THE EXPERTS (1989)
Filmed in 1987, The Experts sat on a shelf for more than a year before Paramount decided to release it in '89, and when it did reach theatres it was a huge failure. Made on a budget of $3 million, it earned just $169,203 at the box office... and its failure is somewhat understandable. It's not a great movie, and it doesn't have the most appealing concept. And yet it's a movie that has a place in my mind for thirty years - even though I'm not even sure if I ever sat through the entire movie before watching it in 2020. I have memories from my childhood of at least catching glimpses of The Experts on television. I remember certain moments; the big dance scene, the montage set to a cover of "Back in the U.S.S.R." Because of these memories, this movie has always been among those I've most strongly associated with star John Travolta. Even when watching the dance scene in Pulp Fiction, I sometimes have flashbacks to the dance scene in The Experts.
Directed by Dave Thomas (the SCTV one, not the Wendy's one), the film stars Travolta and Arye Gross (who was given some atrocious wardrobe to strut around in) as Travis and Wendell, a couple guys who are big into the New York club scene - which makes them prime candidates to run the new club that's about to open in Indian Springs, Nebraska, a small town that seems to be stuck in the 1950s. At least, that's the job that's offered to them by a fellow who calls himself Mr. Smith (played Charles Martin Smith). Smith actually works for the Russian government, and during their flight to "Nebraska" he slips Travis and Wendell a sedative. When they wake up, they don't realize the flight was much longer than it was supposed to be. That's because the Indian Springs they wake up in isn't in the United States. It's an exact replica of Indian Springs that has been set up in the heart of the Soviet Union. Everyone in town lives as if they're an English-speaking American citizen, but they're really Russian agents participating in a study of American life. The Indian Springs idea of American life is now a bit outdated, though, so Mr. Smith wanted to bring in some real Americans who can pull the town's style and sensibilities into modern times. That's where Travis and Wendell come in.
The Americans find the town to be quite odd, but they still set out to do what they were hired to do and open a cool new club in Indian Springs. Along the way, they find some potential local love interests when they meet Bonnie (Kelly Preston) and Jill (Deborah Foreman). The Experts may not have done much for Travolta's career, but choosing to star in it turned out to be a very important decision for his personal life, because this production was how he met Kelly Preston. That dance scene I keep mentioning takes place at the club, and Travolta and Preston are the dancers.
Writers Nick Thiel, Steven Greene, and Eric Alter crafted a story that was very much of its time, and Thomas turned it into a film that's pleasant enough to sit through and delivers some laughs here and there. Aside from offering the chance to see how Travolta and Preston first connected, there's not much about it that makes it something that's really worth seeking out, but once it's playing in front of you it turns out to be a decent way to spend 93 minutes.
About halfway through, James Keach arrives to liven things up, turning in a very amusing performance as a pilot named Yuri, who hasn't quite mastered the English language.
SCREAM, QUEEN! MY NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2018)
For decades, all genre fans knew about Mark Patton was that he had a couple acting jobs before taking the lead role in 1985's A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge, had a couple after that, and then he just disappeared. That's all Patton wanted people to know. Shaken by the reception of Freddy's Revenge and dealing with personal tragedy, he quit the entertainment business and purposely vanished. He wasn't heard from again until he was found, living on a dirt road in Mexico, and interviewed for the 2010 Elm Street franchise documentary Never Sleep Again. After agreeing to talk with the makers of that documentary, Patton decided to emerge from hiding and face his past. To allow fans to catch up on where he's been and why he decided to quit acting, he teamed with directors Roman Chimienti and Tyler Jensen to make a fascinating documentary on his own life.
Part of the reason why Patton disappeared is that he was troubled to realize just how strong the gay subtext of Freddy's Revenge was. He's gay himself, but in '85 that was not meant to be public knowledge; not only was homosexuality generally frowned upon at that time, the mysterious AIDS epidemic had made a lot of people flat-out afraid of gay people. When his agent told him that Freddy's Revenge had proven that he "can't play straight", it was crushing. Then came the reactions from homophobic viewers of the film. It was, understandably, too much for Patton to handle. Factor in the way AIDS affected his own life, and it's completely understandable that he went away for a couple decades.
Scream, Queen! is a fascinating look at the life of an actor we hadn't known much about up to this point, and reveals that he has gone through tragedies and hardships that I wouldn't have even imagined he had endured. This also serves as Patton's announcement that he is ready to embrace his role as an '80s horror icon, and as a role model to gay viewers of Freddy's Revenge who saw representation in that film to a degree that they didn't often find in horror movies.
I found Scream, Queen! to be captivating from beginning to end, and it also made for an emotional viewing experience from time to time. I'm not a huge fan of Freddy's Revenge, although I have seen it many times, but I still got wrapped up in learning Patton's story, and was left with a greater appreciation for both Freddy's Revenge and Patton's role in it.
COMA (2019)
Director Nikita Argunov's Russian sci-fi adventure film Coma drops viewers right into the action. There is no build-up, there's no way for us to prepare for what we're about to see. We meet an architect named Viktor (Rinal Mukhametov) as he wakes up in a strange world where some kind of dark substance appears to be eating away at structures and the people he crosses paths with. He runs out into the street and sees a sight reminiscent of scenes from Inception and Doctor Strange; the sight of a world folding in on itself, gravity defying locations from around the globe visible in all directions. There's Big Ben hanging down from the sky, right next to a sideways Empire State Building jutting out of nowhere. And if that weren't crazy and confusing enough to Viktor, who has clearly never seen this world before, he then gets attacked by a shadowy, monstrous creature we'll find out is called a Reaper.
Viktor is saved from the Reaper by a squad of soldiers - including Lyubov Aksyonova as Fly - and a chase sequence begins, the Reaper pursuing the people through this topsy turvy world. A jump straight down off a broken stairway leads to them sliding down a street in China, they run through a doorway and they're in Venice, where they jump out over the water and find themselves falling upward onto a rooftop in some other place. It's exciting, it's visually stunning, it's really clever, and it's clear that the filmmakers had a healthy budget at their disposal.
It's not long before we find out why the movie is called Coma. Viktor and everyone else in this world are actually in a coma; everybody who is in a coma comes to this place, which has been constructed based on their memories. That's why there are locations from all over mixed together, and why there are gaps or incongruities in the surroundings. There are gaps in memories, and different people have different memories of the same thing. The soldiers Viktor has been rescued by live a post-apocalyptic lifestyle, stuck in a war with the Reapers, who can turn the people they touch into one of them. Luckily, these soldiers they don't just have guns and grenades to fight their enemies with. Reminiscent of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, some of the characters here have their own special abilities. Phantom (Anton Pampushnyy) has superhuman strength and speed, Spirit (Polina Kuzminskaya) can conjure up "ghosts" of people to fool their enemies with, Astronomer (Milos Bikovic) is able to map out the coma world, Fly can heal wounds, etc. Now Viktor has to figure out what his special ability is. The group is led by Konstantin Lavronenko as Yan, and he is how they know they're all in a coma. He woke up from his coma at one point, then came back with the information, including the news that one day in waking reality is at least one hundred days to someone in the coma world. If Viktor is in his coma for a long time, there's a chance he could end up living a thousand years in the coma world.
Coma feels like a blend of Inception, Dream Warriors, and The Matrix, and its standout sequence comes roughly one-third of the way into it, when the soldiers raid a well-guarded building where they can stock up on explosives. This is the most fun the movie ever gets, offering the sight of the soldiers battling armed security guards in the twisted geography of the coma world; characters firing guns at people who are standing upside down on ground above their head, objects being tossed from the gravity of one level into the gravity of another. Viewers may think that this is just a precursor to a climactic action sequence that will be even bigger and better, that the explosives the soldiers gather here are going to be of great importance later on. But that's not the case. After this, Coma subverts expectations, reveals further information, and becomes something different in the second half. Something more psychological. This sort of action never comes back into play, which I found disappointing.
The first half of the film is fascinating, I was totally invested as I watched Viktor figure out the rules of this world and get caught up in big action scenes. The second half is slower and more low-key, and I wasn't quite as enthralled by it anymore. It was still interesting and enjoyable, but I was hoping for more than what it had to offer. However, I could see other viewers getting pulled in even more once that midway-or-so shift happens.
The second half may be divisive, but overall Coma is an impressive feature directorial debut for VFX artist Argunov, who also wrote the screenplay with Timofei Dekin and Aleksey Gravitskiy. This movie feels massive, almost on par with a Hollywood blockbuster, and it's packed with dazzling visuals. I would encourage fans of sci-fi action / adventure movies to check it out, and I'm looking forward to seeing what Argunov will do next.
The Coma review originally appeared on ArrowintheHead.com
WAKING UP IN RENO (2002)
Waking Up in Reno was barely released back in 2002, and reached a small amount of theatres right in the midst of the Halloween season, which isn't a great time to be releasing a comedy. So it makes sense if you never heard about this movie before, despite the fact that it's carried by a impressive cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Patrick Swayze, Charlize Theron, and Natasha Richardson.
Directed by Jordan Brady from a script written by Mark Fauser and character actor Brent Briscoe, the film follows two married couples - scumbag car salesman Lonnie Earl Dodd (Thornton) and his sweet wife Darlene (Richardson), and their pals Roy (Swayze) and Candy (Theron) Kirkendall - as they set out on a road trip from Little Rock, Arkansas to see a monster truck jam in Reno, Nevada. This trip turns out to be a disaster when it's revealed that Lonnie Earl and Candy have slept together a couple times, despite the fact that Roy and Candy are very sexually active and have been putting their best effort into starting a family. Now that Candy is pregnant, they have to question whether the father is Lonnie Earl or Roy.
All of the leads turn in good performances as their cornpone characters, there are a lot of amusing lines thrown around, and Thornton is especially funny as the sleazy, thoroughly unpleasant Lonnie Earl.
If you're a fan of the Thornton film Bad Santa, there's a chance you'll be able to get some chuckles out of this one. It's not nearly as good as that Christmas classic, but its foul-mouthed, inappropriate sense of humor almost makes it feels like it was Thornton's test run for his Santa days.
WAKING UP IN RENO (2002)
Waking Up in Reno was barely released back in 2002, and reached a small amount of theatres right in the midst of the Halloween season, which isn't a great time to be releasing a comedy. So it makes sense if you never heard about this movie before, despite the fact that it's carried by a impressive cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Patrick Swayze, Charlize Theron, and Natasha Richardson.
Directed by Jordan Brady from a script written by Mark Fauser and character actor Brent Briscoe, the film follows two married couples - scumbag car salesman Lonnie Earl Dodd (Thornton) and his sweet wife Darlene (Richardson), and their pals Roy (Swayze) and Candy (Theron) Kirkendall - as they set out on a road trip from Little Rock, Arkansas to see a monster truck jam in Reno, Nevada. This trip turns out to be a disaster when it's revealed that Lonnie Earl and Candy have slept together a couple times, despite the fact that Roy and Candy are very sexually active and have been putting their best effort into starting a family. Now that Candy is pregnant, they have to question whether the father is Lonnie Earl or Roy.
All of the leads turn in good performances as their cornpone characters, there are a lot of amusing lines thrown around, and Thornton is especially funny as the sleazy, thoroughly unpleasant Lonnie Earl.
If you're a fan of the Thornton film Bad Santa, there's a chance you'll be able to get some chuckles out of this one. It's not nearly as good as that Christmas classic, but its foul-mouthed, inappropriate sense of humor almost makes it feels like it was Thornton's test run for his Santa days.
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