The 100 Best Movies You've Never Seen (19 page)

“It's a nasty little piece of work, and people should know that,” says Kiwi director Peter Jackson about one of his early “lost” films. Originally conceived as a 24-minute television show,
Meet the Feebles
is the most disgusting, ribald, and funniest film to feature puppets as lead actors. It's the
Muppet Show
on acid. The movie revolves around the puppet cast of the soon-to-air
The Fabulous Feebles Variety Hour
. Cheerful characters on television, off-screen the Feebles are drug addled, sex-starved psychopaths. Backstage drama flourishes as Sid the elephant tries to avoid a paternity suit from his ex-lover, a chicken named Sandy; Harry, a sex-crazed rabbit, feels woozy and is concerned that he has contracted aids after years of unprotected sex; the uncouth producer of the show
Walrus Bletch
is involved in drug deals, while his partner Sebastian the fox becomes completely obsessed with buggery, going so far as to include a song called “Sodomy” in the show; Wynyard the frog knife thrower is a full-blown heroin addict who has frequent flashbacks to his days as a pow in Saigon; Trevor the rat dresses in a Nazi uniform and films underground porn; while Heidi the hippo, the show's star attraction, is told, “I've heard better singing from a mongoose with throat cancer.” The tension backstage spills onto the air, and the show's audience finally sees the Feebles for who they are.

It's pretty dark stuff, and Jackson leaps at the chance to offend, including as much carnage, sex, and bawdy humor as 94 minutes will allow. The finished film is so unhinged that the major investor, the New Zealand Film Commission, refused to put its name in the credits. The movie is a disgustingly graphic piece of work, but there is more to it than just cows engaging in s&m, if you can dig past the layers of bodily fluids, unnatural sex, and curse words.

“I'd like to view it as a satire of human behavior,” said Jackson. “Imagine a scenario where the Muppets have just finished a TV show. What would happen if they went backstage and behaved like normal people, smoking, drinking, and having sex? That's what we were aiming at.” It is also a cautionary tale of the pitfalls of celebrity, or as Russ Meyer once put it, “the oft-times nightmarish world of show business.”

Ten years before Jackson would begin shooting his masterpiece, the
Lord of the Rings
trilogy, his visual flair was very much in evidence. He uses handheld cameras to shoot musical numbers and very hectic scenes, perfectly choreographing the 90 rubber-faced “actors.”

The “story” is basically a series of fart, urine, and porn jokes strung together, but like any great musical, the songs are the glue that bind the whole thing. Composer Peter Dasent, who would also score Jackson's next two films,
Braindead
and
Heavenly Creatures
, penned a full score for the movie, including the “Feebles Theme,” which includes the obvious line, “we're not your average ordinary people,” Heidi's signature song “Garden of Love” and “One Leg Missing,” a blues tune sung by a Rastafarian bandleader with a chorus of poodles. The real showstopper is “Sodomy,” an elaborate set piece involving a giant erect penis that literally serves as the climax of the film.

The movie has become a cult classic, but don't expect a sequel. A disclaimer that no puppets were killed or maimed during the production of
Meet the Feebles
turns out to be a fib, as Jackson cheekily noted in a press interview at the time. “The way we abused them I doubt whether they would want to work with us again.”

Mile Zero
is a film about male vulnerability. Michael Riley (the London, Ontario-born actor best known for small roles in
Amistad
and
French Kiss
) plays Derek Ridley, a psychologically brittle man who lets jealousy devour him, eventually pushing him to break the law. He is still deeply in love with his ex-wife (Sabrina Grdevich) despite the fact that she has moved on and is involved with another man. Unable to let go, he desperately tries to reunite his family with a series of inappropriate actions that soon escalate into the realm of stalking. He unexpectedly shows up at his wife's home to prepare her breakfast in bed, roots through her garage, and secretly installs video surveillance in his eight-year-old son Will's (Connor Widdows) bedroom.

When all else fails he convinces the boy to go on a bizarre father-and-son “adventure” into the wilderness of British Columbia, on the promise that the trip will help reunite the family. The deeper into the utopian backwoods they travel, the darker the story becomes. Derek slowly descends into madness, behaving recklessly, endangering himself, his son, and those around them. Will soon figures out that what he thought was a family outing is turning into a life-threatening situation. His confidence in Derek shattered, Will's reticence to accept his father's love forces Derek to face the truth about his own failures and the meltdown of his marriage. It's a family drama about a family gone wrong.

As the deluded dad, Riley delivers a powerhouse performance, at once both pathetic and scary. Widdows also excels as Will, a young boy caught between the love of his father and the realization that the man he idolizes is seriously disturbed. Will is wise beyond his years, and Widdows strikes the perfect tone, never becoming precocious. He is simply a kid with good observational skills, who is nonetheless vulnerable to the manipulations of his parent.

Mile Zero
is strong material, crafted by a director who understands Derek's plight. “The reason I made the film is because I am a single parent,” director Andrew Curry told the
Georgia Straight
in 2001. “Some years ago, when I got separated, I sometimes wasn't seeing my son for four or five weeks at a time. His mum started a new relationship, which is normal and healthy and everything, but because I was so far away, it encouraged me to feel a lot of, um, irrational things about what was going on. The film is an expression of my fears, what I imagined. The idea of being replaced by another man is terrifying to anyone. I don't want to overplay what I went through. I was working at the time with Michael Melski, who had already written a short screenplay for me called
Fragile X
about a man who's just too fragile for this world.”

I could have used a little less of the home movie flashback scenes, but they did reinforce the sense of loss Derek was experiencing after his wife kicked him out of the house. It's heart-rending stuff, and while you can't condone Derek's actions, Riley makes him human enough that the viewer can at least understand his behavior.

“He was such a polite guy.” “He seemed like such a nice quiet young man.” That's what Vann Siegert's neighbors would say about him. That's what the neighbors of serial killers always say after the police have taken away the suspect in chains. Vann Siegert is a mass murderer, and
The Minus Man
is a study of a broken psyche.

Hampton Fancher is best known as the screenwriter of the 1982 science-fiction classic
Blade Runner
, but the native Los Angelian had already had a long and bizarre career before that movie was released. He quit school as a teen and moved to Spain, where he became a well-known flamenco dancer under the name Mario Montejo. Upon returning to the States he worked as an actor, playing everything from a zombie in the 1958 cult-horror flick
The Brain Eaters
to Adoptive Parent #3 in the 1974 TV weeper
The Stranger Who Looks Like Me
. Tired of being offered less-than-stellar roles, he turned to writing, penning
Blade Runner
and the Denzel Washington film
The Mighty Quinn
. The inspiration for his next script would come while reading a book review.

Fancher was first exposed to author Lew McCreary's book
The Minus Man
by novelist Anne Rice's review of it in the
New York Times
. He thought the book sounded interesting and clipped the column. He carried it around with him for years, until one day he stumbled across a copy of the out-of-print novel in a used bookstore.

“I read it that night,” he says, “which is unusual because I'm generally not a fast reader, but this book was a page-turner. I was so fascinated that I couldn't stop until the sun was up and the book was on the floor. I realized in the morning that this story encapsulated a theme that had always interested me — the idea of a person who is essentially very good but who does things that are very bad. I'd always wanted to do a movie about this concept.”

The finished script was a darkly comic exploration into the mind of an unconventional serial killer — a likeable guy who is also a terrible threat to those around him.

The film begins with Vann Siegert (Owen Wilson) offering a ride to an inebriated young woman (Sheryl Crow) he has just met in a tavern. At a rest stop he discovers her in the bathroom shooting up. He's not shocked by the drug use, and offers the woman a drink from his flask. Next we see him propping her dead body against the bathroom wall, making it look like she overdosed. Is he a guy who just doesn't want to get involved in the death of someone he just met, or is there something in that flask besides amaretto?

Vann stops in a rural Pacific Northwest coastal town looking for a place to live. He rents a room from an older couple, Doug (Brian Cox) and Jane (Mercedes Ruehl), whose marriage is falling apart after the disappearance of their daughter. Jane is wary of Vann and wants Doug to keep his distance from the lodger. “Don't make a boarder your guest,” she warns. Of course he doesn't listen, and the two men become as tight as two peas in a pod.

With Doug's recommendation Vann gets a job at the local post office and begins to date a fellow worker, Ferrin (Janeane Garofalo). Ferrin is a free-spirited young woman who Garofalo describes as a “townie who lives in this suburb and doesn't really have many aspirations beyond the confines of the post office.” Despite her best efforts, Ferrin can't penetrate Vann's wall of secrecy.

Outwardly Vann appears to be the model citizen, but internal forces are eating away at him. Most nights he is visited by imaginary hard-boiled detectives Blair (Dwight Yoakam) and Graves (Dennis Haysbert) — his nightmare morality police — who carry on surreal conversations with him. “Blair and Graves are the basement of Vann Siegert's mind,” Fancher explains, “the nightmares within. There is nothing really cruel or twisted in this movie — except these two characters. They are detectives but they are also devils and angels.”

When the locals start to mysteriously disappear, suspicions arise.

The Minus Man
is a look at what lies just beneath the surface of normality. Fancher — who wrote and directed the film — has created a striking character in Vann. He's the serial killer next door; a man so painfully normal it is almost inconceivable that he could ever have a nasty thought, let alone kill. Owen Wilson is effective because he is disarming, and his matter-of-factness about his murderous urges is chilling. “I never make a plan,” he says. “It just happens.” His easy grin and all-American-guy demeanor reveal very little about him. Almost everyone likes him because he tells people what they want to hear. He's a seductive charmer with a dangerous hidden edge.

“I think Vann is someone who through really listening to people can become whatever they want him to be,” says Fancher. “He is the perfect confidante, the perfect reflection, the perfect love. But meanwhile he actually has this blankness inside of him. He is nothing; the man who fell to earth. Vann is so pure and kind, like a child, not murky or diluted or filled with ambiguities. You feel you can look right into him, and yet he is a stranger.”

The supporting roles are nicely cast. Brian Cox was an ironic choice to play the disturbed Doug in a movie about a mass murderer; trivia buffs will remember Cox as the original Dr. Hannibal Lector in the 1986 film
Manhunter
. Cox lends heft to the picture with his portrayal of Doug as an odd, tortured man. Janeane Garofalo as Ferrin is stretching her acting wings here in a different kind of role. She nails Ferrin's naiveté in romance, letting her body language and mannerisms do the talking in a nicely understated performance.

Fancher has made a strikingly original film that defies the usual conventions of the genre. It is a serial killer movie with virtually no violence. The killer is a likeable guy, and is never revealed to be a monster. There aren't even any Hitcockian-type thrills and chills, just a probing camera and a cerebral approach. This is
Blue Velvet
without the ether, a smart serial killer movie that explores the mind, not the actions of a murderer.
The Minus Man
will leave you feeling unsettled as you slowly get into the head of a man you never thought you'd know.

In
Monsoon Wedding
, director Mira Nair expertly knits together a joyous, sprawling story about a wedding, an affair, and a lovesick wedding planner. Nair aims her camera at life in modern day India, but still holds onto many of the traditions of Bollywood filmmaking. “Bollywood is very interesting,” Nair told
Reel to Real
in 2001. “When I was growing up there was a slight snobbery about the high kitsch quality of it. No longer. Now Bollywood stuff is refined, slick, trendy, and hip. For the young Indian person it is the way to go.
Monsoon Wedding
is my tongue-in-cheek tribute. My family has been begging me to make Marsala Bollywood movies, and I will maybe one day, but this is sort of Bollywood on my terms, because it is all so surrealistic, but based in reality, and that allows me the fun and the high kitsch and the absolute reality of the sex appeal of the fantastic Bollywood films.”

Monsoon Wedding
is full of life — interesting characters, bright swirling colors, fabulous Indian music — and like one of Nair's previous efforts, the Oscar-nominated
Salaam Bombay
, is universal enough to break through the cultural marketplace and become a mainstream North American hit. “India is an extraordinary culture because we are truly about layering,” said Nair. “It is a multiplicity of worlds; it is a nation of coexistence between the rich and the poor. That we know. But there are also all kinds of influences that we are open to, especially in today's modern India, which is
Monsoon Wedding
's India. It has gone global and we have Gucci and Prada on the one hand, and traffic jams and power cuts on the other. That is just a very small part of the craziness of our existence.
Monsoon Wedding
attempts to show you that layering, in a very layered way itself, cinematically, with language, and with music and with the camera. That was my intention from the beginning.”

Monsoon Wedding
won numerous awards upon its release, including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the People's Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2002 Golden Globe Awards.