Andie MacDowell and Drew Barrymore flee set of Bad Girls,
with director in hot pursuit
 
Bad Girls
Like everything else about Bad Girls, the title is so crushingly obvious, it’s hard to see it as even a single entendre. Perhaps the Michael Jackson meaning was intended in this tale of four tough hookers hee-hawing their way through the Old West That Never Was, but it’s safe to assume that Strong Women never even hit the conference table.
Something else hit the fan, however, when director Tamra Davis was fired and replaced by “feminist” Jonathan Kaplan (The Accused). The real controversy comes from contemplating what Davis could possibly have done to make her Girls badder. Chances are, it would have been lame, loose, and anachronistic in its own special way, but we could forget about that if this version didn’t give us so much time to think about more interesting things.
The film has the kind of awesome absurdity you’d expect from a high school play that suddenly landed $20 million to beef up its production. Above all, the feel of egregious amateurism is driven home by Madeleine Stowe, whose performance here as snake-skinning Cody Zamora throws any previously perceived talent into gloomy doubt. With her sway-backed swagger and frozen mouth, Stowe is so somberly self-important, she comes across like a robotic Clint Eastwood without wrinkles, humour, or vulnerability.
Is that a feminist prototype? It may seem contentious when Mary Stuart Masterson’s forgettable character discovers her land deed is worthless without her dead husband to claim it, but that impression is wiped away by the very next scene, in which another woman is rescued, John Wayne-style, by a stern-jawed cowboy (soulful Dermot Mulroney) backed by full Marlboro-music strings. Andie MacDowell’s southern belle is similarly nondescript, ending up in a bland marriage to a decent, stoical rancher (James LeGros). Neither embarrass themselves by approaching Stowe’s deep commitment to the wafer-thin script. Interestingly, the only woman to emerge from this mess with a shred of dignity is Drew Barrymore, who shrewdly plays her ornery, blond-vixen part as if it were the lead in a multimedia Guess? jeans ad campaign (you know, when Vanity Fair comes out on CD-ROM). When she’s captured by villains, led by nasty Kid Jarrett (spectacularly awful James Russo), she blithely calls them “pigs”, rolling her eyes more in disdain than apprehension.
Barrymore’s sense of trashy fun only serves to point up how deadly dull everybody else is feeling. Well, at least veteran character-man Robert Loggia, as Jarrett’s even meaner father, wallows loudly in some kind of Oedipus-Tex perversity that isn’t even on the page. Kaplan, however, thinks it’s all as pretty as an apricot sunset; his widescreen, hoof-pounding vision empowers everyone in sight... to behave like grade-A, no-logic morons. And of course, he never threatens what we already know: misterhood is powerful.
 
The Hudsucker Proxy
It’s obvious to both fans and detractors of Ethan and Joel Coen that those not-quite-lovable Minnesota brothers (responsible for Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Millers Crossing and Barton Fink) are creatures of utter artifice. But what art!
Each film has been more stylized than the last, and their marvelous new one, The Hudsucker Proxy is more homage than creation, owing its life to the depression-era populism of Frank Capra and Preston Sturges, and the screwball comedy of Howard Hawks. With its ornate, bulbous art direction, the $40-million Hudsucker, there are also modern nods to the self-enclosed fantasy world of Tim Burton, the anthropological detachment of Robert Altman, and the what-the-hell surrealism of David Lynch, with hints of Brazil and Bladerunner .
Some movie nuts will be tickled ecstatic by direct lifts from Meet John Doe and His Girl Friday, and others will say the originals can’t be improved on, so why try? Both have a point, but that will be lost on mainstream crowds just looking for a quick, easy fix. Not that there isn’t plenty of story here, as young Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) arrives in New York City, fresh from the Muncie College of Business Administration. He’s a cornfed optimist, with no experience but one odd ace up his sleeve... or shoe, actually: it’s a rumpled piece of paper with a plain circle drawn on it. “You know,” he explains, “for kids.”
This cryptic “invention” comes in handy when he shows up at Hudsucker Industries just as its founder (Charles Durning) plunges 45 stories (with mezzanine) to his death. Swallowed by the company’s voluminous mailroom, Norville emerges just as a venal vice-president with the (Groucho) Marxist name of Sidney J. Mussburger (Paul Newman) schemes to acquire power by driving the company’s stock down. He needs a proxy, a patsy, a chump, a fall-guy... You get the idea.
So does Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Amy Archer (Jennifer Jason Leigh, doing a vastly irritating riff on Katherine Hepburn), who cozies up to Norville long enough to figure out how lost he is. “Only a numbskull,” she barks at him, “thinks he knows thing about things he knows nothing about.” So there.
But he does know one thing, and his “extruded plastic dingus” turns into a runaway sensation when rechristened the Hula Hoop. Hudsucker shares fly through the ceiling, but Norville’s knowledge of geometry ends there, and he’s soon pulling a Gary Cooper on the office ledge.
Too bad the audience doesn’t care. As hilarious as Robbins is, especially when klutzing his way through the early scenes, there’s nothing really endearing about Barnes, or anyone else in this spectacular undertaking. The characters are mere stand-ins for charismatic leads and indelible second bananas from bygone, and implicitly better, years.
Oh well. The film is so beautifully crafted, from the burnished shadows cast by the huge gears, clocks, and circles which dominate the design (which picks up colour as it goes along), to the sound of a pencil rolling in an otherwise empty desk drawer, there’s more than enough to lap up with pleasure. Sure, emotion is scarce, and Newman and Leigh are problematic casting choices. But there’s a surplus of sight gags, breathtaking edits, brilliant digressions, brassy music and riveting cameos (Jim True stands out as the fast-talking elevator boy, and Peter Gallagher has a coolly bizarre walk-on as a jaded ’50s crooner).
And by setting their retro-epic in the Eisenhower-addled 1950s, the Coens have also created the ghostly gasp of a departed breed; you won’t see another movie this decade (or ever) where business boardmembers are all pig-pink males, and the only non-white face belongs to a Nurturing Negro named Moses, who keeps the clock going and tells the tale in soothing voice-over. It ain’t progress, but it’s swell.
 
Serial Mom
What does the failure to floss, recycle, or rewind your tapes have in common with impolite parking or wearing white after Labor Day? Well, any one of these social infractions (or less) can get you killed if Beverly Sutphin (Kathleen Turner) is around.
On the surface, she’s every inch “Beaver Cleaver’s mother”, as one policeman initially jokes, but there’s nothing funny about her private fixation on Charles Manson, Richard Speck, and other American anti-heroes. By the time her mild-mannered dentist-husband Eugene (Sam Waterston), boy-troubled daughter Misty (Ricki Lake), and horror-flick- addicted son Chip (Matthew Lillard) start to cotton on, Serial Mom has already begun to terrorize the suburbs. She quickly escalates from makes filthy calls to a nervous widow (Mink Stole) to planning the murder of a nosy neighbour (Mary Jo Catlett) with bad trash habits, and soon, the PTA is sorry she’s such an active member.
This might be a good time to remind everyone that Serial Mom is a film from John Waters, the Baltimore cult figure responsible for such non-PBS fare as Lust in the Dust and Multiple Maniacs, as well as such semi-mainstream fare as Hairspray and Cry-Baby. He’s certainly never had a budget this big before, and it’s a good thing he spent the best part of it (in both senses) on the star, who tackles her two-faced role with relish—and scissors, and knives, and fire-pokers, and an unforgettable leg of lamb.
Without Turner’s Breck-Girl-on-acid performance, the movie’s combination of low humour, bad writing, tepid set design, and realistic gore would be unpalatable indeed. As it is, Waterston has little to do but his best Dagwood imitation, and no-one else is particularly riveting, either.
Ultimately, I have no idea what Waters is trying to say about present-day America and its fixation on violent crime (That our subjugated rage needs some gladiatorial outlet? That we shouldn’t separate our garbage?). But it’s definitely funny. Especially when the film switches to Court-TV mode, and Beverly happily defends herself against multiple-murder charges. When Suzanne Somers shows up, as herself, ready to star in a Serial Mom movie package, or Patricia Hearst, as a sympathetic juror, argues (unsuccessfully) for fashion tolerance, the story seems to float on a sea of junky pop flotsam. And that’s just where Captain Waters—big budget or no—feels most at home.
 
Josh Charles and Lara Flyn Boyle squabble over shotgun,
while Stephen Baldwin drives
 
Threesome
Part cheeseball exploitation and part coming-of-age confessional, only the sincerity of Threesome offends—it’s Spring Break, dressed up as Dostoyevsky.
Set in an unspecified California college, the tale concerns a mixed-sex troika accidentally dorming together when stuffy paper-shufflers think curvy Alex (Twin Peaks’ Lara Flynn Boyle) is suitable roomate-material for bookish Eddy (Josh Charles) and obnoxious Stuart (Stephen Baldwin). Quick as you can say insufficient character development, Alex whips up a major pash for the “sexually ambivalent” Eddy, who’s slightly more responsive to Stuart’s relentlessly lewd antics.
They do discuss J.D. Salinger, and drama-major Alex acts in “a lesbian version of Oedipus Rex,” but the pleasantly tormented trio never seem to go to class. Well, Eddy does have that French Cinema course, but’s that’s just to let shlock-monger Andrew Fleming (Bad Dreams) refer blasphemously to Truffaut’s triangular classic, Jules and Jim. Anyway, that leaves them plenty of time for softcore hanky-panky, in various subsets, although they save the big three-way until almost the end, like some kind of salacious reward for sitting through long stretches of rudderless storytelling.
Jacked up with artsy camera angles and de rigeur jangly guitars, the film tries hard to be taken seriously, or at least to be thought of as daring. Despite some frank talk, though, Eddy’s homo-erotic odyssey is handled like a tepid sequel to The Wonder Years (Kevin’s Little Secret?).
What energy there is is provided by Baldwin. His campus-clinging character is unshakably idea-free, an ever-ready party animal who brings new meaning to term panty raid. More importantly, he states blunt thoughts with such brutal joy—“ever taken it up the ass?” is a passing conversational gambit for him—even the most reactionary audience recoils towards the sensitive Eddy (in the confrontational scheme of things, Stuart’ll do until an Australian comes along).
Boyle’s no Jeanne Moreau, but she’s not bad either, at least when she gets to drop the model ‘tude and show some comic flair. Charles is okay in a somewhat monotonous role. An Indecent Proposal for the Cliff’s Notes set, Threesome may be sleazy and slow-witted, but it won’t do any harm. As sexual preferences go, being turned into amiable trash is always a sure sign of mainstream acceptance.
 
The Paper
As we’ve come to expect from director Ron Howard (Far and Away, Backdraft), The Paper offers a lot of giddy enthusiasm for the mechanics of filmmaking and very little interest in the niceties of form, nuance, or depth of character.
Michael Keaton stars as Henry Hackett, the Michael Keaton-ish editor of a semi-sleazy tabloid called The New York Sun. Everything about this rag is implausible, from its name, to its extra-flexible deadlines, to the unaccountably posh street entrance which doesn’t quite jibe with the offices inside.
That’s also the architecture of the movie. It hinges on a supposed dilemma when Henry runs into a big story on the same day he’s set to interview for a cushy job at a New York Times-like “rival” (with an officious editor played wonderfully by Spaulding Gray). His massively pregnant wife (a one-note Marisa Tomei) is pushing hard for the security of the higher-paying gig. But as a reporter on leave, she also has ink in her veins, and can’t resist helping him find the scoop which sends him off and running in the opposite direction.
Get the picture? Almost everyone here is a bi-polar cartoon, set up with some nervous tic or rigid attitude, and then “humanized” by nice-guy Howard (and co-writing brothers Stephen and David Koepp — the latter was at least partially responsible for the flat language of Jurassic Park, Carlito’s Way, and Death Becomes Her). In what I pray is a parody of the basic corporate bitch, Glenn Close plays a tough-nosed, beige-suited managing editor (Fatal Redaction?) who warms up obligingly when good ol’ Henry finally tells her off. Then there’s Robert Duvall, puffing out his gut as the crusty, penny-pinching boss who’s really pining for the love of his daughter (awww).
At least slimmed-down Randy Quaid is allowed to get along with only one trait: he’s a hard-drinking reporter given to sleeping in the office and firing sidearms to calm down editorial meetings (in the U.S.A., that’s considered funny). Of the dramaturgical crop offered, only the bearded guy who complains about backpains and second-hand smoke is more believable.
Oh yeah, there’s some strained social relevance, since the drama involves a couple of black kids falsely charged for a racially motivated murder. But from the rote way it’s handled, this hot potato has even less steam than a subplot about a short-fused parking commissioner (Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander). The result is a storyline virtually without tension or momentum. Consequently, the director compensates by keeping the camera in constant, frequently pointless, motion; he has everyone scream their overlapping dialogue competitively, and pounds Randy Newman’s surprisingly inane score into already overloaded eardrums. The best 8-dollar headache around, The Paper is more evidence that Splash will likely stand as Ron Howard’s career pinnacle.
 
Major League II
It took five big years for director David S. Ward to rally the troops for this dutiful rehash of Major League. Well, most of the troops anyway. Wesley Snipes is now in the $5-million bullpen, and can’t be bothered with Roman numerals. In his place, as the
showboating Willy Mays Hayes, is Omar Epps, last seen in
  Ward’s football opus, The Program.
Cleveland Indians in a deeper rut are: Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn
(Charlie Sheen), with banker’s pinstripes and a bland haircut;
Roger Dorn (Corbin Bernsen), who owns the club but can’t get
up to bat; the absurdly accented Pedro Cerrano (Dennis
Haysbert, unrecognizable from his tête-a-tête with Michelle
Pfeiffer in Love Field), who has traded his voodoo for Buddhism;
paunchy manager Lou Brown (James Gammon), sagging in the
saddle; and catcher Jake Taylor (always-watchable Tom
Berenger), with bad knees and soulful mien. Newcomers include
a hayseed called Rube (Eric Bruskotter), an unpredictable
outfielder (Takaaki Ishibashi, a sort of Japanese Gilbert
Gottfried), and a badass powerhitter (David Keith, left) who plays Bluto to everyone else’s Popeye. That’s it for dynamics. Since Cleveland (played by Baltimore, actually) came out on top last time, there’s nowhere to go but down; Ward sends them into a psychological tailspin that they, and the movie, can’t really recover from. Soon, Wild Thing’s throw is so mild, even his therapist is ragging on him.
The team’s torpour is contagious, and MJII leans heavily on Bob Uecker, as an irascible announcer, to paper over the many dull spots with cynical chatter. Befitting a tale of the team with baseball’s most odious logo, the film is filled with phobias — racial and otherwise — and its humour is mostly of the lowest-common-denominator variety, exemplified by Randy Quaid’s uncredited, and increasingly tedious, cameo as a traitorous fan.
Let’s not forget the “ladies”: Renee Russo, as Jake’s boring love interest, is only around for one scene, so Vaughn has a middling fling with a nicey-nice schoolteacher (Coneheads’ Michelle Burke) who seemingly lives at the stadium with cute inner-city kids. But Ward’s more interested in powerful women we can hate, so he brings back bitch-goddess Rachel Phelps (Margaret Whitton) and adds a blond PR huckster (Alison Doody) to double male fears. It’s simply amazing how much bad feeling some people can pack into an empty formula. There is some nice ball in the last ten minutes.
