Scream (1996)

Hilarious Reminders of the 90s:

- Neve Campbell
- Indigo Girls poster
- GIANT cell phones.
- “As if!”
- A 14-year-old Jamie Kennedy.
- Video stores with video tapes in them.
- TV news reporters.


Just Cold Reviewin':

Wow, "Scream",right? Everyone saw this like 13 years ago. I’m sure you remember the first time you saw it. Fall of 1996, you had just purchased “If You’re Feeling Sinister” on CD, while wearing Doc Martens, and you were like, “Hey, let’s go see that Wes Craven horror movie parody that all those ‘Party of Five’ actors are in!” So you went to see “Scream”, which was supposed to be our generation’s “Halloween.”

“Scream” was a big hit at the time because it featured “edgy” and “clever” writing by Kevin Williamson, the man who brought you Dawson’s Creek. Then Joss Whedon and Judd Apatow” came along and made Kevin Williamson look wildly obsolete. And unemployed.

Even though the dialogue was what passed for witty and satirical in the 90s, the film itself did revitalize the slasher film, much like what “Halloween” did in 1978. “Scream” essentially plays like a 90s version of the original “Halloween,” except much worse. At least John Carpenter knew how to direct a movie, using lighting and long takes to create a suspenseful atmosphere. Plus, Michael Meyers was actually incredibly creepy. The killer in “Scream” isn’t frightening at all—in fact he’s as scary as the killer in “Scary Movie”—basically just a dude in a black robe with a goofy mask. In fact, Matthew Lillard’s acting is probably the scariest part of "Scream."

The movie opens with Drew Barrymore getting stabbed to death. This was a “comeback” for her, as she’d basically been in Hollywood limbo even since she starred in E.T., drank for 10 years, then starred in Poison Ivy. The plot centers around a group of high school kids trying to cope with the murder of their friend Drew Barrymore, the alcoholic. “Scream” does that hilarious horror movie cliché (and it was one by 1996) that people keep suspiciously showing up and disappearing—right when the killer either comes or goes—so naturally everyone’s a suspect.

Throughout “Scream,” there are numerous references to other horror films, which was seen as clever at the time, because hey, cultural references! The writer saw other movies, people! The characters all think they’re too smart to be killed by some horror movie killer, because they’ve seen “Halloween,” so they know how it works. Except that they all get stabbed anyways. Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox finally just have enough and start shooting everyone and dropping TVs on people’s heads until the killers are stopped.

Highlights? Eh, well, Fonzie is the high school principal, and it’s great to see him in an angrier role in his pre-Barry Zuckercorn days. Also David “Courtney Cox” Arquette is pretty entertaining in this as a bumbling cop. But overall, “Scream” pales in comparison to suspenseful, eerie slasher films like the original “Halloween,” and it’s pretty tame on all fronts by today’s standards—it’s not scary, it’s not funny, it’s not clever, and it has Matthew Lillard in it.

Any Which Way You Can (1980)

Things I Learned:

- If you’re jogging and a Cadillac is sneakily following you, just slow down and punch through the window. Then they’ll back off.

- If you don’t know how to open a movie, why not sing a duet with Ray Charles called “Beers to You”? Clint Eastwood pulled this off wonderfully.

Just Cold Reviewin'

There are many terrible movies that aren’t fun to watch, like “Pearl Harbor” or “Police Academy.” But “Any Which Way You Can,” Clint Eastwood’s sequel to his unlikely 1978 hit “Any Which Way But Loose” isn’t one of them. It’s a terrible movie, in many ways, but it’s Clint Eastwood punching people, sharing beds with cop-hating chimps and Sondra Locke, Fats Domino in a cowboy hat, and Ruth Gordon cursing about random shit and kneeing men in the balls. In short, this is everything you’d want from a terrible movie.

The movie follows Eastwood's Philo Beddoe, who's just a guy who fights people, for money. His manager is a chimp. That should really say it all. It's not a high concept film, by any means. So some mob guys arrange a fight, because they love betting on fights, and Philo agrees to fight a dude with a mustache for an fuckload of money. Along the way he romances Sondra Locke's struggling country singer, again (although opening for Fats Domino isn't really struggling).

“Any Which Way You Can” is a great period piece, as many b-movies are, capturing Southern California in the late 70s/early 80s haze, complete with goofy biker gangs, freeways covered with smog and tacky urban cowboy bars. California hedonism is represented well here--In the middle of the movie we’re treated to a sex montage, as three couples simultaneously get it on—Clint Eastwood & Sondra Locke, two chimps, and a frumpy Midwestern couple attempting to experience the California dream.

The movie keeps getting weirder—we’re also subjected to a clip from Blake Edwards' “10” with Ruth Gordon’s face imposed on Bo Derek’s body running on the beach. When you think about it, this is an improvement on Bo Derek.

The film's climax is an homage to John Ford/Wayne's classic 1952 film "The Quiet Man." The two main rivals, Clint Eastwood and the guy with a mustache, have an all out brawl at the end for shits and giggles. Much like "The Quiet Man," the two rivals duke it out, pause in the middle of the fight to have a drink and reflect on their mutual admiration, then continue beating the shit out of each other. Which of the two films was the classier one I'll leave you to decide.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Fast Facts:

- Kevin McCarthy. What ever did happen to him? He was pretty good in this, right? Huh. We never heard from him again. But then I IMDBed him, and it turns out he’s still working and is in at least 3 movies in 2009! HE'S 95 PEOPLE.

- Also, Sam Peckinpah was in this. He played the gas man in Kevin McCarthy’s basement. Oh, Sam. Scaring the bejeezus of out people even back then.

- Directed by Don Siegel, who went on to “Dirty Harry” fame.

- I looked up the filming locations to this, thinking “what a nice little hamlet of California this is.” Turns out it was just West Hollywood. But back in 1956, West Hollywood was a nice pleasant hamlet. California has really hit the shitter.


Just Cold Reviewin'

"Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is a classic 1956 sci-fi "they're all out to get you" film about aliens who send seeds to earth that grow pods. These pods birth human replicas, who replace exsisting humans. They replace their human counterparts by aborbing their mind (telepathically) when they're sleeping. So then the human dies, and an alien version of them with no emotions comes to life the next morning.

It’s fascinating to see how the central threat of thriller plots change over time to reflect society’s fears. Nowadays, it’s bombs and gunmen and jihad. But back then, it was aliens, which were often a thinly-veiled metaphor for Communists, as Communism was often perceived by Americans as a soulless system where everything was the same and there was no diversity. Those Soviets were a comin’, and they were gonna brainwash everybody OVERNIGHT! Yes, that did not happen. But it could’ve!

No one’s really afraid of aliens anymore—we’re way too self-absorbed to care what’s beyond Earth. Remember when society wasn’t that way? Like prior to 1970?

"Body Snatchers" is a classic sci-fi “us against the world” plot (and then eventually just Kevin McCarthy vs. the world, once his ladyfriend does the ONE thing she’s not supposed to do and falls asleep). The allegory is that people are asleep to the changes in the world around them, that there’s an apathy to an enemy invasion. People in this pleasant California hamlet (fictional Santa Mira) don’t wise up and fight the invader until it’s too late.

You can read a lot of things from this movie, like the tiresome concept of eternal vigilance—which has been used for preemptive strikes against terrorist harboring countries and to activism to prevent the gays from getting married. Sometimes change is good, and it’s even slightly ambiguous whether these aliens are ruining the world or making it better (they try to sell McCarthy on a world without pain and suffering, because these alien drones don't feel anything). Of course the aliens aren't making things better: they’re killing everybody, which Kevin McCarthy takes issue with.


One of the most frightening aspects of thrillers is when the protagonist knows something to be true, and no one will believe them. “Body Snatchers” executes this nicely. As the viewer, we’re totally with Kevin McCarthy (I mean, who wants to be destroyed by aliens in their sleep, right?) But no one will listen to him!

The ending is a positive one--those official men in suits, the doctors at the hospital, finally start believing McCarthy, when his story is corroborated by an EMT (were they called that back then?) who just rescued a truck driver, and recalls that the driver’s load was a bunch of strange-shaped pods. So the doctor suddenly totally believes McCarthy, and orders all the highways closed (um, doctors can do that? ) So yay, America will save the day! Hey, it was 1956. We were still optimistic.