All posts by Louis Fowler

Comedy

Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986)

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Whether they are accepting or denying, giving in or holding back, every teen struggles with their sexuality in the same beautiful way: begrudgingly perverted.

This plaintive shamefulness is the style that Eugene Jerome deals with his outright horniness, far more than I originally remembered, in this adaptation of Neil Simon’s Broadway play of the same name. Starring the usually irritating Jonathan Silverman as said Eugene, we follow the fourth-wall-breaking nebbish teen over a couple of weeks as he devises different ways to leer progressively at old-time broads and get himself off subsequently.

Eugene is supposedly 15 or so, but looks to be about a solid 25. Still, his life primarily consists of running to the store for his mom for sugar or playing stickball in the street while, in the background, his pre-WWII family is facing real problems: His brother tells off his racist boss, his father has a heart attack and a boatload of European relatives escaping Hitler is coming to stay.

These are things that would affect many people, but not Eugene — instead, he’s either looking up his dancer cousin’s skirt or fantasizing about his aunt in the shower, which is refreshingly disgusting and, saddest of all, woefully honest. Maybe one day I’ll write my own youthful remembrance entitled Blooming Grove Boners because, believe me, there were many.

In retrospect, Brighton Beach Memoirs should probably be remembered as one the dirtiest teen movies of the 1980s, a horndog flick with nostalgia for the old folks, family values for the parents and undergarments galore for the inquisitive kids who’ll wonder for years what the “Golden Palace of the Himalayas” is — a viewing party without any true shame because it’s got the guy who wrote The Odd Couple’s name attached to it.

It was followed up a few years later with Biloxi Blues starring the equally grating Matthew Broderick, but I never saw it. I heard it’s got a prostitute, though. —Louis Fowler

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Martial Arts

Bruce’s Deadly Fingers (1976)

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According to this Lee-alike flick, before he died, Bruce Lee wrote a book about how to kill people using only your fingers. Like the ghouls they are, the criminal underworld wants a copy of it so bad that they go as far as to kidnap Lee’s ex-girlfriend.

It’s up to a young martial artist — luckily named Bruce Le — to not only find the book, but rescue the girlfriend as well. He does this using not only public domain (?) clips of Lee, but masterfully by going from San Francisco for five minutes and then switching to another movie in Hong Kong after the credits and then to another one in, I think, Taiwan. With plenty of fights in open fields and courtyards, the book … is never really discovered.

I guess no one noticed that black-and white composition book peeking out from under the couch over there?

While Bruce’s Deadly Fingers really is, for the most part, your standard Bruce Lee death-curse rip-off flick, the one area of true maliciousness where the scummy nature of the film shines is when the assorted mob types torture the various girls who don’t wish to hook their bodies, including one mildly graphic scene with a deadly snake. It’s a scene where I could’ve used Bruce’s deadly fingers to poke my own eyes out. —Louis Fowler

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Kitchen Sink

Fight Club: Members Only (2006)

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WTFFor me, at least, Fight Club is a wholly overrated movie. On the other hand, the Bollywood remake (reimagining?) Fight Club: Members Only, is a woefully underrated flick.

Definitely my preferred vision of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel, mostly because it has little to nothing to do with Chuck Palahniuk’s novel, Members Only starts off with a group of chill dudes hanging out at a college student union or possibly a mall food court, getting sudden inspiration to start an underground fight club after seeing a rather mild argument on campus.

Additionally, one of the guys tries to sing “Happy Birthday” to his dad, but dad rejects him in favor of his high-powered corporate work, which I completely understand — he’s right in the middle of a meeting, kid. To deal with this deserved rejection, his buddies take him to get down at a nightclub where the DJ plays them their own smartly choreographed theme song, conveniently preserved on scratchable wax for such occasions.

After staging a couple of these smartly choreographed fights, at different empty warehouses and abandoned pools around town — where they charge a hefty fee, mind you — they get busted by the cops, much to the dismay of various relatives, including the old uncle who runs a nightclub that’s being bullied by the local gangsters.

The guys suddenly decide to open up a Western-themed club in the middle of nowhere — still within the first 45 minutes or so of a 147 minute film — the movie buoyantly goes from Fight Club: Members Only to Road House: Members Only, which I’m still very good with, probably more than I should be.

In addition to all the catchy songs and infectious dance moves by the gang and the assorted starlets they have romantic subplots with — so many subplots — there are other great scenes that the original Fight Club could’ve deftly used, like when the guys are setting up their new nightclub to a hilarious montage of wacky behavior; I know that I didn’t see Tyler Durden accidentally spilling a can of paint on Robert Paulson’s head, and let’s be honest, it sure could’ve used it. —Louis Fowler

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Reading Material

Ghoulish: The Art of Gary Pullin

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While Gary Pullin might not be a (haunted) household name just yet, horror fiends will instantly recognize his work from his numerous terrifying Rue Morgue magazine covers, with perhaps the most esoteric of fearful fandoms also familiar with many of his wish-fulfillment movie poster prints that have graced everything from theatrical reissues to home video slipcovers.

Whether you know him or don’t, there’s Ghoulish: The Art of Gary Pullin for all of you burgeoning beasties and experienced exorcists out there; from 1984 Publishing, it’s a deadly deluxe book that, with every paper-cutting page turn, features the most maleficent of Pullin’s blood work, from early drawings of Freddy Krueger and Dr. Phibes to more recent posters for evil events such as Texas Frightmare Weekend and the Days of Dead convention.

The text, written by April Snellings, fills us in on much of Pullin’s life, from his early monster-kid inkling to his current projects as a famous monster of filmland. It’s a great read and Pullin seems like the kind of guy you can eat a raw steak with. Or maybe a grilled steak. Whichever comes first, I guess.

With a smart stab of pop culture relevance in every single clean and clear drawing of death that Pullin does, it’s hard not to sit here, reading the devilish tome and not be wishing there were posters of just about every bloody piece of his available to cover every inch of wall space in your bedroom, den or torture chamber. It might be Ghoulish in title, but it’s great reading in practice. —Louis Fowler

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Kitchen Sink

Sarah T. — Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic (1975)

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WTFAfter new student Sarah T.’s (Linda Blair) hopes are dashed when she fails to make it into the glee club, she begins a staggering road to faux-drunkenness in the classic made-for-TV melodrama Sarah T. — Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic. Made at a time when open liquor was practically its own food group, it doesn’t help that Sarah walks around Hollywood with her deadbeat dad (Larry Hagman) as he’s slugging brews out of a paper cup.

Things start looking up when she duets with Mark Hamill on a Carole King song, but with congratulatory booze passed around at the wildest shindig you ever did see — they’ve got a party sub! — things get really crazy when Sarah T. smashes a plate of far too much potato salad into a rival’s chest after a rather cutting comment about Raquel Welch and how she eats all of her potato salad. While for most of us that would be a real popularity killer, but, because of her alcoholism, Sarah T. is now the most fun girl in school, especially among the chunky kids who carry their lunch in a ratty brown sack and still say “Far out!” Far out!

At home, though, things get worse as she’s not only busted for boozing while babysitting, but inadvertently get her nice old maid fired. Luckily, by the end of the film, Sarah T. goes to a teen-centered Alcoholics Anonymous and, after listening to a junior alkie spill his guts, mostly gets her life back on track — the drunken horseback-riding into oncoming traffic helped too, I’m sure.

Directed by Richard Donner in what feels like the one true sequel to The Omen — dominus tequilium — the facts about teen drinking are clumsily presented to the parents watching at home with their kids, while the kids are given plenty of great tips on how to score booze and not let Mom and Dad find out about it. Sadly, I had to learn that college. And it wasn’t booze, it was Doritos.

Just call me Louis F., I guess. —Louis Fowler

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