*Taps microphone*
Hey guys! How’s everyone doing?
I hope all you boozers have been hanging in there and staying safe during these strange, strange times. Anybody actually make that whipped coffee that takes like four hours, or is everyone just reposting the same photo?
Like most people, I’ve been trying to think of productive things to do while in quarantine, but in actuality, most of my time has been spent trying to win that Whole Foods app game (the one where you fill a cart with stuff and try to get a delivery window- such fun!), trying to remember the last time I showered, and binge-watching TV series and movies.
Even finding something to watch seems like a monumental task – flipping through every streaming service for hours until finally just watching ten episodes of Cheers that I’ve already seen at least a dozen times.
It’s even been kind of hard to find joy in one of my biggest passions- bad movies. With the horrors and hopelessness of this strange suspended limbo we are currently in and the unknown of what life will be on the other side, it’s tough to let go enough to escape and laugh.
But these films really did help. Each in their own special way…
Ryan’s Babe (2000)
After years of searching for what’s been called “Canada’s answer to The Room,” I found a “Special Edition” of the elusive Ryan’s Babe on videonomicon.com and ordered that sucker like it was Neil Breen release (but not Breen’s latest release, because $160!?! Isn’t that corrupt? )
After viewing, I can concur that Ryan’s Babe more than lives up to the hype.
I plan to give this one another watch and do a deep dive review into each head-scratching element because it deserves nothing less, but to sum up, it is like if attention deficit disorder was a movie. I mean, the tagline on the DVD reads “The Road Movie That Doesn’t Know Where It’s Going.” It is truly something to behold.
In the first ten minutes, we get what appears to be a set-up for a framing device and the introduction to the character we think just might be “Ryan’s Babe,” but after a flashback, and then another flashback within the first flashback, the plot is dropped. The rest of the film follows this format (Note: I’m using the word “format” verrry loosely). We follow Ryan from one scenario to the next which includes getting kidnapped by the mob, attacked by a group of vengeful cheerleaders, falling in love with a troubled young mother, winning the lottery, and becoming a male stripper, before realizing the girl of his dreams was right where he started, recovering from a faked suicide attempt, because that’s a formula for a stable, long-term relationship. And comedy.
Ryan is often the victim of mistaken identity and sometimes drugged, but you’d never know anything bothered him from his expression. He just takes it all stride and bounces from one place to the next, each more bizarre than the last.
The writer/director (Ray Ramayya, Ph.D- and you bet your ass he is credited that way), seems to be attempting a modern take on The Odyssey (a character is shown reading the book just in case the reference managed to slip by), but it’s in the most wrongheaded and ham-fisted way possible.
This truly is one of those bad movies that must be seen to be believed. There are so many things that, in hindsight, could have been improved drastically by making the tiniest tweaks (for instance, rather than the flashback-within-a-flashback, just have TWO flashbacks) but Ramayya, thankfully, never does.
I loved every damn minute of it.
Mini-Drinking Game:
Take a Drink: whenever Ryan has to escape from a situation
Take a Drink: when the dubbing is off. Take Two: when two voices are dubbed to the same person
Take a Drink: every time a stranger offers Ryan a car, a job, an apartment, etc.
Take a Drink: whenever Ryan is mistaken for someone else
Take a Drink: when a new potential “Ryan’s Babe” is introduced Take Another: when she exits the film abruptly
Do a Shot: for every minute that passes during the stripping scenes (seriously, it’s like a damn quarter of the movie)
Do a Shot: each time Ryan makes the absolute worst choice possible (go easy)
FreeJack (1992)
Somehow it took twenty-eight years and a global pandemic to finally watch the only film ever produced with the following cast: Emiliooooo Estevez, Mick Jagger, Rene Russo, and Anthony Hopkins.
Emilio plays Alex Furlong, a star race car driver who, during his biggest race, gets into a fatal accident. But right before the moment of his death, he is transported into the future, 2009 to be exact, to be a vessel for a dying millionaire. Alex escapes right before his brain is replaced with the one of the wealthy wannabe inhabitant of that sweet Estevessel. On the run, Alex is now known as a “freejack,” (Get it?), which, if enough snatched people have escaped that a term for them had to be created, the bad guys in charge should really work on improving their jacking tactics. It’s up to one bounty hunter (“bonejacker” – not making this up) to fetch him up and return him so the transfer can be completed before the old geezer kicks it. That man is Mick Jagger. The two embark on a cat and mouse chase for the ages, or at least for 1992.
I LOVED this film. It’s consistently entertaining, it’s got that very specific post-apocalyptic future aesthetic of the 80s/90s, and I mean, that cast.
Mini-Drinking Game
Take a Drink: every time someone mentions the Spiritual Switchboard
Take a Drink: whenever you wish this was the actual future instead of what we are currently in
Take a Drink: whenever Mick Jagger has a line of dialogue
Take a Drink: for the big shock of who the wealthy, dying man is (take a wild guess based on the cast)
Do a Shot: for the river rat eating scene
Do a Shot: whenever Emilio asks Rene Russo to nibble on his ear (ew)
Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988)
Think Mad Max: Fury Road but with frog-people and Rowdy Roddy Piper wearing a bomb-equipped codpiece. Do I need to say anything more?
Like Freejack, this one escaped me for the longest time. Also, like Freejack, there is a hilarious How Did This Get Made episode on it, which was an added delight (Quarantine tip: taking long walks while listening to past episodes of HDTGM really helps to clear your head and keep your sanity).
This is pure ridiculousness and everyone involved is playing it super tongue-in-cheek. It’s best to just enjoy it for exactly what it is (also best not to view it through 2020 glasses since the entire plot of the film revolves around Piper’s character repopulating the post-apocalyptic world with his super sperm, whether the fertile recipients want it or not).
Mini-Drinking Game
Take a Drink: whenever the crotch alarm starts beeping
Take a Drink: boobs!
Take a Drink: whenever anyone says “Sam Hell” (Piper’s character- yes, that is his name!)
Take a Drink: for every parallel to Mad Max: Fury Road (it is seriously the SAME MOVIE)
Take a Drink: whenever you wish this was the actual future instead of what we are currently in
Do a Shot: for the Dance of the Three Snakes
Pour one Out: for Rowdy Roddy Piper (We miss you!)
NOTE: There is a 1993 sequel, but I’ve been advised against it.
Liz and Dick (2012)
Like many, I have been having regular bouts of insomnia for the past two months. Usually it works like this: By 11PM I fall asleep ten minutes and one and a half glasses of wine into a TV show or movie. Then around 3AM, I wake up, toss and turn a bit, check my phone (never a good idea these days, especially not at 3AM), and then an hour later decide sleep is just not happening. That’s when I give up and attempt to watch something.
Despite the virtually unlimited library of quality film and television programming I have at my fingertips, I opt for shit like this 2012 Lifetime made-for-TV biopic chronicling the tumultuous relationship of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton starring Lindsay Lohan in her attempted big comeback. (Thanks Tubi!)
I remember hate-watching this back when it premiered and having a pretty good time, but I also was curious to see if we were all little unfair to Lindsay back then and if it would be a different watch nearly a decade later. I mean the only thing I really recall from it was the “I’m so bored” line which has since become a meme.
Pretty much sums up the last three months.
Yeah, it’s still awful, but intriguingly so. There are some legitimate good things about it though. Like the gorgeous costumes and makeup. (*Fun fact: This film was nominated for “Outstanding Makeup For A Miniseries or a Movie” and a “Outstanding Hairstyling for a Miniseries or Movie” at the 2013 Emmy Awards.) There are moments where Lohan really does resemble Elizabeth Taylor. Then she opens her mouth and that’s all shot to shit of course, but there really was an effort made here and I appreciated that.
Grant Bowler, who plays Burton, was 100% committed to his role and carries the film. If you watch closely enough, you can even see the real-life frustration on his face.
To be fair, there are moments when Linds tries, but they are fleeting.
Still, it’s a whole lot of fun.
Mini-Drinking Game
Take a Drink: whenever a character does
Take a Drink: every time Liz and Dick get in a fight
Take a Drink: when Liz and Dick break up
Take a Drink: when Lisa and Dick get back together
Take a Drink: for every time jump
Do a Shot: “I’M SO BORED!”
Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985)
Other times during my insomnia fits, I look for something comforting and familiar to help ease my mind. This is when I turn to 80s cheese. And you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more 80s cheestastic film than this often overlooked tale of one girl’s struggle to overcome all the odds and win a contest to become a regular on a weekly dance television show.
Starring a very young Sarah Jessica Parker, Helen Hunt, Shannen Doherty, Jonathan Silverman, and some guy named Lee Montgomery who was never heard from again, this movie has everything: babies in pizza, nun gymnasts, punk rockers destroying a debutante ball while performing a fully choreographed dance routine, Helen Hunt’s grasshopper hat, Cyndi Lauper’s iconic song which is not ever performed by Cyndi Lauper… it goes on and on.
I could write a dissertation on Helen Hunt’s wardrobe in this film.
This one holds a special place in my heart. I remember watching this one over and over as a kid with my sister and revisit it often enough that I can recite the entire thing, including all song lyrics, on the spot. Dare me.
I’ll never understood why this movie is never mentioned along with the others of the dance movie craze of the time. It fits right in alongside Flashdance, Footloose, and Fame (maybe because it doesn’t start with an F?)
Oh also, speaking of 80s dance movies, Girls Just Want to Have Fun featured “the lift” two whole years before Dirty Dancing:
Sit in your corner, Baby.
(This is 1980s perfection and I will not budge on this position. Good Day!)
Mini-Drinking Game
Take a Drink: for every amazing ensemble Helen Hunt wears (I like to believe that young Helen took her role as the “wacky best friend” character so seriously that she made these choices herself)
Take a Drink: every time someone says “Dance TV” or “DTV”
Take a Drink: whenever someone does a backflip
Take a Drink: whenever you spot a stunt dancer (hint: watch for dim lighting, extreme wide shots, or close ups of bodies from the neck down)
Do a Shot: TUNE IN TOKYO!
Do a Shot: The Lift
Do a Shot: If you can spot a young Robert Downey Jr., who was dating SJP at the time (Hint: Pay attention during the “Wake Up the Neighborhood” scene)
Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1989)
Sometimes you just pick a movie based on the title alone. This was one such instance. On first glance, and I mean, look at this first glance:
I assumed this would be a ridiculously bad B-movie. But I was pleasantly surprised that this one turned out to be a (genuinely) hilarious campy satire about feminism and gender roles.
It stars a very young Bill Maher (yes, that Bill Maher) as a not quite Indiana Jones (there are some moments that spoof popular films and pop culture from the time period that feel right out of an Airplane! movie) who is on a mission along with a college professor played by Shannon Tweed (I know!) to try and locate another professor (Adrienne Barbeau) who has gone missing in the California Avocado Jungle.
And then there is Bunny (Karen Mistal) who is everything and now one of my favorite movie characters of all time.
This is a legitimately funny, sharply-written, and well-acted forgotten gem. Some of the references may not be familiar to younger viewers (there’s a tribe of men called the “Donnahew”) though.
In case you need to be convinced further to watch this one, here’s Bill Maher being “prepared” for the cannibalistic Piranha Women’s feast.
Mini-Drinking Game:
Take a Drink: whenever Maher’s character says something chauvinistic
Take a Drink: for every pop culture reference
Take a Drink: whenever anyone says “avocado”
Do a Shot: every time Bunny doesn’t understand something. Oh Bunny.
Well, that’s all for this installment. Get to watching (and drinking — but NOT bleach. No matter what you might have heard, it is not safe!) and hit me up at @BabyRuthCT on Twitter to let me know your thoughts on these picks and if there’s anything you’d like me to cover in the future. Stay safe out there Boozers!
