MY MOVIE SHELF: Oscar

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 173  Days to go: 172

Movie #204:  Oscar

Oscar is a hilarious little screwball comedy.

Sylvester Stallone (as Angelo “Snaps” Provolone) isn’t known as a comedic actor. Actually, he’s not known as much of an actor at all. But as a 1930s mob boss attempting to go straight as a promise to his dying father (Kirk Douglas),  he does a damn fine job. (I stand firm on this assessment, naysayers and professional critics be damned.) Naturally, as must happen in all screwball comedies, nothing goes according to plan.

Angelo’s accountant, Little Anthony Rosano (Vincent Spano) shows up first thing in the morning to ask for a huge raise (from $400 a month to $1400 a month) so he can afford to propose to his lover — a girl from a very wealthy family who deserves to be kept in the lifestyle she’s accustomed to. When Snaps agrees to $1200 a month, Little Anthony stands up and asks for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Snaps is furious, but there will be no plugging anyone in the house today with company coming over — at noon they become bankers. He has every mind to throw Anthony out on the street until he finds out about Anthony’s $50,000 (stolen from Snaps) that he plans to give to his bride.

Snaps only has one daughter, Lisa (Marisa Tomei), though it turns out Anthony is in love with the one that’s not Lisa. “We don’t have a daughter that’s not Lisa!” Snaps knows this, but he also wants his $50,000 back, so he does a little maneuvering to trick Anthony into handing it over. Anthony does a little maneuvering of his own, however, convincing Lisa to fall for her father’s elocution teacher Dr. Poole (Tim Curry), while also revealing a second $50,000 he stole from Snaps.

The rest of the morning is a fabulous farce, as little black bags, multiple daughters and every other type of character imaginable traipses in and out of the house, which, in addition to expecting bankers at noon, is also being watched by the FBI and the rival Vendetti gang. Not to mention the fact that Snaps has to keep disarming his crew (particularly Aldo and Connie, played wonderfully by Peter Riegert and Chazz Palminteri), having them watch certain people or certain bags in certain rooms, and reminding them to stop calling him boss. (“Sorry, boss.”) It’s a crazy, upside-down flurry of fabulous joy, and I never tire of watching it.

Full of great quotes and fun performances (Tomei’s sassy daughter is my favorite, but all are great), Oscar is actually a movie I’ve happily watched dozens of times. I love it from the operatic opening to the double wedding end (Oscar is removed expeditiously). And I don’t think that makes me either an ox OR a moron.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Clue

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 306  Days to go: 295

Movie #67: Clue

It has to be a difficult task to make a movie based on a board game. I assume that’s why it’s rarely attempted and only ever moderately successful this once, with Clue.

To clarify, Clue was not at all successful in theaters. I remember when it came out, and while I saw it and a bunch of my friends saw it — more than once, to see all the different endings — mostly it was mocked and derided for being stupid and silly and gimmicky for having multiple endings and being based on a board game. It didn’t make a lot of money, but for several children of that era — and the many children who’ve come after, catching it on TV several times a year — it achieved a certain revered status.

The reason, I believe, for this status — this success, as it were — is twofold. One, the movie employs some of the best and most respected absurdist comedic actors of the previous ten years, at least: Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Michael McKean, Christopher Lloyd, Eileen Brennan and Martin Mull. All were skilled at and at ease with improvisation, rapid-fire banter, and physical comedy, plus they brought Lesley Ann Warren into the mix, who was both sexy and funny. Two, nobody took this seriously. This isn’t Battleship, where there’s some grave worldwide crisis threatening all mankind that must be solved. Clue is playful and ridiculous — not even the setup or the motives or the endings make a whole lot of sense — and incredibly fun to watch.

One thing I think makes this one board game somewhat easier to adapt than any other is the fact that it comes pre-packaged with characters and a storyline. Six people — Miss Scarlet, Colonel Mustard, Mrs. White, Mr. Green, Mrs. Peacock and Professor Plum — are all present in this mansion when Mr. Boddy is killed, and one of them did it, in one of the rooms, with one of the six provided weapons. It’s a basic framework for a narrative already — who are these goofy people with these weird names and why are they all suspected of murder? It’s a structure that the talented actors and writers (including John Landis) could play with.

My favorite, unsurprisingly, is the clever wordplay and double entendres bandied about throughout the film. If there is a double meaning to be had or a misunderstanding to be made, Clue exploits it. “Why would he want to kill you in public?”

Then there’s “one plus one plus two plus one, not one plus two plus one plus one,” and Madeline Kahn with “flame, flames, flames — on the side of my face.” Not to mention the greatest last line of any frivolous movie ever, “I’m gonna go home and sleep with my wife.” Way to go, Mr. Green.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Charlie’s Angels

This is the deal: I own around 350 movies on DVD and Blu-ray. Through June 10, 2015, I will be watching and writing about them all, in the order they are arranged on my shelf (i.e., alphabetically, with certain exceptions). No movie will be left unwatched . I welcome your comments, your words of encouragement and your declarations of my insanity.

Movie #48: Charlie’s Angels

Here’s some interesting math. I’ve had a lifelong affinity for Drew Barrymore. Like the weird guy who did the My Date With Drew movie, only I never had any interest in stalking her. I can’t explain it, really, I just think she’s awesome and our birthdays are close together and I’d really like to hang out and be friends with her. Whatever. On the other side of that coin, I really detested Cameron Diaz ever since The Mask. Again, I couldn’t put my finger on it, but she was just so … false, maybe? I found her completely and utterly annoying. BUT! If you take my huge affection for Drew, add Lucy Liu, who I was kind of neutral-positive on (she wasn’t all that well-known at the time, though she’d had small roles in lots of things for several years), multiply it by my love of quippy, flashy movies (to the very concept of a Charlie’s Angels reboot-th power), and add the square root of at least half a dozen clever cameos plus a killer breakout performance by Sam Rockwell, it actually MAKES ME LIKE CAMERON DIAZ. Only in this one movie at first, but after the sequel it was completely cemented. Weird, right?

There’s not even anything to this movie, except quips and flash. The plot is somehow both convoluted and thin, and it apparently exists only to give its three stars the opportunity to vamp it up in crazy costumes. It’s silly and punny and charming and I absolutely love it. I love Matt LeBlanc as a big time action movie star (it’s almost as if Joey Tribbiani finally made it). I love Tim Curry as a pervy billionaire. I love Melissa McCarthy as the overfriendly office worker. I love L.L. Cool J (all the ladies love Cool James, you know) going meta in the opening scene by complaining about cheesy TV shows being made into movies and then turning out to be one of Drew’s costumes. I love Drew’s ex-boyfriend Luke Wilson and current (at the time) boyfriend Tom Green both showing up as romantic interests — Wilson as Pete, for Diaz’s Natalie, and Green as Chad for Barrymore’s Dylan aka Starfish. (Drew really seems like the kind of woman who becomes friends with all, or at least several, of her exes — which seems like a theoretically great way to be, though I could never pull it off with any kind of aplomb.) And I love love love love love Crispin Glover as the creepy thin man who escapes death at least twice in this movie alone (spoiler — he’s in the sequel).

The Angels themselves are also just perfect, as far as I’m concerned. Natalie with her dance sequences, Dylan’s transparent interest in Knox (Rockwell) (she wants to shake, not bake), and Alex constantly flipping her “goddamn hair” in slow motion. In the same way women like to tell you which Sex and the City character they are most like, I compare myself to these particular Angels, and I am all of them. I am a weird combination of flighty and brilliant and I can be very easily amused (Natalie). I’m an offbeat girl with a sometimes harder edge who likes the risk, sexiness and excitement of a bad boy but is always looking for a sense of belonging (Dylan). And I’m a matter-of-fact woman who knows what she wants and makes plans to go out and get it, sans bullshit (Alex).

I really enjoy a lot of this film: the singing yodel-gram girls, Dylan at the speedway in a va-va-va-voom jumpsuit with tons of ’70s porn star blonde hair and cleavage licking a steering wheel, Alex as a dominatrix efficiency expert, Alex as a masseuse with a french-tip  pedicure (the first time I’d ever seen such a thing, and suddenly it was huge), and Natalie in the driver’s ed vehicle with head-gear and Princess Leia buns, among other things. But let’s circle back around to the magnificence that was Sam Rockwell’s performance as his character Eric Knox reveals himself to be the bad guy. Ostentatious, sexy, and magnetic all of a sudden, he’s completely transformed from his previous bumbling aw-shucks guy. He dances, he flirts, he simmers. It’s spectacular. I really wish Sam Rockwell had an entire movie just to do that kind of thing in, but then I’d be afraid of getting another Confessions of a Dangerous Mind or something.

So somehow with a movie that has almost no substance whatsoever, I have found a million and one things to talk about, and could go on for quite some time about the campy fun of it all — I didn’t even touch on Bill Murray’s utter Bill Murray-ness — but instead I will leave you with a final thought: “The Chad is great. The Chad is great. The Chad … is stuck.”