Only now does it occur to me... GLORY YEARS (1987)

Only now does it occur to me... that GLORY YEARS is an exercise in abject mediocrity. An HBO "five-part comedy-adventure series" following the Las Vegas-centric antics of three extremely mediocre dudes––played by George Dzundza (THE DEER HUNTER, BASIC INSTINCT), Archie Hahn (PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, GREMLINS 2), and Full Moon's own Tim Thomerson (TRANCERS, DOLLMAN)––

who gamble away the alumni fund from their twenty-year high school reunion and thereby launch a full two and a half hours' worth of half-baked Vegas shenanigans in the proto-HANGOVER vein. It's stale, it's lame, and it's peppered with weird, washed-up 80s cameos, like Mamie Van Doren as a madam

and Engelbert Humperdinck, Al Bernstein, and Joyce Brothers as themselves:

It's what the people want

When I made a heartfelt plea for Tim Thomerson to have larger, non-Charles Band-related roles in my review of NEAR DARK a decade (!) ago, I didn't mean this.

He does his best

However, the only reason we're here today is the "Of Whitesnakes and Witchboards... a Tawny Kitaen Retrospective."

And I've got the rootin-tootin zebra print to prove it!

As Thomerson's girlfriend, "Melinda,"

Kitaen is on screen for about 1/3 of the film, sometimes chiding Thomerson for being a sleaze, sometimes enacting wacky con-woman/gambler antics, sometimes just going around in statement bows, as is her wont.

At the very least, GLORY YEARS continues to establish two major trends in the Tawny canon. One is statement bows (see also: WITCHBOARD and CRYSTAL HEART). The other is getting married to a dopey dick at the climax (see also: BACHELOR PARTY).

Though, as you can see here, Tawny has combined her interest in weddings with her interest in statement bows. It's truly one of the Tawniest tableaux imaginable.

Generally speaking, her character is underused. She does get to sink her teeth into some comedy bits and a few dramatic scenes, however, so I'm sorry to report that a film this mediocre contains the role which might actually afford her the most performative range since she was possessed by a Depression-era axe murderer in WITCHBOARD. At the very least, GLORY YEARS demonstrates that Tawny deserved to play a supporting role in one of the sprawling Robert Altman Americana-mosaics, like SHORT CUTS or H.E.A.L.T.H. or A WEDDING; I just get the sense that she would have been a perfect fit for such an endeavor.

There are a shocking amount of Beatles tracks and classic Oldies tunes on the soundtrack which demonstrate that it was made during the sweet spot for music licensing, apparently. (Or else HBO dumped way too much money into this mess.) We also get a young Chazz Palminteri (THE USUAL SUSPECTS, A BRONX TALE) as a mafia hitman:

And the inimitable "Tiny" Lister (EXTREME PREJUDICE, NO HOLDS BARRED) as a hired goon who gets to make some delightfully over-the-top acting choices.

In the end, I would warn you to skip GLORY YEARS, but it would be difficult enough to stumble upon it in the course of a normal existence that I don't think it even requires such a warning. Can we let the Tawny retrospective end on such a note of mediocrity? I think not: stay tuned.

Only now does it occur to me... BAD CHANNELS (1992)

Only now does it occur to me... how on earth had I never heard of BAD CHANNELS? Try this on for size: it's a Full Moon Picture (which means its a step down from a New World Picture, and probably a step up from a Troma Picture) about an asteroid-headed alien DJ who commandeers a small town Earthling radio station, 

wresting control away from a prankster DJ (kind of a lighter version Bogosian in TALK RADIO)

The DJ in question (pictured left) is played by Abel Ferrara crony Paul Hipp.

and sending out sci-fi transmissions of songs by Fair Game, DMT, and Sykotik Sinfoney, which target specific young local ladies and make them believe that they're starring in their own music video

whereupon they are miniaturized and beamed away by the alien DJ and transported to little glass jars for his safekeeping.

The intrepid reporter trying to piece together the whole mess is played by MTV VJ Martha Quinn:

 

and incidental music throughout is scored by... legendary post-modern hard rock band Blue Öyster Cult (!). While the extraterrestrial goofiness and arena-rock satire certainly play to BOC's fascinations, it must be mentioned that the film does not fit into their Imaginos Mythos (for those not acquainted, the Cult have an overarching Lovecraftian mythos in their lyrics about aliens and conspiracies and world history that was most exhaustively illustrated in their 1988 rock opera IMAGINOS).

The best parts of this film are the "music video" sequences, in which mundane scenes at a bar, a high school gym, and a hospital are transformed into pop/rock/grunge insanity. Fair Game appears at a country western bar, dancing on the bar with the panache of a poor man's Alice Cooper:

DMT takes over a school assembly with a knock-off of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" that is all you could hope for from a Full Moon Picture:

and Sykotik Sinfoney goes on to steal the show with their rap/metal/Oingo Boingo sound, skull makeup, cow udders, and rockin' nuns, which is probably the best unexpected musical number in a hospital since BREAKIN' 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO:

The finale channels LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, as when the alien is unmasked, he bears a significant resemblance to Audrey II:

It even ends with the promise of a crossover with DOLLMAN!  Essentially, this is 88 minutes of harmless Full Moon fun––no more, no less––but I'm glad it exists.

Film Review: NEAR DARK (1987, Kathryn Bigelow)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 94 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Directed by Kathryn Bigelow (THE LOVELESS, THE HURT LOCKER, POINT BREAK). Written by Bigelow and Eric Red (THE HITCHER, BODY PARTS). Music by Tangerine Dream. Starring Adrian Pasdar (SOLARBABIES, TOP GUN), Jenny Wright (PINK FLOYD'S THE WALL; I, MADMAN), Lance Henriksen (ALIENS, THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM), Bill Paxton (TRUE LIES, ALIENS), Tim Thomerson (DOLLMAN, TRANCERS), Joshua John Miller (TEEN WITCH, RIVER'S EDGE). Cinematography by Adam Greenberg (THE TERMINATOR, 10 TO MIDNIGHT, 3 MEN AND A BABY).
Tag-line: "Killing you would be easy, they'd rather terrify you...forever."
Best one-liner: "Caleb, those people back there, they wasn't normal. Normal folks, they don't spit out bullets when you shoot 'em, no sir." (Later paraphrased in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN.)

I'm sure a fair amount of you have seen NEAR DARK. For those who haven't, it's a two-fisted, shit-kickin' vampire Western that sort of combines all of my favorite things about THE LOST BOYS, Carpenter's VAMPIRES, and POINT BREAK. It slits your throat with a sharpened spur, sears your skin, and explodes in a grotesque display of vampiric immolation. Now, with that in mind, take a gander at the DVD re-release cover:

Sweet God- my worst fears realized- NEAR DARK appropriated by the lily-livered aficionados of TWILIGHT, CGI, and unbridled airbrushing! But it doesn't matter– here's nine reasons why, even if it's remade and/or commandeered by these knuckleheads, NEAR DARK will still live on as an 80's genre classic:

#1. The vampires' mode of travel: a beat-up, nasty old Recreational Vehicle.

There's no sugar-coating their nomadic, hand-to-fang, poverty-stricken existence. They cruise around in a pedophile-mobile with blacked-out windows cause they've got no other choice. No Gothic mansions, no Ann Ricey-TWILIGHTY-romanticized shenanigans- it's a daily struggle for survival that's closer to Buñuel's LAND WITHOUT BREAD or Marc Singer's DARK DAYS than some TRUE BLOOD wankfest. And the RV says it all.

#2. Hey, look, it's a James LeGros cameo!

If you can't appreciate the simple joy of an unexpected LeGros appearance, maybe you don't deserve to enjoy NEAR DARK. And Bigelow even spares him in the midst of a vampire rampage, thus continuing to prove my theory that anybody and everybody worth their salt has a soft spot for LeGros.

#3. The Tangerine Dream score. While on the whole it's not one of their very best scores (like their work on THIEF, FLASHPOINT, or THE PARK IS MINE), certain tracks- like "Bus Station"- possess a certain, fleeting atmospheric quality, like an entrancing invitation to a dangerous fairy-tale world. In short, it's the kind of music that, even though it's looping endlessly on the DVD menu, oddly, it doesn't bother you. In fact, you're looking for an excuse not to start the movie, cause you'd kind of like to listen to Tangerine Dream for just a little longer if ya don't mind.

#4. Tim Thomerson. Undervalued. Underused. Under-recognized.

And here in the kind of mainstream, stalwart, square-jawed, all-American farmer role he should have been booking more often. He's likeable, believable, and deserves to be a household name. And not just in Charles Band's household. Perhaps I exaggerate, but come on, let's hear it for Thomerson.

#5. Bill Paxton is loopier than a corkscrew.

I think that the critical acclaim for a show such as BIG LOVE has made the world, to some
extent, forget that Paxton made his name as one of the zaniest hombres this side of the Marx Brothers.

"I hate 'em when they ain't been shaved!" he laments (as he slurps the blood from an unkempt, hirsute biker). He dances, he prances, he lacerates necks with a sharpened spur. He blows air kisses, blows people away with a six-gun, and shouts "Bullseye!" afterwards. Why a vampire would need to resort to firearms is anybody's guess, but Paxton makes it so you don't really care so long as he keeps twirlin' em and verbalizin' his smart-assed remarks.

Something to ponder: are these the same pleather pants that reappear in BOXING HELENA?

"Finger-lickin' good!" he declares after a particularly fiendish bout of blood-drinking.

Bravo, Paxton. Bravo.

#6. Joshua John Miller. AKA 'The Creepy Kid from RIVER'S EDGE and TEEN WITCH. Other than David Bennent, I'm unsure I can think of anyone more qualified to play the role of 'irascible, centuries old vampire trapped in a child's body.'

#7. Adam Greenberg's cinematography.

Bigelow- via her then-paramour, James Cameron- had already got her hands on Paxton and Henriksen, so why not raid his DP, as well? Bigelow, originally a painter, has always been able to extract striking images from her cinematographers, and the magnificent visuals here are dusty, weather-beaten, and severe. And since I already mentioned that Bigelow was a painter, I'll also mention that her first studio was in an Off-Track Betting building. That's what NEAR DARK is, in a nutshell. Crude yet painterly visions transmitted directly from the scrap-paper and cigarette-butt strewn floors of an OTB. Print that in the paper.

#8. The way the vamps burn.

More like the spontaneous combustion of a back-alley wino than a poetic end to an aristocratic villain, the slow-motion searing and flaying of skin and the blackening of their shabby, smoldering rags makes for quite a memorable, mesmerizing visual despite the grotesquery, even though I'm not sure if grotesquery is, in fact, a real word.

#9. Lance Henriksen.

Gaunt, heavily scarred, possessing a wicked rat-tail, and at one point explaining that he's a Civil War veteran ("I fought for the South. We lost."), Henriksen is, as always, scary good. "Your skin is as soft as a preacher's belly," he can be heard to declare with the sort of impassive malevolence that defines his performance. His character, Jesse Hooker, is a sort of 'bottom line' kinda guy. He's not evil per se (although, uh, it is insinuated that he set the Great Chicago Fire of 1871), he just happens to look out for number one in such a way that he leaves a trail of massacred innocents and general sleazy vampire wreckage in his wake, wherever he goes, whenever he goes. He also cheekily spits up the bullets he's been shot with and uses them to taunt his adversaries.

Lance Henriksen: certainly deserving a place in the vampire hall-of-fame.

Four stars.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: TRANCERS (1985, Charles Band)

Stars: 3 of 5. Running Time: 76 minutes. Notable Cast or Crew: Tim Thomerson (Altman's A WEDDING, FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, RHINESTONE) , Helen Hunt, Richard Herd (F.I.S.T., ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN), and Art LaFleur (FIELD OF DREAMS, WARGAMES). Tag-lines: "2247 collides with 1985 . . . when a 23rd century crime fighter heats it up in L.A., today!" Best one-liner: "Welcome to the twentieth century, Jack Deth!"

Of all the Full Moon franchises (PUPPET MASTER, SUBSPECIES, DEMONIC TOYS, etc.), TRANCERS is probably the best. Well, perhaps that gives it a BIT too much credit. Instead, let's say it's the most charming. Kind of a straight-to-video fusion of BLADE RUNNER and THE TERMINATOR (with later installments drawing more on HIGHLANDER and XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS), its aim is not REALLY quality- its sights are set a tad lower. It's not trying to give you your money's worth on a 1985 movie ticket ($2.75), it's trying to give you your money's worth on the 25¢ rental, and in doing so, it succeeds. The DVD even (unintentionally) duplicates the experience with a flawed transfer that looks like a well-loved, ratty VHS. But on to the movie: what we have here is a pretty hamfisted one-liner fest in the vein of (but lacking the wit of) Shane Black and Fred Dekker. As a side note, it happens to be set at Christmastime in L.A., and prefigures, in this aspect, both DIE HARD and LETHAL WEAPON. Anyway, actor/comedian Tim Thomerson is rather likable as Jack Deth, as is a young Helen Hunt (who continued to appear in the series through its third installment). There's the requisite 80's punk club scene ("Looks like a room full of Trancers!"); a Tangerine Dream rip-off score; weak jokes ("Dry hair's for squids!"); not one, but two awesome time-stopping sequences; a washed-up hobo ballplayer; futuristic ruling councils; and then it somehow all ends on a freeze frame. Inexplicably, all of these things add up to something I consider fairly effin' sweet entertainment. (Funny, the same thing happened when I saw HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN.) So if you like your 80's fare inundated with bad one-liners, equal doses of low-budget creativity and cretinous cliche, and the delightful magnetic warpings of a defective VHS, then, by all means, help yourself to some TRANCERS. Three stars. -Sean Gill