MARS ATTACKS!

The Martian Ambassador

MARS ATTACKS! (1996). Director: Tim Burton. 

"They blew up Congress, ha, ha, ha!" -- Grandma.

President Dale (Jack Nicholson of The Fortune) and his military advisers, including hawkish General Decker (Rod Steiger) and General Casey (Paul Winfield), prepare to welcome Martian visitors, not certain if they are friend or foe. When the Martians open fire, initially it is all blamed on a miscommunication, but when the Martian ambassador and his envoys disintegrate all of Congress, it is clear they are up to no good! 

Jack Nicholson as the president

Mars Attacks! is based on a bunch of trading cards that were packaged with sheets of bubble gum, so with source material that looney you know you're not going to get anything that serious, especially not from Tim Burton. My opinion on this film has gone from liking it to hating it and back again -- it would be all too easy to tear it apart, as it is monumentally silly, and I'm not certain that the black comedy approach is the best idea when you're dealing with an alien invasion that will leave thousands dead. But I have to say this is not an unmitigated disaster like Burton's Dark Shadows, and good taste was never the filmmaker's strong point. 

In the Kennedy Room: Martin Short and Lisa Marie

There is a lot of funny stuff in the picture, especially the sexy, buxom alien visitor (Lisa Marie of We Are Still Here) who winds up in the White House in the--get this! -- Kennedy Room for a supposed assignation with the press secretary (Martin Short). Most of the actors -- the cast includes everyone from Glenn Close to singer Tom Jones -- play this stuff just the way it was intended, with the cast stand-outs being Nicholson (who plays two roles) and Steiger. The cinematography and FX work are excellent -- including a homage to Ray Harryhausen's flying saucers in Earth vs the Flying Saucers -- and there's an especially exciting sequence when a giant, Martian-controlled robot chases pell mell after Richie (Lukas Haas). It's nice that his elderly grandma (Sylvia Sidney) survives and even becomes a hero of sorts. There are occasional flashes of humanism, but mostly this is just weird fun. 

Verdict: Unless you're in a peculiar mood, you might prefer to watch The War of the Worlds, either version. **3/4. 

WISEGUY Dead Dog Records Arc

Tim Curry as the diabolical Winston Newquay

WISEGUY. The "Dead Dog Records" arc. 1989.

Because the cost of acquiring the music rights would have been too prohibitive, the "Dead Dog Records" arc from season two of Wiseguy was not included in the official DVD release, more's the pity. In this story undercover agent Vinnie Terranova (Ken Wahl) is assigned to investigate corruption in the recording industry by using federal money to buy the dying Dead Dog Records, which does not sit well with certain government officials who get no thrill out of being record moguls like Vinnie does. Deborah Harry plays a washed-up singer, Diana, who is working in a cocktail lounge when Vinnie decides to engineer her comeback, but he has to reckon with the schemes of near-psychotic music bigwig Winston Newquay (Tim Curry), the former Sam Fishbine, who is also Diana's former lover, a fact that does not sit well with his wife, Claudia (Deidre Hall). Vinnie gets assistance from the enthusiastic Bobby Travis (Glenn Frey), as well as from husband-and-wife record company owners Amber (Patti D'Arbanville) and Isaac Twine (Paul Winfield). Vinnie's producer is a coke-snorting "genius" named Johnny Medley (Paul McCrane), who is difficult to work with, to say the least, and has a sixteen-year-old wife (Pamela Segall Adlon) who is more mature than he is. [This last business is kind of creepy, frankly, but fits into the weird tone of the episodes.] With more humor and craziness than most episodes of this show, the Dead Dog arc was atypical Wiseguy -- for one thing, Vinnie seems more interested in having a hit record than in putting anyone in jail -- but it is marvelously entertaining, and the scripts by David J. Burke and Stephen Kronish, among others, probably influenced the more outrageous serial dramas of today. Highlights include a dress-tearing catfight at a fancy party, a couple making passionate love who wind up crashing through a skylight, and a certain someone who's pissed off Winston being thrown off a rooftop by thugs. The acting from the entire cast is excellent, with McCrane, Frey and Winfield taking top honors, but even they take a back seat to Tim Curry, who gives an absolutely mesmerizing and ferocious portrayal of the devilish, always sleek and sophisticated, Winston Newquay, a fascinating character -- but not one you'd want to know personally. Jonathan Banks and Jim Byrnes also appear and are as good as ever. The song Harry sings, "Brite Side" was recorded by her, but only in a version that has none of the impact of the original.

Verdict: Deliriously entertaining and sharply acted. ***1/2.