Stripes (1981), Johnny Be Good (1988)

Stripes (1981) might be the funniest modern military movie ever made. The list isn't that long - M*A*S*H, Biloxi Blues, Catch-22, Sgt. Bilko, Private Benjamin, and 1941. No, I don't count Pauly Shore's In the Army Now. 

Stripes is about two malcontents - one depressed newly single man with nothing to lose, John (Bill Murray) and his wise-ass friend who is sort of drifting and bored, Russell (Harold Ramis). It's weird seeing these Ghostbusters before they were Ghostbusters, but the chemistry is still there. 

At boot camp they meet a few more live wires, including the ever-hilarious John Candy as "Ox," who's only there to use basic training as a sort of personal fat camp, and the great Judge Reinhold as "Elmo." 

The movie is fun, Fun, FUN!! I can't tell you how many times I laughed out loud, which is pretty rare for this jaded movie watcher. The scenes in the beginning where Bill Murray quits taxi driving... forever. The scenes in basic during the obstacle courses. Bill Murray doing endless, endless pushups as punishment for his incessant, hilarious mouthing off. Bill and Harold transforming their march into motown glory:

Or how about the scene where Ox turns out to be a (self-described!) "aggressive gambler." Or the (in)famous mud wrestling scene! This movie is wonderful, front to back. But as easy as it could have been to simply turn into a long series of skits (it was riding the SNL high, after all), it actually some loose semblance of a plot. 

After barely graduating basic training, John and his platoon of misfits is given an assignment out on the hem of the iron curtain. When many of the platoon are captured on the wrong side of the line, John, Russell, and Sgt. Hulka (the drill sergeant, masterfully played by Warren Oates) have to go get them back ... without starting World War III. 

I should also include the women here - P.J. Soles and Sean Young, both great as MPOs. I've been running across Sean Young a lot on this blog lately - first No Way Out, then The Boost, and now this. Maybe I'll do Blade Runner soon and round her out career...

I heartily endorse Stripes from about every angle. It's not just a funny movie, it's entirely from the early '80s - the tension with the Soviet bloc was at an all-time high, but coexisting with the sudden cynicism that allowed for broad satire of the military at the same time. Maybe it's because I saw this at a fairly early age (9?) but it feels '80s to me through and through.

Fun Fact #1: John Larroquette was drunk for almost all his scenes. 
Fun Fact #2: This was originally intended as a vehicle for Cheech and Chong (!!).

Stripes was a huge, huge hit. Costing $10 million to make, it brought home $85 million, which allowed director Ivan Reitman the clout to make later classics like Ghostbusters, Legal Eagles, Twins, Kindergarten Cop, Ghostbusters II (which I don't much like), and Dave, among many others. Quite a run, there.  

On the OTHER side of the comedy coin we have Johnny Be Good (1988), which is dreck. Famously so. 

The basic plot is that high school football star Johnny Walker (SERIOUSLY??) is being recruited by major programs all across America, and he has to decide what is right (and wrong) for him and his friends and his family. Go to State and be close to his girlfriend, but forsaking football? Go to a major (and majorly corrupt) program far away, where they promise him great things? 

Already we hit a huge, huge problem: Johnny is played by Anthony Michael Hall. Yes, Anthony Michael Hall. Playing the top football recruit in the country. I know, I know - he is scrawny, muscles do not appear anywhere on his body, he is short, he seems to lack basic coordination, he, in fact, is the exact opposite of an athlete. 

And frankly, it's hard to ever get past that. This is the kid from Weird Science, people. His role in The Breakfast Club is "The Geek." This is Brian from Sixteen Candles. He is not a top football recruit, no matter how desperate the studio execs and his agent wants him to be. 

Now, ladies and gentlemen readers, I went to a football high school of great fame and greater glory. I know what high school football players look like. And this ain't it. So maybe this is a personal bias... but it's hard for me to look past.

But let's say you do. You say "Sure, this guy is a big shot high school quarterback!" Then, maybe, just maybe, you will not hate this movie. But it's unlikely, since it sucks in any traditional sense as well.

His best friend is the only really redeeming aspect here - Robert Downey Jr., who seems completely coked out and unhinged the entire time, and always seems to be in on his own private jokes. The girlfriend is played by a young Uma Thurman, who is OK for the crap dialog they give her. His evil coach is Steve James, who tries to sell him out... but is investigated by the NCAA, and the investigator is played by ... Robert Downey Sr. (!!!). 

My favorite scene, if you can call it that, is the one where Johnny comes home wearing the weirdest outfit that Prince ever rejected:

What IS that?

Fun Fact: Judas Priest covered "Johnny B Goode" for the soundtrack (!). 

Anyway, Johnny Be Good is one of the rare movies that maintains a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It made $17 million, but I can't find out how much it cost, so no way to know how well or poorly it did. Unsurprisingly, it was the only movie made by its director, Bud Smith. Probably not entirely his fault, this one screams dud from the premise. You just know some studio heads flipped through a stack of headshots, landed on poor Mr. Hall and said "This one. Let's make him the new Depp," or something to that effect. 

It didn't work. 

Foxes (1980), Maximum Overdrive (1986)

I didn't review Foxes for a while because Comcast (my '80s movie supplier) labeled it as 1979. But, it turns out, it's actually 1980 - February, 1980 according to IMDB. So it's fair game.

Foxes is a movie I had always heard about but never seen (until now). Supposedly Jodie Foster's best performance as a young adult (it is), it's the tale of four girls growing up the hard way in the San Fernando Valley in the late 1970s disco era. 

The script is really good, because all four of the friends (and everyone else in the movie) is written very realistically. These are girls I could have known growing up - and in fact, I did know girls like them in high school. 

Jodie Foster is the highlight, as desperate-to-be-done-with-this-adolescence-thing Jeanie. Jeanie is the mother figure to her friends... and to her own mom, who had Jeanie when she was about 16 herself. The other members of the quartet are Madge, who is overweight (I guess, for the '70s?) and a virgin and tired of both things; Deirdre, who is boy crazy and doesn't know what to do with her budding sexuality; and Annie. Ohhhhhh boy, Annie. Annie is a real mess. Annie does everything to extreme excess.  Drugs, drink, boys, more drugs, risky behavior of every single type. Annie is memorably played by former Runaways rock star Cherie Currie, who bears a cherry tattoo on her right shoulder in commemoration of the Runaways hit "Cherry Bomb." 

Jeanie (and the audience) spends more time worrying about Annie than about most movie characters I can remember. Annie's dad is an abusive cop constantly chasing her down. Annie's ability to make good decisions doesn't appear to exist. Annie is just racing for the bottom. 

The movie is somewhat slow, but when it gets going, it REALLY gets going. There are a few really moving scenes - the opening, when the four girls wake up and get ready for school, or later when Jeanie tries to have a nice, adult dinner party that collapses when Annie arrives and can't take it seriously, or when we learn Annie's final fate (no spoilers here, folks). And especially the heart-breaking final voiceover from Jeanie. 

Also, it's crazy to see Madge marrying Randy Quaid (!) of all people. I can't imagine how that marriage is going to work out. And to round out the cast list, Jeanie's boyfriend Brad is played by Scott Baio (!!) who really comes through in a pinch later in the movie. 

But obviously the real star here is Foster. She's a revelation as a young actress, the kind we hardly ever see anymore - capable in turns of being a small adult or a large child, of being both cynical and vulnerable, jaded and devastated in the same breath. She's a real marvel.

Foxes is, in truth, a product of the late '70s decadent SoCal disco excess.  It prefigures the '80s in some ways, especially the obsession with southern California and the obsession with teenage girls and their culture. 

It was, interestingly, the feature film debut of director Adrian Lyne, who is well known for Flashdance, Fatal Attraction, Jacob's Ladder, 9.5 Weeks, and Indecent Proposal. IMDB doesn't seem to have money data for it, but Wikipedia says it earned $7.5 million - not bad, but without knowing how much it cost it's impossible to say if it did well or not. With a movie like this, though, it really doesn't matter. I was really impressed. Recommended. 

Now we completely switch gears: Maximum Overdrive (1986), based on a Stephen King short story called "Trucks," and featuring Emilio Estevez, Pat Hingle, and Yeardley Smith (yes, THAT Yeardley Smith!). 

This movie is as unrealistic as Foxes is realistic. The premise, as a cheesy graphic informs us at the beginning, is that the earth is passing through the tail of a comet for the next seven or eight days. While we're in the comet, machines gain a life of their own... especially the semis at a remote truck stop, who begin to terrorize the truck stop inhabitants with murderous intent. 

There is almost nothing else to say. The "plot" consists of ex-con Estevez trying to rescue everyone. There are a few amusing parts - when you think "machines going crazy" you probably don't think of cigarette machines and dollar changers spitting out quarters and cigs for a delighted pinball wizard who is then mysteriously electrocuted by a primitive video game. 

And the over-the-top acting results in a few unintentionally funny sequences, like when the gas nozzle turns on the truck driver. How much could that POSSIBLY hurt?? Or the soda machine at the ballpark, combined with the insane steamroller. Do the deaths have to be that gory!??! They are really over the top for a movie like this. Almost cartoonish.

The movie is chock full of moments like this. My favorite subplot involves Yeardley Smith and her new husband battling various machines while she throws out great dialog: "Is he dead?" ::car races at husband, crashes into building:: "Are YOU dead??" ... it's fantastic.

Estevez, meanwhile, is basically reliving his character from Repo Man - the same nihilistic delinquent who reluctantly does the does right thing, sometimes. 

Maximum Overdrive was actually directed by Stephen King, who must have had a blast, and remains the ONLY movie he has directed. Maybe because the movie didn't make any money - according to IMDB, it cost ten million to make and only came back with $7,500,000 or so. 

But another reason, at least according to IMDB trivia, is that King was apparently coked out of his mind during the entire filming (it shows). In fact, the very next trivia entry is rather hilarious - asked why he hasn't directed a movie since Maximum Overdrive, he replied "Just watch Maximum Overdrive." ZING. 

Come on, Stephen, it's not that bad. You had great taste with the AC/DC soundtrack, anyway. 

Silkwood (1983)

Silkwood (1983) is another one in a long line of Meryl Streep movies I'm going to have to review but without much joy. However, unlike the recently reviewed Still of the Night, this movie is actually quite good.

The biggest problem is that it has long patches of being too slow and too quiet. The biggest plus is that there are moments of real emotional power - surprisingly forceful.

The movie, despite being made in 1983, "feels" like so many biopic movies of everyday people that came to prominence in the late '70s and early '80s - movies like Norma Rae and Coal Miner's Daughter. It has much less of the 1980's culture in it than most of the films on this blog, and much more of the 1970's. 

It's about Karen Silkwood, a nuclear fuel plant worker in Oklahoma who slowly, surely becomes convinced the company she works for is not just breaking rules, it's killing people more or less deliberately to maximize profit. And she sets out to stop them in the only way a poor woman in 1970's Oklahoma can - by making it public via stolen documents. In many ways this movie is the dark side of Norma Rae with Sally Field. You leave the film absolutely convinced that Karen was murdered (not a spoiler, it's declared right on the movie's poster). 

Streep is less egregiously "ACTING" as Karen than in most of her roles. In many scenes she even seems like a completely natural woman. And at other times I feel I can watch her putting on her persona right in front of me. But the best scenes are the ones with Cher and Kurt Russell, her housemate and lover, respectively. They are very natural actors, especially Russell, and you can tell Streep has to really tone it down to not seem overly formal in front of them. Craig T. Nelson is also noteworthy has a rather dim plant worker who is not on her side. 

The plot is chilling, and it's underpinned by the many scenes where people are contaminated "externally" and forced to undergo horrific forced scrubbing sessions in the shower to remove any lingering plutonium. Awful to watch. 

The villainous people working for the plant are appropriately heinous, but like most movies of this kind, they are completely unidimensional. Obviously in real life (I would hope) the decision to alter negatives of defects is not made lightly ... here it's never given a second thought that these monsters would do something like that. 

The director was Mike Nichols, who you  might know from his films Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate, Catch-22, Working Girl, Postcards from the Edge, and most recently Charlie Wilson's War. Long career, well regarded. He considers this his first film in a more naturalist style of directing, which I think it's safe to interpret as "just going with the flow." 

The screenwriter is the late Nora Ephron, who is most famously responsible for the terrific script to When Harry Met Sally... along with a few other notable rom-coms in the same vein like Sleepless in Seattle. 

I don't know how much it cost to make, but it was a big hit and grossed $36 million when the dust settled. That is very very good in 1983 dollars. It's rather long - two hours and ten minutes, much of it very slow - but worth catching if you happen across it. 

The Boost (1988)

The Boost (1988) is a movie that was recommended to me by my great movie guru buddy Rob, creator of Booze and Reviews, a site-in-progress that pairs drinks with movies, for ideal watching. 

The basic idea is that James Woods is an exec who gets hooked on coke and starts rapidly falling apart. His girlfriend is Sean Young (of Blade Runner fame) and she gets dragged down as well. Woods is Lenny, a tax professional whose career is turned upside by one of the IRS's periodic updates to the tax code. He becomes deep in debt and turns to drugs to give him "The Boost" he needs to find a solution and solve his problems.

Predictably, especially with James Woods (please see the thunderous masterpiece that is Videodrome) he goes completely insane in that way that only Woods can. Things definitely fall apart, and quickly. He spends like a madman, buying cars and dogs and all kinds of things. But someone's got to pay for all that swag...

When Woods is on drugs, he becomes extremely manic and can't be controlled. Which is really fun to watch! He has this wide, plastic grin that takes over his face, while simultaneously his eyes glaze over. And he always finds ways to embarass poor Sean Young, who is a dancer and seems to do all her own scenes (impressive!). 

My favorite parts are the crazy '80s party scenes where Woods just takes it to overdrive - especially when they go to "Mexico," which is the only place the movie shows its budget - it's definitely a backlot set somewhere. 

Amazing trivia! This movie is based on a book by ... Ben Stein. Yes, that Ben Stein! Of Ferris Bueller ("Bueller.... Bueller... Bueller... Bueller...") fame and who got his own game show Win Ben Stein's Money, back in the '90s when anything went and it was wide open. The book is titled Ludes: Ballad of the Drug and the Dream, and sounds amazing. 

Of course, this means that the original drug under discussion was quaaludes, which are downers, rather than cocaine. Frankly I think Woods would be just as crazy on ludes as he was on coke. This movie was made on a shoestring budget, although you can't really tell - they do a good job of avoiding that B-movie look. 

It was directed by Harold Backer who is best known for the minor Al Pacino classic Sea of Love (which is excellent) and also The Onion Field, Vision Question ('80s classic!), Taps, and Malice. He seems to have stopped making movies around 2001, according to IMDB. 

The Boost was a major failure, unfortunately. IMDB reports it cost $8 million to make and brought back less than one million. This means that very few people ever saw it, which is a real shame. It's not fantastic, but it's worth seeing and has a number of entertaining scenes. 

Still of the Night (1982)

This is a movie I'd never heard about before searching cable for '80s fare - Still of the Night (1982) with Roy Scheider and Meryl Streep. Confession: I dislike Meryl Streep. I can never accept her in any role, I always sense that she is Acting with a capital A. But I like Roy Scheider a lot, so I gave it a shot. Also, I am contractually bound to watch it according to the terms of the blog. 

Sadly, it's not very good. After psychologist Sam Rice (Scheider) loses a patient to a brutal murder, he encounters the patient's mistress (Streep) who he is incredibly intrigued by and starts to fall for. Meanwhile, he reviews his case notes and starts investigating on his own. 

His investigation quickly goes off the rails and gets murdery. He gets mugged, mugger takes his coat (!?) and then mugger is immediately misidentified as Scheider and is murdered. Uh oh! 

There is one tense scene that caught my attention where Scheider visits Streep as she's getting a massage. His leering gaze and her subtle manipulation thereof are very well done, and you're left with a complex atmosphere of reversed sexual tension, where he is powerless but to observe and she uses it to her advantage. 

But otherwise, the movie is pretty dull. I have to say that the print MGM ran on their channel was amazingly good. Crystal clear, all the colors intact, not grainy, no artifacts ... just in great shape. When the best thing you can say about a movie is that the print is good, that's a bad sign.

I tried to watch this twice, and just couldn't get into it. And it seems I'm vindicated, since when Meryl Streep was asked "what's one bad movie you acted in?" she immediately answered with this one.

It was directed by Robert Benton, who is best known for Kramer vs. Kramer and Places in the Heart. Maybe also Billy Bathgate and Nobody's Fool with Paul Newman. It cost $10,000,000 to make and only grossed a total of about $3,000,000 - so a major failure. However, it clearly didn't slow Streep down, since her next movie was Sophie's Choice which won her her first Oscar. Roy Scheider's career, however, rapidly wound down. 

Avoid, which will be easy since you've also probably never heard of this and it only came on TV because MGM is dumping their film library onto their cable channel. 

Dressed to Kill (1980)

Brian De Palma was heavily, heavily influenced by Alfred Hitchcock and it shows. His movies always feature characters on their own against horrible evil that lurks underneath a pleasant facade. So today we cover his first movie of the '80s - Dressed to Kill (1980). 

Dressed to Kill starts with a wild, "WOW!" opening - we see a woman touching herself in the shower as she watches a man shaving with a straight razor as lilting, romantic soap opera music for violins plays. Then, suddenly, shockingly, she is attacked in the shower by a man. She cries out a horrible scream that echoes as the screen fades to black ... and cuts to her in bed, making love with dead eyes to the man who was shaving earlier. 

This is a twisted world, my friends. This is Angie Dickinson's masterpiece, as well. She is just top notch, working with Michael Caine (always good). She plays Kate Miller, a bored housewife who has your everyday housewife rape fantasies ... and who begins a real affair with a stranger she meets at a museum... and then is brutally murdered (!!!!!!!). 

Taking cues from Hitchcock's Psycho, De Palma kills off the purported heroine a third of the way in, shocking audiences and destabilizing the viewer. But there was a witness to her murder ... Liz, an escort, who must team up with the slaughtered Kate's electronics-wizard son to catch the killer when the cops (as in Hitchcock) prove stupid, ineffective, unwilling to help. Caine plays Kate's psychologist who tries to help solve the murder with no help from the authorities. 

This movie is chock full of incredible style and iconography taken right from Hitchcock - the fantastic museum scene (extremely reminiscent of the scene in Vertigo where Jimmy Stewart follows a woman to an art museum in San Francisco). It starts in total silence, and ends with a series of tracking shots of Kate alternated with shots from her point of view as she curiously follows the man she has shared glances with. In Hitchcock, as in this movie, such tracking shots mean the character is being drawn irresistibly into a terribly dangerous position (see: Notorious, North by Northwest, Vertigo, many others). It's used to great effect here. 

The film also has a great soundtrack (by Pino Donaggio) full of lilting violins that remind me very much of Angelo Badalamenti's immortal score for David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986). It enriches every scene and fabricates an atmosphere of real danger ... but classy danger. I would go so far as to say this is one of the best orchestral soundtracks of the 1980's. 

The camera is always moving, as well. We see Kate on the museum stairs (stairs - another Hitchcock icon, where the character encounters some danger) and the camera lowers, pans left, zooms back out to show a taxi, then zooms in to show the stranger waving her glove at her in a "come hither" way. The camera works as almost a surrogate for the viewer, and as such it enhance the tension tremendously.

I could write about this movie all night - a good sign - but will instead say instead that the look of the film is also heavily inspired by Vertigo - shadows alternate with bright clothing choices (white especially) and interesting, baroque sets. It looks great. 

Be sure to catch Dennis Franz as the terrible cop - but with a full head of dark hair!

The movie did very well in the box office. IMDB reports it cost $6.5 mil to make and brought back almost $32 mil - pretty damn good for a mid-July release in 1980, coming up against The Empire Strikes Back, Caddyshack, and Airplane. 

Easy Money (1983)

I love Rodney Dangerfield. I just do. I dig his schtick. I find him funny in pretty much every way. He drinks too much, he smokes too much, he has that sad sack face, and he gets no respect. Just none at all. 

Happily for the purposes of this blog, Dangerfield was at the peak of his popularity in the '80s and starred in three very good movies, all of them very funny. Today we'll deal with the middle film of the three: 1983's Easy Money. 

Great comedic cast! Dangerfield, Joe Pesci (with thick black hair!), Jeffrey Jones, Val Avery, Tom Noonan, Tom Ewell are the biggest ones. Also,a bonus: Jennifer Jason Leigh in one of her first post-Ridgemont roles as Dangerfield's daughter (!).

The plot here is that inveterate smoker, drinker, overeater, and above all gambler Monty Capuletti (Montague + Capulet ... someone was a Shakespeare fan) is getting married. His late mother-in-law, tired of his degenerate ways, writes a will that states (like so many movie wills) that if he cleans up his ways for one year, he will inherit 10 million dollars. 

But for Dangerfield, that is a big deal. A really, really big deal. One of the first scenes shows him placing bets on harness racing - where crazy Joe Pesci goes bananas like he will later in so many movies, and attacks a losing jockey. Does Pesci EVER play a calm, normal citizen? It would be a revelation. He's either attacking someone, being attacked, or being mocked or satirized for being so vibrantly Italian.

Anyway, this movie is similar to many "do X to inherit millions" movies like Brewster's Millions or King Ralph or a few others. As always, there is some evil character who stands to inherit the money if our hero fails - in this case it's a department store manager, since the mother-in-law owned the store. 

But this movie also surprises you in that it is fairly tender and gentle. For example, an early high point is a crazy, inspired rendition of "Funiculi Funicula" by Dangerfield at his daughter's wedding which could have come right out of a movie like Broadway Danny Rose. 

And the advice he gives his family - from the little girl in the opening scene (very funny) to his daughter - is surprisingly wise. Dangerfield shows hints of three-dimensionality, which is kind of unusual for an actor generally played for the broadest of laughs.

There is also a significant plot twist near the end involving the inheritance that I really want to spoil - what are the chances you, reading this, will someday come across this movie and then say, sighing, if ONLY it hadn't been spoiled for me - but I will withhold and say only that the twist (and counter-twist) is fairly clever and betrays a more clever writer than you'd expect. 

Which brings us to "Who wrote this, anyway?" Unsurprisingly, Rodney Dangerfield had a heavy hand. But VERY surprisingly, P. J. O'Rourke is listed as a co-writer. A big favorite of an ex-girlfriend of mine, I had no idea he was involved with anything like this. Big props to Mr. O'Rourke. And as far as I can discover, this is the ONLY movie he had a hand in. What are the odds?!?!

This is also fairly unusual fare from longtime SNL director James Signorelli. As far as I can tell, his ONLY other feature film was the Elvira: Mistress of the Dark movie (!!!). What a weird pedigree... Easy Money and Elvira. This movie is filled with strange Hollywood coincidences. 

As far as money goes, Wikipedia reports it brought in $30,000,000 - and I guarantee it didn't cost that to make, so it definitely made a lot of money. Good! Soon I'll review Back to School, probably THE classic Rodney Dangerfield '80s movie (yes, more than Caddyshack). 

And now, a treat for you: 

House of Games (1987)

House of Games (1987) is sort of the definition of an art house movie. Written and directed by noted screenwriter David Mamet, it's about a woman psychologist's descent into the world of confidence artists. As her sense of what is real and what is part of the game blurs, the viewer, too, is conned. 

On top of that is a really strange acting style I can barely describe except as "robotic." Mamet's wife Lindsay Crouse plays the main role, and everything she says is clipped and measured carefully. "Yes, I had a good night. I am going to leave now. Yes, in this taxi. This is my taxi, and I am about to drive away. Have a good night, please. Goodnight." 

Everything is like that. It heightens the surreality of the whole venture to a fever pitch. The viewer always THINKS they are one step ahead of her, but you never really are. In an early scene at a poker game, they deliberately let Crouse believe she has discovered a con - the scene is fantastic and features a wonderful Ricky Jay - but even as you sit and think "ha, she thinks she is in the know, but something is up," little do you suspect that something is WAY up and there are about eight levels of con going on. 

It's a hypnotic movie as well. It's metered out very specifically and carefully, with a deliberate pacing that refuses to give in to your desire to get a solution right away. It really helps the movie deceive you (and her). The way the movie identifies you with the woman, her journey becomes your journey. Or so you think. 

The movie also has an interesting soundtrack full of xylophones that vibrate around eerily, and it looks interesting - a shadowy look full of blacks and reds and blues. The world is off-kilter and predatory, and it lets you know from the beginning to the end. 

The cast is a murderer's row - Joe Mantegna, Ricky Jay, David Caruso, J.T. Walsh, Mike Nussbaum, more. They all perfectly inhabit their universe of mixed sleeze and respectability. 

It also features a wow ending that I refuse to spoil, but will highly recommend if you think you're interested in the kind of movie I've laid out so far. 

Raw Deal (1986), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

 
One of the perils of trying to blog about every movie from the '80s is that I end up seeing more movies than I have time to write about. This week I'm going to try to catch up a little bit and cover a wide variety of things. 

Today's offering is going to be a study in complete contrasts: Arnold Schwarzenegger's most braindead film, Raw Deal (1986) against what might be Woody Allen's most cerebral, Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). 

I should preface this by saying that like most young boys in the '80s I completely idolized Arnold Schwarzenegger (and Stallone and Ford and Willis, et al). It's easy to see why: Schwarzenegger is huge, invincible, usually the good guy, never loses, and is just a massive force to be reckoned with. He is the ultimate action hero. 

But my sister made a good point the other day: why did/does Hollywood persistently ignore his blatant Austrian-ness and instead insist on labeling him some super-American stereotype? His characters always have the most generically American names imaginable: 

• Adam Gibson (the 6th Day)
• Ben Richards (The Running Man)
• John Kimble (Kindergarten Cop)
• Douglas Quaid (Total Recall)
• Alex Hesse (Junior)
• Gordy Brewer (!!!, Collateral Damage)
• Harry Tasker (True Lies)
• Howard Langston (Jingle All the Way)
• Jack Slater (Last Action Hero)
• Jericho Cane (!!!, End of Days)
• John Matrix (!!!!!!!!!, Commando)
• John Kruger (Eraser)

I mean, come on! Adam, Ben, Gordy, three times John?? And John Matrix??? Man. 

I'm not sure why they insisted on doing this. At least Predator acknowledged his Germanity by calling him "Dutch." It's a strange phenomena, and yet I never heard anyone comment on it until now. It's like everyone just said to themselves "anyone that big GOTTA be American" and pretended the accent was just a delightful quirk. 

Raw Deal is about a former FBI agent (here named alternately Mark Kaminsky or Joe, depending on which identity he's in) who goes undercover to infiltrate the mob after the mob targets  the family of the head of the FBI. The longer story is that he was kicked out of the FBI for roughing up a suspect, and has become the sheriff of a small town in North Carolina (!!!) before he's lured back to the case with the promise of reinstatement if he can infiltrate the mob and take them down. I always wonder if deals like this really happen. 

I have to say, as a die-hard (haha) Schwarzenegger fan, this is my probably my least favorite of all his movies. It has all the requisite '80s-isms (pumping rock soundtrack with lead guitar everywhere and surprise sax solos ... macho gunfights ... bad one-liners ... endless bad guys who can't shoot straight but sure do die quick) but somehow just never clicks. It's kind of joyless. 

Schwarzenegger apparently liked making this because he finally got to wear a "normal" wardrobe (no more Conan loincloth, Terminator leather jacket, etc) and he DOES look more normal here than in most movies - suits, hair slicked back, etc. But the movie as a whole is too slow, a little dull, and doesn't have enough "pop" in it. It satisfies, but it doesn't enchant. 

The big gunfight finale in the casino is a real treat, even though it pales against Commando, Terminator, Predator, and a couple others. But apparently I'm not the only one to think so; this guy voted it #2, second only to Commando: 

http://whatculture.com/film/arnold-schwarzeneggers-top-20-greatest-action-scenes.php/20

Raw Deal was directed by John Irving - no, not THAT John Irving - who also directed The Dogs of War (1980), Ghost Story (1981), Hamburger Hill (1987), the "good" Robin Hood from the '90s (1991), and a bunch of ones that sound intriguing but that I've never seen. 

Like most of Arnold's '80s fare, it made money - although not as much or as wildly as other ones. According to IMDB it cost $8.5 million and grossed about twice that. 

Now, the pendulum swings... Crimes and Misdemeanors comes near the last part of Woody Allen's truly great period, dating roughly from Annie Hall through Manhattan and Zelig and Broadway Danny Rose and Purple Rose of Cairo and Hannah and Her Sisters and Radio Days to this movie and then roughly until Bullets Over Broadway in '94. 

Anyone who has seen Match Point (2005) has seen half of this movie - the serious half. There are several plot threads at work here, but the main one for our consideration deals with opthamologist Judah (Martin Landau) who is in crisis - his spurned mistress wants to tell his wife about their long-running affair, and Judah's financial improprieties with his business (never explicitly mentioned, but you get the idea he was using business money for personal use). Coming forward like this would destroy Judah's life - his wife has no idea, his kids have no idea, and he seems to be a respected, beloved figure both in his religious community and in New York at large. 

If it sounds familiar, it's because it's almost identical to the dilemma that Jonathan Rhys-Meyers faces in Match Point, when his affair with Scarlett Johansson threatens his up-and-coming life with his wealthy wife and her family. 

So the main plot centers around the question: What should Judah do? His choices are framed as two forks, one of which centers around his brother Jack (the masterful Jerry Orbach) who has ties to the mob and advocates rubbing the mistress out of the picture... and Ben (the subtle, excellent Sam Waterston), a rabbi going blind but faces it gracefully, and advocates coming clean, and trusting that a high power will make things right. 

But unlike Match Point, this movie is funny, as seen in the side plot featuring Cliff (Woody Allen's character), a documentary filmmaker trapped in a loveless marriage who is given the chance to make a TV biography of his brother-in-law Lester (a very funny Alan Alda), who he hates. Lester is a blowhard with all kinds of theories including the classic "If it bends, it's funny, if it breaks, it's not funny!" which he punctuates with a comment about joking about Abraham Lincoln's assassination. "Back then, you couldn't joke about it... but now, it's fair game!!" or something to that effect. Great stuff.

But Cliff's like is complicated by an affair of his own - he is falling for Halley, the producer of the TV bio, played by Mia Farrow, who is a sensitive, delicate, funny, clever character. And then Lester turns his eye toward Halley as well...

Small trivia note: Lester is apparently based on comedy writer Larry Gelbart, who is largely responsible for the character of Hawkeye Pierce in M*A*S*H. So Alan Alda is playing the man who wrote the character that made him famous; this is like Peter Dinklage someday portraying George R. R. Martin, or Mark Hamill portraying George Lucas. Kind of surreal.

The movie is bracing, funny, beautiful, has an incredible soundtrack, and a completely devastating, shocking ending. I have always suspected this movie ends the way Allen wished Hannah and Her Sisters ended - he always has claimed to regret the happy, upbeat ending of Hannah. This movie has a much more grounded, realistic ending. No spoilers, you have to see it. 

Sadly, this movie actually seems to have lost a little money - IMDB says it cost $19 million to make and brought back just shy of that. I hope it's entered the black after all these years on video, etc. It deserves it. 

As a teaching assistant for the only dedicated film professor at the University of Maryland in the 2000s, I must have seen Crimes and Misdemeanors about 25 times, maybe more. But I never tire of it. It comes together perfectly, and has a fantastic mix of elements that keeps it fresh after all these years. Among the very best of Woody Allen from his best period, and highly recommended.