Nerdlove

Anyone else getting a "Tinfins" vibe from this movie?

Normally, I'm the world's biggest sap and I cry at the drop of a hat. I cry at commercials sometimes. I fully love the movie "Where the Heart Is." But this movie just left me... meh. I didn't buy into the romance of between Katie and Alex at all. Their chemistry was... like... Canadian.

I originally came to HDTGM because of June. I fell in love with her watching "Burning Love" -- she was so brilliantly funny right out of the gate, first ep when her character couldn't remember the quote she wanted to say to Ken Marino's character -- that I thought, "why is this woman not a household name? what else has she done? because I am *there*." And then I found HDTGM. Now of course I love all three of them, especially how they function together (they've got a Kirk/Spock/Bones thing going on, really -- a perfect ego/superego/id kind of balance). But June was my way in. So... yeah, I've been down with JDR this whole time. Whatever assistant reads these posts, be sure to pass along the love to JDR if you can, ok? Because we love her!

So, the ongoing joke of HDTGM is that they never actually answer the question, "How DID this movie get made?" Well, guys, if you really want to know how Xanadu got made, here you go. http://www.donosdump.../chapter01.html Be afraid, be very afraid; it's re-e-eally long, and written by someone who has, perhaps, not the strongest grasp on English. But it's pretty fascinating, if you have the time and patience. One thing that the link explains is the mural. Paul wondered, what relevance did the mural have to not-Andy-Gibb-guy? Apparently, earlier versions of the script made it clear that not-Andy-Gibb-guy DID in fact paint that mural, but in the flurry of rewrites and re-editing, the director/editors managed to mangle the plot so badly that the mural's origins got lost completely. Also? As part of the promo machine of the movie, Marvel put out a rushed-job Xanadu comic book. Seriously. Guys, it's a thing that exists. And.... you can read the entire thing here at this link: http://www.onlyolivi.../xanadu/marvel/ It's pretty amazing. My favorite part is on page 37, "The Making of Xanadu": I would have to disagree categorically on both levels. You did not have a great story to begin with, and in fact, it was already more or less a two-dimensional medium, both literally and metaphorically.

honestly my best advice is to move to Colorado so you can legally get stoned watching this movie b/c otherwise it's difficult to fathom getting through it. I mean, we've watched movies that were more bonkers than this but somehow this one is special. At least this movie isn't as bad as "The Apple," which is like if you took Xanadu, took out the majority of the talent, replaced the pretty decent music with terrible music, and added a religious subtext that is basically just text. ::ugh::

Oh, and are we not going to discuss this happening? After Grampa Bond steals the firetruck, these two police cars seem to crash into each other and.. fuse? Seriously, what is going ON here? The cops shout at each other from their windows, "We're locked up!" (I think?), and then just... keep driving...but stuck together. It reminds me of what June said about the skiing scene, that Bond snowboarding made the bad guys forget how to ski. Apparently, Bond driving a fire truck made these police officers forget how to drive. And made cars forget how to... car.

Man, I thought that as a former English major this would be my turn to shine -- I caught both "Jenny Flex/genuflects" and the normal pronunciation of St. John right off. (Can anyone think of a more erudite blow job joke in modern cinema? Because I can't.) But I'm late to the party. So I'll just share this little video from Jane Eyre. About 30 seconds in, someone pronounces St. John as "Sinjin" so you can all hear for yourself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkO51g7oXnw I also wanted to say: Did anyone else get this sense, watching the movie, that Bond would have old man smell? Like that indefinable thing that seems to start oozing out of old white dudes once they're past about 65? ::shudder::

For the person above who suggested that Miley and whichever-shit-dick-it-was fuck for the first time, it would ruin the sheets, I just feel the need to point out that the whole "girls bleed the first time they have sex" thing is a fallacy. The girl generally won't bleed if she's actually completely turned on. Sex shouldn't be painful, even the first time. Sex ed in this country (and others) is really awful, and people walk around thinking "yeah it's going to hurt the first time" so it's like they don't even try to make sure it won't.... Which it won't if you spend enough time on foreplay and if the girl is really relaxed and into it. So yeah, no, they wouldn't necessarily ruin the sheets, if they used a condom and didn't get too wild. Just sayin'.

Not related to Rhinestone, but related to bad movies -- did you guys see this? The actors from "The Room" (minus Greg Sestero and Tommy Wiseau) are making a short film about life after being in the worst movie of all time. It's fictionalized, but it looks like it's going to be pretty funny. Even if you think you don't want to kick in to the kickstarter, you should go watch the little video intro they put up. The guy who played Denny looks older than everyone else in the cast now -- I mean, I couldn't even figure out who he was at first. They've already met their funding goal, but they're hoping to raise more money to make the film a bit longer, so I hope more people kick in because I think it's going to turn out really funny. Sorry for the off-topic comment but I figured that anyone reading this forum would be interested in this! And now, back to our regularly scheduled HDTGM commentary.

It was toward the end, when Dolly said to Sly, "You've given me nothing more than brown eyed agony!" I sat there blinking at the screen for a moment, then turned to Urban Dictionary. And... sure, whatever, that makes as much sense as anything. And yeah, Hypnotizing Chickens, I found myself sort of obsessed with the bizarre dialog in this movie. (here's my whole long recap thinger, complete with screenshots and links to Youtube clips and all sorts of random comments, because like a lot of people on this board, I found this movie very... upsetting. If you still haven't seen the movie, you might be able to make do by skimming my recap, or anyway looking at the screenshots/Youtube clips.)

If you follow this link to the box office from the week Rhinestone was released, you'll see that the top 5 were: 1. Ghostbusters 2. Gremlins 3. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom 4. Rhinestone 5. Karate Kid Romancing the Stone was in #11, Police Academy was #12, Sixteen Candles was #14, and Spinal Tap was #19. So many good movies (or at least, fun classics that people remember) all out at the same time! And then there's Rhinestone...

How did you guys NOT discuss the Clockwork-Orange esque table at Freddie's house? Or the row of sex dolls that are just hanging on the wall there? But the biggest question of all: What is going on here? Jake's dad looks directly down at her tits and says, "Mercy, don't you look sassy?" Jason, for someone as turned on by incest as you claim to be, I would have thought you'd hone right in on this.

I know, Fudgie. Something about it just really... got to me. Like, Temptation made me angry at all the misogyny, and Stayin' Alive was so relentlessly silly, but Rhinestone was just so.... It's as if Stallone was TRYING to make an awful movie and Dolly was trying to make a cute one and everyone else involved thought they were making a drama and... I don't know, man.

So... first off, yes to basically everything above about loving the Q&A and wanting more Jason and June in on Q&A segments! Secondly, so I thought I'd put together a list of all the various youtube clips I could find of Rhinestone and put them in order, for people who couldn't find the movie. And then I thought I'd add a little commentary in between the clips to help people follow the plot, and then I was home sick for a day or two and the whole thing got out of hand with screengrabs and stuff. So... yeah, if you can't watch the actual movie for whatever reason, you can read my summary/review/thing and see the video clips and screengrabs instead. Or if you just can't wait for the podcast to get some snark, you can read the summary/review/thing anyway for the heck of it. Part 1 and Part 2. I'm an amateur; be kind.

Ok, just everything about this clip is Next Level Bonkers, from the guy who keeps putting salt in his beer (???) to the super-foamy beer to just... I can't.