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Monthly Archives: December 2011

Cannonball (1976) or Don Simpson why didn’t’ you sue the makers of Cannonball Run for copyright infringement?

12 Dec

David Carradine stars in Cannonball, also known as Carquake, a 1976 film that was one of two released in ‘76 (the other being The Gumball Rally) that were based on a real illegal cross-continent road race which took place for years in the United States.  The same theme was later copied by The Cannonball Run, Cannonball Run II and Speed Zone!  The Cannonball was directed by Paul Bartel, who, together with Don Simpson, wrote the film.  Simpson even makes a cameo, but we will get to that later.  Apparently the name of the film and the plot were inspired by Erwin G. “Cannon Ball” Baker, (1882-1960), who traveled across the USA several times and by the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, an illegal cross-continent road race introduced by Brock Yates to protest the 55 MPH speed limit—a fine protest indeed.

 

The Trans-America Grand Prix is an illegal underground race held every year starting in Los Angeles and finishing in New York City.  Coy “Cannonball” Buckman (David Carradine) hopes to win the race and get his career back on track as he was recently released from jail serving time for killing a girl while driving drunk (we find out later someone else was driving).  “Modern Motors,” a prominent racing team, has promised a contract to either Cannonball or his nemesis Cade Redmond (Bill McKinney), whichever one of them wins.  Cannonball is still on probation when his parole officer, Linda Maxwell (Veronica Hamel), who he is having an affair with (only in the 70’s: truly outrageous), determines he will be crossing state lines in violation of his parole but instead of stopping her parolee, she is co-opted into joining the “fun.”

 

Other drivers include teenage surfer sweethearts Jim Crandell (Robert Carradine—who would go on to play Lewis Skolnick in the 1984 classic Revenge of the Nerds) and Maryann (Belinda Balaski) driving Maryann’s father’s Chevrolet Corvette, middle-aged Terry McMillan in a Chevrolet Blazer, three stimulating waitresses, Sandy (Mary Woronov), Ginny (Glynn Rubin) and Wendy (Diane Lee Hart) driving in a van, haughty German driver Wolfe Messer (James Keach) driving the yellow De Tomaso Pantera, preppy African-American Beutell (Stanley Bennett Clay) in a Lincoln Continental Mark V, a car which he was hired by a wealthy elderly couple to transport to New York for them and Cannonball’s best friend “Zippo” (Archie Hahn) in a Pontiac Trans Am identical to Coy’s.  

 

Unlike Cannonball Run and others, this race degenerates into a violent and deadly demolition derby.  The Pantera is blown-up, Beutell’s borrowed Lincoln Mark V becomes progressively more damaged as he crosses the country, while Jim and Maryann face engine trouble with the Corvette’s broken fan belt.  The rivalry between Cannonball and the increasingly-unstable Redmond gets out of control as they try to force each other off the road costing Coy his Trans Am after Redmond breaks the headlights.  Luckily, he finds some hicks who just happen to have a 1968 Ford Mustang that admire Cannonball and offer to trade cars as long as when he wins the race, he mentions their name on TV.  Coy and Redmond have their final showdown on an unfinished bridge, which Cannonball and his newly acquired Mustang successfully jump while Redmond loses control, crashes over the side and dies when the car explodes.

 

Bennie, meanwhile, has sent a gunman to kill the driver of the “other” red Trans Am as it is beating Coy.  He is unaware that the driver is Zippo or that Linda is now riding with him, as Coy thought it safer for her to do so since Redmond was after him.  While with Zippo, she has found out that it was Zippo who was driving the car in which the girl was killed, not Coy.  Coy took the blame because he knew the weaker Zippo would never survive in jail.

 

Bennie’s gunman shoots Zippo dead and the Trans Am crashes and explodes.  Linda jumps clear, but is injured.  Jim and Maryann see the wreck and pick up the comatose Linda, taking her to the hospital.  Behind them, the presence of the wrecked Trans Am on the freeway causes a multiple-car pileup.

 

Terry McMillan and Louisa arrive first at the finish line, but Louisa lets slip that the Blazer was flown there and he is disqualified.  The girls in the van and Coy are neck-and-neck until Sandy attempts to take a shortcut when the girls get lost and are stuck in traffic and the van crashes.  Coy arrives at the finish line and is about to stamp his timecard, making him the official winner, when he is told about Zippo and Linda’s accident and realizes Bennie caused it.  He tears up his timecard so it can’t be stamped and gives the pieces to Bennie, who is taken away by gangster Lester Marks (played by the film’s director Paul Bartel) to whom he owes all the money he bet on Coy, presumably to be killed.  Assured of his racing contract, Coy is taken to the hospital to be reunited with Linda by the team manager.  Having decided to finish the race in spite of believing they cannot win having lost so much time, Jim and Maryann are the next to arrive at the finish line.  They are surprised and overjoyed to be told they are the winners of the $100,000 first place prize.

 

At the hospital, Coy and Linda enjoy their reunion, while Beutell delivers the Lincoln – now completely wrecked – to its horrified owners.

 

Cannonball is the movie that broke the dam and started a flood of films revolving around illegal coast to coast car races.  In fact, I am shocked that the makers of Cannonball Run were not sued for copyright infringement.

 

The cameos by Martin Scorsese and Sylvester Stallone (clip provided) are uncredited, while Roger Corman and Don Simpson are both listed in the credits (clip of Don Simpson as Assistant DA).  The real stars of this movie however are the cars.  The film showcases some of the most popular American and a token European (Pantera) muscle cars, ever to make their way on to the road.  My mom had a Lincoln Mark V, just like the one in the film (See the picture of the Lincoln and the clip)—it was even the same color, except that we had a white leather interior.  That Lincoln could have won a race–it had a huge motor in it and it felt like you were riding on your living room couch.  Unfortunately, they don’t make them like that anymore.  There was also a Dodge Charger, Trans Ams (must be popular because there are two of them), a Corvette, Mustangs and the Pantera–all rigged up.  

 

Some of the highlights to look for include the massive car pileup on the interstate towards the end of the film and the exploding Detomaso Pantera.  As you can imagine there’s enough car carnage to make even the most Blues Brothers hardened fan giddy with excitement.  There is also an element of violent explosion with other drivers not even giving the accident a second glance.  I would also like to point out the outfit that Stallone is wearing while he and his cohorts are eating a bucket of KFC.  I love KFC.  It was good to see all of those great cars again, throw in some bad acting and one of my personal favorite actors David Carradine and that is a recipe for a fantastic film.  To those who say this is a “B” film my reply is simple F%$^k You.

 
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Posted by on December 12, 2011 in Movie Reviews

 

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I just read on the CBC news website that talks are underway for Top Gun (1986) sequel.

09 Dec

I just read on the CBC news website that talks are underway for Top Gun (1986) sequel.

It was reported that “Tom Cruise recently confirmed he is in talks for a Top Gun sequel.”

“I hope we can figure this out, to do it again,” the 49-year-old actor told MTV News in Dubai.

“We all want to make a film that is in the same kind of tone as the other one and shoot it in the same way as we shot Top Gun.”

A Top Gun sequel, I am not sure how to react to this news.  While I may be giving away my age, I saw Top Gun in the theater (several times) and looking back on it now, the cast was “power house” to say the least.  The film starred Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Meg Ryan, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards, Tom Skerritt and Michael Ironside.  Directed by Tony Scott and produced by the famed Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer.

What interests me most is who will produce the film?  For 14 years Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer were probably the most successful producing partnership in history.  Their films include Flashdance (1983) with Jennifer Beals, Beverly Hills Cop (1984) starring Eddie Murphy, Top Gun (1986) with Tom Cruise, Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) and Days of Thunder (1990) with Tom Cruise as “Cole Trickle.”  And that is just their 1980’s repertoire.  By 1995, they produced one hit after another.  In that year alone, Simpson was responsible for Bad Boys (1995), the Will Smith/Martin Lawrence film that was Columbia Pictures’ highest grossing movie of the year; Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds (1995); and Crimson Tide (1995).  In 1996, Simpson produced The Rock (1996) starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage. The film brought in nearly $350 million worldwide at the box office, and set the video rental market record as the most-ordered film in history.  Unfortunately, the Rock was Simpson’s last movie.  Don Simpson died in 1996 “of natural causes.”  This is B.S. because after reading the biography of Simpson, the amount of drugs he did rivaled (if not surpassed) that of the fabled Hunter S. Thompson character described in his most famous book (and later two films) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Bruckheimer, nicknamed “Mr. Block Buster” is still producing like crazy.  He was recently quoted as saying: “Top Gun (1986) is no different from Pirates of the Caribbean – in fact, they’re very similar because both movies were working in genres that were dead.  Fighter pilot movies had all failed and pirate movies had been dead for a long time.  We approached them from a different angle.”

A curious quote, from a very successful man.

This gives me the inspiration to do another trilogy, a tribute to Don Simpson.  So that is what is coming next folks.

 
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Posted by on December 9, 2011 in Movie Reviews

 

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Part 3 of 3: “The Ropers” the one that should be lost and forgotten.

07 Dec

Three’s Company was so popular that ABC tried to spin-off a show called The Ropers.  The Ropers were the original landlords in show Three’s is Company, Stanley (Norman Fell) and Helen (Audra Lindley).  In the spin off, the Ropers sold the building, bought a condo and a show if their own.  The “plot” of The Ropers, was that they now lived in a condo in an upscale area but looked down upon their new next door neighbor Jeffrey P. Brookes III, (Jeffrey Tambor).  His wife Anne, however, was actually good friends with Mrs. Roper.  The humor was theoretically to come out of the friction between Jeffrey not liking the Ropers, Jeffrey’s wife not liking that he didn’t like the Ropers and of course Mrs. Roper still not liking that Mr. Roper didn’t want to fool around.  Oh what a hoot that should have been.

Nevertheless, (thank god) the audience didn’t see the humor and the show quickly was cancelled.  The fact that the Ropers was canceled quickly did re-affirm my faith in humanity.  But the Ropers represents something that all those in TV can learn from, don’t take great supporting players and try to make them great central starring characters in another show it all too often fails miserably.  The real problem facing Norman Fell (who was a known star in his own right) was that the characters could not go back to Three’s Company since Don Knotts (the comedy legend) playing Mr. Furley had taken their place.

Just how did this joke of a show get made especially with someone as well-known as Norman Fell being involved?  With Three as Company continued success in its second season, the Three’s Company’s own producers pitched the spin off.  Fell, however, was extremely reluctant (and rightfully so) as he was satisfied with his role on a show that was already a proven hit.  Fell feared (correctly) that a spin-off would be unsuccessful and thus put him out of a good role and job.  To alleviate his fears, Three’s Company producers contractually promised Fell that they would give the new series a year to prove itself.  If unsuccessful, then he and Lindley would return to Three’s Company.  A reluctant Fell agreed to the new terms.

What Happened?  I’ll tell you, they went up against CHIPS—Now who could compete with that?  Eric Estrata, Larry Wilcox—not a chance and it showed in an audience drop that put it an immediate fall into the bottom ten.  The drop in ratings and the fact that the show wasn’t appealing to the young demographic audience to the show’s cancellation in May 1980.  After viewing several of the episodes, I don’t care where they placed it, it stunk on ice.

When the series was canceled, Fell approached Three’s Company producers about returning to the show.  The Ropers had been replaced on Three’s Company by legendary Don Knotts, playing the swinging Ralph Furley who had worked well with the theme of Three’s Company that had retained its popularity.  Apparently Fell would later state that he always believed the decision to pull the plug on the show had been made early on, but that the network deliberately postponed making the cancellation official until after the one-year mark specifically to be relieved of the obligation to allow Fell and Lindley to return to Three’s Company.

At least the networks might have learned something from this debacle.  Now when a show tries to spin-off a character, they set the stage to avoid just such a problem.  When The Jefferson’s spun off the character of Florence into her own show she was replaced not with a big name star but with a character who, should the spin-off fail (which it did), could quickly be dropped so that Florence could return to the original show.

To give you an idea of how bad it was, the show was ranked number two on Time magazine’s “Top 10 Worst TV Spin-Offs” and in the July 2002 TV Guide named The Ropers the 49th worst TV series of all time.

Ouch—but well deserved rankings.

This is the one show of the three we looked at that needs to be lost and forgotten.

 
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Posted by on December 7, 2011 in Movie Reviews

 

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Part 2 of 3 Looking At TV Shows That May Have Been Lost And Forgotten: The John Larroquette Show.

02 Dec

The John Larroquette Show, lost but the first season will not be forgotten (1993-1996).

Just coming off the series “Night Court” (where he played a sleazy assistant district attorney) which ran from 1984-1992, Larroquette didn’t skip a single season before starting his own show—hence the John Larroquette Show.

The show revolved around John Hemingway, a recovering alcoholic newly appointed to the role of night shift manager of the St. Louis bus depot.  The set for this show was far and above any of its competitors.  It was dark, gritty, dingy and looked like what one would think of when one thinks of a St. Louis bus station.  The show orbited around John’s attempts to stay on the wagon, and season 1 roughly equals one or two episodes per one Step of the 12 Steps used in Bill W’s AA program.

Hemmingway has a sign in his office that says it all: “This Is A Dark Ride.” Hemmingway, played by John Larroquette, is a newly minted recovering alcoholic trying to right himself while managing a bus station in St. Louis.  The first year of this show was absolutely brilliant, with a tremendously talented ensemble cast and decidedly sharp and intelligent scripts that almost went out of their way to challenge ethnic and social mores.  No other sitcom boasted a hooker as a regular character, for God’s sake! One of the daughters was booted from the Cosby Show because she was in a racy movie that hit the theaters in the sit-com’s off-season.

John is constantly struggling to keep control of the station, with regular conflicts with his secretary, Mahalia, the janitor, Heavy Gene, and most sharply with sandwich bar attendant, Dexter, who had been turned down for the position that John was appointed to and, of course, there is the requisite sexual tension materializing with the prostitute Carly.  Oh yeah–and they work the third “grave yard” shift.

Because there was something original airing that started capturing a very loyal following, NBC had to spring into action to screw with something that was working.  Legend has it that NBC thought “Cheers”-in-a-bus-station and immediately pressured producers to lighten the mood of the show considerably, removing everything that made the show so extraordinary.  Wasting no time, by season 2, NBC had already moved John from the miserable junkyard he was living in, into a high scale apartment that just so happened to be across the hall from a cute nurse played by Allison LaPaca and the mandated relationship ensued.  The necessary sit-com formula was applied like an ointment and “cured” LaPaca’s crooked smil. The surrounding characters lost their edginess — the hooker became a respectable bar owner (uh huh), the sharp-tongued, streetwise food counter owner became your basic sidekick, et cetera.  I knew it was over when the hooker bought the bar, I just knew it, and maybe watched 2-3 episodes of season 2 before I had to cut the show loose.  Who could blame me? After all, the dark and intelligent comedy had morphed into a standard relationship sitcom with stereotypical characters and scripts right out of “Three’s Company” without the lovable campiness.  In a situation like that you have to get out as fast as you can to preserve what few good memories you have of the show before those memories become intertwined with the crap. 

To change the subject completely, the show had some good guest stars, including David Crosby, who regularly played Cheste, John’s sponsor for AA meetings.  Another episodic guest star, Bobcat Goldthwait, played an assistant to John, who was constantly a mess but became suddenly efficient and ‘normal,’ as soon as he got drunk.  Richard S. “Kinky” Friedman appeared as himself in a jail cell.

All I have to say is, what is the matter with you networks and TV watching Americans!  Aren’t you sick of the tired and recycled scripts and bland characters that flood the airwaves?  And you, networks, couldn’t you leave one show alone for the rest of us?  Just once?  Are you really that scared of TV that is slightly smarter and edgier than all the other programs that populate your prime-time?  Networks listen up:  You Are Killing Me, You Are God Damn Killing Me With This.

Followers I have included the entire pilot and episode 5 of season 1 so you could get the flavor of the show.

 
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Posted by on December 2, 2011 in Movie Reviews

 
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