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Sharknado 2: The Second One is coming! Are you ready?

 

Blast from the Past: The Music of Xanadu!

Images from Wikipedia

This week, my aim for Blast from the Past was to do something patriotic, for the 4th of July. But I find most overt displays of patriotism to be kind of cloying at best, and phony at worst. I just couldn't think of an angle. Then, as I started doing my household chores today, I put the CD-jukebox on (yes, I still have one), and the album cued up was the motion picture soundtrack, Xanadu.

The movie came out in 1980, starring Olivia Newton-John (in her follow-up to Grease), and Michael Beck (who was following up an obscure career). It was the story of an aimless artist (Beck), who is inspired by a literal muse (Newton-John) to build a roller-boogie palace, with the help of an older musician (Gene Kelly) who'd been inspired by the same muse many years before. It's not a very good movie. It had the misfortune to come to life in an awkward era of pop culture. I was just starting high school at the time the movie came out, and I liken my awkward puberty/adolescence to America's at the time.

Remember, in 1980, disco was still going strong, but steaming toward a flame-out. Punk was the counter-culture, which was being commercialized and turned into new-wave. The style of "modern music" that Xanadu was trying to present occurred at perhaps the ugliest, most garish period of this transition. Fortunately, Olivia Newton-John and Electric Light Orchestra--the two main musical elements of the movie, oddly enough--had careers that transcended any particular musical genre. You wouldn't peg either act as disco, punk or new wave. Maybe that's part of the reason the movie failed; it's just an unusual mish-mash (there's even an animated portion).

But there had to be something to it, for it to become a cult classic. It became a fairly well-received Broadway musical, after all. So, bad movie or not, Xanadu endures. And the most likely reason (besides Olivia's beauty and charm) is the music. My best friend (and not-so-secret crush) at the time had the vinyl album (remember those?), and listened to it endlessly. I got my own copy, and eventually had it on cassette and CD as well. I've had the movie on VHS and DVD. I still watch it every so often, but listen to the music far more so. I love it to this day.

So, that's it for this weekend. Hope everyone has as much fun this holiday week as I have when I hear the final song from this set! Happy Monday, it's a short week!

Movie Review: Hit and Run

Image from Wikipedia

Every couple of weeks, I try to use the On Demand feature of my cable box, to help justify the cost of my exorbitant monthly fee. Every week, the various channels have a helpful "Just In!" listing, but usually there isn't a lot that interests me. So, I'll drill down the list in the hopes that something jumps out at me. This weekend, I took a chance on a 2008 movie called Hit and Run, which was listed as a thriller.  The synopsis said it was about a girl who goes out drinking, and then goes home, only to find (later) that there is a man impaled on the bumper of her Jeep. Okay, I'm in! (Here there may be spoilers.)

I used to drive a Jeep, and the girl in the movie drove a similar (though older one), making the setup very relatable.  I don't make it a habit to drive drunk--quite the opposite, actually--but in the nine years I owned the Jeep, did I ever drive when I probably shouldn't have?  Nothing jumps immediately to mind, but probably. Luckily, I never hit anything in such a state. In fact, I never hit anything at all at any time in those nine years. Guess I'm due.

Anyway, the film starts out with the girl's night at the bar, and then the long (very long) drive to her house. The credit sequence is very splashy, which is weird. And the "near miss" she thinks she had along the way, and the unobstructed headlight spray from her Jeep made her unknown "hit and run" rather implausible.  The girl's behavior afterward to cover up her actions are also a little over-the-top.

Things calm down a bit, and her marginally ethical boyfriend decides to help her. And then he doesn't, then does again.  Boyfriend gets iced by the presumed dead victim, and hereafter, the film makes no sense whatsoever.  We find out via a news report that the victim was bipolar. So is the movie. It veers wildly from scenes of relative--if tense--calm, to outrageously manic.  Our bipolar victim becomes mindless killer, seemingly indestructible. He is also somehow all-knowing, aware of the girl's identity, address, and phone numbers.

Countless wild rides in the Jeep go to-and-fro, with the victim and the girl alternately having the advantage. Several return trips are made to the scene of the crime, and my finger hovered over the "stop" button many times. I should've gone with that impulse.  There was no one to root for in this movie, not the girl, her boyfriend, the victim or even his family.  The girl turned out to be somewhat indestructible (and bonkers) herself, surviving a severe bite, multiple stabbings, and a long ride strapped to her own bumper (which was rammed at least once into another car).  To top it off, it was obvious that the ending was trimmed to exclude the survival of the victim, just by the slow zoom to the one good eye he had left. His eye didn't open, but I'm positive they filmed it.

I thought when I started typing this review that there might be something coming that would tie this film together. I thought they might explain how the girl was found out. Nope.  The movie just gets worse and worse, and at times reminded me of the abysmally bad Truth or Dare? A Critical Madness, the low-rent, cult 80s slasher movie.  This one doesn't even merit "so bad, it's good" status.

Avoid at all costs.

Frivolity Break: Worst Movie Line Ever?

This is supposedly the worst movie line ever.  I'm not so sure about that, but it is most assuredly some of the worst acting ever.  For the worst line ever, you might want to watch M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening. Then again, you might not.

DVD Movie Review: The Happening

Image from Useless Jonk

EDITOR'S NOTE: I'd warn you that there may be spoilers in this review, but this movie couldn't possibly be spoiled.

It's a gloomy drizzly day here in Las Vegas. I had to get up early to go unlock the door at work, but I didn't have to stay. And The Other Half is away, so all of this felt like the perfect time to watch a couple of the DVDs we got at Christmas time.

One I've been eager to watch was M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening. I had heard some minor rumblings that it was a bad film, but I wasn't so sure. After all, the subject matter--a strange occurrence of mass suicides--was intriguing. The movie stars John Leguizamo, Betty Buckley and Mark Wahlberg, three outstanding actors. And the plot sounded right out of a Stephen King or Dean Koontz book. Besides, how bad could it be?

Bad. Oh, so bad. Worse than I ever would have imagined. I kept watching, because I couldn't believe how bad it was. The dialogue was strange. The characters interacted in ways that were completely alien to the situation. Not one character was believable. Little things were odd, like three people in the back seat of a Jeep Wrangler. That's some special effect, because two in the back of my Jeep would be almost impossible. Leguizamo's relationship with his daughter was strange. He continually picked her up and carried her, though she was far too old (and large!) for that, then dumps her off, and quickly exits the film (in a strangely off-screen death).

The movie started off semi-promisingly, with some bizarre behavior, leading to suicides. It segued into the classroom of science teacher, Wahlberg. His interactions with his class were completely unrealistic, and as the school learns of "the happening," every other interaction between characters was equally stilted. We learn that these suicides are spreading all over the northeast, and that smaller and smaller concentrations of people are being affected. Eventually--through incredibly bad dialogue and exposition--we learn that apparently the plants are pissed off at people, and have evolved a toxin that's killing us.

Maybe. You see, no one is ever quite sure. And the camera tries to capture this by showing wind in the trees and grass. . .which is actually shown to be chasing the people! Wahlberg is on the run with his wife (the horrifically bad Zooey Deschanel), who has--omigod!--had dessert with another man, and is feeling guilty about it. Um, what? They've also got Leguizamo's daughter in tow, and the three of them are with a group of people that gets progressively smaller. The movie meanders like a plotless dream, with our group happening upon a model house, a group of houses with homicidal occupants, and a farm house with crazy (Luddite? Amish?) Buckley. When Buckley meets Wahlberg, she carries on a one-sided conversation with him, while he remains mute. Why? I don't know.

Wahlberg, Deschanel and the little girl ultimately survive (as you'd expect they would) when the happening stops happening for no discernible reason. More exposition shows that no one is really quite sure what happened or why. And then it happens again, in France. That's it. No twist ending. No climax. No payoff. It sucked. Hard.

There isn't a stretch of dialogue, or any bit of human interaction in this film that is remotely believable. The acting. . .I want to say it's bad. . .but that's not the right adjective. It's strange. And not just in the "creepy" parts, through the entire picture. Ordinarily, you'd think Marky Mark could carry the film with his acting chops, and the fact that he's a hottie. But no. He can't.

And what is it with this "name above the title" director/producer/writer Shyamalan, anyway? The Sixth Sense was OK, I guess, though I had the ending spoiled for me. Signs was OK too, though I preferred the spoof of it in Scary Movie 3. The Village kind of blew. And The Lady in the Water got such bad reviews, I didn't bother. With this latest film, I wonder if any studio is going to allow this guy to do all the work. He needs help. He needs it badly.

My review: Avoid at all costs. Don't even watch it for free.

Frivolity Break: Worst Movie Scenes Ever!

Because they're funny as hell, and I need a mood lightner. . .