Phantasm (1979) *

This is an old horror film, considered a classic, that I had never gotten around to watching. It wasn't director Don Coscarelli's first project, but it's the one that launched his career, and he is still most famous for his “Phantasm” franchise. Coscarelli made this, the first in the series, for only around $300,000. That would be quite a bargain if the movie were even marginally good.

The story concerns a couple of brothers, Jody and Mike, who discover odd goings-on at the local funeral home. The exceptionally-tall undertaker (known in the Phantasm movies as The Tall Man) is taking dead bodies and shrinking them into 3-foot-tall slaves. He keeps some of them around to serve him, and others he ships off through a dimensional portal for unspecified purposes. To help with his dirty work, he has a silver pool ball that flies around and can drill into people's heads.

It all sounds like it could be good. Throw in some titties and some fake blood, and you've got a movie! Unfortunately, the thing is a complete mess. I haven't seen such an aggressively nonsensical movie since “Manos: The Hands of Fate.” I have no problem with the cheap special effects or the weirdness, but a movie should, at a minimum, follow some sort of narrative with at least internal logic. “Phantasm” just jumps from scene to scene, sometimes abandoning entire storylines. The worst part is the “It was all a dream --- or was it?!” ending.

I've read a few articles on the making of “Phantasm,” and it sounds like Coscarelli had no idea where he was going with it. The script was constantly re-written during filming, and he filmed several different endings. The original cut ran for around 3 hours, which Coscarelli was forced to cut to the released movie's 90 minutes. I'm thinking he cut the movie in half and then submitted the wrong half.

1 star out of 5

Office Space (1999) *****

It's time for me to write about one of my favorite movies. I've loved it since way before I started keeping this movie journal, re-watching it every year or so. Lately, I've seen a lot of good films that I rated in the 4-star range, and I've been asking myself why I don't give some of these movies 5 stars. Re-watching “Office Space” reminded me that 5 stars is reserved for a truly superior class of movie, the kind that gives me nothing but sheer joy from beginning to end.

Ron Livingston plays Peter, a bored, depressed office drone. He starts every day in bumper-to-bumper traffic, then toils away at tedious computer tasks in a cubicle. Waiting at the end of the day is a thin-walled, featureless apartment and a shrew of a girlfriend. Watching his youth slip away under these conditions is so depressing that Peter agrees to try an occupational hypnotherapist. When the therapist keels over mid-procedure, Peter is left in a prolonged hypnotized state that changes his entire attitude. He achieves his lifelong dream of “doing nothing” and stops going to work. He also drops his cheating girlfriend and asks out the cute waitress he has been obsessed with. “New Peter” seems on the road to financial ruin, but he is happy for the first time in his life.

Peter's bosses are understandably ready to fire him, but the workforce consultants brought in by his company to help with layoffs are actually impressed by his newfound confidence and candor, describing him as “a straight-shooter with upper-level management written all over him.” While Peter gets offered a promotion, his buddies Samir and Michael Bolton (no relation to the singer) get laid off. To avenge this injustice, the three cook up a computer program to slowly steal money from the company.

Few artworks have captured the misery of “1^st World Problems” better than “Office Space.” Peter has an apartment, a car, and a job in an air-conditioned office, which makes him a wealthy man by the standards of the majority of humans on this earth. So why isn't he happy? He experiences the misery of having things that don't feed his soul, but are just good enough to keep him from seeking something better. Hypnosis frees him to think about what actually makes him happy, and working in a cubicle ain't it!

“Office Space” is Mike Judge's first live-action film, and like his later movies ("Idiocracy" and "Extract"), it did poorly at the box office. The studio had no idea how to market a quirky, workplace comedy with a gangsta-rap soundtrack. Even the movie poster sucked, a picture of a guy covered in post-it notes that, from a distance, looked like Big Bird from “Sesame Street”. Fortunately, the movie found its legs on video, becoming a cult classic of epic proportions.

There is so much to love about this film; every scene is a delight. There's Michael Bolton, the co-worker with a chip on his shoulder about having the same name as the “no-talent ass-clown” singer. (Michael Bolton the singer, by the way, has come to embrace the movie, even doing a funnyordie skit where he acts out some of Michael Bolton's scenes.) There's the often-quoted passive-aggressive boss, Lumbergh: “That'd be great, m-kay?” Then, of course, there's the most gangsta scene in a movie, ever, where they take the fax machine out in a field and destroy it.

“Office Space” is a character study in how different people approach work. Peter's friend, Samir, an immigrant, is just happy to have a job. When Peter asks, “What if we're still doing this when we're 50?,” Samir's response is, “It would be nice to have that kind of job security.” Tom Smykowski, of course, is in his 50's, having reached a point in his job where he doesn't do much, and he's just hoping he can make it to retirement before someone figures that out. Michael Bolton complains bitterly about his job, but really, he's content to stick it out; complaining is more fun than figuring out something else to do with his life. Then there's Lawrence (Diedrich Bader), Peter's construction-worker next-door-neighbor, and one of the best movie characters ever. Lawrence has a lower-status job than Peter, but he's generally a happy guy, and Peter eventually comes to realize that that isn't such a bad deal. The point of the movie isn't that everyone should quit their day job and start working construction, but that job status and money aren't the most important things in life.

If anyone reading this hasn't seen the movie, then I implore you, make space in your life for “Office Space.” It will make you laugh until your face hurts, and it might just change your life!

5 stars out of 5

Metropolitan (1990) ****

I've figured out that Whit Stillman's recurring theme is the fin de seicle, or “end of the era.” The term most commonly refers to the end of the nineteenth century, but I think it's an artful way to describe the unraveling of any situation. In Stillman's "Barcelona," a pair of cousins enjoy a thriving social life in the titular city, going out with a coterie of beautiful, Spanish girls. In "The Last Days of Disco," a group of friends enjoys the disco nightlife of New York City. Whether with a whimper or with a bang, these situations come to an end, forcing the characters to move on to something new.

In “Metropolitan,” Stillman's first film, college student Tom Townsend (Edward Clements) stumbles into a nice situation. With his prep-school background, Tom knows a few moneyed, New York people, but he himself has limited means after his parents' divorce. In a rented tux, he attends a debutante ball on a whim, and winds up getting invited to a swank after-party. This small group of wealthy college students welcome Tom into their group, and they spend night after night talking and drinking, drinking and talking.

What do they talk about? They talk about the kind of things young people always talk about. They talk about books and philosophy. (“You don't have to have read a book to have an opinion on it.”) They talk about the travails of being who they are, the Urban Haute Bourgoisie. (“I can't believe you're actually going to play bridge, such a cliché of bourgeois life.” “That's exactly why I play. I don't enjoy it one bit.”) They talk about other people. (“Rick Von Slonecker is tall, rich, good looking, stupid, dishonest, conceited, a bully, liar, drunk and a thief, an egomaniac, and probably psychotic. In short, highly attractive to women.”)

Does all this chit-chat get tiresome? Honestly, it does not. Stillman's script is so witty and the cast so invested in playing it straight, that it's just one hilarious line after another. It's also a good story. I've made it sound like nothing happens, but in the midst of all this talking, Tom grapples with the challenges of being the poor one in the group, while his new friends consider the question of how to be a success when they were born into money. Another friend (Chris Eigeman) faces the possibility of being disinherited. Also, there's a love triangle. Not to forget that fin de seicle motif; the group starts to disintegrate. All of this takes place over the Christmas holiday, a reminder of how intense brief spans of time can be when you're young.

Every serious film fan needs to see at least one movie by Whit Stillman, and this is as good a place to start as any. Like Tarantino or Scorcese, Stillman makes a distinctive style of film, and if it's your cup of tea, you will love these movies. In their own way, these talky movies are action movies. Talk, after all, is the action that fills most of our lives.

4 stars out of 5