Waterworld

Here's an interesting fact about Waterworld: although it is often referred to as a colossal flop, it eventually (thanks to VHS and DVD sales) made over $100 million in profit. Another interesting tidbit: the movie currently holds a 78% rating from Top Critics on Rotten Tomatoes, which indicates that most critics give the film a positive review.  To be honest with you, when I learned that this popularly lambasted epic was both critically and commercially successful, I felt my first urge ever to watch this movie.  I had always assumed that it was a big, expensive puddle of suck, not worth wasting my time on.  However, after a Costner fan heard me ridiculing the movie (to be fair, it was more of a dig at The Postman, which I like to call "Dirtworld"), they hit me with the facts and I was helpless to resist.

The film opens majestically, with the voice of Hal Douglas (the "In a world..." movie trailer voice) supplying the introduction.  In the distant future, the polar ice caps have melted and water covers the Earth.  Humanity has become splintered on the Waters of this World, with many banding together in scrap heap settlements.  Others find themselves as lone drifters, sailing across the globe.  And then there are Smokers, the bullies.  The Smokers use gas- and oil-powered boats to loot, plunder, and murder the timid innocents in floating settlements.  The leader of the Smokers, the Deacon (Dennis Hopper) has promised his group that he will take them to dry land.  You see, he has heard a rumor about a little girl with a map to land tattooed on her back.  One of his men, the Nord (Gerard Murphy), went undercover to a settlement and actually found the girl.  Enola (Tina Majorino) is an orphan in the settlement, looked after by the kind Helen (Jeanne Tripplehorn).

"I will trade you three tots for a glimpse at your sweet back tat."

One day, a strange drifter (Kevin Costner) sails into the settlement, looking to trade a jar of dirt (which is naturally rare --- does this mean he's seen Dry Land?) for money, which he intends to spend on some necessities and then leave.  As luck would have it, the settlers discover that the drifter is a mutant (he has gills and webbed feet!) and plan to kill him; before they can do it, the Smokers attack.  Seeing the drifter as their only way to freedom, Helen and Enola free him and escape the settlement.  But the Smokers are soon chasing after them, intent on grabbing Enola and discovering the path to the oh-so-elusive Dry Land.

That doesn't sound so bad, does it?  I mean, aside from the incontrovertible fact that all movie boat chases are lame, it doesn't sound awful.  In broad strokes, there's really nothing wrong with Waterworld.  For starters, it looks great.  If you told me that they melted the polar ice caps to film this, I would believe you.  The sets are enormous and elaborate.  The wide shots are impressively land-free.  Even the costumes and the props are all pretty cool.  This is definitely what the world will look like after the inevitable zombie apocalypse, when flatulent zombies cause greenhouse gases to increase and the polar ice caps to melt.  In a lot of ways, the production values of this movie remind me of an uber-expensive version of a Road Warrior marina show.

A lot of thought went into the groups in the movie, too.  I like that there are evolutionary next-steps, like Costner's character, because that makes sense.  I don't know how much sense, because I don't know how far in the future it would take for that kind of evolution to be plausible, but I like it in my ignorance.  I like that there is a lot of religion in these hard, water-filled times; it makes sense.  I also like that normal humans hate and fear mutants, because that also seems like our naturally human reaction to the new and unknown.  Besides, I'm a huge X-Men fan.  I thought the importance that the Smokers put on cigarette smoking was pretty interesting, too.  There are a lot of details in this movie that are very impressive and clever.

The cracks in Waterworld become apparent once you turn the volume up.  The script is bad, the plot is dumb, the editing is poor, the direction is ineffective and the acting is awful. 

A fail wrapped up in a flop.

The first sign that something is wrong with this movie is actually in the very first scene.  It begins with a nice shot of Kevin Costner's ass and, right when you think that this is going to be about gluteus maximii, you see a stream of urine.  Great.  Now it's a fetish video.  Actually, we see Costner butt, pee, and then he pours the pee into a Brita filter (or something), gargles it, and then spits into his little lime tree pot.  While I think that this is certainly one of the more memorable scenes in the film and it offers an interesting look at the science part of this science-fiction epic, it's not exactly a great introduction to the hero of the story.  Typically, in epic movies, you want the hero to seem larger than life, maybe dangerous or cool, but definitely a force to be reckoned with.  The first thing Waterworld teaches us about its hero is that he drinks urine.  Not exactly the iconic establishing image most filmmakers go for.

Normally, I would condemn the director for following a screenplay that opens with pee-flavored mouthwash, but with a screenplay this wretched, that might have looked good by comparison.  If you don't believe me, here's a sample bit of script, taken from Dennis Hopper's wealth of terrible lines:

Well, I'll be damned. It's the gentleman guppy [Costner]. You know, he's like a turd that won't flush.

Ha.  Ha.  I get it.  It's a poop joke.  Does anyone want to explain why anyone in a Water World would need water pipes to flush anything?  Or why Kevin Costner's (nameless) character decides to take Helen on an undersea voyage only minutes after escaping some Smokers that they assumed were still following them?  Nobody wants to stick up for these script choices?  I don't blame you.  This is a story that has the look of an epic, but the focus is ridiculously myopic.  In a whole world of ocean, you're telling me that we have to keep running into the same handful of characters?  By the way, the far future is awfully Caucasian with Midwestern accents.  I didn't realize that Wisconsin was so well-known as a center of maritime excellence.  What happened to everybody else?  Are the British just floating in the waters a few miles above merry old England?  How about the Japanese and everybody else?  For a movie whose production crew spent so much time making sure the details were right, this script feels curiously under-edited.


I realize that I have left out several other plot-related head-scratchers, but I can only get so angry without deleting everything I type.  So, in case you're curious, here are a few other problems that popped into my head as I watched:

• What is everyone eating?  They make a big deal about Costner catching a fish, so how does a ship full of Smokers manage to get fed?
• Where do the cigarettes come from?
• Why do the Smokers play with flares and fireworks when they celebrate if they are on an oil tanker?
• Was it worth the eye-roll to reveal that the Smoker oil tanker was the Exxon Valdeez?
• Okay, I buy into the notion that the Smokers get all their fuel from the 'Deez.  Where did they get all their gas-powered jetskis and the airplane from?  Were they floating out at sea?
• Why does anyone need to capture Enola?  Why don't they just make copies of the map?
• If Enola was tattooed so she could find her way home, why did they tattoo her where she couldn't read the tattoo?
• Where is all the oxygen coming from?  It looks like plants are a rarity in this world, so how is everybody breathing?

I'm sure there's more, but the more I list, the more depressed I am that I sat through the whole thing.  Well, at least nobody can lie and tell me that the ending totally makes the movie worthwhile.

I actually don't completely hate this movie.  It's stupid, sure, but it's not too painful to watch.  I thought the actors were one-dimensional, but with a script like this, what do you expect?  Costner was okay as the nameless sailor, but he was far more entertaining and appealing when he was looking out for himself instead of being a traditional hero.  If nothing else, I can honestly say that Kevin Costner's performance is without shame; at no moment does he appear to realize just how silly this movie is, and he treats every garbage scene like it has complex meaning behind it.

"What about striped pants, semi ponytail, and seashell earrings (found where?) sounds silly?"

Dennis Hopper was in his full-fledged 90s movie villain mode here, and he is comically evil.  To call this acting "bad" misses the point.  His overacting fits the movie well and adds some humor (unintentional and otherwise) to a pretty serious movie.  I wasn't impressed by Jeanne Tripplehorn or little Tina Majorino, but it's not like they were butchering their lines.  You can't put crap into a blender and get a delicious strawberry milkshake.  Still, they weren't good.  Kim Coates was pretty terribly as a nutty drifter, but the rest of the cast is pretty inoffensive.  I noticed R.D. Calls in a minor role and, if you ever had a doubt that Jack Black was a struggling actor in Hollywood, here's his bit part:

The direction was bad, if you view it from a working-with-the-cast perspective, but I will give Kevin Reynolds credit for framing several cool-looking scenes.  If this was a silent movie (with no subtitles) this would look like a solid flick.

Is Waterworld a good movie?  Not even close.  What it is, though, is a solid idea for a good movie.  While I cannot fathom why it gets such critical leniency from major critics, it's not a terrible film.  But it's not good.  At all.  I would give it a pass and say that it's fun to laugh at and dub it Lefty Gold, but it's a long movie that feels even longer.  To watch this movie and pay attention to the whole thing is pretty exhausting.  If they cut 40 minutes out of the final product, I would probably recommend it.  As it stands, though, it is more effort than it's worth.

True Romance (Director's Cut)

Continuing with my mini-theme of romantic movies that I actually like, in honor of Valentine's Day, I bring you True Romance.  Directed by Tony Scott and one of Quentin Tarantino's first professional screenplays (I can never figure out if this came first, or Reservoir Dogs), True Romance is a blend of crime, action, Tarantino dialogue, and true love.  This film also boasts one of the all-time greatest supporting casts, with some of the most memorable scenes highlighting supporting characters that you will ever see.

Clarence (Christian Slater) works at a comic book store (awesome!) and, for his birthday, has decided to catch a triple feature of Sonny Chiba movies at a local theater (awesomer!).  While watching the movies, a busty blonde named Alabama (Patricia Arquette) comes in and spills her popcorn all over him.  Clarence is very gracious about the whole thing, possibly because of her cleavage, and the two strike up a conversation.  They end up getting some pie after the movie (awesomest!), which eventually leads back to Clarence's place for some sexy sexy time.  Of course, this isn't as perfect as it seems.  It turns out that Alabama is a call girl, hired by Clarence's boss to sleep with him as a birthday present.  Clarence doesn't mind at all, insisting that he had had the night of his life; the two abruptly declare their eternal love for each other and get married in the morning.  Aww.  The rest of the movie has the two getting to know each other and finding out that true romance means compromise.

The "crime" part of the story begins when Clarence chooses to confront Alabama's pimp, Drexl (Gary Oldman).  He doesn't really have a solid reason for this, it's just his inner alpha male (which is personified by an imaginary Elvis that gives him advice) needing to prove itself.  The short version of the story has Clarence killing Drexl and leaving with a suitcase of Alabama's clothes.  When he returns home and tells Alabama that he just killed Drexl, her response is "That's so...romantic!"  I guess Clarence married the right gal.  The suitcase he brought with didn't have his new wife's old clothes, though; it was filled with uncut cocaine.  Not knowing what to do with a suitcase of coke, Clarence and Alabama do the only sensible thing they can think of: they go to California to sell it to move stars.  Unfortunately, the late and unlamented Drexl was selling the drugs for the mob, and they are not as forgiving as you might think.

The first thing you notice about True Romance is the dialogue.  It still sounds fresh and funny today, but it really sticks out against the rest of 1993 Hollywood.  To put it in perspective, the nominees for Best Picture that year were The Fugitive, The Remains of the Day, The Piano, In the Name of the Father and Schindler's List, none of which were particularly renowned for their rapid-fire creative vulgarity.  And while you might recognize some echoes of Tarantino's dialogue from this movie in Pulp Fiction, it's still good stuff.

The script is definitely this film's strongest point, but the astonishing supporting cast is a close second.  This movie has so many recognizable actors in it, and most of them have surprisingly meaty roles.  Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken share one of my all-time favorite scenes, and it's just the two of them talking.  Brad Pitt is hilarious as a worthless, pot-smoking roommate; he was actually offered the role of Clarence, but it conflicted with his filming schedule for Kalifornia --- he just picked Floyd, who originally had no lines, out of the script and ad-libbed all his stuff.  And Gary Oldman's performance as Drexl is so good that I usually watch it two or three times before continuing with the rest of the movie.  I don't know whose idea it was to make this pasty-white pimp pretend that he was a black man, but it's pretty damn funny; Oldman doesn't let his character become a joke, though, and turns out a frightening performance.

Just those four performances would be enough for most movies, but this film is overflowing with larger-than-life supporting characters.  Chris Penn and Tom Sizemore (before he was a train wreck) did a great job as detectives.  Bronson Pinchot and Saul Rubinek play obnoxious Hollywood types almost to the point of becoming caricatures, but they're still entertaining.  James Gandolfini has a good scene as (what else?) a mob enforcer.  Even the normally talentless Michael Rappaport looked good (because he was playing a talentless actor).  And then there are the bit parts!  Samuel L. Jackson has a brief but entertaining scene where he discusses the universal nature of oral sex, Val Kilmer plays Clarence's imaginary Elvis (whose face is never shown, thanks to some truly awful makeup), and a young Kevin Corrigan has a small non-speaking role, too.  On the whole, this supporting cast is good enough to star in three or four solid movies; all together with a clever script, True Romance is a movie that has no boring scenes, and every minute has an actor you recognize in it.

Of course, all that support would be worthless if the main actors are no good.  And, to be honest, half of them aren't great.  Patricia Arquette, while very white-trash hot in this movie, does not do a good job.  In fact, I would argue that she sounds like she has some sort of mild retardation.  For some reason, her character is given a voice-over at the beginning and end of the movie, too, and they're not great either, even with a good script.  Christian Slater, though, does deliver his lines well, giving Clarence a cocky, roguish attitude that matches the tone of the picture perfectly.

Tony Scott directed this movie, but it was before his work in Enemy of the State, so it doesn't have all the 360-degree, fast-motion establishing shots that his last decade of films have had.  Instead, he plays it pretty simple and lets the script do most of the work.  Nobody's monologue is interrupted by unnecessary camera cuts, there are no fancy split-screens or anything like that.  Aside from some particularly violent fights scenes, Scott doesn't really take the opportunity to show off, and the film is better for it.  I disagree with giving Alabama bookend voice-overs, but that's a small price to pay.  Really, aside from a better soundtrack, I don't see how this movie could be improved by having Tarantino direct it himself.

This is a fast-paced crime movie with lots of overly-clever vulgar dialogue. If that's not your thing, then catch a Katherine Heigl movie instead.  This is the first time (and only time, so far) a Tarantino script had anything resembling an actual romance in it, and while pretty unconventional, it works.  There is no point in the movie where I wondered why these two characters were together, and that adds a lot of heart to the mix.  This isn't your typical romantic comedy, but Clarence and Alabama's unquestioning, immediate, and confident love for each other is unusually refreshing.  It's simple and untroubled, and that's perfectly fine in a movie like this.  Even with Arquette's mentally challenged performance, True Romance remains one of my favorite films of the 1990s, and one of the few that deserve ten stars.

Colors

"In the heart of the city, people die for wearing the wrong colors."  Well, so do nighttime joggers who don't wear reflective gear, but nobody makes a movie about them.  The year was 1988 and inner-city gang warfare was in the news.  In the 2000s, thanks to Michael Jordan's retirement, shoe-related murder has gone down significantly gang violence is not the epidemic it once was, especially in California, but it was a huge issue in the late 80s and early 90s, one that cried out for a voice to speak about it in popular culture.  Who can speak to both the adults trying to deal with the issue and the teens tangled in the problem?  Dennis Hopper?  Really?  Interesting choice.  Hot on the heels of a career revival, helped by his performances in Blue Velvet and Hoosiers (and not at all helped by Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), Hopper jumped back in the director's chair for the first time in eight years for Colors.  Let's see...a movie about the police and gang members in Los Angeles, around 1990...I wonder if racism will play a part...?

Danny McGavin (Sean Penn), a member of the LAPD's elite C.R.A.S.H. (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums) unit, has a smart mouth and an attitude that requires him to lash out at the slightest sign of disrespect.  After he makes a joke about tampons during a C.R.A.S.H. meeting, McGavin is assigned to a new partner, the about-ready-to-retire Bob Hodges (Robert Duvall).  Hodges knows that you cannot police an area without the aid of its citizens.  Well, not easily, anyway.  His methods include politeness and courtesy to suspected gang members, and he usually doesn't arrest for minor infractions; he wants to build up enough trust that the people on the streets will alert him if something big or dangerous is going to happen.  McGavin doesn't do things like that.  If he's not in a car chase, he's in a foot race.  If he's he sees a suspect, he rushes in head down.  McGavin earns the nickname Pac-Man on the streets because he drives a bright yellow car and is known to eat scumbags for breakfast.  Probably not literally.  So, this is a good (easy-going) cop, bad (-ass) cop story, with Hodges at his wits end and McGavin completely baffled as to why he irritates his partner.

Meanwhile, a gang war is heating up between the local Crips, Bloods, and a few other gangs.  Lead by the deadly serious Roccet (Don Cheadle) and accompanied by the perpetually high (and possibly mentally retarded) T-Bone (Damon Wayans), the Crips have some big plans to shoot up some Bloods.  However, their plan will take them through the turf of a few other gangs, including a small but tough gang of mostly Hispanics (including a young and thankfully dialogue-free Mario Lopez).  This is the sort of big, dangerous thing that Hodges needs gang members to alert him to.  Will his methods carry the day, or will Pac-Man's?  Or maybe neither?

Robert Duvall is a very talented actor, and he plays his part of the wise veteran pretty well.  He might spend a suspicious amount of time fixing up his hair for someone who has been bald since 1960, and he might actually say "I'm too old for this shit" at one point in this film, but he plays his part and does it well.  Sean Penn also turns in a good performance, even if his acting during a mourning scene is reminiscent of I am Sam.  The rest of the cast is just bit players.  Maria Conchita Alonso has the thankless task of playing both McGavin's love interest and reality check, but she did a decent job with what she was given.  I was surprised to see Don Cheadle playing a street thug, but I'm not going to criticize the role choices for a struggling young black actor; in retrospect, it's impressive just how many complex and non-stereotypical roles Cheadle has played in his career.  It was nice to see Tony Todd pop up as an angry citizen, but it was only a cameo.  Dennis Hopper does a pretty good job directing.  I liked that there was a lot of overlapping dialogue with both the police and the gang members.  I don't know how good Hopper's instincts for storytelling were, but he was definitely able to capture realism in most scenes.

The dialogue is one of the age markers for this film.  If I had a dollar for every time someone used the word "homes" or "hommie," I would have enough to have Hopper's corpse stuffed and mounted in my apartment, probably posed with a Pabst Blue Ribbon in his hand.  Trust me, I've done the research, and there are very reasonable taxidermists in the area.  It's not that the dialogue feels strained or awkward, but a lot of it was probably going out of style when the film was released.  The music stands up pretty well, despite being clearly from 1988, with a Herbie Hancock score and Ice-T rapping the title track.  Neither are particularly memorable or relevant today, but they're pretty good for the late 80s.

I'm still not sure how much I like this movie.  It's not a lot, mind you, but I'm not quite sure what side of decently mediocre it falls on.  On the one hand, I'm glad that this movie doesn't wrap everything up with a nice bow and say, "And THAT is how to end gang violence --- introduce free ice cream Wednesdays!"  I understand that "issue" movies aren't trying to solve a problem as much as they are bringing attention to it.  I just feel like Dennis Hopper was a little too pleased with himself at the end.  The goal of this film is to follow McGavin's progression as a member of C.R.A.S.H., from a hot-head to something else.  His is the only character that has a dramatic arc, so his must be the key story, right?  Well, changing his attitude in the very last scene isn't enough.  And if McGavin is the key to the narrative, then the film should have placed more importance on his work and how Hodges influenced him, for better or for worse.  In other words, I think this would have been more effective if, instead of being about "the gang problem," it was a movie about a young police officer and his work with and against gang members.  And while I think Penn and Duvall were fine actors in this movie, they did not share much chemistry; in a surprising choice, the script doesn't require them to.  As it is, though, gangs take center stage here and the police are simply reacting to them.  If the focus is on an issue, then I feel that the audience deserves a solution to that issue, naive or stupid as that solution may be.  Without that, the film ends with no real sense of accomplishment.

Blue Velvet

David Lynch is a difficult director to watch.  His movies are intentionally obtuse and his use of imagery and symbols over plot and characters is alienating for many viewers and attractive for many critics.  Blue Velvet is one of Lynch's more linear stories, which makes this one of his more accessible films for the general public.  Of course, that's just by comparison.  This is still a weird ass film.  If I had to sum up the story in one sentence, I would say that Blue Velvet is like a Leave It to Beaver episode that woke up from a nightmare, only to find itself being raped.

The story begins with Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) coming home from college to help with his family's business, while his father recovers from a stroke.  While wandering around the idyllic Lumberton townscape, Jeffrey finds a severed human ear.  He takes the ear to Detective Williams (George Dickerson), who assures Jeffrey that he'll handle the case.  Jeffrey is an annoying little busybody that clearly doesn't have enough to do like, oh I don't know, running his father's business, so he stops by Detective Williams' home to ask about the ear.  In the process, he is reintroduced to Williams' daughter, Sandy (Laura Dern).  Sandy and Jeffrey step out for a malted milkshake (or something equally wholesome) and swap information on the ear.  Sandy is a dirty eavesdropper and her father discusses a surprising amount of his work at home, so she dishes that there is a nightclub singer that is a person of interest.  The singer is Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) and Jeffrey decides to sneak into her apartment and investigate her.  While he is searching her apartment for some clue that may connect to the ear, she comes home; Jeffrey narrowly avoids detection by hiding in a closet.  It doesn't work for long, though; Dorothy discovers him, keeps him at knife point and... performs fellatio?  Well, that's an unexpected reaction.  The couple are interrupted by a knock at the door.  Dorothy hides Jeffrey in the closet once more and lets Frank (Dennis Hopper) in.  Frank is rude, vulgar and abusive, both physically and verbally.  He huffs some unnamed drug (identified as amyl nitrate by Hopper in later interviews), smacks Dorothy around a little, and dry humps her until he's finished.  As a side note, watching that scene allowed me to check two items off my bucket list.  I'm not saying what, though.  This scene causes Jeffrey to sympathize with Dorothy and he delves deeper into her nightmare of a life, filled with Frank and his associates, but still spending time in the TV Land-ish Lumberton proper enough to fall in love with Sandy.  It's dangerous to explore the seedy underbelly of any town, though, a lesson Frank will soon teach Jeffrey.

This film is sometimes described as a neo-noir, but I disagree.  While there are similarities to the noir genre (tough guys and dames without real emotions, a mystery to solve, etc.), they only really exist within the seedy underworld of Lumberton.  In many ways, this film is about duality and how deceiving appearances can be.  On the one hand, yes, this is a noir when Frank and Dorothy show up, but it is a surreal visit to the sunny neighborhoods of 1950s television when the story focuses on Jeffrey and Sandy.  Obviously, the differences between Jeffrey and Frank are shown in sharp contrast when Jeffrey and Dorothy become lovers as are the differences between Dorothy and Sandy.  Lynch does a good job showing the importance of digging beyond the surface in the opening scene, as the camera zooms past Jeffrey's father having a stroke in the middle of their perfect neighborhood and into the grass, until all we see are bugs busy in the dirt.

I don't like categorizing Blue Velvet as a noir because I feel it is better described as surreal.  The sunny Lumberton portion of the film is almost deliriously ideal, visually bright and clean.  The characters in these scenes speak and act as if they are in a classic TV sitcom, spouting trite garbage and throwing around cliches like it's their job.  The despair of the seedy Lumberton is just as bizarre.  While I'm sure that sadomasochism and unusual sexual practices happen everywhere, but Frank's experiences put even the nastiest celebutant to shame.  There is absolutely nothing in this movie that rings true.

Well, almost nothing.  Isabella Rossellini's performance is eye-opening, and not just because she gets nekked.  Her character is very complex and has the most easily understood motives out of anyone in the film.  Rossellini does a great job handling what would have been simply an erotic role for most actresses and transformed it into a study on power, pleasure, pain and fear.  It's shocking to me that she was not nominated for at least a supporting actress award at either the Oscars or the Golden Globes.

Dennis Hopper's performance is not nearly as honest as Rossellini's, but it's just as captivating.  As Frank, Hopper plays his most frightening role.  This is at least partially because he is inexplicable and unpredictable.  Is he going to cry while watching Dean Stockwell lip-sync to Roy Orbison, or is he going to start breaking furniture with the same stimulus?  At times, Hopper's acting is so beyond the realm of plausibility that it becomes funny, but he quickly snaps back into exuding danger the next moment.

Lynch's work is equally fluid.  The film's cinematography is wonderful.  Lynch has a gift for finding great visuals and exploiting them.  He is at the top of his game here.  His direction of actors, on the other hand, is typically alien.  I am familiar with many actors in this movie, as well as the casts in other Lynch films; in every movie, it feels like he is deliberately directing his cast to act poorly.  If there is an unnatural pause or a way to make a clever line not funny, that is the take that makes the film's final cut.  If this type of acting was limited to certain members of the cast, I could conclude that Lynch is making a point about those characters, or their place in society or whatever.  But he does it with everyone.  Lynch wrote this movie, as well, so his intentions can be found by watching the camera work, seeing the acting, and hearing the dialogue.  But it's all still very confusing.  This film doesn't work as a satire of the 1950s American ideal if the "real world" that Frank rules is equally surreal.  So...does that make this a movie about naivety?  About the need to hold on to the comforting while experiencing the discomforting?  If that's the case, then why all the surreality?  To be honest, I don't care because thinking about David Lynch's intentions is just frustrating for me.

That frustration happens whether or not I am focusing on what the director intended, though.  The acting is, for the most part, painful to watch.  When Hopper and Rossellini are on screen, that pain turns into discomfort.  That's not a huge upside.  The supporting characters have absolutely no depth or humanity to them at all, and simply exist to provide momentary distractions for the cast.  Perhaps if one side of the story was told differently, this movie would be more appealing to me.  If the mystery aspect held any suspense whatsoever or had any importance, for instance, I might have invested more of myself to this film.  Instead, I am left disliking the movie, but admiring two performances and the camera work.  I guess that kind of balances things out pretty evenly.

True Grit (1969)

There are times where a role seems so perfectly suited for an actor that it feels like they were just born to play that role.  Jack Black's character in High Fidelity is a recent example, but John Wayne's performance as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit is one for the ages.  This is, of course, the film which won Wayne his only Oscar, and it is sometimes seen as an example of the Academy's tendency to award an actor/director's later work as a way of acknowledging their complete body of work.  There might be something to that; John Wayne has 170 movie credits on IMDB, and he played John Wayne in every single one of those films.  The man's acting range can be fairly compared to that of Michelangelo's David.  And yet, here it is pitch perfect.

One of the reason for this is a pretty good script.  While I won't say that the lines are razor sharp, they play to Wayne's strengths and are made more enjoyable by his bizarre drawl.  Rooster Cogburn gets most of the good lines in the film, but the dramatic weight of the film is carried by Kim Darby (who later played John Cusack's mom in Better Off Dead).  This shocked me the first time I watched this movie; who would have believed that a teenage girl in a John Wayne western would be anything but annoying?  As a rule, westerns don't have much of a strong female presence; having Darby's character drive the plot shows how many opportunities westerns have missed.  The other supporting characters don't get a whole lot to work with, in terms of script, but they rarely seem shallow, which probably has more to do with acting and directing than writing.

The film is about Mattie Ross (Darby) and her drive to bring her father's killer to justice.  To accomplish this, she hires the meanest Marshall in the territory, Rooster Cogburn.  That's pretty much it.  Sure, country legend Glen Campbell (sporting the same haircut he has today) is a Texas Ranger that helps them on their mission, but it's a pretty bare bones plot.  Cogburn is mean and drunk, while Ross is strong-willed and obstinate; the movie is about how their personalities clash and gel.

While the script is good and the plot is fairly plain, the acting and directing stand out.  Of course, Wayne plays himself, albeit an older, crotchety version of his classic tough guy.  But Darby does a good job as the obstinate young woman and her acting makes the growing connection between her and Wayne's character believable.  They didn't do it all alone, though.  Glen Campbell is okay, I guess.  Initially, I thought he didn't do much in the movie, but his performance does help explain how Cogburn and Mattie Ross can get along, adding an everyman presence to a movie where the two main characters stray far from the norm.  Dennis Hopper manages to not seriously overact in a small role.  Robert Duvall (who apparently never had a full head of hair) does a predictably good job as a villain who just seems desperate, not evil.  Villains in the 1960s are often over-the-top, mwa-ha-ha, twirling-their-mustache evil, especially in westerns.  Here, Duvall turns in an understated but believable performance, as he has done so many times since.  I credit most of these performances to director Henry Hathaway.  If you have seen any of John Wayne's less famous movies, you know how terrible the supporting cast can be, even with a decent script.  Being able to push Darby and Campbell to where their characters needed to be made this movie what it is.

This isn't a flawless movie, of course.  A lot of it has aged poorly as the popularity of westerns has declined over the past few decades.  John Wayne at his best still has the tendencies of John Wayne at his worst; I've seen toddlers that can play a more convincing drunk than him.  The viewer is forced to invest a lot of their interest in Darby early on, and it takes a while to believe that it's going to be worth it, because she is pretty annoying without Wayne to counterbalance her.  Still, this is an all-ages western that manages to be endearing, funny, and touching, even to those that are normally bored stupid watching westerns.