Earth Girls are Easy (1988)

"Okay, I'm going to show you something that's going to totally change your life, completely, forever. Okay?"
"Well, in that case, let me get a cigarette."
-Valerie Gail and Candy Pink.

Celebrities and divorce basically go together like peanut butter and jelly. I must confess, though, that there are been some celebrity couples whose divorces made me a bit sad. One such couple was Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis. These two made three films together during the 1980's. The first was the so-so comedy Transylvania 6-5000 (1985), while the second, and most famous, of their teamings came the following year with The Fly. The two would actually get married during production of this, their final, movie together.
Davis plays manicurist Valerie Gail, who is currently having trouble in the romance department, thanks to her philandering boyfriend Dr. Ted Gallagher (Charles Rocket). Despite the efforts of her co-worker Candy Pink (Julie Brown), Valerie is having trouble turning her frown upside down until, one day, an alien ship crashes into her swimming pool as she's sunbathing.
This ship is manned by Zeebo (Damon Wayans), Wiploc (Jim Carrey) and their captain Mac (Jeff Goldblum), all three of whom basically look like Wookies doused in different food coloring.
After her inital, understandable fear, Valerie agrees to take the trio in until they can fix their ship. With Candy's help, our outworlders get a makeover at the salon the ladies work at, so they can blend in more easily with society in the interim.
A night on the town leads to Zeebo making the moves on the local ladies at a disco, while Wiploc and Candy engage in some fun of their own. But later, Ted returns to try to make amends but then darts off again after seeing the company Valerie is now keeping.
Valerie's sadness prompts Mac to try to make her feel better. After some hesitation, Valerie ends up having sex with him.
The next day, with repairs on their ship almost complete, Valerie and Mac learn that Zeebo and Wiploc, along with Valerie's slacker neighbor Woody (Michael McKean), have been arrested after unknowingly robbing a convenience store. Mac gets himself arrested as well so he can help them out.
After a police chase, Zeebo and Wiploc are taken to a hospital, where Ted discovers how alien they truly are. Fortunately, Mac and Valerie manage to convince Ted he's delusional in order to help Mac's shipmates escape.
Ted later stops by Valerie's again and, in order to help Mac and the others take off, she tries to stall Ted by agreeing to go to Vegas to marry him.
Mac is heartbroken, but, once everything is ready, launches their ship. Valerie then realizes that she really loves Mac and tells him she wants to return to his world, a request he happily grants.
Like The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), this is a musical with science fiction elements in it. But I actually found this more enjoyable than Rocky Horror mainly because it makes no attempt to gross the viewer out like that film did with its dinner scene and the protagonists here are a bit more lively.
Both Wayans and Carrey would go on to success with the TV series In Living Color, and their subsequent film success is one reason why this movie has the cult following it does. Hey, if Rocky Horror can get such a following, this movie should be able to.

Finding Forrester (2000)

"Did you ever enter a writing contest?"
"Yeah, once."
"Did you win?"
"Well of course I won!"
"You win like money or something?
"No."
"Well, what did you win?"
"The Pulitzer."
-Jamal Wallace and William Forrester.

The great Sir Sean Connery officially announced his retirement from acting in 2003, the same year that The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was released. Connery was unhappy with the making of that film, which led to his decision to retire. The movie was surprisingly dull, but Sir Sean was perfect casting as Allan Quartermain. If the film does indeed prove to be his final screen appearance, at least history will be able to say it was a great part, even if the movie itself couldn't be called that.

Before Gentlemen, though, Connery had a wonderful role in this movie as the title character, reclusive writer William 1Forrester. On a dare by friends, teenager Jamal Wallace (Rob Brown) goes into Forrester's New York apartment and, after initial hostility, Forrester offers to help Wallace with his writing skills.

This leads to an improvement in Wallace's grades at his school, as well as suspicions of plagiarism from Wallace's professor Robert Crawford (F. Murray Abraham), who is an acquaintance of Forrester.

After turning down Wallace's invitation to watch him play a basketball game at Madison Square Garden (Forrester's anxiety issues keep him from being part of a crowd), the recluse agrees to meeting with him at Yankee Stadium late on night. It is here that Forrester tells him of his personal family drama, which led Forrester to writing his book Avalon Landing.

The two fall into conflict, though, when Wallace uses the beginning of one of Forrester's essays in his class, even though he promised him that the work would never leave his apartment. This leads to Crawford accusing Wallace of plagiarism, although Wallace is told that the charge will be dropped if he wins the state championship, which he does not!

But this does not stop Wallace from writing an essay to Forrester about friendship, which Forrester receives thanks to Wallace's brother Terrell (Busta Rhymes).

This leads to Forrester reading the essay himself at a school contest, which results in great applause from the audience. He also reveals to Crawford that Wallace had permission from him to submit his previous essay. As a result, the plagiarism charge against Wallace is dropped, to Crawford's chagrin.

A year later, Wallace learns that Forrester died of cancer. His lawyer (Matt Damon) informs Wallace that Forrester has left him the manuscript for another novel and wants Wallace to write the foreword for it.

When the movie was released, Connery told Roger Ebert that the movie was similar to his classic film The Man Who Would Be King (1975) in that, at its heart, it was a story of friendship. Indeed, the real meat of this story comes from the friendship which forms between Forrester and Wallace, in the same way that King's greatness comes from the friendship between the characters played by Connery and Sir Michael Caine.

It is also nice seeing Connery share the screen again with Abraham, as the two previously acted together in The Name of the Rose (1986).

The only complaint I have with the film is that Anna Paquin doesn't have much to do as Wallace's classmate Claire Spence. I suppose this was better, though, then having her and Wallace go through the motions of often found in dramas about schools.

I must also say that this movie, while given limited release, redeemed its director Gus Van Sant as his previous film was the ill-fated remake of Psycho (1998).

Continental Divide (1981)

"But why ornithology?"
"I like the uniform."
-Ernie Souchak and Nell Porter



Thirty years ago this month, John Belushi tragically died of a drug overdose. Like Robert Shaw and John Candy, Belushi was a wonderful and underrated talent who was taken from us too soon.
He deservedly became famous with his work on Saturday Night Live, but it was National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) that made him a film star. That film is one of the few to give bodily humor a good name and Belushi's character, Bluto, became ingrained into the minds of filmgoers.
Continental Divide, however, showed people that there was more to Belushi's acting than just playing a college delinquent who thought the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.
Here, he played Chicago Sun-Times columnist Ernie Souchak, whose work has both its fans and detractors. His fame comes in handy when muggers recognize him, giving police time to arrive. Ironically, those very cops put Souchak in a hospital due to their unhappiness with his work.
This hospital stay prompts his editor to give Souchak a change of pace by sending him to the Rocky Mountains to interview reclusive ornithologist Nell Porter (Blair Brown).
Souchak is against this due to his love for the city life and his unfamiliarity with the country. Although they argue at first, Sourchak and Porter slowly fall in love the more they adjust to each other's personalities. This love wins out despite the fact that they are in their professional depth at opposite ends of the country.
This film reminds me a bit of Crocodile Dundee(1986), in that it deals with a reporter who goes into unfamiliar territory only to find happiness with one of the locals.
In the cases of both films, the romance is played in a nice way which doesn't hammer into our skulls that our two leads just have to get in bed together (and the pathetic way other subsequent comedies have tried to put irony into the proceedings by having them hate each other when they first meet). The fact that the two evenutal lovebirds are likeable-in contrast to, say, Tomcats(2001)-is another reason we hope this love story ends on a happy note.
In addition to being proof that Belushi could play a 'straight man' role, this film was the first to be produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment company (although Amblin would become better known once it got its logo of E.T. and Elliott on their bicycle). The film would also prove a good thing for its screenwriter, Lawrence Kasdan, because it was his Divide script which would convince Spielberg and George Lucas that he was the best choice to write the screenplay for Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).
The less said about Belushi's next and final film-Neighbors (1981)-the better, but Divide should stand proudly alongside Animal House and The Blues Brothers (1980) as proof of how good he really was.