Ghost Rider - 2007

"Ghost Rider" - 2007
Dir. by Mark Steven Johnson - 1 hr. 50 min.

Official Trailer (Espanol)

by Clayton Hollifield

2007 was a simpler time. Superhero movies hadn't yet steamrolled everything in sight. Also, you could still shop at a Toys 'R Us. And, you know, do other stuff too, like shaking people's hands or coughing in public. Nicolas Cage was known for making batty movies with even battier acting choices yet, but that was still pre-meme supremacy era. The odds that any given superhero movie was going to be worthwhile was an uneven bet. Hollywood didn't know what to do with this material, outside of individuals who got it right. But studios seemed more willing to take a shot at these kinds of movies.

Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) is a second-generation circus motorcycle stunt rider, part of his father's act. Burton Blaze (Brett Cullen) is his father, a stern man with a dangling cigarette and rockin' sideburns. After another night of getting his ass chewed out (not a euphemism - people didn't eat ass in 2007, at least not as a point of public pride), Johnny discovers some concerning news about his father. In classic fashion, a very fancy man, Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda) shows up and offers young Mr. Blaze a deal; his father's health for Johnny's soul. Johnny takes Meph up on the offer, and it turns out to be not exactly what he expected it to be. So Johnny bails super-hard, leaving his life (and girlfriend) behind.

Life ain't nothing but bikes and jelly beans

There's a lot to say about this movie, which seems weird, because there's not a lot to this movie. So let's go with the good first. The cast for Ghost Rider is pretty good. Nic Cage is bonkers, and I had no confidence anyone would get this right as a movie, so it at least has his stash of insane line readings to fall back on. But past that there's Donal Logue as Johnny Blaze's buddy, Eva Mendes as the female-shaped object, Sam Elliott doing Undertaker-style promos in a graveyard, Rebel Wilson making the most of her one minute on screen, and Peter Fonda cashing in some motorcycle-movie credit here. Everything interesting in this film comes from actors hamming things up. One problem for me is that the villain, Blackheart (Wes Bentley) was eye-rollingly bad throughout the film, in pretty much every way. If you sat down and thought about what's the worst version of the villain from Hell trope, please believe that Wes Bentley topped that and took home a trophy for how bad his character was. I don't know if it was him, the writing, or an unholy combination of the two, but when the villain just comes off like a try-hard dork, then the hero vs. villain aspect that's supposed to drive the film is going to fail.

The biggest problems with this film is that you can see the Hollywood fingerprints all over it. Part of that is that they had not yet figured out how to consistently nail superhero stories. In the Avengers arc, yes there were romantic elements present, but that's not the thrust of any of the stories. They're oddly asexual in that manner (aside maybe from the first Thor and Natalie Portman's delightful agogness); they're more about rising to the occasion, heroism, duty, honor, and all that stuff. In Ghost Rider, one of the main plot points is Johnny Blaze continually bailing on Roxanne (Eva Mendes), and that part of the story is given more attention than the whole save-the-world-from-Mephistopheles thing. Superhero stories are about looking good enough to get laid, but not about the actual laying. This one falls back on having the basic romance being the thrust, instead of just having Ghost Rider looking badass and scaring the crap out of hoods. There is also the fact that there's not another memorable female character present, which isn't make or break, but is part of the problem here. Roxanne exists not out of her own agency, but basically as something for Blaze to win over.  

But the biggest issue is a problem that we film-viewers are going to have to increasingly deal with: old digital effects look cheesy. I'm not going to hammer on that point, but watching a 13 year old movie that relies on effects is going to have to compete with all the advances that digital effects have made in that time span. I will give some credit; I've been re-reading the 90's Ghost Rider comics lately, and this movie does a good job of replicating the look and feel of those comics. Unfortunately, the people who would be stoked about that would also be annoyed that the main character of the movie is Johnny Blaze, since it was Danny Ketch who was the star of that particular comic series. Comic fans are funny like that.

Chug!  Chug!  Chug!

So look, Ghost Rider was a bad movie even when it came out. I think the main reason this one exists is because Cage was a Ghost Rider fan, and he got to get paid to cosplay, and why would you turn that down? But it's not like there are any great Ghost Rider comics to have drawn upon for inspiration, it's just a character that looks awesome, but no one has really managed to do much with that. Time hasn't done this movie any favors, but the cast is absolutely to my taste. So it wasn't painful to rewatch. It's also pretty unlikely I'll be rewatching it again soon; literally everyone I liked in this movie has other movies that are way better.

1.5/5 - Streaming (HD)

The Tao of Steve - 2000

"The Tao of Steve" - 2000
Dir. by Jenniphr Goodman - 1 hr. 27 min.

Red Band Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

In the 1990's, before the internet was the depository for all kinds of DIY filmmaking, there was a boom of talky, frequently elliptical, low-budget indie films that came from people who didn't ordinarily get to direct feature films (or at least weren't interested in big budget explody nonsense).  You could track it back to the 1980's, if you want to include Steven Soderbergh's early work, or Richard Linklater's "Slacker": that's where the unbroken string of films in that vein began.  Jenniphr Goodman's "The Tao of Steve" is at the end of that string, having been released in 2000.  It bears a lot of similarities to other films in it's vein; unconventional lead actors (in the aesthetic sense, although it's definitely part of the plot here), lots of talk about big ideas from people who aren't necessarily doing big things (or slackers, as you might otherwise know them), and tortured love stories (possibly fall-out from a decade coping with the AIDS epidemic).  This is also a very sharply-written film with excellent performances from the leads, offering a lot of easy charm and heady talk.

Dex (Donal Logue) goes to his college reunion, where one of the points of emphasis is that he's packed on more than a couple pounds over the years.  Despite this, Dex is charming, underachieving, way too smart for his own good, and has unlikely success with beautiful women.  As is explained to one of his more inexperienced friends over the course of the film, Dex owes this success to his strategy for seducing women.  A "Steve" is the epitome of cool - Steve Austin or Steve McQueen.  In channeling these Steves, his three step method works like a charm.  And that's fine, until he sees a girl that he's interested in having more than a fling with, Syd (Greer Goodman).  Or maybe Syd inadvertently Steves Dex.  Either way, they end up having to share a truck when Dex's motorcycle breaks down, and Dex has to fight an uphill battle to get Syd's interest.

At one point in this film, Dex quotes Lao Tzu to Ed (John Hines), "When a foolish man hears of the Tao, he laughs out loud."  This is an appropriate quote for any film that deals with philosophical matters: the knee-jerk reaction to any discussion of philosophical matters in the arts seems to be to dismiss it as Philosophy 101 stoned musings.  And that's fine.  If you're the sort of person prone to that reaction, skip "The Tao of Steve."  There is wall-to-wall casual discussion on this topic (and on religion, a subject frequently intertwined with philosophy).  But if that's not you, the discussions serve to offer insight into the characters in the film.  So, you know, pay attention.  It's not a coincidence that pretty much the only time that Dex shuts up in the whole film is during a discussion with Syd about "Don Giovanni" and Kierkegaard, where Syd interprets Don Giovanni as being about a man sleeping with one-thousand women because was afraid of being rejected by one.  It's a relevant observation, particular considering Dex's womanizing, particularly from the woman that Dex is pursuing.  In the context of this film, the literary and philosophical references are presented not only to offer deeper insight into the characters that we're watching, they're also there for the characters to react to when they're painfully relevant to their lives.

In terms of the story itself, it's a low-key relationship film.  It's a romantic comedy that you won't hate yourself for watching when you're done.  Dex's pursuit of Syd doesn't go as smoothly as he'd like (for spoiler reasons - the reveal sure doesn't make Dex come off like a good guy), and even after they take steps toward one another, Dex's history keeps rearing it's ugly head.  It's easy to want to root for Dex; Donal Logue gives off an easy charm (there's no other way to put it) via intelligent patter and not taking himself as seriously as you might expect a serious philosophical guy to be.  Anything less and you'd want to kill the guy by about an hour in; between his womanizing, loose grasp of time, and looser grasp of the truth, he's written nearly as a psychopathic conman.  At least that's how it would come off acted differently.  And it helps that Syd is both intelligent and not a push-over, and that Greer Goodman is able to hold her own here.  Syd is smart, capable, and unconventionally beautiful, and can hold her own in the intellectual conversations that Dex usually uses to dazzle more "weak-minded women," as he admits.  The film doesn't exactly address it, but Syd kinds pulls a Steve on Dex, which might be part of her appeal.  As he quotes, "we pursue that which retreats from us."

I really dig "The Tao of Steve."  I've watched it a number of times, and it holds up well.  If I was making a short-list of 90's indie films (yes, I know it came out in 2000, but I'm referring to the style), "Tao" would make that list every time.  The actors have chemistry, the writing's dead-on and very smart, and I even enjoy the use of the southwest as a setting - it's effective and beautiful in transition shots, and even is just presented for it's own beauty at times.  The only disappointment is that director Jenniphr Goodman seems not to have done another film in the passing years (this was her first film).  If this is the only film she ever does, it's a good one, and she's one-for-one.

4 / 5 - DVD