This probably sounds nonsensical but I had no idea the guy was 80. Anyway, I always loved The Lost Boys! Had no idea he wrote the screenplay for Car Wash.
Oh wow! I’ll always love the Schumacher Batman films. RIP, Joel :(
You have to really check out his later work in horror/thrillers. Once the AAA blockbuster money stopped, he retreated to indie movies. While I don’t think any of it was great due to the typically garbage scripts, I felt some of it showed some real directing chops that unfortunately never got wide exposure.
What a hell of a career path. Fashion industry>Costume Designer>Writer>Director
I forgot he both wrote and directed D.C Cab until I was reviewing his filmography.
This massive 2019 interview Schumacher did with Vulture is really worth a read. As Woolen_Horde pointed out above, he had an unorthodox career. He reflects on being gay in Hollywood, the loss of Brad Renfro whom he cast in The Client (1994), and the aftermath of Batman and Robin.
I can’t say I particularly liked any of his movies, though I heard OK things about Tigerland, which I never watched but of which I read about a dozen drafts while it was going through screenplay development.
RIP anyway and kudos to a life lived with gusto. Perhaps the choice to highlight Batman’s homoerotic and S&M undercurrents will age well, too, but it’s gonna take a lot of convincing to make me think either of his Batmans was actually a good film.
He mostly made bad movies, but that’s hardly unique in Hollywood. I always had kind of a soft spot for Flatliners, and I sort of admired his willingness to go someplace irredeemable in 8mm.
RIP.
I could pass on most of his films, but I loved The Lost Boys and really liked Falling Down (have to watch that again, saw it at release).
RIP
I really enjoyed DC Cab, Lost Boys, Falling Down and A Time To Kill at the time. I didn’t care for his Batman movies, but I do need to check out a couple of his early movies. I’ve heard good things about Flatliners and St Elmo’s Fire.
St. Elmo’s Fire is not a good movie but it is 150% concentrated Peak '80s Brat Pack, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Me as well. But I understand why lots of people disliked it.
RIP
Much like St. Elmo’s Fire being concentrated 80s, Car Wash is concentrated 70s!
Schumacher was like Spielberg - let me finish the sentence - in that he saw being a Hollywood director as an opportunity to dabble in a little bit of everything. So he did comedies and exploitation movies and big-budget action movies and low-budget thrillers and horror movies and star vehicles and ponderous prestige/vanity projects (the movie version of Lloyd-Weber’s Phantom of the Opera) and war movies. And while I can honestly say I hated some of his films and was conflicted about some others (I could only really talk about Falling Down over on P&R), I also have soft spot for things like Lost Boys, Phone Booth, and yes, Car Wash. Which is the argument for doing a little bit of everything. RIP.
A guy named Charlie Barnett was in DC Cab. He was in a rehab I was in during the late 80s. I liked that guy. Something went wrong with his hands and his finger tips were unusually large. He was so funny. Here is a video of him, doing his thing in a public park.
Charlie used to do his bit next to Kenny’s Castaways. We became friends because I’d offer him sandwiches and stuff from my lunch. He was hilarious. Unfortunately he and his girlfriend at the time had a crack addiction. He was really trying to kick but it never took. I was devastated when I heard that he died.
Ouch, Rich. I didn’t realize he died. When was this? I guess I knew him in like 89/90. He used to make jokes about being addicted to crack. He had a whole routine. I can’t really remember how he made out in treatment. It was sort of a slog and most guys cut out after a few months or weeks.
For me, it’s the best Michael Douglas has ever been; one of my favorite films.
When this came out, my father read a negative review of it somewhere, and vowed to never see it. I had not read any reviews, and just went by myself, and thought it was fantastic, but I could see how some would take offense to it. This film literally embraces stereotype.
The thing to remember is that although D-Fens is a sympathetic character, the film makes it clear that he has a warped view of his world, and that no good will come to him through his thoughts and actions. D-Fens is clearly doomed from the start, like the main characters in the old Noir films were.