Only now does it occur to me... PROPHECY (1979)

Only now does it occur to me...  that PROPHECY constructs a perfect visual metaphor for itself in its opening scene.

To first put this in perspective, PROPHECY is a clumsy (but lovably nutty) 1970s eco-horror mutant-monster movie directed by A-list Hollywood legend John Frankenheimer (THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ, SEVEN DAYS IN MAY, 52 PICK-UP, RONIN). The kicker: Frankenheimer supposedly directed the film while suffering through a lengthy blackout drunk.

Back to our opening metaphor: points of light tremble in the darkness, disoriented.

They are flashlights, frantically waved by a group of men sprinting through the forest. The men are led by a hound who's caught the scent (of what, we do not yet know). They blindly careen down a forest path:

suddenly (and with unintentional comic flourish), the dog plummets off of a cliff to its death:

Yep, that about sums up PROPHECY, all right.

PROPHECY is a film about the dangers of pollution. It is a film with its heart in the right place. At one point, Native American rights, abortion rights, and urban blight are addressed within the span of fifteen seconds. This is handled with all the finesse of a master director who happens to have chugged a couple fifths of Thunderbird and forgotten to hydrate.

Talia Shire (ROCKY, THE GODFATHER) and Robert Foxworth (AIRPORT '77, DAMIEN: THE OMEN II) play an urbane couple who find themselves deep in the forests of Maine. In ordinary life, Shire's character is a concert cellist.

 

She's had more time to practice after she stopped working at the pet store.

Foxworth works for the EPA, and he's in Maine investigating a creepy paper mill that may be accidentally be creating mutated monsters.

 

Representing the creepy paper mill is Richard Dysart (on the left), who you may recognize as "Dr. Copper" from THE THING.

Also present is a group of Native Americans protesting the paper mill. The bow-and-arrow toting leader of the Natives is played by Italian-Irish-American actor Armand Assante. At one point he fights off a chainsaw-wielding logger with an axe, which, to be fair, is a pretty good use of his screentime.

Eventually, we meet the mutant monster.

The Natives call it a "Katahdin" and Dysart describes it as "sort of a bigfoot, I guess, only uglier." Neither of these assessments are accurate. It is in fact a Grizzly bear cosplaying as Freddy Krueger.

Along the way, there is a baby Krueger Bear, who is cared for in a similar fashion as the mutant infant in ERASERHEAD, which I appreciate.

There's some pretty solid cinematography by Harry Stradling, Jr., who also shot LITTLE BIG MAN, THE WAY WE WERE, and DIRTY DINGUS MAGEE.

Also solid is this scene depicting a surprise raccoon attack, whereupon Robert Foxworth scoops up said adorable raccoon with a rowboat paddle

and flings it directly into a blazing fireplace. God damn! 

As you can see from the above photo, the front door was already open. He easily could have flung it outside. He's just a dick!

The ultimate showdown with the Krueger Bear plays out exactly like the end of a FRIDAY THE 13TH movie, which is all the more impressive because FRIDAY THE 13TH wouldn't come out for another year (PROPHECY was made in '79, the first FRIDAY in '80).


It hits every FRIDAY beat, from the Crystal Lake-lookin' exteriors to the moment where they think the monster drowns, to the successive moment when it jumps out of the water, the moment when they think they've finally killed it, the moment when it pops back up when-they-least-expect-it, and the moment when it dies for real this time (or does it?).

All of this booze-addled nonsense is really just prelude and postscript to a random scene that appears halfway through the film. A nameless camper is snoozing in a fetish-y sleeping bag when he is awakened by the Krueger Bear.

He musters all of his strength and pulls himself upright. He attempts, ungracefully, to hop away.

The Krueger Bear takes a wild swing and connects his claw with the sleeping bag, launching the unfortunate man across the screen:

 

where he collides with a rock and explodes in an orgasmic eruption of feathers.

That's worth the price of admission right there, ladies and gentlemen. In the end, I'll say this: it's better than THE PROPHECY (1995), which I'll be reviewing shortly.

Only now does it occur to me... PARADISE ALLEY

Only now does it occur to me... that OVER THE TOP was not Stallone's first run-in with the glamorous world of arm-wrestling.

In PARADISE ALLEY, his directorial debut (it's a post-WWII, poverty-row, Hell's Kitchen, bootstrap-pullin', wrasslin' tale), Stallone acts as a manager for his brother Vic (Lee Canalito) and arranges an arm-wrestling match where the prize is a gangster's monkey.


This monkey.

His brother delivers (taking it over the top, so to speak)

and Stallone finally fulfills his lifelong dream of owning a dancing monkey.

The monkey is last seen on the street with Stallone, seriously underperforming:

Yo– look at the dancin' monkey!

Also of note:  for a movie that actually has Tom Waits in it, 

 As "Mumbles"

it's Sylvester Stallone who sings the title song, and his brother Frank who plays "Lounge Singer."

 Everybody loves Frank Stallone.

Though to be fair, the soundtrack does feature the same number (two) of Waits songs as Frank Stallone songs, with "(Meet Me In) Paradise Alley" and "Annie's Back in Town," and conjures the proper atmosphere of whiskey-fueled despondency!

Film Review: STRIPTEASE (1996, Andrew Bergman)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 117 minutes.
Tag-line: "Some People Get Into Trouble No Matter What They WEAR."
Notable Cast or Crew: Demi Moore, Ving Rhames, Robert Patrick, Armand Assante, Burt Reynolds, Rumer Willis, Pandora Peaks. Cinematography by Stephen Goldblatt (THE HUNGER, THE COTTON CLUB, LETHAL WEAPON). Music by Howard Shore (AFTER HOURS, VIDEODROME, THE LORD OF THE RINGS).
Best one-liner: "I don't need no stripper to telling me how to live!"
Best eerily Hawksian exchange: "So we're it? A cop and a bouncer?" –"Plus two strippers and a kid. We're in great shape." Compare to RIO BRAVO: "A game-legged old man and a drunk. That's all you got?" –"That's WHAT I got."

Now here's a crowded, chinwagging tableau that would make Howard Hawks proud, presented without comment: "Creamed corn wrestling!" "-Corn?" "-Corn wrestling?" "-That's disgusting!" "-No chance that I'm gonna roll naked in creamed corn with a bunch of drunken yahoos trying to stick niblets up my hoo-ha!"

Note Fabio poster.

Playing out like an unholy second-generation love-child of Elmore Leonard and Menahem Golan, the set-up to STRIPTEASE is this: Judge awards custody of Rumer Willis to deadbeat dad Robert Patrick, and FBI employee Demi Moore must strip for her daughter's love. Kinda like the female OVER THE TOP, in a way.




The film takes this already mind-blowing premise and piles on more and more inspired lunacy at a breakneck pace: Bouncer Ving Rhames has a tiny monkey sidekick and imbues his performance with a genuine artistry that surely isn't called for:

Armand Assante is wondering how the hell he got here (hint- this was his follow-up to JUDGE DREDD):

there's a Jewish stripper named 'Ariel Sharon' who has a crush on Steven Spielberg, Demi strips with a moody intensity that tells me she thought she had a shot at Oscar gold, and all of this somehow germinates into a searing exposé of Big Sugar!

The courtroom tableaux are worth the price of admission alone:


"Your honor, my ex-husband is a THIEF. That hardly qualifies him to raise a seven-year old CHILD."


"Neithah does bein' a mothuh without a JOB!" [bangs gavel]


There's the obligatory post-shower towel dance, and I have to give points to STRIPTEASE for including it, because I think it only was actually obligatory from 1982-1994.



Oh...and how could I forget: Burt Reynolds.

Reynolds plays Congressman Dilbeck (or, Congressman 'Dildo,' as he eloquently states in one exchange) as if he is constantly drunk and/or mentally disabled. Kind of a 'chicken or the egg' question here is: 'Was Dilbeck written as a psychotic rummy, or did Reynolds just show up drunk and they took it from there?'

Don't answer that. He's even involved in a barfight, which I think must've been part of his contract since HOOPER. Reynolds is doddering around, covered in Vaseline, muttering things like "We can talk about anything you want, as long as you're nekkid."

As time has told, Reynolds is not your garden variety pervert (i.e., see my scholarly papers on the topics of goosing, necrophilia, et al. as presented in STROKER ACE and RENT-A-COP), yet STRIPTEASE kinda seeks to reduce and simplify his myriad depravities to level of a Saturday morning cartoon villain:

He likes having sexy ladies around.

He likes seizing sexy ladies.

He likes dancing with sexy ladies in his boxers, which may as well have big hearts on them.

I posit that this reductive, superficial view of Burt Reynolds perversion is dangerous and, on behalf of Liza Minnelli goosage, I daresay irresponsible. Though the Vaseline scene is pretty incredible in its commitment to loopiness, so I'll let it slide this time.

And speaking of Saturday morning cartoons, the finale involves slow-motion leaping and a denouement that has absolutely zero deviation from that of a SCOOBY-DOO episode.


All of this, naturally, contributes to the film receiving high marks from me. (Also see: DR. JEKYLL AND MS. HYDE).

In the end, STRIPTEASE is a serious drama with a smattering of light-hearted social satire. Er, allow me to submit a revision to that statement: Demi Moore thinks STRIPTEASE is a serious drama, and that ensures that its heart is, somehow, in the right place. It is her performance that gives it that patented Golan-Globus level of sincerity. I guess that's why it works. My only caveat––instead of $12.5 million, they probably should have paid Demi, say, whatever they gave Mario van Peebles for RAPPIN' or Lucinda Dickey for NINJA III...