I loved the first Insidious and I enjoyed the second one. I’m still not totally convinced that we need a third one but we’re getting one anyways. Apparently, it’s a prequel so we’ll get a lot of Conjuring-style period detail along with all of the usual scares.
Is it May 1st yet?
Yesterday, I finally got around to watching the latest film from both Lifetime and the Asylum, Wuthering High School!
Cathy and Heath
Why Was I Watching It?
I was late in watching Wuthering High School. Saturday afternoon, I spent five hours in the Emergency Room, all so I could find out that I have bronchitis. By the time I finally got home, I was so tired that I slept through the Lifetime premiere of Wuthering High School. Fortunately, I did DVR it and yesterday, I finally found the time to watch it.
As to why I was watching it — hey, it’s a modern version of Wuthering Heights that’s set in a high school! And it was produced by the Asylum!
Wuthering Heights, high school, and The Asylum, three of my favorite things.
Seriously, how could I not watch it?
What Was It About?
Wuthering High School is the latest version of Emily Bronte’s classic novel, Wuthering Heights. After his family is deported, Heath (Andrew Jacobs) is adopted by wealthy Mr. Earnshaw (James Caan). Soon, Earnshaw is viewing Heath as being more of a son to him than his biological child, the drug-addicted Lee (Sean Flynn). Meanwhile, Heath has fallen in love with Earnshaw’s daughter, Cathy (Paloma Kwiatkowski). Cathy is struggling to come to terms with the recent death of her mother and soon, she and Heath are skipping school, tearing up school books in slow motion, and getting sentenced to community service. However, when Cathy rejoins the school’s popular clique of mean girls, she starts to grow distant from Heath. While Heath plots his revenge, Cathy is pursued by the well-meaning but ineffectual Eddie Linton (Matthew Boehm).
What Worked?
At its heart, Wuthering High School was definitely a “look at the pretty clothes and look at the pretty houses” type of film. And that’s okay because, ultimately, the clothes and the houses were all very pretty and they were all filmed in very loving detail by director Anthony DiBlasi. At it’s best, Wuthering High School is a pure celebration of melodramatic style.
Modernizing a classic, 19th century novel is always a risky proposition. Setting it in a high school is equally dangerous as well. But I actually liked a few of the ways that Bronte’s story was updated. For instance, I thought it was brilliant to turn the novel’s gambling addicted Hindley Earnshaw into the film’s drug-addicted Lee Earnshaw. As well, transforming gypsy Heathcliff into Heath, the son of a deported illegal immigrant, worked far better than I expected that it would.
Among the supporting cast, Matthew Boehm and Francesca Eastwood were both well-cast. Eastwood, especially, seemed to be having a lot of fun delivering her Mean Girls-style dialogue. (“That’s not the first time you’ve been wet,” she says after pouring a drink on Cathy.) And James Caan brought a lot of gravitas to his role.
And, finally, Paloma Kwiatkowski was well-cast as the angry and outspoken Cathy. Many scenes that should not have worked did work because of Kwiatkowski’s sincere and empathetic performance.
What Did Not Work?
So, with all of those good points that I mentioned above, why wasn’t Wuthering High School as much fun as it should have been? Ultimately, I think the film’s pacing was just a little bit off. Certain scenes moved just a bit too slowly while other scenes were finished too quickly and, as a result, the entire film had an oddly rushed feel to it.
As well, I had some issues with the film’s ending. Obviously, this is going to be a SPOILER so, if you want to be surprised, don’t read any further. *SPOILER BEGINS* Towards the end of Wuthering High School, Cathy chooses to walk out into the ocean and drowns herself while Heath watches. We are then left with a montage of everyone mourning, Heath digging up her grave and curling up next to her in a coffin, and Cathy — speaking to us from beyond the grave — saying that she’s now finally been reunited with her mother. And … seriously? Obviously, Cathy had to die in order to remain true to the spirit of Wuthering Heights but did she have to commit suicide and, even more importantly, did the film have to suggest that she was better off having done so? *SPOILER ENDS*
Finally, of the many actors to have played Heathcliff over the years, Andrew Jacobs was not exactly the most convincing. He came across as being more petulant than passionate.
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
Oh, I totally related to Cathy. I always do.
Lessons Learned
Avoid the ocean at all costs.
Earlier today, the teaser poster for SPECTRE was released. Here it is!
Now, I have to admit that I was a bit underwhelmed when I first saw it and I was planning on going on for a few thousands words about what this image might mean. However, as I’m currently dealing with a case of bronchitis and I need to get some rest, I’m just going to include the following twitter exchange which will explain both my reaction and why there may be more to this image than I originally considered.
Regardless of how I felt about the teaser poster, I was looking forward to SPECTRE because Sam Mendes did such a great job with Skyfall. However, learning that Live and Let Die is Mendes’s favorite just makes me even more excited!
Seriously, Live and Let Die was great.
SPECTRE will be released on November 6th of this year.
Best Picture
Black Mass
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
The End of the Tour
Grandma
The Hateful Eight
In The Heart of the Sea
The Revenant
The Walk
Woman in Gold
Best Actor
Bryan Cranston in Trumbo
Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant
Michael Fassebender in Steve Jobs
Tom Hanks in Bridge of Spies
Jason Segel in The End of the Tour
Best Actress
Blythe Danner in I’ll See You In My Dreams
Jennifer Lawrence in Joy
Helen Mirren in Woman in Gold
Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn
Lily Tomlin in Grandma
Best Supporting Actor
Jim Broadbent in Brooklyn
Albert Brooks in Concussion
Paul Dano in Love and Mercy
Tom Hardy in The Revenant
Kurt Russell in The Hateful Eight
Best Supporting Actress
Julia Garner in Grandma
Jennifer Jason Leigh in The Hateful Eight
Kristin Scott Thomas in Suite Francaise
Kristen Stewart in Clouds of Sils Maria
Meryl Steeep in Suffragette
Best Director
John Crowley for Brooklyn
Ron Howard for In The Heart of the Sea
James Ponsoldt for The End of the Tour
Steven Spielberg for Bridge of Spies
Robert Zemeckis for The Walk
I think I may have made a mistake. When I started reviewing beach films, I did so because it’s currently spring break for thousands of college students across the country and, right now, they’re all probably having a good time on the beach. Unfortunately, what I didn’t consider was that watching and reviewing these films would make me start to wish that I was currently there with them.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I want to go hang out on the beach and party and flirt and get high and live for the moment and … well, no, actually, that’s exactly what I wish I was doing right now. None of the beach films that I’ve watched so far have been good exactly but they do all get at a larger truth.
We all need some sort of spring break.
That’s certainly the theme of the 1983 comedy, Spring Break.
The heroes of Spring Break
Perhaps the most surprising thing about Spring Break is that, unlike Malibu Beach and The Beach Girls, it was not produced by Crown International Pictures. It certainly feels like a Crown International movie. The film is a largely plotless collection of scenes, all of which take place over the course of spring break in Ft. Lauderdale. It starts out as a comedy and then gets strangely dramatic towards the end. It features a lot of nudity for male viewers but luckily, it has two hot guys for me so it all works out in the end.
Two nerdy students, Nelson (David Knell) and Adam (Perry Lang) go down to Florida for spring break. Nelson does this despite the fact that he had promised that he would spend spring break working on his politically ambitious stepfather’s campaign. When Nelson and Adam’s picture ends up in the paper, Nelson’s stepfather (Donald Symington) sends his operatives down to Florida to basically kidnap Nelson and drag him home. Along the way, the stepfather also somehow gets involved in a plot to take over the motel where Nelson and Adam are staying.
Uhmmm…what?
Yes, it doesn’t make much sense but then again, the plot is never that important in these type of films. What is important is that the motel is overbooked and, as a result, Nelson and Adam find themselves roommates with two hot guys from New York, Stu (Paul Land) and O.T. (Steve Bassett).
One thing that I did like about this movie is that it didn’t waste any time pretending that Stu and O.T. wouldn’t become best friends with Nelson and Adam. Instead, the four of them start bonding as soon as they meet and they were all best friends within the first 15 minutes of the film. Yay for another successful bromance! But seriously, it is kind of sweet.
And it’s also fortunate because, once Nelson is kidnapped and held prisoner on a boat by his stepfather, who better to rescue him than two guys from Brooklyn?
Yes, it’s all pretty stupid but, as far as teen sex comedies from the early 80s are concerned, this is one of the better of them. At the very least, Knell and Lang are both likeable and Land and Bassett are both hot and that really is about the best that you can hope from a film like this. Add to that — and this is a theme that I seem to keep returning to as far as these beach films are concerned — Spring Break is a time capsule. Though Spring Break was released before I was born, I feel like, having seen it, that I now have some firsthand experience of what it was like to be alive in 1983.
So 80s….
As I mentioned at the start of this review, Spring Break feels like a Crown International Picture but, actually, it was released by Columbia Pictures. And it was directed by Sean S. Cunningham, who is probably best known for directing the original Friday the 13th! Harry Manfredini even provided the music for both films. That said, the fun-loving teenagers of Spring Break come to a much happier end than the ones at Camp Crystal Lake.
Yesterday, I started my 2-week miniseries of reviews on beach movies by taking a look at 1963’s Beach Party. For my next review, I will be jumping forward 15 years and taking a look at 1978’s Malibu Beach.
Just by comparing the two films, you can tell that a lot changed during those 15 years. As opposed to the euphemism-spouting surfers of Beach Party, the teenagers that hang out on Malibu Beach know exactly what they want and they’re not ashamed to say it. What Beach Party could only hint at, Malibu Beach has the freedom to make explicit. The film’s poster claims that “everything can happen on Malibu Beach” and, in theory, that’s certainly true.
And yet, at the same time, Malibu Beach has more in common with Beach Party than you might think. Ultimately, they’re both about the same thing: celebrating the idea of being young and having freedom. Both films are a bit of a chore to try to watch today but are interesting as cultural time capsules. Beach Party had no plot. Malibu Beach has no plot. Beach Party featured some oddly generic music. Malibu Beach features the same three generic songs being played over and over and over again. Beach Party features Erich Von Zipper and his motorcycle gang. Malibu Beach features a muscle-bound bully named Dugan (Steve Oliver). Beach Party featured a cameo appearance from Vincent Price. Malibu Beach features a dog that steals bikini tops. Beach Party was produced by American International Pictures. Malibu Beach was produced by Crown International Pictures.
That’s right! Malibu Beach is a Crown International Picture and anyone who loves 70s exploitation knows what that means. Malibu Beach is a cheaply produced film that was made to exploit then-current trends and bring in a lot of money. Like a lot of Crown International Films, it’s technically a pretty bad film but it’s so sincere and honest about what it is that it almost feels petty to be too critical of it.
Oddly enough, Malibu Beach pretty much feels like a remake of a previous Crown International Picture, The Pom Pom Girls, the main difference being that, while the visual style of The Pom Pom Girls was almost oppressively ugly, Malibu Beach at least features some pretty beach scenery.
Much like in the Pom Pom Girls, the heroes of Malibu Beach are two high school jocks, one of whom, Bobby (played by James Daughton, who, that same year, also played the evil Greg in National Lampoon’s Animal House), is dark and brooding while the other, Paul (Michael Luther), is skinny and dorky.
Much as in The Pom Pom Girls, one of the heroes has a nemesis for no particular reason. Seriously, I never could figure out why Bobby and Dugan hated each other but they certainly did. What’s odd is that, whenever there’s a confrontation between the two of them, Malibu Beach suddenly gets extremely serious. Bobby and Dugan glare at each other and speak through clenched teeth. Suddenly, there’s no music on the soundtrack and all we can hear are seagulls above and the tide rolling in and it all feels very ominous. I sat through Malibu Beach expecting either Dugan and Bobby to be dead at the end of the film, that’s how seriously their conflict is portrayed.
Also, much like The Pom Pom Girls, Bobby and Paul each have girlfriends. Paul is dating the spacey Sally (Susan Player). Bobby, meanwhile, is romancing the new lifeguard, Dina (Kim Lankford). Dina has a big scene where she tells Bobby that she can’t handle being caught in the middle of his increasingly intense rivalry with Dugan. Again, it’s a deadly serious scene and it’s just so strange to see it there, awkwardly dropped in between scenes of a bumbling cop smoking weed and a dog stealing bikini tops.
Finally, the main similarity between The Pom Pom Girls and Malibu Beach is that the exact same three songs appear in both films! Obviously, somebody at Crown International, really loved those three songs.
Malibu Beach is one of those films that was obviously made to appeal to hormonal teens at a drive-in but, by today’s standards, it’s rather tame. It’s currently playing on Hulu and it’s also available in several of those Mill Creek box sets that we all know and love. Is the film any good? No. Do I recommend it? Not really. But, much like Beach Party, it is a portal into the past.
“Congratulations! You just destroyed government property!” —
33963 (Lee Tergesen) in Into the Dark (2014)
The quote above comes from a 14-minute short film that I was recently fortunate enough to have the opportunity to view. If you’ve read my previous reviews on this site, then you probably know that I’m not a huge fan of government property in general so, as you can imagine, that line made me smile. Within the context of the film, it also provided a brief moment of triumph for two men who have both reached a point where they have to be happy for whatever temporary victory they may happen to achieve.
Into the Dark opens with a haunting image of an urban skyline. The moon hangs over the city and, as we watch, we briefly see that something has been launched into the night sky. That object is a small capsule that includes two men who have been strapped in back-to-back. The two men are identified not by name but by number. 58257 (Lukas Hassel, who also wrote and directed Into the Dark) is angry and shouts at the unseen people who are watching him. Meanwhile, 33963 (voiced by Lee Tergesen) gives him advise on how to turn off a strobing blue light and tells him that, no matter how loudly he shouts, nobody watching can hear a word that he’s saying. No one on Earth is interested in what these two men have to say for themselves. Instead, the audience simply wants the catharsis of seeing what happens to them.
As we listen, it becomes apparent that these two men have broken the law and this space ride is a part of their punishment. 33963 was a political revolutionary while 58257’s crimes are a bit more ambiguous. Every few seconds, a condescending computerized voice tells them to think about what they’ve done. As their punishment approaches, 33963 begs 58257 to just talk to him and to allow him to experience some sort of human interaction…
Into the Dark may take place in the future but it deals with a very modern reality: we live in a very bloodthirsty time and that’s especially true in the way that we treat those who have been convicted of breaking the law. At a time when people feel like they have less and less control over their own fates, there’s a need to punish those who break “the rules,” never mind the fact that some rules make more sense than others. At any given times, you can turn on the television and watch reality shows about cops arresting lawbreakers, attorneys prosecuting the accused, and guards watching the convicted. These shows presents us with a world where the is no difference between a murderer and some guy who happened to have a little bit of weed in his car and where the only thing that matters is that people are being held responsible for breaking the rules that it’s assumed the viewer automatically and unquestioningly obeys. These shows allow an insecure society to feel superior.
That’s one reason why Into the Dark is so memorable. The final twist, the truth of why Hassel and Tergesen are in that capsule together, is totally plausible. It’s something that we, as an audience, know is probably going to end up happening some day. When the plausibility of that twist is mixed with the emotional power of the performances of Tergesen and Hassel, the end result is a thought-provoking look at crime, punishment, and the manufacturing of televised reality.
Another thing that makes Into The Dark so memorable is that the end credits mention that the majority of this film was shot in “Lukas Hassel’s apartment.” You wouldn’t know that from watching the film, which takes wonderful advantage of the production’s low-budget. The inside of the capsule is claustrophobic and cramped in the way that you would expect an intergalactic jail cell to be small and cramped. Despite almost entirely taking place in one small set, Hassel and cinematographer Henry Lee never allow the action to get stagey. Instead, it’s a fully cinematic experience and the fact that it was shot in someone’s apartment should give hope to aspiring independent filmmakers every where.
Into the Dark is currently playing on the festival circuit. You can find out more about the film here. And you can also check out it’s Facebook page. Or, if you’re at the Queens World Film Festival on March 18th or the Maryland Film Festival on March 28th, you can check it out there as well!
Here’s the latest trailer for Tomorrowland. I still can’t decide whether I’m excited about seeing this film or not. The trailer has hints of brilliance but there’s a part of me that’s worried that this is going to turn out to be yet another summer film that’s more concerned with winning the Oscar for visual effects than in telling a particularly memorable story.
This latest trailer feels like it could be for a big budget version of Atlas Shrugged. Perhaps George Clooney is John Galt?
It seems a little bit strange that today was, for many people, the first day of Spring Break.
First off, it was cold and rainy today and, whenever I found myself glancing out a window and being confronted by the gray weather, it was very hard for me to imagine having any fun on a beach.
Secondly, for reasons that I never quite understood, the University of North Texas’s Spring Break was always a week after everyone else’s. As a result, I’ve been conditioned to think of Spring Break as starting during the third week of March.
I always looked forward to Spring Break, despite the fact that we always got out a week late. In fact, it was kind of nice to know that, when my friends and I got down to that year’s beach, the most obnoxious of the alcoholic frat boys would already be back in Oklahoma. I’ve always loved the beach, which is odd because I’m scared of drowning. Fortunately, you don’t have to swim to look good in a bikini.
Now, of course, I’m an adult and I don’t get a Spring Break. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t relive the fun of it all by spending the next few days watching and reviewing beach movies!
For instance, earlier today, I discovered that the 1963 film Beach Party was available on Netflix. I watched the first 40 minutes during my lunch and then, as the day progressed, I watched the rest of it in bits and pieces until finally, nearly 8 hours after starting the film, I finished it. Needless to say, this is absolutely the worst way to watch a film like Beach Party. Beach Party was designed to be a film to be enjoyed but not thought about. It’s the cinematic equivalent of fast food. Watching Beach Party in increments of 2 or 3 minutes at a time is a bit like buying a Wendy’s bacon cheeseburger and not eating it until the next day.
(Or so I assume. I would never do that because, seriously, Wendy’s makes the best bacon cheeseburgers!)
It feels kind of silly to try to describe the plot of something like Beach Party but here goes: Frankie (Frankie Avalon) and Delores (Annette Funicello) are two teenagers in love. Or, at the very least, Delores is in love. Frankie, however, has a hard time saying it. Frankie and Delores are planning on spending the weekend at a beach house where, Frankie tells her, it will be just like they’re married. Though it’s never explicitly stated (like many films from the early 60s, Beach Party is all about the euphemisms), Frankie is obviously expecting that he and Delores will finally be having sex in that beach house. However, Delores had the same idea so she invited all of their friends to stay at the beach house as well, specifically to keep her from giving in during a moment of weakness.
Meanwhile, Prof. Robert Sutwell (Robert Cummings) is also hanging out on the beach. He’s an anthropologist who has a rather prominent beard. He’s studying the sex lives of teenagers. Since they’re adults, Robert and his assistant Marianne (Dorothy Malone) are actually allowed to say the word “sex.”
Speaking of which, that’s one thing that nobody on the beach seems to be doing. Robert is too obsessed with his work, Marianne is too frustrated with his lack of interest, Frankie is too busy surfing and singing, and Delores says she’s not interesting in “being a woman” until she’s married. There’s constant flirting going on, of course but, for the most part, these teenagers make the spring breakers from From Justin To Kelly look wild. (One can only guess what would happen if any of them ever ran into the spring breakers from Spring Breakers….)
That said, I do think that I did spot Frankie and his friends passing around a joint during one scene. According to some comments at the imdb, it was probably meant to be a cigarette that Frankie was sharing with his friends Ken (John Ashley) and Deadhead (Jody McCrea) but it sure looked like a joint to me. Plus, Frankie was listening to beatnik poetry at the time and we all know those crazy kids loved the poetry and loved the marijuana.
Oh! And did I mention that there’s a motorcycle gang in this film? Because there so totally is. The Rat Pack is led by a guy named Erich Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) and they pretty much show up whenever the film starts to run out of ideas…
Now, it may sound like I’m being pretty critical of Beach Party but actually, I thought it was fun in a time capsule sort of way. This is one of those films that is so obviously a product of the time in which it was made that watching it is a bit like getting to take a ride in a time machine. Everything about this film — from the dialogue to the cultural attitudes to the clean-cut teenagers to the music to the bizarrely modest bikinis — practically screams 1963. As a secret history nerd, I loved the part of Beach Party.
Add to that, Vincent Price has a cameo! That’s always fun.
Anyway, Beach Party is currently available to be watched on Netflix and Hulu. If you can’t get to the beach this year, you can always watch Frankie Avalon getting high in Beach Party.
