It is basically a movie made by the sexual fantasy of America’s 13 year old boys, as were most movies made in the 1980’s for some reason. The moral crux of the film is Clint Eastwood becoming disturbed by how stressed out by women he is. He’s trying to stop this serial rapist murderer, but does some part of him also want to rape and murder women? Just your average moral dilemma felt by your average decent guy, no biggie. A lady from a rape crisis center decides to date him even though she knows about the handcuffs and the prostitutes and the moral dilemma (see above re: your average guy’s general musings upon gender and how it’s no big deal, apparently). We see a long scene of the rape crisis lady leading a women’s self defense class in which she carefully shows everybody how to scratch out a rapist’s eyes, break his knees, bust his balls, elbow him in the solar plexus, etc. Gary, student of filmmaking that he is, said, “oh–so she’s going to ultimately fight off the serial killer! Cool.” According to the very basic laws of filmmaking this ought to have been true, but said I, “Oh Gary, you forget that this was made in the 1980’s. The killer is going to attack her and she is going to stand there helpless and trembling before his powerful male rage and physicality and she is not going to do a single thing we have just seen her do, which is not only stupid but honestly just poor filmmaking. And then Clint Eastwood will actually save her, thus somehow resolving his inward moral dilemma about whether or not he actually wants to rape and murder women.” And Gary doubtfully said, “No….I think she will fight him off,” and I said “Oh Gary, you are truly a sweet babe, please to rub my foot instead of the snoopy’s foot,” which made him mad because he says I always get “all of the snoopy” when we watch movies, which is true because I take what I want when I can get it, I’m in this stupid game of life to win.

SO ANYWAY, this has become a bit of a family legend, and thus you can imagine my surprise and joy when I came, by accident, looking in my netflix instant queue, upon this gem of a film:

Apparently a real film, “FROZEN,” according to its wikipedia page, was made in 2010 by Adam Green and received “mixed to positive” reviews upon its release, which frankly I find difficult if not impossible to believe. For my friends, I watched this movie.

Let me just recap the plot for you, as I did via increasingly hilarious text message live-blogging to several friends, as well as the aforementioned brother, who just kept texting back “I do not believe you.”

Three shitty kids go skiing one weekend at what appears to be a janky one-lift operation that must be driving distance from their college. Wikipedia calls it a “New England ski resort,” so that could mean any number of things, but not, presumably, that a certain upcoming plot point could in any way be even remotely feasible. I will get to that in a moment.

Three shitty kids go skiing but oh no! They don’t want to buy lift tickets, which are admittedly scandalously expensive, lets be honest, even at a shitty New England hill where the snow is like cement. I DIGRESS. They talk the one dude’s girlfriend into basically bribing the lift operator to get them free tickets, another thing I have never heard of happening but I am pretty square. I just don’t know how the lift operator would have access to that kind of thing, I mean, he’d have to, like, go with you to the office and make up some story, and does he even get “all the free day-passes he wants?” that seems unlikely. Anyway the girlfriend is informed that the lift operator, who is fat and therefore a loser, will totally do it for her because she is “a girl.” She’s game, because as is later established in the “plot,” she wants her boyfriend’s mean pot head friend to stop being mean to her for stealing his friend away from him, classic homoerotic tension. So she goes up to the lift operator–who is wearing those lame gray earmuffs with the invisible head band you see like in the Sky Mall catalogue and which I absolutely guarantee you are not worn by lift operators anywhere in the known universe, because lift operators are total badasses–and she’s like “Um hi? My girlfriends? We didn’t bring my mom’s credit card?” And the guy’s like “whatever, fine,” and somehow gets her 3 free day passes without leaving his post at the chairlift (?) and then when she skis up with two dudes he cocks an eyebrow and goes “GIRLfriends?” And that’s when it’s time to cue the sweet guitar solo WOOOOOOOOOO!

The dude and girlfriend are snowboarding; the mean friend is skiing. When ribbed about this he insists that skiing is cooler than snowboarding, and that snowboarding is just a “fad” that will pass in ten years, which was a viable conversation people actually had when I was in 8th grade, i.e. the mid 1990′s. Then he refers to the Iraq War. Later the girlfriend will discuss September 11 and how that would be such a bad way to die, so the movie is topical and full of useful metaphors, as long as you don’t know what a metaphor is.

So they ski all day, the girl is bad at it of course, it irritates the mean guy, the girl is constantly getting her feelings hurt, it’s like, did someone literally write this when they were in 8th grade in the mid 1990′s? The gender dynamics seem to uphold this theory. Then they used search-and-replace to replace all mentions of “The Berlin Wall” and “Milli Vanilli” and “George Bush” with “Iraq,” “September 11,” and George W. Bush.”

At the end of the day, everyone is taking their last run, even though it’s somehow full-on nightfall, like DARK, which, at this point, in terms of realism or lack thereof, it’s like, who’s counting. The guys wanna take one more run, COME ON, fat lift operator who we already blatantly humiliated right in his face! Let us go up one more time even though you put the flag on the back of the chairlift to alert the guys at the top of the mountain that there were no more people on the chairlift! COME ON!!!! DON’T BE A DICK!!!!!!!

So that happens. Then I thought the lift operator would intentionally strand them up there, which would have been kind of rad, but instead he just like wanders off and the next guy who comes to finish his shift doesn’t know there’s people still on the lift. So the guys at the top see the chair with the flag, and they phone down and are like “that’s it, lets go home,” so the guy at the bottom shuts the lift off. CLOSE UP OF HIS HAND SHUTTING IT OFF OMG

Really I should not have bothered with this preamble because CHECK THIS SHIT OUT

so the kids are on the lift and it stops. they’re all “hey! we’re still up here!” They’re all joking and talking about September 11 when boom-boom-boom the lights go out. The mountain is in darkness. A cloud blows across the moon. The girlfriend IMMEDIATELY starts FREAKING OUT, which is what girls do whenever anything unusual happens. The guy is brave and comforts her. The mean guy tells her to shut up. They wait for about 4 minutes and then decide they have been forgotten and thus are going to die up there, because the mountain is only open on weekends and today is sunday. Is that even a real thing? Whatever.

Immediately upon realizing this, the mean guy says he has to pee or he’ll bust. So he pees. Gross, etc. Girl very disturbed to realize she will have to pee off chairlift. JUST LIKE SEPTEMBER 11

So after about 8 minutes the mean guy says to the girl, “hey, you’ve got frostbite, don’t touch it!” and the girl is like “what???” and then the boyfriend grits his teeth and clearly decides he is going to heroically save her because seeing the frostbite on her beautiful trusting innocent face was just too much. He’s all “I’m gonna jump!” and they’re all “you’re crazy it’s too high!” and he’s all “Whatever I’m doing it!” (the dialogue is excellent)

He jumps, and everything goes KEERUNCH and then it’s all kind of hazy and echo-y but then we see from his perspective that his legs are not just broken from landing in the soft snow, no, they are not broken but they are CRUSHED, they are MANGLED, they look like a SNOW CAT RAN OVER THEM. Bones are stickin’ out every which way! Blood is jetting out. This was some fall! It surely did not seem that high to me, nor the snow as hard as concrete! Even if you landed on concrete, would that even happen?? This was my favorite dialogue of the entire movie:

“ohhh, oh my god, oh my god….my legs are broken, I BROKE BOTH MY LEGS”

He’s sitting up in the snow with his crushed legs all akimbo out in front of him and blood pooling around him and they’re making jokes back and forth, you know, making light of it as one does, when suddenly what do we expect to appear in basically suburban New England on a mountain almost completely deforested and covered every day with hundreds and hundreds of people and machines and grilled-cheese kiosks?

WOLVES!

(see above re: impossible upcoming plot point involving basically suburban highly-settled densely populated New England ski resort)

The guy with the crushed legs goes “Oh shit! Oh shit! THERE’S A WOLF!” But it’s not just one wolf, it’s a PACK of them, all sleek and strong yet so desperate for food that they have invaded a ski mountain and have been just waiting by this chairlift for someone to fall off of it. So the wolves come and the guy starts screaming “DON’T YOU LET HER LOOK! DON’T YOU LET HER LOOK!” and the guy on the chair yells “I WON’T! I WON’T MAN!” And so he covers the girls ears with his hands while the guy gets eaten by a pack of wolves, everybody screaming, oh it’s awful.

When it’s over, the wolves disappear like ghosts, as wolves do, and the guy and girl on the chairlift are like “oh my god! oh my god!” and then the girl is like “you should have stopped him!” and the guy is like “what? YOU should have!” then they’re like “Fuck you!” and then they start arguing about who was better friends with the dead guy, presumably all torn up and strewn about beneath them in grisly bloody bits. Then the girl apologizes. Then to cheer each other up they start telling stories about middle school.

Then morning comes! And the girl’s hand (I forgot to tell you earlier she dropped her glove while trying to light a cigarette, so she’s had no glove this whole time but somehow her hand is still functioning, which, again, don’t get me started (also I want to point out that although they are all literally freezing to death none of them have their coats zipped all the way up or their hoods on or even their scarves pulled over their faces, which is great for me because as the audience it’s important for me to look at their three shining visages for 2 hours, excuse me, 94 minutes)) is actually STUCK to the safety bar of the chair. So she rips it off and there’s lots of blood and skin. Then the guy wakes up and is like “I’m gonna climb across the cable and get to the pole and climb down it,” which, although he tried it during the night, before the guy got eaten by wolves but after he broke both his legs horrifically, did not work. But this time it works! Which again, seems like you should have tried a little harder last night dude, but oh well. So his hands too are all shredded and bleeding (the chairlift cable being “razor sharp” as the dude on the ground with the broken legs pre-wolves yelled up at him during his first Tarzan-like misadventure) but he makes it, and climbs down, and is immediately attacked by the pack of wolves again, who came out of nowhere. He stabs one with a ski pole and the others are like “oh shit, a ski pole, holy shit lets get out of here” and they run away but then they come back as he’s sliding down the mountain on a snowboard using it like a sled and they all disappear over a hill and so the girl doesn’t know what happened. Did he make it? WHAT DO YOU THINK

So she spends another night somehow not dying and retaining a functional hand, which is truly miraculous, although she keeps wiping her frostbitten cheek and bits of cheek fall off while this sad, slow, kind of really half-assed Philip Glass rip-off music plays, which, good call, Adam Green’s music guy. And then she decides to jump off the chair? Even though her boyfriend crushed both his legs somehow and then got eaten by a pack of wolves doing that same thing. Then again, I couldn’t think of a better idea.

So she goes to jump but then the chair somehow detaches from the cable–which is another thing that happens all the time, with chairlifts, jesus christ sometimes it’s like, “is it raining chairlifts or did another chairlift just somehow become detached from its cable and fall and yet we are never reading about the massive ensuing lawsuits in the newspaper??”–and FALLS! But then a teeny thin strip of wire (?) is holding it to the cable still so it stops her halfway. Where a normal person would probably have let go and jumped at that moment, she holds on for a really long time and then lets go and lands, and does not break her legs, which is great, but then the chair goes ahead and falls and lands on her. So her leg too is crushed. She starts crawling down the mountain. At one point she comes across the grisly remains of the mean guy and there are like 20 wolves surrounding him and they growl at her but they are too busy fighting over the grisly remains to bother her, so she keeps on scootin’.

She makes it down and then lies in the middle of the road until a car stops and takes her to the hospital. The film closes with her looking out the window of the car, “Gerry” style, while in echoing reverbed tones her boyfriend’s voice says “you’re gonna be okay babe.” You know, from before.

It all put me in mind of the classic Robert Service poem, “The Cremation of Sam McGee.”

there are strange things done in the midnight sun
by the men who moil for gold
the arctic trails have their secret tales
that would make your blood run cold
the northern lights have seen queer sights but the queerest they ever did see
was that night on the marge of lake lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee

CHAIRLIFT THRILLER

Anyway, so Gary put Cocktail on and then we got for some reason more and more and more excited to see Cocktail, such that when we got our little DVD envelope in the mail and opened it and found instead the middling Bret Easton Ellis misanthropy of Rules of Attraction we were deeply bummed. Finally Cocktail arrived, and we watched it. I have seldom had my false memory of a film proven more false than this film proved it. The whole thing of Tom Cruise throwing bottles around and singing is like ONE MINUTE of screentime. The rest of the film is almost wholly incomprehensible.It didn’t so much have a plot or melodrama or drama or comedy or even dialogue. It feels like watching the beginnings of like seven totally different films. When it was over I made the call that it was actually the most “realist” film I’ve ever seen, as it had no “narrative” in the most basic traditional sense (in which events come to bear on future events), and was really just a string of things that happened to an unremarkable guy, none of which had any effect on any other thing. Gary pointed out that the only thing marring its perfect realism was the fact that every single line of dialogue was a perfect cliché (“you’ll never love anyone, because you don’t love yourself!” “IS THIS WHAT YOUR DAUGHTER IS WORTH TO YOU?” “How can I ever trust you again?” “Twins???????”).

Basically Tom Cruise gets out of the army and then goes to New York and wants to be on Wall Street but all the elitist fucks on Wall Street tells him he needs a college degree to be a stockbroker. So he goes to college. In college the professor is mean about his idea to start a bar. He walks by a bar and gets a job. The guy who runs the bar is British and they do dances together behind the bar; everyone loves the dances! “Hey you guys are sensational, you gotta get outta this dump, come work at my place I’ll make you rich, etc.” They go to do their routine at a big fancy New York bar where people climb up on staircases and declaim poetry in between rad DJ dance party sections (literally a scene in which a crowd of hundreds of partying dancers chant “MORE POEMS MORE POEMS MORE POEMS!” so Tom Cruise gets up on the bar and delivers an improvised rhyming poem about all the cocktails he knows how to make). Gina Gershon takes a picture of Tom Cruise; they fuck; the other bartender fucks Gina Gershon; Gina Gershon is mad at Tom Cruise; Tom Cruise punches the other guy. This is like seven minutes into the film.

Suddenly Tom Cruise is in Jamaica making drinks for tourists. He’s real good at bartending! Everybody says so. Elisabeth Shue comes up and says her friend passed out on the beach. Tom Cruise helps the friend; Bobby McFerrin music plays; people with dreds are like “come on bwuoy she be dead and stuff!” Elisabeth Shue is wearing a black leotard. The next day Elisabeth Shue comes back to thank him, gets a free beer (“Beer! My kind of woman.”). Suddenly British bartender frienemy shows back up. Apparently no hard feelings–they immediately start their old hilarious banter about getting pussy and what pussies each other are. Frienemy immediately starts messing around in Tom Cruise’s life again, showing him the foxy millionaire lady he married who walks around in leather g-strings and french kisses everyone. Her name is “Carrie” which I misheard for the entire film as “Gary” but somehow didn’t find that remarkable. British Frienemy tells Tom Cruise he’s a working class asshole who doesn’t know how to hustle. Tom Cruise laughs. British Frienemy is honestly being a real asshole but Tom Cruise doesn’t seem to mind; Tom Cruise doesn’t seem to have a single other friend on the earth. Frienemy bets him some bottle of fancy booze that Tom Cruise will be begging him for a job within a month. Tom Cruise of course takes that bet, because ha ha ha, why would he need a job? He’s a great bartender here in JAMAICA LAND.

Then there’s lots of scenes of Cruise and Shue fucking in Jamaica. By a waterfall, by the beach, by the fire, in the ocean, then they go horseback riding. Shue is also an artist? This is brought up a couple times in the movie but then ultimately abandoned as a plot point. Shue says she wants to have babies with Cruise; Cruise is understandably weirded out. The next day (??) British Frienemy bets Tom Cruise fifty bucks he can’t get this ugly rich 80′s style lady in bed. Cruise takes the bet, gets the lady in bed. Elisabeth Shue is mad, flies back to New York. Tom Cruise is like “oh man bummer–” but then has sex again with ugly rich 80′s style lady (“you can’t leave me like this baby” BLOWJOB IMPLICATION!). Next we are in New York again, no way to tell how much time has passed. Could be years. Rich lady wears succession of horrible fur coats; does 80′s aerobics and drinks carrot juice; thus is obviously insane and we empathize with poor Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise is a kept man! So emasculating. Goes to fancy New York art show; gets drunk; makes hilarious crack about all the bullshit ‘modern art,’ gets punched in face by artist. Goes and finds Elisabeth Shue at the diner where she works; she dumps soup and chicken à la king on his head while bus boy laughs. Tom Cruise is not mad, follows her home, she tells him she’s pregnant, he freaks out and runs away.

Goes to Frienemy to indeed beg for job within a month. No way to tell how long ago the chicken à la king happened, to say nothing of the art show where he hilariously and brilliantly skewered abstract expressionism. Frienemy is sad; blew all his money and doesn’t know how to run a bar. Tom Cruise is like “it’s cool.” Drives Carrie/Gary home, where she shows him her butt and frenches him. At the last moment he remembers she is gross and he’s supposedly becoming a daddy with that girl he did it with in Jamaica an indeterminate amount of time earlier and whose name I never learned. “I can’t do this!” “We both want it, you know it,” “YOU’RE MY BEST FRIEND’S WIFE!” “So what I’m supposed to be with just one man for the rest of my life?” “Yeah, it’s called MARRIAGE.” Oh snap Tom Cruise!

Runs back to the boat (?) where Frienemy lives (? without his wife??), but Frienemy is dead in a huge pool of blood. Cruise starts screaming “SOMEBODY HELP ME! SOMEBODY HELP ME!” even though he is on a yacht down by the dock many miles from any person. Sad!

Then later he gets a letter from Frienemy. Suicide note! “The only thing I will miss are our conversations.” As a film viewer, I would really have appreciated seeing some of these supposedly great “conversations,” because I wasn’t aware until Tom Cruise’s tears over the suicide note that these two guys actually liked each other. I mostly just saw Frienemy ruin Tom Cruise’s life and Cruise not really be mad about it. Friends? Maybe it’s a guy thing. Michael Caine should have played that role, but didn’t. I don’t know who that British guy is. He was very world weary.

Tom Cruise sad; cries. One thing you’ve got to give Cruise–he can cry on demand, which I think is probably really really hard to do. He cries in almost every movie he’s in. This is never remarked upon by critics and I don’t know why, as I find it really interesting. Remember how good he was in Magnolia? “Hey welcome back from lunch, HOW’D YOU LIKE THOSE NACHOS?”

At this point so many beginnings of films have happened! What was all that stuff in Jamaica with the daquiris? How did Frienemy find him in Jamaica?? Why was Bobby McFerrin playing, is he Jamaican? Also I forgot to say there is a part in a dance club with “reggae music” where Carrie/Gary says “I’ve never seen a place with such heavy dance vibes.”

Now Tom Cruise is going to where Elisabeth Shue lives, which is on PARK AVENUE, uh oh you see where this is going! All this time he wanted a rich girl and he never knew he had one right there in front of him, carrying his majestic seed within her belly!!! HUH??? Just like “How to Marry a Millionaire” except stupid. Also we never really realized his burning desire for a rich girl, we only realize it later when Elisabeth Shue yells it at him. “You were so desperate to hook some rich girl I didn’t want you to know I was rich until I knew how you felt about ME, okay? HOW YOU FELT ABOUT ME!!!!!!!!!!!”

At the building the doorman sneers at his working class clothing. Lets him up into the penthouse, where Shue’s father tells him he’s a bum and gives him 10,000 bones or clams to leave his daughter alone forever. Pretty tacky move! Shue comes in: what’s going on? Nothing, are you still pregnant? Yeah. Sorry I was weird before. GET OUT OF MY HOUSE ETC!!!!! Tom Cruise leaves; sad. Am I a daddy? What is daddy? I forget what happens next, I think he goes back to his uncle’s bar and his uncle tells him what’s the big deal, it’s just a pregnant dame, just forget about the whole thing. Tom Cruise goes back to the penthouse. The doorman is so pissed! “I’ve been instructed not to let you inside! HEY YOU CAN’T GO IN THERE–” Tom Cruise evades the doorman, races into the penthouse, grabs Shue: “I wanna marry you” “we can’t get married, so many things between us don’t work, which I know from the approximately one day we spent together in Jamaica that time.” “Our child needs a father!” “Yeah but what about when you bail on me yet again because of that British guy?” “He’s dead, he killed himself.” “Oh man that sucks.” Oh no the dad comes in! And the doorman! Everyone yelling! Get him out of here, you bum, you working class bum, no way is my daughter marrying a poor person! The doorman is TOTALLY FREAKING OUT, you’ve never seen a doorman with such a commitment to tasks not in his job description! Grabbing! Punching! Kicking Tom Cruise! Knocking over important pieces of modern sculpture! At one point Elisabeth Shue gets involved and the doorman starts fighting HER! Finally Cruise/Shue make it into the elevator. Dad yells “YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN” (because of daughter marrying poor person), Tom Cruise goes “that’s the way I like it.” Damn! He really had no compunctions about breaking into that house and destroying a family! Cool! Also, girlfriend, have you ever heard of abortion? Are you religious or something? what is going on, you’re like 18 years old. Who on earth would think Tom Cruise’s character (whose name I also did not catch except that his last name was Flanagan) would be a great husband not to mention father??? Well whatever.
The next scene is their wedding. Somehow Shue is still not showing her pregnancy, even though it feels like months have passed since Jamaica, thus proving that this movie was written by 12 year old boys. Then there is a bar called “Cocktails and Dreams,” and Tom Cruise is the owner! And he throws a couple bottles around. Apparently at these bars the only thing you do as a patron is stand at the bar and cheer hysterically at the bartender. Then they yell “POEM! POEM!” (what is it with these people and bartender poems??) Tom Cruise delivers a poem to his unborn child; says if it’s a boy he can take over Cocktails and Dreams, and if it’s a girl, he will try to marry her to someone who is not like her father. Dubious poetry, dubious sentiments! Then Elisabeth Shue comes up and whispers in his ear and he goes “TWINS!”

that’s how the movie ends.

It was the worst movie ever made. Why wasn’t it just bottle dancing the whole time? Where did he learn how to do the bottle thing anyway? Who was that British guy? Did Tom Cruise ever finish his night school degree? Where did he get the money to start his bar? Remember how Gina Gershon was in this movie?? Seems like forever ago that we saw her. “That’s what you get for telling people about our sex life. Too bad—it only gets better.” OH DAMN, you missed out on some killer ‘tang homie! CONFLICT

Isn’t it crazy how these male movie stars get more and more foxy the older they get? It bums me out, as I am already getting less and less foxy with every passing year, sometimes I look like a skeleton in the mirror, a weird face skeleton with a lumpy butt and weird spots under my eyes from all the sunscreen I forgot to wear for 30 years. To be fair, I am not a movie star–I assume I would look a lot better if I had a personal trainer, personal chef, and crazy makeup and/or plastic surgery or whatever, also airbrushing. But these guys! They just get foxier and foxier! Tom Cruise used to be weird looking; now he is a stone-cold fox. Robert Downey Jr.! Brad Pitt! Javier Bardem! Gael Garcia Bernal! They all start out foxy and then 20 years later you’re like “WAIT HOW DID YOU GET EIGHTY TIMES FOXIER????”

I kind of like Tom Cruise. He’s so bonkers but I think he is actually a really weirdly amazing actor. However, all this has nothing to do with Cocktail, in which he is not foxy, and during which I was mind-blowingly bored.
The soundtrack isn’t even good!!!!!!!!! Also did you know that Brian Wilson wrote Kokomo FOR THIS MOVIE? Thanks a lot, Cocktail. Thanks for nothing.

It’s a weird movie. Tom Cruise plays an army man who served under Custer, murdering the gentle Indian peoples of North America. He hates Custer, and he hates his lieutenant colonel, who served Custer so unquestioningly. He feels guilty about killing all those Indians–and indeed, the rest of his post-Indian-wars life has been an alcoholic, self-destructive ramble towards rock bottom, hawking Winchesters at carnivals and delivering lines like “you have NO IDEA……..what…….I’ve done.” However, he also seems to harbor an intense hate for the process of scalping, which he talks a lot about. I found this confusing.

Then the Emperor of Japan hires him to train an army to kill these Samurai rebels that blew up some railroad tracks in rural Japan. I know!

So he rides a boat over there, and on the way he writes in his journal, “I am off, to once again suppress the rebellion of a tribal people. It seems that this is the only job for which I am cut out.” This all happens within the first 8-9 minutes of the film, so we are quickly set up with the entire concept and we can now predict with 90% accuracy exactly what will happen in the remaining 2+ hours:

1. He will encounter the rebellious tribal peoples, and will realize that their honor and bravery far surpass his own troops–there will be lots of parallels in flashback-form to the Indians he massacred. The Samurai, in turn, will be impressed by this American’s bravery, and how he keeps getting up, Cool Hand Luke style, no matter how many times they hit him in the kidneys with various heavy objects.

2. He will be captured by them; then, “Shogun”-style, he will be taken under the wing of the entire village, who will teach him the language, customs, and bitchin’ Samurai fighting styles of their ancestors (unlike “Shogun,” however, there will be no decree issued that says if the American (Englishman) does not learn Japanese within one month, the entire village will be crucified).

3. He will fall in love with either (a) a Samurai’s wife or (b) a Samurai’s widow. If it’s the wife, it will create a jealous/homoerotic subplot about “what of our friendship even though we speak not the same tongue” with the husband that will culminate in one or the other of them saving one or the other’s life and/or Tom Cruise holding the Samurai while he dies bravely, forgiving him with his last breath (never the other way around–the Samurai would never hold Tom Cruise while Tom Cruise died). If it’s the widow, then probably it will turn out that Tom Cruise is the one who killed her husband, in that first battle when he was captured. But because she is Japanese, and inscrutable, this won’t come up for awhile, and she will always be demure and respectful, until near the end–possibly before the final battle scene–when they will either have confusingly hot sex or else there will be a scene that awkwardly conflates war with sex (like, she kneels and gives him her dead husband’s sword (penis), or possibly she commits seppuku right in front of him, which is also pretty hot if you think about it)

4. There will be a big, hopeless battle, where there will be like 500 Samurai fighting against thousands and thousands of Imperial troops. Get it? JUST LIKE CUSTER. Tom Cruise will feel great about this, because he is finally fighting on the side of right.

5. He will manage to kill his old commanding officer with a sword at some point. He will also somehow be the last person living when the battle is over, and then the entire Imperial army will kneel and touch their heads to the ground in honor of his honor.

Okay that last part I only know from watching the film. But the rest was all prediction!

I am pretty tired of this kind of movie. It fronts as this whole “cultural understanding” thing but really it is still just about how awesome America is. The Japanese are constantly committing seppuku, talking about committing seppuku, or begging their Lord to allow them to commit sepuku. Tom Cruise finds this practice barbaric, of course, because in America we like to continue living no matter what shame we have brought upon our family. He tries to talk the Samurai lord out of committing seppuku, but when the Lord asks him to stop forcing his culture on him, he then HELPS the lord commit seppuku. There is also this really confusing part where the Samurai lord is talking about “karma,” which, as far as I know, is not a traditional Japanese concept but rather an Indian one.

Oh, so, yeah. As far as my predictions:

-Tom Cruise learns to be the best Samurai ever in approximately 5 months, proving that it’s actually not that hard to be a Samurai warrior

-there is a cool, totally unexplained scene of a surprise ninja attack, and when it happened I said out loud, “ninjas!” but then no one ever explained who they were or why they were trying to kill the Lord. But still, ninjas! Tom Cruise easily defeats them, of course, even though……….THEY ARE NINJAS.

-as it turns out, it was the “widow of a man killed by Tom Cruise” option, and she nurses him back to health and then he shows her how much better life is when you’ve got an American man by your side (helping carry baskets, mostly, which “Japanese men do not do.” (“I am not Japanese.”)).

-the final war = sex montage between them involves her dressing him in her dead husband’s armor (after undressing him first, if you know what I mean (literally)) and then crying while he stands looking stoically out the window.

There is also the classic “old ways are better than new ways” stuff with “our new howitzer guns!” mowing down Samurai after Samurai, and their horses, it’s horrible inhuman rat-a-tat-tatting beating out the rhythm of certain doom for all the cowards who use guns instead of swords (the Japanese Imperial howitzer-master’s face crumpling as he begins crying and probably thinking some weird Japanese version of “WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?”), etc.

But then at the end, after everyone is dead but Tom Cruise, we cut to six months later, and he suddenly comes staggering (he’s been horribly wounded, of course) into the Imperial chamber, and just by looking at the Emperor he changes the whole course of Japanese fiscal policy, which was the only thing the Samurai wanted in the first place. So why did they have that big war?? Tom Cruise is like, “if his majesty considers me his enemy, he may order me to take my own life right now.” So, Tom Cruise has been effectively Japanese-ized, because he’s stoked to kill himself all the time for no reason, but he’s BETTER than the Japanese, because he has that American know-how and can talk the Emperor into doing stuff that even the Samurai Lord was unable to. Plus, since when does Tom Cruise give a shit about the Emperor? Jesus.

But then, my favorite part! “No one knows what became of the American after that,” says the voice-over. But WE know, don’t we? Yeah! He goes back to the village! The village where the 500 Samurai were from. And every single one of those 500 Samurai have died in battle, suffering a horrendous defeat at the hands of the Emperor. And that was six months ago. So the village had no one left in it but women and children. Who, if we are going to be strictly accurate in falling in line with this whole “noble obsession with seppuku in old-timey Japan” plot point that the film has such a boner for, would ALL HAVE KILLED THEMSELVES after hearing of the defeat. Instead, they are just, like, hoeing vegetables and shooing chickens away like normal. So it’s pretty lucky that Tom Cruise’s Japanese lady didn’t disembowel herself with a sword before he had the chance to come back and have sex with her finally.

Tom Cruise truly became……………THE LAST SAMURAI.

We ate delicious couscous and shared a beer and then we watched The Star Wars Holiday Special.

The Star Wars Holiday Special was made in 1978, and is basically modeled on the old-school “variety show” template, wherein all those old fashioned actors who make their living appearing on variety shows get together and sing songs and do funny skits. The Star Wars Holiday Special opens with a very long narrated intro like the beginning of the Tonight Show: “WELCOME! To the Star Wars Holiday Special! Featuring Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker! Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia! Harrison Ford as Han Solo! Bea Arthur! Art Carney! Diane Carroll! Anthony Daniels as C3PO! R2D2 as himself! And the voice of James Earl Jones as Darth Vader! Also featuring JEFFERSON STARSHIP!”

This is hilarious enough, but then the montage goes on:

“…And introducing! Chewbacca’s family! HIs wife, Malla! His father, Itchy! And his son, Lumpy!”
Lumpy? (“does that mean his real name is “Lumpbacca?”)

I had first seen The Star Wars Holiday Special many years ago when Ryan and Jason discovered it and Jason woke me up at 8 in the morning to tell me the whole plot over the phone. I thought he was exaggerating, or possibly that I was dreaming, but then we watched it together and it turns out that yes, the first 30 minutes really IS completely in wookiee with no subtitles. Then Art Carney comes in with pornographic holograms for Chewbacca’s dad ((Itchy, recall (featuring an extraordinarily problematic monologue by a black woman in which she repeatedly says, “I am here for your pleasure: take me,” etc.)), and we see shots from the actual movie “Star Wars” intercut with Chewbacca and Han apparently trying to get Chewy home for “Life Day,” which is some pan-denominational wookiee celebration that’s clearly just christmas.

The remaining many, many hours of the Holiday Special involve Luke, Han and Leia saying things like, “Thanks, old pal. I just want you to know how much you and your family mean to me,” roughly 100 times. There is also a scene where a storm trooper watches a hologram of a Jefferson Starship performance. And Bea Arthur tends bar in the bar on Tatooine where the alien band plays that great song. And of course, Carrie Fisher sings a song about “Life Day.”

It’s strange, because it posits this alternate reality wherein the characters in “Star Wars” actually realize that they are characters, and that when they aren’t filming “Star Wars” they’re hanging out, doing normal things, and getting to know each others’ families. The scene in which young Lumpy actually watches an episode of a “Star Wars” cartoon in which Boba Fett almost captures his father is particularly troubling. Is this actually happening in the context of the flimsy “plot” of the Holiday Special? Or is it an episode in the “Star Wars” fictional universe in which his father is an ACTOR?

“Oh R2 look–it’s Chewbacca’s family.”

Also worth noting is how infantilized Chewbacca and his family are by the rest of the human people who ostensibly share their lives, their hopes and dreams, their political goals. Although he is a famously brave rebel warrior and skilled fighter pilot, most of the people in “The Star Wars Holiday Special” seem to treat Chewbacca, at best, like he’s somebody’s cute little brother/dog and, at worst, like he’s actually developmentally disabled. Like it’s just kind of cute that he wants to get back to his home and family without dying.

The Star Wars Holiday Special closes with a surreal, frightening close-up of Chewbacca’s motionless face superimposed over a montage from “Star Wars,” as though he is remembering the stuff that happened to him an indeterminate number of days ago, either in reality, or in the film. “He’s remembering being in the film!” Gary pointed out. “He’s remembering stuff from the film that he wasn’t even there to witness!” This was true. It was as though Chewbacca, the actor, was enabling us, the viewer, to remember all those great scenes from “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope” that we may have forgotten about in the brief interval between the film’s release and that year’s spate of televised Christmas specials. Thank you, Chewbacca. Thanks to you I will truly never forget that time Han and Leia kissed in the supply closet.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the scene wherein enemy fighter spaceships (I forget what those are called….because I’m not a FUCKING NERD) attack the Millennium Falcon (I remember that shit for sure, though) as it is ostensibly carrying Han and Chewy home to the Wookiee planet for Life Day, and instead of special effects we just see Harrison Ford and the actor in the Chewbacca suit going “whoooaaaa” and like pretending to get bounced around in their seats.

The Star Wars Holiday Special is very difficult to get ahold of, because, as Ryan pointed out, “Lucasfilm went on a holy Jihad to destroy every copy soon after it was released.” (By typing “jihad” into my blog I probably just became an international terrorist). The version I saw still had the original commercials on it. In particular I remember one that was just a ton of people of different ethnicities singing a song about how you should join the union. There were many afros and polyester jumpsuits.

We also decided that Harrison Ford was not playing Han Solo, but rather the lesser-known Solo brother–John Solo.

“The Last Shark” arrived in my mailbox with no B.S., exactly as promised. And, as promised, I found myself totally blown away by the shittiness of this film’s blatant ripping-off of one of history’s greatest stories.
It’s not just that a gigantic shark terrorizes a small coastal town. It’s not just that the main character finds himself alone at the end, hanging onto a sinking raft, with only the fuse to a “dynamite belt” which is still wrapped around the old salty sea dog Ahab character whose body is in the shark’s mouth. It’s not just how he then blows up the dynamite belt after screaming “DAMN YOU!” in slow motion (this somehow lacks the ring of “smile you sonofabitch,” but who’s counting?). It’s not just that the man running for governor of the state refuses to close the beaches because of the big “windsurfing regata” festivities, and that he is then consumed with guilt when the shark eats Brody’s–I mean “Benton’s” daughter’s leg off. They even copied (or attempted to copy) Spielberg’s signature camera tricks, like switching shots with someone walking in front of the camera in that famous beach scene where Brody freaks out and everyone thinks he’s a maniac. I forget what that camera technique is called. I mean, it just goes on and on. “YOU’VE GOT TO CLOSE DOWN THE BEACHES!” etc. “I’ll get your shark,” etc. Even naked woman running into the ocean at night! Even “shark’s eye” view, albeit without John Williams’ signature “duh duh” theme song (L’Ultimo Squalo uses a theme song that rather implies the shark is an international man of intrigue. Lots of wa-chicka guitars and drums).

However, there is more. A LOT more. Let’s look at the stats:

Shark vs. Helicopter?
Jaws: No………Ultimo Squalo: YES (helicopter loses)

Boats literally exploding 100 feet into the air with dummies strapped into them?
Jaws: No……..Ultimo Squalo: YES!

Size of actual shark:
Jaws: an only slightly supernatural 30 feet………..Ultimo Squalo: SCHOOLBUS SIZE

Body Count:
Jaws: roughly 4……….Ultimo Squalo: HUNDREDS!!!

The best part was when the mayor character, in a fit of remorse, gets his helicopter pilot to fly him out to sea in order to kill the shark with a giant shotgun. Of course, they immediately sight the shark, who is dawdling along with his huge, floppy cardboard pectoral fin sticking out of the water. Somehow the mayor falls into the water and is then holding onto the helicopter skids while his feet magically pop backwards into the shark’s open mouth. There is then a shot of the mayor’s face looking sort of perturbed, like you’d look if you saw a stray dog on your street for example. The next shot is of the shark ripping off both his legs while he hangs from the helicopter.

“His reaction did NOT match the situation in which he found himself,” the old man pointed out. He went on to say that he had been “refreshed” by this scene.

Because it’s not just the mayor. The shark destroys the entire helicopter, including the pilot, who seems strangely unimpressed throughout, in a scene I tried desperately to find a still of on google. Please settle for these other scenes from the film:

The film also contains The Best Cut In History. Allow me to explain: The Brodys / Bentons are in the emergency room where they have just learned (from a bizarre “doctor” who stares at them from afar, clearly unaware that he is still in the frame) that their daughter has lost her leg. “OH GOD!” cries the mother, flinging herself onto Peter’s shoulder, “IT JUST ISN’T FAI–” her line is interrupted by a cut to the inside of the mayor’s car as he drives toward the helicopter, complete with “international man of intrigue” shark theme disco sexy beat music.
It’s hard to describe the full brilliance of this film. Unfortunately, it’s also nearly impossible to watch it for yourself, due to the aforementioned Universal lawsuit. If you send him money, perhaps John Afryl will burn you his bootlegged copy that has some sort of Asian language subtitles permanently covering the entire bottom half of the screen.

Although easier to find than a copy of George Lucas’ “Star Wars Holiday Special,” it is no less a prize.