Proof That Even Really Bad Comedies Usually Have At Least One Good Laugh: Ishtar Edition

Translation scene.

Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman may have been huge stars but they flounder trying to execute this type of comedy and also seem miscast in their roles. Writer Elaine May's script is often painfully old fashioned, like one of the old Bob Hope/Bing Crosby "On the  Road..." movies minus the subtle charm and wit. And as far as the supporting cast goes, Carol Kane's talents are wasted, Jack Weston feels like a fossil and Isabelle Adjani (Beatty's girlfriend at the time) has zero comedic talent.

Those are some of the nicest excuses I can make for Ishtar, a notorious flop of a movie whose production problems, cost overruns and bad press rival Heaven's Gate and Waterworld.

But to drill down a bit more, another reason Ishtar is so achingly unfunny is due to the performances of the film's co-leads. Beatty has done plenty of comedies but if you examine them (Heaven Can Wait, Bulworth, Shampoo) you'll find the scripts of these films require him to mostly just stumble through looking confused and play off the comedy happening around him. Hoffman also has an iffy track record in the comedy genre, his biggest hit being Tootsie where most of the laughs are found in the performances of Bill Murray and Teri Garr.

Ishtar's story plays like a lesser version of Spies Like Us. Hoffman and Beatty are Chuck and Lyle, a pair of aspiring singer/songwriters who get unwittingly mixed up in North African espionage and a CIA coup attempt. The plot is sometimes confusing; the locations and set pieces are uninspired, and our two bumbling protagonists aren't particularly amusing or sympathetic. (Beatty in particular appears stiff and thoroughly inept at comedy.) As a result, this film just trudges into its third act where we finally come to its one funny scene.

Chuck and Lyle, hiding out in the desert, stumble into a gunrunning deal, so Chuck poses as a local. The gunrunners are suspicious and threaten his life unless he's able to speak to a group of berbers and translate for them. So with a gun in his back, Chuck panics and begins spitting out a ridiculous mix of Spanish, Yiddish, nursery rhymes and just plain old gibberish. Aside from a scene featuring a blind camel repeatedly crashing through a marketplace this is pretty much Ishtar's high water mark. "A hatz foy-a!"... "Kareem Abdul! Kareem Abdul!" 

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John Hughes Already Explained Everything You Need to Know About Trump's Tariff Plan

In a frighteningly uncanny case of life imitating art, this well-known scene from John Hughes classic Ferris Bueller's Day Off features an economics teacher (real-life economics commentator Ben Stein) monotonously explaining the Hawley-Smoot Tariff of 1930 to his class.

Though it's now more famous for the lines "Bueller?... Bueller?..." and "Anyone?... Anyone?...", the dialogue in this scene does a pretty tidy job of explaining the tariff, which raised taxes on imports to the United States. The goal was to protect American farmers and businesses by making foreign goods more expensive. This would, in theory, encourage Americans to buy domestically made products and help pull the country out of the Great Depression.

Sound familiar?... This is one hundred percent what the Trump administration is attemptingright now (albeit in a much more clumsy, illogical and random way.) After details of Trump's tariff plan were announced this week, the global economy was disrupted, U.S. markets sank and 401(k) and other investors experienced substantial losses, including significant decreases across portfolios, retirement funds, etc.

As Stein explains in painfully boring fashion, the Hawley-Smoot Tariff did not work. Foreign nations didn’t like it because it made their goods more expensive for American consumers and those nations responded by raising their own tariffs on American goods. This created a trade war and the result was international trade decreased, hurting businesses in both the U.S. and abroad. Instead of helping the economy, the tariffs exacerbated the Great Depression by reducing trade and making it harder for businesses to sell products overseas.

All of this is either explained in (or serves as the backstory for) Stein's dialogue in this scene, so as a student of history, I'll pick up the story from here.

The decline in international trade plunged some foreign nations, including Germany, into economic hardship because they could no longer easily sell their products to the U.S. In Germany, this in turn led to massive unemployment, poverty, and widespread discontent with the German government. Many Germans felt betrayed by their government and turned to extremist political movements, including the Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler. Hitler promised to restore Germany’s economy, bring back national pride, and provide jobs for the unemployed and by 1932 (just two years after Hawley-Smoot) the Nazis were the largest political party in the country. In January of the following year, with no other leader able to command sufficient support to govern, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor of Germany. 

Once in power, Hitler began dismantling his country's democratic institutions and weaponizing the government against all who opposed him. The Enabling Act of 1933, for example, gave him the power to make laws without the approval of the German parliament and he subsequently began manipulating the law to suit his agenda while ignoring any judicial orders that were in opposition to his policies... I'll ask again -- any of this sound familiar?

So when you follow the trail, it's not a stretch to say that tariffs had quite a lot to do with the rise of one of the most diabolical dictators in world history -- one who would go on to persecute foreign nationals and political opponents, threaten to (and successfully) seize strategic territories belonging to other nations, and ultimately ignite the greatest global conflict in world history.

Just something to think about.

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The 80's Will Never Die #6 (Hellman's Mayonaisse/When Harry Met Sally)

Super Bowl commercials always lean heavily into pop culture and this year's crop was no exception. Check out this parody of the iconic deli scene from 1989's When Harry Met Sally featuring the reuniting of Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan.

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FX's Capote vs. The Swans & How Iconic 80's Actresses Diane Lane, Molly Ringwald & Demi Moore Make it Great

 

One of the most enjoyable things about Murphy's series: seeing the three most iconic actresses of the 1980's sharing the screen for the very first time... we have Diane Lane, Molly Ringwald and Demi Moore who, forty-plus years after their initial fame, crush their roles and once again show us why they became stars. 

 

We are barely halfway through Ryan Murphy's latest offering, Feud: Capote vs. the Swans but we've already been treated to a once in a decade type performance by Tom Hollander who positively disappears into his (title) character role. Hollander perfectly captures Capote's dual nature -- amusing and endearing but also pompous and infuriating --- and also replicates his speech and mannerisms so precisely it's practically spooky. (To be honest, they should just skip the ceremony and give him the Emmy right now.)

That said, the "Swans" referred to in this series are a group of elite socialites (most of them New York-based) who befriended and patronized Capote after he reached fame with his sensationalistic novel In Cold Blood. After years of trusting some of their most guarded secrets to the author, he reveals them in a Esquire article that included excerpts from a new book titled Answered Prayers. The group then proceeded to ostracize Capote, forever banishing him from the high society circle he relished so much. Capote supposedly coined the term "Swans" to describe these women that were, by all appearances, perfectly composed but in reality were carrying tremendous weight and beneath the surface were always paddling furiously to keep themselves afloat.  

Often, elements of this story and the reaction of the Swans to Capote's betrayal are difficult to understand. Why would these women -- wealthy, refined and entrenched in the upper crust of society, care so much about Truman? Why are they so devasted when he exposes them this way? And why do they second guess themselves for even a minute about cutting them out of their lives?

It's because Capote's assessment of them was correct. Beneath their veneers of perfection, these women are struggling mightily. They've lost their identities after marrying bankers, European royalty, and other rich and powerful men and now deep down perhaps they're realizing that most of what they've accomplished was only made possible through their family and social connections. Maybe they're awakening to the thought that although they're the envy of many, their lives are largely empty, short of pruning the perfect garden, earning "best dressed" honors, or planning Truman's famous Black and White Ball. Or maybe the betrayal thrust these women into turmoil due to simple embarrassment. For the Swans, appearances (we quickly learn) are paramount. Confronting Truman and making a scene in a swank restaurant they frequent is deemed just as much a sin as the betrayal itself. Likewise, husbands' infidelities are tolerable but the thought of others knowing is not.

It speaks to why Capote was able to fall in with the Swans in the first place. He ingratiates himself with flattery, preying on their superficiality and appearance consciousness, even going so far as to toy with them (and send them into a competitive tizzy) by suggesting he'll be choosing one of them as guest of honor at his ball. In spite of his not so subtle pandering and social climbing, the Swans adopted Truman, introduced him to power brokers, brought him along on lavish vacations, all while sharing their personal doubts and fears. So yes they are clearly victims but not entirely sympathetic due to their own snobbery and pretentiousness. All of this makes them rich, multi-layered characters that any actress (particularly those of a certain age) would love to play.

Which brings me to one of the most enjoyable things about Murphy's series: seeing the three most iconic actresses of the 1980's sharing the screen for the very first time. In addition to Naomi Watts as Babe Paley, wife of CBS head William Paley; Calista Flockhart, as Lee Radziwill, younger sister of Jackie Kennedy, and Chloe Sevigny as fashion icon and author C.Z. Guest, we have Diane Lane, Molly Ringwald and Demi Moore who -- forty-plus years after their initial fame -- crush their roles and once again show us why they became stars.

Diane Lane first grabbed headlines at age fourteen when she starred opposite Sir Laurence Olivier in the 1979 feature A Little Romance. Olivier called her "the next Grace Kelly" and Time magazine put Lane on the cover, proclaiming her one of Hollywood's "whiz kids." This was at a time  when print was still a dominant form of media, so for a respected world news magazine like Time to dedicate a cover story to a Hollywood actress (especially one still in her early teens) was practically unprecedented. 

Lane next made waves in the cult classic Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains and the more mainstream family pic Six Pack. At the famous casting sessions for Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of The Outsiders, she beat out a who's who of other young ingenues for the role of the beautiful and conflicted Cherry Valance. The performance earned Lane a Young Artist Award nomination. Coppola was so taken with Lane that he cast her in his next film, Rumble Fish (also based on an S.E. Hinton novel.) 

In 1984, Lane took on the role of Ellen Aim, a kidnapped rock star in Walter Hill's vastly underrated Streets of Fire and later that year she scored her first "adult" role as singer/gun moll Vera Cicero in Coppola's brilliant The Cotton Club. Lane was just eighteen during shooting (her co-star Richard Gere was thirty-four) but brought a sultriness to her performance that helped establish her as one of Hollywood's leading screen sirens. (She would go on to star in two other films opposite Gere, the acclaimed Unfaithful -- for which she earned a Best Actress Academy Award nomination -- and Nights of Rodante, adapted from the Nicholas Sparks novel.)

Diane Lane's other 1980's film roles included stripper/femme fatale Lorry in The Cincinnati Kid-esque The Big Town, and lead in the erotic thriller Lady Beware. She closed out the decade with an Emmy nominated performance in 1989's Lonesome Dove miniseries. 

Lane has one of the meatiest roles in Feud, portraying Nancy "Slim" Keith, who wed filmmaker Howard Hawks and Broadway producer Leland Hayward before marrying into British royalty. According to some accounts, Slim helped Capote land high powered agent Swifty Lazar and a million dollar book deal. Lane's Slim is resolute in her disdain and quest for revenge after Capote's backstab and Lane's strong performance portrays her as the icy ringleader of Capote's ostracization. As she did with her character in The Cotton Club, Lane plays Slim as calculating, direct and in charge. When it comes to the Swans, she is "the center of the center" -- as Slim describes herself in episode 3. Lane is also fantastic at replicating the high-born accent and affectations of New York's upper crust.

Though she's three years Lane's junior, Molly Ringwald's career path was eerily similar -- from starting out as a child actress, to having a cover story crowning her the new face of young Hollywood, to having her career propelled forward by a genius director. She first gained attention for her lead role in the west coast production of the stage play Annie. In 1979, at just eleven years old, she played Molly in the The Facts of Life but the show was retooled after its first season and the cast drastically reduced. It was a lucky break for Ringwald; she quickly found success in feature films, beginning with 1982's Tempest, for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination. But it would be 1984's Sixteen Candles that would rocket the young actress to fame. Writer-director John Hughes cast Ringwald as the film's protagonist Samantha Baker, a high school sophomore whose sixteenth birthday is forgotten in the chaos surrounding her older sister's wedding. Ringwald was praised for her tender and authentic portrayal and the film helped propel the teen movie genre into its High Renaissance. 

Like Coppola did with Diane Lane, Hughes was inspired by Ringwald and cast her in his next project -- the film that would come to define Gen X, The Breakfast Club. Ringwald would become something of a muse for Hughes and she next took on the lead role in the director's follow up, Pretty in Pink. A few weeks after the film's release, Ringwald was on the cover of Life magazine in a special issue that christened her as "Hollywood's Teen Queen". Two months later, her own Time magazine cover story cemented this status.

At this point, Molly was eighteen and ready to take on more mature roles. She turned down Hughes' Some Kind of Wonderful and starred as Cordelia in Jean Luc Godard's avant garde exploration of King Lear; played opposite Robert Downey Jr. in the Warren Beatty-produced The Pick-Up Artist; and finished her 80's run with the comedy For Keeps and the drama Fresh Horses, adapted from the stage play.

In Feud, Ringwald plays Joanna Carson, ex-wife of Johnny, who (like the New York Swans) is taken with Capote's charm, wit and intellect. Carson adopts the discarded Capote and brings him into her circle of elite (this time Hollywood) friends. Ringwald's signature red tresses are colored brunette for this role and at fifty-five years old she naturally no longer possesses her waif-like figure, so it's easy to forget who you're watching. As Carson, Ringwald brings the same effusiveness she did with her Pretty in Pink character Andie and her compassion for Truman is on display in several pathos-rich scenes that portray the man at his lowest.

Demi Moore's road to 1980's stardom was far different than Lane's and Moore's. She wasn't an accomplished child actor and in 1983 -- at the exact same time Lane was shooting scenes with the Academy Award-winning Coppola and Ringwald was about to become the face of the American teenager -- Moore was earning her bones as a recurring character on General Hospital. But in 1984, she starred opposite Michael Caine in the charming but overlooked romantic comedy Blame it On Rio. Though newcomer Michelle Johnson was the breakout star, it was Moore's first major film and she soon began a slow climb to success that would culminate with a run of critical and commercial successes through the 1990's. Ghost, A Few Good Men, Indecemt Proposal, Disclosure and Striptease (the film that made Moore the highest paid actress in Hollywood) were all in her future, along with her own iconic magazine cover, but her rise to fame largely began with the sweet and quirky 1984 teen comedy No Small Affair. The role of Jules in the seminal Gen X coming-of-age drama St. Elmo's Fire followed, as did a relationship with co-star Emilio Estevez and membership in the famous "Brat Pack". Moore then played John Cusack's love interest in One Crazy Summer and re-teamed with her St. Elmo's co-star Rob Lowe in the beloved About Last Night, both released in the summer of 1986. 

Her next film, The Seventh Sign (despite being highly anticipated) was a box office flop. Moore then closed her 80's career with the role of Molly -- a prostitute who befriends two escape convicts (Robert DeNiro and Sean Penn) masquerading as priests -- in the much-hyped Christmastime release We're No Angels.

Interestingly, though her box office hit rate was spotty, Moore's career never stalled during the eighties. She married Bruce Willis, who at the time was starring in the ABC hit Moonlighting but with the release of 1988's Die Hard would soon become a full on movie star. He and Moore became Hollywood's "it" couple which helped Demi move solidly onto Hollywood's A-list -- where she basically remained until the 2000's.

In Feud, Moore plays Ann Woodward, a former radio star and showgirl who was married to wealthy  banker William Woodward Jr. In what would become one of the biggest stories of its day, Ann killed William after mistaking him for a burglar. Speculation that it was murder ignited after Capote's book preview, which included a character based on Ann who was painted as a gold digger and murderess. In real life, Capote seemed to have personal disdain for Ann and publicly accused her of killing her husband.

Moore gives us a picture of Ann battling depression and straining to maintain her dignity amid the public stares. She displays venomous anger in certain scenes and intense vulnerability in others. At the ball, we see Moore at her best, portraying calm and elegance -- but when Truman calls security to have her ejected we see her shaken, pleading, humiliated. It's a scene where Moore demonstrates swan-like comportment as she calls Truman out for his misdeeds and it's reminiscent of another emotional scene in which Moore displayed similar range -- the break up scene in About Last Night.

For Lane, Ringwald and Moore, streaming shows and other high end television like Murphy's Feud offer strong, female lead roles that come few and far between in feature films. Past the age where they can star in rom-coms, take on "lethal lady" action roles (e..g., Black Widow, Atomic Blonde) or other parts written for younger actresses, fifty-something actresses are these days too often relegated to lesser fare -- guest shots on network shows or if they're lucky perhaps a starring role in their own series (think Tea Leoni in Madame Secretary or Julia Louis-Dreyfus in Veep.) Thankfully, Capote and the Swans shines a spotlight on three of the most talented and beloved mature actresses who by chance came up at almost the exact same time. You literally could not have chosen three women more representative of young Hollywood during the 1980's than these three. In fact, you almost wish Murphy would have made it an all-80's party and given the Watts, Sevigny and Flockhart roles to Elisabeth Shue, Lea Thompson and Winona Ryder instead.

Maybe next time : )

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40 Years Ago, Risky Business Legitimized Teen Comedy

With due respect to the John Hughes' classic The Breakfast Club, the most important teen movie of the 1980's may very well be Risky Business. Released 40 years ago, Paul Brickman's Risky Business legitimized teen comedy like no film before it and set the stage for the “High Renaissance” of that subgenre that took place in the middle of the decade.

The early 1980's was an era filled with “high school boys looking to get laid” comedies (e.g., Porky's, Losin' it, My Tutor) that were thin on story and heavy on goofy, sometimes inane, humor. But then Risky Business comes along, featuring that same teenage boy out for sex... except now we get to see WHY he's experiencing that sexual frustration (as well as a ton of other anxiety.) We witness the pressure he feels (some applied by his parents, some self-imposed) to raise his SAT score, join school clubs he has little interest in, and get accepted into the college not he, but his parents want. Tom Cruise's Joel Goodson was the first Gen X hero – bored, disillusioned, forced down paths he's not sure he wants to tread and enduring a suburban hell complete with a pristine home/prison, successful parents he can never please or measure up to, and a voice in his head warning he'll “never have a future.” As Joel courageously tries to live up to his surname, his attempts to relieve his growing angst by defiantly maxing the volume on the family stereo and joyriding in his dad's Porsche prove insufficient. Though the apprehension he feels about where he's headed in life is apparent, relief seems unattainable. That is until he's pointed to call girl named Lana with the promise, “It's what you want... it's what every white boy off the lake wants.” It's this exploration of the unknown – the dark, not so pristine world of sex, prostitutes, and life or death run-ins with “killer pimps” – that drives the story of this restless, uneasy Gen-X teenager.

It wouldn't be until the middle of the decade – with Hughes' Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful trilogy – that teen comedies would so earnestly acknowledge and portray the contemporary fears and anxieties of those of us who came of age in the 80's. Joel's experience in Risky Business underscored a generation's gnawing need to subvert societal conventions and oblivious parents who failed to recognize how much emotional turmoil we were in as we struggled to figure out who we were and what should come next. In the process, we also had to navigate our way through expectations of continuing the American familial tradition that existed since the Great Depression, whereby each succeeding generation acquired more wealth and success than their parents. In these ways, Risky Business actually defined Gen X, crystallized its world view and authored its motto with the ironic and oft quoted line, “Sometimes you gotta say, 'what the fuck.'”

Risky Business would proceed to enter the zeitgeist in several ways. The scene where Joel slides across the hardwood floor in his socks became instantly iconic and has been parodied in everything from The Simpsons to video game commercials. Cruise's wardrobe in the film -- Docksiders, button down dress shirts, Izod polos – became the standard for preppies everywhere and after he sported 60's style Ray Bans in multiple scenes, the brand saw a resurgence that continues to this day. Risky Business proved particularly popular among college students, so much so that within six months, it was screening on university campuses and the film's one-sheet was pretty much the coolest thing you could have hanging in your dorm room. By the following fall, the film was a mainstay on HBO and its many memorable lines -- including “Get off the babysitter!”, “Porsche, there is no substitute.” and “Looks like University of Illinois!” -- were being quoted ad nauseum.

Risky Business further set itself apart with its artful cinematography (Lana’s first appearance; the train sequence) and an ethereal original score by Tangerine Dream that proved a huge departure from the typical teen movie soundtrack full of contemporary pop and new wave hits.

The end result saw audiences immediately embracing the film and its stars. Risky Business grossed $63 million on a $6 million budget and, boosted by positive word of mouth and a strong second run, would finish as the eighth highest grossing film of the year and the #2 comedy behind only Trading Places. An unknown Rebecca De Mornay (who won the role of Lana after Michelle Pfeiffer passed) was catapulted to Hollywood's A-list and, though she worked sparingly, graduated to starring roles in The Trip to Bountiful, The Slugger's Wife, and the And God Created Woman remake. Over her career, she's delivered a string of stellar but overlooked performances in films like Runaway Train, The Three Musketeers and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. Oh, and that Cruise guy did okay too – starring in films that grossed a combined $10 billion at the box office, earning multiple Oscar nominations and becoming what many consider to be “the last Hollywood movie star.”

Now, forty years later we can look back at Risky Business and it's cleverly written script as the teen comedy that broke the mold and forged an alternative paradigm for the sub-genre. With its more serious take on the teen experience – in this case, through its The Graduate-like themes of eschewing the supposed American dream of an Ivy League education, landing a high paying job, and moving to the suburbs – Risky Business paved the way for John Hughes' films, Say Anything, Adventureland, and virtually every other smart, thoughtful teen comedy that followed.

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Welcome to Pop Culture Fiend

Explaining to an Alien How Humans Brush Their Teeth

… So long story short, a prospective employer asked me to take a writing assessment. 

It's for a gig as a freelance marketing writer for an “undisclosed” company. Now this assessment was pretty involved and required me to complete several exercises with both short and long form responses. It was also clear that I would have to conduct research and do some serious strategizing before formulating my answers. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

A local hair salon wants to run Facebook ads for the Christmas holiday season. They're offering 10% off gift cards that can be used at the salon. Their goal is to retarget potential customers who have visited their website. Their target audience is women ages 18-65 years old. What is your recommended ad copy for their remarketing campaign?

See what I mean?... Serious stuff.

So I get all the way through the assessment to the final exercise and I get this weird curve ball thrown at me that I'm not even sure is for real – maybe it's just a joke or maybe they're trying to see how I would handle an assignment for something way out-of-the-box?... Anyway, this was it:

We're aliens from another planet who have just landed on earth. We understand the English language, but many human activities and normal routines are foreign to us. We also consume food the way butterflies do, so we don't have teeth. To the best of your ability, please help us understand the average human's routine for brushing one's teeth.

I was both annoyed and amused that they asked for this – so much so that I absolutely could not resist having some fun and giving it back to this company in spades. So check it out below -- my response to how I would explain to an alien how humans brush their teeth:

Greetings aliens. How ya doing? Thanks for coming all the way across the galaxy for this. 

Today I'm going to explain to you how to brush your teeth. Teeth, by the way, are these things we humans have in our mouths that cut, mash and pulverize the food we consume before we ingest it. It's important to remember that if we don't brush our teeth, they will decay, rot and fall out -- and then we'd have no way to eat corn on the cob, Tootsie Rolls or Wendy's Baconators -- so you can see why this is so critical. Okay, here we go!

First, we move to an area of the home we call the "bathroom sink." We then turn a handle to start a flow of running water. Hey, did I mention that before we enter the bathroom we should really knock first because someone else could be in there giving themselves a bikini wax or a coffee enema or God knows what.

So to brush our teeth, we begin by squirting this gel-like substance (called "toothpaste") out of this tube onto this short stick with bristles on the end that we call a "toothbrush." We apply enough gel to cover the bristles and then rub the brush back and forth, and up and down on our teeth. (We're told by our experts here on earth to use a circular motion when we do this but trust me, it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.)

Now periodically, as we are brushing, liquid will build up in our mouths until it's full. When that happens we go ahead and spit out the liquid/toothpaste build up. We try to make sure that it goes in the sink and down the drain because if it doesn't and the mess just lies there, our wives will yell at us.

Next, we add more toothpaste and repeat the brushing process. The experts here on earth (a sadistic group of men and women we call "dentists") say you should brush for about two minutes. That's really just kind of a loose rule though because sometimes you're running late for work or you just want to brush really quickly because you had Italian for dinner and you want to get that garlic taste out of your mouth so you can make out with your girlfriend.

Okay, almost done. After we've completed the brushing (and spitting) it's time to "rinse." So what we do is we take our hand and we cup it so we can catch some of the running water in it. By the way, I forgot to mention that the water should ALWAYS be running. Sure, we could turn the faucet handle and only run the water when we need to -- but we're just stupid, lazy humans and destroying our planet by wasting all that water is a lot easier.

We then slurp the cupped handful of water into our mouths and swish it around for a few seconds. Now we spit the liquid out. (Yes, more spitting. Aren't we humans disgusting?) Then we look in the mirror and admire the great job we did by smiling at ourselves. (Maybe even give ourselves a sexy wink because dammit, we deserve it!)  

Lastly, we always leave the toothbrush on the sink and NOT in the toothbrush holder because moving it that extra 12 inches is just way too much work. 

And that's how humans brush their teeth! Tomorrow will be your next lesson... "How to take a dump."

No bullshit, this is what I replied with and sent back.

As I read it back now, it reminds me of this scene in Sleeper, where Miles Monroe (Woody Allen) comes out of a cryogenic freeze in the year 2173 and is asked by scientists to identify the people in a series of photographs from the 20th century. Miles' deadpan explanations are hilarious as he gives his take on everyone from Joseph Stalin to Bela Lugosi. 

What was the Best Movie Party of the 80's?

Here are your nominees:

Back to School

The setup:

Wealthy businessman Thornton Mellon (Rodney Dangerfield) -- in an effort to inspire and keep his son from dropping out -- enrolls and joins him at college. Father, son (and the son's best friend) have adjacent dorm rooms, until Thornton has the walls knocked out to create a luxury suite and then throws a post mid-terms bash to blow off some steam.

The highlights:

• Seminal 80's band Oingo Boingo plays the gig and rocks out on "Dead Man's Party."
• Police sent to break things up bring cases of beer instead.
• Thornton frolics in the hot tub with four bikini-clad coeds.

Bachelor Party

The setup:

The title says it all. Tom Hanks is groom-to-be Rick, and his brother and five degenerate best friends throw him a bachelor party "with chicks, and guns, and fire trucks, and hookers, and drugs, and booze..."

The highlights:

•  Rick's rival Cole offers him a Porsche to call off the wedding.
• "Drugs to the right, hookers to the left!"
• An Indian pimp, suicide attempts, an exotic dancer, and a donkey that OD's.

Sixteen Candles

High school hunk Jake Ryan has everyone over to his house for a rager.

• Long Duk Dong finds his Amazonian soulmate.
• Jake's girlfriend Carolyn gets her hair hacked.
• Barbells crash through the floor and destroy the wine cellar
• The aftermath: Pizzas on the turntable, suds coming out of the air vents, and Ted the geek (Anthony Michael Hall) leaves with Carolyn in a Rolls Royce.

Weird Science

The setup:

Teenagers Gary and Wyatt (Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith) go mad scientist and create their dream woman -- who goes on to throw a "nasty little soiree" at Wyatt's house.

The highlights:

• "A missile... A missile in my house Gary!" 
• Wyatt's grandparents placed in suspended animation (and the kitchen is blue for some reason.)
• Supernatural whirlwinds that strip girls of their clothes and send the piano crashing into a gazebo in the backyard.
• Killer mutants crash their motorcycles through the front windows.
• Aforementioned mutants dispatched by Gary and his .44 handgun

Risky Business

The setup:

"Future enterpriser" Joel Goodson (Tom Cruise) just wants to graduate and go on to major in business at Princeton. But when he gets mixed up with sexy call girl Lana (Rebecca DeMornay), Joel's house party becomes a high-priced brothel and his high school friends the customers.

The highlights:

• Party tunes that include Talking Heads' "Swamp" and Prince's "D.M.S.R." 
• Amidst the debauchery, Princeton admissions officer Bill Rutherford arrives to interview Joel.
• Joel and Lana duck out to make love on a real train.
• Rutherford makes a couple of new friends.

Revenge of the Nerds

The setup:

College dorks trying to form a fraternity throw a dud of a party -- until "wonder joints" and the girls of Omega Mu kick things into high gear.

The highlights:

• "Are You Ready For the Sex Girls?" (Possibly the best party song ever!)
• Booger, Poindexter, and Louis all find hook ups.
• "You Mu's sure can party!"

The Art of Cinematography: Megan Fox in Transformers

Long before she began looking like a porn star, before she underwent what many believe to be (regrettable) cosmetic surgery, before giving birth to three kids, before she began a nonsensicle relationship with MGK, before all the box office flops (Jonah Hex, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Midnight in the Switchgrass) and head-scratching side projects (Legends of the Lost), Megan Fox was every high school boy's fantasy come to life -- half girl next door, half sexy head cheerleader and hottest chick in class.

Fox made the Pop Culture Fiend's Ground Floor List way back in 2004 when she was a regular on ABC's Hope & Faith. Prior to Transformers her most high-profile film role was in the Lindsay Lohan vehicle Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, in which she was memorable as the bitchy, vengeful Carla. 

But with 2007's Transformers, the 20 year old Fox had her breakout role and positively scorched the screen as Mikaela, the ridiculously gorgeous high schooler from the wrong side of the tracks and the object of Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf's) adoration. Mikaela is beautiful but not conceited, and Fox, who at first seems far too sexy to play a high school girl, pulls off a portrayal where Mikaela becomes more down to earth and approachable the more Sam interacts with her. 

In Transformers, Fox's inherent beauty is enhanced and accentuated by the film's director Michael Bay and cinematographer Mitchell Amundsen. Bay's resume' includes Bad Boys, Armageddon and The Rock -- the latter being one the greatest action movies of all time. So whatever you want to say about Bay, the man knows how to shoot churning, frenetic, action. But he also knows how to capture the still beauty of his film's quiet moments. Take a look at this scene from 2001's Pearl Harbor:

It's clear that Bay's cinematographic mastery is not limited to car chases, explosions and CGI'd robots; he is expert at making real people look good -- beautiful in fact. The actors in the scenes above (Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale and Ben Affleck) are all flawless.

And you can say the same about Megan Fox in Transformers. Below are just of the few of the shots that lead one to ask the question titling this blog post.

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What Puts Your Butt in the Movie Seat?

The Pop Culture Fiend's Long, Complex History with Top Gun

Top Gun: Maverick releases tomorrow and the sequel to the Tom Cruise starrer and #1 film from 1986 has me as charged up as I've been for any film since before the pandemic. Why am I so stoked for this pic?... Well first, the trailer simply blows you away. There's the amazing cinematography, the musical cues borrowed from the original film's soundtrack, and several intriguing callbacks to the first movie --  Goose's son, Maverick's motorcycle, "Great Balls of Fire" and more.

Next it's the characters. Val Kilmer  is (seemingly) returning as "Iceman", aka, Lieutenant (now Admiral) Tom Kazansky. I'm also fully expecting a cameo by one or two other actors from the first film -- possibly Meg Ryan as Carole Bradshaw.

One character we know we'll see is Penny Benjamin, the admiral's daughter alluded to in the first film as someone with whom Maverick had "a history of high-speed passes." It was throwaway line, a simple quip intended to give us insight into Maverick's reckless nature with both planes and women. But the Top Gun: Maverick screenwriters (Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr., who by the way, also penned the first film) ran with it. Penny Benjamin is now embodied by actress Jennifer Connelly (and by the way, how refreshing is it to see Cruise finally doing a movie where his love interest is age-appropriate instead of 20 years younger than him like Annabelle Wallis was in The Mummy?)

But the main reason I'm so excited for this film is that Top Gun and I have serious history. So allow me if you will to not just provide my usual type of commentary and discussion, but also offer some detailed personal tales and anecdotes about one of the most important films from my youth.

Back to the 80s

In 1986, I was working as an usher at Loews Wayne Sixplex in Wayne, NJ. It was my third summer at the theater, which at the time was one of the premier multiplexes in the state. It was early May and after about a week on the job I showed up for work one day and was greeted in the theater lobby by a roughly 8' high, 6' wide promotional display for some new movie about fighter pilots. It starred Tom Cruise, who was coming off the colossal flop Legend. In fact, at the time Cruise had starred in only one bona fide hit -- Risky Business. Even so, solid performances in All the Right Moves, The Outsiders and Taps, had Cruise on the edge of stardom... but he still needed a breakout hit.

But back to that lobby display. This thing captivated me with both its sheer size and the fact that it wasn't just a static, stand up, cardboard standee; this thing had depth; it lit up and it had moving parts. Thoughts began to stir: "This thing would look great in my room."

The hit of the summer

Top Gun was released on May 16, but few know that its release date was moved up a week from May 23. I know this because the display included a prominent "Coming May 23" declaration. Presumably, the studio (Paramount) felt good about the Top Gun's positive advance previews and also may have feared going head to head against Sylvester Stallone's Cobra, as well as Poltergeist II, which were both also released on May 23rd.

Any such fears soon proved ridiculous. Top Gun was an immediate and massive hit -- a summer popcorn movie driven by young male moviegoers who flocked to see it with their best buds (or girlfriends they'd talked out of seeing Short Circuit instead.)

As for me and my usher brethren (Mike, Steve, Kirk, Lou, John and Marcus) we embraced Top Gun probably more than any other film that played at Loews during our multi-summer tenure there. This included incessantly quoting all the best lines from the film:

• "This is what I call a 'target-rich' environment"
• "The bet is 20 dollars. You have to have carnal knowledge (of a lady this time) on the premises."
• "I don't like you because you're dangerous."
• "Slider... You stink."
• "I feel the need... The need... for speed."
• "That was some of the best flying I've seen yet. Right until the part where you got killed."
• "Negative Ghost Rider, the pattern is full."
• "We're too close for missiles; I'm switching to guns."
• "Goose you're such a dickhead. Whose butt did you kiss to get in here."
  "Well, the list is long  but distinguished."
  "Yeah, well so's my johnson."

We also re-enacted our favorite scenes -- even going as far as banding together to loudly sing along on "You've Lost That Loving Feelin'" in the back of a packed auditorium. Steve, meanwhile, was obsessed with Kelly McGillis's love scene halfway through the film and would regularly duck into the auditorium to catch it. We even adopted the call signs of all the Top Gun characters. Mike was "Goose"; Steve was "Hollywood"; Kirk was "Wolfman"; Lou was "Slider", John was "Merlin" and Marcus was "Sundown". 

And me?... I was a big Val Kilmer fan, so I of course was "Iceman".

But even as Top Gun continued to bring in big audiences week after week, I kept careful eye on that display. Then finally, on one of my off nights, I was out with my friend Brian (who had also worked at Loews for years) and formulated a plan. We came to the theater, seemingly just to say hang out in the lobby for awhile, but as the place was closing, we intentionally left one of the back doors slightly ajar. Then we left, waited about an hour and drove back to the theater. 

An inside job

Brian and I crept up on theater door we left cracked. Sure enough, no one had noticed, so we peeled it open and ducked into the lobby. Now because I worked there, I knew the theater had just invested in a new alarm system, complete with motion detectors, but being little more than teenagers, we didn't let that stop us. We crept along the walls to dodge the motion detectors (which we later learned weren't even activated yet) down to the lower lobby where the display sat. To get it out of the theater (and transport it back to my house) we knew we'd first have to disassemble it and put it back in the gigantic box it was shipped in. It wound up taking close to an hour to get the display broken down using tools Brian had brought.

Ultimately, we got the display into the box and were ready. We each grabbed an end and headed out the fire door, then somehow lashed this behemoth to the roof of my car, and I made the half hour drive home early in the AM, at a speed of little more than 35 mph.

Disappointingly, after reassembly, I realized the display was too tall for my converted attic room so I actually had to saw off close to foot of it in order to stand it back up. But finally the deed was done and there my Top Gun display stood for more than a decade -- Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis staring out like sentinels at me all through my twenties.

More history

In 1992, my dad took a business trip to San Diego and brought my mom, sister and me with him to have sort of a mini-vacation. Upon arrival, my mind immediately went to Top Gun and the opportunity I now had to see filming locations for one of my all time favorite movies. I visited the beaches where a lot of second unit stuff was shot, as well as Naval Air Station Miramar, home of the actual TOPGUN (Navy Fighter Weapons School.) The streets near my hotel are seen in the sequence where a pissed off Maverick speeds away on his motorcycle pursued by Charlie (McGillis). It had been six years since the film's release but the city of San Diego, I found, was still using its connection to the movie to appeal to tourists. So yeah, I bought my fair share of Top Gun t-shirts and merchandise. 

But the absolute highlight for me was visiting the Kansas City Barbecue. The place is right on Harbor Drive in downtown San Diego and was the location for the Top Gun scenes where Goose (Anthony Edwards) and Maverick drink, play piano and sing "Great Balls of Fire." I stumbled across it purely by accident but visited twice during my trip. Predictably, this bar/restaurant was packed with Top Gun memorabilia -- movie stills, framed photos, the piano Goose plays, and yes, the same exact promotional display I had pilfered from Loews. The place even proudly advertised itself as "Kansas City Barbecue: Top Gun sleazy bar scene filmed here" and sold t-shirts declaring the same.

Kansas City BBQ

Eight years later I actually moved to California and my first residence, before eventually planting stakes in the city of San Diego proper, was in Oceanside, which sits way up in north county San Diego. It's famous for its surfing, its pier and of course, its connection to Top Gun. Charlie's cozy little beachside cottage, where Maverick arrives late for dinner, sat literally steps from the beach and the aforementioned pier. During my first few months living in Oceanside, my workout runs took me unknowingly right past this house. I literally jogged by it dozens of times and only later learned of its cinematic pedigree.

Years later, what came to be known as the "Top Gun house" fell into disrepair and when "downtown" and beachfront Oceanside (including the block the house sat on) underwent redevelopment, its future seemed uncertain. Fortunately, the local historical society recognized the home's significance, funded its restoration and had it moved north from its original location to the beachfront courtyard of the Mission Pacific Hotel, about 200 yards up the street. The house was repainted to match its 1986 light blue color, restored close to its classic look, and is now home to (of all things) a specialty pie shop  where tourists come to see the Top Gun memorabilia on its walls and take pictures on a replica of Maverick's motorcycle parked out front.

The Top Gun house on film (left) and in real life (right).

The Top Gun house - May 2022

So why was Top Gun such a hit and why does it deserve all this remembrance anyway? 

Well for starters, it was a riveting actioner that didn't rely on the usual conventions -- gunplay, speeding cars and the like. Plus, the action didn't take place in the usual (i.e., terrestrial) setting. Instead, Top Gun gave us rarely seen action in the form of supersonic jets -- soaring, dipping, spinning, engaged in aerial combat -- and it gave us this action 40,000 feet in the air. It was an unprecedented offering that appealed to both testosterone-infused young male audiences and military enthusiasts.

Speaking of the military, we shouldn't underestimate Top Gun's leveraging of the Cold War, which in 1986 was still very palpable. Like Rocky 4 and Rambo: First Blood Part II, both released the year prior, Top Gun made villains of the Russians and played to a strong sense of jingoism. Audiences cheered unashamedly when Maverick shot down the Russian MIGs, the same way they did when Rocky knocked out Ivan Drago. Indeed, Cruise's character was seen as something of a modernized Eddie Rickenbacker. In fact, Top Gun's popularity was so rousing and its glamorization of fighter pilots so profound, at the Loews I worked at, representatives from the U.S. Navy showed up one day asking if they could set up a temporary recruiting station outside the theater.

Top Gun also endures due to a perfectly cast ensemble of actors. Cruise was the perfect actor to play the Maverick role:  a burgeoning matinee idol with a cocksure persona and shit-eating but lovable grin. Women wanted him and men wanted to be him. Kilmer, who had already starred and impressed in both Top Secret and Real Genius was just as handsome and charismatic. McGillis, Kilmer's classmate at Julliard, also had two major roles on her resume. She had starred in the critically acclaimed Reuben, Reuben and had earned Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for her role in Witness, which at the time put her on the short list of Hollywood's top young dramatic actresses. Anthony Edwards, as Goose, was Maverick's likable, wisecracking sidekick, and Meg Ryan (in her first major role) as Goose's wife was positively adorable. The cast was rounded out by the stern and steady Tom Skerritt as "Viper" and the rough and rugged Michael Ironside as "Jester".

The onscreen chemistry was a byproduct of real life. The cast's principals clicked, formed friendships and sometimes more. Edwards and Ryan would later become a real-life couple, McGillis started a relationship with Barry Tubb (Wolfman) and they and the rest cast would regularly hang out together after shooting wrapped for the day. 

Top Gun's music also plays a part in its longstanding popularity. Beginning with the film's opening shot, when Harold Faltemeyer's beacon-like instrumental gives way to searing Steve Stevens guitar work, music is an integral part of the Top Gun experience. Legendary producer Georgio Moroder, one of the architects of disco, was the driving force behind the the Top Gun soundtrack. Moroder had a track record of writing and producing hits for movie soundtracks, including Blondie's "Call Me" from Amercan Gigolo and Irene Cara's "Flashdance... What a Feeling" from Flashdance. For Top Gun, Moroder penned "Danger Zone" which was performed by Kenny Loggins and became a Top 40 radio smash. Moroder also composed Teena Marie's "Lead Me On" (played during the bar scene when Maverick first meets Charlie) and Berlin's "Take My Breath Away", which went to #1 in the U.S. and several other countries and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. The rest of the soundtrack featured tunes by heavyweights Cheap Trick and Loverboy, plus another cut by Loggins -- "Playing With The Boys". Though never a radio hit, the song was instantly memorable (and later became something of a gay anthem) due to its placement during Top Gun's famous beach volleyball scene.

So now it's now 36 years later and Top Gun remains an 80's classic and "guy movie" staple, right up there with Die Hard and Lethal Weapon. It's sequel is already getting fantastic reviews and being hailed as one of the best movies (not action movies, "movies") in years. There's also been plenty of advertising and promotion -- billboards, bus shelter ads, the works. All of it gets me even more charged for this film. So when I go see it this weekend, fair warning to all the movie chains out there... Keep close tabs on your lobby display.

The 20 Most Must-See Movies of the 90s: Part 3

The countdown continues with numbers 10 through 6. Also, be sure to check out The 20 Most Must-See Movies of the 90s, Part 1 and Part 2

10. The Silence of the Lambs
1991
Directed by Jonathan Demme
Written by Thomas Harris, Ted Tally (Based on the novel by Thomas Harris)
Starring: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glen

A more chilling film, you will not find. A sexually ambiguous serial killer named Buffalo Bob lives in a dank, isolated backwoods home, keeps his female victims in a dungeon, fattens them up, and then skins them so he can wear their flesh as a woman suit... Oh, and this guy's not even the main villain! It's actually Dr. Hannibal Lechter, a brilliant but insane psychiatrist who, when he isn’t murdering and eating the livers of his colleagues, enjoys playing head games with his fellow asylum inmates and coercing them into suicide. Thrust into all of this is Jodie Foster as rookie FBI agent Clarice Starling, working against the clock to track down Buffalo Bob and his latest victim, the daughter of a US Senator, before it’s too late.

Foster and Hopkins give riveting performances as Clarice has to let Lechter inside her head in exchange for his assistance in finding the killer. Taught with suspense and utterly creepy, this film paved the way for a slew of similar psychological thrillers including Final Analysis, Seven, The Bone Collector, Kiss the Girls, and Taking Lives.

Killer Sequence: Lechter breaks Clarice down and forces her to recall haunting childhood memories of what happened on her uncle’s farm.

9. The Rock

1996

Directed by Michael Bay

Written by David Weisberg and Douglas Cook & Mark Rosner

Starring Nicholas Cage, Sean Connery, Ed Harris

Despite two unlikely heroes -- quirky Nicholas Cage and a pushing seventy Sean Connery -- this picture serves as the measuring stick for 1990s action movies. Screenwriters Weisberg, Cook and Rosner flipped the tables by having the two protagonists break in to Alcatraz prison to stop a rogue general (Ed Harris) from wiping out San Francisco with a stolen cache of chemical weapons. Since this film’s release, Hollywood has sought to duplicate director Michael Bay’s heart racing “can-you-top-this” action sequences, but the two films that come closest may very well be Bay's own Armageddon and his latest effort, Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

Killer Sequence: General Hummel makes his demands, and sets off nearly two solid hours of edge of your seat action and suspense.

8. American History X
1998
Directed by Tony Kaye
Written by David McKenna
Starring Edward Norton, Edward Furlong, Avery Brooks

Ed Norton, who holds the edge over Johnny Depp as the best young actor to emerge during the 1990s, gives a commanding performance as Derek, an intelligent, but disillusioned Venice, California youth who rises to a prominent position in a neo-Nazi skinhead organization. After serving time in prison, Derek reforms, but upon his release finds that his younger brother is making the same mistakes he did. The film shifts back and forth in time, showing us how Derek was initially drawn into the group, his rise to power, and his eventual rehabilitation and release from prison. The film offers a frighteningly authentic depiction of exactly how hate groups recruit and convert their members and infuse them with their doctrines of prejudice and intolerance.

Killer Sequence: A flashback where Derek murders a black car thief, and a family confrontation where he fully reveals his philosophies of white supremacy to his mother and her Jewish boyfriend are both powerfully disturbing.

7. The Shawshank Redemption

1994

Directed by Tim Robbins

Written by Stephen King, Frank Darabont (Based on the short story Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King)

Starring: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman

This tremendously moving film, based on one of Stephen King’s lesser known short stories, stars Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne, justafiably imprisoned for the murder of his adulterous wife, and traces his experiences through the 30 years he spends in a New England prison. Fine supporting performances by Bob Gunton as the prison warden and the always reliable Morgan Freeman as Andy’s best friend Red, help make this film an engrossing testament to the indominitability of the human spirit. Had it not been released the same year as Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction, this film would have walked away with Best Picture and Best Director Oscars.

Killer Sequence: Andy fulfills the film's credo, "Get busy living, or get busy dying", by carrying out a long-planned, daring and ingenius escape.

6. There’s Something About Mary

1998

Directed by Bobby and Peter Farrelly

Written by Ed Decter and John J. Strauss & Bobby and Peter Farrelly

Starring: Ben Stiller, Cameron Diaz, Matt Dillon

The Farrelly Brothers had given us a couple of films that featured good old fashioned, gross-out humor (Dumb and Dumber and the underrated Kingpin) but they scored a box office smash with TSAM, which sprinkled in healthy doses of sentimental romance and hilarious slapstick alongside its’ over-the-top bathroom humor.

Stiller plays straight man through most of the film (whether it’s to Mary’s mentally challenged brother, Warren; Dillon’s sleazy private dick; a homicidal hitchhiker; or Puffy, the border terrier on speed) as he seeks to track down his one and only true love from high school.

Though some found it's scatalogical humor a bit much, TSAM features BIG laughs from start to finish and the film's success kicked off a trend among contemporary American comedies to see how far they could push the raunchiness envelope (see American Pie, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Superbad, Borat, etc.)

Killer Sequence: The “hair gel” scene gave the 90s the same thing the diner scene from When Harry Met Sally gave the 80s -- the single funniest screen moment of the decade.

Related Posts:

The 20 Most Must-See Movies of the 90s: Part 1

The 20 Most Must-See Movies of the 90s: Part 2

The 20 Most Must-See Movies of the 90s: Part 4

Defining Films of the Decades