10 Sequels To Classic Movies That Really Should Not Happen

Okay, I know it's the nature of the film business beast to repeat successful formulas ad nauseum with remakes, reboots, and re-imaginings galore; and I don't want to be another one of those movie bloggers that complain that 'Hollywood has officially run out of ideas', but dammit these sequels are really bad ideas. A few are just talk, a few are in production, and the rest have nothing happening but an announcement with a corresponding IMDb page but they are all scary sobering possibilities on the horizon. So just to put my 2 cents in here's 10 projected sequels of classic movies that I truly hope are axed:

1. BLADE RUNNER 2 (Dir. Ridley Scott? 20??)

Scott has batted around the idea of a sequel to the seminal 1982 cult sci fi movie for the last decade. The most recent news, in 2008, was that EAGLE EYE writers Travis Wright and John Glenn were tackling a screenplay for a sequel. More recently Scott and his brother Tony Scott announced that they were going to produce a prequel in the form of 5-10 short "webisodes" called PUREFOLD. Webisodes are fine, but the idea of a full length sequel is an awful one; BLADE RUNNER was a flawed yet contained story that created a convincing world pre CGI 'n all. A sequel would be indistinguishable from the over 25 years of bleak neon-lit dystopian future imitators. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the Scotts just leave it with the webisodes.

2. MONEY NEVER SLEEPS AKA WALL STREET 2 (Dir. Oliver Stone, 2010) The plot description on IMDb is: "As the global economy teeters on the brink of disaster, a young Wall Street trader partners with disgraced former Wall Street corporate raider Gordon Gekko on a two-tiered mission: To alert the financial community to the coming doom, and to find out who was responsible for the death of the young trader's mentor." Oh so it's supposed to be all timely! What's worse is that the young trader is set to be played by Shia LeBeouf (God, I hope it doesn't turn out he's Gekko's son - see #3 below), which I guess makes him this generation's Charlie Sheen. Michael Douglas is in place to reprise his Oscar winning role as Gordon Gekko who had the famous line: "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good." Well, there is no better word and this time, greed is very bad.

3. INDIANA JONES 5 (Dir. Steven Spielberg, 2012) Now I was one of the few in the film geek blogosphere that actually liked INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM... (I didn't like the title however) yet I strongly feel this would be one trip too many back to the well. The 4th film had the ring of one final trip through cliffhanger clichés for old times' sake, but a 5th one would be really pushing it. All Harrison Ford franchises have to end sometime, how about now? Now sure works for me.

4. REPO CHICK (Dir. Alex Cox, 2010)

Cox has not been able to leave his beloved 1984 punk oddity alone - in the 90's he wrote a "semi sequel" entitled "Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday" which was later adapted into a graphic novel and just recently he announced REPO CHICK, an actual proper sequel produced by David Lynch. Emilio Estevez opted out, telling the Austin Decider: "I remain proud of "Repo Man", but my focus is on what's ahead of me, not what's in my rearview mirror." This film is in the can so it can't be axed but still some sensible soul could see fit to shelve it and save the reputation of a genuine cult classic. Here's hoping.

5. FLETCH WON - This has also been in development hell for ages. Over a decade ago, Kevin Smith was tapped to write and direct what would be a prequel based faithfully on the Gregory McDonald novel, with either Jason Lee or Ben Affleck as the iconic character, but major disagreements (particularly about the level of Chevy Chase's involvement) squashed the project. After that, in 2005, Scrubs writer/director/producer Bill Lawrence was on board with his Scrubs star Zach Braff, but neither is attached or listed (nor is anyone else) any more on the film's IMDb page. Looks like the project has been certified dead...or extremely sleepy. Let's hope it never wakes up.

6. NOBODY #*$%'S WITH THE JESUS (A THE BIG LEBOWSKI spin-off) Now, I just made up the title but, hey, it's a much quoted line and it falls right in line with Adam Sandler's YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN so I think it works. This is just talk, mainly John Turturo's, about a spin-off film written by the Coen Brothers and directed by and starring Turturo. In a 10th anniversary article in Rolling Stone last year ("The Decade Of The Dude" Sept. 4th, 2008) Turturo relays that the story will deal with Jesus landing a job as a bus driver for a girls' high school volleyball team. "It will be like a combination of ROCKY and the BAD NEWS BEARS. At the very least we'd have to have a Dude cameo." Uh, no thanks - methinks this idea reeks as bad as Walter Sobchak's "ringer" suitcase filled with his dirty underwear.

7. PORNO (The sequel to TRAINSPOTTING) This is another project that's probably dead or just resting quietly at the moment. Director Danny Boyle has said he'd like to do this follow-up in the future when the original actors have aged appropriately because the book sequel takes place much later but it's been a while since he said that now. Ewan Macgregor though has nixed the idea that he'd reprise Renton with these remarks about Irvine Welsh's follow-up novel "Porno": "I didn't think the book was very good. The novel of 'Trainspotting' was quite fantastic ... and then I find that the sequel ... it didn't move me as much." Like when Rodney Dangerfield bowed out of doing CADDYSHACK II because he hated the script, Macgregor just earned some major integrity points there.

8. BEVERLY HILLS COP IV (2012) This one is pretty likely to happen. Whatever your feelings on Murphy he is still huge bankable star (albeit in crappy family films these days) and it has been a lucrative franchise so I bet this one is in the cards. Maybe reprising Axel Foley will bring back some much needed edge to Murphy, but I doubt it. No matter how you slice it this is an unnecessary and uninspired attempt to cash in where there most likely will be insufficient funds. I mean, it's not exactly BOURNE or even the DIE HARD series we're talking about here, is it?

9. TRON 2.0 Working title: TR2N (Dir. Joseph Kosinski, 2011)

This is a sure thing too, but that doesn't stop me from wishing it away. TRON wasn't exactly a treasured part of my childhood, in fact I found it more than a little dull, but it had its charms as a dated ode to the world of video gaming before the rise of the internet. Now 29 years later with Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner returning, a sequel is poised to come win over the fan boys. That's just the problem - who else but fan boys will be lining up for this? Unless I hear it's a major re-imagining that smoothes over the shortcomings of the original, I surely won't be in line.

10. GHOSTBUSTERS 3 (Dir. Ivan Reitman?, 2012) This has been a buzzing on the internets for a while now with all of the principals set to return (even Rick Moranis who, except for some cartoon voice work, hasn't been onscreen since 1997) joined by fresh meat: Seth Rogen, Steve Carrell, Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, and every other Apatow player and crude comedy regular working today as Ghost Buster trainees. Actually that last bit is just rumored (as is Moranis being present) but it is true that Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky (writers on the US The Office) are writing a 3rd film and most of the original cast is set to come back except Sigourney Weaver who recently said: "I don't expect to have anything to do with it, although I wish them well." Well, I wish them well too, but I have a sad feeling that G3 will be a sticky pile of ghost goo.

Okay! Ten sequels I'd rather not see come to fruition. Any others out there you're dreading? HEATHERS 2? JURASSIC PARK 4, the UNTOUCHABLES prequel?!!?

More later...

Coming Soon To A Film Babble Blog Near You...

The next few months are going to be very busy for me so I thought I’d give readers a preview of some upcoming attractions:

Coming Soon - Reviews of:

CHE: PART ONE (Dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2008) So epic it had to be cut into 2 separate movies (THE ARGENTINE and GUERILLA respectively), PART ONE opened last Friday at the local theater I work part-time but I haven’t had a chance to see it yet. Expect a write-up shortly because I’ve been really looking to this sweeping biopicalious looking opus that I'm planning on approaching as if it was a TV miniseries. CHE: PART TWO opens on the 20th so I better get to it.

TWO LOVERS (Dir. James Gray, 2008) Yes, my area is usually late getting indie fare like this so my list of films from last year I need to catch up on is endless. Whatever the deal with Joaquin Phoenix and his possibly fake hip hop career *, there has been considerably favorable buzz around this title. I’ll let you know when I see it.

* Now I don't have to mention any of his off screen shenanigins in my actual review.

And on the horizon:

WENDY AND LUCY (Dir. Kelly Reichardt)

GOMORRA (Dir. Matteo Garrone) The trailer for this is fantastic! I hear the movie is too.

ADVENTURELAND (Dir. Greg Mottola)

And also coming soon:

Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of REPO MAN
(Dir. Alex Cox, 1984) An undeniable 80’s cult classic and a favorite from my youth. Thanks to Cool Classics @ The Colony I'll be able to see if it still holds up. If you're in the Triangle area you really ought to consider coming out for the Wednesday (the 18th) showing at 8:00 PM in North Raleigh. A 35 MM print of this dusted off punk flick with vintage trailers for $5.00 is impossible for me to pass up.

A Film Babble Blog Soundtrack Special - I've been working on this off and on for a while. A blogpost tribute to the soundtracks of my life. This will include another patented Film Babble Blog list about soundtracks that think outside the box office, i.e. albums that consist of more than just songs or pieces of music from said film. Works of audio art that are distinct in their use of film dialogue and purposeful re-editing of movie material. Any suggestions for this piece please send them on!

Coverage of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2009 (April 2nd-5th) A wonderful annual event in Durham, N.C. that I'm eager as Hell to blog about. Currently I'm going through the schedules trying to figure out which films I will attend - again, if you have any recommendations, please send them on!

More later...

The Real Napolean Dynamite *

* I would not usually put an asterick denotation in my blogpost headline but I felt this needed qualification - hit it Wikipedia from an entry on the movie of the same name: "The name "NAPOLEAN DYNAMITE" is a pseudonym used by Elvis Costello on the back of the album "Blood and Chocolate" (released 1986). Writer/Director Jared Hess has denied that this was his source for the name, once claiming that rather, the name came from an old Italian man he met in Chicago, and that the Elvis Costello connection is a coincidence."

Coincidence? As if!

So, last night I went to see Elvis Costello (real name Declann McManus) - who is one of my all time favorite performers - backed by the North Carolina Symphony at Regency Park Amphitheater in Cary. Elvis didn't even remember his last time to the area - he pronounced Raleigh - "Rally" (as in his song "Night Rally"). The show is reviewed below but first I thought it would be fun to look at his film work - such as his many onscreen appearances in what I call:

Costello Cameo Cavalcade!

Costello has done many bit parts in films and TV since the late 70's. His first was as Earl Manchester in AMERICATHON - a barely seen 1979 John Ritter comedy. Appearances followed in likewise obscure works like the British one seasoner sitcom Scully, as inept magician Rosco de Ville in the film NO SURRENDER (both by Alan Bleasdale), and rounding his '80's acting oeuvre out was a cameo as Hives the Butler in Alex Cox's (REPO MAN) odd thin-tie punk opus STRAIGHT TO HELL which had a bevy of cult musicians in small parts (Joe Strummer, Courtyney Love, members of the Pogues and Circle Jerks, etc.) These appearances were way under the radar mind you, Costello was heading towards the mainstream in the 90's starting with:

The Larry Sanders Show (HBO, 1992-1998) Garry Shandling's satirical talk-show within-a-show featured just about everybody in the business doing exaggerated versions of themselves and Costello was no exception. He appeared first in an episode in the third season - "People's Choice" (aired: 7/20/94). In one of his long time backing band's (the Attractions) last TV appearances, Costello performs "13 Steps Lead Down" complete with "Radio Radio" coda before storming out of the studio leaving a trashed dressing room behind in reaction to bad back stage treatment.

The next appearance in "Everybody Loves Larry" (aired: 11/13/96) - also titled "Duchovny's Crush - Hank's Lemon" - involves Elvis selling a supposed classic car to Sanders' co-host Hank (Jeffrey Tambor) which turns out to be a lemon - man, I love stating the obvious. While he performs a beautiful solo acoustic "Little Atoms" from "All This Useless Beauty", Hank dons glasses in a weak attempt to mock Costello.

SPICEWORLD (Dir. Bob Spiers, 1997) I've already written about this cameo before in the post "20 Great Modern Movie Cameos" - so I won't go on about it again.

AUSTIN POWERS : THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME (Dir. Jay Roach, 1999) Because of his vintage brand of swinging pop Burt Bacharach has appeared in all three AUSTIN POWERS movies tinkling the ivories in a downtime romantic setting. Since it coincided with Bacharach's collaboration with Costello "Painted From Memory" - it was expected that Elvis would show up to sing to Burt's accompaniment. Elvis said of the scene: "It's the 1960's, not to give away the plot, but in some sort of magical way we end up in the 1960's doing a song." (Late Night With Conan O'Brien 11/23/98) Austin Powers (Mike Myers) breaks that ole fourth wall by introducing Elvis and Burt as if they were his guests on a talk show and they do a smooth (mimed and lip synched of course) rendition of "I'll Never Fall In Love Again". Austin attempts to woo Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham) by way of Comical dancing as the song flows.

200 CIGARETTES (Dir. Risa Bramon Garcia, 1999) The soundtrack to this late '90's take on a 1981 New York New Year's Eve is filled with what they used to call New Wave (Blondie, Joe Jackson, Nick Lowe, Ramones, etc.) so of course Elvis would not only be heard with his definitive cover of Nick Lowe's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?" but also appears in a cameo as himself. After a night of mishaps and drunken revelry Janeane Garafolo wakes up to find Elvis's glasses and she realizes she slept with the man in question.

PRISON SONG (Dir. Darnell Martin, 2001) As big an Elvis Costello fan as I am I was not aware of this film until I began this post and am surprised that it has him playing 2 roles - Public Defender/Teacher. Again I'll defer to the mighty Wiki - "The film was originally intended to be a full-fledged musical, but this tested poorly with audiences, so most of the musical numbers - except the most essential to the story - were cut. This helps explain the mysterious appearance of Elvis Costello in two roles in which he does very little."

3rd Rock From The Sun (NBC 1996-2001) The final episode (aired: 5/22/01) of this beyond silly sci-fi sitcom starring John Lithgow had the family of aliens holding a farewell bash. They hire Elvis Costello who still in full crooner mode sings "Fly Me To The Moon". I guess this could confirms a lot of pop pundits belief that Costello is the punk rock Sinatra.

The Simpsons (1989-forever) Of course this would be mentioned here - I mean, have you met me? In the episode "How I Spent My Strummer Vacation" (aired: 11/10/2002) Homer goes to a Rock 'N Roll Fantasy Camp run by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards with Tom Petty, Lenny Kravitz, Brian Setzer and yep, our man McManus as instructors. When Costello tries to discourage the guitar as instrument of choice to the aggressive students, Homer storms his tent calling him "nerdlinger" and knocks off his glasses. Elvis exclaims "my image!"

Frasier (NBC Sitcom 1993-2004) Maybe a contender for the best Costello cameo - the man appears, not as himself for a nice change, as Ben - a coffee house folk guitarist with a heavy Scottish accent. Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) and his brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) take immediate offence at Ben taking up performer residence at Cafe Nervosa in the episode "Farewell, Nervosa" (aired: 4/22/03). Costello is hilarious as he performs exaggerated amped up versions of "Wild Rover","Tie Me Kangeroo Down", and especially when he announces that he's selling CDs (not his own recordings - mind you) outside during a break in his performance - "10 dollars is still the best price for 'Quadrophenia'!"

DE-LOVELY (Dir. Irwin Winkler, 2004) Credited as "musical performer" Costello appears back in crooner mode on stage at a costume party singing "Let's Misbehave" in this somewhat surreal Cole Porter bio-pic. Though he's given a few close-ups, Costello is mostly seen in long shots or heard in the background as Porter (Kevin Kline) and his wife Linda (Ashley Judd) have a plot-point moment.

TALLADEGA NIGHTS : THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY (Dir. Adam McKay, 2006) From reports he filmed this cameo in one day and it shows - he didn't have any actual lines of dialogue. There were just shots of him having tea with Mos Def at Will Ferrell's title character's rival driver Jean Girard's (Sacha Baron Cohen) mansion. Too many Costello songs to fully note have been in movies over the years but HIGH FIDELITY (Dir. Stephen Frears, 1999) must be singled out because it was named after a Costello song (see also LESS THAN ZERO AND CLUBLAND) and it had "Shipbuilding" featured on its motion picture soundtrack. Now on to the show:

Elvis Costello and the North Carolina Symphony @ Booth Amphitheatre, Cary, North Carolina Sept. 13th, 2007

"Me doing a romantic song is like Steve Buscemi playing the George Clooney role in a movie."
- Elvis Costello introducing "She" 9/13/07

The best concert I've ever seen was Elvis Costello and the Attractions on the "Brutal Youth" tour in Raleigh on June 19th, 1994. I was a casual fan up to that point but witnessing the man's vocal range and attention to melodic detail made me a hardcore fan. Since then I've collected his many discs and absorbed his many styles but always preferred the rocking stuff. Well the prospect of Costello singing with an orchestra might have raised my eyebrows at first but there was still the possibility that the man under any circumstance could still rock.

Rock he did - viciously strumming an acoustic guitar he and longtime Attraction/Imposter cohort pianist Steve Nieve offered up a number of Costello classics ("Accidents Will Happen", "Green Shirt", "Veronica") that pleased the audience but the real focus of the evening was the embellished arrangements of the more challenging genre exercises of his canon. "Watching the Detectives" was given a complete workout with mighty percussion and sax involvement and the obvious but still vital "Alison" had a significant rephrasing and affecting as Hell addition of Smokey Robinson's "Tracks of My Tears" added in its coda.

Costello bantered with the audience in a casual and amusing manner even when mentioning "the war" - he brought that up when introducing his Oscar nominated (for COLD MOUNTAIN) song co-written with Allison Krause "Scarlet Tide" and of course when performing Nick Lowe's immortal "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace Love and Understanding". A song that I stupidly didn't even anticipate - the gorgeous Chet Baker arranged "Shipbuilding" fit the agenda beautifully as well. I know I'm not alone in my rocking preference - when Costello mentioned his album with the Brodsky Quartet - "The Juliet Letters" he got scant applause but a mere reference to his co-writing a song with Paul McCartney got people to roar. The bottom line whatever the genre, arrangement, or setting is - the man can seriously sing. You have to see him perform live to fully appreciate that I believe because the man's pipes can't be contained on a CD or in your iPod's earphones. So yeah, when it comes down to it - the man rocked.

Postnote - for a complete setlist of the show go here.

Okay! Thanks for indulging me for my birthday week pop music in the movies postings. Next time out - actual recent movies in theaters and on DVD. Stay tuned.

More later...

Comedy Isn't Pretty: Steve Martin's Fall From Funny

Whew! Lotsa good film buff stuff to share. First off the great movie magazine Premiere has a current issue celebrating "the 100 greatest movie characters of all time". It's a great feature you ought to check out.

HELLBOY reigns at the box office followed by WALKING TALL and SCOOBY DOO 2. Breathe, film babble peeps - breathe in and out - all will be all right.

The DVD release of CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN this week was a huge seller - my guess is that it was an impulse buy for the kids while picking up Daddy's awaited MATRIX REVOLUTIONS disc set. Whatever the case it's a horrible unfunny family film that will surely soon collect dust as it's target audience moves quickly on. Kind of like Martin's last film BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE that wasn't the low denomitor crap that CHEAPER is but still came off like an exercise in commercial blandness despite some funny moments courtesey of Eugene Levy.

There is possible redemption ahead with the prospect of Martin's excellent book Shopgirl's film adaptation but unfortunately that's overshadowed by the news that he is set to start filming a new Pink Panther movie next month. That news is met with concern and doubt. Very few, myself included think it is a good idea to try to revive a series that is over 20 years dead with 3 failed awful attempts to revive it since long buried. Maybe Martin can pull off playing the famous part of Inspector Clouseau defined by the late great Peter Sellers (#67 on Premiere's Greatest Movie Characters list, Martin's Navin Johnson, a.k.a. the Jerk is #66 interestingly) but judging by his strained slapstick work and the forced physical comedy that dominates CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN - I wouldn't put money on it.

In my estimation the last truly good Steve Martin comedy was BOWFINGER (1999) It had a good premise - aspiring filmmaker scams a cheapie sc-fi movie out of a actor (Eddie Murphy) who doesn't know he's being filmed, good writing - starlet Heather Graham flirtaciously offers - "I love Smashing Pumpkins and Martin's Bowfinger excitedely responds - "I love to do that!" !, and it a good nature to it even with the swipe at self promoting lesbians which made everyone think Martin was getting back at former love Anne Heche. To get to that gem though we had to suffer SGT.BILKO, THE OUT OF TOWNERS, and MIXED NUTS. Hiding behind those flops was a little seen David Mamet movie THE SPANISH PRISONER (1997) which featured a rare mannered dramatic performance by Martin. Another failed foray into this direction was NOVOCAINE (2001) which was silly but I have to admit I enjoyed quite a bit after the fact.

We here at film babble all voted on our favorite and least favorite Steve Martin movies. It's an unsurprising but essential list :

10 GREAT STEVE MARTIN MOVIES :

1. THE JERK (1979)
2. THE MAN WITH TWO BRAINS (1983)
3. ALL OF ME (1984)
4. DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID (1982)
5. ROXANNE (1987)
6. PLANES, TRAINS, AND AUTOMOBILES (1987)
7. L.A. STORY (1990)
8. BOWFINGER (1999)
9. THE SPANISH PRISONER (1997)
10. LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1986)- Just a cameo but his scene and song "Dentist" steal the whole show.

SPILLOVER :

11. PARENTHOOD (1989)
12. THE LONELY GUY (1984)
13. MY BLUE HEAVEN (1991)
14. LEAP OF FAITH (1992)
15. PENNIES FROM HEAVEN (1980) - C'mon! Give it another chance.

And now our least favorite. It was scary how quickly these all tumbled out.

10 BAD STEVE MARTIN MOVIES

1. DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS (1988)
2. THREE AMIGOS (1986)
3. TIE - FATHER OF THE BRIDE I & II (1991 & 1995)
4. HOUSESITTER (1992)
5. SGT. BILKO (1996)
6. MIXED NUTS (1994)
7. SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND (1978) - Just a cameo but still!
8. THE OUT OF TOWNERS (1999)
9. A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE (1994)
10. LOONEY TUNES - BACK IN ACTION (2003)

We haven't given up on you Steve - we're all hoping you can do some good with SHOPGIRL (now in post production) and that you will prove us wrong on the Pink Panther deal. We all loved when in your only bearded role as a schlock movie producer in Lawrence Kasdan's GRAND CANYON (1991) you said to Kevin Kline:

"That's part of your problem: you haven't seen enough movies. All of life's riddles are answered in the movies."

And if you don't agree with that or any of this, well EXCUSE ME!!!!

- Edward Callistan

Editor's note : Ed has all of Steve Martin's albums on vinyl (even that weird half bluegrass "The Steve Martin Bros.") and all of Steve's books even books on tape, and he can recite just about any routine at the drop of a pair of fuzzy bunny ears. He wrote this piece after being so depressed after watching CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN that he contemplated suicide by means of an arrow through the head. I encouraged him to put his Martinized feelings on paper. He decided to do both. May God have mercy on his soul.

Cult Movie Catch-up

Since this blog is relatively new we like to catch up with older films and appraise their recent special edition DVDs. Anderson Moran gets re-acquianted with a couple of old friends :

REPO MAN (1984) Dir. Alex Cox. A young punk (Emilio Estevez) becomes a automobile reposession man and stumbles upon a car with dead space aliens in it and an entire low-life network bent on stealing it. Harry Dean Stanton puts in a great gruff performance as Estevez's partner and has many pivotal lines that build his character as a master of poor man philosophy. Songs by the Circle Jerks, Iggy Pop (who wrote the theme song), the Plugz, and the Juicy Bananas among many other punk staples all line the frames of this flick perfectly. I saw this movie on cable many times in the '80's and love almost everything about it - especially the way every product - whether beer can or soup can is generically labelled i.e. with a white label and the word - "food" or "drink" printed alone. The new DVD has a print of the film that looks better than I ever remember it looking and the overcrowded commentary with director Cox, executive producer Michael Nesmith (the Monkees!), three of the actors, and the casting director is fun too.
- Anderson Moran

SUBURBIA (1984) Dir. Penelope Spheeris. I can't remember if I actually saw this movie back in the day. I remember the commercials for it with one punk saying "wake up and smell the coffee man" and that being the first time I had ever heard that expression but I don't remember it or other Roger Corman produced movies for that matter being in circulation on '80's HBO or Showtime. Not like PORKY'S or POLICE ACADEMY or even BUCKAROO BANZAI. This movie about kids who squat on the outskirts of the suburbs in abandoned tract housing sure feels familliar but maybe I'm thinking of OVER THE EDGE with Matt Dillon. I loved that flick. This one has more roaches, rats, and rawk music in it so it go was further over that supposed edge. It's funny that from this cast the most well known player here is Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Chris Pederson who recited the "smell the coffee" line was later in PLATOON and POINT BREAK but I doubt he'd really register with today's movie watching crowd. This disc released as part of a Roger Corman Director's series (despite the fact he didn't direct it) on New Horizon video has great commentary by Spheeris on the DVD "the kids today look exactly the same" she says more than once talking about the resurgence of punk movement. With blueprints like this and SID AND NANCY getting the special treatment in rereleases and spiffy new digital transfers the punk kids of 20 years from now will look the same too.

- Anderson Moran

"I will not be ignored, Dan!" - Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) FATAL ATTRACTION (1987) * Alex Forrest is # 36 on Premiere's Greatest Movie characters list by the way.

* One of my favorite movie lines ever and not just because it has my name in it.

One late night jaunt to Biscuit-Time Theater somewhere out Route 54 a few film babble bloggers got into a heated debate about what was the definitive "erotic thriller". The golden age of the genre was undoubtedly the '80's with the glossy ironic twists of such classics as FATAL ATTRACTION, NO WAY OUT, and the immortal BODY HEAT but beame a joke in the '90's with such embarrassments as BASIC INSTINCT, BODY OF EVIDENCE, and well just about everything that has Joe Eszterhaus's name on it. My personal favorite movie of this ilk is :

SEA OF LOVE (1988) Dir. Harold Becker. This was originally embraced as a return to form for Al Pacino after such forgetful fare as AUTHOR, AUTHOR and REVOLUTION in the first half of the '80's. It was indeed great to see him in a gritty sometimes even pathetic part as a hard drinking police detective dealing with divorce and obsessed with tracking a serial killer. He compares notes with partner John Goodman and they decide to set up a sting operation through meetings with possible suspects made from personal ad connections. Ellen Barkin's character is the outgoing as hell is-she-a-vixen?-is-she-not? parable that the plot hinges on. A lot of this is predictable and at times can be awfully generic but the amount of well placed and well paced humor, good acting, and sharp dialogue makes this still in 2004 a good watch. Also just about everyone in it is somebody you will surely know from something else - Samuel L. Jackson has a small part at the beginning, West Wing actors John Spencer and Michael O'Neill, Six Feet Under's Richard Jenkins, and the always intensely creepy Michael Rooker from JFK and HENRY - PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER all add to the must-see value of this mostly overlooked time-killer. Available on a Universal special edition DVD with director's commentary and scratchy deleted scenes.
- Daniel Cook Johnson

More later...