My corona movie marathon continues, focusing a lot on the 1980s as of late, and boy is this movie bad yet delicious, like an exquisite stinky cheese, you know it’s not good for you at all. It’ll taste good going down, but it’ll leave your breath smelly later.
Ray Tango (Sylvester Stallone) and Gabe Cash (Kurt Russell) are rivals on the LAPD, constantly vying for the position of Tinsel Town’s most popular police officer. Cash is brash and carefree while Tango is slick, sophisticated, cool and rich. Cash throws on whatever was left in his hamper, while Tango dresses sharp, like an investment banker.
The super thin plot? Perennial movie villain Jack Palance is tired of these two coppers shutting down his various evil interests. He fears that outright killing the duo will put a police target on his back, so his next best idea is to frame them for a crime they didn’t commit, tarnishing them in the eyes of the city and leaving no one giving a crap what happens to them.
From there it’s a mad cap romp, from T and C breaking out of the joint to taking on Palance’s goons with the help of a high tech battle vehicle.
It’s obnoxious. It’s silly. There’s really no point to it. The lines are epic level cheesy. It is kind of interesting that Sly was able to convincingly act in a role of a character who was intelligent but otherwise, this movie is not your vegetables. It is your big, sugary bowl of ice cream. It’ll be great going down. You’ll be sick in the morning.
Points to the movie that it is self aware. Stallone makes fun of himself, makes fun of his Rambo character, etc.
STATUS: Shelfworthy. Bonus points because I forgot Teri Hatcher was in this movie. She didn’t really hit it big until Lois and Clark and not gonna lie, she was high on my 1990s fap list.
How do you get someone who wants to leave to stay, 3.5 readers?
And how do you get someone who wants to stay to go?
BQB here with a review of yet another 1980s movie as my corona movie marathon continues.
The film is narrated by Attorney Gavin d’Amato, played by Danny DeVito. The story begins with Gavin meeting with a client who is determined to divorce his wife. Gavin tells the cautionary tale of his old friends, Oliver and Barbara Rose and their petty, destructive and violent divorce that ruined it all.
Oliver (Michael Douglas) and Barbara (Kathleen Turner) were young once, and they truly loved each other. Though largely an incredibly dark comedy, it’s also an epic piece, as Gavin goes back and forth between the recent past as well as the course of twenty years, providing tidbits of the couple’s courtship, marriage, early life, having children and finally, their success that turned to unbridled hatred.
Thus is the crux. Relationships begin with the tenderest of love and they end with the cruelest of anger. As time goes on and age closes one door after another, the resentments build. Unhappy partners begin thinking about what they could have done had they not betrothed themselves to this person who no longer makes them happy. Each truly believes his/herself to be the wronged party and they seek to get even through the legal system, hoping to take it all and leave the other with nothing.
Both have good cases. Oliver is the Harvard trained lawyer who made all the money. Barbara is the wife who stood by his side, taking care of home and family, focusing on every little detail so that Oliver could put all of his focus on his career, a career that Barbara never had because she was so busy taking care of him.
Ultimately, “the war” comes down to the couple’s magnificent house. Oliver paid for it. Barbara took care of it.
Gavin, Oliver’s co-worker who represents him in the divorce, finds a loophole that states that as long as both parties live separate lives while residing in the same house (i.e. they live in the same house but have little to no contact, like a couple of detached roomates) then neither party can lay claim to push the other out and thus, Oliver can’t be forced out.
Great legal advice but realistically, not so much. While the first half of the movie drags a bit, the last half of the film where the couple trashes their house to bits all in an effort to hurt each other is where the dark comedy gold lies. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You might cry a bit more.
I don’t think I’m giving much away but offering Gavin’s parting words up front. He advises his client, the one he’d been narrating the story to all along, to be generous to his wife.
Perhaps that’s something we all need to keep in mind. Again, relationships begin with love and typically, they end in hate. Indeed, you might have been wronged. Sometimes when there’s cheating, abuse, alcoholism or what have you, it’s easier to draw that clear cut line where you say that person’s an a-hole and they need to be out of your life for good. The harder situation is where a couple just grows apart, as the Roses did, and for whatever reason, one spouse just wakes up one day and decides they don’t love the other.
Hard as it is, no amount of revenge can get you back the years you spent on someone that you could have spent on someone else. Be generous enough to bring the matter to an amicable close, though maybe don’t be a chump and leave yourself homeless and penniless either.
Sidenote: Danny DeVito directs and he did a great job here. I googled his directing credits and didn’t realize he had directed so much and some big name films like Hoffa, though I think this was the best.
Also fun fact this is the third big 1980s movie starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. They had also starred together in the Indian Jones-esque Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Moral of the story? If someone doesn’t want to stay, you should suck it up and let them go. However, if someone refuses to leave, then you probably should.
PS – Obviously, it’s named after the War of the Roses, the series of battles in old British history waged over the course of many years. One can assume both sides of countrymen once loved on another, then war broke out. They fought viciously over turf and destroyed so much that any victory surely rang hollow. War is a lot like a non-amicable divorce, 3.5 readers.
BQB here and my corona movie marathon continues, taking the time to watch movies I otherwise probably would have never seen again.
This time it’s the 1982 comedy “Night Shift” starring Henry Winkler and Michael Keaton.
Winkler plays chuck, a financial genius who gave up his job as a stock broker because he couldn’t handle the stressful, fast pace of Wall Street. He trades his shot at big money for a job working the night shift at the city morgue. For a wimpy, wishy washy man who won’t stand up for himself, it’s the perfect gig. No supervisors, very little to do and the customers, well, they’re dead so they can’t complain.
You’d think he’d be happy to live a quiet life but still, there’s something burning inside him. His mother nagged his father into an early grave, and he fears he will meet the same fate at the hands of his bossy fiance, Charlotte.
All this changes when Chuck’s new morgue coworker, Billy Blaze (Michael Keaton) comes on the scene. While Chuck worries about everything, Billy worries about nothing. Billy is a schmuck, but he fancies himself a fast talking con man. He quickly sees that when there’s no bosses around at the morgue, this is his chance to run scams out of the office.
Many of those scams fall flat until Billy learns that Chuck’s neighbor, Belinda (Shelley Long) is a prostitute. She and her fellow ladies of the evening are out of luck, as their rare benevolent pimp, Franklin, who watched their backs, has been put on ice by the local mob.
Scared that he’ll end up like his old man, Chuck takes a risk for once in his life and joins Billy in running a prostitution ring out of the morgue. Billy drives the ladies and arranges the “meetings” while Chuck handles all the money, managing the moolah so well that the ladies become rich beyond their wildest dreams.
All seems to go well until Shelly and Chuck fall in love and well, Chuck will have to figure out whether it’s easier to stand up, be a man, and take more risks, or if he’ll sit back and let others push him around.
This movie was always on when I was younger and obviously, I didn’t understand the plot other than it was just two guys acting silly. Prostitution and crime aside, there is a message buried somewhere in there about standing up for yourself, not letting yourself be bullied, being willing to take the risks. Maybe you’ll get what you wanted but if you don’t, you tried, so accept the consequences and move on.
Sounds dumb, but I recall this movie being the first example where I realized what actors can do. I had always known Winkler as “The Fonz” on Happy Days, the low voiced cool guy with the leather jacket who always gets all the chicks. Yet in this movie, he’s a mousy, mealy mouthed man who is afraid of his own shadow.
Amazing transformation, but I hate to say it, unless I’m forgetting a role somewhere, Winkler pretty much stuck with playing wimpy dudes, with The Fonz being his once chance to play an awesome dude, and this movie being the one chance to be a wimpy guy that we all felt for, maybe even saw a little bit of ourselves in. You may think you’re not a wimp, but how many slights do you put up with a day, just to avoid causing trouble? Probably more than you realize.
Keaton is great too, playing a dopey slime ball. He’s got that long hair where he’s going bald up front in this one and as I watched it, I thought, huh, the 1980s was the last decade where a man with a receding hairline could be recruited to play Batman. Not knocking Keaton’s looks, it’s just, there was a time period in Hollywood where people didn’t get knocked for being human. Bad hair is something many of us suffer from.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Directed by Ron Howard, Winkler’s buddy Ritchie Cunningham. Shelley Long seems too intelligent to be a prostitute, though the underlying premise is that life is hard and a lot of people have to do a lot of things they don’t want to do just to get by. Bonus points for Rolling Stones music as Billy is a fan and plays their tunes throughout.
My coronavirus movie marathon continues, 3.5 readers.
This one wasn’t all that cheesy. I thought it was pretty good as a kid. As an adult it seems a little goofy but overall, it’s solid and has a simple lot.
Four friends, Jeremy Piven, Cuba Gooding Jr, Emilio Estevez and Stephen Dorff step outside of their suburban Illinois lives, borrowing an RV to go to a boxing match in Chicago.
A traffic jam causes them to seek out a shortcut, which leads to a wrong turn, which leaves them in a bad neighborhood where they witness a murder. From thereon, the movie is a chase flick, as drug dealer Fallon (Dennis Leary) and his band of goons pursue the pals in an attempt to get rid of the witnesses.
There isn’t a lot in the way of character development. Everyone gets their brief moment to shine but the movie primarily focuses on the chase and we don’t get to know the characters all that well, though we get a brief glimpse.
Piven, who was typecast as the douchebag friend in every group who eventually screws over the group with his douchebaggery plays true to form in this, the rich son of a stockbroker who tries to talk his way out of a situation where clearly there isn’t any room for negotiation.
Frank (Estevez) is a recently married man who just had a baby, adjusting to his new life as a family man, still shaking off his younger party boy days. There’s a trace of resentment at having to stay home all the time at the beginning of the film, though by the end he finds a new appreciation for the safety of home.
Cuba starts out mild and ends up wild, almost enjoying “the game” and wanting to take on all the bad guys by himself.
Dorff…is mostly there for moral support.
Comedian Leary was famous for doing his rapid fire, long form rants, just unleashing swaths of anger at a rapid clip. He has a few moments to do that here, though it’s clear he was held back as no one wanted to turn his criminal character into a stand up comedian.
STATUS: Shelf worthy. Overall, solid flick. Worth a watch. Overall message is we should care more about how the other half lives. The suburban boys quickly learn that the poor live hard lives and when they are stuck in a bad place, there’s no one to turn to for help, so they have to help themselves.
Your old pal BQB here with another review as we continue the corona quarantine hullabaloo.
This movie was on all the time when I was a kid. I thought it was funny then and so it was cool to see it is on Netflix today.
The premise may be near and dear to the hearts of every first time home buyer. After all, the sequence of events goes like this:
You need a place to live.
You find a place you like.
You do your best to inspect the place you like, but inevitably, the homeowner will do their damndest to hide any and all defects so as to avoid paying to fix them, essentially passing the buck to you, the buyer, then playing dumb when you notice it after you moved in.
At that point, maybe you have a case, but in most instances, you’ll spend more time and money on suing the original owner than you would on just paying to have the problem fixed.
You’ll hire a contractor. The contractor will take your advance payment, and then once they have their money, you will be lucky if you see them before the next ice age. You can’t hire someone else because you already sunk money into them. You can’t get too snippy with them because they might walk away and ultimately, most contractors will make you wait so you ultimately just have to live with the hole in your roof, or in your ceiling or dry wall until the contractor takes pity on you…or has spent your initial money down and realizes they need to show up and do some work before they get paid again (unless you were an idiot who paid it all up front in which case, you will never see that contractor again.)
Tom Hanks and Shelley Long made an entire movie about this! They play Walter and Anna, a young couple who try to make a go of it in a new home, only to get duped by the previous owner. The majority of the movie is dedicated to wacky hijinx – exploding ovens that shoot turkeys through the air, wiring that sets the house on fire, stairs that fall apart while Walter is walking on them, leaving him to do action movie style jumps to the ledge. Walter takes the brunt of the beatings, getting knocked in the head by all manner of flying debris.
As unscrupulous contractors take their money and then promise the house will be fixed within two weeks for way, way, way longer than two weeks, the couple is pushed to the breaking point, and they will struggle to keep their sanity and relationship afloat.
Bonus points to Alexander Godunov, that long haired 80s villain who plays Anna’s cheating ex-husband, the cad who tries to take advantage of the situation, hoping to steal Anna back. I didn’t realize it as a kid, but as an adult I instantly recognized him as the dude who played German terrorist Karl aka Hans Gruber’s right hand henchman in Die Hard. Yes, he was the villain who helped Sgt. Al Powell realize that he could raise his gun to shoot again.
This movie is just awful. I really can’t say enough bad things about it.
On the surface, it seems like it would be good, because it has a lot of good actors in it. Ed Helms, Taraji P. Henson, Betty Gilpin, David Alan Grier.
But just as pizza, ice cream, orange juice, and Mountain Dew all taste good on their own, they are destined to explode into a pile of crap when you put them together.
The plot, if you can call it one, is that Ed Helms (Officer Coffee, given that unlikely name for no reason other than to create a catchy buddy comedy movie title) is dating Vanessa, the mother of the rambunctious and foul mouthed 12 year old, Kareem (Terrence Gardenhigh.)
Long story short, Kareem witnesses a murder, Coffee gets framed for it, and its a madcap romp to fight the bad guys and score the evidence that will get Coffee off the hook.
It sounds simple enough yet, it all falls apart at a comedic level. I don’t know when it became popular for kids to say raunchy things in movies. I’ve noticed it as a growing trend more and more in movies over the past decade. Someone, somewhere decided it would be funny to have a kid swear and say naughty things and then movies just kept upping the game, having kids swear more, saying naughtier things until you have this travesty.
Feel free to disagree, but I just think that having kids being foul mouthed for the camera is just gross, a stupid gimmick that Hollywood should have had enough decency to have never gotten involved with in the first place. How do none of the adults behind this movie not say, “Hey, kids shouldn’t be saying such terrible things and we shouldn’t make one do it for the camera?”
To be honest, I was going to switch it off in the first 20 minutes and I only stuck with it because of Betty Gilpin, who I think is an underrated national treasure, but even she couldn’t save this mess.
I don’t know what else to say. Rarely do I give a bad review, but Netflix should give subscribers a free month and a formal apology for making this crap.
As an aficionado of 1980s action flicks, as well as everything Stallone, I was shocked to find this movie starring Stallone and Billy Dee Williams as two cops chasing a terrorist, Rutger Hauer as Wulfgar.
So, I watched it and I have to say, overall I was impressed. It has a degree of seriousness, almost in the vein of “Day of the Jackal” where a London based terrorism expert moves to NYC to educate Stallone and Williams on how to track Wulfgar, that this cunning sociopath is a master of disguise and deception and could be anywhere at any time.
The key plot point is that Stallone, as a cop, is also a master of disguise and deception. The film begins with an old woman about to get mugged. She kicks the muggers’ asses, and rips off her mask to reveal that she is Stallone and Billy Dee jumps out of the shadows to provide backup.
My main complaint is about halfway through the film, the subterfuge or cat and mouse angle of the film is blown and it goes from an understated mystery thriller to an all out action flick. At the beginning, I thought the point was Stallone was going to lull Wulfgar into a trap, but he just goes at him guns a blazing.
Still, there are some riveting action scenes, as well as some prophetic discussions of terrorism and how terrorists operate that seem eerily accurate post-9/11.
Ironically, I think with a few tweaks and perhaps a more serious title, this film could have gone down as one of the great ones. Instead, it became lost, at least to me, until I found it on Netflix and only then I was on a coronavirus inspired deep Netflix dive.
And I’ll give it this – the ending makes the whole thing. I don’t want to give it away, but it really is a great, unexpected, and redeeming ending.
So I’ve been watching movies to pass the time during the coronavirus outbreak, and last night I settled on Tootsie on Netflix. It’s funny how movies you saw as a kid come across differently to you as an adult all these years later.
Dustin Hoffman plays Michael Dorsey, an actor with immense talent who can’t get steady work because he’s an unwavering perfectionist, refusing to obey the most basic commands of his directors if he disagrees with them.
When his friend, Sandy, a fellow thespian (Terri Garr) auditions for and is denied a part as a hospital administrator on a soap opera, Southwest General, Michael, desperate for money to produce his roomate’s play (Bill Murray as Jeff) decides on a lark to don a dress and wig and try out for the part, introducing herself as actress Dorothy Michaels.
Miraculously, he nails it and while the rest of the women on the show are portrayed as brainless females who swoon at the first sign of male authority, she plays the part as a tough talking, no nonsense feminist.
A star is born, but along the way, Michael will have to figure out his feelings for co-star Julie (Jessica Lange) who only knows him as her BFF Dorothy, and fight off advances from Julie’s father and a male costar.
It’s interesting to watch the film in the light of the MeToo era. There’s a point in the film where Michael confides in Jeff that being a woman is exhausting, that he has to spend his money on countless products just to look pretty, and that all day long, he’s fending off men who are trying to force themselves on her. Maybe all men should have to walk a mile in Tootsie’s heels. (Tootsie being an unflattering name the chauvinist director Dabney Coleman gives her.)
There are some things that don’t hold up in modern times. Men who learn they have kissed a man pretending to be a woman are horrified. Julie’s father openly states that the only reason he never killed Michael is because the two didn’t kiss. While these sentiments would likely be felt even today by a straight male who kisses a woman who is, in fact, a man, the looks of panic and horror wouldn’t be appreciated on film.
And of course, it’s important to note to these men that “Dorothy” never tried to kiss any of them. Pervs.
Your old pal BQB here, hunkering down in BQB HQ as we ride out the coronavirus pandemic. Don’t worry about me. I’m fit as a fiddle. COUGH COUGH! Whoa? Is that phlegm or a Jackson Pollock painting?
Anyway. Fun fact about the social media age. Literally, everyone is an epidemiologist know, and everyone has an opinion they want to share, immediately, directly to you, right away.
Worse, every company I have ever given my e-mail address to wants to tell me what they are doing about the coronavirus. In case you haven’t received these missives, allow me to summarize:
My preferred pizza parlor wants me to know that if I so desire, I can choose the “no contact delivery” option while placing my order, and the driver will set the pizza down on my stoop, ring the doorbell, and then run away, really fast, with his arms flailing about, to and fro as he screams about how we are all doomed and the end times are here. For five dollars more, I can get the super extra no contact delivery, which means the driver will slow down to 30 mph and throw the pizza out his window, allowing it to splatter all over my front door. I tried this once and found the pizza box on my front lawn, while the pepperoni ended up on the grass and the cheese was in my neighbor’s rose bush. Not the best way to eat a pie, but the good news is, I am coronavirus free.
My local car dealership wants me to know that if I want to test drive a new car, I can do it online. They have some type of app where I can virtually drive the new car off the lot, virtually wince as the sticker value decreases by half, virtually get cut off in traffic, and virtually get honked at when the light turns green and I wait one fraction of a second to hit the virtual gas because the honker, as you know, is a very important person and needs to get where he is going right away. He is probably on his way to a meeting where he will announce his invention of a device that will cure global warming and not just some ass hat on his way to buy a bag of Fritos and a gallon of Mr. Pibb. Oh, and if I need any service done on my car, I can choose the no contact service option. That’s right. I can just point the car at the dealership parking lot, slow down to like 10 mph and jump out at the last minute before the car rams into a brick wall and sure, the car will need major body work after that buy hey, there was no contact…with other humans.
My favorite big box store emailed to let me know they have spritz down everything in the store with sanitary goo, as opposed to the years and years where this goo was not applied and I was allowed to shop in what essentially was a steaming cauldron of airborne fecal matter. Also, they are working overtime to make sure that additional rainforests are being chopped down so that all the nervous nellies out there can fill their basements with toilet paper, because, God fordbid the apocalypse comes and you might have to wipe your ass with a leaf or a newspaper or a magazine or your neighbor’s cat or something.
My movie theater wants me to know that they are selling only half the seats because they don’t want it on their conscience if anyone catches the coronavirus while watching such masterpiece works like “Brahms: The Boy Part 2” or that Fantasy Island reboot where someone thought it would be a good idea to bring a lighthearted 70s romp into a horror movie. It’s probably due to the coronavirus and not because everyone was already at home watching Netflix anyway.
My florist will also offer a no contact delivery option. If I want to cheer up the special lady in my life, they’ll be happy to fill a cannon full of daffodils and shoot it at her front door.
Finally, my psychotherapist emailed to tell me the joke’s on him, for all these years, it turns out I was right about social distancing, and everyone was so very, very wrong.
Have you received any fun coronavirus emails from your favorite places of business, 3.5 readers? Feel free to share in the comments.
Hey 3.5 readers. Your old pal BQB here, braving the Coronavirus so you don’t have to.
Also here with a review of Bloodshot.
Hollywood has mined so much gold out of the Marvel and DC universes that they’re turning to the lesser known Valiant comics. Did you even know they existed? You’re not a true nerd if you didn’t. Could this be the start of a Valiant comic cinematic universe?
Anyway, Vin Diesel plays Ray Garrison, a soldier who dies in battle and is resurrected by a team of scientists. He now benefits from nano-tech in his blood, which reconstitutes his flesh in seconds after he is shot, stabbed, injured or what have you. Looks cool on screen.
From there, he joins a group of ex-soldiers who have all died and been brought back in larger than life ways thanks to technology.
I have to admit, for the first half-hour or so, the film seemed pretty basic. Not dull but not really grabbing me. However, without delving into spoilers, a surprise twist occurs that left me on the edge of my seat for the rest of the film. I thought it was clever and worth watching as the twists and turns keep coming at a rapid clip after that.
I’m sad critics don’t seem to agree and unfortunately audiences might not get to vote with sales due to the pandemic. However, I hope word of mouth spreads because I think it is a great flick that could be the start of an awesome franchise for Diesel. Obviously, he’s done great with Fast and Furious, though attempts to double that momentum with Riddick fizzled. I think he’s got something here with Bloodshot though the critics disagree.
Bookshelf Battle 