(Prime/hoopla/tubi/VOD) A quintessential mid-80s high school film where the teachers fear the students, but a new pupil has come to town to set them straight. TUFF TURF features a pre-PRETTY IN PINK James Spader as the new stranger at school, Kim Richards as the gang leader’s girlfriend who Spader has designs on, and a pre-LESS THAN ZERO Robert Downey Jr. as Spader’s over-eager new friend.
TUFF TURF is directed by Fritz Kiersch, best known for helming the first CHILDREN OF THE CORN, which may explain why the film is surprisingly violent, especially the elaborate final confrontation. While the combination of wooing, dance scenes, and vicious beatdowns does feel a bit jarring, it results in a rather winsome little film. It helps that the soundtrack features a healthy dose of The Jim Carroll Band.
(hoopla/Prime/tubi/VOD/Vudu) While this show was always on this month’s slate, I wanted to recommend it on the day of SUPERNATURAL’s (WB/CW, 2005-2020) series finale. SUPERNATURAL is a show that’s been a bit of a lingering constant in my life since I glommed onto it around the third season. I haven’t watched every season, but I drop in from time to time — usually for any episode that Ben Edlund has penned, or any of the obviously meta eps — and I’m looking forward to seeing how everything ends.*
But I’m supposed to discuss ROUTE 66! Here’s what you need to know about ROUTE 66:
1) It’s one of the first road trip shows, and the creator of the show (Stirling Silliphant, who previously pioneered shot-on-location TV with THE NAKED CITY) insisted on shooting in every location detailed on the page. He wanted the show to explore America, hence the title.
2) ROUTE 66 is fundamentally about two drifters, one sensitive (Tod, played by Martin Milner), one more callous and randy (Buz, played by George Maharis), and they drive from town-to-town solving mysteries and soothing community wounds in a Chevrolet Corvette. Sound familiar? They often come to blows with how to deal with a situation, with one wanting to drive off while the other wanting to stay and help those in need. Each week ended up with everything neatly tied up, and they’d drive off to another town, slightly satisfied. Also, just take a look at ‘em! 60s versions of Sam and Dean if you ever saw ‘em.
It’s a fine case-of-the week strategy, which is exactly why SUPERNATURAL stole it. SUPERNATURAL creator Eric Kripke’s elevator pitch for the show was ‘X-FILES meets ROUTE 66’.** SUPERNATURAL became something completely different — and rarely ever shot on location — but you could still see the ROUTE 66 roots showing even in the final season.
By today’s eyes, ROUTE 66 is a fun, but mostly insubstantial show. It often feels like smaller scale version of the teen drifter/loner film dramas that were released around the late 50s/early 60s but, unlike those films, it showcased parts of the US that hadn’t previously been aired on TV. It boiled down to an entertainingly slightly dramatic tourist show, of which I think the only comparable show on the air right now is THE AMAZING RACE (also CBS, but a reality show).
Later on in the series, when the show started flagging a bit, they started having fun some fun with it, most notably with -Lizard’s Leg and Owlet’s Wing- which features Tod and Buz working at Chicago’s O’Hare Inn, where Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, and Lon Chaney Jr. just happen to be staying, and TV-safe horror antics ensue. (If you’d like to read more about the ep, see here: https://www.classicfilmtvcafe.com/2010/10/route-66-lizards-leg-and-owlets-wing.html ) You don’t have to watch every episode of ROUTE 66, but that ep is a fine spooky treasure.
(Not a trailer, but the full first episode.)
For what it’s worth, my favorite SUPERNATURAL episode is probably the 200th ep. While it’s complete fan-service, it also cuts to the quick about all that works about the show, including the hows and whys it’s lasted fifteen years.
(Spoilers for the …prior 199 episodes? Really, apart from one specific reference that’s a running joke throughout the series, it’s mostly benign.)
(fubo/Hulu/tubi/VOD) Yes, everyone’s celebrating Amy Sherman-Palladino and THE MARVELOUS MRS MAISEL now, but everyone outside of my wife and maybe a few friends, had largely forgotten her once GILMORE GIRLS went off the air in 2006.
Enter 2012: I vividly remember walking with some folks through a mall to catch a Bollywood film in the Chicago suburbs, and there was a BUNHEADS poster front-and-center between us and the theater, and one dude I was attending the screening with lambasted the poster; ridiculed it. I was a coward, half-heartedly chuckling at his jokes, but inwardly very angry.
It hadn’t aired yet and yes, GILMORE GIRLS has -a lot- of issues, I won’t deny that (especially the Netflix mini — yikes) but Amy Sherman-Palladino has done far more good than harm. And this dude was mocking a poster because it dared to promote a TV show about girls & dance, -while- we were heading to see a frickin’ Bollywood film.
Setting that aside: BUNHEADS is the story of failed ballerina/current Vegas showgirl Michelle Simms (Broadway star Sutton Foster who you may know her better as the lead in YOUNGER, and I really had hoped I’d be watching her on-stage with Hugh Jackman in THE MUSIC MAN right now, but so it goes) who drunkenly latches onto Alan Ruck one night, marries him, moves to a sleepy California town, and then Ruck dies. Simms then falls into teaching at Ruck’s mother-in-law’s (played by GILMORE GIRLS’ Kelly Bishop) dance studio.
While Michelle has a fair amount of drama, the show is far more concerned with the stakes regarding the girls she’s mentoring, and really, it’s about their stories and experiences, and how Michelle helps to guide them through life, despite being a bit of a fuck-up.
It’s quintessential Sherman-Palladino work: sweet, smart, overly verbose, and extremely well-produced (albeit, yes, extremely white). The following numbers below should sell you on the show alone. Why yes, I’ll take a musical dance number inspired by Tom Waits’ Mule Variations!
If you’re a sound nerd, I love how they mic the floors (see Dance Routines Part 2, ~1:30), so you hear every landing, every hit, every slap. I’m hard-pressed to think of a show that was as aurally tactile as this.
If you’re a cinematography nerd, goddamn, the cheats they employed to ensure that the mirrors were always seen, but never the cameras? Blows my mind. And the China Balls!
BUNHEADS had a little something for everyone, and it’s a crime how ABC Family buried it. I’m hoping Amy Sherman-Palladino will revisit it in the future although, granted they did film a farewell dance as a way to give closure, I’d still love to see a reunion special.
(fubu/tubi/Vudu) Following in the footsteps of MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN was this gonzo satire of soap operas created by Susan Harris (an already established writer from LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE, and who would go one to create THE GOLDEN GIRLS). Difference was, this was explicitly comedic, and weekly. The cast was stacked: Katherine Helmond, Richard Mulligan, Robert Guillaume, a young Billy Crystal (a rare recurring gay character*), and more.
Far more screwball than practically anything else on the air at the time, the show aimed for laughs but still pushed the envelope far more than they needed to, and they pulled in loads of eyeballs! That’s why it was so shocking that, at the end of the third season, which features a jaw-dropping cliffhanger, the show was cancelled.
That didn’t stop ABC from producing spin-offs, though. If you’re a child of the 80s, you probably never realized that BENSON was born from SOAP.
If you’re a fan of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, you owe yourself to trace your television heritage back and watch this. (Mitch Hurwitz cut his teeth on GOLDEN GIRLS, and no doubt, ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT would not exist if it weren’t for SOAP.) It was well-ahead of its time, and it’s a crime that it’s mostly forgotten.
It’s worth noting that MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN had one of the first gay storylines on TV, but it didn’t last that long, whereas Crystal’s character did. Whether Crystal’s performance was a good thing is another question all together.
(AMC+/Criterion/fubu/epix/HBO MAX/hoopla/kanopy/Paramount+/tubi/Vudu, anywhere really, although I watched The Directors Cut via my Criterion copy) One of the few films I discovered because of a video game — no, not CARNEVIL — I’d read about it influencing SILENT HILL.
CARNIVAL OF SOULS is a surprisingly singular vision from industrial film Herk Harvey, who only made this one film, but he made that swing count. A woman is the sole survivor of a three-person car crash, and goes about trying to move ahead in life, but can’t shake a gauzy hazy or the stare of a ghostly man.
It’s a surprisingly quiet film, despite the often oppressive organ soundtrack, and while it’s built upon a number of small moments, it culminates in an astounding final sequence. Art-house horror, full of tension and dread, well before such a thing widely existed.
One final note: I believe some song I’m quite familiar with sampled Mary’s meeting with a Dr. Samuels, as well as the exchange: “Now you quit licking your chops, she’s outta your class.” “You wanna bet?” If anyone knows who sampled them, let me know!
(Prime/tubi/VOD) Directed by beloved character actor Bob Balaban! Scored with mambo-verve by Angelo Badalamenti! Mary Beth Hurt channelling Mary Astor! Sandy Dennis! Dennis Quaid back when he used to give a shit!
Delightfully weird, but very relatable, suburban horror coming-of-age film where the pre-teen kids’ strange imaginations run wild as they suss out that adults are really just large, hungry, hedonistic animals. We need more Sheilas in stories.
If anyone knows anything about the featured home, I’d love to hear about it because I swear I recognize it. It feels like it was ripped straight from Tati’s MON UNCLE.
(tubi/VOD) An absolutely brutal ‘girls trip to the woods gone wrong’ tale written, directed, and staring mumblecore staple Katie Aselton. The uncomfortable dynamic between the friends is the heart of the film, but it’s also briskly paced and contains more than a few jarring surprises. The closing shot is pure cinema, haunting in a Haneke way, and has lingered in my mind for months.
(Plex/tubi) Extremely padded vampire seductress film, but the sexual politics make it far more interesting than most Corman fare, and visually it has more in common with giallo than most films his studio was churning out.
(peacock/Prime/tubi/VOD/Vudu) Apart from CANDYMAN and the short story it’s based on, and HELLRAISER, I’m not much of a Clive Barker fan, so NIGHTBREED is new to me. That said, if someone had told me that David Cronenberg was the goddamn villain of the film, I would have rectified that mistake years ago. (Instead I had to find that out from a recent DOUBLE THREAT podcast episode.)
While Cronenberg is marvelously sinister (and his mask is something special), what really strikes me about the film is that it has a distinct queer/club kid/Tod Browning FREAKS vibe to it, which I should have expected but did not. On top of that, the Nightbreed designs are strikingly unique, the script contains a surprising amount of humor, and Elfman’s score is absurdly lush. Much more delightful than I imagined. Perhaps I’m a Barker fan after all!
(kanopy/tubi/VOD) In-between MCCABE & MRS. MILLER and THE LONG GOODBYE, Robert Altman directed this British psychodrama oddity, loosely based on lead actress Susannah York’s children’s book IN SEARCH OF UNICORNS. I know we always think of Altman as a loosey-goosey director, reveling in overlapping dialogue and aural confusion but, after all, his comeback film was the mannered murder mystery GOSFORD PARK (and, holy moly, what a cast that film had).
This is Altman as European horror art film director, and IMAGES is a genre take on the likes of Bergman’s PERSONA. Altman still can’t resist a bit of messiness, as it’s still a bit difficult to suss out the how’s and why’s and when’s after the credits roll, but it’s a thrillingly performed bit of a mess, and York is perfect in her role(s).
