Despite what some sites on the internet would have you believe, this song was not written for a Batman film. It was featured in 1995’s Batman Forever but it was not actually written for the movie. Instead, the song was first written in 1987 and then it was first recorded and released in 1994. When it was first released as a single, it didn’t get much attention and it quickly fell out of the charts. Then it was featured during the end credits of Batman Forever and it was re-released and promoted with this Joel Schumacher-directed video and it became a huge hit. This is one of those songs that will never die. As long as there are weddings and funerals, this song will live. As long as there are comedy shows that want to do over-the-top falling-in-love montages, this song will live forever.
I used to know a guy who would sing this song every Saturday night for karaoke and, every single time, he would start crying about halfway through the song. When I asked him why the song always made him cry, he replied, “Showmanship.” I’m not really sure what happened to him, as it’s been more than a while since I last went to any sort of karaoke night. I hope he’s okay, wherever he is. The world of karaoke can be very competitive and ruthless. Someone should make a movie about it. It would probably have a really good soundtrack.
Earlier today, when I heard that Joel Schumacher had died, I immediately thought of Falling Down.
Falling Down stars Michael Douglas as William Foster, a man who is at the end of his rope. He’s lost his job. He’s just gotten a divorce and his wife has taken a restraining order out against him. On the hottest day of the year, his car’s air conditioning has just broken down. When he finds himself stuck in a traffic jam, he impulsively abandons his car and starts to walk across Los Angeles, collecting weapons, enemies, and admirers along the way.
Almost everyone who Foster meets annoys him in some way. A convenience store clerk refuses to give him change so that he can make a phone call. In the film’s most famous scene, a fast food restaurant refuses to allow him to order off of the breakfast menu, which leads to Foster pulling out a gun. D-Fens, as he’s now known due to his personalized license plate, is making his way to his daughter’s birthday party, leaving behind a wake of destruction behind him. Trying to stop him is Detective Martin Prendergrast (Robert Duvall), who is, naturally, just a day away from retirement.
I think about Falling Down a lot. It’s always been a controversial film, with critics debating whether we’re supposed to empathize with Foster or not. The film itself often tries to have it both ways, asking us to condemn Foster’s violence while, at the same time, expecting us to cheer for him when he expresses his frustrations. On the one hand, you can understand some of his anger. Why can’t you order off the breakfast menu if you want to? Who hasn’t gotten annoyed with unnecessary road work? At the same time, it’s also hard to overlook that almost all of Foster’s victims are more obnoxious than he is. If the store clerk has been polite when he refused to give him change, would we have still cheered when Foster destroyed the store? Foster even has an encounter with a white supremacist that’s supposed to assure us that Foster might be an angry white man but he’s the right type of angry white man.
To understand why this film has always stuck with me, you have to understand that my Dad was an engineer. He worked with a lot of people who basically were William Foster, except that they never got their hands on as much weaponry as Foster manages to do. Whenever I see this movie and I see Michael Douglas with his nerdy glasses and short-sleeved white shirt and black tie, I’m reminded of visiting my father at work and listening to his co-workers complain about how much they hated the rap music that their kids were listening to. From those experiences, I can tell you that Michael Douglas perfectly nails the role of William “D-Fens” Foster. Though the film’s script may sometimes try to present Foster as simply being “a man who has finally had enough” (and that’s certainly the way that Foster would probably view himself), Douglas gives a much more complex performance in the role. He plays Foster not as being a hero or even an anti-hero. Instead, he’s a man who has realized that life is never going to be as good as he was told it would be and, watching the world change around him, he’s snapped. He’s the villain, even if he and some of the film’s biggest fans don’t realize it. “I’m the bad guy?” he asks and yes, he is. The tragedy of the film is that he can’t understand how that came to be. Neither Joel Schumacher as a director nor Michael Douglas as an actor ever suggests that Foster has become a stronger or happier person as a result of his actions. He never becomes the societal avenger that some may want him to be. Instead, he just wants to get to his daughter’s birthday party.
When Joel Schumacher’s death was announced today, most people talked about the Batman films that he directed. However, Falling Down, with its brilliant lead performance from Michael Douglas, is the Joel Schumacher film that will always stick with me.
Even if you did not already know it, you could probably guess who directed this video. Everything from the back lighting to the color filters to the fog machine to the leather jackets and the gang of shirtless body builders identifies this video as being the work of Joel Schumacher.
This video, which was filmed in Balboa, California, was made during Schumacher’s Lost Boys/Flatliners phase. His infamous Batman films were still several years away. INXS guitarist Kirk Pengilly has gone on record as disliking this video because he felt that, unlike the other videos that INXS was doing at the time, it was “too American.” He was probably right. The video’s mix of strippers, bikers, yuppies, and rent boys feels more appropriate for a film adaptation of a Bret Easton Ellis short story than an INXS song. Even if it isn’t an ideal INXS video, Devil Inside is still probably one of the better entries in Joel Schumacher’s filmography. If I have to choose, I will always pick this video over watching Batman and Robin.
With the video’s help, Devil Inside was one of INXS’s most popular songs in America, reaching the number two spot on the Billboard Hot 100. By comparison, it peaked at #6 in the band’s native Australia and only reached #47 in the UK.
“Our sins have come back in a physical form … and they’re pissed!”
That one line pretty much sums up the original 1990 version of Flatliners. It’s a good line in that it’s one that you remember and it’s a line that you can use in almost any situation.
Have you gotten a phone call from an unknown caller? “Our sins have come back in physical form … and they’re pissed!”
Have you and your boyfriend recently been driving across Texas and suddenly noticed that a car has been following you all the way from Lake Dallas to the border of Oklahoma. “Our sins have come back in physical form … and they’re pissed!”
Have you ever had a stranger fail to hold a door open for you? There’s only one possible reason for that rudeness. “Our sins have come back in physical form .. and they’re pissed!”
And don’t even get me started on people who leave negative comments under my reviews. We all know what’s going on with that! “Our sins have come back in physical form … and they’re pissed!”
It’s a line that is both oddly memorable and also deeply stupid. The same description can be applied to Flatliners. It’s a film about a group of medical students (played by Julia Roberts, William Baldwin, Oliver Platt, and Kevin Bacon) who help Kiefer Sutherland investigate whether or not there’s actually an afterlife. Sutherland believes that there is but he needs an atheist to be a part of the group, that’s where Kevin Bacon comes in. And he needs a potential love interest and a Baldwin brother to be a member of the group as well, that’s why Julia Roberts and William Baldwin are there. And, of course, someone has to provide comedic relief whenever things start to get too dark. Say hello to Oliver Platt! Anyway, Sutherland’s plan is to die for a minute or two and then have his fellow medical students bring him back to life. It sounds like kind of a dumb idea but everyone agrees to it.
Anyway, it turns out that the afterlife looks a lot like an overproduced student film, full of weird camera angles, tinted lighting and disembodied voices. When Sutherland dies, he sees a boy that he used to bully. Julia Roberts sees her father, who committed suicide when she was younger. Kevin Bacon sees a little girl that he used to bully. (There are a lot of bullies in this movie.) William Baldwin, a sex addict who is chronically unfaithful to his fiancée, sees hundreds of women, all saying, “But you said you loved me.” Oliver Platt never actually gets to die and therefore, he sees nothing. He does make a joke about how his vision would probably involve an angry babysitter. I laughed.
What happens next? “Our sins have come back in physical form … and they’re pissed!”
Flatliners has an intriguing premise but oh my God, is it ever a silly film. It’s not really a spoiler to tell you that all of these returned sins want the characters to either atone for their mistakes or make peace with their past. For Kevin Bacon, this means tracking down the girl that he used to bully and allowing her to bully him. For Julia Roberts, it means getting an apology from her Dad and understanding that he was addicted to heroin. For William Baldwin, it means making peace with never being as well-known as either Alec or Steven. As for Kiefer … well, things are a bit more complicated for Kiefer Sutherland.
Flatliners starts out as a horror film but then it turns into a squishy movie about letting go of bitterness and learning how to forgive oneself. It’s kind of annoying that the film couldn’t just stick to being scary because the first half of the film does have some effectively tense moments. However, it all gets lost as the film’s plot sinks into sentimental, New Age-y quicksand.
Flatliners was directed by Joel Schumacher, who generally does well with shallow films that 1) don’t really mean anything and 2) don’t involve super heroes. And really, the only film that I can think of that’s more shallow than the original Flatliners is the remake. (But we’ll talk about that later…) Schumacher’s direction here is not particularly bad — everyone looks good and the film is never boring. It’s a very, very pretty film and one that doesn’t add up to much.
I would suggest watching it with your sins, especially after they take physical form. Maybe they’ll be a little less pissed off afterward.
It’s time to finish off my triptych of Scenes I Love from 2004’s film adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera. The first two parts were my favorite solo and chorus scenes from film and now we finish it off with what has to be the top scene (IMO) from the film.
The characters of The Phantom and Christine have always been the focal point of the film. Even with the arrival of the wholesome and (as Lisa Marie would call him) vanilla Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, the film continues to truly sizzle when it’s all about The Phantom and Christine moving their relationship from ingenue and mentor to unrequited lovers.
It’s the latter which this scene looks to portray through a duet written by The Phantom himself and where he swaps himself into the role of Don Juan. This duet has always been a fan favorite for those who love the musical and many different versions of it have played throughout the years. Yet, they all have one thing in common and that is the heated chemistry between the two characters once the duet begins.
The scene itself begins and comes off pretty much like foreplay between the two characters without having literal sex on the stage. The whole scene is so sexually charged that even those watching the duet who set the trap looked so transfixed that they fail to act. Even Raoul, Christine’s own fiance, finishes the scene with such a look of cuckold expression once he realizes that he could never have such a deep and personal connection that Christine has with The Phantom.
For me, this duet pretty much sums up what the whole is all about.
Here we have the second of three scenes I love from the 2004 film adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera.
The first scenes was my favorite solo from the film with Emmy Rossum as Christine Daaé performing the solo “Think of Me”. It’s a powerful scene that more than holds it’s own against the other solos in the film. The second favorite scene from this film comes in the beginning of Act II.
“Masquerade” is really the one and only true full cast and chorus production in the film and in the stage musical. While both would have songs and scenes involving multiple characters and a large of background chorus, this one pretty much cements the film’s grandiose and epic visuals.
Director Joel Schumacher may have his detractors and critics, but he definitely nails the grand masquerade ball in the opera house to begin the second half of the film.
Stage productions, especially musicals, have always drawn me. I think it goes back to my time in my final two years in high school when, on a lark, I decided to join the Drama production as part of my after-school activities. For a teenager whose never really had any experience watching musicals prior to joining one I was surprised as any to have fallen in love with the art when exposed to it.
Musicals range from classic Sondheim-style productions to the Andrew Lloyd Webber rock opera epics right up to the Matt Stone and Trey Parker comedy musicals. I love them all. One musical production that I was literally obsessed with during those late high school years was Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera production of The Phantom of the Opera.
I knew the songs by heart and, even now, I still remember those final years of high school fondly because of this particular musical. So, finding out that they were going to make a film adaptation of the musical had me feeling both excited and hesitant.
How could a stage musical translate to film if they cast more for acting and less for singing?
My trepidation ended up being unfounded once I finally saw the film and was satisfied that all involved were more than up to the task of performing the iconic roles in the musical.
This first of three of my favorite scenes from The Phantom of the Opera comes early in the film as Emmy Rossum’s understudy, Christine Daaé, gets a chance to show just how much she has learned from her mysterious tutor. “Think of Me” is the one of the signature solos in the musical (the other being the Phantom’s own) and Emmy Rossum nails the scene and song. The expression on the skeptical managers in the beginning quickly turns to surprise as does the rest of the cast and crew who never realized they had a genuine ingenue in their midst.
While I will admit that the song and the scene has been pulled off better on stage, Emmy Rossum’s own experience singing as a member of the Metropolitan Opera as a child leading up to being chosen for the role of Christine Daaé more than makes her hold her own against those who came before her.
First released in 2003, Phone Booth is a good film.
Now, I know that you’re probably thinking, “Okay, that’s good, Lisa. There were a lot of good films released in 2003. I can’t think of any off the top of my head but let me go look on Wikipedia and I’m sure I can come back with a few dozen good films and…”
Well, before you go over to Wikipedia and do a search on 2003 in film (and I even included a direct link to make it easy for you because I like to be helpful), allow me to point something else out about Phone Booth.
Phone Booth is not only a good film but it’s a good film that was directed by Joel Schumacher!
That’s right! There are several online film critics who will tell you that Joel Schumacher is one of the worst directors of all time and, to be honest, there’s actually a pretty good argument that can be made in support of that. However, Schumacher did direct both The Lost Boys and Phone Booth. So, he’s directed at least two good films and that’s two more than Uwe Boll.
In Phone Booth, Colin Farrell plays Stu, a slick publicist who has both a wife named Kelly (Radha Mitchell) and a girlfriend named Pam (Katie Holmes). When Stu steps into the last remaining phone booth in New York City in order to call his girlfriend, he’s shocked when a pizza deliveryman shows up and attempts to give him a pizza. No sooner has he gotten rid of the pizzaman (and, seriously, who turns down free pizza?), the phone rings. Stu answers and is told by an unseen sniper (voice by Kiefer Sutherland) that, if he leaves the phone booth, he will be shot. The sniper goes on to order Stu to tell the truth to both Kelly and Pam or to risk being shot as a consequence.
While all of this is going on, a group of prostitutes demand that Stu get out of the booth and let them use the phone. When Stu refuses, their pimp approaches the booth and is promptly gunned down by the sniper. Soon, under the assumption that Stu has a weapon, the police — led by Forest Whitaker — have surrounded the booth and are demanding that Stu step out. The sniper, however, reminds Stu that he’ll be shot if he leaves the booth.
As a crowd of onlookers (including Pam and Kelly), police, and reporters surround the booth, Stu finds himself literally with no escape…
Telling the story in real time and keeping the film largely focused on Stu’s increasing desperation, Schumacher actually does a pretty good job with Phone Booth. Colin Farrell gives a great performance, making Stu into a character who you like despite yourself. While Kiefer Sutherland never appears onscreen, his sexy growl of a voice works wonders and he even manages to sell the point where his character starts to maniacally laugh. Reportedly, screenwriter Larry Cohen came up with the idea for Phone Booth way back in the 1960s. It took nearly 40 years for the film to be made but Schumacher, Farrell, and Sutherland made it more than worth the wait.
Oh my God! Aren’t rich, white people just like the worst!?
Actually, usually I would never say something like that. I usually find class warfare to be tedious and I personally think poor people can be just as annoying as rich people. I had no interest in the whole Occupy Wall Street thing and I once referred to V For Vendetta as being V For Vapid.
No, I may not be much of a class warrior but then again, that may be because I never met any of the characters at the center of the 1985 film St. Elmo’s Fire. Seriously, if anything could turn me into a slogan-spouting, window-smashing revolutionary, it would be having to deal with any of the self-centered, entitled characters in St. Elmo’s Fire.
St. Elmo’s Fire is about a group of seven friends, three of whom are played by actors who co-starred in The Breakfast Club.These friends all met at and are recent graduates from Georgetown University. St. Elmo’s Fire follows them as they laugh, love, drink, do drugs, and try to figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives.
For instance, there’s Billy (Rob Lowe), who has big hair and wears one dangling earring. Billy was in a fraternity and spends most of the movie wishing that he still was. Billy also plays the saxophone and he has a wife and a kid who he has pretty much abandoned … well, you know what? I like Rob Lowe. He seems like a fun guy and his DirectTV commercials were all classics but oh my God, does he ever give a bad performance in St. Elmo’s Fire. Some of it is because Billy is not a very likable character. He’s supposed to be the rough-around-the-edges, secretly sensitive rebel type but ultimately, he just comes across as being a loser.
And then there’s Jules (Demi Moore), who does too much cocaine and, as a result, finds herself fearing that she’s on the verge of being sold into a sexual slavery. Jules doesn’t get to do much other than be rescued by the other characters. Fortunately, when it looks like the group is drifting apart, Jules attempts to commit suicide and brings everyone back together. Way to be a plot device, Jules!
Wendy (Mare Winningham) is the sweet but insecure virgin who has a crush on Billy. Wendy works as a social worker and ends up getting insulted by the very people that she’s trying to help. Winningham gives one of the film’s better performances but you can’t help but feel that Wendy deserves better friends.
Speaking of good performances, Andrew McCarthy also gives a pretty good one. McCarthy plays Kevin Dolenz, the idealistic writer who everyone is convinced is gay because he hasn’t had sex in 2 years. However, Kevin is actually in love with his best friend’s girlfriend. As written, Kevin runs the risk of coming across as being insufferably moralistic but McCarthy gives a likable performance. He turns Kevin into the nice guy that we all want to know.
And then there’s the Breakfast Club alumni.
Alec Newberry (Judd Nelson) was the vice-president of the Georgetown Democrats but now, because it pays better, he’s taken a job working for a Republican senator. Alec’s girlfriend is Leslie (Ally Sheedy). Alec obsessively cheats on Leslie, claiming that he can’t be loyal to her unless she’s willing to marry him. The group of friends is largely centered around Alec and Leslie though it’s never really clear why. Alec and Leslie are boring characters and, as a result, they’re a boring couple.
And then there’s Kirby (Emilio Estevez). Estevez gives a likable performance but he often seems to be appearing in a different movie from everyone else. Kirby is working on his law degree and he’s in love with a hospital intern named Dale (Andie MacDowell). Unfortunately, Dale isn’t as interested in Kirby as he is in her so Kirby responds by stalking her and trying to change her mind. There’s an earnestness and sincerity to Kirby that makes you like him, even if his behavior is actually rather creepy.
As for the film itself — well, it’s directed by Joel Schumacher and there’s a reason why Schmacher has the reputation that he does. As a director, Schumacher is good at gathering together an attractive cast but he has close to no idea how to tell a compelling story. St. Elmo’s Fire plods along, dutifully telling its story but providing little insight or surprise.
If you’ve read some of my previous reviews, you’re probably expecting this to be the point where I argue that St. Elmo’s Fire works as a time capsule. But, honestly, this film doesn’t have enough insight to really work as a time capsule. I mean, if you love 80s hair and 80s fashion, you might enjoy St. Elmo’s Fire but, then again, you could always just do a google image search and have the same basic experience.
I’ve seen a lot of reviews for the just-released Twelve that have referred to this movie as just being an extended episode of Gossip Girl, largely because the movie deals with spoiled, rich teenagers and it stars Chace Crawford. I’m going to venture a guess that the majority of these reviewers have never actually seen an episode of Gossip Girl, which is actually entertaining and self-aware in a way that the ploddingly obvious Twelve could never hope to match.
Crawford plays White Mike. He’s a recent high school drop out who now makes his living selling drugs — mostly marijuana — to his former classmates. However, his classmates — not to mention his cousin, Charlie — are more interested in sampling a new designer drug known as twelve. We’re told that twelve feels like a combination of cocaine and ecstasy. As this movie struggled to reach its apocalyptic conclusion, I found myself thinking, “That doesn’t sound too bad. I wonder if I can get some twelve after the movie…”
Anyway, Twelve charts out four days in the life of Crawford and his former classmates. It starts with Crawford ignoring a pathetic phone call from his junkie cousin and it ends with a shooting rampage at a party that leaves the majority — but not all — of the cast dead. It’s supposed to be an anti-drug film but, like far too many anti-drug films, it can’t disguise the fact that the characters are a lot more fun to watch when they’re on drugs than when they aren’t. (For instance, we’re told early on that White Mike doesn’t do drugs, smoke, or drink and just look how miserable he is.) Director Joel Schumacher gives us a lot of really pretty images but there’s nothing below the surface and as a result, the film’s massacre doesn’t so much feel tragic as it just feels like a poorly planned fashion spread in Elle.
(As opposed to Nick McDonnell’s original novel, the film Twelve is mainstream enough to only allow unlikable characters to die at the end.)
The cast is almost achingly pretty but, at the same time, largely forgettable, with two major exceptions. Poor Rory Culkin (who I worry about because he always seems so sad every time he shows up in a movie) brings a lot of pathos to his role as the geeky kid who happens to have the perfect party house, permissive parents, and a psychotic older brother. Emily Meade is memorable playing a character who, in many ways, is a female version of Culkin’s. Playing a bipolar girl who discovers a love for twelve, Meade actually manages to overcome the generic plot (the type that demands that she go from being an honor’s student to selling her body to Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson in little over 24 hours) and makes her character compelling. Plus, she has a fun scene where her teddy bears encourage her to kill people.
Still, the movie ultimately belongs to Keifer Sutherland who never appears on-screen but who gets more dialogue than anyone else in the entire film. Sutherland plays the narrator. That’s right, as simplistic as the movie is, Schumacher apparently felt that the movie needed a narrator to tell us what we’ve just seen onscreen. For instance, we see Crawford selling drugs. Suddenly, Sutherland’s voice informs us, “White Mike is a drug dealer.” “Oh,” we say in the audience, “so that’s why he’s exchanging marijuana for money…”
Even though the narrator is essentially just quoting large chunks of prose from McDonnell’s novel, the use here is technically a mistake. I say “technically” because it cannot be denied that Sutherland has probably got the sexiest narrator voice around. Regardless of whether the movie needed it, I needed it. If nothing else, I will always remember seeing Twleve as the time I heard Keifer Sutherland say, in his purring growl of a voice, “I want to tap that ass,” and I thought, “Well, okay…”
Through the Shattered Lens 