Peter Falk

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1963)

A colleague who saw my check-in on Facebook unwittingly but perfectly summed up It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World with one innocent question: why would I bother to see “that old person movie”? He’s not off base: crammed with stars most of whom had seen better days even at the time—Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney, Milton Berle, Ethel Merman, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Jimmy Durante, Carl Reiner, Phil Silvers, the Three Stooges—it’s the Cannonball Run of the Great Generation. Silly and fun in a “pull my finger” way, it’s a straightforward slapstick comedy about greed from a director (Stanley Kramer) known for tackling serious subjects. As I watched this, I saw the face my grandfather made when he told a risqué joke—kind of like Three’s Company’s Mr. Roper (Norman Fell), who by the way is also in this.

The story isn’t complicated: on a California desert highway, a group of travelers encounters a dying criminal on the run (Durante) whose last words tip them off to a suitcase of money buried in a park “under a big W.” After a futile attempt to devise a plan to find the money together and share it, a madcap race to get to it erupts—and it’s every man (and woman) for himself.

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is over the top in every way: the scenery is huge—perfect for the 70 millimeter restoration I saw—the story is elaborate and overlapping, the cast is immense, and the film is very, very long. It’s interesting to see television stars like Fell, Peter Falk, Jim Backus, Marvin Kaplan, Jonathan Winters, and Don Knotts in minor roles, most before they were famous. Nothing about this film is sophisticated, which is a large part of its corny charm. Overall, the plot and the humor are uneven, going from impressively witty to beyond stupid—particularly the denouement with the fire truck ladder. The dialogue degenerates into yelling and the action becomes monotonous as the film progresses. Despite its shortcomings, though, it kept me engaged almost to the end—no small feat for a film that runs over three hours and has an intermission.

(Music Box) B-

Music Box Theatre 70mm Festival

https://www.criterion.com/films/28579-it-s-a-mad-mad-mad-mad-world

madmadmadmadworld.com/

Vibes

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1988)

A day off of work is a good time to watch a DVD, so I picked Vibes. Cyndi Lauper and Jeff Goldblum are both talented performers with long careers sustained in large part by their quirky, so unusual personas (personae?); it stands to reason that each would have a good share of hits and misses—and they do. Vibes is definitely a miss for both of them—a huge one.

Vibes starts out, to use a Lauper song from another movie, good enough: two robbers in the Andes set up the backstory in a short opening. The action shifts to New York City, where psychics Sylvia Pickel (Lauper) and Nick Deezy (Goldblum) meet while participating in a study on paranormal abilities. The scene is promising: Nick can tell where objects have been by touching them, and Sylvia is a medium for a spirit named Louise. The exchanges between the two and their analysts are actually funny. Unfortunately, things slide steadily downhill from there. Con artist Harry Buscafusco (Peter Falk) shows up at Sylvia’s apartment at night and offers her a job under the guise of finding his lost son in Ecuador. Sylvia convinces Nick to join them. The adventure begins.

YAWN! Vibes is painful to watch—fucking painful. The writing sucks—the situations are unoriginal, the story is predictable, and the dialogue is dull. Lauper isn’t funny at all; she’s shrill, clearly inexperienced with acting, and downright grating with her over-exaggerated Queens shtick that she seriously toned down following this bomb (check out interviews of her from 1989 forward and her subsequent acting gigs if you don’t believe me). Aside from her first scene, she shines only when she’s using her voice for something other than reading lines—for example, singing a lullaby to villain Ingo (Googy Gress) and speaking in tongues when a spirit takes over her body after she touches a glowing pyramid that connects her to a past world. As usual, Goldblum’s timing is spot on; but he can only do so much with the material, which is so lame I doubt anyone could have saved it. A romance develops, and it’s laughable because there’s zero chemistry between Lauper and Goldblum—he doesn’t even seem to like her (and according to Lauper’s memoir, he didn’t). The whole thing is dismal.

Vibes initially sounded like a good idea: real actors, including Julian Sands and Elizabeth Peña, signed onto the project. Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel—who had an established track record with comedies like Night Shift, Splash, and Spies Like Us in addition to episodes of sitcoms like The Odd Couple, Happy Days, and Laverne & Shirley—started (but didn’t finish) the script. It seemed like a good bet for a light summer comedy (it was released in July or August, as I recall). Vibes no doubt didn’t go as planned. It features some nice scenery, a young and unknown Steve Buscemi as Sylvia’s ex-boyfriend, and Lauper’s arguably underrated single “Hole in my Heart (All the Way to China)”—but that’s about it. I should’ve gone to a movie instead.

(Home via DVD) D-

https://www.sonymoviechannel.com/movies/vibes/details

Wings of Desire [Der Himmel über Berlin]

Posted on by moviebloke

(Germany 1988)

Wings of Desire is Wim Wenders’s take on being human, immortality, love, passion, and maybe even destiny (or lack thereof). Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander play two ageless and voyeristic angels, Damiel and Cassiel, who watch over Berlin, eavesdropping on ordinary citizens’ most personal thoughts. Sometimes they try to help out the mortals; sometimes they don’t. No one can see them except children, and they don’t have any real interaction with anyone. All is well and good until Damiel falls for trapeze artist Marion (Solveig Dommartin)– then things get dicey.

Wings of Desire is a beautiful looking film that closely resembles the midcentury Italian and French neorealist films I’ve seen of late: haunting and gorgeous black and white shots of the city, a cast of mostly everyday characters (except the angels, of course), a hazy plot, and heavy existential themes. Poetic and dreamlike, it’s slow and very German but well worth sticking with to the end. Seeing the Wall, which stood until 1989, as just another part of the landscape adds a cool historical note. Peter Falk as Der Filmstar (a.k.a. himself) and a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds concert as the setting for one of the last scenes are both nice touches– they provide playfulness in what otherwise would be an overly somber film.

(Gene Siskel Film Center) B

https://www.criterion.com/films/200-wings-of-desire