From Hell

JACK AND THE POX

I had a very unnerving day.  I returned home from a quick trip to the Beverly Center to find that Jerry, my maid, had managed to drop the living room drapes into the ornamental fountain in the middle of the circular drive; and I have company coming. What she was doing with them out there in the first place I did not ask.  There are questions that I just don't want the answer to.  Several milligrams of Xanax and a pitcher of Mai-Tais did restore my usual restful demeanor and I was ready to receive the representatives of the American Dairy Council over their new What A Friend We Have In Cheeses campaign.

The initial plan is a series of ads, praising the taste and health benefits of cheese, in which I am to be backed by the choir from Zion AME while I sing great gospel hits such as Holey, Holey, Holey Swiss or The Old Rugged Cheese Croissant. We're to film in a number of places around the USA to take maximum advantage of dairy land scenery, patriotic symbols, and majestic ecclesiastical architecture. As the new Kabuki show is not due to go into rehearsal for several months, I readily gave my assent. The costume sketch, some sort of tatty choir robe with a large orange plastic cheese headpiece, however, will not do. I'm sending it to Jean-Paul Gaultier (he's French - he knows his fromages) to have it redone to my high standards.

Later on in the evening, nurse Lynn and I headed out for a quiet little dinner and a screening of the new Hughes' brothers movie, From Hell, at the local Cineplex. From Hell is the umpteenth screen retelling of the Jack the Ripper story, starring Johnny Depp as police inspector Abberline, the man in charge of the case, and Heather Graham as Mary Kelly, an Irish prostitute. It's based on a celebrated graphic novel (think upscale comic book) by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. The Ripper killings, which occupied the minds of Londoners during the summer of 1888, have long been celebrated in fiction and analyzed in forensics, as they were the first serial killings to capture popular imagination. Over the course of a few weeks, an unknown assailant, who taunted the police and the nascent mass media of the London newspapers in letters signed 'Jack the Ripper', butchered six prostitutes in the Whitechapel district of London's South Bank. The combination of illicit sex, graphic carnage (the murders got more elaborate as they went along), media hype, sudden start and ending of the crime spree, and ultimate failure to solve the crimes led to a modern mythology. Multiple attempts over the years, using the original Victorian police reports and other source documents have attempted to prove that this or the other person was the Ripper - none of the purported solutions has shown much in the way of historical veracity and attempts to implicate the government, the royal family, the military, the police, or the freemasons as complicit in the killings have usually come to naught.

From Hell actually combines two of the more popular Ripper theories in its solution. One involving a threat to the reputations of the Royal Family, and one involving Victorian medicine and freemasonry. The film is historically accurate when it so chooses, especially in the forensic details of the murders themselves, and in the period look. Modern Prague stands in for Victorian London and the oppressive brick nineteenth century architecture, which London itself quite properly got rid of some time ago, lends an air of menace and gloom to the film that helps hold the picture together.

Johnny Depp plays inspector Frederick Abberline, the man assigned to the Ripper murders by the London police force. As depicted here, Abberline is a deeply unhappy man, widowed and losing himself in dreams fueled by opium and absinthe. In his languorous narcotic hallucinations (one of the most hypnotically appealing views of drug use ever committed to celluloid), he has visions of the Ripper case and these visions, plus his own smarts, help him start to unravel the complex conspiracy behind the murders. Together with his trusty assistant, Sergeant Godley (Robbie Coltrane), he heads into the underworld of Whitechapel. There he meets the Irish prostitute Mary Kelly (Heather Graham) whose friends seem to be the Ripper's targets. As the girls are dispatched one by one, Abberline finds himself falling for Kelly and trying to get to the bottom of conflicting motives and cover-ups participated in by the Special Branch, the local hoods, the surgeons of London (represented by the Queen's own physician, Sir Edward Gull (Ian Holm)), and the upper class movers and shakers who belong to the local Masonic lodge.

The Hughes are most interested in this story in terms of its class struggle. They have great fun portraying a rotten, decadent society in which an oligarchy takes care of its own, no matter what it may cost the masses and where the morals of the 'better sort' are worse than those of the hoi polloi. With their background in urban 'hood' films such as Menace II Society, it's easy to see why they were attracted to the subject matter from a thematic point of view. They also have a great visual eye and a sense of restraint when it comes to depicting the violence inherent in the tale. Far less is actually shown than the imagination supposes. They use the camera well in setting mood and use the trappings of Victorian technology as counterpoint - trains become demonic monsters, the steps of a carriage become a descending guillotine blade.

Depp delivers one of his usual quirky performances and, like with Sleepy Hollow appears perfectly at ease in period costume and mannerisms. His Abberline is a wounded soul, doggedly pursuing truth for truth's sake, and ultimately unable to handle the true horrors of a society that could create a Ripper. Heather Graham, on the other hand, seems lost. Her Mary Kelly, spouting a bad cockney accent rather than a Western Irish brogue, pales to insignificance besides the well trained British actresses playing her lambs to the slaughter friends. It's not that she's bad, just that she's dull. She's also been given rich, lustrous auburn locks (they're a plot point), which we're supposed to believe she maintains at the Broad Street pump. Her character, always looking exceedingly well fed and rested, keeps complaining that she has no money and is starving. I kept wanting to ask her why she didn't use her beauty parlor funds as she obviously has a professional shampoo and set four times a week. The supporting cast is predominantly British unknowns and is fine. There are some odd scenes involving Victorian autopsies that seem a bit peculiar as characters, who are supposed to be police surgeons blanch on seeing what would not have been unusual trauma, given the industrial accidents of the time. I think that's a fault of writing rather than performance. Ian Holm, as well, over emotes a bit, especially in his later scenes.

The third act bogs down in a lot of exposition in order to clear up all the plot threads. A simpler solution to the mystery could have done away with some of this but then it wouldn't be as rich. It didn't feel draggy to either nurse Lynn or myself but we noticed some of the younger folk starting to get a little itchy with impatience. I kept trying to catch them out on a major historical error but didn't find any worth complaining about. In general, a competent piece of film making worth seeing for Depp and by those interested in a sociological twist on the Ripper legend.

Tempting grapes. Primitive lobotomy. Naked Duke of Clarence. Red lined opera cape. Syphilitic tremors. Gratuitous John Merrick. Stuffy British matrons. Pulsatile grapes. Absinthe bottle. Arterial blood sprays. Gratuitous lesbian prostitute. Boiled heart. Sinister tribunal. 

Total Recall

VIRTUAL REALITY

Things continue to race along for preproduction on my new kabuki musical epic, Bridget Over Troubled Waters, the all singing, all dancing version of The Last Seduction that I hope to have ready for the Pantages Theater here in Los Angeles this spring. Bob Mackie and I had a conference last night on the costumes. The color palette used in the film was so dull. I advised him to think pink and fuchsia and magenta and cerise. Especially for the big number set in the honky-tonk bar where the seduction actually takes place. I want those chorus boys and girls to positively glow in the dark when the follow spots hit. Bob also showed me some sketches of a little green rhinestone and ostrich feather number he thought would be perfect for the murder scene in act II. As long as I can recite my haiku dialog without marabou in my nose, I'll be happy.

In the meantime, I am looking at other career opportunities. One does have to pay the mortgage somehow. I have been asked by the American Dairy Council to be the celebrity spokesperson for their new What A Friend We Have In Cheeses campaign. Madame Rose, my publicist, thinks it's a golden opportunity to get a higher Q rating than limburger or provolone so I have given them a tentative yes. They're sending someone over to the house with the contracts to explain my duties later in the week; then it will be a feta complete.

Exhausted by all this activity, I retired to the home theater for a nice quiet little film which would soothe my jangled nerves. I opted for Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall with Arnold Schwarzenegger as the new deluxe DVD, for no earthly reason, comes in a red pill box that reminded me greatly of a Quaalude bottle Cary Grant once gave to me - besides the copy on the package claimed it was a film about dreaming. It wasn't the quiet little film that I had hoped for.

Schwarzenegger stars as Douglas Quaid, a blue-collar block of wood living in a futuristic society where he dreams of someday traveling to Mars. He has a lovely wife (Sharon Stone), a less than glamorous job in heavy construction, and dreams of Mars haunted by a mysterious brunette (Rachel Ticotin). Not being able to afford a real trip to Mars (which is undergoing political unrest anyway under the repressive governor Cohaggen (Ronny Cox), Quaid visits an outfit called Rekall, which, for a price, can implant memories of a super Mars vacation so real, you'd swear you'd been there. For an additional fee, they can also customize the memories so that you can be a super secret agent. Quaid accepts and is soon off to dreamland but something goes wrong in the memory implantation - Quaid is really agent Hauser, Mars operative, whose memory was erased and who was relocated on earth by Cohaggen for nefarious purposes. Soon, everyone in his life is trying to kill him and he flees to Mars, pursued by a villainous agent (Michael Ironside) where he meets up with the beauteous Melina, the brunette from his dreams who turns out to be a prostitute from the red light district. Then things really turn complicated.

Screenwriters Ronald Shusett, Dan O'Bannon and Gary Goldman have fun with this Chinese puzzle box of a film (from a short story by Philip K. Dick). It can clearly be interpreted in two ways and which is correct is up to the viewer to determine. Either the entire film is Quaid's virtual reality dream or it's Quaid's actual reality. The film very deliberately keeps both explanations open right through to the end. Casting Schwarzenegger helps in this regard. He's brawny enough for either take to be correct where a less physical presence would have made the viewer plunk strictly for the dream interpretation. Verhoeven uses lingering takes and moments on characters to keep the aura of mystery going.

The film is a triumph of production design. 1989-90, when the film was made, was the last gasp of conventional in camera effects before the advent of CGI and the film offers some breathtaking shots of the Martian landscape. The producers also shot the film at a studio in Mexico City allowing them to take advantage of the brutalistic architecture of some of that city's modern public buildings to create a dystopian world of concrete, glass, and subdued humanity. Many of the mars sets have a dreamlike quality to them which helps enhance the question of actual versus virtual reality.

This is Schwarzenegger's film. He's in nearly every scene. He's a genial presence but cannot deliver anything resembling human emotion or connection. At times, it's hard to differentiate between him and the robo-android thing that drives the local cabs. The supporting cast come off better. Stone is competent (although her role is small - she didn't become a star until her next pairing with Verhoeven). Ticotin is quite good as the good bad girl - it's curious that she never had more of a Hollywood career as she puts modern female action wannabes like Angelina Jolie to shame, both as a fighter and as an actress. Her Melina is vulnerable, human, and kicks butt with the best of them. Ronny Cox, as the chief villain, rolls his eyes a lot and delivers exposition in a delightfully hammy way.

The film caused a lot of controversy at the time of its release for its violence. People are shot, stabbed, crushed, and mangled throughout in various gory ways. Verhoeven loves showing stage blood squibs exploding from bodies against white walls and floors. The violence, much of which is gratuitous, is, however, also in line with the dream/virtual reality theme of the film. In many ways the film is a live action version of Quake or Doom with Schwarzenegger standing in for us. And we just love all that blood and guts when we get the bad guy.

The DVD contains a commentary track in which Schwarzenegger and Verhoeven, each in their inimitable accent, discuss the plot with each other. Skip it. There's also a half hour making of documentary that's interesting in showing how the script developed and how they did some of the effects. Other features include the usual talent bios, trailers and apt to roll around your family room.

It's a great looking film, but it's eventually undermined by Ah-nuld's weak acting and the hyperkinetic violence into being an adult Saturday matinee serial.

Jack hammering Ah-nuld. Tennis playing Sharon Stone. Advanced weapon scanning systems. Gratuitous subway machine gunning. Exploding fat lady head. Broken window complications. Psychic mutants. Gratuitous machine gunning midget prostitute. Alien reactors. Narrow tunnel digging machine escapes. Gratuitous machine gunned semi formed alien baby thing.

Dogma

GOD IS DEAD (OR AT LEAST IN A COMA IN NEW JERSEY)

Life is returning to normal here at Chateau Maine. It's nice to be on the road with a successful concert tour, seeing new places and meeting new people but living out of those thirty-seven pieces of Vuitton luggage can get a bit wearing after a while. I've been looking through my scrapbook and thinking back on all of those lost and lonely souls out there who have been more enlightened and whose lives have been made more meaningful by having seen me, live and in person, delivering the best entertainment available in America today, after C-SPAN's coverage of congressional debate. 

It's time for me to get back to work on Bridget Over Troubled Waters, my new kabuki musical version of the film The Last Seduction which I hope to open in Los Angeles later this winter and transfer to New York in the Spring. Joseph, my manager, has been in negotiations with all sorts of exciting up and coming talents for the male leads. We did ask Peter Berg and Bill Pullman who were so wonderful in the film but they claimed other projects. We think we may have Jake Wagner and Rick Springfield nailed down - just have to work out some contractual details. Barry Manilow is doing some just lovely music, all in haiku - he played my insurance company interview tap piece for me over the phone this morning and I was in heaven. 

Speaking of heaven, Linda Fiorentino, and enlightening the lost and lonely, I had a chance to slip the DVD of Kevin Smith's film Dogma into the home theater system the other day. Nurse Lynn was over and we chose it as we thought it was one of those cute dog stories and we wanted something to entertain Patrick Flanagan, the cat, who has been majorly depressed since poor Norman was sucked out to sea. There didn't seem to be many dogs in evidence but there were a number of angels, some demons, a muse, and a walking pile o' poop. 

Kevin Smith is the New Jersey writer/director who burst onto the indie scene a few years back with Clerks, a scabrous low budget comedy of foul language and bad behavior which details what really goes on behind the counter of your local convenience store. It's success brought him to Hollywood attention, especially when his later film, Chasing Amy, garnered healthy reviews and reasonable box-office. His films, mainly set in New Jersey, exist in a 'View Askew' Universe of recurrent characters and settings. Dogma was a script he had been sitting on for some years and he finally got the financing from Miramax to go ahead and make the film in 1998. The brothers Weinstein then got cold feet and refused to release the completed picture as it was irreverent, to put it mildly, in its treatment of religious themes and violence. The film was eventually distributed by Lion's Gate and was a reasonable success. (The commentary tracks have much discussion of the whole Miramax debacle but all direct references to the studio and the Weinsteins are bleeped out for legal reasons.) 

Dogma is a comic fantasy involving God, angels, demons, apostles, and other elements of Catholic theology - and I can guarantee that it's the only film comedy that will ever be made where the plot hinges on the Catholic dogma of plenary indulgence. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, hot off Good Will Hunting, star as Loki and Bartleby, a couple of renegade angels banished by God to Wisconsin where it was decreed they must remain to the end of days, never to re-enter heaven. While there, they discover a loophole in Catholic theology. Cardinal Glick (a very funny George Carlin), in an attempt to make Catholicism more relevant to today, has initiated a new 'Catholicism: Wow!' campaign featuring the new and improved 'Buddy Christ'. As part of this, he has got the pope to declare a door on his church a point of plenary indulgence on a day of celebration. Under this doctrine, those that pass through have all their mortal and venial sins cleansed. The angels realize that if they take mortal form, are to pass through the door and die, they will be able to reenter heaven. Unfortunately, if they do this, it will prove God wrong and, as the universe is based on God's infallibility, all of existence will end. 

Bartleby and Loki head off for New Jersey. The hosts of heaven, represented by the angel Metatron (Alan Rickman), Rufus, the thirteenth apostle (Chris Rock) and the muse Serendipity (Salma Hayek), who's currently working as a stripper (don't ask!) are up in arms and need the Last Scion, a special sort of human, in order to stop them. God's out of commission you see, gone missing after the last skeeball trip... The Last Scion turns out to be Bethany (Linda Fiorentino), a mixed-up Catholic who works as a planned parenthood counselor. Soon we're off on a crazy road trip as Bethany meets up with heaven's various emissaries and Kevin Smith regulars Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith himself)who are the prophets whose coming was foretold (really don't ask!). On the other side is the demon Azrael (Jason Lee), who with a trio of rollerblading demon punk teens, tries to block Bethany's quest. Will Bartleby and Loki win through? Will God return in time? Just what is Bethany's role and powers? There's a lot of convoluted plot before a final showdown at the celebratory church where wrongs are righted and heads explode. 

Smith, as a filmmaker, is much more interested in ideas and character and dialog than he is in grandiose visuals. There are a number of sequences in which characters discuss important concepts of spiritual existence in somewhat vulgar terms. I loved them as they made me think, but a lot of lesser minds are going to find a lot of these moments offensive as Smith delves into the sex lives of the holy family, the ethnicity of Jesus, and the negative aspects of religion and belief. His disinterest in the more visual aspects of filmmaking lead to some of his sequences being a bit flat or feeling a little truncated, but he has enough tricks up his sleeve to pull out some great moments on his modest budget. When the angels unfurl their wings, there are some moments of real grandeur and there's a sequence on a train that's very well put together. Much of this film is better written than a lot that comes out of Hollywood but I think the subject matter frightened off a lot of folks from giving the screenplay and the film the attention it deserved. 

The large ensemble cast work well together. There's really no weak performance in the bunch. Affleck and Damon have the 'buddy' thing down so well that they're a delight. Affleck in particular, who sometimes becomes so mannered, in his 'leading man' performances, loosens up quite a bit and finds the human under his angel quite effectively. Mewes and Smith, as Jay and Silent Bob, work in small doses and fortunately, don't dominate the film the way they did in Smith's next movie Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Fiornentino is the peg around which all the insanity revolves - she brings a quiet resolve to her character and a sense of groundedness so you can actually see her making a spiritual journey as the film progresses. Rickman, Hayek, Lee and Rock, in the supporting parts, are all solid pros. Each has at least one great scene. 

The DVD is a special edition double disc set from Columbia. The first disc contains the film in its theatrical proportions with good color transfer and sound. There are two separate commentary tracks - a free form one with Smith, producer Scott Mosier, View Askew staffer Vincent Perreia, Mewes, Affleck and Lee (which is accompanied by video of the recording session). It resembles a late night college dorm bull session. There is also a 'technical' commentary track with Smith, Mosier and Perreia that's a bit more structured but still mainly backstage stories and gossip. The second disc contains a large number of cut sequences (the initial cut of the film was something over three hours - with this material excised it now runs two hours and ten minutes). The cut sequences, introduced by Smith and various associates, are mainly extended scenes rather than whole new sequences. They're interesting to flesh out characters and back stories. The video quality of these scenes is poor and some have incomplete effects as they were cut early in post production. There are also some storyboard sequences (never shot), the usual bio stuff, links to websites and some other odds and ends. 

Cow dolls. Cheese head hats. Conga dancing nun. Blown away adulterer. 'Buddy Christ' statue. Naked Chris Rock. Gratuitous Janeane Garofalo. Meat grinder play equipment. Shoe pillow. Gratuitous poop monster. Death by hockey stick. Flying Ben Affleck. Hand standing God. 

Deadlock

OPENING DOORS

My New York concert marked the end of the current tour. I was just as pleased as punch to take the check for $632.47 (tour profits minus expenses) down to the site of the former World Trade Center to donate it to Mayor Giuliani. Unfortunately, he wasn't there when I arrived in my Blackglama mink and steel toed Ferragamo pumps but the nice young man with the squeegee on the corner of Canal and Broadway said he'd be more than happy to see that he got it.

Then it was time to return home to Chateau Maine. I was originally going to take a nice leisurely train ride back across the country to my home high in the Hollywood Hills, but there's been so much talk about people getting sick from Amtrak in the news that I was somewhat afraid. How I long for the days of the Super Chief and the Twentieth Century Limited - they never made people ill. I had to settle for first class on United Airlines (not what it used to be I fear). Security was exceedingly tight at the airport and they had the nerve to confiscate my silver plated Tiffany nail file and my super support underwire bra as potentially hazardous weapons.

I returned home, slightly sagging, with only just enough energy to collapse on the couch in front of a film. Cable surfing brought me into contact with something called Deadlock, a 1997 film from an outfit called Sick Puppy productions - a low budget comic horror fantasia of which I had never heard. Writer/director/actor Stuart Chapin and his wife, Vanessa have created a small gem of independent film making. Despite the late hour and the travel weariness, I was riveted - the film showed more imagination and style than any dozen Hollywood formula products tailored to the usual demographics.

Stuart Chapin plays Rick O'Brien, screenwriter and puppeteer, living quietly in suburban Los Angeles with his wife, Ellen (real life wife, Vanessa). One day, he discovers the door to his den acts as an interdimensional door when the lock is jiggled the wrong way, letting celtic demons, known as kobolds, into his home and into his mind. Soon Rick is dismembering and beheading his wife, axe murdering the couple trying to buy his home, and stuffing the key to the den door up his nose in a suicidal frenzy. The house then passes to his brother, Barry (Aaron Hendry), an unemployed soap opera actor (who made the mistake of eloping with the producer's girl friend). His new wife Susan (Michelle Beauchamp), an artist, and he set up housekeeping around the various ghosts and demons of whom they are only vaguely aware. We see them all in glorious detail, all the color of Krishna including Ellen's severed head in the disposal (which keeps mouthing off), the succubus in the bathtub, and an old gentleman who apparently lives in the washing machine. Soon, a garrulous hypnotherapist neighbor (Timothy Trujillo) clues them in to what's really going on in their home and then the mayhem mounts, culminating in a Hollywood interdimensional schmooze party like no other you've ever seen.

The film is shot in a combination of film and high definition video, allowing the film maker to employ a lot of digital effects relatively cheaply and easily. The effects look a bit tinny, even on the small screen, but they're so inventively deployed and the film moves at such a madcap pace, that I didn't mind. The script is full of wordplay, tangential ideas and the energetic cast is so busy zinging the one liners at each other with glee, that at times I felt like I was in a Tom Stoppard rewrite of Night of the Living Dead.

The leads are all attractive, often get naked for no particular reason (it has all the gratuitous nudity such films tend to have and its fairly equal time between the sexes), and, unlike many such features, can actually act. Hendry and Beauchamp, as the couple coping with blue humans crawling out of their cupboards while party planning, are especially good. Both obviously have stage training and Hendry, who has a background in stage combat, has a couple of good dueling scenes which have been worked into the plot for a chance for the fight choreographer to show off. Trujillo, has the hypnotherapist, seems to have ingested just a little too much amphetamine before his takes but the performance is not out of character with the breakneck pace of the rest of the film.

Usually, I find such low budget fare painful to watch - this one was such fun that I'm giving it a major thumb up. I wouldn't necessarily go out of your way to try to find it but it's better than 90% of what's at the suburban multiplex.

Automatic chicken drawing. 60s go-go succubus. Severed head tossing. Leper in a lifeboat. Nasty soap opera producer. Gratuitous topless neighbor. Final scene of Macbeth. Wooden chicken toy. Sock fishing. Gratuitous bad piano/organ puns. Disappearing keys. Morphing extension cords. Carving knife play.

Urbania

URBAN LEGEND

My triumphant return to the New York concert stage was not everything I had envisioned. Joseph, my manager, tried desperately to book Carnegie Hall for the last stop on my fund raising tour for NYC disaster relief but there was just no room on their schedule so we had to settle for the Carnegie Deli. I arrived to find that the venue was much too small to accommodate the thousands of adoring fans that were expected and that they planned on continuing dinner service during the show. We solved that problem by pressing the wait staff into service as my back-up singers and dancers. I only had six hours to take those arthritic beehived ladies and make them into chorines with a flair. It wasn't easy. Getting them to wave their dill pickle spears in time to the music alone was a nightmare.

I sent Madame Rose, my publicist, over to the Versace boutique on Fifth Avenue to borrow some suitable frocks for my new found chorines - their basic black was just so dreary. There was a slight misunderstanding between her and the salespeople who had not gotten the message from Donatella to be free with the stock and I had to send Joseph down to the precinct house to bail her out on shoplifting charges. Of course, when we did get the dresses over to the Deli, nothing fit and everyone had to be safety pinned into them five minutes before show time. Finally, it was eight o'clock and I opened with Kander and Ebb's immortal New York, New York and we were off. The joint was packed with first nighters and pastrami on rye and only two of the waitresses fell out of their gowns during the tap combination. It wasn't perfect, but there was a lovely review from Army Archerd in Variety the next day, complimenting me on my vocal stylings and my horseradish.

After such a night, I had to settle in with a New York film. My choice was the small, independent film from John Shear, Urbania which was released last year on the art house circuit to considerable acclaim. Made for under $250,000 with a largely unknown cast, Urbania examines the emotional and interior lives of its characters in unusual ways and feels much more complex and richer than the usual small budget, debut independent feature.

The film is the story of Charlie (Dan Futterman, of The Birdcage and Judging Amy), a young man from the Chelsea/Village area of New York city, and his emotional odyssey over the course of a few days. As we first meet him, he seems emotionally disconnected from his world and his life. As we learn more about him and his story, he at first seems to be making self defeating choices in his relationships with others; later we learn that things are not always as they first appear and that he's struggling to free himself from the past. During the course of the film, he develops relationships with a homeless man (Lothaire Bluteau), a kindly bartender (Josh Hamilton), an old friend now ill (Alan Cumming), a shallow soap opera actor (Gabriel Olds), a violent bully (Samuel Ball), and a seemingly perfect mate (Matt Keeslar). Yes, it's one of those films in which central characters happen to be gay but it's not, per se, a gay film - rather a human one.

The film does not unfold in straight forward narrative fashion, but rather weaves back and forth in time and is tied together more by thematic elements than by plot. However, by the end of the film, Charlie's story and why he is the way he is has become heart breakingly clear. To reveal more would do the film a disservice. The film doesn't take place in the usual New York of film and television, but rather in a faceless New York (there's little use of the usual locations and I, at first, thought perhaps it was filmed in Toronto or Montreal.) It's a dream New York, fitting in quite well with Charlie's agonized state of mind. To provide texture, the film is punctuated with various well known urban legends which intersect with Charlie's life and which may be real or may be part of his fugue state. These range from the man who loses a kidney, waking up in an ice bath to the rat in the hot dog bun from a street vendor; the minute a poodle makes an appearance, you know just where it's going to end up.

The performances, both from veterans such as Cumming and Futterman and from newcomers such as Samuel Ball, are riveting. This is a film about emotional depth and nuance and the camera catches many quiet moments which tell us more about the interior lives of the characters than pages of exposition. Futterman is particularly good - this is his story and he carries the film and the difficult emotional transitions effortlessly. Unlike many small, independent films, there are no weak actors - even the small parts are filled with New York actors of stunning depth.

This is the first film from director John Shear, who also wrote the screenplay, along with Daniel Reitz, adapted from Reitz's stage play. Shear played the role of Charlie on stage in Los Angeles and took the episodic material, shaping it into a much more emotionally meaningful journey for the central character. Shear doesn't linger on establishing shots or stunning visuals, preferring an overlapping montage of images and sounds that tell the story in several directions at once and which concentrate on the people involved. It's a good choice for the material and he may prove to be an actors' director.

The DVD makes the best of the super-16 saturated colors and the sound is adequate. Some scenes are a little dark but I think it's deliberate based on the nighttime setting of much of the story. In addition to the film, there are a couple of featurettes about the film and about the nature of urban legends. There is a commentary track with director Shear and Futterman, who are joined briefly by supporting actors Cumming and Olds, which is interesting with its insight into low budget gonzo film making. The commentary track soundtrack is out of synch with the picture by about ten seconds which can be very annoying when the commentators aren't talking. There are also a few cut scenes, including one starring a small rodent that I'm glad they left out.

The gay material may not be for all audiences, but those who are adventurous will find a lovely insight into the human condition.

Large patchwork quilt. Broken beer bottle. Masturbating Dan Futterman. Bathroom flashing. Horrid soap opera clip. Unusual toothbrush repository. Gratuitous leather queen. Embarrassed biology teacher. Birthday party drag act. Gratuitous penis cake. Lipstick on mirror. Urinating Dan Futterman. Coat donation.

The Stand

STAND AND DELIVER

Recuperating at Niagara General from my wee concussion was quite a restful experience. So many people sent lovely bouquets and little stuffed animals that my room looked a bit like the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland. I kept expecting the handsome orderly to start cracking bad jokes about hippopotami. Even Margo Channing was moved enough to send a small token d'estime in the form of a particularly unsightly potted cactus. I quickly donated it to the pediatric hemophilia ward. I could have stayed snuggled in bed with my video system, but my H.M.O. refused to extend my stay (and the lactulose and coffee enemas every two hours were becoming annoying). 

Both Joseph, my manager, and Madame Rose, my publicist, joined me there to help plan the stunning finale to my current concert tour - a stop in the Big Apple itself, New York, New York. I wanted to book Carnegie Hall but the schedule was full so we had to opt for the Carnegie Deli instead. It would still be my first New York performance in some years so I called up my good friend, Carol Channing, to borrow that red dress with the feathers for my triumphant return. She was kind enough to ship it C.O.D. 

I did have the time to get in one really long film while resting - this was Mick Garris's telefilm of Stephen King's epic The Stand, which originally aired in four parts on ABC TV in 1994. The eight hour miniseries, sans commercials, runs about six hours and is available on a double sided DVD. Stephen King adapted his own novel fairly faithfully, within the limits of what American network television will allow, and the miniseries format allowed most of the complicated plot strands to remain intact. 

Attempting to summarize the plot of The Stand is not an easy task as there are several dozen major characters whose stories intertwine. Suffice it to say that the time is the near future. There is an accident in one of those super-secret government labs that populate the pages of pulp fiction and a killer strain of influenza gets out and starts to decimate the US population. Soon, more than 99% of the population has died in various artful poses. (The disease takes a day or two to kill but we keep seeing corpses keeled over in Laundromats and such - just where I'd head if I felt deathly ill). The small number of survivors includes Stu Redman (Gary Sinise), a good old boy Jimmy Stewart type from small town Texas; Franny Goldsmith (Molly Ringwald), a pregnant college student from Maine who has an adolescent geek, Harold Lauder (Corin Nemec) in tow; Larry Underwood (Adam Storke), a not terribly good rock musician; Nadine Cross (Laura San Giacomo), an NYC woman drawn to the baser side of her nature; Glen Bateman (Ray Walston), a retired college professor; Nick Andros (Rob Lowe), a wandering deaf mute; Tom Cullen (Bill Fagerbakke), a simple minded farm boy; Lloyd Hernreid (Miguel Ferrer) a small time criminal; and the trash can man (Matt Frewer), a pyromania cal drifter. 

As this is a Stephen King tale, these characters, and others, not only have to cope with a devastated civilization, but also with psychic and supernatural events. Two power centers coalesce, one around Mother Abigail, a 106 year old black farm woman (Ruby Dee) who lives in a set borrowed from a high school production of The Rainmaker, and the other around Randall Flagg (Jamey Sheridan), a hip guy with one of Cher's old hair extensions and a big bulge in his faded denim jeans. Mother Abigail calls out in dreams to the characters who are good and they end up in Boulder, Colorado. Randall attracts the evil to the opposite side of the Rockies and sets up shop in Las Vegas where he crucifies drug addicts and occasionally morphs into a raven. A showdown between the good powers of mother Abigail and demon Flagg is inevitable and some of our heroes must make the titular stand against evil in time for a really cheesy special effects sequence featuring the hand of God. 

Although he no longer cops to it, King said in an interview in the late 70s that he was trying to create an Americanized version of The Lord of the Rings when he wrote the novel. There are echoes of that idea inherent in the story structure (Stu=Frodo, Tom=Samwise, Trash can man=Gollum, Boulder=Minas Tirith, Desert American West=Mordor etc.) but King was never really able to lift his prose and tale into the mythopoetic. His ultimate clash of forces of good and evil comes across more as a WWF Smackdown event then an epic clash of civilization versus annihilation. That doesn't prevent the story from being a ripping good yarn. The long format of the miniseries does allow the time to properly get to know the characters and to tell their stories. At the same time, the need to structure the piece for television with its inherent commercial breaks prevents it from continually piling on narrative tension. Things keep building to crescendo, then fading back and building as each of the four episodes comes in the standard seven acts of a two hour TV film. Nevertheless, you can understand that King really loves his characters and Garris has managed to keep even long expository sequences moving. 

The performances are a mixed bag. Ray Walston, the stage and film veteran, comes across best as the acerbic retiree. One snort from him can bring the deadest scene to life. Gary Sinise is also pretty good as the everyman around whom the plot operates. He has that Gary Cooper 'aw shucks' quality that is appropriate to American epic. Ruby Dee, the fine stage actress, unrecognizable under her age make-up, also has her moments. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Molly Ringwald is pretty dreary. Jamey Sheridan, who usually plays soft spoken nice guys, was an interesting choice for the villain, but he muffs it. There's really nothing that menacing about him, even when he sprouts horns and demonic eyes, he seems like a bewildered frat boy who has had too much to drink at a sorority party. As his lieutenant, Miguel Ferrer turns in the same performance as in most of his other films. Matt Frewer is all tics and rolling eyes but he does catch the pathos of his character in the few moments where he's allowed to be quiet. Rob Lowe is undercut by his looks, he's so pretty that there's some odd sexual subtext in his relationship with Bill Fagerbakke that I don't think the film makers intended. 

Stephen King style horror actually works fairly well for the television medium. The restrictions on what can be shown forces the film maker to use more imagination and restraint than they might otherwise and, as always, what is not seen is scarier than what is seen. There are a number of highly effective sequences which rely on few tricks or special effects - the credits sequence in which swooping tracking shots reveal dozens of corpses in the government lab to Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear the Reaper, Larry taking care of his dying mother and escaping New York through a tunnel of death, a community meeting in a train station, four men walking through a deserted country. When the movie goes for big visual grandness, however, it falls apart due to cheapie effects. A burning New York is laughable, visions in mother Abigail's cornfield are stage bound, Flagg's morphs are primitive, at best. 

The best segment of the film is the initial one detailing the plague and the collapse of civilization. It's grounded in reality and bolstered by a couple of fine, uncredited cameos by Ed Harris and Kathy Bates. The remaining episodes, as more and more supernatural elements come into play, want to soar and be operatic in nature but are closer to soap operatic. That doesn't mean that they won't keep you glued to the screen - there's enough good stuff and spine tingling shocks to keep all but the most jaded interested. 

The DVD has a decent transfer of the film. (It was not made in wide screen, rather in 16 mm so it's standard format only.) There is a commentary track covering the full six hours with King, director Garris, the editor, and several of the principal cast members. There's a lot of interesting backstage stories to listen to. There's not much else besides the usual talent bios. 

Omniscient ravens. Gas station auto crash. Megalomaniacal general. Effeminate megalomaniacal general's aide. Fake corn. Real rats. Gratuitous The Brady Bunch cast member. Bloody guitar strumming. House explosion. Refinery explosion. Airplane explosion. Las Vegas explosion. Gratuitous raven feathers in hair. Gratuitous Sam Raimi. Symbolic empty infant beds. Collapsed highway. Tarted up mannequins. Fried chicken and iced tea. Wheel of fortune halos. 

The Fourth Man

FOUR KEEPS

With the loss of the showroom at the Niagara Falls Casino, Joseph, Madame Rose and I decided that my grand concert there would best be done from a barrel going over the falls, surely a first. A suitable 55 gallon drum, recently emptied of canola oil, was located and padded and fitted with a webcam and a sound system so I could broadcast from the Niagara river to adoring crowds on the banks as I took my historic journey. I put on a new Thierry Mugler with various shades of blue and white beading, wrapped myself in bubble wrap and slid into my cozy new home.

I have little recollection of what happened next - I know I got through Falling in Love with Love and the first portion of Falling in Love Again before I was swept off into space. Joseph assures me that I was in fine voice but there were some problems with the sound system and it kept picking up the local police band so the gathered crowds kept hearing about '2-11s in progress' during my solos. I survived the ride just fine, if slightly concussed, but apparently the barrel struck the Maid of the Mists on the way down and slightly injured several Japanese tourists from Kyoto. Madame Rose says not to worry as the resultant publicity will more than offset any potential lawsuits.

I was admitted briefly for observation to Niagara General hospital and had my choice of films for the in room DVD in the VIP suite. I selected The Fourth Man, Paul Verhoeven's Dutch film from 1983 which was an international hit and which brought him to Hollywood where he went on to such fare as Robocop, Basic Instinct and Showgirls. I had enjoyed it in its initial release but had not had a chance to see it in some years.

The Fourth Man is the story of a down on his luck, alcoholic, bisexual Dutch writer, Gerard Reve (Reve is French for dream), played by Jeroen Krabbe, who accepts an invitation to speak for a literary group in the seaside town of Vlissingen. As the film opens, we recognize that his mental health is somewhat precarious and that he is, at times, possibly hallucinating and possibly psychic. In Vlissingen, he meets Christine (Renee Soutendijk), a mysterious wealthy young widow who runs a local beauty salon. They spend the night together, although it is unclear who is manipulating whom. When he decides to leave, a combination of her wealth and the opportunity of being close to her other boyfriend (Thom Hoffman) seduces him into staying. As he gets to know her better, he discovers that she had not one husband who died, but three, and he becomes more and more convinced that she is a figure of evil and that he may be the titular fourth man, and corpse, in her life.

The film is a stylish Hitchcockian thriller, complete with the enigmatic cool blonde beauty, the hero up against forces he can't control or understand, and powerful, somewhat surreal symbolism reminiscent of Spellbound or Vertigo. The difference is that Hitchcock sublimated all of his kinky sex, death and religious impulses into very conventional images. Verhoeven lets it all hang out. The first shots of the film involve frontal male nudity from Krabbe and all of the principals have explicit sex scenes with each other, some very strange indeed, especially a vision sequence where Krabbe molests Hoffman as a living crucifix.

The film crawls with religious imagery with appearances by the holy family, the passion, and the story of Samson and Delilah well represented. Much is also made of the spider image of the black widow and the web, ensnaring helpless victims and the enigma of the sphinx. Some of the imagery is a bit grotesquely over the top but Verhoeven always delights in pushing the envelope and shocking his audience.

In the central roles, Krabbe, who later made a name for himself playing suave European types in Hollywood films, catches the right balance between sanity and psychosis as the writer. It remains unclear through the film as to whether the supernatural events and magic realism are 'real', or products of his deranged imagination. This deliberate enigmatic quality will lead to many post-screening arguments amongst friends. Soutendijk is lovely as the widow Christine. She manages to find the fine line between innocent victim of circumstance and conniving, manipulating she-devil. Hoffman is the weakest but all he really has to do is look great in a Speedo.

The DVD has a good color transfer of the original wide screen proportions. It's in Dutch with optional English subtitles. The sound isn't great, but it's adequate for the kind of film that it is. There is an alternate, recently recorded, commentary track with Verhoeven which is interesting for his backstage stories, clarification of imagery, and sniping comments at both Hollywood and Dutch film critics. In addition, there are the usual talent bios and some of Verhoeven's original storyboard art.

Graphic castration. Eyeball in door. Violinist strangulation. Funeral cortege. Deadly home movies. Gratuitous high heel sex scene. Butchered cows. Mausoleum sex. Mysterious key. Spilled tomato juice. Symbolic barber's shears.