Wednesday, August 22, 2007

80s Movie Night Strikes Back

While the dim-witted Carl Spackler ironically did not drive any golf carts, a small group of us got together last night to watch Caddyshack on Stacey's enormous new TV. Neither Georgina, Matt nor I had seen it in years and Stacey had never seen it before at all. I picked up a VHS copy at a garage sale a month ago for 10 cents so it made sense that wee should finally watch it. It is actually better than I remembered, but Rodney Dangerfield still doesn't do much for me. His humor always seems so forced. Chevy Chase & Bill Murray, on the other hand, are as fantastic as ever. Carl Spackler & Ty Webb are funny mother fuckers. Not to mention Ted Knight who was, of all things, the narrator on The Super Friends... who knew?

Check out these great quotes from the film (and feel free to add your favorite in the comments section):
"He called me a baboon, he thinks I'm his wife."
"You'll get nothing, and like it."
"Your uncle molests collies."
"well... we're waiting!"
"There's a force in the universe that makes things happen. And all you have to do is get in touch with it, stop thinking, let things happen, and be the ball."
"Wait up, girls; I got a salami I gotta hide still."
"Me winning isn't. You do."
And now, you can learn the story of Mitch Cumstien:


In other film news, Elizabeth and Dan were over yesterday dropping off some stuff they need to store here while they're in Japan & we got talking about old TV shows. Elizabeth mentioned dhow she has seen the father from Good Times in a lot of stuff recently. I said, "John Amos" no shit. He's been in a million things. He was in Coming to America & Roots." She then asks, "What's Roots?" At first I thought she wsa kidding & then I thought I must have misunderstood her. Meanwhile, Dan is looking at her like she's crazy. As we realized she really didn't know what Roots is, we tried to jar her memory, assuming sh must know. Who the fuck is 29 years old & hasn't heard of Roots? She'd apparently heard of Kunte Kinte, but didn't know who he was. When I suggested that not knowing what Roots is was like not knowing what Saturday Night Fever is she didn't believe me, but then Dan chimed in w/ "yeah, that's a petty good comparison. They were both huge cultural moments in the 70s." I'm still not sure she believed us. She was impressed that Geordie LaFordge was in it though. Reading Rainbow has that effect on people, I guess.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know that the ship that carried the real Kunta Kinte to the U.S. landed in Annapolis? There's some weird Alex Haley reading a book to kids statues downtown by the docks.

Anonymous said...

Send me a piture of it. I could use it in my class. (And to prove to Elizabeth that it exists.)

Anonymous said...

OK
I don't think I'll get down there before I come home on Saturday. But remind me when I see you and I'll do it when I get back.

History, or time, is a weird thing. It's weird that 200 hundred years ago or whatever, a big ship carrying slaves from Africa was unloading on the very same spot that everyone is chilling out eating ice cream cones and sipping their Starbucks now.

Anonymous said...

The corporate empire couldn't exist without slaves and genocide. I see a definite correlation between a history of slavery and Starbucks.

And slaves and enormous tvs. It's not really that enormous, though.