Cloris Leachman has specialized in playing grotesques and weird old ladies for so long, it’s easy to forget that she originally came to Hollywood as just another blond beauty queen. For those of us who knew her first as Young Frankenstein’s Frau Blücher, it’s hard to reconcile her as the same actress who just five years earlier played the cute hooker in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Which is what makes watching her in the flawed comedy Crazy Mama — her first starring feature — such a strange experience, since it finds her right at the crossroads of what she once was and what she would eventually become. Playing a ’50s-era evicted beauty salon owner who decides to fund her return to her Arkansas hometown by committing a series of robberies along the way, she plays the role far too shrill and eccentrically to ever earn our sympathies, but remains compelling enough to keep you watching nonetheless.
Most of the film’s problems with volume and tone can be blamed on a young Jonathan Demme, who at this point in his career hadn’t developed the sure hand at comedy he would later show with Handle with Care, Melvin and Howard and Married to the Mob. Crazy Mama often feels like an early prototype of those films — the one he had to fuck up in order to know what not to do in the future.
Still, there are some definite bright spots in this low-budget New World production. Linda Purl (Visiting Hours) is about as cute as human beings come in the role of Leachman’s pregnant daughter, and she has great chemistry with her co-star, Happy Days’ Donny Most. And, like all of Demme’s comedies, the film has a tragic undercurrent lingering beneath its laughs, which gives it enough resonance to make sitting through the weaker moments worth the effort. —Allan Mott
Scream queen Tiffany Shepis is the recent star of Dark Reel, Night of the Demons and the new comedy Trade In, in which she plays a lesbian used car saleswoman.
FLICK ATTACK: Correct if I’m wrong, but it looks like in this year and the next, you have about six films coming out … every other Tuesday.
SHEPIS: I think it’s seven, man, to correct you. I’m a pretty lucky girl. They keep me working in this crazy horror genre of mine, and now the genre of used car movies.
FLICK ATTACK: You don’t do many comedies, do you?
SHEPIS: Certainly a lot of my horror movies end up being comedies, not often by choice! I stay very true to my horror roots, but it’s definitely been fun for a change.
FLICK ATTACK: So how does one prepare for a role as a lesbian car saleswoman?
SHEPIS: You become a lesbian car saleswoman. Method all the way! It was easy. Who can’t appreciate a beautiful woman? For the car salesman part, you have to go to all sorts of smarmy routes to get people to buy a car nowadays.
FLICK ATTACK: Do you think you could even sell a runaway Prius?
SHEPIS: You know, I think I might. I was pretty good at my pitches! We actually shot on a working car lot in Tucson, Ariz. I would talk shit to the guys and say, “Aw, I can do this better than you — here, watch, watch, watch.” And I was pretty good! I think I found my niche! I might quit movies and sell cars.
FLICK ATTACK: But that would be our loss.
SHEPIS: And then what would you have to do every other Tuesday?
FLICK ATTACK: Is it true you were engaged to Corey Haim?
SHEPIS: I was very good friends with Corey Haim.
FLICK ATTACK: And this was his last role, right?
SHEPIS: I think so. He was on our set a whole lot. We had no intentions of having him in the movie; he was just kinda there to hang out. At one point, somebody got smart and said, “Hey, why don’t we put him in it?” and I was like, “Ding ding ding, stupid.” So they wrote in a part for him and it turned out to be a really weird, creepy, bizarre dream sequence.
FLICK ATTACK: Obviously, you were good friends with him, but could you even tell him apart from Corey Feldman?
SHEPIS: Yeah, I could!
FLICK ATTACK: How does Trade In compare to Used Cars?
SHEPIS: Oh, totally different ball game, man. We did the best that we could with not a lot of money. There’s about 100 writers on this thing and a lot of people in the pot, and a lot of cool Arizona actors who had a knack for improv. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but I think they got a cool little comedy out of it.
FLICK ATTACK: And you have Ron Jeremy.
SHEPIS: He’s quite the asset to have in your movie. It’s such a strange industry, the horror world, because it crosses over into comic book fans, porn fans and some of the sci-fi fans all the same. It definitely works to have him in your movie.
FLICK ATTACK: With vampires and zombies playing themselves out, what do you think is going to be the next great horror fad? And please say “sexy naked killer robot ghosts.”
SHEPIS: I absolutely think it should be sexy naked killer robot ghosts. That or tentacled sex monsters. Tentacle sex, that’s where it’s at. I don’t know what horror fans want anymore. Some horror fans will go buy every movie that has “Camp” in the title. Others want thinking man’s horror films and want something different and new. And then you have horror fans that don’t want any remakes at all, but get pissed when something’s original!
FLICK ATTACK: What’s it like to stand next to Kane Hodder, and is it scarier to stand next to Julie Strain?
SHEPIS: I certainly think I’d be more scared of Julie. That’s a big woman and certainly looks like she could beat me. But she’s the sweetest lady on the planet. Kane, I met when I was 15. I grew up knowing Kane, so to me, there’s zero scary about him. They’re all pussycats, all these horror guys. You won’t find another fan of the genre more than Kane.
FLICK ATTACK: Name one other Shakespearean adaptation that’s better than Tromeo and Juliet.
SHEPIS: Oh, shit, there’s none! Tromeo and Juliet is in a class of its own, man. My first movie and what a cool first movie to be a part of. I was a big Troma fan and in my opinion, it was their best film since Class of Nuke ‘Em High.
FLICK ATTACK: Have you ever had a moment during shooting when you paused, took a step back and thought, “Wait, that’s just not right. That is fucked-up”?
SHEPIS: Not particularly. I’ve been desensitized working on such weird shit. I mean, I have no problem killing a whore in the woods … but killing a baby isn’t my cup of tea. Even the hardened horror idiot in me has some boundaries. That’s not to say I won’t be killing babies in my next movie. This shit changes every day.
FLICK ATTACK: Since you work on multiple projects all the time, have you ever accidentally done nudity on a movie that didn’t call for it?
SHEPIS: No, but that’d be a very lucky production! They’d be, “Whoa, we’re not paying you for that!” I’d be like, “Oh, sure you are!” No, but I have been confused talking to directors on the phone. I read a lot of scripts on the plane and then I’ll get a call about getting through a script and scheduling. “Oh, yeah, that thing was awesome! I can’t wait to be involved! That scene is going to be awesome!” and they’re like, “What scene? What are you talking about?” And I’m like, “Oh, shit, now how do I back off and tell them their movie was crappy and I’m not going to do it?” So I’ve had those! Fortunately, not too many of them. You gotta remember, I’m still just a stupid actor. We fuck up a lot.
FLICK ATTACK: Do you have a favorite among all your projects?
SHEPIS: You know, I’ve got two current favorites. My all-time favorite was always The Hazing. I get possessed by Brad Dourif. I loved that movie. It was very much like a Night of the Demons — huge fan of the original, huge fan of the remake — like a fun, ’80s throwback popcorn movie you see with your friends and have a good time. Really big fan of The Frankenstein Syndrome, which is not out yet. It’s obviously close to me. I produced it, I starred in it, it’s very different than my other stuff. And another one coming out Feb. 15: Bonnie and Clyde vs. Dracula.
FLICK ATTACK: Love the title.
SHEPIS: Love the title, love the movie. And if I do say so myself, I’m pretty fucking phenomenal in it. —Rod Lott
Positioned as a sequel – but bearing absolutely no relation – to Jet Li’s hugely enjoyable Die Hard knockoff Meltdown, the Hong Kong actioner Another Meltdown (formerly known as The Black Sheep Affair) stars Man Cheuk Chiu as Officer Dong (couldn’t they have changed that in dubbing?), a cop reassigned to the USSR after infiltrating an airplane hostage situation.
Upon arrival in Russia, he goes head to head and toe to toe with a Japanese terrorist who offs some Interpol agents at the subway station. Eventually, the bad guy kidnaps Dong’s saintly girlfriend (Shu Qi from The Transporter).
There are some good action scenes – particularly the ones that rely more on martial arts than guns, or the vehicular assault that rips off Clear and Present Danger – but the story gets too bogged down in politics, a move that also marred the then-recent Korean film Shiri.
Having second thought about getting a vasectomy? Watch Orphan and you’ll be reaching for the kitchen scissors and a hand mirror before the third act. It’s not like there’s a dearth of evil-kid suspensers, but the girl at the center of this one could turn you into a misogynist.
Her name’s Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), a 9-year-old girl from Russia adopted by a lesbian couple — oh, that’s Peter Sarsgaard, you say? My bad! — a married couple grieving over the sudden death of their third baby. Kate (Vera Farmiga) is a recovering alcoholic; she and hubby John (Sarsgaard) have a deaf daughter and an asshole son, so adding a cold-blooded killer to the mix seems like a natural move.
Esther’s warming-up period includes watching John bend Kate over the kitchen counter. Kate tries to explain: “They want to show that love, they want to express it.” Replies Esther, “I know — they fuck.” (Art Linkletter, you were so correct!) Before long, the girl is breaking legs, killing nuns, destroying marriages, setting fires, playing the piano even though she said she couldn’t — is there no end to her reign of terror?
By-the-numbers it may be, Orphan is at least well-made mediocrity by House of Wax director Jaume Collet-Serra, and Farmiga seems not to realize this is a Dark Castle release — she acts the hell out of the thing as if AMPAS voters might be sniffing around on accident. Its biggest mystery isn’t what made Esther the pigtailed bitch that she is, but: 1) who thought that twist would work, and 2) why is this thing over two hours long? Why, God, why? —Rod Lott
Novelist Michael Crichton was famous for being somewhat obsessive about the subjects that caught his fancy, often studying them until he could be considered almost an expert in the field. Sadly, the 17 years he devoted to researching the art of filmmaking weren’t quite as fruitful. As a director, he never managed to be more than an undistinguished journeyman; as a screenwriter, he failed more often than he succeeded.
His sixth and penultimate film, Runaway, is a clear example of his cinematic limitations. Always more interested in the ideas presented in his work than the stories he was telling, his plots served as little more than perfunctory frameworks for specific concepts and set pieces. Because of this most of his films succeed as superficial entertainment, but don’t hold up to any kind of prolonged analysis.
Set in an unspecified future where most menial tasks are now undertaken by non-anthropomorphic robots, Tom Selleck stars as the head of the local police force’s “runaway” squad, which is in charge of catching and stopping malfunctioning machines that pose a hazard to the public. When a robot murders three people, Selleck and his cute new partner, Cynthia Rhodes, uncover a plot by ruthless killer Gene Simmons to fuck everything that moves by selling a “smart bullet” capable of targeting an individual’s heat signature.
Caught up in this plot is a very hot pre-Cheers Kirstie Alley, Selleck’s young Flight of the Navigator son and a bunch of robot spiders that inject acid into their victim’s veins. Clearly in love with the film’s future-tech (most of which looks quite dated 26 years later), Crichton obviously wasn’t so enamored with his characters, none of whom are given any more depth than his robot creations.
Runaway has a few interesting moments and a good concept, but suffers from having been made by a man who was ultimately more interested in the idea of being a filmmaker than with filmmaking itself. —Allan Mott
Cloris Leachman has specialized in playing grotesques and weird old ladies for so long, it’s easy to forget that she originally came to Hollywood as just another blond beauty queen. For those of us who knew her first as Young Frankenstein’s Frau Blücher, it’s hard to reconcile her as the same actress who just five years earlier played the cute hooker in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Most of the film’s problems with volume and tone can be blamed on a young Jonathan Demme, who at this point in his career hadn’t developed the sure hand at comedy he would later show with Handle with Care, Melvin and Howard and Married to the Mob. Crazy Mama often feels like an early prototype of those films — the one he had to fuck up in order to know what not to do in the future.
Scream queen Tiffany Shepis is the recent star of 
FLICK ATTACK: And you have Ron Jeremy.
Esther’s warming-up period includes watching John bend Kate over the kitchen counter. Kate tries to explain: “They want to show that love, they want to express it.” Replies Esther, “I know — they fuck.” (Art Linkletter, you were so correct!) Before long, the girl is breaking legs, killing nuns, destroying marriages, setting fires, playing the piano even though she said she couldn’t — is there no end to her reign of terror?
Set in an unspecified future where most menial tasks are now undertaken by non-anthropomorphic robots, Tom Selleck stars as the head of the local police force’s “runaway” squad, which is in charge of catching and stopping malfunctioning machines that pose a hazard to the public. When a robot murders three people, Selleck and his cute new partner, Cynthia Rhodes, uncover a plot by ruthless killer Gene Simmons to fuck everything that moves by selling a “smart bullet” capable of targeting an individual’s heat signature.