FOOTLOOSE (1984)

"When you've burned all of these, what are you gonna do then?"

Twenty-six year-old high school student Kevin Bacon is bummed when his family moves from Chicago to a small town in Utah. He’s even more bummed when he discovers that not only is every other student in his new high school is at least 20 years-old, but the town has outlawed dancing and popular music! What the hell is going on here? Did he accidentally time-travel to 1939 Germany or America in 2050? Nope, he’s still in the 1980's, but these close-minded, pre-Fox News, book-burning, Bible-thumping Fascist wannabes really, really hate Kenny Loggins. So now it’s up to Kevin to add a little bacon to the No Fun Club members diet and show them how to rock! Even if he has to interpretive twerk out the lyrics to “We’re Not Gonna Take It” at a town council meeting!

From a purely filmmaking standpoint, FOOTLOOSE is only slightly above average with an overly simplified story, uneven pacing and wild mood swings. Not to mention being dated as fook nowadays. However, from an entertainment/cultural history standpoint: FOOTLOOSE is a goldmine! Especially if you’re into popular 1980’s American Cinema. Above average acting by a strong cast, a great soundtrack that sold over 9 million copies, lots of dancing, beautiful scenery, awesome 80's fashions, Kevin Bacon struttin’ his hot shit all over the place. FOOTLOOSE is a blast and one that I’ll happily revisit many times before I vogue my way into that great gay bar in the sky. That’s not to say there isn’t any flaws though, because there definitely is. The biggest one is the overall story should have been more upbeat. Also, the relationship between Chuck and Ariel is too dark. People watch FOOTLOOSE wanting to see upbeat dancing, teenagers standing up to oppression and people being happy…not some weak-minded hick assaulting his girlfriend!

One of the many great things about FOOTLOOSE, at least in my handsome brain, is just how ripe it is for expansion and other story ideas. It is literally endless. A few random thoughts I had while re-watching it for this review: (1) the ringleader of the book-burners is angered over Rev. Moore’s rebuke and while the kids are having their dance party he and his gang block the exits at the grain mill and burn it down. Killing all of the kids…which, of course, could lend to an extremely violent and graphic horror ghost-revenge sequel. (2) This has probably been done many times, but it would be a lot of fun to re-edit the audio in the music scenes to feature different music. This could honestly be done thousands of times and always be funny.  Example: in the scene where Bacon is driving into the high school parking lot blasting Quiet Riot's "Metal Health (Bang Your Head)", instead play Tear Da Club Up Thugs "Hell Naw". (3) Borrowing from the mandatory BIM dance scene in THE APPLE, you could go for a completely opposite story where a teen moves into a small town that is controlled by a pro-music cult that forces everybody to dance non-stop.

Overall, FOOTLOOSE is dated, but still a fun film. Definitely worth checking out. If you don't like it, then you're probably a busta.

Double-feature with BLACK ROSES.

THE DAY AFTER (1983)

"What's going on? Do you understand what's going on in this world?"

"Yeah. Stupidity...has a habit of getting it's way."

As the story goes, THE DAY AFTER was a huge cultural TV event when it was originally broadcast (on ABC) just a few days before Thanksgiving on November 20, 1983.  It was reportedly watched by over 100 million Americans.  Which, considering there was only 233 million Americans around back then, is pretty goddamn impressive!

Opening with some documentary style footage of American military guys talking really super serious while onboard an Strategic Air Command aircraft, the story then shifts to the lives of various simple Americans living their lives in the towns along the border of Kansas and Missouri.  You got Jason Robards as doctor with a loving family; Steve Guttenberg as a student; JoBeth Williams as a nurse; John Cullum as the head of a family that lives on a large farm and John Lithgow as a professor.  For 45 minutes or so, we're brought up to speed on these people's lives.  The whole time there's various news reports playing in the background talking about the growing tensions with Russia.  People are scared, but they go about their normal lives and then...BOOM!  Nuclear missiles start flying out of the nearby silos and all Hell breaks loose.  People start rioting and trying to get out of town, but before you can say "radioactive baboon testicles" the Russian missiles reach their targets and it's "Goodbye, Kansas."

Everything blows the fuck up and the people that are left after the smoke clears are all fucked up.  Not as fucked up as the survivors in the next year's THREADS, but still screwed all the same.  Radiation sickness, lack of food, lawlessness, no shelter from the elements, no more Netflix.  It's Hell on Earth, but unfortunately since this is a made-for-network-TV movie we never see much more than a mass grave and unwashed people with their hair falling out.  The story is dark, but the events shown on-screen are tame.

Still, it's a good movie and a very interesting glimpse into early 1980's American culture.  Especially, if you go online and look for videos of all of the original commercial breaks shown during the original broadcast and then watch the ABC News special that showed immediately after the movie.  Hosted by Ted Koppel and featuring Carl Sagan, then current Secretary of State George Shultz,  former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, William F. Buckley, Jr., former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, General Brent Scowcroft  and Elie Wiesel.  It's a fascinating watch and the one female audience members question (around the 45 minute mark) is even more important today than it was in 1983.

Above average acting (even by Steve Guttenberg), restrained script, mediocre direction, an unwed woman arguing with her teenage sister about her diaphragm, bland camerawork, cool explosion scenes (I loved the skeleton effects), disappointing ending.  THE DAY AFTER isn't the best nuclear war movie ever, but it does play an interesting part in world history in that it helped bring attention to the subjects of nuclear war and nuclear winter.  Definitely worth watching.

If you need me, I'll be in my fallout shelter wearing my Church of the Children of Atom robes and praying to Atom that HBO will make a high-budget, CHERNOBYL-level miniseries based on the Robert McCammon masterpiece, "Swan Song".

Maybe I'm giving the filmmakers too much credit, but when the silo doors opened up and the nuclear missiles started blasting off, they showed this white horse and it brought to mind how in the Bible, Revelation 6:1-2 says: "And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.  And I saw, and behold a white horse..."