Buddy (1997, Caroline Thompson)

Buddy is in desperate need of some contextualizing. The film takes place—roughly—between 1928 and 1933. Given that timeline, it’s a little weird the Great Depression doesn’t start, but Buddy’s also really strange about when it decides to be grown-up and when it doesn’t. The film tells the story of eccentric socialite Gertrude Lintz, who raised chimpanzees as her children. Until a zoo needed to get rid of a baby gorilla, and she raised him as a human child, too. It turns out chimps and gorillas are different, which Lintz—played by Rene Russo—completely ignores, even as her husband (Robbie Coltrane) tells her to think about it, even as her assistant (Alan Cumming) tells her to think about it.

If Buddy could talk, he’d probably tell her to think about it too.

But Russo doesn’t listen. Or when she does listen, it’s not a scene. Buddy skips almost all of the character moments for Russo, which is really strange since she narrates the movie (presumably with lines from the real Lintz’s memoir, which… could use some punching up).

Buddy’s very short—eighty-four minutes (I didn’t time the credits either)—and most of the movie involves Russo trying to get Buddy (a combination of animatronics, puppetry, and man in suit) to learn how to act more civilized while the chimps she’s ignored since four minutes into the movie have hijinks. Buddy’s bullish on training apes to perform tricks, which is a bit of a flex. Though regular science at the time—in the form of a Paul Reubens cameo—thinks apes are violent man-eaters or something. As for zoos… they don’t talk about why zoos are bad. Except lack of money. Wonder where they could get some.

The chimp hijinks are incredible, but they’re also in questionable taste. Buddy casts many of its characters as caricatures—watching Irma P. Hall fight through being the Black housekeeper to eccentric rich white folks is incredible. Not to mention once she shows she’s going to put in the effort opposite the animatronic.

The first few scenes of the film are a little concerning. Everything is for sight gags, or it’s the lackluster narration. And then Russo and the baby gorilla doll aren’t dramatically compelling. But once Buddy starts to grow, Russo shows off how well she can act opposite the practical effects. And the practical effects are great. In the awkwardly paced third act, the script reveals that the whole thing has been about the animatronic ape’s experience of the film, which he can’t communicate because—despite having an elaborate supporting cast—Buddy only exists as Russo’s accessory.

Now, she comes to that realization, too, which means there should be some fantastic character development.

Except, like all the other character development, Buddy skips it. Buddy even skips the whole point because it doesn’t want to get into the history.

Though everyone else is ready for the history. Colleen Atwood’s costumes, Daniel A. Lomino and David Nichols’s delightful art deco production design, whoever put together the elaborate World’s Fair sets they’re on for under five minutes. A lot of effort went into Buddy. Either lots ended up on the cutting room floor, or the producers (and director and screenwriter Thompson) sorely misunderstood what they were doing.

There are also some weird scenes someone fought to keep in, like Russo telling priest Philip Baker Hall (in a fantastic cameo) to get over the whole creationism bit and get with the real. All the cameos are one-sceners—Rubens, Hall, John Aylward, a delightful Mimi Kennedy, young Dane Cook doesn’t count—which doesn’t help Buddy feel less… herky-jerky.

But the main leads are all good—Russo, Coltrane (who gets very little direction but still does a bunch of work), Cumming (he’s the standout), and Hall (Irma P.).

Lovely Steve Mason photography and a good—if repetitive—Elmer Bernstein round things out. Buddy’s a bit bumpy but more than okay; it should’ve been much better.

This post is part of the Friends Fur Life Blogathon hosted by Quiggy of The Midnite Drive-In and Rachel of Hamlette’s Soliloquy.

Eve’s Bayou (1997, Kasi Lemmons)

Eve’s Bayou is Southern Gothic, but it’s got a kids’ summer story grafted onto it; by the end, the two genres are working together to great effect. I mean, the end’s got problems, but the way the film gets to it is captivating.

The film opens with Tamara Tunie narrating from the future—when she was a kid in early sixties Louisiana and played by Jurnee Smollett, she killed her dad one summer. Right away, we get the hook, for better or worse, and it makes the father—played by Samuel L. Jackson—entirely suspicious when he otherwise might not have been.

Okay, he spends all his time at a party with Lisa Nicole Carson instead of his wife Lynn Whitfield, but he’s just a good host, right?

Obviously not. Obviously. Multiple times throughout the film, when one of the adults finds out Jackson is a cheating man slut, they react with exaggerated surprise, even though we meet Jackson grinding on Carson. He just happens to be a good dad to kids Smollett, Meagan Good, and Jake Smollett. Good’s about to be a teenager, Jurnee Smollett’s ten, and Jake Smollett’s the youngest. Jack Smollett will be an occasional comedic relief valve and often adorable, but he’s otherwise irrelevant to the narrative. He gives cast members something to do in the background, though he’s absent from the crucial third-act moments.

It’s not his story.

Despite opening with the narration and finding Jurnee Smollett in the past, Bayou widens for the first act, spending lots of time with Whitfield, her sister-in-law Debbi Morgan, and Morgan’s husband, Branford Marsalis. Marsalis is grandstanding delight in the first act; it’s a showcase, letting him be charming to Morgan, a good uncle to Smollett, and even get in drunken fisticuffs with Jackson. Morgan becomes the film’s principal female adult in the second act, whereas in the first act, she’s supporting Whitfield (at least during the party).

Just as the film seems like it’ll stay wide, it focuses in on Smollett and her reactions to the various events going on with the adults. She also sees something she shouldn’t; when she shares that secret with Good, it works to drive the sisters apart a little. Once aunt Morgan has a vision about a kid being hit by a bus, Whitfield orders the kids under house arrest.

Simultaneous to this house arrest is Whitfield’s suspicions about Jackson’s catting around now noticeably affecting home life. So the kids are cooped up in a layer cake of agitation. It’s just a matter of who breaks bad first.

Smollett’s the protagonist in front of those events. Her actions, reactions, and observations drive Bayou. Luckily, she’s excellent. The film doesn’t have any shabby performances, just ones needing either more time or… well, the finale reveal calls a couple of the characters into question, even more, changing the tone before the closing narration comes in to change the tone again.

So a couple of the performances have asterisks by them.

But Smollett’s fantastic, ditto Good, Morgan, and Diahann Carroll (as a rival psychic to Morgan). Whitfield and Jackson have asterisks unrelated to the conclusion, just because they’re the parents in a troubled marriage from the kid’s perspective. Outstanding performances, lots of complexities, certain constraints. In addition to the aforementioned Marsalis, Roger Guenveur Smith (as Carson’s husband) and Ethel Ayler (as Grandma) are also delightful.

Then there’s Vondie Curtis-Hall, who shows up for an unexpected romance arc for one of the adults, and he looks like a romance novel cover. He serves almost no purpose in the movie—there’s not even real character development for his love interest—but he’s terrific. The wig’s magnificent, the performance is wonderful.

Speaking of character arcs to nowhere… despite featuring three psychic characters, the supernatural aspect’s entirely window dressing. It doesn’t actually affect the narrative, not even really in how the psychic characters experience anything. Like, they’re aware of their visions and premonitions, but Bayou avoids ever affirming their accuracy.

Then the epilogue narration skips over all the interesting elements. So a muddy finish, but an otherwise excellent picture. Lemmons’s direction is good, her writing strong. Other than the very nineties “psychic” montages, the technicals are all good. Even the montages aren’t bad; they just terribly date the film and muss with Amy Vincent’s photography.

Bayou’s a complicated, conflicting, haunting experience.

Gattaca (1997, Andrew Niccol)

Gattaca is a science fiction triptych character study by way of film noir. And while the film’s a murder mystery, it only uses the film noir device—narration—for a non-mystery section of the film. The narration ends with the murder mystery, not coming back until the finale. It’s an absolutely fantastic structure from writer and director Niccol, who’ll then lean into the character study elements, sometimes employing noirish visuals but always slightly not.

But Gattaca doesn’t take place in a dangerous world, and noir’s all about danger.

The film takes place in the near future when parents-to-be go to their location geneticist, and they pick out the best egg to grow into a baby. The film actually doesn’t get into whether or not the mother carries the baby at all, but it seems like maybe not. Not important. The film takes place in the future, where the next pandemic kills off all the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers, and the rich liberals need to figure out what to do about the icky poors.

Anyway.

Ethan Hawke is a “God-child;” his parents left his genetics up to fate, and fate delivered them someone with a bad heart, among other ailments. We find out Hawke’s origins in the summary flashback, which he narrates. It starts a few minutes into the film, five or seven minutes; the film opens with Hawke scrubbing loose skin from his body and being a neat freak, shows him getting tested at work, then the flashback to explain he’s not like everyone else at the Gattaca installation; additionally, because he’s pretending to be someone else.

The Gattaca installation is a future NASA, where the best of the best prepare to explore the galaxy—or at least the solar system—and the even better best get to actually go on the missions. It’s finally Hawke’s turn, boss Gore Vidal tells him; one more week. The week will be the present action for most of the film but first is the thirty-plus minute flashback establishing Hawke and the future.

A murder kicks off the flashback, but that murder’s got nothing to do with the material it covers. Niccol lucks out at Hawke’s ability to narrate and make his character more sympathetic—he comes off like a prick in the pre-flashback setup, just another prig in a world of them—just through his vocal performance. The film traces his childhood, as mom Jayne Brook wants the best for her son, and dad Elias Koteas just wants a better son next time. Then the younger brother excels because he’s got the right genes, and how even mom gives up on young Hawke. It’s devastating, especially since Hawke—narrating from the future—doesn’t remark on the obvious psychological turmoil.

He runs away from home as a teenager, and in the next scene in the flashback montage is Hawke, now a custodian at the Gattaca installation. Since he was a kid, he’s been a space junkie, and everyone thought cleaning the spaceships would be the closest he ever would get, but he’s got a plan. Just because you’ve got perfect genes doesn’t mean you might not get hit by a car or fall down the wrong stairs, and then what can you do. Tony Shalhoub brokers a deal for Hawke to assume partially paralyzed Jude Law’s identity, which requires lots of cosmetic and mental work; in exchange, Hawke supports Law. Presumably, Gattaca pays well. They never talk about money in the future. Maybe there isn’t any.

The flashback changes speed throughout, emphasizing teenaged Hawke’s adversarial relationship with his brother (Chad Christ and William Lee Scott play the teenage versions, respectively), then also Hawke and Law’s initially testy relationship. In addition to being a depressed drunk, Law thinks Hawke’s genetically inferior and resents having to be in this arrangement. Especially since it means sobering up (at least occasionally).

As the flashback gets closer to the present, Hawke explains he’s running out of time with his heart defect—they can predict when your body’s going to give out with 99% surety, and he’s passed due—and the only thing impeding his space dream is this one crappy mission director at work.

Who turns out to be the murder victim.

And Hawke carelessly left an eyelash near the scene. His eyelash; not one of the ones Law plucks for him to plant.

The film runs 106 minutes, so the next seventy minutes (minus credits) take place over the few days before Hawke’s mission is scheduled to depart. The police show up at work, initially led by old school detective Alan Arkin, who’s convinced the eyelash guy must be the killer—one of the other things they screen out in the eugenics is the propensity for violence and criminal behavior—so Hawke’s got to stay on his toes.

Simultaneously, his coworker Uma Thurman starts getting interested in him romantically, but in Gattaca, romantic interest comes after running a potential partner’s genetic code. Thurman’s good enough for Gattaca in the brains department, but she’s not going to get a shuttle mission because she’s got a bum heart; sometimes, even with the eugenics, things still go wrong with the science.

Back at home, Law’s preparing for a year without an identity—Hawke’s leaving the planet; he can’t be in two places at once, which means Law can’t be anywhere.

Then there’s Loren Dean’s genetically superior police commander, who thinks presumably regular guy Arkin’s investigating the wrong leads, but Arkin thinks Dean’s all genes and no gut. The murder investigation gives the film a different, contentious structure running through the already established one-week-to-lift-off structure. It throws a wrench in Hawke and Law’s plans, but they need to adjust around it. Similarly, Thurman’s last-minute romantic interest in Hawke further complicates things.

The film gradually becomes that triptych character study: Hawke, Thurman, Law. Maybe Dean sharing some of the third spot with Law. The script mixes drama—family drama, as Hawke and Law have become the brothers neither had—romance, the general hard sci-fi of future eugenics and spaceflight, and murder mystery. Niccol’s script is phenomenal.

Along with that already considerable success is Niccol’s breathtaking direction. Gattaca’s a muted future, filled with people genetically engineered not to be impressed with the wonders around them. Niccol and cinematographer Slawomir Idziak shoot it clear but saturated with color. Then there’s the Michael Nyman score, which tracks the emotions of Hawke and the other actors throughout. The colors and the music mix and mingle, creating an encompassing backdrop for the actors’ performances.

Niccol does a great job with the actors. Hawke, Law, Thurman, Dean. Arkin’s kind of an extended cameo, along with Xander Berkeley, Ernest Borgnine, and Shalhoub. Everything about Gattaca—except Nyman’s score—is controlled or constrained. The music soars with the possibility of breaking free, and when characters actually get to do it too, Niccol scales appropriately.

Gattaca’s an exceptional film.

The Full Monty (1997, Peter Cattaneo)

During The Full Monty’s opening titles, an old promotional film plays, establishing the setting. Sheffield during its glory days, when they produced the best steel in the world. Or at least could make a promotional film saying they did. In the present, the steel mills have closed—and been closed about six months—and the former employees are either on the dole or working lousy jobs. The first scene is former steelworkers Robert Carlyle and Mark Addy breaking into the mill to steal metal; divorced dad Carlyle brings along his son, Wim Snape, who’s more embarrassed than scared.

Carlyle and Addy share the film’s protagonist spot. Carlyle’s got the active plot: trying to put together a male strip routine and make some fast cash. Addy’s got the more passive: he’s worried he’s losing with Lesley Sharp and becomes fixated on being overweight once the strip routine talk starts.

They get the stripping idea when they find out how much the visiting Chippendales made. There are several problems, starting with them not knowing how to dance, not being able to afford a venue, not having enough dancers. But once they cajole former mill foreman Tom Wilkinson into helping them (he can dance and has basic organizational skills), things start coming together. Thanks to new friend Steve Huison—a former mill worker who ended up as security guard to the empty buildings—they’ve got a place to rehearse and a fourth dancer. They find a couple more reasonably quick—Paul Barber and Hugo Speer—and then they just need to learn how to dance.

Along the way, in addition to Addy’s self-fulfilling problems with Sharp, Carlyle butts heads with ex-wife Emily Woof over child support, and Wilkinson’s got a subplot about lying to wife Deirdre Costello. She thinks he’s still got a job (after six months). Presumably, she doesn’t think he still works at the closed mill, but it’s never explained. Monty doesn’t delve too much into its characters’ personal lives (other than Addy). Huison’s most significant scene is his introduction, while Barber and Speer get little moments but not much substance. It’s all ensemble for the supporting players.

And it works. Because no one gets too much time, everyone gets to have a reveal or two. Sometimes the reveals are just to keep the plot going, but there are character development ones too. Even without character development arcs, the actors do a great job implying.

Of the three leads—Carlyle, Addy, and Wilkinson—the best arc is Addy’s; it’s also the most consequential. The best-acted one is Wilkinson’s. Carlyle and Addy are both good, especially given how long it takes the film to get to Addy, but Wilkinson’s performance is transfixing from his first scene. The part could be a caricature. Instead, Wilkinson gives it immediate depth, which isn’t easy since he starts the movie as a comic foil for Carlyle and Addy’s buffoonery. The film uses the first act, “getting the team together,” arc to humanize Carlyle and Addy past initial sympathy. And that arc hinges on Wilkinson. Snape’s important as well—Snape’s kind of Carlyle’s conscience because tween boys are more emotionally aware than Monty’s adult men.

At the core of all the men’s problems—including supporting players like Barber and Speer—is their inability to express themselves to anyone. Not to each other, not to their partners, not to themselves. For Addy and Wilkinson, it might not be too late, whereas Carlyle’s already lost wife Woof to new dude Paul Butterworth, who’s a complete prick. But Carlyle might still have a shot at being a good dad to Snape.

Monty’s technically solid. Director Cattaneo balances the comedy and drama well; since the film is so terse, he can maintain a considerable narrative distance, so the situations never seem too dire. Or never seem too dire too long. They’re usually able to navigate hurdles in a couple scenes.

Lovely photography from John de Borman, whose lighting finds the warmth in the grimy, permanently overcast Sheffield. The scenery is drab; the characters’ experience of it is not.

Then Anne Dudley’s score brings a lot of personality to the film. It’s one of Monty’s essential elements; Dudley’s music, Addy, Carlyle, Wilkinson, Snape. It wouldn’t work without them. Plus Simon Beaufoy’s script. The script contrasts humor and tragedy, introducing the characters’ humanity in that mix, then the actors run with that sketch.

The film’s also got a great soundtrack—as the boys try to select their music—utilizing Donna Summer’s Hot Stuff to fantastic effect.

The Full Monty’s good stuff.

Wag the Dog (1997, Barry Levinson)

Wag the Dog is a relic from the unrevealed world. Though prescient enough to know sexual misconduct isn’t enough to derail a president from either U.S. political party. As an old—who saw it in the theater, probably opening day—it’s hard to imagine how it plays to someone who’s grown up with Republicans spewing lies and hatred and the Democrats spewing different lies and conditional hatred.

There are political parties in Dog, but the film never identifies allegiances. The one time “personal” politics comes up, it seems like the good guys are Republicans (Anne Heche attacks Dustin Hoffman’s liberalism). But she could just be a Democrat too.

Heche is a White House damage control staffer. The President has just been accused of sexual misconduct and brings in image expert Robert De Niro. Heche is his handler and sidekick. Hoffman is the Hollywood producer De Niro hires to create some war media for them to distract from the molester-in-chief.

Dog’s very cynical about the rape allegations. No one cares. Again, prescient but not about everything. It’s still a world without racism—it’s pre-9/11, so the islamophobia is generalized. In fact, the imaginary Muslim fundamentalist terrorists are white. So as a satire of political reality, Dog is profoundly naive.

Luckily, it’s rarely a political satire. Director Levinson and screenwriters Hilary Henkin and David Mamet avoid it as much as possible, putting the more satirical moments on television actually, which the main characters watch and ridicule.

It’s more often a Hollywood satire, with Hoffman always ready with a self-aggrandizing showbiz anecdote. But the film’s success comes from its position as a Hollywood fable. Hoffman is the populist producer—hair modeled on Robert Evans—who finally achieves important something thanks to De Niro. The stakes are higher, though Hoffman takes a while to understand the dangerous waters he’s found himself in. Just because De Niro’s working for the President doesn’t mean everyone in the federal government wants to go to such extremes to protect a sexual predator.

I mean, haha, right? How naive can you get?

The film runs a brisk ninety-seven minutes, with De Niro and Heche leading the film from location to location. Hoffman’s top-billed, the protagonist, but he’s the protagonist because of that arc, not because of his presence. Heche, then De Niro are the driving forces, making De Niro’s performance the most important in the film. He’s got to convey a lot with a very little; heck, he sleeps through the first big brainstorming session, where Hoffman assembles the hitmakers to figure out how to gin up a war with Albania.

Director Levinson’s got a phenomenal crew here. The most impressive technical is Rita Ryack’s costumes. Whether it’s Denis Leary’s outrageous outfits (he’s “Fad King,” who figures out all the licensed goods opportunities) or De Niro’s frumpy but still stylish attire, the costumes do a lot of establishing work in the film. There’s a lot of talking (usually Hoffman talking over people—oh, and Hoffman’s outfits are fantastic too), and there are a lot of characters coming and going; the costumes don’t just help establish, they further inform as scenes play out. Also, while obviously De Niro and Hoffman can act while looking like models in very different early eighties clothes catalogs, the performance Levinson gets out of Leary is incredible. His outfit’s too absurd to be believed (though it just looks like most nineties comic book “realistic” costumes).

Anyway.

Then there’s Stu Linder’s photography. Levinson occasionally does quick emphasis zooms, and the camera’s often mobile, not going for raw, jarring documentary, but closer to cinéma vérité than not. Except Linder shoots with these bright lights, shots’ subjects practically shining, overemphasized. Despite being ostentatious, it immediately becomes one of Dog’s hyper-realisms. Neither De Niro, Hoffman, nor Heche operate in the real world. De Niro can control the national narrative, Hoffman can produce fictional reality in real-time, and Heche thinks her party will take care of her. No one in Wag the Dog’s in touch with reality because it’s not about reality; it’s about an entertaining fantasy world of respectability. The joke in Wag the Dog is they’ve got to subvert accountability because the filmmakers are so naive they think accountability exists.

It also might be hard to grok Dog without at least a passing knowledge of Hollywood trivia, specifically twentieth-century blockbusters. Lots of Bible epic and Jaws references would date the picture if the politics didn’t make it a fantasy.

The casting’s impeccable throughout. Besides the lead trio, everyone else is in an extended cameo. The most important—and successful—is Woody Harrelson, an unlikely soldier who gets wrapped up in the scheme. But Willie Nelson’s got a fun part as Hoffman’s songwriter of choice. Another thing to note about Dog’s unreality—there’s little Black presence in American pop culture. Though it’s also an appropriately white cast for the profoundly callous plot.

Some of the other casts aren’t exactly cameo level, but the parts have limited presence and require the actors to do a lot in a little time. They just happen to be the female assistants to great (white) men. Suzie Plakson’s Hoffman’s assistant, Andrea Martin’s Leary’s. Plakson’s great. Martin’s good but with so much less. Plakson gets a pre-crisis scene to banter with Hoffman, which almost no one gets in the film. Similarly, White House press guy John Michael Higgins is one of those not quite cameos but would be with a different actor. He actually gets the least to do (literally parroting for the main trio), but it works with the constraints.

Kirsten Dunst has a good scene as a young actress. William H. Macy’s got an okay one as a CIA agent. He’s there to give De Niro someone good to act off, not to act himself.

While Hoffman’s the whole show—Levinson sparingly does close-ups of Hoffman, like we’ve got to wait to see him execute this divine performance—De Niro and Heche are excellent too. De Niro’s got his less is more thing going, which leaves Heche to draw him into scenes. She’s the breakout performance in the film; she stays salient amid Hoffman doing a victory marathon and De Niro oscillating from napping to cheering Hoffman on.

The film doesn’t have a lot of time for character development, but there’s a very nice, very tragic friendship for Hoffman and De Niro. They’re star-crossed alter egos.

Wag the Dog’s outstanding. It’d be much more dated if it weren’t for the incredible naïveté. Levinson, Hoffman, De Niro, Heche, Linder, Ryack all do spectacular work. And the Henkin and Mamet script’s fantastic.

Orgazmo (1997, Trey Parker), the unrated version

The best thing about Orgazmo is the opening title’s song, Now You’re a Man. Unfortunately, once the song’s over, there are ninety more minutes of movie.

Orgazmo tells the simple tale of a Mormon missionary (co-writer and director Parker) who happens upon a porn set and ends up the star of a superhero porno (also ‘Orgazmo’). The porno director, Michael Dean Jacobs, promises Parker enough money to go back to Salt Lake and marry his fiancée, Robyn Lynne Raab, in style. Well, style for Mormons.

Plus, Parker doesn’t have to perform the actual sex; they’ll have a stunt player handle it.

The movie tracks Parker’s experiences making the porno—including making a de facto best buddy in Dian Bachar, an engineering scientist double doctor who makes pornos because it’s the only way he can get chicks (he’s short). The porno becomes a crossover sensation, which still isn’t enough for people in Utah to have heard of it, so Raab doesn’t know anything about it when she arrives in L.A. unannounced to see her beau.

Throw in some dance club thugs terrorizing a neighborhood and Ron Jeremy in a supporting role, and it’s a movie. Apparently.

The first act’s better than the rest of it. Especially since the third act is all about the bad guys getting ready to rape Raab and the movie playing it for laughs. One of the few points Orgazmo gets is how it handles the female nudity. There isn’t any; the lack of it is one of the few successful repeat jokes, if only because the rest of the repeat jokes—there are so many—are terrible and tedious. But instead of leaning into not objectifying, Orgazmo just finds different ways to make fun of women.

There are also a whole bunch of Asian jokes, including baking in some jokes about Black people. Orgazmo didn’t age poorly or rot; it was always bad. Because it’s also really not very funny. Even when Parker and co-writer Matt Stone have a good joke, the actors tend to ruin it. Porno director Jacobs is so bad actual porno star Ron Jeremy acts circles around him. Overall, the best performance might just be David Dunn as Jacobs’s shitty bro nephew. He’s never bad, whereas everyone else ends up having at least one bad scene. Sometimes because of the jokes, but mainly just because of their acting.

Orgazmo is one of those NC-17 movies where they kept the rating instead of cutting (given Bachar’s sidekick costume involves sex toys, I doubt they’d ever get it though at R), but there’s nothing to the movie if they’re not trying to get the NC-17. There’s no story. Parker’s got a rote character arc, which—naturally—involves Raab seeing things his way because he’s the man.

Until turning the attempted rape into a gag, the running jokes (or attempted running jokes) are the worst thing in Orgazmo, which is already dull. They just draw attention to how long the movie’s been going on and not been amusing.

They could’ve used the song again in the main action instead of waiting for the end credits.

Technically, it’s low-budget middling as far as competence. Kenny Gioseffi’s photography is sometimes impressive for how good the poorly composed shot looks (Parker hasn’t got an eye at all), but then another shot will be unintentionally out of focus. Michael R. Miller and Parker’s editing is never good.

I think the fight choreography might be the most impressive technical, actually. Even when it’s not at its best—the superhero fights—it’s not bad like the acting or desperate like the script.

Penny Century (1997) #1

Penny Century v1 01

I had to go back and check old Love and Rockets to see if I’d somehow forgotten Ray (Maggie’s most serious boyfriend) had a subplot about mad-crushing on Penny Century. Nope, doesn’t look like it. First, I wasn’t expecting Penny Century to open with a story about someone knowing Penny Century, not Penny herself. Second, I wasn’t expecting creator Jaime Hernandez to do a retcon.

I’m pretty sure it’s a retcon.

Pretty sure.

Also, wasn’t expecting Penny Century to be an anthology. It’s basically a Locas comic, checking in not just on Maggie and Hopey but also featuring a Daffy cameo and an Izzy mention. Ray, of course, at his peak, was in a Locos strip.

The first story has Ray living a lonely life in Los Angeles (or, at least, Hollywood). The first three pages are single-panel sketches of his life there, things he’s overheard, things he’s doing, things he’s not doing. Then, on page four, he mentions Penny, and his story’s now all about her.

It turns out Ray went to junior high with Penny. She never noticed him, but years later (in Love and Rockets #30), Maggie and Ray went to stay at Penny’s mansion, and Ray told Maggie about it. Penny started teasing him—I checked the back issue; she’s mainly parading around naked trying to seduce him but to get Maggie and Hopey back together, not because of a backstory. Like, the retcon’s fine (it makes Ray into an oblivious dickhead in a lot of ways, but I think it’s in character); I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing context.

So then it’s a recounting of their relationship, which has Penny booty-calling Ray occasionally and having earth-shattering sex. The only way for him to guarantee a visit is to meet a new girl; Penny magically arrives whenever he starts getting over her. He moved to L.A. (or, again, at least, Hollywood) for her, but after she’d dumped him, seemingly for good.

It’s a good story. Quick and effective, with Jaime starting slow with Ray’s observations, then speeding up once he begins recounting the relationship.

The following story is a two-page strip about a couple cowboys and the devil. It’s cute. Jaime’s not trying very hard, and it provides a nice break between the opener and the rest of the comic, which is Locos.

Maggie and Hopey are still in L.A., still not living together (as seen in the Color Special). Maggie’s started working for Norma Costigan, which includes helping out with her teenage daughter, Negra.

There are three stories: Maggie’s, Negra’s, then a postscript with Hopey talking to Maggie on the phone. It’s three different perspectives on the same afternoon’s events, and they’re good ones. The Negra story introduces her friends back home (mom Norma just got the mansion and payday from her divorce from Negra’s dad, H.R. Costigan, who was also at one point married to Penny). Negra first appeared in Color Special too.

She’s a teen with complex issues, while Maggie and Hopey are twenty-somethings with complex issues. Maggie’s feeling inert as Norma’s assistant; Hopey’s just suffering through her latest job, a toy store. Jaime focuses on Maggie’s inertia more than Hopey. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out going forward.

I didn’t know what to expect from Penny Century….

Well, more like, Penny Century is nothing like what I expected. I mean, I expected it to be great, and it’s great, but everything else is a surprise.

Including Jaime using the back cover for another strip (in color). Li’l Ray makes an amazing discovery. It’s a charming finish for the book. Or start, depending on whether you notice the back before you start reading.

Maggie and Hopey Color Special (1997) #1

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Maggie and Hopey Color Special (or Maggie and Hopey Color Fun, per the cover, not the indicia) delivers exactly what the cover title promises—a fun Maggie and Hopey comic in color.

The comic’s not just the Maggie and Hopey feature either; creator Jaime Hernandez does three different strips, all of them showcasing the color, including one of his Peanuts but Hoppers riffs, which is excellent.

The main story has Hopey calling Maggie on a Sunday to come over and try to fix a car. Joey and his fiancée Janet are on their way to Vegas to get married, only the car won’t start. Maggie can’t get it started either, so they all go for a pool party at Norma Costigan’s; Norma is one of H.R. Costigan’s ex-wives. The party gets complicated when Joey runs into people he hasn’t seen since he’s grown up.

But it’s already all complicated because Hopey’s trying to woo Janet away from Joey, with Joey still mooning over Maggie but not ready to make a move (grown-up or not). Meanwhile, Maggie and Hopey’s relationship status still has a question mark hanging over it.

By the end, some of the relationships are resolved, and some aren’t, but everything’s wrapped up quite nicely. Jaime has a way of echoing throughout the story, not just with visuals or dialogue or plot details, but with mood. The backup strips, which Jaime intersperses throughout the issue, breaking the feature into chapters, help with the echoing.

The “backups” don’t relate to the main story, which is slice-of-life and looking back at younger days with adult eyes (Hopey bonds with Janet over childhood memories and then Joey’s seeing things as an adult for the first time). Instead, Jaime goes for colorful variety.

The Ray story (the kind of Peanuts strip) is the longest at four pages and the best. Ray goes over to his friend’s house and gets embarrassed by toddler-aged Maggie not wearing underwear, and then something odd but entirely normal for kids happens. It’s great cartooning. It also shows how well Jaime’s art, regardless of style, works with color.

Jaime sticks to thin lines and well-lighted settings for most of the comic, letting the color take over; though there are some great night scenes, he’s showcasing how color works on his art. But what it also shows is how much Jaime’s traditional black and white implies the color when it’s not there. Especially in the Ray story, set on the Schultz-y squiggly-lined lawns of childhood memories.

One of the backups is about a lonely superhero robot attempting to fill her day. Then the other is about a mid-century party girl who’s short in stature but long in personality. They’re both outstanding.

But the feature, of course, with its return of the Locas, is where it’s at. Jaime does a great done-in-one with accessories, and Color Special is very much a special comic. In color. It’s a rare delight.

New Love (1996) #6

As expected (and predicted), creator Gilbert Hernandez delivers a fantastic close to New Love. And even though I figured he had it coming, Beto makes a bunch of surprise moves and callbacks, making New Love a cohesive series instead of just an anthology.

First comes the “Letters from Venus” entry, which I’m tempted to call the best in the series. And not just because Beto takes everything back to Palomar in the end. Or has a scene where Venus discusses Kirk and Spock slash fiction with Aunt Fritz.

It’s a somewhat lyrical summary of Venus’s family life as it goes through a momentous change. Mom Petra and step-dad David are breaking up. So this story recounts some milestones in their relationship and marriage, specifically how the two families integrated. There’s not just Venus bonding with her (previously unseen) teenage step-brother, Rogelio, but also how the adults react to the children embracing them as parents.

Beto does a fantastic job, especially the hurried but never rushed character development. It’s mainly about Venus’s relationship with Rogelio and how it affects them. Of course, since Rogelio’s new to the strip, Beto carefully lets these revelations further contextualize the previous “Venus” entries.

I don’t think it’s the best “Letters from Venus” in New Love, but it’s very (albeit awkwardly) wholesome and good-hearted.

The next strip is the single page “Slugs of Palomar.” It’s awesome. There are some funny gags about the slugs and proper consumption; it’s also an exquisite way of leaning into returning to that strip. It’s a teaser, reminding Beto’s not just still interested in the series, but also he’s still really good at making it. There’s also a visual nod to a previous New Love strip, which will be a recurring thing as Beto wraps up the series here.

Next is a four-panel gag strip (about a mansplainer arguing and just asking questions), which is cute. But then the next strip is a killer “porno” one-pager, only with very regular-looking folks. It stars Roy and his girlfriend from New Love #4. There’s no story, just their apparently fun and fulfilling sex life.

Then is a two-page strip about a cartoon mole who wants to go up and see the sun for the first time. His girlfriend, a rabbit, doesn’t want him to do it. A duck and a bear are going to figure in. The ending takes a very black comedy turn, but the strip’s always quirky because the animals are anthropomorphic but with their junk hanging out. It’s a success.

Next is “Shout Ramirez and Her Very Best Friend Dinky.” They’re members of the Leaping Elite, which is basically adventurers who’ve been trained since childhood to leap great distances in single bounds. They’ve got super-thigh muscles to let them do it. Shout’s the brash loudmouth lead, Dinky’s her quiet and devoted partner; Dinky’s also madly in love with Shout and hasn’t told her.

The strip takes a twist in the finale—where Dinky also looks like another Beto character, but it’s not clear if they just look similar with the same expression or if there’s an intentional connection. There’s a definite intentional connection in their adventure, which has them trying to stop a rampaging love gremlin, the gigantic babies who first appeared in New Love #2. It’s all connected.

It’s a great story, showing off how well Beto could do a superhero strip if he wanted, with a genuinely disquieting conclusion.

After “Shout” is another one-pager, but six different two-to-six panel strips with the same protagonist and some commentary on his odd (and gross) behavior. It’s an excellent, quick bit of work from Beto.

Finally comes “Abraxas,” the other feature. There’s “Venus” then “Abraxas.”

“Abraxas” is a semi-sequel to a story of the runaway mobster’s moll and the hunchbacked gravedigger who loves her from New Love #1. However, there’s a slightly different vibe to the tale, which follows two suspicious characters who are in town for the “sighting.” They spy on their targets and bicker with each other about who’s being too flirty with who.

A lot of the strip builds up to the two big reveals, but then when the action kicks in, Beto does this beautifully fluid sequence. It’s moody, funny, bloody, and more than a little haunting. It’s the most ambitious story in the issue and the best.

But New Love isn’t over yet. There’s a one-page strip with Venus and her Aunt Luba talking about reading. It quickly becomes a conversation about comic books and Beto breaking the fourth wall to remind his readers to, you know, read more comics. The good ones. It’s a perfect finish to the series.

Outside the one lackluster issue—by Beto and New Love’s standards—the series has been outstanding and unexpected from the start. This finale, bringing it all together, is terrific. Beto makes incredible comics.

New Love (1996) #5

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I’m trying not to be too hard on this issue of New Love, but it definitely seems like the one where creator Gilbert Hernandez ran out of momentum, if not enthusiasm. It’s strange because last issue had a teaser for the stories in this one, then these strips are kind of blah. There are some good ideas; Beto just doesn’t have full strips for them or a cohesive theme.

Other than non sequiturs, including the narration of a story not matching the visual content and general non sequitur usage in the strip to move things along.

The first story is a recounting of the La Llorona legend. It’s pretty good but slight. There’s some good art—lots of moody black panels; not really any style cohesion either. There doesn’t need to be, of course. Though it would make up for the lack of a character arc for the gruesome protagonist. I guess the Heaven scene’s funny from a specific point of view.

Then comes the first of the three ”Heroin” strips. If they’re about heroin, they’re disconnected heroin dreams. The first one is a sci-fi swashbuckler romance set to text about a guy who repulses the object of his affection. Beto writes it pretty well—demanding attention—and even if it’s bewildering, it’s intentionally so, and very well-drawn.

The second “Heroin” strip, which comes later but let’s get through them all, is a one-pager. It’s Beto detailing a guy doing a physical comedy gag. It’s, you know, totally fine, and if it came in another issue, there might be more to get excited about. But in this one, it just lends to the slapdash nature of the book.

Not the third “Heroin” strip, which is the best story in the comic. It’s a dystopian future thing where a woman gets interested in the mutant children living in the ruins of the old city. There’s a lot of drama, a lot of humanity, and absolutely no exposition establishing the setting. It’s real good. Even if the finale’s a little rushed.

The issue’s got a very sci-fi vibe to it—it’s the most Rockets, literally, New Love has felt–including a story about a superhero unintentionally spoiling a little kid’s birthday. It’s got a peculiar, unrelated title. There’s some nice art, including what appears to be a Superman: The Movie reference. Overall it’s disjointed and hurried; nice art, but overall disjointed and hurried describes the whole issue.

Finally, there’s a “Letters from Venus” entry. It starts with Venus explaining to her cousin—the framing device is Venus writing letters to her cousin—this story doesn’t really matter. Way to flex.

It’s about a time Venus went to a nude resort with mom Petra, aunt Fritz, and grandma Maria. Maria hasn’t been in New Love before, but she was in Love and Rockets a bunch. It’s not really her story, though. If anyone’s, it’s Venus and Fritz’s; they show the most agency. Beto has some good dialogue, and he enjoys drawing nudity. He just doesn’t have much of a story, something the strip even acknowledges with one of the segues.

I guess if you’re going to have a middling issue, best to save it for five of six. So instead of focusing on the tepid strips here, you remember all the good ones.

It’s not even bad, just not near the usual standards. I’m sure Beto’ll turn it out for the finale.