Coyote vs. ACME

Violating Every Law, Including the Laws of Physics and Gravity

or

Sue ACME!?! The One's You SHOULD Be Suing is Warner Bros.! 

 

Writer Michael Maltese and director Charles M. Jones created the long-enduring "Roadrunner" (Geococcyx californianus*)/ "Coyote" (Canis latrans** series in 1949 (debuting September 17th of that year) with the animated short "Fast and Furry-ous," they could not have known how enduring the concept would become. Their stated intention was to parody the current "chase" cartoons—like "Tom and Jerry" being produced by their rivals at M-G-M.*** 

 

The concept could not have been simpler: a hungry coyote attempts to feed himself by chasing a roadrunner along the buttes and mesas of Arizona with the purpose of catching it. Being of less speed than his prey, he augments his pursuit by various lethal means, all of which seem to work against him. Sometimes to a degree that can only call in the intervention of a divine power. Still, undaunted (although increasingly fragile of mind, body, and spirit), the coyote continues his quest, either convinced of his own eventual inevitable superiority or because he's crippled with obsession to an unhinged degree. 

 

Maybe, he's just really hungry.

But, he would never...ever...give up. His character is defined in that way. One could see Job in the coyote. Or Sisyphus, something this latest film acknowledges in a little too "on-the-nose" fashion. But, such thoughts are only in the aftermath. They don't come when you're experiencing it, because you're too busy laughing. Or identifying.

 

Both those thoughts came to mind (when I wasn't guffawing) while watching Coyote vs. Acme, the latest "Looney Tunes" movie and certainly the most successful (artistically, at least) of its home studio's many attempts at trying to reclaim its glory days of producing good material from the anarchic spirits of inhabiting "Termite Terrace" doing the work. Face it. Most of the recent "Looney Tunes" attempts have been less than looney, but merely coasting on character recognition and lame recycled material (more on Warner Brothers and their hapless way of handling their little animated gold-mine later). 

 

But, Coyote vs. ACME builds on an inspired good idea from a 1990 New Yorker humor piece of the same name written by Ian Frazier. Then, expands it, complicates it and fills it so full of in-jokes, real-world parallels, and well-timed cartoon moments that the eventual cartoon "Kaboom" is inevitable. The cascading shrapnel of laughter is the end-result. And, boy, do we need that now.

Frazier's article took the form of a protracted legal brief. But, Coyote vs. ACME begins with the last body-penetrating straw. Wile E. Coyote ("Super-genius") attempts to chase the Roadrunner utilizing his latest delivery from the ACME Corporation—ACME having a history of being the second worst company to order from (TEMU being the first)—a pair of jet-powered roller-skates. Of course, they malfunction. Of course, things go from bad to worse to worst. Of course, it ends up with a coyote-shaped hole in the desert. And then, the burned-to-a-flattened-crisp canine sees a possible answer. A billboard for the law-firm of Avery, Jones and Maltese (nudge, nudge), led by Will Forte's Kevin Avery) specializing in personal cartoon injuries, court-cases that they inevitable settle out of court. They also offer "Twofer Tuesdays".

So, saddled with a ruck-sack of evidence (it IS a cartoon after all), the hapless coyote travels to the law-firm's headquarters in Albuquerque (not making any left-turns) and demands justice. Not a settlement. A real honest-to-Perry Mason judgement against ACME and their claim of only making "life-enhancing family products." Their lead attorney is the detestable Buddy Crane (Jon Cena), a monster of a litigator at the behest of its CEO, a Mr. F. Leghorn.

I've already spoiled a couple jokes. I will not spoil any others and leave it to your own version of a "Discovery Phase" to enjoy them unrecycled. But, I will say that the jokes come "fast and furry-ous", one on top of the other, exquisitely timed, building to the hammering topper, with screens so full of detail that I probably MISSED as many jokes as I enjoyed. Definitely a repeat-screener.

Is it perfect? No (no comedy is...). There is a live-action chase scene that Chuck Jones would have cut in half, and the ending bends embedded character-tropes to the point of fraying a snapping. And, there is one radical little idea that they might have exploited for an ending that is probably too finger-lickin' good to use. But, these are quibbles. Only an old curmudgeonly Looney Tunes fan like myself should let those lost opportunities darken what is there.

It's a miracle that this movie has reached screens at all. The bone-headed bean-counters at Warner Brothers funded the film to the looney tune of millions of dollars, and, in a move that could only exist in a The Producers-like universe of accountancy, decided that, after all that time and effort...and quality results...they would shelve it, never to see the light of a projector (wait for it)...as a TAX WRITE-OFF. It's a move so contrarian, so Bizarro-world™ (also owned by Warner Brothers), so maroonish, it could be its own cartoon, and fit squarely (and squirrely) into the very movie they were abandoning.

That it's in theaters AT ALL is solely because of fan-protests, a certain amount of deserved corporate shaming, and the cash-waving of ketchup entertainment, who took it out of the cold dead hands of Warner Brothers mis-management in order to put it in theaters and eventually home entertainment. The situation is acknowledged in the end-credits...and there's a nice little dig at Warner Brothers right of the bat.

Perhaps, the WB should abandon Bugs Bunny and Michigan J. Frog as appropriate mascots and, instead, use the coyote as their propensity for shooting themselves in the foot with their own product is becoming the true trademark of this once-great studio.

 

* ** A list of the faux-latin taxonomy names 

Cartoon                                           Roadrunner                           Coyote

"Fast and Furry-ous" 1949            Acceleratii Incredibus           Carnivorous vulgaris

"Zipping Along" 1953                     Velocitus tremenjus              Road-Runnerus digestus

"Stop! Look! And Hasten!" 1954    Hot-roddicus supersonicus   Eatibus anythingus

"Ready.. Set.. Zoom!" 1955           Speedipus rex                        Famishus-famishus 

"Guided Muscle" 1955                    Velocitus delectiblus             Eatibus almost anythingus 

"Gee Whiz-z-z-z-z-z-z" 1956         Delicius-delicius                    Eatius birdius 

"There They Go-Go-Go!" 1956       Dig-outius tid-bittius             Famishius fantasticus

"Scrambled Aches" 1957               Tastyus supersonicus            Eternalii famishiis

"Zoom and Bored" 1957                Birdibus zippibus                   Famishus vulgarus

"Whoa, Be-Gone!" 1958                Birdius high-ballius               Famishus vulgaris ingeniusi 

"Hook, Line and Stinker" 1958      Burnius-roadibus                  Famishius-famishus 

"Hip Hip- Hurry!" 1958                  Digoutis-unbelievablii           Eatius Slobbius 

"Hot-Rod and Reel!" 1959             Super-sonicus-tastius            Famishius-famishus 

"Wild About Hurry" 1959              Batoutahelius                         Hardheadipus oedipus

"Fastest with the Mostest" 1960   Velocitus incalcublii              Carnivorous slobbius 

"Hopalong Casualty" 1960            Speedipus rex                         Hard-Headipus ravenus

"Zip 'n Snort" 1961                        Digoutius-hot-rodis                Evereadii eatibus 

"Lickety-Splat" 1961                      Fastius tasty-us                     Apetitus giganticus 

"Beep Prepared" 1961                   Tid-bitius velocitus                Hungrii flea-baggius

"Zoom at the Top" 1962                Disappearialis quickius          Overconfidentii vulgaris 

 

 *** Jones said he was inspired by a childhood reading of Mark Twain's "Roughing it".

In his book "Chuck Amuck" he wrote, "I first became interested in the coyote while devouring Mark Twain’s Roughing It at the age of seven. I had heard of the coyote only in passing references from passing adults and thought of it – if I thought of it at all – as a sort of dissolute collie.  As it turns out, that is just about what a coyote is; and no one saw it more clearly than Mark Twain. The author’s description of a coyote went like this: 'The coyote is a long, slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton with a grey wolf skin stretched over it…he is a living, breathing allegory of want. Who could resist such an enchanting creature?’" 

 

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.

Good Boys

F-Bombs (Out of the Mouths of Babes)
or
"Two Weeks in the 6th Grade and I'm a Social Piranha!"

The "R" rating is prominent in the promotions for Good Boys because, God forbid, kids the ages of the stars of it should go see this movie (at the premieres, do they escort them out? I mean, they ACTED the damn thing). But, then, I'm not sure what good it would do to actually let 11-12 year old's see this movie, other than to show them what adults think of them.

Because the movie isn't FOR the age-group it depicts, like a YAF novel. It's for adults to give them a nostalgic laff about the naivete and confusion of that time period between childhood and wanting to be an adult—you realize you can't do certain things adults can do, you're constantly told "you wouldn't understand," you see adulthood as a freedom you covet without realizing the responsibilities that come with it (that give you no freedom at all). It's the last flush of childhood that you can actually enjoy before the mantle of licenses, financial responsibilities and permanent records take away your childhood and make you nostalgic for the way things were.

Which is why they make movies like Good Boys for adults.

There's a grand tradition of this in the movies—"Our Gang," one of my faves The Sandlot ("You're killing me, Smalls"), where kids are trying to act like adults in an adult world, where the adults are almost absent (the comic strip "Peanuts" is like this where there are no adults and the kids talk—as cartoonist Al Capp used to carp—"like psychiatrists" or, as in the animated versions, adults squawk like muted trumpets). If it was a drama, it would be To Kill a Mockingbird—kids not understanding the frailties and failings of adults. But, in a comedy, it's kids trying to negotiate through the adult world without understanding it, and Good Boys takes it to the extreme.

The story follows the issues of "The Beanbag Boys" (called that because...they all have beanbag chairs)—Max (Jacob Trembley, the brilliant young actor from Room), Lucas (Keith L. Williams, who's hilarious) and Thor (Brady Noon, who gives the most mannered performance, but has the most conflicted role)—friends since kindergarten, who are entering sixth grade, which for them is a highly transitional time. Their little clique runs the risk of fraying due to peer pressure, family crises, and the inevitable consequences of growing up and away from each other, but seem determined to stay bonded through thick and thin.

Thor is the most theatrical, but also the one most susceptible to peer pressure—despite his talents, he doesn't try out for the sixth grade school play because he'd be thought of "not cool." Max is starting to notice girls, particularly Brixlee (Millie Davis), who he can't look in the eye while also trying to be apathetic, at the same time the sight of her makes him weak in the knees. Lucas, is the tallest of the three, but is being cut down to size due to the impending divorce of his parents. These are the crises of children, because their stasis is being shattered and change is being forced on them without any regard to how they feel about it. They are completely messed up, but try to hide it behind a veneer of "cool" lest they humiliate themselves.

The events of the movie revolve around Max and his Brixlee fixation. The popular boys are giving them a hard time--Thor is being harassed  for his interest in theater arts, conflicting with Max, who wants to be popular because he thinks it will give him a better chance with Brixlee (an invitation to a "kissing party" That Brixlee is going to becomes his obsession). Big problem, though;  he's never kissed anybody. What if his kissing...well...sucks. To get an education--a horrifying encounter with porn doesn't work because "they never kiss, not their mouths"--Max takes control of his father's drone against his orders ("I use it for work!") to spy on two "old" girls, Hannah (Molly Gordon) and Lily (Midori Francis) in Hannah's nearby backyard. Hannah has a college boyfriend, so the boys "one-up" the traditional spying through the fence to go to aerial reconnaissance. They watch Hannah and Benji--the boyfriend--have a fight right after he delivers some "Molly" to Hannah for a concert that night. Just when the girls go in for a consoling clinch, Max loses control of the droid, allowing the girls to capture it...and hold it hostage.

This is not good. It becomes a hostage situation that goes seriously wrong with a confrontation where Max may have to 'fess up to his Dad and be grounded for the kissing party. But, Thor manages to steal one of the girls' gotcha bags containing the ecstasy (don't worry, the boys don't get access to it--they can't figure out child-proof caps). But, it begins a cat-and-mouse game between the Beanbag Boys and the "old girls" as each has something the other wants. There are the inevitable complications that divert this "Coming of Age" movie into an "Incredible Mess" movie (the kind where relatively simple goals become increasingly out-of-reach by increasing road-blocks, tangents and diverting sub-goals that keep the ultimate goal tantalizingly harder to achieve.

"Honey...yeah...we're not having kids."

The Beanbag Boys turn out to be surprisingly adept at navigating these smaller complications to achieve their ends, even as they risk fraying the fabric that binds them together.

They're not bad kids--in fact, their naivete and embedded anti-drug indoctrination makes them quite charming, despite the beer-sipping (four sips is a crowd-impressing record) and the F-bombs that explode out of their mouths.

They're just trying to make sense of a bizarre adult world that, more often than not, turns them into screaming meemies (and cry-babies--they are constantly crossing the line from sixth grade sophisticates to the behavior of kids in single digits). I'm not sure what kids would make of this if they were allowed to ss it (for one thing, a lot of the jokes will fly right over their heads). But, then, they're not the target audience. Older teens and adults are, and in that context, the movie is a nostalgic comedy as opposed to being about the loss of whatever innocence they still retain.

It's an odd movie. But very funny.

Nebraska

Making Things Right
or
And Everything Looks Worse in Black and White

There's a story that Peter Bogdanovich got sick of telling during all the press junkets he did for The Last Picture Show about why he shot in black and white rather than color. Truth was, that he started test-shots of the Archer City location (author Larry McMurtry's home town) in color, but the town always looked too good, and didn't have the sense of bleakness that he wanted. The story goes that he went to Orson Welles (who was staying at his house) and mused maybe he should shoot the movie in black and white. "Of COURSE you'll shoot it in black and white!" Welles barked back. After repeating the story over and over again at press interview after press interview, the last few times Bogdanovich simplified his answer: "Because Orson Welles told me to."

I don't think Alexander Payne shot Nebraska in black and white for that reason, or because it might recall the cover of the same-titled Bruce Springsteen album.  But, I think the bleakness is there, running as an under-current through the film as a view of life—not rosy and pink with vitality, green with verdancy, but shades of gray and the occasional extreme of black or white—the palette for a story of folks with limited choices in the nuances of life...and truth. But, lest you think this one's about old folks with one foot in the grave, or Alzheimer's or something like that, it's not. Not really. It's about living life before you run out of it, and grabbing any kind of dignity out of that life, despite Nature's determination to take it away in any way it can.

And not to mention your relatives and acquaintances.

It's also a damned funny movie, in the same low-key, sometimes painful way that its writer, Bob Nelson, wrote sketches for the late, lamented "Almost Live!" show which seemed to focus more on human dysfunction, rather than Pacific Northwest eccentricities. The old saw "familiarity breeds contempt" is apt here, as the extended Gates family, long separated (for good reason, apparently), is blandly caustic, bringing up family histories and past imperfections as grist for the family grinding mill.

The Gates clan watch a baseball game: Rance Howard (far left);
Bruce Dern (asleep in the back) and Will Forte (placating, far right)
"Wow, this feels too much like real life" said one of the patrons in Nebraska's audience.

The story's simple and seemingly uneventful, but mindful of David Lynch's The Straight Story. Woodrow Gates (Bruce Dern) is picked up by the police walking the highway in Billings, Montana. "Where ya goin'?" says the Sheriff. "Headed down the road there,' says Woody, none too helpfully.

O-kay, there's a little detour to the police station, where his son David (Will Forte) comes to pick him up. "So you told the Sheriff you were walking to Nebraska..." Woody's wife (June Squibb) won't drive him, he doesn't have a car, and he won't be given money for the bus. The reason he wants to go to Nebraska (Lincoln, specifically) is because he got a certificate in the mail from a magazine promotion company saying that he could have won a million dollars. Woody doesn't "buy" that it's a way to get him to buy magazines; he thinks he's won it, so he's walking to Lincoln to get his million. Why didn't he just mail it in? "I'm not going to trust the mail with a million dollars." Makes perfect sense. Walking, though, doesn't.

There's no sympathy at home. Wife Kate won't entertain any of this "I didn't know the son-of-a-bitch wanted to be a millionaire! Know what I'd do with a million dollars? I'd put him in a home!!" Brother Ross (Bob Odenkirk) thinks Dad's senile and doesn't want to hear of it. Only David will entertain the notion of driving Woody to Lincoln, if only for the chance to connect with the old man. They set off with some hitches and fits along the way, eventually stopping at relatives' to get a breather from what would seem to be a continuing series of minor disasters. But, his old stomping grounds bring no comfort, as word soon gets around that Woody's driving to Lincoln to get a million dollars—a sum that strikes everyone dumb...and a little bit stupid. Old debts are brought up, and quite a few people want a part of that million dollars whether they deserve it or not...and for some reason, nobody thinks twice about how Woody might have come into that money—the amount leaves them a little blinkered. And envious. And opportunistic.

For David, it's an opportunity to gain some perspective (just the ability to see Woody's past surroundings adds a little knowledge) and, as he's stuck in a pattern of "getting by," some insight into both Dad and himself. By the time the two ride off into the last shot—one of the loveliest and most potent of the past year's movies, a black-and-white sunset—a nice, warming resolution has been reached. But not too warming. It is a sunset. And it is in black-and-white, lest it betray any cheer or a rosy sensibility. Payne, evidently, did make a color version of Nebraska to satisfy some niche contractual requirements for the studio (Paramount Vantage), but has expressed hope that it never sees the light of electronics.

OF COURSE, it won't. It would be a completely different movie, and a less effective one.