Buffalo '66.

Review #2341: Buffalo '66.

Cast: 

Vincent Gallo (Billy Brown; John Sansone as young Billy Brown), Christina Ricci (Layla), Ben Gazzara (Jimmy Brown), Mickey Rourke (The Bookie), Rosanna Arquette (Wendy Balsam), Jan-Michael Vincent (Sonny), Anjelica Huston (Jan Brown), John Rummel (Don Shanks), with Kevin Pollak and Alex Karras (TV sportcasters), Kevin Corrigan (Goon/Rocky), and Bob Wahl (Scott Wood) Directed by Vincent Gallo.

Review: 

"I’m really a controlling person. I don’t want somebody else to do the cinematography, I don’t want somebody else to do the poster - I did the poster. I don’t want somebody else to do the trailer - I did the trailer. I don’t want somebody else to do the casting - I did the casting. I don’t want somebody else to produce the movie - I produced the movie. I did the music, I designed the shoes, I controlled everything. Even if you look at the credits where it says costume person - I did the costumes. No one made any decisions on Buffalo 66, no one physically did anything unless it was my concept, my plan, my idea. That felt really good. Am I a filmmaker? No. A control freak and a hustler is what I really am."

Sure, it might be a bit strange to have curiosity for a film mostly because of its title, but it probably isn't as strange as the winding road of Vincent Gallo as a director. Honestly, the reason I became aware of Gallo was, um, his appearance in an ESPN piece about his hometown Buffalo Bills that I stumbled onto a few years ago. Anyway, Gallo was born in Buffalo, New York in 1961 to a family with parents he once described as "dishonest people" (food for thought: his mother, a noted superfan of the Bills is credited as a producer while a song his father Vincent Sr. sung is featured in the movie). He apparently worked for the local mafia in the city at the age of 12 in jacking cars and shoplifting but was eventually convinced to After graduating high school, he ran away to New York City. From there you might bat an eye at his pursuits: hi-fi guitar shop worker, Formula II motorbike racer, painter, model for Calvin Klein and above all else, musician and actor .He acted in a wide variety of shorts and films, ranging from his debut in the "No Wave" film The Way It Is or Eurydice in the Avenues (1985) to a small part in Goodfellas (1990) and lead roles in Palookaville (1995) and Truth or Consequences, N.M. (1997). Gallo has released two films as a director since the release of Buffalo '66 while basically doing whatever he felt like doing, ranging from stoking controversy with his film The Brown Bunny (which premiered in 2003 to furor before an edit was released in 2004) to making a film in Promises Written in Water (2010) that was shown in two festival screenings and has not been available for anyone to see since to go along with occasionally acting such as Tetro (2009) and composing music (to take what he says on his website completely seriously, specifically selling himself to women aside from shilling his music, would be a joke unto itself).

According to Gallo, he wrote the first version of Buffalo '66 in 1989 that dealt with a character trying to win a big part in a film. Of course, the loss of the Bills in Super Bowl XXV in 1991 played a part in the idea to re-think the script. He re-wrote the film with Alison Bagnall, who obtained a co-credit on the screenplay while Gallo claimed she "really was my typist for a couple of weeks" (she has since wrote or directed three films on her own). Monte Hellman had originally set it up for himself to direct, but the apparent desire by the producers to wait for snow (well, the film was shot in Buffalo) to go along with Gallo's desire to shoot it right away (on reversal stock, no less) led to Gallo deciding to do it himself, which was done for roughly $1.5 million in the city of Buffalo (the house Gallo grew up in is the one you see in the film). Whatever one thinks of Gallo (provocateur, hustler, psychopath, genius, take your pick), I will say Buffalo '66 is a curious experience, one that defies you to call it "self-indulgent" (the director-writer-actor-musician Gallo once claimed that he designed most of the film's cinematography rather than Lance Acord, who he said had "no aesthetic point of view"), particularly for a film with basically an emotional hustler for a lead (his look apparently served as the basis for the 2011 video game Catherine, which clearly makes this a weird world indeed). It is a movie for the strange one in all of our hearts: compulsive, foolish, insecure, vulnerable, but most of all: being a creature of nature (whether as part of it or as bystander). In short: sincerity is a long hard road to actually reach, no matter how one calls themselves. It is a disorientating type of movie that rolls along with a nail-line belief in things that would make Blast of Silence (1961) blush in all of its hang-ups (real or imagined) that I can't help but appreciate in its twisted vision. It is the kind of honesty you could only find when coming back home to the old neighborhood, where a sight of the pavement could remind you of nightmares long past, or, for some, nightmares that pervade on anyways.

Ricci (for probably obvious reasons) did not particularly enjoy her time on the film with Gallo, but she does quite well here, managing to balance the tight rope that comes with basically being a puppet or circumstance. Puppet or whatever you call it, there is something about the way she approaches a scene with her mannerisms (call it "the time when Gallo isn't running his mouth") that is endearing in the strangest sense of the word. Consider the photobooth sequence in just looking at these people when it comes to "take photo" mixed with "spanning time". Far from kindred spirits, they just happen to be creatures of varying ideas of what love sounds like (I'm reminded that some people do take what they see on TV and implant that as an expectation). The funny thing is that the supporting presences are each fascinating in selling moments on the timing of a noir. You've got Rourke having two minutes in a chair that is strangely amusing more than just being a bit. Huston (and a wig) and her lunacy practically hits the movie with the commitment level of a 2x4 that goes hand in hand with the slimyness of Gazzara, who in one scene lip synthesis to a song to Ricci (consider that the song was one originally sung by "Vincent Gallo Sr."). Corrigan didn't want to be credited at the time, but his wallowing disposition is immediately effective. The movie builds in curiosity despite all odds that seem against it (murky, strange and building to a climax that could only come from immaturity in motivation) because it just...goes for it all in transgressive energy. What one sees in the scene that ends the film (as compared to the one that starts it) leaves the viewers with the idea that maybe, just maybe, one can exorcise at least one hang-up in their mind. Call it unflattering, call it a strange city movie, call it whatver, but you can't call Buffalo '66 a wasted effort on anyone's time or place, and I'd say that is the ultimate victory possible for the acerbic person responsible for it.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Yes, at last I finally get to this one. Honestly, I had this movie in mind for a number of years if the Buffalo Bills were in striking distance of a Super Bowl. Four years ago [the last January before I started New Directors Month, point in fact], in the leadup to the AFC Championship, I reviewed movies from 1990, 1991, 1992, and 1993 to match, well, Buffalo winning the AFC in those seasons.

Movie Night, and by that, I mean myself, have an affinity for teams like the Bills in wanting to see them (and the city) happy as New York's only pro football team. With that in mind: Go Bills!