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Directors: Peter Hewitt, Keith Gordon, Kathryn Bigelow and Phil Joanou
Screenplay: Bruce Wagner
Based on the comic strip by Bruce
Wagner
Cast: James Belushi as Harry
Wyckoff, Dana Delany as Grace Wyckoff, Ben Savage as Coty Wyckoff, Robert
Loggia as Senator Tony Kreutzer, Angie Dickinson as Josie Ito, David Warner as
Eli Levitt, Kim Cattrall as Paige Katz, Ernie Hudson as Tommy Laszlo, Nick
Mancuso as Tully Woiwode, Bebe Neuwirth as Tabba Schwartzkopf, Aaron Michael
Metchik as Peter Katz, Brad Dourif as Chickie Levitt
Synopsis: In 2007, patent attorney Harry Wyckoff (James Belushi) finds a new career path
under senator Tony Kreutzer (Robert
Loggia), found of the religion Synthiotics and founder of the Wild Palms group,
who are developing both virtual reality television and mimizine, a synthetic
drug with allows one to interact with the holograms. Wyckoff's life however
becomes a complex spiral not soon after. Caught between the war between The
Fathers and The Friends. Discovering that his son Coty (Ben Savage) may not be his own. That Kreutzer is a corrupt wannabe demigod,
and his wife Grace (Dana Delany) is suffering
from her connections to the Wild Palms group, not least because her mother Josie
Ito (Angie Dickinson) is a vindictive,
violent person and Kreutzer's sister. And that an old flame Paige Katz (Kim Cattrall), connected to Kreutzer,
has re-entered his life and stoked a flame that is eating away at both of them.
Beginning with the first scene - a
dream sequence with the older brother of Jim Belushi, James, enters his suburban
kitchen only to find a rhinoceros there - one is immediately primed for one of
the strangest mini-series made for American television. (Fittingly, the second
to last episode screened on May 18th 1993, which would've been my fourth
birthday, thus another bizarre project which orbits my life among very curious
films). Riding the zeitgeist wave Twin
Peaks (1990-1991) created, broadcast on the same station ABC and co-produced by Oliver Stone, the result's a peculiar
beast. One where Stone's cameo as himself, being interviewed about secret JFK
conspiracy documents proving his theories, is the thing that barely bats an
eyelid about what is going on throughout the narrative . That a phone line was
set up to explain plot points per episode is a sign of where Wild Palms goes.
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The plot of Wild Palms is not that difficult when set out. But there are so many plot points to juggle, alongside the tone the series took, which brings things to a heightened head. The perils of virtual reality. Child kidnapping. The conflict between the fascist Fathers and the heroic Friends who are nonetheless capable of shady tactics to win. Wild Palms has a lot of ambition, struggling at times to tell it. Significantly this is piece of nineties paranoia of the future. It's an area of cinema and television which can be silly - as Wild Palms exists in an alternative 2007 between realities as a time capsule. But it's also touching upon still relevant topics, a fitting landmark among others of peoples' fears at the time. Using the growing craze in VR, back then it was still disconnected from the reality of basic effects and having to wear one of Daft Punk's helmets, it however touches upon pertinent ideas of reality and our growing addictions to fantasies even into the modern day. Whilst we're not yet at holograms, that we are with both virtual reality again and the dangers of technology like the internet blinding us with artificial simulacra, it still stands strong.
However I will also confess that
my love for Wild Palms is for its
flawed but distinct weirdness. The cast certainly helps, certain performances
an acquired taste and yet appropriate for what turned into a melodrama in sci-fi
dystopia costume. For James Belushi, it's
the least expected role he could have as he is known for comedies and family
films (until, in a nice piece of synchronicity, being cast in the 2017 series
of Twin Peaks). As our cipher into
this world, an everyman who realise his life is more entrenched in conspiracy
than believes, he's the actor playing the most muted role which means he's easy
to dismiss, but someone appreciated by me nonetheless. Especially as he's the
sane cog in the midst of everyone else, with only the sadness of Dana Delany as his wife, in her tragic
plot trajectory, a grounded emotional current.
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Robert Loggia, who described his role as Tony Kreutzer in the context of ancient Greek plays when interviewed about the miniseries, chews scenery appropriate for a character who has had people killed and also starts randomly bursting into song in the final episodes, as if an acid flashback to his Al Johnson impersonation in The Ninth Configuration (1980), obsessed with a McGuffin known as the Go Chip which will give him digital immortality. Angie Dickinson, from the likes of Dressed to Kill (1980), however manages to outdo even Loggia as his sister Josie, channelling both Bettie Davis and Joan Crawford from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) with her pronounced makeup and heightened performance; appropriate for a character with an obsession with kidnapping her former husband and Friends leader Eli Levitt (David Warner), and gouging peoples' eyes out. Among these figures also includes Coty Wyckoff (Ben Savage), Harry's son who is both a new TV star and a child sociopath, Ernie Hudson from the Ghostbusters films as a Friends member who becomes addicted to mimizine and can hear church bells as a result, and even Brad Dourif in a small role. Another smaller role by director Kathryn Bigelow, who also directed one of the episodes, has additional pertinence as this feels like a dry run for Strange Days (1995), her dystopian sci-fi epic which also deals with the dangers of technology through artificial memories.
The script itself is clogged with
countless references to keep up with, original author of the comic strip and series
creator Bruce Wagner actually having
to tone down his original version of Wild
Palms for television but still creating a dense narrative. When a glib
reference here is calling a cafe in the background "Eros plus
Massacre", a tip to the hat to a three and a half hour Japanese
experimental film by Yoshishige Yoshida,
we're in different territory to most television at the time. Then it proceeds
to juggle spirituality, references to anything from films to Walt Whitman, and Wagner's own quirks like his obsession, spoken by the characters,
of rhinos being fallen unicorns. I could absorb this plot, but I know I missed
details, and am aware alongside its melodramatic, heightened tone why a phone
line was put in place to keep viewers up to speed as it zooms along. For
television, it's like Thomas Pynchon's
Gravity's Rainbow at points.
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If there are problems with Wild Palms, it's that its mad ambition is too much for its presentation. It has the length a work like Strange Days could never have but doesn't have the budget. That wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for Wild Palms not following the idiom "show, don't tell", especially when instead it descends into talking for the last episodes. Even if it doesn't have the production of a Hollywood film, it was a major TV production and should've taken more time to elaborate on the plot points. To actually depict them. I admire Wild Palms but I'll confess the final episode squanders dynamic weight with important events, like Loggia's failed attempt with the Go Chip or a revolution against the Fathers and the entire political system, being off-screen or barely shown barring a few extras waving signs. For a series with ambition, even scoring a major skirmish with The Animals' cover of House of the Rising Sun, even having The Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter twice in the score, the final episode feels chintzy to an extreme.
In spite of this, and the
silliness of some of the material, Wild
Palms to me was like catnip. The early nineties aesthetic, coupled with a
Japanese influence is distinct despite the Japanese economy bubble having
already burst by this point, making the paranoia of Japan being an ambitious global
influence out-of-date like it was in films like RoboCop 3 (1993). In lieu of this, I also adore Ryuichi Sakamoto's score. Sakamoto, of Yellow Magic Orchestra and a major film composer, seems at first to
have made an overtly cheesy and dated score just in the opening credits theme,
only for it to fill out with depth that, for this production, is worthy as
cinematic in depiction.
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There is also the general madness on display. In spite of its limitations, Wild Palms is weird in an admirable way. Where swimming pools have secret doors at the bottoms, lairs to the Friends' hideouts. That, as in all dystopian sci-fi of the time, there is a slum district which law enforcement stays out of, a Casablanca of rebels and bootleg holograms. The dichotomy between advanced tech, like virtual reality, against issues like the complete lack of internet, living in a subconscious realm outside of our past or future off the television screen. Something deliriously weird that, even if it came after Twin Peaks' popularity, somehow was bankrolled and exists despite the sense it was never going to succeed even as a miniseries. An instant cult work, not contrived but too weird to live.
Abstract Spectrum: Psychotronic/Weird
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low
Personal Opinion:
Merely a slither of Wild Palms creates many questions
which, even when answered, opens up so many new questions of where they came
from. Even as the TV presentation sabotages its virtues at times, Wild Palms gets by as a bizarre TV
melodrama, a product of its time which thankfully exists.
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