You remind of the babe...

I recently saw several pieces of news that indicate David Bowie will have a new album coming out soon, and I immediately thought of one thing: LABYRINTH!

"But what about his decades of classic work and stage performances, iconic songs, and so on?" you might ask. Well, if there's always been one weak link in my pop culture knowledge and study (other than sports because, seriously, sports? I've been hit the face by too many pieces of athletic equipment in my life to deal with sports), it's music. I tend to just like what I like, without the same level of knowledge or research that I apply to all my movie/TV watching.

So before you complain that I'm focusing on his work for a children's movie, remember: This ain't a music blog.

Back to LABYRINTH!

It's a classic, and I don't mean that in the ironic hipster sense. Yes there are 80s clothes, yes the music is tinged with 80s, yes there are goofy puppets, and yes David Bowie is wearing leggings that leave NOTHING to the imagination. But I genuinely love this movie and watched it all the time as a kid.

They used to play it on the Disney Channel along with a couple of other obscure favorites, The Worst Witch and Return to Oz. I feel like no one remembers the time when Disney was a wee more experimental in its programming and less focused on the tween demographic and their original movies and TV series. Disney, I wish you had stayed just a little bit weird.

Labyrinth is a Jim Henson production, with a screenplay by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame (not Terry Gilliam, the other one). There's no Miss Piggy or Kermit. There are fun, funky, and weird puppets, a very young and charming Jennifer Connelly in the lead, and of course, The Thin White Duke himself as Jareth, The Goblin King.

And the triceratops.....

The story centers on Sarah, a teenage girl still obsessed with fairy tales and fantasy (she LARPs in the opening scene!) with a bit of bratty streak.

What a neeeeeeeerrrrrrrddddd!

One night she's stuck babysitting her younger half-brother and semi-intentionally calls for the Goblin King to steal the kid because she feels put upon by her dad and step-mom. When The Goblin King actually shows up and snatches him away, she immediately regrets her decision and tries to talk Bowie out of it, but he offers her a challenge instead: navigate his labyrinth and get to the center in 13 hours, or the kid becomes a goblin forever. So she enters the labyrinth, makes some friends, learns some lessons, and rescues her brother. And jams to some sweet Bowie tunes in the process!

This is stuck in your head now and there's nothing you can do about it!

Again, I know Bowie's got some amazing classics, but damn if I don't love the songs on this soundtrack. I've always really liked "As the World Falls Down" from the dream sequence in the movie. He's got such a cool voice and it's a great stand alone song. Think hard, if you heard this before now, would you have assumed it was in a movie with puppets? Probably not.

I also love her costume and overall look. It's 80s fantasy, without being too much.

Speaking of puppets, I love the look of the goblins and they are funny to boot.  This is pretty much my favorite scene in the whole movie:

'Ello!

Word play! Weird little worm guy offering tea! Just the best.  It's got a British sense of humor to it that suits children stories, mixing dry humor with silly. Witness:

There are some silly edits, but I couldn't find any other decent clips. But you get the idea: Fart noises! A puppet riding a dog!

One of the things that people seem to remember most is this scene, with the world's most befuddling riddle:

WHICH DAMN DOOR IS IT????

I'm fairly confident she's right, and that she loses anyway because David Bowie is messing with her, but I've met people and read things that say she's wrong. Which door is which?

With puppets, riddles, and fun songs, it's just a good children's story. It doesn't over explain anything, no needless backstory about why David Bowie is human looking and all the other goblins are puppety-looking, no revelation that Sarah has known the Goblin King since she was a child and has to go back and defeat him as an adult (I'm looking it you Tim Burton version of Alice In Wonderland).  They set up some key story elements in the first few minutes of the movie, with Sarah's reading of a book called Labyrinth and a pan through of her room showing all sorts of knick knacks and stuffed animals that appear as goblins or set pieces later in the movie. With those bits of backstory established quickly and efficiently, we're off to wacky goblin land for fun and adventure while we learn to be a little more mature.

The movie ends with her stating that she's in control and defeating The Goblin King, thus saving her brother. She tucks him into bed and then goes to her room, where she gets one last visit from her goblin friends. She admits that she has to grow up, but every now and then, she'll think of them because she does need them, she needs the fantasy sometimes (don't we all?). Then they have one last party in her room and it looks like oodles of fun. (Of all the videos posted online, I'm sad this is one people seemed to skip.)

Everyone has to grow up eventually. But that doesn't mean you can't party with goblins in your room every once in a while.

If it's good enough for Bowie, it's good enough for me. 

(This is not the scene I was talking about, but it's all I could find. Why don't people like that scene as much as me?)

I find it unique in another way, specifically that there's no romance for Sarah. It's a story about finding the balance between growing up and accepting responsibility, while at the same time not losing your imagination and sense of fun in the world. It's a fairy tale and a fantasy, but there's no prince for Sarah to marry or meet at the end.

For crying out loud, this is her male lead for THE WHOLE MOVIE:

Although, if you were maybe really drunk.....

Her journey is all about her, and discovering herself without being validated by a male character. Pretty significantly, the way she saves her brother and herself from The Goblin King is by declaring, "You have no power over me."

Obviously, I noticed all this as an adult, but the fact that it's there for kids, especially little girls, to absorb is encouraging. The only other recent movie I can think of that sends a similar message was last year's Brave, where the princess refuses to marry anyone because she's enjoys her freedom to do un-princessy things too much, and it focuses on the mother-daughter relationship instead.

Now of course, there's a lot of people who point out a certain amount of romantic and/or sexual tension between Sarah and The Goblin King. But to me it's on par with people who are like, "Hey what if The Mad Hatter and Alice hooked up?" To which I say, "That's not the point. And also, EWWWWWWWW. She's supposed to be a little girl in that story!"

This shot does nothing to undermine all the "shippers" rooting for these two crazy kids to get together. Oh, wait. Only ONE of them is a kid. He's old enough to be her dad, people.

Yes, that is a way to read it. In that final scene, he asks to her to love him and be ruled by him, and in exchange he will be her slave. People seem to be enticed by the idea that he, as he says, does everything she asks, and all he wants back is for her to love him. There are MOUNTAINS of fanfiction, tribute videos and artwork that show them as king and queen or at least deep in forbidden love. But she says no. Because offering to rule over someone and be their slave is, while not only contradictory, not really love, romantic or otherwise. And it stands in the way of her journey to growing up and moving on from a fantasy that's holding her back.

I've always had an issue with adults finding romance or reading something too cynically in stories aimed at kids or younger adults. As I mentioned, a lot of people see some kind of romantic and ultimately sexual relationship between The Mad Hatter and Alice, particularly after the Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland came out, which featured (thankfully) an older Alice. People have whole weddings and engagement photo sessions dedicated to this idea. 

On the flip side, I know a lot of people think Gene Wilder's portrayal of Willy Wonka comes off like a he's a pedophile. I can kind of understand it, because there is a certain unsettling air about his interactions with the kids, but if anything, it's comes off more as a callous disregard for safety than sexual assault. To me, that's overly cynical and needlessly dark reading of the movie. And people apply the pedophile/pervert criticism to Labyrinth a lot too, because David Bowie is much older than Jennifer Connelly and wears really tight pants that show off his business. But, seriously, do you really think they would make a movie about a pervert goblin king out to seduce and menace a teenager and let little kids watch it?

Sometimes a crazy person who used to make hats is just crazy person who used to make hats.

Sometimes a guy who runs a chocolate factory and wants to give it away to a non-terrible child is just a guy who runs a chocolate factory and wants to give it away to a non-terrible child.

And, sometimes a Goblin King who steals children to turn them into goblins and make your life hell is just a Goblin King who steals children to turn them into goblins and make your life hell.

Labyrinth is ultimately, at least in my not so humble opinion, a story about a child growing up, not a fantasy romance novel with heaving bosoms and tight pants.

Well, okay, there are tight pants.

So. Damn. Tight.

Super Mario Brothers Revisited

In theaters no less!  After writing this original post way back in 2011, one of the kind folks at The Super Mario Bros. The Movie Archive found it, reached out and asked if I'd like to post my article on their site for their followers, since they're all big fans of the movie.  Even though it wasn't exactly a glowing review, they appreciated the overall idea of the post.  It took us a while to get around to it, but eventually it made it onto their message boards.

Not long after that, they told me about a screening they were having here in Los Angeles, with special guests, and kindly invited me to come.  I agreed and dropped in to see the movie in the theater, a totally new experience from my original viewing on cable at home in the early 90s.

It wasn't a completely sold out show, but the number of fans that turned out was pretty impressive.  And the movie definitely has its fans, some of whom I chatted with in line.  They all said, or I overheard, that the movie is part of their childhood.  Some were more gamer types than others, but I did meet one other person who had a hard time connecting the fungus shown in the movie to the mushroom power ups in the games.  Also, a fellow girl in line noted that she had a John Leguizamo crush when she saw the movie too.  See, it's not as weird as some people might think!

The organizers at The Super Mario Brothers The Movie Archive were also able to score some props and costumes from the movie for the lobby displays.  It's always fun to see that stuff up close.  Check out the pictures:

 A King Koopa T-Rex mold

Princess Daisy's dress from the film.  Seems short here on the mannequin, but it was average length on the actress in the movie.

One of the final King Koopa transformations.  Scared the life out of me as a kid.  Slightly less intimidating in person, but still impressively detailed.  Check out the drool!

The jumping boots!  Apparently better known as Thwompers or Thwomp Stompers.  They look like tricked out moon boots to me, but they let you fly, so I'm not going to judge.

After some vintage, probably 70s era no smoking and no talking ads (Tarantino would have loved them!), we got to the intros from Ryan Hoss and Steven Applebaum, explaining a little how their site came together and how, though the movie isn't widely known as a cult classic it in the traditional sense, it's got a good sized fan base. 

Then they introduced our special guest, production designer David L. Snyder, who has also worked on other movies like Pee Wee's Big Adventure and Blade Runner.  He commented a little on how, even though creative control and concepts changed hands a few times up to and including Disney's involvement, most of his designs stayed the same.  He added that, even though it was "flawed...At least they made the movie."  And really, when you work in TV and movies, sometimes you just want to know it gets made.  He also added that he doesn't always like watching his own movies because when he sees them at first, he just thinks of all the things he would have done differently or changed, but he was ready to see it now for the first time in ages.

And with that, we were off and running with the movie!

I, obviously, had forgotten a lot of details that happened in the movie, like just how silly some of the puns or one liners were.  But the best, most ridiculous thing that I forgot was Dancing Goombas!  Mario and Luigi take an elevator to find Daisy, but it fills up with Goombas, the lizard people security guards in the movie.  I'm still not sure I understand the logic, other than it serves as a distraction, but Luigi gets them all swaying back and forth to some elevator music in just about the weirdest scene in the movie.  I mentioned that I was going to see this movie again to a friend, and his reaction was "The dancing Goombas!"  Check out the link to see what we mean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQy-eJALZI0

They even have a follow up gag at the end with someone radioing in to Dennis Hopper, "Sir, the goombas are dancing again!"  Very silly, and the crowd whooped and cheered for the scene in the theater.

I also forgot that John Leguizamo takes his shirt off when they're stuck in the desert outside the dino-people city, and he looks pretty good.  That one was, clearly, for the ladies.

There's even more, so let's run through the list real quick like:

-They did indeed play Walk the Dinosaur during the dance club scene.  This song is fantastic, no matter what context you hear it in.


-Daisy and Luigi go on a double date with Mario and his girlfriend, and neither dress up AT ALL.  She's still wearing her palentologist gear, and he's in his t-shirt and hoodie from earlier.  Meanwhile, Mario is rocking a suit and his date is in a (for the 90s) nice dress.
-Maybe it's because it was just goofy, but Daisy and Luigi run in on Mario in an undershirt and boxers asking for help with a major plumbing problem.  He gets deathly serious and says, "Let's do this!" or something along those lines, and it just struck everyone in the audience as hilarious.
-Dennis Hopper's Koopa was a huge germaphobe.  Never understood why, just some weird character quirk
-Yoshi, the pet dinosaur in the movie, was creepy-cute! 
-Not creepy-cute, but just plain creepy?  Dennis Hopper hitting on Daisy.
-The two goofy thugs, one of which is played by Fisher Stevens.  They start off stupid, get a brain upgrade, and then speak intelligently, but are still more or less dumb.  I forgot they were in the movie, but I liked all their silly business.
-It has literally nothing to do with anything else going on, but Dennis Hopper orders a pizza at one point in the movie, and it actually comes up again a couple times.  First, he demands to know where his pizza is, and then before he's defeated, someone radios in "Sir, your pizza's here!" and he yells, "Not now!"
-Everyone died laughing at this, but at one point Luigi sees a little mushroom sprouting from the fungus that kind of turns to follow them as they're passing by.  He says, "I think it's trying to communicate with us!"  And then he YANKS it off the wall.  Look, Luigi, it can't keep communicating with you if you KILL IT. 

Did my overall opinion of the movie change?  Not really.  But I have to credit the guys at The Super Mario Bros. website for putting together a really fun evening and bringing an old childhood favorite for many to the big screen again.  There's nothing better than having the right crowd at a movie screening because it becomes such a great communal experience.  Everyone's sitting in the dark, reacting to something onscreen, laughing, cheering, screaming, and crying.  And it's always a fun opportunity to see something on the big screen that you haven't seen there in years, or that you've only ever seen on TV.  Watching something at home definitely has its perks, but seeing it in the movie theater is always better.  This movie hasn't been on screen in theaters for 19 years, so it was a great chance for fans to to relive their memories or enjoy a whole new viewing experience.

The guys at the Super Mario Bros. Movie Archive site are taking the show on the road with screenings in Wilmington, NC (where they shot some of the movie), and Seattle in the very near future.  Check their site for more information: http://www.smbmovie.com/  

Up next, the most obscure movies I've ever seen on HBO, including another one starring John Leguizamo!

And I'm Victoria!

Well, I've been running a little heavy on horror movies these past few posts.  Let's get a little lighter and talk about something really fun: Spice World!

Is Spice World the best movie of all time?  Of course not.  But is it damn fun?  Absolutely!  It's so silly in that British way that I just love, and the movie knows it's not out to accomplish anything grand.  It's of course a retread of A Hard Days Night with the Spice Girls running around London, singing, dancing, and trying to be good friends while enduring the pressures of fame.

I used to really love the Spice Girls when I was a kid, but I think everyone did.  Come on, when you hear the start of this, doesn't it just brighten your day a little?



I remember my best friend and I wanting to see it in theaters really badly, but somehow we never got around to it.  Or rather, our parents never got around to getting us there.  But after the movie came out on video, my dad got me some kind of advanced copy from a work associate of his, which is especially impressive because he didn't even work in entertainment (nice string pulling Dad!).  The only problem with the video was, because it was some promotional advanced copy, a watermark message would scroll across the screen from time to time with dire warnings about not copying or distributing it.  But it didn't matter because you could still see the movie, and I got to see it early on beautiful VHS.

Spice World is just campy as all get out, full of celebrity cameos, and really fantastically silly moments, plus Spice Girls music (which may or may not be your favorite thing).

This is, easily, my favorite part of the movie though:



Victoria, aka Posh Spice, is actually suprisingly funny in this movie.  She'll never be a great comedienne, but she nails whatever they give her here.  She does her goofy stuff with a straight face, and the mash up between her "Posh Spice" cool, aloof persona and the wacky goings on around her make her a sort of straight man, but a disdainful, idiotic one.

Someone helpfully did a super cut of all her moments (this person also has too much time on their hands).  Among the "highlights," I think I like it best when she refuses the obstacle course at the 2:00 mark and prissily walks past it in her heels and tiny dress (which is so short, you'll notice she has to keep yanking it down).

(Skip the bus scene at the end of the clip for the moment, there's more on that later)


My second favorite part is the capper to a running gag they had going.  In the movie, the Spice Girls manager, played awesomely by Richard E. Grant, is hearing movie pitches from two Hollywood guys, played by Mark McKinney (of Kids in the Hall Fame) and George Wendt.  Each pitch has been increasingly ridiculous, such as suggesting a movie where Sporty Spice would try to win a skiing championship to save the girls if she could just get over her crippling fears of heights, skiis, and snow.

The final pitch they deliver is a self aware tie in with the plot of the movie, which is essentially that they have to get to the concert in time, but of course there are Hollywood "rules" they have to follow and a chase ensues.  Richard E. Grant listens to the insane description of everything happening (while we viewers see it as it's happening), and then when they don't rush through the door as promised in the pitch, he shouts "YOU LIED!" and tries to choke Mark McKinney.  The unexpected intensity of his reaction is what sells the joke for me.

Long story short, watch the first three minutes of this clip to get the idea.  You can also stick around and watch them perform "Spice Up Your Life" while everyone dances, including Roger Moore.  I know I just did.



The movie serves as a silly time capsule of 90s fashion and pop culture, and captures a moment when the group was at the absolute height of their fame.  They must have known they wouldn't be around forever (brief reunion tour not withstanding), so why not preserve some of that in a way that includes Meat Loaf making a less than timely "I Would Do Anything For Love" joke?



The movie never takes itself seriously, and it was never meant to.  Some of the jokes are simple or even lame, but I think the more unexpected ones (like the few shown above) are really fun and keep it from being completely terrible.  It's a ridiculous movie with a ridiculous premise, a slip of a plot, and no major character development, but that's not the point.  It was never going to be a grand cinematic outing, it was going to be a fun movie about a fun group of girls with stock personalities driving around in what appears to be Dr. Who's TARDIS disguised as a double decker bus (remember, it's bigger on the inside) getting into vignette adventures with the likes of Hugh Laurie, Alan Cumming, Stephen Fry, Bob Hoskins, and Elton John.  And damn it, I like it.

Plus, Richard O'Brien, better known as Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, appears as a nefarious paprazzo.  I'm not saying he didn't do it for money, because let's face it they all did, but if you have the creator of probably the best known camp movie ever showing up in your campy version of A Hard Days Night, well I think that serves as an unwritten seal of approval.

So, if you're feeling a like watching something light and want to do the equivalent of dumping cotton candy on your brain, revisit Spice World.

And remember, there's always room for wacky photo shoots!

Peaches? Peaches!

I was going to originally write this post about seeing the movie Selena for the first time and learning about her life, and other more serious ruminations. But I'm saving that for another post where I can pay her and the film its proper respects.

Because I just found out that the movie Amityville 1992: It's About Time is on YouTube in full.

Backstory on the Selena/Amityville connection: I was at a good friend's slumber party when I was in middle school, and both movies were in the stack of videos for the night. Why both were in the rotation I have no idea, but any good girls' slumber party should have a mix of laugh inducing horror and tear jerking romance or weepies.

Amityville 1992: It's About Time, is about a CLOCK from the Amityville house that wreaks havoc on a family. And it's pretty much as amazing as it sounds (if you love terrible horror movies and making fun of them as I do).

There are three things that I distinctly remember about this movie, apart from all the laughter.

The first that leaps to mind features an old lady looking for her dog, crying out, "Peaches? Peaches?" At some point, the dog has been eaten by a pool drain, and the lady is about to make a nasty discovery.

Check it out, starting at 3:50. And brace yourself, it's pretty gross.



Now, you might say, "You terrible girls, how could you laugh at that poor dog and old lady?" Well, as you may have guessed the movie itself is pretty silly. Something about the voice yelling "Peaches" over and over, and the timing of the sound effect just sent us into peals of laughter. And the dog's name is Peaches for crying out loud.

Secondly, we were all beyond skeeved out when the daughter of the family becomes possessed and decides to seduce this kid.



That's her brother by the way. Believe me, I re-watched a couple scenes from earlier in the film to try to make it less nasty and say, "Oh, well she's his step-sister, so it's only slightly creepy." But re-watching the opening scenes has made it unfortunately clear that they share DNA.

Finally, our heroine is able to undo everything the evil clock did and the movie starts over. At that point, she beats the hell out of the clock and walks out, but not before this amazing exchange:

"What was that all about?"
"It's about time, that's what!"

You need to jump to about the 7:57 mark to enjoy it:



Classic.

Many thanks to Water Cooler Films on YouTube for hosting the shorter chunk of the movie.

But don't you think it might be worth it to watch it in all its glory?

We Gotta Find A Place to Crash!

I used to really love going to the video store. In fact, I miss going to the video store. I miss wandering from section to section, picking up titles based on the covers and reading the backs, trying to decide if I'd be interested in it. Sometimes, you could find some real gems, something you overlooked when it was in theaters or just flat out never heard of.

And other times, you find some fantastically amazing crap.

For years, every time my best friend and I would go into the local video store, we would always see this box cover:

So, it's an art film then?

It intrigued, it bewildered, it tantalized, and it made us ask just what the heck was this movie? No matter who we were with, we'd ask, "Can we rent this?" And it was always met with, "Ha ha, very funny guys. No." We knew as long as we couldn't rent videos without a parent, we weren't going to see it. But we'd always look at it, every time, without fail.

"One day," we'd say. "One day."

And then, sometime around the start of college, we did it. We rented Motel Hell. It was tucked in along with a handful of other cheesy horror movies, our favorite for sleepovers and birthday parties. I remember we didn't end up watching it until morning, but, in so, so many ways, it was worth the wait.

Motel Hell is the classic story of a farmer and his sister, who either kidnap people from their motel, or cause their cars to crash off the road for their human sausages. They keep the people in the ground, buried up to their necks with their vocal chords cut so they can't scream, and keep them hypnotized until they're processed into "Farmer Vincent's Fritters." But one day, a young couple are caught in the trap. Farmer Vincent becomes smitten with the little lady, and she does in return. Farmer Vincent's sister is jealous/flat out crazy and is really committed to the whole "cannibal sausage" plan, eventually threatening Farmer Vincent's beloved. At some point another young man joins the equation, creating one of the weirdest love triangles in horror history.

It's just so hard to decide between the admittedly bland but far less murderous younger man and the incredibly creepy, cannibal farmer and his sister.

Our heroine is pretty game to hook up with Farmer Vincent, and it's just really weird. Of course, as these romances do, it all kind of falls apart when she discovers the horrible secret and is almost turned into sausage by his sister. She escapes with the indistinguishable young guy while the people in the ground bust out and attack Farmer Vincent and his sister. I'm pretty sure everyone dies with the exception of our heroine and the random young man.

Perhaps justifiably, there aren't many video clips of the movie online, except this trailer.



The grainy quality coupled with the surprisingly graphic shots for a trailer really don't do justice to how supremely silly everything in the movie actually is. You can also spot a few shots of the van for the band Ivan and The Terribles, who are responsible for the best scene in the entire movie.

The driver of the van is a very Rasputin-looking member of the band Ivan and The Terribles. The scene shows the band smoking weed, drinking, and generally being an awesome late 70s band. I forgot exactly what prompts it, but the driver says, "We gotta find a place to crash."

And then the van crashes.

Maybe you had to be there, or have to actually see the scene, but by God it is one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life. The timing of it is absolutely amazing, and the look of the band just adds to the overall impact of what I'm guessing wasn't supposed to be a joke, but ended up hilarious anyway. They of course become part of the Farmer Vincent garden patch, but are also around at the end for the cannibal vegetable attack.

So if you're ever wandering around one of the last of the video stores, looking for something strange and hilarious, I recommend Motel Hell.

Is that a garden of people? Oh, Motel Hell, wonders never cease!

That Voo Doo That You Do So Well

I don't know about you, but I think stage magic is cool. It takes so much talent and skill, and even though now we know it's a trick and we think we know how it's done, it's still impressive. To me, it's cool to see someone escape, or make your card appear out of nowhere, or see a rabbit pop out of a hat. I've been to the Magic Castle and sat less than two feet from a performer doing card tricks, and I still can't tell you how he did it. And that is amazing.

I really got hooked, as I'm sure many did, when I saw Houdini, starring Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. It's a very romantic telling of the life of Houdini, from how he met his wife, Bess, to how he died. But it's so entertaining, especially when you're whatever young age I saw it at, that you just don't care. Tony Curtis is incredibly charming as Houdini, and his relationship with his on and off screen wife is pretty adorable. There's a whole scene where they do a trick where he levitates her on the edge of a broom, and the whole time they're bantering back and forth. It's very sweet and charming, making his dramatic death on stage all the more sad.

Check out this cool straight jacket scene from the movie:



And of course, the real deal:



After seeing the movie, I became pretty interested in magic and the whole era that Houdini lived through. I read an amazing biography on Houdini, The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero, one of the more comprehensive and interesting books on the guy. While it puts forth a hard to believe idea that Houdini was an early CIA agent or spy, the rest of the details and information are fascinating. I had a job where I was able to read while I was working, and I just plowed through that book like there was no tomorrow.

After reading the book, I rewatched the Houdini movie and I realized just how heavily romanticized it was. I kept muttering, "That didn't happen," "That didn't happen," and, "That DEFINITELY didn't happen." But it's still a fun movie and I think an underrated one Tony Curtis' catalog. It's also one he's said to have really enjoyed doing, and he strongly identified with Houdini, both being the children of Jewish immigrants from Brooklyn.

I got a chance to see the Houdini exhibit here in Los Angeles, and it was amazing! It had tons of items that I had read about, including theater posters from the era that are fantastically over the top.

Will he hold out? Can he hold out?

It also featured quite a bit of modern art mixed in, most of which I liked. But there was one piece that just irked me good. It was a lengthy clip of a woman not escaping a straight jacket, but putting it on herself. When you initially watch it, all you think is "Huh, this lady can't pull off the trick. Guess it was really, really hard to do." As it turns out, she fails to get the straight jacket on, throws it on the ground and walks away. Which is, apparently, a feminist way of rejecting masculinity and the masculinity presented by Houdini.

First of all, it really just looks like she can't do the trick. And I'm not judging her for that. Houdini was almost impossibly fit and skilled at what he did, and there are few, man or woman, who can match that. Second of all, the whole video seems to imply that Houdini was some sort of HUGE misogynist, which he just wasn't. He was devoted to his mother, loved Bess (apart from some affairs, but rumor has it she cheated on him as well), and generally just didn't hate on women at all.

*"For my next trick, I'm going to prove that women are incapable of escape and math!"

*Absolutely not an actual quote.

But other than that, the exhibit was fantastic and well worth the visit. It's a traveling exhibit from the Jewish Museum of New York, so if it comes to your city, by all means go!

Also at the exhibit, they played clips from several Houdini movies besides the Tony Curtis one, including one from Fairy Tale: A True Story. The movie is loosely based on the two girls who claimed to have taken photographs of fairies in their garden. Houdini is played by Harvey Keitel in a few brief scenes where he meets the girls and talks with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Peter O'Toole) about the photos (Doyle was a believer in the photos and had them published). I thought it was decent movie overall, Keitel and O'Toole are great in their parts, and it does briefly address the feud between Houdini and Doyle over Spiritualism.

I created one of the most logical characters in history, but I'm pretty sure that guy was a wizard.
Also, my mustache is fantastic.

Houdini was a steadfast skeptic, while Doyle was a firm believer in Spiritualism, a loose collection of beliefs that focused primarily on contacting ghosts and performing seances. Many people turned to it in the wake of World War I, including Doyle, who lost his son and several other members of his family. He even believed that Houdini himself was truly "magical" and capable of materializing and demateriliazing to perform his escapes. Houdini felt that it was all essentially a scam, preying on grieving people and using the simple trickery he often performed to produce communications from the spirit world. He traveled around debunking these seances and exposing the tricks of the trade.

The Secret Life of Houdini has a fantastic quote from Houdini after he performed a "psychic" trick for Doyle, which I thought was both interesting and a little heartbreaking that he had to put it so bluntly to his friend:

“Sir Arthur, I have devoted a lot of time and thought to this illusion; I have been working at it, on and off, all winter. I won't tell you how it was done, but I can assure you it was pure trickery. I did it by perfectly normal means. I devised it to show you what can be done along these lines. Now, I beg of you, Sir Arthur, do not jump to the conclusion that certain things you see are necessarily 'supernatural,' or the work of 'spirits,' just because you cannot explain them. This is as marvelous a demonstration as you have ever witnessed, given you under test conditions, and I can assure you that it was accomplished by trickery and by nothing else. Do, therefore, be careful in future, in endorsing phenomena just because you cannot explain them. I have given you this test to impress upon you the necessity of caution, and I sincerely hope that you will profit by it."

Doyle had his wife perform a seance for Houdini where his beloved mother supposedly wrote a letter to him in English. Too bad that Houdini's mom couldn't write in English and barely spoke it to begin with. This, among many other arguments about Spirtualism, led to the failure of their friendship and they became bitter enemies.

The history lesson is over, but if you paid attention, a lot of that information will come in to play very shortly.

One of the other clips they played at the exhibit was from a movie I had never heard of called Death Defying Acts, starring Guy Pearce. They showed a clip of Pearce doing the Chinese Water Torture escape. First I thought "How on earth did I miss this? I thought I was a Houdini super fan! Oh, how I've failed!"

Then I thought, "Guy Pearce is a good head taller than Houdini." I told my friend as much, and she replied "Well, Tony Curtis can't play Houdini forever!"

After that, I further thought, "Wait a minute, why haven't I seen or heard of this? That can't possibly be a good sign..."

Here is the plot description from IMDb:
"During Harry Houdini's tour of Britain in 1926, the master escapologist enters into a passionate affair with a Scottish psychic. The psychic and her daughter attempt to con Houdini during a highly publicized séance to contact his mother whose death has haunted him for many years. However all does not go to plan..."

Oh boy. Oh dear. If I thought the Tony Curtis movie was inaccurate, I can't even imagine what this one would be like. It sounds pretty cheesy, in a romantic melodrama sort of way. Especially considering how much of a skeptic Houdini was. If this movie tries to imply that he experienced some supernatural event not too long before his death (he died on Halloween in 1926) I'd like to refer the filmmakers to the quote above. And also, where the hell is Bess in all that? She was always, always with him (except that time he nailed Jack London's wife).

So this brings me to my first ever Oh My God, Rewind That! two parter! I will rent Death Defying Acts from Netflix and report back. Was it good? Was it bad? Was it so bad that it swung back around to good? Was it so utterly frustrating in its inaccuracy and conjecture that it resulted in my yelling at a TV for two hours?

Find out after I mail back Highlander, which will undoubtedly be a post unto itself!

Will it be a death defying act to watch this movie?
Also, ta-da! Full circle from all that information presented earlier!

Forget it Jake, it's a Snow Fort

One of the things I miss most about living in Michigan is snow. Not driving in it, or shoveling it, but just watching it fall or playing in it. If there's one thing movies somehow manage to capture well, even when they completely manufacture it, is the beauty of falling snow. George Bailey running through the snow yelling Merry Christmas, the doors opening to reveal that first snow fall in White Christmas, the snow in A Christmas Story. All of it paints the perfect picture of a winter wonderland where an angel gets its wings or you get that bb gun you always wanted for Christmas.

But this isn't a story about the magic of falling snow, or a story about Christmas. This is a story about trying to build a snow fort and having my nose sliced open by a shovel.

After a particularly heavy and wonderful snowfall one year, around age 7 or 8, my brother carved out a chunk of our backyard into a militaresque snow nest. He and his friends made a wall of snow next to the sidewalk from our back porch which butted up against the fence, with the gate as a back wall. It was a great base, and my friends and I loved to play in it, trying to perfect it further.

I'm not sure what we were trying to do, but it involved shovels. We were trying to scoop up/scrape up additional snow, either to make snowballs or add to the wall. I was kneeling down in the snow, scooping at the frozen snow. Meanwhile my friend was pushing the shovel into the snow, also trying to scoop up snow. He had worked his way towards me, and was moving to swing the shovel upward. Sadly, I was tilting my head and body forward at the same time.

My nose and the shovel's metal edge connected quickly and we both pulled away quickly. I remember it hurting a little, and my friends were all shocked. But there was nothing immediately wrong. Until I checked how my nose was doing. I lifted my mittened hand up to my nose, held it for a moment, then looked at it. A small line of blood was visible.

"OHMYGOD I HAVE TO GO INSIDE!" I cried. "EVERYBODY HAS TO GO HOME!" I tore inside crying for my mom while my friends filed out of the backyard through the gate.

Mom looked closely at my nose. She never told me at the time since I was and am a bit of a hypochondriac, but there was a definite cut running up the left side of my nose. This was going to require a hospital visit.

And here's where the most bizarre movie reference my mom has ever made occurred. Little backstory first though:

At the time this all happened, I loved the movie Aladdin and the Genie was my favorite character. I loved all the voices and characters the Genie did. One of my favorites happened to be the Genie's impression of Jack Nicholson.

Check the clip below at :13



I used to run around doing that impression in my best Robin Williams doing Jack Nicholson voice that I could muster, being a 7 year old girl. My mom thought it was adorable.

So when we were driving to the hospital, I was feeling pretty down about having a hurt nose. It wasn't fun, and it threatened the chances of going to see a show that night with all my friends. So, to cheer me up, my Mom said roughly the following:

"Hey, you know what's kind of funny? You know how you like the Genie and Jack Nicholson? Well, dad's favorite movie is Chinatown, and Jack Nicholson's in it. And he gets his nose whacked just like yours. We'll have to tell your dad about this when we get home."

She of course never told me HOW and WHY Jack Nicholson's nose gets sliced open.

Shovel not shown to scale.

All I need was a little sticky bandage on my nose that I wasn't allowed to get wet for a few days. It would fall off on its own, and my nose would be whole again. No scarring, nothing. You wouldn't even be able to tell it had happened.

I was lucky.

That was easily the fastest ER visit in my lifetime. We were in and out in about a hour. Even the doctor was surprised how fast it was all going. But he bandaged me up and got me on my way. We made it to the show just fine, and for about five days, I had the perfect Jack Nicholson impression.

We did tell my dad about the Jack Nicholson connection, and he nodded to himself, saying, "Huh, I guess so. That is pretty funny."

Deadbeat Parenting

I am a deadbeat parent. Somewhere in the North Atlantic, there is an Orca whale in J-pod wondering where it's adoptive human parent is and why she hasn't sent in any salmon for years now.

My criminal parenting started not long after seeing Free Willy. I loooooved Free Willy. I practically became an environmentalist after I saw it (along with being a paleontologist, since Jurassic Park came out the same year). I think I saw it in the theater, but I know I definitely saw it at home. Because at the end of the credits, they had a phone number you could call to donate money and adopt a whale.

"Mom? Dad? Can I adopt one of those whales?!"

Sure, they said. Sometime later, my whale paperwork came in. I had a photo of the back of some Orca from the J-Pod, all sorts of Save the Whales paperwork, and a nifty certificate basically saying the whale was "mine."

Awesome! I thought. I set the paperwork on my overcrowded desk and went on my merry way.

I NEVER saw that paperwork again. And I mean NEVER. Somewhere in the shuffle of cleaning, school paperwork and the passage of time, that folder of J-Pod paperwork disappeared.

Probably a year or two later, the whale paperwork suddenly popped into my brain. I frantically tore through everything in my room trying to find it, but it was to no avail. I was pretty sad about it. What would become of my whale? Was I supposed to follow up on it in any way? I have no idea because I am a negligent whale parent.

Why? Why did you abandon me?
I was 7 and I lost the paperwork! I'm sorry!

Why I remember that the whale is from the J-Pod, I'll never know. But as you might have guessed from this blog, my brain holds on to some pretty random information.

Welcome to Earth!

In light of the holiday that just passed (and the fact that they seem to play it a lot on A&E for no discernible reason), I'd like to discuss that American classic, that most patriotic of films:

Independence Day

I saw Independence Day with my parents the summer it came out. And it was awesome. So awesome.

Seeing the movie was "a heart-pounding thrill ride" (something I'm sure it said on the poster or a review somewhere).

It was funny. "Welcome to Earth!"

It was scary. The alien autopsy scene scared the life out of me.

It was patriotic. That speech by President Bill Pullman was the best. I was ready to fly a fighter jet and I was only 10.

And America won the day in the end. The aliens were defeated through the power of Morse code and Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith being cool.

Around this same time, my dad was moving to Washington D.C. and we were maybe at some point going to move with him (didn't end up happening, but that's another story). So sometime after seeing the movie, my dad went to D.C. and I missed him a lot. And it brought up a lot of questions about how our life would work and what was going to happen. But it also brought up some weird ones.

I don't know what made me ask this question (maybe the movie was on), but I asked my mom, "If aliens like in Independence Day settled over Washington D.C., would Dad know to get out in time?"

"Yes, of course," replied Mom.

"Would he come back here?"

"Yep."

"Would we be safe if aliens settled over Detroit?"

"Yes, we're far enough from Detroit that we'd be safe."

"Ok, good to know."

It was reassuring that if aliens settled over Detroit, we were well outside the blast zone. Some people have zombie apocalypse plans, I had an alien invasion plan when I was only 10. And what a relief that in the unlikely event aliens settled over D.C., my dad would be safe on the highway before we learned that they do not come in peace.

Nah, he'd be long gone by the time this started happening.

Titular Inspiration

Hee, hee, that title made me giggle.

Anyway, I wanted to throw out a little background on why I choose the title of my blog (or changed it, if you were reading that far back, which is doubtful).

Back in the days of VCRs, my next door neighbor had a copy of one of the X-Men cartoon tapes, that had the first episodes on it. I remember little else from the cartoon other than Wolverine, Jean Grey flipping out constantly and then screaming "I am Phoenix!" and this gem, that generated a title and some magical moments for my friends and I.

During the first episode (I think), there is a total one off scene with a character that shapeshifts (if you know his name, let me know!). He is sitting on a couch, watching TV, and on the TV is a George Bush-esque political figure saying, "My fellow Americans, I am..." and then it cuts off.

They cut to the shapeshifter. He shapeshifts into the political figure and says, "My fellow Americans, I am an idiot!"

We died laughing. We just couldn't handle it. It was too funny. (Maybe you had to be there). Through all the laughter, one of us gasped "Oh my God, rewind that!"

And nearly twenty years later, a blog title was born.

I don't think people yell "Oh my God, rewind that!" as much anymore. Maybe because it's not as clear cut to rewind on a DVD. Come on, you've tried rewinding it during that one part, and suddenly you skipped back two scenes. Then you try to get back, and you're forward three.

That's some hard hitting 1999 satire right there.

But there it is, my blog title wrapped up in a fond memory of collapsing in laughter with friends.

Oh my God, a Velociraptor! Get in the car!

I don't know why exactly my dad took me, my older brother (by close to six years), and my brother's friend to the movies one hot summer day. I remember my mom was picking up my official dance photos from my short lived tap career, leaving dad to tend to us. Whether I was tagging along, or no one bothered to check to see just what it was rated and made my brother take me along, I'll never know. But that was the day that I saw Jurassic Park.

Jurassic Park is a classic and seminal film for many a young viewer, and it had a major impact on my life. But first, let's cover the experience itself:

It was hot, so just like in the days of old, we retreated to the nice, air-conditioned theater. We were about twenty minutes late, so I missed the initial scares in the opening scene and the setting up of the entire premise. We made it into the theater during the scene where they're watching a baby velociraptor emerge from an egg. Charmed by the little creature and completely unaware of the advertising about dinosaurs attacking people, I settled in for some kind of entertaining flick about people and dinosaurs. Maybe the dinos will talk!

Then, they go into the park and the thunderstorm hits. The power goes out. And the T. Rex attacks the kids in the car, and I'm pretty sure I lost it. I was terrified. And it just kept getting worse. The crazy spitting dinosaur showed up, the T. Rex attacks Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern in the car, everybody gets chased by everything, and the kids get cornered in the kitchen by some terrifying as hell veliciraptors. I remember crouching down during that scene in my chair, covering my head with my arms and kicking the hell out of the seat in front of me, in a futile attempt to fight off the raptors. (It must have been a midday showing pretty far into the run because the theater was mostly empty, thus no patron yelling at me to stop kicking their damn seat).

Now, I was only seven when I saw this, so as far as plot points were concerned, I was utterly confused. I just knew that dinosaurs were everywhere, they weren't friendly, and they ate Samuel L. Jackson. Which is why, at the end when they're all cornered again by viscious raptors, and the T. Rex shows up to "save" the day (sort of) and the raptors start jumping up and biting the T. Rex, I called out "The babies are helping!" I apparently lost track of the fact that the raptors were menacing Sam Neil and Co. mere seconds earlier. But to be honest, I was bewildered.

I left the theater knowing three things: First, Jeff Goldblum was the coolest person ever, but I couldn't figure out why; Second, dinosaurs were pretty cool even when they ate people; and third, I wanted to do whatever Sam Neil did for a living. I wanted to be a paleontologist.

Also, that very night I lay wide awake in bed in the early evening as the sun was setting picturing a T. Rex walking down the street. I was feeling a combo of fear about the T. Rex, but also a moment of "Holy crap, wouldn't that be ridiculously cool? I hope a T. Rex walks down the street."

I had a hard time remembering how to spell paleontologist, so every "What do you want to be when you grow up?" assignment required the teacher asking "A what? Oh, I'll check how to spell it." Somewhere, there are tons of assignments from the first and second grade about my wanting to be a paleontologist.

My parents were really supportive of my interest. I got all sorts of dinosaur books and activities for my birthday and Christmas and a subscription to a kid's dino magazine that sent you a piece of dinosaur skeleton with every issue to assemble (so keep asking mom and dad to renew kids!). The coolest toy though had to be one where they had a few pieces of dino skeleton embeded in clay that you had to carefully excivate and glue together to complete it. It was a very cool activity, and we displayed the finished item for quite a while on one of our bookshelves. I also hauled around books about dinosaurs and carried rocks around in a fanny pack (much tom my mom's dismay. She thought I would trip, land on the rocks and crush my stomach or something. Oh moms.).

Jurassic Park did more than define a career path (for a while anyway). It also brought me my best friend in the whole wide world. One day in the second grade, I was wearing a Jurassic Park T. Rex t-shirt. I happened to be sitting behind her, and she turned around to pass a paper or something and said "Hey, cool t-shirt."
"Thanks, I really liked the movie."
"Me too!"

And the rest was history. We used to play Jurassic Park on the playground with a bunch of other kids, play with the action figures at each other's houses, and generally have a grand time. And we're best friends to this day.

So thank you Steve Speilberg and the team behind Jurassic Park for temporarily scarring me for life, then giving me an early career path and a best friend. Those people may have been torn apart by dinosaurs, but they helped bring me together with science and new friends.

Possibly my earliest movie memory....

Hello and welcome to the first entry of Oh My God, Rewind That! I've found throughout my life and movie-watching career that I don't just remember movies, I remember them, with a nerdy love for memorizing the words or images I've just experienced and then a desperate need to tell everyone what I've just seen (even if they were right there with me).

That need to re-experience and retell inspired me to begin the blog o' movie memories, wherein I detail a viewing experience I remember from my recent or distant past and what made it so memorable, be it the movie itself or the context in which it was viewed. There will undoubtedly be spoilers, and I will try to make sure I post a warning (sorry in advance for any slip ups. And by the way, the butler did it).

So with the awkward introductions out of the way, let's get to one of the first movies I've ever seen, probably my favorite movie, and a undeniable classic in cinema history: The Wizard of Oz.

I don't remember the exact first time I ever saw the movie, but I know I watched it countless times from approximately the age of three onward (it was in its heaviest rotation from roughly ages three to seven-ish or so).

The highlights for me were easily everything the Scarecrow did and the Cowardly Lion freaking out at the first meeting with the Great and Powerful Oz and running down a hall and jumping out a window. I loved Glinda, and Toto and the journey and everything about the movie as a whole. Even the terrifying Wicked Witch of the West and the Flying Monkeys, which didn't terrify me as much as some other people, were so cool to me.

The one thing that upset me the most (and stands out in my memory) was toward the end when Dorothy misses the balloon home to Kansas. Something about that scene used to just crush me, and I would cry pretty much every time. I remember one time when I watched that part, then walked out to my mom in the kitchen when she was making dinner. I remember being real quiet and sad. "What's wrong?" my mom asked.

"She missed the balloon again," I replied in that sad little three-year old voice.

"Oh, honey, you know she makes it home every time. Go finish the movie."

Sure enough, I went back out and hey! Glinda was there! And it was all good again. Dorothy clicked her heels and she was home.

I've watched it many times since then of course, and it never loses anything for me. It still makes me smile, makes me a little sad, and makes me hum "If I Only Had a Brain" for a week after.