Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood/Dziawer Odyssey, Part Three by Greg Dziawer

Some alternate cover art for Hollis James' novel, Ed Wood: Taxi Driver.

Editor's Note: This is the third installment in Greg's series about his personal connection to the work of Edward D. Wood, Jr. You can read the previous installments here and here. J.B.

Chosen Paths, Part I

It occurred to me over the course of this last weekend that Ed Wood is all around me, whether I'm actively pursuing him or not. While it's true, ontologically, that Ed was all around me (and all of us) all along, it's clear that somewhere I suffered a cubistic shift in thinking. 

In this week's Ed Wood Wednesdays, we'll begin to look at the result of this shift, as I adjust to seeing a world of Wood with fresh eyes. 

On Saturday afternoon, Kitten, E.B., and I went out. I got my hair cut. We ate at Friday's. We went grocery shopping. Through the afternoon, I worked on hanging a large mirror above the couch in the living room. I had just finally subscribed to Amazon Prime a few nights prior, so I flicked on the TV while I was working. Somehow I arrived on Gangs of New York, it still remaining one of a few of Martin Scorsese's films that I had not yet seen. I turned that on in the background while I was working on the mirror.

Daniel Day Lewis in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York.

For context, Taxi Driver is one of my favorite films, and I consider Scorsese one of the great artists of our time. Taxi Driver has evoked Ed, specifically Glen or Glenda?, for others. The originator of Ed Wood Wednesdays, Joe Blevins, visually tied together the shared themes on a private Wood forum. Urban alienation. The albatross of "normal." Hollis James's novel Ed Wood: Taxi Driver or Plan 9 from Mau Mau Land likewise conflates the two films.

(left to right) Glen or Glenda?; a Taxi Driver poster; the cover of Hollis James' novel.

Gangs of New York grabbed my attention, despite myriad flaws, evoking A Clockwork Orange and The Warriors. Daniel Day Lewis is riveting, even quoting Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver when he self-identifies as, "God's Lonely Man."

As evening dawned, Kitten's friend Casey came over. She rescues dogs, the source of our beloved Nelby. Kitten's work husband Mark and his wife Jen adopted Lily that night, a new sister for Lucy. I was, by that time, watching Maila and Me, an affecting documentary about the person behind Vampira that I'd seen numerous times before.

Mark and Jen holding Lucy and Lily.

Fifteen minutes before the end, Kitten came home. We hung the mirror on the hardware I had executed. It was crooked.

I pulled up another movie as it got late. A documentary from 2004 listing the 50 Worst Films Ever Made. Ed made this list three times. I recollected Harry Medved's paperback on the topic. 

I went to bed.

'Taxi Driver' predicted Elliot Rodger before Seth Rogen was even born

"God's lonely man": Robert De Niro as cab driver turned vigilante/assassin Travis Bickle.

In case you haven't been following along, it turns out that the blame for Elliot Rodger's misogynistic killing spree in Santa Barbara, CA, can all be laid at the feet of Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow and their movies about schlubby guys scoring with beautiful women. Thanks for sorting that out for us, Ann Hornaday. I trust that the proper authorities, once they read your Washington Post op-ed piece, will put out a warrant for the arrests of Mr. Rogen and Mr. Apatow immediately and that these two men will be in custody soon. As sad as this information is, it's at least good to know that we've gotten to the bottom of this whole thing. And so quickly, too! Ms. Hornaday has certainly earned her Crime Stoppers Badge of Honor this week. 

How curious, though, that the movies of Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow have not inspired similar massacres in the dozens of other countries around the world where they've been released. It's almost as if Rodger's actions were guided by circumstances, both personal and social, infinitely more powerful than any fictional movie comedies.

Curiously, neither Neighbors nor Knocked Up came immediately to mind as I sifted through the horrifying news updates coming from California and tried to make sense of the twisted, tragically-misguided rhetoric of Rodger's so-called "manifesto." Instead, I was thinking about Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976), an unnerving urban fable about a profoundly alienated, deeply unbalanced cab driver, Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) who becomes a merciless vigilante and a would-be political assassin after he is rejected by a beautiful campaign worker, Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), with whom he has become romantically infatuated. 

Throughout the film, we are made privy to Bickle's warped thought process through his chilling yet strangely poetic voice-over narration. These passages, which supposedly derive from a journal or diary which Bickle is keeping of his activities, are remarkably similar to Elliot Rodger's ravings. In particular, while reading the manifesto, I was reminded of a scene from Taxi Driver in which Travis arrives, unwanted, at Betsy's workplace, and she has him thrown out. Travis' parting words to Betsy are: "You're in a hell, and you're gonna die in a hell like the rest of them!" As if to clarify this vaguely-worded threat, we then hear a strikingly prescient quote from Travis' narration:

"I realize now how much she's just like the others. Cold and distant. And many people are like that. Women for sure. They're like a union."

This line could have come word-for-word from Rodger's manifesto, with its sullen, self-pitying paranoia and horrendous misconceptions about women. And it comes from a movie which was released six years before Seth Rogen was even born. Perhaps Martin Scorsese and his screenwriter, Paul Schrader, were giving us a warning with Taxi Driver, one we utterly failed to heed.

Joe vs. The 2014 Best Picture Nominees (Round 1)

A fancy mall.

    
I spent all day Saturday at a place called the Northbrook Court, a million-square-foot shopping plaza about 19 minutes from my apartment. Wikipedia calls it "a very large, upscale super-regional mall in Northbrook, Illinois" and "one of the most upscale collection[s] of shops in the United States." I guess that's about right. The description makes the place sound a little more hoity-toity than it really is. I mean, a mall is a mall is a mall, upscale or not. A little marble, a tasteful color scheme and some parquet flooring won't turn your shopping center into the Guggenheim.

Bottom line: malls are tacky. That's why they merit an entry in Jane and Michael Stern's The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste (HarperCollins, 1990) between "Macrame" and "Mansfield, Jayne." Trying to build the world's classiest mall is like trying to see who can fart the quietest. Northbrook looks huge from the outside, stretching on and on forever like the bad guys' ship in the opening shot of Spaceballs. But once you get inside, where everything is smooth and shiny, you'll feel as closed-in and claustrophobic as you would at any other mall. The dump has some history, though. Some scenes from Ordinary People were filmed there, as was this deathless moment from Weird Science:

Slumdog was my ticket to Hell. Who knew?

Who knows? Perhaps at some point during my many circumnavigations of the Northbrook Court yesterday, I may have unknowingly trodden over the same ground as Robert Downey, Jr. or Anthony Michael Hall. The heart races. The mind reels. Anyway, I was at the Northbrook Court for Day One of the AMC theater chain's annual Best Picture Showcase, a marathon of all the movies nominated for the top prize at the Oscars this year.

In years past, when there were only five nominees, you could watch 'em all in a single, exhausting day. Now that there are nine flicks up for the statuette, the event takes two non-consecutive days to complete. The second and final day of the 2014 BPS is this Saturday, March 1, 2014. I've been doing the Showcase since 2009, when Slumdog Millionaire took home the prize.

Goddamn, this is my sixth time through the process! I'm not sure exactly why I started or why I've continued. Maybe I thought it would be a convenient way to catch up on all the critically-lauded movies I should have seen by the end of the previous calendar year. Maybe I'm a pop culture masochist and just like the idea of subjecting myself to a cinematic endurance test. However you slice it, the Best Picture Showcase is a great big hunk of what I'd call Middlebrow Respectability. These are flicks that critics and audiences can feel comfortable praising -- not too crude, not too artsy, and usually with some kind of socially redeeming value.

From having watched a bunch of them, I can tell you a few things about Best Picture nominees. Almost all dramas, they tend to be longish (somewhere between 2-3 hours is the sweet spot), stately (read: a little dull), and preachy, commenting on the great issues of our time (and of all time) with lots of heartfelt speeches and crying. These films are attractively, carefully photographed and usually feature a lot of syrupy, manipulative music on the soundtrack. An inordinate amount are based on true stories and end with those captions telling you whatever happened to the characters in real life. Most of the plots conform to a simple formula: "____________ is bad." You know, war is bad, racism is bad, slavery is bad, greed is bad, politicians are bad, alcoholism is bad, the Catholic Church is bad, corporations are bad, etc., etc. South Park's Mr. Mackey would have no trouble churning out Oscar-winning screenplays.

So how is this year's crop of nominees? Eh, pretty typical, I'd say. Maybe a little better than usual. Here's my recap of Day One:

PHILOMENA

Judi Dench and Steve Coogan fly the friendly skies in Philomena.

Director: Stephen Frears (High Fidelity, The Queen)

Based on a true story: Yes, specifically Martin Sixmith's The Lost Child of Philomena Lee.

These things are bad, m'kay: The Catholic Church (duh), mean nuns, old-timey Irish orphanages and workhouses, British politics, a value system which demonizes female sexuality, having your children taken from you, Republicans, homophobia, AIDS.

My take: Basically, an odd couple/road movie with Steve Coogan as a disgraced spin doctor who comes crawling back to journalism and finds an intriguing "human interest story" in the form of a retired Irish nurse named Philomena (Dench), who was forced to give up her out-of-wedlock child decades ago and now wants to find him. The movie has a sort of Rain Man-type feel, except that it comes slathered in Catholic guilt. Where Dustin Hoffman was wowed by Kmart and Judge Wapner, Philomena rhapsodizes about Big Momma's House, romance paperbacks, and hotel breakfast buffets. Coogan is the snarky, sarcastic one, and they have a few squabbles over religion and God.

Philomena is a lot like a Payday candy bar. Coogan is salty, and Dench is sweet and nutty. This is the kind of movie you can feel safe recommending to just about anyone, even elderly relatives, unless they're really offended by profanity (both Coogan and Dench cuss on occasion). It seems like every Best Picture Showcase starts with a well-made "little" movie that has no chance at winning the prize. In years past, it was Milk, Amour, and An Education. This year, it's Philomena. Tell your grandmother about it. She'll love it.

My grade: B

DALLAS BUYERS CLUB

Jared Leto and Matthew McConaughey are unlikely partners in Dallas Buyers Club.

Director: Jean-Marc Vallee (The Young Victoria; C.R.A.Z.Y.; this is by far his best-known film)

Based on a true story: Yes. Various Hollywood types have been trying to turn Ron Woodroof's life into a film since the mid-1990s.

These things are bad, m'kay: AIDS (again), homophobia (again), the FDA, the pharmaceutical industry, the medical establishment, sexual promiscuity, cocaine, processed foods, and the overuse of AZT.

My take: This was more my speed, though if I'd been the one at the helm of this motion picture, I'd have made it less sentimental, corny, and obvious. It's still pretty good, though. Matthew McConaughey, rail-thin and dressed up like a cowboy pimp, is Ron Woodroof, a hard-living no-account rodeo hustler and electrician who finds out he has the HIV virus and only enough T-cells left to last him another month. He responds to this sobering news at first by scoffing at the diagnosis and partying even more heartily, but he quickly jumps from Denial to Bargaining and spends most of the rest of the movie there.

A quick study in AIDS research, Woodroof stumbles onto a business opportunity as he provides other HIV-positive Texans with experimental, non-FDA-approved treatment, thereby rankling the stuffy medical community and the corrupt pharmaceutical industry. Along the way, he forms unlikely partnerships with a cross-dresser named Rayon (Jared Leto), who lives even less responsibly than Woodroof, and a legitimate physician (Jennifer Garner), who is wary of Woodroof's rogue actions but is undeniably impressed by his courage and efficacy.

The very best stuff in this movie is the interplay between McConaughey and Leto, both surprisingly excellent, and I kind of wish the movie had not tried so hard to mold their story into an inspirational tearjerker. Like I said, though, it's quality stuff.

My grade: B+

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

Leonardo DiCaprio knows how to spend his dough in The Wolf of Wall Street.

Director: Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver)

Based on a true story: Yes. It's based on Jordan Belfort's similarly-titled 1998 autobiography. Belfort himself plays a small role in this film.

These things are bad, m'kay: Wall Street, stock brokers, greed, materialism, cocaine (again), expired Quaaludes, the American legal system, having your children taken from you (again).

My take: "Heaven...  I'm in Heaven!" Occasionally, I like to pretend that certain movies were made specifically for me because they so closely conform to my interests or sensibilities. The Wolf of Wall Street is such a film. Martin Scorsese has given us another heaping slab of sleazy sex, brain-scrambling drugs, and raw, bluesy, primordial rock & roll. I think this was the only movie of the day which didn't have that "serious Oscar movie" music in it. You have no idea how much that helps its case. Just look at the artists on the soundtrack: Bo Diddley, Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James, Romeo Void, Me First & the Gimme Gimmes, Jimmy Castor, and so much more! That's what I'm talking about! Jesus Christ, there's even a marching band in this thing!

And Popeye -- my favorite cartoon character ever -- is here, too! Of the four films I saw on Saturday, this is the only one I'd ever want to see again. I kind of wish I were watching it right now.

 Let's not kid ourselves about one major point, though: The Wolf of Wall Street is definitely Goodfellas version 2.0. Anyone who tells you differently, even Scorsese, is bullshitting you. And, yeah, it's three hours. Think of it as shotgunning an entire season of a premium cable TV show in one sitting. Someday, I may have to write an essay about a prominent motif in many of the male-female relationships in Scorsese's movies. I call it "the princess and the guttersnipe" plot, and it goes all the way back to Marty's debut, Who's That Knocking at My Door? with Zina Bethune as the princess and Harvey Keitel as the guttersnipe. You can find versions of this theme in Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy and even Hugo. Anyway, I'm drifting away from the main point, which is that I give my highest recommendation possible to The Wolf of Wall Street. See it, ya fuggin' bagadonuts!

My grade: A+

12 YEARS A SLAVE

Chiweti Ejiofor and Michael Fassbender get up close and creepy in 12 Years a Slave.

Director: Steve McQueen (Shame, Hunger)

Based on a true story: Yes, the film is an adaptation of Solomon Northrup's 1853 autobiography, Twelve Years a Slave.

These things are bad, m'kay: Slavery (duh), racism (double duh), rape, the Old South in general, whippings, lynchings, dehumanization, crazy white people, having your children taken away from you (yet again!)

My take: Okay, class, let's have a show of hands. Who here didn't know that slavery was evil and degrading and cruel and violent and morally unjustifiable? Anyone? No hands? Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave strikes me as the kind of film everyone admires and no one enjoys. File it alongside Gandhi and Schindler's List among the movies that people will feel obligated to sit through once and then never revisit.

But don't we need an occasional reminder about the visceral horrors of slavery? Don't we need to see the blood and the welts and hear the anguished screams? Well, yeah, I suppose so...if maybe you were thinking of starting up a plantation next week. Under those circumstances, you might see Steve McQueen's film and think, "Oh, right! Slavery is bad! I nearly forgot!" The movie's artfulness works against it. The cinematography is often postcard-pretty, and the compositions have a fastidious, fussed-over quality to them.

The dialogue, likewise, is stilted and poetic rather than naturalistic and conversational. Maybe that's just how people talked back in the mid-1800s, but even then, I doubt that they would address the issues of slavery so directly, as if they knew they were elucidating certain points for the benefit of a listening audience. Much like Philomena and Dallas Buyers Club, 12 Years a Slave is altogether too concerned with providing "teachable moments" for the viewer. Without them, the movie would be little more than gourmet torture porn.

Thanks largely to the actors inhabiting the roles, especially Chiwetel Ejiofor, Lupita Nyong'o, and Alfre Woodard (whose scene is a stunner), several of the film's African-American characters are vivid and memorable. The film's white characters are largely muddled non-entities, like Brad Pitt's liberal do-gooder, or grotesque cartoons, like Michael Fassbender's sadistic plantation owner, yet another iteration of black-hatted, mustache-twirling Simon Legree. And thanks to composer Hans Zimmer's heavy-handed score, we're never in doubt as to how we're supposed to feel... as if we couldn't just arrive at that conclusion on our own.

The film's most effective passages occur when McQueen shows rather than tells, especially a nerve-jangling scene in which Ejiofor must stand on his tiptoes with a noose around his neck for what seems like an eternity. What makes the moment so effective is all the background activity, with extras going about their business as if nothing horrific were occurring.

My grade: B

Next week: Nebraska, Captain Phillips, Her, American Hustle, and Gravity.

Why "Be My Baby" is probably my favorite song... and one of the saddest, too

Making up for his sins at home: Harvey Keitel in Mean Streets (1973)

"You don't make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit, and you know it."

- Martin Scorsese, Mean Streets

Martin Scorsese himself speaks those words, from off-screen, at the very beginning of Mean Streets, his grungy, heartfelt drama about small-time gangsters in a deeply Catholic Italian-American milieu. I quoted that speech last week during my stay at the behavioral health center while talking to a female patient (not the aforementioned Helen). She said she didn't feel like she could "fix" her problems from inside the hospital, and I told her about those opening words from the Scorsese film because I felt they were appropriate for the occasion. The entire opening sequence of Mean Streets is remarkable, and I want you to see it. Here, take a look:

In his book Ebert's Bigger Little Movie Glossary, critic Roger Ebert cites his own so-called "8MM Omen": "Films that start with old home movies are never about happy lives." And true to form, Mean Streets is not a cheerful, upbeat film. There are moments of humor and humanity in it, but in the larger sense, it is a tragedy. And what music does Scorsese use to set the tone for this downbeat film? "Be My Baby" by the Ronettes, a #2 hit from 1963. The song was co-written and produced by Phil Spector, who created the record along with the songwriting team of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, while the record's powerful lead vocal is supplied by Ronnie Bennett, who later married and divorced Phil Spector and is more commonly known today as Ronnie Spector. In short, there were a lot of talented people behind this record, but it somehow manages to be even greater than the sum of its parts.

"Be My Baby" is often used in romantic comedies, and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys has called it one of the happiest records ever made, but I feel that there is a crushing sadness at the core of this song. Let's examine the lyrics of the first verse:

The night we met, I knew I needed you so.
And if I had the chance I'd never let you go.
So won't you say you love me? I'll make you so proud of me
We'll make 'em turn their heads every place we go.

You will note immediately that there is no indication that the man Ronnie is addressing even likes her, let alone loves her. She just met him and suddenly decided that she "needed" him. They're clearly not in a relationship. She wants "the chance" to grab onto him and never release him. She hasn't been given that opportunity yet. "So won't you say you love me?" is a particularly needy inquiry, and "I'll make you so proud of me" is like a child promising her parents that she'll be on her best behavior. "We'll make 'em turn their heads every place we go" indicates that the singer cares what other people think of her and may be using this relationship to get attention from passersby.

The oft-repeated chorus is simplicity itself. It's just variations on "be my baby," "be my little baby," and "be my baby now," with a "please" or a "darling" thrown in now and again. This is as emotionally direct as singing or songwriting gets. The woman is asking, in no uncertain terms, for a man to love her. She's not playing coy or hard to get. She's just letting herself be vulnerable and open to rejection.

There really is only one other verse. The rest of the song consists of repetitions of the chorus. But the lyrics of that second verse are worth examining, too:

I'll make you happy, baby. Just wait and see.
For every kiss you give me, I'll give you three.
Oh, since the day I saw you, I have been waiting for you.
You know I will adore you 'til eternity.

There is more than a hint of desperation here. The woman is promising the man everything. She is granting him the keys to the kingdom, so to speak. This is the kind of thing you might say to a photograph of someone you love when you're alone in your room, but if you actually spoke these words aloud to that person, he or she might think you were mentally disturbed. I think Ronnie is one step away from kidnapping this guy and chaining him up in her basement. Either that, or she'll buy one of those Japanese body pillows and fashion it into a facsimile of her dream man. 

It's interesting to note that in another Scorsese film, The King of Comedy, Sandra Bernhard's character does participate in the kidnapping of a talk show host played by Jerry Lewis and uses the opportunity to "seduce" him and serenade him. In all seriousness, "Be My Baby" is a song that hits me hard every time I hear it. And that's why it's probably my favorite recording of all time.

(today's zomby) AND TAXI DRIVER: THE MUSICAL!

And speaking of fascinating failures...

In 1994, Saturday Night Live had one of its worst-ever seasons, and as longtime viewers know, that's really saying something. The repertory cast that Lorne Michaels had built up during the late 1980s and early 1990s was disintegrating, and the producer made the ill-advised decision to prop up the show with "ringers," i.e. performers who were already well-established in films and TV rather than newcomers. Couple this with a decline in writing and general sense of malaise, and you have the formula for disaster. The show was churning out clunker after clunker, dragging the hosts down with them.

One of these unfortunate victims was the brilliant John Turturro, who hosted on November 17, 1994. Turturro was hoodwinked into participating in one of the show's more memorably misbegotten sketches, "Taxi Driver: The Musical." I can remember watching the original broadcast with members of my family and having my sister beg me to press the "MUTE" button during this skit. Nearly 17 years later, I thought it was time to revisit this bit of comedic infamy. I had forgotten that Turturro plays two roles. He is actually quite brilliant as Martin Scorsese, but his tone deaf "singing" as Robert De Niro/Travis Bickle is hopeless. The other cast members, including Michael McKean, Jay Mohr, and Janeane Garofalo make very little attempt at imitating (respectively) Peter Boyle, Harvey Keitel, and Jodie Foster. The cutaways to Scorsese are quite good and funny, but the musical segments have an odd heaviness to them. The songs are actually played pretty straight, as if Taxi Driver really had been made into a serious Broadway musical. I remembered this as playing to dead silence from the audience, but it actually gets a respectable amount of laughs. In some ways, it's a precursor to the "quotation as satire" school of comedy so prevalent today.

Anyway, here's the sketch. Watch for yourself and decide:

(today's zomby) AND THE CHILLING WORDS OF A MADMAN

With today's Zomby, I wanted to try an experiment: what if this cartoon were written by notorious would-be assassin Arthur Bremer?

Bremer's diary

A little history for those not in the know: In 1972, the emotionally-troubled Arthur Bremer (b. 1950) made an attempt on the life of controversial segregationist politician George Wallace. The former Alabama governor was not killed by Bremer's four shots at close range, but he was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life before dying in 1998 at the age of 79. Bremer spent the next few decades in prison but was ultimately released in 2007. Besides the assassination attempt, Bremer is most famous for his bizarre, error-filled journals which were published under the title An Assassin's Diary in 1973. (Note: The dialogue in the cartoon above comes directly from that book.) So what's the connection to this feature? Well, to me, Arthur Bremer is very much the Ziggy of assassins -- not just because he failed but also because of his almost touchingly pathetic motives. Bremer was not a political extremist but instead was a nonentity, a nobody who thought that the assassination of a famous politician like George Wallace or Richard Nixon would give his life meaning or purpose. The poor schmuck even kind of looked like Ziggy, with his bland, rounded, nonthreatening features.

Harmless-looking Arthur Bremer

Personally, I think Ziggy is a very dangerous little man. The world treats him terribly, and yet he just stands there passively absorbing it all. But each mishap, each insult, each slight pushes him closer to being the next Arthur Bremer. May god have mercy on the snotty waiters, pushy salesman, and grouchy cashiers of the Ziggyverse when that happens. Incidentally, Bremer's diary was the partial inspiration for Martin Scorsese's film Taxi Driver and for Peter Gabriel's song "Family Snapshot."



Perhaps someday, I will do a long-form mashup of Ziggy and An Assassin's Diary. For now, this cartoon will have to serve as the pilot. I wish it were Ziggy himself speaking the punchline and not that goddamned parrot of his, but I have to work with the cartoons I'm given.