Story Time: Because I Feel Like It

Not me as a kid, but close enough.

I don’t want to say I’m getting bored with movie reviews, per se.  I just want to change it up a bit.  This is supposed to be a blog about *everything* movie related, and I thought, “Why not relate my experiences with movies?”

This is not to be confused with the entire movie-going experience, which I plan to herald another time.

Movies were not always my thing.  I loved television, and so I watched a lot of movies on TV.  But I didn’t have cable, so I watched a lot of bad movies on UHF channels, like Masters of the Universe and Stay Tuned.  Back then, my parents didn’t even rent movies, and we never went to the movie theatre, so if we didn’t own it, we were screwed; we only ever got 2 new movies a year as a family on average.  It’s really no wonder movies were not my thing, though in hindsight being forced to watch crap movies as an impressionable youth did lower my threshold for movie hatred.

This movie started my relationship with Eugene Levy.

I was 9 years old before I ever saw my first movie in theatres.  I can actually still remember clearly the first 3 movies I ever saw in theatres: Sister Act 2, Titanic, and Inspector Gadget.  I never have been to the movies with my entire family, and to this day have still only ever seen one movie with my mother.  So, how is it a child who grew up with a lack of movies learned to love them?

Ghostbusters.  Sure, I saw it as a kid, but much like Beetlejuice, which is another story for another time, I barely remember the first time I see it.  I was only 6 when the 1980s ended.  My dad doesn’t like to watch the same movie more than once, and since we didn’t own it, it just wasn’t seen again until it came on network television – and on one of the good channels.  Ghostbusters is my favorite franchise, and I’m happy that soon enough I’ll get to stop saying, “Ghostbusters is my favorite trilogy, and the fact that it only has two movies in it makes it even more epic.”  Sure, it was the most technologically advanced movie of it’s time, but I don’t care about that.  I mean, I care, it’s visually stunning and a testament to what imagination and man-power can come up with.  It’s just the perfect movie.

Why are they always leaving out the black Ghostbuster?!

I can “read” movies now, and I’ve always had a feel for if a movie had a good script, director, actors, etc.  But I’ve never bothered to read Ghostbusters and every time I watch it, I’m too captivated to try to get a “feel” for it.  It is natural.  It’s rewatchable.  It’s funny and dramatic and makes you think but not too hard.  It has all kinds of interpersonal relationships going on, and you can learn lessons from it.  It’s just everything a movie should be.  When I decide how much I enjoy a movie, I always compare it to Ghostbusters.

But one franchise alone does not a lover make.  That’s when I discovered actors and directors.  Same names heard over and over and was there a trend of good?  My mom thought it was hilarious that when I was still a little kid, I’d read the credits and learn faces of actors, and remember the behind the scenes people.

My obsession was not complete until my late teens, however.  Not only does this coincide with the release of the DVD player, and so behind the scenes commentaries and featurettes were now available for me to watch on movies that I enjoyed, it coincides with my first trip to Universal Studios.  Actually seeing the sets up close, and thinking about how they looked in the movies, and putting together just how much work was done to them… was amazing.

This just best represents all the concepts I just discussed.

I always wanted to be involved in film and/or television, don’t get me wrong.  Not just because of the glamour, but even as a child I loved to write and preferred visual mediums.  I just didn’t have a deep love and understanding until I was much older.  Probably because I was stuck watching stuff like Masters of the Universe.  And I thought it was freaking awesome, even if He-Man never did say his full catchphrase.

I hope Courteney Cox thanks her lucky stars for Friends.

Movie Review: Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

The Story of a Boy and His Plant. 

This is for the 1986 musical Little Shop of Horrors.  If you are looking for the original black and white 60s B-movie The Little Shop of Horrors… Patience, man, I’ll get to it.

Who doesn’t love Little Shop of Horrors?  The answer is people without souls.  Of course, the debate is which ending is better?  Right?  Is it the original ending that was never processed in color but remained true to the stage musical that the movie was based on?  Or do you like the movie’s ending?  I think both have their merits, but to decide which one is better… Well, we’d have to discuss the events that proceeded the movie.  And this is your final warning: there are going to be spoilers, as in this movie, it’s the ending that I feel makes the movie.

The musical starts innocently enough on Skid Row.  We meet our characters and we learn their issues in the very first scene.  Mr. Mushnik’s flower shop has no customers, Audrey’s boyfriend is a dick who beats her, and Seymour is socially awkward.  Also, we learn Skid Row sucks and is dangerous, but they show very little evidence of it.  They just sing that it sucks.  But I’ve been to downtown in many towns, so I take their word for it.  Downtown sucks.  So the characters all sing about how they want to get out of Skid Row.  No matter which ending happens to the characters, I almost want to tell them “Good news, everybody!”

So, anyway, at the end of an averagely slow day, Audrey and Seymour show Mr. Mushnik one of Seymour’s discoveries.  I want to know how you can “discover” something you bought for $1.95, but whatever, Seymour discovered a new breed of flytrap.  He named it Audrey II because he’s so head-over-heels for the first Audrey, but she doesn’t seem to notice.  It automagically brings in new customers because it’s so bizarre.  It’s a freaking plant.  I don’t think anybody who cares would actually be in Skid Row.  That’s what known as a “gaping plot hole”, but yeah, I can believe that that first guy is a bit eccentric and travels downtown just for a leisurely stroll.  He was a bit creepy.  I also believe he would tell people about it, so if you can just jump that plot hole, the rest of the movie starts to make sense.

“Coochie coochie goo!”

Well, then the plant decides it wants to die, and Seymour discovers what the plant eats – blood.  I think that if I discovered a plant that eats blood, I’d burn it.  However, I guess if your life was as horrible as Seymour’s, you wouldn’t want to give up the one thing that brought you pure admiration.  So he continues to feed it.  The plant gets bigger, and hungrier, and Seymour doesn’t think he can feed it anymore.  The plant, which can now talk, decides that Seymour should kill people.  Seymour says no with such conviction that if it wasn’t the midpoint of the movie, I’d believe he wouldn’t do it.  Then Audrey’s boyfriend, The Joker The Dentist comes along and beats Audrey up for falling off his motorcycle.  Seymour is so head-over-heels for that girl he decides he’d kill for her.  Feeding Audrey II is just the bonus in that situation.

I know I always listen to my talking plants.

Oh, I have to derail, for a second.  It’s hard to stay linear in discussing the plot.  I mean, the movie is linear, the plot isn’t.  So, Audrey does know that she could do way better than The Joker her boyfriend.  She is apparently, head-over-heels over Seymour, but doesn’t think she’s good enough for him.  Also, Somewhere That’s Green is one of the greatest musical songs ever.  If you don’t agree…. Well, then we don’t agree.  Thought I was going to say you didn’t have a soul, didn’t you?  Made you think.

And now I must discuss Bill Murray.  Oh, but I must.  I love Bill Murray and he’s made a bunch of stupid, boneheaded career moves.  His cameo in Little Shop of Horrors is not one of those stupid, boneheaded career moves.  It is masterful.  It’s sado-masochism at it’s best.  And I love yelling out “candy bar!” when something is painful.  If everyone did that, it would clean up our language and also just be AWESOME.

One of Bill Murray’s better career moves.

So Seymour is waiting in the waiting room with a concealed weapon while all that is going on.  If you look at him, he starts to wonder if he’s doing the right thing.  I blame Bill Murray.  Anyway, Seymour does decide to back out of it, but The Dentist drags him to the exam room anyway.  Once Seymour is on the table, he debates shooting The Dentist a few time, but he doesn’t need to.  The laughing gas addicted fool does himself in when he puts on a laughing gas mask that malfunctions and he can’t get it off.  He realizes Seymour won’t help, but instead of convincing him he just asks why.  When Seymour says her, The Dentist understands and he dies.

Audrey II may be on solid foods now, but the plant still needs it cut up first, so Seymour has the task of dismembering The Dentist.  Unfortunately, Mushnik sees.  I mean, unfortunately for Mushnik.  He confronts Seymour, and all he wants is the plant and for Seymour to go away and never come back.  Audrey II in this stage seems protective of it’s daddy and eats Mushnik on it’s own.   Well, Seymour didn’t help the situation, but the point is Seymour never actually kills anyone, he doesn’t have it in him.  He’s still racked with guilt.  But at this point, Audrey loves him, and there’s nothing in the world he’d give that up for, not even his own guilt.

Seymour reaches a breaking point and realizes that the solution is that he and Audrey will run away and leave everything behind.  Now, this is where the endings split.

We’ll start with the movie’s actual ending, since that’s the one that everyone who’s seen the movie knows, and is the one attached to the movie.  It almost feels like the characters were told to make up their own lines.  It feels forced.  It’s so cheesy it’s delicious, actually.  From Audrey feigning heroics and claiming they have to stop the plant when they learn it could go into mass production, to the happy ending with a random Audrey II living in their front yard, it’s so bad it’s funny.  Basically, this ending is, “Seymour was involved with a lot of bad things and gets absolutely no punishment because he was young and in love.”  Test audiences are stupid, but this ending does make the movie great for cheese enthusiasts.

“Seymour, what are we going to do now you defeated a carnivorous space plant?”

The original ending, however, was quite different.  There was absolutely nothing Seymour would give Audrey up for, so when the plant baits her and kills her, Seymour has reached his limit.  He’s about to kill himself for the horrible things he’s done that lead to him losing Audrey, but learns that the plant could go into mass production.  He decides then to atone for the bad he’s done, he must stop the plant.  However, the plant decides that if Seymour isn’t going to be a meal ticket anymore, he needs to be out of the picture, and kills him while singing to him.  Soon, Audrey II’s take over the planet, and the movie ends with an impassioned plea in the form of song that the world can still be saved if people don’t feed the plants.  This ending is, “Seymour could have prevented the bad things from happening, and he didn’t, and he paid the ultimate price.  And if you behave like Seymour, the same thing could happen to you.”

In a perfect world, Audrey II would have eaten a few major cities.

I would give this movie three and a half stars for being great cheese with wonderful rock and roll music.  Audrey II is one of the greatest villains of all time.

Delicious, delicious cheese.

But if had stuck with the original ending, this movie would have gotten five stars.  I like my characters not getting away with being an accessory to murder, no matter how sweet they are.

No sadder words than those which ask, “What might have been.”