Slacker

“I can see why people are asking me about a generation I happen to be a part of, but to me Slacker owes more allegiance to cinema than to a generation.” – Richard Linklater

“It was disturbing to me that an idea or a song could become something so different from what you originally intended. It’s like if a friend took a stupid picture of you at a party on their phone, and the next thing you knew, it was on every billboard.” – Beck on the surprise success of “Loser”

Even though I know they came out years apart, I always associate Beck’s hit song “Loser” with Richard Linklater’s film Slacker (1990). The former came out in 1993 and the latter had its premiere three years prior, but both took their time finding their audience. They also were touted by the media as defining what would be known as Generation X, a term popularized by Douglas Coupland’s 1991 novel of the same name, and used to describe people born in the early 1960s to the early 1980s. Also rather interestingly, both Beck and Linklater felt uncomfortable with being heralded as voices of their generation.

Despite being released years apart, “Loser” and Slacker have much closer inception dates than one would imagine and both came out of experiences that Beck and Linklater had in the late ‘80s. There was definitely something in the air in the early 1990s and these two artists were able to tap into it. The song and the film both feature fractured narratives with random observations about life. As Linklater said in an interview, his generation was the first “to have the T.V. remote … to begin creating our own narratives by watching five minutes of this and then one minute of that and then seven minutes of this … That was in my head as a narrative possibility.” It is that kind of channel-surfing mentality that “Loser” and Slacker tap into. It’s as if Linklater is controlling the remote, flipping around to see what various people from Austin are doing in a 24-hour period in which the film takes place.

Slacker opens with a fascinating scene.  A young man (Linklater) has just gotten off a bus and is now en route to somewhere in a taxi. He begins telling the cabbie about a weird dream he had while riding on the bus, which leads into his theory concerning alternate realities. It's a clever little monologue that has become a staple of Linklater's films. It is also a fantastic way to start the film as this first scene acts as an introduction of sorts with Linklater himself kicking everything off by setting the tone. His films are wonderful non-narrative gems that appear at first glance to be about nothing in particular, but by their conclusion, reveal a lot about the big themes of life: love, sex, death, and the real meaning behind The Smurfs.

Made for only $23,000, Slacker is an aimless day in the life of the city of Austin, Texas, showcasing its more eccentric characters. The camera follows an individual, one pair of characters or a group until it gets bored and moves on to the next interesting conversation. This approach works well because as soon one segment runs too long we’re off on another tangent. Some people get several minutes of screen time, some only a few seconds. The segments vary tonally from amusing (the Moon conspiracy guy) to cryptic (the guy who mysteriously disappears, leaving a collection of postcards that explain what happened for his roommates to discover) to bizarre (the Madonna pap smear girl) to thought-provoking (the elder anarchist). It is this ingenious entropic structure — enhanced by Lee Daniel's excellent camerawork with long, uninterrupted takes — that really sets Slacker apart from other independent films.

Linklater’s film invites repeated viewings because there is so much going on — both in the foreground and the background. Slacker presents an interesting, annoying and funny assortment of characters: obsessive types, like the man who believes that we’ve been on the Moon since the 1950s with the aid of anti-gravity drives (“A lot of truth in the Late Late Show.”) and a JFK conspiracy buff who rambles on obsessively about the minutiae of various theories (not surprisingly he has written his own book tentatively titled, Profiles in Cowardice or Conspiracy A-Go-Go). Unlike a lot of films, Slacker requires the viewer to be active as opposed to being passive by presenting all of these seemingly disparate vignettes with little to no context. And so we are left wondering, for example, why the son hit his own mother with a car and then let himself get arrested.

There are also more poignant characters like an aging anarchist who surprises a would-be robber at his house and instead of turning him in, talks to him at length about the city’s rich history of anarchism. There is a strong pop culture vibe that informs several segments, from a girl enthusiastically trying to sell a sample of Madonna’s pap smear (“Getting down to the real Madonna,” she gushes) to a guy who deconstructs Scooby Doo as a tool for teaching bribery. All of these characters come across as everyday (in their own way) people in between jobs and often relegated to the margins of life. As they appear and disappear you begin to realize that the film is not as random as it seems but in fact is very structured with links between encounters becoming more apparent upon subsequent viewings. The film’s title is somewhat ironic in the sense that a lot of the characters are hardly idle, from the guy on his way to band practice to the guy working on getting his book of JFK assassination theories published, or the two grease monkeys that go scavenging for parts at a junkyard. A lot of people in this film are hustling towards some end, trying to achieve something.

Born in Houston, Texas, Richard Linklater studied literature in college with aspirations of becoming a writer. He left midway through his stint in school to work on an off-shore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. During that time, he read lots of literature, but on land he developed a love of film through repeated visits to a repertory theater in Houston. It was at this point that Linklater realized he wanted to be a filmmaker, first and foremost. "It took me a while," Linklater remembers, "and seeing a lot of movies, to realize that I wasn't really a writer: I had a visual thing, I could see films in my head." After his job on the oil rig, Linklater used the money he had saved to buy a Super-8 camera, a projector, some editing equipment, and moved to Austin. It was here that the aspiring cineaste founded a film society at the University of Texas and grew to appreciate such stylized auteurs like Robert Bresson, Yasujiro Ozu, Nagisa Oshima, and Josef Von Sternberg.

For several years Linklater made many short films that were, more than anything, exercises and experiments in film techniques. "I knew it was important not to try to say anything in my first couple of years, as I would probably get really frustrated and quit, because I wouldn't have the formal skill to achieve that thought." Finally, the young filmmaker completed his first feature, the rarely seen It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (1988), an 89-minute Super-8 feature that took him a year to shoot and another year to edit. Described by Linklater as a "kind of prequel to Slacker and a forerunner of Before Sunrise," the film is all about the "mind-set of travel" with more than half of the screen time taking place on an Amtrak train traveling around the United States. The rest of the film depicts the main character (Linklater) getting off in a town and wandering around for a while. It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books is significant in the sense that it establishes most of Linklater's preoccupations. Stylistically, the film contains his trademark minimal camera movements and lack of narrative, while thematically it examines the notions of traveling with no real particular direction in mind. These idiosyncrasies would be explored in greater detail in future projects.

Linklater first thought of the idea for Slacker in the early ‘80s and played around with it for five years before he felt it was the right time to make it. The content that would make up the film came from “conversations, crazy ideas, and actual experiences” that Linklater had, while also drawing inspiration from or adapting “bookish ideas or pre-existing texts.” For years, he had written down “weird little ideas,” and observations while also cutting out articles. At the time, he remembered that there was “a loose film scene” in Austin with “a lot of people sitting around wanting to make movies.” Linklater had managed to get 50 brand-new rolls of 16mm film stock and enough money to get half of it processed. To cut costs, he planned to hire a group of actors to work for one day. He ended up getting a lot of actors from local bands because they usually only worked a couple of nights a week or were unemployed.

Linklater raised the $23,000 budget with help from family, friends, and credit cards. He sold things and got donations of all sorts, from food to dolly tracks. Many of the people that appear in front of the camera were his friends or crew members, but most came from cards that were given out around town inviting people to be interviewed on video. “From there it was matching people to parts they seemed to embody the essence of … These were not only interesting, creative and courageous people, but also the ones serious enough to approach the rehearsal and shooting process in a professional manner,” Linklater said in a 1991 interview. After the cast had been selected, he wrote the dialogue and then rewrote it with the actors. During the rehearsal period, they made the material their own. Linklater spent years training as an actor and was confident that he could create a productive atmosphere and was amazed by the coming together of “witty and intelligent people” with a “common purpose in a playful atmosphere.”

Principal photography began in July 1989 after month of pre-production and casting. For daily costs, Linklater used a Shell card for anything from Gatorade to gasoline, “including snacks, because we didn’t have catering or meals – and signed it with a forged signature,” remembers the film’s cinematographer Lee Daniel. By the fall of 1989, Linklater had a rough cut that ran two hours and forty-five minutes. After he got the film down to a 105-minute running time, he was able to book two showings a day at the now-defunct Dobie Theatre in 1990. On the first weekend, it sold out every screening with large lines out front. Linklater and his crew had gone around town putting up posters and handing out flyers and stickers. Slacker continued to sell out for months, but it was rejected after being submitted to the Sundance Film Festival. Then, every major and minor film festival in the United States and Europe rejected it until finally it got accepted at the 1990 Seattle Film Festival where it was a big hit.

After becoming a sensation on the film festival circuit, Orion Classics blew up the original 16mm print to 35mm and began to distribute it. Slacker was released officially and nationally on July 5, 1991. Word of mouth, coupled with glowing reviews resulted in Slacker being heralded – along with Douglas Coupland’s book, Generation X – as a manifesto for a generation. Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, “We are listening in on a whole stratum of American life that never gets paid attention to in the movies … In a sense, Linklater has invented his whole style in order to listen to these people.” In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby called the film, “a 14-course meal composed entirely of desserts or, more accurately, a conventional film whose narrative has been thrown out and replaced by enough bits of local color to stock five years’ worth of ordinary movies.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film an “A-“ rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “Slacker has a marvelously low-key observational cool … the movie never loses its affectionate, shaggy-dog sense of America as a place in which people, by now, have almost too much freedom on their hands.” In his review for the Washington Post, Hal Hinson called it, “a work of scatterbrained originality, funny, unexpected and ceaselessly engaging.” The Austin Chronicle’s Chris Walters wrote, “it is one of the first American movies ever to find a form so apropos to the themes of disconnectedness and cultural drift.” Finally, in his review for the Chicago Reader, Jonathan Rosenbaum found the film to be “delightfully different and immensely enjoyable.”

Slacker became synonymous with Gen-X and vice versa with Linklater suddenly catapulted into the position of spokesperson for a generation – something that he did not feel comfortable with. Slacker also paved the way for countless Hollywood clones like Reality Bites (1993), which tried in vain to capture the essence of Gen-X, but came across more like an episode of the T.V. series, Friends. Slacker presented realistic settings with realistic people, warts and all, while Reality Bites introduced perfect looking people with perfect problems. Slacker inadvertently became one of the signature films for a generation of disaffected young people who were over-educated and underemployed. For better or for worse, the moniker “slacker” defined said generation.

For one summer, a college buddy and I were obsessed with Slacker and must’ve watched it countless times. It was quite unlike anything we’d ever seen before and really felt like not just a cinematic game changer, but a pop culture one as well. It was the same summer that we got into Beck’s debut album, Mellow Gold and in its own way that felt like a game changer as well, which is another reason why “Loser” and Slacker are linked together in my mind. For me, when I think of the early ‘90s, I think of them and they really provide a snapshot for where my head was at.

SOURCES

Dombal, Ryan. “Beck: 15 Years.” Pitchfork. August 17, 2011.

Linklater, Richard. “The Art of the Interview: Self-Revelation or Self-Torture?” Austin Chronicle. September 20, 1991.

Linklater, Richard. “Q&A with Richard Linklater.” Slacker. St. Martin’s Press. New York: 1992.

Lyons, Donald. Independent Visions. Ballantine. New York: 1994.

Raftery, Brian. “Slacker: 15 Years Later.” Austin Chronicle. July 5, 2006.

Savlov, Marc. “Slack to the Future.” Austin Chronicle. January 21, 2011.

My Science Project

My Science Project had the misfortune of being released during the summer of 1985 and competed with like-minded movies such as, Weird Science, Real Genius, Explorers, and Back to the Future. As a result, it got lost in the shuffle. This is nothing new as everyone knows how competitive Hollywood is and that summer saw studios trying to attract a youth audience with disposable income via teen comedies that mixed elements of science fiction to varying degrees. In retrospect, My Science Project suffered from a lack of recognizable names (Back to the Future had Michael J. Fox and Weird Science had Anthony Michael Hall) and a pretty unusual premise, but it more than made up for it with imagination, a welcome sense of humor and cool special effects.

Two weeks before graduation, high school senior Michael Harlan (John Stockwell) still hasn’t completed his science project because he’s been working a double shift down at Charlie’s garage, which eats up most of his free time. Bob (Dennis Hopper), his cool science teacher, lays it down for him in simple terms: no project = failing grade and no diploma. Harlan’s your typical gearhead (in a nice touch, when asked what’s his sign he replies, “Pontiac.”), much to the chagrin of his girlfriend Crystal (Pat Simmons) who is tired of being dragged to car shows and junkyards. She’s looking for romance straight out of the pages of Cosmopolitan magazine.

Harlan’s best friend Vince (Fisher Stevens) is a transplant from Brooklyn – a wisecracking Italian stereotype that anticipates the Jersey Shore reality television show by decades. Ellie Sawyer (Danielle von Zerneck) is a nerdy girl on the yearbook committee who is sweet on Harlan despite being the polar opposite of his dream girl. She asks him out anyway and much to her surprise he accepts, but mostly to make Crystal jealous. However, Harlan’s idea of a hot date is taking Ellie to a United States Air Force junkyard that used to be a military testing ground back in the 1950s. He’s looking for something to rebuild and use as his science project. They end up stumbling upon an old fallout shelter and Harlan uncovers a strange, pulsating gizmo that absorbs electricity, draining two flashlights and the battery in his car.

The next day, Harlan takes the gizmo to school and figures out how to activate it. In no time it begins to absorb more electricity and two historical objects materialize. Harlan and Vince realize that time has sped up by two hours. It turns out that the doo-dad warps time and space, causing things from other dimensions to appear. So, our heroes consult Sherman (Raphael Sbarge), a gawky nerd sweet on Ellie, to help them figure it out.

It’s safe to say that Dennis Hopper plays ex-hippie now science teacher Bob to perfection. It’s as if Billy, his character from Easy Rider (1969), somehow survived and became a high school educator. As you would expect, Hopper adds his own unique flourishes to the role, like in his first scene, where he lays down the law with Harlan, he proceeds to take a hit of oxygen after the student leaves. Was Hopper getting a little practice in before making Blue Velvet (1986) with David Lynch? Once the gizmo goes haywire, Hopper has a lot of fun morphing into a mad scientist as Bob loses his mind … or is experiencing one hell of an acid flashback.

Fisher Stevens plays Harlan’s sidekick and comic relief. The actor understands that Vince is all swagger and attitude, cracking jokes to break the tension and as a result, he gets the lion’s share of quotable dialogue, like when the gizmo puts on a snazzy little light show, Vince jokes, “I seen lights like this at an Ozzy Osborne concert.” John Stockwell’s Harlan is a little on the bland side. The actor does a fine job with what he has to work with, which ain’t much. He’s not the most charismatic actor and this may also be part of the problem. This allows Stevens to steal the scenes they have together as the much more colorful character.

Much like Jordan in Real Genius, Ellie is a smart and beautiful nerd. She starts off as a strong, independent character, but by the film’s exciting climax she’s basically reduced to a damsel in distress that Harlan must rescue. That being said, Danielle von Zerneck and Stockwell have good chemistry together as evident in a nice scene where Harlan and Ellie learn something about each other and he confesses to her that he’s better with cars than with people because he trusts them more. 1980s mainstay Richard Masur shows up as a laconic lawman complete with cigar and ten gallon hat. Veteran character actor Barry Corbin plays Harlan’s good-natured single dad and Raphael Sbarge is quite good as the hopelessly geeky Sherman. I like how in one scene we see him deeply immersed in Frank Herbert’s Dune. Nice touch.

For the time and the budget they had, the special effects for My Science Project are pretty impressive, gradually building in scope and spectacle over time as the gizmo gains more power, culminating with Harlan, Vince and Sherman making their way through the mist-enshrouded corridors of their high school caught in the heart of a multi-dimensional warp. Our heroes soon find themselves doing battle with various historical figures from primitive man to Roman gladiators, which are just a warm-up for the main event involving a fantastic stop-motion animated beastie as the school gym is transformed into the Jurassic era. Naturally, if this film were made today it’d all be CGI’ed to death and so, the old school effects give everything a tangible quality that seems more real.

In the early ‘80s, Jonathan Betuel worked for a Madison Avenue advertising firm while writing screenplays in his spare time. His persistence paid off when his script for The Last Starfighter (1984) was made. He used this buzz to shop around his script for My Science Project, but would only go with a studio that would allow him to direct it and include an exciting battle between the protagonists and Tyrannosaurus Rex. Producer Jonathan Taplin (The Last Waltz), who was making the effects-heavy dinosaur movie Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend (1985), liked Betuel’s pitch and based on the strength of his work on The Last Starfighter, agreed to make My Science Project under his Touchstone Pictures production agreement.

Betuel was a huge science fiction fan and employed the structure of placing ordinary people in extraordinary situations as he remarked in an interview, “You must start with one foot in reality, so you can take that next big step somewhere else.” He cited George Pal’s The Time Machine (1960) as partially inspiring his film as well as various theories about time warps being linked to black holes allowing travel through time and space: “I think a time-space warp is a logical and interesting development. That’s the theoretical jumping-off point that I used.” He wrote 14 drafts over 14 weeks on evenings and weekends during principal photography on The Last Starfighter.

Principal photography began in August 1984 with a $10 million budget, $500,000 of which was spent on the T-Rex sequence, and lasted for ten weeks with November dedicated to filming the live-action aspects of the aforementioned set piece. For the puppetry aspects of the T-Rex, the studio had considered Phil Tippett, but he was unable to do it because of busy schedule with The Ewok Adventure. The next person they approached was Rick Baker, but he hedged his bets, not having worked since Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984), but eventually took on a consultant role. It is a testimony to Betuel’s strong script and powers of persuasion that a novice director like himself was able to enlist the likes of veteran make-up FX artist Baker and actor Dennis Hopper, the latter whom met with Betuel three times before agreeing to do the film.

My Science Project received mixed reviews from what few critics saw it. In his review for The New York Times, Stephen Holden felt that the film, “started out as a likable teen-age comedy with snappy repartee, turns into a dull, heavy-handed series of encounters between the kids and stick-figure historical creatures that materialize behind overturned gym lockers.” The Globe and Mail’s Salem Alaton wrote, “Because of all the flubbed secondary characters in My Science Project carries around, it hardly coheres until its big moment, and then it simply goes kablooey.” In his review for Newsweek magazine, David Ansen found the “principal pleasure” of the film to be Dennis Hopper’s performance and little else.

If My Science Project teaches us anything it’s that we shouldn’t meddle in things we don’t understand, especially when it threatens the very fabric of our existence. Of all the teen science fiction films to come out in ’85, Back to the Future was easily the most popular, Real Genius went on to develop a small cult following, while My Science Project was relegated to obscurity, not regarded with the same nostalgic love as say Joe Dante’s Explorers. It’s too bad because My Science Project is arguably the most unabashedly fantastical and funny of them all. This particular trend of film reached its zenith with Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989), which closed out the ‘80s with a light-hearted romp through time and space featuring two goofballs also trying to make their way to the end of the school year. I guess I have a soft spot in my heart for My Science Project as I saw it at an impressionable age. Looking at it after all these years it has aged pretty well and was as fun and entertaining as I remember it being back in the day.

This review was inspired by two excellent takes on this film - The Film Connoisseur and Junta Juleil's Culture Shock.

SOURCES

Lowry, Brian. "Jonathan Betuel: SF Fan, SF Filmmaker." Starlog. June 1985.

Rebello, Stephen. "Shooting for an 'A' on My Science Project." Cinefex. August 1985.

Falling from Grace

Rock stars that attempt to make the move from the stage to the big screen are often met with cynicism and outright condemnation. Just look at how the likes of David Bowie, Sting and especially Madonna have been regarded by critics. With the notable exception of Bowie, most of the criticism has been warranted as either their on-stage charisma failed to translate on-screen or they just delivered terrible performances. And so, when John Mellencamp made, not just his acting debut, but also directing, it was anticipated as merely the latest rock star hubris.

However, several critics were surprised at how good Falling from Grace (1992) was. Mellencamp was smart in that he didn’t stray far from his strengths by portraying a successful singer/songwriter who returns home to face his past. Known for making music that not only celebrates America’s heartland, but also examines its darker aspects, he wisely asked author Larry McMurtry to write the screenplay. His novels Horseman, Pass By and The Last Picture Show feature the kinds of characters that Mellencamp wrote about in many of his songs so the two of them seemed like a good fit. Unfortunately, Falling from Grace was barely released in theaters and tanked at the box office. It was quickly relegated to obscurity and regarded as yet another example of rock star folly, but deserves to be rediscovered.

Bud Parks (John Mellencamp) is a successful musician who returns home for his grandfather’s 80th birthday and on the surface he’s greeted with warm smiles and open arms, but old wounds are soon reopened. As with his songs, Mellencamp has a good eye for the details of life in Middle America with its small-towns populated by pickup trucks of everyday people struggling to get by. Bud’s sister Sally (Deirdre O’Connell) is upset because her husband Mitch (John Prine) drinks too much and is never around. Bud’s brother Parker (Brent Huff) is married to P.J. (Kay Lenz), the musician’s high school sweetheart. There’s still something between her and Bud, which surfaces upon his return, much to the chagrin of his wife Alice (Mariel Hemingway). The main source of strife stems from Bud’s father Speck (Claude Akins), a real piece of work whose past bad behavior casts a dark cloud over the entire family.

Falling from Grace is a character-driven film propelled by their behavior as opposed to the plot. Fortunately, McMurtry’s script is populated by well-developed characters with complicated relationships between them. As he demonstrated with books like The Last Picture Show, McMurtry has an innate understanding of how small-towns work and the secrets that exist in the people that populate them. Mellencamp came from this kind of town and so he is able to tap into the author’s sensibilities rather comfortably and confidently for he not only knows these people, he is one of them. As a result, we get a montage of picturesque small-town America and Bud interacting with various townsfolk. Where an outsider might look at these people condescendingly, Mellencamp has an affinity and affection for them.

On the acting front, Mellencamp wisely doesn’t stray from his comfort zone, playing a character close to himself and thanks to the music videos he’s done over the years, the singer is comfortable in front of the camera. Some reviewers saw Falling from Grace as a vanity project, but Mellencamp portrays Bud as a character full of flaws. One gets the impression that Bud left town to avoid turning out like his father and was successful, but returning has also brought back old habits. Alice even calls him on it, reminding him that he didn’t grow up until he left town and that if he stays home he’ll end up just like Speck. Mellencamp understands this push and pull dynamic all too well because he’s lived it. He gets and conveys the contradictions that exist within Bud, which is quite an accomplishment from a novice actor.

It helps that Mellencamp surrounds himself with veteran actors like Mariel Hemingway and Claude Akins, with the former playing Bud’s strong and smart wife, and the latter playing his monstrous father. Hemingway eschews the trophy wife stereotype by playing a woman that loves her husband, but refuses to live in a toxic environment like the one she finds herself upon returning with Bud to his hometown. Akins is very good as an abusive man who specializes in sleeping with married women and who is used to getting what he wants, not caring who he hurts in the process.

Originally, John Mellencamp was approached to star in films like the ones Elvis Presley did, but he wasn’t interested nor did he want to make his life story. He had always written songs about small-towns and was interested in making a film about one that would be an extension of his songwriting. Around 1982 or 1983, he got together with long-time friend and author Larry McMurtry at his home in Indiana. He stayed with Mellencamp for a week and during that time they talked about a story involving a successful Los Angeles country singer who returns to his small-town to rediscover his roots. They both agreed that they would not romanticize the subject as Mellencamp remarked, “I never liked putting rose-colored glasses on things.” McMurtry returned home and wrote the screenplay, which was then called The Kentuckian. The project bounced around four different studios over 10 years with an initial budget of $20 million, but none of them were willing to finance it unless Mellencamp sang in it and did not direct. He stuck to his guns and Columbia Pictures eventually agreed to back it, but only if he could do it for a lean $3 million. The singer agreed.

Prior to making the film, Mellencamp had come off a grueling tour for The Lonesome Jubilee album and contemplated retiring from touring. He took up oil painting as a hobby, which excited him more than making albums. Three years and one divorce later, he had finished another record and made Falling from Grace. In order to get the film made on a modest budget, Mellencamp called in a lot of favors from friends and acquaintances. Appearing in music videos helped Mellencamp act in front of the camera, but running a group of musicians helped prepare him for directing: “In rock ‘n’ roll you’ve got the roadies; in movies you’ve got all the technical people. Then there’s the talent – the guys in the band and the actors. In both jobs, you move these people around and direct them.”

Over that time, the film’s title had changed to Riding the Cage until principal photography when Larry Crane, one of Mellencamp’s bandmates, wrote a song called, “Falling from Grace.” Mellencamp liked it so much that he decided to name the film after it. Not surprisingly, music plays an important role in the film. In addition to Crane’s song, Nanci Griffith supplied one called “Cradle of the Interstate,” Janis Ian provided “Days Like These,” and Mellencamp wrote “Sweet Suzanne,” assembling a group to record it that consisted of himself, McMurtry’s son James, Joe Ely, Dwight Yoakam, and John Prine, who also wrote a song called, “All the Best” for the film.

Falling from Grace received mostly positive reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and wrote, “Mellencamp turns out to have a real filmmaking gift. His film is perceptive and subtle, and doesn’t make the mistake of thinking that because something is real, it makes good fiction. The characters created here with McMurtry are three-dimensional and full realized.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “B” rating and Owen Gleiberman called it, “a movie of heart, subtlety, and dramatic zest.” In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “Mr. Mellencamp does bring out the naturalness of his actors, and he has assembled a large and believable cast. Although his own performance is often passive, he is surrounded by characters who have a galvanizing effect.”

However, the Globe and Mail’s Jay Scott wrote, “This thorough embarrassment, the cinematic version of vanity publishing, takes 45 minutes to begin to be about anything … and ends up being about nothing at all – except Mellencamp’s desire to direct a movie starring himself.” USA Today gave it two out of four stars and Mike Clark wrote, “The result, sincere to a fault, plays like a collection of soul-bearing scenes that couldn’t be jury-rigged to dramatic effect.” Mellencamp blamed the film’s commercial failure on a lack of advertising from the studio and said, “It wasn’t something that could come out of the chute real strong and finish real quick, and make millions for the company … Ten years ago – 20 years, maybe – people found those little movies interesting. They just don’t anymore.”

Bud is used to the rarefied atmosphere of a celebrity where everyone tells him what he wants to hear and this makes him susceptible to bad habits. He’s grounded by the women in his life – his wife and his sister – that aren’t afraid to call him on his bad behavior, but it is ultimately up to him to change. Once he realizes this and then acts on it can he finally put the past behind him. Falling from Grace is a slice of Americana, albeit one that celebrates the postcard perfect façade as well as exposing the dirty secrets that exists underneath. This film is a potent example of the old adage that you can’t go home again.

SOURCES

Bream, Jon. “Renaissance Rocker.” Star Tribune. March 6, 1992.

Falling from Grace Production Notes 1992.

Graff, Gary. “Mellencamp Film Finished After 9 Years.” Baltimore Sun. November 20, 1991.

Harris, Paul A. “The World’s A Canvas for John Mellencamp.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. June 22, 1992.

Kot, Greg. “Mellencamp Tries His Hand at Film.” Chicago Tribune. January 19, 1992.

Larsen, Dave. “There’s Still A Little Cougar in the Art and Artistry of John Mellencamp.” Vancouver Sun. February 26, 1992.

MacInnis, Craig. “No American Fool.” Toronto Star. February 16, 1992.

Bachelor Party

I had to laugh when I read reviews describing the raunchy comedy The Hangover (2009) as "fresh" and "edgy." Obviously, these critics had never seen Bachelor Party (1984), which came out in the mid-1980s and is a much edgier, raunchier comedy because it was made at a time when movies like that could get away with a lot more. Does The Hangover have a donkey snorting lines of cocaine? I think not. Does The Hangover have a two-time Oscar winner playing its protagonist? I think not. Yes, Bachelor Party stars a so unfunny it's funny Tom Hanks in a performance I'm sure he'd like to forget as Rick Gassko, a wild and crazy guy (in the Steve Martin sense) whose friends throw him a bachelor party to end all bachelor parties.

Like many protagonists in ‘80s comedies, he is a man-child with a job befitting his social status: school bus driver. His best friends also have blue-collar jobs – department store portrait photographer, incompetent mechanic, concert ticket seller, and barely literate waiter. They all work 9 to 5 jobs and live for the weekend. If you like raunchy comedies from the '80s featuring Adrian Zmed, then this one might be for you. Bachelor Party sets out to offend as many people as possible and succeeds. So, here are 15 highlights (or lowlights depending on your view) from this beautiful disaster of a movie that has fascinated me and my friends for years.

1. “Let’s have a bachelor party! With chicks and guns and fire trucks and hookers and drugs and booze!” Rudy (Barry Diamond) is the obvious John Belushi surrogate, a vulgar party animal that shoves food in his mouth, smashes beer bottles against his head when excited, and makes a toast to “girls with big tits” without a hint of irony.

 

2. Tawny Kitaen: She plays Debbie, Rick’s fiancée who works with her friends at a hip (well, for the ‘80s) clothing store. People tend to forget that Tawny was quite the sex symbol back in the day thanks in large part to the Whitesnake music videos she appeared in three years after her stint in Bachelor Party. Here, she plays Rick’s dream girl – all adorable curls and instantly dated new wave fashion sense. There’s something nice about seeing her at the apex of her hotness instead of the hot tabloid mess she later became known for.

3. “A little vino would be keen-o.” Early in his career, Tom Hanks was known for appearing in popular comedies like Splash (1984) and Big (1988) so it’s rather interesting to see him so thoroughly unfunny in this movie. Every joke he tells feels forced and falls flat, from his unorthodox cooking skills to crappy tennis playing. In fact, it gets so bad that he becomes unintentionally funny. This is no more apparent than in the scene where Rick prepares dinner for Debbie and himself culminating in a hilariously awkward moment where he selects Paprika to be his spice of choice for the meal. It makes you long for the meaningful subtext in The Man With One Red Shoe (1985).

4. Slobs vs. Snobs: Animal House (1978) laid down the blueprint for so many other comedies to follow and Bachelor Party is no different as Debbie’s very rich, ultra-conservative parents understandably disapprove of their beautiful daughter marrying an “immature asshole.” Her father (George Grizzard) even lists off all of Rick’s bad qualities, which only provokes the future son-in-law to be more obnoxious (and unfunny) at a lunch with her folks.

5. Cole (Robert Prescott): Every slobs vs. snobs comedy has to have a villain. When he’s not crushing tennis balls with one hand, Cole is enlisted by Debbie’s dad to pay off Rick and when that doesn’t work he proceeds to repeatedly sabotage the bachelor party. Much like William Atherton, Prescott was typecast in the ‘80s for playing asshole antagonists and would go on to play the dimwitted bully in Real Genius (1985). Fortunately, the actor managed to escape playing a lifetime of pompous jerks when he appeared as an efficient corporate assassin in Michael Clayton (2007).

6. Brad (Bradford Bancroft): Hey, if you can’t laugh at a suicidal drug addict, then who can you laugh at? The filmmakers will go to any lengths to get a laugh and at one point poor Brad tries to slash his wrists with an electric razor prompting Rick to deadpan, “Well, at least your wrists will be smooth and kissable.”

7. Battle of the Sexes: Throughout Bachelor Party, Rick and his friends play practical jokes on Debbie and her pals only for them to retaliate. For example, when O’Neill (Adrian Zmed) screens a porno for his buddies they find out that all the dirty bits have been cut out. So, when the girls go to see some male strippers, the guys pay one of them to serve some food with his dick in a hot dog bun. Hey, they don’t call him Nick the Dick for nothing.

8. “You’re a pimp? You look like Gandhi!” The film’s casual attitude towards racism first rears its head with an Indian pimp that supplies Rick’s party with hookers. He’s actually not too bad – certainly better than Ken Jeong’s overt Asian stereotype in The Hangover. However, Bachelor Party more than makes up for it later on.

9. The Power of Zmed: Photographer, fashionista, singer (but only with all-girl bands) – Adrian Zmed is a true renaissance man. He was all things to all men, and judging from his antics in Bachelor Party, several women as well. With Hanks proving to be consistently unfunny throughout the movie, Zmed picks up the slack and makes Bachelor Party halfway watchable as Rick’s best friend O’Neill. Maybe it’s that he doesn’t have any pressure to carry the picture and that frees him up to steal it away from Hanks as he channels Tim Matheson at his smarmy best in Animal House with his smartass ladies man. Or maybe it’s his raw sexuality. Hell, Zmed is even able sell crude lines like, “Hey, look at the cans on that bimbo,” and make them sound amusing.

10. Sex with a transvestite: Nerdy concert ticket seller Gary (Gary Grossman) finally hooks up with a woman and she turns out to be a transvestite named Tim, which sends a stunned Gary to the bathroom for a Silkwood shower. You have to hand it to the filmmakers for leaving no stone unturned when it comes to offending. Yep, they even try to piss off transvestites with this crude joke.

11. Gratuitous nudity: ‘80s R-rated comedies were known for their liberal, dare I say cavalier use of nudity. Remember, this was before the Internet when people had to rent videos to get their fix. O’Neill sets Rick up with Tracey (played by Penthouse Pet Monique Gabrielle) and while she offers up her fetching naked body, he can’t do it because he’s loyal to Debbie.

12. “Any of you guys from out of town?” Debbie and her friends decide to infiltrate Rick’s bachelor party dressed as hookers only to get mistaken as actual prostitutes and are delivered to a room full of pervy Asian businessmen in the movie’s most blatantly racist moment. Even more disturbing is when one of Debbie’s friends stays behind so that everyone else can escape; thereby implying that she is gangbanged by the Asian businessmen.

13. Max the Magical Sexual Mule: “Something interesting is going to happen here,” foretells Rick as an exotic dancer and her mule entertain the bachelor party. While she’d dancing, Max decides to help himself to a buffet of pills and three lines of cocaine. He then proceeds to go apeshit and promptly drops dead from an overdose/heart attack thus saving us all from an inevitable bestiality gag. The Hangover has a tiger? Big deal. They don’t have Max whose drug habit would make Hunter S. Thompson proud.

14. Best reaction shot EVER! Now, there's an actor who knows how to commit to a performance. Our heroes hide the recently deceased Max only for the beleaguered hotel manager to discover the animal. His scream of revulsion still haunts me to this day.

15. “This is the best 3-D I’ve ever seen!” The early ‘80s saw a revival of 3-D movies and Bachelor Party decided to spoof/comment the trend by having the climactic showdown between Cole and Rick take place in a movie theater with their fight mirroring the one the audience is watching in a meta moment evoking Sherlock, Jr. (1924). Take that Buster Keaton! As an added bonus, they also parody the notion of multiplexes by having Rick and co. search through 36 theaters crammed in one building; including one “screening room” that is a janitor’s closet.

And with Cole vanquished, Rick and Debbie get married and head off for the honeymoon in his school bus with Brad driving, having found a new lease on life. Tom Hanks would never look back, going on to become a well-respected, award-winning actor, while everyone else involved with Bachelor Party wasn’t as successful, most of them are still working in show business in some form or another. Now that he’s become a well-respected actor, one would expect Hanks to pretend that the movie never happened or embarrassed by it, but on the contrary, in 2009 he did an interview with Empire magazine and said, “I’m proud of a lot of the stuff in Bachelor Party. I think I’d just turned 27 years old and I’m ripping it up. We all did. Ripped it up.” That you did, sir. That you did.

Special thanks go to Matt and Rob for their spot-on observations and recollections that were invaluable to this article.