Only now does it occur to me... BACHELOR PARTY (1984)

Only now does it occur to me... that BACHELOR PARTY is exactly what it pretends to be; that is to say, a raunchy 80s sex comedy that is on the wrong side of history on most, if not all, counts; one which traffics in visual puns,

BOSOM BUDDIES, right?

and whose key cultural legacy may center on a donkey show sex-donkey overdosing on pills;

a film featuring music by The Police, Darlene Love, Wang Chung, and three tracks by Oingo Boingo (including the important original composition "Theme from BACHELOR PARTY"); a film providing beautiful time-capsule views of pillars of our society, like 1984 Department Store:

1984 Mall Clothing Store:

1984 CONAN THE BARBARIAN-themed Male Strip Club:

and 1984 Home Kitchen.

Note the presence of a ventriloquist's dummy and cymbal-banging monkey toy

In the world of BACHELOR PARTY, Tom Hanks plays "Rick Gassko," a school bus driver whose easygoing relationship with the students he ferries brands him as more of a "Cool Bus Driver." Having become recently engaged, he informs his four blue-collar friends––a waiter (Cannon Films' Michael Dudikoff), a mechanic, a Sears photographer, and a Ticketmaster salesman––that there's going to be a wicked bachelor party thrown in his honor. If this were made today, the major difference––beyond, perhaps, more diversity, fewer sexist/racist/transphobic jokes, etc.––would be that the men would all be wealthier, and their bachelor party would involve Instagram-worthy lifestyle-porn.

Anyway, lest we forget, we have been brought to this hallowed place together because we are continuing my retrospective of Tawny Kitaen's 1980s oeuvre.

Indeed, Tawny Kitaen––playing a rich girl who sells New Wave clothing at a mall––is Hanks' fiancée.

Seen here (left) with her friend, who is wearing chopsticks in her hair as a New Wave fashion statement

I would not call this Tawny's finest hour, but it's a very likable, workmanlike performance. The role never challenges her range––indeed, this film could not be accused of challenging any of its actors, excepting, perhaps, Michael Dudikoff––

but as the "fiancée" in a movie dedicated to her zany fiancé's antics, there's only so much for her to do.

She does, however, impersonate a prostitute with a Southern accent in a comic scenario about as sophisticated as it sounds:

so there's that.

This movie also shows us that "Tom Hanks Karate Chop Freakdancing" is remarkably similar to "Crispin Glover Karate Chop Freakdancing" in FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER, also made in 1984. 

So it's possible this is more of a "nerdy 1984 weirdo" thing than a concrete Glover-Hanks connection.

There's a supporting turn from the always jocular Wendie Jo Sperber (best known, perhaps for playing Crispin Glover's daughter, Linda McFly, in BACK TO THE FUTURE)

and, as usual, she's a hilarious, affable presence. [See also: I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND, CORVETTE SUMMER, et al.]

Also gotta give a shout-out to my man Michael Dudikoff (AMERICAN NINJA, AMERICAN NINJA 2), who makes it very difficult to decipher whether the bad acting choices he makes are meant to be inherent to the character, or whether they are in fact actual bad acting choices made by Mr. Dudikoff.  A great example of this is when Tawny Kitaen is kidnapped by an ex-boyfriend

 

and Hanks and his crew react in horror, except for Dudikoff 

who continues to stare at the kidnapping with an amazed and delighted expression. Good stuff.

There's also a showdown at a 24-hour 3-D movie theater which is showing classics like HOUSE OF WAX and DIAL M FOR MURDER alongside fictitious titles like SYBORG (which is probably a METALSTORM: THE DESTRUCTION OF JARED-SYN reference?).

This leads to a fight in the movie theater whereupon you realize the entire "fight in a 3-D movie theater" scenario is a set-up for

a blockheaded joke with audience members believing the real-life battle to be a 3-D special effect.

In the end, perhaps all you really must know about BACHELOR PARTY can be summed up by its most substantial recurring joke, which involves Tom Hanks pretending he's about to use an eggbeater as a sex toy on Tawny Kitaen––


a joke that the creators apparently thought was so good that they use it to bookend the entire motion picture:


Oh yeah, spoiler alert, they get married. Now I've done it––I've ruined the conclusion of BACHELOR PARTY for you. Whoops.

Film Review: JAWS 3-D (1983, Joe Alves)

Stars: 2.5 of 5.
Running Time: 99 minutes.
Tag-line: "ALL NEW!  The third dimension is terror.  ALL NEW!"

Notable Cast or Crew: Dennis Quaid (THE RIGHT STUFF, THE BIG EASY, ENEMY MINE), Bess Armstrong (MY SO-CALLED LIFE, HIGH ROAD TO CHINA), Lou Gossett Jr. (AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN, ENEMY MINE, IRON EAGLE), Lea Thompson (BACK TO THE FUTURE, CAROLINE IN THE CITY), John Putch (THE SURE THING, MEN AT WORK), Simon MacCorkindale (THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER, FALCON CREST).  Written by Carl Gottlieb (JAWS, THE JERK) and Richard Matheson (many episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE, THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN), Guerdon Trueblood (THE SAVAGE BEES, TARANTULAS: THE DEADLY CARGO), and Michael Kane (SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT II, SOUTHERN COMFORT).  Music by Alan Parker (WHAT'S EATING GILBERT GRAPE, AMERICAN GOTHIC) with "Shark Theme" by John Williams.

Best One-liner: "You're talkin' about some damn shark's MOTHER?!"

JAWS 3-D does not bode well from the outset.  Our first three-dimensional image, about one minute into the proceedings, is that of a decapitated, rotating, and still-jabbering fish head.  So this is how it's going to be, eh?

It was directed by first-and-last-time director Joe Alves, a former Spielberg production designer (JAWS, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND) who rather conspicuously never returned to the Spielberg fold post JAWS 3-D.

Loosely inspired by 1955's REVENGE OF THE CREATURE (whereupon the Creature from the Black Lagoon escapes and wreaks havoc on an aquarium), JAWS 3-D sees a baby Great White Shark wander into a Sea World and die in captivity, drawing the ire of its monstrously-sized mother who proceeds to wreak havoc on Sea World.  Obviously, Roy Scheider is not involved (he later said, "Mephistopheles... couldn't talk me into JAWS 3"), though Dennis Quaid and John Putch play his grown-up sons, the Brody boys.

I sorta think Putch (on the left) should've been Crispin Glover.

Amity (the Massachusetts locale of the first two films) gets a brief shout-out,

and occasionally Alan Parker weaves John Williams' iconic theme into his score,

but for the most part, this is a generic "shark attack" movie with as much to do with the first JAWS as ersatz Italian rip-offs like THE LAST SHARK.  Though ostensibly penned in collaboration by JAWS' original screenwriter Carl Gottlieb (who, it must be said, also wrote DOCTOR DETROIT) and Richard Matheson (mastermind novelist and screenwriter who brought us everything from the finest TWILIGHT ZONE episodes to books like I AM LEGEND, SOMEWHERE IN TIME, and WHAT DREAMS MAY COME), the original draft was supposedly butchered by uncredited script doctors and meddling studio execs.  Though many an author has made this claim after discovering a stinker on their hands, in this instance I'm inclined to believe them.

I also am somewhat puzzled by Sea World's wholehearted involvement, as they allow their park to host monster mayhem and severed limbs and assorted jaws-chompin'.  I suppose the Sea World employees are depicted as heroically selfless, and technically no patrons are eaten, but from my experience, it seems like some corporate lawyer would have tried to shut this down even if management okayed it.  There's plenty of shameless, promotional Sea World kitsch to go around, though:


We'll always have BLACKFISH, though.  (Seriously, you should watch BLACKFISH.)

I went into JAWS 3-D imagining that it would be tawdry, brutal, and nonstop shark-attackery, and on several occasions it lives up to this idea––for instance, when a formation of water skiers are victimized by Jaws, mid-show:





And this.  It can't all be this:
and while portions of the film (like the above) are pretty spectacular, much of it is comparatively lifeless, especially when it turns into a low-rent POSEIDON ADVENTURE mid-way through with a handful of patrons trapped in an underwater tunnel.

Without Shelly Winters and Gene Hackman, this is pretty pointless.  (Or without Rutger Hauer and Steve Guttenberg!)

That about sums it up.  But I don't want to leave you on a down note––on to my seven favorite things about JAWS 3-DEEEEEEE!

#7.  This man's t-shirt:

It says "LET A GARGOYLE SIT ON YOUR FACE."  While this probably refers to Gargoyle™ brand sunglasses (if true, what an ill-considered corporate slogan), I'm going to take it to mean something vaguely and frighteningly sexual, involving the 'ole "satanic sculpture salad-toss." 

#6.  This glorious and film-concluding freeze frame:

The celebratory dolphins have been clumsily matted in, so as to affect a third dimension.  It is plainly ridiculous, and I wholeheartedly approve.

#5.  This New Wave barmaid:

She's appears in more than one scene, but only once does she wear this wonderfully 1983 pink headbandin' ensemble.  If it weren't for the little things like this, the whole affair would feel very 70s.

#4.  Lea Thompson's sexy-crazy-eye.

In this, her feature film debut, she plays a character named "Bukowski" and is intended as a love interest for the younger Brody brother.  She appears in your typical 'bikini babe' scenes and she punctuates her performance with pervasive crazy-eye.  I applaud this acting choice as it lends a oddly dangerous tension to otherwise banal scenes of romance, though longed for a twist ending where there was in fact no shark at all, but Lea Thompson murdering everyone while wearing a shark costume.  This could have been the FRIDAY THE 13TH, PART 5: A NEW BEGINNING of the JAWS series.  Alas.

#3.  The 3-D.  I watched this in 2-D, but it's extremely apparent each time a three-dimensional effect is offered to the viewer.  It is not quite as nutty as FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III, with its flying severed eyeballs and yo-yos in da face, but it has the aforementioned fish heads, floating severed arms:

hypodermic needles squirting yellow liquid in our eye:

The golden shower you didn't know you needed.

and the coup de grâce of, quite literally, JAWS 3-D:

More on this in a moment.


#2.  The sad, long journey of Oscar-winner Lou Gossett, Jr.

Poor Lou Gossett, Jr.  He just wanted to enjoy a nice beverage and bask in the glory of his Academy Award for AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN.  But I can see the future, Lou.  I'm looking into my crystal glass.  I see that you have an outrageous amount of acting ability, and yet I see...  I see four IRON EAGLES.  I see a FIREWALKER.  I see a straight-to-video LEFT BEHIND sequel.  Get out!  Escape JAWS 3-D before it's too late!!  Aieee!!!

The first time we see Lou, he's looking at a pyramid of water skiers through a pair of binoculars.


He lowers them, and we are privy to the following expression:

He knows.  He knows.  And it's too late.

In any event, Gossett is permitted to voice his disdain at one point, and using words from the script:

Don't talk to Lou Gossett about some damn shark's mother. 

You kept your dignity, Lou.  Hold your head high!  (Also, this film begins what should have been one of the great partnerships––Gossett and Quaid––who would wow us in '85 with the often overlooked sci-fi masterpiece, ENEMY MINE.)

#1.  The Sublime and Glorious Death of Jaws 3 (D).

'Nuff said.  Two and a half stars.  This may be controversial, but I say it's slightly better than JAWS 2, though not quite as delightfully nonsensical and trainwreck-worthy as JAWS 4: THE REVENGE.  Obviously, none of these sequels should be uttered within the same breath as their progenitor.

–Sean Gill

Only now does it occur to me... SPY KIDS 3-D: GAME OVER

Only now does it occur to me... that Bill Paxton nearly saves SPY KIDS 3-D GAME OVER from itself.

Granted, this is a children's movie that embraced the 3-D gimmick (in 2003) before its officially annoying resurrection, and by all accounts is trying to be a nonsensical mess of CGI fuckery.  However, even by Rodriguez/SPY KIDS standards, this is pretty unbearable, and for the first three-quarters of its runtime, the only saving grace is Ricardo Montalbán in a CGI robot suit.

The primary antagonist is Sylvester Stallone (who agreed to do this at one of the lowest points of his career) as a computer programmer known as "The Toymaker"

who frequently banters with three virtual alter-egos, all also played by Stallone, including a Kaiser, a nerd, and a hippie.

This is even more awkward than you can possibly imagine.

You will recall Stallone's earlier attempts at comedy in such films as RHINESTONE and OSCAR and STOP! OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT.

I think I'll leave it at that.

Anyway, in the final act, characters from the previous SPY KIDS films are called into action to defeat giant CGI robots.  Everyone was clearly on set for about five minutes, delivering their line in front of a green screen and then going about their business.  You gotta love Rodriguez.  Anyway, this motley crew includes Steve Buscemi, who maintains his dignity despite riding a flying pig,

Danny Trejo as Uncle Machete,

Alan Cumming, Tony Shaloub, Carla Gugino as "Mom," Banderas as "Dad,"

etc., etc., etc.  And then we have Bill Paxton as "Dinky Winks"

who delivers this film's benediction:

in a perfect reference to both the film's title and Paxton's own legendary line reading "GAME OVER, MAN!  GAME OVER!!!" from ALIENS.  Thank God for Paxton.

(Also, in case it was somehow not apparent from the screenshot of "Hippie Stallone," you should absolutely not see this movie.)