Mike Gets Stoned

Platoon

Written by Oliver Stone

Salvador

Written by Oliver Stone and Richard Boyle

Without missing a beat, here I am with my write-up of our very first double feature! The one-two gut punch of Oliver Stone’s Platoon and Salvador.

Doing these as a double feature makes a lot of sense on paper. Both movies are (largely) from the same voice, and both deal with very similar ideas. I guess the only problem was that, man, these movies are heavy. Which is to be expected from Stone, and especially young Stone, but that didn’t make it any easier to breeze through these. Had there been, say, two Pixar movies or two Woody Allen movies nominated in a single year, things would be simpler. But we made our choice and pushed through 5+ hours of war is hell, man’s inherent deceptive nature and the ostensible evils of the men pulling the strings.

Which isn’t to say these are bad movies. Of course they’re not. Platoon is pretty much canonized as one of the all-time great war movies and lives up to that reputation, while Salvador really took me by surprise. Not a movie I knew anything about going into it. So, no, not bad movies. Just tough movies.

Let’s get started. I’m a little out of practice, so I’ll be blunter than usual. But I think bluntness is appropriate. We are talking about Oliver Stone, after all. Both movies waste no time sending their heroes to hell. The new recruits in Platoon are immediately greeted with body bags, no doubt containing the troops they’re there to replace. And Boyle and Jim Belushi (!) are running into trouble as soon as they enter Salvador. And things never really get any better.

Platoon is fucking oppressive, man. Everywhere they turn, things are awful. The same is true of Salvador, but there’s a bit more levity to that one. Boyle is a pretty fun character, particularly in the first couple of acts. It’s great for breaking up the tension, and seeing him begin to take things more seriously, and think of others is a solid character arc. It also helps that the character is strong enough that we don’t need any voiceover. I wrote in my notes for Platoon that voiceover was “a necessary evil,” but I’m not sure I agree with that. It gives us insight into Chris’s psyche, I guess, but so do his actions and his relationships with the rest of his team. All the voiceover accomplished for me was it kept me wondering if there’s a specific reason he’s writing to his grandmother and not his parents, like is that one of the true-life details from Stone’s time in Vietnam?

If Salvador is about a man learning to become less selfish by witness the horrors around him, Platoon is about men becoming corrupted by doing the same. Boyle grows a soul by the end, doing everything he can to get Maria to safety. But Barnes kills Elias, and then Chris kills Barnes. It’s interesting. Everyone in Platoon kind of just gives up by the end. They’re resigned to their fate. None of them were really there because they believed in the mission in the first place, and now they’re just trying to survive and get home by any means necessary. Boyle, by contrast, begins going above and beyond to get himself and his friends out of there, which gives us a couple of glorious scenes of James Woods yelling at ineffectual military top brass. Stone can’t even hide his contempt for these people. One of them is dressed like the bad guys from Revenge of the Nerds. It’s great.

As far as writing itself goes, I think Salvador is a stronger script. I got to know the individual characters and their unique struggles better. There’s that levity I mentioned, and the tension never stops going up. I kept thinking, “how is Boyle going to get out this one!” like I was the narrator of Dukes of Hazzard or something, but I think that says something about how much I liked the characters and how invested I became in these seemingly unwinnable situations.

Platoon is almost invariably the better overall movie, though. There’s a reason it took home Best Director and Best Picture, if not our category, and why it’s endured close to thirty years later. It’s packed to the brim with iconic imagery… the way the movie bookends with Chris getting off and then on a helicopter, looking at all the casualties of war, and of course the death of Elias. If there’s a WatchMojo countdown of the “Top 10 Movie Deaths,” that one is in there. I’m just not sure how much of that is writing. I did really appreciate how natural the banter and comradery between the troops felt, though. It actually reminded me of the Marines from Aliens, which was released the same year.

If nothing else, marathoning these movies made me pine for the days when Oliver Stone was at the top off his game. He’s about as subtle as a jackhammer, but he’s uncompromising and definitely has a point of view that he wants to get out. It’s a shame that the same guy who made these movies took such a soft approach to World Trade Center and W. Maybe he’ll come back to us one day.

1986 rankings thus far!

1)      Salvador

2)      My Beautiful Laundrette

3)      Platoon

4)      Crocodile Dundee

Let’s finally get 1986 over with by tackling our second Woody movie!

Danny is Hell

           June was a busy month of birthdays and birthdays and drinking and drinking and trips to Las Vegas and drinking and birthdays. So the writing got delayed a bit. But we're back on track, right, Mike? Right back on the old track. Right back to 1986. With a double dose of Stone!

            So, what does Oliver Stone think of war? He doesn’t like it. And he delivers that message with all the subtlety of, well, an Oliver Stone film. Actually, two Oscar nominated Oliver Stone films! In the same year! A feat only accomplished one other time in Academy history by the great Preston Sturges, no less. 

            With Platoon and Salvador, Stone takes a look at the constructs and mechanisms of war. From the big evil governments at the top, to the men – and, make no mistake, these are men; not grunts, not monsters and certainly not heroes – on the ground, and everyone in between. And it does not shine a particularly favorable light on any of them. War sucks. Everyone involved sucks. And we’d be a hell of a lot better off if everybody just went home. Both movies carry themes that could be printed on a T-Shirt, but they’re a lot more affective for having been made into these feature length horror stories.

           

            Platoon, which would go on to win Best Picture, is a tough film. It’s largely plotless, there aren’t any good guys and the ending implies the war will never really end. It’s a depressing affair. But it does a wonderful job justifying that message. The plotless nature of the film serves to throw you right into the action of the Vietnam War. We’re never really oriented in the story. Days pass. Battles happen. People go home. People die. It’s awful. It’s all very effective. And it never glorifies fighting. Fighting looks terrible in this movie. When you watch something like Saving Private Ryan, even with its visceral action, it’s easy to picture yourself - in the right time, under the right circumstances - being there. Being a hero. You do not want to be in Platoon.

Looking closer at the screenplay, however, I wonder if all this would have been difficult to grasp without the masterful direction of Stone. We’ve sort of got a protagonist in Baby Sheen, and he’s got devil/angel mentors on either shoulder – played by the Sniper himself, Tom Berenger (who would reunite with Sheen a few years later for the baseball classic Major League! Go Wild Thing!) and Willem Dafoe, who at no time am I convinced is an actual man and not a space alien wearing a human face. These characters guide us through vignettes about the war. Taken out of context, each one could nearly function as a short film. It’s an interesting device, and again, it has a purpose, but it does lend the script a lack of cohesion, a lack of narrative thrust. Much like the war itself, no doubt.

Narrative thrust isn’t exactly on Stone’s mind for Salvador either, but he more than makes up for it by creating a spectacular character in journalist Richard Boyle, so perfectly brought to life by James Woods. Boyle is our guide through war torn El Salvador. He knows the language, the best places to eat and the cheapest booze. He’s charming and quick-witted, but also self-serving and relentless. At times, he reminded me of a Woody Allen character with agency. Traveling with his pal played by Jim Belushi (in a performance that forced me to reconsider his career), the first half of the movie functions as a travelogue. With those guys at your side, El Salvador might be a fun place. Dangerous, sure, but what fun isn’t.

Of course, then the fighting starts. And El Salvador doesn’t look so fun any more. In the fighting, the movie gains urgency. It forces the plot into gear. It forces Boyle into action. But it comes with a bit of a heavy-handed price. We trade scenes of boozing and parties for scenes of didactic commentary about the war. It can be a drag. And it doesn’t do much to illuminate our characters further. We already knew Boyle was willing to risk everything for “the truth”. He said as much, “You gotta get close to get the truth. If you get to close, you die.” I’m attributing that quote here to Boyle, as I’m pretty sure he said it, but it was really Stone himself. And Stone using his characters as a mouthpiece becomes particularly egregious as the film rolls on. But, hey, it’s an Oliver Stone film.

It’s clear these movies are in conversation with each other. They’ve got a lot on their minds. And they’ve got fresh ways to say it. It’s easy to harp on Stone for so blatantly inserting himself into these films, but without him, they’re just war movies. He’s what makes them unique. And he’s the reason we’re still talking about these movies and not, say, Missing in Action. Unless we want to talk about Missing in Action. Because I totally will.

Okay, that’s all well and good – but how do they stack up to the classic film Crocodile Dundee? The answer, you’ll be surprised, is extremely favorably. I’m giving Salvador the nod for my favorite script so far because it gives us a great character, and challenges him the entire movie. Platoon may well be the better movie though.

1)   Salvador

2)   Platoon

3)   My Beautiful Laundrette

4)   Crocodile Dundee

           

Mike's Beautiful Laundrette

My Beautiful Laundrette

Written by Hanif Kureishi

And so, after a too-long hiatus for reasons I assume no one cares about, I have returned to the fold of talking about movies with screenwriting accolades! In fairness, it may have taken me a while to get to this write-up anyway, as there’s a lot to “unfold” in My Beautiful Laundrette (Ha HA! I’m the best). I’m not too up on Stephen Frears’ filmography, honestly, and about the only thing that really excited me about it was the chance to see a young Daniel Day-Lewis. Spoiler alert: he’s pretty great.

This was a strange movie. I can’t for the life of me figure out where screenwriter Hanif Kureishi came up with the idea, unless it was pulled from some real life experience. A little research tells me that Laundrette largely concerns Thatcher-era British politics, but as an American who was born only a few months after this movie was released, I can’t say I have a good frame of reference. It’s difficult to really put into context is what I’m saying, so I’ll have to approach it from another angle. I can’t relate to the real-world events informing the story in any meaningful way, so I have to look at the characters and the plot individually to see if it all works.

So we’ve got Omar, a young middle eastern fellow, who gets a job working for his uncle’s car dealership. He does a good job and gets promoted to running his uncle’s laundromat. Only it appears his uncle is into some pretty unsavory affairs, and Omar is kind of forcibly thrust into his world. He never seems to mind all that much, but he has almost no agency. The job is given to him, as is the promotion, and the invitation to his uncle’s party. It’s almost as though Omar is being forced into some kind of seedy underworld as his family constantly reassures him that this is the only way to be successful.

The first thing Omar goes out of his way to take for himself are the management position at the laundromat and, soon after that, Johnny. They’re the only two things in his control, or at least under his influence. Johnny’s entrance into the story is when My Beautiful Laundrette really takes off, and not just because Daniel Day-Lewis is never less than mesmerizing. That’s part of it, of course, but there’s more. Johnny’s introduction brings the movie to life and brings conflicts in. Omar’s family doesn’t like that he hired an employee, Johnny’s friends don’t like him hanging around these “Pakis,” etc. That big brawl at the end can all be traced back to Johnny coming back into Omar’s life.

But let’s talk about the love affair. It’s interesting, I kept thinking Laundrette was going to turn into kind of a proto-Brokeback Mountain, and be about these star-crossed lovers who are forced apart by circumstances and the social climate of the time. It’s not, though. There’s some palpable tension when Uncle almost walks in on them in the office, but it’s quickly defused. Omar is supposed to marry his cousin, but Johnny doesn’t take it personally. Then Omar’s cousin (Tania, who is delightful) takes a liking to Johnny, but that doesn’t rattle Omar in the slightest. Instead, it seems like Johnny and Omar’s love for each other serves to illustrate how stupid all that racial tension is. The Pakis don’t trust the whites, and vice versa, and it all culminates in violence in the final act. Johnny and Omar are there to show us how meaningless it all really is. Race doesn’t even factor into their relationship aside from a brief conversation about Johnny’s former days as a radical.

That’s how I read it. Another divergent road from Brokeback is that there seems to be a happy ending. Everything ends with Omar and Johnny playfully splashing each other, even after their (beautiful) laundromat gets trashed, as if to say, “Hey, this is the world we live in. Let’s start over and try again.” What else can you do?

Lots of little touches I liked. I laughed out loud at the shot of Uncle spying Tania on the train platform, and Omar’s father was always good for a laugh. “Not a bad little dump you’ve got here,” was a great line.

So as for ongoing rankings…

1)      My Beautiful Laundrette

2)      “Crocodile” Dundee

Next up is an Oliver Stone double feature, with Platoon followed by Salvador. Let’s do it to it.

Danny Does Laundry

            Here we are again with a movie I’ve never heard of – My Beautiful Laundrette written by Hanif Kureishi. And, man, doesn’t a title like that just get you pumped up? When I saw it on the list, I couldn’t wait to kick back, have a beer and crush this film. And then, of course, I do a little research and see that it’s Stephen Frears and Baby Day-Lewis, so I knew I was in for a dramatically adult time. In the immortal words of everyone who’s watched this movie ever, “Let’s get this party started.”

            Somehow, even though I knew nothing about this going in, it defied all my expectations. There isn’t really a coherent plot to discuss. A kid opens a laundromat, I guess. It’s not really a specific character study. Too many people bouncing around. It’s this kind of mosaic of a movie. A portrait of a time and a place. And, in that sense, it’s effective. But it’s certainly an odd movie, and one that I didn’t really connect with on any significant level. Maybe it’s because the specific milieu of the movie was so unfamiliar, but that’s not typically an issue for me. I mean, part of a movie’s job is to drop you into it’s setting and whisk you away. But here it just never happened. So I’m not a huge fan, but let’s talk about the script.

           

            Gotta give credit here to Kureishi for respecting his viewers. He never spells anything out. I had to constantly reconstruct these characters in my head. The Dad isn’t just a drunk, he’s out of place, out of time. The uncle’s a ruthless businessman, sure, but he’s also loyal. Even the Scarface cousin manages to have dimensions. Empathy falls from the sky. It’s impressive. And probably best exemplified in the scene between Tanya and her Father’s mistress when they meet at the inexplicably crowded opening of the new laundry mat. Tanya attempts to paint her as some evil temptress, but the movie’s smarter than that, and instead offers up a depressing slice of life. It’s good stuff.

            The two leads are probably the least interesting characters and maybe that’s why I can’t fully appreciate the script. Omar is a scrappy entrepreneur. Not above screwing people over to get what he wants. But all in the service of a laundromat. To be fair, this is a Laundromat the neighborhood is apparently clamoring for. The one they always needed, but never knew they wanted. Powders. Oh, and Baby Day-Lewis is…all over the place. A businessman, a lover, a punk, a criminal. I don’t know. I do want to say that I love the English “punk”. I don’t know how real they were/are, but all cinematic English punks seem so squirmy and oddly acrobatic. I love it. In any case, I found myself mostly confused by him. And this largely locks me out of the central arc. And, look, I get how their relationship thematically mirrors the larger issues in the movie, but if I don’t care then it doesn’t matter.

            I think this might be an example of what I’ll call, for now, the reverse-Unforgiven. I realize it’s currently sitting at number one on my list, but I think that movie is a good example of the filmmaking really elevating and complementing the script. In many cases, blinding the viewer to any of its flaws. Yes, yes, we’re here to talk about scripts, but we’re watching the movies, so I’m gonna talk about it. Only with Laundrette, I feel it’s the opposite. I’m not entirely sure why this movie has a punk rock, neon, foggy vibe to it. It doesn’t seem to fit at all. I think the Frears working today would have made an entirely different looking, possibly better film with this exact same material.

            Truth be told, I spent a lot this movie thinking about a better, similar movie – Do the Right Thing. And I kept right on thinking about it even as I watched that movie’s climax unfold, nearly identically, in this film. A lot of the ideas this movie presents, Right Thing improves upon. But, as I said earlier, that might just be my disconnect with this particular world. These conflicts don’t resonate directly for me. I can substitute them, of course, but that still removes them. So, while I can respect and appreciate this script for what it does well, I can’t call it great. But…is it worse than Crocodile Dundee? Of course, not. Don’t be ridiculous.

1.     My Beautiful Launderette

2.     Crocodile Dundee

            

Danny Goes Down!

            We’d been debating how to go about selecting the next year for this project – Take turns? Argue a choice? Number generator? But, a few beers into a conversation with our buddy Cowart, and the answer became clear. Let his unbridled enthusiasm be our guide. And, on that day, his passion pointed to Crocodile Dundee. After half an hour discussing the particulars of Paul Hogan’s masculinity, Cowart informed me this movie was up for Best Original Screenplay. What? The movie about the whacky Australian with a knife? How did I not know this? And that brings us to 1986. And, alphabetically, to Crocodile Dundee. With a script from old Croc himself Paul Hogan, as well as John Cornell and Ken Shadie.

           

            I watched this move a lot as a kid. I’m not sure why. Maybe my Mom was a fan. Maybe it was on TV all the time. Maybe I couldn’t get enough Hogan. In any case, it’s probably been fifteen years since I’ve seen it. I remember fake crocodiles, the huge knife and the babe swimming. Hey, I was ten. And ten year old me was all about the “babes”. I also generally remember enjoying the movie, so I was interested in giving it a look again, especially under the lens of a Best Screenplay nominee.

            And under that lens, I just don’t see it. It’s difficult to grasp how this film could have been nominated for its screenplay. It’s featherweight. I imagine the writers clutching a checklist of Australian clichés. And there’s not much on its mind, outside of some goofy jokes. And, hey, if those jokes were hilarious, I’d be on board. Comedy is wildly underappreciated at the Oscars. But they’re amusing at best. With a few inspired bits scattered about. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d wager people were blinded by Hogan’s charisma. And maybe some of the older voters appreciated the throwback Screwball aspects on display. This movie wouldn’t have been out of place in 1946. Except for that bathing suit, of course.  But a quick search tells me 1986 also gave us Big Trouble in Little China, Labyrinth, Blue Velvet and, if all you want is a lightweight romp, Ferris Bueller. There were better, more interesting options this year.

            With that out of the way, let’s talk about the movie on its own terms. It’s certainly got a goofy charm. Can’t deny that. The script gives us an iconic character and sets him loose in the Outback and the urban sprawl of New York City. I’d watch Dundee do just about anything. I even have this horrifying fever dream of following the man to Los Angeles. One of the movie’s most inspired recurring bits, and one of my favorite aspects of the character is that he’s completely aware of his own legend. Totally in control of it. And when he’s introduced in the movie battling a fake crocodile, you wonder if he’s the real deal. People in the bar whisper slander about him. Maybe he’s a fraud? But no fraud leaps off a branch and stabs a crocodile in the fucking head. That’s legendary. Yet Dundee can’t help but inflate his own myth. He steals a glance at a watch, only to pretend he can read the sun. He quickly hides a razor to shave with his knife. I love these bits. And that kind of character depth provides insight into why this movie was (is? I'm not sure.) so beloved.

           

            Beyond Dundee, I enjoyed the local color of the Australian bar. Pour me a Foster’s and I’d lose myself in that boozer for days. But once we get to New York, the movie fades a bit. These writers are absolutely relentless with the fish-out-of-water jokes. Like they’ve got a “100 Funniest” joke book they’re obligated to work through. And, look, a few of those jokes really hit. One of them gives us the classic “That’s not a knife” scene. I’m just not sure we needed a thousand of them. To their credit, they don’t play Dundee as an idiot, but I find it hard to believe he’d be baffled by an escalator. He’s a human man from 1986. And Australia has actual cities. But New York also gives us Carl Winslow and that’s nice.

            Oh, yeah, it’s a romantic comedy. Ten year old me totally forgot about that. It’s so easy to get caught up in Paul Hogan, that the rest of the story kind of fades. And, I think, with good reason. There’s not much to this romance. I understand that Hogan and Linda Kozlowski got married in real life, but it seems strange because they don’t have much chemistry here. She’s a fine actress, and charming in her own right, but, together, they do nothing for me. The romantic comedy also gives us the obligatory jerky boyfriend. A guy who seems all right until the plot needs him to be a ridiculous stooge. But, we do get an absolutely delightful “run to the airport”, well, subway, scene out of it. And it’s so wonderful it nearly makes the movie better in retrospect. I guarantee it contributed to the movie’s wild success.

            What we’ve got here is a perfectly fun movie. One that I don’t believe has any business being called the “Best” anything. Okay, definitely best Paul Hogan starring vehicle. And probably one of the better examples of regressive 80’s politics being used for jokes. Not the best use of Carl Winslow, but close. Thanks, Die Hard. But a nice, pleasant movie. One I thoroughly enjoyed. And if you catch it without the weight of the Best Screenplay, or if you’re ten, I imagine it’d play a lot better. Which might explain its tremendous, franchise-spawning success. Not a lot of us out there blogging about Original Screenplays from 1986, I guess!

Good steal on the rankings, Big Game! So, by default –

1.  Crocodile Dundee

Oh, maybe steal this too? Overall! And, I want to clarify here that these a strictly how I’m looking at the scripts. Not the movies as a whole. Because I liked Dundee considerably more than either Lorenzo’s Oil or Passion Fish. But…writing.

1.     Unforgiven.

2.     Husbands and Wives

3.     The Crying Game

4.     Lorenzo’s Oil

5.     Passion Fish
6.   Crocodile Dundee

Crocodile Dundee by Big Game!

Crocodile Dundee

Story by Paul Hogan, Screenplay by John Cornell, Paul Hogan and Ken Shadie

With 1992, our first full year behind us, we turn to 1986 and a brand new adventure. And what better way to start than with possibly the most “huh?” screenwriting nominee of all-time, Crocodile Dundee. I mean, how the hell did this of all movies make it to the shortlist? Well, I guess that’s what we’re here to figure out, so let’s put way more thought into this movie than I ever, ever expected I would.

It’s tough figuring out where to start. It’s Crocodile Dundee! Is it really a great movie? Or was there just something in the air in the mid-80s? Us Yanks sure seemed infatuated with Australia back then. Mel Gibson was becoming a huge star, Yahoo Serious had a brief window of international popularity, and this movie was one of the biggest hits of the year. So this could be the Academy simply wanting to honor a big crowd-pleasing popcorn flick, but let’s not sell Crocodile Dundee too short.

The first thing I noticed about it was that it almost seems like an ego project at times. Mick “Crocodile” Dundee doesn’t appear until ten minutes in, and leading up to that we get a bunch of characters talking about how awesome he is. Given that Paul Hogan wrote the story himself and had a hand in the screenplay, maybe that’s not all that surprising, but it’s a relief when Mick finally shows up so we can see it firsthand. It turns out he is pretty awesome. He knows the Outback better than I know my own backyard and there’s something fun about watching him in complete control of every situation. He scares off the kangaroo poachers, he kills that crocodile, he’s in with the local Aborigine tribe. It’s decent setup for the eventual “fish-out-of-water” escapades he’ll endure in New York.

About that, it does take a long time to actually get him to New York, which is the hook of the entire movie, but it never stops being that kind of movie. The entire first half of the movie casts Sue in that role, with her just woefully out of place in the untamed wilderness. She needs Mick to help her survive out there, and she returns the favor when they go back to the city.

That’s really where the movie gets going, and where all of its more well-known moments come from.  Mick isn’t presented as an idiot or anything, just a man who’s never been to a city (not even Sydney or Melbourne) who’s a little out of his depth. The humor of watching him navigate this world is actually a lot tamer than I would have expected. He’s not throwing glasses on the floor like “Thor” or anything like that. He’s genuinely trying to fit in, at least for Sue’s sake. Even when people are giving him a hard time, like Sue’s “rich asshole” boyfriend, he tries his best to keep his composure before the Aussie in him takes over.

This may be the only Oscar-nominated movie ever where a limo driver (played by Carl Winslow! This guy was everywhere in the 80s!) rips the hood ornament off his car and throws it like a boomerang at a street punk. My point? This movie is silly. It’s almost aggressively likable, if a little dated. I mean, it was made in a time where a character could just casually throw around the word “fag” for a laugh. That’s not a word I would expect the kind-hearted Mick to be okay with, especially given his stance on foul language and disrespecting others. But I guess it was a different time? But it is “fun,” moreso than any of the movies from ’92 were.

I’m running out of things to say, but I have two more points. The first is, holy crap. This is a romantic comedy! I had no idea. That’s really what it’s all about. Sue invites Mick to New York because she’s into him and, in classic rom-com style, we find out her boyfriend Richard is kind of a dick, which makes it easy for us to root for Mick to win the girl. That last scene in the subway is actually super adorable, but it ends insanely abruptly. So… does she go back to Australia with him? Does he stay in New York? They’re from such thoroughly different worlds, it’s hard to buy them as a couple that will last.

And finally, Crocodile Dundee’s true legacy is that line.

“That’s not a knife… THAT is a knife.”

Of all the movies in the world, of all the screenplays, Crocodile Dundee is the first we’ve watched for this project that has a genuinely iconic line. Even if you’ve never seen this movie, you know this line. And you know what? It’s great! It’s a great character moment for him, and it demonstrates that “fish-out-of-water” scenarios don’t always have to place the protagonist at a disadvantage. I have a strong suspicion that, in spite of two sequels, that line is what has helped this movie survive. It’s a little strange. I’m still not convinced this goofy, harmless little flick warranted an Oscar nomination, but it certainly sticks with you.

So I’m definitely stealing the on-going rankings from you. I want to do it too! And so, by default…

1)      Crocodile Dundee

Next up is My Beautiful Laundrette, which I will be disappointed with if it doesn’t showcase Daniel Day-Lewis’s improvised boomerang skills.

The Crying Game - Mike!

The Crying Game

Written by Neil Jordan

And here we are. Our very first winner. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ choice for the Best Original Screenplay of 1992. And what a doozy it is.

Something I know you and I had in common was that the only thing we knew about this movie going into it was the now-famous “twist” that made it one of the most talked about movies of the early 90s. I didn’t know what it was about. I didn’t know anything about the other characters. All I knew was that, to quote Mayor Quimby, “the chick from The Crying Game is actually a man! I mean, man! What a good movie!” So, naturally, I was so pumped to see if a movie would hold up at all if, going into it for the first time, I already knew it’s biggest secret.

There’s a lot to unravel here, really. There’s a lot going on in The Crying Game. It’s about a lot of things… loyalty, obsession, identity and, as the movie is always quick to point out, human nature. That’s one of my biggest gripes. The script kept beating me over the head with the “it’s my nature, it’s your nature” thing. I got it as soon as baby Forrest Whitaker told the Scorpion/Toad story in the beginning. It informs the rest of the movie, but I’m not stupid. Jody’s telling at the beginning, and Fergus’ telling at the very end would have been nice bookends if it didn’t come up so much.

Before I get too much into that, though, I gotta talk about that twist. Because of course. It’s like the entire point of the movie!... except that it kind of isn’t. So Jody appeals to Fergus’ good nature and convinces him to let him go. He dies anyway, in the movie’s demonstration of “the illusion of choice,” so Fergus keeps his promise to check in on Jody’s girl. He becomes completely obsessed with her, protects her from a violent suitor, walks her home, buys her drinks, etc. What’s fascinating about that big reveal is what it reveals about Fergus. Immediately, we know everything Jody deduced about him is correct. He’s loyal and sincere. He keeps his promise to Jody, and is able to admit to himself that he’s come to care for Dil anyway… maybe he just doesn’t know in what capacity.

Also, it’s a testament to script and Jaye Davidson’s performance that, even knowing the twist and actively noticing the clues that point to it, I was still able to get lost in the story and sometimes forget a twist was even coming, that Dil wasn’t anything other than what she presented herself as. I also loved the scene at the construction site, after Fergus makes his discovery, where Dil gently mocks him for not figuring it out sooner. “Really, the signs were all there, darling.” She’s giving us a hard time, too. Even in the bar, everything becomes obvious in hindsight when it becomes clear that ALL the women in that bar are trans. It’s a trans bar. You don’t notice earlier because the only other people there we’re told to focus on are Fergus, Dil’s asshole kind of boyfriend Dave, and Wonderful Bartender Jim Broadbent.

Let me get back to my point about the twist not being what The Crying Game is really about, at least plotwise, because it turns out it’s actually about a couple of militants from the IRA, who try to pull Fergus back into his old way of life. Which, man. This is a movie that uses the three-act structure to its fullest extent because it kind of feels like three different movies! It’s a hostage movie, then it’s a romance, then it’s ticking time bomb thriller. I never felt like the movie was disjointed though, as it all comes together kind of beautifully in that climax. As Dil becomes more unhinged as her identity begins to slip away from her, almost killing Fergus, killing the FUCK out of Miranda Richardson, then almost killing herself… I don’t know. I was genuinely on the edge of my seat. “I’m afraid you forgot to knock, darling,” might be one of my favorite pre-gunshot quotes now.

Loved the little epilogue, too. I almost wanted to call it a cop-out, but I realized it really tied the whole thing together. Fergus wanted to escape his past, and Dil just wanted to be accepted for who she was, and that’s why they needed each other. It doesn’t matter if they become actual lovers, or just stay as close friends, because, I guess, that’s what The Crying Game is actually about.

And that closes out 1992. I didn’t do ongoing rankings like you, but I’ll do one to wrap it up.

1)      The Crying Game

2)      Unforgiven

3)      Husbands and Wives

4)      Lorenzo’s Oil

5)      Passion Fish

There we have it.