American Gothic (1995) s01e02 – A Tree Grows in Trinity

Tree picks up immediately after the pilot, only it’s been however many months since they shot the pilot, and now they’re filming for fall airdates. Lucas Black and Sarah Paulson are both a little visibly older, Jake Weber’s got a completely different haircut, Paige Turco’s costumes are better, and Gary Cole’s even eviler.

With the previous episode, I was worried the lackluster mid-nineties CGI special effects and bewildering “horror” direction would set the tone for the series itself, regardless of the director returning. Unfortunately, the regular series seems to be doing more bad CGI effects and editing transitions with less money for the effects. More bad effects. It looks goofy.

But it also doesn’t matter. The show survives the bad special effects, the unimpressive direction (Michael Katleman), and photography (Stephen McNutt). It excels, in fact. Not despite its technical failings but indifferent to them. Once the actors start talking, nothing else matters.

The show’s split between the good guys—Black, Weber, Turco—and the bad guys—Cole, Brenda Bakke—with Paulson detached because she’s an ethereal being. Everyone else is a pawn in some way or another, most obviously Nick Searcy, who’s got a great, awkward scene with Weber to kick the episode off.

There are a couple guest stars this episode: Arnold Vosloo (still during his “Renaissance Productions-only” phase) and David Lenthall. Vosloo’s an out-of-town reporter who’s got one heck of a story to tell, while Lenthall is the county coroner. He’s got to do autopsies on Paulson and her father, except Cole doesn’t want anyone finding out he snapped Paulson’s neck and whatever happened with the dad. And Lenthall owes Cole.

Paulson doesn’t take kindly to Lenthall screwing up her autopsy and letting her murderer go free, so she causes a supernatural incident in the morgue. It’s so much bad special effects at once—and Lenthall’s bad—it seems like the show’s going to derail. But then the regular cast takes over, and things smooth out again.

While Weber’s not on the level of Black, Cole, or Searcy, he takes it up a notch this episode as he gets to interact with Bakke for the first time. There are some nice muted character reveals and development, and Weber works them in beautifully. And Turco’s better, though she’s still just hanging around. Bakke’s Southern belle femme fatale is captivating, even if the characterization’s not without its issues.

Series creator Shaun Cassidy again gets the script credit, with the episode really finishing up the pilot responsibilities. It might’ve been nice for CBS to let them do a two-hour premiere… or at least give them enough money to keep the effects on the same level. But, no, “American Gothic” appears it will have some lousy mid-1990s TV show CGI.

And I do not care.

Because the rest of it, even when the cast’s interacting with that lousy CGI, more than makes up for it. I’d forgotten TV could look terrible and still be great, thanks to the actors and writers, back when it was more filmed stage productions than segmented movies.

Anyway.

“American Gothic” gets great by the end of this episode. It’s incredible.

American Gothic (1995) s01e01

I was happier than I should be to discover executive producer Sam Raimi didn’t direct this pilot episode of “American Gothic.” Raimi and Rob Tapert’s Renaissance Pictures produced the series (for Universal and CBS), so I just figured Raimi directed the first one. But, no, it’s Peter O’Fallon. Instead of talking about Raimi being unable to direct a TV show, I just get to say O’Fallon’s an exceptionally mediocre TV director. It’s not entirely his fault; it’s the mid-nineties, and it’s TV. There’s hacky CGI to shoot for, there’s some video footage split in, and there’s whatever’s going on with Ernest Holzman’s photography. Hopefully, O’Fallon won’t be the show’s template but given his bare competence doing a genre show with supernatural special effects… it’s kind of amazing when the show gets great.

The show doesn’t get great and stay great; it just has enough great scenes, sometimes cut short by commercial breaks (still the bane of narrative flow), sometimes just gone wrong. The show gets through its rocky but compelling start by the halfway mark. In time for Paige Turco’s graveyard exposition dump to be forgiven, even as O’Fallon misses they’ve dressed Turco in a Southern Gothic hooded cape thing, and he doesn’t know how to shoot for it. “Close-ups O’Fallon” is not an inappropriate nickname.

Thank goodness he’s not back directing.

Shaun Cassidy gets the script and creator credit for “Gothic.” He’s responsible for the episode’s considerable successes, though it’s all about getting it to the right actors. Just one episode in and “Gothic” has four outstanding performances. Top-billed Gary Cole’s murderous Southern sheriff, garbage human being Nick Searcy as his conflicted deputy, Sarah Paulson as the traumatized, non-verbal girl Cole murders in the third scene (which Searcy witnesses), and Lucas Black as Paulson’s little brother. Paulson has the best moment in the episode; now a spirit, she’s called Black back to their house (and her murder scene), so she can show him Cole rape their mother ten years ago, watching his own conception.

The mom’s long dead, their dad (Sonny Shroyer) cracked in the first scene and went after Paulson with a shovel—Cole was being opportunistic in killing her—and Black’s got to know the truth if there’s going to be a show.

The episode also introduces the good guys—Jake Weber as a town doctor, a Yankee moved down South to better the place, and Turco. Turco is Black’s adult cousin (we don’t get the family tree just yet) who left town when her parents mysteriously died in a fire… their bodies discovered by Cole, who must’ve been a teenager or something. Unclear at this point.

Then Brenda Bakke is Cole’s femme fatale accomplice. She’s the good girl school teacher by dawn, Southern vixen by night. Weber and Bakke are both quite good; they’re just quite good for 1995 television. They’re not transcending like the four top-tier performances.

Turco’s just okay. It’s not a great part this episode. She’s literally inserting herself into the plot, and there’s not room. She’s got some good moments, though. Unfortunately not the graveyard monologue… Five Easy Pieces it’s not.

At the start of the episode, I was more than a little concerned with the nineties Renaissance Studios mise-en-scene (i.e., brightly lighted, artless action sequences and lousy CGI), but “Gothic” comes through thanks to writing and casting. I do hope future directors are a little better with composition, establishing shots, and spotlighting performances; the cast shouldn’t have to hoist the whole thing up, regardless of their ability.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006, Justin Lin)

Identifying the most interesting thing about The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift isn’t difficult. There’s so very little interesting about the film at all, anything slightly interesting becomes rather vibrant and engaging. Unfortunately, it’s the really weird treatment of girls in the film. Not women, but high school-aged girls. They are either mercenary or damaged and, since they’re not with leading man Lucas Black, their boyfriends try to kill them during car races.

It’s very strange. In the second instance, Nathalie Kelley is riding in Black’s car as her boyfriend, played by Brian Tee, tries to kill them. The first one has the girl in her boyfriend’s car and him just not caring about her safety in order to beat Black in the race.

Except Tokyo Drift takes a long time to establish Black can actually drive a car well. He races at the beginning and isn’t particularly impressive; then he goes to Tokyo and races and isn’t impressive there either. Not until Sung Kang comes along and teaches him how to “drift” is Black any good at driving.

Black doesn’t have much of a character to play. He says he can drive, the film doesn’t show it. He says he can fight, the film doesn’t show it. He seems to think he can treat Kelley right, the film doesn’t show it. They have zero chemistry. In one of his only good moves, director Lin decided not to force it.

Great editing, bad music, decent enough final cameo.

Sling Blade (1996, Billy Bob Thornton), the director’s cut

I’m going to assume Sling Blade was a labor of love for actor/writer/director Billy Bob Thornton (remember how much of a big deal he used to be?), just because it has all the trappings of a labor of love. I watched the newish director’s cut DVD, which runs twenty-two minutes longer than the theatrical version at 148 minutes, and–to be fair to the theatrical cut, which I’m sure was a labor of love too–the film should be about ninety-eight minutes.

I kept thinking of a phrase while watching the film: “poorly executed.” Sling Blade has a lot of poorly executed scenes and sequences. There’s one particularly offending montage that I won’t go into, just in case anyone isn’t familiar with the conclusion. But the film has some beautiful, beautiful moments. Moments where tears came to my eyes (but didn’t escape, I’d be a lot more positive if they’d gotten away). Thornton creates these beautiful relationships–not just his character and the kid, but his character and everyone (except Dwight Yoakam’s character). It’s just when he fills in the moments with a lot of useless talk… a lot of labor of love moments.

Now, I was going to wait to talk about Dwight Yoakam, but I’m afraid I’ll forget the adjective for his acting if I do. Dwight Yoakam is atrocious. For the most part, Sling Blade looks like a “normal” motion picture. Miramax did not pay for it–it is from before Miramax paid for all their films–but it’s shot on 35 millimeter and the print doesn’t change film stocks or any other tell-tale signs… Except Yoakam. I presume Thornton and Yoakam were friends, because there’s no other reason someone would saddle down his or her film with such a crappy performance. Yoakam probably gets off six lines that aren’t cringe-inducing. Atrocious. That’s the right word….

Unfortunately, it’s also the right word to describe the musical score. A score doesn’t necessarily have to weigh down or improve a film, except Thornton relies on the score a few times for his terrible montages. Thornton holds shots too… there’s movement in them, but the shots hold for a long time, maybe even a minute. Hitchcock rarely went over twenty seconds. These lengthy, useless montages, with the terrible music–especially the end, after the character relationships have just produced this beautiful feeling in the viewer–are unspeakable. It’s a travesty.

I haven’t seen Sling Blade since 1996, when it came out in the theater, and I dutifully went and saw my “indie” movie. I read the screenplay previously and the screenplay, I remember, was better. The film doesn’t work, emotionally, for the same reason the Sixth Sense doesn’t work. The story is about this family and the filmmaker forces the story to be about an external force. It’s a loose comparison, but in the end of both, we’re cheated of the emotional impact, left instead with a gimmick–a nice little bow. With a nice pair of editing scissors, though, someone could Sling Blade into something really impressive.