Alrighty then, I just got back from a double blast of cool films from GRAMERCY. Yeah that studio that showed us them there flicks like THE USUAL SUSPECTS. They’ve got a good rep in my, “see the logo and think that I might be seeing a good product,” category.
I’m going to be dividing up the reviews into two, so that you can vote individually on them, and so I can list them separately. Which two did I see today? CLAY PIGEONS and LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS. This review will be for CLAY PIGEONS...
Ok, so Tom Joad arrives straight from the counter of shoveling magnetic tapes of pounding plasticene porn to pic up my lovely evil Sister Satan from Gangsta’ High. Among the flying lead and the fields of hypodermic needles with a mix of crusted heroin and dried blood, my sister appears.
Dressed all in black, except for the white then shirt and the black bra and the shiny red hair. God, she comes right out of THE CROW with them patent black leather ass kicking boots. She walks with that, I’m a badass beat.
Of course she’s a dweeb, she’s a little sister. We all load up and head for the free showing at the UNION THEATER in Austin. Sure it’s a dead theater, but once, before the corporate soulless hands of the UNIVERSITY tore the cinematic heart out of this beauty, it was a church of celluloid cool. Now, it occassionally shows a film or two.
Tonight was CLAY PIGEONS. As Father Geek, Tom Joad, Sister Satan and I arrive, we see only two ‘line’ people here. They were sitting at a table, so we sat at the other table. Cool. An hour ticked by and a line began, you see elsewhere in Austin, there were screenings of PERMANENT MIDNIGHT and WHAT DREAMS MAY COME, but heck, I’ve seen the former, and the other... well I’d heard better things about CLAY PIGEONS, so here we were.
We had three tickets and four people to get in, so as we filed in, a wave of the hand, a momentary distraction in the depth of field perception of the ticket taker is all that is needed to get in scott free.
Speaking of Scott Free, it was their production, the Scott Brothers, Ripley and Tony were behind this film in a money kind of way, so it did have a touch of class. They were handing out posters. Some for Clay Pigeons, an ugly non-appealing poster that won’t get people into the theaters, and posters for WHAT DREAMS MAY COME which are gorgeous, Robin walking on water with the golden glow of a heavenly city in the distance. Cool.
We grabbed our seats, and waited for the film to begin. T-shirts were thrown, little grey plastic frisbees saying Clay Pigeons... and well it was time to start the film.
As is usual with the Union, there were projection problems. They had the wrong lens on, the film in upside down and backwards, and the film gate open for a handy psychedelic double image thing... twas mucho cool. After about thirty seconds of the VERY BAD THINGS trailer they had the film in right side up, but still had the wrong anamorphic lens on the projector. That wasn’t fixed till after the opening of the film.
I mention all of this, because... well this could have direly affected my judgement on the film, but you know what it did? It put me in a goofy giggly sort of mood. Kinda like what happened while watching SWINGING CHEERLEADERS at the first Tarantino Film Festival when we watched about 10 minutes upside down and backwards. You ain’t seen anything till you see a full-frontal naked David Hasselhoff in a shower upside down and backwards. That’s fun.
Once everything got started, and all was right in the universe.... well... The film began rocking. Now I loved VINCE VAUGHN in SWINGERS, but since then... well, I haven’t been convinced, and his choice of playing NORMAN BATES... well, that put him in a corner. Then there is Joaquin Pheonix, that I have thought looked like he came from some sort of David Lynch universe of scuzzy human beings. And then there is that Garofalo gal. Well, I love her. So that’s the main cast, how did it do?
Well, first off this is the genre of “strange fucking weirdo psycho decides to make you his best friend, he becomes that deep rooted pimple on your ass that you simply have to lance.” Now, I’ve really liked this genre in the past. THE HITCHER, while most seem to think this is some sort of cheesey bad film, I just love it. It’s like having Roy Batty around for an entire film. And what the hell, dontcha just love watching C THOMAS HOWELL scream and terror and try to attempt to become a bad ass.
Well, this film exists in that style universe where, strange things suddenly begin pummeling your life, and it’s just one fucked up day after the next. I never want to be able to personally be able to associate with any characters in this universe usually, but here.
Well dammit, everyone is just too cool. Joaquin, who’s usually on Planet X eating the capsules Marvin the Martian puts in his Atomic Desintagraters (mangled spelling). Well here, he’s just a regular sorta guy that is just having a real bad day.
From the very beginning of the film, you realize that unhappy things are afoot for the crew of this flick. Then when Vince Vaughn’s character arrives... hee hee hee... things start shifting into higher gears, as if it weren’t already burning the clutch from the gear shifting.
Then when Garofalo arrives. The film just begins firing on all cylinders. It’s fun as hell, in that quirky sort of way. But you may not want to take that friend that doesn’t... ummm get it. Cause they’ll be shifting in their seat, scratching their head and saying things like, “Ummmm is that person like a killer or is that person pretending or what?” This shit will drive you nuts.
The use of music is very very cool, and the universe that the film takes place in... well it’s that, anything can and will occur here in the world of the walking schizos.
The scene in the hotel room with the vibrating bed, ALIEN on the tube, pot-smoking, Pizza delivery dude at the door and a tired as hell looking Garofalo... well.... It is a classic. Kinda like that last shot in the Rodriguez sequence in FOUR ROOMS.
Now I just want to say this is a BLACK COMEDY. That by definition means that 9 out of 10 people won’t like it, because... well, it always seems that way to me. You end up with people that say, “ I liked the serial killer part, but the comedy was stupid.” And then you have the, “I liked the comedy, but that whole violence thing turned me off.” Sigh. Kinda like the people that saw FROM DUSK TILL DAWN and said, “ I liked everything up until the Vampires” or the “I liked the Vampire stuff, but that first hour was a dud.” When you deal with genre quiches... well it doesn’t quite rise for everyone the same way.
But for those that it does work on... Well it’s gold. For me, I had a blast. It was a fun, entertaining and cool flick to spend an hour or two with.
Vince Vaughn’s LESTER LONG character is just too cool, and I imagine it won’t be too long till we see a few: lesterlong@geocities.com or lesterlong@aol.com addresses floating around. I suggest not responding to their e-mails. These are disturbed individuals, that are actually very cool. So run.
