Month: February 2012

1^st in this series of four Modern Black & White movies

Release date: 10/8/83

Universal Pictures

Directed by:

Francis Ford Coppola

Screenplay by:

S. E. Hinton

Francis Ford Coppola

Based on the novel Rumble Fish, by S. E. Hinton

Produced by:

Francis Ford Coppola

Doug Claybourne

Fred Roos

 

Cast:

Matt Dillon                 Rusty James

Mickey Rourke           Motorcycle Boy

Diane Lana                  Patty

Dennis Hopper            Father

 

Initial comments by the hosts:

Tony wasn’t sure what to expect, as he went into watching this movie with an expectation of seeing something more akin to The Outsiders, but by the end he really liked the whole presentation.  Darrell thought it was a pretty good movie but thought that; overall, the plot was convoluted.  You had to carefully pay attention to get everything out of it.  Tony also added to that by bringing up the how the score was part of the story; when the dialogue really didn’t matter much, the score rose.  The music showed you that hearing what they’re saying isn’t necessarily the most important part right now, and you needed to focus on what’s on the screen instead.

Jill loved this movie and said it is one of her all-time favorite Coppola movies.  There is so much going on, visually, there’s so much complexity, that you can (and should) go back and find things you didn’t notice the first time.

They discussed the use of black and white and what the meanings behind it might be, as there are numerous uses.  Is it primarily because Motorcycle Boy has not been able to see color since he was a child, or is it because, once you strip the color away, once you take away the “distractions” of color, you only see the contrasts because everything becomes sharper?  Even though it’s black & white, the story is shades of gray.  The only colors you ever see in the film are the red and blue rumble fish in the pet store and Rusty’s reflection in the police car at the end.

Jill mentioned that Coppola refers to Rumble Fish as his “carrot” for finishing The Outsiders.

Darrell added that Coppola wrote this screenplay on the Sunday he had off while doing the Outsiders.  He also used a lot of the same cast and crew, and filmed it right after The Outsiders was finished.

Everyone agreed that Mickey Rourke and Dennis Hopper were amazing.  Jill and Tony agreed that the scene with Hopper, Rourke and Dillon in the bar was one of their favorite scenes.  Jill also loved Tom Waits’ character.

Mickey Rourke reminded the hosts of Marlon Brando in the way he portrayed Motorcycle Boy.  He seemed distracted in the way he delivered his lines.  Rourke said that he approached the character as if he was “an actor who no longer finds his work interesting.” Darrell classified it as a gangster who just doesn’t want to be a gangster anymore; who’s outlived the reputation and realizes how stupid it all is.  Motorcycle Boy is also still very child-like, even though the character is said to be 21.  The cut of his hair, his level of play when he steals his father’s whiskey bottle, his laughter, the hugging scene on the mattress with his dad and brother; all still boy-like qualities.

Jill thought Matt Dillon did a really good job of showing pain without looking weak and showing angst without going over the top.  He reminded her of James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, in the slow flow of his lines, and how it worked for Rusty James’ character.

The first rumble scene reminded Tony of “Beat It” and Jill of “West Side Story” in that it was such a theatrical scene.  Darrell thought the whole rumble scene was designed to look like a stage.  The boys are playing roles, they’re not being true to themselves and they’re playing at being 1950’s-esque gang members.  The movie is also designed to not let you know exactly when it’s taking place until you later get to the scene where someone is playing a video game and you hear the Pac Man music… and Diane Lane’s big 80’s hair!

Rusty James created a fictional life memory in that he’s still admiring the yesteryear gang brotherhood and he longs for the time “when the gangs come back,” as if that was the Golden Age.  He has an idealized vision of his older brother and what he did and that’s where the myth, in his mind, is born from.  Darrell talked about how everybody talks over Rusty’s head and he can’t make the connections to what is all means.  This added to the tension between him and his father and his brother, because they always seem to be talking “around” him and he’s sitting on the outside wondering what’s going on.

Tony said that the one scene that really drew him into the movie is the one in which Rusty James is beaten up in the alley way and then has an out of body experience and floats above everything.  This is where he had to reevaluate what the movie was saying.  It’s such a bizarre departure; it doesn’t fit with anything else that happens in the movie.  He stopped thinking about the linear story because it’s not as literal as what they’re putting up on the screen.  Nothing is being fed to the viewer; you have to look for your own answers.  Darrell commented that this is the driving force behind why Motorcycle Boy left Tulsa years earlier, to find his own answers.  Rusty James keeps saying that if he can just get out of here, things will change, but he’s so attached to the myth of his brother, gangs and his own fear, he doesn’t want to leave the world he knows.

Motorcycle Boy knows that he failed at his intended goal, although we never find out what that goal is or why he failed.  He only says that, “California got in the way.”  In the pet store scene, you realize that Motorcycle Boy knows he’s going to die, and he uses this to try to “force” Rusty James to be free.  He tells his brother to take his bike and go to the ocean; leave this place, find your own life.  Rusty James had previously said that he never had a reason to leave, and now his brother is giving him that reason.  Darrell didn’t care much for the scene as a whole, he thought the tension was a bit too “weird,” and he just didn’t like the way they put it together.  He understood that the scene was critical, but it wasn’t to his liking.

Time flow is a very key part of the story; there’s a clock in every scene, the lengthening shadows, moving clouds, ticking of clocks. Clouds crossing over through the pet shop window is an image that is burned into Jill’s head, from seeing it in the theater when she was younger.

It’s also agreed that one of the things that Coppola and Hinton do very well (Rumble Fish and The Outsiders) is to show the intimacy of male bonding and love between brothers.  It’s not something you see very often, but it’s handled very well in this film.

Francis Ford Coppola has said that Rumble Fish is one of his top five favorite films of his own.

Coppola was drawn to S.E. Hinton’s novel Rumble Fish because of the strong personal identification he had with the subject matter – a younger brother who hero-worships an older, intellectually superior brother, which mirrored the relationship between Coppola and his brother, August.  A dedication to August appears as the film’s final end credit.

Coppola initially intended to have an experimental score to complement his images.  As he began to work on it, he realized that he needed help from a professional musician… enter Stewart Copeland (The Police), who he asked to improvise a rhythm track.  It wasn’t long before Coppola let the far superior composer take over the soundtrack.  Copeland recorded street sounds of Tulsa and mixed them into the soundtrack with the use of a Musync, a new device at the time, that recorded film, frame by frame on videotape with the image on top, the dialogue in the middle, and the musical staves on the bottom so that it matched the images perfectly.

Your Producers for this episode were:

• Tony
• Darrell
• Jill

This episode was recorded: 1/25/2012

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Release date:  10/15/04

Paramount Pictures

Directed by:

Trey Parker

Written by:

Trey Parker

Matt Stone

Pam Brady

Produced by:

Trey Parker

Matt Stone

Scott Rudin

Cast/Voices:

Trey Parker:

Gary Johnston

Joe

Kim Jong Il

Hans Blix

Carson

Matt Damon

Drunk in Bar

Tim Robbins

Sean Penn

Michael Moore

Helen Hunt

Susan Sarandon

(Others)

Matt Stone:

Chris

George Clooney

Danny Glover

Ethan Hawke

(Others)

Kristen Miller:

Lisa

Masasa Moyo:

Sarah

Daran Norris:

Spottswoode

Phil Hendrie:

I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E.

Chechnyah Terrorist

Let it first be noted, and never forgotten, that this movie was Sam’s pick!  Partly because he loves this movie and partly because it fulfills the Recently Dead Guy Podcast formula (Kim Jong Il).

The MPAA rated this movie R, with a specific explanation, “For graphic crude and sexual humor, violent images and strong language – all involving puppets.”

Sam could not contain his excitement from the very beginning, before the discussion of the movie even started, setting a clear tone for the night, “God damn it America, f**k yeah!”

This is the MOST animated I have seen Darrell… (granted, I’ve only been listening for a couple of months, but still!)

The initial comments by the hosts:

Darrell thought it was the funniest thing he’d seen in a while, and the funny/odd part is that a lot of the stuff talked about in the movie has sort of come true.  Tony thought it was funny and a great parody and social commentary in that both sides of the issue are equally skewered.  Trey Parker and Matt Stone make everyone look ridiculous.  Sam thought that it’s the greatest modern satire or our era and that Stone and Parker are this generation’s best satirists because no one is safe.

It was also agreed that Parker and Stone couldn’t have gotten away with covering any of this subject matter with actual actors or even as an animated movie (South Park-ish).

Team America: World Police hit on so many movie clichés – the tragic love triangle, the character who is a jerk for no other reason than to be a jerk and the reluctant hero hitting rock bottom and then finding his courage, to name a few.

In the opening scene in Paris, all the bricks on the ground are actually croissants.  Tony also notes that in this opening scene, Parker and Stone show, in extremes, what the rest of the world sees Americans as.  We are the cops for the WORLD… We’ll take care of things for everyone else, whether they like it or not!  The fact that Team America levels almost every inch of Paris… the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triumph, the Louvre, leaving the residents of Paris with looks of terror and dismay on their faces as Team America makes their “triumphant” departure back to the U.S. is not only priceless, but also introduces that attitude of arrogant Americans.

The opening scene also included a puppet puppeteering a smaller puppet, which completely freaked out your happy note taker (Lena)… because those puppets aren’t creepy enough on their own!

Everyone wholeheartedly agreed that the puppetry was very good.  They loved how, during the fight scenes (which Sam dubbed “Puppet Fu”), the puppets just flail wildly at each other but during the sex scene, the intricate puppet maneuvers were painstakingly choreographed.

This sex scene initially garnered the movie an NC-17 Rating by the MPAA.  The scene was edited 12 times before they were finally given the R rating Parker and Stone were aiming for.

Tony also loved that Kim Jong Il was really an alien cockroach that gets into his rocket ship and flies away at the end.

The music in the movie also played a huge part in adding to the mood and movement of the story.  And thank you, Sam, for singing bits and pieces of the songs during this part of the discussion!  Sam also mentions that, at the very end of the credits, there is one more uncredited song sung by Kim Jong Il, “You Are Worthless, Alec Baldwin.”

It’s also noted that song being played in the bar (Derka Derk) is the Star Wars Cantina theme played backwards.

As for the infamous “D**k, p***y, a*****e speech , as much as I would love to get into this, not only could I not do it proper justice, but it would just be line after line of asterisks… so I highly encourage you all to listen to this entire podcast!

While discussion the overt racism and how necessary it was for Parker and Stone to make their points, Scott notes (from the chat room), “It’s so racist it’s like it loops around just ridiculous, back through racist again and back to nuts.”

Sergio states (also from the chat room) that this film is made for high school boys, college men, basically the male population of the world, except for Koreans.  {Lena’s additional note: as none of the above, I’m just going to have to disagree with Sergio on that one… I LOVED this movie!}

It’s much too easy to dismiss this as a simple film about puppets who swear and have sex – UNLESS you actually take the time to watch it, think about it, and discuss it!

Darrell noted that there were shades of Quentin Tarantino in the film; namely the scene with Team America walking down the hall in the palace on their way to battle with the “Battle Without Honor or Humanity” from Kill Bill.  (This was featured in the movies Kill Bill,Transformers, Shrek the Third, Hotel for Dogs, Team America: World Police )  Also, in a nod to Tarantino, is the big shootout, filled with gore, blood and guts flying all over the place.

In the overhead shot of Gary lying in his own vomit (perhaps the most favorite scene of the hosts), it’s actually Trey Parker wearing a pair of fake legs so the proportions are right.  The “vomit” was a mixture of soup and beer.

Matt Stone referred to the puppet technique they used as “supercrappymation.”

Sean Penn was so insulted by his portrayal in Team America that, in his letter to Parker and Stone, he closed it with, “a sincere f**k you, Sean Penn.”

Matt Damon was originally written as an intelligent puppet, but when they saw the finished product, they thought he looked dumb and decided to portray him as such.  Also, Matt Damon and George Clooney were both quoted as saying that they would have been offended if they weren’t in the film!  Alec Baldwin also reportedly round the project very amusing.

The Michael Moore puppet was filled with ham before they blew him up.

I couldn’t find anything “official” but I did find a few YouTube links (one below) for “You Are Worthless Alec Baldwin”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfOXhGbwdm0

Your Producers for this episode were:

• Tony
• Darrell
• Sam

This episode was recorded: 1/18/2012

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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