Film Review: LOOSE CANNONS (1990, Bob Clark)

Stars: ? of 5.
Running Time: 94 minutes.
Tag-line: "A comedy with personality... lots of them."
Notable Cast or Crew: Gene Hackman (THE CONVERSATION, UNFORGIVEN), Dan Aykroyd (DOCTOR DETROIT, GHOSTBUSTERS, DRIVING MISS DAISY), Dom DeLuise (THE CANNONBALL RUN, MUNCHIE), Ronny Cox (ROBOCOP, TOTAL RECALL, DELIVERANCE), Robert Prosky (CHRISTINE, LAST ACTION HERO, GREMLINS 2), Paul Koslo (VANISHING POINT, FREEBIE AND THE BEAN, ROBOT JOX), Leon Rippy (STARGATE, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER), David Alan Grier (IN LIVING COLOR, JUMANJI), Tobin Bell ("Jigsaw" in the SAW movies), Bill Fagerbakke (Mick Garris' THE STAND, SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS).  Music by Paul Zaza (PROM NIGHT, PORKY'S).  Written by Richard Matheson (THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN, I AM LEGEND, THE TWILIGHT ZONE), Richard Christian Matheson (THREE O' CLOCK HIGH, AMAZING STORIES), and Bob Clark (BLACK CHRISTMAS, A CHRISTMAS STORY, PORKY'S).
Best One-liner: "Humpty Dumpty's back on the wall!"

How do we imagine our art will be digested?  At the perfect time and place, by the perfect audience?  When I was eleven years old, I watched AMERICAN GRAFFITI, because I loved George Lucas and his STAR WARS.  I liked it, but didn't really get it.  I wasn't old enough.  Saw it again when I was nineteen.  I was beginning to understand.  Take Noah Baumbach's KICKING AND SCREAMING: it's a film about listless college graduates entering the real world.  I rented it with my friends, on VHS, the last week of college before commencement.  We loved it, but I didn't realize how hard it could hit until I watched it four months later, scraping along in a dirty, rented room.  I don't think they should assign THE GREAT GATSBY to high school kids.  I don't think you can properly unravel it until you've had a dream and tried to chase it.
Naturally, all of this begs the question: when is the proper time to watch LOOSE CANNONS?

LOOSE CANNONS purports to be a loose and zany collection of scenes arranged into a buddy cop comedy involving split personalities.

Indeed, the film itself suffers from multiple personality disorder: it is produced by Aaron Spelling and René Dupont; the former built a television empire founded on garish, bourgeois romantic fantasy (THE LOVE BOAT, MELROSE PLACE, DYNASTY, BEVERLY HILLS 90210, SUNSET BEACH, etc.) and the latter produced films for Charles Chaplin and Stanley Kubrick (A KING IN NEW YORK and LOLITA, respectively).  It is written by horror/sci-fi legend Richard Matheson (who wrote some of the best TWILIGHT ZONES and serious novels like SOMEWHERE IN TIME and WHAT DREAMS MAY COME) and his son, Richard Christian Matheson.  It is directed and co-written by Bob Clark, who brought us family fare like A CHRISTMAS STORY, teen sex comedies like PORKY'S, holiday slashers like BLACK CHRISTMAS, and indescribable musical trainwrecks like RHINESTONE.  It stars an A-list dramatic actor (Gene Hackman) and a (then) A-list comedic actor (Dan Aykroyd).

It co-stars Dom DeLuise and an entire battery of "that guy!" character actors from gritty crime flicks of the 70s and 80s.  It features a soundtrack from Paul Zaza, who oversaw the horror-disco-sanity of PROM NIGHT.  The plot involves Nazi sex tapes and S&M and one-liners and mental illness––hey, what is this, anyway?  Who was this made for?  Who was meant to digest it? And when? 

In 1990, Siskel and Ebert described it as "the cop-buddy comedy that hits new lows in an undisputed field."  It was a financial failure, recouping only $5 million of a $15 million budget.  In 2015, it holds a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.  As far as I know, it has not secured a cult following in the interim, even among bad movie aficionados.  For twenty-five years, unmoored, adrift, LOOSE CANNONS has not found its audience.  It has not yet discovered its proper time and place.  How does one judge such a film?  I'm not even quite sure it is a film; it may very well be a ghost on the haunt.

Gene Hackman's cat is named "Camus."  Dan Aykroyd is afraid to go to an S&M club, "not that I'm a Trudy Prudy or anything like that."

Do we blame this for EXIT TO EDEN? 

The club has go-go dancers wearing KISS-style body paint and this is distressing to Dan Aykroyd.

Aykroyd says "I always annoy people.  I don't mean to."  It is something of an understatement.

At different points throughout the film, Aykroyd "becomes" The Road Runner, Scotty for STAR TREK, The Cowardly Lion, and The Wicked Witch.  It is explained that he is only this way because he was tortured by a Columbian named "Armando."

We, however, were tortured by a Canadian named Aykroyd?

Aykroyd and Hackman drive around in a battered old station wagon full of kitty litter.

 "I have a hole in my ass."  ––"That's why they call you an asshole!"
 
Later, the station wagon smashes into a stack of crates filled with chickens.

 Gene Hackman wields a blunderbuss.
 
Dom DeLuise appears, looking like latter-day Orson Welles, wearing a King of Hearts costume

and, later, vests made from the upholstery of grandmothers' couches.

He exclaims "They're fucking with the wrong Jew this time!"

This is because he's involved in a international conspiracy searching for a snuff/pornographic/ritual sex-suicide film starring Adolf Hitler and the guy (Robert Prosky) who's going to be the next German chancellor.


"I saw a movie, XXX-style, only this one starred Hitler and a couple of other guys!" 

Paul Koslo plays a Nazi, who waves a gun around and does Nazi things.

Ronny Cox plays an FBI handler, who sure has his hands full with these two.

David Alan Grier shows up and tries to pretend he's not actually in the movie.

"How do you know the killer's German," asks Gene Hackman.  "Because there's no peepee hole on the boxers," says Dan Aykroyd.

Dom DeLuise is rolled around in a wheelchair.  This is supposed to make us smile because he is a fat man.  It actually makes us smile because Dom DeLuise is a warm and sympathetic human being who inspires warm feelings everywhere he goes.

We begin to wonder if GHOSTBUSTERS would have been insufferable if it didn't also have Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson.

"Let me know if you ever find yourself, kid, cause I'd love to meet you," says Gene Hackman.

And somewhere between it's first and ninety-fourth minute, the film ends.  What was it?  I 'm not sure.  It all happened so fast, officer...

So when and where was LOOSE CANNONS' proper time and place?  If I had watched it on some other evening, at some other point in my life, would it have really "clicked" with me?  For all I know, this film is a triggering device for some as-of-yet-unhatched MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE-style plot, and that's it's proper time and place.  Or perhaps it was Calgary in 2013, when frames from a discarded reel of LOOSE CANNONS were discovered in a Canadian landfill, prompting an employee to believe he'd stumbled upon the remains of an actual snuff film.  It was finally determined to be a staged murder when Calgary police realized the man doing the murdering was Dan Aykroyd.

His name cleared, Aykroyd said "The movie should have been left in the landfill where it belongs."

Perhaps that is it's time and place.  This impossible confluence of writers, actors, and producers––arthouse, grindhouse, and studio system alike––converging on a genre that was mostly played out by 1990, on a film that was seen and loved by almost no one.  Rotting away, unseen, unsung...  Perhaps this landfill copy of LOOSE CANNONS, this temporary piece of crime scene evidence, ought to be screened as-is, DECASIA-style, as an art installation piece reminding us of this fine line between fiction and non-fiction, between sanity and madness.  What's the half-life of celluloid?  We'd better screen it while there's still something left, before we can no longer properly loop the reel across the spools and project.  Maybe the cannons are loose, not because they're a hot-doggin' cop and his mentally ill partner; maybe they're loose because the cannons are fleeting, life is fleeting, the cannons are slip, slipping away.

LOOSE CANNONS, ladies and gentlemen.

–Sean Gill

Only now does it occur to me... THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE

Only now does it occur to me...  that Michael Biehn and Bill Paxton were good 'ole boy soldier cronies back in 1983, three years before ALIENS.

Based on a novel by Pat Conroy that I read for a high school English class, THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE is set at a Citadel-esque military academy on the cusp of the Civil Rights era.
Biehn and Paxton play a couple of classic asshole hazer bullies who usually torment the weakest of the new guys

Paxton (far left) and Biehn (second from left) do their thing.

and enacting hardcore harassments, like turning the fat guy into Paxton's personal piggy bank.



Things take a turn for the worse when the school admits its first-ever black cadet, and Biehn and Paxton (along with a shadowy organization called "The Ten," that seems like a blend of the KKK and Yale's Skull and Bones) begin a torturous, drawn-out persecution of the black guy, who's only friend on campus is David Keith (unfortunately, not Keith David).

Biehn chomps the scenery, trying to outdo Paxton's crazy face.

The culmination of all this is probably the scene where Paxton and Biehn sing with the full company of cadets and proceed in a behavior I can only describe as trying to "Out-Dixie" one another.  Well done.


Also, Paxton is credited as "Wild" Bill Paxton.  It's too bad that didn't stick!

Anyway, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, and one which continued in THE TERMINATOR (1984), ALIENS (1986), NAVY SEALS (1990), and TOMBSTONE (1993).


P.S. There's also a meaty character role (Colonel "Bear" Berrineau) for crotchety old man and cigar-chomping virtuoso Robert Prosky (GREMLINS 2, CHRISTINE).  Always good to see ya, Mr. Prosky!

CHOMP

Film Review: CHRISTINE (1983, John Carpenter)

Stars: 4.5 of 5.
Running Time: 110 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Keith Gordon (THE LEGEND OF BILLIE JEAN, DRESSED TO KILL, director of THE CHOCOLATE WAR, WAKING THE DEAD), John Stockwell (MY SCIENCE PROJECT, TOP GUN), Harry Dean Stanton (PARIS TEXAS, WILD AT HEART), Alexandra Paul (BAYWATCH, DRAGNET '87), Robert Prosky (GREMLINS 2, LAST ACTION HERO), Kelly Preston (JERRY MAGUIRE, TWINS), Roberts Blossom (CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, FLASHPOINT). Original music by John Carpenter and Alan Howarth. Special effects supervised by Roy Arbogast (RETURN OF THE JEDI, THEY LIVE, JAWS 2). Stunt coordinated by Terry Leonard (CONAN THE BARBARIAN, COBRA). Written by Bill Phillips (FIRE WITH FIRE, EL DIABLO), and based on the novel by Stephen King.
Tag-line: "Seductive. Passionate. Possessive. Say hello to Christine...Your Girlfriend, The Car."
Best one-liner: "No shitter ever came between me and Christine!"

I didn't like CHRISTINE very much the first time I saw it. I think I expected either mind-blowing gore and stomach-churning tension á la THE THING or balls-out fun and Americana smart-alecks á la BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, and so I was left a little disappointed. However, I've found that my appreciation for it increases exponentially with each viewing, and now I'd have no problem whatsoever referring to it as an upper-tier Carpenter.

A much-hyped collaboration between two titans of modern horror, Stephen King and John Carpenter, CHRISTINE plays well to some of their respective fascinations: King's being the turbulence of adolescence heightened by runaway supernatural evil (see also: CARRIE) and Carpy's being an obsession with 50's nostalgia and the feeling of being born in the wrong time (see also: WAITING OUT THE EIGHTIES). The story of a murderous '57 Plymouth Fury and the strange hold it takes over the personality of a 70's teenage outcast, CHRISTINE is equal parts thriller, chiller, and a freaky coming-of-age. Here's ten reasons I think it's quite a plum in Carpenter's oeuvre:

#1. The soundtrack (and occasional lack thereof). Right off the bat, Carpenter lets us know it's not exactly business as usual: despite the familiar Albertus font, the film opens not with the familiar strains of a synthesized Carpy score, but the malevolent idling of an engine. Later, we get some Carpy-penned tension-building tracks, but the majority of the soundtrack is made up of classic, early Rock n' Roll tracks (which take on an even greater significance when the demon-car Christine begins to use their lyrics to communicate!). Carpenter also beautifully illustrates the decline of American culture as Buddy Holly's original "Not Fade Away" literally fades away into Tanya Tucker's 70's-tastic (and fairly abhorrant) version. Including Bonnie Raitt's reinterpretation of Del Shannon's "Runaway" achieves the same purpose: groundbreaking, sincere work gives way to glossy, poppy, overproduced nonsense. (And I don't mean especially to pick on Tanya and Bonnie, because the state of mainstream artistic expression has only worsened since!)

#2. Robert Prosky. One of the great character actors, his irascible (and frequently improvised) Old Man Darnell can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned.

"That's the last time you run that mechanical asshole in here without an exhaust hose," he gripes while chewing on that old man cud that all grizzled garage owners apparently chew on. "Don't think you got the gold key to the crapper-nobody takes advantage of me!" He's great.

#3. Use of the word "shitter." Sometimes Stephen King goes a little over the top with the stylized patois, but every once in a while, a term pops up that truly warms my heart. Like when Keith Gordon squeals "Don't touch her... SHITTER!" Or when Roberts Blossom (any relation to Buck Flower?) malevolently intones "You don't know half as much as you think you do...SHITTER!" I could go on.

#4. Christine's self repair. Sure, the key principal at hand here is running the film backwards, but even the 80's SFX-naysayers must admit that the end result is astounding.



And just think of how shitty it'd look with CGI. I'm sure a remake will be in the works shortly, as the powers that be continue to mine Carpenter's back catalogue– it makes my skin crawl.

#5. The choking scene. Carpenter illustrates a supernatural event (a car consciously trapping a girl inside as she chokes on some food) through the simplest terms (extremely bright light)...and it works!




#6. Photographing Christine as though she's Michael Myers from HALLOWEEN.


And it occurs to me that those early scenes in HALLOWEEN on Michael driving around and stalking the girls likely later served as Carpenter's 'audition' for CHRISTINE! (And see the opening sequence of HALLOWEEN III for the aftershocks.) Also, the sudden lighting of piercing headlamps in the darkness makes for a great and unexpected horror motif!

#7. Carpy's meditations on the relationships between humans and machines.

Carpenter takes a different, less fleshy approach than, say, Cronenberg, but he's got a lot to say about the feelings which we ascribe to our objects. At what point does a car merit a gender? At which point does Christine emerge as a character beneath the indifferent chrome and candy apple? Is it when she's wounded- when that gaping maw of gnarled pipes and twisted metal resembles a mouth?

Regardless, there's an excellent moment when, after a demonstration of Christine's sentience, a porch light flips on suddenly in the darkness. We're in a state of mind which believes immediately somehow that the light may be 'alive,' yet it quickly sinks in that a person (soon revealed to be a parent) has turned on the light in response to a teenage argument. But it demonstrates perfectly that odd disconnect between identifying machines and the people who operate them.

#8. Harry Dean Stanton. Sure, his part's not that big. Sure, he's been better used elsewhere. But when Harry Dean Stanton shows up, I stand to attention and salute.

It does make me kind of sad that Harry Dean and Carpenter only collaborated twice, though––can you imagine him as one of the crew in THE THING? Or as a resistance member in THEY LIVE? The mind reels.

#9. I love it when high-schoolers are ambiguously middle-aged. It's like it was a prerequisite to have at least a couple in every teen movie.


#10. Keith Gordon. Sometimes I can't quite tell if an actor is terrible or brilliant, but I enjoy their performance all the same. His character begins as a nerd that's excited about Scrabble and can't even open his own locker,

but transforms into a psychotic, car-obsessed 70's greaser prone to Pesci-esque explosions of emotion. Occasionally he enters the realm of "Hoo boy, that's over the top," but that's really such a fine line that perhaps it's not for me to say.

What is for me to say? Well, how about a toast– "Death to all SHITTERS of 1979!"

-Sean Gill