Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) - David Cross #18

Or, Star-Crossed Lovers

Director: Michel Gondry

Runtime: 108 minutes     

I've seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind multiple times before.  This is Michel Gondry's second feature film, and second time working with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Human Nature (2001), both of whom won the Oscar for best original screenplay for this film.  Kate Winslet received a best actress nomination, losing out to Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby.  

The film begins with Joel Barish (Jim Carey) ditching work to go to the beach in Montauk in the middle of winter.  He's a tightly wound guy, not particularly communicative, and essentially the opposite of the talkative and artsy Clementine (Kate Winslet).

  They meet on the beach, and quickly fall for each other.  We then cut to the relationship having fallen apart, and a heartbroken Joel running to his friends Rob and Carrie (David Cross and Jane Adams) for advice.  Things get strange, his friends had received a letter from a medical clinic claiming that Clementine has had all memories of Joel erased.  Joel drives to the clinic, and demands the same procedure.  Most of the remaining movie either takes place in Joel's deteriorating memories or among the employees and technicians performing the memory wipe (played by Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood, and Mark Ruffalo.  (And on a sidenote, does anyone else realize how much of a weirdo Elijah Wood's characters tend to be? Not only in this movie, but in Chain of Fools, where he plays a teenage hitman who just wants a friend, or Sin City, where he plays a cannibalistic serial killer.)

As I've mentioned before, I'm not a huge Jim Carey fan. He's fantastic at a style of humor that I don't particularly care for, which is really just a matter of taste, and probably why this is one of my top three Carey movies (along with The Truman Show and Man on the Moon).

Eternal Sunshine takes a drama about the collapse of a relationship, and uses creative narrative techniques to turn it into an emotionally powerful tale about loss and the unavoidability and necessity of pain in any personal growth.  It's a beautiful film.


Rating:★★★★★

The Cross Section:

David Cross plays Rob, a friend of Joel Barish.  His longest scene is by the beginning of the film, after Joel and Clementine's breakup.  We only get brief glimpses into his life and his presumably troubled relationship with his girlfriend (or wife? fiancee?  It's never made clear).  The character is a bit acerbic, but otherwise there's nothing that sticks out about him.  

Men in Black II (2002) - David Cross #17

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld

Runtime: 88 Minutes           

Everyone remembers the 1997 modern classic, Men in Black.  It ends with agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) asking agent J (Will Smith) to erase K's memory, so he can retire and lead a normal life.  The first act of MIB 2 is mostly about undoing the ending of the first film.  The movie opens with exposition via a public access quality conspiracy tv show, explaining that an evil Kylothian named Serleena (Lara Flynn Boyle) wants to steal the light of Zartha.  It turns out the light is still on earth, and only K knows its location.  

There are a lot of problems with this movie, especially the over reliance on comedic relief characters.  Remember Frank the pug from the first movie, and how funny that one scene with him was?  One scene is really all that you can stand.  Likewise the worms, and the two-headed Johnny Knoxville.

Insert your own "pair of boobs" joke here

Also, the product placement is far from subtle.

All that said, Men in Black 2 isn't really that bad.  I mean, it's pretty bad, but it's not as much of a trainwreck as I remember it being.  I was worried that it would be unwatchable, but much of it is entertaining.  It's a big decline in quality from the first film, but not a completely irredeemable one.


Rating: ★★☆☆☆

The Cross Section:

David Cross plays Newton, the conspiracy minded nerd who runs a video rental store and lives with his mom.  

This is actually one of the funniest scenes in the movie, which unfortunately does not appear by itself on youtube.

Martin & Orloff (2002) - David Cross #16

Director: Lawrence Blume

Runtime: 87 minutes          

Martin Flam (Ian Roberts), a man who designs food costumes for corporate promotional events, tried to kill himself.  He's required to start seeing Dr. Eric Orloff (Matt Walsh, Veep), who drags Martin into his own dysfunctional world.  Their first session begins with Orloff dragging Martin to his amateur softball league, where everyone gets arrested after a fight breaks out.  Now Martin not only has to deal with the crushing guilt of designing costumes that are dangerous to wear (it turns out eyeholes are important in a costume), but Martin's best friend (a volatile Gulf War vet played by H. Jon Benjamin), Martin's stripper/psych grad student girlfriend (Kim Raver, 24), a new love interest (Amy Poehler) and her jealous and violent ex-NFL ex-boyfriend.

As the poster indicates, the cast is predominately members of the Upright Citizens Brigade, with a brief cameo by Tina Fey and Janeane Garofalo.  Beside Martin's straight-man, I don't know if there's any character that couldn't be described as wacky.  Fortunately, the cast is talented enough to pull it off.

On a side note, the movie's promotional website is still up, and it absolutely looks like a website made in 2002.  The weird thing, though, is that the cast and filmmaker bios have been updated, some as recently as 2012, which makes me wonder who, ten years after the movie was released, went back into the website to make sure the info was up to date.

Rating:★★★☆☆

The Cross Section:

Character/Performance:

David Cross plays Dan Wasserman, a flamboyant, terrible playwright, who wants Orloff's praise for his play that premiered at a dinner-and-a-show restaurant.  While pretty funny, the character's only trait is his flamboyance, which is only good for so many jokes.

★★★☆☆

Screentime:

There's a brief scene in the middle of the movie, and Cross joins the ensemble of supporting characters who team up at the end to save the day.

★★☆☆☆

Run, Ronnie, Run (2002) - David Cross #15

Director: Troy Miller

Runtime: 86 minutes 

This is it people, David Cross's time to shine as a leading man.  This actually isn't the first time Cross has played the titular Ronnie Dobbs, as he was a recurring character on Cross and Odenkirk's HBO sketch series, Mr. Show (1995-1998). The sketch show origin of the character makes itself felt, as numerous brief sketches are interlaced throughout the film.  In fact, the film starts with two sketches, the first a cartoon parodying the famous "Let's All Go the Lobby" bit, where everything, including the toilets, are smiling and anthropomorphic. 

The film is then introduced by the "film valedictorian of Hollywood," who later interrupts the film.

We meet Ronnie, a southern redneck who wants to get back together with Tammy (Jill Talley), his ex-wife and the mother of his children (named Little Ronnie, Middle Ronnie, and Little Middle Ronnie).  But he ends up getting arrested on an episode of FUZZ (basically COPS), leading Tammy to reject him.  Meanwhile, struggling Hollywood producer Terry Twillstein (Bob Odenkirk) discovers that Ronnie has been arrested on FUZZ numerous times, in fact, Ronnie has a unique talent for getting arrested wherever he goes.  So Twillstein goes to Ronnie's hometown, and makes a deal with the Sheriff and soon-to-be Governor (M. C. Gainey), to release Ronnie into his custody in exchange for promising that Ronnie will never return to the state.  From here we have the rise and fall of a celebrity narrative, frequently interlaced with sketches, ranging from a scene from a Survivor parody to a music video by Cross and Odenkirk's Mr. Show R&B group, Three Times One Minus One:

As much as I enjoyed this movie, it's become a bit dated.  When this came out, reality TV as we know it was in its infancy, with only a couple competition shows (most notably Survivor, which gets parodied more than once in Run Ronnie Run) having large audiences.  The idea of an entire tv series based around one person doing stupid things was just a funny concept, as opposed to an accurate description of numerous popular programs.  A lot of content that was original in 2002 has become so overdone in the last decade and a half that it loses some of its humor.

That said, the movie is a lot of fun, especially if you're a fan of Mr. Show.  There are cameos by Jack Black and Jeff Goldblum, and appearances by all the Mr. Show regulars.  In addition to a number of actual sketches, much of the movie is structured like a sketch show, with a lot of scenes being somewhat self-contained like the new age therapy session:

\

So if you like good 90s sketch comedy, give Run Ronnie Run a watch.

Rating:★★★★☆

The Cross Section:

This doesn't really apply, as this is probably the only film where Cross is the lead actor.  He plays Ronnie Dobbs for the most part, as well as brief stints as other characters (like the R & B singer in the above picture).  

Character:★★★★★

Screentime:★★★★★

Scary Movie 2 (2001) - David Cross #14

Director: Keenen Wayans

Runtime: 83 minutes        

As a teenager I watched the first four Scary Movie installments, and I remember thinking that Scary Movie 2 was the worst of the lot.  Rottentomatoes suggests I'm not alone in this judgment. (The first four films are rated 53%, 15%, 36%, and 37%, respectively.)  The first Scary Movie (2000) brought the genre spoof back into the limelight.  While of course genre spoofs existed before (and perhaps hit their zenith with Airplane! (1980)) the modern terrible genre spoofs, from Not Another Date Movie (2001) to Meet the Spartans (2008) owe their existence to the massive financial success of the first installment of the Scary Movie franchise.  

The sequel has some of the characters reprising their roles from the first film, which mostly parodied I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and Scream (1996).  Anna Faris plays Cindy, Regina Hall plays Brenda, Marlon Wayans is Shorty and Shawn Wayans is Ray.  This film is largely based on 1999's The Haunting, which was a remake of the 1963 film, which was itself based on Shirley Jackson's 1959 novel, The Haunting of Hill House.  Anyway, the aforementioned characters, along with a few newcomers (Kathleen Robertson, Tori Spelling, and Malcolm in the Middle's Christopher Masterson), are college students tricked into helping summon the spirits at a haunted house by the pervy Professor (Tim Curry) and his assistant Dwight (David Cross).  Obviously, shit gets out of hand.  

What makes this installment so much worse than the others?  Well, most of the jokes aren't jokes.  There are a couple scenes with an obscene parrot that don't work at all, because what the parrot is saying isn't funny.  Jokes about weed can be funny, but instead we're expected to laugh because weed is being mentioned.  The creepy butler's gross deformed hand is good for a joke or two, but not for gags that last several minutes.  

I have no problem with dumb humor, but there needs to actually be humor in it.

If you want a fun movie that you don't have to take seriously, some of the movies in this franchise are good for that.  But not this one.

Rating:★☆☆☆☆

The Cross Section:

Character:★★★★☆

David Cross plays Dwight, the Professor's assistant.  While the professor is concerned about making sure there are enough cameras in the sexy co-eds' bedrooms, Dwight is pretty serious about proving the existence of the supernatural.  He's wheelchair bound, but determined not to let that slow him down. Whether it's passing out papers or being fellated, he always refuses offers of help by declaring "I can do it myself!"  The character is surprisingly fun, and Cross delivers a good character performance.

Screentime:★★★☆☆

Cross gets a good amount of screentime as part of the ensemble cast.

Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001) - David Cross #12

Director: Steve Carr

Runtime: 87 minutes

In case you forgot, back in 1998, when Murphy was in decline and starting to do kids movies (he voiced Mushu in Mulan in 1998, and would play Donkey in Shrek a couple years later), Murphy starred in the modern update of Doctor Dolittle (based on Hugh Lofting's series of children's stories from the 1920s, as well as a 1967 musical film starring Rex Harrison).  The movie received mixed reviews but made a crapload of money. (It was the eighth highest worldwide grossing film of 1998, right between Mulan and Shakespeare in Love.)  So, of course, it got a sequel.  Interesting point to note, the 1998 film was rated PG-13, while the sequel was rated PG.

In the sequel, Dolittle is world famous, as we're told through a series of brief gags narrated by the family dog, Lucky (Norm MacDonald, who made the wise choice to remain uncredited).  This narration continues throughout the film, despite usually providing no information beside describing what's happening onscreen, like a film for the blind.  Dolittle comes home from a world tour to his wife and daughters, just in time for his oldest daughter's sixteenth birthday.  Charisse (Raven-Symoné) is more interested in seeing her boyfriend, of whom the doctor does not approve, than having a birthday dinner with her family who are just soooo embarrassing.   We also here start getting the first of terrible attempts at jokes for the parents.  Dolittle got his younger daughter Maya (Kyla Pratt, who stars in the direct to video sequels because holy shit there are three more of these goddamned movies) a chameleon from Mexico, who is extremely overconfident about his ability to change color.  In his extremely thick Mexican accent he talks about how he's going to disappear just "like the baby daddy."  This is just the first in a film long series of jokes that the kids won't get and the parents would roll their eyes at.

Anyway, the plot gets moving when a mafia raccoon and opossum have Dolittle go see The Beaver, in an annoying parody of mob films (the filmmakers seem to think that any premise is funny if it's followed by the phrase "but they're animals"), who requests a favor from the doctor:  a logging company is destroying the forest and he needs the doctor's help.  Dolittle is moved by the destruction and agrees.  Long story short, the doctor discovers that there is a single female of an endangered species of bear in the forest.  He finds a circus bear of the same species, and gets a court injunction to prevent logging while he sees if he can get the bears to mate.  Obviously, the circus bear, Archie (Steve Zahn, from Chain of Fools) is woefully unprepared to live in the wild.  When he first sees the female bear, Ava (Lisa Kudrow), by the river, he remarks that he'd "like to see her wet."  Once again, pointless for the kids, and rather creepy for the adults.

Archie and Dolittle

Of course, the evil lumber mill owners play dirty and almost win, but Dolittle convinces the animals to fight back, as the animals of the world go on strike, refusing to race or perform or even behave.  The mill owners relent, Dolittle and his daughter grow closer, and Archie and Ava make little cubs.  (This, of course, leads to a couple other questions, as Archie has one son and one daughter, who are, besides himself and Ava, the only two members of his species in the forest.)

I'm confused as to why, when going from a PG-13 movie to a PG sequel, they choose a plot entirely about Dr. Dolittle trying to help a bear get laid.  Of all the plots that could have been used, this one seems among the least fitting for the audience being aimed at, and it affects the final product as all the underlying sex jokes are made to go over the kids' heads, but are still unfunny.

If you're between the ages of eight and twelve, this movie will be a lot of fun because there's a bear who likes to say the word "butt" a lot, and farts sometimes.  If that doesn't sound like the highest form of humor, then you'll probably want to stay clear.

Rating:★☆☆☆☆

The Cross Section:

David Cross is credited as "Dog/Animal Groupie #2."  There are a couple dogs it could have been, but they each have one line and speak in a silly voice.  I'm not at all sure what "Animal Groupie" refers to.  So, basically, there's no notable character, and a matter of a couple seconds of screentime.

 Character:☆☆☆☆☆

Ghost World (2001) - David Cross #11

Director: Terry Zwigoff

Runtime: 111 minutes  

Ghost World is an adaptation of the Daniel Clowes' comic of the same name.  It follows Enid (Thora Birch, American Beauty) and her friend Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) after they graduate from high school.  They're the prototypical outsiders, cynical and directionless, uninterested in leading the life society expects from them.  They decide to prank call a missed connections personal ad, and follow the man, Seymour(Steve Buscemi), around, eventually meeting him.  Rebecca and Enid drift apart as Rebecca starts focusing on getting a job and becoming part of the adult world, while Enid becomes closer to Seymour, discovering someone who she describes as "the exact opposite of all the things I hate."

The film is fantastic.  The character of Enid and the people around her are rendered with a strong sense of irony, but not mockery.  The insincerity of modern culture, whether it's the self-described "authentic" Blues music of an unremarkable hard rock band (composed of yuppie 20-somethings singing about picking cotton all day long, no less), or the reformed alcoholic teenager giving a speech about responsibility (and later seen drinking from a flask), drives Enid to the social fringe.  Like with her description of Seymour, Enid and people like her define themselves as much, or even more, by what they reject than by what they love.  Enid's attempts at employment end in disaster because she refuses to compromise, her sarcastic treatment of customers at the movie theater (beyond being a vicarious fantasy of everyone who works in the service industry) is just one of the more visible ways in which Enid's identity is incompatible with the 'real world.'

* * *

One other thing I really like about Ghost World is how well it captures the underground comic aesthetic.  Beyond things like color scheme, there's a focus on characters that appear for only a moment, but really stick in the mind.  Minor details make the world strange and slightly grotesque, often without being remarked upon.  For example, in one scene a clearly pregnant woman walks directly behind Scarlett Johansson's character, holding a beer in one hand while smoking a cigarette with the other.

Easter eggs abound

Ghost World is fantastic and I highly recommend it.

Rating: ★★★★★


The Cross Section:

David Cross is credited on imdb as Gerrold, the Pushy Guy - Record Collector.  He's one of Seymour's record collector friends who briefly (and awkardly) hits on Rebecca.

Screentime: ★☆☆☆☆

Cross only appears in one scene, and is never seen or referenced to again.

Character:★☆☆☆☆

This isn't a criticism of Cross's performance, rather that the character is not distinctive, and could be played by anyone capable of smarminess. 

Chain of Fools (2000) - David Cross #10

Director: Traktor      

Runtime: 98 Minutes

Chain of Fools is a "heist comedy-romance" and the first feature film by the Swedish creative advertising collective known as Traktor.  Kresk (Steve Zahn) is a down-on-his-luck barber whose wife just divorced him when into his shop walks Avnet (Jeff Goldblum).  Kresk overhears Avnet talking on his cell, admitting that he's the one who robbed the museum the night before, killing two guards and stealing the precious Ming dynasty coins known as the Shiny New Enemies.  Avnet tries to kill Kresk, but through the power of slapstick Kresk gets the upper hand and puts a pair of scissors through Avnet's neck.  Kresk gets help hiding the body from his friend Andy (David Cross) and the two of them steal the Shiny New Enemies for themselves.  Meanwhile, the plot thickens with the introduction of Salma Hayek as Detective Kolko, who's investigating the theft of the coins and falls in love with Kresk, Elijah Wood shows up as Mikey, a teenage hitman who really just wants to make new friends, Paulie, an illiterate mob boss, and Kresk's terrible nephew who promptly swallows the coins.

The characters in the film all seem like suggestions from an improv comedy game, which may also speak to Traktor's history in very short film.  Steve Zahn's a suicidal barber, and if you replaced all his lines with "aw, shucks," the story wouldn't change much.  Salma Hayek's the cop who was also appeared in Playboy.  David Cross wears a "Timber Scouts" uniform throughout the movie, and when we first see him it's at the Timber Scouts store he owns, where he berates a child to tears for not knowing how to tie a box knot before ripping merit badges off the kid's chest.  Oddly enough, suicide is a prominent theme throughout the movie.  A couple main characters attempt to kill themselves, and it turns out that pretty much everyone had at least one parent take their own life, which makes for a really awkward romantic dinner scene.  But through the power of friendship, love, and murdering a bunch of criminals, they all live happily ever after. 

The film has a lot of memorable characters, but it's so packed with them that we don't really get as much as we'd like for most of them. Kresk and Det. Kolko's relationship is completely out of nowhere and unbelievable (e.g. "You seem like a nice guy.  And your parents killed themselves?  So did my dad!  I'm in love with you now.") The characters that we get a lot of are two-dimensional, and are probably better suited to sketch comedy than a feature film.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

The Cross-Section:

Cross, with his history in sketch comedy, is a lot of fun whenever he's onscreen, given his wacky character.  

Unfortunately, there are large gaps where the character is not present.

Screentime: ★★★☆☆

Character/performance: ★★★★☆

Small Soldiers (1998) - David Cross #6

When I mentioned this movie to my brother, he described it as "the first PG-13 VHS our grandma bought for us."  I probably haven't seen this since before I was ten.  The plot is that a toy company puts DoD weapons intelligence chips into toys, one a set of bizarre looking, but kind and cowardly aliens (the Gorgonites), and the Commando Elite, a set of soldiers that tell us what GI Joe would look like with R Crumb as artistic director.

Alan Abernathy (Gregory Smith) is a troubled teen whose dad owns an old fashioned toy store in a small town.  Alan's watching the store, and convinces the delivery guy to give him a set of the new action figures, despite his dad's ban on "war toys."  He befriends his neighbor's daughter, Christy (Kirsten Dunst), who wants to buy one of the soldier toys for her little brother.  The toys start fighting each other after the store closes, wrecking the place.  It's up to Alan to save the Gorgonites and stop the Commando Elite, whose methods quickly shift into Child's Play territory. 

There are four credited writers, and it shows.  On the one hand, there's the adventure plot of protecting the good toys from the bad toys, which gets way too dark for a PG kids movie, but doesn't allow itself to get as dark as would make sense.  There's an attempt to be overtly political, not only with the bad guys being caricatures of the military, but at one point, the lead soldier, Chip Hazard, stands in front of an American flag puzzle, and starts reciting the opening speech from Patton, quickly descending into a jingoistic mishmash of patriotic quotes (e.g. "Ask not what your country can do for you, but regret that you only have one life to give.")  At other times it tries to take on a cultural obsession with technology, or the rise of corporations over small businesses, etc.  None of these really pan out as well as they could have if the writers stuck to fully developing one theme rather than trying to tackle as many as possible.

If you watched the clip, you may have recognized Tommy Lee Jones' voice.  This movie has a surprisingly high profile cast.  Besides an early in her career Kirsten Dunst, there's Denis Leary and Phil Hartman, with voice work by not only Jones, but Frank Langella, Ernest Borgnine, Bruce Dern, Harry Shearer, George Kennedy, Cristopher Guest, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Christina Ricci.

Also, David Cross is in it.

Cross has a bigger part in this than many of the previous films,like Men in Black, where he had only one scene.  Wait a second.  Small Soldiers is about a group of elite soldiers bent on fighting an alien population, with the soldiers being led by Tommy Lee Jones, which is kind of like Men in Black.  Now that I think about it, there's a daisy chain from all Cross's movies up to this point.

In Destiny Turns on the Radio, he's an agent to a singer named Lucille.  In The Truth About Cats & Dogs, his only line is as a pet owner concerned about his dog, named Lucille.  He only appears on screen briefly, standing next to Bob Odenkirk.  In The Cable Guy, both Janeane Garofalo and Bob Odenkirk have appearances.  Cross's only line in that movie is "Oklahoma," where he's referring to the musical, not the state.  The next movie is Waiting for Guffman, about the production of a musical about small town Missouri, in which Cross plays "UFO Expert," which directly ties in to Men in Black, which ties into Small Soldiers.  

Let's see how far down the rabbit hole this line of reasoning will take us in future reviews/

Men in Black (1997) - David Cross #5

or, Across the Universe

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld

Runtime: 98 Minutes         

Look, it's Men in Black, we've all seen it.  Will Smith (Agent J) is an NYPD officer who gets tapped by Tommy Lee Jones (Agent K) to join the top secret agency dedicated to monitoring and regulating all alien life on Earth.  When a giant space bug comes to Earth, he instigates a potential war with another alien civilization, who threaten to destroy the Earth unless the men in black can recover a mysterious object known only as "the galaxy."

David Cross plays the hapless morgue attendant who runs afoul of the bug.

I was really worried that Men in Black wouldn't hold up, but I'm happy to say that it's aged incredibly well.  The filmmakers realized the limits of CGI, and did great work within those limits, while making great use of practical effects as well.

I feel bad because I don't think I have anything really interesting to say about Men in Black, besides some bits of trivia, like that it's one of the first big hits based on a Marvel comic series.  Anyway, here's the promotional music video:

Waiting for Guffman (1996) - David Cross #4

Waiting for Guffman is the second in a series of mockumentaries written and/or directed by Christopher Guest, starting with This Is Spinal Tap! (1984), followed by Waiting for Guffman (1996), Best in Show (2000), A Mighty Wind (2003), and For Your Consideration (2006).  Christopher Guest stars in this one as Corky St. Clair, a flamboyant former Broadway actor who had moved to the small town of Blaine, Missouri, and is tasked with writing/directing a new play for the town's sesquicentennial celebration.  The cast is comprised of local amateurs (and frequent Christopher Guest collaborators), Dr, Pearl, the dentist (Eugene Levy), Dairy Queen waitress Libby Mae Brown (Parker Posey), and husband and wife travel agents, Ron and Shiela Albertson (Fred Willard and Catherine O'Hara).  The style is semi-improvised, and usually played dead-pan in only the way people like Levy and Willard can play it.  We also get little glimpses of what life in Blaine is like, which is where we get our scene with David Cross, a UFO Expert.

Among Blaine's major accomplishments is having been the first city to have a UFO sighting, and as Cross tells us, the landing site is interesting because it's a circle whose diameter and circumference change, but the radius always remains the same.

The eponymous Guffman is a broadway big shot who is going to attend the premiere of "Red, White & Blaine," and, if they're lucky, take the show to Broadway.  Of course, the play is hilarious (for all the wrong reasons), the actors are awful. Blaine itself, the Stool Capital of America, was founded by a group of a group of settlers heading for California, whose leader convinced them that a random spot in Missouri was right off the Pacific coast.  One hundred and fifty years later, many of the performers are still trying to get to California, and Hollywood in particular.  Perhaps it's this sense that nothing ever happens in Blaine that makes the title of the film so fitting.  The townspeople in Waiting for Guffman, have, in some ways, the same sense of pointless and endless waiting as the characters in Waiting for Godot.  And, as opposed to, say, This is Spinal Tap!, there is real heart here, and despite their wackiness, you can't help having a lot of sympathy for the characters.

I'd recommend all of Guest's mockumentaries, and Waiting for Guffman is no exception.

Rating ★★★★☆

The Cable Guy (1996) - David Cross #3

or, Getting Our Wires Crossed

Director: Ben Stiller 

Runtime: 96 minutes

The Cable Guy has a checkered history.  Depending on who you ask, it's a massively underrated cult classic, or a complete failure.  It was a failure only in the sense that it fell far short of expectations, especially after Carrey's record setting salary (the first time an actor got a $20 million paycheck).  It still made money, but wasn't as big a success as his previous films like Ace Ventura, Dumb & Dumber, or The Mask.  This is probably because Carrey's character here is much darker than in those movies.  He plays the titular Cable Guy, Ernie "Chip" Douglas, who befriends Steven Kovacs (Matthew Broderick).  Steven and his girlfriend, Robin (Leslie Mann), have separated after Steven proposed.  Steven rents an apartment and his best friend, Rick (Jack Black), suggests he bribe the cable guy for free premium channels. Chip agrees and then tries to become Steven's best friend, taking him on a road trip to a broadcasting satellite. Chip is in every way the over-the-top cartoonish Jim Carrey character, but here his powers are used for evil, as he starts to manipulate Steven's friends and family while further insinuating himself into Steven's life.  

This is... funny, I guess?

To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the Jim Carrey school of comedy.  There are a lot of scenes that are funny in his hyperkinetic way, but I think I agree with Doug Walker's conclusion that it is a dumb comedy, albeit a rather clever dumb comedy.  Carrey is legitimately creepy, but I don't think he really carries the movie by himself.  Broderick is bland, and we never learn anything about any of the other characters.  We know absolutely nothing about Robin, for example.  In one scene, she is on a terrible date with Owen Wilson, who comes off as an arrogant prick.  When he's done talking about himself, he asks her what she does for a living, only to immediately excuse himself to the restroom, promising that he is "really interested."  We never find out what Robin does for a living. We actually know more about Steven's brother (Bob Odenkirk), who is only in one scene and is otherwise completely inessential to the plot.  Odenkirk isn't the only link with The Truth About Cats & Dogs, as Janeane  Garofalo has a cameo as Medieval Times waitress.

Pictured: the most unlikely Hawthorne reference in cinematic history

Cross's role is extremely brief here as well, Credited as Sales Manager, he plays Steven's work friend, who's only line is laughingly repeating a single word from a pitch Steven makes to their boss.

"Oklahoma" - Cross's only line in the movie

The Cable Guy has aged pretty well, and I like it more than other "wacky" Carrey movies, because at least here he's supposed to come across as creepy and awkward.  Don't get me wrong, I loved Carrey's performances in The Truman Show, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Man in the Moon.  I just don't like this style of Carrey comedy because it always comes across as all style no substance, what's the weirdest face he can make or how much can he exaggerate this movement.  This works great in small doses (like an SNL sketch), but it's never been enough to get me through a feature length film on its own.

So, if you like Carrey's early comedy, you'll like The Cable Guy.  Otherwise, it has a bunch of good moments, but I don't think it works as a whole.

Next week, the Christopher Guest mockumentary, Waiting for Guffman (1996)

The Truth about Cats & Dogs (1996) - David Cross #2

or, At Cross Purposes

Director: Michael Lehmann

  Runtime: 97 minutes              

I'll start by saying I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. Garofalo plays Abby Barnes, a witty veterinarian with a daily radio show titled "The Truth About Cats and Dogs." During the course of a broadcast, a listener, Brian, (played by Ben Chaplin) calls in because he's put a dog in roller skates for a photoshoot, and the dog is just not having it.  Abby helps him out and charms him in the process, leading him to call the studio to ask her out on a date.  Through a comic misunderstanding, Brian is led to believe that Abby's neighbor Noelle (Uma Thurman) is Abby, and Abby is a friend named Donna.  The main romantic plot is pretty by the book: they both develop feelings for Brian (to different degrees), Brian is mystified and the lead man's best friend stock character (played by Jamie Foxx) dutifully reminds him that "he's thinking with his brain too much," Brian eventually discovers the truth, but ends up with Abby because it's a romantic comedy.  

This isn't a great movie, but it's above average, because Garofalo and Thurman are actually interesting characters.  Despite the truly terrible trailer, which seems to suggest that Abby's problem is being too assertive or having high standards, the fact is she's incredibly insecure about her appearance, while Noelle, an exploited ingenue, is insecure about her intelligence. It's the relationship between these two women, and the way they develop, that makes this movie anything more than completely forgettable.  (Nothing against Ben Chaplin, but he's the blandly perfect rom-com stereotype: handsome, artistic, sensitive, and British.  I guess Hugh Grant was busy when they were casting for this film.)  A lot of the jokes are actually funny, and there's a definite charm from the leads.   That said, I can understand why Garofalo hates the movie, and why a lot of people like it.  Roger Ebert, who gave it 3.5 out of 4 stars, wrote: "Of course all movies like this toy a little with the odds. The movie is based upon the presumption that Garofalo is not pretty, and of course she is."
Ebert completely misses the point.  The point isn't that Garofalo is or isn't pretty, it's that she feels ugly because she's surrounded by images of women like Thurman, because a cosmetics saleswoman berates her and reduces her to tears so she can make a sale.  Garofalo points out that this was intended as a small budget indie-movie, but only later became big budget and commercialized, and this is evident. The aspects that make this movie above average are cut short to make room for more of the main romantic plot, and plenty of other 90s mainstream silliness.  The film compromises.  It stops shy of making the points it's aiming towards as an indie film, because mainstream rom-com viewers don't want politics, and you can only mention Simone de Beauvoir to show how intelligent someone is, but actually discussing her philosophy would be boring.  It keeps some of its integrity, Abby and Noelle don't devolve into Jerry Springer-style "She stole my man!" cat-fighting, but are consistently there for each other.  Their relationship is far more interesting than either of their relationships with Brian.  As Garofalo also points out in an interview, the movie was originally going to end with Abby not getting the guy, which make sense, because her whole character arc is about establishing her own sense of self-worth and getting the guy is secondary to this development, but, in the final product, getting the guy is what creates her self-worth. 

 It's an above average movie, but it could have been a great movie.  As for recommendations, if you want to watch a romantic comedy, The Truth about Cats & Dogs is a good choice.

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As to the putative reason for these reviews, David Cross, his role is extremely brief.  He's a call in guest on the radio show, a man whose dog, Lucille, has a cold. (Coincidentally, in Destiny Turns on the Radio, Cross played an agent representing a singer named Lucille.)  He also has a brief background cameo with Bob Odenkirk as Bookstore Man.

They're on screen for about ten seconds, nine of which are spent directly behind Thurman and Garofalo.    

Next week: The Cable Guy (1996)