Only now does it occur to me... DREAM A LITTLE DREAM (1989)

Only now does it occur to me...  that DREAM A LITTLE DREAM is a weapons-grade '80s oddity, a repository of batshit craziness, and one of the strangest, most uneven films to emerge from the decade.

The average viewer couldn't be faulted for assuming that DREAM A LITTLE DREAM is just another post-FREAKY FRIDAY body-switch flick along the lines of VICE VERSA, 18 AGAIN!, BIG, or LIKE FATHER LIKE SON, with the major differentiation being that this one happens to star "The Two Coreys."

But they would be wrong. For starters, while the body switchers (Corey Feldman and Jason Robards) would seem to fit the criteria for an '80s body-switch flick

Jason Robards is too old for this shit

(old man has to go to high school! young man has to deal with dentures!), it's not even a proper switch: while Robards is transported into Feldman's body during a dream-meditation/bicycle wreck (don't ask), Robards' and his wife's bodies simply disappear as Robards enters Feldman's body, and Feldman enters Robards' dream-world.

The dream world looks like the regular world, except with a blue filter, and the only people there are Feldman and Robards. Feldman prefers the dream-world to his precarious teenage existence (even though there seems to be nothing to do in the dream-world) and tasks Robards with fixing his real-world life (get the girl, score well on the SATs) or else he won't let Robards exit Feldman's body and rematerialize in the real-world as his elderly self, alongside his wife. Freddy Krueger references aside... are you bored yet?

And I suppose that is DREAM A LITTLE DREAM's biggest surprise: that it's pretentious! I swear, this film feels like it wants to be ALTERED STATES or AWAKENINGS or SOLARIS and then it gets T-boned by LICENSE TO DRIVE or BETTER OFF DEAD. You definitely get the sense that the filmmakers were going for a deep metaphysical dive, and then were saddled with a "Two Coreys" picture. Its uneven nature even extends to its soundtrack, which is best described as THE BIG CHILL meets TOP GUN. We have Jon Bon Jovi rip-offs playing over elderly folks eating dinner and then '50s oldies playing over aerobicise sequences. Timbuk 3 ("The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades") featured alongside Frank Sinatra ("Young at Heart"). Wilson Pickett ("The Midnight Hour") flows into R.E.M. ("It's the End of the World as We Know It") and none of it feels motivated. Though I'll let the Timbuk 3 slide. What am I, a monster?

Oh, and did I mention that Harry Dean Stanton and Piper Laurie are in this thing?

It's like the world's worst David Lynch movie

They're playing Jason Robards' best friend and wife, respectively, and Harry Dean's appearance here prompted Roger Ebert to disavow his famous "Stanton-Walsh Rule," which posited that "no movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad." Well, at least Piper Laurie gets a weird little Lynchian moment where she does a sassy solo dance with a tea service.


Coulda been a Golden Girl

Speaking of sassy dancing, Corey Feldman (while hosting Jason Robards' character's mind) does a Michael Jackson solo set to a hideous '80s cover of "Dream a Little Dream."

To say that this is deeply uncomfortable, and for a myriad of reasons, would be an understatement.

A poster for THE LOST BOYS gets a cameo, 

 

and the two Coreys are allegedly on so much coke and heroin that their dynamic actually feels like a teenage BIG LEBOWSKI or CUTTER'S WAY, with a relaxed-yet-overwhelmed Feldman standing in for Jeff Bridges' character(s) and a manic Haim stumbling around with a cane and an 'Nam bomber jacket as the Goodman/Heard-style sidekick, ready to erupt at any moment, a 5'5'' ball of pure id.

Rounding it out, we have the naturalistic Meredith Salenger (VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED '95, THE JOURNEY OF NATTY GANN) managing (along with Stanton and Laurie) to be one of the few actors here who doesn't embarrass herself. That she still spends a good 45% of her screentime doing jazzer- and aerobicise may or may not factor into this assessment.

Salenger plays the girl of Feldman's dreams, who happens to be already dating William McNamera (SURVIVING THE GAME, Argento's OPERA)

so obviously it's up to old man Robards in a teenage body to break them up and save the day or whatever. The final ignominy is the fact that they make Jason Robards do the 'ol soft-shoe and lip-sync over the end credits

as a duet with Corey Feldman, who is continuing to do his poor-man's Michael Jackson routine, which essentially makes it feel like an outtake from MOONWALKER. Whew.

In closing, I have to make a point about FREDDY'S GREATEST HITS, the 1987 novelty album by "The Elm Street Group," which features Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) performing covers of several classic songs and a few originals, including an instrumental (!). On this album, he performs "The Midnight Hour" (featured in this film) and, on the back cover, affects a Michael Jacksonian pose.

Given the Krueger reference, I have to believe that DREAM A LITTLE DREAM's makers were perhaps really jibin' with the glory of FREDDY'S GREATEST HITS (the film was released in 1989) and you cannot tell me otherwise. That is all.

Only now does it occur to me... STORYVILLE (1992)

Only now does it occur to me... a few things about STORYVILLE.

STORYVILLE is the only feature film to be written and directed by Mark Frost, co-creator of TWIN PEAKS. I watched it because I am a TWIN PEAKS die-hard. Here's what I learned:

#1. It can't decide whether it wants to be a John Grisham-style courtroom drama or a Cannon Film. Think that sounds ridiculous? Then just let me lay the plot synopsis on you, and you can tell me the exact point where Grisham gives way to Golan-Globus:

Clay Fowler (James Spader) is a young Louisianan whippersnappuh and ace lawyer running for Congress.

There's all sorts of corruption and family history and bayous and rockin' chairs and microfiche––


Most films of this kind make you wait about an hour for the microfiche montage sequence, but STORYVILLE delivers it in the opening shots of the movie!

and there're backroom deals and suspenders and an irascible performance by Jason Robards,

and pathos exuded by Woody Strode in browline eyeglasses,

but then––ladies and gentlemen, just when you think you're watching THE CLIENT or THE PELICAN BRIEF, James Spader finds himself in hot water (literally) when he is blackmailed after being videotaped having sex with a martial arts instructor in her studio's (ninja) hot tub:

And this is after they've already 'sexy-sparred' like Grace Jones and Christopher Walken in A VIEW TO A KILL.


A VIEW TO A KILL meets A TIME TO KILL?

Allow me to reiterate two things. One: I am not making this up. Two: ninja hot tubs are a staple of 1980s cinema, and I don't know why. I call them "ninja" hot tubs and not "martial arts" hot tubs (or even "jiu jitsu jacuzzis"), because they first appear in the Cannon classic REVENGE OF THE NINJA, where three separate hot tubs involving ninjas are made integral to the plot. In Cannon's NINJA III: THE DOMINATION, a ninja hot tub makes a notable appearance as a site of possessed ninja murder. In BLIND FURY (not a Cannon film, but starring Cannon's Sho Kosugi), there is a climactic martial arts and swordfighting duel over a hot tub. Later on in STORYVILLE, Spader returns to the scene of the ninja hot tub and battles a martial arts assassin. What does all of this mean? I was hoping you could tell me.



#2. If you're looking for TWIN PEAKS, you found it... (kind of).

There's a small town, quirky characters, and a dead body floating in the water in the opening scenes.

He's dead... Wrapped in... the clothes he was already wearing, I guess. 

It shares with TWIN PEAKS its casting director (Johanna Ray), cinematographer (Ron Garcia), production designer (Richard Hoover), set decorator (Brian Kasch), second-assistant director (Randy Barbee), and co-producer (Robert D. Simon).  It features a small, weirdo role for Catherine Martell herself, Piper Laurie:

and a villainous turn (obviously) by Renault brother Michael Parks:

 

who is sort of playing the same corrupt cop he played in THE HITMAN, though in this role he is permitted both the Cannon flourish of beating up James Spader while wearing a terrifying mask:

as well as the Grisham flourish of testifying in a courtroom that the judge "will not allow to turn into a circus!"

Michael Parks was a national treasure, by the way.

In closing, this is a strange (and, I'll be honest, often mediocre) little movie that may find appreciative viewers among TWIN PEAKS enthusiasts, hot tub fans, Grisham die-hards, and, I daresay, aficionados of the Southern Fried Crawdad-Lickin' Sleaze-O-Rama genre.