The long and winding road (that leads to the Mark Goodson screening room)

Over at the AFI, alumnus Brian Udovich and other people who I can't remember host screenings of cool movies; they call it Reel Grit Sundays and they've been doing this for (I think) four years so far. They decided to have a marathon of six films the other day, as a way to countdown to/celebrate reaching film #100; each film would be introduced by former alumni, each coming from a different category in the filmmaking arts and we wouldn't be told the name of the film until the guest speaker intro'd it. The Reel Grit Six Shooter, they were calling it. Badass Digest and the Alamo Drafthouse were also involved (the latter supplied most of the prints). I had the gas money to go, so I went.

I arrived around 9:30 am (the marathon was scheduled to start at 10) and was happy to notice Phil Blankenship (late of the New Beverly Cinema, on-time of Amoeba Music) and film/comic geek extraordinaire Cathie Horlick waiting around as well. By the way, it was Cathie's enthusiastic movie blog that inspired me to create my own, so blame her for the horrific waste of Internet space that is Exiled from Contentment.

The Mark Goodson screening room was where it was all happening; the sign outside said it had 135-seating capacity but it felt smaller, this intimate theater. There was something kind of cool about that, it felt like an extended private party -- which is what it was, I guess -- and when the Reel Grit guys talked about how this all started as a movie night they would have at home, the medium-sized space added to that feeling of being part of a large group of friends gathered to watch movies, and I'm the creepy guy in the corner, not talking to anyone. 

A man carried a large film reel canister marked "Django's Coffin", and at first I thought this guy was screwing up the whole deal, giving up the name of one of the secret movies (I assumed it was one of the many fake Django movies released after the success of the Sergio Corbucci/Franco Nero joint), but I was wrong; the film canister was for accepting donations, since this Reel Grit business all comes out of their own pockets (among the many things they pay for: union projectionists, which I thought they didn't exist anymore, I figured that trade was lost to the minimum-wagers, based on the kids I see manning the projectors at the local multiplex nowadays). 

I smoke weed, so I'm probably getting most of this wrong but the main host was Brian Udovich and he (as well as the other members of Reel Grit) had on a Reel Grit t-shirt, the logo being a six-shooter cylinder. There was a brief AFI film montage that consisted of scenes from awesome movies with the names of the alumni responsible under them, along with the class year, and I assume this was to make non-students get all I Want To Go To There while reminding current students This Is Why You Came To Here. Udovich then welcomed us and talked about how Reel Grit got started and what led to this marathon. He also said that while there would be various people arriving throughout the day, they would be missing out, because they -- unlike us -- would not get the full proper experience of this marathon.

The first presenter came up; his name's Howard Smith and this motherfucker edited films for James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow and James Foley, among others. He knows what the fuck is up, he can handle anything you can throw at him (and in the case of James Cameron, he probably had to). The film he picked was River's Edge, which he edited for director Tim Hunter (who supplied the print); originally, he couldn't work on the film because he was already working on something else, so instead Hunter went with someone else. Well, when Someone Else got too pregnant to continue, Smith was available and he finished cutting the rest of the movie. Seriously ladies, stop it with the getting knocked up, let homeboy pull out in time. 

He talked about how the actress playing the dead girl in the movie kept completely still, never moving even though the location was very cold and uncomfortable, and yet, many people at screenings would swear seeing her move. Smith and Hunter would watch the film and study it closely, and not once did they ever spot any kind of movement from her. Even today, the IMDB goof section claims the dead girl moves, but Smith compared it to staring at one of those large dioramas at a museum, where you swear the fake buffalo's ear moved or the waxed Native American has a tear rolling down his cheek.

He brought up how Hunter considers this a black comedy (as in the Coen Brothers, not Tyler Perry), and it sounded like Smith agreed with him to a point; he also thought it was interesting that there were many screenings where the audience laughed from beginning to end while there were others that were stone silent. It would be interesting to see how this particular audience would take it, he said.

I saw River's Edge once when I was a kid, because the equation of cable + insomnia + parents are heavy sleepers = WIN. Back then, I liked it but took the whole thing deadly serious. At the AFI however, that shit was straight-up hilarious – particularly whenever Crispin Glover was on-screen. Half the time, he said his lines while posing with his arm out like he was about to tell Biff to get his damn hands off her. I don't know if Hunter was using the dark comedy line as some kind of proto-Wiseau defense or if he really meant it, but I would bet it's the latter, because this film does in fact feel at times like a Coen Brothers screenplay directed by late-80's Penelope Spheeris. It helps/doesn't help that the music goes into very dramatic DUN DUN DUN territory while some funny shit is happening on-screen.

It starts very fuckin' serious, though; some kid (more on this fucker later) is busy throwing his little sister's beloved doll off a bridge into a river when he hears someone howling. Turns out the howler is some guy who strangled his girlfriend a while ago and is now currently smoking a roach next to her naked corpse. Maybe it's because Smith more-or-less challenged us to find the flaws in Dead Girl's performance, but this chick is scary good and she doesn't even need CSI's quick cuts or Law & Order's moving camera to hide any giveaways, there are long shots devoted to her and she never fuckin' moves or twitches.

The killer is played by Daniel Roebuck, and in real-life he's a really likable horror geek. His character in River's Edge, on the other hand, is very unnerving; he's mostly passive but there's always that hidden threat of this guy possibly blowing at any second, and every time he's hanging with someone, I feared for the other person because I figured it would only take a wrong word for this motherfucker to want to wrap his hands around that person's throat (which is what happened to his girlfriend).

Smith said that this was Keanu Reeves' first American movie and I think the dude is pretty good in it, but then again, I'm kind of a Keanu apologist, so what do I know. He's like the one guy in the stunningly apathetic crowd of friends who's bothered enough by what Roebuck did to do something about it (granted, it takes him a while to get around to it, but maybe he needed some time to let the situation settle in). His home life is a beauty; he gets caught smoking pot by his mom and she's pissed because she thinks he's smoking her stash, and his stepfather (or wannabe stepfather) is played by that Steve Perry-looking motherfucker who played Corey Haim's “pop” in the Fast Getaway diptych.

Keanu has a younger brother, played by this creepy kid who was in Near Dark and Class of 1999; I don't know what it is about this kid, but he creeps me out, man. But in River's Edge, my slight fear of this little bastard was replaced by seething rage at this fuckin' piece-of-shit. Don't give me that “he's just a kid” shit either, fuck this guy, he threw his poor innocent little sister's doll into the river and brags about it, then later on, he desecrates the makeshift grave she made for it. 

The little sister is the only one in the family who doesn't seem completely fucked up, but I fear it's only a matter of time before she ends up being a total shit, hanging out with the wrong crowd, ditching class, drinking beer, wanting to sex up her hippie teacher and next thing you know, now she's in River's Edge 2: Money Never Sleeps and it's gonna be HER strangled naked body that some other fat asshole is smoking pot over. Anyway, a pre-teen with bruises and a bloody nose isn't supposed to make you go FUCK YES but it did when I saw it happen to Little Asshole Brother. The only thing he's got going for him is his mute lackey/friend who carries around nunchucks and sleeps under a Bruce Lee poster. That kid's awesome, and according to Smith, he only got paid as an extra, rather than as an actor. Welcome to Hollywood, son.

Anyway, between Crispin Glover's acting, the This Is Serious Goddammit music, some of the dialogue, and last but not least Dennis Hopper being Dennis Hopper, I'd say this movie was 70 percent laughs, 20 percent depressing, and 10 percent...I don't know what. Maybe the 10 percent is for Ione Skye, because Ione Skye is a swell chick. Either way, it's 100 percent Good Times. It'll probably take me a while to come down from this, but I think Mr. Glover's mannerisms have infected me and I'll probably be acting/talking like him for a while, because it's just one of those performances – and he's just one of those actors. He knows how to kick, too.

After the movie, the Reel Grit crew came up on stage eating hot dogs, followed by screenwriter Jacob Forman, and after making a joke about how we were about to watch Steven Soderbergh's personal un-subtitled print of the entire 5-hour cut of Che, he made his intro short and sweet (his refusal to let Udovich talk about his upcoming projects made it even shorter – so basically his intro should've been "Ladies & gentlemen, let's have a nice round of applause for Working Screenwriter!"), telling us our 2nd film of the day was Prime Cut, starring Muthafuckin' Lee Marvin and Gene Muthafuckin' Hackman.

Now, I've seen this film before, at one of Nicky Katt's movie marathon nights at the Cinefamily/Silent Movie Theatre and I dug it. In fact, click here if you want to read about that night. I'll keep this part brief, since I've already rambled about it before. The crowd really dug this oddball flick; I think it's the weird little touches and detours that make this film what it is. The film definitely has its fair share of badass moments and lines, but it appears to be just as interested in devoting time to off-kilter moments like Lee Marvin being more-or-less forced by an old lady to drink milk poured from a dispenser that looks like a cow (the milk shoots out from one of the udders) or a scene where Hackman's character (running both a meat-packing plant and a drug/white-slavery ring) starts to wrestle with his brother (named Weenie) in the same room where his accountants are trying to do their job, pretending that two adults are not acting like asses a few feet away from them. 

Following Prime Cut, we had a lunch break. There were two lunch trucks waiting outside; one was for Thai street food and the other was a nacho truck. These gourmet food trucks are great because they find new ways to overly-complicate the simplest foods. The food trucks were supposed to be "thematically related" to the films we had just watched, but I couldn't make the connection. Later, I overheard one of the guys involved admitting that there was a mix-up and the trucks that were supposed to show up for dinner showed up for lunch, and vice versa. 

The presenter for our 3rd film of the day was AFI dean Robert Mandel, the director of such films as F/X (“My name's Leo, and we need to talk”), School Ties (“Cowaaaaards!”), and 1996's The Substitute (“Knock that nigga out, my nigga!”). His film pick was 3 Days of the Condor, which was a very influential film for him as a director. He talked about Robert Redford's acting, particularly his strengths in interrogation scenes – but not the kind that take place in a small room between cops and criminals or something like that, he meant more like the kind of scene where a guy catches up to another guy and demands to know Just What The Fuck Is Going On. He also had things to say about how awesome Max Von Sydow was, which was kind of endearing to me, the idea that Mandel felt the need to tell us this because c'mon, it's Max Von Sydow, we know that motherfucker's awesome in everything – that's why they cut him out of the theatrical cut of The Wolfman, they couldn't have him fucking up the underwhelming tone of that movie.

That Sundance Film Festival-creating motherfucker Robert Redford plays this dude who works at the American Literary Historical Society, but fuck that shit, it's all a front for the CIA. Redford's job is to read the fuck out of everything, single out anything that's cool and/or weird, then send that shit out to the big boys upstairs so they can do something with it. One day, he goes out to pick up lunch but when he returns, all his co-workers are dead, probably because that bad Max Von Sydow and a couple of typical postal workers were in that joint blasting the shit out of everyone -- the old lady secretary, the old man security guard, the old boss with the wig (in death, all secrets are revealed). Then I guess they got tired of beating the Grim Reaper to the punch with the oldies, so then they go upstairs to kill some of that young stuff -- the Asian chick, some douchebag guy, and some other douchebag guy who was using the bathroom (motherfucker went out like Vincent Vega, sprawled out on the fuckin' bathtub).

Half of the movie is Redford in paranoid mode – one of my favorite shots is a cutaway to some lady with a baby carriage, who for all we know could be packing a sawed-off in there – and he ends up taking a random New Yorker at gunpoint (played by piss-throwing champion Faye Dunaway) and forces her along for the ride. You know, you watch these movies and you wonder: is this frightened lady eventually going to fall in love with her gun-wielding captor? Because you never fucking know, right? Right.

I'm gonna do that one day, I'm gonna take an airsoft pistol and look for a hot chick and put it up against her side and tell her to act natural. This is a test, you see. Then she's going to krav maga my stupid ass and bust out the taser gun and zero that shit in straight to my balls (or as I like to call them, Wasted Potential), then as she runs off, screaming for the cops, I'm going to be on the ground, bleeding, broken, and with swollen traumatized testicles (at least more swollen/traumatized than usual) and I'm going to wonder if maybe, just maybe, all movies are lies. 

Mandel talked about how both films came out of a time when America (fuck yeah) was soooo not trusting the government (Tricky Dick and Watergate were in full effect). It made me think how nice it would've been to live in a world where you could watch something like 3 Days of the Condor and go “Hey, remember the time when shit was really bad and we didn't trust our government and we were all so fuckin' cynical?” but unfortunately, shit didn't work out that way. 

SPOILERS if you haven't seen this shit, but there's a particularly chilling part where Cliff Robertson (he's the guy with the hair that looks like a toupee but probably isn't) talks about how Americans would never ask the government to pull some rank shit just to keep our engines running and our heaters working, not so much because of moral reasons, but because we expect our government to do those things without our having to ask them. It's like, we want our steaks but we don't want to know about the cows being butchered, hell, we don't even want to know that they came from cows (we'll delude ourselves into thinking that they came from the magical steak fairy), so just serve it to us on our plates and hurry up, 'cause we're hungry.  

John Houseman is in this movie too, playing John Houseman; this motherfucker is always acting like he can't believe you have the fucking audacity (that's French for “balls”) to try to pass the bullshit you're serving him as The Truth -- even when he's busy scribbling on a notepad -- but he's gonna let you make an ass of yourself anyway. Damn, I miss John Houseman, I didn't even fully appreciate him when I was a kid, back then he was just the driving instructor from The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad.

Anyway, this was a solid flick and watching a pristine print projected in 35mm is quite the experience compared to seeing this shit letterboxed on a 4:3 TV set, and when I first saw this movie back in 2003 (on said 4:3 set), there was something familiar about the end credits music. Eventually, it dawned on me – I heard part of this tune before, during the previous summer, in a song by R&B singer Amerie called "Why Don't We Fall In Love". I remember hearing that song on the radio so much during the summer of 2002 that I'll forever associate it (and a handful of other songs) with that particularly happy time in my life – what's that line in the original Ocean's Eleven? Something like “Old times are only good when you've had them”? Fuckin' A, Dino. Check out both songs by clicking on this shit (which I found by Googling “amerie why don't we fall in love dave grusin”). Anyway, according to this movie, the government is shady and all black people should know how to break into cars, so don't bother frontin'.  

Another five-minute break, then cinematographer Amelia Vincent came up to intro the 4th movie. She's won awards and accolades for her work on films like Eve's Bayou, Hustle and Flow, and Black Snake Moan, and her choice for the marathon was At Close Range, starring Sean Penn and Christopher Walken, and directed by James Foley. "Like father. Like son. Like hell." was the tagline for this film, and Ms. Vincent called it the best movie poster tagline ever. The director of photography was Juan Ruiz Anchia, and Vincent talked about how his lighting was such a revelation to her in comparison to the over-saturated, romantic lighting of guys like Nestor Almendros – she was quick to clear up that she wasn't dissing the Academy Award-winning d.p. of Days of Heaven, she was just basically saying that his style of lighting was becoming very much the style at the time, and as a result, overused.

I could be wrong, but I swear she was also one of the presenters who had originally wanted to pick River's Edge, but she had to go with her second choice because Howard Smith (who also edited At Close Range) beat them to the punch. I say that because she kept mentioning River's Edge along with At Close Range, talking about how both came out in 1986 and both involved troubled youths. She's right; River's Edge involved high school students while the kids in At Close Range appear to be in the 18-20 range, but both are stories about wayward youths getting involved in serious shit. Also, both films feature scenes where underage kids try to buy booze at the liquor store and are met with roadblocks, but then find forceful ways around it.

Both films also feature characters who openly smoke weed at home – what the fuck, man? The closest I ever came to pulling that shit, I had to do it in my room with a towel covering the bottom of the door, Febreze or incense, a sploof, chewing gum and Visine. I also had to lock the door, which sucked because really, what other reason do you have to lock your bedroom door at your parents house aside from jerking off? Well, yeah, I guess I could have had a girl in there, but this is me we're talking about, let's be real. Meanwhile these motherfuckers are smoking joints on the living room couch, giggling their asses off watching television and the worst they get is their mom's boyfriend bitching about having to get up early for work the next day.

Eventually, Penn finds himself needing another place to stay, so he hits up his real daddy, played by Walken. Turns out that Walken makes his living doing criminal shit, breaking into places with his crew, breaking into safes or jacking tractors (this takes place in cow country). At first, Penn's kinda tripping out on his dad and his friends, but not getting involved. Then he meets Mary Stuart Masterson (she's the one who isn't Jennifer Jason Leigh) and because they're young and horny and bored, they fall in love and soon money becomes an issue, so guess who's begging to be a part of Daddy's business? 

Look, I know I'm not dropping a major revelation here by saying that Christopher Walken's the man, but goddamn, this guy can fuckin' act. In this film, he manages to be charming, funny, cocky, mean, scary, hate-worthy -- all while acting like Christopher Walken. It's like the part was already written so well, that any actor worth his salt could knock it out of the park, but Walken is not only a great actor, he's also Christopher Walken. What I mean is that Walken adds so much extra awesomeness to the role, with his mannerisms and very particular way of speaking -- it's like getting the best pommes frites ever and then adding truffle oil to them. I'm sensing a pattern forming -- I guess because it always comes down to food for us fatties, we love food analogies like a fat kid loves cake. Speaking of food and Christopher Walken, I'm sure you've seen this clip already. 

As far as other actors in this film; a shockingly in-good-shape Christopher Penn plays Sean's brother in the film, and Crispin Glover had made such an impression on us during River's Edge, that when we saw him show up in this movie, it was like seeing an old friend. His name was applauded and every time he appeared, we couldn't help but laugh. Kiefer Sutherland is here, and this must have been before The Lost Boys because his presence is barely felt or noticed -- the mute nunchucker from River's Edge had made more of an impression. I didn't even recognize Edward R. Murrow as one of Walken's crew, shit, I barely recognized Tracey Walter in the crew, come to think of it. Stephen Geoffreys is in this movie too, and I get kind of sad thinking about this Tony-award winning actor who then went on to do gay porn a few years later. 

Unless it was something he was into. Like, maybe having sex with hot guys and getting paid for it sounded like an awesome gig to him and he was all like To Hell With Acting. In that case, right on, do your thing. I mean, if some guy came up to me and told me that there's a new category of porn that involves fat, out-of-shape ugly bastards with tiny dicks and zero lasting-power banging hot chicks and that I was perfect for it, you know what? I might take that gig if it pays enough. Sure, there might be some hesitation, but then the talent agent would tell me that there are people who pay big bucks for guys with fat hairy guts who constantly apologize while having sex and I'd finally relent. Dignity left my life a long fuckin' time ago, so why not? Anyway, I do not judge Mr. Geoffreys, I only hope that he was happy during that period of his life, and if he was happy, then I'm happy and so are the gay fans (and straight enemies) of Stephen Geoffreys, the ones who've always fantasized about seeing him suck a cock. 

This was the first time I'd seen At Close Range. The print (courtesy of Mr. Blankenship) looked great, and it's a good thing Ms. Vincent was playing up the film's cinematography instead of the sound, because there was something up with the projector or the print that caused a buzzing sound that Udovich compared to an electric razor disrupting the film. It wasn't that distracting (for the most part), but the lights were brought up twice and the film was stopped while the union projectionist did what he could. After the film, I heard a couple people say that the buzzing actually made the film feel more tense. 

Not that it needed any help being tense, because in addition to being beautifully shot (there's a great scene between Chris Penn and Walken that opens with their faces being slowly revealed with what I'm assuming was the use of a dimmer switch) and strongly acted, this movie also puts the fuckin' hurt on you slowly, and what seemed a wicked kind of fun in a dark kind-of-way, just becomes unbearably tough to watch near the end. I don't know how much of the true story this film was based on is reflected in the final product, but even if it's only half-true, shit, that's already too much. It's also tense because the film's score threatens to segue to a subpar Madonna song, but thankfully, it waits until the end credits to finally make good on its threat. 

Shit, I have to wrap this up. 

It was dinner time and two new food trucks showed up; one served Italian beef/Polish sausage sandwiches, and the other served I don't know what, I wasn't hungry either way. After, it was time for the 5th film of the night, Jacob's Ladder, which was introduced by production designer Todd Cherniawsky. This guy worked on Avatar, Sucker Punch, and Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland, so he doesn't have to justify himself to you or me or anyone. Anyway, he talked about artists like Bosch and David Cronenberg being very influential on him, and he basically talked about how awesome this movie was. He also pronounced director Adrian Lyne's name as Adrian "Lynn", so either he's wrong or everyone else is. 

Unfortunately, the ending has probably been spoiled for you because the movie's about 21 years old (JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!) and critics usually reference this movie in more current films that have similar endings or they mention the short story written about 100 years before the film, and how that had the same ending as this film. But whether you know the ending or not, it's still a real head-fucker of a movie, filled with images that are at the very least, really fucking unsettling and at the most, the cinematic equivalent to that guy Bushwick Bill beat the shit out of in that song "Mind Playin Tricks On Me" -- the nigga you'll be seeing in your sleep. 

Adding to the What The Fuck-ery of this joint is that in addition to seeing familiar faces like Tim Robbins, Danny Aiello, Mr. Soul Glo (or E.R., if you prefer), Pruitt Taylor Vince with his shaky eyeballs, and Ving Rhames, you also have actors whose appearance now carry an unfortunate comedic weight. I mean, there's a scene where Robbins looks at a photo of his deceased son and he gets all emotional -- except the boy in the photo is Macaulay Culkin, so rather than feel for Robbins' character, the audience burst into laughter because it's fuckin' Home Alone in this bitch! How was Adrian Lyne supposed to know that in a few months following Jacob's Ladder's release, that little cute kid was about to star in a comedy box-office juggernaut? 

Then later in the film, Robbins and his former Vietnam pals go to see a lawyer and the motherfucker's played by George Fuckin' Costanza! This movie is so nuts, that when Lewis Black shows up in a brief part as a doctor, you realize that his is the most down-to-earth perfomance in Jacob's Ladder. Oh, before I forget -- God bless Elizabeth Pena for being so goddamn naked throughout this movie, hell, even when she's wearing clothes she has that naked aura about her. She's just so Wow in this movie, it's not even funny. 

Anyway, I enjoyed Jacob's Ladder even more the second time around. My only issue with it is that after seeing the deleted scenes on the DVD, I watch the film now thinking it'd work even better had Lyne kept those parts in (I'm talking about the extended climax). It might have made the movie a little too over-the-top, but c'mon, I think Lyne should've stopped worring about going too far around the time he shot the scene where some demon shoves his tail through a woman and we see it come out through her mouth. Also, I hate the final title card before the end credits, I don't know why the fuck the movie suddenly felt the need to Teach Us Something with what reads like the kind of conspiracy theory bullshit that probably sealed the deal for Tim Robbins to get involved, fuckin' America-hater. Love it or leave it, buddy. Better dead than red. The South will rise again. 

A raffle was held for all those who contributed to Django's Coffin, and the winner got a poster for the marathon, autographed by all six presenters. Then producer Stuart Cornfeld (The Elephant Man, Cronenberg's remake of The Fly, and apparently every Ben Stiller movie) came up to the stage to introduce the 6th and final film of the night. He had a very convivial way about him, and for all I know he might be a pit bull when doing the producing thing, but he didn't come off that way at all with us. He was mentored by Mel Brooks and Brooks seems like a pretty cool guy in a business sorely lacking in them, so maybe it rubbed off on his protege. 

Like Amelia Vincent, Mr. Cornfeld had also picked River's Edge but after being told about Howard Smith being the early bird catching that particular worm, he picked The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao (Joel Robinson's favorite movie!), but was then told that the only print available was unwatchable, so for his third choice he picked The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk (aka The Legend aka Fong Sai Yuk) starring Jet Li.

Cornfeld talked how funny he thought this film was, and not just funny in a Foreigners Have A Different Sense-Of-Humor kind-of-way, he thought this movie was just plain hilarious. He thought Jet Li gave a great comedic performance in between ass-kickings, and if the combo of "Jet Li" and "great comedic performance" sounds weird to you, then you just proved Cornfeld's other point, which is that it's a damn shame that Hollywood hasn't found a way to take advantage of Li's potential in making with the funny. Here in the States, he's more of a serious, scowling motherfucker and I guess he just hasn't found his Rush Hour yet, even though his part in The Expendables comes the closest.

Sorry, Legend of Fong Sai Yuk, you're a really fun movie, Engrish subtitles and all, and I'd love to write about how your fight scenes are both jaw-dropping and fucking hilarious. I'd love to ramble about how after making the audience laugh and applaud for two thirds of the film, you had the fucking balls to introduce some straight-up drama into the proceedings.

And yet -- you managed to not make it feel jarring, you transitioned that shit smoothly. It felt like you were telling us that laughing is good and all, but there are some serious stakes involved, some life and death shit., and sometimes a motherfucker has to get serious on you. Then after making us (and by us, I mean me) damn near tear up at a couple of genuinely tender moments, you commenced with the one-two combo of kicking ass and making us laugh again. I'd love to write about all of that, and maybe even spend a couple paragraphs writing about your success as a Fun Time At The Movies, I really would. I'd also love to write about how we all applauded loudly when the end credits came up, but I've written so much already about the previous films, I just can't. Sorry, Legend of Fong Sai Yuk -- you get assed the fuck out in this blog entry.

13 hours later, the Reel Grit Six Shooter came to an end. Udovich told us about the next Reel Grit screening (I Saw The Devil), then thanked us for coming and for being hardcore, which felt good and would've even felt better, were it not for the knowledge that a select group of people go to Austin, Texas every year in December to sit through 24 hours of movies. But then I remembered reading an online article from a woman who had attended one of those events; she had documented her experience using a timeline; one of the entries came about halfway through the event, in the middle of the night, and it simply read something like "It's getting awfully farty in here", and then I didn't feel so jealous anymore. 

Fuck you MGM, with your loud-ass DVD intros.

When I was a kid, I didn't know anything about box office nor did I give a shit, and the truth is, I still shouldn't give a shit, nor should you. Because unless you're part of the movie or invested money in it, the financial success or lack thereof doesn't affect you -- the quality of the movie, on the other hand, does. I bring this up because I just found out that the film Overboard was not a hit, which surprised me because I just assumed it was. Instead, it was one of those films that got a second life on cable -- a TBS resurrection, if you will -- and between that and video rentals, it eventually became a success.

Yeah, I'm gonna ramble about the movie Overboard, the second-half of my Written by Leslie Dixon double-bill. This came about when this kind lady tweeted her fondness for the film, and I did something jerky by tweeting back something like "I didn't like that one" which is very unlike me, by the way, for two reasons; first, I subscribe to the belief that you should concentrate on telling people what you like, not what you don't like; and second, how could I not like a movie? I fuckin' like everything, man. Yet there I was, raining on this chick's parade like my opinion fuckin' mattered, and even if it did, you just don't rain on someone's parade, people -- I wouldn't like that if it was done to me so I must have been in a really weird place to do that shit in the first place.

I was a kid when I saw this movie for the first and last time, so I decided I would give Overboard another day in court now that I'm an adult. Ms. Olsson then told me about how I should also check out Outrageous Fortune as well, because it's good and because both films were written by the same person. I wrote about Outrageous Fortune; you see that link in the last sentence, where it says Outrageous Fortune in italics? It leads to my review, so read that shit. Anyway, going back to the popularity of Overboard; that shit took me a long fuckin' time to get on Netflix because of its Very Long Wait status. Sure, I could've gone to my local video store which is only a five-minute drive away and I'm sure they'd have it, but then that would mean I would have to drive (yet I will happily go three times the distance to get grub at the nearest Chick-fil-A because I'm a HUNGRY MAAAANNNN).

The movie opens with Alan Silvestri's peppy theme, sounding like something that would open a sitcom based on this movie. That's not an insult, it's just the vibe I got from it. Silvestri's a versatile composer; he can do some heavy orchestral madness like he did with the Predator and Back to the Future series, but he can also do something more befitting of, I don't know, a Shelley Long/Bette Midler comedy about trying to stop Peter Coyote from destroying the entire wheat belt. The entire wheat belt! Stop that motherfucker, girls!

You have to hand it to Silvestri for his diversity in style, his ability to do different kinds of scores. Ennio Morricone might be my all-time favorite movie composer, but you have to admit that he really only operates at one level -- a level we all love, but a level he's comfortable never getting out of. Shit, he even admits as much; I remember listening to the audio commentary to Il Postino, and the director Michael Radford talked about how he met with Morricone to discuss scoring that film. At one point, Radford requested that one particular scene should feel subtle and Morricone declared "I don't do subtle" and that's why that movie's music is composed by Luis Bacalov.

The beginning of the theme has a down-home, rambunctious feel to it; you hear the banjo at first and maybe you're like Oh Shit, Some Guy's Gonna Get Fucked In The Ass, but then the percussion and the Simon & Simon-style electric guitar kick in to assure you Nah Boy, We's Just Havin' A Good Time (this movie takes place in the Pacific Northwest though, so I'm not sure I should be talking like a Southern hick). There's also the occasional orchestral flourish, which I guess represents Goldie Hawn's character or something. The fact that this part of the music is only a small section that is overwhelmed by the banjos, percussion and guitars is kinda like musical reflection of her character being thrust into a world she knows nothing about, the Kurt Russell world where people don't use bottle openers to open beer bottles, they use tables and counters.

Goldie Hawn's character is a rich bitch, and I don't mean "bitch" as in "assertive woman" because I don't roll like that. She's just not a good person. Actually she's worse than that but I already used the word "cunt" in the last rambling and I think it's too soon to use that word again. She lives on this yacht, the kind of yacht aspiring rappers dream of shooting a music video on, and she's just really fucking miserable to be around. She's very demanding and treats everyone like shit. She even walks and talks like a worst-case-scenario born-with-a-silver-spoon-in-her-mouth type; she somehow manages to give the impression that she never uses contractions when she speaks (even though she does), that's how stuck up she sounds. Attention is demanded from her, she won't even let her weirdo husband (Edward Herrmann!) watch the one fuckin' television show he wants to watch without standing in front of it while she puts on her robe -- I mean, who the fuck does that shit aside from EVERY OTHER WOMAN IN THE WORLD.

Her wardrobe is ridiculous too; I really hope that's supposed to be part of the comedy -- an exaggeration of expensive trendy style, rather than the real thing. Ms. Hawn still looks pretty damn hot in them, though. But a lot of that heat is dissipated by the undeniable fact that she is just so goddamn unlikable. The filmmakers really did a great job in making the viewer (that's me!) wish for someone to give her -- this lady -- a detailed, all-too-real recreation of that scene in The Getaway when Steve McQueen expresses his frustrations with Ali MacGraw in the most delicate manner.

Roddy McDowall plays her long-suffering servant, and this poor guy has to deal with her saying things like "I almost had to wait" when he brings her caviar (I have to admit that's a good line, though) and he has to put up with her whiny bullshit while he's giving her a pedicure. He's also the executive producer of this film, so either he was involved with this movie getting made or maybe he bitched about his role not being that big and they shut him up with an executive producer credit. I've read up on him before and apparently everyone in Hollywood liked him and he also was quite the movie geek. He collected film prints and even admitted to digging so-bad-they're-good movies as well. Damn, this fuckin' guy would've loved The Room, had he lived long enough to see it. Hell, if they paid him enough, he'd probably act in the fuckin' thing. Anyway, take that hipsters -- he was ironically watching bad movies way before you were even born.

So Hawn and her weirdo husband dock over at Elk Cove, Oregon in their yacht (the Immaculata, she's called) and jack-of-most-trades Kurt Russell is called over to renovate her closet. He's trying to be friendly and she's being a typical twat, treating him like the lowly help she sees him as, and I wonder which is worse in the long run -- treating the help like shit or not even acknowledging them as human beings in the first place? I think of this when I think of all of mi gente mowing the lawns and nanny-ing the kids for the rich, I wonder about how they're treated by their employers. My conclusion is that it varies, depending on the employers -- who are also human beings, you see, and therefore just as varied in attitudes towards their fellow man.

Does race/ethnicity ever figure into it? I mean, I remember having gardeners in our household and my parents were always super cool to them, chatting with the dudes and giving them bottles of expensive booze as gifts. I wondered if say, the Anglo clients did the same thing with them or if they just slid their checks under the doors because Please Don't Stink Up My House, Mexican.

I remember hearing a while back about how Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony were threatening the world with a remake (I know I should like those two, but they come off like major league assholes) and I always thought if you had to remake that shit, it shouldn't be two Latino actors, but maybe a White actress and a Latino actor or the other way around. Most likely, though, they'd cast a Black guy as the help because somehow that's more believable in the 21st century; the studio execs would declare that Will Smith or somebody should play the carpenter, then later that day, the main exec would drive home to his expensive house and chew out the carpenter making renovations on his son's spare computer room and the carpenter would answer back with "Que?"

But back to the only Overboard that exists. Kurt Russell is really the only guy I could see playing this role (maybe Burt Reynolds, if this shit was made in the 70's -- then that would mean Sally Field would play the Hawn role and the director would be Hal Needham and the fat friend would be played by Dom DeLuise instead of the guy from Wayne's World and there would be outtakes during the end credits); here's this good-looking movie star who you can totally believe playing a blue-collar type and that's probably one of the many reasons why Kurt Russell rules. Even in interviews, he just has that charm about him where it just seems like he'd be a great guy to have a beer with, unless you're John Leguizamo.

Allow me to elaborate; in Leguizamo's memoir (the title is too long for me to remember the name, but it's a funny read, if you can find it), he talks about how Russell had taken him aside one day while shooting Executive Decision and in a big-brotherly way, told him that he should just say the lines as written on the script, rather than ad-lib the shit out of the scenes (as he had been doing). Leguizamo, as was his wont, ignored the advice and continued to improv his lines and eventually they kind of got into it and they even had a bit of a shoving match later on.

The best part is that Russell said something like "You have no confidence in the script, so you dance around it like some fucking fag! Be a man and say the lines!" which in and of itself is pretty fuckin' hilarious. Leguizamo said that during the press junkets, Russell did the no-hard-feelings thing and was very nice to him (Leguizamo, to his admitted discredit, did not return the love). You see, Kurt Russell is a man's man; he hunts, he's into sports, he likes cold beer, hot women, and he says the fuckin' lines that are on the script because he ain't no fag, man.

Anyway, Russell's character does a great job creating a new closet for Hawn (dig the crank-activated shoe shelves) but she's gonna stiff him $600 because he used oak instead of cedar (which she should've requested in the first place, and besides, hasn't she seen Pulp Fiction? Oak's nice. Oh wait, that movie didn't exist for another 6 or 7 years, my bad). I mean, come on -- earlier she was eager to throw away $1.7 million on some bullshit artwork that she's not even going to remember (she made the deal on a cellular phone that looks like some Zack Morris shit that got flattened by a steamroller), yet she won't cough up a relatively measly six-hundred bucks? Yup. Even though this chick is eating caviar on a daily basis and this guy is busy trying to make ends meet so he can feed his four kids, she's still gonna screw him on the deal -- stay classy, Goldie.

Frustrated with this special case, Russell tells her off (much to the approval of the crew of the yacht -- I dug how while the crew members are whooping and applauding, McDowall simply nods his approval) and she gets back at him for dropping truth bombs on her by shoving him overboard and then proceeds to motherfuck him by throwing his tools into the water as well. What a fucking asshole.

So now Russell is assed out of $600, the school principal is giving him shit about his kids, and he needs to find someone to take care of said kids while he's out busting his ass, making that money. Thankfully, the benevolent god that is the screenwriter sets it up so that Hawn ends up falling off her yacht late one night. She gets picked up the next morning by a garbage scow and it turns out she now has amnesia (she hit her head on the scow or the cold water shocked the memory out of her) and when her husband goes to identify her at the hospital, he decides to take advantage and pretend he doesn't know her, because really, man, who needs to deal with that aggravation? Next stop for weirdo husband: happiness and chicks in bikinis (which is a redundancy, I know).

While scoring some free potato chips at a bowling alley, Russell catches the news report about Amnesia Chick, notices the departing husband and gets all Hot Damn about it because it's time for some fuckin' payback. He claims that Hawn is his wife, and between his being able to identify a birthmark on the woman's ass cheek (which he noticed while she was sunbathing) and the hospital staff's over-willingness to get rid of this unpleasant lady, it doesn't take long before he's taking her to his humble (and I do mean humble) abode. The idea is that he can get the equivalent of the $600 he is owed by having her do chores and take care of the kids for a while. Fucking with her is simply a bonus.

It's lots of fun to watch the shit this chick goes through, as karma goes Steven Seagal on her William Forsythe soul in the Out For Justice that is her current life situation, and we get the pleasure of observing her get owned by simple everyday tasks. It's hell for this former queen as she tries to wash the dishes, make the meals, feed the dogs (those dogs are awesome, by the way, they jump on everyone because they have so much love to give, like William H. Macy in Magnolia), and it's hell for me because it's all done to that Jim Dandy To The Rescue song that for some reason annoyed the shit out of my ears, who then relayed the message to my brain, who was not happy to hear the news.

Anyway, even though you two have probably seen the movie (three, if you count Ms. Olsson), I'm not going to go any further because I have to get ready for this other thing I'm going to in a while (which I'm running late for, actually). I'll just talk about how I'm glad I gave this movie a second chance because I liked it a whole lot more this time. Maybe it's because back when I saw it, I was bored by the lack of talking robots or black guys who do sound effects with their mouths in this supposed comedy. Sure, one of Russell's sons talks like Pee Wee Herman, but too little/too late, I thought. But this time, I found the movie very funny, and not just because of Hawn's improvement-through-suffering, but because there's a lot of funny stuff in the margins, so to speak. I'd give examples but I wasted too much time telling you a John Leguizamo anecdote that had absolutely nothing to do with the movie. I suck.

OK, I'll give you one -- the live news report is full of Win. The main dude on the garbage scow is played by Hector Elizondo (that's a Garry Marshall trademark, giving that dude a role in all his joints) and he was hilarious in his brief running time, explaining how "foca" means "seal" in Portuguese, then he starts with some opera shit because that's what he does for love. And even after they cut away from him, you can still hear him talking to the reporter about why opera is just more than singing, it's telling stories with song, and I don't know, I was fuckin' laughing my ass off during that. I also laughed at the hurt look on the poor reporter's face  when Hawn accuses her of wearing a wig, that shit was priceless. And I couldn't help but smile at the name of the television station: K-RAB with a crab holding up the letters -- a crab! (Writer's disclosure: I'm a Cancer, hence my fondness for the crustacean. Such is the movie's power that I did not hold all the crab-eating against it)

I liked how the kids weren't obnoxious douchebags, like that fuckin' ginger from Problem Child; they were merely discipline cases who needed someone to tell them to stop that shit (Russell was too much of a cool dad to do anything), they needed Bad Cop in a house that was only run by Good Cop. Most kids in movies, I want to throw them in a woodchipper feet-first and film that shit in slow-motion, so it's testament to the ability of writer Leslie Dixon, director Garry Marshall, and the kid actors that I didn't feel that way, even though they start off kind of asshole-like at first, but not too much -- the porridge was just right.

There's just such a happy and sweet vibe to this movie, that it's hard to dislike anything about it. It's a nice movie and the love story is sweet (don't act like you didn't expect that shit to happen in this movie) and I hope it finds a nice girl and settles down with her one day. This is the kind of movie that features a cutaway to a dog peeking from behind a log and it only lasts half-a-second and I'm not sure if that shot was even necessary but I bet Marshall was like "Why not?" and I'm so glad he did. Yeah, it's that kind of movie. You know those kinds of movies, the ones that feature half-second cutaways to dogs peeking behind things, there's plenty of them, I'm sure.

I wish I could find the article online, but I couldn't, so you'll have to take my word for it; there was this piece on Details magazine about the making of John Carpenter's Escape from L.A. and the writer was working on it as an extra. This writer, he was being an asshole and the article shared his asshole point-of-view, but it still had some nice moments, like when he meets Kurt Russell and of course, because the writer is too cool to directly complement the guy, he says something like "My niece loved Overboard" and Russell responds by telling the writer a story about some girl who hadn't spoken in years because of some traumatic event in her life, then she started speaking again after watching Overboard. Of course, the writer found a way to write a douchebag retort to that story, one that I can't remember, thank God.

But seriously, how can you hate a movie like that? It made a mute girl speak! It can probably make a blind man see or a cripple walk again, for all I know. There could be untapped healing powers in this film and someone should do something about it; take all that research money on failing to cure muscular dystrophy (them's the breaks, Jerry) and put it on going over every frame of this movie with a fine-toothed comb. Actually, don't use the comb, that'll fuck up the film.

In conclusion, the actor who played the hospital guard went on to host Family Feud for a while, then he went nuts, got committed to a mental ward, and hung himself. Happy Rapture, everybody!

If you like seeing women do that adorable running thing that they do, all the while hearing the click-clack of their non-sensible footwear, then yeah, this will do.

You know, I just came down to the realization that people who make a funny face, rather than just smiling when having their picture taken are doing that because they're very insecure about how they look. It's like, they're afraid of looking like shit, so they preemptive strike that motherfucker by sticking out their tongues or bugging out their eyes or opening their mouth wide or whatever they fuckin' do when posing with a friend in front of a national monument or something.

I bet you if I had a picture taken of myself ten years ago (I don't like having my picture taken) and held it up next to my reflection in the mirror today, the photo version of me would look better, simply because I was not as shitty-looking back then, compared to now. But I'd gotten so used to waking up with an ugly face/Winston Churchill in drag that I never considered that age was making my non-hotness even worse. At least in my youth I had the benefit of looking fresher. I was too stupid to know that the pitfalls of aging affects both the ugly and good-looking.

On a completely related topic, I watched Outrageous Fortune as part of what was intended to be my Written By Leslie Dixon double-feature (Overboard is the second half of the bill, but more on that later).  This was a movie that came out back in 1987 and starred Shelley Long and Bette Midler. It was directed by Arthur Hiller, a Canadian motherfucker who probably misses the 70's. Seriously man, this guy was fuckin' ON from 1970 to 1979: The Out-of-Towners (the original, not that Steve Martin bullshit), Love Story, The Hospital, Silver Streak, The In-Laws (the original, not that Michael Douglas bullshit). But if you flash-forward to now, you'll find that the last movie he directed was National Lampoon's Pucked; the title alone threatens to throw me into a mild depression. What the fuck happened, Arthur Hiller? Your ass used to be beautiful.

But hey, I'm gonna take a page from Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story and not concentrate on how the man died, but on how the man lived. I'm talking about his career, not his life; I'm sure Mr. Hiller is still alive and you know what? Maybe I shouldn't judge his most recent works without having seen them, because for all I know, when he read the script to National Lampoon's Pucked maybe he was all like "Not since Paddy Chayefsky have I read such words..."

So when the movie started, I noticed that the credits were in French and that the on-screen title was Une Chance Pas Croyable and for a second I thought maybe I was wrong and that there was a mix-up at Netflix. Maybe I got this French film by accident because Outrageous Fortune was not an original screenplay by Leslie Dixon, but in fact, a remake of some Francis Veber shit (hence the mix-up) because back in the 80's, it felt like half of the films that came out of Touchstone Pictures were remakes of Francis Veber joints. Really man, they should've just named that company Francis Veber Remakes.

Except I was wrong -- Outrageous Fortune is not a remake, it is indeed an original screenplay. What happened was that the DVD included alternate French credits if you choose to listen to the French dub of the movie, and somehow I activated that shit. For a moment, I considered watching the movie in French because the quality of the print and the music and even the fuckin' font did have a France-circa-the-late-80's vibe to them and I thought maybe it would play better that way, and plus I need to keep that shit in practice. But in the end, I decided against it; better to watch the original intended vision of the director, this man who evenutally directed National Lampoon's Pucked.

The opening credit sequence is really swell because it consists of a Patti LaBelle song playing over shots of anonymous women's hands, feet, torsos, and lips decked out in horrible/wonderful 80's style. The skirts, blouses, sweaters, earrings, bracelets, lipstick, shoes and belts -- holy shit, the fucking belts! -- all reminded me of my early childhood, not because I was some crossdresser back then (well, there's that too), but because during that time I grew up with my sister and my cousin -- two teenage girls who were all about looking cool, so living with them was like living with a nostalgic movie set in the 80's that still hadn't been made yet because it was still the 80's. Some movies, you're not quite sure what time period it was shot in, but not this fuckin' movie -- there is no doubt during the opening credits when this shit was made.

So then we're introduced to our primary character played by Shelley Long. This chick, she used to be on Cheers, right? And I guess there are two different stories as to why she left, one being that she left that show to pull a David Caruso, and the other story being that the rest of the cast couldn't stand her and she left once her contract was fulfilled because really, man, fuck those guys.

I'm sure the truth can be found somewhere between both of those stories, but as much as I like these guys -- Ted Danson, George Wendt, Danny DeVito's wife, Cliff Clavin, the guy from Frasier who was married to a chick with IBS, and last but not least, my main man, the fuckin' pot-smokin' master himself, Woody Fuckin' Harrelson -- as much as I like them, I think I'm on Team Long. Because I'm thinking that what probably happened was that they were probably being really fuckin' cliquey and for whatever reason, poor Shelley Long wasn't invited to join in their reindeer games. Either that or she's a monster cunt to work with, I'm not sure.

If it's the latter, then she's a great fuckin' actress because she's really likable here and even kind of adorable on occasion. Even when she gets overzealous in her theatrical fencing class, I wasn't hating on her for not pulling her punches (or thrusts, in this case), she's just really eager to be great at what she does. Well, maybe "what she does" is the wrong way to put it, because it's really more like "what she's trying to do" and what she's trying to do is get jobs as an actress, which she isn't doing. In the meantime, she's getting by with a job working at some costume store.

Perhaps a part of why I liked her character so much was that I kinda saw myself in this lady, particularly when she goes to visit her parents to beg them for money so she can throw it away on expensive acting classes with some world-renowned Russian thespian giant. Having had similar experiences with my own parents, I can relate to the empty gesture of promising to pay back a debt. I can also relate because much like Shelley Long's character, I am also a tall pretty blonde woman.

Hey, get this: she has to audition to get into the fuckin' class, just so she can have the privilege of paying $5,000 to listen some Russkie asshole go on about the difference between a Texas diphthong and a Georgia diphthong. Thankfully, I didn't have to deal with that kind of shit in the acting classes I took. Oh yeah, you didn't know? It was something I forced myself to do, in a weird self-therapy kind-of-way, to snap out of the depression I fell into about three years ago. I took acting classes and I started a blog, because I hated the idea of doing either one but at least it didn't involve having to talk to friends or loved ones and letting them know just how deep a world of shit I was living in at the time. Funny how that works.

There's one particular moment in the acting class that I really dug, where this one student is making these weird noises in an overly theatrical way (he was asked to emote without using words), and that reminded me of this one student in one of my acting classes. He approached every exercise and scene we had in this class like he was Mr. Method (I was more of a Given Circumstances guy). So this guy, he reminded me a little bit of that Brian Atene dude who was auditioning for Kubrick, never knowing that 20 years later that shit would pop up on YouTube. I'm not clowning on the dude (or Brian Atene, for that matter), I'm just saying it was amusing to watch -- and apparently my acting teacher thought the same, because a couple of times he couldn't help but laugh.

Anyway, Shelley Long ends up crossing paths with some broad, and when you need a Broad with a capital B, you cast Bette Midler -- at least in the mid/late 80's, you did. Because this is a Hollywood movie and a good example of the kind of screenplay Syd Field would cream over (particularly when it comes to foreshadowing certain character quirks/traits that will pay off later in the movie), these two ladies do not get along, because of that whole Drama Is Conflict deal. Midler ends up auditioning for the class, on a lark it seems -- but mostly to prove something to Long, who is being way-too-uptight about it. It's implied (to me, anyway) that Midler's character, who doesn't know any classical monologues (nor does she seem to care) probably blew the Russian acting teacher to get in (and on scholarship!), or at least that's how Shelley Long's character sees it, and since I'm kind of on her side, I guess I would see it that way as well.

The title, by the way, might throw some people off. Hiller had already directed a couple movies that featured titles that also served as a description of the genre they were in, like Love Story was a love story and Romantic Comedy was a romantic comedy. So rather than complete his Generic Title trilogy (which he could still do by re-titling any of his most recent works as Shitty Film), he moved on to another kind of title for his movies; he moved on to naming his movies after something the characters wanted. For example, he made a movie called Making Love, which I guess is what the gay dudes in that movie were all about. Then he made this movie, where $20 million figures late into the plot, hence the Outrageous Fortune, right?

Well, maybe, maybe not. Because there's also a couple parts where Long, uh, longs to play the lead in William Shakespeare's Hamlet (as opposed to Jamaa Fanaka's Hamlet), and there's a line in that play that refers to "outrageous fortune" and the only reason I even know that shit is because a couple of years ago, for some reason I started watching some Canadian television series on IFC (or was it the Sundance Channel?) called Slings and Arrows. But just to make sure, I checked IMDB, and yup, it's referring to that whole deal about the bit in Hamlet referring to the horrible fucked up shit that could happen in a motherfucker's life.

She wants to play Hamlet and people try to kill her dream by telling her no way will a woman play that part. What the fuck, man? Why would that be a terrible idea? If anything, it sounds pretty fuckin' cool. They used to have men play the women parts back in the day, so why can't a woman play a guy's role? They need to make more (if any) Shakespeare plays with women playing all the parts, that would be awesome. I'm not going anywhere with this (surprise), other than to say that I think acting in general should only involve women, because who the fuck wants to look at men? Aside from girls and gays, of course.

Anyway, the next day Shelley Long's at her job bitching about that bitch Midler, and along comes Muthafuckin' Peter Coyote strolling in, acting like some Perfect Guy. He's doing the sensitive-guy thing, asking Long if they sell pumpkin costumes because he doesn't want the born-insecure picked-on kid in the class he teaches to get assed out during some upcoming pageant. Well, I guess if you look and act like Muthafuckin' Peter Coyote, you can bed a Shelley Long in under 8 hours, because that's what this guy does. Peter Coyote is as cool as Woody Harrelson, if you get my drift.

So Coyote and Long are doing the lovey-dovey thing, and it seems like every time he picks her up from acting class, they go straight to her apartment to get it on. But sometimes they can't, because Coyote is too busy banging Bette Midler's character, because this typical Man With A Penis is cheating on both of them. And then to make things worse, later on he walks into a flower shop only to get blown to bits.
Midler and Long end up arriving at the morgue to identify the body at the same time, meaning some Jerry Springer shit is about to happen.

I don't get that, by the way, I don't get why these chicks would be at each other's throats. They should be kicking the shit out of the charred cadaver currently decomposing on the slab, giving this two-timing son-of-a-bitch some necro-payback for fucking with their emotions. But instead, they try killing each other at this rather convenient location, because they have such low self-esteem it fucks them up to know that the man in their life was seeing someone else. What could this mean? Am I not attractive to him anymore? She's prettier than me, isn't she? Then they notice that the corpse has a tiny penis (evidently, they based the dead body on me) and soon they realize something's up and it's not the penis -- HIGH FIVE!

You better sit down for what I'm about to tell you, because your reaction will be the prelude to an avalanche of chaos that will ensue and wreck your fucking world once this fuckin' bomb is dropped on your ass. It's gonna be like the last 20 pages/last 20 minutes of The Day of the Locust in this bitch when I get through saying what I'm about to say: these two women who didn't get along...now have to work together to solve this mystery...and maybe, just maybe, they might come out of this situation as the best of friends.

I'm not bagging on the tried and true formula used here, I'm just acknowledging -- argh, I'm just being an asshole, that's what I'm doing. Look, it's a buddy comedy, but it's one of the better ones; when it's not being funny, it's actually pretty involving with the chasing and the shooting and the running and Jesus Christ this shit probably reads likes Professor Frink was dictating it to me.

In addition to delivering a satisfactory suspense/comedy quotient (it also delivers a satisfactory quotient in obvious shitty green-screen/rear-projection work), I think a big part of this film's success is that the two leads are fantastic in it, and as a result, their performances elevated the material, making the movie better than it has any right to be (I guess you can say the same about Hiller's Silver Streak -- not to mention National Lampoon's Pucked). I already told you how much I liked Shelley Long, so let me talk about how much I liked Bette Midler with her mix of ball-buster and sweet-talker (there's a funny moment where she's chewing out some phone company guy one minute, then being all nice to him the next). Aside from any Latina thespian (and Mercedes Ruehl), Bette Midler is the only other actress who can convince you that she wants to shoot a man's dick off. I bet she's done it before, or at least tried to.

I got a kick out of how a bit of Midler's attitude eventually rubs off on Long in a subtle, film's not drawing too much attention to it sort-of-way; later in the film, once it's revealed how big a fuckin' asshole Peter Coyote really is (a deadly vegetation-killing toxin -- and he's selling it for millions!), I had a good feeling that they were just as intent on motherfucking this asshole as they were on saving the entire wheat belt. Shit, in some cases, it felt like giving this guy the business had a higher priority.

There's a scene in this movie where someone rips a mask off his face, revealing the real person under it, because it's that kind of movie. Only the problem here is that you can fuckin' tell who the guy is before he rips that shit off. If anything, the "real" face looks faker than the fake face, probably because the "real" face consists of some obvious wig and beard work. All I could think about was how uncomfortable it must've been for that character to wear such a tight mask over his hairy face. That shit must've been hot and itchy.

By the way, you know who got a lot of work in movies during the 80's -- aside from Francis Veber? Fat women with evil laughs. Yeah man, the money was flowing like the mighty Mississippi if you were overweight, had a take-charge look and an unsettling, knowing, Something Bad Will Probably Happen To You cackle. The warden from Reform School Girls, the nurse who gave Captain Mauser a full-body-cavity search in Police Academy 2, and let's not forget Large Marge from Pee Wee's Big Adventure. Well, one of those large ladies also shows up in Outrageous Fortune, playing the madam of a brothel. Long story short, the scene involves Long and Midler dressing up as men in cowboy clothes, and they certainly made very convincing boys, that's for sure. I don't know if that says more about them or me.

The other actors are pretty good in this too; Robert Prosky plays the Russian asshole, and he's always good. You know, he passed away a while back, and he was 77. I don't mean to sound like a dick, but I always thought he was older, kinda like how I always thought William Hickey was older than he really was. It was also nice to see George Carlin take up a nice chunk of the last third of the movie, playing what I felt was the Richard Pryor-in-Silver Streak role; like Prosky and Hickey, he also appeared older than his age. Shooter McGavin (or as you more discriminating filmgoers might know him as, Tappy Tibbons) shows up to be awesome for a minute. I also recognized the painter from Murphy Brown who later went on to overdose on a combo of heroin and coke. It's like the drug equivalent to when you mix different sodas together in one cup, I think they call it a Suicide -- funny name, that.

Also along for the ride is that Nick Nolte-looking motherfucker who played Dr. Chilton in two of the Hannibal Lecter movies. Here's an actor who usually plays assholes (Deep Rising and 8MM are two more examples of his prime assholery in play) and I wished he brought a bit more of that asshole attitude into his game because here he comes off like the kind of guy who's never gonna get laid because he's too nice. He's such a fuckin' pushover and he's never gonna get Long & Midler's respect that way. He's always gonna be referred to as “harmless” and being called "harmless" by a woman is just about as bad as being called a dickless piece-of-shit, only in fewer words.

Earlier I mentioned that this was intended to be a double-feature with Overboard because the same chick wrote both films, which were recommended to me by someone who must get a morbid fascination from reading my terrible ramblings. But the schedule wasn't allowing it, so the double-feature is now a two-parter, and the next ramblings I write on this blog will be about the Kurt Russell/Goldie Hawn comedy that isn't Swing Shift.

Outrageous Fortune made about $52 million at the box office in 1987 dollars. Based on my math, after adjusting for inflation, that comes out to about $793 million in 2011 dollars. Talk about an outrageous fortune, am I right? HIGH FIVE! DON'T LEAVE ME HANGING!

Final tally of references to the penis and its variants: 9

Don't fuck with the babysitter

Hello nonexistent lady and gentleman, I'm going to ramble about the movie I saw last night/earlier this morning, it's called Thor and it's directed by Kenneth Branagh, he's the guy who played the villain in Big Willie Style's Wild Wild West. So I went to the AMC to see it because I had a free popcorn and soda coupon that was about to expire and that's really the only reason I even bother going to the AMC because that place is pretty fuckin' wack, like most movie theater chains. Hell, even the popcorn is fuckin' wack, come to think of it, and yet I went to this place just so I can have some of it for free. Christ almighty.

Some albino homo carrying a blanket and his girl friend sat next to me, and they seemed like nice folk, they asked me if the seat where my jacket was currently resting was being saved for anyone. For some reason I've yet to fathom, rather than say "No it's not", I said "No, we're cool". Who's cool? Me? If that's the case, did I mean "we're" in relation to the royal We? Honestly people, if you think my ramblings make no fuckin' sense, you should try having a fuckin' conversation with me some day, it's some mind-boggling mad mixture of fragmented sentences, missing subjunctives, constantly changing tenses, and a dash of Tobias Funke-isms. I suck at life and its many facets, is what I'm trying to say.

Because it was a midnight showing, it was a midnight crowd and because it was Thursday heading into Friday, that meant it was College Friday and about 98 percent of the audience was old enough to look at you in confusion when you tell them the director of Thor also directed a movie called Dead Again and when you tell them that's the one with Emma Thompson they're all like Who Da Fuck Is Emma Thompson, I Know It's Cinco De Mayo But I'll Still Beat Your Fuckin' Mexican Ass Up And Down The Aisle.

Everybody took the opportunity to hoot and holler during the previews and it gave some of the douchier douches in the crowd many chances to demonstrate their ability to sound like a woman moaning during sex. Because it was all men doing that shit, it made me laugh to think that's exactly how they'd sound if they were to ever find themselves in a prison and Bubba or Leroy or Tyrone or whatever other borderline-racist use of a downtrodden black name for a prisoner shoves about 12 uncut inches of pent-up/veined-up Hurt up these motherfuckers' dumb Axe-wearing bro asses.

There was a trailer for Super 8 before the movie, so I looked away, because I'm good at that shit -- without images, the dialogue and music are useless in trying to spoil shit for me. There was also a trailer for Green Lantern and because I couldn't give a shit about that shit, I watched that lame shit. Anyway, I had no idea who or what was in Thor, aside from the director, because I don't go hunting that shit down on the Internet and because I haven't gone to the movies to see something first-run since Blue Valentine (well, that and Muthafuckin' Fast Fuckin' Five) so it's not like I've been privy to any Previews of Coming Attractions anyway.

So yeah, Thor. This shit starts off with some battle shit way back in the day between Odin and his merry band of supermen (or whatever the fuck they're supposed to be -- Gods? Evolved humans? Highlander II: The Quickening-style aliens?) fighting it out with some bad guys who were probably ancestors of that mutant Mystique from X-Men. The bad guys are called Frost Giants or some shit like that, and they have the ability to freeze shit while wrecking havoc, and because they don't take the time to make some stupid quip like "All right everybody, CHILL!" or "What killed the dinosaurs? DA ICE AGE!" that makes them a million times better than Mr. Freeze from Batman.

Odin is played by Anthony Hopkins, who is doing his thing, and he has an asshole son named Thor (the titular Thor) who wants to be king so he can show all these weak-ass bitches how a Real Man does this shit. Odin's like George Bush and Thor is Dubya, if you're the kind who likes to politicize every fucking thing. Anyway, they're just about to finish the coronation when some of these Avatar rejects try to steal some glowing blue box that has Awesome Powers of some kind (freezing things is what it mainly seems to do). There's a lot of hoopla about the failed attempt, it leads to this dick Thor going over to the Frost Giants' planet and stirring shit up because he's a fuckin' douche who turns tables full of food over if he doesn't get what he wants, like some petulant child, which is kinda what he is, really.

It's hard to judge Thor's friends because they're all really cool but they're big on Thor, so they must be Secret Assholes behind closed doors. I mean, it's like when I found out the lovely Kristen Bell was engaged to that cock Dax Shepard. Now, for all I know, Dax Shepard might be a nice guy, or at least decent enough to get a nice girl like Ms. Bell and not make fun of her lazy eye, but since that motherfucker collected paychecks fucking with people on Ashton Kutcher's horrific program Punk'd, that makes him Guilty by Douchesociation, plain and fuckin' simple. Same thing with Thor's fellow warriors, and same thing with every pro-sports player and their teammates.

As it is, Thor's warrior homies are pretty cool; you have this hot warrior-princess type, you have this young Cary Elwes-looking motherfucker, you have Punisher War Zone with a beard and fat suit, and you have this relatively quiet Asian motherfucker who you wished had more opportunity to kick ass. Hell, I wish they all had more opportunity to kick ass. You know what, powers that be? You should at least make one of those DTV spinoffs like they did with the Get Smart movie, using these characters. I'd pay a few bucks to watch these 4 do their thing.

Anyway, Odin, he knows what's up, he knows his son's a cock, so he takes away Thor's ass-kicking powers and takes away his mighty hammer and exiles the fortunate son over to Earth. Thor ends up landing over in New Mexico which kinda sucks because once you stop for a meal at the Bobcat Bite, there's really not much to do there, not unless you're a filmmaker looking to save some money tax-incentive style.

So Thor lands in New Mexico and gets hit by a van that happens to be driven by Natalie Portman, the lucky bastard. With her, she's got this cute chick in glasses that I was kinda crushing on, and the guy who Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany named their kid after. This guy, this Stellan Skarsgard, I guess he's a friend of the Connelly/Bettany double-feature, and I wonder how that's like. I mean, I bet you a typical visit ends with him going home and jerking off to Bettany's hot wife -- that is, if Stellan Skarsgard is anything like me, because that's what I usually do after visiting a friend and his wife or girlfriend, even the unattractive ones, because I ride the Sad/Creepy train to work everyday and I'm a self-employed motherfucker.

It's like this movie I saw once, called In Search of a Midnight Kiss, and it starts with this dude taking a photo of his roommate's wife and photoshopping it onto some anonymous naked chick's picture. Then he starts beating off to it, then his roommate and his wife walk in and catch him in the act. The only reason I haven't done that shit yet is because I'm too lazy to learn Photoshop -- well, that and I was too busy banging so many hot chicks, obviously, I don't have time for lame shit like that. But who's to say Stellan Skarsgard ain't some Photoshop master? I take that back, homeboy doesn't even need Photoshop, he just needs to rent The Hot Spot and get some prime wankery material right fuckin' there, man.

Anyway, Portman's some kind of scientist and I guess the cute chick in glasses and Skarsgard are part of the scientific study Scooby team, and they're trying to figure out what's up with this fuckin' Aryan's wet dream who fell from the sky, and better yet, why is he such an asshole?

I thought it was really canny of Branagh and company to have the first third of the movie play like some ultra-portentous Life & Death shit, some Fate Of The Universe shit, all done with dead-seriousness expected from a story about mythical gods. But then, after the situation is laid out and Thor lands on Earth, the movie bamboozles our asses by introducing a very healthy sense-of-humor to the proceedings, and not in some lame Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time kinda way either, I mean, they don't really overdo it with the fish out-of-water jokes, it's more like "trip out on this fuckin' asshole".

It's pretty fuckin' hilarious the shit this guy pulls once he's on Earth, fuckin' walking in the middle of the street, expecting traffic to stop for the motherfucker. Actually, that's not too weird at all, at least not here in California with that bullshit right-of-way law, because in that case there's a shitload of Thors in this motherfucker. The only way he'd fit in more is if he was riding a bike in the middle of traffic. But yeah, he carries himself in such a I'm Important And You're Below Me manner, thinking everyone's going to cater to his every order and desire, and he finds out the hard way it's not gonna work out that way for him now. Still, it's funny to hear him declare that he's in need of "sustenance", and then after scarfing down many plates of breakfast, this asshole's smashing coffee cups after draining them dry, demanding more of the fine beverage. Because sometimes it's awesome to watch an asshole do his thing as long as he's not doing it to you.

It's also Good Times to see him pulling some shit, thinking he can get away with it because he's fuckin' Thor, only to find out the hard way that he's just as susceptible to getting tased and getting shot up with sedatives. This is the Hollywood version of the real world, though, so that means he can still get hit by a car and come out of it with a minor moment of disorientation, just like Matrix in Commando getting smashed by a Porsche going high speed and shaking that off like it ain't no thang, unless there's an alternate ending where Thor drops dead and while everyone wonders what the fuck happened, Portman uses her scientific knowledge to deduce that it probably had something to do with getting hit by a car twice.

So after the first third of serious set-up, the movie then eases into a back-and-forth structure, cutting between Thor's misadventures in New Mexico and all the drama going on back in Thor's stomping grounds of Asgard (a world that looks a lot like the Feature Presentation intro for Harkins Theaters). The New Mexico stuff is funny and the Asgard stuff is serious, and somewhere along the way, that shit starts to blend in with each other, which I guess makes it like, I don't know, representative of the increasingly dangerous situation. It's like, this shit was funny but now it's no longer the people of Asgard and those Mystique-looking motherfuckers who are in risk of having their worlds rocked, now it's the farmers and migrant workers of New Mexico (and the rest of the world as well, when you think about it) who are now being tossed into the Everything To Lose pile.

Thor has this brother named Loki, and he's got a really big forehead, like Christina Ricci, and I'd make fun of that shit except I've noticed I have a lot more forehead nowadays because getting older blows. I'm more aware of that shit in other people, now that it's happening to me. It's a good thing Mike Epps wasn't in the audience, he'd have his way with the motherfucker, and with me, for that matter. Anyway, Loki's the opposite of Thor, he's skinny, dark-haired, and even-tempered -- or is he? DUN DUN DUN.

There's also this awesome badass gatekeeper played by the motherfucker who gets owned by Denzel in American Gangster (I haven't seen The Wire yet) and Rene Russo plays Thor's mom. This chick, Rene Russo, I don't know if it's the CGI or if she's just lucky to be blessed with good genes but she's growing old gracefully, that one. She's got what Helen Mirren has and what Candice Bergen used to have; she's got that thing going on where if you're an old dude but don't want to look like a complete degenerate by dating a 19-year-old, and you want to date someone in your age range but still get props from your fellow man, then you really can't get any better than her or the other old broads I just mentioned, even though some keep trying to push way-past-glory types as being still in their prime. I mean, people go on about how glamourous someone like Sophia Loren still is, and if by "glamourous" you mean "she dresses well" and nothing else, well then I guess you're right. I'm sounding like an even bigger asshole than usual, because when it comes down to it, I'd hit that shit and be tearfully grateful for it. No I wouldn't, I'm like Brad Pitt in this bitch, excuse me while I have sex with a hot chick between paragraphs.

Raza actress Adriana Barraza is credited in the end credits, yet I don't remember ever seeing her, I don't know what that's about. Maybe Branagh's a big Top Gear fan and shares the same opinion of mi gente as those limey fucks, and he wanted to fuck with us, the fuckin' asshole. Branagh doesn't give a fuck about Oscar-nominated performances if they're coming from a fuckin' wetback, isn't that right, ol' chap? I bet you he almost choked on his fish & chips as he laughed over that particular editing decision. Whatever, perhaps it was something else. Maybe if having a certain foreshadowing cameo by a bow & arrow-using motherfucker in the movie meant you had to ass Babel out in the name of keeping a bladder-friendly 119-minute running time, then I guess it was the right thing to do.

I don't know how they're doing it, but I'm glad Marvel is doing it. I mean, they've been doing very well these past 10 years with their comic book movies. I've liked all of them, and even the one I liked the least, the Ang Lee version of Hulk, I still liked quite a bit. Who's in charge of picking the directors for these joints, because he or she deserves a medal for picking someone he or she thinks would make the most interesting adaptation, rather than just picking some motherfucker whose film opened at number one in the box office the previous week. OK, so they picked Brett Ratner for X-Men: The Last Stand, but nobody's perfect, we all have our weak moments, and besides, at that point in the production they were in such last-minute deep shit, they needed someone competent who could get the goddamn thing in the can, and you know what? I liked that movie too. I like everything.

But yeah man, for the most part, it's like they pick the director least likely to get the job but most likely to get the material. I mean, it's not like Branagh was coming off a string of box-office smash hits when they picked him, but the motherfucker has made some good movies, he's great with actors, and they Just Fucking Knew he sure as shit was going to bring the same over-the-top panache he brought to his previous joints (at least the joints that aren't in black & white and have alternate titles in the UK and the States). I've heard some people say that this one doesn't feel like a Branagh joint, and I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that has something to do with the lack of CGI fire-breathing metal creatures in Peter's Friends or Love's Labour's Lost.

Seriously, what the fuck are you talking about, people? This Brit is directing the shit out of this shit like it was fuckin' Henry V (I still want to see the previous Henrys, but I can't find them at any video store), I really doubt the guy half-assed it for a paycheck, and if he did, he probably had all the scripts on set re-titled "William Shakesphere's Thor" just to make sure he kept his eye on the prize. Sure, I'm sure he could've probably done more with the material, but you gotta understand that's part of the deal when you're working for big daddy Marvel; you gotta bring your A-game but you also have to understand who's signing your checks. Look at it this way: this movie is probably going to make a lot of bank, enabling homebrit the capital and clout to make a couple more movies that are 100 percent his, then when those movies bomb, he'll get hungry again and direct the sequel or something and probably get a wee bit more leeway the second time out. That's called a Win Win situation in my book.

Thor is above-average entertainment; it moved fast and kept my interest and had a nice amount of laughs in the motherfucker. The action was cool in that CGI-spectacle sort-of-way, and the visuals in general are really nice to look at (I especially loved anything involving that hyped-up They Live style otherworldly transporter room). Natalie Portman is very pretty, the cute chick in glasses is my current movie-crush, Stellan Skarsgard is probably secretly jacking it to Jennifer Connelly, and the director of Choke is doing his S.H.I.E.L.D. thing like a fuckin' boss.

They're all giving 110 percent for a movie that averages 84 percent, in my opinion. I wouldn't call Thor great, it didn't rock my lame world like Muthafuckin' Fast Fuckin' Five did, but it's definitely one of the better examples of a summer movie, one that I wish was the rule, rather than the exception nowadays. Yeah, I know it's May, I know it's not really summer yet but Hollywood doesn't give a shit, so why should we, right? Also, Ralph Macchio is thanked in the end credits and that earns Thor extra credit special points, and while you probably think the filmmakers were thanking another Ralph Macchio, as far as I'm concerned, there's only ONE Ralph Macchio, bitches. Get that shit right.

In conclusion, Vincent D'Onofrio is probably pissed off right about now.

You can have any brew you want, as long as it's a Brahma

I don't know if you've seen 2009's Fast Ampersand Furious, but if you didn't, I'm about to spoil that shit, so skip to the third paragraph if you're all sensitive and shit. Anyway, to the best of my recollection of my single viewing of that film, the climax of the climax had Vin Diesel's character Dominic "'CUZ THE BUSTER KEPT ME OUTTA HANDCUFFS" Toretto smashing into Fenix, the piece-of-shit who killed his girlfriend Letty, and the audience at my showing was all Hell Yeah about it. Well, there was one guy next to me, he wasn't so cheery; he looked back at the crowd behind him and shook his head in disdain.

After the film, I asked him why he did that, and he told me that we all looked like assholes cheering the villain's demise, that it made us as bad as him and it wasn't going to change anything. He said that when all was said and done, criminals would still smuggle drugs with the use of high-speed vehicles, the War on Drugs will continue, and hell, there might even be repercussions from people who worked for Fenix. I told him that he might be right, it might not make a difference in the long run, but I bet you Toretto, Letty's family, (and the families of any other people Fenix killed, for that matter) feel a lot better knowing Fenix wasn't breathing anymore. He then gave me this smirk and brought up the fact that we never saw what they did with Fenix's body, so where's the proof that he was really killed in the first place and I was like Whatever, dude. I don't know why I felt like bringing that particular anecdote up, I just did, I guess.

Hello lady and gentleman, I'm going to ramble about the fifth film in the Vroom Vroom series of films that have the words "Fast" and/or "Furious" in the title. It's called Fast Five, and based on the box office reports, you've most likely seen it already. But in case you haven't, this one picks up where the last one left off, with a prison bus breakout that I'm sure has been described as "daring" by many others who've already written about this movie. I was expecting something very clever and elaborate, but I was wrong because it really just came down to causing that bus to flip over 17 times Another 48 Hrs. style and hope for the best that Toretto (one of the prisoners inside the bus) didn't get killed or Reeve'd up as a result.

Nope, homeboy survives (as do all the other passengers in the bus, believe it or not) and we then cut to sometime later in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, that is), with Paul Walker and Jordana Brewster driving through one of the many City of Gods they have in that fuckin' country; this is obviously one of the lesser City of Gods, because while there are plenty of gun-wielding youngsters running around, none of them are too young to drive and there isn't a Li'l Ze or Knockout Ned in the bunch.

Anyway, the Buster and Lady Toretto are both very good-looking but I'm glad I wasn't in that car, because you can just tell that shit must've smelled kinda ripe in there, I mean, it's a hot climate and I don't think they made that many stops or change of clothes, for that matter. They then meet up with fuckin' Vince "WHY'D YOU BRING THE BUSTER" I Don't Know His Character's Last Name from the first film and get down to setting up a new heist with the Domster, because fuck getting a day job.

All of this eventually leads to a bunch of motherfuckers looking for the Furious crew; a bunch of Brazilian bad guys led by Bucho from Desperado (although from the look of his waistline nowadays, he should be called Mucho), as well as a group of government badasses led by the gay guy from Be Cool. The gay guy from Be Cool is obscenely pumped up in this movie, even more pumped than he was in his last film, Faster (which is a pretty tight flick, save for the last 10 minutes or so).

I'm looking at this scary guy with his tree trunk arms and circa 1989 projection-television-sized chest and thinking to myself that this guy, this gay guy from Be Cool, he must be a really big fan of Lyle Alzado, because it looks like he's trying his absolute darndest to meet the motherfucker. He never stops sweating either; I was going to blame that on the Brazilian climate but nobody else is sweating liters like this guy, who's sweating like Ted Striker trying to land a plane, so it must be a side-effect from downing bottles of Xenadrine between camera set-ups. Can you smell what The Rock is cooking? I can, and it smells like a man going through ketosis.

At this point, the series is making it very clear to us that we are entering video game/cartoon logic territory. Not that the first few Fast/Furious joints were gritty representations of real life, but they were pretty grounded for summer fare. I mean, one of the most outlandish moments in the first film was when both Dom and the Buster race down a street, hoping to cross the train tracks before an oncoming train smashes them both. But by the fifth film, these motherfuckers drive a convertible off a cliff and then get up from the fuckin' car in mid-air and jump off from it before finally landing in a river (shades of Vin Diesel's opening stunt in XXX). In the first two films, the government agents were middle-aged guys played by Ted Levine and James Remar. In this one, the government agents are ripped and look like side characters from the Metal Gear series. In comparison to the fast-talking quip-masters that occupy this film, the side characters in the first one might as well be inarticulate extras from Gus Van Sant's Death trilogy. These aren't complaints, just observations. In other words, I'm just saying.

During all the street chases and vicious ownings, the Furious crew get the idea in their heads to pull yet an even more impossible heist and realize they're gonna need a bigger boat, and by bigger boat, I mean they need more guys on the job. Why I didn't just say that in the first place, I have no idea. At this point, the movie turns all Ocean's on us when we're intro'd to the additions to the team -- characters from previous Fast/Furious joints -- you have the two bickering brothers from the last one, Ludacris from part dos, the tall skinny chick from the last one (she and Sweet Dee from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia should team up and make a buddy action movie, called Killer Birds or something), Tyrese from part dos (I groaned when I saw him, but thankfully, the filmmakers made him not nearly as annoying in this one, so I never felt like throwing him into the path of an oncoming train like I did in 2 Fast 2 Homoerotic) and last but certainly not least, muthafuckin' Han from Tokyo Drift.

Let's talk a bit about Han; this guy -- SPOILER YOU FUCKERS -- died in Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, but his character is pretty awesome and the filmmakers realize that (it's revealed here that his full name is Han Seoul-Oh), so the way they keep him in the series is by having the last joint and this joint (and probably the next joint) all take place before the events of the Tokyo joint -- and even then, you never know what they might pull to keep him in these joints. I mean, you never know. By the way, on a completely unrelated note, stick around during the end credits. Anyway, like I was saying, I have no idea how they might keep him alive.

While Han might be the coolest character in the movie, Brewster & Brazilian Bird the hottest, and Paul Walker's character the most Paul Walker-esque, it's Dominic Toretto who was my favorite. Calm down dear, listen up: I liked how his character was no longer the badass cooler-than-cool person he tried to come off as in the first film, he's softened up quite a bit. Part of that, I think, might be a result of him losing the love of his life in the last movie. In that one, I was pleasantly surprised that they didn't just try to James Bond that shit and have him shacking up with a new broad before the end credits, and I was even more pleasantly surprised that he's still not considering putting himself on the market in Fast Five. He's still grieving, and as a result of that, I notice his character is a lot more, I don't know, needy or something. Maybe "appreciative" is a better word.

I mean, he's done it before in the last one, but here he's really laying it on thick with his talk about the people in his life being "family", regardless of whether they're related or not. He gives at least one heartfelt speech to his fellow Fast & Furious-ers, telling them how much they mean to him, and I think at least a couple of these guys are secretly thinking Calm Down Dude, Don't Start Crying Now and feeling all awkward and shit while politely smiling and nodding their heads before taking a celebratory swig of beer.

He was all about family in the first one too, but it was more of a You're Part Of The Circle Or You're Not and it's really hard to get in his circle (uh, that didn't come out right) but in this one, I think he's very open to anyone willing to hang with the fuckin' guy. I bet you that shit extends beyond the screen; it's like Hey guys, I make these Fast/Furious movies for you, the ones who were always down with the series but weren't down with The Chronicles of Riddick or Find Me Guilty or Babylon A.D. for some reason, and rather than hate on you, I'm gonna give you what you want. It's like he knows where he's wanted, and he's sure as fuck appreciating the shit out of it nowadays. If you're a Fast & Furious fan, then shit man, you're in the family, brother. Well, that and there's also the mass amount of fame & cash he gets for doing these flicks.

That part earlier where I referred to the second (and worst) of the series as 2 Fast 2 Homoerotic, that reminded me of a couple scenes in this one. There aren't nearly as any (if any) of those moments, although the Vince character does seem like a jilted chick every once in a while. I mean, in the first one, he didn't come off that way because he was all about wanting to score with Brewster's character -- but once the fuckin' Buster came into their lives, his chances pretty much went down to zero.

But in Fast Five, Vince has a woman and a kid, and Brewster's with the Buster now, but I guess it's in Vince's nature to be territorial about *something*, and in this movie that Something is his schoolyard chum Dominic. Vince is still wary about the Buster, trying to tell Dominic to be careful with him, but Dom's like Whatever and Vince gets all butt-hurt about it, whining about how "You never listen to me" and I'm half-expecting him to go on about how he doesn't feel appreciated for all the hard work he does cleaning the house and making dinner.

Someone somewhere mentioned how this series is changing, that it used to be about racing but it's now about heists, which is a weird thing to say because the other movies (at least the first 2) involved heists in one way or another. Maybe what he or she meant about this movie concentrating on heists is that there are a lot more staples of the heist genre in this movie, compared to the previous flicks; you have the sequence where each member of the team is introduced, you have scenes devoted to each member performing their part of the heist using his or her specialty, you have the montage where they kept doing practice runs on specific parts of the job, and most importantly, you have one of those awesome scenes where the entire heist crew huddles up around a table, looking at blueprints of the place they're going to hit, and going over the requirements needed to pull off the job. I fuckin' love that shit and I fuckin' love heist movies and Fast Five is a damn good heist movie. I don't know if Paramount was planning on doing this, but if they were, I'd suggest they shouldn't even bother making an Italian Job 2, because Universal and this movie just assed them the fuck out with Fast Fuckin' Five.

I always liked the Fast/Furious series and thought they were fun time-killers, but I also kinda understood that they weren't really respected, at least not in comparison to genuinely awesome summer action movies. These third-tier summer extravaganzas couldn't hang out with the big boys like Die Hard or The Dark Knight, they had to settle for the company of the Pirates of the Caribbean series (well, the last two, anyway) or even lower, lamer excuses for A Fun Time At The Movies like the Transformers movies. When I rambled about Fast Ampersand Furious, I admitted that my enjoyment of that movie may have come more from the nostalgia of digging the first one, but I'm happy to write that the reason I really dug Fast Five is because it's a fucking awesome summer action flick (summer came early, didn't you know?). I'm not sure if I'd put it up there with the A-level summer flicks, because I'd have to see it again and frankly, I need a couple years at least before I even consider qualifying that shit, but I'll sure as hell put it in the B+ section.

The action is top-fucking-notch and I can say that with confidence because at least twice I wanted to jump the fuck out of my seat and fucking applaud the movie for having the ability to make me smile like a dumbass as a result from having just watched something Fucking Awesome happen. It's not just the car chases and crashes, there's also a nice amount of violent shootouts that push the PG-13 rating as far as possible; there's a foot chase through the favela that ends with what felt like a higher body count than the past 4 films put together (it seems like each Fast/Furious film gets harder & darker with each installment). Then later in the film, there's also a pretty brutal fight scene that in the real world would end with one of them in the hospital and the other in the morgue -- that's the Chicago way! -- but in this movie, it only results in an eventual mutual respect for each other's strengths. Only in the movies, baby. Sure, you can be a grouch and be all like That's Bullshit And This Movie Is Bullshit, and if that's the case, I hope one day you'll realize it's OK to enjoy awesome stuff and you won't be mocked by your fellow hipsters for doing so.

I don't know how many cars they destroyed in this fucking movie, but I'm sure the family members of all the stuntmen who surely died performing the stunts will be proud of the film. Also, there was a trailer for the Cars sequel before the movie and that made me think that the families of the cars that were destroyed in this movie would also be just as understanding/forgiving of the film. By the way, 3 of the movie trailers preceding our feature presentation featured shit jokes, and one of them (some Jason Bateman/Ryan Reynolds comedy) actually featured 3 shit-related moments in its 3-minute running time. If that wasn't all, there was also a rather vivid exploding toilet scene in Fast Five.

What the fuck, people? Were we always a society of fecal lovers? And yet, these same people who laughed at a baby rocketing shit onto Bateman's face, these same people who guffawed at Leslie Mann dropping crazy deuces on the toilet while lamenting her choice of Thai food, these people who howled at Bateman freaking out when Mann got in bed with him and pointed her recently-wiped ass towards him -- these same people would freak out if they saw Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom, then they would go home and order Jackass 3 on pay-per-view, gobbling all the bathroom humor like so much chocolate pudding.

Complaints? I have a few -- actually, I only have one, really: I wish they didn't feel the need to Tony Scott the shit out of the subtitles, but what can you do, it's the hip/young thing to do, I guess. I also would've loved to see some ragdoll bodies fly out of the fuckin' cars, and blood, oh yes, precious beautiful blood would've been welcome amongst all the insanity, but again, this is a PG-13 joint and I can always create an Unrated Director's Cut in the Blu-ray player of my imagination. Nudity would've been welcome too, but again, there's always my imaginary Blu-ray.

In short, if you like fast cars, two-fisted action, one-fisted gunplay, sweaty steroid cases, vehicular smashups, and plenty of tits & ass in bikinis and various other tight skimpy outfits, then you're most likely the writer of these ramblings and you should already be planning to see this shit a second time. But if you're not me, and you don't like the above-mentioned qualities, but you *do* like seeing a closeted action star acting less closeted than he did in recent movies, then yeah, you should see this shit right the fuck now.