Fun In the Summertime (Summer School, 1987)

Summer_School_PosterRob Reiner was a prolific funny man.  He gave us decades of laughter and joy before his passing this week.  In his memory, I am taking a look at an under-rated… well not classic…but one of those films of his I don’t hear much about.

Mark Harmon is slacker gym teacher Freddy Shoop is ready to run off to Hawaii for the summer with his girlfriend when he is forced to be the english teacher for the summer for kids who failed their remedial english test. His girlfriend runs off without him, leaving him with a class of goof offs and generally distracted students.

The Vice Principal hates Shoop and holds his tenure and job over his head if the entire class does not pass. This results in Shoop and the class making a bargain.  He helps each of them with one thing they need. And at first this seems to be working, until the kids start getting greedy when Shoop suggests they all put in some more time.

Summer School has a flimsy plot, but Reiner is really trying to entertain more than anything here, and it he uses his skill with comedy tropes to make even the thinnest of ideas work.

This film has an incredibly 80’s cast (certainly, most of them are still active, but this was their hey day).  Probably the most memorable characters are Chainsaw and Dave.  While falling into that stock dumb buddies, they feel very different from characters like Bill and Ted or the later Wayne and Garth.  Horror movie lovers and burgeoning make-up artists there are a couple funny set piece scenes that put their wild imaginations at the center. They also share an infatuation for exchange student Anna-Maria that somehow Reiner manages to keep fairly safe.  They are never in competition over her, they just both have an almost puppy dog devotion to both each other and her.  Yeah, her character is the very stock “Barely Speaks English Hottie”, but the film keeps everything so light that it works pretty well.

This is not a classic like the Jerk, but it is a really fun film and a good diversion on a Sunday afternoon.

 

Boldly Going Pt 2 (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, 1982)

ST_the_Wrath_Of_Khan_PosterAfter the slower first film, the creators sought to look back to the original series for inspiration. The came back to the first season episode Space Seed. In that episode, the Enterprise comes across a 20th Century ship adrift in space, the SS Botany Bay. The crew of the ship are revived and it is discovered they were genetically engineered super people led by Khan. Khan attempts mutiny, but after failing is left on a remote habitable planet with his followers.

Picking up just about fifteen years later, Chekov (now a Commander) is part of a team searching for a lifeless planet to be a part of an experiment known as the Genesis Project.  The goal being instant terraforming that takes a lifeless planet or moon and makes it a living planet teeming with plant life.  When Chekov and the Captain of the USS Reliant beam down to Ceti Alpha VI to verify if the life readings are correct. They find a lifeless planet of sand storms and…housing.

As they investigate, Chekov discovers that this is the remnants of the crew of the Botany Bay.  But before they can get out and back to the ship, they discover that Khan is alive and well…and fueled by rage against James T. Kirk.

And so Khan sets in motion plans to use Chekov, Captain Terrell and the scientists they are working with to set a trap too torment and destroy Kirk.

The Wrath of Khan focuses on the aging cast dealing with personal fears of obsolescence and weaves it together with a revenge action story. Montalban returns to the role of Khan Noonien Singh and he seems to relish the opportunity to approach the character from a new perspective. No longer simply an arrogant leader impressed with his own “perfection”, he is now engulfed in the flames of anger and hatred singularly directed at the man who insulted his ego the most. This is a terrific performance.

The reveal that Kirk has a son, a son who hate the militaristic Federation and has no trust for them (believing they will take the Genesis Project and make it into a weapon) no less, forces a new look at Kirk.  This seems like a big ret-con, but at the same time it works well here, as Kirk reveals he promised Carol, the mother of his son, to stay away. So David knows who Kirk is, and hates him.  But he has no idea that Kirk is also his father.

The film also takes a heavy focus on the trio of Kirk, Spock and Bones.  This really pays off in the end with a powerful sacrifice that carries the weight of over a dozen years. And while the film clearly hints the story is not over for these friends, it still hits with a heavy heart.

Nicholas Meyer manages to weave the personal stories in with the action with great skill.  This film manages to tie with the TV series and have a sense of being an epic, yet keep it on a very personal level.  The Wrath of Khan is the high water mark for Star Trek.

 

Be as Little Children (Village of the Damned, 1995)

village-of-the-damned-posterVillage of the Damned is Carpenter’s second remake.  This one is not quite as inventive as the Thing.  Here, Carpenter sticks much closer to the source material.  The film begins in an idyllic small California town where there is a community barbecue.  In the midst of the festivities, the entire town falls unconscious.   The government enters the scene very quickly to assess the situation.  They find there is a line that can be crossed, where a person will pass out.  Almost as quickly as it hit, the town wakes up.

Soon, six women discover they are pregnant.  The babies are all born at the same time (but one is stillborn), and the government leaves behind researches to keep an eye on the newborns.  As the years progress the five children are becoming quite peculiar and are surrounded by mysterious tragedies.  The children all have silvery hair (the actors are quite annoyed that people think they wore wigs.  They did not) and are immensely smart.  They are eventually kept away from other children and taught by Christopher Reeve (in his last role before being paralyzed).  Reeve’s Alan Chaffee knows there is a problem brewing and starts trying to find ways to block the children’s psychic powers.  He also starts to connect with the young David, who seems to have more empathy than the other children.  This is, in part, due to the stillborn having been meant to be his partner.

Really, the visuals of the film are striking.  The five children with shocking silver hair and the subtle visual effects (primarily in their eyes and faces, the more intensely they focus, the more their alien physiology becomes dominant).

The performances are all dependable for the needs of the film.  Reeve makes good use of his decent guy reputation and Kirstie Alley is good in the role of cold and calculating government liaison Dr. Susan Verner.  But really? the standouts are Thomas Dekker as David and Lindsey Haun as Mara.  Haun is chilling and full of menace, while Dekker’s growing humanity makes him truly sympathetic in his loneliness.

While not as unique as his previous remake, the Village of the Damned is a nicely done horror film that pays homage to more classic horror.

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