LIGHT SLEEPER (1992) - 3/5 stars

Release: 1992

Director: Paul Schrader

Writer: Paul Schrader

Cast: Willem Dafoe, Susan Sarandon, Dana Delany, Mary Beth Hurt, David Clennon, Victor Garber, Jane Adams, Sam Rockwell, David Spade

Soundtrack: Michael Been

Claim to fame: a fairly obscure picture for Paul Schrader, although apparently someone once called it "The Taxi Driver of the 90's" because that's on the box art

Rating: 3/5 stars

I made it all the way through "Light Sleeper" because I love Willem Dafoe as an actor. If you don't share a similar appreciation for the man, then you might not want to spend an hour and 41 minutes with a film that is as conceptually flawed as this one.

The script, from Paul Schrader ("Taxi Driver," "Rolling Thunder") is decent enough. The narrative hook of the story - a mid-level drug dealer looking to get out of the business before it kills him - is compelling if you're not bored to tears of drug movies (what's nice is that this doesn't really deal with the addiction aspect like so many others do).

But there's one thing that really holds "Light Sleeper" down every time it tries to take off, and that's the music. This is a shining example of how a bad soundtrack can ruin a decent movie.

Dafoe spends a good 70% of this movie riding in the back of a black sedan

or walking the streets of New York

The musical instrumentation itself isn't bad: low-key jazz numbers with synth pads and bass to color the sights of a neon-lit, early 90's New York City. But for some reason, Schrader went and hired a vocalist, Michael Been, to sing over the music. Been was the guitarist/singer for an 80's band known as The Call. Here he sounds like a bad Bruce Springsteen impersonator hired to do an even WORSE impersonation of Leonard Cohen.

The lyrics are relentlessly overwrought. While the script is low-key enough to keep the characters' emotions internalized, the music telegraphs everything like an airplane message written in the sky.

Dafoe in repose

What would have merely been a scene of William Dafoe walking the streets of New York alone at night becomes unbearably pretentious when the singer groans lines like, "My inner demons tear me apart/rip my soul through the night/as I walk alone/I'm on my own/oh yeah/I'm the walking dead."

It gets even worse during the romantic moments. And you know because this is a Willem Dafoe movie not called "Spider-Man," he has to show his ass.

"Remember that night/when we made love/and I looked in your eyes/and I saw the stars above/oh yeah/How do we get back there?" It doesn't help that every melody sounds like the vocalist is just waiting to burst out into Cohen's "Hallelujah."

Dafoe's backside is like Harvy Keitel's junk - you just know you're gonna see it

If you can someone get past the offensively bad soundtrack, the movie is certainly watchable. It attempts to be what I assume is a fairly realistic take on dealing drugs. Dafoe plays the kind of "DD" who only associates with clients his supplier has a relationship with - these are upscale people with high-rise apartments; you know, the club-going and jet-set type.

He's rarely in danger of having a gun pulled on him or being shivved in the back; he's never out on the streets, dealing smack to kids. It's not that kind of film, which is actually a nice change of pace.

I think Patrick Bateman tried to reserve a table a this club

Unfortunately, the movie does not live up to the talents of Paul Schrader. When things do build to a moment of ominous violence, as they often do in Schrader movies, it honestly feels like the director is merely going through the motions. There's no climactic build like in "Taxi Driver" or "Rolling Thunder," it's more like Schrader felt like: "Well, it's a movie set in the world of drug dealing, I guess I've got to have some people get shot at the end."

A subplot (that honestly goes nowhere) about a drug-related serial killer feels similarly tacked on and haphazard.

Don't fuck with Dafoe!

Dafoe's character is just not that interest outside of the fact that it's Dafoe playing him. His face is a striking canvas of expressions which are used to great effect throughout the movie, but do we really care about the man that's behind him, Johnny LeTour? Not really. Same goes for Susan Sarandon as Dafoe's supplier, who is now looking to start a respectable cosmetics business.

These are just regular folks who got into the drug business because they thought it'd be an easy way to make tax-exempt money. It turned out to be just that, a business, and they didn't do as well as they'd hoped…but haven't done anything to change their circumstances until now, way late in the game.

Why the smirk, Willem? You're not thinking about

showing your ass in this movie, are you?

Oh, you...

The central question is: can people change? After spending at least half his life either doing drugs or dealing them, can Johnny LaTour make a break for it and become legit? And what kind of line of work is a drug dealer qualified to do after they go straight?

But there's nothing particularly interesting about these folks. The only real relatable aspect to Dafoe's character is his relationship with his ex-wife, played by Dana Delany. Dafoe clearly still cares for her and wishes that they could start over and rekindle their romance, but considering that she treats a well-meaning Dafoe like shit for 90% of the movie it's hard to root for them to get back together.

What a lovely early 90's haircut you have there, Ms. Delany

"Light Sleeper" has enough things going for it: an immersive look at New York City nightlife in the early 90's, some fantastic lighting, and Dafoe in fine form. Dafoe's limited voice-over narration provides fascinating insight into the world of a drug dealer. But the film provides none of the darkness or sense of imperativeness of Schrader's other works.

A scene where Dafoe is having his aura read by a physic who warns him of imminent danger and betrayal only rings false; despite his line of work, we never really get the sense that Dafoe's life is threatened. There's no sense of urgency, no reason to care, other than the fact that Willem is a great actor. You add a terrible score to the proceedings and the whole deck of cards just collapses in on itself.

You'd think that after watching his own movie, "Taxi Driver," Paul Schrader would have realized that Bernard Herrmann's score perfectly translated his characters' emotional landscapes onto the screen…instead of relying on a piss-poor Leonard Cohen wannabe to broadcast all the meaning of the film. Sadly, that was not the case here and it's (part of) what prevents "Light Sleeper" from being anything other than a watch for die-hard Schrader or Dafoe completists.

Warning: you may feel like this after watching "Light Sleeper"

if you don't keep your expectations in check.

Paradoxically, this film might help cure insomnia if you have it

BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS (2009) - 4/5 stars

Release: 2009

Director: Werner Herzog

Writer: William Finkelstein

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Brad Dourif, Xzibit, Fairuza Balk, Jennifer Coolidge, Michael Shannon, Vondie Curtis Hall, Shawn Hatosy, Denzel Whitaker, Shea Whigham

Soundtrack: Mark Isham

Claim to fame: a semi-sequel/spin-off to Abel Ferarra's 1992 film "Bad Lieutenant" with Harvey Keitel; billed as the return of the Nicolas Cage that fans of "Wild at Heart" and "Raising Arizona" know and love

Rating: 4/5 stars

The story of Werner Herzog'z "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" tells a dark, cosmic joke. And at the center of the maelstrom is Nicolas Cage giving a frantic, unhinged, and incredibly hilarious performance. Cage captures the manic highs and dead-end lows of a drug addict in a manner that is far more entertaining than most "drug films" and represents his best performance in at least 20 years.

Nic Cage don't give a %#(@ about probable cause

Sometimes when an actor delivers this particular kind of hyper-acting, it can seem like the rest of the movie is simply kind of existing around - or desperately trying to keep up with - their performance piece. See: Nicolas Cage in "Vampire's Kiss" or Crispin Glover in "River's Edge."

Fortunately, with "Bad Lieutenant" one senses that Herzog and Cage are totally in sync and Herzog is more than up to the task of crafting a compelling film around Cage's character (who Ain't-It-Cool-News' Quint accurately likened to a Universal Monster).

I could spend hours imagining the hilarity of this conversation

It starts with Herzog's unique directing flourishes, like the shot from an alligator's POV as it mourns the death of one of its brethren in a roadside accident; or Nicolas Cage stumbling through an arcade while under the influence of drugs, the lights and sounds of the arcade exaggerated for impressionistic effect, and the disembodied voice proclaiming "Insert coin to play" almost like some kind of metaphor for drug use.

There's also a scene of Cage driving at night, with prostitutes emerging in and out of the inky darkness to call unintelligibly after him, that would make David Lynch proud with its surreal quality.

Poor Louisiana alligator...

Herzog fills out his supporting cast with stellar actors, whose faces are both unfamiliar and familiar. Brad Dourif delivers a great turn as a bookie, while Shea Whigham steals every scene he's in (no small feat when you're acting against Cage) with his constant "Ohhhh yeahhhhh's." Michael Shannon and Fairuza Balk make the most of their bit parts as two fellow cops.

Val Kilmer is great in a limited role, playing a character who is seemingly sober yet somehow WORSE than Cage's drugged out lieutenant. On that note, I'd love to see a spin-off movie about Val's character. I can only imagine the kind of insanity that film would conjure up. I doubt Herzog would return to helm such a project so why don't we give it to someone like Tony Scott (who worked with Kilmer before on "Top Gun" and "Deja Vu"), who'd probably take the proceedings way too seriously - and thus make it even more hysterical?

Val Kilmer: don't call it a comeback

With Cage acting up a storm, the highlights come fast and frequent. There's Cage going behind the counter to fill his own Vicodin prescription ("Can I have my prescription now, PAH-LEASE?!?!"); Cage sneaking up behind an armed suspect and then basking in the praise of his fellow officers ("I love it, I love it"); Cage taking drug and sex bribes from a young couple outside a dance club ("Did your parents MOLEST you?!" is his character's idea of dirty talk); and his interrogation tactics with two well-to-do Southern ladies.

This is not to mention the bits of insanity you've probably already seen in the trailer: iguanas on coffee tables, Cage threatening to kill some drug dealers "'till the BREAK OF DAWN, BABY!" What makes all of it work is that Cage never once breaks character; he remains fully committed to the role and the reality of his bad lieutenant - notice his limp that grows more exaggerated as the film goes on - so that no matter how over the top he goes you're never taken out of the story.

With Nicolas Cage, this...

...quickly escalates to THIS.

By the time you reach the end of "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans," Herzog has taken what would have otherwise been a standard police procedural and turned it into a morbidly humorous treatise on karma. In every other film where a character is dependent on drugs, you almost certainly know what you're in for: a downward spiral as the addict becomes increasingly reliant on their substance until their entire life implodes.

This film is anything but predictable. And since Cage makes his lieutenant so damn likable (or at least watchable), as ugly and brutal as his behavior is you can't help but smile and laugh when everything falls into his lap despite little to no effort on his part. Hey, sometimes life works out like that...and here, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Anddddd - CUT!

BIGGER THAN LIFE (1956) - 4/5 stars

Release: 1956

Director: Nicholas Ray

Writer: Cyril Hume and Richard Maibaum (story and screenplay), Burton Roueche ("New Yorker" article), Gavin Lambert and James Mason and Clifford Odets and Nicholas Ray (uncredited rewrites)

Cast: James Mason, Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau, Robert F. Simon, Christopher Olsen, Roland Winters, Rusty Lane, Rachel Stephens, Kipp Hamilton

Soundtrack: David Raksin

Claim to fame: for a movie starring James Mason and directed by Nicholas "Rebel Without A Cause" Ray, this movie is pretty damn obscure

Rating: 4/5 stars

James Mason starring in a 50's melodrama that also happens to be Nicholas Ray's follow-up "Rebel Without A Cause"? Nobody had to trust my arm to get me to place this movie at the top of my Netflix queue, even though I'd admittedly never heard of the film before Criterion Collection released it on blu-ray late last month. As such, I was caught completely off guard by how utterly dark and harrowing "Bigger Than Life" is.

The opening twenty minutes - and the fact that the film's script was based off an article in the New Yorker - had me concerned that "Bigger Than Life" was going to be one of those 'you've heard about this happening to other people, now watch how it could happen to you'-style 1950's housewife shockers.

James Mason plays a respectable schoolteacher and family man who, unbeknownst to his wife, moonlights as a cab dispatcher for a little extra cash. He's been suffering from chronic pain for about 6 months until the whole situation catches up with him and he collapses at home, just after admitting to his wife that their modest suburban existence is really quite dull.

Nothing this good could ever last

The doctor's diagnosis is grim: Mason suffers from a rare condition that causes his arteries to swell. He'll be dead within the year - unless he tries the new miracle drug called Cortisone. His doctor warns him not to abuse the drug and to report any signs of depression but Mason is none too concerned - he's just happy to have a new lease on life.

After a week of recovery, he's sent back into the loving arms of his wife and son…until the Cortisone takes hold.

James Mason faces his mortality with his family at his side

You might feel like you know where this one is going. I thought I did: a beautifully photographed but ultimately archaic look at the picture-perfect nuclear family of the 1950's dealing with their patriarch's addiction to prescription pills.

I was expecting the swooning music, the glowing colors, and tearful embraces of a Douglas Sirk film - which I do unabashedly love.

This nuclear family is about to reach critical mass

But no. "Bigger Than Life" goes so far past that, into such dark, soul-searing territory that I can hardly believe this film was released in 1956. James Mason is transformed by the side effects of Cortisone into a paranoiac, manic-depressive suburban tyrant. It's the "Leave It to Beaver" model flipped completely on its head, as Mason delivers tirade after tirade that systematically tear down the American dream and reveal it as a sham.

Does the drug turn Mason into another person entirely or is it merely bringing out all the thoughts and feelings he kept buried in his daily life? That's up for the viewer to decide.

And you may ask yourself "Well, how did I get here?"

Director Nicholas Ray brilliantly uses drug addiction as a mere plot device, really, to deconstruct Eisenhower-era values. Mason, in his Cortisone-induced haze, spends money beyond his means just to appear more upper crust; he talks about waking up to discover he's "outgrown" his wife; he delivers Nazi-like theories on education to a deeply offended crowd at a PTA meeting; and the whole thing concludes with one of the most honest-to-God darkest scenes I've ever witnessed, as Mason transforms the family Bible into the means to commit murder.

I'm sure critics confronted Nicholas Ray at the time and asked, "How can you have a character say such terrible things?!" and Ray could simply smile, "But that's what drug abuse does to people!" all while knowing that there are kernels of truth in much of Mason's dialogue.

I won't spoil the ending but it's some pretty bleak stuff

Somehow James Mason manages to be even more terrifying here than as the lecherous Humbert Humbert of Stanley Kubrick's "Lolita" or the villain in Hitchcock's "North by Northwest." It's truly a performance for the ages and Mason's slightly effeminate, European accent only seems to heighten his isolation from his classical suburban American surroundings.

An early scene in which Mason forces his wife to obsessively try on dresses at an upscale boutique until she's literally too exhausted to move brings to mind a similar scene with Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak in "Vertigo" (1958). Indeed, anyone who enjoys the subversive 50's style of that film will find much to love about "Bigger Than Life."

Shades of "Vertigo," which came 2 years later

The film is wonderfully photographed, bringing an almost Expressionistic style of shot composition and color usage to a Middle American setting. Nicholas Ray favors long takes - IMDB reports that the average take is 11 seconds long, a far cry from today's ADD-addled directing style - looming shadows, and a carefully controlled color palette to immerse viewers in the tale of suburban psychosis. On the technical side of things, the Criterion Collection blu-ray release is absolutely stunning.

David Raksin, a composer perhaps most famous for the main theme to the 1940's noir film "Laura," delivers an excellent score with a motif that is haunting yet melodic and repeated just often enough.

I highly recommend "Bigger Than Life" to anyone who has any interest at all in mid-century American cinema. The film bombed at the box office in 1956 but caught the attention of many French New Wave filmmakers, then received a critical re-appraisal in America in the 70's, but has since become increasingly obscure. It's a shame. The pitch-black depths that the film plummets means that it's not exactly a movie I want to revisit with great frequency - but it's certainly worth watching, owning, and discussing with other cinema lovers.

Patriarch Knows Best