Cleaning Out the DVR: Scared Straight! Another Story (dir by Richard Michaels)

Posted on August 4, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Who is ready to be scared straight … again!?

Scared Straight! Another Story is a made-for-television movie from 1980. As you can tell by the name, the movie was inspired by the documentary Scared Straight! and the addition of Another Story to the title would lead one to suspect that this was actually a follow-up or continuation to that documentary and I guess it kind of is. A group of teenagers, all of whom have been in trouble with the law, are sent to a prison where they are finger-printed, forced to stay in a cell, and then yelled at by a bunch of prisoners who assure them that they don’t have what it takes to survive in prison. Then, just as in the documentary, the teenagers leave the prison. Some of them continue to get in trouble and some of them are scared straight. As for the prisoners, they remain imprisoned.

The main difference is that, instead of featuring real prisoners and real delinquents, Scared Straight! Another Story is a dramatization. As a result, the prisoners are saying the same thing that they said in the first Scared Straight! but now the prisoners themselves are played by actors who will be familiar to anyone who has watched enough old TV shows. The prisoners may be yelling about how much life sucks but the viewer knows that they are all actors and, as a result, Scared Straight! Another Story lacks the rough authenticity of the first film. (It also doesn’t help that most of the profanity from the original documentary has been replaced with softer expressions of disgust.) The film again makes the argument that the Scared Straight program can turn someone’s life around but it’s not as effective because, again, the troubled teens are all actors. The viewer knows that they’re actors. Their lives have already been turned around.

Surprisingly, the scenes of the prisoners yelling are the least effective parts of this film. Instead, Scared Straight! Another Story works best when it is exploring everyone’s life before and after the trip to the prison. Stan Shaw, in particular, is effective as a prisoner who is inspired to take part in the program after he comes across the body of an inmate who has been driven to suicide. Also well-cast is Terri Nunn, playing Lucy, the girlfriend of a small-time drug dealer. Both she and her boyfriend are scared straight but it turns out to be too little too late as her boyfriend is eventually sent to jail for the crimes that he committed before the program. (There’s an interesting scene, one that I wish had been explored in greater detail, where Lucy’s father observes the scared straight program and, instead of understanding that prison is a terrible place to send a kid, reacts by saying that the prisoners are all getting what they deserve.) Finally, Cliff De Young, who has played a lot of corrupt government agents and out-of-touch teachers over the course of his career, gets a sympathetic role as Paul, the idealistic juvenile probation officer who sends three of his clients to the program. The program works for two of them while the other eventually ends up joining the inmates who previously tried to warn him. If nothing else, the film deserves some credit for admitting that the Scared Straight program isn’t going to magically reform everyone who attends.

Despite some good performances, Scared Straight! Another Story lacks the rough edged authenticity of the documentary. It’s just not as effective when you know that everyone, including the prisoners, could go home at the end of the day. Today, this is one of those films that is mostly interesting as a historical artifact. Apparently, there really was a time when anything could inspire a TV movie.

Music Video of the Day: No More Words by Berlin (1984, directed by Evan English and Paul Goldman)

Posted on January 5, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

On Friday night, I watched Thank God It’s Friday with Lisa Marie and the Friday Night Flix gang and I’ve been in a Terri Nunn mood ever since. Before she joined Berlin and became their lead singer, Nunn was an actress. Along with appearing in a small but important role in Thank God It’s Friday, she was also a finalist for the role of Princess Leia in Star Wars. According to what I’ve read online (as with all things that I’ve read online, take it with a grain of salt), the casting came down to Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford vs. William Katt, Terri Nunn, and Kurt Russell. Carrie Fisher got to be Leia but Terri Nunn got musical superstardom. I’d say it was a fair trade for both of them, though it is tempting to imagine Terri Nunn singing the Life Day song at the end of the Star Wars Holiday Special.

No More Words is one of Berlin’s most enduring songs. (I know a few people who are still convinced that the song’s title was No More Worlds.) Produced by Giorgio Moroder and Richie Zito, No More Words was the first single off of Berlin’s 1984 album, Love Life. It was also the band’s first Top 40 hit in the States. It was later used in the film Vision Quest and re-released as the B-side of Madonna’s single Crazy For You.

The video pays homage to the 1967 film, Bonnie and Clyde. Taking place during the Great Depression, it features the band robbing a bank and then fleeing from the cops. Terri Nunn is dressed-up to resemble Faye Dunaway in the role of Bonnie Parker. Despite the fact that they appear to be robbing a small town bank in the South, there are Thomas Dewey campaign posters on the buildings. In the 30s, Dewey was New York’s district attorney so it’s not likely that anyone living in the Dust Bowl would have been campaigning for him. The video goes on to loosely recreate several scenes from Bonnie and Clyde, though Terri Nunn seems far more conflicted about the violent bank robber life style than Faye Dunaway ever was.

This video was directed by Evan English and Paul Goldman. While this is Goldman’s only credit as a video director (according to the imbd), Evan English went on to direct the videos for Elvis Costello’s Veronica and Crowded House’s Nails in My Feet.

Enjoy!

Film Review: Thank God, It’s Friday (dir by Robert Klane)

Posted on July 31, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, I just finished watching Thank God, It’s Friday, a movie from 1978. It’s an episodic comedy, one that follows a group of genuinely unlikable characters as they all gather in one genuinely unlikable location and proceed to have some fairly generic experiences.

For example, there’s the married couple and the husband needs to loosen up. There’s the DJ who is going to lose his job if he can’t deliver the big stars that he’s promised. There’s the short, violent guy who is upset because he’s been set up on a date with a tall woman. There’s the dental hygienist who comes across like she’s desperately trying to convince everyone that she’s eccentric when she’s really just boring. (We all know the type.) There’s the teenager girls who try to sneak into the club, despite being underage. There’s the two dorky guys who are looking for love. There’s the two dorky girls who are looking for love.

In fact, everyone in the movie is looking for love! Except for Jeff Goldblum! He just wants to get laid. He manages the club where everyone has gathered on this particular Friday. He’s a womanizer. We can tell because he wears a red jacket and his shirt is half-buttoned. Goldblum decides that he wants to break up the married couple. Boo! Hiss! But wait a minute — neither the husband nor the wife are likable or interesting. Go, Jeff, go! BREAK UP THAT BORINGASS MARRIAGE!

Oh! And Nicole (Donna Summer) is wandering around the club too. She wants a chance to perform but the DJ refuses to let her. So, eventually, she just grabs a microphone and she starts to sing. Luckily, the song she sings is Last Dance and, by singing it, she gives everyone an excuse to go home. If you’ve ever been to a karaoke night, you know that, as soon as a drunk sings Last Dance, it’s time to pay the bill and get the Hell out of there.

Last Dance was apparently written specifically for Thank God, It’s Friday. Or maybe Thank God, It’s Friday was written specifically for Last Dance, who knows? What we do know is that Last Dance won the Oscar for Best Original Song. That’s right — Thank God, It’s Friday is an Oscar winner and therefore, will always be enshrined with fellow Oscar winners like Crash, Titanic, and SPECTRE.

(Which songs did Thank God, It’s Friday beat? It defeated a song from Grease, which is a good thing because Grease is even more annoying than Thank God, It’s Friday. That’s right, I said it. And you know it’s true.)

Anyway, Thank God, It’s Friday is a really bad movie, one that is full of bad writing, bad jokes, bad performances, and indifferent direction. It’s tempting to say that the music was really good but actually, we don’t hear much of the music. The movie is often more concerned about what’s happening in the club’s parking lot than in what is happening (and being heard) on the inside. We may not hear much music but we do get to see some pretty icky racial stereotyping and who would guess that a movie about disco would be so homophobic?

(We don’t see any cocaine, though I’m sure you could probably hear the key grip and the gaffer snorting a line off-camera if you listened closely enough. A lot of the cast looked pretty wired.)

ANYWAY — here’s the important thing about Thank God, It’s Friday. Occasionally, I’ll watch a movie like Dazed and Confused or Boogie Nights or Saturday Night Fever and I’ll get jealous because I know that I’ll never get a chance to experience the 70s first hand. Fortunately, something like Thank God, It’s Friday will always be around to reassure me, “No, Lisa. The 70s sucked!”

Thank God, it’s Friday?

No, thank God the movie’s over.