Re-Animator (1985)

RE-ANIMATOR

RE-ANIMATOR (1985) Four stars

Watching director Stuart Gordon’s feature debut for the first time in a theater and the first time in a couple years, I became impressed all over again by a horror movie that’s so gory and gross that it crosses over from gory and gross into surreal and comical.

DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978) and EVIL DEAD II (1987) are two more examples.

I also became impressed once again by the performances of Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West and the late David Gale as Dr. Carl Hill. Their work helps elevate RE-ANIMATOR.

I absolutely love Combs’ performance in RE-ANIMATOR. West’s a mad scientist pushed to the absolute limit of madness, but he’s not the least bit campy. He’s intense and 1,000 percent committed to his life’s work. West never waivers from this intensity, not even in the face of death or being kicked out of medical school. Mr. West has developed a reagent that can re-animate dead bodies, and his experiments graduate from a house cat to humans. West will see it through.

The poster’s tagline: “Herbert West has a good head on his shoulders … and another one on his desk.”

That another one belongs to Dr. Hill, whose ego and libido are epic and legendary.

Gale (1936-91) plays Dr. Hill in sleaze mode. This is a character that you absolutely love to hate. You want to see him bashed over the head with that shovel, but you also enjoy when his disembodied head takes command over the rest of his body and then takes control of the situation against West and his reluctant partner Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott). West hates Dr. Hill from the get-go and it’s fun to watch their mutual hatred for each other develop over RE-ANIMATOR.

Dr. Hill lusts after both Cain’s fiancee Megan (Barbara Crampton) and West’s reagent, and his intense lusting only makes this character even more hatable.

Crampton plays a tougher role than any of the boys: She gasps and screams a lot, understandably so, and she’s naked a couple times, including for one of the most interesting sex scenes around since it alternates between disturbing and comical. Let’s just say the disembodied head of Dr. Hill attempts to carry out his depraved sexual fantasies.

RE-ANIMATOR follows Mr. West and Dr. Hill into some ripped, twisted territory, but it’s also delightfully funny.

In a review of AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, I rattled off a bunch of titles from the 80s that effectively balanced horror and comedy: EVIL DEAD II, FRIGHT NIGHT, GREMLINS, GHOSTBUSTERS, KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE, and, yes, of course, RE-ANIMATOR.

Those films carry on the proud tradition of the great 1930s horror films that successfully integrated comedy into horror, without one sacrificing the other. You can laugh one moment and be frightened the next, or delighted that next moment, all legitimate reactions.

Guess it’s the highest praise for RE-ANIMATOR when you say that it could have been directed by James Whale (1889-1957), who brought us FRANKENSTEIN, THE OLD DARK HOUSE, THE INVISIBLE MAN, and BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN.

The Blob (1958)

THE BLOB 2

THE BLOB (1958) Four stars

Watching the original BLOB just the other day, once again it hit me how much THE BLOB seems to be influenced by the 1955 classic REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE.

THE BLOB leads Steven McQueen and Aneta Corseaut respectively call to mind James Dean and Natalie Wood (McQueen even a few years older than Dean playing a high schooler), there’s a more friendly policeman in both films (Ray in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, Dave in THE BLOB), and they both are iconographic time capsule films that appeal to all generations.

Plain and simple, THE BLOB is a goofy, ridiculously fun time at the movies.

It sets the tone with that glorious theme song over the opening credits — “Theme from the Blob” by the Five Blobs and it’s a real catchy little ditty written by Burt Bacharach and Mack David. It sure beats “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.”

“Beware of the Blob, it creeps

And leaps and glides and slides

Across the floor

Right through the door

And all around the wall

A splotch, a blotch

Be careful of the Blob.”

What’s the Blob? A modified weather balloon in early shots and colored silicone gel in later shots. From outer space.

It’s also been compared to cherry Jell-O.

THE BLOB was inspired by a real event that happened in 1950 Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Inquirer headline on Sept. 27, 1950: FLYING ‘SAUCER’ JUST DISSOLVES. Joe Keenan and John Collins, a pair of veteran police officers who probably both thought they had seen just about everything before the night in question, spotted a mysterious object falling from the sky, of course, just like in THE BLOB and KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE, for that matter. They pursued this mysterious object and eventually encountered a large mass which they described as “purple jelly.” Collins decided that he would reach out and touch the mysterious object … by that point, backup (two more officers) had arrived, so four policemen were taking on the case. Collins had much better luck than the old man at the beginning of both ’58 BLOB and ’88 BLOB. He survived. Within 30 minutes of the first sighting, this blob-like object disappeared. The police told their story to the local media the next day, and the rest is history.

Made for $240,000 (though numbers vary, as low as $110,000 has been reported), THE BLOB predates later George Romero horror films made in Pennsylvania.

THE BLOB filmed at Valley Forge Studios — destroyed by a fire in 1962 — and the towns of Phoenixville, Downingtown, Chester Springs, and Royersford. These locations give THE BLOB an unique flavor and I do enjoy how eventually young and old alike work together to defeat the monster.

Phoenixville (2018 estimated pop.: 16,957) features the historic Colonial Theatre, one of the town’s claims to fame. Since 2000, Phoenixville and the Colonial commemorate THE BLOB with the annual “Blobfest.” The 21st edition will be held July 10-12, 2020. Every year, of course, they reenact the famous run out from the Colonial when the title character attacks. In addition to THE BLOB, FORBIDDEN PLANET and TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE will be featured in 2020.

(BTW, Phoenixville ranks in the top 10 in the U.S. in breweries per capita. Let’s see, there’s Root Down, Crowded Castle, Stable 12, Rebel Hill, Rec Room, Iron Hill, Sly Fox, Baba’s Brew, A Culture Factory, Stickman Brews, Tuned Up, Steel City, et cetera, on the map.)

It just doesn’t get much better than when the title character attacks The Colonial during DAUGHTER OF HORROR, a real movie that’s the altered version of the 1955 movie DEMENTIA. The Kino Video DVD cover highlights three great reviews for DEMENTIA. Variety: “May be the strangest film ever offered for theatrical release.” Preston Sturges: “A work of art. It stirred my blood and purged my libido.” New York Censor Board: “Overflows with horror, hopelessness, sadism, violent acts of terror and outbursts of panic.”

Anyway, the Blob hates the cold. In that case, though, the Colonial must not have been too “Healthfully Air Conditioned,” because the Blob seems to thrive as it engorges the poor projectionist and heads into the auditorium.

Sometimes, during a bad bad bad movie at the multiplex, I’ve wanted the Blob to strike our screen and send us running.

Laserblast (1978)

LASERBLAST (1978) Two-and-a-half stars

LASERBLAST is a clunky piece of low-budget junk, but it is not without its charms.

For example, LASERBLAST takes a pot shot at STAR WARS, literally when our teenage protagonist Billy Duncan (Kim Milford) blows up a STAR WARS billboard on the side of the road with his laser cannon. It blows up real good. For that matter, just about everything blows up real good in LASERBLAST.

We’ll get back to that later.

For now, however, I’d like to touch on a couple of the contemporaneous pot shots taken at JAWS.

THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION, which came out a few months after JAWS in 1975, has Sheriff Jeff Jones (Alan Hale Jr.) say over the CB radio of the spider, “You ever see the movie JAWS? It makes that shark look like a goldfish!”

THE HILLS HAVE EYES includes a ripped poster of JAWS.

ORCA: THE KILLER WHALE has a killer whale kill a great white shark early on in the proceedings.

Coincidentally, both THE HILLS HAVE EYES and ORCA were released on the same day (July 22) in 1977.

Anyway, back to LASERBLAST, a quickie exploitation picture made to cash in on the teenybopper science fiction craze between STAR WARS movies. It later became known for being one of the worst movies ever made, especially after Mystery Science Theater 3000 lampooned LASERBLAST in a 1996 episode.

I feel almost bad for giving a mixed review to LASERBLAST, especially after writing positive reviews for THE KILLING OF SATAN, TROLL 2, THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN, and PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. Almost. Believe it or not, all four of those other films have a higher IMDb rating than LASERBLAST.

LASERBLAST surrenders itself to filler scenes that just scream out TACKY SEVENTIES. It feels like a bloated production even at 80-85 minutes.

David W. Allen (1944-99) worked on 48 films in visual effects or puppetry or stop motion animation over nearly a 30-year career. His notable credits include FLESH GORDON, THE HOWLING, CAVEMAN, Q: THE WINGED SERPENT, THE STUFF, WILLOW, and GHOSTBUSTERS II.

Allen’s alien stop motion work in LASERBLAST received better reviews than any other aspect of the film.

Unfortunately, the stop motion aliens do not have more screen time in LASERBLAST.

Milford is not exactly playing the greatest hero in the history of cinema. For example, he’s the first and only hero ever to be picked on by screen nerd extraordinaire Eddie Deezen; both Milford and Deezen made their screen debuts in LASERBLAST. Milford (1951-88) became known for his work in the musicals “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” He plays most of the movie without a shirt.

Let’s face it, Billy Duncan has a bad, bad, bad life: His mother always seems to be going to Acapulco, his girlfriend’s grandpa freaks out on him and runs poor, poor Billy off, two dope-smoking cops love writing up Billy for speeding tickets, and Chuck (Mike Bobenko) and Froggy (Deezen) bully him. Froggy, by the way, has seen STAR WARS five times, according to one of the dope-smoking deputies (played by veteran character actor Dennis Burkley in the early stages of his career).

Billy’s life changes for the better when he finds that darn laser cannon in the desert. As it says on the poster, Billy was a kid who got pushed around then he found the power.

Billy, of course, uses the laser cannon to blow up a bunch of stuff real good before the stop-motion aliens come for him.

One car blows up about five times in LASERBLAST. They give us just about every conceivable angle.

Yes, it’s that kind of a movie.

Keenan Wynn and Roddy McDowall (his last name spelled “McDowell” in the credits) make glorified cameo appearances.

LASERBLAST is bad enough that McDowall’s Peter Vincent could have played it on the TV series “Fright Night” featured in FRIGHT NIGHT.

On the bright side, LASERBLAST is considerably better than “The Star Wars Holiday Special,” which has gone down in history as the biggest STAR WARS rip-off of them all.

Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)

PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1959) Four stars
Discourse around Ed Wood’s 1959 feature gives us two options: it’s either the worst movie ever made or it’s so bad that it’s actually good.

Having recently watched PLAN 9 twice, once near the 60th anniversary of the film’s initial release on July 22, I find that I disagree with both options, especially the first one.

It’s a great movie, because I traditionally equate personal enjoyment with greatness and I enjoy the living dead out of PLAN 9.

Wood’s films have been called “accidental avant-garde” or Wood didn’t know what he was doing and this sheer ineptitude created something arguably more bizarre. Wood’s films, like Ray Dennis Steckler’s THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES and RAT PFINK A BOO BOO, exist in their own realm despite taking on many genres.

For example, in PLAN 9, we have horror, science fiction, action, adventure, and drama.

Sure, that seems like nothing special because a lot of movies yesterday and today and tomorrow mix and match genres, but just wait until you see PLAN 9.

What other movie would begin with a spiel from a psychic named “The Amazing Criswell” (1907-82) who became infamous for making “wildly inaccurate predictions.” (Aside from another Ed Wood film, of course.)

Criswell sets the tone for the rest of the movie right from the very start, “Greetings, my friend. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future. … My friend, can your heart stand the shocking facts about grave robbers from outer space?”

Wood had originally planned for GRAVE ROBBERS FROM OUTER SPACE to be his title, but financier J. Edward Reynolds, a devout Southern Baptist, found GRAVE ROBBERS offensive and Wood changed it to the title we all know and love. Wood and several cast members were even baptized at Reynolds’ church.

Taking into consideration the fascinating nature of the cast and Wood himself, you understand why Tim Burton’s fantastic ED WOOD focused so much time on PLAN 9.

— Criswell, given name Jeron Criswell King, became a fringe celebrity in Hollywood and he cut an entertaining figure at parties with his predictions. Criswell appeared on late night TV (he predicted 1966 on Johnny Carson), published his predictions in both magazines and newspapers, and wrote three books — “From Now to the Year 2000,” “Your Next Ten Years,” and “Forbidden Predictions” — and made a record titled “The Legendary Criswell Predicts Your Incredible Future” (which can be found online). Criswell’s friend and fellow PLAN 9 cast member Paul Marco released Criswell’s song “Someone Walked Over My Grave” after Criswell’s 1982 death, apparently because Criswell wanted it released that way.

— Finnish-American actress Maila Nurmi (1922-2008) became better known as “Vampira,” who hosted horror movies on her own series, “The Vampira Show,” from 1954-55 on KABC-TV in Los Angeles. Vampira is a combination of Morticia Addams, the Dragon Lady from “Terry and the Pirates,” and the evil queen from “Snow White.” Vampira sued horror movie host Elvira for $10 million for “infringing upon her trademark, public reputation and ability to market her lucrative character.” “The character was ripped off,” Vampira’s attorney Jan Goodman said. “Hopefully, my client will be fairly compensated and Cassandra Peterson will continue with her character and share the proceeds with my client.” The court ruled in favor of Elvira, “‘Likeness’ means actual representation of another person’s appearance, and not simply close resemblance.” Vampira played a silent role in PLAN 9 reportedly because she wanted absolutely nothing to do with the dialogue written by Wood.

— Hollywood legend Bela Lugosi (1882-1956) found his roles diminished greatly because his dependence on morphine and methadone for his sciatic neuritis became known by Hollywood producers. Lugosi and Wood struck up a friendship, and Wood cast Lugosi in GLEN OR GLENDA? and BRIDE OF THE MONSTER. Wood filmed Lugosi picking a flower in front of Tor Johnson’s home, which became Lugosi’s final work on film because the great actor died five months before production on PLAN 9 began. Lugosi’s absence obviously left a major hole in PLAN 9 and chiropractor Tom Mason stepped in for Lugosi in a way that predates the Bruce Lee subterfuge in GAME OF DEATH. It’s just as effective as GAME OF DEATH, as well, to get that out of the way. Mason stalks through his every scene in PLAN 9 with a cape over his face, a classic Lugosi gesture borrowed from his final performance as Dracula in ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948). Legend has it that Lugosi was even buried in his cape.

— Swedish professional wrestler Tor Johnson (1902-71) appeared in 31 movie roles over nearly 30 years, mostly as a weightlifter or a strongman. Wood let the hulking Johnson speak in PLAN 9 and you will quickly realize why Johnson’s other roles were non-speaking. In fact, you might wish that he was mute like both Lugosi and Vampira in PLAN 9, but I find his dialogue as Inspector Daniel Clay strangely endearing, just like the movie itself, especially his line “I’m a big boy now, Johnny.” Johnson scared Groucho Marx on “You Bet Your Life” in 1954, where he weighed 387 pounds “soaking wet.” Groucho said, “With those measurements, you oughta be twice as attractive as Jayne Mansfield.” Johnson — played by fellow former professional wrestler George “The Animal” Steele in ED WOOD — also became a Halloween mask.

— Character actor Duke Moore (1913-76) had the distinction of his entire character actor career being spent in Ed Wood productions: CROSSROADS OF LAREDO, FINAL CURTAIN, NIGHT OF THE GHOULS, PLAN 9, THE SINISTER URGE, and TAKE IT OUT IN TRADE. In PLAN 9, he plays Lt. Harper, who’s not a very responsible gun owner. Lt. Harper touches his gun underneath his hat, holds it on top of his trench coat, and even points it at himself several times. According to Internet Movie Database trivia, Moore pointed the gun at himself deliberately to see if Wood would notice. Of course, Wood did not.

— Speaking of character actors, Lyle Talbot (1902-96) appeared in more than 150 films over a 56-year career. Talbot’s daughter Margaret wrote a book on her father called “The Entertainer: Movies, Magic and My Father’s 20th Century,” as Lyle worked in a carnival, as a hypnotist’s assistant, in theater, in the movies, and on TV. Lyle played Joe Randolph in 71 episodes of “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” from 1956 to 1966. Lyle’s son, Stephen, played Gilbert on “Leave It to Beaver” (1957-63) and later became a journalist and documentarian. You will notice Lyle Talbot real quick in PLAN 9 because of the level of his performance.

— Dudley Manlove (1914-96, not Manlike, please, Auto Correct) has a voice that will make you think he’d be great in radio. Sure enough, looking up Manlove today, I discover that he worked on radio stations in Oakland and San Francisco. Manlove plays Commander Eros in PLAN 9.

— Independently wealthy, openly gay, and sex change seeking theatrical actor John “Bunny” Breckinridge (1903-96) made his only film appearance as “The Ruler” in PLAN 9.

Breckinridge’s obituary, “John ‘Bunny’ Breckinridge, an eccentric and troubled San Francisco millionaire who entertained grandly, served time in jail for vagrancy and was sued by his mother for lack of support, died Tuesday, November 5th, 1996 of heart failure in a Monterey nursing home. …

“Mr. Breckinridge, the great grandson of U.S. Vice President John Breckinridge and of Wells Fargo Bank founder Lloyd Tevis, was born in Paris. He spent time at Eton College and Oxford University in England and at the Atascadero State Hospital for the criminally insane.

“He was known for his flamboyant lifestyle, outrageous comments and penchant for perfume and costume jewelry. He performed in Shakespearean plays in England before coming to San Francisco in the late 1920s.

“He married the daughter of a French countess in 1927. The couple was divorced in 1929.

“‘I was a little bit wild when I was young, darling, but I lived my life grandly,’ he said.”

Bill Murray played Breckinridge in ED WOOD, so they’ve both got that going for them.

— Fumbling, bumbling, stumbling cop Kelton, played by Paul Marco (1927-2006), appeared in three Ed Wood productions and they form the “Kelton Trilogy” — BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, and NIGHT OF THE GHOULS. Marco introduced Breckinridge to Wood, as the circle of friends around Wood expanded into his movies.

— Gregory Walcott (1928-2015) long regretted that he ever had anything to do with PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. From a 2000 Los Angeles Times article, “Drawbacks like this [Lugosi being dead] didn’t faze Ed Wood. He used a home movie of Lugosi and an impersonator. He used non-union crews and borrowed equipment. Walcott agreed as a favor, not even telling his agent, but regretted it instantly and for years thereafter. Virtually every reference guide labels PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE the worst movie ever made.”

By the time (2000) that his old hometown of Wilson, North Carolina held a two-day Gregory Walcott Film Festival, Walcott (given name Bernard Mattox) had made peace with both Wood and PLAN 9.

“I didn’t want to be remembered for that,” Walcott said in the Times. “But it’s better to be remembered for something than for nothing, don’t you think?

“So I guess I owe Ed Wood an apology after all these years. Thanks, Ed.”

— Conrad Brooks (1931-2017), along with Walcott and Marco, appeared in Tim Burton’s ED WOOD and then, in his 80s, appeared in the 2015 PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE remake directed by John Johnson and featuring such notables as Brian Krause, Camille Keaton, Mr. Lobo, and James “Angry Video Game Nerd” Rolfe.

Brooks, who played Patrolman Jamie in PLAN 9, was the last of the surviving Ed Wood actors.

— Wood (1924-78) unfortunately did not live to see the cult following that built up around PLAN 9 since 1980 when authors Harry and Michael Medved named it the “worst film ever made” in their book “The Golden Turkey Awards.” That pronouncement got the ball rolling.

Tim Burton’s rather feel good film only reinvigorated interest in both Wood and his filmography. ED WOOD treats PLAN 9 like a sacred text and jumps off the life story and filmography at that point. Wood’s later career included erotica, pornography, and even sexual education movies; Wood also wrote many pulp crime, horror, and sex novels.

ED WOOD (which undoubtedly cost more than all of the real Ed Wood’s films combined) also skips Wood’s alcoholism, but, hey, at least it does not skimp on his love of angora. (It’s also the most affectionate tribute from one director to another that I have ever seen, the film’s biggest strength.)

There’s even a Church of Ed Wood and if you go to www.edwood.org, you will have to click OK to “www.edwood.org says To answer your first question — yes, we’re serious!

“Woodism is a pop-culture-based religion created in 1996 by Reverend Steve Galindo. We follow the late cult director Edward D. Wood Jr., and we look to him as a savior. We at The Church of Ed Wood use Ed and his films to inject spirituality into those who get little fulfillment from more mainstream religions like Christianity. By looking at his films and his life, we learn to lead happy, positive lives. We strive for acceptance of others and of the self.”

I first encountered BRIDE OF THE MONSTER and PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE around 12 years ago when Rob Zombie hosted “TCM Underground” on Turner Classic Movies, a show that I definitely miss since not having cable TV after the 2012 Election. I taped both movies, as well as Zombie’s bookend intros and outros for both, and that’s how I watched PLAN 9 twice recently.

I don’t write over 2,000 words on just any movie, so that only shows how much I love PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.

I love all the errors (boom mics visible, night-and-day day-and-night shifts during scenes), the cheesy special effects (love them flying saucers), the incongruous stock footage, the cast of goofball characters, the loopy dialogue, and, of course, Criswell’s narration.

BRIDE OF THE MONSTER (1955) Three stars; ED WOOD (1994) Four stars; PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1959) Four stars

The Bad News Bears (1976)

THE BAD NEWS BEARS

THE BAD NEWS BEARS (1976) Four stars

I can hear somebody out there shout that THE BAD NEWS BEARS is not an underrated movie.

Sure, it’s not an underrated comedy or an underrated baseball movie, but I believe THE BAD NEWS BEARS is underrated as a serious consideration of competition and the effects of winning both individually and collectively on a team. Perhaps it’s because of director Michael Ritchie (1938-2001), whose other credits include THE CANDIDATE, SMILE, DOWNHILL RACER, and both FLETCH movies, that we get a sports comedy that goes a little deeper.

It’s that additional level that makes THE BAD NEWS BEARS my favorite baseball movie.

The Bears are, of course, the worst team in a prestigious California Little League. They’re a motley crew of misfits or as their firebrand shortstop Tanner Boyle (Chris Barnes) puts it in his inimitable way, “All we got on this team are a buncha Jews, spics, niggers, pansies, and a booger-eatin’ moron.”

Of course, they’re not wanted in this elite league — in fact, city councilman and attorney Bob Whitewood (Ben Piazza) sued and won a lawsuit against that prestigious Little League to allow the least skilled athletes (including his son Toby) to play in the first place. The Bears are made up of those bottom-of-the-barrel players.

Whitewood hires Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau), a former Minor League pitcher who turned to a life of beer and cleaning swimming pools … but mostly beer. Whitewood pays Buttermaker under the table to coach the Bears.

Buttermaker and the Bears are opposed by Coach Roy Turner (Vic Morrow) and the Yankees, namely Coach Turner’s son and star pitcher Joey Turner (Brandon Cruz, later a punk rock singer), at every turn. The Yankees are a juggernaut, of course, and the assholes and the bullies.

Along the way the Bears pick up two critical acquisitions: 11-year-old tomboy pitcher Amanda Whurlizer (Tatum O’Neal) and local hoodlum Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Haley), who joins the Bears to get back at Coach Turner and to pursue his crush on Amanda.

The Bears start winning and they make it to the championship game against the hated Yankees.

Please keep in mind THE BAD NEWS BEARS does not end like so many sports movies with the underdog winning the Big Game. It’s funny that both THE BAD NEWS BEARS and ROCKY end differently than all the movies they influenced.

It’s more important that Buttermaker and the Bears finally see the effects winning had on them and how they started becoming more and more like them damn Yankees.

By the final scene, when the Yankees sing an obligatory and condescending cheer for the Bears, they’ve already had it and Tanner speaks for the entire Bears team when he tells the Yankees, “You can take your apology and your trophy and shove ‘em straight up your ass!”

Honestly, that’s a more satisfying finish than a win in the big game.

THE BAD NEWS BEARS IN BREAKING TRAINING and THE BAD NEWS BEARS GO TO JAPAN followed in successive years for three movies in three years and both sequels are lesser movies, especially the latter as the Bears resembled a high school baseball team. Kelly Leak, in fact, looks ready to join the cast of BREAKING AWAY. Yeah, GO TO JAPAN should be titled LONG IN THE TOOTH.

Matthau is perfect for the role of Buttermaker and the sequels miss him dearly, as William Devane (BREAKING TRAINING) and Tony Curtis (GO TO JAPAN) lack both the comedic and dramatic touches of Matthau. They’re just not as good as Matthau, who takes on a wide range in THE BAD NEWS BEARS. Matthau (1920-2000) handles the scenes where Buttermaker’s drunk, the quiet moments with Amanda, the screaming matches against Turner, and the shift in his personality after the Bears start winning. Matthau gives a great performance. He’s one of those actors that we’ll follow all the way through a turn toward asshole. Buttermaker takes a major asshole turn.

For example, Buttermaker pitches Amanda into early retirement, instructs Kelly Leak to go chase down and catch every fly ball even the ones hit to the other fielders, and commands godawful hitter Rudi Stein (David Pollock) to purposely get hit by pitches to give the Bears a runner on base.

The younger actors do not wear out their welcome and they’re not too damn cute for their (and our) own good. Yes, thankfully, it’s not one of those movies where the younger actors mug so heavily that I have to check my back pocket for my wallet.

There are many big laughs and moments of truth in THE BAD NEWS BEARS and the film deftly maneuvers between farce and slapstick, satire, sentiment, and drama.

Mad Max (1979)

MAD MAX

MAD MAX (1979) Four stars
12 weeks. $350,000. Guerrilla style filmmaking in and around Melbourne, Australia. A first-time feature film director and a largely unknown cast. A legitimate motorcycle gang. A refurbished 35mm camera somehow left behind from Sam Peckinpah’s THE GETAWAY.

You just read a success story.

Part of the Australian New Wave that invaded American theaters in the late 1970s and early 1980s, George Miller’s MAD MAX plays like a ripped, twisted cross between an American Western like HIGH NOON, Sergio Leone Westerns, Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” and Hunter S. Thompson’s “Hell’s Angels,” American International biker pics, dystopian science fiction, horror films, good old-fashioned hyperkinetic action, and ultra-violent vigilante justice like DEATH WISH and TAXI DRIVER.

When good old American International Pictures released MAD MAX in America in 1980, they played up the film’s action content in promotion since lead actor Mel Gibson was not yet the international star that he would soon become and they Americanized the language with a new dub replacing the original Australian dialogue. (I own both versions, and I prefer the original Australian dub.)

After the prerequisite title card (Miller said the film’s low budget created the need for a post apocalyptic world), MAD MAX wisely jumps straight into the action with a fantastic, slam-bang chase scene that lasts 10 minutes. I rate this chase among the very best during an era that included many great chase scenes, like BULLITT and THE FRENCH CONNECTION.

In those chases, you feel like anything could happen at any given time. They look real. They feel real. Real cars, real danger.

Understatement: MAD MAX starts on a high note.

The setup for the chase: A ripped, twisted individual named “The Nightrider” kills a Main Force Patrol rookie officer and takes off in the officer’s Pursuit Special. MFP officers are in hot pursuit and the Nightrider eludes them until he meets his match in Max Rockatansky (Gibson).

Vincent Gil plays the Nightrider and his brief appearance proves to be absolutely essential in establishing the entire MAD MAX series.

He’s crazy, yeah, crazier than a shit house rat. I believe one of the officers calls him a terminal psychotic. He’s got verbal style, though, and this is one of the elements that defines MAD MAX, although words became fewer over time.

Max asks his best friend Goose (Steve Bisley) “Much damage?” over the radio and the Nightrider gives one of the great responses, helped out by a quote from Australian hard rock band AC/DC: “You should see the damage, bronze. Huh? Metal damage, brain damage. Heheheh. Are you listening, bronze? I am the Nightrider. I’m a fuel injected suicide machine. I am a rocker, I am a roller, I am a out-of-controller! I’m the Nightrider, baby!”

It’s an indelible sight as the Nightrider turns from brashness to sheer terror in his final moments.

The Nightrider’s motorcycle gang brethren, namely the Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne), Bubba Zanetti (Geoff Parry), and Johnny the Boy (Tim Burns), pursue their revenge and enact their reign of terror on the Australian countryside.

Max loses his faith in justice, his best friend, and his family, his wife Jessie (Joanne Samuel) and his infant son.

At one point, Max tells his boss, “Any longer out on that road and I’m one of them, you know? A terminal crazy … only I got a bronze badge to say I’m one of the good guys.”

Max goes AWOL from the MFP, steals their Pursuit Special, and he stalks and kills the Toecutter, Bubba Zanetti, and finally Johnny the Boy.

Max drives off into the wasteland, a shell of his former self. We’re unsure of the future of this man.

I favor MAD MAX over both THE ROAD WARRIOR and MAD MAX: FURY ROAD because of a greater emotional investment. It shows us everything Max lost, and it’s less spectacle than the later films, obviously due to the difference in budget constraints. (FURY ROAD, for example, cost a cool $150 million. That’s 428.571428571 times the budget of the original.)

Miller, whose credits include BABE: PIG IN THE CITY and THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK in addition to the Mad Max films, is a former medical doctor and that profession informs MAD MAX.

Miller worked as an emergency room doctor to earn funds to make MAD MAX.

The surname “Rockatansky” derives from 19th century Bohemian pathologist Carl von Rokitansky, who originated a procedure that became the most common method for the removal of internal organs during an autopsy.

Miller’s experiences in the emergency room with motorcycle and automobile accidents are played out in MAD MAX.

Five great Australian New Wave films:
— PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975)
— THE LAST WAVE (1977)
— THE CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH (1978)
— MAD MAX (1979)
— BREAKER MORANT (1980)

Juno (2007)

JUNO (2007) One-and-a-half stars

The second episode of the 10th season of “South Park” gave us a great concept that applies to the 2007 comedy JUNO: “Smug Alert.”

That internal smug alert went off throughout Jason Reitman’s film, especially regarding Diablo Cody’s screenplay and Ellen Page’s precious little title character.

Two quotes from “Smug Alert” pinpoint what’s not right with JUNO.

“Being smug is a good thing,” Gerald Broflovski said.

“You mean — we should drive in hybrids but not act like we’re better than everyone else because of it?” Randy Marsh said.

JUNO (both the movie and the character) acts like being smug is a good thing and that it’s better than everybody else because of it, well, yeah, because that’s what it means to be smug.

Believe it or not, Cody’s original screenplay won for “Best Original Screenplay” in both the American and British editions of the Academy Awards. Yeah, I don’t believe it.

The dialogue scene between Juno and a clerk named Rollo proved enough to set off the “Smug Alert.” I’ll quote it all because I’ll let it form my case against JUNO and Juno.

Rollo: Well, well … if it isn’t MacGuff the crime dog? Back for another test?

Juno: I think the last one was defective. The plus sign looked more like a division sign so I remain unconvinced.

Rollo: Third test today, Mama Bear. Your eggo is preggo, no doubt about it.

Tough Girl: It’s really easy to tell. Is your nipples real brown?

Rollo: Yeah. Maybe your little boyfriend’s got mutant sperms. Knocked ya up twice.

Juno: Silencio old man! Look, I just drank my weight in Sunny-D and I gotta go pronto!

Rollo: Well, you know where the lavatory is.

Rollo [yells]: You pay for that pee stick when you’re done! Don’t think it’s yours just cuz ya marked it with your urine!

[later]

Rollo: Well, what’s the prognosis, fertile Myrtle? Minus or plus?

Juno: [taking a pregnancy test] I don’t know. It’s not seasoned yet. [grabs some candy] I’ll take some of these. Nope … There it is. The little pink plus sign is so unholy.

Rollo: That ain’t no Etch-a-Sketch. This is one doodle that can’t be un-did, homeskillet.

Yeah, exactly, that early dialogue indicts itself and the entire film. Did the voters for “Best Original Screenplay” have that scene erased from their collective memories? Never mind all the critics who listed JUNO as one of 2007’s best films — Roger Ebert named it his No. 1 film.

There are some good things in JUNO but they are ultimately overshadowed by that darn you-know-what that starts with ’s’ and ends with ’ss’ (it’s not success or sadness).

I also dislike the cinematic trend where seemingly every single damn character in a comedy talks like a stand-up comedian with crack timing and perfectly-timed cheap shots, even the characters that are not being played by stand-up comedians.

You had to have been living under a rock to not hear about JUNO in late 2007 and throughout 2008.

JUNO received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress (Page), in addition to its one victory.

Other screenplays nominated against JUNO were LARS AND THE REAL GIRL (Nancy Oliver), MICHAEL CLAYTON (Tony Gilroy), RATATOUILLE (Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava, and Jim Capobianco), and THE SAVAGES (Tamara Jenkins).

I don’t know about you at home, but I’d favor the rat over the brat ‘cause Ratatouille and RATATOUILLE are not smug in the slightest and that makes a huge difference.

Cody (born June 1978) made a name for herself writing an “adult” blog named “The Pussy Ranch” (honest to blog!) and her memoir “Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper” before she hit the jackpot with her debut screenplay for JUNO. Her life sounds perfectly equipped for becoming an Academy Award winning bio pic. Would her character be played by Miss Sassy Pants Page?

Cody’s other screenplay credits: JENNIFER’S BODY, YOUNG ADULT, PARADISE, RICKI AND THE FLASH, and TULLY. I also regret watching JENNIFER’S BODY, a horror comedy starring Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried that again set off the “Smug Alert.”

Cody said of JUNO, “You can look at it as a film that celebrates life and celebrates childbirth, or you can look at it as a film about a liberated young girl who makes a choice to continue being liberated. Or you can look at it as some kind of twisted love story, you know, a meditation on maturity.”

I’d rewrite Cody’s quote, “You can look at it as a film that celebrates superficiality and celebrates hipster, or you can look at it as a film about a glib young girl who makes a choice to continue being glib. Or you can look at it as some kind of situation comedy, you know, a meditation on monotony.”

JUNO also frequently misses the mark with the soundtrack, apparently picked by Page herself.

JUNO makes overtures to punk, glam, alternative, et cetera, but picks songs like the Velvet Underground’s “I’m Sticking with You” and Sonic Youth’s “Superstar,” for example, atypical numbers for those bands. Where’s Nirvana and the many bands name-dropped by Kurt Cobain? Like the Vaselines, just one example. Nirvana covered “Here She Comes Now,” the most accessible song from the Velvets’ second LP WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT, 40 minutes and 13 seconds of sound renowned for clearing rooms and making ear drums bleed. What would Juno have made of “Sister Ray”?

Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore on JUNO in Magnet Magazine, “Every once in a while, you’ll be asked whether your music can be used in a movie. Invariably, we always ask, ‘What’s the movie about?’ Because you don’t want it to be some kind of grotesque film. I didn’t even remember that they’d used the song until I was watching it with my daughter, then I was like, ‘Oh my God!’ [Laughs} When Mark (Jason Bateman) tells Juno, ‘Here’s a Sonic Youth song, I think you’ll really like this,’ and then he plays the song that’s the least indicative of our music — us covering a Carpenters tune — it’s such an odd choice. It’s also funny that she would be into totally hardcore punk — Iggy, Patti Smith, the Runaways — and then quantify Sonic Youth as ‘just a bunch of noise.’ But I think she was just angry at the guy and trying to get back at him.”

Michael Cera plays Paulie Bleeker in what amounted to his second movie featuring “The Michael Cera Role,” following SUPERBAD, and I was already tired of it. No, that’s not Jesse Eisenberg, who you might remember from THE SQUID AND THE WHALE and ZOMBIELAND. Yeah, it’s confusing.

Guess this confusion happened to the guys all the time.

“I bumped into Jesse on the street once and he told me he gets it once a day,” Cera said in the New York Post. “This guy asked me today if I was Napoleon Dynamite [Jon Heder].”

You know you’re in trouble when the best performance in the movie belongs to Jennifer Garner.

Avatar (2009)

AVATAR (2009) One-and-a-half stars
After I watched James Cameron’s AVATAR for the first time in nearly 10 years, numerous things hit me over the head like a (Hebrew) hammer.

Mental notes:

1) This movie sucks. I mean it, man, and I’m not sure how or why I ever liked it in the first place. I’ll blame it on the alcoholic consumption during my first watch in late ’09 and my love/lust relationship at the time with a woman who loved AVATAR.

2) It never ends. AVATAR is not the cinematic equivalent of the late ’60s Jefferson Airplane chestnut “3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds” or 216 miles per hour. The final act of AVATAR, in fact, could be called “3/4 of a Hour in 10 Years.”

3) Will Cameron ever direct a film again that comes in under 120 minutes? The 161-minute AVATAR followed hot on the heels (12 years later) of the 195-minute TITANIC. Here are the run times for TRUE LIES (141), TERMINATOR 2 (137), THE ABYSS (140), and ALIENS (137). In fact, you’d have to go all the way back in time to the 107-minute TERMINATOR (1984) for the last Cameron-directed picture under 120 minutes. (For the record, I like TERMINATOR 2, ALIENS, and THE ABYSS, I’ll pass on TRUE LIES, and I’ll have to revisit TITANIC to see how it holds up removed from all the hype and hysteria in late ’97 and early ’98.)

4) It’s been said that no good film is too long and no bad film is short enough. In that case, AVATAR will be cinematically torturous for people who think it’s no good. Let me put it yet another way: AVATAR and my last dentist appointment lasted about the same length of time, and I’ll go back to the dentist before I ever watch AVATAR again.

5) AVATAR just might be the preachiest movie ever made, even more so than any movie about, you know, preachers. Apparently, even 20th Century Fox asked Cameron to remove “some of this tree-hugging, FERN GULLY crap” from AVATAR. This preachiness makes AVATAR a real drag at times, and why it feels more like an endurance contest than an enjoyable, visionary motion picture experience.

6) Cameron practices what he preaches, though, because AVATAR recycles from DANCES WITH WOLVES, POCAHONTAS, FERN GULLY, ALIENS, and several Hayao Miyazaki films (just a short list). We’ve seen this movie before, and better.

7) AVATAR uncannily illustrates the “uncanny valley.” Definition: “The uncanny valley is a common unsettling feeling people experience when androids (humanoid robots) and audio/visual simulations closely resemble humans in many respects but are not quite convincingly realistic.”

8) Blue is not my favorite color.

9) Black is my favorite color. I loved AVATAR most when it finally faded to black.

10) I liked the Na’vi subtitles much better when they were in German on the bootleg copy I first consumed.

11) I must follow the THIS IS SPINAL TAP rule, which means this list must go to 11.

Pet Sematary (2019)

PET SEMATARY (2019) One-and-a-half stars

I best stay away from the reboots, retcons, or remakes of horror movies for quite some time.

In the case of PET SEMATARY, it actually did meet my rather low expectations.

For the record, it’s the second time in my life that I let a loved one pick the free rental — following M. Night Sham-A-Lama-Ding-Dong’s 2006 epic turd LADY IN THE WATER — and I still feel cheated. There’s an obvious moral lesson to be learned here.

PET SEMATARY lays it on thick, awful thick, with just about every cheap carny trick in the book. I wanted to give up about 20 minutes in, during the death of Victor Pascow in the hospital. That’s when the young man’s brain pulsates from his skull and a nurse exclaims, “Oh my God! I can see his brain!” I stuck it out, although I grumbled something or other about “cheap trick” to my wife not long after the scene.

The plot: Dr. Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) and his wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz) move their family — daughter Ellie (Jete Laurence) and son Gage (Hugo, Lucas Lavoie), plus fur baby Church — from metropolis Boston to rural Maine.

Now, in real life, that’s undoubtedly a good move for everybody concerned. Not in the movies, however, especially any movie based on a best-selling Stephen King novel.

You just know they’re fucked, doomed to a nightmarish saga worse than urban violence. In fact, we needed Crazy Ralph peddling past on his bicycle and screaming “You’re doomed” and “It’s got a death curse” at our young couple.

I know what you’re thinking, that Jason killed off Crazy Ralph long ago, but not if Crazy Ralph was buried in a pet cemetery. I’m just getting a little bit ahead of myself, oh by about three paragraphs.

Thanks to the collective works of King and “Murder, She Wrote,” I have no desire to move to Maine.

The Creeds buy one doozy of a property and I bet it’s listed right next to the Amityville Horror House in Toms River, New Jersey. Once again, the true villain of a horror movie should be the realtor.

Real estate perks for the Creeds’ dream house: A highway seemingly just a step away with semi-trucks barreling down the road all hours of the day (exactly what you’d want for two young children and one pet) and a pet cemetery in your backyard.

Never mind a kindly old man neighbor (John Lithgow) who’s going to lead you straight to your doom.

You’d think you’d rather go back to where you came in the first 10 minutes, right?

All this happens with the utmost predictability, because first and foremost it’s a remake that does not stray too far from the original. We’ve already been down this highway before and one big alteration director Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer and screenwriter Jeff Buhler made was spelled out in the film’s promotion. One of the trailers showed the whole movie in a mere 2 minutes, 26 seconds. PET SEMETARY is yet another movie where I recommend watching the trailer over the actual movie.

Somewhere, in past reviews, I have mentioned how I normally hate jump scares. They’re precisely what I mean by cheap carny trick.

Seasoned movie viewers should be able to detect a jump scare from a country mile away, identifying all the telltale signs.

PET SEMATARY abuses the old standard “It’s Only A Dream” about, just a guess here, 10 times too many.

Abuse is a fitting word for PET SEMETARY.

NOTE: How many times did AutoCorrect change the second half of PET SEMATARY to seminary? Every single time, and I had to change it to the original “incorrect” spelling. However, just think of the possibilities inherent here, for example, “I don’t want to be buried in a pet seminary.”

Breaker! Breaker! (1977)

BREAKER! BREAKER!

BREAKER! BREAKER! (1977) Two stars

We all have to start somewhere, as they say, and Chuck Norris fittingly started his true movie career with BREAKER! BREAKER! (We’ll ignore WAY OF THE DRAGON, because Norris plays a villain defeated by Bruce Lee.)

Well, BREAKER! BREAKER! is not a very good movie: Norris himself admitted that he had no idea what he was doing, it was made on an extremely low budget ($250,000) and looks it, its plot defines simplistic and leaves no room for shades of grey, and it’s a time capsule of the 1970s.

Whether or not that’s good or bad, I will leave for you to decide.

Hairdos, that music, arm wrestling, greasy diners, truck driving vernacular and CB radio lingo, and high flying karate with or without slow motion.

Yes, it all screams 1977.

BREAKER! BREAKER! only needed child custody and it could have predated OVER THE TOP by a decade.

Film’s alternate title: ROUNDHOUSE! ROUNDHOUSE! Believe you me, Mr. Norris unleashes one roundhouse per every minute of the film’s running time. Keep in mind that his feet have to catch up between the dialogue scenes.

Thinking about it a little bit longer, I believe I know where I’ve seen BREAKER! BREAKER! before: John Sturges’ 1955 classic BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK, when Spencer Tracy’s one-armed war veteran runs into Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine, and just about every Black Rock resident.

BREAKER! BREAKER! is a dumbed-down BAD DAY AT BLOCK ROCK (which also predated FIRST BLOOD) and director Don Hulette is definitely no Sturges, whose other credits include GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, and THE GREAT ESCAPE.

The plot: Truck driver J.D. Dawes (Norris) warns his younger brother to stay away from Texas City, a California municipality rather hostile toward truckers. Judge Joshua Trimmings, Sergeant Strode, Deputy Boles, and seemingly every Texas City resident in cahoots run a brutal racket and they rough up one of Dawes’ friends, hence the warning to the younger brother. Well, of course, the younger brother does not stay away from Texas City and older brother springs into action to rescue younger brother and bring down corrupt Texas City. You can fill in the rest.

BREAKER! BREAKER! could play as part of a marathon with DUEL, SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, and CONVOY or merely a double feature with the far superior BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK.

NOTE: The poster for BREAKER! BREAKER! gets four stars.