Television Review: ZUMA BEACH (1978, Lee H. Katzin)

Stars: 2 of 5.
Running Time: 104 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Suzanne Somers (THREE'S COMPANY, SERIAL MOM), Michael Biehn (ALIENS, TOMBSTONE, THE TERMINATOR), Rosanna Arquette (PULP FICTION, AFTER HOURS, DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN), P.J. Soles (HALLOWEEN, ROCK N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL, CARRIE), Tanya Roberts (THE BEASTMASTER, A VIEW TO A KILL), Steven Keats (DEATH WISH, THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE), Mark Wheeler (THE CONVERSATION, APOLLO 13), Gary Imhoff (SUMMER SCHOOL, THE GREEN MILE), Delta Burke (DESIGNING WOMEN, WHAT WOMEN WANT), Kimberly Beck (ROLLER BOOGIE, FRIDAY THE 13TH PART IV: THE FINAL CHAPTER).
Tagline: "Her life had suddenly become a long drive to nowhere... so what better place to get it all together than her old stomping grounds, Zuma Beach! Let's get it together with a batch of beach boys and their golden girls... frolic with Suzanne Somers on Zuma Beach!"
Best one-liner: "Have some confidence in yourself." –"I can't. It's 9:30, and the stores stop selling confidence at five o'clock. And tomorrow is a holiday."

"I wrote that for a producer who just said he wanted a beach movie. He ended up selling it to Warner Bros., and soon Suzanne Somers was starring in it. I was going to direct it––for about ten seconds––but one of my mentors, Richard Kobritz, who later produced Christine, helped me see I didn’t want to do it. It was vastly rewritten, so I really shouldn’t have taken credit for it, but I was a little asshole in those days."

–John Carpenter, when asked about ZUMA BEACH by Fangoria in 2013 

 

Almost ten years ago, I did a "Poor Man's Carpy" series on this blog, devoted to John Carpenter marginalia like the co-scripted TV movie SILENT PREDATORS, the Tommy Lee Wallace-helmed VAMPIRES: LOS MUERTOS, trashy Hallo-sequels HALLOWEEN 666 and RESURRECTION, and the Dennis Etchison novelizations of THE FOG and HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH. One which slipped under the radar was ZUMA BEACH. So here we are, in the dog days of summer, finally taking a look at this forgotten CBS Late Movie "sort of" written by Carpenter and three other guys.

What can we learn about John Carpenter from ZUMA BEACH? Very little, I'm sure, given his above quote, but I think it's worth looking into. (Says the guy who did a two-part deep dive into John Carpenter's filmmaker-buddy-garage band, The Coupe de Villes.)

It's a straightforward slice of life, giggle and jiggle flick designed to eliminate two hours on a lazy, hazy summer evening. Though it ends with a volleyball game, it never even possesses stakes as high as in SIDE OUT. 

 Suzanne Somers plays a pop star (whose big hit is the fictitious "Silent Whisper"), and she's having a mid-career crisis. 

In need of a reset, she clears her head at Zuma Beach, where she once enjoyed poetry and sand castles as a child. Zuma Beach is populated with a rogue's gallery of horny teens, pre-makeover nerds, beach bums, surfers, football jerks, hot dog enthusiasts, kite fliers, windjammers, cool visor-dudes and the like.

Somers becomes something of a beach elder here, primarily because it's a teenage hotspot. She dispenses wisdom, smiles pensively, and takes in some rays. 

 

Bullies vaguely receive their comeuppance, romances spark and fizzle, and everyone more or less fritters the summer away. This is ZUMA BEACH, ladies and gentlemen. It's so dedicated to its quotidian ensemble that if it were better written and had more interesting characters, it might even feel like an Altman or Linklater flick. As is, it's merely a pleasant time-waster filled with bright 1970s colors and some amusing and unexpected performances. For reference, the real Zuma Beach is in Malibu, about a 70 minute drive from the PRINCE OF DARKNESS church.

If I were trying to draw a real John Carpenter connection, I'd probably compare it to THE FOG, which also sees a strong woman adjacent to the music industry (Adrienne Barbeau as "DJ Stevie Wayne") finding her footing in a California beach community. There are even times that ZUMA BEACH feels like "a Carpenter horror movie, but before the horror begins."

The image of a child playing with his dog in the surf... recalls Stevie Wayne's son finding a plank from the Elizabeth Dane in THE FOG? C'mon, I'm trying here.

Oh, and there is a lot of feathered hair in this movie. Might I remind you that it was shot in 1978.

Mark Wheeler's elaborate feathered coiffure helmet puts Mark Hamill's to shame

With such a bare bones plot, you start focusing on strange details. Like Suzanne Somers' suntan oil, which looks like it's being dispensed from an Elmer's glue bottle.

We have young, Toto-era Rosanna Arquette as a character who tokes a lot of reefer. She's doing that quirky comedic 'Rosanna Arquette thing,' mostly indistinguishable from her performances in AFTER HOURS and DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN, which is okay!

You have to admire (pre-Reagan) CBS Standards & Practices allowing such casual drug use to slip by without dramaturgical rebuke. 

Michael Biehn pops up, also in one of his very first roles, as a crazy-eyed, eyebrow-indicating lifeguard who uses his lifeguard tower as a bachelor pad.

Here, he's trying to pressure HALLOWEEN's own P.J. Soles into pre-marital sex. It's a good thing Michael Myers isn't around!

HALLOWEEN was released October 25, 1978; ZUMA BEACH debuted September 27, 1978. HALLOWEEN was filmed in May, and based on the look and general disposability of ZUMA BEACH, I have to imagine it was filmed that summer. It's quite possible that P.J. appears here as part of some John Carpenter favor; but given his disconnect to this movie, it's equally plausible that it's pure coincidence. I at least have to hope that John Carpenter was not responsible for a line of dialogue about "extracurricular sex-tivity."

Soles: "I have six pigtails"

As usual, P.J. Soles is a hilarious delight. And she has six pigtails. Count 'em––six! Why would anybody need six pigtails? Maybe she's choosing to pull focus by-way-of ridiculous hair/costume accoutrement––she does has a history of that. You may recall that in Brian De Palma's CARRIE, she established herself as the Queen of Pulling Focus with her big 'ol red rainbow ballcap. Bless.

There are some terrible, copyright-skirting faux-Beach Boys songs which play throughout, Tanya Roberts and Delta Burke wander through the frame, and Michael Biehn gets sand kicked in his face: a sobering experience for Zuma Beach's resident bully/Casanova.

There's a volleyball game and a riding-men-by-the-shoulders race,

and that's all she wrote. Er, rather, that's all John Carpenter and (at least) three other guys wrote. Do you feel like know all you need to about the ZUMA BEACH experience? I hope so.

Film Review: NOWHERE TO RUN (1993, Robert Harmon)

Stars:  3 of 5.
Running Time: 94 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew:  Jean-Claude Van Damme, Rosanna Arquette (AFTER HOURS, PULP FICTION), Kieran Culkin (HOME ALONE, IGBY GOES DOWN), Joss Ackland (THE APPLE, LETHAL WEAPON 2), Ted Levine (FLUBBER, THE MANGLER, Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS), and Allan Graf (stuntman and actor from DEADWOOD, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER, ROBOCOP, POLTERGEIST).  Music by Mark Isham (POINT BREAK, SHORT CUTS).  Cinematography by David Gribble (THE QUEST, CADILLAC MAN).  Written by Joe Eszterhas (SLIVER, SHOWGIRLS, BASIC INSTINCT, FLASHDANCE), Richard Marquand (director of RETURN OF THE JEDI), Leslie Bohem (HOUSE III: THE HORROR SHOW, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5: THE DREAM CHILD), and Randy Feldman (HELL NIGHT, TANGO & CASH).
Tag-line: "When the law can't protect the innocent, the only hero left is an outlaw."
Best one-liner:  "Where'd you learn to fight like that?"  –"Law school."

In a familiar, darkened alley:

"Hey, man, it's been awhile since we watched a Van Damme."
–"Yeah."
"Didn't you promise me that this'd be the 'Summer of Van Damme'?"
–"I don't know, maybe."
"Well...?"
–"Alright, let me sing ya the praises of a little ditty called NOWHERE TO RUN, from Robert Harmon, the director of THE HITCHER.  Not to be confused with THE HITCHHIKER, whose makers brought us the Van Damme film, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER."
"Confusing!  And hot damn!"
 "The writing pedigree is pretty damned substantial, too, if you've bothered the read about the notable cast and crew.  Good God– the makers of SHOWGIRLS, RETURN OF THE JEDI, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5, and TANGO & CASH teamed up to create this incredible story– the cinematic canvas upon which Jean-Claude Van Damme will paint his wonderful pictures.  Like so:"


 –"Wait, what is this all about?"
 "Well, it's kind of about strip mining and small towns and land developers.  Joe Eszterhas (SHOWGIRLS) boldly shows us that his screenwriting wheelhouse has room for strippers AND strip mining."

 –"Wow!"
"Yeah, right?  With all this rustic Americana stuff and evil corporations versus unorganized labor and well-meaning drifters and impassioned speeches, it's sort of like the world's worst Steinbeck novel brought to cinematic life."
–"How does JCVD fit in?"

"He plays a really intense, embittered escaped convict.  You can tell he's intense and tortured, cause he's doing that thing with his eyebrows that conveys tremendous inner tumult.  After his spectacular escape, he stumbles through the wilderness onto the property owned by Rosanna Arquette, who's depicting a country gal who wears 80s yuppie vests

and who is trying to play single mom to a family made up of Kieran Culkin and some other child actor who never made it big, and she's having trouble at home because she's under constant attack by the thugs of the evil land developer Joss Ackland

whom you may remember as the evil apartheid-lover from LETHAL WEAPON 2 and the evil Wyld Stallyns-hater from BILL AND TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY.  He's got a right-hand, kickass henchman –like every other 80s and 90s action villain– played by Ted Levine, who's Buffalo Bill from THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS!

Through a series of extraordinary events, Van Damme befriends the entire family and saves everyone and everything worth saving."
–"Extraordinary events like what?"

"Well, for starters, when he's camping in the backyard, Kieran Culkin thinks that Van Damme is E.T."
–"WHUTTTTTT?"
"He later finds out that he's not, in fact, E.T. when he and his little sister stumble upon Jean-Clean Van Damme who seems to be put into a compromising situation every time he bathes throughout this film...

...which, by virtue of my phrasing, is obviously more than once.  It also begs the question of why he bathes so much– I can't remember how many showers that Stallone takes in COBRA, or Schwarzenegger in COMMANDO or Willis in DIE HARD, but I do remember Van Damme's ice baths in UNIVERSAL SOLDIER.  Anyway, I'll get to that in a minute."
–"Er... what?"
"So Van Damme slowly wins the kids over with a kind of cat-and-mouse-getting-to-know-you tango.  In the midst of it, there's a strange moment when a red ball ominously bounces down the stairs, which I feel has to be an homage to melancholy horror classic THE CHANGELING,

but for the life of me, I can't figure out why it's here.  There's also a great moment of man-kid bonding when Jean-Crude Van Damme disaffectedly flips through the pages of TOP HEAVY magazine

and in walks Kieran Culkin who, taken aback by Van Damme's unexpected reading material, inquires whether or not he actually likes boobs:

Van Damme responds with a definitive, "Sometimes."

Even with forty-seven other writers credited, you can tell a line like that is pure, uncut Eszterhas."
–"Hey, I like SLIVER."
"Okay.  Anyway, he wins over Rosanna Arquette, too, when he saves her from some land-developing thugs.  They begin a tender romance that is punctuated by scenes like one where Van Damme tenderly watches her bathe a horse.


It's kind of shot like those ubiquitous 'sexy chick washes a car' scenes, which makes the whole thing even stranger."
–"Lot of bathing in this movie?"
"Yup.  As I was saying, bathtub nudity and compromising positions continue to plague Van Damme as the film continues.  He decides to take another shower and is immediately barged in on by the local sheriff, who's incidentally sort of trying to romance Rosanna Arquette, too. 


To cover for him, she claims that JCVD's her cousin, from 'Quebec.'  I love how every Van Damme movie tries to shoehorn in a half-assed attempt to explain his accent, whether it's vague, Cajun heritage (UNIVERSAL SOLDIER, HARD TARGET), a career in the French foreign Legion (LIONHEART, LEGIONNAIRE), humble beginnings as a French street clown (THE QUEST), or an attempt to reclassify the accent as Russian (NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER; MAXIMUM RISK).  I could go on.  But my point is, you think they'd just throw their hands up and say 'Fuck it, he's Van Damme!  We don't owe the audience an explanation!'  That's what I'd do, anyway."
–"I see."
"Though maybe it's just an excuse to use 'Au revoir, fucker!' as a one-liner.  In which case, it's probably worth it."

–"Sounds like it."
"And, oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that Van Damme's usual cover story for why he's in town in that he's 'hunting.'  When a convenience store clerk asks what he's hunting for, he responds with, 'Pink Flamingos.'

Honestly, I'm not sure if that's him being facetious, a John Waters reference, or if it's code for directions to the nearest small-town gay bar.  I prefer to think it's the latter."
–"What about the action in this movie?  It is an action movie, isn't it?"
"It is, but the action's sort of disappointing.  It doesn't have the kind of jaw-dropping martial arts and spit-take inducing kickblasting you've come to expect from Mr. Van Damme."
–"Wait, wait, wait!  What about the splits?"
"No splits, sorry.  There is a scene when he has to get on his motorcycle really suddenly, though."
–"Well, that's pretty good."
"And it all ends (SPOILER ALERT) with a scene that I like to describe as 'JCVD delivers an extremely inspirational car door to the nuts.'
And that's no joke– that's an unaltered clip from the movie.  That is really the music that is playing during that scene."
–"Well, it looks like JCVD's delivered another winner."
"In a way.  I mean, it kinda feels like an extended WALKER, TEXAS RANGER episode, but with Van Damme instead of Chuck Norris. While it's not a masterpiece, I can think of million worse ways you could spend a Saturday night.  Three stars."

–Sean Gill

Film Review: CRASH (1996, David Cronenberg)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 100 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: James Spader (TUFF TURF, WOLF), Elias Koteas (EXOTICA, SHUTTER ISLAND), Holly Hunter (RAISING ARIZONA, THE PIANO), Deborah Cara Unger (THE GAME, THIRTEEN), Rosanna Arquette (AFTER HOURS, DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN), Peter MacNeill (BODY PARTS, SIMON BIRCH). Based on the novel by J.G. Ballard (EMPIRE OF THE SUN). Music by Howard Shore (AFTER HOURS, VIDEODROME, THE LORD OF THE RINGS). Cinematography by Peter Suschitzky (DEAD RINGERS, NAKED LUNCH, MARS ATTACKS!).
Tag-lines: " Love in the dying moments of the twentieth century."
Best one-liner: " They bury the dead so quickly. They should leave them lying around for months."

The next chapter in David Cronenberg's continuing treatise on the cruel metamorphosis of human flesh, CRASH is a bold, virile film that's as hilarious as it is existentially terrifying.





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. Cronenberg’s actors are BEYOND committed. And therein lies the humor– we laugh, not because it’s 'funny,' but because these people are FOR REAL: the way Holly Hunter awkwardly scrabbles around for the remote after the crash test VHS they're watching unexpectedly pauses, the sincerely ecstatic way that Spader and Hunter heartlily applaud a high-impact 'performance,'

or this shot of a young, fanny-packin', ripped-jeans-wearin' crew member wheeling a camera away to reveal...




...smarmy, disaffected Spader.

Rosanna Arquette becomes a work of modern, sexualized art worthy of Giger, framed by chrome braces, gaping scars, and fishnets,

and her bizarre, mortifying interaction with an awkward, high-end car salesman is 100% worth the price of admission:



Deborah Kara Unger is deeply damaged and possesses a fascinating, serpentine detachment:

but, like in EXOTICA, it's Elias Koteas' natural, volatile charisma that becomes the film's centerpiece- his narration and reenactment of the James Dean crash is the kind of triumph that most actors spend an entire lifetime in search of.

I mean, look at him!


Nobody sucks face quite like Elias Koteas.

A great date movie, and best seen at the theater so you can really savor that car ride home. Five stars.

-Sean Gill