Heathers (1988) - Back to School

     Maybe it's because I grew up with them, but I love extreme satirical psycho movies. Especially with teens. Something about the illusion of innocence added with a lack of shame causes wonderful moments of bombastic strawmen to die with gruesome intent. The only thing that could make Heathers better is if Paul Verhoeven had directed it.

     Our story is about Veronica, a kind if checked out girl making her way through high school along with her friends, the Heathers, popular girls who throw their privilege around. Enter JD, a malcontent willing to do whatever he finds entertaining who wins Veronica's affection and repect. Several murders and suicide attempts later, maybe this couple are not long.

     I love this movie. It's a fascinating mix of tropes to create satire. The language and visuals are heightened to a Twin Peaks level of awareness without winking too much at the camera. The characters' dress have become archetypes (black coat for psychos) or are just odd (Ryder journals with a monocle more than once). Mean Girls wants to have the teeth this story does, facing topics like suicide and homosexuality ("I love my dead gay son!") with a dark glee. Just because the kids are young does not mean they are precious. 

     My notes are all quotes, it's that much fun.

     The cast equally entertains. Sure, Christian Slater is doing his best Jack Nicholson if ole Jack had stepped out of the Shining hotel with the drink in his hand. It melds well with the sardonic turn Ryder is giving against the banal evil of the Heathers. The order of Heathers ruling the school descends into a chaotic mix by the end when a smoking Ryder rips the bow from Heather and walks away. Was anything solved? Nope.

     If your diet is mostly post-2000 teenagers in film, this will be a shock. These kids fuck and kill and curse, and if that's what you like watch this film.

More back to school reviews coming to our patreon!

Heathers

Starring Winona Ryder, Christian Slater

Super Origami

The circulation desk had not seen a patron for over an hour. Circulation decided to use the time to check in the book drop, asking Childrens to keep an eye out. When Circ got back, Childrens was folding little paper animals.

     "Did you see the new Super Mario Movie?" Circulation asked.

     Childrens held up a paper turtle, saying, "No. I can't."

     "We had fun with it. It's silly and has a lot of references to the games. I guess it would have to though. What do you mean you can't?"

     "I do not believe in abusing mushrooms," Childrens said.

     "Oh, well, I guess I get that. Like psychedelics?"

     "No, no, no. Noooo. I'm on those right now." Childrens waved a paper squid in the air.

     "So, physically?" The book dorp was forgotten.

     Childrens ate the paper squid, slowly chewing it to a wet pulp. "Do not hurt the fungus for the Forest Queen lives among us."

     "How about you fold those in the back? Or go home?"

     Childrens held up a paper dragon. "How about that?" The dragon fell to the carpet. Childrens cried "Wah-hoo" and jumped up and down on the origami before running through the staff door.

Super Mario Bros Movie (2023) made me smile

Along with Seth Rogan and a lot of other people in my generation, I realized movies could be bad by watching the 1993 Super Mario Brothers: The Movie. Twenty years later I sat in a theater and watched the movie I wanted back then. The new Super Mario Bros Movie is the best thing we could have hoped for: competent.

     Mario and Luigi live in cartoon Brooklyn, New York starting up a plumbing business. That is quickly swept aside when they find themselves in an oddly spacious sewer and sucked down a pipe. Mario goes to the Mushroom Kingdom where he learns a dragon man named Bowser is attacking everything while Luigi gets put in a cage. Mario vows to help Princess Peach defeat Bowser and save his brother. All that happens.

     Saying a movie is competent these days is quite the praise. So much intellectual property has been wasted in the last decade *cough DC cough Star Wars cough* that having a breezy 90 minute movie that is entertaining and well made feels delightful. If we cannot get original stories any more, at least we can get entertaining films like Air (more later) or Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves (maybe later). 

      Sure, all these movies are made to sell products or make us believe that the heroes are the million dollar companies that want us to buy more products, but last night when Luigi got his shit together and helped out his brother, one little girl shouted "Luigi" in pure childlike fandom. That's something I have not heard in a while. A kid, not a grown adult, cried out in joy for her favorite character. It made me smile.

     The animation is beautiful, and the cast did a damn good job. Every frame is filled with easter eggs to Nintendo and Mario's history while not one time did I think of the person behind the animation. So much is packed in visually (with a beautiful score by Brian Tyler) and the voices matching the animation that we did not get another jukebox musical animation dump but an actual movie. 

     To round out, I'm gonna give a big virtual high-five to whoever came up with the nihilistic Lumalee. There is dark, then there is getting the director's daughter to say lines like "more meat for the grinder" dark that brought back a little weirdness to kids movies that I love.

     If you have kids or access to recreational drugs, check out Super Mario Bros Movie.

Elvis (2022) succeeds as a sideshow, fails as a movie

     It was hot in Seattle. Damn hot for a city that throughout history has not needed air conditioning. What we needed was a long movie for comfort. What we got was assaulted.

     This musical assault of a movie was happening in the Dolby theater of the local AMC. Big sound and reclining chairs. I could live there if they would only install a kitchenette.

     We sat down for Baz Luhrman's Elvis. My history with the director is pretty good. Romeo + Juliet was my high school crush, Moulin Rouge was a college fling, and Great Gatsby was the pretentious one that made me realize what I really wanted. I do not need all the flash and glamor, but it is fun to get a little crazy.

     After the first ten minutes, I leaned over to my friend and, talking to myself as well, asked if she was okay. She did not know. We had both been assaulted with a barrage of light and sound so potent and overwhelming I found my brain had skipped a beat or two. I could not tell you what happened. Only that it hurt. Not in an aggressive punk rock way, but in the way a family member yelling that all the good cereal was gone. Solid trauma.

     The film flows with vibrant and jarring sights and sounds for most of the run time. When the musical performances hit, they act like well done MTV at the height: visual representations of songs that illustrate moments in Elvis's life from church services to iconic spasm filled stage ballads. But the music does not stop. Rather than being punctuation, the music is the whole sentence. The relentless dumping of information through song drains all narrative flow. Yet the recreation and the emotions of iconic moments like the first pink suited wiggle and black leather clad special return to form are amazing. Too bad there's few moments to breathe.

     What does get a moment to breathe are the actors. Actors Austin and Hanks center the story and both are giving it their all. In recreating Elvis, we see hope and conflict as Elvis's mental and emotional capacities decline with Austin's subtle and solid performance. Yet Hanks steals the show in one of the more off putting performances of his career. Like a devil of folklore, Hanks's Parker is a weird, conniving, broken creature sent to suck the fight from Elvis by giving him everything he wants. Had the performance been more subtle it may have worked, but Hanks repulses more than invites. There is no redemption for this villain. No excuse why Elvs would be tempted by the man. Elvis is not a hero; he is the carnival sideshow Parker leeches for all he is worth. 

     Elvis in the end is the carnival attraction it told us it was. Bright and bombastic yet led by a life sucking swindler forming a grotesque affair more akin to Nightmare Alley than A Star is Born. The tragedy here is in the execution.