Tag: romance

Joyful, Mindless Abandon Entry: Earth Girls are Easy

Earth Girls are Easy is a fun, silly romp with the most subtle and sly of jokes. And it’s vaguely anarchic take on 80’s Valley Girl shtick is not an accident – -it was directed by Julian Temple, who’s documentaries are arguably who put The Sex Pistols on the map of the 70’s punk scene. Quite a weird pedigree for a movie with this much flamingo pink in it.

Way more fun than sunbathing usually is.

1988’s ‘Earth Girls are Easy’ is almost ridiculous in how much fun it is.

Beyond the goofy story, kitschy production design, random musical numbers and serendipitous casting, the movie seems less like a real thing and more like a modern teenager’s fever dream of what the ultimate ridiculous 80’s movie might be. It stars Geena Davis, Damon Wayans, Jim Carrey, and Julie Brown. It’s equal parts Barbie/Valley Girl vapidity, sci-fi satire, and romantic comedy.

Also, it has vintage Jeff Goldblum.

Fun Fact: Did you know Jeff Goldblum's torso makes a perfect equilateral triangle? I can do that math. Yes I can.

Jeff Goldblum is the male equivalent of the thing they do in movies where they take a hot girl and put glasses on her to make her dowdy. Put him in glasses and a jacket with elbow patches and you have a nerdly college professor who is still smoking hot. Put him in overalls and you have a hot farmer. Dress him in sweats and a ‘Han Shot First!’ tshirt with Cheeto stains and he’s still That Hot Guy who’s into World of Warcraft. The man’s hotness is unimpeachable.

Earth Girls are Easy begins with two furry aliens onboard their little ship, trying to get their version of Skinemax working. Jim Carrey, proving to the world that even a red fursuit can’t cramp his overacting style, plays Wiploc, and the more restrained and somewhat more charming Zeebo is played by Damon Wayans. Their captain, Mac, is snoozing in some kind of giant laser tube while his crew gets up to shenanigans.

Enter Val, the consummate Valley Girl, trying to entice her fiancee into a night of passion back on Earth–only to be rebuffed. Doctor Ted, World’s Biggest Shitheel, comes home ‘tired’ from work and goes right to sleep. What’s really going on is that Ted is just not that attracted to Val anymore, and is considering a ‘last fling’ with a coworker in order to spice things up before he marries her. Because, you know, if there’s one thing a troubled relationship needs, it’s infidelity.

Valerie, in an attempt to win back Ted’s affections, undergoes a makeover at the salon where she works, orchestrated by Julie Brown, an 80’s personality who co-wrote the film. The result has Val looking a bit like Pris from Blade Runner–owing more to Davis’s 6-foot-tall frame and bone structure than anything else.

It's all fun and games until the technology becomes self aware.

Seriously. Her legs go on longer than a Ken Burns documentary.

Anyway, it turns out Ted thought she would be out of the house and takes the opportunity to bring home his fling–with disastrous results. Val throws his ass out with nothing but his boxers and carkeys,  and performs a pretty boss little music video montage where she trashes his stuff.

Even for the 80’s, that was pretty 80’s-tastic.

Anyhoodle, the next day the aliens land in her pool, drawn to the Valley by images of hot girls doing aerobics. With Julie Brown’s help, she shaves and dyes them, making them look normal (if not distractingly hot). This might have been a fun place to reflect on the details of the change–if they don’t shave every day, do they get red, yellow or blue stubble? Was ALL their bodyhair affected? Are these questions I really want to know the answer to?

Although from another planet, their Asperger’s-like interactions with other Valley inhabitants go completely unnoticed, and Val’s explanation that they are a Finnish rock band placates the rare question. Hell, there’s not much people questioned then.

Every scene looks like it takes place in Pee-Wee's Playhouse. This is a good thing.

The humor of the movie is more clever than you’d expect: Davis was a gifted comedic actress, after all, and while the movie doesn’t make the most of her talents, her charm and mildly vapid gawkiness gives the film a necessary boost. And little nods to both the seediness of the local scene (especially Michael McKean’s past-his-prime surfer, Woody) and classic Sci-fi (an ice cream parlor in the background is ‘2001 Flavors,’ Val’s dream after sex with Mac has a small army of recognizable science fiction stalwarts, like Robby the Robot and fishbowl helmets. And much of the film’s best laughs are little throwaway moments: Val dismissing instant pudding as ‘too much work,’ or Goldblum ‘acting normal’ by pretending to shave with a stuffed animal in the background of a scene which is mostly between Val and Ted.

Earth Girls are Easy is a fun, silly romp with the most subtle and sly of jokes. And it’s vaguely anarchic take on 80’s Valley Girl shtick is not an accident – -it was directed by Julian Temple, who’s documentaries are arguably who put The Sex Pistols on the map of the 70’s punk scene. Quite a weird pedigree for a movie with this much flamingo pink in it.

Earth Girls are Easy is available on Instant Watch.

Ramblings: A Girl’s Guide to Sexual Awakening in Film

I cannot count the cinema essays and articles I’ve read over the years where some critic lists scenes in movies that first introduced him to the concept, ‘Whoa! Girls and Boys have DIFFERENT PARTS!’

If I had a quarter for every time I’ve heard Phoebe Cates’s red bathing suit scene mentioned, I’d be dictating this entry to my houseboy ‘Ceviche’ while we lounged poolside somewhere decorous and decadent.

I cannot count the cinema essays and articles I’ve read over the years where some critic lists scenes in movies that first introduced him to the concept, ‘Whoa! Girls and Boys have DIFFERENT PARTS!’

If I had a quarter for every time I’ve heard Phoebe Cates’s red bathing suit scene mentioned, I’d be dictating this entry to my houseboy ‘Ceviche’ while we lounged poolside somewhere decorous and decadent.

If this doesn't drum up traffic I don't know what will. Except porn.

There are others, usually somewhat unique to the critic; mentions are made of Marilyn Monroe’s famous subway grating scene, Raquel Welch’s furry underpants, Sophia Loren, Bridgette Bardot; the list goes on and on into the ‘sirens’ of today, none of which are coming to mind.

I remember in elementary school my good friend Eddie waxed rhapsodic about the tassle scene at the end of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark; we swore a pact that if I sprouted boobs like hers I would practice spinning tassles off them, and one day find him and show him. Alas, I sprouted no such thing(s). I’m sorry I let you down Eddie–it’s my life’s great failure.

Anyhow, I was reading one of the inestimable Todd Alcott’s  film reviews when I saw he’d chosen to review ‘Labyrinth.’ But Nowhere in his review did he mention how David Bowie’s tights-swathed area ignited a fascination in millions of young girls, sending them toddling down the road to puberty, or how Jereth’s entreaty for Sarah to love him by obeying him was the hardest task for her to face in the whole story–after all, physical dangers are often easy to identify. It’s the emotional pitfalls that are hardest to escape from.

So! In the interest of exploring new territory, I bring you the subject of this entry, and encourage you, the reader, whatever gender you are and however you are oriented,  to share your own stories in the comments below: A Girl’s Guide to Sexual Awakening in Film.

1. Labyrinth  – Men Can Also Be Objectified.

Ken’s parts were different that Barbie’s. That much I was clear on.

The Man, The Legend, The Peen

But how they differed was not readily evident, not even in the art books I was exposed to as a child. What wasn’t carefully covered by a fig leaf was pretty weird looking, and it was hard to believe such a fuss in our culture was made over covering the equivalent of a garden slug.

And well–just LOOK at our boy there. Not very inspiring, in the crotchal region. And of course that was intentional on the part of Michelangelo, but still. You hear a line in an action movie where someone says something about a ‘huge dick’ and that is your frame of reference.

There’s also the fact that for a few years in the 80’s, it was acceptable to show naked women in PG-rated movies. Sheena, Clash of the Titans..others that aren’t coming to mind. Anyway, I waited patiently to see naked men, thinking it was only fair–to no avail.

Enter a little movie about a sparkly, fancy-pants magic man who wants a girlfriend he can boss around.

This picture is worth lots and lots of words. LOOOOTS of words.

What really cemented my fascination with the movie was the fact that OTHER girls were fascinated, too.

What was IN there? WHAT?

We speculated, joked, stuffed our pajama bottoms with pillows and danced around. But our questions weren’t answered until much later in life, usually in sweaty and breathless encounters with people as terrified (or drunk) as we were.

But the magic of those pants and their mysterious contents lives on, both in the silly, girlish thrill I get watching Bowie dance and in the hundreds of thousands of websites, artwork, and articles dedicated to them. Articles like this one right here.

Objectification holds within it certain flaws; after all, turning a person into an object removes responsibility from the viewer for the object’s feelings, motivations, and any dissenting opinions they might have. It removes the object from being ‘The Other’ and makes being attracted to them simpler, and without emotional risk to the viewer. In short, you don’t have to care about them.

Since Jereth is the film’s villain (and I’m not confusing him with, you know, a real person) I feel quite okay objectifying him. I objectify the HELL out of him, in fact.

2. Conan the Destroyer – Girls can chase boys!

When asked by a young naive girl what Zula, played by Grace Jones, would do if she were attracted to someone, Zula responds ‘Grab him, and take him.’

When I was little, for a time, I wanted to be Grace Jones when I grew up.

This was MAGNIFICENT when I heard it.

I had been taught by movies, cartoons and books that boys went after ‘ladies,’ that they came to your house with chocolates, flowers, and awkwardness. You played hard to get, you pretended you weren’t interested, you spent your life waiting by the phone for boys to call.

We all know now what bullshit that is. I have been approached by men a handful of times, and each relationship I’ve had began by my showing interest in someone and pursuing them, not the other way around. Given my poor track record for social interactions and tendency towards bluntness, chasing the boys was pretty much my only option. And they ran, believe me. They ran like hell.

But for every ten or twenty who hauled ass, at least one was into that. Men (at least the men I tend to hang with or date ) are HUMAN, which means they are not above wanting emotional validation, and not above wanting to feel special, sometimes even feel pursued. These men, at least I’ve found, are often the ones who are much more secure emotionally, are are less likely to pull bullshit mindgames or marginalize their significant other. And they don’t want it done to them, either.

So I’d like to thank Grace Jones for her portrayal of strong, confident Zula, even if she was a little crazy. The rest of the United States might be thanking her for single-handedly introducing ecstasy to the New York club scene in the 80’s, but I’m glad she showed tomgirls (and anyone, really) how to really go after what you want.

3. The Breakfast Club – People Do Stupid Things To Impress Other People

John Bender. My god, that would have been my ultimate man right there when I was in college. Brash, arrogant, dark eyed,  floppy-haired, he had it all.

He was also monstrously immature and at heart a frightened child, which would have been tailor-made for me and all my unarticulated neuroses 0f the time.

It was a simpler time, then.

But growing up and leaving behind a fascination with ‘bad boys’ is why I’m where I am today, and not on my third divorce or struggling with a serious habit instead of just being an unemployed drunk. Lesser of two evils, believe me.

Anyhoodle, there are multiple scenes in the film illustrating Bender’s attempts to impress ‘Princess’ Claire; in several conversations, after Claire has made some kind of declaration towards one thing or other (it’s okay if a guy’s a virgin, sex with someone you love is okay), the camera cuts to a quick reaction shot from Bender, showing how he is processing this new fact and how he will probably try to use it to his advantage–or against Claire when he decides to lash out at her, as he is prone to doing. Bender is a criminal, but he’s also, like most people his age, deeply invested in other people’s image of him, and manipulating that image is a full-time job. He shows off by mouthing off to the principal and to Andrew, the Wrestler, and bullying Brian the Brain until he notices she isn’t impressed by that.

Also, I’d like to submit the scene later in the film where Claire has snuck into the closet to see him as exceptionally hot. When she leans forward and kisses him on the neck, it’s a special moment–there’s a smash cut to the scene, and you can tell from the way they’re sitting it’s obvious that Bender was probably saying something ridiculous and posturing to impress her, and was caught off guard by the move. I love that scene, because it acknowledges that yes, women can be sexually assertive and the world won’t burn down, and also that deep down Bender has been wanting to be pursued– just a little.

So, thus armed with my iconoclastic notions of romance, I sallied forth and probably wreaked unspeakable harm on the boys I chased. I left roses on their desks (I still cringe at that one), wrote them inane notes, catered to their egos, even gave them presents. I can’t even imagine how embarrassing it must have been for them, especially the ones I fixated on for more than a few days.

Sorry guys, but hey, we all had crap to work out back in the day. But if the worst thing that happened to them in middle school was being treated to cookies or handed a flower by The Weird Girl, then that’s not too terrible a thing. Maybe a few of my ‘victims’ even look back fondly on those days

‘Jesus Christ bananas’ entry: Tommy Wiseau’s The Room

Logic has no place here. The film staggers to its conclusion less like a picturesque and drunken Irish poet than a paralytic hobo whose palsied fingers can barely hold onto his bottle of methyl alcohol.

I like a bad movie every once in a while.

There was a time when I spent a lot, a LOT of time on bad movies. Then I realized that my time on earth is finite, and that I’d rather fill that time with earnest films made by talented and creative directors than with films whose own makers were either slumming geniuses or complete whackos.

That said, I still like a bad movie once in a while.

The Room came at me sideways like a crack addict waving around the razor-sharp skeleton of a dead large-mouthed bass.

There was no way to see this coming. No warning, no review has yet captured exactly how execrable this film is. Nostradamus might’ve seen it coming, but he would have written it down as some vague ‘and there will come a stringy man of taut thews and stygian hair who is either madman or genius, who shall entertain and terrify in the same fell swoop. And that man shall not speak truths but mumbles.’  That could refer to any number of filmmakers. Hell, that could be Joaquin Phoenix’s recent dabblings with madness.

Yup. That's about it.

Anyhoo, I’d heard a few things about ‘The Room’ and when a friend invited us over to watch, I went willingly. For some reason I thought it was a horror movie.

I wasn’t completely wrong.

‘The Room’ is the story of Johnny (Tommy Wiseau, who is also writer, director, and executive producer), a man who loves his fiancee Lisa, has a job where he makes good money, and seems to be the risen messiah in every other aspect of his life. He ‘rescued’ a troubled youth and is sending him to college, no one can shut up about how great he is, and the only time people don’t like him is if he doesn’t loan them money. Otherwise, the rest of the cast stand around singing jeremiads for the man.

The inciting incident of the story is that the aforementioned fiancee suddenly decides she doesn’t love him anymore and that he is boring. The rest of the film unfolds (or maybe ‘metastasizes’ is a  better word) in a bitter lovers’ triangle with Lisa cheating on Johnny, having long boring conversations with her mother about it, and Johnny’s best friend Mark being sort of conflicted about diddling Johnny’s fiancee.

Logic has no place here. The film staggers to its conclusion less like a picturesque and drunken Irish poet than a paralytic hobo whose palsied fingers can barely hold onto his bottle of methyl alcohol.

Consider this scene: There’s Johnny (Wiseau) talking to his friend Mark (colleague Greg Sesteros) about Lisa.

Johnny did not hit Lisa, she just got him really drunk and then tried to convince him he did, and Mark is the guy she’s cheating on Johnny with. The acting on display here is on par with the rest of the movie. Erratic tonal shifts, bizarre dialogue, nonsensical actions taken by the actors, plot threads that never pan out or are abandoned (Lisa’s mother offhandedly  mentions she has breast cancer once and this is never again addressed) and sex scenes that make one reach for a bottle of Purell are all part of the package.

But while the movie is indeed embarrassingly awful, I can’t get into the spirit of mocking it as much as others have.  Mr. Wiseau spent five years of his life raising funding for the film, and it’s suspected he did so through ‘less than legitimate’ means: there’s a story about him importing leather jackets from Korea that sounds fairly shady, and other people have suggested the movie exists as an elaborate money laundering scheme for the mob.

Although now he promotes the movie as a Rocky Horror Picture Show-like parody and travels to midnight screenings where people throw spoons and footballs (it’s in the movie), some of the actors from the film indicate that Mr. Wiseau was absolutely earnest in his intent when making it in 2003 and that there was nothing tongue-in-cheek about his attitude.

I can’t help but imagine someone who managed to make his creative dream come true witness his film be reviled by the few critics who saw it, then embraced by an audience whose self-professed love of shit is damning praise. Maybe at that point he decided that any publicity is better than none. It’s my own secret dream (as it is most critics’) to make a film of my own, and since I don’t have the courage or means to pursue such a dream and I consciously know this, I can’t help but feel bad bashing the product of someone who managed to pursue it themselves. Even so, this is one incredibly bad movie. Let’s be absolutely clear on that.

There's a reason you always see this image in connection with the movie. You just have to see it.

I’m not someone who enjoys laughing at the efforts of others, unless they really want me to. If Mr. Wiseau convinces me of his earnest effort to create a black comedy, well, I guess I can laugh at his film then.

‘The Room’ is not available on Instant Watch but can be rented from Netflix or GreenCine. Check it out, but for God’s sake, know what you’re getting into!

The Princess Bride: Life Lessons, Optimism and the Pit of Despair

On a sidenote: I read that Mandy Patinkin, when he was filming the big swordfight, imagined he was doing battle with the exact form of cancer that killed his father in 1972, which is probably why his acting is so evocative. The line ‘I want my Father, you son of a bitch’ is one of the few in cinema that ALWAYS gives me chills, every time I see the movie. It’s a small moment with huge meaning– Inigo doesn’t rail at the unfairness of losing his father or bitch about it endlessly in some terrible monologue, he just came up with a plan and that single line is the only indicator of the massive sadness he carried with him ever since his world was destroyed.

Everyone knows, or at least knows OF, the Princess Bride. How you feel about it is an entirely different matter, since it’s the kind of charming, straightforward and well-told story in which anyone can find something to like. Finding something to NOT like about it is the kind of thing that kills conversation at a party, tantamount to saying you’re an advocate of dog-fighting or the industrial use of kittens and baby ducks.

'I'm sorry, I cant' hear you over the sound of Westley screaming in anguish. Or, you know, me being awesome.'

To analyze the film is to make a careful truce with oneself about just how objective one can be. Film analysis is an inherently subjective medium–after all, the effects of a film, all the time, money, and most of all creative coordination that go into it are a multi-step process that can’t be reproduced, a fact that studios bank on. Anyone can make a movie, but what are the chances of two filmmakers and their actors and crew making the SAME movie, and having them come out the exact same? Thus is film, like food, an art rather than a science.

Which is a boring way to introduce the fact that most people on earth who have seen the movie like it, and those who haven’t probably would. I’m sure if you showed it in a theater in Shenzen with a decent translator, barring significant cultural and political barriers, most notable of which is the Chinese notion of saving and losing face,  there would be at least some level of appreciation for it.They’d get down to the fight scenes, if only because fight scenes without wires would probably be fascinating and new.

Is the film a crowd-pleaser? Yup. But crowd-pleasing is not always a bad thing. Humans on an evolutionary level enjoy fats in their diet–they are necessary to sustain movement and chemical functions since they are an energy source. If you give a health nut something with fat in it, but don’t tell them there’s fat in it, chances are their brain will tell them ‘you like this!’ on some level, even if they have trained themselves to be turned off to fats. Fats are necessary for survival, especially for hunter-gatherers like primates. Humans on another evolutionary level enjoy swordfights, stories about true love, witty dialogue, monsters, revenge, watching attractive people do things, and feeling smart. There’s no shame in appreciating something that other people appreciate–one thing I have come to loathe these days is the false-elitism of also falsely-jaded pop cultural enthusiasts. Anyone with an opinion and a scathing vocabulary will convince themselves why liking something is wrong and that everyone else is somehow a lesser being for not recognizing the speaker’s innate genius because the movie in question had cheap effects or dated stunts.

But I digress. Part of enjoying a movie you’ve seen before is remembering who you were then, and the experiences ancillary to the actual film.

Vizzini is happy to be anywhere, except a land war in Asia.

My mother, my Aunt Linda and I saw the film at the Cross County 8 theater in West Palm Beach, a theater in a mall that would become a decrepit, half-abandoned shithole I would work at in my teens, where weekday matinee showings were mostly attended by homeless people and prostitutes turning tricks. I remember going home from that fateful showing and telling my Father some of the best jokes, about Inigo urging the Man in Black to hurry up so he can kill him and the Man In Black countering with ‘This isn’t as easy as it looks, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t distract me.’ I used to recreate the swordfights in my backyard with sticks, and when speaking in front of a crowd I ALWAYS have a moment where I imagine I’ll hear that old crone shouting ‘Boo! Boo! Booooooo!’

An observation I read on the IMDB pointed out that Count Rugen visits five wounds on Inigo Montoya, and that when Inigo is exacting his revenge in the climactic swordfight scene, he visits the same five wounds– but no more than that. It’s an interesting observation, and an extremely good character study: a man who has dedicated his life to revenge gives exactly as he got, no more, and since Count Rugen is the most important person in Count Rugen’s life, Inigo kills him. But there’s something I’d like to posit beyond that observation on the 5 wounds–Inigo received the exact same five wounds as he gave the count–two on the face, one in the shoulder, one in the arm, and one in the stomach. He gave Rugen these same wounds – and Rugen died. This is an interesting point because since Inigo ostensibly dedicated his life to finding and killing Rugen, he really shouldn’t have lived past that moment, but he does. Since Inigo has put his life on hold in order to avenge his Father, he has other things he might probably like to do. Open a fencing school, take up piracy (the movie’s suggestion), hell, just take a vacation where he isn’t on the hunt for a six-fingered man. Some day I’d like to make a list of movies that could qualify as Great Movies for Secular Humanists, and this one is definitely going on the list.

On a sidenote: I read that Mandy Patinkin, when he was filming the big swordfight, imagined he was doing battle with the exact form of cancer that killed his father in 1972, which is probably why his acting is so evocative. The line ‘I want my Father back, you son of  a bitch’ is one of the few in cinema that ALWAYS gives me chills, every time I see the movie. It’s a small moment with huge meaning– Inigo doesn’t rail at the unfairness of losing his father or bitch about it endlessly in some terrible monologue, he just came up with a plan and that single line is the only indicator of the massive sadness he carried with him ever since his world was destroyed.

Are there flaws in the film? God, yes. I’m not putting this film on a pedestal as some great example to which all should aspire (although it’d be nice if modern filmmakers paid as much attention to story, character, nuance, ANYTHING besides effects or box office), but as an example by which to be inspired.

Cary Elwes’s simple and indirect love proclamation, ‘As you wish,’ hasn’t lost its ability to melt my heart; Inigo’s plan to find the Man in Black— who might be anywhere on earth– by the end of the day still stirs the blood to action, and Buttercup’s assertion that Westley will come for her no matter what bullshit the Prince gets up to (delivered, notably, while she is wearing blue, the color of loyalty) makes me believe in love, in the ability of two people to mean something more to each other than an alternative to being alone.

There’s just so much to love. From the synth soundtrack to Chris Sarandon’s tights to Vizzini’s maxims for a long life, this is a movie that will never get old for me, or for many in my generation.