THE LAST RIGHT (2019, Aoife Crehan)

* * * 

A man discovers that the old fella he just met on a plane has died and named him next of kin. 

Starring  Michiel Huisman, Niamh Algar, Samuel Bottomley, Colm Meaney, Brian Cox

Written by  Aoife Crehan

Produced by  Paul Donovan, Pippa Cross, Casey Herbert

Duration  106 minutes   

 

Here we have a movie with a pun in its title. The story is about death; more accurately, someone dying, which might prompt a priest to read the last rites. But 'rite' has been replaced by 'right'.

Does the pun make sense? Not really. It does communicate the movie's blackly comic tone. But it doesn't have a genuine double meaning or really relate to the story, and so I don't think we can include THE LAST RIGHT within the annals of classic pun-tastic titles. 

Is the film about doing the right thing? Sort of, but aren't they all? Is it about having the right to do something, as in the permission? That's even more tenuous. Is it about taking a right turn instead of a left? Well, there is a lot of driving, but still ... Best thing I can say is I don't think I've ever come across this particular pun before. But maybe there's a good reason for that.

For the record, here are some good examples of punnage in movie titles (without necessarily endorsing the flicks themselves): 

– MAID IN MANHATTAN

– MADE OF HONOR

– INSIDE MAN

– FACE/OFF

– CODA

– RATATOUILLE 

– CHOPPING MALL

– CHICKEN RUN

And for balance, here are some that don't quite work for me: 

– KNIGHT AND DAY

– BEE MOVIE

– RAT RACE

– LEGALLY BLONDE

– GOOD WILL HUNTING

– COP OUT

Fortunately, THE LAST RIGHT manages to transcend dubious wordplay to be a nice little find.

We meet our hero, Daniel, flying from New York (where he relocated many years ago) to County Cork (where he's from) to bury his mother. Worse luck: he's been seated next to a boring old man. 

I wondered at this point whether not wanting to listen to a stranger droning on was going to be a negative characteristic that our protagonist needs to overcome. That never really happens, though he does learn to be less self-centred, more accepting of others, etc. But in this first scene, Daniel's irritated reaction made me sympathetic. Leave the man alone, old timer, he just wants to spend his eight hours flying across the Atlantic in peace!

The old guy – played by Jim Norton, best known as a stern Bishop on Irish sitcom Father Ted – takes a liking to our Daniel. Unbeknownst to Daniel, he names the young fellah as next of kin on his landing card. Then an hour later he's dead, leaving Daniel to deal with his corpse.

It's a bit like when you joke that if you volunteered in an old folk's home, maybe one of them would leave you millions in their will. Hmm, maybe I should look into that, actually ...

Back in his home country, Daniel has to deal with not only transporting the corpse from the bottom of the Republic of Ireland to the top of Northern Ireland, but also reconnecting with his autistic younger brother, Louis.

It becomes a road movie, with our heroes meeting a succession of colourful and eccentric characters along the way. The siblings are joined by Mary, a worker from the funeral home who tags along – I didn't pick up exactly why. She acts as a mediator between Daniel and Louis and potential love interest to the former. Also, actress Niamh Algar really resembles Jenna Fischer, The Office's Pam. Which is a plus.

The trio haven't been travelling long before Mary delivers the line "You know, the two of yous are kind of like RAIN MAN!" Thus lampshading what I myself was thinking. Then, when they find out that Daniel is really Louis' father, Mary exclaims, "This is more Eastenders now than RAIN MAN!" It made me wonder whether these were actual comments made in script meetings that they then added to the dialogue. This kind of meta stuff can be cloying, but I welcomed the self-awareness on this occasion.

I realise now that the scenario of a big city guy returning for a funeral and being re-charmed by his home town's ways was also done in LAST CALL. So, I guess that's a last-movie trend? Probably it needs to happen at least three times to be a trend. Ah, well.

Another thing it shares with another entry on this blog is that it’s a Christmas movie. Or rather a covert Christmas movie – one where the season isn't central to the plot but adds some kind of thematic weight. Randomly, I keep watching movies at the moment that turn out to be set during the Yuletide; in fact, after ROBOCOP 3 (underrated), BABYGIRL (overrated) and now this, that's three in a row! So that's definitely a trend, right?

(Other covert Christmas movies include RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD and BETTER OFF DEAD. You want more? How about ROCKY IV? THE BOURNE IDENTITY? THE APARTMENT? EASTERN PROMISES? TANGERINE? TRANCERS? Are you happy now? Are you? OK, that's enough.)

Overall, THE LAST RIGHT is a sweet picture. It overcomes its RAIN MAN-aping central relationship to be both funny and touching. I really liked how it ends, with Daniel deciding to set up a charity for people who die without a next of kin.

A couple more observations. What with its director and two of the stars, this movie does pretty well for featuring hard-to-pronounce Irish names. So you've got Aoife (ee-fuh) Crehan, Niamh (nee-av) Algar and Colm (col-um) Meaney. Well played; I only wish they could've fitted in Saoirse (seeuh-shuh) Ronan and Siobhán (shih-von) McSweeney, for a full-house.

A word on one of your actors there. It's not a real Irish movie unless Colm Meaney turns up. Here he plays a senior police officer, like he did in INTERMISSION. The erstwhile Transporter Chief Miles O'Brien is always a welcome addition, whether over in Hollywood (UNDER SIEGE, CON AIR), back in his homeland (THE COMMITMENTS, THE VAN) or in the UK (LAYER CAKE, THE DAMNED UNITED). Not to mention featuring in long-running science-fiction franchises (as O'Brien on both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine).

Maybe old Colm should have played the protagonist here, and then they could have called the movie STOP BEING SUCH A MEANEY. Hey, just a thought!

Three stars out of five.

 

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  It’s a pun title that doesn’t make sense, so search me. 

What would a movie called THE FIRST RIGHT be like?  If it was an American movie about their First Amendment, it would revolve around “Protection of the freedom of speech, religion, the press, and making complaints and requests to the government”. So I guess ... a screwball comedy?

 

Previously:  LAST SEEN ALIVE

Next time:  THE LAST TYCOON 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST SHARKNADO: IT’S ABOUT TIME (2018, Anthony C Ferrante)

 

* 

Sharks. Time travel. The Asylum. The Syfy Channel. Ostensibly, this is a movie.

Starring  Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, Cassie Scerbo, Judah Friedlander, Vivica A Fox

Written by  Scotty Mullen

Produced by  David Michael Latt

Duration  86 minutes   

 

Hi Mom,

Following my first and second letters, this is going to be my last one.

Because your boy has finally made it. Yes, it might be a SyFy original; yes, it might be from The Asylum, a studio below even Troma in terms of reputation. But it's still a movie and I'm still now a credited screenwriter!

But don't get too excited, ma. I'm not exactly proud of my work. In fact, I'm sorry to say it, but no sooner have I reached my dream that I've decided I'm going to pack it in and come back home. Hollywood broke me, ma. It broke me and the name it used was THE LAST SHARKNADO: IT'S ABOUT TIME.

I know, I know, I can't be blamed for everything about the movie my script produced. I can't be blamed for the choppy editing that tries to create excitement through incoherence. I can't be blamed for the non-existent acting ability of the no-name cast, or for how much the established actors were phoning it in. I can't be blamed for the PlayStation 2-standard special effects. 

And I certainly can't be blamed for having to carry the weight of the five previous entries in the SHARKNADO franchise – although I guess I could have sat down and watched them all before I fired up Final Draft. But if I had done that prep, I doubt I would have had much of a brain left to even open up my Macbook.

I knew I was in trouble right from the start, ma, right from the very first scene. They made me put two references to BACK TO THE FUTURE in the opening five pages. They insisted that we cheaply reference one of the most beloved time-travel comedies of all time – the highest grossing movie of 1985, $400m in mid-80's money. Twice in the first five minutes, ma! I don't think all of The Asylum's pictures have grossed $400m combined!

And then, they made me have the main guy take instructions from a hologram, done exactly like Princess Leia at the start of STAR WARS. Gosh-darned STAR WARS! And when this protagonist fellow later turns around to find a T-Rex looming over him, of course he has to glibly tell the man-eating beast, "Oh ... hi there!" Like, simply the worst kind of sub-Josh Whedon banter.

These monsters from the studio even forced me to put the most famous line from JAWS in, too; again, twice, just in case any of the dumbasses they think will be watching were too busy scrolling their phones to notice the first one. It's not enough that they're gonna need a bigger chainsaw, they're also gonna need a bigger explosion. I swear, ma, I know you don't approve of drinking, but I'm beginning to understand why Fitzgerald started reaching for the bottle after he went to Hollywood.

Look, ma. I understand that it's supposed to be bad. It's supposed to be over the top. And that if alcohol is optional for the writer, it definitely isn't for the viewer. But you remember when me and Booby-Joe and Stevie-Dean and all the other guys from the neighbouhood used to run around with Dad's camcorder making our little amateur movies? How we used crack each other up and wink at the camera, telling each other how stupid this all was?

That was funny because we were kids and it was cute, and you guys would lap it up when we screened them because you were our parents. We weren't actual grown-ups doing this for a job, expecting people to pay good money to sit through it!

If I can stomach it, I'll now spend a little bit of this letter telling you about the plot of this trashterpiece I spent months putting my so-called skills into. 

So, our gang of quip-happy adventurers have travelled back in time to kill the first ever sharknado (sharks that can fly, of course) and in doing so eliminate the whole species from ever existing. Like the plot of THE TERMINATOR, I guess. After first trying this in the Jurassic era, they skip ahead to Camelot in the Middle Ages, where they fight alongside the castle-dwellers. 

It's here in the finished movie that THE LAST SHARKNADO trades on the kind of stunt casting that you expect from The Asylum. Councillor Troy from Star Trek: The Next Generation; Neil deGrasse Tyson as a scientist guy; one of the contestants from RuPaul's Drag Race as a gender-flipped Merlin. And let me tell you, 'drag' is the right word – and I don’t mean when a guy dresses up in girls' clothing.

But wait, ma. You remember all those screenwriting lessons I took? One thing they drummed into us was pacing. To give your story room to develop, including plot points and character growth. And I was really looking forward to flexing these skills in my first feature screenplay. But my bosses at The Asylum were having none of that. The notes I kept getting were saying things like "Faster! Keep the characters moving! Never stop and give the audience a chance to think!"

Was this because the movie is going to be shown on TV, so they're worried about people channel-hopping? Is this the same thing people who write for streaming are being told – which, let's face it, is the place most wannabe screenwriters like me end up these days?

Anyway, all of this feedback to hurry things along meant that the ancient olden-times couldn’t be the backdrop for long. After the bare-minimum of exposition, the team jump forward to the Declaration of Independence, where of course they meet George Washington and Alexander Hamilton (and yes, I did have to put a joke in about the musical). Then before long, they're in the Old West, with Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. 

Later, it's a 1950's beach party, then a stop-off in the late-90's San Francisco ... It ends up resembling a witless version of BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE – which, as I'm sure you'll remember, was one of my favorite movies growing up and one of the reasons I wanted to write for the screen in the first place.

I think I'm gonna cry now, Mom.

Oh, and here's another studio note I got: "We need even more BACK TO THE FUTURE references. Put another one in after 30 pages – or you're fired!"

I'm gonna go online now and look for flights home. Hope you haven't rented out my room yet.

Love to Dad,

Your son

One star out of five.

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  No one ever thought there could be two of these things, let alone six. So, anything's still possible.

What would a movie called THE FIRST SHARKNADO be like?  It is within all our capabilities to watch the first one in the series and find out. And it's in all our best interests to never do that.

 

Previously:  THE LAST MOVIE STAR

Next time:  LAST SEEN ALIVE

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE (1997, Stephen T Kay)

 

* * 

The rambling tale of one man's ramblings, in a movie that strains desperately to make us care. 

Starring  Thomas Jane, Keanu Reeves, Adrien Brody, John Doe, Claire Forlani

Written by Stephen T Kay

Produced by  Edward Bates, Louise Rosner   

Duration  92 minutes   

Famously, we're told never to judge a book by its cover. So, I suppose we shouldn't judge a film by its title, either. But when that title is as distinctive as THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE, it's kind of hard not to.

It's a title that suggests a movie that will deal with controversial subject matter in a quirky way. FOUR LIONS (2010) is, I would say, the all-timer example of this. Suicide-bomber comedy is not likely to ever be a category on Netflix, but director Chris Morris manages to pull off the headline-baiting premise, while making a star out of Riz Ahmed along the way.

CITIZEN RUTH (1996) is another one. Alexander Payne made his debut with a black comedy that puts Laura Dern's pregnant and dim-witted title character at the centre of the highly combustible abortion debate. Oh, and there was "shit, dude, I've got cancer!" movie 50/50 (2011), from that period when Joseph Gordon Levitt was starring in comedy pictures with Seth Rogan.

I reckon the best scenario for THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE would've been if it turned out to be a mid-90s version of the 1985 teen suicide comedy BETTER OFF DEAD, with Keanu Reeves taking over from John Cusack. Instead of trying to hang himself in his parent's garage, it could be Keanu, dressed in John Wickian suit, comically trying and repeatedly failing to shoot himself in the head with one of his many guns. Or dressing up as Neo from THE MATRIX, proclaiming "I need an exit!" and then jumping off a bridge. Um, anyway, more on Mr Reeves later.

What we actually got with this movie sadly turned out to be something pretty terrible.

OK, perhaps that's a little strong. But there's no escaping that upon on actually watching THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE, my first impression was bad and things only got worse from there. And it was nothing to do with how the movie deals with sensitive issues. The next few paragraphs recount my first impressions in a kind of stream of consciousness – a jazzy riff, if you will.

So, what do we have here. Thomas Jane is wandering around his apartment mumbling to himself, with black and white photography and an excruciating jazz score. Man, I hate jazz. Jane sounds like he's running lines or something? Is he an actor? Then he sits down at his typewriter and types something. So, a writer.

OK, so now it's settled into colour. Jane is waiting to be let in somewhere, holding flowers. He starts the scene with a voiceover, it sounds like maybe he's reciting poetry? No, he's talking about the young woman he's visiting in what turns out to be a hospital, after some unspoken incident, an accident we assume.

The early scenes trickle by in kind of a mannered, wannabe Coen brothers style. Jane is pretty manic. In what is presumably a flashback, he comes to his girlfriend's office to take her out for lunch – "But it's 4pm!" she protests. He answers her phone for her, dances with the coat rack, affects a British accent, that sort of thing. Crazy guy; what I mean is, annoying.

There's a kind of retro feel, too: the ever-present annoying jazz, how everyone seems to use typewriters, not just him, it doesn't seem to be an eccentricity.

Wait, is this one of those beat poet things? I tried to read On the Road once and didn't make it very far. Too loose and dull and directionless.

Yes, it turns out the script was based on a 1950 letter written by Neal Cassady to Jack Kerouac. Who the hell was Neal Cassady? I'd never heard of the bloke but, according to Wikipedia, he was "a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic and counterculture movements of the 1960s". The reason he was obscure to me was that "he published only two short fragments of prose in his lifetime, but exerted considerable intellectual and stylistic influence through his conversation and correspondence."

This movie is apparently based on some of that correspondence. Boy, those must have been some long letters. Thousands of words, apparently. So that makes this movie less like adapting a tax rebate from HMRC and more tackling a short story.

(Oh wait, the girlfriend, it wasn't an accident – I get it now! It was a suicide attempt, hence the title of the movie. Can't say I blame her, going out with this tool.)

The only thing to have come out of this beat generation business that does anything for me is David Cronenberg’s NAKED LUNCH. Actually, I remember going on to read William Burroughs' source novel, then possibly Junk as well, if I recall. Those were OK; totally bonkers, but interesting and lively.

But still, this kind of all-over-the-place, jittery, motormouth vibe is too much for me. THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE embraces this approach wholeheartedly, with the camera spinning around like it's manned by a hyperactive child, editing stuffed with jump cuts back and forth in time, and yet more of that bloody awful jazz. And Jane's performance: cigarette always in hand, talking to himself, reciting things he's hoping to write (but I guess never does?), absorbed in how witty, urbane and original he believes himself to be.

And the final thing that put me off was that this Neal Cassidy abandons his girlfriend in the hospital to go joyriding with a co-starring Keanu, Amy Smart and some other girl of high school age. Not cool, daddio ... or sport, or whatever it was these beat generation types called each other. 

That's about all I have to say about THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE. Just a few closing words now about two actors.

Adrien Brody wanders into the film at one point, presumably around the time he was auditioning for THE THIN RED LINE. And I started wishing I was watching that movie instead. Wait a sec, Jane was in THIN RED LINE, too! They probably ran through scenes together. And then, after it came out, consoled each other over shots of bourbon in a grimy bar, complaining about how they both ended up with less screen time than some limey who only managed to last one season in the British sitcom Game On.

And what of Mr Reeves in this movie? Sad to say, but he sticks out, like he always does. He pops up as Neal's pool-playing pal and joins him in drinking and talking, then pausing to have another drink before talking some more.

Look, there's no doubts about Keanu being A Really Nice Guy. After all, everyone knows he lives out of a suitcase and donates all of his acting royalties to charity (citation needed).

But it's always him in a movie, no matter who he is ostensibly playing. In MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, he's Keanu doing school play Shakespeare. In BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, he's Keanu with a wobbly English accent. And in this, he's Keanu in the 1950s, yet still sounding like a laidback surfer dude.

But despite that, I was glad to see him. He at least made this dross tolerable. Just about.

Two stars out of five. 

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  I think Jane actually uses this oh-so-amusing phrase at one point? It was hard to pick up among the rest of the never-ending voiceover.

What would a movie called THE FIRST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE be like?  There would be less rambling, you'd expect, and hopefully no jazz. Unless they played it at the damned funeral.

 

Previously:  THE LAST BUS

Next time:  LAST OF THE GRADS

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO (1998, Whit Stillman)

 

* * 

Two young women hang out in a Manhattan nightclub in 1980.

Starring  Chloë Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale, Chris Eigeman, Robert Sean Leonard, Jennifer Beals

Written by  Whit Stillman

Produced by  Whit Stillman   

Duration  113 minutes   

 

 

Quentin Tarantino likes movies. This we know. And his genre influences are clear, including blaxploitation (JACKIE BROWN), Asian-influenced action (KILL BILL), and men-on-a-mission (INGLORIOUS BASTERDS).

But there's one movie, one specific movie, that Tarantino champions more than any other. It's the one at the centre of this quote:

"When I start to get serious about a girl, I show her RIO BRAVO. And she better fuckin' like it."

(I feel the same way about COMMANDO; fortunately, Mrs Last grew up watching it.)

The director has repeatedly tried to replicate the siege portion of the film he treasures so: with RESERVOIR DOGS, with THE HATEFUL EIGHT, with his screenplay for FROM DUSK TILL DAWN.

But on a wider level, RIO BRAVO also belongs to a particular sub-genre: the hangout movie, a term that is widely believed to have been coined by Tarantino himself.

The hangout movie has taken many forms over the years. RIO BRAVO is broadly about John Wayne hanging out in a frontier town. Beyond Tarantino's own contributions to the form – PULP FICTION, ONCE UPON A TIME ... IN HOLLYWOOD, the non-car parts of DEATH PROOF – other notable hangout movies include:

KIDS (1995): Hanging out with reckless, sex-crazed, skateboarding teenage delinquents.

CLERKS (1994): Hanging out with retail workers discussing pop culture and promiscuous ex-girlfriends.

DAZED AND CONFUSED (1993): Hanging out on the last day of school in the mid-'70s.

THE BREAKFAST CLUB (1985): Hanging out and making new friends during Saturday detention.

AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973): Hanging out in the early '60s, mostly in cars.

EASY RIDER (1969): Hanging out in the late '60s, mostly on motorbikes.

BEFORE SUNRISE (1995): Hanging out all night in Vienna with someone you just met while Interrailing.

FRIDAY (1995): Hanging out in South Central LA on the last day of the working week.

HOOPER (1978): Hanging out with Burt Reynolds doing lots of stunts.

SWINGERS (1996): Hanging out with Vince Vaughn trying to pick up ladies and saying things like "You're so money, baby!"

THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998): Hanging out bowling while entangled inside a neo-noir mystery.

EMPIRE RECORDS (1995): Hanging out in a record store for the last time before it closes down.

DINER (1982): Hanging out with one half of the Wet Bandits, Mickey Rourke when he looked good, Steve Guttenberg and Burke from ALIENS.

SIDEWAYS (2004): Hanging out in Napa Valley getting tipsy at wine tastings.

FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMOUNT HIGH (1982): Hanging out at school.

FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF (1986): Hanging out and not going to school.

SUPERBAD (2007): Hanging out after school and trying to get laid.

BOOKSMART (2019): Same again, but with girls.

And so here we have THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO, which is 'hanging out in a New York nightclub in the early '80s'.

Our main hanger-outers are played by Chloe Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale. Both are poorly paid readers at a Manhattan publisher who are trying to get more out of their lives, including their night lives. They regularly go to the same disco, when they can get past the snooty ponytailed doorman, to meet various guys: ad guys, marketing guys, Wall Street guys.

Not a lot actually happens in this movie. It's certainly sharply written and well-observed, with some amusing lines. But that's about it. Sevigny seems vaguely out if it at all times, as if she was going Method during all those trips to the bar. Beckinsale, meanwhile, struggles with dialogue seemingly written to be read rather than spoken aloud. She has this oddly measured manner, saddled with words like 'several' and 'somewhat' and tin-eared expressions like 'terribly encouraging'.

I'm not sure how I feel about hangout movies, overall. The thing is, you have real life to just hang out with people. Why are we instead watching a movie? Isn't it because we want a story? Where life is no longer random and meaningless, but instead everything happens for a reason, people learn lessons and the heroes always win?

These kinds of casual, unhurried movies go against the screenwriting manuals. Those things a script is supposed to have to 'work': structure, escalating tension, stakes, emotional journeys, all that stuff.

And yet, hang out movies do still work a lot of the time, on the strength of the writing and the characters. I definitely like most of the titles on the above list. The theory goes that the more you enjoy the company of these people, the more you will enjoy their antics.

But did I like spending time with the characters in THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO? Um, not as such.

This was the third film by Whit Stillman. He specialises in chronicling the lives of vacuous yuppies, calling DISCO the last entry in his 'doomed bourgeois in love' trilogy. You get the impression the writer/director doesn't expect us to like these insufferable people. Which really doesn't help matters.

And I have to say, I found the disco soundtrack kind of annoying. By 1980, when this movie takes place, we could have had something a bit harder, a bit more modern sounding. Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love' had been out for years by then, and its producer Giorgio Moroder was starting to establish the mainstream electronic sound. Instead, we get fluff like 'Freak Out', 'He's the Greatest Dancer', 'Good Times', etc.

Not really the kind of place I'd like to hang out, I'm afraid.

Two stars out of five.

 

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  I don't know/care enough about the timeline of the musical genre to judge.

What would a movie called THE FIRST DAYS OF DISCO be about?  It would have to be set a decade earlier, I guess.

Previously: THE LAST SHIFT

Next time:  THE LAST EXORCISM: PART II

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST ANGRY MAN (1959, Daniel Mann)

 

* * * * 

A cantankerous New York City doctor unwittingly becomes the first ever reality TV star.

Starring  Paul Muni, David Wayne, Betsy Palmer, Luther Adler, Claudia McNeil, Joby Baker

Written by  Gerald Green

Produced by  Fred Kohlmar

Duration  100 minutes

 

 

In 1998, a new sitcom aired on BBC 2 called The Royle Family. Written by two of its stars, it centred around the everyday lives of a 'normal' working class family in the North of England.

This sitcom was a little different. Not only did the action mostly take place in the Royles' house, we hardly ever left the living room, where the family would chat while lounging around watching television.

Critics rounded on the concept. Who on Earth is going to watch TV when all it's showing is people sat watching their own telly? Nevertheless, The Royle Family was a big hit. Being well-written, funny and having a talented cast certainly helped.

Fast-forward to 2013. Channel 4 introduces a new reality show named Gogglebox (an antiquated British term for the television). In this show, which is still going strong today, 'normal' people sit around watching TV and making comments while we watch them from the television's POV. Much like The Royle Family, the viewer feels like a fly on the wall; or, more accurately, a fly that's landed on the TV screen and sits there staring out at the viewers.

But there are three key differences between The Royle Family and Gogglebox. The first is that we cut between clips of the shows (or movies or documentaries or news broadcasts) they've been watching and the goggleboxers' quippy, allegedly spontaneous reactions. Secondly, we visit multiple households, as if we ourselves are channel surfing. (Which is a good thing to start doing whenever Gogglebox comes on, but I digress.)

It's the third difference that's the most crucial. Gogglebox is not well-written or funny and the people on it are not gifted comedic actors. They're obnoxious, witless and charmless, offering only banal and trite observations, delivering these non-insights in ways that seem designed to be as annoying as possible.

Gogglebox is a low point in popular culture. Its existence suggests a theory of reverse-evolution. Obviously, reality TV is always garbage. But Googlebox is garbage that's been left out in the sun for weeks.

But what kicked off the journey that led us to this nadir of nadirs? I don't mean what was the first reality show; that was probably MTV's The Real World in 1992. I mean, who was the first to speculate that perhaps there could even be a beast as hideous as reality TV?

Previously, I'd believed that it was Albert Brooks, with his brilliant 1979 satire REAL LIFE. But now I'm thinking that maybe the first artistic work to propose the reality concept was actually 1959's THE LAST ANGRY MAN.

In his final screen performance, OG Scarface Paul Muni plays grouchy but dedicated neighbourhood GP Dr Sam Abelman. A pair of local hoodlums trust him enough to drop their injured ladyfriend on the doorstep of his Brooklyn brownstone in the early hours one morning. The neighbours get out of bed to watch the doc be surly ("You still owe me for your father's hernia operation!") while at the same time the beating heart of the community. He clearly cares for all who cross his threshold – no matter the hour, affliction or the patient's capacity to pay.

The next day, we meet a television producer with the painful-sounding name of Woody Thrasher (David Wayne, THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN). Woody is desperate to thrash out a fresh angle for the TV show he's been pitching to his higher ups, and is intrigued when he reads an article doc Abelman's reporter nephew has published about last night's doorstep drama.

He tracks the good doctor down and proposes that he be the subject of a new programme. "Live television, from your house!" Thrasher gushes. "We'd visit with you – your family, your patients."

In the best hero's journey refusal-of-the-call tradition, Abelman won't play ball. But luckily, his enterprising nephew can better smell the opportunity and is determined to make a TV show with his "Uncle Doc" happen.

Back in the TV station's offices, we get a flavour of how Thrasher wants his show – named Americans, USA – to play out. "Real people doing real things," he tells his boss. "Useful, dramatic lives! People whose every waking minute is drama!"

Ol' Thrash is a career man, but he seems honest enough. He's drawn to Abelman's passion, the man's integrity and dedication. He genuinely thinks that this elderly physician will make great TV. But his paymasters, the studio's sponsor Gattling Pharmaceutical, instead see a chance to peddle their drugs using the eccentric but trusted medicine man as a vessel. Thrasher feels uneasy, but pragmatically moves forward with the plan.

So into Doc Abelman's home come the director and his crew, along with their '50s-era cameras and audio equipment. Thrasher has to explain to the family and sick people that they aren't playing parts or expected to act, but that they should just be who they are and do what they usually do. This is definitely an alien concept for everyone involved – including the movie's 1950s audience. 

As a result, and through no fault of its own, THE LAST ANGRY MAN is pretty slow and laboured in its set-up. It reminded me of when you read a classic novel like Dracula or The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and have to patiently wade though pages of people speculating about exactly what this strange new creature could possibly be.

When they get to the actual filming, it doesn't look much different to a standard TV programme. There's blocking, sound checks, multiple cameras, retakes ... it's really more like a news broadcast. There's little attempt to lead the subject, and a presenter fronts the action, interviewing Abelman and then talking straight to camera. They don't just start rolling and let the events unfurl. But at the same time, there isn't any of the selective editing or participant manipulation that we've come to expect from the modern reality genre.

Anyway, Americans, USA has barely been on air five minutes before the good doctor is going off script and badmouthing the pharmaceutical company he's supposed to be praising, calling them peddlers of unnecessary medicines who are only concerned with lining their own pockets. Which doesn't go down too well. Gattling Pharmaceutical wanted someone on TV who's 'real'; Dr Abelman is just too damn real!

And when Thrasher's conscience catches up with him and he warns the doc to change his tune or the network will pull the plug, which would deny Abelman the spoils coming his way (the network promised him a new house as payment), the principled GP tells the TV man to stuff his programme, and the same to all the "galoots" who are behind it.

The movie turns out not to be a satire, which of course I never expected – how can you satirise reality TV before it's even been established? In the end, THE LAST ANGRY MAN is less about reality vs fiction and the mechanics of television than it is a two-hander between Muni and Wayne, playing a pair of very different men who learn a lot from each other and both grow a little. I liked it.

Which is just as well, because if I'd've come away having drawn a direct line between it and that bloody Gogglebox, we'd be talking about Last Movie Reviews' first zero-star verdict. Maybe minus stars.

Four stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Our principled doc does seem to represent a dying breed, in the face of the unethical standards of TV and his fame-hungry nephew. So, he's the last something.

What would a movie called THE FIRST ANGRY MAN be about?  In terms of the most angry man, in another movie about television, you'd have to go for Peter Finch as deranged broadcaster Howard Beale in NETWORK (1976).

 

Previously:  LAST NIGHT

Next time:  THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

LAST CALL (2021, Paolo Pilladi)

 

* 

When a death in the family forces a successful dude to return to his old neighbourhood, he can't wait to leave again – until he actually (gasp!) ends up wanting stay.

Starring  Jeremy Piven, Taryn Manning, Zach McGowan, Cathy Moriarty, Jamie Kennedy, Bruce Dern

Written by  Paolo Pilladi, Greg Lingo  

Produced by  DJ Dodd, Rob Simmons, Ante Novakovic, Paolo Pilladi

Duration  102 minutes   

"Stan, you have the undeserved ego of Jeremy Piven!"

– Francine Smith, American Dad

Actors are supposed to be likable. That's the whole idea, right? Their names go above the title and they lure us in to see the film. We want to look at them and listen to them for two hours, to be by their side during a succession of challenging scenarios.

Even the ones who usually play villains are charismatic in a fun, love-to-hate-them kind of way, with an anti-likability that does what it needs to do.

So how the hell do you explain the continuing career of Jeremy Piven? Maybe he's a perfectly nice bloke in real life, who knows. (Although it seems unlikely.) But his onscreen persona can be described with one word: assholish.

Who actually is this guy, anyway? He's mostly known as John Cusack's pal: they starred in 10 movies together; well, Cusack usually starred and let Piven wander into frame to deliver a few lines now and then.

Or maybe that should be former pal. In 2007, Piven implied that they hadn't collaborated since 2003's lesser John Grisham adaptation THE RUNAWAY JURY because his old pal was jealous of his success in Entourage. OK, Piven won a few Emmys for the show, but I mean come on! What kind of conceited narcissist thinks that a fellow actor whose career has seen him work with Rob Reiner, James L Brooks, Cameron Crowe, John Hughes, Herbert Ross, Woody Allen, Alan Parker, Clint Eastwood and Terrence Malick is going to get an attack of the green-eyed monster because you get to say "Hug it out, bitch!" to Kevin Connolly every Sunday night on HBO?

(Plus, although it was hardly Piven's fault, I always resented that as good as he certainly was on Entourage, he stole focus from the equally award-worthy and hilarious Kevin Dillon, who played overshadowed older brother Johnny 'Drama' Chase.)

Here are some examples of Mr Piven's assholish contributions to the silver screen:

– LUCAS (1986): Debuting in this sensitive teen drama, he plays a school bully who manages to be the biggest prick in a film that also stars Charlie Sheen.

– JUDGEMENT NIGHT (1993): Plays a yuppie scumbag who doesn't report his involvement in a hit-and-run, and spends the movie being patronising to the residents of the lower income community he and his pals have brazenly wandered into.

– PCU (1994): Plays the leader of a fraternity who are rebelling against the modern sensibilities of America's most politically correct university.

– HEAT (1995): Plays a dodgy veterinarian who patches up villains like Val Kilmer's character after they've, say, taken a bullet during a daring armed bank robbery in downtown LA. And if you read sequel novel Heat 2, it turns out he didn't do a very good job.

– VERY BAD THINGS (1999): Plays the member of a stag party whose accidental (not that that's an excuse) killing of a prostitute sets all the bad things in motion. Manages to stand out as notably sleazy in a film that can most accurately be described as a sleazefest.

– BLACK HAWK DOWN (2001): Plays the pilot of the first black hawk that goes down. He's hardly culpable (or maybe he is, I can't remember), but the crash does lead to a lot of carnage.

– SNOKIN' ACES (2006): Plays a magician and wannabe gangster who rats out his friends, and whom everybody who isn't in law enforcement wants to see dead (and the cops probably do too, just so they won’t have to listen to any more of his coke-fuelled rants).

– ROCKNROLLA (2008): Plays a smarmy American music exec who gets in hot water with the Cockney mafia because of his connection to a druggie rock star. While wearing a silly hat and a white plastic wristwatch.

– THE GOODS: LIVE FREE, SELL HARD (2009): Director Adam McKay tries to make Piven into the new Will Ferrell. No one swallows it and the experiment is swiftly pulled.

– SPY KIDS: ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD (2011): Plays the villain. Looks comfortable with the brief.

And, of course, his TV role as super-agent Ari Gold brought him to plaudit-receiving levels of assholism.

Believe it or not, I used to get the same kind of negative vibe from Bradley Cooper, having first encountered him in assholish roles, which included WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER, WEDDING CRASHERS and THE HANGOVER. But Cooper gradually reinvented himself and is now a thoughtful and compelling actor (not to mention writer/director).

Could it be that Piven has actually done the same, and all I needed to do was give him another chance, this time in one of his rare starring vehicles? Let's find out!

In LAST CALL, J-Piv plays a successful real estate developer (two of his early lines: "I closed two deals before lunch" and "if you need to find me, just email my assistant"  – so, basically Ari Gold in another industry), who moved to The City from The Suburbs and reluctantly saunters back home for his mother's funeral. 

Yes, this is Piven headlining a form of those terrible Hallmark romcoms where the high-flying protagonist (usually a woman) returns to the hometown that they boast about escaping from, only to have their heart melted by the small-town ways they'd told everyone were beneath them. And, of course, they find romance and decide to stay permanently.

All of that happens in LAST CALL. Piven meets up with his former neighbour, played by Taryn Manning, and the sparks fly (or at least they do according to the script – in reality, the two actors have zero chemistry). And he decides to help his old man keep the family pub in business, finding the kind of satisfaction and meaningfulness that he finally realises his wealth and white-collar existence had been denying him, etc etc.

So, the film is 100% uninspired in both premise and execution. But what about our man?

Well, my opinion remains unchanged. The Piv actually looks pretty bored throughout – at least in Entourage his assholery had some energy to it. Here he just lumbers through endless drinking montages with hammered and aggressive salt-of-the-Earth types who babble the kind of tirades that are hard to tolerate when you too are drunk and totally unbearable when sober, occasionally broken up by appearances by faces Bruce Dern (as a barfly), Cathy Moriarty (as a neighbour with a random accent), Jamie Kennedy (as another barfly) and Jack McGee (as Piven's dad, with an accent that's definitely supposed to be Irish).

For LAST CALL, the filmmakers clearly reslised that directing Piven to be less of an asshole was fruitless. They instead surrounded him with other assholish people to try to make him seem less assholey in comparison. The unfortunate result? One giant asshole-fest.

One star out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Well, the drinking never seems to stop, even for licensing laws, so no.

What would a movie called FIRST CALL be about?  A biopic of Alexander Graham Bell, climaxing with him dialling on his new invention for the first time and tensely waiting for the person on the other end to pick up.

Previously:  THE LAST SONG

Next time:  LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN    

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

LAST CHRISTMAS (2019, Paul Feig)

 

* * 

An underachieving young woman lives an aimless existence, until she meets a tall, dark stranger one December.

Starring  Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Emma Thompson

Written by  Emma Thompson, Bryony Kimmings

Produced by  David Livingstone, Emma Thompson, Paul Feig, Jessie Henderson  

Duration  103 minutes

"Last Christmas, I gave you my heart ..."

Tying your film closely to a song. You've got your two basic ways of doing it.

There's the approach used by LAST CHRISTMAS, commonly known as the STAND BY ME method. That's where you name your film after a well-known, beloved hit. 

If you're really serious, as STAND BY ME director Rob Reiner (RIP) clearly was, you'll play this song over the end credits and even transpose its melody into the musical score. Further examples of this method include PRETTY WOMAN, SWEET HOME ALABAMA, YESTERDAY, MY GIRL, etc. (For the Reiner movie, they wanted to evoke their chosen classic so badly that they even renamed it after adapting it – from Stephen King's story 'The Body', part of his Different Seasons collection.)

Then you've got films for which a song is specially written that ends up taking on a life of its own. A classic case is Berlin's Oscar-winning 'Take My Breath Away' from TOP GUN, which arguably has the greatest soundtrack of the '80s – they released eight singles from it! 

TOP GUN was from the 'popbuster' era, often movies produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. Other popbusting tunes include Irene Cara – 'What A Feeling' from FLASHDANCE (another winner of the Academy Award for Best Original Song); Maria McKee – 'Show Me Heaven' (DAYS OF THUNDER); and Coolio – 'Gangsta's Paradise' (DANGEROUS MINDS). The belated final nail in the coffin of this trend came in 1998, with Aerosmith's Godawful 'I Don't Want to Miss a Thing' for ARMAGEDDON.

It's worth noting that when this second strategy is employed, the song's title rarely matches the movie's. The only one that comes to mind is Billy Idol's 'Speed' from SPEED. "Speeeed!" implore the lyrics; "Give me what I needed!" they press on. Oh, and THAT THING YOU DO!, but there the original song was actually woven into the story.

For LAST CHRISTMAS, we get an entire soundtrack from one artist, a la THE BODYGUARD or PURPLE RAIN. The difference here is, unlike Whitney Houston or Prince, George Michael had sadly already passed away – three years before and on Christmas Day, no less. LAST CHRISTMAS positions itself as being "inspired by the music of George Michael and Wham!" and its soundtrack features 12 songs from him and three from the pop group he formed.

(The soundtrack lists George's rousing 'Freedom 90', but they missed a trick by not getting Tiesto or Calvin Harris or whoever to mash it together with Wham!'s earlier single 'Freedom' in a tranced-up remix.)

I was curious about the phrase "inspired by" used in the marketing. I knew that LAST CHRISTMAS wasn't an all-out musical (thank God and the baby Jesus), but to what extent would the film's story reflect the choice of songs? And how many of the tunes on the soundtrack would actually be played onscreen – would it be like that "Deluxe Edition" of the TOP GUN LP, which added '80s classics by REO Speedwagon, Mr Mister, Europe, Starship and Jennifer Rush that have nothing to do with the film?

George's 'Heal the Pain' is first out the gate, sung by a church choir, like with Prince's 'When Doves Cry' in Baz Luhrmann's ROMEO + JULIET. It quickly segues into George's rendition on a pub jukebox, and our hapless protagonist Emilia Clarke, nursing a pint, quickly namechecks the man himself. The movie's title song then plays over the opening credits – and does again throughout, in various intentionally terrible cover versions. 

Later, 'Too Funky' punctuates a quickie flashback about a quickie; 'I Want Your Sex' accompanies a frantic oh-shit-I'm-late sequence; 'Wake Me Up (Before You Go-Go)' and the opening of 'Fast Love' ("Gotta get up to get down") are unimaginatively used for scenes when the main character is waking up. There were a few more, but I gave up taking notes. But we did seem to cover all 15 soundtrack choices, or at least it certainly felt like it.

So yeah, it turns out that plot-wise, LAST CHRISTMAS is just a pretty routine romcom, one that sprinkles George's music throughout either randomly or on-the-nosely, all anchored by a game turn by Emilia Clarke. It does throw in a heart-tugging twist at the end, one that does explicitly reference 'Last Christmas' the song, albeit in the clumsiest possible way. (Go back to the opening line of this review, if you want a spoiler.)

In the spirit of Christmas goodwill, I won't be completely negative. For one thing, at least LAST CHRISTMAS is not a typical film from Paul Feig, a terrible director in my opinion. I haven't seen his 2016 GHOSTBUSTERS, although not for the sexist reasons that spread across the internet at the time. It's because I'd tried Feig's first three efforts (BRIDESMAIDS, THE HEAT and SPY) and concluded that he suffers from the same annoying tendencies as his Freaks and Geeks alumni, Judd Apatow (although F&G was a good show, for what it's worth).

By this I mean every joke is milked to death, with actors allowed to improv scenes to the extent that they feel hours long. Many of those scenes desperately try to mine humour from characters hurling insults at each other, often of the "you're like a [insert famous person] version of [insert another famous person]" variety. There is a reluctance to use the editorial scissors running through both Feig's and Apatow's work; I myself have never seen the need for a comedy to last 2-plus hours, unless it's THE BLUES BROTHERS fitting in all its musical numbers and cameos, or BEAU IS AFRAID, where being a relentless endurance test is part of the point.

Another tick LAST CHRISTMAS gets from me is for being a British made and/or set romcom where, in Clarke, they actually cast a British lead actress. There's a weird trend in the genre where it seems like Hollywood doesn’t have any faith in our native ladies to capture hearts, and so they instead cast a hot young American – sometimes playing American, sometimes imitating a Brit. 

I'm talking about FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL (Andie MacDowell), NOTTING HILL (Julia Roberts), BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY (Renne Zellweger – London accent not bad), ABOUT TIME (Rachel McAdams – actually Canadian, but close enough) ... And sometimes Richard Curtis isn't even involved, like with WIMBLEDON (Kirsten Dunst) or MAN UP (Lake Bell) or ONE DAY (Anne Hathaway – Yorkshire accent awful) or SLIDING DOORS (Gwyneth Paltrow – London accent passable) or SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE (Paltrow again – London accent passable, for the 16th Century) or A LIFE LESS ORDINARY (Cameron Diaz).

Oh, and final props to LAST CHRISTMAS for setting its opening in Brixton, South London. We swiftly switch to the more movie-conventional Covent Garden/Oxford Street/etc for the duration, but I appreciate the effort for geographical diversity in the Capital, however fleeting.

Two stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Since the whole thing takes place in the present, I'm gonna give it a 'no' in this case.

What would a movie called FIRST CHRISTMAS be about?  Clarke would be playing Mary. A character who had far fewer one-night stands, that's for sure.

Previously:  AND WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER?

Next time:  WRONG TURN 6: LAST RESORT

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com