I started today off with Doug Benson and movie commentators Master Pancake’s yearly St. Patrick’s Day celebration: interrupting the LEPRECHAUN movies. This year it was Brian Trenchard-Smith’s second foray into the Lepra-universe, LEPRECHAUN 4: IN SPACE. I really can’t tell you if the film would be as fun by yourself in your living room, but Benson and Pancake helped make it a pretty awesome experience. As they mentioned before the show, this is the rare LEPRECHAUN that does not feature much (if any) rhyming or a plot centered around his missing pot of gold. It’s about LEPRECHAUN trying to marry up a space princess so he can become king of some faraway galaxy, as a ship-full of marines (including JWANNA MANN himself, Miguel A. Nunez Jr.) picks the pair up and starts getting hunted down, one by one. The space setting lends itself to some fun stuff, like a scientist in a Christopher Pike-esque mechanical device and a scene where the title character is enlarged and starts stomping around all giant-like. No doubt, the movie is painfully cheap-looking and corny, but Trenchard-Smith and Warwick Davis manage to provide a decent amount of charm, and with a couple of friends to help tear it to shreds, it goes down beautifully.
I then went to catch the animated shorts program. I hadn’t heard of any of them or their animators, but I did remember that the program featured Hertzfeld’s WORLD OF TOMORROW last year, so I figured (correctly) that there’d be some gems in there I likely wouldn’t see elsewhere. Everything was, at the very least, interestingly animated, and a handful managed to make a big impression on me. Some of my favorites:
DAVID GILMOUR - “THE GIRL IN THE YELLOW DRESS” - dir. Danny Madden
A jazzy, watercolor-looking music video for a track off of Pink Floyd guitarist Gilmour’s latest album, “Rattle That Lock,” about a bar where everyone goes gaga over a girl, you guessed it, in a yellow dress. Cooler-than-shit vibe, gorgeous, unique animation, and excellent music by the aging legend. Visuals feel like Van Gogh’s Night Cafe come to life.
GLOVE - dirs. Alexa Lim Haas and Bernardo Britto
A musing about what would happen if a glove fell off of an astronauts hand and flew through space forever. Contemplative, with lofty ideas, abstract animations, and a strong payoff. Sorta like a cartoon reinterpretation of the beginning of CONTACT.
ACCIDENTS, BLUNDERS, AND CALAMITIES - dir James Cunningham
A possum reads his children their favorite nursery rhyme, which depicts a host of animals dying in increasingly bizarre, horrific ways. CGI animation is pretty and realistic. Pitch-black humor being portrayed within the framing of a genial kid’s story, read aloud by a patriarch who sounds not unlike Liam Neeson. Reminded me of SAUSAGE FEST in the way that it gets you to empathize with creatures dying deaths that are commonplace in our reality, but when held up to a magnifying glass, come off as brutal and disgusting. Good ending.
Accidents, Blunders and Calamities TRAILER from Media Design School on Vimeo.
EDMOND - Dir. Nina Gantz
A sad man goes back in time and relives his various disappointments, until he realizes the origin of his unhappiness. Lovely, haunting stop-motion animation that makes it look like the characters are made from cotton. Scene transitions like the opening of SNATCH and the end of BEING JOHN MALKOVICH. Very funny, melancholic on sad, lonely nature of existence. Hilarious, smart ending.
SHINY - Daniel Cloud Campos & Spencer Susser
Probably my favorite short of the bunch, this stop-motion animated piece uses clothes laid out meticulously on the floor to simulate people moving, walking, dancing, and fighting. Looks unlike anything I’ve ever seen, with a really cool energy and more than one big laugh. Better action than a lot of live-action movies. Perfect ending.
Shiny from Daniel Cloud Campos on Vimeo.
PEE-WEE’S BIG HOLIDAY, dir. John Lee.
In full disclosure, I’m only a casual Pee-Wee Herman fan. I’ve seen PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE and a bunch of PEE-WEE’S PLAYHOUSE episodes, but not BIG TOP PEE-WEE or the live-act, including the recent HBO special. Having said that, I’ve always had respect for Reubens dedication to the character, and his triumphant comeback after his arrest put the character in the doghouse for almost two decades. It was a risk trying to get into one of the two PEE-WEE’S BIG HOLIDAY screenings tonight due to the immense amount of love people still have for the character, and I knew that it was premiering at midnight on Netflix, but I figured it was worth taking a risk for the chance at catching perhaps one of the only theatrical screenings the movie will ever receive. Sure enough, watching this with a theater of people excited for this was the perfect way to see it, and it played great in our tiny, four-row Alamo Drafthouse theater.
I had no idea what the story was, other than that it probably involved Pee-Wee going on some kind of holiday (my Poirot-level deduction at work). In this universe, Pee-Wee lives in an elaborate, gadget-riddled house and basically spends his days as a short-order cook for all the folk in his hometown of Fairville. When the badass, motorcycle riding Joe Manganiello (playing himself) rolls into town, he and Pee-Wee become fast friends, sharing a love for root beer barrels, Charleston Chews, and treehouses. When Pee-Wee tells his new buddy that he’s never left Fairville, Maganiello implores him to get out and hit the road to grasp some life experiences, with his own birthday party in New York as an excuse. From there, Pee-Wee sets out in his tiny little car towards NYC, and along the way, encounters all sorts of people who expand his worldview, such as thieves, a hermit, some hairdressers, an heiress, and a community of Amish.
The thing that always won me over about Reubens’ character was his weird mix of unadulterated innocence and subversive, winky humor, and that combo is perfectly balanced here. Pee-Wee is never in on the joke, but never seems like a hopeless rube either; in his 60s, Reubens is as in tune with what makes the character work as ever, and even if there’s less of a spring in his step than the old days, he makes up for it with an unfettered devotion towards the character's sense of enthusiasm that makes him seem at least a decade younger. He knows just when to imply some raunchiness and when to play dumb and naive, and Pee-Wee’s weird innocence is just as infectious as it was in the show or Tim Burton’s original film.
The movie really is essentially a collection of sketches, but there’s enough consistency to keep it from feeling slapdash or overly random. The clever, Apatowian touch was to make this into a bromance between Pee-Wee and Manganiello. The joke that these two physical polar opposites are kindred spirits on the inside is potent and surprisingly touching, to the point where it almost seems like they’re actually in love (a notion the film never entirely dispels). I had no idea that Manganiello was playing himself, and they play up the fact that he’s supposed to be instantly recognizable, which is funny, but makes me think that the role was originally written for someone else (When Joe asks him if he’s seen MAGIC MIKE, he replies, “You’d think so, but no.”). But Manganiello, who has continually impressed me since I first saw him on TRUE BLOOD, manages to step up and match Pee-Wee note for note, coming across as genuine and not a movie star making a play at looking silly opposite a childhood icon. They actually do have really good chemistry together, which sets the stakes for the whole thing, and leads to a few pitch-perfect dream sequences involving the two having the time of their lives in super-slow-motion.
The various characters that pop in and out don’t get much of a chance to make an impression, save for Alia Shawkat and her two bank thief buddies (seemingly out of FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!). Still, pretty much all the stops are enjoyable, including a snake farm, a country household containing nine oversized, ready-to-marry young ladies and an Amish farm. One of those sections contains a pretty great extended, several-minute take where Reubens that made my audience break out in applause. There aren’t any out-of-place pop-culture references, gross-out gags, callbacks to the previous films, or obvious allusions to Reubens’ own checkered legal history (that Pee-Wee survived those various debacles is a testament both to the actor’s resilience and audiences’ devout love for the character). There aren’t even any celebrity cameos, a shocker when you consider Apatow's other projects. There are all sorts of cute, dumb gags (the woman next to me must’ve uttered, “This is so stupid!” while doubling over herself about a dozen times), like when the hairdressers turn Pee-Wee’s trademark do into the shape of a helicopter, which he then uses a tiny remote control to fly around.
Reubens co-wrote the film with LOVE star Paul Rust (who also cameos) under Apatow’s supervision, and the obvious love and respect for Pee-Wee is a huge part of what makes this movie work. There’s jokes that both kids and adults will enjoy, but it never feels like its pandering to either side; it’s actually well-constructed, and doesn’t blow it by trying too hard or sinking too low. As Apatow said in the pre-film Q&A, “This is not a cash grab.” It took a long time, and a lot of failed attempts, to get this movie made, and the final product is worthy of the 28 year wait(!) between the last movie and this one. Some of the jokes aren’t edited tightly enough, and the cute subplot between Pee-Wee and Shawkat’s character could’ve maybe used a little more time, but this is a surprisingly charming resuscitation of the character as a movie lead, and, if it’s the last time we see Pee-Wee Herman, a great sendoff for Reubens’ enduring creation.
