While I was away from writing these, one of my favourite multi-hyphenates celebrated a milestone birthday. Brace yourself--even I can't believe it--Steve Martin turned 80 last month. I noticed very little fanfare around this, although I'm sure there was some. While regarded as one of the great comedic-actors of the last 50 years, Martin is so much more. He's an amazing writer--in addition to his writing for film and television (winning an Emmy in 1969 for his work on "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour"), he's also written novels, plays, articles for The New Yorker, music, Broadway shows, and one of the best memoirs I've ever read, Born Standing Up. He's an art collector, a magician, and a damn fine banjo player. He's a true renaissance man. He's the kind of person that I would love to just sit and have dinner with.
But
as someone who fancies himself a writer, I have to admit, that's what
I've always admired about him the most--as Martin describes it in this
week's film, the interesting word usements he structures. He has a way
of crafting a story, a sentence, even just a visual gag, that just makes
me admire the way his mind works.
I've
always said there are three types of writing. First and foremost, you
have the formulaic and predictable (a lot of network television--as much
as I enjoy "NCIS," the show definitely falls into this category).
Secondly, you have the story that goes along just fine, predictably or
not, and then the writer springs a big surprise twist at the end (for
more on this, see the films of M. Night Shyamalan). But the rarest kind
of writing was demonstrated on Martin's 1978 album, A Wild and Crazy Guy.
He told what I thought was the best written and, at the same time,
filthiest joke I'd ever heard. I won't repeat it here, you can look it
up. He talks about a date he had with a woman. When I first heard it, I
got a sense of where the joke was going. And then he went there, just
like I predicted he would. I was actually kind of disappointed because,
as much as I admire his writing, frankly I expected better of him.
THEN he sprung the twist ending, which I never would have predicted. I
laughed so hard, I nearly fell out of my chair. The only other time
I've seen that done was the short-lived drama series "Political
Animals," which ended in a cliffhanger that was never resolved.
My
favourite films of Martin's are the ones he has also written or
co-written. He's crafted his own stories in such comedy classics as The Jerk (1979), The Man With Two Brains (1983), Three Amigos! (1986) and Bowfinger (1999). He's also adapted classic works such as Edmond Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac and George Eliot's novel Silas Marner (1988's Roxanne and 1994's more dramatic A Simple Twist of Fate respectively). This week's film is my favourite--both for his acting and his writing--and I think it may be his best work.
In it, Martin plays Harris K. Telemacher, a local L.A. TV weatherman--I'm sorry... meteorologist.
During a luncheon with his girlfriend Trudi (Marilu Henner), he meets
Sara McDowell (played by Martin's then wife, Victoria Tennant), a London-based journalist who is writing an article about Los Angeles. She contacts
Harris to set up an interview with him. He takes her on a "cultural"
tour of the city and subsequently falls in love with her.
Romantic
comedy entanglements aside, the film is really a love letter to the
city of Los Angeles (with more than a few Shakespearean overtones). It
plays up all the stereotypes that non-Los Angelenos seem to have about
the city and its denizens while at the same time embracing them. With
every viewing, I seem to find something different that makes me smile.
Directed by Mick Jackson, the film features a supporting cast of Richard
E. Grant, Sarah Jessica Parker, Susan Forristal, Kevin Pollack, Sam
McMurray, and a signpost that most of us would love to be able to read.
It also features some wonderful cameos (credited and uncredited) from
the likes of Patrick Stewart, Woody Harrelson, Iman, Larry Miller,
Frances Fisher, George Plimpton, Chevy Chase, Terry Jones, and Rick
Moranis. From 1991, please enjoy, with a twist of lemon, L.A. Story.
A
note about the enclosed trailer--like a lot of trailers, this one does
feature some alternate and/or deleted scenes that were ultimately left
out of the movie. This one, however features quite a few of them. If
you've never seen the movie and choose to do so based on what you see in
the trailer, just know that John Lithgow's role as talent agent Harry
Zell was cut entirely from the final film. However you can still see
him in the trailer as well as deleted scenes featured on the DVD.
Until
next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember
that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for
you.
Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!
The Reverend Will the Thrill
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