Michael Alig! He was the flamboyant, self-declared “King of the Club Kids.” He was a club promoter in New York City in the late 80s and the 90s. He had money. He had fame. He had a huge following. He used to appear regularly on the daytime talk shows. He was a regular feature in the gossip columns. He also had a raging drug addiction and an ego that most people couldn’t stand. He tried to position himself as the successor to Andy Warhol, overlooking the fact that Warhol himself actually had a bit of talent. And, in 1996, he became a murderer.

He and his roommate killed his drug dealer, a fellow club kid who was known as Angel. They hit him over the head and suffocated him before then dismembering him. Everyone knew that Alig was responsible for Angel’s disappearance, largely because he wouldn’t shut up about killing him. Alig even threw a party where the macabre and bloody decorations left little doubt that Alig had murder on his mind. Eventually, a group of children found Angel’s remains and Alig and his roommate were arrested. Due to a plea deal, Alig was sent to prison for manslaughter. He served 14 years before being paroled. Alig died of a heroin overdose in 2020.

Released in 2003 (while Alig was still in prison), Party Monster is a biopic of Michael Alig and also a look at New York club culture in the 90s. The film got a bit of attention when it came out because it starred Macaulay Culkin and Seth Green as, respectively, Michael Alig and James St. John, who was Alig’s mentor-turned-friend-turned-enemy. Unfortunately, the film itself isn’t very good and both Culkin and Green are lousy in their roles. Both of them come across like middle American high school kids trying to score cheap laughs by acting as self-consciously flamboyant as possible. At the time the film was made, Culkin did bear a passing a resemblance to Michael Alig but the same could have been said of Michael Pitt and, at the very least, we know that Pitt is capable of playing a character who is capable of murder. Culkin, on the other hand, seems to be trying so hard to make us forget that he’s Macaulay Culkin that he instead continually reminds us that we’re watching the star of Home Alone snort cocaine and urinate in wine glasses. (Ewwwww!) That said, Culkin and Green aren’t the only two giving bad performances here. I started giggling as soon as Dylan McDermott showed up wearing an eyepatch. Only Wilson Cruz as Angel and Chloe Sevigny as one of Alig’s associates feel in any way convincing in their roles.

For a film about a group of people who claimed “fabulousness” as their defining aesthetic, Party Monster is a visually dull film. Many scenes are overlit, to the extent that the performers look wan and washed out. That may be a good look for the drug-addled Alig who killed Angel but, in this film, Alig looks and seems burned out from the minute he shows up in New York City. The end result is a rather boring film that doesn’t offer up any insight into the Club Kids or the murders.

Insomnia File #11: Summer Catch (dir by Mike Tollin)

Posted on February 23, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

Whenever I look at my cable guide, I always notice that channel 834 is listed as being “MorMax.” For some reason, I always assume that MorMax stands for Morman Max and I’m always expecting that it’s going to show movies about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. But actually, MorMax stands for More Cinemax.

Anyway, last night, if you were having a hard time sleeping around midnight (though why anyone would ever try to go to sleep before midnight is beyond me), you could have turned on MorMax and watched the 2001 romantic comedy Summer Catch!

Though it may be hard to believe today, there was a time when Freddie Prinze, Jr. was a pretty big deal. From 1997 to 2001, Prinze appeared in 179 movies. Well, actually, he only appeared in 10 but since they were all aimed at teenage girls and played on cable constantly, it felt like 179. (Seriously, there was a time when I could not get through an entire day without seeing at least a few minutes of She’s All That.) For the most part, all of these films were pretty much the same. Freddie Prinze, Jr. plays a kind of dumb guy who falls in love with a girl. Prinze’s character was usually from a working class family and had at least one wacky friend. The girl was usually from a rich family and had one bitchy friend who would be an ex-friend by the end of the movie. There was usually at least one scene set on the beach or at a swimming pool, the better for Freddie to remove his shirt and his costar to chastely strip down to her underwear. There was usually a falling in love montage and at least one big misunderstanding. Freddie would always flash the same goofy smile whenever the misunderstanding was cleared up. Even at the time that the films were being released, nobody was ever under the impression that Freddie Prinze, Jr. was a particularly good actor. But he was likable, unthreatening, and hot in an oddly bland sort of way.

(Speaking of oddly bland, check out the titles of some of Prinze’s films: She’s All That, Down To You, Boys and Girls, Head over Heels, and, of course, Summer Catch.)

Summer Catch opens with Ryan Dunne (Freddie!) explaining that he’s just a working class kid from Massachusetts but this summer, he’s going to be playing amateur baseball in Cap Cod and hopefully, he’ll get signed to a professional contract as result. (Freddie adopts an inconsistent “pahk ya cah by the bah” accent and its kind of endearing to see him trying so hard.) Ryan, of course, is just a local guy who mows lawns for a living but he’s determined to succeed. He just has to stay focused.

However, that’s going to be difficult because he’s just met Tenley Parrish (Jessica Biel). The Parrishes own a vacation home on Cape Cod and they are so rich that they can afford to name their oldest daughter Tenley. Soon, Tenley and Ryan are a couple but Tenley’s father wants Tenley to marry a rich boy and Ryan’s father is too busy being all surly and working class to appreciate Ryan’s dreams.

(Tenley’s father, incidentally, is played by Bruce Davison because all snobbish WASPs of a certain age are played by Bruce Davison. Ryan’s father is played by Fred Ward because Summer Catch was made in 2001.)

Because every Freddie Prinze, Jr. movie needs a hyperactive and wacky sidekick, Ryan’s best friend on the team is a catcher named Billy Brubaker (Matthew Lillard.) Billy is known as “Bru.” There’s a lot of scenes of people saying stuff like “Yo, Bru,” and “Come on, Bru!” After a while, I found myself hoping for a scene where Bru went crazy and started shouting, “My name is Billy, dammit! BILLY! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!” Instead, however, we get a subplot about how Billy can’t get any hits until he has sex with and wears the thong underwear of a local baseball fan.

Anyway, Summer Catch is an extremely predictable film. It’s not surprising that this was one of Freddie’s final star vehicles because, other than his heroic effort to maintain a Massachusetts accent, even he seems to be bored with it all. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Summer Catch is that there’s next to no actual conflict in the film. Oh sure, Ryan and Tenley have a few misunderstandings but it’s never anything serious.

If there’s an unheralded hero to Summer Catch, it’s the uncredited guy who we hear providing commentary during the games. Seriously, I would have been so lost if not for him constantly saying stuff like, “This is Ryan Dunne’s chance to show what he can do,” and “Billy Brubaker needs to get a hit here…” They should have made the entire movie about him and his efforts to remain up-to-date on all the players.

Because Summer Catch was a baseball film, I begged my sister Erin to watch it with me so that she could explain all the baseball stuff to me. For the record, Erin says that the game scenes were okay (and I personally liked all of the totally gratuitous slow motion) but that the film wasn’t really a deep examination of baseball. To be honest, I really wasn’t expecting that it would be. I just wanted to make my sister stay up late and watch a movie with me.

Previous Insomnia Files:

Horror On TV: That 70s Show 2.5 “Halloween”

Posted on October 4, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Okay, so technically, this really isn’t horror. But who cares? It deals with Halloween traditions and, even more importantly, I loved That 70s Show.

This episode was originally broadcast on October 26th, 1999.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYN7v13mVP4

Lisa Marie Does It To Larry Crowne (dir. by Tom Hanks)

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Jeff and I have been in Baltimore since last Friday and I’ve been having a great time seeing the sights (I thought I’d found the rowhouse where they hid all those bodies on The Wire but Jeff says all condemned buildings look the same) and just getting to meet and hang out with my boyfriend’s family. We went shopping on Saturday, bonding on Sunday, and on Monday night, they took me to see the fireworks at Baltimore Harbor. And, on Tuesday, we went to the movies and saw the new Tom Hanks/Julia Roberts romcom Larry Crowne at the wonderful Harbor East Cinema. Now, I have to admit that I wanted Larry Crowne to be a really sweet, funny movie because we were seeing it not only with Jeff’s younger sister but with his mom as well.

So, imagine my horror as Larry Crowne flickered across the screen for 90 minutes and it quickly became apparent that we weren’t watching a cinematic classic. Far from it. With each flat punchline and uninspired piece of on-screen business, the feeling of despair at the pit of my stomach grew and grew. Oh my God, I thought, they’re going to think about this movie now whenever they think about me. In their heads, I will forever be equated with a bad, boring movie. In their heads, in their heads…zombie…zombie…zombie…

Suddenly, I had another terrifying thought. What if they, like a handful of other people in the audience, actually enjoyed the film? What if, during the end credits, they looked over at me and said, “Wasn’t that wonderful? That Tom Hanks really delivers.” What would I do? In my mind, I replayed all of the fun that I’d had in Baltimore up to that moment. Damn you, Larry Crowne, I thought, things were going so well!

By the time the end credits had finished, I literally felt like I was aboutto be ill.

And that’s when Jeff’s mom looked over at me and said, “Well, Tom Hanks sure did drop the ball on that one.”

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! I wanted to shout. Not only did we agree on the overall quality of the film but she also specifically went out of her way to blame Tom Hanks and not me! Seriously, I can’t begin to tell you how happy this made me.

As for Larry Crowne, it’s the story a guy named Larry (played by Tom Hanks, who also directs) who loses his retail job because he doesn’t have a college education. So, he enrolls at the local community college where, for some odd reason, he quickly captures the attention of a girl named Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who is several years younger and makes it her mission to make Larry into a cool guy. Why does Talia take such an interest in this guy? The movie never really says. It’s not for any sort of romantic reason as Talia has a boyfriend (played by Wilmer Valderamma). The only thing that she has in common with Larry is that they both drive motor scooters. In fact, Talia’s in a gang of scooter riders. And by that, I mean that there’s like 20 to 30 people in this group. We never learn any of their names or why they’re all hanging out together. Seriously, it all seems so false and cutesy that, after a good start, the entire film falls apart once Larry and Talia meet. In the end, it just seems like another case of a Hollywood film in which a down-on-his-luck caucasian is validated by the fact that a member of a minority group has developed an inexplicable interest in his life.

Anyway, one of Larry’s classes is taught by Julia Roberts and oh my God, can we just be honest here? I know all you boys love her and stuff but seriously, Julia Roberts is aging terribly and she looks just awful here. It doesn’t help that the character she’s playing here comes across as a brittle, self-centered psychotic with a drinking problem. Whenever you see Larry starting to get near her, you just want to yell out, “No, Larry — she’s crazy!” Julia’s performance gets better as the film goes on but it’s still hard to warm up to her character. Not only does she appear to have been born with a scowl on her face but she’s also not much of a teacher. Seriously, what type of public speaking professor interrupts her students while they’re giving a speech? Anyway, Tom and Julia eventually end up pursuing each other, though not because it makes any sense for their characters to feel any sort of attraction towards each other. This is the type of romantic comedy where the romance feels like an afterthought. It’s as if someone said, “Wait — both Tom and Julia are in this movie? Well, make sure they fall in love.”

Now, the frustrating thing with Larry Crowne is that it’s never actually bad enough to be a “so bad that’s it’s good” type of film. Instead, the film settles very early for a very complacent, almost lazy sort of mediocrity. As a result, the film is ultimately not terrible but instead, just very forgettable. It’s heart it is in the right place. Tom Hanks has said that this film is meant to be an “antidote to cynicism” and, if that’s the case, he can take pride that there’s not a cynical bone in the film’s body. It’s all very earnest, very well-intentioned, and finally just very, very bland.

Sometimes, a little cynicism is just what the doctor ordered.