Before she became famous for, alternately, wriggling about in Whitesnake music videos and physically assaulting her ex-husband, baseball player Chuck Finley, Tawny Kitaen was indeed an actress, as evidenced not just by her breakout role in Bachelor Party, but also director Just Jaeckin’s Gwendoline.
Kitaen did for the French magazine Lui
upon the European release of the movie. Two different trailers — one
for the American cut of the movie, another instrumental-only, much more
artistic version for international audiences — point up the film’s
different selling points (extra nudity also graces the abroad version,
of course). The supplemental knockout, though, is a new sit-down
interview with Jaeckin in which he talks about the movie’s 18-week
shoot, its chariot race sequence and how he was resistant to taking the
project unless he could play up the concept’s humor and bawdy banter.
Extra props, too, to the off-screen interviewer for asking him about
the incident with Finley, and if Kitaen ever displayed any proclivities
toward violence on his set. Jaeckin’s classic answer: “Huh. No. But I
am strong.” B- (Movie) B+ (Disc)
At
age 19, aspirant drummer and walking tattoo parlor Tommy Lee helped
form the hard-charging rock ’n’ roll band Mötley Crüe, so who had time
for a liberal-arts education? Now twice-divorced and the father of two
young boys, Lee is trying to put his infamous bad-boy rep behind him,
and one way to do this — since they haven’t yet invented body erasers —
is to go to college, specifically the University of Nebraska.
Comprised of a scant six half-hour episodes originally aired on NBC and VH-1, Tommy Lee Goes to College
can’t really gather the necessary downhill momentum to truly deliver on the absurdist cachet of its concept. While it faithfully replicates
many touchstone freshman experiences and Lee is a respectful figure,
the sum doesn’t match the whole of the show’s parts. Further saddled by
an officious narration, the series comes across as a cycle of set-piece
vignettes strung together in rib-nudging fashion by an overactive
editor. This means the inclusion of washed-out effects and other
post-production gimmickry — tacks that rather quickly grow tiresome.
Still, it’s undeniable that there’s some fun to be had here. In the
series’ fourth episode, Lee’s English class debates the merit of his
autobiography, which opens with an imagined conversation between Tommy
and his penis. (The reactions of the co-eds are priceless.) Later, he
tries to pledge a fraternity, which births the priceless images of Lee
scrubbing a filthy toilet and trying to negotiate a bundle of laundry,
finally emptying an entire bottle of liquid detergent into the washer.
Pity that we don’t see the consequences of that, though — or much of
anything else. Instead of following this strand through to its logical
conclusion, Lee and another student get a house and try to start their
own frat. Wait… didn’t I see this in a Porky’s movie or something?
Again, the series works best when subverting expectation, and
thrusting the affable Lee back into a corner as the definitive butt of
the show’s joke. It’s savvy that they bestow upon him a smokin’ hot
blonde tutor, senior Natalie Reidmann, but do we really need a slow-mo
introduction complete with windswept hair? Likewise, the very idea of
Lee in chemistry and criminal law classes (he audited a semester, but
did not formally enroll) is rife with its own subtextual hilarity, but the series indulges only fitfully in its subject’s self-effacing, himbo
confusion, which is actually quite endearing.
Tommy Lee Goes to College is presented in 1.33:1 full screen,
with an English language stereo track. Relatively sparse supplemental
extras represent a further missed opportunity, including a clutch of
self-touting music videos and behind-the-scenes rehearsal footage
(“Tryin’ To Be Me,” “Hello, Again” and the surprisingly soulful “Good
Times”) from Lee’s most recent, commercially underwhelming CD, Tommyland: The Ride. Hard-core fans of Mötley Crüe and other celeb-based entertainment will likely enthusiastically spark to Tommy Lee Goes to College, but for more casual audiences, this remains an elective course. C+ (Show) C- (Disc)
The
life of a character actor can be a fairly anonymous one, but there’s
something about Stephen Tobolowsky’s malleable visage — ranging from
plaintive to droll — that earns him an easy place in your memory. Of
course, it doesn’t hurt that he’s been stealing scenes and memorably
serving stories since first parlaying his education in theater at the
University of Illinois into a string of television roles in the
mid-1980s. Movies soon consistently followed, both comedic and dramatic
work, and from Groundhog’s Day (“Phil? It’s Ned… Ned Ryerson!”), Mississippi Burning and Spaceballs to Memento, Sneakers and Single White Female,
among many others, Tobolowsky has become a go-to guy for all sorts of
bit parts officious, unctuous, exasperating and craven. In the
deliciously entertaining Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party, though, he takes center stage as never before.
Mena Suvari’s ex-husband), the movie is a cinema verité
slice-of-life which finds Tobolowsky holding forth in absorbing,
good-naturedly verbose style with all sorts of stories and anecdotes
from his life. It was shot in simple, straightforward fashion to mark
the real-life occasion of its subject’s 54th birthday celebration, but
the idea came much before that, from Tobolowsky’s esteemed status as a
great party guest.
“The genesis was 17 years ago, with Coronas in hand, in my kitchen,”
recalls Tobolowsky, “with me telling stories about being held hostage
at shotgun (one of the movie’s best bits) and other things that had
happened to me, and everyone standing around laughing. Robert
immediately said it would make a great idea for a movie. So it only
took 15 years to do it. I think one of the other people in the kitchen
was a woman who became a producer at NPR, and years later she asked me
to write one of these stories down and perform it live on the radio.
And that forced me to put pen to paper, because the expectation of
performance is much different in a kitchen… than when people are paying
$25 bucks a head on stage to see someone on stage read a story. They
expect professionalism at that rate, and because it was successful on
the radio I had the confidence to think that Robert’s idea might work
on film.”
The movie holds sway because of Tobolowsky’s gift as a beautiful
storyteller, a weaver of colorful detail, but also because the tales
are all so relatable. Well, almost all of them — maybe not the
one about the evening with the stripper spent looking through her high
school yearbook. “Robert wanted lots of Hollywood-type stories,” says
Tobolowsky, who admits he has a few, some of which are included here,
“but the thing that I felt and still maintain is that stories that are
not about film or celebrities or Hollywood figures are ultimately more
exciting, because they have a chance to be more universal and
consequently more powerful. Some of the strongest memories I have are
not necessarily of Hollywood dinner parties, but more of evenings on
front porches where people would tell me stories about their lives, or
talking with the trucker at 3 a.m. Those seem to be the ones that stick
with me.”
Despite the movie’s sometimes frank diversions into adult arenas,
Tobolowsky has had no problems sharing it with his two boys, ages 12
and 17. Surprisingly, he says, they both loved it. “My oldest son
started inviting groups of friends over, I guess because they couldn’t
believe some of the sex and drugs stories,” he says with a laugh. “I
try to be truthful about everything,” he continues. “What I tell them
is that, at my ripe old age now, I don’t know a single soul who wishes they had smoked an extra reefer as opposed to read another book. I haven’t done drugs in years and years and years,
and I regret the amount of time that I wasted doing them, but we all
wish that we had used that time in a more valuable way. That’s what I
tell them.”
Both for those who’ve sparked to Tobolowsky’s rich performances over the years or merely sort of recognize him, his Birthday Party
is a wonderful and funny insight into the man behind the poker-face.
With stories like these, you won’t feel bad about skipping out on your
ex-roommate’s lame party. For more information, visit www.STBPmovie.com.
, and eventually retains his mercenary<br />
services in an effort to help find her missing father. <b>Based upon the<br />
orgiastic vision of legendary fetish artist John Willie</b>, who first<br />
invented the plucky, nubile heroine for his infamous comics of the<br />
1950s, the movie is <b>a mash-up of the same sort of swashbuckling and<br />
male-female bickering on display in <i>Raiders of the Lost Ark</i> and <i>Romancing the Stone</i></b>.<br />
Depraved pirates, scorching deserts and jungle wildlife all stand in<br />
the way of Gwendoline and Willard, as well as their own naked desires.<br />
And even if they can find the legendary lost “Land of the Yik Yak”<br />
where Gwendoline believes her father is, will the duo survive a final<br />
ordeal against an empire of lust-crazed warrior women?</p>
<p>What helps differentiate the material from some of its obvious big<br />
screen inspirations, of course, is its much more overtly erotic<br />
undertones, beautifully shepherded to screen by legendary erotica<br />
director Jaeckin (<i>Emmanuelle</i>, <i>The History of O</i>). Still,<br />
while definitely steamy, the nudity herein does (shockingly) fall<br />
within the confines of the story, and <b>the movie is also graced with<br />
some wonderful art design, costumes and sets</b>. The production quality<br />
here is truly top-notch, and <b>illustrative of what’s missing in the<br />
derisible canon of modern “erotic thrillers”</b> that litter<br />
straight-to-video release lists. It’s also quite funny much of the time<br />
(“Get away from me, you’re not my type!” barks Willard to a leering<br />
snake), though it does counterbalance levity with some rather<br />
flippantly shocking acts of violence, such as when Willard pulls a<br />
prison guard’s head between two bars and sharply downwards, thus<br />
slicing off his ears. <b>For what it is, <i>Gwendoline</i></b> <b>works fairly well</b>.</p>
<p>In addition to this unrated director’s cut, clocking in at 105<br />
minutes, and fully restored with scenes never before seen in America, a<br />
brushed-up version of the 88-minute theatrical release, <b>released under<br />
the title <i>The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of Yik Yak</i></b>, is<br />
also separately available. Both are new anamorphic transfers enhanced<br />
for widescreen TVs, and they look pretty great for their age. Audio<br />
comes in the form of a 5.1 English audio track, a 5.1 French audio<br />
track with optional English subtitles, a 2.0 English audio track and a<br />
2.0 French audio with optional English subtitles. <b>Jaeckin sits for an<br />
engaging, if accented, audio commentary track</b>, and there’s an <b>audio<br />
interview</b> with aforementioned <i>Gwendoline</i> creator Willie as well as a photo gallery of 11 pictures from a photo spread that <a href=)
Kitaen did for the French magazine Lui
Mena Suvari’s ex-husband), the movie is a cinema verité