Only now does it occur to me... MR. WRONG (1996)

Only now does it occur to me... could MR. WRONG, a screwball anti-romantic comedy and notorious box office bomb starring Ellen DeGeneres in her only live-action-feature leading role (to date), directed by longtime John Carpenter crony Nick Castle, and co-written by sci-fi/horror legend Richard Matheson's son Chris and THE MORNING SHOW's showrunner Kerry Ehrin... be as bad as they say? 

The answer: sort of!



This, a project of such aforementioned and bizarre pedigree, is ultimately a delivery system for a series of wacky situations and horrified expressions in the vein of Jerry Lewis (with a messy pixie cut).

 It begins with a Saul Bass-inspired credits sequence



 and ends with a gunfight in Mexico and a ride into the sunset.

In between, a number of events take place. 

Ellen's character Martha is a television producer for a local San Diego morning show

starring Robert Goulet (of Broadway and BEETLEJUICE fame), 

 
 

which seems to weirdly prefigure Ellen's own rise and fall as a daytime TV star as well as co-writer Kerry Ehrin's own involvement with Apple TV's THE MORNING SHOW.

Ellen's character, who is styled exactly as she appears on her own popular sitcom ELLEN (1994-1998), is struggling to find "Mr. Right." 

And that there is a reference to BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE inserted by co-writer Chris Matheson, who also wrote all three BILL AND TED films.


She is aided in her quest by a Best Friend™(the likeable Ellen Cleghorne, of ARMAGEDDON and COYOTE UGLY)

 

who, because it was the 1990s, is contractually obligated to eat Lite yogurt throughout and provide generic encouragement.

Despite her own assistant (John Livingstone, of THE NET and EDTV) clearly being the screenplay's idea of her "perfect match hiding in plain sight," 


Here he is, asking her out to go see Richard Burton in BLUEBEARD (1972), an ignominious film I have reviewed on this very site.

Ellen still goes on the prowl and has an accidental meet-cute with Bill Pullman (who would soon wipe his involvement with this project from the cultural memory with the near-immediate one-two punch of INDEPENDENCE DAY and LOST HIGHWAY).

 

Pullman is depicted as a suave, cowboy-poet who's the heir to an enormous fortune. He seems perfect, at least until she discovers that, wait... he's... Mr. Wrong!

  

The warning signs are not subtle, and the comedy is played as broad as a barn door. There are more understated Pepé le Pew-centric episodes of THE LOONEY TUNES. First, he takes her to a convenience store to shoplift Blatz beers, crushing the empties on his forehead and flinging them from his convertible at bystanders.

 
I fail to understand how this is a red flag tho

Next, he love-bombs her with a bounty of unwanted gifts and comes to her window in the night dressed, inexplicably, as a clown on stilts.

 

This is probably the closest the film comes to overtly referencing HALLOWEEN. As I'm sure you all know, MR. WRONG's director (Nick Castle) played behind-the-mask Michael Myers in 1978's HALLOWEEN. He was also the co-writer of Carpenter's ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK.

Just when she thinks it can't get any worse, Ellen is also stalked by Pullman's ex Inga––a zany character played by two-time Oscar nominee Joan Cusack.

 

She probably gets about ten minutes of screentime, but she acquits herself with trashy élan.

This leads Ellen to hire a private eye (fellow Oscar nominee Dean Stockwell of BLUE VELVET, QUANTUM LEAP, and DUNE fame) who uncovers that Inga was involved in a plot to assassinate Stevie Nicks

 

 

which feels like a bizarrely specific detail for this screenplay to concoct. Dean Stockwell also, mostly acquits himself. He, Cusack, and Ellen Cleghorne might be the only ones who do.

Yep, this thing is a slapstick mess. It struggles with tone, and there's zero chemistry between the leads: romantic, comedic, or otherwise. Castle does a slick enough job assembling the picture (there are a few striking Hitchcock-inspired visuals and transitions), but the entire film feels like studio execs were trying force an Ellen-sized peg into a Jim Carrey-shaped hole.

Fourteen months after the release of MR. WRONG, Ellen would go on to give her iconic "Yep, I'm gay" interview to TIME magazine. One can imagine that the ham-handed attempts to mold her into a blandly heteronormative studio asset played some role in this decision. 

R.I.P., Dean Stockwell

Only now does it occur to me... CHASERS (1994)

Only now does it occur to me... that Dennis Hopper slides a nice little homage to his friend and collaborator David Lynch in his "THE LAST DETAIL-reimagined-as-a-90s-comedy" road movie, CHASERS. The homage in question is an extended shot of a logging truck, just like in TWIN PEAKS.

That's not all: this thing is packed with Lynch collaborators, including BLUE VELVET and DUNE's Dean Stockwell as a car dealership owner:

"Here's to your fuck, Frank!"

WILD AT HEART's Crispin Glover as a put-upon sailor who's been pushed around for too long:

"I'm making my lunch!"

and LOST HIGHWAY's Gary Busey as a marine who clearly is improvising all of his dialogue:



Hopper himself appears as a lingerie salesman with a fake-Karl Malden nose, for some reason:


"Heineken? Fuck that shit!"

Anyway, what we have here is an episodic, charmingly rambling, critically maligned road movie that is better than I expected it to be. Tom Berenger, doing kind of a whisky-ravaged Tom Waits/BEETLEJUICE voice is a hardboiled career member of Shore Patrol, transporting Navy prisoners across the country.

William McNamara (a likable man-génue who deserved a better career––you may have seen him in SURVIVING THE GAME, DREAM A LITTLE DREAM, EXTREME JUSTICE, or Argento's OPERA) plays a young sailor on his last day before discharge. 

 

He's enlisted to help Berenger out with a prisoner transport––though due to a clerical mix-up, the prisoner is unexpectedly a woman.

Played by Erica Eleniak (former BAYWATCH cast member, UNDER SIEGE cake-jumper, and co-star of BETRAYAL and BORDELLO OF BLOOD), she actually brings pathos and humor to a role that could have easily been a caricature. As the unlikely trio crosses the country and bonds with one another (again, THE LAST DETAIL is the point of origin/departure), we meet the whole host of character actors I have already detailed, as well as zany waitress Marilu Henner (TAXI, PERFECT):

and creepy-ass trucker Frederic Forrest (APOCALYPSE NOW, FALLING DOWN):

Born to play a creepy trucker

In the end, CHASERS was Dennis Hopper's final feature as a director, and it's a weird, pleasant relic of the "EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS" era, worth a look for character actor and Americana aficionados. I can probably sum it up best in guessing that Wim Wenders probably loves the shit out of this movie.

Only now does it occur to me... BEVERLY HILLS COP II

Only now does it occur to me... that the COBRA/BEVERLY HILLS COP connections have been overtly referenced on film.

So I'd known for some time that the script that became COBRA was originally written as "BEVERLY HILLS COP," and it was going to star Sylvester Stallone in the now iconic Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) role. What I didn't know was that the makers of BEVERLY HILLS COP II decked out Billy Rosewood's (Judge Reinhold) home with Sylvester Stallone posters

RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II seen behind MIDNIGHT RUN's John Ashton.

including COBRA himself, who merits a confused look from Eddie Murphy.

Axel Foley, meet your grandfather/weird Cannon Film half-brother.


Then, Stallone continues to cast his shadow over BEVERLY HILLS COP II:  it co-stars crazed Dane, COBRA lead, and Stallone then-wife Brigitte Nielsen.

I have to say that I never thought I'd ever see a whacky, New Wave Nielsen attempt to assassinate Ronny Cox (DELIVERANCE, TOTAL RECALL, ROBOCOP) in broad daylight.


AIEEE!

So this movie is basically one big Stallone lovefest–

Er- let's not tell Sly about this, okay?

 P.S.– Also, is that Dean Stockwell?

Yeah, I guess so.  Hey, he doesn't really feel up to it, either.

Junta Juleil's Top 100: #85-81

85. INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989, Steven Spielberg)

I really need to do a full-fledged review of this one of these days. Following two installments chock full of visual and choreographic mastery, Spielberg, Jeffrey Boam, and script doctor Tom Stoppard add something which would be inconceivable in a Republic serial: emotional resonance. The relationship between the Joneses (Ford and Connery as Jr. and Sr., that is) is a flawless synthesis of actor and role. This, of course, is steadily peppered with exquisite action sequences and visual gags- as if THE GREAT ESCAPE and THE GENERAL could somehow cohabitate on the same reel. This sort of film could easily fall flat, but under Spielberg's firm, unwavering hand, there's not a single note which rings false. There's so much to love here: the incredibly clever prologue (starring a vibrant River Phoenix) where it seems that every single event which molded Indy's life occurred on one summer's day in 1912, Indy's 20th Century motorcycle-jousting knight (and his father's phlegmatic reaction), the incredible stuntman's leap from galloping horse to hurtling tank, the breathless speedboat pursuit through labyrinthine canals, Connery and Elliott's silly secret handshake, the dour librarian with the world's noisiest stamp (in a touch worthy of Tati), or Connery slapped by a Nazi's leather glove and fiercely growling in retort- "It tellsh me that goose-schtepping morons such as yerschelf schould try RRREADING BOOKCHS inschtead of BAURNING THEM!" All of this is accompanied by John Williams' greatest score; and the payoffs- involving the three challenges and the reveal of the grail- have left an entire generation of adventure films stumbling and teetering in their wake.

84. CHARLEY VARRICK (1973, Don Siegel)

This movie has a finale which involves a '67 Chrysler Imperial versus a biplane. And no, that's not the only reason it cracked the Top 100. As I've said before, CHARLEY VARRICK is one of the best gritty, 70's, take-no-prisoners crime films populated with brutal, pistol-whippin', lady-slappin sons-of-bitchery. This movie isn't just cynical, it's amoral. Cutthroat. A lot of these flicks are like a punch in the guts– CHARLEY's a kick in the teeth! You could call it a series of clichés– it's "every-man-for-himself," "dog-eat-dog-eat-dog," "lookin'-out-for-numero-uno" etc., but Siegel takes it over the top to such a degree that we see (between the setpieces and the tough talk) the crumbling social structure, an America where calculated ruthlessness is a matter of survival, the ice-cold blood flowing through your veins a necessity. Walter Matthau is brilliantly inscrutable as our anti-anti-hero (usually the cop-killer is not the most pleasant character in a film). And Joe Don Baker's sadistic "Molly" is one of the great screen villains. Highest marks.

83. PARIS, TEXAS (1984, Wim Wenders)

A work of tenderness, of mystery, of reassurance. Robby Müller shows us the vastness of the desert landscape; Harry Dean Stanton shows us the vastness of the human soul. The pacing may be slow, but it's the sort of film in which you can lose yourself, just as you would while traveling by foot through a wild expanse. Wenders has always been deliberate; fascinated by nostalgia, sentiment, music; the ways in which we try to find order, meaning, and respite in our lives. Harry Dean Stanton, Dean Stockwell, and Nastassja Kinski deliver moving, realistic portrayals; you get a sense of the spaces they inhabit, and those boundless spaces within their characters' minds. It's a movie through which you can roam, and maybe the epitome of Americana as represented on film (naturally, directed by a German).

82. CRASH (1996, David Cronenberg)

"They bury the dead so quickly; they should leave them lying around for months." I've written before that "the car itself is a conceptual hotbed of primordial fears and visceral desires: the stifling, claustrophobic space; constrictive belts and cold metal clasps; exhilarating accelerations and jolting stops– it's even the site of many a Baby Boomers' first sexual fumblings... and, oh yeah– the ever-present threat of death and shattered glass and crumpled metal and blood and fluid and bodies penetrated, torn, and ripped by the thundering collision of jagged steel and spongy tissue. We are surrounded by machines: they are part of us, and there is no escape. So we adapt, we integrate, we re-form ourselves like the maladjusted flesh sculptors we are. Howard Shore's dark, entrancing score sends metallic echoes and screeching guitar reverberations up from the pit of our deepest fears– it's as relentless and hypnotic as a highway cloverleaf. It taps into some primal fascination we don't quite have the vocabulary for– from watching bacteria mingle under a slide to pornography to, say, KOYAANISQATSI." Many great artists and writers wring truth from tracking the progress of the human mind; Cronenberg forces us to confront the progress of the body. It's ugly yet sterile, like a hideous medical tattoo. The performances are magnificent: the intensity of Elias Koteas, the smarm of James Spader, the commitment of Holly Hunter, or the gleefully misshapen Rosanna Arquette. And rarely is such a disturbing film so goddamned hilarious. Enjoy that car ride home, kiddies!

81. TOTAL RECALL (1990, Paul Verhoeven)

"If I am not me, den who da hell am I?" Now that is a fine question, sir, and perhaps the most eloquent philosophical inquiry posed to humanity since the days of Voltaire; maybe even since Montaigne. But maybe, just maybe, TOTAL RECALL is the future of human thought. Post-thought. "I've got to hand it to you, Cohagen – that's the best mindfuck yet." See what I mean? Short-attention-span philosophy with a satisfying payoff: the mindfuck. We don't have to fritter away hours flipping through the vellum of dusty tomes: that time is over. It had it's couple centuries in the sun, but now it can go the way of the Dodo. How 'bout instead– er, what was I talking about? I got over here some salacious photographs and a bunch of puns about Weiners. Er, wait– this is loosely based on a story by Philip K. Dick! How 'bout some Dick puns? How 'bout that instead?
This is what Paul Verhoeven means when he says he makes the movies that America deserves. TOTAL RECALL is completely fucken ridiculous, and meant to be enjoyed on many levels– as a latter-day Hitchcock sci-fi suspense thriller, as a quasi-Philip K. Dickian paranoid tract, as a joke on what passes for entertainment these silly days. I mean, he introduces a character, Benny, over and over and over again, just in case we've forgotten, in case we've been distracted by all the Martian mutants and gunplay and midget hookers. "Hey, it's Benny, remember me? Remember me?! IT'S BENNY!" Ah, a goddamned fun time if ever there was one. Also: Michael Ironside, in one of his finest, most startling performances; insane eye-bulging and rubbery Arnie faces; a sweeping Jerry Goldsmith score; and some of the most incredible special effects ever committed to celluloid. And, of course, I wrote this short story about what really happened behind the scenes. Pass the Labatt Maximum Ice!

Coming up next... Harvey Keitel gets naked– TWICE!

Previously on the countdown:
#90-86
#95-91
#100-96
Runners-up Part 1
Runners-up Part 2

Film Review: THE LEGEND OF BILLIE JEAN (1985, Matthew Robbins)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 96 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Helen Slater (SUPERGIRL, CITY SLICKERS, RUTHLESS PEOPLE), Christian Slater (GLEAMING THE CUBE, TRUE ROMANCE), Richard Bradford (THE UNTOUCHABLES, MISSING), Peter Coyote (E.T., SOUTHERN COMFORT, SLAYGROUND), Keith Gordon (JAWS 2, CHRISTINE, DRESSED TO KILL), Dean Stockwell (BLUE VELVET; PARIS, TEXAS), Yeardley Smith (THE SIMPSONS, MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE). Music by The Divinyls, Pat Benatar, Billy Idol, Wendy O. Williams, & Craig Safan (the composer of CHEERS and THE LAST STARFIGHTER).
Tag-line: "The last thing she ever expected was to become a hero."
Best one-liner: "Hey, get your hand off that!" –"What, your sister? Or your fagmobile?"

Feeling like sort of a cross between LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: THE FABULOUS STAINS and BONNIE AND CLYDE, it may surprise some to learn that THE LEGEND OF BILLIE JEAN is actually an adaptation of THE LEGEND OF MICHAEL KOHLHAAS, an 1811 novel based on historical events that took place in Saxony in the 1530's. It's a series of injustices that might seem trivial to a member of the ruling class (stolen horses or a trashed scooter), but which make all the difference in the world to someone eking out a poverty-laden existence (be it in a fiefdom or a trailer park). However, in adapting this story for mainstream 80's audiences, a lot gets lost in translation, and our suspension of disbelief undergoes some serious wear and tear. But it doesn't matter- pump up the power on that Pat Benatar, arch your burgeoning Slater eyebrows, and sing it loud- "FAIR IS FAIR!" The casting is perfect: Helen 'SUPERGIRL' Slater is striking, fiery, and determined.

Part Joan of Arc, part Travis Bickle, she riles up the masses with a genuine charisma and righteous indignation that make this movie so damned watchable.

Bleached blond Christian Slater (no relation) reveals, even at the tender age of 15, some of the smart-alecky greatness that was to come.

Note eyebrows.

Nicholson pal Richard Bradford is fantastic as a Stacy Keach-style skeeze who seems beyond the law:

Look at that curled lip, that sleazy stache, the gutter 'tude.

Peter Coyote embodies the beleaguered, good-hearted cop who's won over by the kids' plight:

Coyote: getting too old for this shit?

and Dean Stockwell (BLUE VELVET) is an a-hole politico whose rebellious wolfman-lovin' son (Keith Gordon) gets thrown into the mix. Yeardley Smith (Lisa from THE SIMPSONS) is a lovable hayseed, and we even get a bit part from quintessential Texas gal Caroline Williams ('Stretch' from TEXAS CHAINSAW 2). There's some ridiculous homoerotic mistreatment at the hands of some Golan/Globus-worthy jag-offs (in cut-offs), which ends with some homoerotic milkshake-pouring revenge:

Messing with young Slater leads to eyebrow action and....

SPLOOOSH

there's some classic '80's media circus' social commentary; there are not 1, not 2, not 3, but FOUR senseless lowblows; and Christian Slater gets to rock out a dress.

Note lipstick.

Yes, this is a cult classic. Four stars.

-Sean Gill