Charlie Spradling, Part 3: Television Appearances

Full House: Cutting It Close (1988)

 

Charlie Spradling, Part 2: A Scream Queen for a New Generation

The Blob (1988)

Charlie Spradling

 

Cannibal Ferox (1981)

Eaten Alive! (1980)

Mädchen Amick

Mädchen Amick was born December 12, 1970 in Reno, Nevada to a musician and a medical office manager. She's 1/2 German, 1/4 Norwegian and 1/4 Swedish, if you want to start your own breeding program and were interested in the ingredients. Mädchen is German for "girl." It's pronounced "maid-shen" and "was chosen by her parents because they wanted an unusual name." She was raised in Sparks, Reno's twin city, and "encouraged by her parents to follow her own creative instincts where she learned .. the piano, bass, violin and guitar as well as .. tap, ballet, jazz and modern dancing." 

I've mentioned that the song I'd watch anyone do a serious karaoke version of is "Total Eclipse of the Heart." I haven't decided what my choice for interpretive dance would be. The frontrunner is "Somebody to Love" by Queen but after seeing this I'm willing to consider "Strong As I Am" by The Prime Movers. There are no videos of Robert McQueen High School's Modern Dance Team (the Lancers) circa 1988 on YouTube, but if there were Mädchen Amick wouldn't be on them because she dropped out of school a year earlier "to move to Los Angeles to model and act." 

Wild Beasts (1984)

Cut and Run (1985)

The Internet asks "Tweed no Whirry or Whirry no Tweed?"

We wanted to start a feature where we answer your questions but since we have fewer than five readers (counting us) for now they will have to be questions we either ask each other or find on the Internet. Our first question comes from darktone, who asked me (and anyone else reading) the following on an IMDb message board on July 27, 2005:  

"Would it be [Shannon] tweed or would it be [Shannon] whirry? Which of them had better counterparts or 'assistants' in their soft-core flicks? If you could choose only one of them which would it be? Why didn't they do a soft core movie together? Would you like to see them in a threesome with another guy in a movie?" 

Frank Bauggs (?-1987)

Played by David Wolos-Fonteno in Death Wish 4: The Crackdown. 

Sully (1951-1985)

Played by David Patrick Kelly in Commando. 

Hector's Five Most Unpleasant-Looking Gunshot Wounds

5. True Romance (1993)

Mistakenly thinking it to be White Boy Day, Clarence Worley (Christian Slater) arranges a meeting with (barges in on) his wife's employer (pimp), Drexl (Gary Oldman), in order to discuss terms for prematurely terminating her business contract with him (kill him). When Drexl rejects Clarence's initial offer of one thousand air molecules and Clarence expresses an unwillingness to negotiate further, voices are raised (punches are thrown) and legal action is threatened (guns are drawn). Drexl has a crack legal team (a violent disposition, a lot of guns, and a large bodyguard named Marty) in his employ and he soon appears to be on the verge of winning an extremely favorable judgment against (killing) Clarence, but Clarence finds a clause in the contract (gun) that effectively nullifies the agreement (enables Clarence to...well, just watch:)

Streets of Fire (1984)

"It's probably impossible not to enjoy .. " -- David Chute, Film Comment 

"People ask me what the story is. I say the Queen of the Hop has been kidnapped by the Leader of the Pack and Soldier Boy comes home to do something about it." -- director Walter Hill 

" .. the language is strange .. It's tough, but not with 1984 toughness. It sounds like the way really mean guys would have talked in the late 1950s, only with a few words different – as if this world evolved a slightly different language." -- Roger Ebert 

Here's my promise: I've never been to a Karaoke Night in my life, but for anyone reading this, if you agree to get up and do "Total Eclipse of the Heart" the way it should be done (broad, full-out emotion, put your all into hitting every note and don't stop if your voice starts to crack; interpretive hand gestures and arm movement optional), I'll do my best to attend (but if I can't and you put it up on YouTube I'll watch it at least 7-8 times). Because that'll never fail to be riveting. 

So You Want to Become a Vampire

Whether or not to let yourself be turned into a vampire is one of the biggest decisions in a person's life and like every important decision it can be based on what we've seen in movies. Say some tall stranger with pale skin, awesome hair and a vaguely Slavic-sounding name sits down next to you at Sbarro tonight and asks "Do you want to become a Creature of the Night, my child?" Don't be put off. That's how they talk. (It's how you'll talk, too. That's your first warning from me.) Calmly ask him to produce some fangs. If he can't, find the nearest mall cop. If he can, it's decision time. Will you be ready? I don't believe you will, so I've come up with a list of things to consider before baring your neck.

Pump Up the Volume (1990) vs Vision Quest (1985)

"My theory is that when it comes to important subjects there's only two ways a person can answer. Which way they choose tells you who that person is. For instance, there's only two kinds of people in the world: Beatles people and Elvis people. Now, Beatles people can like Elvis and Elvis people can like Beatles but nobody likes them both equally. Somewhere you have to make a choice and that choice tells you who you are." -- Mia Wallace, from a deleted Pulp Fiction scene 

It's reductive but it's a conversation starter so let's use it as a way to frame this. How you felt about high school can be determined by whether you're a Pump Up the Volume person or a Vision Quest person. The main characters, Mark Hunter/"Hard Harry" and Louden Swain, are complete opposites in many ways, among them attitude, lifestyle, aspirations and musical taste. Teenagers want to be or feel like Mark or they want to be or feel like Louden.
 

Hector's Five Sickest Projectile Vomit Scenes

If there's one thing that makes me want to fuckin' puke, other than warm beer, it's a half-assed vomit scene. I realize that in real life people don't repaint the walls with partially digested food when they throw up, but one of the purposes of film, and of art in general, is to show us something we don't witness every day. If I wanted to see someone produce two cubic centimeters of saliva-colored liquid after retching over a toilet for fifteen minutes, I'd go to a frat kegger. There's a reason that I sit around and watch movies all day and all night instead of going out and interacting with the outside world, and that's that I'm a lazy and misanthropic bastard. Oh, and also that real life is boring, and if I couldn't escape the depressing mundanities of everyday existence (an existence in which vomiting humans can't be used as backup fire hoses) by watching people launch their lunches into low Earth orbit in films like those described below, I'd... well, I suppose I'd get more exercise. But the point is this: If you're going to take the trouble to put a vomit scene in your film, do it right. If you're not sure how, read on.

William McNamara

William West McNamara was born March 31, 1965 in Dallas, Texas to a "professional race car driver .. and an interior designer." (Call him "Bill" or "Billy," please. Only his mother calls him "William.") He "attended" Columbia University and "studied" at the Lee Strasberg Institute. I assume those are euphemistic ways of saying he didn't finish at either one. The list of alumni on the Strasberg Institute's official page includes Rebecca Gayheart, Kevin Corrigan and Adam Sandler. It does not include Billy McNamara. (It also lists credits for some actors to help identify them but not others. It assumes you know who Kathy Griffin is but Dennis Hopper? He was in Easy Rider. Who doesn't know Catherine Hicks but Harvey Keitel? You remember, Pulp Fiction. Linda Hamilton? Sure. Angelina Jolie? Oh right, Mr. and Mrs. Smith.) 

Lots of famous actors are college dropouts. When they're asked why they left school on shows like Inside the Actors Studio the answer is often something like this: "I knew I would be an actor since I was seven or eight. My [m]om and I lived out in Los Angeles and one of her close friends was Valerie Perrine. She was like the Julia Roberts of the Seventies and we used to hang out at her house. She had all these interesting people over all the time. I hung out and watched these people and it was like hanging out at the circus or carnival. That's the kind of attraction it is." 

Hector's Five Wackiest Rape Scenes

A few days ago, I was watching a somewhat recent film (whose title I won't mention lest I be accused of spoiling it) that featured a scene in which a character was raped by a not-quite-human creature. The movie wasn't particularly good, but this scene did lead me to mentally catalog some of the more bizarre screen rapes that have occurred over the years (particularly in the 70s and 80s because -- let's face it -- films are a hell of a lot tamer and less creative now than they used to be). Here are the wackiest five, and if you feel I've left out an important one, say so.

Elvira Parker (1929-1986)

Played by Anne Ramsey in Deadly Friend.

Nathan White (1936-1987)

Played by John Ryan in Death Wish 4: The Crackdown.