Teen Wolf - where howling at the moon is optional

Teen Wolf is the story of Peter Parker becoming Spider-Man without actually using his powers for good. In essence, it’s the Wolf’s origin story, only the hero ultimately comes to realize that his superpowers aren’t truly necessary for him to succeed in his quest: winning a high school basketball game. This is a superhero who doesn’t bother thinking too big, who enjoys belittling his friends and teammates, and who doesn’t want anonymity because if you can’t use your powers to make yourself more popular, what’s the point

Approaching the story as a failed superhero movie, one finds it hard to root for Scott Howard. Blessed with these skills, he parties, steals someone’s girlfriend, insults his friends, strings Boof along, and remains friends with Stiles, without a doubt one of the worst human beings ever conceived of.

And what are the rules for werewolves in this universe? He turns into a wolf at first when he’s mad or horny, but after his first basketball game, when he’s accepted by everyone immediately, he spends most of his time as the Wolf and changes at will. He has super hearing and smell, but also can jump five feet in the air and suddenly becomes a straight-A student without studying. 

That’s not to say the movie is without its charms. Michael J. Fox is as wonderful as always and really has fun in the manic role of Scott Howard, nerd, and Scott Howard, Teen Wolf. Michael Cera does a great awkward Michael J. Fox impression, but he could never play the confident, strutting Wolf. Fox is really one a kind. Mark Arnold also plays a wonderful 80s movie villain in Mick, the rival high school’s star basketball player. "Stick with your own kind, you freak!"

We've seen much of this story before. The nerd undergoes a drastic change, becomes popular, dates the most popular girl in school, alienates his best friends as fame goes to his head, realizes his mistakes at the last possible moment, kisses his female friend who’s been there the whole time, and finds the happy medium between popularity and his old life. It's really no surprise when, in the big game, Scott shows up sans wolf and hits the game-winning free throws with no time to go. He's grown up and won both the game and the girl.

So maybe it's not so much an origin story but a coming of age story. One for the beast in all of us.

Teen Wolf: 3 of Patrick Swayze’s 6 abs

Extra abs

• The basketball coach is terrific in how little he cares about either the game or his players. “There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours of sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never go near a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese.”
• “With a great power comes a greater responsibility,” Scott's father (also a werewolf) tells his son. It’s almost exactly the lesson Spider-Man learns over and over. 
• That responsibility, apparently, includes visiting his son's school and terrifying the principal into peeing his pants in the hallway.
• As much as I love Jason Bateman, I will NOT be reviewing Teen Wolf 2.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles - where getting there is half the battle

Long before Chris Farley and ­David Spade took to the road in Tommy Boy, Steve Martin and John Candy had a trip from hell in Planes, Trains & Automobiles in which they are hilariously tortured, repeatedly, on various modes of transportation throughout the Midwest. Steve Martin is the straight man again in this movie, bouncing from rage to more rage usually because of John Candy, although others also irritate him along the way. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and it’s great one -liners and sight gags. This is a typical Steve Martin character, a man who is smarter than everyone else but has to put up with the idiocy that surrounds him. (See also: Three Amigos, L.A. Story, Father of the Bride, etc.) I can see how some people would be turned off by this, but I’ve also enjoyed it and him, and this is no exception.

The movie starts out rather plausibly, as these things do, with Steve Martin’s character hurrying to catch a flight from NYC to Chicago to get home for Thanksgiving. After having trouble hailing a taxi, he finally winds up at the airport in time to board his flight, where he’s sitting next to John Candy, who just stole a cab from him (though not entirely on purpose.) AWKWARD!

John Candy’s character is chatty, which irritates Steve Martin, and when a snowstorm throws the plane off course to land in Kansas City, Candy, a shower curtain hook salesman, helpfully offers to share his hotel room with Martin, since all the hotels are now booked. What ensues is a comedy of odd couple moments, topped by Martin accidentally using the water that Candy’s socks are soaking in to brush his teeth.

More than once, Martin tries to escape, but the two invariably end up on a train together, hitchhiking, and eventually renting a car together in a frantic attempt to get home in time for the holiday. Driving late one night, Candy ends up on the wrong side of the interstate and narrowing avoids colliding with a big rig. They climb out of the car just before it erupts in fire, a Candy cigarette having landed in the back seat.

This does not deter them! They continue in the car, somehow still running, until a police office pulls them over because the car is not road worthy, lacking a top, mirrors, most of the windows, and the trunk. They manage to hitch a ride in the back of a freezer truck and wind up at Martin’s home. He invites Candy, who we learn is a widower and talks to mask his loneliness, to stay for the holiday. Everyone’s friends!

As I said, the movie has some very funny parts. When they almost hit the big truck, the pair are grasping so tightly to the steering wheel/dashboard (respectfully) that they have to peel their fingers from 10 holes in the dash and a mangled steering wheel. John Candy, after the pair lose their wallets and money, sells his shower curtain hooks as jewelry to make money, convincing passers-by of their stylish design. And of course, Steve Martin has a typical movie freak out moment at the car rental place at a very chipper attendant that I don’t want to spoil but contains very colorful and inventive profanity. Fun for the whole family!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles: 5 of Patrick Swayze’s 6 abs.

Raising Arizona - where the only thing rising is my blood pressure

Raising Arizona is a loud, stupid, unfunny, improbable movie that grates on your ears as well as your faith in humanity only made worse by an ending that actively insults the audience’s intelligence. Of course, if the audience is even half as dumb as the characters in this movie, they probably wouldn’t recognize an insult to their intelligence.

I almost hesitate to summarize this movie, as it pains me to relive this trash and I fear I may suffer from PTSD, but for you, dear reader, I will press on.  Repeat (and bumbling) offender H.I. McDunnough (Nicolas Cage, in a role he was born to play) marries the local booking officer he falls for from his frequent arrests. “Ed” (Holly Hunter) cannot have babies, so the newlyweds steal a baby from a local furniture magnate, whose wife gave birth to quintuplets. Meanwhile, two of HI’s buddies (one is John Goodman) break out of prison and surprise the new family. They realize the baby is the one that was kidnapped and make off with him to get the reward money. They stop to rob a bank, as well, where the McDunnoughs catch up and get the baby back. Also at this time, a bounty hunter who shoots animals comes to get the baby. He and HI have an epic battle, which ends when HI pulls the pin from one of the grenades strapped to the bounty hunter’s chest (?) and he explodes. The McDunnoughs return the baby to the millionaire’s home, and he walks in just as they’re about to leave. He forgives them for kidnapping Nathan Jr. because, hey, they did the right thing in the end. Movie over.

That’s a dumb movie, with an ending so outrageous as to make everything that came before it worse because the characters essentially do whatever they want without consequences. The McDunnoughs not only kidnap a baby but MURDER A GUY and nothing happens. The cons break out of prison, rob a bank and kidnap a kidnapped baby and just decide to go back to jail because … they can? It’s not really explained. They simply crawl back through the hole they dug on their way out. Because it was never filled back in to, you know, prevent other people from also breaking out.

So it’s a stupid movie. But it’s also loud. Every scene in this movie has at least one, but usually multiple actors, screaming, wailing, shouting, or sobbing. There’s an entire scene where John Goodman and his brother drive a car screaming at the top of their lungs while returning to the convenience store where they left Nathan Jr. Nicolas Cage gets beaten up a number of times, which I would normally support, but he screams at the top of his lungs during each beating. And during the scene where HI has jumped in a pickup truck while trying to elude police, the two men scream repeatedly while narrowly avoiding a few crashes, and the soundtrack is a dude yodeling on top of their shouting! It’s almost as if the movie’s makers thought noise by itself constituted comedy, which probably explains why they didn’t try to include very many actual jokes.

Most disappointing was reaching the end of the movie and watching as the Coen Brothers’ names rolled by. How in the world were they allowed to make more movies after this? I’m glad they were, since The Big Lebowski, Fargo, and O Brother Where Art Thou are so great. But I’m not sure how anyone could watch this travesty of a movie and see anything good ever coming from them.

In summary: I don’t recommend this movie.

Raising Arizona: 1 of Patrick Swayze’s abs. (For John Goodman’s bumbling bank robbery, which included a bit of funny business in between shouting.)

Extra abs

- Nicolas Cage is shot at a lot in this movie, including by police officers who a) shoot at and in the homes of innocent people who are present and b) inside a grocery store, where dozens of people are shopping. This seems like a bad idea.

- I left out the part where a couple with obnoxious kids comes to meet the McDunnoughs' new baby and suggest they trade wives. There was shouting by kids and Cage alike.

- Holly Hunter is actually okay in this movie.

- This is the second movie in a row I've watched that has included a dude blowing himself up. Can we make it three in a row?

Heathers - where the guns go clique

So to say that this movie was not what I expected would be putting it mildly. In short order, our protagonists JD (Christian Slater) and Veronica (Winona Ryder) murder three people, making the first (Heather 1) look like a suicide by toxic cleaner and the last two a double suicide involving pistols at dawn. It is only after the second set of murders that Veronica develops something approaching remorse and breaks up with JD, who has already begun planning the next fake suicide for the second of three Heathers. JD decides to go out with a bang and rigs the school to explode while everyone is gathered for a Friday pep rally. Veronica stops the explosion, but JD, explosives strapped to this chest, blows himself up outside the school for a final suicide

Describing this movie as a comedy is a bit misleading, though there are undoubtedly funny parts. But this movie is dark, though well done, and many of the laughs are either at the expense of the characters or in spite of the otherwise tragic events going on in this school, where students are dropping like flies.

To be honest, I’m not sure how to process this movie. It was good – I can’t dispute that. The teenage angst is portrayed well – far better than in something like The Breakfast Club – but once JD and Veronica kill the first Heather, the movie takes an abrupt turn and becomes farce. The parents are aloof and uninterested in their children, while the teachers seem more concerned with how many hours to cancel in the wake of the death rather than actually worrying about how the students are feeling or coping. It’s a unique commentary on that “woe is me” mindset of teenagers, and told from that perspective (and Veronica’s diary), it’s a strong statement.

But did I like it? I’m not sure. So instead, I’m just going to ask a bunch of questions.

Was there really a time a kid like JD could not only bring a gun to school but also point it at two students and shoot (blanks) and not even get suspended?

What exactly did Veronica and JD expect would happen after serving Heather a glass of Draino? They seem so surprised that she’s died. “This is my life now?” Probably should’ve thought this through a bit more.

Did teachers really smoke in their morning meetings in the late 1980s?

How could Veronica really think that there was such a thing as Ich lüge bullets that merely pierced the skin and caused a little bit of bleeding?

Whatever happened to Christian Slater? I feel like he’s been in a dozen television shows that didn’t last more than 6 episodes each.

What sort of song is “Teenage Suicide Don’t Do It?” Who is the intended audience?

Are police really just going to believe two football players killed each other in their underwear in the woods because they were secretly gay only because there was a letter found nearby? That doesn’t sound fishy enough to warrant any type of follow up?

So Veronica shot JD in the boiler room in an attempt to stop him from blowing up the school. Seems fine. Is anyone going to walk down there and see ALL THE BLOOD and wonder what happened? And Veronica just strolls back in the school, covered in ash and, presumably, bits of JD. No one stops and asks what happened? Is she okay? Talk about self-absorbed teenagers.

Heathers: 3 out of 6 Patrick Swayze abs

Extra abs

 - It probably sounds like I didn’t like this movie, but I did appreciate much of it. Lots of funny lines.

- “Great pâté, but I’ve got to motor if I’m going to make that funeral.”

- “My son’s a homosexual and I love him. I love my gay dead son.”

- “Now I've seen a lot of bullshit. Angel dust. Switchblades. Sexually perverse photography exhibits involving tennis rackets.”

- “Save the speech for Malcolm X.”

- “I don’t patronize rabbits!”

- The “kid says what Dad would, Dad says what kid would” thing JD and his dad do is clever. 

- Also, Shannen Doherty. Ha.

Three Amigos! - where everyone speaks English

There was a period in the early 90s when I watched Three Amigos! quite a few times. So many times, in fact, that I can still recite many of the scenes from memory. And as a child, the rocking musical number "My Little Buttercup" was a favorite of mine.

As great as it was then, it's even better watching it now that I'm older.

As a kid, I appreciated many of the jokes, the hilarious Three Amigos salute, the physical humor, the absurdity of many of the situations, and most of the things Chevy Chase did. But as an adult, I appreciate even more. The subtle puns and play on words. The fact that it is based on the classic film, The Magnificent Seven. The spoofs of silent films. And the probing, exhaustive look at race relations in the west of the early 20th century.

Just kidding. Those are stunningly stereotypical Mexicans.

The Three Amigos - Dusty Bottoms (Chevy Chase), Lucky Day (Steve Martin), and Ned Nederlander (Martin Short) - are movie stars in the silent film age, one-reel heroes of the west. They have a salary dispute with the studio and find themselves unemployed just as they receive an offer from a small Mexican town to help save them from a local crime lord, El Guapo. They assume this El Guapo is a legend of the Mexican screen, that they are going to be doing a show with him, and that they will be paid handsomely.


They arrive in town and have a nice party when El Guapo's men arrive, looking for their annual payoff. The Three Amigos, believing it part of the show, manage to scare off his men with their wild act and mad enthusiasm. However, El Guapo returns, shoots Lucky in the foot, drives the Amigos off, loots the town, and takes a female hostage, whom Lucky had fallen for. The Amigos, disgraced, decide that they will save the girl and save the village.

They infiltrate El Quapo's stronghold just as some pesky Germans are delivering a stockpile of weapons and successfully and with much comedic relief, escape with the girl. El Guapo chases them back to the village, where the Amigos have encouraged the townspeople to fight back. El Guapo is defeated, Lucky gets the girl, and the Amigos refuse the money.

 

I could go on and on talking about all the great scenes and lines from this movie. But I will describe one that I think best represents the brilliance and stupidity that make this movie so great. The Amigos, traveling through the desert, think they have reached the fabled singing bush. Now, to be clear, the bush is loudly singing and gesticulating with its branches very excitedly, but the three guys are unsure they've found the singing bush. "Are you the singing bush?" Lucky shouts over the signing, getting no answer. They eventually decide that it is in fact the signing bush, and they each do the required ritual (to summon the invisible swordsman, of course) which ends by shooting their guns in the air. Only Dusty, going last, shoots sideways, hitting the invisible man.

"Great! You've killed the invisible swordsman!" Lucky says looking incredulous after an invisible mass hits the ground. "You were supposed to fire up! We both fired up!" Ned walks over and picks up an invisible arm and drops it. Dead.

And that's it. They come to the bush to find a guide and kill him. They leave and still find their way to El Guapo. There is essentially no reason for this scene - or the singing bush, or the invisible swordsman - other than to a) listen to the guys make ludicrous noises before shooting a pistol and b) highlight the harebrained nature of the entire movie.

Three Amigos is a fun ride, and the three SNL stalwarts are each amazing in this film. I defy you to watch this movie and not laugh out loud a few dozens times. Seriously. I would love to hear anyone's opinion on this one, because in the Scott house, this ranks very high.

Three Amigos: 6 out of 6 Patrick Swayze abs. (I'll stand by this.)

Extra abs

- John Landis also directed this one. Another American classic.

- "Wherever there is injustice, you will find us. Wherever there is suffering, we'll be there. Wherever liberty is threatened, you will find the Three Amigos!

- El Guapo is Spanish for "the Handsome One," as anyone who watches this movie could probably infer.

- "In a way, all of us has an El Guapo to face. For some, shyness might be their El Guapo. For others, a lack of education might be their El Guapo. For us, El Guapo is a big, dangerous man who wants to kill us. But as sure as my name is Lucky Day, the people of Santa Poco can conquer their own personal El Guapo, who also happens to be the actual El Guapo!"

- Steve Martin does the lasso tricks himself. Apparently, he learned them working in a magic shop as a kid.

- "Do you have anything here besides Mexican food?"

Spies Like Us - Where spies go out into the cold

In Spies Like Us, Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd are underwhelming employees of the State Department who are tricked into participating in a spy mission in the Soviet Union. They have no idea their mission is a decoy for the real, fully-trained and highly prized spy team and almost certainly lead to their deaths. They are dropped into Pakistan, talk their way out of a KGB trap, pose as surgeons, lose their one and only patient, escape to the Soviet Union, launch a nuclear weapon at the United States, force the missile to explode in space, and land two beautiful women.

If that doesn't sound like something you'd enjoy, you can go ahead and stop reading this blog because this is my kind of movie.

Directed by John Landis (Blues Brothers, Animal House), Spies Like Us is a throw back to the time when American movie villains were almost always Russian, the KBG couldn't shoot straight, and men in army uniforms couldn't wait to push big red buttons. In essence, this is a more believable and funnier WarGames.

Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd play mid-level government employees caught cheating on some test that would allow them to have better jobs. (The details aren't important.) As a result, they are assigned to a mission in the Soviet Union, though they aren't told specifics. They're thrown out of a plane above Pakistan and immediately surrounded by townspeople with guns. Shockingly, Chevy Chase, playing Chevy Chase in this movie, is unable to charm his way out. Luckily, their contacts come their rescue and they are on the road. Aykroyd realizes they probably aren't American and they run away, the KGB guys firing their guns uselessly in their direction.

They are picked up by another group of locals, and once again, Chevy's charms are lost on them as they are strung up by their ankles and almost killed. Luckily, the UN doctors assume they are the expected surgeons and promptly assign them to perform surgery on the town leader's brother. The brother dies as soon as Aykroyd makes his first incision (horrible luck) and they are once again on the run.

They manage to get to the Soviet Union somehow and stumble upon two of the UN "doctors," who turn out to be the US spy A team. The KGB return, one of the A Team is killed and Chevy is taken prisoner. They rescue him and find a Russian missile, which they are supposed to enter directions into. They overtake the Russian guards, launch the missile, and find out it's going to the US, where the brass in charge were looking to start WWIII. (Ain't that the way it always is?) They all decide the world is going to end and pair off of a few minutes of passion. Then Aykroyd devises a plan to divert the missile, a bit of glasnost ensues, they team up, war averted. The end.

Like most Chevy Chase comedies from the 80s, this one is a mix of intelligent humor, asides, bumbling from the protagonists, and a touch of locker room laughs. In the capable hands of Landis, it all comes together wonderfully. Aykroyd (who co-wrote the movie as well) is of course great with Chevy, who essentially plays the same role he does in every movie. (Think Fletch or National Lampoon Vacation.)

Take the scene in the first act when they are caught cheating. Dan Aykroyd, the straight man, sits next to Chevy, whom he doesn't know yet, and watches him cheat in increasingly inventive ways: He reads notes from the back of an eye patch, then from his cast (fake arm injury), unspools paper from his mouth, and finally writes "What does KGB stand for" on the back of the test and clears his throat to get Aykroyd's attention. (This also gets the attention of the proctor, Frank Oz.) That builds to Chevy standing up, shouting "I can't take the pressure" walking up and down the aisle looking at everyone's papers for answers before collapsing on the ground. Aykroyd says he knows CRP, falls on top of him and they discuss more answers on the floor, with everyone watching. (That's when the surveillance footage cuts off.) It's sublimely silly and performed by two comedians at the height of their game. It's infinitely rewatchable.

I miss the days when movies routinely took shots at the Soviet Union, a threat so immense yet distant that it was fun to laugh off. It's harder to laugh off the far more recent attacks by fundamentalists, attacks which hit closer to home and forever changed our way of life. (But we can bring knives on planes again!)

I enjoyed the heck out of this movie. I downgrade it one Patrick Swayze ab, however, for the incompetence of the KGB and the guards at the missile site. I'm not looking for historical accuracy in a John Landis movie, but the Soviets weren't our biggest threat because they couldn't take out Dan Aykroyd.

Spies Like Us: 5 out of 6 Patrick Swayze Abs