Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

For some of these movies, I have to rack my brain to try and remember where I saw them. In other cases, a trip to the library is required to look at old newspaper movie listings. But I remember May 23rd, 1982 with a lot of clarity, and bits of that day come to mind like they happened yesterday.

It was a Sunday, and my dad and I went to a matinee showing of Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid at the Regency III downtown. The Regency III, unlike the Regency I, was a really nice old theater. Small, but with good seating and a pretty good sound system. I would end up seeing some pretty influential movies there in the coming years, including The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Eventually, it turned into a stage theater (and I saw a few plays there too, including Burn This, and something by Mamet--maybe Oleanna?), and is now a nightclub called Ruby Skye. Haven't gone; doubt I ever will. The odor of Drakkar Noir would probably be way too much to bear.

Pennies From Heaven, another Steve Martin movie, was the first movie I featured on this blog. As I mention there, I was a huge Steve Martin fan growing up. There were two big comedians in the late 70s and early 80s: Steve Martin and Robin Williams, and despite liking "Mork & Mindy" just fine, I didn't dig Robin Williams as a comedian much, (still don't, frankly). I was a Steve Martin gal all the way, so much so that I was a member of his official fan club, (oh yes), and would end up having a lifesize cardboard Steve Martin advertisement for The Jerk in my possession for more years than I care to admit to.

So, I was excited about Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid because it was Martin's return to comedy after the bleak Pennies From Heaven. And I can thank Dead Men... for offering a big introduction to the genre of film noir and all those Hollywood classics. The movie is a noir spoof that edits Martin into scenes from old movies, creating a new plot, and some very funny moments. It's not seamless, but being that it was all done old school, with no computer enhancements, it's damned effective, and in fact, I find it a lot more convincing than more recent things that try to bring old stars to life, (like that weird Charlize Theron commercial that features Marilyn Monroe.) It helped that Edith Head was the costumer on the movie, (and in fact, it was the last movie she ever worked on), and she was able to match wardrobes perfectly.

Here's a pretty clever bit that utilizes dialogue from a movie, (totally drawing a blank on which one), in a hilarious way:



The company my dad worked for did merchandising, and I ended up with some stuff related to the movie, including posters, pins, and this plastic coffee mug, which still sits on my desk.

The "Famous Java" label is in reference to Martin's Rigby Reardon character's coffee, which is a very unique blend. He starts to make a batch for Burt Lancaster in this scene:



The movie is readily available on DVD, (unfortunately not on Netflix Instant, though), and is well worth a watch. It's pretty silly, of course, but it's also a lot of fun.

After the movie my dad and I ate at a restaurant on the corner. I think at the time, it was a Miz Brown's Country Kitchen, (it eventually became a Max's, which recently shut its doors as well), and part of the dining room was sunken, so that if you looked out the windows, they were above you, and all you could see were peoples legs and feet as they walked by. We ate and talked about old movies and movie stars, like Alan Ladd, (my dad has the same first name), and how Ladd was considered short for movie stars of the time, and was therefore perfectly paired with Veronica Lake, who was teeny tiny...It was a fun day.

I would eventually start to watch all the movies that were featured in the Dead Men..., and read about all those old stars, (Lauren Bacall's autobiography was a personal fave), in large part because of this silly satire starring Steve Martin. Which ain't such a bad thing.

Cat People ²

As I noted in my previous entry about the movie Cat People, I was a little obsessed with it, and on Sunday, May 22nd, 1982, I went to see it again, this time at the York Theater. I'm not sure if I went alone, but I do know I didn't see whatever movie it was paired with.

One of the things I love about the movie is its New Orleans setting. Even if it isn't very realistic, it utilizes the city's foreign feel perfectly. New Orleans isn't like any other city in America, so it lends itself well to a spooky tale about an otherworldy family's curse, and sexual animals.

I love this bit featuring Kinski walking around a completely empty Jackson Square in the French Quarter, (and anyone who's ever been to New Orleans knows that square is never that empty), visiting a groovy looking church, before finally making it to the zoo, (which, at one time, was indeed a dump, but is now a first class zoo).



In looking around the Interwebs for stuff about the movie, it was nice to find a few posts from people who seem to like it as much as I do.

This is a nice review from Kindertrauma.

Only In Cinema's post is a bit more critical of the movie, but still comes out liking it, despite its flaws.

Finally, any fan of Nastassja Kinski should take a look at Nostalgia Kinky, the best fan site out there.
It's an exhaustive look at all of her movies, and it includes over 20 posts about Cat People alone....

Run Away, Screaming: What To Expect When You're Expecting

This review originally appeared on the San Francisco Appeal.

I don't have kids, nor do I plan to. But I've got enough friends with kids to know that the pablum spooned out in the new "comedy" What To Expect When You're Expecting has barely a passing resemblance to what one should really expect when one is expecting.

The fact that this movie is based on the title of a non-fiction, instructional book, (JUST THE TITLE!), should be warning enough to stay away. That the result is another one of those multi-storied, star-filled movies ala Valentine's Day and New Year's Eve means you should run away, screaming.

Having already wasted two hours of my life on this nonsense, it pains me to waste much more. Someone give me an epidural so I can push this thing out.

WTEWYE tells the stories of five couples, (there are no single parents in this word), all facing impending parenthood at the same time. Of course, all these characters end up being connected in some way or another, because that's...funny? Totally believable? An easy story crutch?

Cameron Diaz is a fitness trainer, ala Jillian Michaels, who discovers she's pregnant during the finale of a "Dancing With the Stars"-type reality show. The father is her dance partner, played by Matthew Morrison. (I'm not even going to bother with character names here. I was still iffy on most of them by the time the end credits were rolling, and really, what does it matter?)

Elizabeth Banks runs a children's store, and has just written a children's book, and finally gets pregnant after years of trying with her husband, played by Ben Falcone.

Dennis Quaid is Falcone's father, an aging, rich, former race car driver, married to a much younger woman played by Brooklyn Decker. They're expecting twins.

Jennifer Lopez is a photographer, who often takes portraits of babies, who is married to a music guy played by Rodrigo Santoro. They plan on adopting. (Which is not their first choice. You see, she can't do "the one thing a woman is supposed to be able to do." Yes, those are words actually spoken in this movie.)

And finally, Anna Kendrick is food truck chef, who, after one night with Chace Crawford, the chef at a competing food truck, finds herself with an unplanned pregnancy that she decides to keep. (Not that NOT having the baby ever seems to be up for much debate.)

Floating around in the background are seemingly dozens of supporting characters, such as a dad's group that includes Chris Rock, Thomas Lennon, and Rob Huebel; Joe Manganiello as a single guy the dad's group idolizes, (he spends most of his appearances naked from the waist up); and Wendi McLendon-Covey and Rebel Wilson, as two of the moms-to-be's co-workers. (Both are hilarious ladies, perhaps best known for their work in Bridesmaids, and both are, sadly completely wasted here, although Wilson did get the only laugh out of me during the entire movie, with a comment about how she'd once had a "phantom pregnancy.")

The mad race to parenthood propels the movie forward, with a few stumbling blocks along the way. One pregnancy doesn't end well, although the thought an experience like that deserves doesn't get any play in a movie that has to tell at least six different stories at once.

Which is pretty much the problem with any movie like this: It takes a deft hand to juggle multiple storylines without giving short shrift to some, if not all of them, and director Kirk Jones isn't up to the task. The whole thing comes off as entertaining and enlightening as an infomercial for parenthood.

There's some lip service given to fact that pregnancy, for some, can be a miserable experience--Banks is a wreck throughout most of hers. But when Diaz, who, we don't learn until late in the movie is supposed to be 35--and therefore at a "higher risk"--is told she needs to stay in bed for the remaining--weeks? months? it's not clear--of her pregnancy, it's shrugged off as no big thing. (The fact that Diaz looks like she's been digitally airbrushed throughout most of the movie doesn't help in the realism department.)

Inevitably, everyone goes into labor, (or picks up their kid), on the same day, and even when some of the births don't go quite as the mothers had planned, their babies are immediately placed in their arms looking sparkingly clean, with perfectly round heads, and big enough to be at least six weeks old.

There's no blood, mess, or stretched out vaginas in this land of motherhood. But that's not what you were expecting, was it?

1982 Rules! Every Other Year Drools!

If I had started keeping track of my movie viewing in any other year than 1982, it's likely I wouldn't have decided to start up a blog about it many years later. Because, you see, 1982 was an incredibly good year for movies, and it's a happy coincidence that it was also the year that I started to take my film fandom seriously.

Here's a brief article from an LA Times blog that talks about that banner year. Most of the movies mentioned will be (or have been) featured here, so stay tuned!

Diner

There were about five movies that came out in 1982 that I would end up seeing again and again over the next few years, eventually own on LaserDisc, and then DVD, and would continue to revisit multiple times as the years went on. Barry Levinson's Diner was one of them, though you wouldn't think it from the absolutely horrible trailer seen above.

I've already established that I was (and still am) a sucker for movies set in the late 50's and early 60's, so it wasn't really hard for me to like Diner. The thing is, while it's set in 1959, it feels firmly planted in the 1950's, and isn't as...bright as other movies set in the era seemed to be. (The 80's version of the 50's invariably involved a lot of chrome and pink.) It's kind of dark, in a way, both literally and figuratively.

I can understand why the movie was a hard sell at first--there's no real plot to speak of: It takes place in Baltimore the week between Christmas and New Year's, with six friends in their 20's gathered for a friend's New Year's wedding. They hang out a diner a lot. They talk. A few very minor adventures occur. It ends. (There are two great articles that look back on the film's creation, and how hard it was to get it released initially: One is in Vanity Fair, and the other, from the Baltimore Sun kind of piggybacks on the VF article.)

What makes it memorable is the dialogue, and the ensemble cast's perfect chemistry. I'd venture to say all of the guys in it have never been better, before or since. This scene is a good example of that, and contains a bit of dialogue ("You gonna finish that?") that my parents and I would quote for years.



You can see more of the scene, which includes an awesome and completely real spit take, here. (For whatever reason, it's not embeddable.) The scene also highlights Mickey Rourke in a role that just solidified the crush that began when I saw him earlier that year in Body Heat. Bad skin? Greasy hair? Didn't matter. He was hotness.

And while the guys are the center of the movie, Ellen Barkin is terrific and kind of sad in her role as Shrevie's wife, Beth. This is probably the most famous scene she has in the movie, when Shrevie finds out she's been playing his records. (It's too bad I can't find a clip of the follow-up scene--in which Rourke's character, Boogie, shows up at their place right after the fight, and she breaks down crying into his arms--because it's really heartbreaking.)



And here's something amusing: Barry Levinson has said the characters were based on guys he knew in Baltimore, or were at least composites of different guys. So here's a clip from a 1989 news broadcast which features some of the "real Diner guys." Whether they actually are or not is, I guess, up to some debate, (though Levinson does make a brief appearance in the video), but it's worth watching just to hear some genuine Baltimore accents, which, aside from one character ("Bagel"), aren't really on display in the actual movie. It's a great accent; kind of sounds like a Philly accent with a bit of a Southern twang.



As for where my parents and I saw the movie: It was a Sunday, and we saw it at the Alexandria out on Geary. It was in the main theater, not one of the tiny balcony screens, because if it had been in one of those, we would have gone somewhere else. Sadly, that theater is still sitting out there on Geary, awaiting some kind of renovation plan that never seems to happen.

Finally, here are two things I did not know: There was a TV pilot based on the movie, shot in 1983, but I don't think it ever aired. Michael Madsen was cast in Mickey Rourke's role, James Spader in Kevin Bacon's, and Paul Reiser was the only one who reprised his role. (Of course.)

And there's a Broadway musical in the works, with songs by Sheryl Crow, and it's scheduled to have previews in San Francisco in October, which, well...if you don't have dreams, you got nightmares.