I’m doing my best to be social now, but I went through a period where I was just making people irate because I knew more than them about whatever they were talking about. So now I just nod and like whatever they like.
Being a film critic is a great job. Everyone wants to do it. I have no idea if anyone gets paid for it anymore. That dorky Harry Knowles seemed to get some perks liking crap back in the day.
In my opinion almost no movie from the past 50 years or so has been very original. They have computers do it, and if you can’t use final draft they scoff at you.
My brain just never turns off, and I could never sleep as a kid so I spent every night reading books, listening to the radio, watching movies, and listening to music.
Everyone insists that I go see some new movie these days that is supposed to be fantastic. It is always an inspirational movie that features some kind of triumph over diversity be it some kind of awful abuse, racism, sexism, or a physical disability. They are usually based on true stories that are actually full of lies.
The only movie that I’m looking forward to seeing is Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It’s going to either be phenomenal or a complete disaster. It will probably be phenomenal, make a lot of money, and people will berate him as it happens becuase Harvey Weinstein used to be his muscle.
Tarantino and Charlie Kauffman. Those dudes do original out of the box movies. I want to see those. If that’s not happening, I’m fine watching Jailhouse Rock for the 4,000th time.
I remember when I read about the real character that Robert DeNiro played in the movie Awakenings. He didn’t come out of a coma and act all cute. The real guy was apparently jacking off all the time in front of people, but that wouldn’t make a very inspirational movie would it?
My dad prides himself on getting new movies for free, and it drives me insane. He can’t go out to a movie theater. He can get the movies for free, but they are usually either from some dude with a phone in the front row or bootlegged with bad sound from Russia.
A while back my mother had seen so many people sing “Bohemian Rhapsody” for 90 seconds that I had to have a Freddie Mercury intervention. She digs Adam Lambert. I do too. There are still links someone reposted up from when I wrote about how great he was after three weeks on American Idol, but my mother had no idea who Freddie was or that the song was longer than 90 seconds. She likes game shows not music.
Suddenly, Bohemian Rhapsody came out and my dad wanted me to watch it. I’m like, um, well I want to watch it, but I’d rather not watch it with bad sound and foreign subtitles. Why don’t we just watch a documentary about Freddie Mercury? I hear there is a great one called The Great Pretender.
Nah, he doesn’t care about Freddie Mercury. He wants to show off his pirating skills. So he assures me it will sound good. It doesn’t. It has Russian for the cities Queen played. I hated it. Everyone hates me when I tell them why I hated it. It’s like I’m berating Freddie when I think I’m exalting him.
I have no idea why anyone would rather go to a theater and pay too much money for popcorn and soda to see a guy lip sync to a Freddie Mercury imitator in front of digital people when they can just watch the real Freddie Mercury actually kick ass in front of the real ones when I saw it live back in the day at Live Aid.
I fear for my life if I tell them I think it is a crime Bob Geldof got knighted for enriching war lords instead of feeding hungry people like everyone thought. I read too much.
It’s the real Freddie. It’s better. It’s free!
My mother’s favorite movie is Pretty Woman. My grandfather used to play a lot of gin at a country club. My dad used to play gin and pinochle.
So I figure The Flamingo Kid would be awesome to watch together. I believe it takes place the same year my parents got married 1963, and it came out the year I graduated from high school 1984. It’s a fantastic movie. The best one Garry Marshall ever made.
It’s got Marshall mainstay Hector Elizondo’s greatest performance. Richard Crenna is better here all over the film than he was as Colonel Troutman in First Blood and just as ruthless.
No one takes Garry Marshall very seriously because he made a ton of money having Fonzie jump over a shark and made even more making people sit through that atrocious Beaches movie, which at least discovered the chick who became Blossom and then wound up making a fortune on The Big Bang Theory.
It’s almost impossible to see this film now. I have no idea why. You can’t even pay to stream it. For the most part, you have to find someone with an old DVD.
Somehow my dad won’t watch it, but he did miraculously find a way to steal it. My mother actually came over to my place and watched it. She loved it. I fell asleep immediately, but I still remember it all even though I had only seen it when it first came out 35 years ago, but I watched it again and hell yeah, it’s fucking awesome.
It’s Dirty Dancing mixed with Bronx Tale, but better and before both. The cinematography is fantastic.
I have tons of old DVD’s I paid a fortune for still in the wrapping with expensive price tags on them. Used stores offer me pennies for them, but if I want to buy them online they are $50 or more.
I guess I need to learn to use eBay. I have no idea why you can’t stream The Flamingo Kid. Roger Ebert’s rave is still online.
I went to an open mic night. A young guy started talking shit about how Wayne Gretzky was slow and white. I had actually just bought Gretzky’s old memoir at the public library for a dollar for some reason and they had more copies.
I grabbed it from my car and gave it to him as a gift. I told him Gretzky was actually the beginning of speed in hockey. I showed him that he married one of the hottest women ever, Janet Jones. Janet Jones’ claim to fame? She was hot as hell in – The Flamingo Kid.
Matt Dillon is in The Flamingo Kid. Matt Dillon is a great actor. So is Keanu Reeves, but they are both too good looking to be taken seriously. Do I really want to go see Boy Erased and be depressed when I’ve already seen Lost Angels, which is the same movie, and I can just watch Wild Thingswhich rules again?
Dillon is so pretty in this movie it is sick. The cinematography showing the beach is amazing. The period detail is wonderful. The music is well chosen and vintage.
My parents spent their whole lives buying things off of QVC and other hot places. Those things were sold to everyone and the market got flooded.
I spent my time buying Gretsch and Kramer guitars for low prices because I dug Eddie Cochran or they looked cool. I didn’t play them well, but I enjoyed them, kept them in great shape, had my picture taken with them when I had hair, and now they are worth five times what I paid for them. People look at those guitars now, gasp, and think I’m the richest dude they have ever met.
You can’t sell the stuff my parents bought now, and they mostly just put them up in the attic and left them in mint condition.
So if you want to see a killer movie, watch The Flamingo Kid if you can. It’s hella hard to find.
Learn the name of the wicked, cool way Crenna holds his cards. Wonder why he gets action at Gin when he literally does insane things all the time and never loses a single game.
Watch him offer Matt Dillon the world and then only deliver on a stock boy job the same way Albert Brooks did in the awesome Out of Sight to George Clooney.
Watch Elizondo tell Dillon to go to college and be an engineer the exact same way Lou Gehrig’s immigrant parents did in Pride of the Yankees.
See how incredibly hot JANET JONES was!!!
Then watch Diner.
In the meantime, I’ll be nodding letting you think you are a genius for liking the latest version of A Star is Born, thinking to myself that Tom Parker should have let Elvis be in it with Barbra Streisand, and letting you buy me dinner and drinks. Nodding and social until I nod off later that night watching The Buddy Holly Story, which actually needed to be made because there was almost no live footage of the real dude and remembering that before he scrambled his brains by not wearing a motorcycle helmet that Gary Busey could play guitar, sing, and had the electric chemistry of a Greek God.
