My Year of Flops by Nathan Rabin Page A

his most beloved triumphs. It’s the grand glory of ’70s cinematic ambition crashing helplessly into the soul-sick, mercenary ’80s.
    O.C. And Stiggs
takes a while to get going, but by the time Sponson descends on the Schwab compound, the film has whipped up a fine, frenzied madness. In the giddy climax, the boys bring the war to the Schwabs. It’s the return of the repressed, as the titular duo force Randall to confront the poverty and drunkenness of the black underclass (represented by Melvin Van Peebles’ soulful wino and his homeless drinking buddies), the lingering scars of a disastrous war in Vietnam (Sponson), and, of course, the continent of Africa, via special guest star King Sunny Adé.
    Altman’s film resonated more strongly with me the second timearound, in part because I was more familiar with its satirical targets. Having spent time in suburban Arizona, where new money goes to die a pampered spiritual death among jackrabbits, javelinas, and scorpions, I could better appreciate the cultural specificity of its satire.
    O.C. And Stiggs
boasts a terrific supporting cast, led by Martin Mull as Pat Colletti, a wealthy lush with a seemingly painted-on beard who luxuriates happily in his own booze-sodden decadence. I enjoyed the O.C. and Stiggsmobile, a deafeningly loud lemon on stilts and speed, and Bob Uecker’s insane self-deprecating cameo as a loudmouth so intoxicated with the sound of his own voice that he never notices that no one is paying attention to anything he’s saying (including himself, apparently).
    I found a lot to dig about
O.C. And Stiggs,
but more than anything, I love Altman’s style: the overlapping dialogue, the purposefully wandering cameras, the jittery zooms, and the long shots that suggest both sociological distance and the perspective of a bemused trickster god. Altman might not have succeeded in making a trenchant satire of teen sex comedies, but as is his nature, he twisted, contorted, and perverted his source material until it became the basis for something infinitely more wonderful and relevant: a Robert Altman movie. Then again, that’s just the minority opinion of one frothing fanboy. Oh, and for the record, Christmas always
has
smelled like oranges to me.
    Failure, Fiasco, Or Secret Success?
Secret Success
    Woody/Not Woody Case File #57: Scenes From A Mall
    Originally Posted August 9, 2007
    The late ’60s Bond spoof
Casino Royale
and 1991’s
Scenes From A Mall
both offer the strange spectacle of Woody Allen acting in non–Woody Allen movies. When he made
Casino Royale,
Allen was still a hot young comedian and cinematic neophyte. But by the time
Scenes FromA Mall
hit theaters, he was as much of a cultural institution as the Statue of Liberty, and nearly as immutable.
    So it’s understandably jarring to see Woody Allen, the quintessential New York snob, playing a ponytail-sporting Los Angeleno perfectly comfortable with the emptiness of his existence. That ponytail goes a long way toward negating the fundamental Woodyness of Allen’s being, yet Woody remains Woody no matter how incongruous the setting. Paul Mazursky has Allen’s Nick Fifer do things the real (and reel) Allen would never do. He buys Italian suits. He totes around a surfboard. He listens to music made after World War II. He says things like, “Christ, where’s my fucking Saab?!” He seems comfortable in a mall. He goes hours without referencing Kierkegaard or Camus. Most shockingly, he has sex with a Jewish woman roughly his own age.
    It’s an existential conundrum: He’s Woody, yet he isn’t Woody. The ponytail and surfboard seem to exist in a different, infinitely more crass universe than Allen’s Manhattan wonderland, yet the mannerisms, tics, and vocal inflections give him away. Even if Allen played Osama bin Laden, he’d probably still end up looking and acting suspiciously like
Annie Hall
’s Alvy Singer.
    Bette