Blu-ray Review: King of Hearts (1966)

Now Available 

Fresh out of film school and stuck making military documentary shorts, director Philippe de Broca discovered that not only had he had enough of war but he only wanted to make movies that would lift people up from that moment on.

Honing his skills even further as an assistant director on Chabrol's Le Beau Serge and Truffaut's The 400 Blows, de Broca's earliest successes revealed he had less in common with those filmmakers than he did with Tati and Demy given his affection for the cinematic showmanship of action vs. dialogue (best expressed in well choreographed over-the-top stunts) alongside ultra-bright colors and song.

Drawing on a number of genres from action to comedy to espionage in such influential international hits as That Man From Rio and Up to His Ears (both of which I reviewed earlier in another glorious Cohen Media Blu-ray release), de Broca proved that “laughter is the best defense against upsets in life.”

But try as he might to put war behind him, when his frequent collaborator, actor, and screenwriter Daniel Boulanger turned in a script for the daring antiwar comedy, King of Hearts (based on an idea by Maurice Bessy), de Broca took advantage of the opportunity to look back at the past with satirical glasses.

A bona fide cult hit made all the more significant given the war in Vietnam, Hearts experienced greater success in the United States than in de Broca's home country of France to the point that it played for five consecutive years in a Boston arthouse in the mid 1970s once it finally made its way across the pond.

Set during the final days of World War I, in this surrealist cross between Catch 22 and Alice in Wonderland, Scottish soldier Private Plumpick (Alan Bates) is given the plum awful assignment of traveling to a picturesque village in the French northern countryside that the Germans have wired to blow sky high. His mission? To locate and disarm the bomb, of course.

But while most of the occupants have abandoned the village, in a humdinger of a twist, the residents of a nearby psychiatric asylum wander out of their now unlocked surroundings to take their place. Replacing the sterility of shared white rooms with homes and businesses that had been left behind, the patients eagerly welcome the bewildered Plumpick upon his arrival.

Although it takes a good twenty minutes or so for viewers to get acclimated to King's unusual rhythm and storyline or lack thereof, de Broca's intriguing allegory isn't lost on us at all as he skillfully uses the absurdity of the situation to ask the viewer (as well as Plumpick) whether any of the film's characters are more or less sane than war.

Largely plotless save for the soldier's main mission to find and dispose of the bomb as well as a late developing romantic subplot involving the lovely Genevieve Bujold, Hearts gives de Broca the freedom to continue build upon his favored recipe of contemporary French absurdist humor and ‘20s era Hollywood slapstick, which he'd employed earlier in Rio and Ears.

The son of a production designer, de Broca’s attention to detail is spectacular here and everything about Hearts gives off a big screen Technicolor wonderland carnival vibe from Bujold’s main sunshine bright yet cotton candy light costume to composer Georges Delerue’s pitch perfect, merry-go-round ready score.

Overwhelmed by the idea of any anything goes free-for-all, while de Broca’s house of cards starts to topple during its second act, scripter Boulanger wisely shuffles in greater stakes – reminding us that although its residents might be blissfully unaware – war lingers on either end of the street.

An obvious cinematic impact on M*A*S*H* and No Man’s Land among others, while de Broca’s decision to make an experimental, near silent comedy excels overall, it prevents us from getting as close to his characters as we’d like as we find we're only able to identity them by their royal and/or playing card names.

And although it keeps the players at an arm's length for a majority of the picture, ironically this set up makes the war vs. peace impact of Hearts all the more meaningful by the time we reach the picture's moving conclusion, which is sure to stay with viewers more than any mind-boggling, comedic stunt.

Given a meticulous Technicolor restoration in time for its fiftieth anniversary and theatrical re-release back in 2016, Hearts has at last been transferred to stellar Blu-ray and DVD format complete with a few terrific bonus interviews and features, thanks to the Cohen Film Collection.

Requiring more patience than de Broca's more universally revered adventurous fare, although it's admittedly not for everyone, King of the Hearts remains one of de Broca’s most daring, ambitious, and surprisingly personal works.

A war movie where true to de Broca form, laughter provides the best defense against the madness of mass violence, although topical in the ‘60s, more than fifty years later, King of Hearts proves it still has something to say.

Text ©2018, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

DVD Review: So This Is New York (1948)

Now Available to Own   

Sardonic satirical version of the novel The Big Town from F. Scott Fitzgerald friend and witty scribe Ring Lardner that was tailor made to play up the acerbic wit of radio humorist Henry Morgan in his feature film debut, So This Is New York is best appreciated for the cross-section of talent that collided in what is an otherwise experimentally uneven picture.

The cinematic brainchild of ambitious newcomer producer (and future director) Stanley Kramer and soon-to-be-blacklisted future High Noon and Bridge on the River Kwai scripter Carl Foreman (who adapted Town alongside Herbert Baker), New York marked the feature-length debut of Richard Fleischer who was unafraid to employ adventurous techniques in his first time at the helm.

Although the decision to serve up subtitled translations of New Yorker “dialect” for its Midwestern out-of-town characters was modern for the time, perhaps the most inventive contribution Fleischer made was as an early pioneer of extended freeze frames in what can arguably be considered a mainstream Avant-garde work.

In addition to trying to find new opportunities to convey information and punctuate Morgan’s humor, the extended freeze frame technique offered his lead a chance to riff as a comedic narrator similar to the way that audiences had gotten used to hearing him over the air on the radio (before Morgan would subsequently embark on a career in television).

Though Fleischer took each approach merely to the tip of the iceberg, later more New York filmmakers like Woody Allen in Annie Hall and Martin Scorsese in Goodfellas would really break the ice and explore what both methods could do, turning them into an art-form to read a character’s internal thoughts in Hall and contrast visual and auditory information in Goodfellas.

Overall as it stands, there’s not much to take away from the rather episodic narrative structure of the film designed to appeal to the same viewers who appreciated the sweet and sour flavor on display in Preston Sturges’s sophisticated comedies. And while the energetic cast tries their hardest, the sitcom-like feel of a pre-sitcom era script is ultimately to blame.

New York tells a comedic fish-out-of-water tale about Midwesterners who venture to the Big Apple only to discover that the grass is greener back home in Indiana where life moved at a slower speed and everybody wasn’t out to hustle them for a quick buck from horse-race fixers to a comedian looking for a foolish investor to back his dramatic Broadway debut.

Hoping to keep an eye on his scheming wife (Virginia Grey), Morgan travels along as a chaperone when, following their inheritance from a recently deceased relative, his wife decides they’re going to head to the hustle and bustle of the big city in order to find a rich cultured husband for her newly rich, beautiful younger sister (Donna Drake).

Unwilling to let her sister marry the loyal but unexciting Indiana beau pining away for her back home, the women soldier on as Morgan schemes on his own, trying to keep them from losing every cent until predictably they do just that.

Repetitive and formulaic, each new incident in New York is strung together like a different short story rather than a new chapter from the same book.

And while it’s entertaining enough for a lazy afternoon, despite its auspicious and technically creative merits it’s best remembered more as an early stepping stone taken by the cast and crew to get to the next phase of their career (which is par for the course of the theme of this grass-is-always-greener comedy).

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Stuck (2007)

View the Trailer, Clips, Photos & an Exclusive Interview

The nature vs. nurture debate has gone on forever, nearly as long as the chicken and the egg question (which ironically would tie right in if that chicken starts misbehaving) and while it's one that we'll never solve, the bottom line is I think most of us want to believe that humans are born basically good. Certain things we're taught and certain things are instinctual-- from looking both ways before we cross the street or not taking candy from strangers to treating others as you want to be treated, some of this seems almost ingrained in our DNA but the one that seems to outweigh them all is self-preservation.

While this can be a positive whether it's willing oneself to make it through some horrific ordeal or illness, it can also be used to ill effect when its at the expense of others and such is the case which comprises the plot of director Stuart Gordon's internationally acclaimed and award-winning film, Stuck, which has newly arrived on DVD shelves.

Stuck's self-preservation battle is shown from two competing points of view when Mena Suvari's young character Brandi ignores proper and downright moral protocol and after accidentally driving straight into a down-on-his-luck newly homeless man (Stephen Rea) makes the panicked decision to keep on driving. While hit-and-runs make the news everyday and their cowardly actions are upsetting indeed especially if the struck pedestrian is in serious condition or worse-- the horrific events of Stuck are even more appalling when one realizes that the pedestrian wasn't just struck but instead stuck halfway through her windshield.

If this is starting to sound familiar it should-- inspired by the tragic, true story of a Texas woman who hit a businessman in 2001 and left him for dead in her garage, Re-Animator helmer Stuart Gordon and his screenwriter John Strysick produce a film that's as compelling as it is utterly unbelievable in its primal ferocity.

Instead of ripping it straight from the headlines verbatim and making their version into a docudrama, the filmmakers ingeniously craft a film that plays equally well as a dark yet intellectually compelling and often surprisingly wicked comic satire about the all-time low of public decency (as several timely issues including health care, immigration, the economy, and others are investigated) as well as going right for Gordon's prime demographic of horror fans looking for a succinct, gory little thriller. Much like Brandi's car, the intense nail-biter Stuck packs a wallop and the results of the film you will feel for not simply miles but days.

We first encounter Brandi (Suvari, who also produced) as a dedicated, loyal and hardworking nursing home employee who kindly tends to her patients even the one who requests her assistance by name when he soils his sheets and despite the impression that her boss is simply manipulating her, routinely comes into work on Saturdays to pitch in. Dangled with the idea of a possible lucrative and prestigious promotion in becoming the captain of the nursing assistants, Brandi and her friend Tanya go out for a typical Friday night of clubbing, drinking and pill-popping along with her dealer and low-level gang member boyfriend Rashid (Russell Hornsby).

Our introduction to Brandi is intercut with the man whose fate will him find wasting away in her garage, namely Stephen Rea's Tom Bardo whose last name is derived from a Buddhist term referencing his future "life-or-death situation." A recently downsized project manager who was let go before his benefits would've kicked in and unable to pay his rent, Bardo finds himself on the unfortunate receiving end of one bad circumstance after another as he's denied governmental assistance from what appears to be both a human and computer error, kicked out of his apartment and taking to the streets for the evening. It's later that night that he's dealt the worst hand yet when after far too many cocktails and pills, Brandi and Tom find themselves in the same intersection at the wrong time.

Video Clip:
The Hit

Although she instinctively drives to a hospital and later contemplates calling 911, ultimately, the irrational Brandi drives home where she pulls into her garage and closes the door. Since she was the first character we met and the horrible event was definitely an accident, we instinctively feel bad for both "stuck" individuals but with the more time passes from the initial impact, we begin glimpsing the inhumanity that lies in Brandi who's so fearful of losing her job (and essentially ending up in Tom's shoes) that she disgustingly puts her life before human decency and quietly waits for him to die.

When her boyfriend arrives, she confesses that she struck a man but leaves out the most important detail involving his close proximity and in a scene that at first felt unnecessarily gratuitous yet serves as the revolting introduction to her more deceptive side that will further reveal itself as the night turns into day, Brandi and Rashid have sex that's intercut with the recently awakened Rea's agonizing pain.

While morning finds her sobered up and beginning to think clearly-- guiltily she once again contemplates calling the authorities but when Brandi first lies to Tom and tells him that help is on the way and then suddenly turns on a dime and later asks, "Why are you doing this to me?" we're horrified to realize we know precisely what she has in mind. Feeling complicit, we silently beg for someone to discover Tom. While I can't reveal more-- structurally changes were made that ultimately strengthen the film into an intelligent and frightening character-driven piece that's escalated by the talent of those involved, especially the humorous scene stealer Hornsby who provides much needed comic relief as we realize we're headed straight for a brutal showdown that can only end one of two ways.

Far better than I expected-- upon reading the synopsis, it's precisely the type of film I'd typically avoid but due to the accolades, acclaim and inclusion in several prestigious film festivals including the American Film Institute Fest in Dallas and the Toronto International Film Festival, I'm glad I took a chance. Ultimately a testament to one man's fight for survival pitted against one woman's escalating mental breakdown, Stuart Gordon's shocking story of being caught between a windshield and a garage is a master class in visceral filmmaking. Just be sure afterward you don't drink, dial and drive and always look both ways before you cross the street.

The Foot Fist Way

In the words of Fred Simmons, “Jujitsu sucks”; it’s
time for Tae Kwon Do, or more appropriately
its translation, “Foot Fist Way.”

How does one begin to describe Fred Simmons (played by Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express scene stealer Danny McBride)? From the highbrow evaluation of the man as “the type of blustery, provincial narcissist who is always putting his foot in his mouth and absolutely loving how it tastes,” as Nathan Lee offered in The New York Times to the more straightforward call-it-like-he-sees-it approach offered by Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers who sums him up in two words — “loudmouthed bully” — there’s no way of getting around the fact that McBride and his co-writers Ben Best and Jody Hill have created one unforgettable character in their film The Foot Fist Way.

In my eyes (and I'm sure I'm not alone), he’s the white trash version of Ricky Gervais’ character David Brent from BBC’s The Office. In fact, had Brent been not only real but had a twin from whom he was separated at birth — I’d lay odds on the fact that it would be none other than Fred Simmons.

The self-centered Tae Kwon Do instructor with delusions of grandeur runs a low-level suburban studio and recruits students as “The King of the Demo” in local North Carolina parking lots along with his sycophantic youthful sidekicks Julio (Spencer Moreno) and Henry Harrison (Carlos Lopez). Moreover, Simmons spends most of his time acting in ways that would give Miss Manners a heart attack. With virtually no filter from his head to his mouth, he is also prone — like David Brent — to making extremely unethical and unprofessional requests and comments of and to his students. Whether it’s nearly sending an elderly lady to the morgue after instructing a young man to come at her with all he has since he questions Simmons’ methods, wailing on children, telling one gentleman who balks at the prices that he’s fat and feminine or blaming his sidekicks when he messes up in his routine by addressing their lack of confidence, Simmons is — much like David Brent — the boss from hell still clinging to a championship title won in Vegas years earlier.

After he’s cheated on by his bimbo wife Suzie (Mary Jane Bostic), a woman who defends granting sexual favors to fit in by saying she was as "Myrtle Beach drunk" as their beach-like home décor, Simmons goes off the deep end. And although anyone with half a brain saw the Suzie debacle coming a mile away as she’s fond of wearing skin tight leotards and off the shoulder Flashdance apparel to church, photocopying her “naughty bits” at work and making a ranked list of coworkers who would be the most likely to freak out and go on a shooting spree, we quickly realize that mate-wise, she’s probably the best a guy like Simmons could do.

But that doesn’t prevent him from attempting to play the field such as in an excruciatingly Office-like scene wherein he comes on to one young woman (in a manner similar to Brent) by saying that since he already has all of her personal information like phone number and address, there’s no real need to go through the “weird schematics” of actually asking her out. However, what he fails to realize is that perhaps it wasn’t the biggest turn-on that the married Simmons was the very same man who freaked her into signing up for lessons by discussing that her admiration of yoga and meditation never saved “anyone from a gang rape type situation.”

The film, which is divided up into the admirable, selfless, and peaceful tenets of Tae Kwon Do (which translates literally to “foot fist way”) has loads of fun showing the irony of a man like Simmons who embodies the polar opposite of his teachings. The film is beyond hilarious and even far more so than Napoleon Dynamite, the film to which it’s most likely compared. Yet for roughly the first half, once other subplots begin to overpower the madness of David Brent… er, I mean Fred Simmons and he takes to the road with his intense and possibly psychotic friend Mike (director Jody Hill) to meet their idol, Chuck “The Truck” Wallace (a hilarious Ben Best playing a Chuck Norris/Steven Seagal hybrid), the film loses some of its momentum.

Far better off when it was a martial arts styled version of The Office than as an impromptu road film, the last twenty minutes falls into intense mediocrity during a horrifically vulgar tell-off to Suzie as Simmons literally pisses away their relationship through a superfluous contest montage between Simmons and The Truck. Then — making one rank Dynamite above it for its more consistently funny tone — Foot at least refuses to go out without a fight. Serving up some truly quotable lines—especially from The Truck who makes strange propositions like “Who wants me to see me with my shirt off?” and confronts Simmons’ group with “you think it’s cool to just come into my party and beat up the band?” before admitting that he himself finds it awesome, it will be the type of film to gain even greater cult status when it kicks DVD shelves on September 23.

Proudly using Roger Ebert’s assessment that “children should not be allowed with a mile of this film,” as a selling point in a sticker on the box, the underground, cult comedy hit The Foot Fist Way -- made “for two cents” and “shot in 19 days” — has made its long journey from the Los Angeles Film Festival to theatrical release and DVD distribution thanks to the ardent support of two die-hard fans, namely Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. Their love for the film is so resolute that it’s even the major narrative thread running throughout the hysterical green band version of the film’s trailer they posted on their rousingly hilarious and irreverent website Funny or Die (a.k.a. the more consistently comedic answer to YouTube) that you can see below.

View the Trailer

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

While it will be widely available for rental, director Jody Hill’s movie from Paramount Vantage and MTV Films will be exclusively for sale at Best Buy. Loaded with bonus footage that salvages some of its weaknesses including commentary by Hill and McBride, bloopers, English, French and Spanish subtitles, and 5.1 surround sound, the widescreen DVD also provides twenty extended and/or deleted scenes and an alternate ending for Simmons’ devotees to explore.

While it’s uneven at best, when the film works, it really works, sending you into hysterics by the frankly matter-of-fact and deadpan delivery by a scarily convincing McBride who elevates this film and makes quite a name for himself, leading to future work alongside some of Hollywood’s funniest men in Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express. Although David Brent would be green with envy, no doubt Fred Simmons is proud to keep kicking ass to a much larger audience who will eagerly seek out this little indie that could.

Duck (2005)

Director:
Nic Bettauer




As I’m sure that Michael Moore will attest, one of the greatest challenges in setting out to make a "message movie" is that, no matter how admirable your intentions may be, you have to fight the urge to preach while reconciling the best way to tell the story. And while at least Moore has the advantage of working in the realm of nonfiction documentary filmmaking — despite critical accusations to the contrary — it’s far more difficult when you’re working in the field of narrative fiction features. For proof, look no further than writer/director Nic Bettauer’s award-winning festival favorite Duck.

The overwhelmingly melancholy Duck is set in the dystopian, not-so-distant future of 2009 where, under the rule of Commander-in-Chief Jeb Bush, social security has been abolished, recycling programs have been canceled, and public parks have been converted to landfills.

In hoping to avert the overwhelming sadness of the picture which opens with the plotted suicide of the elderly, widowed Arthur (Philip Baker Hall), Bettauer employs, as she notes in an exclusive DVD interview, a “slightly skewed absurdist [sense of] humor.” The initial result is surprisingly fresh and, given the dire opening, desperately welcome as Arthur changes his deadly plans when an intervention is staged by an unlikely source, namely a small baby duck who wanders over to our hapless hero. Having lost his entire family, the duck, who is later renamed Joe by Arthur, mistakes the human for his mother and eagerly charmed by his new feathered friend, Arthur ignores his landlord’s rule of no animals or plants and takes him to his apartment.

In the first of several irresistibly sweet-natured and charming sequences, Arthur tries to adapt to the duck and become a good host for his roommate. Initially filling his floor with papers including comics Arthur assumes will amuse Joe, he soon gives up upon realizing Joe has a mind of his own. Having offered shelter, Arthur proceeds to look after the rest of Joe’s immediate needs, by trying to tempt him with a variety of edible treats from popcorn to salad until remembering the old adage that everyone likes bread. Entertaining Joe with a beloved Tchaikovsky record and an impromptu picnic, the two become fast friends and bunk buddies and the exceptionally lonely Arthur sums it up best when he tells Joe, “I’m really glad you’re here,” since it makes him feel like he is, too. Soon Joe grows into a bigger duck and, after developing an allergy problem, Arthur helps ease his roommate’s sinuses by bathing him with bath salts to cure a sneezing fit.

However, just as quickly as Arthur makes the impulsive decision to bring Joe into his solitary life, the lovable tone of the film is speedily abandoned in favor of cruelly depicted, forced satire, and unrelenting darkness after the landlord Arthur's known his entire life, evicts him from the apartment, sending Arthur and Joe to the streets. While their ultimate goal is to head for the sea, along the way adventures ensue.

Unfortunately, instead of continuing in the same nearly improvisational, friendly set-up Bettauer teased us with in Arthur’s one-on-one scenes with Joe, the film derails completely. Ultimately, the last hour of Duck evolves into a clichéd, stereotypical, and overly indulgent mess as they meet one dysfunctional, dissatisfied, and disturbed character after another who are all too eager to stand on a soapbox and give a lecture, recite a canned propagandist speech, to teach a lesson or invite Arthur to do the same.

Admirably shot in just eighteen days, Duck was inspired by the director’s commendable compassion for humanity, given her impressive history of volunteerism working with those less fortunate in the areas of suicide prevention, rehabilitation, and helping the mentally and terminally ill. And although her film opens with tremendous creative potential and benefits from a consummately professional leading performance by the gifted Philip Baker Hall (Hard Eight, Magnolia), who in the DVD interview likened his character to a mad King Lear and Sir Galahad, in the end he’s wasted by the poorly developed second and third act.

I can only blame the culprit of having the very best of intentions as ultimately Bettauer’s unable to let go of what she described in the press release as her overwhelming and worthwhile purpose to warn us “where we’re heading in the hopes of creating… change,” that she forgets to question whether or not it works as a film.

Regrettably, as Bettauer shares in the press notes her passionate belief that the “one thing many homeless hang onto, to fight boredom and pass the time of day, is the dying art of storytelling,” the end result feels like nothing more than a liberal propagandist piece. It’s a term I don’t throw around lightly, as a proud liberal in my own right and therefore one who really was hoping for the best. But instead of preaching to those she wants to entertain, she would’ve best served her purpose and aided those for whom she truly cares by offering a film that inspires rather than drains and tells a story rather than pushes the narrative arc so far off into the distance, that all that is left is political spin.

Despite this, she definitely earns points for her ability to take a cue from the tagline and “think outside the flock,” in her decision to write in a duck, being that a dog would’ve made a far more obvious sidekick for an unlikely buddy comedy drama. And in fact, charmingly, the DVD, which features not only commentary and interviews with Bettauer and Baker Hall as well as desktop downloads, a photo gallery, bios and more, offers some delightful accounts from the filmmaker and star about the challenges and joys in working with several unpredictable ducks.

However, in aspiring to offer us a story about hope, Bettauer ultimately could’ve learned a lesson from some of the more subtle, less-is-more, quirky, moral, independent comedies that celebrate humanity and tolerance such as Lars and the Real Girl and The Station Agent. As an old screenwriting professor used to say, movies are a “show me” medium as opposed to the “tell me” medium of literature, therefore it came as no surprise when I discovered that Bettauer decided to expand Duck by writing a novella based on her script and the resulting film.

Unfortunately, she didn’t differentiate between the two beforehand, for — in the end — the best way to move us is while utilizing the cinematic medium to show us “compassion” rather than simply quacking about it for ninety-eight minutes. And while aside from the opening half hour, I can’t recommend the film, I have no doubt that Duck -- which was best suited for the “tell me” medium all along — will make one excellent book, since in that medium quacking is not only encouraged but required.

Swing Vote (2008)

Read the DVD Review


Director:
Joshua Michael Stern


To precocious twelve-year-old Molly Johnson (an impeccable Madeline Carroll), voting is not only an optimistic privilege but it’s also an American citizen’s “civic duty.” However, to Molly’s under-achieving father whom — for the zero parenting he offers — she fittingly calls Bud (Kevin Costner), voting in America simply risks the chance that you’ll wind up on the fast track for jury duty. Unfortunately for Bud, along with making the family budget and packing his daily lunch, Molly registered her father to cast his vote, aligning him as a political “independent” since she proclaims that “the two-party system neglects the working poor.”

While Lou Dobbs would no doubt beam with pride, Bud struggles to make sense of his daughter. This is especially the case when — in equal fascination of the electoral process as well as her tie-in school project — Molly reveals that she took the trouble to fill in her parental political questionnaire for Bud because she wanted to make him “sound smart.” Despite his protests and canned statements that voting is useless, Molly demands that her father meet her at the polling place after school with a peck on the cheek and a warning to Bud, namely, “screw this up and I’m leaving you.”

And while Molly has a fruitful day delivering a beautifully worded political essay and ends up on the news after local Texico, New Mexico reporter Kate Madison (Paula Patton) decides to feature it in the evening broadcast, Bud’s prospects that day are far less successful. With incriminating footage that depicts Bud ruining more of the eggs than he’s able to neatly package in the plant where he works — not to mention the fact Bud hasn’t punched in on time in six months and proceeded to take thirty-one sick days — before he’s officially laid off, his boss and former high school friend asks him to give him one good reason not to let him go. Foreshadowing his inability to make a decision which will propel the rest of Swing Vote's plot, needless to say Bud can’t offer him any explanations.

Later, predictably forgetting his promise to Molly until it’s nearly too late, Election Day ends on a far stranger note after a bizarre computer error concerning Bud’s vote makes the results of the day — already in a deadlock for the presidency — all boil down to whom Bud will vote for ten days later when, by oath, he swears he must recast his vote. Literally holding the fate of the government in his hands as his vote will decide which candidate earns swing state New Mexico’s five electoral votes and ensures him the presidency, Bud is overwhelmed by the media reaction as every major outlet from MTV to CNN to the BBC sets up a stakeout right outside his trailer. And just as quickly, political organizations start flooding into the tiny town that — before the gaffe — had been so inconsequential it wasn’t even on the state map.

However, the story really heats up when both candidates journey out to try and win over Bud by any means necessary. Pulling out all the stops and White House goodie bags he can carry, the first of the two competing front-runners, the favored Republican incumbent President Andrew Boone (a pitch-perfect Kelsey Grammar) arrives in Texico complete with the aptly named Martin Fox, his amoral strategist, in tow (Stanley Tucci). Also vying for Bud’s ear — or rather his vote — the earthy Democratic challenger Donald Greenleaf (Dennis Hopper), who along with his campaign manager Art Crumb (Nathan Lane) promises a racially blind, all inclusive “rainbow” White House, pack up their “Truth Train” and “Operation Real Deal” to make the long trek to the desert. Although the Dems learn that — while they can’t even begin to compete with Air Force One — their secret weapon is none other than Willie Nelson, who was the subject of a tribute band that Bud had played in before his rhythm section ended up in the slammer.

In an effort to better understand Bud, the candidates and their smarmy managers resort to shameless pandering, insincere flattery, and manipulation, including letting the dimwitted, perpetual beer drinker win at poker or using cue cards to make small talk with Bud about fishing. Most memorably, this results in a wonderfully hilarious speech by Grammar likening his role as commander-in-chief to that of a quarterback, breaking foreign policy down with the aid of football terminology. Grammar nails every scene he’s in and nobody plays a buffoon or the prototypical blue collar American male quite like Kevin Costner, although he’s essentially recycling the far more likable characterizations he crafted in Bull Durham and Tin Cup.

However, by making our lead character such an idiotic Homer Simpson-like oaf, we’re laughing at Bud rather than with him throughout the film’s entirety. And far more often than I felt empathy for him, I was surprised to find myself actually loathing him numerous times throughout because of his complete inability to see beyond himself and understand not just the gravity of the situation but recognize how it’s all affecting his daughter. Speaking of which, as Molly, the young Madeline Carroll completely steals the film and our hearts in the process, especially in a scene wherein she shows far more worldliness and morality than her father ever could, while breaking down in tears in front of her classroom, telling white lies in order to make her father sound like he actually cares about the country he’s living in and his fellow Americans.

For a comedy, Swing Vote is a bit more melancholic than perhaps director Joshua Michael Stern, along with his co-writer Jason Richman, had planned since there’s nothing funny about child neglect; but they try to keep the satire swinging along with the mystery of Bud’s vote and make great use out of their supporting players in the process. As the candidates begin to address Bud directly in a series of new political ads, suddenly Costner’s Bud becomes his very own Truman Show, being followed and analyzed around the clock in every journalistic medium. Although quality wise, Swing Vote is less like Truman Show and more like EdTV.

However, hilarity ensues as the candidates embrace political flip-flopping as the Republicans suddenly promote gay marriage and environmental protection with the Democrats tackling illegal immigration and embracing the pro-life movement simply because the inarticulate Bud misspoke a few times while being interviewed by the beautiful local, ambitious newswoman Kate Madison. In an underdeveloped subplot, Madison, who shares a bond with Bud’s brainy daughter, must reconcile her ethics with her desire to get ahead in the business, seeing Bud’s story as the ultimate break in getting the hell out of her tiny town and station run by George Lopez in order to follow in the footsteps of idols like Paula Zahn.

With the inclusion of an “everyman” and a “reporter with a conscience,” Stern reaches to emulate the type of underdog film that Frank Capra perfected with Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. And while the performers elevate the material, Stern forgot the fact that what made Capra’s films such a success is they delivered us a hero we could root for and one whom - despite not being the smartest - had a heart as big as the White House and therefore endeared us to him from the get-go. Predictably, Costner’s Bud has a wake-up call late into the film but it’s rushed and protracted — crammed into the last twenty minutes, making it pay off less than it could have had we seen glimmers of his goodness earlier on.

While it’s not as cynically intelligent as Wag the Dog or Bulworth, nor as paranoid as the underrated Man of the Year, there’s no doubt this film plays much better during this particular election year with audiences growing weary of endless coverage of the candidates and outrageous accusations and distracting spin. Despite this, Swing’s sound bites and satire get awfully repetitive in the last hour of the film’s surprisingly lengthy running time.

And similar to the way that the issues a voter cares most about are often neglected as soon as their candidate hits the Oval Office, on my way out of Stern’s film I felt like I’d just voted again. For instead of contemplating any food for thought by recalling some truly terrific scenes and stellar performances, I wondered what would have happened if the film hadn’t been ultimately overshadowed by such an inconsistent screenplay. Now that’s something that calls for a re-vote or at least, in the case of Swing Vote — political comedy reform.

Idiocracy

Director:
Mike Judge

Most of the time, I criticize the validity and artistic morals of test screenings that often send nervous studios and directors scrambling to call their actors back to reshoot new material and delete possibly objectionable scenes in order to try and please everyone. While film indeed is a collaborative medium, I’m not sure that rounding up participants from a mall parking lot and screening a movie they may have very little interest in, only to force them to rate each and every aspect of it is the right way to decide what works and what doesn’t. I am a frequent attendee at advanced screenings but seldom participate in test audience events because art shouldn’t be that much of a democracy and we’re forgetting that people spend years developing what’s onscreen for us to pass judgment on within minutes (or sometimes seconds).

However, in the case of Idiocracy which had according to IMDb “disastrous” test screenings, the reaction was sadly warranted and sent Fox Studios into retreat, hiding the reels for more than one year before quietly dumping it into just six markets with very little advertising.

The film had all the promise of a hit—a wonderfully creative premise, hot star Luke Wilson, and being helmed by director Mike Judge of Office Space fame but somewhere along the way they opted entirely for crass over class, lewd over shrewd, and ended up with a movie one can only describe as ugly. It shouldn’t have been this way and in retrospect, I still admire the ingenious set-up which finds under-achieving and statistically average army librarian Luke Wilson, along with prostitute Maya Rudolph being selected for a year-long experiment that would cause the two participants to sleep for an entire year to hopefully save their brightest down the road for them to be all they can be.

The experiment goes off without a hitch although warning flags are raised when the doctor becomes much too fascinated with the pimp lifestyle discovered when recruiting Rudolph and after he’s arrested and the base is forced to close, Wilson and Rudolph are forgotten about for five hundred years. They awaken to discover that the progressive dumbing down of America weaned on video games, sports drinks, that favors brawn over brains has made the country run rampant with idiots unable to speak coherently and prefer instead to sit on lazy boys which double as toilets while watching shows that consist entirely of guys getting hit in the crotch with a variety of implements for laughs.

Although intellectuals and academics have been speculating on the nightly news and in publications that we’re headed in the wrong direction with our fast food styled entertainment and life of convenience over substance, once we actually see this life produced onscreen, we realize that it’s so disgusting, it’s not one we’d like to spend even five minutes in let alone the entire running time of a feature film.

Idiocracy would have made a hilarious short film or an even superior story, although it does beg to mind the question that perhaps Judge’s fans, already preferring visuals to the written word, may never have read it in the first place, thus making his point without their intention.

Delirious

Director: Tom DiCillo

If you ask Les Galantine (Steve Buscemi), he’ll tell you that the difference between himself and his colleagues who also stake out the whereabouts of pop stars trying to snap a candid and hopefully salacious photo is that he’s “a licensed professional” and not a paparazzi. He may say this repeatedly but that doesn’t prevent apt and suspicious viewers from realizing he appears to have the same views and habits of others in the tabloid paparazzi profession. In other words, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck it’s definitely a paparazzi in Sundance Award winning writer/director Tom DiCillo’s great new “rags to riches fable” Delirious which earned five awards including the AFI Filmmaker Award for Best Director at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival.

Providing a great counterpart to his reluctant celebrity journalist in his own remake of Theo van Gogh’s Interview, Buscemi’s Les (with a fitting name as Ebert pointed out in his review) in Delirious tells his new young homeless assistant Toby Grace (Michael Pitt) that his real dream is to get signed with an agency to shoot Nike and Calvin Klein ads. However, in the mean time, he lives by his credo of rules such as knowing “where you belong” and assuring Toby that celebrities are “just people, no better than us,” as he trains him in on the ropes of staking out stars with Toby working for free most likely for both companionship and to make his rent as he becomes Les’ roommate sleeping in a closet in his cramped apartment. Schooling the angel faced, sweet Toby in on how to crash benefits and events to take as many goodie bags as they can get their hands on, Les, who feels that friends are people “just sittin’ around waiting for a chance to start talking about himself,” finds himself becoming quite attached to his protégé and feels threatened when Toby catches the eye of the successful Britney like pop star K’Harma Leeds (Alison Lohman) and begins losing him to love.

Surprisingly heartfelt with believable turns by both Buscemi, who once again changes into someone completely different right before our eyes, as well as Pitt whose face the camera loves throughout the film in some breathtaking, sharp and exuberant sequences (such as a Singin’ in the Rain styled ode after he spends an evening with Lohman) that most likely came from the innovative vision of director and former Jarmusch cinematographer DiCillo. In DiCillo’s best film in years which unfortunately was granted a limited release in art cinemas in major cities, Buscemi gives one of his finest performances in the 2000’s that, while definitely playing into DiCillo’s satirical fable intention, manages to walk the fine line between parody and truth and I found myself involved all the way. Given an exclusive initial DVD release for rental at Blockbuster, DiCillo’s Delirious is scheduled for a wider rental and purchase release in the future.

View from the Top

Director: Bruno Barrreto

Had it been made in the 1960’s, Brazilian director Bruno Barreto’s View from the Top would have made the perfect vehicle for either Doris Day or Sandra Dee. This mindlessly frothy bit of fluff centers on Academy Award winner Gwyneth Paltrow as Donna Jensen, a young woman from the southwest who, after getting dumped in a birthday card from boyfriend Marc Blucas decides she needs to make a drastic change in her life. Inspired by a book written by Sally Weston (Candice Bergen) that urges women to fulfill their dreams, Donna, who has never traveled in her life let alone set foot on an airplane applies for a position as a flight attendant on a thankless, seedy commuter flight with vinyl, suggestive uniforms that could double as stripper apparel. Content to start somewhere, she learns the ropes quickly and soon, along with her friends Sherry (a hilarious Kelly Preston) and Christine (Christina Applegate) applies for work at Sally Weston’s employer Royalty Airways.

Surviving off-the-wall training from Mike Myers who, as Leonard Maltin noted seemed as though he was playing a character from an entirely different film, the bright, optimistic Donna is disappointed to learn that instead of receiving an assignment on an international flight, she’s been stationed at their commuter hub in Cleveland. Although, as we learned from Tina Fey’s 30 Rock, the “Cleve” has some high points and in View they come in the form of adorable Mark Ruffalo, a law student who Donna inspires while dating. Eric Wald who completed View from the Top in his UCLA MFA screenwriting program owes much to the escapist works of Day and Dee from the past. However, instead of putting an edgy or satirical spin on the genre such as was done in Down With Love, Wald sets his film in modern times and although it’s refreshing to see such a hopeful and innocent work, View from the Top suffered the after-effects of 9/11 when Miramax, concerned that audiences wouldn’t want a carefree airline comedy pushed the release from its intended ’01 although back to ’03 when the re-cut version debuted to horrendous reviews. While the film would no doubt have benefited from a hipper style of humor such as found in the similar Romy & Michelle’s High School Reunion and you’re sure to forget it by the time you hit eject, View from the Top is harmless, feel-good fun.

Chaos Theory

Director: Marcos Siega

Those who enjoy boating need lifejackets the way that Type A personalities need index cards. Whether it’s making flashcards for Spanish class or jotting down notes for a speaking engagement, it’s those irreplaceable 3x5 cards that support us like a best friend. Although they come in other sizes and designs for those who, like me, function best when faced with a large array of colors to choose from, the most popular format seems to be the trusty 3x5 crisp, white, classic, lined index card used by some not only to aid them in school or work but also in life for compulsive list-makers. It’s one of these obsessive list-makers we follow around for the duration of the inventive sleeper Chaos Theory from director Marcos Siega.

Working from a script penned by Breakin’ All the Rules writer/director Daniel Taplitz, Siega introduces us to Frank (Ryan Reynolds), an efficiency expert who lives by catchphrases such as “a specific list is a happy list,” who begins each day with a unique list jotted down on (you guessed it!) 3x5 index cards. After his loving and supportive yet justifiably exasperated wife Susan (Emily Mortimer) mistakenly changes a clock the wrong way in order to get her husband to slow down, Frank finds himself struggling to catch up for the rest of the day which begins with missing the ferry and arriving seventy-five minutes late for an important speaking engagement on the now ironic topic of efficiency and time. Crazily disorganized from the start, the day ends with a series of misunderstandings and chance-encounters that throw his life off-balance after he assists a pregnant woman only to be erroneously named the father and gets kicked out of his house by Susan the following morning. When another wrench is thrown in his path to get his marriage back on track with some startling news, Frank embraces the idea of chaos and tells his best friend Buddy (Stuart Townsend) that he’s “decided never to decide another thing again,” and to this end, he writes down everything he’d like to do on a series of cards, choosing one at random to guide his actions.

While this leads to some humorous results, the story according to Siega is essentially “about love and forgiveness” and as the Warner Brothers production notes revealed, writer Taplitz was inspired to craft the screenplay after he became diagnosed with cancer. In his words, Taplitz explains, that he “was interested in writing about what someone does when they’re metaphorically pushed off a cliff both physically and emotionally—how one piece of information can potentially change their life and how they might have to reconstruct that life.”

Although Frank does end up grappling with some hard truths about identity and there’s a dark comedic edge to the film that differentiates it from its Sliding Doors like beginnings, ultimately it’s Reynolds who sells the film and keeps us invested even when it becomes a bit harder to believe as the second half of the film is a bit weaker than the first. As Colin Boyd of The Big Picture wrote in his review, “in line with the desperation of the character, Reynolds portrays a combination of frustration, confusion and desperation immediately and convincingly.”

Initially released theatrically into just two test markets including one in California and one here in Arizona which makes the film’s expansion into other states uncertain, hopefully it will get a second chance to make a first impression through its DVD release.

To Die For

Director:
Gus Van Sant

Nicole Kidman not only earned a Golden Globe for her fierce portrayal of Suzanne Stone Maretto in Gus Van Sant’s masterpiece To Die For but she also became an internationally respected actress stepping out from the shadow of then-husband Tom Cruise to announce that like Suzanne, she's ready to be taken seriously. Although to misquote Don Henley, unlike the film's flash-in-the-pan bubbleheaded blonde Suzanne, Nicole Kidman’s success was fully justified as she proved repeatedly in her impressive roles following To Die For.

Inspired by true events and based on the satirical novel by Joyce Maynard that was adapted into a wicked script by Buck Henry, the overly ambitious Suzanne, who feels that people are nobody unless they’re on TV, decides to do everything in her power to make her "newswoman" dream a reality. She marries the hunky drummer Larry Maretto (Matt Dillon) and changes him from bad-boy to breadwinner in order to position herself for the lifestyle she feels she deserves as she strives to become a journalist.

Feeling overwhelmed by her loving husband who desperately wants to start a family, Suzanne launches headfirst into her career by fast-talking small local channel head Wayne Knight into letting her work for him. Happy in her new position, Suzanne becomes the station’s golden haired, glamorous weathergirl and begins work on a documentary about issues surrounding teenagers at a local high school. Quickly, she befriends the unhappy, unconfident Lydia Mertz (a heartbreaking Alison Folland), amoral criminal in training Russell Hines (Casey Affleck) and the adoring Jimmy Emmett (an impossibly young Joaquin Phoenix) whose hopeless crush on Suzanne is used as currency by the devious diva when they embark on an affair.

Seeing her family conscious husband as an obstacle to success, Suzanne crafts a horrifying plan for her teenage pals to dispatch the narrow-minded Larry to further her goals. However, to again quote Don Henley’s "Dirty Laundry" (which was used in the memorable trailers for the film), the media loves to “kick ‘em when they’re up, [and] kick ‘em when they’re down.” For as we see in the opening moments of the film, her equally narrow-minded belief that nobody will catch on to what was behind Larry’s murder will be her downfall, even without focusing on whether or not the media driven masses will see fit to sentence Suzanne or set her free.

One of the most provocative films of the 1990’s made all the more timely given the O.J. Simpson trial, To Die For not only paved the way for Kidman and Phoenix to move onto a wider range of memorable roles. Even more importantly as IMDb noted, it also led to Van Sant’s biggest hit to date after To Die For wrapped and young Casey Affleck handed his director a copy of the screenplay his brother Ben had worked on with his good friend Matt Damon, which would earn the two writers an Academy Award for their little film called Good Will Hunting.

The Last Shot

Director:
Jeff Nathanson

After his beloved but depressed dog kills herself by intentionally launching into his hot tub paws first, FBI Agent Joe Devine (Alec Baldwin) becomes even more dedicated to his work bringing down the mob in the 1980’s after the Castellano hit made headlines around the globe. Hatching a radical plan to bring down crooked gangster Tommy Sanz (Monk’s Tony Shalhoub) and also ensnare John Gotti, Devine goes undercover as a movie producer in this comedic action film based on a true story by Catch Me If You Can screenwriter and first time director Jeff Nathanson.

Finding the key to becoming a fake player by impersonating high powered and slightly off her rocker Hollywood mover and shaker Joan Cusack, Devine hears script pitches from a public bench on the street from passersby until he finds the one he decides he’ll “produce.”

He greenlights the screenplay of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre employee Steven Schats (Matthew Broderick) who, tired of living above a noisy dog kennel to the stars with his high strung actress girlfriend Valerie (Calista Flockhart) jumps at Devine’s offer to work on his labor of love script Arizona which he’d penned with old west re-enactor Marshal (Tim Blake Nelson). Steven seems like Devine's ideal choice as a newbie who’s green enough to compromise his artistic vision and go along with Devine’s decision to relocate the shoot from the desert to Providence, Rhode Island which he dubs the "Arizona of the east."

Once in Providence, Joe and Steven are shocked to learn that seductive A-list actress Emily French (Toni Collette) wants a part in their film and soon they are well on their to beginning production, as Devine’s real FBI assignment starts getting lost in the shuffle.

“The True Story of the Greatest Movie Never Made,” as the tagline dubbed it, Nathanson’s Last Shot was based on Steve Fishman’s article “What’s Wrong With This Picture?” which further researched revealed documented a real sting operation to infiltrate Boston mob teamsters via beginning a fake production on a film with an aspiring director who never knew what was going on. The real director of the first sting, George Moffly, sadly, according to IMDb has yet to direct a film although he’s been involved with the filmmaking process on other pictures in various capacities.

Despite the ingenious set-up, it seems nearly impossible for the final product to give The Last Shot the justice it deserves since Nathanson’s script is always changing tone from drama to comedy (similar to his Terminal script) and there are far too many characters to keep straight. However, this being said, it’s an entertaining behind-the-scenes time-waster that's sure to amuse movie buffs.

This Revolution

Director:
Stephen Marshall

After winning an award from the Sundance Film Festival, Stephen Marshall’s name has become almost synonymous with daring. Globally conscious and prone to risk taking, Marshall, who created the first VHS global newsmagazine Channel Zero and co-founded the Guerilla News Network (IMDb) pays homage to Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool with his docudrama This Revolution. Shot in one hundred days, This Revolution centers on a young edgy reporter with a last name that’s a bit too on the nose-- Jake Cassavetes (played music video and commercial director Nathan Crooker)-- who found his priorities and world view changed after spending time filming the war in Baghdad. No longer wanting to-- as he says-- suck up to the rich corporations who run the networks, he butts heads with Chloe (Amy Redford) who in addition to being his boss shares his bed on a casual basis but politics begins to drive them apart as tough-talking Chloe who tells Jake to get her “the edgiest stuff” he can on the phone while standing next to a poster for the Lumet film Network pushes Jake away as he takes to the streets to film the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Movie posters are everywhere in the film and perhaps one of the most telling shows up within the first ten minutes in Jake’s bathroom in the form of Weir’s The Year of Living Dangerously. Instinctively, we know this assignment coupled with everything he’s seen overseas will affect his view and ability to remain objective and his beliefs and convictions are tested yet again when he befriends a beautiful, rebellious and radical widowed bookseller Tina Santiago (Rosario Dawson) and her young son (Brett Deluono). Although by this point, the atmospheric film that near the end suddenly turns into Antitrust feels a bit dated and the earnest and unpolished turns by Crooker and Redford (who may not have been directed right) do hinder the success of a film that seems to swing back and forth from pretentious to cheesy like a pendulum, it’s the radiant, fiery and passionate Dawson whose performance escalates This Revolution and makes it feel distinctly authentic. In fact, she may have been too convincing as you may recall when, while filming scenes with other cast members playing a subversive group, Dawson along with others were mistaken for real activists and arrested on the spot and footage of Dawson’s actual arrest made its way into the film (IMDb). Now available on DVD, you may also be able to find This Revolution on regular rotation in the Sundance Channel programming guide as not only is Marshall a Sundance favorite but actress Amy Redford is the daughter of Sundance founder Robert Redford.

Slipstream

Director: Anthony Hopkins

“I perceive life as a game, a game that we play at some unconscious level,” Anthony Hopkins explained to journalist Scott Macaulay in the Fall 2007 Filmmaker Magazine article “The Hollywood Life” which chronicled his latest experimental puzzler Slipstream from its birth as a stream-of-consciousness screenplay to its wild shoot and inventive post-production that found Oscar winning Anthony Hopkins both in front of the camera and behind it serving as the writer/director/star and film score composer as well.

While the film, which explores “the strange nature of time” is a wild opus purposely created to “annoy the audience” as the actor explained may be his own version of a game, the question then becomes in asking whether or not viewers will want to take part as, like Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, 8 & ½ and Last Year in Marienbad, it infuriates its audience with constant shifts in plot, character, and text that continually build on itself until we realize that it’s a film within a film within a film just like our main character, the “film’s” screenwriter Felix Bonhoeffer (Hopkins) is, as Vince Vaughn may have said in Swingers, the guy behind the guy behind the guy. Although Felix is perceived to be a main character, the film focuses instead on several others as the movie begins and we meet Michael Clarke Duncan as a bouncer of sorts and two villains played by Jeffrey Tambor and Christian Slater who decide to hold up a diner, not for any monetary gain, but just for the sake of menace as Tambor and Slater ramble out an increasingly crazy story about the 50’s film Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Slater’s typical Jack Nicholson styled cadence becomes far more frightening with each passing minute. Then, as soon as we’re beginning to grasp this nonsensical storyline, a “cut” is yelled and we’re taken behind the scenes of a sloppy film shoot in the desert that will soon find one actor dead and the rest all struggling to figure out how that will affect the film, with studio head John Turturro (given a majority of the picture’s best lines) arriving on the scene like a domineering madman.

Filled with Hollywood in-jokes as Turturro’s character named Harvey seems on some level to be a nod to the controversial tactics and persona of former Miramax head Harvey Weinstein, an off-screen phone call from “Dino” (De Laurentis) about casting Hopkins in Hannibal 4 as long as the price is right and a joke about films being cheesy dreams that can find Huckleberry Finn fishing on the moon similar to the image used as the Dreamworks logo. In addition, Hopkins casts his wife and the film’s producer Stella Arroyave as Gina, the wife of his character Felix and soon the film morphs from an Altman styled Player satire of the film business into one concerned with the past and of how characters came to be where they are in the face of their own mortality.

While an indisputable vanity project and one that will have most viewers reaching for the eject button within the first half an hour, it’s still an artistically imaginative ride for those willing to participate and while it’s nowhere near as effective as the films its emulating such as Marienbad or as I began to feel, literature from Kafka or Calvino, it’s of particular interest to film students who appreciate the amount of work that goes into experimental filmmaking and even more, the amount of dedication and artistry from those involved. Instead of being Hopkins’s film all the way, in the end, the real star of Slipstream and the one responsible for a large majority of its moderate success as a valuable work is the courageous editor Michael Miller who not only respected Hopkins’ vision but also added a dazzling sense of style to the picture giving it a feeling of more depth at times than it actually deserves in the process.