Mac and Me (1988)

MAC AND ME (1988) *
Cable TV came to the little hamlet of Arcadia, Kansas, circa 1988 or 1989 and I watched a whole lot of movies time and time again.

That includes not only blockbusters like Back to the Future Part II and III, Beetlejuice, Big, Die Hard, Total Recall, and Terminator 2, but Arachnophobia, the first two Bill & Ted movies, The Blob remake, Tremors, Red Heat, Cocktail, The ‘Burbs, Bloodsport, Johnny Be Good, Appointment with Death, and even that disaster starring Tony Danza, She’s Out of Control. That last one begs the question WHY? Because it was on, naturally.

I only watched Mac and Me once back then, however, and that’s because even then with less discriminating taste I knew it sucked.

I revisited it all these decades later and it still righteously sucks. Just imagine a stupid E.T the Extra-Terrestrial where none of the cast members have the slightest bit charm or ability to keep our interest and to earn our emotional investment. It’s also incredibly weird and off-putting, especially considering that it’s designed to be family entertainment like E.T and The Wizard of Oz (1939), still the ultimate standard bearer for this kind of movie.

One of the main sources of weirdness: Mac and Me plugs more products than any movie this side of Leonard Part 6 or Happy Gilmore. Don’t you just hate it when a movie does that?

I mean, though, now that I think about it some more, it’s truly a missed opportunity for the ages that Dorothy didn’t drink Coke or the Tin Man didn’t use WD-40 or the Scarecrow didn’t wear designer hay or the Cowardly Lion didn’t have the courage to make a commercial plug right smack dab in the middle of his big melodramatic scene. MGM could have done so much more with their Yellow Brick Road (a sponsor on each and every brick) and the Wicked Witch of the West should have been melted by a brand name water, for crying out loud. We need a remake immediately just so the ruby slippers can be Nike.

Mac and Me could switch people over forever to Pepsi, Burger King, the St. Louis Cardinals, and Sweet Tarts.

Spielberg also missed an opportunity by not having a dance contest in a chain restaurant in E.T.

I was really bummed when I couldn’t find Paul Rudd in the cast and instead endured these apparently neophyte actors like Jonathan Ward, Tina Caspary, Lauren Stanley, and Jade Calegory. Ward and Caspary have considerably more acting experience than Stanley and Calegory, but they’re just as stilted or melodramatic in every scene.

The adult performers and their characters suck, as well, but they are blessed with fewer scenes to suck than the younger actors. By all rights, I should have rooted for the government agents, but, no, I cheered when the end credits rolled on this jive turkey. This is a movie that viewers should put they survived it on their resume.

Oh, in all this hubbub over a crap movie, I almost forgot MAC stands for ‘Mysterious Alien Creature’ and not that one restaurant with the impromptu dance scene interrupted by evil government agents. We have the main one, then his family, and I am guessing they’re distant, no good cousins of E.T. I mean, I doubt they would ever sit together for one of them big family pictures that brings in all the brothers and sisters and cousins and parents and grandparents and grandchildren. E.T. is simply too good for Mac.

Weird children, weird adults, weird aliens, product placement out the wazoo, and Squire Fridell add up to one weird (and awful) movie.

Mac and Me is so awful that Harry and the Hendersons seems like Citizen Kane instead.

Goin’ Coconuts (1978)

GOIN’ COCONUTS (1978) 1/2*

In the distant future, one of the great mysteries of human behavior will be why there were so many teen idols after, oh, let’s say, 1955. Imagine trying to explain Tiger Beat, Joey Lawrence, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys, and Justin Bieber to future generations.

I can only hope that future rational beings will reach the conclusion that many people (mostly girls, but also boys with such beacons of humanity as Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, et cetera ) in the late 20th and early 21st centuries obsessed about the shallow and the superficial and the stupid and such attributes as perfect hair, perfect teeth, and dimples. “He / She has got such a perfect body. He’s so cute. She’s so hot.” All that jive can just go fuck off.

I thought about this “teen idol” angle during and after GOIN’ COCONUTS, the motion picture debut and finale of former teen idols Donny and Marie Osmond. Since I watched it after SLITHIS, I just might have survived the worst two movies I have ever seen back-to-back; I am blanking on whether or not I ever watched BATTLEFIELD EARTH after LEONARD PART 6 or vice versa.

Anyway, I hated just about every second of GOIN’ COCONUTS. Hated every musical number. Hated every bit of perfunctory dialogue. Hated every single attempt at humor. Hated the jewelry caper story and every single plot development that we have seen before from a million different movies and TV shows. Hated seeing legendary movie villains being reduced to buffoons for comedic purposes that miserably failed. Hated it the longer it went on. I rejoiced at the first sight of the end credits and turned off the movie. I didn’t even care all that much about the Hawaiian scenery, just because we had to watch this stupid movie take place within it.

I felt especially bad for actors like Kenneth Mars, Ted Cassidy, Khigh Dhiegh, and Harold Sakata. But, hey, not that bad, since they got paid and had the opportunity to make a movie in Hawaii. That sounds great right about now. I could go for that, even a movie as shitty as GOIN’ COCONUTS.

The reason I felt bad for them was they had to play cosmically inept. Like, for example, Sakata’s Ito could not take out Donny Osmond, for crying out loud. The filmmakers made the dread mistake of costuming Sakata (1920-82) in the same hat that he wore in GOLDFINGER as super henchman Oddjob. Sure we all remember what Oddjob did with his hat in GOLDFINGER; let’s just say that he wears the hat throughout GOIN’ COCONUTS and that’s that. It’s so insulting to see a World War II veteran and an Olympic silver medalist in weightlifting (Sakata represented the United States in the 1948 Summer Olympics in London) reduced to playing the fool, thwarted at every churn of the plot by a couple teen idols and their perfect teeth.

Dhiegh (1910-91) played a key role in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE as brainwashing expert Dr. Yen. Yes, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, one of the most intelligent movies ever made. Then, 16 years later, Dhiegh appeared in GOIN’ COCONUTS, which should have borrowed from THE WIZARD OF OZ its musical theme … “If I Only Had a Brain.” Again, it simply defies all credibility that Dhiegh’s character would be outsmarted by a pair of coconuts.

In GOIN’ COCONUTS, Mars (1935-2011) more or less gives us a variation on his characters from the Mel Brooks comedies THE PRODUCERS and YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, only without the laughs.

Cassidy (1932-79) played Lurch on “The Addams Family” and would it have been too much to ask director Howard Morris (who played Ernest T. Bass on “The Andy Griffith Show”) and screenwriters William Marc Daniels and Raymond Harvey to include a gag where Cassidy’s Mickey answers the phone with “You rang.” Yes, of course, it would have been too much to ask. That’s silly to ask if you’ve survived GOIN’ COCONUTS.

It was a pathetic sight every time watching these villains shoot their guns at Donny and Marie. They should have been sent back to marksmanship class or had their diabolical henchmen licenses revoked.

Aside from the end credits, there was something else great about GOIN’ COCONUTS. Since it failed at the box office, Donny and Marie made only this one movie rather than a series of Donny and Marie spectaculars. They returned to their variety show where they belonged with their aw shucks gee whiz nature and perfect teeth intact.

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

WILLY WONKA

WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (1971) Three-and-a-half stars

Over the years, many individual performers have walked away with a movie and made it their own. For example, Gene Wilder in WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY.

Wilder provides one of the great movie entrances at about the 45-minute mark of the picture and it’s about darn time because it’s a bit of a slog before we reach the chocolate factory. Our expectations are very high by this point in the picture and Wilder’s Willy Wonka meets and even surpasses them. It was Wilder himself who insisted that he make such an entrance.

“When I make my first entrance, I’d like to come out of the door carrying a cane and then walk toward the crowd with a limp,” Wilder said. “After the crowd sees Willy Wonka is a cripple, they all whisper to themselves and then become deathly quiet. As I walk toward them, my cane sinks into one of the cobblestones I’m walking on and stands straight up, by itself; but I keep on walking, until I realize that I no longer have my cane. I start to fall forward, and just before I hit the ground, I do a beautiful forward somersault and bounce back up, to great applause.”

This entrance establishes Wonka’s unpredictability right from the start.

Wilder magnificently expresses all the sides of Willy Wonka’s personality. It turns on a dime from joy and wonder to malevolent anger at the selfish children who found their golden ticket in a Wonka bar. Their golden tickets earned the children a pass to Wonka’s factory. The five children are Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde, Mike Teavee, and Charlie Bucket and they are each joined by one parent or grandparent in the case of final ticket winner Charlie Bucket. The bad children are punished in unspeakable, horrifying ways for their indiscretions. That’ll show ‘em and serves ‘em right, greedy little bastards.

When the beloved Wilder died in 2016 at the age of 83, I thought immediately of his performance as Willy Wonka and his spotlight song “Pure Imagination,” a number written by the British duo of Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. “If you want to view paradise / Simply look around and view it / Anything you want to do it / Wanna change the world / There’s nothing to it / There is no life I know / To compare with pure imagination / Living there you’ll be free / If you truly wish to be.” At its very, very best, WILLY WONKA approaches THE WIZARD OF OZ and Wilder’s on par with Margaret Hamilton and Frank Morgan and gang. They all share a certain joy of performance that’s wonderful to behold.

Like THE WIZARD OF OZ, WILLY WONKA undoubtedly introduced multitudes of children to scary movies. The Haunted Forest, the Wicked Witch of the West, flying monkeys, et cetera, in the 1939 film and the Oompa-Loompas and the boat ride in WILLY WONKA.

“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” author Roald Dahl (1916-90) absolutely hated the 1971 screen adaptation. Dahl received credit for writing the screenplay, but it was the uncredited David Seltzer who came in and made script changes that raised Dahl’s ire.

What did Mr. Dahl hate about the picture? The shift in focus from Charlie to Willy Wonka. Check. The musical numbers. Check. Casting Gene Wilder rather than Spike Milligan, Dahl’s stated preference. Check. Guess the question should be changed to what didn’t Mr. Dahl hate about WILLY WONKA. This whole situation reminds one that Stephen King hates Stanley Kubrick’s THE SHINING.

I saw WILLY WONKA for the first time in fifth grade (1990) and read Dahl’s novel the next school year. I loved Dahl’s novel, but I have not read it since completing it during sixth grade, roughly the same age as the precocious golden ticket winners. Meanwhile, I have seen the 1971 version several times since that first encounter nearly three decades ago, on cable TV (Teavee), VHS, and DVD. I do think of the film more often than I do the book, and I believe that it has almost everything to do with the Wilder performance.

I have skipped Tim Burton’s 2005 adaptation CHARLIE & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY & I just remember being appalled from the start by still photographs of Johnny Depp’s take on Willy Wonka. Remember that scene in ANIMAL HOUSE when the older members of Delta Tau Chi pelt that picture of pledge Flounder with beer cans? That’s about how I feel every time I see a picture of Depp as Wonka. (Generally speaking, I have no problem with Burton and Depp movies. I love ED WOOD and like SLEEPY HOLLOW and SWEENEY TODD a lot.)

In a 2013 interview with Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne (1932-2017), Wilder shared his true feelings on the 2005 version.

“I think it’s an insult,” he said. “Johnny Depp, I think, is a good actor, but I don’t care for that director [Tim Burton]. He’s a talented man, but I don’t care for him doing stuff like he did.”

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) Four stars

I watched THE WIZARD OF OZ for the first time since my Grandma died and the experience naturally brought on a lot of precious memories.

After all, I watched THE WIZARD OF OZ for the first (and second and third …) time at my Grandma’s house. She loved the movie and every now and then, she also talked about how many times she went to the movies to watch GONE WITH THE WIND. It was several, and I can remember hearing the delight in her voice just talking about it. She turned 10 years old in 1939, one of Hollywood’s hallowed years with MGM productions THE WIZARD OF OZ and GONE WITH THE WIND headlining. GONE WITH THE WIND was the TITANIC of its day, but a 4-hour historical soap opera did not enter my priority list until college. I watched THE WIZARD OF OZ a good dozen times before I got through GONE WITH THE WIND even once.

It was the CBS broadcast of THE WIZARD OF OZ that we watched together and the first time I can remember it I must have been 8 years old. Like IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, THE WIZARD OF OZ became an annual TV event for generations of Americans. I first watched IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE at my Grandma’s house and it assumed the position of a holiday tradition for many years. I want to say that IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE played on the local NBC affiliate.

Seeing THE WIZARD OF OZ for the 20th or 30th or 40th or 50th time (I lost track) in my life before this review, I found myself singing the songs, yes, every single line of every single darn song, but the most pleasure I experienced came from imitating the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton). I mean, I doubt that anybody who’s ever watched THE WIZARD OF OZ can resist imitating her voice on the all-time classic line “I’ll get you, my little pretty, and your little dog, too.” Hamilton virtually steals the movie and she’s so much more fun than that darn Glinda the Good Witch (Billie Burke), whose goodness decreases over time.

The Wicked Witch finished in fourth place on the American Film Institute’s top 50 villains list (2003), behind Hannibal Lecter, Norman Bates, and Darth Vader and ahead of Nurse Ratched, Mr. Potter, Alex Forrest, Phyllis Dietrichson, Regan MacNeil (when possessed), and the Evil Queen in the top 10.

Ironically enough, Hamilton served as a school teacher before her acting career. She became known for terrifying children … but she retained a lifelong commitment to education.

I wish I could have met Hamilton (1902-85).

“Almost always they want me to laugh like the Witch,” she said. “And sometimes when I go to schools, if we’re in an auditorium, I’ll do it. And there’s always a funny reaction, like they wish they hadn’t asked. They’re scared. They’re really scared for a second. Even adolescents. I guess for a minute they get the feeling they got when they watched the picture. They like to hear it but they don’t like to hear it. And then they go, ‘Oh…’ The picture made a terrible impression of some kind on them, sometimes a ghastly impression, but most of them got over it, I guess. … Because when I talk like the Witch and when I laugh, there is a hesitation, and then they clap. They’re clapping at hearing the sound again.”

THE WIZARD OF OZ served as many people’s introduction to scary movies. (Throw in classic Disney films SNOW WHITE and PINOCCHIO, as well, both of which I remember first watching during roughly the same period as when I first watched THE WIZARD OF OZ.)

Not only the Wicked Witch, but also somebody wanting to take your pet away, running away from home, a tornado, them flying monkeys, et cetera, they’re all terrifying, especially to a small child watching it for the first time. (Please consider the film left out the most gruesome details from the L. Frank Baum source material.)

THE WIZARD OF OZ shows us how much fun it can be to be scared.

That’s just one way the film reaches us.

Hamilton herself talked about its seemingly everlasting appeal.

“THE WIZARD OF OZ keeps coming back every year,” she said, “because it’s such a beautiful film. I don’t think any of us knew how lovely it was at first. But, after a while, we all began to feel it coming together and knew we had something. I can watch it again and again and remember wonderful Judy, Bert, Ray, Jack, Billie, Frank and how wonderful they all were. The scene that always gets to me, though, and I think it’s one of the most appealing scenes I’ve ever seen, is the one where the Wizard gives the gifts to them at the end. Frank (Morgan) was just like that as a person. And every time I see him do it, the tears come to my eyes. I listen to the words. I think of Frank, and I know how much he meant what he said, and how much the words themselves mean.”

I devoted much space to Hamilton and the Wicked Witch, but there are at least six more beloved characters and performers: Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland, 1922-69), the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger, 1904-87), the Tin Man (Jack Haley, 1898-1979), the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr, 1895-1967), Toto (Terry, 1933-45), and the Wizard (Frank Morgan, 1890-1949). They go a long way toward making THE WIZARD OF OZ a classic that will persevere down the ages.

On this latest go-around, I again noticed how much of an influence WIZARD OF OZ had on George Lucas when he made STAR WARS.

THE WIZARD OF OZ grabs us early on, precisely at the moment when Garland begins singing “Over the Rainbow,” and it just builds and builds for the next 90-odd minutes.

Eighty years after it premiered (Aug. 25, 1939), I now have one more reason to watch it moving forward. Grandma, it felt like you were right there with me.