Megaphone (Georgetown, Tex.), Vol. 96, No. 08, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 24, 2002 Page: 2 of 4
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Arts & Emertainritent
Cull;'Comer: Movies we editors are ashamed 2 luv
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What is the connection between
Gabriel Byrne, failed musicals,
Christian Bale, the last 20 years
and TV movies? They are all
but aspects of your beloved edi-
tors' deepest, darkest, most deplor-
able secrets: bad movies that we
love more fervantly than we do
our mamas and daddies. But now
we’ve exited our collective closet
of shame to share with you the
movies that have shaped our souls.
Enjoy!
At the Earth \ Core (1976)
Based on the book by Edgar
Rice Burroughs, this film single-
handedly defines the entire genre of
the cheesy sci-fi: grandiose irtven-
tions, giant prehistoric reptiles and
scantily clad Mesozoic mamas.
Dr. Abner Perry (played by sci-fi
legend Peter Cushing) has invented
"The Iron Mole," which will safely
carry two people to the center of
the earth. Inexplicably, Dr. Perry
chooses his WORST student, David
Innes (Doug McClure), to go with
him. Alter traveling through molten
magma, sub-zero temperatures (in
the Outer Core, no less), and under-
ground lakes, the Doc and David
lose power. Upon exiting the giant
phallus to poke around, thev dis-
cover: plants! In the middle of
the earth! Then come those god-
damn dinosaurs, followed by what
appears to be the missing link
between men and pigs. The man-
pigs have apparent!', enslaved the
majority ot the humans (yes there
are humans, and yes, they speak
English).
The film score sounds like an
acid-fueled orgy involving The
Velvet Underground. Brian Eno,
and early King Crimson, with John
Williams as the master of ceremo-
nies. The cinematography cannot
help but have inspired Baz l.uhrman
with its unnaturally vivid and pain-
fully symbolic colors used exten-
sively on the stage backdrops. The
epitome of seventies sci-fi psyche-
delia; this movie can only be prop-
erly viewed (or critiqued for a film
review) at 4:20 AM. —AC
Slime, Chopper and Dirty Dee and
you’ve got one rockin’ good time.
Cheesy and lame as this movie
may be (the band hates it to this
day), it’s still the kind of fun
late-seventies TV that livens up
any party. And with a soundtrack
including performances of "Beth"
and “Rock and Roll All Night”
KISS is a classic. —CR
Xanadu (1980)
Like communism, Xanadu
sounded good on paper. Mix a
Kleenex-thin plot, legwarmers,
Greek mythology, Hollywood
musical-like songs as written by
Electric Light Orchestra, The
Tubes, Aussie pop idol Olivia New-
ton-John, wrinkling MGM legend
Gent* Kelly, some ass of a leading
man with a mullet and red hot
pants, roller skating, and a random
animated sequence by Don Bluth.
hit frappe, and watch fans of both
Iron and Singing in the Rain start
humping each other's legs. Not sur-
prisingly, this neon fart of a movie
bombed like no movie has ever
bombed before—in that its very
unique awfulness inspires the great-
est of my unconditional love. Down
on his luck album cover copier
Sonny Malone (ass mullet hot pants
man) gets nailed in a dTive-by lip-
lock by mysterious blonde Kira
(Newton-John), whom we later dis-
cover is one of the nine Greek
muses, sent to Earth to inspire dead-
beats ti • turn abandoned warehouses
into disco roller rinks. Which is
just what Sonny does, with the help
of geezer Danny McGuire (Kelly).
With more extraneous dance and
ELO-penned music sequences than
you can shake a stick at, Xanadu
is painful in almost every aspect of
its existence, but, damn, it hurts so
good! —SG
KISS Meets the Phantom of
the Park (1978)
This made-for-TVclassic is truly
something only a fan could love. It
has all the makings of a great tilm
(for a five-vear-old): an amusement
park. KISS (when they still wore
make-up), an evil scientist, robots
and loud music. This is the movie
that made me a KISS fan.
The story is relatively simple.
Mad amusement park inventor
Abner Devereaux gets pissed when-
ever park boss Calvin Richards tells
him they don’t have the money
to fund Abner's “Americans on
Parade” exhibit. To make matters
worse, what money the park does
have is going towards a major
three-day concert to be played by,
who else, KISS.
Abner exacts his revenge on
Richards, KISS, and all the park
of them all, Teen Witch is the
story of Louise Miller, a not-so-
popular high schooler who learns
of her descent from Salem withes.
In order to gain popularity and the
man of her dreams, Louise uses a
bit of magic to convince the school
of how popular she is. In the end,
Louise doubts whether it was right
or not to “cheat” her way to popu-
larity.
I he film stars Robyn Lively (of
Karate Kid III fame) as Louise.
Teen Witch brings back many mem-
ories for me-mostly of lounging in
front of the television and w atching
this movie over and over with my
sister on Sunday afternoons. The
character that sticks with you years
after seeing this movie is Louise’s
witch-friend, Serena, played by the
cute, freaky, “little” person, Zelda
Rubenstein of Poltergeist (and its
many sequels) infamy. —SR
Jo love it. —EN
Bio-Dome
•v
Troll (1982)
Characteristically, I don’t go for
horror movies. I tend to leave those
to my dear friend and Megaphone
colleague, Cris Roach. However,
with a movie as ridiculous, hilari-
ous and downright insane as Troll,
I'll make an exception. This
lesser-known cinematic master-
piece focuses on (you guessed it) an
evil troll named Torok, who wants
to take over the world. In order
to prepare for his coming Troll-
archv, this pint-sized hellion begins
by taking over the body of a
young girl, Anne. Suddenly, strange
things begin happening, like little
Anne speaking in a demonic lan-
guage and trying to kill her brother,
Harry Potter (isn’t that a coinci-
dence?). Thrr young Harry Then
goes to his witch friend Eunice
(a.k.a. the mom from Lassie) to
find out what's going on and he
finds out, much to his dismay,
that Torok wants
to take over the
world, and only
Harry can stop
him. With the
help of Eunice
and her talking
mushroom,
Harry attempts to
undermine the
troll's wicked
scheme before
it’s too late!!!
Don't miss fab-
ulous Oscar
snubbed perfor-
mances from
Seinfeld alum
Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and Law and
Order alum Michael Moriarty as
supporting characters.
Troll is a definite drunken party
Troop Beverly Hills (1989)
< >k, maybe i don't LOVL troop
Beverly Hills, but I'd sure as hell
watch it all the way through if it
were to magically appear on TBS
right this second. And I seriously
doubt that I'm the only one who
feels this way. After all, who could
resist Shelly Long as a pretentious
Beverly Hills divorcee whir leads a
group of spoiled Wilderness Girls
through a series of zany mishaps,
and finds self-actualization in the
end? And really, nothing is cooler
for a ten-year-old girl than seeing
the glamorous side of Girl Scouts.
I loved it when Phyllis (Long)
took the girls “camping” at a ritzy
hotel and helped them earn patches
along Rodeo Drive.
I didn't realize it until recently,
but this movie is also great because
of its overabundance of cheesy
cameos. Frankie Avalon, Annette
Funicello, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
and Cheech Marin all appear as
themselves, and a young, cosmeti-
cally un-enhanced Tori Spelling is
wonderfully mediocre as a member
of a rival troop. Oh, and Shelley
Morrison, who plays Rosario the
housekeeper on Will A Grace,
shows off her dramatic versatility
in this movie as Rosa, the house-
keeper.
As you can see, there are just
so many elements that make Troop
Newsies (1992)
As the VHS tape begs me,
1 will (quasi) “recommend this,
winner to friends!” It all began with
an extremely boring winter break
(I believe in 1995, which makes
my tale all the more sordid and
sorry). There 1 sat—alone—in the
dark recesses of my family’s guest-
room. My friends were away and
the television was my only release
from cookie-baking and family
bonding. It was at this lowly point
in my uneventful life that I hap-
pened upon one of Disney’s-nay!
one of cinema’s greatest mistakes.
Newsies.
With disbelief and amusement, I
giddily watched droves of newsboys
sing and dance like there was no
tomorrow, while recognizable actors
such as Robert Duvall, Ann-Mar-
gret and Bill Pull-
man made complete
asses of themselves.
Though one time
ought to have suf-
ficed, I preceded to
watch seven other
showings of this
melodic debacle over
the break, and I did it
for one reasoh alone:
my Achilles’s heel,
the ever-so-dreamy,
Welsh actor,
Christian Bale. Yes,
this painfully long
(at just over two
hours), “courageous’*
tale of a newsboy
strike against the evil
William R. Hearst,
an amalgamation of
historical fact, Alan
Menken's lyrics, and
teenage boys (a good
portion of them left-
overs from
Roundhouse) in
Nickelodeon's
dance-pants iiad won me over.
By January, It, found myself
owning a copy of the CD and the
film, completely unable to restrain
myself from singing the ridiculous
lyrics. Though I now know that
there are thousands of Newsie fans
out there (all called Baleheads if you
are in search of internet company),
I may never be able to fullv
respect myself after the
Christmas-/Vew.s/c*.v fiasco.
Neither will I ever relin-
quish my love for the god-
awful musical or the lovely
Mr. Bale. -LSD
(1996)
• In the hey-
day of Pauly
Shore’s brief
career, a small,
unassuming
masterpiece
was created
that would later
be overlooked
by fans in favor
of “old school Shore.” This brilliant
piece of cinema is Bio-Dome—an
ode to love, the environment, and
probably something else. Bio-
Dome's genius lies in the teaming
of “Weasel” with that chameleon of
the Baldwin family, Stephen Bald-
win, as Bud and Doyle, respec-
tively. These two master thespians
attempt to regain the favor of
their Earth-conscious girlfriends by
showing them that they care about
the environment aswell. Things go
awry when Bud and Doyle mistake
the newly built Bio-Dome for a
shopping mall and thus become the
two “unofficial” members of the
Bio-Dome team—in other words,
they’re stuck in the dome for a year
and make life miserable for every-
one else.
So it’s not onaKespeare, Oui Bio-
Dome deserves props for many rea-
sons. Any film that manages to
include Pauly Shore, Stephen Bald-
win, Joey Lauren Adams, William
Atherton, Kylie Minogue, Pi$tty
Hearst, Roger Clinton, the first^to
my knowledge) film performance
of Tenacious D, and homages
to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Apoc-
alypse Now, Men Without Hats
(“The Safety Dance”), and a little
Lord of the Flies, deserves a little
praise. It doesn’t deserve a lot of
praise, just a little.
Bio-Dome isn’t the greatest
movie, but it’s just the kind of film
you can love as a kid and now be
ashamed to admit you have even
seen it, much less own it. — CR
Stigmata (1999)
Since its release, critics have
lambasted this film for inexplicable
gaping holes in the screenplay and
the blasphemous ideas to which it
gives rise. Friends of mine consider
Stigmata perverse, unrealistic and
goers who “don't care about his- piece; I highly recommend a bottle
tory” by constructing look-a-dike 6f your favorite wine (Boone’s
KISS robots to wreak hav
soil the good name of our
Beverly Hills a joy to watch. Now,
is it a “good” movie? Not unless
you think Shelly Long is a “good”
actress. Is it full of ridiculous 80's
kitsch that makes most of us cringe
and thank God that feathered bangs
in
Little Women (1994)
Come on now, really,
who doesn’t want to live in
beautiful Concord, Massa-
chusetts ot the mid- 19th
century? Who doesn’t want
to reside in a fabulous house
that has a quaint, fairytale charm,
or play dress-up with her three
sisters (played by Trini Alvarado,
Claire Danes, and Kirsten Dunst)
amidst the baubles and antiques of
the meticulously recaptured period?
Who doesn't want to have cool, pro-
gressive parents (Matthew Walker
and Susan Sarandon) who hang
out with the Transcendentalists,
and a sexy, scholarly German refu-
gee boyfriend (Gabriel Byrne) who
recites Whitman with you in his
little garret apartment? Maybe it’s
just a girlish fantasy, but l know
I'd like to be able to go ice-skating
on Thoreau's Walden Pond with
the luscious Christian Bale amidst
the glorious flurries of
Hollywood snow and
a swelling orchestral
score by Thomas
Newman (American
Beauty).
Gillian Armstong's
film perfectly recaptures
the jook, sound, and feel
of Loitisa May Alcott’s
1869 novel, so who
cares if the pseudo-Eng-
lish accents are fake and
pretentious, the acting is
stiff and forced in places,
if th^re is a line of spittle
Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century (1999)
Set in the not-too-distant future,
this Disney Channel favorite is the
story of a precocious pre-teen who
has lived most of her life in a space
station. The movie is overflowing
with futuristic space slang, with
phrases like “Stellar!” (present day
equivalent: “Cool!”) and “Cetus
Lupedus!” (present day equivalent:
“Fuck!”) dominating the vernacu-
lar of Zenon and her friends.
The plot of the movie centers
around Zenon’s efforts to save
her beloved space station from a
destructive computer virus, and she
eventually does—at the last second,
of course. Then she attends the
first rock concert in space, where
her favorite band, Microbe, ded-
icates the song “Supernova Girl”
to her. The song's catchy chorus,
“Zoom zoom zoom, make my heart
go boom boom,” ensures that you
will never forget this movie—since
that song will be stuck in your head
for the rest of your life. —MS
The 3 Drunkateers (1974)
My all-time most favoritest
movie would have to be The 3
Drunkateers. This quasi-classic film
is set in 1650’s England under the
rule of Lord Oliver Cromwell. The
Lord Protector, as Cromwell calls
himself, has had his government
crack down against theatre, sport,
and drunkenness. Against this back-
drop, three young men come of
age They are party animals, and no
crusty old Lord Protector is going
to stand in their way. They form
a trio with revolutionary partying
on their minds and call themselves,
“The Three Drunkateers.”
The lads become living legends
of drunkenness among the peas-
antry, which does not suit Crom-
well. He sends his forces to crack
down on the party. The Drunk-
ateers heroically slaughter the
Lord Protector’s men and then
engage in gluttonous drunken
revelry afterward. Featuring a
young Gerard Depardieu as
Buzztanion and Peter Cushing
as Lord CrOmwell, this film
features some crazy drunken
sword fighting and more cheesy
drunken pick-up lines than your
high-school prom. -JF
offensive. This sort of talk hardly
matters, as the bottom line is that
this movie is absolutely gorgeous
and thought provoking.
It’s neo-gothic to the tenth
power, with hip, streamlined, Sty-
listic passages and—the—teehno-
tinged soundtrack produced by
Billy Corgan, juxtaposed with
haunting, ghostly scenes that stick
to the viewer’s mind like real life
trauma. Patricia Arquette gives an
unbelievably intense performance,
while Gabriel Byrne effectively
portrays a young priest struggling
with his faith. It’s one thing to be
all style and lack substance, but
Stigmata's central question of our
Cult Corner
Contributors:
Bonnie C. Casson
Copy Editor
Allen Cote
Photo Editor
Lindsay S. Dold
Editor-in-Chief
Jeff Fowler
Back Page Editor
Sara Gray
A&E Editor
Charlotte Hardin
Assistant A&E Editor
Manuel Jovel
Sports Editor
Erin Nau
Opinions Editor
Cris. Roach
News Editor
Scott Rocher v
f, . fSr. . .
Features Editor
band. Throw in a missing boy-
friends some bad special effects, a
will do) for the utmost enjoyment. ! went out of style? Yes. But
-bcc ,'y'"
Teen Wire* 0*89) * “ % V
gang of hoodlums with names like
WiWi, Shelton
-,™. w «. »,», annoying habit of waxing righteous away from Hollywood’s bottom- CODV Editor v
spite of these things (or maybe and/or sentimental, and Winona less scrap heap of glitz and glam- ■ ' ft
because ©f them). Troop Beverly Ryder (who plays Jo March) has our. I'm surprised a movie like thi* T*
Hills is amazingly hypnotic, and I turned out to be a kleptomaniac^ was even released in the United Questions or Comments:
between Jo and Laurie
when they kiss, and the film has the belief in miracles steers
away from Hollywood’s bottom- Copy EdttOr
• !•
Perhaps the cheesiest 80 s movie am proud to say that I'm ashamed We’re none of us perfect. —CH
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Safe |
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Megaphone (Georgetown, Tex.), Vol. 96, No. 08, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 24, 2002, newspaper, January 24, 2002; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth634513/m1/2/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Southwestern University.