August 5th, 1994
It seems kinda crazy now, but AIRHEADS was a movie I was excited for ahead of time. Other than a couple of bit parts, it was the first time I saw Steve Buscemi after RESERVOIR DOGS made him an icon. Adam Sandler was still on Saturday Night Live, his biggest movie role having been in THE CONEHEADS, so it seemed novel for him to be a co-star. And I wasn’t really familiar with Brendan Fraser so I hadn’t had a problem with any of his performances yet. More importantly, director Michael Lehmann’s HEATHERS is an important movie to me, he’d since done MEET THE APPLEGATES and HUDSON HAWK, both weird and interesting if not great, so he was a director I followed. And the premise of a rock band taking a radio station hostage to try to get their song played seemed like it had potential for, like, satire or something. I don’t know.
Then I saw it and forgot everything about it. I don’t think I was impressed, but I was sure now it would at least be more interesting as a time capsule. Yeah, I guess, arguably. (read the rest of this shit…)
“Certainly I am a lot to blame for the film but I can’t say the alchemy of it was well balanced. What I have always said about my participation in action films in general is that I like to cut the head off of a rhinoceros and put a giraffe’s head on it. For some people, a rhinoceros with a giraffe’s head on it is interesting and something to look at. ‘Wow, you don’t see that every day!’ Other people will say ‘That is wrong! That is an abomination against nature! Kill it now! Get it out of my sight!’”
To celebrate the release of my new review book that’s named after Bruce Willis it’s only appropriate that I review a Bruce movie I never reviewed before. And by far the most requested title in that category is the notorious-flop-turned-minor-cult-movie HUDSON HAWK.
