STAYING ALIVE

year: 1983

cast: John Travolta, Cynthia Rhodes, Finola Hughes
bad movie rating: ***1/2

This is not a John Travolta film. It belongs entirely to writer/director Sylvester Stallone, rehashing the Rocky storyline of a dimwitted diamond-in-the-rough Italian fighting to survive... only in this case it's a dancer, not a boxer, and unlike Rocky, it's a bad movie. Travolta fights to make it from his former struggling strutter to lead dancer in what's perhaps the gayest Broadway musical ever created (named "Satan's Alley," inspired by Sly's "Paradise Alley"). Playing the character he made famous in "Saturday Night Fever", our man's in great shape, but look too thin, gaunt, strung-out. He charms his way into the bed of a beautiful Broadway star (Finola Hughes) who turns the tables and plays him... and there's an overabundance of Travolta getting his just-deserts: the player being played, played to the hilt while he's using his pretty, gullible girlfriend (Cynthia Rhodes) who can't help but to love the handsome devil. Her love for him is even more annoying than his lust for the femme fatale. And eventually, of course, like Rocky, our hero ends up champion of a game he never thought he'd had a chance in to begin with. Overall, it's terrible fun. Terrible yet fun. Terrible. Fun. Terribly fun. 

HEAVY METAL

title: HEAVY METAL

year: 1981

rating: ***

The sexually explicit, violently-glorious cartoon is tops for about an hour, and then, during the last thirty minutes involving the searing, pointless journey of a gorgeous sword-wielding chick who flies a giant turkey (which is the movie/album/poster/VHS/DVD image), the animators get carried away by their own visual talents, abandoning the energetically flowing pace of the first hour involving wanton babes shedding their clothes and monstrous heads being hacked-off with some cool tunes (few of them actually heavy metal) as we follow the handoff-journey of a murderous space-born green orb through the lives of characters such as a Film-Noir-esque cabbie (voiced by Robert Romanus i.e. "Mikey" from MEAN STREETS); a nerdy kid who becomes a bald strongman on another planet; zombies making a WWII flying ace's life a living hell; and several other deliciously weird tales. John Candy, providing voices for a few characters, takes you out of the escapist-factor just a bit... but no matter. It's still a dynamic visual treat. And then some. 

A CHORUS LINE

title: A CHORUS LINE

year: 1985

cast: Michael Douglas

rating: *

"I hope I get it... I hope I get it... I hope I get it..." Well I didn't. I was HOPING for some so-good-it's-bad pre-Showgirls fun but got nothing but a group of dancers singing their thoughts and frustrations, and the tunes were awful. And I was also hoping Michael Douglas's character, a producer who berates the dancers, would be, at best, entertaining. He wasn't. I guess I should have stuck with "Staying Alive".

SHOWGIRLS

title: SHOWGIRLS

year: 1995

cast: Elizabeth Berkley, Gina Gershon

normal movie rating: *

bad movie rating: *****

One of the greatest bad movies ever made, this was directed by a bigwig and written by another bigwig (who previously teamed up for "Basic Instinct") and was supposed to be a blockbuster of epic proportions and turned out to be the biggest bomb on the planet, but since has gained a "Springtime for Hitler" like adoration and a gaggle of rabid fans for which I am one. Movie starts out with a tall girl who resembles an ostrich (or llama... or both) who gets picked up by an Elvis impersonator in a raised truck. They go to Vegas and within minutes he steals her stuff, leaving her in Sin City where she promptly meets a black girl who will become her own personal Laverne... or Shirley. Then she gets a job at a dive strip club and not long after becomes a... yep... showgirl in a big-time musical-striptease perhaps even cornier than "Satan's Alley" from STAYING ALIVE. The nudity's about as sexual as an issue of National Geographic; purposely proving that naked girls in a Vegas stripshow are par for the course (and who can argue?). The acting (especially by Berkley) is unintentionally hilarious and the plot is so vapid one can't NOT realize the truly miraculous marvel that is SHOWGIRLS.

VICTOR/VICTORIA

year: 1982
rating: **

What a drag, pun intended... but the first hour is okay. Robert Preston is annoying as every single line seems like something from a stage play (his style), but Julie Andrews is interesting as an out-of-work American singer in Paris who, with Preston (her gay friend), ends up posing as a man dressed up as a woman - thus becoming a huge nightclub attraction. James Garner is a bigwig who falls in love with her: first thinking she's a she then finding out she's a him and his manliness is questioned. Once the "relationship" begins with Garner and Andrews, the film goes downhill... Once past the entertaining first half with Andrews and Preston struggling together, everything gets way too muddled. Blake Edwards has so many wheels turning in different directions the vehicle gets stuck in the mud.

CONNIE AND CARLA

title: CONNIE AND CARLA

year: 2004

cast: Nina Vardalos, Toni Collette, David Duchuvny

rating: *1/2

Nina Vardalos follows up her independent hit "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" (which made her a star) with a film about two women who sing and dance in a Chicago airport theater (?) who witness a murder and hiding out in L.A. pose as transvestites who then sing and dance in L.A. They become part of the cross-dressing culture and feel guilty in tricking the community as they become big stars (in a little venue). The film isn't as bad as when I first saw it and has a pretty decent underdog story, but it's cliche-ridden and chugs along with little steam. A budding romantic sidestory with David Duchuvny doesn't help much. This is Nina's "Paradise Alley" if in fact "Greek Wedding" was her "Rocky". If so, I'm surprised she's still up for the count. It's basically "Victor/Victoria" mixed with "Tootsie" mixed with... something or rather - that of which I'm still not exactly sure.