Guilty Pleasure No. 36: The Legend of Billie Jean (dir by Matthew Robbins)

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Two weeks ago, while I was sick in bed, I watched The Legend of Billie Jean, a deeply silly movie from 1985.

Okay, get this. Billie Jean (Helen Slater) and her younger brother, Binx (an incredibly young Christian Slater), live in Corpus Christi, Texas. Binx has always wanted to go to Vermont. That right there should tell you just how silly this movie is. Not only does it feature a character named Binx but it also features Texans wanting to go to Vermont. I’m a native Texan who loves to travel but I can tell you right now that the last place I would ever want to go would be Vermont. In fact, down here, we tend to assume that Vermont’s just a place that was made up by the media. Bernie Sanders? He’s just an actor. Seriously, there’s no way that Vermont actually exists.

Anyway, after Binx throws a milkshake in the face of local bully, Hubie Pyatt (Barry Tubb), Hubie steals Binx’s scooter. (If you’re stuck with a name like Hubie Pyatt, it seems kinda predestined that you’re going to grow up to be a bully.) After getting nowhere with the police, Billie Jean returns home to discover that Binx has been beaten up and his scooter has been dismantled. Billie Jean goes to Hubie’s father (Richard Bradford) to demand some money to get the scooter fixed. Mr. Pyatt responds by attempting to assault Billie Jean, which leads to Binx shooting Mr. Pyatt in the shoulder.

So now, Billie Jean and Binx are on the run.

Joining them in their flight are two idiot friends (Martha Gehman and Yeardley Smith) and Lloyd (Keith Gordon), the son of the local district attorney. Because this is a movie, Billie Jean quickly becomes a media superstar. Everyone wants to meet Billie Jean. Everyone wants to help Billie Jean. A sympathetic police detective (Peter Coyote) is determined to capture Billie Jean without violence but that might be difficult with the media constantly getting in the way.

While hiding out in a motel, Billie Jean turns on the TV and watches the classic 1928 silent film, The Passion of Joan of Arc. (I have to say that I’ve stayed in a few motels around Corpus Christi and never once did I turn on the TV and just happen to come across a classic silent movie.) Moved by Renee Falconetti’s performance in the lead role, Billie Jean decides to cut her hair really, really short (though not as short as Falconetti’s). I guess Billie Jean is supposed to be a 1980s version of Joan of Arc, which really doesn’t make any sense. I mean, Joan of Arc heard the voice of God and led the French to victory over the British. Billie Jean is just trying to get some money to get her brother’s scooter fixed and pay for a trip to the imaginary state of Vermont.

Meanwhile, Mr. Pyatt has recovered from his wounds and is now selling Billie Jean merchandise in his store. The detective mentions how weird that is but Mr. Pyatt is just out to make some money. Can you blame him? The entire country is obsessed with Billie Jean!

As you might have guessed, The Legend of Billie Jean is incredibly silly but likable. Despite having an inconsistent Texas accent, Helen Slater does a good job in the lead role of Billie Jean and it’s interesting to actually see Christian Slater before he developed the sarcastic style that, for better or worse, has come to define pretty much all of his performances. Never for a second do you believe that Billie Jean would actually become a media superstar. (Nor do you ever believe that she’s the type who would have the patience to watch a silent movie.) I mean, when you get right down to it, it’s a pretty dumb movie. But, when you’re sick in bed, The Legend of Billie Jean is a perfectly acceptable way to pass the time.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Film Review: Tobor The Great (dir by Lee Sholem)

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last week, along with my friends and fellow members of the Late Night Movie Gang, I watched the 1954 sci-fi film, Tobor The Great.

As you can probably tell by looking at the top of this review, Tobor came with a really great poster. It’s a poster that promises all sorts of sci-fi thrills and chills. It screams, “B-movie masterpiece!” You look at that poster and you think to yourself, This film is probably extremely silly but I absolutely have to watch it!

Of course, if you know anything about the B-movie aesthetic of the 50s and 60s, you won’t be shocked to learn that the poster has next to nothing to do with the actual film. True, there is a robot is featured in the film. The poster is honest about that. And Tobor actually looks just as good in the movie as he does on the poster. And there is a subplot about space travel but, at no point, do we see Tobor walking across the surface of Neptune or Jupiter or wherever it is that Tobor is supposed to be in this poster. Maybe he’s on one of the moons of Saturn. Who knows?

Also, at no point, does Tobor carry around a woman. In fact, Tobor is pretty much a film for kids. The main character, other than Tobor, is an 11 year-old boy named Gadge (Billy Chapin). I can only imagine how audiences reacted when they went into the film expecting to see the scene in the poster and instead, they were confronted with a movie about a little boy and his robot.

Tobor is one of those films that opens with several minutes of stock footage. Rockets take off. The stars shine in the sky. Scientists and engineers do stuff. It all looks pretty impressive but, of course, none of it was actually shot for this film. In fact, the use of all that stock footage mostly serves to highlight how cheap the rest of the movie looks.

As for the film’s plot, it has apparently been determined that it’s too dangerous to send humans into space. So, Professor Nordstrom (Taylor Holmes) and Dr. Harrison (Charles Drake) build a robot that is specifically designed to fly an interstellar craft. They name their creation Tobor, because that’s robot spelled backwards. (Tobor even points out that his name is robot spelled backwards.) In order to help Tobor explore the universe, they design him to be able to simulate human emotions. In fact, they’re so successful at it that Tobor ends up befriending Nordstrom’s grandson, the aforementioned Gadge.

The press and the military are all very impressed with Tobor. Unfortunately, it’s the 1950s and that means that the communists are impressed by Tobor as well! Can the scientists and their families keep Tobor from getting abducted by a bunch of Russian agents!? Let’s hope so because there’s a lot of space that needs to be explored….

Anyway, Tobor The Great is silly but kind of fun. It has its slow spots but it also has a really cool robot and it’s always fun to watch the commies get thwarted. It’s a real time capsule film, one that not only reflects the decade in which it was made but which also has a somewhat charming innocence to it. If nothing else, it’s nice to think that, in the days before CGI, the filmmakers actually had to make a Tobor of their own. Apparently, Tobor is currently in a private collection and I hope whoever has him is treating him well.

Here’s The Trailer for Mission: Impossible — Fallout!

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

We’re a few days later in sharing this but, as always, it’s better to be late than never!

Say what you will about Tom Cruise. He’s definitely an actor who I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, he’s got undeniable talent and, whenever I watch him in a good movie (like Edge of Tomorrow), I’m surprised to be reminded of just how compelling he can be onscreen. (Hell, I’d even defend his performance in The Mummy.) On the other hand, I have some friends who flat-out refuse to watch anything that feature Cruise, specifically because they find the whole Scientology thing to just be too creepy.

But, with all that in mind, the Mission: Impossible films have consistently been exciting and entertaining. While Daniel Craig’s James Bond spends all of his time drowning in self-pity, Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt reminds us of why we love spy films in the first place.

Here’s the trailer for Mission Impossible — Fallout! This film will be in theaters on July 17th.

Bond Goes Deep!: THUNDERBALL (United Artists 1965)

Posted on May 19, 2018 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

THUNDERBALL, the fourth 007 adventure, will always hold a special place in my heart. It’s the first James Bond movie I saw at the theater, released at the height of the Secret Agent/Spy craze, and I was totally hooked! I even had all the toys that went with the movie, including Emilio Largo’s two-part boat the Disco Volante, with which I engaged in mighty battles in the bathtub against VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA’s Seaview (hey, I was only seven!).

SPECTRE is at it again, this time hijacking a NATO jet loaded with two nuclear bombs, and holding the world hostage. Bond, sent to recuperate at a health spa, stumbles on to trouble related to the crisis, and is sent by MI6 to investigate Domino Derval, sister of the NATO pilot. This leads 007 to Domino’s “guardian” Emilio Largo, a rich and powerful man who’s Number Two…

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Here’s The Trailer For Shock and Awe (which appears to deliver little of either)

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here’s the trailer for Shock and Awe, which is apparently a film about the media at the start of the Iraq War.

Don’t get too excited. It was directed by Rob Reiner, who hasn’t done anything worthwhile in quite some time. To be honest, this sounds like exactly the type of project that will bring out all of Reiner’s worst, most middlebrow instincts as a filmmaker.

But who knows? At least Tommy Lee Jones is in it.

Here’s The Super Scandalous Red Band Trailer For The Happytime Murders!

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, at the start of this year, I thought that The Happytime Murders might be a one of those surprising, no-one-saw-it-coming Oscar nominees. The film takes place in a world where both humans and puppets co-exist, though puppets are treated like second class citizens. The film is a murder mystery but, obviously, the plot would seem to suggest that there’s a possibility that there could be a lot more going on underneath the surface.

Then I watched the trailer.

And … yeah, it’s probably not going to be an Oscar nominee. The Academy has changed a lot of over the last few years but I still don’t know if they’re ready to embrace a film that features muppet jizz. The trailer for this one so reminded me of Sausage Party that I was shocked to discover that Seth Rogen is not in the film.

However, Joel McHale is! He’s so adorable.

Also, I noticed that the trailer bragged about being from the same people behind the recent Muppets TV show. Uhmm … I’ll have to ask Leonard for sure, because I think he’s the only TSLer who regularly watched it, but didn’t everyone hate that show?

Anyway, here’s the red band trailer for The Happytime Murders! If you have kids, be sure to take them. You know how much kids love puppets…

Film Review: Fahrenheit 451 (dir by Francois Truffaut)

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight, HBO will be premiering a film version of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. This version will star Michael B. Jordan as “fireman” Guy Montag and Michael Shannon as Montag’s boss, Captain Beatty. It’s one of the more eagerly anticipated films of the current television season but it’s not the first version of Fahrenheit 451 to be filmed.

The first version was released, by Universal Pictures, in 1966. It was the first (as well as only) English langauge film to be directed by the great French filmmaker, Francois Truffaut. (It was also Traffaut’s first color film, allowing the flames to burn in bright yellow and red.) Unfortunately, Truffaut would later describe the film as being his “saddest and most difficult” film making experience.

Though there are a few noticeable differences, the film sticks closely to the plot of Bradbury’s novel. Guy Montag (Oskar Werner) is a “fireman” in the near future. Montag lives in a society where books have been banned and the populace is kept to docile through a combination of pharmaceuticals and mindless television programming. Montag’s wife, Linda (Julie Christie), is content to live life without questioning anything. However, when Montag meets a school teacher named Clarisse (also played by Christie), all of his previous assumptions are challenged. What if the government isn’t always right? What if ignorance isn’t bliss? What would happen if, instead of burning books, Montag actually read one? After witnessing a woman choosing to self-immolate herself so that she can die with all of her books, Montag is finally ready to quit being a fireman. But his captain (Cyril Cusack) tells Montag that he needs to go on one more call, this one to Montag’s own house.

Truffaut’s film leaves out most of the overly sci-fi elements of Bradbury’s original novel. For instance, in the novel, Montag is terrified of the robots dogs that the firemen use but the dogs never appear in Truffaut’s film. As well, Traffaut totally eliminates the character of Faber, the former English professor who uses a portable communicator to keep in contact with Montag. (Today, of course, that hardly seems like science fiction.) In Truffaut’s film, the setting is designed to appear as contemporary and familiar as possible, a reminder that the story may have been sent in the future but that the issues it dealt with were relevant to the present. With this film, Truffaut asked the audience, “How different is the world today from the world of Bradbury’s novel?”

Truffaut’s other big departure from Bradbury’s text was to cast Julie Christie as both Clarisse and Linda. In the book, Montag’s wife was named Mildred and Bradbury went of out of his way to establish her as being the exact opposite of Clarisse. In Truffaut’s film, the double casting of Christie seems to suggest that Clarisse and Linda are two sides of the same character. Montag loves them both, though each appeals to a different part of Montag’s psyche. Linda appeals to the side of Montag that wants to just accept things the were they are and be happy. Clarisse, meanwhile, represents the part of Montag that wants to be free to feel everything, even if it means occasionally being unhappy or uncertain. When Montag finally meets the Book People, he discovers that they are just as fanatical about memorizing and reciting books as Linda was about watching her television shows. Was this intentional on Truffaut’s part, a suggestion that both the government and the rebels are, like Clarisse and Linda, two sides of the same coin?

It’s an intriguing but uneven movie. Truffaut apparently didn’t have a great working relationship with Oskar Werner and, at times, Werner doesn’t seem to be particularly invested in the role of Montag. (Interestingly enough, it’s also been suggested that Jacqueline Bisset’s character in Day For Night was inspired by Truffaut’s experiences working with Julie Christie in this film.) When the characters interact, the dialogue sometimes feel stiff and dull, as if Truffaut never got over his discomfort with having to direct a film in something other than his native French. At the same time, the film is full of hauntingly beautiful images, from the defiant woman standing in the middle of her burning books to the Book People walking through the snow. Truffaut makes brilliant use of color and the visuals are often strong enough to overcome even Oskar Werner at his most sullen.

Fahrenheit 451 is an imperfect movie but one worth seeing. Will the new HBO version be able to match it? We’ll find out soon enough.

Here’s What Won At Cannes 2018!

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This year’s strangely low-key Cannes Film Festival has come to a close! Here’s what won at Cannes this year:

In Competition

Palme d’Or: Shoplifters by Hirokazu Kore-eda
Grand Prix: BlacKkKlansman by Spike Lee
Best Director: Paweł Pawlikowski for Cold War
Best Screenplay:
Alice Rohrwacher for Happy as Lazzaro
Jafar Panahi for 3 Faces
Best Actress: Samal Yeslyamova for Ayka
Best Actor: Marcello Fonte for Dogman
Jury Prize: Capernaum by Nadine Labaki
Special Palme d’Or: Jean-Luc Godard

Un Certain Regard

Un Certain Regard Award: Border by Ali Abbasi
Un Certain Regard Jury Prize: The Dead and the Others by João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora
Un Certain Regard Award for Best Director: Sergei Loznitsa for Donbass
Un Certain Regard Jury Award for Best Performance: Victor Polster for Girl
Un Certain Regard Award for Best Screenplay: Meryem Benm’Barek-Aloïsi for Sofia

Cinéfondation

First Prize: The Summer of the Electric Lion by Diego Céspedes
Second Prize:
Calendar by Igor Poplauhin
The Storms in Our Blood by Shen Di
Third Prize: Inanimate by Lucia Bulgheroni

The question that we ask every year is whether the Cannes Film Festival will have any effect on the Oscar race. We especially ask that whenever an American film wins the Palme d’Or or an American or British performer takes home one of the acting prizes. This year, BlacKkKlansman was the highest rewarded American film, though it didn’t pick up the Palme. That said, even if it didn’t win the top prize, BlacKkKlansman did receive rapturous reviews, certainly enough justify it’s current status as a possible Oscar nominee.

So, in the end — who knows?

Book Review: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight, HBO will be premiering a new film version of Fahrenheit 451, one that stars Michael B. Jordan as “fireman” Guy Monag and Michael Shannon as his boss, Captain Beatty. If one may forgive the expression, it’s a hotly awaited production.

That said, regardless of whether the HBO film lives up to the hype or not, don’t forget to read the book that inspired it!

Written by Ray Bradbury and originally published in 1953, Fahrenheit 451 takes place in, what was then, the near future. It’s a world where the citizens are too shallow to realize that they’re living under an authoritarian regime. Everyone is kept docile through the use of pharmaceuticals and there is no culture beyond what’s televised on the “parlor walls.” (Actually, Bradbury’s near future doesn’t sound that different from our present.)

It’s a world where books are forbidden. Of course, some citizens still insist on trying to hide books in their attics and their basements but, fortunately for the government, there’s always somebody willing to inform. Whenever it’s discovered that’s someone’s been hoarding books, the firemen are deployed. Of course, these fireman aren’t used to put out fires. Instead, they burn books. Fahrenheit 451, we learn early on, is the temperature at which paper will burn.

Guy Montag is one of the firemen. Though he can’t always explain why, he doesn’t feel satisfied with his “perfect” life. Even when his wife Mildred survives an overdose of sleeping pills, Montag can hardly be bothered to react. Guy has started to have doubts. When he meets a teenage girl named Clarisse, he’s stunned when she says that she doesn’t care about “how.” Instead, she cares about “why.” Guy finds himself intrigued by Clarisse, even if he still finds himself wondering if she’s going to inform on him.

And then there’s Captain Beatty! Beatty is Montag’s boss but at times, he almost seems to be encouraging Montag to doubt the system. Beatty even reveals that he used to be an avid reader himself. Is he sincere when he encourages Montag to read or does he have ulterior motives of his own?

Fahrenheit 451 holds up remarkably well. True, some of the dialogue is a bit clunky and things slow down a bit whenever Montag interacts with Faber, a former English professor. But, much like Orwell’s 1984, the book’s central theme remains relevant today. Right now, there are people on both the Right and the Left who would happily burn books if it meant doing away with ideas and opinions with which they disagree. (I imagine even some of our self-righteous centrists would be more than willing to burn a book or two in the name of bipartisanship.) Democracy dies not in darkness but in ignorance and the best way to keep a population ignorant is to not only burn anything that challenges the state but to also ridicule the very idea of thinking for one’s self. That is the society that Bradbury portrays in Fahrenheit 451 and it’s one that feels very much like our own.

One final note: I found my copy of this book at Half-Price Books last December. The copy that I found once belonged to a student named Ashley and she filled the margins with notes about her friends Taylor and Sidney. At the start of the book, they were best friends. About halfway through, she suddenly hated both of them but, by the end of the book, they were friends again. Yay!

Cleaning Out The DVR: Widsom (dir by Emilio Estevez)

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(I recorded the 1986 film, Wisdom, off of Retroplex on Mary 1st.)

(SPOILER ALERT! The ending of this film is so extremely stupid that there’s no way I’m not going to discuss it in this review.)

Meet John Wisdom (Emilio Estevez)!

He’s got one of those ironic names, as people in pretentious movies often do. He’s extremely naive but his name is Wisdom. He does a lot of stupid crap but his name is Wisdom. And I guess the audience is meant to feel that Wisdom understands more than even he knows.

Or something like that.

Who knows?

Anyway, John Wisdom has got some issues. He’s a college dropout who can’t get a good job because he has a criminal record. He didn’t really do anything wrong, of course. All he did was steal a car on the night of his high school graduation. Hey, who hasn’t done that? Anyway, Wisdom would be happy to just spend all day sitting around in his bathtub but his father (Tom Skerritt) insists that Wisdom find some sort of employment.

Eventually, Wisdom ends up working in a fast food restaurant. It turns out that he’s not very good at it, which leads me to suspect that Wisdom probably wouldn’t be very good at any of the other jobs that he was pursuing either. To be honest, the main reason that Wisdom works at the restaurant is so that Charlie Sheen can have a cameo as Wisdom’s boss.

(Strangely, Martin Sheen is nowhere to be found in the movie. It wouldn’t surprise me if Emilio Estevez — who both directed and wrote the script — originally envisioned Martin playing his father. Tom Skerritt does an extended Martin Sheen impersonation as Daddy Wisdom.)

Anyway, Wisdom decides that since the system refuses to give him a fair chance, he’s going to live the rest of his life as an outlaw. So, Wisdom starts to rob banks. However, instead of stealing all of the money, Wisdom is more interested in setting fire to mortgage and loan records. Wisdom explains, via voice over, that he’s concerned about the working people who keeps getting screwed over by the banks. That’s all good and well but I thought the whole reason that Wisdom started robbing banks was because there was no other way for him to make any money. So, when did Wisdom go from being a greedy criminal to an altruistic rebel?

Naturally, Wisdom and his girlfriend, Karen (Demi Moore), becomes folk heroes. Everyone wants to meet Wisdom and protect him from the police. But eventually, Karen gets gunned down by a police helicopter. Poor Karen. She didn’t even want to rob banks. Well, actually, she did want to rob banks. And then she didn’t. And then she did again. Karen’s motivation and personality changes from scene-to-scene, largely because she’s a poorly written character. But no matter. She’s dead now.

But Wisdom’s still alive! Except, soon, he finds himself surrounded by cops. Standing in the middle of a football field (Oh my God! The symbolism!), Wisdom is gunned down by law enforcement…

…except suddenly, Wisdom’s back in the bathtub. Apparently, he was just daydreaming about his girlfriend getting gunned down in front of him. Wait … what? Seriously, what type of ending is that!? At the very least, the film could have ended with Wisdom robbing a bank for real and accepting that his dream is destined to come true. I mean, that would have been stupid but at least it would have been something. Instead, things end with Wisdom leaving the bathroom.

So, basically, the entire film was just Wisdom daydreaming about robbing banks and eventually getting gunned down on a football field. Oh, Wisdom. You got some issues, sweetie!

Emilio Estevez directed this film a year after appearing in The Breakfast Club. Like many directorial debuts, it’s incredibly dumb. You can tell that Estevez wasn’t sure what he wanted to say but he was still damn determined to say it. Why do so many actors end up directing such pretentious and/or boring movies? On the plus side, there were a few attempts at deliberate humor (Wisdom is not a particularly organized bank robber) and Demi Moore did a fairly good job playing an inconsistent character. Otherwise, Wisdom is mostly memorable for having one of the worst endings of all time.