The Screengrab : home alone

Unwatchable #53: “Baby Geniuses”

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:30:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

I’m a peaceable man by nature, and I know everyone has to make a living somehow, but I can’t help it: I really wish something bad would happen to everyone involved in making Baby Geniuses. I’m not talking about something life-threatening or even physically debilitating – I’m thinking more in terms of a flat tire, a tax audit or perhaps a visible soiling of pants at a high-profile public event. Actually, that last item probably did happen to one or two of the stars of Baby Geniuses, given that they were actually babies. I suppose I can’t blame these tykes for their roles in the movie, so instead, let us hope their parents had the courtesy to pay for the inevitable psychiatric counseling these toddlers required.

Baby Geniuses is, as you might have surmised, a talking baby movie. At the time of its release in 1999, the Look Who’s Talking series had run its course and America was once again hungering for verbose infants. Apparently. The premise here is that babies have universal knowledge up until the age of two – they have all the wisdom of the universe, but it vanishes once they begin learning to talk. Baby scientist Dr. Elena Kinder (Kathleen Turner, speaking her unspeakable dialogue in the thick Transylvanian accent she inexplicably developed in the early ’90s) and her colleague Dr. Heep (Christopher Lloyd) believe that babies under the age of two are communicating with each other in a secret language, and they plan to crack the code.

One of the test subjects at their facility, wisecracking toddler Sly, manages to escape. He is pursued into a shopping mall, where he inadvertently switches places with Whit, the twin brother he never knew he had. Whit had previously been adopted by kindly couple Robin and Dan (Kim Cattrall and Peter MacNichol); now he is in the clutches of Dr. Kinder and Sly is living with Whit’s unsuspecting parents. When Kinder figures out what has happened, she sends her minions out to retrieve Sly, and the final third of Baby Geniuses transforms into a tired retread of Home Alone, complete with plenty of groin injury humor.

I don’t think this is too much to ask: if you’re going to make babies talk, give them something funny to say. Austin Powers quotes don’t count. Salacious innuendo is probably not a great idea. When one boy baby asks a girl baby to take her clothes off and the girl baby responds, “You could at least buy me dinner first”…that makes me a little queasy. Also, while the “trying on funny outfits” montage is, of course, always hilarious, it looks like the baby is being manipulated by marionette wires when he does the John Travolta moves in the little white suit. I’m pretty sure this is illegal.

As I said, I don’t actually wish death on any of these people – not even Dom DeLuise, who performs a repulsive tongue-wiggling maneuver that cost me several hours of sleep last night – but as it happens, the director, Bob Clark, was killed in a car accident in 2007. Mr. Clark will always be fondly remembered for A Christmas Story, and no doubt many males of a certain age retain some affection for Porky’s, so it gives me no pleasure to report that the director’s final credit was SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2. It gives me even less pleasure to contemplate the likelihood that said sequel is lurking in wait, higher up the list of…the Unwatchable.

Previously on Unwatchable:
54. Meatballs 4
55. A*P*E
56. Araf
57. Phat Girlz
58. Ed

Yesterday's Hits: Home Alone (1990, Chris Columbus)

Paul Clark — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:00:00 GMT

The 1990 holiday movie slate boasted a number of sure-fire hits from many of Hollywood’s most bankable names. Arnold Schwarzenegger was getting pushed around by a classroom full of kids, Sylvester Stallone was revisiting his most iconic character once again, Tim Burton was debuting his first project after Batman made him Hollywood’s hottest young director, and Kevin Costner premiered his debut behind the camera, an epic Western that went on to win several Oscars. Heck, there was even a new Godfather movie. Yet none of these movies went on to become the year’s top grossing blockbuster. No, the reigning king of 1990’s box office boasted little more than a precocious child star, a kid-friendly concept, and a memorable scream.

That movie, of course, was Home Alone, directed by Chris Columbus. Sold to moviegoers with the tagline, “a family comedy… without the family,” the movie’s premise encompassed every kid’s dream- having the run of the house with no adult supervision- and many parents’ nightmare- accidentally leaving their child behind when they leave on vacation. At the center of the action was Kevin, played by Macaulay Culkin, for whom producer/screenwriter John Hughes specifically wrote the role after previously working with him on the previous year’s Uncle Buck. Expectations for Home Alone were relatively low, but good word of mouth about the film and its young star made it the runaway hit of the season, and its overwhelming success led to two sequels.

Alas, Home Alone doesn’t hold up very well, in part because of the mountain of contrivances the movie asks us to accept in order to make the storyline work. To begin with, although I’m sure that children have been accidentally left behind by their parents, it’s hard to believe that it would happen the way it does in the movie- surely one of the adults in the house was an early riser, no? Likewise, a repeated gag involving characters being fooled into thinking that a violent-sounding movie scene is really happening in the house is kind of a forehead-slapper- like any reasonably intelligent adult couldn’t tell the difference between real gunshots to those playing on a television?

But then, intelligence seems to be in short supply among the characters. One of my cinematic pet peeves is when a movie requires that its characters be idiots and Home Alone has some real doozies. Chief among the movie’s morons are Harry and Marv, a pair of bumbling burglars played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. Here’s a pair so thickheaded that they get all manner of indignities vested upon them by a little kid, yet never think that, hey, maybe it’d be best to just cut their losses and run rather than risk incurring still more pain and suffering. Of course, it helps that Kevin is preternaturally at jerry-rigging booby traps all over the house with relatively little preparation, and placing them just where the crooks will strike.

This is indicative of the movie’s biggest problem, then Kevin is almost never convincing as a real kid. Oh sure, Culkin bugs his eyes out real cute and delivers the wiseassed one-liners almost like he means them. But it’s just hard to believe that Kevin would be capable of most of what he does or says, whether he’s delivering a monologue in the bathroom mirror or faking out the baddies. Part of the blame must fall on Culkin himself. Like most child actors, Culkin has self-assurance in spades but can’t sell the dialogue as his own, especially not when he’s given lines like “Bless this highly nutritious microwavable macaroni and cheese dinner and the people who sold it on sale. Amen.” Culkin was the biggest child star of his day, making $8 million a movie at the peak of his popularity, but it’s easy to see why he hasn’t been able to make the leap to grown-up roles with the same success that contemporaries like Elijah Wood have.

Time and again, I’ve bemoaned the tendency of many adults to forgive family movies their faults and manipulations on the grounds that they’re “just for kids.” While I realize that children aren’t particularly discerning movie watchers, it doesn’t seem right to use this as an excuse to foist subpar entertainment upon them. Home Alone might have been a hit in its day, but it’s also manipulative and often stupid, and making children watch movies like this is practically an insult to their budding intelligence. With all the high-quality family movies now available on DVD, there’s really no reason to show your kids Home Alone.

DVD Digest for December 2, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:00:00 GMT

This week, the big studios continue to roll out their summer releases, and the holiday DVD cash grab continues.

DVD of the Week: While it certainly isn’t the most revered movie getting a DVD release this week, I’d say that the new Criterion Collection edition of Sam Fuller’s White Dog is almost certainly the biggest DVD news. A controversial indictment of violence and racism, Fuller’s adaptation of Romain Gary’s story was withheld from theatrical release in 1982 due to its subject matter and violence, which essentially killed Fuller’s career in the U.S. Now, after more than a quarter of a century, White Dog is finally getting a home video release for the first time, in Fuller’s original “uncut” version. Criterion has included a handful of special features on this DVD, but really- isn’t the fact that the film is out there for everyone to see enough?

This week’s recent releases coming to DVD include: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Disney, also Blu-Ray), the second installment of the C.S. Lewis-penned fantasy series; James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie in Wanted (Universal, also Blu-Ray); Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly’s sibling rivalry writ large in Step Brothers (Sony, also Blu-Ray); Mulder and Scully’s return to the big screen in The X-Files: I Want to Believe (Fox, also Blu-Ray); Ice Cube in The Longshots (Weinstein Company), a film by Fred Durst; and Bam Margera Presents: Where the #$&% Is Santa? (Warner, also Blu-Ray), a title I’d say speaks for itself.

Aside from White Dog, the highlights of the week’s classics on DVD are: The Day The Earth Stood Still Special Edition (Fox, also Blu-Ray), a tie-in with the upcoming remake, featuring numerous new extras; and Casablanca Ultimate Collector’s Edition (Warner, also Blu-Ray), which is basically the same old edition in a snazzy new package.

Only one major TV on DVD release, but it’s a doozy: Saturday Night Live: The Complete Fourth Season (Universal).

Finally, plenty of Blu-Ray only releases this week. There’s Mike Myers telling the same half dozen jokes again and again in Austin Powers Collection (Warner)! The Christmas mayhem double feature of Home Alone (Fox) and Jingle All the Way (Fox)! A double dose of Luc Besson with La Femme Nikita (Sony) and Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (Sony)! The first installment of the would-be X-Files movie franchise, The X-Files: Fight the Future (Fox), coincidentally released the same day as the DVD of the second movie! And finally, the perennial IMDb favorite and TNT standby, The Shawshank Redemption (Sony)!

Vanishing Act: John Hughes

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:00:00 GMT

You learn some funny things when researching a column dedicated to filmmakers who have mysteriously vacated the multiplex. As surprised as I was last week to find out that Michael Cimino was originally slated to direct Footloose, I am doubly stunned this week to discover that there are no less than five Beethoven movies. I’m not talking about the deaf composer idolized by Alex in A Clockwork Orange; I’m talking about the freakin’ St. Bernard of that name. And do you know what that fifth Beethoven movie is titled? That’s right, it’s Beethoven’s 5th! And why am I telling you this?

It’s because the first Beethoven movie was co-written by John Hughes, under the nom de garbage Edmond Dantès. Dantès, you may recall, was the Count of Monte Cristo, but it’s also the name Hughes has used on several occasions to disguise his involvement in films such as Maid in Manhattan. Looking over his body of work, you have to wonder if he wishes he’d started using the name earlier.

Hughes had a pretty good thing going for a while there, as almost anyone who was a teenager in the 1980s will tell you. Together, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off pretty much comprise the definitive portrait of teen angst in the Reagan era. But after a brief foray into the grown-up realm with She’s Having a Baby, Hughes regressed like Charlie in Flowers for Algernon, churning out increasingly lame kiddie fare, from the Home Alone series to Curly Sue to (shudder) Baby’s Day Out. At some point, perhaps he realized his name was becoming shorthand for “prolific purveyor of puerile pap,” and made an abrupt course correction. Now he’s almost reclusive enough to consider changing his name to Howard.

The most recent project Hughes graced with his own name was the barely-released Reach the Rock, an uncharacteristically downbeat small-town dramedy he scripted in 1998. Around that time he gave one of last known interviews, conducted by High Hat co-founder and Screengrab confidant William Ham. In it, he does sound like a man who’s ready for an extended sabbatical. “The only sequels I was involved in were under duress,” he says. “I didn't even know about Vegas Vacation until I read about it in the trades!... I tried to talk them out of doing Ferris Bueller as a series…That's why I've stayed in Chicago, 'cause I never quite fit into L.A. It's easier to maintain a degree of innocence here, you're not playing the herd so much.”

It’s a little hard to buy the notion of John Hughes as anti-Hollywood renegade, especially since his alter ego Edmond Dantès is back at work. Did you catch the Drillbit Taylor trailer earlier today on the Screengrab? Well, Dantès is credited with the story on this latest export from the Judd Apatow conglomerate. Indeed, the increasingly overexposed and overextended Apatow could do worse that to regard his latest collaborator as a cautionary tale…before he ends up making his own Curly Sue.