I went last night to see Say Anything in a public venue with (i'm gonna say...) 1000 (300?, i'm really bad at estimating) people. I've never been one to choose favorites, but the oeuvre of John Cusack's is something worth celebrating. It doesn't mean that everything he's in or has made is amazing, or even great or even good...
JC said something interesting in the "A Conversation with John Cusack" following the screening. Tiffany Ogle had the unenviable job of trying to provoke JC into conversation, which he didn't seem inclined to join. Ogle was asking some fairly banal questions around favorite memories or behind the scene stories of film making. JC said 2 things that were a bit interesting - that he liked "anything that had worked" and comparing successful film making to a batting average in baseball.
We live in such a quick to sneer culture (a good example was the balcony of the post-Say Anything crowd), and even though film making technologies are less expensive than ever, the risk-taking in film making is at an all-time low. JC's point was, I think (he needed a lot of interpreting, as he didn't seem inclined to elaborate much at all), that many films made in earlier days would not be made in today's environment. The larger point was essentially that bad movies - which is to say movies that fail to do something interesting - should be made and the makers and the actors ought not be blamed for doing something that doesn't pull it off.
The act of art-making ought to be a risky proposition. If you're sure something is going to be a hit, it's probably not that interesting. Putting something out in the world should be scary - are they going to like it, hate it, get it?
And so, herewith I bestow a new label to my blog - the first in quite a long time - #AIROAPG. For the name, I owe a debt to Benjamin Katz. In the comments of this post, will be a retrospective of the complete works of John Cusack. I've seen many of them previously, of course, perhaps almost all of them, but a fresh viewing seems worthwhile.
JC said something interesting in the "A Conversation with John Cusack" following the screening. Tiffany Ogle had the unenviable job of trying to provoke JC into conversation, which he didn't seem inclined to join. Ogle was asking some fairly banal questions around favorite memories or behind the scene stories of film making. JC said 2 things that were a bit interesting - that he liked "anything that had worked" and comparing successful film making to a batting average in baseball.
We live in such a quick to sneer culture (a good example was the balcony of the post-Say Anything crowd), and even though film making technologies are less expensive than ever, the risk-taking in film making is at an all-time low. JC's point was, I think (he needed a lot of interpreting, as he didn't seem inclined to elaborate much at all), that many films made in earlier days would not be made in today's environment. The larger point was essentially that bad movies - which is to say movies that fail to do something interesting - should be made and the makers and the actors ought not be blamed for doing something that doesn't pull it off.
The act of art-making ought to be a risky proposition. If you're sure something is going to be a hit, it's probably not that interesting. Putting something out in the world should be scary - are they going to like it, hate it, get it?
And so, herewith I bestow a new label to my blog - the first in quite a long time - #AIROAPG. For the name, I owe a debt to Benjamin Katz. In the comments of this post, will be a retrospective of the complete works of John Cusack. I've seen many of them previously, of course, perhaps almost all of them, but a fresh viewing seems worthwhile.
39 comments:
Say Anything - This is the default movie i name when asked "what is your favorite movie?" I think more specifically, Lloyd Dobler is my favorite character. When we bought tickets to the movie at The Riverside, i thought that my question of John Cusack would be something like whether he felt like Lloyd Dobler was something like The Highlander (I've never seen the Highlander, but i imagine this is some kind of immortal, multi-dimensional being), and he was actually playing that same character in every one of his films. My friends pointed out that this might be a rude question, insinuating that Cusack can't act and is just always the same guy in every role, though i don't believe this and meant it more metaphysically. Regardless, there were evidently cards you could write questions on, and i failed to do so.
Say Anything is my brother Tim's favorite movie (i think this is still true). When i first saw it, i loved it, as i was particularly in to romantic movies with strong, cool male figures (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is the one other example at this same time i can think of). It was the VHS tape that i brought with me to college that got the most use, as it was a bit obscure, and i found it good for macking.
On this viewing, it struck me that among the pantheon of 80s teen movies, a major underlying theme was that parents fuck up their kids. This is no great secret, and even in that very same movie, Diane Court is a product of her father's greed and narcissism. Dobler, on the other hand, has no parents except for referentially. They exist, but are off in Europe and it's not clear how recently they've been around.
This makes Lloyd Dobler unique - an un-tainted teen. He's a young man, self aware... he's kind and good, but also proud (but quietly so).
Serendipity came out just at the moment that i was most susceptible to it. 2001 - 23, and out of college and wondering and wandering and a movie that says there is magic in relationships.
It's such a fun schlocky mess, and it sells out on rom com madness. It's a fun, lovey movie, and i adore it.
Jonathan Trager is definitely Lloyd Dobler reincarnated. Perhaps only at the end of the movie - but he's fully actualized.
The quest of the movie - for each of the main characters to find the right one - the right path - it's exciting. But also blech... Waiting for your $5 bill to come in, and checking the front flap of untold used books (imagine!, the used book store treasure hunt!).
Runaway Jury feels like a kindly worn mass market paperback book. This film is fun - it's tight - it's got lots of shiny stars all over it. I've read a few John Grisham novels - mostly on audiobook... I know that i've seen this movie before at some point, but don't recall if the details i was remembering from the narrative were from ever reading the book or just my last viewing (possibly in the theater).
Cusack's role is more Martin Q. Blank than he is Lloyd Dobler, but those are just alternate universe versions of the same person.
This feels very late in the era of movies made from John Grisham novels. Because of it, and maybe because Gene Hackman seems like his same character from The Firm movie, RJ feels somewhat formulaic. At times it gets confusing which JG novel you're watching, but it's fun - it's good.
At some point in my life i would enjoy finding a person who says, Runaway Jury is my favorite movie of all time. In the end, i think i would have to slay that person, because they are probably a cyborg who is trying to infiltrate and take over. Clearly not understanding how favorites work...
Rob Gordon is an unsuccessful version of Lloyd Dobler. The character is perfect, but he's what happens when he and Diane Court get to England and realize once they get there that they enjoy the sex, but ultimately don't have that much in common. A fitting to tribute to John Mahoney... you were right Mr. Court.
High Fidelity is a great movie. It comes from great source material, so it's no surprise, but it is a joy.
JC makes a great everyman. He's also good at making ordinary experience feel significant; epic.
1408 is kind of a wild ride... From the moment that JC's Mike Enslin enters 1408 the terror doesn't slow down much at all.
Brief lulls when you're just waiting for the next terrific horror to present itself.
The movie delves a bit deeper into the history of the character than the short story does - giving Enslin an unfortunate former family and a sad past.
A good ride, worth a viewing for sure...
Cell is among the darkest Stephen King adaptations that I've ever seen. The final implications of the movie are haunting, truly, and daunting. JC is again an Everyman, thrown into a terrifying landscape. Humans devolving all around him into monstrous id creatures. The movie ends even darker than the novel, with our hero (JC - but not that one!) tasting victory. Finding his son, and walking and following the trail from his friends who he left behind. In "reality", JC's character has been absorbed into the flock.
But what happens poses the question of what a "win" or positive outcome is. The film proposes a "happy ending" for the modern are. Feeling happy and fulfilled - even if in actuality, you are part of a zombie hoard, mindlessly shuffling across the earth, if you feel in your inner soul/ self like you are "winning", it's all good, right? This is the Matrix 1.0 - a utopia presented as real life while we are farmed and harvested for some unknown purpose.
Unlike the conclusion of The Matrix, I think most humans would (because most humans do) accept a false utopia, and tell themselves they're happy (thru god or money or achievement or procreation or whatever it is each of us finds). The operators of the Matrix (or of the hoard) don't need to reset to make the illusion something less happy-seeming. They just need to eliminate the few stragglers who won't be made content.
In this way this movie, (along with SK's novel Revival) make the case that Contentment - as a goal of life - is humanity's greatest danger or greatest terror.
Con Air marks the first of our JC film fest where Cusack isn't the leading man. In the height of bad/good, late-90s over-the-top action movies (Face-Off, The Rock, Armageddon, etc.) JC doesn't slot in well as the deep-voiced, mouth-breathing protagonist that fronts most of these movies, but as the brainy sidekick who helps save the day (and can kick ass too!), and who manages to get the jerk's fancy sports car totally destroyed... he's perfect!
Con Air is such a great ensemble... (Ving Rhames, Dave Chappelle, Colm Meaney, Nic Cage!, Steve Buscemi, John Malcovich). For the convicts, it's something of a road movie. The characters get to bounce off of each other, before all the killing and the explosions and stuff. Among the tropes of bad/good late 90s movies that Con Air employs, we find in this one an absurdly unnecessary final chase sequence, which ends in an even more absurd death of the antagonist, Cyrus the Virus. Death by firetruck ladder by way of a skyway by way of a conveyor belt on a construction site that leads to a hydraulic smasher thing.
Not a great movie, but Con Air is a good movie, because it's a fun movie...
Arsenal was kind of a messy disaster. The film picks strange moments to go into slow motion. It's done for "effect", but one wonders what the cause was.
Somehow Nic Cage and JC get top billing over Adrian Grenier, who is both the protagonist and the only potentially 3-dimensional character in the movie.
Cusack plays a cop, but a shifty, undercover cop. He seems to think he's cool - he wears black and has flowy / airy sleeves or scarves or something as an accessory.
I'm not sure i paid close enough attention, but i can't for the life of me tell you how he knows JT... or JC (or whatever Grenier's character is called).
The film hangs on a cliche of two brothers - one gone bad and the other who made good. Spoiler alert, the younger who used to be taken care of now takes care of his older brother who has fallen on hard times.
Stand By Me is one of just a few movies that i could pass through the first gate of Ready Player One on. It is a part of my childhood, and the story and the characters were something that i and my friends aspired to.
Cusack plays the greatest big brother of all time, Denny LaChance, who died young. He's seen in just two flashbacks of Gordie's. It's a small part, and early in Cusack's career. It's memorable, and formative in Gordie's character development.
Evidently, I would also be able to pass through the final gate!
American Sweethearts is a dumb, but awesome 90s movie that didn't get released until the Aughts. It's a clumsy Hollywood critique - and an adorable Julia Roberts vehicle. The characters are bad movie cliches - and the movie has a late-20th Century obsession with weight.
Billy Crystal as a 'classic promo guy' (i'm sure that has an insider-y Hollywood name) is tired, but he's adorable. All of the movie feels a bit tired, but it's not terrible. Cusack is charming. He's lost at the start of the movie, and gets found by everything falling apart to shit ("from a certain point of view").
Ultimately the movie is about just this. The fantasy of everything that is normal in our lives falling to shit, and all falling apart, and having to finally live and start to cope with the scraps of what's left.
But instead of normal life, the 2001 movie needs to safely make the narrative about 'faux Hollywood life'. But that's a stand in - clearly - for all daily life. It's a prognostication.
But also just a silly dumb rom-com, and the right folks end up together. Hooray!!
Hot Tub Time Machine was exactly the movie it promised to be. There is a hot tub, and it's a time machine.
It's a male fantasy of youth reclaimed. It's also a Back to the Future type don't mess up your own future in the past problem.
Cusack plays a more forgettable character than usual, and he gets a bit lost in the ensemble.
2012 is at times a hilariously ridiculous '90s style action flick (made in 2009, when they shoulda known better). It's of course a Roland Emmerich joint. Early in the movie, scenes where some of the lead characters are talking to each other about their feelings or personal histories feel borderline offensive, because of the destruction going on around them. Amanda Peet and John Cusack talking about what went wrong with their marriage while the Western 3rd of the United States crumbles into the sea.
What is most offensive about this movie is that there are so many shots during the massive destruction scenes (which are many) that depict individual human figures are seen falling to their deaths while stepping out of cars or houses or offices or anywhere we might normally step out of in times of environmental distress.
I am a fan of horror films. It's unfortunate that there is not a distinction made between terror films and horror films, but if there were i would like them both - and i think actually prefer the horror. Although no one would classify it this way, those scenes of individuals meeting their end is truly horrific. It's not gruesome, but the implications are felt (if you're so inclined) in the gut punch.
The premise of this movie is laughable, but it seems to be aware of what it is, so characters often seem in on the joke. The unseemly Russian oligarch gets a heroic ending when he tosses his children up to the drawbridge of the live-saving ark. The new step dad conveniently dies heroically, allowing JC and Peet to maybe patch things up in the new Love-Boat world order. Woody Harrelson is loveable and Oliver Platt is hateable. It doesn't aspire to be anything more than it is, which makes it watchable.
Cusack's part in Class is small (it is his first film). It's surprising to learn that he has a name - Roscoe - i'm not sure it comes up during the film. JC is part of the gang... he gets off a few one-liners, digs, etc.
The movie is fun nostalgia with lots of familiar faces: Rob Lowe; Andrew McCarthey; Jacqueline Bisset; some guy who looks like Dabney Coleman, but isn't; Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off; others... It's a fun, hijinx 80s flick with some teen boy wish fulfillment thrown in.
I'm not sure what part of our culture it is to call it, but the #meToo movement still has not caught up to encompass the under-age boy being seduced / taken advantage of by the (often married) adult woman. I think it has something to do with the fact that even thought such stories occasionally pepper the cable news circuit in general it's something that most males react to with some amount of nostalgia or envy or whatever a combination of nostalgia envy is...
Class is likely a movie that you missed amongst the 80s pantheon of movies (it didn't show up in either the book or movie version of Ready Player One if that tells you anything). It's worth a look. The wealth inequality is only modestly touched on, and there is not a lot of there there, but it's fun.
Cusack played Greg, a caller on Frasier, Season 4: Episode 8. His role as a psycho-hypochondriac was a quick punch line.
It's a beautiful episode of a pretty good show. JC's role is forgettable, but the episode features an important moment in the series - particularly after the passing of John Mahoney. I find myself more and more often these days, wanting to and trying to articulate how my parents have shaped me. There are so many ways that i am not my family, but it's important to recall how and why you are, too... sometimes.
Cusack narrates "The Fog Bowl" for an NFL Films series called The Timeline, Season 2, Episode 10.
The episode features typical dumb football lunkhead writing like "Chicago is the Windy City, but that day it could just as easily have been the Foggy City". JC is a native Chicagoan, and an apt choice for this narrator gig.
It's a small role - Steve McMichael, Ditka, Dan Hampton and a couple of the Philadelphia Eagles of the time are much more prominent. It's a game I remember vaguely, and as a Bear's fan, a fun run down memory lane.
The Thin Red Line was a film I saw in the theatre when it came out, and thought i would never see again. As it was, i watched it this time over several weeks and sittings. It is a film that some say is what should have gotten John Cusack nominated for an Oscar. But it's a busy ensemble, worthy certainly of a lot of awards. Cusack's time on screen is limited, but certainly effective.
This was the first film that Terrence Malick had directed in 20 years. It feels like he packed a lot into this just under 3 hour epic - like he'd been thinking about for the score of years since his last film.
It's a good movie to see one time.
Hot Pursuit is another of Cusack's hijinx-laden 80s movies. This one he headlines and it's the better for it.
Moments of Lloyd Dobler shine through in his character (evidently called Dan Bartlett). Ben Stiller plays a young criminal sorta smoothie, and his dad, Jerry, plays his dad. I'm not sure how many movies Ben & Jerry (!!) have been in together over the years, but that alone makes this old gem worth a viewing if you've never seen it.
Robert Loggia also has an amazing starring role. He's probably also someone worth doing an AIROAPG for. Currently viewable with Amazon Prime.
This was the second time that i watched Pushing Tin. All i remembered about the movie was that i felt like it bit the big one, and the scene of Billy Bob Thorton's Russell Bell (and later Bell and John Cusack's Nick "The Zone" Falzone) stand on a runway under where a 747 comes in for a landing and get blown away - literally - by the afterdraft (evidently the word is jetwash).
I was planning to write that as i rewatched the movie this time, i still did not like it, but had trouble remembering or realizing what it was that i didn't like. As i typed the name Nick Falzone (i don't even mind "The Zone" as it's part of the theme of the job of air traffic controllers that this movie fantasizes), i think i had a less hard time of realizing this.
Cate Blanchett is delightful - she's hidden in this role (i know it's some years back, but she is not an overpowering force, rather she loses herself in the role - which is a good thing). Angelina Jolie is her early career strange being that she is (or was - i'm not quite sure).
I'm not convinced this movie has anything interesting to say about marriage or purpose or machismo or competition. It tries to be about all of these things, but is a bit banal about anything real.
Being John Malkovich was a revelation when first I saw it. It holds up as a solid, creative, and bizarre movie on viewing it nearly 20 years later, but has the flavor of a gimmick narrative (like House of Leaves - which i still love or Skinny Legs and All - which i recognized for what it was as i read it {but still sorta liked}.
Seeing Charlie Sheen today, after having (seemingly) passed through his moment of inauspiciousness, one wonders whether he was a next victim for a brief time, inhabited by some wild madman (or madwoman).
The philosophical implications of the premise (as pointed out by Cusack's character early on) are heavy. Cusack himself plays a lost man - and plays him well. He is a depressed bastard and an artist. He illustrates to exceptional degree what a brilliant person might wrought upon humanity. That is, there is always the danger that with genius comes a darkness. A potential for violence or lashing out at a wider world that doesn't see all the meaning or implications. Cusack's character imprisons his wife in a monkey cage (after terrorizing her), abducts another human's consciousness for several years (true, there were several others who had planned to do so in a short while... and forever), and except at the last moment (and then only for a plot device) abandons his professed true love to presumably die so he can maintain his life, comfort, and stature.
This is, along with Pushing Tin one of the early entries of John Cusack's career where he doesn't play a likable character. He's a schlub - and an artistic schlub at that, which is kinda the worst. Great performances in bad hair.
This was my first ever viewing of Fat Man and Little Boy. It's an interesting story, and a compelling portrait of Robert Oppenheimer - "Oppie". The film, directed by Roland Joffe, has a few odd 'artsy' moments that seem out of place. The opening credits feel like a horror film, and i guess this is one in many ways. The sequence of the Trinity test of the atomic bomb has a slo-mo fade after the explosion to a parade-like celebratory display where Oppenheimer creepily looks like a sports hero after winning a championship, which again, he is in many ways.
John Cusack's character, Michael Merriman, is a young, seemingly fictional, man who worked on the Manhattan Project. It may be that he is loosely based on Louis Slotin, who suffered a similar fate. Playing a fictional character in a historical setting provides a certain license. I don't know what that means exactly.
It's a marvelous ensemble, including Paul Newman. Dwight Schulz plays Oppenheimer, and the whole time he feels more famous than he is until you realize that he's Barclay from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Clark Gregg shows up, which is great, as well as Laura Dern and several other people who seem moderately famous.
Mostly, the movie is a dark view of the historical reality of the choice of completing the Manhattan Project and dropping a bomb when it wasn't necessary for victory. A chilling reminder that The United States remains the only nation insane enough to ever use an atomic weapon on another country's civilian population.
Boom Bust Boom is an hour+ long inquest of 'main-stream' (i.e. capitalist) economics in the 20th & 21st Centuries. My favorite part of the movie is 50 minutes in or so, when researchers on Monkey Island off the south coast of Puerto Rico prove, with evolutionary evidence, that we modern humans are as dumb as monkeys (or that monkeys are as smart as us!) when it comes to economics.
To my mind, this film asks the question (not explicitly, but seriously): What if America decided to be a true meritocracy? What if all debt and all wealth were zeroed out? - no more student debt, credit card debt, mortgages and car loans, payDay loans and underTable LoanShark debt. Also no more savings accounts, checking accounts, money markets, 401(k)s, private equity, fancy money {enter other rich folks stuff here!}. Let's say we all start out at zero. Everyone instantly owns their own primary dwelling (if you're a renter, congrats! it's yours, and if you owed on it you no longer do). And then, you all earn the newly determined UBI (i think this somewhere around $60K - $80K annually, but may be more once the full reckoning is finished.
The question in the film isn't explicit, but mine is. Were we in America to level the playing field (in a real way), I wonder what the meritocracy would see shake out.
John Cusack has, thankfully, a small part in this movie. He's engaging as always, but with most of the discussion being with economists, academics, thought leaders - his part is appropriately minimal.
Paul Krugman also plays a part of the conversation, so you can see that it's really not that radical a movie. Not quite so radical as me, anyway.
We decided to watch Anastasia because Mary Poppins was too stupidly expensive on Amazon. We're holding out for the VHS copy that we think is at Brooke's parents home.
So we decided to watch Anastasia - neither of us had seen it before. Both of us are animation fans, and particularly in the 90s and earlier, we would totally dominate at "totally mainstream 80s/90s animated movie trivia" on HQ.
But Anastasia was my Achilles's heal. Never seen it, and only vaguely knew the story. Rasputin is someone i am fairly familiar with - historically. I know some of his history from Dan Carlin, which is interesting, but i have always thought that seeing a figure from 5 views or 500 views is vital for undertanding. So i was excited to see Anastasia mostly for Rasputin.
And John Cusack read some lines for the movie. They didn't let him sing evidently, but lines. That was fine. A Meg Ryan/John Cusack vehicle we needed. But in Don Bluth animation, it doesn't feel quite so moving or important. This is no Land Before Time or An American Tale (those are both Donnie B, right?)...
Watching The Grifters is an odd experience. It feels somewhat unfinished and I feel uncertain of its tone. Produced by Martin Scorcese and based on a Jim Thompson novel - Wikipedia assures me it's a crime drama (a "neo-crime drama" in fact). Starring John Cusack as a leading man it's hard to take him seriously as a grown up at this stage of his career.
He was just in high school LAST YEAR (1989) in Say Anything. Of course he was also in high school 7 years ago in his debut in Class (1983).
Looking at his filmography, it's clear that 1990 seems like a turning point for Cusack - a coming into his own as a leading man. Hereafter he largely abandons the frivolity of his early work. He'll still embrace absurdity (Being John Malkovich) and perpetual childishness (High Fidelity) as noble pursuits, but the stuff of Hot Pursuit is over (can you tell i'm showing off that i know tiny iotas of HTML?). It's 1990s John Cusack saying goodbye to 1980s John Cusack.
Early in the film, JC's character meets a professional grifter and says he wants to learn the trade. I think that person never shows up again, and it's confusing what path he's on. The film ends, and it feels like a set-up, that somehow he switched the cases and is going to have pulled one over on Anjelica Huston. But then the credits role.
It's shocking to me to learn that it was nominated for 4 Oscars! The actress noms i get (lead & supporting), but a best director nom and best screenplay seem like they are gifts. Great, deserving artists in Stephen Frears and Donald Westlake, but neither i think are doing their best work here.
Don't get me wrong, it's a good movie, worth watching, but feels lacking at times. Maybe just feels a bit rushed.
Sixteen Candles is a nerd fantasy 80s classic. JC plays a sidekick. It's his second movie, and he is meant to be a part of the scenery.
He's funny - "black and white... would just capture the moment...". The movie isn't about him - and the rest (Molly Ringwald, Long Duck Dong, etc. etc. etc.) is fine. It's not as important a film as John Hughes' other films and Molly Ringwald is better spent in Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink and those are better movies.
But this remains in the pantheon of classic 80s movies. Albeit with some problematic #meToo moments with Anthony Michael Hall's romantic path.
I started watching Better off Dead, appropriately, on a dubbed VHS a few weeks ago from the Seeger Collection when i was home in Clinton visiting my parents. I didn't finish it, and the next time i was there, the VCR, unfortunately, ate the tape.
And so i finished it today on a bootleg youTube (it seems a somewhat lost movie, not for sale on amazonVideo and not streamable anywhere else i could find). It's a fun, early Cusack movie. His first top billing, zany and weird. A bit crazy, but really pretty awesome.
Classic lines like "I want my two dollars!", Booger from Revenge of the Nerds, the common 80s theme of the misappropriated foreign exchange student, insane animations come to life - it's got it all.
A bad 80s music video, from a forgettable band (Suicidal Tendencies), "Trip at the Brain" feels a bit like a B-Movie, heavy metal, non-artsy "Take on Me"...
The band's leader wanders a cartoonish hallway, in this case fleeing mad doctor pursuers. The primary mad-scientist finds a brain in a street garbage can, dressed as a hobo, both at the beginning and the end of the video. So, you know, your life and times are cyclical.
John Cusack shows up near the end, almost at the point where you think he's not actually in this video. He plays the General - an anticipatory plagiarism of Colonel Oates, perhaps, from Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. Cusack plays it admirably (i wonder if he knows them or something? Why is he in this video?), however he looks like what he is - a kid dressed up in general-wear.
Identity was a wholly new experience for me (as was "Trip at the Brain", i guess!). I'm not sure there are many movies released since 1997 that have as many big name actors (or mid-name actors), let alone with John Cusack, that i have forgotten the existence of.
It's a tidy thriller, and i was unsurprised to learn that it was a knock-off of an Agatha Christie story. The film even makes slight jokes toward that fact while at the same time tipping it's hand toward the twist ending.
After the first two murders with the two victims holding keys to rooms 10 & 9 respectively, Paris Nevada (i think) says, "is this some kind of countdown?". After another death or two, all of the characters are sitting in the motel lobby and (i think again) Paris says, "maybe we're all connected somehow".
What's interesting is that at the moment these lines happen, the film feels clunky and simplistic. It's actually a nod to the fact that this whole film, except for a few scenes ARE overly plotted and formulaic, because they occur within the mind of one simpleton madman serial killer.
Sorry, have i mentioned before that there are spoiler alerts in this post? Overall, a pretty tight movie. And a reminder of how different the world was in 2003, pre-iPhone
Grosse Pointe Blank is the unofficial sequel to Say Anything. It's what would have become of Lloyd Dobler if he hadn't gotten on that plane with Diane. Actually, if he had forgone the whole Diane Court obsession entirely, and instead had dated a friend of Corey and D.C.'s
Debi seems like she would have hung out with them in high school, but was their popular (and rich) friend. She's friends with Diane Court in high school, too - tho they're no longer in touch 10 years later at the reunion. As Martin Blank, Lloyd foresaw a perpetually normal life in Grosse Pointe with Debbie, freaked out, and joined the army (evidently he could work for that corporation).
This movie takes place in between Lloyd and Rob Gordon, where he winds up in High Fidelity. Martin cashes out his assassin-for-hire retirement account and buys a record store. Seattle is Detroit is Chicago, and it all makes sense. Debi and Diane must have just narrowly missed Rob's Top Five list
Evidently i missed noting that i had also watched Grandview U.S.A. - also my first viewing. A fun, nostalgic trip starting Jamie Lee Curtis, C. Thomas Howell and Patrick Swayze. Cusack features in a small, forgettable (in that i have subsequently forgotten) way in the movie.
Evidently Elvis Stories was intended to be an SNL Digital Short before there were SNL Digital Shorts...
Ben Stiller directed this, and i think at a time when he was in Lorne Michael's orbit, but the film / material didn't fit their format at the time, and he created it as a standalone piece instead.
Cusack's performance as Corky has not aged well and the whole thing is more something to look at and go, "huh, well that is a thing that existed..." rather than an enjoyable ride at all. Mike Myers, Jeremy Piven and Ben Stiller have small parts, among others...
Eight Men Out is a history of a history... Late 1980s viewing the era of 1919 (except everyone looks a bit like they are wearing costumes from a small town high-school theater department's musical closet. Or maybe most of the costumes at my high school were from the 1910s & 1920s and so these were authentic clothes from that era).
The whole movie feels like it's in a bit of a rush. Particularly the ending, which is suddenly upon us in the court room, and John Cusack makes a last-ditch effort to not go under with the rest of his teammates, because he didn't take the money. (History spoiler alert, the movie is about how the Chicago White Sox players fixed the 1919 World Series).
Cusack's role as Buck Weaver gets second billing, although he feels somewhat lost in the large ensemble. It is an interesting experience to see JC interact with John Mahoney who will star with him again a year later as adversaries in Say Anything. It's a worthwhile exploration of an interesting historical moment and era if you haven't seen it.
I think i vaguely knew that there had been a movie called The Numbers Station, and am vaguely aware of the conspiracy theory weirdness. When this title popped up on my searching for John Cusack material, i was surprised.
The movie is fairly skippable. Because it seems like what i do here, i kind of see JC's character in this movie as a sequel to Grosse Pointe Blank Martin Blank if things hadn't worked out during that weekend with Debi.
Seeing Liam Cunningham in another capacity is enjoyable - i have been wondering who the next AIROAPG would be. At first i thought Robert Loggia was a good candidate after i watched Hot Pursuit, and then i saw another movie screening thing with Chevy Chase where this all started, and thought i'd maybe choose him. Liam Cunningham would be another good choice, but i'm not quite sure how to decide...
Until now. All things serve the motherfucking beam...
So, as it turns out Jason Patric was offered his own Taken and the result is The Prince. It is not great. Reductive and simplistic. It's not super well thought out. Kind of silly. Lot's of intense talking. But overall, like, okay. Basic, but not up to par. JC plays a minor character, introduced late, who used to help Jason Patric in his earlier life as a (?) thug-turned-good or cop-posing-as-thug or poorKid-made-good-but-on-the-streets-so-it-seems-more-authentic-to-people-who-have-never-experienced-actual-frightening-circumstances
This is not a great movie. John Cusack is a delightful human, and he's fine in this movie, but this is a film that need not have been made. We can all do better
As I continue this long-running project, I am always delighted when I find an entirely new (to me) piece of John Cusack's oeuvre. This time (a couple days ago), that delight was 1988's Tapeheads, a movie that I love learning was produced by Mike Nesmith.
Cusack stars opposite Tim Robbins, which is also awesome (sorry, this is gonna be a bit gushy, because i guess i somehow just missed that this movie ever existed and only just discovered it). The movie also features walk-on cameos / extras of: Mike Nesmith, Bobcat Goldthwait, Weird Al, Jello Biafra, Ted Nugent, and Courtney Love. All of those folks in one place maybe makes sense at the time given the incestuous, back-scratching, nepotistic nature of the industry, but today this list seems epically cool.
I'm sure there's a plot and other interesting stuff in this movie, but gosh, getting to see Mike Nesmith on screen any time is always a joy (and JC is pretty good in this one too)...
Last night I finished Utopia (or perhaps finished what was Season 1 of it) adapted by Gillian Flynn from the British original. It's a delightfully twisted tale tailored to 2020. JC gets top billing, but doesn't appear in the first episode, and he doesn't get a ton of screen time (which actually fits the show and his character well).
I imagine JC loved the idea of signing on to this role, where he gets to play an uber-leftist super villain (there are not enough leftist super villains, i mean maybe Joker, but he's an anarchist, which is not inherently left or right, necessarily). Dr. Kevin Christie is an eco-terrorist, but notched up to Ishmael (or perhaps The Story of B) levels with its population control ideas.
It's a perfect role for JC at this stage in his career. He gets to portend (or perhaps pretend) vast depths of biological and philosophical knowledges, while revealing very little until his last mad-man rant at the end of the series. The band of misfit toys who meet up with and then carouse with their comic-book legend hero, Jessica Hyde, are a ton of fun throughout... Well worth diving in to...
In Love & Mercy, Cusack plays Brian Wilson during some of his hardest days suffering under the influence of Eugene Landy and other hangers-on trying to capitalize on Wilson's "comeback".
It's an interesting look (admittedly, from a pretty narrow point of view) at the "salvation" of Brian Wilson, with the closing credits of the movie telling the story that follows the events of this movie with Brian Wilson releasing his master work, Smile in 2004, and subsequently touring first for the album and later with The Beach Boys for their 50th Anniversary Tour. We both bought Smile on CD when it came out, and saw The Beach Boys reunion tour at SummerFest with Andy, Tim, Jen et al.
In the movie, Paul Dano plays the younger Brian Wilson, and ably, but I think Cusack's performance is priceless - capturing the spacey, distant presence (or absence) that Wilson displayed on stage in 2012 when we saw him.
John Cusack plays Max Rothman, an avant-garde art dealer in post-WWI Munich, in Max, written & directed by Menno Meyjes. Max befriends a fellow war veteran, a slight corporal living in post-war provided barracks because he can find no job nor prospects... named Adolf.
The warsomest* moment in the movie is when JC says "You're a hard man to like, Hitler, but I'm gonna try..." Much of the movie seems like a weird apologist piece - trying to find the lighter, more understandable side of the 20th Century's favorite supervillain. But soon it becomes clear that this 2002 movie is an early window into the American 21st Century fascist moment we find ourselves in.
Once Hitler starts making Nazi speeches, there start to appear a few "noticeable listeners" who might amount to something - the doofus with glasses is likely meant to be Himmler, but he should be Goebbels, because the point at which this movie starts to get interesting is after Hitler's first speech, when he's yelling at Max about how politics is the new art form, and he, Hitler, is the new Avant-Garde (which really hits home in the era of Trump(f), but was actually made in the very early days of W {or late Clinton [and was actually watched by me in the post-Trump era]}.
But the point is made so much better at Hitler's wacky Rallies than it is at Max's meat grinder performance art piece. Just like it's made so much better by the performative politics that we are living through than by actually doing anything to help try and make your citizens lives a little better...
*"warsomest" is a new word that means both awesomest and worst... Is there a way to submit to the Urban Dictionary?
1997's adaptation of Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil (which I was very surprised to learn was directed by Clint Eastwood) feels faithful albeit somewhat empty. John Cusack plays John Kelso (a version of John Berendt who wrote the book), who feels a bit more central in the movie narrative than he had in the book.
This is a great book, and just a pretty good movie, made uncomfortable by the presence of Kevin Spacey, but overall, the cast is a joy - including an early role of Jude Law's. As in the book, Savannah, GA is the main character, and the most fun one to visit. I probably haven't seen this movie in 20 years or more, and while it was nice to encounter again, I'm not sure it's one I'll ever need to see again...
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