Culture on My Mind
*batteries not included
July 26, 2024

I’m thinking about Spielberg-style alien encounters.

One of the movies that resonates from my childhood is *batteries not included. It’s the story of Faye and Frank Riley, an elderly couple who manage an aging apartment building and attached café in the East Village. The building is targeted by an unscrupulous property developer named Lacey who will stop at nothing to finish his fancy skyscraper. Lacey hires a local criminal named Carlos and his small gang to bully the tenants into moving, leaving an artist named Mason, a pregnant woman named Maria, a retired boxer named Harry, and the Rileys to defend their home.

The alien encounter comes in when sentient spaceships arrive and start repairing things. The pair of “Fix-Its” eventually have children and a small adventure with an arsonist before the film’s big happy ending.

It’s a simple film with simple stories, and that’s what makes it charming. The building tenants are wholesome people trying to make ends meet. In light of the US economy in 1987 – it had slowed significantly after the longest peacetime expansion in the country’s history and crashed on Black Monday in October, causing $1.7 billon in worldwide losses – the story was easily relatable for my family. In fact, with the deus ex machina of the Fix-Its, it becomes a modern-day fairy tale. It represents the power of family and loyalty in the face of unchecked greed disguised as progress, and it shows how a little bit of pride in a neighborhood and its history can improve everyone’s lives.

The story was originally slated for Spielberg’s Amazing Stories television series, but Spielberg liked the idea so much that it was developed as a feature film produced by Amblin Entertainment (Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, and Frank Marshall) and Universal Pictures. It was co-written by director Matthew Robbins and Brad Bird. This was Bird’s first feature film, and he’d go on to The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, and Tomorrowland.

The cast is great, including Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy in the lead roles, but my favorite character is Harry Noble. Frank McRae was a professional football player for the Chicago Bears, so he was built for this role as a retired boxer. Frank Riley’s character emphasizes Harry’s fighting past, but Frank McRae sells the silent pacifist who only raises his hands in defense. I love how he is the one who can stop, listen, and become a lighthouse for the Fix-Its with a pop culture quip.

The rest of the cast falls in behind McRae on my list, each showing strengths like love and loyalty as they become a chosen family. Even Carlos, who travels a redemption arc that ends on a down note, is a wonderful character.

Equally wonderful is the music. James Horner is one of my favorite film composers and his work on *batteries not included is fun and evocative of 1950s swing and jazz. It’s light and hopeful with enough darkness and sorrow where appropriate. 

The staging and prop work is another highlight. The exterior shots included a three-sided four-story façade surrounded by 50 truckloads of rubble. It was so authentic that the sanitation department picked up prop trash bags, customers stopped by to eat at the faux diner, and a business agent questioned the lack of a builder’s permit for the new construction.

The film had a mixed reception, earning $65.1 million on a $25 million budget. Siskel and Ebert were divided with the former calling it a comic book with “the best pages torn out” while the latter praised it.

I love it despite the low-budget approach. It’s not a deep film to be remembered in the annals of the best of all time, but it tells a story that means something. It’s comfort food cinema, and sometimes that’s all you need.

Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

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