This was originally going to be a blog where I planned on shilling my wares, and now it is just part one of two blogs I plan on keeping. This is the more frivolous of the two. A place for happiness, sunshine, rainbows, and general silliness. I would add more, but I have very little concept of how much space 500 characters can occupy. All Works herein copyrighted 2008.
In Hollywood, there are many different ways to say you stole an idea. There are remakes, reboots, and reimaginings, if you try to make an idea your own in entirety. If done in part it can be seen as a reference, a nod, or homage if done in a loving fashion.
So what exactly do you call a movie that is essentially a reimagining of another movie that was a comedic homage to another more serious movie? Further more, why lie about having seen either film?
James Gunn is best known for writing such reimaginings as the live action “Scooby Doo” movies and director Zack Snyder’s version of “Dawn of the Dead.” So for his directorial debut as a director, Gunn decided to film the movie “Slither” from his own script.
“Slither” is a ridiculously gory horror-comedy about a small town under attack from alien parasites that enter through a human mouth and proceed to take over their host until they explode. Admittedly, it is a very entertaining movie, but while watching it I didn’t find it terribly original. David Cronenberg had made a movie early in 1975 called “Shivers” that was quite similar, and in 1986 Fred Dekker made a movie called “Night of the Creeps” that was essentially the exact same movie as “Slither,” but “Slither” had a bigger budget and Gunn made the protagonists middle aged adults instead of college students.
In a shocking display of chutzpah, James Gunn has repeatedly denied ever having seen “Shivers” or “Night of the Creeps” before filming and insists his idea was completely original. The man who made a living off other people’s creations was trying to insist that his latest movie had nothing to do with two films that had already come out.
When asked about Gunn’s film, Cronenberg and Dekker both had different reactions. Dekker let the argument go by insisting that both “Slither” and “Creeps” had been influenced by Cronenberg’s work. Cronenberg, however, admits that while “Creeps” had been influenced by “Shivers,” “Slither” was so close in tone to “Creeps” that he thought Dekker should sue.
As such, the never released on DVD “Night of the Creeps” has been gaining quite the following. I had only briefly heard about it while growing up, but I hadn’t seen it until two weeks ago. Now that I have, I can see why so many people are angered by the fact that Gunn is a huge liar.
“Night of the Creeps” doesn’t really get started on the right foot. It opens with some ridiculously cheesy 1980’s style opening titles before we are transported to a spaceship with two aliens who look like The Gingerdead Man. The aliens are trying to contain an experiment gone awry that despite having zero gravity in space ends up hurtling towards earth.
From there we are treated to a well made but overlong black and white sequence starting outside a sorority house in 1959. This is also the point where the comparisons to “slither” begin, but more on that later.
The experiment from space manages to crash land in the woods behind a lovers lane style cliffside. A young man and woman are getting crazy 1950’s style (meaning no one gets past second base) when their party is broken up by a police officer who happens to be the ex-boyfriend of the woman in the car.
Apparently, a deranged axe murderer has escaped from a nearby mental hospital and has been seen in the area. Before going on their way, however, the young man wants to look for whatever crashed in the woods. As with most characters in such opening sequences they both end up dead. The young man is infected by an alien parasite entering through his mouth and the young woman is slaughtered by the axe murderer.
The action then shifts, by way of an abrupt title card, to a university campus during fraternity pledge week, and two young men named Christopher and James trying unsuccessfully to meet women. Well, James isn’t really trying despite being the more charismatic of the two. Christopher instead has James do all his bidding for him since he freezes whenever he is around a girl.
Amongst all the girls in what appears to be a campus wide kegger (judging by the fact that every tree and building is covered in toilet paper), Chris notices Cindy and has James hit on her to no avail. Not because she doesn’t find James’ playing up of Chris charming, but because she is dating the head of Beta House.
While that scene might sound like a stock set up for any typical spam-in-a-dorm room slasher film, Dekker injects his script with so many witty one liners you probably miss one or two because you are too busy snickering at the one that came before it. James, in spirit but not in nerdiness, was clearly one of the characters that inspired Randy Meeks in the “Scream” films. So much so that if you see “Night of the Creeps” you might end up thinking “Scream” scribe Kevin Williamson should be sued. But at least Williamson readily admits “Night of the Creeps” was influential.
From there, Chris decides that the two should pledge as Beta’s with the hope that Cindy will noticed him if they are in a frat. Clearly when they arrive Chris and James are two have-nots in a room full of the most privileged people on campus. With no intention of ever accepting them as equals, Brad, Cindy’s bleach blonde alcoholic boyfriend, sends Chris and James on a quest to pull off the most epic prank ever: steal a corpse and place it on the lawn of a rival fraternity.
Since there wouldn’t be a movie if they didn’t try, Chris and James decide to go along with the plan. Instead of going to a graveyard or funeral home, they decide to break into a medical lab where they find the cryogenically preserved body of the young man from the beginning and since there wouldn’t be a movie if they didn’t, they defrost him.
They end out running out of the lab without the corpse when discovered by a scientist played by David Paymer, who had a small role in yesterday’s MTC entry, “No Holds Barred.” It was at this point that I noticed something about James. In the party scene James makes a reference to how he has crutches and being a movie from the 1980’s I expected it to be a joke; almost as if James was only using them to meet girls and gain sympathy. When they get to the lab and during their subsequent escape, I realize that James legitimately can not walk without them. At that point, I was watching and waiting for a single person to make a joke about it or for James to use them as an excuse for not doing something. Save for a scene later in the film where Brad gives him a sucker kick to the shin, no one ever makes light of it and it is accepted by everyone around him without question. I was starting to think that such movies weren’t made in the 80’s.
Needless to say, the corpse infects the scientist before escaping the lab only to end up on the lawn of Cindy’s sorority house with an exploded head. Enter Detective Cameron; the police officer from the beginning who is now a grizzled old veteran with haunting memories from the night he apparently watched his ex-girlfriend get chopped up by an axe wielding psychopath.
Detective Cameron is the kind of cop that people love to watch. He has seen everything in life and he manifests his contempt for everyone around him in the form of bitter sarcasm. Screenwriter Shane Black (most famous for “Lethal Weapon”) admitted that Cameron was the basis for Val Kilmer’s character in the newer cult favourite “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.” Both characters even answer their phones by saying “Thrill me.” Black doesn’t really need to admit it since Black and Dekker (tee-hee) co-wrote “The Monster Squad.”
Meanwhile back on campus, Brad blames the guys for planting a headless dead guy on his girlfriend’s lawn. When Cindy, who believes the boys have nothing to do with it, stands up for them, Brad kicks James’ leg, calls the boys chucklehead, and says Cindy is being a real downer. Brad then dumps Cindy by saying “That’s what I get for going with a psych major, isn’t it?”
Even Detective Cameron believes the boys when they say they had nothing to do with it. Cameron might be a grizzled veteran, but he has still seen and done some crazy shit in his day; when he admits to doing something he did in his past to Christopher it is quite possibly the funniest and most unsettling scene in the movie.
All this leads to a giant final showdown at the sorority house on the night of the formal. Since it is a pretty decent movie, I’m not going to give away the rest of the film, but I will say other than switching out the characters, “Slither” completely ripped off the climactic showdown against the zombies and parasites pretty much shot for shot.
In a way, the ending of this movie almost can’t be spoiled even if I tried since there are two different endings depending on what version you are able to track down. The theatrical and home video versions have a studio ordered re-shoot ending that Dekker absolutely abhors and wants nothing to do with. The television version, however, magically has the film’s true ending that was cut not only because the studio didn’t like it, but also because they didn’t want to spend any more money to finish the special effects needed to make the scene work properly. Having seen both endings, I have to disagree with Dekker. The ending he likes goes on for far too long for a payoff you can see coming a mile away. “Slither” relies so heavily on this movie that it even manages to craft it’s ending out of both of the endings to “Night of the Creeps.”
Plenty of movies have taken bits and pieces from “Nights of the Creeps,” and many of the writers and directors who have copped from this movie readily admit it. In addition to the aforementioned Williamson and Black, “Shaun of the Dead” creators Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have referenced “Creeps.” Peter Jackson has also referenced “Creeps” in his gorier early work. So if such well known and respected filmmakers can admit Dekker was an influence, how could someone like James Gunn deny what he did when clearly the plot of his movie hinges on the exact same plot devices as “Night of the Creeps?”
Gunn probably thought he could get away with this slight because “Creeps” is a hard movie to track down unless you are looking for it. The film has never been released for three main reasons.
-The opening sequence has a lot of expensive copyrighted music that the film’s distributor, Sony-Tri-Star, doesn’t want to pay to keep in the film.
-Sony doesn’t seem to think it is popular enough to release it despite the fact that they released Dekker’s less popular (but equally good) “The Monster Squad.”
-Dekker detests the studio ending so much that he insists on having a director’s cut stand alongside the original version or the studio version scrapped entirely.
The efforts to get this film released on DVD are stronger than ever now thanks to recent sell out crowds at theatres in Austin, Los Angeles, and Toronto. Fans have even taken up a campaign of sending bricks to Sony Home Entertainment. Bricks have absolutely nothing to do with “Night of the Creeps,” but when asked by a fan what they should send Sony that would make a point Dekker said, “I dunno. Bricks? A brick would be kind of hard to ignore, wouldn’t it?”
Horror buffs and movie nerds in general, like myself, enjoy movies like “Night of the Creeps” because despite it’s outright failure at the box office (it still has yet to make back its modest $5 million budget), plenty of other filmmakers have made it into a movie that is almost essential viewing. Even if James Gunn is a complete liar, he managed to do more for this movie just by denying he ever saw it.
This Sunday night wrestling fans from around the world will make a pilgrimage to the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Florida for the biggest event of the year in a sport that can only be described as the NASCAR of predetermined sports entertainment: Wrestlemania. From the hype the WWE has been trying to garner over the past few weeks it would appear that this year’s line-up of matches stands to be one of the best cards ever.
In honour of such a historic occasion, I have decided to dedicate today’s Movie Time Capsule Blog to a true wrestling legend: “Nature Boy” Ric Flair, who could very well be having the last match of his 32 year career tonight. Also, because he is a far better actor and interview than the star of tonight’s movie. I offer you the following video as a comparison for later:
Ric Flair in addition to being quite possibly the best in-ring performer in history, Flair had something that money and dropkicks couldn’t buy. He had charisma. People would show up to events even if he didn’t wrestle. They would line up around the block even if they knew there was only a slight chance that he would be given a microphone later in the evening. However, for the early part of his career, he remained in the mostly southern territories of the AWA and WCW before it went worldwide. As such, his popularity in more heavily populated areas was arguably eclipsed by someone who had charisma, but was also a shameless huckster and a lousy wrestler. While Ric Flair had a natural charm and is held in he highest regard by mostly everyone who has worked with him, Hulk Hogan was and is someone who has never done something for anyone else that wasn’t also for himself.
Please note that in that clip, Ric Flair was the person who provided the chair that Hogan got pile driven onto by The Undertaker.
Hulk Hogan was a man who always went into business for himself on the microphone and used fairly cheap tricks to get people to buy into his act. As a face (or a good guy as some people call them) he always said the same things in a two minute interview without really saying anything at all. He always talked about how he would persevere and the prayers, the training, the vitamins, and all the little Hulkamaniacs and how they would help him through every challenge. There was an affable and comfortable familiarity to what he did, but even as a child he bored me. Even his appearance was something that seemed too well planned out. The bleach blonde hair was almost a direct rip-off of Flair and made the fairly young Hogan look like a grandfather. His almost chronically sunburnt look always grossed me out, and you could argue that his self proclaimed “largest arms in the world” led to a rise in steroid usage once he became popular.
Even backstage in the locker room, most people would tell you Hogan was the biggest kiss ass there was. He was always looking for some new angle to work that would keep him on top. He was the only person who had full creative control over the outcome of his matches. If he didn’t want to lose, he wasn’t going to. He had several friends that tried to backpack on his popularity, but for the most part Hogan never interacted with his co-workers and during his entire tenure was one of only two people who had his own private dressing room (the batshit crazy Ultimate Warrior being the other one).
Even this year, Hogan’s shame has known no bounds and it has led to another occasion where his has annoyed WWE chairman Vince McMahon to the point where it seems like Hogan will never step into a ring again. The fallout started two summers ago at the height of Hogan’s new found reality show fame when he was scheduled to have a match against up and coming second generation wrestler Randy Orton (whose nickname is “The Legend Killer” as he had beaten all the greats still alive up to that point) and Hogan decided to turn the entire angle into an ill conceived promotion for his daughter Brooke’s ridiculously bad singing career. The angle was dropped, the match happened (which Hogan inexplicably won even by professional wrestling standards), and he was barely heard from again.
In the past year, Hogan has tried to weasel his way back into the business by pretty much doing everything short of begging. I guess your career can only go so far when you have based it solely on selling yourself to anything under the sun to make a fast buck. Now with a divorce on the horizon (brought on by an affair with his daughter’s best friend) and a costly lawsuit against his family because his idiot son decided to go drag racing while drunk, I’m sure he longs for the days when he was on top of the world and not reduced to being co-host of “American Gladiators.”
At the height of Hogan’s popularity, a movie seemed like a can’t-miss proposal. Vince McMahon commissioned a script be made for Hogan, and so they were given a treatment for what was to become “No Holds Barred.” Vince and Hogan liked the story, but were unimpressed with the script itself. McMahon and Hogan then rewrote the entire script over the course of three days in a hotel room. I don’t know what the script looked like before that fateful day at the Doubletree, but what came out of that room is a movie so terrible that it has become a camp classic.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should let it be known now that I am a casual wrestling fan to this day. I will still watch from time to time, especially as Wrestlemania approaches. Even being a fan of the spectacle of wrestling, I can’t defend this movie in any way, but I can offer some slight perspective as to its general appeal amongst cult film aficionados.
Everyone has days that take their toll; days where everything you try goes wrong, or you are dealt a crushing blow to your physical, social, sexual, financial or psychological well being. You feel so low that you swear your life is becoming a country song.
You come home and throw your keys down on the table in disgust. No one is home and your cat is ignoring you. You open the fridge and find nothing but milk and condiments and the freezer holds only ice, frozen salmon, and that last Philly cheesesteak sandwich pocket in it’s half opened wrapping since you learned the first one was terrible enough on its own. Instead, you opt for ramen noodles made in an already dirty bowl and a pot of coffee because you can’t afford any kind of alcoholic or carbonated beverages.
You slump down in a chair by the television staring off into space and thinking that you need to do something to break out of the rut you are in. You begin to think of things to watch that could make you happy, or make you laugh and feel better about yourself. In my darkest hours and in the most crippling of depressions, this is a movie that can bring me out of my funk.
It is a movie so idiotic that I could just show you the whole movie and end the column now. It is a movie like “Plan 9 From Outer Space” or “Troll 2” that manages to be likable by being terrible. You feel bad for the people involved, and you almost want to forgive them. It is so bad that it takes less two minutes for the whole thing to go to shit. The first time you see Hogan, you understand the kind of movie that you are in for. Below is the first ten minutes of the movie, but all you need to see is the very beginning of the clip to see what I mean.
No, that was not a joke. The movie really starts off with Hogan screaming and growling in slow motion and as far as I can tell, it was meant to be serious. Hogan plays Rip, who is the WWF champion in the film, which begs the question, if the WWF produced this movie, why don’t they just have Hogan play himself? The film’s first gap in logic happens there, but the come at a pretty good clip after that.
Rip’s entire back story is set up in the first few minutes as he comes to the ring with his brother Randy, a young man with such an “aw shucks” attitude you just want to punch him in the face the moment you see him. You know, ever since their mother died Rip and Randy have been more than just brothers? The movie fails to go into specifics, but their relationship doesn’t make any sense. Randy looks nothing like his brother and seems to only be there to set up character motivation later in the movie.
Much like Hogan was known for hulking up (where he seems defeated and mounts a miraculous comeback while being impervious to pain) and ripping his shirt, Rip has his own signature taunt: the Rip ‘Em hand gesture. Which is nothing more than saying “I love you” in sign language. This further illustrates how out of touch with reality this movie is by assuming that the viewer knows less sign language than the average two year old.
The ridiculous nature of the film continues when we meet Brell (played by Kurt Fuller) who is the head of the World Television Network. Apparently, in this magical fantasy world, professional wrestling has made the only other network in the world more popular than Brell’s. Brell knows that in order to be competitive in today’s spandex and sweat marketplace, he needs to have Rip on his network.
Brell arranges a meeting with Rip and tries to entice him to jump ship by offering him a blank check. But Rip is such a man of high integrity that no amount of berating from Brell (even calling him a “jock ass” repeatedly can get him to cash in on his popularity. Rip’s disgust is punctuated in a classic scene where Rip stuffs the blank check down Brell’s throat and telling him “I won’t be around when this check clears.” Rip gives them the Rip ‘Em sign and leaves.
On the way back from the meeting in a limo paid for by Brell, Rip is kidnapped and taken to a warehouse where a bunch of thugs have been hired to do something to Rip. It’s not really clear if they were going to kill him or beat the shit out of him, but their plan fails horribly as Rip is able to burst through the metal fucking roof of the limousine and lays waste to everyone in sight. He even makes the driver shit himself in the one scene the movie is best known for. If you only watch one film clip I ever post in this blog, make it this one:
Needless to say, Brell is shit out of luck in more ways than one. Brell needs to get into the wrestling game, but he needs some sort of extreme angle to bring viewers in. One night Brell brings a bunch of his creative team to the No Count Bar, a honky-tonk bar with a ring in the middle where drunken rednecks fight to the near death for free beers. The viewer knows the bar is dangerous because it is a Patrick Swayze away from being “Road House.” Also, because like FenwayPark, they still have trough urinals.
Brell creates “Battle of the Tough Guys” and soon finds his star. A large black man named Zeus (played by Tim “Tiny” Lister, better known for his role in the “Friday” films and as the president in “The Fifth Element”) who looks like the evil twin of the guy from “The Green Mile.” He allegedly has just gotten out of prison for killing a man in the ring after their match was over. He also has a patch of hair on the side of his head shaved into the shape of a Z.
Still not satisfied with his own success, Brell sends a corporate spy named Samantha, played by Joan Severance, to try and seduce Rip and cause him to... well, actually, I don’t know what the point of having her there is other than to have her turn against her former employer and fall in love with Rip. Samantha falls for Rip because... well, shit. I don’t even know why she does that either? Is it his love of charitable work? His way to stand up to snooty waiters in French restaurants when he finds out he can’t order a hamburger? Maybe it was his astute observation when they find themselves sharing a room together and saying that she has “set up more walls that I ever could.” Rip gives her the Rip ‘Em sign and leaves.
His plan having failed, Brell sends someone to take out Samantha, but just like a superhero that happened to be in the area on his motorcycle, Rip is there to save the day by grabbing the aggressor, dragging him through town on the front of his bike, and throwing him through a tree. Rip gives him the Rip ‘Em sign and leaves.
Despite attempting to assault and possibly rape or kill his quasi-girlfriend, this is still not enough to goad Rip into accepting a fight against Zeus, so Zeus decides to beat the holy hell out of Rip’s brother after one of his matches.
This touching music video that pretty much shows you the entire movie, as well as the clear pain that Rip feels before knowing what he has to do:
The outcome of the movie is never in question. Rip agrees to fight Zeus in a no holds barred match; a match with no rules at all. Rip gets his ass kicked for most of the fight before finding the will to win (because his now apparently paralyzed brother is able to move his pinkie) and wins because Zeus falls and Brell electrocutes himself. You just need to see it to believe it.
The movie was enough of a success to turn a small profit (opening only behind “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” at the box office), but as with everything Hogan touches, you get the sense he thought it was going to be a lot bigger than it was. McMahon and Hogan must have though that this piece of shit was going to somehow legitimize profession wrestling, where they probably set back it’s progression by about twenty years.
Hogan, being the master of promotion that he was, pitched the idea to Vince that Zeus should be able to fight the real Hulk Hogan, and while Vince was keen on the idea, the fact remained that Zeus couldn’t wrestle his wayout of a paper bag. So in the interest of packaging the movie when it came out on home video and pay-per-view, a match was put together involving Hogan and Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake (who plays Jake Bullet at the beginning of the movie) against Randy “King of Bad Career Decisions” Savage and Zeus in a cage to run after the movie. Nothing takes people out of the illusion that what they are watching isn’t staged like creative camera angles designed to creatively block Zeus from sight every time he does something or has something done to him.
In conclusion, this is a film that probably never should have seen the light of day. It feels like it was written by a six year old that has no concept of reality whatsoever and has a penchant for jokes involving bodily functions. As shitty as it is, however, it still stands as a testament to just how shameless Hulk Hogan is, as well as standing on it’s own as one of the best bad movies ever made.
Now, as final viewing enjoyment, please direct your eyes to the centre of the ring as a clearly happy to be there Hulk Hogan gives one of the worst television interviews to a clearly mortified Arsenio Hall. This clip also includes the “I won’t be around when this check clears” line and Brell saying “jock ass.”
Verdict: It all depends on your threshold of pain when watching a bad movie. I would say it is a hidden gem, best left forgotten.
Besides the writing guidelines handed down by my therapist, I was also given a reading list. All the books on the reading list were chosen by my therapist because they were written by authors who experienced great pain or sadness in their lives. There was no requirement that I even read any of them, but it helped that a lot of them were either books I wanted to read or by authors that I wanted to explore.
So far off the list I posted, I had previously read “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” and “The Liars Club,” but both are books I wouldn’t mind revisiting. My friend Caroline sent me “Bastard Out of Carolina” as an e-Book and I devoured it in a single night. Jenna scanned “The Yellow Wallpaper” for me out of a course reader she had. I read it as soon as I received it. Many others are books people are either looking for or are available at libraries that are sadly nowhere near me.
But above all the rest there is one book that stands out. Within two days of having posted my reading list in “...Not Because You Have To” I received six emails and one comment from people saying they had a copy of Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse,” and every single one of them asked (in some way or another) why I would want to put myself through that. I told Caroline it was part of my therapy to which she replied that reading “To the Lighthouse” was anything but therapy.
I persisted mostly because I had a genuine interest in Virginia Woolf as a person. Her life has been written about in such great detail, but I really wanted to know what her own writing was like.
Caroline sent me part of the book by request after I had finished “Bastard Out of Carolina.” With it came this email:
“This is only the first hundred pages. If you survive, and you want them, there is another 142 after it. If not, I am deleting this from my computer because I have no use for it anymore. Also, what should I send in lieu of flowers?”
I scoffed and dove right in. I made it to page 19 before I threw in the towel and decided to watch professional wrestling to help get the stench of failure off of me.
Never before had I read something that I considered to be above my reading level and this was no exception. In high school I read the unabridged version of “Moby Dick” for fun. But only two chapters into “To the Lighthouse” I felt as lost as a newborn playing “Guitar Hero” on expert.
Woolf’s language is somewhat dated, but such language never stopped me from reading something before. It is also a testament to the woman herself that she was so prolific in the relatively short time she was alive. I admire her accomplishments however posthumous they may be, and I am willing to read some of her later non-fiction work.
But I have to admit that everyone who responded to me was right. This is a terrible fucking book.
A lot of the problem with what I was able to read was that Woolf’s writing style is so sloppy that it is virtually incoherent: Sentences go on needlessly for entire pages while some paragraphs are made up of only fragments of a few words each. I could follow what she was saying, but the writing physically gave me a headache.
Hence, why I want to try reading her nonfiction. The way I see it, if there is no plot to follow I can just shut my brain off and pretend I am reading someone’s notebook if the writing is bad. Right?..... Right?
There is no real point to this entry except to apologize to those I doubted. I am Really Fucking Sorry.
In Junior High I listened almost exclusively to hip-hop. I remember taping songs by one hit wonders such as Adina Howard, Paperboy, and Domino from radio stations located in Boston and Providence that barely came in even with the antenna extended. I even had “To the Extreme” and “12 Inches of Snow” on cassette.
The, once high school hit, I drifted away from radio hip-hop and towards radio rock. I still listened to rap and R&B, but I was ashamed of my past transgressions. I started to go back in music history to Public Enemy and 70’s Funk.
Over the years, my love of hip-hop has diminished, but I can still find songs I like here and there. I tend to be a lot pickier in general when choosing what I listen to. I haven’t bought a rap album since Jay-Z put out “The Black Album.” Before that the last one I bought was Outkast’s “Stankonia” in 2001.
Many people, fans or detractors, can not argue that hip-hop has become ridiculously commercialized. Artists (and I use that term loosely) like Soulja Boy and everyone with Lil’ in their name (except Wayne) are only lowering the bar further. These rappers (and I use that term loosely) will only be known as future ring tones. But what is even more distressing is how people still admire someone like Soulja Boy’s ability to make millions out of nothing at all.
You need look no further than your local newspaper for the man I hold personally responsible for fucking up hip-hop. The man is Sean Combs. A.K.A. Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Diddy, Puff, Sean “Puffy” Combs, Mr. No Bitch Assness, Shiny Suit Man, Sean John, Sean Don, Snuffapuffagus, Plaintiff, Defendant, The Accused, and King of the Hamptons. Two of those are derogatory and one of them I made up.
In the past week, Combs has been in the news no less that six times for different things.
-He partnered with Ciroc Vodka to put his name on a new flavour of fermented potato juice.
-He established a limo taxi service for celebrities so they don’t get arrested when they get drunk.
-He lashed out at the L.A. Times for an article in which he is once again blamed for the death of Tupac.
-He settled a lawsuit brought on by a man who said Combs hit his when he was leaving Elton John’s post-Oscar party. (“Any contact...was caused by his forward motion against my open hand.”)
-He received mixed reviews for reprising his role in the T.V. version of the play “A Raisin in the Sun.” (“Yeah, it’s a risky role, one where the person playing it really has to show up.”) The cast included John Stamos, who emerged unscathed.
Now before I rip into the man too much, I have to give him some slight shred of credit. The man is one hell of a producer; possibly one of the best beat makers in the business when he isn’t stealing samples. Without Diddy, we wouldn’t have Biggie or Mary J. Blige. He even helped craft Jay-Z’s true comeback album when he worked on the “American Gangster” soundtrack.
But ever since his popularity as an emcee began to bloom in the late 90’s, it became quickly apparent that no one should let this egomaniac near a microphone or a camera.
I initially set out to craft a top five list of musical offences perpetrated by Sean Combs, but as I started paying attention to these songs and watching the videos, they managed to be even worse than I remembered them. As much as I didn’t want to, I realized there were so many things wrong with these songs and videos that I would have to take notes. So here is the first in a series where I take a in-depth look at the work of Mr. Diddy, by liveblogging his videos as I watch them.
Instead of starting at the beginning of his ascent to superstardom, and because I wanted to use a song he didn’t produce himself, we will start with the 2001 hit “D.I.D.D.Y.” Produced by The Neptunes (who despite their immense talent will do anything for a paycheck) with a video co-directed by Diddy and Brett Ratner (a.k.a. the Diddy of Hollywood directors who made the “Rush Hour” movies), the song is a paean to success and the yen to cram it down the audiences throat until they shit diamonds and piss glitter simply by spelling your fucking name over and over again.
0:05- This is the video that finally made giant lite-brite walls cool.
0:11- Diddy says “can’t stop/won’t stop” in various forms so many times in his songs you get the impression he thinks he created the line. The truth is, it has been around since he was a little Diddy back in Catholic school.
0:30- Diddy, I know people who make five figures or less that own camcorders.
0:35- Don’t you bring the greatest butlers of all time into this mess.
0:39- Holy shit! Did you just see that? He just blew that poor woman’s mind! Really, really so!
0:58- If the hook wasn’t so terrible I would say how glad I am that the first verse was over.
1:20- I bet he spends all night thinking this shit up.
1:39- Uncontrollable laughter begins to set in.
1:48- Well maybe if you weren’t caught outside a nightclub with a freshly fired handgun in your car, security would probably leave you alone.
2:09- Someone thought a random pop-up video reference would have been hilarious. I’m willing to bet this was Ratner’s idea since I can almost hear him snickering in the background. This whole dance sequence feels like it is in “airquotes;” as if Diddy and Ratner have such contempt for their audience that they don’t think anyone watching will get the joke.
2:36- Here we go. A Diddy classic. Stopping the video for no good reason, because if it worked for Michael Jackson, it has to work for the Diddster. The funniest part is that this is a skit from his “Forever” album from two years earlier. He’s still mad about this?
2:54- Is he reading this off a cue card?
3:00- Only a partial list of nicknames is given or else this would be an eight hour video.
3:16- Diddy has checked his hair three times despite not even having been in a real shower. He may very well do this in real life while listening to skits from his past albums playing in his head. But if this isn’t the most arrogant shit ever, I don’t know what is.
3:21- If you pause it right here as he is laughing at his own joke, he looks like he is being tortured in the bathroom from “Saw.”
3:26- Stop? You want us to stop again? You just ate up a minute of the video for no reason. We just got started again and now we have to fucking stop?
3:28- You rock what? “cuzzanah limits?”
3:32- If you have Asian women to change your linen, why do you still need Bently, Benson, and Mr. Belvedere?
3:43- “Got an agenda, got on a ninja.” Also apparently, the ninja wants to kill me but not offend me. That doesn’t work for me. Killing me will greatly offend me, sir.
4:30- I just realized Pharell hasn’t been in this video in a while. Even though he co-produced the song, it was like he cut out before the video was over.
4:48- And the video comes to a merciful conclusion, but not before we get to see Fonzworth Bently or Bently Fonzworth or whatever the fuck his name is these days dancing like a moron with that stupid grin on his face. I’m sorry, but if this guy is trying to be funny, cute, or ironic in any way, it just isn’t working. This dude is wiggidy-whack. Not just regular kind.
Next week: “Mo Money, Mo Problems.” A video that feels like two videos in one. Neither works
I used to get terribly anxious when people found out I had written a book. Half the people who talked to me about the book would be encouraging and generally interested; at the very least conjuring up the strength to feign emotion. The other half would be completely uninterested and incredulously asked what was so special about my life that I had to write a book about it. I learned long ago that thinking the world owes you something is not the way to go about life, but some people dismissed my entire life without even knowing so much as a single factoid related to me.
This reaction angered me so much that I discussed making my follow up book a compilation of other people’s stories and I would act as the editor. I have always held firm to the belief that everyone, regardless of ability, has a story worth writing about.
The key is knowing what story is worth writing about.
Recently, I have tried to reconnect with people I lost touch with over the years. A lot of the people I tried to contact are people from Massachusetts that I haven’t talked to in ages. For the most part, they are people who haven’t heard from me since my mother passed away; some hadn’t heard from me in even longer.
One of the people who I was able to track down and got back to me was Eric, a former co-worker and friend. I lived with Eric for a short period of time when things got to be too much living with my aunt. He also helped me through my first hospitalization for depression, so he already knew much of what I have gone through.
When I told Eric I had written a book about my life since graduating from high school, he was immediately excited. Unfortunately his excitement didn’t seem to be about my accomplishments.
“That’s great [about the book], dude. I actually wrote a book myself in the past year. I wrote it about the Sunny incident. You remember that right? Anyway, I was hoping you might be able to read it for me and maybe give it to your agent. If not, that’s cool. Just looking for some feedback is all. Plus, since you know all about it you might be able to help me punch it up a bit.”
I thought long and hard about how to respond to the email. As was Eric’s style, it couldn’t have been more earnest had he added the phrase “Oh, and my mom says it’s awesome.” After thinking it over for a moment, my immediate thought was to respond with:
“Eric, you know, that’s a pretty terrible idea.”
Before you jump all over me for such hypocrisy, remember that I said you need to know the right story to tell. This is the wrong story to tell, and I should know since I have had to sit through it more times than I care to recount.
I met Eric shortly after he moved to Massachusetts from suburban Baltimore in 2000. He was the same age as I was, although a foot taller and a dead ringer for Will Ferrell. We worked together at a movie theatre and immediately bonded over our love of film, but Eric’s true passion was theatre.
One night over a late night dinner at Denny’s I was telling Eric about a girl I had a crush on who wasn’t looking for a relationship. Almost immediately, Eric launched into the Sunny story. By the time it was over I hoped it was the only time I would ever have to sit through it.
Eric proceeded to recite what seemed like a rehearsed two hour monologue that lasted until 4:30 in the morning. The worst part was the story that recounted every mundane detail of every day this girl was in his life, ended up being about a girl he never even dated. It was like that joke about the kid who always wanted a pink ping pong ball for his birthday and ends up dying at the end.
Sunny was a girl that Eric went to high school with. They were good friends and Eric had a crush on her. Sunny though they were too good of friends to have a relationship. Eric was crushed, but remained the kind of friend that would subtly give Sunny mixtapes and play her Beatle’s songs on the piano to put her to sleep when she wasn’t feeling well.
Sunny started dating someone really nice and Eric was crushed. Things got worse when Eric and Sunny were cast in a play and they had to kiss. Needless to say, Eric was electrified by the stage kiss and Sunny moved to California a few weeks later; never to be heard from again.
That is really all that happened. That is the entire story minus details about the weather, how the stage looked, how her hair smelled, and all the metaphors he threw at me when he told it. The biggest problem with the story wasn’t even that it was boring, it was that Eric was so deluded that he thought this constituted genuine heartbreak, and told the story as if no one else had ever felt what he felt on that fateful day when he tried to run behind her car to give her one final mixtape before she left for the airport.
Sunny’s boyfriend wasn’t even a jerk. Eric simply thought he could do a better job. If Sunny’s boyfriend wrote her a song, Eric would have bitched about how he would have fashioned a symphony with Elton John singing as a parade of animatronic teddy bears marched through humming “Stairway to Heaven.”
The first time I heard the story, we hadn’t been friends for very long, so I just smiled and told him I understood. The second time I heard the story, we were both drunk and Eric told it to a crowd of people showing interest only because they were too drunk to play cards anymore.
The third time I heard the story it was told the exact same way as the other two times and we were even back at Denny’s. Only this time I walked in with the girl I had a crush on who I had finally convinced to go on a friendly date with me. Eric just happened to be there and took it upon himself to join us. He told the story to my date who was absolutely enthralled by the story. I was admittedly turned off and incredibly tired, so I took the bus home while Eric decided to drive my date home when he was done telling the story. She fucked him in the back of the Denny’s parking lot that night.
Needless to say, I never dated that girl, but Eric didn’t last long with her either since he wouldn’t stop thinking about Sunny. It was the perfect picture of an unhealthy obsession.
Every time someone around him would bring up a significant other he would turn into Paul Rudd from “The 40 Year Old Virgin.” Eric physically could not hear the word “love” without bringing Sunny up in some way, often in the same long form fashion and with the same exact details. Even if you had to leave half way through the story, Eric would remember exactly where he left off and he would have to tell you the rest of the story the next time he caught you unawares.
Oddly having sex with my date that night wasn’t the last straw between Eric and I. That came a year later when I caught my girlfriend cheating on me and he had the audacity to say “Now you know how I felt with Sunny.”
I chewed him out and told him never to bring her up around me again. He never did. When I moved we grew apart and haven’t talked in about three years.
And the first time we do talk, he brings up the same story again as if it still remains as the defining moment in his life.
I know Eric has had other girlfriends in this time. I even know that Eric has far better stories to tell than this on. He has a great story about how he had to fly with his father from Baltimore to Phoenix to pick up his younger sister who ran away to be with her boyfriend. She woke up, had breakfast with the family, and called to house at dinner time to tell them she was stuck in Phoenix and had just broken up with her boyfriend. She also insisted on not flying home alone. Then when they got to Phoenix, she had gone to Denver. For no reason other than thinking she had time to go sightseeing. She thought they were going to drive to Phoenix. She had also found a new boyfriend in Denver.
The Sunny story, however, remains a terrible story. It could be cute or endearing in a much shorter form, but in my response to Eric’s email I made the mistake of asking how long this book was. It was 366 pages. Single spaced. In the same format it is roughly 96 pages longer than my book that encompasses seven years.
I told Eric that I would actually (attempt) to read this book that I assume is going to have more detail than if Steinbeck and Hemmingway had collaborated on writing about the beauty of the same roll of toilet paper. I even told him that I am quite sceptical and that I will not give it to my agent.
He didn’t seem to care.
“It’s a story that needs to get told, man.”
I admire the enthusiasm. I just question the source and the material
To help in the voting process I have decided to post trailers (or if unavailable, clips) of movies that I place in my Movie Time Capsule Blog viewer's choice poll.
So here are the choices of the damned. You have roughly 9 days left to vote.
Maximum Overdrive: Stephen King directed, admittedly under the influence of a lot of drugs and alcohol, this tale of a meteor that causes all vehicles and electrical appliances to go out of control and try to kill people. Starring Emilio Estevez and Yeardly Smith. The clip does it more justice than I ever could.
Trick or Treat: A dead heavy metal singer comes back from the dead to wreak havoc and seek revenge on Halloween when "Family Ties" star Marc Price plays the singer's unreleased album backwards. Also starring Ozzy Osbourne and Gene Simmons, yet stunningly neither is the killer.
My Demon Lover: A nerdy and homeless street musician (played by "Family Ties" star Scott Valentine) finally meets the woman of his dreams. The only problem: he turns into a demon when he becomes sexually aroused. All the sexual innuendo a PG-13 movie can hold ensues.
So there you have it. Now have at thee!
In this blog later in the week, you can expect:
-A story about how Andy has to painfully tell his friend the book he is thinking of writing is a terrible idea. -The first in a series of classes looking at the works of Mr. Sean Combs -The Time Movie Time Capsule Blogs for "No Holds Barred" and "Night of the Creeps"
In my companion blog "...Not Because You Have To" this week you can expect: -musings on feeling satisfaction -a 3 part series about the worst week of my life -possibly something else, but I doubt it
When I first got the idea to write about movies that are vaguely remembered, I went through box office receipts week by week and made a list of movies that I remembered by title, had seen, or hadn’t heard of at all. Films that were successes, iconic, or made by art house directors with large followings were (for the most part) eliminated from contention.
Following the first round of cuts, I did precursory research on the hundreds of titles that remained. If I hadn’t seen the movie and there was no way I could, it was eliminated. If it was a movie I saw when I was young, but was currently unavailable in any form today or was too hard to track down without paying a fortune, it was also eliminated unless I had sufficient research materials that could be used to refresh my memory.
When the list was finalized, there remained another list of films that I set to the side that I knew I could write quite a bit about. These were the films that I either had a story about or there was a wealth of information available about them. These movies were saved for my reader’s choice polls (of which, as you can see, there is a new one).
I was planning on writing about all three of the movies I listed, but the one that wins the poll, will be the one that gets posted first. I will admit that I never expected this week’s winner, “The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking” to have won.
With only a couple of days left in the voting, all three movies were locked in a seemingly endless three way tie. I shrugged it off and rewatched both “Night of the Creeps” and “No Holds Barred;” taking notes and writing an outline. Not once did I hold out much hope for Pippi winning. Then my friend Lisa broke the tie and Pippi won by one vote. Not that I minded, since all three films have great stories that I have planned to post.
When they are posted later in the week, my entry for “Night of the Creeps” will focus on how Hollywood has a pretty loose definition of plagiarism and “No Holds Barred” will focus on my love of both cheesy professional wrestling and cheesy, terrible movies. “Pippi” was the only movie out of the three, however, that I actually had a personal story for.
In my first film related entry about “Chain Reaction,” I mentioned how I lived near a movie theatre, but what I never mentioned were the other three theatres in the city of Worcester when I was growing up, and how it was near impossible to get my mother to take me to any movies that weren’t showing at the theatre across the street.
My mother bought me a set of five Pippi Longstocking book, written by Swedish children’s author Astrid Lindgren. I immediately fell in love with this wild, free-spirited daughter of a pirate and her adventures around the world. Pippi always eschewed adult rules and regulations and what she lacked in couth, she made up for with her own brand of loyalty and common sense.
Upon it’s release in 1988, the television commercials for “The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking” immediately caught my eye, and the upbeat theme from the movie was already pleasing to my young ears. As the weeks passed and the film’s release got closer and closer, I kept my fingers crossed that they movie would be playing across the street. I was crushed when the movie opened at the least accessible theatre for my family: the Webster Square theatre. Webster Square was so far from where I lived it might as well have been located in a Moscow suburb.
I didn’t give up hope. Even on the last day of the movie’s two week run when it was only showing as a matinee at one in the afternoon, I begged and pleaded to see it. My mother agreed to go, but she cautioned me that we didn’t have enough money to both go to the movies and take the bus. She told me we would have to walk miles in the hot August heat to get to the theatre.
I like to think that in some respects I was a smart kid, but the concept of time in relation to distance and direction still escaped me. When we embarked on our trip (as I sang what I knew of the Pippi theme song like it was “Hi-Ho” from “Snow White” and marching ahead of my mother proudly) I never realized we were going in the completely wrong direction or that by leaving at 11:30 there would have been no way we would have made it for a one o’clock show.
We arrived at a park near the skating rink on Lake Avenue when my mother stopped and sat down on a bench. She was clearly exhausted, and we had already walked a great distance.
“C’mon mom! We’re gonna’ miss Pippi!” I remember tugging at her shirt sleeve as I said this.
“Oh sweetie,” she said almost breathlessly, “I don’t think we are going to make it to see her today.”
“But mooooooooooooooommmm. Today is the last day.”
“I know. Let’s just play at the park today. It’s so nice out. There are swings. You like swings.”
It’s true. I did and still do like swings, as many girls I have dated and gone to a park with can attest to. Swings, however, didn’t change the fact that I knew my mother had lied to me. I could tell from the look on her face and lack of purse that she planned this from the start. I was so upset and petulant that I didn’t even care that I was at one of my favourite parks.
“Swings suck mom!” I said as I crossed my arms and began to stare at the ground. I teared up slightly, but that was mostly out of selfishness.
My mother placed her head in her hands and openly wept in the middle of the park. I realized I had gone too far. It wasn’t until I was older that I truly realized how hard she tried, even if her failure were covered by lies.
I placed my hand on her shoulder and apologized. “I’m sorry mom. I do still like swings. Do you want to swing with me?”
She shook her head and opted to keep crying. I began to swing for a bit, but I couldn’t take my eyes off my mother. It looked like rain was coming so we didn’t stay long. I felt too uncomfortable to stay, anyway. When I got off the swings and walked over to her she was repeatedly muttering under her breath about how she tried so hard.
Other than the rain that started to fall I don’t remember the walk home. I do remember my father getting really angry at the both of us and slapping my mother for not bringing an umbrella with us. People walking in the house wet were something he never tolerated. I was sent to my room and punished for my father getting irrationally pissed off like he always did.
I took the Pippi Longstocking books from my bookshelf and tried to read them, but on that day I could just no longer relate to the irrepressible child with a vivid imagination and superhuman strength. If I ever tried the things she did, I would probably be beaten senseless by my father. I cried a lot and shoved them into a dark corner of my toy box; out of sight and never to be read again. My love for childish fantasies seemingly dies that day.
When the movie came out on video, our local video store didn’t carry it, and I didn’t want to press the issue. Even then I was careful to not reopen old wounds.
Now let’s fast forward to the year 2005, after the death of my parents and having to go through far worse pain and heartache than not seeing a movie. I was working as a projectionist at a movie theatre, and one summer as part of the Free Family Film Festival (or FFFF as it was called), we managed to get a print of “The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking.” Part of me really wanted to either come in early or stay after hours to watch it, but work and life got in the way and for reasons I don’t quite remember it just never happened.
But after that day, it rekindled my wanting to see this movie that I only got to see brief clips of. It didn’t seem like it had aged very well at all.
And now in 2008, for the film’s 20th anniversary, I have finally sat down and watched it.
Speaking as my adult self, I now wish I hadn’t.
The film opens with the same ridiculously catchy theme song I remembered from my youth, but already my adult mind knows there is something cold, crass, and commercial about the whole affair. The opening credits last forever and show some of the most stereotypical painted portraits I have ever seen open a film: Australians do everything upside-down and with kangaroos, people in cold climates all ice fish and shill with penguins, and south Asians all work in the rice fields. Come to think of it, that might not be that removed from the books at all. It was also kind of like watching “North” all over again only shorter and less painful.
Right from the opening scene my nostalgia meter shut off and I know I am in way over my fucking head. We are introduced to Pippolita Delacatesso Windowshade Mackrelmint Ephraim’s Daughter Longstocking (although “Mackrelmint Ephraim’s Daughter” is dropped in this version) on her father’s pirate ship. It is apparent from the pranks she play son the ship and her general attitude that this version of Pippi is not so much irrepressible, but an enormous pain in the ass.
It also doesn’t help that the movie uses quick editing cuts like its fucking “Armageddon.” We are given no useful information about just who Pippi is before the ship is caught in a storm and she is separated from her father. When they go overboard, it is in a scene so poorly put together, that it goes like this: brief shot of the ship, cut to the monkey, cut to a random volcano, cut to the horse, cut to a shot of lightning. All I can think of was “what the fuck am I watching?”
In a long bit of exposition for a drowning man amidst chaos, Pippi’s father tells her to build a raft and find his house known as Villa Villacula. Mr Neilson (the monkey) and Alfonso (the horse) will take care of her and know how to get there.
From there we are whisked off to some small town with no name where Pippi ends up. Two kids, Tommy and Annika, walk by the house and bemoan the lack of having friends next door. Well, faster than you can say “Pippi Longstocking is coming into your town,” the kids are hanging out with Pippi; having pancake fights and scrubbing floors with brushes attached to roller skates.
I must admit that pancake fights and skating around the kitchen is still the perfect prescription for getting out of a funk, but does everything in the movies need a shitty song to go along with it? Veteran Disney director and Skywalker namesake Ken Annakin seems to think so. These songs aren’t even slightly good. They might be catchy but lyrically I feel like I am listening to Diddy (or whatever he calls himself these days) rapping to two year olds.
The father of the two children (played by Denis Dugan, who would go on to direct almost every movie Adam Sandler has made) doesn’t approve of Pippi and is unwittingly helping a shady realtor subtly named Mr. Blackheart who is trying to retrieve the gold in the basement of Pippi’s house that she says is from King Solomon’s Mines. Needless to say, Blackheart’s efforts are thwarted by the ever resourceful Pippi.
One day, Pippi strolls into town singing her own theme song while it plays in the background just to hammer home the shitty nature of this movie. Upon her arrival she meets up with the kids from the “home for children who have no parents” (and probably want to learn other good stuff, too). Tommy and Annika even point out, quite lovingly, that no one wants them.
After buying the orphans ice cream and candy she turns the kids into a marching band, closes off the streets to have an ice cream fight and the chief of police (played by John C. Reilly in a really bit part) just smiles and watches the whole thing. The head of the orphanage is nonplussed, however, when she discovers Pippi is living by herself and demands Pippi come to live at the orphanage.
At this point, where there should probably be a SPOILER ALERT, it might seem like I am just listing off everything that happens in the movie. There really isn’t much else I can so since much like “Pootie Tang” this film has no plot at all and is just a bunch of random situations with nothing to hold them together. I had another two pages where I map out the rest of the movie, but there really isn’t much point in that, so I will just point out the other key flaws of the film.
It is completely disingenuous. Pippi was a magical person in the books, but this movie is so cynical that it has the audacity to suggest that the stories and adventures that she tells the kids are huge lies and no one should believe her.
The story has little to nothing to do with the books or even the 5 Swedish films that were made about Pippi. It might as well have been named Sally Anygirl, since instead of staying true to Pippi; the filmmakers try far too hard to make her an 8 year old version of Ferris Beuler. (Actually, the Swedish movies are pretty terrible from what I hear. True Pippi enthusiasts will tell you the only good version of the books came from the only aired in Canada animated series.)
In “Thank You for Smoking” Nick Naylor questions the logic of having cigarettes on a space ship in a movie fearing they will explode in an all oxygen environment. He is told not to worry and everything can be fixed by a simple line of dialog: “Thank god we invented the ‘whatever’ device.”
Well, the “whatever device” is brought out far too many times in this movie and it really is the film’s biggest annoyance. When the kids want to go home after running away with Pippi in a homemade autogyro, the kids say the autogyro has sunk in a swamp. I didn’t even know they were near a fucking swamp. When Pippi is gone, Mr. Blackheart stays away because he is told someone is guarding the house. Pippi rides on a fire engine, says it is the greatest thing she has ever done, and we don’t see it. There was a fire engine used earlier in the movie! What, you could only afford it for one fucking day? You couldn’t have shot it then? And if you did and it was so important to have that line in the film, why did you cut it? It is a very simple to see story problem: don’t tell the audience something happened; show them.
In the last 15 minutes of the film the poor editing shows through even more as the film seems to be racing to the finish line. It sets up no less than four subplots with two new characters and none of it goes anywhere at all. The film even ends abruptly with a montage and almost nothing is resolved.
I sat there, mouth slightly agape at what I just saw. That was fucking terrible on both a literary and filmmaking level. It felt like Pippi by way of a focus group and a corporate committee. Then after they were done, the film was handed to the most incompetent editor on the face of the earth with a mandate that the film could only be 100 minutes long.
After the shock wore off, I got up from my chair and got a drink. I talked to a friend about what I just did and how I felt about this movie I had waited the better part of my life to watch. She understood my frustration and said maybe it was for the best that I hadn’t seen it until now.
That night I when I went to bed it hit me. While the movie is undoubtedly terrible, I can’t say it is best left forgotten. I have too many memories tied to it and it made me think happily about my mother again for another night. The last thing I thought before going to sleep was that I would have loved it as an undiscerning child. Despite its shoddy craftsmanship, it is still a movie made to entertain kids. Not cynical, world weary twenty-somethings.
But in hindsight, I’m glad I didn’t make my mother sit through it.
Not all of the movies I plan on reviewing here have been completely forgotten like my last entry. Many of the films enjoy some sort of cult following; some because they are terrible and end up becoming hilarious and some because they were slightly ahead of their time and overlooked upon their release. Today’s film is one that has seen a resurgence of support recently thanks to its old distributor (Universal) repackaging it with more popular movies from the 1980’s.
If you were to read the brief plot description of “Three O’clock High” it would come across as pretty unremarkable: a high school student named Jerry has to suffer through an entire school day until he inevitably has to take on the new bully in school who challenged him to a fight at the end of the day. Such a description was probably why the film debuted at number seven at the box office upon its release in 1987. In the 1980’s teen comedies were a dime a dozen and one devoid of sex that didn’t have John Hughes’ name attached to it was destined to die a slow and painful death. Come to think of it, if you substitute John Hughes’ with Seth Rogen or Judd Apatow (all three of whom worked on this weekend’s release “Drillbit Taylor”), the same rules would apply.
“Three O’ Clock High” comes with quite the pedigree, itself. The writers never really went on to do anything all that memorable again; mostly television and a couple of movies I could very well use in a future column. Director Phil Joanou recently made the film “Gridiron Gang” and works quite frequently with U2, including their concert film “Rattle and Hum.” The cast included noted and loved character actors that have gained popularity in supporting roles, but the leads never became huge stars after this. Barry Sonnenfeld (director of the “Men in Black” films and “Get Shorty”) even worked on this film as a lighting director and cinematographer.
If none of those names ring a bell, the names of the film’s two executive producers should: Aaron Spelling and Steven Spielberg. There is a rumour circulating around Hollywood that Spielberg had his name taken off the credits to distance himself from the fact that he collaborated on anything with Spelling. It was a shame since the Spielberg name could have helped this movie a lot more than the Spelling name.
The movie opens with a great “getting ready while late for school montage,” that made me believe for the longest time that you very well could throw a shirt in the microwave to dry it off after pulling it soaking wet from the washing machine. Trust me when I say such tricks only work in the movies; you will only end up burning yourself because you just boiled your fucking clothes.
Jerry (played by Casey Siemaszko) wakes up late on a day when he was supposed to open the school’s student store early. His day only gets worse as he manages to have a flat tire, has to end up taking mom’s station wagon (complete with SUPERMOM vanity plates) to school, and nearly crashes the car on the way to school with his sister and Goth best friend in tow in what may very well be one of the longest spin-outs in history.
Upon arriving at school fifty minutes later than he should be, the campus is all abuzz about the arrival of “the new guy” Buddy Revel. Even Yeardly “Lisa Simpson” Smith shows up in a well done DePalma like shot where students talk about the unspeakable acts committed by Buddy. It would appear that Buddy had been thrown out of every school he has attended for various violent acts; some involving breaking the necks of gym teachers, pulling switchblades on football coaches, and a punch in the face from a set of brass knuckles if someone should touch him. Buddy doesn’t like to be touched.
When Buddy (Richard Tyson) finally does show up, it is almost as if an outlaw has really come to town. He shows up in slow motion in his plain white T-shirt and leather jacket; clearing a path without even having to look up, let alone say anything.
At first Jerry doesn’t believe the hype about Buddy and he goes about his day. His boss at the student store (“Arrested Development’s” Jeffery Tambor) tasks Jerry with depositing their record sales of about $500 after school. Jerry couldn’t care less about what his boss says when the girl who caused his near accident earlier walks in. Jerry immediately becomes socially inept at the sight of her, yammering on about the new space age technology behind some fucking pen they are selling.
After looking like a fool, Jerry goes to a journalism class of some sort where he is assigned (completely at random) with doing a welcome piece on Buddy. Jerry’s best friend Vincent (Jonathan Wise) offers to take the story off his hands, but the teacher declines the request as Vincent would probably just make it the kind of sensationalist piece she doesn’t want. Jerry, however, nearly pisses himself with fear and has to run to the bathroom.
Well who should walk in but Buddy, taking the urinal next to Jerry and clearly ignoring the rules of urinal etiquette. Jerry ignores urinal etiquette further by trying to shake hands over a piss. Buddy calls Jerry a fag and in an effort to smooth things over, Jerry makes the mistake of touching his shoulder. Buddy, being the rational human being he is, smashes Jerry’s head into the wall and throws him through the mirror.
Not only is the article not happening now, but Buddy says they are going to fight at three o’clock, but not before giving a speech about how he will track Jerry down if he tries to say anything to anyone or tries to run:
“You try and run, I'm gonna’ track you down. You go to a teacher, it's only gonna’ get worse. You sneak home, I'm gonna’ be under your bed.”
Needless to say, the way the rumour mill runs in the school, everyone knows about the fight ten minutes after the initial confrontation, so before Jerry even has the chance to go to the principal, his idiot friend Vincent has already managed to plant a knife in Buddy’s locker and placing an anonymous note on a teacher’s desk. Jerry goes along with it, regrettably, thinking Buddy will be kicked out before the end of the school’s pep rally. Jerry also refuses to leave since he has a math quiz and a book report due later in the day. He’s such a trooper to try and make it through a day where he could very well end up dead.
The knife planting didn’t exactly go as well as planned. Jerry freaks out and tries to escape in the middle of the pep rally, only to find the knife sticking out of the steering wheel (and a threatening note) and all of his engine connections cut. Not so luckily, Jerry has told Vincent to call the whole thing off and he took the note back from the teacher.
At this point the problems just pile up. Nothing Jerry tries to do to get out of the fight seems to work. He has a run in with a security guard who likes to call himself “The Duker” (played by “X-Files” veteran Mitch Pileggi) who finds the knife during a “routine narcotics search” on his way back from the parking lot.
The emotionless principal (who has such cheery books on his desk as “Nazi War Crimes” and “Dread”) doesn’t believe a word of Jerry’s story. Jerry tries to hire a kid to beat Buddy up during lunch by paying him with all the money he stole from the student store during a staged fire drill, but the guy just ends up getting his nose and thumb broken.
I could go on and on with the other plans that don’t work and the ridiculous romantic subplot involving the Goth girl, the girl of his dreams, and a teacher who thinks he is coming on to her despite him really just wanting to get detention. There is quite a bit more to it, but I will leave it at the point I am at now; which is roughly 40 minutes into the movie.
This movie works because it creates its own reality that is not too far removed from our own. It is aware that the story has plot holes that need patching and it repeatedly comes up with clever ways to explain questions the audience is bound to have. It also eschews my biggest complain about bully’s on film. Far too often movies try to show a bully as being misunderstood. Buddy isn’t misunderstood. He is legitimately psychotic. Just like some of the greatest villains in film history, he has no motivation to be doing the things he is doing and in the process adding dimension to the other characters he torments.
Credit for making the script work, however, should be given mostly to Joanou and Sonnenfeld. The film is shot beautifully and they manage to squeeze every last ounce of dread out of a very mundane setting. The ticking of every clock begins to be a bit much as the film goes on, but the action moves at such a fast pace it helps to keep aware of what time it is.
The biggest problem with the movie is the needlessly tacked on romantic subplot that is completely uninteresting and manages to slow down the pace. Also, the big fight at the end of the film is so ridiculous, it might has well have taken place in the Thunderdome and having everyone chanting “two men enter, one man leaves.” But when you look back on the movies that were more popular at the time, this one blows them away.
Welcome to the first in me series of blogs looking at movies that no one thinks of anymore. Not so much films that time forgot (although, I will admit that some of my choices for this column will overlap the Onion A.V. Club’s list of Films That Time Forgot), but movies that have lost their audiences in the years since pay cable channels decided to show marathons of “Entourage” and “Dexter.” These are the movies you would see either early in the morning, in the middle of the night, or just out of sheer luck.
A vast majority of the movies highlighted here will have been released between 1980 and 1995; not too old and not too new, but from time to time, if I can think of a good one or someone suggests it, I will take from any time period. I am going to try and do one per week, but sometimes more than one. On the left side of the blog you can see a poll where you can decide what the first “reader’s choice” film I will look at will be.
The movies will be rated either as a hidden gem, middle of the road, or best left forgotten.
Other than nostalgia and looking for a writing exercise, today’s inaugural entry is really what inspired this column. I can’t even really explain why, but it was probably the first movie I ever watched in the middle of the night (possibly on USA “Up All Night”) that was so god awful I just couldn’t help but laugh at how bad it was.
“Hamburger: The Motion Picture” was released in 1986 to an uninterested masses and still has not seen the light of day on video. It is so relatively obscure that I don’t know a single other person who has seen it. It isn’t available on DVD, but there are VHS copies of it available on Amazon going for upwards of $60 (and a few for less on eBay).
Right from the film’s almost Mellencampian opening credits, you should know you are in for a rough ride. I warn you before watching the video that you will not get the theme stuck out of your head for days.
Leigh McColoskey (Kelsey Grammer’s former roommate at Julliard) plays Russell, a strapping young lad who has been expelled from every college and university he has attempted attending for, I shit you not, “lewd, crude, and nude behaviour.” It’s not his fault, however. Apparently this kind of trouble just seems to find him since every single woman in this movie is horny and the very sight of him reduces them to seductive temptresses. Or at least, that is what he tells his therapist before she tries to make love to him in the Dean’s office.
Russell has a bigger problem than that, though. Russell’s beloved grandfather has just passed away and left him a large trust fund, but in order to collect the money Russell must first graduate from any college or university.
So Russell packs up and starts going to BusterburgerUniversity, the training grounds for the Busterburger franchise. It is also the jumping off point for jokes about, fat people, people who don’t speak English, and women, often combining all three into some sort of hellish super joke that is possibly more offensive than anything you have heard before.
Russell’s “boss” cum drill instructor is played by football legend Dick Butkus. Russell fights for the affections of the business owner’s daughter against Butkus, and if you care about this, you already care far too much.
“Jokes” are scattered throughout the movie. Some involving flatulence, overeating, a female on male attempted rape involving a submachine gun, and a fellow classmate who is so fat, he electrically shocks himself every time he has a craving in an effort to keep food costs down.
There is one funny moment in the movie, and here it is:
A few months ago over dinner with friends, I said that when I was younger, I wanted to be a film critic. My friend Jeff (who is a writer and blogger himself) fired off a tersely worded, yet completely truthful response:
“Being a critic is the easiest job in the world.”
While that statement was completely agreeable to me, it made me think back to when I first realized I wanted to write about movies. Unfortunately, it ultimately caused me to watch a movie I tried long and hard to block from my memory.
Growing up in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, I lived across the street from the White City Shopping Centre (*), which housed the now defunct and demolished White City Cinemas (or the “triplex” as it was referred to by some). Without a family car to take me to other amusements such as the park and the library (*) on a weekend, snow day, or any day during the summer, it was easy for my mother to take me to the movies and keep me from complaining about how bored I was.
Almost as soon as I was old enough to cross the street on my own, I was going to the movies by myself; since my mother worked days and my father insisted movies were a waste of money (*). Every summer on Fridays I would go to the theatre whatever new releases arrived in my neighbourhood (*).
For a long time I was easily pleased by what I saw. Some films I can look back on and realize they are no where near as good as I remember them being (“I Love Trouble,” I am looking at you.). Some movies I was far too young to comprehend, like the Michael Mann thriller “Heat” which I thought was a slow moving mess at the time, but now regard as a great film with a crappy ending. However, I will never forget the first movie I saw that was an outright piece of shit.
It was a warm August morning in 1996 when my faith in Hollywood’s product was shattered. I had bought my ticket unwittingly based on the “kick assedness” of a film’s trailer. I waited patiently to be let in to the first show of the day, as well as the entire two week run, of “Chain Reaction”
For all the grief cineastes give Keanu Reeves he really isn’t that terrible of an actor. Morgan Freeman has always maintained his dignity even when in pieces of tripe like “Bonfire of the Vanities,” “Dreamcatcher,” and the Rob Reiner helmed “let’s all laugh in the face of cancer” romp “The Bucket List.” The supporting cast included character actors Fred Ward and Brian Cox, as well as a then mostly unknown Rachel Weisz. Andrew Davis had just come off directing the Academy Award nominated adaptation of “The Fugitive.” Even at the age of fourteen I knew this seemed like the equivalent of Michael Jordan shooting free throws in an empty arena.
I settled in for the movie and left an hour and fifty minutes later feeling completely cheated and pissed off. I only remembered bits and pieces of the movie over the years after I saw it, but there were two things that always stuck with me.
First and foremost was the feeling that I had while watching it. In the movie’s first half hour I was bored and knew something was amiss. Slowly my boredom gave way to out and out laughter at how each scene in the movie was progressively more ridiculous than the one that came before it.
Secondly, I remembered that the plot was so overly complex that it made absolutely no sense. I always remembered it being incoherent, but over the years of swearing that I would never watch it again, the feeling stayed, but what little details I could understand from the movie faded away.
Recently, I decided to start writing about movies again as a kind of writing exercise to get me back in the habit of writing something substantial every day. My next blog will start my series about movies from the 1980’s that were either forgotten about or have gone on to attain some sort of cult status, but “Chain Reaction” was always destined to be my starting point; a way to describe the method behind my madness.
And one day last week, destiny roundhouse kicked me in the face. “Chain Reaction” was going to be on television in the middle of the afternoon when I had nothing else going on.
I wrestled with my conflicting feelings like Brad Pitt at the end of “Seven” before finally pulling the trigger on my experiment. I always had a soft spot for movies described as “schlock” or “crap,” and over the years had come to embrace even the worst films with a sense of humour. I also knew that I had seen far worse movies since 1996, but the mention of this movie still sent chills up and down my spine 12 years after I saw it.
I was going to sit down and watch a movie that I loathed as a teenager (that due to commercials was now extended to a ghastly two hours and twenty minutes) with hopes of being objective. I had a couple of years of film school under my belt and decided to watch the movie only to figure out why it didn’t work as either a movie or as mindless entertainment. I did, however, retain the right to laugh along or reach for a bottle of rum should the pain become unbearable.
In his review of the movie, Roger Ebert explained that so much happens in “Chain Reaction” and so little of it makes any sense that he gave up taking notes once he hit page eight almost halfway through the movie. He is a far stronger man than I was while watching it. I made it to page two, but in my defence I was using a full sized notebook and small handwriting as opposed to the smaller pad and chicken scratch a critic would most likely use in a darkened theatre. I made it only slightly further in my note taking than the film’s Wikipedia entry which stops explaining the movie less than halfway through.
The movie really is that much of a mess, but what really sinks the experience is the fact that it wants to be three different movies at the same time: an intelligent “techno-thriller” about corporate and government corruption, a thrill a minute chase film with no brain at all, and a mystery. While some movies like the recent Jason Bourne films can deftly balance all three elements, the viewer who watches “Chain Reaction” is not able to easily follow along because when one of the three elements I listed starts up, the other two promptly stop while the movie wildly flails and cycles its way though each of them.
Keanu (merely biding his time here between “Speed” and “The Matrix”) plays a not-so-wild-and-crazy scientist freshly kicked out of the University of Illinois with a penchant for oversized sweatshirts that look like they were stolen and mothballed from the set of “Flashdance.” Apparently the project he is working on is his last real shot in the scientific community since his last experiment destroyed a building on campus. When Fred Ward’s detective questions Keanu’s boss, played by Freeman, about the incident, Freeman defends Keanu’s work by quickly pointing out that the “experiment would have been brilliant had it worked.”
Freeman (playing a man named Shannon, who may or may not be who he seems or doesn’t seem), Reeves, and Weisz (playing Reeves’ assistant) work in a warehouse so dimly lit that you know eventually something bad will happen there. Together under Freeman’s supervision they are working in said warehouse on the theoretically very real concept of “bubble fusion.”
As the film’s preachy opening speech that would make Al Gore rolls his eyes tells us, there is enough energy in a glass of water to power Chicago for weeks. Keanu is tasked with harnessing the hydrogen atoms from a giant glass of water (ok, it’s really a tank) through sonoluminescence, which means playing the sound of grinding metal through a microphone and pointing at the tank until the water boils.
As various nerdy types say “is it stable?” 15 times in the first five minutes of the movie, the experiment works and everyone is so jazzed about finding a renewable source of energy they proceed to celebrate by getting shitfaced, popping hydrogen filled balloons with a blow torch, and taking a group photo after a thoroughly bored and unconvincing Freeman instructs everyone to say “Holy shit we did it!” instead of “cheese.”
I don’t know if my ADD kicked in or if the movie was somehow edited for television, but right when Reeves and Weisz stumble out of the warehouse drunk, I know I am lost, and hopelessly so. Weisz, goes, um, somewhere and Keanu goes back inside to get, um, something or talk to someone and he finds the man who gave the opening speech (who I didn’t think was all that important) dead on the floor. Two other scientists of little importance other than to get the “plot” of the movie going who stayed late (and apparently sober, as well) to preach the wonders of their new energy source all over the internet; have also been killed by some one or thing. The giant water tank is also boiling like a bunch of forgotten Kraft dinner on a stovetop.
Keanu runs from the warehouse in horror on his clearly being towed motorcycle in hoped of out running the apparently imminent explosion, which he manages to do by sliding his bike into a very conveniently place ditch in the middle of the street. The explosion ends up taking out somewhere between five and eight city blocks, depending on what character is talking, despite the fact that the warehouse is clearly in the middle of nowhere.
Naturally, the FBI shows up wanting answers and Fred Ward shows up to play a detective so hard nosed he could head butt his way through prison bars. Someone has pinned the explosion and the murders on Reeves and framed Weisz for trying to sell the concept to the Koreans.
From there we venture more into director Davis’ forte and the film has the chance to become a still incoherent, but a technically well crafted rip off of “The Fugitive,” and ultimately the movie fails even before it has the chance to get started.
Reeves and Weisz go on the run and find themselves caught in a web of deceit and a series of increasingly ludicrous set pieces they need to escape from; one requires hovercrafts and another requires Keanu to run up the slowly opening Michigan Avenue drawbridge and somehow develop ninja like skill to get away.
The action sequences could work well on their own, but the characters are thrust into them so arbitrarily and so quickly that the viewer isn’t given a chance to care about them or at the very least have a clue as to why they are really running. They are only running because they think they should run, and because there wouldn’t be a movie if they didn’t.
It was shortly after the bridge chase that I gave up taking notes. I was already too annoyed and pissed off to care. I tapped out like a wrestler caught in a submission manoeuvre. I just couldn’t do it.
From there the action continues and red herrings litter the screen like they blew up the fucking bay. Everyone is a suspect; no one is safe; the conspiracy reaches to the highest branches of government this movie will allow. I can tell you how the movie ends, but what is the point when I couldn’t tell you in pluperfect hell how it got to that point. I gave up taking notes and promptly started vacuuming the living room in hopes of drowning out the sound, and it was just as coherent as I remembered it being when I was young.
It certainly helped the careers of the talent involved that the script was the reason the movie ultimately tanked at the box office. Reeves and Weisz moved on to bigger and better things; eventually reuniting for the I-can’t-believe-I-am-saying-this-is-better-than-anything “Constantine.” Freeman regularly has failures like this, but he seems to be Teflon coated and none of them really stick. Andrew Davis directed “Holes” and I don’t mean that as a “dig.” The writers (all five of them) have fared far worse in their careers, although two of them have good day jobs as producers.
And then it hit me. “Chain Reaction” didn’t make me want to be a critic. It made me want to be a better writer; one that could turn out something better than what I saw. I remember writing my first screenplay that week; a romantic-comedy/action-thriller. It was fucking terrible, but at least it lit a fire under me. And looking back over what I have just written I feel that same joy and sense of accomplishment that I did back then.
Someone once said the difference between having someone as a nemesis and having someone as an enemy is that on the day you die the nemesis will feel bad and would attend your funeral. An enemy would wish you nothing but the worst, but a nemesis is so jealous of you they end up envying your every move. I am already envious of the people who made something as terrible as “Chain Reaction” and downright jealous of the fact that it made it to theatres. As such, anyone and everyone involved with “Chain Reaction” are hereby invited to my funeral.
Personal Side Notes:
-Technically I lived behind a block of stores and restaurants, but I could see the theatre’s marquee from my bedroom window and I would watch them change the sign every Thursday night. In front of my house there was a Burger King, Scooby’s (a fish and chips shop that later became Boston Chicken, which was renamed Boston Market when it became a worldwide chain, and then became a McDonald’s shortly before I moved), a Chinese restaurant, a motorcycle/snowblower dealership, and East Side Mario’s. When anyone asked me where I lived and I said “right across from WhiteCity,” if the kid was a smartass the conversation would continue like this:
Smartass: “You live at Burger King?”
Me: “No, behind that.”
Smartass: “East Side Mario’s?”
Me: “No, that is beside it dickless.”
Smartass: “Ha, ha. You live at fucking Burger King.”
Me: “Forget it.”
-Being an avid reader, having the library so far from my house was a major hindrance since my parents never wanted to take me there even on the bus. Once, no matter how hard I begged my father to take me, he denied me in favour of trying to beat one of the underwater levels in the first Super Mario Brothers game. He kept swearing at the jellyfish and I was told to stop crying about not going to the library.
-My father liked exactly three movies that I can remember: “Ben-Hur,” “Silence of the Lambs,” and “Maniac Cop 2.”
-Since my mother worked at the Friendly’s restaurant next to the movie theatre everything included R-rated movies I shouldn’t have been able to get into. Everyone in that plaza knew each other, and as long as my mom didn’t care what I saw, neither did the staff.
