Classic Movie Review Rookie of the Year

Rookie of the Year (1993) 

Directed by Daniel Stern 

Written by Sam Harper 

Starring Thomas Ian Nicholas, Gary Busey, Amy Morton 

Release Date July 7th 1993

Published July 17th, 2023 

As a kid, the idea of a movie featuring my Chicago Cubs was golden. I loved it. I was incredibly happy to throw down money to watch a movie featuring Wrigley Field and a hint of the magic of the Major League Baseball that I was obsessed with. Rookie of the Year existed in a pantheon of movies like Back to the Future 3 and Taking Care of Business that made a joke of having my lovably losing Cubbies winning the World Series, something the team hadn't done since 1908. For a time, the Cubs were a go-to reference for anyone wanting to reference long term losing or a poignant dedication to thankless endeavor. 

Rookie of the Year however, was a little different. The earnestness of this family comedy had the Cubs winning the World Series not as an ironic joke but as a genuine moment of unexpected triumph. It's about the ultimate underdogs overcoming the odds to do the impossible in a way that was inspiring and not meant to mock, even as it takes an over-powered kid pitcher to make it happen. Rookie of the Year's nostalgic appeal has lingered for me for 30 years simply because of the fact that it wasn't made with the intent of mocking the idea that my favorite team might actually win. 

It can be hard to wipe the nostalgia out of your eyes and see something for what it really is. Sadly, for the Everyone's a Critic 1993 Podcast, I forced myself to do just that and what I found is that Rookie of the Year is as obnoxious and insufferable as any movie in the last 30 years. It gets a break because it has incredibly low ambitions, being a movie for very small children, but watching it as an adult was a miserable experience nonetheless. The charm of Rookie of the Year has, for me, completely worn off and curdled into a spoiled bit of nostalgia that I would very much like to forget. 

Rookie of the Year stars toothy 12 year old Thomas Ian Nicholas, future star of the American Pie franchise. Here, Nicholas plays Henry Rowengartner a baseball loving nerd who lacks natural athletic gifts. This is despite the word of his mother who claims that Henry's dad was a ballplayer. Sadly, Henry's Dad left years ago and is barely a memory. Now, Mom is dating a weasel named Jack (Bruce Altman). We know he's a weasel because of his shirts, his unearned confidence, and his stupid car and haircut. 

The plot of Rookie of the Year begins when Henry suffers a broken shoulder. The break heals oddly and leaves Henry's tendons super tight. Soon Henry is throwing an incredible 100 mile per hour fastball. When he shows off his arm at a Chicago Cubs game by throwing a ball from the bleachers to home plate in record time, Henry catches the eye of the Cubs duplicitous VP Larry "Fish" Fisher. Fish tracks Henry down and cuts a deal with Jack to make Henry the newest star of the Chicago Cubs. This comes over much consternation from Henry's mom, and much to the excitement of Henry's best friends, George (Patrick Lebeque) and Clark (Patrick Hy Gorman). 

Less excited about this than anyone is the Cubs legendary pitching star Chet "Rocket" Steadman. He thinks Henry is a sideshow attraction and suspects that this publicity stunt isn't good for anything other than the Cubs' bottom line. Nevertheless, Chet will have to get on board as his manager assigns Chet to try and teach Henry how to control his 100 mile per hour fastball. Naturally, the standoffish Chet will slowly come around as a mentor for Henry and emerges as a love interest for Henry's mom. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media

Classic Movie Review Dirty Dancing

Dirty Dancing (1987)

Directed by Emile Ardolino 

Written by Eleanor Bergstein

Starring Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey, Jerry Orbach, Kelly Bishop 

Release Date August 25th, 1987 

“It’s nothing, Marjorie, go back to sleep.”

As I watched Dirty Dancing for the first time in several years, this seemingly throwaway line from Jerry Orbach to Kelly Bishop, as the parents of Jennifer Grey’s Frances “Baby” Houseman, struck me. Orbach's Jake, a wealthy doctor, has just returned to his bungalow at this Catskills Hotel after having given treatment to Cynthia Rhodes’ Penny who has just undergone what at the time was referred to as a back-alley abortion. This was after she’d been knocked up by Robbie, a selfish snob doing time to raise money he doesn’t need for his Ivy League education.

The line struck me because of the way in which it spoke volumes in just six words. Here was past and future colliding; generational values only beginning to be challenged and two symbols of the supposed Greatest Generation, one in denial urging the other two go back to sleep and pretend time isn’t passing them and their values by. Seven years after when Dirty Dancing is set, Roe v. Wade would give women their first victory in reclaiming their bodies and their decisions from the white male patriarchy.

I realize that a review of Dirty Dancing is not the most likely place for a discussion of issues like abortion but that’s what makes this seeming trifle of 80s nostalgia so powerful, in of all places, the Reagan Era, when it seemed as if the Eisenhower, 50s family values crowd was making comeback after having defeated the hippies while getting millions of people killed to reclaim their supposed family values, here is Dirty Dancing, a musical with this innocent, almost Disney-esque sheen to it, to remind us what so many people had fought and died for. Change.

This theme of how the times they are a changing plays as the Greek Chorus of Dirty Dancing, always popping up in the background, playing peek-a-boo behind the graceful coming of age love story between Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze’s electrifying Johnny Castle, a man who looks like he just walked off the poster of some bad seed, Hayes Code era, motorcycle picture. Keeping with the theme, Baby is the idealistic innocent swept up in the change that people like Johnny are busy bringing about.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media

Classic Movie Review The Killers (1964)

The Killers (1964) 

Directed by Don Siegel 

Written by Gene L. Coon 

Starring Lee Marvin, John Cassavetes, Angie Dickinson, Ronald Reagan 

Release Date July 7th, 1964 

Published July 14th, 2023 

1964's The Killers shifts away from Ernest Hemingway's source material while maintaining a little of the framing device used in the 1946 version of The Killers from director Robert Siodmak. Director Don Siegel's biggest change however, came from beefing up the role of the titular Killers. Where Siodmak sidelines the killers after they've served their purpose, killing Burt Lancaster's Swede, Siodmak hired Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager to bring attention to these killers who also take on the role of the killers but also the role of the investigators, the role played by Edmond O'Brien in 1946. 

That's not the only change to the story of The Killers. Don Siegel's vision of The Killers has a new protagonist as well. Johnny North (John Cassavetes) is a race car driver who partially loses his sight following a racing accident. Desperate for work, he's working demolition derby's under a fake name when his former lover, Sheila Farr (Angie Dickinson), approaches him with an offer. Sheila's new lover, a gangster named Jack Browning (Ronald Reagan, yes THAT Ronald Reagan), needs a getaway driver for a heist he's pulling with a small crew. 

We know that Johnny agrees because by the time we see the heist coming together, in the modern timeline, Johnny is dead. While working as a shop teacher at a school for the blind, Johnny is approached by Charlie (Lee Marvin) and Lee (Clu Gulager), who kill him where he stands. Johnny seems to hardly react to his own death and his resignation in the face of life threatening danger and eventual death, haunts Charlie. Charlie becomes obsessed with knowing why Johnny was so willing to die at his hands? 

From here, Charlie, and a reluctant but loyal Lee, begin working backwards through the life of Johnny North to uncover Johnny's motivation while also, perhaps, seeking the whereabouts of the treasure that seemingly caused someone to hire Charlie and Lee to kill him. First on the interrogation list is Johnny's former partner and mechanic, played by Claude Akins in a haunting and soulful performance. Akins explains Johnny's relationship with Sheila and how he warned Johnny about her duplicitousness only to end up losing his friendship and his business partner. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review Sleepaway Camp

Sleepaway Camp (1983) 

Directed by Robert Hiltzik 

Written by Robert Hiltzik 

Starring Felissa Rose, Mike Kellin, Paul DeAngelo, Jonathan Tiersten 

Release Date November 18th, 1983 

Published July 16th, 2023 

When I first saw Sleepaway Camp, some time in my early 20s, I thought it was a goofy, silly, fun-bad horror movie. Now, in my 40s, the joke has worn thin. Instead of enjoying the terrible acting, the odd choice to show a large portion of a camp baseball game, and Felissa Rose's bizarre performance, all feel like a massive waste of my time. Where I once laughed at the outrageous gory death scenes and THAT twist reveal at the end, I am no longer enjoying myself. Is it maturity or a general grumpiness that has set in? I can't be sure. One thing that I am sure of however is, I now have a Sleepaway Camp box set DVD for sale. 

Sleepaway Camp is a slasher film set at a summer camp in the early 1980s. Angela (Felissa Rose) is being forced to attend by her bizarre Aunt Martha (Desiree Gould). Thankfully, Angela has her cousin, Ricky (Jonathan Tiersten), who threatens to fight anyone who gives Angela a hard time. That, at least, keeps the boys in line but it doesn't stop Ricky's camp crush, Judy (Karen Fields), from mocking Angela, with her camp counselor pal Meg (Katherine Kamhi), always at her side. These two-mock poor, silent and shy Angela at every turn. 

But they may not be the biggest threat Angela faces at camp. Not long after arriving, the camp cook, a dirty, crusty looking creep, sets his sights on Angela. Trapping her in the walk-in cooler, the threat to Angela is very real. Thankfully, Ricky arrives just in time to make the save. Just as fortuitously for future victims of this creep, he's soon dispatched by an unseen killer. In a scene that defies basic logic and physics, the creep nearly ends up being dumped in a pot of boiling water. Instead of falling in the far too tall pot, he falls and drags the boiling pot onto himself, leaving massive, eventually deadly, burns. 

This is the first of what will be several dead bodies in Sleepaway Camp, each a gruesome but also logic defying death. All of this leading up to a nonsensical reveal that is shockingly graphic, considering the circumstances, but not well thought out or presented in a way that makes much sense. Spoiler alert, Angela is a boy. Her crazy Aunt Martha adopted Angela after his sister and father were killed in a boating accident in 1978. In the five years since that day, Martha has forced Angela to live as a boy, even fooling her own son into believing that Angela is his female cousin. 

The murders are supposed to be the result of a growing sense of rage over his/her identity, his/her declining mental state, and the people who have mistreated and bullied Angela since she arrived at the camp. But the film is so oddly desperate to hide its big twist that it includes murders of numerous people who have nothing to do with bullying Angela. I know that logic isn't welcome in a movie this broad, silly, and low budget, but Angela's motivations aren't strong enough to sustain the narrative. What should be a cathartic rage is too often presented with the aim of creating a red-herring that never emerges. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media

Horror in the 90s Troll 2

Troll 2 (1990)

Directed by Claudio Fragasso

Written by Claudio Fragasso, Rossella Drudi 

Starring George Hardy, Michael Stephenson, Connie McFarland 

Release Date October 12th 1990 

Box Office Gross 0 

"It's a ferocious analysis of today's society" Rossella Drudi on her script for Troll 2 

That's a real quote from someone who co-wrote the script for 1990's Troll 2. For those aware of the reputation of Troll 2, it's hard not to assume that Drudi is making a joke. I assure you, she is not. The quote comes directly from Drudi in the amazing documentary, Best Worst Movie, a documentary about the rebirth of Troll 2 as a so bad it's good cult classic. Drudi, in a tone that betrays irritation at having to defend her work, actually says, with some conviction, how she views Troll 2. 

Where do we begin with the mess that is Troll 2. From a personal perspective, I have been aware of Troll 2 for years without ever taking the time to actually watch it. I've watched numerous other critics poke hilarious fun at Troll 2 on YouTube and that's really been all the Troll 2 I have ever needed. Troll 2 is far more fun if you watch it with a group of like-minded friends or via the perspective of a very funny YouTube critic who can deliver the gist of the movie in a tight 15 to 20 minute package. 

So, despite feeling as if I have seen Troll 2 via these critics, the words of friends in the bad movie community, and the remarkable documentary, Best Worst Movie, directed by the film's star, Michael Stephenson, this watch, for this project, is actually the first time that I have seen Troll 2 in its entirety. What have I learned? It's about as crazy and deeply misguided as I thought it was. Indeed, dear reader, unless you are going to a Troll 2 party, you never need to actually see Troll 2, everything you already know about it is more than enough. 

Troll 2 follows a family that is engaging a summer home exchange. They are going to stay on a farm in a small Utah town while a family from that town will stay in their home in the 'big city.' The craziness kicks off right away as our protagonist, 10 year old Joshua (Michael Stephenson) is being read a story about evil, human consuming Goblins who roam the forest. The man reading the story is Joshua's grandfather, Seth (Robert Ormsby), a man who happens to be dead. 

We learn this from some of the clumsiest, clunky exposition possible. The poor amateur actors of Troll 2 are a sincere lot but they are fully defeated by a script translated from Italian by a tyrant who was, according to Best Worst Movie, eager to tell his American actors that he knew the way Americans talk better than they did. Claudio Fragasso's comically misguided dedication to preserving the bizarre, though incredibly quotable dialogue, leads to these amateur actors having to try and perform while fighting the very script they are supposed to be performing. 

Director Claudio Fragosso directs Troll 2 as if he were attempting to shame America by presenting Americans as viewed through the lens of the rest of the world. In Fragosso's world, Americans are grotesque weirdoes who engage in bizarre behaviors like Vegetarianism, and engage in a dystopia via a rigid set of expectations that when not met, can lead to murderous chaos. Americans are both the monsters and the victims in Troll 2, so the intentions of Fragosso are more than a bit muddled, but, yeah, that is apparently Fragosso's intention. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media

Movie Review Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 (2023) 

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie 

Written by Christopher McQuarrie, Erik Jendresen 

Starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, Esai Morales, Cary Elwes, Vanessa Kirby, Pom Klementieff, Shea Whigham, Henry Czerny 

Release Date July 12th, 2023 

Published July 13th, 2023 

I'd never heard the term Dead Reckoning before. In the opening minutes of the new Mission Impossible franchise entry, titled Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1, they explain the term in the most efficient fashion and it dawns on you just what a perfect title this is for this adventure. It's a little thing, but I absolutely love that level of attention to detail and I appreciated that the movie gave us this information not with a windy info dump but with an offhand comment that explains the context of the term. On a colloquial level, it very simply means to navigate based on limited information on your own location. 

That's a perfect metaphor for where the Impossible Mission Force, headed up by Tom Cruise's super-spy, Ethan Hunt, find themselves. They are navigating a world saving adventure plot with very little knowledge or where they are going next. Every little twist and turn of the plot, every development surrounding the McGuffin, is delivered with precision and in a way that only gives us and these wonderful characters, just enough info to take us the next step. That the McGuffin happens to be a literal Key is quite a fun and clever detail that, again, I absolutely love. 

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning opens on a Russian Submarine navigating back to Russia after a very successful mission. This mission involved fooling the entire world's worth of submarines and military intelligence. The sub commander explains that his new sub was able to get within mere meters of the most advanced submarines and military ports in the world, completely undetected. It's a game changing piece of technology that would give Russia a grave advantage in any world conflict. I say that it would, if this sub didn't soon wind up at the bottom of the ocean. 

How it got there is the world altering mystery at the heart of Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1. Ethan Hunt has been given the mission of recovering to halves of a very special key. It's a key that unlocks control of a world altering A.I that may itself be the villain of this movie. With his newly reunited team, including Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa, Simon Pegg as Benji, and Ving Rhames as Luther, Cruise's Ethan Hunt must recover a key but he doesn't know what this key unlocks or where the lock actually is. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Talk to Me

Talk to Me (2023) 

Directed by Danny Phillipou, Michael Phillipou

Written by Danny Phillipou, Bill Hinzman 

Starring Sophie Wilde, Alexandra Jensen, Joe Bird, Miranda Otto, Otis Dhanji, Zoe Terakes 

Release Date July 27th, 2023 

Published July 12th, 2023 

Talk to Me is a fresh take on the teen horror genre. It's filled with clever, terrifying ideas, and it features a lead performance that is haunting and brilliant. We've been subjected to a lot of bad teen horror movies, movies overflowing with familiar tropes and irritating, repetitive jump scares. Talk to Me has familiar elements but it is elevated via stylish direction, and the precise deployment of violence. The film has jump scares but the pacing is measured to a specific degree so that when the violence ramps up, in one very specific, and completely terrifying scene, it has more impact than if we'd been subjected to repeated violence throughout. 

Talk to Me stars the absolutely incredible Sophie Wilde as Mia. Mia has recently lost her mother to what may have been a suicide, though she is convinced it was an accidental overdose. As happens when such a traumatic event occurs in a family, her mother's death has estranged her from her father, Max (Marcus Johnson), who makes attempts to reach her throughout the movie as the actual plot is unfolding and engulfing Mia's life.

Thankfully, though she is distant from her father, Mia is welcomed into the home of her best friend, Jade (Alexandra Jensen), where she is treated like an extra sibling to Jade's brother, Riley (Joe Bird), and another daughter to Jade's mom, Sue (Miranda Otto). The level of familiarity and comfort in this family dynamic is the foundation for what comes next, the horrific fracturing of this family unit via the horrors that come from, frankly speaking, Mia's poor choices. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media