movies

Top That!

My wife is 33 years old today, and as a special birthday present (don’t worry, I’m not so much of a cheap-ass that I think that this is a good replacement for an actual gift), I decided that instead of focusing on something that is important to me, I would do an entry on something in pop culture that “matters” to her. 

Now, there are lots of things and I’m sure that I could dig through her iTunes library and pick a song or an album or thumb through one of the many books she’s read or is reading.  But I’ve decided to go with a movie here and not just any movie, but the 1989 Robyn Lively cult classic, Teen Witch.

That’s right, my wife is one of the many who have seen Teen Witch (probably during one of the many thousands of times it has popped up on cable in the last two decades) and has a definitely love for it, so much so that yesterday morning, my son and I were watching an advertisement for the newfangled version of The Electric Company and she asked if we were watching the film. 

And I guess if I weren’t me, I would not understand why she loves the movie so much.  But considering that I actually own a copy of Megaforce, her love of Teen Witch makes perfect sense.  It also reinforces that she’s a true 1980s fan, something I’ve never called into question, but I’ve come across so many superficial Eighties fans since … oh, The Wedding Singer first came out (mostly students of mine who weren’t even freaking born in the 1980s, which … uh, no, I don’t think so.  Go back to your shitty emo vampires and your Miley, kiddies) … that I think that there are certain pieces of 1980s pop culture that can be held up as benchmarks of “Eighties Cred.”  And Teen Witch is clearly one of those benchmarks.

Why?  Because it has nobody who’s really well-known (read: no Coreys), it’s insanely cheesy, and in spite of that (or maybe because of that) you just can’t get it out of your freakin’ head after you’ve watched it.  Seriously, come across it on cable one night and see if you don’t wind up looking at the clock and realize that 45 minutes have gone by, especially if you drop in the middle of one of the jaw-dropping musical numbers.  Oh that’s right, I said musical numbers.  Teen Witch is almost like the “girl Megaforce.” 

(more…)

Let’s go to the movies

UA the movies in Patchogue, NY after it closed down and before it was demolished.

Time and time again, I find myself mesmerized about how disposable the culture of my childhood really is.  Granted, Hollywood in recent years has been finding ways to pillage and plunder the cartoons and movies that I loved when I was growing up, but when I think of the places where I spent most of my time, they are the malls and multiplexes that seem to be nothing but demonized.  I mean, I guess that people interested in historical preservation really wouldn’t have any interest in saving a concrete multiplex whose design is as bland and nondescript as any of the thousands that have been built, torn down, and rebuilt in the last 40 years; and I guess that said design, like a cookie-cutter multi-use stadium, dictates that it falls without any ceremony.  After all, what replaces the multiplexes and shopping malls are stadium-seating megaplexes and town centres that are upgrades and more aesthetically pleasing to the community.  Nobody misses those eyesores.

Except me, that is.  And probably others in my generation who are products of that transitional part of the late-20th Century when “medium” was “small,” but “mega,” “super,” or “extreme” sizes hadn’t been conceived. You know, when there was still something left of what most people get nostalgic for when they talk about “America” or the “American Dream.” I think the assessment that my generation doesn’t have much to look back on really is only because the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s were all about knocking down the “smaller” feel of our parents’ enterprises and creating cold, impersonal places. The place, for me, that will always epitomize the era is the United Artists Patchogue 13 multiplex, which was located on Sunrise Highway, just east of Nicolls Road.  (more…)

Silent, but deadly

Am I the only person who wanted this poster as a kid?

When you’re a kid, you like to make up movies, usually starring all of the action figures you’ve played with, and featuring all of the stuff you find cool.  It’s very rare, if ever, that such movies are made.  Sure, you get comic book movies that feature storylines you’ve loved since you were a kid, or movies based on a line of toys where the right actor is playing the right role, but nobody does a “kitchen sink” type of movie.

Except for American Ninja.

Produced by Golan-Globus for Cannon Films (the same company that gave us classics like Enter the Ninja, Revenge of the Ninja, and Ninja III: The Domination), American Ninja came out in 1985, right around the time that toys like G.I. Joe were getting very popular among boys.  I was about eight at the time and didn’t see it in the theater but wound up renting the film on video and watching it with friends.  It was rated R and may have been the very first R-rated movie I saw (or that was Commando).  But even though it was a pretty violent action movie, watching it again after 25 years, I can see that the movie was clearly geared towards those kids with permissive parents.

Take, for instance, the opening scene.  After some witty banter between a toady-looking Army douche named Charlie and some other G.I.s wherein the star, Michael Dudikoff, stands against a jeep playing with a switchblade and saying absolutely nothing, a convoy gets going.  Among the precious cargo that this convoy is hauling is Patricia (Judy Aronson), the daughter of a very influential colonel.  Sure enough, the convoy is hijacked by the go-to villians in the 1980s–Latin American guerillas.  They rough up the troops but Dudikoff decides he’s not going to take their shit and starts throwing some karate moves about, including throwing a screwdriver so it lands in someone’s carteroid artery, taking someone out with a tire iron, and karate kicking people left and right.

Patricia, who apparently is your typical “Army brat” then decides to commandeer the car that she’s in and promptly drives it into the jungle, where it crashes.  This is around the time that a shitload of ninjas show up, led by a super-ninja who has a black star on his face (and actually is known as “Black Star Ninja”, the most deadly ninja in the world).

Seriously, read that back again.  I can imagine the people who created this movie sitting around a table with this scene and someone saying, “I know what would make this awesome:  NINJAS!  And the leader should have a black star!”

(more…)

Let off some steam, Bennett!

John Matrix -- the ultimate badass.

In one of my classes today, I was covering the end of Frankenstein.  If you’re unfamiliar with the novel, it doesn’t end as spectacularly as most film versions.  As Mary Shelley writes it, Victor Frankenstein dies from a prolonged sickness brought about by the anguish of dealing with the monster he created and what that monster has done to his life by murdering those around him.  Then, the monster shows up and tells Captain Walton (to whom Frankenstein was telling his story) that he has no reason to live either and will go commit suicide.  Surely enough, he ventures out into the Arctic ice presumably to die.

As I was recapping this for my students and we were discussing what parts of this scene represents, I went off on a little bit of a tangent as to what Frankenstein would be like if it were a 1980s-era Schwarzenegger movie (with Schwarzenegger as the monster).  Walton, probably played by a relative unknown although this would be a great part for a Cobra-era Stallone, sees the monster run off.  “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” he screams before telling his men to turn the ship around and follow the monster while he goes below to suit up.

A few moments later, Walton comes back armed to the teeth and says, “It’s payback time.  THIS IS FOR VICTOR!” and starts opening fire with a vast array of automatic weapons (which I realize were not invented in 1816, but this is a motherfucking action sequence so you can suspend disbelief).  The monster is gunned down in a hail of bullets — I think I compared it to the scene in Predator where Jesse Ventura gets his guts blown out and Bill Duke mows down half of the Amazon in rage — and there is a heroic song by Stan Bush or 707 to take us through the closing credits.

Of course, this never did happen and will never happen, but it is a testimony to how my mind has been warped over the years by viewing too many action movies.  That’s not an unusual thing, of course — every boy in my generation had at least one G.I. Joe figure in the 1980s and at some point before we left elementary school we graduated from Star Wars and cartoons to R-rated violence and gratuitous bloodshed with a high body count.

For me, it started when I was in the fourth grade with Commando.

(more…)

Comin’ on like a MEGAFORCE!

Are you man enough? A comic book ad for the film.

In some ways, I think that my fascination with the odd, often terrible things in popular culture starts with Megaforce.  I get the feeling that few people know about this particular film and if there are people who do, I would be hard pressed to find some serious fans.  It was a total misfire of a film when it came out and hasn’t at all better with age.

I first saw Megaforce on television when I was a kid.  Well, to be honest, I saw the last ten minutes of it.  Megaforce was one of those movies that netowrk affiliates would show when there was a hole in their schedules on a weekend afternoon because someone else was airing a baseball or football game and we weren’t in the era of all-golf, all-the-time on Saturdays and Sundays when Notre Dame isn’t playing.  Saturday is still kind of a wasteland, but back then it wasn’t half bad because you could every once in a while come across The Breakfast Club or Better off Dead on WPIX if your mom hadn’t chased you out of the house already.

It was fine, anyway.  Most of my Saturdays were spent at friends’ houses or having them at my house to play Nintendo until mom threw me out of the basement with some sort of speech about playing outside.  And if she wasn’t effective, the television was effective because this wasteland of programming would bore us enough to death to cause us to go outside and play wiffle ball in the backyard, eventually getting half of our balls caught in our huge elm tree.

The first time I remember seeing the end of Megaforce was on one of these random Saturday afternoons.  Tom Hackett and I had just switched off the Nintendo and rapidly turned the knob on the cheap Sharp Linytron television to see if we could find what was on the ten or so channels my house actually got.  The images flashed by very quickly with a thip-thip-thip-thip so I don’t know how we saw the movie but we wound up landing on channel 7, WABC, and spent the next few minutes watching this guy on a soupe-up motorcylce.  He was being chased by bad guys and tring to board what looked like a huge cargo plane.  His compatriots were urging him on, and after a few moments, he figured out how to work what was obviously an experimental flying feature on the motorcycle, then flew through the air.  Overjoyed, he hooted and hollared until he landed on the plane.

We sat dumbfounded.  The credits rolled.  Then, the guy who was obviously the villain came on the screen and that hero uttered one of the best lines in movie history: “I just wanted to say goobye and remind you that the good guys always win.  Even in the Eighties.”

(more…)