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 on free wine samples.

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 sit watching their telly 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 clear low point in popular culture. Its existence suggests a reverse-evolution theory for the human race. Obviously, reality TV is always garbage. But Googlebox is garbage that's been left out in the sun for several 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, former 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 acting as 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 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 is pragmatic and 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 companies 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 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 pulls 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 as a consequence. I liked it.

Which is just as well, because if I'd've come away having drawn a direct line between it and 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, also in a movie that's also about television, you'd have to go for Peter Finch as derenged 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 bother to 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 at Christmas.

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 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 six 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 Wanna 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!" go 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. Or they could have done something similar with the way that 'Faith' opens with some bars of the 'Freedom' melody. Ah well.)

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 were 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 as the lead. 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 about this film. 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 by 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 has 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

THE TOXIC AVENGER PART III: THE LAST TEMPTATION OF TOXIE (1989, Lloyd Kaufman, Michael Herz)

 

* 

New Jersey-based superhero Toxie gets a day job to pay for his blind girlfriend’s eye-surgery. Unfortunately, his boss turns out to be the Devil and, worse still, Toxie becomes a yuppie.

Starring  Ron Fazio, Phoebe Legere, John Altamura, Rick Collins, Lisa Gaye

Written by  Lloyd Kaufman, Michael Herz

Produced by  Lloyd Kaufman, Michael Herz

Duration  102 minutes  

   

I’m a completist. When it comes to films, I want to see them all. Not all all – I wish! No, I’m talking about completing a set.

A film series is, I would say, a quite common completism goal. All the Bonds; all the Marvels (shudder); all the wars that take place among the stars. And doing an actor could still be considered a sane and reasonable pursuit.

What I’m talking about here is the next level: directors.

Now, some have been easy for me to tick off, owing to their limited output. James Cameron has only just reached nine with that Avatar sequel, with (shudder again) more of those things in the pipeline. Kubrick did a still-low 13, including that early, terrible one, FEAR AND DESIRE. Hitchcock was much more prolific; I didn’t count his hard-to-find early British ones, including the silent-era, and started instead at THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934), which still meant a count of 37.

Elsewhere, some directors have been easy to chalk off film by film, since they only got going in the '90s: David O Russell, Darren Aronofsky, Paul Thomas Anderson, Danny Boyle, Tarantino. Some of the older ones I've kept up to date with while also exploring their back catalogues: Scorsese, Cronenberg, Carpenter. Certain directors who had seemed retired can surprise you with a new picture out of nowhere, like Adrian Lyne with DEEP WATER or Michael Mann's FERRARI (I haven't yet braved Francis Coppola's MEGALOPOLIS). A couple of definitely out-of-commission veterans who I’d really love to complete, but whose mammoth outputs intimidate me, are Robert Altman (35 films) and Sidney Lumet (41).

One name I’ve never been tempted to add to my list of completed directors is Lloyd Kaufman’s. To do so would mean watching the majority of Troma’s output, the studio he co-founded with Michael Hertz. Not something I would recommend to anyone, if you want to remain in possession of your marbles.

If you’ve never heard of Troma, here is a sample of their titles: SURF NAZIS MUST DIE; FORTRESS OF AMERIKKKA; BLOODBATH IN PSYCHO TOWN; VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED; CLASS OF NUKE ‘EM HIGH; DUMPSTER BABY; A NYMPHOID BARBARIAN IN DINOSAUR HELL. Troma specialises in shock (or 'schlock'); in pushing the boundaries of taste when it comes to sex, violence, gore, targeting minorities and poking at sensitive topics.

Here's the problem: when a movie thinks that it's great but is actually terrible, it can achieve a fascinating level of outsider art and be enjoyed in a so-bad-it’s-good manner. Think THE ROOM or TROLL 2. If a work is intentionally terrible, it’s usually painfully self-conscious, desperate to please and difficult to watch – in other words, anti-entertainment. Troma doesn’t push boundaries to make any kind of artistic point. Kaufman and his cronies just want to see what they can get away with. Most of the time the result is mind-numbingly dull.

But on rare occasions, Troma shits out a diamond. TROMEO AND JULIET is one, a spirited and anarchic take on the material that benefits from a script by future CEO of DC Studios James Gunn – as well as by being a loose adaptation of, you know, William Shakespeare. 

And another jewel in Troma's crown is THE TOXIC AVENGER (1984).

An introduction to future Troma mascot ‘Toxie’ (later transposed to kid-friendly cartoon The Toxic Crusaders), the movie applies Troma’s sensibility to something that actually works – in a lowest-common-denominator kind of way. It’s essentially a superhero origin story, in which put-upon health club janitor Melvin falls into an open barrel of toxic waste following a prank gone wrong, which mutates him into a mop-wielding, hyper-violent version of Sloth from THE GOONIES. Rather than return to cleaning toilets and wiping sweat from pull-down bars, Melvin/Toxie instead starts fighting crime and corruption in his hometown of Tromaville, New Jersey.

One of my friends used to own THE TOXIC AVENGER on VHS and it was regular viewing for a gang of us over beers and pizza. A recent rewatch confirmed that the movie still holds up today, and when I noticed that part three qualifies for this blog, I decided to dive into the whole series.

And the sequels start promisingly with THE TOXIC AVENGER: PART II. In it, Toxie travels to Japan to search for his father, only to find when he returns to Jersey that he was tricked into this quest by the nefarious Apocalypse Inc, a chemical company/crime syndicate who have now overrun Tromaville. Offensive Asian stereotypes notwithstanding, TOXIE II is quite fun.

The same, however, can’t be said about number three here, THE LAST TEMPTATION. It’s a film that literally shouldn't exist, being that it was cobbled together from unused TOXIE II footage when Kaufman wanted to make a quick sale to foreign investors (there’s that artistic integrity again). 

Meandering, laugh-free and surprisingly tame, TOXIE III is as lazy as you would expect for a project that grinds through the minutes with the sole purpose of simply existing. It's not dissimilar to those sequels that are green-lighted purely to retain IP, such as HELLRAISER: REVELATIONS or that FANTASTIC FOUR from 1994 (recipient of the greatest trailer ever). The movie really doesn't warrant any further scrutiny.

I am glad, however, that I hung in there for part four (subtitle: CITIZEN TOXIE), as it's a definite upturn. The film counters the timidity of LAST TEMPTATION with a tastelessness that is almost admirable, including the series’s most gloriously OTT fight scene during its hospital-set third act. For the denouement, Toxie’s girlfriend gives birth to twins, one good one evil, who we just saw fighting in her womb MORTAL KOMBAT-style. TOXIE IV actually comes close to recapturing the hell-for-leather charm of the original.

So yes, I am now a TOXIC AVENGER completist; one step closer to a worthwhile existence, I'm sure you'll agree. Or at least I will be, once the remake is out: it still doesn't have a release date, despite debuting at Spain's Stiges Film Festival in October 2023.

One star out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Nope. But as I say, despite starring Peter Dinklage (as Toxie), Jacob Tremblay and Kevin Bacon, the remake is currently caught in some kind of distribution limbo.

What would a movie called THE FIRST TEMPTATION OF TOXIE be about?  That's actually a pretty accurate description of the original film. Its catalytic event was poor Melvin being subjected to an insincere promise of sex from a duplicitous gym bunny, which inadvertently led to the whole toxic-waste-mutation situation.

Previously:  THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN

Next time:  AND WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER? 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN (1982, Boaz Davidson)

 

* * * * 

Three horny teenage boys pursue girls in suburban Los Angeles.

Starring  Lawrence Monoson, Diane Franklin, Steve Antin, Joe Rubbo, Louisa Moritz

Written by  Boaz Davidson   

Produced by  Yoram Globus, Menahem Golan, David Womark   

Duration  92 minutes   

 

PORKY'S. REVENGE OF THE NERDS. SCREWBALLS. LOSIN’ IT. HARDBODIES. SPRING BREAK. THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN.

One of these 1980s teen sex romps is not like the others.

Despite coming from the less-than-reputable Canon Films – known for such dubious output as SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE and MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, as well as for igniting/prolonging the careers of Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris, and Charles Bronson – THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN turns out to be a pleasant surprise. It’s not what I expected at all; well, it does have everything I expected in it, but also a lot more besides, making it unique among its peers.

It doesn't stand out just because its director, Boaz Davidson, took the uncommon step of remaking his own film: AMERICAN VIRGIN is a US-based version the Israeli LEMON POPSICLE. Other members of this exclusive self-remaking club include Alfred Hitchcock (THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, 1934/1956), Michael Haneke (FUNNY GAMES, 1997/2007), John Woo (THE KILLER, 1989/2024) and Michael Mann (kind of – he expanded his 1989 TV movie LA TAKEDOWN into HEAT in 1995).

AMERICAN VIRGIN isn't notable for having a cast who went onto bigger things, either. There's only Kimmy Robertson, years before portraying dim-witted secretary Lucy Moran on Twin Peaks, and Diane Franklin who would go on to feature in BETTER OFF DEAD and BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE. Probably the biggest up-and-comer is found on the other side of the camera. The film looks unexpectedly great, due to being lensed by Adam Greenberg, the cinematographer who had ALIEN NATION, GHOST, NEAR DARK and both of James Cameron’s TERMINATOR movies in his future.

It also doesn't stand out in terms of plot. It's a pretty loose affair, mostly tying together a series of misadventures – at first comical, then more serious. The sensitive nice guy from three best buddies is infatuated with a new girl at school, but his more studly and less ethical mate gets in with her first. Meanwhile, their other, chubbier pal wears sunglasses indoors, talks about ‘partying’ a lot and provides frequent plus-sized comic relief.

So, while it may not be distinctive for any of those reasons, let me give you a flavour of what the cinematic artifact named THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN is.

It’s luring some girls you just met in a diner back to your parent-free house with the promise of Class-A drugs, then surreptitiously racking up lines of Sweet N Low on a mirror – which they gleefully snort, declaring "This is the best Columbian we’ve ever had!"

It’s strutting into a pool party with your collar up and your hair slicked back, tearing open a pack of Marlboro Reds and swigging Jack Daniels straight from the bottle. Then when you return home and drunkenly burst through the front door and interrupt your parents' sophisticated dinner party, you try to seduce the most stern-looking matriarch in attendance before collapsing into the table, sending the plates flying.

It’s delivering a pizza to a nymphomaniac cougar, and then returning to her apartment again with your two mates in tow so you can take turns having sex with her, peeking in on each other through the keyhole. And when her husband comes home, he totally buys her explanation that there are half-naked teenagers in the house because she was "giving them Spanish lessons."

It’s parking on the beach so you can furiously make out in the back seat of a convertible and kicking the handbrake off in the throes of passion, and then being so preoccupied that you don't even notice that you’re drenched with sea water because the car's rolled into the surf.

It’s catching the nerdiest guy in gym class spying on the girls’ showers through a peephole (a la PORKY’S), and when he then claims to possess the largest penis in school deciding to line up all your schoolmates and measure their erections one by one with a ruler. And it turns out the nerd was right.

It’s hiring LA’s least sympathetic prostitute so you can lose your virginity, and then feeling worse after the deed is done than you did before – and not just because of the resultant STD.

It’s also practically a music video montage with a movie in between, years before MTV. And the early ’80s soundtrack is stellar, not to be beaten until the video game GTA: Vice City, with which it shares some songs. 

Among others, the track list includes:

‘De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da’ – The Police

‘Whip It’ – Devo

‘Better Luck Next Time’ – Oingo Boingo

‘In the Flesh’ – Blondie

‘Oh No’ – The Commodores

‘Open Arms’ – Journey

‘Keep on Loving You’ – REO Speedwagon

‘Love Action’ – The Human League

‘Shake It Up’ – The Cars

‘I Will Follow’ – U2

 

But also, and ultimately, it turns out to be a lot more soulful and earnest than the raunchy tone, bawdy dialogue and excessive nudity of its early stretch suggests. Two thirds through there's a plot development similar to that in 1982’s FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, another movie that rises above this genre’s trappings: sensitively handled unwanted teenage pregnancy.

So, yeah. We like these kids. We don’t judge them for being young and led by their impulses. We end up invested in their dodgy decisions and flawed but ultimately well-meaning pursuits. 

And the movie has one of the all-time gut-punch endings of the ’80s, maybe even up there with the decade’s ultimate downer denouement from David Cronenberg’s THE FLY.

I can’t believe I’m going to give THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN this rating, but ... yep, there you go.

Four stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  The original LEMON POPSICLE spawned eight sequels in its native land, so although this movie had no follow-ups (and yet we got four installments of both PORKY’S and REVENGE OF THE NERDS!), there were plenty more virgins left out there.

What would a movie called THE FIRST AMERICAN VIRGIN be about?  Maybe a teen sex romp mashed-up with 1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE?

Previously:  LAST TANGO IN PARIS

Next time:  THE TOXIC AVENGER PART III: THE LAST TEMPTATION OF TOXIE 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

LAST VEGAS (2013, Jon Turteltaub)

 

* * * 

These guys might be old, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still party! Specifically, by heading to Vegas after the last bachelor among the group finally gets engaged.

Starring  Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Kline, Mary Steenburgen

Written by  Dan Fogelman

Produced by  Laurence Mark, Nathan Kahane, Amy Baer, Matt Leonetti   

Duration  105 minutes

   

Here we go: oldies doing youthful things movies. Did Clint Eastwood’s SPACE COWBOYS (2000) popularise the trend? Or was it Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas with TOUGH GUYS in 1986?

No, wait, there was GOING IN STYLE back in 1979 (also remade in 2017), which is part of the ‘pensioners pull a caper’ sub-genre – see also KING OF THIEVES, THE HATTON GARDEN JOB, THE LOVE PUNCH, GOLDEN YEARS, etc.

Whichever way you cut it, these films are comparatively rare; the older crowd isn’t traditionally catered to by Hollywood and its four-quadrant obsession. This despite the fact that pensioners go to the movies a lot – I know if I was retired, I'd be going two or three times a day. But the success of CALENDAR GIRLS and then those MARIGOLD HOTEL pictures seemed to make something click in studio boardrooms, and we were suddenly inundated with attempts to snag the ‘grey dollar’.

The trend was at its peak when LAST VEGAS came out in 2013, sandwiched as it was between the two MARIGOLD films. I’d need to have seen more of these things to accurately benchmark VEGAS against its peers but, judged on its own merits, it's serviceable enough.

Failing to act their age this time are Michael Douglas (69 at the time of filming), Robert De Niro (70), Morgan Freeman (76), and Kevin Kline ('the baby' at 66 – although none of them are as young as Mary Steenburgen's 60, so they still managed to keep the female love interest younger, as is par for the course).

The film opens by leaning heavily into nostalgia with a quick flashback. You got the kids cast for their resemblance to our stars, crammed into a photo booth for a montage of snaps over the credits. You got the four friends standing up for each other in the face of older greasers, soundtracked to ’50s pop. You got a glimpse of a rivalry between young De Niro and young Douglas.

Then: bam! Fast-forward fifty-eight years. Kline is taking part in water aerobics while quipping about how close to death everyone around him is. Freeman has an overprotective son, or it might have been grandson, that scene was kind of rushed. De Niro falls asleep in front of daytime TV and dodges his Millennial neighbour’s attempts to set him up with her grandmother. Michael Douglas is wildly successful, judging by his Malibu beachside home and bikini-clad 30-something partner (what a shocker: the evidently proud sex-addict Douglas is playing the lothario), and it is he for whom the Vegas stag do that gets the four back together is organised. 

The music starts to sound like David Holmes' score for OCEAN'S ELEVEN; the oldies struggle with their suitcases, their rented cars and navigating flights of stairs; De Niro kills five minutes of screentime in post-MEET THE PARENTS curmudgeon mode with his reluctance to join the party; and before you can say "Let's have another joke about old people living in Florida", we're in Vegas ( ... baby)!

In terms of an actual plot, beyond just stretching an amused-with-itself setup to feature length, only the abovementioned De Niro/Douglas tension really qualifies – and I'll give writer Dan Fogelman credit for not making it turn out to stem from the latter stealing the former’s girl, despite likely pressure from Douglas at the scripting phase. Kline spends the film trying to pick up younger women, having been given a free pass by his wife (until, inevitably his conscience intervenes), and Freeman cuts lose on the games of chance now that he is unshackled from his mollycoddling son/grandson.

Other than that, it's mostly a series of comic set pieces: the gang judging a bikini contest; that curly haired DJ bloke from LMFAO gyrating his crotch in Robert De Niro's face; the oldies blagging their way into VIP areas; dancing to EDM drunk on vodka Red Bulls; Turtle from Entourage being an asshole, then getting his comeuppance when the old guys pretend to be aged Mafia bosses on the warpath. You get the idea.

Best in show actually turns out to be Steenburgen, whose lounge singer/Vegas chaperone contributes a wry and charming energy, although Fogelman could have done with gifting her some dialogue that goes beyond reactionary one-liners.

It's the kind of film that was made for half-watching on a Sunday afternoon. It doesn't demand too much from the viewer, so it would be churlish to demand too much from it.

Three stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Everyone had a good time and successfully completed their story arcs, so that's probably it for trips to the gambling Nirvana in Navada.

What would a movie called FIRST VEGAS be about?  Obviously if you go back too far, it’s just a town in the middle of the desert. Probably better to think of the 1960s/70s, the era of Frank Sinatra or DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER: plenty of gambling, but not yet full-on gaudiness.

Previously:  THE LAST SUPPER

Next time:  LAST FLAG FLYING

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST SUPPER (1995, Stacy Title)

 

* * * * 

A group of liberal grad students start inviting extreme right-wingers to dinner and murdering them after the inevitable clash of ideologies.

Starring  Cameron Diaz, Courtney B Vance, Ron Eldard, Jonathan Penner, Annabeth Gish, Bill Paxton

Written by  Dan Rosen

Produced by  Matt Cooper, Larry Weinberg   

Duration  92 minutes

Movies should be a balancing act between entertainment and art, with the nature of the picture determining in which direction the scales tip.

So where does politics fit in? Used sparingly and subtly, a bit of an agenda can add depth. Rian Johnson, for instance, is one mainstream filmmaker who sneaks rhetoric into their work. This enriched KNIVES OUT and gave an already excellent film more power, but came across as a little preachy in the sequel, GLASS ONION.

Going further back, DR STRANGELOVE is hilarious first and shines a light on Cold War hysteria second. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS alludes to Communist paranoia while still being surface-level chilling. On the other hand, LAND OF THE DEAD is a little too on-the-nose with its Dennis-Hopper-as-George-W-Bush ironic casting. And GET OUT is a pretty bog-standard piece of suspense horror, one that would practically disappear if you took away its subtexts (director Jordan Peele himself instead calls it a ‘social thriller’.)

However, THE LAST SUPPER is a different beast altogether. This film isn't trying to sneak you some politics through the backdoor; the politics are the movie.

LAST SUPPER’S concept is novel, but does have precedents – it’s in the tradition of ‘lefties turn to righty tactics when pushed too far’. A lot of vigilante stuff falls into this trope, with the Jodie Foster-starring THE BRAVE ONE a recent example. But the forefather is, believe it or not, the first DEATH WISH. Early on, Charles Bronson actually says, "My heart bleeds a little for the underprivileged". Then when a couple of scenes later some of those underprivileged attack his family, he decides that he’d prefer to make their hearts bleed ... from bullet wounds!

The liberal fightback in LAST SUPPER kicks off when Bill Paxton’s truck driver gives one of the house-sharing grad students a lift home, following car trouble. They reward him with a meal and he turns out to be an aggressively racist Desert Storm-veteran, whose idea of dinner table conversion is like a checklist of the deplorable: "Everyone hates the Jews", "The Nazis had the right idea" and "My granddaddy said if he’d known them slaves were gonna be so much trouble, we’d have picked the cotton ourselves!" For pudding, he gets a knife to the spine.

Having got away with one murder, the housemates decide that from now on they’ll have a guest round for "lunch and discussion" once a week. Spoiler: they don't invite any wallflowers.

Instead, it’s more like anti-abortionists; Nation of Islam fundamentalists; Charles Durning’s Old Testament vicar ("Homosexuality is the disease and Aids is the cure"); Mark Harmon’s chauvinist rape-apologist ("How often does a woman say no when she really means yes?"); an anti-environmentalist played by Seinfeld's Jason Alexander with a goofy Southern accent; and more, poisoning one and all with arsenic-spiked dessert wine. Meanwhile, the unmarked graves in the tomato patch start to line up like morbid speed bumps.

Having Paxton play the first kill as someone who might as well have horns and a pointy tail seems blandly manipulative at first glance, but is actually a shrewd move. By making the first victim so cartoonishly hateable, LAST SUPPER lures the audience into siding with the protagonists right away. We fall into the trap of seeing things in black and white as they at first do, which makes it all the easier to share in their unease as shades of grey get mixed in.

Despite how it might sound, this is not a dogmatic film; it goes about its business with a clear head and a welcome lack of partisanship. This means it can smoothly and intelligently explore its core ‘what if’: many an impassioned left-instigated debate has felt like it could erupt into violence, so how about escalating to homicide?

And the movie has other things on its mind, too, such as: do the left debate too much instead of acting? If they were as proactive as the right, maybe the world would be less fucked up and they really could ‘make a difference’ for once. In fact, could the only way to really make that elusive ‘difference’ be to eliminate the negative people – the classic would-you-kill-baby-Hitler? debate.

The grads tell each other that they want to give their guests the chance to change their views and avoid becoming tomato fertiliser, but an emerging murkiness about whether the intention is really to educate or if it’s to punish is just one cause of tension among the gang. Then the net starts to close in by way of Nora Dunn’s sheriff investigating an unrelated crime involving one of the last supper victims, and the cracks among the moralistic murderers begin widening into chasms.

Cameron Diaz now stands out as the ‘name’ in the cast, but she was unknown at the time (THE MASK had only just been released) and is part of a genuine ensemble, with every character well-drawn and compellingly portrayed. It all plays out in ways that are at once surprising, logical and satisfying, making it a real pity that director Stacy Title and screenwriter Dan Rosen aren't better known.

Four stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  The title is pretty much perfect for where the film’s at: it’s got death, it’s got judgement, but it’s also wryly self-aware.

What would a movie called THE FIRST SUPPER be about? Probably pretty unappetising. Some brambles and such, I’m guessing.

Previously:  THE LAST SEDUCTION

Next time:  LAST VEGAS

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST DETAIL (1973, Hal Ashby)

 * * * * * 

A couple of sailors make sure that a youthful recruit has a good time on his way to prison.

Starring  Jack Nicholson, Otis Young, Randy Quaid, Clifton James, Carol Kane

Written by  Robert Towne

Produced by  Gerald Ayres

Duration  104 minutes

You will read within the pages of this blog its author banging on about how much he loves the 1980s. But even someone blinkered with nostalgia for the era in which they grew up must accept that the best decade for film was probably the ’70s. (There are counter arguments, of course, but bear in mind that this opinion comes from a place of hating musicals and having a limited tolerance for westerns.)

I mean, let's take a look at the Oscar Best Picture nominees from the year THE LAST DETAIL came out, 1973, as well as some from those either side, 1972 and 1974. They include THE GODFATHER, DELIVERENCE, THE STING, AMERICAN GRAFFITI, THE EXORCIST, THE GODFATHER PART II, CHINATOWN, and THE CONVERSATION.

You can’t tell me the motion pictures of today match that lot, both in quality and the sheer consistency of that quality. THE LAST DETAIL didn't even get nominated for Best Picture, and it’s a Goddamn masterpiece!

There are many elements that make LAST DETAIL great. Lead star Jack Nicholson comes as no surprise. Writer Robert Towne (CHINATOWN, sadly no longer with us as of this week) also isn't a shock. Director Hal Ashby (HAROLD AND MAUDE) is a given. But to me, the revelation in films like this and THE LAST PICTURE SHOW is Randy Randall Rudy Quaid. (Yes, that's his full given name.)

I was first introduced to Quaid as boorish Cousin Eddie in the NATIONAL LAMPOON’S VACATION series, especially the annually televised Christmas instalment. Then later in the cinema, as INDEPENDENCE DAY's crazed alien abductee pilot, who gets his revenge on his former captors by going kamikaze ("Hello, boys! I'm baaaaaack!"), or as a goofy Amish bowler in the underrated comedy KINGPIN. And while younger brother Dennis became a conventionally handsome B-list leading man who married Meg Ryan, Randy squandered his talent and slid toward TV movies, eventually becoming more notorious for personal scandals than anything he did on screen.

But in THE LAST DETAIL, a fresh-faced and slim 22-year-old Quaid delivers an Oscar-nominated supporting performance (he lost the statue to someone called John Houseman for something called THE PAPER CHASE). 

Sailors Nicholson and Otis Young are the leads: hard-drinking, self-serving veterans, wary of being given a "shit detail" and adamant that any authority figure should "go fuck themselves". Such a detail does indeed come their way in the shape of escorting Quaid from their Virginia base to Portsmouth Naval Prison for attempting to steal 40 dollars from a superior officer (and not even succeeding), which because of political bullshit is enough to earn him an inflated eight-year sentence. 

The injustice of it all bothers even these most cynical of career sailors, and their brothers-in-arms compulsion to "do right by" the hapless and helpless greenhorn is comedic, full of righteous indignation and finally downright heart-warming.

The trio don't follow a straight line to the Naval prison, instead taking detours to the cities of Washington and Boston. They visit bars; seedy hotels; diners where they'll melt the cheese on your burger if you ask them to; parks for some al fresco-roasted hotdogs; meetings of chanting Nichiren Shoshu Buddhists; pornographic bookstores; pawnshops; ice rinks; groovy after-hours coffee joints; Nixon-bashing, joint-passing house parties (featuring a debuting Nancy Allen, looking even younger than Quaid); and brothels (where the girls look younger still than Allen).

Across these evenings of misadventure, the loose, easy-going naturalistic vibe that typified Ashby’s best work (BEING THERE, the abovementioned HAROLD AND MAUD) sucks you in and never lets go. These are real people, authentic, simply men being men together – with all that entails, for good and for ill.

Cousin Eddie would be proud.

And I’ll resist the urge to close with some snarky speculation about what such a product of the ’70s would look like if done today –  because director Richard Linklater (BEFORE SUNRISE, DAZED AND CONFUSED) actually tried such a thing in 2017. Helpfully for this blog, he even kept a ‘last’ in the title -- so watch this space for a review of LAST FLAG FLYING, coming your way real soon, sailor …

Five stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  With regards to their Naval careers, Nicholson and Young describe themselves as "a couple of lifers", so further details are definitely on their horizon.

What would a movie called THE FIRST DETAIL be about?  The one I usually notice is the eyes, although of course I can’t speak for everyone.

Previously:  THE LAST HARD MEN

Next time:  THE LAST SEDUCTION

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com