Harry here with a film that no matter what I seem doomed to never see. It played in town during the AUSTIN FILM FESTIVAL last year when I was bedbound... Moriarty saw it a million and 8 years ago it seems and then he even presented the film at the Egyptian Theater in Los Angeles as the first AICN Screening there. Well, it is finally coming to a theater near you. Check it out...
Ahoy, squirts! 'Tis everybody's favorite salty seaman, Quint, here with a look at DJ Caruso's directorial debut, The Salton Sea.
I saw this flick a long, long time ago, last October in fact. I have since seen it a second time at AICN's series at the Egyptian Theater, part of the American Cinematheque. Why didn't I review it earlier? Well, there are two reasons. One, this movie is great, an amazing debut from an incredibly gifted filmmaker, but it's a hard one to convey in words. Given the projected difficulty and my number 2 reason (I'm a lazy sumbitch) I had been putting the review off, instead thinking the film over and over again in my head.
It's a weird bird. It starts off as a movie about druggies, those lost to the real world, inhabiting an almost alternate universe of the perpetual party with a notable absence rules and sunlight. It's a place of amazingly close friendships, sometimes idol worship, yet, like most things that exist in this alternate universe, most of it is fake, a temporary need to be close to someone and get high.
Then it switches gears on you and turns into a neo-noir film with Val Kilmer playing our anti-hero. I happen to love films that do that to me, take me where I didn't expect to end up. I do recognize that there are those out there who hate it when a film changes gears like that. I've had endless debates about Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's From Dusk Till Dawn, where the switching of gears is so abrupt that it jarred a lot of people into a dislike of the film. I loved it. Surprise (although there wasn't much there if you had seen the trailer) is one of cinema's most magical attributes.
The Salton Sea refers to an actual place of some significance to Kilmer's character, an ex-trumpet player turned addict and a sort of bastard combination that can best be described as a vigilante private eye.
This is as good a place as any to talk about Val Kilmer's performance. We know Kilmer can act, but he hasn't given us much faith recently as to when he'll actually put forth the effort to give his characters dimension. I don't know how long he'll keep it up, but he pulls out all the stops in this film giving a truly fantastic and complex performance. There are so many different levels to his character that he conveys effortlessly. From stoned out junkie to grieving husband to police rat to drug dealer... he's all over the map in this film.
And before you talkbackers start bitching about him, just remember these films: Real Genius, Top Secret!, The Ghost and the Darkness, Heat, Tombstone, The Doors and his part in True Romance. Sure, I can already hear you shouting "Madmartigan!" and listing off several of his more lackluster films, but honestly folks... this man has made some great movies and has proven his ability. We know it's there just as sure as we know he can throw us a stinker or two, but I'm here to tell you that I've seen The Salton Sea and it's one of his great ones. Give him the benefit of the doubt. Do it for me.
Even if you're still too cynical to do that, I suggest you take a look at the fantastic supporting cast Caruso put together.
-Vincent D'Onofrio plays... well, a role that is uniquely and unsurprisingly perfect for him. He's a big drug dealer that snorted so much coke that his nose is gone... literally. The scene where he recreates the assassination of President Kennedy is one of the funniest and most wrong things I've seen in a long while.
-Adam Goldberg is a druggie, which again suits his acting talents. He's very much his character from Dazed and Confused, but 10 years older and addicted to coke. His Ocean's 11-ish complicated robbery plan will probably go down as one of the funniest scenes in movie history. I have a feeling that the more cynical viewers out there that will scoff at this movie just because it has been getting such good word will point this scene out as the only good thing about the movie. They'll be full of shit, but at least they'll give props to this fantastic, over-the-top sequence.
-Luis GUUUUUUUUUUUZZZZZZZZMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAANNNNN!!!! Who cares who Guuuzzmmmannnn plays in this film. He's in it. That should be all you need to know. The Guz is hands down one of the coolest character actors around right now and my only complaint about his role in The Salton Sea is the same complaint I have with his other films... He needs to be in it more. More Guzman! If this guy doesn't get a leading role in something soon I'm going to drive to LA, steal Steven Spielberg's feces and use the money I get from it on ebay to finance Guzman: The Movie. Just see if I don't.
-Doug Hutchison, the best sleazeball actor around who most remember for his truly slimy portrayal of Percy Wetmore in The Green Mile. Yet another great character actor who is perfect for his role, in Hutchison's case a dirty cop.
There are more character actors... Anthony LaPaglia, Glenn Plummer (yeah, the black guy who was the only thing worth watching in Speed 2), Danny "Definition of a Badass" Trejo, Meat Loaf and BD Wong, just to name a few... They're all great in the film, but Goldberg, D'Onofrio, Hutchison and Guuuzzmmaann were the standouts.
Now on to the direction. DJ Caruso is one of the new batch of filmmakers that have come out recently, in the same class as someone like Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko director)... you know, the next wave of young filmmakers showing great talent. Caruso has done a lot of TV and spent some time as a producer, but don't let that fool you. He's a protege of Frank Darabont and shows just as much talent. Does Caruso have a Shawshank Redemption in him? Only time will tell, but if The Salton Sea is any indication of his talent then he has more than a fair shot at making some great films.
The film comes out this Friday in limited release and it opens everywhere May 17th. I urge all of you out there to see it. I don't want this to be one of those great films that is completely overlooked, swept away in the wake of Episode II and Spider-Man. This is a great film to take in if you need a break from the pure entertainment of those two blockbusters. It'll remind what a dramatic film can do... then you can get back in line and see Attack of the Clones again.
I'm gonna shove off. Got a midnight screening of some forgotten blaxploitation classic called The Black Six at the Alamo Drafthouse here in Austin. I'll be back with some views of the new Jason flick, Sum of All Fears and some other goodness very soon. 'Til that day, this is Quint bidding you all a fond farewell and adieu.
-Quint
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