The Grouchy Editor

The people who made Troll 2 – a 1990 horror flick often called the worst movie since Ed Wood directed Plan 9 from Outer Space – were apparently a few tokens short at the troll-booth.

Michael Stephenson, child star of Troll 2, has now directed Best Worst Movie, a fascinating probe into the power of celebrity, both real and imagined.  Stephenson’s documentary examines the forces and people that propelled Troll 2 from straight-to-HBO joke into a major event at midnight screenings and memorabilia shows.  The documentary is an endless parade of loons, imbeciles, boneheads, knuckleheads, and delusional boobs.  I honestly can’t tell you who’s crazier, the fans or the moviemakers, so I’ll drop a few quotes and let you decide.

George Hardy is the star of both Troll 2 and Stephenson’s documentary.  Good-natured, goofy, and game-for-anything, Hardy is now an Alabama dentist who skyrocketed to cult-movie superstar status at conventions and screenings of “the worst movie ever made.”  Says one fan about George’s entrance at a screening:  “You would have thought that Robert De Niro had come into the building.”

Says George’s mother of her son’s acting talent:  “Let’s say he’s no Cary Grant.”

Says Claudio Fragasso, the proud, temperamental, and Italian director of Troll 2:  “I don’t make movies to be praised by critics.  Troll 2 is a film that examines many serious and important issues – like eating, living, and dying.   People want to eat this family.”

Says stuffed-animal lover and Troll 2 actor Don Packard about his experience at the original movie’s casting call:  “I was in the mental hospital at the University of Utah, and they gave me days off to go out.  I went there.”  Packard explains his state of mind during filming:  “I smoked an enormous amount of pot then to stay sane.  It was a terrible experience making that movie.  I remember there was a little kid there [Stephenson], a little Mormon kid who was really a pain in the ass and he was a star, and I wanted to kill him.”

Says Troll 2 screenwriter Rossella Drudi, explaining why her movie trolls are all vegetarian:  “At that point in my life, I had many friends who’d all become vegetarians, and it pissed me off.”

Says Margo Prey, who played Hardy’s wife and Stephenson’s mother:  “You compare our movie to a Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart movie, and it fits in.  Because our movie was all about people, and the experiences those people were experiencing, just as Casablanca and those movies are about people and the experiences they are experiencing.”

Says Robert Ormsby, who played Stephenson’s grandfather:  “Mostly I’ve wasted my life.  More or less I’ve frittered my life away, but then what else is there to do with a life but fritter it away?”

Says Fragasso to George:  “You were a dog, and you are a dog.”

Says Fragasso about the fans at a recent Troll 2 screening:  “These people are crazy.  It’s not normal.”

At times I found myself laughing out loud at these oddballs; at other times I thought the film might be an elaborate hoax (thanks a lot, Casey Affleck).  One critic calls Best Worst Movie “touching.”  I call it “disturbing.”  But I also call it “very funny” and “charming.”  It’s enough to drive me nuts.        Grade:  B+

Director:  Michael Stephenson  Featuring:  George Hardy, Michael Stephenson, Darren Ewing, Jason Steadman, Jason Wright, Margo Prey, Connie Young, Robert Ormsby, Don Packard  Release:  2010

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It’s nigh impossible to review Client 9, the new documentary about Eliot Spitzer, without taking a personal position on the ex-governor of New York, so here is mine: I think Spitzer was a breath of fresh air in American politics, a hardnosed attorney general and then governor who had the balls to take on big banking, Wall Street, and crooked politicians.  I think he was taken down by political enemies over a personal indiscretion, and the country is now in worse shape because of it.

I also think Spitzer is egocentric, a bit naïve, and probably less interested in serving the public than his own private interests.  He is an annoying motor-mouth on his new CNN show, Parker Spitzer, and he was in large part responsible for his own political downfall.

Client 9, a fresh take on what I thought was a stale story, reintroduces most of the players in this tawdry saga.  Here they all are:  Ashley Dupre, the prostitute who became Spitzer’s Monica Lewinsky; Joe Bruno, Hank Greenberg, Roger Stone, and Ken Langone – New York pols, businessmen and, judging by this movie, major-league assholes.  Director Alex Gibney’s documentary makes it clear that Spitzer’s biggest mistake was offending these people and, as one man points out in the film, “not playing well with others.”  Spitzer himself, perhaps with a bit of hubris, compares his tumble to Greek tragedy.

Performance artist Karen Finley makes an astute observation in the film:  “We want our political people to be God, and maybe that’s the biggest problem for us.  He’s a human being, and he’s not God.  This isn’t just a national narrative, but it’s an ancient narrative that happened and has to repeat itself into our culture.”

Maybe Spitzer’s comparison to Greek tragedy is not so far-fetched.  It’s sad to see the former Sheriff of Wall Street reduced to just one more talking head on cable.  And it’s dispiriting to see Dupre flirting on TV with Geraldo Rivera and penning gibberish for the New York Post, and to watch Greenberg, Bruno, Langone, and Stone all gloat over Spitzer’s ruined career.  Wall Street is still sick, and what we desperately need is a good guy.  Someone like the Sheriff of Wall Street.         Grade:  B+

Director:  Alex Gibney  Featuring:  Eliot Spitzer, Joseph Bruno, Hank Greenberg, Roger Stone, Ken Langone, Cecil Suwal, Hulbert Waldroup  Release:  2010

                                 Stone                                                                                 Langone

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                                 Dupre

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It’s hard to imagine anything more terrifying than being buried alive.  It’s a legitimate fear because unlike, say, meeting Freddy Krueger in a bad dream, premature burial is grounded in reality.  According to Wikipedia, George Washington so feared being mistakenly interred that he arranged to have his burial deferred until 12 days after his death.  Over the centuries, this type of horrific error was not uncommon.

Not to miss out on exploiting anything unspeakable, movies and TV are replete with stories depicting premature burial, from The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (“Final Escape,” 1964), to The Vanishing (1988), to Buried, now playing in a theater near you.  And because this Ryan Reynolds showcase takes place in another waking nightmare, the Iraq war zone, Buried plays on even more nerves.

Reynolds portrays Paul Conroy, a truck-driving contractor in Iraq.  After his convoy is ambushed, Conroy wakes up in a wooden box, presumably six feet under.  He learns that he’s been kidnapped (“one of the only functioning businesses over here [Iraq],” we are told) and deposited belowground by terrorists demanding a ransom.  The entire 94-minute movie takes place inside his coffin – and that presents a challenge for director Rodrigo Cortes.  The horror of Conroy’s situation is obvious, but how to generate suspense from the situation?  Through a cell phone, of course.

Cortes builds some tension, but only to a degree.  Aside from one sequence involving an unwelcome “visitor” to Conroy’s tomb, I did not experience what I’d call fear.  Discomfort, yes.   Claustrophobic anxiety, you betcha.  But fear?  Not really.          Grade:  B-

Director:  Rodrigo Cortes  Cast:  Ryan Reynolds  Release:  2010

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