shoop and the 80s, part 3

I saw a fair amount of movies during the 80s, but comparatively few have left anything behind. I seem to remember enjoying some at the time. I mean, I had the "Indiana Jones" theme running through my head for a while, but I didn't need to see it again, nor did I need the video, nor the subsequent DVDs or blue rays or whatever they're called. "E.T." mainly introduced me to Reese's Pieces. I dutifully completed the original "Star Wars" trilogy, and I thought it was fine, neither more nor less. I never got around to stuff like "Desperately Seeking Susan," which taught a lot of girls to be Madonna-like. (I'm not sure what it taught guys, except to ignore Rosanna Arquette.)

When I think of the 80s on film, I think of the late John Hughes, but even his oeuvre kind of runs together in a blur of Molly Ringwald, various sensitive, handsome guys, and a couple of memorable nerds. The main lesson I took away from "Pretty in Pink" was that the nerd best friend CANNOT BE THE BOYFRIEND, EVER. Granted, that wasn't entirely Hughes' fault--the test audiences told him where it was at, and it wasn't with our Molly having the last dance with Duckie, with or without David Bowie. (It doesn't work that way for girl nerds, because, as we all know, girl nerds are secretly gorgeous once they clean up and take their glasses off.)

Hmm, 80s films. There's "Diner," one of my all-time favorites (if you haven't seen it, stop reading immediately and go get a copy). What else? Eddie Murphy was the funniest guy in the world for a while, unless it was Danny DeVito. Robin Williams was great in the under-appreciated "The World According to Garp"--writer Steve Tesich actually improved upon John Irving's fine novel. "The Big Chill" taught me about the fun of ensemble acting and groovy soundtracks--I wasn't the intended audience, but I liked to pretend I was. Was that really it?

Ah, yes--one more. A hot redhead who had issues with her dad. She was also a cartoon mermaid. Nobody's perfect.

shoop and the 80s, part 2

What else stayed with me from the 80s? Well, there was a fair amount of music. A whole lot of "Thriller," for one thing. You either owned it, or you knew someone who did, and even if neither of those was the case, you pretty much heard the whole album on the radio. But there were a few individual songs from various artists that stood out as well--not necessarily because they were good, but one way or another, they left their mark.

Naked Eyes, "Always Something There to Remind Me": kind of boring, really, but it definitely takes me back to the Georgetown campus pub (called, appropriately enough, The Pub) and plenty of reasonably-priced beer.

Madonna, "Borderline": This one takes me back to being a lifeguard at the Yates Field House pool. Over the years, I guess I've liked Madonna less and less, but this one's kinda cute and bouncy, and it reminds me of pools.

Billy Joel, "Pressure": summed up the whole college experience for me.

Neil Diamond, "Heartlight": Remember Neil Diamond? Remember E.T.? If we weren't already embarrassed about loving E.T. so much, this song pretty much put it in perspective.

Pat Benetar, "Love is a Battlefield": The video had dialogue in it. And we were sore amazed.

The Bus Boys, "The Boys are Back in Town": Remember 48 Hours? Remember when Eddie Murphy was hysterically funny?

Tears for Fears, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World": springtime, senior year, when I was convinced my future was bright, interesting, and full of promise. Well, it was certainly full of something.

New Radicals, "You Get What You Give": Aha--not an 80s song, right? But the first few times I heard it, I not only was convinced it was an 80s song, but I could remember where I was at Georgetown when I first heard it. You gotta watch out for those faux 80s songs.

What else stayed with me? Maybe some movies. We'll look at those next time.

shoop and the 80s, part 1

I tried to block out most of the 80s. The 80s was college, and college wasn't much fun. The second half of the 80s was realizing that I wasn't ready for the outside world, despite college, and that wasn't much fun, either. But a few things stayed with me--you can't block out a whole decade. I guess I was thinking about the 80s with the passing of John Hughes, whose movies defined the 80s for a lot of people. I was also thinking about the 80s because I used a Barnes & Noble gift card to pick up a DVD of another Big 80s moment--the final episode of "MASH."

When it first aired, it was second semester, sophomore year at Georgetown. The residents of Arts Hall, and some residents' friends, had gathered in the basement to watch it on TV. I was late--I was rehearsing something or other, I think. By the time I came in, most of the Heavy Stuff had already happened, and I remember laughing too loudly at Colonel Potter saying love always gets you into trouble, because I had a crush on someone--I couldn't swear who it was, but I can narrow it down to two or three. And it ended, and that was it.

It's a long episode that doesn't get played in the regular syndicated rotation very often. I caught it once or twice, but I still wondered if I was missing something--a scene here, a moment there. So I bought it, it arrived, and I watched. And it's interesting--I offer a few stray observations.

The big story was Hawkeye--he's cracked up by the time the episode begins. And it's dramatic as all get-out, no question--must have been quite the shock 26 years ago. (The peasant woman didn't really kill her chicken.) And yes, Klinger stays in Korea--heavy duty irony. Father Mulcahy loses part of his hearing, but did we ever take him seriously, anyway? (At any rate, I never did.) The story that stayed with me was Winchester--the proper Bostonian, always just on the verge of caricature. He has to learn yet another lesson about pride and vanity--how many of those lessons did he have to learn over the years, anyway? And why didn't any of them stick? Nevertheless, the episode is hardest on this character--the storyline takes away his beloved classical music, a cruel reminder of the slaughtered innocent musicians he had come to befriend. Overall, I would call it worthwhile viewing if you're a MASH-watcher.

In the end, though, I'm only getting a xerox of the main event. The main event was 1983, and there was a community of fans laughing, tsk-tsking, and sobbing over old fictional friends. I suppose I can't recreate 1983 any more than I can block it out.

shoop and bruno

The best way to sum up Sasha Baron Cohen's latest, Bruno, is that it suffers from a bad case of wanting to be Borat. If you were a fan of the Ali G show that ran on HBO for a while in this country, you could see it coming. That's where a lot of us were introduced to Cohen's three major creations, Ali G, Borat, and Bruno. Of the three, Bruno was always the least hysterical, possibly because the persona was the most familiar. After all, Ali G was a clueless English rapper wannabe, and Borat was the "innocent" from Kazakhstan, which most of us couldn't find on a map. But Bruno was "fabulous"--Viennese accent aside, we'd seen him before.

The TV Bruno had his moments--particularly confronting a minister who specializes in converting gays (Cohen revisits this territory in the movie to diminishing effect) or saying outrageously gay things to people at gun fairs (in the movie, he does this on a hunting trip--again, to diminishing effect). But even at Bruno's best, his routines never rise above the raucous practical joke, relying on the sort of shock that above-average crank call shows achieve. It's (intermittently) funny, and there's always an element of "I can't believe he did that." And Cohen/Bruno gets props for never breaking character, even when he's getting chased or when people throw things at him. Nevertheless, while Borat, by gaining the confidence of his dupes and getting them to reveal their most shocking beliefs, propelled that movie into the realm of corrosive satire, Bruno, by contrast, merely goads his subjects into saying or doing something mean--the difference is significant. The final climactic set-piece is the biggest let-down--the crowd gets angry when the "wrestling match" becomes a hugely open gay display? You don't have to be a homophobe to be angry for being ripped off. Nor do you have to be Ron Paul to get pissed off that an interview turns out to be a set up for a would-be porn tape. So, all in all, a come-down and a disappointment for the talented Cohen.

Still, it's almost worth it to hear Bruno refer to Mel Gibson as "der fuhrer." Yes, Mel still has it coming.

shoop and whatever works

"Profound" is a dangerous word. If you commit to believing that something or someone is profound, then someone else can turn on you with, "You think THAT's profound? What an intellectual and philosophical lightweight YOU are, then." I do the same thing myself--for example, if someone refers to, say, The Dark Knight as profound, I'm instantly making mock inside my head, if not out loud. But yesterday, I saw a profound movie. The fact that it's also a frequently funny and enormously entertaining movie makes the experience that much more pleasurable. The movie? Woody Allen's latest, Whatever Works.

The movie's backstory is well-documented--Allen wrote the script back in the 70s for Zero Mostel, with whom he'd worked on the Martin Ritt film The Front. Mostel's death put the project on hold until Allen decided to make a movie in New York quickly to avoid a possible actors' strike. For lovers of the Woody of the 70s like me, this project seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime gift--Woody returning to the Sleeper-Love and Death-Annie Hall-Manhattan (and sure, throw in Interiors, too) pool for a refreshing and invigorating (and final?) dip. The greatness of Whatever Works is that it delivers on that huge promise and then some.

It's Allen's "Tempest" and "It's a Wonderful Life"--with Larry David serving admirably as Boris Yelnikoff, the cracked Prospero who has created his own misanthropic island of despair, telling us in the audience directly (only Boris knows that we're watching--that's his magic) that really, it's a horrible, terrible life, but it's up to you to "filch" whatever happiness and wonder you can--whatever works. The genius (or the profound element) of the film is that we get to see simultaneously the wisdom of Boris' worldview, as well as the undeniable fact that Boris has created a good deal of his own misery himself.

There are signs of the younger Woody's more jokey sensibilities--Evan Rachel Wood's Melody plays off the hoariest southern nitwit stereotypes (including the notion that southerners don't get sarcasm), and her parents, played by Patricia Clarkson and Ed Begley, Jr., are painted just as broadly. Nevertheless, thanks largely due to the great, empathic performances by Wood, Clarkson, and Begley, Allen creates a world where these caricatures live, breathe, and even undergo their crazy about-faces in a believable way. They all have to, after all, figure out what works.

Fittingly, Boris, as Allen's most bluntly humanity-hating creation, gets the last word, and something of a happy ending--modified, of course, by the fact that nothing is going to stay happy for long. The fade-out is also, in a perverse paradox, Allen's warmest ending since Hannah and Her Sisters, as Boris tosses aside his magic staff not with a majestic incantation but with a wry, fatalistic shrug.

Is it horrible of me to wish that Whatever Works could be Woody's last film? Nevertheless, even if he putters around for another 5 or 10 years, he can't erase this--yes, profound--achievement.