RUNNING TIME: The journey begins!!!

Welcome one and all to the inaugural column of Films You Haven’t Seen. If the mood strikes you, feel free to bust a bottle of fine champagne on the side of your computer’s monitor, for this ship is setting sail!!! Perhaps I’m a wee bit too excited about this, but hey, this is my first “break”. My goal for this little column is that, in the coming years, we will gel as a family with me as the patriarch, sitting at the head of the metaphoric table carving up the juicy turkey that is the world of underground cinema.

Now, as you may have noticed, there is a column dealing with the movie SMOKE already posted. You’re thinking to yourself, “Isn’t that the inaugural column? Doesn’t he know he’s written one already? Is he mad!?!?!?” The answers: No, it isn’t; Yes, I do; and possibly. That column was my audition; my warbled rendering of “Corner of the Sky” for a table of bored directors, as it were. While it’s not a bad column, it’s not my best work, either. I was trying to not be too weird and to actually sound like I knew what I was talking about. Trust me when I say that that will never happen again. Okay, onward to the “meat” of this article. A movie. Hopefully one you haven’t seen (or else what’s the point?). I wanted to start off with a doozy, one that would blow all your minds and make you think, “Man, this turkey don’t spout no jive.” (I’m assuming that my readers all talk like Huggy Bear) The movie I have selected for your edification is the 1998 heist-flick RUNNING TIME, starring the coolest of cool cats, Bruce Campbell, of EVIL DEAD fame. I feel confident when I say that roughly eight people have seen this, director included. At first glance, this film appears to be another bastardization of the Tarantino-bred, guys-with-guns genre. At first glance, this is a movie that you would pass over on your way to renting more familiar fare, like the latest offerings from your Eddie Murphy’s or your Harrison Ford’s. Believe me when I say, friends, that first glances can be very deceiving. This movie is different with a vengeance, not to mention the fact that it’s probably more entertaining than seeing our man Eddie in a variety of wacky costumes.

All movies that are successful have some form of hook to get you interested, no matter how small it might be. The hook might be a kid that sees dead people (like the critical darling THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN) or a cop that must go undercover as a sassy black woman (as in CHINATOWN). RUNNING TIME has what I consider to be the big, bad, granddaddy of all hooks: It’s all shot in one continuous take, a trick not tried since Hitchcock’s ROPE. (Yes, the movie TIMECODE did it too, as did THE BOSTON STRANGLER, but those movies sucked, so they don’t count. My column, my rules.) Where this movie differs from ROPE is that the camera is in near-constant motion; through alleys, in and out of cars, etc, etc. Of course, a modern camera cannot hold ninety minutes of film, so the shots are broken up into six and ten minute takes. This brings up all kinds of continuity problems and plus, one screw up and it’s back to square one. It’s a truly breathtaking feat of directorial prowess that should only be attempted by those skilled in the craft or by those with the patience of a monk. In the all-you-can-eat-buffet of filmmaking, writer-director-producer Josh Becker deserves double heapin’ helpin’s of the praise and glory hot dish, with the option of a free trip to the salad bar of fame and fortune.

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