“Jesus, God.” I thought, as I approached the hotel room. I
had only left for what felt like 20 minutes to ponder this rotten assignment. I
thought a little trip to the casino downstairs would help clarify my vision of
purpose out here in the vast, lonely desert. Really, I only wanted to get the
car washed after my attorney had made a fool of himself on the elevator, brandishing
a pocket knife in front of God and everyone, and then once again when we got
back to the room, unveiling a bowie knife to “cut the limes”.
I could hear the muffled sounds of loud music before I even
got the key in, piercing through the paper thin encasements of a stale Vegas
hotel door with ease. I had no idea what kind of madness was awaiting. I barely
managed to open the door at all, but what I found in the bathroom was far worse
than the present condition of the room. All I wanted was some sleep, however I
had to deal with my attorney peaking in the bathtub on a quarter sheet of acid.
He wasn’t too keen on my intentions of moving the tape player away from the bath
either. In fact, he wanted me to turn on Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit”
and throw the radio into the tub with him!
Please excuse my inconsideration, but this could not have
been more of a massive inconvenience. This type of thing is typical of my
attorney, but did he have to pull this right
now? We had been in Vegas for just over 2 days, and neither one of us had gotten
any sleep since before we left L.A. I
was ready to crash, but instead I had to keep my spiral-eyed attorney from accidentally
killing himself, on purpose. Thanks a lot, you rotten bastard.
Rather than helping with his suicide and tossing the tape
player into the soapy water, I turned the music up as loud as it goes, hurled a
grapefruit at his head when the song climaxed, ran out of there, and shut the
door as fast as I could. I had never heard a more gut-wrenching scream until
that next moment. It became apparent by the decibel level that the most obvious
move was to grab the mace and the megaphone before he opens the door in a viciously
violent rage and hurls the nearest chair in my direction. He didn’t exactly
like the concept of me needing to work, which mostly consisted of some intense power-sleeping
in the extremely near future, but he also knew that I don’t fuck around when it
comes to matters of business or pleasure, both of which I was in desperate need
of, and after making it clear that slumber was my only pacifier, he soon
retreated back to the bathroom with barely more than a moderate amount of coercion.
Don’t think for a minute I didn’t emphatically empathize
with my attorney. Being locked into a mind-warp twisting his head in ways that
will never be experienced in the same way, by anyone else, ever again, is not
something to merely overlook. This will most certainly be construed as outlandishly
irresponsible by the masses, but in reality should feel a bit more than vaguely
familiar, like déjà-vu. It’s a flash of cosmic connection, something that isn’t
remembered in a fraction of the same vivid way as it was initially experienced.
The vast majority of people won’t ever be fully aware of anything close to the
same wavelength as this, not that they can’t imagine, they just refuse to exercise
the mind-power it takes to fathom these kinds of notions, and then the real
trick becomes attempting reflection in a positive way.It’s not a matter of what is, or what isn’t,
what should be, or what will never be. The idea is to look for a shade of value,
in-between the extremes, that suits our own personal needs, and then expand on
the dissonance in the most productive ways, not just for ourselves, but for
others to try and improve on as well.
The exciting consequences of the game will vanish only when a
player has reached Jumanji and called out its name
This elaborate adaptation of a book
by Chris Van Allsburg, starring Robin Williams and Bonnie Hunt, is a thrill-ride
throughout the entire flick with fleeting scenes of danger placed sporadically
with increasing intervals until the climax at the end. Alan Parrish is a 12 year
old boy who lives with his overzealous father Sam Parrish, the owner of a bustling
and prosperous shoe factory, who wants him to face his fears instead of running
away from them. After deciding to listen to his father’s advice, Alan is beaten
by a gang of young hoodlums, leaving him with a bloody lip, a black eye, and
sore feet from the walk home after having his bicycle stolen as well. This was
all because of a fling with Billy Jessup, had by a little girl named Sarah
Whittle, who just happens to be nice enough to come over and bring him his
stolen bike back. Before leaving, Sarah and Alan hear the same mysterious drums
that he had heard earlier coming from a dirt wall inside the unfinished
foundation of a house that was under construction. His instinct led him to
unearth a soon-to-be unlocked chest. After using a shovel as a skeleton key, he
opens it to find a board game buried in the sand, and then takes it home for
better observation to avoid any nosy builders. Once he is home, he opens the
game and pulls out two of the pieces which somehow magically affix themselves
to the board at two of the four starting corners. His parents are on their way
out the door to an event at which Sam is speaking publically, but they decide
first to lay a heavy one on Alan in the form of an impending transfer to the Cliffside
Boys School. This prestigious establishment even has a building named after
Alan’s grandfather General Angus Parrish who is forever iconized in the middle
of town as a statue on a horse. We can also find the same likeness in a portrait
sculpture of his face in the Parrish house, clearly a supreme role-model.
Alan finds this radical decision to
be for the birds, so he packs a bag and on leaving is when he hears that
fateful knock from Sarah at the door. After a short explanation, Alan shows
Sarah the board game. He reads the first half of the rules and asks if she
wants to play. She haughtily says, “I quit playing board games years ago.” Then
she tosses the dice as she gets up to leave and they roll a six. One of the
game pieces moves itself to the sixth space and in the glowing center of the
board comes up a message saying, “At night they fly, you better run, these
winged things are not much fun” and from the chimney comes the screeching
sounds of bats. Sarah seems a little freaked out by all this and attempts to
persuade Alan to put away the game, but he has the dice already in hand and
accidentally rolls a five when the eight o’clock chime startles him from the
nearby grandfather clock. “In the jungle you must wait until the dice read five
or eight” says the centric swirling eye, then all of a sudden Alan is sucked
into the game like a whirlpool, leaving Sarah behind screaming on the couch, while
you hear him yelling, “Roll the dice! Sarah!” But, before she can even process
what is happening, the bats come flying out of the fireplace, chasing her out
the front door.
A lot can happen in 26 years, whether
you are a father who came home one night in 1969 to never see his only son
again, or a little girl who has to convince herself that she didn’t witness a board
game completely engulf a human and make up a story about the boy’s father
chopping him up into little pieces and hiding him in the house to keep herself
from going completely loony, or if you were that little boy who was taken out
of his world and submerged in the savage underbelly of the darkest part of the
African Jungle from the preteen adolescent age of 12 to a middle-aged 38 years
old. Only after more than two thirds of his life was he transported back to his
home in New Hampshire when another set of children, named Judy and Peter, have
slyly nosed their way into finding this mystifying “game with drums”. Already
had their rolls produced massive mosquitos, and masses of monkeys, but when
Peter rolled a five on his second turn and the game told him, “His fangs are
sharp. He likes your taste. Your party better move post haste.” it releases a male
lion of generous proportion with a major attitude problem. It also releases
Alan Parrish who wasn’t so little anymore, and comes to the rescue of Judy and
Peter for the first time, but it would most certainly not be the last. Alan,
dressed in leaves and leather, with a turtle shell shield on his back, outsmarts
the lion and traps him in a nearby room. This leads to the question, “Did
somebody roll a five or an eight?” And then a wave of excitement comes over
Alan. He runs screaming toward Peter, thanking him, then runs all over the
house in joy and anticipation. “It’s me, Mom and Dad! I’m home! I’m back!” he
shouts as he circles the empty house, only to find the children standing on the
stairs. They explain that the house has been empty for years and that everyone
thought he was dead.
This news comes as a shock to Alan
so he wanders outside to look for any clue of his parents’ whereabouts. In a
spot of coincidence and inconvenient timing, local police officer Carl Bentley
is flying through the neighborhood in his shiny police cruiser, and would have
easily maimed or killed Alan had he not had the jungle-savvy cat-like reflexes
to jump up onto the hood. Out comes Carl, who instructs him to, “Get down off
my car please, and get up on the sidewalk.” “What year is it?” says Alan. “It
was brand new.” states the officer, obviously referring to the car. “No. What year is it?”
“1995, remember?” Judy (Kirsten
Dunst) cuts in and does the saving this time, with her smooth tongue she talks
their way out of a pickle when he says he’s been in “Jumanji” some Peace Corps
mumbo-jumbo distracts Carl long enough for a gang of monkeys to steal his car
and let them escape even though he was instructed otherwise. Alan runs off to
find his father’s old shoe factory, the place where 26 years ago he
accidentally put Officer Carl Bentley’s athletic shoe prototype on the conveyor
belt destroying it, getting Carl fired and inevitably destroying the “Soleman’s”
footwear career. Not much is left in the factory except an old bum who
conveniently has enough information to lead Alan to find his parents.
Unfortunately, he finds them underground in a cemetery. There was only one
choice and that was to finish the game they had started so everything would go
back the way it was before, Judy and Peter knew this but Alan is a bit more
hesitant at first. They go back to the house and let Alan clean up from his “Tarzan
uniform” and after a quick jab from Judy about shaving with a piece of glass
and Alan’s retort of the Clampett’s yard sale, peter convinces him by ways of
reverse psychology to keep playing or at least to watch, because he isn’t scared.
The only problem now is that it wasn’t any of their turns. It was Sarah Whittle’s
turn.
Alan may have been a little wary to
keep playing, but Sarah Whittle would need some serious persuasion once they
finally found her hiding reclusively under the name Madam Serena who would give
psychic readings by appointment only. She faints at the notion of running into
that little boy who was chopped up into little pieces 26 years ago, so they
carry her back to the Parrish mansion. After some quick thinking, Alan tricks Sarah
into rolling a seven and out of the walls starts coming a terrifying plant of
viniferous nature. Alan saves the day by using old Angus’ Civil War era sword
to cut the main vein on the pod. Next comes Alan’s turn and when he rolls, “A
hunter from the darkest wild, makes you feel just like a child.” appears. Van
Pelt, the notorious safari hunter, even pictured on the front of the game-board
box, who interestingly enough is played by the same actor as Alan’s father Sam,
comes out shooting elephant-sized bullets at Alan then chases him out of the
house and around the block until he makes his narrow escape. After the next
roll and a stampede bursts through the wall and through the house and out into
the streets, the next roll is delayed because a pelican flies off with the game
is his beak and down to the river. Peter manages to go out on a limb,
literally, to grab the game out of the rushing water. They run into Carl again
who arrests Alan just in the nick of time to miss being shot by Van Pelt who
has now acquired a new high-powered sniper rifle. Peter thinks he can cheat by
making the dice land on 12 but is turned into a half-monkey by the game
instead.
After Alan admits to the conveyor
belt fiasco to Carl and a long chase scene through the local Save-A-Lot, they
make it back to the house to keep playing. Sarah’s next roll completely floods
the house with a monsoon and alligators liven-up the party, then Alan’s roll
lands him chin deep in the floor when it turns to quicksand. Peter’s turn unleashes
giant hideous spiders but they are scared away from the earthquake that ensues
after Sarah’s next turn. The floor is torn apart freeing Alan, but the game
falls down as the house is completely ripped in two. He saves it by some
miraculous vine-swinging and opens the game to take his turn. He picks up the
dice to roll but Van Pelt has finally caught up to him and forces him to freeze
and drop what’s in his hand. One die lands in the game but the other rolls down
into the crevasse between the two sides of his once beautiful house. “Any last
words?” says the hunter. But the die finally lands and Alan’s piece starts to
move into the center.
“Jumanji.” He says. “Jumanji!” and
as Van Pelt fires his weapon at him, Sarah had run over as if she were going to
stop the bullet, but it slows down and starts whirl-winding around the game
like a typhoon with everything else that ever came out of the game including
the entire stampede, and the hunter himself, until it was all vacuumed back
into the board game like it never even happened. Alan and Sarah were left back
in the living room of his home in good ol’ 1969 and everything was as it should
be. Alan’s dad forgot his notes for the speech and came back to find Alan
rushing into his arms as if he hadn’t seen him for over 26 years. “I’m so glad
you’re back.” Alan says. “I’ve only been gone five minutes.” his dad says. “It
seems like a lot longer to me.” They apologize to each other for the harsh
words from earlier, he admits to putting the shoe on the conveyor belt and you
can sense his dad’s feeling of pride when he says, “I’m glad you told me, son.”
After tying bricks to the lid, and
throwing it off a bridge, Alan and Sarah never saw Jumanji again. However, they
did grow up, and get married, and they also ran into Judy and Peter again when
their parents brought them to a Parrish’s Christmas party. Jumanji eventually drifted
out to sea where it was later found by two more unsuspecting adventurers on the
verge of a wild and crazy journey, all because they heard some drums coming
from a box that had washed up on the beach.
“Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin.”
In a nutshell, The Doors have been inspiring generations
since the 60’s and will continue to do so as long as people have ears and
brains to think for themselves. Even the Library of Congress decided to include
The Doors self-titled first album in their 2014 National Recording Registry to
be preserved indefinitely along with others like Steve Martin, Joan Baez, and
Sesame Street. Jim Morrison’s mix of poetry and crooning will forever live in
the music for us all to experience.
This scene begins with the band walking down Sunset Blvd
toward the Whisky à Go-Go and already Jim seems to be a little bit sideways.
They’re trying to convince him to face the crowd, while he’s trying to convince
them to go to the desert and take that peyote. “Is that what the fuck you’re
on?”
“Yeah, man! And it’s kicking in!” shouts Jim as he jumps
onto the hood of a car in oncoming traffic. “Let’s plan a murder or start a
religion.” He says as they get closer to the entrance. “More, more, more!”
“I’ll try it,” says Pamela, encouraging him with her sweet
voice. “I’m ready, let’s go to the desert..”
“Heyyy! I am the Lizard King!!! I can do anything!” screams
Jim to the crowd of people from on top of the nearest parked car. “Come on
raise your hands if you understand! How many of you people know you’re alive?
Bullshit! You’re plastic soldiers in a miniature dirt war!” Time slows down to
a speed only familiar to those who have experienced mescaline. “Come on, how
many of you people know you’re alive? How many people know you’re really alive?”
Obviously the drugs really were kicking in.
The starry swirling street sky fades from night into a
mid-day desert and we hear the beginning notes of “The End”. You can see a red
car leaving two dust trails from the tires as it fishtails across the cracked
sandy ground. They make their way on foot up the dunes, the six of them, Jim,
Robby, Ray, John, Pam and Dorothy, and you can hear Jim narrating about a
mysterious creature. “Close your eyes, see the snake, see the serpent appear,
his head is ten feet long and five feet wide, he has one red eye and one green
eye, seven miles long, deadly.”
“All the history of the world is on its scales, all people,
all actions, we’re all just little pictures on the scales. God is big, it’s moving,
devouring consciousness, digesting power, monster of energy. It’s a monster.
Kiss the snake on the tongue, kiss the serpent, but if it senses fear, it’ll
eat us instantly, but if we kiss it without fear, it’ll take us through the garden,
through the gate, to the other side. Ride the snake. To the end of time.”
The others try to cope with the realities of life and death.
“Use our strength,” Jim says, “we’re a tribe now, a tribe of warriors.” Then as
his voice starts to echo, “Promise you, I’ll be with you ‘til the end of time, nothing
will destroy our circle, ride the snake.”
After a shortened and improvised version of “My Wild Love” Jim
glances up to notice Death riding a white horse at the top of the horizon. At
this point he realizes his fears are a reality. “I’m lyin’, I am afraid.” He
says as he gets up and wanders off into the distance.
“Jim! Don’t go away! Come dance with me!” shouts Pam as he
gets further from her sand spinning. The scene gets quite surreal as the sun
eclipses and Jim follows Death and his horse out into the vast open desert. It
seems that Death has led him to a cave wherein lies his inner spirit who
happens to be the dead Indian whose soul just kind of leapt into his, when he
was about five, riding past an automobile accident on the highway with his
parents. Flashes come of a lizard, a naked Death, the Indian spirit, the
accident, cave drawings, his bandmates, a microphone, and his eminent bathtub
death.
The energy intensifies as Jim stares into the eye of the
Indian spirit and the scene quickly changes back to the club scene and Jim is
onstage with his band. The audience seems to be mesmerized by the haunting tone
and bizarre lyrics of “The End”. Even the go-go dancers stop dancing to watch.
“The killer awoke before dawn. He put his boots on. He took
a face from the ancient gallery and he walked on down the hall. He went into
the room where his sister lived and then he paid a visit to his brother and
then he walked on down the hall, yeah. And he came to a door. And he looked
inside. Father? ‘Yes son?’ I want to kill you. Mother? I want to… fuck you all
night baby!” The atmosphere has suddenly taken a strange turn down a road only
traveled by Oedipus and now James Morrison. The crowd is shocked and the club
owner tries to pull the plug on this gig.
Jim dances around the stage as if there is a central fire
and it’s as natural as it would have been had he been born a Navajo. He spins
around chanting the F word until the music crescendos and he falls down and
lays there finishing it out with “Kill, kill, kill…”
The clip cuts to the owner kicking a belligerent Morrison
and the rest of the band to the curb, and judging by the faces of the other
people watching that performance, the world might not have been ready for The
Doors. Lucky for us, Jac Holzman was there to witness the spectacle and he
owned Elektra Records. He wanted to get The Doors into the studio immediately.
“An album of killer music in 6 days.” said Paul Rothchild, and
the rest is history. “Unreal.”
“It was never easy for me,” says
Navin R. Johnson, “I was born a poor black child.”
Steve Martin’s enactment of the
Jerk’s character, Navin, is arguably one of Steve’s best comedic roles ever.
This is also Martin’s first starring role in a feature film and will live on in
the funny movie realm forever.Steve
Martin was one of three writers on this picture and one of the other writers
(Carl Gottlieb) appears in the flick as Iron Balls McGinty.
The Jerk is a must-see farce with one
outlandish scene after another, extremely well-placed verbal humor, with enough
slapstick buffoonery to keep the lay audience entertained throughout. Steve
Martin exerts more energy in this hour and thirty-four minutes than New York uses
in a year. From cat-juggling under the pseudonym Pig Eye Jackson to being a
second-rate weight-guesser, Martin delivers an extraordinary performance of
wacky caricature from start to finish.
In one of the final scenes, which
is quite possibly the most memorable, Navin has just lost his multi-million
dollar inventor’s fortune. This renders him penniless and consumed by a rather
disdainful mood because an upsetting lawsuit regarding the “Opti-Grab”, a
handle affixed to the bridge on a pair of glasses to reduce slipping and stress
on the frames, awarded all 9,987,652 now cross-eyed plaintiffs the full amount
of the suit, which was one dollar and nine cents. Navin is signing checks for
$1.09 with his fuzzy-haired, googly-eye pen, and downing some kind of clear
booze while attempting to seal the envelopes in his drunken state. Mrs. Wilbur
Stark and Iron Balls McGinty are the last two checks he gets to scribble on his
insignia before Marie, his wife, shows up crying.
“Why are you crying? And why are
you wearing that old dress?” asked
Navin.
“Because I just heard a song on the
radio that reminded me of the way we were.” cried Marie.
“What was it?”
“The way we were.” bawls Marie,
obviously referring to the Barbara Streisand song from the film with the same
name. After a bit of hysterical banter, Navin begins his definitive rant about
his lack of need for anything else, “except this”. Wearing just his bathrobe
over a long-sleeve shirt and a pair of boxers, with his black dress pants unfastened
and around his ankles above his leather shoes, Navin unloads a barrage of harsh
words upon his weeping spouse. “I don’t need any of this stuff, and I don’t
need you! I don’t need anything! Except this…” exclaims Navin as he picks up
the ashtray off the table. “This ashtray, and that’s the only thing I need, is
this! I don’t need this or this! Just this ashtray, and this paddle game. The
ashtray and the paddle game, and that’s all I need!”
“…And this…” he grabs the remote
control hastily. “The ashtray, and the paddle game and the remote control and that’s
all I need.”
By this time, our over-dramatic comic
has made his way from the lounge to the vestibule, and we can see up the green
shag-carpeted stairway about as well as we can see out the front door to the
lawn full of S-shaped hedges, Grecian statues and three swimming pools. “And
these matches. The ashtray, and these matches, and the remote control, and the
paddle-ball, and this lamp” he says with diminishing enthusiasm as he picks up
the items off the unnecessarily lavish table. “The ashtray, (sob), and this
paddle game, and the remote control, and the lamp, and that’s all I need. And
that’s all I need too.”
“I don’t need one other thing, not
one!” he sputters out, continuing his profuse ramblings, shimmying his feet down
the steps on his way out the door, and still carrying the five items he has
accrued so far.
“I need this!” he bellows, with an increasing emphasis, as he lifts a
chair up by his elbow. “The paddle game and the chair, and the remote control,
and the matches for sure!”
Almost completely out the door of
the foyer, Navin utters the line for which the movie was named. “Well, what are
you looking at? What do you think I am, some kind of a Jerk or something?” He bows his head and continues sobbing, but
still has the presence of mind to notice the magazine, “And this! And that’s
all I need. This ashtray, and the remote control, and the paddle game, and the
magazine…” Marie is left crying to herself with only her trumpet, while Navin
is seen still walking along with both arms full of all the odds and ends, still
dragging his pants along the ground by his ankles.
“I don’t need one other thing,” moans
Navin, slower than before and to himself now because no one else is listening, “except
my dog.”
“Grrrrr,” growls Shithead.
“Well, I don’t need my dog.”
So, off scoots Navin, down the
street, sporting his collection of random household amenities, and onto a bus
he goes. He finds his way downtown and makes a very interesting trade of the
ashtray, the paddle game, the remote control, the matches, the lamp, the chair,
and the magazine to one homely and homeless woman for nothing but a simple red
and white striped thermos. We see Navin coveting his new-found glorious beverage
container, and catch up to our wild and crazy character where we first met his jerkiness,
in the gutter alongside a couple of what appears to be some of L.A.’s most refined
bums.
If there ever was a tale that could
never get old and could not be retold, it is the 1979 comedy classic, “The Jerk”,
directed by Carl Reiner, starring Mr. Steve Martin in his breakout role. Very
few films can come close to touching this level of comedic genius, and unfortunately
we will almost certainly never experience this kind of hilarity showcase in our
lifetimes by way of any other. Something has happened to “funny” and it’s sad
to say, but it really isn’t anymore.
“Once upon a time, or maybe twice,
there was an unearthly paradise called, Pepperland.”
Pepperland had once been a beautiful place full of life and
color and music. It was a place of happiness and positivity, where all kinds of
people could dream in Technicolor. Pepperland was always joyous and full of
wonder for all inhabitants except for the Blue Meanies. These horrendous blue creatures
decided one day to attack Pepperland and destroy everything that was good. With
a few despicable moves, the meanies had frozen all the townspeople and sucked
all the life and color from the whole city. They even launched an anti-music
missile that landed on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band trapping them
inside a big blue glass bubble. Old Fred, who was the only one cunning enough
to escape the attack, narrowly fled in the Yellow Submarine.
Fred conveniently searched for help in just the right place,
a hilltop building in Liverpool, England that just so happened to have a man inside
named Richard Starkey, more commonly known as Ringo Starr. Ringo decided that
his pleas were worthy of his assistance, but he couldn’t do it alone. He would
have to find the rest of the band. After locating John, George and Paul, on
they went, pounding overwhelming waves in the Yellow Submarine.
The journey was not easy. They traveled backwards and
forwards through the Sea of Time. They lost and found Ringo in the Sea of
Monsters. They met a Nowhere Man named Jeremy who fixed the motor. After getting
lost in the foothills of the headlands, our friends even traveled through the
Sea of Holes into the Sea of Green, which finally took them back to Pepperland.
Once they made it back, with just the snap of a tune, they
brought the Lord Mayor back to life who told them the way to get rid of the
meanies was to play music. After a coup to get into the meanies’ lockup, our
friends found the instruments and the old uniforms from good ol’ Sgt. Pepper’s
band. With just a quick beat count, they broke into song, bringing back life to
the citizens of Pepperland, and driving the meanies to retreat. After only a
few more songs, the Blue Meanies were ready to throw in the towel. Until now,
the word, “Yes” had been forbidden and only “No” was acceptable, but since the
head meanie had now seen a new perspective, he introduced the final song by
saying, “Yes, let us mix Max, I never admitted it before, but my cousin is the
bluebird of happiness!”
“It’s All Too Much” is the perfect song to bring this film
to a close. With the bizarre lyrics and psychedelic riffs, the ending scene is
what I believe to be the best part. The constantly changing colors of the scenery
and characters really bring this song to life. It feels like watching a rainbow
exploding for three minutes. There are so many things that are out of this
world, it’s kind of like being inside a kaleidoscope. Random scenes stick out
like a lion shaking hands with a lamb, both wearing suits, and flying fish in
the sky. The giant words of positivity are reinforcing as well, like “OK, and
YES” and the vibrancy of all the varying shades of colors are almost
overwhelming.
Another interesting thing is that the colors vary depending
on whether the movie is playing on VHS or DVD. There are so many things to look
at in this scene, I could watch it 100 times in a row and still see something
new every time. This is definitely a movie that everyone should be aware of. It’s
not just for acid-heads or little kids. There is something in this film for
everyone. Yellow Submarine is a classic animated film from 1968 based on the Beatles
album with the same name. The Beatles did help with the production and direction
of the film however they did not provide the character voices. If you watch any
behind the scenes footage, you can tell by their eyes that it was probably best
they left that up to others. Regardless of what they were doing in their spare
time, the Beatles were revolutionary, and this movie just adds another facet
proving how impacting the Fab Four was and still is. This continues to be my
favorite animated movie of all time and this final scene really ties the whole
movie together, like the icing on a cake or the center of a Tootsie-Pop.
"All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece, but not too much."
My name is H.I. McDunnough. All I
said was, “Nathan needs some Huggies.”
You see, me and Ed, (that’s short
for Edwina) were in a new place in our lives. We had a baby now and “everything’s
chaaanged” as Ed put it. I know I’ve got responsibilities, but I guess
sometimes we all make mistakes and revert back to our “old ways”.
I pulled over at the Short Stop, a
local convenient store, one that maybe I was just a little bit too familiar
with already. I told her I’d be out directly, and that she might just stay
strapped in. I don’t even think the teenage store clerk made an effort to look
up from his dirty magazine long enough to see me walk in and yank some
pantyhose off the rack and beam straight for the diapers. “Wake up son.” I said
as I walked up to the zit-faced pubescent cashier with a .357 in one hand, the biggest
thing of diapers they had under my other arm, and the hosiery covering my whole
face down to my neck. “I’ll be takin these Huggies, and whatever cash you got.”
Little did I know that the little jerk was pushing the ‘we’re being robbed’ button
to instantly signal the police of my presence.
It wasn’t long before my wife Ed
could hear the cop sirens getting closer and closer. As a previous officer of
the law, she wasn’t very tolerable when it came to things like robbing
convenient stores, even though she was surprisingly taken with the idea of
breaking and entering and kidnapping. Before he could even load all the money
into the paper bag, she was already out of the car, walking around it
screaming, “You son of a bitch!” and getting into the driver’s seat.
“You’d better hurry it up, I’m in
Dutch with the wife.” I told him hastily. She screamed it again. “Come on now!”
I said eagerly, still pointing the gun in his face. And if it isn’t just my
luck, she is peeling out of the parking lot just as I’m running out the door. “Honey?”
I shout as if that was going to do any good, and what do I see when I look the
other way? Just the cops almost flying airborne up and down over the train
tracks at the top of the hill.
Bang! The sound of a .45 caliber
hand cannon breaks my momentarily dazed outlook by whizzing out the glass door
behind me and past my head. That little bastard was shooting at me from inside
the store! I have no choice but to take off running as the cops pull in behind
me, literally rolling out of the window shooting at me alongside the youthful
gunslinger vigilante, who both chase me into the street firing shot after shot.
They managed to catch up close
enough to somehow shoot the Huggies out of my grasp. I tried to reach back for
them, but it was too late, the cops were creeping up too quickly. I didn’t want
to catch a bullet over some diapers so I left them there in the middle of the
road.
I ran straight in-between two
houses and thought it would be a good idea to hop a 6 foot wooden fence, but on
the other side, I found out I was wrong. I had just enough time to lift up the
stocking to my forehead when out of the darkness comes a vicious Rottweiler charging
at me with no yield. As he neared me I feared for my life, but when he lunged
for my face, the chain securing him to the ground stopped him just inches from
tearing my nose off. Lucky that I wasn’t dog meat, I ran down the fence line to
barely escape a mauling. It was just in time too because as soon as I got over
the other side of the fence, that secure chain lifted its anchor from the
ground freeing that ferocious mutt.
Running out into the middle of the
street usually isn’t the best of ideas, but this time, for me at least, it
worked. A local hick was fortunately speeding towards me and had the courtesy
to slam on the brakes only a second too late smashing into me with barely enough
force to roll me up on his hood and back onto the street like a ragdoll. The
kind of thing that doesn’t hurt too much, but your life almost flashes before
your eyes because you think you’re done for. I sprang from the road and opened
his passenger door.
“Son, you got a pantie on your
head.” said the driver. “Just drive fast, kay?” I said, hardly having the words
leave my lips, the old coot stomped on the gas pedal forcing me to run alongside
the truck and jump in. I tried yelling at Ed when she drove past, “Honey!” but
before she could even turn her car around that same kid from the Short Stop was
firing mini cannonballs through the windshield, and the driver’s natural
reaction to everything just seems to be screaming as loud as he can, so I
grabbed the wheel turning it abruptly, and narrowly missed the kid who was in
the middle of the road, but out of nowhere, that same dog who was once my
nemesis, had gained some other travelling K-9 companions and attacked my
teen-aged enemy.
Again the driver can’t seem to make
rational decisions so he plays chicken with the police car coming straight at
us. I turned the wheel again missing the cops, but they continued giving chase
and spraying lead from the rear. “Can I stop now???” screamed the old motorist,
and as we barreled toward a house. I agreed screaming, and he screeched to a
halt just in the nick of time, launching me from the vehicle into the yard. “Thank
you.” I said turning to the man one last time as I ran into the house.
The police continued shooting and
attempted to persuade me with their megaphone to come out and reveal myself as
I ran from room to room in the house searching for the back door. One officer frantically
chased me through the home and through the back door all the way down to the
supermarket, with the pack of neighborhood dogs on the trail close behind
making their way through the same unsuspecting homeowner’s living room while on
TV is a commercial for Unpainted Arizona, owned by Nathan Arizona, and we all
know who he is.
I figured, since I was at the
grocery store anyway, I might as well find the diaper aisle, so I jogged down
past the cheapies and nabbed a pack of Huggies off the top shelf. Bang! Another
shot whizzed past my head destroying a pickle jar, and I thought it was about
time to get out of there, so I continued my jog down the back aisle dodging
bullets and screaming old ladies who hadn’t even bothered to take the curlers
out of their hair before coming to the store.
Picking an aisle I thought was a
safe one to make my exit in, I encountered that pack of hounds coming toward me
at full speed, so I turned around and picked a different aisle, escaping the
dogs, but then being rudely awakened by a shotgun blast coming from this store’s
clerk. I guess it’s becoming standard to arm your employees who are working the
night shift. Almost down to the back of the store again, that same cop was
aiming his pistol at me again, so I chucked the package of diapers at him
knocking him backwards into a screaming woman who ran into him at full speed
with a shopping cart who had now become what the pooches were chasing.
I ran out the back exit to find my
wife Ed conveniently pulling up just in time for me to hop in and get a
wretched earful. She starts out by interrupting my apology with a swift right
to the jaw. She thought if she and the baby were picked up, then they would be
an accessory to armed robbery. “It ain’t armed robbery, if the gun ain’t
loaded.” I tried to explain. She wasn’t really having it, but she was still
listening to me enough to follow my directions when I said turn left and right.
“I’m okay, you’re okay, that there’s what it is.”
“I know, but honey,” she said with
grief, “I’m not gonna’ live this way HI. It just ain’t family life.”
“Well it ain’t Ozzie and Harriet.”
I said putting my foot down, then putting my arm out the door to grab the
Huggies that had been shot out of my arms, and left in the middle of the road,
that started this whole mess in the first place.
By 1979, Kermit the Frog and Steve Martin were already good
buddies and had several encounters on-screen from The Muppet Show. Kermit’s
likable character and Steve’s hilarity always make for good comedy, but there
is one scene from The Muppet Movie that really takes the cake.
A little over halfway through the movie we find the cheerful
green frog already waiting at the table in his red velvet suit for his enamored
swine, Miss Piggy, who enters the unremarkable outdoor moonlit restaurant wearing
her pink dinner gown, purple satin elbow gloves, and a frilly fuchsia scarf. After a small bit of chit-chat, Kermit
mentions that he took the liberty of ordering them some wine and proceeds to
call out “Oh, Waiter?” which is when we meet the real star of this cameo, The
Insolent Waiter, played by Mr. Steve Martin who turns around with a look of
true disgust on his overly-cocked head.
“Yes? May I help you??” says Steve in a most aggravated tone
as he walks toward the table revealing his outrageous sport coat and shorts getup.
“The wine please?” a simple request made by the frog, and fairly reasonable
considering his felt hands are controlled by moving two sticks, not exactly prime
for opening bottles of wine. After the waiter begrudgingly shows them the bottle,
Miss Piggy mistakes it for champagne and she is quickly corrected. “Not
exactly,” says the waiter, “sparkling muscatel, one of the finest wines of
Idaho.” and as he sets the bottle down on the table, Kermit says smugly, “You
may serve us now.” to which he replies incredibly sardonically, “Oh, may I?”
He then removes the foil from the top of the bottle,
revealing the next gag, a bottle cap instead of the cork. The waiter wads up the
foil and tosses it over the railing, then grabs the bottle opener that is chained
to the pocket on his jacket. After Steve pries the top off he utters what is arguably
the most hilariously ridiculous line in this sketch, “Don’t you want to smell
the bottle cap?” Kermit plays along and after sniffing he says it’s good. This
joke is probably not always understood, but any invariable wine-drinkers should
certainly get it.
Steve says, “Would you like to taste it first?” and after a
quick consultation with Piggy, Kermit asks, “Would you taste it for us, please?”
After a cheeky nod and a quick roll of the eyes, he takes a sip from the glass,
holds it in his mouth for a split second, and then immediately spits every last
drop of it out, dramatically spraying it toward the ground, then wiping his
face off in revulsion. And like the flip of a switch, he turns back around to
the Muppet couple with a smile and in all seriousness says, “Excellent choice.”
“Should be for .95 cents.” states Mr. The Frog, then as
Steve fills their glasses, he is politely asked for straws by the small
well-dressed amphibian. Our waiter is ready for this request, pulls them
conveniently from behind his lapel, and places them promptly into their drinks.
“Thank-you. That’ll be all for now.” states the green one with his matter-of-factness,
and the waiter is finally relieved. “Oh, thank-you, thank-you very much,
thank-you.” He bows out gracefully as he exits the patio, still absorbed in the
phony graciousness that we have come to know so well in these past two minutes,
but then turning at the end just so we can catch one last quick glimpse of irritation
and ultra-sarcasm stretched across his no longer fake-smiling face. Classic.
Kermit is then so inclined to say, “Here’s to you Miss Piggy,
drink up.” He takes a reasonable sip, but she continues to slurp hers down to
the last drop, which is interesting from a puppeteer’s standpoint as to how this
part of the scene was actually created, since puppets can’t really sip from a
straw, so the table must have been built with some kind of drain in the bottoms
of the glasses.
Then, just as the scene starts to get all sappy and mushy
with our odd couple of interspecies lovers, and the camera starts to zoom in
slowly and their fuzzy faces get closer and closer, and just when you think
they are going to swallow each other’s heads, the romance is badly sliced like
a hideous golf swing by our favorite waiter, who pops in real quick asking for
Miss Piggy. After agreeing that she is, in fact, Miss Piggy, he says just one word
with exasperation, “Telephone.”
Piggy regretfully informs “Kermie” that she had placed a
call to her agent and that it will only be an “eensy-teensy” moment, and then
she leaves him all alone. Time lapses and now his drink is as low as he feels.
The faint sound of a piano starts to fade in and the in the next scene Kermit the
Frog meets Rowlf the Dog (both voiced by Jim Henson). They do a fun little number
together about the joys and heartaches that come tied with women called, “I Hope
That Somethin’ Better Comes Along.”
As soon as the song comes to a bluesy end, it’s that pesky waiter
again, this time asking for Kermit the Frog. “Phone call for Kermit the Frog! You
Kermit the Frog?” he shouts across the room to the little guy. Kermit says, “Yeah.”
and Steve says his last word in the sketch, “Phone.” He points at it quite obviously and then walks
away. A tasteful exit that leads to Rowlf’s punchline, “It’s not often you see
a guy that green, have the blues that
bad.”
This scene would not have been possible without the genius of
Jim Henson who is talented enough to not only sing a duet solo, but bring this
magic film to life with the help from people like Frank Oz who plays the extravagant
Miss Piggy (among many other characters), and the hundreds of people it takes
to produce such fantastic creations.
We find our characters in a long-developed struggle to
locate $200,000 worth of gold coins. Tuco (“The Ugly” member of the trio) finally
stumbles upon Sad Hill Cemetery, while the man with no name, or Blondie as Tuco
likes to call him, is only a cannonball’s flight distance behind. This gives
Tuco the immediate opportunity to run circles and zig-zags through the
gravestones as fast as his greasy little legs can manage. He is looking for the
grave marked “Arch Stanton”, which remained a mystery until just a few moments
ago when Blondie and Tuco each revealed their half of the secret as to where
the gold could be located, and coincidentally the wooden grave marker has a death
date on it of February 3, 1862, exactly 153 years to the date before this
article was posted. This entire movie would not be possible without the musical
talents of Ennio Morricone, who has definitively marked in particular this scene
and the epic showdown with his genius. “The Ecstasy of Gold” is part of this classic
movie’s score, and has even been covered during live performances of Metallica
(usually the opening number). When the song concludes, at last, Tuco finds what
he is looking for and frantically begins to dig for the money inside the
coffin. Just about the time our blonde hero “The Good” shows up to bring him a
shovel, they are held at gunpoint by Angel Eyes, our nemesis gunfighter
introduced in the movie as “The Bad”, and he proceeds to throw another shovel into
the mix, instructing them both to dig. Much to the dismay of Lee Van Cleef (The
Bad), Clint Eastwood’s character refuses to dig because he knows that inside
the grave marked “Arch Stanton” lies nothing but a dusty pile of old bones. There
is only one way to get to that money, and that’s to “earn it”. Blondie decides
to write the name of the grave on the bottom of a stone and then he sets it out
in the center of the circle that lies in the middle of the cemetery. This
begins what is probably the most famous scene ever in western film. The “Mexican
Standoff” is extremely tense and emotional, with very little movement,
absolutely no dialogue and another brilliant song by Morricone called “The Trio”
that enhances the entire scene, and is quite obviously the climax of the film. With
all sorts of camera angles, tight shots, close-ups, wide views, blurred
backgrounds and such intense energy, the director Sergio Leone really brings it
home with the increasingly rapid movement of the shots coinciding phenomenally with
the rising music. “Bang!” As Angel Eyes draws his weapon, Blondie is all too
quick, puts a bullet in him with the swiftness of a lightning strike, and
before he can muster up a shot from the ground, Angel Eyes is fatally shot and
winds up in a shallow grave that was already conveniently dug. The Good even
has enough courtesy to fire one shot into his hat and another into his pistol,
shooting them into the grave along with him. Eli Wallach’s character Tuco can’t
even fire his gun when he wants to and soon learns that Eastwood’s character
had unloaded it the night before. Blondie states that in this world there are
two kinds of people, those with loaded guns, and those who dig. He also reveals
the actual location of the money is in the grave marked “UNKNOWN” next to Arch
Stanton’s, and also that the stone has no name written on it either, so Wallach’s
character is much obliged to begin
unearthing the loads of currency. He jumps in once he opens the buried box and
lugs out eight heavy bags of gold tied together in twos. With only a couple of
blows to one of the bags with the side of a shovel, he bursts it open scattering
the shiny metal pieces into the sand and joyfully relishes in the fact that there
really is all that money and that all the effort has finally paid off. “It’s
all ours Blondie!” he exclaims, but as he stands up, much to his chagrin, hanging
from a tree is a rope tied into a noose. Come to find out, Blondie is not
joking around. He forces Tuco at gunpoint to stand on a wooden cross used as a
headstone and put his head inside the lariat. Blondie then ties Tuco’s hands
behind his back, loads his half of the gold on the rear of his black stallion, hops
on his steed, and apologizes, leaving Tuco back there cursing in the wind. He
rides off with Tuco facing death once again, and just when things seem pretty
bleak for our friend “The Ugly”, Blondie comes back into the picture and takes
aim with his rifle, shooting the tethered rope, “just like old times”. Tuco falls from
the gallows tree and as his head lands on one of the bags of money, a freeze
shot names each character in sequence, “the ugly, the bad, and the good.” The
main title theme song “Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il, Cattivo" (The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly) begins to carry us out and we
see Tuco struggle to stand himself up off the ground. As Blondie rides into the
distance, Tuco manages to scream out one last obscenity, “Hey, Blonde!!! You
know what you are??? Just a dirty son of a…” He is cut off by the famous shrieks
of Morricone’s music and we see Clint Eastwood gallop away on his horse across
the grassy planes of what is supposed to be the Midwest of the United States,
but was actually filmed in Spain. This long, continuous shot concludes the
staple film found in any reputable western collection. It is the third and most
popularized in a series of Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns about the man with no
name, and this motion picture from 1966 is definitive as a must-see for anyone
who appreciates watching an incredible film. You know, they just don’t make ‘em
like they used to anymore.
After the initial roar from the MGM Studio’s lion, we begin our
dark and mysterious journey of one man from infancy to his insane adulthood, by
a long hallway scene in what appears later to be the top floor of a very
expensive hotel. Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn? Faintly in the
background, the viewer hears the soft voice of a young vixen singing the sweet,
yet sad tale of “The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot.” This song is somwhat ironic, because the main character “Pink” has no father, ever since the war “took
his daddy”. As we slowly descend down the hallway, a view from the rug’s
topography allows us to see a housekeeping lady push a vacuum out into the
hall. The camera angle appears suddenly underneath the foot switch, and you see
the woman click it on with her right foot and you can hear the soft roar of the
vacuum as the title credits explain just exactly what you are getting yourself
into. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Presents, An Alan Parker Film, Pink Floyd The Wall,
By Roger Waters, Designed By Gerald Scarfe. In the next shot, we see Pink’s
father, a WWII soldier, light a lantern then a cigarette as the sound of warplanes
fly in the distance. The first song we hear by Pink Floyd is called “When the
Tigers Broke Free,” however this is not something you will find on the studio
album of which our movie is based, even though the song was written at the same time
in 1979. (Three years prior to the movie from 1982) We watch “Daddy” clean his .44 caliber pistol, examine it, and then
finally load this gun. At the end of the first verse, we zoom in on the lantern
and it fades into a scene of a young Pink running by what appears to be
football uprights and getting closer to the viewer, but not yet close enough to
make out any details as the hazy sun shines down all the while. This is
interesting because the next scene is full of details. A close-up pan shot that starts out focused
on a Mickey Mouse watch, where Mickey’s hands point to about 10:27 and we can
hear our good friend Vera Lynn’s voice once again, slowly moves down a hairy
arm revealing a hand clutching a cigarette in between its first two knuckles
that looks like it was lit, but never smoked. It has burned for so long in the
same spot, the ash is as long as the cigarette would have been in the first
place. This is to give the impression that Pink is so focused on the television,
or perhaps his own inner thoughts that he had forgotten to smoke his cigarette
and it just burned up in his hand. The same shot that began with Mickey
continues to zoom in on Pink’s right eyeball, and as he blinks, instead of
seeing his eye open back up, we see our cleaning lady’s foot come off the
vacuum switch and we then watch her set the hose down, walk toward the double
doors that were at the end of the hallway, proceed to knock persistently, and
then have nobody answer the locked door. We then see the classic full shot of
Pink sitting in his chair, perhaps a little too close to the television, with
his black boots on, the lamp next to him, and his burning cigarette that
continues to burn like his eyes are burning a hole into the TV. The camera
zooms in on the chain lock that is attached to the door and then we see the
maid fumbling around to find the right key to the room. Next our view is of
several sets of feet behind a different chain-locked door, and as the maid
finally opens the door, she is stopped by the room’s chain lock and “In the
Flesh?” begins. This scene starts with a bunch of teenagers breaking through
two different locked doors, and basically turning into a mob of people that starts
running down some hallways, then onto a platform. This image is mirrored by army soldiers running
into battle, and as bombs are going off killing people in the war scene, we
also see this mob turn into rioters who are being harassed and beaten by
police. When the song’s verse starts, we can see Pink dressed in his
Neo-Nazi-Style all black uniform, addressing a crowd of young people, with symbols of
two crossed hammers instead of swastikas, and a low flame burning over an eagle at the bottom
of the screen. The wide-eyed crowd stares at Pink while he rants on stage from
a high balcony, and as the song comes to an end, we flash back to the intense
war scenes, we watch Pink’s father die in a bomb raid while attempting to call
for help on a rotary phone from inside the bunker, and his bleeding hand slips
off the receiver that dangles there. (Just like later in the picture when Pink
can’t reach his cheating wife.) At the
end of our beginning scene, we can hear birds chirping peacefully as we see
Pink’s mother napping in the shade of her lawn chair, while just a few meters
from her is a white baby carriage, which is supposed to show the viewer that
while Pink wasn't even old enough to feed himself, his father had gone off to
die in the war, “leaving just a memory”.
