NEW ON DVD: BAD WORDS...

Give Jason Bateman credit for trying. Many years ago, when Tom Hanks stopped playing likable wimps and started playing more adult characters, Hollywood decided Bateman would be its new likable wimp. He's worn the crown well. In fact, it's not a stretch to imagine Bateman in a remake of The Money Pit or Turner and Hooch. Every now and then Batemen shows a different side, but he generally reigns it in and shows that he's still a good guy at heart. The closest he's come to entirely abandoning his character may have been in Juno, when he played a callow, uncertain man who harbored feelings for the pregnant girl whose child he was supposed to adopt.  I liked him in that movie, as he played a sly cat and mouse game with Ellen Page. That's why I looked forward to Bad Words, which Bateman not only starred in but chose as his directing debut. The subject an actor chooses to direct reveals a lot. How does Bateman view himself, I wondered. Would he give us more of his old good guy charm, or would he unleash the unpleasant character he occasionally plays?

The answer is he does both. The movie certainly starts with a noxious bang, with Bateman as Guy Trilby, a middle-aged man who has found a loophole in the rules of spelling bees, and proceeds to tour the country, destroying his 12-year-old competitors. He's a misanthropic, foul mouthed lout, and when he's not spelling overstuffed words like "antidisestablishmentariansism," he's scorching people with some pretty good insults. I loved the first half of the movie, and at times it reminded me of another movie I liked from a few years back, Terry Zwigoff's Bad Santa.

Unfortunately, the anarchy of the first half gives way to a predictable second half. Trilby befriends a young boy he meets at one of the competitions, and you just know that gruff old Trilby is going to soften up. When Trilby mentions a favorite toy car from his childhood, you just know that the kid is going to give him one. On and on it goes. The smart, mean movie of the first half becomes a routine contemporary story involving kicks to the groin, some ho-hum sexual encounters, and a couple of uninteresting plot twists, the most important one involving Trilby's unhappy relationship with his estranged father. I almost wish the movie had just been about a 40-year-old asshole who likes to win spelling bees. He would've been a much more fascinating, subversive character. Instead, Trilby's a lot less interesting once we get to know him.

The movie is unique in one aspect, though. In a way, it's a rom-com about a man and a boy: man meets boy, man loses boy, man gets boy again. They even ride off together at the movie's conclusion.

So what did I gather about Bateman in all of this? The obvious thing was that  no matter how unpleasant he is at the movie's beginning, he couldn't quite let go of his good-guy persona.  He's also a competent director, for no matter how predictable the story became, it was never dull.

Finally, Bateman has been in the entertainment business since he was a child, and here he is making a movie about spelling bee competitors, which is a form of child stardom. The boy in the movie, played by a likable young actor named Rohan Chand, is lonely and looking for friends. He practically wills himself into Trilby's life.  How much of this, I wonder, was a kind of wish fulfillment on Bateman's part, thinking back to his days as a kid star on Silver Spoons and Little House on the Prairie. Had Bad Words been more fearless and not relied on such hackneyed plot turns, it might have been a compelling look at a grown man embracing the embodiment of his lonely inner child. As is, you get to hear Bateman say a lot of rude stuff about a woman's vagina, which is supposedly ok as long as you turn out to be a nice guy at the end.

CONRACK (1974) ...

 Martin Ritt's Conrack, now available on Blu-ray from Twilight Time, first hit theaters in 1974.  This was a time when new, brash directors were reinventing American cinema,  a time when movie screens were likely spackled with vomit from demonically possessed little girls, or blood from the victims of Dirty Harry Callahan's .44 Magnum. Theaters in your neighborhood were just as likely to be playing hardcore porn as the latest Paul Newman movie.  Ritt's simple tale of an optimistic white teacher in a schoolroom of dirt poor black students was a success just by squeaking through to its birth. 

Looking at it 40 years later, one is struck by two things, namely, Jon Voight's relentless energy and goodwill as the big-hearted teacher, and the very realistic performances from the kids.  Even while acknowledging the film's uneven tone, or what one critic deemed "a crazy quilt of naturalism, farce, and soap opera all jumbled together," one is still intrigued by Conrack.  Maybe the idea that a caring soul might try to educate some people who would otherwise remain ignorant strikes a primal cord within us.  Maybe there's something irresistible about sheltered folks suddenly realizing there is more to the world than their dirty little backwater.   Or maybe, and this might trump all the other maybes, we all hated school so much that we wish our own lives had been enriched, even briefly, by someone like Conrack. 

Pat Conroy, a young idealist, takes a teaching position on a remote island in a South Carolina river delta.  He's vowed to grow his hair until the war stops (the story takes place in 1969) and the locals look at him as if they're seeing a mythical animal up close, for a towering blonde white man on an island made up almost entirely of blacks is as odd as a unicorn.  The locals can't even pronounce his name, which creates the movie's title.  The newly dubbed Conrack fends off their suspicions with a grin as wide as the Bible belt, and then sets about teaching "the babies," as these fifth through eighth graders are called.  He's shocked to find out the level of his students' ignorance - they can't read, they know nothing about life beyond the island, they've never heard of Babe Ruth or Halloween, have never played football, and, Heaven forbid, they don't even know that coffee comes from Brazil. 

Based on Pat Conroy's memoir ‘The Water Is Wide,’ the story follows Conrack's effort to help these children even as he is met by resistance from the school's principal, a middle aged black woman (Madge Sinclair) who believes the children need to beaten with a leather strap, and superintendent Skeffington (Hume Cronyn), a grinning sadist who likes to grab a kid by the thumb and twist, a punishing move he calls "milking the rat."   Add to this a local drunk (Paul Winfield) who skulks around the island like Boo Radley, the talkative Mr. Quickfellow (Antonio Fargas) who stalks 13-year-old girls with promises of new dresses, plus the natural reluctance of students who have never been challenged, and it seems Conrack has entered a world that may be too much for him to conquer. 

Yet, armed with nothing but his enthusiasm, Conrack gradually earns the love and respect of the classroom. The kids, as meek as church mice at the movie’s start,  are soon chanting James Brown songs, and dressed up for a Halloween trip to Beaufort.  Conrack's teaching methods are unorthodox - he tickles, wrestles, and teases the students, and when he learns that no one on the island knows how to swim, he promptly throws the kids, one by one, into the river. His freewheeling style gets results. He even gets the class to sit still long enough to listen to some recordings of classical music.  

I like how the kids calmly pay attention to the sounds coming from the old turntable.  In a more contemporary movie, they all would have picked up instruments, mastered them overnight,  and would have then gone on to win a contest of some kind, for in modern America a story is only uplifting if you can crush someone and win a prize. But in Conrack, the kids merely listen; they’re quietly mystified by the music, happy that they can come close to pronouncing the names of Beethoven or Brahms. Conrack even picks up one of the younger boys and cradles him as the music plays, inviting him to close his eyes and sleep.  Somehow, Conrack's good intentions get him labeled as "an outside agitator" and fired from his job. Conrack tries to fight the verdict but is no match for Skeffington’s power as superintendent. His good spirit bloodied but unbowed, Conrack leaves the island. To the children he says, "May the river be kind to you when you cross it."

As one might have expected, reactions to the movie were mixed: syndicated columnist David Sterritt dismissed it as "an audacious attempt at mythmaking."  Indeed there are scenes of Conrack jogging along the beach, his class running along behind him, as if he’s some sort of golden haired pied piper, an image that probably ruffled some feathers in the super cynical ‘70s. The New York Times gave it a mostly positive review, but lamented the film's "glaze of sentimentality that sugars much of the narrative."

Voight said at the time of the film's release that he had some reservations about his own performance. "The guy comes over as sort of self-congratulatory," Voight said in an interview with Roger Ebert.  "The real Pat Conroy has a certain cynical notion of himself; he didn't really think he was so terrific."  Indeed, Voight is a whirlwind in the movie, spouting lines of poetry, pontificating on various subjects, even babbling in Latin, which at times feels like an exercise by the screenwriters determined to show us Conrack's intelligence and individualism. (And do the children have any idea of what Conrack is saying when he goes on these tangents?) 

The movie occasionally feels undeveloped. For instance, Conrack is supposed to be a reformed bigot. Now, somehow, he has become a happy clown.  He even befriends the local drunk and teaches him to read. How did the change in Conrack come about? And is there not a single residual ash of attitude left over from his redneck days?

The husband and wife screenwriting team of Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank adapted Conroy's memoir. The duo was known for such Southern tinged films as Hud and The Reivers, and were Ritt's favorite collaborators. Their interpretation of Conroy's story, though, was picked apart by Conroy himself, who claimed they included things that had never happened. Ritt defended this approach, saying that autobiographies aren't necessarily cinematic, and that some creative tinkering was necessary.  Yet, it was this mixing of the true and fabricated that gave the movie what many critics judged a "shaky" feel. 

Yet, the movie's charms outweigh its flaws.  Voight, enjoying the hot streak that began with Midnight Cowboy and would last the decade, acts up a storm.  It's as if he's Jimmy Stewart stepping out of a Capra film and into a Vittorio De Sica slice of life epic. Cronyn is perfect as the cold-hearted Skeffington, a man who can sweetly pet a rabbit while casually destroying a man's livelihood. The 21 kids in the classroom, locals chosen by Ritt for the movie, provide the quiet heart and soul of the picture.  I can't imagine a more realistic group of children. The film is also intriguing in that it upends practically every cinematic convention: a picture that could be considered family viewing occasionally erupts in vulgar language; the gradual uplift of the story ends on a bum note; there is absolutely not one ounce of romance; and in perhaps the most audacious flaunting of an American storytelling staple, the heroic underdog gets his ass stomped by the bad guys. 

Audiences didn't find the movie immediately. Conrack needed time to develop an appreciative following of viewers who caught it on television over the years. The movie has endured heavy criticism, though, particularly from those put off by what they saw as the image of a benevolent white man bestowing his knowledge on blacks. "I got a lot of flak on Conrack," Ritt said during an AFI interview in the 1980s. "A lot of flak. It pissed me off, frankly." He added that the black community didn't "want to know about white people who are doing good work," but that he wasn't going to change his film to suit someone's political agenda.  Ritt, unrelenting in his defense of Conrack, invited those who didn't like it to make their own movie.    A victim of the McCarthy era communist witch-hunt, Ritt may have seen Conrack’s dismissal from the school as a handy metaphor for the time he was blackballed from Hollywood.

 Conrack remains polarizing. Praise it, and you're accused of being mawkish. Dismiss it, and you're accused of missing out on what is a very warm story, what Ritt saw as “a love story between a white man and 21 black children."

Even the film's ending comes under fire.   The children have gathered at the dock to bid Conrack goodbye. Seeing that they're upset, Conrack starts firing questions at them. Who was the first president? What state do we live in? The children answer in unison. Maybe it's not a great example of education, maybe it's just a sort of dog trick, with the kids responding to certain commands, but Conrack has achieved something.  He has cracked open the minds of these children, perhaps just enough to let some light in.  He continues to fire questions, creating the atmosphere of his schoolroom right there on the creaky old dock.  When a boat's engine can be heard in the distance, we know his time is running out.  When he gets onboard, one of the children reveals the portable record player that was used in the classroom. She has cued up one of the records Conrack would play for them: Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. The bombastic music echoes across the river as Conrack fades away. 

Many have complained about the scene, or scratched their head in puzzlement. But I find it absolutely touching on two levels. The kids know very little about music. They aren't aware of the bombast associated with Beethoven. To them, this recording is just a “song” that Conrack likes, so they play it as a kind of parting gift.  Their innocence is palpable. Yet, there's another level. Earlier in the movie, Conrack explained to the children that Beethoven was thinking about death at the time he wrote his fifth symphony. The opening cords of the piece, Beethoven imagined, was what death would sound like when it came bashing at your door. When the children play this recording, they could well be lamenting another sort of death, the death of their education, the death of the 1960s, the death of Conrack's dream of a new society.  They'd remembered something Conrack had told them about Beethoven and death.  In the midst of poverty and hopelessness, this seemingly unimportant sharing of knowledge feels like a small, glowing victory.  That's why the final moments of Conrack are as moving as anything else that made it into theaters that year.

Or, for that matter, this year.

(The Twilight Time Blu-ray of Conrack was produced as a limited edition of 3,000 units. Extras include a  pamphlet about the movie with an essay by  Julie Kirgo , an audio commentary from film historians Paul Seydor and Nick Redman, an isolated music and effects track, and the original trailer.)

GOING ATTRACTIONS...

I was too claustrophobic to ever hide in the trunk of a car to earn free admission to a drive-in theater, but just about everything  else in Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the American Drive-in Movie, rang true for me.

I'm old enough to have caught the tail end of the drive-in era, and remember being taken by my parents to see various James Bond or Clint Eastwood movies. For some reason, I remember being scared of Clint Eastwood. He seemed sinister.  I remember my mother putting pillows in the back seat of our car so I could sit on them to see over my dad's head. If I got sleepy, the pillows came in handy. I remember my uncle Eddie and his wife taking me to see Burt Reynolds in The Longest Yard, with a badly matched co-feature of Alive, the one about the soccer team stuck in the Andes after a plane crash, surviving by cannibalism. I recall others: The Exorcist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Carrie, and an early '80s horror stinker called The Children. 

I don't recall particular details about the drive-ins, and I couldn't name them if you put a gun to my head.  I only recall them as big, barren places in various Massachusetts suburbs, with broken speakers and lousy food from the snack stand. What I recall more vividly was the cozy feeling of being in a car with people you liked, enjoying a movie, even if the sound was bad. I remember the way certain friends or family members slouched in their seats, or nodded off, or played with the knob of their door handle; this was probably the most relaxed and vulnerable they'd ever be in my presence. 

April Wright's documentary, a feature that came out in 2013 but is now available  VOD, is a feisty, good-natured look at the origins and history of the drive-in, reaching back to the very first one in 1933, which was basically a sheet on a tree, made because the owner's wife was a heavy woman and couldn't fit in a regular theater seat. Through the suburban sprawl, the rise of the teenager, and the rise of porn, drive-ins thrived for about three decades. The demise, due largely to home video services and the rise of shopping malls and multi-screen cineplexes, was evident by the time I started going. The places didn't seem vital, they seemed faded and grungy, probably making more money during the weekend mornings when they doubled as flea markets. At one time, though, there were thousands of them in the country, blossoming along the roadways. Wright does a nice job of capturing the golden era of the drive-in, and to her credit she doesn't get too sentimental about the passing of the time.

Nowadays there are slightly less than 400 drive-ins spread out across the country. I don't know if I'd go to one now. There are none in my area, and I'm not interested in traveling a great distance to see, say, Pirates of the Caribbean or the remake of Robocop. Most of the movies I watch are a bit obscure, and wouldn't be picked up by any drive-in owners. Ironically, I can't imagine a drive-in showing Going Attractions.  

Wright interviews a lot of drive-in owners and historians, and they seem like a nice bunch of people. They were often at the mercy of bad weather and changing attitudes in society, but they don't seem bitter. They were around to witness a small, interesting piece of history, and they contributed, in their way, to a kind of kitschy Americana. 

The movie doesn't mention one of my favorite drive-in related phenomenons, though.  This involved driving along the highway late at night, and unexpectedly seeing a drive-in in the distance. In those days you could see them from the highways, and it was always a weird thrill to see what was playing. You'd be coming back from some dreary family gathering, or a night out, and in the distance you'd see a movie star's head on a 65-foot screen, in glorious color.  I remember one night seeing Richard Burton's head, which looked to be as big as an airplane. We all tried to read his lips to figure out what he was saying to Liz Taylor. There was always a race for those in our car to see who could identify the movie. I don't remember anyone ever naming a title. The car would be moving too quickly, the screen would pass by us in a flash, just long enough for us to see some movie star's head lighting up the night sky.  It was the strangest sort of illumination.  I'd give anything to see Richard Burton's head on a drive-in screen now. Highways are drab now, and so our most of our current movie stars.

LIFE ITSELF...

I'll try to get this one done in 30 minutes, because according to Life Itself, the excellent new documentary by Steve James, Roger Ebert was so fast that he could write a full-blown  review in 30 minutes.  I usually take longer, because you never know, someone might actually read these things, and I want them to seem at least somewhat professional. I also do the bulk of my writing for magazines, so I have more time to dwell on things. But since it's the season to pay tribute to good ol' Roger, I'll pay my tribute by trying to match his 30 minute mile, so to speak.

It's hard to say anything bad about Life Itself, for it's such a labor of love that it's practically covered in heartshaped lip prints. And since Roger was so ill at the end of his life, and gallantly allowed James to film him during some pretty rough times, it would be unseemly to say anything negative. The kicker, though, is that James made a damned nice movie, a touching, funky, elegiac tribute to a man we all think we knew. It's tight as a drum without a single dull moment, and covers all the key aspects of Ebert's life, from his early days as a columnist, to his drinking binges, to his success on the Sneak Previews show, all the way to his final years, confined to a wheelchair with only his blog to express himself.

I read Ebert's blog all the time, but I never corresponded with him, or left a comment. I'm not one of those social media types who feels a great urge to contact famous people. During my own days as a sports writer a decade ago, I acquired a small following. They were generally nice people who wanted to share their thoughts about one thing or another, but the truth is that I was always too busy to deal with them on a personal level. I know they meant well. I appreciated them. I was just too damned busy. If I was busy, Roger Ebert was 10 times busier. On top of that, he was ill. I saw no real point in writing to him. Even if I did, what could I say that he hadn't heard before?

The documentary made me wish for a Siskel and Ebert biopic. Their relationship is given plenty of coverage in Life Itself, and it makes for some of the movie's liveliest moments. I'm not sure who could play Roger Ebert. I'd suggest Sacha Baron Cohen as Gene Siskel. There are some old clips of Siskel wearing a thick mustache, and it's amazing how much he looked like Borat. A Siskel and Ebert biopic would have a lot going for it. There was certainly plenty of tension between them. I think Ebert saw the TV show as his chance to shine, but he hated having to share it with Siskel, and not just because Siskel was from a rival newspaper, but because Siskel was his equal in so many ways. To look across the aisle and see someone who not only knew as much about the movies as he did, but was just as adamant in his opinions, had to be a mind blower. I was glad to know they became very close; the movie shows Siskel's widow reading a section of a letter where Ebert says he was closer to Gene than any man he'd ever known.

I loved Sneak Previews when I was a kid, and I was surprised at how the show has stayed in my memory. The clips that were used in Life Itself were probably 25 or 30 years old, and I felt like I'd just seen them yesterday. Part of this is because Sneak Previews was the only show of its kind at the time, and my brain was not yet polluted with the garbage that prevents me from having a coherent thought these days. I loved the show because it seemed like a cozy place to be, sitting in that little cinema setting.  I watched the show with my mother, who has since died. We watched it on Saturday evenings, I think, and my mother got a kick out of the "dog of the week" segment.  

I don't quite agree with some of the talking heads in Life Itself who say movie criticism is supposed to be about debate, and argument, and passion. I find all of that arguing and shouting to be nothing more than grandstanding. I tend to agree with Siskel when he tells Ebert in an old old clip, "Where's your sense of humor?" I never particularly cared whether Siskel or Ebert liked a movie or not, and I thought the "thumbs up" gimmick was silly, but I loved hearing their thoughts, and I loved reading their columns. I may be in the minority, but I read their stuff for the pleasure of reading, not so I could validate my own opinions. I was glad Bill Nack was featured in the movie. He was a friend of Ebert's, and he's one of my favorite writers. I have aped Bill Nack from time to time. I suppose I ape Ebert, too.

Ultimately, Life Itself is about a man who was born at the right place and the right time, was blessed with the talent and ambition to capitalize on the opportunities that came his way,  learned some valuable life lessons along the way, and was kind enough to share his thoughts with us at the end. There will never be another Roger Ebert, because society has changed. The public isn't quite as passionate about movies now, and the current crop of critics aren't quite as articulate or engaging.  Is that sad? I'm not sure. Martin Scorsese and Werner Herzog are in the movie, sharing their thoughts and admiration for Ebert. It was nice to see them. There won't be directors like them in the future, either. And that IS sad. The real unsung hero of the movie, though, is Chaz Ebert, Roger's loving wife. We should all be so lucky to have someone like her in our lives. 

I'd say more, but my 30 minutes are up.

WITCHING AND BITCHING'... VENUS IN FUR...

Imagine you're in a small village in Spain. You stop at a roadside bar to use the bathroom.  There's no toilet, just a hole in the floor that serves as a drain. You squat over it, but then you start hearing the sounds of a tortured soul wailing in the distance. Is the sound coming from beneath the floor? You whirl around and look into the drain. What do you see but an eyeball staring up at you. It is the stuff of nightmares, and it's just one of the nightmarish scenes in Witching and Bitching, a dazzling new horror-comedy from Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia. 

The story starts as a robbery caper, with Jose (Hugo Silva) and his gang robbing a bank. The gang is disguised as various cultural icons, from Minnie Mouse to Spongebob Squarepants. Even Jose is made up as a silvery Jesus. There's plenty of bloodshed and high speed action as they shoot their way out of the bank, and all seems to be going in the direction of a Tarantinoesque adventure. Jose is a divorced man who had his son for the weekend, so in order to spend time with the boy he brought him along on the heist. There's some comic dialogue as Jose and his cronies argue such topics as married life, and the proper way to deal with children, but the banter ends with the gang trying to elude the cops. A high speed chase brings the robbers into Basque country, where strange woman stand at the roadside lifting their skirts, and the sky is suddenly darkened by bats.

The story then moves into the horror realm, as the gang finds itself stumbling into a coven of cannibal witches. Naturally, the witches need some new bodies for an upcoming ritual. Eva, one of the younger witches (Carolina Bang), creates a problem when she develops feelings for Jose. Will she help him escape? Is the whole thing a dream? And who was that person under the bathroom floor?

The movie is fascinating in that de la Iglesia keeps piling on the unexpected. First we meet a few witches, and they're weird enough in the way the can walk upside down on the ceiling and scuttle out of the room like lizards. They're traditional witchy types, using frogs and bugs to cast their spells. Then, it turns out, witches are everywhere, even working Government jobs. The movie has a heavy fear and dread of women - even the non-witches are portrayed as loud, unpleasant harpies. The gang members are all bitter about their ex-wives, and the movie works as an amusing depiction of the modern male's inability to cope with women, to the point where all females appear to be witches. Or bitches.

The movie slams along with the breathless pace of a greyhound race, stopping only occasionally to catch its breath. The final act is damned near apocalyptic, with de la Iglesia pulling from such diverse sources as the woodcuts of Brueghel, the witches of Goya, scenes of hell from early silent films, and even the glandular monstrosities of Peter Jackson's middle earth. True, at times it seems he's throwing in everything including the kitchen sink, but when one does it with such glee and energy as de la Iglesias, it works.  

Hell, I could go back and watch the opening credits over and over again, a beautiful montage of old movie actresses, and images of witches from classic artworks. I'm not sure what de la Iglesia is trying to say, but I sure love hearing him say it. 

Roman Polanski's Venus in Fur is another film about a man dealing with women, but it's a shrill, often unbearable two-hander that covers the same old fluff about the exchange of power that goes on in a relationship. 

Mathieu Almalric plays Thomas, a stage director trying to cast a play. He needs a woman who can play a manipulative bitch, but none of the actresses seem to have the qualities he needs. Into his empty theater comes Vanda (Emmanuelle Seigner), a seemingly dippy actress who is not at all right for the part. The movie shows her trying to win the role, proving to Thomas that she's indeed the sort of dominating super bitch  that he needs. The audition process starts to take on a disturbing tone as Vanda teases and taunts Thomas, until it seems she's not there to audition, but to penetrate his soul and teach him some life lessons. 

Polanski adapted the play by David Ives  for the screen, and has Almalric wearing a hairstyle that Polanski used to wear in his younger days. At times, Almalric is a dead ringer for Polanski. Almalric is a good actor, and he tries like hell here, but the movie is just to obvious to allow any subtleties. Seignor has some funny moments, but she's the main reason the movie comes off as shrill. It's in French, and there's something about a woman with a high pitched voice screaming in French that can curdle the skin of even a veteran filmgoer. If you can sit through this one, you are truly a stronger person than me. 

Do men secretly dream of submitting to a woman's power? Maybe. Is it an interesting subject for a movie? Maybe. But there has to be a better way to show this than to have one more goofy scene of a woman dragging a man around in a dog collar. 

DAYS OF SOUND AND FURY...

None of the major local papers were on-hand to cover last weekend's eighth annual New England Wrestling Hall of Fame  Fanfest. Maybe the local sports desks were too absorbed by World Cup fever to send a few stringers to mingle with the mat stars of yesterday. This is a shame, since 10 years ago nobody in America even knew  soccer existed, but now it's all the rage, somewhere between Amanda Bynes and Duck Dynasty.

Then again, not only was the press not there, but wrestling fans were also conspicuous in their absence. Joel Gertner, who had once provided comic relief for the mighty ECW organization back in the late 1990s, sat in a corner by himself, looking slightly perplexed, but keeping a smile on his face. A fan asked what he was doing these days. "Stuff like this," Gertner said, pointing at his display table. There were a handful of 8 X 10 photos from his heyday. Pete Doherty,  a preliminary jobber who gave me no end of entertainment back in his days as  "The Duke of Dorchester," sat in another side of the room, much more animated than those around him. I asked him about an old rumor that used to float around the Boston Garden, something about the promoter letting him wrestle only because he owned the ring and stored it nearby. He said the rumor wasn't true, but he didn't mind if we spread it.

"They're gonna build a statue of me at the Garden," the Duke said. "They'll put it right next to the one of Bobby Orr. Don't you think I deserve it?" 

The event takes place at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Warwick, RI in a series of rooms sparsely populated by large, oddly shaped people. Some of the bigger names included Tony Atlas,  Dory Funk, Jr., Scott Hall, Superfly Jimmy Snuka, Scott Steiner,  Nicole Bass, Ox Baker, Harley Race, Demolition, Virgil,  XPac, The Nasty Boys, and even Tugboat, still wearing his sailor's cap. Tony Garea was there, too, his hair still suspiciously perfect. Garea still works as part of the WWE show, as a sort of backstage agent. Vince McMahon Jr must not be paying him much, for Garea still charges 25 bucks for a handshake and an autograph. The price to get in the joint and rub elbows with the greats and ingrates was rumored to be 250 bucks, which might explain why the place wasn't exactly buzzing with activity.

"Baron Mikel Scicluna was the nicest guy in the business," recalls one senior fan, an autograph hound who nuzzles up to the old stars hoping for a freebie. "Did you know he was really from the Isle of Malta?"  The news sounds vaguely familiar, although I'd be happier to learn that Scicluna was an actual baron. And the worst guy?

"Maybe Bob Backlund," says the collector, who once was forced to recite all the presidents of our country before Backlund would give him an autograph.
 
A Q&A session takes place in another room. There are eight people on the panel. There are three people in the audience. One of the panelists takes over the session and starts asking random questions. Who are your favorite wrestlers? The usual names are dropped: Flair, Sammartino, Kowalski, etc. The panelists are soon looking at their watches. They can only reminisce about Killer Kowalski for  so long, although it's obvious they all revered him. Those who want to sound in the know call him by his real name, "Walter," although "Killer" sounds more authentic.

Surveying the main room, looking at Hall, Steiner, and company, one could be looking at a gathering of long distance truckers, or celebrity lumberjacks. Some of them still have the bulky muscles of their heyday, and the tattoos are still there, although age has given them the effect of art works melting in a museum fire. Old wrestlers have always reminded me less of ex-athletes and more of retired strippers. There's a similarity in that they make a living with their bodies, and in order to survive, they develop a sense of humor about their businesses, to the point of being slightly goofy.  Wrestlers age the same way as strippers, too, usually retiring to a warm climate, with an over reliance on tanning beds and hair coloring. They don't age the same as, say, old city workers or politicians.

Larry Zbyszko, looking thinner in retirement, seems to be in good spirits. A middle-aged man approaches him shyly, trying not to be too much of a fan-boy.  "You were my favorite," the man says, shaking his head as if he doesn't know why. Larry  breaks the ice.

"Because I was the biggest asshole?"

Larry was last seen in a major arena more than 15 years ago, but he still wears his hair the way he did in the 1980s.  Most of the wrestlers still wear their hair the way they did in the old days. Larry says something about still working for the WWE, providing voice over introductions for the company's new internet channel. "It's fun," Larry says, "and I don't have to go too far from my home to do it." Of all the people in the room, Larry seems the least like an ex-wrestler. He could be used car salesman,  or a rock star's agent.

Bobby Heenen sits quietly with his wife at a table. Four copies of his autobiography are stacked neatly in front of him. He was once a comedic Fallstaff, a bumbling heel you couldn't help but love. Nowadays his face has been ravaged by cancer, his body damaged by falls. A well-wisher approaches and praises Heenen as the greatest bump taker of them all. The fan asks if Heenen is making any money at the event. Heenen shrugs. Heenen's wife scowls and shakes her head no.

The merchandise isn't moving for Heenen, or anyone else. "I'm glad I didn't bring my books," says Zbyszco, who wrote a memoir a few years ago. "The publisher sells them to me at a discount, but only in bundles of 150. I knew I wasn't selling 150 books today."


Most of the memorabilia available across the room is old fluff from the Hulkamania days: rubber dolls, plastic replicas of title belts; action figures of old wrestlers, magazines and programs with Andre the Giant and Lou Albano on the cover, even VHS tapes (VHS!). The vendors grow so bored that by noon they've wandered away from their tables, leaving the merch unattended. They know nobody wants the stuff. There are very few kids in the place, and today's kids only want games they can play on a computer screen. A Randy Savage figure means nothing to them. Autographs are still hot, though, and some of the die-hards still stand in line to get Dory Funk's signature. Funk looks stately, like Gary Cooper or Henry Fonda, standing tall in his cowboy hat. Fans have a way of acting familiar with their favorite wrestlers. One geezer acts as if he and Funk are old pals. Funk stares at him blankly: "And who are you?"

Some of the wrestlers are in rough shape. Their hands waver as they sign items. Some need help moving around. There are a surprising number of wheelchairs, crutches, and canes.  One female wrestler looks like a science lab experiment gone awry, her gut hanging over her leather belt like one of those grotesque milk-fed pumpkins that take first prize at a county fair. The sheer size of her makes one feel odd, like staring up at a massive waterfall. I feel bad for her, though, because she's seated next to a giant Peavey speaker blasting out some brain-deadening heavy metal.  She sits there, one thick finger in her ear, grimacing through the noise. Now and then a male fan stops to have a picture taken with her. One tries for a kiss.

Greg "The Hammer" Valentine has the look of a man who has just come out of a long, cozy nap. Valentine still wears his hair long, too, but it's no longer platinum. A fellow sitting with him asks, "How long can you stay here before you're totally wiped out?" Valentine shrugs his beefy shoulders, as if he's taken a lot of muscle relaxers to get through the day. He's happy to sign stuff, though, and is amazingly patient with a fan who can't get his camera to work. Later I learn that Valentine's daughter had passed away just weeks earlier, and wonder if this 'meet and greet' was a way to get away from his sorrows for a day.

There's Jimmy Snuka, sitting with a female companion. He once entered the nearby Providence Civic Center to a roar that I still recall as the most electrifying sound I'd ever heard - one could actually walk across the electricity that night as Snuka came out to face Ray Stevens. I've been to many sports events and concerts, including heavyweight championship fights, and a Madison Square Garden crowd of Puerto Rican fans cheering their idol Felix Trinidad, but no crowd matched the sheer emotional spasm of the customers who had paid to see Snuka fight Stevens. Snuka looks good here, surprisingly happy and sober, his face weathered like an old mountain side. He and Zbyszko greet each other in the hotel lobby with a big hug.

There are younger wrestlers around, too. They're from local independent promotions, trying to sell their own photos. The difference between the indy guys and the old pros is obvious. The guys like Valentine,  Atlas, and Garea still look as sturdy as oak trees, their faces hardened by years of travel. The young guys, God bless 'em, look like kids playing dress up.   The older guys look like they're on holiday, cruising through the day, not working too hard. "It's easy money," one of them whispers to me, which would be amusing if he was actually selling anything.

One fellow, a local promoter named Sheldon Goldberg, was telling how the younger men may not achieve major stardom, but are no less dedicated to the business. "They'll drive 100 miles, do their match, make enough money to cover their gas and maybe buy a hamburger, and then drive back home, another 100 miles." He's visibly touched by the yearning these young guys have to simply perform in a ring for 10 minutes. A few feet away from us is a wrestler wearing a cape. He'd actually made it to the big time a decade ago, all the way to Vince's Monday night TV show, but for one reason or another he's back on the independent circuit, his reputation clouded by rumors of steroid use and a drinking problem. He seems fine now. He's networking, telling people to follow him Twitter. 

It doesn't take long for a sense of sheer exhaustion to set in. The place has the feel of a wedding party that has gone on too long, but the guests are too polite to leave. In another room is a table of even older memorabilia than was in the main room, including a wrestling board game that looks sort of fun. A yellow post-it note is stuck to the cover: Pieces missing.  There's an old, autographed photo of Freddie Blassie wearing a sombrero. I think about buying it.

There's another table covered in old wrestler dolls. They're made of a stretchy material, and are heavy enough that you could knock a man out if you struck him in the head with one. I see an old Hulk Hogan doll, his fist raised. I see a Bruno doll, with hair on its chest. I see a John Studd doll. I hear there's a fan in the main room who carries a picture of Big John Studd in his wallet. No big deal, I guess. Bob Costas supposedly carries an old Micky Mantle card around. 

"I have a great story about John Studd," Goldberg tells me. "He was at one of these fan fests many years ago. He had his son with with him. He brought his son to a table like this one. He said, 'See the Hulk Hogan doll? Remember when I fought him? That allowed us to make money, and helped us buy our house. We should always be grateful for what Hulk did for us.' " 

I'm remembering the Hogan-Studd matches, back at the dawn of it all, when the vendor comes along and with one arm sweeps all of the old rubber dolls off the table and into a cardboard box. They lay in there, Hogan and Bruno and Savage and Flair, and a Snuka doll and an Andre doll, too. They looked for all the world like a pile of dead bodies, gladiators perhaps, shipped off after fighting to the death for a bloated and heartless emperor, sent down river where they won't be seen again. 

WHITEY: United States of America v. James J. Bulger...

Like many New Englanders, I was once fascinated by Whitey Bulger. Unlike many New Englanders, I grew tired of him. Mostly, I was tired of the cottage industry that sprang up around his case. It seemed any two-bit Irish hoodlum who knew him could get a book deal, and any reporter from the Globe or Herald could, too. Ditto for the various cops and lawyers who spent time on the Bulger trail. Sure, I read a couple of those books. There was a time in Boston, especially around Saint Patrick's Day, when you couldn't walk into a bookstore without seeing a floor-to-ceiling Whitey book display.   The locals lapped up the Whitey books because they recognized the street names, and they liked saying, 'My sistuh knew a guy who lived near the garage where Whitey strangled that woman." 

There will soon be a deluge of movie projects about Bulger. Everyone from Barry Levinson to Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are interested in the guy and his exploits.  I was glad Joe Berlinger's documentary, Whitey: United States of America V. James J. Bulger, currently in theaters and VOD, would get here first. Berlinger's done fine work in the past, including My Brother's Keeper (1992), the excellent Paradise Lost trilogy for HBO, and an amusing 2004 doc on Metallica that made those heavy metal heroes look like a bunch of spoiled schmucks. Before Matt Damon puts on the bald wig and plays Bulger as a good-hearted twink, I hoped Berlinger could wade into the quagmire and throw some light on Whitey's world.

Berlinger came through for me, more or less.  Berlinger puts his focus on Bulger's 2013 trial, an anti-climactic mess that wasn't exactly spellbinding stuff but resulted in the mysterious death of one witness and the long-awaited sentencing of Whitey. Berlinger's neatest trick is the way he makes us feel we know Whitey's past just by mentioning tidbits here and there. Such skillful laying out of exposition is to be relished.

Whitey, now 83, doesn't appear often in the movie. We only see him a few times, slightly hunchbacked, shuffling around in his orange prison suit. We hear his voice on tape recordings. When he feigns shock at some of the revelations made during the trial, he still sounds like a teenage shoplifter saying he doesn't know how the stuff got in his pocket. Whitey says early in the movie that he's been humanized in recent years by the love of a good woman. Berlinger doesn't bother following that particular story thread, as if he knows it's just another one of Whitey's lies.

I don't think anyone can watch Berlinger's movie and come away thinking that Bulger is anything other than a lowlife killer. Still, Berlinger makes us doubt a lot of what we'd previously thought about the case  - was Whitey really an FBI informant, as we've been told for many years, or did he simply use his money to buy favors from the feds?   There's also doubt cast on Whitey's FBI file, which is a meager 700 pages, much of it being info turned in by other informants ( parts of it actually reproduced to pad out the file). According to one investigator, an actual informant file could be as long as 60,000 pages. Makes ya think, don't it?

The prosecutors, of course, insist Bulger and the FBI's John Connolly were in cahoots; others claim both were fall guys, and that the Justice Department should also be on trial for letting Bulger run rampant in Boston for so many years. To me, everyone looked shady, even the prosecutors, one of whom couldn't stop fidgeting while being interviewed by Berlinger.  As one of the victim's relatives says, "It's a big circle of shit."

The families of Bulger's victims look weary. The people in Bulger's circle look like mental defectives; they seem more upset that Bulger may have been a rat than a killer. One of them, an obese jerk who speaks with an Elmer Fudd accent, actually blames one of the victims for getting shot. "If you want to hang around gangsters," says the ersatz Fudd, "that's what you get."  Oh yeah, this beauty had a book deal, too. 

The movie is a CNN production and at times it feels like a work made for TV. But it's a solid effort. Berlinger doesn't come close to any absolute truths, but it's unfair to ask that of him. The Bulger story is buried underneath so much deceit that not even an experienced craftsman like Berlinger can hit the bottom of it. Still, in an era where we're suffering through a glut of mediocre documentaries, we're always happy to watch a good one. And this is a good one.