Harry here, I've written enough on this adventure and seeing ROLLERBALL, there will be many more New York adventures and Kitten Tales to come... Till then, read this story of Seaman Quint...
Ahoy there, squirties. 'Tis I, the Central Park wandering crusty ol' seaman, Quint here to tell you folks about the great geek adventure in which I found myself a week or two ago. You've heard what Harry had to say about it already and I'll try not to repeat his rantings and ravings.
It all started as such things often do, with a simple phone call. Harry and I were discussing a plethora of topics and our conversation was interrupted by Harry's call waiting. He switched over for a minute or two and came back saying, "Well, it looks like I should expect a call from John McTiernan in a few minutes."
"Why?" I asked. We both guessed it had something to do with McTiernan's latest film, the remake of the '70s classic Rollerball. Low and behold a few minutes after the first interruption, Harry is again pulled away by a click on the phone. "That's probably McTiernan," he said. "I'll talk at ya later."
At that point, I wandered about my shack, doing my usual crusty business like sharpening my harpoons, cleaning my shark hunting weapons, boiling some jaws... you know, the same old stuff. As I remember it, about 30 minutes after I got off the phone with Harry, he called back. "Are you prepared to go on a geek adventure the likes of which you've never seen before?" Like any self respecting geek, I said "YES!"
This was around 6pm CST on Monday the 4th of June. He says, "Pack an overnight bag. McTiernan wants to show me Rollerball and said I could bring a couple people with me."
"Where are we going?" I asked. "I have no idea," he replied. "I only know we leave Austin around 1am and we're going to a 'major metropolitan city.'"
A little more than twelve hours later I was riding shotgun in a private car, stuck in traffic on the George Washington bridge entering New York City from Jersey. My first reaction to finding out I was going to New York: "I don't know what I'm going to do. I have less than $50 to my name... how am I going to survive a couple days in New York?"
Sure, my hotel was paid for... and what a glorious hotel it was, too... but what was I going to do about food? I decided I'd just put it out of mind. I mean, how expensive could the food in Manhattan be, right? (What can I say? I had never been to New York...)
The plane ride had been a smooth one that flew by pretty quickly due in large part to Harry's conversation with McTiernan. I threw in my opinion every once in a while, but Harry and McTiernan were the two most involved. I got to just sit back and watch.
McT, as he introduced himself to me, was a really cool guy. Very intelligent, very gracious and straightforward. Of course I was kinda geeking out. I grew up on Die Hard and Predator and love The Hunt For Red October. This man is responsible for some of the best action films in modern cinema. "Yippie Kay Yay Mutha Fucka!" "You are one UGLY mutha fucka," etc. I tried my best not to totally geek out on the man and succeeded. I'm proud to say I showed enough self control not to hum Alan Silvesti's amazing Predator theme, which I find myself doing just about every day anyway, while in McTiernan's presense.
Anyway, it was cool to hear McT talk about his approach to the remake of Rollerball. He was fascinated by the WWF and WCW culture, the showmanship, the extravagance. He wanted to make Rollerball be a reflection of that culture. It was an interesting stance, going in a totally different direction than the original film did. That's a good thing, too. If McT had wanted to just Psycho out and do a "modernization" of Rollerball... Well, I mean what's the point in that?
So, a movie I had put in the "most likely gonna blow ass" pile suddenly had an angle that interested me. I was still weary of seeing the film, but now I kinda knew what direction he was going in.
After landing, we all parted our separate ways and the Knowles' and myself headed for our hotel. Our driver told us we were staying in Manhattan. Score. The hotel was pretty major, a big chain. Like Knowles said, it had the coolest bathrooms ever. All marble floors and walls. There was a little TV by the sink that is in the direct eye line of anybody taking a bath in the HUGE bathtub. The shower was all glass... which felt quite revealing once you were in there. There was a phone by the toilet, there was one of those pull out mirrors that magnifies your face by, like, 150%... This place had it all. And it was a stone's throw from Central Park.
Not that any of that really mattered when we first checked in. All three of us were dead on our feet. It was around 8am EST when we checked in and we were to be picked up at 5pm. Plenty of time, right? Well, we didn't know when we were going back to Austin, so we had to figure in a few hours before our pickup time to go see da sights in case we wouldn't get to after the movie.
I was in the same room as Father Geek and Harry had his own room in anticipation of getting to play with his kitten. I was in the throws of an amazing and vivid dream and in that dream a phone rang. I looked at it, let it ring a few times and when I went to reach for it I was pulled into consciousness with the hotel phone going off a foot from my head. It was our wakeup call. 2pm. Time to get up and see if that bathroom worked as good as it looked... OK, grammar police, stay back. I'm well aware that sentence was enough to get me a year without parole in Grammar Prison. I took my revealing shower, tested out a few of the other bathroom oddities and was fresh eyed and bushy tailed. I was ready to explore New York.
I met with the Knowles' and Harry decided to introduce me to the wonderful and amazing world of FAO Schwartz. Let me just say this: I want to live in the Star Wars room. The singing clock that greeted me when I walked into the store was simultaneously sweet and disturbing. There were plush animals of many different species of all shapes and sizes surrounding us. The stuffed animals, particularly the bears and primates, were surprisingly detailed for plush toys. What didn't surprise me in the least were the price tags. If I had spent every penny I had in the world, I could have walked out of that store with a plush toy about 6 inches tall and a bag of M&Ms.
After observing all the elaborate and expensive toys, we journeyed across the street to hang out at the entrance of Central Park. On the way there, I was entranced by a huge hotel with a green roof. It was very familiar. Harry saw me looking and said, "You know where that's from, don't you?" I shook my head. I recognized it, but couldn't place it. Harry said, "Remember the scene in Ghostbusters, the 'Do you believe in magic, magic, magic...' scene? Where all the ghosts are flying around New York. You see that hotel in that scene." Cool! You know what else it was featured in, boys and girls? Well, I'm kinda embarrassed to say I recognized this, but the hotel was The Plaza hotel which was featured in Home Alone 2. I know, I know. I don't care what you think of the movie, I was still impressed. I mean, Tim Curry was in that building, man!
We ended up sitting at the entrance to Central Park, each eating authentic New York street vender hot dogs (2 apiece at $1.25 each), drinking our 20 oz. sodas and watching the people of New York hurry about. It was about this time that I fell in love with New York City. The people are just so much more real. There is character to every face, in every movement whether it's a Groucho waddle, a confident stride or any number of variations of walking.
And so help me God, steam actually rose from the manhole covers and the various grates that lined the ground. It wasn't just the people that had character, the fucking street had character! It had ambiance, atmosphere. The buildings looked like they each had a billion stories to tell. You could almost feel the different personality in each structure. It was something that was missing in LA. I do love LA, I have a lot of fun out there and have some great friends there. But I still get a sense of fakeness, of unreality, every time I'm there. Not so in New York.
After downing our hot dogs, Harry and Father Geek insist I go try a mysterious thing called a "Crepe". What the hell, right? So, I go get my Crepe. Powdered sugar... yuuuuuuummmmmmmm. Anyway, it was about time to head back to the hotel and meet our car. We walked back and I just could not stop looking up. I was a total tourist, but I didn't care. I am familiar with Texas, wide open landscapes, lots of sky. Even in downtown Austin you can still see the sky... New York was endlessly fascinating to me.
So, we got back to the hotel, met our car and headed off to Long Island... in New York rush hour. Our first driver, the one that brought us in from Jersey, was the perfect stereotypical New York driver, talking a mile a minute, entertainingly opinionated and all with that New Yawk accent. He gave us a tour on our way into New York, told us about famous people he'd driven around (apparently Nora Ephron isn't the most fun person in the world to drive around) and told us his life story all in the short period of time that it took to drive from Jersey to Manhattan.
Now, this new driver, while visually pulled right out of The Sopranos said nothing. We spent an hour and half with this man in the car and I doubt he said more than 3 sentences. But that didn't matter too much. Us geeks had a lot to talk about on the way. Will this movie suck? Will it surprise all of us? Will it be middle of the road? Good God, did you just see that crazy mother fucker jump the median to get around a line of cars?!?!?? Harry spent some time on the phone cooing his New York kitten, making plans for after the movie.
On the way to Long Island, we went through so many famous movie locations it wasn't even funny. We passed by a big sign that said, "Silver Cup" and I went, "Holy shit!!! That's where the last battle in Highlander took place!! Too cool!" We found ourselves passing by the underpass where that great chase scene in The French Connection took place. Harry pointed out a playground a little further down that was in Singleton's Shaft, the place where Sam "The Man" Jackson runs out into traffic and almost gets run over.
It was too cool. Harry suggested that me and Father Geek head over to Times Square after the movie, while he was meeting with his (meow) pussycat... So, we find ourselves approaching the theater and our driver breaks his silence and says, "We're about 25 minutes early... I was told to get you there no more than 5 minutes before the show... but it just doesn't take 2 and half hours to get here from Manhattan." We told him to just take us there and we'd figure it out.
He radioed ahead and they told him to bring us around back. We approached the theater and saw the humungous line. "Heh... they don't want me to rile the troops," Harry said. We all had a smile as the driver pulled around back. We were met by one of the theater managers and led up to McT and one of his producers. Harry and McT bullshitted for a bit while I looked around at the new Planet of the Apes character banners. All three of us were handed a little yellow piece of paper that had the word "Reserved" on it and were told that these were magic tickets that would get us free concessions, get us in the theater and into the "roped off section."
McT introduced me to the producer guy (name completely escapes me, sorry...) and couldn't remember my real name... "This is... Aaron? No... um... this is... Hell, this is Quint!" He got Quint right, so I was happy. I grabbed my large Coke and pack of Sour Patch Kids and headed into the theater with Harry and Father Geek. It was a nice big auditorium that was already about 3/4s full. They aimed us at the second to last row in the theater, in the taped off section. All of us love sitting up front, so it was weird to sit this far back, but what the hell, right?
The movie rolled and... deep sigh goes here. I want to say one thing right up front. Mr. McTiernan is a gracious, intelligent and truly nice man, not to mention a gifted filmmaker. It was my absolute pleasure to get to be somewhat involved in a conversation with this man for 3 and half hours. But I have to be honest, what I saw was a huge misstep for him.
It's not an all out loss, it was actually better than I thought it would be, but I thought it was going to be complete shit. I didn't expect to like Chris Klein at all in the film. That surprised me. The full frontal of Rebecca Romijn-Stamos surprised me. The harshness off the track (what Harry rightfully called the "unapologetic R" moments and dialogue) surprised me.
All those surprises were for the better, but what surprised me most of all was the clumsiness of the action scenes. We're talking about the director of Die Hard and Predator. We know this man knows how to shoot action, but the action in Rollerball was just sloppy and badly cut. Now, this was a workprint of the film, not the final version, but unless they have a wealth of shot footage that didn't make it into the cut I saw that they can use to re-edit the film with, then the only thing that will save Rollerball is massive reshoots.
It's really something that I found my least favorite parts of the film were the actual Rollerball sequences. It was what I was least expecting out of this film and this director. I liked the differences of the film from the original, the different time and place that it takes place in, the different approach to the sport itself... I liked the theory of all that, but the execution was depressingly bad.
You never feel for the characters, relate to them. OK, OK people aren't going to see Rollerball for the brilliant characterization. Granted. BUT look at Die Hard. The fact that you immediately connect with Bruce Willis' John McClane character makes it so much more involving when he's pitted against Alan Rickman's amazing baddie, Hans Gruber, and his 200 cronies with machine guns. Same thing with Schwarzenegger in Predator.
Just ignoring all the action in those films, lets look at what else was done right in McT's previous efforts that was lacking in Rollerball. Besides the hero, both films mentioned above got the villains right. Hans Gruber, the Predator... both are great villains. I love Jean Reno to death. His Leon is one of my all time favorite characters in cinema history. But he's wasted as the bad guy in Rollerball. You never once feel he's going to come out on top, unlike Hans Gruber or The Predator... or even Jeremy Irons's Simon character from Die Hard With A Vengeance. There's no sense of danger with him. He slaps his assistant. Oooooo. He shouts a lot. Uh oh. Chris Klein is fucked now!
The supporting cast. Predator is the king of McT's supporting casts. Carl (I'm Apollo FUCKING Creed!) Weathers, Jesse ("this stuff'll make you a goddamned sexual Tyrannosaurus... just like me" Ventura, Bill ("look... up in dem trees... I see you...") Duke, not to mention Shane Black's jokester character and Sonny Landham's awesome Indian scout-ish character, Billy... That's an amazing supporting team of different personalities and all good actors. Even The Body... erm... Governor Ventura creates a character that is not only badass but endearing... in a very weird, scary way. They all bring something to the movie and the story and provide a great backbone for the film.
Now, in Rollerball, we have LL Cool J, who I like in films. He's usually fun to watch, but he is no Carl Weathers or Bill Duke. His character in Rollerball is enjoyable to watch, but doesn't really bring anything to the movie or even provide a real support for Chris Klein's Jonathan character. Rebecca Romijn... she's there to show her tits. Period. I like her character and think she did a fine job, but you could take her character completely out and it wouldn't change the chemistry of the "team" or alter the focus of the other characters. That Russian guy from 15 Minutes. His character had potential and at times looked like he was going to matter to the film, to actually do something besides skate behind Chris Klein, but alas poor writing keeps that from happening.
There's only one supporting character in Rollerball that actually has something to do and that's Naveen Andrews, the right hand man to Jean Reno character. I really can't pin down what it was about him that made him stand out, but I think it was his acting. For whatever reason Andrews's acting style was able to overshadow the poor writing and the small amount of screen time he had. Whatever is responsible I couldn't take my eyes off him when he was on the screen.
McTiernan was shooting for something he had never done before in this film, a different approach in shooting and pacing. I applaud him for it, but I can't say he succeeded. As it stands right now, this film is just slightly better than Driven. It's a mess. If McTiernan could reshoot the rollerball sequences and some character scenes using the techniques we know he's a master of instead of trying for something completely different, I think he could salvage this film. I mean... if he only redid the action scenes and made them involving... I would be happy with that!
Unfortunately, I know the studio wouldn't let him do that, so they'll release a film that's a few cuts away from what I saw, a film that might be marginally better, but still not even close to what it could be, what it should be. The movie needs a total restructuring, not just a re-edit. I do believe that if McT chips away at the stone and brings in a truckload of putty, a fun sculpture could be revealed. To quote Ghostbusters, McTiernan "has the tools" and he "has the talent." I don't know what he thinks of this film as it stands right now, but I can't imagine him seeing it as all it could be. I bet if you gave him a chance, he'd run in and fix what needed to be fixed to at least deliver a fun, exhilarating film. But I do not believe he will be given that chance.
After the lights came up, I looked over at Harry, who was having a bit of trouble processing it. I could tell he was trying to like it with every fibre of his being, but knew what the movie was. We now had to go and face McTiernan outside the theater. He came directly to us and wanted to know what we thought. We all told him what we liked about the movie. Harry, "It's an unapologetic R." Father Geek, "I liked that it basically shows how the sport of rollerball got started, that it's more of a prequel to Rollerball, not a remake of it." Quint, "It was better than I thought it would be."
Call me a pussy if you want, but this is a man I have admired as a director for a long while and has treated me with nothing but respect since I've met him. Unless he asked me straight away what I thought was wrong with the movie, I wasn't going to volunteer the information. As it was his assistant asked us later, after McT got pulled into the focus group, what were the 5 things we would change with the film. We all went down the list effortlessly. Basically our list was what you just read and what you've read from both Harry and Father Geek.
We made arrangements to get back to Austin, chatted a bit more, then I gave my card to McT's assistant and told him I'd love to set up an interview... I doubt I'll get it now, but you never know. I really hope I haven't offended him, I'm just being honest about what I saw. Anyway, we headed back to our hotel and decided to grab some food at a little restaurant about 2 blocks from the hotel. I had a $6 burger that was about 3 inches in circumference. God Bless New York. The atmosphere of this little pub was pretty neat, though. Looked like it belonged in Goodfellas. It had autographed pictures of old boxers lining the walls, had arguing old timers that ran the place, had a guy that was exactly like the guy in Danny Aiello's restaurant in Leon that got special treatment from the manager and given what was obviously his usual meal without a word.
Harry headed off to await his kitten at the hotel and Father Geek and I caught a cab to Times Square. Beautiful, beautiful. We walked around Times Square, checked out a few memorabilia shops and decided to walk a ways back, toward both our hotel and the Ed Sullivan theater. We were both still hungry, not satisfied by our tiny meal earlier, so we decided to hit a deli or something on the way back. But the further away from Times Square that we got, the earlier the diners and delis closed.
We found one about 15 minutes before it closed. There was no hot food left, so we ordered desert. I got an official mammoth slice of New York Cheesecake and Father Geek nabbed some chocolate oddity if I remember correctly. The Cheesecake was heaven. As we were eating, it occurred to us that we had walked a good deal and were pretty close to our hotel. We decided to hoof it the rest of the way and save on the cab fare.
So, we walked back, through steaming streets lined with stacks of garbage bags. We found our way easily enough and made it all the way back to the hotel without one incident of robbing or rape... except for the ones we instigated, but you know what I mean.
Back in our room, I found myself watching Lake Placid on TV. What a fun movie. I slept well that night, this time without the crazy dreams. I guess my subconscious had gotten use to New York at this point.
I awoke the next morning to find that Father Geek had abandoned me. He had been talking about checking out a poster gallery that was only a few blocks from the hotel, so I figured that was where he'd gone to. The room was all mine. I smiled. Time to check out that big mutha of a bathtub.
I want one in my house. Big, deep bathtub.... warm... bubbles.... and a fucking TV! I actually got to lean back, soak in the tub and watch Gremlins on HBO! What a world! I was relaxed, clean and ready to have my last day in New York before heading back to Austin. I had decided to check out Central Park and had a couple of hours before I was due back at the hotel to meet up with Harry and Father Geek. So, into Central Park I went. Central Park Zoo, to be precise.
It was a lot of fun. I had no idea I could just wander into a little zoo. I got to see polar bears, penguins, bats, snakes, poisonous frogs, salamanders with gills, monkeys of all shapes, sizes and species, bunnies, cows, goats, sea lions, oh my. It was a beautiful day and I had a blast.
When I got back to the hotel, I met up with Father Geek, Harry and his kitten, who gave me lots of love. She's a very affectionate kitten. It was great to see her again, since the last time was when she came down to the South By Southwest Film Festival in March. We had about an hour and a half to kill before getting picked up, so we ate at a small deli across the street from the hotel. Harry and I had some sort of chicken wrap that was pretty good. All of us took part in a conversation that went all over the map. From New York to movie posters to love to Austin to Moulin Rouge then back to New York again. It was fun, sitting outside on a beautiful day in Manhattan talking with friends.
We had to go catch our car which was taking us to an airport in Jersey to fly back to Austin. On the plane back, I didn't get to sit with Harry or Father Geek, but I had an empty seat next to me, so I was comfortable. Didn't sleep one wink, but I did get about 200 or so pages further into Stephen King's Dreamcatcher, pausing every now and again to think about the last few days in New York City. My mind was also on the Alamo Drafthouse back in Austin. There was a midnight screening of Argento's masterpiece Bird With The Crystal Plumage. We were going to cut it very close getting back... In end everything was fine, we made it back just in the nick of time, 5 minutes before the film started.
So, the trip was amazing and I'll remember it for the rest of my life. I can't say the same thing about the movie I saw on that trip, but you can't win 'em all. I really hope McT is able to find his diamond in the rough. I don't anticipate he will in the short time he has, but there's always a chance, right?
Well, squirts. That great big fat story is over, but fear not, for this ol' sea salt has many more acomin'. Got some pretty badass interviews coming up and the beginning of my coverage of the two weeks I spent on the set of the coolest indie film around. Lots of goodies comin' up squirts, all solid gold deblumes, I promise. This is Quint bidding you all a fond farewell and adieu.
-Quint
email: Ever in search for my own puddytat, send your proposals and topless shots here!
