Jerry Garcia’s Only Film Role Was As A Robot In An Andy Kaufman Movie

A long forgotten 1981 Andy Kaufman sci-fi comedy, HEARTBEEPS, has been long forgotten for good reasons. Directed by Allan Arkush, who was coming off the success of the 1979 Ramones flick ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL, the film wastes the talents of Kaufman and Bernadette Peters as robots who fall in love in what was then, the near future of 1995. Even with its ripe-for-possibilities premise, it’s a slow, energy-less drag that well earned its 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

It is notable as being weird AF comic/performance artist Kaufman’s last film before his death in 1984, and that he apologized for the movie’s incredibly poor quality on Late Night on David Letterman in early 1982, and offered to give back the money to anyone who saw the film. Letterman’s quick response, “you’d better have change for a twenty,” was singled out by critic Peter Sobczynski as being “perhaps the only genuine laugh to be connected with the strange, sad beast known as HEARTBEEPS.”

However, the cast was somewhat decent. Kaufman and Peters were joined by Mary Woronov, Paul Bartel (both were also in ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL), Randy Quaid, Christopher Guest, Melanie Mayron, B-movie legend Dick Miller, and Jerry Garcia. 

Wait, what? That’s right, the late Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead appears in the film – not in human form, but as the voice of a robot named Phil. Phil is a cute lil droid that was built by Kaufman’s character, ValCom 17485, and Peters as AquaCom-89045, to be their traveling companion, I guess. 

Now, Garcia’s speaking voice isn’t really in HEARTBEEPS, as he provides the baby robot Phil’s R2-D2 sounds via his guitar effects. Garcia, who passed away in the year the movie was set, 1995, became involved in the production from his friendship with Director Arkush. They hung out together watching movies at the time, and I would suspect that the idea of the Dead front-man taking part in the film in the guise of a robot was influenced by a little bit of substance intake.

 

There isn’t much info about Garcia contribution to HEARTBEEPS online (how much info do you need?), but the film hasn’t completely gone away. It’s available for rent streaming on Amazon, and YouTube, as well as in DVD or Blu Ray editions, with Phil prominently featured on the cover with Kaufman and Peters. But I wouldn’t recommend it in any of those forms unless you’re Kaufman, Peters, or Garcia completists. 

 

Strangely, Garcia wasn’t responsible for any music in HEARTBEEPS as it had a score by the bigwig film composer John Williams, who worked on the movie between his iconic soundtracks for RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and E.T. It also got an Academy Award nomination for Best Makeup by Stan Winston. 

 

But it’s Garcia’s scene-stealing blurts run away with the movie. Well, actually I haven’t seen it in a long time, so I can’t confirm that really, but that’s the way I’d like to remember it.

 

Well, that’s all I got about Garcia’s odd involvement with a movie that’s barely a blip on the radar on the pop culture radar.

Now, you can go about your day.

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THE POST: The War Against Fake News Has Been Fought Before And Won

Opening today at a multiplex near you:

THE POST (Dir. Steven Spielberg, 2017)

After putting his stamp on just about every other cinematic genre out there, Steven Spielberg now tries his hand at newspaper drama with this timely story that’s ripped straight from the headlines, but, obviously, they’re headlines that are over four decades old. Simply, THE POST relays how the Washington Post defied President Nixon and all his men by publishing top secret files detailing the lies the government told and was still telling about the Vietnam war.

As the paranoid, dishonest tactics of the Nixon White House have many times been likened to the Trump Administration’s troubling methods, it may seem a bit too on the nose to get this big star-studded prestige picture from those liberals in Hollywood about how then is just like now, just in time for awards season.

And yes, this is a cautionary tale about how journalism is being threatened in our current era of “fake news,” but despite the predictable packaging, Spielberg has successfully structured an earnest, old fashioned, and highly entertaining showcase for his inspiring subject, and his superb cast.

And it really is a superb cast as Oscar-winners Tom Hanks, as Washington Post Editor Ben Bradley, and Meryl Streep as the Post’s publisher, Katherine Graham, head the strong ensemble that also includes Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk (with David Cross also on board we get a Mr. Show re-union!), Jesse Plemmons, Tracy Letts, Bruce Greenwood, Bradley Whitford, and Carrie Coon.

The film begins in 1966 Vietnam, evoked by the familiar sounds of helicopter blades, and CCR blasting, as we see gritty shots of soldiers loading their guns, and applying war paint. Mulling about these men is Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys), a military advisor on a fact finding mission to monitor the war’s progress.

After we see Ellsberg witness a night ambush by the Viet Cong in the rainy jungle, he reports back to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (Greenwood) that things haven’t gotten any better or worse over the last year, they’ve stayed the same.

To Ellsberg’s disgust, McNamara lies to reporters telling them that “Military progress over the last 12 months has exceeded our expectations,” so Ellsberg steals a top secret 7,000 page document soon to be dubbed “The Pentagon Papers,” that strongly says otherwise about US strategy in south-east Asia, and later leaks it to the New York Times.

That brings us to 1971, where Streep’s Graham is taking the Post’s stock public just as the Times’ is publishing a portion of the Pentagon Papers, which leads to the Nixon administration suing the Times to halt further publication.

Under intense pressure, Graham frets over the legal ramifications of the Post publishing the secret files obtained from Ellsberg while Hanks’ Bradlee scrambles with his staff to distill thousands of pages into articles fit to print under strict deadlines.

THE POST can serve as a companion piece and a prequel to Alan J. Pakula’s, ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, as it ends where that essential Watergate expose begins, but it stands on its own as a solid, stately tribute to the power of the free press.

Since Hanks, Streep, and Spielberg, all at the top of their game here, have already won multiple Oscars, they may cancel themselves out of the race.

So may co-screenwriter Josh Singer, who won last year for SPOTLIGHT, cinematographer Janusz Kamiński, who’s already won two Oscars for Spielberg films; and composer John Williams, whose won five (count ‘em – five, and three were for Spielberg movies), so I can see this movie not winning anything (it didn’t win any of the six Golden Globes it was up for), but it won’t matter because THE POST is an Oscar-caliber film regardless.

See it so you can see that what is going on now has gone on before, and since it was overcome then, it can be fought and won against again.

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A Couple Of Spielbergers To Go: One With Extra Cheese, One With Extra Action

WAR HORSE & THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN

Without a doubt, Steven Spielberg is the most celebrated film maker of our times.

With JAWS, he practically invented the notion of the event blockbuster, and his movies, including the iconic Indiana Jones series and the JURASSIC PARK franchise, have grossed billions more than any other film maker could imagine.

This year, along with the usual CGI-saturated multiplex mayhem that owes a debt to the man, Spielberg was paid tribute to in Greg Mottola’s sci-fi fanboy satire PAUL (in which he had a voice only cameo), and J.J. Abram’s CLOSE ENCOUNTERS/E.T. homage SUPER 8 (which he co-produced).

‘Tis the season for Spielberg to step up to the plate himself, as the man has 2 movies to unleash on holiday movie-goers: the WW I epic drama WAR HORSE, and the CGI-animated THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN. Both are set in the first half of the 20th century, and both are, you know, for kids!

WAR HORSE evokes the golden age of Hollywood, when movies were first making the change from black and white to vivid Technicolor. A friend, Will Fonvielle, said it was “like a John Ford” film, and that nails it precisely – so much so that it looks like every other critic is making the comparison. In telling the simple story of a horse named Joey, who leaves a small farm in the English county of Devon to serve in the first World War.

Through a series of extremely well orchestrated battle scenes, Joey goes from serving the British to aiding the German army, before finding his way back to his original owner Jeremy Irvine.

Emily Watson and Peter Mullan play Irvine's parents, with Tom Hiddleston, David Thewlis, and Benedict Cumberbatch portray solidiers in the trenches, but, hey, you know it's all about the horse, as we can see in lots of Joey's close-up reaction shots.

Spielberg heavily lays on the sentiment, John Williams’ score leaves no moment unpunctuated by swelling strings, and long-time Spielberg cinematographer Janusz Kamiński fills the screen with gorgeous scenery that looks like it was all shot at golden hour.

In other words, WAR HORSE is another powerfully cheesy crowd pleaser by the master of powerfully cheesy crowd pleasers.

Based on the world popular, yet not so well known in America, series of comic books by Belgian writer/artist Hergé, THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN is also a crowd pleaser, but one that tries way too hard. I read the Tintin books when I was a kid, and I really don’t remember them being jam packed with high octane action, yet that’s what you get in Spielberg’s first animated film as director.

Spielberg was reportedly turned onto Tintin when a critic made a comparison between RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, and the globe-trotting tales of Hergé’s boy hero, and therein lies the problem – even with the involvement of purist Peter Jackson (co-producer), Tintin and his world is too Indiana Jones-ified.

Tintin, voiced by Jamie Bell, and his white fox terrier Snowy (who like all animals in Spielberg movies is as smart or smarter than the humans - a trait he must’ve learned from Disney), join with the crusty boozing Captain Haddock (a hilarious but often indecipherable Andy Serkis), and the bumbling cops the Thompson Twins (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost), on a wild treasure hunt involving scrolls found in model ships, which are sought by the sinister Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine (Daniel Craig).

The performance capture imagery has come a long way since THE POLAR EXPRESS, with beautifully brisk vistas flashing by as Tintin engages in chases, fights, and all kinds of frantic, fast paced fury, but it’s way too busy to be truly engaging.

The plot may be impenetrable to those unfamiliar with the books, John Williams’ score cribs too heavily from his Indiana Jones soundtrack work, and it has a way too blatant set-up for a sequel, a la the end of BACK TO THE FUTURE (which, of course, Spielberg executive produced), but a franchise is what Jackson and Spielberg have been planning for ages, so that’s a given.

That said, the fun witty spirit of the original Tintin does rear its head every now and then. If only they slowed down the onslaught of nonstop thrills enough to get a better glimpse of it.

It’s funny to note that even in an animated Spielberg feature there’s lens flare going on. Old habits die hard, huh?

Despite their ample defects, WAR HORSE and THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN, are both prime popcorn pictures that don’t care about anything but entertaining tons of people.

That they will do this Christmas weekend, when many folks will be looking for a good excuse to get out of house. Spielberg’s brand of family friendly fare will surely suffice.

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