Musings from Brian J. Noggle

This twenty-year-old Dennis Miller live comedy video from 2003 is mostly interesting as an artifact. I mean, I like Dennis Miller and all (I can’t believe that I’ve only reviewed Ranting Again during the lifetime of this blog, but I read The Rants in 1996 and I listened to other things as audiobooks before I started writing them up as well). But I think part of Dennis Miller’s appeal, at least to me, is a bit of snob appeal–he makes a lot of clever allusions to classical works, and I chuckle to hear them.

But his humor is very topical and based on contemporary events. This show was filmed in Chicago, and the biggest responses it got were about getting ready to invade Iraq and a joke about the child sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church. Twenty years on, though, they’re not as fresh.

I have to wonder if I would appreciate this standup routine better as a book, but I’m not sure a single standup routine is enough for a whole book.

I got this film in February, and I watched it when it was amongst the latest and greatest haul. However, the February haul has been supplanted by the box load from the Friends of the Springfield-Greene County Library Book Sale over the weekend, so I will likely start in on those before I finish the ones I bought in February.

At any rate, Sideways is a Paul Giamatti film. His name is above the title. I’ve always been a fan of Paul Giamatti–I remember him from The Truman Show and probably The Negotiator, but suddenly it seemed like he was in everything. But this is the only film I recall him in the starring role.

Giamatti plays Miles, a divorced man who is a writer and a wine and food enthusiast who takes his college roommate Jack on a week-long trip to wine country before Jack’s wedding. Jack is a philanderer and a scallawag, a bit shallow, but Miles is not an unblemished character either–his marriage collapsed due to his affair, and he starts the trip by visiting his mother to wish her happy birthday and to “borrow” (he probably thinks) some cash from her reserves. When they reach wine country, Jack sees that a waitress, played by Virginia Madsen, is into Miles, and he (Jack) arranges a double date when he picks up a winery pourer (played by Sandra Oh).

The relationships progress, but Miles learns that Jack has invited his ex-wife and her new man to the wedding, so he goes into a bit of a tailspin. Meanwhile, Jack’s relationship with Stephanie progresses as well even though Jack is supposed to be getting married in a couple of days–but he declares his love for Stephanie and their planned life together. One gets the sense that he means it, too, just like he means everything in the moment. When Miles lets slip they have to go to a rehearsal dinner, Maya tell Stephanie, and everything is off, but Jack has time for one last fling with another waitress before they return with a cover story explain his broken nose (having it broken by a jilted woman swinging a motorcycle helmet would not do).

The film is most notable for having damaged the merlot industry for a few years (and boosting the pinot noir varietal), but could be secondly noted for having two fully naked sex scenes in it. Miles walks in on both, and I’m sure this is a commentary on his lack of a relationship since his marriage and perhaps a comment on modern relationships as neither is a particularly Biblically sanctioned coupling. But give how few boobs one sees in action and comedy films these days, it was a little strange. Perhaps that’s because it’s a serious movie, where such things are allowed.

At any rate, a good film, a thoughtful film, and I am sure it would have hit me in a different chord if I’d watched it when I was 30 years old and fancied myself a struggling writer (about the time the film came out, I, too, was trying to place a book). But I’m twenty years older than that, and I’m a little calmer these days. So I did not identify with Miles as much as I might have.

Virginia Madsen appeared in this film. I mentioned Electric Dreams, a film that was an early role for her, last month. So perhaps I am on a Virginia Madsen kick.
Continue reading “Movie Report: Sideways (2004)” →

This is a 1988 film directed by Roman Polanski, filmed in France obvs because if he filmed in the United States he’d be arrested if he did. Harrison Ford stars as a doctor whose wife is murdered (sorry, wrong movie) disappears from their hotel room in Paris. She’d had trouble opening her suitcase, and when a call came in, she walked out while he was taking a shower. Did she leave willingly or was she taken? The search leads him to believe that it’s the latter. Then the doctor comes across a woman whose bag the wife mistakenly took from the airport. So it’s like 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag but in Paris, and ponderous because it’s directed by an auteur.

They discover that the woman whose bag the wife had taken was not smuggling drugs as she had thought but instead had a MacGuffin, and rival governments were after it. Once they get a hold of it, they exchange it for the wife, the government agents vying for the MacGuffin engage in a shootout, and all ends mostly well.

I don’t feel bad about giving a bit of a spoiler alert there because if you’re going to watch this film, you’re watching it because you’re a big fan of Harrison Ford even though some of his film choices are questionable and didn’t age well. Or you’re a fan of Roman Polanski. Or maybe just a fan of the Barenaked Ladies, who did their bit to keep this film’s cultural relevance in 1998.

But not high on my list of recommendations.

I watched the original film last month, and when I spotted this film in February at the antique mall, I picked it up. And popped watched it relatively quickly by Nogglestead standards.

Well, if you liked the first one (which I really didn’t as it’s more of a modern R-rated comedy and not to my taste) then you’ll like this one as it’s pretty much the same story. This time, the “wolf pack” travels to Thailand for Stu’s wedding (which is not to Heather Graham’s prostitute from the first film–ah, how fleeting is drunken love!). And this time, they don’t lose the groom: They lose the brother of the Lauren, the bride, played by Jamie Chung. And they again have to recreate the events of their blackout night. Which somehow again includes Mr. Chow, played by Ken Jeong, and an appearance by Mike Tyson.

Well, it wasn’t a terribly long movie, and it ended. I didn’t get much out of it. And it is unlikely that I will watch the third part of the film. Unless I can find a copy for fifty cents. After all, Heather Graham appears in it, and Jamie Chung reprises her role, presumably as the wife this time.

Continue reading “Movie Report: The Hangover Part II (2011)” →

You might remember hearing about this George Clooney football movie. I am not sure how many people saw it. When you come right down to it, you could say that about a lot of George Clooney movies: You’ve heard of it, but you’ve not seen it. He made some interesting selections at the peak of his movie bankability: Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Men Who Stare At Goats, Syriana, Solaris–sometime after 2000, he decided his name alone could bring people in, and I guess it did, but not many. Although, to be honest, I guess I have seen a number of those in the theater, so perhaps I am speaking here without data to back it up (a blogger, abstracting incorrectly? Heaven forfend!).

At any rate, it’s probably best to not think of this as a football movie or a football comedy but more around the drama of the logistics of having a professional football team in the early part of the 20th century. Clooney plays Dodge, a player/coach for a fictional Duluth professional football team struggling to remain solvent as they barnstorm the Midwest to play other teams in similar situations. When the team goes under, Dodge convinces a college star and recently returned World War I hero (Carter Rutherford, played by John Krasinski) to play for his team to draw people into the stands–even though the team doesn’t really exist. As they start attracting crowds, a female reporter played by Renée Zellweger is investigating whether Carter’s war exploits were oversold.

So the focus is not on the playing of the football but rather the off-field antics as Dodge woos Lexie, the reporter, and tries to keep the plates of running the football team spinning.

So although it’s a comedy, like The Men Who Stare At Goats and Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? (I admit twice I added the appropriate second comma to that title, but that would be [sic]), it’s amusing in spots at best and that’s about it. Perhaps Clooney would indicate it’s too sophisticated for me. Perhaps he would be correct.

The war story, though, I recognize that as based on Sergeant York’s story, which was believed initially and then doubted for a time as more skeptical generations arose but has more recently been sort of verified. Although Carter’s story of his battle differs–he awakens from a drunken stupor to find he’s behind a German advance and captures a bunch of them from there–one can see the influence. I guess I’m not sophisticated enough to celebrate tearing down icons, even fictional ones. (As a reminder, I watched Sergeant York with Gary Cooper in 2020 and read Sergeant York: His Own Life Story and War Diary last year).

At any rate, I don’t know if I will rewatch this DVD, but I can if I want. Which is unlike football comedies like Necessary Roughness and The Waterboy which are more comedic and more focused on the football qua football.

As a closing thought, I have to wonder if George Clooney got the sense that he was a modern Cary Grant–I know some press compared him to the black-and-white star back in the day. But Grant’s comedies, such as His Girl Friday and even The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, are funny. Or maybe just funny to people steeped in the tropes of black-and-white. Who can laugh at the jokes at Shakespeare and Jonson without reading the footnotes first. By whom, I probably mean me. And, for the record, I have never considered going Clooney.

I popped in this film after I read somewhere–I forget where–I am sorry!–that they’re making a television series based on the A.J. Quinell book from which this movie is based. As I doubt modern movie makers actually read books, I assume they’re making it from the ideas expressed in this film. So I thought I would give it a watch. Which I can do now since it’s almost twenty years old and hence an old movie.

In it, Denzel Washington plays a disolute, dissipated mercenary with a drinking problem who travels to Mexico to visit a friend (played by Christopher Walken) and to interview for a position as a bodyguard for a wealthy family: the son who inherited the family business and an American woman. The bodyguard will mostly be responsible for keeping the daughter safe, as kidnapping wealthy children for ransom is a thriving business. When the girl is taken, he vows revenge on anyone involved and starts tracking the criminals and killing them.

So the plot moves along as Creasy, the mercenary, climbs up the ladder towards the mastermind behind it, the leader called The Voice because all he only communicates through the phone. The film has enough to keep you guessing, but relies a bit much on montages.

Not a bad action film. I’ve got the book around here somewhere, and maybe I’ll pick it up sometime.

This is an 1992 John Woo film from Hong Kong action genre. To be honest, I’m not that familiar with the genre, and I’m not enough of a poseur to get into it to impress others. I will pick them up here and there when I can find them for a buck or two, but as I mentioned when I bought this film in February, that’s becoming rare as DVD prices are starting to creep up.

At any rate, the film deals with a police inspector, “Tequila,” played by Chow Yun-fat, who is working to take down a big gangster and arms dealer in the city. He encounters an up-and-coming hardman who is manipulated into killing his boss and joining up with another up-and-coming mob boss. This fellow, played by Tony Leung Chiu-wai, turns out to be an undercover agent, and they work together to take down the arms dealer who hides his weapon cache in a hospital. Which leads to numerous almost cartoonish action sequences, although they were filmed with practical effects and not green-screened and then CGIed to death.

So it was an alright film, something I would expect to have seen on cable, and not a spectacle that it would have been in 1992 in Hong Kong, perhaps.

Speaking of spectacles, the film features a brief appearance by Hoi Shan-Lai as a librarian at the scene of a hit:

I am not sure of the actual translation, but I believe that is Mandarin for Velma.

She did not appear in many films, so I didn’t see many pictures of her on the Internet to make this a full beneath-the-fold feature.

ADDENDUM: I did not draw into stark relief something that I wanted to point out with this review: This film was produced in a free Hong Kong, and that might account for some of the thematic difference between this film and mainland Chinese and Hong Kong films after the handover–Kung Fu Yoga, Shanghai Knights, Hero, and Legend of the Fist come to mind. In this film, the bad guys are not Westerners trying to steal Chinese artifacts or treasure. This film has less propaganda in it and more universal themes where the protagonists and antagonists happen to be Chinese in extraction. I wonder if those kinds of films get made in China or Hong Kong today. They certainly haven’t hit the dollar DVD market in Springfield, Missouri, if they have.