Tag Archives: Bill Paxton

Stripes (1981, directed by Ivan Reitman)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Bill Murray and Harold Ramis join the army.

Wait, that can’t be right, can it?  Bill Murray and Harold Ramis were cinematic anarchists.  Early in his career, Bill Murray was the ultimate smart aleck slacker who did not have any respect for authority.  Harold Ramis was hardly a slacker but he came across as someone more likely to be marching on the Pentagon than guarding it.  Stripes is one of the ultimate examples of a comedy where the laughs come from things  that don’t seem to go together suddenly going together.

John Winger (Murray) at least has a reason to join the army.  He has a dead end job.  He has just broken up with his girlfriend.  The country appears to be at peace so why not spend four years in the Army?  It’s harder to understand why John’s friend, Russell (Ramis), also decides to enlist, other than to hang out with John.  Along with Ox (John Candy), Cruiser (John Diehl), Psycho (Conrad Dunn), and Elm0 (Judge Reinhold), they enlist and go through basic training under the watchful eye of Sgt. Hulka (Warren Oates).  John and Russell go from treating everything like a joke to invading East Germany in a tank that’s disguised as an RV.  They also meet the two sexiest and friendliest MPs in the service, Stella (P.J. Soles) and Louise (Sean Young).  Russell goes from being an proto-hippie who teaches ESL to asking John if he thinks he would make a good officer.  John goes from not taking anything seriously to picking up a machine gun and rescuing his fellow soldiers.

It’s a comedy that shouldn’t work but it does.  It’s actually one of my favorite comedies, full of memorable lines (“Lighten up, Frances.”), and stupidly funny situations.  The cast is full of future comedy legends and P.J. Soles shows that she deserved to be a bigger star.  This was early in Bill Murray’s film career and he was still largely getting by on his SNL persona but, in his confrontations with Hulka, Murray got a chance to show that he could handle drama.  With all the comedic talent in the film, it’s Warren Oates who gets the biggest laughs because he largely plays his role straight.  Sgt. Hulka is a drill sergeant who cares about his men and who knows how to inspire and teach  but that doesn’t mean he’s happy about having to deal with a collection of misfits.  (Watch his face when Cruiser says he enlisted so he wouldn’t get drafted.)

The movie does get strange when the action goes from the U.S. to Germany.  What starts out as Animal-House-In-The-Army instead becomes an almost straight action movie and the movie itself sometimes feels like a recruiting video.  Join the Army and maybe you’ll get to steal an RV with PJ Soles.  That would have been enough to get me to enlist back in the day.  But the combination of Murray, Ramis, and Oates makes Stripes a comedy that can be watched over and over again.

Live Tweet Alert: Watch Mortuary With #ScarySocial!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, for #ScarySocial, I will be hosting 1982’s Mortuary, starring Bill Paxton!

If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag!  The film is available on Prime and Tubi!  I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well.  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy!

 

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 3.10 “Streetwise”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, Bill Paxton and Wesley Snipes walk the streets of Miami!

Episode 3.10 “Streetwise”

(Dir by Fred Walton, originally aired on December 5th, 1986)

I was excited to see that this week’s episode of Miami Vice featured guest turns from not only Wesley Snipes but Bill Paxton as well!  Then I remembered that guest stars never survive their episode and I felt a little bit sad.  I know what was coming.  Miami Vice is not a show that features happy endings.  Anyone who gets involved in Miami’s vice trade is destined to end up dead, regardless of how innocent or guilty they may be.  It’s a dark world in Miami.

Paxton plays Vic Romano, a vice cop from a neighboring precinct who is arrested during a prostitution bust.  Romano has been having an affair with Carla Cappoletti (Alice Adair), an emotionally fragile prostitute who is abused by both her pimp, Silk (Wesley Snipes), and almost all of her clients.  She knows that Vic is a cop and Vic knows that she’s a prostitute but neither one of them cares.  As Vic puts it, they’re in love.

The Vice Squad is shocked to find that Carla is carrying cocaine that is almost totally pure.  Trying to track down who is supplying Silk with the cocaine, the squad discovers that neither Carla nor Vic want to cooperate.  While Vic tries to explain things to his wife, Tubbs goes undercover as a pimp.  He bails Carla out of jail and tells her that she works for him now.  When Silk shows up to object, Tubbs easily beats him up.  Silk may talk tough but, without a gun to back him up, he’s not much of a fighter.

When Tubbs demands that Carla go to Silk and find out where he’s been getting his cocaine from, Carla refuses.  Tubbs, still pretending to be a pimp, proceeds to yell at her and tear up a hotel room.  A sobbing Carla begs Tubbs not to hurt her “too much,” and Tubbs realizes that he’s gone too far in trying to maintain his cover.  He shows Carla his badge.  It’s always kind of easy to laugh at the way that Tubbs trots out his fake Caribbean accent whenever he’s pretends to be Rico Cooper but Thomas does a really good job in this episode and he is genuinely frightening when he starts yelling at Carla.  I found myself wondering just how far Tubbs actually would go to maintain his cover and I was actually relieved when he pulled out that badge.

It ends, as things often do with this show, in a shootout.  Silk is gunned down by Crockett and Tubbs but not before Romano is shot by Silk.  Romano dies in Carla’s arms and I felt a little teary-eyed.  Bill Paxton was a wonderful actor and he gave a likable and sincere performance as Vic Romano.  Watching the episode, I never once doubted Romano’s love for Carla.  Both Snipes and Paxton were well-cast as their doomed characters.  Neither one survived the hour but I doubt anyone who watched the show ever forgot them.

Scenes I Love: Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt In Twister

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Bill Paxton would have been 69 years old today.  As a lover of both films and eccentric Texans, I still miss Bill Paxton.

Today’s scene that I love comes from Twister and it features Bill Paxton showing off some wonderful chemistry with Helen Hunt.  One of the great things about Bill Paxton is that he was equally at home in both big blockbusters like Twister and Titanic and low-budget indies like Near Dark.  He was an artist who also happened to be a star.

Horror on TV: The Hitchhiker 4.9 “Made For Each Other” (dir by Thomas Baum)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“What does it take to light a madman’s fuse? Just a twinkle in a young girl’s eye?” The Hitchhiker (Page Fletcher) asks us.  “If the hunger for love can drive a man to murder, well… that’s when a fellow really needs a friend.”

Tonight, on The Hitchhiker, two dangerous men form a combustible friendship.  Trout (Bill Paxton) is wild and loud and rambunctious.  Wax (Bud Cort) is a nerdy and mild-mannered serial killer.  Trout and Wax bond and become unlikely friends but that friendship is threatened when they pick up a sex worker named Sunny (Jonelle Allen).

This episode, featuring excellent performances from Bill Paxton and Bud Cort, originally aired on April 14th, 1987.

Music Video of the Day: Shadows of the Night by Pat Benatar (1983, directed by Mark Robinson)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Today’s music video of the day features Pet Benatar as a Rosie the Riveter-type of character, working in a factory during World War II and having fantasies about being a flying ace.  Judge Reinhold appears as a pilot while the much missed Bill Paxton plays an enemy radio operators.  Interestingly, this video was filmed before either one of the two men became well-known.  Reinhold had just starred in Fast Times at Ridgemont High but he wouldn’t play his best-known role, as Detective Billy Rosewood in Beverly Hills Cops, until a year after this video came out.  At the same time that Reinhold was trading quips with Eddie Murphy, Bill Paxton was playing an ill-fated street punk in The Terminator.

Pat Benatar was not actually the first artist to record this song.  The song was originally written by D.L. Byron in 1980 for a film called Times Square but it was rejected by both the filmmakers and Byron’s record label.  The song was subsequently recorded by both Helen Schneider and Rachel Sweet before Benatar did her version.  Of course, Benatar’s recording is the best known, climbing up to the third sport on the charts and inspiring even more artists to cover the original song.

If you’ve ever stolen a car in Los Santos, there’s a good chance you’ve heard Shadows of the Night on the radio.

Enjoy!

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Bill Paxton Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 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!

Bill Paxton would have been 65 years old today.  One of the greatest of the modern character actors, Bill Paxton passed away three years ago and the loss is still felt.  Paxton was one of those actors who was often taken for granted but who was capable of bring almost any character to life.  He was an exciting actor to watch, not to mention being one of the best actor to ever come out of Ft. Worth, Texas.  He is definitely missed.

Today, we pay tribute to the great Bill Paxton with….

4 Shots From 4 Films

Near Dark (1987, dir by Kathryn Bigelow)

Pass the Ammo (1988, dir by David Beaird)

A Simple Plan (1998, dir by Sam Raimi)

Frailty (2001, dir by Bill Paxton)

Horror Film Review: Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (by William Asher)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This is an unexpectedly odd psychological thriller from 1981.

Okay, well, actually, I guess the technical term for this film would be “slasher” because it does feature a dark secret from the past and a series of gruesome murders and some 20-something teenagers getting naked.  That said, calling this movie a slasher brings to mind thoughts of Friday the 13th and Halloween and, as much as I’ve defended those films in the past, it’s hard to compare them to a film like Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker.  Nor is the film comparable to more giallo-influenced slashers that came out in the late 70s and the early 80s.  The identity of the murderer is revealed too early for that.

The murderer is Cheryl Roberts (Susan Tyrrell), who may seem like a perfectly normal suburban widow but who has some bad habits.  For instance, when she’s sexually rejected by television repairman Phil Brody (Caskey Swaim), she reacts by grabbing a knife and stabbing him to death in the kitchen.  When the police arrive, she says that he attempted to rape her.  When it’s later revealed to her that Phil was gay and in a committed relationship with the local high school basketball coach, she snaps that “Homosexuals are very sick people!”  Cheryl goes on to murder several more people, all because she views them as a threat to her relationship with her nephew, Billy (Jimmy McNichol).

Billy is a senior in high school.  His parents died in a mysterious car crash when he was an infant and he’s been raised by his aunt Cheryl.  Billy has an opportunity to go away to college on a basketball scholarship but Cheryl isn’t happy about that.  Cheryl never wants Billy to leave and she’s not above drugging his milk to make sure that he has a bad game while the college scouts are watching.  Cheryl is also not happy that Billy has a girlfriend, Julia (Julia Duffy).  When she finds out that Billy and Julie are sexually active, Cheryl’s response is to trap Julia in the basement.

Aunt Cheryl is not Billy’s only problem.  There’s also Detective Joe Carlson (Bo Svenson).  Carlson has been assigned to investigate the murder of Phil and he quickly becomes fixated on the fact that Phil was gay and that he was in a relationship with Billy’s coach, Tom Landers (Steve Eastin).  Despite all of the evidence that Cheryl’s killing people left and right, Carlson becomes obsessed with proving that Billy’s gay and that he murdered Phil as the result of a love triangle.  It quickly becomes clear that Carlson, who brags about his own military service, is incapable of going for more than five minutes without accusing someone of being gay.  (Of course, Carlson never says “gay.” Instead, he uses a slur that begins with the letter F and he uses it a lot.)

What sets this film apart from other horror films of the era is that the rampant homophobia is not played for laughs or for shock value.  Traditionally, being gay in a 1980s horror film meant that the character was either going to be held up as an object of ridicule or, in many cases, turn out to be the murderer.  Instead, in Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker, the gay characters are literally the only fully sympathetic people in the entire film.  Instead, the film’s villains are homophobes like Carlson, Cheryl, and Eddie (Bill Paxton!), a bully who gives Billy a hard time over his friendship with the coach.  As many people as Cheryl kills over the course of the film, the bigger monster is Carlson, who is so determined to indulge his prejudices that he’s blind to everything that’s happening in front of him.

It makes for an unexpectedly thoughtful slasher film.  Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker has its flaws, to be sure.  I wish, for instance, that Julia and Billy weren’t such bland characters.  (They’re well-acted but neither is written with much depth.)  There’s some pacing issues as well.  But overall, this is an unexpectedly good thriller which features two horrifyingly plausible performances from Susan Tyrrell and Bo Svenson.

 

Music Video of the Day: Touched By The Hand of God by New Order (1987, directed by Kathryn Bigelow)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

23 years before she made history as the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Director, Kathryn Bigelow directed this video for New Order.

The video features the members of New Order as you’ve never seen them before.  With the band’s long hair and the codpieces and the explosions going off in the background, you might think that an aging glam metal band is trying to rip off the British new wave sound.  Instead, it’s the members of New Order, wearing wigs and poking deserved fun at the bands like Poison, Cinderella, and Great White.

While New Order performs, Bill Paxton runs through traffic and makes out with Femi Gardiner.  Bill Paxton was everywhere in 1987.

Horror Film Review: Near Dark (dir by Kathryn Bigelow)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1987 film Near Dark is the story of two American families.

The Coltons are a family of ranchers living Oklahoma.  Loy Colton (Tim Thomerson) is the patriarch, keeping a watchful eye on his children, Caleb (Adrian Pasdar) and Sarah (Marcie Leeds).  Caleb is a cowboy and a nice guy, even if he does seem to be a little bit too naive for his own good.  After Caleb disappears one night, Loy and Sarah start their own search, traveling across the back roads of the Southwest.

The other family may not share any biological relation to one another but they definitely share blood.  They’re a group of outcasts who have found each other and now spend their nights searching for people who can satisfy their hunger.  They’re vampires, even though that’s not a word that they tend to use.  (In fact, for all the blood-sucking that goes on throughout the film, the term “vampire” is never actually heard.)  At night, they’re all-powerful but during the day, even the slightly exposure to the sun can set them on fire.

The patriarch of this family is Jesse Hooker (Lance Henriksen), a scarred war veteran.  Jesse will do anything to protect the members of his family but he expects each of them to pull their weight.  At one point, when Jesse is asked how old he is, he says that he fought for the South and that the South lost.

Jesse’s girlfriend is Diamondback (Jenette Goldstein), who is just as ruthless as Jesse.  Filling the role of oldest son is Severen (Bill Paxton), a cocky gunslinger with a quick smile and cruel sense of humor.  Homer (Joshua Miller) appears to be a 12 year-old boy but he’s actually one of the older and more violent members of the family.  And then there’s Mae (Jenny Wright), the rebellious daughter.

Mae is the one who first met and bit Caleb.  She’s the one who turned Caleb into one of them, though it takes Caleb a while to not only discover but also understand what he’s become.  When Caleb tries to escape from Mae and his new family, he becomes violently ill.  He can no longer eat human food but, at the same time, he can’t bring himself to hunt.  Instead, he’s forced to drink whatever blood Mae can provide for him.  Even when Jesse’s group attacks a redneck bar, one cowboy manages to escape, specifically because Caleb cannot bring himself to kill him.

What is Caleb to do?  He can’t return to his old family, as much as he may want to.  (It doesn’t help that Homer has developed an obsession with Caleb’s sister, Sarah.)  At the same time, his new family says that they’re going to kill him unless he starts hunting for blood.  They only thing keeping Caleb alive is the fact that Mae likes him and even she’s telling him that he’s going to have to hunt.

Meanwhile, Loy continues his own hunt, the hunt for his son….

Long before she became the first female director to win an Oscar for The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow directed this stylish vampire film.  Visually, Bigelow emphasizes the emptiness of the Southwestern plains.  Looking at the desolate landscape, it’s easy to believe that Jesse and his family could use them to successfully hide from the rest of the world.  It’s also just as easy to believe that a well-meaning but not particularly bright young man like Caleb could get lost and not be able to find his way home.  Bigelow turns the vampire family into a group of modern-day outlaws, crossing the land in their sun-proofed vehicles and trying to stay one step ahead of modern-day posses made up by concerned families and law enforcement officers who don’t know what they’re getting into.

Even if not for Bigelow’s stylish direction, the film would be a classic for just the cast alone.  Henriksen, Paxton, and Goldstein all previously appeared in James Cameron’s Aliens and they have a camaraderie that feels real.  In fact, the vampires work so well together that it’s impossible not to kind of admire them.  They’ve got it together and, even when faced with an army of police officers determined to make them step out into the sunlight, they don’t lose their sardonic sense of humor.  The much missed Bill Paxton’s performance is a hyperactive marvel, both menacing and sexy at the same time.  Meanwhile, Jenny Wright and Adrian Pasdar have a likable chemistry as Mae and Caleb while Tim Thomerson makes Loy’s love and concern for his son feel so real that adds an unexpected emotional depth to the overall movie.  The script, written by Eric Red and Bigelow, is full of quotable dialogue and the cast takes full advantage of it.

Near Dark is vampire classic and definitely one to watch this Halloween season.