R.I.P., Tawny Kitaen

R.I.P. to Tawny Kitaen, who was more than "a video vixen" or a "BACHELOR PARTY co-star," even if it was by lightly gyrating upon the hoods of expensive cars in Whitesnake videos that she was catapulted to a form of stardom she could never quite escape. Having done a deep dive into her film work last summer, I found an actor of pathos, grand comedic timing, and real star power; a fashion bomb with huge statement bows and teased hair who was one of the great style icons of the 1980s. I wrote at length about her uncommon charisma in WITCHBOARD, CRYSTAL HEART, THE PERILS OF GWENDOLINE IN THE LAND OF THE YIK-YAK, and even in unworthy projects like WHITE HOT and GLORY YEARS. To quote my final installment "Of Whitesnakes and Witchboards... a Tawny Kitaen Retrospective":

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I received a communique from Tawny Kitaen during the course of this retrospective. She wanted everyone to know that 'I hope you get everything that I used to be embarrassed about... David Geffen's right-hand man called me Yoko Ono, I was so embarrassed back then... and then as I got older and realized that the success of [Whitesnake] had a little bit to do with the videos and what I brought to it, and it made me feel really, really good. So I guess if I had any words of wisdom, there's this old Jewish adage, and it goes: 'When you grow up, I wish employees on you.' So John Kalodner, an employee of David Geffen gave a perspective on me that was true, but he was trying to hurt me at the same time... he didn't know that years later his words would come back to haunt him in everything that I do, when I have to talk about my experience, and that was being the Yoko Ono of Whitesnake, so I hope you can throw that into your blog.'

Perhaps this is the best note to end the retrospective on: we've seen six films here, some of them good, some decent, and some bad, but Tawny's charisma has been a consistent baseline throughout. Whether or not history chooses to remember her as 'The Yoko Ono of Whitesnake' or, much less likely, 'The Scapegoat of WHITE HOT,' the ridiculousness of the insult––if it is indeed even such––can be worn as a badge of pride, because in each of these films, many of which are baldly sexist and/or underwritten, she brings much more to the part than is expected of her. Whether as a style icon, a screen presence, or as a skillful actor, she rises above the material. So here's your benediction: 'Tawny rises above.'

Of Whitesnakes and Witchboards... A Tawny Kitaen Retrospective Concludes

Now that my Tawny Kitaen retrospective has come to a close, here are the links, for posterity:

1. WITCHBOARD (1986, Kevin S. Tenney)

2. THE PERILS OF GWENDOLINE IN THE LAND OF THE YIK-YAK (1984, Just Jaeckin)

3. BACHELOR PARTY (1984, Neal Israel)

4. CRYSTAL HEART (1986, Gil Bettman)

5. GLORY YEARS (1987, Arthur Allan Seidelman)

6. WHITE HOT (1988, Robby Benson)

And for the completists––fret not, I will happily return to the series one day, once I get my hands on the VHS of the Tawny/Rowdy Roddy Piper actioner DEAD TIDES and the Tawny/Michael Paré marine thriller INSTANT JUSTICE.

Film Review: WHITE HOT (1988, Robby Benson)

White Hotness: Very.
Running Time: 95 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Tawny Kitaen (GWENDOLINE, CRYSTAL HEART, WITCHBOARD), Danny Aiello (DO THE RIGHT THING, THE STUFF), Robby Benson (ONE ON ONE, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST), Sally Kirkland (JFK, BEST OF THE BEST), Mark Margolis (DELTA FORCE 2, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, BREAKING BAD), Anna Thomson (TRUE ROMANCE, UNFORGIVEN, DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN), Michael Ornstein (SONS OF ANARCHY, SEINFELD), Kevin Gray (MIAMI VICE, LAW AND ORDER), and Tony Sirico (THE SOPRANOS, GOODFELLAS).
Tagline: "There's only one place hotter than this."
Best one-liner: "The golden goose... crack! It's the smell of crack!"

WHITE HOT is a cocaine movie. Not in the sense that most 80s movies are, in fact, "cocaine movies," as in creatively and producorially fueled by cocaine––i.e., everything from TWINS to COBRA to A VIEW TO A KILL to TANGO & CASH––no, what I mean to say is that WHITE HOT is actually a movie about cocaine.

Before I delve too deeply into WHITE HOT: some of you know of my troubles reviewing this film; I made it five minutes into my previous viewing before my VHS player ate the tape. Of course, it was of the utmost importance that I complete the final installment of "Of Whitesnakes and Witchboards... a Tawny Kitaen Retrospective" which obviously I could not do without a working copy of WHITE HOT. 

We've made this journey together, from WITCHBOARD to THE LAND OF THE YIK-YAK, we attended a BACHELOR PARTY and relived our GLORY YEARS, and we learned how easy it is to break a CRYSTAL HEART. I couldn't let things go without exploring WHITE HOT, and, not wanting to miss a moment of the film through a bad self-VHS splicing, I obtained a second copy. When I wanted to take my first screen capture, I paused my new tape a few minutes in... and a similar issue occurred––the VHS player was eating this second tape, too! 

This time I was patient. I, paused it, took it apart, and managed to extract the tape and wind it tautly without breaking the ribbon, though it was mangled. From that point forward, I realized that my screen captures would have to be taken with my phone, in motion, as the tape played. This issue has never plagued me in my years of VHS viewing, so I'm inclined to blame the maker of the tape itself, who probably used some low-grade magnetic ribbon incapable of withstanding a "pause." The maker in question is Academy Entertainment, a fifth- or sixth-tier VHS distributor, whose flagship titles included David Bowie in THE LINGUINI INCIDENT, the WITCHCRAFT series, MANIAC COP 3, and KILLER WORKOUT. So, listen up, Academy Entertainment: that's intended as a shot across the bow––the likes of Media Home Entertainment and Vestron Video eat your lunch!

 Anyway, on to WHITE HOT. The cocaine movie to end all cocaine movies, I guess.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Should we call this "cocaine wearing a statement bow?" I suppose.

 

Is WHITE HOT good? WHITE HOT is not good. But we're not necessarily here to see a "good" movie. We're here to weigh in on whether WHITE HOT allows Tawny Kitaen to live up to her potential.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But before we get to that, some housekeeping. It's not at Tommy Wiseau-levels, and I definitely thought of THE FORCE WITHIN more than once, but this is a vanity project. It stars Robby Benson, and it is directed by Robby Benson. It is devoted to making Robby Benson look "edgy."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robby Benson is not edgy. He is a child actor who starred in movies about figure skating and private tutoring. Lacking an ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK/Kurt Russell-style opportunity for badass reinvention, he decided to pave his own way, directing himself in a movie where he traffics cocaine, has Tawny Kitaen for a girlfriend, and shows his ass with considerable elan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this scene, Robby Benson smokes crack. "I need the edge at my racquetball game." If he wanted to shed the child actor image, he probably shouldn't have directed himself in an afterschool special!

The plot involves typical yuppie Robby Benson falling in with a bad element. His coke dealer Butchie (Kevin Gray), who is kind of a "poor man's Lou Diamond Phillips meets poor man's Val Kilmer,"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

is under fire from an opposing mafia gang, led by Danny Aiello (who, let's face it, is the second-biggest box office draw here, after Tawny)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and because Butchie bears a certain resemblance to Robby B, he asks Robby, in bad faith, to take over his coke business for a couple weeks while Butchie is "out of town." The idea is that the mob will assassinate Robby B and think they've taken out Butchie. Robby B is soon way in over his head, slinging coke like an amateur and unknowingly acting as a decoy for mob assassins. As my wife remarked, "It's kinda like TRUE ROMANCE meets KAGEMUSHA." Yeah, exactly.

Along the way, this brings us such sights as a recumbent Danny Aiello, lounging in a lustrous robe while an aspirant Broadway singer belts "Big Spender," 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

bowtie-wearing henchman and character actor Mark Margolis, two decades before he would make his name in the fictionalized drug trade as Hector "Tio" Salamanca in BREAKING BAD,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tony Sirico ("Paulie Walnuts" on THE SOPRANOS) as an Aiello thug (maybe we should start thinking of WHITE HOT as a farm system for beloved/infamous criminals in the prestige television era),

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and the underrated Sally Kirkland (not pictured––damn, the scene went by too fast!––why was she even in this?) as a random drug addict.

This movie might be best defined by two things: freebasing and slap bass. Speaking of which, the low-rent NEVERENDING STORY-inspired soundtrack by Nile Rodgers gives the proceedings the feel of a half-remembered dream. The pop soundtrack, too, is actually pretty great. There are about three tracks played over and over, recycled at least six times throughout the movie. One of them is a complete rip-off of Janet Jackson's "Nasty" (a track called "Do It Up" by Mike Rogers), which I obviously endorse.

Anyway, enough ancillary material: let's get to Tawny Kitaen. Her character is basically "Melanie Griffith in WORKING GIRL" meets "Jennifer Connolly in REQUIEM FOR A DREAM."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Essentially, her character, as written, exists to let Robby Benson's character off the hook. "His girlfriend's the one with the real coke problem, not Robby," says the screenplay. "It's her desire for cocaine which drives him to do erratic and terrible things." Oookay. I'm calling bullshit on that one. It's a two-way street, Benson, and I'm not letting you thrown Tawny under the bus!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Kinda "urban pirate" meets "Milan fashion week."

 

However, I'm definitely here for the scenes where Tawny wears the latest in adventurous, silken yuppie fashions 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and tries to get her friends to try crack as if she's a Mary Kay saleswoman pushing the latest cream blush. I have, on many occasions, voiced my approval of Tawny's statement bows, and I gotta say that the combo of coke and crack addiction has apparently sabotaged her statement bow game––now it's just a l'il regular bow!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wonder if that's an artistic choice the director made. (Probably not!) She's also got some rad berets––sort of a proto-BLOSSOM, "Blossom & Six" vibe––

 

 

until her addiction gets so bad she has to cheat on Robby Benson... for crack!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It leads to a solid photo shoot, though

Then Robby, too, spirals into addiction and nothingness, and this is where it starts to turn into "Act III of GOODFELLAS done as an ABC afterschool special," with everything doused in Ray Liotta-esque coke laughter and paranoia. (No helicopters, though.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tawny gets a nice "Stella! Stella!" moment, calling for Robby from the balcony 

 

 

 

after he's had enough of her cheating ways, apparently. Then she betrays him, tries to steal his cash, runs him down in a car (things are starting to improve!), but then dies ignominiously in a car bombing, which really took the wind out of my sails. (Sorry 'bout the spoilers, but it'd be a miracle if you found a working copy of this film anyway.)

Before you can say "Take 'im to Staten Island and get rid of 'im!" the chickens come home to roost; Danny Aiello is rubbed out by Butchie, and Robby Benson and his new sidekick (Aiello's character's nephew) come to take revenge on Butchie by force-feeding him cocaine until he dies. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be fair, this is the most "cocaine" way to end this motion picture and I therefore must applaud it.
 

In the end, as far as Tawny goes, she gets to be a fashion bomb throughout, flaunting hints of star power between mediocre scenes of mediocre dudes talking 'bout drugs in unfurnished rooms. Her character is definitely scapegoated by a narrative more interested in fluffing The Benson Factor, but as usual, she does what she can, with an undeniable joie de vivre. Which, maybe that's a bummer of a note to end the Tawny Kitaen retrospective on, but wait––there's more.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I received a communique from Tawny Kitaen during the course of this retrospective. She wanted everyone to know that "I hope you get everything that I used to be embarrassed about... David Geffen's right-hand man called me Yoko Ono, I was so embarrassed back then... and then as I got older and realized that the success of [Whitesnake] had a little bit to do with the videos and what I brought to it, and it made me feel really, really good. So I guess if I had any words of wisdom, there's this old Jewish adage, and it goes: 'When you grow up, I wish employees on you.' So John Kalodner, an employee of David Geffen gave a perspective on me that was true, but he was trying to hurt me at the same time... he didn't know that years later his words would come back to haunt him in everything that I do, when I have to talk about my experience, and that was being the Yoko Ono of Whitesnake, so I hope you can throw that into your blog."

Perhaps this is the best note to end the retrospective on: we've seen six films here, some of them good, some decent, and some bad, but Tawny's charisma has been a consistent baseline throughout. Whether or not history chooses to remember her as "The Yoko Ono of Whitesnake" or, much less likely, "The Scapegoat of WHITE HOT," the ridiculousness of the insult––if it is indeed even such––can be worn as a badge of pride, because in each of these films, many of which are baldly sexist and/or underwritten, she brings much more to the part than is expected of her. Whether as a style icon, a screen presence, or as a skillful actor, she rises above the material. So here's your benediction: "Tawny rises above."

Update: "Of Whitesnakes and Witchboards... a Tawny Kitaen Retrospective"

Only now does it occur to me... you're all gonna have to wait just a little bit longer for the sixth and final installment of the Tawny Kitaen retrospective, given that my VCR ate the copy of WHITE HOT which I had so carefully obtained. 

I could probably splice it, but at what cost to the runtime? Rest assured, another copy of WHITE HOT is on the way, but it could be a couple of weeks.

Only now does it occur to me... GLORY YEARS (1987)

Only now does it occur to me... that GLORY YEARS is an exercise in abject mediocrity. An HBO "five-part comedy-adventure series" following the Las Vegas-centric antics of three extremely mediocre dudes––played by George Dzundza (THE DEER HUNTER, BASIC INSTINCT), Archie Hahn (PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, GREMLINS 2), and Full Moon's own Tim Thomerson (TRANCERS, DOLLMAN)––

who gamble away the alumni fund from their twenty-year high school reunion and thereby launch a full two and a half hours' worth of half-baked Vegas shenanigans in the proto-HANGOVER vein. It's stale, it's lame, and it's peppered with weird, washed-up 80s cameos, like Mamie Van Doren as a madam

and Engelbert Humperdinck, Al Bernstein, and Joyce Brothers as themselves:

It's what the people want

When I made a heartfelt plea for Tim Thomerson to have larger, non-Charles Band-related roles in my review of NEAR DARK a decade (!) ago, I didn't mean this.

He does his best

However, the only reason we're here today is the "Of Whitesnakes and Witchboards... a Tawny Kitaen Retrospective."

And I've got the rootin-tootin zebra print to prove it!

As Thomerson's girlfriend, "Melinda,"

Kitaen is on screen for about 1/3 of the film, sometimes chiding Thomerson for being a sleaze, sometimes enacting wacky con-woman/gambler antics, sometimes just going around in statement bows, as is her wont.

At the very least, GLORY YEARS continues to establish two major trends in the Tawny canon. One is statement bows (see also: WITCHBOARD and CRYSTAL HEART). The other is getting married to a dopey dick at the climax (see also: BACHELOR PARTY).

Though, as you can see here, Tawny has combined her interest in weddings with her interest in statement bows. It's truly one of the Tawniest tableaux imaginable.

Generally speaking, her character is underused. She does get to sink her teeth into some comedy bits and a few dramatic scenes, however, so I'm sorry to report that a film this mediocre contains the role which might actually afford her the most performative range since she was possessed by a Depression-era axe murderer in WITCHBOARD. At the very least, GLORY YEARS demonstrates that Tawny deserved to play a supporting role in one of the sprawling Robert Altman Americana-mosaics, like SHORT CUTS or H.E.A.L.T.H. or A WEDDING; I just get the sense that she would have been a perfect fit for such an endeavor.

There are a shocking amount of Beatles tracks and classic Oldies tunes on the soundtrack which demonstrate that it was made during the sweet spot for music licensing, apparently. (Or else HBO dumped way too much money into this mess.) We also get a young Chazz Palminteri (THE USUAL SUSPECTS, A BRONX TALE) as a mafia hitman:

And the inimitable "Tiny" Lister (EXTREME PREJUDICE, NO HOLDS BARRED) as a hired goon who gets to make some delightfully over-the-top acting choices.

In the end, I would warn you to skip GLORY YEARS, but it would be difficult enough to stumble upon it in the course of a normal existence that I don't think it even requires such a warning. Can we let the Tawny retrospective end on such a note of mediocrity? I think not: stay tuned.

Film Review: CRYSTAL HEART (1986, Gil Bettman)

Crystal Hearts: At least one, I guess.

Running Time: 103 minutes.

Notable Cast or Crew: Tawny Kitaen (THE PERILS OF GWENDOLINE IN THE LAND OF THE YIK-YAK, WITCHBOARD), Lee Curreri ("Bruno" from FAME the movie, "Bruno" from FAME the TV series), Lloyd Bochner (POINT BLANK, THE MAN IN THE GLASS BOOTH), May Heatherly (Juan Piquer Simón's PIECES, GOYA'S GHOSTS), Simón Andreu (DIE ANOTHER DAY, THE BLOOD-SPATTERED BRIDE). Music by Joel Goldsmith, Jerry Goldsmith's son.

Tag-line: "A girl who has a dream. A boy who needs a miracle. The music brought them together."

Best one-liner: "I'll never be the icing on your cake!"

In a familiar, darkened alleyway:

"Listen up, boyo, I have for you the perfect quarantine movie."
–"A bold claim. Weren't you doing a Tawny Kitaen retrospective, or something?"
"Indeed I am."
–"So what are we looking at here?"
"In a broad sense, let's call it THE BOY IN THE BUBBLE meets LOVE STORY meets, I don't know, a Whitesnake music video?"
–"Ookay."
"It's called CRYSTAL HEART and it really lives up to the hype. As in, 'because no one's seen it, there is no hype.'"
–"Gotcha."
"So meet the 'rich boy' in a bubble, Christopher Newley (played by Lee Curreri, best known as 'Bruno' the keyboardist in FAME). Due to an immune system deficiency, which isn't really explained particularly well, he is confined to a glass-walled, pressurized chamber.

His bubble-chamber takes up the entire basement level of his Beverly Hills mansion, and his parents make sure he has every amenity. He has a live-in nurse who indulges him, full-time. When the futuristic dumbwaiter that delivers his food opens up, it has the same sound effect as the doors in STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES. He lacks for nothing... save sweet, sweet freedom."
–"And Tawny Kitaen?"
"Hey, we're not there yet. Tawny plays the pop star 'Alley Daniels.' Imagine a woman in the Cyndi Lauper/Madonna/Debbie Gibson wheelhouse. Also, a huge fan of the 'statement bow.'"

–"Just like in WITCHBOARD!"
 "Yeah, I'm not sure if Tawny Kitaen is a big fan of statement bows, or if she just happened to play a lot of characters who were big fans of statement bows. Anyway, Tawny/Alley has a popular music video where she tells her backup dancers she'll never be the icing on their cake



and then she drags her fingers through the icing on their cakes and knocks the cakes out of their hands, because when she says 'I'll never be the icing on your cake,' by god, she means it."




–"Alright, you've got my attention."
"I have the whole video here, if you wanna see it. It's a real pip.

Anyway, so Christopher is obsessed with Tawny/Alley, and he 'summons' her. This isn't laid out particularly well by the screenplay; sometimes it's played as if they were pen pals, but in another scene Christopher seems to see her image on a TV and simply demand her presence. She has a Sonny Bono-lookin' boyfriend/manager who's kind of a jerk and almost immediately falls victim to the '80s Rule of Pools

which, as you should know by now, is 'if there is a pool or a giant sheet cake present, a character will be pushed into it, flailing, in a zany comic moment.'"

–"I know what the 80s rule of pools is. You make me watch a lot of dumb shit." 

"Just checking. We then see that pop star Tawny is also still doing a lot of commercial work. I guess this shows that despite her relative fame, she still has to hustle in this world."

–"Guess she could use a cash infusion from a certain boy in a bubble?"

"That's never said outright, but I suppose the idea of it lingers beneath the surface. Nonetheless, she never takes advantage of the bubble boy's affluence."

–"Tawny Kitaen shoulda jumped on the 80s workout video bandwagon."

"Well, she kinda did. Anyway, Tawny visits the boy in the bubble, and their chemistry is palpable, even though they're separated by a sheet of glass. Oh, did I say 'palpable?' I meant nonexistent."

–"What's going on there?"

"They're having a social distancing dance party. Again, it's unclear why Tawny is there in the first place. He's not charming, he's not sweet, he's not particularly eloquent. His primary mode is 'petulance.' Kind of an incel vibe. Tawny seems to have no interest in using his fortune, nor piggybacking onto some good 'human interest' PR. I guess she's there, flirting with him, because the screenplay says she is."

–"What do we know about Tawny's character, other than the fact that she's on TV and looks like Tawny Kitaen?"

"Not much. We know she drinks a lot of milk, though. It's kind of her primary character trait.

Drinks so much milk. Right out of a wine glass. That's classy, right there. When she meets the boy in the bubble's mother, the first thing she does is ask for some milk.

Mom––played by May Heatherly, who looks about the same age as her 'son,' and who has a memorable role in the Spanish slasher PIECES––is not a big fan of Tawny crashing her Oedipal slumber/bubble party and spills Tawny's milk."

–"That's a power move."
 "I know. Shortly thereafter, Tawny and the bubble boy have their first fight. He dives straight into his bed like a peevish toddler."


–"Attractive. Wait, are they a couple, now?"
"CRYSTAL HEART adheres to what I call 'the Ms. Pac-Man School of Romance.' That means, though the bulk of the story is just characters eating pellets (or drinking milk, in this case), when it's time to advance the romance, we are informed of the escalation in the most basic terms possible. Act 1: They Meet. Act 2: The Chase. Then it's back to the pellets."
–"That's right! I used to play MS. PAC-MAN when I was a kid. Wait, what was Act 3 in MS. PAC-MAN?"
"Act 3 was 'Junior.'"
–"They had sex in MS. PAC-MAN?"
"Yup. And they have sex in CRYSTAL HEART, too."
–"What? How?"
"Set to the strains of some poor man's Tangerine Dream/RISKY BUSINESS music, they kiss right up on that glass. Right up on it.

Then they strip and just start mashing up against that glass. It's one of the most gloriously comic love scenes ever put to film, and it's about as erotic as Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man colliding against one another as they evade ghosts and try to eat bonus cherries."

–"Are you serious?"

"This is as serious as I get. Picture it, though: just below the frame, there are balls painfully slapping against a cold pane of glass."

–"Pardon me, but this is too much."

"Too much? How about when he goes down on the pane of glass

and Tawny must arch her head back as if orgasming. Gotta give out major props to the Foley artist doing the squeegee work."

–"This is madness. There's probably more eroticism in the SEINFELD episode 'The Bubble Boy.'"

"Yeah, and Tawny's no stranger to SEINFELD. Anyway, it's a lot for our bubble boy to take. So he breaks out."



–"Won't that kill him?"
"Well, if it didn't, that would mean that he was unnecessarily confined to a glass chamber for over twenty years."
–"He probably should have consulted a doctor first."
"The movie doesn't think so. They play it like a full CHARIOTS OF FIRE triumphal moment. Even his nurse, who knows the outside world will kill him, whispers a good luck benediction as he runs beyond the shrubbery boundaries of his property like a lunatic escaping the asylum.

It'd be like a doctor giving you a passionate thumbs-up as you lick the pole on a COVID-19-infected subway car."

–"So what does he do?"

"First things first: he rolls around on somebody else's lawn.

 

He plays with the dirt in said lawn.

Then he almost immediately kisses somebody's strange dog. Doesn't waste time petting, goes straight for the kiss. It's his first kiss, too, cause that pane of glass nonsense with Tawny doesn't count."

–"Well at least he's not coming into contact with other humans. I read that dogs can't get COVID, at any rate, so there's that."

"Next thing: he hitchhikes with a man delivering newspapers."

–"Oh, shit! They're definitely closer than six feet."
"This is just the start of a whirlwind day which involves a trip to a boardwalk:

kissing and tumbling with more strange dogs:

non-glass barrier sex with Tawny:

and standing in the sweaty, crowded mosh pit at Tawny's concert.

Immediately thereafter––surprise, surprise: he's not feeling well."

–"Wow, feel like we're looking at the dark consequences of a little thing called 'cause and effect.'"

"The best part is the movie plays it like it it's an unavoidable tragedy. There's a dramaturgical reason why the writers gave Ali McGraw cancer in LOVE STORY and didn't just have her playing Russian roulette or recreationally injecting herself with Drano."

–"They thought this would be a tear-jerker?" 

"Hell yes they did. We have this drawn out hospital/deathbed scene that ought to have a neon sign over it saying 'BY THE WAY THIS WAS TOTALLY PREVENTABLE.' At the funeral, Mom acts like Tawny is the long lost daughter she never had.

If she hated Tawny's guts when her son was alive, why would she suddenly love her after her son  committed suicide for the sake of rolling around with her and some strange dogs for an afternoon?"
–"You're not suggesting that the bubble boy's death is Tawny's fault?"
"Oh, most definitely not. I place more blame at the feet of the health care worker who saw him escaping and cheered him on. Though, to be fair, as the live-in nurse to this whiny mofo, maybe she figured he had it coming. Anyway, the movie ends with Tawny doing a total 'Candle in the Wind' concert/vigil. I was struck with the thought that there should have been a big reveal after the end credits: that Tawny subtly manipulated and orchestrated the bubble boy's escape and death to make her pop star seem more sympathetic."
–"That sounds like a better movie. That's officially head-canon now for CRYSTAL HEART."
"I allow it."
–"So are we done with the Tawny Kitaen retrospective?"
"We sure aren't!"