One of the saving graces of this odd, sometimes frustrating, curiously plotted film is that it contains, for me, the year's funniest bit. It may not have been intended to be hah-hah "funny" (it involves a sudden outburst and the breaking of glass), but it's a sudden, extreme, deranged piece of business that had me on the floor.

If only PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE had built from this point and gotten progressively stranger and more uncorked. But it doesn't; it gradually becomes more and more fanciful. Once Watson comes into the picture, that is, and inexplicably falls for Sandler's Barry Egan, a small-business owner who wears the same blue suit all the time and seems way too tentative and locked-down to make it with anyone this fetching in real life.

But there's real fascination in the weirdness of the story line. I agree with Salon's Charles Taylor that LOVE's "thrilling and often unsettling aura of uncertainty [comes from the fact] that from moment to moment there's no telling what will happen...it's a movie where the characters teeter right on the edge of disaster."

A lot of us complain about movies being too formulaic and hitting the same old beats, and then something like PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE comes along and we say it's too caught up in itself, or overly curious or unfamiliar. Unusual, convention-defying films can feel frustrating because we can't figure what bag they belong in. We should probably try to be more liberal and accepting about such films, or at least think them over a bit more before rendering judgement.

Colors

This is small potatoes, but Charles Taylor's 10.11.02 Salon review of PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE contains a major wrongo. He compares "the electric blue suit that Sandler wears throughout the film...with another famous movie suit: the dark blue one worn by Cary Grant in NORTH BY NORTHWEST." Grant's suit in that 1959 Alfred Hitchcock film, which he wears throughout 90% of it (he changes into a white shirt, black slacks and loafers during the final 15 minutes), isn't any shade of blue. It's somewhere between light and medium gray. No debate, no maybes -- I'm right and Taylor is wrong.

Bag of Swag

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (opening 12.25) may not be an Oscar-type thing, but it's gonna be big. Or at least, that's what the two-minute, 30-second trailer has me thinking.

It arrived yesterday on a VHS cassette inside an early '60's-styled, frosty-blue Pan Am tote bag, which was sent by the folks at DreamWorks, the film's distributor. The Steven Spielberg film is about a real-life con artist named Frank Abagnale (Leonardo DiCaprio) who pretended to be a bunch of different guys in different professions and cashed a lot of bad checks, and one of his masquerades was as a Pan Am pilot.

Whatever the film turns out to be, the trailer tells you it's got a bouncy, swinging early-'60s mood. You can see it's a chase film of sorts (FBI man Tom Hanks all over DiCaprio's ass, etc.), but also that it isn't about the dread of being hunted down as much as the thrill of getting away with it. The movie doesn't stay on this level and "turns" in the third act, but trailers are never concerned with resolutions. This one is interested solely in giving us a taste of the fun and danger.

And congratulations to the person who decided to use that FUNNY GIRL song, "Don't Rain on My Parade," on the soundtrack. It's a great mood-setter.

DiCaprio looks for the first time in years like he's not bothered or pissed off, and you can sense he and Hanks have good performing chemistry. Plus it's got the always-masterful Christopher Walken playing DiCaprio's dad. The swag bag also included a post card of the one-sheet (the slogan reads, "The true story of a real fake") and a trade paperback of Abagnale's book of the same title, which was first published in 1980. I don't feel like reading it since I've already read Jeff Nathanson's screenplay, which I favorably reviewed in this space a year and a half ago.

Instant Sell

If you've got a smart, sophisticated palette and you live in New York or Los Angeles, next weekend you'll probably want to see ROGER DODGER (one of the best of the year), Jonathan Demme's THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE (which a friend says is much better than the advance word has indicated so far), FRIDA, the latest Mike Leigh film ALL OR NOTHING or, depending on your perversity levels, the Billy Bob Thornton infidelity movie WAKING UP IN RENO.

But if you're a primitive, non-review-reading type who decides what to see based solely on the posters and trailers, GHOST SHIP is the one to catch. I won't be seeing it until the screening on Monday night, but that killer one-sheet makes me want to see it despite the fact it's probably not that great. And that's saying something.

It's always a political mucky-muck whenever I try to find out the name of the artist who came up with an ad concept or a piece of promotional art, so let's just congratulate the entire Warner Bros. ad department and let it go at that.

GHOST SHIP is about a the attempted salvaging of a "long-lost 1953 passenger ship, floating lifeless in a remote region of the Bering Sea," upon which "strange things" happen once the towing process begins, according to one description. Steve Beck (13 GHOSTS) directs from a script by Mark Hanlon, the director-writer of BUDDY BOY. Gabriel Byrne, Alex Dimitriades, Ron Eldard, Desmond Harrington and Julianna Margulies costar.

Whoops...

"Before you congratulate the Warner Bros. marketing team too much, you should know that their GHOST SHIP poster is a complete ripoff of Avco Embassy's 1980 thriller DEATH SHIP, which starred Richard Crenna and George Kennedy as shipwreck survivors fighting for their lives aboard a spooky old Nazi ship."

"As you can see from the image I've attached, the GHOST SHIP poster apes DEATH SHIP 100%, except that the original is ten times better. You can tell that the artist who painted it spent much time capturing a creepy mood, whereas the GHOST SHIP image was probably stolen and Photoshopped in about two hours."

"I don't know which is a better film; maybe they're on the same level. DEATH SHIP, directed by the Canadian Alvin Rakoff, a mostly silly film, has a few neat shocks. Guess we'll know about GHOST SHIP next weekend. But there's no question as to which poster is better." -- Marty McKee, Moderator, SF, Horror & Fantastic Cinema Board Cult & Exploitation Cinema Board, Mobius Home Video Forum

Odd Thing

A friend passed me a tape of that World Trade Center scene that was cut out of Dan Algrant's PEOPLE I KNOW, the Al Pacino movie that's been playing in Rome, Brazil and Mexico but not in the States because Miramax thinks it doesn't fit into the post-9.11 environment. It'll probably open sometime early next year.

It's set in downtown New York, and was apparently shot sometime in early '01. (It wrapped a year ago last April.) We see a long shot of a man in a black coat -- Pacino, I presume -- getting out of a cab and stumbling off to the right, and then the camera slowly arcs up toward the WTC towers in the distance, which are maybe eight or ten blocks away. Then the camera slowly starts tilting to the left -- slowly, slowly -- until it's pretty much laying on its side, which makes it seem like the buildings are horizontal too.

It's a pretty curious camera move, all things considered, but I gather the intention was to suggest where Pacino was at inside his own head, or something along those lines. In any case, it won't be in the theatrical release version of the film. Maybe it'll make the DVD.

Generation Gap

"I saw a trade screening [Thursday] for 8 MILE. I seem to be in the minority at my office (most of the opposing camp are middle aged -- I'm twenty-something), but I sincerely liked it. I wasn't hopping up and down, but I thought it was well crafted and well acted. I don't doubt it'll get a few Oscar nominations, but Universal will really need to promote it. I'm not necessarily an Eminem fan, but I was entertained by this movie." -- Anonymous, Dallas, TX

Spellbinding

I feel a little bit sappy admitting this, but I was incredibly moved by a bit of business in Alfred Hitchcock's SPELLBOUND (1945). I'd either forgotten about it or never noticed it when I first saw this somewhat overbaked, David O. Selznick-produced melodrama on TV years ago. It hit me as I was watching the recently-released Criterion Collection DVD, which uses the beautifully restored print that preservationist Scott McQueen completed a couple of years ago.

Ingrid Bergman plays a psychiatrist in a ritzy sanitarium who finds herself falling in love with the new chief of operations, played by an almost too-young-looking Gregory Peck. (It soon turns out Peck is an impostor, but we'll skip over that.) Her feelings come to a boil late one evening as she visits Peck in his quarters. She finds him sleeping. He wakes and smiles. He starts walking very slowly in her direction and speaking to her softly. The camera goes in closer and closer on Bergman's face as you feel her succumbing to the erotic current.

And then Hitchcock throws out the rule book and cuts away from Bergman and Peck in order to show us a very syrupy visual metaphor -- a series of doors opening, one and then another and then another (five all together, I think) with Miklos Rozsa's score barely able to contain itself. I guess it's the audacity of Hitchcock telling us, "Look...this is what's happening inside Ingrid Bergman's heart," that got me. No one would dare try anything this florid today, but in this context of SPELLBOUND -- a director working under a very domineering producer and trying to find his own creative legs, and willing to risk showing a little emotion -- it works.

It's nice, also, that McQueen took the time to color-tint the gunshot image that comes at the very end of this black-and-white film, and which appeared in the initial release prints.

It's a well-known scene, and one of the things about SPELLBOUND that's still cool. Bergman has just identified the real killer (Leo G. Carroll) to his face, and he's taken out a gun to threaten her. The camera assumes Carroll's POV as the gun follows Bergman as she gets up and leaves the room to call the cops. A brief pause, then the gun (actually a large-scale model with a fake hand folding it, so Hitchcock could keep Bergman and the gun in focus together) turns around and fires into the lens. The screen explodes bright red -- actually a kind of intense orange -- for exactly two frames.

Bruised Heath

"You give a good performance in one film and the next thing you know you're on every magazine cover and entertainment news show. It's a recipe destined to create a never-ending run of one-hit wonders. That friend of yours asked if Heath is the new Kip Pardue, but let's not forget the poster boy for this unfortunate phenomenon---Matthew McConaughey." -- Stacey Singleton

"I get so tired of seeing overhyped actors get millions of dollars based upon Hollywood hoping these guys will become gushers. Colin Farrell is making $5 million dollars a movie! Based upon ....what? The performances of AMERICAN OUTLAWS, HART'S WAR, PHONE BOOTH, etc? Young actors now don't have to prove any box-office viability. Most of the time, it seems, their movies flop and quite often don't even 'open.' Brad Pitt earns $18 million dollars a movie and he hasn't had a hit since SE7EN. Taye Diggs is developing into a box office star but you don't see him on magazine covers. I wonder why." -- Derrold Purifoy

"It seems to me the stars themselves shoulder the blame not only for their role choices, but also for allowing themselves to be overexposed. After all, if any 'young, hunky' star appears on every talk show, shows up on MTV's TRL, graces the cover of ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, hosts fashion award shows, gets interviewed by online movie sites, and lets their publicists set their schedule without so much as thinking for themselves. No wonder they flame out so quickly." -- Tommy Brandon

"In the 30s, 40s and 50s, actors were carefully cultivated and brought along before they were cast as leads. Nowadays things are so accelerated and market-driven, they're given the big roles in big expensive films without having proven themselves. Just because girls might think he's cute doesn't mean they're going to spend $10 to see him in a movie." -- Elizabeth Mahon, Morgan Stanley

Marty Can Win It

"I want Scorsese to win an Oscar as much as anyone else, but I also don't want him to win for a film he shouldn't win for. Just as I wanted Kubrick to get an Oscar, but not for Eyes Wide Shut, I want Scorsese to get one when he really deserves it. I haven't seen GANGS OF NEW YORK, maybe it is so good that he deserves an Oscar for it (for what it's worth, I thought BRINGING OUT THE DEAD was enjoyable for the creative cinematography, but only an okay movie), but I don't want him to get a gold watch Oscar. Hitchcock was never tainted for not winning an Oscar, and neither was Kubrick, so I'd rather see Marty win for a picture that definitely deserves it than to just give it to him for being screwed over before." - Chris Heinonen

Wells to Heinonen: You don't quite spit it out, but I get the feeling you expect GANGS to be good or pretty good, but not good enough.

Greeks

"All this talk about the dueling Alexander projects (not to mention Wolfgang Petersen's TROY) has me wondering what happened to Michael Mann's adaptation of GATES OF FIRE, about the Spartans' stand at Thermopylae? I think you may have even mentioned it in the past. Didn't I Read something about George Clooney being interested in playing Xerxes, the Persian king? Would I rather see a Baz or an Oliver? No contest -- I'd rather see the director of THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS do his own sword-and-sandal pic." -- Rich Swank

Phone Delay

"I think if they released PHONE BOOTH it would just die at the box-office right now. It's not as if it's an anti-war flick (which would also be pertinent now) -- it's something that's making people honestly scared to leave their homes. I want to see PHONE BOOTH, but after the horrible reaction that the producers of THE SUM OF ALL FEARS got for releasing it within a year of the 9.11 disaster, do they even want to risk that with PHONE BOOTH? They jumped all over a football announcer [last] weekend for using a sniper term that people use in football sometimes, just because of the bad timing...and this would be worse." -- Chris Heinonen

Wells to Heinonen: The Fox guys should just put it out there and let the complainers complain. Release PHONE BOOTH now and it has the scent of synchronicity and extra voltage -- wait until next February or March and it becomes that so-so thriller that 20th Century Fox didn't have the balls to release when it would have created some sparks. PHONE BOOTH has the potential to make $30 or $40 million, maybe, but it'll never be a corker.

Dodging Bullets

"To offer a rebuttal against Chris Heinonen's claim that THE SUM OF ALL FEARS suffered some backlash, its domestic box-office take was $118 million. Not a blockbuster, but not chump change either. You're right -- this type of Colin Farrell-headlined movie would never have made loads of cash. Release it now; I doubt the sniper will take position outside the AMC plazas." -- Nick Rogers, A&E Writer, State-Journal Register, Springfield, IL.

Gangs vs. Gorilla

"Reading the New York Times piece today about the decision of a GANGS release date (Friday., 12.20) made me laugh because of this passage: 'We believe there will be enough room for two big-event pictures,'' [Miramax COO Rick] Sands said. The alternative, he said, was to open 'Gangs'' on Dec. 13 against ''Star Trek: Nemesis,'' but Miramax executives felt it appeals to the same college-age fans.

"GANGS appeals to college-age people?? Laughable. Leo appeals to college-age people?? I think those squealing teenage girls irca. 1998 have long outgrown Mr. D by now. And STAR TREK NEMESIS will draw a major college-aged crowd? I wonder about that logic also. I'll admit though it's likely to have wider appeal on campuses than GANGS.

"Overlooked is the 800-pound gorilla against which GANGS is opening -- LORD OF THE RINGS (debuts two days before GANGS' new date), which most certainly is attractive to those campus boys and will handily crush everything else that weekend.

"This film, effectively, is doomed. A public burial for a long-ago Oscar hopeful -- and Harvey and company will be grooming CHICAGO for their requisite Oscar slot." -- Keith Collins

Role Playing

Kate Coe was first to identify Wednesday's cast. They appeared together in the 1937 film SARATOGA.

Today's cast: Joel Grey, Bobby Darin, Walter Slezak, Sandra Dee, Gina Lollabrigida, Brenda de Banzie, Rock Hudson.

What's That Line?

Jim Campbell of Paterson, New Jersey, wasn't the first to identify Friday's dialogue, which is from Ron Shelton's BULL DURHAM (1988). But he was the first to identify legendary New York publicist Bobby Zarem as the publicist who has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo as a third-base coach. (I only noticed Zarem's appearance because DURHAM star Kevin Costner points him out on the DVD audio narration track.) In any case, Shelton wrote and directed Durham. The actors in the scene are Costner, Trey Wilson and Robert Wuhl.

I ran this a couple of years ago but it's good enough for a replay. I love this scene, actually, and it's acted just about perfectly. Two guys who work for the same outfit are talking things over.

Guy #1: You wanted to see me?
Guy #2: Yeah, thanks. I know you're a busy guy. I thought we could talk about our problem.
Guy #1: Our problem? We have a problem?
Guy #2: I don't know how it happened. We just started on the wrong foot. It's my fault. Sometimes I come on a little strong. No hard feelings.

[They shake hands.]

Guy #2: Got a minute? [They start walking together.] You got children?
Guy #1: No. You?
Guy #2: Eight. Yeah, eight kids. Three by the first marriage, three by the second, two by the third. And now [wife's name] is pregnant with number nine.
Guy #1: A lot of child support.
Guy #2: I love kids. You like 'em?
Guy #1: Yeah, I like 'em.
Guy #2: Don't wait too long to start. [Beat.] Your wife okay?
Guy #1: Yeah.
Guy #2: Good, good. Because a lot of these couples today...I don't know. They get so wound up in their careers and busy with everything, their personal life suffers. They still do it once in a while, but it's like they gotta put it on the schedule or something. You don't hug, you don't kiss, you don't....you don't do it nice and fool around like before...

Guy #1's body language starts to indicate a certain tension.

Guy #1: ...and everything's in a hurry. Such a hurry you don't even enjoy it any more. And you start thinkin', your wife, she's not gettin' off the way she used to. And you wonder, maybe she's...? Nothin' goin' on, nothin' you can point to, but you start wonderin'...
Guy #1: You talkin' 'bout yourself, right?
Guy #2: No, I'm talkin' about you.
Guy #1: Yeah?
Guy #2: I'm talkin' not because I see it in you. It's because I see it in your wife. I see it in Kathleen.
Guy #1: You saw it in my wife?
Guy #2: Yeah. In fact I saw her this morning. Saw her at the museum.
Guy #1: Blonde?
Guy #2: Yeah. Long blonde curly hair? Green eyes. Two earings in her left ear? Very pretty, too. Very, very pretty. A little skinny for my taste, but they say skinny ones give good head so...

[Guy #1 punches Guy #2 and decks him]

Name the film, the year of release, the director, the screenwriter(s), and the actors in the scene.