Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 (1987, directed by Jeremy Kagan)

Posted on March 25, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

The year is 1969 and, in an Illinois courtroom, 8 political radicals stand accused of conspiring to disrupt the 1968 Democratic Convention. The prosecution is putting the entire anti-war movement on trial while the defendants are determined to disrupt the system, even if it means being convicted. The eight defendants come from all different sides of the anti-war movement. Jerry Rubin (Barry Miller) and Abbie Hoffman (Michael Lembeck) represent the intentionally absurd Yippies. Tom Hayden (Brian Benben) and Rennie Davis (Robert Carradine) are associated with the Students for a Democratic Society. Bobby Seale (Carl Lumbly) is one of the founders of the Black Panthers while David Dellinger (Peter Boyle) is a longtime peace activist. John Friones (David Kagan) and Lee Weiner (Robert Fieldsteel) represent the common activists, the people who traveled to Chicago to protest despite not being a leader of any of the various organizations. Prosecuting the Chicago 8 are Richard Schulz (David Clennon) and Tom Foran (Harris Yulin). Defending the 8 are two radical lawyers, Leonard Wienglass (Elliott Gould) and William Kunstler (Robert Loggia). Presiding over the trial is the fearsome and clearly biased Judge Julius Hoffman (David Opatoshu).

Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 is a dramatization of the same story that inspired Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 but, of the two films, it’s Jeremy Kagan’s The Trial of the Chicago 8 that provides a more valuable history lesson. By setting all of the action in the courtroom and recreating only what was said during the trial, director Jeremy Kagan and his cast avoid the contrived drama that marred so much of Sorkin’s film. Kagan trusts that the true story is interesting enough to stand on its own. Kagan includes documentary footage from the convention protest itself and also interviews with the people who were actually there. While Kagan may not have had the budget that Sorkin did, his film has the authenticity that Sorkin’s lacked. Kagan also has the better cast, with Michael Lembeck and Barry Miller both making Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin into something more than the mere caricatures that they are often portrayed as being.

The Trial of the Chicago 8 was a film that Jeremy Kagan spent a decade trying to make. When he first tried to sell the idea behind the film to CBS in 1976, Kagan had Marlon Brando, Walter Matthau, George C. Scott, and Dustin Hoffman all willing to work for scale and take part in the production. CBS still passed on the project, saying that no one was interested in reliving the 60s. It wasn’t until 1987 that Jeremy Kagan was finally able to revive the film, this time with HBO. It actually worked out for the best because, with HBO, there was no need to try to come up with a “clean” version for the language that was used in the courtroom or in the interviews with the actual participants. The defendants could be themselves.

Though it has been overshadowed by Sorkin’s subsequent film, The Trial of the Chicago 8 is the definitive film about what happened in the aftermath of the the 1968 Democratic Convention.

I Watched Coffee Shop (2014, dir. by Dave Alan Johnson)

Posted on March 25, 2022 by Dazzling Erin

Donavan (Laura Vandervoort) owns a coffee shop in a small town. Everyone loves her shop but she’s not making any money because she’s not a good manager and she lets her staff and her customers walk all over her. When Ben (Cory M. Grant) comes in the shop and tries to order tea, Donavan thinks that he’s the businessman who wants to buy her shop and turn it into a parking garage. She yells at him but then it turns out that he’s a playwright from New York who is just on vacation after his latest flop. Donavan and Ben fall in love but then the real businessman shows up and it looks like Donavan might lose her business. And then, on top of everything else, Donavan discovers that Ben is writing a play about her situation so she breaks up with him and tells him that he’s not welcome in her shop, even if he has the perfect plan to save it. Who thinks like that!? He’s so inspired by her and how much everyone in town loves her that he wants to immortalize her on stage. How is that a bad thing?

Even though this wasn’t made for Hallmark, it basically is a Hallmark film. There’s no profanity. There’s no sex. I don’t know why it was even rated PG. I liked the small town and the coffee shop looked like it would be a nice place to hang out. The story was too predictable and a lot of Donavan’s financial problem were due to her just being really bad at her job so I had a hard time feeling sorry for her. She should have let someone else run the coffee shop if she was that incompetent.

On a personal note: I’d like to own a coffee shop but I would want it to be located near a baseball stadium. Coffee and baseball is a combo I can get behind.

Scene I Love: Klaus Kinski in David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago

Posted on March 25, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1965 film, Doctor Zhivago, is not only notable as one of the many David Lean-directed films to be nominated for Best Picture. It’s also remembered as being one of two Best Picture nominees to feature, albeit in a small role, the madman of European cinema, Klaus Kinski.

In this scene, set in the aftermath of Russia’s communist revolution, Kinski explains why he, despite being a prisoner, is the only free man on the train. Due to his German accent, Kinski was dubbed by actor Robert Rietty and he doesn’t have much screen time but he still manages to steal the movie.

Guilty Pleasure No. 53: Happy Gilmore (dir by Dennis Dugan)

Posted on March 25, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Poor Shooter McGavin! As played by the great Christopher McDonald, Shooter McGavin is the often unacknowledged hero of the 1996 comedy classic, Happy Gilmore.

I know, I know. Most people will tell you that Shooter is actually the bad guy. He’s the snooty pro golfer who tries to keep aspiring hockey player-turned-golfer Happy Gilmore (Adam Sandler) from competing on the PGA tour. And it is true that he does allow himself to get consumed with jealousy over Happy’s popularity. And he does definitely cross the line when he buys and holds hostage the house where Happy’s grandmother has spent almost her entire life. (“She’s so old! Look at her! She’d old!” Happy exclaims at one point.) But try to look at it from Shooter’s point of view.

Shooter has spent years playing golf. He’s practiced. He’s paid his dues. He’s done what he had to do to earn his spot as America’s best golfer. And now, he finally has a chance to win his first championship. And what happens? A very loud hockey player shows up from out-of-nowhere and totally changes the sport. What really has to be galling is that Happy’s not even a good player. He can’t putt. He has no strategy. His only skill is the distance that he can hit the ball. And yet, despite all that, Happy becomes a media superstar. The only people willing to stand up to Happy and defend the honor of the game are Bob Barker and …. Shooter McGavin.

Really, Shooter doesn’t really start to go after Happy until Happy’s fans starts to purposefully antagonize him. Remember Happy’s ex-boss showing up to heckle Shooter even though he still had that nail in his head? Seriously that’s not right. I mean, who shows up to support the dude who put a nail in your head? Shooter McGavin had every reason to be concerned about that.

Despite the fact that Shooter was treated rather unfairly, Happy Gilmore is definitely a favorite of mine. I pretty much love the entire film, from Carl Weathers’s enjoyably demented performance as Happy’s mentor to the famous scene of Bob Barker beating Happy to a pulp. For those who only know Adam Sandler from his later, lazier comedies, Happy Gilmore will be a bit of a revelation because Sandler and the entire cast actually seem to be making an effort to make a good and funny comedy. The staid world of golf turns out to be the perfect foil for Sandler’s manchild antics. And for those who prefer Sandler when he’s playing serious roles, he actually does a pretty good job in Happy Gilmore’s few sincere moments. His scenes with his grandmother are actually rather sweet.

Happy Gilmore remains Sandler’s best comedy and it’s a personal favorite of mine. Every time I watch it, I laugh and that’s a good thing. I also like to think that Shooter and Happy eventually set aside their differences and got their own talk show on ESPN. They deserved it.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Insomnia File #53: A Nightmare on Drug Street (dir by Traci Wald Donat)

Posted on March 25, 2022 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 or Netflix? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you were having trouble getting to sleep last night, you could have gone over to YouTube and you could have done what I did when I was having trouble getting to sleep two nights ago. You could have watched the 1989 educational film, A Nightmare on Drug Street.

Clocking in at 39 minutes, A Nightmare on Drug Street opens with three people sitting in a dark room. Though the room seems ominous and the three people often appear to only be shadows, they turn out to to be friendly enough. (And no, Freddy Krueger is not among them. This is Drug Street, not Elm Street.)

“Hi, I’m Jill!” the one in the middle informs us. “I’m dead!”

Filipe, who is is sitting to left of and is a bit less perky than Jill, mentions that they’re all dead. Eddie, the youngest of the three, speaks up and mentions that he’s been dead for two days longer than Jill. They all have a good laugh about that. Jill says that she’s not sure where they are but she thinks that they’re supposed to think about their mistakes and to try to prevent other people their age from making the same mistakes.

“Jill,” I nearly shouted at the screen, “you’re in Purgatory! It’s not that complicated!”

Eddie complains as he realizes that he’s going to have to relive his story again. Jill laughs and says that Eddie is always complaining. Filipe does not laugh because he’s not in a particularly good mood and I don’t blame him. His Purgatory experience is obviously not turning out the way that he was hoping. It would appear that Filipe has gotten trapped on the boring side of Purgatory.

Anyway, we then see how each of them ended up dead. As you can probably guess from the title it all has to do with drugs.

For instance, after winning the big game, Filipe got both stoned and drunk and then decided that it would be a good idea to steal his brother’s car. Needless to say, it doesn’t take long until Filipe’s more intelligent friend is demanding to be let out of the car. It also doesn’t take long to hear the sound of an off-screen crash. Apparently, there wasn’t enough money in the budget to film a real crash.

Jill met a guy at a party and basically allowed herself to be talked into trying cocaine. As anyone who has ever seen a film like this can probably guess, Jill goes straight from doing that one line to stealing from her friends and selling a family heirloom so she can get more money for coke. Her family is disappointed in her. Her friends are angry with her. And her drug dealer keeps hitting on her. No wonder Jill eventually end up snorting too much.

And finally, Eddie, who is still in middle school, is handed a crack pipe by a friend. Soon, Eddie is getting high in the bathroom while his parents try to understand why his grades have gone down.

Interestingly enough, each story is narrated by a dead teen but not the teen that actually dies in the story. So, Jill tells Filipe’s story and makes fun of him for being geeky whenever he gets high. (Yeah, Jill, like you looked really cool with your bloodshot eyes and your red nose….) Eddie tells Jill’s story and manages to get through it without ridiculing her. Filipe tells Eddie’s story while wearing what appears to be a hospital gown. There’s actually a scene in Purgatory where the three of them debate who will tell each story. Do they automatically know the stories or is it just a case that they’re memorized them because there’s literally nothing else to talk about while in Purgatory? The film leaves that question unanswered, which is a shame.

(Speaking of unanswered questions, why are we even in Purgatory in the first place? The three narrators look directly at the viewer when they speak so I’m guess that I’m meant to have died as well. But if I’m already dead, what’s the point of warning me about drugs? Seriously, there’s a lot of unanswered questions in this film.)

Anyway, as for the film itself, it’s another well-intentioned but not quite successful attempt to make an anti-drug scare film. Like many anti-drug short films, A Nightmare on Drug Street suffers due to the fact that the characters are more interesting when they’re high than when they’re sober. The stories themselves often veer into melodrama though, to the film’s credit, it seems to at least be a bit self-aware when it comes to this. When Filipe jumps in his car, Jill says that she knows that we know what’s going to happen but she asks us to keep watching anyways. After being specifically asked to watch, you kind of feel like you have to.

For the most part, this film’s main worth is as a time capsule. It’s all about 80s fashion and 80s lingo. Breaking Bad fans will take note that Filipe is played by Raymond Cruz, who later played a fearsome drug dealer on the classic AMC series. I guess Filipe found his way out of Purgatory after all.

Previous Insomnia Files:

6 Classic Trailers For March 25th, 2022

Posted on March 25, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Since it’s Oscar week, it seems like a good idea to devote the latest edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film trailers to 6 classic films that received not a single Oscar nomination. That’s the way the Oscars are unfortunately. Sometimes, the best films are totally ignored.

For instance….

Chappaqua (1967)

1967 was a great year for the movie so perhaps it’s understandable that the Academy somehow overlooked Chappaqua. Still, this film was far more deserving a nomination than Doctor Doolittle.

2. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1971)

Valley of the Dolls received an Oscar nominations for its score. However, it’s unofficial sequel didn’t even receive that. Not a single nomination went to Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, not even Best Original Song. In 1970, the Academy just wasn’t ready.

3. Coffy (1973)

Ellen Burstyn certainly deserved the Oscar for Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore but still, how could the Academy not nominate Pam Grier for her work in Coffy?

4. Dawn of the Dead (1978)

The Academy will probably never embrace the zombie genre. They certainly weren’t prepared to do so in 1978. That said, it’s way past time to give Tom Savini an honorary award.

5. The Warriors (1979)

The Warriors is another classic that went unnominated. Not even the music got a nomination. David Patrick Kelly was totally snubbed. The Baseball Furies should have been sitting in front row on Oscar night. It’s a true shame.

6. Death Wish 3 (1985)

Give the Giggler an Oscar!

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special David Lean Edition

Posted on March 25, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Today, we celebrate the birth and the legacy of the great British director, David Lean! He was born 114 years ago today and went on to become one of the most important and influential directors of all time. Lawrence of Arabia is still held up as one of the best adventure films ever made. My personal favorite Lean film remains Brief Encounter. Here are….

4 Shots from 4 David Lean Films

Brief Encounter (1945, dir by David Lean, DP: Robert Krasker)

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, dir by David Lean, DP: Jack Hildyard)

Lawrence of Arabia (1962, dir by David Lean, DP: Freddie A. Young)

Doctor Zhivago (1965, dir by David Lean, DP: Freddie A. Young)

The Great Outdoors (1988, directed by Howard Deutch)

Posted on March 24, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

Chet Ripley (John Candy) wants to have a nice vacation up at the lake with his wife (Stephanie Faracy) and their two sons, Buck (Chris Young) and Ben (Ian Giatti). Unfortunately, no sooner has he arrived than the vacation is crashed by Chet’s sister-in-law (Annette Bening, making her film debut) and her husband, Roman (Dan Aykroyd). Roman represents everything that that the mild-mannered Chet hates. Roman is loud, obnoxious, and obsessed with showing off his wealth. Roman knows nothing about how to survive in the great outdoors and he treats Chet like he’s a loser but, for the sake of giving his family a good vacation, Chet tries to get along with Roman. At first, it doesn’t work but eventually, Chet and Roman have to team up to find Roman’s daughters and deal with not only a bear but also talking raccoons. Meanwhile, Buck falls in love with local girl, Cammie (Lucy Deakins). I imagine the same can be said of a lot of people who caught this film on HBO when they were twelve.

The Great Outdoors is very much a comedy of the late 80s. Roman may be a crass Yuppie but it doesn’t appear that Chet is suffering financially either. The humor is broad and physical but the film never resorts to the gross-out style that has since come to define cinematic comedy. It’s a film that makes fun of the obligations of family life while also celebrating them and you won’t be shocked to learn that the script was written by John Hughes. John Candy is likable and Dan Aykroyd has a demented twinkle in his eye.

It’s not a bad movie but I just wish it had been funnier. Don’t get me wrong. When you’re a kid and you come across The Great Outdoors on cable, it’s hilarious because it’s got John Candy waterskiing and a bear and, of course, the talking raccoons. Watching it as an adult, though, it’s easier to see just how much the material and the film’s family-safe approach holds back both Candy and especially Aykroyd. Both of them were capable of being wild comedic performance but, in The Great Outdoors, the movie doesn’t let either one of them really go crazy and that’s too bad. Instead of being a showcase for the best of SNL and SCTV, it becomes an amusing but ultimately very safe family comedy. (Arguably, Hollywood never really figured out the best way to use Candy and Aykroyd’s comedic talents, though Candy’s films before his untimely death suggested that he was on the verge of a genuine breakthrough.)

I did laugh when I rewatched The Great Outdoors but I didn’t laugh as much as I did when I was a kid. Now, I feel old and I’m thinking about how unfortunate it is that John Candy died before production could start on the biopic of Fatty Arbuckle that Candy was tentatively set to star in. Much like Phil Hartman, it’s hard to watch John Candy today without thinking about how he was taken when he was on the verge of probably doing what would have been his best work.

Time to cheer myself up with What About Bob?

Montana Incident (1952, directed by Lewis D. Collins)

Posted on March 23, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

Whip Wilson (played, in a fortunate coincidence, by Whip Wilson) and his partner, Dave Conners (Rand Brooks) work for the railroad company as surveyors in the old west. They’ve come to the town of Martinville to convince the citizens that the town would benefit from having a train station. Mostly, they just want to go to the saloon, have a beer, and flirt with the local gals.

Albert Hawkins (WIlliam Fawcett) is the leader of the local homesteaders and he’s all for bringing the railroad to town. Land baron Max Martin (Hugh Prosser) disagrees. Martin is not really a bad person but his daughter, Clara (Peggy Stewart), is a greedy fanatic who doesn’t want to lose the water rights to the land. With her boyfriend, outlaw Arnold Benson (Bruce Edwards), Clara rules the town with an iron fist. Whip and Dave must defeat Arnold and Clara so that progress can come to the frontier.

Montana Incident is a standard western programmer but it is distinguished by having an evil female land baron instead of the usual male land baron. Stewart tears into the world, proving that she can be just as dangerous as any man. Fans of the old Adventures of Superman TV show will immediately recognize Noel Neill, playing the role of Clara’s much nicer sister.

If you’re a fan of B-westerns, Montana Incident is watchable enough. Wilson and Brooks are bland heroes but Peggy Stewart is so good at being evil that she makes the movie worth watching.