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''Earth Girls Are Easy'' is a 1988 American
science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), charac ...
romantic comedy Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a sub-genre of comedy and Romance novel, romance fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount all obstacles. Ro ...
film that was produced by
Tony Garnett Anthony Garnett (3 April 1936 – 12 January 2020) was a British film and television producer, and actor. Best known for his thirteen-year association with director Ken Loach, his work as a producer continued into the 21st century. Early life ...
, Duncan Henderson, and Terrence E. McNally and was directed by
Julien Temple Julien Temple (born 26 November 1953) is a British film, documentary and music video director. He began his career with short films featuring the Sex Pistols, and has continued with various off-beat projects, including ''The Great Rock 'n' Roll ...
. The film stars
Geena Davis Virginia Elizabeth "Geena" Davis (born January 21, 1956) is an American actor. She is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. Davis made her acting debut in the satirical romantic comedy ''Toots ...
, Julie Brown,
Charles Rocket Charles Adams Claverie (August 28, 1949 – October 7, 2005), known by stage names Charlie Hamburger, Charlie Kennedy, and Charles Rocket, was an American actor. He was a cast member on ''Saturday Night Live,'' played the villain Nicholas Andre ...
, Jeff Goldblum,
Damon Wayans Damon Kyle Wayans Sr. (; born September 4, 1960) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, producer, and writer. A member of the Wayans family of entertainers, Damon performed as a comedian and actor throughout the 1980s, including a brief stint ...
, and
Jim Carrey James Eugene Carrey (; born January 17, 1962) is a Canadian and American actor and comedian. Known primarily for his energetic slapstick performances, he has received two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for BAFTA Awards and ...
. The plot is based on the song "Earth Girls Are Easy" from Brown's 1984 EP '' Goddess in Progress''.


Plot

In the
San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County, California. Situated to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it comprises a large portion of Los Angeles, the Municipal corpo ...
, Valerie Gail works as a
manicurist A nail technician or nail stylist is a person whose occupation is to style and shape a person's nails. This is achieved using a combination of decorating nails with coloured varnish, transfers, gems or glitter. Basic treatments include manicure ...
at the Curl Up & Dye salon. Dissatisfied with the lack of sexual interest from her fiancé, Dr. Ted Gallagher, she receives a makeover from her friend and the salon manager, Candy Pink. That night, Valerie sets out to seduce Ted, but instead, he arrives home with a nurse. Heartbroken and angry, Valerie kicks him out and destroys his belongings. Meanwhile, three furry aliens—Mac, Zeebo, and Wiploc—from planet Jhazalla are traveling in a spaceship. 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. A fight between Zeebo and Wiploc causes the spaceship to plummet toward Earth, and they crash land into Valerie's swimming pool while she sunbathes. Valerie is frightened at first, but then she invites the aliens into her home. She calls her surf bum friend Woody to come over and drain the pool so the aliens can repair their ship. Despite a
language barrier A language barrier is a figurative phrase used primarily to refer to linguistic barriers to communication, i.e. the difficulties in communication experienced by people or groups originally speaking different languages (or different dialects in ...
, the aliens prove to be quick learners and absorb American pop culture and language by watching television. Ted tries to call Valerie and leaves a message informing her that he will return home later that night. Fearing Ted's reaction, Valerie takes Mac, Zeebo, and Wiploc to the salon. Although initially scared, Candy agrees to help the aliens blend into their surroundings. After having their fur shaved off, the aliens turn out to be human-looking and attractive. The group decides to go out and party at a local nightclub, where the aliens' 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. Ted arrives home and, finding Valerie missing, calls the police. She soon arrives with the aliens, claiming she won an
MTV MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...
contest to spend the weekend with a rock band. Ted angrily demands that the aliens leave, but when two police officers arrive, Valerie tells them that Ted is attacking her guests. As the officers escort Ted away, he calls off the wedding. Despondent, Valerie retreats to her bedroom and Mac goes in to console her. They discover that they are anatomically compatible and have sex. The next day, the pool is fully 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 a freeway the wrong way, in reverse, with the police in pursuit. Mac discovers his crew mates are in trouble and goes to help, but 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 spaceship. Meanwhile, Valerie and Ted reconcile and plan to elope to
Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...
immediately. Mac is heartbroken and prepares the ship for takeoff. Valerie goes to say goodbye to her alien friends, followed by Ted, who discovers the ship. While struggling to keep him from calling the authorities, Valerie realizes that Mac is the one she truly loves. She boards the spaceship and they take off.


Cast


Production

After the release of Julie Brown's 1984 EP '' Goddess in Progress'', Warner Bros. Pictures began writing a musical comedy based on the song "Earth Girls Are Easy", starring Brown. The film was to have a screenplay written by Brown, Terrence McNally, and Charlie Coffey. The film was originally slated to go into production in 1986, but the studio lost confidence in the project when director
Julien Temple Julien Temple (born 26 November 1953) is a British film, documentary and music video director. He began his career with short films featuring the Sex Pistols, and has continued with various off-beat projects, including ''The Great Rock 'n' Roll ...
's previous film, '' Absolute Beginners'' (1986), 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 Madonna Louise Ciccone ( ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Referred to as the "Queen of Pop", she has been recognized for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, ...
and
Molly Ringwald Molly Kathleen Ringwald (born February 18, 1968) is an American actress, writer, and translator. She began her career as a child actress on the sitcoms ''Diff'rent Strokes'' and '' The Facts of Life'' (both 1979–1980) before being nominated for ...
, but when they rejected it, Warner Bros. dropped the project. Several other studios expressed interest in producing the film, but none wanted Temple to direct. Ultimately, French bank
Crédit Lyonnais The Crédit Lyonnais (, "Lyon Credit ompany) was a major French bank, created in 1863 and absorbed by former rival Crédit Agricole in 2003. Its head office was initially in Lyon but moved to Paris in 1882. In the early years of the 20th cen ...
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. Principal photography was finally underway in late 1987. 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'' (1963), and using media personality Angelyne in a brief cameo (the director declared her "the patron Saint of Los Angeles"). However, Temple's studious eye for detail caused delays on the set, and according to producer Tony Garnett, "The first cut we had of the picture was a problem." 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. The finished print of the film had several very positive previews, which captured the interest of potential distributors Nelson Entertainment,
New World The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...
, MGM/UA,
Carolco Pictures Carolco Pictures, Inc. was an American independent film studio that was founded by Mario Kassar and Andrew G. Vajna in 1976. Kassar and Vajna ran Carolco together until 1989, when Vajna left to form Cinergi Pictures. Carolco hit its peak in th ...
, Lorimar Studios, and
20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc., formerly 20th Century Fox, is an American film studio, film production and Film distributor, distribution company owned by the Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios, the film studios division of the ...
, but ultimately Vestron Pictures acquired the distribution rights. The film debuted at the
Toronto Festival of Festivals The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...
in September 1988 and was slated to be released the following February, but legal entanglements delayed its release until May 1989.


Reception


Box office

Box office returns were low, with the film earning only a little more than a third of its $10 million production cost. The film grossed £172,880 in the United Kingdom.


Critical response

On the
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website
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, the film holds an approval rating of 68% based on 38 reviews, with an average rating of 5.6/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "''Earth Girls Are Easy'' is messy, silly, and not particularly bright – qualities it comes by honestly and deliberately."
Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, which uses a
weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...
, assigned the film a score of 66 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.
Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...
concluded, "''Earth Girls Are Easy'' is silly and predictable and as permanent as a feather in the wind, but I had fun watching it." ''
Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide ''Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide'' was a book-format collection of movie capsule reviews that began in 1969, was updated biannually after 1978, and then annually after 1986. The final edition was published in September 2014. It was originally calle ...
'' called it an " fectiously goofy musical" and went on to cite "some good laughs" and "an endearing performance by Davis". George Anderson of the ''
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', also known simply as the PG, is the largest newspaper serving Greater Pittsburgh, metropolitan Pittsburgh in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Descended from the ''Pittsburgh Gazette'', established in 1786 as the fi ...
'' gushed over the absurdity of the story, and how fun the film was, saying it "is so cheerful about so many stupid things that you cannot, in good conscience, endorse it, but you may be tempted to adopt it." Chris Hicks of the ''
Deseret News The ''Deseret News'' () is a multi-platform newspaper based in Salt Lake City, published by Deseret News Publishing Company, a subsidiary of Deseret Management Corporation, which is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS ...
'' criticized the film for being "less a movie than a stretched-out, padded usicvideo."


Accolades


Soundtrack

The accompanying soundtrack album was released on
vinyl Vinyl may refer to: Chemistry * Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer * Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation * Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry * Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from vinyl ...
, cassette and CD by
Sire Records Sire Records (formerly Sire Records Company) is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Records. History Beginnings The label was founded in 1966 as Sire Productions by Seymour Stein and Richard Gotteh ...
on May 9, 1989. Most of the songs on the album are different mixes than were heard in the film, 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. Royalty's song "Baby Gonna Shake" was issued as a single (available in several formats with numerous remix variations) and
Hall & Oates Daryl Hall & John Oates, commonly known as Hall & Oates, were an American Rock music, rock duo formed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1970. Daryl Hall was generally the lead vocalist, while John Oates primarily supplied electric guitar and ba ...
' rendition of " Love Train" was released as a single backed with the film's title song, performed by
The N The N (standing for Noggin) was a prime time and late-night block programming, programming block on the Noggin (brand), Noggin television channel, aimed at preteens and teenagers. It was launched on April 1, 2002, by MTV Networks and Sesame Works ...
.


Legacy

The film served as inspiration for the music video for the 2015 song " Pretty Girls" by American singer
Britney Spears Britney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981) is an American singer. Often referred to as the "Princess of Pop", she has sold over 150 million records worldwide, making her one of the world's best-selling music artists. Cultural impact of Brit ...
and Australian rapper
Iggy Azalea Amethyst Amelia Kelly (born 7 June 1990), known professionally as Iggy Azalea ( ), is an Australian rapper. Born in Sydney, Azalea moved to the United States at the age of 16 in order to pursue a career in music. She earned public recognition ...
.


Stage show

Beginning on September 16, 2001, there were several staged readings/performances of a musical play version of the film. Based on the film's screenplay and written by Charlie Coffey and Michael Herrmann, Brown reprised her role as Candy,
Kristin Chenoweth Kristin Dawn Chenoweth (; born Kristi Dawn Chenoweth; July 24, 1968)Kristin Cheno ...
took over the role of Valerie,
Marc Kudisch Marc Kudisch (born September 22, 1966) is an American stage actor, who is best known for his musical theatre roles on Broadway. Early life and education Kudisch was born in Hackensack, New Jersey, the son of Florence and Raymond Kudisch. His fam ...
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 The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
), and even after subsequent readings, the show never attained the investors needed to become a full-blown production.


Cast

*
Kristin Chenoweth Kristin Dawn Chenoweth (; born Kristi Dawn Chenoweth; July 24, 1968)Kristin Cheno ...
as Valerie Gail * Julie Brown as Candy Pink *
Marc Kudisch Marc Kudisch (born September 22, 1966) is an American stage actor, who is best known for his musical theatre roles on Broadway. Early life and education Kudisch was born in Hackensack, New Jersey, the son of Florence and Raymond Kudisch. His fam ...
as Dr. Ted Gallagher * Hunter Foster as Mac * Deven May as Wiploc * Lisa Capps as Nurse/Ensemble * Roxanne Barlow as Security Guard/Ensemble * Steve Wilson as Security Guard/Ensemble


Musical numbers

;Act I * " (Shake That) Cosmic Thing" –
The B-52's The B-52s, originally presented as the B-52's (with an errant apostrophe; used until 2008), are an American band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1976. The original lineup consisted of Fred Schneider (vocals, percussion), Kate Pierson (vocals, k ...
(heard on radio) * "Earth Girls Are Easy" – The N (heard on radio) * "
Eternal Flame An eternal flame is a flame, lamp or torch that burns for an indefinite time. Most eternal flames are ignited and tended intentionally, but some are natural phenomena caused by natural gas leaks, peat fires and coal seam fires, all of which ca ...
" – Valerie * "Brand New Girl" – Candy, Valerie & Ensemble * " (Let's Get) Physical" – Ted and Nurse * " Heart of Glass" – Valerie * " California Girls" (partial) – Mac and Wiploc * "
Funkytown "Funkytown" is a song by American disco-funk group Lipps Inc., written and produced by Steven Greenberg and released by Casablanca Records in March 1980 as the second single from the group's debut studio album, '' Mouth to Mouth'' (1979). T ...
" – Ensemble * " I Like 'em Big and Stupid" – Candy ;Act II * " True Colors" – Mac * " Atomic" – Valerie * "
Roam "Roam" is a song by American New wave music, new wave band the B-52's released as the third single from their fifth studio album, ''Cosmic Thing'' (1989). The vocals are sung by Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson. The B-52's worked with a co-writer, R ...
" – Entire Cast * " Just Like Fred Astaire" – Mac & Valerie * "'Cause I'm a Blonde" – Candy * "Should Have Known Better" – Ted * "Moonblind" – Mac and Valerie * "Scary Kisses" – Valerie, Mac & Cast


References


External links

* * *
Movie stills
at Film.virtual-history.com {{Julien Temple 1980s American films 1980s English-language films 1980s musical comedy films 1980s romantic musical films 1980s science fiction comedy films 1988 films 1988 independent films 1988 romantic comedy films 1988 science fiction films American independent films American musical comedy films American romantic comedy films American romantic musical films American science fiction comedy films American science fiction romance films De Laurentiis Entertainment Group films English-language independent films English-language musical comedy films English-language science fiction comedy films Films about extraterrestrial life Films based on songs Films directed by Julien Temple Films set in Los Angeles Films set in the San Fernando Valley Films shot in Los Angeles Films with screenplays by Charlie Coffey (writer) Films with screenplays by Julie Brown Science fiction musical films Vestron Pictures films English-language romantic comedy films English-language romantic musical films 1988 musical films