This is John Bishop, and today I post something again that is straight from the heart at a time when we could all use a support system to help us through a global crisis. With the Coronavirus spreading and "social distancing" being an alarming norm. With many hygienic supplies dwindling and people struggling to make ends meet by going out into the world even with the risk of disease. With the virus being appropriated as a racist epithet by a known grifter with fascist tendencies and a country struggling to catch up with containing a disease that may have been properly foreseen in a better administration. With too much uncertainty and anxiety and hearsay, I make the choice to say "I stay home for..."
Well, the answer I would presume is that we stay home for society. Doctor ourselves so that we can go out into the world healthy if needed and keep extra safe whilst still having our heads screwed on. Soap up, sanitize up, sterilize, shower, and use our home-bound time wisely. Better ourselves in body and mind and immunity. But keep ourselves sensible and not lose touch with the people who give us inspiration in the physical world. Friends, family, role models, employees, choice strangers...there is no reason Coronavirus should be such a paranoid time to live through.
But I do understand that "I stay home for..." implies a level of love. And so I once again...and every time I mention this particular person, I have to strap myself in so that my trip to heaven doesn't become a disaster. I will be honoring two people this particular post whom have captured my heart to such a degree that I want to wish them all the safety and healthiness, but also as much devotion as I can give. For Diane Franklin AND Kimberley Kates, I salute both of you.
There was one thing I neglected to mention in the Amityville Murders review that could provide some psychological insight into the way 2016 brought my inner depression out to such a crippling, inescapable degree. I choose not to dwell too much on it because it was a nightmare I had that seemed to have become a horrific reality. But for the sake of honesty: after David Bowie died, a few days from then, I dreamed of Diane Franklin. Both she and I were teenagers living in a New York tenement, which is strange geographically considering Franklin herself was born in Plainview, NY. But this is no West Side Story or Endless Love, instead a purely innocent development of young friendship between a couple of latchkey kids who just so happened to be Diane and I. Sadly, the dream ends with dream teen Diane's family separating us by holing her up in the basement behind a brick wall. Setting her free and performing CPR doesn't stop Diane from asphyxiating to death in my arms.
I also remember coming out of the dream with my head buried in my pillow, struggling for breath in time with the suffocation of my dear friend. I nearly died in my sleep. I was so scared, I needed to tell someone the experience I had and pray for an avalanche of empathy. I don't even know if Diane Franklin in real life herself understands the impact that nightmare had on me going forward from there. I came to want to befriend Diane based on a happier dream I had in late 2012, but four years later, a blow was dealt that knocked me to my knees. And in 2020, I am still pretty much in a dark place looking for the miracle in which I regain a light that I need more than ever.
Of all the people I met from the bond formed with Diane, the best of them turned out to be her co-star from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure: Kimberley Kates. She stood by me even after my heart was so beaten and the future seemed so in doubt as to what would become of marvelous relationships and positive steps from the time between 2013-2015. I looked back at my old review of the movie she produced and starred in called Mosquito-Man, which I discovered at the Monsterpalooza where she and Diane were dressed in full princess regalia. I feel my heart warmed when I gave it a second glance, although there is one name in the review which I have to admit...that very person turned out to embody the polar opposite of my first time meeting Diane Franklin in 2013. It was embarrassing and degrading, and it ties into the whole Stockton mind-rape I discussed in the Amityville Murders preface.
And yet...I somehow managed to have a beautiful chat recently with Kimberley Kates that helped soothe a lot of residual pain and doubt which has made me shrink from social media platforms after the deep emotional wreckage I experienced. I was apoplectic when it came to the thought that time wasn't healing any wounds, that I was getting more lip service than consolation. I got such a soulful uplift from what Kimberley said to me that it was like true sunshine bursting through dark clouds. Both Diane and Kimberley have suggested that I write something like a novel or a proper story, but I was starved for inspiration outside of my one passion for writing specifically about movies.
If I have any story to tell, it'd likely be wrapped around my collection of autographs from these two women. But the Coronavirus is another in a long list of very real impediments that is reminding me of all the divides personal and political since 2016. In these times, I want to have people stay in my heart even as I am asked to stay home. So I want to offer Kimberley Kates and Diane Franklin both my warmest well wishes and gushing gratitude for the good they have done in my honor. I will present to you a couple of surviving pictures from my Texas Frightmare 2013 experience (I need to hope I can extract from old computer's internal hard drive a lot of other photos) and a few beautiful pictures of Kimberley and Diane together, including from the Pasadena and Lafayette events where I got to meet them both...I have a video link I will share of the Louisiana Comic Con.
With loving memories of Diane Franklin and Kimberley Kates, I sign off for now but will return hopefully with a Babysitter Wanted review and/or a binge watch of Olivia DeLaurentis & Sydney Heller's Apocalypse Goals.
Diane Franklin and I at Texas Frightmare Weekend 2013
Diane Franklin and Kimberely Kates (first photo is Monstepalooza in Pasadena, second the Louisiana Comic Con in Lafayette with Ernie Hudson and Laura Cayouette, both 2016, third is Christmas 2019)
It's
getting tougher to write these days, if I can continue to use my
platform for honesty's sake. Something about that last review just
feels too candid for me to even think about, and I can't pretend that
what I said isn't still plaguing my psyche in the worst way. I didn't
feel compelled to go back to my Amityville Murders review. This was
the kind of piece so close to my heart, it came together more
effortlessly than I could have hoped. I wrote in one sitting, because
it was so direct to the core of what has become of me. And even
though Diane Franklin herself as well as English critic Kevin
Matthews have typed their support, I'm too confused to persevere. Did
I withdraw in disgust or am I merely surrendering to apathy? When
someone like Diane believes I have a novel in me, does that kind of
faith have a long term effect? What am I even trying to accomplish
now that I have let distance rule my heart? There
aren't that many celebratory options for me as I approach 36, so I
elected to make one that will take me out of my comfort zone and
maybe prove as rewarding as the piece I did onOlivia DeLaurentis' short films, which like that last article about her mother came out
of confronting death. In the case of Olivia's tribute, my father was
the departed as opposed to the more recent death of my grandmother.
But it's more than just the passing of family now that is fogging up my
creative inspiration. It's the losses of certainty, of connections
and of conviction. I'm flying blind as I try to do something I
haven't done since I published all my work on the former Epinions
site: I am going to write an album review.
I
am talking about the debut LP of Diane Franklin's youngest child,
Nick DeLaurentis, the young Jesse Holiday from Devon Bight & the
Sensitive Boys and composer of that film's mock teen pop. In fact, I
am going to repost the link to Olivia's short film on Vimeo and ask
that you watch that please before I make the transition.
My
knowledge of Devon Bright is the sole piece of context I have in
regards to Nick DeLaurentis, unless I must also credit him with the
orchestral cover songs sprinkled throughout Royal Effups. A
classically-trained teenage musician, Nick is currently pursuing his
passion in Chicago, based on the interview conducted by Christian
Thorsberg over at Navy Peer. His first two Spotify singles,
“Knowhere” and “Beauty Mark,” showed his skill at acoustic
guitar, and both songs carry over to Good Boy, his admittedly introspective solo debut.
Boundless if not restless, Nick is already contemplating his
follow-up as a truer extension of his taste, less informed by the
indie folk scene like Good Boy is. My biggest
takeaway listening to the album is that, as the title implies, Good Boy is a young man's fresh start, one which
asks encouragement as he accrues further experience and curiosity.
For
now, Nick is acting on the instincts of the moment, so I look to the
opening track “Bone Dance,” also the source of his inaugural
music video, for a proper introduction. Closer to Emma Bull than
Miley Cyrus, the lyrics remind me of Gotye's “Eyes Wide Open,”
which could be construed as a troubled relationship lament either
interpersonal or ecological in scope. For his song, Gotye fashioned a
bass part by sampling percussive rhythms off a musical fence in
Winton, Australia, whereas Nick DeLaurentis is on the beach,
specifically Montrose, the faint sound of bowed strings conjuring a colony of seagulls in the sky. Finger snaps provide a skeletal rhythm, with acoustic tolls and scrapes pulling the song further away from the DOR
urgency Gotye favored, yet still attaining an irresistible groove. The overtracked chorus, delivered Monk style,
comes across as jarring given the softness in Nick's verse vocals:
“Everyone I know plays god games, but they don't even pray.” As
rats threaten to breed in charm bags and the instruments drop out for
an Imogen Heap-esque coda (“30 years away/No prayers left to
pray/Singing Amen”), I hope I'm hearing this particular
observation correctly for the sake of levity: “The things you left
behind, you think I won't discover/I give you Olive Garden, but you
just want the butter.”
The
“Bone Dance” video shows Nick being tortured by mirrors, but on
his first single release, “Knowhere,” he seemed preternaturally
doubtful against a coffeehouse bossa nova backdrop. “I want you to
be happy/I want you to be kind,” he sings on “Bone Dance,” a
sliver of light through overcast clouds. But the tentative steps
towards the outside world on “Knowhere” offer no relief when “we
are still trapped in the fire,” with worldly knowledge proving
insubstantial in the end. A corny opening couplet which rhymes
“plane” with “train,” not to mention one of the clumsiest
chorus lead-ins I can recall (“And you could be the president of
Cuba/I'll bet you think you are important, too, yah”), prove more
twee than such an existential joke can bear. At least the version of
“Knowhere” on Good Boy ends less bleakly than
before, mitigating the insular anxiety and promising some joy in
life's journey. Amidst
the overtaxed empathy and sensory overload of “Chatter,” the
album's peppiest track (with vocodized “blah blah blahs” for good
measure), Nick gasps “I need peace!” but is generous enough to
wish the same for his town and the planet in general. The hearth of
family, luckily, helps Nick towards realizing it for a few lovely
songs. The fondness of “Sweatshirt” could be dedicated to Diane
DeLa...erm. Franklin, herself: “Some people play make believe/But I
know it's all real after you leave/Your ghost by my side/Kissing me
on the cheek.” On “Beauty Mark,” which opens once again with
imagery of flames a la “Knowhere,” Nick sings “You twist my
arm/I love you, anyways” in that rare “Just the Way You Are”
ballad that references both the Phoenix and chocolate-covered
marzipans in the same space. And Olivia DeLaurentis provides
background vocals on the least foreboding love song in show, “Storage
Space.” “The
Abstinence Dungeon” undercuts comically nervous portrayals of
platonic affection with a blunt if faintly-sung “I would like to
know how it feels to not be f***ing indecisive all the time,” and
is way less insufferable for a Nice Guy anthem than “Treat You
Better,” even without a lyric sheet (which I admittedly would
appreciate: Nick sings like a young Steve Miller and gets overpowered
easily in the mix). Nick's predilection for atmosphere resurfaces for
the remaining songs, the title cut (which comes with an instrumental
prelude and continues the beach ambiance from “Bone Dance” with
Maui-style buoyancy) and the closing “Prelude to Dreams.” That
last one seems sculpted from the indie folk cookie cutter, to be
true, yet if Nick DeLaurentis chooses to embrace a fuller sound next
time, this particular Good Boy will continue to listen patiently.
Enchantéd: A Retrospective Tribute to Diane Franklin
Part X: The Amityville Murders (2018)
(R, Skyline Entertainment)
Consider the following article my
present to Diane Franklin on her 58th birthday. I have to
admit that it took me longer than I hoped for to restart this tribute
to the woman, if only because I've spent six years in a kind of
existential limbo. Many unfortunate situations have befallen me ever
since the nightmare year of 2016, and when I turned 30 a couple years
prior, I had my first painful gut feeling about my future as a
writer. For someone who has been trying to mature and give life to
his dream craft, I observed too much regression and ignorance and
insularity, and from all sides. People who I respected for their
smarts or their hearts or even for just simple enthusiasm turned out
to be closet nasties, with social media exposing their very
hypocrisies and corruption.
Quality of life decreased sharply and
didn't seem to improve as time went on. I had gotten to the point
where the depression was too strong, and I left social media in 2016 for
the purpose of clearing my head and then regarded what should have
been a healthy return as a big mistake. I could not shake the
continued realization of just how disgusted, disillusioned and
discouraged I was in the company of two-faced acquaintances who were
deadly smug in their noxious attitudes and behavior. I took a lot of
abuse out on myself because I let myself take certain people
seriously. Even when I tried to make it out in public, using an event
in Stockton as an example, there was one certified cult icon who I
met for the first time, but who confused me with someone else,
someone he himself hated. I was in a bit of shell shock, and said
simply, "I'm not that person." But the world around me had
changed so much, that even if I was not that person, it was better to
perceive and assume.
The event ended awfully
for me, with one more supposed "friend" betraying me, although I
had thicker skin at the time because I could see that he was a troll
in male nurse's scrubs. He was a gay man living in Ceres, CA, with a
partner who was critically ill, but also someone with misdirected
emotions, and thus was susceptible to the worst kind of cult
misanthropy. He was the kind of person who struck me as, to quote
Maynard James Keenan, a "smiley glad hand with hidden agendas,"
and I desperately wanted to cut those people out of my life. I wonder
sometimes if he has wizened up, but I don't dwell on it too much. It
was just another disappointment in a long string of them, and I had
to take another powder.
I was inconsolable for the most part,
trying my damnedest to soldier on despite knowing full well that this
sense of alienation was growing stronger. The longer I tried to keep
a profile, the more I was seeing the very same smug piety in the
people I was trying to present myself to. I came into film criticism
and hoped it would resemble the "adulting" process: full of
drudgery, to be true, but also ripe with discovery and people who
would find similar joy in variety and expansion. It didn't happen
that way: the internet is but a series of security blanket niche
communities, unquestioning and repetitive and hardly as adventurous
as I expected. I was seeing mediocrity or worse placed on pedestals,
taken as ritual, damn near made the Golden Rule. And respectfully
disagreeing, in the most tactful of comments, wasn't endearing me. I
wanted to be as much a loudmouth as the next person, but I hated
myself more for it, and my confidence was already depleting to
near-nothing.
2016 set me on the path to a very clear epiphany, and it was this: I didn't want to be a part of any cults anymore. Even ones I was most active in, these
communities were basically what Jello Biafra described in The Dead Kennedys' "Chickenshit Conformist," as "closed-minded, self-centered
social clubs." Everything felt homogenized and trivialized and
masturbatory to a breaking point, and the eternal misfit within me
wanted to leave again. So I closed down my Twitter page, and further
pruned Facebook to what was to be only my ten best high school
friends. What happened to me is reminiscent of all that I found
disreputable in the online environment, but there was no peace I
could find. Everybody just wanted their egos stroked, and there was no such thing as genuine discourse.
There was one person who was caught in
the emotional crossfire, and unforgivably so, given just how
essential she meant to me for so long. Her name was Diane Franklin.
This photo was taken at the 2019 Los
Angeles Hollywood Show, an event which I couldn't attend without the
participation of my closest friend, John Grigg. Alas, he had moved to
the Philippines soon after, and we now compare hardships through
Messenger, although at least he had good reason to leave. In 2018, I
lost my uncle to a heart attack brought on by prescription medicine.
Almost a year later, I watched my grandmother succumb to dementia,
having a fatal stroke on the day she was supposed to see a doctor.
Even my pet chihuahua, a brown beauty named Rosie, couldn't survive
because of a bum ticker. Unable to leave Mesa myself, I rented out
the two empty rooms my departed family members occupied to a couple
of Millennial manchildren, which means I get to hear the n-word
frequently over nightly Xbox benders (to say nothing of the boring ass white boy cover of Sia's "Chandelier" played on a loop). And though I am out
of touch with the online world now, I can't avoid hearing more tragic
news about our best and brightest passing away. 2016 was a tough one
to handle, but I have to dole out R.I.P.s no less frequently, be it
for Scott Walker, Rutger Hauer, Roky Erickson, Daniel Johnston, Rip
Torn, Rip Taylor, Ric Ocasek, Danny Aiello, Marie Fredriksson (from
Roxette), and most recently, the titanic Neil Peart of Rush.
Even when I met Diane Franklin at that
L.A. show, it was unavoidable that we would mention the departures of
Louisa Moritz, who was the nympho Charo from The Last
American Virgin, and James Ingram, the voice behind the
Quincy Jones track “Just Once” which was used so much on that
movie's soundtrack. I managed to rediscover an old SCTV episode, largely a network-based parody of The
Godfather, where Ingram mimed that tune on Count Floyd's
“3-D House of Beef,” ending with the singer getting his own
in-your-face lampoon. The three members of Rush were no doubt fans of
that great sketch comedy troupe, and I remember Geddy Lee made a
reference to Mayor Tommy Shanks, played by the
gone-but-never-forgotten John Candy, in a comical “dinner” short
of their own. Canada, you're alright!
When Neil Peart wrote the lyrics to
“Limelight,” a song from the perspective of a renowned musician
“living in a fisheye lens,” he stressed the importance of
barriers as a means of sanity. I put them up, Diane Franklin has put
them up, it does work as long as you have a healthy perspective. Yet
something stirred within me that I wonder what Peart would make of:
this stranger suddenly made an honest-to-goodness, if not
long-awaited, friend. Diane Franklin and I became great supporters of
each other, and every piece I wrote about her movies are a testament
to the genuine feelings I have towards Diane as a human being. And
what I love about writing these is that I don't see Diane Franklin
solely as an icon of the 1980s, though she is certainly
packaged as that every time she makes a convention appearance or
signs on to “'80s in the Sand.” I see her as a very talented and
warm lady, compassionate and perky and droll and practical and
playful and someone who is always a treat to talk to and spend time
with. Given the parameters of our communication, I adore Diane
Franklin with every fiber of my human being.
But I am out of the loop now, and it is a very melancholy development. For someone who was so excited about Diane's future, as
well as that of her daughter Olivia DeLaurentis, cutting out social
media not only limits my ability to network as a writer, but also
leaves me cold to the endeavors of these two incredible women. Diane
has so many upcoming roles to watch out for, and Olivia is still
doing comedy with Sydney Heller and even getting her own feature film
shot with producer Kimberley Kates, Diane's fellow princess from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. It also
didn't help that switching computers last year resulted in a sudden
crash upon file transference, which means a lot of convention photos,
and ones of me and Olivia in the same room, now lie rotting on an
internal hard drive. Kimberley, too...and Kimmy Robertson, Adrienne
Barbeau, Marilyn Burns, Virginia Madsen, and so many others.
Sometimes I am accused of being too hard on myself, but FML just the
same.
All this needed to be said before I
summon up my courage and allow myself the chance to watch THE
AMITYVILLE MURDERS, which is Diane Franklin's
first widely-distributed film role since not only Bill &
Ted, but also How I Got Into College,
and her performance in Savage Steve Holland's third film seems to
have been her recurring character in the short films Diane produced
for Olivia. In a few weeks to day I am starting this review, Diane
Franklin will be turning 58. Soon, I will be 36. And yet I cannot
stop following my heart when the route leads to Diane, because I
cherish her beyond comprehension. This should create conflicts of
interest, but I hope that I was sufficiently clear-eyed in my past
pieces on her, and if you follow me on Letterboxd, you will know that
I have been open about my opinions about her filmography.
As it stands, I gave four stars to what
I consider my favorite Diane Franklin movie, and you will be
surprised to learn that it is the made-for-TV Summer Girl. This is the performance for me that exemplifies all
that is not only sexy but superb about Franklin's screen presence.
There is so much range that she demonstrates, and I always get a kick
out of seeing someone so gorgeous playing such a demented, diabolical
villain. I hope for a remastered DVD release, so it will do some
justice to cinematographer Fred Koenekamp, who in his prime did
Francis Coppola's Patton and Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls in the same year.
Better Off Dead and TerrorVision, the latter of which has what I think
to be another great Diane Franklin performance, both were rated one
notch below, so they were graded 3.5/5. Maybe it's the fact that I
haven't watched Better Off Dead since the
inauguration of our real life Roy Stalin, but for as big a fan I am
of Holland's debut, and the film which made me fall in love with
Diane Franklin as a boy, I just want people to realize that Rob
Reiner's The Sure Thing, which launched John
Cusack as a leading man, might possess an edge in terms of the
onslaught of teen comedies from 1985. That phenomenally charming
romantic comedy may not have the catchphrases and stoopid gags that
are admittedly priceless in Better Off Dead, but
it too had a heart and even better chemistry among Cusack &
Zuniga.
Second Time Lucky (and Deadly Lessons, another two-star decision
despite the fine Ally Sheedy and the late Bill Paxton in supporting
roles) is where I start to feel less certain about Franklin's past
work. It's too cute and unambitious for its own good, and maybe it
does play like another transparent chance to admire Diane Franklin in
the buff, but her Jean Harlow impression is too irresistible for me
to write that one off completely. And I do cop some uncomplicated
arousal from Franklin in that film, whereas both The Last American Virgin and Amityville II: The Possession, the films that introduced her to the world, are repellent in
insidious ways. These are films that I find a lot of people
condescend to in their appreciation, and watching Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films only made
like Boaz Davidson's film less than I did when I was 19, initially
giving it a cold two stars.
It's that abortion sequence,
the camera ogling Diane Franklin as she removes her panties even as
it pans up to Karen's scared face. And the cutaway to the pizza being
sliced. That kind of tastelessness I don't find celebratory. If we
can knock Sixteen Candles and Revenge of
the Nerds for their dated and off-putting sexual politics,
then I don't see why something equally sickening should be ignored.
Furthermore, it's the films I watched later which confirmed my
initial turn-offs to The Last American Virgin, and
not just Davidson's first two homegrown sequels to Lemon Popsicle,
the foreign film that people don't know was remade to be Franklin's inaugural
cult classic. It was the coming-of-age cornerstone Summer
of '42, which laid bare just how derivative the
characterizations of the male leads and many of the sniggering sex
gags truly were, and also John Duigan's 1987 film The Year
My Voice Broke, which starred very young performers
(including Aussie character actors Noah Taylor and Ben Mendelsohn)
and was also a period piece like the original Lemon
Popsicle, dealing with mad teenage infatuation and
unrequited love. Yet it had all the graces (character development,
comfortable silence, adults who weren't all dunces) Davidson forever
lacked as a writer/director, and came across more honest than to be just
another mean-spirited quickie pandering to its adolescent audience
(“See it or be it,” indeed).
I can't say I anticipate a
remake of The Last American Virgin. I get the hunch
that the late James Ingram's soulful voice will be replaced by the overwrought
crowing of Lewis Capaldi at the end. Blame it on one of my roommates
playing “Someone You Loved” to
absolute death already, but I can't call that song nowhere
close as successful as “Just Once.” Quincy and Jimmy had Brill
Building team Mann/Weill as composers, and they also wrote "You've
Lost That Lovin' Feelin.'" Even if Capaldi's song is on the nose enough to fit, it is not a particularly dignified expression of the particular form of heartbreak which capped off The Last American Virgin, and it's going to make the remake actively worse.
Which
brings me to Amityville II: The Possession and, by
proxy, THE AMITYVILLE MURDERS.
You know, I am proud of the pieces that I wrote for Diane Franklin's
1982 flicks, because they weren't as overbearingly negative as they
could have been. But I cannot bring myself to give either more than a
1.5/5. Let Siskel & Ebert be remembered for their unfairly
scathing review of Better Off
Dead, but also know that Gene elected that sequel (“or
was it a prequel?”) as one of the Stinkers of 1982. And I get it
more than I do his opinion on Better Off Dead. Compared to the rest of the series, its repulsiveness
and opportunism and nihilism certainly makes it stand out compared to
its slew of DTV successors. But oh, Diane Franklin does have a bit of
a questionable legacy. I can still remember Rhett's observation from
HorrorDVDs.com:
“Sonny
first flirts with his sister Patricia, then gets her to undress, then
has sex with her, and then calls her a slut throughout the rest of
the picture. It is incredibly uncomfortable viewing, and as if the
clash between suspense-driven and effects-driven horror weren’t
enough, the incest flavoring makes the film even more of a
head-scratcher...As if it weren’t bad enough that Diane Franklin
gets raped by her brother, it is also discovered late in the film
that (surprise!) the priest was also leering for her virginal body.
Between being leered at by her brother and priest in Amityville II, and impregnated by her irresponsible
boyfriend in her other 1982 debut, The Last American
Virgin, actress Diane Franklin may just be the teen queen of
misogyny.”
Rhett's
frank commentary on Diane Franklin's exploitation beginnings sounds
like a Malcolm X speech compared to what a Bill Chambers or Jack
Sommersby or even a Kim Newman would write, and it does have more
truth. Besides, didn't Rick call Karen a whore in the library? The
old virgin-whore dichotomy served up for hipsters aiming to one-up
the old critics who once called a spade a spade. This ain't no party
at all. And Diane Franklin deserved better, as Newman pointed out in
his review of THE AMITYVILLE MURDERS.
(Save
your TL;DRs, I'm about to transition here.)
Daniel
Farrands is certainly an Amityville II fanboy,
else why would Diane Franklin be coaxed into making her comeback in
the very role Rutanya Alda played back when? There's even Burt Young,
although our Anthony Montelli
is now Paul Ben-Victor. It's on brand for Farrands, who along with
partner Thommy Hutson bankrolled several comprehensive horror
franchise retrospectives. In between their Friday the
13th and Nightmare on Elm Street exposés,
they also produced an independent film called The Trouble
With the Truth alongside its leading actress, Lea Thompson.
And I recommend that film even if you never once lusted after Zoey
Deutch's mom; it's a career-best performance, dialogue-driven but
full of honest emotion and nuance, to match Lorraine Baines or Miss
Amanda Jones.
I'm
learning that Thommy Hutson in particular really loves the scream
queens of his youth and has been doing them solids in the industry
over and over. I never saw Prank, which was
directed by Halloween 4 & 5 stars Danielle
Harris (who gets to share the opening scene of The Trouble
with the Truth with John Shea) & Ellie Cornell as well
as Heather Langenkamp (I can only dream of doing for Diane Franklin
what Hutson does for Langenkamp), but my positive response to Amanda
Wyss in Hutson's own The Id is on record. And now
Farrands in the position to make Diane Franklin come alive on the
screen in such a fresh, fascinating way like Lea Thompson or Heather
Langenkamp or Amanda Wyss. I am so pumped up that these women have
starring/directing/producing roles that are revelatory in a way that
proves you don't need only a Tarantino to reward their longevity and
professionalism.
If
you could imagine me shuffling my feet in the presence of Lea or
Diane or Amanda, think of how I'm finally getting to THE
AMITYVILLE MURDERS after Daniel Farrands unveiled
his followups, The Haunting of Sharon Tate and The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson. Then watch me
turn and run. As Lionel Richie once sang: “Oh no.” I need to see The Final Interview or Waking Nightmare to reassure myself that there's such a thing as
an up to go to.
Farrands
takes off from the DeFeo family massacre just like Amityville
II: The Possession did, but there have been differences
made in the past 25 years besides Franklin aging enough to play the
materfamilias. Dino De Laurentiis has given way to Jason Blum. We are
no longer plagiarizing The Exorcist, but instead Paranormal Activity and its progeny. Computers do
all the dirty work as opposed to technicians. But there are
similarities to go with the changes. George Lutz remains a hoax
perpetrator, and it's equally tough these days to entertain demonic
possession as the catalyst for “Butch” DeFeo's homicidal mania.
The more pressing reasons, particularly that toxic household of
neurotic relatives, are reduced to caricature. And there's more
speculation than immersion to be taken in; though callous incest is
no longer a factor, there's a lot of shady mafia ties and dealings to
provide non-credence to a claim from the real life Butch.
Farrands
has, based on the uniform reception of his three directorial efforts,
tried for an unholy mixture of morbid elements, perhaps bucking for
that camp value dollar. There are authentic photos and phone calls
from the documented tragedies buffering nods to conspiracy theories
and conflicting 'n' shifting testimonies, an unappetizing Butterball
which is then stuffed with slasher/spookshow conventions, all at
store brand prices. Overheated acting cooks the bird, and
indiscriminate horror enthusiasts are tasked with the feast. With THE AMITYVILLE MURDERS, at least, the
pumpkin pie is served before dinner, as this marketing still will
prove:
Hard
as it is to believe, I don't have a pin-up of fifty-something Diane
Franklin hanging on my walls, but the temptation to bust
out the tacks is hard to fight. Diane is a naturally gorgeous guiding
light, and I always will acknowledge that in the interest of
friendship. But what about the performance behind the portrait?
She
plays Louise DeFeo with an accent I haven't heard from her before,
that of your atypical Italian-American from Long Island, a
description you can levy upon the DeFeo family here. The grandparents
are played by Burt Young and surprising fixture Lainie Kazan (My Favorite Year and Lust in the Dust), so she's in good company. The
opening credits present home movie footage, narrated by teen daughter
Dawn (Chelsea Ricketts) on her 18th birthday, and though
it's clear this is a cutthroat clan in which the father, Ronnie Sr.
(Paul Ben-Victor), aims to lord over everyone in orbit with brute
force (even trying to dominate Burt Young, who is having none of it),
these are comparatively peaceful times. The exposition even affords
Kazan a chance to insult repressed Louise's recipe for marinara sauce
("It tastes like your father's old socks").
Dawn
DeFeo is a far more normal girl than Patricia Montelli ever was, with
a circle of friends she takes to the red room that was the childhood
hiding place for she and her twin brother Ronnie Jr. (John Robinson),
aka "Butch." Butch himself doesn't come across half as unwieldy
as Sonny; he's relatably sullen and rich with shaggy facial hair that
is authentic enough to support comparisons to George Lutz. The teens
have their own séance in the red room with grandma Nona's book of
black magic, and one of the loutish boys breaks the ice with an
Exorcist reference. But Ronnie Sr. soon poops all over their party,
and goes one further in his physical abuse of his son compared to
Anthony Montelli, rolling his belt around his fist and socking Butch
in the nose.
Farrands
does these scenes far better than Damiani did, and the DeFeo dynamic
cuts deeper than the Montellis' cruel fate, especially since
Amityville II writer Tommy Lee Wallace can be too nihilistic in his
horror efforts (including Halloween III). The performances by
Ben-Victor, Robinson and Ricketts are also given more weight compared
to Young, Jack Magner and even the younger Diane Franklin. But then
Butch notices his father being paid off by some organized crime
types, the first in a bizarre motif, and combined with the
supernatural elements introduced earlier in the red room, the focus
begins to zig and zag unsatisfactorily.
Butch
begins hearing those familiar white noise whispers of evil, and while
he's out in the pouring rain having sex in his birthday-gifted car
with Donna (Rebekah Graf), he asks for a tab of acid and experiences
a violent hallucination which causes him to kick Donna out of the
car. It's like a twist on the way the demon from Amityville
II assumed Patricia's form to accuse Adamsky of lechery.
But then the camera pans up to that 112 Ocean Avenue architecture,
with those lit rooms as staring eyes. And I have to admit, though it
is an image to remember, I was getting a bit worried about the film's
catchall ambiguity.
The
next morning, Louise learns whilst collecting laundry that Butch has been kicked out of college. If that weren't enough,
she comes across heroin paraphernalia and a diary full of ominous ink
blots in Butch's nightstand. All the while, the house is creaking and
sputtering like it's announcing complicity in these antisocial
revelations; a pigeon even kamakazies itself against the door, and
Louise is ready to bash it with a rock until it dies on its own. Cut to Halloween 1974. We get a
fraction of time to know the youngest of the DeFeo children (one of
the more undernourished aspects of the story) before sickly Butch is
left alone with his demons and is presumed to have trashed the house,
with the familiar inscription of "PIG" on a mirror and dad's
dirty money missing from the safe.
THE
AMITYVILLE MURDERS pursues this alternating
structure I've attended to quite stoically, with scenes of domestic
quarrel giving way to worn-out tropes involving Ouija boards,
levitating bed sheets and creeping Steadicams. At some point, I
wanted more for these very good actors to do than to just go through
the same traveling roadshow haunted house. Even Diane Franklin
herself, who makes Louise incredibly gorgeous even at her most dowdy. Her face has unmistakably aged, and it will come as a shock to those who idealized Diane's
younger appearances, but it's a dignified and darling process in her case. The stage is set for the adult performance Diane Franklin never
gave after leaving fickle showbiz at the start of the 1990s. But Louise is another relatively thankless role, her interactions with
other characters mostly shows of fretful hysteria. Diane's innate
charisma and playfulness kind of gets the shaft (even in Amityville II, there were moments where she
grabbed your heart away from the sleaziness), and there is a
potential for depth that is compromised. That regal portrait of
Louise I showed earlier never rubs off on the script.
It
takes 48 minutes before Butch finally picks up that shotgun for the
first time, stirred by his dad's callous abuse of Dawn (she is bent
over the kitchen table to make a lewd point to her “hippie”
friends) and Louise (whose hands are scalded by boiling water and
whose stomach takes a sharp elbowing). Daniel Farrands' slow burn
approach is admittedly far superior to the Amityville II school of smash-and-grab plotting, and that outburst is followed by
Louise's portentous monologue of togetherness ("I see the end
coming. A terrible, beautiful end"). All of a sudden, Diane
Franklin kills it, especially in the way Louise, who is ready to
pack up and take the kids, calls out her pious husband for misplaced
religious beliefs ("Butch is not the devil, he's your son!").
Dawn
is also distressed enough to want to spirit her brother to safety,
given that dad would rather send him to Bellevue. The $500,000 of
lost mob money turns up as Butch slides further into dementia,
walking around empty rooms as shadowy figures stalk him. We all know
where this is going, and if the film wants to leave us with the
visceral gut punch of the mass killings, the story needs to
demonstrate economy. Instead, we get a loopy "last supper" from
which Dawn is absent and the grisly visions keep negging him, his
family coming across as refugees from Invasion of the Body Snatchers
and escape being magically impossible. The film can't stop
dawdling, producing a numbing effect that actively negates the real
tensions that have kept the thin plot afloat. There are moments of
psychological unease that needed to be drastically streamlined.
When
the inevitable finally occurs, and those poor souls sleeping with
their faces down get blown away, the result is sloppy. Louise dies
with rosary clutched in hand, but the symbolism is unearned, and the
pain I would've felt at the murder of Dawn DeFeo is equally undone.
If it hasn't already been inferred, Farrands winds up with too much
inconsistency that it undercuts his fascination with this true story,
trying to stay true to the Amityville brand while reminding us that
barbarism, indeed, begins at home. Thus, the true finale of the film is not the collage of vintage newsreels and photos of the DeFeos, but the
introduction of the house to the Lutz family, thus handing over the
mantle to a far more dubious reality.
It's
all so much and yet too half-baked to digest. I felt the same way
about The Last American Virgin, which couldn't square the
overbearingly smug juvenile humor with the soppy attempt to humanize
its teen cartoons. It just didn't really possess true integrity for
that tonal shift, and I am left similarly puzzled by THE AMITYVILLE
MURDERS. And I honestly believe Farrands to be the better filmmaker,
too. I'm not anticipating the Sharon Tate and Nicole Brown Simpson
movies by any measure, but I am thankful he didn't make such a
travesty to compare with Amityville II: The Possession. His touch, however,
is heavy-handed when compared to a movie like The Id, and more rigid
in structure. It's not the CG phenomena or the rampant tackiness of
its DTV-level period recreations that strains my critical eye. It's
the poor form.
And
thus I end up looking forward to Diane Franklin in the future once
again. Given all that has gone wrong, chances are it'll be I stumble
upon her next movie by serendipity, or at least I hope to given I
disconnected from so many circles, hers included. I keep yearning for
some kind of happy return, but the last time I tried, it was the bane
of my battered soul. And it still haunts me. But Diane Franklin was
never the problem, because her support has kept me going for the
longest time. If this is to be my birthday present to a woman who
values my friendship, I have to end it by wishing her a great 58 and
to make one more wish for myself on April 3.
Diane
Franklin, I hope to rediscover you through all this masquerade and
somehow stay in a state of grace with you. I believe there's a ghost
of a chance. R.I.P. Neil Peart, and Happy Birthday, Dear Diane.
(P.S.
I hope those who get those that particular Rush reference will make
the connection to Better Off Dead.)
Diane Franklin, Savage Steve Holland, Olivia DeLaurentis
Enchantéd: A Retrospective Tribute to Diane Franklin
X. The Future of Enchantéd: Olivia DeLaurentis
When I first began this project, Diane Franklin simply served as the muse for my writing abilities. The dream of Monique Junet was renewed, and it was her warmth and wisdom which has kept me steadily evaluating Diane's "1980s babe" stature as a whole. Such reverence has been incredibly beneficial to me, but I haven't been so successful at leaping over hurdles in my endeavors. One of the biggest problems was that I wanted to be as comprehensive as possible, but realizing I had to enforce strict rules upon myself, particularly the decision to focus on feature films alone, be they theatrical or made-for-television. It hasn't turned out as well as I hoped, and a real reason is one Diane herself makes plain in the last chapter of her book:
Diane Franklin was finding it harder to advance her acting career.
One of the most unfortunate stigmas young actors encounter is that industrial predilection for typecasting. From The Last American Virgin to Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Diane was constrained to a certain archetype, namely that of the "ingénue," even with the mid-1980s likes of Better Off Dead... and TerrorVision demonstrating an incredible yen for comedy. And while I have watched enough of her to know that she had the chops to make for a brilliant adult star, Diane's legacy is tied down to a series of movies which only see her as merely "That Girl." Once you realize the inequality of countless performers reflected in someone whom you honestly wanted to succeed, that muse starts to slip away.
Diane Franklin's transition to Diane DeLaurentis began after How I Got into College, and the stunning young performer with the curly brunette hair began a respectable domestic life as a dyed-blonde acting coach, full-time family woman and suburban expatriate. In short: she disappeared, bowing out of the public eye to an audience of seemingly few of great faith. And yet somehow, this undervalued movie star never really left the minds of an her generation, and the result has been Diane's recent blitzkrieg of autobiographies, radio programs and convention appearances. What's even more promising was the knowledge that she was getting back her acting groove, that her second wind as a legitimate, mature performer could actually arrive through the efforts of one amazingly passionate and powerful person: her teenaged daughter, Olivia DeLaurentis.
Thanks to Stuart Morris of Misty Moon Film Society/Gallery.
Olivia was born on April 23, 1996, and much like in Diane's own life story, there was a natural talent just waiting to emerge and be nurtured. In her youth, Diane navigated multiple avenues as a model, commercials star and high school drama student. And Olivia's development appears to just as all-encompassing, with one of her earliest roles being The Cat That Looked at a King, an combination live action/animated short produced exclusively for the 40th anniversary home video release of Disney's Mary Poppins. This was based on the original P.L. Travers novel Mary Poppins Opens the Door from 1943, the third in said series, and featured Julie Andrews reprising her famous role alongside such talents as Tracey Ullman, Sarah Ferguson and...David Ogden Stiers, Mr. Al Meyer, himself.
"Right off!"
Olivia looks stunning in a junior Marlo Thomas fashion, so the genetic and professional similarities between mother and daughter are further delighting. However, at the age of 12, Olivia DeLaurentis had precociously developed a drive as an honest-to-goodness, jack-of-all-trades filmmaker. Not just an actor, but also director, writer and editor, thus making her the California suburban equivalent of Robert Rodriguez. In 2008, Olivia made The Adventures of Lass with the help of family, friends and pets. In two subsequent years, she spun that off into sequels, Sweet Potato Rush and Going to America. According to the IMDb, the Lass trilogy is a satire of dysfunctional foreign families migrating to United States. You can see a clip for yourself in Diane Franklin's recent acting reel:
The promise of Diane's daughter is very much worth taking into consideration, as she has already notched several festival nominations in Los Angeles and the United Kingdom. This year alone (it is 2014 as I begin writing this), both she and Agoura High schoolmate Jeremy Elder were awarded the Dominique Dunne Film Festival award for Best Documentary for Cinco, a profile of Despicable Me creator Cinco Paul and a supporting star in one of Olivia's films. And she was also awarded the Jim McKay & Mike Wallace Memorial Scholarship, news which I need to dearly thank Diane Franklin herself for relaying to me in person before the ceremony took place:
Diane's enthusiasm for her daughter has been nothing short of endearing, yet as much as I dream of sharing that glow with her, the fact remains that Olivia's work remained hesitantly unavailable for me to really process. I never asked Diane, who has produced Olivia's short films with her husband Ray, for screener copies and I haven't had the chance to trek out to see them in their many exhibitions. Even a fellow fan I met in San Francisco proved to be somewhat stingy in letting me know these were available to watch online. A vital part of Diane's story which I never thought I would ever see for myself remained out of my reach, and I felt like I've exhausted all I can say about Diane based on her 1980s resume.
Olivia DeLaurentis
Thankfully, Olivia DeLaurentis has uploaded her post-Lass oeuvre to the hosting site Vimeo. The opportunity to pay honest and heartfelt tribute to two generations of incredible beauty and talent has presented itself. Thus my impulse is to dive right in and give each of Olivia's short films their due, hopefully doing right by her and Diane in completing one's exposure (although Diane has a couple of movies in development to keep the series running a little longer) and charting another's beginnings (please read to the end for more information). It's all so stereotypically Semisonic, this fateful development.
Without further delay, and with the blessings of both Mrs. and Ms. DeLaurentis, I present to you my latest entry in the Enchantéd retrospective: Five Long Shorts (And Five Matching Briefs) from Diane & Olivia DeLaurentis.
I. HUMANIZED
Our semi-complete origin story of Olivia DeLaurentis begins in the future, 2035 to be exact. A war has been waging against rebel androids and man for three years, so the latter team decides to send one of their own back through time to retrieve the access code to a valuable disintegrator. The code was once the high school locker combination of resistance leader Alexis Winters(!), and because her memory has been erased, a cyborg called the X-1 has been dispatched with a "primitive emotional program" in order to gain her trust.
The fifteen-year-old Alexis, alienated from her family and her school, is pursued by the X-1 under the guise of Mac (Drew Cullinan), a laser-shooting postal worker whose software doesn't extend to social graces, thus a most reluctant friendship is formed when the X-1 starts to incapacitate her foes, be they the mean girls who push her around or Alexis' wannabe stepmother Bree, a bar-hopping plastic surgery disaster. But Mac's slow process of humanization clashes with his mission, and as days pass, chances are the vulnerable Alexis is going to be betrayed for the extinction of the human race unless Mac learns from the true meaning of failure.
Basically, Humanized is a young girl's equivalent of the Terminator 2 buddy dynamic. With his perpetually wide eyes and piercing voice which resembles the speech pattern of Beldar Conehead, Mac is less adept at fitting in than the Schwarzenegger prototype, blending mostly though sheer belittlement. But they do get along, although not without some friction. Mac bluffs his way into spending the night at Alexis' house, gets confined to the guest room and utters the deathless line "I am enjoying our restraining order slumber party complete with boundaries."
Olivia's blend of energy and empathy does set the tone for her future short films, and as a teen actor she appears to have picked up a few welcome lessons from John Cusack. The writing itself is where Olivia really comes into her own. Mac's cybernetic database allows him to deduce how to impress teenage girls through such advice as "purchasing nutrients," "do not contact mothership" and "eliminate the cyborg that lives with her." Putting the plan into action, though, his insufficient knowledge causes him to miscalculate even the simplest acts of chivalry. Picking her up from school in a red Honda SUV similar to another student's ride, Mac assures Alexis that he is of "minimal guilt," which...you can guess what that means.
Also worth commending are the montage scenes of Mac shadowing and bonding with Alexis, where Mac's further idiosyncrasies play out and there's even a pretty cool cameo from a woman only heard in voiceover, Mrs. DeLaurentis herself (nearly getting in a car wreck due to reckless Mac). She's even given a hometown legend salute in the pizzeria.
In short, this is a focused and fun starting point into the young filmmaker's catalog and proof that Olivia DeLaurentis is not a talent to be missed. Another touch to look out for is the soundtrack, which ends with a tune from Olivia's favorite comedy duo. Next to Diane, the other recurring adult player in the repertoire, Steven Houska, has a brief part as the neglectful father with the Bluetooth headset, a perfect transition into the first of the interstitial segments...
a. Dad
This Mad Libs-indebted goof on a sins-of-the-father melodrama is also known as the "Llama Movie." See for yourself, as it may be your regular Satyr-day night thing. Sarah Crosthwaite co-writes and co-directs with Olivia, playing the straight-laced younger sister alongside Olivia, Diane and Max Kennedy as the impressionable youngest child. My close friend Dana Saravia ought to get as much of a kick out of the inclusion of Neil & Tim Finn's "Nothing Wrong with You" as I did. Filmed for the 2012 Agoura High student film festival.
Violet Young (Olivia DeLaurentis) dancing with Claude Rains.
II. MY BETTER HALF
A fugue state is defined as a type of psychogenic amnesia stemming from one's loss of identity, often associated with spontaneous travel which is blacked out of mind. Violet Young (Olivia), a straight-A+ student who has denied herself a social life for the perks of higher education, is warned of this disorder by her counselor (Bill Wise), a transvestite surfer dude whose desk is cluttered with Darth Vader figurines and a Billy Bass perched on a mini-Hulk pinball machine. However, his definition is more aligned with average, everyday schizophrenia, or to invent a new clinical term for it, Fredophilia.
That's because Violet's repressive super-ego has caused her to imagine a subconscious prankster named U2 (Cullinan), and like Phoebe Cates' Lizzie before her, Violet is exhibiting indecent, demented behavior she frantically, futilely attributes to an invisible manchild. Diane Franklin gets the Marsha Mason role as Violet's hyper-masculine mom, such a relentless scold that her husband (Houska) is reduced to being Mr. June Cleaver. "He's wearing an apron," snarks Mrs. Young in a hush, "You don't want to end up like that!"
U2, a neon-dyed Peter Pan in Goodwill glam, only wants what's best for Violet, who is forbidden from school dances, on the cusp of driver's ed and diverted from her talents as a fashion designer. If that means wrestling her with a boa (which onlookers can only see as her doing frustrated pirouettes), habitually stealing cars or calling her through a banana, then this cuckoo life coach surely will help Violet realize her own personal fulfillment is hardly as nutty.
My Better Half plays as a more confident variation on the fractured fairy tale of Humanized, and Olivia's generosity with character quirks and unique comic portrayals is reminiscent of Savage Steve Holland's amiable absurdity. The understatement she displayed as Alexis Winters has given way to a broader but equally precise show of rampant, robotic neurosis. Olivia has upped her game in terms of physical comedy to match the lunacy, the highlight being when she knocks herself out with a frying pan and lumbers puppet-like down the stairs of her mansion, her Stepford Father looking on with mortification.
Drew Cullinan also feels more natural in front of the camera here, and makes a case that he could improve upon the late Rik Mayall's Rotten routine. Playing the roles of Violet's misfit friends are Sydney Heller (Olivia's co-conspirator at Barely Legal Comedy) as the academically jealous Cindy ("I write poetry about your body being found in a ditch") and Sarah Crosthwaite as OCD-addled Christian athlete Annie, each making an excellent impression. As for Diane...well, I get the feeling she is a spiritual godmother to all of the young actresses. Her sourpuss streak is luminously spot-on, and Steven Houska also makes the most of his expanded screen time as the emasculated hubby.
Olivia the filmmaker has also markedly improved, exhibiting a deft touch with the montage at the very start by giving us a compact knowledge at Violet's study-centric all-nighters. The temp soundtrack backing her up is also the best of her films, especially if you're an art rock nerd like me who fancies Sparks, Brian "Baby's on Fire" Eno and The Modern Lovers. The homecoming ball is set to the tune of Billy Idol's "Dancing with Myself," natch, as the Violet triggers independent-minded revolt amongst her peers and does the one-girl rhumba in a sexy costume she literally stitched together in her sleep.
Fuguing hilarious.
b. Agouraphobia
A comedy trailer in which Olivia teases her own Agoura Hills environment, caught in a rat trap of sealed fates, multiple iPads, "long shorts," and heated debate over semi-fast Mexican restaurants. "No one escapes from Stalag 16," her peers and the prophecies warn her, but can she defy the Big Pig in the Sky and, once and for all, break away?! Tune in next life for the thrilling conclusion.
Sarah Crosthwaite, Diane Franklin, Sydney Heller, Steven Houska
III. ROYAL EFFUPS
The Adventures of Lass trilogy was an indication that Olivia had a yen for crackpot revisions of historical developments, although sadly it is not available to watch. Instead, her next mini-movie, Royal Effups, is a Monty Python-style burlesque of the Enlightenment in 17th century Europe, an "Idiocracy: The Early Years," if you will. Set a half-century before the Intellectual Revolution, the first thing you'll notice is that even medieval babes like the fine, faire Princess Joanna were peasants once.
In a time of free amputations and children selling potato-shaped stones as food (it's a shame they didn't serve moss on the side to garnish them), a poor girl from Lemmingsville named Jane Iver (Olivia) dreams of being a Feudalist Tart. Upon inventing a heretofore unknown taste sensation called "candy," she is summoned by the royal cardinal (Evan Laffer) to be the arranged bride for King Ferdinand VIII.V. Alas, she has just been married into the royally insane, as Ferdinand's surname is an indication of his age.
Now officially betrothed to a child (Kyle Lewis) only interested in her candy, Jane is run further ragged by the rest of the monarchy, including a declaratorily conniving close heir in pirate wear (Cullinan's Duke of Transvestia) and Elizabeth the Cursed (Sydney Heller), the smeared-lipstick simpleton whose mental deficiencies stem from being the daughter of the Earl and Earless of Incestia (Houska and Diane).
Running about ten minutes less than My Better Half, the more loosely-structured Royal Effups embraces its dumbed-down premise with gusto. Ferdinand's chalice is a sippy cup and he rubs hard candy all over his chest after getting a huge bowl from Jane in exchange for a necklace. Jane herself binges on sweets for supper, although the cross-dressing Tranvestian would sooner she wash them down with vitriol. Sadly, we never quite see the Earless of Incestia pull back her hair or exaggerate her deafness enough to justify her position, but the celibate Cardinal does stick his fingers in his ear when Jane threatens to explain coitus and flicks about holy water to suppress any erotic tension. This time around, Evan Laffer is the film's MVP (although Sydney Heller and Drew Cullinan are incredible foes) and will return in a future paragraph.
There's an early visual gag which suggests the Imbecilic Revolution made ripples across the Atlantic, but we never do get to see any satisfying satire from this connection. I hope for a deleted scene of the pint-sized emperor holding a ridiculous public assembly or palace monologue. Royal Effups is a time-traveling variation on Olivia's subversive adolescent angst, this time putting Cinderella in a kingdom of pumpkinheads and watching her squirm and bluff her way into affirming her own grasp of power. The wit and the triumph which paid off splendidly in My Better Half is there, especially when the Cardinal confesses his crush on Jane at the least possibly requiting time.
Also, pip pip and Golden Crisps for the soundtrack, which is duly orchestral but contains many familiar modern melodies from the stables of Jimmy Eat World, Jason Mraz, Eric Clapton, and, of course, Queen.
I'd rank it only slightly behind My Better Half, but it's still goofily, gallantly imaginative and Olivia's personal artistic voice still registers above the royal ruckus.
c. Recruiting Violations
Olivia's Gwyneth Diaz goes scouting for colleges, but learns that it's better to call them than vice versa, especially when they phone you up after midnight on a studying bender. The admissions reps who phone her each represent a passive aggressive form of unsavory interest, concluding in a failed romantic misunderstanding/rejection from Bay Area University. It's scarier than the remake of When a Stranger Calls, to be sure.
Olivia DeLaurentis, Evan Laffer
IV. LOVECHILD
The fourth of the "long shorts" takes us to the 46-minute mark, thus making Lovechild feel like the alpha of the bunch by virtue of its plotting and length. Once again, Olivia has fashioned a farce based on personality crisis, only this time her character is more in control and demonstrates more agency. As an actress, Lovechild may be her single most substantial vehicle, although My Better Half is still determinedly on the Honor Roll. It's an amalgam of both Charles Dickens and Harold Gray in terms of story ideas, but an influence which I hinted at in the earlier reviews finally swims on deck. And that influence is, blessed be, Better Off Dead.
Olivia's character is named Layna Meyers, whilst Diane Franklin herself plays Jenny Meyers, which is a pluralized direct tribute to the role Kim Darby played in that 1985 favorite, which was as Christmas-related as Lovechild. The dynamic between real-life and onscreen parent and child is also more pronounced than before, so there is a added layer of poignancy in this film which I cannot be a Scrooge about. As someone who came into this project holding firmly onto the elder DeLaurentis' festive spirit, it's a little hard to be objective because the chemistry is profoundly authentic and their hearts in the absolute right places. Forgive me for saying this, but one viewing will make you want to go out and hug the both of them.
Especially Diane, whose Jenny Meyers has been injured on the job at a factory run by crooked millionaire Gregory Rhodes (Houska), who has unjustly fired his entire staff after a disastrous crane accident. Because of this miserly misdeed, Jenny can't claim worker's comp and owes $10,000 in back rent summed up in an eviction notice. But she doesn't know that latter fact, only her thespian daughter Layna is keen to it, thus sparing her any more indignity.
Irate and vengeful, Layna hits upon an ingenious scheme to milk Rhodes for damages, pointing to a 17-year-old tryst as research for the role of her lifetime: Rhodes' illicit, long-orphaned teen daughter. With the help of her best friend Reagan (Tyler Matylewicz), the gay son of a right wing pigeon, she pulls all the right strings to land at the callous CEO's doorstep. Layna learns that she's not his lone black sheep, as Rhodes has a son named Plato, or Plates (Evan Laffer) who has been repeatedly expelled from boarding schools and is caught up in his own brooding, Machavellian angst. But with her own weekly allowance of $3,500, Layna only needs to keep up the charade for a month to clear her mom's debts. But as she is confronted with her own transgressions whilst bonding with her sexually confused, arch-martyr half-brother, can Layna improv her way back out of the ruse in time?
Fittingly enough for a movie which opens with an on-the-fly rendition of A Christmas Carol, Lovechild is its own improvisational Christmas pageant. And yet it comes together a lot better than its loose beginnings imply, another token of Olivia's single-handed skills on the order of her last three films. The character moments continue to find just the right mix of embarrassment and sweetness, and Olivia's writing has many effective dynamics besides the aforementioned mother/daughter bond. Layna's liaison with Plates is especially ripe for schadenfreude. Her machination drives the boy so mad, he raids the kitchen sink for anything that will hinder his love-damaged dementia.
Steven Houska's Rhodes also allows for the recurring star to open himself up more in terms of dramatic material, striking a note of convincing vulnerability when he recounts the real love he felt for Layna's pretend mother and the shame of his fatherly confidence gone sour. His money-throwing notion of defective responsibility is, in a way, humanized.
The clever black comedy as much as the conflicts are as universal as they are individual, and are relaxed enough so that it doesn't leave a ham-fisted bruise. There's an intelligence behind Olivia's talents which makes the silliness stem from authentic surroundings. Sure, she can aim at easy targets (we'll get to that in a few) and make as juvenile of humor as the "big boys" in comedy, but if the teen flicks of her mother's past are any yardstick, then Olivia is a preternatural heir to the primo youth movies of John Hughes and Rob Reiner.
d. Dealbreaker
A confessional board game bought at an indie Chinatown voodoo shop worries Olivia-as-Jamie. Rightfully so, if you've seen Gremlins, but instead the twist of this five-minute filmlet is basically the opening skit from Movie 43 about the perfect bachelor with the physical malady filtered through a FreakyFriday/Big-style shot of supernatural fantasy. Drew Cullinan returns as the dashing mystery date, who loves Bowie but has inherited the butt of Barf from Spaceballs.
Jeremy Elder, Adam Fisher, Diane, Olivia, Steven Houska
V. DEVON BRIGHT & THE SENSITIVE BOYS
Ladies and gentlemen, live from the Epicene Theater (may as well be), comes the newest, truest and bluest romantics ever assembled. Meet Devon Bright and the Sensitive Boys, too chaste to chase just any young girl, but one whose purity comes from Nicholas Sparks stories and can cry just a little to make them demonstrate the proper use of Kleenex.
Fawns, Cougars and even caged tigers from all correctional facilities hear the hyper-compassionate cry of this latest breed of teenage wildlife: cherubic tube-top victim Kendall Bae (Adam Fisher), tough-talking softie Ashley (Jeremy Elder) and the central low-thario, the most valiant knight in shining capris to come to your emotional rescue, Devon Bright (Drew Cullinan). They are at the height of their fame, thanks to canny marketing agent Rick Martini (Houska), deceptive mothering on behalf of estrogen pill dealer Mrs. Bright (Diane) and an audience who capriciously get full body tattoos and scream their fanaticism to Ed Gein degrees. And that makes Kendall Bae sad.
Devon Bright is also broken up when he fails to avert his eyes during a detour through the ghetto and sees...like, omigod, a bum! This harsh reality presses Devon to abandon the incubatory safety of his family mansion and group bed to investigate further, first by engaging with a delusional hobo psycho (David Neale) whose oracle is Cap'n Crunch and then coming tear-to-tear with his disgraced progenitor and hero, Jesse Holiday (Christopher Mathieu). The green-eyed golden boy whose career stalled thanks to green soda, Jesse now rules his own street-smart trio of down-and-out child celebrities and initiates Devon into the X-Faction.
I am old enough to remember that made-for-MTV mockudrama 2gether, way back when Justin Timbaland was a distant dream of the future. You know, the one that had such dead-on style parodies as "Rub One Out," "U + Me = Us (Calculus)" and "The Hardest Part of Breaking Up (Is Getting Back Your Stuff)." Devon Bright and the Sensitive Boys takes that conceit fourteen years later in a present day universe of Directioners and Beliebers, and Olivia fashions it into another skewed but relatable journey for independence.
Backing her up is brother Nick DeLaurentis on the composing side, and the two original songs they have come up with are more purposefully bad than you would expect a satire of banal teenybopper pop to be. It's a moderately successful joke to hear neutered Iron Johnny Angel catchphrases ("I won't eat red meat/No, it's all about soy"), but not so over-the-edge as to make for genuine novelty.
Having now grown up enough to employ liberal profanities and a fondness for punk rock (Dead Kennedys poster, seedy scenery, Television and Marilyn Manson cues), 18-year-old Olivia seems ready to rumble in the comedy ring. But off-hand references to the choosey pitfalls of fame and the gullibility of pop crack addicts don't land with the blows they ought to pack, even when voiced by mincing caricature-com-conscience Kevin (Sean McSweeney), a reformed crack baby who evinces a genuine love for Devon's positive pabulum.
Devon Bright's guppy-out-of-pond sojourn results in a literal poor man's victory at the end, busted down to strutting in the park with his codependent siblings to shallow tweens who shrug off their social awareness. The satire runs through a series of tenuously-grasped poses towards a fitting but limp dead end.
There are some hearty laughs to be had, though, like the benign inner city pressure Devon encounters set to a thrash cover of "A Whole New World" from the Aladdin soundtrack as well as the proposed concession to ethnic diversity which is met with a defensive shriek by the homogenized Brights. The funny foreigner character at the end, though, is more hackneyed than I expected. The performances also strike me more as a serviceable collection of improv troupe tics in need of a human touch, especially in the central trio of stars. This is not Spinal Tap, to put it lightly.
Strangely, this is the first of Olivia's movies where I found myself willingly wanting more of her mother, who proves the most sustainable resource in the film. Diane's mixture of natural buoyancy and instinctive wryness gives her an advantage as the sidelined Svengali. Mrs. Bright's introduction is simultaneously sexy and sardonic.
Devon Bright and the Sensitive Boys is a minor diversion by comparison to her last four efforts, and whilst she still demonstrates chops with non-sequiturs, sharp one-liners and good-hearted rebellion, I can only anticipate Olivia's growth in the college circle and cheer on her great crowd leap forward. The evidence I've gathered here is enough to ensure her promise rings.
e. Chapman Application Movie
Olivia's parents play their own worrying selves as their daughter suffers an amnesia-inducing mule kick to the head. A concise formal parody of handheld identity crisis and frenetically-edited B&W flashback stock footage that ends with an even more satisfying near-hit than Devon Bright. Sarah and Cinco co-star. Music via Weezer and The Buzzcocks. Length at two minutes long, so here's to the lost 30 seconds of footage gone the way of The Magnificent Ambersons. Vaya con dios.
I highly recommend checking out Olivia's most recent sketch comedy with Sydney Heller at Barely Legal Comedyas well as After Dark with Julian Clark, plus I'll leave you with one more bonus sketch, in which Diane Franklin compliments her own daughter's breasts:
