things right.

* Stone's W. biography would show up at the end of 2008, looking rushed and a little wasted and without much to say. You can't satirize a political satire, and the joke ceased being funny a long time ago.

** In an odd post-mortem, Alexander's kinsman Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins) supposes that Societies are inspired by dreamers and then exhausted by them to the point of wishing them failure, if not death. That's an interesting thought coming from Mr. Conspiracy Theory. Stone's also one of those liberals who likes to include all of us to enjoy his guilt—"It's all out faults." Hey, speak for yourself, mac!

*** Stone is particularly praise-worthy of his actors on the commentary track of this film and with good cause--Farrell shows off the promise that his over-hyped career has only suggested, Kilmer is as boisterously good as he's been in years, and Jolie again shows why she's one of the most commanding actors on the screen these days. She has a line reading ("Loves. Loves!") that wheels between conflicting emotions with such quick-silver speed that it nearly whips your head around. One would be tempted to see that she's the latter day Ava Gardner if not for one thing—she's a better actor than Gardner. Stone loves a touch of madness in his actors. Jolie is his perfect match.

**** Farrell doesn't disguise his Irish accent, and the kid who plays him (very well) in the early sections of the movie does a fair register of Farrell's brogue. But most of the actors have Irish accents that at times is distracting, but somehow seems fitting for the folk-tale blarney with which Stone tells the story. You go with it, as it feels right. Kilmer's accent is American. Jolie's is faux-Greek.

Deja Vu

John Oliver mentioned this one on Sunday's episode of "Last Week Tonight" —"'Bingo', indeed, Denzel!"—so we're going to go to the "WABAC Machine," via "The Time Tunnel," hit "Rewind" on my Delorean's "Flux Capacitor" and say this was written at the time of the film's release...

Once More into the Time-Breach, Dear Friends, 
or
Stop me if you've heard this one...

I took an "Introduction to Film" course in college (it's why I'm so danged qualified to write these things!). When we got to the study of Russian Cinema, the instructor discussed the differences between their film-making and Hollywood film-making. Russian films were big on "montage." They'd give you pieces of a puzzle and you'd add them up to form the story, and sometimes the juxtaposition of images would react against each other. A shot of a hillside under a sunny sky. A shot of wheat. Another shot of wheat. Another shot of LOTS of wheat. Black smoke appearing over the hillside. A large tire crunches the dirt. The grill of a tractor (for it is a tractor, comrade). People marching (with flags, yet!) beside the tractor in solidarity to the...well, you get the idea. There's a lot of coverage for a simple event.

By CONTRAST, the Hollywood film works like this: a shot of a hillside under a sunny sky; a plane enters the frame.

It blows up.

Déjà Vu is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and with him, you get the best of both film-making worlds--the long drawn out set-up AND something blowing up!! That's art you can take to the BANK, baby! And Bruckheimer does. You can pooh-pooh a lot of his films like Days of Thunder, Bad Boys, Armageddon and Con-Air (and his morgue-TV franchise "CSI: Anywhere," which this film resembles at times) but they draw in the crowds in amazing numbers, especially when Tony Scott (Ridley's brother) is directing (Top Gun, Crimson Tide,), and this is the latest collaboration between Denzel Washington, Scott and Bruckheimer. This film begins with the kind of "America in slo-mo" shots they usually reserve for commercials for something unpleasant like life insurance, or Dupont chemicals. The rule is if you've got kids leaping on the grass at half-speed no one will think anything but happy thoughts when you mention chemical fertilizer. 

Well, we get a lot of that as sailors and their families happily (and sloooowly) board a ferry boat. Then BOOM! It blows up in different speeds at different angles. Lots of coverage of the orange fireball. We've seen this sort of thing from Bruckheimer before. Prolonged normalcy, then instant carnage (is gonna get you). But it's just the beginning of the pattern of referrals, call-backs and out-right "steals" in this moebius strip of a movie.

Enter Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington). He's a crime scene investigator, but instead of being CSI, he's ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms). He's misplaced his partner someplace (yes, it's significant) so he's handling the investigation solo. But that's okay, because like CSI's Gil Grissom, he can spot molecules out of place on a beach filled with debris. In no time at all, he's scored a major lead in the case, while the cops take longer trying to explain where the coffee urn is--no, I'm not making that up. Washington is so ingratiating in the role (doing a grinning spin on his Inside Man investigator) that you're just happy he's on the case.*

Now Gil Grissom actually does show up, but if you blink once or twice you'll realize that it's merely Val Kilmer doing a Bill Petersen imitation. Kilmer's a gifted performer (The Doors, Tombstone, KissKissBangBang), but here he's a little bloated looking, like the love-child of John Travolta and Kurt Russell. 

Carlin's ability to see grains of sand out of place attracts his attention--and they make their way to the Guardian of Forever...or Project Tic-Toc...actually, it's a big terra-computer that can see back in time precisely four days and six hours and with it, the investigators hope to be able to track down the terrorists before they can launch the attack, but they don't know where to pick up the thread. That's Carlin's job and he naturally says, "Watch the girl." And before you can sing one verse of "Laura is the face in the misty light" the group is following her every move even into the shower. High Tech Stalking, but, hey, it's all in the past, after all, and it's (harrumph) "National Security." Now, most investigators fall in love with the object of the investigation (the "Laura" trope) when they see them across a room. This guy sees her across a coroner's slab. So to the creepy "stalking" aspect, perhaps we should add necromancy. Or "nec-romance."

I would say that to reveal more of the plot would spoil the movie, but, really, you've there's nothing new that hasn't been done in better and worse films and TV series. And you just know that once the subject of seeing into the past comes up, someone is actually going to try to...(you're probably way ahead of me AND the movie, which is a sort of reverse time-travel--which should upset the time-space continuum...or at least cause the lights to go dim in Robert McKee's screenwriting seminar!). Luckily for the folks involved, though in most movies of this sort, messing with the past can cause some unseen complications, in this movie there are no loose ends**--everything turns out just as it was before, but better. Well, except for the movie, of course. It's not that Déjà Vu is bad. It's just that it's cobbled together from bits of other movies, so, like the phenomenon for which it's named, you get the nagging feeling you've seen it all before. 

And you have.

Boom!

*With that lead comes a red herring--a woman has washed up on the beach--she's burned, but still beautiful--and she got there before the explosion and against the tide. And before you can say "we'll cross that Einstein-Rosen bridge when we come to it," Washington's Carlin inexplicably makes her the locus/focus of the case..and of course, he's right.

** No, I'm wrong. There is a loose end..with this review. Where's the cat-joke? At one point, going through the "girl's" apartment, Carlin feeds her by-now starving cat...which provoked a companion's retort after the movie, "That's 'Schrödinger's cat!'" And, of course, it is. It's also one of the best inside jokes that even Dennis Miller wouldn't have had the stones to use.