Ho, Ho, Ho!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from The Film General Crew!

The turkey has been eaten, the presents have been opened and all the crackers have been snapped… so why not sit back and curl up with a good if not unconventional Xmas flick. No more bells, holly, carols and halos… Check out our Festive reviews of Outlander and Silent Night, Deadly Night!

Also, we have reviews of Avatar, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans and Black Dynamite for your consideration!

Cadet Jake has also written an essay on Violence in the Media uploaded for your gory needs! Click here!

We will now be off to hunt down Santa and demand to give us his workshop!

At ease till the New Year Maggots!

I understand the idea of the platform release schedule.   The idea is that you release a movie in only a few markets to build word of mouth and add different markets each week until you can go wide.   For some movies it makes sense (There Will Be Blood).  For others it was not such a good idea (Quiz Show).  In each case you could see the logic.

One of the key points to this is releasing your movie in major markets.  Start with New York and Los Angeles.  Expand to Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and Dallas.  You get the idea.  So the issue I have is when does MY market (Miami-Ft Lauderdale) get on the list?  With the estimated population of our tri-county area at 5,413,212, it should be on that next tier of cities to be honest.  And in most cases it is.   However it seems no one told First Look Studios about it.

Their new movie, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, has been out in theaters since November 20^th.    That’s five weeks now.  Yet it has still not made it into the Sunshine State.  Okay Dan, you say, maybe it’s just doing the extreme major markets, like the ones I already listed.   I could maybe accept that.   However the fact is First Look has decided to drop it in a number of markets that are considerably smaller than Miami-Ft Lauderdale.  Places like Tucson, AZ (pop. 541,811), Reno, NV (pop. 217,016), and state of New Mexico (pop. Under 2 million for the ENTIRE state!) are coming out ahead of South Florida.   In fact the closest place it is playing is Charleston, SC (total metro pop. 644,000)!  How can this be? 

I have nothing against the places that are showing Bad Lieutenant.  In fact I would like all cities to show a nice variety of films.  I’m just irritated by the fact that South Florida is getting the shine on this.   The movie itself has been getting good reviews and earned a place on Roger Ebert’s top ten of the year.   Box office wise though it is not exactly setting the world on fire.   It has taken in $1.3 million in those 5 weeks.  This past weekend it did a very underwhelming  $64,934 in 76 theaters.  That’s a per theater average of $854.  That’s not good, by the way.   Maybe a little better work done the release department might have helped.

Perhaps First Look is too busy to notice us simple South Florida folk.  After all they do have other movies to handle.   Their 2010 release of Midgets Vs. Mascots starring Gary Coleman is due in February.  Hope that one makes it down here.

One of the great things I always associate with the Bad Lieutenant is sports radio talk show commentary lurking in the background of the film discussing the New York Mets eventual comeback against the L.A. Dodgers.  Why?  Because my brother, like the Lieutenant, is a hard core sports gambler and he constantly reminded me of where he was, what he was doing and how much money he had on any particular game.  My brother also reminisces about hearing the same clips played in the movie, except that he heard them live.

In this movie, Keitel plays a degenerate New York cop, with massive drug, gambling, and sex addictions.  Ironically this corrupt cop is investigating the rape of a nun which leads to his eventual “salvation” or as saved as the Lieutenant could get.  There is plenty of grit in this movie so it is not for the naïve or squeamish.  The film has two ingredients that help make it a rose.  First it is original, there is no cliché story line here and second is Keitel’s acting which is almost disturbingly real.done

If you are going to go see The Bad Lieutenant Port of Call—or what ever it is, you owe it to yourself to see this one first.

Oh by the way, you can watch this movie on a date, but my significant other warns that you should not expect yourself or your date to be feeling particularly amorous afterward.

by Andrew Bowcock

It seems like Nicolas Cage has always had a spotty career.  Despite his massive success in Hollywood over the years, he manages to repeatedly be typecast and appear in sub par, critically-panned films…so when a unique, ambitious director such as cinematic titan Werner Herzog decided to cast him as the lead in one of his films, it caught my eye right away.  The other thing that peaked my attention (and has caused quite a bit of a stir) is the film’s title: Bad Lieutenant. Even though this isn’t the whole title of the film, the fact that it seems lifted directly from Abel Ferrara’s controversial yet transcendental film of the same title (which also features a crooked cop for the protagonist) was enough to enrage Ferrara to the point where he wished death upon Herzog and Cage.

Let’s try pushing all the craziness surrounding the film to the side, and examine the craziness within The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.

As you may have guessed, the story involves a cop in New Orleans (post Katrina).  The city is a dump, and there’s no getting around it…things seem almost as bad as they were right after the hurricane.  None of this is discussed, but we all understand the backdrop, and some of the exterior shots wink at us at quite a bit, but without shoving it in our faces.   The protagonist, Terence McDonagh (Cage) is a detective that is formally revered by his precinct, but if somebody follows him on any given day, his or her respect for him would quickly plummet.  His unbridled addiction for drugs and gambling always get the better of him on and off duty, causing him to engage in sociopathic behavior, cruelly bossing people around, blackmailing, and using every dirty trick in the book to get his way.

However, some may argue that McDonagh isn’t all bad, since he is dedicated to his work to a certain degree and seems to believe in some form of justice (despite how twisted and distorted it may be).  As he’s thrown into a case involving the murder of five Senegalese immigrants we witness his character unravel during the investigation, meanwhile trying to keep his enemies away from his drug-addicted, call-girl girlfriend (played by Eva Mendes) and his father (Tom Bower).  The rest of the plot is fairly straightforward, with a couple twists here and there…but by the end of the film you’re simply left with the choice of whether or not you’re going to sympathize with McDonagh.

In the end, this film really just feels like an acting vehicle for Nicolas Cage – channeling what I like to call the “crazy Cage” (something I miss, thinking back to films like Matchstick Men and Adaptation).  In this film Cage gives a fantastic, over-the-top and yet nuanced performance.  Though he takes full advantage of his character being an addict and a maniac, we are able to realize this character through more than his crazed ranting and gun waving: believe it or not, Cage actually adds depth to his character (well…about as much depth as you can add to such a selfish lunatic).  This can be recognized by the continuous crazy glare he has in his eyes throughout the film, the strange strut he has to his walk, the way his tie is always stretched a bit too long and his gun is sloppily shoved into the front of his pants.  There’s even a demeanor about the way Cage’s voice changes throughout the film according to his drug high – all very specific character choices that remind me very much of the method acting of Herzog’s old acting tour de force, the infamous Klaus Kinski.

Recently, Herzog’s choice of film direction seems peculiar in comparison with the rest of his canon, which often explores the savagery of nature and man’s struggle against it.  Both this film and My Son, My Son, What have Ye Done? take place in urban settings, which is something that feels entirely new for Herzog…and yet (at least in the case of this film) he still manages to make it feel entirely true to his naturalistic style of filmmaking.  Specifically, there are a couple of hilarious sequences in this film where the detective has some particularly strange run-ins with some iguanas and alligators (if you’ve seen the trailer you’ve already gotten a taste of it).

Though the two films are actually barely related, it’s hard not to make comparisons with the original Bad Lieutenant. I love both films, but they are attempting entirely different (in some ways opposite) goals.  Ferrara’s version was about a cop struggling with guilt and trying to find redemption, whereas Herzog’s feels like more of a loose-mooded satire on cop films, or possibly even on political authority in general.  Watching Harvey Keitel’s deterioration in Ferrara’s version almost put me on the verge of tears, whereas Cage’s ridiculous antics make it hard not to laugh (and I can almost guarantee anybody with a sense of humor WILL laugh).  They’re both great films in their own right; Ferrara’s version will break your heart while Herzog’s, though not entirely farcical, is essentially just silly entertainment with a more subtle (even ambiguous) message.

Not only did I find this to be one of the most entertaining films of the year, but it also reminded me once again that sometimes Nicolas Cage can transcend his poorer performances; Herzog knew how to bring out the right man for his odd vision.  Though it would no doubt be a strange choice, I wouldn’t be surprised if Cage managed to get an Oscar nomination for this.

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is rated R for drug use and language throughout, some violence and sexuality.

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photo sources:

http://static.reelmovienews.com/images/gallery/bad-lieutenant-port-of-call-new-orleans-poster_517×764.jpg

http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/

http://www.thehollywoodnews.com/

other resources:

http://www.imdb.com/

http://www.nerve.com/CS/blogs/screengrab/archive/2008/05/27/abel-ferrara-would-like-werner-herzog-and-nicolas-cage-to-please-die-in-a-fire.aspx

Okay so let us begin this years best of by talking about the films that did not make it onto my top ten.

The runner-up category is always hard for me because these films were still great, and I think should still be seen, but I feel couldn’t quite edge their way into my top ten.

These are in no particular order or ranking.

Next Day Air: This movie was smart and funny. Like an inner-city Oceans 11 only a little more violent. Drugs, guns, gangs, and Mos Def all come together for a smooth running, well-directed piece of gangland comedy.

Drag Me To Hell: God damn this movie. This movie should not work as well as it does. However, that could be said about pretty much every Sam Raimi movie that doesn’t involve a super-powered teenager. With Drag Me to Hell Raimi is back in full on Evil Dead mode, comedy, frights, and violence blend perfectly into one of the best times I had in a theater this year.

Public Enemies: While Next Day Air was a comedic look at the crime world Public Enemies was all seriousness. Johnny Depp gives yet another performance that proves he is not just the guy who plays the wacky pirate. Christian Bale was also great as the man charged with hunting the great bank robber. I don’t know much about the historical facts behind this tale, but Micheal Mann kept me interested the entire time, which rarely happens for me with Mann films.

Funny People: Judd Apatow’s best directorial effort as well as the best film bearing Apatow’s name in any capacity. It isn’t nearly as funny as 40-year-old Virgin but anyone who holds that against Funny People totally missed the point. It is about people, and what the actual work that goes into making people laugh. This movie took the poorly mixed drama and comedy elements of Knocked Up and blended them more succinctly, maybe not perfectly but the best mix of Comedy and Drama since Punch Drunk Love.

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans: This one and Precious (which is coming up later in the broadcast) were the two hardest choices I had to make when coming up with my top ten list. Having seen the original Bad Lieutenant earlier this year, and immediately loving it, I had high hopes for this one. Nic Cage, who I will go to my grave defending, and Werner Herzog, one of the best directors who ever touched a camera, working together to tell the story of a fucked up cop WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE? It isn’t nearly as bleak as the Kietel/Ferrera Bad Lieutenant but, honestly, who needs two movies that bleak. I say get some friends together, pop some corn, get out your lucky crack pipe and enjoy the best Mega Acting you will see this century.

Coraline: 2009 was an amazing year for children’s fare, and Coraline started that trend off right. A horror film for kids that works at both empowerment for the imagination, and a cautious fable about letting imagination get the best of you. So much has been said this year of Henry Selick’s masterful work with stop-motion but it is all warranted. Not once does the veil of artifice break. You are never reminded that these are 12 inch high clay figures, you always believe these are living breathing characters, even when they turn into giant monster spiders. Saw it in 3-D and was absolutely astounded.

Precious: After I finished watching this disturbing film I thought it was a shoo-in for my top 10 list, but in a little while since then I have thought about it. Yes Gabourey Sibide gives a touching and brutal performance, and Mo’Nique did such a good performance that I totally forgot that she was Mo’Nique, Precious still delves into the cliché a little too often to be included with the top ten. Still see this movie if you like great melodrama.

So those are my runner-ups. They are all great films worthy of seeing.

Happygerbaloon

” Camisea, 15 April 1981…After hours of his incessant ranting and raving, I ate the last piece of chocolate I had been keeping hidden in my cabin. I ate it practically in Kinski’s face, which he was holding very close to mine as he screamed his lungs out. He was so dumbfounded by my act of self-indulgence that all of a sudden he fell silent.”

I’m in the midst of logging sneaker-related listings to sum up the year at time-of-writing, but truthfully, two of the highlights of 2009 arrived courtesy of Werner Herzog’s outsider fascination, oddly earnest treatment of a trashy screenplay and oft-overlooked skills with the pen when it comes to logging his surroundings and general frame of mind (check the Free Association reprint ‘Of Walking In Ice’ for a primer). Were it not such a clichéd prospect for one who so effortlessly sidesteps the norm, a daily herzogspot.com from the man himself would be e-gold. But you’ll never get that.

What we did get, other than a superior Q&A in Vice’s phenomenal film issue, one of the best issues of anything in a while, alongside the De La FRANK151 and a fine dinner conversation in the States recently regarding the perceived madness of kings Kinski and Herzog, was a publication of the director’s journals during the troubled production of ‘Fitzcarraldo’ and a sequel of sorts to Ferrera’s ‘The Bad Lieutenant.’ That’s more than enough for me.

It’s not difficult to see that ‘Fitzcarraldo’ might have been a hard shoot, but Herzog’s two and a half years of observations and evident use of a diary as catharsis was the most fascinating book release in years. That it made print after nearly thirty years is something to be grateful for and the antithesis to the ghostwritten c-list tripe that passes for recollection at the moment. Werner would inevitably see something in something so vapid, but ‘Conquest Of The Useless’ blindly charters the reader from Peru to backer’s meetings by perilous plane journeys back to the jungle again and again with a whining Jason Robards, laid back Mick Jagger, angry insurers, weary wildlife and a predictably fiery Klaus in the mix. Some entries are purely descriptive, as dense as the writhing, humid surroundings, some are mundane, yet concluded with a macabre factoid from the mainland, and some are downright brutal,

“Camisea, 22 April 1981…I had learned from the pilot, who had radioed up to the Huallaga from the Indians’ camp, that people seriously wounded by arrows had just arrived from the upper reaches of the Camisea, and that emergency operations were already under way. I hurried to the first-aid station and saw a native man and a woman, both of whom had been struck with enormous arrows. They had been fishing for the camp three hours upstream by speedboat, and had spent the night on a sandbank. During the night they had been ambushed and shot at close range by Amehuacas. The woman had been hit by three arrows and almost bled to death. The wounds were close together. One arrow had gone all the way through her body just above her kidney, one had bounced off her hip bone, and the most life-threatening one was still sticking in her abdomen, broken off on the inner side of her pelvis. I spent several hours helping out while she was operated on, shining a powerful flashlight into her abdominal cavity and with the other hand spraying insect repellent to try to drive away the clouds of mosquitoes the blood had attracted. The man still had an arrow made of razor-sharp bamboo and almost thirty centimeters long sticking through his throat.“

That’s a must-have tome, but when rumours circulated that Herzog was filming a loose sequel to Keitel’s sweat-soaked tour de force, much to Abel Ferrera’s contempt, starring Nicholas Cage in some rare time off seeing into the future or time travelling in the kind of 70 million films you watch on planes in a Valium haze, I damn near did the running man. After seeing ‘Port Of Call New Orleans’ I thoroughly enjoyed the bulgy-eyed, manic sweep through William Finkelstein’s screenplay – post crack shit talking, breakdancing souls, and the only resemblance to the preceding masterpiece, was the recently promoted member of po-po’s urgent fundraising and occasional harassment of partially guilty middle-classers.

I didn’t see parody – well, perhaps in Nic’s marginally lighter transition of his ‘Bringing Out The Dead’ driver to a swampland hunt for rock, sex and dollars, with a murder investigation sandwiched in too, but I sensed that Herzog really means it, which is the crux of his directorial appeal. Forget ‘Rescue Dawn’ because this is high-concept Herzog; his concept of slick, and that delirious sense of waking up stoned in front of Sky Movies to catch earnest oddball thrillers was in there too. The focus might be on Eva, but I stay true to my love for Fairuza Balk who makes a brief but worthwhile appearance in the film. I heavily recommend it.

After pissing off Abel, Werner then returns to Peru to film for a movie based on the 1979 case of Mark Yavorsky who killed his mum with an antique saber. He met Yavorsky, but found him argumentative. There’s a lot of superior footage of Werner online, but he’s a good actor too, with his paternal turn making Harmony Korine’s ‘Julien Donkey Boy’ as good as ‘Gummo’ through sheer lunacy, whether sipping on sizzurp from a shoe and demanding to see Mount Everest, offering some H20-led pep talk (“A winner doesn’t shiver”) or engaging in dinner table poetry criticism (“I don’t like it because it’s so artsy fartsy”). Classic and a great turn from a director in front of the camera to rival Huston’s Noah Cross.

As I’ve made light of Ferrera’s irritation, I should make amends by noting that he’s almost as legendary, only taking a tumble in my estimation with the anticlimatic ’80s TV-movie ‘Gladiator’ and 2001’s ‘R’ Xmas’ which fell short The rest was either interesting or straight-up classic. The much-missed Zoë Lund dressed as a nun blowing away party guests in ‘Ms. 45′? Tony Coca-Cola in ‘Driller Killer,’ the trashy ‘Romeo & Juliet’ that was ‘China Girl’? Fuck Baz Luhrmann. A karate serial killer taking on a boxing Berenger in ‘Fear City’? Asia Argento French-kissing a Rottweiler in ‘Go Go Stories’? All legendary.

And now he’s making a ‘Jeckyl And Hyde’ remake with Forest Whitaker and Curtis Jackson. He brought out some fireworks in Keitel, but Ferrera’s instigated the most spectacular Walken moments. ‘King Of New York’ sees him doing a little dance and fondling King Tito’s glove, but don’t overlook the speeches in ‘The Funeral’ and ‘The Addiction’ – extra notable for being produced by Russell Simmons, who, in the same act of nepotism that gave him a Def Jam deal as emcee “Redrum”  with his appalling Flatlinerz crew, rapping about goblins and coffins, gives his nephew Jamal Simmons a bit-part.

As a bonus, Zoë Lund (rest in peace) in ‘Ms. 45′ killer nun mode.

I’ll break from our usual format to deliver my top 9 of 2009!

But first here are my LEAST favorite movies of 2009, in no real order:

The International, Watchmen, Adventureland, Surveillance, Public Enemies, and Where the Wild Things Are.

Ok Here are my MOST favorite movies of 2009 ranked in order with my favorite at number 1:

9- The Brothers Bloom
8- Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
7- Inglourious Basterds
6- Zombieland
5- The Road
4- A Serious Man
3- Star Trek
2- Up
1- Moon

So there you have it my top 9 of ‘09! Now granted there are still some movies that have yet to come out or that I haven’t seen (I’m only one man!!), like Avatar, Up in the Air, The Lovely Bones, A Single Man, Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Parnassus, Red Cliff, Antichrist, The Maid, Thirst, Gomorrah, Hunger, The White Ribbon, and a few others. So if, once I see them, they upset this list I’ll just give you another one! Yey!!

December 16th, 2009 Chciago [IAN]

Steph. Biscuits and gravy. Shorts. Tired. Ritz. Louis. Longbranch. Wedding party. Anxious. Insomnia. Crash.

"Bad Lieutenant : Port Of Call New Orleans" Movie Poster

I know what you’re thinking. You’re outraged. Disgusted. Maybe even mortified if you’re especially sensitive, at the very least perplexed if you’re not. What kind of a human being would incorporate a play on words about the tragic flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the title of his post? I mean, that’s just beyond tasteless, right?

Yes, it is. And yes, you should be royally pissed at me right now. That’s intentional. You see, I want you to stop reading this review. I want you to shut your computer off. Hell, if you’re not winning the lottery or getting it on with the woman (or man, as the case may be) of your dreams right now, I think you need to stop what you’re doing. You need to stop what you’re doing, get in your car, on the train, on the bus, on your feet, whatever — and get down to the theater and see “Bad Lieutenant : Port Of Call New Orleans.” It’s just that good. Whatever else you’ve got going on can wait. In fact, I’ll even helpfully stop the review right here so you can get back to it after you return.

Long pause.

Followed by another long pause.

And another.

Then a final, really long one.

Okay, back? Good, welcome back.  Great stuff, wasn’t it? Now let’s continue, shall we?

No, Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes have not just read the script for "Ghost Rider 2," despite appearances

I’m a lot like you, dear reader. When I first heard that independent film legend Werner Herzog was working on a “reimagining” of Abel Ferrara’s “Bad Lieutenant,” my first reaction was “why?” I mean, it’s not like it’s a movie that necessarily has “remake” or “sequel” written all over it. Like most of Ferrara’s stuff, it’s a pretty singular work that doesn’t exactly scream out for a fresh set of eyes to reinterpret it. And Harvey Keitel’s performance — I mean, shit, how are you gonna top that? Hell, how are you gonna even come close to equaling it? Why try? What’s the point?

Well, there wouldn’t be any point. And Herzog knows that. And to his credit, he doesn’t even try to go that route. This new “Bad Lieutenant” only tangentially relates to the first in that it explores the same theme of a monumentally crooked and sleazy cop trying to crack a big case in the midst of a tremendous, and entirely self-inflicted, downward spiral in his life.  Apart from that, the two have nothing to do with each other. Gone are the obsessive visual and thematic references to Catholic iconography and catechism. The setting has been transposed from New York to a just post-Katrina New Orleans (well, technically the first scene takes place as the flood waters are rising, then we jump ahead six months,  into the city’s  “rebuilding” — and Dear Lord do I use that term loosely — period). Hell, even the main character has a different name, different set of life circumstances, different everything. In truth, the only reason I think Herzog stuck with the title is because otherwise audiences would have come out of the theater saying “you know, that one kinda reminded me of  ‘Bad Lieutenant’” — so by invoking the original so plainly he’s able to, at the very least ironically if not downright perversely, have this film taken as a more stand-alone work than if he had just called it something. File that under “go figure.” (And file this under “go figure,” as well — and probably of interest to absolute obsessives (who? me?) only (and it shouldn’t even be to us) — the title of this film in all the posters and other advertising is listed as “Bad Lieuteanant : Port of Call New Orleans,” while the opening credits read “The Bad Lieutenant Port Of Call : New Orleans.”)

The next thin your reviewer found a bit suspect in the pre-production stages, after wondering just why Herzog was even making this thing at all, was the casting of Nicolas Cage in the lead. Cage is a bit of an enigma, isn’t he? I mean, here’s a guy capable of delivering mind-blowingly good, once-in-a-generation performances in films like “Leaving Las Vegas,” “Lord of War” and “The Weatherman,” yet also of absolutely mailing it in, so to speak, in drivel like “Next” or the atrocious remake of “The Wicker Man.” In between the two poles we have his numerous stints as, either literally or essentially, a second-rate Elvis impersonator.

Needless to say, the end result on display here proves my worried were entirely groundless, as the best always are. Cage is in absolute top form here, giving arguably the very best performance of his entire career. He’s wiry, main, and absolutely seething with, to quote my own headline, visceral intensity. He doesn’t sweat whether or not he’s sometimes so frightfully over the top that his performance reaches caricature-like levels — hell no, instead of tiptoeing up to that metaphorical line in the sand, he rubs and smears it out with his shoe and stomps all over the spot where it used to be just for good measure. He’s absolutely fucking gone as  drugged-up, degenerate gambler (and, oh yes, cop) Terence McDonagh, and he doesn’t look back. Keep up with him if you can.

And herein lies another crucial difference between the two “Bad Lieutenant”s. In Ferrara’s version, Keitel is just completely foul. He’s not what you’d call charismatic or engaging in the least (not that I’m saying this is a bad thing, it’s exactly the type of performance that was absolutely required in the “first” film). He’s already lost. The central thematic question in the “original”, therefore, is whether or not a guy who’s absolutely beyond all hope of redemption can still find it, if not earn it, by bringing to justice the scumbags who brutally gang-rape a nun. And frankly, whether or not he even should since she’s already forgiven them herself. It’s taking place on an entirely different psychological playing field than Herzog’s film, because in this there is still some, God help me for thinking this but it’s true, likable insanity in Cage’s character. He’s got dangerous, maybe even death wish-style reckless charisma oozing out of him on a goddamn cellular level. In that respect, one could argue that this new “Bad Lieutenant” is somewhat more accessible than Ferrara’s version, because McDonagh still has enough (barely) on the ball to pull himself out of his living nightmare if he really wants to. But damn, with lines like ” I thought it was coke but it turned out to be heroin and I gotta be at work in an hour,” and “Shoot him again! His soul is still dancing!” you gotta wonder if he isn’t enjoying his ride to hell waaaayyyy too fucking much to stop the ride.

And that’s the brilliance (and I loathe the unearned overuse of that word way more than you can possibly imagine) of Cage’s performance here in a nutshell : he’s a coiled snake that you know will strike at any moment, and you can’t decide whether you’re dreading that or looking forward to it. Then you realize you’re doing both.

"Shoot him again! His soul is still dancing!"

The nominal plot of the film itself concerns Cage’s investigation of a brutal execution-style murder of a family of Senegalese immigrants, but as with Ferrara’s earlier effort, Herzog here concentrates far more on the backdrop this story plays out in front of (or, more accurately given the focus here, behind) — that of McDonagh’s exhilarating and dreadful descent into madness. Our guy Terry does everything a bad cop oughtta do : shakes down suspects for cash and drugs, gets in gambling debt up his eyeballs, rips shit off from the police property room, smokes crack, snorts coke, drinks booze, skips out of town, runs a thoroughly crooked investigation, helps the bad guys, screws around on his girlfriend (who’s a hooker herself, played by Cindy Craw—err, Eva Mendes), and worse. And while he doesn’t consistently engage in the type of outright abusively soulless depravity that Keitel did in the “original,” he pulls off one stunt so hopelessly fucked-up-beyond-all-reason that even old Harvey would probably blush.

The decision to set the story in the ravaged post-Katrina Big Easy really pays dividends, as well. Not only is it thematically appropriate on a pretentious “film scholar” asshole level (rising metaphorical flood threatens to swallow main character ), but the overall atmosphere of a decimated Third World-style “law enforcement” operation (although from what I understand the New Orleans cops weren’t exactly famous for honesty and integrity pre-flood, either) gives ample narrative “breathing space”  (did I just badmouth pretentious “film scholar” assholes a minute ago? I should have read ahead to the point where I sounded just like one — except I hadn’t written it yet. But I digress — as regular readers of this blog, if any such creatures exist,  know I so often do) to the idea of a situation where a guy like McDonagh could actually get away with some of this shit. On a purely aesthetic level, I’ve gotta congratulate Herzog, as well, for his decision to shoot this movie on an apparently cheaper grade of film stock than normal. It gives the whole flick an added level of immediacy and realism that a slicker overall appearance just couldn’t maintain. It’s a grimy story about a grimy guy shot in a way that looks grimy. Well played, Werner.

The rest of the cast holds up pretty well, too. While I’m sure nobody was dying to see a reunion of the principal players in “Ghost Rider,” Mendes does a nice turn as McDonagh’s high-priced hooker/junkie girlfriend, Frankie, Cage’s fellow Elvis-worshiper Val Kilmer is solid as his almost-as-crooked-as-he-is onetime parner, now subordinate, Stevie, the always-underappreciated Vondie Curtis-Hall turns in a seasoned pro’s performance as McDonagh’s commanding officer, rapper Xzibit is seriously bad-ass awesome as crime boss “Big Fate,” the (again always) underappreciated Brad Dourif turns in another dead-on perfect (because he always is) portrayal, in this case as McDonagh’s understandably impatient small-time bookie Ned, solid vet Tom Bower puts in  a solid vet turn as Terance’s ex-cop, ex-alcoholic father, Pat, and the (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) always underapp—forget it, I won’t even go there, I’ll just say Jennifer Coolidge has deserved a best supporting actress Oscar a couple of times now (and no, I’m not talking about her turn as Stifler’s Mom, although she sure is a million miles away from MILF territory in this movie — truth be told, I was thinking specifically of her roles in the various Christopher Guest-helmed ensemble/improv comedies, particularly “Best In Show”) and she’s an absolute scene-stealer here as Pat’s still-alcoholic second wife, Genevieve.

The two best Elvises (or is that Elvii?) since The King himself? Kilmer and Cage in "Bad Lieutenant : Port Of Call New Orleans"

So what we’ve got here, folks, is essentially the ultimate “bad cop” movie, and quite likely the best film of the year, period. It’s certainly going to take one hell of an effort to top it. Even Herzog’s usual, and frankly in other films sometimes jarring, asides into purely interpretative realms of surrealism (just what are the giant iguanas about? Each viewer will probably have a different explanation) work here since by the time he goes there, he’s already established such a forceful groove (do those two words seem incompatible together? I assure you they’re not) that you’re just willing to go with his frantically rushing flow.

And that’s it. I’m all out of praise to lavish on this movie. It grabs you from the word go and never lets up. It’s absolutely exhiliratingly debauched and I loved the hell out of it. All I can do at this point is tell you one more time  to rush right out and see it. But there’s no need for that because you already have. Right?

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Theatrical Release:Nov 20, 2009 Limited

In Werner Herzog’s new film “The Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans,” Nicolas Cage plays a rogue detective who is as devoted to his job as he is at scoring drugs — while playing fast and… In Werner Herzog’s new film “The Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans,” Nicolas Cage plays a rogue detective who is as devoted to his job as he is at scoring drugs — while playing fast and loose with the law. He wields his badge as often as he wields his gun in order to get his way. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina he becomes a high-functioning addict who is a deeply intuitive, fearless detective reigning over the beautiful ruins of New Orleans with authority and abandon. Complicating his tumultuous life is the prostitute he loves (played by Eva Mendes). Together they descend into their own world marked by desire, compulsion, and conscience. The result is a singular masterpiece of filmmaking: equally sad and manically humorous. –© Apparition

Harvey Keitel does a lot of bad things in "Bad Lieutenant".

(Abel Ferrara, 1992)

December 6, 2009

by Joel Crary

“Bad Lieutenant” may be Harvey Keitel’s crowning moment as a badass, heightened by the ferocity of his character’s drive to mess up his life as much as possible. Nameless, angry and addicted, the lieutenant behaves like a nihilistic Dirty Harry, or Paul Kersey if he had tried to take revenge on himself. After watching Keitel in “Mean Streets” recently, I’ve gained a new respect for his ability as an actor. This is a brave performance, one that took sheer guts.

In one scene, Keitel stands totally exposed before the camera with his arms outstretched and weeping, high as a kite in the company of two prostitutes. How has this man reached such a low point? He has kids, a badge, a place to sleep at night. Though he wears a wedding ring prominently, his wife (Peggy Gormley) is rarely shown, and they certainly don’t converse. The lieutenant is shown waking up on the couch at home in a hungover daze while his family gazes at him solemnly, as though they’ve already begun their grieving process.

Director and co-writer Abel Ferrara knows we’ve seen this archetype before. Whatever the reason for the lieutenant’s decline, he is heading straight for the bottom, his ethical failures typified in scene after scene. I was fascinated by the film’s abandon in capturing the fall as Keitel gambles, smokes and injects drugs, attempts to steal drugs from a crime scene, engages in illicit sex, forces two women to get him off, laughs in an indignant bookie’s face, snorts cocaine off of a picture of his kids, shoots his pistol at his car radio and takes stolen cash from a pair of robbers rather than arresting them. The film received an NC-17 rating on its release. Certain scenes remain hard to watch, yet are compelling in their rawness.

Keitel is gloriously over the top in the midst of it all, culminating in a scene in a church, where a vision of Christ (Paul Hipp) appears before him. Keitel howls like a wounded animal, crawling on his hands and knees and pleading for forgiveness. Emotions of guilt and sadness have swelled to the bursting point in this figure, who bets thousands on the Dodgers but can no longer dodge the consequences of his actions. He collapses next to a kneeling nun (Frankie Thorn), a rape victim who has forgiven her attackers. Disheveled and nearly broken, he demands her explanation, not because he can’t understand but because he desperately wants to forgive himself.

In not revealing too much about the lieutenant’s character beyond his self-destructive behaviour, Ferrara and co-writers Victor Argo, Paul Calderon and Zoë Lund simplified a formula, letting only its most affecting parts bristle on screen. It works because of Keitel’s commitment. The lieutenant is bad by virtue of his actions, but he is also hurt and unable to fully turn away from his faith. In the end, he redeems himself by action and is fittingly relieved of his misery.

“We eat away at ourselves until there’s nothing left but appetite,” the lieutenant is told in a drug-induced haze by a fellow junkie (Lund). A position of power can take hold of a weak-willed individual. That power can come to feel deserved, leaving justice as an afterthought. Bad things can start to seem rational in a career that can bend toward moral ambivalence. In “Mean Streets”, Keitel held his hand over an open flame to get himself used to the fires of hell. In “Bad Lieutenant”, he plays a man already in hell, dousing the flames with liquor in a vain attempt to extinguish them.

I…am not sure what to even say about this movie’s existence, much less the actual content. A sorta inspired remake of the NC-17 Abel Ferrara movie by the same name (without the Port of Call stuff), it’s utterly baffling that this movie was greenlit, that Herzog was the director who wanted it, and that he gave the formerly Keitel leading role to our favorite bankrupt actor, Nicholas Cage. All those things together make this a must see, if only b/c there is a legitimate tension and genuinely “um, what?” moments that will make you laugh and drop your jaw to the floor. As the dust settles on this movie, it basically says nothing, but is a forceful and powerful moviewatching experience. I’m not sure if I’d ever watch this again, but I’m glad to have seen it and would recommend you don’t miss a chance for Nick Cage to be insane in a movie that actually asks for it without apology.

If you don’t know the films of Werner Herzog, you owe it to yourself to track them down.  In many ways, his filmography is a compendium of obsession, both in his fictions (Aguirre: The Wrath of God; Fitzcarraldo; Cobra Verde; his remake of Nosferatu) and his documentaries (Little Dieter Needs to Fly; The White Diamond; Grizzly Man).  Reduce many of his films to their core, and you will see men who are wrestling with demons, gripped by inspiration, or in thrall to some urge so primal and powerful they can’t help but heed it.  Herzog is one of cinema’s great treasures, and his films are some of the most exciting, yet most overlooked, in the last forty years.

In many ways, it’s fitting that in his latest film, Bad Lieutenant – Port of Call: New Orleans, Herzog finds himself paired with Nicolas Cage.  Love him or hate him, Cage is an actor who is no stranger to obsession himself.  Take a look at a list of his movies, and you’ll find him inhabiting characters that grapple with many of the same issues that trouble Herzog’s protagonists.  Cage has appeared in plenty of turkeys – in fact, turkeydom has largely been his domain since the mid-90’s – but when he’s firing on all cylinders (Wild at Heart; Leaving Las Vegas; Adaptation; the vastly underrated The Weather Man), he’s as good as we’ve got.  Herzog and Cage are unafraid to go too far.  Sometimes this ends in failure, but it’s always seemed far better to overshoot the mark than to not try hard enough.

As a hugely entertaining document of this pairing we have Bad Lieutenant, a not-really remake of Abel Ferrara’s 1992 vehicle for Harvey Keitel.  Here, Cage stars as Terence McDonagh, a cop in post-Katrina New Orleans.  McDonagh is less concerned with protecting and serving the public than he is with allowing his police work to protect his own needs and serve his own interests.  He is a violent drug addict (painkillers, then cocaine, then heroin) and a compulsive gambler, the boyfriend of a prostitute, and the kind of cop for whom the thin blue line is more an inconvenience than a moral calling.

The plot is a thinly veiled coathanger on which Herzog gets to hang Cage’s fantastically unhinged performance.  Five people are murdered, execution-style, and it’s up to Cage and his sidekick (an unusually understated Val Kilmer) to find the murderers.  Over the next two hours, the movie gives us, in no particular order, numerous scenes of McDonagh doing crack, cocaine, and heroin; McDonagh having sex with a stranger in a parking lot while forcing her boyfriend at gunpoint to watch; rapper Xzibit as – wait for it – a drug dealer; an emaciated Fairuza Balk as a highway trooper who wants a piece of McDonagh’s sweet lovin’; McDonagh cutting off an old lady’s oxygen until she gives him the information he wants; a boilerplate Italian heavy, played by a guy who’s watched Goodfellas one too many times; Eva Mendes as McDonagh’s hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold girlfriend; the breakdancing spirit of a murder victim; and a bizarre fascination with voyeuristic iguanas.

For Herzog’s non-documentaries, characterization is where it’s at – the plot is secondary to watching his protagonists contend with their demons.  Bad Lieutenant is far from a perfect film – and probably doesn’t even rank with Herzog’s best work – but it’s fun to see Cage inspired again, and it’s always fascinating whenever Herzog dips his toe in the mainstream waters.  Your appreciation for this movie will hinge on whether or not you’ve grown tired of Nicolas Cage.  For me, this movie was the cinematic equivalent of a warm blanket and a cup of cocoa, as I got to watch two masters do what they do best.

*****

It’s not worth a full review, but I wanted to throw in a quick plug for this subversive little gem.  As high school movies go, I Love You, Beth Cooper isn’t Election-good or Rushmore-good or Say Anything-good, but it’s definitely on par with the second tier of high school movies, like Clueless or Mean Girls or Can’t Hardly Wait.

When valedictorian Dennis Cooverman (newcomer Paul Rust) proclaims his love for the titular blonde (Hayden Panettiere) in his graduation speech, it sets in motion a night of hijinks that plays like a junior-league version of Martin Scorsese’s black comedy After Hours.

Director Chris Columbus (working on a small scale for the first time in years) made an inspired choice in casting Rust as the gawky Dennis.  By refusing to go with a recognizable face (Michael Cera and Jesse Eisenberg leap immediately to mind), Dennis is allowed to be fresh and original, and not just another in the long line of soft-spoken, stuttering dweebs that’s so popular at the moment.  Similarly, Panetierre does a remarkable job with a character that could have just been a typically brassy high school bitch.  Instead, she imbues Beth Cooper with the nuance necessary to teach Dennis the movie’s difficult lesson: it’s a disillusioning loss of innocence to see for the first time the real-world flaws in the object of our fantasies.  When we fantasize about people we don’t know well, we see them as an idealized version that says more about who we are than who they are.  I Love You, Beth Cooper is a smart, funny diamond in the rough that got lost in the summer shuffle.  Seek it out.

*****

Current listening:

Black Kids – Partie Traumatic (2008)

‘Bad Lieutenant‘, like all good thrillers (or mysteries, or detective stories, whatever you wish to categorize it as), is great because the film revolves around the characters. The story is simply what they do, and since these characters are so interesting, we could be watching almost anything else from their life and it would be just as entertaining. That’s the case for Terence McDonagh. Nicolas Cage is the perfect choice for this role, not only because he is a good actor, but because he found the perfect balance here between a confident detective and a man so insanely dependent on drugs that it makes him vulnerable.

The title role claims that Terence is a “Bad” Lieutenant. Using drugs is bad. Stealing is bad. Raping is bad. Extorting is bad. When someone does all of these things, I think it’s time to find a harsher adjective.

Things are set into motion by a handful of murders, which seem, after a few initial investigations, to be forgotten. At the end, one character forgets completely, and by misplacing his trust, will serve quite a bit of jail time. Terence never forgets, though, which seems to be a miracle considering the amount of drugs he takes into his system.

I have seen a few films directed by Werner Herzog, but I’ve definitely not seen enough. What I have seen, I have liked, and ‘Bad Lieutenant’ is no different. It’s fun walking through the twists and turns of Terence’s life. While watching, I thought that the film wrapped up too neatly for a film that was so convoluted, but that is not the case at all. The film’s plot in itself is actually quite simple. It is not about the solving of the murders, but about Terence McDonagh. A film where a detective pushes through with his badge is about the murders. A film where a detective uses his gun as his first form of ID is about the character. This is the latter.

Gabe and Alan Polsky, who recently produced Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, have optioned the film rights to Jonathan Lethem’s cult novel (he also wrote the cool Omega The Unknown comic book miniseries a while back). The sci-fi noir hybrid, originally published by Harcourt Brace in 1994, has drawn interest from film players for more than a decade.

With a mix of Raymond Chandler-style pulp detective fiction and futurist theorizing, “Music” follows an archetypal private eye through Oakland and San Francisco as he delves into the murder of a prominent urologist. Among Lethem’s inventions are super-smart children called “baby-heads,” evolved animals and animal rights, erotic nerve swapping, debit cards holding one’s karma and a menacing kangaroo that works for the mob.

The books synopsis goes like this “Chandleresque, hard-boiled detective narrative finds a quirky new milieu in this SF/mystery/farce of murder and mass mind control set in a near-future Oakland, Calif. Conrad Metcalf is a private dick, but in his era that profession is even more ignominious than in the past. Due to some extreme governmental measures aimed at maintaining public docility, asking questions is taboo, leaving memory as Metcalf’s sole resource. Government-distributed “Make,” a cocaine-like blend of synthetic, mind-altering drugs, is now de rigeur . So is the magnetic card each citizen carries to keep track of his or her karma points. These points are awarded or docked by “the Office” for good or bad behavior and if the balance hits zero, a cryogenic prison term may ensue. Most of the menial work is done by genetically engineered English-speaking, bipedal “evolved” animals–sheep, apes, rabbits and kangaroos–and one of the latter is gunning for Metcalf. In this confusing age, the murder of Dr. Maynard Stanhunt, Metcalf’s former client, leads the detective to a convoluted conspiracy, unimaginable in our own time.”

Sounds like my kind of story. A mix of Philip K Dick, Kafka, Grant Morrison, Michael Marshall Smith and more.

Gun, with Occasional Music at Amazon.com
Gun with Occasional Music at Amazon.co.uk

You know, Herzog films are just of a different breed.

Some of them, like “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” (1972), are a sheer joy to write about. It just flooded me, right after the credits rolled. Others, like “My son My son, What have ye done” (2009), is almost impossible to put into words. The creation sort of stands outside the realm of criticism…it asks for nothing and seeks to prove nil, its intrinsic value lying in the creative process that engages it. Verbal commentary, in a way, almost cheapens its dreamy quality by dragging it into the realm of reality.

“Bad Lieutenant, Port of Call New Orleans” (2009), for me, stands between the two extremes of affections mentioned. It is a gritty story rooted in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The cinematography is shot with style, the tones and colors evoking the damp, heavy, sensual mood of the South. There is something organic and raw about swamps and heat of plantations, don’t you think? The green of the vegetations feel like they may simply come alive in the middle of the night and bury you in their lushness. The bayou always seems to be crawling with secrets and magic.

Werner Herzog takes advantage of his environment, as he always does, and uses the setting to create a whirlwind narrative of a police officer who because of one seemingly innocuous decision, starts to stumble through a series of life events that involves drugs, sex, mobs, money, deaths, violence, and…I could be missing something, but you get the point. The driving force of the film is drug addiction, which propels its central character, Sergeant Terence McDonagh (Nicolas Cage), with an unmatched intensity and focus in the enforcement of his desires and in the process, sees him bulling through his job with an ingenious wit and some very quick thinkings, eventually ending up in a position that is interesting indeed. The irony of it all is that Terrence didn’t ask for any of it: the money, the drugs, the distinction, the addiction, oh…certainly not the addiction. Yet he got it all.

How does Nicolas Cage invoke the role? With a deep affection and a quirky satisfaction, evidently. Anyone who watches this film can see how perfect Cage and Terrence are for each other. Really, I dare you to imagine anyone else wearing this role, because Cage wears it like a damn fine sleep-wrinkled, booze-stained, crack-powdered, and cocaine-laced cheap suit. He is a formidable actor that hasn’t had much chance to showcase his range in recent years, muddled with the National Treasure flicks that frankly, are just not good enough for him. Here he steps up to the plate and proves that he still got it. Shoulder slanted, face tense, a reckless gleam in his eyes and an urgent stuttering stream of outrageous propositions in mouth, Cage delivers what he calls his “impressionistic” performance – all the more impressive because unlike his role in “Leaving Las Vegas” (1995), he paints his character here completely dry, with no substance aid aside from that of his imagination. Wicked, I’m sure.

A couple days ago, while riding the subway, I came to a sudden realization about “Bad Lieutenant”. Many people try to stuff it into a genre or category of some sort…American crime, film noir, action thriller…I doubt any of that matters. Why bother with labelling? I doubt Herzog made it with any label in mind. One recurring theme in many of Herzog’s work seems to be the human quality of obsession, and the extent of our capabilities under its spell. Aguirre, My son My son, Bad Lieutenant…you see the thread of obsession running through them all. Herzog seems to be obsessed with obsession. Many of his films see the pitting of human nature against mother nature, the fallible against the infallible, the moral against the eternal. How much can we endure? How far can obsession pull us along? And can we ride it to our doom or bloom?

Obsession is a powerful emotion and motivator, and it can invoke a depth of potential that one doesn’t even realize one possesses. Terrence didn’t ask for any of his afflictions. But once afflicted, he had no choice but to utilize all his talents in order to fulfill his physical needs, in order to keep living. His addiction forced him to take risks, pusue suspects, and run his job with a deranged fervor. He wasn’t a most moral cop, perhaps, but he realized that he was very good at doing cop-ly things. Had he not been addicted, would he ever have realized the extent of his professional skills? We don’t see what kind of cop Terrence was before that fateful day when he jumped in the water, but I get the sense that he wasn’t anything outstanding. In a way, the addiction found him, and made a force to be reckoned with out of him. What hand does fate play in all this? How much of it is free will? There is a great scene near the end when Terrence and the man that triggered his current life meet once again, and they slump against the wall, and talk. I don’t remember exactly what they said…very little, if any. But the fact that they are across from each other again, years later, light-years away from their previous predicaments,  and still so vastly unreachable from each other, carries a kind of ironic perfection.

We are just passing through on this earth, yet we leave so much mark behind in our path, often unaware of the damage. At the same time, mother nature is all-encompassing, and we often forget how our fragile humanity pales in the face of its grandeur. How much of what we accomplish is a result of free will, and how much is attribution of sheer coincidence? People talk of fate…what is fate? In the end, I kind of don’t care about it all, the labels. There are so many ways to get there, but the end result is still only twofold. So the question is, what do you want to make of the journey? And how much do you want to bet on getting to the end…only to discover, potentially, a whole new world of possibilities?

Survival of the fittest…it’s all that drives us, really.

Cage and Herzog post-screening Q&A at TIFF 09

If  you liked ‘Leaving Las Vegas’, you’ll just LOOOOOOVE  ‘Bad Lieutenant’ with Nic Cage.  Hysterical. It takes place in New Orleans, where are the streets are named after LIQUOR, like Bourbon and Burgundy, so we know we’re off on the right foot. Then, the character that Nic Cage is playing is a police officer, who hurts his back and gets Vicodin from a doctor and has NO problem getting refills; what’s up with that? Obviously, the people who made the movie didn’t get the right technical advisor.

AnyWHO, I won’t spoil it for ya but let’s just say his idea of a ‘date’ is spending it in the evidence room and always chooses dope over sex. And, in true Nic Cage style, throws in the obligatory Elvis Presley song being sung by an iguana, in the fashion of Tony Soprano’s talking fish dream. He also does a great homage to Jimmy Stewart if you look closely at yet another scene of him handling dope.

This is a guy who spends a lot of time running around trying to catch bad guys and a buzz at the same time.  He’s got too many memorable lines but here’s just one.

“I’m running on about an hour and a half sleep for the past 3 days and I’m trying to remain courteous and I think it’s getting in the way of me being effective!”

Could he BE any cooler?

This is a do not miss movie….loved it. Bravo, Nic! Glad you’re back!

Nicholas Cage stars in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, and the movie is awesome. Some disagree. Let me explain why these “some” are wrong.

First, some reviews compare the movie to a 1992 flick directed by Abel Ferrara. In this movie, a corrupt cop does a bunch of ridiculous things, earning the movie an NC-17 rating. Such reviews complain that this movie isn’t as offensive, graphic, or gritty, and they’re right, but that’s because Werner Herzog wasn’t aiming to follow up Ferrara’s movie, and comparisons between the two movies miss the point.

That’s because as I see it, the latest Bad Lieutenant is not a crime drama or a cop story, but rather a very sophisticated comedy. The movie isn’t going for grittiness or offensiveness, though I think it sometimes achieves both of those moods; rather, it’s going for a kind of sarcastic commentary on New Orleans, a devastated city filled with ruined people. The satisfying point of the movie is that it’s funny, but not because the characters are trying to be funny. This isn’t a comedy in that crude sense. The characters take everything deadly serious; their world is no joke. But for us it is a joke. The antics of Nicholas, the deus ex machina ending, and Cage’s sprinkled hallucinations all create a cynical humor that pervades the movie. Cage is simply a bad lieutenant, and he gets what he wants. Awesome.

Also, there is a philosophical point to the movie, which I think is that immoral people succeed best when they can find a moral community to parasitically infect. Even the gangster’s behave somewhat morally in that they fulfill their bargain with Cage and don’t just shoot him at various opportune moments. Cage is the bad guy, as the title suggests, but he needs the rule of law, honor, and authority to fulfill his impulses. Like the Fool in Hobbes, the most successful egoist is the one that knows how to fake altruism.

Finally, I want to note that the director, Werner Herzog, wins the war of words in terms of defending his movie. Abel Ferrara melodramatically said, in reference to Herzog and his crew, “”I wish these people die in Hell. I hope they’re all in the same streetcar, and it blows up.” Die in hell? Is that possible? It doesn’t matter because Herzog’s response was pretty good. When asked about Ferrara’s comments, Herzog replied “I have no idea who Abel Ferrara is. I don’t feel like doing homage to Abel Ferrara because I don’t know what he did — I’ve never seen a film by him. I have no idea who he is. Is he Italian? Is he French? Who is he?” I think this is funny because Herzog is famous (among movie people) and successful, and so his response nicely leverages his social status against an immature and obviously pretty insignificant rival. Way to be strong Werner.

2009 has been the year of the shitty remake, so why not wrap up the year with a bastardization of Abel Ferarra’s classic Bad Lieutenant starring Nick Cage?  Fuck that noise.  This week we are celebrating the original starring Harvey Keitel.  Bad Lieutenant sits in a morally ambiguous world where even the police can’t be trusted.  Keitel plays the perfect degenerate cop that is strung out on crack and makes little girls talk about sucking dick in order to avoid being arrested.  Whereas Ferarra’s previous film King of New York dealt with a villain doing good, this is his counterpart involving a hero committing evil.

TORRENT: Bad.Lieutenant.DVDRip.(1992)
BONUS: Bad.Lieutenant.Port.of.Call.New.Orleans.DVDScr.(2009)

Considering the fact that every third film today is a re-make or, more pretentiously, a re-imagination of an earlier success, it’s always galling to hear filmmakers giving the hard sell on why it’s so vitally necessary to re-do what’s been already been done; why in many ways, Freddie Krueger’s story is even more relevant today than it was in 1984, or why this generation must have a DEATH RACE to call its own… Of course, the only real reason to re-make, or re-imagine a film is to appeal to its “built-in” audience – and make bank. Any filmmaker who claims otherwise is full of what they’re peddling.

And then there is THE BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS, a film being discussed with refreshing honesty by both its director Werner Herzog, and the director of the first film to bear the BAD LIEUTENANT title, Abel Ferrara. And when I say ‘refreshing,’ I mean that Ferrara has been quoted as saying that that all those involved in remaking his film “should all die in hell.” (An actual quote – and it’s worth noting that Ferrara’s follow-up to his own LIEUTENANT was BODY SNATCHERS, a re-imagining of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.) Herzog, for his part, claims never to have seen Ferrara’s 1992 film, and has freely admitted that the BAD LIEUTENANT title was added to his project to secure financing. There’s the movies for you, kids: an original story, even one with a great director and bonafide Disney movie star, requires association with a pre-existing title to get made. But in what could be considered a Hollywood judo move, Herzog has put together a unique, even bold crime film, by taking on the name of another. It’s in this subversive spirit that BL:POCNO (such a fun acronym) seems to have been produced, and that, fortunately, translates into a viewing experience full of freaky pleasures.

Nicolas Cage (second from right, caucasian) in THE BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS

In one of his two greatest and least-unbearable performances of the ’00’s, Academy Award Winner and Japanese commercial pitchman Nicolas Cage plays Lieutenant Terence McDonagh, who, at film’s open, appeals to his better angels and rescues an inmate from a flooding prison cell during Hurricane Katrina. In saving the con, Terence injures his back, and is prescribed some serious painkillers. Before long, these are supplemented with every other type of narcotic imaginable – and Terence is in deep with all the bad elements of the Crescent City. What follows is a surprisingly tight, and altogether surprising noir, in which Terence juggles gambling debt, drug addiction, a hooker girlfriend with a heart of gold, and an assortment of well-cast ne’er-do-well’s. It’s a highly-entertaining depiction of a man mentally and emotionally spiraling out of control, and like all real noir, it’s not on a moral bent against either its pro- or antagonists. Herzog certainly doesn’t present a sinner just to tear him down; there’s too much to explore in the symptoms of moral and mental descent.

If Cage is to be the modern Klaus Kinski, Herzog’s new and wild American muse – all I can say is bring it. Bring that shit on, Werner. Director and actor here make a perfect fit, Herzog the great documentarian of madness, and Cage, who does crazy in a way all his own. Cage’s style pushes so far in one direction of artifice, from PEGGY SUE to CON AIR, he almost dares you to accept him in a role, and to enjoy him faking it, as he clearly does. When Cage is bad, as well as when he’s good, he goes for broke, and in BL:POCNO, he goes so broke, he’d better be lining up some of those bonkers Japanese commercials, and fast. In one scene, before a pair of old ladies, Cage waves a .45 Magnum and screams, unprovoked, “I hate you! You’re why this country’s going down the shithole!” If this doesn’t make you laugh, you haven’t accepted the dare of Cage and of this film. And I feel so very sad for you.

How'd it get BUUURNED?!

Herzog himself colors in the margins of a smart, if somewhat straight screenplay with bizarrerie that improves the pace in the film’s midsection. Between the appearance of drug-induced iguanas, (with shaky, patent-pending Iguana-Cam,) and a metaphysical break-dancing ho-down that begs to be watched on repeat, it’s hard not to get a thrill from the genuine weirdness Herzog injects into what would appear by its title to be another unnecessary remake. He manages to make a strong case not only for his own remake’s existence, but even a case, in some cases, for remakes.

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THE BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS

Mann’s Chinese Six, Hollywood

Sunday, November 29, 4:10pm showing