Earth Girls Are Easy (1989)

In the 90's, there were two Julie Browns on one channel. MTV. One was the wubba wubba wubba fashionista. The other was a wild redhead who sang songs like "Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun." One guess which one we preferred?Written by Brown (along with frequent collaborator Charlie Coffey and Terrence McNally) and directed by Julian Temple (a groundbreaking video director who also was in the chair for The Great Rock 'n Roll Swindle with the Sex Pistols and Absolute Beginners), this movie was a troubled production, with over five months of post-production that led to several scenes and even an entire production number being removed. Due to the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group going out of business, the film went unscreened for over a year.Three aliens - Mac (Jeff Goldblum, Jurassic Park), Zeebo (Damon Wayans, The Last Boy Scout) and Wiploc (Jim Carrey, Man in the Moon) notice a broadcast from Earth filled with aerobics and half-naked women. They follow the signal to Earth and the home of Valerie (Geena Davis, The Long Kiss Goodnight), a manicurist who has lost her fiance, Ted (Charles Rocket, who famously said f*** on Saturday Night Live in an era where that would ruin your career). The aliens crash land in Valerie's pool and when she investigates, she smacks her head against the UFO.Mac decides to miniaturize her and bring her inside the ship. Why is the ship miniaturized? I've wondered the answer to this question for decades. The aliens quickly assimilate Earth culture via TV and get a makeover from Valerie's best friend Candy (Brown), then go to a nightclub where Mac and Valerie fall in love and Deebo has a long dance battle that defies any description that I can writeValerie and Mac make love while Zeebo and Wiploc go to the beach with pool boy Woody (Michael McKean, This is Spinal Tap). Through some miscommunication, they end up robbing a convenience store and get arrested, along with Mac and Valerie, who have come to rescue them.The aliens are taken to Ted's hospital, where he learns that they are aliens. Valerie and Mac convince him that he's gone insane and take everyone back to her house, where the aliens prepare to leave for their home planet. Thinking that Mac has picked his home planet over her, Valerie plans on marrying Ted in Las Vegas. Of course, she soon realizes the error of her ways and goes into space to be with her true love.The soundtrack is rich with the music of the 80's: Hall & Oates, Information Society, the B-52's, Depeche Mode, the Jesus and Mary Chain and several songs by Brown, including "Brand New Girl," "Earth Girls Are Easy" and "Cause I'm a Blonde."This is a movie packed with fun. It's the kind of future that the 50's thought that the 80's would be. Throw in an appearance by the "patron saint of Los Angeles" Angelyne and you have a time capsule of the goofier side of MTV era pop culture.BONUS: Frankenstein and Calamity Jane's cars from Death Race 2000 and Robby the Robot make cameos in the film, as well as the lectroids from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension!

I have always loved this movie. It's a harmless very superficial super silly science fiction comedy. It's set in "the Valley" with all the colorful 80's fashions and empty-headed easy- going people. This film is very light weight fun. Maybe a little too wacky for audiences when it was released in 1989. It seemed to have gone nowhere when it could have been the great kitsch summer film that year. It had the stars: Jeff Goldblum, a young Jim Carrey and Damon Wayans and the super hot Geena Davis!!! Geena could have been a HUGE star but she seemed to have disappeared during the 90's. She was beautiful and cute at the same time and funny, with a tall hot body. Why did she just sort of vanish????When I re-saw this film I could see why it wasn't a hit. It's a bit too loose and wacky. The direction by Julian Temple is too slack: many of the jokes just misfire and go past unnoticed because the staging is bad. He seemed to have taken just one take of each shot. The musical parts are badly put together and the music (which I still love) pretty weak. The best thing in this film is Julie Brown with her too few scenes and songs!

This is probably the greatest movie I have ever seen. Intelligent, profound, anachronistic, this is the kind of timeless classic that defines a generation and lets us know, as human beings, where exactly we are in the universe. Not only that, but the bright neon colors and happy noises amuse my little brother, who unfortunately has an IQ of 70. Julie Brown should have won an Emmy, a Grammy, a Tony, an Oscar, and a Peabody for her performance. What I like about this movie is that it is not dated at all. Big hair, late 1980s music, and Geena Davis are always in style, no matter if its the 1790s or the 2050s. The only thing that troubles me is, if Geena Davis is so smart, how come she can't pick good movies to be in anymore?

As was noted in another comment, this is one of those movies where you just sit back for a somewhat enjoyable ride. Davis, as usual, looks spectacular (still does) and plays the part perfectly: Kind of dumb but not as dumb as one would expect (by the way, what do all those dumb people do when they get older and cannot rely on their looks anymore?). This is your typical Valley Girl movie with all the usual characters and bells and whistles one would expect from nothing but fluff. But sometimes we need just plain fluff. Something that does not require too many brain cells to watch. And this movie fits the bill. Brown's musical numbers fit in well and flush out the movie, and as usual she's good at what she does. And though every character is over the top, it works.