"World War II has just ended, and young Everett Laidlaw who had joined the battle overseas to avoid jail for Moonshining, returns home and reunites with his kin. But surviving the war will soon seem like a cakewalk for Everett as he deals with his wacky family and struggles with coming of age in small-town America" is how Dixie Lanes was described.
The above description sounded like this would be a pretty decent movie and since I'm a fan of Hoyt Axton I was anxious to see it; however, there were so many things wrong with Dixie Lanes that I really don't know where to begin. The main problem lies in the lack of focus on any certain plot and/or a decision as to what type of movie was being made. Somewhere near the halfway point of Dixie Lanes a plot finally emerged; but in the meantime the movie had meandered from one idea to another while trying to decide if it was a madcap 40s movie, a family drama, or a mystery. I'm not saying it would be impossible to combine all of those elements, but they each seem to be treated as a separate entity and none ever converged with any other. I can only guess the lack of focus in the movie was due to an inexperienced director, this was his first movie (and he only directed one more movie eight years later).
Hoyt Axton, whose own likability shone through his character, did a fine job with the role he was given. Even though the box cover makes it appear that Hoyt and Karen Black are the stars of the movie, the movie mainly revolves around his son, Everett (Christopher Rydell). A brief footnote to Dixie Lanes - although not a musician, but only related to one, Bruce Springsteen's sister Pamela plays Rydell's love interest in Dixie Lanes and appears topless in one scene.
Fireball 500 on the surface appears to be a continuation of the Beach Party movies, since it stars Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon and co-stars Harvey Lembeck. Besides featuring those three actors, the film has little to do with the Beach Party series. I say little, since Frankie does sing over the opening and closing credits, along with another song in the middle of the movie and Annette also gets to do one song.
Frankie is a famous race car driver who tools around in a George Barris customized 1966 Plymouth Barracuda, towing his race car behind him. He winds up in a town with a stock car race sponsored by Harvey Lembeck. The racetrack has an attached carnival where Annette works for her father Chill Wills, who runs a "hoochie coochie" show. Fabian (who inexplicably doesn't sing in the movie) is Annette's main squeeze. In a plot throwback to the beach movies, Annette wants Fabian to settle down and quit his wild racing ways. I guess it goes without saying that Fabian and Frankie become rivals, not only for Annette, but also on the racetrack.
Fireball 500 has a subplot about moonshine running (shades of Thunder Road) and while Fabian has no problem running "shine", Frankie gets tricked into taking a moonshine run. When the revenuers threaten Frankie with jail time, he has to help them arrest the suppliers.
Fireball 500 is a lot more adult in theme than the movies normally associated with Frankie and Annette. Annette still maintains her "goody two shoes" image for most of the movie, the exception being when she sings "Step Right Up" for her father's girlie show. Frankie, on the other hand, drinks hard liquor and even though the movie only gives you a hint of what happens, it's pretty obvious he has shacked up with a woman in his hotel room.
While it was good to see some old-style stock car racing footage, as opposed to the boring NASCAR professional racing of today, Fireball 500 wasn't very entertaining. Some of the supporting actors were so good it made Annette and Frankie's acting look pretty amateurish, although Fabian held his own with the rest of the cast. The plot mash-up of beach movie with the previously mentioned Thunder Road was weak and even the songs were insipid. Given the choice I'd watch any of Annette and Frankie's beach movies over Fireball 500.
If I was giving Beyond The Doors a grade, I would have to grade it CRAZY AS HELL. Although I got my copy from a private individual and it didn't include any artwork, I cribbed the following liner notes on the video from the internet: "Jimi Hendrix: The king of rock. A pleasure seeking superstar who blasted his way into college campuses with his music, drugs and erotica. Dead at 27. Janis Joplin: A free spirited symbol of the sixties who was a hard drinking, hard lovin' texas mama who gloried in tearing at her throat as she sang. Dead at 27. Jim Morrison: Founder of The Doors. His performances turned into orgies and his beautiful poetry became dark, eerie rock, protesting against the ravaging of the earth. Dead at 27. Their music got them killed! Why? How? Where? They were too powerful - they had to be silenced! Assassinated for the good of America? Find out why. "
The movie begins with a trio of men out hunting ducks. One of the men is shot by his buddies (shades of Dick Cheney). His son is bequeathed a briefcase and it contains an almost finished book by his father showing the reason he was murdered...he was going to blow the lid off the government conspiracy to silence the "three pipers of Rock and Roll". Most of the rest of the film is told in a flashback style as the movie shows us all three musicians and how they were eventually killed...well except Morrison who faked his death and entered a monastery, where he died a natural death. Why were they killed? It seemed Jimi was sympathetic to The Black Panthers, Morrison spoke out against the Vietnam War....and Janis, I never could get a clear reason they killed her, since she never really did anything political in Beyond The Doors.
Of the three actors, I thought Gregory Allen Chatman did a pretty good Hendrix when he was acting, as far as music ability it appeared holding a guitar was something foreign to him and most of the time the camera captures him only from above the guitar (a trick I guess they took from Ed Sullivan only showing Elvis from the waist up). Riba Meryl as Janis Joplin reminded me of a mix of Stevie Nicks and circa 1980's Elayne Boozler, however her song styling wasn't bad. Bryan Wolf was recognizable as Morrison since he had on tight leather pants, other than that, he looked more like Tommy James and Peter Frampton combined into one person, but once again his song styling was up to par.
Speaking of the songs, there is only "original" music in Beyond The Doors. I put original music in quotes since all of the songs sound similar to the music originally performed by Hendrix, Joplin, and Morrison. I actually found this a plus for the movie and commend whoever did the songwriting. One last note on musicians - none of the backing groups looked like any members from the original bands.... one drummer even resembled Felix Cavaliere of The Rascals and one even looked like Freddie Prinze!
The main reason for the elimination of Joplin, Morrison and Hendrix is Richard Nixon wants to be re-elected and is afraid of the youth vote and the power these three could wield if they so chose. This brings us to a small joke in the movie where a photo of Nixon is hanging on the wall and, once straighten, Herbert Hoover asks an agent how it looks and the agent replies "a little crooked".
There's a lot of craziness in Beyond The Doors such as Hendrix playing Woodstock indoors, Joplin being killed by injecting oranges with dope and then staging an overdose scene, and Morrison dying in the monastery due to what I guess old folks would call consumption (what they don't have penicillin in France?). However, the craziest to me was the inclusion of The Plaster Casters. Their appearance had absolutely nothing to do with the film and I assume someone thought it would air some believability to the movie. Sorry filmmakers, it was much to late by the time the Plaster Casters arrived for anyone to think they were watching a documentary.
Beyond The Doorswas badly acted, badly scripted, and badly filmed, but I still enjoyed it for it own unique craziness. However, if you're not a fan of bad movies, you might want to skip this one.
In La Bamba, I didn't see the complete immersion of the actor, Lou Diamond Phillips, with his character, Ritchie Valens, as I did with Gary Busey in The Buddy Holly Story and Sissy Spacek in Coal Miner's Daughter. Regardless of my above statement, and the fact Lou Diamond Phillips only bears a passing resemblance to Valens, his acting ability was strong enough to make me so involved with his character that I was wishing there could be a different ending to the movie other than the one I knew was inevitable. A special note should be added that even though Phillips' performances were dubbed, his handling of the guitar playing in La Bamba added another level of authenticity to the film.
La Bamba begins during the period of Valens' life when his brother Bob had been released from jail and had made enough money to have the family move from the migrant fields back to a more stable home-life. A lot of La Bamba revolves around Ritchie and his relationship with his brother Bob. While Bob supported Ritchie, he was also envious of the success of his brother. Since Bob also had a problem with alcohol he made some bad decisions, some of which were detrimental to Ritchie. Not only Bob, but in a refreshing twist of the way a lot of early Rock and Roller's were looked at, Ritchie's whole family was supportive of him. The only thing I found hard to believe in La Bamba was Ritchie Valens carrying his guitar EVERYWHEREhe went. While I have read reports that Valens carried his guitar to school to entertain his classmates, the constant presence of the guitar seemed far fetched --- but what do I know --- maybe it was true.
In La Bamba, Valens crosses paths with a few other musicians: Los Lobos, who appear as a Mexican Bar Band; Howard Huntsberrry does a great turn as Jackie Wilson; Brian Setzer rocks out as Eddie Cochran; and Marshall Crenshaw makes a very credible Buddy Holly [Besides being a musician, Crenshaw also wrote the great reference book Hollywood Rock - A Guide To Rock n Roll In The Movies]
I had seen Two-Lane Blacktop (TLB) many years ago and remembered it boring me to death. Either time has changed how I look at movies (entirely possible) OR the fact that I watched TLB in four sittings has made me change my mind (also entirely possible). It turned out to be a pretty entertaining movie with only one disappointment (besides the artsy/fartsy ending). In my mind, I remembered TLB as a car movie in the spirit of Vanishing Point or Gone In 60 Seconds (the original one NOT the one with Nic Cage, even though I'm a fan of Cage's). TLB is more in the vein of a character driven movie with cars, rather than an action driven car movie with characters. And that includes the fact that the cars in TLB can also be considered two of the main characters.
TLB's basic plot is about two guys - James Taylor as The Driver and Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys as The Mechanic (the characters don't have "real" names) - driving cross country and drag racing locals at each stop to earn their income. Along the way they pick up a girl hitchhiker (The Girl) and run into Warren Oates (GTO) who drives....you guessed it a GTO.
James Taylor and Dennis Wilson both prove very adequate in their respective roles with both, in my opinion, showing screen charisma. Either one could have gone on to do more movies and not embarrassed themselves as some musician/actors have wound up doing. The only unfortunate part of their being in TLB is the movie includes the powerhouse Warren Oates. He outshines not only Taylor and Wilson, but everyone else in the movie; not only because his role is more fully written, but also because he was such a damn fine actor. On top of that, he has my favorite line in the movie "I'll have a hamburger and an Alka-Seltzer".
One final thing, I noticed while watching TLB was attitudes toward people with long hair must have changed in the two years between the release of Easy Rider and TLB. Only once in the movie are James Taylor and Dennis Wilson asked if they're hippies. Everywhere else in the movie, long hairs mix with short haired and greasy haired characters with no one seeming to mind. The little that bit I have been around "car" guys, I would have to agree they're usually more interested in the car than the person behind the wheel.
I'm not the right market for this movie, which I assume would appeal to females in their teens or early 20s. I can only assume, since I have no idea what that demographic really likes. Also, having a movie titled Shag set in Myrtle Beach and made by a bunch of outsiders to "beach" culture starts off on a bad foot with me. Despite all the above mentioned, I still actually halfway enjoyed the movie, mainly due to the facts that it captured some footage of old Myrtle Beach (before the huge commercialization of the last few years) and the soundtrack had some great music. And what the heck, might as well throw in the fact that Bridget Fonda is a real cutie pie.
The plot of Shag is about 4 friends (Phoebe Cates, Bridget Fonda, Annabeth Gish, and Page Hannah), all proper girls from Spartanburg, SC, and their last fling before marriage and college separates them. I will only touch on two of the improbables in the plot (there are more, but these two are seared into my brain): You don't leave Spartanburg to go to Myrtle Beach and come to an intersection where a directional sign would point to Myrtle Beach one way or Fort Sumter the other way. In order to get to Fort Sumter, you would go to Charleston since Fort Sumter is A FORT off the coast of that city. The makers of Shag also think Fort Sumter is a town, which is incorrect, I'm assuming they got it confused with the town of Sumter. The other REALLY bad plot point - you don't learn to dance The Shag at the beginning of a long weekend and win a major Shag Contest in the next few days.
Shag features one live band called Big Dan and The Sand Dollars (the band is actually played by The Voltage Brothers, featuring Larry Whitaker) in a couple of scenes. The Voltage Brothers/Big Dan and The Sand Dollars really put on a good performance as a typical show band from the era the movie is set in (1963) and both of their songs "Stay" and "Sixty Minute Man" will make you wish you were in a club seeing them live.
To my knowledge there has only been one movie that really captured the essence of being a teen/young adult and going Myrtle Beach (and Shag definitely ain't it) and that movie was titled Ocean Drive Weekend. It was made on a shoestring budget and released through Troma Pictures (YES, you read that correct - Troma). If you want to read a review of that movie I would recommend clicking on over to The Lightning Bug's Lair. If you're interested in seeing Shag and still have a VCR, check your local thrift store (I haven't been in a thrift store yet that didn't have at least one copy of Shag). The thrift store will probably charge you $1.00 and I feel that's about the right price for Shag. Any higher and you might feel like you got "ripped off".
Recently I've watched a good many movies with musicians and have partially completed write-ups on all of them. Since starting a "real" job as opposed to my "fake" EBAY job, I don't seem to have time to get any of them finished (which was a real disappointment that I didn't get The Paul Lynde Halloween Special featuring KISS done in time for the holiday). I figured it was in my best interest to watch only movies without musicians until, if ever, I get caught up. Browsing through the free on-demand movies, I saw Texas Rangers listed and thought I would give it a try since I like a good western. If it wasn't good, what the heck, it was free and I could always turn it off with nothing wasted but a little bit of my time. Boy did I get a surprise when I found that the movie featured Randy Travis and Usher (billed as Raymond Usher).
Now on to the two musicians featured in Texas Rangers, Usher and Randy Travis. Usher holds his on with the two main stars, James Van Der Beek and Dylan McDermott and certainly outshines Ashton Kutcher, who appears to be playing a cowboy straight from That 70's Show. Although Randy Travis' part is small in Texas Rangers, he's so good in the movie as a man of few words with a cigarillo in his mouth (ala Clint Eastwood) that it made me wish his part had been larger.
Texas Rangers is certainly not going to go down in cinema history as one of the great Westerns, but if you have a free 90 minutes and are interested in the genre, I don't think you'll be disappointed in the movie, just keep in mind that I warned you about the weak ending.
