Stay Tuned

Year: 1992
Directed By: Peter Hyams
Written By: Tom S. Parker, Jim Jennewein, and Richard Siegal

RYAN’S REVIEW

I don’t remember much from the year 1992 but I do remember seeing this movie in the theater. I was eight years old and the idea of regular people going into the television programming as part of it was such a terrific fantasy for me. 1992 was one of the years leading up to my parents divorce and TV was my great escape. If I wasn’t playing outside with my action figures I was sitting in front of the tube with one in hand watching whatever served as an easy distraction. When I saw this movie I loved it because the idea of being able to go into the world of television was just awesome. The fact that it served as some sort of hell in this movie was beside the point, I was eight, it was the idea that appealed to me. As our collection grew the memory of this film bubbled to the surface one day and I went out of my way to add it to the collective.

The Humphrey Bogart movie seen on the television early in this movie was The Maltese Falcon. Bogart plays badass private eye Sam Spade and in the scene on screen he is confronting the damsel in distress who is actually the perpetrator behind the murders.  Really cool movie that is actually part of our collection. We reviewed it a few years ago. I like this movie a little bit more now for featuring it.

Not really sure what Jeffrey Jones’ character is all about in this movie. Is Mr. Spike the devil? It certainly seems so with the evil laughing as he drives down into Hell presumably. As the boss of Hell Vision he is out to steal your soul and kill you, for some reason. I do like this evil organization who kills and possibly sends people to hell but also trains interns. Interns that can rise quite dramatically it seems. There’s a great reference to Dr. Strangelove at one point down in the depths of Hell Vision. As the movie goes on you still don’t really know what Spike is all about. He’s evil enough though, he’ll choke you out if you talk back to him and kiss you if you give him good news.

I love how this movie mocked the current TV programming of the early 90s. One of my favorites is the Sadistic Hidden Videos. The officer brings the woman to tears with news of her husbands death and two seconds later she’s laughing when she realizes she is on hidden camera. I remember the commercial the Max Hell segment is making fun of with that guy sitting back in that chair and the sound of his stereo blowing his hair or something. I can’t remember what the product actually was but that’s pretty funny. What parent doesn’t want a Silencer of the Lambs now and again on a long ride to keep the kids quiet?

“This is one clever pussy.” That’s hilarious because they found a way to drop the P word into a PG rated film. Followed shortly by “My Three Sons of Bitches” and then the spoof of Wayne’s World. I never got into the Wayne’s World skit, or the movies. Ah there it is, The Maltese Falcon is mentioned by named in the segment that is obviously inspired by it.

Sometimes this movie borders on trying to be a horror film with so much themed around hell and death. Segments like Duane’s World and the Exorcisist can really make it a bit confusing about what the film is going for. There are an awful lot of references to Hell and 666 in this movie for it to be rated PG. I’m not a stickler for such things but in this movie the hell references just seem so random.

John Ritter is so well cast as the typical guy. He had a special quality as an actor and was so likable. I think the scene when he shows up on the Three’s Company set it’s really funny.  He’s the kind of actor who can drop pussy into the dialogue and still come off as innocent. He died before his time, may he rest in peace. Long before he was Jim’s dad on American Pie Eugene Levy was proving he had the potential to make anything he was in funnier. Maybe it wasn’t in this movie because nobody really saw it but he does make this movie funnier.

AAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It seems I cannot escape Star Trek, as it has followed me beyond the 12 prior films and into this one. John Ritter as Captain Picard is good for a laugh even with the horrible reminder. “Holy Shatner,” he does it right and gives respect to both crews. The Star Trek fan I have purged from myself would be proud.

Crash Test Dummies! That’s awesome, and it’s followed shortly by Driving Over Miss Daisy. This is a funny movie. It’s silly and I’m probably putting more thought into it than it’s worth but I’ve enjoyed watching it again. The whole message is as John Ritter says in the end “Too much TV can get you in trouble.” This really isn’t the kind of movie to put too much thought into though. I think it’s worth your time simply because it’ll take you back to the early 90s.

NEXT MOVIE: The Stepford Wives (2004)

Stephen King’s IT

Year: 1990
Directed By: Tommy Lee Wallace
Written By: Stephen King, Tommy Lee Wallace, and Lawrence D Cohen

RYAN’S REVIEW

This is a rare situation where I actually think the film was better than the book.  Making things even more bizarre is the fact that this was a made for TV movie and it still manages to be better than the book.  This was a household favorite when I was growing up but I had never read the book until a year or two ago.  The book is different, in many ways it is a better different but in the end there was one specific thing that brought it all crashing down and I am haunted by the memory.  Haunted not in the sense that I was scared but in the sense that I simply can’t get back the innocence I had before reading it.

I have always heard this book was one of King’s best but I didn’t feel that way after finishing it.  In fact I felt that Stephen King must have been drunk when he wrote the damn thing and whoever read it and decided to publish it should be ashamed of themselves. If you have read the book then you should know what I am talking about, it’s so shameful and disgusting I can’t imagine anyone ever forgetting it. If you haven’t read it then I strongly suggest you never do.  The book isn’t all bad, it’s just that one damning part but that part is just too bad for me to stomach.  In the end of the book after the children dispatch IT for the first time in the 50s they get lost trying to find their way out of the sewers.  For whatever reason, to solve this dilemma, Beverly decides the only thing to do is to have sex with each of the boys in turn.  Let me say it again, to find their way out of a sewer the ten year old girl allows six ten year old boys to practically run a train on her.  Now I have heard that there are explanations for this online and plenty of people have written about why it was necessary and blah blah blah.  I don’t give a shit.  I don’t think there is any justification for it.  All I know is I read 1,000 pages into this damn book only to get to the most ridiculous and despicable thing I have ever read.  There is absolutely nothing in the world that will make what happened in that book sit right with me and I do feel scarred for life to an extent because I read it.  It’s doesn’t just say what happened either; the sex is uncomfortably graphic and I actually quit reading Stephen King for quite a while after reading it. King is a very successful writer and I am still a fan, but in this case I don’t know what his problem was and I think he should be ashamed of what he wrote.

Aside from that one awful scene the book isn’t bad but it’s really out there.  My favorite part is the turtle.  There is a great turtle responsible for creating the universe and he actually apologizes to one of the characters for it saying he simply had a stomach ache.  When he threw up the universe came out of him and there it was. For whatever reason I really like this explanation for the creation of the universe. Not that I think there is any validity to it but simply because I think if we knew how it really happened it would be something weird like that.  Something nobody in their right mind would ever be able to even consider and ultimately probably the product of an accident. IT was an evil being that counteracts the turtle but I’m certainly not remembering it right.  The movie tends to focus on him mainly as the clown but I don’t remember it like that in the book.  The clown was a shape he took but there was really no limit to what he appeared as.  IT is a being with the ability to invoke madness in others simply by being around but also able to directly invoke that fear himself with physical force.  IT is really complicated to be honest and it’s been too long since I read the book to be able to explain it with any accuracy.  I know that IT somehow ties into the Dark Tower series like pretty much everything King writes but I haven’t read the series so don’t know much about it.  I think King is a really talented writer despite what he did in the end of this book but some of his stuff is just really out there, specifically this book and the Dark Tower series.

I think this movie stands on its own well and that usually isn’t the case.  I think a lot of that has to do with the performance of Tim Curry as Pennywise the clown.  I would call it his best performance but would undoubtedly spark the outrage of Dr. Frank-N-Furter fans.  I have never been one to get behind The Rocky Horror Picture Show so I can’t compare the two but as Pennywise Curry was great.  The clown is the strength of the film and what makes it popular despite being a cheap made for TV film. My favorite scene is when the kids are looking in Mike’s scrapbook and Pennywise approaches them with menacing words before literally reaching through the page to get them. In that scene he has an evil look in his eye and a tone that could strike fear into anyone.  Great performance by Curry and my favorite part of the movie. You can see the scene I’m talking about below.

I’m not going to go into all the actors in the movie but I will discuss a few of them.  It’s cool to see a really young Seth Green playing Richie. I’ve never been a big fan of Green’s but I don’t dislike him and he has had a lot of success at different things.  I was a fan of John Ritter and I feel his presence gave this movie more credibility.  Jonathan Brandis played the most important of the younger cast in the role of Bill.  I remember seeing a lot of Brandis when I was a kid and he was a seemingly up and coming young actor.  I had forgotten all about him till watching this movie a couple of years ago and found out that he had died in 2003.  I was shocked to find out that he had actually committed suicide because he seemed to have such a promising future when I was a kid. Apparently he was really depressed because his career had declined significantly and he turned to drinking before ultimately taking his own life.  It’s a sad and unfortunate story.  I think he did a good job in this movie and was the best of the young actors in the film.

This is a cool movie and I like it but I don’t know how well it fits into the Halloween theme we are doing this month.  It is a horror film so it qualifies but I just don’t think it does much to set the tone for the season.  This is a horror film that can be watched any time of the year and for whatever reason it just doesn’t seem to fit with the other movies we are watching. It was a really long book and it made for a long movie.  This was actually a TV mini-series when it came out so I imagine it was four one hour episodes or something like that.  It’s a low budget film but that doesn’t take anything away from the film.  I chose to do this one mainly because I’ve wanted to write down my outrage over the book for some time. I don’t suggest this film as one to watch in preparation for Halloween but I would recommend it if you haven’t seen it.  So long as you don’t read the book, it will take way too long only to scar you for life.

AMBER’S REVIEW

What a creepy movie. Clowns are just so creepy and nobody does a creepy clown like this guy. Sometimes, when I see a balloon I will randomly just catch myself saying “They all Float.” How strange is that? Somebody in Party City has probably seen me and called me that crazy psychotic lady.

I think this is a great one. It has the creepy clown front and center and it is surrounded by white. It’s ironic and it works. You see what you are supposed to see and you should automatically know this is going to be a horror flick. (In case seeing Stephen King’s name didn’t do it for you already.) The typography for the time was probably pretty cool and ahead of its time, but now the grunge look has been so over played. I will give this designer some kudos about the cast. They didn’t Photoshop them all together from different scenes that end up muddying up the piece, they decided to box them in across the bottom. MUCH better than the ones we have looked at in the past. I like this one. Halloween approved!

Bad Santa

Year: 2003
Directed By: Terry Zwigoff
Written By: Glenn Ficarra

RYAN’S REVIEW

I’ve said before that sometimes vulgarity can be a necessity for adults, in this case I think this movie will fill that need for an eternity if need be.  This movie goes a little over the top for 87 of its 91 minutes but you should know that going in, it lives up to its name.  I was in college when this movie came out and thought it was hilarious, as a father I feel a little different about it.  I still enjoy it now, but I feel bad about it.  This movie is dirtier than it needs to be and while it might be funny that doesn’t make it right.

I remember when this movie came out Billy Bob Thorton was considered really popular, this was either during or shortly after his relationship with Angelina Jolie.  It was a really weird union if I remember correctly, needless to say it received a lot of press.  Bernie Mac is here in top form.  He was an incredibly funny man who made all the movies he appeared in better.  He died much too young, I was very upset by the sudden loss.  Bernie Mac’s sudden death, along with the fact that John Ritter died during filming have led people to declare this movie cursed. Regardless of any curse or misfortune, the untimely loss of both of these men was unfortunate. Tony Cox is very funny in this movie as well, he is a talented actor.

This movie seemed funnier to me in college than it does to me now but I think it is validated by the fact that the Coen brothers were involved in the movie as Executive Producers. If you want to indulge in awful things and enjoy something dirty then check this movie out.  If it is Christmas time then start playing this movie when you want your parents to leave, but at some point during the season do turn it on after the kids have gone to sleep and you are sick of all the fake holiday spirit.  It’s sad, but in many ways Billy Bob Thorton’s Santa Claus is the true face of today’s Christmas.

AMBER’S REVIEW

Who doesn’t love this movie? WHO? I think this movie is a breath of fresh Christmas air. It is light and funny and finally gives us a Christmas movie that isn’t all filled with feelings. Well, okay maybe it does give you a little bit of feelings, but they aren’t the usual tidings of joy. I think this movie is perfect. They picked a perfect actor for the leading role and I think he epitomizes every Santa Claus in every mall of America. And also I would like to give a shout out and kudos to the lates John Ritter and Bernie Mac. Both were awesome and both were lost in untimely manners. This film is one that I MUST watch every Christmas. It is crude, it is wrong and it is perfect.

NEXT MOVIE: Balls of Fury (2007)