Sunday, February 3, 2008

Don't worry Eva; our favorite bad TV to movies transitions

Teen Wolf – Michael J. Fox had two films come out in 1985. One was Back to the Future. One was Teen Wolf. Both were box office hits. One still looks good in retrospect. Surprisingly that’s not the one about a high school student having a surprisingly over-hairy puberty. I’m sure this movie started with a screenwriter saying, “When I started growing hair, I thought I was becoming an animal.”

Blind Date – Bruce Willis was riding some very short term television success with Moonlighting when he went on this date-from-Hell number with Kim Basinger. How his movie career survived it, I don’t know. He’s become a valuable, durable leading man with an eye for interesting projects, both good and miscalculated. But Blind Date is one of his few that’s truly awful.

One Fine Day – George Clooney might be every critic’s favorite movie-star movie star, but you look back at this one and see that nothing is destined to happen. He broke a cardinal rule - never star in a movie named after a sixties pop song. This romantic comedy with Michelle Pfeiffer was his pigeonhole film, the type in which a casting director would stick a TV sex symbol to make an extra buck. It was only later, when he followed his own mind, that Clooney would realize he was interesting.

Jade – David Caruso made the jump from NYPD Blue to a movie career, by most thinking prematurely. If you haven’t seen this film, then we have something in common – I haven’t either. But any film that could basically finish off Linda Fiorentino’s career so shortly after The Last Seduction must be a frustrating turkey. Was it really directed by William Friedkin?

Picture Perfect –Early Jennifer Aniston movies followed a familiar pattern. You would hear about it a few weeks before release. She would appear on every last TV show, whose hosts would dutifully and dubitably describe how this would be the one to make her a star on the big screen. You would think “Yeah, right.” The film would be released. It would leave theaters two weeks later for lack of interest. The only bit I remember about Picture Perfect was her advertising exec deciding to do a mustard campaign with the message “second place ain’t bad” and thinking she had stumbled upon a fit of advertising genius. Can you use a real ad exec trying to sell that one? Things went downhill from there.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

The combination of DAVID CARUSO AND a bad script can virtually finish off EVERY movie career.

Harvey said...

You really should see the "Jade."

You haven't lived till you've seen the car chase through the Chinese New Year Parade, which is as ridiculous as the pursuits in "French Connection" and "To Live & Die..." are sublime.

Slowest car chase ever.

K. Bowen said...

The funny thing is ... sometimes I enjoy myself watching bad movies. Not all the time, mind you. But I laughed my butt off watching Stealth, for instance. So maybe I should. So Jade should be no problem, right?

Harvey said...

Oh, "Jade" is a riot, the best kind of bad movie.

Unknown said...

"Jade" is as bad as "Showgirls" butwithout he cult status.

K. Bowen said...

Maybe I need to write less about upcoming releases and simply dedicate my blog to the study of Jade and its awfulness.

Showgirls. I guess that sort of fits in this category, as far as Elizabeth Berkeley is concerned.