Sunday Cinema
I had a hard day today (yard work, household chores, babysitting visiting nephews from West VA, attending the funeral of the brother of an old friend, etc.), and I'm beat.
Therefore, consider this your witty and provocative intro to today's "Sunday Cinema" feature:
Spielberg's War of the Worlds. Tom Cruise. Matt Lauer. Scientology. Psychiatry. Adolphine. Lisa McPherson. Body thetans. What Is Scientology? Dirty tricks. Gabe Cazares ...
Yes, in the mid-1970s, Gabe Cazares was mayor of Clearwater, FL, where Scientology had recently set up its headquarters. Carzares was fighting the organization's attempts to take over the town.
The Guardian's Office [Scientology's covert action group -- name later changed to "Office of Special Affairs"] was also hard at work in Clearwater. Gabe Cazares, who had by now become an official enemy of the "church," was the subject of an extensive investigation referred to by the G.O. as "Operation Taco-Less."
Because Cazares was Hispanic. Get it?
Apparently, the G.O. didn't come up with much as a result of this investigation, so they changed their tack. A plan was made to frame Cazares in a hit-and-run accident designed to ruin his political career, which it nearly did.
It was known that Cazares was to attend a Mayors' Conference in Washington, D.C. He was met at the airport by a young man posing as a reporter and his female friend. Both were Scientologists. The female, a G.O. agent named Sharon Thomas, volunteered to show Gabe the sights of the city, which Gabe gladly accepted.
As they were driving through Rock Creek Park, Sharon, who was driving, hit a pedestrian, who crumpled on the ground behind the car. The "pedestrian" was G.O. agent Michael Meisner, who, of course, was not seriously hurt. Sharon drove on without stopping to see if the "pedestrian" had been hurt.
Somehow this event was "leaked" to the press, and made its ways into the headlines in Clearwater, costing Cazares his election as a congressional candidate.
The G.O. had also drawn up plans to have someone in Mexico forge a document that Cazares had been married in Mexico twenty-five years earlier, making his current marriage bigamous. This "operation" was apparently never carried out.
The Guardian's Office did manage, however, to seriously disrupt Cazares' political career, and to make life quite miserable for him and for his wife for a number of years. Cazares' lawsuit against the church was settled out of court in the mid-1980s.
So, auto accidents. Elaborate plans. Stupid people. Fiery deaths. Lawsuits.
And that takes us to our movie for today, Gone in 60 Seconds, a film that stars Nicholas Cage, who was once briefly married to Lisa Presley, who is (or was) a Scientologist.
This review is by Scott C.
Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)
Directed by Dominic Sena
Written by Scott Rosenberg
Giovanni Ribisi steals a brand new Porsche by driving it through the plate glass window of the dealership. Not content with property damming and grand theft auto, he pops the clutch and tells the World to Eat My Dust. The World responds that they’ve already eaten, thank you, and now they’re flaked out in front of the TV watching a crappy action movie. So it’s up to the police to dine on Giovanni’s dust, and they react with an influx of cruisers and helicopters, which follow him back to the headquarters of kindly, avuncular auto theft mentor Will Patton.
Cut to the desert, where Giovanni’s brother, Nicolas Cage is giving a motivational speech to a bunch of eleven-year-olds at a Go-Kart track. Will arrives, and tells Nick that Giovanni was working for a supervillain so evil and frightening that his underworld confederates call him "The Carpenter," because the name "The Texture-Coater" was already taken. The Carpenter is so angry over Giovanni’s stunt with the Porsche, that he puts the kid inside an auto-press and turns it on. Then he delivers an ultimatum to Nicolas: he must steal 50 cars in four days, or Giovanni will be squeezed into a cube and displayed along with the cross-sectioned cow in the Brooklyn Museum.
Nick mulls it over as his brother screams, giving the auto-crusher just enough time to squeeze some of the oil out of Giovanni’s hair before agreeing. Oh, by the way, Nick’s character is the World’s Greatest Car Thief (one of the less popular theme mugs at Spencer’s Gifts) and his name is "Memphis Rains." No, I don’t believe it either, but felt we ought to mention it, since the screenwriter obviously spent a lot of time and effort coming up with that name, first considering and rejecting such possibilities as April Showers, or London Fogg.
Robert Duvall, co-star of Days of Thunder shows up to lend dignity to yet another stupid car-crash movie. All I can say is, I hope he’s lending at a high rate of interest, and sending people out to break the director’s thumbs when he can’t pay the vig.
This time out, Robert is a kindly old former chop shop owner who helps Nick reassemble his crew, which includes Sphinx, a Lurch-sized mute who is employed by the county morgue to leave half-eaten sandwiches on all the cadavers (let’s face it, they’re not going to leave Kron chocolates on a slab), and Angelina Jolie, who leads a sort of Flashdance Meets Coyote Ugly life, working as a car mechanic by day, and a bartender by night. She also sports a huge head of bleached blonde dreadlocks that make her look like a photo negative of Bob Marley.
With time ticking toward the deadline, the reassembled crew goes to work accumulating intelligence, trying to pinpoint the 50 exotic and expensive cars on their list. Nick himself visits an exclusive Mercedes dealership and inquires about the contents of their warehouse. But he allays suspicion by going incognito, dressing in a suit and speaking in an English accent. Specifically, Kevin Costner’s English accent from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves; so apparently he’s gone disguised as a bad actor.
Unfortunately, police detective Delroy Lindo figures out the entire scheme after receiving an anonymous tip from the screenwriter, and begins to stake out the crew. But stakeouts are boring, so the filmmakers throw in a subplot about a rival ring of super car thieves trying to kill Nick and Giovanni, which leads to a big chase scene. On foot. How’s that for irony?
Huh? Car thieves? Chasing each other on foot?
HUH?
Okay, it’s pretty stupid, I agree. The filmmakers seem to agree too, so we cut to a scene where the crew breaks into a Ferrari warehouse, and we get a bunch of soft-core porn shots of saucy quarterpanels and perky pop-up highbeams.
Various automobiles are stolen by various people, and delivered to the port. Nick himself shows up to steal one of the staked-out cars, but he senses a Great Disturbance in the Force, and realizes that all the Mercedes for which they obtained laser-encoded keys are under surveillance. They have back-up keys, but those cars are in the police impound lot. Oh, and Robert’s dog just ate the other keys. (It’s a good thing they’re not being graded on this theft, because I seriously doubt the teacher would accept that excuse.) Nick snaps into action, ordering Robert to administer Ex-Lax to the dog, and wait for it to pass the keys.
In the meantime, it’s back on the street to go steal some more cars. As time ticks away and the cops close in on them, Nick and Angelina pause to talk about their relationship. Despite certain difficulties in defining their terms, and finding a common frame of reference, they make good progress, and seem to be on the verge of a breakthrough. But first, let’s cut away to a light-hearted scene in which two of the crew are walking the dog, when suddenly they’re jumped by a gang of homeboys who threaten to kill them with knives. Fortunately, the dog chooses that moment to evacuate its bowels, and the two crew members eagerly retrieve the keys from the steaming excreta. This hilariously triggers the gangbangers gag reflexes, and they withdraw in high dudgeon, refusing to sully themselves by eviscerating fecalphiliacs.
Enjoyed that? Well, there’s plenty more whimsy where that came from, as our heroes now use the foul-smelling keys to boost three late model Mercedes from the impound lot. Meanwhile, one of their number distracts the police clerk by putting on a pimp costume and a shoulder-length black wig with bangs, and showing us how the world would look if "Superfly" had been played by Betty Page.
Eventually, Nick meets up with the 1967 Shelby CT 500 that will be his love interest for the remainder of the film. He steals the car just as Delroy arrives, and finally, the big car chase is on! There’s action! Crashes! Near death experiences!
But enough of that. Let’s grind to a dead stop, shall we, so that Will Patton and Giovanni can have a slow, Bergmanesque colloquy about the past. A lugubrious, moodily-lit disquisition that reeks of Fate, Calvinist determinism, and greasy hair.
Now back to the chase. It’s not a bad chase as these things go, but there aren’t quite as many custom ‘67 Mustangs around as there were when the original film was made in 1974, so Nick has to drive very defensively, and can’t afford to bump into anything, or get too crazy. As a result, they have to cut the big chase scene short, and the movie ends as most of these movies do–with a foot pursuit through a steam plant.
Eventually, Nick pushes The Carpenter off a catwalk, and he falls 60 feet and lands in his own hand-carved coffin. Which is either a clever homage to Truman Capote, or a sign that scripter Scott Rosenberg, who also wrote Disturbing Behavior, believes that every movie has to end with somebody plunging to their death from a great height. I admit that he’s got a pretty firm argument with movies like North by Northwest and Die Hard, but feel that he’s on somewhat weaker ground when citing films like Jefferson in Paris, A Dog of Flanders, or Camille. Although we do admit that in any future remakes of Camille, sudden impact trauma would be one good way of cutting short the traditional lingering death scene.
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You'll be happy to know that I have a 92% compatability match (98% in the intellectual area) with Giovanni Ribisi, who may be a nice enough guy (or not -- I really don't know) in real life, but whom I positively can't stand as an actor. I think this proves something horrifying about life.
Anyway, I'll be back later with the latest about Meghan Cox Gurdon (she had a breakdown, possibly mop related); Doug Giles (I received a tip from a confidential informant .. okay, it was Karl Rove ... saying his is the Pastor's best column ever!), and the NRO's recommendations for your summer reading (guess which guest nutcase put Star Trek: the Porn Generation on her list?).
Until then, check out Fried Green al-Qaedas. It's got Perry Mason, Ann Coulter, and the really disturbing background on that beloved Mexican comicbook stereotype who was recently honored with a stamp.
Oh, and in the interests of fairness, if Gavin has posted anything at Sadly, No! today, please read it, while ignoring Brad's posts. Thank you.
2:33:13 AM 
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