Film Review: GO GO TALES (2007, Abel Ferrara)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 96 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Willem Dafoe (BODY OF EVIDENCE), Matthew Modine (VISION QUEST, FULL METAL JACKET), Bob Hoskins (THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY, THE COTTON CLUB), Sylvia Miles (MIDNIGHT COWBOY, THE SENTINEL), Asia Argento (TRAUMA, MOTHER OF TEARS), Burt Young (ROCKY, ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA), Stefania Rocca (THE CARD PLAYER, THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY), Anita Pallenberg (BARBARELLA, DILLINGER IS DEAD), Shanyn Leigh (PUBLIC ENEMIES, MARY), Roy Dotrice (AMADEUS, SUBURBAN COMMANDO), Joseph Cortese (AMERICAN HISTORY X, WINDOWS), Pras (of The Fugees). Soundtrack in association with Grace Jones.
Tag-line: "Un film di Abel Ferrara."
Best one-liner: "You can't put the dog in my gourmet kitchen!"

Described by its director as his first "international screwball comedy" and a mash-up of THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE and CHEERS, GO GO TALES is indeed an absurdly funny film, (it seems that Abel and Werner Herzog, at odds though they may be over the BAD LIEUTENANT 'remake,' are becoming the 21st Century's top purveyors of comedy and Willem Dafoe) but one which also strikes the seasoned Ferrara fan as an intimate self-portrait, full of melancholy and a yearning for simpler, scuzzier times. We're witnessing a world in transition; one with a smaller and smaller place in it for the scatterbrained, non-tech-savvy sleazemeister (here embodied by Dafoe's "Ray Ruby"). Ferrara himself, like many a gritty 70's NYC director, began rather modestly with pornographic films (NINE LIVES OF A WET PUSSY), simple exploitation (THE DRILLER KILLER, MS. 45), and even chronicled the Times Square strip club culture (FEAR CITY) in its pre-Giuliani heyday. But recently, despite cult followings and international successes, it seems he can't even get arrested in America. In a way, thank God that the Europeans have swooped in as his sometime patrons, but fuck the American 'indie' studio system for not allowing significant distribution or funding for a legendary filmmaker who, unlike so many of his contemporaries, has continued to generate that creative, envelope-pushing spark after nearly forty years in the business.

And so Dafoe's Ray Ruby finds himself living on the edge. Hand to mouth, hand to mouth, hand to mouth to lottery ticket.

His strip club, his brainchild, his life's work, his "Paradise Lounge" ...is in trouble. His brother (played with élan by a a moptopped, pompous Matthew Modine), a Staten Island hair salon mogul and the almighty supplier of finances, is threatening to pull the plug.

"The plug is pulled. Paradise is over!"

This delights to no end the vitriolic New Yawwk landlady (Sylvia Miles in one of her finest, meanest performances) who's been waiting in the wings, ready to sell the place out "to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, motherfuckers, on a ninety-nine year lease!"

"BED, BATH, AND BEYOND!!! BED, BATH, AND BEYOND!!!"

But Ray must shoulder some of the blame- after all, he's poured all of his profits into a dangerous lottery addiction ("I played the lottery- I mean, I REALLY PLAYED IT!"), has made some foolish investments ("Frisbees with my face on 'em, I don't know what I was thinking") and has lost money over his soft spot for struggling artists (seen in an incredible, tour de force sequence that can only be described as 'Talent Show Nite' at the strip club).

All is not lost, however, when Ray actually wins the lotto, but in the midst of his inveterate, notorious disorganization, he can't find the ticket!

It's Abel's plea to the heavens- actual, sort of quaint sleaziness has been hijacked by the corporate version of sleaziness! Is nothing sacred? You've taken everything else, are you gonna take TIMES SQUARE, too? Yes, they will. And they did. By the time Ray's business is being redirected and stolen by a doofus in a crustacean mascot costume, Ferrara's exasperation has become completely tangible. Go ahead, Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Just take it all away. I've got nothing to live for anymore.

Unfolding over the course of one night, and with an Altman-style, observational, roaming camera (which captures the life which teems upon and outside of its frame), Ferrara captures the best sort of comedy- the unforced kind, the kind that's true to life. Even at it's most outrageous, the laughs here don't feel planned or even like 'jokes,' they feel like the natural outpourings of characters whose lives (from afar, of course) happen to be hilarious. The musician Pras wanders about as the club's resident 'chef,' obsessed with the gourmet artistry of his (microwaved) free range hot dogs,


Pras witnesses the ignominious end of his organic, free range, gourmet hot dogs.

an ancient Burt Young receives awkward lap dances, a robust, gravel-voiced Bob Hoskins lauds the respectability of the joint, tanning beds catch fire, a Eurotrash stripper (Stefania Rocca) wrangles the greenlighting of her script during a private dance ("Sign da check! Sign da check!"), Matthew Modine plays a toy piano and performs a mind-blowing musical number,

and Willem Dafoe even croons a ballad with a debonair suavitude and creepy flourish seldom seen since the glory days of the Rat Pack.

All this, and I didn't even get to Asia Argento yet! I'm reasonably certain that her performance as the "scariest, sexiest girl in the world" is entirely improvised and her free-form poledancing/make-out session with a terrifying dog is easily the most startlingly outré incident to be captured on celluloid in years.

Yes, GO GO TALES is insane, and, yes, it rambles. It induces spit-takes, eye-pops, raised brows, and as Sylvia Miles' psychotic end credits song (about Bed, Bath, and Beyond) attests, it even draws a comparison with STREET TRASH. Most importantly, however, it's sincere. Five stars. Abel: may you always find new, disorderly, and innovative ways to make these maniacal movies of yours. Distributors: shame on you for not picking this film up during the four years it's been available. Willem Dafoe: take it easy, take it breezy... and take it sleazy.


-Sean Gill

EDIT: Apparently the release was also held up by a legal dispute concerning screenplay credit.

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Film Review: GIALLO (2010, Dario Argento)

Stars: 3.25 of 5.
Running Time: 92 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Adrien Brody (THE THIN RED LINE, THE PIANIST), Elsa Pataky (Brody's current girlfriend, acted in SNAKES ON A PLANE, BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR), Emmanuelle Seigner (Polanski's wife, acted in THE NINTH GATE, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY), Robert Miano (FIRESTARTER, CHINA GIRL). Cinematography by Frederic Fasano (SCARLET DIVA, MOTHER OF TEARS).
Tag-line: "Oscar Winner Adrien Brody."
Best one-liner: "You so selfish! Asshole!"

As a Dario Argento fan, it pained me to hear all of the negative buzz about his latest flick, GIALLO. All I want is a return to form– artful murders bathed in colored light and set to thrumpin' beats by Goblin. That's all I want. Instead, it seemed we had another CARD PLAYER on our hands. But now, having seen GIALLO, I am pleased to report that it is way better than the ramshackle shitstorm of derivative torture porn which haunted my most pessimistic nightmares. I'm not sure we can call it good, per se, but we sure can't call it 'horrible,' and that, my friends, is a latter-day Argento victory! Pass the Campari!

There's a lot of, shall we say, questionable material in GIALLO, but I think it's fair to say that there's been something a little cockeyed about every Argento film since TRAUMA, and some would argue that things have been a little off for even longer. For the benefit of the readers who would like this article to have a happy ending, I'll tackle the bad before I tackle the good.

Now, for starters, it's not even a giallo. GIALLO is not a giallo. Let that sink in for a minute. In fact, the title refers to the killer's jaundiced skin ('giallo' is the Italian word for 'yellow'). There's no black gloves, no intricate mystery as to the killer's identity, no artfully constructed murder sequences. Instead, the killer drives a white minivan taxi, wears a hoodie, and tortures and kills his victims in a dingy basement without the benefit of a vivid color pallette or Italo disco.

The soundtrack isn't even done by Claudio Simonetti, who's usually happy to disavow his own trademark style and go the poor man's Hollywood route. Instead, it was scored by a man named Marco Werba, and it sounds like the bastard child of Bernard Herrmann and Danny Elfman. That in and of itself is not a bad thing, but in the context of Argento- known for his morbidly thrilling soundscapes- it's weak.
The opening credits are done in that "twentieth generation rip-off of SE7EN" style that I love so much, complete with jittery, out of focus jumps and a wonky exposure.

How gritty, how authentic! Maybe they should have named the movie GI@LLO or something.

And here's something I never needed to see in an Argento movie-

...

...

...

Well, now that that's out of the way- on to the good. Much like DEATH WISH V: THE FACE OF DEATH, Argento boldy chooses to open his film at a fashion show.

While I certainly prefer the Euro-sleaze of the 70's and 80's (NEW YORK RIPPER, et al.), but this'll do, Dario. This'll do.

The killer (played by newcomer "Byron Deidra"...), despite being conceptually hackneyed, is fairly creepy in execution. This scene finds him, um, apparently jerkin' the turkey to some torture photographs he's taken. Note the pacifier.

That pacifier is clearly the one extra push that the scene needed. Of course, this all ties into a childhood trauma, a favorite subject of Argento's.

And what have we here?

Asia Argento dropped out of GIALLO back when it was supposed to star Vincent Gallo, but at least she's around in spirit for a pictorial cameo.

Adrien Brody, our lead and co-producer (who's now suing the production), delivers a solid performance. He's taking things very seriously, which is the way things ought to be taken in an Argento movie. If we'd got some annoying American actor in here playing it for laffs, we'd be missing out on the sincerely surreal moments that naturally emanate from an Argento picture. I.e., at one point he earnestly explains that, as a cop, "my methods aren't exactly by the book."

As he is introduced, the camera pans across his desk, past a New York-style pizza, a baseball, a bat, and a carefully draped jacket with visible text which reports, "F.B.I. Special New York City Department."

In walks our heroine (Emmanuelle Seigner), who immediately asks the question which is burning at the forefront of all our minds: "Are you from New York?"

Emmanuelle Seigner is, as always, pretty amusing and possibly drunk.

[Insert catty comment about the quality of THE NINTH GATE here.]

At one point, she gets to scream "You so selfish! Asshole! ASSHOLE!"

That kinda stuff has always been worth the price of admission for me, but keep in mind that rave is from the guy who gave five stars to MURDER ROCK. But if you draw no satisfaction from Adrien Brody somberly announcing "GOTCHA YOU YELLOW FUCK..." than maybe you shouldn't be watching Argento movies in the first place.

The body count's low, the gore's not entertaining, the music's off, and the aesthetics are ill-advised, but there's an abrupt freeze-frame ending, in true Argento fashion. Thank God for small favors.

In the end, I have to give it a touch over three stars. And though I loathe to use "not as bad as I expected" as a form of praise, I think that it's applicable here. Though it tries for 'generic, overproduced, Hollywood-lite torture porn,' enough of Argento's wonderful eccentricities shine through to make it worth it for his fans. And even non-Argento fans may find themselves pursing their lips, half-nodding, and muttering to themselves, "that was sort of a decent police procedural."

-Sean Gill

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