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OK ... I only had two goals for my pick this time around: I wanted to pick something that 1. I have never seen (I’m losing steam on the homestretch of my DLM challenge), and 2. is free somewhere on the internet. First, although this film is not hailed as a triumph of musical cinema, its legacy upon the world is enduring. I remember this film from my History of Rock 'n' Roll class. It stars and features music from the likes of Little Richard, Fats Domino, The Platters, Eddie Cochran and others. When this movie premiered in Great Britain in 1956, it marked one of the first mainstream introductions of early rock ’n’ roll music to the British public. As such, many future rock legends who were part of the British Invasion of the 1960s cite this film as a major moment of inspiration on their ensuing careers. John Lennon and Paul McCartney, for example, tell stories of how they first bonded as musicians by playing their favorite tracks from the movie for each other. Then, in 1960, they formed the Beatles and the world was never the same. Secondly, the star of the flick, Jayne Mansfield, is an underrated musical talent. This film plays up the idea that she is an “all looks, no talent” bombshell bimbo, but Mansfield only got started in movies after a fairly successful stint in Broadway musicals. She’s trained at both the piano and violin. Furthermore, she has become a sort of punk music icon. There are bands named after her and a several volumes of songs that reference her life and death. I give you: You can watch the whole thing here on YouTube.

Can't sleep. Thinking about Musical Mondays...

I fully admit that this is anecdotal... and it was also about 2005, but I had a good friend who was a stripper and one night she invited me to go with her to her club to see a Chippendale's type show (generic Chippendales...I can't remember their name.) By the time the dudes showed up , very late, the place was PACKED with ladies who were well on their way to being drunk AF. There were only 4 or 5 guys performing, and yes they wore themed costumes (this seems to be a feature of male dance reviews since it is not as "every day" as women's strip clubs are and by definition are a bit more theatrical... and to be fair lady strippers wear themed costumes too... it's just not the rule.) ANYHOO - the whole point of this post is that - yes - the male dancers have a much different party-line when it comes to touching. In most strip clubs around the US you do NOT touch the female strippers end of story. Male dancers do not seem to have this rule (at least these dancers at this time). I was groped, touched, and my hands were placed on the dancer's bodies by the dancers themselves... many times. If you had dollar bills they let you do all the touching you want. As they went through the crowd it was a veritable free for all. I do not remember a lot of kissing, but I do believe it happened. It was insane... in my memory it was very much similar to the scenes in this movie where the ladies just lost their minds. Also keep in mind that almost every time I have ever seen a male stripper, they do not get to down to the Fully Monty as they say... there's always a tinier banana hammock underneath every layer of clothing...like a filthy russian nesting doll. NOW - it probably goes without saying - this was pre "me too" and I wonder if the Chippendale culture hasn't changed quite a bit. I can only imagine that the dancers touching the female patrons would be verboten these days... maybe the patrons have to sign a consent form? In conclusion - do I believe this this movie is accurate to early 80s male stripper culture? Oh yes I do. PS. I was so happy that Paul mentioned the strip club scene in Mr. Mom, which is one of my favorite movies and I recognized its similarity to Rick's stripping scene instantly. This is the best clip I could find, but it's a hilarious companion to this movie... the stripper in this one is into Michael Keaton.

Oh this is going to be fun!

Interesting. The patriarchy holds even in male strip clubs.

Can't sleep. The_Triple_Lindy will eat me.

I've finished the show itself but I started the Masterclass and honestly I could watch Mary Berry cook stuff for the rest of my life.

A big failure of this movie, that I think the filmmakers thought might be a strength, was that they don't spell out a lot of things and don't tell the whole story in some places. For instance, the weird AF scene with the husband and the woman he runs into and catches up with in the kid's bedroom. I think what happened there is that HUBS used to work with her husband, but he died and they lost touch... here they are reminiscing for no reason and adds nothing to the film except that it shows old Hubsy might not be that far from straying either. They never flat out tell the story of their relationship... as most people don't when they are catching up with people they know. Unfortunately, this vagueness is just strange and uncalled for. And of course the other big vague relationship is Slick and Rick. Slick is Rick's girlfriend and they set it up from the beginning ... I would even say it's the biggest throughline for the entire movie. When we first see Slick on the asinine commercial, the guy watching the commercial says "Tony says that's his best friend's girlfriend"... Tony is the guy dancing with the floor polisher in the hallway and his best friend is Rick. Why they decided to give us this information here is a mystery. When we see her next she is waiting outside Rick's trailer to pick him up... she sees that he's had sex with the blonde girl and is clearly hostile about it, but god love them I think the filmmakers were trying to make their relationship nuanced (and to be fair - FAILED, they were trying to be too smart for this stupid movie.) It's a little like the movie shows them in a rough patch in their relationship and what we see in the end in the shower is them getting back together. The movie NEVER flat out expresses this, but Slick is always hanging around in the background of Rick's scenes... she shows up almost every time. It's like they are trying to show that although she does express some mild jealousy, Rick sleeping around (right or wrong) is a known fact about their relationship. One line of dialogue at the trailer park could have made this clearer. Also - WTF was that commercial for?

I’m excited for this, Trip!

Ooh sounds cool. Julie London too!

The name of the strip club is Heaven, and Faye does seem to have a hard time reconciling the fact that she's there. She's finding it hard to believe that she and her sister ("we") are in Heaven. I hate myself for trying to defend this mess.

Maybe it's supposed to be like, "Whoa, man, I can't believe we're actually in heaven!" Like a euphoric disbelief or an amazing mind-blowing circumstance. Hey man ... it's Florida.

Since this is the same screenwriter as "Nashville", I guess that explains... Also, "Shark Free Pool"? Wut?

As a straight male, I've long advocated for more dick in movies. It just always takes me out of it to see the lengths a movie will go to keep men's junk covered up while putting women's bodies on full display ... legs, shadows, cleverly placed foreground objects, L-shaped bedsheets, etc. So I applaud this movie for its schlongitude, although I think if you had the balls (ahem) to put a dick in your movie, you should also have the balls to have the genitals align during the sex scenes ... LAW is up near his belly button. Also, as a white male, I love being barefoot. I thought it was just because it is more comfortable to be out of shoes ... I didn't know it was a racial predisposition. My daughter also loves it ... she asks to take her shoes and socks off first thing when we get home. I hate to think I've trained her to be a stereotype. EDIT: This is my 500th post! I think this is the perfect way to celebrate. The human body is beautiful, people. Shed your hangups!

Some more big questions: 1. At what strip club can strippers actually kiss their customers live on stage and no one gets in trouble? I'm pretty sure that's a big no-no in that business. 2. I was confused about the time line near the end. Rick has sex with Faye in the hotel room, then she leaves, and then she returns after what seems like a short time to find Rick already having shower sex with his other girlfriend. How quickly did he manage to set this up? And how quickly did Faye's husband get to that hotel after having just talked to her on the phone? Is everyone just hanging around in the vicinity of this hotel all the time? 3. Let's take a look at this poster: Is there any scene in the movie that looks even remotely like this? Who is that woman supposed to be?

My favorite character was Tony the janitor because he was the only person with a complete story arc in three short scenes. He has the night shift at NASA where he can dance, listen to music and clean the floors. Tony is under appreciated at work as seen from the old man who enters and yells at him. Whitney treats Tony as an equal, he complimented him on his dancing and has even shared information with him about the bike. Tony visits Rick at the strip club and his friends are excited that he has the night off. Tony reveals he was actually fired (I guess NASA really wanted to clean house after getting that sweet military contract). Rick wants him to join as a dancer but Tony doesn’t believe he could ever do anything like that because he’s Catholic and his wife would kill him. In the end Slick is unable to find Rick at the stip club and recruits Tony to be her new lead dancer as the Service Man. There are holes in Tony’s story sure but considering he goes through the most growth throughout the movie, I’d say Tony is in fact the protagonist.

Oof this is gonna be a rough watch lol. I'll save the rest of Great British Bake Off for after that so I can have a delightful palette cleanser.

As I said when I saw him, holy shit, that was Andy Garcia! Makes an appearance right after the kidnap scene:

No, they don't, but I meant more in terms of Norman's psychological and emotional journey. Norman - or at least that part of his psyche - is essentially "Mother's" third and final victim. That shot, however brief, as the cars are pulled out of the the swamp (and as all secrets are laid bare), is the punctuation at the end of the movie. In the grand scheme of things, it's not really all that big of a deal. It just seems weird to me not to mention it. It's an interesting footnote if nothing else That being said, I'll try to refrain from commenting anymore until I've actually listened to the episode. I don't want to take anyone out of context. Psycho is a personal favorite of mine, and I guess I'm just surprised by the general apathy it's getting when a movie like the Sixth Sense seemed to get so much praise.

I'm honestly worried for his sister's cat(s) that she asks him to take care of when she escapes to San Francisco and her prison boyfriend. That cat is a goner for sure.

Well, "Not tonight, Josephine," is a quote supposedly from Napoleon (when declining to sleep with his wife... like Whitney does later in the movie!), so maybe it's just idiosyncratic command syntax? Also, it plays "La Marseillaise," the French national anthem, furthering the connection. Not sure why it's eaten by a shark, though. Regarding Rick's relationship with his mother, when she questions him about his grades, he distracts her by hugging her, picking her up and spinning her, and telling her she has a great ass[!]. His mother not only laughs this off, but says, "It sure is a good thing you're cute, kid." The whole thing is disconcertingly flirty. Also, earlier in the same scene, his sister explains that she's late because she had to go to the 7-11 and was held up comforting a woman who was apparently in labor, but the baby never showed up so they took her home? This is yet another baffling scene that is never brought up again but can be shrugged off the explanation of "It's Florida."

Omggg yes! Redo the episode like Jason wanted with June and Nicole!!!

Absolutely killing me that they are calling the Bryan Adams song "All That I Need" instead of its actual name which is "Heaven", both because this is one of my favorite songs of all time, and because it actually explains why they would use it in this movie. (Though not why Mr. Adams would allow them.)

Yeah. There's a Letterman clip. Even Grizzly Man which was a recent, well known documentary from a well known filmmaker couldn't use its Letterman clip for the DVD release. If Grizzly Man didn't argue for rights for home media, A Night In Heaven definitely didn't.

Watching this crazy movie, it's actually shot pretty well, but the editing is terrible, and the writing doesn't help either. I have to imagine the reason it's not available anywhere is the cost of licensing the music. In the first 30 minutes there are at least four major music cues. And I think there's a Letterman clip in there too.