Return of the Killer Tomatoes

RETURN OF THE KILLER TOMATOES
(PG, New World Pictures, 98 mins., theatrical release date: Apr. 22, 1988)

Remember when Fox Kids managed to crank out botched animated series based on the strangest choices of movies? In the early 1990s, there was a 13-episode run for Little Shop of Horrors, in which Audrey II was defanged and rechristened "Junior" alongside teenage variants on Seymour and Audrey. Once that wilted on the vine, Wes Craven's inaugural adaptation of DC's Swamp Thing begat both the live action program on the USA Network (former home of the Toxic Crusaders!) as well as Fox's Saturday Morning spin-off which lasted a paltry five episodes. Actually, Fox Kids' Swamp Thing probably hewed closer to the spirit of Jim Wynorski's The Return of Swamp Thing rather than Craven's 1982 film, notorious for its international version which unshackled Adrienne Barbeau's bosom.

But the one which managed to outlast all of them was adapted from a movie nobody ever expected to be revived, even for children. And I include the Toxic Avenger saga in the mix. That was about an eco-friendly superhero (think Captain Planet with elephantitis squeezed into a tutu) on the most basic of levels; although the films were incredibly debased, they could plausibly be toned way down for possible "Toxic Tots." Instead, the genesis for this ne plus ultra of schlock cinema kiddie adaptations came from an episode of Muppet Babies ("The Weirdo Zone"), which made a sight gag out of 1978's Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! was widely dismissed as a overworked attempt at sending up monster movies, reveling in its own ineptness but hardly as funny as any random segment from The Kentucky Fried Movie. That reputation still exists, but in the VHS boom such sins were completely forgiven and it got celebrated as a proto-Airplane! despite the fact that Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker's embryonic Kentucky Fried Movie existed a year before, and remains the funnier movie to this day. A lot of people felt Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! was merely cynical in its openly amateurish satire, with a ratio higher in the misses than in the hits.

It garnered its expected cult following just the same, and when that aforementioned Muppet Babies installment achieved surprisingly high ratings, New World Television sent the word to their film distribution wing and Four Square Productions was enticed to make a sequel on a $2,000,000 budget. The result was Return of the Killer Tomatoes, which became the nerve center for the revived Attack of the Killer Tomatoes franchise to come, from the Fox show to the NES video game (although an 8-bit Sinclair version was developed in 1986) to a succession of further sequels and re-releases of the '78 film, including a "Director's Cut" vidcassette from Disney!

I'm here not to squash Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! but instead shine a grow light onto Return of the Killer Tomatoes, which endures for better reasons than its predecessor and recently got the red carpet treatment from Arrow Video. Whereas Attack! labored witlessly to spin its cheap conceit into a kitsch ruby, this time creative partners John De Bello, Costa Dillon and James Stephen "Rock" Peace settle more into a pleasantly silly groove worthy of, say, Killer Klowns from Outer Space minus the Chiodos. The mostly unfamiliar cast includes one obvious standout (we'll get to him) and is tarted up by someone who knows how to play to the lowbrow material the right way. And several of the jokes actually manage to seem good enough to have really inspired future movies which I also like.

Framed within a mock-public access late show in which the host (Michael Villani as Bob Downs) advertizes a call-up contest to win a "Pot o' Gold" worth $9.22, Return of the Killer Tomatoes cheerfully preempts itself at the beginning and several times during the movie proper, which picks up in the aftermath of the Great Tomato War. Having foiled a corrupt politician as well as leading the do-or-die charge during the Battle of San Diego Stadium, Lt. Wilbur Finletter (Peace) is now a pizzeria owner who works around the government ban on marinara by any means necessary, from mayonnaise to peanut butter to boysenberry sauce. He employs his nephew Chad (Anthony Starke), who makes a fateful delivery to the house of Professor Gangreen (John Astin), the mad…er, angry scientist committed to breeding a new strain of ferocious fruit by genetically evolving them into human form through toxic waste and a 25-cent Seeburg jukebox with no pesky 45s of "Puberty Love" (Alex Winter must have taken note when he made Freaked).

Chad, however, experiences said emotion when Gangreen's assistant Tara (Karen Mistal) greets him, unaware that she as well as the commandos guarding the lair evolved from the Finletter family foe. Tara isn't the kind of girl you take home to uncle, especially if yours flashbacks an entire five-minute montage whenever the Red Menace is invoked, but before you can say "nice stems," Chad gets beet-cheeks even though the reception is both unrequited and hostile. He returns to the shop to create his banana-and-Raisinets signature pie, but Tara has fled from Gangreen's with a neglected mutant tomato, F.T., in tow and delivers herself to Chad.

Can Chad learn to love a literal hot tomato? Will Gangreen and his sidekick Igor (Olympic swimming champ Steve Lundquist), a blonde bohunk with dreams of anchorman glory (watch out for the Ted Baxter degree and Diane Sawyer cut-out in his bedroom), steal Tara away from Chad and facilitate the breakout of a double-crossing archenemy of Uncle Wilbur? Which lucky lady shall win a date with Rob Lowe? And is Wilbur ever going to get rid of that dumb parachute?!

Nobody was jumping off New York's Golden Gate Bridge to know the answers, but that doesn't make Return of the Killer Tomatoes an overripe failure. Maybe because the 1980s were the salad days of ZAZ, "Weird Al" Yankovic, The Dead Milkmen, and Savage Steve Holland, but John De Bello has made tremendous strides compared to the undemanding humor of the original. Oh, it's still sophomoric and senseless enough to honor its lineage, but the energy level is cranked up and there is more follow-through in both premise and parody.

The biggest surprise is the influx of legitimately amusing running gags, from the self-explanatory skin flick "Big Breasted Girls Go to the Beach and Take Their Tops Off" teased at the intro to Igor's wildest wish to host the nightly news (his KIGR van is a garbage truck) to the ipecac-friendly menu items at Finletter's Pizza to the undeniable show-stopper, a fourth-wall obliteration as riotous as the "Spaceballs: The Video" premiere which cuts shameless product placement deeper than Wayne's World and challenges the generic inventory out front in Repo Man. If George Clooney sees his participation here as a Secret Shame, that's only because there is an alternate universe where his character of horny schemer Matt is Clooney's life, pitching Subway sandwiches, Geico insurance and Honey Nut Cheerios to save his bacon project after project.

On the contrary, this is the best vehicle for Facts of Life-period Clooney (no contest when the competition includes Return to Horror High and the unfinished Grizzly II: The Concert), as it is he who sets the sponsorship lampoon into motion and commits so hilariously to it. Even for a stock character of the era, Clooney demonstrated potential which would serve him well once the Coens harnessed his comic abilities. It's every bit as infectious as watching the more seasoned John Astin dramatize his maniacal archetype to the highest hilt, a precedent which helps loosen up the proceedings so that even the central lovebirds have their opportunities to land a decent joke. The absurdly alluring Karen Mistal, who'd go on to play Cake Lase in Savage Steve Holland's New Adventures of Beans Baxter, is alternately sensual, spacey and subservient, a Weird Science-caliber dream girl in extremis ("I cook 815 international dishes, perform 637 sexual acts [and] use all the popular home appliances").

With black-market tomato smugglers ("the real Acapulco Red"), a Sinatra-style "love theme" suitable for toaster shopping and punching mimes, Miami Vice and Mr. Potato Head jokes, and "master of disguise" Sam Smith (Frank Davis) instigating the first and best ever barroom brawl located within a pizzeria, Return of the Killer Tomatoes is a welcome reversal of fortune compared to its predecessor. The conventions Lampshaded in this film are more flexible in regards to self-aware sarcasm, from a rejiggered theme song calling attention to its own prefab development to a romantic hero who gets heartsick over produce, hallucinating "giant zucchinis and man-eating artichokes."

Sadly, Crest wouldn't go on to manufacture tomato toothpaste despite the valiant efforts of George Clooney, who instead shilled the Bat Credit Card to our eternal damnation.

In a healthier show of interest, Arrow Video picks up the slack from prior distributors Anchor Bay, who never bothered to correct their bare-bones, full-frame DVD release in the time we knew them. Arrow's BD transfer, a 2k scan from a 35mm interpositive, places it in the proper 1.85:1 theatrical format and buffers the film to its proper 80s movie sheen. The LPCM 2.0 track allowed me enough fidelity to understand the theme song's processed-vocal lyrics, which accounts for something. Extras aren't as copious here as they were for Vamp or Slugs, but director John De Bello's audio commentary and lead actor Anthony Starke's video interview are comprehensive and entertaining. "It's okay for you to drool."

Cannon Fodder: The Apple (1980)

THE APPLE
(PG, Cannon Films, 86 mins., theatrical release date: November 21, 1980)

[Welcome to Cannon Fodder, in which I endure a handful of "classics" from the Golan-Globus production team in advance of my review of Mark Hartley's Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films. I will tackle as many different movies from various points in the duo's timeline, from the early success of Operation Thunderbolt to the infamous Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. We begin with one of the early Cannon efforts, and the first of many in the "so bad it's good" legacy they've achieved. "It's an actual, actual, actual desire..."]

I broke down 40 minutes into The Apple, when Barbarella's vocally-deficient kid sister tried to belt a raucous anthem about America's need for "speeeeeeeeeeed." My palate needed cleansing, therefore I went to YouTube and pulled up a popular clip from Teen Witch.

You know what I'm talking about...

"Top That," with its Beastly Boys and pathetic ideal of adolescent cool, is still a better number than anything in The Apple.

I shouldn't have to write a review on The Apple. The comparison should speak for itself, but The Apple is low-hanging fruit in a sequined thong.

Menahem (remember to pronounce it as Mun-Ackum) Golan and Yoram Globus had just bought Cannon Films at this time, and it looks like they wasted few precious moments cementing their legacy as the ghastliest, gaudiest production company to ever schmuck up the cinemas.

The story was originally conceived as an epic Hebrew musical theater production by Coby and Iris Recht. Overhauled by Golan himself as writer/director, The Apple ended up another in the late 1970s spate of opulent disco cash-ins, released the same year as Xanadu and Can't Stop the Music. Disco Demolition Night was a year old by the time The Apple played, and with the exception of Olivia Newton-John's songs from Xanadu, this trio of turkeys drove America further into the arms of AOR. We as a nation went from the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever to Hi Infidelity so capriciously.

Obviously, it didn't help that the premiere screening of The Apple at the El Capitan turned into Comiskey Park 2. Audience members who were given complimentary vinyl versions of the soundtrack album eventually started hurling them at the screen. Menahem Golan was apparently suicidal over the movie's poor reception back in Europe, but recovered soon enough so that the world was given such questionable gifts to film-going as Death Wish II, The Last American Virgin and his own Enter the Ninja.

To quote the main villain of The Apple, "Nostalgia is always dangerous." What better explanation is there for why The (Rotten) Apple has rode such a wave of retroactive awe that it washed up in my shores?

Set a decade after the Orwellian boiling point that was 1984, The Apple pillages from established junk culture in both popular music and movie musicals yet harbors loftier ambitions beyond its cavalcade of gold lamé, vampire teeth and repeated crimes against the earlobe.

In a future where pop music rules society, the 1994 Worldvision Song Contest is the stage for an Old Testament-copped struggle between good vs. evil. The latter is represented by Satanic agent Mr. Boogalow (Vladek Sheybal) and his assistant Shake (Ray Shell, the Meshach Taylor of his era), as well as their hedonistic star singers Dandi & Pandi (Alan Love, Grace Kennedy). Opposing this fey foursome are Alphie & Bibi (George Gilmour, Catherine Mary Stewart), lovey-dovey folkies from Moose Jaw, Canada. After nearly causing an upset which Mr. Boogalow and Shake manage to suppress, these beaten babes are enticed to join Boogalow's circus of glam and ham. Alphie is deterred by apparitions of Eden-style temptation as he tries to sign the contract, but Bibi bites easy and hard, becoming Boogalow's latest protégé and driving Alphie to destitution.

As the mindless masses fall under the spell of Boogalow International Music and their pop-rock propaganda, Alphie soon finds salvation in a commune of hippies (led by Joss Ackland in a role more worthy of regret than De Nomolos from Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey) and is joined by lapsed disco dolly Bibi. When Mr. Boogalow tracks them down and demands Bibi's arrest for reneging on her contract, a power greater than the Devil himself arrives in a gold Rolls ("Marc Almond! No?! BOOO!!!") to take the teens to their final destination.

Catherine Mary Stewart, looking in the film for all the world like a young Kelly Clarkson (while the equally underperforming Gilmour, in his only credit, arrives as Warren Beatty), talked about how Golan aspired to be "better than Ken Russell," but The Apple isn't so much Tommy. For all its kitsch, Golan never once has Stewart writhe sensually in a flood of creamed vegetables. No, it's apt to see The Apple instead as a Godspell-Phantom of the Paradise hybrid knock-off with more transvestites than The Rocky Horror Picture Show and less infectious tunes.

A friend of mine who's married to an online critic (who, incidentally, gave this film a sincere rave, the lunatic) knows musician friends who bought The Apple as industry satire, mocking a machine so prefab and crass that the only way out is through unwavering integrity and a pinch of divine intervention. While I see things in The Apple which could support their enthusiasm, there are more dead-bang jokes in Phantom of the Paradise and This Is Spinal Tap. The height of intentional wit in The Apple is to parachute in Miriam Margolyes as Alphie's Bubbe-esque landlady, a bit of comic relief that cannot light the menorah once followed by the infamous "National Bim Hour" montage, a fitting prelude to the hospital dance-a-thon in Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.

More than any Biblical pretense or bizness lampoonery, what The Apple is really about is, naturally, music. This 86-minute film has about an hour's worth of production numbers, songs written exclusively for the film by musician Coby Recht and lyricists Iris Yotvat & George S. Clinton, the latter a Cannon employee not to be confused with the leader of Parliament/Funkadelic. Nigel Lythgoe choreographed the dance moves, and would go on to fulfill one of The Apple's half-baked prophecies as executive producer of American Idol.

Unfortunately, every moment in which The Apple breaks into song-and-dance stops the movie cold. Like Robert Christgau reviewing David Bowie's over-the-top singing on Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), if the awfulness of the music here is supposed to be a joke, it's not worth the pain. Lyrics are awkwardly crammed into subpar melodies, for one. Aside from the futility to make a hook out of the phrase "Life is nothing but show business in 1994," the opening number "(Do the) BIM" has a chorus constantly drilled into your skull which threatens that "BIM's on the way." I heard "BIM's the only way," although they could have been also singing "BIM's Yahweh." The point is there are tons more non-rhyming, repetitive blunders meant to condescend to refugees of the current vapid pop scene.

The music of The Apple is processed late 1970s cheese all the way ("Hey, hey, hey!!!"), flavorless slices of imitation Supertramp, Bonnie Tyler and The Carpenters (where's Paul "Swan" Williams when you really need him?) to garnish your Bim Burger (I'm not making that up, there is an actual restaurant in the movie which sells those). The Karen & Richard connection applies to Alphie & Bibi, whose own showcase songs are no less cringe-inducing than Boogelow's blooze. Their utopian schmaltzfest "(Love) The Universal Melody" doesn't convince at the start, but the duo's nadir is the mopey rock ballad "Cry for Me" ("Where has all the pity gone?"), a song which makes REO Speedwagon sound like Big Brother & The Holding Company.

There is a weird novelty to a couple of these abortions, it must be said. Never has a synthetic doo-wop duet (call it "Since I Don't Have ‘Since I Don't Have You' ") been voiced by a deathless Roger Daltrey clone and the dim ingénue he has just drugged. Never has a barnacle of a cod reggae song been mangled by a thick-accented Machiavellian who gloats into the ear of his pretty puppet. And if you wanted something to put the "o" in solo but were just too bashful to admit you owned "More, More, More" by the Andrea True Connection, well, The Apple has another thing "Coming." 

The Apple is one of those movies impossible to NOT make sound like a majestic monument of manure. This is a film in which the heroine is allowed the easiest possible escape all because Pandi has fucked the BIM away (and is subsequently slapped by the sissy black guy). One where an extra with a hoser accent yells at the heroes to "Go back to Moose Jaw!" One in which you could deduce major penis envy from its creator stemming from being denied entry into Studio 54. But given the combined non-efforts of the terrible music, the ridiculous dancing (BIM's prime directive is to pull no punches against the oxygen) and Menahem Golan's pedestrian sense of style, my first viewing of this was arduous.

It only got worse the second time I watched.

My nutty suspicion about the Israelis of Cannon is that as filmmakers, they were such fine producers. I will elaborate further as I go along, but suffice to say that Golan is genuine in his lack of finesse. The Apple is over rather quickly and has a sliver of showmanship important to the success of any musical, but there are Italian Road Warrior wannabes which are filmed more proficiently and look more believably dystopian.

And hippies, Mr. Golan? Seriously?!

 

Roadside Prophets

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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