Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

A Movie A Day #257: Gleaming the Cube (1989, directed by Graeme Clifford)

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Brian Kelly (Christian Slater) is a California skater with a rebellious attitude and an adopted Vietnamese brother named Vinh (Art Chudabala).  When the movie starts, all Brian cares about is not selling out and finding empty pools to skate.  He even hires an airplane to fly him and his friends over Orange County so they can get a bird’s-eye view of the layout.  Vinh is more worried about his job with the Vietnamese Anti-Community Relief Fund.  The fund has been set up to send medical supplies to Vietnam but, when Vinh comes across a discrepancy in the shipping records, he realizes that something else is going on.  When Vinh turns up dead in a hotel room, everyone else may believe that it is suicide but Brian knows that his brother was murdered.  With the help of his fellow skaters and a sympathetic cop (Steven Bauer), Brian sets out to bring his brother’s killers to justice.

I was surprised when I watched Gleaming the Cube because it turned out to be much better than I was expecting.  The movie is justifiably best known for its skating sequences, which were shot by Stacy Peralta and which featured pro-skaters Mike McGill, Rodney Mullen, and Gator Rogowski doubling for Slater in some of the film’s more spectacular stunts.  (Tony Hawk plays one of Slater’s friends.)  Slater, himself, learned how to skate for the movie and looks far more comfortable and natural on his board than Josh Brolin did in Thrashin’.  Beyond the spectacular skating, Gleaming the Cube is energetically directed and surprisingly well-acted.  A pre-stardom Christian Slater gives one of his best and most natural performances as Brian, playing the role without any of the tics or affectations that later came to define his career.  Of its type, Gleaming the Cube is a classic.

A Movie A Day #256: Thrashin’ (1986, directed by David Winters)

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Cory Webster (a young Josh Brolin, who looks identical to older Josh Brolin) is an amateur skateboarder from the Valley who hopes to win a downhill competition and score some sweet corporate sponsorship.  Chrissy (Pamela Gidley) is an innocent blonde from Indiana who is staying with her brother in Venice Beach.  Cory and Chrissy are in love but there is only one problem.  Chrissy’s brother is Tommy Hook (Robert Rusler), leader of The Daggers, a punk skateboard gang.  There’s no way Hook is going to let his sister go out with someone from the Valley.

Thrashin’ has a plot but it’s just an excuse for almost nonstop, kinetic skateboarding action.  The film is justly famous for the jousting scene, where Cory and Hook battle in Bronson Canyon, seeing who can knock who off his board.  Attentive viewers will be able to spot skateboard greats Tony Alva, Tony Hawk, Christian Hosoi, and Steve Caballero in the cast.  Fortunately, Gator Rogowski is nowhere to be found.

Best of all, Thrashin‘ features an early performance from Sherilyn Fenn!  She plays Hook’s girlfriend and, though her role may be small, it is easy to see the spark that would make her the breakout star of Twin Peaks.  At the time that she made Thrashin’, Fenn was dating a young actor named Johnny Depp.  The film’s director, David Winters, hoped to cast Depp in the lead role but the producers insisted on Brolin, who does a good job even if he never looks completely comfortable on a board.

With its minimal plot and threadbare character development, Thrashin‘ is dumb but legendary, a film that embodies an era.  It also has a killer soundtrack.  Keep an eye out for an early version of Red Hot Chili Peppers, performing Black-Eyed Blonde in a club scene.

A Movie A Day #255: Her Alibi (1989, directed by Bruce Beresford)

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Tom Selleck is Phil Blackwood, a best-selling mystery author who is suffering from writer’s block.  Paulina Porizkova in Nina, a beautiful Romanian who has been accused of murder.  When Phil sees Nina being arraigned in court, it is love at first sight.  He provides her with a false alibi and invites her to stay with him while he writes a book based on her case.  At first, Phil thinks that she is innocent but he soon has his doubts, especially after Nina shows off her skills as a knife thrower.

1989 was a strange year for Australian director Bruce Beresford.  On the one hand, he directed Driving Miss Daisy, which went on to win the Oscar for the best picture.  On the other hand, he also directed Her Alibi, a disjointed comedy that feels like an extended episode of Magnum P.I.  (Even Sellecks’ narration feels like a throwback to his star-making role.  But if Phil is a best-selling writer, why does his narration sound so clunky and clichéd?)  Her Alibi is a predictable film, not really bad but just very bland.  It tries to duplicate the style of a classic screwball comedy but it lacks the bite necessary to make much of an impression.  On the plus side, the great William Daniels was given a few good lines as Phil’s caustic agent and Paulina Porizkova was absolutely beautiful.  The scene where Nina gives Phil a haircut almost makes the movie worth it.

One final note: When watching Her Alibi, be sure to pay attention to the scene where Phil holds up his latest novel.  The book is so thin that it looks like it is only 20 pages long, at the most.

A Movie A Day #254: Mr. Destiny (1990, directed by James Orr)

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When did your life first start to go downhill?

Larry Burrows (James Beluhsi) is convinced that, if he had not struck out while playing in the state high school baseball championship when he was 15, his life would have turned out so much differently.  He would be a success, instead of a mid-level executive with money problems, a dissatisfied wife, Ellen (Linda Hamilton), and a weird best friend (Jon Lovitz, of course).  On Larry’s 35th birthday, Michael Caine shows up as Larry’s guardian angel and, before you can say “George Bailey,” Larry is transported to an alternate timeline where he won that baseball game and got everything that he wanted.  Now, Larry has a big home, a sexy wife (Rene Russo), and a sexy mistress (Courtney Cox).  But he doesn’t have Ellen and Larry realizes that this all he ever wanted in the first place.

1990 was a busy year for Jim Belushi, starring in both this and Taking Care of Business.  Of the two films, Mr. Destiny is marginally better.   The story itself is predictable and the film makes a big mistake by trying to get dramatic during the final act.  (Everyone knows that Larry’s rival at the compamy is sleazy because he is played by Hart Bochner and everyone remembers Die Hard.  There was no need to turn him into a murderer, even if it was in a parallel universe.)   However, Michael Caine has the ability to make even the worst dialogue sound good.  Belushi is relatively restrained and any film that features Rene Russo, Courtney Cox, and Linda Hamilton can’t be all bad.   Mr. Destiny is forgettable but inoffensively entertaining.

A Movie A Day #253: Year of the Scab (2017, directed by John Dorsey)

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In 1987, two weeks into the season, the National Football League Player’s Association went on strike.  In the past, player strikes had led to cancelled games and shortened seasons.  But in 1987, the owners fought back.  Instead of cancelling games, they brought in replacements.  Some of the replacements were former college players.  Some were players that were recruited from the Canadian leagues or the recently folded USFL.  Some of them were just locals who could throw a ball or kick a field goal.  They were called scabs and, at first, they were hated by the fans.  But for three weeks, they were the NFL.

Year of the Scab, the latest entry in ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary series, is about the players who (briefly) played for the 1987 Washington Redskins, the only team to be 100% made up of replacements.  To the shock of everyone, while the team’s stars were walking the picket line, the replacement players won all three of their games, including one against the Dallas Cowboys.  For three weeks, the scabs were stars but, when the strike ended, the replacements were cut and ultimately forgotten.  When the Redskins won the super bowl, the replacements got to join the team at the White House but they did not receive rings.  As one of the replacement players puts it, “Even the girl who answered the telephones in the front office got a ring.”

The most interesting part about Year of the Scab are the interviews with the former replacements today.  Some are still involved in football, coaching high school teams.  One works in a warehouse.  Tony Robinson was paroled from prison so that he could play for the Redskins and then returned to prison as soon as the season was over.  All of them are still emotional about their time in the NFL and, to varying degrees, all of them are aware that, because of their status as scabs, they will never receive the recognition that their gameplay deserved.  Some of them still struggle with their decision to cross the picket line while others just wish they had gotten a ring.  (One player even had a duplicate super bowl ring made but he laments that it’s still not the same as having the real thing.)  Year of the Scab is an interesting and thought-provoking documentary about opportunities received and lost.

A Movie A Day #252: The Death Collector (1976, directed by Ralph De Vito)

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Jerry Bolanti (Joe Cortese) is a cocky loud-mouth who has just returned to New Jersey after serving a prison sentence.  Jerry needs a work so a mid-level gangster named Tony (Lou Criscuolo) hires Jerry as a debt collector.  The problem is that Jerry is just not very good at his job.  His attempt to collect money from Bernie Feldshuh (Frank Vincent) leads to Bernie hiring a legendary hitman (Keith Davis) to kill Jerry.  Despite working with two experienced enforcers, Joe (Joe Pesci) and Serge (Bobby Alto), Jerry’s next job is just as unsuccessful and leads to even more unnecessary deaths.  Tony starts to wonder if maybe he made a mistake giving a job to Jerry and, unfortunately, no one simply gets fired from the Mafia.

A low-budget and nihilistic film, The Death Collector occupies a strange place in film history.  Though it was largely ignored when it was first released, one of the few people who did see it was actor Robert De Niro.  De Niro brought the film to the attention of Martin Scorsese, who was casting Raging Bull at the time.  Both Joe Pesci and Frank Vincent made their film debuts in The Death Collector and, after watching the movie, Scorsese cast both of them in Raging Bull.

The rest is history:

In Raging Bull, Pesci beats up Vincent.

In Goodfellas, Pesci kills Vincent.

In Casino, Vincent finally gets to kill Pesci.

If not for The Death Collector, Frank Vincent would never have told Joe Pesci to “get your fucking shinebox.”  If not for The Death Collector, Joe Pesci would never have thrown Frank Vincent in that trunk.  It all started with The Death Collector.

As for the film itself, The Death Collector was filmed on location in New Jersey and it occasionally has a raw and intense grittiness but it suffers because there’s never any reason to care about Jerry.  He starts the movie as an asshole and he ends the movie as an asshole and Joe Cortese’s bland performance fails to make Jerry into a compelling antihero.  The Death Collector works best whenever Vincent and Pesci are on-screen.  Pesci’s performance is slightly toned down version of the hyped-up maniacs that he became best known for playing while Vincent shows that, even in his first film, he was already a master at playing slightly ridiculous tough guys.

The Death Collector can also be found under the title, Family Enforcer.  It’s been released on DVD by several companies, all of which claim that the film “stars” Joe Pesci.  My copy has a picture of Pesci that was lifted from 8 Heads In A Duffel Bag on the cover.

A Movie A Day #251: Cisco Pike (1972, directed by Bill L. Norton)

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Yesterday, the great character actor Harry Dean Stanton passed away at the age of 91.   Cisco Pike is not one of Stanton’s best films but it is a film that highlight why Stanton was such a compelling actor and why his unique presence will be missed.

Cisco Pike (Kris Kristofferson) is a musician who has fallen on hard time.  After having been busted several times for dealing drugs, Cisco now just wants to spend time with his “old lady” (Karen Black) and plot his comeback as a musician.  However, a corrupt narcotics detective, Leo Holland (Gene Hackman), approaches Cisco with an offer that he cannot refuse.  Holland has come into possession of 100 kilos of marijuana.  He wants Cisco to sell it for him and then Leo plans to take the money and retire.  Cisco has the weekend to sell all of the weed.  If he doesn’t, Holland will arrest him for dealing and sent him back to prison,

About halfway through this loose and improvisational look at dealers, hippies, and squares in 1970s Los Angeles, Harry Dean Stanton shows up in the role of Jesse Dupree, an old friend and former bandmate of Cisco’s.  Jesse is a free-living wanderer, too old to be a hippie but too unconventional to be a member of the establishment.  Unfortunately, Jesse also has a nasty heroin habit.  Jesse Dupree is a prototypical Harry Dean Stanton role.  Like many of Stanton’s best roles, Jesse may be sad and full of regrets but he is not going to let that keep him from enjoying life.  Stanton may not appear in much of the film but he still takes over every scene in which he appears.

Stanton is, by far, the best thing about Cisco Pike.  As always, Gene Hackman is entertaining, playing the inverse of The French Connection‘s Popeye Doyle and Karen Black is her usual mix of sexy and weird.  The weakest part of the movie is Kris Kristofferson, who was still a few years away from becoming a good actor when he starred in Cisco Pike.  It is interesting to consider how different Cisco Pike would have been if Stanton and Kristofferson had switched roles.  Stanton may not have had Kristofferon’s movie star looks but, unlike Kristofferson, he feels real in everything that he does.  With his air of resignation and his non-Hollywood persona, Stanton brought authenticity to not only Cisco Pike but to every film in which he appeared.

Along with Stanton, several other familiar faces appear in Cisco Pike.  Keep an eye out for Roscoe Lee Browne, Howard Hesseman, Viva, Allan Arbus, and everyone’s favorite spaced-out hippie chick, the one and only Joy Bang.

A Movie A Day #250: Taking Care of Business (1990, directed by Arthur Hiller)

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Jimmy Dworski (Jim Belushi) is a convicted car thief who only has a few days left in his criminal sentence but still decides to break out of prison so he can go see the Cubs play in the World Series.  Spencer Barnes (Charles Grodin) is an uptight ad executive who needs to learn how to relax and have a good time.  When Spencer loses his organizer, Jimmy finds it.  Before you can say “The prince and the pauper,” Jimmy has access to all of Spencer’s money and the mansion that Spencer is supposed to be staying at over the weekend.  While Spencer tries to survive on the streets and track down his organizer, Jimmy is living it up, spending money, impressing a Japanese businessman (Mako), romancing the boss’s daughter, and taking care of business.

Made in the uncertain period between the end of the culture of 80s materialism and the start of the 90s indie boom, Taking Care of Business is a rip-off of Trading Places that came out six years too late to be effective.  Everything that needs to be known about Jimmy and Spencer is apparentl from the minute that Charles Grodin’s and Jim Belushi’s names appear in the credits.  Grodin was usually the best when it came to playing uptight yuppies but he seems bored in Taking Care of Business.  Belushi mugs through his role, overplaying his character’s blue collar roots.  The movie builds up to a huge confrontation between Belushi and Grodin but it never really delivers, instead devolving into a predictable buddy comedy, complete with a trip to Wrigley Field and an elaborate plan to sneak Belushi back into prison before the warden (Hector Elizondo) discovers that he’s been gone for the weekend.  Taking Care of Business has a few laughs but it’s never as good as the BTO song.

A Movie A Day #249: Beatlemania (1981, directed by Joseph Manduke)

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In this filmed version of a hit Broadway musical, four musicians who look like the Beatles from a distance play 3o Lennon/McCartney songs while newspapers headlines scroll over their heads and famous events and figures from the 60s appear on the screen behind them.  The camera sometimes follows the musicians backstage as they switch from dark suits to white Magical Mystery Tour tuxedos and later into the uniforms of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  They also try on a variety of wigs and fake facial hair.

The main problem with Beatlemania is that the four musicians may be good but they are still not the Beatles and, regardless of how hard they try, they never really sound like the Beatles either.  At first, I was impressed by the fact that they did, at least, physically resemble the Beatles but then I realized that musician I thought was George was actually supposed to be John and that the musician who actually was supposed to be George looked more like Keith Richards.  Ringo, meanwhile, looked like Keith Moon.  On the other hand, the show’s Paul looked exactly like the real Paul but was so stiff and precise in his movement that it was like watching one of the robots from Disney’s Hall of Presidents.

I can understand why nostalgic baby boomers made the original stage show a hit but, ultimately, it is best just to stick with the originals.

A Movie A Day #248: Flinch (1994, directed by George Erschbamer)

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Harry (Judd Nelson) is a law student who has failed the bar exam three times.  Daphne (Gina Gershon) is an aspiring actress who has an unfaithful boyfriend.  With neither of them making much headway in their chosen careers, they end up working as living mannequins in a department store display window.  If they flinch even the least little bit, they will lose their jobs.  At first, it does not seem that there is much of a romantic future for Harry and Daphne.  But when Daphne breaks up with her boyfriend, Harry invites her to join him in breaking into the store after hours and partying.  But while Harry and Daphne are celebrating, they witness a crazed artist (Nick Mancuso) strangling one of his models.

If the name of the director, George Erschbamer, seems familiar, you may be familiar with the Snake Eater films that he made with Lorenzo Lamas.  Fortunately, Flinch is far superior to Snake Eater III.  Starting out like a romantic comedy before turning into a thriller, Flinch is actually one of the better direct-to-video Judd Nelson films to come out in the 90s.  Of course, considering that the competition comes from Entangled and Conflict of Interest, Flinch doesn’t have that high of a bar to clear.  Though the thriller aspect is predictable, The first half of the movie, which is almost entirely Gershon and Nelson trying to talk to each other without anyone noticing their lips moving, is actually enjoyable.  Gina Gershon is as sexy as ever and she brings out the best in Judd Nelson, who is almost likable in this movie.

Still, there is one thing that could have improved Flinch.  Like almost any other Judd Nelson film, it really could have used a Burt Reynolds cameo.

Right, Burt?