Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

Ricky Nelson: Original Teen Idol (1999, directed by Sturla Gunnarsson)

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It’s a story as old as time.

Ricky Nelson (Greogry Calpakis) is a star on his parents’s TV show but what he really wants to be is a rock and roll singer.  Ozzie (Jamey Sheridan) and Harriet Nelson (Sara Botsford) don’t know much about the strange rock and roll music but they do know that girls love it when Ricky plays the guitar and sings.  Ricky becomes a star and a teen idol but chafes at his parents’s attempts to control his music and his image.

This is another one of those behind-the-scenes entertainment biopics that were all the rage of television for a while.  This one was made for VH-1 instead of the any of the major networks and, as a result, it’s a little bit explicit in its depiction of Ricky’s sex life and his later drug use.  Ricky goes from being a teen idol to being a long-haired proto-hippie, getting booed by all the squares who only want to hear the oldies.  Not surprisingly, it’s a pretty shallow movie.  Ricky is played by Gregory Calpakis, who appears to be the same age of Jamey Sheridan, who plays his father.

Movies like this will never go out of style.  It’s inevitable that eventually, there will be biopics of Cobain, Bradley Nowell, Mac Miller, and all the rest.  They’ll be AI-generated which will make them seem even worse.

Again, a story as old as time.

Running Time (1997, directed by Josh Becker)

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Carl (Bruce Campbell) is serving a ten-year prison sentence but he gets out in five.  He’s met outside the prison by his old criminal partner. Patrick (Jeremy Roberts).  After Carl makes up for lost time with a prostitute named Janie (Anita Barone), he and Patrick try to rob the prison’s laundry system.  Carl’s spent most of his time in prison carefully plotting out the heist but he didn’t take into account that his old criminal crew is made up of incompetents.

Running Time is only 70 minutes long and the film’s story plays out in real-time.  The movie itself is edited in such a way to create the impression that it was all shot in one continuous take.  It’s gimmicky but, like the film’s noir-style black-and-white cinematography, it works, creating a narrative the feels relentless.  It also makes it clear that Campbell’s Carl is a true career criminal.  He’s not out of prison for more than a handful of minutes before he’s trying to pull his next heist.  Crime is all that Carl really know, which makes his dilemma at the end of the movie (Janie or the money?) very effective.

Running Time is basically a showcase for Bruce Campbell.  Director Josh Becker was a longtime friend and associate of Sam Raimi’s and started his feature career as a production assistant on The Evil Dead.   Running Time feels like it was made with Campbell in mind and Carl is a character who plays to all of Campbell’s strengths.  It’s the perfect film for Campbell’s style of acting and Campbell is just as good when he’s planning the heist as when he’s arguing with Janie about the way that he treated her when they were both in high school together.  (His scenes with the excellent Anita Barone are some of the best in the movie.)  Running Time features Bruce Campbell at his best.

Music Video of the Day: Half the Truth by Royal Court of China (1989, directed by Sam Raimi)

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The best rock band to ever come out of Nashville, Tennessee, Royal Court of China was named after a “supergroup” that Jimmy Page tried to put together after the end of Led Zeppelin.  Page may never have formed his band but Joe Blanton used the name for his own group, which started out as a hard country band before moving to heavy metal.

This video was directed by Sam Raimi.  The song was produced by none other than “Groovy” Bruce Campbell, who is celebrating his 67th birthday on this day.

Enjoy!

Bedazzled (2000, directed by Harold Ramis)

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Elliot (Brendan Fraser) has a go-nowhere job at a computer company and an unrequited crush on Alison (Frances O’Connor), a co-worker who doesn’t even know who he is.  One night, at a bar afterwork, he’s approached by the Devil (Elizabeth Hurley), who offers Elliot seven wishes in return for his soul.  Elliot agrees but then he discovers that the Devil is tricky and his wishes always have an complication.  Elliot wants to be powerful so the Devil turns him into a Columbian drug lord.  Elliot wants to be sensitive and the Devil turns him into a whiny crybaby.  Elliot wants to be president and suddenly, he’s Abraham Lincoln being told to get ready for the theater.  Whenever things start to get too dangerous, the Devil brings Elliot back to reality so that she can continue to taunt him.

An Americanized remake of a British comedy that starred Dudley Moore and Peter Cook, Bedazzled was unfairly savaged by the critics when it was first released.  While it can’t match the wit and heart of the original and not all of the wishes are equally effective, the remake has its charms.  When Bedazzled first came out, most people talked about Elizabeth Hurley’s sexy performance of the Devil.  When she appears as a school teacher, it’s not a surprise that every student brings her an apple at the start of the day.  Hurley is so sexy that it’s easy to miss that she’s also giving a really good performance.  Hurley’s Devil is a prankster.  She likes to steal souls but mostly, she’s just having fun ruining all of Fraser’s wishes.  Brendan Fraser is likable as Elliot and the way he responds to each wish gives him a chance to show off his comedic skills.  Finally, the movie has a good ending, with Elliot growing up and realizing the truth about his crush on Alison.

Bedazzled may not be up to the level of some of director Harold Ramis’s other films but it’s still better than its reputation.

Freefall: Flight 174 (1995, directed by Jorge Montesi)

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During a routine flight from Montreal to Edmonton, the two pilots (played by William Devane and Scott Hylands) discover that they do not have enough fuel to make it to their destination.  Their aircraft was one of the first in the fleet to use the metric system but a conversion era led to the ground crew measuring the plane’s fuel in pounds instead of kilograms.  With the help of an air  traffic controller (Nicholas Turturro), the pilots try to land their plane before it falls out of the sky.

Based on a true story, Freefall is one of the many airflight disaster films that were made for television in the 80s and 90s.  (Not surprisingly, the genre became less popular after 9-11.)  The emphasis is on the pilots and ground control remaining calm and professional in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.  While Devane and Hylands look for a place to land, flight attendant Shelley Hack keeps the passengers from panicking.  In typical disaster movie style, the passengers have their own dramas that are wrapped up as they wait for the plane to either land or crash.  It’s a low-budget movie but the cast does a good job.  William Devane is one of those actors who just looks credible flying an airplane.

The movie’s main lesson?  Don’t use the Metric System unless you absolutely have to,

 

The Boys In Company C (1978, directed by Sidney J. Furie)

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In 1967, a group of young men arrive at the Marie Corp. Recruit Depot in San Diego.  Tyrone Washington (Stan Shaw) is a drug dealer from Chicago who tells everyone not to mess with him and who soon emerges as a natural born leader.  Dave Brisbee (Craig Wasson) is a long-haired hippie who tried to feel to Canada and who shows up for induction in handcuffs.  Vinny Fazio (Michael Lembeck) is a cocky and streetwise kid from Brooklyn.  Billy Ray Pike (Andrew Stevens) is a country boy from Texas.  Alvin Foster (James Canning) is an aspiring writer who keeps a journal of his experiences.  Sgt. Loyce (R. Lee Ermey, making his film debut) molds them into a combat unit before they leave for Vietnam, where they discover that all of their training hasn’t prepared them for the reality of Vietnam.

The Boys In Company C has the same basic structure as Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, right down to R. Lee Ermey playing the tough drill sergeant.  The sharp discipline of basic training is compared to the chaos of Vietnam.  Ermey always said that he was playing a bad drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket because he tore down the recruits but never bothered to build them back up.  In The Boys In Company C, Ermey plays a good drill sergeant, one who is tough but fair and who helps Washington reach his potential.  It doesn’t make any difference once the company arrives in Vietnam, though.  Both The Boys In Company C and Full Metal Jacket present the war in Vietnam as being run by a collection of incompetent officer who have no idea what it’s like for the soldiers who are expected to carry out their orders.

Of course, The Boys In Company C is nowhere near as good as Full Metal Jacket.  Full Metal Jacket was directed by Stanley Kubrick and it’s a chilling and relentless look at the horrors of combat.  The Boys In Company C was directed by Sidney J. Furie, a journeyman director who made a lot of movies without ever developing a signature style.  The basic training scenes are when the film is at its strongest.  When the company arrives in Vietnam, Furie struggles with the story’s episodic structure and it can sometimes be difficult to keep track of the large ensemble cast.  The Vietnam sequences are at their best when the emphasis is on the soldiers grumbling and bitching as their officers send them on one pointless mission after another.  The soccer game finale tries to duplicate the satire of the football game that ended Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H but it does so with middling results.  The Boys in Company C is a collection of strong moments that never manage to come together as a cohesive whole.

The movie is still important as one of the first major films to be made about the war in Vietnam.  However, it’s since been overshadowed by The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, and, of course, Full Metal Jacket.

 

Final Shot: The Hank Gathers Story (1992, directed by Charles Braverman)

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Hank Gathers is one of the most intriguing “what if?” stories of modern basketball.  Growing up in the Raymond Rosen Projects of Philadelphia, Hank stayed out of trouble by playing basketball.  An outstanding high school player, he went first to USC before transferring to Loyola Marymount.  Along with his friend Bo Kimble, he was a stand-out player at Loyola.  However, on March 4th, 1990, the 23 year-old Gathers collapsed during a game with Portland and died on the court, the victim of an abnormal heartbeat.  His last recorded words were, “I don’t want to lay down!”  Gathers set records in college.  Would he have done the same in the NBA?  Sadly, we’ll never know but he definitely had the talent and the ability to be one of the best.

Final Shot is a by-the-numbers biopic of Hank Gathers, focusing on his life in the projects and his friendship with Bo Kimble.  Victor Love plays Gathers while Kimble is played by Duane Davis and they both give good performances.  Their friendship feels real and when Hank helps Bo recover from a broken leg and when Bo worries about Hank’s recently diagnosed heart condition, the scenes are sincere in a way that lifts the film above the normal biopic clichés.  Nell Carter and George Kennedy both have good roles as well, Carter as Hank’s mother and Kennedy as Hank’s high school coach and mentor.  This is the type of role that Kennedy could have played in his sleep so I appreciated that he actually gave a believable performance.

Final Shot is a made-for-TV movie so it doesn’t dig too deeply into Gathers’s life outside of basketball, the way that college treat their athletes, or the systems that made playing basketball Hank’s only way of escaping the projects.  For what it is, though, it’s a fitting tribute.

Sweetheart of the Navy (1937, directed by Duncan Mansfield)

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I watched this movie by accident.

I was looking for Sweetheart of Sigma Chi, an obscure Buster Crabbe film that is nearly impossible to find.  I was happy to see that someone had uploaded it to YouTube but then I watched and discovered that, even though the video was entitled Sweetheart of Sigma Chi, they had actually uploaded a movie called Sweetheart of the Navy.  I was disappointed but I went ahead and watched because the movie was only 61 minutes long and I needed something to post for today’s review.

In other words, I’ve got no one to blame but myself.

Cecilia Parker plays Joan Whitney, who co-owns a cafe on the harbor.  When her business partner runs off, he takes all the money and leaves her with all the bills.  Joan has to raise the money to keep her bar open.  Her friends, Andy (Cully Richards) and Pete (Don Barclay), decide to stage a fight against the boxing champion of the Navy, Bumper (Jason Robards, Sr., father of the  more famous Jason Robards).  They recruit the overmatched Eddie Harris (Eric Linden) to fight Bumper and then get all of their friends in the Navy to bet on the fight.  Commander Lodge (Roger Imhof) views Eddie has being his protege and tries to change his mind about fighting.  Joan tries to convince Eddie to get in the ring.

I may be biased because I was already annoyed that Buster Crabbe wasn’t in this movie but Sweetheart of the Navy was instantly forgettable, creaky, and corny.  Forgettable songs, stagey directing, and boxing action that won’t exactly put Rocky to shame, Sweetheart of the Navy took 61 minutes of my life under false pretenses.

And again, I have no one to blame but myself.

Come On Get Happy: The Partridge Family Story (1999, directed by David Burton Morris)

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In 1969, a group of television network executives get together and decide the world needs a sitcom that will mix music with family comedy.  The result is The Partridge Family.  While Shirley Jones (Eve Gordon) tries to keep her television family safe from the networks and, in some cases, their own dysfunctional families, David Cassidy (Rodney Scott) struggles with being a teen idol and Danny Bonaduce (Shawn Pyfrom) deals with living with an abusive father (William Russ).  Danny finds a new father figure in the form of co-star Dave Madden (Michael Cheiffo) while Danny dates his tv sister, Susan Dey (Kathy Wagner).

This was one of the many made-for-TV movies that took advantage of boomer nostalgia at the turn of the 20th Century.  Like most of those movies, Come On Get Happy is on the shallow side, providing the details that everyone had already heard without digging too far underneath the surface.  The main thing that sets this film apart from so many other behind-the-scenes movies is that the cast, for the most part, actually resemble the real-life people that they’re playing.  That’s especially true in the case of Shawn Pyfrom.  If you’re a fan of the show or Cassidy’s music, this movie might appeal to you.  I Think I Love You is still a banger.

It’s well-made but it’s still hard not to feel that it would have been more entertaining just to watch a 2-hour interview with the real-life Danny Bonaduce.

The New Centurions (1972, directed by Richard Fleischer)

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Fresh from the police academy, three rookie cops are assigned to a precinct in East L.A.  Gus (Scott Wilson) is a father of three who just wants to do a good job and support his family.  Sergio (Erik Estrada) is a former gang member who saw the police academy as a way to get out of his old neighborhood, and Roy (Stacy Keach) is a new father who is going to law school at night.  Most of the movie centers on Roy, who goes from being an idealistic rookie to being a hardened veteran and who comes to love the job so much that he abandons law school and eventually loses his family.  Roy’s wife (Jane Alexander) comes to realize that Roy will never be able to relate to anyone other than his fellow cops.  Roy’s mentor is Andy Kilvinski (George C. Scott), a tough but warm-hearted survivor who has never been shot once and whose mandatory retirement is approaching.

Based on an autobiographical novel by real-life policeman Joseph Wambaugh, The New Centurion’s episodic structure allows the film to touch on all the issues, good and bad, that come with police work.  Gus is shaken after he accidentally shoots a civilian.  Sergio feels the burden of patrolling the streets on which he grew up.  Roy becomes a good cop but at the cost of everything else in his life and he deals with the stress by drinking.  There are moments of humor and moments of seriousness and then a tragic ending.  Just as Wambaugh’s book was acclaimed for its insight and its realistic portrayal of the pressures of being a policeman, the movie could have been one of the definitive portraits of being a street cop, except that it was directed in a workmanlike fashion by Richard Fleischer.  Instead of being the ultimate cop movie, The New Centurions feels more like an especially good episode of Police Story or Hill Street Blues.  (The New Centurions and Hill Street Blues both feature James B. Sikking as a pipe-smoking, martinet commander.)

George C. Scott, though.  What a great actor!  Scott only has a supporting role but he’s so good as Kilvinski that you miss him when he’s not around and, when he leaves, the movie gets a lot less interesting.  Scott makes Kilvinski the ultimate beat cop and he delivers the closest thing that The New Centurions has to a cohesive message.  A cop can leave the beat but the beat is never going to leave him.