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Posts Tagged ‘Charles Martin Smith’

Boris and Natasha

Monday, May 23rd, 2022

BORIS AND NATASHA, a.k.a. BORIS AND NATASHA: THE MOVIE, went straight to Showtime, but I’m counting it as a Weird Summer movie because it first aired on April 17, 1992, and presumably kept playing in subsequent months. And yes, it’s a live action movie centered on the villainous spy characters from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, which is a pretty weird idea.

That beloved Jay Ward cartoon was 30+ years in the past at the time, but still showing in reruns. I know I watched it in the ‘80s. I remember having a t-shirt with Rocky and Bullwinkle parodying the ENDLESS SUMMER poster, even though I didn’t know what that was. It was a great show, so I’m not complaining, but my parents’ generation gave us their nostalgia as hand-me-downs, and we took it. I had Gumby shirts too. I never got Showtime, though, so I never saw BORIS AND NATASHA: THE MOVIE, and couldn’t exactly picture how you’d make a movie about them.

Actually it’s not a terrible comedy premise: what if Boris and Natasha were given a mission where they had to pretend to defect to the U.S., but then they started to like being American? This isn’t as common anymore, but they used to make these movies based on old TV shows but with some high concept way to set it in the modern world. They did it for DRAGNET and after this THE BRADY BUNCH and FAT ALBERT and much later 21 JUMP STREET. CONEHEADS was another one that actually has a premise pretty similar to this one.

Wait – isn’t that kind of what The Americans is about too? Is The Americans a remake of BORIS AND NATASHA: THE MOVIE? (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Comedy/Laffs | 12 Comments »

Deep Impact

Wednesday, May 16th, 2018

May 8, 1998

For many, the 1998 summer movie season will always be remembered as the comet vs. the asteroid (or the dueling asteroid movies, if they forget that one was a comet). DEEP IMPACT is the first released, the less popular, and the more grown up of the two movies. It’s way less stupid, less hectic, less hateful, and more forgotten by society. But that’s not necessarily undeserved. It’s not all that exciting.

The story begins with high school lovebirds Leo Biederman (Elijah Wood, THE TRUST) and Sarah Hotchner (Leelee Sobieski, THE WICKER MAN) enjoying some amateur astronomy when Leo discovers a comet headed for the earth. His teacher sends the evidence to a pro (Charles Martin Smith, MORE AMERICAN GRAFFITI) who verifies it but is immediately killed in a car accident.

(Summer of ’98 note: Like BLACK DOG it’s a sleepy-truck-driver accident that sets everything up.)

I don’t understand that turn of events. It skips over a year, so for a second I assumed the accident prevented them from finding out about the comet in time, but no. Actually the government found his information and named the comet after him and Leo. What’s the story purpose of killing him off? Not wanting to keep checking back in on a guy that knows about stars and shit? I’m not sure. (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 22 Comments »

More American Graffiti

Monday, December 7th, 2015

tn_moreamericangraffitilucasminusstarwars1977 saw the release of George Lucas’s third film, STAR WARS. It did well. But the experience of making it was troubling enough to make Lucas rethink his dream of directing films. He decided to redirect his energy toward producing for other directors, and in fact he didn’t direct again for 22 years. But in 1979, as an executive producer, he brought back the characters from his second film.

I’m not gonna try to convince you that it was a good idea to make a sequel to AMERICAN GRAFFITI six years after the first one, but this is a much better sequel than I was figuring on. Definitely more interesting and ambitious than you would guess. I bet what happened was they wanted to do MORE THX-1138 but when the first one wasn’t a hit they rewrote the script for these characters.

While REGULAR AMOUNT OF AMERICAN GRAFFITI dealt with the cultural shifts of the ’60s by nostalgifying the times right before the a changin’, this one actually dives straight into the muck. The first thing you see is army helicopters over Vietnam, and there are more hippies and protests in this one than cars cruising the strip. It still doesn’t deal directly with the civil rights movement, but there are hints.

The impressive part is the structure. We find the gang back together on New Year’s Eve, 1964. Laurie (Cindy Williams) is now pregnant with twins, married to Steve (“special appearance by Ron Howard,” but it seems like a genuine role to me, not a cameo). Debbie (Candy Clark) and Terry the Toad (Charles Martin Smith) are still together, but he’s shipping out to ‘Nam tomorrow to “Kick ass, take names and eat Cong for breakfast.” They all come visit their cool drag racer friend John Milner (Paul Le Mat) at the track, where he’s trying to win races, attract a sponsorship and build a legit driving career. So it seems like it will be another day-in-the-life with this group of friends as they’re all on the verge of major life changes. (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | 12 Comments »

American Graffiti

Thursday, December 3rd, 2015

tn_americangraffitilucasminusstarwarsI honestly had never seen this movie until now. So this will likely be the last George Lucas directed movie for me, unless he ever goes through with making those inaccessible art movies he always says he wants to make. AMERICAN GRAFFITI is different from the other ones he directed  because it’s the only one that’s not in space or in a futuristic dystopian worker colony under the earth. At least as far as is revealed in the text. Also it’s his only directorial work that has, like, wall-to-wall jams by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers and The Platters and people like that. Maybe he shoulda done that trick on ATTACK OF THE CLONES to make the young love go down easier.

Yeah, it’s weird that this is a really distinctive, personal and hugely influential film that was Lucas’s big breakthrough in Hollywood, and then he never did anything much like it again. He just let other people make Happy Days and shit while he was tinkering in the FX lab.

I’m not sure what the title means exactly, but it’s kinda too bad they used it for this because it would’ve made WILD STYLE seem more epic and important. This is the story of a bunch of Los Angelenos Modestenos graduating high school in 1962, and having one last night out together before some of them leave to begin their adult lives. Curt (Richard Dreyfuss playing a teenager just two years before JAWS!) is supposed to leave for college on the East Coast the next day, but he’s getting cold feet. Steve (Ronny Howard, later star of Happy Days) is also leaving and wants to convince his younger girlfriend Laurie (Cindy Williams, later star of Happy Days spin-off Laverne & Shirley) that they should still technically be together but also see other people. Terry (Charles Martin Smith, later in THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY) is a huge nerd who borrows Steve’s awesome car to drive around and impress people. And John Milner (Paul Le Mat) isn’t going to college, so to him it’s another night as the tough guy cruising for girls in the area’s most badass yellow drag racer. But then he gets tricked into picking up somebody’s little sister Carol (Mackenzie Phillips), cramping his style. (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Reviews | 45 Comments »

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