The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Far From Home (dir by Meiert Avis)

Posted on October 1, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

There are several lessons that can be learned from watching horror films. One that is often overlooked is the importance of staying out of trailer parks. Seriously, I have lost track of how many horror films have taken place within the confines of a trailer park. Once you see someone surrounded by RVs and mobile homes, you know that they’re probably doomed.

Take 1989’s Far From Home, for instance.

Far From Home is set in perhaps the sleaziest trailer park in America. This place sits in the middle of the Nevada desert and is run by chain-smoking Agnes Reed (Susan Tyrrell), who has a voice like a bullfrog, a daughter (Stephanie Walski) who is obsessed with watching TV and eating fishsticks, and a delinquent teenage son named Jimmy (Andras Jones).

The only law is provided by Sheriff Bill Childers (Dick Miller), who has a squad car but apparently no deputies. Childers is gruff but not that bad of a guy once you get to know him. However, he’s also played by Dick Miller and we all know better than to depend on Dick Miller to maintain the peace.

There’s a gas station nearby. A mellow Vietnam vet named Duckett (Richard Masur) owns it. Duckett is always willing to be helpful but he rarely has any gas. This is one of those small towns where the gas truck apparently only rolls in every two months or so. Still, Duckett’s a nice guy and he’s full of stories about how the government used to do atomic bomb tests in the surrounding desert.

(The scenes where Duckett drives around the desert feel somewhat out of place but they’re still enjoyable, due to Masur’s eccentric performance.)

Living in the trailer park, there’s a lot of odd people. Some of them are permanent residents while some of them are just temporarily stranded. 14 year-old Pinky (Anthony Rapp, who would go on to appear in Dazed and Confused and Rent) lives with his mother and is a permanent resident. His mother is rarely seen, though occasionally she can be glimpsed through a window, propped up in front of the TV. Pinky says that, when he was a kid, he and Jimmy were best friends. But now, Jimmy and Pinky are enemies.

And then there’s Amy (Jennifer Tilly) and Louise (Karen Austin), who are just waiting for enough gas to come in to be able to get Amy’s car to start running again. Louise is intelligent and responsible. Amy is flighty and undependable. As soon as one of them accidentally pulls the handle off the driver’s side door, you just know one of them is going to end up getting trapped in that car at a bad moment.

When Far From Home opens, two newcomers have moved into the trailer park. Writer, divorced father, and self-described “former angry young man” Charlie Cox (Matt Frewer) has just spent a month with his 13 year-old daughter, Joleen (Drew Barrymore, who was 14 when she made Far From Home). It hasn’t exactly been a great vacation and it doesn’t get any better when Charlie’s car runs out of gas. Joleen is about to turn fourteen and she doesn’t want to spend her birthday in a crummy trailer park with her incredibly dorky dad.

However, both Jimmy and Pinky are happy that Joleen will be spending at least a day or two at the trailer park. At first, Joleen crushes on Jimmy and then, after Jimmy reveals himself to be aggressive and unstable, she crushes on Pinky, who protects her from Jimmy. One of the two boys is so obsessed with Joleen that he is willing to commit murder to keep her from leaving the trailer park. But which one?

(It’s actually pretty obvious but you probably already guessed that.)

Far From Home is a film about which I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, the movie’s totally predictable. Characters do dumb things for no real reason beyond needing to move the plot forward. Charlie’s parenting abilities change drastically from scene to scene. A traumatized character goes from catatonic to recovered to catatonic again with no real explanation.

One of my main issues with the film is that there’s no real surprise about who the killer turns out to be. Even worse, once the killer’s identity is revealed, the killer suddenly turns into one of those psychos who can come up with a dozen one-liners while trying to kill someone. I mean, seriously, who does that? Are movie psychos required to take a year’s worth of improv clubs and do an apprenticeship with the Upright Citizens Brigade before they’re allowed to pick up a knife? If I was the type to commit murder (and I’m not but let’s just say that I was), I would be too busy trying to make sure everyone was dead to be witty. I’d save the jokes until I was safely on a beach somewhere, drinking pink lemonade and keeping an eye out for Ben Gardner’s boat. That’s just me, I guess.

And yet, there’s a part of me that really likes this stupid, stupid movie. It’s a surprisingly well-directed film, full of artfully composed shots. The trailer park really does take on a life of its own and the film also makes good use of a nearby abandoned apartment building. It’s a great location and, occasionally, it lends the film a dash of surrealism. (Of course, I guess you could legitimately ask who would build an apartment complex in the middle of the desert, especially one that’s still humming with radiation from the Atomic bomb tests, but let’s not.) Richard Masur, Dick Miller, and Susan Tyrrell all give good performances. For that matter, the same is true of Anthony Rapp and Andras Jones. Neither Rapp nor Jones are to blame for the fact that they were let down by a weak script.

Though I doubt either one of them would describe Far From Home as being their proudest cinematic achievement, Matt Frewer and Drew Barrymore are totally believable as father and daughter. In the end, that’s why I like this movie. Whenever I’ve watched Far From Home, I’ve always been able to relate to Joleen. When I was thirteen, I basically was Joleen.

Fortunately, though, I was never found myself stranded in a trailer park full of homicidal maniacs.

I guess I just got lucky that way.

Back to School Part II #23: Adventures in Babysitting (dir by Chris Columbus)

Posted on September 6, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

One unfortunate thing about both being the youngest of four and having a teenage reputation for being a little out of control is that I never got a chance to be a babysitter. Whenever my mom wasn’t around, my older sisters were in charge. When I was technically old enough to look after other children, nobody was willing to trust me with them. So, I missed out on babysitting and…

Well, to be honest, that never really bothered me. I was too busy either having too much fun or no fun at all to worry about any of that. But maybe I should have because, whenever I watch the 1987 film Adventures in Babysitting, I’m always left convinced that I could have been a kickass babysitter. Seriously, if Elisabeth Shue could still get babysitting jobs even after taking the kids into downtown Chicago and nearly getting them killed, then anyone could do it!

In Adventures in Babysitting, Chris Parker (Elisabeth Shue) is a responsible 17 year-old who lives in the suburbs of Chicago. (As anyone who seen The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off can tell you, being a teenager in 1980s meant living in Illinois.) When we first meet Chris, she’s getting ready for her anniversary date with her boyfriend, Mike Todwell (Bradley Whitford, years before achieving fame by playing assorted pompous jerks in assorted Aaron Sorkin productions) and she’s dancing around her bedroom. There’s an important lesson to be learned from the opening of Adventures in Babysitting: if you want me to relate to a character, introduce her while she’s dancing in her bedroom. Seriously, though, the whole film succeeds because of that opening bedroom dance. Chris is instantly likable and relatable. You want to see her succeed and achieve what she wants.

So, of course, we’re all disappointed when Mike shows up and breaks his date with Chris. That said, as upset as Chris may be, she’s still willing to take the time to try to talk her friend Brenda (Penelope Ann Miller) out of trying to poison her stepmother with Drano. That’s a true friend.

With nothing else to do, Chris ends up taking a babysitting job. She has been tasked to look after 8 year-old Sara Anderson (Maia Brewton) and Sara’s brother, 15 year-old Brad (Keith Coogan). Sara is a bit of a brat, though she’s also generally well-meaning and is obsessed with comic books (Thor, in particular). Brad is likable but dorky. He has a huge crush on Chris and even turns down a chance to spend the night at a friend’s, just so he can be around her.

Brad’s friend, incidentally, is Daryl (Anthony Rapp, who would later play Tony in Dazed and Confused and who starred in the original Broadway production of Rent). Daryl is a hyperactive perv who is obsessed with Chris because she resembles the centerfold in one of his dad’s Playboys. Daryl decides that, if his friend Brad can’t visit him, then maybe he should visit Brad!

However, Chris has more to worry about than just looking after Sara, Brad, and Daryl. Brenda has attempted to run away from home and now she’s stuck in a downtown bus station! Her glasses have been stolen and, as a result, Brenda is doing things like picking up a giant rat and calling it a kitten. Brenda uses her last bit of money to call Chris and beg her to come pick her up.

(Of course, none of this would happen today. Brenda wouldn’t have to use a pay phone to call Chris and she could just call Uber to get a ride home.)

So, Chris and the kids drive into Chicago and, needless to say, things quickly fall apart. They get a flat tire on the expressway. Chris panics when she discovers that not only does she not have a spare tire but she also left her purse back at the house. They are briefly helped by a one-handed truck driver named Handsome John Pruitt (John Ford Noonan) but then Pruitt discovers that his wife is cheating on him and takes a detour so he can catch her in the act and, of course, this leads to Chris and the kids being kidnapped by a helpful car thief. Soon, they’re being chased through Chicago by the Mafia and…

Well, it gets rather complicated but that’s kind of the appeal of the film. The film starts out as a fairly realistic, John Hughes-style teen comedy and then it gets progressively crazier and crazier. Downtown Chicago turns out to be a rather cartoonish place, one where one disaster follows after another. (To be honest, if Adventures in Babysitting was released today, it would probably inspire a hundred increasingly tedious Salon think pieces on white privilege. Bleh!) But, regardless of how silly some of the adventures may get, Adventures in Babysitting remains grounded because of the good and likable performances and a script that is full of witty and quotable dialogue.

It’s an entertaining movie and it’s one of those films that always seems to be either on Showtime or Encore. If you’re sad, watch it and be prepared to be massively cheered up!

(Avoid the Disney Channel remake.)

Back to School #49: Dazed and Confused (dir by Richard Linklater)

Posted on September 12, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh my God, I love this freaking movie.

First released in 1993, Dazed and Confused is a classic Texas film. Taking place in 1976 and following a large and varied group of characters over the course of the last day of school, Dazed and Confused is like American Graffiti with a lot more weed. In many ways, it’s a plotless film, though things do happen. The students of Lee High School survive one final day of school before the start of summer. (Interestingly enough, most of the characters here are incoming seniors and freshman, as opposed to the confused graduates who usually show up in films like this. This may lower the stakes — none of the students are worrying about whether or not to go to college or anything like that — but it also gives the film a fun and laid back vibe.) The incoming freshman are all hazed by the incoming seniors. For the girls, this means being covered in ketchup and mustard and being forced to ask the seniors to marry them. For the boys, the hazing is a lot more violent and disturbing as they are chased through the streets by paddle-wielding jocks. A party is planned and then abruptly canceled when the kegs of beer are delivered before the parents leave town. Another party is held out in the woods. A high school quarterback tries to decide whether or not to sign an anti-drug pledge.

No, not much happens but then again, plot is overrated. Dazed and Confused is not about plot. It’s about capturing a specific time and place and showing how different individuals define themselves within their environment. It’s one of the best high school films ever made, perhaps the best.

Why do I so love Dazed and Confused? Let me count the ways.

First off, it’s a true Texas film. This isn’t just because it was directed by Texas’s greatest filmmaker, Richard Linklater. It was also filmed in Texas, it’s full of Texas actors, and, as a native Texan, I can tell you that it’s one of the few films that gets my homestate right. Even though the film takes place long before I was even born, there were still so many details that I recognized as being unique to Texas today. I guess the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Perhaps the most Texas scene in the entire film was when quarterback Randy Floyd (Jason London) was talking to the old couple at the minor league baseball game. Both the old man’s obsessive interest in the high school football team (“We’re countin’ on you boys next year…”) and Randy’s patiently polite answers, were, to me, the epitome of Texas. And, of course, we can’t forget the store clerk advising the pregnant woman to eat a lot of “green things” while selling her a pack of cigarettes and the guy who reacts to the destruction of his mailbox by running around with a gun. I suspect I might live a few blocks away from both of those guys.

But, beyond that, just the entire film’s laid back atmosphere epitomized everything that I love about my state.

Secondly, Dazed and Confused is an amateur historian’s dream! Richard Linklater went to high school in the 70s and he recreates the decade with a lot of obvious care and love. (It’s also somewhat obvious that both the characters of Randy and incoming freshman Mitch (Wiley Wiggins) are meant to be autobiographical.) Now, me, I’ve always been obsessive about history and I’ve always somewhat regretted that I was born long after the 70s ended. Dazed and Confused is probably about as close as someone like me will ever get to having a time machine.

I’m also something a political history junkie so how excited was I to see that, during one scene, all of the candidates for the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination were listed on a bulletin board. How many other movies have featured a reference to the Fred Harris presidential campaign? Admittedly, I know nothing about that campaign. I just think it’s neat that somebody with as common a name as Fred Harris once ran for President.

Finally, if you look really carefully, you’ll notice that Lee High School is located right next to a movie theater that, according to its marquee, is showing Family Plot, Alfred Hitchcock’s final film. Just imagine the fun that I could have had going to Lee High. I could have skipped school and gone to a movie!

Third, this film has a great soundtrack! The low rider gets a little higher … hey, I think there’s a double meaning there…

But, really, the main reason I love this film is because I love great ensemble work and Dazed and Confused has a wonderful cast. Some members of the cast went on to become famous and some did not, but all of them give great performances. In fact, the entire cast is so great that it’s difficult to know who to single out so I’m just going to name a few of my favorites.

First off, there’s the jocks. Some of them, like Jason London’s Randy “Pink” Floyd are surprisingly sensitive. Some of them, like Don Dawson (Sasha Jenson), remind me of the type of guys that I, despite my better judgment, would have totally been crushing on back in high school. And then the others are just scary, running around with their cars full of beer and obsessively paddling freshman. Benny (Cole Hauser), for instance, really does seem like he has some issues. (Perhaps it’s because he lives in Texas but still has such a strong Boston accent…)

However, the scariest of the jocks is, without a doubt, Fred O’Bannion (Ben Affleck). A complete and total moron who has actually managed to fail his senior year, (“He’s a joke,” says Randy, “but he’s not a bad guy to have blocking for you…”) O’Bannion is such a total idiot that, not only is it fun to see him eventually get humiliated, but it’s even more fun to watch him and think, “That’s Ben Affleck!” And, it must be said, Affleck is totally convincing playing a complete and total dumbass. That’s not meant to be an insult, by the way. Future multiple-Oscar winner Affleck does a really good job.

And then there’s the three self-styled intellectuals, Tony (Anthony Rapp), Mike (Adam Goldberg), and red-headed Cynthia (Marissa Ribisi), who spend the whole day driving around and discussing what it all means. These are actually three of my favorite characters in the entire film, just because I’ve known (and, I must admit, loved) the type. Plus, Cynthia has red hair and we redheads have to stay united!

There’s the two incoming freshman who get to spend a night hanging out with the older kids — Mitch (Wiley Wiggins) and Sabrina (Christin Hinojosa). Mitch is adorable while Sabrina gets to ask Tony to marry her. Of course, Sabrina is covered in ketchup, mustard, and flour at the time. (“She probably looks really good once you get all the shit off her,” Mike offers.)

And, of course, you can’t forget Wooderson (Matthew McConaughey). In many ways, Wooderson is a truly creepy character. He’s the older guy who still hangs out with the high school kids. When he asks Mitch what the incoming freshman girls look like, you get the disturbing feeling that he’s not joking. (“I get older but they stay the same age,” Wooderson says about his underage girlfriends, “yes, they do.”) And yet McConaughey gives such a charismatic performance that Wooderson becomes the heart and soul of the entire film. In the end, you’re happy that Randy has a friend like Wooderson.

And there’s so many other characters that I love. There’s the hilarious stoner Slater (Rory Cochrane). There’s Mitch’s older sister, Jodi (Michelle Burke), who is the type of cool older sister that I would have liked to have been if I actually had a brother and wasn’t the youngest of four. There’s Randy’s girlfriend, Simone (Joey Lauren Adams) and Don’s occasional girlfriend, Shavonne (Deena Martin) who, at one point, refers to Don as being “Mr. Premature Ejaculation.” Even the characters that you’re supposed to hate are so well-played and so well-written that it’s a pleasure to see them. Parker Posey is hilarious as head mean girl Darla. In the role of car-obsessed Clint, Nicky Katt is dangerously hot — even if he does eventually end up kicking Mike’s ass. (“You wouldn’t say I got my ass kicked, would you?” Mike says. Sorry, sweetie, you did. But everyone watching the movie totally loved you!)

(And let’s not forget that future Oscar winner Renee Zellweger shows up for a split-second, walking past Wooderson during his “that’s why I love high school girls” monologue.)

Dazed and Confused is a great film. If you haven’t seen it, see it. And if you have seen it, see it again.

Back to School #47: School Ties (dir by Robert Mandel)

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the past two and a half weeks, we’ve been reviewing 80 of the best, worst, most memorable, and most forgettable high school films ever made. We’ve been going in chronological order, starting with two films from 1946 and then working our way through the years that followed. After 46 reviews, we are now ready to enter the 1990s.

And what better way to kick off the 90s than by taking a look at a film from 1992 that very few people seem to have ever heard of?

School Ties takes place in the 1950s, which of course means that everyone dresses like either James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause or Troy Donaue in A Summer Place. It also means that the soundtrack is full of the same songs that tend to turn up in every film about the 1950s. David Greene (Brendan Fraser) is a working-class teen from Pennsylvania* who wins a football scholarship to attend an exclusive prep school in Massachusetts. At first, David struggles to fit in. Not only are all of his classmates rich but they’re also extremely anti-Semitic. However, David wins them over by playing hard on the football field and hiding the fact that he’s Jewish. However, when the jealous Charlie Dillon (Matt Damon) discovers that David is a Jew, he reveals his secret and David is forced to confront his prejudiced classmates.

School Ties is one of those extremely well-intentioned films that’s never quite as good as you might hope. With the exception of David and Charlie, the characters are all pretty thinly drawn and there’s more than a few subplots that really don’t really work. For instance, Zeljko Ivanek shows up playing a sadistic French teacher who harasses one of Fraser’s friends (played by Andrew Lowery) and, as I watched Ivanek drive Lowery to the point of a nervous breakdown over proper verb conjugation, it occurred to me that I knew Ivanek was evil as soon as he showed up wearing his little bow tie and his beret. (It’s also interesting how French teachers are always evil in films like this.)

That said, the message of School Ties is still a timely one. On the surface, the message of “Don’t be an intolerant, prejudiced prick,” might seem pretty simplistic and self-explanatory. However, every day we’re confronted with evidence that there are still people out there who don’t understand this simple concept. As such, it’s a message that can stand being repeated a few times.

(Seriously, don’t be an intolerant, prejudiced prick.)

When seen today, School Ties is mostly interesting for who appears in it. For instance, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Cole Hauser all show up here, 5 years before they would all co-star in Good Will Hunting. One of the anti-Semitic students is played by Anthony Rapp who, a year later, would appear with Affleck and Hauser in Dazed and Confused. Fraser’s sympathetic roommate is played by Chris O’Donnell. As for Brendan Fraser himself, it’s a bit odd to see him playing such a dramatic role but he’s convincing and believable as a football player. It’s a good-looking cast and yes, you better believe that there’s a fight scene that takes place in a shower. If you’ve ever wanted to see Brendan Fraser and Matt Damon wrestling each other while naked — well, this is the film to see.

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* Interestingly enough, David’s family lives in Scranton, Pennsylvania so I guess David could very well have gone to elementary school with Joe Biden and he may have family working at Dunder-Mifflin.