Intemission: Christmas Gone Wrong

I remember when it happened, the first time the idea crossed my mind.

It as a number of years ago. We had taken the day off from work to go Christmas shopping. I don’t quite remember where we were – the Hallmark Store, perhaps? – when I saw it:

All I could think was, “WHY??” I get that not every Christmas ornament needs to be on theme, but they’re usually Christmas-adjacent: toys or winter scenes or… I don’t know, NOT armored battle vehicles used primarily to blow opposing humans to smithereens.

Yet, here it was: a Christmas ornament of an army tank. And then it occurred to me that this kind of thing doesn’t just happen on a fluke, that this isn’t one guy who is really into tanks making ornaments to fulfill his military fetish. No, this was the work of an entire team of people. I imagine a whole bunch of suits around a boardroom table, brainstorming what might be the Next Big Thing for the upcoming Christmas season, and one suit with a healthy amount of office muscle suggesting “How ‘bout army tanks?” to which everyone blindly agreed.

I didn’t buy that tank ornament. But I did buy the next ornament that melted my brain with its mere existence.

This has blossomed into an entire Christmas tree dedicated entirely to ridiculous and inexplicable ornaments. I’m only into my second year of putting this together and I’m still growing my collection, but it’s the Season of Giving and if I can’t give you the gift to things that are mindboggling (be they movies or physical products), then what exactly am I doing here?

So here it is, my Splendiferous Christmas Tree. Enjoy!

YE-HAW! A single piece of footwear – merry Christmas! You know, I could understand an ornament of an entire cowboy or cowgirl, but just a lone boot… what happened? Is there a foot in that boot? Now that would make for a memorable holiday.

I’d like to remind you that a whole team of professionals sat around a table dreaming up Christmas ornament ideas when someone said, “What about a boot?” And they ran with it.

 

This is one of the most intentionally Christmas-y ornament on my tree, but c’mon, look at this thing. It’s just so… lascivious. And upsettingly so.. The posture, the come-hither look, the lack of pants. I don’t know what’s going on with this mouse, but it’s not family-friendly.

Ah yes, nothing says, “Welcome home for the holidays” quite like a bucket of fried chicken. Again, I could get my head around a branded bucket of friend chicken ornament from like KFC or Chick-fil-A, but that’s not what we have here. No, we have unaffiliated chicken. Agnostic chicken, if you will.

Also: Some art director took a look at the original mock-up for this ornament and said, “Need more glitter.”

This was a gift from my daughters last year, fitting for the splendiferous tree. Also, I’ve reached an age where this would be my first destination after polishing off a bucket of fried chicken.

 

This might be my favorite ornament. No matter how many strange, inappropriate or inexplicable ornaments I get for this tree, I’ll always have room for “ornament.”

 

And just in case you were wondering how one tops a tree like this…

Hope you have a very splendiferous Christmas!

nolahn

 

 

Bargain Bin Review: Brewster's Millions

 

‘Tis the season to buy-buy-buy-buy! All month long here at The ‘Bin, we’re gonna do a bit of counterprogramming in the form of

BUY & SELL: CONSUMERISM GONE WILD! MONTH

I have a hunch people are going to have feelings about this one, so let’s get to it.

 

 

Directed by Walter Hill, 1985, 102 minutes, Rated PG
Q: Is a family-friendly Richard Pryor still Richard Pryor?

 

This is my Richard Pryor.

Not Richard Pryor: Live & Smokin’ or any of his other concert films. Not Silver Streak or Stir Crazy or any of his other collaborations with Gene Wilder, such as See No Evil, Hear No Evil (which I saw in the theater). Not Blazing Saddles, which he co-wrote and was going to star in if the studio was willing to insure him. Not even Superman III, which sounds like nonsense until I point out that I was nine years-old when that film was released.

When I think of Richard Pryor, I think of Brewster’s Millions. It’s not his best work (the PG rating definitely de-fangs him) or his best film (it currently sits at 35% on Rotten Tomatoes), but it’s what I think of. That partially due to seeing it a bunch of times when I was young, and partially due to its fantastic high concept premise: How would you spend $30 million in 30 days?

Step 1: Have John Candy around to help

Here’s the skivvy: Montgomery Brewster (Pryor) is a minor league pitcher who learns that a distant relative has left him his entire estate – with one sizable catch. In order to “learn the value of money,” Montgomery has 30 days to spend $30 million and have nothing but the shirt on his back at the end of the 30 days. There are a number of caveats, such as he must get value for anyone he hires, he can only donate or gamble a certain percent, he can’t willfully destroy items he purchases, etc. But if Montgomery can spend the entire amount without having anything to show for it – and without telling anyone why he’s doing this, of course – he’ll inherit the full fortune of $300 million.

It's a fascinating thought experiment, much more interesting to me than the ol’ “what would you do if you won the lottery” daydream. Minor league baseball players don’t exactly rake in big contracts, so Montgomery starts off with the obvious: booking a penthouse suite, renting custom-made suits, hiring an entourage, etc. It quickly becomes clear that he’ll have to do more, and much of the fun of the film is watching Montgomery flop-sweat his way to increasingly clever tactics for dithering away his money (I always thought the stamp solution was brilliant). Naturally, there are also increasing complications, such as well-meaning friends (including John Candy as Montgomery’s catcher/BFF) and underhanded scheming by a couple of the trustees who want the estate for themselves.

This isn't the most visually arresting film, but we do get lots of Richard Pryor freaking out into a telephone

The story is actually based off a 1902 novel and has a number of film adaptions, half of which are considered “lost” and none of which I’ve ever seen. Maybe they’re funnier? It’s not that this film isn’t funny, but it’s nowhere near as funny as you’d think a film starring Richard Pryor and John Candy should be. Maybe it’s better to say that this film is exactly as funny as you’d imagine a Walter Hill (The Warriors, 48 Hrs) film to be.

Whatever. I may (definitely) be viewing Brewster’s Millions with nostalgia goggles, but Pryor and Candy are a likable duo and the film is a gentle delight.

 

***

Hey? Remember when I reviewed bad movies. Well buckle up, buttercup, cuz they’ll be coming in and in force after the new year.

 

Autobiopic: The Running Man

‘Tis the season to be jolly – jolly broke! All month long here at The ‘Bin, we’re gonna do a bit of counter-programming in the form of

BUY & SELL: CONSUMERISM GONE WILD! MONTH

 

We have a hot one this week. Let’s go straight to the review!

 

 
Directed by Paul Michell Glaser, 1987, 100 minutes, Rated R
“Don’t touch that dial!”

 

I am very much a child of the ‘80s. As such, I had a lot of the same cultural role models as many of the other boys my age: the too-cool-for-school Han Solo, the all-business powerhouse of the Boston Red Sox, Jim Rice, and the dashing good ol’ boy Bo Duke from The Dukes of Hazzard. Yes, I know The Dukes of Hazzard hasn’t aged well, but it had car chases and whatnot, and that was more than enough to impress me as a wee lad.

But there was one man I found particularly fascinating. He was a beloved television personality, and because of him I learned the meaning of such words as “suave” and “droll” because he fully embodied those concepts. And the women loved him – loved him. That man, of course, was Richard Dawson, host of The Family Feud.

 

Yes, I know this take hasn’t aged well, but Dawson was effortlessly charming and funny and stylish, and that was more than enough to impress me as a wee lad. Other kids wanted to be astronauts or firemen or baseball players, but I wanted to be Richard Dawson. So it shouldn’t be any surprise that I was very, very, very excited for Mr. Dawson’s star turn as the villainous game show host in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s The Running Man. 

I can’t help but feel that The Running Man is the neglected film in Schwarzenegger’s filmography. I get that it falls in a truly epic run of Ahnold movies (Predator, The Running Man, Red Heat, Twins, Total Recall, Kindergarten Cop, Terminator 2 – how’s that for a five-year run?), but that’s not to love about The Running Man? It has Ahnold in his career prime and most quippiest, it’s (very loosely) based on a Stephen King story, it has Richard freakin’ Dawson!

Know what else it has? An opening scroll in a font that screams “The Future Circa 1982.” I’ll spare you the full transcription, but we’re in the distant future of 2017 and we’re either in the world of The Hunger Games or North Korea. Also, the general public has become enamored with a “sadistic game show” featuring “high-tech gladiators.” Maybe someday someone can explain how gladiator fights appease unhappy masses.

Hey, it’s Ahnold (or “Ben Richads,” as the film insists on calling him), and he’s flying a choppah! He and his fellow soldiers have been ordered to fire on a “food riot” consisting of unarmed, starving people. Ahnold refuses, and he brothers-in-arms are strangely happy to beat the snot out of him. This not only gets him thrown in a workcamp with Yaphet Kotto and a Nerdy Tech Guy that takes at least seven minutes to break out of, but it also gets Ahnold framed as “The Butcher of Bakersfield” for firing on unarmed citizens.

Enough of that, let’s talk about The Dawson! Check out how we meet his character, famed game show host Damon Killian: Dawson is pedeconferencing with his assistant about ratings when he physically bumps into an old janitor. The janitor is immediately apologetic, but Dawson blows it off. Dawson draws him in, asks the old guy for his name, complements him. And then, alone in the elevator with his assistant, Dawson makes it clear that the janitor is to be fired post-haste.

It’s the kind of “evil corporate guy” scene we’ve scene a million times, but Richard Dawson sells the hell out of it. It’s the most convincing instance of someone being warm and folksy and then a cutthroat bastard on the flip of a switch. It makes me wish Richard Dawson did more movies.

Meanwhile, Yaphet Kotto and Nerdy Tech Guy want Ahnold to join their Resistance to Fight the Power and Rise Against the Machine and whatnot, but Ahnold wants nothing to do with it. Instead, he goes to his brother’s apartment to find a Lovely Latina Lady doing aerobics in lingerie to a workout show hosted by Jesse “The Body” Ventura. I know that sentence reads like a fever dream, but that’s what happens. Ahnold comes up with a terrible plan to force the Lovely Latina Lady to go to Hawaii with him, and it’s a bit depressing to see that even in this fascist dystopian future, airport security isn’t as strict or invasive as it is in our real life. Yada yada yada, Ahnold has “volunteered” to be the next contestant on The Running Man.

There’s some great satire here. In addition to the stuff we’d expect about studios doing anything for ratings, we get fun little moments like a “court-appointed theatrical agent” and members of the studio audience winning “The Running Man home game.” The televised experience of The Running Man itself is frightening like today’s Big Brother: a large studio audience applauds the host, and together they all watch beefy idiots do stuff via a giant TV screen.

(Side Note: Big Brother might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever watched – and that’s coming from someone who chooses to watch and review bad movies. Yet, as of this writing, Big Brother has been on the air for 22 years and is still hosted by the robot known as “Julie Chen.” The has just been renewed for a 25^th season. The world is indeed full of mystery.)

Right before Ahnold is sent into the game on some kind of hydraulic bobsled, we get the Greatest Use of Ahnold’s Catchphrase Ever. “I’ll be back,” Ahnold gravely informs Richard Dawson. The Dawson takes a beat, intimidated, then recovers and glibly retorts, “Only in a rerun.” Ha!

Have I really gone 900 words without talking about the actual game within The Running Man? That’s because it’s kind of half-baked. Contestants have to make their way through unused sets from The Warriors while “Stalkers” – assassins outfitted like rejected Mortal Kombat characters who are selected by members of the studio audience – hunt them down and kill them. Of course, they’ve never met a contestant like Ahnold, and soon enough, the studio audience starts pulling for the underdog.

I could happily write another 900 words talking about the Stalkers. Hell, I could write 900 words about the ridiculous Dynamo – what with his opera singing and Lite Brite uniform and goofy little go-cart – but I’d just assume not spoil the experience for you. Yes, as Kurt Fuller grumbles in a particularly self-aware moment, The Running Man does have some third act problems, but it’s the helluva lot of fun and deserving of more attention than it gets.

 

This is the great and terrible Dynamo. Now go watch this movie.

****