CATS, CROSS-DRESSERS,
AND CO-ED CORPSES:
THE TRIPLE-FEATURE WEEKEND FROM HELL
Dunno how you spent your President's Day weekend, but da Flatline went into it with a measurable amount of fear and loathing; usually, by Monday evening the S.O., the Only Child, and yrs truly are at each others throats. But the gods must have been in a generous mood -- we got through it with a minimum of aggrevation and a maximum of Family Togetherness. To top it off, on Saturday I caught three flix in a row that, while seemingly wildly divergent, had more in common with each other than you might think...
First up (by request of Kid Flatline) was the remake of the Disney live-action chestnut THAT DARN CAT (1997). Never a huge fan of The Mouse Factory's non-cartoon offerings, I was actually surprised at how entertaining -- not to mention subversive -- the thing was. The story of a mischievous feline who helps solve a kidnapping is rote plot at best, but the film has the benefit of Christina Ricci (Wednesday Addams forever!). As Uncle Walt's first goth/alternative heroine, she's suffocating from boredom in her sleepy, square New England town; her biggest kick is trying to get her relentlessly cheery mom (Bess Armstrong, Julie Andrews-prim) to swear. What she doesn't know (but we learn, when her cat D.C. makes his scheduled 8 PM constitutional) is that, when the sun goes down, the town morphs into something outta TWIN PEAKS: the lumpish deli owner (Megan Cavanaugh) turns into a disco vamp, the Ma & Pa drugstore owners (Peter Boyle, Rebecca Schull) ballroom dance, the gas-station owner (John Ratzenberger) engages in guerilla-warfare vandalism with his across-the-street rival, and elderly shut-in Old Lady McCracken (Estelle Parsons) delights in Jerky Boys-caliber phone pranks. The pic's major deficit is Doug E. Doug as a manic, incompetent FBI agent assigned to tailing D.C. (or "Witness X," as he dubs the cat); while he was quite watchable in COOL RUNNINGS and OPERATION DUMBO DROP, Doug's constant mugging wears thin real fast. (Although I must admit the scene where he tracks down the kidnapper's hideout by thinking -- and acting! -- like a cat was pretty durn amusing.) Throw in some cartoony slapstick destruction, and you've got a decent kiddie matinee that's not too painful for us adults.
Later that evening, the BET cable channel was previewing its new all-movie service, and for lack of anything better to do, we decided to catch TO WONG FOO, THANKS FOR EVERYTHING! JULIE NEWMAR (1995). Hollywood's first major film about drag queens on a cross-country road trip is only about as deep as the foundation makeup on its three male stars, but this still makes for a cute, clever little flick with style and attitude to burn. This is the sort of film where you find yourself delighting over little scenes or situations, e.g. the "girls" accessorizing their small-town boardinghouse room to the "Wonder Woman" theme or getting a trainload of commuters to vogue along with them. Wesley Snipes plays his Noxeema Jackson the broadest (at times resembling Flip Wilson's old Geraldine character) while Patrick Swayze's Vida Boheme is all class and quiet dignity. The surprise here is John Leguizamo, whose "Mexican spitfire" Chi-Chi Rodriquez looks more like a real woman than the other two (and, God forgive my hetero soul, a damn good looking woman at that!)
So how do you end a day of cinematic sweetness and light? Staying up until 2 AM and descending into a morass of surreal depravity, that's how. (I was sure you knew the answer to that one!) TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (1992), the belated (and reviled) prequel to David Lynch's cult TV show, begins deceptively as FBI agent Chester Desmond (singer Chris Isaak) investigates the murder of another young girl in another Northwestern town before shifting over to the last seven days of Laura Palmer's life. Of course, being a Lynch film, nothing is simple or clear-cut, and the film is top-heavy with weird characters, verbal non-sequiters, and scenes out of a very bad dream. The film brings back a lot (but not all) of the original TV cast, sometimes randomly; even die-hard fans might not initially realize, for example, that the show's "One-Armed Man" is chasing and screaming at Laura and her dad in their car. (On the other hand, the presense of Miguel Ferrer's sarcastic Fed is always welcome.) The main reason to watch this (aside from being a "Peaks" freak, which I am) is the incredible work by Sheryl Lee as Laura. In the TV show, Lee's onscreen time was limited to her famous "unwrapping" (see pic above), flashbacks, and a mid-season reappearance as Laura's lookalike cousin. Here, she's center-stage through most of the movie, alternating between a drugs-and-sex-soaked hussy and a terrified teenager whose life and psyche are unraveling before her eyes. Even with the editing necessary for basic cable (thanks, TNT!), Laura's climactic murder is absolutely horrific. The movie makes a bit more sense if you read the original screenplay (transcriptions are floating around the Web even as we speak), but see the film first; I wouldn't exactly call it "entertaining" per se, but I still can't get it out of my mind.
For more of D.C., Noxeema/Vida/Chi-Chi, and/or Laura Palmer:
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