MY MOVIE SHELF: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 22 Days to go: 18

Movie #418:  Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

I used to own Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves on DVD, which would’ve sufficed, except one day my husband opened the case and the disc was gone. So I bought the replacement on blu-ray, online, where I can’t inspect the packaging, and wound up with some ridiculous extended version containing twelve previously unreleased minutes. For crying out loud. The reason these particular twelve minutes were unreleased is that they are superfluous and unnecessary and more often than not disrupt and corrupt the flow and story of the movie. Stop foisting them on the unsuspecting public.

My friend and I watched Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves an inordinate number of times back in high school. We talked about it constantly, too, months after the fact, when we were no doubt supposed to be paying attention in AP American History. We even developed all sorts of nonsensical conspiracy theories about it. Like how Azeem (Morgan Freeman) calls Robin Hood (Kevin Costner) “Christian,” while Robin Hood’s rival-slash-secret-brother Will Scarlett is played by CHRISTIAN Slater. Or how Azeem makes this big speech about being FREE MEN, when the actor is Morgan FREEMAN. Most of our theories centered around Azeem. None of them made any sense. However, we do both agree that the first time we saw the movie there was a scene AFTER Robin and Azeem catapulted themselves over the castle wall that Will tried to do the same stunt, only solo, and crashed into the wall. This made perfect sense to us, since Will not weighing as much by himself as Robin and Azeem weighed together would mean he wouldn’t get as much force and distance off the catapult. Only, that scene was never in any other version of the film — and for all the pointless extra twelve minutes on this disc, it’s not here either — and we never saw it again. But we’re CERTAIN we didn’t imagine it.

I don’t know that I can properly convey just how corny this movie is, especially since I still voluntarily own it, but it’s pretty ridiculous. Alan Rickman is gloriously overacting all over the place, even slobbering spit at times because he’s going all out as the Sheriff of Nottingham. And there’s even some crazy witch lady (Geraldine McEwan) declaring that Marion (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) is fertile and Nottingham should plant his seed to ensure a son with royal blood. There’s talk of cutting hearts out with spoons, and there’s Robin rubbing horse shit all over himself as a disguise, and there’s Friar Tuck (Michael McShane) being a belligerent but funny drunk, and there’s the world’s maybe second-ever c-section (my friend pointed out to me that Caesar was obviously born by the first), and there’s Kevin Costner’s bare white ass swimming by a waterfall. And that’s not even half of it. It’s kind of batshit crazy, but I still will watch it any time.

I really honestly used to think this movie was phenomenal, and that all the performances were great, the story was fantastic, the characters and the dialogue were sensational and clever, and the cinematography, especially, was award-worthy.  I even used to think the Sean Connery as Richard the Lionhearted was the best cameo of all time. And if that doesn’t prove just how bad teenagers are at discerning quality, then I don’t know what to tell you.

MY MOVIE SHELF: The Legend of Billie Jean

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 39 Days to go: 29

Movie #401:  The Legend of Billie Jean

There is no number of times for me to watch The Legend of Billie Jean that is too many. I was positively obsessed with this movie as a kid and I still will literally drop everything to watch it if I catch it on TV today. It’s one of those films that really tapped into my pre-adolescent sense of justice and formed a lot of my early opinions on social, financial and gender inequalities. Which is maybe a lot to put on a movie fearing characters named Binx (Christian Slater), Putter (Yeardley Smith, who I will always associate with this role and never with Lisa Simpson) and Hubie (Barry Tubb), but here we are.

Helen Slater (who is not related to Christian at all, despite my lifelong belief that they were actual siblings — which I only debunked this very minute in preparation for this post, so I may need to lie down) plays the young woman of the eponymous legend, though when we first meet her she is just a down-home Texas teen who loves and looks our for her younger brother Binx. Binx mostly just loves his Honda Elite scooter — the fanciest and best thing these two poor kids from the trailer park have ever owned. But good old Hubie was a bro before bros were a thing, and he and his friends liked to give Billie Jean a hard time in that aspiring-sexual-harasser way while simultaneously bullying Binx. Things escalate and Hubie winds up stealing (and trashing) Binx’s scooter, then kicking his ass when Binx goes to retrieve it. So Billie Jean, a warrior for justice in a “pretty girl’s” clothing, shows up at Hubie’s father’s store looking for the cost of the scooter’s repairs. Only Mr. Pyatt (Richard Bradford) is clearly where Hubie learned all his early sexual assault moves, as Pyatt promises to pay Billie Jean back on an “earn as you learn” “lay-away” plan, which is exactly as sleazy and maliciously intended as it sounds. The confrontation winds up with Pyatt getting shot in the shoulder and the kids (including Billie Jean’s friends Ophelia, played by Martha Gehman, who was there, and Putter, who was not but likes to tag along) fleeing the scene and going on the run (if staying in the exact same vicinity of their crime can be considered being on the run).  They don’t mean to cause any trouble, but they refuse to turn themselves in without the Pyatts paying what they owe. And so the legend is born, as people in town — and maybe in all of Texas — villify and glorify her in equal measure: copying her Impulsive Haircut of Female Empowerment, profiting off her image as a lawless rebel, crowdfunding a new scooter and possibly a defense fund before the internet even existed, or shooting at her on a crowded street for no particular reason other than the news says she’s infamous.

It’s not the best movie in the world, by a long shot, but one of the things I love about it is how Billie Jean becomes a champion for the disadvantaged. She knows people treat her and her family as less because they have no money, because they are of a lower class. And she knows adults in media and law enforcement don’t believe their story because they’re “just kids” and are considered lacking in credibility by default. And she also knows from experience that men will try to exploit and take advantage of her beauty and her weakness due to her status and her sex, but she doesn’t let that deter her from what’s right and what’s fair.

On the other hand, Binx is decidedly dim and impulsive in the movie, over and over again. He goes off angrily to retrieve his scooter on his own, he cocks and pulls the trigger of a weapon its owner unconvincingly lied about leaving it unloaded, he pulls a toy gun on a police detective (Peter Coyote) because he thinks this is a game, and he even tries to fire back at a man shooting at them with his plastic pistol because I guess he doesn’t understand that toys don’t work that way. He learns very little over the course of their exploits, because even as he is disguised as Billie Jean in an effort to see the scooter fixed and turn themselves in peacefully, he lets his emotions take over, gestures his toy gun hand at the antagonizing Hubie, and gets shot in the shoulder by a sniper for it. But Billie Jean has her eye on the ball the entire time. She feels the threatening presence of Hubie and his father and tries to diffuse it, tries to avoid it. She knows this isn’t a game, but she also knows they’ll never get any justice if they’re brought in by police right away. When she sees how the media and the public and the Pyatts are spreading lies about her, she knows the only way to get her message out is to put it there herself. And she knows the hero-worship is just as overblown as the vilification, but the truth at the heart of the it is what really matters.

The movie contains some nice Joan of Arc imagery, who was also a woman glorified and unfairly demonized, and there’s a sweet little romantic subplot with the adorable Keith Gordon (as Lloyd), who mostly just wants to provoke his father the District Attorney (Dean Stockwell, forever the Al Calavicci of my heart) but who also is instantly drawn to Billie Jean and respects her as well. They even treat Putter getting her period for the first time as a beautiful transition into womanhood rather than something to hide or be ashamed of, as if the legend in The Legend of Billie Jean is actually about how women everywhere learned to be strong, powerful forces of agency and their own best interests.

Plus, Pat Benatar’s “Invincible,” is one of the greatest movie pop song themes of all time, and is way better than any other single she ever put out. I will hear no argument on this. (And Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell,” also featured in the film, is way better than “White Wedding.” These are indisputable facts.)

MY MOVIE SHELF: Young Guns II

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 129 Days to go: 90

Movie #311:  Young Guns II

Here’s the funny thing about timing: Young Guns came out in 1988 and was rated R. I couldn’t see it. Young Guns II came out in 1990, had EVEN MORE of my teenage crushes in it, featured an exclusive soundtrack by sexy rock god Jon Bon Jovi, and was rated PG-13. And so I became a big fan of Young Guns II without ever having seen the original Young Guns.

I saw Young Guns II a bunch. I had extended, in-depth conversations about it with a friend, who also had a penchant for movies and cowboys, when we should’ve been paying attention in math, probably. And, yes, I had a Young Guns II poster up in my room, because I had a million posters and pictures and pinups and cutouts from Bop! and Tiger Beat magazine up on my walls. But it was a personal fave.

Eventually, of course, I did see Young Guns, but I’ve always thought Young Guns II was better, and not for merely the teeny-bopper reasons you might think. So I bought Young Guns II, way back about a million years ago, and added it to my DVD collection, without ever having the slightest inclination to buy Young Guns. Such is life.

Despite being something of a completist when it came to movie franchises — especially in the early years of my fixation with buying DVDs — I’ve never felt guilty about not owning Young Guns, primarily because Young Guns II is almost like an entirely different movie from the original, only with some of the same principal characters played by the same principal actors — but not like it’s actually a sequel at all. (I apply this same sort of logic to my brother and I, who have such a wide age gap between us I’ve often said we’re like two only children who just happen to have been raised by the same parents.) Young Guns tells the straight-up tale of Billy the Kid (Emilio Estevez) and his band of vigilantes-turned-criminals (or, at least, it’s as straight up as a biography that’s as much legend as it is fact can possibly be). It ends with Doc (Kiefer Sutherland) moving back to New York and getting married, Chavez (Lou Diamond Phillips) finding work in California, and Billy being shot in the back by Pat Garrett (played by Patrick Wayne in that film). Young Guns II, however, reunites the gang in a bit of literal revisionist history, by framing the tale as the memories of one “Brushy” Bill Roberts, a real man who, in 1950, claimed to be Billy the Kid.

Young Guns II, therefore, could either be a complete fabrication or a fascinating alternate history. It attempts to pick up where Young Guns leaves off, telling the travels of Billy’s gang after their time as Regulators in the Lincoln County War all the way up to Billy’s supposed death (in this film Pat Garrett is played by William Petersen). However, in this version, Doc and Chavez are still very much in the mix. There are references here and there to, for instance, Doc having gone off to New York and come back again, but the threads are never really connected all that well. It’s like the first film might as well not have existed (not a complaint, just an observation). And that seems to be an intentional feature of the film, too, because according to this one, Billy the Kid skipped out on his own funeral and stole Pat Garrett’s horse. It’s an interesting new perspective

For a hormonal teenage girl, however, the real draw was the cast of incredibly telegenic actors dressed up as scruffy cowboys. In addition to the main trio, Young Guns II also boasts Christian Slater as Arkansas Dave Rudabaugh (the greatest rhyming cowboy villain name I’ve ever heard). And if you were a fan of Cameron in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, well Alan Ruck is here too. There was also the confusing and alluring presence of Balthazar Getty as Tommy, who my friend and I had taken notice of in Lord of the Flies earlier that year (we HATED it, but there was something about him — it might’ve been the weird name). I swear, to this day I can’t decide if we thought he was cute or if we thought he was wimpy. But I know I’ve always paid attention whenever I’ve seen his name come up anywhere since. (Another fun thing about re-watching a movie from 25 years ago is finding all the actors in little roles who were nothing then but are totally noticeable now — Look at Viggo Mortensen hanging out with Pat Garrett!)

As for other merits, Young Guns II, as far as I’m concerned, does a pretty great job of looking more polished and put together than its predecessor, and that can actually go a long way in a person’s enjoyment of a film. If you need more than that, though, I also think the performances are strong and considered, with particular attention paid to the relationships of Billy’s gang, how Billy sometimes gets too capricious with the lives he takes in his hands, and how betrayed he feels by Pat. By that same token, the movie does a lot of work to make Pat Garrett a man and not just a figure — it portrays him as vain and as arrogant and as a showy, self-righteous, ultimate failure, but it rounds him out more than any other portrayal I’ve seen has ever done. And while there’s a dearth of women in the film, Jane Greathouse (Jenny Wright) conspiring with Billy and telling off Pat and riding off into the night wearing nothing but her boots certainly makes the most of her time on the screen.

Plus, have I mentioned “Blaze of Glory?” That song rocks. Young Guns never had a song. Now tell me which is the better film.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Pump Up the Volume

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 166  Days to go: 159

Movie #217:  Pump Up the Volume

To my fifteen-year-old self, in the weeks before I started tenth grade, there was no teen heartthrob who made my heart throb harder than Christian Slater (that voice, those eyes, that irreverence, the very definition of cool), and there was no movie more essential, more profound, more knowledgeable about my thoughts and my fears than Pump Up the Volume. I wanted to live inside it and never come out, and oh how I wanted to be as brave and as bold (even if it was only on the inside) as Happy Harry Hard-On and the Eat Me-Beat Me Lady.

Slater plays Mark Hunter, a painfully shy student new to his high school in Arizona. He knows no one and doesn’t have the confidence to speak up, so he lives a pretty lonely, miserable existence. To vent his frustrations and speak his mind, he hides behind the anonymity of a pirate radio broadcast he performs from his basement (it was before there was an internet, much less forums and comment boards to troll), where he disguises his voice and calls himself Hard Harry and pantomimes (with sound effects, because radio) frequent masturbation on the air. Not that I really understood any of that at first.

I was a pretty goody-two-shoes kind of kid. I mean, I liked to pretend I wasn’t, and it’s not like I never got into some mischief, but I rarely ever did anything really all that shocking or inappropriate or over the line. So when the movie came out, to be perfectly blunt, I’d never seen an erection up close, and I sure as hell couldn’t tell you if it was bigger than a baby’s arm. It was probably a year before I even knew all the phalluses in the film actually were phalluses, much less think to question where they all came from. I was also incredibly naive about male masturbation (girls don’t grow up just knowing this happens the way boys do, I don’t think — I certainly didn’t), so I didn’t understand all those references either. I eventually connected all the dots, of course, but I distinctly remember Not Quite Getting It at first.

The beautiful thing, however, is that it’s not necessary to understand all the sex jokes in Pump Up the Volume to get the more critical, universal message of the pain and fear and confusion of adolescence.  I definitely got that. I understood the pressure of Paige (Cheryl Pollak) to be perfect and live up to her parents’ expectations. I understood feeling all alone, like Malcolm (Anthony Lucero) — to the point where I was made incredibly uncomfortable by his suicide because it hit too close to home to thoughts I’d sometimes entertained (it’s not “acceptable” to say you’ve thought about suicide, but I always thought about everything, and being a highly empathetic person, I would often put myself in the shoes of someone else to understand their perspective, so I found myself feeling and comprehending that kind of pain even if it was far too much for me to ever consider it an option). I knew what it was like to be Mark, screaming on the inside but unable to voice any of it in person, and I had the heart of Nora (Samantha Mathis), our dear Eat Me-Beat Me Poetry Lady, who was wild but wasn’t, sexually piqued yet innocent and unsure, longing for that kindred spirit who speaks to her soul.

“Harry” also exposes corruption and shady dealings at the school, and things of course come to a head when teachers and parents and the school board and the FCC all start getting riled up over the existence of this incendiary show, but I always saw it as a beacon of justice: “The Truth is a Virus.” Because I was a teenager, and that’s exactly how I was supposed to see it. How we all were supposed to see it. The movie dealt with the uncertainty of fitting in socially and sexually and academically. It was about how all of us are weird, all of us are outcasts, all of us are misfits — the dropouts and the golden girls, alike. And if that’s the case, “So be it.”

MY MOVIE SHELF: Interview with the Vampire

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 227  Days to go: 232

Movie #150:  Interview with the Vampire

Once again, we find ourselves at a movie adapted from a very popular book, in which book fans were severely disappointed and I, having tried and failed to ever get into the book, dug the film immensely. In fact, my appreciation for Interview with the Vampire only grows with time.

Kirsten Dunst is everything in this movie, and there’s not a soul on earth who will disagree with that. As child vampire Claudia, Dunst is delicate and doll-like, yet a vicious and unconscionable murderer. She embodies everything sweet and loving about a child, as well as everything selfish and temperamental, unable to process her complicated emotions and unwilling to delay gratification. She is a spoiled little princess and a terrifying monster. Her performance is riveting, hypnotic, intense. Her mood swings keep everyone on edge, from other characters in the film to the film’s audience themselves. Her pain and anger over never growing up, over forever being this porcelain doll, is heart-wrenching, and yet so, so scary. The vengeance she takes on Lestat (Tom Cruise) for damning her to this life is one of the more haunting things I’ve ever seen in a film, but it’s nothing — NOTHING — compared to the vengeance the Paris vampires take on Claudia. It’s no wonder her existence centers the film and that even though the story is technically about Louis (Brad Pitt) and his life as a vampire, it revolves totally around Claudia — her death, her rebirth, and her destruction.

I feel like Interview with the Vampire was a turning point for Brad Pitt’s career. He’d been working a long time, and he’d even had some starring roles at that time, in notable, interesting things like Cool World, Kalifornia and A River Runs Through It, but Interview with the Vampire (and Legends of the Fall, which came out maybe two months later) brought him to the big time — costarring with A-listers in big marquee films. None of that might’ve been possible without Interview.

The trick with playing Louis is that he’s got to be charismatic and sympathetic enough to carry the film, to be a narrator we care about, while also being the melancholy figure who so frustrates Lestat. (He’s not wrong when he accuses Louis of whining all the time.) It’s this balance of personality and sorrow that is so alluring and attractive to the interviewer (Christian Slater) while still failing to relay (perhaps by whining too much, and thereby being tuned out) what a damned existence it is. From the first moments in the interview room, to the first moments of the story, when Louis is still human and mourning his wife and child, he radiates sadness and loss. He is withdrawn and depressive, constantly in existential crisis yet resigned to it. And yet, his love — his raw NEED — for Claudia is almost tangible, it’s so strong. How else would he act but to indulge and spoil her, to grant her every wish? She’s everything to him, making her insistence on him creating a mother for her a huge betrayal, and her loss to the Paris vampires an unbearable pain. The cold, black hate with which he reaps his justice could not be stopped, could not be contained, could not have led to any other conclusion. And the ensuing offer from Armand (Antonio Banderas), to travel the world with him, as tempting as it may be, is untenable. He will retreat to his solitary sorrow, as he was perhaps always meant to live.

The most controversial casting choice of the film came in the form of Tom Cruise. Lestat was one of the most magnetic and beloved characters of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles books, and even though Tom Cruise — especially in the mid-90s — was certainly a magnetic and beloved actor, he wasn’t the right kind of magnetic or beloved. People complained about his intensity, his hair color, his general manic attack of all his roles — everything. But I think Tom Cruise makes a fascinating Lestat. In fact, his natural manic intensity is one of the things that makes Lestat so forceful and impatient in the film, so irresistible and so hated. He’s a ridiculous dandy, a snob, a commanding presence and a demanding patriarch. Perhaps it’s how his reputation and persona has evolved over the years, but all that feels like it aligns perfectly with Tom Cruise to me. I enjoy his transformation from powerful and menacing to impotent and terrified, and then back to smirkingly arrogant. And honestly, the scene with his reptilian skin as he becomes engulfed in flame and climbs the walls is burned on my brain. I think about it way more than probably any other human on earth, it was so horrific to me.

Interview with the Vampire is so interesting, too, because of the overtly sexual tone of the tale — and not just sexual, but homosexual. Lestat says he and Louis are Claudia’s fathers; she is their daughter. The drinking of blood, while often sexualized in vampire movies, is even more so in this one as blood is drained not just from necks but from breasts and wrists and fingers and lips and tongues (and likely other places too). Lestat has a clear affinity for young men or boys. Armand and Louis want each other openly. Claudia covets the bodies of supple, nubile women. And even though it is never sexualized, the relationship between Louis and Claudia blurs the lines between father-daughter and husband-wife. The complex and layered feelings the characters all have for one another gives the film greater depth, bigger obstacles and higher stakes, and allows for the gray areas that exist between extremes, and allows for characters and situations that are both right and wrong.

Back in December of 1993 I got my first introduction to the internet via talker clients where (mostly) college kids around the U.S. and U.K. adopted a persona and chatted endlessly online. I made friends in those digital environments, friends who merged into my real life and became huge pieces of me, of who I was then and of who I am now. A year after my first foray into that universe, a bunch of us met up for a weekend of parties and nerd fun. One such activity was going to see Interview with the Vampire on opening night. We took up a huge percentage of the theater, were somewhat rowdy before the movie started, and probably frightened more than a few other theater goers, but it’s one of those memories that I will fondly remember forever and another way I find I love Interview with the Vampire that most others don’t understand. I’m okay with that, though.