Earth Girls Are Easy

Earth Girls Are Easy is a 1988 American musical romantic comedy science fiction film that was produced by Tony Garnett, Duncan Henderson, and Terrence E. McNally and was directed by Julien Temple. The film stars Geena Davis, Julie Brown, Jeff Goldblum, Damon Wayans and Jim Carrey.[2] The plot is based on the song "Earth Girls Are Easy" from Julie Brown's 1984 mini-album Goddess in Progress.[3]

Earth Girls Are Easy
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJulien Temple
Produced byTony Garnett
Duncan Henderson
Terrence E. McNally
Written byJulie Brown
Charlie Coffey
Terrence E. McNally
Starring
Music byRay Colcord
Nile Rodgers
Julie Brown
CinematographyOliver Stapleton
Edited byRichard Halsey
Production
company
Distributed byVestron Pictures
Release date
  • September 8, 1988 (1988-09-08) (TIFF)
  • May 12, 1989 (1989-05-12) (United States)
Running time
100 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$10 million (estimated)
Box office$3.9 million[1]

Plot

Three furry aliens—the blue Mac, the yellow Zeebo, and the red Wiploc—are traveling in a space ship. It has been a long time since they have had female companionship, and they receive a broadcast showing human females. They are titillated by these "hairless", shapely creatures, and when they discover that the broadcast came from Earth, they set off and land in Southern California.

Valley girl Valerie Gail is a manicurist at the "Curl Up & Dye" hair salon. When she becomes dissatisfied with the lack of sexual affection from her fiancé, medical doctor Ted Gallagher, she decides to seduce him by dressing up in lingerie and setting up some romantic touches at home. Instead, she catches him cheating on her with his nurse. She kicks him out and refuses to see him again. The next day, she is sunbathing when the aliens' spaceship crash lands in her pool. She befriends them and calls her friend Woody to come drain the pool so the aliens can work on their ship and get it flying again. Meanwhile, she brings them into her home; and, though there is a language barrier at first, the aliens prove to be quick learners and absorb American pop culture and language by watching television.

Wanting them to blend into their surroundings, Valerie takes them to her friend Candy Pink at the salon. After shaving off the aliens' fur, they turn out to be human-looking and attractive. They all go out; and party at Los Angeles nightclubs where their looks, athleticism, and incredibly long tongues soon catch the eyes of every woman in the place. Valerie and Mac begin to fall for each other and go back to Valerie's house. There, they find out that they are anatomically compatible and have sex.

The next day, the pool is drained, and Zeebo and Wiploc are working on their ship when Woody stops by and offers to take them to the beach. They agree; and, after accidentally holding up a convenience store, Zeebo and Wiploc are soon driving down the L.A. Freeway the wrong way, in reverse, with the police in pursuit. Mac finds out his crew mates are in trouble and goes to help and gets arrested along with Woody in a case of mistaken identity. Valerie smashes the police vehicle to get arrested too, so she can go with Mac.

The police pursuit ends in a crash, and Zeebo and Wiploc are taken to the emergency room. There, they are examined by Ted, who discovers they have two hearts. While he is envisioning achieving fame and fortune from his discovery, Valerie and Mac elude the police and enter the emergency room disguised as a doctor and a nurse; they manage to convince Ted he is delusional. They then escape back to Valerie's house where work continues on the space ship. Meanwhile, Valerie and Ted reconcile and plan to go to Las Vegas to get married immediately.

Mac is heartbroken and prepares the ship for take-off. Valerie comes out to say good-bye, followed by Ted, who discovers the ship. While she is struggling to keep him from calling the authorities, Valerie comes to the realization that Mac is the one she truly loves. She gets on the space ship, and they take off.

Cast

Production

Originally the film was slated to go into production in 1986 for Warner Bros. but the studio lost confidence in the project when director Julien Temple's previous film, Absolute Beginners, proved to be a dismal box office failure. The role of Valerie Gail was offered to some of the era's box-office draws such as Madonna and Molly Ringwald, but when they rejected it, Warner Bros. dropped the project. Several other studios expressed interest in producing the movie, but none wanted Temple to direct. Ultimately, French bank Crédit Lyonnais agreed to finance the film with Temple at the helm (if $4 million was shaved off of the film's estimated $14 million budget) and the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group agreed to distribute it.[4]

Principal photography was finally underway in late 1987 and Temple brought his own ideas to the project, including peppering the background with then modern sounding pop songs, featuring an homage to The Nutty Professor and using iconic model/actress Angelyne in a brief cameo (the director declared her "the patron Saint of Los Angeles").[5] However, Temple's studious eye for detail caused delays on the set,[5] and according to producer Tony Garnett, "The first cut we had of the picture was a problem."[4] The film underwent more than five months of post-production tinkering, including the removal of numerous scenes and the production number "I Like 'em Big and Stupid" (a different version of the song plays in the club scene; the deleted sequence appears on the DVD extras) and reshoots later commenced (the song "'Cause I'm a Blonde" was injected into the film late in production), by which time the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group had filed for bankruptcy.[4]

The finished print of the film had several very positive previews, which captured the interest of potential distributors Nelson Entertainment, New World, MGM and 20th Century Fox, but ultimately Vestron Pictures picked up the distribution rights.[4] The film debuted at the Toronto Festival of Festivals in September 1988 and was slated to be released the following February,[4] but legal entanglements delayed its release until May 1989.[6]

Reception

Roger Ebert concluded, "Earth Girls Are Easy is silly and predictable and as permanent as a feather in the wind, but I had fun watching it."[7] Leonard Maltin called it an "infectiously goofy musical" and went on to cite some "good laughs and an endearing performance by Davis."[8] Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editor George Anderson gushed over the absurdity of the film, declaring the film "is so cheerful about so many stupid things that you cannot, in good conscience, endorse it, but you may be tempted to adopt it."[9] Some criticized the film for being "less a movie than a stretched-out, padded [music] video."[10]

Box office returns were low, with the film earning only a little more than a third of its $10 million production cost;[11] but it ultimately developed a cult following, mainly due to Jim Carrey's later success as a film comedian, which strongly renewed interest in his earlier films. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 68% based on 34 reviews. The critical consensus says, "Earth Girls Are Easy is messy, silly, and not particularly bright -- qualities it comes by honestly and deliberately".[12] On Metacritic it has a score of 66% based on reviews from 16 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[13]

Legacy

The film has inspired American singer Britney Spears and Australian rapper Iggy Azalea's music video for their 2015 song "Pretty Girls".[14]

Award nominations

Fantasporto

Independent Spirit Awards

  • Nominated: Best Cinematography, Oliver Stapleton (1990)

Golden Raspberry Awards

  • Nominated: Worst Supporting Actress, Angelyne (1990)

Soundtrack

A soundtrack album was released on vinyl, cassette and CD[16] by Sire Records on May 9, 1989[17] to coincide with the May 12 release of the film. Most of the songs on the album are different mixes than were heard in the movie, several songs from the film were omitted altogether and Geena Davis' song "The Ground You Walk On" was replaced with a rendition by Jill Jones. The album is out of print.

Royalty's song "Baby Gonna Shake" was issued as a single (available in several formats with numerous remix variations)[18] and Hall & Oates' rendition of "Love Train" was released as a single backed with the film's title song, performed by The N.[19]

No.TitleWriter(s)PerformerLength
1."Love Train"Kenny Gamble, Leon HuffHall & Oates3:45
2."Baby Gonna Shake"Stephen Bray, Linda MallahRoyalty4:24
3."Hit Me"Paul RobbInformation Society5:08
4."The Ground You Walk On"Billy Steinberg, Tom KellyJill Jones4:15
5."Earth Girls Are Easy"Julie Brown, Charles Coffey, Terrence McNally, Sterling SmithThe N3:43
6."(Shake That) Cosmic Thing"Kate Pierson, Cindy Wilson, Fred Schneider, Keith StricklandThe B-52's3:51
7."Route 66 (The Nile Rodgers Mix)"Bobby TroupDepeche Mode4:09
8."Who Do You Love?"Ellas McDanielThe Jesus and Mary Chain4:04
9."Throb"Stewart CopelandStewart Copeland2:09
10."Brand New Girl"Julie Brown, Charles Coffey, Dennis PooreJulie Brown3:42
11."'Cause I'm a Blonde"Julie Brown, Charles Coffey, Dennis PooreJulie Brown2:15

Stage show

Beginning on September 16, 2001, there were several staged reading/performances of a musical play version of the film. Based on the movie's screenplay and written by Charlie Coffey and Michael Herrmann, Julie Brown reprised her role of Candy, Kristin Chenoweth took over the role of Valerie, Marc Kudisch assumed the role of Ted and Hunter Foster was cast as Mac. Although costumes and props were utilized, there were no sets and the actors carried their scripts around the stage—these stagings were merely devised to find investors for the show.

The play did not feature any original songs; the performers sang renditions of 1980s pop songs along with several numbers from the film. The play followed the film's story and scenes pretty closely, but a lot of new dialogue was written, a few characters were omitted and there were some other slight deviations. Audio and video recordings of the September 30, 2002 staging are circulating, and several video clips from this performance have surfaced on YouTube.

Despite positive reaction, the timing of the initial staging was bad (coming mere days after the September 11 attacks), and even after subsequent readings, the show never attained the investors needed to become a full-blown production.[20]

Cast

Musical numbers
gollark: I forgot that Python would stringify integers if you `print`ed them.
gollark: Oh, right, it doesn't have to be a string, silly me.
gollark: Maybe I could make a HQ9+ extension for this useful task.
gollark: Hmm, I would use HQ9+ but `9` doesn't print only ones.
gollark: And for most not-very-eso languages it'll look pretty much like that.

References
  1. Earth Girls Are Easy at Box Office Mojo
  2. James, Caryn (May 12, 1989). "Earth Girls Are Easy (1989) Review/Film; On Shaving, Furry Aliens Turn Into Valley Guys". The New York Times.
  3. "Valley Girl Is Only One Shade of Julie Brown". The Los Angeles Times. February 8, 1990.
  4. Rebello, Stephen (November 1988). Grounded By Earth Girls And Lawyers, American Film Magazine. Billboard Publications, Inc. p. 39.
  5. Rochlin, Margy (November 1988). Has Julien Temple Gone Hollywood?. American Film Magazine. Billboard Publications, Inc. pp. 32, 35, 38.
  6. "Earth Girls Are Easy (1988) – Release Dates". imdb.com. Retrieved 2009-11-30.
  7. Roger Ebert. "Earth Girls Are Easy". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2020-07-01.
  8. Maltin, Leonard (2005). Leonard Maltin's 2006 Movie Guide. Signet Books. p. 369.
  9. "Spacey 'Girls' Easy to Like". news.google.com. Retrieved 2009-11-30.
  10. "Deseret News Movie Reviews: Earth Girls Are Easy". deseretnews.com. Retrieved 2009-11-30.
  11. "Box office/business for Earth Girls Are Easy". imdb.com. Retrieved 2009-11-30.
  12. "Earth Girls are Easy (1989)". Rotten Tomatoes.
  13. "Earth Girls Are Easy". Metacritic. Retrieved 2020-07-01.
  14. "Earth Girls Are Easy". Mtv.com
  15. "Awards". IMDb. Retrieved June 30, 2016
  16. "SoundtrackCollector: Soundtrack Details: Earth Girls Are Easy". soundtrackcollector.com. Retrieved 2009-11-30.
  17. "amazon.com: Earth Girls Are Easy". amazon.com. Retrieved 2009-11-30.
  18. "Royalty Discography at Discogs)". discogs.com. Retrieved 2009-11-30.
  19. "Hall & Oates Singles 1985–89". hallandoates.de. Retrieved 2009-11-30.
  20. "Talkin Broadway: What's New at the Rialto?". talkingbroadway.com. Retrieved 2009-11-29.
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