We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.
'80s comedy, modern horror, and the films of Larry Cohen.
THE SURE THING (1985)
There was a stretch of time when I wasn't sure which John Cusack movie was Hot Pursuit and which one was The Sure Thing, but after watching both movies within the last year I think I have finally figured them out. You can't go wrong by watching either one, they're both entertaining '80s teen comedies, and they're both about Cusack going on troubled journeys in hopes of catching up with a girl.
In Hot Pursuit, he was trying to find his girlfriend in the Caribbean. In The Sure Thing, Cusack's character Walter Gibson goes on a cross-country trip from the college he's attending in New England to the school his friend Lance (Anthony Edwards) is going to in California, because Lance has told him there's a girl there (played by Nicollette Sheridan) who is a "sure thing". Meaning she's guaranteed to have sex with Gib if she meets him because she's fresh out of parochial school and feeling experimental. Gib is no virgin, he had sex a handful of times in high school, but hasn't had any luck since his junior year - senior year in high school and freshman year of college have not been good for him. He can't motivate himself to pursue girls like he used to, he wonders if he's past his prime. He needs the sure thing.
Unfortunately, Gib is joined on this journey by Alison Bradbury (Daphne Zuniga), a stuffy classmate who is one of the girls who has shot him down recently. Gib and Alison are complete opposites; he thinks it's necessary to do something stupid and spontaneous regularly, while she's very proper and follows a strict schedule she has made for herself. So of course they're going to end up falling for each other by the end of the movie, even if they can't stand each other at first, and even though Alison is going to California to visit her equally serious and responsible boyfriend. If this were a more modern movie, we'd probably see them both make positive improvements to themselves during their time together. Gib could teach Alison that she needs to allow herself to live a little, while Alison could teach Gib that he needs to take some things in life seriously. But character growth isn't required for Gib to make this work. He remains himself, and he teaches Alison how to enjoy his favorite activity, which is shotgunning beers.
Gib and Alison don't travel together on purpose, they both just happen to catch a ride with the same couple who posted on a ride board that they were going to California. That's Gary Cooper (Tim Robbins) and his girlfriend Mary Ann Webster (Lisa Jane Persky), who are bummed when Gib and Alison won't sing show tunes with them and are soon forced to throw the pair out of their car. Gib and Alison then have to work together to get the rest of the way across the country, and things do not go smoothly for them. One of the standout moments comes when Alison hitches a ride on her own and Gib has to save her from the creepy old man who picked her up.
Directed by Rob Reiner from a screenplay by Steven L. Bloom and Jonathan Roberts, The Sure Thing is a really fun movie that's carried by terrific performances from Cusack and Zuniga. While Zuniga has to play it straight for the most part, Cusack got to show off his comedic skills, which is something I'd love to see him do more of at this point in his career.
This film earns bonus points from me due to the fact that Gib and Alison's English teacher is played by Viveca Lindfors, who I will always think of as Bedelia from Creepshow.
DEMENTER (2019)
Jug Face writer/director Chad Crawford Kinkle's Dementer is a slow burn horror movie that hooks you with the thought that maybe something interesting and/or shocking enough will happen at the end that enduring its 81 minutes of trippy sights and sounds will turn out to be a rewarding experience. Unfortunately, at the point when I was ready for some clarity and straightforward storytelling, Kinkle just made things even weirder and more experimental, so in the end I can't say I found Dementer to be a satisfying movie to watch.
The story begins with a mysterious woman named Katie (Katie Groshong) taking a job at a home for adults with special needs, but it's clear right from the start that Katie is not in a healthy state of mind. She keeps having jarring flashbacks to - we can quickly deduce - the time she spent in a strange cult, led by a guy who's played by Larry Fessenden and likes to go on and on about "the devils" that are out there. There are admittedly some intriguing visuals in these flashbacks, and when those visuals are mixed with the sound design Dementer does have a bit of a '70s feel to it, but my appreciation and tolerance for these flashbacks started to fade before long. They happen too frequently, they're too vague, and they get to be too repetitive. (How many times do you need to hear Fessenden count to thirteen?) I can't really tell you exactly what happened while Katie was in the cult. I know it wasn't good, but I definitely couldn't explain it all.
The best thing about Dementer isn't the horror, it's the interactions Katie and her co-workers have with the people under their care. At least most and likely all of the actors who play characters with special needs really do have special needs, and they are very endearing. One of those characters with special needs is Stephanie, a woman with Down's Syndrome who is played by Kinkle's own sister Stephanie Kinkle.
When Stephanie falls ill, Katie grows concerned that she's being targeted by the cult she has run away from, so she starts taking desperate measures to ensure Stephanie's safety. All the while, we can't really be sure if there is a cult after Katie and Stephanie, or if this is all in Katie's mind and we're seeing the situation from the perspective of an unreliable narrator who is having a mental breakdown. At least Kinkle does give us a solid answer to that question by the time the credits start rolling.
Groshong does strong work in the lead role, making sure I never knew whether or not Katie could be trusted or if someone should make sure to keep her far away from Stephanie. Another standout in the cast is newcomer Brandy Edmiston as Katie's co-worker Brandy. Judging by the names, Kinkle wrote almost every role with these specific performers in mind, and Brandy seems very true-to-life.
I found a lot of things to admire about Dementer; stylistic choices, the respect shown to those with special needs. If the ending had been better, I could have been more positive about it overall, but the ending is a letdown that leaves too many questions unanswered. So this was very much a middle-of-the-road movie for me. It's worth a look if you like trippy slow burns, but the story is lacking.
The review of Dementer originally appeared on ArrowintheHead.com
KING COHEN (2017)
Filmmaker Larry Cohen passed away in March of 2019, so I'm grateful that director Steve Mitchell was able to make and complete this documentary on Cohen's life and career a couple years before we lost the man. With a running time of 107 minutes, King Cohen isn't able to cover everything Cohen did during his time in the entertainment industry - he racked up over 85 writing credits and 21 directing credits over the course of 61 years, it would be impossible to cover every one of those things - but most of his directorial efforts do get some attention, and the documentary does a great job of showing what Cohen was about overall.
What Cohen was about was bringing a unique perspective to every subject he took on in his films. Particularly in the movies he directed himself, the man did not do generic. Nobody other than him could have made the movies he made the way he made them; there's no mistaking that things like It's Alive, God Told Me To, Q: The Winged Serpent, The Stuff, and The Ambulance are Larry Cohen films. Among his writing credits are the Maniac Cop movies and Phone Booth, and those are all big deals as far as I'm concerned.
Featuring interviews with many people Cohen worked with over the years, King Cohen is a fascinating documentary that celebrates a filmmaker whose career is definitely one worth celebrating. He made a lot of cool movies, and it puts a smile on my face to sit through this and hear about so many of his crazy flicks while seeing clips from them strung together.
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