terrywatt375 Reviews

Amityville II: The Possession (1982)

An odd mixture of repulsion and ridiculousness sprinkled with fact

[5/10 · 5 May 2024]

With the box-office success of the first Amityville Horror movie, seemingly a sequel was inevitable. The problem being that the 1979 movie The Amityville Horror (based on the 1977 book) didn't really have much material by way of a 'sequel' to conjure up, since it slowly became apparent after the first Amityville Horror movie that the subjects of that film - the Lutz family - had made up the stories of the house being haunted and the supposedly non-fictional book and movie were a bunch of bunk.

The one truthful aspect of the Amityville Horror book and movie was that a grisly murder spree had taken place there just prior to the Lutzes moving in. In 1974, 24-year-old Ronald DeFeo Junior murdered his parents and his four younger siblings via shooting them with a shotgun while they slept in their beds. During DeFeo's subsequent trial his lawyers proposed several theories for what happened, running the gamut from varying degrees of drug-induced insanity to self-defense. DeFeo himself gave multiple accounts over the decades of his subsequent incarceration as to what happened, claiming at different times that 1) he killed everybody, 2) he had no memory of killing anybody, 3) his eldest sister Dawn helped kill some of the family and 4) 'somebody' else of whom he either couldn't be sure of or couldn't mention who wasn't Dawn helped him. Local lore claimed the house itself was built on the site of an ancient Indian burial ground (a claim that has never been confirmed via ANY type of historical records) which made the property (and, by extension, DeFeo) 'possessed' and that DeFeo and his eldest sister Dawn may have been involved in an incestuous relationship.

Got all that? Whew! Good.

Well, after the Amityville house passed from the Lutzes to different owners - none of whom ever claimed anything by way of supernatural happenings - the producers of Amityville 2 decided to, er...um, 'fictionalize' the DeFeo murders as the basis for the script/screenplay for Amityville 2. Thus, the sequel is a prequel...of sorts.

I guess a bit of context in 2024 is useful as to explaining how the whole Amityville myth got rolling in the late 1970's in the first place, being that back then most people outside of the regional metro New York area had probably only heard of the Amityville house via the book and the 1979 movie. Back then, by and large it was word of mouth in terms of the rumors surrounding the DeFeo case and the Lutz family. Everybody loves a haunted house story, and supposedly this one had some basis in fact. So, into that vacuum of rumor and urban legend came 1982's Amityville II: The Possession.

Being a prequel, the plot loosely concerns itself with the DeFeo family. For screenplay (and, assumedly, legal) purposes, their names are changed to the Montelli family. Most of the Montelli children don't look Italian, but whatever. Amityville 2 throws in a priest called to bless the Montelli house in a throwback to a similar role for Rod Steiger in the first Amityville Horror movie. The Montelli parents physically slap each other around, with the Montelli father in particular being violently physically abusive to the entire family (a claim the real-life Ronald DeFeo Junior made after the murders). The eldest Montelli siblings (named 'Sonny' and 'Patricia') engage in incest after Sonny is possessed by some sort of malevolent spirit which - like the first Amityville movie - originates from the basement of the house. About mid-film, Sonny embarks upon a murderous rampage, shoots the entire family in a rather disturbing sequence, is subsequently arrested and alternates between claiming not to know what happened and while incarcerated intermittently revealing to the priest that he is possessed by a demon. The priest sneaks Sonny out of prison, brings him to the Amityville house, performs a ritual to rid the demon from him and eventually Sonny is cured and returned to prison. The movie ends with the empty house and a FOR SALE sign on the front lawn, presumedly just before the Lutz family bought it.

In factual terms. Amityville II: The Possession is only loosely based on fact. In real life, Ron DeFeo Junior was aimless junkie in his early twenties who was basically supported and overindulged by his parents because they refused to make him accept any meaningful responsibility. In Amityville II, Sonny Montelli is depicted as a decent, Waspy-type with no references of any kind made toward drug addiction. The DeFeo's never had a priest who was meaningfully involved with the family in terms of spiritual counselling vs. Amityville II's priest who actually saw incidents of violent physical domestic abuse, much less heard a confession from the eldest DeFeo daughter claiming she had incestuous relations with her brother. Ronnie DeFeo Junior was taken into police custody within 24 hours after the murders took place, confessed to the crimes while in police custody, remained in custody throughout his subsequent trial and a year after the murders was found guilty of six counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to six sentences of 25 years to life: DeFeo was never sprung from prison via a fictitious priest, taken back to the crime scene and subject to an exorcism. It may seem foolish to go to the lengths I have to explain the reality versus the movie fiction except for the fact that there is apparently no shortage of simpletons out there who blather drivel along the lines of "well, the first Amityville Horror movie was a bunch of bunk, but the second movie was true!" The second movie was 'true' inasmuch as the bare skeleton of the screenplay/script was based on some fact. However, the vast bulk of what ended up onscreen was the product of Ronnie DeFeo's ever-changing story combined with a couple of fraudster parapsychological ghost hunter hoaxers called the Holzers who latched onto the Amityville story immediately after the 1977 book and 1979 movie were commercially successful.

As mentioned, the movie itself is this peculiar blend of uncomfortable moments coupled with laughable attempts at movie horror. Most of the first half of the movie is where most of the disconcerting moments happen, including the violent domestic abuse, incest and the murder sequence. The second half of the movie, unfortunately, goes off the rails into these ridiculousness scenes of Sonny being possessed and the fictitious priest saving his soul that come off as a bunch of half-baked, third-rate leftovers from The Exorcist. ALL of which adds up to an unpleasant and at times disturbing viewing experience with plot holes wide enough to drive a tractor trailer through. There have probably been upwards of a hundred plus films released since 1979 with the word Amityville in the title, yet virtually none of them have dealt truthfully and/or factually with the one incident that verifiably happened there. I suppose for that one would need an accurate true crime documentary.

Saturday the 14th (1981)

Awful in 1981, hasn't gotten better with age

[2/10 · 30 April 2024]

This thing deservedly flopped when it was initially released during a limited US theatrical run in 1981. Deservedly for all sorts of reasons.

Circa 1981 in the United States, the cinematic horror genre had completely moved away from the traditional Dracula/Frankenstein/ Wolfman/Creature from the Black Lagoon template and slasher flicks were all the rage. Which sort of begs the question as to why anyone doing a horror movie spoof in 1981 would be bothering with the traditional horror template mentioned above since the genre itself had changed. I mean, in 1981 to title your horror spoof film Saturday the 14th and NOT make a slasher parody considering the popularity of the Friday the 13th films at the time...comes across as either clueless or an intentionally misleading attempt to bait and switch.

The production itself comes off as a cheap one in terms of the sets, costumes and the like. One reviewer at the time mentioned that Saturday the 14th resembled something made quickly for not much money specifically to be shown on tv, and I can't disagree with any of that.

All of the above had confused me for ages until I recently dug a little deeper and found out the flick was produced by Julie Corman - Roger Corman's wife - for Corman's production company New World Pictures. After finding that out, suddenly it all made sense to me. From the meager cheap feel of the entire production to the misleading nature of the ad campaign and how dashed off the whole biz came across...watching it, it feels like the entire movie took at most a week to make. A horror movie spoof that is neither funny nor scary. It also explains a fairly lengthy section mid-film involving an actress, Kari Michaelsen, who disrobes and takes a bath. The actress was about 19 years old when the film was shot, though she's playing a character who is clearly supposed to be under 18 years old. This makes the lingering camera work featuring her in her panties, then in the tub barely covered by bubbles followed up by her running around barely wrapped up in a towel a bit disturbing: Roger Corman certainly never shied from nudity although as far as I can remember it involved women playing characters who were supposed to be over 18. The bathtub scene here feels like watching an underage girl be exploited: even though the actress was just barely legal and nothing by way of explicit nudity was shown, the implication re: the age her character was supposed to be was both clear and creepy, to be frank about it.

I can't say the cast didn't make an effort, but there was a limit to what they could do considering the weak script, dialogue and jokes. Honestly, I couldn't see anyone rating this thing 5 stars or higher unless they were doing so purely for nostalgic reasons...like, say, they were 10 or 11 years old in 1981, got a kick out of watching the movie back then and rewatching it nowadays gives them a warm retro cuddly feeling. And I can understand that, but that isn't the same as saying in general terms that Saturday the 14th is a good movie, because it isn't.

Alien 3 (1992)

Some bold choices although ultimately a letdown...

[6/10 · 11 April 2024]

For quite some time (ever since I first saw the movie in the theaters all those years ago, actually) I've been on the fence about this third installment in the Alien franchise, my opinion as to if I actually liked the movie sort of teetering and tottering back and forth.

One thing for sure is Alien 3 suffered from a lot of pre-production and post-production problems. This was widely reported on at the time of the initial US theatrical release and is something easily detectable by the viewer while watching the film. It literally feels like it went through the multiple scripts and script revisions that it did, and it wasn't surprising that when the film started shooting there still wasn't a completed script.

I think a larger part of the problem was just sequelitis in general. By the third go-around, the entire concept of the Alien as a monster had really ran its course in terms of being effective. From the single Alien in the first movie to the multiple Aliens (including the gigantic Queen alien) in the first sequel Alien 2, the audience had already viewed the gamut of the monster's various forms. The audience had already seen not just one but two satisfying conclusions regarding the Ripley character escaping doom. Really, there was nowhere left to go with the concept and the franchise, but Alien 2 was highly profitable so a third entry was seemingly inevitable.

I will say that Alien 3 didn't play it safe by manner of playing to presumed audience expectations. Somebody once likened the first Alien movie to a Haunted House ride and the second Alien movie to a roller coaster. The choice to follow-up James Cameron's bombastic, over-the-top Aliens/Alien 2 (make no mistake: Aliens was a fantastic sequel) was to scale everything back. THAT decision left many viewers both surprised and perplexed.

However, that choice by definition also limited the scope of the flick. What the movie was left with was Ripley, this time in the very barren, filthy setting of a male prison camp fighting against a single Alien creature. Unlike the first two Alien movies, where Ripley was a part of an ensemble cast of memorable co-stars/characters that the viewer liked/empathized with, for me there wasn't a single co-star/character in Alien 3 that I either liked or cared about. In point of fact, I had a difficult time at points even distinguishing one male prisoner from the other, which wasn't helpful when the single Alien creature began attacking them: who is this being killed? Another unlikable male prisoner? Why should I care?

At roughly the halfway point of the nearly two-hour movie I had largely lost interest, another aspect that wasn't helpful considering there was still almost another hour to go. As to the ultimate conclusion, Alien 3 opted to go a much darker route than the first two movies...this time there wasn't a sense of relief for the viewer as to how Ripley ended up. Again, I will say that was a bold choice re: not playing it safe. However, the ending - much like the rest of the movie - is dour, glum and a downer.

6 stars, mostly for the set design and the willingness of the production to try something new. One certainly can't say Alien 3 wasn't distinct from the first two movies, or that it was a paint-by-numbers sequel. But of a bummer, though. These days circa 2024 I consider Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986) the only two films in the entire Alien franchise worth watching or remembering. Alien 3 is admittedly a bit better than the rest of what followed but that isn't saying much.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

Not a movie I've ever enjoyed, thus why such a high rating?

[8/10 · 8 April 2024]

I had the misfortune at the age of 12 years old to have bugged my father to take me to see this movie in the theaters when it was released in 1982. Back then, I had seen the original Halloween movie on tv and was scared out of my wits. Hadn't seen Halloween 2 (that one didn't get a tv version release right away) but was desperate to see Halloween 3. My father eventually caved in, took me to see Halloween 3 - probably just so I would shut up about it - and when it was over he said he didn't know what the fuss about all these modern horror movies was over since Halloween 3 wasn't all that bad. I, on the other hand, felt totally gypped. No Michael Myers? Instead, a dumb story about some deadly rubber Halloween masks, robots and a silly jingle played over and over again?

One common lament fans of this entry in the Halloween franchise make is that Halloween III: Season of the Witch gets unfairly maligned because it is unfairly compared to the other Halloween movies that have Michael Myers in them. Well, as you've read, I can tell you from my experience there was a bit of deception going on with this movie regarding the ad campaign leading up to the theatrical release. The tv commercials were very brief and didn't present a clear image as to what the movie was or wasn't about. Many years later, I read that the movie wasn't made available for reviewers back then to see pre-release. Simply put, these things were done in order for Halloween III to make a fast buck at the box office before the word of mouth about not only the movie having no Michael Myers but also being dumb no matter what the title leaked out. Context of the times, when pre-internet one would have to wait usually until at a bare minimum a couple days after a movie was released to the theaters before the reviews were printed in the newspapers.

Anyway, ten or so years go by and one Halloween weekend I happen to catch the flick on a scary movie marathon on cable tv. Ever since then, for the last 3 decades or so I watch it once every couple of years. Mostly because I enjoy watching bad movies, partly because of nostalgia regarding my own experience seeing it as a kid. Yet I still can't quite figure out why, since Halloween III: Season of the Witch was, is and always will be such a frustratingly dumb movie. Frustrating in that you have such a babe like Stacey Nelkin in the movie yet the scenes she was in where there should have been full-on nudity DIDN'T have full-on nudity. Frustrating in that it wasn't scary in the least, and this was true even when I was 12 years old. Dumb because it's just one plot hole after another and one scene after another that even within the logic of the movie causes one to scratch their head and go "huh?"

Silly from start-to-finish, no satisfaction on the horn dog front, no gore, scares or thrills and chills. Yet, if I'm being truthful, Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a far more entertaining watch than the majority of the other films in the Halloween franchise released after the first one in 1978: with the exception of 1981's Halloween 2, 1988's Halloween 4 and 1998's Halloween 7 I find I plain can't watch any of the other flicks in the franchise. For reasons that still prove somewhat elusive but probably fall in general terms under the "so bad it's good" ethos, Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a guilty pleasure I find myself coming back to every couple of years...and finding that incessant Silver Shamrock jingle playing on a loop in my mind for weeks afterwards.

The Rosebud Beach Hotel (1984)

Even my enthusiasm for 80's b-movie junk has limits...

[3/10 · 30 March 2024]

I've watched this movie probably a half-dozen times over the last 40 years or so (yeah, yeah, a waste of my time/life, whatever), yet I'm at a loss as to why...so much for the idea of age equating wisdom.

It may be due to having seen this first late at night via whatever premium cable movie channel it aired on in the mid-1980's when I was a teenaged horndog on the lookout for a little t & a on television. Sort of a wistful nostalgia for a time when seeing women disrobed wasn't readily available anywhere at anytime with the mere click of a button or swipe of a screen.

I should also say I've enjoyed other flicks lead actress Colleen Camp has been in. I always liked Christopher Lee in the Hammer Dracula stuff. Fran Drescher isn't an actress I've ever much liked, although her appearance in this movie was very early in her career thus she wasn't yet amping up her accent and annoying vocal mannerisms.

I think a lot of it has to come down to The Rosebud Beach Hotel just being a film I couldn't make sense of. It wouldn't be inaccurate to define it in the strictest terms as an 80's sexploitation comedy except for the fact that it was neither stimulating nor was it funny. There is a bare-bones plot which I'm fine with in that I never really required the boner comedies I enjoyed in my teen years to have intricate storylines.

I didn't find the amount of characters and subplots (of which there were many) by default to be either confusing or inhibiting. It just all came down to the sight gags and one-liners failing to connect with me. Very dumb jokes on a very juvenile level that failed to amuse me when I was 15 years old back in 1985. Then again, what else does one expect when your movie has Eddie Deezen as the onscreen comic relief? As another reviewer elsewhere mentioned, even the nudity here feels forced and out of nowhere, as if the director or producer or whomever suddenly decided mid-film that it was time to show some boobies. Mind you, I had no objections then (nor do I now) about nudity on film, but nudity on film is one of those things where if it isn't approached with at least some eroticism the result is awkward, as is the case here.

Let's see, what else? The movie was shot on what appears to be a cheap grade of film. Pretty grainy, visually. In addition, the movie barely rounds out at 83 minutes and I'd wager a good 10 minutes of those involve the opening and closing credits that recycle footage shown again during the movie to list the cast and crew over. About the only positive aspect I enjoyed circa 2024 was seeing and hearing Cherie and Marie Currie sing several tunes that certainly screamed mid-80's hair metal pop rock.

Alien: Resurrection (1997)

Only 4 stars may seem a bit harsh...

[4/10 · 24 March 2024]

Only 4 stars may seem a bit harsh. Particularly to diehard Alien fans who enjoy everything and anything Alien-related.

For me, I think part of my 'problem' is that I was around at the beginning when the first films of the franchise were released theatrically. I can remember when the particulars of the Alien concept were new, fresh and exciting. People in space encountering space monsters was hardly a new film concept even when the first Alien film was released. What WAS new was how genuinely innovative and scary the first Alien film was. Unlike its forerunners of the 1950's and 1960's - which were rarely particularly scary, realistic or violent - Alien 1979 was a VERY visceral film. The penetrative nature of the face huggers morphing into the explosive chest bursters which then evolved into the relentlessly vicious and lethal aliens...simply put, Alien 1979 was uniquely in a class of its own. Brutally effective.

The follow-up, Aliens 1986, was to my mind one of the few sequels of any genre or franchise that managed to live up to the original. Alien 3 was an honest albeit uneven attempt at making an interesting sequel. The problem from a creative standpoint was the same problem so many movie sequels run up against (and precious few are able to surmount) in that as with so many other things in life oftentimes the first time is the most exciting time specifically BECAUSE it's new, refreshing and unknown. Thus, while Alien 3 DID undertake said honest effort at creating a movie that in many aspects wasn't a slavish carbon copy of either Alien or Aliens, in the end the Alien core concept of face hugger/chest burster/full-size Alien was something the third movie could neither afford to ignore nor was it something the third movie could really do much by way of innovation with, either. Simply put, the third time wasn't a charm. However, a bold - and seemingly final as far as the Ripley character was concerned - ending for Alien 3 at the very least ensured that the franchise would conclude on memorable terms before it had devolved into a pale carbon copy of those core concepts.

Well, Alien 3 also made $100 million at the box office. Creative concerns never trump financial ones when there is still a dollar to be made. Which brings us to 1997's Alien Resurrection.

Alien Resurrection was the first film in the franchise I was, by and large, just plain bored watching. The cast, even the actors I'd liked in other films, turned in a bunch of mediocre performances portraying characters that I found I had little to no feeling for. As such, I felt little to nothing by way of urgency as to if any of them survived being attacked by the Aliens. The two main characters were a genetic clone and a robot, making identifying with either of them a fruitless endeavor for me as a human viewing the movie. The face hugger attacks elicited a yawning response. The main setting (ostensibly a space-based military research facility which looked basically like the space freighter of the first Alien flick) was overly familiar, as was most everything else in this 4th installment, most of which came across as paint-by-numbers in terms of the plot and script. There was an attempt to evolve the character of Ripley via the clone angle, but Weaver looked as visibly bored onscreen for this 4th go around as I felt watching her.

Honestly, the only film in the franchise after Alien 3 that I've semi-liked is Prometheus. Mostly because at least with Prometheus it wasn't the same old Alien core concept trotted out once again. Sadly, after Prometheus the franchise went right back to the traditional face huggers, chest bursters and the traditional full-size aliens, yet minus any memorable human characters one cares about. Now, here in the spring of 2024, I guess there's another Alien flick to come out this summer which is supposed to take place between the events of 1979's Alien and 1986's Aliens...it's called a 'roots film' instead of a sequel. I think I'll opt not to see that flick and instead stay home and...I dunno, maybe take a nap. Or maybe watch Alien 1979...or Alien 1986. Fortunately, those movies still hold up.

Damien: Omen II (1978)

Off-the-wall in spots, effective in spots, ridiculous in spots

[8/10 · 23 March 2024]

I've enjoyed this flick for decades. As far as sequels go in general, it's not the worst. It IS, however, all over the place in terms of efficacy. It's a feeling I've had since I first saw it all those years ago.

A lot of plot holes and chronological problems. First off, the sequel was released only two years after the first Omen movie. Yet the story has jumped ahead seven years in the narrative. At the end of The Omen, the Damien character seems aware of who he is re: the Antichrist. Yet The Omen II had Damien starting the film seemingly unaware of who he is in this respect.

Like the first flick, Damien: Omen II sees characters who pose a threat to Damien dispatched in a series of bizarre, seemingly unconnected accidents. In the early stages of the film, before Damien is aware of who he is, the deaths are presaged by the appearance of a raven who stares at the victims. That's right, a...raven. Surely a menacing animal symbolic of Satan, right? Although I suppose ravens and crows ARE symbolic of death in literature, so there's that, I suppose. Still, a bit of letdown from, say, the rabid attacking dogs of the first Omen movie.

Also, like the first flick, Damien: Omen II has various adult characters who assist and/or protect Damien. The most confusing of which is a young Lance Henriksen who portrays an instructing officer at young Damien's military academy. Confusing in that despite having seen the movie at least a dozen or so times since the late 1970's I still can't quite figure out why this particular character exists. He seemingly doesn't do anything of note re: helping/assisting Damien. He just sort of stands around, watching. At one point he DOES tell Damien who he actually is, but that's about all, really. And wouldn't Damien have found that out eventually anyway?

I will say with respect to inventive death scenes, Damien: Omen II holds up alongside the original Omen movie well. I'll also say that. Much like The Omen, the sequel is populated for the most part with a solid cast of actors. All of whom play the material straight and serious. Jonathan Scott-Taylor did quite a good job as Damien Thorn. William Holden provided the right amount of age and gravitas for his role. Lee Grant was a delight to watch, even when she was occasionally chewing scenery as it were. Robert Foxworth was probably the weakest in the cast in terms of ability, which sadly showed onscreen regarding scenes with his character as the focal point.

I think a lot of what made Damien: The Omen II fall short from the first Omen movie was just perhaps a bit too much going on, plot-wise. Combined with a lack of focus, or a central focal point. By and large, The Omen 1976 was told from the perspective of the Gregory Peck character, Robert Thorn. There were several scenes told from the perspective of Robert Thorn's wife, as well. The relative sparseness of main characters kept the narrative on track and helped the viewer build a connection with who was onscreen. Damien: The Omen II has upward of a dozen main characters and four primary settings. The net effect of this is a disjointed narrative, bouncing from one location to the next and one group of main characters to the next. There are multiple death scenes involving secondary characters who had either only just been introduced to the film a few scenes before or had a minimal amount of screen time earlier in the movie. All of which makes the character of Damien at times feel like a co-star in the movie that he was ostensibly supposed to be the focus of: Damien disappears offscreen for large chunks of the film. This was fine for the first Omen movie, where Damien was 4 or 5 years old and barely spoke. However, as a speaking teenager in the sequel who discovers he is the Antichrist, one would think Damien would have a bit more to say and a bit more to do. Particularly since, as mentioned, actor Jonathan Scott-Taylor was a very capable child actor. One is often wishing to see more of Damien and less of William Holden, Robert Foxworth and Lew Ayres diddling around inside various boardroom meetings at the Thorn Industries high-rise building in downtown Chicago.

However, regarding general sequelitis, Damien: The Omen II manages to capture enough of what made The Omen 1976 work well to squeak by as an effective sequel. A heck of a lot more effective than the follow-up, Omen III: The Final Conflict.

Parasite (1982)

Has been a guilty pleasure of mine despite being a mediocre movie

[5/10 · 15 March 2024]

In truth, I'm not really sure 'pleasure' would be quite the word to use, either. However, it is a flick I've watched easily a dozen or so times over the last 40 years or so.

In the continuing spirit of full disclosure or truthiness, I can't even rightly say as to why I still watch this flick once every couple of years. Looking back, I suppose I can understand why I watched it when it was first aired on the various premium cable tv movie channels in the early 1980's, in that I was 13 years old and would watch whatever dumb movies were on HBO, Cinemax, Showtime or The Movie Channel. And make no mistake in that Parasite, even by b-movie standards, is a dumb movie.

I wouldn't quite say Parasite was a terrible movie, though. It's certainly not memorably bad in a ''so bad it's good'' way. The urban legend was that once Demi Moore got really famous in the late 1980's/early 1990's she attempted to have the major nationwide home video franchises remove all the copies of this flick from their inventories so nobody would ever see it. Which never made sense to me in that by the time she supposedly had enough clout in the industry to even make such a thing happen Parasite by then wasn't even being shown on cable tv. Nobody remembered the movie. Even beyond that, Demi Moore's part in the movie wasn't anything for her to have been ashamed of or embarrassed by. Her acting was competent enough in that she did the best she could within the limitations of the budget and script. She didn't have to do any nudity or anything. Plus, Parasite 1982 in essence was about the monster and the 3D; nobody cared who starred in it.

Despite my longstanding personal fondness for the movie, though, I really couldn't recommend it to anyone who didn't have a nostalgic fondness for early 80's junky b-movies. I definitely wouldn't recommend it to anyone born in 1990 or later. I've never seen the movie in an actual theater in 3D, but I can certainly say in terms of home viewing Parasite isn't scary or suspenseful in the least. It never was, really. The monster looks like an oversized leech...and that's about it. Looks like the movie was filmed in Death Valley or somewhere in the western US desert country. Lots of dust, dirt, cacti...

Overall, forgettable.

Janis (1974)

A collection of Joplin performance and interview clips

[8/10 · 10 March 2024]

My review description may seem a bit blunt, but it literally describes what this 1974 flick is. It's not a documentary. Nor is it a docudrama. Nor is it a rockumentary. It is just over an hour and a half of Janis Joplin concert footage combined with Joplin interview snippets. And nothing more than that.

Which is fine. Particularly if one just wants to see and hear Joplin perform and periodically talk in an interview setting. Well, that's exactly what you get. Virtually nothing by way of others looking at the camera and saying why they think Janis is so great. Definitely not a nostalgia trip, either: the film was put out four years after Joplin passed away and has nothing by way of filmed interviews conducted after Joplin died. Thus, it's not recollections from people who knew her filmed thirty years or more after the fact.

Not quite ten stars for the reasons others have mentioned as far back as the initial theatrical film critic reviews in late 1974. Some of those reasons being the lack of a chronological approach in reference to the placement of the performance clips in the film. Little to nothing mentioned or referenced re: Joplin's pre-1967 life. No interviews with any of the band members in any of the groups who played with Joplin, nor were there any interviews with family or friends. As one reviewer commented back in 1974, there is no narration or commentary...not even as much of a mention in the movie that Joplin died. Contrast all of that with the 1973 film about Jimi Hendrix, where at least one has some sort of a sense of who Hendrix was offstage before he became famous as well as how his fame affected him.

Overall, though, 1974's Janis: A Film is useful in providing an undiluted look and listen to Joplin the singer and performer. Far as I know, this has never been upgraded to dvd form in the United States.

Jimi Hendrix (1973)

I continue to enjoy it as much for what isn't as for what it is...

[8/10 · 10 March 2024]

Have been watching this movie since the mid-1980's on home video. For quite a long time this and Rainbow Bridge were really the only selections a Hendrix fan could purchase in terms of home viewing until the 1990's when the full-length performances of Monterey Pop, the Isle of Wight, Woodstock and Berkeley were made available.

Unlike the original Rainbow Bridge theatrical release, where Hendrix is a featured performer for 20 or so minutes, the 1973 film Jimi Hendrix focuses entirely on Hendrix. Mostly on Hendrix as a musician and a performer, and mostly on the period of his life between late 1966 to his death in 1970.

Since the film was made within a few years of Hendrix passing, recollections of him are fresh. The interview subjects are a selection of groupies, fellow musicians - some famous, some not - who either played with him or saw him play, roadies, journalists, hangers on and the like. Virtually all of whom personally knew Hendrix and were speaking about their interactions with him from recent memory. There is an equal amount of performance footage as there is interview footage. Hendrix at Monterey in 1967. Hendrix at Woodstock in 1969. Hendrix at Berkeley in 1970. Hendrix at the Isle of Wight in 1970.

All of which amounts to a balanced documentary of what made Hendrix memorable, which was his songwriting/performing. There are some references made via the interviews about the groupie scene and the drug scene, but nothing approaching a tabloid tell-all. No blathering conspiracy babble about Hendrix being murdered as opposed to how he reportedly died. No urban legends about Hendrix taking LSD a million times a day. The focus throughout by and large remains on the music Hendrix made.

My only criticism would be actually wanting more performance footage than was included in the initial theatrical release, rather than the one or two tunes from each of the concerts mentioned above. However, this is small potatoes.

Wavelength (1983)

My personal nostalgic feelings haven't clouded my review.

[6/10 · 9 March 2024]

I recall watching this movie a bunch of times in the 1980's, first on one of the cable movie channels back then (couldn't say now for sure if it was HBO, Cinemax, Showtime or The Movie Channel, but it was one of those) and later on a blank vhs I recorded the movie onto. Hey, whaddaya want from me? I was in my early teens and I thought Wavelength was interesting.

I went on to pretty much forget all about the flick until the early 2000's when I first started buying stuff off of Amazon. Somebody had one of the professionally made vhs tapes manufactured in the early 1990's for home viewing purchase for sale. I remembered having seen the movie a bunch of times nearly twenty years earlier, so I bought a vhs copy. Still have the copy and a working vhs player, which is good I suppose since Wavelength never got a dvd release.

Reading the other reviews posted here over the last twenty years, I'll say for myself I didn't find Wavelength to be a rip-off/clone of either Close Encounters Of The Third Kind or E. T. Nor did I find that John Carpenter's Starman was a particularly egregious rip-off of Wavelength. In terms of the story and plot, Wavelength is overall easily distinguishable from those other more commercially successful films.

I'm also able to overlook a few shots with boom mics in them and the meagerness of Wavelength regarding its limited production budget (reportedly $1.5 mil 1981 USD), especially when contrasted with those of Close Encounters, Starman and E. T. I will say that Wavelength has always had a grainy feel to it visually which I'd guess was probably due to cheap film stock being used. It is something noticeable particularly when watching it on vhs re: scenes that take place either at night or in low light. I would agree with other reviewers that the Tangerine Dream score here is nothing exceptional.

I never had any problem with either Robert Carradine or Cherie Currie as the leads. They both proved competent enough. I think a lot of what limits the amount of stars I'm awarding has to do with plot holes and pacing. Cherie Currie's character is psychically linked to the three aliens via some type of telepathy, yet apparently she is the only person in the sizable city of Los Angeles with its sizable population to have this link? The military installation depicted in the movie as far as the exterior shots went was clearly a run down, abandoned, boarded up and fenced off warehouse of some sort in real life. I can understand from a production aspect why it was convenient to use such a place for exterior location shooting. What doesn't make ANY sense from a plot standpoint is the ease with which Carradine and Currie's characters are able to break into said military installation (and why it would be located smack in the middle of Hollywood in the first place). Or how after Carradine and Currie help the aliens escape nothing happens by way of punishment to their characters re: being detained by the military/government agents. These are but a few of the more notably silly moments and indicate either a lack of care or concern in terms of the screenplay. Lazy writing.

A shame, because Wavelength played it straight....it wasn't some B-movie poking fun at itself. Wavelength didn't approach what it was doing as some sort of Roger Cormanesque farce where those movies are firmly tongue in cheek and therefore a degree of silliness re: plotholes is to be expected. Wavelength was, I believe, legitimately a thoughtful attempt at an engaging sci-fi pic. It makes the shortcomings of the script all the more detrimental to the end result. Worth a watch for free on youtube, but I wouldn't spend more than, say, $20 for either a vhs copy, dvd bootleg or a download.

Bob Marley: One Love (2024)

Not going to overdo it with the hyperbole, but underwhelming

[4/10 · 4 March 2024]

Full disclosure: generally don't care for biopics, particularly when the subject is one where there is ample footage/recordings of the real person. I didn't want to see this movie, and only went because I was with someone who wanted to.

This sentiment has been echoed by other reviewers, but I'll say it again anyway in that there was an excellent documentary about Bob Marley put out in 2012. It used footage of Bob Marley, had the rights to his music, covered most of the subject matter in this movie and had plenty of interviews with the people who actually knew Bob Marley including Marley's bandmates and family members. The documentary was useful in fleshing out the facts behind who Bob Marley was beyond merely being the guy everybody in college circa late-1980's listened to while smoking a bong in their dorm room. The documentary covered Marley's early life, the roots of reggae as a music form and where Marley fit into it and provided some context to the guy most white Americans merely knew as the dreadlocked dude on the cover of Bob Marley's Greatest Hits.

This biopic has nothing to add that the 2012 documentary hadn't already covered (and covered quite a bit better). In point of fact, from what I remember the 2012 documentary didn't treat Marley as if he were some God-like prophet, either, although this biopic does at times. The biopic also provides little to nothing about reggae music as a form and isn't particularly fluid with the timeline. Long stretches of the film depict Marley doing little other than smoking dope and babbling a bunch of Rastafarian platitudes that come across as stoned gibberish. One is never unaware at any point that it is an actor in a dreadlock wig pretending to be Bob Marley.

Bob Marley: One Love (2024) isn't a case of me saying this was the worst biopic ever. It was just a very bland, slow-moving Bob Marley hagiographical dramatic portrayal that didn't make me feel like I knew anything more about the man than I had going into it. It is a direct contrast to that 2012 documentary I have mentioned a few times which certainly DID make me feel like I had learned something more about Bob Marley than I knew before I watched it.

The Morning After (1986)

Unbelievable murder mystery populated by unbelievable characters

[5/10 · 4 March 2024]

There's seemingly a consensus that has recently emerged which is quite different from the overall critical and popular perception of The Morning After when it was first released to theaters in 1986. The initial impression the movie made across the board wasn't positive. These days, you see a lot of reviews saying in retrospect that while the murder mystery aspect of it was flawed at least the acting was superb.

Not so much.

Honestly, even the acting strictly on a technical level wasn't all that much to write home about. Jeff Bridges plays the same laid-back type he has in literally dozens of other movies. The difference being that some of those other movies were well-written and had other things going for them beyond Jeff Bridges being in them. Jane Fonda was clearly making an effort. I like her as an actress. I didn't much like the character she was playing here, though. To be fair, I don't think it was the intent of the movie that Fonda's character was supposed to be particularly likable. Alright, but seeing as Fonda's character is in virtually every scene of the movie it's a bit of a stretch to expect the viewer to like a murder mystery revolving around a character who isn't someone a person would want to spend any time around. Unless the murder mystery itself is engaging, clever, suspenseful, thoughtful with a stunning twist or two.

The plot is ridiculous. There are a limited number of principal characters to being with, thus once suspects are eliminated the whodunnit aspect is easily solvable. It's not so much the whodunnit but the eventual explanation as to howtheydunnit that leaves one literally laughing out loud at how ridiculous the whole biz is. Almost as ridiculous as the ultimate ending.

To be kind, I do think The Morning After was a bit more effective in the mid-1980's before this type of murder mystery movie plot had been run into the ground. I will also reiterate that Jane Fonda did make a sincere effort, so at least she wasn't phoning in her performance. However, looking back at The Morning After from the year 2024, it is also fair to say the movie definitely hasn't proved to be timeless.

Frankie and Johnny (1991)

Lightweight romantic comedy drama with obnoxious lead character

[4/10 · 2 February 2024]

Saw this when it first came to home video decades ago. Hadn't thought much of it at the time which was a surprise in that considering the two lead actors one would have assumed said pairing would have produced a memorable film.

Flash-forward a few decades later, I rewatched Frankie and Johnny to find my feelings about it hadn't improved with age.

Some of my dislike concerns the central casting, specifically Pacino and Pfeiffer. Obviously taste is subjective, yet for me back then as now it never felt to me that either of the leads were suitable for the roles. It wasn't so much a case of ability, as clearly Pacino and Pfeiffer can act, so much as it was a case of both leads simply being a bit too good-looking to play New York City working class schlubs because I could never quite buy into either of them as the characters they were portraying. Pacino looks just as handsome here as he ever did back then and despite a lot of effort undertaken in the makeup and wardrobe department to make her look plain and dowdy...I mean, hey, it's Michelle Pfeiffer.

A larger part of my less than positive feelings toward Frankie and Johnny, however, arise from the situational premises, script and the characters as written: recasting the leads wouldn't have changed the tone. It was a surprise to recently discover noted writer Terrence McNally wrote the screenplay although less of a surprise to find that lightweight sitcom director Garry Marshall directed the movie. That certainly explains the periodic attempts at comedic moments and situational premises which wouldn't have felt out of place in a half-hour tv show but certainly feel forced and at odds with the dramatic aspects.

A lot of other reviewers mention the great onscreen chemistry between Pacino and Pfeiffer, yet I'm not really seeing that spark between their characters nor can I understand why one should expect there would be anything approaching a romance between the two of them. Frankie/Pfeiffer plays a meek, relationship-shy waitress who comes across as chronically depressed, spending more time frowning than smiling. She gives off a consistent vibe of wanting to be left alone. Johnny/Pacino plays an overly-enthusiastic short order cook who becomes smitten by Frankie for reasons the script never adequately explains. The infatuation certainly can't have anything to do with how Frankie interacts with Johnny, since Frankie is basically glum. Yet Johnny becomes instantly convinced that he and Frankie belong together. He keeps asking her out on dates, which she keeps refusing. Johnny is nothing if not persistent, refusing to give up. The persistence is insistently and needily pushy rather than charming, approaching the point mid-film where Frankie caves in and sleeps with Johnny. Afterward, she tells Johnny a relationship between the two of them won't work out and switches shifts at work to avoid Johnny. Johnny switches HIS shifts at work to be with Frankie. Keep in mind this entire time that neither of them know much of anything concerning the other in terms of their respective pasts or who they are as people. Eventually, Johnny's persistence wears Frankie down and it comes off more like Frankie just gave up and submitted herself, sort of akin to somebody being inducted into a cult: Johnny keeps telling Frankie she and he are meant to be together and eventually she agrees because Johnny's behavior has exhausted her ability to resist.

It's all a bunch of silly fluff, and even more egregious since the main characters have some fairly substantive personal issues of their own which are given meager screen time - most of these issues barely mentioned in passing - and replaced by yet another scene of Pacino mooning over Pfeiffer and telling her how they need to be a couple.

I'd say that I was actually more interested in the secondary cast (which includes Hector Elizondo, Nathan Lane and Kate Nelligan) and their characters than the two main leads. Unfortunately but understandably, when you have Pacino and Pfeiffer as the leads they're gonna get the bulk of the screen time, thus the other characters come and go in brief scenes throughout the movie. In place of them, we're overloaded with scene after scene of Johnny trying to romance Frankie, Frankie resisting Johnny, lather-rinse-repeat, lather-rinse-repeat. The dynamic between Frankie and Johnny is set up very early in the film and by the conclusion little has changed re: character development. Frankie is still depressed, Johnny is still pushy and obnoxious and I for one didn't feel any sense either in the beginning or at the end that these two were a couple of wonderful people and it would have been a shame if they didn't end up together.

So, 4 out of 10 stars for Frankie and Johnny. That I could barely remember it from years back prior to rewatching it is telling, in that the movie doesn't have any particular resonance beyond the immediate viewing experience and neither of the main characters are likeable, much less destined to be a timeless cinematic couple.

Falling in Love (1984)

A lot of talent wasted on a pedestrian story

[3/10 · 30 January 2024]

Although the main leads are arguably two of the finest American movie actors to have emerged in the last half century, their pairing in this movie has gone largely unnoticed by fans of cinema. The reason for this is simple: both of them underperform in a romantic drama that is uninteresting in just about every way imaginable. The lack of energy and chemistry isn't confined to just the performances of Streep and DeNiro, though. The secondary cast is also stocked with highly capable actors (Harvey Keitel, Dianne Wiest, Jane Kaczmarek, David Clennon) who are given little to nothing to do and subsequently add little or nothing to the movie.

It's difficult to discern if the acting was low-key by design, although in a way the performances do compliment the by-the-numbers approach the script and screenplay take concerning the characters. Falling In Love depicts two middle-class professionals, Frank and Molly (even the character names are boring), a couple of New York metro area suburbanites going through the motions in their respective marriages, both of whom travel to Manhattan for work via the same commuter train. By chance, they encounter one another, talk, begin to develop a friendship, start meeting up while in the city for lunches, ride the train together to/from work and soon enough find themselves...Falling In Love.

I wondered if a seemingly anachronistic attitude on my part was perhaps creating an unfair bias toward the motivations of the main characters, thus coloring my perceptions of the movie on the whole. The anachronism being that of my own feelings toward marriage. After a half-century or so of seeing divorce rates climb to the point where it often feels like long-term marriages have gone the way of the dinosaur, all too often it appears couples are all too ready to throw in the towel on their marriages at either the first sign of boredom, trouble or for a quick roll in the hay. That selfish pretense for putting a marriage in jeopardy - boredom with a spouse coupled with a desire for excitement leading to infidelity despite the emotional costs to others - fits Frank and Molly to a tee. Neither of them are married to abusive spouses, suffering from economic hardship or particularly struggling with their lives. Thus, we're watching a couple of middle-aged supposed adults - both of whom know what they're doing is wrong - consciously decide to have a fling.

Now, it might have been the case that I could have if not excused Frank and Molly for abdicating their marriage vows and responsibilities at least had some sense of understanding toward their affair if the chemistry between them was palpable. However, I got zero sense of anything approaching a romantic spark between the two of them from either the lines in the script or the way Streep and DeNiro acted and reacted toward one another onscreen. A contrast would be when Streep and DeNiro were opposite each other in The Deer Hunter, where all it took were a few looks to convey powerful romantic feelings. With Falling In Love, the lines they were given were so wooden (and their performances so neutered) that I just plain couldn't buy into these two as a couple beyond the fact that the screenplay required them to be one.

The story, in barest terms, comes off as one of self-absorption. There's nothing complex about the characters regarding their motivations. There's really nothing exceptional going on with the acting. Everything just sort of sits there onscreen, flat and lifeless, focused mostly on Streep and DeNiro's characters to the point where the secondary characters feel like unnecessary non-entities, devoid of personality or color. Little by way of depiction as to what the effects of the affair were on Streep and DeNiro's respective spouses and families re: collateral damage. Which would be fine if the main characters exhibited some depth, emotion or nuance in either what they were saying or doing. Sad to say, only Streep has a few scenes which elicit an emotional reaction that manages to temporarily pierce the overall blandness. It's akin to having, say, two of the world's greatest pianists onstage together and watching them play Chopsticks for an hour and forty minutes.

The monotony extends to the cinematography. Set in New York City, Falling In Love doesn't contain a single memorable shot of the surroundings. It feels like the story could have taken place anywhere, much the same as it feels like the movie could have replaced the entire cast with either lesser or unknown working actors and the end result would have been the same. The movie concludes on a hopeful note for the couple while conveniently sidestepping what the emotional costs paid by the ex-spouses and families of the main characters - the damage the fling caused - were. I guess thinking too much about the lack of regard Frank and Molly ultimately had for the others in their lives would have gotten in the way of the happy ending...happy for Frank and Molly, in any case.

3 out of 10 stars may seem a bit harsh, but honestly Falling In Love came across like something that would have been utterly forgettable as a made for tv movie of the week circa 1984, much less a movie made by a major studio that boast the caliber of actors it had. Uninspired, underacted, indistinct romantic drama which lazily goes through the motions toward no particular point. One expects colorless, flavorless, mundane fare from a made for tv movie from the week. One expects more - quite a bit more - from a major motion picture starring Meryl Streep and Robert DeNiro than Falling In Love delivered.

Perfect (1985)

Not so great back in the day, hasn't aged any better

[4/10 · 29 January 2024]

After 1980's Urban Cowboy, John Travolta's career began to cool off. A lot of bad choices leading to roles in bad movies for a good decade plus stretch. 1985's Perfect finds Travolta at the beginning of the downward slide.

I remember the massive tie-in this movie had to Rolling Stone magazine and all the pre-release publicity said magazine gave via a cover story and Travolta interview. Made sense, in that Travolta's character is a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine and real-life Rolling Stone magazine publisher Jann Wenner is featured in the film as the publisher (although for some reason inexplicably named 'Mark Roth' for the screenplay - why Perfect just didn't have Wenner play himself by name is a mystery). Never saw the movie in theaters but saw it a bunch of times on cable tv a year or so after it bombed at the box office. Rewatched it recently for the first time in decades and despite what Quentin Tarantino said about the movie being "vastly unappreciated" I think Perfect deservedly underperformed financially.

A large part of the problem is that Perfect is all over the map. Mostly in regard to the overall tone. Whatever message or point the movie may have wanted to make concerning journalistic ethics or the differences between how things are portrayed in the media versus reality is obscured by the charmless, snarky, vain manner on continuous display by virtually every character in virtually every scene in the movie.

It starts off with Travolta trying to get an interview with a businessman facing trial for selling drugs. Travolta finds that he needs to go to Los Angeles to have any chance at getting the interview, thus he and his publisher decide to simultaneously research another story while out in LA. The topic chosen is health clubs and how these venues are becoming spots for members to hook up romantically. The movie takes a very New York City point of view (NYC being where Rolling Stone magazine was based) in that anything worthwhile, hip, smart and ironically cool only happens in New York City while California (particularly LA) is full of sun-bleached, self-absorbed airheads who deserve only to be made fun of.

So, off to California goes Travolta. He befriends the owner of a successful LA health club and gets full access to the club membership based on the disingenuous premise that he intends to write a complimentary article about the health club as opposed to the article he actually intends to write. He gets introduced to several club members and employees, begins hanging out with them, learns about their personal lives, acts as if he likes them (all the while knowing he intends to do a hatchet job on them in print) and on and on. The movie moves from one scene to another, most of them depicting the wacky, unconventional lives of these California twentysomethings who work out together, live together, sleep together, etc. Travolta meets Jamie Lee Curtis, who plays an aerobics instructor at the health club. Curtis has a few skeletons in her closet, is wary of talking to reporters and reluctant to get involved with Travolta. Travolta and Curtis do (naturally) get involved. Travolta begins to rethink how he wants to write his story on health clubs, opts to go for a less salacious slant, submits that story to the magazine, his publisher rewrites the story placing a heavy emphasis on the hookup nature of the health club.

As I mentioned, the tenor of the screenplay clearly wants the audience to identify with the jaded New York view on the wacky Californians. In truth, when watching this recently, what struck me was how glib, dismissive and downright cruel the New York viewpoint was. Apparently, the ethics of Rolling Stone magazine amount to little more than exploiting people's desire to see themselves in print by using that desire to gain access to their lives, use the subjects of the stories under dishonest pretenses and then go on to write titillating articles because...hey, sensationalism is what sells. I found it more than a bit difficult to empathize with that anything goes if it sells media integrity ethos, much less translate that into anything approaching sympathy for Travolta's character. Clearly, we're supposed to think Travolta's life is somehow above or better than the lives of the health club members, even while for most of the film he is bent on little else other than writing about them in a nasty way, getting his article published and moving onto the next interview subjects.

The subplot of Travolta trying to interview the businessman drug dealer bubbles up here and there throughout the flick, eventually culminating in Travolta being jailed for contempt of court for refusing to turn over tapes of an interview he did with the businessman on First Amendment grounds. A subplot which further illustrates Travolta's reporter character has no concerns for anybody other than himself, unless it was supposed to illustrate Travolta was capable of taking a principled journalistic stance, a stance which rings hollow in lieu of how his interview subjects at the sports club (people who invited him into their homes, lives and - in the case of Jamie Lee Curtis - their beds) were ultimately treated in print.

Perfect concludes with an upbeat ending which rings particularly (and falsely) hollow considering the vast bulk of the movie which preceded it. The pathetic part is how seriously the movie takes itself juxtaposed by the fluff it ended up with onscreen. Outside of Jamie Lee Curtis seductively gyrating in a leotard, there is little else in Perfect which is pleasant to watch, much less memorable. Perfect COULD have been a memorable movie about something other than a series of glib, superficial images. Instead, the film opted for a script and scenes which try to stimulate the viewer with the very sexualized images the movie is supposedly disdainful about. What could have been a dramatic commentary on how sex and gossip is all the media cares about because that's what sells instead becomes a bunch of forgettable, meaningless sludge. A movie to be laughed at regarding the lack of self-awareness in which it promotes the very thing it is supposed to be against, chock full of mostly poorly-behaved people treating others as things to be used up and discarded.

Staying Alive (1983)

Charmless sequel

[5/10 · 27 January 2024]

It's almost as the people involved with making Staying Alive (including John Travolta) didn't have a clue as to what made Saturday Night Fever such a great movie in the first place.

Saturday Night Fever concluded on a tender, ambiguous note. One couldn't say for sure what was going to happen with Tony Manero in the end, if he and Stephanie would end up together as more than friends, where Tony's life would take him.

Perhaps that was part of what made Saturday Night Fever so wonderful, in that it let the viewer fill in what was to follow for Tony, Stephanie and the rest. Maybe Saturday Night Fever did deserve a sequel although I'd be hard-pressed to imagine anybody who was a fan of that movie thought Staying Alive was the sequel it deserved.

Anyway, 6 years on from Fever, Staying Alive is what we got. The 1970's were over, thus Staying Alive finds itself plopped snugly inside the 1980's. And boy, oh boy, is Staying Alive an 80's movie.

Let's start with the Tony Manero character. In Fever, Manero was undoubtedly cocky but there was also a youthful desperation and a longing for a life beyond where he was living that made him sympathetic. In Staying Alive, Manero is by and large just an obnoxious jerk. As an actor, Travolta has that endearing quality that makes one usually want to like him, yet I found myself just plain not liking Manero in Staying Alive.

Also, it should be noted that although Saturday Night Fever obviously featured Travolta in the starring role, you had a lot of memorable secondary characters. From Tony's family to his neighborhood gang to local girl Annette along with love interest Stephanie...and all these characters were distinct in their own ways with an abundance of interesting subplots going on. In Staying Alive, it's basically the Tony Manero Show with a romantic subplot involving two dancers, Jackie and Laura. Outside of those three characters, nobody else in the movie is either memorable or even worth remembering.

Saturday Night Fever had one of THE best movie soundtracks of all time. Staying Alive has...Frank Stallone. Staying Alive director Sylvester Stallone threw his brother Frank some work so we get to see what a triple threat Frank was: he couldn't sing, write decent songs OR act. Even the Bee Gees themselves couldn't manage to reprise their Fever brilliance via the several forgettable Staying Alive soundtrack contributions they made, all of which zoom in one ear and out the other.

Staying Alive is a sequel. So, what happened to Tony's family? Outside of a brief scene with Tony's mother, nobody else in the family is seen or mentioned. We never find out anything about Tony's Fever gang buddies. Or Annette. Or Stephanie.

I will say that having watched Staying Alive for the first time recently in many years, there are a couple aspects of the film that I like a little better now than I did when it first came out. Most of which involves the lovely Cynthia Rhodes. Her character, Jackie, is really the only likeable one in the movie. There is a slow-motion scene about mid-point in the flick where Travolta and Rhodes dance which has some effective background music and vividly demonstrates what a talented dancer Rhodes is. I will also say that Travolta clearly put a lot of work in re: physical conditioning. Finola Hughes, who plays Laura, is a very capable dancer.

I'll also say that the Broadway show Travolta/Manero gets the lead role in, Satan's Alley, still remains one of the most self-absorbed, over the top, laughably narcissistic examples of dance captured on film. However, it IS an all too fitting ending for Staying Alive.

Far as sequels and second acts go, in retrospect Saturday Night Fever was best left alone. However, if you (as I do) enjoy bloated cinematic turkeys without a sense of irony, class, dignity or shame then Staying Alive sits dead center in the wheelhouse.

The Lonely Lady (1983)

Being a fan of bad movies, there's no way I can award less

[10/10 · 19 November 2023]

Pia Zadora.

It'd be hard for anyone born after 1980 to recall now, but in the early Eighties, Pia Zadora had her moment. It lasted for about 18 months, beginning with the release of the movie Butterfly in the winter of 1982 and concluding with the release of the movie The Lonely Lady in the late summer of 1983.

Born in 1954 in Hoboken, New Jersey to parents of Italian-Polish descent, as a child entertainer Pia Alfreda Zadorowski Schipani had one minor role onscreen and one minor role on Broadway in the mid-1960's. Having shortened one of her parents last names, the self-invented Pia Zadora probably would have gone on to a career of no particular distinction or note had it not been for a fortuitous meeting in 1972 at the age of 18 with an Israeli financier and businessman thirty years her senior named Meshulam Riklis.

To say Riklis, then pushing 50, was smitten with the then-barely legal Zadora was an understatement, given what was to follow. Alas, several years later, Zadora and Riklis married in 1977. Not long after the nuptials, Zadora had what has been charitably described as a career 'breakthrough' by way of being coincidentally selected as Dubonnet Wine Company Girl, modelling in print and television ads for the wine. Her husband simultaneously being a shareholder in the company's American distributor doubtless being mere happenstance.

When the wine modelling gig subsequently failed to ignite her career, come 1980 Riklis was determined to utilize a portion of his not insignificant fortune and provide some serious financial muscle behind his wife's career and get her name out in the public eye. The vehicle chosen to do so was the...er, 'erotic drama' movie, Butterfly. The production was fully self-financed by Riklis for an estimated $3.5 million 1981 USD. The story concerned an incestuous relationship between a 17-year-old jailbait nymphette named Kady (played by the-then 27-year-old Zadora) and her father, all wrapped in the patina of class with the participation of Stacy Keach and Orson Welles in the cast and noted film composer Ennio Morricone providing the score, which proved little more than the fact that even supposedly respectable individuals and corporations will gladly take someone's - namely Riklis's - money for whatever purpose if the price is right. Apparently, institutions will too, as (so the urban legend goes) Riklis bought off members of the Golden Globes committee via all expenses paid travel junkets, which included some private advance screenings of Butterfly. Lo and behold, a few weeks before the February 1982 theatrical release of Butterfly, Zadora won the 1982 Golden Globe Award as Best New Star of the Year! All this activity coincided with a media blitz that included Zadora posing for nude layouts to be featured in 'respectable' pornographic magazines like Playboy and Penthouse in 'tasteful' poses.

To be fair, Zadora in Butterfly was...adequate enough for what the film required, which is to say that despite Zadora closing in on 30 she was short enough and still looked young enough to pull off a girl of 17. Butterfly didn't require Zadora to act so much as to simply disrobe.

Butterfly managed to eke out 2 million or so at the box office, not so great for a nearly 4-million-dollar investment (which didn't include whatever the under-the-line costs of buying Pia's Golden Globe added up to), but Pia made a splash in the media! Riklis had deep pockets and despite the financial loss he wasn't yet hesitant to reach deeper into his fortune and turn his wife into A Big Hollywood Star! Another Riklis-financed Zadora vehicle, Fake-Out (also known as Nevada Heat), was released later in 1982. Co-starring Telly Savalas a decade past his Kojak tv fame and Desi Arnaz Jr., Fake-Out was part women in prison exploitation flick and part crime drama. It featured Pia jazzercising in tight leotards and headlining a Las Vegas nightclub revue, so we got a good look at Zadora's dancing, singing and acting abilities (all of which were far less ample than her nude posing abilities). Fake-Out made less of a splash in commercial terms than Butterfly did.

But wait!! Zadora and Riklis weren't done yet!!! Which - at long last - brings us to 1983's The Lonely Lady.

Based on the 1976 Harold Robbins novel of the same name, the film rights had been purchased by Universal Pictures a year before the novel was published and had been in turnaround for a half-decade. With Riklis offering to supply roughly half of the $7 million production budget on the condition that Pia star, Universal gave the go-ahead and once again Riklis and Zadora were off to the races.

Shot predominately at a villa near Rome for the exteriors along with Twickenham Studios in England for the interiors and some quick pick-up shots in and around Los Angeles, The Lonely Lady was a bitterly cynical, over-the-top portrayal of what it takes to make it in Hollywood. The story concerns teenaged Jerilee Randall, played by Zadora, on the cusp of graduating high school. Randall displays a supposedly prodigious talent for writing. Randall encounters a much older man in the form of a successful movie screenwriter, and the two quickly move from a mentor-pupil relationship to a romantic one (resonating Zadora's offscreen marriage just a tad). Randall aspires to be a successful screenwriter in her own right, eventually divorcing her aged mentor and begins prodigiously hopping from bed to bed with anybody she believes might help get her screenplay produced. Randall eventually suffers a nervous breakdown, recovers, gets her screenplay made into a movie, wins the equivalent of an Academy Award then during her acceptance speech publicly denounces the exploitative process she had willingly undertook all along to get her movie made, renounces the award and walks away without a shred of her dignity intact. Indeed, it would have been impossible for her to have had any shreds left intact because she was all too intent on selling her dignity out all along.

The utter ludicrousness of the premise is made all the more jaw-dropping by the extreme visuals and wincingly bad script. From the much commented upon garden hose rape (performed by a very young, maniacally wide-eyed, pre-Goodfellas Ray Liotta) to the typewriter key hallucination sequence and countless other cringeworthy scenes (including one the Razzies titled 'Pia in the Side Pocket': see the film and you'll know what that means), what one sees is more than equaled by the absurdity of what one hears regarding the spoken dialogue. Keeping in mind that The Lonely Lady wasn't made as an intentionally campy film. Though Zadora in more recent years has given interviews trying to gaslight that aspect, The Lonely Lady was clearly made as a serious movie, and that seriousness is what makes the vanity, narcissism and tackiness on display from beginning to end a bountiful feast of celluloid cheese for those who relish such flopped turkeys. With the Lonely Lady, Zadora had met her match in that this was a flick she couldn't merely disrobe for, nor shake her little bootie and sing and dance her way poorly through. Nope, with The Lonely Lady, Zadora HAD to act to make it work. There was no way around it. Zadora's character was the focal point of the movie and was in virtually every scene. And The Lonely Lady finally punctured the self-financed hype via her husband and made plain the fact that while Riklis could find no shortage of production ventures all too willing to take his money and give Pia exposure, nobody short of Pia and her own abilities was going to make her a commercial success and a star based on talent rather than mere promotional efforts to get her name out into the public eye.

After The Lonely Lady was released in September of 1983 and duly flopped, taking in less than $2 million at the box office, the media gloves were off. What had been mostly alluded to in private within industry circles was now declared openly in public: Zadora was a negligible talent who could neither sing, dance nor act beyond a level charitably described as mediocre and the only reason she had gotten as far as she had was because her Sugar Daddy Riklis had ponied up the cash.

Post-Lonely Lady, career-wise it was never the same for Poor Pia. After another attempt (and flop) at a movie career with Voyage of the Rock Aliens, Zadora shifted her focus to her music career, making a string of 80's synth-pop singles and albums - many not released in America, none managing to significantly chart anywhere - which while not quite as cheesy as her movies were even worse in the sense that they were all utterly forgettable. As the 1980's drew to a close and Zadora's attempts to become a third-rate Madonna clone waned, she went on to reinvent herself as a Vegas-style entertainer, peddling her song and dance act.

Anyway, these days, despite given the sheer number of talentless hacks convinced (or self-deluded) otherwise who inundate various internet social media platforms with their...er, um, 'content', I still get a degree of snarky enjoyment looking back on Pia's films and career once in a blue moon. In point of fact, I have a degree of empathy and dare I say admiration for the old gal that I didn't 40 or so years ago. Pia was willing to do what she had to in terms of making it and didn't let her lack of ability overtake her sense of conviction that she could be a star if only she kept trying hard enough and never gave up at the first - or second, or third, or fifth, etc. - sign of failure. Her relentless persistence being something in woefully short supply amongst the social media generation, Zadora was one of the original 'fake it 'till you make it' celebs and forerunners of the entertainment culture that surrounds us today...well, maybe empathy and admiration aren't QUITE the words I should use, but God Bless Pia Zadora for The Lonely Lady. Not bad for a Polish Italian Munchkin from New Jersey!

Some Kind of Hero (1982)

Not terrible, but the tonal shifts are jarring

[6/10 · 18 November 2023]

1982's Some Kind Of Hero kinda came and went at the box office. Was released, made a small yet decent profit, and hasn't ended up being one of the movies many talk about often when discussing Pryor's movie career.

Part of that, I suppose, had to do with when the movie was released and within the context of Pryor's total filmography. Back then, Pryor was known pretty much exclusively for his comedic roles, which made sense because up until 1982 the vast majority of the movies Pryor had appeared in were either flat-out comedies or movies in which Pryor had a comedic role.

Some Kind Of Hero wasn't a comedy, which is to say the plot, characters, story and settings weren't necessarily funny in and of themselves. The movie, based on an adaptation of the 1975 novel of the same name, wasn't originally conceived as a comedy. Made sense, because the book wasn't written with an emphasis on humor, either. The backstory on the movie involves the flick being in development for several years, only being green-lighted when Pryor eventually agreed to star in it following the smash success of the 1980 movie Sitr Crazy. After Stir Crazy, Pryor was seen as a highly bankable movie star, thus having his name attached to Some Kind Of Hero made sense to the production company, Paramount Pictures, from a fiduciary standpoint.

All of which could seem workable in a cursory or glancing manner, until one thought a little deeper. By the time the movie was in production in 1981, it was already a couple of years after a spate of far superior movies depicting the Vietnam War as experienced by American GI's (in the form of 1978's Coming Home, 1979's Apocalypse Now, 1978's The Deer Hunter, 1977's Rolling Thunder, all very serious in tone and intent) both during the fighting and after returning home had been released. The 1981 production of Some Kind Of Hero also took place just a bit before the 1980's glut of Vietnam-centric or themed movies (1982's First Blood, 1986's Platoon, 1987's Full Metal Jacket, 1989's Casualties Of War, along with all those mid-80's Chuck Norris shoot-'em-ups and the 1985 First Blood sequel, Rambo) got rolling.

Looking back on it, Some Kind Of Hero getting released in 1982 seemed like a movie that had come out a few years too late to catch the late 1970's cinematic wave and several years too early to catch the mid-1980's deluge in terms of public interest. While hindsight is indeed 20/20 re: the 1980's stuff, one tends to doubt in 1981 there was a general sense that the public was clamoring for another movie concerning Vietnam, and certainly not one starring Richard Pryor.

Although one can look back and say the movie had perhaps languished in development limbo a bit too long to capitalize on the late 1970's Vietnam Movie Boom, it does also bring up the question as to if Pryor in 1981 was the right actor to be attached to the film in terms of starring in it, regarding the film as both an artistic statement and a commercial venture.

Some Kind Of Hero could certainly be classified as a Richard Pryor movie in the sense that he is in virtually every scene of the film. However, the same could also be said for the 1982 Pryor movie Live On The Sunset Strip, a film of one of Pryor's stand-up comedy shows. The difference being that the latter showcases what audiences wanted most from Pryor, which is to say his inarguable skill and genius as a comedian.

The rub, as mentioned, being that of Some Kind Of Hero not created as a comedy film yet ending up with a star essentially looked upon as a comedic actor with the emphasis of his roles in previous films having smartly been placed upon the comedy vs, dramatic acting.

So, was Some Kind Of Hero the right movie for Pryor to star in? Or, conversely, was Pryor the right actor for Some Kind Of Hero?

As it worked out...sort of.

Part of the problem was once Pryor was attached to the movie, Paramount Pictures naturally insisted rewrites should be undertaken to punch up the script with humor. In terms of the box office, this certainly made sense, far more sense than making a flat-out drama starring Richard Pryor. With respect to what one feels the original script was going for, these brief yet frequent comic interludes as executed on film come across being out of place. Especially since the better parts of what ended up onscreen, to me, are the more dramatic aspects of the movie...of which there are many. From Pryor's character being incarcerated in a POW camp for 5 years to his return to America and subsequently finding out his wife gave birth to his young daughter (her pregnancy a fact Pryor's character was unaware of both before his capture and during the entirety of his imprisonment), to THEN finding out his wife has hooked up with another man during his absence to THEN finding out his wife and her new man blew through all of Pryor's savings in a failed business venture while he was in Vietnam to THEN finding out his mother had a stroke while he was away and is in a nursing home which is getting ready to relinquish her housing if her nursing care bills aren't paid to THEN finding out that the US Army is holding up his back pay accrued during his half-decade captivity because of bureaucratic red tape...Prior's character spends 5 years in a prison camp to return home and find out his marriage is over, he has a daughter he has never met who calls another man 'Daddy', he has no money, no source of income, can't get a bank loan...none of which brings to mind the phrase 'comedy gold' re: situational premises.

The upside is that Prior does infuse many of the scenes which clearly call for a dramatic response with a believable amount of ability strictly in terms of the acting. That isn't to say it was an exceptional amount of ability, however, but certainly more ability than his previous movie roles had evidenced. Overall, though, while Pryor is rightly praised as a comedic genius and a highly effective comedic actor that doesn't therefore mean Pryor was an all-around great actor: he wasn't. I will say that perhaps given more time and more dramatic roles Pryor could have went on to be a highly effective dramatic actor, but that was never where his strengths lay and as a result the many dramatic scenes in Some Kind Of Hero end up coming off as ones that were merely...passable, sort of lightweight drama at best. Since these scenes far outweigh the comedic ones, it makes the specific comedy bits inserted to play to Pryor's strengths out of step with the movie itself (and it should be noted few to none of the comedy bits are howlingly hilarious, comedy obviously being subjective). What the movie ends up being is something that is neither as impactful as it might have been in dramatic terms were it approached more as a straight drama with a more capable dramatic actor in the lead role nor as comedically effective as it might have been had the comedy been not so tempered in order to emphasize the dramatic aspects.

As other reviewers have mentioned - and something I have long found to be true, also - It is also highly noticeable that right around the halfway mark where Pryor meets the Toni Donovan character (a high-priced prostitute played by Superman The Movie's Margot Kidder...although Kidder certainly turns in a good performance, Lois Lane as a hooker?) the movie loses steam. The last reel meanders into a convoluted series of robbery and black-market fencing scenes that come across as neither plausible nor skillfully connected with the first half of the movie. The ending scenes in particular have the feeling of several scenarios clumsily slammed together in order to give the flick an upbeat ending.

Made for a budget of $8 million and taking in $23 million in 1982 USD, Some Kind Of Hero was by no means a flop but was at best a minor success at the box office. After this, Pryor went back to his bread and butter, which was screwball comedy. On film, post-1982 he never again quite attained the comedic heights nor the box office success of his apex, 1980's Stir Crazy. He DID, however, subsequently go on to make one movie which blended comedy and drama a bit more effectively than Some Kind Of Hero. That came in the form of 1986's semi-autobiographical Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling.

Additionally, for whatever interest it may be to film buffs, the opening Vietnam War scenes in Some Kind Of Hero were shot at the Indian Dunes film ranch in California a little more than a year before the infamous 1982 helicopter accident on the Twilight Zone: The Movie production set took place in roughly the same location.

For years, Some Kind Of Hero was only available for home viewing on cable tv or VHS in 1.33:1 or Fullscreen aspect ratio. In the mid 2000's, it finally became available in a widescreen dvd format. In 2015, Olive Films put out a Blu-ray version in 1.78:1 Widescreen aspect ratio, the version of which is very bare-bones (literally a single title screen with only Play and Subtitle options and no extras of any kind) but having owned all other previous home video release types of the flick I can say the 2015 Blu-ray version is the best in terms of watchability.

Ultimately, an at times mildly humorous and mildly effective dramatic comedy/comedic drama that also becomes a slight endurance test in the 2nd half of the movie to get through with a bit of an underwhelming conclusion.

The Main Event (1979)

High rating, but not necessarily for reasons one would expect

[7/10 · 16 November 2023]

It should be said that perhaps more so than many other superstars, Barbra Streisand tends to elicit a binary reaction, in that most people are either totally ga-ga over her or simply can't stand her. I noticed this reaction became more pronounced after Streisand publicly affiliated herself with the Democratic Party in the early 1990s and started giving the odd political speech here and there.

Well, I came of age long before Streisand's public embrace of limousine liberalism. Even before Streisand began crafting 'important', Oscar-craving films such as Yentl and The Prince Of Tides. Nope. The Streisand I grew up knowing was still largely thought of as a nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn whom most thought was a better singer than an actress, and she hadn't quite yet become the iconic 'Babs' and back then wasn't above criticism.

To be sure, Streisand had a lot of success as an actress with a slate of one hit after another right out of the gate. By the mid-1970's she was at a career high. Right around then is where the hubris - the belief that she could do no wrong - began to really set in. Her take on A Star Is Born followed shortly after, a film that was overblown in every respect: a celluloid paean to the wonder and fabulousness of everything that was Babs...fabulous to the point where it was blind to how cheesy and narcissistic the whole venture was. And even THEN Streisand still managed to pull off a massive commercial success and craft a hit with the soundtrack tune Evergreen.

Thus, on from A Star Is Born we find our way to 1979's romantic comedy, The Main Event.

The Main Event basically feels like a package deal. It once again teams up Streisand with Ryan O'Neal, Streisand's co-star from the excellent screwball comedy of a decade earlier, What's Up Doc? On paper, doubtless the pairing seemed natural given that they already had a proven track record with their previous hit. Despite the critical drubbing 1976's A Star Is Born got, the film grossed $80 million on a $6 million budget and the soundtrack went #1 and went on to sell 15 million copies worldwide. Streisand agreed to sing another tune for The Main Event, so doubtless the production was already seeing the dollar signs before a single frame of film was shot.

The plot boils down to Streisand playing the owner of a perfume company which is bankrupted after her accountant flees to South America with all her money. One of the few assets she has left is a management contract with an inactive boxer (O'Neal) that was formerly used as a tax write-off. Streisand coerces O'Neal to step back into the ring and fight in the hopes of scoring a big payday, acting as his boxing manager and despite a largely contentious relationship between them gradually romance blooms.

The thing of it is, I'll readily concede that The Main Event is a dumb film in any number of ways. Streisand's character is pushy, self-absorbed and obnoxious far more often than she is charmingly funny and has a seemingly endless wardrobe which she is determined to wear every piece of throughout the flick. All the origins of the rom-com genre are here, from the initial 'meet cute' to the predictable 'against all odds they end up falling for each other' conclusion. I mean, the ending was never in doubt for a moment. Far as the humor goes, virtually nothing by way of lol comedic moments. It's all...mildly cute fluff. Topped off with Streisand singing the main theme song, a nod to the disco trend that had peaked and was just beginning to wane when the movie hit theaters. And even though The Main Event wasn't nearly as successful as A Star Is Born in commercial terms, (The Main Event) still managed to squeak out $42 million on a $5 million budget, with the theme song single hitting number 3 on the charts and selling a million copies!

Even though I would have as recently as a decade ago eviscerated this movie as a case of being timely rather than timeless and deservedly forgotten, well...I kinda like it. Not in spite of the smarmy vanity project nature of the production, or because it was a romantic comedy that was lightweight when it came to both the romance and the laughs, or because the theme song was a lame attempt by Streisand to channel the disco diva success of Donna Summer late in the day when the disco fad had been overexposed and was waning but it's rather precisely BECAUSE of those things that make watching The Main Event today a breezy little trip back in time, watching a harmless little rom com ditty of no particular purpose from the late 1970's. Cinematic junk food, to be sure, but even though I thoroughly enjoy a gourmet meal once in a blue moon I still crave a McDonald's hamburger.

Voyage of the Rock Aliens (1984)

A hard one to rate

[7/10 · 12 November 2023]

I was in my teens in the 1980's and love dumb b-movies.

Seemingly, Voyage Of The Rock Aliens should be right in my wheelhouse - in some ways it was - but it was a tough one to get through and even tougher to rank.

Had never even heard of this flick until the 2000's, which indicates how under-the-radar this thing was back in 1984. Came and went virtually without a trace and took a couple of decades before a very small but vocal cult of viewers began to post online about this slab of cheese that had then been seemingly lost to the ages.

Now, I certainly HAD heard of Pia Zadora. She had made a splash in 1982 largely for appearing nude in the movie Butterfly, portraying a Lolita-type nymphette. Butterfly had the imprimatur of being a 'stylish' erotic movie, and with Zadora as the sex object she had to do little more than disrobe. Fortunately, in 1977 Zadora had married an Israeli multimillionaire thirty years her senior. Fortunate in that apparently her sugar daddy husband had pockets deep enough to keep ponying up money to self-finance the early 1980s glut of various Zadora projects. After Butterfly caused a modest stir, Zadora was determined to prove to the world that she was the premiere trifecta in terms of talent, being able to actually act, sing and dance. The truth was that Zadora was a terrible actress and her abilities in both the singing and dancing fields were modest at best. However, there were no shortage of various production companies in the early 1980s willing to take her husband's money and give it a go at making her a star. Zadora followed up Butterfly with an attempt at the gritty 1983 drama The Lonely Lady, which was a laughable neutron bomb in every sense of the word. Within two years of bursting on the scene, Zadora was an industry joke (and not an industry insider joke, either, but a very publicly mocked case of a self-financed, talentless hack), which leads us to Voyage Of The Rock Aliens.

Yet another Zadora-centric flick (financed this time only in part by her husband), this movie is just...all over the place. Supposedly conceived as a spoof of such disparate genres as 1960's Beach Party movies, 1950's Sock Hop Rock and Roll films, early 1980's slasher flicks and low-budget Sci Fi pictures, Voyage Of The Rock Aliens is a mess. Doubtless, the director having dropped out of the thing while it was in production didn't help. However, it is all a case of too much. Too many genres slammed together. Too many jokes which are wincingly unfunny. Too many largely unknown cast members. Too many subplots. Too many songs, none of which are either particularly good or particularly memorable. I read a great review here where the reviewer pointed out that this movie was worse than either Xanadu or Grease 2, and I'd have to agree: at least with Xanadu one had Olivia Newton-John, Gene Kelly, some competency in terms of the dance choreography and a couple good tunes and at least with Grease 2 one had some memorably bad musical numbers and the charm of a young Michelle Pfeiffer. Voyage Of The Rock Aliens had seemingly upwards of 20 different musical numbers (none of which I could recall even ten seconds after hearing them), scene after scene of cast members who were not only unable to dance well but couldn't even dance poorly in synch with one another and for star power outside of Zadora we had the old lady who played Clint Eastwood's crusty old mother in those Every Which Way But Loose/Any Which Way You Can movies, minus the participatory charm of Clyde the Orangutan. Although we DID get to see the debut role of Craig Sheffer, who spends an ample amount of time showing off his chiseled physique and sucked-in cheekbones in an endless series of pouting male bimbo poses, so there's that, I suppose.

All of which just SCREAMS mid-Eighties in ALL the worst ways, with annoying neon-bright colors in both the wardrobe and the lighting, held together by appearances with enough aerosol hairspray to have doubtless caused significant degrees of Ozone layer erosion. Apparently, Zadora's husband was becoming less willing at this point to fully self-finance his wife's career, since the movie also looks cheaply made a la Roger Corman (sadly, minus the low-grade charm of a Corman movie). More than a few of the actors appear to have been...er, 'chemically enhanced' re: the manic nature of their performances (as early 80's icon Rick James once said: "Cocaine is a hell of a drug!").

The thing of it all is, I didn't elicit the sense that the cast were phoning it in via their performances being wryly yet firmly tongue in cheek, or where any of them were particularly self-aware of how awful the film was on either a comedic or musical level. Everybody really seemed to be sincerely trying, which is always a shared quality all the best 'so bad they're good' b-movies have. I couldn't go higher than 7 stars in spite of all this because even with my expectations accordingly lowered, Voyage Of The Rock Aliens was an endurance test to get through. I'd say the high points for me were the opening number with Zadora and Jermaine Jackson duetting (Jermaine wisely vanishes for the remainder of the movie), a number Zadora sings which takes place in a public toilet and a number featuring Sheffer posing in the desert with...a bobcat(?): admittedly, those three segments were jaw-droppingly bad to the point where I couldn't even laugh so much as stare at the screen in dumbfounded awe. Outside of those three segments, though, the rest of it was a mishmash of unfunny jokes, mundane tunes and headache-inducing visuals. Pia didn't even do us the service of disrobing for this particular turkey.

I would say bad movie enthusiasts may well owe it to themselves to see this once. Although it is said that all things are subjected to the tastes of the individual consumer and it therefore wouldn't be for me to say Voyage Of The Rock Aliens shouldn't be someone's fave cult movie to be viewed over and over again, once was more than enough for me.

Star 80 (1983)

As mentioned by many, Eric Roberts is mesmerizing.

[8/10 · 2 November 2023]

There's a reason Eric Roberts is singled out by so many as being (by far) the highlight of Star 80. Simply put, Roberts turned in a masterful performance in his portrayal of Paul Snider. Brilliant acting on his part, to the point where it keeps the viewer engaged all the way to the end. No easy feat since the conclusion of the movie was known from the outset. I'd also say Mariel Hemingway certainly holds her own far as the acting goes in that there isn't a notable disparity of talent when she and Roberts are onscreen together.

Another aspect of the movie mentioned nearly as much as the performances of the two main characters is how the tone vividly captures what one imagines the sleazy world of the entertainment industry in Los Angeles - and the Playboy business in particular - really is underneath the glitz and image of it all.

While there have been contentions between those who knew the real-life Paul Snider and Dorothy Stratten as to how accurate the portrayals were as opposed to the reality of what they were like, one supposes some of this can be put down to the very nature of making a movie concerning real people, where to a degree what ends up onscreen is by default dramatized. I would say that there were more than a few times in the film where Roberts straddles the line between effectiveness and ridiculousness with his acting, coming precariously close to going over-the-top. Overall, though, he provides a stark, vivid character study of a predatory man whose obsession eventually turns homicidal. It's all there. From his days of being a small-time pimp to meeting and seducing the then slightly underage Stratten (Snider was reportedly said to have remarked to a friend after first laying eyes on Stratten, "that girl could make me a lot of money"), to coaxing Stratten into posing nude, sending the photos to Playboy magazine: Snider may well have in his mind 'loved' Doroty Stratten, much in the same way any pimp 'loves' the women he whores out whereby the love is inextricably linked to the money said whore can generate. Thus, Roberts as Snider takes us on the pimp's journey of manipulative emotional techniques. The initial pleasant demeanor and seduction followed by prodding suggestions/grooming and eventually the commoditization of Stratten as a sex object. While I suppose one could make the distinction that Stratten was modelling nude rather than being paid for sex and by that definition wasn't technically a prostitute, the Snider/Stratten relationship had virtually all the hallmarks of the pimp/hooker dynamic. True, Stratten wasn't working streetcorners but rather within the slim patina of 'respectability' the name Playboy conferred in the world of pornography, but in the end her purpose for being there was to take her clothes off and have others pay to look at her.

Snider, in addition to being Stratten's pimp-like 'business manager' was also her husband. Thus, we also see the range of unpleasant emotions exhibited by a malignant narcissist within the partner dynamic, running the gamut from manipulation to jealousy to spying on the partner's whereabouts and, sadly, the worst possible denouement which is the "if I can't have you nobody will" conclusion, taken here in this case to the ultimate, murderous extreme. Once Snider had ran out his string with Stratten - when the love con hustle he layed on her was no longer effective - and she was in the process of divorcing him, in his mind Snider saw his entree to the Hollywood big time (which may have been nothing other than guest access to the Playboy Mansion; truth be told, had Stratten not been murdered she may well have easily ended up being little more than a former Playboy model when it was all said and done) being stripped away from him. When the realization that the relationship was over hit, Snider lashed out in a pathetic, cowardly way.

The thing about Star 80 is most of the events in the roughly two-year trajectory of Snider and Stratten's relationship are presented very matter of fact visually. Not much of anything by way of nuance. The narrative style is a series of chronological flashbacks recollected by Snider as he sits in a bedroom (nude and covered with his estranged wife's blood, with her murdered corpse lying on the floor next to him) weepily wondering how everything had come to this, so right from the beginning of the movie the viewer is amply aware that Star 80 isn't going to be a pleasant experience. Indeed, it isn't. In part because the beginning already telegraphs the grim ending. Thus, there is no surprise. No plot twists. No catharsis. No lessons learned. As the plot unfolds, outside of the superlative performance of Roberts the movie has not much else to offer beyond a sense of impending doom: we know what's going to happen. We know how it's going to end up. Even with all those caveats, it should be said the final scenes depicting the murder/suicide stand out as particularly grisly and repellent.

All of which leads me to wonder exactly what director Fosse (who also wrote the screenplay) saw in the brief life of Stratten that compelled him to make a movie about it. Stratten via Star 80 doesn't really come off as much more than a caricature of a guileless, naive young woman who was used and exploited right down the line. The way Stratten was written in Star 80 was in a manner where there was no personal growth, nor any real (or imagined) sense of her being anything other than a girl barely out of her teens with no sense of herself and what she had to offer anybody other than taking her clothes off and getting paid to do so. Hemingway did a good job with what she was given to work with, character-wise and in terms of the script.

In the end, I gave Star 80 a high rating, but the vast bulk of that does come down solely to the performance of Eric Roberts. He does capture the creepy, exploitative, manipulative essence of Paul Snider as written by Fosse to a tee. I couldn't rate Star 80 any higher than I did, though. As excellent as Roberts was, it was all in service of a sleazy, exploitative, violent tale that comes off at times having no raison d'etre other than being a depressing titillation...sort of akin to looking at the gory wreckage of a fatal car crash before the ambulance has arrived while zipping down the highway.

Repossessed (1990)

Comedy that misses a bit more than it hits

[5/10 · 25 October 2023]

I think it may be helpful at the outset to say that I'm a fairly big fan of The (first) Exorcist movie. In addition, I enjoyed Zucker Brothers-style comedies (Airplane! Airplane 2: The Sequel, the first Naked Gun movie).

Helpful in that at least one can understand upfront as far as a target audience for 1990's Repossessed went, I was certainly within that key demo.

Part of my ambivalence toward the end result of this comedy has to do with the material, which also ties into the co-star, Leslie Nielsen. It may be hard to remember now, but by-and-large prior to 1980's Airplane movie, Nielsen wasn't known for being a comedic actor. Most of the stuff he had been doing in the 1950's through the 1970's were dramatic movies or character actor work on various tv series. That background was part of what made his appearance in the first Airplane work, and that was true for many of the cast members of Airplane: part of the humor resulted from seeing a large cast of older actors not really known for being funny saying the well-crafted, silly dialogue with straight faces. Even after his performance in Airplane, Nielsen went back to doing straight roles in tv and movies, and it was 8 years between Airplane and the next comedy he had a featured role in, that being the first Naked Gun Movie. Even with 1988's Naked Gun, a large part of the humor, again, was found in seeing Nielsen saying well-crafted, silly dialogue with a straight face.

Airplane! Fantastic comedy. Naked Gun, another fantastic comedy.

Linda Blair's participation in this Exorcist spoof also seemed in theory to be a plus. After 1977's Exorcist 2 - a lame sequel to the Exorcist - deservedly bombed, Blair had spent just over a decade appearing in what on the whole could be described as forgettable b-movie junk. Just shy of 30, Blair was still young enough in the late 1980's to reprise her Exorcist role and have it not look silly by default of too much time having passed.

So, we have the participation of the actress who played the Devil in the original Exorcist along with Nielsen at the peak of his bankability as a comedic draw immediately following the first Naked Gun movie teaming up to do a spoof on the Exorcist. Again, sounds like a can't miss proposition on paper.

Right out of the gate as the opening scenes unfold, it's clear that Repossessed had a limited budget. Simply put, it comes across looking cheap. This is reflected in the humor and the script. This is supposed to be a parody sequel of the original Exorcist. So why do the priest and the young girl now have different character names? Could the production not get permission for the use of the names? Or not afford said permission?

A lot of the jokes and comedic situations in Repossessed seem toned-down, as if the movie was self-censoring itself in order to get a PG-13 rating. I suppose I can understand that impulse on a business level, but it also ties into the movie being confused as to who the target audience for a PG-13 rated 1990 movie parodying a 1973 R-rated horror film was. Jokes and situations involving references to oral sex and women who have 'big boobies'-type humor. Granted, the Zucker Brothers movies weren't exactly highbrow humor either, but there was a degree of wit to be found with those. In Repossessed, the comedy is straight-down-the-middle in a dumb way that probably only the average 12-year-old boy might find amusing. Also, Repossessed had way, way too many instances of the actors mugging and looking directly into the camera after saying a punchline. Far too many instances of rather obvious sight gags. For me, far too many instances of long stretches of laugh less boredom infrequently punctured by (at best) brief, mild amusement.

After the first Naked Gun movie, Nielsen let his sense of quality control go out the window, took whatever dumb comedy movie offers came his way and largely phoned in his performances. Considering his then-age and having been fortunate enough to have been involved in those two truly great Zucker Brothers movies already mentioned and gotten a well-deserved boost late in his career, Nielsen took the cheap way out and cashed in. It's telling that in the decade following 1988's Naked Gun, the only other comedies Nielsen appeared in that really had that Zucker Brother level of comedy were the two Naked Gun sequels (and even those had diminishing returns). Outside of the Zucker productions, the rest of Nielsen's 1989-1999 comedies were uninspired by anything other than Nielsen's ability via his name recognition to turn a quick profit on lowbrow, lowest common denominator spoofs made to appeal to simpletons coupled with Nielsen's ability to say no to a cheap, easy dollar. Disagree? Try watching Dracula: Dead And Loving It. Or Spy Hard. Or Mr. Magoo. Or Wrongfully Accused. Sadly, Repossessed is the first overall unfunny comedy Nielsen made to cash in.

However, on the plus side, there was a concerted effort on the part of the Repossessed production staff to recreate the Exorcist demon makeup, and on that count they did a fantastic job. In addition, Repossessed clocks in at under 90 minutes, so it isn't the endurance test on the part of the viewer to sit through that it might have been. Linda Blair did give it a game try in terms of her performance. I mean, it's not like Repossessed was some heinous crime against humanity or anything. Doubtless, comedy is subjective. For me though, it just fell a bit flat. One of those 'throw anything and everything at the wall and see what sticks' comedy flicks in terms of the one-liners and sight gags (more than a few of which, in terms of what was then-being parodied on a pop culture level, are very dated in 2023 re: relevance), all of which as mentioned are Dumb Guy-type belly laugh humor re: the mentality level. I dunno...maybe more naked boobies would have helped?

Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure (2003 TV Movie)

2 stars rather than 1 given...mostly out of kindness

[2/10 · 17 October 2023]

Bad, bad, bad stuff here.

I'm old enough to remember when National Lampoon movies were funny. Truth be told, the vast bulk of those came out between 1978's Animal House and 1989's Christmas Vacation. That period saw those films being made under the imprimatur of the original Lampoon Company which had started in early 1970s and boasted a long list of stellar comedic talents (John Belushi, Harold Ramis, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray to name but a few), many of whom went on to make their mark or have a significant hand in creating some of the most enduring American comedy movies and television shows.

After 1989's Christmas Vacation, the Lampoon Company was sold to J2 Communications, which retained the rights to the National Lampoon name and would license it out to whatever production company cared to pay for the use of it. Which certainly explains the nosedive in quality the flicks with the National Lampoon preface in the movie title took circa 1993-2002.

Come 2002, yet another company called National Lampoon Inc bought the rights to the National Lampoon name. Ostensibly the claim was made that said new company would discontinue the haphazard licensing of the Lampoon name to whoever came along in an attempt to instill some quality control and hopefully restore the reputation of the name and brand back to when it meant something in the realm of comedy. In truth, if anything National Lampoon Inc was more egregious than J2 Communications had been in opening the floodgates and letting anybody who came along with enough money to pay the licensing fee use the name. The result was that the Lampoon name subsequently became synonymous with subpar, gross-out, lowest common denominator (and in many cases direct to home video) 'comedies' that basically had an appeal limited to the average 12-year-old boy in terms of the humor.

One of the first productions released under the National Lampoon, Inc moniker was Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure, a pathetic harbinger of what the new Lampoon ownership had in store.

First/original Vacation movie? Classic. Second/European Vacation movie? Not as good, but I liked it well enough. Third/Christmas Vacation movie? Classic. Vegas Vacation? Kinda scraped by, but let's say the premise had more or less ran its course.

Biggest problem with Christmas Vacation 2, to me, is that the producers seemingly had either no clue or just didn't care about why the Cousin Eddie character had worked so well previously. Firstly, he was a secondary character, so his presence was confined to short, effective bursts. Second, although Cousin Eddie was obviously not a genius, he wasn't a complete 100% simpleton, either. What Cousin Eddie was was...relatable. Much like the Griswolds were the typical middle-class family, virtually every such family has their less affluent, rural extended relatives that they don't see much of and usually only on holidays or select occasions. Thus a viewer could identify with Cousin Eddie and his family: plenty of families have their Cousin Eddie.

Cousin Eddie in Christmas Vacation 2 is written and portrayed as literally dumber than a monkey. Randy Quaid had brought such a knowing, smartly written and smartly acted lowbrow charm to the earlier Vacation films. Here in this movie he's such a moron that he's barely competent enough to put one foot in front of the other while walking, much less stumble into an 'Island Adventure'.

Christmas Vacation 2 was originally a made-for-tv movie, and it certainly looks like one...a cheaply made one. Cheap tv sets and backlots. Cheap greenscreen visuals. All of which ties into the cheap attempts at humor. If National Lampoon in the 1990s was on a 12-year-old level of humor, this National Lampoon flick of the new millennium for all the world came off like it was designed to appeal to a 6-year-old. Toilet jokes and glaringly obvious 'people and things fall down and go boom!' sight gags...and even THOSE were executed ineptly in terms of comedic timing. The original actress who played Audrey Griswold, Dana Barron, was brought back for this. A nice touch and nod to the first Vacation movie in theory, but she was barely given anything to do. Eric Idle reprised his role from European Vacation but that also fell flat. Ed Asner somehow got scooped up into this mess and spends most of his scenes sitting down and appearing like he'd rather be taking a nap.

Just a joyless undertaking that smacked of being a dashed off, cheaply made quickie cash grab and sadly all too typical of what the Lampoon name slowly morphed into over the decades, which is a production company that churns out unfunny comedies. Honestly, I couldn't even recommend this to REALLY avid fans of the first three Vacation movies on a curio level. It's just...bad. Bad, bad stuff. You've been warned.

Modern Problems (1981)

Kinda liked it when it first came out, hasn't held up well

[5/10 · 16 October 2023]

In the mid-1970s, Chevy Chase became an overnight success via Saturday Night Live. Which isn't to say he hadn't paid his dues as a performer and a writer prior, but all of that happened when he was a relative unknown (hence, the dues paying). He, largely due to being the first Weekend Update anchor on the first cast of SNL - complete with a pithy catch phrase: "I'm Chevy Chase, and you're not." - was instantly the first breakout star of the show in terms of name recognition. Before long, his name was actively being talked about in the press as one who could succeed Johnny Carson. After a season and a half of SNL, Chase quit the show and went to Hollywood to start what many assumed would be a successful movie career,

That post- SNL movie career started fairly strong out of the gate as well with the romantic thriller Foul Play, which was a box office success. After that promising start, Chase's output has best been described as uneven. After Foul Play came Oh! Heavenly Dog, which deservedly flopped. Then an appearance in the comedic ensemble Caddyshack, which was undoubtedly one of the all-time greats. Then Seems Like Old Times, which was serviceable enough. Then Under The Rainbow, which...well, which wasn't one of the all-time greats.

Which brings us to 1981's Modern Problems. I can't say the entire concept was something that was bound to slightly underperform from the start in terms of the premise. The plot certainly isn't a standard one, concerning Max (Chase) as an air-traffic controller living in NYC with his girlfriend, who gets accidentally doused with nuclear waste and (instead of dying) ends up developing telekinesis, enabling him to move people and objects through the air by the sheer will of his mind.

I'll also say that upon a recent viewing for the first time in many years, I did find the movie was still populated with secondary characters that I found to be interesting, played by actors that I liked who turned in effective performances. I'll also say that there were several sight gags and a sprinkling of lines in the script that now as then didn't fail to amuse in a straightforward yuk yuk lowbrow way (although there were as many that weren't particularly funny, either).

No, in the end what kinda tempered or limited the overall comedic effect for me was the character Chase was playing and the way Chase played it. Simply put - and this is an aspect that stood out much more to me recently than it did when I saw it just over 40 years ago - Chevy Chase's Max overall is a downer nonentity as a character. I suppose much of that had to do with the premise and the character as written, but Max is a depressed man, bored in a dead-end job and on shaky ground with his girlfriend because he is overly jealous and possessive. Max is more gloomy than funny, and the problem with this is the Max character is the central focal point of the movie. As such, Max is in the vast majority of the scenes, and Max... simply isn't likeable. Not to the slightest degree.

Thus, the movie largely feels akin to the experience of being trapped in a social situation with someone who isn't pleasant to be around, and a person whom one would excuse oneself from fairly quickly if introduced to at a party. And once doused by the radioactive waste, Max goes from gloomy and depressed to mean-spirited, exacting revenge via his telekinesis on those who he feels slighted by in a manner that comes off more childishly spiteful than funny. For the scenes of come-uppance against those who wronged him to work, it'd be necessary for the viewer to have at least some empathy if not sympathy toward Max. I found I had little to none of either.

It was of interest to recently find out that Modern Problems was recut just prior to it's Christmas 1981 release in order to go from an R to a PG rating. Interesting in that I had always felt Modern Problems felt intentionally toned-down regarding the content when juxtaposed by the situations depicted in the movie. Certainly in the pre-PG-13 era of 1981 the difference between an R and a PG rating was vast in terms of what was allowed onscreen, and some of the situations in Modern Problems (specifically the gags involving birth control, sexual climaxes, gay bar settings, sexual politics between men and women) came off as a bit neutered in the attempt via the PG rating to make Modern Problems more accessible to teen audiences at the ticket booth. A weird choice going for the PG rating since Modern Problems wasn't intended as a teen boner comedy, or really a film made for anyone other than an adult audience in terms of relatability, which makes the juvenile, cartoonish nature of the sight gags all the more puzzling in wondering who exactly did the filmmakers think Modern Problems would appeal to? Also, the aiming for a PG rating coupled with releasing the movie on Christmas Day without any advanced screenings for critics suggested that the studio involved (20th Century Fox) smelled a bit of a turkey and - much like Columbia Pictures and the movie Neighbors which also shared a December 1981 non-advance screening release - the strategy became one of Dump And Run. Open the movie theatrically as widely as possible during the holidays with as little advance word of mouth as possible and hope to make a quick buck, which Modern Problems did.

I will say Dabney Coleman's turn as a self-absorbed, narcissistic self-help book author was - and remains - hilariously entertaining. Along with the rest of the supporting cast. It also remains true that there were some obvious but well-executed sight gags and one-liners that did make me chuckle, so I'm not gonna say Modern Problems was "Chevy Chase's worst comedy EVER!!!" or some such other hyperbole. Definitely uneven, though, with as many misses as hits in terms of the laughs. Sort of reflective of Chase's career on the whole, in a sense.