Recently I was flown out to Los Angeles for my first experience at an event called a distributor’s screening. According to what I can gather, this is an event where the producers of a finished film that was made outside of the ‘Studio system’ show their film to the Studios and/or other distributors (the folks that take films and make sure they get to your local cineplex).
I’ll be truthful, the main reason I went was to take care of business regarding my spies Hallenbeck and Houdini (a fella y’all aren’t really aware of, but that provides an incredible amount of information off the record). The secondary reason for going was to see this movie called THICK AS THIEVES and hopefully to ‘discover’ a cool film.
So I accepted. The film was by a first time (feature film) director, but starred Alec Baldwin, Rebecca De Mornay, Janeane Garofalo, André Braugher, Michael Jai White and Julia Sweeney.
Now I have no great love for Alec Baldwin movies. I enjoyed GLENGARY GLEN ROSS, BEETLEJUICE, HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, THE SHADOW and THE EDGE... but I absolutely despise MALICE so much, that the feelings I have from watching that complete waste of celluloid leaves a bad taste still to this day when looking at Alec.
I can’t look at Rebecca De Mornay and not see her humping Antonio Banderas through a chain link fence. That was the last film I walked out of. Michael Jai White gave a lackluster performance in SPAWN and that’s pretty much all I know of him. Garofalo is a pet fave of mine, usually being a bit of sunshine in everything I see her in, even if her characters are closer to the depression of a Seattle rain. I loathe Julia Sweeney, as in I get strong mental twitches at the mention of her name. However, André Braugher is someone that I am constantly searching to see perform more.
So basically the cast had a fairly even mix of loathes and loves. There was no background on this fella Scott Sanders that directed. I knew zip, nada, not a thing. However, according to producer talk Scott loves the page, but like anyone is gonna fly me to their screening and say, “Harry, we think what you do is morally reprehensible and the only reason you are here is on our hopes and prayers that you don’t wig out like that bastard Hallenbeck.”
Meanwhile in my life, the part of me that I give a glimpse of from time to time, a very important development is occurring. Something that almost made me cancel going. I’m sooooo ready to share it with y’all, but until it’s locked and loaded... well I have to keep my damn trap shut about it. It kills me. The entire trip is peppered with anxiousness of the impending announcement. Alas, I’m still having to wait.
I head out. I didn’t ask to stay anywhere in particular. I just told them that I needed to have a room that I could hook up online at. Now here’s where the story begins.
I got off the plane. They gave me a check to cover transportation costs, ie cabs (a very costly animal in L.A. I might add), but I hadn’t deposited it till the day before. (Stupidity on my part). I thought I had plenty of money in the bank account, but apparently the matmos decided to devour my bank account. For when I got off my plane in L.A. and went to the handy Credit Machine, I had a negative balance. FEAR.
There is nothing worse than the FEAR of being stuck in Los Angeles without transportation. I pull out my wallet and begin counting the money. $22. My hotel is somewhere on Sunset. I begin digging in all my pockets, a $5 bill, a few $1s... In all my total was $42. So I walk outside and hail a cab (one foot off the curb, wave with one hand while whistling. Learned that in New York)
I ask the fella how much it would cost to get to where I had to go. “$35 to $45” Gulp. I get in and pray that the traffic gods are with me. You see I know once I get to the hotel, I can begin to survive. I hate having a fixed focus on a meter. Every eighth mile ticking money away, every 40th tic of the seconds hand tearing free another portion of the pile of filthy lucre in my sweaty palms.
It felt cold. I begin shivering in the t-shirt I was wearing. It was dawn in L.A. Traffic was seemingly light, but that didn’t stop the money eating machine from continuing it’s assault at my well being. When I arrived at the Hotel, I found that I still had $4. Yippee!
$4 in Los Angeles. Hmmm. I walk into my hotel. This is the most outrageous place I’ve been put up in yet. The CHATEAU MARMONT. Gothic ceilings, nestled away in a green oasis right off of Sunset Blvd. As I approach the desk I begin doing the ‘Charm of Making’ under my breath. You see, my credit card is dead, and I KNOW they are going to ask for it to cover incidentals. Nobody ever pays for incidentals, at least not in my experience. This usually means I’m left with about $75 in phone calls as each local call is a dollar to a dollar and a half.
The counter lady is very cute.
“Hi ummm, I’m supposed to uh have a room here under Harry Knowles”
“Check in isn’t till 2pm”
Watch check: 10am.
Harry’s brain says, “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh”
“Ummm, well like I’m uh here”
“Well let me see what I can do sir, your credit card please”
Harry’s brain, “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh”
“Sure, here uh ya go.”
This is where I get nailed. Instantly I begin thinking of calling up the producers and griping about the incidentals not being covered, and the check in thing, etc.
“Sir, is this the same card you used to reserve the room with?” >{?“NO, in fact I believe everything was being taken care of by...” I begin fumbling through papers looking for Producer’s name. “....this fella”
She takes the paper from me. The only proof I have that there is some reason for me to be here. I begin doing that whole Harry Lime thing in the streets of... hell you know the flick!
“Ok sir everything has been taken care of.”
I look and it turns out that they took care of everything. Cool. I’m told my room would be ready in 45 minutes, so I decide to go to the lunch area and get some scrambled eggs.
Ok, now from where I come from scrambled eggs cost like $3, but here they cost like $14 and a glass of tea costs like $3 and so on. My god I would be sooooo screwed if the expenses weren’t taken care of. As I begin sipping my tea, I’m told by the desk lady that I’ve been upgraded to a cabin and my cabin was ready immediately. So I ate my outrageously expensive eggs, and listened to a guy pitch another guy the script from RUDY, or at least that’s the storyline I heard being pitched. I felt like turning around and saying, “That film didn’t work pick something else!” but I let it go.
Then I get shown to the CABIN. Talk about a walk, it was like ten minutes of twists and turns to finally arrive at my Cabin. This place was insane. Soon as I was in, I began calling the L.A. people like I do everytime I hit town.
While talking to one individual I met during the screenwriter’s conference, I’m told that my hotel was where John Belushi died. Suddenly I begin looking around. “Don’t worry Harry, he was in one of the cabins facing Sunset” ....
I was in one of the cabins (of which there are two) facing Sunset Blvd. I ended the conversation fairly quickly thereafter and walk outside. I see a hotel staff person and I ask them if my cabin was where Belushi passed away. It was, and this wooooooooonderful person even showed me where they found him.
This was one of the most disturbing rooms I’ve ever been in. As a child Belushi was a patron saint of mine. His cries of “FOOOOOOD FIIIIIIGHT”, his singing as a Blues Brother, hell I even loved 1941... I take that back, I love 1941. And here I was in the middle of a cabin alone with the knowledge that this is where that happened. There are just a few days where I remember everything when a certain person died. I remember learning about BRUCE LEE’s death, ELVIS PRESLEY’s, JOHN LENNON, THE CHALLENGER and BELUSHI. Of course the days Gene Kelly, Jimmy Stewart and Jim Henson died... well I could barely operate.
It’s strange, they are people that I never met, that I never cracked jokes with, that I never talked on the telephone or saw on a street. They were flickers of light caught by a device somehow. Ethereal beings at most. Not tangible, but in my psyche they were as real and tangible as anyone. And the knowledge of being where one of my patron saints died... well... I wasn’t even sure how to act.
So I called up Robogeek. “Rooooobooooo, ummmm they put me in the room where Belushi died.” Silence. Robo is very in tune with these sorts of emotional things. He’s ummm sensitive. There was nothing really to talk about, I mean... it happened, and I had to live with it.
But gosh I really wish I didn’t know.
Hallenbeck and Flunky Sidekick arrived. They both went in to use the restroom. We sat in the living room talking a bit, when suddenly a strange groaning came from the walls and ceiling. Knowing what I knew, I began to get weirded out, but it was not the groans of a ghost, but of the pipes in the walls of the jo.. I mean bathroom.
We went to Houdini’s to talk about missions, acquisitions and the training of future spies. We learned the uses of advance technologies, and learned to repair them. In all it was quite boring.
Hallenbeck and Flunky Sidekick decided to blow off going with me to the screening. SO I put the hard sale on Houdini, who then called up Blackstone and away we went.
The screening was a few blocks from my hotel. The HARMONY something or another on Sunset. You can see the DGA (Director’s Guild building) from it.
As we get there, we hook up with Blackstone and head into the place. I meet the director. A very enthusiastic fella. He seemed very very happy/nervous/eager to get through the night. I can only imagine. To go out with your first film, and to fly some damn loud mouth like me in... well it can just suck so hard if things didn’t click just right.
Houdini wasn’t excited at all to see the film. Blackstone didn’t even know why he was there really. And me... well I was told it was a bit like MIAMI BLUES. Hmmmm, I kinda like that movie.
A pair of screenwriters sit in front of us and we all begin talking about the screenwriter’s conference. The fellas had nothing to do with the film, they just wanted to see a flick this particular night and happened to have free passes to this.
We all begin talking about the insanity at Warner Brothers. It’s a staple.
Then Scott Sanders, the director, comes out and does a very very very very short intro and gets the hell out of dodge. The lights go down, and the film begins.
When all was said and done everyone in the group I saw it with enjoyed it. The audience enjoyed it and I liked it. It’s not a perfect film. I think it had a few pacing problems in just a couple of spots, but hey that’s nitpicking.
The one reason for all of you to see this film is to see just how cool Michael Jai White is. I really didn’t like him as SPAWN, but here, as the upwardly mobile semi-intelligent gangster... well he’s just way too damn cool. He just hits line after line after line. The audience ate up his character. I came away saying, “John Singleton should cast this guy as SHAFT.”
His character just lifted the film about 2 notches above where it would otherwise be. Except that’s not really true, because the other characters are pretty darn good. Baldwin is a sedate thief with a blow torch and a cute doggie he loves.
The basic non-spoiler plot is that if you were to knock off a bank, the money can be traced, but if you were to knock off a printing company that prints ‘Green Stamps’ well you can sell them back to a grocery store for something like 25% of their value, cause the store can get 50%. So the mob sets this all up to make a bunch of quick easy non-dangerous money. Of course everything sorta doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to, and we end up with a “if it can go wrong it will go wrong” crime dramedy.
This isn’t a great film, but I like it. The femme parts are pretty small, with both Garofalo and Sweeney with little more than cameos.
Alec is pretty sedate in the film, until a key event, then he ummmm gets motivated.
I have no idea of budget, I have no idea of the biz side of this flick, but it’s a good little film. My group and I all felt that it was a bit long in a couple of spots. Especially the establishing shots which I felt took too long to establish the locale, but once we got into why we were there, it was fine. Especially when Michael Jai White or André Braugher appeared on screen. Those two had a lot of chemistry together, and damn MICHAEL JAI WHITE SHOULD PLAY SHAFT!!!! He’s perfect.
If you get a chance to check the flick out, do so, it’s worth your time. I think we’ll see more out of Scott Sanders. The film was a solid start for him. OH ONE LAST THING.... The music, if at all possible they should change it. It just didn’t feel right for me, of course whenever you’re dealing with music, there are different tastes and whatnot, but I felt the music dragged the film, whereas it needed some propellant from it. Just like in LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS... music is very important to this ensemble piece. This film looked like it was screaming for jazz, it had that sort of look, but the tempo was way down, pick that beat up and this movie should fly.
Of course that’s my opinion. People liked the film, but I think it could be a bit better than ‘liked’ with the right music it could be ‘loved’ It’s right there on that edge. I’ve put a lot of thought into that. You see this is the sort of film that asks for help. It’s made outside the regular system, which means everything is piled against it. It needs a little help and a push. The next screening they should do, they need to recruit an audience from the Burbank area, young under thirty types will dig this flick. That was the age group of my group, but most of the audience was older, and it needed to be a packed house with distributors and young uns. At least that’s how I think it should be. Hopefully you’ll get to see this flick. And Alec... make more movies like this and many many less films like MERCURY RISING.
