Review: Can't Stop The Music!

People usually feel one of two ways about the 1980 Village People vehicle Can't Stop The Music:  Either they love it passionately and think the world would be perfect if life were a lot more like this movie; or they think it's the biggest disaster since... lice, or something equally reprehensible.  The fact that most people who have seen it seem to fall into the latter category has made Can't Stop The Music something of a cult film.  It's presently out of print on DVD, and copies can be hard to find (naturally I somehow have two copies).  But anyone who loves musicals, disco, roller skating, glitter, construction workers, Native Americans, cowboys, leathermen, motorcyle cops, sailors and/or army men, supermodels, milk, going to the gym, or just bad movies in general owes it to themself to see this movie at least once.  True, it's two hours you'll never get back, but it'll be the guiltiest pleasure you've had in quite a while.

Backstory:   Producer Allan Carr, fresh off the phenomenal success of 1978's Grease, attempted to make lightning strike twice by recruiting the then extremely hot Village People to star in what he imagined would purportedly be the greatest musical of all time (original title: Discoland).  He also rounded up Steve Guttenberg (Cocoon), Valerie Perrine (Superman), and Bruce Jenner (The Olympics, Wheaties Commercials) to "act" and, most bizarrely of all, he handed the directoral reigns to Nancy Walker, whose most notable claims to fame at this point were playing Valerie Harper's mom in the sitcom Rhoda, and hawking Bounty Paper Towels in TV commercials.  Depending on who you believe, generous amounts of cocaine prevented anyone involved in this debacle from getting that sinking feeling.

The plot, such as it is, revolves around a starving songwriter (Guttenberg) looking for a new disco-pop group to sing his songs and turn them into monster hits.  Not finding any such disco-pop group readily available, he gets his platonic supermodel roommate (Perrine), and her potential boyfriend/attorney (Jenner) to help him recruit singers from around NYC's Greenwich Village.  They just happen to settle upon a construction worker, a cowboy, a leatherman, a motorcycle cop, a Native American, and a sailor/army man and voila!  The Village People are born.  Numerous subplots and zany secondary characters are either extremely confusing or extremely annoying, or both. The dialogue is completely inane.  The acting performances are utterly embarrarrassing.  The music, with the exception of a couple of Village People songs you're already familiar with (most notably "YMCA") is execrable.  It's been directed with all the finesse of the Hindengburg disaster.  And I loved every minute of it!

What no one involved with this stinkeroo could, or would, foresee is that by the time production ceased and the editing process began, Disco as a music form had completely tanked.  Angry white straight men across the country wanted their heavy metal back on the radio and "Disco Sucks!" was their rallying cry.  Suburban kids were turning on to the new wave and punk sounds that had been simmering underground in urban nightspots for so long.  And rap music, rougher and more streetwise and relevant than Disco, was just around the musical corner.  And that's basically why this $30 million dollar movie laid the biggest egg this side of a pterodactyl nest at the box office.  It was just bad timing.  A lot of bad movies are hits.  (Overseas, however, Can't Stop The Music found receptive audiences, especially in Japan and Australia.)

In retrospect, I find this movie to be a time capsule of the last gasp of a more innocent time.  The Village People made several attempts to redefine themselves before accepting that their audience would only, ever, want to see them in hardhats and Indian headresses singing "YMCA" (which they still do to this day at casinos nationwide).   Nancy Walker never directed again (Somebody up there likes us), but she did appear in a recurring role in TV's The Golden Girls.  Producer Allan Carr never did equal his masterpiece, Grease, although he did produce at least two more noteworthy disasters, 1982's Grease 2 and 1984's Where The Boys Are '84.  Steve Guttenberg and Valerie Perrine gradually sank into relative obscurity.  And, in my mind, Bruce Jenner never again scaled the heights he ascended to in this movie as he strutted down the streets of New York in a half-shirt and hot pants.  I like the guy, but drastic plastic surgery and marrying into the Kardashian family seems somewhat anti-climactic. 

In closing, I would strongly urge everyone to see this movie.  It's as baffling and mystifying as The Tree Of Life, only without the respect and with a heck of a lot of Disco.

Super 8: The Movie Theater As Church

Obviously, it's been a long time since my last review. It's not that I haven't been going to see any movies. I have, and most of them I enjoyed. Some of them (True Grit and Source Code, just to name a couple) I loved. But somewhere along the way, I lost my motivation to write about them. I've been in an extended emotional and spiritual funk that I couldn't seem to find my way out of. But that changed today (at least temporarily) when I went to see Steven Spielberg's and J. J. Abrams' Super 8. Today is Father's Day, and I was already in a somewhat fragile emotional state, having lost my dad a few years ago. Thinking a movie would take my mind off of things, and knowing next to nothing about this movie before going in (that's the way I like it), I was expecting to be simply entertained for a couple of hours. But I ended up being touched in a way that no other movie has touched me in years. In fact, I was touched in a way that no sermon has touched me in years. But you know, that's just me.

In 1979, I was in the 9th grade and my primary interests were movies (science fiction and horror, in particular) and pop music (you name it). I remember vividly sitting in rapt attention in front of the living room television set at 1 a.m. on Saturday night, watching Night of the Living Dead for the first time, but sitting close enough so I could quickly change the channel to watch The Midnight Special, which was being hosted by Blondie, whenever the zombie action got too intense. Super 8 took me back to that precise moment in time. It perfectly evokes the summer of '79: The polyester clothes, the Farrah Fawcett haircuts, the songs sprinkled conspicuously throughout the soundtrack (one character meets a particularly gruesome fate during Blondie's "Heart of Glass"), and the model TIE fighters suspended from a 13 year-old boy's ceiling. As someone who probably appreciates authenticity more than your average moviegoer, these images resonated with me. It touched me on a pretty deep level.

The film revolves around a group of kids who spend an awful lot of their time outside of school making zombie movies with a Super 8 movie camera. One night, in the middle of shooting a particulary dramatic scene, they witness a horrific train crash and capture it on film. Without giving too much away (because that would really be a crime for any of you who are thinking of seeing this movie), the train was transporting "something" that The Government doesn't want anyone to find out about. But the kids know enough to get themselves into a heap of trouble. And they're smarter than any of the adults, and they know The Truth, but they can't get any of the adults to believe them -- that's why kids of a certain age will love this movie. We're not exactly in the gentle territory of previous Spielberg blockbusters as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T.; some scenes add a dash of intensity reminescent of The War of the Worlds or even Ridley Scott's Alien, and the endless, borderline-excessive explosions of the train wreck at the beginning are pure Abrams. That said, Super 8 does retain just enough of the sentimentality of those earlier Spielberg films to gnaw at your emotions, especially if you've lost a parent; there's a scene at the end symbolizing the importance of "letting go" that reduced me to tears. I'm not ashamed to admit it.

In short, I highly recommend Super 8. It's for the 13-year-old kid in all of us. I know it helped me reconnect with mine. Now I remember why I liked him so much.

The Kids Are All Right

I intended to review this movie months and months ago, but I never got around to it. Now that I'm updating my reviews more frequently, I'm looking forward to telling you what I thought! Check back soon.

Review: Charlie St. Cloud

I was in NYC this summer, and positioned right outside of my Times Square hotel window was an inescapable lighted billboard advertisement for Charlie St. Cloud, featuring Zac Efron's face staring heavenward, with his dreamy eyes and casually messy hair, the kind of hair that I dream about having at night. The minute I saw Zac, I knew in my heart that I would NEVER see this film in a theater, but that I might watch it eventually on DVD. Which I did . . . and I guess there's no easy way to say this, but I don't think there's any reason anyone over the age of seventeen should watch this movie, unless they're being forced to chaperone a teen girls' movie night.

Zac plays Charlie, a Pacific Northwest high school senior who's just received a sailing scholarship to Stanford. He lives with his mom, played by Kim Basinger (onscreen for a total of two minutes), and his little brother Sam, played by a cute little kid whose name I can't remember. Charlie and Sam are very close, and despite his busy work/sailing schedule, he promises to meet his little brother in the woods to help him practice baseball every day at sunset. When Sam and Charlie are in an accident, both are killed, but Charlie is resuscitated while Sam isn't, and Charlie blames himself. Charlie is overcome with grief, but luckily Sam still manages to take time out from the afterlife to show up for baseball practice.

Charlie continues to meet his little brother every day at sunset without fail, putting his plans for Stanford, sailing, and everything else to rest. He takes a job as the caretaker at the cemetary where Sam is buried, and when he isn't tossing the ball around with Sam, he's hanging out with his coworker, a zany British guy named Sully who is one of those random stock characters evidently provided for comic relief (it doesn't work). Charlie and Sam have lots of sunset chats and everything is running smooth until Charlie runs into a Tess, a girl he graduated with who is back in town. Tess is into sailing too, and she has plans to sail around the world (or something like that).

Charlie and Tess start hanging out more and more and end up falling in love, and Charlie starts showing up late for practice with Sam, and Sam gets irate and jealous of his brother's new relationship. At this point I wasn't sure whether to keep watching or not, because the thought of codependency extending into the afterlife is not something I'd like to contemplate. And the situation is complicated by the fact that, because Charlie was technically dead for a few minutes before being revived, Sam isn't the only dead person that he can see -- only he doesn't know they're dead. I've hope I haven't given too much away!

I won't give away the ending, but I will tell you this: This was a very pretty movie to look at, but I found it riddled with cliches. You've seen this all before, but that doesn't mean your 14 year-old daughter has, and I guess if she's going to experience these cliches for the first time, this movie is as good (or as bad) as any. Charlie St. Cloud was marketed as a film in which Zac Efron transitions into more adult roles, but that wasn't evident to me because of what I believe is this film's target audience. Zac does, however, show signs of promise, and he also spends a lot of time shirtless or soaking wet or both, so those who are interested in that won't be disappointed.

Recommendation: Listen to it from the next room during your daughter's next slumber party.

Review: Hereafter

I went into the new Clint Eastood/Matt Damon movie "cold" on its opening weekend -- somehow I had managed to avoid seeing any previews or commercials for it. I was mostly very pleased with it, except for a couple of seemingly minor things that, were I not a generous and forgiving viewer, could have easily tarnished the entire movie for me.

Damon plays George, a man who previously "enjoyed" a lucrative career as a psychic who acted as a conduit between grieving relatives of people who have passed away and their deceased loved ones. Simply by touching his clients, he can tap into "the hereafter", and relay messages of forgiveness for past transgressions and resolve unresolved conflicts, leaving them with a measure of peace. As a child, he experienced an illness which left him with this "gift", which many people, including his brother, consider a blessing. George doesn't see it that way, believing that "a life devoted to death is not a good life." The physical, emotional, and spiritual energy that it takes to constantly deal with those who are mourning and desperate and their loved ones on the other side finally takes its toll, and he abandons his career at the height of his popularity to move to San Francisco and take a job as a dock worker in the hopes of living in relative anonimity.

In the meantime, the two other central characters in the film are having life-changing experiences as well. Marie, a French journalist, barely survives an experience which I will only describe as being one of the most overwhelming scenes I've witnessed in a theater since the opening fifteen minutes of Saving Private Ryan. She briefly witnesses "visions" of what she believes is an afterlife, and this radically changes her life. A London schoolboy named Marcus experiences an inconsolable loss when the most important person in his life is ripped away from him in a traffic accident. He, too, becomes preoccupied with finding out what happens to us after we exit this life.

George, in the meantime, is having difficulty staying out of the spotlight. Manic, desperate people track him down pleading for psychic readings, and he can't really get a girlfriend because once a girl finds out what he used to do for a living, that's all they want from him (it doesn't help that the girls that are drawn to him seem to have major issues). Eventually, his path crosses with those of Marie and Marcus.

I won't spoil the ending for you, but I will say this: One of the things that didn't really ring true for me in this movie is that when one of the characters is investigating theories of why we're here and what happens to us after we die, this character appears to dismiss Christianity immediately, without even pausing to consider that it might be valid. I wanted more of an explanation as to why this particular character would do that. This didn't ruin the movie for me by any means, but it certainly disappointed me. What I found even more depressing, though, was that whenever we're privy to the lead characters' visions of what the afterlife is like, all we see are shadowy glimpses of dark figures roaming through some kind of fog. I don't know about you, but I feel like I spend half my life wandering through a fog, so spending eternity just doing the same thing doesn't appeal to me. Seeing this depiction of the afterlife made me happy that I've got a reservation for a different, better place.

Recommendation: Despite my misgivings with a few of the scenes, I can't help but recommend that you see this movie on the big screen. Eastwood's direction is impeccable, the performances are always compelling, and you do care what happens to these people -- I was nearly brought to tears several times, but then I'm a soft touch. Depending on your own beliefs about what awaits us in the hereafter, you may even be encouraged as you leave the theater knowing that you have more than shadows to look forward to.

Review: Paranormal Activity 2

So it's Halloween Day, I'm walking home from the mall (JC Penney has men's Nordic sweaters on sale for $29.99!), and I realize that I haven't seen a movie all week. Since it is Halloween, I'm thinking that a horror movie fits the bill, so as I'm passing by Cinebarre I check out my options. The first option is Saw 3D, which most likely involves a lot of bloodshed and torture (just like my job). The second option is Paranormal Activity 2, which I surmise has something to do with a haunted house, but since I didn't see PA1, I can't be sure. I decide against the torture and buy a ticket for PA2, but as it turns out, it was a fairly torturous experience.

It seems there's this nice white suburban family -- dad, mom, their new baby, and dad's teenage daughter from a previous marriage. They happen to be one of those families that insists on capturing every single moment of their lives with a camcorder, which is more or less "lucky" for us, because otherwise there'd be no movie. And then there are a lot of secondary characters like their German Sheperd, Abby (the only character I really cared about), their superstitious Latino maid, and the wife's sister and her boyfriend. Got that straight?

Anyway, strange things start happening around the house. The lights start flickering. The cable goes out. Cupboards and drawers are being left open and no one will take responsibility for it. Pretty shocking stuff, huh? Then one day the family comes home to find their clothes scattered all over the floor. (I got a big laugh out of that -- with most of my friends, the ghosts would have to put things away in order to be noticed.) The dad freaks out and decides to install security cameras all over the house. The maid tries to "drive out the bad spirits" by fogging up the house with this incense junk, which results in her immediate termination (although the dad does promise to give her a good reference).

Then the noises start -- loud ones, in the middle of the night. One of them startled me so bad, I almost threw my back out. Pots and pans fall off of their hooks in the kitchen. A bird flies into a window. The dad discovers that the little machine that cleans the pool has been wandering around under its own power in the middle of the night. And on and on ...

The mom is understandably on edge from all of this unexplained phenomena, so the dad decides that it's time for a date night and they leave the teenage daughter alone in the house with the baby (what could go wrong?). She invites her boyfriend over (naturally) and they break out the ouija board (don't most suburban families have one?) to find out if whoever is turning the lights off and on is trying to tell them something (like "conserve energy", maybe?). At this point I got a little nervous, because I don't particularly care for the occult, but it turns out that the boyfriend was only interested in spelling out dirty words on the board and their date goes downhill from there. He goes home and she falls asleep on the couch.

Then things really start to hit the fan. The daughter hears a loud banging on the door, but when she goes to investigate, the door slams shut behind her and she's locked out. The baby starts levitating out of his crib and up the side of the wall, but he seems to be enjoying it. The dog is thrown into a wall and knocked unconscious by an unseen force. (Again, the dog was the only character I really liked, so I didn't particularly care for that.) The parents come home and all hell breaks loose (literally). It turns out the mom and her sister used to "dabble in witchcraft" (like Christine O'Donnell) and she kind of forgot to tell her husband about this before she went off the pill. Yikes!

I won't spoil the ending for you, but I will say this: Paranormal Activity 2 had a few shocking moments, but as the movie went on, I realized I really wasn't having any fun. Now, I love a good horror movie as much as the next guy, and I have no problem with a movie that shows somebody chasing people around with a chainsaw as long as it's done right. But tone is everything, and other than the dog, I simply didn't care about any of the people in this movie. It left me empty.

Recommendation: Wait for Netflix or Redbox, if you choose to see it at all.

Inaugural Post

So many people have suggested I start a blog to review the movies I've seen, I thought I'd go ahead and take a shot at it. People who know me know that I'm really passionate about the movies -- seeing them, discussing them, and now writing about them. Hopefully, this blog will be helpful to my friends when deciding whether or not to shell out their hard-earned money at a movie theater or racking up those credit card charges at Redbox only to discover they've just rented a movie that sucks big-time. I'll try to keep it humorous, brief, and informative, and I won't give away the ending. And I would love your feedback!
Thanks!

Kevin