Insomnia File #27: Remember My Name (dir by Alan Rudolph)

Posted on July 20, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you were having trouble sleeping last Tuesday, around one in the morning, you could have turned over to TCM and watched Remember My Name, an odd and sometimes frustrating little thriller from 1978.

Remember My Name opens with Emily (Geraldine Chaplin) showing up in a small town in California. From the minute we first see and hear Emily, something seems to be off about her. She views the world through suspicious eyes. Whenever anyone talks to her, you’re never quite sure whether she’s going be friendly or if she’s going to lash out. When she speaks, there’s something weird about her vocal inflection, as if she’s always struggling to figure out what she’s supposed to say. She seems to be separated from the world, almost as if she’s walking through a living dream and only talking to figments of her imagination. There’s nothing about her that feels at all authentic.

She moves into a small apartment and enters into a relationship with her handyman (Moses Gunn), a relationship that seems to be largely defined by her refusal to open up about herself. She gets a job at a grocery story that’s managed by a Mr. Nudd (Jeff Goldblum). Mr. Nudd mentions something about Emily knowing his mother. Apparently, they met in prison.

Soon, Emily is stalking a construction worker named Neil Curry (Anthony Perkins). When Neil spots her, he calls out her name and Emily runs away. And yet, Neil doesn’t bother to tell his wife, Barbara (Berry Berenson), about Emily. Soon, Emily is even breaking into the Curry home, silently shadowing Barbara as she walks through the house.

I described Remember My Name as being a thriller and I guess that, technically it is. There are a few moments of tension, especially when Emily is stalking Barbara. However, the film itself is directed in a detached manner by Alan Rudolph. Rudolph was a protegé of director Robert Altman (who also produced Remember My Name) and Rudolph’s approach is very Altmanesque, often to the detriment of the film. (Chaplin and Jeff Goldblum had both appeared in several Altman films, most famously in Nashville.) Though the film is dominated by Chaplin and Perkins, it’s still very much an ensemble film and the action plays out in a deceptively casual, almost random manner. It tries so hard to be Altmanesque that Remember My Name gets a bit frustrating, to be honest. Chaplin gives such a good and memorable performance and she works very hard to make Emily a character who is both frightening and, at times, surprisingly sympathetic but, for the most part, Rudolph’s technique makes it difficult to get emotionally involved in any of the action unfolding on-screen. Rudolph observes the action but refuses to comment on it. As a result, Remember My Name is occasionally intriguing but, just as often, it’s rather boring. Just like real life, I suppose. And, just like real life, it’s not for everyone.

That said, it was interesting to see Anthony Perkins playing a role other than a knife-wielding inn manager. Without resorting to any of the familiar tics or the neurotic speech patterns that typecast him forever as Norman Bates, Perkins plays Neil as just being a regular, blue collar guy and he actually does a pretty good job. Watching the film, I got the feeling that this was perhaps Perkins’s attempt to change his image. (Whenever Neil appears shirtless, both the film and Perkins seem to be saying, Check out this physique! Would someone only capable of playing a psycho have abs like this?) Neil’s wife, Barbara, was played Perkins’s wife, Berry Berenson. Neither one of them is with us any longer. Perkins died of AIDS in 1990 while Berry Berenson was on one of the planes that flew into the World Trade Center on 9-11. They both did good work in this film, as did Chaplin and Goldblum and, really, the entire cast. It’s just a pity that the film itself isn’t as good as the performances.

Previous Insomnia Files:

A Movie A Day #193: The O.J. Simpson Story (1995, directed by Alan Smithee)

Posted on July 20, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Long before O.J.: Made In America…

Before The People vs. O.J. Simpson…

Before American Tragedy…

Before today’s live, televised parole hearing…

There was The O.J. Simpson Story.

In 1994, shortly after O.J. Simpson was charged with the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, Fox rushed The O.J. Simpson Story into production. It was one of many “true life” stories that showed up as television movies during the 90s. There was a movie about Woody Allen and Mia Farrow’s divorce. There was a movie about David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, which actually aired while the siege in Waco was still ongoing. There were three movies about Amy Fisher. So, of course, O.J. would get a movie.

Though the movie was produced in 1994, it was not allowed to air in 1995 so that it would not prejudice any of the jurors in the case. (After all, they might have done something crazy like ignore all of the DNA evidence and let O.J. go free.) I think the legal authorities may have been giving The O.J. Simpson Story too much credit. There were many bad made-for-TV movies made in the 90s but The O.J. Simpson Story may very well be the worst. The only thing it could prejudice some against is television.

Opening with the discovery of the murders in Brentwood, The O.J. Simpson Story mixes scenes of O.J. (played by Bobby Hosea, who shows not a hint of O.J.s famous charisma) talking to the police and his lawyer, Bob Shapiro (Bruce Weitz, slightly more credible than John Travolta was in The People vs. O.J. Simpson) with flashbacks to O.J.’s youth, first marriage, and his relationship with Nicole (blandly played by Jessica Tuck, who, beyond the color of her hair, looked nothing like Nicole). The film also devotes some time to O.J.’s friendship with A.C. Cowlings, who, as a young man, is played by Terrence Howard.

Several of the famous incidents of the case are wanly recreated. The famous bronco chase is there, of course. O.J. is shown beating Nicole in the infamous 1989 incident, which the movie suggests was triggered by Nicole telling O.J. that he would never win an Oscar for appearing in The Naked Gun. But, since the movie was rushed into production before the trial even began, it is remarkable how much is left out. There’s no Mark Furhman finding the black glove. There’s no Kate Kaelin, Faye Resnick, Johnnie Cochran, or even Marcia Clark. Because the movie was made before the trial had even begun, it does not even take a stand on whether or not O.J.’s guilty. Narratively, it is an incomplete movie and evidence of why movies that claim to tell true stories should not be rushed into production before the story itself has been completed.

As for the film’s dialogue, when O.J. first meets Nicole, he asks her, “Any problem with going out with a brother?”

“Yeah,” Nicole says with a smile, “I’m in the Ku Klux Klan.”

Not surprisingly, The O.J. Simpson Story was directed by Alan Smithee, which was the pseudonym used by directors who felt that their movie has been so butchered by outside interference that they should not even be credited with the final result. The O.J. Simpson Story is one of the worst Smithee films that I have ever seen. Compared to The O.J. Simpson Story, Smithee’s work on Let’s Get Harry was Oscar-worthy.

As for the real life O.J. Simpson, earlier today, he was granted parole from the Nevada Parole Board. He will be released from prison on October 1st. He has said that he hope to be allowed to move to Florida after being released. The real-life O.J. Simpson story continues.

When it comes to the long saga of O.J. Simpson, it seems appropriate to give the last word to MAD Magazine:

Artwork of the Day: Don’t Ever Love Me

Posted on July 20, 2017 by Dazzling Erin

by Raymond Johnson

Music Video of the Day: Edge Of A Broken Heart by Vixen (1988, dir. ???)

Posted on July 20, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Sometimes there’s no info. Sometimes there’s a bunch of info. This time around, just about everything is condensed into a VH1 show from 2004.

I only have a couple of things to add.

The video is that standard stage performance mixed with behind-the-scenes stuff that Wayne Isham is credited with creating.
Richard Marx is the guy who turns around and looks surprised. He co-produced their debut album and wrote this song.
If you listened to the video above, then you heard mention of an earlier band called Madam X. I will find a Madam X video.
The band still plays today, but Jan Kuehnemund–the first person they talked to–passed away in 2013.

Enjoy!

A Movie A Day #192: Betrayal of the Dove (1993, directed by Strathford Hamilton)

Posted on July 19, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

Ellie West (Helen Slater) has a 7 year-old daughter (Heather Lind), a sleazy ex-husband (Alan Thicke), a vampy best friend (Kelly LeBrock), and a pair of inflamed tonsils that need to come out. When she goes in the hospital for what should be a routine procedure, she nearly dies on the operation table. Something went wrong with the anaesthesia. But what, why, and how? Fortunately, Doctor Jesse Peters (Billy Zane) was there to save Ellie’s life. Even as Ellie, with the encouragement of her best friend, starts to go out with Jesse, she still suspects that someone is trying to kill both her and her daughter.

While the title may sounds like an early 90s Merchant Ivory production, Betrayal of the Dove is actually just another “erotic” thriller, the type that used to show up exclusively on late night Cinemax. The only thing that distinguished Betrayal of the Dove was the cast, which mixed B-movie stalwarts like Kelly LeBrock and Billy Zane with actors who usually did not appear in movies like this. Alan Thicke was surprisingly good as a sleazy, abusive alcoholic and both Stuart Pankin and David L. Lander were cast in serious roles.

Perhaps the most surprising casting was that of veteran television comedian and Mel Brooks regular, Harvey Korman. In the role of Ellie’s boss, Harvey not only played a serious role here but, at the end of the movie, he also got to save the day. I’m not sure if Harvey did his own stunt work but if you have ever wanted to see Harvey Korman as an action hero, Betrayal of the Dove is as close as you’re going to get.

Or you could just watch Blazing Saddles again.

Structural Failure: THE BIG STREET (RKO 1942)

Posted on July 19, 2017 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

When I hear the word “Runyonesque”, I think about racetrack touts, colorful Broadway denizens, dames with hearts of gold, and the like. If you want to make a Runyonesque movie, what better way than to have author Damon Runyon himself produce it, as RKO did for 1942’s THE BIG STREET. All the elements are there, the jargon, the characters, but the film suffers from abrupt shifts in tone from comedy to drama, and a totally unpleasant role for Lucille Ball . The result is an uneven movie with a real downer of an ending.

Based on Runyon’s short story “Little Pinks”, it follows the unrequited love of bus boy Augustus “Little Pinks” Pinkerton for torch singing gold digger Gloria Lyons, dubbed “Her Highness” by Pinks. Henry Fonda plays Pinks as lovestruck, spineless sad sack, dubbing Lucy Her Highness, even though she’s thoroughly rotten to him. When she’s smacked by her gangster boyfriend Case Ables ( Barton MacLane )…

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Artwork of the Day: Pagan Passions

Posted on July 19, 2017 by Dazzling Erin

by Robert Stanley

Music Video of the Day: Girlschool by Britny Fox (1988, dir. ???)

Posted on July 19, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Of course there’s a video by a band named Britny Fox called Girlschool that came out in 1988. It wouldn’t be the weird world it is if that didn’t happen the same year as the band Girlschool did a cover of Fox On The Run.

I thought this was going to be a short post, but there’s a fair amount of info here.

First, yes, yes they were really there. According to an interview with bassist Billy Childs, they must have used some sort of cloth because he remembers being able to see the girls in the room while they were playing their part. He doesn’t know how it worked. Although at least as recently as 2015, he still wants to know exactly how they pulled that off. I’m assuming it operated the same way as a two-way mirror. That’s as far as I can go, short of digging into physics. It’s something that you see when you’re in a brightly-lit room, and don’t see if you are in a darkly-lit room.

While I can’t explain exactly how it works, I can show you some of the seams.

The clock is flat.

During the transition you can still see the bulletin board and clock.

The band is hiding behind Bach.

This part is kind of amazing to me. The band manager at the time had the foresight to film behind the scenes during the shooting. Here is the general behind-the-scenes stuff.

Now comes two people you might recognize in this video.

The first is the lady with the headphones. That is Kim Anderson who apparently did work on numerous videos, and is still remembered to this day along with other famous women from heavy metal videos. The band manager also edited together footage that included her.

You can see a super-short interview with her below.

The second is the teacher. That is Marianne Muellerleile. You may know her from one of her current 224 acting credits. The one that comes to mind is probably the wrong Sarah Connor from The Terminator (1984). However, she’s one of those actors who if a show had some success, then she was probably in at least one episode of it. My thanks go out to Billy Childs for bringing up where she was from in that aforementioned interview. It wasn’t coming to me.

The last is a quote from I Want My MTV. It’s from Kari Wuhrer talking about a time they shot the show Remote Control in Florida:

Kari Wuhrer: We shot in Florida during the third season, and Britny Fox were on the show as contestants. It was the height of hair metal. I hit on their singer. The next thing I knew, I was getting tattooed and I was on tour with them. He was so dumb, my father called him “the house plant.” As soon as the tour ended, I never heard from him again.

There you go. It’s one of the dumbest metal videos I’ve ever seen. At least Cherry Pie by Warrant was meant to be a parody. Yet, this does have some nice effects work. I just don’t know why it’s in this.

Enjoy!

A Movie A Day #191: Blue City (1986, directed by Michelle Manning)

Posted on July 18, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Billy Turner (Judd Nelson) has always been the bad boy but now he just wants to return to his Florida hometown and reconnect with his estranged father. As soon as he rolls into town, Billy gets into a bar brawl and is arrested. The chief of police (Paul Winfield) informs Billy that his father has been murdered and that his stepmother has since married the local gangster, Perry Kerch (Scott Wilson). Everyone knows that Perry murdered Billy’s father but no one can prove it. He is told to get out-of-town but Billy’s not going out like that. Instead, he gets together with his childhood friends, gimpy legged Joey (David Caruso) and Annie (Ally Sheedy), and seeks his revenge.

No, it’s not a picture of Judd Nelson hanging out with the a member of the Heaven’s Gate cult. It’s the DVD cover for Blue City.

An infamous flop, Blue City was meant to show that the members of the infamous Brat Pack could play serious, adult roles. Unfortunately, Blue City was released right at a time when everyone was starting to get sick of the Brat Pack. (Even John Hughes had moved on, casting Matthew Broderick as Ferris Bueller, instead of Anthony Michael Hall.) After countless magazine covers and the monster success of The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo’s Fire, a backlash was brewing and Blue City walked (or, in Joey’s case, limped) straight into it.

It also did not help the film’s prospects that it matched up the least interesting Brat Packer, Judd Nelson, with the member of the Brat Pack most likely to take herself too seriously, Ally Sheedy. Playing roles that would have been played by Alan Ladd an Veronica Lake in the 40s, both Nelson and Sheedy are miscast and, strangely considering this was their third film together, have no chemistry. Nelson, in particular, gives one of the most annoying performances in film history. He never stops smirking, even when there is no reason for Billy Turner to be smirking. With his wide-eyed stare and his attempts to speak like a tough guy, Nelson comes across like John Bender auditioning for West Side Story. The scene where he manages to floor Tiny Lister with one punch is simply beyond belief.

When Judd Nelson can beat you up, there is only one thing left to do:

Thanks, Duke.

On a more positive note, David Caruso, long before he could usher in the Who by simply putting on his sunglasses, is better cast as Joey but there is nothing surprising about what eventually happens to him. The best performance is from Scott Wilson, showing why he used to always play villains before reinventing himself as Herschel on The Walking Dead. Wilson was so good that I realized, halfway through Blue City, that I actually would not have minded if he succeeded in killing Billy.

The most disappointing thing about Blue City is that it is a Florida noir from the 80s that somehow does not feature even a cameo appearance by Burt Reynolds. Couldn’t Judd have taken just a few seconds during the filming of Shattered: If Your Kid’s On Drugs to convince Burt to drop by Blue City?

They could have used the help.

Short Film Review: Girl and a Scar (dir by David Cave)

Posted on July 18, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I always enjoy watching and reviewing short films.

The short film format challenges both the filmmaker and the viewer. For the filmmaker, the challenge is to take the audience on a full cinematic journey in a limited amount of time. It’s one thing when you have two hours to tell a story, it’s something entirely different when you’ve only got 15 minutes. As a result, the visuals and the acting become even more important. You can’t have one wasted shot or one performance that feels out-of-place. For the viewer (and the reviewer, for that matter), the challenge is to relearn how to watch a movie. Short films force you to pay attention to every single detail because, often times, it’s only through catching those details that you’ll be able to understand what you’ve just seen. In short films, there’s no time for the director or screenwriter to come back, take you by the hand, and say, “This is what it all means.” Instead, it’s up to you to figure it out. I love a challenge and that’s why I always appreciate and enjoy the chance to watch and review a short film.

For instance, I recently had a chance to watch Girl and a Scar, a 15-minute film from moviemaker David Cave. It’s a challenging film, one that is full of surreal imagery and haunting atmosphere. While the ever-present wind howls on the soundtrack, we find ourselves looking at an isolated house, one that would not be out-of-place in a Jean Rollin vampire film. Inside the house, the Girl (Ileana Cardy) cuts herself with a razor blade. Throughout the movie, the wound grows, almost as if it has a mind of its own. We see the Girl outside, standing in front of what appears to be an industrial park and watching as a young man walks away from her and then as a man in a … well, I’m not going to spoil the details. Let’s just say that she’s approached by a man in a very memorable costume. In between the scenes of the Girl walking along the beach and stumbling through her isolated home, there are snippets of animation. We see the girl in the forest, a cartoon that is occasionally eating and occasionally throwing up. Connecting it all is the sound of that howling wind and that ever-growing wound on the Girl’s stomach.

The imagery is frequently shocking and disturbing and yet, because Cave does such a good job framing his images and maintaining the film’s atmosphere, the film is always watchable. It helps that Ileana Cardy, though having no dialogue, gives a good and empathetic performance as the Girl. You may not always understand what is happening to here but you want to understand and that’s the important thing. From the minute it opens, Girl and a Scar invites you to investigate and try to solve its mysteries. With the mix of body horror and animation, Girl and a Scar at times feels like a fairy tale told by David Cronenberg.

Short films are not necessarily easy to track down but I do recommend making the effort. Hopefully, this one will soon start making the festival circuit.