Tag Archives: movies

Fantasy reboots: What if David Lynch had directed Caddyshack?

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It started innocently enough, as these things often do, with our boy Dan Ryan on Facebook wishing there was a video of the gopher from Caddyshack dancing to “Water of Love” by Dire Straits. Which, turns out, is actually a thing. That caused me, for some odd reason, to wonder what the movie would have been like if David Lynch had directed.

Then Jim Booth got involved, and it was all downhill from there.

So here it is, our best guess as to how Lynch would have cast the film, along with some plausible plot twists. Read more

Samuel L. Jackson as Minty Fresh in A Dirty Job? Make this movie happen NOW

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I’m currently reading Christopher Moore’s 2006 novel, A Dirty Job, and am nearing what I expect to be a slam-bang, fun-filled, rollicking climax. I picked it up because I thought Lamb, the story of Jesus Christ’s life as told by his best friend Levi, who is called Biff, was one of the funniest things I’d ever read. If you haven’t run across these books yet, consider them recommended.

Anyway, last night, as we got deeper into protagonist Charlie Asher’s investigation of the doings at the mysterious Buddhist center in San Francisco’s Mission district, my pique finally got the better of me. To wit, why the hell is this not yet a movie?! Seriously, A Dirty Job is box office magic waiting to happen. So I hit the Internets and discovered that the rights were indeed picked up, in 2006, by Chris Columbus and 1492 Productions. CC is the guy who brought us the first two films in the Harry Potter series and Home Alone, as well as Reckless, Gremlins, The Goonies, Mrs. Doubtfire and Night at the Museum. While he’s had some missteps along the way – who in Hollywood hasn’t? – he’s clearly a man who knows a thing or two about the aforementioned box office magic, right? Read more

In praise of young girls, in defense of Roman Polanski

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Child rapist Roman Polanski has been apprehended in Switzerland. Read all about it.

Outrage is palpable – on both sides. Yes, there are two sides. In addition to the “hang the pedophile” side, there’s the – if I might repurpose Wilde here – unspeakable in defense of the unconscionable crowd. Hey, lighten up folks. It’s not like the guy was a priest or anything.

Anyway, those in the hang-the-pedophile camp are offering up as aggravating evidence some wild shit Polanski said back in 1979.

“If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… fucking, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to fuck young girls. Juries want to fuck young girls. Everyone wants to fuck young girls!”

Appalling. Just disgusting, isn’t it? Read more

Jon & Kate: a sign of the times to come

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If you’ve been off-planet for the last few months you may have missed the news: Jon & Kate have split, and in the process migrated from the relative banality of the TV listings over to the hyper-banality of the tabloids. I’m still not sure what the future holds for the popular “reality” show, but whatever it is, Gosselin family 2.0 equals Jon minus Kate.

It occurs to me that these events represent something significant in our culture. Since about 1980 or so we’ve been in one of our periodic “childrens is the most preciousest things in the whole wide world” phases. (For more on the generational cycles that produce this dynamic, see Generations, 13th Gen and Millennials Rising by William Howe and Neil Strauss, two men whose work I have referenced a number of times in the past.) In the previous generation (Gen X), children were an afterthought for most parents, who had been socialized in far more self-centric times. Read more

Open thread: S&R’s all-time Oscars

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As I watched the Oscars last night – or perhaps “endured” is a better word, because Huge Ackman prancing around with his nipples all stiff over the return of The Musical! (come on, just try to say it without Jazz Hands) is more than I can take without a cabinetful of medication – I noted that again Meryl Streep got nominated. (And by the way, now I hear that Beyonce might play Ginger in a Gilligan’s Island movie, which means you won’t even be able escape her ubiquitosity by getting stranded on a goddamned deserted island.)

Back to Meryl, though. Read more

The best moment of the night

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Once is a film that deserves more, so much more. A truly independent effort built around music and characters whose authenticity simply bursts off the screen and fills your heart, this movie was so real in its violation of all things Hollywood that it was almost hard to watch. I kept waiting for the goddamned formula to kick in, and it never did, and the absence of the fix made me jittery. Shame on me. Read more