Airheads.

Review #2566: Airheads.

Cast: 

Brendan Fraser (Chester "Chazz Darby" Ogilvie), Steve Buscemi (Rex), Adam Sandler (Pip), Chris Farley (Officer Wilson), Michael McKean (Milo Jackson), Judd Nelson (Jimmie Wing), Ernie Hudson (Sergeant O'Malley), Amy Locane (Kayla), Michael Richards (Doug Beech), Joe Mantegna (Ian "The Shark"), Nina Siemaszko (Suzzi), Marshall Bell (Carl Mace), Reg E. Cathey (Marcus), David Arquette (Carter), Michelle Hurst (Yvonne), and Harold Ramis (Chris Moore) Directed by Michael Lehmann (#307 - Hudson Hawk, #1490 - Heathers)

Review:

"My feeling was that I had never done something like this. I was a young filmmaker. I had done a couple of independent movies that were really liked and out of the mainstream. And then I did Hudson Hawk, where definitely the sensibility was a little out of the mainstream and it didn’t play that well out of the mainstream. But I still hadn’t learned my lesson, thankfully, and I thought, I’m going to get people in this movie that you wouldn’t expect to see in a movie like this and that’s going to make it more like something I want to see."

You'll never believe this: an ensemble movie with a bit of music and plenty of attempts at comedy that didn't exactly gel with audiences. The script was done by Rich Wilkes, who had been inspired by a movie he loved with Dog Day Afternoon (1975), specifically in doing a comedic rendition that involved rock and roll. He had done music journalism and interviews prior to writing the spec script that eventually went from Island Pictures to 20th Century Fox. Apparently, Lehmann was the first choice in mind for the movie, with Airheads being his fourth movie as a director, after Heathers (1988), Meet the Applegates (1990), and Hudson Hawk (1991)*. While the studio and Lehmann traded disagreements that resulted in a PG-13 movie rather than, say, the R-rated one he hoped to do, at least the studio did not win the request before production where they wanted to have a comedian to "do a pass on the script" (according to Wilkes, Dennis Miller was that guy). As it happened, Wilkes was involved in two film productions in the year of 1994: The Stone Age, which he co-wrote with James Melkonian that was released in February, and this film, which came out in August. Released in the first week of August alongside such films as Clear and Present Danger and The Little Rascals (with The Mask being a few days beforehand), Airheads was not a financial hit, making barely a third of its reported $15 million budget. Lehmann carried along as a director, with his next movie being The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996) and the reputation of the movie has probably increased in recent years if it inspired people to talk about it for, say, an anniversary retrospective (link here).

For whatever reason, there were actual critiques about the movie either not being an outright comedy or a "satire". Now, I'll level with you: do you really care about "satires"? Do you really care about being subtle in a comedy? Do you really care about anything other than the rockin' beat of a song? Does knowing the "scene" of music such as alternative rock truly matter? Some of those answers are "yes", some of those answers are "no", but I was fine with the overall trip as a whole (besides, it can alway be worse with insulting music, just as The Big Lebowski and that stupid Eagles joke). Sure, it works best when cribbing from The Blues Brothers (1980) rather than Dog Day Afternoon, but it is a neat little movie. It's kind of funny to look at a cast like this and say, yes, one of these folks ended up winning an Academy Award years later.  You've got a little cameo for Harold Ramis (and Lemmy, because hell yeah), Arquette mostly being in the background, three Saturday Night Live guys of the time (Sandler, McKean, and Farley*), a Mike Judge cameo (who among us?), Richards lurking around in his giant frame, but most importantly: a lovable trio of goofballs with Fraser, Buscemi, and Sandler. They have a type of charm that can only come from people wrapped in enough confidence to believe that they really could just waltz in and become rock stars because their stuff is totally the stuff "for the '90s" (not being to actually listen to their songs, for the most part, is kinda funny). They make for quite the trio together in timing, toeing the line in amusement where one likes to see where they go rather than say, laughing at their dream. Sure, I could take it or leave it with Locane* or Farley, but the supporting folks that go around the film such as McKean and his delightfully rat finky performance (less so from Nelson and his attempt to match) or Mantegna and his wannabee Howard Stern* act. I'm a sucker for the people and voices that pop in and out as a time capsule for its time (I imagine that over 30 years, Marky Mark does still suck, although the jury is probably still out on the "Rodney King" chant). For a 92-minute ride, it's a neat comfort movie for those who buy into what it is selling in goofy enthusiasm that likes its folks and likes the scene enough to make it a movie that definitely deserved better.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

Next up: At last: Reynolds and Eastwood in City Heat.

*I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that Applegates is probably the most mediocre of the first four Lehmann movies if only because it is highly unlikely that Heathers, a movie I didn't like that much, is lower than Hudson Hawk, Airheads, and also a movie about mutant shapeshifters from Brazil living in Ohio.

*Yes, Michael McKean was on Saturday Night Live as a 46-year-old. Also, that would be *future WCW Heavyweight Champion* David Arquette. Hey, I didn't really give that much of a shit about watching him in Scream, were you expecting me to actually cite that movie? By the way, if you read the retrospective link, you'll probably be shocked as I was in the following sentence: Kevin Spacey wanted to be in Airheads! Good lord, imagine that guy being in the movie, what a dodged bullet. 

*Can I state a small pet peeve? I love Ghostbusters (1984), but am I the only one who thinks Ernie Hudson doesn't get the credit he deserves for being a key part of that movie? It's a QUARTET team, not a trio. Hell, The Real Ghostbusters didn't even let him play Winston, what kind of dumbass show does that? I think at least one percent of folks forgetting about Winston in comparison to the others is at least 0.1% based in weirdo prejudice where they can't even admit to being prejudiced. 

*In 2010, Locane, who was found to be over the blood alcohol level, was involved in a car collision that resulted in the death of a woman. She served a few years for vehicular homicide and assault by auto. Incidentally, in 1984, Vince Neil was involved in a car accident that resulted in vehicular manslaughter and DUI charges when a passenger in his car died. He served only 15 days in jail and paid restitution to the victims of the crash - The moral of the story: don't drink and drive.

*Remember when Howard Stern tried to be funny and not whatever the hell he is now? Incidentally, John "Stuttering John" Melendez appears in the movie and even has a song featured. 

Redux: Hudson Hawk.

Redux Review #307: Hudson Hawk.

Cast: 

Bruce Willis (Eddie "Hudson Hawk" Hawkins), Danny Aiello (Tommy "Five-Tone" Messina), Andie MacDowell (Anna Baragli), Richard E. Grant (Darwin Mayflower), Sandra Bernhard (Minerva Mayflower), Donald Burton (Alfred), Don Harvey ("Snickers"), David Caruso ("Kit Kat"), Andrew Bryniarski ("Butterfinger"), Lorraine Toussaint ("Almond Joy"), Frank Stallone (Cesar Mario), Carmine Zozzora (Antony Mario), James Coburn (George Kaplan), Doug Martin (Igg), and Steven M. Martin (Ook) Directed by Michael Lehmann.

Review: 

“It has very intellectual hip humor in it; it has very sophomoric broad slapstick comedy; it has elements of a road picture; it has more romance than any film that I have ever done; it has action; it has big stunts; it has a very dark sensibility… It’s a film that needs to be experienced more than explained…”  - Bruce Willis

A partial reading from my review on December 15, 2012: 

I almost forgot to mention the acting performances, which range from deliberately silly to deliberately over the top (possibly another word for silly), yet again resembling a Batman episode. You might think that it is a bit dumb to criticize this film for its surreal humor (I sure hope so, as for all I know it was meant to be serious, but they did this on purpose) with cartoonish slapstick. However, my reasoning is that it fails in some of those respects. It's mind-numbingly silly, it isn't entirely useful, and it (somewhat) does the crime of not being that funny.  But hey, what do I know.

Really, I could be saying the first few years of watching movies to "talk" about took a while to match my expectations of actually having fun with writing, which, well, eventually went beyond just watching whatever's on the shelf. But there must've been something curious that made my dad get this film on his shelf, because it lurked there for years and years. Most curiously, this was a movie that wasn't a hit with audiences of the time (particularly in America) despite being right in the apex of the career of Willis as a bonafide star. For all the time I remember watching Willis movies, I still have to remember that big steppingstone was winning an audition to star in Moonlighting (1985-1989) opposite Cybill Shepherd that even had him do music numbers on occasion. 

The genesis of the film came from the friendship of Willis and composer Robert Kraft, who were so interested in "The Hudson Hawk" that they even had come up with a song. Willis described it prior to release as "about greed and money in the `90s, with elements of a Bob Hope-Bing Crosby road picture. It`s a comedy with broad slapstick and moronic wit, and it has huge action beats.” Of course, for the screenplay credit, one sees the names of Steven E. de Souza and Daniel Waters (the former had co-written the first two Die Hard films while the latter had written Heathers, which had been directed by Lehmann), although there were plenty of re-writes to go around If one wants an actual detail of the production and its foibles, Richard E. Grant dedicated an entire chapter of his autobiography to it. It is pretty amusing to note to cover Oscar and Hudson Hawk in the same month, because both movies involved action stars trying to do comedy that were not well received and both movies were released a month apart from each other in 1991. And hey, what do you know, count me as a defender of Hudson Hawk, the younger version of myself was an idiot. Of course, one could take the word of one of its stars in Grant when it comes to assessing it as a "stinking pile of steaming hot donkey droppings". But the blend of cartoon sound effects and other various ideas in playing around as a "surreal comedy" is one that takes a while to really appreciate, and I'm surprised that it took me this long to really come around on it. I suppose audiences could accept a little bit of humor when it came to previous Willis works such as Die Hard as quips but they could just not go with a goofy movie that has candy bar names for secret agents to go with heists conducted by songs. Willis and Aiello clearly seem to be having some sort of fun with their back-and-forths, particularly when in song. Apparently both actors tried to get involved in the production (Willis as a producer and Aiello in trying to change the climax), which is amusing. MacDowell (cast at the last minute when Maruschka Detmers got hurt) doesn't have the easiest task and she probably does get swept away in the long run when it comes to middling chemistry with Willis and maybe one amusing scene in which she play acts as a dolphin. Besides, Bernhard acts circles around her in terms of delusional manic energy that proves that Lehmann really had an idea in mind to pair her with Grant in chaotic lunacy (regardless of how the film went, apparently Bernhard and Grant became good friends due to this film) that believes that things like history are trophies to hold in the den. It's funny that a film envisioned as an "anti-James Bond" features Coburn, star of the 60s Bond parody Our Man Flint (1966). He pops in and out for a few scenes of sell out villainy that he sells pretty well to go with a litany of goons in Harvey-Toussiant-Bryniarski (Caruso is also there, giving out note cards) that are goofy enough. In 

The 100-minute runtime is a bit fast-and-loose with its plot construction, with the climax being the flakiest (although it has one amusing idea when it comes to a fake-out that basically is "yeah, sure"). This is a film where its climax involves the last perceived enemy of our hero is blasted out of a window with a tennis ball launcher. It is funny that the movie basically flopped on the same level of Ishtar (1987) in terms of turbulent productions that precluded a litany of rough reviews. But Hudson Hawk has a far more likable duo and an actual aim in madcap stupidity, particularly since it is far more interesting than Lehmann's previous collaboration with Waters in Heathers. Of course, it was marketed as an action film rather than a show of, well, overacting. In the line of Willis movies that came and went in his career, Hudson Hawk was a curious one that maybe was a bit ripe to pick on in over-management but really is something that should be checked out for its idle curiosities in a real "thrown-on-the-wall" caper that might be worth your pleasure. 

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Next up: ?

Heathers.

Review #1490: Heathers.

Cast:
Winona Ryder (Veronica Sawyer), Christian Slater (Jason "J.D." Dean), Shannen Doherty (Heather Duke), Lisanne Falk (Heather McNamara), Kim Walker (Heather Chandler), Penelope Milford (Pauline Fleming), Glenn Shadix (Father Ripper), Lance Fenton (Kurt Kelly), Patrick Labyorteaux (Ram Sweeney), Jeremy Applegate (Peter Dawson), Em Lodge (M.C. May), and Renée Estevez (Betty Finn) Directed by Michael Lehmann (#307 - Hudson Hawk)

Review:
"The teen films of the time, the John Hughes film, were fun. But there’s a whole other wing of the high school they weren’t going into — the dark, Stephen King wing that nobody wanted to look at. And I think Heathers was refreshing."

If you compile enough effort and get a bunch of people together, perhaps you too can make a cult classic. Too bad this is one I don't really like that much. Daniel Waters was a video store manager at the time he decided to write this screenplay, while Lehmann had studied at both Columbia University and the USC School of Cinematic Arts that got attention from his student film The Beaver Gets a Boner. Waters thought that Hollywood romanticized suicide and that people had some sort of "ultimate fantasy" of attending their funeral, and he wrote a lengthy screenplay in response to that, with a lead character described as a "female Travis Bickle". Similarities have been noted between this film and Massacre at Central High (1976), which was about a series of revenge killings at a high school that had the oppressed kids turn into bullies, which also had a looming threat of exploding the whole school for a climax; Waters stated that while he did not see the film, he had read a review of it in a book while writing the script, which might have stuck in his subconscious somewhere (that statement just makes me want to see the other film). Believe it or not, Waters actually originally wanted this to be directed by Stanley Kubrick, since he admired him and also thought of him as the only person that could do a three-hour film (this is where I try to hold myself from abject laughter at the idea of this being remotely connected to Kubrick). With a budget of over $3 million, the film made just one-third of that upon release (being distributed by a slowly dying New World Pictures might not have helped).

Nothing frustrates me more than an average film, particularly one that found a cult audience for itself like this did. I can first start with the positives, since we do have a sometimes-funny film to hang an alright cast with. Ryder is fairly enjoyable to watch here, soulful as a would-be Bonnie Parker kind of role that can sometimes be funny (it certainly was a decent choice for her to pick, since she has stated her appreciation for the role). Slater, in a breakthrough role (after a handful of roles on TV and film), is enjoyably misanthropic, steadily growing darker and darker with each passing scene that certainly grabs your attention in playing mind games with chemistry. Doherty (known for TV work such as Little House on the Prairie and Our House) is fine, with a few decent moments to sneer at. Falk and Walker do okay as the other Heathers, but it is Shadix that probably delivers a few moments of deadpan fun that works the best. There are a few good snappy lines that do help give the film some footing, even when it lingers with insults and dubious moments that seemed dated now; Slater pulling a gun on someone is shown, although the part showing him firing blanks is not - try doing this now.

My fundamental sticking point lies within its execution. Suffice to say this is a movie that baffles me with its lack of convincing vision, particularly with its closing half. We are talking about a film where two kids team up together to frame suicides out of murders, correct? I don't know, I feel both of our leads deserve to be punished, not just one, since you can't just absolve one of their bad decisions (i.e. falsifying notes and actually shooting someone) while trying to stick some sort of meaningful ending, because you can't just turn a new leaf and walk away from it all (she had plenty of chances to go back to her old friends, but she instead kept going back to the others, so screw her). The original screenplay might have worked it out better with its ending, albeit on a much darker scale, since not only did both perish in that ending but the whole school did as well, with a prom sequence set afterwards with them all in "Heaven" (it was not shot, for reasons that were probably politely yelled by studio executives). In my mind, if you want to be dark, you go all the way or get out of the way. When it all comes down to it, I think this supposedly dark screenplay is full of shit. If it captures anything of the high school experience, it might capture the inane sensibilities of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting better results (i.e. staying with the same circle of people that aren't good for you or dumping others), and it also isn't as clever as it thinks it is. Do people really think this is the subversive high school experience? A confused, cynical mess? Maybe the well was poisoned from watching all those other high school movies from past and future, whether that meant films from John Hughes or something like Mean Girls. Those films, however, knew where they were going with their execution. Those films, however, knew where they were going with their humor. Those films...you get the idea. I don't particularly feel that the film works well enough as a satire to really justify itself for 103 minutes, even with Ryder and Slater there to help. Sticking a landing is important, particularly when you are trying to be funny and different in some way from other films of the era. To me, I just don't find it good enough to make it a worthy winner of darkness, merely just seeing it as a mediocre high school film.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.