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.

-----------------------

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)

1996: The Runaway Jury by John Grisham

The Author:

John Grisham (1955-    ) was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, the son of a construction worker. At the age of twelve, his family moved to Southaven, Mississippi.  He graduated with a B.S. from Mississippi State University in 1979.  He passed the Mississippi Bar exam in 1981, and received his J.D. from the University of Mississippi.  In 1981, he married Renee Jones, with whom he had two children.

Grisham began a successful law practice in 1981, starting in criminal law, and moving to more lucrative civil law.  In 1984, he was elected to the Mississippi State House of Representatives, a position he held in addition to running his law practice.  A case he witnessed while in the state legislature led him to write his first novel, A Time to Kill (1989).  He had trouble finding an agent and publisher.  He eventually found both, and a limited run of 5,000 copies was printed of his first novel.  In 1990, Grisham resigned from his position on state legislature and retired his practice.  In 1991, Doubleday published his second novel, The Firm.  It was a massive commercial success, as were his third and fourth novels, The Pelican Brief (1992) and The Client (1993).  His fourth book, The Chamber (1994) is the first of eleven novels to become the number one annual bestselling novel in the U.S.

Since 1989, Grisham has published a total of 28 novels, four children's books, and a work of non-fiction.  His family splits its time between homes in Oxford, Mississippi, Charlottesville, Virginia, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina.  Grisham also serves as a board member on the Innocence Project.  

The Book:

1st edition cover

Length: 401 pages

Subject/Genre:litigation/legal thriller

In typical Grisham fashion, The Runaway Jury focuses on a trial in Mississippi, in this case, a product liability suit in Biloxi against the Pynex tobacco company.  Like his previous novel, The Rainmaker, this is a story of an unpopular, corrupt, and powerful organization being fought down in the courtroom.  As you might expect, the tobacco companies are in cahoots to prevent a plaintiff´s verdict, fearing future litigation, and they don't play by the rules.  The lavishly funded Rankin Fitch does all there dirty work outside the court.  But in this case, something else is afoot.  One juror, who goes by the name Nicholas Easter, isn't who he says he is.  And with outside help from the mysterious Marlee, it's clear he's setting himself up to swing the jury whichever way he wants.  But whether for profit or private motivation is unknown...

A little context.  I've frequently compared Grisham novels to episodes of Law & Order, and this included the ripped-from-the-headlines premises.  Tobacco litigation was reaching a peak in the 1990s, with not only individuals, but states suing the tobacco industry.  In 1994, Mississippi became the first of over 40 states to sue the manufacturers for health care costs incurred by the state.  And, as opposed to the individual cases, the states were having a good degree of success in the courts.  In an interesting sidenote, two years after The Runaway Jury  was published, the tobacco industry and the U.S. government entered the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.  In essence, the tobacco companies pay billions to the states and fund some anti-smoking non-profits, meanwhile the states don't sue and private lawsuits against the tobacco companies become more difficult.

I have trouble reviewing Grisham novels because they're always pretty much what they appear on the surface.  It's like reviewing an episode of CSI, where the only meaningful yardstick is other episodes of the same or similar shows.  Grisham is entertaining, easy and quick to read, and you know exactly what you´ll get going in.  Curled up on a bunk bed in Rome with a bad cold, Grisham was a good choice.  But I feel like I keep having to reiterate that he keeps approaching interesting questions and grand themes but always stops short and doesn't actually explore them at all.  The plot of The Runaway Jury would be great for discussions about things like the difference between legal justice and moral justice, and whether corruption can fight corruption.  But of course this is left to the reader as an exercise.  

The Runaway Jury was adapted for the screen in 2003.

"Drop the 'the.'  It's cleaner."

The films starred Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, John Cusack, and Rachel Weisz.  It also replaces the cigarette companies with gun manufacturers. 


Anyway, as I think I'll be repeating a lot in the upcoming reviews, if you want something light and entertaining, feel free to read a Grisham novel.  If not, don't.  Also, go watch Thank You for Smoking.

Bestsellers of 1996:

1. The Runaway Jury by John Grisham

2. Executive Orders by Tom Clancy

3. Desperation by Stephen King

4. Airframe by Michael Crichton

5. The Regulators by Stephen King

6. Malice by Danielle Steel

7. Silent Honor by Danielle Steel

8. Primary Colors by Anonymous

9. Cause of Death by Patricia Cornwell

10. The Tenth Insight by James Redfield 

Also Published in 1996:

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding

A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

Sources:

Grisham, John. The Runaway Jury. New York: Doubleday, 1996. Print.