Diner ²

I have no memory of going to see Diner for a second time in a theater back in 1982, but apparently I did. And this time I saw it at the Coronet. It makes sense, though, since I loved the movie right away, and loved that theater even more.

As I mentioned previously, there were two San Francisco theaters back in the 80's that one always hoped a movie would play in: The Northpoint and the Coronet. I've talked about the Northpoint in a few other posts, but I guess I didn't actually get to see a movie at the Coronet in 1982 until this second viewing of Diner on June 4th.

The Coronet was easily my favorite of the two big theaters, mainly because of all the great movie memories associated with it, including viewings of Bugsy Malone, Star Wars, Superman, Blade Runner, Return of the Jedi, Aliens, Batman, The Thin Red Line, and the Star Wars re-release. At almost all of those movies, we had to stand in line outside, usually for at least an hour, and I don't remember caring one bit about the wait; it was part of the fun. 

Damn, I loved that theater.

I said pretty much all I wanted to say about Diner in my previous post, so here's another clip. It's not the best scene in the movie, but unfortunately, there aren't a lot of clips available online. But it does have a stripper in it, so, there's that...

Poltergeist

On Wednesday, June 2nd, 1982, I went to a preview screening of Poltergeist. Preview screenings were always pretty exciting to me, and I got to go to a lot of them because my father worked for a company that did t-shirts and merchandising, and they would often get passes. When you're a kid, getting to see something before everyone else does feels great. This one was at the Northpoint Theater, and I think it was preceded by dinner across the street at Caesar's Restaurant. A fun night!

I'll just state this up front: I absolutely LOVED this movie. Adored. Which is why I ended up seeing it a total of SIX TIMES in the theater that year. Six times!!

I thought it was funny, and scary, and I loved the dynamic of the family, and it even made me cry a few times. (OK, a lot of times.) Yeah. I cried during Poltergeist. Puberty! It's a crazy thing.

Since I saw it so many times, (SIX!!) I'm going to save some of my thoughts on the movie for future posts about it. (SIX!) But I can say this: In rewatching it, I'm kind of amazed that I can still basically recite all the dialogue in it. It's embedded in my noggin.

And being that I loved the movie back then, I was compelled to write a review of it right away. It's really kind of, (OK, totally), embarrassing, but I'm just gonna suck it up and include it here for your amusement. (Click the image to magnify.)

In my review, I mention how there was a bit of controversy surrounding who actually directed the movie: Tobe Hooper, or producer Steven Spielberg. This was something I had read about in the Pink Section of the Chronicle, in the following article.

Back then, I didn't really give a crap, and really didn't understand who Tobe Hooper was, or the cache he had in the horror genre, as I had yet to see his The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Eventually I did, and could understand why there was serious doubt about him directing something as clichedly "Spielbergian" as Poltergeist. I'd like to think it was just a friendly collaboration, and the movie ended up with the best (and some of the worst) aspects of both the directors, (just watch the scene where the family is doing a patented "staring into the light" Spielberg moment, but what they're looking at is the complete destruction of their house; wonder and horror at the same time), but I have a feeling Spielberg probably did most of the heavy lifting...

I'll have more to say about just why I think I fell in love with the movie in some future posts, as well as some more newspaper clippings and articles...

Cat People (1942)

I had not yet seen the original The Cat People when I watched and fell in love with the remake. I imagine some might find that sacrilege, and for sure there were people back in 1982 who thought it was a crime against cinema to remake a movie as great as the 1942 Jacques Tourneur classic, but I say if a remake can introduce you to a movie you had not known about before, and compel you to see it, then that's the best thing a remake can do.

I only just now put together that the remake came out 40 years after the original. When you think of how different life (and movies) were between '42 and '82, it's kind of astounding. Especially when you consider that the differences between '82 and 2012--30 years--aren't that remarkable, in comparison...

Looking back, I had assumed I had seen it at the Castro or the York, but it looks like it was a VHS rental, and the movie was probably released on video to coincide with the remake.

At the time, when comparing the two, I obviously preferred the remake. But I was definitely able to see that the original had its merits, (merits I was more able to appreciate later in life). What most interested me were the similarities between the two.

There are obvious homages to the original in Schrader's remake, the biggest being the scene in the swimming pool. Fans of the original tend to say the scene is better in the first film and it creates higher suspense because Tourneur never actually shows anything, and is able to create fear with mere suggestion.

The curious thing is, aside from the nudity, the two scenes are very, very similar, and in fact, Tourneur shows MORE than Scharder does (at least when it comes to the cat; not so much in the nipple department). Tourneur's version includes some animated shadows, and at one point, a briefly animated cat shadow. Schrader's version mainly uses darkness and sound. Watch the original scene here, (can't embed it), then the 1982 version below...



Frankly, I think they're both great scenes.

The other scene that's in both films is when Irena is stalking Alice, and Alice gets startled by a bus. Again, a lot of people praise the original, feeling it it works better because the sound of the bus matches the sound of a hissing cat. But I never actually thought that bus sounded anything like a cat. You can watch the full scene here, but the bus shows up at the very end, if you want to skip ahead.

Schrader's version is a bit shorter, and the bus has been replaced by the St. Charles Streetcar, but I've always thought that streetcar sounds more like a panther's roar than that bus sounds like a cat's hiss...(Scene is embedded below at the right start point, and continues on to the pool scene.)



Obviously, I have a fondness for the remake, but I absolutely love the original as well. I think Schrader's inclusion of some clear-cut homages are great updates, and that the movies, as a whole, both deserve praise. Schrader took the violent and sexual aspects of the story that could only be hinted at in the original, and made them the explicit center of his movie. I'm all for subtly and innuendo, don't get me wrong. But sometimes you just want to see a naked lady turn into a cat.

Personal Best

Apparently, on May 26th, 1982, my parents and I went to see Personal Best at (I think) the Serra Theater in South San Francisco, though I find that a little hard to believe, as that was a Wednesday, and I just can't see us going out of our way on a school night to see it...So maybe it was earlier or later in the week, and I wrote down the date wrong...

By the time we saw it, it had been out for several months, (it had opened in San Francisco in March), and was playing at a second run theater. Really, the movie wasn't that important to me in the scheme of things, although it did make think for about five minutes that perhaps I should take up running. (Never happened.)

It was also a bit scandalous at the time because it depicted a lesbian relationship pretty honestly, and perhaps explicitly. I think there was a love scene in it? I can't remember. Also: A lot of slo-mo running.

The only thing about the movie that I really remember is that I had seen a newspaper ad for the film that had a picture of Mariel Hemingway doing the splits, and said something to the effect of "The critics are split over Personal Best," and then listed blurbs from both positive and negative reviews. That was something I had never seen before--and ad that used negative reviews to sell a movie--and it stuck with me.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like that ad ever ran in a San Francisco newspaper. I explored microfilm for the entire month of its release, and this is the only kind of ad that ran:

So, I'm guessing I probably saw the ad in the Village Voice, since my dad tended to get that every week...

Pretty Standard Stuff: Men In Black 3

This review originally appeared on the San Francisco Appeal.

The last Men In Black movie came out 10 years ago, which is a fact that almost made me cry when I realized it. Ten years? Wow. How did that happen?

Of course, there was absolutely nothing memorable about that second movie, so it's not surprising its very existence, no matter how long ago, kind of faded from my mind.

Men In Black III is in 3D. Let me get that out of the way up front, because it matters so little and doesn't deserve any further discussion.

Will Smith, as Agent J, looks a tad fuller; his mustache a tad patchier. Tommy Lee Jones, as Agent K, looks as craggy as he did ten years ago, which is to say, very craggy indeed.

The two are still partners, still investigating alien occurrences, and wiping the minds of witnesses. They seem kind of bored with it all, or maybe just tired. They've been at this for, they frequently remind us, fourteen years, after all.

On the moon, which is home to a space prison, (space prisons are the new big thing!), we meet a one-armed alien named Boris the Animal (played by Flight of the Conchord's Jemain Clement).

Boris is a humanoid looking alien, with goggles for eyes, spiky teeth, and a hand that shoots out pointy little aliens and daggers. Clement basically growls through the role, and for a guy who's proven himself to be pretty funny, he's surprisingly dull. (Then again, it's hard to top Vincent D'Onofrio's batshit insane portrayal of the alien in the first one. He deserved an Oscar for that.)

Boris stages a prison break, and makes his way back to Earth, determined to go back in time to 1969 and kill Agent K before K is able to sever his arm and send him off to prison.

Once things at MIB headquarters start to go weird, with no one seeming to know who Agent K is, Agent J figures it out, and heads to 1969 as well, in order to save Agent K, and in turn, the world.

So, the thing with time travel movies is, once you start to think about them, none of it makes any sense. For instance: If the goal is to prevent Boris the Animal from killing agent K back in 1969, why not just go back in time to, say, the week before he escapes from prison, kill him, and be done with the whole thing?

Oh, right. Because that would be an exceedingly boring movie, and you wouldn't get to see Josh Brolin's pretty uncanny Tommy Lee Jones impersonation. And really, he's one of the only reasons to see MIBIII. He's got Jones's speech inflections, squinty stare, and hangdog look down pat. He's a lot of fun to watch.

And I suppose the 1969 setting, which turns half of the movie in to a kind of Mad Men In Black, has its moments. The costumes and cars are fun to look at, even if the old "fish outta time" stuff isn't really anything we haven't seen before. Very recently, in fact. (See: Dark Shadows.)

Which is kind of the problem with the movie as a whole: It's pretty standard stuff. It's not totally forgettable, (like the second one), but it doesn't have any elements of surprise, or really any scenes that are truly funny, (such as that moment with the dog alien in the first one).

The are some bits that are amusing, such as Bill Hader's role as Andy Warhol. And Michael Stuhlbarg, as an alien who perceives multitudes of potential timelines simultaneously, is funny and very sweet, (I wish the movie had more of him). But mostly, it just kind of hovers there, with occasional things flung at your face to keep you awake.