Kicking and Screaming - 15th Anniversary

Fifteen years ago today, on October 4, 1995, the film Kicking and Screaming was released. Three years ago, we here at Chronological Snobbery did a comprehensive piece on this film and our absolute favorite scene therein. You can read it here.

Pump Up The Volume (1990)

Twenty years ago today, on August 22, 2010, the film Pump Up The Volume was released. Written and directed by Allan Moyle, and starring Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis, the film chronicles the exploits of a pirate radio deejay adjusting to a new high school. The soundtrack was impressive, as it included Concrete Blonde, Soundgarden, the Pixies, Sonic Youth, Bad Brains with Henry Rollins, Peter Murphy, and the Cowboy Junkies. Not bad for 1990. Of course, I need not write the perfect nostalgic piece on this film, as that task has already been accomplished by someone else. On August 27, 2008 (coincidentally, the week of the film's 18th anniversary), Ryan S. at The League of Melbotis revisited the film and gave it the nostalgia treatment. Check it out, as we here could not have said it better ourselves.

The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (July 11, 1990)

Twenty years ago today, on July 11, 1990, the would-be action comedy The Adventures of Ford Fairlaine was released in theatres. What to think of this film looking back two full decades? Directed by Renny Harlin, and written by a whole host of writers, , the film was shot and conceived in the dying days of the 1980s, and it shows. Brash, rude, and obnoxious, the film served as a vehicle for Andrew Dice Clay, who at that time was attempting to mainstream himself in an attempt to reach greater stardom. His effort failed, and pretty badly, at that.

I remember seeing this film in the theatres, and the experience was literally an accident. I had won a free pass from a radio station contest for a showing of Air America, which was overbooked. So, the theatre usher suggested I see another film, that being Ford Fairlane.

I knew little about Andrew Dice Clay at that time, save for the recent controversy surrounding his appearance on "Saturday Night Live" just two months earlier and the chatter of a few middle school companions who had somehow familiarized themselves with his vulgar oeuvre.

But for a mostly dumb film about a rock and roll detective featuring a reviled comic, Ford Fairlane has an odd charm to it. Clay plays the title characters, whose investigation leads him through the seedy ins and outs of the music profession, meeting a bizarre cast of characters along the way. With a range of star cameos (including Vince Neil, Tone Loc, and Priscilla Presley) and featuring Wayne Newton as the villain, the film offers some amusing pop culture moments, though it's not great cinema. (Although the film does feature Ed O'Neill performing a dance called "Booty Time," which makes it certainly worth the rental, don't you think?).

Perhaps they thought they were creating a franchise? Few emerged from this experience unscathed. Harlin also directed 1990's Die Hard II, released just a week before hand. After the Cutthroat Island debacle, though, his career never really recovered. Clay's attempt at mainstreaming failed utterly, and he is mostly remember for being a vile comic whose career never made it past the early 1990s. For the most part, this film was the end of the line for him.

I remember being particularly fond of the soundtrack to the film, which featured a new tracks by Motley Crue ("Rock and Roll Junkie"), Queensryche ("Last Time in Paris"), and Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora (covering Jimi Hendrix's "The Wind Cries Mary."). To boot, the soundtrack began with Billy Idol's "Cradle of Love," the video for which is probably the most remembered artifact from this would-be Hollywood comedy blockbuster.

The film even spawned a brief four issue comic book series:




Here is the trailer to the film, which is heavy on Clay's obnoxious behavior:

Die Hard II (1990)

Released twenty years ago yesterday, on July 4, 1990, Die Hard II began the process of squandering the good will earned by the first film, released just two years before. Again starring Bruce Willis as John McLane, the film boasted a new director, Renny Harlin (who would also direct that summer's The Adventures of Ford Fairlane). The film attempted to hit some of the beats of the first film, and despite a brief cameo by Reginald VelJohnsen, the sequel did not have the heart and characterization that made it's predecessor more than a mere action movie.

This is not to say the film didn't at least try to be a solid action movie. Bonnie Bedelia returned as Holly, John's wife, and even William Atherton was back as the obnoxious television news reporter, Richard Thornburg. But the film was essentially a remake of the first film, this time set in an airport instead of a skyscraper office building. Like the Back to the Future sequels, it was fun, because we as viewers so enjoyed the first chapter, but in the end, the sequel felt too cheap and easy, like so many sequels inevitably do.

But back in 1990, we didn't know how awful this franchise would ultimately become. Just five years later, theatres would see the release of a second sequel, Die Hard with a Vengeance, about which we here at Chronological Snobbery blogged a bit on its fifteenth anniversary. But even then, this series of films had further to sink with its most recent sequel, Live Free or Die Hard.

Let's hope there's not another chapter in the works.

Batman Forever (June 16, 1995)

Fifteen years ago this week, on June 16, 1995, Batman Forever was released in theatres. Directed by Joel Schumacher, and starring Val Kilmer as the title character, the film was, quite frankly, a huge stinker. Not only did it attempt to introduce a new actor playing Batman (Michael Keaton had left after two films, as had director Tim Burton), it also sought to introduce a new sidekick, a new love interest, two new villains, and a number of minor characters (including those played by Debi Mazar and Drew Barrymore). This was certainly the beginning of the end for this version of the franchise, and the far worse Batman & Robin would doom it for good in 1997. I tried to rent Batman Forever and watch it again on this anniversary, but I just couldn't do it. I really tried, though. Can I have some credit for that, at least?

Kim Dickens, Zero Effect, and The Onion AV Club

A few weeks ago, Steve Heisler at The Onion AV Club profiled the actress Kim Dickens in that publication's Random Roles series. As a part of that ongoing series, the interviewer asks the performer about specific roles from their careers, from their most famous performances, to other, more minor bit roles from their past.

Get this: He did not ask her about Zero Effect, in which she played Gloria Sullivan.

I wondered why.

So I went to the source.

In a tweet, I asked Mr. Heisler if he had the chance to ask to her about that 1998 film.

His reply? "I didn't have time sadly. Sorry."

Oh, well. We'll always have our tenth anniversary coverage of the film's release.

Eddie Presley (1992) (Featuring an Original Interview with Writer/Star Duane Whitaker)

If you've heard of the film Eddie Presley, it may because of its connection to icons Quentin Tarantino or Bruce Campbell. If the presence of those two actors in this flick brought you to it, though, you're in store for a charming, though melancholy, indie feature. Today, we here at Chronological Snobbery look back at this 1992 film, and in so doing, we feature an original interview with Duane Whitaker, the film's star and screenwriter (as well as the author of the play upon which the film was based). Directed by Jeff Burr, the film features Whitaker as the title character, a troubled Elvis impersonator who sacrifices much of himself and his life for his dream. In so doing, he loses his wife and family, suffers a traumatic breakdown at a burger joint, and finds himself committed to a local mental institution. This is his life.

But all of that is his back story. When we first meet Eddie, he is a sad sack of a security guard trying to keep alive a dead-end relationship with an unfaithful waitress at a downtown diner. He lives in his van, which he parks on the street in the areas of Los Angeles the local chamber of commerce doesn't likely promote in its literature. His superior at the security guard company, Joe West (the late Lawrence Tierney, who would appear that same year in Reservoir Dogs), is out to get him. He has no mail at his post office box save for bills, and he has no messages from his answering service (which he must check from a pay phone). It is, in many ways, a sad film, which is to say that the viewer is affected by Eddie's plight. He is deserving of some level of sympathy, and the viewer is left to wonder, will he find his redemption? Still, he has some level of support from his friends, including Nick (Willard E. Pugh), Scooter (Ted Raimi), and Becky (Harri James), a chatty and nervous brunette who has a not-so-subtle crush on Eddie.

But his lifeblood is the King. He is a once and future Elvis impersonator, so dedicated to the King that he legally changed his surname to Presley as the ultimate homage. He hopes to resurrect his show business career, and in fostering that ambition, he relates to Elvis and his 1968 comeback special, which Eddie believes silenced the critics who believed that Elvis was finished prior to that triumphant return to the national stage. So, Eddie bides his time, waiting for his comeback.

Eddie's luck seems to change when he is offered a gig by Doc (the late Roscoe Lee Browne), the proprietor of Doc's Back Door, a night club featuring variety acts. Eddie's naive enthusiasm for the task at hand is both admirable and pitiable. He relishes the opportunity to return to the stage, and in so doing, he prints homemade fliers, which he hands out to any and all on the streets of L.A. A later montage reveals the fate of many of those fliers, including some that have been thrown to the ground or in public trash cans. His friends from work become his informal entourage, but his waitress girlfriend elects to work at the diner instead of attend the gig.

The gig, unfortunately, does not go without a hitch. The opening act, a magician, crashes and burns in a dramatic fashion. Eddie, for his part, confidently takes the stage in his jumpsuit and performs a rendition of "Dixie" which impresses the audience, many members of which may have come to the show with low expectations. Unfortunately, just as things are going so well, the fates intervene, and Eddie's performance tape, which hosts his background music, warps and becomes unplayable. Left without music to support his act, he is initially frustrated, but then uses the opportunity to confess to the audience his troubled past and his fondness for the King.

The 1967 film Clambake was his first introduction to Elvis, and after seeing that film at the theatre with his mother, he was hooked. As an adult, he opted to close his profitable pizza franchise in order to form an Elvis tribute act. This did not go well with his parents, or his wife, who opts for divorce. Despite losing a significant amount of money in that divorce, he formed a band, but it fell apart when he could no longer pay its members. He then carried on as a true solo act. Somewhere along the way, he even put out a vinyl single, the A-Side being an original composition, "That's What The King Means To Me," with "Hound Dog" as the B-side. Ultimately finding himself depressed, he suffered an emotional breakdown in a fast food restaurant, which resulted in his being committed (black and white flashbacks of which are peppered throughout the film). His wife then obtains a restraining order against him, which prevents him from seeing his young son. Broken and beaten, he ends up where we find him at the beginning of the film. All these difficult facts he relates to those assembled at the gig at Doc's, and it is powerful testimony indeed. It is then that the film ends with Eddie where he belongs: on stage.

Like many low budget independent films, there are some uneven performances. But Whitaker becomes Eddie, a figure who knows that many might consider his dream silly. He knows that friends and co-workers cast him in disdain. But he doesn't care about their ridicule. As he tells the crowd at Doc's, he is doing what his heart says is right, and that can't be wrong. Though he was committed, he finds his prior life of restless toil to be crazier than the pursuit of his dream.

Some other points of interest:

• As aforementioned, Tarantino and Campbell make very, very brief cameos as orderlies at the mental institution to which Presley is committed in a black and white flashback. Later promotional materials attempt to capitalize on these very brief appearances by these cult favorites. As noted below, outtakes from their scenes appear on the special edition DVD.
  
  
• Someone involved in the production obviously likes "Bewitched." There are multiple references to Paul Lynde and Eddie's dressing room at Doc's featuring a handwritten note scrawled above the mirror: "Agnes Moorehead is God." On that series, Moorehead played Endora, while Lynde played Uncle Arthur.
  
  
• Eddie is apparently a fan of Gore Vidal. In his van, he keeps a paperback copy of that author's 1985 novel, "Lincoln."
  
  
• Daniel Roebuck plays Keystone the Magnificent, the inartful magician who opens for Eddie at Doc's. Roebuck would go on to play Jay Leno in the 1996 HBO movie, The Late Shift.
  
  
• Clu Gulager plays a wonderfully sleazy, bottom feeding talent agent who offices out of Eddie's girlfriend's diner. Throughout the film, he attempts to prey upon young, naive would-be actresses.

In December of 2007, before this site went on an extended hiatus, Whitaker was kind enough to submit to a brief email interview with this site. In it, he noted as follows:

1. What is the primary difference between the film and the stage show on which it is based?

The play was a one man show that just started with the performance. The tape breaks and he kind of just ends up spilling his guts. It was written about my frustration of where my acting career was at the time. It was something I had been thinking about for a long time and when I sat down to write it -- it just kind of spewed out. The third act of the film is pretty much the play, Not exactly -- but a lot of it is in there.

2. What do you think became of Eddie Presley? What would he be doing in 2007?

I always thought it was a hopeful story. He says, "There will always be a place somewhere for Eddie Presley to do a show . . . ." I would think he would still be doing what he loves -- hopefully he would be more at peace with himself.

3. How does this film fit in with the wave of independent films that were coming onto the scene in the early 1990s? Do you consider it a part of that movement, and if so, why?

I guess it would be part of that movement. It kind of got lost, though. It played some festivals including the first South By Southwest festival in Austin and then ran on the Sundance Channel before anyone had the Sundance Channel. Until the DVD release, very few people were aware of the film. I'm happy it's out there now for anyone who does want to see it.

4. How did Quentin Tarantino and Bruce Campbell come to play the role of the mental institution orderlies?

Bruce and Quentin were both knew the director, Jeff Burr, I believe. If I remember, it was going to be Quentin and Sam Raimi but Sam got a cooler gig and Bruce was nice enough to step in. Stuff that was cut from that scene is on the DVD extras -- pretty cool.

The second DVD includes 37 minutes of deleted scenes as well as 12 minutes of black and white outtakes from the mental asylum flashback sequence, which includes footage of both Campbell and Tarantino. Some screen captures from that footage are found below:





Speaking of Tarantino, you've probably seen Whitaker in action before and didn't know it. In Pulp Fiction, he played Maynard (depicted below), the pawn shop owner who, along with Zed (Peter Greene), take Butch (Bruce Willis) and Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) hostages for their own nefarious purposes. Maynard dies at the hands of a katana-wielding Butch.

Whitaker would go on to write and star in From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money, a sequel to the film written by and starring Tarantino.

Braveheart (May 24, 1995)

Released fifteen years ago today, on May 24, 1995, was Braveheart, the film directed, produced, and starring Mel Gibson, then a huge, huge Hollywood star. The film won Academy Awards for both Best Picture and Best Director, as well as three other Oscars for this and that. But was it deserving of those accolades then, and does it hold up now, a decade and a half later?

In 2010, it's hard not be at least a bit cynical about Braveheart, with its simplistic and historically inaccurate plot, its cartoonish villain King Edward I (played by Patrick McGoohan of "The Prisoner"), and its uncompromising hero protagonist, William Wallace, whose political ideology, as depicted by Gibson, seems to be merely shouting the word "freedom" to the masses. Any hero who struts about spouting platitudes like "Every man dies, not every man truly lives" risks losing the sympathy of the cinema-goer, who may well root for the evil king after that.

The direction by Gibson is okay, I suppose, and there are some beautiful shots of Scottish landscapes. But the battle sequences have nothing on the later work of Steven Spielberg, or even Peter Jackson (who was creating fictitious warfare from alternate universes). Watching some of the staged cinematic battle, I wondered if Gibson's philosophy was to simply take a few random wide shots of the chaos, and then, every few seconds, intersperse a staged swing of the sword by Wallace or some other heroic Scotsmen, and then repeat that process again and again. That sort of back and forth cutting doesn't really do the entire battle justice; rather, it seems that there was little thought to the choreography of the battle as a whole. They are hardly epic scenes.

Perhaps one of the narrative mistakes was to attempt to tell a full origin story of Wallace, a historical figure whose true origin and family life is mostly unknown (save for an inaccurate historical poem which served as the basis for screenwriter Randall Wallace's script). The film starts in his youth, during which his formative experiences include seeing the aftermath of the English king's treachery and the ultimate death of this father and brother at the hands of the English. Young Wallace falls in love Murron MacClannough (Catherine McCormack), who he secretly marries in order to prevent an English lord from claiming a right under the curious doctrine of jus primae noctics (which, essentially, means that the governing English lord can sleep with any bride in the region on her wedding night). But their secret marriage does not last long; Murron is executed by the English after an altercation with an English soldier. The sudden loss of his love drives Wallace to join an already brewing rebellion against the English king. (Curiously, in his later and very similar film, The Patriot, it is again the loss of a loved one, and not politics, that causes Gibson's protagonist to enter into an armed uprising against the English.). The rest of the film is battle after battle and scene of purported political intrigue after scene of purported political intrigue. Historical figures who were never in the same room somehow find each other and interact as friends, enemies, or lovers. (You can't help but roll your eyes when Gibson's Wallace somehow beds Princess Isabelle (the lovely French actress Sophie Marceau), wife of Prince Edward, son of the film's villain, King Edward I). All of this is done in the name of drama. Perhaps Gibson wanted to craft an "epic film," but unfortunately, an epic is not just a period piece with a running time approaching three hours.

Certainly, it's difficult to watch the film now and not recall the countless parodies and satires that have been staged since the film's release a decade and a half ago. To boot, watching Gibson in this role, one cannot separate Gibson the actor from Gibson the drunken kook:

Gibson's off screen antics of the past few years really have thwarted his ability to occupy a role, even those that he took and performed many years before those antics. Perhaps it's unfair to judge a 1995 would-be epic by the subsequent misbehavior of its star, but it can't be helped.

Watching the film again, I couldn't quite put my finger on my misgivings with the script, then I turned to Wikipedia for a bit of context: Screenwriter Randall Wallace would go on to pen 2001's disastrous Pearl Harbor (starring Ben Affleck) as well as write and direct the mediocre Gibson flick, We Were Soldiers in 2002. He wrote songs with Richard Marx in 2008. There you go.

In sum, the film is dated, overly simplistic, and cliche-ridden, not unlike most films Gibson has done since 1995. It's a shame, really, because Gibson was once a likable and bankable star, but now, he's just a paranoid parody of himself who has gone too far off the reservation. When he decided that he wanted to be a "serious film-maker," that was the end of the Gibson we knew.

Braveheart is where all of that began, meaning that today is not much of an anniversary.

Oh, well.

Die Hard With A Vengeance (1995)

Fifteen years ago yesterday, on May 19, 1995, the film Die Hard: With A Vengeance was released in theatres. It's difficult not to yawn when reflecting back upon this wholly unnecessary sequel. Despite that, I have a distinct memory of the guys in my dormitory being particularly excited about the release of this film, and we ventured out to the local theatre to see it, likely on the very day of its release. It remains the perfect example of a film franchise staying well beyond its welcome (which says nothing of the poorly received Live Free or Die Hard, released in 2007).

The original Die Hard, from 1988, earned such good will with moviegoers because of its action sequences, characterization, and in particular, the chemistry between actors Bruce Willis and Reginald VelJohnson. Two years later, when Die Hard II hit theatres, it was more of the same, part remake of the original, part attempt to expand the scope and stakes of the original film. By 1995, the producers apparently thought that they needed to change the formula, which had worked so well in the first film (trapped in a high rise building) and reworked only marginally well for the second sequel (trapped in and around a major metropolitan airport). So, they said, why not transplant John McClane back to his native New York and see what happens?

Yawn.

The addition of Samuel L. Jackson (hot off his success with Pulp Fiction, released less than a year beforehand) seemed more like stunt casting than a wise choice. The narrative was forgettable, and by that time, Willis seemed to be going through the motions. There were none of the nice character moments which made the first film such a joy to watch. The attempt to revisit the first film by making the villain (Jeremy Irons) a brother of Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) from the first film just seemed like lazy pandering to the viewer.

Of course, looking back fifteen years, we didn't know how much worse things would get. After a twelve year hiatus, Willis returned as McClane in the aforementioned third sequel. It was so bad, in fact, that surely George Lucas was involved in that sequel in some way, shape, or form.

Really, in the end, Die Hard is not unlike Back to the Future. It's a big budget film that was clever and earned such critical and popular acclaim, that we really, really want to forgive the many flaws of their inevitable sequels. In both cases, though, we simply cannot. Alas.

Really? Another Robin Hood Film? Really?

Today sees the release of yet another Robin Hood movie, this time a big budget Hollywood flick starring Russell Crowe and directed by Ridley Scott, both of whom worked together a decade ago on Gladiator. Crowe, of course, stars as Robin Hood, with Cate Blanchett as Maid Marian.

Here we go again.

Didn't we do this in 1991 with Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman, and Alan Rickman? Is Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves so horrible or forgotten that we must revisit this well again?

But there's more.

Hollywood actually produced not one but two Robin Hood films in 1991. There was the aforementioned version starring Costner, but another, Robin Hood, featuring Patrick Bergin in the title role and Uma Thurman as Maid Marian. (Bergin, you might remember, played the abusive husband of Julia Roberts' character in the 1991 film, Sleeping with the Enemy).

In fact, the Robin Hood film club was so saturated that by 1993, Mel Brooks took on the genre with his Robin Hood: Men in Tights, with Cary Elwes as the famed bandit. (That film's best meta moment? The following line by Elwes: "[U]nlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English accent."). When Mel Brooks opts to parody something, just as when Weird Al decides to cover a particular song, the popular culture cycle is complete and should be shortly retired.

But that's not all. Film history has some perfectly beloved classic films based upon the Robin Hood. Errol Flynn assumed the role way back in 1938 in The Adventures of Robin Hood. Great flick, although the costumes - especially that of Will Scarlett - do look a bit silly 72 years later. The best exchange in that film? Lady Marian: Why, you speak treason! Robin Hood: Fluently.

There's even the 1973 Disney animated film, Robin Hood, which I must confess, seemed to me to be a lot older than 1973. Whatever the case, cinema culture is inundated with Robin Hood adaptations. There's even a BBC series based on the Robin Hood legend which began to air three years ago. There can be no justification for further meddling with this medieval tale. Alas.

Crimson Tide (1995)

Fifteen years ago today, on May 12, 1995, the action flick Crimson Tide saw its release. Just five years after the release of The Hunt for Red October, the country was apparently hungry for another submarine movie. Directed by Tony Scott, produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, and with credited writers Michael Schiffer and Richard P. Henrick, the film starred Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman. The intriguing part: Quentin Tarantino did a series of uncredited rewrites on the script (adding, no doubt, the Silver Surfer dialogue). I can't say that I was ever a fan of this film, and I have no memories of any kind associated with it.

But that must have been a heck of a weekend for Tarantino. That Friday, he saw the release of this film, and the night before, May 11, 1995, NBC aired the episode of "ER" he had directed (which we here at Chronological Snobbery recalled in some level of detail in yesterday's post).

On that fateful 1995 weekend, he was only 32 years old.

Sigh.

Short Time (1990)

Released twenty years ago today, on May 4, 1990, was Short Time, a silly comedy written by John Blumenthal and Michael Berry and starring Dabney Coleman, Matt Frewer, and Teri Garr. The premise: Burt Simpson (Coleman), a soon to retire police detective, learns two critical facts: He has but two weeks to live, and his family will not be entitled to his retirement benefits if he dies of natural causes. The problem: The diagnosis is in error, and he is in fact perfectly healthy. However, he spends the bulk of the film taking wild risks in an effort to be killed in the line of duty, thereby ensuring his family's security. Those attempts are played for comedy. I'm not certain that I ever saw this film, and if I did, it was sometime in the early 1990s on basic cable.

This concept cries out for a remake. Imagine a dark, gritty revisiting of this film done for drama rather than slapstick comedy. Denzel Washington stars as Burt Simpson, a grizzled cop whose imminent retirement plan is disrupted when his doctor (Philip Seymour Hoffman) informs him that he has but two weeks to live. Simpson uses the opportunity to recklessly pursue the villainous drug lord (Russell Crowe) against whom he could never quite build a case. But that is surely not to be. These days, Hollywood only remakes old big budget action and horror flicks.

The film apparently never made it to DVD, which is unfortunate, as we enjoy the work of Dabney Coleman. After all, he starred in 1983's Cloak and Dagger, which we here at Chronological Snobbery remember fondly. And who could forget his 1980s sitcom, "The Slap Maxwell Story?"

Miami Blues (1990)

Twenty years ago today, on April 20, 1990, the film Miami Blues was released. It starred Alec Baldwin as Frederick Frenger, a con man and murderer who impersonates a police officer. Rounding out the cast were the lovely Jennifer Jason Leigh as Baldwin's pixie-esque love interest and Fred Ward as his police foil. Surely, the film received some attention at the time, as only a month and a half before its release, The Hunt for Red October, featuring Baldwin as Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, had been released to popular and critical acclaim. But these days, little is remembered about Miami Blues, a film based on the book by Charles Willeford and written and directed by George Armitage, who would go on to direct the wonderful Grosse Pointe Blank seven years later. (Not everyone has forgotten the film, though: Two years ago, The Onion A.V. Club featured Miami Blues in its New Cult Canon series.).

But look how different Baldwin looks on the poster as opposed to how he looks now as we know him as an older, much funnier comic actor on TV's "30 Rock." My, how time flies. And look at how cute the then 28 year old Leigh was at the time with her incredibly short haircut:

Of course, if you're doing an Internet search for any other screen captures from the film, good luck finding anything other than nude pictures of Jennifer Jason Leigh. Oh, well.

The Stoned Age (1994) (Including New Interview with Director James Melkonian)

What better film to revisit on 4/20 than 1994's The Stoned Age, a comedy set in the 1970's dedicated to the proposition that even routine deadbeats can find a night of misadventure if the stars are properly aligned? Today, Chronological Snobbery is proud to present its review and analysis of that film, as well as an original interview with its director, James Melkonian.

Written by Melkonian and Rich Wilkes, and directed by Melkonian (who would later write and direct 1995's The Jerky Boys flick), the film is a low budget look at high school life in the late 1970s and the social dilemmas confronted by those in that world. Perhaps its most important lesson: Beware of lasers striking you at Blue Oyster Cult rock shows. Released one year after Dazed and Confused, The Stoned Age still has a nice charm to it, in that way that some indie flicks of the early 1990s still do, despite the passage of so many years.

Above: The film's protagonists, Hubbs and Joe.

The plot: Hubbs (Bradford Tatum) and Joe (Michael Kopelow) are two burnouts looking for something to do on a weekend night. They ride around in Hubbs' vehicle, dubbed the "Blue Torpedo," which has a large flying eyeball painted on its side. Armed with only a bag of "skankweed" and a huge bottle of Schnapps ("The Schnappster!"), they scour the town for parties and chicks. An alpha-male burnout bully, Hubbs takes for granted his friendship with Joe, who is often the object of insults by Hubbs. Joe, for his part, is a far more sensitive soul, especially after a bizarre experience he had at a recent Blue Oyster Cult concert. It appears that during the solo of "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," a laser shone directly upon him, at which point "everything got kind of weird" when he had a vision of a "huge gnarly eyeball." Yikes.

Above: Joe is hit by a laser at the Blue Oyster Cult show.

The cardinal sin in this world is to be a "worm," namely, one who pilfers from another the opportunity to pursue "chicks." You see, information about the existence and location of single females is great currency. Rumor gets out that Crump's Brother (known by no other name in the film), recently released from jail, has located "some chicks." Tack (Clifton Collins, Jr.), an acne-plagued deadbeat, wanders off with this information, but ultimately alerts Hubbs and Joe, who ditch Tack and make their way to the home where the chicks are staying, which happens to be near "the old Frankie Avalon home," a convenient landmark. This irks Tack, who spends the rest of the film attempting to regain possession of the chicks.

Hubbs and Joe find the two chicks: the blonde Lanie (Renee Griffin), who multiple characters comment looks like the girl on a Scorpions album cover, and the dour brunette Jill (China Kantner) who is, at best, unappreciative of the presence of the two deadbeats at her father's home. Madcap hijinks ensue as Hubbs and Joe first attempt to buy liquor for Lanie, who is apparently accustomed to more adventurous suitors than they. Then, the four of them trek across town to a party held at the home of jock Jimmy Muldoon (Jake Busey), who admits Lanie and Jill but bars Hubbs and Joe from the party. When that affair is busted by the cops, the foursome escape back to the girls' home, only to be besieged by Tack and his cadre of beer swilling friends, and later, the very angry Crump's Brother who, it turns out, only claims the chicks because he saw them first and not because he actually knew them.

And then, after all that, Jill's father arrives. Hubbs and Joe can't catch a break.

Above: Lanie (Renee Griffin) opens the door and scowls at Hubbs and Joe.

Hubbs spends much of the film attempting to woo the traditionally hot Lanie, who ultimately accepts his bedroom advances. (Nudity alert!) Joe also spends much of the film pursuing Lanie, who rejects him, but who also causes him to realize that sometimes the girl who doesn't look like she belongs on a heavy metal album cover is the right one. He also owes this epiphany to his being hit by the laser, an experience Joe revisits often during the film. The bookish and demure Jill, initially stand-offish, warms up to Joe, and by the end of the film, they realize their mutual attraction for each other. (Joe scores major points by praising her intelligence when standing up to Jill's angry father, who seems to wish his daughter was more like Lanie.).

Above: Hubbs and Joe.

Located via his Facebook account, Melkonian was kind enough to submit to a brief email interview about the film and his experiences in bringing it to life.

1) Looking back from 2010, what do you think of 1994's The Stoned Age and its place in film history?

It is hard to say what place The Stoned Age has in film history. To me, I like to think it is in league with films like American Graffitti or Dazed And Confused, but since it was made for so small a budget and never really promoted, it is hard to say how many people even know the film. I honestly think it does a good job of capturing and satirizing the attitudes of a certain time period and subculture, and is actually funny, which makes it worthy of some note. The fact that it has a loyal albeit small following even 16 years later makes me think that it does deserve a place along with those other films.

2) What were some of the challenges you faced in making the film?

The tough thing was trying to get it made at all as an R rated teen comedy and with me as a first time director. My writing partner (Rich Wilkes) and I had a lot of interest from studios for the script, but since it was before American Pie or Superbad had cleared the way for R rated teen comedies, the studios wanted to make it a PG. So, we ended up making the film for a tiny budget so that we could do it with all the language, sex and drug references which were important to capture that world authentically.

3) I've read that although the year the film is set is not stated, you had 1978 in mind. Thus, it's been sixteen years since the film was released in 1994, and the film was set sixteen years before that. What do you think became of the characters shown in the film?

Hah! In some ways to me the characters seem so much part of the world of that time and the film, it's hard for me to imagine what they might being doing today. I would assume Joe, Hubbs and Jill would have ended up okay and been productive members of society like many of us who might have been rowdy in our youth. Things may not have gone so well for Tack and Lanie, but I hope they turned out okay. The 70s were an odd time to grow up with all of the drugs and debauchery, but most people I know no matter how off the deep end they were back then turned out okay.

Until a few days ago, when I began preparations for this post, I had not seen this movie since 2000. (Get this: The film can be streamed on Netflix.). It has a some amusing moments and catchphrases, and there is always a charm to a film made at this budgetary level. Much of the humor and fun comes from the characters themselves, their exploits, social etiquette, and slang. (A favorite moment: One character is almost offended when offered a regular sized can of the fictitious beer, Ox 45, because it is not a "tall."). For a low budget flick with a cast of unknowns, it works, and sometimes, even just the characters repeating phrases like "Tack's Chicks," "Crump's Brother's Chicks," or variations of the insult "worm" are enough to provoke a laugh.

For a film called The Stoned Age, there isn't much marijuana. Joe has a bag of "skankweed" with which he attempts to seduce Lanie in a hot tub, although she rejects it for its poor quality. Joe ultimately smokes it with Lanie, but despite it's title, the film is not really a pot comedy.

Above: Tack (Clifton Collins, Jr.) tries to find transportation to the chicks.

So, what became of the cast? As the blogger Darsh has noted at the HappyOtter blog, few of the actors and actresses in the film achieved any level of success after 1994; only Clifton Collins, Jr. truly remains active in the profession. For a film set in the 1970s, it's odd that there were no references to Jefferson Airplane, especially since Jill was played by China Kantner, the daughter of singer Grace Slick and vocalist Paul Kantner. (In fact, an infant China Kantner appeared on the cover of the 1971 LP Sunfighter by Slick and Paul Kantner, who were doing a solo effort away from Jefferson Airplane.). Social media alert: Michael Kopelow, who played Joe, has a MySpace Profile and plays in the band, Captain Pants. And finally, behold, the trailer for the film: