Dogtown

 

Picture: C+     Sound: B-     Extras: B-     Film: B-

 

 

George Hickenlooper obviously likes Peter Bogdanovich.  After doing his Last Picture Show documentary Picture This, he decided to try to more or less make his version of the film.  The mixed result is Dogtown (1998), which wants to reference Nikolai Gogol’s Inspector General, but also wants to be a personal film.  That is much to juggle and like a Spike Lee film that tries to tell the Black Experience through the New York school of filmmaking, there is interesting clashing that also spells some incohering of the its influence and elements.

 

In an angle reminiscent of Bogdanovich’s disappointing Last Picture Show sequel Texasville, the return of a former townsman sets off the story.  Unlike Bogdanovich’s film, where a bunch of people return for no sensible reason, Philip (Trevor St. John) returns from a failed run at filmmaking.  The townspeople, many of whom hated him his entire life, have no idea what has really happened and receive him with the misimpression that he actually made it.  Instead, he was just lucky to get out of there at all.  The rest are just scraping by.

 

There is some fine acting here from a cast that includes Trevor St. John, Rory Cochrane, Karen Black (as Philip’s mother), Natasha Gregson Wagner, Jon Favreau, Mary Stuart Masterson, Shawnee Smith and Maureen McCormack.  Hickenlooper’s screenplay is loaded with good intent, but the end result is not as strong as it could have been, yet that does not stop the film from having some good moments.

 

The 1.85 X 1 letterboxed image was shot by cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau and it is consistent throughout, but the transfer is not anamorphically enhanced and that holds back how good the film is.  Otherwise, despite some softness, this is watchable.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is good for a film that never got a theatrical release, which is a shame.  However, there are still some Pro Logic type surrounds just the same, and the music by Steve Stevens is a plus.  The writer/guitarist who helped make Billy Idol’s hits possible has also been on a tear as a solo artist. 

 

Extras include a commentary by Hickenlooper, Morgenthau and one of the producers in the background that only lasts about the first hour or so, a trailer (despite no theatrical release), a 10-minutes-lonng behind-the-scenes piece and five deleted scenes.  These scenes should have all stayed in the film and it was a huge mistake to cut them, but Hickenlooper made his choices and the final film is the result of what he wanted.  He also did fine documentaries on Monte Hellman and Hearts of Darkness – A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse, about Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (aka Apocalypse Now Redux).   With this DVD, now you can decide where he went right and wrong in his narrative filmmaking approach here.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo