Category: What Hollywood Taught Me

If what was portrayed in films was what reality reflected, here’s what the school of film has taught me.

The movie “Red Dawn” taught me the following things about guerrilla fighting, communists and teen angst:

1. What have happened if the Russians had invaded Shermer, Ill and had to fight the kids from “The Breakfast Club” instead?  I could see Bender and Sporto doing OK… but despite the similarity of syllables, Anthony Michael Hall is no C. Thomas Howell.  Plus Ally Sheedy would have just ended up stealing a jeep and running it into a telephone pole.
2. High school history teacher vs. Russian paratrooper.  The guy in the sweater vest loses every time.
3. Having to drink the blood of something you kill when you go hunting for the first time is not only gross, but just seems like a mean joke rednecks play on rookie hunters.  They could have called the movie “Hepatitis Dawn”.
4. Powers Boothe used to not be fat and gross.
5. RPGs are the coolest bottle rockets ever.  No wonder everyone in the Middle East has them.
6. It’s convenient that the Russians speak Spanish and the Cubans speak Russian.  English might have helped too.
7.  I think camping in the Colorado Rockies in more dangerous than fighting Russians.
8. If a girl’s picnic basket explodes and blows up your tank… probably best not to chase after her with a pocket knife.  You’re already in trouble for losing your tank. 
9. Russian helicopters are tough.  I wonder why they waited until so late in the movie to use them.
10. Good thing those kids went to a high school with a mean mascot.  It wouldn’t have had the same effect for a guy to blow up a truck and then triumphantly yell, “LITTLE CYCLONES!”
11. This was the last time anyone would care about C. Thomas Howell.
12. Did I mention that RPGs are cool?
13. Patrick Swayze was really good at playing that guy who graduated from high school and then spent the next decade hanging around the high school attempting to recapture lost glory.   Lucky for him the Russian came along and gave him a hobby.
14. According to Jed, crying is bad.  It’s supposed to turn into something else.  I was hoping it would turn into popcorn.  Sadly it just turned into more crying.
15. If you’re a Russian pilot, it’s best to have your plane airborne before the enemy throws a hand grenade in your engine.
16. Drive in movie theaters make great concentration camps.  You can round up your enemies and make them eat Milk Duds and watch horrible Michael Bay movies.
17. Do not attack a tank with a pistol.  Everyone who’s played Call of Duty knows this.
18. The Russians would have had an easier time of it had they attacked the blue states instead of the red states.  Apparently every gas station in Colorado had its own resale arsenal.  If they’d have invaded California, the Wolverines would have been defending themselves with half skim lattes and lacrosse sticks.

The movie “Conan the Barbarian” taught me the following things about interpersonal relationships and foreign policy:

1. Steel is very important.  It is more important than air, earth, the sun, or mastery of the language you speak.
2. No amount of body painted camouflage will hide a 7’3, 300lb man with a 12 ft sword.  Especially when he runs around going, “Arrrrrghhhhh!”
3. If you can shoot a snake at someone with a bow and arrow… using the snake as the arrow… well that’s awesome… like “I was the voice of Darth Vader” awesome.
4. If you drink too much, don’t eat soup.  Pass out-suffocation risk!
5. Giant snakes prefer their human sacrifices to be naked and attractive ladies.  Ugly girls in heavy coats need not apply.
6. Snake Cult people have a horrible diet consisting mainly of green pudding and body parts.  Gross.  They also appear to be perpetually stoned.
7. James Earl Jones is a bully.
8. Hey California, that’s your governor in the loin cloth, drunk, punching that horse… just fyi.
9. Drawing complex crossword puzzles on people will bring them back from the dead.  If you’re the main character.  Everyone else gets hosed.
10. Wigs looked fake even in Barbarian times.
11. Having a cult has it’s benefits.  Sure, the protagonist wants to kill you but if you tell someone to jump off a cliff they’ll do it, boy howdy.  You also get all the free no-lye relaxer you want.
12. If Max Von Sydow had played Ming the Merciless in this movie, it would have made no sense… but I’d have watched it.
13. Crom is just Morc spelled backwards.  Barbarians were secretly worshiping aliens who looked like Robin Williams.
14. How come at the end of this movie Conan’s all old and has become king but at the beginning of the sequel he’s back to being a peon at 27 again?  I guess “Conan the Senior Citizen” isn’t good film.
15. If a Barbarian propositions you… no good will come of it.

The movie “Army of Darkness (Evil Dead 3)” taught me the following things about going back in time and undead things:

• Chainsaw arm/shotgun combo always wins in the middle ages.
• High school chemistry is important after all… you never know when you’ll need to make bombs.
• Sometimes details are important.  Sure, remembering 3 words seems like no big deal… but… well… oops.
• People from the middle ages don’t mind being called “primitive screwheads”, “primates”, or “spinach chin”
• Do not attempt to make an “Ash’s Death Mobile” using a go-kart and a lawn mower.  I won’t end well.
• Women in olden times were attracted to jerks too.
• I’d shop at S-Mart if I could find it.
• How many Ted Raimi’s does one movie need?
• How many Bruce Campbells does one movie need?  (The answer is 5.)
• A fake skeleton on a real horse running at speed is funny.
• Skeleton warriors are fans of the Three Stooges.
• Upon resurrection, the first thing a skeleton wants to do it practice dentistry and kidnap wenches.
• Don’t ever, ever try to kill a smaller version of yourself that you swallowed by drinking boiling water.
• Breaking a mirror is pretty bad luck after all.
• If faced with three books when you’re looking for one… just quit.  You’ve got a 66.66% chance of failure and face it… you’re in that situation because you’ve got crap luck.
• There is such a thing as a fat skeleton.
• You can’t be a hero without sarcasm.
• Being the Chosen One is pretty cool for about five minutes… then they put you to work.
• If you’re a jerk… and then you end up cloned as an evil version of yourself… that means you’ve got an evil jerk on the loose.  And apparently evil jerks are pretty hardy and difficult to put down once they get going.  [Insert favorite political comment here.]  They do still have they’re funny moments though.
• Being punched in the face by someone dancing around calling you “goodie little two shoes” is pretty irritating.
• Shooting someone in the face that had been dancing around calling you “goodie little two shoes” is pretty cathartic. 

The movie “Beetle Juice” taught me the following things about ghosts and the afterlife:

• Make sure your method of death leaves your body in a condition which you’d be happy spending eternity.  Here are examples of ways not to die:
  • Being turned to stone by Medusa
  • Being turned to salt by old testament god
  • Being sat on by a fat person
  • Exploding
  • Eaten by cannibals
  • In France
  • Excessive groin damage (all groin damage is excessive)
  • Eaten by French cannibals who use too much salt
• When you die, you can pull you face off for fun.
• Trailer park ghosts are really fun at parties.
• When you die you have to live in your house and wear the same clothes everyday.  I pretty much do that now.
• That was pretty creepy when that old lady made cigarette smoke come out of her neck, wasn’t it?
• Models are haunted.  The more elaborate, the more haunted.
• If you die and don’t like Calypso music, you’re hosed.
• I can understand the hatred of sandworms.  Unless you’re that guy from Dune.  Geena Davis thought she was that guy.
• I’d pay money to see Michael Keaton as Beetle Juice run around in a Batman costume… but that’s just me.
• I think the movie was originally titled, “Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis Are Boring Ghosts So We Added Michael Keaton”
• Saying “Alec Guinness, Alec Guinness, Alec Guinness” didn’t summon anyone.  It also made me question why I chose Alec Guiness to summon in the first place.  Maybe I figured he wouldn’t be busy.
• Winona Ryder as creepy girl, ok.  Winona Ryder as actress, nope.
• I bet Tim Burton’s house looks like the set of Beetle Juice and he has Danny Elfman’s Greatest Hit on replay.
• They need to make a Beetle Juice 2 so that when I do my impression of Beetle Juice they don’t think I’m that dude from Slingblade.
• Dick Cavett and Robert Goulet in the same movie was spoken of in Revelations I think.

The movie “The Shining” taught me the following things about hotels in winter:

1. It sucks to be Scatman Crothers.
2. Alcoholics Anonymous and haunted hotels do not mix.
3. Stay out of hedge mazes on cold nights.
4. Talking fingers are scary.  Really scary.
5. Random naked people are dangerous.  They are often scary and confusing.  Really confusing.
6. When chasing someone with an axe, having a few one liners prepared is a must.
7. Did I mention the thing about how it sucks to be Scatman Crothers?
8. If you really want to scare an audience have loud, jarring segues announcing what day of the week it is.
9. Ghost bartenders are kinda cool.  Until you hear about their homelife.
10. Big wheeling in a vacant hotel seems like a cool idea.  I’d like to drive a go-cart around a casino.
11. Twin little girls that dress alike and talk slowly in unison are very scary.  Parents of of twins should consider selling one of the set on ebaby.com. 
12. Don’t be within 100 miles of a writer when they have the big meltdown.  Also, don’t get on an airplane to fly back to be within 100 miles of a writer during said meltdown.
13. What were you thinking, Scatman?