Michael Hayes (1997) s01e14 – Imagine: Part 1

Well, it makes sense why the previous episode closed off two plot threads with big ol’ cop outs—“Michael Hayes” has got a new pair of drivers. This episode adds Michael S. Chernuchin (single writing credit on the episode) and Michael Pressman (director of the episode) as executive producers. Their big idea for what to do with the show is make it as sensational as possible, with David Caruso and company hunting down a Unabomber-esque suspect who the FBI has been hiding from the public for eight years because Waco.

We’ve also gone from Caruso just waiting for his permanent appointment to the unnamed but it’s Janet Reno boss in Washington out to get him. And Ruben Santiago-Hudson has become a fascist.

There’s nothing about the bombshells in Caruso’s life in the last episode, even though part of the case involves sibling loyalty and he doesn’t flinch at it. I suppose you can imagine Caruso added something to the performance because of the previous events but… there’s nothing in the script. Outside the characters, the show’s tabula rasa.

There are a bunch of guest stars—got to have persons of interest in a procedural (Caruso’s not running around with a gun at least, just personally investigating the crime and interviewing witnesses). Kevin Conway’s the reporter who helps Caruso leak the story and then becomes integral to the investigation because it’s Kevin Conway. Gail Strickland’s good as the woman who thinks her brother has become the bomber. Lisa Banes is an antagonist defense attorney who has history with Caruso and gets the best acting out of him. Chris Mulkey’s a weasely FBI agent. Harley Venton is the former CIA wetworks guy with all the answers whether Caruso wants to hear the truth or not.

Venton’s godawful and might be the first shark Fonz is jumping over after zooming towards the ramp. Mulkey’s part of the ramp.

None of the regular cast gets much to do since Caruso’s doing all the investigating and interviewing himself (after Santiago-Hudson gets done with a fine Richard Riehle). Rebecca Rigg maybe gets the most after Santiago-Hudson. Hillary Danner gets the least (i.e. she’s only in full group scenes). Peter Outerbridge in between Rigg and Danner.

Thanks to Chernuchin and Pressman, “Michael Hayes” feels like sensationalized CBS nonsense, which it’s kind of amazing they managed to avoid until now. At least Caruso’s not running around with a pistol taking shots at suspects but… who knows what will happen once the Fonz is over the next shark.

It’s also a two-parter so I suppose there’s the slim chance the new guys’ll save it in the landing.

Or the shark will eat them.

Slaughterhouse-Five (1972, George Roy Hill)

When Slaughterhouse-Five is just about World War II, director Hill can handle it. He doesn’t understand the humor, but he can handle it. The script doesn’t understand its own humor, as screenwriter Stephen Geller tries to force his own sense of humor on the source material, but Hill just makes it worse. Especially when he’s got an actor like Ron Leibman going wild with his role.

Leibman gets the joke. Hill doesn’t. Hill has an incredibly big problem with Slaughterhouse-Five, he can’t figure out how to be serious about it. He can be showy about it, but he can’t be serious about it. Not serious enough because he can’t embrace the fantastical nature of the source material. Hill can’t buy in; the script doesn’t help on this one either, but Hill can’t buy in. Like the book says, so it goes.

As a result, the World War II sequences–set to beautiful Glenn Gould music, featuring this desolate Miroslav Ondrícek photography, with Dede Allen’s sublime cuts–oh, and star Michael Sacks walking around like a complete doofus. Apparently, someone important was real set on Sacks as the lead in the film, because there’s no other explanation why they didn’t get someone better. Sacks doesn’t have a part in the script. He’s an enigma. Hill avoids giving him speaking shots in close-up, so he’s mostly just observing. Again, enigma. But since Hill can’t seem to shoot the script, he’s fuddling with the actors too. Sacks gets nothing from Hill. Not a thing. It’s incredible. As soon as the opening titles are done, Hill’s giving the movie away to the supporting cast.

For a while that approach almost works. Handing the movie off to a better actor than Sacks, who spends half the film in World War II and half the film in old age make-up and in the present day. Only some of the present day stuff is flashback too, with its own younger old age make-up.

It’s bad make-up. Ondrícek doesn’t shoot it, or the special effects, well. So it looks like a joke, which certainly doesn’t seem to be what anyone’s going for, but no one’s in much agreement. And Sacks should be pulled in all directions by this indecision; only he’s so bland, he’s unaffected. It’s kind of incredible, the lead actor’s performance unaffected by disaster.

Only in such a good production–save the special effects, Slaughterhouse-Five is a fine production. It’s just not a good movie. Not as a strict adaptation or a loose one. Hill and company end going for something safe, some ironic camp. When the film gets to its abrupt finish, where–theoretically–one might want Sacks to have gone through some kind of change, if not internally than at least in relation to the others or the audience, but no… Hill never lets the film head in that direction. Questions are down that path. Slaughterhouse-Five doesn’t want to raise any of those.

Slaughterhouse-Five is a contemporary adaptation of controversial breakout bestseller, it’s inherently mercenary. Hill doesn’t want to try to mimic the book’s controversies, so he tries to distract from his avoidance of them. Don’t look at the stunning lack of ambition, let’s all laugh at Sharon Gans being reduced to a joke about her weight. Time and again, even though she starts the film stronger than Sacks; the film cuts to their wedding night and Gans immediately overpowers Sacks. And Hill doesn’t seem to care and Sacks doesn’t notice because his performance would have to change, which it doesn’t.

Ever.

So, Gans never gets her due. When Valerie Perrine comes in, Hill and Geller set her up to be some great presence, but she’s not either. Because she’s not set in the World War II stuff. Everything present in Slaughterhouse-Five flops, with the exception of some of Gans’s performance… and nothing else. Nothing else works in the present.

Eugene Roche is great as Sacks’s mentor in World War II. Leibman’s great. The script’s not good but the actors still get through and the plot’s good. It’s just building towards the Dresden bombing. Hill can handle that kind of narrative progression.

It’s all the rest of it he can’t handle.

Sacks doesn’t add anything–he’s not maliciously being bad, he’s just moping. Malice would require something no one is willing to give Sacks–personality.

Some gorgeous filmmaking though. In the World War II parts, usually when not involving lots of dialogue because the dialogue gives Hill problems. Again, not the actors, just Hill. So not the talky parts. Unless it’s Roche.

Slaughterhouse-Five is too professionally competent to be unbearable. It’s just abjectly without ambition.

1/4 ★

CREDITS

Directed by George Roy Hill; screenplay by Stephen Geller, based on the novel by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.; director of photography, Miroslav Ondrícek; edited by Dede Allen; music by Glenn Gould; production designer, Henry Bumstead; produced by Paul Monash; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Michael Sacks (Billy Pilgrim), Ron Leibman (Paul Lazzaro), Eugene Roche (Edgar Derby), Sharon Gans (Valencia Merble Pilgrim), Valerie Perrine (Montana Wildhack), Holly Near (Barbara Pilgrim), Perry King (Robert Pilgrim), and Kevin Conway (Roland Weary).


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The Funhouse (1981, Tobe Hooper)

The Funhouse is terrifying. Director Hooper opens the film with a dual homage to Halloween and Psycho and then proceeds to do something entirely different in the end of this film. Like those two films, he takes a while to get to the violent acts. He does, however, announce he’s going to terrify the audience from the get go. And he does. The first forty-five minutes of the film is Hooper getting ready to terrify the audience. And then he does. The finale, which probably only runs fifteen minutes, is exhausting.

What’s so amazing about the first thirty or forty minutes is how the film doesn’t have to go anywhere else. It’s just a bunch of teenagers hanging out at a carnival, with Elizabeth Berridge’s protagonist on her first date with an older boy (Cooper Huckabee). She’s had a fight with her younger brother and he heads out to the carnival after she tells him she won’t be taking him. It could be a short movie about small town life.

Until almost halfway through, the carnival just seems dangerous. It’s never explicitly dangerous. Hooper and writer Lawrence Block spend more time on making Berridge give in to Huckabee’s affections than anything else. Well, anything else obvious. Hooper’s very subtly preparing the audience for the horror show.

Excellent performances help. Berridge is a great lead, Largo Woodruff is great as her friend. Kevin Conway is fantastic; his sincerity sells the danger.

The Funhouse is an awesome, frightening, exhilarating motion picture.