Mike White - Cinema Detours

Cinema Detours
2013 by Mike White
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States of America
No part of this book may be reproduced in any way or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without prior written permission of the author.
Proofreading by Lori Hubbard and Christine Makepeace
Cover design by Dylan Santurri.
ISBN: 978-1-300-98117-6

To Andrea for suffering through a lot of bad movies.

Thanks to everyone who helped me put this project together and who believed enough in me to put my work online: Angela Mac, Anthony Morrow, Brian Harris, Brian Smith, Geoffrey Hunt, Justin Bozung, Michael Jackman, Scott Lefebvre, Mike Malloy, & Stefan Blitz.

I made a lot of changes in my life in 2007. I gave up my bootleg DVD business (SuperHappyFun.com) and stopped publishing my zine, Cashiers du Cinemart (for a while, at least). I sought new, possibly more legal (and hopefully more profitable), business opportunities and found one thanks to Craigslist.com. Filmmaker and friend Mike Malloy turned me on to a posting from a Detroit-based website that wanted a "cult film reviewer." That they knew who I was when I threw my hat into the ring truly flattered me. And, yes, I made sure they knew that I wasnt the other Mike White. The head honcho, Anthony Morrow, and his chief editor met with me over beers where we reached an agreement. We were off to the races.

To say that I went a little nuts could be considered an understatement. They were looking for a few movie reviews a month. I provided them with five reviews a week. More than just shooting from the hip and writing about a movie from memory, I re-watched everything and would go the extra mile; finding and reading the books on which the movies were based (when applicable), watching similar films to put them in context. In short, I ended up spending a lot more time and energy on these 500 word blurbs than merited by my five-bucks-a-review paycheck.

After writing for Cashiers du Cinemart, I greeted any kind of remuneration with pleasure. I hadnt gotten paid for a movie review since the couple I penned for the Detroit Jewish News back in the mid-90s. These coins in my pocket gave me a huge boost of confidence. Not even six months after I started the Detour gig I landed an occasional contribution opportunity at one of Detroits alt-weekly newspapers, The Metro Times. I wrote for both venues for a few years until Detour went belly up and The Metro Times suddenly dropped "The Couch Trip" DVD review column and replaced it with discussion of the latest video games. My reviews still existed out there in the ether of the internet for a while until expired domains or site redesigns made them disappear.

Additionally, I have penned the occasional review for other websites (WildSideCinema.com, DailyGrindhouse.com, ThePlotHole.com, Mondo-Video.com,). I collected all of these pieces as well as some of the individual reviews I wrote for the Impossible Funky blog. I even dug out a few orphaned things I wrote that never found a home. That said, the tone of these pieces vary wildly. Some date as far back as 1994 while a handful were written just a few months before I turned over this manuscript to the first proofreader to suffer through this mess.

I hope that folks find some films in these pages that intrigue them enough to track them down. A great deal of them are off the beaten path and will take you into new areas that casual film viewers never venture. Enjoy these cinematic detours!

Mike White
April, 2013

Rub a dub dub, theres no water in the tub for the butcher, the baker, or the candlestick maker after the pipeline to the village stops working in Veit Helmers Absurdistan. Taking a cue from the Lysistrata playbook, the women of the village put the brakes on their mens lusty behavior until the water flows again. Laziness, however, proves a greater force than lustiness, demonstrated by the myriad attempts the men make to get laid when theres a nookie drought. At the heart of Absurdistan are Aya (Kristyna Malrov) and Temelko (Maximilian Mauff), two star-crossed lovers destined to conjugate during a cosmic conjunction.

Absurdistan shares the same light-hearted spirit and pure storytelling as director Veit Helmers 1999 film, Tuvalu. The narrative plays out without need for dialogue, with scenes often comprised of a simple setup and payoff. There are only a handful of spoken lines. The faces of the villagers do well communicating their emotions, and Mauff frequently resembles Buster Keaton with his stoic, put-upon expression.

A simple story, yes, but Helmer and the cast make Absurdistan a sublime, silly love story. IF

A blend of Holocaust drama and magical realism, this film redefines the term hit and miss. At times its an intriguing tale of Adam Stein (Jeff Goldblum with a vacillating accent), a magician with amazing powers who saves a mans life, only to end up serving as his dog in a WWII death camp. Adam plays the fool for Commandant Klein (Willem Dafoe) to keep himself alive.

This tale is cross-cut with Adam in 1961 Tel Aviv, where he is confined to a mental institute with other Holocaust survivors. This section shifts from Patch Adams bathos to Awakenings pathos (though Robin Williams is nowhere in sight) with its host of wacky psych ward patients and Adam as their savior. The hospital staff loves himsome more carnally than others. Everything changes when Davey, a feral child to whom Adam can relate, is admitted. Adam makes it his mission to save Davey and, by doing so, redeem himself.

This films blend of light-hearted spiritualism and ponderous Holocaust drama makes it feel like a schizophrenic needing meds to calm the disparate voices from Noah Stollmans screenplay and Yoram Kaniuks novel. Adam Resurrected is better than director Paul Schraders last few films, which isnt saying much. It works best as a drinking game: take a slug whenever any of the major names in the Old Testament are uttered and youll get one heck of a buzz before Act One is barely over. MT

Tim Burton, you are dead to me.

Yes, I enjoyed Big Fish and was slightly amused by Sweeney Todd (though I liked the stage version with Angela Lansbury and George Hearn far more) but I havent cared for much else of what youve done since Ed Wood back in 1994. Your adaptations (Sleepy Hollow) and remakes (Planet of the Apes) display a tired repetitiveness in themes and casting. This is most evident to anyone unfortunate enough to sit through