10 Movie Characters Revived Via SNL By Their Original Actors

For no other reason than to take a break from reviews of the all the prestige Oscar bait out there I decided it was time for another patented Film Babble Blog list. Enjoy!

It’s interesting that some actors stay away from reprising their best known roles when Saturday Night Live comes a-calling. In the 2 times Robert De Niro hosted there were no appearances by Travis Bickle (TAXI DRIVER), Jake La Motta (RAGING BULL), Max Cady (CAPE FEAR) or even deluded comedian Rupert Pupkin (THE KING OF COMEDY) who actually would lend himself nicely to a follow-up sketch. Sally Field even stressed in her monologue on her one time hosting gig that she would not be playing any past parts to the comical disappointment of Flying Nun, Gidget, and SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT fans (actually just one – Burt Reynolds as played by Phil Hartman). Many movie stars though have fearlessly stepped back into old shoes and reclaimed their iconic characters even if it’s just for the sake of satire. Here’s some of the best:

1. Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates from PSYCHO (March 13th, 1976) Perkins was the first actor to take on the role that made his name for a SNL sketch. It was a gutsy move because the part had him typecasted him for years but he slips back beautifully into Bates in a commercial parody entitled “The Norman Bates School Of Motel Management.” In his direct to the camera address he stutters, imitates (or channels) the voice of his mother, and gives us a quiz to see if we’re motel material: “Question One – A guest loses the key to her room. Would you: A: Give her a duplicate key. B: Let her in with your passkey. C: Hack her to death with a kitchen knife.” Silly, yes but Perkins playing Bates again later in 2 80’s sequels and a 90’s TV movie (yep, 3 more times) is much sillier.

2. Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia from STAR WARS * (Nov. 18th , 1978) Fisher, who also did the opening monologue in Leia garb, joined the cast as her most famous character in a Frankie Avalon/Annette Funicello beach movie parody entitled “Beach Blanket Bingo from Outer Space.” Frankie (Bill Murray) hits on the visiting Princess to Annette’s (Gilda Radner) chagrin while celebs such as Vincent Price (Dan Aykroyd) and Chubby Checker (Garrett Morris) make obligatory cameos. Her appearance is actually light years less embarrassing than on “The Star Wars Holiday Special” (broadcast just one day earlier by the way) in which she also insisted on singing a song for us. Most notable however is the sight of Leia in a gold bikini a full 5 years before RETURN OF THE JEDI.

* Still not calling it A NEW HOPE, damnit!

3. Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison from THE DOORS (Dec. 9th, 2000) Donning a wig, 60’s threads, and a perpetually stoned expression, Kilmer embodied the Lizard King one more time in a Behind The Music satire that centered on “Rock And Roll Heaven.” Morrison forms a band with other dead musical icons such as Jimi Hendrix (Jimmy Minor), Janis Joplin (Molly Shannon), Keith Moon (Horatio Sanz), Billy Holly (Jimmy Fallon), and as the announcer (real Behind The Music narrator Jim Forbes) reveals: “a Wild Card – Louis Armstrong (Tracy Morgan) on trumpet.” Morrison’s afterlife band called The Great Frog Society is soon the talk of Heaven, but offstage things were falling apart (Forbes stresses: “‘offstage things were falling apart”, is a registered trademark of VH1 and Behind the Music’”).

4. Glenn Close as Alex Forrest from FATAL ATTRACTION (Feb. 25th, 1989) This support group sketch actually takes place during the events of the 1987 infidelity suspense thriller. Close’s murderous stalker character shares her stories with her group members (Dana Carvey, Nora Dunn, Victoria Jackson, and Jon Lovitz) and therapist (Kevin Nealon) who of course are supremely disturbed by them. Portraying Alex as merely the victum of a one-night stand is an especially nice funny touch here considering, well, you know.

5. Elijah Wood as Frodo from THE LORD OF THE RINGS series (Dec. 13th, 2003) st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }
Gollum (Chris Kattan) interrupts Wood’s monologue to plug their new sitcom pilot featuring an Odd Couple (or more like Perfect Strangers) premise. As Wood describes it: “Basically, the idea is that, before they make it to Mordor, Frodo and Gollum decide to move to Denver and share an apartment together.” Of course, wackiness ensues.

6. Dennis Hopper as Billy from EASY RIDER * (May 23rd, 1987) Using actual footage of the ending to the New Hollywood classic, we see Billy and Wyatt’s (Peter Fonda) ultimate demise (that can’t possibly be a Spolier! at this point, can it?). Not so fast, with a “later that day” caption this sketch shows that Billy and Wyatt (now played by Dana Carvey) survived to get treated by a local Doc (Jon Lovitz) and even run into their lawyer friend George Hanson (Phil Hartman doing his best Jack Nicholson). Billy: “George, man, I thought you were dead, man!” George: Nah… just a bad hangover. I felt like I’d been whopped on the head with an ax handle. [ holds up bottle ] This stuff’ll ruin ya!” Billy: Yeah, man. I’ll take that [grabs and opens bottle].

* Incidentally on the same episode Hopper also played Frank Booth from BLUE VELVET in a game show parody called “What’s That Smell?”

7. Steve Buscemi as Mr. Pink from RESERVOIR DOGS (Oct. 15th 1994) In definitely one of the best sketches of a dreary season, John Travolta revisited his Sweathog roots in “Quentin Tarantino’s Welcome Back Kotter”. The sketch was overpopulated as an SNL sketch can be with all of the cast (including Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, Chris Elliot, Mike Myers, Janeane Garafolo, you get the picture) hamming it up but the finale involving a cameo from David Lander (Squiggy!) joining old Laverne And Shirley partner Michael McKean was greatly upstaged by Buscemi bursting in the doorway, gun raised and fitting sophomoric put-down ready: “Up your hole with a mellow roll!”

8. Richard Dreyfuss as Roy Neary from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (May 13th, 1978) One of the first to mock his own character and film while it still played in theaters, Dreyfuss again put on the worn bathrobe of the alien obsessed Neary who now comes to believe the Coneheads are the source of his implanted visions. The sketch (“Clone Encounters Of The Third Kind”) ends, like the film did, with Neary leaving earth with his new intergalactic friends.

9. Tim Robbins as Bob Roberts from BOB ROBERTS (Oct. 3rd, 1992) Another appearance that occurred when the character in question was still on the big screen, Robbins’ conservative folk singing candidate was on hand for a sketch entitled: “Bob Roberts Book Burning.” It was a funny premise – Roberts burning books while singing about free expression but its place on the program was incredibly overshadowed by that week’s musical guest Sinead O’Connor who had free expression thoughts of her own * that night.

* For those of you who don’t know what I’m referring to – O’Connor, after an acapella version of Bob Marley’s “War”, tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II and yelled: “Fight the real power!” Audience silence and the prospect of the segment never being re-run was the result.

10. Robert Mitchum as Phillip Marlowe from THE BIG SLEEP (1978) and FAREWELL, MY LOVELY (1975) (Nov. 14th, 1987) This film noir satire called “Death Be Not Deadly” appropriately filmed in black and white gave the great Mitchum the chance to spoof his Private eye character and one of the conventions of the genre. Seemingly mistaken that his comments/narration is in voice-over when actually it’s Marlowe speaking aloud, he confuses and annoys his clients (Kevin Nealon, Jan Hooks). As funny as it is a fond tribute.

Okay! Of course there are others – both Mel Gibson and Danny Glover did their cop buddy characters in “Lethal Weapon 6” in 1987 (before there was even a LETHAL WEAPON 2) and Margot Kidder reprised Lois Lane while SUPERMAN was still flying high in 1979 so I’m sure there are many I’ve neglected but that’s what the comments below is for.

More later…

Charlie Kaufman’s Curse, A Downbeat Durham, & Tenacious D Gets Dissed

“Dramatic irony – it’ll fuck you every time.”
Dr. Jules Hibbert (Dustin Hoffman) STRANGER THAN FICTION

Okay, I promised some new release DVD reviews last so here goes :

STRANGER THAN FICTION (Dir. Marc Forster, 2006) When bland by-the-book IRS auditor Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) hears a disconnected voice narrating the mundane moments of his daily routine then foretelling his death, naturally a modern movie-goer would expect a full-out Ferrell freak-out. Well despite some yelling at the Heavens what we get is a questioning rational note-taking far-from-frantic Ferrell. The voice he hears belongs to Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson) a frazzled chain-smoking acclaimed author suffering writer’s block on how to kill off her latest main character that she is unaware actually exists. As a prisoner of an enforced narrative Ferrell enlists Literary professor Dr. Jules Hibbert’s (Dustin Hoffman) help. Hibbert breaks it down to purely a question of whether Crick is a character in a comedy or tragedy. At it’s core it’s a wake up and realize that you’re alive movie with Crick coming out of his self-created shell to declare his love for abrasive tattooed bakery shop owner Maggie Gyllenhall, shake off his dull routines, and even take up the guitar while trying to get to the heart of his daunting dilemma. Three years after David O. Russell’s I HEART HUCKABEES (that also featured Hoffman) was billed as an “existential comedy” and accused of ripping off the work of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (see below), STRANGER THAN FICTION pushes the existential envelope and the Kaufmanesque approach a little further. It’s not a case of “life imitating art” or vice versa – it’s more like life challenging art to a duel but eventually agreeing to a stalemate.

The look of the film is fitting – white-washed bare backgrounds of Ferrell’s sterile hotel room-looking apartment and his fluorescent lit workplace with cubicles and filing cabinets reaching back to infinity are contrasted with the clutter of Gyllenhall’s punk bakery and Hoffman’s wood-grain ragged book-filled university office. Spoon songs fill the soundtrack with the welcome exception of Wreckless Eric’s “Whole Wide World” which Ferrell woos Gyllenhall with as the first song he learns on the guitar. The supporting cast is spot-on as well – Queen Latifah as Thompson’s assistant, Tony Hale (Arrested Development – TV-series 2003-2006), Linda Hunt, and an almost unrecognizable Tom Hulce (AMADEUS, ANIMAL HOUSE, PARENTHOOD) as Ferrell’s chubby bearded touchy-feely office counselor. STRANGER THAN FICTION is a fine film but one that never really gets airborne. It’s highly likable even as it lumbers in a state of subdued surrealism but maybe, just maybe it should have freaked out a bit.

KAUFMAN’S CURSE

Nearly every review of STRANGER THAN FICTION calls attention to the influence of writer, producer, and soon to be director Charlie Kaufman who apparently is widely acknowledged as modern cinema’s reigning meta-movie master for his films BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, ADAPTATION, and ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. One particular phrase really stands out :

“Charlie Kaufman Lite” – Richard Corliss (TIME Magazine)

“Zach Helm’s Kaufman Lite script…” – Owen Gleiberman (Entertainment Weekly)

“A cutesy, Charlie Kaufman-lite exercise in magic unrealism.” – Peter Canavese (GROUCHO Reviews)

“Charlie Kaufman-lite but enjoyable nevertheless” – Bina007 Movie Reviews

Also in the same vein :

“a charming though problematic meta-movie in Charlie Kaufman mode” – Scott Tobias (Onion AV Club)

“Zach Helm’s screenplay has flagrant Charlie Kaufman (“Being John Malkovich,” “Adaptation”) overtones rocketing out of it that are impossible to ignore.” – Brian Ordoff (FilmJerk.com)

“Owes a considerable debt to the dual-reality-plane excursions of Charlie Kaufman” – Michael Phillips (Chicago Tribune)

And finally :

“Finally, a Charlie Kaufman movie for people who are too stupid to understand Charlie Kaufman movies.”
– Sean Burns (Philadelphia Weekly)

Congratulations Charlie Kaufman! You are now officially critical short-hand.

WELCOME TO DURHAM (Dir. Teddy Jacobs, 2006) This film isn’t listed on the IMDB (hence the lack of linkage here) and apparently Netflix doesn’t have many copies because after weeks of it being in my queue they informed me that it wasn’t available at their local shipping center and had to be sent from Worcester, MA. Funny since it’s a local interest documentary. Despite reading negative reviews I was anxious to watch this film because I lived in Durham albeit briefly. A very cheap production with harsh hissy sound and clumsy cuts, WELCOME TO DURHAM unfortunately dissolves from a history and social political lesson into hip-hop propaganda. Hard to understand interviews (a drinking game could be made out of all the times “y’know what I’m sayin’” is said) with gang members that show off their gun shot wounds as proudly as their tattoos dominate the overlong poorly structured narrative making for little balance. Only one white person is interviewed and he’s a cop.

One segment segues from recording studio footage to interviews with senior residents at the Imperial Barber Shop in the Hayti district with voice over narration by Christopher “Play” Martin* guiding us – “while the young cats in the hood are pushing ghetto music, the older cats in the hood are wondering what went wrong”. What’s wrong in this production is that the music from the preceding scene continues and the rap backing track detracts from the old timer’s facts and that’s just whacked! Sorry, all the free style in the film made me bust out that lame rhyme. An earnest effort is within and obviously Jacobs cares passionately about his subject but the implied premise that hip-hop can save Durham from itself is hardly convincing. Y’know what I’m sayin’?

* Of rap duo Kid N Play

TENACIOUS D THE PICK OF DESTINY (Dir. Liam Lynch, 2006) A friend of mine years ago (I believe upon the release of their first full length self titled album in 2001) said that he had determined that Tenacious D is funny “for about 11 minutes”. Certainly the case here the first 11 minutes including a mini rock opera in which Jables (Jack Black) escapes the rule of his oppressive father (Meat Loaf singing for the first time on film since ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW) and journeys to Hollywood to chase his musical dreams is pretty funny. After that we pretty much go through the movie motions with material that was better covered in their short sketch-films that aired in the late 90’s on HBO – indifferent open mic-night crowds, Sasquatch, the devotion of their only fan Lee (Jason Reed), and a never ending slew of bombastic though acoustic mock anthems.

Almost immediately after getting off the bus in LA Black meets Kyle Gass a long haired street musician with similar delusions of rock-star grandeur whom Black mistakes him for a guitar God. After being beaten up by the droogs from A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (played by a few of the Mr. Show guys – yep, it’s that kind of movie) on his first night in town Black is taken under Gass’s wing to be schooled in the ways of rock. Gass’s cover story of previous rock glory that Black worships at the altar at is soon blown and the narrative becomes a quest involving a sacred guitar pick made from one of Satan’s teeth.

The stoner slacker road-trip comedy genre is pretty cashed and so are the modern comedy conventions – obligatory supposedly surprise cameos (Ben Stiller, Tim Robbins, Dave Grohl as Satan), scatological gross-out humor, and even a car chase just for the sake of having a car chase proven by the soundtrack song “Car Chase City” blaring along. There will be hardcore fans of “the D” (as their fans call them) that will consider this a crude comic masterpiece that will become a cult classic in years to come but for the rest of us this is just a mediocre mix of BILL AND TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE and THIS IS SPINAL TAP. So as Spinal Tap lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel might say on the how-many-laughs meter this “goes to eleven”.

More later…

Subterranean Homesick Redux Blues

“If you want to laugh at a movie, may I recommend A DAY AT THE RACES starring the Marx Brothers, ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN starring Frankenstein, THE THIN MAN – William Powell and Myrna Loy, ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, BORN YESTERDAY – Broderick Crawford and Judy Holliday, Billy Wilder’s cross dressing classic SOME LIKE IT HOT and of course we can’t leave out Ben Stiller in ZOOLANDER. I hear they’re making a sequel.”
– Bob Dylan on his Theme Time Radio Hour – Laughter Edition (broadcast : 2/7/07)

Nice to have some comedy movie recommendations from Bob, isn’t it? On the occasion of a release of a new Special Edition DVD of D.A. Pennebaker’s ground breaking documentary of Dylan’s UK solo tour in 1965 – DON’T LOOK BACK I thought it was a good time to pay tribute to it’s immortal opening scene with a piece I call –

SUBTERRANEAN HOMESICK REDUX BLUES

Here are 5 homages/parodies/rip-offs of Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” short film (some call the first music video ever, but I’m not going there) with it’s card dropping, back alley in the broad-daylight basking, indifferent i.e. ‘cool’ posing put-offing, and funny word playing is a major pop-point of reference as evidenced here:

1. BOB ROBERTS (Dir. Tim Robbins, 1992)

In many ways Right-wing folk-singing Senatorial candidate Bob Roberts’s career obviously apes Bob’s (for example albums titled “The Freewheelin’ Bob Roberts” and “The Times Are Changin’ Back”) so it’s no surprise that the “Subterranean Homesick Blues” scene is satirized. Re-casting it as a glitzy pro-80’s corporate greed spectacle complete with Robert Palmer dancing girls and business men carrying bags of money is pure genius though. It’s the kind of song you could imagine Gordon Gekko rocking out to.

2. WEIRD AL YANKOVIC – “Bob” (Music Video-2003 ) At first glance this is like any old parody of black & white Ginsberg-era Dylan but when you realize that every card contains a palindrome it’s quite a clever treat. Some are quite funny – “Lisa Bonet ate no basil”, “a dog a panic in a pagoda”, “do nine men interpret? nine men I nod” and “oozy rat in a sanitary zoo”. Click on the the highlighted title and enjoy before YouTube removes it.

3. INXS – “Need You Tonight/Mediate” (Music video – 1987) In the “Mediate” bit of this double song video Michael Hutchence and fellow band members take turns tossing off stacks of cards with the mostly one-word lines to the song with the backdrop of some industrial lot on an overcast day. The ‘60’s revival of the 80’s was in full swing – witness the peace symbol t-shirt worn by Kirk Pengilly when he comes in to give a saxophone solo at the end.

4. CURIOUSITY KILLED THE CAT – “Misfit” (Music video – 1986) : Couldn’t find this on YouTube but pop-art God Andy Warhol himself fills Bob’s shoes and lends his particular brand of indifference to the card-dropping shtick. This time though in the popiest-artsiest sense the cards are blank! Maybe it’s pay-back for the time Warhol gave Dylan one of his paintings and Bob traded it for a couch. Ooops!

5. LOVE ACTUALLY (Dir. Richard Curtis, 2003) – Yep, even a rom com got in on the act. Mark (Andrew Lincoln) declares his hidden feelings for Juliet (Keira Knightley) by holding up and of course dropping cards that line-by-line (with some pictures) form a love letter. Okay, so – it’s not that subterranean…

More later…

R.I.P. Robert Altman (1925-2006)

“Retirement? You’re talking about death, right?”

– Robert Altman (1925-2006)

I just filled up my Netflix queue with Robert Altman movies I haven’t seen yet. I figured out that I’ve seen 15 of his 40 something films plus that Tanner ’88 Showtime series. Surprising to find that a number of notable movies of his are not available on DVD at the current time – BREWSTER MCCLOUD (1970) (which he often said was his favorite) , HealtH (1980) ,THIEVES LIKE US (1974) ,COME BACK TO THE 5 AND DIME JIMMY DEAN JIMMY DEAN (1982), Hell even his film debut THE DELINQUENTS (1957) is missing in action. Pretty shabby treatment for movies that are constantly being referred to in various online cinema forums as cult movies.

“What is a cult? It just means not enough people to make a minority.”
– Robert Altman

The first Altman movie that I remember seeing was POPEYE (1980). It was at the same theater that I work at part-time now – the Varsity. I was 10 and of course had no idea who Altman was. I learned as I grew older and saw his classic work (M*A*S*H, THE LONG GOODBYE, NASHVILLE among others) how uncharacteristic POPEYE was – Altman didn’t “sell out” by signing on to the ill-fated Robert Evans project but his trademark vision barely surfaced in the murk of that cartoon adaptation. Images from it clash greatly with memories of films from the same period – compare POPEYE to the sublimely confusing 3 WOMEN (1977) and it is almost impossible to process that it is the work of the same director.

Sometime in the last year I bought the Criterion Collection special edition of SHORT CUTS (1993) (my personal Altman favorite) but only in the last week did I sample the bonus material. In addition to the bonus disc of docs, deleted scenes and typical bells and whistle whatnot it came with a reprint of the 160 page book of the Raymond Carver short stories that the film was based on and was published when the film was first released. I had been saving the book for…I don’t know what but I actually read it and rewatched the movie now being able to pinpoint the sources and enjoyed it more than ever.

“Movies Now More Than Ever”
– Slogan for Griffin Mill’s (Tim Robbins) Studio in THE PLAYER (1992)

After watching the rest of the various extras – docs, deleted scenes, etc I lent the disc and the book to a literary-minded friend who works with me at the theater at the end of last week. No great cosmic significance here, just interesting to me that I had absorbed and passed on one of Altman’s greatest works just days before his passing.

It’s sad but fitting that PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION was Altman’s last movie. Its sad obviously because there will be no more films – seasons will come and go without his large cast revues and the circling cameras, overlapping dialogue, and insightful interplay. It’s fitting because he said in interviews that PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION was a film about death – the end of an era. Many other directors have adopted some of his techniques (though his stuff is in a satirically sillier vein Christopher Guest has been often compared to Altman – more on that and his new movie FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION in a future post) but nobody has really come close to what he did. So the man has retired but the extensive body of work he has left us with that I for one know will be discovering and re-discovering the rest of my days. He was right on the money when he once said :

“Filmmaking is a chance to live many lifetimes.”

More later…