ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT CHEERLEADER: I Think My Aorta Just Crapped Its Pants

Attack of the 50 Foot Cheerleader (2012) – Directed by Kevin O’Neill – Starring Jena Sims, Ryan Merriman, Treat Williams, Sasha Jackson, Olivia Alexander, Ted Raimi, Mary Woronov, Sean Young, Angelina Armani, John Landis, and Roger Corman.

Let’s talk about the intersection of fun and nudity and commerce.

In my last review, I lamented the nearly complete lack of fun exhibited by Asylum’s Bigfoot.

That is not a problem with the Roger Corman-produced ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT CHEERLEADER. He knows why you’re tuning – you want to see a fun, ridiculous comedy about a nerdy coed who takes a drug, becomes a knock-out, and grows to fifty feet tall.

And shows her boobs.

I’m going to be honest on the last point – the movie doesn’t need it and as I get a bit older and know the hows and whys its included, it becomes a bit less fun to see young actresses taking off their tops for a shot at fame in a movie that is fun enough on its own. Please don’t mistake what I’m saying here – the discomfort comes not from nudity because I’m all for people taking their clothes off, but there is a microscopic thin line between schoolboy fantasy and cheeky sexism. There’s something a little … lecherous? skeevy? unnecessary? … about seeing actresses who haven’t fully made it in the business getting naked in a B-movie that I don’t enjoy watching as much as I used to.

It’s one of the reasons I don’t enjoy strip clubs – as much as I like looking at naked women, I can never get past the exchange that’s taking place. I haven’t earned the privilege of seeing the nudity – I’ve paid for it. Similarly, it’s likely that the stripper likely doesn’t want to show me her body as much as she wants access to my cash. I’m not making a moral judgment here as much as I am making a decision based on my own particular hang-ups concerning financial transactions. I’m sure the women in ATTACK willingly agreed to make this exchange, and one of my operating philosophies is that everyone has a right to do what they want with their own bodies, so ultimately if they’re willing to reveal it, I’m willing to take a look, but it is 2013. I’d be more comfortable with the existence of films like this if the filmmakers were just as willing to show some sausage. I’m cool with the objectification working both ways.

That would pass for progress in the B-movie world, yes?

Besides, we have the internet now, where you are a few clicks of your keyboard from seeing all manner of nudity. ATTACK contains a bit of cinematic irony in that one of the actresses in the movie is a former pornographic actress (Angelina Armani) who doesn’t get naked, while our protagonist and antagonist do. There’s something to be said for young actresses trying to make their way in the business taking their tops off, while a fellow young actress who’s moving past a career where she took everything off, stays clothed. They’re all beautiful, they’re all adults, and they can make their own decisions, but I wonder to what extent, in 2013, movies like this are really served by including nudity? Does that really make them more profitable?

I guess it does, or they wouldn’t do it, but if ATTACK didn’t have the nudity would less people really be interested in watching it?

Because as I said, ATTACK really doesn’t need it. This is a surprisingly fun film. It’s a hoot seeing people like Treat Williams, Ted Raimi, John Landis, and Roger Corman coming in and just having a good time. None of them think they’re making anything more than a fun B-movie, and if you can’t smile at Treat Williams playing a corporate scumbag saying, “I think my aorta just crapped its pants,” well, then there’s no reason to even give ATTACK a spin.

Nerdy Cassie Stratford (Jena Sims, who looks like a young Elisabeth Shue) wants to try out for the cheering squad because her mom (Sean Young) wants Cassie to be more like she was when she was a kid. Which presumably means: be a cheerleader, f*ck Kevin Costner in the back of a limo, and break into Tim Burton’s office dressed as Catwoman. Cassie is a brilliant scientist, but she’s also got zits on her face and wears big glasses, so obviously she sucks at being a cheerleader. When she tries out for the cheer squad, head cheerleader Brittany (Olivia Alexander) is totally mean to her because head cheerleaders either have to be a total b*tch or Kirsten Dunst.

She’s working on a scientific formula with Kyle (Ryan Merriman) and under the oversight of Dr. Higgs (Ted Raimi). Treat Williams is providing the funding in the hopes of finding a way to make people healthier by reasons of scientific mumbo jumbo. Seeing positive, albeit early, results on the lab rat, Cassie decides to inject the formula, and the result is that she becomes ridiculously hot, good at cheerleading, and a bit of a b*tch.

Movies like ATTACK revel in recycling old formulas and types, of course, so if you’re hot, you kinda have to be a b*tch. What’s unfortunate is that when we get to the end of the movie and our super tall Cassie and Brittany get shrunken back down by having the formula neutralized, Cassie still gets to remain hot while Brittany has to end up about 3 feet tall. It’s a cheap shot and while the moral of the story is a good one – that if you are yourself you’re rewarded and if you’re a b*tch you’re punished – it’s not a fun punishment to see Brittany reduced to a physical joke in front of her teammates.

Cassie’s journey from nerd to giant to normative hottie is a fun trip, though. My issues with the way nudity is used here aren’t enough to detract from the enjoyment. ATTACK is the kind of movie I used to hope would come on “Skinemax” when I was 15 and it was 2:30 in the morning, and so I suppose the film gets some bonus nostalgia points, but are 15 year old kids watching pay cable really the audience here? I wish we had gotten more of a relationship between Kyle and Jett (Sasha Jackson), because they’re the best parts of the film and while Cassie is busy getting tall and caring only about herself, they’re actually concerned about her.

I wish more professional critics would review and appreciate movies like ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT CHEERLEADER. The B-movie is as much a part of the 2013 movie industry as foreign art house films, and it’s nice to see that at 86, Roger Corman can still produce a schoolboy fantasy that’s this much fun.

BLADE RUNNER (THE FINAL CUT): Is There Anything Left to Say?

Blade Runner (1982): The Final Cut (2007) – Directed by Ridley Scott – Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah, William Sanderson, Joanna Cassidy, Edward James Olmos, Brion James, Joe Turkel, and M. Emmet Walsh.

I’d much rather write about a semi-forgotten movie like The Black Hole or a newer, “argument still in process” movie like Sucker Punch than an established classic like BLADE RUNNER, where it feels like everyone has already had the discussion, settled on their opinions, and left to talk about something else.

It’s not that I think I’m changing anyone’s mind with these reviews, but rather that I feel like there’s nothing much left to say about a movie that has been so widely seen and written about that this is just another log on the “BLADE RUNNER is awesome pile.”

BLADE RUNNER is Ridley Scott’s dystopian vision of 2019 Los Angeles. Based on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, BLADE RUNNER is a rain-soaked, dark, noir thriller. Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is a worn down “Blade Runner,” a special cop who hunts down replicants and “retires” them, which is code for “blasts the sh*t out of them until they die.” Replicants are replicants that look like humans but are banned from use on Earth; they’re manufactured for off-world functions, such as menial labor and sex. If a replicant finds itself on Earth, a Blade Runner is sent after it, and when that happens, we have a movie.

BLADE RUNNER works on every level: story, direction, acting, tone, pace … I could have done without the Vangelis score but it’s not obtrusive. The first half of the film is successful primarily because of the tone and the latter half is successful because of story, as Deckard’s body count rises and his attitude towards replicants shifts.

I don’t like “last job” stories, but BLADE RUNNER succeeds in telling a last job story because Deckard has already checked out of this life, and when he’s then pulled back in by his boss (M. Emmet Walsh) his reluctance is reinforced by his experience with the replicants. This isn’t just one of those “I want to quit” stories but rather, “I need to quit,” and that need is soaked onto Ford’s face in every scene of the film. (And, let’s be honest, the dour Deckard seems much more like the Harrison Ford we see in interviews than Han or Indy ever did; Ford was born to play this part.) When he falls for Rachael (Sean Young), it’s not so much that his love for her changes him as much as his desire for her reveals his already changing attitude. While Deckard goes out and does his job, killing the escaped replicant Zhora (Joanna Cassidy), and then being saved by Rachael from being killed by Leon (Brion James), he’s already fallen for Rachael. His bedding of Rachael comes off as less about Deckard wanting Rachael as it does Deckard struggling with his attitude towards replicants.

Ridley Scott has deftly taken the detective noir and transposed it onto a sci-fi story. BLADE RUNNER uses the noir for its structure, and the sci-fi for its philosophy, with the two genres colliding in the impressive visual look. Deckard is very much the beaten down cop/private eye who lives alone, drinks too much, and falls for the wrong woman. He’s the only guy who can do this job and he does it without joy, any desire he once had to retire replicants long gone. It’s only natural he falls for Rachael, the most advanced replicant he’s met, after it takes him nearly three times as many questions to out her as a replicant using the Voight-Kampff Test as it does a normal replicant.

The big question with Deckard, of course, is whether he’s a replicant or not. According to the Never Wrong, Ford wanted Deckard to be human while Scott wanted Deckard to be a replicant. I think the film is ambiguous to support either position, which means it’s really ambiguous enough to not support either position. Personally, I think the story, as presented in the Final Cut, actually supports the human position better; the key to Deckard being a replicant centers on the unicorn dream sequence, which is then reinforced by Gaff (Edward James Olmos) leaving a unicorn origami figure near his door at the end of the film when Deckard and Rachael take off together. On the other side, however, that’s not exactly rock solid evidence. We also have Deckard’s eyes – throughout the film, replicant’s eyes are shown to “glow” as a result of the way light reflects off of them. This never happens with Deckard.

I think the film wants to leave it ambiguous; certainly if Scott really wanted to enforce Deckard-as-replicant, he could have made it more clear, but he doesn’t. The ambiguity angle works with how the film ends, as the final confrontation between Roy (Rutger Hauer) and Deckard shows both the physical brutality the replicants are capable of, as well as their humanity, as he spends a good amount of time beating the crap out of Deckard and then saves the cop from falling to his death in order for Deckard to watch Roy’s four-year lifespan come to its programmed ending.

From a viewer’s standpoint, I think Human Deckard works better for how this story is constructed than Replicant Deckard. If Deckard is human, then his relationship with Rachael signifies hope that humanity will eventually come to see their creations as more than simple slaves. If Deckard is a replicant then his falling for Rachael symbolizes his own awakening as a machine realizing it’s a machine, and that’s not nearly as strong an ending because we’ve already seen a whole movie full of machines that realize they’re machines. I think if you want Deckard to be a replicant then it needs to be revealed and dealt with in the film itself, and not left to the imagination.

One of the joys in watching BLADE RUNNER is how great the individual performances are beyond Ford’s rock solid center. Rutger Hauer is phenomenal as Roy Batty, calculating and cold one moment, emotional and hot the next. Sean Young reminds you she can do more than act crazy in real life. Brion James and M. Emmet Walsh are their usual dependable selves, and Daryl Hannah is alluring in her cat-like seduction and manipulation of William Sanderson, one of my personal favorite actors.

BLADE RUNNER’s place as a cinematic classic is well-earned. Personally, I don’t think it’s as good as Ridley Scott’s Alien, but it is a damn fine movie in its own right.