Supergirl.

Review #2397: Supergirl.

Cast: 

Helen Slater (Kara Zor-El / Linda Lee / Supergirl), Faye Dunaway (Selena), Peter O'Toole (Zaltar), Hart Bochner (Ethan), Mia Farrow (Alura In-Ze), Brenda Vaccaro (Bianca), Peter Cook (Nigel), Simon Ward (Zor-El), Marc McClure (Jimmy Olsen), Maureen Teefy (Lucy Lane), and David Healy (Mr. Danvers) Directed by Jeannot Szwarc (#555 - Jaws 2)

 

Review: 

“Physically it’s not at all the prototype of a superhero the way Superman is. Superman was the man of steel and he’s big, he’s got muscles et cetera…she has superpowers [that] are the same…but where Superman is power and strength, [Supergirl] is more like style and elegance.” 

You might wonder where Supergirl came from. Well, it only took a few years (read: 1959) for Otto Binder and Al Plastino (the two credited creators of the character as writer and illustrator, respectively) to introduce the original character to Action Comics that had a cousin to Superman arrive from a doomed place that ended up raised as "Linda Lee" (later adopted to add Danvers) in an orphanage. Basically, the character was created in the same headspace that created super-powered pets to accompany the hero. Anyway, you might remember that when the Salkinds (Alexander, Ilya) bought the film rights to Superman in 1975 by paying money to Warner Bros to license the intellectual property, it also included the character of Supergirl. The Salkinds actually wanted to use the character in Superman III to maybe make a spinoff movie....but Warner Bros. apparently vetoed it (pity, good luck settling with Richard Pryor). At any rate, the two announced their plans to do a Supergirl movie in 1982 and had ideas in mind to maybe have Christopher Reeve appear in a bit role to set up a quest...and then he didn't want to appear in the movie. At least he suggested Jeannot Szwarc (who he worked with on Somewhere in Time [1980]) should direct the movie, since the Salkinds couldn't even get Robert Wise to do the movie. The screenplay was written by David Odell (well, it was re-written heavily, but still), who had written for films such as The Dark Crystal (1982) and later Masters of the Universe (1987). There somehow exists three different versions of the film to consider. The original cut of the movie was 138 minutes long, but test audiences apparently thought it was a bit too long, necessitating cuts. So, you would think it would be settled at having 124 minutes for the runtime...but no! The 124-minute version was released internationally, but somehow, American audiences got a version that lasted just 105 minutes (namely by trimming more sequences from Argo City, Midvale, etc). By 2000, one could finally check out the director's cut and International Cut on home media. Made for roughly over $30 million (as distributed by Tri-Star Pictures, who bent to the Salkinds wishing to release the movie in the winter of 1984 rather than in the summer), the movie was a general flop with audiences. Interestingly, in the comic books, the character was killed off (for a number of years, anyway) in the famed series Crisis on Infinite Earths. Slater never played the character again on film, but she appeared in the Supergirl TV series a few decades later. This was the last hurrah for the Salkinds and Super-people on film, as they sold to the Cannon Group in 1985 for the disaster that became Superman IV in 1987*.

Basically, if you didn't care much for Superman III (1983), you will find the exact level of disinterest for Supergirl (1984). Both are tired efforts that show clear strain in all of its flabby flatness, which starts with the movie looking like a failed TV movie production and ends with a climax that does not exactly warrant further adventures. They clearly wanted to have their big-name stars lift up a young would-be name just like six year prior, but the cracks are apparent everywhere. Imitating how they cast Christopher Reeve years earlier in looking for an unknown, Helen Slater had quite the qualification of having been in exactly one TV episode and zero movies prior to Supergirl (hey, they also tested out folks like Demi Moore and Brooke Shields). Honestly, she does fine with the material that shows a naive but charming would-be hero that you could definitely like for other adventures (okay maybe not with the school stuff, that whole "changes hair color and costume" BS only works when stoned). Bochner, on the other hand, has nothing to work with as the romantic interest, and it doesn't help that a chunk of the time sees him under a love potion. Teefy and McClure (the only link to the Superman films) aren't worth talking about. Evidently, Dunaway must've loved Mommie Dearest (1982) so much that she decided eating the scenery in hammy acting needed seconds. Sure, we know she is a worthwhile actress, but the material she is given here is so weak that she has no choice but to ham it up to try and distract the viewer that is barely above the middling villainous comic book movie presence you saw in the aforementioned third Superman movie. She's supposed to be self-centered and a terror with what power can do to someone, but she just seems more man-hungry than anything, considering that she is first wrapped up in getting a man to drink some love potion and when her powers of persuasion fail, she needs the guy she ditched to do the job for her (oh but then she sends a woman into a phantom zone). Incidentally, she gets stopped only when a man intervenes (first when one of them fiddles with the magic ball thing and the second when the warlock that she decided to betray after getting his help in the first place tells our hero, who had to be told that she could go on *twice* beforehand, how to get the villain trapped). Honestly, they might've done better if Cook or O'Toole were the villains. It isn't even worth giving Vaccaro criticism beyond saying that Ned Beatty could've done this goon shtick in his sleep**. It's funny that Cook is supposed to be playing both a warlock and a teacher but looks like he would rather being doing a bit instead. In theory, Farrow was meant to be a big name to draw attention to the film and deliver drama to the movie...and she gets less time on screen than O'Toole, a far more talented actor even when he is phoning it in. The effects are okay, but in general, the movie looks too tired to be anything other than campy cheese. It might work out for those who love to view the films of camp or the old days of failed franchises, but it probably was for the best that it went by the wayside.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

*Interestingly, the Salkinds still had the chance to do other things away from Superman, they developed a television series based on the character of Superboy later in the decade.

**Beatty and Vaccaro were both nominated for Academy Awards, you know. But Beatty had a hell of a speech in Network (1976), so we salute him. And I guess we will find a worthy Mia Farrow movie to watch that isn't made by the overrated Woody Allen someday.

Ruthless People.

Review #1938: Ruthless People.

Cast: 

Danny DeVito (Sam Stone), Bette Midler (Barbara Stone), Judge Reinhold (Ken Kessler), Helen Slater (Sandy Kessler), Anita Morris (Carol Dodsworth), Bill Pullman (Earl Mott), William G. Schilling (Police Chief Henry Benton), Art Evans (Lt. Bender), Clarence Felder (Lt. Walters), and J. E. Freeman (Bedroom Killer) Directed by David Zucker (#585 - Top Secret!, #664 - Airplane!, #699 - The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, #821: The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear), Jim Abrahams (#028 - Hot Shots!, #375 - Hot Shots! Part Deux, #585, #664), Jerry Zucker (#585, #664, #1274 - First Knight, #1626 - Ghost, #1714 - Rat Race)

Review: 

This is an interesting film to cover. Oh sure, the filmmaking trio of Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers (Jerry and David) did plenty of comedy material back to their days with their own small theater in their native Wisconsin, but this one was certainly interesting to consider among the rest. For one, it is the only time that the trio directed a film together that they did not write themselves. The film was written by Dale Launer, who took inspiration from the kidnapping of Patricia Hearst; when asked about the similarities between the film and "The Ransom of Red Chief" (a story about a kid so annoying his kidnappers to where they pay the father to take him back), he said it was just a coincidence. He later wrote for films such as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) and My Cousin Vinny (1992). This was the third of three films that the trio directed together (after Airplane! and Top Secret), as from that point on, they would direct their own solo projects. The reason for their split was because they simply were ready to move in different directions alongside the fact that they did not see as much financial success as they believed they would from this (due to studio accounting, since the directing salary was split three ways with them). So yes, David Zucker would direct the first two Naked Gun films while also writing it with his brother and Abrahams, and each respective director went their own way in comedy.

So yes, here is a comedy with a premise built on a kidnapping that spirals into silliness when the hostage situation is really a one-way street, complete with mistaken identities, an unrelated serial killer, and a climax on a pier. It may be the odd film in their features, but it is a still a pretty good experience, one with plenty of amusement as a farce with fun misanthropes, complete with a look and style perfectly decadent for the era of the 1980s. With such a cheery dark premise, the key to making it all work is to have folks with enough energy to carry the material with the edge required. What we have is a key quartet ready to handle it together: DeVito, Midler, Reinhold, and Slater. DeVito shows great passion within a role designed with slime in mind: who else but him could play such an earnest villain? He has such confidence in the role, one that can sell the opening monologue with gusto, whereas a lesser actor would make it sound like an exposition-dump. Comeuppance or not, it is satisfying to see him engage as the master of the shit-eating grin in ways that other actors could only dream to get down the way he does. Midler (an actor when not singing on a regular basis) is the perfect type of abrasive: confident in her abilities and roaringly amusing, one who gets on the nerves with righteous timing and no sense of inordinate irritation. Reinhold and Slater play the kidnapping duo with resourceful timing as the nicest folks of the whole film (playing to the irony of them being the only folks we see commit a crime) as beleaguered and shy folks that we like just as much as the folks designed as being ones loved in hating. Morris and Pullman (in his first film role) are the other key group to the puzzle, with the former being good in the conniving side-person to the over-the-top hilarity and the latter being quite amusing as the dimwit. Probably the best representation of the film in its dark glee is an exchange between DeVito and Reinhold in which the latter is trying to lower the price down in the hostage giveaway only to find that the former is practically daring them to send the hostage to the morgue (they would know, because they just came from there!). As a comedy of misunderstandings filled with odd little people, it works out pretty well for 94 minutes, presenting its ever-growing odd situations with useful execution by pros in a useful curiosity: a dynamite script without their intervention that they handle just as well as their other films. Crude but unapologetic, Ruthless People is a neat little gem worth looking into.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

City Slickers.

Review #808: City Slickers.

Cast
Billy Crystal (Mitch Robbins), Daniel Stern (Phil Berquist), Bruno Kirby (Ed Furillo), Patricia Wettig (Barbara Robbins), Helen Slater (Bonnie Rayburn), Jack Palance (Curly Washburn), Noble Willingham (Clay Stone), Tracey Walter (Cookie), Jeffrey Tambor (Lou), Josh Mostel (Barry Shalowitz), David Paymer (Ira Shalowitz), Bill Henderson (Dr. Ben Jessup), Phill Lewis (Dr. Steve Jessup), Kyle Secor (Jeff), Dean Hallo (T.R.) Directed by Ron Underwood.

Review
On the 25th Anniversary of this movie's release, I decided that it would be a good idea to make a review for it and ultimately it turned out to be a great idea. City Slickers is not just a well-made comedy, it is also a movie with layers of drama that manages to give it enough weight to make for a truly entertaining film. The main trio (Crystal, Stern, Kirby) have good chemistry with each other, managing to share some good moments of screen together; one of my favorites is when they are talking about their best (and worst) days, mainly because we get a glimpse at what made them feel their happiest (along with their lowest), as they are trying to capture that spirit again. The movie never feels contrived in either its comedy or its drama, always managing to keep a balance. Naturally, the supporting cast is also a key highlight, with Palance standing out easily, with his first scene having him rope a character to a fence, complete with that chiseled look of his He plays the role with simply and effectively, without any ounce of fakery, and he certainly works well with Crystal, particularly when trying to deliver a calf. He doesn't have all too much screen time, but he is certainly memorable enough and excellent to the core, and his performance managed to snag an Oscar. There is a certain appeal to what these characters are going through, with them trying to use a dude ranch (disguised as a mythic kind of fantasy) to solve their problems, as weird as it may seem. You get to feel for these characters, while also having a laugh at the lines and gags that make up an enjoyable movie. I'd recommend seeing it, one for the jokes, and one for the other elements that give it much needed weight.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.