As I’ve stated in the past, I have a weakness for creepy old educational films. 1954’s The Show-Off is one of the creepiest.
The Show-Off begins with a creepy schoolgirl, who appears to have wandered right out of the pages of a Stephen King novel, staring straight at the camera and asking us for our help. It seems that a young sociopath named Jim has been giving the junior class a bad name. We watch as Jim disrupts a class preparing for a history class. In horror, we witness him disrupting rehearsals for the school play. By the end of the film, Jim is intentionally tripping his fellow students and, worst of all, hanging an unauthorized banner that reads, “Yay! Juniors!”
As the creepy girl asks us, “what would you do about the Show-off? What would you do?”
Judging from stark grayness of the school and the bizarrely blank faces of most of the students, I imagine Jim was probably sent to Room 23 and forced to watch a Dharma Initiative video. (Ah, Lost. How I miss you…)
Like a lot of educational films from the 1950s, this one was directed by Herk Harvey. Harvey would later go on to direct the classic horror film, Carnival of Lost Souls. The Show-Off shares its odd, dream-like atmosphere with Carnival of Lost Souls. I’m not sure if that’s intentional on Harvey’s part or if it’s just the fact that 50s were apparently a very creepy time.
Without further ado, here is Herk Harvey’s The Show-Off.
Today is the one-week anniversary of a historic social media event: the #SyFyDaysaster.
For the past year, I’ve been a proud member of a group of film lovers known as the Snarkalecs. Every Saturday, we would meet up via twitter and we would watch whatever film happened to be playing on the SyFy network. Every week, we would look forward to the chance to live tweet films with titles like Jersey Shore Shark Attack, Chupacabra Vs. The Alamo, Two-Headed Shark Attack, and Piranaconda. Often times, we would be joined by actors like Gerald Webb and directors like Griff Furst. One of my best memories remains the time that Greg Grunberg replied to one of my tweets while we were watching End of the World.
Incidentally, every time that the Snarkalecs would start to live tweet a movie on Saturday, that movie would soon start trending. As a result, other twitter users would have an incentive to change the station over to SyFy and see what everyone was talking about. By showing original movies on Saturday night, SyFy kept the Snarkalecs entertained and we, as a result, then helped SyFy get better ratings.
What could be more American than that?
However, a few months ago, the SyFy network announced that they would no longer be showing original movies on Saturday night. Instead, the movies moved to Thursday and Saturday night became about showcasing a rather forgettable show called Sinbad.
Unfortunately, Thursday is not a convenient night for many of the Snarkalecs. Some Snarkalecs have to be at work on Friday morning. Other Snarkalecs have family obligations during the week. As for me, Thursday doesn’t work because that’s when CBS airs the weekly eviction episode of Big Brother.
As a result, the Snarkalecs have found other things and other networks to watch on Saturday night and Sinbad hasn’t trended once.
Two Thursdays ago, the snarkalecs decided to make a point. As a group, we DVRed the SyFy original film, Independence Daysaster, off of the SyFy network. We then watched and live tweeted the film on Saturday night.
Within fifteen minutes, just as a result of a handful of Snarkalecs live tweeting the film, #SyfyDaysaster was the number one trending topic in the world. And it stayed at number one for the next two hours. And when the tweets started to show up from people wanting to know just why exactly #SyFyDaysaster was trending, we let them know that it was trending because it was a film that the SyFy Network could have been showing instead of broadcasting the latest episode of Sinbad.
As a result of our act of social media protest, for two hours, #SyFyDaysaster was an even more popular subject than Amanda Bynes calling Drake ugly.
As for Sinbad, it trended not once.
The fact of the matter is that people don’t love the SyFy Network because of shows like Sinbad. Instead, we love the SyFy network because SyFy gives us a chance to watch movies like Super Shark and Tasmanian Devils. By showing those movies, the SyFy network has given me a chance to meet and get to know people who I may not have ever met otherwise. SyFy Saturday movie nights introduced me to the snarkalecs and, for that, I will always be thankful.
Let me put it like this — if you tell me you watch Sinbad, I’ll smile politely. Ff you tell me that you love Jersey Shore Shark Attack, I’ll be your friend forever and I’ll probably end up making out with you depending on how much I’ve had to drink beforehand.
In short, I’m proud of us! I only hope that the SyFy network noticed and that they’ll reconsider their decision to make Saturday night all about Sinbad.
As for Independence Daysaster, it was actually something of a lesser SyFy film. A bunch of aliens invade Earth on the 4th of July. The President (played by Tom Everett Scott) teams up with a bunch of hackers to defeat them. It was all pretty predictable and, under any other circumstances, rather forgettable. Still, I will never forget the #SyFyDaysaster and I look forward to engaging in future acts of civil disobedience until, hopefully, the movies return to where they belong, back on Saturday night.
Here’s just a few of the tweets from #SyFyDaysaster:
Disney snaps up the cinematic rights to the most famous Western hero of them all — one that hasn’t been “rebooted” since 1981’s disastrous Legend Of The Lone Ranger — and turns it over, naturally enough, to Jerry Bruckheimer, who “gets the band back together,” so to speak, by hiring Gore Verbinski to direct and Johnny Depp to star as Tonto. Pirates Of The Caribbean Goes West, anyone?
It goes without saying that budget wouldn’t be a concern here — special effects, production values, sets and costumes — all would be state-of-the-state-of-the-art. Turn it loose on the public over the extended July 4th holiday weekend, sit back, and collect all that cold, hard cash. What could possibly go wrong? This was fool-proof.
Except for the fact that, well, it hasn’t been. The Lone Ranger has landed at the box office with a thud — not as big a thud as it did back in ’81, but a thud nonetheless. The critics seem to despise it, and while audiences have been considerably kinder in their appraisal of the film, they haven’t been large enough for Disney to come anywhere close to recouping their considerable investment in this rapidly-unfurling boondoggle.
All of which is kind of a shame because, as with last year’s panned (but considerably more successful at the box office) Men In Black 3, I honestly can’t figure out where all the hate is coming from. Simply put, The Lone Ranger is a damn fun movie, full of exactly the kind of kick-ass, jaw-dropping CGI, solid “out for justice” storytelling, tight, pacy plotting, and charismatic acting that makes for a sure-fire crowd-pleaser. Even if the crowds aren’t proving to be all that big.
Not exactly a “revisionist” take on the legend of John Reid (confidently played by Armie Hammer), a Texas Ranger who, when his life is turned tragically upside-down, dons a mask and adopts a new persona. this flick nevertheless provides a different spin on things by telling the tale from the point of view of an older, wiser, and maybe even somewhat broken-down Tonto (Johnny Depp in, quite honestly, one of the finest performances of his career), who earlier in life threw his lot in with Reid to bring to justice the source of all our hero’s troubles, renegade quasi-militia leader Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner, who makes for a terrific bad guy) and ,more generally, to put a stop to all the various shenanigans this good-for-nothing had a hand in.
If this sounds like your idea of a simple-minded, non-stop thrill ride full of all the excitement, adventure, humor, and yes, even human drama that you want in summertime popcorn fare, rest assured — it is. Good supporting turns from the likes of Helena Bonham Carter, Tom Wilkinson, and Ruth Wilson don’t hurt matters any, either.
Yeah, there are some gaping plot holes large enough for an entire herd of cattle to stampede through, but has that stopped folks from liking, say, World War Z or Man Of Steel, both of which are at least as guilty of counting on you to put your suspension of disbelief completely on hold for a couple of hours? If you can do it for them, surely you can do it for this, right?
Look, I won’t kid you — some small, petty, vengeful little corner of my dark and twisted soul is always happy to see a mega-budget Disney project end up costing the studio untold millions in losses. They’re bastards and they deserve it. But truth be told, if you join the legions of people who have already evidently decided to take a pass on The Lone Ranger, you’re not hurting the evil empire much — they’ve already got Monsters University to more than compensate for any bite this takes from their corporate balance sheet. The only thing you’re really doing by skipping it, then, is robbing yourself of a good time.
It’s summer! Get out there and have some fun — by sitting on your ass in a cool, air-conditioned mega-plex and catching what’s most likely the best action-adventure film of the year so far.
Okay, I get it — fans of Max Brooks’ best-selling “zombie apocalypse” novel World War Z are pissed off about director Marc (Monster’s Ball, Quantum Of Solace) Forster’s big-budget, big-screen “adaptation” of it because the finished product bears essentially no recognizable similarity to its printed-page predecessor. Heck, some are even going so far as to say that they actually like the film, they just feel that it should be called something else.
On the other hand, it seems that more or less everyone who hasn’t read the book loves the movie.
Much as I’d enjoy picking a side in this, the latest great “genre geek debate,” I honestly can’t, simply because I don’t really fit into either of the “warring” camps, seeing as how I neither read the novel nor loved the film with the kind of awestruck wonder its most fervent partisans seem to be brimming over with.
Oh, sure, it was pleasantly entertaining enough — United Nations bad-ass-for-hire Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt — who, let’s face it, is probably contractually obligated to always play somebody at least a little bit cooler than the Average Joe) races against the clock, and around the globe, to keep his wife, Karin (Mireille Enos of TV’s The Killing) and their kids safe from a massive viral plague that essentially mashes together elements of the scenarios George Romero laid out in both The Crazies and his seminal “Living Dead” flicks, only with a much larger budget that enables the filmmakers to give us a more international perspective on the goings-on. Governments are strained to breaking point and/or collapse entirely, WHO and the world’s various military forces struggle to get a handle on things, no area is left unaffected, no one is safe —you get the picture.
The script went through four sets of hands — Babylon 5 creator and frequent comics scribe J. Michael Straczynski gave way to former Lost head honcho and occasional comics scribe Damon Lindelof who in turn gave way to Drew Goddard who in turn gave way to Matthew Michael Carnahan — and, as you can imagine, is something of a mess as a result. Fortunately, it never slows down long enough for you to fully realize that fact, and instead keeps you on the edge of your seat with its PG-13-level action and semi-violence (notice I don’t say anything about gore — sorry, die-hard zombie-holics) from the time it clocks in to the time it knocks off and heads for the bar around the corner.
The end result is something of a hustle — it’ll slowly dawn on you as you make your way home from the theater that what you just saw really wasn’t anything too special, but what the hell — you were too busy having fun to notice.
And that was probably the whole point, really. I don’t think Forster and his literal army of screenwriters set out to reinvent the wheel here or overturn the sacred “Romero Rules” permanently. They were just the guys brought in to make something of a damn popular book that Paramount bid a fortune to obtain the rights to and if, at the end of the day, all that survived of World War Z as most folks knew it was the title, well — that’s pretty much all they were paying for, anyway. Beyond that the only edicts from the studio “suits” were probably to land a huge star, load up on the CGI, and deliver a product that the average summertime movie-goer would find to be a reasonable enough investment of ten bucks and (roughly) two hours.
Judging it on that scorecard, you’d have to say they can all pat themselves on the back, say “mission accomplished,” and go home. Those hoping for a movie that would revolutionize the genre on celluloid the same way the book did in print are bound to be left feeling a bit disappointed, as is anyone who bothers to actually think about what they’re seeing while they’re seeing it, but for anyone and everyone else, hey — it’s a decent enough little thrill ride. Grab some popcorn, sit back, and please don’t struggle against your inner 12-year-old.
Now, as to the other raging debate splitting the internet about whether or not this is actually a horror movie or just a “thriller” with some genre trappings —
Forget it. I’m sooooo not going there. One nerd-controversy per review is my limit.
Maybe it’s unfair to saddle director Louis (Transporter) Leterrier’s new-ish “caper” drama Now You See Me with the “blockbuster” label, since it obviously doesn’t have the budget (or hype machine surrounding it) of an Iron Man 3 or a Man Of Steel, but its surprisingly healthy take at the box office in recent weeks has it hedging into “blockbuster” territory in terms of its gross ticket receipts, it’s got a “blockbuster”-caliber cast, and it definitely falls into the category of lightweight, fun, summer entertainment, so — let’s just roll with it.
And let’s not take that “lightweight, fun, summer entertainment” statement as a jab, either, please, because Now You See Me is a solid little piece of film-making that anyone associated with it can (and should) be damn proud of. It’s just not particularly “deep” in any thematic sense.
But so what? It’s been awhile since Hollywood served us up a good “caper”-style thriller — the last genuinely superb one that comes to mind is Roger Donaldson’s criminally-underappreciated The Bank Job, and that’s getting to be a good few years ago now — and even though this is a film that doesn’t aim for the same level of “ooh”s and “aah”s of the latest Marvel or DC celluloid comic-book adaptation, it’s got more genuine heroics than most of them, and is every bit as finely-calculated a crowd-pleaser as anything they’ve sent down the pipeline in recent years, as well.
The all-star cast definitely helps to elevate a script that at times belabors its points with admittedly necessary but occasionally clumsy “info-dump” scenes and features a smattering of dialogue that can best be described as “clunky,” and while none of the actors involved are exactly stretching their abilities into new and unexplored territory, there’s something to be said for knowing what the folks you hire are best at doing and then getting out of the way and letting them do it.
To that end, Jesse Eisenberg tackles his role as fast-talking, arrogant illusionist J. Daniel Atlas with aplomb; Woody Harrelson delivers a solid, workman-like piece of acting as mentalist Merritt McKinney; Isla Fisher gives us a nice turn as former-magician’s-assistant-turned-headliner Henley Reeves; Dave Franco projects cool confidence as safe-cracker/lock-picker/con artist extraordinaire Jack Wilder; Mark Ruffalo gives another “believable everyman” performance as Special Agent Dylan Rhodes, the man tasked with somehow getting some charges to stick on our intrepid foursome, who have come together and billed themselves as “The Four Horsemen,” after they apparently rob a bank in front of a Las Vegas show audience (or do they?); Michael Caine gives it his usual grade-A “go” as the group’s multi-millionaire benefactor/promoter/future victim; Morgan Freeman essentially plays himself in his guise as Through The Wormhole host, albeit with quantum physics being replaced with magic trick “debunking” as his gig; Melanie Laurent cuts a satisfying European-woman-of-mystery figure as Alma Dray, Ruffalo’s reluctant Interpol partner/potential love interest — heck, there are even notable minor performances here from Michael Kelly and Common as two of the cops who are down a few rungs on the investigative totem pole.
It’s not like the film doesn’t have any sort of statement to make about the general state of the world, either — to the contrary, “The Four Horsemen” take great pride in ripping off those who have ripped off society, and represent the kind of folk heroes the world could surely use in the wake of the mortgage crisis and the atrocious Wall Street bailout it gave birth to. Think of them as modern-day Robin Hoods with a flair for the dramatic and plenty of flat-out amazing tricks up their sleeves.
Still, the art of deception being the constant theme here, don’t be shocked if the reasons for our protagonists’ “crimes” turn out to be a lot more personal than they first appear to be (hey, I did say this movie wasn’t particularly “deep,” remember? Not even when it looks like it might be.) . I think I’ll just leave it at that, which might even be saying a little too much already.
Leterrier, as we’ve come to expect, keeps things moving at a fairly expert clip, throws in some nifty little visual tricks along the way, and most definitely delivers the goods in the film’s more action-heavy scenes, and while he handles the script’s quasi-trippy/metaphysical conclusion quite nicely in my view, I think a lot of folks will still find it a bridge too far, and frankly, for a movie that’s all about sleight of hand, you’ll still most likely see the “surprise character revelation” at the end coming from a mile off.
But ya know what? This is such an expertly-crafted piece of populist entertainment that I don’t think you’ll mind its admittedly-glaring weaknesses, simply because you’ll be too busy smiling from ear to ear. And that, perhaps, is its greatest trick of all.
There will surely be better films than Now You See Me released in 2013. Heck, there already have been. But I doubt there will be any that are more fun.
Last night, my sister Erin and I watched the 2008 Lifetime Movie, Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleader Scandal.
Why Were We Watching It?
This is my fourth favorite Lifetime movie, coming in right behind Confessions of a Go Go Girl, The Babysitter’s Seduction, and Mother, May I Sleep With Danger. It comes on every few weeks and, if I’m at home, I’ll usually end up watching it. I forced my sister Erin Nicole to watch it with me because she actually was a Texas cheerleader and I figured she would have some insight into the film that I might otherwise miss. Plus, it’s just fun to watch movies with Erin!
What Was It About?
Emma Carr (Jenna Dewan, who would later become Jenna Dewan-Tatum) is the new cheerleading coach at a small Texas high school. She views cheerleading as being the most important part of a young girl’s life and she quickly proves to be an inspirational and beloved teacher. However, five mean girls — the Fab Five of the title — are determined to do what they want, regardless of whether it’s good for the cheerleading squad, the school, or Coach Carr’s marriage. Making things especially difficult is the fact that the leader of the Fab Five (played by Amber Benson) is the daughter of the school principal (Tatum O’Neal). While Coach Carr tries to instill a sense of teamwork and self-esteem into the rest of the squad, the Fab Five spend their time drinking, hanging out in sex shops, and posting racy videos on YouTube.
Needless to say, this film is credited as being “based on a true story.”
What Worked?
Though the film was undoubtedly exaggerated, it still did manage to capture just what it’s like to go to an athletics-obsessed school in small town and suburban Texas. Seriously, it’s a world that only makes sense when you’re actually a part of it. Once you leave and think back, it all looks like a silly Lifetime movie.
Everytime after I see this movie, I find myself occasionally clapping my hands while chanting, “Pump, pump, pump it up/Pump that spirit, keep it up!” Seriously, it’s fun!
What Did Not Work?
Both Erin and I were occasionally amused and often annoyed by how seriously Coach Carr took cheerleading. Every time that Jenna Dewan started to give a speech about the importance of cheerleading (“You represent your school!”), Erin and I started laughing. She was just so serious about it that I found it hard to believe that her character wasn’t being played for laughs. Imagine my shock as I realized that the film meant for us to take her seriously.
(However, Erin has assured me that there are coaches out there who really do view cheerleading as being a mission from God.)
“Oh my God! Just like us!” Moments
As we watched the film, I continually asked my sister if this movie was an accurate portrayal of what it was like to be a scandalous high school cheerleader in Texas. According to Erin, the film was accurate but exaggerated. She said that she had known girls like the ones portrayed in this film but, even at their worst, they weren’t “as demonic” as the Fab Five. Erin also asked me to make clear that she was certainly never one of those girls. And I can vouch for that! There’s a reason why Erin’s nickname is “the nice one.”
When I first started high school, quite a few people told me that I needed to follow my sister’s example and try out for cheerleader and I have to admit that I was occasionally tempted to do so. However, I never did because I already had ballet and drama club, I wanted to establish my own identity, and Erin told me that being cheerleader meant that I had to be perky all the time and, quite frankly, I’ve always needed my time to sulk. So, I’ve never regretted not following the cheerleader route but I still found it amusing that the evil redheaded cheerleader in Fab Five was named Lisa.
Lessons Learned
My home state is the best! Seriously, would anyone ever want to watch a movie called The Vermont Cheerleader Scandal? I think not.
“Seriously, what the Hell’s the point of Vermont?”
By all logic, Maniac has no right to be as good a film as it is.
A remake of William Lustig’s notoriously sleazy (if grimly effective) 1980 film, Maniac tells the story of Frank Zito (Elijah Wood, taking on a role previously played to repulsive perfection by Joe Spinell). Frank is a twitchy young man who sells mannequins for a living, has frequent conversations with his dead mother, suffers from intense migraines, and relieves stress by scalping strangers. Much like the original Maniac, the remake is largely plotless. Frank stalks women. Frank yells at his mannequins. Frank pursues an unlikely romance with an incredibly naive photographer (played here by the very sympathetic Nora Arnezeder). Much blood is spilled and the film eventually comes to a conclusion that’s even darker than Lustig’s original.
One thing that does distinguish this remake from the original Maniac is that director Franck Khalfoun and producer (and screenwriter) Alexandre Aja attempt to truly put the viewers in Frank’s disturbed mind. With the exception of a few isolated moments, the entire film is a collection of p.o.v. shots. While we hear Frank talk throughout the film, the only time that we actually see him is during the rare moment that Frank takes the time to look at his reflection. That may sound gimmicky (and it is) but, at the same time, it actually works surprisingly well. Much like Frank, the audience spends the film trapped in his disturbed mind and often unsure about whether they’re seeing something real or having another hate-fueled hallucination.
It helps that Elijah Wood gives a surprisingly credible performance in the role of Frank. While we only actually get to see his face a handful of times, Wood makes every one of those moments count. Unlike the original’s Joe Spinell (who gave a performance that was so incredibly sleazy that he almost seemed to be surrounded by a cloud of grime whenever he showed up on screen), Elijah Wood uses his youthful face and his deceptively gentle voice to turn Frank into a disturbingly plausible threat. With his nervous eyes and rather befuddled expression, Wood makes Frank into the murderer next door One reason why serial killers are so scary is because the majority of them look more like Elijah Wood than Joe Spinell. Director Khalfoun uses Wood’s passive screen presence to put the audience at ease, just as surely as Frank uses his innocent face to fool his victims. As a result, the viewers keep expecting Frank to show some shimmer of humanity. That’s make it all the more disturbing to watch as the film reveals just how much of a monster Frank truly is.
Playing the role of Frank’s love interest, Nora Arnezeder also deserves a lot of credit. While the original film definitely suffered because you never believed that Caroline Munro’s classy photographer would actually be attracted to Joe Spinell, the relationship between Wood and Arnezeder is a lot more plausible and hence, it also has the potential to be a lot more tragic. Without Arnezeder’s empathetic performance, Maniac would just be a numbing collection of scenes of people being murdered. However, Arnezeder creates a character that viewers will actually care about. We worry about her as we watch her relationship with Frank develop but, at the same time, we can understand what she thinks she sees in this shy and eccentric man. As opposed to the original film and despite all of the graphic violence (and it is graphic, make no mistake), the remake of Maniac never feels misogynistic and that’s largely due to the work of Nora Arnezeder. Arnezeder gives us something that the original never bothered to do, a character to sympathize with.
Finally, you can’t talk about the remake of Maniac without mentioning the film’s excellent score. Composed by a French composer who goes by the name of Rob, the synth-heavy score has a wonderfully retro feel to it that pays homage to both the old grindhouse films and also adds a propulsive element of menace to every scene. Much like the electronic score of the far different Upstream Color, the score of Maniac becomes a character all of its own. I would even go as far to say that it’s perhaps one of the best horror score that I’ve ever heard.
I wasn’t expecting much of Maniac. In fact, the only reason I saw it was out of curiosity. I was expecting to be a typical horror remake, a cynical film made solely to exploit the notoriety of its source.
Was I ever wrong!
Maniac is not a pleasant film. It’s a dark and gore-filled movie but, in its disturbing way, it’s also oddly effective and compelling. It’s a film that probably has no right to be good and yet, that’s exactly what it is.
Last night, I turned over to Lifetime and I watched the world premiere of Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret.
Why Was I Watching It?
If you know me then you know that I can’t resist a trashy Lifetime film. And could anything be trashier than a film about Jodi Arias?
What Was It About?
The film is based on the true story of the most hated woman in America. Mentally unstable fake blonde Jodi Arias (Tania Raymonde) meets motivational speaker Travis Alexander (Jesse Lee Sofer) and eventually becomes obsessed with him. Finally, Jodi goes back to her natural hair color and, in a disturbingly graphic scene, murders Travis.
What Worked?
In the role of Jodi Arias, Tania Raymonde (who is probably best known for playing Ben’s daughter on Lost) gave a genuinely unsettling performance. Not only did Raymonde look a lot like Jodi but she was convincingly crazy as well.
What Did Not Work?
Honestly, this film left me feeling incredibly icky. Does Jodi Arias really deserve to have a film made about her?
Perhaps I would have felt differently if the film had provided any sort of psychological insight into either Jodi or Travis (who remains a cipher for the majority of the film). However, the film is content to just reenact all of the sordid details that we’ve already heard about. The end result is a film that’s occasionally watchable but ultimately disappointing.
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
I refuse to acknowledge seeing any “Just like me!” moments while watching a movie about Jodi Arias. Judging from the response on twitter to this movie, I was not alone in this. For the most part, people seemed to be watching specifically so they could point out how little they had in common with Jodi Arias. Perhaps that’s the true appeal of films like this, the chance to say, “I may be fucked up but at least I’m not Jodi Arias!”
Okay, I will admit that, much like the film version of Jodi Arias, I believe that dancing can be a great tool of seduction and emotional expression.
However, judging from the moves displayed in this movie, I’m a much better dancer.
Lessons Learned
I’ll watch just about anything that’s on Lifetime.
Tonight, TCM has been showing a marathon a Mamie Van Doren films. I just sat through The Beat Generation, a 1959 film where Mamie is among the many women to fall victim to a crazed beatnik known as the Aspirin Kid.
Now, to be honest, The Beat Generation is not a very good film. In fact, it’s probably one of the most anti-female movies that I’ve ever seen. Watching it, I found myself very happy that I was not alive during the 50s.
However, it did remind me of the far superior High School Confidential, another film that featured a bunch of faux Beatniks and Mamie Van Doren in a supporting role. Released in 1958 and directed by Jack Arnold, High School Confidential is a lot of fun.
And that brings us to tonight’s scene that I love. In the scene below, “beatnik” poetess Philippa Fallon recites a poem while secret drug dealer Jackie Coogan plays the piano. I love this scene because it’s just so typical of the way that exploitation films from the 50s tended to portray the beat generation.
I have to admit that whenever I see one of these old films that attempted to cluelessly portray (and mock) the beatniks of the 50s, I’m reminded of the similarly clueless way that bloggers are portrayed in most current films and Aaron Sorkin-penned television series.
