King of the Ants‘ story is a fairly familiar one: hapless boy (Chris McKenna) is hired for contract killing (of Ron Livingston, alas); does job; falls in love with mark’s wife; doesn’t the money for his services; gets instead repeatedly battered in the head with a golf club until he vaguely resembles Eric Stoltz from Mask; has grotesque, hallucinatory dreams in which the object of his fascination, Kari Wuhrer, has a dick and/or resembles the Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock; escapes desert torture shack; beds said girl in nice daytime sex scene after she nurses him back to health; accidentally kills girl in confrontation regarding how he offed her husband; roasts George Wendt’s severed head on an open flame; and then wreaks revenge on Daniel Baldwin. Seen it once, seen it a thousand times, right?
As directed by Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator), the movie scores a certain number of points for its sheer audacity and originality — adapted by Charles Higson from his own novel, King of the Ants is one of those all-too-rare films that, since it revels in its pure, careening joy, you never quite know for sure where it’s headed. Yet as its implausibilities mount, you can’t help but feel as though you’re simply being put on. As Sean Crawley, though, McKenna — who evokes comparisons to a younger brother of Mark Ruffalo — displays considerable squinty-eyed Everyman appeal. Housed in a regular Amray case and presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, King of the Ants‘ DVD extras include a brief behind-the-scenes featurette and an audio commentary track. To purchase the movie via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) B- (Disc)
I’ve talked before about how runaway producer credits are the new STD of the movie industry, and it’s not a problem that’s going away any time soon. A few years back, the Duff-two-fer flick Material Girls had 19 credited producers, for Christ’s sake! While that informal record for now still stands, Jessica Simpson’s most recent movie — Blonde Ambition, which only saw a dismal, limited theatrical release in Texas over the holidays, and arrives on DVD later this month — has 16 credited producers. And yes, for those keeping score, that includes Papa Joe, who receives his own card.
Directed by Rob Reiner and starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, The Bucket List, which goes wide this weekend to 2,900 theaters after opening in limited fashion on Christmas Day, bears an achingly appropriate and on-the-nose title, carrying as
it does such a load of Hollywood convention. A slice of hammy,
moralizing old-school life lessons learned, wrapped around a few
colorful set pieces of Centrum Silver catharsis, the movie is like a
vitamin pill; it’s a compact means of conveyance for several of those
old chestnuts of interpersonal guidance that always get trotted out for
the holidays: do good, don’t live timidly and forgive quickly.
The
story centers around a pair of old guys from very different tax
brackets, each stricken with cancer and given a grim prognosis.
Millionaire businessman Edward Cole (Nicholson) has made a career,
we’re led to believe, out of cutting costs if not corners in operating
medical facilities all across the nation. Carter Chambers (Freeman),
meanwhile, is a humble auto mechanic and Jeopardy
buff who’s lived a simple life in service of his wife Virginia (Beverly
Todd), children and grandchildren. When the two secondhand lions are
relegated to roommate status (it would look very bad if Edward were
given a private room after just having lobbied against them so
publicly, his chirpy assistant Thomas, played by Sean Hayes, informs
him), Edward develops an unlikely affinity for Carter. Faced with his
own mortality, Carter grabs a nearby pad and starts to sketch out a
quick inventory of things he would have liked to do in his life. He
eventually crumples up the piece of paper, though. Edward finds it, and
enthusiastically seizes upon Carter’s idea.
Sentimentality and air-quote adventure are thus ladled on in equal
servings, as — funded by Edward’s seemingly bottomless personal fortune
— the pair go skydiving, travel the world and talk about opportunities
missed and silences held too long. Audiences are meant to emotionally
connect with this fraternal bonding — and especially the predicament
Edward faces in a needlessly complicated estrangement from his
daughter — but they may be too distracted by the green-screen work at
the Great Pyramids that makes the movie seem like a strange, lost Stargate episode, or how curiously bungled the arc is involving Carter explaining all his travels with Edward to his wife.
The Bucket List is being sold in rather indolent fashion on the
salty, wrinkly appeal of its two leads, and a few of their quips and
asides. Ergo, you have trailers and heavy-rotation TV ads with the
skydiving clips, Carter good-naturedly chiding Edward “Sonny Jim”
during a race car segment, and Edward (in inimitable Nicholson fashion)
dismissively telling his assistant Thomas, “Nobody cares what you
think.” By golly,
one could think, this is the perfect, long-awaited counterweight to
something like Grumpy Old Men, about finding bliss and true release in the autumn of one’s years. The problem is that Justin Zackham’s script
doesn’t really rise to meet one’s preconceptions of the material,
however emotionally resonant or pleasantly indulgent they may be.
Somehow both manipulative and overly simplistic, The Bucket List
is a film of half-steps and pat, overly measured sequences; whether it’s
scenes of Edward’s sickness or him angrily
rejecting Carter’s attempt at broaching a reconciliation with his
daughter, nothing much rings in-close-up true about this shared
journey. There isn’t a convincing sense of the significant class
barriers smashed — Edward and Carter fall into fast friendship like
kindergarten classmates assigned to the same roundtable. To their
nominal credit, Nicholson and Freeman each do their thing, in
characteristic fashion, and that’s certainly enough to please
undemanding viewers wanting only to see the two legendary actors
together in frame. But this claptrap — evidencing no truly substantial
emotional investment from anyone involved — is recycled, formulaic
poignance, something Hollywood has provided buckets of over the years. For the full original review, from FilmStew, click here. (Warner Bros., PG-13, 96 minutes)
The American Cinematheque at the Aero and Egyptian Theatres
presents a two-week retrospective of the work of director Otto Preminger,
January 17 through 31, featuring several rarely seen films not yet available on
DVD.
Preminger, who died an octogenarian in 1986, was a
controversial, polarizing figure throughout his life — Hollywood’s
first truly independent producer/director. He was famous as a flamboyant,
outspoken personality (arguably no filmmaker other than Alfred Hitchcock had a
more recognizable public persona) and a self-promoter whose frequent on-set
tantrums were widely reported upon. Preminger also achieved fame on screen (via Stalag 17), and as Mr. Freeze opposite
Adam West on television’s Batman.
One of the great masters of American film, Preminger worked
in a remarkable variety of forms, and it’s this diversity that is honored here:
musicals (Porgy and Bess), film noir
(Laura, Angel Face, The Thirteenth
Letter, Bunny Lake Is Missing),
romantic comedy (The Moon Is Blue), courtroom
drama (Anatomy of a Murder), political
exposé (Advise and Consent) and otherwise
epic drama (Exodus, Hurry Sundown). Though his relations with them may often have been
tempestuous, many actors did some of their finest work under Preminger’s
direction, and in-person guests for this retrospective include Carol Lynley (Bunny Lake Is Missing), John Phillip Law
and Robert Hooks (Hurry Sundown), Don
Murray (Advise and Consent) and Eva
Marie Saint (Exodus). Author Foster
Hirsch will also be selling and signing his new biography, Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King, on most nights of the
series.
The Aero Theatre
is located at 1328 Montana Avenue
in Santa Monica; the historic
Egyptian Theatre is located at 6712
Hollywood Boulevard,
between Highland
and Las Palmas,
in Hollywood.
Tickets for both venues are available through Fandango, but for 24-hour recorded information on tickets,
directions and each site’s upcoming schedule, phone (323) 466-FILM, or visit the Cinematheque’s eponymous
Web site by clicking here.
