Gotti (2018)

One of the tell-tale signs a movie is going to be a bomb, they do not allow film critics to screen it until it has been officially released. This movie wasn’t screened for critics AT ALL. It’s still sitting at a zero on Rotten Tomatoes. Even after hearing that this movie was particularly bad, the fellas and I still went ahead and watched Gotti, against all our better judgment. I don’t even want to say my It sure was a movie line. Was it? We take the bullet for everyone and tell you why Gotti sucked.

Get ready to turn your brightness all the way up! The first thing we all noticed was the terrible style of this flick. Everything is very dark and barely lit. It felt like squinting my way through Underworld all over again. I said to the guys, maybe they’re trying to make this feel dark like Gotti is the darkness and he lives in the shadows. Ty immediately started laughing at me and said he thought I was giving the film too much credit. Once we turned the brightness up from 31 to like 70, we understood why everything looked so dark and over saturated. This looks like it was filmed on an HD handheld from BJ’s. When you turn up the light, it’s a student film at best.

I also couldn’t stop looking at all of the avocado green tones in this movie. Suddenly, I started putting it together. Everything is bathed in either avocado green, bright red, or off white intentional lighting. Holy shit, it’s the Italian flag! As if those terrible Italian American accents weren’t enough, they actually bathed the film in the colors of Italy. All of this before we even get to the dialogue, acting, or non-existent plot of the movie! It was that distracting.

John Travolta playing John Gotti. I’d like to preface this with Ty’s research, showing that the Gotti family actually requested that John Travolta play him. It kind of makes sense. Travolta is Italian. He is known for playing the iconic Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever, a film that probably would have defined an era for someone like John Gotti. So the casting isn’t that irrational.

Travolta’s wife, Kelly Preston, takes on the role of Victoria Gotti. She’s a real actress with a lot of good solid work behind her. But this…. This is embarrassing for both of them. Travolta is playing this like it’s an impression. An impression of an impression of John Gotti. Nothing about his look or voice is correct. At the end when John Gotti is dying of Cancer, they make him look far worse and far older. One thing about Gotti, he always looked good. The hair was always perfection above all else, even in ill health. And Kelly Preston, her accent is so bad! It’s as if she put on the wig and went oh there’s the character, and just let the hair do the work for her. Her character doesn’t age or progress in any way. She just Italian stereotype screams her way from one event to the next. It’s revolting.

They must have had the greatest sale on tanner ever. All of the actors in the movie had a professional makeup artist, but still manage to look orange and streaky! Watch the funeral scene for their son, who is hit by a car and killed. Don’t mess with the brightness - just watch the scene. The contrast of the darkness, the color saturation and the overuse of tanner make several people appear to be in blackface. I was screaming with laughter out of the sheer ridiculousness. What could be more inappropriate than a funeral in blackface?

The director of the film is Kevin Connelly, from the cast of Entourage. I think he really wanted this to be a gangster film of the likes of Scorsese or Coppola. He tries to use Scorsese’s ironic use of pop music in long cuts that don’t work at all. It’s like a child trying to mimic mom and dad at work.

While we are talking about filming, 2 things. In one of the first scenes, John Travolta is in bed and talking to one of his henchmen. Travolta starts to get up out of bed, tips to the right and you hear a very audible Pee Wee Herman like ‘ahhhhhhhh’ as he falls over and cut to the next scene. WHO KEPT THAT IN!?! It was clearly a mistake! We could not stop laughing at it. It was rewound over and over. It definitely is there. OMG. And second, several scenes have the tops of people's’ heads or foreheads walking out of frame in close up, like someone mounted a camera to a doorway and just let that shit ride. There are also mistakes like Pitbull music playing in a bar when the scene takes place in 1985. In one of the street scenes, you can clearly see Wrigley Field in Chicago, but the film very obviously takes place in New York. The technical aspects are garbage. Did no one edit this? Or look at dailies?

When we review a movie we usually go through the plot beat by beat, warning our readers that we do use spoilers. However, this fucking movie was so incoherent, it was impossible for all three of us to follow. Thank goodness they stuff this movie with actual news reports from the Gotti crime family antics. One report is so long and so detailed, you feel like you know the murder victim’s life story with the most ubiquitous details. ...and then Mr. Miller had a sandwich, two guys came in and also had a sandwich. Everyone loved their sandwich. Then the guy looked at the owner, the owner looked at the guy, they both wanted a sandwich…

All the news filler is easily a half an hour of footage - that’s over a ¼ of the film. Good job guys. The filler was the best part.

On top of that, because the film is so dark, you can’t tell who anyone is most of the time. They do post new characters names on the screen with dates and locations for certain key moments, which is helpful. But it’s so dark that you wouldn’t be able to identify those characters anyway.

You know the movie starts and ends with John Gotti in jail. You know it ends with his passing away. All the crimes in between are just like, wait, what? Who? What’s that? I can’t see. What happened? Why is everything GREEN?!?

There, you’ve just had the Gotti experience. I just saved you from almost 2 hours you’ll never get back. You’re welcome.

Overall, this is a movie where everyone made the worst possible choices and it shows. It had 37, yes that is not a typo, 37 different producers. It had the input of the Gotti family as well. It also took 10 years to get this shit made. That is a lot of people trying to get what they want out of this. With that many people making notes and changes, it was doomed from the start.

The Best Parts -  uhhh….. nope

The Worst Parts - EVERYTHING

Ty - 1 Plissken Matt - 1 Plissken Jillian - 1 Plissken

References:

IMDB - Gotti page - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1801552/

What the Flick!?! Gotti Movie Review - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFpDWvDeLv0

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)

The fellas and I got together to watch Nightmare on Elm Street 2! Probably the weirdest departure from the Elm Street series. It’s also been labeled as “The Gay Nightmare” by fans and crew over the years. What was supposed to be a cash grab sequel, ended up kind of being a read between the lines gay movie with a good chunk of people who worked on it playing the subtext up - and no one actually discussing these decisions. What’s even better, is that it works as a gay film.

Nightmare 2 opens with a bus ride to an “Indiana dessert” Hell dream sequence in which Frederick Krueger, Esq. introduces himself to a very sweaty Jesse and his friends. Note the bus driver is Robert Englund when we start on Elm St, and changes to Freddy. We then see Jesse’s family having breakfast, while off camera we hear Jesse scream like a woman. His sister, who is eating the greatest cereal of all time - Fu Man Chews - looks up and says Why does he have to do that? She done with his drama, and it’s only the first 5 minutes.

While Jesse’s sister shows off her cereal toy, long orange Fu Man Chews fake nails resembling Freddy’s knives, Jesse’s girlfriend shows up to be driven to school. She is a pretty redhead that looks like a young Meryl Streep. You can already see the beginning of what feels like a role reversal, with Jesse’s girlfriend Lisa taking on the Glen role that Johnny Depp played, and Jesse being kind of a less brave version of Nancy from the first Nightmare. This continues throughout the film.

After much sweating and freaky waking dreams in which Jesse continues his high pitch shrieks, Jesse finally comes face to face with Freddy, in his house - not in a dream. Frederick Krueger flirtatiously tosses a one-liner at him while caressing him with his knife glove stating “I need you, Jesse. You’ve got the body and I’ve got the brains.” Swoon. Is this movie about a love connection or a nightmare?

Now we find out why Jesse is plagued by Freddy. While cleaning his room in what is possibly the BEST & CAMPIEST dance sequence in a horror movie ever!!!! Jesse grinds to a shitty cover of All Night Long, while popping lots of stuff near his crotch and air fucking a hockey stick in sunglasses and a ball cap. Lisa and his Mom bust in and catch him gyrating, ruining his fun. She clearly didn’t see the NO CHICKS sign on his door.

Lisa helps Jesse clean up when suddenly she finds a diary, right next to a game called Probe… Ok there’s no subtext there. Was props in on this?

Turns out his family bought the house from the OG Nightmare on Elm Street family and Jesse is the new occupant of Nancy’s room. Wow, don’t remember that diary from the first one, but suddenly there it is! So here is the first rule for the 2nd Nightmare. In this Freddy is like a ghost and haunting the inhabitants of the original house. He wasn’t wronged by Jesse’s family. He harassed Jesse because it’s in his territory, and he CAN. Oh and he now isn’t in just your dreams, but your reality too. I can not mention enough how much Ty Comeuppance loved this concept in the flick. Nothing is cooler and scarier than a real-life Frederick Krueger, Esq. running around in the day to day.

Soon Jesse is sweaty again and Frederick Kruger, Esq is ready to tell him his plan in another waking dream nightmare thing. Freddy wants Jesse to take the glove and start killing. Why? Who the fuck knows! But he wants Jesse to become HIM.  Why on earth does he need a rando high school dude to do it for him? Is Freddy trying to retire? And he needs Jesse to replace him? Is he seducing Jesse so that they can be one together forever? IS THIS FREDDY KRUEGER MACKING ON A FUTURE MATE? The only thing I can see is that this is to propel this ridiculous plot forward. And it does!

So blah blah Jesse’s family gets attacked by their pet parakeet who seems to be possessed by Freddy? And then attacks the family and THEN just fucking explodes like a shitty magic trick. The father immediately turns to Jesse yelling at him that he MUST have done it with cherry bombs and Jesse must be on drugs… what???? When Jesse is like bitch please and walks away, his DAD rages like he’s about to get the belt and then mansplains it away to his wife. UGH. Later Dad.

Unable to sleep from Fred stress, Jesse goes out into the rain and walks to… an S&M club? That he just happens to know where it is. Where his gym teacher is there looking like a leather daddy and stops him from teenage drinking? What? I can’t even with this. I’m not sure why but they go back to the school together in the middle of the night where the gym coach makes Jesse run laps. Yup seems legit.

Hitting the showers, the coach is accosted by an invisible Freddy force with balls and jockstraps while Jesse rub a dub dubs. Then the coach gets tied up, dragged to the showers, butt slapped by Freddy with towels and dies. Jesse lady screams finding his dead coach and special Freddy knives on his person. Nooooo!!!! He just Freddied out!

Jesse is wet again and full on cranky. At lunch with his friends, he acts like a pissy bitch. Grady, his sexy mullet bestie stuffs his face while raging back at his friend. The energy is like a lovers quarrel.

At the pool party, Lisa and Jesse discuss that Jesse is feeling different because Freddy is inside him. This prompts a make-out sesh where Jesse eats out the space between Lisa’s tits. Freddy says a what up to Lisa that causes Jesse to get dressed and run straight into Grady’s bed. Like right on top of the dude in his bed. He tells Grady he’s scared of the dude trying to get inside of him. Suddenly Grady says what we’re all thinking “ Yeah, she’s female and she’s waiting for you in the cabana. And you want to sleep with me.“ He might as well be holding a ‘Jesse, you’re gay’ sign.

After murdering Grady, Jesse flees back to Lisa and tells her that Freddy is inside him and will take him again (and again and again). Lisa reverts to Nancy’s diary while Jesse Freds out. Freddy completely takes over Jesse and heads back to the pool party telling the kids “You’re all my children now!” as he takes some swipes at them. Surprisingly, one of the kids tries to reason with Freddy as if he’s some kind of lone gunman. Which also begs the question, are we, the audience the only ones seeing Freddy? Do the kids see Jesse acting like Freddy? For a party where Freddy Krueger just randomly appeared to start murdering everyone, the kids seem to be afraid, but almost underreacting. It would make a lot more sense if the kid trying to reason with Freddy, was, in reality, trying to reason with a glove carrying Jesse, his classmate. After all, technically it was Jesse that killed the gym coach.

The movie ends with a battle for Jesse between Lisa and Freddy. Lisa once again stepping into a hero like role. This time she is the Nancy of the film. Brave enough to fight and know, stop being afraid of Freddy and you win. And she does when she sets Frederick on fire, and out of the burnt corpse climbs out a very emotional Jesse. Lisa saves the day…. until we are back on the bus to school again…… noooooo!!!!

This movie is an amazing allegory. It feels like it pits the fears of coming out of the closet and admitting who you are against the trials of giving in to the evil of Freddy Krueger. There are some amazing theories out there on this film.  After years of denying writing a gay film, and even blaming any trace of gayness you pick up on in the film on the lead actor, Mark Patton, writer David Chaskin finally admitted he did in fact purposefully write a subtext filled gay horror movie. Mark Patton has always maintained that halfway through filming caught on to all the subtext and became the self-titled First Male Scream Queen. Even sexy mullet actor Robert Rusler, who plays Grady, said he caught on to the allegory immediately and deeply enjoyed playing the dialogue up. Everyone seemed to know what was going on….except… the director.

The Best Parts - Lisa the Hero

- all the fantastic gay subtext

- Fu Man Chews and Probe

The Worst Parts - Freddy is very off brand

  - the hard ass Dad

Ty - 3 Plisskens         Matt - 3 Plisskens     Jill - 4 Plisskens

References:

Gay Movie Dude - A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge Video Essay - YouTube video by Justin Simpson - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coNYGzz2zQ8

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 (Review, Recap, React) - YouTube video by Andrew R. Davis - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba7T5UlWDWw

Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy - https://amzn.to/2Dt7vuu

The Celluloid Closet - https://amzn.to/2sFW5wY

BONUS! Monday Mini-Review - Cell (2016)

OOOOPS, this movie was garbage. 
John Cusack, what happened to you? 
Read the book. 
Never look at this.
Never.

Jill - 0 Plisskens      Ty - 0 Plisskens      Matt - 0 Plisskens

Death of a Cheerleader (1994)

Based on true events, this is the story of high school sophomore Angela Delvecchio, played by Kellie Martin, and popular girl stereotype, Stacey Lockwood, played by the legendary Tori Spelling. Angela lives in a perfect little small town. The opening to the movie feels similar to the opening of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. Perfect suburbia with something lurking underneath…. Murder.

The opening continues to unfold with a Scream - Drew Barrymore like murder taking place. And our story unfolds….

One day Angela goes to a pep rally with her bestie Jill. She is moved by the rally’s rousing speech by her principal, Locke from Lost, who is hammering it home to be the best! The best! THE BEST! She decides then and there that being her best means being someone else! The popular girls who must be a precursor to the Plastics, headed by queen bee, Stacey Lockwood. It also means joining not one club or clique, but every club and clique that her popular hero, Stacey, is in.

Angela has an “in” to the cool clique through her friend Jamie, a transfer student from their former catholic high school. Jamie is totally passing in the clique on her good looks and invites Angela to chill with the cool girls. Angela learns that Stacey Lockwood is kind of a cunty judgemental bitch with terrible comebacks. She has a real hard on for ragging on Goth Girl Monica. Back story being that they were once friends, and then Monica…. Changed…. And… developed her own…. Ideas? Wait, what??? That bitch!

Angela begins by telling anyone who will listen how she is going to be super cool popular girl and joining all these clubs all while looking thirsty as helllllll. Her big sister, the weird college vegan played by TV’s Christa Miller, basically tells her to stop it and aim lower. Instead Angela reaches for her dreams and lands a cool girl job in the high school office, instead of in class, with none other than, Stacey Lockwood! OMG you guys it’s all happening!

After much churching, as Angela’s mom is a very strict Catholic, her mother (Valerie Harper) surprisingly allows her to go on a school chaperoned ski trip with all the cool kids. Unfortunately, Angela forgets Cool Girl 101, you have to have a super current wardrobe, and thrifts her way to the ski trip. She should have known, unless you have those Molly Ringwald redesign sewing skills, you can’t be a thrift store queen. This puts her in the likes of Monica the now very angry goth girl. Her friend Jamie gets mad and tells her to stop being poor and weak and do what Stacey says.

Next Angela pledges to The Meadow Larks, a do-gooder service club similar to a sorority, but in high school. (I find myself wonder, when does she actually go to class?) She gets picked to be a Lark. Hooray! Now it seems like Stacey is resentful and dislikes Angela. Meanwhile, Angela seems to be oblivious.

To celebrate their new Larkness, the girls take turns jumping out of a convertible, and kissing random dudes at stop lights, and giggling away. When it’s Angela’s turn, the guy stares at her like she’s a piece of shit, rolls up the window and DRIVES AWAY! The Larks laugh hysterically while Angela goes home muttering about how Stacey Lockwood can do everything.

Angela continues to be a sad thirsty girl and the butt of jokes, but is accepted. Monica the Goth Girl remains the target of the queen bee’s bullying.

Next, poor Angela tries out for cheerleading. She is stiff, uninspired, and clearly has no cheer experience. The perfect Stacey does the same cheer routine next, and delivers virtually the exact same dull performance as Angela but is told she is AMAZEBALLS. Angela is visibly upset as she pouts and glares.

Next Angela goes for yearbook staff, something she’s always done and is known as an excellent writer. Should be a shoe in, right? Wrong!  Inexplicably, Angela is kicked to the curb and not picked for yearbook. She freaks out, how can she be the perfect popular best Stepford now!?!

Finally, Angie’s break from reality starts to happen when she is very publicly not picked for cheerleader. Principal Locke from Lost holds an assembly to announce the new school cheerleaders and rub in everyone’s face how much the rest of the students are NOT best. Just these four awesome pretty girls that are not Angela - THEY’RE the BEST! Angela sadly walks home to pout. Her weird college sister picks her up and tries to cheer her up while eating cucumber slices that she is rando slicing in the car with a kitchen knife WHILE BEHIND THE WHEEL! What? Who does that?

Besties Jill and Angela are now getting smashed and make plans to soothe Angelas pain by going to a cool party. Suddenly, Angela comes up with a scheme to invite Stacey to the party and MAKE her be her best friend. Turning from thirsty girl to official stalker, Angela completely lies to everyone to get the unwilling Stacey to meet her and get in the car, making up a story about a special Lark party where “someone” will pick her up. Shit gets super illegal for good little Catholic Angela. Spoilers - the name of the movie will soon come into play!

ATTENTION WORLD: Stacey Lockwood is dead. The whole school mourns and is eager to find out who done it. Detectives start investigating the student body. The high school court of public opinion  default to Monica the Goth Girl as the killer and begin tormenting her. Angela watches but does nothing and tries to live with herself and what she did to the popular girl she idolized. Suddenly, everything’s coming up Angie! She’s a cool girl now! Everyone loves her and she even gets a cool guy boyfriend. Her guilt is knocking at her chamber door while she lives her dream. But Detectives Uncle Phil and his partner are starting to sniff her out. Angela is clearly the murderer, but how do you take down someone so young and likable. You let the guilt get to them.

Murderer Angela has a heart to heart with her Mom after confessing in a gut wrenching letter that she’d killed the teenage dream, and wants to take responsibility.All the while she is begging her mother to please don’t give up on her and please don’t stop loving her. She wants to do the right thing and turn herself in. Her mother kind of acts like she forgot to take out the trash and comforts her.

The whole town is torn during the trial of Angela Delvecchio. Did their BE THE BEST Hitler youth rally drive her too far, or did she create an unhealthy obsession with a frenemy that drove her to murder. As the blame is shuffled around, everyone shows up to watch the spectacle of Angela’s trial unfold. This creates an even bigger Heathers vs. Boogers atmosphere. Jamie tells the cool girls off by saying hey, this isn’t like one of your parties. It’s a court of law. Boom! She knows her proper nouns!

The movie ends with Angela’s friends - Jill and Jamie, forgiving her, but not forgetting and Angela embracing her guilt and jail time. Jamie sends letters to Angela and remains her friend, even taking some of the blame for siding with the Plastics instead of her own opinions.

I saw this made for tv movie back when it originally aired in 1994. I remember as a teenager, finding this movie interesting and kind of campy, but weirdly relatable. While everyone else is delivering a typical Lifetime performance, Kellie Martin shines with a very realistic and emotional performance that really makes you actually feel for her. Maybe even routing for her by the end of the film. This is also a tale of a girl who was bullied before bullying was a national campaign. And I can’t help but find the contemporary irony of the be the best speech and the current Be Best first lady project.

On the other end of the spectrum is Valerie Harper, who’s practically TV royalty, delivering an underwhelming performance as Angela’s mother. I really mulled over this one. I just can’t get past this heart felt and scared letter Angela sends to her mother begging for love and support. While the rest of us are feeling heart pangs, Valerie Harper just makes a face and calls for her husband. Where are the tears? Where is the heart ache? Was there a scene cut out where she takes a handful of Xanax to cope?

Death of a Cheerleader has been remade by Lifetime with what looks like none of the emotion and a way more, over the top camp version of the story with a lead actress, who judging solely by the commercial, can’t act beyond whiney teenage girl. Kind of like the weird remake of Mother, May I Sleep With Danger - a movie so meta it swung past camp and back to bad again.

The remake will be premiering on February 2nd on Lifetime, you can still find the original classic on Amazon Prime.

Here’s the breakdown:

The best -   Kellie Martin’s acting is perfection

      Tori Spelling being Tori Spelling

      The perfect blend of engaging and campy

The worst-   You thirsty girl!

                   Valerie Harper is wooden and way underwhelming

Jill - 4 Plisskens      Ty - 3.5 Plisskens     Matt - 2.5 Plisskens

Gymkata (1985)

Yak-MALLA! Me and the fellas sat down to review Gymkata, a movie with a beginning, a middle, and an end. I think…

Kurt Thomas, the star of our film, is an medal winning Olympic athlete, who competed in the late 70s. He’s mostly typically known for his World Championship and Olympic Medals. He even has two moves named after him. The Thomas Flair is a pommel horse and gymnastics floor combination move. The Thomas Salto is a floor move that consists of a tuck and twist that is considered a dangerous and advanced move.

The US government did not permit Kurt Thomas to compete in 1980. He then decided to forgo the 1984 Summer Olympics because of the rules requiring amateur athletes without endorsements to compete. “Professional” athletes were not allowed back until 1990. Rather than compete, Thomas made his first and only film, Gymkata. He was in his prime - and he should have just competed.

The cover of the movie says it all - Gymkata is “A new kind of martial arts combat. The skill of gymnastics, the kill of karate.” While the movie shows his skill in a rather cool light, it is a poorly acted, hilariously bad, and very poorly made flick. Kurt Thomas even got a Razzie nomination for Worst New Star.

Jonathan Cabot is recruited by the US government and what we think is his Dad? Who is also the same age as him? To compete in something called The Game, the goal being for the US government to win so they can install an early warning missile defense system thingy. To my dismay it was NOT the Michael Douglas/ Sean Penn The Game kind of game. Instead it was deadly jumpy, kicky, fighty game that requires flips and a rando placed pommel horse. It’s super important the US win and take over, I don’t know why. No one outside of the excotic (NOT) location of “Parmistan” has won in 900 years. It’s all up to our man Jonathan / Kurt Thomas and his Mullet Intensity to have us screaming U-S-A! U-S-A!

Jonathan’s training to help him up his game is given to him by Princess Rubali. Some of his training involved walking handstands with nice tight close ups of Kurt’s Thomas. Naturally, after seeing his potential and sweet kicks, the silent but deadly Princess falls in love with that dope mullet. I mean ladies, how can you NOT, am I right?

Now this is where it becomes a great big blur. As I faded in and out of consciousness, I caught blurbs of what was happening. The Caspian Sea, a pet hawk or Eagle for some reason? Maybe to make Jonathan look even cooler? Of course! I remember staring at what looked like a dead tooth in Jonathan / Kurt Thomas’s mouth. Like I’d wake up and there would be another poorly angled dead tooth close up. I also remember a vague discussion on how much did Home Alone 2 borrow from these fight scenes? (I really wish I was more awake for that one!)

I remember sassy extras doing just a little too much in back of fight scenes. I also remember a lot of toothless extras. I remember an unusually large amount of Duh face happening. The combination of the two made me ask Matty if they were supposed to be zombies. They were not. There was also parts of the course I’d missed, like a rope course. Matt informed me that was hilarious. Lastly I remember waking up and thinking holy shit, is this still on? Needless to say, despite my napping, I hadn’t missed much.

The Game was like a Crazy Town Rampage. Our hero was wandering a city while silent creepy toothless locals waived white flags with dead eyes to direct him to the next leg of The Game. Then more insane people would come out and eerily fight him? It’s as if someone said let’s create this “competition” around death by gymnastics to the mentally ill. It’s literally a town made up of the criminally insane he has to fight his way through. In the real world, these people are locals on location in Yugoslavia. They truly picked some convincing folks. I don’t know man, it freaked me out. Yak-Malla.

So anyway, a pommel horse appears out of nowhere while the creepy people make sad noises at Jonathan, and yada yada yada, Kurt Thomas gets to do his super Olympics signature move and wins The Game for the USA. Hooray we killed the poor locals! Princess Ruyobi is back for smoochies! Forgot about that bitch didn’t you. Lol!

This was NOT my kind of movie. I’m not a big action movie fan, even the laughably bad ones can be questionable for me. However, my male counterparts, Ty Comeuppance and Sweet Matty, were howling at this “action” flick. Ty literally said he loved it! Matt found it funny and enjoyable, but also....BAD. 

Here’s the breakdown:

Best Parts - Village of the Crazies

     - Pommel Horses

                 - Mullet Intensity and Deep Comb Overs

     - Gymkata!

Worst Parts - Dead Tooth Close Ups

                   - The Villagers

                   - The Script, Direction & Acting

                   - What love story?

TY - 4 Pliskins MATT - 3 Pliskins JILL - 1 Pliskin  

References :

Kurt Thomas Wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Thomas_(gymnast)

Rotten Tomatoes Gymkata Review - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gymkata/

Zandalee (1991)

Zandalee. Zandalee! ZANDALEE! The movie that warped my brain for days. I literally went from hating it, to obsessing over it, to deciding it’s one of the most amazing pieces of shit I’d ever seen. Much like the main title character, I have no idea if I love it or hate it. But I need it.

It sure was a movie!

Zandalee is a not so erotic morality tale focused on the title character. Zandalee Martin (Erika Anderson) is the attractive wife of Thierry, oddly played by Judge Reinhold, a man who would NOT be my first choice for an erotic thriller… Thierry is a Tennessee poet who has given up the pen and taken on a fledgling family business position he didn’t want in New Orleans, Louisiana. By day Zandalee is friendly with her nosy garbage man - Steve Buscemi, as well as her local bartender - Aaron Neville, who wears only sleeveless leather and denim vests. She is a dressmaker who owns a boutique and engages with crossdressing friend and only likable character, Joe Pantoliano. By night she is a bored wife who berates her husband for his recently deceased Daddy issues and physical and emotional impotence as a result of the latter. Oh, and Thierry’s eccentric and newly widowed mother lives with them, which may also be a boner killer for the poor bastard. Once a poet, he no longer writes or aspires to write. Their marriage is struggling. They have emotional lilting conversations in fading southern accents straight out of Tennessee Williams dinner theater.

Judge Reinhold as Thierry trying to make love to his wife,  I literally wrote in my notes for this JUDGE REINHOLD IS NAKED AND IT FEELS WRONG! NOOOOOOOO!  I see Judge Reinhold as a Dad character, or a goofy character. Beverly Hills Cop comes to mind. But the second he is naked on screen. I am trying to redress him with my eyes. It’s like entire conversations with naked Judge Reinhold! His sad impotent sex scenes with his sad dad bod. After failing to make love to Zandalee, he calls himself a paraplegic of the soul. His wife screams she wishes he was a paraplegic then masturbates and cries. It is the most awkward and uncomfortable scene. I was like who cast Judge Reinhold in this! Then later read he was a producer on this, it was his project and his baby. He cast himself…. Ugh - vanity project!

One night at a party Thierry runs into his old friend Johnny, played by our boy Nicky Cage. Cage’s entrance is reminiscent of his character in Face/Off as he enters the party like the opposite of Thierry - a total head banging rock star. Johnny Collins is an oily repairman who moonlights as a coked up bohemian artist. Buckle up bitches. He’s about to blast you to the moon!

Thierry makes the mistake of bringing his sexually charged friend home to meet his family. Johnny sees Zandalee and despite being his “friends” wife, he immediately starts flirt-terrorizing her. This later extends to stalking her and spouting out horrific panty droppers like “We’re inevitable. I want to shake you naked and eat you alive, Zandalee.” Trust me, they just get weirder from here. Inevitably, (haha, see what I did there) Zandalee and Johnny have an arty and semi-forced affair.

Now let’s talk scenery chewing. Not since my beloved Showgirls, or The Room has there been scenery chewing in sex scenes quite like this. Nic is Cage Raging through plowing Zandalee like nothing else. I couldn’t contain my glee/horror. Nick’s “sexy” look for this film is very shiny, very oily. His hair has an incredible black mullet weave in the back while sporting one hell of a porn stache and soul patch. To see him in full regal, with his devil may care attitude, scene chewing every chance he gets - Cage Magic.

The sex scenes are unfortunately where Cage Rage is happening the most. At one point Johnny Cage Rage finger paints Zandalee’s belly with blue paint in what is suppose to be like a 9 ½ weeks type situation. It’s not.  He draws little bits of ze art on her. When saying she won’t leave her husband because he was a poet,he rando finger bangs her telling her “this is poetry.” At another point in their trysts he tells her to get on her stomach and makes a lube of olive oil and cocaine. She protests saying she doesn’t get high. He responds saying oh this won’t get you high, as he shoves it straight up her ass. What a romantic! Just when you think this guy can’t possibly sweep her off her feet any more - he stalks her and butt rapes her in a church and upon climax says thank you, Father! *barf*

As Zandalee continues to have ze rapey arty hate sex with Cocaine Johnny, Thierry continues to pull further away. At one point it’s super obvious he knows what’s going on. Kind of hard not to. After obnoxious oily beau-hunk Johnny tries to get dirty under the table with Zandalee at her own small dinner party, they go into the next room to “get dessert” as she fights off his advances. But as these two crazy kids are prone to do, their fight propels them to the bone zone and they hop on the old washing machine and have it off in audible distance of THE PARTY! Thierry looks up and puts two and two together. You have to think, if he can hear it so did his like Mom and all their friends, including, for some reason, Marisa Tomei. It’s so upsetting that Thierry can barely keep his southern accent straight and they all sit awkwardly around the table.

After quarreling some more, Zandalee tries to break it off with Johnny.  Johnny has other sexy ladies calling him and leaving him sexytime messages. Zandalee hears one and gets crazy jealous and trashes his studio / apartment. Take THAT Johnny!

Finally, Zandalee goes to her sad husband and tells him everything and asks if they can start over again, just the two of them. Thierry agrees and they make love successfully. Pleased as punch with herself she says to him “See, every part works.” Talk about passive aggressive.

As the couple gets ready to take off down the bayou and happily day drinks their probs away, Johnny Cage Rage shows up and he’s ready to dance. He takes Thierry, NOT Zandalee, by the paws and begins to Tango. Both men are looking bizarre and as if they both are trying to lead. It’s weird energy. Matt chimed in and said ‘where is this movie! I want to see more about this story!’ We imagined a world where this delved into a Brokeback Mountain I-just-can’t-quit-you moment, because let’s face it - that would have been epic and turned the movie into a story that was never about Zandalee at all but about the men who used her because they were too afraid to be in love with each other. OMG tears! Yassss!

But it’s not about that, because next thing ya know, day drunk Thierry is pulling a gun on everybody and shit starts getting real. They all get into the boat and are drinking and driving it through the murky water. At some point they all tumble out and are trying to kill / save one another. Thierry starts to drown and Zandalee tries to save him until she starts to drown and Johnny saves her while Thierry drowns then Cage fights him then saves him. Then in an awkward as fuck twist, Thierry jumps up and bites Johnny on the neck so hard he tears a hunk of flesh off then dives down under water like a fish and drowns himself. What. The. Fuck.

It’s not over yet. Cage gets cocaine crazy after Thierry dies. He flips on the regular. His Cage Rage wad is blown on the breakdown temper tantrum of all time while scrubbing himself in black paint. This makes Vampire’s Kiss infamous Cage Rage tantrums, look like mere child’s play! Epicly weird!

Eventually he restalks Zandalee who has been telling her life story to the nosy garbage man Buscemi, and tries to rekindle their relationship. She recoils. Just as they are crossing butt rape church a little if ever mentioned gangster tries to do a drive by of Johnny. Guess he wasn’t paying for all that coke up her ass. Zandalee throws herself in front of the bullet and dies. Now it’s just dumb Johnny. Boo the end.

Had this been a french film with the intentions of being a relationship drama it would have been amazing. There is a deep story buried somewhere in the scenery chewing and unsexy sex. A story of deteriorating relationships and three people who are falling apart and can’t save each other from their own dysfunction. It blurs the line of love, obsession and hate. BUT what you are actually getting is an overacted American film that calls itself an erotic thriller when it is neither erotic or a thriller. It’s a vanity project at best.

What separates this from a typical Cage Rage performance is that Nick is totally rolling with some of these scenes all the way up to 11. Then he makes the difference by following that up with completely pulling back. Then again creep, creep, creep boom pow Cage Rage 11. An interesting side note. Nicolas Cage, particularly in his early days pre-tax probs, is a method actor. You have got to wonder what his prep was to prepare for this role.

Here’s the breakdown:

The Best Parts   - Nick Cage

                          - Nick Cage

                          - Nick Cage

The Worst Parts  - Good Idea, Poor Execution

                           - Judge Reinhold

                           - Butt Rape

References:

IMDB - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101004/

Zandalee: Shake You Naked and Eat You Alive - Nat Prance, Medium 8/28/16 https://medium.com/everyniccagemovieever/zandalee-shake-you-naked-and-eat-you-alive-a8d868d1c074

Bad Movies We Love - Edward Margulies & Stephen Rebello, Plume Books

CageCast -  Zandalee (1991) Full Review 7/1/2015  https://youtu.be/vBUdRw-Y0mk