The Sunday Morning Movie Presents: In The Soup (1992) Run Time: 1H 33M

Welcome gentle readers to another installment of The Sunday Morning Movie. Today we present In The Soup, a wacky movie about filmmaking, love, and mobsters.

Reviews:

Blu-ray Review says:

…the original In the Soup print was accidentally shredded in a repertory theater’s projector. Fans chipped in from around the world to basically rebuild the destroyed sections of the movie, and to restore the whole thing in the process. The results are new 35mm prints; a 4K digital scan that will be immune to wear, tear, and natural aging; and this Blu-ray release from Factory 25’s home video division.

In the Soup looks great here—its unorthodox printing method produced a black-and-white image that feels out-of-time, and makes its dirty New York locales look like places from a film by Rollo’s filmmaking idol, Andrei Tarkovsky. We have to imagine the film looks better on this release than it did for those who caught it on 35mm during the latter-day screenings of that doomed print. It’s a movie that needed to be saved, full of oddball characters and capturing a moment in NYC when the Lower East Side was a crumbling Bohemia for independent artists. It’s also delightful to watch Cassavetes staple Seymour Cassel steal scenes as a charming loose cannon; it’s easy to understand why Buscemi’s increasingly flustered Adolfo can’t help but admire him. The full cast includes appearances by fellow indie mavericks Jim Jarmusch and John Waters, Hollywood stars Jennifer Beals, Sam Rockwell, and Stanley Tucci, and memorable cameos by Elizabeth Bracco and Michael J. Anderson.

PopCult says:

In the Soup vibrates with the energy of 90s indie films. I started watching them near the end of that decade, and there’s something quaint about the low budget being evident on the screen. Despite lacking the funds of a Hollywood flick, Alexandre Rockwell makes smart directing choices to create a texture & atmosphere that makes the world of In the Soup feel unique. The film was actually shot in color, but when Rockwell made the theatrical prints, he had them done in a high contrast black and white palette reminiscent of the French New Wave pictures. There are apparently color prints for foreign distribution and home video releases, but I cannot imagine this film in anything but black and white. Color would totally change the entire feel of the picture.

This was a fun little film. I’m not normally disposed towards quirky humor but I have to admit that I enjoyed this one. Cassel is brilliant, his character is the kind of guy you both fear and wish to have in your life. Buscemi makes a great starving artist, he definitely looks the part with his gaunt face and heavy eyes. The decision to use black and white was right on target, it lends a gravitas to the movie that color would have missed.

Director: Alexandre Rockwell

Notable Actors: Steve Buscemi, Jennifer Beals, Seymor Cassel, John Waters, Sam Rockwell, Stanley Tucci, Elizabeth Bracco, Michael J. Anderson

Plot:

Adolpho (Buscemi) is a down and out wanna be filmmaker living in a dump in lower Manhattan. He eats slop and fends off his bully landlords when they come looking for the reliably late rent. Mom ends up paying for it more often than not.

He has other problems. He has fallen in love with his neighbor Angelica (Beals) who barely acknowledges his existence when they pass in the hallway. He has written a terrible movie script that seems unlikely to ever get made. He agrees to appear nude on a public access television show for 100$ and gets only 40$. Desperate for money, he puts the script up for sale.

Someone wants the thing. Joe (Cassel) answers the ad and the two meet. Joe is in love with the idea of making a movie. He gives Adolpho a thousand dollars towards the film and promises to raise 250G$ in total. This is where things get wacky.

Joe is a mobster. He lives on the edge but he has a heart of gold, one minute stealing a Porche in broad daylight and the next visiting Adolpho’s elderly mother in the middle of the night to raise her spirits. He is a wild card and a free spirit and he has decided to take Adolpho along for the ride.

Adolpho enjoys the ride but has some reservations. It’s a mixed bag. There is money being made but it’s from drug deals. The movie seems to be further and further from actually being shot but Adolpho, at Joe’s urging, has begun to date Angelica. Adolpho is left spinning, unsure whether to get off the ride or see it to it’s end.

In conclusion, the movie never gets made but Adolpho has been transformed. There is sadness: Joe, after admonishing Adolpho to make a movie, dies from an unintentional gun shot wound. Adolpho finishes the tale by asserting that he will make a movie, a love story, and he will dedicate it to Joe.