Hellmaster (Them)

HELLMASTER (aka THEM)
(R, Dolphin Entertainment Group, 92 mins., release date: September 16, 1992)

"God Is Dead," sayeth Friedrich Nietzsche at the start of multi-hyphenate Douglas Schulze's HELLMASTER. If the movie's title hasn't made clear, we are far from Pure Flix territory, so there's no Kevin Sorbo to be found (consider yourself safe). No, Schulze opens with that quote because we're dealing with a more traditional mad professor, the kind who wants the Almighty's position all for himself and proclaims that he has, indeed, murdered God in his maniacal labors. The kind who believes in survival of the fittest, making him a touch Darwinian in the bargain, and whose drug-induced method of creating supreme beings also has "pusherman" baked into his philosophy. Punishment and reward.

Our esteemed scag-shooter is Professor Jones (the great John Saxon), and once again, credit Schulze for going with the most obviously evocative surname imaginable. Exiled from the Kant Institute (hot damn, Philosophy 101 is written all over the architecture, too) for the habit of using students as lab rats, he managed to rebuild Jonestown in the nearby crackhouse to the shock of a reporter named Robert (David "Flyboy" Emge in a rare screen appearance), whose exposé was mutually sabotaged by the Dean/Professor Damon (Robert Dole) as well as Herr Jones. The disgraced Robert is now a hermit who lives in the abandoned chapel where Jones' experiments were once conducted, and where gallons of the experimental narcotic have been stashed in the steam tunnels. It's been 20 years since his fiery expulsion, but the presumed-dead professor has returned to the university with his small army of mutant derelicts to pick up where he left off.

Filmed in Pontiac, MI, over five weeks during the winter of 1989, with the Clinton Valley Center (or the Eastern Michigan Asylum for the Insane) doubling for the campus, Douglas Schulze's feature debut can be charitably termed the "old college try." Aside from writing, producing and directing, then-twentysomething Schulze also edited, served as art director and had a hand in set design. It's the ultimate independent movie juggling act, but Schulze ends up with many of the balls left in pieces on the ground.

Cinematographer Michael Goi has taken some phantasmagorical lighting cues from Dario Argento's Suspiria, and Schulze brings to mind the same stylish proficiency as Don Coscarelli and Sam Raimi. There are some unique touches such as the J emblem favored by the chief villain, a fascistic perversion of the sign of the cross, as well as the three-pronged syringe/claw and self-dosing catheter which are strapped to his arms. Professor Jones' megalomania opens doors for potential intrigue, as he is motivated to convert the Kant Institute's current student body over to his race of genetically-altered junkie killers. He also holds psychological dominion over the living, as he mocks one victim's fear of pregnancy as well as convinces an insecure, crippled boy to accept his miracle cure.

Unfortunately, said ideas tend to either get steamrolled by conventions or are undercut by terrible decisions in writing/editing. The aforementioned handicapped boy, Joel (Sean Sweeney), is introduced bemoaning his lot to his best friend and the movie's heroine, Shelly (Amy Raasch). He wants blond Barb (Lisa Sheldon) to notice him, but the object of his affection has not even been properly introduced in the film and we don't even know who he's referring to until twenty or so minutes later. The result is a shallow character whose disillusionment rings hollow even before he shuns his friends ("My handicap was born, yours was chosen") and stumbles into the sway of Professor Jones. There is no pay-off to Joel's ill-fated cross to the dark side; he's merely beaten to death with his own crutch and the result lacks any pathos (cf: the fate of Stephen Geoffreys' Evil Ed from the original Fright Night).

It's not just Joel who is shafted by Schulze's ineffective handling of his young characters, who seem to flit in and out at random and lack even a modicum of discernible personality compared to the usual dead teenagers. A similar lack of understanding ruins what should be a traumatic experience for heroine Shelly, whose brother Adam (Todd Tesen) works for campus security and is not only attacked by Jones' minions, but tied to the back of the patrol car and drug across the gravel until he manages to get himself free and crawl away to a future death. Only one of the victims leaves any concrete impression, and that's the determinedly unsympathetic Jesse (Jeff Rector), who we actually see as a bully and a sleaze. His opposite number, Drake (Edward Stevens), survives the film the same way he enters: blandly.

One would assume that the baddies make up for the loss of presence evident in the youths, but they look more interesting than they behave. Jones' ranks include a mutant boy (who we get a good look at before his transformation, sitting criss-cross in Jones' slum lab), a limping nun (played by Ron Asheton, the guitarist who egged on Iggy Pop in The Stooges) and one "Bobby Razorface" (Eric Kingston), whose similarities to Pinhead were not merely compounded by the Hellmaster title and marketing, but also by a scene in the actual film where, just like in Hellbound: Hellraiser II, he is confronted by an image of the human being he once was. But Schulze fails to deliver the new Cenobites in these junkie monstrosities, who aren't given any thing interesting to say and are allotted little imagination in their homicidal spree. Too often they'll stumble on a character, particularly Barb, and decide they're no fun to torture. Wasn't Jones supposed to be experimenting on these ciphers to begin with?

Even in the most undemanding mood, Hellmaster is confusingly tepid schlock. I've read reviews beforehand that mention a joke involving Shelly, who is the only actual gifted person in the entire student body, using her mind-reading powers to deduce that Jesse's douchebag behavior stems from growing up a bedwetter. If I had not bothered to seek out the Vinegar Syndrome release of Hellmaster, I'd wonder what the hell these writers were talking about because this very scene appears in an alternate cut of the film that is not called Hellmaster. Yes, there are two versions of this movie on the BD/DVD combo pack, and the one scanned in 2k (or in 4k, the box lists  both) from the elements is the "original theatrical version" titled THEM.

Having watched both Them and Hellmaster for this review, it's obvious that Douglas Schulze re-edited the movie directly for the home video market. This makes Hellmaster not simply a hack job, but a hash job. In the Them cut, we get a real introduction to Barb during the opening lecture instead of waiting a half-hour to find out whom Joel was referring to. We even get to see her walking past a throng of judgmental students who christen her the campus "slut." And her killing of the chemically-altered Joel at least puts Barb in a sympathetic state of shock, and allows for Shelly to grieve somewhat over what Jones did to her supposed best friend. Professor Damon is also more culpable for Jones' nefarious research as demonstrated in a flashback, and unlike in Hellmaster, which is rife with exposition dumps, this device doesn't come across as tedious.

It would be tempting to run through all the myriad changes between the two cuts, since Schulze's audio commentary on the Them version doesn't elaborate too much on the looped lines and increased attention to character. His yakker is actually a pretty dry affair, hobbled by the fact that he's watching this particular edit for the first time in decades. He tends to repeat the same anecdotes about the sets and pay the same compliments when he's not doing play-by-play after a spell of silence. But we do get some fun notes on how the padded cells of the Clinton Valley Center, which was still active, were used as production offices and rooms for the actors. And a few specific woes involving stolen generators and financial backing are compelling. Schulze and producer Kurt Mayry's mid-2000s commentary for the Hellmaster version is the more lively track based on Mayry's observation at the start: "This is version 200, I believe."

In both commentaries, Schulze is at least upfront about his deficiencies as a first-time filmmaker. Focusing too much on the technical aspects of production, he admits not giving his actors enough attention and is quick to point out how the proceedings devolve into camp. He wasn't particularly adept with writing dialogue and had to draft his brother into aiding the script. He was constantly incorporating new ideas into the project instead of developing them into separate entities. And he regrets not getting a "seasoned" editor to whip his film into shape, although his preferred Hellmaster edit is more the "glorified student film" compared to Them (Schulze claims it hews closer to the original screenplay). In the theatrical version, two separate monster attacks are crosscut and demonstrate some form of momentum; in Hellmaster, they play out separately and in linear fashion, but because one of them involves characters who were not formally introduced, the result solicits a shrug.

When you get right down to it, the Them cut is the far superior viewing option in terms of structure, pacing (though it runs a whopping four minutes longer than the director's cut) and simple visual quality. Schulze and Mayry point out that the Hellmaster cut, ported over in SD from the 2006 Mackinac Media release (as is their commentary), was composited from an early ‘90s answer print as well as the original negative. The 1.33:1 image looks like it came from a deteriorating VHS copy, full of snow and murkiness and faded colors. Vinegar Syndrome's treatment of the theatrical print is the undisputed keeper, presented in 1.85:1 widescreen and with far more loving care tended to Michael Goi's cinematography, where primary colors are lit up so bright as to distract from the decrepit buildings where Schulze was filming. Despite some noticeable negative damage, the image is natural 35mm goodness, with tighter black levels and more radiant reds and blues.

The DTS-HD MA track is in 2.0 stereo and while some of the dialogue suffers a lack of real fidelity (John Saxon's introduction, in particular), there is a more-than-sufficient punch to Diana Croll & John Traynor's synth-gothic score. Optional English SDH subtitles are available on the Blu-Ray copy. Beyond the feature(s) and their respective commentaries, the newest and best extra is a new 26-minute video interview with Michael Goi called "Creating Reality," in which Goi admits that they were aiming for something opposite what the subtitle implies. He also recalls turning Schulze onto Suspiria for the first time and the director's immediate reaction to it when Mayry walked in on the screening, and Goi also credits Mario Bava's Black Sabbath as an influence. Goi is eloquently realistic about the process of filming on a tight budget in terms of conception vs. execution (his career is to make compromise seem intentional) whilst recalling certain issues with lighting, shooting around John Saxon's limited schedule and working in the dead of winter.

The AIP Video trailer for Hellmaster, a brief gallery of conceptual art (including posters for Them as well as one for the alternate title of "Soulstealer"), a second short gallery of behind-the-scenes stills, and a four-minute location scouting video showcasing the Clinton Valley Center (and scored to backmasked, industrial-sounding Muzak) round out the bonuses. The die-cut slipcover designed by Chris Garofalo for the limited edition release offers a nice fiery orange in the shape of the J-symbol and there is the reversible cover art that includes the Razorface close-up which got the film its minor notoriety on videocassette. In lieu of a trailer, I close with some behind-the-scenes footage not available on the Vinegar Syndrome release but is on YouTube for the curious.

Homeward Bound 2: Lost In San Francisco + Noises Off...

HOMEWARD BOUND 2: LOST IN SAN FRANCISCO
(G, Walt Disney Pictures, 89 mins., theatrical release date: Mar. 8, 1996)

Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey caught me by surprise all over again when I revisited it a month ago. The film's main ingredients provoked the same stimuli the 9-year-old version of myself received back in '93, from the perils of the Pacific Northwest to the pugnacity of the voice actors. I recalled every wisecrack, every ancillary critter, every moment wood beams gave out from under the animals. And it didn't wear out its welcome, even managing to restore the lump in my throat I once had when Peter Seaver waited for his aged but persistent golden retriever companion, Shadow. Realizing that it came from the man who cut both Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart was simply one of the perks of adulthood.

Fond memories of the original aside, it seems that remaking the live-action Disney movie of 20 years' past was perhaps its biggest coup. In the same year Homeward Bound premiered, Look Who's Talking Now! and Beethoven's 2nd demonstrated just how limited the concept of unleashed pets loose in wide metropolitan spaces was, what with their unavoidable debts to earlier Disney animated masterpieces Lady and the Tramp and 101 Dalmatians. Homeward Bound 2: Lost in San Francisco has a title/concept eerily similar to that of another, more high-profile kiddie flick sequel. And while it avoids the orange elephant which floats into the room whenever anybody now brings up Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (or The Little Rascals), the misadventures this time around are the very same classic Disney staples other studios nicked back in 1993.

Shadow, Chance the braggart bulldog & the aptly-named Sassy the cat are once again on a mission to reunite with the Seaver (nee Burnford) clan, who this time try to accommodate the pets by taking them on their vacation to Canada. With the exception of Ralph Waite, who ably fills in for the departed Don Ameche, the voices of Chance (Michael J. Fox) and Sassy (Sally Field) as well the entire principal cast (Robert Hays, Kim Greist, Benji Thall, Kevin Chevalia, and Veronica Lauren) are accounted for. This time it's Chance, still afraid of the dread pound (referred to here as "the bad place"), who instigates the pets' escape from their freight cages and away from the airport, their combined twelve paws leading them to the heart of San Francisco and in pursuit of the golden bridge that will safely maneuver them back home.

Their less-than-harrowing obstacles include sparring bands of street mutts, a friendly super-pack and a diabolical if dopey duo (voices of Jon Polito and Adam Goldberg), as well as the ever present danger of dog-snatchers prowling about in a "blood-red van" collecting lab specimens. The expanding roster of fur balls includes Riley (voiced by Sinbad), a crossbred canine less dependent on humans than Shadow; Delilah (voiced by Carla Gugino), a plucky stray Kuvasz who falls in love with mongrel-for-life Chance; and Bando (voiced by Stephen Tobolowsky), a coonhound swain. There is a rousing comeuppance or two as well as a heroic detour for Shadow and Sassy in the vein of the missing Molly from the last film, this time the result of a fire started by the two creeps in the red van.

With Caroline Thompson transitioning to director (Black Beauty, Buddy), Linda Woolverton riding the wave of success from The Lion King and Duwayne Dunham crossing back over into television (his last theatrical gig being Little Giants), the creative team of the original is missed. The belabored screenplay of Homeward Bound 2 instead falls to Julie Hickson, a Tim Burton collaborator from his embryonic career at Disney and of far less renown than Ms. Thompson, and Chris Hauty, whose claim to fame is as the writer of Never Back Down. Hickson and Hauty overwork the bickering which enlivened the first film to the detriment of both the story and the stars. Sally Field, regrettably, turns positively shrewish because of the pervasively arch inner dialogue Sassy is given. That the humble Shadow has to issue more than three exasperated ultimatums is indicative of the quality of writing here: thoroughly unimaginative in developing the conflict between the domesticated heroes and the mangier supporting pooches as well as the adorable Chance/Delilah courtship.

Just as the first film surprised me upon learning of Dunham's connection with David Lynch, Homeward Bound 2 is helmed by another peculiar candidate for a family film: the late David R. Ellis. This was actually his first film after a long career as stuntman, and Ellis kept active in second unit work even while making his bones with schlock horror, including two Final Destination sequels and the pre-Sharknado sensation that was Snakes on a Plane. As much as I want to be respectful of Mr. Ellis, who deserved better than to go out on Shark Night 3-D, he is a lesser breed of filmmaker than Dunham. Sentimentality is not his strong suit, as evidenced by a feeble subplot in which Chance is realizing that baseball buff Jamie is beginning to outgrow games of fetch. The human drama is deader weight here than before. And when I think of the increased voiceover work here, I find a director who has less confidence in balancing genuine animal acting with the spoken thoughts of the animals.

Not that there aren't some tasty bits in the kibble, like when Chance observes a mass of seals and takes it as proof of what happens when dogs stay in water for too long. The way he verbalizes heartbreak, combining three nightmare scenarios, is also commendable. And there is a sublime use of three actual sports commentators, weighing in as Chance sabotages one of Jamie's games. The entire roster of voice stars do, once you get past the script (which antes up the lame Schwarzenegger puns and hydrant-level scatology), come across as lively and cordial; even Shadow gets in a nice joke fitting for an old-timer such as himself. But take away the narration and Homeward Bound 2: Lost in San Francisco will have you asking "Are we there yet?" too early and too frequently, which isn't the way for anyone to rediscover their inner child.

NOISES OFF
(PG-13, Touchstone Pictures, 101 mins., theatrical release date: Mar. 20, 1992)

Annie Potts was the initial voice of Sassy when Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey "wrapped" in 1992, before Disney secured Sally Field as a replacement. But the Ghostbusters comedienne was also one of dozens of stars to be considered for the role Glenn Close immortalized in Fatal Attraction, and she was slated to reunite with Peter Bogdanovich a year after Texasville (the Last Picture Show sequel in which Potts played Jeff Bridges' wife) for the Amblin-produced film version of Michael Frayn's Broadway smash Noises Off. Alas, Potts was replaced by Marilu Henner and I haven't been able to find any reason as to why. 'Tis a pity, since Bogdanovich gathered the greatest comic dream team this side of 1985's Clue, even trading up in talent (Michael Caine > Martin Mull) when not finding adequate matches (Colleen Camp = Nicollette Sheridan).

That Bogdanovich puts his own ensemble through the same panicked, frantic and m-m-m-m-manic paces like Jonathan Lynn did in his overpraised board game spin-off is inevitable given his film's origin. Frayn's three-part deconstruction of a British sex farce, all slamming doors and swollen misunderstandings and polite innuendos, was informed by the unruly dynamics within its troupe of dysfunctional day players. First was a twilight-hour dress rehearsal before the premiere in which the stars are already on shaky ground and the director is driven to his wit's end. Then came a matinee performance aimed at the seniors wherein all involved are at each other's throats. Finally, an ad-libbed Armageddon of an evening show rife with defective props and irrevocable shifts away from character. "On we bloodily stagger," proclaims the show's irritable guv'nor, not immune to the bedlam he's brought upon himself and his clueless cast.

In Marty Kaplan's scripted adaptation, the setting shifts from the U.K. hinterland to the American heartland, beginning and ending on the Great White Way itself. Lloyd Fellowes (Michael Caine) recollects the three doomed stagings as he anticipates the worst in NYC. His perpetually aloof charges include aging star attraction Dotty Otley (Carol Burnett), who's gambling her retirement on the show's success while playing housekeeper Mrs. Clackett; Garry Lejeune (John Ritter), who is lascivious realtor Roger Tramplemain onstage and Dotty's possessive boy toy off of it; Frederick Dallas (Christopher Reeve), in the role of tax exile Philip Brent, who is pacifistic to the point of nosebleeds but naïve enough to end up a third wheel in Garry and Dotty's tempestuous affair; Belinda Blair/Flavia Brent (Marilu Henner), who dishes the dirt and proves an ineffectual if perky peacekeeper; Brooke Ashton (Nicollette Sheridan), a shortsighted bombshell who is dating her director whilst acting the part of Roger's ripe IRS secretary lover Vicki; and Selsdon Mowbray (Denholm Elliott), a showbiz friend of Dotty's whose performance as a doddering burglar is sabotaged by his own bottomless thirst for whiskey and short-term memory.

Lloyd tries to choreograph the melee of "Nothing On" but cannot handle dueling relationships with Brooke and stage manager/scapegoat Poppy Taylor (Julie Hagerty), whereas Poppy's assistant Tim Allgood (Mark Linn-Baker) is operating on little sleep and smaller reserves of capability. These nine personalities fall prey to the spiraling jealousies and deficiencies which obliterate whatever tenuous claims of professionalism they can claim.

Michael Frayn's Tony-certified Noises Off has the kind of bulletproof comic scenarios which are precise enough to survive even the lousiest revival. As the group rehearses in Des Moines, four of the actors stall the all-important farcical flow to question their motivation in the most imbecilic of ways, from Garry's mild-mannered vagueness (one of his more coherent gripes: "Lloyd, these damn sardines!") to Frederick's immaculately-sculpted timidity to Brooke's flighty tinge of doubt just as Act 1 is nearly complete. Hell breaks loose backstage two months later in Miami Beach, with the cuckolded Garry having regressed into a vengeful trickster, the self-absorbed Lloyd making an ass of himself every opportunity and everyone trying to prevent Selsdon from drifting off in a drunken stupor. By the time they get to Cleveland, every established flaw either takes its logical toll or comes back with a vengeance, from stuck doors to hazardous props to Dotty's full-fledged mental breakdown in front of a live theatre audience.

Peter Bogdanovich brings out the giddy worst in his all-star assemblage. John Ritter (of Bogdanovich's Nickelodeon and They All Laughed) does his sharpest variation on his man-overboard routine, tumbling down stairways and baiting his co-stars with tremendous energy. Ditto an equally game Christopher Reeve, his self-effacing matinee idol bearing the brunt of the many pants-down blunders. Julie Hagerty suffers smartly and Nicollette Sheridan stumbles sexily. Denholm Elliott, who sadly passed away from AIDS in 1992, makes a great wag and Carol Burnett, in a welcome cinematic return since owning Miss Hannigan for John Huston, burlesques as peerlessly as ever. Excepting the presence of two Brits and one Britt, Burnett's over-the-top Cockney accent comes closest to comic gold amongst her Anglo co-stars; and when it drops, she has the power to take the house along with it.

All that good stuff out of the way, however, Bogdanovich's and Kaplan's translation of Noises Off comes up short not unlike the dramaturgy Frayn lampooned. That rickety framing device centering on Michael Caine is overwhelmed by the star's cuddly lecherous charisma as Lloyd, and even that cannot fully mitigate his accountability in these blazing fiascos. Frayn had the good sense to paint Lloyd as one more bullheaded diva, his screaming complacency making him worthy of sinking along with the passengers of his own Titanic. The fluffier take Caine (and to be fair, the entire cast) is saddled with leads to a self-congratulatory and unconvincing curtain call which is more fitting with the legacy of Frayn's play rather than its content. "There's nowhere to go but up" is a Broadway Melody which doesn't mesh with the chaotic rhythm, the filmic equivalent of overlaying an Ignacio Herb Brown tune over a random snatch of Metal Machine Music.

Bogdanovich's fixed camera is willing, but the spirit is weak thanks to such nagging artificialities as canned laughter and reaction shots, which doesn't expand the material for the big screen so much as kowtow to its smaller competition. Faithful to Frayn's libretto as he and Kaplan are, the theatricality endemic to the material becomes the film in rather staid ways. It doesn't set one up for the victory lap to come nor provide these fine actors with enough material to invest us when said coda intrudes. Noises Off is the funnier, more together alternative to Clue due in no small part to what worked so exquisitely the first time, and I'd rather Bogdanovich than Chris Columbus, for damn sure. But more so than the loss of Annie Potts, I mourn having to slot Noises Off into Hollywood's same "It Was a Good Idea at the Time?" file as Rent.

Pet Sematary Two

PET SEMATARY TWO
(R, Paramount, 100 mins., theatrical release date: Aug. 28, 1992)

Campier yet chillier than its predecessor, Pet Sematary Two allows returning director Mary Lambert to replay what was once tragedy mostly for laffs. The Stephen King mill having exhausted itself by 1992, the original author/scriptwriter opted to debase himself with the screenplay for Sleepwalkers, leaving Lambert and new blood Richard Outten (with revisions from David S. Goyer) to fashion this mercenary sequel directly for teen boys, as Lambert herself was fascinated by the ridiculous motivations of the adolescent mind. That mythic patch of dirt which undid Louis Creed and his family now becomes populated with not just unfairly deceased family, but also a couple of accidental stiffs who were already reprehensible to begin with and are foolishly re-animated to deter homicidal suspicion. Lambert spins a nasty twist on the original thesis that "dead is better," even if at the expense of humanity and intelligence.

Lambert's not-so-unusual approach here is fitting with what horror had largely become in the early 1990s, especially in regards to sequels. Like the sixth Freddy venture and the third outings for both Pinhead and Chucky, the monsters are incorrigible wise-crackers who offer mocking bemusement as well as beheadings. When a zombiefied cop stalks after his prey, he reads the Miranda rights with a perverse addendum to each statement. Hellhounds die at inopportune moments ("I was building a doggie door!"), one victim's callous justification is parroted with demented relish and a ghoul takes a bullet only to wince and mutter "I hate it when that happens." The makers of those aforementioned rehashes, however, don't have Lambert's impressive c.v. in music videos, as it was she who made four of Madonna's earliest and most striking MTV touchstones, including "Like a Virgin" and "Like a Prayer."

What Lambert does with these credentials is to, so as to cater to teen boys, make overkill herself by amping up the sadism and the soundtrack to numbing degrees. It isn't enough now to rely on a single dead cat, a box of tabbies and a pen full of bunnies and one white wolfhound (twice}must all be sacrificed in provocatively gory tableux. The town bully threatens to gnaw a peer's nose off with a motorbike wheel, and will turn up later with a literal axe to grind. And alt-rock cult heroes such as The Jesus & Mary Chain ("I wanna die just like Jesus Christ") and L7 (the same song which later introduced us to Mickey & Mallory) blare over the carnage, with Dramarama, Traci Lords and Patti Smith disciple Jan King providing incidental support. The Ramones chose not to grace us with a "Pet Semetary" sequel of their own and instead donated "Poison Heart," the first single from the Mondo Bizarro LP which premiered the Tuesday following the movie's release.

Edward Furlong, fresh off his T2 fame, plays central character Geoff Matthews while Anthony Edwards, soon to transition from Northern Exposure to ER, is Jeff's veterinarian father, Dr. Chase Matthews. Estranged in the wake of a separation, the two reunite after the freak, fatal electrocution of Jeff's mother and Chase's wife Renee Hallow (Darlanne Fluegel), a B-list actress, on the set of her latest project. With Renee's funeral held in her hometown of Ludlow, Maine, Dr. Matthews decides to move there to help his grieving son and set up his own practice. At the dilapidated kennel, Geoff befriends Drew Gilbert (Jason McGuire), the obese stepson of surly sheriff Gus (Clancy Brown) and caretaker of a Siberian husky named Zowie. At school, Geoff is singled out for abuse by brawny Clyde Parker (Jared Rushton), who misses not a single chance to mock the recently deceased mom.

Clyde takes Geoff and Drew on a ride to the pet cemetery, which will come in handy when Gus, fed up with Zowie spooking his rabbits, fells Drew's beloved pooch with his rifle. Burying Zowie in the cursed soil over the hill, the canine returns to the Gilbert household with glowing eyes and his lethal wound still gaping. As Dr. Matthews comes to realize the truth about Zowie's condition while tending to him, a Halloween beer blast Clyde throws in the woods is broken up by Gus, who attacks Drew before getting his throat ripped out by Zowie. Naturally, Drew buries his stepdad in the Indian graveyard, which turns out to be a huge mistake. And all the while Geoff ponders what it would be like if mommy were still alive, even with the strange behavior of Zowie and Gus becoming ghastlier.

The original Pet Sematary was not one of the better Stephen King adaptations, even if King himself was responsible for its onscreen translation. The central performances were uninspiring, the story stripped down to the point of losing Gothic credibility and Mary Lambert's stylistic acumen was heavy-handed. Pet Sematary Two falls prey to the very same traps. The tragedy of the Matthews family is effectively overpowered by the gruesome shenanigans of the latter half of the movie. And some of these vignettes stop the film dead itself, particularly a blue-rinse erotic nightmare Chase has involving Renee as well as an aimless rape scene between the revived Gus Gilbert and his passive wife Amanda (Lisa Waltz). Edward Furlong and Anthony Edwards are directed to play their roles with more one-dimensional solemnity than repressed warmth. Unlike John Connor, there's very little bratty spark in Geoff Matthews for Furling to ignite. Edwards, now with thinning hair and full beard, loses the personable charms of his best roles from the past decade, from Gilbert to Goose to Harry Washello (from Miracle Mile).

While Jason McGuire is a fitting doppelganger for Stand by Me-era Jerry O'Connell, Pet Sematary Two's only actors of fascination are those playing  the figurative heavies. Jared Rushton, best remembered as Josh Baskin's best friend from Big, has the bleached hair and simmering malevolence of a junior Chris Penn, and is every bit as alluringly despicable as Kiefer Sutherland was in his early career. And then there's Clancy Brown, who is suitably unsettling whether in mundane domestic affairs (he likes rationalizing his brutish side within the verbal contexts of frustrated dad and macho officer) or murderous supernatural antagonism. He looks comparatively thinner and less hulking as Gus than when he played Viking in Bad Boys (his screen debut from 1983) or the Kurgan of Highlander, but the sadistic gleam in Brown's eyes is preserved by Lambert's camera. Lambert and Outten proceed to make black comic hash out of King's inaugural premise, but the anarchic glee Clancy Brown offers in return justifies the burlesque.

One three-minute chunk of the movie in particular drips with some of the finest ham any disposable '90s gorefest has to offer. It is the showdown between Dr. Matthews and Gus, who has dug up Renee's corpse for unspeakable reasons and offers it to Geoff so that he may realize his wildest wish of an impractical family reunion. The very power drill Gus has been using in his charnel workshed to build that doggie door for Zowie comes in handy to intimidate Dr. Matthews: "No brain, no pain! Think about it." That Gus himself dies again is inevitable, but that doesn't set you up for the hilarious way in which he drops to the floor. Save for a stretch before the final credits which can be interpreted either as a ridiculously sentimental farewell for the film's victims or a joke on Orson Welles, Clancy Brown's confidently twisted performance in Pet Sematary Two reminds me of that classic Bo Diddley line: "I got a tombstone hand and a graveyard mind." It's a shame Lambert, Outten and the rest of the cast fail to heed such inspiration.

Collision Course (1989)

 COLLISION COURSE
(PG, De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, 100 mins., video release date: May 6, 1992)

I have made passing references to Dino De Laurentiis in several of my reviews, twice in my Diane Franklin retrospective and once at the start of my Under the Cherry Moon review, when I listed off a bunch of his more Razzie-worthy releases of 1986. Dino's career managed to outlast Golan/Globus, who profiteered off the De Laurentiis-produced Death Wish, and he also began honorably in the Italian neorealist genre. He produced Fellini's La Strada and Nights of Cabiria. In the midst of all the James Bond knock-offs and barely-remembered war films he shepherded, Dino De Laurentiis was the mover and shaker behind a vast catalog of familiar flicks, including Barbarella, Serpico, Mandingo, Orca, Flash Gordon, Ragtime, Conan the Barbarian, The Dead Zone, Dune, and many others. He worked with Ingmar Bergman, Luchino Visconti, Mario Bava, Robert Altman, William Friedkin, Don Siegel, and John Huston.

What I'm saying is, Dino De Laurentiis, who passed on in 2010, maintains a healthy respectability which his peers did not. Or at least did until the mid-1980s, at which point financial, critical and commercial fortunes began to dwindle precipitously.

In 1984, Dino launched his own production/distribution label, De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, which didn't begin putting out movies for a couple of years. Take that window of the company's inactivity as an omen. Which is a shame, because DEG released Manhunter, Blue Velvet, Near Dark, and Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn by the time DEG folded in 1989. You could even trace your nostalgic enjoyment of Transformers: The Movie to Uncle Dino. But Million Dollar Mystery, Date with an Angel, King Kong Lives and Maximum Overdrive (as well as, sadly, my beloved Near Dark) weren't turning huge enough profits. Dino may have had the better legacy, but his own company went bust faster than Cannon Films.

This meant naturally that several projects got abandoned in the wake of DEG's bankruptcy. One of them I've already talked about is, of course, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, which was scooped up by Orion Pictures (irony alert) by 1989 and went on to everlasting popular appeal. Another of these was completed the same year, but came off the shelf in 1992 only to get buried on home video and forgotten by the world at large...except for the fascination of people like Nathan Rabin, Jack Sommersby, Jerry Saravia, and now me.

I'm talking about Pat Morita and Jay Leno in Collision Course.

You read those names right, as in the same Pat Morita who was once Oscar-nominated for Mr. Miyagi, the sensai of the Karate Kid series, and the same Jay Leno, Boston-bred overbite and all, who went from stand-up comedy fame to carrying on after Johnny Carson's retirement from late-night NBC. How does a movie like this find itself in such a maze of obscurity?

Well, thanks to Google News, IMDb, and other reliable online sources, I can tell you that an interview with Jay Leno dated Jun 17, 1987 reported that filming began in Wilmington, NC (at DEG Studios) six weeks prior, but they had trouble keeping a director on the project. There was protest within the DGA, which would go on strike for 12 minutes in July 1987, but this was still a month later. Yet Collision Course reportedly blew through John Guillermin (who directed both of Dino's King Kong movies as well as The Towering Inferno), Bob Clark (who directed From the Hip for Dino before finally seeing through his own buddy cop caper with Hackman and Aykroyd in Loose Cannons), and Richard Fleischer (a regular for Dino from Mandingo to the career-ending Million Dollar Mystery) in its hastened production schedule. This information comes from one Greg Laughlin, a former DEG employee, who dishes further dirt on the Unknown Movies page.

Their final and credited choice of director was Lewis Teague, whose previous credits include Alligator, Cujo and Stephen King's Cat's Eye. The latter was another Dino De Laurentiis production made at the same time Teague was courted by the majors with The Jewel of the Nile, the sequel to Robert Zemeckis' Romancing the Stone. Unfortunately, Collision Course would go wildly over-budget to the point where they barely had enough money for the final day of shooting let alone the entire post-production process. When rising star Leno began promoting the film on national television throughout 1988, there was no flow for a wide American release from DEG. Since he was under contract to appear in two more vehicles but dismayed at the delay of his first starring role, Leno briefly sued DEG for $3 million before the company filed for Chapter 11.

Worse for Leno, nobody bought the distribution rights for Collision Course away from the floundering DEG. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure was rescued. Earth Girls Are Easy was adopted by Vestron Pictures (again, irony alert). United Artists scooped up both Stan Winston's Pumpkinhead and Peter Bogdanovich's Illegally Yours. Miramax salvaged Bill Friedkin's Rampage, although Friedkin undertook some controversial alterations before it played theatrically. Collision Course, meanwhile, languished under ownership of Wells Fargo Bank until May 6, 1992, the day HBO Video finally premiered the film on the wave of publicity surrounding Leno's ascension to full-time host of The Tonight Show.

Nowadays, Collision Course is most infamous as the movie with which Steve Martin once pranked Jay Leno. In December 2005, Martin, who was promoting both Shopgirl and Cheaper by the Dozen 2, engaged Leno in a televised game of "Name That Clip," with Leno ponying up $20 if he guessed wrong differentiating each excerpt taken from the two Martin vehicles. The final round was a moment worthy of Paul Rudd's trolling of Conan O'Brien, as Martin snuck in a scene from Collision Course. Leno was embarrassed when he recognized the movie, but Martin insisted that, even though he was right, Leno would still have to pay for making the film.

For anyone who ever rented the tape back in 1992, Steve Martin's stunt resembles a vicarious act of long-awaited revenge.

Collision Course is clearly an attempt to cash in on the 1980s trend of comical cop movies, and I don't mean the Police Academy series. This is more aligned with 48 Hrs., Beverly Hills Cop, Armed & Dangerous, Red Heat, Alien Nation, Downtown, and a handful of other pre-Rush Hour touchstones in the odd couple sweepstakes. The Eddie Murphy movies, in particular, are most pivotal in understanding the career breakthrough Jay Leno likely wished Collision Course had generated back in 1988. Both 48 Hrs. and Beverly Hills Cop launched a beloved entertainer into Tinseltown royalty, playing on Murphy's defiantly vulgar, race-baiting, talking-at-120-wpm personality from the stand-up circuit. You remember those moments:

"[I've] never seen so many backwards-ass country f*cks in my life!"
"I'm your worst f*ckin' nightmare, man. I'm a n*gger with a badge, that mean I got permission to kick your f*ckin' ass whenever I feel like it!"
"Michael Jackson can sit on top of the world just as long as he doesn't sit in the Beverly Palm Hotel ‘cause there's no n*ggers allowed in there!"
 "Tell Victor that Ramon...I found out that I have herpes simplex 10, and I think Victor should go check himself out with his physician to make sure everything is fine before things start falling off on the man."

Surely, Leno wasn't as confrontational or blue as Murphy's patter was in the 1980s, and in that same 1987 interview with Leno I found, Leno wanted a movie that was hardly as R-rated as the edgier stuff Eddie made. Maybe he felt he could've done something closer to Chevy Chase in Fletch, instead. Which is bizarre, because Collision Course feels like a watered-down version of 48 Hrs., which was full of white cop vs. sarcastic minority anti-chemistry but in Walter Hill's film, Murphy and Nick Nolte were playing off each other with top-tier precision. But all the racial jibes hurled in Noriyuki "Pat" Morita's direction, despite his deadpan superiority to them, are spouted casually without being even the least bit transgressive or aggressive.

One-liners like "I ought to stir fry your face" and "Would you call a Jap a John Doe?" die on the screen in that patented way familiar to any handful of tone-deaf late-1980s would-be comedies. Maybe it's just a sign of the times the movie wants to capture, a blue-collar Detroit embittered by the rise of Japanese auto industry and the damages done to the economy. But there was an entertaining culture clash comedy about car manufacturers made two years before Collision Course started shooting, which starred Michael Keaton and Gedde Watanabe, and it was called Gung Ho.

 Morita plays Inspector Fujitsuka Natsuo, a Tokyo espionage agent sent by his commander Kitao (Soon-Teck Oh) to track down a rogue engineer, Oshima (Danny Kamekona), who has fled to Detroit with the prototype for a spectacular new turbocharger. Oshima plots to make a quick fortune selling it off to mobster Philip Madras (Chris Sarandon), but his goons Scully (Tom Noonan) and Kosnic (Randall "Tex" Cobb) accidentally kill him during a shakedown. In disposing of the body at the nearby junkyard, night watchman Mac (Jack Poggi) witnesses the deed, so Scully fires off a rocket gun to silence him. Turns out he has murdered the former partner of robbery-assigned Detective Tony Costas (Leno), which drives him into a fit of vengeful sleuthing upon which he encounters Natsuo.

Guess what? Costas thinks Natsuo is a criminal, and Natsuo thinks Costas is a thug! Can you imagine what would happen when they realize that they're really both lawmen and have to begrudgingly partner up to take down Madras? Well, it takes a while for the skeptical Costas to accept this, because he tails Natsuo to the one-hour-photo stand and the headquarters of unscrupulous automotive chairman Derek Jarryd (Dennis Holahan). When they finally do work together, the Eastman and the Westerner bungle their way through the investigation until they end up getting one over on Scully both without a warrant and with excessive force. Costas' superior, Lieutenant Ryerson (John Hancock) breaks the act up, orders them off the case and plots to send Natsuo back to his own hardheaded boss. Again, think about the possibilities if these two unlikely friends were to disobey direct orders and retrieve the prototype despite Madras' muscle. Aren't they exciting?

Well, save for a finale which is unexpectedly brutal for a PG movie (to wit: Natsuo doesn't know karate, but he knows ka-razy!), Collision Course is standard procedure for its genre. Even getting past the leaden xenophobia, there are so many clichés on parade (barroom brawling, inebriated bonding, chase-giving cars slamming into fruit carts and flower stands) that Siskel & Ebert could've fueled an entire "They'll Do It Everytime!" episode on just this movie. Costas is a slovenly bachelor for whom Natsuo is like a mail-order Felix Unger. He cuffs the foreigner to the steering wheel to pursue a purse-snatcher, but it's the bound outsmarting the blind. Scully is a God-fearing survivalist wacko who doesn't even graze the heroes despite his arsenal of rocket launchers, automatic rifles and hand grenades. Lewis Teague turns pedestrian on the action scenes, and it's not as if Leno and Morita's banter, written by Robert (The First Power) Resnikoff and Frank D. Namei, tries to compensate with fresh humor.

Morita, who was actually a comedian back when, is at his best when he's most bemused by his inner city surroundings, from the doorbells on front porches to the inequities of the justice system. Leno, meanwhile, may be just a little too low-key to command the screen. Meant to be a fast-talking rogue and ladies' man, his moony (and moon-shaped) face hits the sweet spot between George Clooney and Robert Z'Dar, and there's an unfortunate squeak in his voice that he mistakes for "dramatic." His métier is purely comedic, like when he calms a hysterical woman on a hotel elevator down by screaming, "Shut up, lady! You're not on a game show!" There isn't a solidly-written female in the cast, to be sure, as Leno is counted on to generate chemistry with either Pat Morita or Ernie Hudson (playing Costas' doormat sidekick, Shortcut).

And comic moments are to be found, if fleetingly and frustratingly undone by conventional punch lines. The aforementioned brawl involves Natsuo initially being accosted by a group of affluent bowling alley goons (including Mike Starr in a brief role) before Kosnic's disdain for diplomacy causes all hell to break loose. Indeed, given more dialogue here than in Raising Arizona, Cobb is an amusing lunkhead, while Tom (Manhunter) Noonan, who forever looks like a new age healer brainwashed by the Manson Family, puts a wisecracking touch on his perennially psychotic demeanor early on. But Chris Sarandon, saddled with a John Oates ‘stache, is powered entirely on whatever traces of snark he didn't burn as the delightfully cocky bloodsucker from Fright Night, coming across as a mediocre heavy. And the dismally broad material routinely lets down reliable talents like Morita and Hudson.

Collision Course seems like it should be an all-time stinker on the level of Leonard Part 6 or Mac & Me, but it seems as though this film has thoroughly evaporated since 1992. And rightfully so, as it didn't damage Leno's reputation and was shrugged off by Pat Morita for the next couple of Karate Kid sequels. Lewis Teague, however, had only one more mainstream project in him with Navy Seals before sticking to TV for the remainder of his career, kind of like Jay Leno. Despite the efforts on the internet to condense the film to adequate rubbernecking length, Collision Course is hardly Showdown in Little Tokyo let alone Another 48 Hrs.

It is so, how do the Japanese put it, "wasure rare-gachina."

Roadside Prophets

ROADSIDE PROPHETS
(R, Fine Line Features, 96 mins., theatrical release date: April 3, 1992)

Stranded at the intersection of Easy Rider and Repo Man is where you'll find Roadside Prophets, a cross-generational shaggy dog story which fires all of its guns at once yet never explodes into space.

Abbe Wool, co-writer of Alex Cox's sophomore gem Sid & Nancy, makes her feature debut here and is clearly bucking for a quirky social satire on the level of Cox's earlier film, which was simultaneously one of the funniest and most far-out movies of its decade. She doesn't quite reproduce Cox's outsider wit and cohesion, leaving Roadside Prophets to eat the dust of that intergalactic '64 Chevy Malibu.

Compared to the last tragically hip indie project on my reviewing log, Inside Monkey Zetterland, Wool's film is not without some welcome detours.

First and foremost is the casting of John Doe and Adam Horovitz, respectively of X and the Beastie Boys. As a devout fan of both acts, these punk rock icons carry their personalities from the stage to screen with integrity. Doe seems to be inhabiting the working class zero he once drawled about in "The Have Nots," the closing track from his flagship band's 1982 album Under the Big Black Sun. Meanwhile, the ever-adenoidal Horovitz is playing the fool in a broad reprisal of the troubled teen role with which he made his acting debut in 1989's Lost Angels.

Doe is literally an average Joe, as in Joe Mosely, whose Harley chopper is the only thing that gets him through life as a factory employee still paying thousands in alimony. Joe's used to the routine of cold coffee and hazardous conditions after six years of slaving, but has mercy on first-day coworker Dave Coleman (David Anthony Marshall). The two immediate friends ride out to a strip joint for refreshment, but Dave is distracted by an arcade machine which just as promptly ends their union.

Joe takes it upon himself to have the deceased Dave cremated and embark on a pilgrimage to what he misconstrues as the Nevada town of El Dorado, home of Dave's favorite casino. With the help of a faceless personnel clerk, Angie, who pesters him for a date in exchange for covering up his absence from work, Joe hits the road but keeps running afoul of a reckless boy who walks across rooftops with Roman candles in his hands, trailing Joe every mile of the journey.

The kid is Sam (Horovitz), an orphan on a mission of his own which involves lodging only at Motel 9 rest stops, ostensibly as a company inspector. Joe reluctantly accepts Sam's shadowy companionship after the youth buys a vintage Triumph Bonneville. En route to El Dorado, the duo meet a host of aged counterculture oddballs, from a farmer who philosophizes about "transcendent reality" (Timothy Leary) to a dine-and-dash bandit who claims to be "Symbionese" (John Cusack) to a hookah-smoking hermit interested in martyred Roman gladiators who were actually "Utopian saints" (David Carradine).

Other, more on-the-level strangers include a gas-n-sip owner (Arlo Guthrie) well-versed in prehistoric fish, a hotel-managing Negro (Harry Caesar) who bemoans a life not fully lived whilst sharing a bottle of Wild Turkey with Joe, and a soulful erotic dancer named Labia Mirage (Jennifer Balgobin) who is working her way to the Yukon.

These assorted outsiders seem to be byproducts of halcyon revolutions, what with the stunt-casting of people like Dr. Leary and Mr. Guthrie as well as Abbe Wool's penchant for ribbing the slogans and scenes they stand for. John Cusack's character, Caspar, is introduced in a '50s-themed greasy spoon which the green-eared Sam takes at face value as an incredible simulation instead of the tacky nostalgia totem it is. Caspar winks through his eye patch when he announces his nationality and, after pigging out on a 12-course meal, he bolts for the exit screaming "Free food for the poor!"

Those who loudly and proudly announce that they stand for something, man, turn out to be some degree of overbearing eccentric, whether it be the isolated, interracial radical couple (Bill Cobbs as Oscar, Lin Shaye as Celeste) with an incorrigible sense of gallows humor over their wasting away from cancer and AIDS or the authority figures (Barton Heyman as a sheriff, Stephen Tobolowsky as a park ranger) who are laughably hyper-responsible. Meanwhile, the middle-aged Don Quixote and the adolescent Sancho Panza roam towards their uncertain destination, and if they don't quite make it as father/son surrogates, at least they'll be drinking buddies by the time they get to Ely.

Wool's film falters often as a comedy, particularly in handling the dim-witted apathy of Sam, whose knowledge of past presidents is gained from magazine covers but whose frequent dismissal of the rogues gallery as "insane" seems too weak to be humorous. It's tough to also forgive the repetitive nature of the episodic script, even though allowances must be made given its road-bound genre. The supporting characters keep piling up to the degree where you wish Ms. Wool would've allotted Joe and Sam some time to stop and smell the cactus flowers.

Such a reprieve would be welcome because, unlike Inside Monkey Zetterland or (even worse) Wild Hogs, Abbe Wool doesn't fixate on her navel or go for the low in comedy. This is essentially a playful, humanistic reversal of Easy Rider that has a Zen-like core. Though she sets up expectations to knock them down (turns out Dave may have been chemically-impaired about the whole "getting lucky" endorsement), Wool's smart enough to make a ruggedly handsome straight man of John Doe (previously seen in Road House and Great Balls of Fire); the X-man can fire off a laconic quip to rival Hugh Jackman. And if you're in the right mood and can sense the self-deprecation behind the King Ad-Rock's bravado (he can do the Jerry Lewis, after all), Mr. Horovitz is appealing company, too.

Jennifer Balgobin, who played the petty thief/lover Debbi in Repo Man, makes a welcome reappearance alongside such fellow Cox repertoire players as Biff Yeager (the barkeep at Shipwreck Joey's), Patti Tippo (as the casino cashier) and Dick Rude (Duke from Repo Man, here playing in a lounge act alongside Manny Chevrolet and Flea).

As for the cameo appearances, a glowering David Carradine makes the richest impression as a forest friar. It's no surprise to see John Cusack in these surroundings, as it's his propensity to juggle loony character work with more accessible projects (Tapeheads preceded his career-defining role in Say Anything), and he's the most live-wire of the kooky cast. But the walk-ons from Timothy Leary and Arlo Guthrie are over before you register them, thus less successfully handled.

Wool plants better existential jokes in the margins of scenes, like a droll newscast on a militant mailman who letter bombs Planned Parenthood clients ("Long live the unborn!") or a ghostly golf gang consisting of accident-prone leathernecks, that bolster the movie's basic philosophy of freewheeling tolerance. John Doe wails it himself in the opening credits number, "Beer, Gas, Ride Forever": "Why can't people get together?"

(Other artists on the soundtrack are, naturally, Doe's X-wife Exene Cervenka and The Beastie Boys. Also included are The Pogues and Pray For Rain, who both contributed to the score for Sid & Nancy, as well a couple other Repo Man vets).

Another asset of Wool's is DP Tom Richmond, who does for the expansive Southwest deserts and city streets what he did for the snowy war fields in A Midnight Clear. The movie may or may not be serious in reviving the spirit of '69, but Richmond's lens captures a mythos of its own.

This makes it all the smoother for Roadside Prophets to be admired as a character-friendly dramedy that, despite its allegorical anemia, is mildly entertaining for another "life's a journey" morality fable.

A Midnight Clear + Inside Monkey Zetterland

A MIDNIGHT CLEAR
(R, InterStar Releasing, 108 mins., theatrical release date: April 24, 1992)

INSIDE MONKEY ZETTERLAND
(R, I.R.S. Media, 93 mins., theatrical release date: August 25, 1993)

Let's get hypothetical for a moment. Now, imagine you are a casting director in the year 1986, and you were hired to assemble the stars of a generic teen movie. This is a project that clearly requires actors to play the reliable roles of the bookish boy everyone picks on and the boorish alpha who instigates his humiliation. The nerd and the jock stereotypes, devoid of all subtlety and no different than any characters from B-movies past.

Suppose you were so hard up that you hedged your bets, and, based on the resumes given to you, you would cast these two parts based entirely on experience. You want to choose male performers who not only fit these parts to a T, but have done it many, many times before. There's no time to subvert anybody's image or launch a new career, you just typecast without prejudice. And no, Anthony Michael Hall and William Zabka did not get the memo to try out.

Now, given the scenario, what if two of the guys auditioning were Keith Gordon and Steve Antin? I think your work is officially done, my friend. You don't have to keep searching. You got your men.

If you evaluated the careers of Gordon and Antin throughout the entire 1980s, you'd realize that for as bad as female actors get it having to play idealized, objectified ciphers over and over again, typecasting is generally anti-discriminatory. I couldn't think of a single actor who embodies the tape-rimmed dweeb more than Gordon, and I couldn't imagine a more preening, noxious stud than Antin. Their respective cult successes are based entirely on them playing interchangeable variations of the Dork and the Dick.

Dressed to Kill and The Last American Virgin. Christine and The Goonies. Back to School and Survival Quest. Do I have to spell it out more?

Eventually, both Keith Gordon and Steve Antin got bored with this and broadened their ambitions to honest-to-goodness filmmaking. In Gordon's case, he didn't have to wait too long, as he was already acquiring on-the-job training from the directors whom he worked for, including Brian De Palma, Bob Fosse (on All That Jazz) and John Carpenter. Also, he had read Robert Cormier's best-selling novel The Chocolate War on the set of Jaws 2, and he held onto the prospect of a film adaptation until the moment he started getting offers in the wake of his Mark Romanek collaboration Static (1985).

Antin, meanwhile, was building up connections within the industry and lucked into a partnership with a USC film school professor named Jefery Levy. Yes, the same Jefery Levy who co-wrote Ghoulies, for God's sake. The duo produced a pair of indie movies in the early 1990s that didn't make much of a splash outside the festival circuit, and Levy's own S.F.W. (think a Gen-X version of The Legend of Billie Jean, which was another acting vehicle for Keith Gordon) was a critical and commercial failure in early 1995. Antin kept a low-profile until the 2000s, creating the failed WB series Young Americans, but it was through his sister Robin's neo-burlesque troupe The Pussycat Dolls that he truly began to resurface, parlaying that into 2010's Burlesque, his second directorial effort following a 2006 TV-movie sequel to the teen suspense film The Glass House.

But around the time Antin's maiden effort at screenwriting was coming to fruition, Gordon was already on his second major motion picture. And it is this period in time, 1992 to be exact, which will be the focus of my first dual-movie review since Brian Yuzna's Society and Tobe Hooper's Spontaneous Combustion. I didn't have to work hard on that because both of those movies were on the same DVD, but I rented Gordon's A Midnight Clear and the Antin-penned Inside Monkey Zetterland separately to size up the aesthetics and attributes of both these former actors and budding creators.

And also because I love a good showdown as much as anybody.

First up is A Midnight Clear, based on the 1982 novel by William Wharton, whose debut tome Birdy was previously filmed by Alan Parker and won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes in 1985. Taking place prior to the Battle of the Bulge, December 1944, this WWII psychodrama focuses on a six-man U.S. Army intelligence & reconnaissance squadron shipped out to the Ardennes Forest to suss out the Nazi Party's next move. This oppressively wintry No Man's Land could be Belgium, Luxembourg, France, or even Germany, as the film's central character and narrator Sgt. Will Knott (Ethan Hawke) relays. But in the thick of the conflict, he admits that "I'm not even sure of my name," the name which he has been ribbed for since the third grade and whom his platoon have affectionately abbreviated to "Won't."

These I&R grunts have been fatally pared down from their original dozen, but that doesn't deter Major Griffin (John C. McGinley), a mortician in civilian life, from handing them their latest raw deal of an assignment. Fortunately, a family dynamic has developed between Will and his comrades in arms, with the eldest of the group, Vance Wilkins (Gary Sinise), nicknamed "Mother" because of his orderly personality and the seminary trainee Paul Mundy (Frank Whaley) as their "Father." The ranks are filled out with dry-witted equipment specialist Bud Miller (Peter Berg), the Yiddish-proficient Stan Shutzer (Arye Gross) and the more-than-capable star soldier Mel Avakian (Kevin Dillon).

They situate themselves in a deserted country house where a previous patrol team went lost, which logically translates to "they're dead," for the week's duration. With plenty of wine, sardines and four satin-blanketed mattresses, this is their rare brush with the Life of Riley. Alas, it isn't long before enemy movement and speech put the squad on their guard, specifically the phrase "Schlaf gut!" ("Sleep well!")

Driven on by Major Griffin to locate their command post,  Will, Stan and Bud find themselves in the enemy's rifle sights on the trek back, but the situation doesn't escalate into violence. The Germans disappear like a mirage, leaving the Americans further confused. The next night out in the foxhole, after Stan has built a snowman as an insult to Hitler, the Germans continue to taunt them, only this time with a snowball fight. Stan is convinced that this is a sign of genuine pacifism or possible surrender, suggesting this theory first to Will and then the rest of the group.

The German soldiers they are surveying appear willing to negotiate an armistice in the wake of getting creamed on the Russian front. The only caveat is that both sides have to fake a battle so that there is no accusation of treason. The culmination of this acquired intelligence, which is duly kept under wraps by the Yanks from their superiors, is a festive pageant of peace in which the Germans mount a Christmas tree and offer presents and carols to the befuddled but humane Americans, not unlike the similar holiday ceasefire on the Western Front during the previous world war.

How this development implodes is not surprising, nor are the film's equally sobering themes of lost innocence, weathered humanity and the many tolls visited upon the psyches of the varied troops. The real brilliance of A Midnight Clear is in Keith Gordon's preternatural knack for economy as both writer and director. Working within limited means both scenic and sensational (filmed as it was in a vengefully chilling Park City, Utah), Gordon strips the firepower and narrative clutter from the mostly Vietnam-centric war films before him to craft a character piece about intelligent if inexperienced young men demonstrating grace under pressure.

Birdy, as you may recall, was as much about the poignant friendship between two teenage boys of distinct social skills as it was the damage inflicted upon them after the war, be it physical or mental. The titular Philadelphia youth's avian obsessions became a self-defense of the soul. Wharton's A Midnight Clear is more linearly aligned, but the real life G.I. and impressionist artist's empathy was at its peak. And Gordon is singularly passionate enough to realize the story's mournful power on the screen, without descending into unsubtle madness like Alan Parker or erstwhile influence Stanley Kubrick.

The six protagonists demonstrate boyish humanity and an appreciation for beauty, whether it be in the joint sexual awakening of Will, Stan & Mel by a suicidal, widowed waif named Janice (Rachel Griffin, the future Mrs. Gordon) or Mother's awe at the paintings preserved in the chateau's attic: "Somebody made something, probably not even for money. For love." Mother is the most frail-minded of the soldiers, established as early as the opening scene, his surrogate children now in the position of protecting him and devising some scheme of honorable discharge as mortal intervention.

Gary Sinise, forever known as Lieutenant Dan, offers the most heartbreaking characterization of the ensemble in one of his first film roles. There's not a weak link in the entire cast, with rising stars Peter Berg (another major grower in the industry like Gordon and Antin), Ethan Hawke and Kevin Dillon all turning in their most proficient, natural performances. Even the reliably gruff John C. McGinley (like Dillon, another Platoon vet) as the power-mad Major Griffin doesn't fashion a caricature out of a performance that with a little more screen time and a lot less discipline could have been truly worthless. The same goes for Larry Joshua as Lt. Ware, Griffin's less bellicose but equally no-nonsense flunky.

Gordon has himself copped to anti-war intentions in his story, but they are more organic than matter-of-fact when you watch his film. Compositionally, Gordon is on-point in the bleak humor, realistic dialogue and tableaux of frostbitten violence which he has sourced from Wharton's tome. There are images as disturbing as they are divine, from the saintly statue clutching its own decapitated head to the way two sparring soldiers are trapped under ice in an eternal dance, no different from when their living counterparts show off their USO choreography to lighten the mood.

A Midnight Clear left me deathly eager to view Gordon's subsequent Kurt Vonnegut adaptation Mother Night and Waking the Dead, his celluloid tone poem to lost romance. And also to ponder the injustice of this film not getting the high-definition restoration for the U.S. home video market like it recently received in the U.K. Gordon and his regular DP Tom Richmond (whom Ethan Hawke would draft for his 2001 directorial debut Chelsea Walls) deserve to remaster this personally, as this is a Criterion Collection catalog title in limbo.

I re-watched A Midnight Clear out of joy as opposed to Inside Monkey Zetterland, which was more out of the kind of mercy Gordon's film encouraged. And even then, I felt like I wasted my time twice.

Jefery Levy and Steve Antin's previous low-fi effort Drive (1991) earned a healthy respectability thanks to the former's visual flair and the latter's ability to play straight man to the unhinged British thesp David Warner. You could call it the 1990s heir to Alex Cox's Repo Man if you were feeling charitable, maybe even a rewrite of Elmer Rice's play The Adding Machine, replacing its vibration-metering calculator for monochrome chrome.

The pseudo-autobiographical Inside Monkey Zetterland, alas, is an insider's joke which makes the poor viewer feel like Antin's Passenger from their earlier film, desperate to be dropped off for the good of your soul. Antin, morphing from the poor man's Eric Freeman into the poorer man's Eric Stoltz, casts himself as the depressed title character, an out-of-work actor who openly derides his career of "teenage exploitation shit" to those who recognize him and laments his wayward passage into adulthood in psychiatry sessions he volunteers to have publicly studied by med students.

Monkey really wants to be left alone to pursue a film project based on the corporate demise of L.A.'s Red Car transit system (the exact same scandal referenced in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?), but is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish (i.e. carjackers, overzealous cops) and the tyranny of family.

Monkey's mother Honor (Katherine Helmond), an aging soaps queen, is pugnacious and pushy to a breakpoint. His younger sister Grace (Patricia Arquette) is an emotional wreck upon learning her lesbian lover Cindy (Sofia Coppola) has gotten herself illicitly pregnant in an attempt to start a family. His swish brother Brent (Tate Donovan) works at a salon and is constantly distracted by his cordless phone. And his absentee father Mike (Bo Hopkins), a deadbeat hippie, returns home for Thanksgiving with his pet parrot Joey, although he is greeted with comparatively less disgust than Grandma Zetterland (Frances Bay).

Such a contentious kinship dutifully courts bedlam, but there's nothing genuinely comedic or compelling about the wall-to-wall petulance on display. Every character, even Antin's ostensible mild-mannered woobie, seems to have been written and directed with an unwavering emphasis on mundane narcissism, without a trace of wit in the dialogue or progression in plotting. It's too lethargic to be farcical; even the time-honored snuffing of the parakeet or the goodbye obscenity shouted by a little old lady fall as flatly as the conflicts which set up these hackneyed jokes.

The episodic nature of the film, which more often than not comes across as improvisational (not for nothing is Brent groomed up by his appearance on the Groundlings stage), makes Bloodhounds of Broadway and Singles resemble prime Robert Altman or Alan Rudolph. The result means that this distinctly plays out as an outline more than a real, staged script. And Jefery Levy's quirky aesthetics render them no less insufferable. Visually, he locks down his camera as actors wander out of frame or are heard behind walls, straining to juice vicarious vérité from insipid cliché. The sound design is equally sour, deploying Tchaikovski passages on both piano and calliope and indulging ear-splitting impressions as Monkey pitches his screenplay and recites passages from it like the world's worst puppet show entertainer. It's almost as if Levy wants to leave me as tin-eared and dead-eyed as his supposed proficiency.

The combined vanity of both Levy and Antin trickles down into the kind of stunt-casting which ought to grant Quentin Tarantino eternal critical clemency, even from Mark Kermode. For it's not enough that Monkey Zetterland's home life be a parade of the horribles, but Antin keeps tossing in outsiders to test his faith and our patience simultaneously.

Monkey's girlfriend Daphne (Debi Mazar) dumps him out of boredom and has taken his beloved yellow bedroom drapes with her. Meanwhile, Sandra Bernhard as girl-next-door(!) Imogene flirts mysteriously and maniacally with Monkey at the local library. Less welcome attention is provided by Bella (Ricki Lake), a disturbed fan of Ma Zetterland who stalks about their not-unlisted abode. And then there are Sasha and Sofie (Rupert Everett, Martha Plimpton), anarchic new neighbors who prove a bad influence on the vulnerable Grace.

Bernhard and Mazar are, for all intents and purposes, each recycling their verbally castrating shtick. Imogene shrieks a loony lullaby whilst giving Monkey a lift from a taco stand, deliberately passing his home as she inquires if he's a fan of Faulkner. Later, she will greet Monkey from out of his daydream by gabbing on about a gang-banged friend and then immediately asking "Do you wanna have lunch?" Bernhard gives the most charming performance of the entire film, which most certainly cannot be said of either Debi Mazar, whose Queens accent has never been more abrasive, or Ricki Lake in a major downgrade from her work with John Waters.

However, it's the gross misuse of both Rupert Everett and Martha Plimpton which finally awards Keith Gordon the victory by K.O. Like much of the cast, Everett is a real life icon of the gay community and a performer not lacking for charisma. He deserves a plum role every go, but the material here reduces him to a dime-store Mel Gibson. It's even worse for Ms. Plimpton as the bulimic firebrand, a role so irredeemably nasty it would backfire on anybody who performed it, no matter their degree of fame. Even accepting her involvement as a kindly favor for her Goonies co-star, this whip-smart actress still should have said no.

All of the trendy star power on loan here fails to distract from the crashing realization that Steven Antin's male ingenue insularity and Jefery Levy's coarse amateurism amounts to a legit endurance test. Let's be honest and admit that these guys' true destiny is creating outright schlock, not satirical dispatches from the Hollywood fishbowl. At least The Last American Virgin (Kimmy Robertson gets a special thanks) and Ghoulies (Luca Bercovici appears in a cameo) struck a chord with the intellectually-challenged 1980s children who grew up with them, no matter if you agree or not with Antin that they are "teenage exploitation shit." I, personally, find them very inessential rather than quintessential. But Inside Monkey Zetterland is frivolity with pretensions, which means both Antin and Levy are in way over their heads.

Red Car? Good point! Now do yourself a favor and seek out A Midnight Clear on home video, or, as an added alternative to Inside Monkey Zetterland, any of Bobcat Goldthwait's movies from Shakes the Clown to Willow Creek.

Singles

SINGLES
(PG-13, Warner Bros. Pictures, 99 mins., theatrical release date: September 18, 1992)

A decade after his Fast Times at Ridgemont High script charted teenage wildlife with smarts and sensitivity, Cameron Crowe came further of age with Singles. This was his sophomore effort as writer/director after Say Anything, which found Crowe in a memorable position in terms of 1980s youth cinema. Fast Times broke through among 1982's rut of smut by establishing a diverse, identifiable trajectory through senior year for its coterie of characters, finding wry dignity among the humiliations of crashed cars, sexual follies and apathetic pep rallies. And as teen movies grew more sophisticated, Crowe closed the decade out with the bittersweet Say Anything and eclipsed John Hughes in the process.

Crowe's most endearing quality as a writer by the 1990s was his propensity for humanist naturalism. He didn't opt for cheap melodramatics and listened to the hearts of his youthful protagonists with brotherly concern. The dialogue felt authentic, the sticky situations were handled with grace and the performances he oversaw proved star-making, even if the names of few would fade over time (Judge Reinhold, Ione Skye). Crowe treated both Jeff Spicoli's stoned surfer philosophy and Lloyd Dobler's wounded romanticism with unbiased empathy, and almost everything else in between just felt more facile by comparison.

These highs emboldened Crowe to aim for a West Coast parallel to Woody Allen's Manhattan, although the idea for Singles had been gestating ever since 1984, when Crowe cranked out a cheapie cash-in on Fast Times called The Wild Life. The unimaginative title was indicative of the movie's overall quality, and it faded into obscurity despite having Eric Stoltz and Lea Thompson among its rising star ensemble.

Crowe's background as a rock 'n' roll writer also led him to the underground Seattle scene, which would topple the Sunset Strip's hair metal blitz in the popular culture by the time Warner Bros. settled on a release date. This was blessed and cursed in equal proportions, as while seeing Alice in Chains and Soundgarden live is anthropologically stimulating, the publicity for the actual movie indicted Crowe for allegedly piggy-backing on the grunge explosion, when it was the studio who were being so grossly opportunistic. They even deigned to change the maligned title of Singles with that of "Come As You Are," based on the one Seattle breakthrough rock band who kept their distance from Crowe's project.

The catalyst for Crowe as well as the local musicians was the heroin-induced loss of Andrew Wood, front man of Mother Love Bone. There was a ripple effect which caused the Seattle scene to bust even wider open, as Crowe found inspiration for his revised script, Jerry Cantrell would write Alice in Chains' most beloved song in Wood's honor (heard live in the film, that tune is "Would?") and the remaining members of Mother Love Bone would migrate to Pearl Jam.

"Is anybody truly single?" Crowe asked himself in the midst of the tragedy, and Singles attempts to reach an answer amongst the strain of miscommunication and awkward vibes. The affluent, independent young adults Crowe spotlights dare to fall in love against their better judgment. The primary coupling of environmental crusader Linda Powell (Kyra Sedgwick) and transportation engineer Steve Dunne (Campbell Scott) would seem like the perfect match, but personal commitments and romantic horrors from their past keep them on their guard.

Linda, for instance, has recently been burned by a deceptive lothario named Luiz (Camilo Gallardo), posing as a visitor from Spain whose expired visa sets them on a whirlwind courtship. Just as Linda is getting serious about commitment to the absent Luiz, she catches him down the bar one night making moves on another single woman. Instantaneously, she buys a new garage door opener to replace the one she gave him as a keepsake, echoes of Diane Court's legendary parting gift of a pen to Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything. Steve, meanwhile, is bemused by the rat king he finds himself in after his last failed affair, and decides to devote himself to work, "the only thing I have complete control over."

Linda fatefully meets Steve at a nightclub, leading to a "water date" at the local café. They finally hook up at Steve's apartment after some initial trepidation, struggling to balance their obligations even as Linda becomes pregnant, but frustration and fulfillment tend to go hand-in-hand. The other tenants in Steve's complex also get locked in push-and-pull relationships, with coffee shop waitress Janet Livermore (Bridget Fonda) vainly attempting to ensnare the affection of a detached, delusional wannabe rock star, Cliff Poncier (Matt Dillon), lead singer for Citizen Dick. Meanwhile, the non-committed likes of head waiter David Bailey (Jim True) and advertising executive Debbie Hunt (Sheila Kelley) take it as it comes.

Whereas Bailey is content to collect 20 phone numbers in his watch as a show of self-importance and Debbie is so hard-up she follows through on a video dating lead her friends gifted her as a joke, Linda has her mind set on the terminally aloof Cliff. "You're spazzing off on me," he retorts when Janet attempts to persuade him of their connection. Janet even contemplates breast augmentation surgery to stack up against Cliff's Amazonian ideals, a co-dependent mistake she luckily avoids once she wises up to her own rut and goes her own way, finally spurring Cliff into paying attention.

All the while, Crowe lets his characters occasionally break the fourth wall in confessional and structures the action as a barrage of sketches. The title Singles takes on a dual meaning when preface cards such as "The Hourglass Syndrome" and "Blues for a T-Shirt" crop up, as Crowe essentially pulls a Nick Hornby by turning plot into record collection inventory. A tactic like this is more frustratingly cutesy than his humble slice-of-life insights require, and also not a little self-indulgent. First we watch Janet recoil in humiliation from making a risqué phone call to someone who is not Cliff, and then it's back to Steve and Linda's anxious unraveling of their romantic ambitions.

Crowe's writing needs no devices because, just as before, there is charm enough to divvy up in fair proportions. Bridget Fonda is at the height of her plucky beauty as Janet, the kind of mid-twenties eccentric with a refrigerator full of boho dead giveaways (half-eaten birthday cake, a cup of Chinese takeout sauce), but aware that she only has limited time before she goes from endearing to simply bizarre. When the going gets rough, she consults plastic surgeon Dr. Jeffrey Jamison (Bill Pullman) for increasing her bust, inviting a playful chemistry as they argue over a simulated computer image of Janet's wild quest for beauty. The farewell meeting between these two is aggravating in that it denies any kind of reunion between Janet and Jeff, such fun as it is to be around them.

Debbie Hunt, meanwhile, may be termed a maneater but she's not despicable in her endeavors. All she wants is a boy toy to accompany her on vacation to Cabo, sensibly. The commercial package she purchases from the video dating service comes complete with the $20 bargain of being directed by Tim Burton, who is lauded as being "only, like, the next Martin Scor-seez." The big reveal is hilarious, from its opening rip from Psycho to "Debbie country," which is "where the flavor is." Naturally, this leads to one of the candidates being Peter Horton from TV's thirtysomething, who parks his bike in between Debbie and her roomie Pam (Ally Walker).

Cliff, the Wyld Stallyn of Seattle, is played with enough self-effacing aplomb by Matt Dillon, whether leaning back on Hendrix's grave with an arrogant smirk or desperately clinging to Citizen Dick's following in Belgium for security. Band mate Eddie Vedder mumbles his way through Cliff's paragraph in a review (conducted by Crowe, who salutes his own journalistic upbringing), but Cliff will not be deterred: "This negativity just makes me stronger!" Alas, being without Janet reduces him to confiding to the camera, too, and his fumbling attempts to get her back pay off marvelously just by simply saying those magic words: "Bless you."

Even eligible bachelor Steve has his own odd details. When he and Linda get intimate, he tries to keep from climaxing by means of a locker room interview with his favorite hoop-dreamer Xavier McDaniel.

Singles does make token nods to the post-1980s milieu of safe sex (a college party where people dress as their favorite contraceptive) and uncertain careerism (Tom Skerritt as the mayor of Seattle lowers the hammer on Steve). But Crowe ultimately finds in these character's philosophies, such as Janet's ambivalence towards casual sex, the root of companionship that is what these characters sustain themselves with on the road to love. Coffee shop conversations, oddball platonic friends (James Le Gros as Linda's intellectually overbearing ex-item Andy) and body politics all take on the curved inconvenience of traffic work as they approach their destinations.

Not to say that these threads are entirely successful. For every moment of plausible outrageous misfortune (like broken answering machines), there is a predicament like Linda's pregnancy that is rendered trivial in the grand scheme as most vignette-based movies tend to demonstrate. Better to bury yourself in your job than confront the situation head on, which may be true to the characters but also likely to make a viewer shrug.

Still, even if this doesn't progress as puckishly as Fast Times (which may be more a credit to Amy Heckerling) or as compellingly as Say Anything (which remains Crowe's calling card), Singles works both as a throwback to Generation X and an amiable portrait of the upwardly mobile dating scene. Even though Chris Cornell appears both with and without Soundgarden (you can even hear a demo version of what would be "Spoonman"), the film's shaggy dog quality is best summed up by the two songs from Minneapolis' own Paul Westerberg which propel the movie, "Waiting for Somebody" and "Dyslexic Heart." The latter song asks "Do I read you correctly, you need me directly? Help me with this part," and that's all you need to know in reacting to the way Crowe tugs on your flannel shirt.