Kiss in the 21st Century

I previously linked to a very entertaining 3-part back and forth between J.M. Blaine and Chuck Klosterman. It seemed a fitting way to begin this (hopefully brief) post on 21st Century Kiss.

"JMB:  What do you think about Paul and Gene in their 60s still in makeup and platform boots?

CK:  My opinion might be unpopular.  I know people hate that Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer are wearing Ace and Peter’s makeup but my hope is that at some point Paul and Gene will replace themselves and KISS will just continue for like, a hundred and fifty years…

JMB: (in Gene voice) Oh yeah!

CK: …that KISS will stop being about members and will exist as a single idea.  And that when people talk about KISS, they will talk about them in a way unlike any other band that has ever existed.  No members, just full-on roles.

JMB:  I think about stuff like that all the time.  It’s like I have Heavy Metal Asperger's or something.  The thought of Tommy and Eric in the makeup doesn’t bother me because they do a solid job of playing the roles of Catman and Space Ace.

CK:  At times Tommy plays a little too clean though.  He could actually stand to be a little more unpolished.

JMB:  Maybe as he gets better, he’ll get worse."

First, that last line really cracks me up. And it's completely spot-on. I forget if it's in his book or from some interview I read or listened to, but Peter Criss talks about how Ace would wear these bracelets and how they'd bang and rattle against his guitar while he soloed and how the sound would bleed over into the microphone and how "that's rock and roll, man." I don't fault anyone for clarity or precision, but there's something to this. 

Second, Heavy Metal Aspergers! I can relate.

Third, I'm not a particular fan of Tommy and Eric using the Space and Cat make-up designs. I'm under the impression that Ace and Peter signed off on the rights to it - somewhere, probably unknowingly - so Gene and Paul would appear to be legally entitled to do what they want with the designs. But... it's kind of uncool. Unless what Chuck Klosterman describes above were to happen. Say Kiss gets a Vegas show/ residency and four folks are hired to play the Demon, Starchild, Space Man, and Cat roles. I'd be fine with that. 

And I absolutely adore the idea of Kiss projecting into the future like this. Future generations could refer to things like "the 12th incarnation of the Starchild" and what not. Metal.

Fourth, that "(in Gene voice) Oh yeah!" bit cracks me up. I can't stand when Gene does that. It ranks up there with the way he sings "Baby, baby!" on Kiss tunes or "You got to have a potty!" from "Shout It Out Loud" or just his general "Hey! This is Gene Simmons from Kiss!" gameshow voice for Most Personally Annoying Gene Simmons Vocal Tics.

On with today's program:

GENE SIMMONS FAMILY JEWELS

I've only seen this (Gene and fam's reality TV show) a handful of times, so I really can't say too much about it. Gene's relationship with reality is tenuous at best, so Reality TV (i.e. imaginary reality) is a perfect venue for him. He needs all the humanization he can get.

What I've seen of the show is fine enough - it doesn't seem to stray too far from the Reality TV template. Gene and Shannon sure produced two attractive offspring who (at least from the little I've seen) don't appear to be anywhere near as annoying as their demographic contemporaries.

KISS SYMPHONY (ALIVE IV)

I'm of mixed feelings on this particular project. 

Woops - this is actually from one of the Kiss Kruises. My bad.

On one hand, as live Kiss concerts go, it's just okay. The addition of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra to the proceedings doesn't in my opinion enhance the music to a significant degree, but the fact that they all donned the make-up is a nice touch.

Conductor David Campbell (aka Beck's father.)

Except for this lady, whom the camera cuts to something like fifty times. I'm unsure of her name. 

(Possibly Kristy Bremner?)

This was absolutely the wrong make-up and hair choice for her.

Oh well. At least she's having fun.

The children's choir that comes out for "Great Expectations" is kind of nice in an "Aw, that's cool for the kids" sort of way. But I also felt the urge to separate the kids from Gene - way too close, Demon! Five hundred foot minimum.

Both Peter (in his book) and Gene (in the pre-concert rehearsal footage from the DVD) are particularly taken with cellist Sharon Draper.

Remember that "Eugene" video? The obvious implication, there, is that Ace is spilling the beans on how un-savvy Gene is with the ladies, despite his "body count." I can't speak to this personally, of course, but this interaction with Ms. Draper speaks volumes.

First, she calls him out rather sharply for leering at her.

Then, after rolling her eyes split-seconds after this screencap, she pushes away when Gene says "Nice violin."

According to Peter, he was told he'd be getting an even split from the profits of this DVD and album, but he was harshly disabused of this notion by Gene during rehearsal and never ended up seeing a royalty. I have no idea if this is true. But to be on the safe side, I made sure that when it came time to buy the DVD, I picked up a used copy.

Nearly every time they cut to the crowd it's to showcase a female fan either lifting her shirt or bouncing up and down. These are just a couple of examples - you get the idea.

These two especially get an awful lot of screentime.

Either Melbourne has a lot of photogenic young female Kiss fans, or the evidence was "sexed-up." If the latter, it forever amuses me the lengths to which these guys will go to sex-up the evidence. Worse than State Department officials.

SONIC BOOM and MONSTER

2009 and 2012

I tried with these two, I really did. I'm not going to say they're bad or even venture much of an opinion at all on them. I just couldn't connect to the tunes. 

Interestingly, Sonic Boom comes with a bonus disc entitled Jigoku-Retsuden which translates to "Intense Transmission from Hell." (nice.) 

It's twelve classic Kiss tracks as re-recorded by the new line-up. I raise an eyebrow at this. Could it be that they intend to license only these tracks anytime Kiss music is requested for an event/ show/ movie? Or have Peter's and Ace's books made me suspect the worst from Gene and Paul on such things? The scuttlebutt is that whenever they get a chance to cut Peter and Ace out of the royalty loop for older material, they take it. 

Time will tell. Keep an ear out next time you hear any classic Kiss on TV or elsewhere - is it the original recording, or is it from Jigoku-Retsuden?

KISS KRUISE(s)

A few years back, Kiss started promoting these things. It's exactly what it sounds like. You book a "Kiss package" on a cruise line and sail off for a week of concerts and photo ops with the band. Most of those who purchase tickets are naturally diehard Kiss fans, so there are a thousand blogs out there detailing the experience.

Two members of the Kiss Navy.

I kind of like this whole idea. Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp on the waves. Of their many alternative-marketing/merchandising ideas, this one is probably the coolest.

LA KISS

And as previously reported, Gene and Paul have jumped on the Arena Football train and bought their very own franchise.

I've never been an Arena Football fan, and even this news likely won't nudge me any further in that direction. But I hold out hope that more and more rock bands will do this until the Arena Football League is 100% owned and operated by Kiss and their contemporaries. When that happens, you can bet I'll be the number one Arena Football fan in the world. 

It'd be even funnier if they were all LA teams, except for Bon Jovi's and Iron Maiden's. (Naturally, Maiden would have to be in on this to fully get me on board.)

Heathers, High School, and Saved By the Bell

This is pt. 1 of a 3-part overview. For pt. 2 ("What a Waste! Oh the Humanity!") please click here. For pt. 3 ("A Writer Finds Her Voice") please click here.

Before we get to today's program:

(1988)

let's contextualize things with these words from Chuck Klosterman on the show Saved By the Bell:

"I would watch SBTB the same way all high school kids watch morning television, which is to say I stared at it with the same thoughtless intensity I displayed when watching the dryer. I watched it because it was on TV, which is generally the driving force behind why most people watch any program. However, I became a more serious SBTB student when I got to college. I suspect this kind of awakening was not uncommon, as universities always spawn little cultures of terrible TV appreciation."

In my own case, he's certainly correct, here. Although I started watching Beverly Hills, 90210 when it originally aired (with the same sort of thoughtless intensity he describes,) it was at college - specifically, weekly parties at the fraternity house that centered around 90210 and Melrose Place. And libations, of course - that the madness really took hold.

He continues: "We liked the 'process' of watching these shows. The idea of these programs being entertaining never seemed central to anything, which remains the most fascinating aspect of all televised art: consumers don't demand it to be good. It just needs to be watchable. * And the reason that designation can be applied to Saved by the Bell has a lot to do with the fundamental truth of its staggering unreality."

* This has changed somewhat since these words were originally written, thanks mainly to HBO shows and things like Breaking Bad and BSG. But I'd say it's still by and large true.

Its staggering unreality is the phrase to recall when we get to Heathers. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

"Every other kid at Bayside" - where the SBTB kids went to school, a place where students made money by selling a "Girls of Bayside" calendar, where oil was discovered under the football team's goalposts, and where Zack, the main character (like I need to tell you any of this) had the ability to stop time in order to narrate what was happening - "was either a nerd, a jock, a randomly hot chick, or completely nondescript. It was sort of like Rydell High in Grease."

Such a creepy picture out of context. Maybe even in context.

"On the surface, SBTB must undoubtedly seem like everything one would expect from a dreadful show directed at children, which is what it was. But that's not how it was consumed by its audience. There was a stunning recalibration of the classic "suspension of disbelief vs. aesthetic distance" relationship. (...) Understanding SBTB meant you understood what was supposed to define the ultra-simplistic, hyper-stereotypical high school experience - and understanding that formula meant you realized was (supposedly) important about growing up. (And) important things are always cliche." 

"SBTB wasn't ironic in the contemporary sense (i.e. detached and sardonic) and it wasn't ironic in the literal sense (the intentions and themes of the story never contradicted what they stated ostensibly.) You never learned anything, and you weren't supposed to."

I've got a few more Klosterman quotes to go over, but let me break in here to say that all of what he's describing does not 100% apply to Heathers per se - I'd argue there are things to learn, all the better in that they are not bullet-pointed for the viewer- but such is the context of the teenage-drama landscape in which Heathers appeared.

By 1988, the template was firmly established. And still is, more or less. When great high school movies of the 80s are mentioned, you usually hear The Breakfast Club (or Fast Times at Ridgmont High) and Heathers is the anti-Breakfast Club in many ways, as Pauline Kael pointed out in her review of it. It has more in common with Buffy the Vampire Slayer than it does with Saved By the Bell, to be sure.(Right down to its snap, crackle, and pop dialogue. The folks at Sunnydale sound an awful lot like the folks at Westerberg in the way they speak to one another.)

Quick aside: I'd never looked up any reviews of this movie until gathering steam for this blog. And as I did so, I bookmarked The New Cult Canon's and Janet Maslin's at the New York Times. Great stuff. I was obsessed with this movie in 1990 and 1991. I was very lucky for it to be a new movie, accruing cult status via video rentals and pay per view, while I was the exact age of its characters. But it was the pre-internet-age, and looking up such reviews wasn't even on my mind. I also can't claim to have understood the film in any organized fashion at the time; I was pretty much an idiot in the late 80s and early 90s. By the mid-90s, I was perhaps an imbecile, and I flatter myself to think I've achieved moron status here in our exciting new century. (Patience, McMolo, keep climbing the ladder...) But, at the time, I just knew I related to it, powerfully, and couldn't stop watching it. 

Anyway. Let's wrap up Klosterman's SBTB thoughts:

"Conscious attempts at reality don't work. The character of Angela on ABC's short-lived drama My So-Called Life was byzantine and unpredicatble and emotionally complex, and that all that well-crafted nuance made her seem like an individual. But Angela was so much an individual that she wasn't like anyone but herself; she didn't reflect any archetypes. She was real enough to be interesting, but too real to be important. Kelly Kapowski was never real, so she ended up being a little like everybody (or at least like someone everybody used to know.) It was openly ridiculous but latently plausible. And that's why it illustrated a greater paradox that matters more: Saved by the Bell wasn't real, but neither is most of reality."

That last bit there describes Heathers (and life) so perfectly. It certainly has an absurd plot that is just plausible enough (more than plausible, as we know all too well from real-world events in the 25 years since its release) and wildly exaggerated characters that remain all-too-familiar (and who interestingly resemble both the Kelly Kapowski and Angela from My So-Called Life approaches, described above: individually nuanced but swimming in broad strokes.) But it somehow captures a universally accessible essence of high school that more realistic or serious-minded attempts never do.

The only other film like it (for me) is Disturbing Behavior, which I'm sure I'll watch and screencap and geek out on at some point down the road, so I'll just namecheck it for now.

All of which is to say, though I've never met anyone who can point to Heathers and say "yep, that happened to me," I've never met anyone who doesn't instantly recognize the landscape and everyone in it. It presents a version of reality that feels far more real than the actual lived experience of high school.

I mentioned Mean Girls, before...

Undoubtedly a great film. But a whole different era. It is the Old School to Heathers's Animal House. If that makes any sense. 

Perhaps Mean Girls is to Cruel Intentions what Old School is to Animal House? Perhaps Heathers stands apart from them all. Not above or beyond, just apart. Ferris Bueller's Day Off, for example, stands equally apart; whole different criteria.

At any rate, then or now (or before it) Heathers is my nomination for perfect high school movie. Beautifully shot, written, performed, scored, conceived and executed.

This raises an interesting question: whose film is it, exactly? To whom do we give the honors?

I never feel too bad for anyone that stays consistently employed in the movie industry, as Michael Lehmann certainly has done, but it's clear from his c.v. that he wasn't pursuing any kind of personal vision with Heathers. And that's fine - perhaps it was a workmanlike guy at the helm that allowed the eccentricities of the script to bloom.

So maybe it was the writer?

But his c.v. falls apart even more immediately and comprehensively than the director's. So here we have a movie written and directed by folks who sure don't seem like the auteurs one would expect would have put it together. Who was it, then? The production designer? There's a lot of good-looking films in John Hutman's filmography, but no throughline sensibility (that I can see) that suggests Heathers is as cool as it is because of his unique vision.

Though it certainly is a beautiful looking and thoughtfully arranged film.

"Tomorrow someone else will move into her place...

The music is certainly "totally very." David Newman's c.v includes Galaxy Quest, Serenity, and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. And while that's good enough for me personally to refer to it going forward as David Newman's Heathers, it probably wouldn't hold up in court. The score more than anything, though, brings me painfully back to the era. High school wasn't exactly hell for me, but adolescent anxiety is traumatic for anybody. It lives on in the musical accompaniment for this film for me; just hearing it makes me wonder if I'll ever get laid or graduate.

So we're forced to give credit to an ensemble group behind the scenes and the actors on the screen itself. And the two leads are arguably at the height of their youthful appeal in this movie. I speak of course of Christian Slater as J.D. and Winona Ryder as Veronica.

 

Christian Slater went from this to iconic roles in Pump Up the Volume and True Romance, but his star faded somewhat after that. As with Michael Lehmann, this isn't meant in a negative spirit; only a fool would feel bad for a guy who's consistently employed for decades in Hollywood. And is pals with Anthony Hopkins to boot.

Perhaps his turn in Lars Von Trier's upcoming Nymphomaniac will reinvigorate his status. I doubt it, but we'll see.

Winona Ryder created and sustained a "Winona Ryder" archetype throughout the 90s and while her star power has waned a bit in the 21st century, she's still Hollywood glamour, to be sure. 

I thought she was pretty good in A Scanner Darkly and Black Swan.

She plays Spock's Mom in the new Star Trek. Her character didn't last long, but there's always the possibility of flashbacks/ alternate realities.

Next time around, we'll get into the movie itself, but I wanted to start things off with all of the above. Let's wrap this up with this bit from the Scott Tobias review afore-linked:

"Coming at the end of the ’80s, Heathers still stands out for questioning the prevailing stereotypes of teen movies rather than accepting them as a given. Two decades later, the Hughes model of teen comedy/dramas is still pervasive, but the goings-on at Westerburg High have only gained in potency, perhaps because so few movies have had the courage (or the approval) to follow Heathers’ lead. “It’s not very subtle,” as J.D. says, “but neither is blowing up a whole school.” "

See you next time.