You're a Big Boy Now.

Review #2560: You're a Big Boy Now.

Cast: 

Elizabeth Hartman (Barbara Darling), Peter Kastner (Bernard Chanticleer), Geraldine Page (Margery Chanticleer), Rip Torn (I.H. Chanticleer), Tony Bill (Raef del Grado), Julie Harris (Miss Nora Thing), Karen Black (Amy Partlett), Dolph Sweet (Patrolman Francis Graf), Michael Dunn (Richard Mudd), and Michael O'Sullivan (Kurt Doughty) Directed by Francis Ford Coppola (#592 - Dementia 13, #1139 - Supernova, #1460 - Apocalypse Now, #1469 - The Outsiders, #1502 - Bram Stoker's Dracula)

Review:

"You're a Big Boy Now is a flashy movie to some extent. I have since been more subtle than that. But flashy films do attract attention, and that was what I wanted to do when I was making my first film for a studio."

Maybe I haven't been fair to Francis Ford Coppola. The story goes that Coppola wrote a screenplay when working for Seven Arts that was a different take on the "coming of age" movie that was based on the David Benedictus novel You're a Big Boy Now. Coppola had the novel brought to his attention by Tony Bill (incidentally, he wanted to play the lead but also suggested Peter Kastner, because of what he saw in Nobody Waved Good-bye [1964]). He optioned the novel and changed the setting from London to New York City (going from shoe clerk to library assistant) while at the same time working with Gore Vidal on the screenplay for Is Paris Burning? [1966]. Seven Arts, asserting that Coppola's writing of the script on their time meant that they owned it, eventually came to a deal with him that would pay Coppola $8,000 to direct with a 29-day shooting schedule; he used the resulting movie as his thesis at UCLA for his Master of Fine Arts degree. Made on a budget that eventually rose to around $1 million around various locations in New York, the film was not a major success at the time, although it apparently broke even when it was sold to television.* Coppola worked with Warner Bros.-Seven Arts for his next two films with Finian's Rainbow (1968) and The Rain People (1969).

I could not help but think about The Gr-no, wait, not really. Actually, I couldn't get Dementia 13 out of my head when I thought about Coppola and the youthful energy of trying to make a go at filmmaking on a tight schedule and why it felt so much more interesting in that film than with this brash, messy, and altogether curious studio movie. And I then guess someone would compare it to The Graduate, which also was a coming-of-age movie with a young man and the alienation of his parents' generation that was released the following year*. And then I think about the lead character and wonder to myself: why do I hate this little bastard at times? Yes, there are a few hang-ups that actually do prove amusing, but there were almost as many times where I felt the strange desire to wish that Mr. Chanticleer took a nice smack upside on the head, funny as he might be. But you can at least say it is curious enough to free-form its way through an odyssey of someone learning to get a clue in the swinging era of what 1966 surely looked like (complete with peep shows, oddly placed signs*, and, well, pretzels). Amidst the consternation that one might have for some of these ridiculously repressed people, filled with frustrations at times, is an array of interesting performances. Sentimentally, Torn is the one I spring to first (much like oldie songs, I don't have many new favorites), and he actually is pretty funny here as a befuddled parent who thinks they know best in running their son basically like they were a business, complete with their varied responses to the women around them (staid wives, or messing around in a vault with odd books, you get the idea). The journey to get to the inevitable is fairly tolerable in seeing some of the hang-ups play out on screen, whether that involves a man-hating Hartman (to a point*) or the obvious cool loyalty in Black (making her screen debut) or Page in a role that probably could be defined as an amusing "shrew". At least it ends with a chase scene to help crash things down to some sort of reality (namely realizing what really matters between odd duck family and friends). You get a few interesting camera tricks, a few interesting moments looking at a New York movie with a worthy enough soundtrack involving the Lovin' Spoonful. As a whole, it is a strange little time capsule of an older time filled with a few interesting visuals, here-and-there jokes and a general vibe fit for hang-ups and hanger-ons that might be up your alley.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*I'll be honest, I haven't thought about The Graduate much since I saw it exactly one time...12 years ago. Strange that I didn't feel like strangling Dustin Hoffman's character nearly as much as the one presented here. 

*I couldn't find a direct source, but Coppola stated that his film was definitely influenced by Richard Lester's A Hard Day's Night (1964), as opposed to The Knack... and How to Get It (1965), which was released a few months before Big Boy. Of course, I wish for a direct quote because Coppola also apparently said he hated the movie.

*One sign has the N-word in it that naturally the lead character reads out loud, and no the word is not naive.

*Also, this may come as a surprise, but the Hartman character is depicted as a man-hating narcissist that was shaped by their molestation as a youth that saw them get revenge in a way that totally makes sense: stealing his wooden leg!

The Bride (1985).

Review #2439: The Bride (1985)

Cast: 

Sting (Baron Charles Frankenstein), David Rappaport (Rinaldo), Jennifer Beals (Eva), Clancy Brown (Viktor, the Monster), Geraldine Page (Mrs. Baumann), Anthony Higgins (Clerval), Alexei Sayle (Magar), Veruschka von Lehndorff (Countess), Quentin Crisp (Dr. Zalhus), Cary Elwes (Captain Josef Schoden), Phil Daniels (Bela), and Timothy Spall (Paulus) Directed by Franc Roddam.

Review: 

Admittedly, this movie had been on the ledger for quite a few months, mostly because one can only look over a Frankenstein film once in a while. The 1980s though, were not exactly a great time for movies with Frankenstein being an inspiration, as evidenced by Frankenstein Island (1981), The Vindicator (1986), or, well, The Monster Squad (1987). And then you have The Bride. The movie was directed by Franc Roddam, who went from London Film School to film directing with Quadrophenia (1979). Sting, best known at the time for his work with, well, The Police, had made his debut as an actor with the Quadrophenia film. Beals was best known for Flashdance (1983), which she filmed as a student at Yale University (The Bride was done on summer break and she graduated in 1987).  The movie was written by Lloyd Fonvielle, who had co-written the adaptation of The Lords of Discipline (1983), which Roddam directed. Interestingly, Roddam later created the worldwide sensation MasterChef. No, really.

The movie practically nosedives once you realize that yes, it is going to keep jumping between the narratives of Beals/Sting and Rappaport/Brown. Yes, the movie called "The Bride" really could've just been called "Frankenstein and the Circus", particularly since it becomes apparent that Beals is playing the title character but barely moves forward in terms of "interesting developments". Sure, you can say there is supposed to be something interesting in viewing what happens when you try to tell the story of a woman who learns to think for herself beyond just being groomed by a man to be in his image (remember that he tells folks she got found after an accident). Instead, it just comes off as something to chuckle at when you see a scene of her trying to be in respectable company and she starts hissing at a cat. The "psychic connection" that is suggested to be with Beals/Brown doesn't exactly help matters, coming off as someone having a bit too many shots of whiskey. If the Beals scenes are a drywall version of Pygmalion, the Brown sequences might as well have come from the land of Dumbo. At any rate, there is just something about Sting's performance that seems to desire a more experienced actor despite his decent attempt at playing a grand old hypocrite (or basically, an Internet "male feminist"). Even when one knows he is playing "Henry" Frankenstein, it still feels like one is chasing down Peter Cushing in a futile effort (incidentally, Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), the only one of the Hammer films involving creatures and women, was better). It is a hell of a thing to look like you are about to do a music video when trying to aim for "strange genius". There is an odd feeling one gets when watching Beals because you almost feel there is something really worthwhile to say about a woman created from lightning that finds more to life than what a "creator" says. Instead, she just gets lost in the shuffle, she doesn't really get her own highlight to be anything other than the lady who hisses at cats and gets cut off for the circus (don't even get me started on the brief sequence of nudity, what the hell is that all about?). This was one of the early roles for Elwes, and he just wanders in and out of the film with little damage to credibility (seriously, he wanders out of the movie just...because). 

Rappaport* does have a smarmy charm to make what probably could've been its own interesting tragedy or something else when you consider the bond that comes with misfits of all shapes and sizes. Brown gets a bit lost in the makeup, but he makes a quality imposing presence that you almost wish he was the one getting key billing. You wish there was a movie of Beals and Brown there, because the damn movie just ends abruptly (complete with a voiceover about following one's heart, as if this was an advertisement for coffee). There are a few supporting names that might be familiar, such as a 76-year-old "raconteur" in Crisp or a youthful Spall, who naturally are killed off in the opening lab sequence, which at least seemed like a scene worth highlighting for having lights and lightning that seem cool to think about before the inevitable. There just isn't passion to be found, it all feels like dinner theater Gothic horror, particularly when you grimace at the fact that 119 minutes can in fact feel like nothing has actually happened in the film beyond reminding you that even a scene throwing a dude off a building can make you roll your eyes. I'm not mad at the movie, just disappointed even with such low expectations (imagine how it must have felt in 1985, and this was for a movie that made less than $4 million*). A 6/10 implies a nearly-there experience, a 5/10 is the proper rating for a middle-of-the-road movie that is too lame to be a near-miss. As a whole, the movie is a failure in the parts that matter most: sure, it looks nice at times and it has a few interesting chuckles with Rappaport and Brown, but the film never has conviction in making you care about Beals or where the movie will end up and it has the tone of a Hallmark greeting card rather than actual Gothic horror. 

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

*It was made for roughly $14 million. God, could you imagine if The Bride! (made for reportedly $80 million scheduled for release 2026) is bad? If it is good, sure, cool. The trailer did not do many favors but I would desire a tiny trainwreck if possible.

*This actually was Rappaport's penultimate film appearance, having appeared in ten total movies from 1973 to 1989, most notably with Time Bandits (1981). He committed suicide in 1990, dying at the age of 38.

Movie Night: The Rescuers.

Review #598: The Rescuers.

Cast
Bob Newhart (Bernard), Eva Gabor (Miss Bianca), Geraldine Page (Madame Medusa), Michelle Stacy (Penny), Joe Flynn (Mr. Snoops), Jim Jordan (Orville), John McIntire (Rufus), Jeanette Nolan (Ellie Mae), Pat Buttram (Luke), James MacDonald (Evinrude), Candy Candido (Brutus and Nero), and Bernard Fox (Mr. Chairman) Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman & John Lounsbery (#250 - The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh), and Art Stevens.

Review
I've done a few Disney films (#073 - The Lion King, #156 - Aladdin, #178 - Peter Pan, #230 - The Great Mouse Detective, #250, #373 - Cinderella, #387 - Lilo & Stitch, #390 - Pocahontas, #511 - The Three Caballeros, #579 - Frozen) on this show, and they usually are entertaining enough (except Pocahontas, but that's another story), and The Rescuers is no different. The animation is good (especially when they show the diamond), but the cast is better. Newhart and Gabor share a good rapport with each other, they are certainly a good duo (you can insert your Newhart joke here), and the rest of the cast is certainly entertaining, even Page and Flynn are a good pair of villains, I like how Medusa has not only a cool swamp-mobile, but two big alligators. Let's not forget she lives on a riverboat, which adds some more style points. The movie is short, but it is entertaining, and while it may have one too many songs, it at least is a cool adventure for everyone. So yeah, what's going to be the 600th Review, you might ask? The next review will give you a hint.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.