Every summer, the movie industry bombards us with scores of lighthearted anecdotes designed to capture the short attention spans of children who have been set free from classes and to calm the minds of businessmen whose office air conditioners have faltered.
This summer seemed like a particularly blah season for movies with only one or two standouts.
A Fish Called Wanda, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and John Cleese, is one of the few bright spots. The film is a comedy in the style of the Keystone Cops, but makes its jokes without making the audience feel stupid. It allows us to laugh with ourselves instead of at ourselves.
The film treats sex as an inevitable occurance that never goes smoothly, and pokes honest fun at Englishmen and the learning disabled. Though some guilt comes with laughing at these foilbles, these are about the only genuine laughs this summer.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is terminally cute -- to the point of being nauseating. The first five minutes would have been enough to tell the whole plot, but instead, the movie drags us through almost two hours of really bad puns attached to amazing special effects.
Another big disappointment was Cocktail, in which Tom Cruise tries to play on his looks and loses. This sickly, annoying, soap opera is predictable and tacky at best. The film has got to be a favorite with those girls 13 years old and younger, who have never been in a bar, and think Cruise is groovy.
The underlying moral kicker is that love conquers money, bartending is fun, and you have to marry a girl if you get her pregnant. How quaint.
If the pre-teen scene needs more to look at, they can see Young Guns, a collection of older brat-packers who probably would have made more money if they just collected unemployment.
Brothers Charlie Sheen (Platoon) and Emilio Estevez (Wisdom) star along with Lou Diamond Phillips (La Bamba) and Keifer Sutherland (The Lost Boys). The slobber ran thick in the theater as the young girls squealed at the young guns, especially when they saw a bum shot of Estevez, who portrayed Billy the Kid.
The characters do get to shoot and bleed a lot, and Charlie Sheen's character even gets to die. Sutherland gets a girl, they blow away the gangsters and ride off into the sunset -- but only after a trip on peyote where the heartthrobs get to act stoned. What a professional challenge.
Those seeking an older hero watched Bruce Willis in Die Hard, which received rave reviews and became a box office hit.
Children had a somewhat slower summer. Disney's contribution was the re-release of Bambi, which is another classic that is often overlooked by adults. Disney films always contain a higher level of interpretation that children must surely miss.
Re-release led to remake as the children's tale Pippi Longstocking was finally made by Americans, and Freddy came back in Nightmare on Elm Street IV.
Director Spike Lee (She's Gotta Have It) bombed out again with School Daze which gave us "Da Butt" but little else.
Summer Notes
Not only was "Da Butt" big, but D.J. Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince scored a big hit with "Parents Just Don't Understand." Their second release from the He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper album is called "Nightmare on My Street," and features a rapping Freddy Kruger on assistant lead vocal.
Van Halen did well on the charts with their number one album OU812 which lead to the first studio video featuring Sammy Hagar.
Top 40 featured this summer's Suzanne Vega with Tracy Chapman and her hit "Fast Car." Her number one debut album has been heralded by the critics as one of the best new folk albums this year.
David Byrne was on the soundtrack road again as he wrote the score for the Johnathan Demme (Something Wild) film Married to the Mob. The film stars Michele Pfiefer and Mathew Modine and previews say the film is a hit.
Elton John released Reg Strikes Back and his supporting tour is selling well.
Other big tours this summer included INXS, which will extend into September, Robert Plant and Cheap Trick, who scored their first number one hit ever with "The Flame." People dared to ask if Elvis just might still be alive, and just in case he isn't, Cheap Trick remade "Don't Be Cruel". Robert Palmer, who again found enough ladies to jiggle on screen for his video for "Simply Irrisistable," also had a large tour.
Graham Nash returned to the Crosby, Stills and Nash tour, and Sting will be on the road again, including the new Amnesty show with Peter Gabriel, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and Tracy Chapman.
New compilation albums have appeared from groups like Joy Division, and Paul Carrick and the Psychedelic Furs. Also Debra Winger's new film Betrayed is attracting a lot of attention.
This fall, U2 will release a film and a soundtrack, and a new release can be expected from Cyndi Lauper, who seems to have flopped with her movie Vibes. The movie stars Jeff Goldblum, who has appeared in such classics as The Big Chill and The Fly but seems to appear in box office bombs such as Saturday the l4th -- movies destined to run on HBO for years.
It seems like the movie screens and the airwaves had their own drought this summer.
