From The Parallax Review Vaults: Air America (1990)

The following review originally was written for The Parallax Review, a film review site of which I was the co-founder and managing editor. I have decided to collect the writings I did for The Parallax Review and preserve them here. I will be posting a few of these older pieces every week. My review of Air America was for the “On Cable” section of The Parallax Review.

by Matt Wedge, Managing Editor

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Someday a very good film could be made about the clandestine CIA operation to airlift guns and supplies to local troops fighting North Vietnamese soldiers in Laos during the Vietnam War. This film could take a serious approach, raising concerns about the legality and morality of the way the operation was handled. On the other end of the spectrum, a wickedly funny satire that plays up the lunacy of the pilots and CIA officials involved ala Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H, could just as effectively point out the problems inherent with working with unreliable warlords. What that good movie will not be is what Air America became: a film that wants to be a Looney Tunes cartoon featuring rebellious pilot hijinks that also scolds the U.S. government in a self-righteous manner for its ethical shortcomings in a questionable war. With one foot in each style of filmmaking, director Roger Spottiswoode never commits to either tone and the film fails to make an impact as either one.

Billy Covington (Robert Downey Jr.) is a helicopter pilot who works as the traffic reporter for a Los Angeles radio station. When he loses his pilot’s license and his job for getting into an on-air fight with a truck driver for not allowing an ambulance to reach the scene of an accident, the CIA recruits him to fly for Air America, a secret government organization operating in Laos. Having no other immediate options, he takes the offer and is dropped head first into a world of jittery pilots nearly driven insane by the dangers of their job. Among these pilots is Gene Ryack (Mel Gibson), who seems just as borderline insane as the rest of the pilots, but may just be using that perception as a cover for his side business of running guns to the highest bidder. When Billy discovers that not only is the Air America operation illegal, the CIA is also helping a local warlord (Burt Kwouk) to run heroin deliveries in exchange for his military help, he has a crisis of conscience that forces him to make a decision that can cost him more than his job.

The early scenes of the film are easily the best. Spottiswoode uses Billy to introduce the audience to a never-ending stream of off-kilter characters. These scenes are often very funny as Gibson and a host of perfectly cast character actors (Art La Fleur, Tim Thomerson, Marshall Bell) display the traits of adrenaline junkies who may have overdosed. They drink too much, take unnecessary risks in the service of getting their fix, and fight like stray dogs when seemingly benign gestures and statements are taken the wrong way. These scenes have just the right amount of suspense to them, as well. While their actions are mostly played for laughs, the very real danger is made apparent to Billy when he realizes that he will sometimes have to place his life in the hands of these lunatics.

Unfortunately, a plot kicks in that includes the efforts to keep a visiting senator (Lane Smith) from discovering the heroin smuggling and a humanitarian worker (Nancy Travis) fighting to save refugees from the encroaching war and the drug trade. It’s no surprise that the film loses its edge as the second and third acts strip away the early efforts to create a loopy satire. Characters suddenly lose their idiosyncratic qualities, develop consciences, and swoop in to save the day. This wouldn’t be so objectionable except for the fact that the script never provides concrete reasons for them to make these changes. The plot demands it, so they must change.

The film ends with an attempt to pick back up on the dark humor of the first act by linking characters from the Air America operation to the Iran-Contra scandal and the U.S. involvement with Manuel Noriega. But this just feels like desperate attempts to make the film more relevant when it was released. In fact, the whole second half of the film feels desperate as the cast struggles to inject the righteous anger that Spottiswoode seems to demand.

Sometimes funny, disjointed, and confused about the message it wants to make, Air America fails to make much of an impact. It takes an interesting subject and wrings all the life and flavor out of it in order to become a bland, Hollywood-ready product.

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The Cohen Case Files: A Return to Salem’s Lot (1987)

Executive Produced, Written (Also Story By), and Directed by Larry Cohen

Any discussion of A Return to Salem’s Lot has to begin and end with Sam Fuller (yes, I am aware he is credited in most of his films as Samuel Fuller, but it seems wrong not to refer to him as Sam). A journalist, decorated World War II veteran, indie writer/director, and all-around force of nature in his eventful life, Fuller is dropped into the film just when the plot needs a jolt and he provides one with his natural energy, stealing every scene he’s in and providing a needed moral center.

Before I can get into a plot setup and proper review of the film, I have to lay out a miniature flowchart of its literary and television connections. This film is a sequel-in-title-only to the 1979 TV miniseries Salem’s Lot. Directed by Tobe Hooper, the miniseries was based directly on the novel of the same name by Stephen King. Due to this literary lineage, A Return to Salem’s Lot sports a “based on characters created by Stephen King” credit, but all the film shares in common with either the novel or the miniseries is the titular New England town. All the characters are new and there is no mention of the earlier events, meaning viewers can jump straight into this film without having any knowledge of the previous projects.

Joe (Michael Moriarty) is a cold-blooded anthropologist who is introduced filming a remote tribe as one of their members is sacrificed. Not horrified in the least by this display, all Joe can think of is what his footage will do for his career. He is understandably annoyed when he receives word that his son has been in an accident and he races home only to discover his ex-wife (Ronee Blakley in a blink and you’ll miss her cameo) and her new husband have lied to force his return so they can dump young Jeremy (Ricky Addison Reed) on him.

It seems that at only eleven-years-old, Jeremy has already blossomed into a troublesome teenager. Angered by what he sees as being abandoned by Joe (who hasn’t seen him in three years) he has started pulling stunts like taking his stepfather’s new Mercedes out for a joyride. Reed expresses the inner turmoil of a boy trying to understand his relationship with his distant father by spitting out his tough talking dialogue in a stilted manner that threatens to sabotage the movie before it gets started.

Joe, unexpectedly saddled with the responsibilities of being a parent to a fairly awful little boy, remembers the small house left to him by his Aunt Clara. Of course, the house is in Salem’s Lot, but since Joe is not aware he’s in a horror movie, he takes Jeremy to the small town with the plan of fixing up the house as a way to bond with his son. That’s when they discover the town is populated almost exclusively by vampires.

Led by Judge Axel (Andrew Duggan), the vampires have been hiding in plain sight, protected by the public’s belief that vampires don’t exist. They mostly feed on cattle they raise specifically for blood, maintain appearances of being a regular small town by having a few humans (called “drones”) around that they breed and raise for this purpose, and wait for the day when the rest of the world will accept them for who and what they are.

Judge Axel wants Joe to write the vampire Bible, explaining their history and how they have evolved into their current society. While Joe is torn between keeping Jeremy safe by leaving town and the promise of achieving fame through what is arguably the greatest anthropological discovery in history, the vampires do their best to subtly manipulate him.

First, they work to create a divide between Joe and his son by trying to seduce Jeremy into the vampire fold through a lovely young vampire named Amanda (a very young Tara Reid). Next, they provide Joe with Cathy (Katja Crosby), a beautiful vampire he had a crush on when he was a child visiting his aunt. Finally, they use threats of violence, killing a group of humans who wander into town to send the message that they may feed on cattle to avoid problems with humans, but they still have the power and the desire to kill.

This is a ton of plot setup and the movie meanders a lot during the first act. I’m not sure if Cohen was trying to make the vampire’s actions just as mysterious to the audience as they are to Joe, but I was certainly questioning the lack of cohesiveness. We first see the vampires kill and drain four teenagers who get pulled over by Rains (James Dixon!), the town’s drone constable. One of these victims is killed right in front of Joe, even as Judge Axel tries to convince him of his plan to write a Bible. At the same time that Cohen seems to be making the case that the vampires should be treated like any other indigenous tribe and allowed to live their lives, he portrays them as evil killers trying to turn Joe’s son against him.

It’s a confusing and morally muddy place that Cohen takes the characters and the film. At times, this ambiguity is interesting. But for most of the first act, the film is just frustrating as Cohen seems unable to decide what he wants the film to be. Is it a satire of traditional vampire films where the undead characters are treated as just another tribe in the world? Or is it a straight horror film where Joe will eventually try to rescue his son and fight back against the bloodsuckers? At this crossroads, arrives Sam Fuller.

Fuller plays Van Meer, an elderly gentleman who shows up in town looking for someone he claims is an old friend. He’s eventually revealed to be a vengeance-driven man seeking out Nazi war criminals that escaped punishment. When he is told what is happening in the town, as a man who has seen the worst of what humans can do to each other, he accepts the truth without blinking an eye. When questioned later about how the outside world would accept such a fantastic premise, Van Meer’s response is simple but telling: “In 500 years, who’ll believe there were Nazis?”

By linking a group responsible for the worst human atrocities in semi-recent history with a group of the most frequently used supernatural villains of horror fiction, Cohen makes his choice for the direction taken by the rest of the film. While the moral issues the film wrestled with in the first act setup are interesting, it isn’t until Van Meer arrives and puts the issue in simple terms of good and evil that the film takes off and becomes a lot of fun.

But would the film have been as much fun if Cohen had cast someone other than Fuller as Van Meer? I suppose it’s possible that he could have found another elderly actor with as much playful, hard-charging, enthusiastic personality as Fuller, but I doubt it.

Fuller’s acting career before this film had consisted of cameos in his own films and the work of other directors who admired him. Never before (or, for that matter, after) this film had he been given such a large, pivotal role. I have no idea what led Cohen to think of Fuller for the role. Perhaps it was the similarity the two share in their respective careers—like Fuller, Cohen chafed under studio restrictions and carved out his own niche creating pulpy genre films with underlying social messages. After seeing the film, it’s hard not to think of Fuller as perfectly cast. Chomping on a cigar, waving a gun around at the slightest provocation, delivering his dialogue in a rapid rhythm that would warm David Mamet’s heart, his performance is so much fun to watch, he steals the movie with gusto.

In fact, much of the entertainment value of the film comes from the casting. Moriarty is always a blast when he works with Cohen and while he’s in more of a leading man mode in this film, he still gets plenty of oddball scenery to chew as a man suddenly facing a crisis of conscience. Much of the rest of the cast is made up of Cohen regulars (Dixon, Duggan, Brad Rijn, Jill Gatsby) who give eccentric performances in roles large and small. Duggan, in particular, is impressively sinister as the villainous Judge Axel.

The film has one of the largest budgets Cohen ever worked with and the money is evident on the screen. Shot by veteran genre cinematographer Daniel Pearl, the town is given an alien look during the daytime scenes that are made all the more disturbing by its deserted appearance. Needing fewer extras and with an entire town at his disposal, Cohen also does away with some of his more guerilla techniques of stealing shots in public places. This control of the entire environment gives the film more of a classic filmmaking feel, as though it were a studio project from the ’40s or ‘50s shot on a backlot.

Surprisingly, the film doesn’t have much of a reputation, even among Cohen fans. It definitely is more lightweight in terms of subtext than many of his directorial efforts and sports a terrible piece of child acting from Reed. But it also has a loopy sense of humor that makes up for those shortcomings. While most of the laughs come from Fuller’s hardboiled one-liners, there are plenty of sublime sight gags along with some goofy attempts by Joe to talk frankly with his son to spread the comedy evenly around.

I had a lot of fun with A Return to Salem’s Lot. Even though the philosophical questions of whether instinctual or tribal traditions excuse the taking of another life failed to fully engage me, as a piece of genre entertainment, it’s elevated by its anything goes tone and Fuller’s dynamic turn.

James Dixon Sighting: Not only does he have the small role of Rains, he also co-wrote the script.

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Twelve Days of Axe-mas: Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987)

I am taking part in The Chicago Creepout’s Twelve Days of Axe-mas holiday viewing event. This is my day two.

Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 is such a stunningly horrible movie; I can only believe its existence can be blamed on a bet or a dare. More likely, it simply sprang from the brain of the world’s cheapest producer. With that idea in mind, in lieu of any sort of formal review which the movie does not deserve, I now present to you how I think the development of the project went down.

NOTE: THE FOLLOWING IS A PIECE OF SATIRE USING THE NAMES OF REAL PEOPLE IN AN ENTIRELY FICTIONAL SITUATION.

The office of Lawrence Applebaum is the type of space that throws visitors into a state of being that exists somewhere between existential despair and nausea. Water stains cover most of the ceiling, setting off the gray-green cinder block walls that make the room look like a prison. In an effort to cover the walls and give the space the aura of a true film producer, framed posters of Applebaum’s productions are hung. Titles like Hot Pants Holiday, Penitentiary II, The Alchemist, and Thunder Run proudly represent just a few of the projects that Applebaum has shepherded to the screen.

Applebaum sits behind a metal frame desk with a fake wood grain top. He is busy snorting a line of cocaine from a hand mirror on the desk when his secretary walks in. A dyed-blonde, would be actress who once worked as a “special assistant” to Lou Ferrigno on the set of The Incredible Hulk TV show as a way of breaking into the business, the secretary now finds her show-business dreams on hold as she runs interference between Applebaum and various investors wondering when they will see a return on the money they have given the producer. Watching Applebaum stash the mirror in the top drawer of his desk and stare impatiently at her with his bloodshot eyes and red, inflamed nostrils flaring, she wonders if giving Ferrigno handjobs in his trailer between takes was really such a terrible gig—other than having to wash off the green paint.

“What is it?” Applebaum barked. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“I’m sorry, Larry—“

“That’s Mr. Applebaum to you, sweet cheeks. Now, what’s the problem?”

“Mr. Earle and Mr. Gage are here to see you.”

“Fucking writers. Fine, send ‘em in.”

She opens the door, allowing Joseph Earle and Eric Gage to enter the room. As Applebaum fake smiles at them and heartily shakes their hands, she leaves the room, certain she can feel a small piece of her soul crumbling away, leaving a blank void.

“So, fellas, whaddya got for me?” Applebaum says.

“We got a winner for you!” Earle says.

“A crackerjack idea!” Gage follows up.

“A surefire hit!”

“It’s smart—“

“Classy—“

“Scary—“

“Sexy—“

“I like sexy,” Applebaum says.

“Exciting—“

“You’re gonna love it!”

“Well Jesus, boys, don’t keep me in suspense.”

“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde!” Earle and Gage say in unison.

Applebaum slumps back in his chair.

“Now hear us out—“

“We have an angle—“

“Something people will never see coming—“

“Dr. Jekyll is crazier than Mr. Hyde!”

“They’re both deranged killers, but Jekyll is the really sick one—“

“So Hyde has to keep cleaning up the mess that Jekyll leaves behind—“

“Disposing of bodies, getting rid of bloody clothes and murder weapons—“

“But neither is really concerned about getting rid of the other one—“

“Which allows for more murder and rape scenes—“

“More bang for your buck, so to speak—“

“And it’s in the public domain, so we don’t have to buy the rights!”

Applebaum looks between the two men with disdain.

“It’s a fucking period piece!” Applebaum spits out. “Do you know how expensive that would be, you fucking morons? I tell you to bring me something cheap, something with some blood and tits in it and you want me to adapt a fucking hundred year old novel?”

“It could be done inexpensively—“

“Yeah, we put together a budget estimate and came up with just a hair under five million—“

“Boys,” Applebaum says “I got about a hundred grand to put together something, anything to throw on a few theater screens and move some units on video. I don’t have the money or time to be fucking around with an old Bram Stoker book.”

“Actually, Jekyll and Hyde was written by Robert Louis Stevenson—“

“I don’t give a fuck if it was Adlai Stevenson, I ain’t interested!”

“A hundred thousand isn’t a lot to work with,” Earle says.

“What about…nah,” Gage says.

“Spit it out,” Applebaum says.

“Don’t you have the rights to that killer Santa movie?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well, what about a sequel?”

“The money’d never stretch far enough. Effects cost a lot. Tits cost a lot.”

“I got an idea,” says Earle. “You still use that guy as an editor? What’s his name, Henry?”

“Lee Harry. Yeah, so?”

“Let’s bring him into this.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re gonna need an editor.”

Applebaum makes the call and sits back and listens as Earle lays out his plan. As he talks, Applebaum, getting excited by the idea, passes around the mirror with the cocaine. An hour later, Lee Harry takes a seat next to Gage and listens to the plan.

“Let me get this straight,” Harry says. “You only have enough money to cover the budget for a second and third act?”

All three men nod their heads in coked up excitement.

“So you wanna make a sequel, and have the entire first act comprised of footage from the first movie?”

“It’ll be a flashback—“

“The killer’s little brother can tell the story of what happened—“

“We use all the best bits from the first film—“

“The blood and the tits—“

“We pad the first forty or so minutes with that and then we write a story to frame it as a real movie!”

Harry looks around at the other men in the room.

“But it’s not a real movie,” Harry says. “If we make a sequel and then start it out with nothing but footage from the first movie, the audience is gonna be pissed. They’ll feel cheated.”

“Who gives a shit?” Applebaum says while laughing. “By that point, they’ve already bought their ticket and we got their money.”

“I don’t know about this flashback angle,” says Harry. “Doesn’t having the killer narrate the story through flashback negate any suspense?”

“Negate?” Applebaum says. “Would you listen to this guy’s vocabulary? Negate!”

“I just think if you’re going to make a slasher film, you need that moment of surprise when the killer pops up. Without that, it’s just not gonna be scary.”

“Lee,” Applebaum says, “we asked you to come in here because we need a director who understands how to build a movie from footage. We need an editor. And, correct me if I’m wrong, but haven’t you always wanted to direct?”

Harry leans back in his chair and studies the ugly water stains on the ceiling. He knows it’s a bad idea, but it’s just too tempting. Against his better judgment, he nods his head.

“Terrific,” Applebaum says. “Now we just need the killer. Someone big, scary, a hulk.”

In the outer office, despite the fact that she cannot hear what is being said in the meeting, the secretary feels a chill go down her spine.

The door to the office opens and all the men turn to see Eric the intern walk in.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Eric says, his voice dripping with extreme sarcasm. “I just need to change the garbage bag in the trash can.”

The men watch as Eric, his bulging muscles barely contained by his shirt, goes about his task. Applebaum looks at the men and nods toward Eric. One by one, they nod their heads and give the thumbs up sign.

“Son,” says Applebaum, “what’s your name?”

“Eric.”

Eric’s lip curls up in a sneer and he shoots a glare in Applebaum’s direction.

“Eric, you didn’t come to Hollywood to empty garbage cans, did you?”

“Of course I did. Isn’t that everyone’s dream?”

Eric’s sneer widens, threatening to engulf his entire face. Applebaum laughs.

“How would you like to be the star of my next picture?”

“If I do that, I won’t have time to empty the garbage.”

Eric rolls his eyes as Applebaum continues laughing.

“This kid’s a natural!” Applebaum says as he looks at Earle. “Make sure you write to that sarcastic attitude. People will never get sick of that over the course of a movie.”

Applebaum looks back at Eric.

“Now, kid. You understand this is a tremendous opportunity for you. You’re gonna be a star. You got that something that just can’t be…what’s it called?”

“Quantified?’ Harry says.

“That’s it! Quantified. You got it, kid. We’re gonna make you a star. But you understand, I can’t pay you much.”

I’m sure the actual story behind what led to this still-birth of a movie is a lot more mundane and less sleazy, but the fact remains the producers put together one of the absolute worst movies I’ve ever seen. Do yourself a favor. I you ever choose to watch it, make sure you have plenty of booze on hand and lots of friends with which to mock it. This is the rare movie that deserves that kind of treatment.

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The Cohen Case Files: The Ambulance (1990)

Written and Directed by Larry Cohen

The Ambulance is a snapshot of an industry in transition. Released in 1990, it’s the type of low-budget independent thriller that would soon start going straight to video, but still managed to make its way into theaters…barely. If not for an eclectic cast of solid character actors and a former leading man working his way down the Hollywood food chain in Eric Roberts, it’s likely the film would have been completely forgotten by all but Cohen completists like myself. Fortunately, the goofy casting, a nifty premise working as a hook, and a tonally bizarre script keep the film such an oddity that it’s all but impossible to ignore it, even if it is just of mid-level importance when it comes to Cohen’s filmography.

Roberts plays Josh, an artist with one of the greatest late ’80s/early ’90s mullets you have ever seen. Josh works for Marvel Comics—a plot point that only exists to give Stan Lee a small role as himself. While he’s a talented artist, Josh is socially inept. He has a crush on Cheryl (Janine Turner), a woman he sees on the street everyday when he goes out for lunch. One day, he finally decides to introduce himself in a way that makes him seem like a crazed stalker. Walking along the sidewalk, badgering her for a date, even though she has been far kinder than the situation calls for in turning him down, Josh refuses to give up. Past the point when most sane women would have called the cops, Cheryl suddenly falls ill and collapses. Josh screams for someone to call an ambulance and gets just her first name before an old-fashioned ambulance (think the old model kind used in Ghostbusters) arrives in a fashion that’s quicker than normal. Before Josh has time to process what has happened, she is loaded into the ambulance and gone.

When Josh tries to visit her in the hospital, he discovers she was never brought in. In fact, she doesn’t seem to have been taken to any hospital in the city. Josh goes to the police and talks to a detective named Spencer (James Earl Jones), who dismisses him as having a nervous breakdown.

Frustrated, Josh turns to Cheryl’s roommate (Jill Gatsby) for help, only to see her kidnapped by the men in the ambulance. Becoming more paranoid by the minute, Josh careens from scene to scene, trying to track down where the ambulance is taking people and what is being done with them. His investigation is helped along by an aging New York Post reporter named Elias (Red Buttons), a uniform cop nursing a crush on him (Megan Gallagher), and a begrudgingly helpful Spencer. As the investigation reveals a bizarre conspiracy involving people with diabetes and a sinister doctor (Eric Braeden), Josh’s obsession threatens to destroy his life.

The Ambulance easily could have been a generic thriller that disappears from the mind of the viewer as soon as the end credits roll. But thanks to Cohen’s playful handling of the material and a wonderfully over-the-top performance by Roberts, it winds up as something unquantifiable; played too straight to be a commentary on the conspiracy thriller, but too aware of its own absurdity to operate as a true piece of suspense, it exists in a no-man’s-land of odd laughs and sudden violence.

While Cohen sets a tone that falls just short of outright mocking of his own film, the cast deliver several big laughs. Roberts turns his crazed intensity into a performance that borders on uncomfortable. Throwing his body around the locations, pulling off strange line readings that range from unintelligible to wildly inappropriate, he does everything to make sure all eyes are on him when he’s on screen. But even with Roberts going apeshit in thirty ways at once, Jones nearly steals the movie as a man even more paranoid than Josh, nervously chomping on gum and bellowing angrily at everyone he thinks is out to get him. It’s almost a shame when Cohen takes a break from the Roberts and Jones show to move the plot forward with a piece of exposition.

While the loose feel and indulgence in out-of-place comedy is pure Cohen, the film is lacking any kind of social or political commentary that is usually found in the projects he directs. Sure, there is a healthy dose of satirical humor as he takes a few jabs at the more ridiculous thriller clichés, but the film seems to exist in a vacuum, where the outside world does not matter. Even the New York locations that Cohen normally uses so well, feel routine and functional at best, generic and forgettable at worst.

In a strange way, The Ambulance feels like a companion-piece to the Cohen-scripted and produced Maniac Cop films. Both trade on the clever idea of authorities who show up to the scene of an emergency to harm, rather than help the victims. While this film does not delve into supernatural horror the way the Maniac Cop films do, it does plug into the same paranoia of not knowing whether to be thankful for the siren in the distance or if it should instill fear. Or, in the case of The Ambulance, the characters are always given the third option of laughing at how silly the thriller genre can get. For the most part, I laughed right along with them.

James Dixon Sighting: Playing yet another cop in a Larry Cohen film, he gets to be the butt of several jokes about his resemblance to a certain comic book character.

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Terror in the Aisles 13

Terror in the Aisles 13 took place at Chicago’s Portage Theater on November 30 with an impressive lineup and indie genre film veteran Brian Yuzna as the special guest. That Yuzna’s appearance was coordinated with a showing of Society, his directorial debut, was the main draw of the evening. While seeing that film for the first time in nearly twenty years was the highlight for me, the rest of the evening offered the chance to check out some old favorites, take in an impressive short horror film from a local filmmaker, giggle along with a spot-on fake trailer, and enjoy a terrific short that reveled in its bad taste.

Random Thoughts:

-       I am really learning to appreciate the speakers that Movieside is bringing to Terror in the Aisles and The Massacre. In the years that I have been regularly attending these events, I have been treated to interviews with Clive Barker, Stuart Gordon, Larry Cohen, Brian Yuzna, Jack Hill, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Kevin Van Hentenryck, Michael Dougherty, and the Chiodo Brothers. That’s a hell of a lineup and only a few of the filmmakers who have taken time out to talk and visit with their fans.

-       I was spoiled by how good the prints were for the movies during The Massacre in October. The print for Society was pretty sharp, but the prints for The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Phantasm were awfully faded, giving every scene the same pink tint that comes with print deterioration. Still, I appreciate the effort to show as much as possible on 35 mm and avoid projection from DVD unless absolutely necessary.

-       My friend Brian pointed out that attending The Massacre and the Terror in the Aisles events feels very much like going to church. While I’m not religious and haven’t regularly attended a church since I was a child, I can see his reasoning. We come to the Portage Theater, which feels like a place of worship for movie lovers, we see many of the same faces in attendance, there is a communal feeling to the audience, we have guest speakers preach to the congregation and re-affirm our faith in the power of genre films, and we “pass the plate” for charity.

-       When Angus Scrimm scowls, he reminds me of my dad when angry.

Note: Two music videos were part of the evening’s festivities but I have chosen not to review them since I am not a musician and do not feel qualified to comment on what I perceive to be their merits or shortcomings. I complain quite a bit about people blogging on topics which they are not qualified to cover. I don’t wish to be one of those people.

Air Conditions (2012)

A short film that starts out as a survival horror piece about a man stuck in one place with no apparent hope for escape, it turns into something else entirely. I really don’t want to say any more than that in way of a plot setup or synopsis because much of the effectiveness of this mean little film by writer/director Ryan Oliver comes from the ability to make you think the film is going to be one thing before eventually revealing what is really happening.

Beyond the story misdirection, there is quite a bit more to admire about the film.

Oliver offers up some images that are hard to forget. From the stylish shot of a figure standing in a doorway of a darkened room with bright sunlight at his back to the disconcerting shots of severed pig’s heads sitting on a Chicago rooftop, the film is always visually interesting. Unfortunately, this is an aspect of low-budget shorts that is often lacking. So many short films I see (especially since digital video came along) are visually boring, making it a slog to sit through many of them, so it was a pleasant surprise to find a short that looks like it belongs in the cinema.

The performance by John Fenner Mays as the man trapped in place is quite good. While some might view his portrayal as a little over-the-top, I felt he was a strong, sympathetic presence. No one knows how they would react to the situation in which his character finds himself trapped. I think the quick panic on the part of his character was a believable choice and his mounting frustration, anger, and desperation was palatable. Just as it’s rare to get good visuals out of short films these days, it’s just as unusual to see good acting, so Mays deserves a lot of credit for how well the film came together.

The film is a little too long. I feel it could greatly benefit by having five minutes trimmed from some of the setup and an extended slow-motion sequence felt a little too self-indulgent on the part of Oliver. Despite these complaints, I was very impressed by Air Conditions. It taps into the potent paranoia and fear that on any given day, one wrong step could spin our lives straight out of our control.

You can check out a trailer for it here.

Society (1989)

Before the start of Society, director Brian Yuzna did a brief introduction in which he referred to it as “such an ‘80s film.” While the hairstyles, fashions, and home décor are all frozen in late ‘80s amber, the script has dated very well, with its theme of the “haves” taking advantage of the “have nots” standing as just as relevant today as it was when the film was made nearly 25 years ago.

Bill (Billy Warlock) seems to have it all. He’s a popular basketball player at his Beverly Hills high school, is poised to become class president, his girlfriend is a cheerleader, and his parents are rich. But Bill has serious issues about his family. He feels like an outsider in his home as his parents (Charles Lucia and Connie Danese) seem to have a special bond with his sister Jenny (Patrice Jennings) while they treat him like a barely tolerated houseguest. He sees a therapist (Ben Slack) who dismisses Bill’s concerns as a feeling of alienation through which all teenagers go.

Bill tries to believe his therapist, but he can’t shake the feeling that something wrong is going on with the people in his life. This view is furthered by his friend Blanchard (Tim Bartell) who used to date Jenny until she unceremoniously dumped him. Obsessed with Jenny, Blanchard bugged her jewelry and car and heard conversations between her and Bill’s parents that sound like they are involved with some kind of incestuous cult at their country club. When Blanchard is killed in a suspicious car accident, Bill’s determination to find out the truth deepens, but is anything wrong or is he just paranoid? Adding to Bill’s confusion is the fact that he is ostracized by many of his fellow classmates on the order of Ferguson (Ben Meyerson), a thuggish classmate who controls a large clique of the richest kids at school while Clarissa (Devin DeVasquez)—a member of said clique—seduces him.

For a movie that barely runs ninety minutes, it’s stuffed to the brim with characters and odd tangents. Perhaps that’s why Yuzna and his screenwriters, Rick Fry and Woody Keith, barely play with the “is it all in his mind?” angle. If you have seen any of the marketing for the film or ever heard someone you know talk about it, you know that there is something rotten in Beverly Hills. What you may not realize, is just how twisted that something rotten is. But that’s okay because that means you’re in for a pleasant surprise as the amazing makeup effects by Screaming Mad George take center stage in a jaw-dropping twenty minute sequence that is more stunning than anything that can be currently created with CGI.

Coming from the producer of one of the greatest horror-comedies of all time, it’s not surprising that Society tries to walk a tonal tightrope between its satirical points and the slimy, queasy, effects-driven tale it eventually becomes. Yuzna straddles the line reasonably well, but the points about class inequality and teenage alienation are often times served up in blunt exchanges that sound more like talking points than natural dialogue. For me, the most interesting angle of the inequality theme is the most subtly handled: most of the members of the clique, Bill’s family, and other authority figures who may or may not be involved in the conspiracy could play Nazis in a World War II movie because of their largely Aryan appearance. This becomes an even more powerful choice on the part of Yuzna when Blanchard’s funeral is held in a Synagogue. The connection is never mentioned or forced on the audience, but it made a huge impression on me.

Where Yuzna seems to feel more comfortable is when the film just revels in weirdness. Clarissa’s mother looks and acts like a character straight out of an early John Waters film with her obsession with other people’s hair. She even hacks up a hairball in a memorable scene. A subplot about who is placing shrunken heads and voodoo dolls (at one point, even a life-sized sex doll) in Bill’s Jeep and locker is explained away with the flimsiest of excuses and becomes comedic in the process. In the biggest laugh of the night, Clarissa’s options for what Bill takes in his tea will go down as one of the greatest and strangest non sequiturs in the history of film. These moments all feel more organic and fleshed out then some of the more obvious satire that makes up much of the film.

But while the class inequality satire may be blunt, along with the amazing makeup work in the third act, it’s what gives the film staying power and keeps it something you can watch today for reasons other than looking at it as an ‘80s camp fest. If you can find a DVD of it or are lucky enough to get the opportunity to see it on the big screen, take full advantage.

After the film, Yuzna did a Q&A that covered a little bit about the making of Society and Re-Animator, but focused more on the producing side of his career and his pragmatic approach to being a working producer. Refreshing in his candor, he talked about how he felt Paul Naschy was not given enough credit for the career he put together, why he felt the special effects crews in Spain (where he produced several films for the Fantastic Factory, an indie genre production company) weren’t up to snuff, and the importance of learning the art of raising funds and getting distribution while still making money. It was nice to hear a guest speak so frankly about the business aspect of making films.

Trailer for Una Chiave di Ghiaccio in un Campo di Lillà (A Key of Ice in a Field of Lilacs)

Given a perfect spot before Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, this fake trailer from Jason Coffman nailed the tone of those great ‘70s giallo trailers that give you a ton of visual information, but next to no plot details. Coffman understands what makes those trailers so effective: a focus on the score, moments of unintentional humor, occasional bursts of violence, a convoluted title, and lots and lots of people looking sinister in extreme close up. Of course, there is no dialogue in the trailer to copy the fact that the trailers were often cut for the U.S. market and the distributers didn’t want the audience to know it was a foreign film. This was a very funny and well-timed treat. Check it out below.

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)

There really is no need to write a full review of this film, Argento’s directorial debut. If you have seen any of the Italian master’s giallos, you know exactly what to expect. I will only say that as a narrative, it is more coherent and straight-forward than many of Argento’s later films and sports some of the best performances he ever brought out of a cast.

Treevenge (2008)

Why did I not seek out this film before? Co-written and directed by Jason Eisener, the director of the delightfully tasteless Hobo with a Shotgun, Treevenge is a short film based around a very clever conceit. Of course, numerous films have clever ideas at their core; they just usually fail in the execution of that idea. Treevenge delivers on its inspired concept, earning some giant laughs in the process.

In the run up to Christmas, evergreen trees are carelessly cut down by angry, hateful lumberjacks. The best trees are trucked off to be sold while the less impressive specimens are tossed on to a fire and saplings get crushed in the harvest.

The opening sequence is bizarre enough in its heightened intensity before taking into account the fact that the trees talk. The people cutting them down cannot hear them, but the audience is let in on their terrified cries and panicked confusion via subtitles.

The film follows several trees as they are purchased by families and subjected to further torture through decoration and having screws tightened into their trunks to hold them in place before Christmas morning rolls around. The title of the film probably tells you what happens next.

The film shares the same gleeful lack of taste as Eisener’s more well-known Hobo with a Shotgun. The action in the final sequence takes on the tone of a Troma film with indiscriminate killings, gallons of spraying blood, and great dollops of chunky gore. Quite simply, it is a wonderful sight to behold. Don’t believe me? Watch it for yourself.

Phantasm (1979)

Much like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, there is no real need to write a review of Phantasm. Not only is it a horror classic—yes, I said classic—well known even to non-horror fans, it is a film that defies logic in the best ways possible. That’s not to say the film doesn’t have an interior logic, it just runs like a series of nightmares strung together. Each scene is its own nightmare and the only connections are the characters and paranoid theme.

As Don Coscarelli’s vision of suburban hell finished with The Tall Man’s menacing bellow of “Boy!,” I gathered together my wits, shook my legs that had fallen asleep, and staggered out into the cold Chicago night. I cannot wait until the next opportunity to spend several hours in one of the city’s grand old movie palaces, immersed in nightmares splashed in light across the screen along with several hundred like-minded folks, holding service in our own form of church.

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The Cohen Case Files: Bone (1972)

Written, Produced, and Directed by Larry Cohen

Bone holds several distinctions in Larry Cohen’s filmography.  It’s his first feature film as a director.  It’s a straight social satire, eschewing many of the genre trappings on which Cohen often likes to hang his social commentaries.  It’s also one of his few films where the female lead is the most interesting and fully formed character.  Maybe it’s because I have such a familiarity with Cohen’s normal formula that the variations on display in Bone explain why the film feels so unusual and daring.  But I doubt that’s the case.  I have the feeling that even newcomers to Cohen’s world would find the film’s handling of racial and class issues to be surprising, occasionally offensive, and completely fearless.

Bill (Andrew Duggan) and Bernadette (Joyce Van Patten) are a seemingly wealthy couple living in Beverly Hills.  Bill owns a car dealership and is something of a local celebrity from starring in the commercials for his business.  Hovering around fifty, he’s at least a decade older than Bernadette.  On the surface, Bernadette relishes playing the role of the trophy wife.  Lounging by the pool at their impressive home, she smirks knowingly at Bill’s frustration and anger at the shoddy work of their pool cleaner.  Always grumpy and frustrated at what he sees as a world that fails to live up to his high standards, Bill never actually follows through on his complaints.  When he angrily calls the pool service to complain, he immediately becomes a polite pushover.  Bernadette’s smirk is enough to tell the audience this is a routine with Bill and to also make it clear all is not well with their marriage.

It’s during the situation with the pool service that Bone (Yaphet Kotto) walks into the unhappy couple’s life.  Who is he?  Where did he come from?  What does he want?  These are the questions that normal people would immediately ask a stranger who wanders, uninvited, into their back yard.  But Bill and Bernadette immediately try to adhere to a societal political correctness.  Instead of asking any of the questions that I put forth, they respond to Bone in a confused manner that at first finds them clumsily polite to the stranger, even mistaking him as being from the pool service.  When it becomes apparent Bone is not from the pool service, the couple remains nervously polite, this time out of fear.  The reason for this fear is initially unspoken, but it’s abundantly clear to Bone—and the audience—that Bill and Bernadette are practically pissing themselves because a large, African-American man has waltzed into their pampered, predominantly white, corner of the universe.  Where the film becomes fascinating to me—and could potentially rub people the wrong way—is that Bone counts on the fear his presence strikes in the hearts of rich white people.

It turns out that Bone has decided to rob Bill and Bernadette because they have the biggest house on the street.  As a bonus for his troubles, he reveals he might even rape Bernadette.  But what Bone doesn’t count on is the capacity for some people to live in complete denial.  Instead of finding money or jewels in the house, Bone finds nothing but bills.  It turns out the couple have been living well past their means for quite a long time and the collectors are nearly to the point of beating down their door.  When Bone finds a savings account book that reveals Bill is holding an account solely in his name that contains five thousand dollars, he forms a plan to have Bill go to the bank and withdraw the money while he stays at the house with Bernadette.  If Bill isn’t back within an hour or goes to the police, Bone promises to do terrible things to Bernadette.

Of course, the reason the account is only under Bill’s name is obvious.  As Bone says with a laugh upon discovering the book, “You’re stealing from your wife!”  This complication calls into suspicion just how eager Bill will be to close the account and makes Bernadette a wildcard as she looks to an alliance with Bone as a possible solution to getting some money out of Bill before ending their marriage.

Bone works best in its first and third acts.  The setup of the characters and the situation they inhabit in the first act is beautifully played for uncomfortable laughs.  A sequence where Bone forces Bill and Bernadette into the house is the most striking, playful, and perverse of these comedic moments: as Bone goes through the rooms of the opulent home, Bernadette describes the architecture and art work on display in a chipper voiceover.  The voiceover is supposed to be from a previous tour for a group of friends, but there is a desperate undertone to her voice, as though she were a guide concerned with impressing a bored tour group in a museum.  Bone certainly reacts in a bored manner (aside from one perfectly placed double-take that produces maximum laughter) until he has had enough of Bill and Bernadette’s debts and babbling.

The second act sags a bit as the leads are split up by the plot.  While Bone and Bernadette have an intriguing side story where they bond in the most unexpected of ways, Bill is left to drift.  A subplot where he briefly wanders from a bank to a grocery store to a dingy apartment with an unnamed young woman (Jeannie Berlin) is absurd, occasionally funny, but ultimately pointless (even if it does point out the obvious mental problems that plague the classic manic pixie dream girl).  While Duggan does do some fine work expressing Bill’s mounting desperation and anger, most of his scenes in this section of the film feel like nothing more than filler to pad out the film’s running time.

The weak nature of Bill’s side trip is made all the more clear as he transitions from his time wandering about to rejoin the main plot with Bone and Bernadette.  The clashing needs of the three leads and the desperate measures they take while heading to a dark climax and powerful resolution, brings the ugly and cynical subtext of the film briefly to the surface.  For a brief moment, while one of the leads (No spoilers in this review) watches the actions of another character in disgust, Cohen fully shows just how sickened he is by the irresponsibility and greed on display.

It’s Cohen’s willingness to scold Bill and Bernadette for racially profiling Bone when they first meet him, while also presenting him as a remorseless criminal that keeps the film walking a tightrope between social satire and tasteless pandering to racial fears.  For the most part, Cohen makes that walk look easy.  His only missteps tend to come when trying to make too blunt of a point.  A piece of Bone’s dialogue (“I’m just a big, black buck doing what’s expected of him!”) is so tone-deaf and obvious, not even an actor as skilled as Kotto is able to salvage it.

The actors deserve much of the credit for pulling together the myriad traits that Cohen hides within their characters.  Much like the script slowly peels away layers to show each character for the frauds they are, Kotto, Van Patten, and Duggan never tip their hands too early when it comes to showing the vanity, cruelty, and ultimately pathetic levels to which they are willing to sink.  Kotto makes great use of his imposing physical presence and quick laugh to keep Bone an unpredictable force.  Duggan brings a smarmy, television pitchman’s patter to Bill that breaks down into a sad, mean aggression in believable fashion.  But it’s Van Patten who does the best work with the most interesting character.

Initially looking and acting like nothing more than a stereotypical trophy wife, Van Patten allows Bernadette to betray a sneaky intelligence as she moves from acting as Bill’s ally to teaming up with Bone in the second act.  While this description may make Bernadette sound like nothing more than an opportunist, she has very personal reasons for turning on Bill that go beyond financial.  Regretting a serious, life-changing decision she allowed Bill to make for the both of them, it’s not hard to argue with her as she seizes the chance to punish Bill for an incredibly mean and selfish act he committed in the past.  Van Patten plays these changes as more than an intellectual exercise, turning them into something akin to a sexual awakening.  It’s no accident that Bernadette becomes more attractive to Bone as the wheels for revenge start turning in her head.  Intelligence is just as sexy as any physical attribute and Van Patten takes advantage of this fact.  It’s an impressive performance that brings to life one of the best female characters Cohen ever created.

While it may lack the pulpy plotting that makes so many of Cohen’s films fun to watch, Bone emerges as essential viewing.  It’s daring and entertaining while speaking to race and class issues that are still very relevant forty years after its release.  It’s also a kick to watch Cohen develop his loose, improvisational style of filmmaking.  As a directorial debut of one of America’s most important independent filmmakers of the twentieth century, it comes very close to brilliance.

Note:  The trailer refers to the film as Housewife, one of the titles the film played under when released.  It also completely misses the tone of the film by shamelessly preying on racial fears.

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Kurt Vonnegut vs. Wesley Scroggins

Let’s take a brief break from talking about movies.  This has been in the news lately and it really struck a chord for me for several reasons.

On Monday, July 25, the Republic (MO) school board voted to remove two books from the high school library.  The first book, Sarah Ockler’s Twenty Boy Summer, is a young adult novel about a teenage girl having a summer fling in an attempt to get over her boyfriend who died the previous year.  The second book was Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five.  If you need me to explain the premise of that novel, you need to stop reading this blog and get your ass to a bookstore pronto.  Not only was Slaughterhouse Five in the library, it was also being used as part of the curriculum for an advanced English class at the school.

At this point, I ask you, dear reader, to take a moment and check out the article about the removal of the two books from the library.  This link will take you to the Springfield (MO) News-Leader website.  Okay, done reading?  Good.

I need to make some disclosures before I dive into this situation.  I grew up in Southern Missouri only seventy miles from Republic.  For ten years after high school, I lived in Springfield, MO, a mere eight miles from Republic.  My nephew graduated from Republic high school.  I am very familiar with the attitudes and cultural state of the area, and while it’s far from the most progressive region in the nation, it’s also not the most closed-minded.  At least, it wasn’t when I lived there.

But apparently things are changing.

If you read the News-Leader article, you understand this mess started with a complaint issued by a Republic resident (and business professor at nearby Missouri State University) named Wesley Scroggins.  You can read an editorial he wrote last September 17 for the News-Leader here.

I feel the need to highlight two passages from Mr. Scroggins’s editorial.

The first passage:

In English, children are also required to read a book called “Slaughterhouse Five.” This is a book that contains so much profane language, it would make a sailor blush with shame. The “f word” is plastered on almost every other page.

I’ve read Slaughterhouse Five twice and while I will admit that there is a healthy amount of profanity in the novel, it’s hardly enough to make a sailor blush (which makes me wonder just how many sailors Mr. Scroggins has met).  As for his assertion that “the f word” (or “fuck”, as reasonably functional adults like to call it) “is plastered on almost every other page”, well, this is just more ammunition for my argument that the favorite tool of nutjobs is hyperbole.

The second passage:

I confronted the school board with these issues at the June school board meeting. As far as I know, nothing has been done to address these issues to date. This is unacceptable, considering that most of the school board members and administrators claim to be Christian. How can Christian men and women expose children to such immorality? Parents, it is time you get involved!

And here’s where Mr. Wesley Scroggins of Republic, MO gets on my nerves.  When it comes to any taxpayer funded institution, I don’t ever want to hear any religious arguments (and before anyone gets their panties in a bunch, I mean any religion–Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Scientology, I don’t care what you believe in) about what is proper.  You see, we are supposed to have a little thing in this country granting the people separation of Church and State.  Of course, this belief is not shared by people like Mr. Scroggins who seek to force their beliefs and set of morals on others.

But in the end, the blame for these books being removed actually belongs to the Republic school board and school superintendent Vern Minor.  Mr. Minor, in particular, sticks his foot in his mouth in the News-Leader article.  First he makes this claim:

We very clearly stayed out of discussion about moral issues. Our discussions from the get-go were age-appropriateness.

A few paragraphs later in the article is this passage:

Minor said feedback for “Twenty Boy Summer,” available in the library, focused on “sensationalizing sexual promiscuity.” He said questionable language, drunkenness, lying to parents and a lack of remorse by the characters led to the recommendation.

“I just don’t think it’s a good book. I don’t think it’s consistent with these standards and the kind of message that we want to send,” he said. “…If the book had ended on a different note, I might have thought differently.”

Now, unless I’m a moron who is completely misreading Mr. Minor’s comments, it certainly sounds as though he’s making a moral judgment on Twenty Boy Summer.

NOTE: I have not read Twenty Boy Summer and cannot comment on its content.  You can read Sarah Ockler’s stellar response (where she also catches Mr. Minor’s moral doublespeak) to the controversy here.

This moralizing is continued by Republic school board member Ken Knierim, who told the UPI (United Press International):

We just felt that of the three books, the two we have pulled aren’t age-appropriate and send the wrong message.

Once again, I cannot speak to the message of Twenty Boy Summer, but Slaughterhouse Five–a scathing satire of the military, warfare, and, ironically enough, the lack of morality that leads to and results from war–seems like an important book to get into the hands of teens just a few months away from being able to sign up for the military.  Yes, it’s profane and absurd and takes glee in going after the sacred cows of American machismo, but that’s precisely what makes it a perfect book for high school kids who have been raised in a pop-culture landscape that revels in irreverent entertainment.

Perhaps my favorite quote of this whole mess belongs to Melissa DuVall, another Republic school board member, from the same News-Leader article:

What we have to be proud of is we took a complaint, we took is seriously and we gave it due diligence.

The key word in that quote is “a”.  They took “a” complaint, meaning one person complained about the presence of these books.  That one person was Mr. Wesley Scroggins.  Now here’s the kicker.  Are you ready for it?

Mr. Scroggins does not have any children who attend Republic schools.  His children are home-schooled.  This, of course, begs not only the question of why he cares what books are available at the Republic high school library, but also why did Mr. Minor and the school board take him so seriously?

I don’t have any answers for those questions because I’m a rational person and cannot understand the mindset of people who would make such decisions.

Let’s just go ahead and cut through the bullshit of what is and isn’t age appropriate for teenagers.  As I said in my frustrated rant about muting profanity so The King’s Speech could get a PG-13 rating:

Does the MPAA really think teenagers don’t hear and (in most cases) use the word “fuck” on a daily basis?

In this case, the question would be altered to:

Does the Republic school board really think teenagers don’t hear and (in most cases) use the word “fuck” on a daily basis?

Of course, Slaughterhouse Five has been banned from schools many times in the past.  The circumstances here (one man complaining who doesn’t even have children in the school) just seem a little more odd than in the past.  I’m sure that if he were alive today, Vonnegut’s reaction would be little more than a chuckle or a simple shrug of the shoulders, recognizing the absurdity of the situation with an acceptance that you can’t change the minds of zealots.

For me, personally, I initially was angered by the situation, but that feeling has mellowed into amusement and sadness.  Amusement that the tiny town of Republic is getting so much unwanted international attention.  Sadness for a region where I was raised but have not called home for several years because stupid shit like this makes me feel that people like myself are unwelcome.

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The Movie Defender: Death to Smoochy (2002)

Only enormously talented people could have made Death to Smoochy. Those with lesser gifts would have lacked the nerve to make a film so bad, so miscalculated, so lacking any connection with any possible audience. To make a film this awful, you have to have enormous ambition and confidence, and dream big dreams. -- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

There are a few laughs, but I’m not sure that a comedy is supposed to make you recoil, which is what Smoochy does. — Elvis Mitchell, The New York Times

You can feel desperation buzzing around Danny DeVito’s Death to Smoochy like flies around a corpse, and there are few things less funny than desperate comedy. — Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com

I first came up with the idea for The Movie Defender at some point in late 2008 or early 2009–I can’t remember which.  I sat on the idea for quite a while, kicking around thoughts of starting up either a blog or a web site dedicated only to this one column.  But I’m lazy and the column never really progressed beyond the idea stage until D.B. started to develop what would become The Parallax Review.  At one point, while discussing the philosophy behind the site, D.B. casually mentioned to me that it could be a home for The Movie Defender, if I wanted.  I jumped at the chance and the rest is very short-lived–but noble–history.

I tell you this because when I first thought of The Movie Defender, I had three movies at the front of my mind: I Know Who Killed Me, Doomsday, and Death to Smoochy.

All three films flopped financially and were savaged by critics, but I felt they were all unjustly maligned.  I Know Who Killed Me became the inaugural subject of the column because it was the most infamous and had a pseudo-relevance due to Lindsay Lohan’s ongoing legal troubles.  After a few months, I got around to writing up a defense of Neil Marshall’s Doomsday after D.B. viciously attacked Marshall’s Centurion, a film I eventually saw, enjoyed, and–in a rare moment of contention–argued forcefully in favor of during an episode of The Parallax Podcast.  But I never got around to writing up Death to Smoochy because I feared that it wasn’t as good as I remembered it being.

This was a real fear for every Movie Defender subject that I took on.  Occasionally, I would watch a film that didn’t live up to my memories of it and I’d have to scrap plans to write it up, but that was a rarity.  But for some reason, I had the nagging fear that Death to Smoochy, which I had not seen in nearly ten years, was actually the awful train-wreck that everyone accused it of being.  When I decided to resurrect The Movie Defender, I felt it was time to finally take another look at the film.  I’m glad I did.

Robin Williams plays Rainbow Randolph, a foul-mouthed, hard-drinking, cynical son-of-a-bitch.  He also happens to be the host of the number one daytime children’s program in the country.  When he gets busted for taking bribes from undercover agents posing as parents to get their child on his show, he loses his job, his money, and his reason for living.

Desperate to find a squeaky clean replacement for Rainbow Randolph, network executives Stokes (Jon Stewart, sporting a ridiculously bad haircut) and Nora (Catherine Keener) turn to Sheldon Mopes (Edward Norton).

Sheldon is a politically correct do-gooder of the highest order.  He’s a vegan who eats tofu hotdogs on gluten-free buns.  He volunteers at a methadone clinic, singing songs about the evils of drugs to near-catatonic heroin addicts.  He is also unfailingly polite to everyone he comes into contact with, never swears, drinks alcohol, or raises his voice in anger.  In short, he is the perfect replacement for Rainbow Randolph and an instant headache for Nora who has to school him in the cutthroat ways of network television.

Sheldon has created a character named Smoochy the Rhino to base his show around.  Smoochy is a hideous, purple monstrosity that still allows Sheldon’s goofy, grinning face to show through to the audience.  As Smoochy, Sheldon performs songs like “My Stepdad’s Not Mean, He’s Just Adjusting” and encourages kids to avoid sugary treats in favor of organic fruits and vegetables.

Much to the shock of everyone at the network, Smoochy is a hit.  But with ratings success comes trouble for Sheldon.  He takes on a shady agent (Danny DeVito) who negotiates a lucrative deal for Sheldon that gives him control of all Smoochy merchandising.  When Sheldon refuses to play ball with the network and create sugary Smoochy cereals and cheap plastic Smoochy toys, he finds his stock falling with Stokes while Nora slowly comes to respect his sincerity.  But Sheldon’s biggest problems come in the form of a Mafia outfit that makes money off the ice shows that Rainbow Randolph used to put on.  The head of the Mafia (Harvey Fierstein) expects Sheldon to go along with the racket and promises unpleasant violence if he doesn’t come around.

And then there’s Rainbow Randolph.  Randolph has been forced to live in the streets, shamed for what he’s done and blaming Sheldon for his problems.  As he grows more deluded and angry, Randolph begins plotting ways to disgrace Sheldon and get his old life back.

This is a hell of a lot of plot for a first act and that’s without even getting into the Irish Mafia outfit that takes a special interest in Sheldon’s continued success and well-being.  Admittedly, the film teeters on the edge of a cliff, ready to fall into the abyss of satirical overkill before something unexpected happens: Sheldon grows from a one-note hippie joke into a character worth rooting for.  In the midst of the aggressive cynicism and heavy-handed satirical jokes, Sheldon becomes a likable, somewhat too earnest protagonist whose quest to improve the world goes from being mocked to encouraged, a surprising turn for a movie directed by the ever-subversive Danny DeVito.

The fact that Sheldon turns out to be such a sweet, gullible character gives Death to Smoochy the moral center needed to ground DeVito’s bleak view of network television politics and merchandising aimed at children.  Sheldon also stands as the rebuttal to many critical complaints that the film is strictly an ugly exercise in cynicism without a heart or connection to recognizable humanity.  He may be a little too over-the-top at points (his fallback phrase of “How do you like that?” becomes annoying by the hour mark), but Sheldon is the perfect straight man for some acerbic one-liners delivered with perfect timing by DeVito, Keener, and Williams.

The film also works as a reminder of Norton’s talent and Williams’s nimble ways with profanity.

Norton takes a character in Sheldon who could have been beyond annoying and gives him a childlike enthusiasm that is genuine and infectious.  Seemingly doing his best Woody Harrelson impression from Cheers, he makes naïveté an endearing trait and never once breaks his nerdy persona to engage in vain leading man posturing.  It’s a forgotten great performance by one of the best screen actors of the last fifteen years.

Much was made in reviews of Williams paying penance for family friendly schmaltz like Flubber and Patch Adams by taking on the supporting role of Rainbow Randolph.  Maybe this is true because the Robin Williams on display in Death to Smoochy is a desperate man–funny and profane–but also hanging on by a thread; a self-loathing loser incapable of carrying out revenge or getting on with his life.

I never particularly cared for Williams’s manic brand of stand up and many of his comedic film roles unfortunately played off that persona, but occasionally he was able to put his decent acting chops to use in bizarre dark comedies that have been all but forgotten (The Survivors, Cadillac Man, The Best of Times).  Death to Smoochy seems to fall in line with those films in that it barely registers on his filmography.  But the film might be the best example of Williams being able to modulate his usual manic persona into the cry of desperation it actually is.  Rainbow Randolph is a man who is scared to death of being ignored and forgotten.  Considering his omnipresence in television and film for the past thirty years, no matter how awful the project (Old Dogs, anyone?), I think Williams has the same fear, making him perfectly cast here.  He also has the world’s best delivery of profanity, something easily forgotten through his years as a family friendly entertainer.

Death to Smoochy was written by Adam Resnick.  Resnick is a writer with a very schizophrenic output.  On the positive side, he did stellar work on Late Night with David Letterman, The Larry Sanders Show, and the short-lived Chris Elliot sitcom Get a Life.  On the negative end of the spectrum, he wrote for the God-awful 1994-95 season of Saturday Night Live, the miscalculated John Travolta comedy Lucky Numbers, and the brilliant or idiotic–depending on your point of view–Cabin Boy.

Death to Smoochy embraces the off-kilter tone and sense of humor that run through all of those projects.  Fortunately, the solid work by the cast and DeVito’s stylish and energetic direction are enough to bring the film down on the positive side of Resnick’s filmography.

Admittedly, the satirical elements of the film are obvious.  The insider’s jaded and misanthropic view of children’s programming has been effectively skewered by The Simpsons through Krusty the Clown for over twenty years but Matt Groening and company were always restrained by network censors.  It’s doubtful they could have ever pulled off something as raunchy (but still funny) as Death to Smoochy’’s cookie scene or introduce an even more debauched former children’s show host (Vincent Schiavelli) who is strung out on heroin and apologizes for smelling like urine.  Perhaps DeVito and Resnick take these jokes too far, but I appreciated their willingness to cross that line in pursuit of a laugh.

In an era of homogenized studio films that all look and sound alike, Death to Smoochy is jarring, obnoxious, dirty minded, and yes, funny.  In spite of the obvious jokes and the too-busy first act, I laughed a lot during the film.  That’s a reaction I can’t ignore, no matter how many respected critics say otherwise.

Here’s an awful trailer that turns Rainbow Randolph into the protagonist.  Once again, terrible marketing helps sink a good movie.

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The Cohen Case Files: It’s Alive (1974)

Written, Produced, and Directed by Larry Cohen

Larry Cohen has the ability to take himself seriously at times.  For most filmmakers who traffic in genre pictures and satire, this can be a recipe for disaster.  In Cohen’s case, this led to arguably his two best films: God Told Me To and It’s Alive.  Where God Told Me To was a chance for Cohen to delve into the destructive effects of religious fundamentalism, It’s Alive allows him to take a traditional monster movie and turn it into a claustrophobic domestic drama anchored by one of the best examples of movie acting I’ve ever seen, courtesy of John P. Ryan.

Frank Davis (Ryan) is a successful public relations man living in Los Angeles.  He has a nice home and car.  His beautiful wife Lenore (Sharon Farrell) is pregnant with their second child and Chris (Daniel Holzman), their first son, is so precocious and well-mannered, he might as well have stepped out of an episode of Leave it to Beaver.  In short, Frank is pretty happy with his life and has every reason to believe it will get better with the birth of his second child.

As usually happens in horror films, it’s when things look the best for the characters that the worst usually happens.  In Frank’s case, this moment occurs when Lenore gives birth to their child.  The baby turns out to be a mutant.  Unlike latter-day movie mutants, it doesn’t have superpowers and self-esteem issues about being different, it has sharp claws, fangs, and an overwhelming survival instinct that finds it lashing out when afraid.  Unfortunately, the baby is often afraid.  After slaughtering the doctor and nurses in the delivery room (but leaving Lenore unharmed), the baby escapes from the hospital.

In a lesser film what would follow is a massive manhunt as the police try to track down the baby as it kills its way across Los Angeles.  That element is only present as a small subplot.  Instead, Cohen turns the genre on its head by focusing on Frank as he reacts badly to the news that he is the father of a killer mutant baby.  Becoming distant toward an increasingly bipolar Lenore, Frank professes his desire to the police for the baby to be killed on sight.  So disgusted and ashamed is he that his genes could have produced something so monstrous, Frank eventually deteriorates to the point where he wants to be the one to pull the trigger on his own child to prove some misguided idea of machismo to the public and to himself.

Needless to say, this is a very daring direction to take what was supposed to be a cheap exploitation film, but Cohen pulls it off thanks to Ryan’s terrific performance and a sensitive understanding of the changing dynamics of men in American society in the mid ‘70s.

At the start of the film, Frank is straddling the line between the traditional “tough guy” American male and the contemporary “sensitive” man.  He holds a white collar job, he’s unafraid to show affection to his wife and son, and the impending birth of his second child nearly brings him to tears.  At the same time, he adopts the cocky swagger of a tough guy, trying hard to always appear cool under pressure and maintain control of his family and his emotions.  But the situation with the baby does not allow him to be both of those men any longer.  Frank is forced to choose between being a tough guy who hunts down his own killer spawn or being a loving family man who takes on the delicate task of putting his shattered family back together.  For most of the film, it’s never completely clear in which direction Frank will go.  Much of this dynamic comes through in Ryan’s haunted performance.

A talented character actor who specialized in bad guys throughout his career, It’s Alive gave Ryan one of his few leading man roles.  Like most of the male protagonists in Cohen’s films, the role was incredibly layered–a dream come true for an actor willing to commit to the absurdities Cohen’s plots usually provided.  Like Tony Lo Bianco in God Told Me To, Ryan grasps the human drama behind the genre trappings and attacks his role with a fearless intensity that grabs the audience and dares them to look away.

As played by Ryan, Frank goes through a slow motion mental breakdown.  As his career, his family, and his dignity is taken away from him, Frank becomes a shell of a man, unable to regain control of his life until he takes decisive action about his baby.  It’s not a glamorous role and Ryan plays it with a refreshing lack of vanity or concern over holding audience sympathy.  It’s an amazing performance for an actor who deserved better than the career he ended up with.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a Larry Cohen film without heavy-handed references to the hot topics of the day.  There are conversations about public health concerns regarding chemicals in the air and drinking water, the impact of legalized abortions, the influence of pharmaceutical companies on doctors, the damaging effects of overmedication, and the intrusion of the press into private lives.  For the most part, Cohen is able to weave these ideas into the story in natural ways, adding to the texture of an already scarily dense story.

The film is also one of Cohen’s best as a director.  Instead of falling back on just pointing the camera in the general direction of the action and letting the actors and script do the heavy lifting, Cohen adds some much needed atmosphere to the film, lending some actual scares to the horror sequences.  Using a distorting wide-angle lens, cinematographer Fenton Hamilton gives the film the look of a familiar place turned into an alien landscape.  Hospital rooms and hallways look far too large and shadows always creep into the edges of the frame.  Between Hamilton’s stylish photography, the nightmarish score by Bernard Herrmann, and the performances by Farrell and Ryan, the bloody aftermath of the delivery room massacre raises genuine goosebumps.  Cohen may be more interested in the human story, but he’s not afraid to let the audience remember that this is also a horror film.

Despite the unpleasant subject matter, It’s Alive turned out to be Cohen’s biggest hit.  Some of the effects and editing techniques may be dated, but the story and acting hold up very well.  This is a film that could have aged badly into cheesy camp, but it is just as affective today as the day it was released.  If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and check it out.  It’s a true gem.

James Dixon Sighting: As the police detective in charge of tracking down the baby.

Note: I chose not to include a trailer for the film since each one I found spoiled the ending.  If you seek one out on your own, please make sure you’ve watched the movie first.

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The Cohen Case Files: The Stuff (1985)

Executive Produced, Written, and Directed by Larry Cohen

Sometimes Larry Cohen’s penchant for genre films mixed with social satire leads him into situations where those elements fail to gel.  Such is the case with The Stuff.  But despite the fact that the film doesn’t fully work as a satisfying whole, it’s still very entertaining and well worth a look for Cohen’s fans and anyone who enjoys a good laugh at the expense of corporations, health food fanatics, right-wing conspiracy nuts, or cheesy ‘50s horror and sci-fi flicks.

A strange concoction is found bubbling up out of the ground by a two men.  The substance has a consistency somewhere between yogurt and ice cream and it tastes delicious.  The men get the idea to start selling the substance to the public.

The film then jumps ahead to a later date as the substance–named and marketed as “The Stuff”–has become all the rage, with people lining up outside of shops selling it at two in the morning.  Naturally, the ice cream industry feels threatened.  The heads of the ice cream companies come together to hire corporate saboteur Mo Rutherford (Michael Moriarty) to gather information they can use against the company behind ”The Stuff”.  Mo is a former FBI agent who plays the fool, but in reality is the smartest guy in the room.

At the same time, Jason (Scott Bloom), an adolescent boy living on Long Island, sees “The Stuff” move on its own, making him believe that it’s some sort of creature aware with devious motives.  Frantic, he destroys several cases of the substance at a local grocery store.  While he does this, his family begins eating it exclusively, leading them to take on a hive-like behavior as they try to force Jason to eat “The Stuff”.

With the help of Nicole (Andrea Marcovicci), the commercial director who headed up the marketing campaign for “The Stuff” and Chocolate Chip Charlie (Garrett Morris), a cookie manufacturer who was put out of business by the company behind the substance, Mo starts his investigation.  What he finds is a bizarre conspiracy to enslave the human race using the substance as a mind-control agent that has the unfortunate side effect of eventually dissolving its host until they are nothing more than a puddle of fleshy goo.

Eventually, Mo teams up with Jason and an insane right-wing militia leader (Paul Sorvino) to declare war on the company selling “The Stuff” in a series of goofy scenes that barely cobble together the coverage to wrap up the loose ends.

There isn’t a serious moment to be found in The Stuff.  Sure, Cohen lobs some strong accusations at the secretive testing and approval process of the FDA, the dangers of allowing corporate conglomerates to become too large, and the empty promises of advertising, but he does so with his tongue firmly in-cheek.  After all, how serious of a satire can you make about a white blob that looks like marshmallow fluff as it goes about its diabolical plans to take over the human race?

The silliness of the execution isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Considering the typically slapdash feel of Cohen’s screenplay and choppy editing by frequent Cohen collaborator Armond Lebowitz, any attempts to tell a serious horror or dramatic tale would have forced the film into the realm of high camp.  While there are elements of the film that come across as campy–namely the charmingly dated special effects–Cohen mostly avoids the taint of campiness by letting his cast in on the joke.  Marcovicci, Sorvino, and Morris attack their roles with impressive comedic chops, never bothering to hide how much fun they’re having.

And, of course, there’s always a kind of special magic when Moriarty gets together with Cohen.

Moriarty is best known for playing a district attorney on the early seasons of Law & Order, but before taking on that role, he appeared in four (Q, The Stuff, It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive, and A Return to Salem’s Lot) of Cohen’s films in the ‘80s.  Each one of his performances in these films contains bizarre choices in accents, speech patterns, tics, and physical appearance that Nicolas Cage would be hard-pressed to top.  What’s most impressive is the fact that Moriarty is able to continue using a ridiculous southern accent and smirking manner through the entire film and it starts to come across as normal.  He sells this behavior as the way his character would really behave.  It’s an amazing performance in its own skewed way.

While the targets of the film remain popular topics for satirists, The Stuff is dated with its use of pop-culture references (Clara Peller, better known as the “Where’s the beef?” lady from the Wendy’s commercials, appears in a commercial for “The Stuff”) and other mid ‘80s touchstones (TCBY franchises, Famous Amos cookies) to score easy gags.  This is unusual for Cohen.  In the best of his films (Bone, It’s Alive, God Told Me To), there is a certain timelessness to his handling of such sticky topics as racism, overmedication, and religious fanaticism.  But Cohen gave those films a seriousness that would have felt out of place with The Stuff.  Unfortunately, his overly light touch with the material only highlights the relative shallowness of the satirical elements this time around.

Despite my misgivings, The Stuff is still a fun watch.  Moriarty chews the scenery with aplomb and old school effects–miniatures, stop motion animation, and rear projection–are the order of the day.  It may not be Cohen’s best film, but after watching Guilty as Sin and Scandalous, it is a needed reminder that he’s far better at directing his material than anyone else.

Fun Cameo: Look for Brad Rijn and Eric Bogosian from Special Effects as employees at the grocery store that Jason trashes.

James Dixon Sighting: As the Stuff addicted postal employee in the small town where Mo meets Chocolate Chip Charlie.  Dixon sports a southern accent that might be more over-the-top than Moriarty’s.

Fair warning, while this trailer is hilarious in its attempts to sell the film as a straight horror picture, it does contain a spoiler about the fate of one of the main characters.

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