Something Special

Something Special AKA Willy/Milly AKA I Was a Teenage Boy
November 14, 1986
Concorde Pictures
Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
VHS
B

Yes, this is something special, and yes, it's also something-like-a-Bizarro-Universe-ABC-after-school-special.  Like my other '86 movies, there's something both even-more-offensive-than-intended-at-the-time and kind of sweet about it, although the balance here is more towards sweet than offensive.  It obviously most resembles Soul Man, although the differences are enlightening.  In the C. Thomas Howell movie, the title character wanted something that he couldn't have, so he changed physically to get it, but ended up learning a lot about himself, and others, including the falsity of stereotypes, which yes, also somewhat resembles Tootsie, although Dustin Hoffman didn't do any more extreme body changes than a lot of plucking and shaving.

The title character here, played by Grease 2's  by-then 18-year-old Pamela Segall (who easily passes as 14), doesn't rely on non-FDA-approved drugs, but on magic from the mysterious red-haired little boy next door, Malcolm.  That's an early, although not the earliest, role for twelve-year-old Seth Green.  Among other things, he'd been in The Hotel New Hampshire and Billions for Boris, the latter as Ape-Face to Mary Tanner's Annabel, and Tanner is his big sister here, too, as Stephanie, Willy/Milly Niceman's best friend.  I'd argue that it is in fact a very Seth-Green role, as calmly quirky as anything I've seen him in as an adult.  And unlike the mysterious friend with the tanning pills who disappears once the scene changes to Boston, Malcolm hovers at the edges of this movie, like a pint-sized Prospero, master-minding the plot.

Which makes the movie even weirder than you'd expect for a PG-13 gender-bender.  Things get more explicit than they did in 1940's Turnabout, but never as explicit (or tasteless) as you might expect for an '80s teen comedy.  That's particularly an accomplishment, what with Stephanie seeming intrigued by her friend's new equipment, and Willy's new male friend's fear of being a "faggot," not to mention the airhead who likes Niceman's Scott-Baio-like charm.  (One thing that's never explained is why, in what is apparently Atlanta, GA, everyone has a generic American accent, except for our hero[ine] whose male hormones only bring out more of Segall's New-Yorkiness.)  But even when Milly shows her "willy" to her parents, perfectly played by Patty Duke and John Glover, it's not offensive.  (It happens offscreen.)

The movie might offend LGBT folks, considering how everything is resolved in a relentlessly heterosexual happy ending.  (Stephanie gets the Matthew-Perry look-alike, played by JD Cullum.)  Personally, for its time, and even now, I think it holds up well, and you have to remember that it is basically about a straight teenage girl who wants to be a boy because she thinks boys have things easier.  The acting, writing, and directing are generally solid (if sometimes cheesy).  I don't want to oversell the movie, because I kind of like that it's this obscure little comedy.  But I hope that it will win you over, just like it did me when I saw it on about 25 years ago on cable, from the uber-catchy-'80s opening song, "One Change in My Life," onward.

And, no, I haven't read the book, but I'd really like to.

Once again, don't believe the poster, or video-packaging.  For one thing, the Nicemans don't even have a dog.

Another thing that's special about this movie, is it's the 200th I've reviewed.  In the twenty years covered since Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!, I've added no D-s (still the lowest grade), but there's now a D and two more D+s (for three total).  The C-s have increased from 8 to 14, the C's from 10 to 18, and the C+s from 29 to 47.  The B-s have blossomed from 26 to 58, while the B's have also more than doubled, from 12 to 27, and the B+s almost tripled, from 9 to 22! There's still only one A (no A+s of course), but now 5 instead of 3 A-s.  (I realize this only comes to 197 total, but I can't figure out which are the movies I forgot to label.)

Comedy still dominates the genres of course, even with genre-benders like this, with 83.5% of the movies falling totally or partially into that category.  Groucho's 17 appearances (most recently in the Duck Soup clip of Hannah and Her Sisters) keep him at the top of the list of stars of my movies, perhaps permanently.  Paramount produced 31 of my movies, so they're still the top studio, although that may change as we move into the more modern era....

Grease 2

Grease 2
June 11, 1982
Paramount
Musical, Comedy, Historical, Romance
DVD
B+

Although I used to watch this movie regularly, it'd been a long time since my last viewing, and I'd forgotten how dizzyingly bad it gets at some points, particularly during the musical numbers.  I believe it's roughly equivalent as a so-bad-it's-good movie to Stigwood's Sgt. Pepper, although the feel of it is as different as, well, 1982 was from '78.

We need to start with a discussion of time, because time is one of the themes of the movie and yet it is handled so poorly.  The movie begins in the Fall of '61 and yet seems to end (if the talent show is any indication) in the Summer of '61.  JFK is President, as we're frequently reminded.  And yet there's been very little effort made to capture the look of the time.  Maureen Teefy of Scavenger Hunt, 28 at this point, plays high-strung Sharon, who claims she's got a Jackie Kennedy look, but she's simply been given a pillbox hat and she has no sign of a bouffant.  Twenty-nine-year-old Lorna Luft, as Paulette, is more plausibly modeled on Marilyn Monroe, which may be why the movie is afraid to go forward to the Summer of '62.  The main female character is Stephanie, played by 24-year-old Michelle Pfeiffer, and she looks pure early '80s, from her hair to her makeup to her wardrobe.  The men, including almost-age-appropriate 22-year-old Maxwell Caulfield as Michael Carrington (not to be confused with Sextette's Michael Barrington), fare a bit better, although they're arguably more '50s than '60s.

One of the musical numbers is "Girl for All Seasons."  We first see the "Fall" portion performed, because Paulette (who's a June bride) is always late, so the group (the Pink Ladies and assorted other girls) have to start in the middle.  Then we get "Winter" in another scene.  And then in the end, it's Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, in that order, but this last part is interrupted by Stephanie's "(Love Will) Turn Back the Hands of Time," which she seems to be singing both in her head, where she's mourning a supposedly D-E-D dead Michael, and onstage to a baffled but appreciative audience.  I think that's the answer: love turns back, forward, and sideways the hands of time in this movie, so that there are crazy continuity "errors" and things like a break-up that takes an entire school year.

Profound, eh?  Well, this also a completely idiotic movie that will have your jaw dropping more than once.  The dialogue is inane and remarkably unrealistic.  In Grease, it was often stupid but plausible.  The same is true of the situations.  G1 achieved some poignancy with Rizzo's pregnancy scare, even if the situation was resolved simply, but here a similar situation is just a throw-away joke, as a nameless girl confides in Eve Arden's Principal McGee that she's missed two periods.  McGee replies that the girl can make them up later.  Ba-dump-bump!

There's no moment in this movie that feels like real life.  But that makes it all the more enjoyable.  Things go completely off the rails during the musical numbers, notably the show-stoppers "Back to School Again," "Score Tonight" (a single-entendre bowling tribute, with nuns!), "Reproduction," and of course the timeless "Rock-a-Hula Luau."  Even the less-crowded numbers, like the so-wrong-but-amazing "Do It For Our Country" and the rancid "Prowling" (sung three times by the T-Bones, sorry, T-Birds) are unbelievable.  The lyrics often have forced rhymes ("motorcycle"/"Michael" and "enigma"/"stigma" stand out) and the choreography, by director/choreographer Patricia Birch, is literally all over the place.

Didi Conn (by then 30 and part of the Benson TV cast) returns as Frenchy, allegedly one of Stephanie's best friends but spending very little time with the current Pink Ladies.  She's mostly there as a confidante for Michael, who (although British) is Australian Sandy's cousin.  Other Grease vets collecting paychecks are the comedy team of Arden (in her last film) and Dody Goodman, the always welcome Eddie Deezen as Eugene (still at Rydell? well, if Frenchy can be...), Sid Caesar as Coach Calhoun, and Dick Patterson as mentally broken down Mr. Spears (Mr. Rudie before).  Dennis Stewart this time is called Balmudo, but it's the same pimply rival gang-leader character.  (Leo Balmudo?)  Newbie teachers are Connie Stevens, still lovely at 43, and equally well preserved 50-year-old Tab Hunter.  I mean, not only do they look good for their ages, but they look like they did twenty years earlier.

The USC Trojan Marching Band, who were also in The Gong Show Movie, show us why, in Arden's words, it's better to play with a group than with yourself.

Other than the Stigwood stalwarts (listed under G1), the supporting cast is probably most notable for '80s television.  Travolta wannabe Adrian Zmed, 28 then, would later be best known for T.J. Hooker, although I like him on Bosom Buddies in a guest shot as Tom Hanks's old buddy turned rock star.  The Sagal twins, Jean and Liz, would get a sitcom called Double Trouble a couple years later.  (They're the younger sisters of Married with Children's Katey.)  And Tom Villard, who is the guy pretending to vomit during the "Reproduction" scene, shortly went on to the infamously bad We Got It Made sitcom, and came out as gay before dying of AIDS-related pneumonia.

Pamela Segall, then 15 but looking 12 or 13, plays Dolores, Paulette's little sister, presumably a freshman.  She would become a popular voice actress under her married name of Pamela Adlon, but I'll always remember her for this scene-stealing part and her title role in Something Special (AKA Willy/Milly).

Ken Finkleman would go on to write Madonna's Who's That Girl.  Patricia Birch not surprisingly did not go on to direct anything else.