I Can’t Believe I Watched That
(A continuing series on films from my childhood that I discovered on Netflix Watch Now)
*batteries not included
Directed by Matthew Robbins
In which: Embattled tenants (Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Elizabeth Peña, Frank McRea and Dennis Boutsikari) are aided by flying, mechanical, toy-sized, alien robots in a fight for their home against an evil real estate developer his Eighties stereotype gang-banging henchmen.
I Can’t Believe They Made That! A writer and a director walk into a studio meeting to pitch a movie about flying robot aliens. “Great,” the studio exec thinks, “We can do plenty of toy tie ins with that. Not to mention the video game possibilities and think about all the corporate sponsorship with a character that only speaks in catch phrases.” The pitch starts. The exec listens. “Ok, cute aliens. Not a problem. We aim for family friendly. Nintendo Wii instead of X-box. I can live with that,” he thinks. He asks who they want to star, maybe the Rock? “No,” the writer says. “The film is a Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy vehicle.” The exec can hear the international sales numbers cracking through floorboards as they drop. The writer adds, “And the romantic subplot is between a starving artist and an unmarried, pregnant woman.” The exec buzzes his assistant. “Why did I take this meeting?” “Spielberg is EP’ing” the assistant replies. Green Light!
Honestly, there’s a an amazing level of talent behind this movie. Cronyn and Tandy themselves bring over a century’s worth of experience; then mix in a little Spielberg along with longtime producing partners Kathleen Kennedy & Frank Marshall; and top it off with a young Brad Bird? It’s a good mix. That said the film seems to play better in my memory then in re-viewing. Yes, it’s a heartwarming tale of a bunch of little guys, families reunited, and the sweet realization that the person you’ve never spoken to who lives next door may be your soulmate. It’s also rather slow and not all that much happens. Even the villains are caricatures of caricatures who spend most of the movie being scared off by the flashing lights of the robot aliens.
But then again everything in the movie is something of a caricature so really, maybe that’s not the point. Instead, we ought to listen to Frank McRae spout catchphrases and wonder if he’s ever going to say, “It takes a lickin’ but keeps on tickin’.”
What the critics said then:
’‘NO, they’re not toys. You can’t buy these things at Macy’s!’’ cries one of the characters in ‘‘Batteries Not Included,’’ describing the dinner-plate-size flying saucers that are the film’s real stars. But even if the merchandise isn’t readily at hand, toys are very much on the minds of all concerned, since everything in the film has been designed in toymaker’s terms. That includes the human characters, who are adults only in the way an 8-year-old might imagine them. Children may enjoy this, but their adult escorts will have a harder time.- Janet Maslin, NY Times
I Can’t Believe I Watched That
(A continuing series on films from my childhood that I discovered on Netflix Watch Now)
Spies Like Us
Directed by John Landis
In which: Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd join an unnamed US intelligence agency only to be sent out into the field as decoys as part of a conspiracy to test a Stars Wars style missile defense shield, and in the process save the whole world. Also, Chevy Chase hooks up with Dan Aykroyd’s future ex-wife.
Won’t you gentlemen have a pepsi? In re-watching what was a classic movie from my childhood I realized two things. First, this movie holds up so well that writing about it in a feature entitled “I Can’t Believe I Watched That” seems immoral. Second, the obtuse and inane bureaucrats who send Aykroyd and Chase on their mission are actually funnier than Aykroyd and Chase themselves. Yes, it’s our leads who provide us with the famous “doctor” scene; who dress up like weird space aliens in order to take down highly trained Russian soldiers; and who in the end save the world with a bobby pin. But, it’s Keyes (William Prince) and Ruby (Bruce Davison) who steal the show with their attempts to keep documents classified by trapping a courier in a closet and have to find a secret military bunker below the Ace Tomato Company.
Chevy Chase, who this week makes his (triumphant?) return to television with Community plays Chevy Chase. Aykroyd stretches more, although his character is really a riff on the uber-nerd he always plays (I don’t think it was really until ‘97s Gross Pointe Blank that Aykroyd really got to shine). The rest of the cast does what they need to do: Donna Dixon as a hot spy for Chase to fawn at, Vanessa Angel as the hot woman in her underwear, and Frank Oz as the annoyed Test Monitor. Aside from Prince and Davison, the other real stand out is Steve Forrest as the balls to the walls General who demonstrates a Bush era sense of patriotism. Take the following interaction, which occurs while a Russian nuke is speeding towards Washington after the missile defense shield fails:
Keyes: By your actions, sir, you are risking the future of the human race!
General Sline: To guarantee the American way of life, I’m willing to take that risk.
Dick Cheney couldn’t have said it better himself.
What the critics said then:
‘Spies Like Us,’’ which features Mr. Chase and Mr. Aykroyd and opens today at the RKO National Twin and other theaters, has some enjoyable moments, particularly when its two stars are going through their initial attempts to win the audience over. But it is very much in the oversized, overpriced New Comedy mode. The film is being shown, quite unnecessarily, in 70 millimeter at several theaters, and it has a plot that takes its heroes all over the globe; the last half-hour or so is given over to dull but extravagant action-adventure. There are seeds of something funny in the film’s beginning and in its premise, but they are soon dissipated by so little sustained wit, and so much scenery.r. - Janet Maslin, NY Times
I Can’t Believe I Watched That
(A continuing series on films from my childhood that I discovered on Netflix Watch Now)
Executive Decision
Directed by Stuart Baird
In which: Steven Seagal dies. (Also, Dr. David Grant (Kurt Russell) saves the US Government by leading a team of tough talking Marines in a mid flight raid on a 747 hijacked by terrorists hoping to detonate a viral bomb over Washington, DC and scores a date with a gorgeous flight attendant (Halle Berry)).
I can’t believe they killed him When Executive Decision came out, Seagal’s career was on a role. He d made Above the Law, Hard to Kill, Marked for Death, Out for Justice, Under Siege, and Under Siege 2. On Deadly Ground had recently been released, a harbinger of the terrible things to come (I’m looking at you Fire Down Below), but for all intensive purposes Seagal was an unbeatable killing machine. He had made Die Hard on a boat, and we were all expecting him to be kicking ass in this Die Hard on a plane. And then this film went and killed him. It was a shocking move - right out of Hitchock (I am comparing Steven Seagal to Hitchcock) - and I remember it completely blowing the mind of my teenage self. As an adult however, all I see is a death that marked the end of a once successful career. Yeah, Seagal does die heroically sacrificing himself to save his team and stop the terrorists. Then again he also dies cause of a loose pin. Like Britney Spears, whose career was never the same after the world saw her lose her virginity in Crossroads, Seagal lost his invulnerability when he died and with it, his audience.
The movie itself actually holds up pretty well. I was actually shocked by the level of cast. In addition to Russell, Seagal and Berry, the producers managed to enlist the talents of Oliver Platt, John Leguizamo, Joe Morton, BD Wong, JT Walsh, and Marla Maples Trump… er, let’s disregard that last one. I wonder if this film is what inspired Jerry Bruckheimer to populate the flight of Con Air with a stalwart indie cast? Russell does a fine job as desk jockey forced into action. Though I will give the filmmakers shit for introducing his character taking flight lessons thereby foreshadowing that Russell will eventually have to fly the 747. We’re living in a post-Airplane world here! The hero should never fly the plane. I mean, how you guys were smart enough to kill of Steven Seagal, and yet couldn’t come up with something less obvious I’ll never know.
That said, Executive Decision is the kind of b-movie that is perfect for when you are sick on your couch and need some good mindless entertainment to help pass the time. Oh yeah, and once again Hollywood proves that the idea of turning a plane into a deadly weapon was really not all that inventive.
What the critics said then:
Hope there’s a good movie on this flight,” a United States Special Forces commando says sardonically in “Executive Decision,” Stuart Baird’s “Die Hard in the Ozone” about a 747 in terrorist hands. This itself is a good, taut movie for red-meat action audiences, but it’s not one you will be seeing on an airliner. Not ever. - Janet Maslin, NY Times
I Can’t Believe I Watched That
(A continuing series on film’s from my childhood that I discovered on Netflix Watch Now)
Young Einstein
Written, directed, produced and starring Yahoo Serious.
In which: A young Albert Einstein (Yahoo Serious), the Australian - not Austrian - genius, discovers E=MC2 to create bubbled beer, falls in love with Marie Curie (Odile Le Clezio), and invents rock and roll music and the electric guitar, which he eventually uses to save the world from a giant beer keg gone nuclear created by arch-nemesis, theory stealer and patent office manager Preston Preston (John Howard). He also saves some kittens that a matron is for some reason trying to cook into a pie.
Where did this movie come from? And how did it become a huge hit in the late 80’s? And why is it so cemented into my childhood? I can’t imagine what spawned the idea for this movie. Check that, I can. Maybe one day while Yahoo Serious was walking down the street in Sydney, two American (they would have to be American) tourists stop him to ask where they could find the Albert Einstein house, and after having to explain that although Australia and Austria have a two letter difference and sound somewhat similar, they are completely different places on completely different continents, he had the brainstorm “what if Albert Einstein was Australian!?” I’m not going to try to guess where the rock and roll idea came from- though clearly the budget was so limited that the only rock song the filmmaker could get the rights to was Rock and Roll Music by Chuck Berry so maybe he just really liked that song?
I would try to comment on the plot, but really, I think there’s not much to say about it other than what I have already said. No subtext, no similarities, just, well, randomness. So instead let’s look at Yahoo Serious - the second most famous red headed comedian behind Carrot Top. In fact, perhaps if Serious had decided to jump into making commercials or spending more time in Vegas, he’d be known for more than Young Einstein and the joke from The Simpons episode “Bart vs. Australia” where after seeing a sign for the “Yahoo Serious Festival” Lisa comments, “I know those words, but that sign doesn’t make sense.” A quick imdb search showed me Serious actually made two more movies: Reckless Kelly, which tickles my subconscious as vaguely familiar, and The Accident, which I’ve never heard of. Somehow though, this unknown Australian comedian, made a smash hit movie that works purely on it’s idiocy, and for that I applaud him.
Yahoo Serious, wherever you are today, I am impressed. (And if you could explain to me why the matron was cooking the kittens into pies I’d really appreciate it)
What the critics said then:
Like the [Monty] Python films, ‘‘Young Einstein’’ is an uneven series of sketches strung along an extended joke. But it is easy to see why it was a huge hit in Australia. This is the kind of smart-stupid film that can put audiences in a giddy mood with visual jokes so stupendously dumb they are actually funny.- Caryn James, NY Times
Bloggers Note: I’m going to be launching a new weekly (or semi weekly when I travel) feature on this blog called “I Can’t Believe I Watched That.” (New title suggestions appreciated) Each week I’ll write about a film from my youth that I discovered and recently re-watched on Netflix Watch Now or Hulu (or maybe some other internet movie site that I have not yet discovered).
Bloggers Note 2: Expect spoilers
Bloggers Note 3: Many of these films will be bad.
I Can’t Believe I Watched That
Dutch
Directed by Peter Faiman
In which: Working class Ed O’Neill (Al Bundy) agrees to pick up spoiled Ethan Embry (the kid from Empire Records & Can’t Hardly Wait who strangely costarred with Ed Bundy on the godawful Dragnet Remake), the son of his girlfriend JoBeth Williams(the mom in Poltergeist) who is divorced from Christopher McDonald (the villain Shooter McGavin from Happy Gilmore), from boarding school and drive him home for Thanksgiving. Hilarity ensues.
I actually had another movie in mind to launch this feature, however given the untimely death of John Hughes, I thought I’d instead begin with this minor piece from his canon (he wrote and produced). Having originally watched the film as a child due to an unhealthy obsession with Married with Children, I was honestly pleasantly surprised by how watchable it was. The film is basically a variation on the formula that worked so well in Planes, Trains & Automobiles: A dysfunctional pair stuck traveling together in time to get home for the holidays while a stuck up, bratty guy learns valuable life lissons from a working class brethren while the conditions in which they are traveling steadily deteriorate. My younger self, of course, did not pick up on this similarity at all.
Yeah, the story is a copy, the humor falls flat a fair amount, and the drama is obvious, but the movie kind of works due to how much fun O’Neill seems to be having. Who can help but smile as he frolics in a field of fireworks? Or when he finally pulls out the pellet gun he’s been lording over Embry the entire movie? Or even when Rose from Lost shows up as a homeless woman offering sage wisdom… well, I don’t think Hughes or director Faiman were responsible for that. And speaking of Faiman, I wish that director Faiman could have pulled off a scene as magical as the one that ends Crocodile Dundee (one of the best movie endings ever and don’t let me hear you say otherwise). Instead, the shmaltz felt more in the line of Hughes’ other movies from the 80’s - obvious and sweet and altogether a little to easy.
That said if you ever want to see Al Bundy get squirted with moisturizer in the mouth while being robbed by underage prostitutes, this is the movie for you.
What the critics said then:
There’s a John Candy-sized hole at the center of “Dutch,” no doubt because the screenplay by John Hughes is reminiscent of his earlier “Uncle Buck,” in which Mr. Candy starred. Both these films are about spoiled, affluent brats who are set straight by a no-nonsense father surrogate from the other side of the tracks. This guy is simple, direct and decent, with a habit of speaking his mind. Neither Mr. Candy’s Uncle Buck nor Ed O’Neill’s Dutch Dooley can be described without the use of the phrase “salt of the earth.” - Janet Maslin, NY Times
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