Is there no greater proof of one’s commitment to a spouse than the fact that The Hammer actually agreed to see The Watchmen this weekend? I think not, even when one takes into consideration that the deal was brokered without one party coming clean on the film’s 160-minute length. Off the top, I can think of at least fifteen things she’d rather have been doing as we expended valuable babysitter time, and none involve spandex, bad make-up, wooden performances nor stale popcorn. But more surprising than the omnipresence of blue cock – the fact that The Hammer seemed to fancy the film more than I.
Truth be told, I entered with reservations, all of which were proved correct in one way or another as the film ramroded its way into hour #2. It wasn’t horrible, nor disrespectful to its source material. And in retrospect, there are some sequences that have lingered in memory memorably. Yet it’s telling that my current highlights – the origin tale of Dr. Manhattan, the case that cracked Rorschach – are sections where director Zach Snyder actually allowed the work a chance to breathe, a fact that supports the notion that Alan Moore’s classic was never adequately destined for compression.
Because I too often ponder what became of Rick Moranis, promise myself to investigate, then totally forget mere minutes later. In that respect, The Vulture drops some additional knowledge, admirably.
A COMMUNICADE FROM THE WOOK TO DAS EMPRA (Outtake)
THE WOOK: I know we've talked it up for years, the act of taking it in and all, but I have to be honest...I had to bail thirty minutes into Chill Factor. Remarkably, it pales in comparison to Daddy Day Camp.
DAS EMPRA: I weep for you, Wook. Ten long years you waited for that chance, only to give up on Cuba after 30 minutes? I'm sorry I wasn't there with you to show you the light.
Mom's Italian. 100% And while she could have poured the over-exuberant passion that is the genetic cross my people bear into anything obvious - food, language, Catholicism, music, Sophia Loren - she opted at an early age to funnel my genetic disposition into her love for the cinema.
We'd go every week, right after church, our reward for the pennance that was 10AM mass. And without cable television, without a VCR, my cinematic cravings were only sated on the homefront via the weekly sit-down with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. Thankfully, then as now, they were accessible via rabbit ears.
As far as my wonder years go, there was nothing on television that proved more influential than Sneak Previews, the duo's original incarnation of their Siskel & Ebert format which ran through 1982. In retrospect, I'd be hard pressed to not flag it as the best show ever.
I shit you not. I'll gladly go mano-e-mano with whatever overlauded American masterwork of scripted entertainment you can throw into the ring on this one, cochise. In my humble opinion, no American television program was as consistently intelligent, informative and - perhaps most importantly - flat out entertaining as the twentysome years that these two ruled the balcony; perhaps thousands of half hours that constitute, in retrospect, the greatest film class ever - for me, you, anyone.
If they boxed this shit on DVD, I'd buy it. From the moment I saw them gush enthusiastically over The Empire Strikes Back, I can honestly say that I never missed an episode - even with the hurdles set forth by collegiate hangovers, women and Siskel's untimely death in 1999. I was - and even with Roeper, still am - this show's bitch.
And now, it's over. In his online journal, Ebert officially closed the balcony yesterday. He writes:
I was surprised how depressed I felt all day on July 21, when Richard and I announced we were leaving the "Ebert and Roeper" program. To be sure, our departures were voluntary. We hadn't been fired. And because of my health troubles, I hadn't appeared on the show for two years. But I advised on co-hosts, suggested movies, stayed in close communication with Don DuPree, our beloved producer-director. The show remained in my life. Now, after 33 years, it was gone - taken in a "new direction." And I was fully realizing what a large empty space it left behind.
Yes, we're planning to continue the traditional format in a new venue, and taking the thumbs along with us. I'm involved in that, and it will be a great consolation. But somehow I thought the show Gene Siskel and I began would roll on forever. How many other TV formats had survived so long? I sat in my chair and day-dreamed.
I remembered a Saturday afternoon, it must have been the winter of 1975-76, when Gene and I were eating hamburgers in Oxford's Pub on Lincoln Av. with Thea Flaum, a young woman who would produce the show for WTTW, the Chicago PBS station. You didn't read her name in the news coverage of our departures, but she was the real "creator" of the show, as TV uses that term.
She told us she would build a balcony for us, and sit us across the aisle from one another. She told us we couldn't wear suits and ties - no one wore them to the movies. She came up with the idea of Spot the Wonder Dog. The show was monthly at first. On Sunday afternoons before a taping, we would separately sit across her dining room table from her and rehearse our scripts. We had "discussion points" we tried to memorize.
We were bad at that. If one guy dropped a discussion point, the other guy got mad. "We can't remember these points," Gene said, "but we can talk to each other." During that first season (the show was called "Opening Soon at a Theater Near You"), the final format took shape. In the pub that day, Thea told us, "You boys have no idea how far this show is going to go. One day you'll be in national syndication. You'll be making real money. You wait and see."
Her prophecy came true. The day we fully realized it in our guts, I think, was the first time we were invited to appear with Johnny Carson. We were scared out of our minds. We'd been briefed on likely questions by one of the show's writers, but moments before airtime he popped his head into the dressing room and said, "Johnny may ask you for some of your favorite movies this year."
Gene and I stared at each other in horror. "What was one of your favorite movies this year?" he asked me. "Gone With the Wind," I said. The Doc Severinsen orchestra had started playing the famous "Tonight Show" theme. Neither one of us could think of a single movie. Gene called our office in Chicago. "Tell me some movies we liked this year," he said. This is a true story.
Now the time has come to awake from my daydream. That's all history - treasured history, but past and gone, all the same. I remember what Gene said to me in that dressing room before the Carson Show: "Roger, we're a couple of kids from the Midwest. We don't belong here."
For the sake of it, sit through their review of Cop and a Half.
Two things I love about that clip; Siskel's reaction, as it often was when either found themselves in complete disagreement, masterful in how universal its bafflement was. Yet on the flip side, their enthusiasm for something they liked almost - almost - always produced a feeling that you simply had to see something that garnered a "Thumbs Up", just to experience the enthusiasm felt. Even Cop and a Half, but perhaps on cable. Basic. With rabbit ears.
Man, I miss these guys. But if it's not too late, is anyone even considering Skip and Steven A.? The fact that they agree on nothing but the disposibility of Maggie G - pure gold.
When I was but a geeky eleven year-old, my mom let me join the Columbia House record club, and with absolute certainty, I know that my introductory shipment included Cyndi Lauper's "She's So Unusual," the Ghostbusters soundtrack, and "Sports", the unstoppable hit machine from Huey Lewis and The News – delivered via cassette to our Gainesville, Florida addy - which if nothing else, ensured my dweebness until I was at least fifteen, when I was informed some band called the Pixies had named an album after me. By that point, I owned the entire Huey Lewis catalog, and while I never upgraded my dedication to CD, and eventually traded them in (obviously, with some degree of shame), I still will never flip past a station blaring one of his patented yuppie anthems. Come to think of it, I even noted “Hip to Be Square” as the “Song that Best Describes Me” in the Ridley High Yearbook from 1991.
Total…fucking…dork.
I spew forth such gloriously closeted memories if only because deep down inside, I was really pulling for these guys to make good on their theme song for The Pineapple Express, wherein a band that time forgot literally delivered a patented ‘80s theme song and single handedly revived not just the motion picture soundtrack, but perhaps the entire industry itself. As if too heavy a load to bear, the recently released track is certainly vintage, but not nearly as euphorically perfect as their “Power of Love” from the ’85 smash Back to the Future. Perhaps it’ll play better in 35 days (who’s counting) within the context of the summer’s cinematic high point (wink wink), but as a single, it’s half-baked (I’m killing today). Yes, it probably summarizes the film perfectly as any good ‘80s theme song should, but it lacks a certain panache, and actually does sound like…well…a bunch of fifty-something bar backs satisfying an Apatow-blessed in-joke. That said, it’s great to see that within the confines of the soundtrack itself, the world of The Pineapple Express somehow satisfies the inclusion of Huey Lewis, Peter Tosh, Public Enemy and Spiritualized.
In closing, perhaps they should have merely reprised “I Want a New Drug”, or perhaps covered what still remains the greatest theme song of all time…
...meaning that it accomplishes with one sighting a sudden urge to smoke dope, be merry, and officially begin counting off the 37 days until this preordained masterpiece lands in a multiplex near you.
TWO - this is supposedly the chorus of the Huey Lewis-penned theme song...
We got trouble, we got to get out of here.
I’ve got you,
you’ve got me.
We are as high as we can be.
That’s all right.
How did we get into this mess?
Pineapple Express!
...which even if the film is an absolute disappointment, will undoubtedly signal a slight resurgence in the cultural significance of both movie soundtracks and the alto sax.
