We need to talk about David Bowie’s codpiece. Not the goblin king. Not the crystal balls. Not even the M.C. Escher stairways. The codpiece. I was teetering on the brink of puberty when Labyrinth (1986) came out, caught in that liminal space between childhood and whatever came next. About thirty seconds into “Dance Magic Dance,” … Read more
Ah, Howard the Duck, that glorious, ambitious mess of a movie that could only have hatched in 1986. This wasn’t Hollywood taking a bold creative risk on a subversive project, no- this was George Lucas riding so high on Star Wars and Indiana Jones that studios were ready to hand him blank cheques. If George … Read more
Dead Air, Slapstick, and Lucas’ Last Laugh A Lucasfilm movie so panned on its original release that it almost made people forget Howard the Duck. When Universal accepted American Graffiti in 1972, George Lucas gave them first-look deals on two projects: Radioland Murders and “an untitled science fiction film.” One became the biggest franchise in … Read more