Buffalo '66 (1998)
Seen on 26 June 1998 with Laura, Michele, and Rob at the Angelika.
The tagline for *Buffalo '66* says, "Billy Brown just got out of jail. Now he's going to serve some real time. He's going home." This is pretty accurate. But along the way he kidnaps Layla (Christina Ricci) along the way to pose as his wife. Billy (Vincent Gallo) has never let his parents know that he was in jail for seven years. He's masqueraded as on-the-go guy with a top secret job, and it's interesting to see why. When we do meet his parents, they are thrilled to meet the total stranger posing as their "daughter-in-law" and completely distant with their son. It's hard to figure out why he wants their approval. His mother (the unbilled Anjelica Houston) is obsessed with the 1966 Super Bowl that the Buffalo Bills lost because she was giving birth to Billy; his father (Ben Gazzara) is a cruel, sadistic jerk who grabs at his new "daughter-in-law" leacherously whenever possible. Well, I guess you only get one set of parents and they are supposed to love you and give you there approval. Unless they're insane. Then you figure out a few things, forgive your parents, and move on.
But not our Billy. He's going to kill the jerk who screwed up the field goal that lost Buffalo the Super Bowl!
What makes *Buffalo '66* interesting and funny is the hyperbolic reactions Billy has toward just about everything. He is clearly a loser going nowhere, yet watching him freak out and talk to himself is very entertaining. There is something unusual in this; it's not quite schadenfreude, but it's not innocent either. It's hard not to feel superior to Billy as we discover how he's clung to little incidents in his life and magnified them in to defining moments. It's also not hard to feel sorry for him when you see what his parents are like.
What is completely mysterious is why Layla is not trying to get away from Billy as fast as she can. We don't get to know too much about her or her motivation, or lack thereof. Her character is there to make Billy more human with an open heart and devotion. But why is she doing it?
We also meet some bit players in Billy's psychodramas and loser stories: Mickey Rourke as a malevolent bookie (no relation): Kevin Corrigan as Goon, his nitwit prison friend; Jan-Michael Vincent as Sonny, who runs the bowling alley--the only place he is a somebody; and Rosanna Arquette, who's hilarious as the "love of Billy's life."
Vincent Gallo, who is famous for something, what I am not sure, directed, wrote and starred in this movie, where he is basically working out his own family issues. He also wrote some forgettable original music for the film. He was even outside the Angelika the night we went to see the movie. He's everywhere you are, whether you like it or not. Gallo was recently reported to have berated and threaten critics who panned the film as less than stunning; he's gone off about critics only like movies with gay characters. In a completely self-aggrandizing moment, he is cruised in the bathroom by a man who, as Gallo scripted it, cannot take his eyes off Billy's member because "it's so big." He promptly calls him a faggot and assaults him.
Meanwhile Gallo is also quoted as saying he's slept with men and hustled.
So, go see *Buffalo '66*. You'll enjoy it. Just don't get caught one-on-one with Gallo in a men's room or pan his movie. You might regret it.
More movie reviews by Seth Bookey, with graphics, can be found at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2679/kino.html
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