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The Simpsons: Lisa's Rival (1994)
A Self-Indulgent Journey Into a Mind Better Left Unexplored
If you are reading this for the first time, I'm sorry you had to find out this way. I will be the first to admit I don't understand everything, no more than an ant trudging in front of a smart TV in a dark room understands why the room went black because the TV restarted after a system update. What I do know is that The Simpsons Episodes 6.1 Bart of Darkness and 6.2 Lisa's Rival marked a turning point in the history of humanity as we understand it. Let me explain.
I first recognized the importance of 6.2 because of Mr. Largo. After a battle with her younger and more accomplished competitor Alison (the titular "rival") for first chair saxophone, Lisa soon realizes that 2nd best is all she can hope for. Taking herself past the limit blowing that golden horn, Lisa passes out and awakens to see band teacher Largo staring into her newly conscious face. However, it is to the viewer that Largo directs his emphatic "This is not a dream!" This perspective device has been used by The Simpsons before, for example Dr. Hibbert asking if "you" can solve who shot Mr. Burns before showing us that he was in fact talking to Chief Wiggum. In this instance I realized that Largo doth protest too much, the message is an attempt to throw me and any other sleuths off the scent of the earth-shaking truth revealed in the episode that I can still only barely comprehend.
After arousing my suspicions as to the importance of episode 6.2 in the big picture of human history as we know it, so many other clues began to confirm what I had already begun to believe. For example, the Northridge Earthquake famously occurred during the creation of both episodes 6.1 and 6.2, and I believe it is part of a great reset. While I must preface this by saying that I am not seeking to diminish the losses suffered by family members of the victims, it was only after I realized the significance of both the number 57 as well as the quake itself that I discovered that 57 was also the number of fatalities attributed to the deadly event.
Second, episode 6.2 aired on September 11, 1994. Of course this was exactly 7 years before one of the most famous dates in American history, which itself was exactly 7 more years before the birth of my first child (9/11/08). An event of 9/11/15 will be examined below, and 9/11/22 remains to be seen. The episode number 6.2 also has personal significance to me, as I wrote my first (and as of now only) novel not long after the events of 9/11/01 (without regard to a seemingly random Simpsons episode) and it was titled 62.
Third, as I watched 6.2 more closely I noted other strange connections: the Milhouse on-the-run storyline ends up as a parody of the film that is the subject of my first re-view on this site. The square root of the difference between the last four digits of the phone number on the back of the sugar truck (3872) and the product of my birth month and day (28) is 62. The episode also features an anagram game showing off the skill of Alison, voiced by Winona Ryder -- an anagram of her name is New Ordinary.
As these clues came together I finally realized what I am about to tell you, and again please understand that I do not have all the answers. By revealing as much as I am right now I have no idea what the consequences will be. If this should be the last re-view I am able to submit then I will at least try to upload a re-re-view at the bottom of one that is already posted, and if it comes to that I will try to leave clues to what is happening to me by what I write or what movie it is for.
The Wachowskis. Roger Ebert. Bo Burnham. This is the short list of people who may have had knowledge of this information at one time or another. It is possible that in the Wachowskis' original idea notebooks the true nature of reality was discovered, pre-9/11/94. However, what ultimately became The Matrix (hereinafter referred to by its proper name Matr9) in 1999 was arguably more of a diversion from the truth than if the film was never made. In the episode Lisa is given a red rubber ball by Alison's father, representing Lisa's possible acceptance of ignorance over knowledge. However the Wachowskis got it backwards, with the red pill of Morpheus intended to be the rejection of ignorance. Such an obvious mistake by people with an otherwise high level of comprehension is clear evidence that the Wachowskis were likely aware of the truth before both the Northridge Quake and the airing of 6.2 on 9/11/94 reset their understanding.
Roger Ebert was a prophet of our times, a religious leader whose followers had no idea they were even in a religion. According to his beloved wife Chaz Ebert, RE's final message began with "This is all an elaborate hoax" which seems to confirm he was given a glimpse of true reality in honor of his contributions to his art.
The evidence for the Bo Burnham connection was the last piece of the puzzle. Creating the definitive soundtrack for the era of COVID with the songs from Inside, BB suggested in Goodbye "How bout I sit on the couch and I watch you next time?" and asks "Am I going crazy? Would I even know? Am I right back where I started 14 years ago?" All very fitting. To be sure that I had all the angles on this thing I forced myself to ingest various intoxicants and watched 6.1 and 6.2 one more time. Though nothing new popped from 6.2, I quickly realized the jab at George Meany in 6.1--essentially that Meany on Classic Krusty discussing labor relations is one of the only ways to make beloved TV completely boring--was important. Meany died on January 10, 1980. Going back to the last 4 digits of the phone number on the back of the sugar truck in 6.2, 3,872 days after the death of George Meany was August 27, 1990. BB was born August 21, 1990. It therefore appears Bo Burnham may be a godlike figure or messiah that took six days to be created, all foretold by the episode even with BB just having celebrated his 4th birthday the month before it aired. To further confirm his importance, when I researched performances at the Largo theater in Los Angeles, which moved from its original location to the current one on June 2, 2008 (6/2), the scheduled act on 9/11/15 at Largo at the Coronet was Bo Burnham and Friends.
While I have laid out a great deal of evidence here I have not explained what it all means. Having considered the possible repercussions of sharing this in a public forum I do not want to say too much, and I may already have. I will just say that either with the Northridge quake, the airing of 6.2 on 9//11/94, or possibly both, there was a great system reset that set back the movement to understand our true reality. I hope to have the chance to explain further, if not here then I will just say, as in the Simpsons opening credits, watch for me in the clouds. I also warn you all that if Bo Burnham ever sings "Summer Wind" at the Largo then our world will cease to exist soon thereafter. Warning has been issued, and may mercy be granted to all our souls. 1.
Don Henley: The Boys of Summer (1984)
A Fan of College Wrestling Figures It Out
Radio City Music Hall, September 13, 1985. One music video towered above all others to win the night at the second annual MTV VMAs, surrounded by a Who's Who of the biggest stars: Tears for Fears, David Lee Roth, Grace Jones, Corey Hart, and so many others who could never make it onto today's MTV even if they were catfishing Rob Dyrdek.
Don Henley had no idea what that award-winning video was all about, he just knew that he rode around on the back of a truck getting filmed lip-synching those beautiful lyrics. As you will see from the analysis below, the video is both influential and problematic, but the real story is the song itself. If you do the comprehensive research that I have done on the subject of the meaning of this song you will find the same wrong interpretations splashed all over the internet, some crap about aging, lost love, and a tourist town at the end of the season or whatever. Sorry web detectives, there are three plausible interpretations and none of them is that nonsense.
Post-Apocalyptic Boys of Summer
"Nobody on the road
Nobody on the beach
I feel it in the air
The summer's out of reach
Empty lake, empty streets
The sun goes down alone
I'm driving by your house
Though I know you're not home"
The first verse evokes feelings of emptiness, absence, an omega man wandering the deserted landscape after a global plague.
"Out on the road today, I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac
A little voice inside my head said, Don't look back. You can never look back."
Rather than the Grateful Dead this reference could refer to Deadhead, the dystopian leader of the Boys of Summer, a gang pillaging the Mad Max-like wasteland. Though Deadhead leaves a trademark sticker on abandoned vehicles in the roadway to instill fear in the scattered survivors of the pandemic, the narrator refuses to look over his shoulder out of fear and even makes a promise to his lost love that he will still feel the same even after this murderous band has been eradicated and the world regains a semblance of normalcy.
Interesting theory, but wrong.
Promiscuous Boy of Summer
"And I can tell you my love for you will still be strong
After the boys of summer have gone"
If you study the lyrics carefully and check your heteronormativity at the door you realize there is never any indication that the love interest in the song is a woman. The boys of summer could therefore be the gay narrator's summer flings that make up his "hot boys summer" before hoping to go back to his more serious romantic relationship.
Before explaining the third (and correct) interpretation of the song I must discuss director Jean-Baptiste Mondino's five minute film. If you came of age in the relevant period you cannot disassociate the song from the video, likely visualizing the song as black & white as well as picturing the people in the song as a white couple happily running along a beautiful deserted beach. Wake up! You have been hypnotized by an artistic whitewashing of the highest magnitude. "But I can see you- Your brown skin shinin' in the sun" cannot be any more clear. Since when does a reference to someone having brown skin with zero other context automatically refer to a white woman with a tan? Apparently only in the world of Mondino, a world where buff twins practice their shirtless volleyball blocks with a chain link fence as their net.
The True Meaning of the Song
"Nobody on the road
Nobody on the beach
I feel it in the air
The summer's out of reach
Empty lake, empty streets
The sun goes down alone
I'm driving by your house
Though I know you're not home"
Due to the influence of the video and the word beach in the song, many analysts incorrectly understand the location to be coastal. However, the reference to the empty lake is key. The events in the song take place in either Illinois, Ohio, or Pennsylvania, the beach being a man-made lakefront beach not the Pacific or Atlantic. Summer is ending, the days are getting shorter as fall begins.
"But I can see you-
Your brown skin shinin' in the sun
You got your hair combed back and your sunglasses on, baby
And I can tell you my love for you will still be strong
After the boys of summer have gone"
The narrator is picturing the Black woman he loves, the image in his mind of her sun-kissed beauty still vivid despite her not being with him now. He makes his initial promise to keep his love for her strong after the boys of summer have gone, which is the key to understanding the song as you will see.
"I never will forget those nights
I wonder if it was a dream
Remember how you made me crazy?
Remember how I made you scream
Now I don't understand what happened to our love
But babe, I'm gonna get you back
I'm gonna show you what I'm made of"
A passionate relationship to be sure, with a double-entendre about their big fights and their great physical chemistry. We are also provided the first confirmation that the relationship ended, with the narrator still in disbelief but committed to winning her back.
"I can see you-
Your brown skin shinin' in the sun
I see you walking real slow and you're smilin' at everyone
I can tell you my love for you will still be strong
After the boys of summer have gone"
Imagining her smiling and happy, walking in slow motion. Again the promise to still love her after the boys of summer have gone, but what does that mean? Analysts have one thing right: "after the boys of summer have gone" refers to the end of the Major League baseball season, in October. Brace yourself for the truth- the narrator is an obsessed fan of college wrestling. The beginning of the college wrestling season coincides with the end of the baseball season, and the narrator has ruined his relationship(s) in the past by all but disappearing from October-March as he followed his favorite team.
Now comes the most pivotal verse, and please note my inserted BANG as the most important part in the narrator's journey.
"Out on the road today, I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac
A little voice inside my head said, Don't look back. You can never look back
I thought I knew what love was
What did I know?
Those days are gone forever
I should just let them go but-
BANG
I can see you-
Your brown skin shinin' in the sun
You got that top pulled down and that radio on, baby
And I can tell you my love for you will still be strong
After the boys of summer have gone"
The reference to the counter-culture Grateful Dead sticker on the 1980s establishment symbol Cadillac is the narrator's way of saying some people have figured out how to have it both ways. Why can't he find a woman who will tough out those months when he all but disappears into his college wrestling fandom? Why is he still hung up on her, looking back, not listening to the little voice telling him that he should move on? The self-doubt, what did I even know about love, I should let those days go but... BANG you can hear it as he makes his decision, thinking back once again to this amazing woman, possibly topless though that could be her convertible he is referring to, but she is so perfect for him that he will be there for her all year even if it means less fan trips to road duals and open tournaments. The rugged elemental beauty of college wrestling pales in comparison to his brown-skinned love and he promises to correctly prioritize the two. This is the Boys of Summer.
A final note, the title of Henley's album Building the Perfect Beast might lead one to believe that rather than a fan of college wrestling the song refers to a high school or college wrestling coach. While wrestling coaches are certainly even more busy from October-March, it would be a terrible miscalculation to believe that they are not also busy the other months of the year, including summer with various greco and freestyle events as well as instructional camps. The song is about a fan, the end.
Once (2006)
I Eleven was Blind, but Now I See
If you are anything like me, and you should thank your personal God that you are not, you sometimes "save" a movie to watch when the time is right. For example, as a 14-year-old in March 1992 since I missed seeing Boyz N the Hood in the theater I eagerly rented the VHS from the nearby Stars and Stripes Video Store the first day the tape came out. Our family had company at the house that afternoon, and they really wanted to see the movie. Sorry Rich and Ted, but this one had to be screened alone in a dark room without any interruptions such as your hypothetical reactions or the slightest human breathing. Fast forward 30 years.
I don't know exactly when I became aware that this movie was something I would probably like. It was just always there, waiting for me like a half-remembered Twinkie from 2007. Finally in January 2022 I decided the time was right to eat that Twinkie. Some things are worth waiting for, and other things are Die Hard 5. You may see this on a standardized test someday: Once is to Die Hard 5 as Die Hard is to (blank). The answer is Rocky V.
Once I saw Once, once I saw Once for the second time the next day, once I saw Once for the third time the day after that, once I did all of those things the scales fell from my eyes and I could finally see. I could see why the makers of an Irish film titled it Once, the Spanish word for eleven. I could see why I related so much to these two unnamed main characters. I could even see, finally and for once, the purpose and meaning of human existence as we understand (or do not understand) it. For the first two I will explain below. For the third you will just have to hope you can someday acquire a copy of my as now unfinished book (spoiler: it doesn't have anything to do with the plot of this movie, it was just a coincidence that I was watching it at the time, but still that has to mean something).
Perhaps no film better delivers on the promise of its opening line in so many ways as this one does, with the Guy (Glen Hansbard) beautifully foreshadowing (captured mid-song) "the healing has begun." And it has, for him, for the Girl (Marketa Irglova), for anyone watching who is hurting in some way. By the time the two play their first song together, in a mostly-empty music shop, you either buy in completely to this thing or else you hate it. If it is the latter then I don't know what to tell ya man, kick rocks. Actually no, leave those rocks unkicked. If you think the music is awful then you can enjoy the film in an entirely different way, the story of two terrible musicians who delude themselves into thinking they have something to share with the world and you can let your imagination run wild thinking of all the crushing disappointments they will suffer (after the events depicted in the film) before finally being spit out the bottom of the theme park singing character industry.
If you have read some of my other re-views (or even just this one) you might be thinking "this guy is a few strings short of a fully functioning guitar upstairs." Well, what if you were in the Dublin commercial district and saw a young woman walking her vacuum cleaner down the street by its hose like a bulldog on a leash? What if not long after that you were outside a convenience store in the same area late night and saw the same young lady in pajamas and fuzzy slippers walking the streets singing to her Discman. What if the guy that fixed your vacuum cleaner sat in his bedroom at Dad's house writing countless melancholy songs about the ex-girlfriend who broke his heart and then played them on an empty street with the volume on his imaginary amp turned up to an eleven? It all makes sense in context, just as every word of every re-view I have written on this site is as normal and sane as the words Moses once heard coming from that burning bush.
Now about that title, the main reasons to believe this film's name was intended to mean Eleven (in English) are:
1. If you feel these songs you will listen to them for at least 11 straight days after you first hear them.
2. 11 is the number for "will they or won't they" couples. For clarification the number for actual couples is 2, swinger couples 21, and the number for participants in an unattached menage is not 3 but rather 111.
3. If 10 is the number of ultimate perfection (10/10 as a rating scale for example) then 11 is post-perfection (you can't spew cliches like "giving 110%" or "I give it an 11/10" without an 11 in there somewhere). This film therefore might just receive the coveted Doce de Once Estrellas.
Bad Santa (2003)
The Bob Chipeska Memorial Low-Carb Interactive Sensory Experience for Non-Smoking Omnivores
This re-view is for the weight-conscious sobers out there who are confident enough in their situations to spend 2 hours watching an actor (Billy Bob Thornton) embody destructive drinking as well as anyone ever has on screen. It's called the Bob Chipeska Memorial Low-Carb Interactive Sensory Experience for Non-Smoking Omnivores. DO NOT ATTEMPT. It is written in the past tense second person because in a way you have already done it, you just don't remember it. Even though no one has actually done it and no one remembers it.
Supply list that you had:
DVD of Badder Santa extended cut
Stolichnaya Vodka
Old Granddad Kentucky bourbon (hereinafter OGD)
Bottle of low carb beer (Corona premier)(2.6 carbs)
Chopped caesar salad kit (Dole) and white plastic fork (remove crushed crouton packet)(3 carbs)
Slice of low carb bread (Aunt Millie's white)(1 carb)
Slice of bologna (Eckrich deli beef)(1 carb)
Salsa (Cocina Fresca medium-hot Habanero)(<1 carb)
One lime, paring knife, and cutting board (<1 carb)
Powder stool softener (MiraLax) and glass of water with metal spoon
Gatorade Zero Orange (<1 carb)
Keto Mylk
Diet lemonade (Canada Dry Ginger Ale-Lemonade)
Diet cola with straw (Chery Coke Zero)
Rotisserie chicken - cold
10 pieces of popcorn (<1 carb)
Shot glasses (9)
Scratch-off lottery ticket (gift card)
Santa hat
$10 bill
Chocolate (Trader Joe's Ugandan Dark Chocolate Bar)(2 carbs)
Loofa
Washcloth
Golf club (9 iron)
Key fob
Vial of Angelina Jolie's blood
You will notice one thing on this list was much harder to get than all the others, but since you applied yourself, scoured the globe, and look like a combination of Brad Pitt and Billy Bob Thornton, you were able to obtain that highly sought after item, the Canada Dry.
Pre-movie prep:
Added to the separate shot glasses 7 portions of Old Grandad and 2 portions of Stoli. You knew better than to make them full shots; 16 shots and one beer in 2 hours could be fatal. Do not attempt.
Opening scene: you drank the first OGD when Willie downs the shot.
4:20 second drink of OGD. You did not soil yourself but thought about it.
6:00 drank 1/3 of the beer. If you had gone with the preferred one bottle/one can you would have had 2/3 of the can then crinkled the aluminum slightly.
7:15 you fondled the loofa, thinking at least someone got one.
8:15 drank the third OGD.
9:00 paused the movie to get the first Stoli, the lime, knife, and cutting board. Resumed play and started cutting up the lime at 10:00. Got the juice on your fingers to remind you of the beach throughout the rest of the movie. Saved one wedge for adding small amount of lime juice to Stoli throughout. At 10:30 drank the first Stoli. At 10:55 paused and ran a lap around the house.
11:00 crossed your legs drank 1/3 of the bottled beer.
12:45 fondled your key fob, dropped on ground, times 4.
13:40 had a sip of the Keto Mylk and a bite of the cold rotisserie chicken.
14:50 scratched off the lottery ticket, which since you forgot to buy one was actually a Merry Christmas Wal-Mart gift card, so you scratched off the code on the back.
16:00 drank other 1/3 of the beer
16:30 second Stoli
19:25 started sipping the orange Gatorade when you saw the orange being peeled
20:15 fourth OGD. Then tried to figure out what the hell is a fraggle stick car and where can you get one.
21:40 blew your nose on your hand and wiped it on your shirt in Thurman Merman's honor
24:55 fifth OGD
25:25 sixth OGD
25:45 seventh OGD. This is why you didn't use full shots, you knew you wanted to live to someday watch this again.
27:30 Looked at the $10 bill to see if this guy knew something you don't.
30:30 You put on ski mask (un-holed version) to introduce yourself to spry granny
34:40 diet cola with a straw
35:30 more orange Gatorade.
38:00 yet another Oscar winner, more diet cola with a straw
39:25 You paused to soak the washcloth in hot water. Put in glasses 3 more OGDs and 4 more Stolis. Wrung out the washcloth then returned to unpause with eighth OGD while washcloth over your face until you heard "how old are they?"
40:45 more of the orange Gatorade
42:00 first 1/2 of the chocolate
42:20 after Willie was handed the lemonade you paused to prepare the caesar salad. Drank the diet ginger ale lemonade while prepping. Once complete put 1/2 of salad on paper plate, returned and unpaused, continuing to drink the lemonade and began eating the salad with a white plastic fork. After Jimmy's mom approached you yelled out "I'm on my (blanking) lunch break, ok!"
45:00 you stuck the dvd case in your waistband and covered with your shirt. At 45:30 you removed with a flourish and at 46:10 pulled your pants up like Urkel.
48:15 repeated with a grin the phrase "and the bag glows"
49:30 mixed some of the orange Gatorade with the third Stoli
51:30 ate the other 1/2 of the chocolate then drank the fourth Stoli
52:15 opened the vial of blood and smelled deeply, then at 53:00 drank the fifth Stoli. Washed down with a sip of the blood to get that harsh taste out of your mouth.
56:15 You paused when you heard the word "houseguests" for the third time, put the bologna slice in the pan on medium heat. Flipped occasionally until you saw char marks. Put it on the bread slice and topped with the salsa. Returned to unpause and ate the tostada. Pondered the lack of sugar free candy corn. Paused at "they can't all be winners, can they?"
57:50 readied the MiraLax, glass of water, and spoon before unpausing. Though your stool was likely already soft from what you ate and drank this past hour you added a small amount of the MiraLax to the water and unpaused, stirring briskly. Drank with same expression seen on Bernie Mac's face.
59:05 gave yourself a mild wedgie, quickly unwedged.
1:03:35 drank the ninth OGD
1:08:25 final (10th) OGD
1:11:00 rolled around on the floor pretending to clutch your wounded groin
1:19:00 final (6th) Stoli with the 10 kernels of popcorn
1:20:00 removed your socks and smelled them for sample of grandma's foot odor
1:26:00 swung the golf club like an ax (into a pillow) chopping down an imaginary mannequin
Finished all the remainders of any can and bottle drinks during the rest of the movie.
Even though no one did this, no one really enjoyed it. Do not attempt.
Total carbs: 9.
Pump Up the Volume (1990)
Teen Wolf 3: The Hunt for Kirk Lolley
When one ponders the existential point of this 1990 angsty classic many thoughts come to mind. From its graffito-tagged opening titles to the terrible closing imitator begging her nonexistent listeners to "turn on the truth" there is so much to unpack from just 101 minutes of glorious runtime, but here are three possible interpretations.
Interpretation A: a film about the trials of being a teen in Reagan/Bush America circa 1990.
With a name more suited to a conman on the grift, Mark Hunter (Christian Slater) ear-pleasures himself and eventually his suburban Arizona high school classmates with both a playlist of tunes that have not yet reached west of the Pecos River and a disturbing tendency to pretend on-air to be shopping at the jerk store. Mark also has the strange distinction of being the only person in America who prefers to look cooler sitting alone in his basement than when he goes outside, opting to only leave the house when he wears his gold-rimmed Clark Kents with his hands stuck so deep in his jeans pockets that he risks early-onset scoliosis.
We first meet several other notable characters at Triple-H high (strangely named for a Minnesota Democrat who was a key supporter of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, considering that in 1990 the Arizona electorate voted against MLK day) in the red-carpet-esque opening walkup to the 1200 student campus: The Billy-Idol-blonde rebel dude who would immediately die if he ever removed his black leather vest. The perky it-girl getting an academic pep talk from suspender-Daddy as he drops her off in the family Benz. The shop teacher/assistant principal/likely Minuteman volunteer border guard who prefers to accost students as they exit the school bus rather than pulling them out of class like a normal disciplinarian. The Principal who looks, talks, and acts like Richter from Total Recall if he also put on the dress and wig of the lady who can't stop saying "two weeks" before her head falls off. The fifty year old sophomore with a curly mullet wearing a vertical-striped short sleeve button down tucked into his K-Mart denim. Well that last one apparently had his other scenes left on the cutting room floor, but still.
As a subsequent montage of kids on their landlines talking to each other about an amazing radio show progresses, a 2022 viewer quickly realizes that if not for today's plethora of available streaming content and internet 'nography this type of innocent scene might still be playing out in teen bedrooms across the country. Thanks a lot, Al Gore.
Mark's radio alter ego, Hard Harry, also inspires kids all over Paradise Hills to send him letters that he reads over the air when he gets tired of complaining about how all the great ideas have already been thought of. Well guess what Mark, maybe if you spent a little less time pantomiming loud erotic self-flagellation you could have been the first to create such iconic fictional characters as Tyler Durden, Harry Potter, or Vin Diesel. One such letter is from Malcolm Kaiser, who sits in his room late at night listening to the radio while wearing for his pajama top a sweater vest over a collared shirt, to further distinguish him from his sloppy classmates.
After another successful segment of talking to himself Marky Harry Hark-on bops his way out of the basement with a five iron, sizing up a kill shot to his Pop's floppy-haired melon. His parents, halfway through a third bottle of wine and a carton of cigs, are oblivious to it all. At least one of them has the decency to keep the fridge stocked with Wild Cherry Diet Pepsi because you know Mark spent all his allowance on a Postal Center USA box rental and library fines. Mark creeps into Daddy's cluttered den where he steals a sensitive memo from a desk strangely covered in baby pictures.
The fun seems to be over when we find out that Hard Harry's amateur guidance counseling did not convince Malcolm X. Kaiser to go on living, but not so fast; Mark waits the customary 3 minutes and 45 seconds on air before resuming jokes about how boring it would be in heaven and the unfortunate bowel-emptying aftereffects of death. To give him credit, though, he does refrain from mentioning during the serious part of the monologue that he is literally "petting his lizard" and later opts not to make a joke about giving Paige Woodward an "exploding pearl necklace."
Though all Humphrey students become Harry Stans, a few words about superfan Nora Diniro: one day she rocks 50 plastic wrist bangles and a giant turtle medallion on a 2.4 karat gold chain, another day black jeans paired with a velvet shirt with late-Victorian-era collar that she stole backstage at a Prince concert, overlaid with Mardi Gras beads. The girl got style.
Mark Hunter ultimately brings down the system by inspiring other teens to take to the airwaves, but not before playing the aforementioned black leather vested Mazz into the most epically spectacular fail of a lifetime when Mazzy counts down to 10 p.m. Showtime in front of a flock of TV cameras with such a look of pure unadulterated joy only to be greeted with the most noxious dead air heard since the final gases of Malcolm Kaiser's decaying organs escaped his corpse in the Paradise Hills Mortuary (sorry but it has been over 3:45 since I started this).
Interpretation PHPD: a film about the complete and utter incompetence of a small-town Arizona police department.
When not offhandedly dismissing a 16 year-old's story of a shocking assault at the hands of three classmates, Detective Denny and his unnamed partner bumble through the investigation into the identity of Hard Harry worse than would a drunk Inspector Clouseau with a bag over his head. Consider:
A. Harry repeatedly refers to just moving to town from "Back East." At the emergency PTA meeting the damn Principal mentions Mark's Dad just moved here from the East Coast.
B. Mark is the only lame eating lunch with his best friend Paperback in the stairwell, just like Harry.
C. The Clarion (school newspaper) apparently has a new student photo section which appears to have no more than 15-20 males featured. How many of these came from "Back East" with access to confidential memos and the list of school employee phone numbers? Might I suggest betting the under on 1.5?
D. The brilliant detectives determine that the cordless phone base is within 1000 yards of Harry, then quickly give up as that part of the search grid might include literally dozens of addresses, a handful of HHH students, and one or two who recently moved to town. The mystery is just too complicated.
With help from the feds and a stealth helicopter that only makes sound when it swoops out from behind a giant oil pipeline the keystone kops finally get their man, but not before thoroughly embarrassing themselves.
Interpretation TW3: an edge-of-your-seat thriller that follows the cat-and-mouse, or more accurately wolf-and-snitch, game of death between a were-father and the government witness responsible for the death of a were-son.
The year was 1985, the setting the only town in Nebraska that had figured out how to cultivate palm trees. While hardware store owner Harold Howard was busy trying to ease his son Scott into werewolf life, the high school drama teacher Kirk Lolley realized that no one else was sufficiently exploiting the racial metaphor that everyone at Beacontown High was already thinking about after Scott transformed into a wolf during a basketball game and went full Globetrotter. Lolley's muse and underage mistress Pamela Wells, who Kirk urged in one on one after-school "acting lessons" to be more sensual, was cast as the heroic southern belle to Scott's dark Union soldier. Sample dialogue: "You can ravish my body, but I beg you with all that is decent and holy, don't destroy my plantation!" When Pamela took Scott's virginity in a backstage dressing room Lolley plotted revenge, a dish he eventually served cold.
After the events depicted in Teen Wolf, Kirk convinced a pregnant Pamela to give him the child which he reasonably thought was his second son. When the distraught teen recovered from her bout of postpartum depression and tried to recover her baby, Lolley beat her to death with a can of mauve paint containing Scott Howard's fingerprints. He also planted near Pamela's body the Union soldier jacket stained with Howard DNA from the dressing room encounter that he had been saving for this terrible opportunity. Kirk completed the frame-up by testifying falsely against the innocent wolf, resulting in Scott's swift execution by silver bullet at the behest of newly-elected Nebraska governor Kay Orr on January 28, 1987.
Scott's father Harold wolfed out on Lolley in front of Kirk's wife and kids at the premiere of the '87 school play. Just as Howard was about to rip out Lolley's throat he caught the scent of the baby's diaper and realized it was in fact Scott's progeny, temporarily stunning the grey wolf. Kirk and his family made a quick escape and were soon relocated to Hershey, Pennsylvania by the Nebraska WITSEC program, where Kirk was given the alias Brian Hunter.
The first couple years went well for the newly-named Hunter family out east. Older son Mark made some friends, and Brian's career as a school administrator blossomed. However, things took a tragic turn when Brian and wife Marla decided to dress the toddler as a Hershey's Kiss for Halloween '89; traces of silver in the elaborate costume killed the unsuspecting wolfchild, devastating the family and Mark in particular. Hoping for a fresh start they moved to Paradise Hills, Arizona.
When Mark found damning evidence in his "phony" Dad's desk he contemplated how to kill Brian, ultimately sending out a signal to Hardware Harold Howard, aka Hard Harry. As the news went national, Harold picked up the scent and impersonated FCC bigwig Arthur Watts. The desperate search for Kirk Lolley, now Brian Hunted, plays out in the film.
The Fast and the Furious (2001)
The Things We Do For Love
The one that started it all, FF1 slowly and calmly explores the depths of the human soul, all in a world overflowing with a dazzling array of mesh tank tops where the siren songs of Limp Bizkit ooze out of every overpriced trunk-installed subwoofer.
Undercover cop Brian Earl Spilner McGillicuddy O'Conner is tasked with tracking down an inefficient band of truckjackers after a series of robberies where they have hauled in a combined total of $6 million (*2001 retail value) of Panasonic DVD players and 13" TV/VCR combos (*2001 street value $6,000, 2022 value $6.00).
Embedding himself as a stockboy in popular boutique Harry's House of NOS and Chrome, Brian makes his first attempt at underworld entrée by stalking street-racing king Dom at the Toretto family cafe/junk shop. Brian saunters into the cafe for some sandwich banter with Dom's sister Mia, O'Sloppy's t-shirt neck so stretched out that national security experts agree it directly influenced the infamous white T worn by 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheik Muhammad in the photo taken at the time of his capture. With breath that surprisingly improves with a steady diet of bad tuna sandwiches, Officer O'Stinky finds himself on the wrong end of a hate crime when Dom's chum Vince attacks him outside the cafe. Dom eventually breaks up the fight and gets his first sampling of Spilner Speaks: Brian's answer to a rhetorical question of whether he is a serial killer is "Nah, man."
Cut off from his Starkist supplier and his Harry shopboy cover hanging on by a thread, Brian ups the ante while attending his first illegal street race. After rolling up in the taxpayers' Mitsubishi, Officer O'Blivious exits the vehicle looking like LA's most obvious narc since Keanu's Johnny Utah. With his hands in his pockets and a Gee Whiz look on his Opie face, it is not hard to see why the film's working title was The Fast and the Aw Shucks. Credit to Paul Walker's facial acting, though, as the viewer can read the rising horror on his features as he observes one at a time the mostly segregated groups of racers and race fans, Officer O'Busive's mental Rolodex spinning faster than his tires as he thinks back to all the POC he mistreated during profiling traffic stops when he was in uniform.
Wagering the People's pink slip (value $80,000) to gain entry in the $8,000 winner take all affair, Brian and the other drivers defy the laws of physics by taking 2 minutes to drive a quarter mile at speeds of up to 140 miles per hour, delaying an important Stuffed Crust delivery in the process. Plenty of other poor choices were also made post-race this night, each deserving special recognition:
A. Brian stays on the Dom trail despite a much more compelling investigation: whether two spraycan wielding finish line artists are able to crisscross from opposite sides of the street in a straight line without painting each others' shoes.
B. Even if the sudden swarm of squad cars is part of a bigger plan to allow Brian O'Buster to ingratiate himself to Dom with an improbable rescue (and since Dom is not in hiding, has a cafe and repair shop, and the cop chasing him knows his name, why the big chase?), the clumsy cops risk even more property damage than the straight-track street racers.
C. A general mistake by so-called Western Civilization both pre- and post-race: not giving K'ung Fu-Tze more love. Changing the pronunciation of his name to sound like "confuse us" to serve your own twisted purpose ranks right up there with anglicizing Cristoffa Corombo and rhyming Demi Moore's given name with phlegmy bore.
D. Mia back at home trying to study upstairs in her bedroom (Is she in high school? Slow down with those Snapples) with Dom's loser friends making an infernal racket downstairs.
E. Also at the Toretto house party another Spilner Speaks: "Hey buddy, you got a bathroom?" No, we just go in these Corona bottles, so wiping it off on your shirt ain't gonna help.
F. Mia fails to heed an obvious red flag: if you walk into a room with a dude you barely know and future FF franchise player Luda's voice suddenly says "I got hoes in different area codes" the dude you walked in the room with is shady as hell and you need to run as fast-ly and furiously as your little legs can carry you.
The next day Brian's sergeant (Buffalo Bill) stages an elaborate fake arrest to bring his boy in for a debriefing, oddly keeping the cuffs on all the way to the command center, where the hugely overstaffed joint LAPD-FBI task force assigned to recover the $6,000 in stolen Panasonics includes a barista specializing in whipped cream-topped peppermint mocha cappuccinos. Brian eventually secures more funding, this time for a fixer-upper burned-out Toyota Supra. Showing up at Dom's garage (apparently the cafe/junk shop was closed that day) with the tantalizing wreck, Officer O'Shady worms his way into the Toretto crew even though it means they get to see one less mesh tank top overlaying a camo undershirt for a few hours when Vince tantrums away in a screeching cloud of smoke.
As Officer O'Dishrag uses half an industrial-sized bottle of Joy splashing suds while trying to convince possibly-underaged Mia to go out with him, a sign of even more unethical behavior to come, his suspicions that Dom's crew did not steal truckloads of electronics seem to be confirmed when he notices the Toretto microwave does not work and they do not own a dishwasher (but seriously does Dom hate Mia because he just won $6,000 the other day and the average cost of a used portable dishwasher in 2001 was $120). Vince's misguided attempt to insult the dishboy then backfires spectacularly as Mia, likely tired of having to hand-wash all these damn dishes herself, cruelly dangles a date at a Cuban restaurant that Vince wanted to take her to just out of his reach before snatching it back and offering the date to Brian.
With Dom seemingly ruled out as a suspect due to the crappy microwave, Brian sets his sights on the Johnny Tran crew. During a warrantless search of Tran's garage where he spies a couple Panasonic DVD player boxes, he decides not to blow his cover and just watches a man being waterboarded with motor oil, a much more serious crime than the petty thefts he is supposedly investigating. When he reports back his illegally obtained findings the FBI wants to bust Tran, but Brian wisely (for once) cautions against it. The raid accomplishes nothing except traumatizing old Vietnamese people (an American standard, domestically for the new millennium) and driving Tran into a murderous rage.
Meanwhile things are heating up between Brian and Mia, and Dom (sort of) gives the match his blessing. Spilner Speaks even comes up with a perfect line: when Dom says "You break her heart I'll break your neck" Brian replies "That's not gonna happen" which could refer to either the heart or the neck.
Despite barely knowing Brian, almost everyone on Team Toretto overshares with him immediately: Jesse on his longtime struggle with AD/HD, Dom's traumatic memory of his father's horrific death, and Mia revealing that Letty was only 16 when Dom statched, excuse me, snatched her up. It could just be Brian's big dopey face, but regardless Officer O'Nethical takes advantage of Mia's misplaced trust with a tryst in Harry's shop (which has a bed in it for some reason).
Next stop: Race Wars, and there is only one happening there that demands to be addressed. If there is a big set of those moveable airplane stairs at a huge festival-like gathering and you take it upon yourselves to climb those stairs and dance at the top during the beginning of the throbbing-house-music-filled-transition-to-nighttime scene, at least have the common decency to have better dance moves than that, random uncredited extras.
Trying to put the dancers out of his mind, Officer O'Honesty finally blows his own cover to Mia to try to save her brother from the army of secretly armed truckers just waiting to blast any jackers who try them. Unfortunately for Vince and the rest of Team Toretto they picked the wrong guy when they tried to steal a load from KJ Transport. The driver is so eager to legally kill someone with his sawed-off shotgun that he willingly blasts his Peterbilt to shreds.
With the Spilner cover in similar tatters, Brian confronts Dom back at the house before being interrupted by a Tran motorcycle drive-by that kills Jesse (directly caused by the raid Brian approved while in a compromising position with Mia). After the Fast and the Aw Shucks give chase, Brian kills Tran then celebrates with a quarter mile race and train dodge combo with Dom.
As sirens approach the finish line, Brian O'Conner must make a life-altering decision. He chooses Mia and love, despite the fact that the major string attached is her hopeless and irredeemable brother. As the credits zoom across the screen the sweet sounds of Ja Rule close it out like the final night of Fyre Fest.
For modemmike. Who is still with us.
Goodfellas (1990)
Henry Hill, the (redacted) American (redacted)
In the history of film there can be no debate that Henry Hill, the subject of Scorcese's Goodfellas, represents all that is [note: the remainder of this review has been edited at the request of two visitors to my home. Both gentlemen loomed quite large as they approached me by the mailbox. The one wearing the red jacket from Thriller introduced himself as Paulie Zippers--possibly due to another jacket he was not wearing at the time. I came to learn the other's name was Joey Five Guns, though I only saw four] rat-infested and treacherous on this Earth, especially after all that his extended family did for Lil' Hanky the Rat as set forth below.
1. Provided him interesting viewing of the cab stand outside of childhood bedroom window
2. Gave him his first job despite his lack of any marketable skill
3. Taught him to drive Cadillacs
4. Assisted him in skipping boring school by intercepting mail
5. Allowed him to bypass the line at the local bakery
6. Intimidated neighborhood children into carrying his mother's groceries home
7. Tipped him for beverage service far above market rate
8. Paid for his lawyer and the gratuity for the Judge to resolve his first arrest
9. Showered him with praise and gifts after his release from police custody
10. Unlimited free food and drinks at the Bamboo Lounge until its untimely burning
11. Set him up with Lorraine Bracco, something even Tony Soprano could only dream about
12. VIP privileges at the Copacabana
13. Overstuffed wedding envelopes
14. Demonstrated to him the proper way to pour ketchup from a glass bottle during a home-cooked 3 am breakfast
15. Treated his girlfriends respectfully without judging his blatant and constant adultery, even helping rough up his girlfriend's boss so she could slack off at work
16. After a small intervention, talked his wife into staying with him after he threw a lamp at her head between weeklong stays at his girlfriend's apartment
17. Threw him a going away party before the prison stay caused by his dumb choices
18. Arranged luxury accommodations at penitentiary
19. Wisely warned him not to sell drugs after stuffing him full of homemade family style Italian delicacies upon his parole.
20. Cut him in on the Lufthansa heist even though he only heard about it on his shower radio.
21. Gave him some pocket money to live on...for the rest of his life...no I am sorry Paulie and Joey, I mean if someone like Henry who knows everything gets out on bail facing serious charges you have to make him disappear whether dead or alive depending on your level of loyalty to him and instead you give him an insultingly small $3200? Maybe you shouldn't have killed Tommy he could have handled what needed to (redacted)
The Last Boy Scout (1991)
Be Prepared to be Touched
This action-packed retelling of an early battle in the war to legalize gambling focuses on pioneering football team owner Shelly Marcone and two slimy dirtbags that tried to stand in the way of inevitable progress. The film begins with a stark reminder of how football used to be (before the US Supreme Court finally ended sports gambling prohibition in 2018): terrible field lighting, all security guards armed with pump shotguns, and players shooting each other to get to the end zone. Somehow content with this deplorable state of affairs in 1991, disgraced former Secret Service agent Joe Hallenbeck (Bruce Willis) and disgraced former quarterback Jimmy Dix (Damon Wayans, Sr.) tried to thwart Marcone's efforts to bring freedom to the masses of sports fans who did not already have a bookie.
Joe Hallenbeck is a real piece of work. After being fired (seen in a flashback) for barging in on Senator Calvin Baynard during a consensual S & M session, he bottomed out to the point of sleeping in his car so as not to intrude on his wife sleeping with his old "friend" in the marital bed. His bedraggled hung-over look, which Willis would go on to perfect in Die Hard 3, fits his decrepit personality and career trajectory (Hallenbeck, not Willis). Dix, however, still makes an effort to be presentable in his designer leather pants and jaunty earring. Dragged down by Hallenbeck, Jimmy loses his lady, an important cassette, and his prescription medications thanks to Hallenbeck's incompetence.
Leaving a trail of poorly dressed corpses in their wake (sorry costume designer Marilyn Vance-Straker, assuming you read my work) Jimmy and Joe somehow managed to both A. Quash a bribery deal that would have legalized sports gambling in 1991 as well as B. Set back the movement for decades by killing Marcone with a briefcase bomb.
Though director Tony Scott (R. I. P.) had no way of knowing his bumbling duo would impede legal gambling for so many years, he still had the skill to craft one of the best films ever made that starts with "The Last..." even coming in ahead of such well-known titles as The Last Action Hero, The Last Starfighter, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, The Last Samurai, and The Last Airbender. The film ends without clarity on the futures of Joe and Jimmy, but clearly still suffering in the throes of his addiction, Dix strangely sees Hallenbeck in the role of Boy Scout. It was only after subsequent years revealed the abuses of scout masters that Jimmy's words made sense, but one wonders if the film would have been as successful if released under its original title, Die Hard.
St. Elmo's Fire (1985)
It Ain't Easy Being He
Released just 18 days after the infamous "Brat Pack" article forever labeled most of its cast, St. Elmo's Fire is the story of the depths a lonely newspaper writer (Andrew McCarthy) will sink to in order to capture the heart of his already-attached love interest (Ally Sheedy). After the strangely-assembled crew of 7 graduated from Georgetown they somehow continued to socialize at the same college bar (St. Elmo's) that they called home in undergrad, despite the fact that McCarthy's Kevin Dolenz should never have been slumming with this gaggle of psychotic deplorables in the first place.
The ostensible leader of the Elmo's gang, slimy legislative aide Alec Newbary (Judd Nelson), tries to keep the group under his thumb whether brutally dunking his best friend and former frat brother Billy Hicks' head (head of the beautifully coiffed Rob Lowe) in a public toilet or dangling Dolenz off a fire escape like Suge Knight negotiating a Vanilla Ice royalty deal. Though Alec might get out of his bed in the middle of the night to come rescue you from a potential assault in a hotel room, on the way down to the lobby he will gaslight you about whether you were really in danger in the first place. As owner of one of the oddest marital philosophies in modern times (that his cheating ways are his girlfriend's fault for not agreeing to marry him yet) he also thinks it is acceptable to moonlight on weekends working for a republican senator while cashing weekday paychecks from his Democratic Representative employer. Perhaps no moment better sums up Alec than when he lets himself in to Dolenz's apartment with a spare key (without knocking) to offer a weak apology for throwing Kevin through a table in front of their entire social circle earlier that night. When he realizes Kevin has a woman in the nearby bedroom he laughingly stage whispers loud enough to be heard in said bedroom "it's the fat chick from the party isn't it!" which would doom almost any burgeoning relationship immediately as she would always have to wonder if that was really how Kevin talked about her to his "friend" Alec.
Though Judd Nelson's Alec sets a low bar, Emilio Estevez as deranged stalker/waiter Kirby "Kirbo" Keger finds a way to worm under that bar in every cringe-y scene. Dale Biberman, a woman who truly pays a heavy price for going on one movie date with Kirby four years earlier, somehow already graduated college and became a doctor during those four years. Dr. Beebs (Andie MacDowell) has the misfortune of being on duty in the ER when Kirbo and the rest of the gang all separately rush to the hospital in the opening scene because two of their crew got into a drunken fender bender (somehow before the era of cell phones it was apparently normal to track down your old college buddies at their jobs or out on the town on a Saturday night to let them know you bumped your noggin on the dashboard so they can all rush over to meddle in your healthcare). Kirbs is at the hospital still wearing his waiter apron that matches the red-checked tablecloths of his employer, St. Elmo's, because yes after you get that Georgetown diploma you want to keep working as a waiter in the bar you always hung out in between your poli sci classes. Spying the good doctor, Kirby somehow activates the Biberman virus within his crazed soul and embarks on a terrible journey of unhinged stalkery. Whether staring at her at a party through an exterior window in the pouring rain, perv-ily sniffing her pillowcase when she makes the mistake of leaving him alone for a moment in her apartment, waiting for her in the parking lot at her job, randomly inviting her to his boss' house at night for a "party", repeatedly calling her work number asking creepy questions, threatening Ma Bell if she won't cut in on the Biberman home phone line, mashing the apartment door buzzer then threatening the roommate if she won't tell him where Dale is, stumbling through snowdrifts to crazily bang on the door of her weekend ski cabin, or snapping at her for offering him pajamas to wear while his wet clothes dry just because they are her boyfriend's PJs, Kirby's storyline leads up to one final moment with the naive medico. When her boyfriend wisely goes inside to get a Polaroid camera so they can have a picture of the loon in case the police need it later, Dale makes the mistake of giving Kirbo a farewell peck on the cheek. This registers as a green light for assault in his addled mind, and a sudden forced groping kiss soon follows. Biberman and her boyfriend finally watch in a state of confused shock from the driveway as Kirby motors off, reminiscent of the look of survivors of a hostage situation who cannot believe the ordeal ended without their deaths, and Kirby just laughs maniacally in a way that would give the Joker nightmares.
While the Elmo clique does not have a female equivalent of either Alec or Kirby, Jules (Demi Moore), Wendy (Mare Winningham) and Leslie (Ally Sheedy) are no prize pigs. For whatever reason our protagonist Kevin is smitten with Leslie (to his complete and utter detriment), yet these alleged close friends have no idea. Jules even mistakes Kevin's holding out hope for this forbidden Leslie love with the theory of him being gay, a notion seconded in her mind by the fact that he apparently does not find Jules attractive in her grandmotherly pink bathrobe. While Wendy is just a mess with the less said about her the better, at least when she gets a plate of food while helping at a soup kitchen she does not waste it disdainfully like the useless Jules.
As terrible as Jules may seem, it is hard not to sympathize when, just as she is about to unburden her soul to Rob Lowe's Billy Hicks late one night when she was nice enough to give him a ride home, he tries to rape his good friend in her own car. Never mind that Jules had just agreed to go back to her place with him for a drink, that was not good enough for Billy. The fact that the attempted assault takes place in his own driveway just a short distance from his sleeping wife and infant child (who he wakes up along with half the neighborhood with his belligerent attack) says it all. This is the same Billy Hicks who earlier in the film decided to tell his wife about his early evening DUI car accident FROM A PAYPHONE IN A BAR where he went for more drinks with the Elmo crew after they bailed him out. The same Billy whose massive ego made him think he was giving a gift to a female fan of his sax playing by shaking a half gallon of sweat from his dripping hair in the face of a lady who sat minding her own business near the stage where he was drowning out the rest of the band with his rusty horn. Also a fairly skilled manipulator, consider how he expertly phrases this one to Wendy on his last night in D. C. before making his big move to NYC hoping to become a rich and powerful sax player: "Have I abused our relationship too much, or could i be so bold as to ask you for a going away present?" By which of course he is referring to her virginity. By the end of the story all viewers are left with the same singular thought: Billy Hicks is no Ray Slater.
There is much to dislike about these people other than Kevin Dolenz, but the film does have its highlights. For instance, if you enjoy seeing necklaces and other stuff draped way too far down people's backs, this is your movie. If you were wondering "When will someone try to make the fully exposed necktie look become a thing?" then your question has been answered with an exclamation point. If it has occurred to you to ponder "What would the yellow tank top look like that Robin puts on late at night when he fantasizes about Batman?" then pay close attention to the Halloween scene (all brought to you by the man who would go on to direct both Val Kilmer and George Clooney in Caped Crusader pictures).
As St. Elmo's Fire slowly burns to embers one thing is clear: Kevin Dolenz does not belong with this ragtag collection of losers. Kevin is the kind of guy who makes a concerned face when he thinks he might have accidentally scratched your John Parr record. A guy who had the fashion vision to pair the lumberjack flannel shirt tucked into billowy fatigue pants with the oversize camel hair topcoat (AndyMac later explained that the style was influenced by his actual first NYC roommate Eddie). The kind of guy who deserves better than a couple nights with Leslie which she participates in under false pretenses as a way to get back at dirtbag Alec. When Leslie elects to "just be friends" with both Kevin and Alec, Kevin accepts her decision while Alec faux-jokingly tries to get Kevin to collaborate with him in her murder.
In what could rightly be called the climactic scene, the assembled college graduates demonstrate the highly-regarded Georgetown problem-solving training by believing it easier to breach a drafty apartment by blowtorching a set of thick metal bars on the window rather than breaking down a wooden door. Once Billy does break down the now-unlocked door, he finds near-comatose Jules still struggling with the trauma of his attempted rape. His unsolicited pep talk includes both of these toxic nuggets: "You know, this smells to me like a little bit of self-created drama" and "They made it up because they thought they needed it to keep them going when things got tough. Just like you're making up all of this."
After Billy takes a midnight Greyhound to the Big Apple, the remaining gang stands outside St. Elmo's and realizes they need to find another bar to frequent, settling on Houlihan's for next Sunday brunch. We can only hope Kevin Dolenz decides not to show up there.
Crocodile Dundee (1986)
Sue Charlton, Destroyer of Worlds, and the Devastating Betrayal of Richard Mason
The highest grossing film ever made in Australia is the rare fish-out-of-water tale that suddenly morphs into your standard fish-returns-to-water-with-a-kangaroo-in-tow movie. Our first introduction to Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski) comes during a leisurely international phone call wherein she informs her boss, editor Richard Mason, that she will continue her rapid bankrupting of their mutual employer, the New York newspaper Newsday, for at least a few more weeks. Perhaps not fully understanding the hierarchy of the editor-reporter relationship, Sue tells Richard to trust her, the story will be worth it, she will be back as soon as she blows through the paper's annual budget in just a month (as the only reporter who was unable to find anything interesting to write about in NYC, Sue fortunately found a beautiful way to combine her love of overpriced vacations with her middling talent as a writer). The filmmakers gradually explain (after the work-related discussion serves its purpose) that Richard and Sue are dating, a lame reveal that is repeated later in the film when we eventually discover that Sue is the daughter of the owner of Newsday.
After she finally hangs up the unbelievably expensive call, she finishes her room service coffee while gazing out of the luxury hotel's floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of the Sydney opera house, surrounded by fresh flowers in the opulent suite, all on the Newsday expense account.
The next story she wants to land is in Walkabout Creek in the Northern Territories, and after securing an exorbitantly priced helicopter-to-plane charter flight combo she arrives in the dusty hamlet and is greeted by Wally, who she promptly pays $2,500 AUS ($5,575.99 in 2021 inflation adjusted USD) for the chance to interview Mick "Crocodile" Dundee.
Shockingly making it through an evening at the local pub without being seriously molested, Sue sets off into the bush with Dundee for background on her story and a chance to take blurry pictures of a water buffalo through the grimy windshield of an old jeep. Sue's hard-hitting interview style is on full display as she asks a delicately worded question about land claims of the indigenous people of Australia, but Dundee only responds with a pseudo-existential non-answer about how in thousands of years those giant boulders over there won't care who owns them, basically just making all the tired excuses land-stealers love to rely on.
Things go well enough on the journey through the Outback that Sue smooches the Croc-killer in the woods and offers Wally even more money to fly Mick first class to NYC, possibly to paper the bottom of even more New York birdcages with an even more ridiculous Sue Charlton feature story about the guy from Australia coming to the big city.
Besides cheating on Richard (also known as "Dick" due to the way he talks to common folk) while on the budget-busting "work trip" Sue also decides to bring Mick along on her first night with Richard in 6 weeks. When the Aussie ruffian predictably sucker-punches Dick Mason in the expensive Italian restaurant, Sue drags the white-suited cloudy-head back to her place and rubs it in Mick's face as she sends him away in an off-duty cab. Mick attempts to drown his sorrows in a dive bar where he commits a hate crime against a transgender person then goes outside and knocks out a pimp.
Back in his lavish Newsday-funded Manhattan hotel suite, Dundee contemplates how he let Sue talk him into leaving everything he loves just to sleep on the floor of a lonely hotel room.
The next night Sue introduces Mick to her kind of people at a classic 80s coke party: bad faux-couture, low-end prostitutes, horrific dance moves, unpunished crotch-grabs...the only thing missing for it to be a historically accurate representation of this type of party in 1986 New York was Donald Trump.
At times it seems this Mick is one of the few film characters of that name not to be an evil monster: witness Alec Baldwin as an unfaithful boyfriend in Working Girl, the rabid anti-wolfite basketball player in Teen Wolf, and James Spader's violent armed robber and murderer in Bad Influence. However, Mick eventually fits that same mold as is subsequently revealed-despite Sue having a serious boyfriend Dundee kisses her in the park after he foils a half-hearted mugging.
Another night another bad party: Sue cannot bear the thought of driving herself to the family mansion, so she drags Richard and Mick to her father's dinner party in the Newsday limousine (chauffeured by future Die Hard star Reginald VelJohnson) where Mick is forced to sit through Dick's awkward public marriage proposal to Sue. After she accepts Mick runs off so he can get in another pimpfight.
While we never see Sue dumping Richard, at some point she apparently did, and it was probably as heartless a scene as you can possibly imagine. Newsday, while still in circulation today, never recovered from her mid 80s spending binge. Meanwhile Dundee left his home and business which completed the Sue Charlton trifecta, destroying the lives and businesses of everyone she got her fangs into, as fully realized in the tragic sequel.
Seinfeld: The Subway (1992)
Excerpts from NY Daily News Classifieds 1/9/92
The following advertisements were selected at random from the January 9, 1992 issue of the New York Daily News classified section.
For Sale: lightly used Moe Ginsburg suit. Color: Hazel. Size: 40 short. Will include shirt, tie, overcoat and scarf for full ensemble. Retail price $350.00, will accept $8.00 cash. Please double my money on a bad investment. 555-2833.
Free item: surplus train equipment, orange high density polyethylene. Full disclosure: many unspeakable things have undoubtedly been done on and to this two passenger seat over its years of service, but the Transit Authority cannot in good conscience continue to allow fare-paying customers to unwittingly come into contact with this tainted bench. Despite yesterday's best efforts our maintenance crews have not been able to remove the plastic-fused body hair or pungent sweat aroma, but pursuant to Mayor Dinkins' recycling initiative we offer this item to the first interested party to pick it up from the Coney Island Yard, 2556 McDonald Ave.
Personals: you sat alone on the train, a puffball stocking cap above your smiling face. Reminiscent of a Nebraska farmboy on his first trip to the city, you continued to smile as a lanky doofus with hair like the bride of Frankenstein tried to squeeze in next to your ample girth. The rest of the day I wished I was him so as to come that close to you and your scent, which I imagine is best described as a cologne designed by Bob Evans. Call me 555-7287.
The Dan Le Batard Show (2015)
The 2004 Detroit Pistons of Sports Talk Radio
On May 13, 1897 when Guglielmo Marconi sent the pioneering wireless message "Are you ready" he surely had no idea the answer would come back over 107 years later as "Chidi Ahanotu." Though radio historians may debate whether the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast has a greater significance, only one giant mass that first thudded to Earth in a New Jersey field would go on to revolutionize the glamorous world of sports talk radio.
At first glance the man often mistaken for the re-animated corpse of Dom DeLuise and the 5'7" (in flip-flops) Jon "Stugotz" Weiner have little in common. Well, guess who else had little in common: Ray Tango & Gabe Cash, and look how that turned out for the LA drug syndicate in 1989. Unlike Tango & Cash, though, Stugotz has not as yet been arrested despite his decades of scheming including innumerable counts of securities and tax fraud (his radio partner's only known arrest was for playing Ain't That a Shame by Fats Domino one too many times on the tableside jukebox at Johnny Rockets).
However, the titular hosts are not what make "The Show" the biggest thing in the history of radio. That honor belongs to a crew of producers and wide-ranging affiliated friends who are described below (any omissions are due to space constraints).
Guillermo "Billy" Gil: the most impressive thing to pop unexpectedly out of Victoria's Secret since...sorry, phrasing. The King of the Call-Back, just check out his Cameo collection to get a sense of what comedy heights this former pole-vaulter can attain when given room to roam.
Chris Cote: Well known to be the Michael Jordan of laughing in the background, getting a hit off future big-leaguer Matt Latos is buried on page five of his résumé, a résumé he has never needed due to sweet, sweet nepotism.
Roy Bellamy: the brains behind the board, he hears and sees all while acting as the show historian and resident expert on all things 80s-90s films and NHL. His royal proclamations have settled many debates once and for all, not the least of which is the definitive ranking of blue vs. red Doritos.
Mike Ryan Ruiz: the RZA of this Clan, it was often assumed that he never sleeps due to his uncanny ability to speak knowledgeably on virtually any sports or entertainment topic. However, it was confirmed that he has slept at least once after he shared a self-deprecating bedwetting anecdote.
Allyson Turner: gone but not forgotten when she moved north to Bangor, Maine, or at least a New England town starting with a B. She somehow managed to keep bringing in guests despite the occasional cringe-y interview (final Aaron Paul being the low point) whether PPR or non-PPR.
Tony Catalayud: starting to come into his own before the 2021 ESPN departure, hopefully will be back and not just for closure on the romantic storyline with Stugotz.
Domino Foxworthy: a renaissance man capable of both intercepting Donovan McNabb on the field and outsmarting Jerry Jones in the boardroom, this amateur marine biologist (focus on the narwhal) has a cornerback's fearlessness (witness his willingness to talk adult toys on Disney television).
Sarah Portugal: the commish with a penchant for velvet gloves and stalking the owner of the Charlotte Hornets.
Paul Torres: here's the thing-this highfalutin' Harvard man knows the business, whether taking one for the team in furtherance of content by choking down a gas station pickled pig's foot or with an elaborate fake wedding solely to establish a coveted theblacktux sponsorship, he is a genius.
Nina Kimes: another Ivy League egghead willing to do anything for show content, including the world's worst DMX impression and risking her life on a poorly-maintained mall zipline in the land of 10,000 lakes.
Bomani Jones: this man is too good at his job to even choke about it, excuse me, joke about it.
Marty Party Smith: the guy can keep you on the edge of your seat with a riveting tale of a bathroom encounter with NASCAR chief Bill France, Jr. His voice has been scientifically proven to increase levels of joy in the blood.
Amino Acid: don't believe that famous hand-written letter some joker sent to the Clevelander. If analysts of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory were required to wear jerseys his would be the first and only jersey to be retired, and based on his early days as a walk-on standout with Meadowlark Media that jersey would be #69.
Greg Cote: the best thing to happen to Tuesday since Weld (only he would get that reference), he is the show's expert on butt stuff, both Boston and all other kinds.
The Show has made Miami the center of the radio universe to its legions of fans, and with all due respect to the Hakeem Nicks laugh I will end this with what is truly the show's highest honor-Talk to you tomorrow?
11/10
Alien³ (1992)
Desperate Doctor Beds 87-Year-Old Bald Woman
In a testament to the lengths men will go to when their options are limited, prison planet medico Dr. Clemens succumbed to his primal urges in a 2179 romp with 87 year old baldie Ellen Ripley. Chances are this tryst did not cause her to be impregnated with an alien baby, but due to her subsequent smelting we will never know.
Though she looked more like a woman in her early 40s, Weyland-Yutani records prove Ripley was indeed an octogenarian. After the passionate encounter Clemens was slaughtered by an alien warrior, leaving the other inmates to wonder whether renouncing their vows of celibacy would be a wise choice.
Bad Influence (1990)
LA Man Influenced Badly
Curtis Hanson's Bad Influence tells the tale of two men on a razor's edge at the tail end of the roaring 80's. Michael Boll (James Spader) is an aspiring Senior Claims Analyst who crosses paths with small-time grifter "Alex"(Rob Lowe).
We first encounter Michael at one of his patented nervous face-splashing sink sessions, his bespectacled face a wimpy reflection of the anxious mug in the bathroom mirror. His fiancee Ruth Fielding ambushes him in his office for a forgotten power lunch, and the couple has the romantic chemistry of two dead fish who at the moment of their passing found out they are cousins.
After narrowly escaping the awkward lunch Michael goes to a beachside bar where he manages the impressive feat of being cruelly insulted by someone he just purchased a $2.75 drink for. The free drink goes unsipped however when the purchasee's paramour puts poor Michael in a tight headlock for his insolence. Alex comes to the rescue, and a lifelong bond is immediately forged.
As it takes Michael a long time to separate himself from the sticky floor of the dive bar, Alex is long gone. However, Michael soon happens upon his new best chum again mid-grift at the end of Michael's sweaty pier jog. Over drinks Alex teaches Michael how to beat a work rival (Patterson) at his own game and how to ditch a man mid-drink-buying-situation without his wallet because you stole his wallet.
After Michael uses Alex's life coaching tips to solve his work problem, he rewards Alex by...mooching off his generosity with an invite to an exclusive art installation. Alex continues the one-sided relationship by hooking Michael up with an out-of-his-league one night stand with Claire (Lisa Zane). During the wingman's setup of this tryst we see Alex impressed by Michael's high-end furnishings in the postmodern loft. Alex also enjoys Michael's top shelf Herradura tequila instead of the rail crap he orders at the various bars that he frequents.
By pressing Rec on a conveniently placed camcorder, Alex gives Michael (now known as Mick due to his Alex-provided street cred) a treasured VHS of his Claire session, which subsequently comes in handy to break things off with Ruth in a way that Michael never could have. The night of this breakup is a pivotal moment in the film: Michael shows up to Fielding Manor in a tux and Gordon Gekko hairstyle. Alex not only gives Mick the out with his dead end Ruth relationship, but he also takes him to an exclusive house party and supplies Mick with booze and coke. Alex watches from a balcony as his "friend" blossoms, and Alex slowly realizes that finance yuppie Michael has been using him-what's in it for Alex? Michael the taker admits after a bump of Alex's Colombian candy "I owe you."
Cut to Alex inside a hamburger joint and Michael in a bunny mask outside. Key point: we do not see who had the idea to stick up the place. What we do see and hear after the armed robbery: Michael standing in front of a LifeLens kiosk as he takes a close look at his life, saying "I'm ready to do another one-7 Eleven." After the next liquor store heist Michael suggests going to Patterson's home for a little payback.
Mick shows a morsel of regret upon realizing that Patterson's midnight beating might cause repercussions at the office. Showing a shocking lack of gratitude for all that Alex has done for him, Mick rudely ejects his pal and goes back to work, where he is awarded the promotion that Alex essentially handed to him. As Alex said on the way out the door "you got what you wanted."
Upon returning home Mick finds that Alex cleaned out his "stuff" as a tiny down payment for everything Alex did for him. In a subsequent stairwell confrontation Alex asks hesitantly "So the stuff makes us even?" When Michael responds affirmatively Alex is taken aback, not believing that after all that he did for Mick a crappy espresso machine and used camcorder could come close to repaying the debt.
Finally Alex, the formerly benign grifter, goes over the edge by killing Claire to frame the ungrateful Mick. Knowing his own complicity in the death Michael shows an utter disregard for any closure Claire's family might need by dumping her body in the La Brea tar pits. As Mick drags his doppelgänger brother Pismo into the mess as an accessory to the body-disposal, he shows no regard for how many innocents he takes down with him. Mick even alienates his sweet administrative assistant Leslie, causing her to transfer to another desk with his abusive shenanigans.
Realizing his shameful role in Claire's death Michael decides the only way to save his own wretched skin is to coerce his mellow brother to act as bait for Alex. The Bolls (named for the parasitic weevil that nearly destroyed the American economy) then set a pier-side snare for poor Alex who sadly is distracted by a potential threesome that ultimately comes to fruition in a seaside villa. After leveraging an office security guard for use of his service weapon, Mick lays the trap which Alex tragically falls into, leading to his death at Mick's brutal hand.
A small-time grifter seduced by a power-hungry financier, a tale as old as time. After all is said and done there truly was a bad influence, and thy name was Michael Boll.
10/10
Seinfeld: The Frogger (1998)
Two Arrests Made In Lopper Case
April 24, 1998- Police Commissioner Howard Safir announced two arrests today at a hastily scheduled press conference. "I want to congratulate the tireless officers who worked on this case," Safir said. "I also want to single out Sgt. Cathy Tierny for her efforts to put an end to the terror in Riverside Park."
In a shocking twist, one of the two suspects shares a name with one of the city's most notorious serial killers. Joel Rifkin was arrested outside a Manhattan restaurant without major incident this morning. Bystander reports indicate Rifkin began vomiting violently as he was being led to a police vehicle, at which point he began screaming the cryptic phrase "12 years, 12 years!"
The other suspect, Art Corvelay, was apprehended inside the same restaurant where Rifkin was captured. Corvelay had been missing for several years after his escape from the psychiatric ward at St. Luke's-Roosevelt hospital. Sometimes referred to as "the pig man" due to his unusual facial features, Corvelay's arrest was also without major incident.
Police arrived on the scene when a 911 caller complained of a disturbance at Mario's, a neighborhood pizzeria. Apparently the two suspects got into a dispute with the proprietor over a missing Frogger video game.
More on this story as it develops.
Saved by the Bell: Palm Springs Weekend: Part 2 (1991)
Resort Suggestion Box Contents Discovered (Part 2)
A folder containing the 1991 suggestion box submissions from the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa (Palm Desert, CA) was discovered this week at the Marriott corporate document storage facility in Bethesda, Maryland. The text of each is transcribed below, including the name of the person submitting, if given.
Peter E.-you let some punk kid drive around the course in a golf cart like Mario Andretti and he interfered with an important putt, you have no idea how much this cost me. Control your guests!!!!!!
Father P.-Put up some maps! I just finished officiating a wedding that was very late thanks to your confusing layout and less than helpful staff, at least I think they were staff, who even knows in this confusing madhouse.
Robert D.-Not sure who reads this but I can't get anyone to listen to this at the front desk so here goes. I was sitting in the lobby bar having a drink (kind of overpriced by the way) and I overheard these two guys talking. It seemed like the bigger guy was the other man's security guard or something. The boss guy was getting pretty agitated, I heard him say something like "keep this peasant away from Christina or you can take a steam ship back home" then he stormed off. (More on back of this card, turn over --->) The security guy sort of saw me listening and gave me a weird look, he slammed his hands on the table and said something like "Jason Slater is a dead man" then he left. I immediately went to the front desk and asked for the manager, this guy David came out, I told him the whole story but when I got to the part about "Jason Slater is a dead man" he kind of repeated it to himself and then he just started laughing and walked away mumbling to himself, I think I heard him say "best weekend of my life" but it was hard to hear over the loud teens that have been running amok in this place. Hope somebody makes some changes around here.
Nancy W.-can you noise-proof these rooms better? Last night in the room next door this girl was screaming and cursing, sounded like breaking furniture and who knows what, it sounded like she was yelling "Why would you marry her!!" over and over so I guess she just got dumped or something, then some other girls came into the room and I think they calmed her down for a few minutes but then it started up again and now the other two were screaming too, something about how the one girl (continued on back) never even said thank you to the other girl's parents for letting her stay in their beach house for a whole summer. Unfortunately with these paper-thin walls I pretty much heard everything. Then the first girl kept yelling "What happened on that auction date with Gator!" and she just kept yelling it over and over until I think girl #3 slapped her because I know it was the girl whose parents have the beach house, she said "I'm not staying here, you know if somebody calls security I'm the first one they will kick out of here" and then the door slammed. Things quieted down then so I didn't call the front desk because it was after midnight and I just wanted to get some sleep. Fix these walls please.
Zack M.-the waider that took are drink order last night was beeing inupropiate with my frend. She just wanted a dite coke and he said how about a dite lips. My sugestin is fire him now.
Saved by the Bell: Palm Springs Weekend: Part 1 (1991)
Resort Suggestion Box Contents Discovered (Part 1)
A folder containing the 1991 suggestion box submissions from the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa (Palm Desert, CA) was discovered this week at the Marriott corporate document storage facility in Bethesda, Maryland. The text of each is transcribed below, including the name of the person submitting, if given.
Ted K.-Enjoying our stay but lobby needs more security. Constantly seeing unsupervised high school kids behaving inappropriately. My daughters can barely walk around this place for two seconds before this blonde Ferris Bueller wannabe and his sidekick Ponch with muscles are ogling and following them like two sailors who just got home from Desert Storm. I tried to tell the manager David but he barely listened to me.
Azadeh F.-Room is modern and lovely. Only suggestion more security by poolside. Teenagers with no adults watching them, kissing each other and more. I saw one of the teens violently push the head of another woman under the water and for some reason the manager (not sure his name but I'm pretty sure it was him) is in the pool with guests not even doing anything about it. We have been coming here for years but if it keeps being like this we will stay at the Westin.
Zack M.-More airobix clases! the teacher is hotter then Paula Abdul, I just got hear but I am in room 169 if she can give me a pryvitt lesion.
Angie C.-TREAT EVERYONE THE SAME! First I get told by the manager to move out of my lounge chair at the pool because some VIP needs it. Then it happened AGAIN on the golf course, we had to wait an extra 25 MINUTES for another cart after this guy shows up way later than we did. The golf pro kept calling him "king" it was so weird. I think he might be a scammer because I overheard someone in the pro shop say he was from Lichtenberg and I don't even think that is a country but when I get back home I am totally checking my World Book Encyclopedia. This is no way to treat a Pewter-level rewards member.
Saved by the Bell: Mystery Weekend (1991)
The Inevitable Bankruptcy of Knockwood Manor
Many business school case studies have examined the epic failures of companies like Enron, Radio Shack, and Trump Entertainment Resorts. However, until now the tragic fall of southern California's most infamous Mystery Mansion-themed hotel has gone unexplored.
A sample weekend profiled on the indispensable show Saved By the Bell illustrated the fatal flaws in Knockwood proprietor Steven Jameson III's business model and is the primary basis for this investigation. Though some specific revenue and cost data from the "Mystery Weekend" is unavailable, one need not see the Manor's dusty ledgers in order to grasp the scope of the problem.
On the revenue side there are two teams of two guests that likely paid to participate in the Mystery, Team Battleaxe and Team Silent Judgment. The other six guests (radio contest winner Lisa Turtle and her +5) paid nothing. Based on an extensive analysis of published 1991 rack rates and all-inclusive dinner theater ticket prices, the high end total cost per couple was $200.00 ($380.05 in 2021 when adjusted for inflation). Therefore Knockwood Manor revenues for the weekend did not exceed $400.00.
Leaving aside the sunk costs of the mansion itself and its various mystery-themed furnishings and wardrobe, Knockwood incurred two main categories of expenses, labor and food/beverage. Assuming Jameson himself drew no salary (just there for the nonconsensual shoulder rubs, dinners, and drag opportunities), the following characters were visibly employed during the mystery portion of the weekend: Bartholomew the butler, Jeanette the maid, the piano player, the Inspector, and the two paramedics. In addition, there had to be at least one housekeeping employee (Jeanette ain't cleaning no toilets) and at least one cook to prepare meals for 10 people (also presumption that one of these employees controlled fake lightning and sudden blackout controls). With at least 6-8 employees working at some capacity during the weekend, labor costs (considering the 1991 California minimum wage of $4.25 per hour, $8.08 in 2021 dollars, hmm) would have been at least $136 per day even if you could find 6-8 employees willing to take a job where they can only work 4 hours per day at minimum wage, otherwise higher. For purposes of estimation we will go with $408 for a skeleton crew over one weekend.
By chance the contest winner and friends were underage, so beverage costs were reduced due to underage status (IDs used to get into The Attic notwithstanding). However the bar clearly had a large inventory, being prepared to serve not just cola but also ginger ale and a mango tonic with a kiwi twist. As to spoilage, the prime dinner of the weekend was dropped from the butler's silver tray as a sight gag, not cost effective at all. Presuming a 2 or 3 option entree menu, though, the food and beverage costs to the Manor were no more than $150.
Another concern for Knockwood was liability. Within moments of guest arrival one employee berates an elderly man and another emloyee pours an ice cold drink all over Jessie. Both Jeanette and Jameson also engage in questionable physical contact and proximity to minors, and the staff meets with underage Lisa alone to plan her faked disappearance (hopefully not Jameson by himself but no way to know off camera).
After adding in the $500 of prize money Jameson's Mystery Weekend revenue was $400 and expenses at least $1,058 without considering the average daily cost of maintaining a mansion. In retrospect the owner should have adopted a high level BnB model, for example renting to Dodgers or Lakers (think of how much could have been made serving as a the home to the A.C. Green orgies for example).
10/10 to the episode, 0/5 to the hotel.
Commando (1985)
You Can't Always Get What You Want
After seeing this 1985 all-time action spectacle many times in the past I dusted off the DVD with a specific mission, to prove the widely-held theory that the real motivation of villain Bennett (Vernon Wells) was unrequited love for Arnold's John Matrix. However, much like Matrix's former comrades who simply hoped to have trash picked up or to sell a fine Cadillac, I discovered you can't always get what you want.
After Bennett fakes his own death (needlessly destroying a perfectly serviceable trawler by the way) to smoke out the location of Matrix and his daughter Jenny (Alyssa Milano), his men ultimately capture both Matrices in a daring mountaintop raid on their cabin. We quickly discover the man holding the purse strings is former Val Verde president Arius (Aleppo-born Dan Hedaya), though Bennett claims he was willing to do this for free if it meant he could "get his hands on" Matrix for booting him off the old strike team. Since the rest of the team was also living the civilian life selling cars and whatnot this seems a puzzling reason to forego a $100,000 payday for reinstalling Arius as the leader of Val Verde (We know Arius can GET the job, but can he DO the job?).
Meanwhile, in between the Matrix-Bennett sizzling storyline, scribe Steven de Souza shows us stylish scoundrel Sully and sixteen security sentinels scuffling with sky-swinging Schwarzenegger and sweet stewardess Cindy at the Sherman Oaks shopping center. In the words of Russian writer Yuri Testikov, "God spoke through his pen."
Thinking John was successfully dispatched to dispatch the American puppet in charge of Val Verde, Arius awaits dispatches from the men he dispatched to give dispatches about John dispatching the despot. While they wait Bennett makes clear the high esteem the villain holds for John: "If Matrix was here, he'd laugh {at your men} too" and "Matrix and I could kill every one of {your men}." Okay Bennett, we get it.
Perhaps one reason for the speculation about Bennett is his chainmail tank top, which he wears throughout the film over a black shirt. To better understand what is going on here fast forward to 1991's Seinfeld Episode 2.10: The Baby Shower. Much like George Costanza wearing a Bosco-stained red shirt to a planned encounter with the woman who wronged him, Bennett's meshy tank was likely part of some awkward night in Buenos Aires with Matrix after too many shots of Hesperidina.
As the saga neared its conclusion without more evidence of Bennett's hypothetical attraction to Matrix, I concluded once again that like Sully stalking Rae Dawn Chong in a parking garage or the couple in the adjoining hotel room hoping to film uninterrupted content for their BetaMax adult film-by-mail service, you can't always get what you want.
John and Cindy's seaplane lands near the Arius island stronghold for the final showdown, and if Arnold had waited to strip down to his Mr. Olympia speedo in front of Bennett perhaps we could have gathered more relevant data. However, as Matrix was power-rowing his raft through the waves like mighty Zeus piloting a hovercraft across the Aegean Sea, a startling development occurred. Bennett, having kept young Jenny from being abused by Arius and his goons for the whole day, loses his cool for the first time when he discovers that the little girl has dared to escape his protection. As Matrix engages swarms of enemy gunmen (side note: his first island kill has the most intense sideburns seen since the 60s...the 1860s) it is telling that Bennett chases Jenny rather than confront his supposed enemy in battle.
Just before the climactic knife/pipe combat between Matrix and Bennett a subtle yet important piece of dialogue can be heard. As Jenny creeps around a steamy sub-basement she calls out hopefully "Daddy?" to which Bennett replies "No, not Daddy." Matrix then storms into the room and the pair exchange red hot mouthfuls of innuendo, such as "put {it} in me, look me in the eye, see what's going on in there when you turn it" "don't deprive yourself of some pleasure" "C'mon Bennett let's party" "John I feel good, just like old times" and "I'm going to shoot you between the balls."
At the apex of the back and forth battle Matrix impales the Aussie with a metal didgeridoo, and the chance to find out once and for all whether Bennett's anger was fueled by unreciprocated lust dies along with him. To my chagrin, much like Henriques looking forward to the meal in first class and the Arius army hoping to someday get a pension, you can't always get what you want.
But...if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need. What I needed was released in 1994, a little film called Junior, and the puzzle was solved. Suddenly things from the beginning of the film made sense.
Matrix and his obsession with gender: reading a Creem magazine article about Culture Club at the kitchen table, he blurts "Why don't they call him Girl George, it would cut down on the confusion I think." Right after Bennett's men kidnap Jenny, Matrix storms into her bedroom through a window and finds Diaz holding a handwritten Valentine "I Love you Dad" heart. While it first appears to be the same one on the fridge in the kitchen scene, it is actually a duplicate she secretly sent to her "other Dad" who provided half of her genetic material before implantation in the surrogate Matrix. Add these clues to Matrix repeatedly referring to Jenny as simply "the girl," during the confrontation with Bennett, and the pieces fit. Bennett is Jenny's father, and the mystery is solved. As the closing credits roll, supergroup The Power Station says it all with "We Fight For Love." 9/10
Child's Play (1988)
We Can't All Look Like Brad
Many think the name Brad first became associated with rugged good looks after a famous scene in Thelma & Louise (1991), but the origin actually goes back decades earlier to the handsomest West Virginian the world has ever known.
Child's Play begins with a shootout on a Chicago street, but not a dangerous street because it features a well-stocked toy store with no bars on the windows and secured by a lock so weak that the door flies open when you shoot in its direction. The target of most of the shots is Charles Lee Ray, an ancient wizard who has the power to transfer his soul and voice to any body or object he wants. Of course once he discovered the body and face of Brad Dourif there was really no other choice.
The fireworks start when jealous cop Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon) can no longer stand the fact that he himself does not look like Brad Dourif, and apparently if Norris can't then no one can. Ray is forced to transfer to a blue-eyed ginger Good Guy doll, Chucky, in order to survive the brutal detective's excessive force (cut to a messy kitchen).
Andy Barclay is the worst kid anyone has ever met. After rousing his sleepy mother in order to give her a sloppy breakfast in bed featuring enough Country Crock spread to kill 17 lumberjacks, Andy whines about not getting the right birthday toy when he is lucky not to be crying from getting a right hook (disclaimer: child abuse is wrong even if the little Damien spills a trail of milk all over the rug). Later that night whether Andy celebrates his birthday by killing his babysitter or whether it is Chucky, who can say. The next day whether Andy ditches school to ride the El train to kill Ray's partner who left Ray to die, or whether it is Chucky's idea, again hard to tell.
Charles Lee Ray really has one main score to settle though, with Mike Norris, the man who ruined the perfect vessel that was Brad Dourif. In the end both Ray and Norris learn that no matter what either of them does, neither will ever look that damn good again. The VHS copy of this joint's sequel wasn't on Jerry Seinfeld's apartment movie shelf for nothing, folks.
7/10.
The River Wild (1994)
White Water Summer 2: The Return of Crazy Vic
Sometimes you wish a perfect film did not have a sequel. This is not one of those times. Kevin Bacon reprises his role of Vic, this time trading in his camp counselor gimmick for a marriage counselor's couch, only the couch is a raft, and the raft moves really damn fast.
In case you missed the first film (spoiler) Kevin Bacon convinces four sets of rich parents to pay him a bundle of money to take four young boys on a camping trip. Vic's plan was to build character with tough challenges but the wimpy kids mutinied, leading to his leg bone poking through his leg skin (ruining his only pair of jeans).
In Curtis Hanson's sequel The River Wild we are first introduced to Gail Hartman (Meryl Streep) rowing alone in Boston. When she returns home the family dynamic quickly reveals that her husband Tom is a heartless workaholic who hates his family and would rather take a client's phone call than play with his bratty kids. Marriage on the rocks, Gail decides to visit her parents in Montana and take the older kid on a rafting trip, hoping Tom would come too but not expecting it. What neither of them realizes is that Gail's wealthy parents have hired the best two marriage counselors in the business to go undercover and try to save the troubled union (funds nearly wasted when it first looks like Tom won't show up for the trip).
Vic and fellow marriage counselor to the stars Terry (John C. Reilly) have been prepping for this assignment for 5 days. At the river rafting entry point Vic (going by the name of Wade on the off chance that either of the unsuspecting clients would recognize him from glowing profiles recently published in Vanity Fair and Esquire--Terry had no such high profile pre-internet and felt comfortable without using a pseudonym) sees an opportunity with Gail distracted by her raft prep and introduces himself to Roarke, son of Gail and Tom, even giving Roarke a carefully selected Lollapalooza hat to gain his confidence.
Vic and Terry hired experienced river guide Frank to take them downriver as close to the Hartmans as possible, though the guide was initially unaware of their true motives. Their raft pushes off ahead of Gail's in a classic "follow from ahead" strategy before they can verify if Tom will even show up, but after a few miles the suspense is too much to bear so they instruct the guide to stop. When Gail passes by with Tom in tow both counselors heave silent sighs of relief, and Vic engages the first phase of his aggressive counseling plan. "Hey, who's your friend, Gail?" Insulting Tom but giving Gail a test to see if she will defend her partner. "Oh...this is Tom, Roarke's father!" Not "my husband" - fail, Gail. After Roarke falls asleep the first night the couple try to make awkward small talk which quickly leads to another petty squabble: "Don't do me any favors" Tom snidely remarks on hearing that Gail only pretends to be interested in the things that he likes.
The next day Vic & Terry's guide Frank ditches them after discovering some of their session notes from day one, which accelerates Vic's already aggressive marriage treatment plan. Making up an excuse for Frank's disappearance Vic convinces the Hartmans to let the undercover counselors shadow their raft the rest of the way downriver to the last safe exit point at Bridle Creek. A few short hours later Vic gives Tom a test of his own: Vic fakes his own near-drowning to see if Tom can activate his "personal savior mechanism" (a term Vic coined in his non-fiction bestseller The Wild in All of Us, Viking Press 1992). Tom takes the bait and "saves" the flailing Vic (who can actually swim better than a fish when not faking) but soon regrets it when the counselors initiate test #3: the jealousy meter. Vic pairs off with Gail for some topless fly fishing (Gail keeps her top on though) while Terry begins to not-so-subtly drop hints to Tom about what a ladies man Vic/Wade is. Test #3 strikes a Tom nerve as at the first moment alone with Gail he complains "I don't like those guys. I think we should leave them behind tomorrow." If only it was that easy, Tom.
The next chance he gets Vic approaches Gail as she sits alone by a hot spring, where he encourages her to consider life without Tom and the kids (a controversial counseling method). Vic continues to push the envelope later that night, injecting stress into an otherwise joyful birthday celebration for Roarke by upstaging the other gifts with $200 in cold hard cash. Looking on in confused concern, Terry slowly drains a can of beer trying to figure out why Vic is going rogue.
However, Vic's magic seems to be working as Tom and Gail start to kiss in the moonlight before being interrupted by the needy birthday boy, and Tom leaves Gail alone to see what Roarke is hollering about. At first just watching clinically from a nearby perch, Vic then lives up to his reputation as an unabashed line-crosser when he leaves his leafy cover to make sure Gail sees him watching her skinny-dip alone in the hot spring.
Now that Vic has focused the Hartmans' anger away from each other and onto his hunky shoulders, he kicks his antagonism into overdrive by soft-kidnapping the boy and letting Red Chief point a loaded handgun at Terry, who almost becomes a victim of the most preventable accidental shooting of all time. When the frightened Hartmans try to separate from the guys Bacon gets slappy with Tom and Roarke's faces as he completes his heel turn into deranged lunatic o' the woods with Terry playing right along.
Admittedly Vic and Terry take things too far, possibly the result of too much success in the counseling game at too young an age, but there is always a method to the madness. After convincing Gail that he has killed Tom in a midnight shooting incident by the river, Vic taunts her with "No tears? Things must have been worse between you and Tom than I thought." Streep then bares her fangs with a slowly whispered "I'm going to kill you." Vic can only see the bonus money dollar signs flashing in his eyes at the thought of the tearful reunion when she realizes Tom is not dead, not to mention a chapter in his next book that just about writes itself.
Meanwhile Tom is on his own personal vision quest trying to shadow the raft without falling off a cliff, somehow wrangling the lost family pooch and becoming a skilled outdoorsman when it counts. As Vic and Terry utilize a cameo by their Hollywood pal Benjamin Bratt (playing ranger Johnny, with Gail none the wiser) to convince the Hartmans that their lives are in danger, Gail matches Tom's feats as she steps up to the challenge and runs an imposing gauntlet despite a supporting crew that is wet behind the oars. When the troubled couple finally reunites with a passionate kiss amidst the rapids they have no idea that they were just helped by the best in the biz.
7/10
Risky Business (1983)
Tom Cruise Plays a Dangerous Game
Risky Business follows the blossoming of young suburban lad Joel Goodson (either laziest character surname choice or exquisite play-on-words, you decide). The film begins with Goodson's chum Myles goading Joel into taking advantage of a parentless house with some good old-fashioned debauchery. With a snootful of the best whiskey the liquor cabinet has to offer, Joel makes a fateful decision that will change his life forever. He cues up some Old Time Rock & Roll and...dons a pair of white briefs.
As anyone who has ever done laundry knows, wearing white underwear is a dangerous game. With Myles' titillating words ringing in his ears Joel throws caution to the wind and dances like a madman, daring to execute a reckless splits that jars something loose. Flinging himself back onto the couch Joel tries the jiggling-clench but to no avail as the miniature brown avalanche can hardly be contained.
Trying to shake off the nightmare in jockeys, Joel dials up love and bangs his way through a Tangerine Dreamscape. The next morning when the ambitious escort (Rebecca DeMornay) discovers Joel is short on funds she sends him off to the bank to cash in a savings bond. While Goodson is out she quickly confiscates the brownmail material from a swampy hamper and scoots.
When JG returns with the cash he discovers the theft and, disgusted by his own crapulence, seizes on an imaginary crystal knick-knack egg as a metaphorical version of the Cadbury he laid in his soiled drawers. Joel then stops at nothing to recover the stolen Hanes, engaging in a high speed car chase and battling wits with a wacky pimp.
With all of this going on Joel's college plans come into focus as he realizes that a man of such questionable activities would not be a good fit for a respectable institution like the University of Illinois; instead he is a strong candidate to follow in the footsteps of Eliot Spitzer (class of '81) at Princeton. Young Tom Cruise grows up before our eyes (though his are shaded by the iconic Ray-Bans) and proves that wearing white briefs really is...Risky Business.
8/10
(Inspired by J. Weiner and C. Cote)
Working Girl (1988)
Two Roses Surrounded By Thorns in Corporate America
Working Girl is a special film, not just as underdog story meets romantic comedy, not just because of the amazing 80s hair and wardrobe, but also because two angelic characters are surrounded by so many devils. In list form below you will find the Bottom 25 countdown to the most depraved character as well as a glowing tribute to the two who showed us the light.
25: Tim Draper (Timothy Carhart) works for Trask Industries as head media consultant. He generally has a sneering look on his face and is condescending when he hears the Metro Radio pitch, but otherwise relatively benign.
24: Helicopter Pilot (Mario DeFelice, Jr. or Anthony Mancini, Jr., not sure which Junior has the speaking part) drops off Katharine Parker at the heliport, clearly annoyed with her antics while she is under the influence of a muscle relaxer. He seems impatient, but maybe he has to get refueled and fly somewhere else so ranked low here.
23: Alice Baxter (Amy Aquino) is Tess McGill's assistant at the new position working for Trask Industries. Her only crime is putting her feet up on the boss's desk before Tess even got to sit in it once, but she deserves somewhat of a pass considering that her boss was clearly late to work despite it being her first day.
22: Bridesmaid (Ricki Lake) simply acted carelessly. When stranger and crasher Jack Trainer approaches her to ask questions about wedding guest Elizabeth Summerfield (and clearly has an ulterior motive), she willingly gives him enough info to advance his agenda with Ms. Summerfield despite the careless bridesmaid having no idea what that agenda might be.
21: Trask Receptionist (Suzanne Shepherd) was at the upstairs desk when Tess McGill shows up late to her first day working at Trask. Instead of walking Tess back to her work space and introducing her to #23 ranked Alice Baxter, she gives Tess vague directions and causes the awkward misunderstanding that inevitably ensues. However the receptionist may have been distracted by her daughter Karen's difficulties with gangster husband Henry Hill.
20: Bridegroom Mark (Tom Rooney) apparently remarks offscreen to new bride Phyllis Trask that their tropical-themed wedding reception "looks like Nicaragua" and is "making a political statement." First, why complain about the decor now, either he did not bother to find out what the reception theme was or he knew and picked the worst time to whine about it, ruining the bride's big day. Second, with Iran-Contra in the recent past and the duly elected Sandinista government still being under siege in 1988 by Reagan-backed insurrectionists it is simply in poor taste.
19: Lobby Front desk receptionist at Trask Industries (unknown) displays a clear double standard while ostensibly having to check her desktop list before admitting visitors. When Jack Trainer and Tess McGill arrive at the first meeting together Jack says "Trainer and McGill" as he breezes past the desk. The receptionist only says "Yes top of the stairs" without even looking down at the alleged list and could not possibly have known who they are as it is their first time meeting at Trask's office. Compare this to the next time Tess arrives for a meeting, this time alone, wherein the same receptionist has to peruse her list before admitting Tess who had just visited days before.
18: Armbrister (Robert Easton) owns Metro Radio and has clearly cultivated the look and style of an antebellum plantation owner. That is all.
17: Cyn (Joan Cusack) is Tess McGill's best friend and former co-worker. Though she is mainly a good friend she sides with McGill's cheating boyfriend when the chips are down and invites the woman he cheated with to an engagement party that Tess will also attend.
16: Tim Rourke (Jeffrey Nordling) goads Tess McGill's boyfriend into an awkward public marriage proposal at the aforementioned engagement party despite certainly being aware that Tess just caught the same boyfriend in their bed with another woman days before.
15: Personnel Director (Olympia Dukakis) engages in shameful victim-blaming and continually downplays the sexual harassment Tess has endured in multiple job placements.
14: Ginny (Nora Dunn) exhibits a constantly condescending demeanor toward Tess, who she clearly views as below her, and keeps calling Ms. McGill "Bess" which is not even a name.
13: Bess McGill (Melanie Griffith) is the focus and star of the film, and Griffith was recognized with a well-deserved Oscar nomination. However, Bess is not without her share of blame. Snooping through private tapes, impersonating a superior officer in the Petty Marsh department of Mergers and Acquisitions, squatting in the Parker family's vacant townhouse, wearing Parker clothes and popping Parker pills, crashing a wedding reception and causing immediate marital doubt and suspicion by claiming to be a "friend" of the groom that the bride never heard of, and just more lies, lies, lies. It is her lack of concern for how cold a pizza is getting during a slow walk home, though, that really says something about her priorities.
12: Jack Trainer (Harrison Ford) steals the audience's heart, but should he? We first encounter Jack at a Dewey Stone party/mixer where he spots Tess sitting alone at the open bar. He zooms in on her before another cad gets the chance, despite having a serious girlfriend (who happens to be out of the country). When he realizes she is the same woman he is scheduled to meet with the next day, the woman who WORKS WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND and even dropped his girlfriend's name on the initial call to set up the meeting, he bumbles forward. Pressuring Tess to pound double shots of tequila gold he eventually carries her unconscious body up to his bachelor pad where she wakes up the next morning with her dress off. Though he later claims nothing happened, one wonders.
11: Man digging in the trash receptacle outside dry cleaners (unknown) is just showing his whole naked butt to the world while he bends over the can searching for treasure. Pull your pants up sir.
10: Oren Trask (Philip Bosco) makes it a point to surround himself with exclusively white executives at work and exclusively white friends at his daughters wedding. Contrast this with his uniformed manservants standing in the background at all times. To top it off he comments inappropriately on the boniness of the posterior of a female executive.
9: Turkel (James Lally) is Tess McGill's direct supervisor at her job in the beginning of the film. With a policy that his assistant must come in the men's room to notify him of any calls, the broker then berates her for his own failure to check for toliet paper before he sat down on the pot to dump UPS stock. Worse, he aids and abets fellow tool David Lutz in his despicable pimpery.
8: Doreen DiMucci (Elizabeth Whitcraft) is caught in bed with Tess's boyfriend Mick when Tess arrives home early. Relationships are complicated, and Mick is the one who owes Tess the fidelity. However, Doreen keeps hanging around the group of friends even when Tess is there whereas she should be finding new friends, and then Doreen has the nerve to look upset when Mick clumsily proposes to Tess.
7: Phyllis Trask (Barbara Garrick) was the catalyst for the Trask-radio idea when Tess read a blurb on Page Six about a charity benefit organized by Ms. Trask featuring talk radio host Bobby Stine. The same Bobby Stine famous for "Ethiopia jokes." Ha ha Phyllis, real funny.
6: Mick Dugan (Alexander Baldwin III) is a dirty cheater, that much has been established. He also has a strange obsession wherein the only gift he ever willingly buys a woman is lingerie.
5: David Lutz (Oliver Platt) is a sleazoid pimp.
4: Jim (Zach Grenier) is a lecherous junior executive who cannot keep his hands off Katharine Parker at a crowded Petty Marsh company meet and greet. When he finally stops his grimy assault and turns to look at Tess she immediately needs to return to her dim sum steam bath to cleanse herself from his filthy gaze.
3: Bob Speck (Kevin Spacey) epitomizes the randy Wall Street cokeboy, trying to cop a feel on Tess as he plays a creepy adult film on the limousine VCR during their fortunately brief meeting. Spacey was already deep into character years before he got the role.
2: Katharine Parker (Sigourney Weaver) is a 29 year old quickly rising through the ranks at Petty Marsh. Born into a wealthy family, she attended the most expensive schools and had every advantage. This is what makes her theft of intellectual property, Tess's Trask-radio idea, even more vile. Her attitude toward Tess being late for a doctor's appointment (which was admittedly made up but KP did not know this) is but a window into her callous heart as she demands Tess run to the drugstore ("The doctor will understand").
1: Cab driver (Steve Cody) is the worst of the worst. After Jack joins intoxicated Tess in the cab outside the Dewey Stone mixer the driver could clearly hear that groggy Tess in the back seat was with a man who did not even know where she lived, and in her stupor Tess could not even give her own address. The driver then proceeds to take them to Jack's apartment and leaves her alone with the potential rapist, pulling away without a word as Jack carries Tess's limp form over his shoulder.
Now after all that unpleasantness, the Top 2 redeeming characters:
1 (tie): Elizabeth "Bitsy" Summerfield (Marceline Hugot) is another Bridesmaid being used as a tool in the Trainer-McGill crashing scheme. When surprised by a "Bitsy don't break my heart and tell me you don't remember me" from total stranger Jack Trainer she politely responds with grace and pirouettes like a world-class ballerina.
1 (tie): Clerk at dry cleaners (Lily Froelich) not only had to look at #11 trash can man's exposed buttocks through the store window but also kindly dashed after Tess to return the day planner that McGill so carelessly left on the counter.
10/10
The Rainmaker (1997)
The Spectacular Fall of Leo F. Drummond, Esq.
Abraham Lincoln. Johnnie Cochran. Leo F. Drummond. At one time no single name on this list would have seemed out of place, but in 1997 everything changed. Legal legend Leo (impeccably portrayed by Mr. Angelina Jolie, Sr.) was the star of the Memphis bar, especially after the shocking collapse of competitor Bendini, Lambert & Locke. In the early 80s and beyond Drummond led his partners at the high-powered firm of Tinley Britt to an unprecedented string of victories the likes of which southwest Tennessee had never seen, attracting such top dollar clients as FedEx and Great Benefit Insurance. Director Francis Ford Coppola (best known as executive producer of Jeepers Creepers 2 and, to a lesser extent, for directing a couple well-received films in the 1970s about Sicily) carefully studies the infamous barrister's sudden disintegration in The Rainmaker, leading to a Golden Globe nomination for the actor (strangely in the supporting role category).
Leo Drummond's first appearance of the film is, appropriately, in the place where the magic happens, a Tennessee courtroom. Completely at ease with a team of associates behind him and the grumpy old judge in his hip pocket, Drummond has no idea his ego on this fateful day will slowly bring his world to a slumping end - much like Elvis slumped over in death on his toilet just a short distance from this very courthouse.
Rudy Baylor-more on him later-and 6 time bar exam failure Deck Shifflet (Danny DeVito) show up to the courtroom alone, with zero law licenses between them. Attorney of record J. Lyman "Bruiser" Stone (Mickey Rourke) is nowhere to be found. Legal lion Leo F. Drummond has a choice: A) ask for immediate dismissal of the case by default since no attorney appeared to argue against Drummond's pending motion to dismiss (almost certain to be granted, particularly with a sympathetic judge) or B) toy with the recent law school grad who is not yet licensed. The lion decides to toy with the mouse.
After Baylor is sworn in earlier than all of his more accomplished law school classmates (take that top 99.5% of the class), he is ushered into the crusty Judge's chambers for a tag team settlement conference that would only be participated in by the absolute laziest Judge to ever take the bench. Baylor demurs and the case is set over for a future date, but Drummond's fate has already been sealed.
By the time of the next court date the trash Judge is dead of a heart attack and a real Judge (Roger Murtaugh) takes over the case. In a still-Marlboro-smelling chambers, but with a new occupant, Drummond is verbally manhandled by the robed jurist and lurches out in a daze with his lackeys in tow, motion to dismiss denied and the case fast-tracked for trial.
At a deposition held at the Great Benefit headquarters Drummond reveals the new state of his skills, admitting aloud "I may not be 100% today, but I'm here in spirit." Drummond next cheapens himself by bugging Baylor's phone in a bumbling fashion, leading to the most embarrassing moment of a 35 year career. After Baylor and Shifflet stage a fake jury-tampering phone call on the party line solely for the (great) benefit of the snooping listeners, Leo accuses innocent anti-Plaintiff juror Mr. Porter of fraud - which leads to Drummond being tackled by the wrongfully accused juror onto the patterned floor of the courtroom, loafers flying and Brooks Brothers suit soiled on the dirty tile. After Porter is dragged out and excused as a juror Baylor then signals to Drummond that he set the whole thing up, leading to Mr. Jolie's amazing non-verbal facial acting which clearly garnered him the Golden Globes nomination.
As the evidentiary part of the trial begins Rudy Baylor demonstrates his utter lack of knowledge of basic courtroom procedure by asking leading question after leading question, apparently failing to grasp what a leading question even is. Bringing shame to the Cecil B. Humphreys School of Law at the University of Memphis with his shoddy in-court performance (the school's ranking plummeted soon after this display before eventually improving somewhat to its current position tied for 138th in U.S. News & World Report, 2020) we are constantly reminded how inexperienced Rudy really is, contrasted with rare flashes of Mr. Drummond displaying the skills that made him Memphis's top lawyer as he objects to Rudy's poorly worded questions appropriately and exposes Baylor's naiveté. In a glimpse of the former greatness Drummond also exposes the Plaintiff's mother (Mary Kay Place) on the witness stand as a money-hungry opportunist.
As Baylor calls Great Benefit reps to testify, including Jackie Lemancyzk (Virginia Madsen), Leo tries to block the witness from testifying. However, 6 time bar exam failure Shifflet hands Drummond his loafers a second time, leaping into action (as he argues before the jury illegally without a law license) to school Drummond on a basic Tennessee rule of evidence which leaves Leo looking shellshocked. Next Drummond seems to redeem himself as he temporarily gets a key piece of evidence excluded; however, in the pre-internet world of legal research Drummond and his sloppy team are somehow unaware of the famous DeSoto case decided in 1992 regarding the admissibility of stolen evidence, a case that is so well known that even the missing Bruiser Stone (who himself successfully argued the DeSoto appeal, now lounging during a tropical beachside phone call with Deck) can remember the approximate book and page where the case can be found.
Despite his ignorance Drummond still manages to secure the small temporary victory by getting section Q of the Great Benefit senior claims adjusters' manual excluded as evidence, but the glory is short-lived. With the DeSoto precedent belatedly in hand Baylor tries to reintroduce the same evidence the next day, to which Drummond weakly objects on the basis of the it already having been excluded. Rudy beats his elder yet again.
Drummond's lack of trial prep is never more evident than when Great Benefit CEO Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) gets on the stand and is taken apart by rookie Baylor and unlicensed "lawyer" Deck Shifflet who again commits the crime of unauthorized practice of law, without comment on the crime by anyone in attendance. After inexperienced Baylor slaughters CEO Scheider on the stand, Drummond can only offer the pained look of someone passing a kidney stone.
Drummond then snoozes his way through a prejudicial Baylor closing argument that is basically just a portable-screen video of the deceased Plaintiff making inadmissible statements from beyond the grave, a ridiculous idea that would never be allowed if only Leo raised a simple objection. Meanwhile Drummond's own closing summation is a rambling rant about how a ruling in favor of the Plaintiff will raise the premiums through the roof for all insurance customers, in the same breath as he decries government's role in healthcare (oblivious to the irony), which could actually bring down inflation-adjusted premium costs for most customers with an individual mandate and eliminate the kind of claim denial shenanigans that sustain all the Great-Benefit-type hustlers of the insurance world.
After the jury foreman announces a verdict finding Great Benefit responsible for $50 million in punitive damages (which could never happen today since a Tennessee republican legislature passed a $750,000 damages cap in 2011 as part of a "tort reform" package), Leo can do nothing but sit back in dismay and wonder where it all went wrong. Days later we see Drummond, strangely still wearing his suit jacket in his office sitting behind a cluttered desk, as he makes a half-gloating call to Rudy Baylor informing him that as Great Benefit has filed for bankruptcy (due to the huge verdict) none of them will get paid after all (possibly not entirely understanding the Chapter 11 bankruptcy process). Likely Drummond kills himself at his desk a short time later though this is not confirmed on camera.
Rudy Baylor's film-ending narration concludes the picture with a riff on his uncertain future, but Rudy does know one thing-he must not live a life where "I'd wake up one morning and find that I'd become Leo Drummond." Perish the thought.
Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House (2002)
Home Alone 4 Ages Like a Fine Wine
If you wrote a negative review of Home Alone 4 between November 3, 2002 (when this film aired for the first time) and May 25, 2016 when the Chicago P.D. season 3 finale (spoilers below) aired on NBC, I forgive you of your sins. You had no idea you were commenting on the quality of a high stakes game of family deception and international intrigue. However, you are now on notice Negative Nellies, no new knocks necessary.
In this questionably greenlit third sequel the casting choices have been skewered for longer than some of today's new viewers have been alive, but one role stands out above all others: Jason Beghe as Peter McCallister. After putting together all the clues we discover that Peter, secretly a Chicago P.D. Detective named Hank Voigt with a primary family of wife Camille and son Justin in addition to second family the McCallisters, has been posing as a "publicist" to explain his frequent late night absences. Required to steal from drug dealers in order to subsidize his detective's salary, Voigt/McCallister managed for a time to keep family #2 in a Winnetka mansion while first family Camille and Justin unsuspectingly live in a house more suitable to a cop's budget. After 9/11 when law enforcement focus shifted from drugs to terrorism Voigt's opportunities to rob dealers decreased, and the financial pressures caused a separation from Kate and a downsizing to a smaller McCallister home (Camille and Justin still oblivious as the first family).
Hoping to improve his fortunes Peter/Hank sets his sights on wealthy socialite Natalie (Joanna Goings) and her high-class connections. Always on the go as she navigates the Gold Coast party circuit, Natalie does not suspect Peter/Hank is working homicides rather than putting in long hours in his imaginary Michigan Avenue corner office. Peter quickly sets up a new second home base in Natalie's ahead-of-its-time "smart house" as he abandons the nearly-forgotten McCallisters.
Home Alone 4 picks up after the McCallister separation and residential downsizing, giving no explanation for the absence of two additional children Linnie and Jeff. Pining for a father who had always been something of a ghost in his life, youngest son Kevin ditches newly single Mom Kate with a piggy bank full of cab fare in hand as he pops up randomly at Natalie's high-tech manse for Christmas (forcing awkward greetings from the homeowner and her staff). Barely keeping his head above water as it is, Peter/Hank can scarcely defend young Kevin from Natalie's verbal abuse after the lad quickly floods the house.
French Stewart. One would rather carry out that phrase on the mid-2000s set of The Daily Show than see the actor of the same name cast as beloved villain Marv, but here we are. With his eyes on future roles in City Slickers 3 and as the Narrator on a Wonder Years reboot, Stewart makes his presence felt as he brings new life to finger-smashing and groin-shot gags.
In a lesser twist reveal intended to throw careful viewers off the scent of Peter's double life we find out the one person who has been nice to Kevin, Molly Maid, is actually Marv's mother and facilitator of the elaborate plot to kidnap a visiting prince (a plot of course begging to be foiled by young Kev).
When the dust settles with both Natalie's smart-house and reputation in shambles Peter quickly dumps her to return to his second family the McCallisters, and the King, Queen, and Jack who have just arrived at the rubble of the mansion strangely follow suit.
Fast forward 13.5 years, still in Chicago but now with a different audience who has forgotten about Hank Voigt's second family and related hijinks from 2002. In the chilling season 3 finale of Chicago P.D. Hank's son Justin is murdered by Tommy from Power (Joseph Sikora). Viewers who were not aware of a tragic event from Voigt's past only knew that Hank sought standard revenge for Justin's death, but his simmering rage came from much deeper in the proverbial skillet. After a particularly lucrative drug money seizure in the summer of 2005 Hank/Peter purchased first class tickets for Kate, Kevin, Megan, and Buzz to meet up with their royal pals in London. When their limo was targeted by an apparent MEK sleeper cell rocket attack, Voigt was sleeping next to Camille in his on-the-books residence. He found out about the deaths on the news and from that day forth Peter McCallister disappeared for good (the perpetrators were never captured).
When his final living son was killed in 2016 Voigt eventually buried the responsible party in a muddy field, not just for Justin but for all the McCallisters who perished before him. As a final tribute to one fallen son Hank takes another Kevin under his wing, promising detective Kevin Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins).
5/10