A mix of the personal, the heartbreaking, and the nerdy. This is where pop culture collides with memory and the struggle to reclaim music, movies, and books for the greater good.
So for those who have been waiting several months for this to come out, here is our version of Chinese Democracy, The Rep: Episode 3. Now with 75% more Peter and 100% more Andrew Parker.
In this episode, the boys of the Toronto Underground Cinema work hard to film a group of shorts with hopes of impressing Edgar Wright. Five minutes before showtime, however, Edgar is yet to arrive. Will the boys be able to pull this one off or do they have the wrong stuff? Find out in this first of a two part episode.
Be sure to check back to Andrew Parker's blogs on Saturday for some exclusive deleted scenes and outtakes from Episode 3 of The Rep
Welcome to Careerology! A new semi-regular feature that ranks the work of various writers, actors, directors, etc. from best to worst. In honour of the TIFF Bell Lightbox running a couple of weeks of Tim Burton films and uneviling his (somewhat) new art installation, lets star by looking at the films of Tim Burton, a man who has made some really great, and some really bad, films.
Excellent
1. Ed Wood - If you were to look at a list of my favourite films of all time, Ed Wood comes in at number 3. That is pretty high praise for a movie about someone who made terrible movies. The tale of Edward D. Wood Jr. is by turns hillarious and heartbreaking. Despite being known as one of the worst directors of all time, Ed Wood stands as one of the best "triumph of the human spirit" films ever made. It is also quite easily my favourite film about the art of filmmaking (sorry 8 1/2). Johnny Depp has his best performance of all time in this one and Martin Landau as Bella Lugosi is simply electric. A rare movie that I could never get tired of watching.
2. Edward Scissorhands - I have a genuine love for a specific subgenre of film that I like to call the "suburban nightmare" film. These are movies like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Serial Mom about the darkness that can lurk in the most bucolic of places, and despite not having watched it until this past weekend, Edward Scissorhands definitely qualifies as such a film, and is one of the best examples. Scissorhands is a fairy tale born from such a nightmare. You take a very "dark" character and place him in one of the most day-glo coloured environments possible, that is more twisted than our lead character. Great performances all around from Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Diane Weist. Alan Arkin, and Anthony Michael Hall (who really should have gotten more villain roles after this one).
3. Beetlejuice - Again, a film born out of the suburban nightmare, but this one is a beautifully realized allegory about how wealth encroaches on everything these days, including death. For all of the shenanigans involving Michael Keaton (who is at his off the leash best here), the thing that draws me to this film the most are Burton's very populist ripping of a class system made up of people who have no idea how to cope with loss. Brilliant on numerous levels.
Good
4. Big Fish - Schmaltzy to say the least, but darn effective. A pretty big departure from the usual Burton fare, but still a lot of fun. A longing meditation on families and the loss of an oral tradition that people tend to forget about.
5. Pee-Wee's Big Adventure - Some day I will take frames of this film and pair it alongside shots from French new wave films and ask people to tell the difference. Pee-Wee set the bar for every man child film to come, but this one actually gets everything right. Really strange, but hilarious.
6. The Nightmare Before Christmas - Quite possibly one of the most rockin' animated films ever made. Danny Elfman's music carries the film to another level, but Burton (who only wrote and produced this effort) manages to make a really sweet story for not one, but two, holidays.
7. Batman - Burton's version of Batman has a great feel for the original Bob Kane comics and Keaton still remains the best Batman, but the final twenty minutes devolve into a chaotic and illogical mess that really sours my thoughts of this one. Still worth it for Keaton and Jack Nicholson alone, and still a lot of fun.
Mediocre
8. The Corpse Bride - Fun, but unmemorable animated effort co-directed by Burton. The songs are lively, but the story seems inert and not particularly interesting. Albert Finney's character, however, has one of the best facial expressions in the history of animation.
9. Sleepy Hollow - Wait for Sunday for a more in-depth take on this one, but for now lets just say if you reversed the words in the title you would get what is wrong with the film, followed by how I felt watching it.
10. Batman Returns - This film has some huge defenders that call this not only the best Batman film, but also one of the best Christmas films ever made. It really isn't that good. Burton's push to make the film as violent and real as possible is in direct opposition with how cutesy it is trying to be. It is a great looking mess and the best film so far to feature the Catwoman character. Danny DeVito and Christopher Walken are the stand-outs here, in a Batman film that is surprisingly very light on Batman (he is only in 2 scenes in the first 40 minutes).
11. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - This film, admittedly, contains the best set design in a Burton film to date and the children in this adaptation are spot on perfect. Depp is wonderful as Willy Wonka and shows his best comedic timing to date. Almost all of the throwaway gags are funny. So why is this so low? I just LOATHE Danny Elfman's arrangments of the songs in this film. They are auto-tuned and distorted messes that make me want to punch the screen really hard. They grind the movie to a halt and feel shoehorned into the film. I don't care that they are word for word from Roald Dahl's book. They still suck. Also, the adding of Willy Wonka's daddy issues is wholly unnecessary, stupid, and very boring.
Bad
12. Sweeny Todd - Terminally boring except for the performances. Burton just isn't the person who should have directed a period piece musical based on a Sondheim musical. Come to think of it, the source material was never that great to begin with. It is a novel gimmick, but doesn't work beyond the novelty value of watching a gory musical.
13. Mars Attacks! - Sure, Mars Attacks! knows it is bad, but it is also one of the most insufferably mean spirited movies ever made. Oddly enough, my opinion of this film has actually gone UP slightly.
14. Planet of the Apes - Wait until Friday for my longer take on this one. But in two words: Pure shit.
15. Alice in Wonderland - How in God's name is this Burton's highest grossing film? This film is an abomination in every possible way. Burton shits all over the source material for this insipid "sequel" to the classic book and once again we have another film with familial issues that this time don't even register. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter have never been more annoying and they both need to stop working with Burton for a really long time. If they keep doing films like this it will ruin their careers. Irritating to the point of madness.
So this week, in addition to my regular columns on here and in addition to the regular coverage of films for the Toronto Underground Cinema, you can expect a plethora of additional material that happened to arise from several theme week ideas that just so happened to fall on the same week.
In honour of the new Tim Burton exhibit at the TIFF Bell Lightbox I have deemed this week Tim Burton week. You can expect a new Tim Burton related post each day this week through Sunday.
Over on the Toronto Underground Cinema side of things, it is Good Canadian Cinema week, and in addition to the coverage of those individual films, you can also expect a few extra blogs over there about what Canadian cinema means to all of us.
So without further ado, here is your schedule to MEGA WEEK. Times and days subject to change and my own personal burnout/death.
ICGLITT = I Can't Get Laid in this Town NFTTU = Notes From the Toronto Underground TBW = Tim Burton Week GCC = Good Canadian Cinema
Monday November 29th
Careerology #1: Tim Burton (ICGLITT, TBW) Good Canadian Cinema: An American Perspective (NFTTU, GCC) Music and Memory #2: Citrus (ICGLITT) Episode 3: The Rep (NFTTU)
Tuesday November 30th
Burton Blitz Recap (ICGLITT, TBW) The Sweet Hereafter (NFTTU, GCC) Books and Memory #1: Trumpet of the Swan (ICGLITT)
Wednesday December 1st
Hey, Remember That Movie? #4: Cabin Boy (ICGLITT, TBW) Burnout Movie Club #2: Cocktail (ICGLITT) Last Night (NFTTU, GCC) Pontypool (NFTTU, GCC) Unannounced Canadian Cinema Blog (NFTTU, GCC)
Thursday December 2nd
Morgan White (The Rep) Interview (NFTTU) Movies and Memory #3: Planet of the Apes (ICGLITT, TBW) Porky's (NFTTU, GCC) Cube (NFTTU, GCC)
Friday December 3rd
Special Secret Guest Blog (ICGLITT, TBW) Naked Lunch (NFTTU, GCC) Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy (NFTTU, GCC) Open Letters to Ex-Girlfriends #1.5: M.S. (ICGLITT)
Saturday December 4th
Deleted Scenes and Outtakes from Episode 3 of The Rep (NFTTU) The Social Network (NFTTU) Interviews regarding Good Canadian Cinema week (NFTTU, GCC) Super Mega Crossover #1 (Made up of Movies and Memory #'s 4 &5: Sleepy Hollow and Demolition Man, Music and Memory #3: Spores, and Open Letters to Ex-Girlfriends #'s 2 & 2.5: J.E. and A.S.) (ICGLITT, TBW)
Sunday December 5th
And on the Seventh Day I Rested (ICGLITT) Final Good Canadian Cinema Wrap-Up (NFTTU, GCC) Burnout Movie Club #3: Valkyrie (ICGLITT) Scrooged (NFTTU)
For all the work that I do and for all the praise I have been getting for the past week, I just can't shake how much of a rough patch I am going through at the moment. This weekend, at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, I take a 36 hour vacation with Mr. Tim Burton. Well, maybe not a full 36 hours, but since all of his films are running (and with a $30 ticket price for the event) it is worth checking out. I honestly wasn't doing anything else this weekend, anyway. So leading up to the Burton Blitz, here is my take on what I am looking forward to and what I could care less about.
Can't say anything because I haven't seen them:
Edward Scissorhands and Alice in Wonderland
Despite being his highest grossing film, not seeing Alice in Wonderland doesn't seem like much of a slight against being a Burton completist (which I am really not, but, whatever). Not seeing Edward Scissorhands, however, is pretty much tantamount to never being considered a nerd again. I am almost ashamed to admit it here. It isn't that I was avoiding it. I really do want to see it.
Legitimately good movies I really have nothing to say about:
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Sleepy Hollow, Big Fish
Movie I used to hate as a kid, but I like now:
Batman
When I was a kid I was given a VHS of Burton's Batman as a birthday present from a friend. It sat unopened for 6 years before I watched it since I just thought it looked like the most boring thing ever. Now that I am older, I really do appreciate it for what it is.
I don't know. I am still pretty apprehensive about this one:
Batman Returns
Honestly, I know plenty of people who love this movie, and I haven't seen it in years, but I remember intensely disliking it the last time I saw it. I remember good performances in a really cold and sub-par story. Not sure if I will give it another chance. Might nap.
Great childhood memory relived:
James and the Giant Peach
This is one of the films I begged my mother almost daily to take me to see. The book is one of my favorites even as an adult. Looking forward to seeing it on the big screen again.
One of my favourite films of all time:
Ed Wood
I am sorry Eye Weekly, but you are wrong, so very, very wrong about this film being overrated. This is coming from someone who never says anyone is wrong about anything. It was clear from your article that you were trying to be controversial and bait people into disagreeing with you. Either that, or you just hate everything, because even the films you complimented were done backhandedly. But honestly, Ed Wood is one of the greatest "triumph of the human spirit" movies of all time. I can never be upset watching it and the performances are all things of beauty. Also, in regards to Eye Weekly's assessment "hampered by Burton's persistent discomfort with human emotions?" Really? And yet, you seemed to really enjoy Big Fish, but that movie is merely "flawed." I very rarely get irate over film reviews, but I would really like you to explain just how you can say in Ed Wood it is annoying that Burton clearly revels in childlike behavior, but in Big Fish it is totally cool. That really makes no sense at all.
You could not pay me to watch this movie again:
Mars Attacks!
Good God do I despise this movie on so many levels. It is easily the most misanthropic comedy I have ever seen, but the fact that it isn't funny in the slightest sends me into a rage. This film is just mean for the sake of being mean. Also, if you want to create a movie where every character is thoroughly unlikable, at least make them FUCKING INTERESTING. Words can not describe just how much I despise this movie. It ranks up there with Wendy and Lucy, Patch Adams, and The Pursuit of Happyness with films that I will openly debate with anyone over just how terrible they are. People's defenses of all four of these films are just inexplicable to me.
Withholding saying anything about it because it is the subject of a future blog, but I can still say it sucks:
Planet of the Apes
Let's just say I have some very fond and not so fond memories of this film. They involve me waking up drunk in New Jersey.
The triumvirate of boredom towards the end:
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
With these films so close together in the Burton filmography, I just might not make it to the end of the blitz. Charlie is tonally all wrong and so garishly coloured that it hurts me to look at it. Johnny Depp also has his worst performance here. Corpse Bride is merely meh on all levels. Sweeny Todd is a huge miscalculation for Burton and it convinces me that Burton is trying to sabotage the careers of Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, both of whom have started to irk me of late.
Cutting Class is a movie only a mother could love; specifically Brad Pitt's mother. Mrs. Pitt must have been thrilled that young Brad was making what was more or less his fifth on-screen appearance and no longer having to dress up like a chicken outside of El Pollo Loco. Unfortunately, Brad was considerably less than enthusiastic about this 1989 sub-par slasher film making it's way to DVD, going as far as suing director/producer RospoPallenberg to keep it out of stores. Lions Gate, however, had deeper pockets than Mr. Pitt and released the film on DVD before very quickly pulling it out of print again. I think that decision had nothing to do with Brad Pitt's intended legal action, but because Lions Gate quickly found out that no one in their right mind would ever watch Cutting Class in the first place.
I, however, have watched Cutting Class more times than I care to admit or remember. The first time was at four in the morning on HBO just after I had watched Legends of the Fall earlier in the day. I honestly could not believe I was watching the same actor. Once I saw that it was replaying on HBO on my birthday, it became must-see TV no matter what my friends had planned for that day. At 2am I had to be home and watching this piece of cinematic genius. Why have I watched Cutting Class so many times? Because I truly believe that Cutting Class is the Troll 2 of 80s slasher films. Only this film has a much more "competent" cast that should have known better.
Paula (80s horror icon Jill Schoelen) is a goody-two shoes cheerleader who finds herself alone for the week when her father (Martin Mull!) goes away on a hunting trip. Just as this happens a young man with a crush on Paula, named Brian (Donovan Leitch, better known as the All American boy who eats it at the beginning of the 1988 Blob remake) is released from a sanitarium. Naturally, bodies start piling up inexplicably. Art teachers are burned alive in kilns. The vice-principal is slowly and very implausibly killed via a photocopier. The gym teacher is killed with an implement that Eli Roth very blatantly rips off in his Thanksgiving trailer.
But who could be doing this? Is it Brian? Is it Paula's boyfriend Dwight (Pitt) who is very quickly unravelling and pissing away a potential athletic scholarship? Is it the really creepy janitor that seems to teleport from place to place and spouts lines that make no damn sense? ("I AM THE JANITOR OF YOUR DESTINY!") Or maybe it is the math teacher played by Roddy "Dear God, I really wasted my career" McDowell.
The story of Cutting Class is so cookie cutter yet so poorly done that you would think the class being cut in the title was cooking. There is absolutely no technical prowess on display. Characters pop up whenever needed (and in the case of Mull and McDowell, for cheap laughs) and die or disappear once they stop serving the threadbare, illogical, and asinine plot. The film in it's later moments even tries to be more clever than it is by adding a scene involving a riddle where the correct answer is (1) not even amongst the choices given and (2) clearly wrong at any rate. The relationship between Brian and Dwight is also so homoerotic it makes the audience wonder if they are watching a high school slasher that is also ripping off A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 and The Hitcher at the same time.
As for the performances... hoo-boy. They are easily the best reason to sit through this thing. Schoelen is the only one who comes out smelling like roses since her character really isn't defined enough for anyone to really screw it up. If you want to see a good Schoelen film, rent the original Stepfather or the hidden campy gem Popcorn. Leitch seems like he is on an episode of Whose Line is it Anyway? and is playing Party Quirks as "guy the audience can spot a million miles away." You honestly want to buzz him off screen every time you see him. McDowell is hammy in a strange way I have honestly never seen before and has an entire scene where he does nothing but try on different wigs. Mull literally stumbles through the entire film (he is shot with an arrow early on), talks to a police dog, and shows up at the end of the film in the worst case of shoehorning a film's title into a line of dialogue I have ever heard.
As for Brad Pitt, he is a close second to Schoelen in the "not looking like a total jackass" derby. I didn't think this the first time I saw it. He is pretty bad here, but all he really has to do is cry and act petulant. That and kick everything he sees. Then I watched Burn After Reading where he plays a character too dumb to live that I swore was Dwight all grown up. At the time, Pitt might have been young and inexperienced, but now it feels like a deliberately awesome moment of intentional stupidity.
Ah, the heck with it. I am going to (nearly) spoil the movie for everyone. This scene includes pretty much everything you need to know about how bad it is anyway. Brad Pitt loses his shit multiple times. Everyone else could care less. The gym teacher kill. The janitor. The illogical riddle. A song so terrible I can only refer to it as "MAN TALK." Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria. (Skip to 4:16 in the video to watch the greatest scene of Pitt's career.)
First up, let me wish all my fellow Americans a very happy and healthy American Thanksgiving. Having lived in Canada for so long now it still feels weird saying "American" before Thanksgiving in November, but it is all the same thing. Canadian Thanksgiving in October varies so slightly that it is really just colder in the states when people sit down for a fine turkey dinner. And football. Don't forget about the football. And MST3K marathons when Comedy Central was still in its infancy. Oh, and that whole "family" thing.
Having lost both parents and having not had any remotely supportive extended family I never really had a traditional Thanksgiving. Well, there were fancy dinners with my parents and a drifter named Earl (no, I am not making that up. He was there for pretty much all of the seventeen Thanksgivings we ever had), but those were always marred by my mother getting too drunk to function and my father flipping out over the littlest things and pretty much ruining the entire night.
That's not to say that I haven't had some good Thanksgivings. Some of them less traditional than others. Like two years ago when I went out to a diner with some co-workers who had to stay behind for the holiday. Or the years when I spent holidays with close friends or the families of a significant other. Most years since then, however, I have worked. This American Thanksgiving is yet another one that will pass me by without notice. Much like Canadian Thanksgiving consisted of me sitting on my ass for most of the day and going to the movies to watch Gone With the Wind and the Lightbox.
There is only one real movie that ever deals with Thanksgiving in any sort of meaningful way, and it just so happens to be one of my favourite films of all time. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is my favourite John Hughes film. For the longest time it was Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but now that I have matured I appreciate Hughes' adult side a lot more than I did growing up. Plus, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is the rare movie that can give me hope when I am at my most hopeless.
The plot is as simple as and Hope-Crosby road film. A workaholic ad executive (Steve Martin) wants nothing more than to get home to see his family for Thanksgiving. Thorough a convoluted series of weather delays and unforeseen mishaps (many of which would be compounded by today's stringent travel guidelines), he is forced to tag along with a shower curtain ring salesman (John Candy) who finds an endless amount of ways to annoy him.
The interplay between the two stars is pure comedic gold and Candy is a talent that left this world far too early. Martin plays the stuck up, straight laced business man so well that you hate to identify with him at times. Candy plays the seemingly ungrateful lout to the hilt and at times makes you want to strangle him yourself.
Also, it is fun to watch Steve Martin lose his shit. This scene is actually the only reason this film is rated R.
But there comes a point in the film, and if you haven't seen it I won't spoil it for you, when you realize why Candy's character is the way he is. It is at that point where everything comes together for me. Steve Martin is playing a character that I can easily identify with, yet would hate to become in real life. John Candy is playing someone well meaning, yet kind of annoying, which is the kind of guy I can be at times. Now more than ever if you know the plot twist at the end of the film.
This is one of the greatest interactions between two actors in history. Watch Martin just lay into John Candy and how Candy's reaction very slowly grows sadder and sadder with every barb thrown at him. Candy follows up with one of the best speeches in film history. Often imitated, never duplicated.
By the conclusion, set to the strains of "Everytime You Go Away," I wish I could have a life like Steve Martin has in the film and a heart the size of John Candy's. Those are the kind of sentimental moments that are lacking in my life. They are also the kind of moments that I know a lot of people take for granted because they experience them all the time. This Thanksgiving and holiday season I urge you to reach out to someone less fortunate and remind yourself how good giving can truly feel. Now that I am done preaching, it is time to watch this one again.
So when I first decided to write these letters I naturally had to check up on how all my ex-girlfriends are doing, but I couldn't find you online anywhere. But if you are reading this, here is why I am going about things in this manner. There is a girl that I really like right now, but I am too shy to say anything about how I truly feel. I thought it might be helpful, both for myself and possibly for you, to get everything off my chest about my past relationships and hook-ups, both the ones where I have been hurt (of which there are many) and the ones where I have screwed up (twice by my count and one of the spectacularly). I felt it was best to start from the beginning. She here we are.
Thanks to you I was spared the nerdy indignation of never having a girlfriend in high school. I also want to thank you for having the sense to drop countless hints to me everyday. There were a few days I wanted to take you up on all those previous offers of skipping school and driving back to your dad's house to watch TV. Without those hints and your persistence, I probably never would have asked you to do something after school that day.
Honestly, I just didn't want to go home. My dad's drinking buddy, Eddie, was over and that was always bad news. Plus my mother was just bad news pretty much every day back then. Telling my parents that I was going on a date was a conversation I just wasn't prepared to have yet. I knew I wanted to be anywhere but home and anywhere with you.
You drove your beat up Subaru compact down to the reservoir on the first really warm day of April. The trees were barely in bloom, but it was still T-shirt and shorts weather to most people. I don't fully remember what we talked about as we walked along the waterfront. I do remember both of us vaguely complaining about our lives at home. Your parents had just finalized their divorce and you were worried that by staying with your father you wouldn't see your little brother much anymore.
I don't remember what exactly led to me asking you out formally. I know it was preceded by a long pause and then me just going for it and asking. Then you told me yes and quickly told me "come here." That was my first kiss. Oddly enough you were also my old best friend's first kiss before he moved away in grade seven. You said you didn't remember him that much, which means he either lied to me or you damn sure don't remember him now.
I would like to apologize for being the worst kisser in the world back then. I have since gotten light years better and have been complimented at great length. But when my tongue was in your mouth I just flailed that thing like a windsock in a hurricane. You were such a good sport about it, though. I have no idea why you never called me out on it, but maybe you were as bad a kisser as I was and I just don't remember it.
Whatever. I didn't care at the time and I still don't care now. Our first date was so ludicrous in hindsight it feels like high camp looking back on it. You straddling me and making out vigorously in broad daylight in front of families with children and the elderly out for a leisurely stroll. There we were, right there on the grass near the tourist trap castle that was useless every day except for Easter morning when the high school marching band played with that group of bagpipers at dawn.
You put up with my awkward gentlemanly notions. I didn't want to go to second base on the first date, but there we went. Right there in public. By our third date to the inappropriately named Purgatory Chasm we had gotten to third base (even though you had to talk me through it).
Of course, since these were all firsts for me, I naturally have fond memories of them, but I do remember that with your greater sexual knowledge and experience you intimidated me quite a bit. I really didn't want to have sex with you. Not at that point in my life, anyway. I really still thought that sex was something two people who were really in love would have. I didn't know what love was yet and all your bragging about how you were going to deflower me honestly terrified me.
Also, as much as you tried to get me to smoke weed back then, I just wanted no part of it at the time. Even when you offered me a blow job in the middle of the woods if I took a hit. Even though that would have been a first for me on both the drug and blow job fronts, I still declined. I declined because if I came home smelling like weed or as high as you were, my father would have beaten me senseless and wouldn't speak to me for weeks. I would go on to do both of those things, but on my own terms and not because I would get something out of it either way.
And that incident where I didn't smoke weed with you, of all things, was what led you to stop speaking to me for a week. I pretty much assumed we were done even though we sat next to each other in physics class where you did everything in your power to make things awkward. Then you told me officially a week before the junior prom that one of your best friends professed his love for you and that you two were meant to be together. Thanks to you I was the only person at the single's table at the Junior prom. If I had known that I would have just stayed home. You also dumped me on the day I found out my new best friend had gotten a blow job from a girl that I had a crush on for several years prior that would never go out with me and always just wanted to be friends. So there was that thing.
Senior year we didn't say two words to each other until graduation night when we walked by each other, going in opposite directions. You said "I'm sorry." I said "That's OK." We shook hands and hugged. I only saw you once after that. You were playing with three little kids on a dead end street as I was making a U-turn. Was one of them your little brother? I wanted to ask, but all we did was the "head nod" acknowledgement thing and I kept on driving away. I don't know where you are now, but if you are still out there, given the years I have had since then, the last words I ever said to you still hold true. I probably mean them more now than I ever did.
Two weeks ago I was in the hospital having surgery on an ulcer that I have had since grade six, but hadn't begun to adversely affect my life until recently. The surgery was easy and the recovery time was short, but despite the fact that I was going to be back up and on my feet in no time, I was still burnt out with everything else going on around me.
I had to get out of the city. As much as I wish I could have stayed to work on things, I simply couldn't keep it up. It felt as if I was having a nervous breakdown; something I was unfortunately all too familiar with by this point in my life. To alleviate my anxiety and depression, I took off to the small town of Pontypool, Ontario and stayed with the parents of a close friend for the better part of a week. After spending my first night there and still being an insomnia ridden mess, I went to the TV room adjacent to my guest room and devised this project.
At this house there were over 1,000 DVDs. I have seen a lot of movies in my time, but there was no way I had seen all of the movies in this room. I proceeded to look around the shelves and write down the names of 50 movies I had not yet seen on slips of paper. These slips were placed into an Indiana Jones replica hat and drawn at random at the rate of seven movies a day over the course of three days. Not all films would be chosen, but I was determined to have the ultimate movie marathon (albeit with breaks for fresh air, sunlight, food, showers, and anything else in case the movies ended up burning me out even more). The films could not be chosen in advance. A slip of paper could only be drawn right before I was to sit down and watch the film. In the hat was a perfect mix of films I wanted to see, films I had dreaded, and films I could not have cared less about.
First up out of the hat was Ron Howard's 1982 directorial debut Night Shift. This was not only the debut of Howard breaking out of his Happy Days and Andy Griffith Show persona, but also the beginnings of Imagine Entertainment. Howard not only brought along Henry Winkler to star in his first film, but the script was from Happy Days scribes Babaloo Mandel and Lowell Ganz, who would work almost exclusively for producer Brian Grazer, who also gets a producer credit here. This film also marks the on-screen debut of Michael Keaton, who even back then was able to fully commit to even the craziest of comedic roles, even if the film around him isn't fully able to match the amount of energy he displays.
Winkler stars as Charles Lumley, a former Wall Street accountant who gets burnt out and takes a job working the night shift at the New York City morgue because it is quiet and not a heck of a lot is expected of him. Charles is clearly unhappy with his life. He gets stuck back on the night shift because of his boss' nepotism, his fiancee is a Jewish Princess with an eating disorder and overbearing parents, he is chased through the halls of his apartment building every day by snarling dogs straight out of a Resident Evil movie, and not once has the local deli ever gotten his order right. Charles, however, is complacent in his role as an underachiever and lets all these slights just slide on by.
Into Charles life walks Billy Blaze (Keaton), a manic idea man who simply can not shut his mouth for five seconds and whom Charles is expected to train. Billy thinks every idea he has is the greatest idea on Earth, like using the morgue's hearse as a limousine for paying teenagers or feeding tuna mayonnaise to create a ready to eat tuna salad. Needless to say, Billy and Charles don't get along well at first.
Charles has an unrequited crush on a prostitute who lives down the hall from him (played by Shelly Long, who really should have had a better film career). When she is found by Charles beaten up in his apartment building's elevator, she explains that her pimp is dead (killed in the almost horrific opening sequence by Richard Belzer playing a mob enforcer) and that her life has become a lot more dangerous as an independent contractor without protection.
Charles and Billy together scheme, for entirely different reasons, to run a call girl service out of the city morgue after hours thanks to their complete lack of supervision. Really? Only two guys run the New York City morgue after midnight? That's a bit far fetched, but don't worry. The script at times forgets about all the gags that could ever take place in a morgue. Honestly, this film could have taken place anywhere with the same results.
As far as white boy pimp flicks go, it is a damn sight better than Doctor Detroit, but it is still far from a comedic classic. Ron Howard's style is on early display here, with some great shots and sight gags. But if you can call out a film for poor blocking, something you should never notice on screen or in the theatre, it shows you still have a lot to learn.
Another strike against Night Shift is that the pacing is deathly at times. The film takes over 40 minutes to get to the actual plot, and at 106 minutes I could easily find 16 minutes of footage that could have hit the cutting room floor. The final payoff of the film is also weak and unsatisfying seeing that the plot and the problems surrounding Charles' weakness towards others are wrapped up about 15 minutes before the film's all too tidy conclusion.
While watching Night Shift, it dawned on me that Ben Stiller might very well owe his entire career to Henry Winkler in this film. As Charles, Winkler does the tightly wound Jewish nebbish as well as Woody Allen ever did. Charles only thinks he is tired, but he is really just bored and under stimulated. Winkler really seems to understand that about the character.
But overall, it is easy to see how Night Shift is also a star making vehicle for Michael Keaton. Billy Blaze is Keaton at his off the leash finest. He is seemingly manic for no reason (at first), and this is the kind of comedy that Keaton excels at. Very few people could create a lovable character out of a hustler who drives a Cadillac emblazoned with a Pontiac Firebird decal and tagged with "I'm Cool" license plates.
Also, the music by Burt Bacharach, is like a relentless earworm. All of it is pretty awesome. All with the exception of the version of "That's What Friends Are For" (which was written for this film) not performed the way we all know and love, but instead by Rod Stewart. That was pretty bad. But at least it plays over the credits, so you can just shut it off.
Rating: **1/2
Next pick: Why do I have the sinking feeling I might end up regretting this project?
Sometimes things happen that force you to write about something sooner rather than later. It was always my intention to do a blog about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but in light of recent events, it looks like that blog needs to get done today. If for no other reason than Warner Brothers forcing my hand by announcing a reboot of a franchise that has only been dormant for several years. Next thing you know, I will hear about Spider-man getting a complete overhaul only four years after the last movie. Now that would just be silly.
I have to go on record as saying this first, and if you don't want to read the rest of the blog, I understand. I was never a huge fan of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series. I saw the appeal of the show, but I was just never consistently entertained by it. The first three or four seasons of the show had moments of pure brilliance and I can still appreciate that, but overall I feel the same way about Buffy that I do about Glee. These are shows with some great episodes that make their way into the popular culture landscape with endless quotes and moments that tug at the heartstrings, but also contain so episodes so dire that I am always thisclose to writing the show off forever.Luckily, Buffy, unlike Glee, never had episodes so dire that I have been blinded by nerd rage towards it.
I have lots of great friends who are enormous Buffy fans and they are actually some of the most educated nerdy fans I have ever met; probably second only to Doctor Who fans. Their impassioned arguments, and thinly veiled threats of attacking me with axes, made me think long and hard about this franchise being rebooted without Joss Whedon behind it. At first, I didn't care that much since I really didn't have the emotional investment in this that some people seem to have. Then I thought, "Hey, how would you feel if you watched a show that was admittedly pretty decent, was kicked around numerous times by networks that were incompetent on a good day?" Then I realized that I honestly like the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie more than I like the television series. Then I prepared for the attack by eating some pizza, playing some video games and promptly falling asleep.
But having slept on it, and before I get to my real point, let me just say that I am in agreement with Buffy fans everywhere that this is a pretty terrible idea. Reboots in general are cynical cash grabs, but this seems just founded on very shoddy logic. Whedon and the cast were the only real reason to turn in to Buffy on a weekly basis. If you take both of those elements away, all you end up with is a remake that will be as pointless as those of Psycho and A Nightmare on Elm Street. This reboot is really only being considered because romantic vampire epics are the hot thing right now. Admittedly, Twilight, as shit as it is, owes a huge debt to Buffy for proving that a vampire saga can have genuine elements of romance to it and not just of the feeding of the flesh variety. Also, Buffy did it without being so serious you feel like you need antidepressants when it is over.
What irks me the most about all of this is the fact that Warner Brothers isn't so much adapting the television series as they are the feature length 1992 film that it was based on. Which brings me to today's "Movies and Memory" column. Mostly because Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the first "naughty" movie I ever saw on my own; a thrill so unmatched in my pre-teenage days that I repeated the experience 4 more times over the film's three week run at the movie theatre next door to where I grew up.
I was kind of spoiled as a child. Not spoiled in the monetary sense because I grew up just barely on the right side of the poverty line (and occasionally due to my parent's necessity to smoke and drink on a daily basis, on the wrong side), but because everything a kid could have ever wanted was within walking distance of my house. I lived behind the woods on the other side of a strip mall that included a book store (where I would eventually get my first job), a record store, both Burger King and McDonalds, East Side Marios, a grocery store, a department store, a drug store, a convenience store, a Dunkin' Donuts (this was Massachusetts, after all), a pizza place, an IHOP, a chinese food restaurant, Trader Joe's, Kinkos (for those late high school paper writing nights), a pub, a KFC/Taco Bell, and most importantly of all, a three screen movie theatre which I got to see movies in often for free because my mother knew the manager and plied them with free ice cream from the restaurant she worked at.
Some people had television as a babysitter. Since my father was a lazy, unemployed piece of crap who never left the couch, the television in my house was very rarely changed from CNN or whatever boring political programming was one. Hence, the movies became my babysitter. I remember every few days or so, I would have my mother get me tickets to see movies so I just wouldn't have to sit around the house being bored when my homework was finished. In the summer, these trips to the movies were far more frequent, and much like my watching of Buffy 5 times, I would often watch other somewhat marginal films repeatedly.
Buffy, however, was a landmark for me. I wasn't even sure I would be able to get in. My mother wouldn't have cared in the slightest what I saw or what I did, but I was quite certain that I would not get past the ticket booth. The movie was PG-13 and I was only 9! What was I going to do? I was too chicken to sneak in, plus with the way the theatre was laid out, sneaking in was an impossibility. So, I finally adopted the policy of just asking if I could see something. Oddly enough, once I hit 13, it started working for R-rated films as well. I could only snicker at the kids on Monday morning who complained they couldn't get in to see the latest movies. I could motherfuckers. Never underestimate the power of free ice cream.
Honestly, I don't remember much about that summer (which means unlike many summers it couldn't have been all that bad), but I will always equate Buffy the Vampire Slayer to the initial sense of wrong doing I felt. It was like I pulled one over on the system. When I got older I realize it didn't matter all that much, but at the time it was monumental. It also helped me develop an appreciation for Rutger Hauer and Kristy Swanson that remains to this day.
What I am trying to say is, if the Buffy film is remade as far as possible from the original version, my childhood is over. If you stay word for word faithful to Joss Whedon's original vision. however, I can just as easily keep ignoring that this is even happening in the first place.
Also, the training montage between Buffy and her mentor (played by Donald Sutherland) is still to this day, one of my favourite training montages of all time. Easily top 5.
Americans like to mention that the world has really changed a lot since September 11, 2001. It is often said in hushed tones and muted sighs indicative of wishes to go back to a simpler time. When people wistfully talk about a “simpler time,” they are often talking about any date prior to and including September 10th, while glossing over the fact that American history is already soaked in enough blood as it is. Besides, who is to say what generation had a simpler go of things to begin with?
Without getting into a long political diatribe or delving deeper into past U.S. foreign policies, I feel it necessary to note that people most affected by unrest in the United States’ affairs are comprised of an entire generation of people who have never really lived through a war or a time of massive upheaval. It has been a rather general observation on my part that people who lived through Vietnam era didn’t take modern threats as personally as younger generations did.
Considering the U.S. was involved in an extended cold war with the Soviet Union, the 1980s weren’t that bad in terms of violent conflict directly involving U.S. troop movements or massive shows of force and general dick swinging. An entire generation, myself included, were born into a world where we were seemingly sheltered from war. Even the first Gulf War was a bit of an anticlimactic farce. No one really felt threatened as a child and we were too young to understand what an arms race was. There was no Department of Homeland Security and you could get on a plane without eight forms of identification or a full body cavity search. Hell, the internet didn’t even exist and 24-hour news channels were still in their infancy; the talking heads were still in their cabbage patches just lying in wait to cram the horrible truth of the world down our throats with an unhealthy dose of fear on the side.
But despite the relative innocence of the 1980s, you don’t have to look very far to see that the militant attitude of the United States really hasn’t changed over the years. I enter into evidence today’s time capsule entry: 1986’s The Adventures of the American Rabbit. This film may very well have inspired the entire presidency of George W. Bush. It is probably currently forwarding the motives of the Tea Party movement and is quite possibly Glen Beck's favourite animated feature.
Since the political subtext of the movie (I hesitate to call it a film and even dubbing it a movie feels dubious) is as far from subtle as you can get, I will try my best to just stick to the movie itself before this becomes a hundred page treatise on symbolism and conditioning. Even if you took out its right wing leanings it still might be the most ignorant children’s film ever made
American Rabbit opens with a bunch of adult rabbits fawning over a newborn bunny. Right away I know I am in for a long 80 minutes. The movie starts so abruptly that I felt I joined it already in progress; like its very presence was interrupting my day. The adults are doting on Robert Rabbit who astoundingly is the only child in a family of rabbits. His father has a terrible moustache and only owns one tie, while his mother constantly wears an apron not only to remind everyone through gender stereotyping what her role in the family is but because the hand drawn Korean animation is so shoddy you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
Some really creepy old rabbit seems to have taken a shine to Rob. He remains nameless but is always there to talk to Rob’s parents and neighbours while stroking his chin and saying how gifted he thinks Rob is. At a soccer game when Rob is very young, his father tells the old rabbit his son is an amazing team-mate, but also has “the fighting will to win at any cost.” Also, Rob’s musical abilities are somehow important to the old guy’s plans despite Rob clearly not knowing any songs that haven’t lapsed into public domain.
One day while Rob (who has a voice like Michael J. Fox, but is really just the guy who provided the voice for Donatello of the Ninja Turtles) and his parents are out for a picnic, a boulder threatens to crush... something... and Rob turns into a living American flag with roller skates for feet by running really fast.
No one can figure out what just happened except for the creepy old rabbit who apparently is now a creepy old wizard. He probably pushed that boulder to make his sick point: that Rob is the carrier of “the legacy.” Apparently the rabbit village has bred a special kind of freedom fighter since “before the beginning of time.” Rob and his father trust the creepy wizard implicitly while the mother cries her eyes out. Rob realizes he must suddenly go off on his own to help save the world without questioning any of this or why he should even be compelled to care in the first place. The old rabbit doesn’t follow. It is also the last time Rob’s parents are seen or even mentioned.
Rob eventually walks to the woods just outside San Francisco (?!?) and is immediately harassed by a biker gang made up of jackals (who really look like wolves) and vultures. They are so subtly attired that they ever wear Nazi looking helmets, er, kettles that they use to make rabbit stew.
Almost as soon as he arrives in the big city, Rob lands a job playing piano for *ahem* THE WHITE BROTHERS BAND at a nightclub called the Pandamonium. Rob works for Teddy the Panda (the owner who sounds and even eerily looks like James Spader) and the club’s booker Bunny, an overly sexualized female rabbit who says phrases just as generic and inane as her name. She compliments Rob at his audition by telling him he plays “a whole lot of piano.” Also, Teddy describes Pandamonium as a rock club, but all the songs the house band play are old public domain jazz standards that are easily identifiable to anyone who has taken music appreciation.
During Rob’s first gig with the band, the jackals tear the club up while Rob keeps playing like he’s Jeff Healey in Road House. The band still plays even after the jackals leave amidst the rubble of the club. When they finally stop playing, the rest of the people in the club have all but resigned themselves to the torments and tyranny presented by the jackals. Rob and Bunny decide to rock the complacency of the sleepy little city to its core by staging a march against the jackals.
The jackals run their operations out of the side of a mountain and their leader is a glowing pair of sunglasses wedged between a fedora and a mob boss’ suit with a vaguely European accent that comes and goes throughout the movie. Sunglasses McGiovaniwicz orders his gang to follow the march.
As the march winds its way through the villages of San Francisco that never existed in the first place, the marchers eventually make their way to the Golden GateBridge. One of the vultures is actually able to sever one of the massive cables on the bridge with its beak and manages to put everyone in danger. Rob disappears. The Captain America rip-off appears. The day is saved. Rob reappears and the march continues like they literally all just didn’t almost die.
The march ends at an exact replica of the Esplanade in Boston and geography is officially out the window. I would have thought the animals lived in some sort of amalgamation of cities like in Babe: Pig in the City, but Ping Pong, the gorilla with the miscast voice of Garfield, specifically said they were in San Francisco only moments prior (up until that point it was simply implied). While there, Teddy addresses the marchers with a rousing speech:
“You know my place, The Pandamonium? Well, it’s a total loss. They creamed it. I got to admit that at first I thought I would just pull out, but I’m not gonna’ do that. That’s exactly what the jackals want!”
Teddy decides to take the band on a “whirlwind” tour that consists of exactly two locations, the Grand Canyon and New Orleans, in order to raise money to help rebuild the club.
The jackals decide to try and convince Ping Pong, who is suddenly one of the main characters, to do away with the American Rabbit. When Ping refuses, the jackals drug him with a syringe and kidnap him. When the band arrives at the abandoned rail yard (?!?) where they were supposed to meet Ping, all they find are some syringes. Rob is the only one suspicious, presumably because the others all know from being in bands that the rail yard is the perfect place to main-line black tar heroin.
The band’s gig at The Trap Door, “the Grand Canyon’s hottest new nightclub”, turns out to be a trap set by the jackals. No shit. That’s like trying to convince the freshmen that there is a bowling alley and a swimming pool on a floor of the high school that doesn’t even exist. Rob saves everyone’s life, finds Ping before he is drowned in a torture chamber, and they make their way to New Orleans.
When they arrive in New Orleans the following day Day After Tomorrow style, it looks as if Hurricane Katrina came 20 years earlier; buildings are dilapidated and boarded up, people are homeless everywhere you look, looting occurs at an astounding rate, drunken frat boys fall down in the street. New Orleans is so shitty that I bet if Girls Gone Wild had been shat out of Joe Francis’ asshole of a mind in the 80s, this movie would have tried to incorporate it as well. Even the club the band was supposed to play had been burned to the ground earlier in the day... by the jackals... who beat them there... from the Grand Canyon.
After they think they have disposed of the heroes in a failed bombing of a riverboat, the jackals decide to head to New York City, where they “will rule with an iron will!” Rob figures out these plans while attempting to conceal his identity and convinces the band, who no longer have equipment, to go to New York.
The band hitches a ride with a father and son pair of moose who are hauling a load of chocolate they have made to NYC. They are the chocolate moose. The movie doesn’t let us forget that. Immediately upon their arrival the moose are kidnapped by the jackals and the band quietly escapes without offering any resistance.
Teddy takes a meeting with some corporate penguins in hopes that they will help fund the effort to rebuild the club or at least get instruments for the musicians. The penguins attempt to put Teddy through a bureaucratic nightmare and he leaves slightly frustrated. Nanoseconds after Teddy leaves, the corporate penguins RENT OUT the Statue of Liberty to the jackals who can pay cash.
The chocolate moose have been kidnapped as a part of the crime syndicate’s great plan to rule through fear. The jackals have created a “doomsday switch” that Rob feels he is powerless to stop. Rob begrudgingly agrees to read the jackals’ manifesto while flying around the Statue of Liberty (which is still human in an all animal world): resist and get blown up or submit and get chocolate. The moose have been kidnapped to produce the chocolate because “he who controls the chocolate controls everything.” This much is true. The Spanish knew this for hundreds of years.
Rob is dismayed by the New World Order he feels he helped to create. The jackals stage shakedowns for protection money and even issue I.D. CARDS. The city begins to quietly rise up against their oppressors, but they still need Rob’s help to disable the “Doomsday Switch.”
After a brief meeting with the creepy old wizard rabbit in the back of a cab, Rob decides to fly off to Niagara Falls to shut off the falls and thusly cut off all the power to New York City.
This is funny for me on numerous levels:
All of the characters are able to make it to Niagara Falls from New York City in a matter of seconds without super powers. New York City to Niagara Falls is an eight hour drive if you are speeding. I used to live in Niagara Falls and I doubt I would have been as chronically bored if New York City was right next door. All we had was fucking Buffalo, New York and St. Catherines, Ontario, neither of which ever inspired much travelling.
The falls supplies less than one percent of New York City’s energy.
I had a friend who was so dimwitted that he actually thought the Falls could be shut off. I am convinced he saw this movie as a child and believed it.
In the end, America wins. It’s fucking awesome. When we just band together we can take on all comers. You want some jackals? Well, come get some! Fuck yeah! Now I must go do my part to keep the legacy going.
The first thing I did upon my release from the hospital was to grab a bite to eat from that new roast beef sandwich shop who’s name escapes me now but I remember being very good and served the biggest sandwiches known to man alongside the best onion rings I have ever tasted. The food in the hospital was positively ghastly, and while all I had really been eating was beef (as it was the safest choice when compared to the odd and off-putting gelatinous fruits and vegetables they served), I have always used good meals to reward myself. If I have gone through something hellish, I treated myself to the unhealthiest, greasiest, and delicious comfort food I could find.
Eric met me in his station wagon. I was hoping he would have brought my car so I could have gone to my mother’s grave after lunch and I could just drop him off at his house. I didn’t think anything of it at first. I was mostly just content with seeing a friendly face and eating some onion rings that didn’t taste like shoelaces fried in cardboard breading. It was on my mind, but I waited until after we ordered to ask where my car was.
“Yeah. I don’t know how to tell you this, but they repo’d your car, dude.”
I had a pretty good idea why and who they were. My inspection sticker had lapsed while I was in the hospital and before I went init wasn’t exactly at the top of my to-do list with the parents funerals, shitty job, school starting, debts, and having my girlfriend cheat on me. I was still wondering, however, why my car was impounded from a private dead end street with only one house on it that belonged to Eric’s family.
“First, let me also say that your windshield is busted. Not badly, just really cracked. A tree limb fell on it during a storm last week, but I pulled it off. Point is, the neighbours called the police department and said it was an eyesore.”
“Eric, you don’t have any neighbours, and the two houses across the street from you have ten foot high hedges they couldn’t see over without a ladder.”
“Yeah, but they walk their dogs there all the time.”
Maybe it was the Effexor talking, but I wasn’t mad or upset. It just continued my feelings of being completely under whelmed by humanity. Eric lived in one of the richer sections of Worcester and those hedges essentially were the dividing line between the wealthy and the merely well off. It was legally parked, but a Pontiac Sunfire with a busted windshield that is parked for more than a week clearly didn’t fit the neighbourhood aesthetic and was visually disturbing to the dogs that come to shit on Eric’s lawn.
“I tried to stop them. I ran out of the house screaming ‘Wait! Wait! Stop! He’s in the mental hospital!’ but it was too late.” Eric really did scream the part he said he screamed when retelling the story causing the whole restaurant to turn to me as I just snickered. I told Eric not to worry about it and I would go get it tomorrow. Eric also agreed to drive me to the cemetery once we were done and offered me his car for the night provided that I drive him to work in a few hours and pick him up. I accepted the offer mostly just to say hello to my coworkers and tell the management that I would be back to work soon.
I asked Eric if he told anyone else I was out of the hospital other that Julie and Tina who I had called myself. That was when they usually exuberant Eric looked uncomfortably awkward.
“Yeah, I told lots of people you were getting out today and that includes Kerrilynn. I hope you aren’t mad at me.”
“I’m not mad, I’m just not going to talk to her.”
“She wants you to call.”
“I’m not fucking calling.” My Boston accent flares up when I get flustered despite it rarely making an appearance outside of a heated conversation.
“She feels terrible, Andy, and she’s my friend, too. I don’t agree with what she did, but she needs to hear you say it wasn’t her fault.”
I dropped my sandwich onto the platter and watched the lettuce explode outward onto the serving tray and all over my jeans. “But part of it is her fault, Eric. Don’t you see that? I know from that fucking story you spout off all the time that you know what heart break feels like.”
“But she feels bad...”
“Fucking good. I’m glad she does.”
“Don’t you think you are holding just a bit of a grudge?” Eric also had the annoying knack of coming off as pandering and patronizing when I don’t think he really meant to be as was evidenced by the use of the finger pinching gesture with accompanying inflection when he reached the “just a bit” part.
“Come to me in a few years and ask me that again. Right now it is all too fresh for me to give a flying fuck about anything she wants from me.”
The short version of the story, because I don’t remember exactly what was said, is that Kerrilynn was my girlfriend shortly before my hospitalization. Technically speaking she was the fourth girlfriend I ever had, but she was the first I truly loved with all my heart. At times, she seemed to feel the same way.
Kerrilynn went to university in New Hampshire weeks before I had to go back in Boston. We talked almost nightly and even though she couldn’t attend my mother’s funeral that night she stayed on the phone with me from some time after midnight until some time after eight in the morning.
Kerrilynn was very impressive and more than a little crazy; certifiably so, but that is a story for another time. She always liked to show up unannounced, so a few days after the funeral I decided to pay her a visit like she had done to me so many times before. Apparently it wasn’t a good time since I caught her in the middle of having sex with her best friend who had previously sworn to everyone around him that he was gay. It would later turn out that he wasn’t gay or even bi, but just an asshole who liked to lie to girls about his sexuality in order to gain enough of their trust to get them to sleep with him, but that’s not the real point. That’s merely a bonus. It turned out they had been hooking up for years and never told anyone about it. It was going on before I was in the picture and it went only long after I wasn’t.
The night following my discovery, she dumped me on instant messenger. I had left without saying anything, but her saying plenty about how needy I was over the past week. I was in too much shock to even come back with “Sorry my mom died this week and it led to me walking in on you fucking another guy,” but I was in too much shock. I don’t even remember going home. I couldn’t break up with her then and there. I was too confused by everything going on and I was about to explode. It was just making matters worse that she so disingenuously robbed me of my right to be angry with her by beating me to the punch. I don’t remember the conversation save for “we are just in different places right now in more ways than one,” but I do know if it weren’t for Eric and Megan calming me down and the strange fixation I had developed on the Shell gas card next to the computer, I probably would have taken my life that night.
“All the times that she said she needed me and she just showed up, I showed unquestionable loyalty, Eric. I never once turned her away. The one time I showed her that I needed her because everything in my life was legitimately shit and she fucks me.”
“Actually...”
“Don’t you fucking joke right now. You know what the fuck I meant. I would calm her down from her hysteric fucking fits that she got if someone looked at her the wrong fucking way, and the one time I really needed her support, announced or unannounced because I know what the fuck you are thinking right now, she betrays me and I get dumped for catching her in a fucking lie.”
“You have no idea what I am thinking right now because what I am thinking is that you need to get down off your cross Jesus. You want to talk about lies? How’s this for a lie? ‘Andy are you doing OK? Do you want to talk about it?’ What was my answer a week later? You half passed out and shaking while I drive you to the ER.”
I backed off from expressing my anger outwardly, but on the inside I was still seething. “She cheated on me. I loved her.” I said it as calmly as possible.
“I know and she is sorry. I’m not telling you to take her back. I’m telling you to forgive her. You don’t have to forget what happened, but if you don’t let it go neither of you will move on. Alright? Now we are going to change the subject because I am sorry I brought it up in the first place.”
The conversation moved on to more pleasing topics like sports, school, hospital food, and 9/11 since it was still fresh in everyone’s memory at the time. Kerrilynn’s name wasn’t uttered by either of us for the next few weeks.
We made our way to the graveyard two hours and a few more rounds of onion rings later. The sun seemed pretty high overhead despite it being almost five o’clock in mid-September. Eric waited in the car since I wanted some privacy while I replaced my mother’s flowers and talked to her for a bit.
It had rained almost every day since the last time I visited and as such I got lost finding the place marker denoting where she was buried. I had to brush away the dirt from several of them since it appeared my flowers from last time had blown away or been stolen. When I found her I didn’t say anything profound or even cry. I just let her know her son was doing fine and that he hoped she was doing the same. I scheduled an appointment with her for roughly the same time next week. She didn’t reply, but I knew she was free. I could always drop in on her unannounced.
On the way to the pauper’s graves where my mother was buried you have to pass through something at turns brilliant, beautiful, eerie, and sad: a children’s only graveyard. I walked through briefly on my previous visit and the sight of it all left me crushed. Instead of flowers there were rusting Tonka dump trucks and faded, dirty stuffed animals that seemed to take on the inherent sadness of the area around them. No one over the age of eighteen was buried in this section of the cemetery, as stated in the copy of the by-laws I had been given. Out of all the graves I saw, however, I was hard pressed to find anyone who had grown older than a toddler.
Once row of newly laid stones had always caught my eye; four children all from the same family who died on the same day only three months prior. Two were twins as they had the same birth date and never made it past the age of six. One was an eight month old infant and the other a twelve year old boy. I had wondered before what could have happened to cause them to pass away all at once. I further wondered why the same bible verse was inscribed on every stone: Isaiah 44:18
On the way back to the car I saw a woman this day, kneeling and sobbing in front of the graves with a cane beside her. A much older man stood watching at a safe distance, gently wiping the tears that rolled down his cheek through his bright white beards that seemed to be closely cut at some point in the recent past, but had fallen into a state of disrepair.
Morbid curiosity led me to ask the man quite sheepishly if he knew the woman who I assumed quite correctly was the mother of the children. The old man was her father-in-law and he was giving her space to grieve. It was the first visit she has had to the graves of her children and her husband who was buried in the same section of the graveyard as my mother.
The old man fought back tears as he told me what happened. Once he began telling me the story, I had remembered reading about it in the newspaper. The family was on their way from Grafton to Hyannis when the father, who was at the wheel, slipped into a diabetic coma almost instantly. Everything happened so quickly that the mother was powerless to stop it. The steering wheel jerked and their van spun sideways before rolling and flipping over the median into oncoming traffic.
All but one of the children were pronounced dead at the scene. The father died waiting for the Life Flight helicopter and the last remaining child (one of the twins) passed away later in the day from hemorrhaging that the doctors were powerless to stop. This was the mother’s first day out of the hospital; only a week after emerging from a coma.
Her father-in-law asked if I was here for someone I loved and without going into too much detail I told him both my parents were there and died within weeks of each other.
He bit his lip and seemed to be holding back hysteria that desperately wanted to come out. “At least you are young. You can find solace in the fact that things should be that way. A child should always out live their parents...” The hysteria took over as the old man bit his lip and let himself go. “...you should never outlive your grandchildren.”
And for the first time in my life a stranger had made me cry. It was also the first and only time I ever hugged a relative stranger when I wasn’t dressed in a mascot suit for work and the stranger was a young child. We calmed down and wished each other well, but before I left I had to know what Isaiah 44:18 meant. The old man shrugged a little.
“That was my wife’s idea. You should probably look it up yourself because I would cock it all up. I will say that if you are in this place for someone you love that you will understand.”
Hamburger: The Motion Picture was released in 1986 to an uninterested masses and still has not seen the light of day on DVD. It is so relatively obscure that I don’t know a single other person who has seen it. It isn’t available on DVD, but there are VHS copies of it available on Amazon going for upwards of $60 (and a few for less on eBay). It was mostly a late night cable staple on USA and HBO when they weren't constantly showing marathons of television shows they produced. God knows why, since Hamburger is just about one of the goofiest 80s sex comedies you could imagine.
Right from the film’s almost Mellencampian opening credits, you should know you are in for a rough ride. I warn you before watching the video that you will not get the theme stuck out of your head for days.
Leigh McColoskey (Kelsey Grammer’s former roommate at Julliard) plays Russell, a strapping young lad who has been expelled from every college and university he has attempted attending for, I shit you not, “lewd, crude, and nude behaviour.” It’s not his fault, however. Apparently this kind of trouble just seems to find him since every single woman in this movie is horny and the very sight of him reduces them to seductive temptresses. Or at least, that is what he tells his therapist before she tries to make love to him in the Dean’s office.
Russell has a bigger problem than that, though. Russell’s beloved grandfather has just passed away and left him a large trust fund, but in order to collect the money Russell must first graduate from any college or university.
So Russell packs up and starts going to Busterburger University, the training grounds for the Busterburger franchise. It is also the jumping off point for jokes about, fat people, people who don’t speak English, and women, often combining all three into some sort of hellish super joke that is possibly more offensive than anything you have heard before.
Russell’s “boss” cum drill instructor is played by football legend Dick Butkus. Russell fights for the affections of the business owner’s daughter against Butkus, and if you care about this, you already care far too much.
“Jokes” are scattered throughout the movie. Some involving flatulence, overeating, a female on male attempted rape involving a submachine gun, and a fellow classmate who is so fat, he electrically shocks himself every time he has a craving in an effort to keep food costs down.
There is one funny moment in the movie, and here it is:
