If the name D.J. Caruso doesn’t make your film-geek sense tingle the way that, say, Ridley Scott or David Fincher does, at the moment that’s understandable.

But Caruso – a native of nearby Norwalk – seems to be making a strong bid to achieve the same level of recognition and fanboy credibility those guys enjoy, if this week’s big-budget techno-thriller Eagle Eye is any indication. While his filmography to date has mostly consisted of high-profile near-misses (Taking Lives, Two For the Money), Caruso scored big last year with the highly enjoyable Shia LaBeouf-starring thriller Disturbia, which smartly – if shamelessly – cribbed from Hitchcock’s Rear Window and displayed a real flair for slick, crowd-pleasing mainstream moviemaking. By reteaming with that film’s star – as well as its producer, Steven Spielberg – on Eagle Eye, chances are good that Caruso’s got another hit on his hands, even if his latest effort does seem to have a familiar, Enemy of the State-ish ring to it.

Myself, though, I’d have preferred that Caruso put all his newfound clout and obvious talent toward a project as strikingly original as his debut, 2002’s The Salton Sea. A drug-drenched, oddball neo-noir with no shortage of head-spinning twists and bizarro characters up its sleeve, Caruso’s first feature probably never had a chance with the general audience, but it took the kind of risks that – love the movie or hate it – at least kept it firmly out of “been there, done that” territory.

The film takes its name from a salt lake in the California desert, and stars Val Kilmer as a meth-addicted trumpet player who’s descended into a colorfully nightmarish underworld of “tweakers” and drug dealers after his wife (Chandra West) is murdered by two thugs who run a drug lab. Supposedly, he’s immersed himself in meth culture in order to track down her killers, but has instead become a full-blown tweaker himself, going on days-long benders with his loyal but equally messed-up buddy Jimmy the Finn (Peter Sarsgaard), snitching on dealers to a pair of very dirty cops (Anthony LaPaglia and Doug Hutchison), and just generally reveling in his own self-loathing.

Eventually, though, after an opening act that suggests a far less fun version of Trainspotting, Kilmer gets a clue, and the film’s flashback-filled plot gets going, drawing our hero – who’s a bit more complex a character than we’re initially led to believe – into an increasingly complex and deadly investigation that takes several satisfyingly unpredictable left turns along the way.

It’s true, The Salton Sea’s plot isn’t all that dissimilar to two other, better crime films released around the same time: Joe Carnahan’s Narc and Christopher Nolan’s Memento. Where this one makes it mark, however, is in its druggy, surreal atmosphere and a cast of supporting characters as memorably weird and creepy as any you’re likely to see in a movie not directed by David Lynch. Chief among them – and sorry I haven’t mentioned him until now – is an over-the-top villain named Pooh Bear, played with gleefully insane gusto by Vincent D’Onofrio. A desert-dwelling drug kingpin who wears a plastic prosthetic nose over the coke-ravaged face-hole where his natural one used to be, favors creatively disgusting ways (occasionally involving badgers) of punishing those who’ve ripped him off, and harbors a bizarre fascination with the Kennedy assassination, Pooh Bear is easily the weirdest and best thing in the movie, and is by himself worth seeing it for. Thankfully, though, Caruso is savvy enough to not let D’Onofrio entirely steal the show, and the rest of the cast – which includes Adam Goldberg, Deborah Kara Unger Meat Loaf, and Luis Guzman – does a fine job of keeping up with the movie’s unusual rhythms and gritty, grungy worldview. As for Kilmer, he dirties up awfully well for a former Top Gun pretty boy, and although Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’s Gay Perry will always be my favorite of his many roles, this one’s up there, too.

It’s a long way from this movie to the slicker but safer trappings of blockbusters like Disturbia, and you’ve got to admire Caruso’s ability to make the jump from low-budget oddity to Spielberg-produced mega-movie. But, after Eagle Eye makes a mint at the box office, I’d love to see him focus his energies on something as small and wonderfully weird as his first film. He could even keep Shia LeBeouf in the lead role – so long as he makes him wear a fake nose.

This week’s neighbor-from-hell yarn Lakeview Terrace, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Patrick Wilson, looks like your standard Hollywood domestic shocker – or, it would look that way if you didn’t notice that the director was one Neil LaBute.

LaBute, a filmmaker (and playwright) I’ve been following intently since I caught his stunning debut, In the Company of Men, in the early days of DVD, is one of cinema’s foremost chroniclers of men – and often, also women – behaving badly, his characters some of the most manipulative and cynical creatures ever put on screen. What makes them worth getting to know is that LaBute has a Mamet-like gift for brutal, darkly comedic dialogue, and although he’s since branched out into films that take a slightly less poisoned view of humanity, he’s at his best when working knee-deep in nastiness. Hopefully Lakeview Terrace will be able to capture at least a little bit of the edge that made most of his earlier films so great.

Before we get to it, though, here’s a quick look back at some of the films that put LaBute on the map. I’ve had to leave out a few, but for space reasons only – 2002’s romantic drama Possession, LaBute’s biggest departure to date, and 2004’s return-to-form adaptation The Shape of Things are both worth well checking out if you’ve enjoyed any of his other work.

In the Company of Men (1997)
Still possibly LaBute’s masterpiece, this lacerating, pitch-dark indie flick – supposedly made for a paltry $25,000 budget – is the kind of debut that makes you stand up and take notice. Icily satirizing testosterone-fueled corporate culture, the film follows a manipulative, misogynistic white-collar sleazebag (Aaron Eckhart) who coaxes a meek, gullible coworker (Matt Malloy) into playing along with a nasty little ruse he’s cooked up as a way of symbolically getting his revenge on the female gender. The target of their sick, vengeful “game”: an innocent deaf woman (Stacy Edwards) who’s never done anything wrong to either of them.
The film never completely transcends its stagebound origins (LaBute adapted his own play), but it’s a riveting cinematic experience nonetheless – the plot is consistently shocking, the dialogue is razor-sharp, and Eckhart’s performance will chill your bones.
Worth Watching For: Almost everything in it – this one’s pretty perfect.
Unforgettable Bit of Dialogue: “Women. Nice ones, the most frigid of the race, it doesn’t matter in the end. Inside they’re all the same meat and gristle and hatred just simmering.”




Your Friends and Neighbors (1998)
Intentionally one of the least fun, least sexy movies ever made on the subject of sex, Your Friends & Neighbors is an ensemble piece about several well-to-do yet severely unhappy and unstable urbanites and their various (and mostly miserable) hook-ups and break-ups. In the words of the great Roger Ebert, it’s “the kind of date movie that makes you want to go home alone.”
The cast includes Ben Stiller, Catherine Keener, Amy Brenneman, and – of course – Aaron Eckhart.
Worth Watching For: Some of the most skillful injections of humor into otherwise mortifying scenes that I’ve ever seen in a film.
Unforgettable Bit of Dialogue: “The best f--- I ever had? That would be your wife. That was the best f--- I ever had.”


Nurse Betty (2000)
An odd mix of romantic comedy, postmodern gangster movie, and offbeat character study, Nurse Betty was LaBute’s decidedly unconventional attempt to connect with a mainstream audience. Renee Zellweger stars as Betty, a sweet but delusional waitress who witnesses her husband’s drug-related murder and afterward, following her own whacked-out logic, decides to hightail it to Los Angeles to rendezvous with her beloved “ex-fiancé” – who’s actually just a character on a daytime soap opera played by actor Greg Kinnear. Following her are a pair of hitmen, Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock, the elder of which develops a crush on Betty even though they’ve been sent to snuff her out.
Darker and more violent than just about any rom-com you’ve ever seen – people get freakin’ scalped in this movie – yet somehow still endearing and surprisingly touching, Nurse Betty finds LaBute flirting with Hollywood conventions while keeping one foot firmly planted in indie quirkiness.
Worth Watching For: Its head-spinning mix of tones and genres. The genuine chemistry between Freeman and Rock is pretty impressive, too.
Unforgettable Bit of Dialogue: “Know what bugs me the most about these soaps? It’s people with no lives, watching other peoples’ fake lives.”


The Wicker Man (2006)
What to say about this ill-advised remake of a classic British chiller? A box office flop on its release, the film has earned cult-favorite status among fans of the “So Bad It’s Good” genre, and for good reason – it’s one of the most astoundingly wrongheaded pieces of cinema you may ever experience. Nicolas Cage overacts up a storm as a cop investigating a young girl’s disappearance on a Pacific Northwest island populated by creepy pagans, but while the setup is unchanged from the well-remembered 1973 original, this one takes a sharp turn toward silliness early on and plunges ever deeper as it goes along.
Having proven his wit and his talent with so many earlier films, you’ve got to wonder if La Bute wasn’t just having a laugh at the expense of the studio when he was making The Wicker Man – how else to explain the uber-ridiculous fight scenes, the sledgehammer symbolism, the clumsy attempts at shock moments, and, well, everything else on display?
Worth Watching For: The outright zaniness of it all – this movie is so insane, you won’t even bat an eye when Cage starts sucker-punching old ladies and running around in a bear suit (thankfully, you can see most of the really wild stuff on YouTube if you’re not up for watching the whole movie).
Unforgettable Bit of Dialogue: “Howditgetburned???!!!!! Howditgetburned????!!!!!!”