Tag: Oh! Heavenly Dog

A Boy and His Dog (1975)

A BOY AND HIS DOG

A BOY AND HIS DOG (1975) ***

Forgive me for giving away the ending of A BOY AND HIS DOG: The Boy chooses The Dog over The Girl.

Then again, I am not sure I gave away the ending any one bit more than a title like A BOY AND HIS DOG. Yeah, right, it’s not called A BOY AND HIS GIRL.

Character actor L.Q. Jones, a favorite of the director Sam Peckinpah (1925-84), wrote, directed, and produced A BOY AND HIS DOG, adapted from Harlan Ellison’s 1969 short story “A Boy and His Dog.” Just take a look at the film’s poster: “The year is 2024 … a future you’ll probably live to see” and “a boy and his dog: an R rated, rather kinky tale of survival.” That part about A BOY AND HIS DOG being kinky, it’s no lie. Jones, in fact, makes a cameo in the porno movie within the movie.

In post-apocalyptic times, it quickly becomes apparent that a boy and his dog need each other more than ever before.

Especially this boy. He’s named Vic (Don Johnson). He’s 18 years old. He’s obsessed with sex and food, in just that order. Both his parents are gone. He lacks formal education and his ethics and morality are naturally twisted by the world he lives in. He’s a survivor, by any means necessary.

Meanwhile, his telepathic dog named Blood (voiced by Tim McIntire) is one helluva smart and savagely witty canine. He’s better than Benji! Benji, when he was voiced by Chevy Chase in OH! HEAVENLY DOG, never uttered anything like “I hope the next time you play with yourself, you go blind” or “Pull up your pants, Romeo.”

Vic and Blood have worked themselves out a nice little survival pact, at least until the lovely and sassy lass Quilla June Holmes (Susanne Benton). She knows how to appeal to Vic, but good old hound Blood knows a no-count hooch when he sees (and smells) one.

She’s been sent above ground by her powerful father from another world (Jason Robards) to scout talent for a sperm donor to perpetuate the species of underground survivors. Of course, Vic has got the super sperm necessary for the job, a fact Miss Holmes finds out firsthand. She ditches the boy and his dog and returns below ground, proving that Blood definitely sniffed out her wily ways.

Blood advises Vic not to chase the girl and go below ground, but the perpetually horny Vic lets his libido be his guide. Vic asks Blood to wait above ground for his return.

After boy and girl escape the underworld in harrowing fashion, they find Blood and he’s barely alive. That’s when The Boy faces his choice between The Dog and The Girl. Feed her to the dogs, indeed.

A BOY AND HIS DOG makes a strong case that dames are a dime a dozen even in a post-apocalyptic world, but dogs like Blood are truly a rare breed.

Big (1988)

BIG (1988) Three-and-a-half stars

Twelve-year-old Joshua Baskin (David Moscow) cannot gain admittance on a roller coaster ride because he’s not tall enough, so the embarrassed young man finds a Zoltar Speaks machine and it grants his wish that he were big. Overnight, Joshua Baskin becomes 30 years old and he’s played by Tom Hanks for basically the rest of the movie.

BIG is by far the best of the body switch movies that were all the rave during the Reagan administration. Anybody sentient during that era can surely remember a body switch pic or two. Let’s see, we had OH! HEAVENLY DOG from 1980, whose July 11 release date predates Reagan and which gives us Chevy Chase trapped inside Benji … Chase provides voice-over for Benji in a rather dull murder mystery. Then, there’s LIKE FATHER LIKE SON from 1987 pairing Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron, who just scream father and son, in one of the worst movies of all-time had it not come out during the same year as such cinematic landmarks as THE GARBAGE PAIL KIDS MOVIE, LEONARD PART 6, JAWS THE REVENGE, MANNEQUIN, and TEEN WOLF TOO. Never mind, it’s still one of the worst movies of all-time.

BIG streamlined and more or less perfected the body switch, because we stick with one character (Joshua Baskin) the whole time and there’s less of a suspension of disbelief required for the movie to work. For example, in LIKE FATHER LIKE SON, we have to picture Dudley Moore inside Kirk Cameron and vice-versa (pun and reference to another body switch movie intended), but it’s almost impossible since their speaking voices remain the same. Movies like LIKE FATHER LIKE SON are why the late Roger Ebert coined the phrase “The Idiot Plot.”

Hanks gives a strong performance, especially in conveying the whole child trapped inside a grown man’s body through body language, facial gestures, boyish enthusiasm, wide-eyed reactions. He works his predicament for laughs, for pathos, for drama, and there’s a compelling sequence during his first “big” day when he’s staying at this seedy New York City hotel and he’s scared by the real world. Hanks broke away from his poor man’s Bill Murray for the first time in his career and established his own niche that would culminate in playing Forrest Gump.

Elizabeth Perkins is just terrific in BIG and I don’t think she’s ever been either better or more beautiful than as Susan. Perkins matches Hanks every step of the way during their complicated romance and please go back and watch her during the farewell scene with Baskin. She kisses him on the forehead and strokes behind his ear, in a tender and more motherly fashion. She makes the scene work, as Hanks reverts back to Moscow as Baskin.

Robert Loggia (1930-2015) and John Heard (1946-2017) were two of the best character actors during their respective careers.

Loggia plays against type here as MacMillan, the owner of a toy company who takes a major liking to the way Baskin looks at toys; phooey to marketing reports, Baskin and MacMillan test toys the old-fashioned way by going straight to the biggest toy store. They pair together for a toy piano duet and create one of the most iconic movie scenes of the late 80s. It’s known quite simply as the “Big Piano Scene.”

There was often an edge to Heard during his performances and he taps into that edge a great deal in BIG. Heard creates a real jerk.

Penny Marshall became a name director after BIG and she and Hanks reunited for A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN. Anne Spielberg and Gary Ross wrote the script and Barry Sonnenfeld worked as cinematographer; Ross later directed PLEASANTVILLE and Sonnenfeld’s directorial credits include GET SHORTY and MEN IN BLACK.

There seems to be a certain nostalgia for BIG, just like at times it seems like that’s all true for anything (the good and the bad, and the ugly) from the 80s.

How far can that nostalgia go? Well, there’s the Nostalgic Zoltar Speaks machine for sale on the Zoltar site. One machine comes equipped with a $10,500 price tag and that’s not counting any customization like a wireless microphone to talk through Zoltar ($425 without remote control, $520 with), breathing movement for Zoltar ($625), motion activated attract ($75), custom fortune cards, custom audio messages, and traveling case ($1,500 plastic, $650 wood).

If you do buy that Nostalgic Zoltar Speaks machine for a major chunk of change, do you dare make a wish, “I wish I were big.” I say you better for that level of investment.