Larger Than Life
On this episode, Mike addresses the elephant in Bill Murray’s room by sharing his thoughts on the actor’s 1996 film “Larger Than Life.” We’ll next count off our bottom five “sidekicks,” share a couple staff picks and then discover what flavor of cinematic revenge Mike has selected for me for our next show. But before all that, hide your peanuts and any mice that you might have scurrying around while we roll the trailer.
Mike, 1996 was a year full of memorable cinema. Independence Day rocked the theaters the hardest during the summer, taking home the honor of highest grossing film of the year with over $800million in ticket sales. But coming in second was none other than your beloved “Twister,” which raked in just under 1/2 billion dollars, followed closely behind by the action spectacles of the first Tom Cruise Million: Impossible movie and Michael Bay’s loveable cheesefest “The Rock” starring Nicholas Cage and Sean Connery. But if you’re into more than box-office receipts, ’96 also rewarded cinefiles with a few bigtime critical darlings including Wes Anderson’s debut, “Bottle Rocket” Danny Boyles iconic “Trainspotting” and the Coen Brothers now-considered-classic, “Fargo.”
What’s incredible to me is that this year was also chock-full-of-duds – like serious, all-time clunkers. To name a few, the interminable John Carpenter sequel “Escape from LA,” the Pamela Anderson trainwreck “Barb Wire” and, by all that’s unholy in the universe, the Whoopie Goldberg-starring abomination “Theodore Rex,” a misguided-from-the-start project that paired the Oscar-winner with a walking and talking dinosaur to fight crime.
And yet, somehow I didn’t give you any of those movies and instead assigned you a completely forgotten about pothole in the career of Bill Murray, who was at this point stumbling around Hollywood in between his break-out early years as a comedic leading man and his latter-day career as an irascible but charming grump. In “Larger Than Life,” we get Murray wading in the hinterlands, trying to find his footing. And while he does so, he is partnered up with… a several-ton pachyderm. To me, sight unseen, the synopsis of this thing reads like career suicide, and the abhorrent box office and critical reception seem to indicate I’m correct. But, perhaps – just perhaps, for you this movie took wing like some mighty Dumbo piloted by Lou Loomis: a “Cinderella Story” that stole your heart and saved you from cinematic despair. What say you, good sir? Did “Larger Than Life” trample you underfoot or lift you up by its mighty trunk?
Questions:
1.) Is this a paycheck movie – a pay the mortgage movie? Because it feels like one.
2.) How was the chemistry between the stars? Did sparks fly for ya?
3.) Howard Franklin went to bat three times as a director in his career: this movie, the flick Quick Change which he co-directed with Murray, and the Joe Pesci-starring dud “The Public Eye.” While he’s credited as a writer for several movies afterward, never again as director. Is that surprising to you after watching this?
4.) I get the feeling Franklin and Murray were friends – like maybe old college buddies or something – because even after their team-up on Quick Change bombed Murray would go back to the well both here and in the dreadful “The Man Who Knew Too Little.” In fact, it seems Murray’s collaborations with Franklin DEFINE his mid-90’s career swoon. Any thoughts?
5.) I couldn’t help but notice some pretty recognizable co-stars in this including Janeane Graofolo and Matthew McConaughey. But also Pat Hingle (Commisioner Gordon), Keith David, Jeremy Piven and perennial “that guy” Jerry Adler! What gives? Are any of them any good or is everyone wasted?
6.) I read somewhere that the elephant saves a church during a typhoon or something???
Ultimately, Mike, I’m not sure where we netted out on my most central question about “Larger Than Life:” who was who’s sidekick here? Is Bill Murray the sidekick or is the elephant? Either way, we decided that with your review, we’d tally off our bottom five sidekicks. Tell me how you composed your list and what criteria you used…
Bottom Five Sidekicks:
5.) Jack Burton – Big Trouble in Little China
While the movie is wonderfully odd – a nonsensical and fun mish-mash of special effects, martial arts and Eastern mysticism, Big Trouble in Little China gets most of its mileage off an even more bizarre and basic premise: what if you tell an action-adventure story from the sidekick’s perspective. In this case, the big-name star of the flick, the almost always great Kurt Russell, plays Jack Burton, a swaggering, macho John Wayne-type who actual has zero in the way of practical skills or experience when it comes time to save his friend Wang’s fiancee from the clutches of an evil Chinese sorcerer named Lo Pan.
Russel and Director John Carpenter seem to be having an absolute blast subverting audience expectations at every turn, but if you think about it, man… Jack really is useless. Even when he drinks a potion that makes him able to “see things no one else can see, do things no one else can do” he still manages to run into a fight and get himself knocked-out after shooting concrete out of the ceiling above him. And what about – in that same fight – when he gets pinned accidentally under an armored guard after stabbing the dude in the stomach with a boot knife? Yeah, Jack kills Lo Pan at the end – but honestly that was pretty straightforward stuff given the sorcerer had turned flesh again and vulnerable – but it’s always Wang doing the heavy lifting whether its knocking out a bunch of guards while Jack’s trying to pull that knife from his boot or whether it’s dueling Lightning, the most powerful of the three storms – in a crazy jump sword fight.
4.) Olaf – Frozen
Maybe I just don’t like Josh Gad – although I did find him funny in Pixels… so, maybe it’s just that I do simply hate Olaf. Face it, animated movies are probably the easiest way to fill-up a list like this as annoying side-kicks seem to tag along with tons of protagonists like Shrek – who had Donkey, Mulan – who had Mooshu the dragon, and freaking Dory from Finding Nemo. It’s in the DNA of these flicks to have comedic relief from a wise-talking or otherwise goofy buddy that offers little to no value to the plot. And in no animated film is there a better example that the odious Olaf, the especially irritating magical friend conjured by sisters Elsa and Anna in childhood, who then returns when Elsa accidentally immerses the kingdom into an eternal winter. He’s supposed to represent love and innocence, but his bucktoothed goofiness and dangerous clumsiness just makes him a garbage addition to the mission of finding Elsa.
To me, all of these animate sidekicks are in the movies for one reason only: merchandising. And I remember my own tyke all swoony over some Olaf plushy at age 3 or whatever, squeezing him so Gosh Gad’s annoying wine spilled out of the stupid staticky voicebox: “Hi, everyone. I’m Olaf and I like warm hugs!” You know another word for TRASH is O-F-F-A-L, offal? It’s no coincidence to me that you switch a couple letters around and get this git’s name.
3.) Hooch – Turner and Hooch
This flick is much-loved by people of a certain age, but I gotta say, I saw K-9 first and I liked it a lot more. First of all, grittier crime. The way the bad guys shoot up James Belushi’s car was badass. The bad guys in Turner and Hooch just kill a mechanic that’s friends with Tom Hanks, who is so uptight in the movie that it stretches credibility that he’d even have any friends. Second of all, cooler, less-disgusting dog. I’d take a German Shepard over a Mastiff any day of the week. All that drool? Fucking gross. Third of all, yeah, the ending. Not to spoil a movie from 1992, but Hooch fucking DIES at the end, and even if you didn’t like him, a pretty major cinematic rule is that you DON’T KILL THE FUCKING DOG – unless, you know, it’s in a movie like “All Dogs Go to Heaven” where the title pretty much spells out the danger.
Neither the dog in K-9 or the one in Turner and Hooch are initially great pairings with their respective humans, but in the case of K-9 it’s Belushi that’s more the issue while in Turner and Hooch, it’s the goddamn dog that tears up the joint and coats everything is horrific slobber. What’s worse, though, is yeah, that fucker made my cry. So screw you, Hooch. You gross mutt. You should have let Turner take the bullet.
2.) Willie Scott – Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
While some may have found Marion from Raiders of the Lost Ark a bit of a patience tester, I found her strong, charismatic, and fesity. Winner of drinking contests and pretty good with a torch when dealing with a chamber full of snakes, as played by Karen Allen, Marion was such a likeable romantic foil to Indy that Spielberg and Lucas brought her back in Kingdon of the Crystal Skull.
None of this is true of Willie Scott, though, who screamed and screeched her way through Temple of Doom with so much wide-eyed horror that I began to wonder how the hell she hadn’t just died of fright. Look, I’m not picking on Willie – she went through a ton of really weird shit, what with that insane dinner of bugs and monkey’s brains, that whole centipede and scarab-infected secret passage area and, y’know, riding a minecart down rickety tracks like it was a rollercoaster into hell. When Marion was forced to be a damsel in distress, it was more because she was out-numbered and not because she was delicate. Willie is CONSTANTLY a damsel in distress. At all times. And the filmmakers spend so little time making her likeable or earning her any amount of respect that, by the end when Indy wraps her in her whip and pulls her close for a kiss, we’re like Shortround shouting “No time for love, Dr. Jones.”
1.) Walter Sobchak – The Big Lebowski
What can I say about this movie that you wouldn’t say better? Honestly, it fills me with dread to even mention Walter to you as I seen you sport a costume that made you a dead-ringer for John Goodman’s off-kilter Vietnam-vet and best buddy to Jeff Bridge’s The Dude. But I think even you have to admit, Walter is an asshole, just as the Dude himself pointed out. And almost everything he involves himself in, whether its enforcing the line rule in bowling, or filling a ransom bag with full of dirty laundry or, most upsettingly, opening a coffee can of cremated remains only to have the ash blow back in her and the dude’s faces – well, sometimes there’s a man, well, he’s the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And Walter… is not that man. At all. He likely never was a fit for his time and place as he simply ratchets up whatever situation he’s in like a broken volume knob. You know, like teaching a kid what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass by shattering a neighbor’s brand-new sports car or, you know, by picking up a paraplegic elderly man and insisting he can walk when the man most certainly cannot.
Ultimately, Walter proves he has little to offer by way of skills, understanding, patience or logic. But then again, each and every character in The Big Lebowski is rife with personal faults. The movie perhaps indicts Walter a bit more than just about anyone else, but honestly very few are spared, with the possible exception of Donny, but he pays another, more severe price altogether being surrounded by this league of shockingly inept gentlemen (and wildly wacky women.)
In sum, after watching The Big Lebowski, one thinks back on Walter and really has only one piece of advice for him; something he instructed Donny to do time and again. “Just shut the fuck up, Walter. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”
Staff Pick:
The Replacements (2000) Howard Deutch
Super fun rip-off of Major League, but instead of baseball and Tom Berenger, we get football with Keanu Reeves. Mike, you’re a football nut, but for a passive fan like me, this was a great time celebrating the high points of the sport while also positively destroying the millionaire “cry baby” professional players that are part of the reason I turned away from becoming a more avid fan in my youth. Cynicism aside, this is a fun, stupid movie with Reeves playing Shane Falco, a one-great college quarterback who had a treacherously awful final game and pretty much went into hiding ever since, electing instead to scrape barnacles off yachts. Due to a greedy players’ strike, the owner of the Washington Sentinels – played with gruff charm by veteran actor Jack Warden – hired his old friend, coach Jimmy McGinty, to put together a replacement team and get the Sentinels, against all odds, into the playoffs.
While Reeves is really good here as Falco, bringing solid physicality and a lot of heart to the role as a man trying to find belief in himself, it’s the fantastic Gene Hackman as coach Jimmy McGinty that positively steals every scene he is. This guy was a master of timing, delivery and subtlety – an all-pro quarterback with dialogue and character. It’s so great watching him strut his stuff in this flick where he gives as good as he gets, but then winks just as often, as if acknowledging that he knows it’s all silly, but damn, if it ain’t fun.
This is all been-there, done-that, with Jock Jams soundtrack – how many times can you hear Rock n’ Roll Part 2 in a movie? This one wants to test the threshhold – but you have to give cinematographer Tak Fujimoto – yeah, he of Silence of the Lambs and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off fame – a huge amount of credit for making the whole thing look like it was shot by NFL cameramen, who – next to National Geographic – are the sharpest eyes in the world when it comes to tracking motion and keeping everything crisp in frame.
But more than anything, just like with Major League actually, it’s the cast chemistry of the replacement players that makes this thing so great to watch over and over again. Whether it’s Orlando Jones’s hilariously over-confident Clifford Franklin, the fastest man on two legs who unfortunately cannot catch, or Rhys Ifans who plays a wi-rey Welch soccer player-cum-football-kicker or even Jon Favreau, he who would later become a mega-blockbuster director of Marvel and Disney movies, playing an overzealous (and then some) cop-turned-offensive lineman, everyone brings something memorable and likeable to bear.
I love this loud, funny, doofy flick that probably knew better than to use “Every Breath You Take” by The Police for a romantic moment between two leads, but did it anyway because, fuck it, it sounds good there. Sometimes you just gotta roll with it and take the shot, intelligence be damned.