I ♥ Geena Davis Circa 1986-1996

You know what's sad? What's sad is that you don't see much of Geena Davis these days. What's also sad is that she made less than twenty films in her career as a massive-mouthed, doe-eyed, phenomenally leggy, heartbreakingly beautiful actress.

In honour of Geena's 55th birthday, which was exactly four months and eleven days ago, I decided it was time to take a long, dreamy look at her in six of her greatest films from the undeniable purple patch that emerged from a telepod with The Fly in 1986 and died screaming with The Long Kiss Goodnight ten years later.

*FAIR WARNING: CONTAINS LOVE FOR CUTTHROAT ISLAND*

The Fly (1986)

Geena plays massive-mouthed, doe-eyed, phenomenally leggy, heartbreakingly beautiful, spectacularly-monikered science journalist Veronica Quaife in this cautionary tale about the dangers of two people with identical hairstyles falling in love. She may not be as memorable as the inside-out baboon or the pickled todger in the bathroom cabinet, but The Fly brought Geena to the attention of Hollywood, and as a result she owned the next decade. And when I say "owned", I mean "starred in some more films during".


Moment Of Geenius: The heartbreaking finale in which Geena forces herself to shoot a giant rubber special effect lent pathos to what could have been one of cinema's most ludicrous scenes.

Beetle Juice (1988)

Geena plays massive-mouthed, doe-eyed, phenomenally leggy, heartbreakingly beautiful but tragically deceased housewife and useless ghost Barbara Maitland in Tim Burton's 'spooktacular' (kill me now) comedy. As if that wasn't bad enough, she's also married to Alec Baldwin and is trapped in the afterlife in the world's frumpiest dress. Still gorgeous though, even at the end when she becomes a shrivelled, crumbling cadaver. Yeah, I dig corpses. I suppose that's frowned upon these days, is it?


Moment Of Geenius: I bet Helena Bonham Carter couldn't do this:

Thelma & Louise (1991)

Geena plays massive-mouthed, doe-eyed, phenomenally leggy, heartbreakingly beautiful put-upon housewife Thelma in this Ridley Scott masterpiece. From frilly doormat to gun-toting convenience store-holder-upper, Geena is completely believable as she careers further along the road trip from hell, and was bastard unlucky to be up against Jodie Foster for the Best Actress Oscar. Still, it was this role that meant she got equal billing to Tom Hanks, Matthew Modine and Samuel L Jackson in the future, such was the value of her stock. Plus! She wears some really small pants.

Moment of Geenius: Having spent most of the film being more of a hindrance than a help, Thelma finally takes charge of the situation by pointing a revolver at a particularly wet cop. Which isn't to say this is how one should prove that one is in control, but if you're Geena Davis you can lock me in my boot any day.

A League Of Their Own (1992)

Geena plays massive-mouthed, doe-eyed, phenomenally leggy, heartbreakingly beautiful baseball playeress Dottie Hinson in this perfectly adequate chick flick slash sports movie that I absolutely did not cry at whilst watching recently. With her carefully applied dirt make up and glorious auburn locks tumbling playfully over her sculpted shoulders, Geena is officially the sexiest female baseball player in movie history. Although her nearest competition is Madonna, and I wouldn't touch her with yours. 


Moment of Geenius: The splits catch. If I lived with Geena I'd constantly throw valuable breakables at her so she did this all the time.

Cutthroat Island (1995)

Geena plays massive-mouthed, doe-eyed, phenomenally leggy, heartbreakingly beautiful "notorious lady pyrate" Morgan Adams in this tragically underrated swashbuckler that beat Pirates Of The Caribbean to the screen by eight years and (controversy alert) is more enjoyable than any instalments of The Jack Sparrow Show. Geena's hubby Renny Harlin directs, ensuring plenty of slow-motion close-ups of his missus, and the film is all the better for it. What's more, she does plenty of her own stunts and fights, and she's bloody good at it.

Moment Of Geenius: The amazing climactic half-hour battle features some choice Geena action as she buckles her swash and rogers her jolly, or whatever you have to say in blog posts about pirate films these days. Whatever, she'd kick Keira Knightley's skinny ass right off the plank.

The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)

Geena plays massive-mouthed, doe-eyed, phenomenally leggy, heartbreakingly beautiful amnesia chick Samantha Caine - and her alter-ego, assassinatrix Charly Baltimore - in this rollicking action flick from Renny Harlin, by now known as 'Mr Geena Davis'. As the cuddly and lovable housewife Geena's hardly stretching it, but by the time she's bleached her hair, gone mental with the eyeliner and shot everyone in sight she's completely convincing despite playing against type. If I could swap my parents for anyone in the movies, I'd have Charly Baltimore and Mitch Henessey.

Moment Of Geenius: There are so many: firing a gun while leaping out of a building; firing a gun while ice skating; firing a gun while hanging from fairy lights and yelling "DIE SCREAMING MOTHERFUCKER!!". But the moment Samantha finally 'becomes' Charly, firing a gun while strapped to a water wheel and being dunked in near-freezing water, is Geena's greatest moment in this film, and probably ever.

Tragically Geena's post-'96 screen future held little more than Stuart Little films and TV shows, but I think she'd be comforted to know that there will always be a small corner of the internet devoted to her greatest work. And, of course, a small shrine made of some of her hair, toenail clippings and possibly some sanitary items in a cupboard somewhere in North London.

Inglourious Basterds

Well I went to see Inglourious Basterds, and immediately wished I hadn’t. If you like your films filled with vast tracts of dialogue about absolutely nothing, occasionally sprinkled with eruptions of ferocious violence shot with the care and attention of a tender love scene (which is essentially every Quentin Tarantino film), this is for you. It's a bit like sitting through a two and a half hour geography lesson in which the teacher pauses briefly every 30 minutes to lovingly but very noisily stick a fork into a student's eye in a slow motion close up.

Tarantino is clearly at the point where he believes his own press and nobody dares tell him that, you know, perhaps that one scene didn't need to last 20 minutes, and in fact the whole story could have been told in half an hour. Yes, you need time to build tension, but we're only tense because we know it's a Tarantino film and any minute now somebody's going to get their tongue pinned to the bar with a white hot poker and have their stool kicked from under them so they turn themselves inside out before they hit the floor in a quivering pile of viscera. Or something like that.

Inglourious Basterds is only slightly better than Tarantino's last film, Death Proof, because the actors are better. Christoph Waltz stands out as a terrifying SS colonel, although even Shia LaBeouf would be better than enduring Zoe Bell's portrayal of Woody the Woodpecker on top of a wooden shed full of wood in the middle of a wood in Death Proof*. As an actress she makes an excellent stuntwoman. Oh hang on, she is a stuntwoman. Keep your trap shut then and get back on the bonnet of that speeding car!

In other, entirely unrelated news (i.e. it’s about some good films made by a good director), you people have voted for both Alien (correctly) and Thelma & Louise (incorrectly) in equal numbers as the greatest Ridley Scott films, like, ever. Nobody voted for American Gangster, which is a) surprising, as it scored 8 out of 10 on IMDb, and b) unsurprising, because finding anyone who’s actually seen it is harder than finding a good film in a Shia LaBeouf filmography.

This week, go on, tell me what The Greatest Quentin Tarantino Film, Like, Ever is. I was going to throw a Shyamalan and make it What’s The Most Overrated Tarantino Film, Like, Ever, but the answer would be all of them.


The Itchy & Scratchy Show and Quentin Tarantino - The best bloopers are here

*I’m suggesting that she’s wooden

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Trouser-Browning Terror

Glorified Hovis salesman Ridley Scott is apparently preparing a prequel to his masterpiece, Alien. As you know, Alien is a completely perfect film, which clamped itself to the face of moviedom, shoved a tentacle down its throat and left a little something in its belly, which burst forth from the very ribcage of cinema in the shape of Aliens, another completely perfect film.

Aliens then went on to do a big sloppy poo on the lounge carpet, which appeared to be called Alien Cubed, and that poo had a little worm living in it which became Alien Resurrection, but we do not speak of such things here at The Incredible Suit.

Having put you off your lunch, let me get on with this prequel nonsense. Much as I love Alien, Ridley Scott is one of those directors – like Tim Burton and Martin Scorsese – whose films I blindly look forward to and hope will be fantastic, despite knowing full well that they frequently turn out to be a bit cack. Blade Runner? Not bad, but hardly the second coming it’s made out to be. Gladiator? Overrated. Hannibal? I’d rather eat my own brains.

So I’m afraid I can’t get excited about an Alien prequel. If it absolutely must be made (it mustn’t) then I suppose Scott’s the man to do it (or James Cameron), but I can’t see how it’ll work. Alien and Aliens succeed because we identify with the humans and share their trouser-browning terror at the prospect of an unsolicited trepanning at the hands of a vicious space beastie. But for a prequel to work it would have to show how the Aliens got involved with the ‘Space Jockey’, the fossilized, horribly violated creature we see near the beginning of Alien in the derelict spacecraft. Personally I’d rather not know; I can make up my own backstory for him. Maybe he was an intergalactic pizza delivery boy who turned up at the Aliens’ house 45 minutes late with the wrong topping and forgot the garlic bread, in which case he got everything he deserved.

My point is, the story would require the complete absence of humans to remain plausible, and the only successful movies not to feature any actual, genuine, living, breathing people are the High School Musical films.

There are dozens more obstacles in the way of this project, so if Ridders pulls it off it’ll be a minor miracle. In which case I’ll be only too happy to blog about it and say, “I told you it would be brilliant”, and that’ll be the poster quote you’ll see at bus stops and train stations the world over.

The Incredible Suit's Top 5 Ridley Scott films:
1. Alien
2. Blade Runner
3. Thelma & Louise
4. Er…
5. Hmm.

Of course what I really want to know is: What’s your greatest Ridley Scott film, like, ever? I know, let’s do a poll! Which reminds me, The Breakfast Club was your favourite John Hughes film. You’re wrong. Weird Science is tiptops.

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