Vote, Baby, Vote (a PopWatch PSA)

We interrupt this Election Day joyride aboard the good ship P-Dubs to bring you this important announcement from the legendary Lady Miss Kier:

The Lady speaks wisdom. Heed it.

We know return you to your regularly scheduled PopWatchery.

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PopWatch Confessional: Which cheesy cartoon moments make you cry?

Image Credit: Everett CollectionThis past weekend, I found myself watching An American Tail at 2 a.m. No, I wasn’t cruising for a nice bout of depression (“Somewhere Out There,” anyone?); I simply felt like falling in love with it all over again. It was one of those random movie cravings. You know the kind.

But before I pressed play, I told myself I’d fast-forward through the especially tear-inducing parts so as not to be the person who weeps by themselves in the middle of the night. So I didn’t watch when Fievel got separated from his family, and I didn’t watch the part where a pair of bullies gave the lonely little mouse a bed of straw to sleep on. They were obviously sad parts, and I’m not into cartoon self-flagellation. (Confession: I still haven’t worked up the courage to watch Up.) Then, I was caught off-guard when I found myself weeping during the happy ending (of all things!). There was something about watching disheveled Fievel follow the sound of his papa’s voice to reunite with his family that just had me bawling.

I immediately recognized the cheesiness of the situation, but I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t anticipated being moved by a predictable happy ending. Maybe the cynical, grown-up in me thought I was beyond it. Apparently I’m not. Sometimes, you can’t help but be moved by cartoon corniness.

We all cried during Toy Story 3, during that heartbreaking Peanuts episode, during that dog episode of Futurama, and during every Pixar movie. But what I want to know, PopWatchers, is which really cheesy cartoon moments get you every time?

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PopWatch Rewind Week 10: ‘Poltergeist’

Image Credit: Everett CollectionWe’re here! It’s a week before Halloween, but the release of Paranormal Activity 2: Electric Boo!-galoo seemed like the perfect occasion to watch the 1982 ghosts-in-suburbia film Poltergeist. About a family being terrorized by a specter older than Arlen and scarier than Phil, the flick has given birth to endless quotable lines, childhood nightmares, and rumors of a curse. Directed by Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s Tobe Hooper, but kinda maybe really directed by 1941’s Steven Spielberg, it remains a classic of the genre and a good warning not to let your kids sit too close to the TV.

Darren Franich: The first 20 minutes are all slow-building suspense. There are dozens of perfect little details about family life, like the dad convincing the kids that the lightning isn’t so scary, or the wife smoking a joint while her husband reads a book about Ronald Reagan. Then these very subtle spooky things happen. Chairs move. A glass breaks. It feels like a movie powered by spooky suggestion — very Paranormal Activity-ish, in fact. And then a tree smashes through a window, grabs the young son, and tries to eat him. End of subtly terrifying portion of the film.

Keith Staskiewicz: To me it’s those tiny suburban details that make the movie: The Chewbacca poster, the potato chip bag under the pillow, the remote control dispute with the neighbor. I think it’s interesting that Spielberg had to choose between directing this and E.T. after he completed Raiders of the Lost Ark, because E.T. shares that god- and/or the devil-is-in-the-details philosophy. From the kids’ Halloween costumes to, again, the Star Wars memorabilia (thanks, Raiders producer George Lucas!), it adds up to really make you believe in this vision of childhood and family life. The only difference is that the invading force is befriending your children, not absconding with them into the TV.

DF: But also, in E.T., suburbia is a Calvin-and-Hobbesian wonderland. In Poltergeist, suburbia is built on the corpses of older generations; it’s just Hobbesian. Poltergeist feels like a pessimists’ inversion of a Spielberg movie. The force isn’t invading. It’s been there the whole time.

Look, kids, the ruins of the American Dream!

KS I don’t think it’s an inversion. More of a flip-side companion piece. Poltergeist just shows the darker side of things. The family is still the central unit, and is still really what is at the heart of the film, but it just turns out that the American Dream is built on a sea of corpses.

DF: That strikes me as a gigantic difference. But this brings up the Big Question about Poltergeist: Who actually directed this thing?

KS: I view it as a Spielberg movie. I like Tobe Hooper, and looking over his filmography, I was surprised to find that there’s actually a bunch of great stuff beyond Texas Chainsaw Massacre that I usually forget about, like The Funhouse and Salem’s Lot. But I just see Spielberg’s hands all over this movie.

Fun fact! The movie on TV is "A Guy Named Joe," the inspiration for Spielberg's worst movie, "Always."

DF: To me, Poltergeist is a Spielberg movie the way that A.I. is a Kubrick movie. The outline is there, but the particular treatment feels completely different, even purposefully oppositional.

KS: Except Kubrick wasn’t constantly on the set of A.I., unless he himself was a poltergeist. “Come play with us, Stevie!”

DF: If you’re telling me that this is a straight-up Spielberg movie, then you have to acknowledge that there are some things in the movie that feel utterly unlike pretty much anything else Spielberg has ever done. Like the coffins popping up out of the ground. Or the utter anarchy of the ending.

KS: I don’t see how the face-meltings and leg-chompings of Spielberg’s other movies are all that different from something like this.

"One minute! Just putting my face on!"

DF: Let’s just agree that Spielberg built a beautiful Spielberg-movie house, and then a strange presence invaded that house.

KS: And that presence was Tobe Hooper, under a sheet, with holes cut out for eyes. Upon rewatching, I feel comfortable dubbing this one of my favorite horror movies of all time, and at least part of that is due to the great special effects. Sure, the face-peeling scene looks a little fake, but that didn’t stop it from freaking the heck out of us. And almost everything else holds up tremendously well, even now. Combined with The Thing, it really makes you yearn for the practical effects of 1982 over CGI werewolves. I miss the good old days of muppets and slime. Why is everything so digitalized now? I hate modernity. Where’s my cane? Who changed the TV from Murder, She Wrote?

Every house in the neighborhood comes with a free Sarlacc Pit.

DF: Even when they open the door to the kids’ room and see everything flying around, the horrendous matte-ing doesn’t look any worse than current digital effects, really.

KS: Apparently they went all the way and used real skeletons in the pool scene because it was cheaper and more realistic than buying fake ones.

DF: This is reason number 50 million to love JoBeth Williams, who brings a believably gonzo level of playfulness, even kinkiness, to what could’ve just been a bland Mom role. I love how excited she is by the moving chairs: You believe that she’s a little bit bored, so a spooky chair is kind of fun. Craig T. Nelson is so good in this movie, too. Actually, between this and The Incredibles, he’s played two of the more interesting twists on the All-American father.

KS: The movie’s just so awesomely unrelenting: A half-hour of idyllic suburbia and cute family jokes, then it gets ramped up a notch, and once Zelda Rubinstein shows up it’s all screaming, strobe lights, flaming skulls, and frenzy. Your heart is in your stomach, which is in your throat. Then there’s a brief respite to trick you into thinking it’s the end of the movie, then: Clowns! Intestinal closets! Ghost spiders! Skeleton pool party! Imploding house! So many memorable images in a period of about 20 minutes.

DF: Zelda Rubinstein is my least favorite part of the movie. The reason I love Poltergeist is all the family stuff, and the presence of the ghost hunters just pushes it into this bizarre, semi-farcical quest. Like, you’ve got the little old lady teaching the children about the importance of being happy when you die. And then, an even littler old lady comes in and solves everything using sass and gumption. Even the cool special effects that we’re talking about aren’t really present in the Zelda part. It’s all just bright spotlights, and cloudy lights, and Zelda Rubinstein screaming “Go into the light!”

Note the Kim Jong-Il cameo.

KS: Poor Carol Anne must have been totally confused by her parents’ inability to decide whether or not she should go into the light. “Go towards the light!” “No, wait, don’t go towards the light!” “Actually, yes, I changed my mind. Do, but then stop!” “Yes! No! Light!” I’d argue that Zelda brought a lot to the movie. The scene of her describing, in her helium twang, the circumstances of the unseen spectral realm, with the evil beast that presents itself as a child, was way creepier to me than if we actually got to see it.

DF: I definitely could’ve used less Zelda.

KS: But what about the curse? I can’t believe we’ve made it this far without mentioning the curse.

DF: Curse, what curse?

KS: You know, the Poltergeist curse. Many involved with Poltergeist have died under mysterious circumstances.

DF: Oh, pshaw! I don’t believe in such silliness. Do you, Keith?

KS: Aaaaaaaaaahh!

DF: Keith? Keith?

KS: …

DF: Keeeeeeiiiiiiitttthhhhhh!!!!!!

Next week: Having blown through our scary-movie quota a week early, we’ll be watching something a little more family-friendly for Halloween in the form of a hapless, bald-headed kid and his pet beagle/WWI flying ace. We’ve already ordered our copy of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and we’re going to wait all night in the pumpkin patch for it to arrive. We suggest you do the same.

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PopWatch Rewind Week 9: ‘My Cousin Vinny’

My Cousin Vinny is not the greatest movie Joe Pesci ever made, but it is unquestionably the Joe Pesci-est movie Joe Pesci ever made. One of five 1992 films featuring the diminutive actor  (along with Lethal Weapon 3 and Home Alone 2), My Cousin Vinny stars Pesci as Vincent LaGuardia Gambini—clearly a name designed to evoke the best and worst of New Yawk Italian-Americans—a wannabe lawyer whose first case sends him into the murky waters of Broad Alabama Clichés to defend his young cousin, played by Ralph Macchio, when he is wrongfully accused of murder, much like Hilary Swank’s brother in this week’s Conviction. Along for the ride is Maria Tomei, in the performance that would win her an unfairly controversial Oscar, and a cast of brilliant supporting actors trying on terrible Southern accents. In the battle of stereotype-versus-stereotype, who will prevail?

DF: Am I the only one who thinks that, whenever Joe Pesci throws a tantrum in the movie, he’s this close to shooting Marisa Tomei in the face?

KS: It’s because of Goodfellas. We’re automatically conditioned to think that whenever Joe Pesci starts asking rhetorical questions, someone’s getting hurt. “What am I, a lawyer to you? Am I going to be litigating?” BAM! The essence of Joe Pesci is that when his fury and passive-aggression is released via violence, it’s horrifying. But when it’s just turned into frustration and exasperation, it’s hilarious.

DF: In 1992, Pesci was having a Jeff Goldblum moment: The strange man was suddenly adored by everyone in America. Vinny is a film built entirely around the Joe Pesci star persona as surely as Mission: Impossible is built around Tom Cruise. I think that’s why I like My Cousin Vinny so much — it recasts the Joe Pesci nutcase as the lovable romantic hero.

KS: I think what also helps make My Cousin Vinny work is that Joe Pesci’s stereotype is nicely counter-balanced by about 40 other stereotypes. “Oh, those simple country folk, with their one suit store, their wood cabins, and their death by electric chair. What charm!” Usually in a movie like this, city mouse and country mouse learn something about each other and realize that each have their strengths. But here, they basically tolerate each other for awhile and then go their separate ways, without learning that there was in fact anything beyond their initial impressions.

DF: It does seem like there’s a slightly less genteel ending where everyone congratulates Pesci and the judge walks up and says, “You’re a hell of a trial lawyer,” but then also says, “Guess what! According to New York, you’re not a lawyer at all” and throws him in prison. At least that’s a bit more structurally sound than: “Remember that judge you mentioned that one time? I called him for help, and he helped! DEUS EX MACHINA!”

KS: They could have just had the judge say, “Oh, you weren’t who you said you were, but that was one great cross-examination,” mutual respect, shake hands, Joe Pesci says something untoward and gets a glare from the judge to prove that they’re still cut from different cloths, and then drive off into the sunset. Instead it’s, “Nope, we’re still lying, let’s just get out of here before these rubes arrest us.”

DF: It used to be a joke that Marisa Tomei won the Oscar. Now, her victory is the rare evidence that the Oscars don’t always get things utterly wrong. It’s actually someone who won a supporting actor trophy for a legitimately supporting performance, for a purely comic performance, and before she was even remotely famous.

KS: There was that silly rumor that Jack Palance accidentally read the wrong name when he presented the award. As if Jack Palance actually deserved his Oscar more than she did! But in years since, Tomei’s racked up two more nominations, for serious roles. So in the words of Mona Lisa Vito, “F— you, you freakin’ dumbasses!”

DF: So this movie was the beginning of Marisa Tomei’s career, the midpoint of Joe Pesci’s career…and the end of Ralph Macchio’s career?

KS: Pretty much. In Vinny, Macchio plays a twenty-something college student who looks about 14, even though he was actually 31 when the film came out. I’d heard that Macchio was considered at one point for the role of Marty McFly in Back to the Future, and now that makes sense since he can clearly control time. Either that or he made a deal with the devil to receive eternal youth but forgot to ask for eternal fame as well.

DF: Him and his wrongfully-accused friend are the main characters of the film for the first 20 minutes, and then they spend the rest of the movie doing spit takes whenever Joe Pesci does or says something stupid/brilliant.

KS: The real surprise of Vinny is that it is genuinely hilarious. I think going in you know that it’s Pesci doing meta-Pesci and Marisa Tomei snapping gum, and you look at the title and you think it’ll be an amusing concept comedy and that’s about it. But there are a ton of laughs, from Fred Gwynne drawling “Huwhat is a yute?” to the 20-minute long misunderstanding in which the friend thinks Joe Pesci’s going to rape him. And somehow within that is a really solid courtroom story that blows an episode of Law & Order out of the water.

DF: There’s the outward core of Brooklyn Stereotype meets Southern Stereotype. There’s lots of comical “who’s on first?” wordplay based on simple misunderstandings. And then there’s the final courtroom sequence, which allows Pesci to relentlessly chew the scenery.

KS: Let me just point out that on the IMDb entry for My Cousin Vinny, their recommendations if you liked the film include A Time to Kill, Call Northside 777, Freeway, Anatomy of a Murder, and Capote. I’m not sure they’ve quite got it nailed.

DF: Come on, what do you mean? Truman Capote and Joe Pesci both have hilarious voices.

Next Week: Paranormal Activity 2 is a haunted house movie in which a mysterious force messes with a couple’s child. Next week, we’ll be asking Carol Anne to stay away from the light in Poltergeist, the best film Steven Spielberg swears he didn’t direct.

Read more:
PopWatch Rewind: The Shawshank Redemption
PopWatch Rewind: Alien 3
PopWatch Rewind: Superman II

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