#chipzien

HOWARD THE DUCK: A Movie Under-Appreciated

PLEASE do yourself a favor and relive the wonderment of 1986′s “HOWARD THE DUCK”!!!!!

I’m totally watching Howard The Duck right now (”Howard...THE DUCK!..” YES amazing song that will remain in your head forever upon first listening hahaha) and I have ALWAYS loved this movie!

I hear that this movie does not favor well with the movie critics, but I think this movie is SO entertaining and FUN that it’s okay it’s not critically received well.

This movie is too much fun and the music is awesome, the ensemble cast is totally solid (Lea Thompson was kind of my first boyhood crush - KiM gives me guff about it, but you know what - I’ve heard too much about Russell Crowe’s toosh so I think it’s okay I say this LOL!...............man.........He was Awesome in Gladiator... LOL...KiM’s going to slap me for saying that LOL!)

ANYWAY...  I think “Hunger City” is a good song - I was jammin’ to it earlier. Did you know that Lea Thompson actually sang all of her parts on her own, and I saw her talking in like a interview and she was saying how she wasn’t sure if they were going to use her voice or replace her - but they ended up keeping her vocals in (SO Cool!) - and I think she kicks ASS! This whole movie KICKS ASS! There was a team of people who all played Howard The Duck (which is awesome to see in the credits like 9 people playing Howard) - and friggin’ TIM ROBBINS!

Tim Robbins is AMAZING in “Shawshank Redemption” - he is AMAZING in that movie....Second to this one (LMFAO!!!). For me, personally - when I was younger, I fell in love with the story of Shawshank Redemption because it’s just an awe-inspiring story - but like Tim Robbins was a younger actor in Howard The Duck and he was (according to interviews from fellow crew) genuinely trying his best to make a great show/performance. His style is rad, his acting is campy and kinda corny but like... I really like corny humor, and like well-humored upbeat characters. Even if it’s not a real person, the portrayal is from a real person, and Tim Robbins really had fun with this and I cannot praise these people any more - i’m gonna hurl, they’ve already got so much in life probably lol, oh well - it’s all well-deserved praise.

Ed Gale is probably the main person who was acting as Howard The Duck and I saw him sayin’ like he couldn’t see anything because of the mask on his head. He was saying in an interview something about having to apply muscle-memory to his blocking (literally having to retrace his steps backwards, and counting each step and remembering the necessary movements to like do the scene while not being able to speak to Lea or any of those other great actors... he had to work on top of his work, that’s amazing).

So, for anyone who doesn’t know, blocking is basically the movement of a character (or a few) throughout a scene when it’s shot. It’s basically the physical direction of character movement to accomplish the necessary shots/angles/positions to film the scene with a bit more structure...I’m not a film student so don’t quote me, I only have independent experience as a bad actor (lol) as well as a variety of other experience from my younger years.

Overall, this movie is totally under-appreciated.. Well, I guess it’s not under-appreciated, but I guess it was just a little too out-there for average folks at the time. Plus, who the hell wants to see a woman get intimate with... a Duck from another planet... LOL I’m sorry I can’t type this without laughing at how ridiculous that sentence was, I just realized how absurd it is to even type about this I can’t stop cracking up Oh my GOD.

Watch this movie - check out the sweet tunes, aaaaaand boycott CGI Howard (LMFAO). Just kiddin i’m playin’ but yeah seriously - Give ALL actors a chance - how the heck would ‘Willow’ have been if Warwick Davis wasn’t in it? I hope I’ve made my point.

“HOWARD...
...THE DUCK!” - ATOMIK 1

P.S. OH! and Chip Zien did a totally RADICAL job providing his voice as Howard The Duck. He cracks me up.  

It’s weddings season!

Do you have a favorite wedding story? Was it a disaster? A shcoker?

Chip Zien as Maury and Tyne Daly as Judy Steinberg with Harriet Harris as Georgette and Michael X. Martin as George Howard. Photo by Joan Marcus.

In It Shoulda Been You, at the Brooks Atkinson, the stress and distress happens during the Steinberg-Howard nuptials at the Saint George Hotel.

As at any wedding, one minute you’re…