Miller's Crossing - "Jesus, Tom!"

My favorite films of all time all share one quality: they can be studied deeply and have numerous theories applied to them, or you can shut your brain off and just enjoy the world of the film. And both styles of viewing are equally enjoyable. Miller’s Crossing is one of those films, making it one of my favorite Coen Brothers movies, possibly my overall favorite (I’ll post my ranking once I get to the end of their filmography in a few months). Most of the films in the Coen filmography can be viewed this way, but what sets Miller’s Crossing apart is that it almost dares you to analyze it.

“Jesus, Tom!”

The phrase “Jesus, Tom” is said eight times in the film (seven, if you’re watching the Criterion cut), along with a single utterance each for “Tom, Jesus,” and “Christ, Tom” along with countless variations of “Jesus” as an exclamation. It happens too many times to be ignored. Much like the focus on hats, it begs you to find meaning, even if the Coens don’t necessarily mean anything by it. 

For the record, I don’t buy their bullshit in interviews when they claim most of their potentially symbolic elements are just random. But I also don’t like filmmakers flat out telling audiences what things mean, so good for them. There’s probably a more solid theory to be worked out with the hats along the lines of them representing order and control. But the hat stuff never interested me that much. Tom as Jesus on the other hand…

Like most theories applied to Coen films, this isn’t clear cut or perfect by any means. This is not a one to one story of Christ. But the dialogue and Tom’s sacrifice for Leo make it worth thinking about. 

I don’t find Tom all that Christ-like beyond taking on other people’s problems and “saving” them. Instead, I like to think of Tom as Jesus if Jesus Christ was kind of a dick who didn’t give a shit. Tom is a bit of a drunken smartass asshole throughout the film, but you still root for him because he still seems better than those around him. It’s as if this world operates on a set course and only Tom’s actions can alter that course.

Tom is a selfless person, but not in a holy way. He’s self-destructive with his drinking and gambling, and though others offer to save him throughout the film, he insists on taking care of things himself, even if it means taking a beating or even dying. 

So when Leo sets a course for destruction by protecting Bernie, Tom realizes he must ruin his relationship with Leo (and Verna) to save Leo. But he doesn’t do this in a kind savior way. He’s a dick about it, because it’s annoying to him. He knows there are beatings in the future, all because Leo fell in love.

When Leo pronounced his love for Verna, Tom knew he could not salvage his friendship. First off, he’s in a relationship of his own with Verna, which is bad enough. But he also wants Leo to be happy more than he wants happiness for himself. 

You would think committing adultery would be enough to discredit a Jesus theory, but Tom is also a murderer. Killing Bernie might appear to be a cold-blooded moment of revenge for Tom, and it most likely is to a degree, but it’s also what saves Leo and Verna’s relationship. Tom knows there’s no going back to Verna after killing her brother. She’s now free to return to Leo, who Tom knew would always take her back because he’s a sap.  

Between all the supposed or real double crosses and the affair and the murder, Tom has created an untenable situation. By the time the smoke clears, his actions have led to Leo being back on top with no real threats, but he can’t be a part of it. Like Jesus, now that his mission of salvation is complete, it’s time to move on.

Obviously, it’s easy to poke holes in this theory, but it’s fun to think about it when you’ve watched a movie a dozen times and want to add new meaning to it. I still prefer to let the music of the dialogue of Miller’s Crossing wash over me (it’s really hard not to ask people “What’s the rumpus?” after watching this) rather than do the homework of counting how many times a character says “Jesus.” And the Coens would probably utterly dismiss any comparison between Jesus and Tom. But they know what they’re doing when they put that phrase in the script so many times. It’s there for humor (especially when they have Steve Buscemi say it), but they also like laying little theory traps in their movies for dorks like me, and I’ll gladly take the bait from time to time. And other times, I’ll just “let it drift.” With the Coens, both options are great.

Random Thoughts / Favorite Quotes

It is absolutely insane that Jon Polito was 38 when they filmed this. I would've guessed 50 at the youngest. In fact, Gabriel Byrne was born six months earlier than Polito, yet Polito calls him “kid” multiple times. He’s an all time young old dude.

“Youse fancy pants, all of youse.”

“Friends is a mental state.”

J. E. Freeman is giving an all-time sneering performance in this.

I always liked the Vinny Vedecci skits on SNL in which Bill Hader as Vedecci would interview celebrities for his Italian talk show but the guests don’t speak Italian. Every skit would include a moment when Vedecci’s son, played by Bobby Moynihan would interrupt, dressed in an old-timey sailor outfit. He asks a question and the guest’s response makes him cry, and Vedecci has to calm him down with cigarettes and wine. It’s random as shit, unless you’ve seen Miller’s Crossing. Johnny Caspar’s son first appears in a sailor outfit, and later in the film Caspar hits him, causing him to have a crying fit (though he doesn’t give him a cigarette or wine). Hader, a known cinephile, clearly decided to pay homage to Caspar’s son in the Vedecci skit. He’s never acknowledged it in any interview that I could find, though Moynihan’s Wikipedia page states that the character is based on Caspar’s son, but there isn’t a citation for this. Either way, I think it’s pretty clear that this is the source of the SNL character. It’s just one of those great, random things Hader injected into his comedy.

Mike Starr really looks like his feelings are hurt after Tom hits him with the chair. His “Jesus, Tom,” is the best in the film, and it’s crazy that the Coens cut it out of the Criterion version of the film. I’m fine, I guess, with them “tightening things up” or whatever with these releases, but cutting that line baffles me.

“You got a lip on you. That’s all right. I don’t generally care for it. But that’s all right.”

“I forgive you.”

“I didn’t ask for that, and I don’t want it.”

This film presents the violence of gangster films so commonplace that it’s comedic. First, characters just treat it as part of the life, as evidenced by Tom and O’Doyle’s reaction to gunfire erupting during the raid on Caspar’s club. They don’t duck and cover; they just shrug it off as the typical bullshit you deal with in this world. 

Then there’s the attempted hit on Leo, in which he’s granted infinite ammo when he retaliates. If the amount of ammo wasn’t a clear indicator of the humor, then the way the goon dies in the window should solidify it as he goes all herky-jerky and shoots a complete circle around himself (including his own toes). And there’s the Sam Raimi cameo with the twitching body and the ridiculous firepower in that scene which rivals something out of a Naked Gun movie. 

The treatment of violence in Miller’s Crossing as both brutal and comic is one of the many reasons why I love it. The Coens have this rare ability to ride this line between sincere gangster noir and a parody of it. It’s a bit of having your cake and eating it, too, but why the fuck shouldn’t you eat cake if you have it? That saying is stupid as shit, as is the criticism it implies.

End of Days - Y2K and Satan

No real reason to write about End of Days. I guess it’s because I watched the Netflix documentary on Arnold the other day, and this is also on Netflix. I also wanted to see if I thought this sucked as much as I did when I saw it in the theater. So here are my thoughts on End of Days, a true time capsule of a movie.

You Don’t Have to Like Everything

Growing up loving movies, I used to lie to myself and think that everything I saw in the theater was good. It was just too disappointing to my young brain to imagine that I made a special trip to the theater to see a shitty movie. Two movies finally broke me of this: Mission: Impossible 2 and End of Days. End of Days came out first, so I think it laid the groundwork for me to be disappointed with M:I 2. 

End of Days came out when I was fifteen, and I was slowly becoming more critical about movies. Before this, I just loved everything that I chose to watch. For example, I even thought I liked Arnold’s previous movie, Batman and Robin. I was too blind to see just how bad things had become for one of my favorite action stars. Aside from “liking” Batman and Robin, I simply skipped the movies I subconsciously knew I wouldn’t like, such as Junior, Eraser, and Jingle All the Way. As far as I was concerned, Arnold went from True Lies to Mr. Freeze. 

By the time End of Days came out, though, I knew something was wrong. A couple years had passed since Batman and Robin came out, and I started to understand that that movie actually sucked. So I knew End of Days was a comeback of sorts for Arnold. I found out years later that it was a legitimate comeback as it was his first movie after having heart surgery. Either way, this R-rated movie about Satan and the end of the world looked cool as shit compared to the childish shit Arnold had been making throughout the late ‘90s.

It finally comes out, and it’s okay. Arnold seems fine, but this isn’t his type of movie. I knew something was wrong when I liked Gabriel Byrne more than Arnold in it (to be fair, Byrne’s role is much more fun than Arnold’s). The dark aesthetic and apocalyptic story was just too late at that point. The movie was clearly ripping off Se7en and The Devil’s Advocate. End of Days had the look and mood of those films, but none of the energy or freshness. 

End of Days didn’t end Arnold’s career or anything (politics did that soon after), but it marked the end of an era for me. I finally admitted that my favorite actors could make some mediocre shit. This seems obvious now, but for a teenager who loved movies more than anything it was a real fucking bummer. Because of that, I initially reacted very negatively to this movie. Now that the original disappointment had worn off, I wondered if this movie was really all that bad.

Yeah, it is bad. I don’t hate it, but this isn’t something I plan on ever watching again. It’s too dark, literally and figuratively, and I want some fun with my Arnold movies. There’s no fun to be had here, even with Kevin Pollak being a smartass throughout. I appreciate the grimy production value of the movie, but overall it just takes itself way too seriously and makes very little sense when you try to understand the entire plot.

But the passage of time has improved my opinion of End of Days in one way: nostalgia. But not for Arnold; for Y2K.

Y2K

The Y2K scare was a real fear for me at the time. I wasn’t concerned with the computer glitch issue as much as I was afraid the world was going to end. It seems stupid now, but back then I worried about the world ending way more than I should have. It didn’t help that movies like this existed to remind me about it.

Now Y2K is a joke, and rightfully so. And that makes this movie unintentionally funny at times. A big point of the plot is the fact that the millennium is ending. And according to the Bible (in this movie, at least) that means Satan is going to walk the Earth, try to bang a lady, and then the world will end. 

My Y2K fear didn’t involve Satan fucking anyone. I just thought earthquakes and whatnot would end all life. Still, it’s funny to see the general Y2K fear front and center in a movie. Movies date themselves all the time with technology and style and whatnot, but it’s a bit rare for a non-period piece movie to be so concerned with the year it takes place. Not only is the central plot of the movie about the millennium ending, but it’s also in the background throughout the movie, on posters and being discussed on the radio. 

Another movie from this time period involved Y2K: Office Space. But in that movie, it was just part of the main character’s job, and it was so boring that he stopped himself from explaining it to another character because it didn’t matter. And that’s how Y2K really played out. Some programmers had to work on some software, and then nothing happened. Because of that, Office Space doesn’t really take me back to that time period. But End of Days does. 

The focus on Y2K was the most enjoyable aspect of my rewatch. End of Days may have been a disappointment at the time, and it marked the end of an era in my movie watching. But now it reminds me of a specific fear that gripped me for a short time in a way that no other movie can. And it’s also a reminder of how fucking it stupid it was to have been afraid of a year. So End of Days will always have that, and that’s about it.

Random Thoughts / Favorite Quotes

I imagine the pitch for this movie went something like this: “It's like Se7en meets Devil's Advocate meets Rosemary's Baby, but it's the apocalypse, and with Arnold and Kevin Pollak instead of Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman.”

This came out during the era in which all horror and horror-adjacent movies had to have an edgy soundtrack. Korn, Rob Zombie, Eminem, Creed, Guns N’ Roses, Powerman 5000, and Limp Bizkit are all on this soundtrack. Even though a few of the songs are credited at the end, I can’t recall hearing anything from the soundtrack during the actual film. Although, the Guns N’ Roses song does play during the credits. 

I feel a little ashamed, but I actually like the Guns N’ Roses song from this.

What horrible parents allowed their baby to have fake snake blood fed to it by Udo Kier?

Also, how did that nurse know that was the right baby? I really don’t understand how the Satanist group operates in this movie.

And was Udo Kier just camping out down there with snakes? And for how long?

I swear the stupid blender concoction Arnold makes at the beginning is nearly the same shit Brian Bosworth feeds his iguana in Stone Cold.

I like how dirty New York is in this movie. Grimy, shitty New York is my favorite.

Gabriel Byrne is crazy horny in this.

Forgot about the scene with Satan's explosive piss. Wild.

“Why don't you just stop with all this church talk and tell us what the hell is going on?”

Cool to see Hector Salamanca as the Pope.

Udo Kier’s death was so sudden and funny. That dude devoted his life to Satan, and Satan finally shows up, fucks and body morphs his wife and daughter (but that was in another character’s dream or something; still not sure what the fuck was happening there), then punches a hole in his head just for delivering some slightly bad news. 

Sven-Ole Thorsen is one of the dudes who kills Arnold's family. 

Arnold, after shooting Kevin Pollak: "Stop being such a pussy!"

A lot of the Darth Schwarzenegger YouTube video lines came from this.

I know he says some bullshit about making him feel real pain or something, but it makes no sense for Satan to keep Arnold alive.

Stan Winston made a practical giant Satan suit for the end, but they replaced it in post with a full CG version. What a waste. The CG isn't awful (for the time), but why not just use the awesome suit you already filmed?

Um…if Arnold just waited five seconds, wouldn't things have still worked out? Did he have to kill himself? I'm cool with the ending; I'm just not sure it had to go down that way. I do remember thinking it was kind of cool that he actually died at the end, which is rare in a non-Terminator role for Arnold.