Werner Herzog’s new film, Bad Lieutenant, is magnificent, a roaring monster of a movie and his most multiplex-friendly work yet.The Simpsons dvd
Its star, Nicolas Cage, delivers a powerhouse performace as a rogue cop operating way beyond the law in post-Katrina New Orleans, South park dvd while feeding a voracious appetite for crack cocaine and a similarly powerful addiction to gambling.
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This is a film that’s horrifying yet hilarious, appalling yet endearing, and utterly gripping throughout. Warner Bros DVD
What’s going on with that title, which in full is The Bad Lieutenant – Port of Call: New Orleans? Dreamworks animation DVD| Dreamworks animation
Herzog has not remade Abel Ferrara’s coruscating Bad Lieutenant of 1992, which starred Harvey Keitel, baby einstein dvd collection though the two films have a producer in common and Herzog’s film contains a couple of knowing nods to the earlier work. Dawson’s creek dvd box set
So let us turn to the always outspoken Herzog for an explanation. American dad dvd The production notes for the movie include a director’s statement, and it’s hugely entertaining.
“It does not bespeak great wisdom to call the film The [sic] Bad Lieutenant,” says Herzog in his typically disarming manner, Aladdin dvd| Aladdin“and I only agreed to make the film after William (Billy) Finkelstein, the screenwriter, who had seen a film of the same name from the early Nineties, had given me a solemn oath that this was not a remake at all.” (Herzog has to take this on trust because he has never seen Ferrara’s film.) Naruto dvd|Naruto
He then says there was some speculation about establishing “some sort of franchise”, an idea with which he is entirely happy. Dragon Ball Z DVDs
But Werner is certainly not happy with “the pedantic branch of academia, the so-called ‘film studies’, Dragon Ball Z DVD set[which] in its attempt to do damage to cinema, will be ecstatic to find a small reference to that earlier film here and there…”
Which is fair enough, but, oddly, Werner goes on to say that academia has managed to damage poetry, pushing it – “in the name of literary theory” – to the brink of extinction. What this has to do with Bad Lieutenant isn’t clear. Bleach DVD and Bleach
Happily, he believes cinema to be more robust than poetry, adding grumpily: “I call upon the theoreticians of cinema to go after this one. Go for it, losers.” Frasier dvd| Frasier
But why the endless title? “What the producers accepted was my suggestion to make [it] more specific – Port of Call: New Orleans, and now the film’s title combines both elements.” Mickey Mouse DVD
So that’s cleared up that little mystery. Sort of. What it hasn’t cleared up is the fact that, as well as being wearyingly prolix, it’s virtually meaningless… teenage mutant ninja turtles dvd| teenage mutant ninja turtles
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