Monthly Archives: August 2010

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On The Couch #28: Risky Business

This is one of those “What do you mean you never saw ______?” movies that I’m trying to clear through over the course of this blog. I’m not sure why I never saw Risky Business. I guess I came late to the Tom Cruise party. The first movie I remember watching with Tom Cruise in it was Cocktail. If that last line caused a bulb to light in your head, that’s right, besides never seeing Risky Business, I’ve never seen Top Gun either. But oh man, did I watch Cocktail. I was obsessed with that movie when I was 12. I owned it on VHS and watched it over and over again. I recently watched it again. It’s not very good. I think 12 year old me was a little too hung up on the soundtrack’s one-two punch of Kokomo and Don’t Worry, Be Happy to notice how weak this movie really is.

What’s sadder? How much I was obsessed with this movie when I was 12 or the fact that I probably wouldn’t turn it off if it came on TV right now?

Risky Business is like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off from Cameron’s point of view. Despite being the more handsome of the pair, Tom Cruise’s Joel is definitely the Cameron to Curtis (BOOGER!!!!) Armstrong’s Miles. It’s Miles who calls the first hooker. It’s Miles who tells Joel “Sometimes you just have to say what the fuck.” Meanwhile, it’s Joel who has the dad who’s obsessed over his expensive sports car. And its’ Joel who is a whiny stick in the mud in every scene except for when he’s getting action from Rebecca De Mornay’s Lana.

At least the movie gave us that Bob Seger Old Time Rock N’ Roll dance scene, which for years I didn’t know originated with in this movie.

Sorry, Tom. Heidi Klum does it better.
Was this also the first movie to give us the Tom Cruise patented “Is he cocky or crazy face?” (Please see Exhibit A)
Exhibit A.

If I knew Bronson Pinchot was in this movie, I would have seen it years ago. But for some reason, I find it weird whenever he’s not talking in his Balki voice. I don’t care if he was born in New York City and not Mypos, every time I see him, I expect the Balki voice and it’s always jarring when he’s not speaking in it (which is 99% of his non-Perfect Strangers career).

I cannot think of Bronson Pinchot without his America or Burst sign.

A few years ago, I was stuck trying to figure out a Christmas present for a friend. Enter my brother, who recommended Risky Business on DVD, because every girl loves Risky Business. My friend gave me a weird look when she unwrapped Risky Business, so you might want to think twice before you use it as your go-to Christmas gift.

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On The Couch #27: Mystery Team

I saw Donald Glover do stand-up in NYC at Comix not too long ago. He was hilarious. If he comes to your town, you should definitely go see him perform. When I heard that he co-wrote and starred in Mystery Team (along with the other members of his sketch comedy group Derrick), I immediately moved it to the top of my queue. You should too. This movie is really funny.

It’s full of one-liners that I can definitely see being quoted over and over again, similar to the way I treated Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The State and My Blue Heaven in high school (and beyond).

It’s a vegetable.

The movie is about three Encyclopedia Brown-esque detectives. Emotionally, they’re 18 going on 12. And they just graduated to their first murder case, which proves to be a little more difficult than figuring out who stuck his finger in a neighbor’s pie.

You know you’ve made it when your bike matches your Chucks.

If you’re a fan of NBC’s Thursday night comedies, you’ll recognize at least one person from each show in this movie. You’ve got Donald Glover from Community, Aubrey Plaza from Parks & Rec and Ellie Kemper from The Office. 30 Rock gets represented twice, with Kevin Brown and John Lutz. It was impressive to watch John Lutz play a character not named J. Lutz. SNL’s Bobby Moynihan is great as the local convenience store clerk who has a very unnatural fixation on Donald Glover’s character.

I don’t know what’s funnier, Bobby Moynihan trying to get his hand in the pile or the Ground Round sign hastily put up over the counter.

This is the first movie this year that I watched the movie again with the commentary track on the day after watching the movie the first time around. The commentary track is great. The members of Derrick are funny here too and have good stories about making Mystery Team.

Derrick. The group.

You really should see this. It’s one of the best comedies I’ve seen so far this year.

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At The Theater #29: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Big thanks to my friend ST for hooking me up with an advance screening ticket to Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. You should check out ST’s blog Dear Times Square, which deals with the utter ridiculousness that is Times Square.

I loved the Scott Pilgrim movie. I read all six Scott Pilgrim books, but I don’t think they’re a prerequisite for watching this movie. It definitely stands on its own. The screenwriters did a great job of condensing all six books into a 90 minute movie and keeping the quality very high.

True story: Evil Ex #2 Lucas Lee was based on skater turned actor Jason Lee.

The casting was phenomenal. Top to bottom, every role was cast perfectly, especially the evil exes, who were so perfectly over the top.

I feel like most guys have this meter in their heads. Unfortunately, ours are most often set at “No Clue.”

Little Things I Liked Best About The Scott Pilgrim Movie:

The black bar over Julie Powers’ mouth every time she cursed. This made me laugh each time. And I love that one of the characters asked her how she did that thing with her mouth.

The vegan police. This was one of my favorite bits in the comic and I’m glad that it made its way into the movie largely intact. Evil ex #3 is a vegan and gains mental abilities from it. The extent of his betrayal of Envy Adams was cut down, but this whole fight was great.

Before this, I always though vegans only possessed the power of disdain.

Scott vs. Nega-Scott. I think they improved over the book in this case. The Nega-Scott fight in book 6 was a little too new-agey and a little too expository. But the movie scene of Scott and Nega-Scott walking out of Club Chaos together and making plans to hang out was perfect. And the explanation made perfect sense; it turns out they have a lot in common.

The lady I overheard while walking to the bathroom after the movie. She was yelling at her friend “Scott’s sister! The whole time I’m watching the movie, I’m asking myself where I know her from! Where?! The whole movie! Where do I know her?!? Who is she?” I made it to the men’s room before she finished her story, but after I got out my friend let me know she finished by yelling “TWILIGHT!!!” I was hoping she’d yell “UP IN THE AIR! That was totally George Clooney’s coworker!!!”

The pixelated Universal logo at the beginning of the movie. As soon as that popped up, with the accompanying 8-bit version of the Universal theme, a smile crossed my face. Weird thing though…In the credits, a line read “Animated Universal Logo copyright 1997 Universal Films.” What film used this logo in 1997? Does anyone know?

The 8-bit music score. Maybe I’ve been listening to The Nerdist podcast too much recently, but I really dug the 8-bit score playing throughout the movie.

You can stream both the score and soundtrack for free at Spinner.

There is a Scott Pilgrim vs. The World video game that was released for the Playstation Network. It’s great. It’s an old-school side-scrolling action game in the same vein as River City Ransom or The Simpsons Arcade Game. You can play as Scott, Ramona, Steven Stills or Kim. The character select screen is straight out of Super Mario Bros 2 and the world map is in the style of Super Mario Bros 3. It features HD 16-Bit graphics, which sounds a little oxymoronic, but I’ll go with it.

Yay for video game tie-ins that don’t suck!

There’s also a secret survival-horror Scott vs. Zombies mode in the game if you enter the following code at the title screen: down, up, right, down, up, right, down, up, right, right, right. Fighting zombies is always fun, but I can’t help but think it would be more enjoyable to have Scott and friends beating up glittery, abstinent vampires instead.

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On The Couch #26: She’s Out of My League

She’s Out of My League opened the same weekend as Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. I chose to see Alice and clearly made the wrong decision. She’s Out of My League and Alice and Wonderland are polar opposites when it comes to expectation and actual experience. My expectations for Alice in Wonderland were very high and it really failed to deliver. My expectations for She’s Out of My League couldn’t have been lower. The trailer made it look like a Maxim dating article come to life. But She’s Out of My League ended up being a very enjoyably cute romantic comedy, one that I wouldn’t mind watching again (something I can’t say about Alice in Wonderland).

I chose…poorly.

Having spent some time in Pittsburgh, I thought it was cool that the filmmakers decided to incorporate the city into the movie. The two main characters, Kirk (Jay Baruchel) and Molly (Alice Eve) spend a date at a Penguins game and another atop Mt. Washington, or Mt. Worshington as the locals call it.

I actually had this wear-the-same-jacket-on-a-date-as-the-waitstaff thing happen to me. Not the best feeling.

But if you’re going to set a movie in a city as unique as Pittsburgh, go all the way with it.

Where’s the Steelers gear? I have it on good authority that everyone in Pittsburgh is required to own no fewer than two Stilllers tee-shirts, and that really is a bare minimum. This doesn’t include Steelers caps, hats, sweatpants and XXL fatty Starter jackets. The last time I was in Pittsburgh I overheard a woman describe a t-shirt stand in the Strip District as “They have great Stillers shirts, but they don’t have any in womens’ sizes.” She was wearing a Cleveland Sucks t-shirt. In her party were five other people, four of whom were wearing Steelers shirt. The other guy was in a Pitt shirt. This seems like the right ratio that the costume design department should have gone with for She’s Out of My League. Filming a movie in Pittsburgh without anyone in Steelers shirts is like filming a movie at Fenway Park without inbred Red Sox fans.

At least 4 of these people should be in Steelers gear.

Where’s the Pittsburgh accent? Everyone in this movie is supposedly a Pittsburgh native, but nobody had a Pittsburgh accent. A lot of the cast did have accents, but they were cobbled together from everywhere but Pittsburgh. Kirk’s mom sounds like she’s from Minnesota and his brother sounds like he’s from the east coast. A lot of time is spent downtown, but no one calls it dahntahn. Not once did someone use the word yinz.

Where’s the Pittsburgh food? Pittsburgh is full of some of tastiest high caloric food in the country. You’re not born able to fit into a XXL fatty Steelers Starter jacket. You have to earn it through multiple trips to Pamela’s for pancake breakfasts, sandwiches stuffed with fries and coleslaw at Primanti Brothers, cheese cake from Gullifty’s, and smiley face Eat N’ Park cookies. I’m amazed more of this movie didn’t take place in an Eat N’ Park. Kirk and his slacker friends look like they would frequent midnight breakfast pretty often.

The Eat N’ Park smiley face cookie. So happy. So tasty.

Finally, where’s The Exchange? I’m pretty sure I spotted a stack of NES games behind Jay Baruchel’s head in one scene. He clearly like to blow his hard earned TSA pay at Pittsburgh’s mecca of used video games, The Exchange.

I think America is ready for a movie that really takes place in Pittsburgh. A movie where people go to Jynt Igle for their chipped ham sammitches n’at to eat at The Point.

Despite wanting more Pittsburgh in the movie, I still rate She’s Out of My League as positively Razzy Fresh!