Faux-80's Watch: Stranger Things (Season 1, 2016)

There's an argument to be made that Stranger Things, 2016 (8 episodes, Season 1 on Netflix) is a rip off and riff on popular and cult media of the 1980's and that we should be suspicious of it's desire to emulate the stylings, feel and sensibilities of the era.  The show trades in nostalgia for Gen-X'ers (and likely Millennials, whom, it seems, grew up on the media of Gen-X), from font type to musical selection to references to kid culture of the time to conspicuously placed posters of influential films of the era.*

That it does these things is unquestionable - this is not convergent evolution.  But with 1983 (the year the story takes place) now 30-odd years in the rear-view mirror, it's also a period piece (I'll just let that sink in, 40-somethings.) just as much as Grease was in the late 70's, or 90% of the output of Martin Scorsese.  That the Duffer Brothers, show runners who wrote and directed a huge portion of the 8 episodes, chose this period to mine is not a huge surprise.  We're still working our way through Star Wars sequels and Ghostbusters relaunches.  We can casually drop an E.T. or Poltergeist reference and expect to be understood.  In perhaps more self-selective circles, we can do same with The Thing or Evil Dead.

Anyway, something happened in the 1980's that was not entirely of the era, but it showed up like an open wound in our media of the era in a way that movies have forgotten how to do.

Ghost Watch: Ghostbusters (1984)

I wasn't feeling well on Wednesday night.  Allergies, I think.

Anyway, by the time Jamie turned around to see what I was watching, I was 15 minutes into Ghostbusters (1984), which I'd been curious to re-watch since catching the 2016 remake.

There's not much to say other than that I was paying a lot of attention to Harold Ramis in particular this go-round, partially because of how different his take on the mad scientist character was than Kate McKinnon's Holtzmann.

It's interesting to consider that Ramis is credited as a co-writer, and that he also has a writer credit on Animal House, Meatballs, Caddyshack and Stripes, all of which feature a sort of devil-may-care, wise-cracking protagonist(s) always played by other people, such as Bill Murray or Chevy Chase.  When he did appear, Ramis himself took a back seat as the quiet, brainier/ more sensitive guy with a lower-key sense of interaction, clearly aware of where his sweet spot really was as a performer.   Fans of the movie aren't surprised to hear Egon Spengler's side remarks, or his "Your mother!" as one of the laugh out loud moments of the movie, but, man, Egon is a really, really funny character.

It was funny, I was watching that scene after the Ghostbusters catch Slimer where Bill Murray seems to be pulling the prices out of thin air, and I had the thought "where did they come up with those prices?" when Jamie said "hold it".  So I paused the DVR and backed it up, and though I have seen Ghostbusters no fewer than 25 times, I had never noticed - when Murray is rattling off the prices for proton pack charging, etc...  Spengler is actually indicating the prices to him with his fingers.  It's fully in shot, but I'd never seen it before.  You probably have, but I had not.

It's not like people don't appreciate Ramis as performer, writer and director, but it may be that a lot of what I've attributed to Bill Murray in some of those earlier pictures was a collaborative effort in a way maybe I didn't give enough credit where it was due.  We all know the early drafts of the Ghostbusters scripts were envisioned very differently as Dan Aykroyd/ John Belushi weirdo movies, and it may be that Ramis' touch for the absurd in the mundane mixed with Aykroyd's wild ideas and with all the performances put together is where we wound up with the Ghostbusters we think of when we're not thinking of Kristen Wiig and friends.

Here's to Ramis.  That guy was all right.

Talking Heads Watch: True Stories (1986)

I've written here and there about my love of the Talking Heads.  I don't know exactly when I decided I liked them, but my interest in them goes back to middle school, and I started picking up an album here or there in high school, really becoming interested my Senior Year when Sand in the Vaseline hit the shelves and gave me more of an overview of their "greatest hits".   I've seen both Byrne solo and "The Heads".

My first memory of the existence of True Stories was a subway poster for the film I saw hanging in a deli in Dallas while on a church youth retreat when I was 15, but I never came across a copy of the film (kids, there was a time in the long, long ago when all media was not instantly available just because you thought about it).  But circa 1996, I located and rented True Stories (1986) and gave it a whirl on the ol' VHS player I shared with my two roommates at the time.

Living in a place, sometimes you have a hard time knowing what it is that makes that place unique or special.  It can be the outsiders perspective, what they see as the difference that can really resonate in its own peculiar way.  I don't think a non-local could have made Slacker and captured the particulars of Austin in summer in the late 1980's, but it's hard to imagine anyone local to Texas seeing Texas in the light True Stories captures - a ridiculous cartoon of a film that still, somehow, seem absolutely true.

Baseball Watch: Field of Dreams (1989)

I didn't grow up in a baseball family.  We never watched baseball on television, and my baseball career lasted one season of T-ball.  I did make it to an Astros game and saw Nolan Ryan pitch, both a  great memory and maybe the single most common experience in baseball as the man pitched for about 8 decades.

During high school I returned to the Astrodome to catch a game, and it was there where I internalized that I really didn't know a damn thing about baseball.

But when I'd go see movies as a kid, baseball was no different to me than law-enforcement or flying an airplane - it was just something I hadn't learned about yet.  So why wouldn't I go see movies about baseball?

I did see Field of Dreams (1989) during its initial theatrical run.   Aside from a general appreciation for the movie, I'm somewhat surprised at the movie on this review, that audiences filled cineplexes to see it and it was a big enough movie that it became cultural shorthand, leaving us now only with the misquoted bit of "If you build it, they will come" (it's "If you build it, he will come."  And it's weird that should be misquoted given the underlying tension of the film.).   But that's comparing today's audiences to audiences of 2016 who wouldn't stand for this sort of thing.  Or, rather, wouldn't show up in droves for a movie about mysterious voices instructing people to build baseball fields.

Regret Watch: Mannequin (1987)

For some reason, prior to Saturday evening, I had never seen the 1980's romantic hit comedy, Mannequin (1987).  I wasn't much of a fan of The Brat Pack in the 1980's, and didn't really care much about whether or not Andrew McCarthy would or would not find love in a movie about Mystic Pizzas or Real Dolls or whatever.

However, here in 2016, Jamie and I were at dinner, and somehow it came up that I had not ever seen this 80's staple, and she pointed across the table and said "when we get home, we're watching Mannequin".  People, if you knew how many movies I've made Jamie sit through because I found some inherent value to that movie which she had not seen or which  had escaped her (and, often, by movie's end would continue to elude her) - you'd understand, I didn't really feel I could say no.

If Jamie can sit through Conan (again), I can watch Mannequin.

In the 1980's, the first generation of the channel Nickelodeon had a show for little kids on during the day called Today's Special.  Really, the only time you'd catch it was during the summer or if you were sick.  But the show ran for 7 years and was about a lady who - each night - brought a mannequin to life after a department store closed, and they'd do the kinds of kind-of-fun-but-educational stuff you'd see on TV for kids back then.

For some reason as a kid I was very aware the show was made in Canada.  I have no idea why that seemed important to me.  But it made me think Canadians had weird ideas about entertainment.

But, for years, I assumed Mannequin was a rated-R version of the same basic concept, but instead of learning about spelling or how a garden hose works or whatever, there was sexing going on in housewares.

TL;DR: Balancing the Dark and the Light - Getting Real About How We Were Okay with "Dark" Comics

This week DC Comics's Rebirth event will once again re-set the DC Universe of comics for what will be the third reboot since 2005 (Infinite Crisis, Flashpoint/ New 52 and now Rebirth).   Even before the story broke this weekend about what Rebirth will contain, plot and character-wise, I had been thinking a great deal about the direction of media, what superheroes and stories are for, and how I've not felt particularly compelled to write up a bunch of posts upon, nor cast ad hominem attacks on those who enjoyed this year's blockbuster, Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Sunday night saw the premiere of Preacher on AMC, an adaptation of the utterly unadaptable Preacher comics from Vertigo's heyday back in the 1990's.  As the comics are numbingly brutal and , featuring a wide array of atrocities and blasphemous content, I'm frankly a little concerned about what happens in the media/ social medias if the show is a direct adaptation and if/when people actually start watching the show (the pilot was not a direct adaptation, and I'm not sure it did very well).  The content is not exactly the sort of thing that many folks here in the Bible Belt take kindly to, even as a Bible Belt perspective certainly doesn't hurt in contextualizing the overriding experience and meaning of the comic.  After all, one of the overriding themes of the book is cutting through hypocrisy wrapped in the cloth - something Texas does just about as well as anywhere (thus, your location).

Aliens Watch: Aliens (1986) - Director's Cut

It's been a long, long time since I'd watched the Director's Cut of Aliens (1986).  In fact, when I put in my DVD - one of the first DVD's I ever purchased back in The Gay 90's* - I was genuinely surprised to find this was the cut of the film that had been collecting dust on my shelf for...  a while.

It's not that I haven't seen Aliens during that time.  I know I've seen it at least once at the Paramount (with Simon), and it seems like I've seen it at The Alamo in the last decade, so the need to give my disk a spin has not been extraordinarily high, I guess.  It seems like I've watched it at least in parts on cable.

Before the directors cut came out, I had a pretty good idea of what might be in it as I'd read the novelization of the movie back in middle school, and, indeed, meeting Newt's family is in there, but the domestic scene of the novel doesn't play out the same way in the movie - leaving you without that pain point of "here is who we lost".

Frankly, I think the final cut works better than the Director's Cut.  That family that's lost works out better as whatever your imagination conjures rather than a fairly forgettable bunch of folks from central casting.  The themes of motherhood and protecting your brood are crammed down your throat a bit less in the theatrical cut, that product feeling more organic, and the theatrical cut just feels stripped down and sleeker.  Seeing the colony with the same eyes as the Colonial Marines - an unknown place that was filled with unknown people, and something awful clearly happened here - just works better for me than seeing what happened before.  And makes the Aliens, in their way, all that more scary.

But, whatever, that's just my take.  As per the movie, if you've seen it, you have your opinions.  If you haven't seen it and you're over the age of, oh, 13... get on it.



*that's what I'm calling it.  The 1890's don't get all the fun.

Why Did I Do This? Watch: Can't Stop the Music (1980)

"I can't believe you haven't seen this movie," my boss said to me.  "It's terrible."
And, me, never one to shirk from a challenge, saw that it was, indeed, free on Amazon Prime.
Sigh.
Hubris is always punished, my friends.

To complain about a movie that convinced a group of people to found The Razzies is a somewhat pointless endeavor.  But, yeah, you can absolutely see how this movie would have convinced someone to make sure the ineptitude of the filmmaking got its own special notice.  It's a movie so bad, you kind of feel like maybe you'd go crazy if forced to watch it two or three times in a row - a designation I reserve for a very few films of the Manos: The Hands of Fate variety.

In some ways, it feels like a 1940's Mickey Rooney/ Judy Garland film, as a songwriter (Steve f-ing Guttenberg) and former model (Valerie Perrine) put together an act and put on a show, recruiting their upstairs neighbor (who happens to always dress as a a Native American stereotype) and some guys they know from the disco (a portion of what is to become The Village People).  The old-timey tone may make sense when you find out it was directed by Rosie, the Bounty Towel pitch-lady/ Rhoda's mom/ comedienne who appeared with Mickey Rooney in films, Nancy Walker.

Pee-Wee Watch: Pee-Wee's Big Holiday (2016)

As Netflix continues its move to "purveyor of original, on-demand content (and some other crap)", they've done a fine job of finding content and talent that folks have a fondness for and bringing it back.  Your mileage will vary on these projects, but you have to admire the full-blown production values of the projects.  How the hell they do Daredevil on a a TV budget still blows my mind - and I assume that show costs a whole lotta dough per episode.

We haven't seen much of Pee-Wee Herman since the conclusion of the fantastic Pee-Wee's Playhouse, a highlight of late-80's Saturday morning TV.   Pee-Wee actor Paul Reubens was embroiled in a minor legal snafu which - in a very different era - did some damage to his career.  I dunno.  I was in high school at the time it happened, but I didn't really get what the big deal was.*

Magical Watch: Teen Witch (1989)

A while back I became aware of the 1989 low-budget, more or less straight-to-cable movie, Teen Witch, that was not then, nor is it now aimed at me in the slightest.  I would have been a 14 year old boy at the time this movie came out, likely in my freshman year of high-school, and while I can imagine the scenario that would have occurred where I'd have watched this one (stumbling across it on cable and force-feeding it to a friend), that never happened.  Had I stumbled across it myself, I would have been far, far too embarrassed not for me - but for everyone involved in the movie - to stick with it.

Luckily, that's no longer a problem.

Former First Lady Nancy Reagan Merges With The Infinite

Former First Lady, 80's fixture, anti-drug advocate, Mr. T snuggler, astrology enthusiast and spouse to President Ronald Reagan - Nancy Reagan - has passed at the age of 94.

The kids will never understand what it was like having Nancy Reagan as First Lady in the White House.  We haven't since had a First Lady who demanded the same sort of attention and her piece of the spotlight as Nancy, in a sort of WASPy, 20th Century social-rules, imperious sort of way.  The Ronald and Nancy Reagan relationship was one of true mutual adoration, but you sort of got the feeling President Reagan was more than happy to let Nancy dress him and tell him how to cut his hair, and it worked out well for both of them.

Bowie Watch: Labyrinth (1986)

We watched this one for obvious reasons.  It's been a while, and I was surprised how well I actually liked the movie.  I don't really remember how I felt about it upon release, and as it's essentially a long allegory for a young woman learning important life lessons about the transition from childhood to young adulthood - maybe being 11 was not the right time to be getting some perspective.  But I remember liking Bowie in the movie.

Of course I've seen it since.  Heck, we own a copy (seems like a Jamie purchase if ever there was one), but we haven't seen it in years.

A bit sad, of course.  Henson passed decades ago.  Bowie has gone into the cosmos.  But for the kids who want to see some amazing visual effects, practical FX and how it was done in a pre-CGI era, this is a heck of a movie.  Yeah, yeah.  The owl is CGI in the opening.  I know.  But you know what I mean.  And, hey, Bowie looks like he's having good fun with his pals.

Future-Noir Watch: Blade Runner (1982)

I'm now old enough that the dates casually thrown around in the sci-fi of my youth are starting to show up on my wall-calendar at work.  Already we've passed the dates of Back to The Future 2, and - as was impossible to avoid online yesterday - the inception date of Roy Batty, the antagonist (I refuse to call him a villain) of the famed Ridley Scott sci-fi noir android movie, Blade Runner (1982).   While January 8th, 2016 is a few years prior to the events of the movie, it's also impossible not to note that in 1982, the idea that we'd have off-world colonies for the wealthy and healthy looking to get away from this back-water rock of a planet didn't seem that far-off.  Or that genetic engineering would advance to a degree that we'd be on a Nexus 6 version of artificial life-forms.

We do have some pretty good videogame systems, Google can find stuff for your computer and we can take pictures with our pocket computers, so I'm calling it a wash, technology-wise.

I was about thirteen the first time I saw Blade Runner.  I was aware of the movie prior to this time, and, rightfully so, it was considered a bit adult for me to check out and I self-selected against renting it until then.  Frankly, I wasn't expecting much, more of a Tom Selleck in Runaway or even a RoboCop sort of "we've sorta dressed up the present, put weird ties on people and called it the future" sort of movie.  And there's nothing wrong with that, but, much like Star Wars, part of what makes the thing greater than the sum of its parts is the fully immersive experience.  From retro-fitted buildings to flying cars sensibly limited to police prowlers, to overpopulated streets, class-based fashion and architecture, and the monolithic structures - the soaring hubris of progress and wealth.  All of it alien, all of it recognizable.  That was the work of the artists working on movies in this era, the Syd Meads, David Snyder, Lawrence Paull, Michael Kaplan and just countless others.

And don't forget that score by Vangelis.

Hunter Watch: Broadcast News (1987)

Who doesn't like Holly Hunter?  You?  To hell with you, then.

What a strange artifact of a movie.  This thing wouldn't make a ping on the cultural radar in 2015, but in 1987 it made, like, $50+ million, which was nothing to sneeze at back then and was lauded and honored.  It was nominated for, like, 10 Academy Awards, but seemingly won none of them.  You know what did win?  Harry and the Hendersons for make-up, and Innerspace for visual effects.  Makes you think.

And the entire credits last, like, 45 seconds because we didn't used to need 800 people making CGI coffee cups and digitally removing that one fly-away on Holly Hunters hair in one scene.

The 1980's were a weird time for movies.  I'm not sure if the kids today properly understand a world in which people's parents owned John Updike books whether they read them or not, divorce was a genteel activity for upper middle class white folks, people drank white wine un-selfconsciously, and there was a huge market for movies aimed at your parents to go see without their children, usually about people who read John Updike, drank white wine and got divorced in terribly civilized tones.

It all seems so impossible right now.

Halloween Watch: Elvira - Mistress of the Dark (1988)

I'm a firm believer that the 1988 film Elvira: Mistress of the Dark is both underrated and was ahead of its time.  Fortunately, in the ensuing 20-something years, the movie found its audience on VHS, cable and DVD.

While certainly there were female-centric comedies in the 1980's (see: the career of Goldie Hawn), Elvira's persona was considered something more to gawk at during her first wave of popularity when seen through the filter of media like The Tonight Show than it was seen for its own merits or as something folks were bothering to pay attention to.  Sure, she had genuine fans out there, and the oddly specific nature of Elvira translated surprisingly well to beer ads, etc...

Halloween Watch: An American Werewolf in London (1981)

As An American Werewolf in London (1981) concludes, the screen goes dark, and then the following appears on screen:

Lycanthrope films limited wishes to extend its heartfelt congratulations to Lady Diana Spencer and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales on the occasion of their marriage - July 29th 1981

It's one of the oddest moments in an incredibly odd horror film, one that was part of the 1980's deconstruction of media tropes as the generation of film and media students got jobs in the world and Marshall McLuhan's ideas trickled into the zeitgeist.

The internet suggests that the tag regarding the marriage of Prince Charles is there as a sort of pre-emptive apology to Charles for hurling a homophobic slur at him in the course of a scene where our lead character is trying to get arrested, but it's also part of the undercurrent of the alien nature of an American in England, werewolf or not, that's part of the movie.  With England's somewhat stricter censorship rules of the time, perhaps that bit might have required an edit for a UK release.  I don't know.  But it's just one more bit of an American trying to behave himself in England and making a mess of it, as something that can't possibly be taken as anything less than an eye-rolling apology to propriety.  Frankly, I don't know how any American would meet such a congratulatory message with anything but a groan or chuckle at the end of a brutal werewolf rampage and Creedence blasting from the Dolby sound system.

You know, this is the same filmmaker who brought us Animal House just a few years before.

We didn't necessarily need to meet any particular criteria for what a horror movie was, anymore, Landis was saying.  We can be genuinely funny.  We can be snarky and a but subversive.  And we can be absurd.  But none of that, he seemed to be saying, really makes a good werewolf rampage any less horrific.  Just, you know, bizarre.

Monster Watch: The Monster Squad (1987)

When I was about twelve, one of the signs that The Admiral was secretly listening to me, and not just thinking up new and interesting fatherly pearls of wisdom to dole out, was when he took the afternoon off from work to take me to see The Monster Squad (1987).  I'd wanted to see the movie, no one else did (except for him, I guess), and so one day he took the afternoon off in the middle of the week - I guess it was summertime - and we hit the Showplace 6, ate some popcorn and watched Wolfman take one in the crotch.

I recall we both liked it, it was darker than I expected, maybe even a little grittier, and Dracula was straight up frightening in my twelve year old eyes.  And, as anything you consider to be not-dinner-table-conversation occurred, I sort of cringed at having to let my dad know I knew what a virgin was outside of the Christmas story.

The prior year, he'd also taken me to see Little Shop of Horrors when no one else wanted to go, so apparently The Admiral was into taking me to see movies that would bomb at the theater, but gain a following on home video.  But he also got really jazzed at the opportunity to watch old sci-fi movies like War of the Worlds with me, and was always up for a trip to see something like The Last Starfighter or The Untouchables.  Way to go, man.

But, man, it really seemed like nobody else but The Old Man and myself had seen this movie until the last fifteen years.  Although, eventually friends did see it on VHS or cable, as did I.

At some point, maybe in 2008, pal JackBart and I caught a screening at The Alamo Drafthouse with a good chunk of the cast, director Fred Dekker and screenwriter Shane Black in attendance.  The place was packed, the Q&A was great, and the cast and crew pretty forthcoming with details.  I was one of five people who let out a loud whoop when Black mentioned he was working on Doc Savage.

One thing that really stuck with me from that screening was the honest recollection of studio compromise, of what was originally envisioned, and a script that the director felt had been very watered down to serve studio hopes for a Goonies-type film leading to franchise dreams, rather than a movie about adolescents growing up when you know, Dracula shows up.  I'd love to read that original script some day.

80's Watch: Valley Girl (1983)

I was 11-ish when Valley Girl (1983) hit cinemas, and didn't wind up seeing the movie until circa early 1995 on VHS.  I have almost no memory of that 90's-era viewing, and it wasn't just the case of "Red Dog"we were going through.

Unfortunately, its safe to say that Valley Girl is not a movie for me.  That's fine.  It was never aimed at me as an 11 year old, a 20 year old dude of the 90's nor was it ever supposed to be watched by a 40-something me.

I mostly see the movie as an interesting artifact of the era, but it's not like the movie was reflective of much more than a very regionally specific view into kind of dull high-schoolers with an after-school-special obsession with popularity.  I don't like to use the term "shallow", but if I had difficulty remembering the film, perhaps it's because it's hard to get past the notion that both the main characters and A Plot of the movie wouldn't even really get your shoes particularly wet were you to wade through them.

In 2015, the movie is remembered for three things:

80's Watch: Repo Man (1984)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:  Repo Man (1984) may be the best time capsule for a 1980's that's been mostly lost to time.   Co-opted and reprocessed into mall fashion (eat hot death, Hot Topic), and generally been intentionally run over and run into the ground since, the subculture of disaffected, aimless youth of the 1980's has no real footprint remaining aside from the occasional nod to The Circle Jerks somewhere on a music website.  We've sort of made up the 1980's in the image of John Hughes movies and a Reagan's America that doesn't include the nuclear annihilation threat or the stagnant economy.

80's Watch: Blue Thunder (1983)

We'd bid some friends good-evening and I was following my usual post-cocktails routine of drinking a couple of glasses of water and eating something when 1983's helicopter actioner, Blue Thunder, came on our local UHF-channel/ CW affiliate.  Then, somehow, it was suddenly 2:00 AM and I'd watched the entirety of Blue Thunder again.

It happens.

No one is going to confuse Blue Thunder with a good movie, and, cut for TV, it's an even less good movie.  But when it's midnight and you're a few drinks in, Blue Thunder is, apparently, exactly what's needed.

In the cold light of day, I think I remember the plot.  It's been at least fifteen, maybe twenty years since I last watched Blue Thunder, but it goes something like this: