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SEPTEMBER...
Secret Lives of Dentists 9.4.3 Secret Lives of Dentists.
9.4.3. 1:45pm. $7. Rated R. 1:37 purchase time.
I saw The Secret Lives of Dentists at the Vogue with Jane. It
was okay. Told the story of a married couple with three young kids; Campbell
Scott suspects wife is cheating on him. There was truth in this story,
but it was never entertaining or interesting. The entire family gets the
stomach flu and is vomiting and dealing with diarrhea throughout. One
of the children nearly dies from a high fever. Rather unpleasant.
Dickie Roberts. Kabuki. PG13. 1:30pm,
Sun, 9.7.3, Aud#1. Mat $7. Ticket bought at 1:20pm. With Jane. Tagline:
50 million people used to watch him on TV. Now he washes their cars.
I like David Spade. He was good on Saturday Night Live and great
on Just Shoot Me. He hasn't made a good movie. Dickie Roberts
is a former child star, decides to move in with a family to see what a
real childhood would have been like. All this so he can get a part in
a Rob Reiner film. Reiner has a cameo.
Cast includes Doris Roberts, Jon Lovitz, Alyssa Milano, Craig Bierko,
Mary McCormack, Rachel Dratch, Ian Gomez, Edie McClurg, Leif Garrett,
Danny Bonaduce, Barry Williams, Dustin Diamond, Emmanuel Lewis, Bobby
Slayton, Sasha Mitchell, John Farley, Kevin Farley.
Dozens of ex-sitcom stars have cameos, mostly during the end credits,
singing a strange We Are the World type of gag song -- including Willie
Aames, Tom Arnold, Fred Berry, Todd Bridges, Gary Coleman, Jeff Conaway,
Tony Dow, Corey Feldman, Corey Haim, Florence Henderson, Christopher Knight,
Barry Livingston, Mike Lookinland, Maureen McCormick, Eddie Mekka, Jeremy
Miller, Erin Moran, Jay North, Ron Palillo, Butch Patrick, Paul Petersen,
Haywood Nelson, Adam Rich, Rodney Allen Rippy, Marion Ross, Ernest Thomas,
Charlene Tilton, Dick Van Patten.
Directed by Sam Weisman. Written by David Spade & Fred Wolf. Executive
Producers Adam Sandler & Fred Wolf.
Lost In Translation. Evil Sony
Metreon/Loews Theatres. 3:50pm, Sat, 9.13.3, Auditorium 7, bought at 3:24pm.
With Jane. Tagline: Everyone wants to be found.
One of the best films so far this year. Had to see it at the lowly Metreon,
as it was the only theatre it opened in world it's first weekend. Sofia
Coppola's second film as director (after The Virgin Suicides).
Tokyo. Modern day. Ritzy hotel. Bill Murray is an American movie star
(whose career seems to have already peaked) in Japan to shoot some TV
ads for a Japanese whisky. Scarlett Johansson is recently married to fashion/celeb
photographer Giovanni Ribisi, who leaves her alone all day in the hotel
while he's out taking pictures.
Murray and Johansson develop a unique, quirky relationship. This film
is very funny and very touching, and very good. Murray is outstanding,
there is Oscar talk.
Also starring Catherine Lambert, Anna Faris, Mathew Minami, Hiromix,
Akira. Written and directed by Sofia Coppola. Produced by Sofia Coppola
& Ross Katz. Executive Producers: Francis Ford Coppola & Fred Roos.
American Splendor. $9.25. 4:30pm.
Sun 9.14.3. Sold by Alex at 4:20pm. Century Empire 3. Tagline: Ordinary
life is pretty complex stuff.
I liked this movie. Not as much as most critics, but I liked it. True
story of comic book writer and R. Crumb pal, Harvey Pekar, who you may
have seen on David Letterman's old show in the 80s. He's a cynic, really
downbeat, kind of unattractive, in a way nasty, he's argumentative, but
deep down he's a decent guy. The film does an interesting thing of weaving
in and out showing us the real life Pekar and the other people portrayed
in the film, with the actors. That's a messy sentence. Don't have time
to do anything about it.
Cast Paul Giamatti as Harvey Pekar, Harvey Pekar, James Urbaniak as Robert
Crumb, Judah Friedlander ("I am a nerd") as Toby Radloff, Toby
Radloff, Hope Davis as Joyce Brabner, Joyce Brabner, Donal Logue, Molly
Shannon. Written and directed by Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini.
Produced by Ted Hope.
Matchstick Men. UA Metro. 9.23.3,
3:45pm, $7, ticket sold at 3:39pm. Tagline: lie cheat steal rinse repeat.
Plot Outline: A phobic con artist and his protege are on the verge of
pulling off a lucrative swindle when the con artist's teenage daughter
arrives unexpectedly (imdb).
A little more than halfway through this film I figured out the trick.
I wasn't trying to, it just hit me. So for the next 45 minutes I was just
kind of checklisting off in my mind the scenes that had to come next.
The film did do something with an epilog sequence that I hadn't seen coming
and that was positive and "nice," but nevertheless. Nevertheless is a
great word.
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Sam Rockwell, Alison Lohman, Bruce Altman, Bruce
McGill, Jenny O'Hara, Steve Eastin, Beth Grant. Directed by Ridley Scott.
Screenplay Nicholas Griffin & Ted Griffin; based on Eric Garcia's book.
Executive producer Robert Zemeckis. Original Music by Hans Zimmer. Cinematography
by John Mathieson. Warner Bros.
Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Cinemark
Blackhawk 7, Danville CA. $4 Matinee. Popcorn. Wednesday, 9.24.3. 2:15pm.
Genre: Crime / Action / Drama / Thriller / Western. Tagline: The time
has come. Plot Outline: Hitman "El Mariachi" becomes involved in international
espionage involving a psychotic CIA agent and a corrupt Mexican general.
The big surprise here was I saw this in the suburbs, and the matinee
price was only $4. SF mats are like $7.50. Anyway, big cast, some nice
sequences, lots of violence. Mexico looks appealing here to me. It's hot,
it's laid back, you just sit around drinking Dos XX cervezas and eating
Mexican food. Interesting. Still feels like the 70s there or something.
I'm rambling. Peckinpah's fabled Mex. As seen in Alfredo Garcia, Wild
Bunch, Pat Garrett, etc.
Anyway, this movie was flashy, some good stuff, some funny stuff. A little
messy, maybe director Robert Rodriguez tried to do too much (he was credited
with directing, writing, music, editing, cinematography, production design,
producing), but the biggest problem was that the film was a little too
flippantly shallow and cold. It could have been a lot better. Great locations,
great look, great cast.
Cast: Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek (delicious), Johnny Depp (very funny),
Mickey Rourke (great in another nice character part -- lately Rourke is
consistently the best thing about the films he appears in*), Eva Mendes,
Danny Trejo, Enrique Iglesias, Marco Leonardi, Cheech Marin, Ruben Blades,
Willem Dafoe, Pedro Armendáriz Jr.as El Presidente, Julio Oscar
Mechoso as the Presidente's Advisor, Tony Valdes as Chicle Boy.
Julio Oscar Mechoso was very good, and has previously been seen in (among
others): Phone Booth (2002), Pumpkin (2002), Jurassic
Park III (2001), All the Pretty Horses (2000), Switchback
(1997), Deep Cover (1992), Internal Affairs (1990) and
Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach (1988). He has guest
starred on numerous TV shows, including: Kingpin, Resurrection Blvd.,
Watching Ellie, NYPD Blue, Dharma & Greg, Boy Meets World, G vs E, Gun,
Coach, Seinfeld, The Larry Sanders Show, Murder, She Wrote, Murphy Brown,
Matlock, Quantum Leap, Knots Landing, Jake and the Fatman, Midnight Caller
and Miami Vice.
Also good was Armendariz Jr (who now looks a lot like Emilio Fernandez
of The Wild Bunch), who's father was the great Pedro Armendariz
who starred in the John Ford films The Fugitive (1947), 3
Godfathers (1948), Fort Apache (1948) and the second James
Bond movie (as Kerim Bey), From Russia with Love (1963). Later
that year he shot himself in the head, he had terminal cancer, I believe.
*Mickey Rourke was born Philip Andre Rourke Jr. on September 16, 1956
in Schenectady, New York. He grew up in the tough Miami area known as
Liberty City.
Leonard Maltin: "Rugged, sullenlooking leading man with the cynical,
fatalistic mien of a James M. Cain protagonist. A former boxer who has
since returned to his original avocation, Rourke burst onto movie screens
with two attention-grabbing performances: that of the ruthless arsonist
in Body Heat (1981) and the hapless hairdresser in Diner
(1982). Promoted to stardom in The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984)
and Year of the Dragon (1985), Rourke seemed to have the anti-hero
charisma to carry a film. Then his choice of films veered from the offbeat
(the erotic Nine 1/2 Weeks in 1986, the too-little-seen Barfly
in 1987) to the genuinely odd (1987's Angel Heart 1989's Johnny
Handsome) to the utterly worthless (1990's Wild Orchid,
1991's Harley Davidson & The Marlboro Man). Combined with press
accounts of his erratic behavior, and his increasingly unkempt appearance,
the momentum he'd gathered in the mid 1980s eroded quickly. Rourke returned
to boxing between now sporadic film assignments."
Rourke, on what he wanted in a woman, "It's like when I buy a horse.
I don't want a thick neck and short legs."
Studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute. He is reportedly 5' 11". He was
married to Carré Otis from 1992 to 1994, when they divorced. Otis
was once a gorgeous supermodel, briefly a B-movie sex bomb, heroin addict,
then she got fat, then she lost the weight posed nude in Playboy
(very hot), gained back some of the weight, now models for "plus size"
women's clothes.
First film appearance was in Spielberg's goofy WWII slapstick comedy
epic 1941 (1979). He was in Heaven's Gate (1980) (as
a character named Nick Ray -- after the director?). Body Heat
(1981), Diner (1982), Rumble Fish (1983), The Pope
of Greenwich Village (1984), Year of the Dragon (1985),
Nine 1/2 Weeks (1986), Eureka (1986), Angel Heart
(1987), Barfly (1987), A Prayer for the Dying (1987),
as "Johnny Walker" in Homeboy (1988) (which Rourke apparently
wrote under the pseudonym "Sir Eddie Cook"), Francesco
(1989), Johnny Handsome (1989), Desperate Hours (1990),
Wild Orchid (1990), Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man
(1991). By the time White Sands (1992) came out his film career
was wrecked.
Rourke then became a professional boxer but retired in 1995 -- during
which time he was arrested by the LAPD and charged with spousal abuse
[July 1994]. Rourke boxed an exhibition with former middleweight great,
Carlos Monzon in 1994. Monzon knocked the actor out cold with his first
punch, a jab.
Rourke returned to films in a series of disasters -- F.T.W. (1994),
Fall Time (1995), Exit in Red (1996), Bullet
(1996), Double Team (1997), Another 9 1/2 Weeks (1997)
and Point Blank (1997) -- before giving a great performance as
Bruiser Stone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Rainmaker (1997).
Since then Rourke has been particularly good in Buffalo '66 (1998),
The Pledge (2001), Spun (2002) and Once Upon a Time
in Mexico (2003).
He filmed a role in The Thin Red Line, that eventually got cut
(he was thanked in the credits).
I just found out (imdb) that in August 1999 he walked off the set of
Luck Of The Draw when the producers refused to let him include
his pet chihuahua in the movie. This is interesting, because all of his
scenes in Once... Mex are with a chihuahua. The dog plays an
important part and it all works. I'm thinking now it must have been written
in to the script later for Rourke.
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