Liz & Dick

Quick! Open the liquor cabinet! The movie is about to start!

I would like to think that this is how they would react. After they changed the channel.

Now, I know it is impossible for Liz Taylor to be incarnated by anyone other than Liz Taylor -- they truly broke the damn mold on her. But casting Lindsay Lohan? Hollywood's ultimate star played by a washed-up wannabe? One of the great beauties of all time portrayed by a once-pretty 26-year-old who's blown enough rails and had enough truly unfortunate plastic surgery to look like a 43-year-old streetwalker? A woman renowned for high-profile relationships with some of the most famous men of her time acted by someone who's only notable score was banging some DJ whose stepdad was in Foreigner. (And that would not have provoked any interest at all if said DJ hadn't been a lady.) A multiple-Oscar winner who starred in a number of film classics impersonated by someone who last decent film was over a decade ago... Well, okay Zee and Co. was pretty dreadful, but not nearly as bad as I Know Who Killed Me. And, yes, while Machete was a fucking masterpiece, I would not count Lohan's brief contribution as crucial. Welcome and amusing, yes, but not essential.

Obviously, Lifetime did not intend Liz & Dick to be a quality product. No one who tuned into this movie expected it to be good. Which is not a bad thing: My friend Laura recently stated that she wished Lifetime was "a real women's movie channel with lots of schlocky biographies. Mommie Dearest twenty-four-seven." One would hope that Liz & Dick would be a step in this oh-so right directions. But, alas, no. It's a poor-to-middling biopic with some idiotic stunt casting.

I'd have no idea who this was supposed to be if they didn't keep telling me.

The movie is idly framed with the idea of Burton's love letters to Taylor -- they open with one, mention it at some point again later, whatever. they also repeatedly come back to what I suppose is supposed to be their 1972 interview with David Frost (you know, there one was Liz was so hammered on Jack Daniels that she always regretted doing it), but comes off more like some kind of faux Inside the Actor's Studio crap. What follows is an endless procession of brief scenes of the life of someone who they claim is Elizabeth Taylor. And i do mean brief: There is not a scene longer than 90 seconds. I don't know if that's because the writer had severe ADHD or maybe that's the longest Lindsay could go without her eyes rolling back into her head.

Listen, before we go any further with this, let me share the most memorable thing about viewing Liz & Dick, which was the perfecting of my newest cocktail invention...

The Pushkin
2 parts Stoli salted caramel vodka
1 part caramel-flavored Bailey's
1 part whole milk.

Shake and serve over ice. Like a White Russian, but a bit sweeter and with a more cafe au lait color. I'm not sure exactly what kind of drinking game to play during this movie. Rick suggested that every time someone shoehorns backstory into dialogue: "I made twenty-nine pictures in the last fifteen years." Drink! "This is your fourth marriage!" Drink!... Fuck! Let's make it easy: Every time they drink, we drink.

Honestly, i'm not sure this movie is even worth wasting your liquor. (And you know Lindsay can feel that snap from here, even passed out!) But, as Ginger pointed out, "The good thing about this being on television with commercials is that there's time to freshen your drink. Early. And often."

The guy who plays Burton at least does a competent Richard Burton voice, but his abs are definitely not the abs of a middle-aged 1960s alcoholic. At one point he wears a mink coat that inspires one to put their hand in the air and do the "'Big Pimpin' Whistle," but ends up in Jimmy Buffet shirts. Taylor's overprotective mother is played by Theresa Russell -- Remember Black Widow!? Remember Ken Russell's Whore!? Now she's here, playing down her still-fabulousness in the service of Lindsay Lohan. And Lohan -- Jesus, she's not even trying. I could do a better Liz Taylor than that. Watch her movies/clips with a bit of observance and you quickly notice a distinct timbre to her voice and a certain blowsy-yet regal body language.

Divine as Francine Fishpaw was a better late Taylor than this. Hell, at least we would have enjoyed that. I'm sure La Liz would too.

We're also lacking for historical accuracy or even truthfulness to the spirit of the character. The Liz of Liz & Dick is curiously prissy: The woman who would beam benignly as Mike Todd yanked down her top for a feel of the Imperial Bosoms in full view of two dozen dinner guests is here a princess who flounces away scandalized at the mere mention of her cleavage. Well, at least the double chin is accurate.

See, this is what we're going for! Clock that. That is over-the-top goddess-on-earth.

And at least for the 90's Liz Taylor TV miniseries they got an actually beautiful woman and an actual costume designer. Instead of the collaboration between David's Bridal and Bed, Bath & Beyond used by Lifetime for Liz & Dick.

See what I mean? They didn't even spring for Party City. That is another beef i have with this movie:  It's cheap. The costumes are off-the-rack, the sets are basically the same hotel suite shot from different angles, a yacht they rented for a weekend and various corners of the set with some work lights in them. And then....

It's the Elizabeth Taylor Story: Jewelry by Claire's Boutique!

The romance is about as shoddy. If you want to do the full tabloid diva Taylor, you gotta start sooner. Begin with the Mike Todd years, which gave her the taste for over-the-top luxury. Or the "Liz Steals Eddie from Debbie" superscandal of the post-Todd years. Actually the only time Lohan seems to spring vaguely alert is when she's being nasty to Sybil Burton (the hip nightclub owner who, after Burton, stole Roddy McDowall's boyfriend and then married a rock n' roller 12 years her junior, here as a pearl-clutching priss). Maybe a Liz vs. Debbie Mean Girls would have worked out better. Actually, you know what's a lot better, now that i'm thinking of it : The Jayne Mansfield Story TV movie starring Loni Andersen as Jayne and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mickey Hargitay. Now that was a brilliant piece of affectionate schlock!

So, back to the tedious tale of Liz & Dick. When the two finally get together, he recites poetry to her as they lie in a candle-surrounded soaking tub in a bed and breakfast in the Tuscan countryside... yep, Richard Burton's seduction of Elizabeth Taylor looks just like Antonio Sabato Jr. putting the moves on Jennie Garth. Dick tries to leave Liz, but then she runs off to her suite and starts speed-chasing pills with vodka. See! This part's convincing. Now Lohan's really acting... oh, wait.

They reunite and begin drinking a lot and making ridiculous movies like The V.I.P.'s, driving aghast directors to utter lines like :
"It's 8 a.m. and they're already drinking!"
"For God's sake, let's go for a take while they can still walk."

I know, that sounds pretty awesomely campy, but that's about as good as it gets. Here. I'll give you the two other amusing lines and save you the trouble of watching or, at least, paying attention:

"I need a ring. A big ring." 

"I'm not saying that it's colon cancer, but it's serious enough that I have to run more tests."

Liz & Dick overall is pretty lousy. Elizabeth Taylor herself made a string of uber-campy B-movies back in the late sixties/early seventies, but her presence always lit them up, whereas Lohan is a lead weight on Liz & Dick. Just because the paparazzi went after you and after her does not make you her. Having something in common does not mean you play yourself. The moment where the lights flashed in your face like they did in hers --that was two lines crossing. It was the path you could follow down the line from you to her. Jump the line. That's the magic of acting: You can be someone else. Or at least fucking try.

Blah blah blah, Liz & Dick, they drink, they fight, they divorce, they remarry, they divorce. She wants drinks and jewelry, he bitches and moans and cries about not winning an Oscar (the accepted explanation for Burton's non-win despite seven nominations was that he had slept with too many Academy member's wives). He puts some grey streaks in his hair and falls over dead, Lohan slaps on a Liza Minnelli wig and some shoulder pads and cries. Oh, wait! Back to the nearly forgotten framing device.

So, this is the epitaph for the great romance of the twentieth century? She didn't throw away his letters? That is the ultimate proof of eternal devotion? Hell, i still have the letters of the most evil of my exes (he wrote quite a bit while he was in prison) and i certainly would not say that i'll love him until the end of my days. (Although i am a bit of a pack rat when it comes to the written word and i'm especially intrigued by any piece of paper that blasts out the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" whenever it is unfolded.... What? Only i can hear that? Never mind.)

It's no wonder they waited until Elizabeth Taylor passed on to render forth this travesty. While i doubt she could have stopped it, the force of her displeasure would be enough to make the folks at Lifetime think twice. I'm imagining full excommunication from any party of note, having most of your phone calls ignored, your credit line declined on Rodeo Drive and in Gstaad, as well as being denied the services of any of the gays of West Hollywood, be they hairdresser, makeup artist, stylist, agent, producer or Geffen. in fact, such a mandate may exist even as the Grand High Exalted Mother of the Abbey has passed on from this world. Although i suppose no one can punish Lindsay Lohan any worse than she has herself already...

Really, bitch? I think not.

Satan in High Heels

Now that is a title. Fitting one, too. Satan in High Heels is a movie that doesn't mess around. We're dropped into some black-and-white verite footage of a carnival -- heavy on the carny. At the Burlesque tent, a barker is promoting the ample charms of lead cooch dancer Stacey, played by pinup queen Meg Myles. The yahoos gawk, the ferris wheel spins, Stacey chomps her gum and shows off the goods.

Within the first seven minutes, she has peddled her wares, demanded a raise, quit her job, reconciled with her fresh-outta-the-clink and barely-reformed junkie husband, fleeced said husband for his savings and has fled to New York City wearing nothing but a bustier, a trenchcoat and stilettos. She is one chilly bitch.

As is prone to happen in the movies, Stacey/Meg immediately lands a gig in a club in New York -- her single-scene transition from carny burley girl to high-class club headliner is up there with Marlene Dietrich's waterfront hooker-to-Parisian superstar in one fadeout  from Blonde Venus. She shows up on the arm of a pickup, belts out a number in a sorta Shirley Bassey whitegirl style and gets the gig.

It all happens under the very appraising eye of Grayson Hall, who you may recognize from Night of the Iguana or, more likely, Dark Shadows. As HDIC (Head Dyke in Charge) of the club -- you can tell she runs it, the piece of what is obviously paper tacked above the door of what is obviously an apartment building says so -- she decides to remake Stacey into a star, no matter what it takes. Or, as she puts it: "I don't care if you can breathe or not: You'll wear a girdle and smile."

 

Out Antiheroine is rehearsed endlessly in a leotard by Hall and her peroxide-blonde queen choreographer. Stacey also finally gets a much-needed deep-conditioning treatment, along with an extensive wardrobe of slick leather outfits, the better to drink martinis and not give a fuck in. ("Miss Myles' Leather Wardrobe by Samuel Robert. Furs by Milton Herman. Shoes by Sydney's of Hollywood....")

But not matter what anyone does for Stacey, she remains blase and icy as hell. She's the kind of broad who drinks her liquor straight and fast, who knows what you want but is more interested in what's in it for her. And there had better be something in it for her. The world of Satan in High Heels is one where women are clearly commodities: The best they can hope for is to benefit themselves rather than someone else. 

Stacey vamps Grayson Hall long enough to reel in the wealthy businessman who backs Pepe's club. He promptly ditches his current paramour, a washed-up broad in an ugly hat who "used to be in pictures" and the kiss-off scene only reminds us why a worldly-wise lady like Stacy would choose to take the initiative and be ruthless rather than passively wait to be used up.

After being instantaneously swept up n' kept by Big Business, Stacey meets Big Businesses' ne'er do-well, home-from-college son... and you can guess where that goes. How this woman manages two boyfriends, a full-time career, fends off a bevy of backstabbing bitches at work and never knocks her beehive askew or gets a smudge on her shiny pants is beyond me. 

Along with the slick outfits, there's also a lot of sweet vintage rides. Also, the vivid, jazzy soundtrack by guitarist Mundell Lowe, all cinematic crescendo and big band brass. Satan in High Heels is also fun for its ridiculous/marvelous nightclub milieu, where everyone is drunk, greedy, horny, pretentious, ambisexual or some combination of the above. 

We also briefly run across some kind of ostensible professional rival to Stacey. Sabrina is a sort of British Jayne Mansfield, white trash with a big rack, bad teeth and eyes that are too close together and completely empty. One hopes for bitchy repartee but Sabrina is so clearly overmatched that their interactions fizzle out fairly quickly. One wishes that Sabrina's musical numbers were over as fast and not just because she's wearing a white evening gown while singing about being on the rag...

Still, Stacey is the star of the show. Myles delivers her songs respectably especially her trademark number, "The Female of the Species" -- "I'm the kind of woman/Not hard to understand/I'm the kind that cracks the whip/And takes the upper hand" -- how did the Cramps not cover this!?

Meg Myles plays Stacey without a trace of girlishness, doesn't excuse her heartlessness with immaturity or self-absorption. She is a grown-ass woman who doesn't have a whole lot of options and, as such, is intent on maximizing every single one. It's a hardboiled performance up there with Ann Savage in Detour. She might throw you an "Hey, I dig you, dig me." but she won't give you a second chance to get on her good side and then it's "Choose your weapons." As you can imagine, Stacey's playing both ends against each other, the middle and any other angle she can dream up eventually become too much even for her. But, until then, she rules Satan in High Heels.

Thank God It's Friday!

If you pitched most of the movies on this page, any mogul would regard you quizzically, then have you thrown the hell out of his office. Not so with Thank God It's Friday! It's 1977 and your high concept is "Grand Hotel, but at a disco. Starring Donna Summer." You'd be jammed full of cash and cigars and have a hooker clamped on to every orifice before you could even finish the sentence.

The first credit announces this as a collaboration between the Motown and Casablanca record labels, so the soundtrack should be -- and is -- excellent. We follow the characters as they move closer and close to the disco in time and space (the dowdy dental hygienist who closes the office, puts on a pink wig and begins huffing nitrous is a special favorite.)

We've also got a pair of fake-IDed teenagers on too-high wedgies -- one of them is none other than Teri Nunn of Berlin, years before being the only broad on MTV who could challenge Pat Benatar's bitchen-ness. (But also a few years after auditioning for Princess Leia.) They need to win the evening's dance contest so they can buy KISS tickets.

Then we've got the couple celebrating their fifth year of dull marriage by "trying something new." Then we have the jaded disco 'ho with naive friend (Debra Winger, a year before Cannery Row and Urban Cowboy) and two nerds on the make in a Volkswagen. The manic, afro-ed DJ, who has promised a live broadcast of the Commodores,  but isn't sure they'll show up. And, of course, the club's owner, a sleazebag in a burgundy sportcoat and yellow sportscar played by Jeff Goldblum. The DJ wagers Goldblum that Goldblum can win over Wifey. Apparently they do this every night...

This is the face I make after I bet the DJ a hundred bucks that I can fuck your wife.

The disco itself, the Zoo, is a vast space of much decor: There's an igloo-themed game room with pinball machines and penguins, a DJ booth that's shaped like a giant grail cup held by giant hands, an in-house jewelry store and a jungle-themed balcony with Tarzan-clad waiters. The endless labyrinth may seem preposterous, but it's not. It reminds me slightly of the World, the greatest club in human history. It was two buildings off of Avenue C that were connected in a rabbit warren of rooms. Downstairs, the elegant cabaret room, used occasionally by the Talking Heads but mostly by Dean Johnson and a variety of drag queens. Upstairs, the Jesus and Mary Chain with the Pixies opening or Public Enemy with Bob Christgau disputing Flavor Flav's depiction of Elvis as a racist or perhaps the Sugarcubes back when hardly anyone knew who Bjork was (Did i ever tell you about how i was  probably one of the first DJs stateside to play Bjork via the Sugarcubes? Back when they had but one single on an obscure Brit indie label and i was in high school but somehow had a show on Vassar College radio? But i digress...) On the old stage, Voguing to Rob Base. Elsewhere -- small hip-hop room, small goth room, you'd always seem to wander into the room where someone was trying to promote some amateur porn...

But back to the movie and the Zoo. Anniversary couple are having a lousy night, mostly thanks to incredibly uptight Hubby, as Wifey seems game for... well, anything. Leading to this exchange:
"This is the way the designer intended the dress to be worn."
"Did the designer also intend for every other guy here to look at your tits?"
"Dave, they're my tits, not yours."
"You're my wife, that makes them our tits! And our tits should be home where they belong!"
As you can imagine, this doesn't go over well and Jeff Goldblum takes his opportunity to move in on the MILF. In the meantime, Disco 'Ho lectures her naive friend Debra Winger about how to pick a winner. "See that guy? He is a CREEP. How do I know? Heavy polyester. I mean, polyester on a dance floor, that is a creep, Jennifer!" Guess that the guy(s) she goes home with will be wearing...

Other recurring bits: The sweaty fat guy looking for his blind date. The poor sap elevator operator that Golblum forces to wear a gorilla suit. The Nerds: overbearing, nearsighted, horny sidekick (played by Paul Jabara, composer of the title song of this movie, as well as "It's Raining Men") and his nice, normal, cute friend. The aforementioned dental hygienist -- who, jacked full of pills and spangles, takes up with Hubby and is soon stuffing him full of ups, downs and poppers. He reacts like any repressed CPA who's letting loose for the first time: He embarrasses himself but seems to recall none of it.

One thing Thank God It's Friday! does get right about disco -- and The World, for a matter of fact -- is the all-inclusiveness. Jaded regulars, impressionable newbies, kids, matrons, gay, straight, high, sober... there's room for everyone in the disco. We're all just here to dance: Check your bullshit at the door.

This "none of that shit matters in here" ethos is embodied by the movie's best character: "Marv Gomez, the Leatherman." He's a sort of Puck/Ariel spirit, the deus ex machina of the discotheque that encourages all of the characters make the leap from where they are to where they want to be. He cuts loose in a parking lot routine that outhustles anything Travolta did in Saturday Night Fever, like a weed-fueled, disco-era Gene Kelly. And then he issues the rasion d'etre for this film: "Dancing!  Everything else is bullshit!"

The Commodores show up in a fleet of jade-green Cadillac limos, but without their instruments. Hubby and Wifey fight, Goldblum sleazing right along. The girls are constantly thwarted in their efforts to enter the dance contest. Klutzy Debra Winger still can't find a guy. Everyone goes to the bathroom to cry... and then rallies themselves back to battle. With the help of a little lipgloss.

At the end, of course, it all works out fine: Boy meets Girl, Hubby reunites with Wifey, Girls win Dance Contest. And Donna gets her big break, looking and sounding like a goddess (Hair, makeup, wardrobe: All WERQ. Eat your heart out Diana Ross!) And, for once, it's easy to believe that the unknown-looking-for-the-big-break is that magical when everyone drops what they're doing and flings themselves to the dance floor when she busts out with "Last Dance."  Donna Summer was the true diva of the dancefloor epiphany. Years ago, back when New York City was awesome, i went to a Detroit Techno night inside the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage where Carl Craig deconstructed and then reconstructed "I Feel Love" with such majesty and climax that people lost it entirely. That as a magical, powerful experience that i will never forget and i have Donna and Carl to thank for it. (Also, after a gig like that, EDM will always be bullshit.)

Thank God It's Friday! has been cited as the worst movie ever to win an Oscar -- for the soundtrack, of course. I can think of plenty of movies worse than TGIF that won Oscars. The Blind Side. A River Runs Through It. Ghost. Life Is Beautiful. You would rather see Thank God It's Friday! than any of those movies. It isn't a masterpiece by any means, but it's quickly-paced, enjoyable and offers an endearing snapshot of its era. And the soundtrack. Oh, that soundtrack....