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.

THE PHANTOM: Take the Girl, She’s Our Phantom Insurance

The Phantom (1996) – Directed by Simon Wincer – Starring Billy Zane, Kristy Swanson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Treat Williams, James Remar, Bill Smitrovich, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, and Patrick McGoohan.

Simon Wincer’s THE PHANTOM is a quietly great movie that’s perfect for a Saturday afternoon.

THE PHANTOM is exactly the kind of movie I want to relax with after a hard week at work. I want to plop on the couch and be transported into another world for some really good, enjoyable, fun action and adventure, and THE PHANTOM delivers this in spades. Well-paced, full of good (if simply rendered) characters, exciting action, beautiful locales, and infused with something akin to innocence.

It’s that last but that really makes THE PHANTOM stand out – there’s no ego here, no shame about what the material is they’re presenting to the audience, and Simon Wincer and Company have embraced the idea of a fun, all-ages romp and that’s what they deliver. The very idea of romance between Kit Walker/The Phantom (Billy Zane) and Diana Palmer (Kristy Swanson) is handled in such a chaste manner that when she asks him to take off his mask so she can see his face, she has to assure him that she already knows who he is.

Wincer quickly moves through the origin story – a group of pirates kill a kid’s dad and he bails, washing up on shore where the Bengalla islanders take him in and train him to be the Phantom. For generations, the legacy is passed from father to sun, but no one outside of the tribe realizes this is the case. Instead, everyone thinks the Phantom is immortal, giving him the “ghost who walks” nickname. We meet the current Phantom when a few archaeology thieves led by Quill (James Remar) steal one of the three Skulls of Touganda for Xander Drax (Treat Williams).

Remar, Williams, and Zane are perfect examples of the excellent casting done for this movie. Remar has that shady, tough guy vibe down so we don’t need to spend a lot of time with his characterization. We get that he’s a bad dude, and that he’s evil enough to make a little kid drive a truck over a rickety bridge, but he’s not so evil that he’ll shoot the kid afterwards like his henchmen want.

Treat Williams is the best part of the film, completely embracing the over-the-top aspect of his villainy. He’s slick, smooth, and deadly, willing to be completely charming a second before he puts a knife in your back. He walks through the world like it’s here for his pleasure, but he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty when the time comes. Interestingly, it’s not more Phantom vs. Drax action that I would have preferred to see, but more between Drax and the film’s other villain, Kabai Sengh (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), the head pirate. It’s this villainous showdown that has the most energy in the film, as Drax’s slickness comes up against Sengh’s harshness. Watching them spar back and forth in the film’s tensest moment (Drax has two of the three skulls and Sengh has the third) renders everyone else’s involvement momentarily moot.

“X-A-N-D-E-R-D-R-A-X,” he says easily, spelling out his name for Sengh. “It begins and ends with X.”

After Quill steals the first skull, we jump back to New York and meet Diana, the go-get-’em society girl who’d rather play in the world than sit safely at home. Her Uncle Dave (Bill Smitrovich) is a big shot newspaper publisher (for kids watching THE PHANTOM for the first time – newspapers used to allow people to make gobs of money) and encourages Diana’s adventure streak. When Dave is convinced that Drax is up to supernatural no good, he sends Diana to Bengalla to look for evidence. On the way there, her plane is highjacked by female air pirates, led by the hot and dangerous Sala (Catherine Zeta Jones).

Bits like this really make me dig PHANTOM. I mean, hot female air pirates, you know? What’s not to love. And then when they come aboard and demand Diana Palmer to show herself, Diana immediately steps forward.

It’s hard to watch PHANTOM and not wonder why Swanson didn’t have a bigger career. She’s got an easy toughness on display here; she gets forced into playing the damsel on occasion, but she’s never in distress. I love how the film doesn’t oversell the whole idea of, “I’m a woman and I can do it on my own,” because Diana so clearly is a woman doing it on her own in nearly every scene she’s in.

Zane plays the Phantom with that same kind of easy toughness, but there’s also a vulnerability here. He sees the ghost of his dead father (Patrick McGoohan) every so often, and the old man delights in giving his kid a hard time over losing the first skull and later when he seemingly lets Diana get away from him.

THE PHANTOM is a bright, fun romp. It’s produced and performed with just the right sense of flair. Everything looks good and there’s a point in the movie where I realized just how much fun it would have been to see a host of Phantom movies with our purple-clad hero taking his adventures all over the world. Unfortunately, the world box office did not respond to the filmmakers’ efforts. Despite costing a modest $45 million, THE PHANTOM only managed to bring in a pitiful $17 million at the domestic box office. (Box Office Mojo doesn’t have international figures listed.) SyFy tried their hand at taking Lee Falk’s hero to the small screen in 2010, but I haven’t seen it, and there’s always talk of a new big screen adaptation. I wish the new production well, but watching Wincer’s film it’s hard for me not to think that we had something special here that was not allowed to grow.