"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Twice Upon a Time

lucasminusstarwarstn_twiceuponThe early ’80s were an odd time for animated features. Though Disney had somewhat come out of a slump with the successful THE FOX AND THE HOUND and Disney-defector Don Bluth had some success with THE SECRET OF NIMH, most of the releases were off-brand, slightly off-kilter and remembered now as cult films at best: FLIGHT OF THE DRAGONS, THE LAST UNICORN, THE PLAGUE DOGS, as well as cartoons for adults or teens like AMERICAN POP, HEAVY METAL, HEY GOOD LOOKIN’, FIRE AND ICE and ROCK & RULE. Into this weird landscape came TWICE UPON A TIME, a movie with an entirely unique look and that doesn’t seem to be aimed at children or adults.

The story has something to do with dreams. In a city called “Din” (portrayed by live action footage and photos of San Francisco or somewhere), people who fall asleep will have good dreams if little animated blobs jump on their faces. But an asshole called Synonamess Botch sends vultures and a magic glowing spring (?) to stop the blobs and give the people nightmares instead. Meanwhile, back in whatever the magical place that’s not Din is called, there’s a guy called Ralph, the All-Purpose Animal, who changes to different animals or combinations of animals, and has the same voice as Garfield, Lorenzo Music. He has a sidekick called Mumford who’s a guy with a bowler hat who seems like maybe he’s supposed to be funny or something, but I’m unclear what he does. These two are sent on a mission to dump some garbage, but then sent on a different mission to steal “The Cosmic Clock,” which they break and accidentally stop time. Also there’s a fairy godmother involved and a guy called Rod Rescueman who is one of those Dudley Doright type characters who thinks he’s a super hero but is actually just a dumb muscly guy. (read the rest of this shit…)

December 15th, 2015 | 5 Comments »

Body Heat

tn_bodyheatlucasminusstarwarsBODY HEAT is a tight, atmospheric, sometimes literally steamy neo-noir from writer and first time director Lawrence Kasdan (THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, CONTINENTAL DIVIDE). It pulls off the feat of having the protagonist seem reasonably relatable and likable despite doing the wrong thing from beginning to end (including but not limited to aggressively courting a married woman and then plotting to kill her husband and get his money).

He is Ned Racine (William Hurt, who at that time had only starred in ALTERED STATES and EYEWITNESS), a sleazy Florida defense lawyer renowned by his friends like District Attorney Peter Lowenstein (Ted Danson, THE ONION FIELD) and police detective Oscar Grace (J.A. Preston from THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR and HIGH NOON II: THE RETURN OF WILL KANE) for his sexual conquests, though not his competence as a lawyer. One night Ned sees Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner, a stage actress with one TV episode to her name) standing looking at the ocean, and it’s all over for him. She’s just standing there like a real sexy piece of cheese in a mouse trap, and a mouse is gonna do what a mouse is gonna do.

BODY HEAT is a good title, but this is another one that could be called KEEP YOUR DICK IN YOUR PANTS. In the noir tradition they verbally spar; he hits on her, she rejects him, then makes one unmistakably suggestive comment before disappearing like Batman when Ned’s not looking. Might as well have thrown down a smoke pellet. (read the rest of this shit…)

December 14th, 2015 | 26 Comments »

Raiders of the Lost Ark

tn_raiderslucasminusstarwarsHave you guys seen this RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK movie yet? I was always under the impression that it was pretty well known, but then they changed the title to INDIANA JONES AND THE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK so I guess it must’ve been one of those BY THE BOOK/RENAISSANCE MAN or EDGE OF TOMORROW/LIVE DIE REPEAT type of situations where it didn’t do well enough so they changed the title. The last resort of the marketing scoundrel. Anyway, this is the movie that Steven Spielberg made because he was sad they wouldn’t let him do James Bond and he wanted to make the fuckers pay dearly. He and George Lucas were kickin it V.I.P. style on the beach in Hawaii right after STAR WARS came out. They were probly like wearing cool shades, just hanging out pumpin some jams on the boombox, it was alot like this song is how I picture it, and it is said that the volleyball scene from TOP GUN was based on them. So George is spotting while Steven is doing some bench presses in my opinion and George starts talking about this old script he wrote with Philip Kaufman before STAR WARS, a thing called THE ADVENTURES OF INDIANA SMITH that’s kinda in the style of the old cliffhanger adventure serials. After they got home they ended up reworking the whole thing and having this guy Lawrence Kasdan (who was writing STAR WARS’S EMPIRE STRIKES BACK) do a new script.

So they got the ideas and production of Lucas plus the supreme directing chops of Spielberg, and they made a great movie. I love that the opening shot is the Paramount logo dissolving into an actual mountain. It’s a signal that they’re taking extra special care from the first frame on to make every detail great. I know there are exceptions to this rule (DOOM), but usually when the filmatists even put thought into how to make the studio logo cool that means there’s gonna be some serious elbow grease in this movie. No laziness. (read the rest of this shit…)

December 10th, 2015 | 106 Comments »

Chi-Raq

tn_chiraqCHI-RAQ (Chicago + Iraq, pronounced shy-rack) is the Spikiest Spike Lee Joint achieved so far. It seems like whatever itch Lee was trying to scratch with those musical numbers in SCHOOL DAZE has been building up for all these years until it exploded onto the screen like that inflating dude in BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA. Lee must’ve woke up one morning and said fuck it, I’m gonna make a movie that’s so Spike Lee it turns into Baz Luhrmann.

Let me tell you a few things about how heightened and crazy this is. It has musical numbers. It has dance numbers. It has a rap number that breaks into a gun fight precipitated by an argument depicted in onscreen text messages. It has an army of women in chastity belts performing a sexy choreographed group lip-synch to “Oh Girl” by the Chi-Lites (maybe my favorite scene). The two rival gangs wear purple and orange, and are called the Trojans and the Cyclops Spartans, whose leader is Cyclops (Wesley Snipes wearing a red-sequined eyepatch). There’s an explicit reference to THE WARRIORS so you know Spike knows what this reminds us of. (Also Luther himself, David Patrick Kelly, is in it.) All of this is presided over by a fourth-wall-breaking narrator played by Samuel L. Jackson wearing fly suits, spinning a cane and reciting toasts and dirty jokes like Dolemite. That’s not just me reading into it, because he’s called Dolmedes and he references Shine and the Signifying Monkey.

Oh, by the way: all of the other characters speak in rhyme also. So that’s pretty different from most movies. (read the rest of this shit…)

December 9th, 2015 | 37 Comments »

Kagemusha

tn_kagemushalucasminusstarwarsIn 1980, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola presented a film by Akira Kurosawa, KAGEMUSHA. It opens with a five minute static shot of three almost identical looking characters sitting in a throne room in their fancy robes, two of them talking about the other one. You got the emperor Shingen there in the middle and his brother is on his right telling him about the guy on his left, how he spotted this petty thief about to be executed and noticed that he looked like the emperor and would make a good double for him. Sure enough he’s a dead ringer. It’s a real good find, this could work out great, right? But the double is kind of belligerent and crazy, and also he very reasonably chafes at the idea of being called a criminal by a guy who has killed thousands in wars and executions.

Maybe with some training though?

I guess people compare KAGEMUSHA to that movie DAVE, where Kevin Klein is a lookalike who has to replace the president, but I haven’t seen that one, so I’ll compare it to FACE/OFF, where a cop pretends to be a criminal? I don’t know. Anyway, the job gets more serious when the emperor gets hit by a sniper and before dying makes his boys promise to keep his death a secret for three years. I didn’t get this at first, but I think it’s because his heir is his grandson, a little boy. Gotta let him grow up to be at least 7 or 8 before tossing him in the deep end. (read the rest of this shit…)

December 8th, 2015 | 19 Comments »

More American Graffiti

tn_moreamericangraffitilucasminusstarwars1977 saw the release of George Lucas’s third film, STAR WARS. It did well. But the experience of making it was troubling enough to make Lucas rethink his dream of directing films. He decided to redirect his energy toward producing for other directors, and in fact he didn’t direct again for 22 years. But in 1979, as an executive producer, he brought back the characters from his second film.

I’m not gonna try to convince you that it was a good idea to make a sequel to AMERICAN GRAFFITI six years after the first one, but this is a much better sequel than I was figuring on. Definitely more interesting and ambitious than you would guess. I bet what happened was they wanted to do MORE THX-1138 but when the first one wasn’t a hit they rewrote the script for these characters.

While REGULAR AMOUNT OF AMERICAN GRAFFITI dealt with the cultural shifts of the ’60s by nostalgifying the times right before the a changin’, this one actually dives straight into the muck. The first thing you see is army helicopters over Vietnam, and there are more hippies and protests in this one than cars cruising the strip. It still doesn’t deal directly with the civil rights movement, but there are hints.

The impressive part is the structure. We find the gang back together on New Year’s Eve, 1964. Laurie (Cindy Williams) is now pregnant with twins, married to Steve (“special appearance by Ron Howard,” but it seems like a genuine role to me, not a cameo). Debbie (Candy Clark) and Terry the Toad (Charles Martin Smith) are still together, but he’s shipping out to ‘Nam tomorrow to “Kick ass, take names and eat Cong for breakfast.” They all come visit their cool drag racer friend John Milner (Paul Le Mat) at the track, where he’s trying to win races, attract a sponsorship and build a legit driving career. So it seems like it will be another day-in-the-life with this group of friends as they’re all on the verge of major life changes. (read the rest of this shit…)

December 7th, 2015 | 12 Comments »

End of year plea and special offer

tn_christmasTHey everybody, I didn’t think to do this on Black Friday, let alone Black Friday Origins: Thanksgiving, Small Business Saturday, Whatever It Is Sunday, Cyber Monday, Steam Punk Tuesday or Wednesday Wedding Day, but now here it is The Next Saturday and I just want to remind everybody that if you happen to do your Christmas or other shopping through Amazon or Amazon UK you could really help me out by using my search bars or links, no matter what it is you buy. You pay the same amount you were gonna pay anyway but then they slice off a little chunk for me.

And I have just now decided on a special deal I’m gonna do. Now through the end of the year, if you do one of the following things to support me:

  1. buy a NEW copy of any of my books
  2. buy some stuff through my Amazon links
  3. donate something to my Paypal thing
  4. buy one or more of my Vern’s Fleamarket products (using my link gets me referral money on top of royalties)

(see sidebar for links)

…and then email me about it (outlawvern at hotmail dot com) I will send you a signed bookplate that you can put in one of my books, stick to your Kindle screen or put on your guitar case or whatever. Please put the word BOOKPLATE somewhere in the subject line of the email so I can find them easier, and let me know the name to sign it to and address to mail it to. Also, please specify if you need it for a Christmas gift so I can try to rush it to you. (Note: I just now decided to get some custom ones made, but if you need it fast I have a box of Garfield ones around here somewhere that I’ll try to find). (read the rest of this shit…)

December 5th, 2015 | 14 Comments »

American Graffiti

tn_americangraffitilucasminusstarwarsI honestly had never seen this movie until now. So this will likely be the last George Lucas directed movie for me, unless he ever goes through with making those inaccessible art movies he always says he wants to make. AMERICAN GRAFFITI is different from the other ones he directed  because it’s the only one that’s not in space or in a futuristic dystopian worker colony under the earth. At least as far as is revealed in the text. Also it’s his only directorial work that has, like, wall-to-wall jams by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers and The Platters and people like that. Maybe he shoulda done that trick on ATTACK OF THE CLONES to make the young love go down easier.

Yeah, it’s weird that this is a really distinctive, personal and hugely influential film that was Lucas’s big breakthrough in Hollywood, and then he never did anything much like it again. He just let other people make Happy Days and shit while he was tinkering in the FX lab.

I’m not sure what the title means exactly, but it’s kinda too bad they used it for this because it would’ve made WILD STYLE seem more epic and important. This is the story of a bunch of Los Angelenos Modestenos graduating high school in 1962, and having one last night out together before some of them leave to begin their adult lives. Curt (Richard Dreyfuss playing a teenager just two years before JAWS!) is supposed to leave for college on the East Coast the next day, but he’s getting cold feet. Steve (Ronny Howard, later star of Happy Days) is also leaving and wants to convince his younger girlfriend Laurie (Cindy Williams, later star of Happy Days spin-off Laverne & Shirley) that they should still technically be together but also see other people. Terry (Charles Martin Smith, later in THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY) is a huge nerd who borrows Steve’s awesome car to drive around and impress people. And John Milner (Paul Le Mat) isn’t going to college, so to him it’s another night as the tough guy cruising for girls in the area’s most badass yellow drag racer. But then he gets tricked into picking up somebody’s little sister Carol (Mackenzie Phillips), cramping his style. (read the rest of this shit…)

December 3rd, 2015 | 45 Comments »

THX 1138

tn_thx1138So, we got this new STAR WARS movie coming up at the end of the month. The world has breathed a sigh of relief that the Star Wars story and characters have been liberated from the tyrannical grip of their creator and are finally where they belong: as a trademarked intellectual property of the Walt Disney corporation to hire different less visionary/uppity directors to make authorized fake versions of every year forever.

But what do we really know about former Star Wars creator George Lucas, other than that he is one of history’s greatest monsters and childhood rapers? Not much. We know he moved millions of people for generations with his Star Wars movies, revolutionized the technology of special effects and theater presentation, sold his creations for $4.05 billion (actual number, not funny exaggerated one) and then donated almost all of that to charity. That’s kind of nice trivia, but of course it doesn’t change the sinister fact that he altered a bunch of things in his beloved movies years after the fact and then made three new movies that some people thought were bad, making him the boogie man of twenty first century pop culture.

But perhaps there is a way for us to separate the artist from the special editioner. Exhaustive research has uncovered evidence of Lucas’s name in the credits of other films that do not even take place in space. Outlawvern.com is prepared to EXCLUSIVELY report that George Lucas had a hand in some movies that weren’t about any star wars at all. And though it may be painful, though it may be politically uncorrect, I thought maybe they would be worth getting to know and understand. How do we prevent this from happening again, etc.

So, throughout this next month or two, depending on how long it takes me, I will be doing LUCAS MINUS STAR WARS, reviewing every non-Star-Wars movie released by his company Lucasfilm (note: I already reviewed HOWARD THE DUCK so I might skip that one) and a few others that he had a hand in outside of his company, starting with his directorial debut THX 1138. (read the rest of this shit…)

December 2nd, 2015 | 12 Comments »

Ewoks: Caravan of Courage / The Battle For Endor

tn_ewoksYou may not pick up on it, but I sense a strong anti-Ewok sentiment in our culture, even to this day. It might seem like an insignificant hatred compared to that of Gungans and Prequels, but it exists. I think it’s mostly people who were in their teens or early twenties when RETURN OF THE JEDI came out, and had to prove they were big boys by rejecting what they thought the kids liked. To this day they call this proud people who helped defeat the Empire “teddy bears” and other slurs. The Ewoks were just product placement to sell dolls and they ruined Star Wars by being too furry and cute, they say bitterly, before clicking “favorite” on an adorable cat video.

As I’ve argued before, this viewpoint is ludicrous. The cuteness is a deliberate juxtaposition – they’re cuddly, but they try to roast Han on a spit, they bludgeon Stormtroopers to death with rocks and use their helmets as drums. Saying they shouldn’t be cute is like saying Rocket Raccoon shouldn’t be a dumb little raccoon, he should be a big muscular tiger man. It’s missing the point. Furthermore, it’s not the first time this trick was used in the Star Warses. The Jawas were cute little dudes who make adorable squeaky noises, but also they were sleazy Droid-poaching pricks. It’s a Star Wars thing.

So I am staunchly pro-Ewok, but I can’t really defend CARAVAN OF COURAGE (or THE EWOK ADVENTURE as I seem to remember it being called when it was a TV movie in November, 1984). Still, I thought it would be worth revisiting before Disney’s Star Wars Episode 7 The Force Awakens rewrites history so that the war never ended, robbing the Ewoks of their signature victory.

(read the rest of this shit…)

December 1st, 2015 | 67 Comments »

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