While coming down from the long Robert Rodriguez binge that TapeHead has been on lately I finally got around to seeing Four Rooms. This New York Stories / Twilight Zone: The Movie collaboration between Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, Allison Anders, and Alexandre Rockwell must have sounded like a good idea at the time, and, in truth, all four directors are talented in their own right. Unfortunately, with the exception of Rodriguez, their talent doesn't show through at all, and its a testament to the brand name of Tarantino that this film even got released.

The film is comprised of four segments, all of which are ill-conceived and smack of being thrown together at the last minute. While Rodriguez's entry is pretty funny, its the only glimmer of hope in the four stories and it isn't enough of a counterbalance to the other ones to warrant a trip to the video store. The remaining three just amount to bad mugging and slapstick that just looks plain old stupid on screen. Furthermore, for what is supposed to be a wacky zany comedy, Four Rooms moves incredibly slow. You would think that for a comedy they would err on the side of speed for the pacing, but apparently not in this case.

One of the main problems with the movie is that Tim Roth, whose character links the four segments together, can't mug or do slapstick. He can be good comic actor, mind you, but in this movie he looks like a method actor forced into the land of over exaggeration. Which, of course, he is. Watching his performance you get the impression that his faith in the Stanislavskian Gods is failing him and he doesn't know how to process that loss of faith. He muggs more than Jim Carrey, but with about one twelfth the success, and instead he looks pained and constipated throughout most of his time on screen.

The bottom line is that, unless you can get the Rodriguez section as a stand alone, there's no real reason to see this. All the directors have done better work, including Rodriguez, and their collaboration doesn't add much to each other.

A Simple Plan - Yeah we know its still in theatres. See it while it still is in them. Sam Raimi, of course, is one of our favorite directors, and we all anxiously were awaiting his return to the big screen after his long dark purgatorial hiatus as executive producer of the insanely popular syndicated Hercules and Xena series. Plus, I thought it would be really funny to see an ultrakinetic camera chase Billy Bob Thornton around in the woods. The problem is the camera never does chase William Robert around, but if you lose that expectation before entering the theatre, you'll enjoy the film. The crazy-ass camera work is all but absent from A Simple Plan, with the exception of the very beginning in which the camera chases a fox around, but that's no substitute for chasing Billy Bob.

Those of you worried that Raimi's gone native on us, however, shouldn't be too concerned. For one thing, the story of the three men and a bag of money, while somewhat predictable, is too dark to ever become a major mainstream hit. Besides, its not like Raimi hasn't ever worked in the mainstream before. Xena aside, there was that whole Western thing with Leonardo DiCaprio and Sharon Stone fer Crissakes. But, restrained as it is, A Simple Plan is one of Raimi's better works. It's a simple story directed and acted well. Its no Evil Dead 2, mind you, but its good.

SOMETHING OLD

The Killing - One of the side-effects of the whole post-Tarantino crop of crime drama is that most of the people committing crimes in movies nowadays are glib, trendy, handsome dudes--Harvey Keitel aside. Granted, its not entirely Tarantino's fault, but his films have caused a definite boost in the number of good lookin' bad dudes we've seen recently. The problem is that, when it comes down to it, a guy who will put a bullet into an innocent bystander, most likely, isn't probably going to take the time to make himself look as good as Steven Dorff, Val Kilmer, or even Tim Roth, and he definitely won't quote any philosophy or drop pop culture knowledge before offing you. Back in the day, however, movie bad guys were bad dudes and looked the part, and Stanley Kubrick's The Killing is a prime example. With the exception the chiseled Sterling Hayden, all the characters in the Killing are misfits, from the geeky Elisha Cook to the droopy-eyed, Michael Madsen-esque Timothy Carey, to Kola Kwariani the Man-Mountain, who looks like he could eat the entire cast of Reservior Dogs with nary a second thought.

- Editor X