A Fool's Utopia 06.12.08: Summer Time

Posted by Ron Martin on 06.12.2008

This week in one man's utopia, we celebrate summer like it's never celebrated before! Also, we look back at Battle Beasts, Johnny Depp's next project and burly guys driving semi-trucks on ice.

It's that time of the year again. Time to be covered in a continuous thin layer of sweat; to feel the sting of the various insects that will treat your skin like a local drive thru; most of all, it's time to sit back and be accosted by all the images of summer that the media (be it movies, TV, music, etc.) want to throw at you. I realize that summer doesn't officially start until next week, but really, who goes by that day on the calendar anyways? Have you used the air conditioning in your car yet? Then it's summer. Officially. You can quote me on that if you need to just to prove a point to one of your spring loving hippie friends. We've already discussed the summer TV schedule but in celebration of my least favorite season, let's take a look at some summer related items of interest here at 411movies. Why? Why not?

Summer School



A movie about summer school starring Mark Harmon? You'd better believe it! Actually, let me rephrase that, a good movie about summer school starring Mark Harmon. How can it be bad? See on the movie poster --- his dog is wearing his sunglasses. The dog! That silly dog thinks he's human! This flick would come out in the …wait for it…summer of 1987 about a gym teacher teaching English in summer school to a bunch of slacker misfits. Don't let the fact that Mark Harmon and Kirstie Alley (coked up Kirstie, so she's easy to look at) star in fool you; this is basically a glorified B-movie. Need proof? In another leading role is none other than the king of 80s B flicks, Dean Cameron. Let's see if I can guess the entire class off the top of my head. There's the two special effects horror dudes, the guy who was secretly a stripper, the dumb jock, the dumb nerd, the pregnant chick, the sassy black girl and…I feel like I'm missing someone. Oh, the spacey chick who falls in love with the teacher. Damn, I just checked and I missed the guy who went to pee during the first day of class and came back just for the test and got the highest score. Aside from Harmon and Alley, this movie starred a pre-Melrose Place Courtney Thorne-Smith as spacey surfer and a pre-drugged up psycho killer Shawnee Smith as pregnant girl who obviously gives birth in the middle of the test. Give it a rent or a download if you haven't seen it. It's worthy of two hours of your time on a long Friday night.

"Summertime"



Alright, I know there are a lot of songs entitled "Summertime," by everyone from Bon Jovi to Beyonce. This is the only one I can relate to. This climbed the charts in 1991 and smoothed the transition from the wacky Fresh Prince to megastar Will Smith. I understand the song is nostalgic to Smith who grew up in Philly, but I think there's a little bit of something that everyone can relate to in the song somewhere. For the record, this would be the last time I would relate to Will Smith – except for Men in Black cuz I loves blasting me some alien meat.

Sunny



Come on. If you don't know who this is, then you're under 21 years of age. Sunny was the brighter side of The Bodydonnas. Sunny was the original WWE diva as you know them today. In fact, back in 1995/96 she was the only thing the WWE had going for it. While she was secretly having sex with Shawn Michaels in Vince's office, she was the most downloaded person on AOL (which was a big deal back then). Sunny would go from flat chested smart chick to big chested sexpot to drug addicted has been to rehabbed hottie in the matter of about 10 years. What's her connection with summer? Her name is Sunny, you idiot!

Not to be confused with that crazy bird who was cuckoo for cocoa puffs, Sonny.




It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia



Let me start by saying that this show is ridiculous. These four peeps own an Irish bar together and have the most outrageous, ludicrous (the word, not the rapper) competitions, situations and incidents. I love it. The show has been around about three years on FX and has a decent cult following despite none of the characters being very likable. It's kind of like what I imagine Northern Exposure would be like in the evil, alternate dimension only they're not all wearing goatees.

I Know What You Did Last Summer



After the success of Scream in 1996, Hollywood told writer Kevin Williamson "Okay, let's see what you can do with the other chick from Party of Five." He came up with I Know What You Did Last Summer aka "Jennifer Love Hewitt's boobs coming out party." Her words, not mine. Actually Summer had the benefit of piggybacking from Scream to do big numbers, even though some say that this script was already sold by the time Williamson wrote Scream. The story of four beautiful teenagers who kill someone and actually don't get away with it! Not because of justice or anything because, well, they're beautiful. Instead, in an anticlimactic moment the killer is the guy they killed last summer. I believe this may be the movie Sarah Gellar met future husband Freddy Prinze Jr, while filming. Gellar would move on to Scream 2 shortly thereafter to get killed there as well. This movie would spawn a less successful sequel with a young Jack Black (I Still Know What You Did Last Summer), a straight to DVD sequel (I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer and a porno (I Know Who You Did Last Summer. Eh, if it had a porno based on it, then you have to count it as a success.

Then there's this guy.



What is more summer than the motherf'n sun! Back in the day, Raisin Bran didn't screw around. They didn't need any crazy birds, leprechauns or elves to promote their cereal. They trumped them all by going and signing the sun to an advertising deal. The sun! You know. The thing that everything else in our solar system revolves around? The sun was so bright that eventually even the sun would take to wearing sunglasses in the commercials. Now, that's bright. As with all other celebrities, the sun would wear out his 15 minutes not leaving until thrown off the lot by a bunch of claymation raisins. It was a good run while it lasted, amigos.

-- There's a little radio show I that comes on late at night (or early in the morning, depending on what your preference is) that reminded me of a little something I had forgotten. Johnny Depp acquired the rights to a movie version of the old Dark Shadows daily soap opera. Of course Tim Burton is directing. For those of you not familiar with Dark Shadows, it was a soap opera that revolved mainly around Barnabas, a vampire and the cast of werewolves, witches, zombies, monsters, time traveling and alternate dimensions that surrounded him. Hugely popular in the late 60s/early 70s, Dark Shadows is the only daily soap (I think) that is entirely available on DVD. I assume Depp will be talking the role of Barnabas. I can think of no one better. Dare I say that no one has perfected the quirky, odd but loveable character better than Depp? Don't believe me?



Yeah, I think he's ready.

-- Here we go. Last week I promised to find the top 25 animated films of all time and I've done it. I scoured the internet and checked out 20 different top lists. With a convoluted point system, I ranked each movie. In the end, the list is such:

1. Toy Story (!)
2. The Lion King (!)
3. Fantasia
4. Finding Nemo (!)
5. The Incredibles (!)
6. Toy Story 2 (!)
7. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
8. Beauty and the Beast
9. South Park (!)
10. Bambi
11. The Iron Giant
12. The Jungle Book
13. Princess Monoke
14. Shrek (!)
15. Who Framed Roger Rabbit (!)
16. The Nightmare Before Christmas (!)
17. 101 Dalmations
18. Ratatouille (!)
19. Sleeping Beauty
20. Pinocchio (!)
21. Spirited Away
22. Wallace and Gromitt in the Curse of the Were-rabbit
23. Madagascar
24. Alice in Wonderland
25. Mulan

Movies with the (!) next to them denote animated films I have actually seen. As you can see, I have my work cut out for me. They got a lot of these movies for sale at garage sales, right? 11 down, 14 to go. Guess I'll start with my $1.50 version of Beauty and the Beast .



Best Thing I Saw On TV This Week: Ice Road Truckers

I know many who call the bravery of the men who travel the dangerous perils of the ice a poor man's Deadliest Catch. They scoff at the idea of men sitting in long trucks going 15 miles per hour being more entertaining than men running around the dock of a large crabbing boat while it bucks and tilts under the waves of the cold, dangerous ocean. Actually, that's probably all true, but I don't get to watch Deadliest Catch regularly, I get to watch Ice Road Truckers, okay? The History Channel double whammied us this week by showing the season finale (hopefully series finale) of Axe Men coupled with the season premiers of Ice Road Truckers. Though I'm not quite sure why the two most successful truckers from last season left the ice road they had known and loved for 20 some odd years to come to a new ice road, I was nonetheless entertained. The ice road from season one wanted no more to do with Ice Road Truckers, saying it was a danger. See, you Deadliest Catch lemmings! Even the ice road knows it's too dangerous for TV. In a week where there honestly wasn't a whole lot to watch, I looked forward to the new season. I know watching Drew sit in a bar and drink beer while he awaits to be given an assignment isn't much, but it entertains me. I like the fact that these guys are driving in -40 degree temperature that causes random shit to break down all the time. Even the heater. It's the best when the heater breaks down. That and how the hell do they get the shot of the trucks going over the ice from underneath the ice? That's insane!

-- I know last week that I said you could probably watch MXC on Spike and get all you needed of the kind of silliness that Wipeout is going to be. After an onslaught of commercials headed my way during the NBA Finals, I'm ashamed to admit that I am going to be watching at least the first couple of episodes. I guess you just can't get enough of people getting the crap knocked out of them by strange and unusual obstacles. Who knew? I've been flipping away from American Gladiators when Phoenix isn't on because it bores me now, so Wipeout can take it's place as a guilty pleasure.

-- Getting caught up on TV though summer reruns, Big Bang Theory was better than even I gave it credit for. The cast is a little rough around the edges and the writing need tidying up, but as long as the characters stay where they are and explore slowly, this can be a nice little show for a few years.

-- What's that knocking at the door? The ghost of Steve Guttenberg's career? The ghost of MTV past? The ghost of New Wave? Nope, it's just RETRO

I'm going to touch on a couple of topics today. First, I'd like to discuss a toyline that I had decided was going to be very important in my life: Battle Beasts. I just recently learned the name of Battle Beasts. For years and years and years, I only remembered them as those action figures that had fire, wood and water on their tummies.



Here's a few now. See the little square in the middle of their tum-tums? Yeah, when you rubbed it or hit it with the right light, one of those three elements appeared. Basically, if two characters were doing battle fire was greater than wood, wood was greater than water and water was greater than fire. That was how battles were won. It was paper, rock, scissors without the hand motions. Of course this meant overall wars would almost always be a draw. This toyline holds a special place in my heart because I specifically remember saying to myself that this was going to be the toyline that I collected every figure. With toylines like Transformers, GI Joe and He-Man, it was virtually impossible to get all the figures. I was too dense to think of Thundercats, so this was my toyline. Turns out, it would have been possible as less than a hundred different types of Battle Beasts were made. In the end, I think I got two and quickly lost interest. How much interest could there be? In theory animals walking around with elements attached to their bellies are cool. In practice, why is a Rooster beating a Shark?

When I found out the toyline's name last year, I also found out that the line was somehow related to Transformers, even going so far as to appear on some of the cartoons. Hmmm…interesting.

While you ponder that, here's a PSA that has haunted me since my days as a tike.



This PSA came on every Saturday during Saturday morning cartoons. Every Saturday without fail! And every Saturday, I'd end up eating French fries without ketchup or hot dogs without mustard because I didn't want to drown my food. When my mom asked me what my problem was, I told her I didn't want to drown my food. She looked at me like I had farted in church. Stupid food with eyes.

Your One Hit Wonder for 1993:

Another banner year for one hit wonders, 1993 saw The Proclaimers uhm….proclaim how long they would walk, 4 Non-blondes were asking up "What's up?" and Tag Team hits us with possibly the most annoying song ever. In reality though, there was but one choice…



Originally Green Jello was to be the first only video only rock band. You see how that worked out. After a threatened lawsuit by Kraft Foods, the newly crowned Green Jelly put out an album. The album's a mess, but about four songs are salvageable including the first (only?) single, "Three Little Pigs." Not that they didn't do the video thing really well. This is what I would call "quality shit." This is one of those videos that you watch MTV late into the night hoping to catch finally giving up around 2:30 AM knowing you're going to be late for school in the morning because you're never going to be able to get up at 6:30. Thanks a lot, Green Jelly! You bastards!

23 Years Ago Today…

June 12, 1985

#1 Song



"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears

#1 Album



"Around the World in a Day" by Prince and the Revolution

Notables: "Paisley Park" and "Raspberry Beret"

#1 Movie



Rambo First Blood: Part II


ABC TV Lineup for the night:

8:00: The A-Team
9:00: Riptide
10:00: Remington Steele


-- I'm probably going to go see Get Smart. The woman likes the show. I like Steve Carrell and The Rock. Mostly, if for no other reason, I'll have to go see it because of Anne Hathaway. She is smoking in this thing. And you can go ahead and add the Jim Carrey from The Mask emphasis on it if you want because she deserves it. I have a feeling that I'm going to like her much better in this than in Becoming Jane.

I must leave you now.

Until next week compatriots, don't forget to change your underwear…or wear underwear. Next week we'll continue our summer series by looking at the legends of summer camp. Ta ta!