Project X (1987) + The Accused (1988)

PROJECT X
(PG, 20th Century Fox, 108 mins., theatrical release date: April 17, 1987)

The Roger Corman Academy is known for turning out some formidable directors back in the 1970s: Martin Scorsese, Joe Dante, Ron Howard, and Jonathan Demme (R.I.P.). But the most ignored of them has to be Jonathan Kaplan, which is a shame because he has a skill with economy that could've only come from filming on the cheap and tawdry. Scorsese himself broke Kaplan into Corman's good graces, which resulted in the sexploitation efforts The Student Teachers and Night Call Nurses. Then he directed Jim Brown in The Slams (for Roger's brother, Gene Corman) and Isaac Hayes in Truck Turner (for AIP). In 1975, Kaplan delivered a B-movie hit for Columbia with White Line Fever, only to bomb two years later with the Terence Hill vehicle Mr. Billion.

The failure of that film must have caused some apprehension amongst the majors, because nobody paid attention when Jonathan Kaplan rebounded in 1979 with what I consider one of the greatest teen angst movies of all time, Over the Edge. Funded by Orion Pictures and starring both Matt Dillon and Vincent Spano in their debut roles, it should've restored the Parisian Kaplan to the top of the B-list. Over the Edge was instead handled with kid gloves due to the controversy kicked up by Walter Hill's hoodlum-rousing The Warriors. It got buried as a limited release, only to reemerge in 1981 through the festival circuit and HBO. By 1983, Kaplan got his chance to return to the big screen, after a trio of TV movies, with Heart Like a Wheel, a biography of drag racer Shirley Muldowney which netted Bonnie Bedelia a Golden Globe nomination.

Much of what Kaplan did in the aftermath of Heart Like a Wheel wound up on MTV, since he directed videos for Rod Stewart ("Infatuation," co-starring White Line Fever actress Kay Lenz, and "Lost in You") and John Cougar Mellencamp ("Lonely Ol Night," "Small Town," "Rain on the Scarecrow"). Which leads us to PROJECT X and THE ACCUSED, two of the topical dramas which were among his last feature directorial efforts of the 1980s. Kaplan graduated from Corman's fringy New World Pictures to a pair of heavyweight production teams responsible for some substantial blockbusters. Project X came from Walter F. Parkes & Lawrence Lasker, whose WarGames managed to conquer a sizeable chunk of the summer of 1983. The Accused came from established mogul Stanley Jaffe and his partner Sherry Lansing, as well as Paramount head Dawn Steele, who boasted the second-biggest hit movie of 1987 with Fatal Attraction.

From what I've researched, Project X is loosely based on real accounts of the U.S. Air Force having exposed roughly 3,000 rhesus monkeys to radiation far beyond the standard lethal dose in order to gauge human endurance during a nuclear war. But there was a larger controversy involving Kaplan's own dramatization when the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation, as spurred on by TV personality Bob Barker and the United Activists for Animal Rights, investigated an alleged 18 felony counts of animal abuse from several trainers. This went against the reports of the American Humane Association, who were officially active during filming, but Barker pressed on by going public with photos from the set which he believed showed chimpanzees being threatened with blackjacks. He was hit with a multimillion defamation suit from the AHA which was settled for $300,000.

Project X's lukewarm reputation has not been helped by being caught in such a scandal, and one might be tempted to view the movie with eagle eyes to see if the chimps' behavior may have been provoked by blunt force stimuli to validate what some claim is hearsay and others harmful. All I can say is that the movie did work on that visceral, primal level which helped make Over the Edge such a surprise.

The film pivots on one simian actor, Willie, in the role of Virgil, who is captured from his jungle habitat and put on the black market. He eventually lands in the care of Theresa "Teri" MacDonald (Helen Hunt), a grad student at the University of Wisconsin's psych department. Her intentions are to teach the playful animal sign language, although she strikes up a friendship with Virgil which ends once her grant is cancelled. She is told Virgil will be moved to a Houston zoo to receive proper care, but given his innate desire to fly, fate detours Virgil to the Strategic Weapons Research wing of the U.S. Air Force in Lockridge, FL.

His ‘sapien counterpart is Jimmy Garrett (Matthew Broderick), an insubordinate airman who is grounded against his will and assigned to the "Experimental Pilot Performance Project" at the Lockridge laboratory. It would appear that Garrett's ultimate goal is to innocently teach Virgil and the rest of the caged primates how to master a flight simulator, but Garrett notices the morale of his fellow draftees, Isaac Robertson (Johnny Ray McGhee, Kaplan‘s A-1 regular) and Watts (the great Stephen Lang), calcifying into stony silence. And he's picked up on Virgil's aptitude in talking with his paws, forming a bond just as deep as the creature once had with Teri. So when Garrett takes Watts' position as "lord of the apes" and is granted clearance to witness the end results of the chimps' VR air travels, he too is rattled by the radioactive death sentence Dr. Lynnard Carroll (William Sadler) has planned for the primates.

WarGames found Broderick, as the teenaged instigator David Lightman, in a race against the machine, one designed to simulate extreme and destructive conditions (like the arcade-friendly flight cabinets in Project X) but working of its own rationale and buying into the non-existent threat of "Global Thermonuclear War" with missiles bared and ready to launch. Project X renders the recycled peril a frigidly manmade decision as opposed to mechanical (Sadler, playing the first in his singular repertoire of chilly antagonists, specializes in evasively academic validation) and doesn't shy away from the physical casualties. However, it is also comparatively lighter in the lead-up to the nefarious reveal, with composer James Horner offering a dry run of the sounds that would make Titanic unsinkable a decade later and some cute monkey business in which Virgil's cellmates pick up on less civil gestures than the domesticated hero, who clutches a toy alligator in his first encounter with Garrett.

Jonathan Kaplan keeps a commendable pace before and after the 42-minute mark, the point where Garrett's affable naiveté as caretaker is shattered by his powerlessness upon witnessing the "graduation" ceremony for Bluebeard. Matthew Broderick, subdued in a way that must have thrown his Ferris Bueller fan base for a loop, adapts to the material with his reliably superb wits and expressiveness. Having been established as a miscreant, wheedling a ridiculous excuse for treating a girl to a champagne-fueled night flight, Garrett asks the right questions about the illogic of the experiments (namely, that a human pilot's knowledge of impending death is unlike how a chimp thinks) to get him fired by Dr. Carroll. He reaches out to Teri in fear but just as cravenly tries to take his mind off the horror by getting drunk and playing poker at an Air Force tavern. Just as excellent as Broderick is co-star Willie the Chimp as Virgil; when he discovers the frightening truth, his shrieks of alarm startle the viewer as much as it does Garrett.

Aided by master cinematographer Dean Cundey, Kaplan offers no-frills contrasts underlining the remoteness in Garrett's environment as another freshman to the project receives the same routine from Sgt. Krieger (Jonathan Stark, of Fright Night and House II: The Second Story) he once gave Jimmy. The movie does succeed at its stated goal of making the chimpanzees as intelligent as the humans, and there is a moment where the chimps in the vivarium taunt and stare at Dr. Carroll that is like a moment of eerie calm before they act upon their primal rage. The biggest hurdle in the story comes when Garrett and Teri lead the monkeys on their escape, a moment of uplift which allows Virgil to realize his wildest wish (as well as for Garrett to echo the misdemeanor which busted him down to the project) at the expense of credibility. Yet Kaplan's sleek effectiveness gives what could have been shameless melodrama a potent urgency, and both sets of actors are handled with care.

As a fan of Kaplan's Over the Edge, I suggest one watch out for appearances by Daniel Roebuck, who made a strong impression in OE scriptwriter Tim Hunter's River's Edge, as well as the two leads of that that ‘79 film, Michael Eric Kramer and Pamela Ludwig, in minor roles. Peter Gabriel's oft-misinterpreted "Shock the Monkey" (which literally happens at one point during the finale, as Dr. Carroll futilely tries to control the escalating revolt) is deployed for the opening credits, which leads to a cameo by none other than Dick Miller.

THE ACCUSED
(R, Paramount Pictures, 111 mins., theatrical release date: October 14, 1988)

Inspired by the New Bedford assault case of Cheryl Araujo from 1983, The Accused is the adult flipside to the family-oriented science fiction of Project X, a fight for autonomy from the perspective of a rape victim instead of a lab animal. Sarah Tobias (Jodie Foster), who is as uncouth as Goliath but graced with enough integrity as Virgil, is a low-class waitress who decides to release a thick cloud of steam from a domestic quarrel by visiting her best friend at a roadhouse dive, The Mill. One thing leads to another, and soon Sarah, her senses weakened by casual marijuana and alcohol use, is sexually assaulted by three men on a pinball machine in the recreation room, a rowdy batch of yokels egging them on. This is staved off until the final act, though. Kaplan begins at the climax, fixating on the Mill's freeway-stationed exterior for the main credits, followed by Sarah bursting out of the front door in obvious distress, hitching a ride to the hospital where the doctor inquires about her recent bouts of intercourse and whether she carries a venereal disease.

Birchfield County Deputy D.A. Katheryn Murphy (Kelly McGillis) appoints herself Sarah‘s prosecutor, but the battered client poses a huge risk as a case subject. Outside of being stoned and intoxicated, her ordeal could be cheapened by such looming double standards as provocative dress and flirty banter, the latter Sarah doesn‘t confess to until far too late in the investigation. To the goons who were there, Sarah was obviously teasing and putting on an exhibition; this "consensual" chauvinism is paralleled by Ms. Murphy's chief executive boss, Paul Rudolph (Carmen Argenziano). Leveling a lesser charge of reckless endangerment at the plea bargain, Murphy commits a flagrant offense to Sarah by denying her a proper courtroom recounting. It isn't until after Sarah has an unpleasant encounter with her aggressors' head cheerleader, Cliff "Scorpion" Albrect (Leo Rossi), and rams his pick-up truck in retaliation does Murphy seek a proper legal statute to go to trial with: criminal solicitation. "No deals," the women finally agree to demand in a precedent-setting act of litigation which will set the record straight.

There is transparent foreshadowing when Ms. Murphy and Lieutenant Duncan (Terry David Mulligan) consult the initial rape case with Mr. Rudoph while watching an ice hockey game, where the violence is expected to be cheered if not goaded on by the carefree spectators. Barmaid Sally Fraser (Ann Hearn) is only good for pointing out Scorpion and the two other aggravators; she provides unflattering truths to Murphy about Sarah's carnality and fled the scene of the crime without so much as an anonymous call. The only significant testimony could come from Ken Joyce (Bernie Coulson), the college student who has kept a sullen distance since reporting the gangbang. Murphy gets to him, but Ken becomes reluctant to take the stand once he's aware that his frat buddy, Bob Joiner (Steve Antin), will be indicted for the rape Ken knew he'd committed and serve the full prison sentence of five years.

In its own generous if grueling way, The Accused is a fitting reprise of the major theme of Project X, as studied complacency stirs a righteous call for justice. For Sarah, defiantly regaining her self-confidence by kicking out her dealer/musician boyfriend Larry (Tom O'Brien) and cutting her hair so as to resemble a trailer-park Laurie Anderson, it's the betrayal of her lawyer and the badgering of that odious bystander which activates her sensitivity to the beleaguered Ms. Murphy and the frightened Ken. Murphy's patronizing careerism gives way to bold humanity by acknowledging an equally independent, gutsy soul as vulnerable as she is unrefined. And Ken, the silent witness, selflessly experiences a moral awakening in distinct opposition to the nasty machismo of Bob and Scorpion.

The Oscar-winning Jodie Foster plays Sarah so phenomenally close to the bone to that it would seem to elbow out the solid work of Kelly McGillis (Witness, Top Gun) and "newcomer" Bernie Coulson, a Canadian actor who did one notable exploitation role as aggressive townie Jimmy Cullen in Paul Lynch's Bullies. McGillis does live up to her character's given name by turning in a performance as exquisitely composed as Kathryn Harrold (cf: Modern Romance, The Sender). Kaplan directs both the moodily blue-eyed Coulson and even schlock stud Steve Antin (that conspicuously gay monotone aside, it's his best work to date) within their element. The plot's true catalyst is Scorpion, the most boisterous of the six indicted cretins, embodied with disturbing gusto by Leo Rossi (Heart Like a Wheel, River's Edge, both Halloween and Maniac Cop's first sequels).

Foster, 25 at the time and painfully self-conscious, found herself at the second wave of her career but with trepidation about the alchemy of her character. It's a confidently heartbreaking portrayal, built from offhand sheepishness and bravado but suffused with a lonely pathos Tom Topor's script and Kaplan's more stylish camera seize upon. After returning to the Mill with Murphy and Lt. Duncan to locate two of her violators, Sarah is driven home and, her voice still cracked, asks whether her face looks good. She tries reaching out to her mother, who is typically frigid, hoping for a vacation which will allow her to recompose herself. The fact that Sarah's vanity plate reads "SexySadi" is tempered by the discovery that it's referring to her pet cat. The one subject she does have deep-seated knowledge about, astronomy, is cathartic rather than insular, especially since Sarah is not your average dippy star child or grotesque palm-reader.

When The Accused takes us to "show time," reconstructing the night of April 18 from Ken's confessional, it is very unpleasant and charged with a volatile sexuality brought on by Sarah's cocksure cock-teasing. Entertaining it is most certainly not, given one does not defend the predominantly piggish male crowd, but it is effective given the degree of character investment we've been spoiled with. You know enough about Sarah to realize she's flawed and fascinating, but the test which arrives 30 minutes near the end is whether you can deny the "blame the victim" outlook and perceive not just the three-pronged crime of forced entry, but also of excessive verbal abuse. Jonathan Kaplan puts us in Ken's horrified position over by the arcade on that night and as well as under oath (it pains me to consider Bernie Coulson another case of drug-addicted showbiz insouciance, since he is so capable under Kaplan's guidance).

Since his career peak with Over the Edge, Kaplan's ability to spin sensationalism into gold has been taken for granted. Both Project X and The Accused confirm that his talent runs deeper than most people have given him credit for. Whether it's restless teens banding together to send a destructive message to the PTA or a reckless young adult who commands our sympathy if not our pity in the wake of a degrading molestation, Kaplan paints broadly but knows well enough to keep a can of gray primer at his side. More so than the populist Ron Howard or even brilliant formalist Martin Scorsese, Kaplan is both accessible and resonating. That his fortunes waned after Bad Girls (1994) and Brokedown Palace (1999) is Hollywood's loss as much as it is ours. Give him some of our brightest contemporary talent and a worthy script again, and maybe we can all flash that signature Roger Corman grin.

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.

Survival Quest

SURVIVAL QUEST
(R, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1989, theatrical release date: November 10, 1989)

Considering the surreal, supernatural majesty of the Phantasm saga, the Marc Singer-mounted cheese factor of The Beastmaster and his recent appraisal of cult authors Joe R. Lansdale (Bubba Ho-Tep) and David Wong (John Dies at the End), Don Coscarelli doesn't have the most prolific of resumes. Having made his first movie at 19, Coscarelli is one master of horror with a restless creative spirit that was made for the bizarre fancy of his 1979 breakthrough feature about extra-dimensional grave robbers and the sentient silver spheres which serve them. Instinct drives Coscarelli more than prolificacy, which kept him from realizing Phantasm II had to be made until close to a decade after the original's sleeper success. Interestingly, much of the creative personnel behind his ill-fated summer sequel studio picture from 1988 were busy with another project during at the time, the adventure-drama Survival Quest. It's been a while since Anchor Bay dropped Coscarelli's black sheep into video stores alongside the original and third Phantasm ventures, but in the wake of John Dies at the End, I figured I'd try for a second opinion about Survival Quest.

A down-to-earth, in-the-rough fable freed from Coscarelli's fancifully homebrewed eccentricity, Survival Quest puts two opposing factions of self-perseverance schools on the same flight to the Rocky Mountains. The first outfit are collectively known as the Blue Legion, an Outward Bound subdivision of the Cobra Kai dojo from The Karate Kid led by militarist Jake Connor (Mark Rolston). The second are the titular Survival Quest students being taught by Hank Chambers (Lance Henriksen), a more reformed and refined father figure whose philosophy is more of solidarity and coexistence with both nature and man. The former group consists of your typical young gallery of grunts and dogfaces, with the clear leader-in-training being the spiteful Raider (Steve Antin). The latter is more inclusive and opens its ranks to unemployed seniors (Ben Hammer as Hal), sullen divorcees (Catherine Keener as Cheryl), boyish jokesters (Paul Provenza as Joey), and chain-smoking convicts on probation (Dermot Mulroney as Gray).

Hank's charges eventually learn to rely on and value each other's strengths despite their disparate backgrounds. Their first group problem-solving activity underestimates the strength of the women (expect a broken nail jibe at the expense of Traci Lind's bride-to-be Olivia) and places loner Gray further in a box ("He's probably good at climbing walls"), but both Cheryl and Gray come to demonstrate leadership and empathy thanks mostly to the sage guidance of Hank. But if Hank is meant to be Sgt. Elias in this film's friendlier platoon, then Jake is clearly a surrogate for Barnes.

"The penalty for failure is death" is the fascist bully Jake's creed ("When you walk in these woods, you are the predator...a predator trusts no one") even if the Blue Legion's campfire rituals come across more like fraternity hazing than the more disciplined, rigorous regime of even a bandana-clad hippie like Hank. The overeager sociopath Raider functions solely as Jake's whipping boy until the script demands that victim become aggressor, at which point the Survival Quest team have to work together against a legitimate threat boasting live ammunition and a Hitler Youth hive mindset.

Don Coscarelli may have not had the gods of high grosses on his side when Phantasm II came out, and indeed that film's deliberately gonzo tone is a clear heir to the madcap likes of Tobe Hooper, Sam Raimi and Stuart Gordon. But there was a cracking energy, offbeat charm and courage of conviction that made it so beloved over time. Coming off that minor letdown, Survival Quest is an even greater loss in regards to Coscarelli's talents. On a thematic level, it doesn't betray the ingenuity and derring-do of characters like Mike, Reggie or The Beastmaster; when it comes to execution, though, something went wrong on this journey.

The film is a jumble of elements from wilderness thrillers (Deliverance, Rituals), war movies and every variation of The Most Dangerous Game and The Lord of the Flies committed to celluloid. But there's no subversion or spirit built into this film's conventional DNA, just an indifferent sense of pacing, staging and plotting. The film goes over the halfway point in allowing us to gauge Hank's students' stamina and learning, so much so that the Blue Legion threat arrives far too late and with even more perfunctory purpose. Furthermore, the film needed to be tighter in regards to both sides' training activities, especially to skim out unnecessarily silly scenes like when Jake forces his grunts to play Hide and Seek and to just avoid the formulaic monotony of this back-and-forth between the two teams. It takes an entire hour for Hank's team to begin their fateful trip 80 miles towards safety, but the stakes are very low and the set pieces utterly devoid of genuine urgency or horror, unless one poorly-conceived waterfall escape and the usual dumb encounter with a mother grizzly are enough to stop your breath.

With the exception of another steely, dignified turn from the truly great Lance Henriksen, riding high on a late-1980s wave which peaked gloriously with both Aliens and Near Dark, the script barely serves its stars with their one-note characterizations. His Aliens co-star Mark Rolston does a serviceable enough job as opposite number Jake, especially when he finally reveals his self-defeating humanity, but is nonetheless trapped in a snarling throwaway role. It's disappointing enough to know Steve Antin (The Last American Virgin, The Goonies) is playing another insufferably underwritten dickweed, but his more conditioned creepiness as Raider is less Vincent D'Onofrio and bears a more startling resemblance to Eric Freeman's campy, hyper-masculine psycho from Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2. The same Catherine Keener who would prove herself a brilliant performer in midlife is squandered, and even the lovely genre stalwart Traci Lind (Fright Night Part 2, Class of 1999, even My Boyfriend's Back) is not given much charm or color to her character. There's no chemistry between her and Dermot Mulroney in the film's poor attempt at romance, instead throwing all its heart into the exchanges between Gray and Hank, whom Henriksen instills with a rugged but admriable warmth.

Phantasm II cinematographer Daryn Okada does capture the gorgeously authentic scenery with the assistance of a couple of smooth, sweeping camera movies. The mountains, plateaus, rivers, and snow-covered hills along the Sierra can't help but look invigorating. But the overly lightweight score by Fred Myrow and Christopher Stone hardly registers on the same hypnotic, pulse-pounding level as their compositions from Coscarelli's earlier fare.

The DVD version of Survival Quest was sourced from vault elements provided courtesy of Don Coscarelli himself and supposedly re-edited from its original theatrical cut. However, he opted out of including a supplementary commentary or interview, which is another shame coming from such a natural moviemaker. There is instead an eight-minute reel of behind-the-scenes footage and a triptych of trailers, one of which reminds you that MGM did distribute this theatrically before dumping it on VHS from CBS/Fox in a double feature with something called Damned River.

Not even a welcome Reggie Bannister cameo can distract me from the feeling that this movie needed some silver balls of a different type.
　

Enchantéd, Pt. II: The Last American Virgin

Enchantéd: A Retrospective Tribute to Diane Franklin 

II. The Last American Virgin (1982)

(R, Cannon Films)

Welcome to the first film in my always independent but never disengaged look back at the films starring American actress Diane Franklin. This is dedicated not just to a true heroine from my childhood, one who brought soulful and sincere qualities to any number of roles from well-remembered cult films from the 1980s, but to those who, like me, at least remember. If you haven’t read my introductory piece, please go back and read it by clicking here and you’ll know what I mean. With all the love and respect born from years of memory retention and genuine affection, as well as a naturally inquisitive, informative disposition, I’m eternally grateful to Diane Franklin not just for coming back to public attention to revisit her movies in a fantastic book available on Amazon, Diane Franklin: The Excellent Adventures of the Last American, French-Exchange Babe of the Eighties, but for her Cult Radio a Go Go program which talks openly to fellow female fixtures of the 1980s cinema scene who have been relegated to obscurity but who have proven endearing in their own special ways as Mrs. Franklin. I will touch upon as many films as I can, hopefully including her TV movie appearances, and cap it all off with a book review.

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With that said, I must say that in taking it upon myself to plan and commit to this retrospective, I realized the inevitable possibility that I would be revisiting Franklin's big screen debut, 1982's The Last American Virgin. Every thought about this movie leading up until now would immediately be haunted by my mental jukebox queuing up Lloyd Cole's "Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken?" in a peculiarly psychological understanding.

Franklin was 19 years old when The Last American Virgin began pre-production, coincidentally the same age as I was when I first came upon the movie on the shelves of a Best Buy store on August 5, 2003. I had come to pick up a DVD copy of Rob Reiner's The Sure Thing, the first of two beloved John Cusack vehicles from 1985 alongside, serendipitously, Better Off Dead... MGM had just released a slew of 1980s teen movies digitally, including 1983's elusive Valley Girl and countless others that I had an awareness of, be they lousy (1986's Johnny Be Good, with Anthony Michael Hall playing a jock in my own first outcry of casting heresy) or mediocre (1988's Bright Lights, Big City). I immediately touched upon two titles released theatrically by Cannon Films, who in their schlock-o-block salad days rarely appealed to the young demographic as directly as they did with Breakin' and The Last American Virgin.

The latter's cult reputation was already well-established, and it had a bikini-clad eye-candy DVD cover (see also The Sure Thing) that was similar to what I later found was the cover for the UK Lemon Popsicle series box set. I turned it over immediately and found at least three name actors in the then-unknown cast with at least one unforgettable appearance in films watched during my youth. Not just Diane Franklin, but also Lawrence Monoson of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter immortality (wherein he foreshadows through exposition a fatally libidinous Crispin Glover's post-coital doom with two harsh, computer-generated words) and Steve Antin from The Goonies. Finally, it was called "bittersweet, humorous and insightful" in a major magazine's pull quote (see also The Sure Thing).

Call it a Shabba-Don't if you must, but I cashed in the free DVD offer applied with purchasing both The Sure Thing and Valley Girl on The Last American Virgin.

My favorite coming-of-age movie made in the 1980s, one which I thank my older sister for hipping me towards, was the one set in the 1950s that was not associated with the teen sex craze of the contemporary times. I'm talking about Stand by Me, Reiner's finest hour-and-a-half as a director following This Is Spinal Tap and The Sure Thing. Corey "Mouth" Feldman left more of an impression in that film as Teddy Duchamp, another outlet for the teen idol's typical cocky bravado albeit one leavened by an existential destiny he hasn't the introspection and growth to subvert. Try and recall, if you can, the moment when he foolishly projects his own idealistic dénouement to Gordie Lachance's "Barf-o-rama" campfire story. Don't read any further until that scene is properly fixed in your memory.

This is the exact same reaction I had to the cherry-bombing conclusion of The Last American Virgin.

Imagine a teensploitation film like Porky's ending with the same leftfield violence as Monte Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop or, to be more astute, an alternate Fast Times at Ridgemont High in which Mark Ratner's puppy love for Stacy Hamilton escalates into a monumental wreckage of deceitful instincts, lonesome desperation and, in then, in the end, sad-sack martyrdom.

Throughout The Last American Virgin, the most empathetic character amongst the hedonistic cast of sexually-active archetypes is taunted by an unattainable desire for consensual passion from the girl of his dreams. He sees her first in a transfixed state of instantaneous infatuation, is told that the best he can hope for is a rebound once she instead clings to his callous best friend, proves himself to be the most compatible choice once she gets disposed of in her time of greatest need, and then comes to the realization that not only will his love remain unrequited, but that he had just been used in the same manner as his paramour. Without a safety net to fall back on, the viewer has just witnessed a vicious cycle of casual cruelty and ambiguous despair in the wake of a typically broad sex farce that pushes the concept of schadenfreude to its brink only to give you a kiss and send you plunging into the poignant, painful abyss.

If Better Off Dead... helped to embolden whatever hopeless romantics responsible for it's word-of-mouth credibility, then The Last American Virgin has the polarity to drive the same quixotic contingent to actual suicide. Still, after a decade of abstinence, I'm finally prepared to answer the burning question I posed to myself in the wake of my inaugural viewing experience: "Was it bad for me?"

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The Last American Virgin was Tel Aviv-born co-writer/director Boaz Davidson's attempt to translate his 1978 blockbuster Eskimo Limon (Lemon Popsicle) for the Anglos (an alternate American title was Going All the Way, although no enterprising thought was ever given to "Israeli Graffiti"). The original film was Davidson's attempt to confront a cycle of adolescent turmoil that dogged him until he was 33.

The character of Benji, played by 18-year-old Yiftach Katzur in what would be his career-definer, was Davidson's fictional surrogate engaged in a solitary battle between the hormonal and the heartfelt, the center of a trio of promiscuous boys living in the 1950s ("but only if you measure in terms of years"). One of the other roles went to Zachi Noy, who came to the filmmakers' attention due to a role in 1977's The Garden (a film which imported an American actress named Melanie Griffith) and was reportedly hired without a screen test.

Eskimo Limon was released domestically in February 1978 to a very wide and lucrative audience, so much in fact it was deduced that nearly half of Israel's population came out to see it. When it played in Milan during the MIFED International Film Market festival, producer Yoram Globus remembered people getting up to leave a half-hour into the film, giving him the impression that they were walking out of the screening out of disdain, but in fact they were merely trying to secure distribution rights. The movie went on to be released and received with astounding success internationally, which was a huge boon for the Israeli film culture, was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and no doubt went on to land Globus and cousin Menahem Golan their great prominence as the owners of Cannon Films starting in 1979.

The deluge of sequels all incorporating the original lead actors would last until 1988, although Davidson surrendered control of the franchise following the fourth film, Private Popsicle, after feeling there was no more authenticity and originality to be gleaned. Around the same time as Private Popsicle, Davidson and the Cannon Group pushed to create a proper, contemporary U.S. update of Lemon Popsicle seeing as how there were unprofitable stigmas to foreign films either dubbed or subtitled. There were fresh new faces behind the character types made famous by the original, the return of future renowned cinematographer Adam Greenberg (an irrefutable, expressionistic genius in my mind since the first VHS viewing of Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark) to capture alluringly neon lighting and, in the spirit of the original film, a wall-to-wall soundtrack of era-defining songs, only this time the evocative boogie-woogie and balladry of Little Richard and Paul Anka gave way to the new/old wave represented by Devo and The Commodores.

None of the information I have just regurgitated (let's give due credit right now with a footnote link to the UK Lemon Popsicle franchise database) was provided to me when I first picked up the MGM DVD of The Last American Virgin because it was a one-bone affair in terms of special features. No context, no connections, nothing at all but a theatrical trailer which duly pimps the roster of artists (and using their proper promotional fonts!) just as much as the theatrical poster. I felt like there were K-Tel personnel inhabiting the Cannon Films marketing wing at the time.

Time would pass for The Last American Virgin to get some due recognition, beginning in particular with a 2007 screening at the New Beverly hosted by filmmaking fanboy Eli Roth and boasting a micro-reunion Q&A panel that included Lawrence Monoson, Louisa Moritz, Kimmy Robertson, and Brian Peck, but alas no Antin (now an openly gay scriptwriter and director, bless him for life, but I really hope he hits a stride greater than Burlesque) or Franklin (what's this I see, but…hey, a book!) or Joe Rubbo (now a network executive based in South Florida). Being a regular reader of the superlative criticism site Film Freak Central clued me into founder Bill Chambers' positive appraisal of the film in a review of The Monster Squad. And Diane Franklin, you magnificent mother of pearl…have you read her book?!

Once you have done so, then you'll be aware of just how much authenticity and critical insight Franklin bestows onto Karen (or Nikki, to conjure the original character), the luminous stranger who is unable to even buy her first rocky road ice cream cone without a longing look thrown her away. The gawker in question is Gary (Monoson as Benji, suitably giving off non-stop puppy dog vibes), a terminally awkward pizza delivery boy who comes to the local youth-frequented diner to meet up with easygoing buddies Rick (Antin, playing a more conventionally hunky version of Bobby rich with unctuous confidence) and David (Rubbo as Huey, still a portly smoothie with a black book for keeping tabs). So far, so Limon-y, although the updated scene where the trio zero in on a random collective of girls leads to a straight lift not from the first movie, but the 1981 second sequel known by us Yanks as Hot Bubblegum.

This means that the triple date converges at Gary's house, where Rick and David effortlessly charm their targets into putting out ("I'm not on the pill" — "Neither am I") than the host, who gets stuck with the obese, bespectacled and completely apathetic third wheel of the bunch. Having bluffed their way so far with the promise of drugs, they rely on sugar substitute as a replacement for cocaine (in a very well-acted gag moment), and by the time Gary's parents come home, his nude guests arrive in time to shock Gary's mom into stress, thus resulting in the classic gag where the odd man out (David) sneaks unawares into a bed not with his intended, but a frightened older other woman who screams rape.

The same doubts that Davidson had about continuing to advance the official Lemon Popsicle films come back to render The Last American Virgin the entertainment equivalent of sloppy seconds. A lot of the humor in this takes its tenor from the farcical Hot Bubblegum, which opened with beach-bound shenanigans at fat Huey's expense (complete with a dog pissing in his face as he stood buried up to the neck in sand) and proceeded into a particularly icky subplot about a buxom cousin pitting Benji against his father in attempting to lay her. This extends into the trio's encounter with the oversexed and all alone Spanish bombshell (here Carmela, played by the legitimately Cuban C-queen Louisa Moritz as a Charo-caliber caricature of carnality), which is more silly than sexy. Davidson loses touch of the naturalism and raw terrain of the film that begat it at times and this revamp feels more like a bored compendium of a trilogy than a worthy update. It counts the beats rather than getting into the groove, as a true 1980s paragon of playful perkiness would soon advocate.

The episodic aversion to flow in the editing only exacerbates things. It's sitcom protocol, to get right down to it, and the broad comedy just comes in and out without any real lasting smiles. When David has his turn with Carmela to the tune of "That's the Way I Like It" by KC & The Sunshine Band, it throws into sharp relief what more earnest teen movie figureheads like John Hughes and Savage Steve Holland were able to achieve in terms of rhythm (two years later, Revenge of the Nerds would ironically cop The Gleaming Spires' "Are You Ready for the Sex Girls," which simply fades into the background here despite being the abrupt harbinger of a scene transition). But the surprisingly meticulous soundrack cues often have the power to literally pinpoint the romantic highs and unanticipated lows in Gary's pursuit of Karen, especially in the recurring appropriation of Quincy Jones & James Ingram's "Just Once."

Somehow in all the conventionality, which post-1982 begat the likes of the Porky's sequels, Spring Break, Hardbodies and Losin' It, the movie boldly deigns to put the lord of the woobies through the ultimate ringer. After tricking bike-toting Karen into accepting a ride to school, trying his damnedest to charm and appeal to her single disposition, the next time he sees her at a party, she is immediately Rick's new squeeze. A few self-sabotaging swigs of a whiskey bottle don't impress her and also reduces his confidential request to David to "tell Karen I love her" to crazy drunk talk. Gary further delays Rick's inevitable deflowering of Karen by introducing the trio to a hooker who finally and swiftly relieves Gary of his virginity (and his dinner), just so we can get the three of them reconvening at school with a rude venereal awakening that produces the movie's own photocopied but still hysterically awkward highlight when they go to the pharmacy coyly trying to ask for ointment.

And then it happens, the point at which Gary should realize his fruitless dream is only going to hurt him severely. He still can't let it go, as he has continually denied the willing advances of Karen's best friend Rose (the stunning Kimmy Robertson as the original’s Martha, with purple highlights in her hair and superfluous glasses) and refused to take David's word that Karen is not worth it. This doesn't stop him from driving to and searching about the football field where Rick has lured Karen, hiding out in the press box above, for the conception of the dagger that will later draw the final bit of innocent blood from Gary.

The final act of the film starts when sullen Gary sits alone in the diner waiting for Karen to return, and there she is with Rick, who screams the truth to a disbelieving Gary. It is at this point the movie stops trying to be funny and decides to get serious. The fallout stemming from Karen's pregnancy allows Gary the overdue opportunity to show Karen what he's willing to do to care for her, no matter what the cost. Since the rest of the group are convening on the slopes for Christmas break, the two of them have some quality time alone. The result plays out exactly the same as Lemon Popsicle with the exception of one chaste detail: Gary and Karen don't have the smoldering embrace which was immortalized on the poster for the original film. It's just a kiss, and Gary refuses to take advantage of Karen, going so far as to blanket her erogenous parts as she lays sleeping.

What hurts most about this development now as it did then is that in a movie that treats its female lead as a cipher and male a dewy-eyed loser, Lawrence Monoson and Diane Franklin, especially in regards to close-up shots, display natural graces denied to their characters throughout the prior two acts. The European sensibilities, which are wholly archetypical and deliberately streamlined for a purpose, just vanish for small moments. All you get are two all-American kids who can only see the dark forest for the shady trees. The programmatic paces can't stop both these actors, who were genuine teenagers at the time, from being wholly endearing, thus providing a tender set-up to the sucker punch that, like Stella, surely is a-coming.

Somehow, someway, and in this supposed comedy about boys trying to nail, the biggest impact comes when you realize somebody is truly going to get screwed.

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For the longest time, I've been on the fence about how unfair my initial criticism of The Last American Virgin was when I first published it on Epinions. I've come around to finally resigning that piece to the great recycle bin in the sky and allowing it the blessing of a proper erasure. Honestly, I was very false, not to mention crude and juvenile, and looking back on it has proven to be a huge embarrassment. I was philosophically not in direct opposition to an exploitation movie that paraded its artificiality only to really offer up one of the most blunt truths about the nature of love, and watching the original Lemon Popsicle made me appreciate The Last American Virgin more on principle alone. Yet I felt so much outrage at the time that I wasn't able to articulate the faults in execution to the best of my ability, but they're still there, mainly my initial hunch that the script doesn't have the sensitivity to carry the rough edges underlying the emotional turmoil and that the comedy is ultimately boring and very boys' club meeting in its overall scope. And, really, who wouldn't let Diane Franklin and Kimmy Robertson, two lasses with a good sense of humor and courage, climb up into their treehouse?

If this film was intended to launch an American equivalent of the Lemon Popsicle series, it wasn't going to happen, vicious audience receptions notwithstanding. This is disheartening considering it was creator Boaz Davidson who handled the job. Not much effort really went into updating the source script for the Eighties, as a lot of the same dialogue, scenarios and set-ups from the first film (and, as I mentioned in one case, the third) are merely just cloned. The humor is handled indifferently and with way less tact than before, and the drama sticks out in the worst way, because you just don't get any real personalities to decipher and the banal laffs undermind it instead of complementing it.

The performances are suitable if clearly mannered (the actors may have taken more of their cues from watching Lemon Popsicle), and in the cases of Monoson and Franklin, very winning in their unguarded displays of humanity. Yet you can only appreciate Robertson at arm's length (the unsung tragedy of this stalled series was that Rose's foreign prototype had a wrenching scene of her own in Davidson's second Eskimo Limon movie, Going Steady) and Return of the Living Dead franchise fixture Brian Peck (a dead ringer for Fred Armisen as much as Joe Rubbo provides the missing link between Malcolm Danare and Jonah Hill) is squandered as the stereotypical nerd with a curious understanding of manly competition.

Revisiting it for the first time in years, though, I was taken aback by the potency of the soundtrack in providing intermittent commentary both caustic (Oingo Boingo's "Better Luck Next Time" during the first party scene) and devotional (Journey's "Open Arms" for when Gary consoles Karen in the locker hall following her row with Rick). The song selection alone, despite hewing close to era-confined acts like The Waitresses and Tommy Tutone, complements the drama with the finesse and fluidity that the cutting and comedy both seem to defy. The DVD version, due to rights issues, had to drop The Human League's narcotic synth-pop gem "Love Action (I Believe in Love)," and of any potential song released around the time (I lamentably discount ABC's "Poison Arrow" from 1982) that could serve as an elegy for Gary, this easily was the best. The chorus alone gets right at the root of the problem when Gary first encounters Karen ("Lust's just a distraction/No talking, just looking"), but the verses give voice to the introspection necessary to allow Gary true faith in his later romantic travails.

It took long enough for me to reach a peaceful conclusion, but I can't deny now that The Last American Virgin feels as raw an experience as a one-timer of sex itself, a night of passion fueled by irresponsibility and the transfusion of sticky fluid and feelings that make up life. You'll come for the laughter, yet cry for the future. Once you get over it the morning after, chances are you may try to distance yourself from it to the best of your ability. Yet it lingers in the most sensual and aching of ways, and though you may not yearn to see it again, it does reward a repeat offense.

God, I’m horny.

Part III of this series doesn't exactly promise you a rose garden, either. Next up will be Amityville II: The Possession, which once again has the beatific Franklin, fresh off The Last American Virgin, as a girl victimized through a queasy sexual awakening, but only this time the tragedy, more explicit in both theme and character, is bestowed upon her. As I prematurely beg for the sweet release of Monique Junet, I'll once again leave you with a sweet distraction.