Glitter (2001)

In 2001 Mariah Carey and company released this bouncy colorful and all around awful movie into an only ten day post 9/11 startled and stunned world. In this Mariah Carey pop star vehicle full of neon colors, star wipes, fades and of course - Glitter, this movie had found zero place in society. A lot of this films’ failure was trumped up to the incredibly poor timing of its release. Yet, here we are in the year 2019 and it’s continued to maintain a reputation as a badly acted, directed, and written flick and was practically laughed out of theaters by audiences. Mariah Carey won a Razzie for Worst Actress and to this day will not let anyone close to her discuss this movie and refers to it as “the G-word.” I think this movie literally made it’s star go insane. Her promotion for the movie was tainted by bizarre behavior and what seemed like a complete meltdown. In fact, I think you need to be functioning on a different plane of existence to even understand what is happening in Glitter.

So naturally, I neeeeeded to watch it. In the depths of my soul I yearned to see this other kind of disaster flick. Grabbing my husband,Matt, (@dickdangers) who is also a fan of the fantastically bad, and wonderfully campy, as well as grabbing one of my besties, Ty Comeuppance, who is one half of a duo who reviews so bad they’re good action flicks (@TyComeuppance of Comeuppance Reviews)

At their reluctance, we all settled in to watch Glitter. It was time for us to determine once and for all, is this a misunderstood awesomely bad movie we love, or just another schlock fest?!?

After watching, I can see why Mariah had to go bye bye for a while.

Glitter opens in the 70s to a singer named Lillian Frank singing in a night club while her tween daughter watches mesmerized, then joins her mother on stage to show that those bluesy pipes were definitely handed down. AND then sparkles with her high note register. You find out that they are poor, Lillian is a single mom, and it’s implied that she’s neglectful and has some drug or alcohol issues going on. She falls asleep with a lit cigarette while sitting upright in a chair. A fire breaks out, and Lillian’s daughter, Billie, is taken away and put into the foster care system. Throughout these moments of what feels like a gripping mother daughter tale about to unfold, we are pushed into each randomly timed new segment with a weird wipe or fade, and sometimes rando rainfalls of glitter. Every time that happens, you think ok, this must be a later point in time, like now we’re going to flash to the grown up Billie, or like a miracle about to happen or something. But that never happens. When you do finally flash to grown up Billie - a club partying Mariah, THERE’S NO WIPE! It’s confusing. Everything goes from a sad but interesting mother daughter story to a technicolor highway of numbing dumb and you remember, right, I’m watching a pretentious star vehicle.

Now we are told it’s 1983 - and everything looks like it’s made by Lisa Frank. It’s like we suddenly teleport into the middle of a completely different movie that eagerly borrows from every 80s pop star cliche movie ever. The music is jumpin’ and the colors are neon vivid. Every song sounds like a Prince rip-off, borrowing from the original and best pretentious star vehicle of all time - Purple Rain. From this point there is no telling how much time lapses. At some points it seems like it’s been a day, other points it feels like years. The wipes happen more and more randomly. There’s really no way of telling. You’re a Mariah Carey time traveler now, let’s get incoherent.

MC, or Billie Frank makes some NYC besties that feel like the Supremes and she loves them sooooo much, but will ditch them for a better opportunity at a moments notice. Borrowing from the Nomi Malone School of Thought, MC / Billie continues to play I’m a victim, I’m a star, I’m a horrible human being throughout the film. She gets discovered by Terrence Howard playing Timothy, but who cares, who is looking for backup singers for his special lady friend’s girl group. Naturally, super talented Mariah and her NYC besties are contracted for the job and the glitter is flying.

Surprise, surprise, turns out Terrence Howards’ special lady friend is all bod and beauty and her singing is horrid. So in a gasp 80s moment, they Milli Vanilli that shit and get Bod and Beauty to lip sync MC/Billie’s real vocals. They explode onto the music scene with a big club date and a single with Bod and Beauty looking like she’s about to make it big time and acting like she’s the Big Bad. Tricky little Nomi/ Mariah/Billie blows Bod and Beauty’s cover out of the water by singing backstage after their big club performance, proving she is the real talent in the group. They get discovered by disc jockey Julian, better known as Dice, or Chilly D, or Not Tommy Mottola. He’s onto Nomi/ Mariah’s game and shows the whole club she was the real songstress behind the girl group. Everybody lovers her and now she’s the pretty little ingenue. Here is where it starts to feel like a child's version of an ingenues’ rise to fame. This is also the point where all three of us viewing Glitter began trying to keep each other awake to the end.

Terrence Howard makes a deal with Chilly D/ Dice for MC/Billie. He wants to write some songs with her. So he bargains to buy out her contract, completely ignoring the fact that he has zero money. Terrence Howard agrees and goes back to his sad lady friends’ quest for fame, but he’s not happy about it.

Chilly D Dice and Billie/Nomi begin to make music in and out of the sheets and start a falling in love montage. At this point I think Mariah is constantly singing a Robert Palmer cover, but am never sure if that’s the song. But hey, she’s got a hit song on the radio now! Things start to get weird as Billie’s star rises. Naive little Billie turns into her fully Nomi Malone/Mariah Carey realized diva. It’s here we all start to notice a blurring of the diva Mariah Carey and the newly christened diva, Billie Frank. For example MC/Billie start to sport a silver paint stripe on her body in different places throughout the movie. Why? No one knows. She’s a star baby, a STAR. She defies logic. We also start to notice that Mariah is only filmed on one side of her face. Gotta keep that good side shining bright.   

Chilly Dice starts to take the hint and not to be outdone, gets an ego trip of his own. Dice starts acting like a tough guy with a NYC gangster stereotype accent that fades in and out with his temper. He starts taking control of both Billie and her career as he man handles her, yells at her, getting drunk and acting like a dick so much that even her Supreme back up friends that were kicked to the curb in favor of a solo act, can’t handle being around Dice anymore. Although you think they would have said something before they are squeezed out of their own group and put on the friendship shelf.

Ultimately Billie bounces after she finds out  DJ Chilly Dice STILL never paid Terrence Howard and spent the night in jail for his belligerent behavior. She gets her revenge on him by collaborating with other artists and making even more hit songs, once again dropping the people she loves for better opportunity. But then she starts to miss him. And he starts to miss her. The time hopping is all a flutter, has it been a year? Four years? Three days? Who knows! They suddenly get on this superhuman love wave length and begin separately WRITING THE SAME FUCKING SONG. She’s writing the lyrics and he is writing the music without any actual communication. Well this must be true love! MC Billie Nomi goes to DJ Julian Dice’s house, just narily missing him. She proceeds to break into his house and sees the sheet music to her heart song that Dice had been working on. She kisses the sheet music and leaves.

Now that Billie is hella famous after her 5 minute, or 1 week to 6 year God knows how long rise to fame, she is obviously going on to play Madison Square Garden. She’s rich, she’s famous, she’s back in love. She walks into the her dressing room only to see her management team freaking out over the news. DJ Julian Dice Chilly D has been shot in the back by Terrence Howard. He’s dead. The dysfunctional love of her life and mentor that launched her career is gone forever. But the show simply MUST go on! Dramatically, MC Mariah Billie Frank takes the stage wearing a silver glittery gown and says with exactly zero emotion "Everybody out there, don't ever take anybody ... for granted." and perfectly sings the song they wrote together without writing it together, or practicing it, or knowing how the music goes played all the way through. This could have been an amazing emotional moment. This could have even been a campy emotional moment. Or a scenery chewing emotional moment ala Neely O’Hara. But instead it is the most wooden bullshit moment of the entire movie, and exactly where I mentally jumped ship and said a million fuck you’s.

Just when you think it’s over, they beam you back off the time hopping ship to the original storyline. When you no longer care about that interesting mother daughter tale of redemption, they force feed you that loose end. Conveniently, Dice had left a congratulatory note for Billie on her playing Madison Square Garden, he tells her he tracked down her mother and enclosed her current address. It was a surprise for her. Billie Mariah is driven in her limo all the way from the Garden to rural Tennessee (I think it’s Tennessee, but if not, who cares!!!) to her mama and reunites with hugs and tears, but zero explanations. Fade to credits, you’re asleep.

I sat for so long with this flick, trying to figure out how this ended up being the final product. This movie took from 1997 to 2001 to make. It was shelved for album obligations due to Mariah’s contract with Columbia. Surely someone continued to work on this. Didn’t they? It must have gone through a bunch of different hands. But as my brain continued to dissect and I thought about what Matt and Ty had to say about it from their perspective, it kind of dawned on me. Everyone made terrible choices and no one bothered to put a reality filter on. This was an ego trip set to music.

The script - the screenwriter had been responsible for some serious stinkers. The characters turn on a dime out of nowhere, Some of the dialogue is repeated back and forth using the same exact words and phrases like a ball being lazily passed back and forth. Also there are too many subplots that seem to clog up the main storyline. There’s no time for them to develop or be given the proper attention in the movie’s time frame. It makes all the characters feel even more frivolous.

The lighting, the design all around from the clothing to the hairstyles seemed to fade in and out of the 80s era like Dice’s New York gangster accent. Is it the 80s, the 90s, or 2001? What???

Not one character is likable. Every person is selfish and self serving. Again I compare this to Showgirls, another Hollywood tale of the big bad business of being famous run by unlikable characters that people continue to help and bend backwards for despite their BS. The difference of course being that despite all the bad, Showgirls is funny! This was just…. A trainwreck. At the end of the day despite her talent, Billie is unlikable and kind of sad, her life never really has a big happy ending. She’s just an asshole who got famous and found her mom .

Here’s the breakdown:

Best Parts - It’s Trash Yourself Cinema

                   The Music is Kinda Fun

                   Obscure 80s References Like Chilly D

       

Worst Parts - The Rest!

Jill - 1 Pliskin Matt - 1 Pliskin Ty - 1 Pliskin

References:

Glitter Wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitter_(film)

IMDB - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118589/

Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toymaker (1991)

First I’d like to let you know that this sequel has nothing to do with the first Silent Night, Deadly Night. We watched this as a stand alone film. Perhaps because of that we all tended to see this movie in a different light.

The movie starts with a mysterious Christmas gift appearing for a young boy named Derek. Just when he is about to open the mysterious gift, a dude that feels like a stepdad or bitchy mom’s boyfriend yells at him. Takes the toy and lectures about opening the door and taking stuff. Just then the weird  Pokeball gift pops up a Santa head and some arms and starts attacking the angry father figure. Derek witnesses his faux dad's’ murder.

TWO WEEKS LATER a traumatized Derek sees a commercial for the Pokeball face hugger and starts to freak out. His nervous but flippant mother tries to shut him up by taking him to (I kid you not) Joe Petto’s Toy Store! There an old man Mickey Rooney tries to kind of comfort Derek and agrees to make him a very special toy. Just then Pino, Joe Petto’s son (do you see it? Yup!) enters the shop and starts acting mad creepy and weird toward Derek and his Mom. When the family leaves, Joe Petto has a very weird fight, not realizing a mysterious stranger was inside the store still shopping. How embarrassing. When the stranger buys a bunch of crap and leaves, Joe Petto and Pino continue they’re weird epic fight.

We follow the Stranger to a sad apartment where he is surrounded by toys. He is interrupted by his landlord who says his rent check bounced, get to steppin! The Stranger says he gets paid in the morning and he’ll cover the bounced check. Not good enough. The Stranger offers to give the landlord a killer toy for his kid for Christmas, plus cover the rent the next morning. The landlord agrees and is handed Larry the Larvae, a creepy worm toy. Cut to the landlord driving home. He takes out the toy and makes sure it works, laughs and starts to mess with it. Suddenly the toy won’t turn off. It starts tasing and murdering the landlord. The car hilariously drives off the road and just randomly explodes on the side of the road. Up to 2 hilarious death scenes now.

Clint Howard makes a fun cameo as a mall Santa coworker to the Stranger. Stranger is also a mall Santa trying to get out there in time to see Derek tell him what he wants for Christmas. It gets weird and stalker like.

At the same damn time - Pino is also stalking the mother and Derek. He breaks into their house and does weird stuff in Derek’s room. Guess who comes home to catch creepy Pino in her house. In what seems like the mildest reaction ever to I caught your creepy kid in my house. Joe Petto tells her that in better time, he and his son lived in their house. That Pino never wanted to leave that house and he misses it. They just fell on bad times. When the mom leaves, Joe goes to their apartment above (or below the store? Not sure.) and then beats the ever loving shit out of Pino while drunk out of his mind, seemingly leaving Pino for dead.

Neighborhood kids begin using their evil toys. A very 90s dressed skater kid donning neon yellow leopard print pants gets a pair of killer roller blades. In another hilarious scene the kid is taken over by the sparking blades and skates himself right into a car. Don’t worry, he and his pants are fine. Simultaneously, Derek goes all HAM and beats the crap out of the Santa face eater toy.

The Stranger is soon on Derek’s doorstep and tries to give him a gift, but Derek’s babysitter, not recognizing him, shuts him the fuck down. Stranger danger, no way Jose! What she needs is a big strong man with her, and just like that, there is her jock boyfriend, and he is down to fuck in the kids room.

As the babysitter is getting laid, Derek’s mom is being stalked by the Stranger. But as it turns out, he is no stranger at all! His name is Noah. He is a former lover and dun dun DUN! He is Derek’s biological father. (Booyah! That first dude was just a bitch ass mom boyfriend!) Turns out she got preggers in college just when he joined the military and she never bothered to tell him. Derek’s mom goes from being super scared to super horny and tries to bang it out in the parking lot she thought she was about to be murdered in. What a twist!

Now there is this weird intercut sex scene that switches back and forth to the babysitter and her boyfriend, and the mom and Stranger / Noah / Daddy. It’s a little weird and confusing, but campy as all get out! Suddenly we see Derek WATCHING his baby sitter go at it. THEN Mickey Rooney / Joe Petto in a Santa suit with a ton of toys. Killer toys! And they’re aimed for our babysitter and her boyfriend. Right before they are destroyed by toys we find out her boyfriend is totally into the butt stuff. Mickey / Santa kidnaps pervy Derek. The death scene for the fated couple seems to last forever, but is kind of hilarious in it’s own cheesy right.

Derek’s mom and newly found dad come home to find the babysitter still kicking and tells them what happens. They head to Joe Petto’s and find his house booby trapped with evil toys. They split up to search for Derek.

In the biggest weirdest twist of all, turns out PINO never died! He is actually a robot. His dad, Joe Petto always wanted a real live boy and made Pino. Get it, Pinocchio? Pino couldn’t stand getting beat by his drunk Dad any longer and killed his maker. Then created a new robotic face and a convincing fat suit costume, and paraded around as the living Joe Petto. He had been stalking Derek’s MOM the whole time. He thought she was kind of hot and wanted her to be his sexy Mommy. And before you can say Pinocchio, he holds her down and tries to fuck her with his Ken doll crotch asking if he can be her son! WHAT!!!! I know! Stop reading this and immediately find it and watch it. Like yeah, they find Derek, everything is fine. But Pino - OMG watch it! It’s so fucking bad, it’s awesome!

Watching this as a stand alone movie made all the difference. If I had watched this as part of the series I think this would have been disappointing. I believe that is the overall consensus among fans of the Silent Night, Deadly Night series. But I see I hysterically bad, tongue in cheek movie that is worth the watch. I also think Mickey Rooney knew exactly what movie he was in and was totally down for the camp. Me too, Mickey.

I’d like to end with Ty’s only note on this film while we were watching: This is Mickey Rooney’s best work.

Here’s the breakdown:

The best part -      HILARIOUS death scenes

     Mickey Rooney

                             Really original schlock

The worst parts-    The Pinocchio thing

Jill - 4 Plisskens Ty - 4 Plisskens Matt - 4 Plisskens

Santa Claus (1959)

Santa Claus (also known as Santa Claus VS. The Devil) is a little-known movie from Mexico, made in 1959. It’s a Christmas movie geared toward kids and families. It won the Golden Gate Award for Best Family Film. I don’t understand how. This is an all-around weird, and mildly terrifying holiday film.

Santa Claus opens to Santa maniacally laughing while building a manger on his weird Santa space station. Why is he in space, I don’t know. Instead of elves, Santa has a room full of world based stereotypes and the children that sadly represent each continent or country. For example, kids from the Caribbean and Central America hold shotguns to represent their perspective areas. Mexico has child brides representing them. Sweet Matty theorizes that they don’t have elves because child labor must be cheaper, and there are no child labor laws in space. Well played, Matty. Well played.

Once we get past a most politically incorrect United Nations, we meet a little devil doll that turns into Pitch, a devil trying to convince kids to “do evil” for his lord Satan! The kids know he’s a bad guy because he’s a lactose intolerant red devil that hates good, fun and ice cream. Oh, and he also wants to straight up murder Santa.

We then meet little Lupita. She looks like a very anxious but adorable 4-year-old. Her family is poor, and she really wants a doll of her own. Pitch the Devil shows up and tries to convince Lupita to steal the doll. She does it and her Mom catches her out. Little Lupita immediately gets guilt anxiety and puts the doll back. Pitch decides he likes Lupita and begins to appear to her and constantly stalks and terrorizes her. Again, she’s like 4.

Santa goes through the old Naughty and Nice list and can spy on kids with a weird flat and oval baked out dome he scrys with. Much like Freddy Kruger, creepy Santa can also see and enter your dreams. He watches Lupita dream of boxes upon boxes of dolls all for her. The life-size dolls then come to life and do a creepy dance around Lupita while bullying her into being a bad girl. This kid better start saving for therapy now.

In Santa’s baked out dome he also sees a little boy who wishes for attentive parents and another who wishes for a sibling. Santa outsources all baby requests to the Stork and sent that down the pipeline. Santa also has some child assistants that help him track the good and bad kids and do all around general assisting. Pedro, the traditionally garbed Mexican boy, is like his head assistant.

Santa then asks for help from…. Merlin! He needs some sort of magic powder, this one will come in handy later. It seems as though Merlin also lives on Santa’s space station and is like his indentured wizard bitch. Merlin seems kinda weird and hella lonely. But indebted to Santa.

After setting Merlin to work, Santa does some delivery training to prep for Christmas. This also includes a visit with Santa’s reindeer! Except they’re all robots with demon red eyes and are horrific. Santa fills his sleigh while matching their creepiness with a sneer from Hell. What is happening! The reindeer start laughing and snorting with bright red glowing eyes. Sweet Matt says they must be demonic reindeer, it’s like an exercise in terror.

Meanwhile Pitch the devil is motivating awful children around the world to help him kill Santa. (Award winning kids movie.) One set of boys wait on a rooftop to catch and sleigh-jack Santa for his presents and whatever else they can get. But haha! Santa has a teleporting Rose (what?) that he sniffs and he teleports away. Meanwhile, Pitch sets up his own trap for Santa murder in a home he is occupying. This starts to feel like a reverse Home Alone situation. Pitch is Kevin McAlister and Santa is both of the Wet Bandits. Santa makes it out, with his teleporting rose, but he’s certainly not the same.

We revisit the Ginger kid who wished for parents who like, loved him. Or acknowledge him. Grunted in his general direction - SOMETHING. They’re much too busy being popular and going to parties. The lonely ginger kid looks like a little ginger werewolf. He is super thirsty for attention now. Santa sprinkles special dust over him and allows the child to see him and they have a little heart to heart. It takes a sharp turn to downsville as the lonely kid literally begs for love. Santa is really feeling sorry for this poor kid. And the lonely kid gets his parents attention for Christmas. I can’t believe this is the plot of the movie.

Pitch continues to try and set up Santa. Things continue to take weird dark turns. Lupita’s mom also seems to start crying a LOT and has serious emotional problems. Lupita is plagued by Pitch the Devil in and out of her dreams. He is doing everything to make her go crazy and do evil. Shit spins out of control when Pitch convinces the townspeople to gather their weapons - and KILL SANTA. Again, this is an AWARD WINNING KIDS MOVIE! What is even happening!?!

Santa does not die. He gets stuck in a tree with a nasty Pitbull below him. He is saved by the magical aid of Merlin and his steadfast child assistant/maid, Pedro. This blew us all away. Like hello - Santa still had that teleportation Rose. He was able to get himself out of situations just fine before with it. But suddenly now it’s like Oh no. I don’t have a weird teleporting device. Which also broaches the question, is Santa an alien? Is he a Time Lord? Is he a Doctor? Doctor Santa?

Lupita wins the day by refusing to do evil and yada yada, the movie ends with Lupita getting hooked up with a dope doll for Christmas, and her mom finally stops crying. Go girl!

This movie really drives home this weird preachy morality. I’m sure some of it could have even been confusing to kids. Interesting, but tragic side note. The child who played Pedro later went on to a life of crime. First with robbery in 1971, later to much worse. Including child sexual abuse of his own stepchild. Eerie.
This movie is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. Click here to watch!

Here’s the breakdown:

Best Parts -       Pitch the Devil

                         A most amazingly bad plot and script.

                         Very campy

Worst Parts -     Santa’s creepy face

                         Rascist

                         Child Labor

                         It won awards?!?

Jill - 2 ½ Plisskens           Ty - 2 Plisskens Matt - 2 Plisskens

2

Plisskens