The Manitou (1978)

THE MANITOU (1978) *1/2
California is going to hell.

— Donald J. Trump on Twitter

Obviously, President Trump — a big movie fan, the biggest movie fan ever — forgot The Manitou from 1978, because then he would have known California, at least one San Francisco hospital, had already gone straight to Hell for one absolutely positively bloody ridiculous 103-minute horror movie.

The Manitou just might help explain what’s happening today in California and many other places, for that matter. Yes, that’s right, it’s another possession movie.

Tony Curtis plays a phony baloney psychic seen in movies upon occasion (normally bad movies) — one of them who reads Tarot cards to little old ladies and other suckers — and his former flame discovers a growth on the back of her neck. The foremost tumor expert calls it “malignant.” It’s definitely malignant, alright, it’s the reborn spirit of the most powerful 400-year-old medicine man on his fifth reincarnation. You think you’re having a bad day or a bad time, just wait until you see what happens to poor Karen Tandy (Susan Strasberg) in The Manitou.

This is yet another one of those movies where I am thankful every actor maintained a straight face reciting all their dialogue. To be honest, though, I want to learn their secret. The Manitou combines doctor talk, psychic talk, spiritual talk, and Indian talk into one concoction that’s overloaded and overheated with jive, like, for example, we all — even us White people — have a Manitou and that we includes all our possessions. I cannot help myself when I laugh at such dialogue like “Gichi Manitou? Harry, you don’t call Gichi Manitou. He …” and (in response) “Oh, yeah, well he’s going to get a person-to-person call from me … collect!”

The Manitou somewhat redeems itself with a spectacular psychedelic light show late in the picture. It comes in about 90-95 minutes to be a tad bit more precise and that display earned the picture a half-star bump in overall rating. By the way, I almost rescinded that half-star boost after The Manitou hits us with the following statement:

Fact: Tokyo, Japan, 1969.

A fifteen-year-old boy developed what doctors thought was a tumor in his chest. The larger it grew, the more uncharacteristic it appeared. Eventually, it proved to be a human fetus.

After 100 minutes of The Manitou, about the last thing in the world we needed was any claim to factual basis.

The Manitou is so bad that I hope it will not be reborn in 400 years, when it would be ever more powerful and worse.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH (1990) Four stars

I watched GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH for the first time sometime that summer after it first attacked multiplexes on June 15, 1990.

I wanted to see it badly, since I absolutely loved the original GREMLINS and felt hyped up additionally by the TV ads. I saw it at the Pittsburg 8 during a calendar year (1989-90) that brought multiplex trips to BATMAN, BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II, PARENTHOOD, and TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES.

GREMLINS 2 did not let me down, I loved it then and I love it now after having seen it several times, and it has remained one of the most pleasurable multiplex experiences of my life. It’s lingered in my head all these years.

For example, every time since watching GREMLINS 2, when I hear Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York,” I cannot help but replace it with the Gremlins’ grand production number inside my head. Watching the horribly overrated SHAME (2011) quite a few years back, I wished that GREMLINS 2 and SHAME were spliced together and the little beasties would ruin Carey Mulligan’s showcase rendition.

I’ve heard that GREMLINS 2 is an acquired taste and that you have to be in a certain mood to watch it. Well, I can say that I have acquired that taste and I don’t know, I’m always in the mood to watch a good movie.

“Silly rather than scary like the first GREMLINS” is the verdict on GREMLINS 2 and what people really mean when they spew the party line about being in that certain mood.

— GREMLINS 2 is a running commentary on sequels — everything from merchandising to an endless supply of new characters to sharp but affectionate jabs at the rules of the GREMLINS world and movie sequels in general.

It attempts to be an anti-sequel.

“When I was asked to do the sequel, which I originally turned down because it was so hard to make the first one,” director Joe Dante said in a 2015 interview. “The only reason I decided to make the sequel was because years later they had tried to make a sequel and couldn’t figure out how to do it, and they really wanted another one. So they said to me, ‘If you give us a couple of cans of film with gremlins in them next summer, you can do whatever you want.’ And they gave me three times the money we had to make the first one. So I made GREMLINS 2, which was essentially about how there didn’t need to be a sequel to GREMLINS.”

— We all know the three rules from GREMLINS: Don’t get them wet; Don’t expose them to bright light (especially sunlight, it will kill them); Don’t feed them after midnight.

Naturally, in GREMLINS 2, supporting characters in a control room challenge the hero Billy after he shares the rules.

“What if one of them eats something at 11:00, but then he gets something stuck in his teeth?”

“Like a caraway seed or a sesame seed?”

“And after 12:00, it comes out. Now, he didn’t eat that after midnight.”

It goes on.

“Wait, what if they’re eating in an airplane and they cross a time zone? I mean, it’s always midnight somewhere.”

I am sure many of us asked the burning question, “Isn’t it always after midnight?”

— Mr. and Mrs. Murray Futterman, whom we all thought met their demise in GREMLINS, return for the sequel. That guy Dick Miller (1928-2019) and Jackie Joseph (born 1933) reprise their roles, partly because it’s a Joe Dante movie and what’s a Joe Dante movie without Dick Miller.

— GREMLINS sparked much controversy over its ‘PG’ rating and parents complained about the film, a fact incorporated into GREMLINS 2.

From a 1984 article in The Christian Science Monitor, “Recent releases such as INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and GREMLINS have spurred controversy about their PG ratings. Many parents felt the violent content and some of the special effects warranted a stiffer rating. A significant number of directors, producers, and theater owners agreed and pushed for a change.”

Hence, the PG-13 rating was born and it debuted with the release of RED DAWN on Aug. 10, 1984.

— Film critic Leonard Maltin, a fan of Dante and his work, gave a negative review to GREMLINS.

“A teenager’s unusual new pet spawns a legion of vicious, violent monsters who turn picture-postcard town into living hell. Comic nightmare is a cross between Capra’s IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE and THE BLOB; full of film-buff in-jokes but negated by too-vivid violence and mayhem.”

Maltin then makes a gratuitous cameo appearance in GREMLINS 2, where he’s mauled by the new batch for his negative review of the original film. Maltin’s famous last words, “Ow. I was just kidding. Ah. It’s a 10. It’s a 10.”

— At one point in GREMLINS 2, the title monsters disrupt their own film and it takes a threat from Hulk Hogan to get the picture back on track. …

“Okay you guys, listen up! People pay good money to see this movie! When they go out to a theater they want cold sodas, hot popcorn, and no monsters in the projection booth! Do I have to come up there myself? Do you think the Gremsters can stand up to the Hulkster? Well, if I were you, I’d run the rest of GREMLINS 2! Right now! Sorry folks, it won’t happen again.”

— Phoebe Cates became famous predominantly for two scenes: doffing her bikini top to the tune of the Cars’ “Moving in Stereo” in FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH and her ‘Why I hate Christmas’ speech in GREMLINS. In GREMLINS 2, Cates’ Kate starts on a speech why she also hates Lincoln’s birthday.

— GREMLINS and GREMLINS 2 main protagonist Billy Peltzer’s inept inventor father Rand (Hoyt Axton) played a pivotal role in the first movie. Rand Peltzer gets an upgrade in GREMLINS 2. We get eccentric billionaire Daniel Clamp (John Glover), a combination of Donald Trump and Ted Turner, whose technological innovations inside his wonderful Clamp Tower never seem to work properly. I get a kick from the building announcements, for example “Tonight, on the Clamp Cable Classic Movie Channel, don’t miss CASABLANCA, now in full color with a happier ending.”

The title characters take over Clamp Tower, creating all sorts of memorable scenes.

— I should perhaps mention the diabolical Dr. Catheter (Christopher Lee), identical twins Martin and Lewis played by identical twin actors Don and Dan Stanton, Grandpa Fred (Robert Prosky) clearly inspired by Grandpa (Al Lewis) from “The Munsters,” the appearance of the Batman logo, and a talking Gremlin named Brain (voiced by Tony Randall) who gets an opportunity to sum up the ethos of the beasts.

“The fine points: diplomacy, compassion, standards, manners, tradition … that’s what we’re reaching toward. Oh, we may stumble along the way, but civilization, yes. The Geneva Convention, chamber music, Susan Sontag. Everything your society has worked so hard to accomplish over the centuries, that’s what we aspire to; we want to be civilized.”

Of course, in the very next moment, Brain takes out his gun and shoots dead a goofy acting Gremlin.

Civilization is very hard to come by.

Back to the Future Trilogy (1985-90)

BACK TO THE FUTURE TRILOGY (1985-1990)
The BACK TO THE FUTURE trilogy stands up better now than when the films were originally released.

That’s partly because we’ve not seen any more sequels or remakes, retcons, reboots, and ripoffs.

The three films have been allowed to stand on their own.

They stand up tall and straight.

Once upon a time, I wrote that DAWN OF THE DEAD, THE TERMINATOR, and THE FLY are great films because they not only succeed at giving audiences satisfaction on genre terms but they also work on additional levels. For example, the satire that equates mall shoppers with zombies (DAWN OF THE DEAD), the romance between Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor (THE TERMINATOR), and the romance between Seth Brundle and Veronica (THE FLY). All three films have a lot going on for and in them.

The same greatness principle holds true for all three BACK TO THE FUTURE films: They’re all successful comedies that work on a deeper level, mostly thanks to time travel.

Speaking of time travel, I’m definitely a fan because I love THE TERMINATOR, TIME AFTER TIME, X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, and MEN IN BLACK 3 and enjoy BILL & TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME, and FREQUENCY, for example.

The BACK TO THE FUTURE films — especially PART II — play around with the paradoxes of time travel, both for comedic and dramatic effect. It allows certain actors to play multiple roles in different times — 1885, 1955, 1985, alternate 1985, and 2015.

BACK TO THE FUTURE starts with the inspiration of containing a time machine in a DeLorean and the movie revs up when that baby moves 88 mph because, as Christopher Lloyd’s Dr. Emmett “Doc” Brown says, “If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you’re gonna see some serious shit.”

We do.

Anyway, our teenage protagonist Marty McFly (played by a 23-year-old Michael J. Fox), he’s bummed out by his parents George (Crispin Glover) and Lorraine (Lea Thompson), a hopeless nerd picked on by eternal bully Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) for one parent and a drunk for the other.

Sitting at the dinner table with his family, Marty’s not too interested in how his parents met: Lorraine’s father hit George with his car and Lorraine nursed George back to health. Lorraine experienced a real Florence Nightingale effect.

However, no kid’s ever all that interested in how their parents met. Especially parents like George and Lorraine.

The DeLorean hits 88 mph and Marty ends up back in 1955 — Nov. 5, 1955, stuck there, without any plutonium to return.

BACK TO THE FUTURE then becomes an even greater movie when it takes on the premise of a teenager meeting their parents when they’re teenagers. Marty’s a lot more interested in how his parents met, that’s for sure.

Not long after their first meeting in 1955, Marty saves George from being hit by that fateful car. Marty’s knocked unconscious instead and Nurse Lorraine grows “amorously infatuated” (Doc’s words) with her future son rather than her future husband. She’s in hot pursuit, and we remember her 1985 self warning her teenaged son about girls that chase after boys.

Just be glad that Marty finds a younger Doc to sort it all out and get him “back to the future.”

We especially need Doc around for PART II to explain the movie’s convoluted plot.

PART II gives us a version of 2015 highlighted by technological advancements. It was great fun watching the 2015 scenes in 1989 based on future speculation and it’s still great fun watching them 30 years later as we reflect what they got right and what they got wrong. The Royals, not the Cubs though, won the World Series and Universal mercifully stopped at four JAWS films.

(The Cubs ended the longest world championship drought in North American professional sports history — only 108 years — by winning the 2016 World Series.)

Futurepedia even provided a list of the new technology: Air traffic control; auto-adjusting and auto-drying jacket; automatic dog walker; automated Texaco service station; barcode license plate; binocular card; bionic implants; Compu-Fax; Compu-Serve; computerized breastplate; cosmetic factory; data-court; dehydrated pizza; dust-repellent paper; flying circuits; fruit dispenser; hands free video games; holobillboard; holofilms a la JAWS 19; hoverboards; hovercam; hover conversion; hydrator; Identa-pad; Internet; Kirk Gibson Jr. Slugger 2000 adjustable bat; Litter Bugs; Master-cook; Mr. Fusion; multi-channel video screen; neon curbing; Ortho-lev; Pac Fax; portable thumb unit; power-lacing shoes; rejuvenation clinic; scene screen; skyway; slam ball; sleeping device; soda bottles with built-in straws; flying cars; tablet computer; thumb pad; tranquilization; transponder; U.S. Weather Service; video glasses and video telephone glasses; video simulacrum; video telephone.

PART II ends up back in Nov. 12, 1955 (Marty’s final day in 1955 in BACK TO THE FUTURE), so we have two Martys and two Docs running breathlessly around Hill Valley.

Given all the plot convolutions and time permutations in PART II, it’s fitting that the 1955 Doc faints during a scene late in the movie.

Lightning strikes the DeLorean and sends Doc back to 1885 near the end of PART II … and Marty tracks him down in PART III.

We get a Western comedy in a year that included Best Picture winner DANCES WITH WOLVES and QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER.

PART III finds employment for veteran character actors Pat Buttram (1915-94), Harry Carey Jr. (1921-2012), and Dub Taylor (1907-94) in the 1885 scenes. It’s nice to see and hear them codgers.

Their presence lets us know that PART III is a different kind of Western than DANCES WITH WOLVES and QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER, more like a TV Western.

Marty takes Clint Eastwood for his 1885 name.

PART III casts Mary Steenburgen as Doc’s love interest and we remember Steenburgen as H.G. Wells’ love interest in TIME AFTER TIME (1979). Wells wrote “The Time Machine.” In TIME AFTER TIME, Jack the Ripper uses Wells’ time machine to travel to modern day San Francisco and Wells follows and pursues Jack the Ripper. During his pursuit, Wells meets bank clerk Amy (Steenburgen) and falls in love with her. (In real life, McDowell and Steenburgen became married in 1980, separated in 1989, and divorced in 1990. They met and began dating making TIME AFTER TIME.)

The BACK TO THE FUTURE trilogy ends on a satisfying note.

More notes on BACK TO THE FUTURE:

— Michael J. Fox is one of the most likable actors of all-time. He was the first choice for Marty, but “Family Ties” producer Gary David Goldberg refused to allow Fox away from that show to make a movie. That’s why BACK TO THE FUTURE originally cast Eric Stoltz as Marty. Stoltz worked a few weeks on the film before director Robert Zemeckis and screenwriter Bob Gale realized there’s something wrong with Stoltz as Marty: He’s not the Marty they wanted. Stoltz lacked screwball energy and he played scenes more dramatically. They let Stoltz go and recast with Fox, who became free to make the movie. Fox did not have to reach very far to portray Marty, “All I did in high school was skateboard, chase girls, and play in bands. I even dreamed of becoming a rock star.”

For two months, Fox worked on “Family Ties” during the day and BACK TO THE FUTURE at night, giving him at most a few hours of sleep each day.

Re-shooting added $3 million to the film’s budget, a number more than made up for by grosses for all three films that have amassed nearly $1 billion in returns.

— Christopher Lloyd’s boundless madcap energy earns Doc a place in the annals of great mad scientists and nutty professors. He becomes more than that, though, over the course of three movies. We love Doc, perhaps more than any other character in the series.

— Thomas F. Wilson makes any variation on the bully, whether it’s Buford “Mad Dog,” Biff, or Griff Tannen and whether it’s 1885, 1955, 1985, alternate 1985, or 2015, a lovable asshole. We love to hate “Mad Dog,” Biff, and Griff, especially Biff. We love every time Biff screws up a phrase like “Make like a tree … and get out of here.” We love every time he’s doused in manure. We love every time he’s burned and showed up by our protagonists. How do you feel after learning Donald Trump inspired the Biff character?

— Crispin Glover proved to be the next evolution in screen nerd, taking off from Eddie Deezen and REVENGE OF THE NERDS. Glover stepped in that direction in FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER, but he gets a fuller character in BACK TO THE FUTURE.

— Lea Thompson is quite fetching in the 1955 scenes and her character unknowingly lusting after her future son fits into a career where she was attacked by The Great White Mother in JAWS 3-D, yelled at and embarrassed by her sexually frustrated and football obsessed boyfriend in ALL THE RIGHT MOVES, involved with a married police officer who should have arrested himself for his own sex crimes in THE WILD LIFE, and kissed by an animatronic duck in HOWARD THE DUCK. John Hughes at least gave her the name Amanda Jones in SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL, from the Rolling Stones song “Miss Amanda Jones.” What a career.

— Huey Lewis and the News’ “Power of Love” achieves being their only song that does not inspire my thoughts of giving the nearest person a pencil and having them stab my eardrums. For example, it seemed that for the longest time at the Pittsburg Subway I’d hear their hit song “The Heart of Rock & Roll.” Every damn single time. I survived by wisecracking, “If Huey Lewis is the heart of rock ’n’ roll, then rock ’n’ roll needs a defibrillator.” I suppose I think more positively of “Power of Love” from being in BACK TO THE FUTURE.

— Zemeckis produced some of the best mass entertainments for nearly a decade-and-a-half, everything from 1941 (directed by Steven Spielberg) and USED CARS to BACK TO THE FUTURE and WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT.

I just hope that Hollywood leaves those films alone and does not burden us with remakes, retcons, reboots, or any other ripoff.

Is that too much to ask?

BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985) Four stars; BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II (1989) Three-and-a-half stars; BACK TO THE FUTURE PART III (1990) Four stars