Tag Archives: Kevin Bacon

October True Crime: The Demon Murder Case (dir by William Hale)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In Brookfield, Connecticut, a 20-something man named Kenny Miller (played by a young Kevin Bacon) is on trial for murder. He stands accused of killing his landlord for no clear reason. While the media (represented by Cloris Leachman and Ken Kercheval) watch, Kenny’s attorney (Richard Masur) announces that Kenny did not actually commit the murder of his own free will. Instead, Kenny was possessed by a demon. The judge (Jack Davidson) is not impressed by the argument.

The film flashes back to the previous year. The family of Kenny’s girlfriend, Nancy Frazier (Liane Langland), has moved into a new house. Kenny notices that Nancy’s younger brother, Brian (Charles Fields), seems to spend a lot of time talking to himself. This concerns Kenny. What if Brian is talking to a demon that’s trying to possess him? It turns out that the Fraziers should have listened to Kenny because soon the house is shaking, the lights are blinking, and Brian is speaking in the voice of Harvey Fierstein.

The family gets in contact with occult investigators Guy (Andy Griffith) and Charlotte Harris (Beverlee McKinsey). Guy and Charlotte arrange for an exorcism. Actually, they arrange for several exorcisms. A total of six priests (one of whom is played by Eddie Albert) attempt to get the demon out of Brian. At one point, Kenny dares the demon to take him on personally. “Never do that!” Guy says before explaining that daring a demon to fight you is a great way to get possessed yourself. Kenny doesn’t seem to believe Guy, and I can kind of understand why. Watching this film, it was obvious that Andy Griffith was not actually Catholic, even if he did play a priest in Go Ask Alice. You can always tell these fake Catholics because they never make the sign of the cross correctly. They either use the wrong hand, or they start at the chest, or they confuse which shoulder to go to.

The Demon Murder Case was made for television in 1983 and, if the plot sounds familiar, that’s because it’s based on the same case that was dramatized in The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. Only the names have been changed. Ed and Lorraine Warren become Guy and Charlotte Harris and, needless to say, they’re a bit less glamorous in the made-for-television version. Surprisingly enough, the television version actually works pretty well. The low budget forces director William Hale to concentrate on atmosphere as opposed to special effects, and the cast is full of talented actors. Even though Griffith is not a convincing Catholic, he’s still likable in the role of the no-nonsense Guy, and Kevin Bacon does a pretty good job as the well-meaning but ultimately confused Kenny Miller. Earlier today, I complained that Bacon seemed miscast in Hollow Man. This film, however, makes good use of his down-to-earth persona. You watch this film and you think that, if Kevin Bacon could get possessed, it could happen to anyone.

As for the actual case, Arne Cheyenne Johnson (who was renamed Kenny Miller in this film) was convicted of manslaughter despite his defense that he had no control over his actions. He served five months in prison and married his girlfriend after he was released. He continues to insist that he was possessed.

Horror Film Review: Hollow Man (dir by Paul Verhoeven)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the 2000 film Hollow Man, Kevin Bacon stars as Sebastian Caine. Sebastian is a brilliant scientist who has created a serum that, when taken, will turn someone invisible. It’s quite an accomplishment, but you get the feeling that no one’s particularly happy about Sebastian being the one who discovered it. That’s because Sebastian is an arrogant narcissist who is not only a bit of a perv but who also listens to terrible prog rock whenever he’s driving around town. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned in the past, I am firmly of the opinion that progressive rock is the music of evil people, and no film makes that argument clearer than Hollow Man.

Having already successfully tested the serum on a gorilla, Sebastian decides to take the experiment a step further and take the serum himself. Soon, Sebastian is invisible. At first, Sebastian is content to play mean but ultimately harmless pranks on his colleagues, but soon his behavior grows worse and worse. Is the serum causing Sebastian to lose his mind, or has being invisible allowed Sebastian to reveal his true self? It’s not easy to say, because Sebastian was hardly a likable guy before he took the serum. He’s always been a jerk and, even before taking the serum, he was already obsessed with both his ex-girlfriend Sarah (Elisabeth Shue) and his next-door neighbor (Rhona Mitra). What is certain is that Sebastian soon becomes addicted to his invisibility. Whenever the serum wears off, he resents the tests that his colleagues put him through. The invisible man starts to stalk and kill his colleagues.

Oh, this film. Hollow Man is an update of The Invisible Man, but it doesn’t quite work. The first time that I saw this movie, I thought it seemed to be excessively mean-spirited, but I figured that, since it was a Paul Verhoeven film, there had to be some sort of satiric subtext to all of the blood and the sexual violence. But then I read an interview with Verhoeven where he said that Hollow Man was the most impersonal of his American films and that it was also a film that he felt any director could have made. Verhoeven said that making the film was such a discouraging experience for him that, despite the film’s box office success, it still inspired him to leave Hollywood and return to Europe.

The film is relentlessly cruel. The actors who play Sebastian’s colleagues — Shue, Josh Brolin, Joey Slotnick, Kim Dickens, Greg Grunberg, Mary Randle, and William Devane — are all likable, but they’re also stuck playing stock characters who have to do stupid things so that they can be in a position to die in the most gruesome ways possible. (The scene where Grunberg’s neck starts spurting blood is particularly grotesque.) With the exception of a scene where an invisible Sebastian drives around Los Angeles, there’s very little of Verhoeven’s trademark wit. Perhaps if this film were a low-budget grindhouse film, it would be more fun. As it is, the admittedly effective special effects just leave you wondering if any of that money could have been spent on a better script.

It’s also hard to watch Kevin Bacon play such an unlikable character. It’s not that Bacon can’t play villains. It’s just that he projects such a down-to-earth, blue-collar attitude that he feels miscast as a mad scientist. Sometimes, he seems to be trying too hard in the role. If there’s anything that we should have learned from Flatliners, it’s that Kiefer Sutherland should play the mad scientist while Kevin Bacon plays the guy who understands how dangerous an uncontrolled experiment can be. Bacon should have been the one saying, “You’re going to make yourself invisible? Are you stupid or something?”

Hollow Man is ultimately a hollow film.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Kevin Bacon 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!

Today is the birthday of everyone’s favorite, hard-working character actor, Kevin Bacon!  And that means that it’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Films

Friday the 13th (1980, dir by Sean S. Cunningham)

Quicksilver (1986, dir by Thomas Michael Donnelly)

JFK (1991, dir by Oliver Stone)

X-Men: First Class (2011, dir by Matthew Vaughn)

 

Film Review: Patriots Day (dir by Peter Berg)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On April 15th, 2013, a terrible crime was committed.

Two brothers, Tamerlan and Dzokhar Tsarnaev, bombed the Boston Marathon.  I can remember the exact moment when I looked up at the television and I saw the footage of the bomb going off as a group of runners ran across the finish line.  Instinctively, I found myself hoping that the explosion looked worse than it actually was and that no one had been seriously injured.  However, I was then flooded with images of people running in fear while other lay injured and bleeding on the ground.  A photograph of  man who had lost his both his legs was seared into my mind, the nightmarish image of those exposed and shattered bones coming to represent the pure evil that was unleashed on that day.

At first, there was a lot of speculation about who was responsible for the bombing.  Despite the fact that it had all the earmarks of an al-Qaeda operation, many people on the news insisted that the bomb had been set by their favorite boogeymen, the right-wing militias.  (The initial theory was that it was a tax day protest, which is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.)  Three days after the bombing, the first photographs of the Tsarnaev Brothers were released.  Looking at the security footage of Tamerlan placing a bomb on the ground right next to a child who was subsequently killed in the blast, I started to rethink my opposition to the death penalty.

Boston was shut down until the Tsarnaev brothers were tracked down and, along with hating the Tsarnaevs, I found myself fearing that the search for them would normalize the idea of suspending civil liberties.  Tamerlan was gunned down in a fight with police and hopefully, he felt each bullet.  Dzokhar was captured after he attempted to hide in a homeowner’s boat while whining like a little bitch.  Dzokhar is one of three people on the Federal Death Row.  He also has a truly creepy fan club online, though they haven’t been as active as they were in the past.

2016’s Patriots Day is about that tragic day and the subsequent manhunt for the Tsarnaev brothers.  This is another one of Peter Berg’s films about professional, no-nonsense men who have a job to do and who do it well.  Mark Wahlberg plays a cop.  Kevin Bacon plays the FBI agent who heads up the investigation.  John Goodman plays the Boston police commission while Michael Beach makes an appearance as Deval Patrick, the then-governor of Massachusetts who ran a bizarrely overlooked presidential campaign in 2020.  Just as he did with Deepwater Horizon, Berg emphasizes the human cost of the tragedy along with the official efforts to track down the men responsible.  The ensemble comes together impressively, recreating those scary few days and also paying tribute to a city that refused to allow itself to be defeated.  Patriots Day follows the common, blue collar citizens of Boston as they deal with a horrific act of evil.  Even though we all know how the story turned out, the film manages to create a decent amount of suspense as the authorities search for the Tsarnaevs.  As for the brothers themselves, the film portrays them as being initially cocky and eventually pathetic.  To the film’s credit, it doesn’t ask us to consider things from the point of view of the terrorists.  There’s no moral relativism here.  The film knows who deserves to be heard.

Patriots Day is a tribute to the first responders and the citizens of Boston who refused to allow the Tsarnaevs to win.  With so many people now making excuses for terrorism, Patriots Day is a powerful reminder of the human cost of such actions.  The Tsarnaevs through they were striking a blow for their ideology.  Instead, they just reminded us how strong people can be.

 

PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES and our family’s traditions.

Posted on by Bradley Crain

I love Thanksgiving because I love spending time with my family. My Mom is one of 15 kids from a large Catholic family in central Arkansas, so this is the time of year that I get to see a big part of that extended family. A lot of people are spread out across the state and country so we don’t get to see everyone at Thanksgiving, but we do get to see a lot of people. We go to my aunt Jo Ellen’s house, and I get to hang out with a bunch of my aunts, uncles and cousins. We’ll have a giant feast from a potluck of items we’ve grown to love over the years…Aunt Jo Ellen’s turkey and dressing, Mom’s candied yams, Aunt Connie’s deviled eggs, the giant table of desserts, etc. Our family is all about traditions, and this is the time of year we share those with each other. I just love it! 

One of our movie-watching traditions is watching PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES together. And we do it every year. We still laugh at all the right parts…Kevin Bacon getting Steve Martin’s cab thanks to a mysteriously large trunk on the curb, John Candy reading The Canadian Mounted, Doobie’s Taxiola, “Those Aren’t Pillows,” Owen’s strange facial expressions and throat noises, “a couple of balls and an extra set of fingers,” the runway crossing, the car rental counter meltdown, “you’re going the wrong way,” the hotel destruction getaway, and the indestructible car radio. Odds are many of you are smiling as you read this quick summary of some of my favorite parts. We’ll watch the movie together while we’re settling in back at Dad and Mom’s house after a wonderful Thanksgiving lunch. It’s a guarantee that Dad will be snoring at some point. 

As much as I love to eat, to me, Thanksgiving is all about spending time with the ones I love. We’ll tell a lot of the same stories that we’ve told many times over the years, and we’ll laugh at them all over again. We’ll truly enjoy our time together. Our family is not perfect, and we don’t always see eye to eye on everything, but we love each other and that is more important than just about anything else. That’s a Crain family tradition passed down from my parents. One of the best things about PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES is that there are times when the laughs die completely down, and that’s when the movie reveals its heart. The same can be said for my family, and that’s something I’m truly thankful for.

Mia Goth and Ti West take us to 1985 in the MaXXXine Trailer!

Posted on by Leonard Wilson

The X trilogy kind of snuck up on everyone. The end of March 2022’s “X” gave us a sneak peek at Pearl, which ended up releasing later in theatres that same year. Now, director Ti West and actress Mia Goth are closing the loop with MaXXXine, which arrives in theatres this summer.

MaXXXine is a direct sequel to X, with our heroine still wanting to be a major star after the events of the first film. Though she may not realize it, Maxine has a lot in common with Pearl, and those elements may put her into some dark circles.

MaXXXine also stars Kevin Bacon, Halsey, Bobby Cannavale, Elizabeth Debicki, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Esposito, and Michelle Monaghan.

Diner (1982, directed by Barry Levinson)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Which member of the Diner gang would you be?

I think that is the question that everyone, or at least every guy, asks themselves after watching Barry Levinson’s debut film.  Most would probably want to say that they’re Boogie (Mickey Rourke), because he’s cool, all the ladies love him, and he makes creative use of a popcorn box at the movies.  Some would probably say that they want to be Fenwick (Kevin Bacon) because he’s smart and sarcastic.  No one wants to be Billy (Tim Daly) or Eddie (Steve Guttenberg), even though we would all want to be their friend.

The truth is that most of us would probably be Shrevie (Daniel Stern), the just-married one who is discovering that being an adult means working an unglamorous job and discovering the rest of the world doesn’t care about your taste in music.  The luckiest of us might be Modell (Paul Reiser), the funny one who doesn’t get a story but who makes a lot of jokes.

Diner was one of the first great hang-out movies.  There is no plot, at least not in the traditional sense.  Instead, it’s about a group of long-time friends who live in Baltimore in 1959.  They grew up together.  They went to high school together.  They’ve been hanging out at the same diner for as long as they can all remember.  And now, they’re at the point in their lives where the world expects them to act like adults and accept all the responsibility that goes along with that.  It’s a film that celebrates their friendship while also acknowledging that some of them are using that friendship as an excuse to not grow up.  They escape into trivia and movies, with one minor character reciting Sweet Smell of Success by memory.  Fenwick drinks.  Boogie gambles.  Even Billy, who doesn’t even live in Baltimore anymore, reverts to his old ways as soon as he returns for Eddie’s wedding and ends up sucker punching someone because of an old high school incident.

The preparations for Eddie’s wedding gives the film what structure it has.  Eddie is marrying the unseen Elyse, assuming she can pass his demanding quiz about the Baltimore Colts.  (That may sound unfair but if you’re from Baltimore, you’ll understand.)  While Eddie gets ready for his wedding, Shrevie’s marriage to Beth (Ellen Barkin) seems to be falling apart and she finds herself tempted to cheat with Boogie, who has his own problems with a local bookie.  Meanwhile, Billy learns that his girlfriend (Kathryn Dowling) is pregnant.

The film is about friendship and the friendships between the men feel real.  Levinson held off on shooting the largely improvised diner scenes until the end of the film, by which time all of the actors had developed their own idiosyncratic relationships with each other.  The heart of Diner is to be found in scenes like the one where Modell tries to ask for someone else’s sandwich without actually coming out and asking for it.  The dialogue in that scene and so many others has the ring of age-old friendship.  Though the film makes it easy to see why Mickey Rourke and Kevin Bacon become movie stars while Tim Daly has spent most of his career on television, the entire cast is still perfect in their roles.  It’s about as strong as an ensemble as you could ever hope to see.  They become the characters and watching the movie, it’s impossible not to see yourself and your friends in their performances.

Barry Levinson has gone on to direct many more films but for me, Diner will always be the best.

 

6 Actors Who I Hope Will Win An Oscar Soon

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

We talk a lot about which performers and directors have been snubbed at Oscar time.

For movie lovers, that’s an important subject. We all know that great actors like Peter O’Toole, Cary Grant, Albert Finney, and far too many others all went to their graves with several nominations but not a single competitive Oscar to their name. Just four years ago, Kirk Douglas died at the age of 103 without having ever won a competitive Oscar.  We always talk about how certain actors are overdue for their first Oscar but sometimes we forget that being overdue doesn’t always translate into an eventual win. Sometimes, it translates into people watching a movie on TCM and saying, “How did that person never win an Oscar in their lifetime?”

With that in mind, here are 6 actors who I sincerely hope will have won their first Oscar by the time that 2034 rolls around:

  1. Brendan Gleeson

Brendan Gleeson is a perennial on these lists but I going to keep including him until he gets the Oscar that he deserves.  Last year, he finally received his first nomination but he didn’t win.  Hopefully, right this minute, he’s considering the role that will finally bring him some Oscar glory.

2. Kevin Bacon

Kevin Bacon is another perennial on this list.  He’s a good actor, he seems to be a likable guy, and I have never met a single person who doesn’t have some sort of affection for him.  However, Kevin Bacon has never won an Oscar.  In fact, he’s never even been nominated!  Bacon is one of those actors who people tend to take for granted.  Hopefully, over the next ten years, he’ll become the first Friday the 13th counselor to win an Oscar.

3. Paul Giamatti

I nearly didn’t include Giamatti on this list because he is nominated tonight and, though Cillian Murphy is currently the favorite, there’s still a chance that Giamatti could pull off an upset.  But Giamatti is such a talent that, until he does actually win, there really wasn’t any way I couldn’t include him.  Giamatti has the unique talent to be able to generate sympathy for otherwise extremely off-putting characters.  He may not win tonight but he will win eventually.

4. Eric Roberts

Come on, you knew he was going to show up on this list.  Eric Roberts has had a long career, one that has definitely had its ups-and-downs.  However, he’s never stopped working and his willingness to appear in everything from major studio productions to cheap softcore thrillers to faith-based films has made him a bit of a beloved cultural institution.  Roberts has always had the talent to earn an Oscar.  He probably should have won for Star 80.  Here’s hoping for a film that does for him what The Wrestler did for Mickey Rourke.

5. Harrison Ford

He’s not getting any younger and he only has ONE Oscar nomination to his name.  Get on it, Hollywood!

6. Ryan Reynolds

You just know the acceptance speech would be one for the ages.