Only now does it occur to me... SIDE OUT (1990)

Only now does it occur to me... that there's only one movie where you can witness a neon-candy-colored Jose Cuervo-sponsored volleyball Kumite. And that movie is SIDE OUT.

So what is a "side out?" It seems to be an arcane bit of volleyball jargon which is, as far as I remember, never defined by the film itself. As to the question of what is "SIDE OUT," the movie? we can creep a little closer to clarity.

So what we have here is C. Thomas Howell (THE OUTSIDERS, THE HITCHER, RED DAWN). He's playing a law student on summer break. (Can we thank our lucky stars that it's not his blackface-wearing law student from SOUL MAN?) He's picked up at the airport by volleyball-enthusiast/hearse-driving buddy Christopher Rydell (best known to readers of this site for starring in Dario Argento's TRAUMA). Rydell immediately ingratiates himself to the viewer by forcing a weird Freddy Krueger reference

which sort of implies that he deserves primo airport parking because he's picking up... a burn victim child murderer? (C. Thomas Howell does not play a burn victim in this movie, not even if we're counting sunburn.)

Rydell has rad vanity plates, too, because this is a movie made in 1990.

Anyway, C. Tom Howell is really here on the West Coast to do the bidding of his evil uncle (Terry Kiser, of WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S)

who is absolutely just reprising "Bernie" from WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S. It's basically a prequel. He's a real estate lawyer who puts poor C. Tom up to some white-collar repo man antics, evicting poor people and gathering materials to help dastardly land developers (again, this is a movie made in 1990).

Kathy Ireland is here, playing the evil uncle's paralegal, or something. 

 

She's in the movie for such a brief span, I have to imagine she had other scenes which were deleted. Which is a shame, because Cannon Films' ALIEN FROM L.A. revealed that she has better acting chops than you might expect.

Anyway, C. Tom finds out that obeying corporate masters is much lamer than jus' hangin' out and playin' beach volleyball all day.

 

So Rydell makes him an offer he can't refuse.

And C. Tom gets a girlfriend along the way: Courtney Thorne-Smith (MELROSE PLACE, ALLEY MCBEAL, SUMMER SCHOOL), a waitress at the local volleyball-themed watering hole.

 Check out that totally tubular neon sign out front, of a volleyball getting swatted back and forth:

And can we talk about Courtney Thorne-Smith's blouse for a minute? The costumers were up to some wacky shit here––obviously neon pink was a staple of a 1990 beach fashion ensemble, but when we finally get a reverse shot, it reveals a heretofore unseen transparent plastic back panel

which is practically some outré, cyberpunk, "Zhora in BLADE RUNNER" type-stuff. (There will be more on this neon fashion manifesto later, that's a promise.)

Anyway, she is the romantic lead, and she is mostly defined by her blondeness and physical proximity to C. Thomas Howell. I'm pretty sure this doesn't pass the Bechdel Test, but you already knew that.

So C. Tom is living his best life, and participating in volleyball tournaments which are far more plentiful and higher paid in the SIDE OUT universe than in ours. Oh, look––C. Tom and Christopher Rydell are doing the crane kick from THE KARATE KID, a playful reference to a film starring C. Tom's OUTSIDERS cast buddy, Ralph Macchio:

Anyway, Christopher Rydell is tragically injured during this match, and C. Tom must join forces with crusty volleyball veteran Peter Horton (CHILDREN OF THE CORN, THIRTYSOMETHING), who is absolutely the poor man's Steven Weber. Think about those implications.

Through many montages, the two learn to work past their differences and become an awesome volleyball team. Also, C. Tom helps him out with some real estate difficulties, and really sticks it to the man (his uncle "Bernie"). Whew.

A good drinking game you could play with this movie is, "drink every time C. Thomas Howell takes his shirt off."

Eventually, it's time for the big tourney, the Jose Cuervo-hosted volleyball kumite with a $100,000 prize.

If you've seen ROCKY IV, you can probably predict exactly how this goes, point by point,

even if you don't predict the use of the rad 1990 insult "cheese dick."

The movie ends the instant they win "the big game," without any additional character development/reaction/resolution, because the movie knows itself well enough to know that would be completely unnecessary. 

What I don't understand is this: why isn't this just called VOLLEYBALL: THE MOVIE? If you polled a thousand people at the mall and asked them what sport a "side out" is from, how many would guess volleyball? This movie's entire raison d'être is the Kenny Loggins volleyball montage in TOP GUN, and they're even brazen enough to recycle "Playing With the Boys" for it's biggest volleyball montage.

One final thought. At a fashion-show-within-a-volleyball-tournament they actually spell out the formal aesthetics of this movement. It's practically a manifesto. I thought this sort of rigorous self-definition went out of style with the Dadaists, Surrealists, and the Cubists, but here it is, veritably thriving in 1990!

 

 

Volleyball fashion is an ethos, really. Also, there are women in that crowd, and that woman is talking about a fashion manifesto––so I guess this sorta passes the Bechdel test? 

SIDE OUT, ladies and gentlemen.

Only now does it occur to me... WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S II

Only now does it occur to me...  that I would be remiss if I didn't say a few words about Terry Kiser's masterful, nearly Butoh-style physicality as the deceased title character in this film.

His incredible, nuanced command of body movement (or often the lack thereof) reaches jaw-dropping levels of perfection.  In the context of a less-than-celebrated, rather zany film series, it's hard to imagine that there's legitimately virtuosic work on display, but hey, here it is.  His skill is never more apparent than in the infamous "Conga Line" scene (which launched an international dance craze and remains a cultural touchstone overseas) whereupon a voodoo dancin' Kiser leads an entire party in the "Bernie Dance," a bizarre, head-lolling feat of awkward balance and kinetic energy.  When the rest of the partygoers attempt to imitate Bernie's command of the floor (in a moment that reminds me of the TWIN PEAKS episode where a weeping Leland Palmer inspires a dance craze in the Great Northern's ballroom) you fully see the height of Kiser's artistry: even with a hundred people imitating his exact movements, Kiser is unparalleled.  Nobody can quite do what he does, as well as he does.

 
 
It is my belief that We The People ought to demand WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S III.  There's still time!

Film Review: FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM (1987, Jeff Burr)

AKA: THE OFFSPRING.
Stars: 3.5 of 5.
Running Time: 99 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Clu Gulager, Miriam Byrd-Nethery, Vincent Price, Terry Kiser, Lawrence Tierney (SILVER BULLET, RESERVOIR DOGS), Susan Tyrrell (BIG-TOP PEE-WEE, TAPEHEADS).
Tag-lines: "Fear......Times Four."
Best one-liner: "One thing I've learned, my dear, is that one is never too old for nightmares. "

"Welcome... to... Oldfield...eckk..." Wow. All is not right in the little hamlet of Oldfield, Tennessee, and what should clue you in is that its denizens include the legendary Vincent Price, a couple of members of the Gulager clan, Lawrence Tierney, and Terry Kiser (Bernie from WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S). But this film, from STEPFATHER II director and Gulager family friend Jeff Burr, is closer in character to an anthology of depressing O. Henry stories than TALES FROM THE CRYPT. And my nearly four-star rating is probably a bit misleading since it garners some extra stars from Clu and Vincent, and they're hardly in it. But I'm gonna go ahead and focus on the parts of the film they are in, cause, by gum, they're the best parts. Vincent functions here as Debbie Harry from TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE, if you will. He's just there for the frame story, which is kinda weak, and he's pretty decrepit, but goddammit, he's still VINCENT, and he's always amazing.


So let's get on to the meat of things, the segment which showcases the demented Gulagers, Clu and his wife Miriam Byrd-Nethery.

Their performances as elderly siblings are heartbreaking, and dripping with pathos: Clu the sad old man who pines for a young woman so much that he kills her and rapes the corpse, and Miriam the sad old woman who is in love with and demands to be frequently bathed by her brother. Instead of being delightfully demented or totally twisted, this piece is agonizing, somber, and it makes you feel kind of dirty.

It's art, to be sure, but damned if I could watch it again. And the Gulagers are so 'effin good that you empathize with each one to an absurd degree.

By the time Clu offs his sister, and the demon baby from the necrophilia session returns with a bone to pick, the rest of the movie doesn't matter.

This is all you need to know: the Gulagers are brilliant, and Price is still a legend. RIP Vincent and Miriam. Clu continues to appear with family members in totally whacked out films (most recently, the FEAST series).

-Sean Gill

Film Review: WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S (1989, Ted Kotcheff)

Stars: 3 of 5.
Running Time: 98 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Andrew McCarthy (MANNEQUIN, THE JOY LUCK CLUB), Jonathan Silverman (GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN, CADDYSHACK II), Terry Kiser (FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 7: THE NEW BLOOD, FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM, MANNEQUIN 2: ON THE MOVE), Catherine Mary Stewart (THE APPLE, DUDES).
Tag-lines: "Bernie would be the perfect host, except for one small thing . . . he's dead. Now, he's the life of the party." That tag-line is a perfect example of what great, even epochal, tag-lines are all about.
Best one-liner: "What kind of a host invites you to his house for the weekend and dies on you?" What kind of host, indeed.

WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S is kiiiiind of a bad movie. So is CAPTAIN RON. But that doesn't make them any less epochal. Allow me to explain. First, let's toss words like 'bad' and 'good' out the window. Now that that's out of the way, let me ask you this, fancy-pants: Did you know that Robert Klane (writer of BERNIE'S, writer/director of BERNIE'S II, writer of EUROPEAN VACATION, and overall purveyor of third-rate 80's entertainment) has succeeded where ALFRED HITCHCOCK failed? That's right, I just said that Robert Klane one-upped the venerable Mr. Hitchcock. When? Let's talk THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY. Not really settin' the world on fire, is it? Why? Well, Hitch figured that hilarity would ensue if we had this corpse turning up all over the place, and people would try to hide it and freak out and it would be the funniest thing ever. Well, it wasn't. Plus, Philip Truex is no Terry Kiser. More on that later. Anyway, this Klane guy comes along and realizes that a corpse popping up everywhere isn't in and of itself funny, per se. But what if only two characters knew it was a corpse? And what if they had to pretend that he was still alive? And what if the joke was how easy they were finding it to convince dim-witted beach-types of Bernie's vitality? Now that sounds like 98 minutes of nonstop hilarity to me. Pass the glue!

LET

THE

WHACKINESS

COMMENCE.

Plus this thing was directed by Ted Kotcheff, who directed FIRST BLOOD and unleashed Rambo upon this world, so just think about that for a minute. And no one can deny that Terry Kiser, as the title character, is absolutely brilliant. I'm serious. His sheer malleability and dead-weight timing reveals a talent that perhaps better-suited to the days of Chaplin and W.C. Fields. What if there'd been a silent/early sound version of this starring W.C. as Bernie and Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton as Silverman and McCarthy, respectively. Hot damn! See, that's what I mean when I say epochal!

Side note: Check out the Polish theatrical poster, which may be the most amazingly obtuse bit of film marketing I've ever seen.



-Sean Gill