Is anyone else getting fed up with all these commercials for K-PAX? I can't get a decent war update on MSNBC without being subjected to this preview. I mean, at first I was mildly charmed. By now it makes me want to scream.

Can't we just rent Starman and be done with it?

Amanpour

Starman, Michael, Phenomenon, ET, etc.,
I've hated that preview from the start... but my wife adores Kevin Spacey, so it'll be hard to avoid completely.

-Andrew

But that part where he eats the banana *with the skin still on it*! An alien that misunderstands something that basic? That's so funny and original! It can't get old because it already is old. How about that bit where the scientists are all skeptical until he quickly draws them a diagram of how to do faster-than-light travel? That's right up there with Zira suddenly telling the skeptical scientists that (wait for it) "I loathe bananas!"

I guess "Starman 2" was already registered.

"Starman, Michael, Phenomenon, ET, etc., "

Yep. K-Pax even has the adult contemporary theme song.

"How about that bit where the scientists are all skeptical until he quickly draws them a diagram of how to do faster-than-light travel?"

Ah yes, the old sixth-grade level lecture to the world's leading astrophysicists. I think it was done first (and best) by Michael Rennie's Klaatu to Sam Jaffe in The Day the Earth Stood Still. I think the funniest example of this I've seen was in the 1965 howler, Crack in the World. There Dana Andrews demonstrates the horrible fate awaiting the Earth by, I swear, punching a hole in a pane of glass with a hammer and chisel. That was actually the second funniest scene in the movie. The first was the shot of a rocket on the launch pad pointed straight DOWN.

Crack in the World sounds hilarious. Did MST3K ever do an episode on that film?

Amanpour

"Crack in the World sounds hilarious. Did MST3K ever do an episode on that film?"

If they did, I missed it. It would have been a natural for them, especially because it wasn't one of those obscure low-budget jobs. The special effects weren't cheap, and Andrews was a name actor, but everything was used to unintentionally hilarious effect. Like the final shot of the young lovers watching hand-in-hand as a new moon shoots out of the Earth not 10 yards from them.

I remember crack in the world. Was that caused by underground nuclear testing?

The amazing was that this big chunk of the planet breaks off and the stars of the film are right there at the edge of the fissure and the tremendous forces of this chunk spinning away didn't suck them along with it. I think they were holding on to a tiny tree or something.

The upside was that the earth then had two moons. Think of the big waves the surfers would have!

And yes, Kpax commercials are driving me crazy. Kevin Spacey is losing it. Why would the guy pick a stupid movie like this?

Well it was a nuclear warhead, but it wasn't testing. It was Dana Andrew's attempt to extract the magma from Earth's mantle using that hilarious down-pointing rocket. That scene was priceless. You had the launch pad, the gantry crane, the whole nine yards, and there was this upside-down rocket, fins and all, on the pad.

Kevin Spacey seems to have decided it is time to self destruct his credibility. Swimming With Sharks, Usual Suspects, America Beauty, and then...Pay It Forward? Ouch, Kevin, why has thou forsaken me?

First time I remember seeing Kevin Spacey was in The Ref. I think it was meant as a Denise Leery vehicle, but Kevin stole the screen. It shows that he can do comedy as well as drama.

Kevin Spacey also had a role as "generic bad spy" in the "comedy" See No Evil, Hear No Evil, starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor (at the end of their comedy duo rope). I was flipping by USA and that caused me to stop for a while.

The performance is adequate, but there isn't even a glimmer that he's, y'know, Kevin Spacey brilliant actor and (as SNL proved) wicked impersonator (Walter Matheau, Chris Walken, William Hurt). He's a great stage actor (Iceman Cometh) AND he sings pretty good. He did Mind Games at that Lennon benefit about a month ago.

Freakin' Renaissance man.
Oh, he loves his mother too. Brought her to the Oscars.

-Andrew

"First time I remember seeing Kevin Spacey was in The Ref."

My first Spacey was Glengarry Glen Ross. I recall liking him in that but if you're not really looking for him specifically you can lose him in the noise of scenery being chewed. Besides, I just assumed he was the utility character and didn't pay much attention. After that I think I saw him in Consenting Adults and then something else where he was just vastly different (Seven maybe) and I sort began to sit up and take notice.

A friend of mine who had been a fan of him since he was on the television series "Wiseguy" smacked me upside the head and told me to see Glengarry again.

Amanpour

"something else where he was just vastly different (Seven maybe) and I sort began to sit up and take notice."

Bingo! I remember thinking "THAT guy" when I saw Seven, and I'm still in awe over his performance in the back of the car.

Really though, The Usual Suspects is the movie I'll always associate with him. It's not a role his fame would allow him to pull off now. Such restrained charisma in that film.

-Andrew

Spacey stole Seven from Freeman and Pitt. His performance made that film for me. He nailed the rightous psychopath persona right on the head.

I was doing some reading up on Spacey and noticed that Swimming With Sharks is listed as a comedy...huh? It is even billed as "Hysterical". There are some chuckles in it, but they're mostly the nervous "I can't believe this guy is such a pig" style. I always thought it was meant to be a drama with a bit of commentary on how some people are willing to destroy their whole lives to get what they want.

I'd certainly agree that Swimming With Sharks is both a comedy and "hysterical." The whole thing is done so completely over the top that I found it pretty hard to take seriously.

"I always thought it was meant to be a drama with a bit of commentary on how some people are willing to destroy their whole lives to get what they want."

Rather than being a bit of commentary, I thought this idea was so central to the movie that it allows the whole thing to be presented as satire.

Another comedy that I found out some people thought was drama: Happiness.

Hmmm, I guess it's all in perception. For Swimming With Sharks, I think for me that it failed to come across as satire. It might be that I'm a little dence in these matters.

I think it doesn't register as satire for me because the only character that is truly over the top is Buddy Ackerman. Buddy is the personification of pure greed and selfishness. He uses his power to get women, get respect, and to rise himself above everyone else. Every other character just seems, well, typical. The female producer who slept her way to the top, the ex-intern who put in his time and is now moving on to bigger and better things, and the new intern who is now the doormat of Buddy. None of these seem to be purposfully satirical.

Do I find it funny that Buddy will only take Sweet-N-Low in his coffee and will throw a fit if someone gives him Equal or, god forbid, real sugar? Yea, I find it hysterical, but I didn't realize this was the main thrust of the movie.

Honestly, I found American Psycho to be about as funny as Swimming With Sharks, and for the same reasons. The charcters are all representative of something. Bennett (or Davis, the movie just confuses me on this front) is a pure tight ass. Rich, miticulous in everything he does, and a major coke-head. He is a walking, talking, breathing stereotype of the mid-80's when greed was good and imagine was everything. But his character also showed what happens when a person represses all his true emotions and only displays what people expect him to display...he cracks.

For those who didn't see the movie (and I suggest you see it. It's a great film), I won't expand on American Psycho anymore. To talk about it too much would ruin the film completely. I'll just say that I consider it and Swimming With Sharks to be in the same groupings of movie styles. Maybe they just don't fit in a single catagory. They're funny for being over the top, but that can also be seen as an overly dramatic take on a situation.

Hehe, man, I digressed bigtime here. Sometimes I think I just like typing too much.

American Psycho is definitely a comedy. And a pretty insidious one. The scene where they compare business cards was *hilarious* because it was played so straight.

Good comparison, Jim. I think of Swimming with Sharks and American Psycho as black comedies that might be too subtle for some people. Same with Happiness, as Bruce mentioned. Happiness is high-falutin' Farrelly Brothers: a comedy that goes three steps too far for comfort.

BTW, if you guys want to see something insidious, watch the trailer for Happiness on the DVD. I can't figure out if it's a joke, intentional misdirection, or just cluelessness.

-Tom

I've never seen the film American Psycho, but I read the book a couple of times as it is one of my favourites (shame everything else by Ellis is so poor in comparison). If the film is anything like the book it would have to be very darkly comic, for many of the scenes could not be taken seriously. There's the slapstick, like when he takes a jellyfish from the beach before microwaving and eating it; there's the faux pas, for example the dropping of the coins in the beggars cup before realising it was full of coffee; then there is the truely sick and demented like the starving rat, the woman and the tube and...well I don't think that scene would have made it into the film so you'd better read the book. I'm surprised it ever made it into celuloid at all, as a large part of the book would be illegal if presented visually.

As for Kevin Spacey, he's been my favourite Hollywood actor for some time now, and I had no idea he was in See No Evil, Hear No Evil. I'll have to get that out on video again, as it is one of my favourite films too!

Tim (aka Gx_Farmer)
http://www.mrfixitonline.com

I haven't read the book, but after seeing the movie a few times now I'm planning on changing that. I'd like to see how different the two are.

They definantly toned things down though, from what you are saying. Most of the gory events are implied, ala Hitchcock. You often only see the results and not the action itself.

Well, K-Pax has landed with the splat so accurately predicted in this thread. 39% on the Tomato-meter. A. O. Scott's review in the New York Times is interesting, stating that's it's a film about a weird character that refuses to take a chance on being weird in and of itself. Scott makes an interesting comparison to The Fisher King, which certainly did take that chance.

Fisher King sucked, too.

The moral, homeless people are all there for a reason: because they're working out baby boomer psychotherapy issues, and when they get those sorted out, life is peachy and they can reclaim their white collar jobs as djs and professors.

Sappy false crap. The beginning of a string of crappy Hollywood exercises for the formerly quite neat-o Terry Gilliam. Hope he snaps out of it soon.