Posts Tagged ‘George Wendt’
Monday, August 12th, 2024
August 5th, 1994
My friends, I hope you know me well enough to understand that I’m being sincere here, I’m not trying to show off with a wild take. The truth is I recently watched and enjoyed the movie THE LITTLE RASCALS. It kind of rules.
This was not an outcome I expected, or even considered. For the 30 years this movie has existed I’ve scoffed at it, assumed it was crap. Yes, it comes from director Penelope Spheeris, she of excellent punk rock documentaries. But I’m gonna have to pull out the Shaquille O’Neal “I wasn’t familiar with your game” quote here. I wasn’t showing the proper respect. I had some idea she lost it after WAYNE’S WORLD, because I thought BLACK SHEEP was kinda cheesy and all the rest seemed like things I wouldn’t like. I assumed this was some pablum for kids from an era where pablum for kids was extra bad. (See: 3 NINJAS KICK BACK.)
But here I am trying to watch most of the major movies of summer ’94, it was about the only situation where I was gonna give THE LITTLE RASCALS a shot, and almost immediately I realized I was probly gonna like it. It’s silly, it’s for kids, it might creep some people out by having children woo each other like they’re Popeye and Olive. But it made me laugh a whole bunch, it’s daring in the way it straight up does old Hal Roach shit and doesn’t try to conform to ‘90s expectations, it actually makes sense as part of the Spheeris filmography, and (most surprising to me) it’s artfully crafted. I guess mostly in the way that she could piece together a sensible movie with 95% of the cast being 5-7 year old non-actors, but also it’s a great looking movie! Credit to the transfer, which has a good level of film grain. I did not expect to watch THE LITTLE RASCALS 1994 and think “They don’t make ‘em like this anymore!” But here we are.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Amblin, Bug Hall, Chris Pederson, Courtland Mead, Daryl Hannah, Eric Edwards, Flea, George Wendt, Lea Thompson, Mel Brooks, Penelope Spheeris, punk, Reba McEntire, Roger Corman, Whoopi Goldberg
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Family | 21 Comments »
Monday, September 11th, 2023
Not to brag but we all know the secret to my great success in this most respected artform of filmatic criticism is my appeal to the youths. You almost definitely can’t tell, it’s basically imperceptible to the human eye, but the individual pictured to the left here is not a cool young teen. He is in fact an adult man of age. But he wears a headband and passes for a youth. That’s pretty much what my reviews are like. Grown up, but ageless, vital, wearing a headband with a picture of a skull on it. Cool.
My timeless words and topics reach out even to generations that have largely abandoned the watching of movies, let alone the reading about them, in favor of other forms of expression such as short video clips of some jackass looking into their phone jabbering about some inane topic or other. I just get them and they get me so it’s not necessary, but just in case I’m gonna pander to that important demographic by offering this fun “back to school” themed review. If I know Gen-whichever-letter-we’re-on-now as well as I think I do those little dorks are gonna flip for my thoughts on Martha Coolidge’s PLAIN CLOTHES, an obscure 1988 bomb about a cop going undercover as a high school student to prove his brother didn’t murder his teacher.
Arliss Howard, in his mid-thirties and fresh off of FULL METAL JACKET, plays 24-year-old Seattle Police Department detective Nick Dunbar. He’s introduced undercover as an ice cream man while his partner Ed Malmburg (Seymour Cassel, HONEYMOON IN VEGAS), whose out-of-fashion mustache and suits signify a generation gap, is on lookout. Nick hates being around so many kids, but when he goes to complain about it to his captain (Reginald VelJohnson right before DIE HARD), who’s sipping from a “Trust Me I’m a Father” mug, is deeply offended and yells that it’s “goddamned unamerican” to not like kids. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Abe Vigoda, Alexandra Powers, Arliss Howard, Dan Vining, Diane Ladd, George Wendt, Jackie Gayle, Loren Dean, Martha Coolidge, Max Perlich, Reginald VelJohnson, Robert Stack, Scott Frank, Seattle, Seymour Cassel, Suzy Amis, undercover
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Crime | 9 Comments »
Monday, July 20th, 2020
When Stuart Gordon died at the end of March I decided it was finally time to watch SPACE TRUCKERS, a movie I had been meaning to see for literally 23 years. You know how it is. You get busy sometimes.
Obviously I dig Gordon as a Master of Horror, director of RE-ANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND, as one should. And in recent years I’ve really come to love THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM and CASTLE FREAK. But I also think he’s under-appreciated for his sci-fi movies ROBOT JOX and FORTRESS. And ever since I first saw ALIEN I’ve loved those stories that are about space but the heroes are just working class people doing their job, not some royalty or chosen one or member of any federation or academy. As the title makes clear, this is about characters like that. Truckers. In space. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Charles Dance, Debi Mazar, Dennis Hopper, George Wendt, Koichi Sakamoto, Screaming Mad George, Stephen Dorff, Stuart Gordon, Vernon Wells
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 13 Comments »
Wednesday, April 15th, 2020
When we lost the great Stuart Gordon recently, I realized there were a few of his films I still hadn’t seen. It’s kind of nice, actually, to still have something left to discover. There’s a particular one that happens in space that involves truckers that I honestly have wanted to see since before it even came out, and somehow never have. It’ll be a few weeks before I can finally change that, because I decided to order a UK Blu-Ray instead of pay Amazon to stream it in standard def. But I wanted to watch this one first anyway – the one based on the David Mamet play.
Gordon and Mamet, if you don’t know, go way back. Long before RE-ANIMATOR, Gordon was doing envelope-pushing theater work in Chicago. He directed, at his Organic Theater Company, the production of Sexual Perversity in Chicago credited with establishing Mamet as a playwright, although there was an earlier one starring William H. Macy, who also stars in this movie.
Here he plays Edmond Burke, a dude who works for some kind of financial firm called Stearns & Harrington. He’s apparently had a bad day (his meeting on Monday got pushed back to 1:15 – WHAT IN THE LIVING GOD DAMN FUCK!?) when he heads home and, on a whim, stops to get a tarot reading. She tells him “You don’t belong here.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aldiss Hodge, Bai Ling, Bokeem Woodbine, David Mamet, Debi Mazar, Denise Richards, George Wendt, Jeffrey Combs, Joe Mantegna, Julia Stiles, Lionel Mark Smith, Mena Suvari, Rebecca Pidgeon, Stuart Gordon, William H. Macy
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 12 Comments »
Monday, August 29th, 2016
Happy Michael Jackson’s birthday, everybody! What did you get me? I got you this thorough illustrated analysis of the “Black or White” video from the album Dangerous!
The “Black or White” music video is the sort of weird, messy, well-meaning, overreaching, and fun piece of mainstream art that only the lightning rod known as Michael Jackson could’ve attracted. It was directed by John Landis (who had already done “Thriller,” of course) and shot by Mac Ahlberg (TRANCERS, GHOULIES, RE-ANIMATOR, FROM BEYOND, STRIKING DISTANCE). Like “Thriller” it was a short film (11 minutes in its longest version), and its first broadcast (November 14th, 1991 simultaneously on MTV, VH1, BET and Fox) was a heavily hyped event. It was a Thursday night, playing right after The Simpsons on Fox (specifically, the soapbox derby episode “Saturdays of Thunder”), and receiving that network’s highest ever ratings at that time.
It had celebrity cameos (including The Simpsons), groundbreaking special effects, meta elements, and (still puzzling to this day) controversy that caused (or was the excuse for) the best part to be removed for subsequent broadcasts. While Michael sang and danced and visually symbolized in earnest about the lack of racial barriers in eligibility to be his “baby” or his “brother,” it became common to joke about not being able to tell if he was black or white due to his vitiligo-lightened skin. Most of the world could accept that “it don’t matter if you’re black or white” in theory, but that was not gonna stop them from making judgments about Michael’s racial identity.
Like the feature length MOONWALKER, this mini-movie is a jumbled mix-tape of stylistically clashing segments. For convenience I will break it down into four main sections. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: George Wendt, Jeffrey Anderson-Gunter, John Landis, Macaulay Culkin, Michael Jackson, Tyra Banks
Posted in Music, Reviews | 23 Comments »
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2014
That’s a good feeling when you watch a movie that you don’t remember being all that special back in the ’80s but now it seems like a gem. Last Halloween that happened to me with FROM BEYOND, this year it was HOUSE (1986).
All I remembered was haunted house, George Wendt (and/or John Ratzenberger), something about Vietnam. Maybe kinda funny. All those things are true except for Ratzenberger, who is in part 2. But the star is 10-years-after-CARRIE William Katt as Cobb, a Stephen-King-level-popularity novelist who’s going through some troubles. First we think it’s just that his old Auntie who raised him (Susan French, JAWS 2) hung herself. Then we find out he’s still hurt by his divorce from a soap star (Kay Lenz, DEATH WISH 4: THE CRACKDOWN). And writing his memoir is dredging up painful memories of Vietnam (“The war?” a fan asks). And he still hasn’t given up on finding his missing son.
Jesus, that’s alot of problems. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ethan Wiley, Fred Dekker, George Wendt, ghosts, Harry Manfredini, Kane Hodder, Steve Miner, Vietnam, William Katt
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 19 Comments »
Saturday, June 14th, 2003
Hey folks, Harry here… Stuart Gordon is one of those directors that I just keep waiting on to break a film into orbit. When you look at what he’s done on no money, and just how incredibly entertaining his movies consistently are. From RE-ANIMATOR to SPACE TRUCKERS to THE WONDERFUL ICE CREAM SUIT to DAGON… Here’s a guy making low-budget indies that I demand to own on DVD – even if it means seeking them out in other regions. On top of that, he’s just a great guy. Humble, friendly and eager to tell you about all of his stories and dreams. So it is with great glee that I read Vern’s review of KING OF THE ANTS… This is a brutal crime film that Stuart has had his eye on for a while now, and from Vern’s review… It’ll be one of those movies we seek out all year long, and I’m instantly going to contact Stuart about doing a screening here in Austin with the Drafthouse! Here’s VERN –
Boys –
No really guys, I really did it this time. A 100% genuine scoop. This time it really truly is not a movie you guys have reviewed the shit out of. You’ve never even seen it because this was the world premiere. But I’m positive you’ll be covering this movie alot as soon as people start seeing it. Stuart Gordon has made his best movie in years, in my opinion his best ever. It is definitely one that stands out from the others because there’s no supernatural business or science fiction or HP Lovecraft references. What it is is a very dark (in tone, not in lighting) neo-noir adapted by brit Writer Charlie Higson from his own novel, about a regular dude in his mid ’20s who’s not sure what he wants to do with his life. And then somebody offers him $13,000 to kill an innocent man. So he figures, you know, why not? (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Daniel Baldwin, George Wendt, neo-noir, Ron Livingston, Seattle International Film Festival, Stuart Gordon, Vernon Wells
Posted in AICN, Crime, Reviews, SIFF | 16 Comments »
