Rik

As a media-loving teen in the 80s it was full-time work following up on my various media obsessions. I was huge into Monty Python, and had a jones for all related British humor, staying up late to catch Fawlty Towers reruns on PBS, for example. So when MTV, in a then-novel foray into non-music programming, announced the airing of their first episode of The Young Ones, I eagerly tuned in.

There had been a timelessness to Python, but The Young Ones was more recognizably NOW, injecting elements of punk and other contemporary music that was beginning to fascinate me. The Young Ones seemed to jump out of the set; Python seemed to fester sillily, but The Young Ones was a moshpit. But its celebration of rule-breaking anarchy was tempered with self-reflection. Rik, the in-house anarchist, was often revealed to have crippling self-doubt, often stopping short when considering the reality of the party line he spewed so explosively. I wasn't surprised that Rik Mayall, the actor who played Rik, was one of the lead writers of the show, since Rik seemed to have more shade and substance than his three fellow students. He was a nice warning to a budding malcontent, and, in retrospect, looms large in my personal lexicon.

I'd kept only sporadically in touch with Mayall's oeuvre over the last few years - some swear that Drop Dead Fred is a classic, but it seemed much less than what it could have been. But I was pleased that he kept working, and was sorry to hear of his injuries later in his career. I was sad, though perhaps not surprised, to hear of his untimely death.

There's much to enjoy and appreciate in looking back on his work - memories of Rik's more insane moments, of Mayall's more bittersweet and shaded television experiments. And indeed of his role in a strong, countercultural movement in British comedy that has made as indelible a stamp on comedy as we know it as the surreal antic of Python before it.

I raise one to him, smiling even as I mourn.

Thanks, Rik. G'night.

S.O.B.

NIGHT WIND, the latest film from producer Felix Farmer (Richard Mulligan) has flopped. Badly. As an array of Hollywood players rally to recover their losses, Felix descends into suicidal gloom. But when Felix falls (literally) into an orgy that is happening in his home, he is revitalized by an epiphany: NIGHT WIND can be saved with the inclusion of graphic sex scenes. Now if he can convince his wife/leading lady/squeaky clean icon Sally Miles (Julie Andrews) to bare her breasts for it...

This film was a staple in the early days of HBO, and 11-year-old me watched it many, many times. It had achieved some notoriety as "that movie where we see Julie Andrews' breasts" which certainly wasn't lost on me, but as a nascent cinephile there was much to enjoy here. I was starting to understand what moviemakers did, and so I was always going to be interested in a movie ABOUT moviemaking. Especially when the moviemaker hero at its center was as crazy and fun to watch as Mulligan was.

Revisiting it now, for the first time in decades (thanks, Warner Archive), I wonder if I took the film's anger to heart. It's very much a vent (and a pointed stick) from writer/director Blake Edwards, and is both charged with wish fulfillment and fuelled by the kind of spite and specificity that only an insider could bring to bear. Though I did eventually get a degree in theatre and have since pursued storytelling in one way or another, I never, ever had any desire to make it big in Hollywood, and this film illustrates many of the reasons why. (The final scene, in which many of the film's players continue to network during a funeral, is insanely true to my recent experiences of Hollywood.)

But it's interesting as a transition from one decade to the next, evident mainly, but not solely, in its two takes on NIGHT WIND's dream sequence. The film is populated with veteran actors, many of them old hands (and Edwards mainstays) whom one suspects know exactly what real-life counterparts they're playing (Mulligan is clearly an id-unleashed stand-in for Edwards, and the parallels between Andrews and Miles are clear; Robert Vaughn recently admitted that his ruthless exec was modeled on Robert Evans). Among these veterans are young faces who would go on to fame later in the decade (I recognized Joe Penny, didn't recognize Roseanna Arquette, didn't even see Corbin Bernsen). As (charmingly gently) 80s-raunchy as the action often gets, there's a refreshing and intriguing old-school vibe to the thing, from Henry Mancini's score to the joyous third-act counterattack perpetrated by these three Musketeers:

But the transitions spoken of in this film carried to real life. William Holden (above left) died shortly after the film was completed. Roberts Preston (center) and Webber (right) continued to work (quite visibly in Preston's case, in VICTOR/VICTORIA and THE LAST STARFIGHTER), but neither of them would survive the decade. Until I watched the film recently my abiding memory of the film was always just these three guys sitting around, getting lit with Sinatra on the jukebox, rallying for one final hurrah. Even now they stand together as the film's conscience, and collectively make its most joyfully indelible impression. Here's to the old school.

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS

It's my favorite Woody Allen film since MATCH POINT. A weary Hollywood screenwriter hangs out in Paris with his fiancee and finds himself taken to the 1920s, where he encounters many members of that city's literary set. It's breezy and gentle, and though you see its moral coming a mile away it still registers powerfully upon arrival. There are some fine performances in it (when Adrien Brody slid onscreen as Salvador Dali I could only smile in anticipation), but Owen Wilson is particularly fine as Allen's on-screen surrogate. He's particularly relaxed but totally engaged, and as easily as he gives voice to Allen's philosophy (and he does it better than any of the other substitute Allens) it's his quiet moments that truly register - the moment that Wilson finally accepts, with a gentle smile, that yes, his dream is coming true is the best thing I've seen him do.

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE

The movie shows the signs of being made in haste - your proprietor wasn't surprised to hear that Team Cusack (including actor/producer John Cusack and director Steve Pink) was brought in and given loose rein on the film in exchange for turning it around quickly. But the production's a little smarter than it's being given credit for, and the story of three run-down guys in their 40s (and an isolated young nephew) given a second chance thanks to the title machine gives some very funny actors roles that they seemed born for - Rob Corddry's obnoxia, which never quite fit his correspondent duties on THE DAILY SHOW, is given a particularly strong launching pad here.



But it's a perfect project for Cusack. In Adam he finds a burned-out character haunted by his compromises and squandered potential (viewers of 2012 might find this role an apt one). In addition to referencing his previous work (its time period the era of SAY ANYTHING, its 80s nostalgia mirroring that of GROSSE POINTE BLANK), the film restores Cusack to his most comfortable habitat. Throughout his career Cusack's been at his best when paired with an equally solid actress for romantic comedy, and there's real joy in watching both Cusack and Adam rediscover and reinhabit their charm opposite Lizzy Caplan (warm and confident as a young 80s music journalist who offers Adam a tantalizing second chance). Though the material's not quite as sharp as that offered Skye/Cusack or Cusack/Driver, Cusack and Caplan mine it for a grace that raises the stakes of the comic mayhem surrounding it, allowing HOT TUB TIME MACHINE to succeed on more than 80s nostalgia and sex jokes (both of which are executed with winning energy).

I laughed a lot.