DVD Review: Cedar Rapids

Ed Helms’ leading-man debut is a funnier movie than The Hangover Part 2. It’s smarter, too.

Dying is easy and comedy is hard, as the famous adage goes, and by extension of that same logic it’s virtually impossible to get dark comedy right. The wreckage of failed attempts includes the best and the brightest artists of every comedy era, and not a few dramatic creators as well. Dark comedy – black comedy, gallows humor, cringe humor – carries its own additional pitfalls besides the usual minefield of problems awaiting its gentler cousin. And when dark comedy fails, too often the results land with a resounding thud, victims of creative overreach or slipshod understandings of tone.

Cedar Rapids, the often pitch-dark new effort from indie mainstay Miguel Arteta, walks its dark comedy tightrope constantly in danger of falling one way or the other. Though ultimately it succeeds, the suspense of waiting for it to collapse under its own ambitious weight suffuses virtually every scene. You almost come to care about the movie itself as much as its conventional story or oddball characters, wondering when at any second its whole artifice will come crashing down. It never does, thanks largely to its cast.

A star is brown: Helms

Small-town man-child Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) is sent by his boss (Stephen Root) at Brownstar Insurance to a regional convention after the agency’s alpha dog (Tom Lennon) dies of auto-erotic asphyxiation. Lippe isn’t ready for the responsibility, let alone the pressure of bringing home the convention’s “Two Diamond” award that the agency has secured several years in a row. But he goes anyway, propelled by his boss’ bullying. His wide-eyed, gawky enthusiasm, mixed with rustic suspicion for the dangers and promises of the titular “big city,” provide some of the film’s most unguarded moments.

The convention’s hotel (as uniformly cheerless, and cheerlessly uniform, as any of a million such places in America) and the people Lippe encounters there of course compel him to grow up emotionally and sexually. In particular, he finds himself drawn into the orbit of hard-partying, foul-mouthed policy “poacher” Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly), comparatively straight-laced Ronald Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) and the sultry, melancholy Joan (Anne Heche.) The quartet goof their way through the three-day conference while Tim readies his presentation to convention patriarch Orin Helgesson (Kurtwood Smith). Moral fortitude and honesty count for a lot in winning the “prestigious” Two Diamond trophy, and in assenting to his new friends’ temptations – including a fling with Joan – Lippe risks costing his company the award.

Artete works well within the small confines of the hotel, showing the confines of each blandly friendly space and how, especially given the inhospitable winter outside, even such slim diversions as hotel bar margaritas and overheated pools can offer a welcome distraction. It helps a lot that Phil Johnston’s script does right by its main character, shrewdly demonstrating Lippe’s fish out of water ups and downs: his new friends are a welcoming, non-judgmental bunch, a distant cry from the McJesus snobbery of his home town co-workers and neighbors – the same people, Lippe is decent enough to remember, that depend on him. Of course everything works out in the end, but not before plenty of debauchery and clean, if slightly mean-spirited, fun.

As a comic leading man, Helms’ strengths center on the same aw, shucks likability that’s served him more or less unwaveringly since his tenure on The Daily Show. Lippe is similar to The Office‘s Andy Bernard, more naive but less obtuse, with a greater vulnerability as a result. It’s tempting to thumbnail Lippe as Bernard freed of The Office‘s self-conscious repetition of character and story beats, but there’s more – a little more – to him than that. Helms makes him sympathetic but stops short of making him pitiable or charismatic.

He’s backed by, well, a dream supporting cast for this type of project. Reilly is a leading man trapped in the body of a character actor, and every one of his scenes tends to upset the tenuous balance Artete strikes between Lippe and his surroundings. In fact for much of the film’s first hour, the energy level rises palpably whenever Reilly’s motor- and foul-mouthed party animal comes onscreen. Comedies often rise or fall on the quotability of their dialogue; Reilly has most of the lines you’ll want to repeat to your friends.

The surprise performance, however, belongs to Heche as the otherwise content soccer mom who uses insurance conventions as a vacation from the staid security of her normal life. Heche is sexy, sad, and smart all at the same time, without resorting to vamping or overheated line readings to achieve said results. Her confession to Lippe about the normalcy of her life and the release of Cedar Rapids carries some of the film’s best writing, and her well-modulated delivery of the scene works as an oasis to the dark shenanigans displayed almost everywhere else. Heche’s career was swallowed years ago by the media’s provincial fascination with her sexuality; this performance earns her a shot at a larger comeback vehicle.

Making the most of smaller roles, Whitlock makes a charming straight man for the others, especially in a late scene in which he gets to spoof his role on The Wire. The prolific Root is hilarious as Lippe’s boss, and Smith brings the same imperial menace to Helgesson that he brought to all those years as That 70s Show‘s Red Foreman. Arrested Development fans may find themselves a little shocked to see Alia Shawkat, Maeby Funke herself, playing the hotel’s prostitute; the role allows her to say filthy things and look sultry, which for a career transition vehicle is possibly as good as it gets right now.

Cedar Rapids shouldn’t be confused for a great film, but it achieves its difficult ambitions while remaining entertaining, and it has the rare gift of growing in your memory after you leave the theatre. If its raunchy gags and sometimes awkward staging keep it from really developing into something approaching a classic modern dark comedy – Rushmore, to make a contemporary example, or Ruthless People - it’s trying for something riskier than the pot and potty humor that dominates too many modern “comedies” (Not least of which, obviously, The Hangover Part II.) It’s also, admittedly, refreshing to encounter a comedy that doesn’t bear Judd Apatow’s factory-pressed mixture of bittersweet nostalgia and stunted male growth.

Dying is easy, dark comedy is hardest, and ultimately Cedar Rapids is a damned funny movie with a cast full of people who should appear more than they do. Given a small release in the theatres last winter, it’s unmissable home video entertainment.

- Michael Kabel

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Review: The Hangover Part II

The wolfpack takes a trip they’ve by and large taken before.

Probably since the moment of its official announcement, the hype and anticipation surrounding The Hangover Part II speculated that the sequel to the 2009 monster hit comedy couldn’t avoid a presumed – and expected – sophomore stumble. Much of that first film’s success, really, grew out of its out-of-left-field surprise : with its pairing of journeyman comics Ed Helms and Zack Galifianakis with then-unproven leading man Bradley Cooper, and a concept that seemed to owe more to Las Vegas tourism commercials than organic inspiration, the film’s raunchy escapism and bromantic camaraderie was, if not exactly fresh, a modern take on the “boys will be boys” comedic trope. Enjoying a playing field more or less left to itself in the no-fun zone of the summer 2009 movie season, the original grossed close to half a billion dollars worldwide.

Jump ahead two years to this sequel, whose guiding maxim seems to run something along the lines of “nothing succeeds like success.” But can it succeed? Well no, maybe of course not, but then it doesn’t often try very hard. The budget is more than doubled, the jokes are raunchier and there are more genitalia on display, but audiences will likely find a depressing amount of sameness anyway. If you liked the first, you’ll like this one, but not as much and perhaps even in spite of yourself.

Changing the environs from Vegas to the more picturesque – but perhaps no less heady – setting of Bangkok, this second adventure has the gang decamping for Thailand to celebrate the marriage of “wolfpack” member Stu (Ed Helms) to a woman of Thai descent (Jamie Chung.) Buddies Phil (Cooper) and Doug (Justin Bartha) are onboard as groomsmen, and the gang reluctantly invites Doug’s brother-in-law Alan (Galifianakis), as before, at the urging of Doug’s wife (Sasha Barrese.) The marriage is far from ideal almost at once. The bride’s father (Nirit Sirijanya) disapproves of Stu, comparing him to rice porridge, and Alan takes an immediate, competitive dislike to her brother Teddy (Mason Lee.)

Stu’s plans for a low-key, beachside campfire bachelor party take a turn for the disastrous – the movie has to happen somehow – and the gang wakes up the next morning in a Bangkok hotel room with, naturally, no memory of the previous night. Teddy is missing, though one of his fingers is recovered from a glass of water, and bumbling criminal Chow (Ken Jeong) is naked and unconscious on the hotel room floor.

Panicked but determined to find Teddy, the group reenters the sun-drenched, sun-bleached Bangkok streets hoping to find him before the wedding ceremony that evening. Their search gets them entangled with a corrupt businessman (Paul Giamatti, completely wasted here), a hermaphrodite strip bar/brothel, and Russian gangsters who want the obnoxious, cigarette-smoking monkey the wolfpack found in their room.

Even before the search really begins, anyone paying attention can spot the crippling loyalty to the original’s bag of tricks: the seamy morning-after locales, the replacement of Teddy for Doug as missing person, the use of Chow as manic comic foil; Teddy’s final rescue comes not as a result of the group’s diligence but as a brainstorm that reveals his hiding place all along. That’s fine by itself, but the innovation this time around seems largely based on amping the shock value of the first: as the original had frontal nudity, this one displays transsexual body parts. Stu has sex with a man instead of a woman. People are shot instead of beaten up.

In time the devotion becoming slavish, then almost compulsive, except the jokes fall flat – nothing’s as funny the second time – and there aren’t enough of them to make the repetition besides the point, as in similarly comedy sequels like Airplane II and all the iterations of National Lampoon’s Vacation. Director Todd Philips, working with two screenwriters who didn’t participate in the first, keep the jokes at the same pitch as the predecessor. But without the element of surprise – with the expectation of getting shocked – the shock value deflates, like a punch you know is coming and then doesn’t sting as much as a result.

The performances are similarly uniform, and not in a way that’s always endearing. Cooper can coast by on looks and charm – that’s all the role asks of him, really – but Helms, Galifianakis, and Jeong have a harder time keeping their respective schticks fresh. We’ve groused before that Galifianakis was already on his way to becoming what Steve Zahn was in the 90s: a talented, oddball comic actor whose welcome was squandered on inferior projects. But his weirdo routine is starting to show its age already, particularly in the malice Alan shows for Teddy and his childlike devotion to the monkey. Helms and Jeong, meanwhile, go through R-rated motions of the characters they play on NBC Thursday nights.

There’s an old piece of conventional wisdom that sequels will typically reap sixty percent of the box office as their hit predecessors. Why shouldn’t the same formula apply to audience satisfaction? The Hangover Part II is sixty percent as entertaining as the first, the rest lost to limp shock value and diminished inspiration. If you can settle for that, you won’t have a bad time.

- Michael Kabel

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Review: Cedar Rapids

Ed Helms strikes off on his own, into darker territory than you might expect.

Dying is easy and comedy is hard, as the famous adage goes, and by extension of that same logic it’s virtually impossible to get dark comedy right. The wreckage of failed attempts includes the best and the brightest artists of every comedy era, and not a few dramatic creators as well. Dark comedy – black comedy, gallows humor, cringe humor – carries its own additional pitfalls besides the usual minefield of problems awaiting its gentler cousin. And when dark comedy fails, too often the results land with a resounding thud, victims of creative overreach or slipshod understandings of tone.

Cedar Rapids, the at-times pitch-dark new effort from indie mainstay Miguel Arteta, walks its dark comedy tightrope constantly in danger of falling one way or the other. Though ultimately it succeeds, the suspense of waiting for it to collapse under its own ambitious weight suffuses almost every scene. You almost come to care about the movie itself as much as its conventional story or oddball characters, wondering when at any second its whole artifice will come crashing down. It never does, thanks largely to its cast.

A star is brown: Helms

Small-town man-child Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) is sent by his boss (Stephen Root) at Brownstar Insurance to a regional convention after the agency’s alpha dog (Tom Lennon) dies of auto-erotic asphyxiation. Lippe isn’t ready for the responsibility, let alone the pressure of bringing home the convention’s “Two Diamond” award that the agency has secured several years in a row. But he goes anyway, propelled by his boss’ bullying. His wide-eyed, gawky enthusiasm, mixed with rustic suspicion, for the dangers and promises of the titular “big city” provide some of the film’s most unguarded moments.

The convention’s hotel (as uniformly cheerless, and cheerlessly uniform, as any of a million such places in America) and the people Lippe encounters there of course compel him to grow up emotionally and sexually. In particular, he finds himself drawn into the orbit of  hard-partying, foul-mouthed policy “poacher” Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly), comparatively straight-laced Ronald Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) and the sultry, melancholy Joan (Anne Heche.) The quartet goof their way through the three-day conference while Tim readies his presentation to convention patriarch Orin Helgesson (Kurtwood Smith). Moral fortitude and honesty count for a lot in winning the “prestigious” Two Diamond trophy, and in assenting to the group’s temptations – including a fling with Joan – Lippe risks costing his company the award.

Artete works well within the small confines of the hotel, showing the confines of each blandly friendly space and how, especially given the inhospitable winter outside, even such slim diversions as hotel bar margaritas and overheated pools can offer a welcome distraction. It helps a lot that Phil Johnston’s script does right by its main character, shrewdly demonstrating Lippe’s fish out of water ups and downs: his new friends are a welcoming, non-judgmental bunch, a distant cry from the McJesus snobbery of his home town co-workers and neighbors – the same people, Lippe is decent enough to remember, that depend on him. Of course everything works out in the end, but not before plenty of debauchery and clean, if slightly mean-spirited, fun.

As a comic leading man, Helms’ strengths center on the same aw, shucks likability that’s served him more or less unwaveringly since his tenure on The Daily Show.  Lippe is similar to The Office‘s Andy Bernard, more naive but less obtuse, with a greater vulnerability as a result. It’s tempting to thumbnail Lippe as Bernard freed of The Office‘s self-conscious repetition of character and story beats, but there’s more – a little more – to him than that. Helms makes him sympathetic but stops short of making him pitiable or charismatic.

He’s backed by, well, a dream supporting cast for this type of project. Reilly is a leading man trapped in the body of a character actor, and every one of his scenes tends to upset the tenuous balance Artete strikes between Lippe and his surroundings. In fact for much of the film’s first hour, the energy level rises palpably whenever Reilly’s motor- and foul-mouthed party animal comes onscreen. Comedies often rise or fall on the quotability of their dialogue; Reilly has most of the lines you’ll want to repeat to your friends.

The surprise performance, however, belongs to Heche as the otherwise happy soccer mom who uses insurance conventions as a vacation from the staid security of her normal life. Heche is sexy, sad, and smart all at the same time, without resorting to vamping or overheated line readings to achieve said results. Her confession to Lippe about the normalcy of her life and the release of Cedar Rapids carries some of the film’s best writing, and her well-modulated delivery of the scene works as an oasis to the dark shenanigans displayed almost everywhere else. Heche’s career was swallowed years ago by the media’s provincial fascination with her sexuality; this performance earns her a shot at a larger comeback vehicle.

Making the most of smaller roles, Whitlock makes a charming straight man for the others, especially in a late scene in which he gets to spoof his role on The Wire. The prolific Root is hilarious as Lippe’s boss, and Kurtwood Smith brings the same imperial menace to Helgesson that he brought to all those years as That 70s Show‘s Red Foreman. Arrested Development fans may find themselves a little shocked to see Alia Shawkat, Maeby Funke herself, playing the hotel’s prostitute; the role allows her to say filthy things and look sultry, which for a career transition vehicle is possibly as good as it gets right now.

Cedar Rapids shouldn’t be confused for a great film, but it achieves its difficult ambitions while remaining entertaining, and it has the rare gift of growing in your memory after you leave the theatre. If its raunchy gags and sometimes awkward staging keep it from really developing into something approaching a classic modern dark comedy – Rushmore, to make a contemporary example, or Ruthless People – it’s trying for something riskier than the pot and potty humor that dominates too many modern “comedies.” It’s also, admittedly, refreshing to encounter a comedy that doesn’t bear Judd Apatow’s factory-pressed mixture of bittersweet nostalgia and stunted male growth.

Dying is easy, dark comedy is hardest, and ultimately Cedar Rapids is a damned funny movie with a cast full of people who should appear more than they do.  See it  in the theatre if you can, but don’t miss it on home video.

- Michael Kabel

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TV Party Tonight! Revisited

As a year of disappointing box office peters out, Generation X remains Hollywood’s favorite target audience.

Sooner or later, inevitably, this too will be a movie.

Towards the end of the 1980s there was a popular saying about the 60s that if you could remember that decade then you weren’t really there. It was meant both as a half-subtle reference to the era’s heady drug culture and a wry comment on the insincere nostalgia that became widespread as the Baby Boomers reached middle age. There’s no similar saying about the 80s yet, though two decades since its conclusion Hollywood continually returns to the decade’s nostalgia well again and again. For better or worse, you don’t have to remember the 80s because in many ways they’ve never truly ended.

Today one of the year’s biggest-scale action films debuts on DVD after middling box office last summer, though its relative failure possibly only underscores the concept’s small-screen foundation. The A-Team premiered around the middle of the 80s, the point which was arguably the most 80s-est segment of the era. Fondly remembered if not critically appreciated by members of Generation X, the TV series had a certain lowbrow charm thanks to the chemistry of its cast members (including a slumming George Peppard and an overachieving Mr. T) that didn’t translate as charmingly into what was basically a routine Hollywood action piece with A-minus list stars and an arsenal of CGI explosions. (On a larger level, in fact the phrase “fondly remembered if not critically appreciated” describes the bulk of Gen X’s cultural heritage.)

Probably Hollywood recognizes that the concepts and premises of many of the decade’s most enduring or best-remembered properties then lacked the technology to maximize their potential. Certainly this is true of Transformers, the mid-80s toy line and accompanying cartoon series that took on an entirely new second life, for better and worse, once combined with the CGI wizardry and narrative buffoonery of Michael Bay. The inevitable third installment of the franchise is set to premiere next July, featuring the fan-favorite Decepticon villain Shockwave in a prominent role. Similarly Disney no doubt has high hopes for this weekend’s Tron: Legacy. a sequel to the 1982 adventure that relied on computer graphics that today seem as primitive as the cave paintings of Lascaux. Against such practical matters the lure of Gen X nostalgia may seem only a welcome bonus, a way to reach young and ageing audiences at the same time.

Still, some updates and adaptations run into trouble when they stray too far from what the original property’s fanbase recognizes as loyal or true to the original. Last year’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra made money for Paramount Pictures but won few fans, with a lukewarm reception at best from the comic- and toy-collecting communities who ought to have comprised its profit base. Aside from a few and far between cosmetic similarities in costume design, the film didn’t look true to the 80s toy line and cartoon, taking instead a high-tech, glossy approach that contradicted the original’s somewhat gritty texture. A cursory search of IMDB shows no announced plans for a sequel.

The dog has an eyepatch. Awesome.

Getting past toy lines and comic books, the DVD and Blu-Ray markets have found a steady steam of income by releasing the decade’s television series in reasonably priced collections. With most of the era’s landmark series already at least partially collected, as well as some of its most critically dubious, many of the more obscure or less successful series have emerged over the last couple of years. The perfect example may be ABC’s Tales of the Gold Monkey, a 1930s-set adventure series that ran for just a single season following the 1982 juggernaut success of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Though calling the series a “cult favorite” may exaggerate, it’s nevertheless fondly remembered for its location photography and colorful characters, and notable for a dearth of syndicated rerun offerings. Finding such shows on DVD obviously allows thirty-something (a term coined in the 80s, by the television industry) Gen X’ers – a generation taught to revere their discarded pop culture – the chance to revisit something dimly remembered, and to evaluate it all over again.

Though not Gen X enough for the movies, Dallas still ran for fourteen seasons.

One connecting thread to the more successful Gen X adaptations comes in part from the youthful appeal that each original property enjoyed. The most common remakes and updates come from shows and films that appealed to the 80s’ youth, a demographic now circling 40 but holding significantly more spending power than the era’s grown-ups, who are today retiring. The A-Team, like Knight Rider, the original V and other shows of the Brandon Tartikoff era at NBC, was marketed to adults but in reality enjoyed primarily by older children and younger teens. (I am focusing on Tartikoff because the lion’s share of shows associated with the decade were developed during his tenure as NBC head of entertainment programming.) Like The Karate Kid, a much greater box office success last summer, such series were aimed at teens but also absorbed by their slightly younger siblings who encountered their reruns on multiple cable channels. Both The A-Team and The Karate Kid were modernized and brought to theatres with comparative ease, while the far more successful – and older-skewing – 80s soap Dallas has had its film adaptation languishing in development for years.

There are plenty of other 80s shows to update first.

Eventually, the cycle of Gen X dotage will probably yield to the next era in pop culture, with the films and television series of the 1990s – a decade itself waterlogged with too much nostalgia – getting the update treatment. If the prospect of a Baywatch movie seems strange, we may as a public not be quite removed enough in time from its heyday to feel ready for their return. (How could we, when David Hasselhoff refuses to go away?) Remakes of shows still fresh in the public’s mind tend not to fare so well – witness the recent underperformances of the Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place reboots - while shows that are fondly if not quite clearly remembered continue to get remade – CBS’s Hawaii Five-O is as much a hit as any new offering in this dreary fall season. At a time when all four major networks desperately need a Next Big Thing and as the reality TV genre continues to show its age, the networks should remember to keep patience.  As viewers, we’re probably most receptive if we can forget a little before we begin to remember.

- Michael Kabel

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TV Party Tonight!

Amid a summer movie season notable for its deafening thud, Generation X remains Hollywood’s favorite audience.

Sooner or later, inevitably, this too will be a movie.

Towards the end of the 1980s there was a popular saying about the 60s that if you could remember that decade then you weren’t really there. It was meant both as a half-subtle reference to the era’s heady drug culture and a wry comment on the insincere nostalgia that became widespread as the Baby Boomers reached middle age. There’s no similar saying about the 80s yet, though two decades since its conclusion Hollywood continually returns to the decade’s nostalgia well again and again. For better or worse, you don’t have to remember the 80s because in many ways they’ve never truly ended.

This weekend two of the summer’s biggest releases arrive in theatres, and both are based on properties not just a part of the Me Decade but inextricably associated with it. The A-Team and The Karate Kid both premiered around the decade’s middle, the point which was arguably the 80s-est segment of the period: certainly the ground zero for the fashions, music, and pop culture that modern media turns to when oversimplifying the era’s zeitgeist. Both properties are fondly remembered, if not critically appreciated, by members of Generation X old enough to remember their airings on, respectively, NBC and later reruns on USA and showings on cable movie channels. (Honestly, “fondly remembered if not critically appreciated” describes the bulk of Gen X’s cultural heritage.)

Probably Hollywood recognizes that the concepts and premises of many of the decade’s most enduring or best-remembered properties then lacked the technology to maximize their potential. Certainly this is true of Transformers, the mid-80s toy line and accompanying cartoon series (which were serialized informercials in all but name) that took on an entirely new second life, for better and worse, once combined with the CGI wizardry and narrative buffoonery of Michael Bay. The inevitable third installment of that franchise is already underway, minus Megan Fox but featuring the fan-favorite Decepticon villain Shockwave in a prominent role. Other decade mainstays, including The A-Team, need only a little updating and tweaking to adjust their premises to modern audiences, but the substantially larger budgets give them the time and money to up their special effects ante as well. Against such practical matters the lure of Gen X nostalgia may seem only a bonus.

Still, some updates and adaptations run into trouble when they stray too far from what the original property’s fanbase recognizes as loyal or true to the original. Last summer’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra made money for Paramount Pictures but won few fans, with a lukewarm reception at best even from the comic- and toy-collecting communities who ought to have represented its profit base. Aside from a few and far between cosmetic similarities in costume design, the film didn’t look true to the 80s toy line and cartoon, taking instead a high-tech, glossy approach that contradicted the original’s somewhat realistic approach. A cursory search of IMDB shows no announced plans for a sequel.

The dog has an eyepatch. Awesome.

Getting past toy lines and comic books, the DVD and Blu-Ray markets have found a steady steam of income by releasing the decade’s television series in reasonably priced collections. With most of the era’s landmark series already at least partially collected, as well as some of its most critically dubious, many of the more obscure or less successful series have begun to emerge. The perfect example may be ABC’s Tales of the Gold Monkey, a 1930s-set adventure series that ran for just a single season following the juggernaut success of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Though calling the series a “cult favorite” may exaggerate, it’s nevertheless fondly remembered for its location photography and colorful characters, and notable for a dearth of syndicated rerun offerings. The DVD box set arrives in stores next Tuesday. Meanwhile a Blu-Ray release of Caddyshack, sort of that era’s equivalent to The Hangover, has just been made available.

Though not Gen X enough for the movies, Dallas still ran for fourteen seasons.

One connecting thread to the more successful Gen X adaptations comes in part from the youthful appeal that each original property enjoyed. The most common remakes and updates come from shows and films that appealed to the 80s’ youth, a demographic now circling 40 but holding significantly more spending power than the era’s grown-ups, who are today retiring. The A-Team, like Knight Rider, the original V and other shows of the Brandon Tartikoff era at NBC, was marketed to adults but in reality enjoyed primarily by older children and younger teens. (I am focusing on Tarktikoff because the lion’s share of shows associated with the decade were developed during his tenure as NBC head of entertainment programming.) The Karate Kid was aimed at teens but also absorbed by their slightly younger siblings who encountered its heavy rotation on cable movie channels. Both properties were modernized and brought to theatres with comparative ease, while the far more successful – and older-skewing – 80s soap Dallas has had its film adaptation languishing in development for years.

There’s also an insulating effect to drawing from Gen X’s collective memory. Adapting its favorite premises shields their updates, to an extent, from the adverse publicity garnered by negative reviews and to a certain extent from adverse word of mouth; people seldom dismiss a fond memory because someone says something unflattering about its inspiration. Audiences may decide to see the film to revisit the happy memory of their youth regardless of reviews or public reception. For that matter, neither of this weekend’s updates held grand artistic ambitions, nor were they warmly received by the critics of their day. And because they were targeted, somewhat half-intentionally, towards younger and less refined audiences the critics’ response didn’t matter as much.

There are plenty of other 80s shows to update first.

Eventually, the cycle of Gen X dotage will probably yield to the next era in pop culture, with the films and television series of the 1990s – a decade itself waterlogged with too much nostalgia – getting the update treatment. If the prospect of a Baywatch movie seems strange, we may as a public not be quite removed enough in time from its heyday to feel ready for their return. Remakes of shows still fresh in the public’s mind tend not to fare so well – witness the underperformance of the Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place reboots - while shows that are fondly if not quite clearly remembered continue to get remade. This fall both The Rockford Files and Hawaii Five-O get modern revisitations, and both benefit from stemming from older source material. Their networks have high hopes for their smash success, at a time when all four broadcast outlets desperately need a Next Big Thing. They may not be disappointed. As viewers, it’s likely best if we can forget a little before we like to remember.

- Michael Kabel

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