Monday, May 30, 2016

Entertainingly Bad

In the previous post I shared about the 1973 musical version of Lost Horizon.

Today I'll detail some fun the family had with a flick that isn't just bad, it's actually so far-fetched and poorly executed that it spawned (hint, hint...marine metaphor) a memorable comedy routine.

Of course I'm talking about Jaws: The Revenge.

The late Richard Jeni did a great routine focused on this movie.  Here's one Jeni clip from good ol' YouTube:



How can I improve on that?  I can't.  

But what I can do is introduce my teenager to the joy of poking fun at bad movies.  

Many months ago the entire Geofamily was home with nothing of significance to do on a Sunday afternoon.  (Sorry for what that says about us, we really ought to make an effort to live a more interesting life.)  

But anyway...TBS is showing, of course, aforementioned movie.  Even with television edits and commercial breaks I still thought we could enjoy this.  I gave Geoana a view of the Jeni routine and away we go!  

The movie did not disappoint, since we already knew (thanks to Richard) that it wasn't going to get better as it went along.  

Turns out the film was even worse, and therefore more fun, than I expected.  I was off on my prediction of whom would be the next person to become fish food and Geoana appeared quite upset/distressed from one intense scene in which the shark attacks an inflatable boat but I quickly redirected her with the typical parental "This is only a story" line.  She shook off the "trauma" and got right back into dissing what we saw on screen.  

Objective achieved!  We had fun.  

Granted, this was not a big stretch.  Jeni's routine laid a good foundation and it cannot be difficult to poke fun at celluloid that has a (at last check) 2.8 out of 10 rating on IMDB and a 0% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  

Sort of like shooting fish in a barrel.  (Another reference to aquatic creatures!)  

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Anyone who blogs as a leisure activity can attest that entries sometimes become organisms in themselves.  I might sit at the keyboard with an idea but as it flows it has potential to move in a different direction than I intended.  The end product might be an entry about which I receive many hits and feedback or it might also stay in the "drafts" folder, never to be put out for public consumption.  

My last entry doesn't fall into either of these categories but as I watched several videos of "The Things I Will Not Miss" I realized it actually is a very good song and perhaps the only one in the whole movie that really bears the unique Bacharach-David style.  Too bad the timing was poor, in that the songwriting duo was already fractured and the filmgoing public no longer seemed interesting in sitting through musicals.  One wonders if this project had been about 8 years earlier the musical outcome would be as beloved as the songs from "Promises Promises."   

Too bad we will never know. 

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

When Bad Can Be Just The Opposite

Sometimes you just want a silly movie.  Other times, a thoughtful one.   

But this entry will focus on the fun we have with just plain ol' bad movies.  

On my gift list for last Christmas was the 1973 flick "Lost Horizon."  I always wanted to see the proverbial last straw which broke the creative camel's back that was the team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David.  "LH" wasn't even available on DVD until recently and it wasn't a musical that showed up on rerun TV.  

I removed the shrink wrap and enjoyed (yes, enjoyed) the movie a few days after X-mas.  A few weeks later the Geofamily headed to the Mayo Clinic and since we stayed at a familiar hotel, with in-room DVD player, I included LH together with a few other disks.  

Geoana and I got a kick out of seeing, then criticizing the final product.  

High points?  "Question Me An Answer," "The Things I Will Not Miss."

Low points?  Just about everything else.  

But with low expectations and some time to kill LH can be quite fun.  The child and I had a good guffaw over "The World Is A Circle" and "Living Together, Growing Together" (complete with fertility dance interlude!).  Not to mention making Austin Powers comments overtime we saw Michael York appear.  Hey, who says we can't do our own Mystery Science Theater 3000 at the appropriate times?  

The flick made an otherwise boring and dreary evening very entertaining.  

How about a sample for the readers?  Unfortunately the fertility dance segment isn't on YouTube (too bad, you really have to see it to believe it).  However some fine folks have shared other segments, including this one with audience response.  


Next post I'll share what it's like to enjoy a bad flick on basic cable, then a slightly worse one on a free HBO weekend.  

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

On Second Thought, And A "Lifeboat"

The previous entry noted if I could choose to be one person for one day I elect to walk in Tim Cook's shoes.  

Most days.  

Actually, just about all days.  

But not the day after I wrote that post.  

Yes, the Apple earnings report conference call done on April 26 certainly wasn't something Mr. Cook was looking forward to.  

However this illustrates a truth plus a good lesson about wanting to be someone else.  

Everyone, everyone, has difficult days.  Doesn't matter what you do, how much you're worth, how physically attractive you are, or your athletic ability.  Everyone has their down periods.  

And in the meantime I think I had a just fine day on Tuesday April 26, 2016.  

So, dear reader, appreciate yourself and those that are close to you.  Don't waste time trying to be someone else or vying to be something you are not.   

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It's no secret one of my favorite movies is Apollo 13.  

That flick, plus The Right Stuff, is currently banned from in-house or in-vehicle viewing by Geogal due to her being sick and tired of my and Geoana's obsession with these celluloid dramatizations of the U.S. space program.  

Still, can't deny Apollo 13 is one cool movie.  

Remember (of course you do) the moment in which Mission Command decides to use the lunar module as a "lifeboat."  

Not anywhere near the same scale as trying to save the lives of three astronauts millions of miles from home, but the Geohouse had it's own lifeboat moment last week.  

Regular readers of this blog know I own a camper. Not anything large or fancy, rather it's a modest rig that well meets the needs of our family of three.  

I maintain it well and make sure the battery keeps a good charge.  (That's what you do when the side of your house lacks a 30-amp outlet.)  I also wrote here in a previous entry that I de-winterized the system once freezing temps went bye-bye.  

Turns out this was good timing.  As part of the de-winterization process I added water to the fresh-water tank and ran it through the system (getting rid of the pink antifreeze in the process).  As such, there was a certain amount of good, potable wet stuff available.  

Last Tuesday morning the authorities issued an alert to our town that the water chlorinator failed and that residents needed to boil any water they intended to consume.  

Now, this typically doesn't affect one's ability to take a shower but our teenager decided she didn't want to chance it.  

Solution?  I remembered the camper and according to the electronic indicators there was about somewhere between a third and a half of a tank of good pure fresh water just sitting there, waiting to be used.  I suggested, offhandedly, that Geoana take her shower in the camper.  Was no problem for me to plug in an extension cord and click the electric element to the "on" position, thus heating the water.  

Surprise!  She went for it.  Even though in a camper you take Navy showers instead of the usual teenager-length drenching.  

It all worked out well.  She got clean, I was happy to have the water moving through the system instead of just sitting in the tank getting old, and Geogal was content to have some peace in the house.  

I always thought the camper would come in handy at some point but I always prognosticated it to be due to electric grid failure instead of a boil advisory.  Goes to show you never know what might happen.  

But the Boy Scouts would be proud.  I was prepared!