Jeez Jon

Movies From My Past: Addams Family Values

Growing up, I had a few pop culture associations with Thanksgiving:  the Macy's Parade (of course) and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. But after 1993, my first pop culture thought for Thanksgiving goes to Addams Family Values, which is one of the funniest movies ever made.  Seriously.  If you disagree, then I think you haven't seen it in a while.  Or at all.  Written by Paul Rudnick, the movie is a bitchy joke machine, cranking out one catty one-liner after another.  The jokes and gags are packed so tightly that as you laugh at one you miss the next two.  So, repeated viewings are necessary.  I have seen it, no joke, 10 times already, and I laugh every single time.  A lot

For the uninitiated, the plot revolves around Gomez and Morticia having a new baby, requiring a new nanny, Debbie (played with delicious elan by Joan Cusack).  Turns out that Debbie is a serial killer after Uncle Fester's money.  After the kids catch onto her plans, Debbie convinces Gomez and Morticia to send Wednesday (Christina Ricci) and Pugsley to summer camp.  And the camp?  Oh my.  "Camp Chippewa", run by camp counselors Peter MacNichol and Christine Baranski as two of the WASPiest WASPs who ever lived.  After Wednesday and Pugsley repeatedly try to escape, they keep getting caught by the counselors and Wednesday's blonde nemesis Amanda Buckman (played to perfection by Mercedes McNab, who later played Harmony on Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel).  So, Wednesday decides to play along in MacNichol's play devoted to the First Thanksgiving.  Enjoy it (and what Wednesday does) below:

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Movies From My Past: Looker

Have you ever watched nip/tuck and thought "You know, this show is missing James Coburn and some psuedo-science."  Well, have I got a movie for you.  One of the cable movie staples of my 80's youth was Looker, the 1981 "masterpiece" by Michael Crichton about the horrors of subliminal advertising and strobe lights.  Check out the trailer here:

A very miscast Albert Finney plays Dr. Larry Roberts, Beverly Hills' most in-demand plastic surgeon.  As the film opens, one of his clients goes through a list of very specific, by the millimeter demands for surgery done on her face. She says it's because she "acts in commercials" and "they want a certain look."  He scoffs at this and then goes ahead with taking her measurements, and that's where the credits start.  Yes, the Sue Saad theme song starts when you see the girl topless getting her picture taken.  It's the only movie I know of that has naked breasts and the film title in the same frame.  Yes, dear, those boobs really do make you a "Looker." 

We then go through several scenes of this actress and another actress being tormented by a guy with huge mustache and a weird gun.  Albert Finney gets interrogated by the police about his activities and the dead actresses.  He says he doesn't date his clients and doesn't see them socially.  Two remaining actresses are left on this death list; one does a freak out in his office and runs out in a paranoid fit saying "they are after her.  The other one? Susan Dey.  No, seriously.  And, honestly, she turns out the movie's best performance. Albert Finney goes to see the paranoid actress and witnesses her falling to her death from her balcony.  He sees Huge Mustache Man and instead of trying to contact the police, he runs upstairs to her apartment.  Oh boy.  The leaps in logic continue from there.

To make a long story short, the actresses are connected to a company that uses computers to help make commercials using subliminal messages. The evil, dastardly corporation is headed by evil, dastardly James Coburn, who is having some fun being the bad guy.  The coolest aspect of the movie -- at least to my 10 year old mind when I first saw it -- was the Looker Gun.  It shot a pulse of light that would temporarily paralyze people.  Oh, you want my lunch money, Grade School Bully?  WHAMMO!  I'm out and he's standing there like a doofus.  Anyway, you see my point.

The film does have a lot going for it: some good action scenes, Dorian Harwood, the skeezy-but-awesome fake commercials, Leigh Taylor-Young. But Looker does not age well, and the leaps in logic and the clunky anti-television rants help to push the film closer the "camp" side of the scale.  But hey, the title song is pretty cool kitschy, right?