An Introduction To Film 10.07.03 - Chapter 1
Posted by Jay Bower on 10.07.2003
Jay' is back to start the Countdown to Halloween!
An Introduction To Film : Chapter 1.
Hello there and welcome to a fresh start with yours truly after what has to be the shortest 411Mania retirement in the history of this fine website.
In departing two weeks ago, I got to know a lot of the staff that I hadn't before and shared tears with Ashish and Widro. However, I was intent on not returning to The 411Mania News-Center because it was just too much of a time vacuum for me and maintain that you have seen the last edition I will ever pen of the column.
In another difficult blow to 411, Josh Grut also announced his resignation from the 411Wrestling news squad and decided to move to the 411 Movies zone in order to take up a different avenue of commentary. Late into the evening on Thursday, I got to talking to Josh and after some friendly banter, he made me an indecent proposal of sorts. One MILLION dollars he offered to spend the night with me. Well...actually I was telling him about the writing intensive film class that I was currently taking and a project Ken Anderson and I were working on and he asked me to make the jump with him as it wouldn't require that much additional work and I would be a healthy asset to the already strong movie zone. "Hmmm" I thought as I puffed my pipe. Soon Josh's irresistible charm was too much to combat, so I agreed and here I am, the newest member of the 411Movie zone with a special new concept column that I hope you will enjoy.
I actually very much look forward to this challenge of starting over. I am going to try and incorporate almost no elements of my past wrestling columns in terms of visual style, structure and certainly not length as the grind and repetitive nature were a key thing that burned me out. I want this to be an entirely new experience for not only me, but you the Jay Bower enthusiast.
I will admit that I am NOT an expert on World Cinema, behind the scenes news in Hollywood or the working of the business as a whole. In fact, I am really quite ignorant in terms if most of those things. However, I assume that a good majority of you are probably walnut-brained knuckleheads who originally stumbled upon the 'Mania due to 'rasslin, thus we have something in common. While you should definitely study the work of the talented and knowledgeable staff in the movies zone, this will be a column for the people, by the people, and maybe...just maybe...we can develop some culture together. I'm willing if you are.
Another element I hope to make a strong part of this column is not just the finished Hollywood product, but where it begins. In recent months, Ken Anderson and I have become increasingly more interested in screenwriting, partially due to the fact that I am about to graduate and the thought of spending the rest of my life working at a bank terrifies me. Between Ken and I, I think that we have enough creativity and writing talent to participate at a competitive level if we hone our skills for a few years.
It may be a pipe dream, but it's a happier thought than having my lunch sent to me in one of those vacuum powered tubes at SunTrust every day for the rest of my life. Realistically speaking, it's next to impossible to get noticed as a novelist, screenwriter or playwright according to what almost everyone has told me but at six figures for a good script, I'm willing to take a stab at something that I would actually enjoy getting out of bed in the morning for.
Unfortunately, neither Anderson nor I have the slightest clue how to write dialogue, properly structure a story meant for film, format and notate a script or even fasten a pair of non-Velcro shoes. Fortunately, there is a lot of literature out there for people looking to learn to write, shop around their work, find an agent and get a foot in the door. For those of you who genuinely enjoy writing or just appreciate a little perspective on what goes into the big screen adaptation of From Justin to Kelly, I'll be sharing the fundamentals with you as I study them and hopefully gain a better understanding of them myself while trying to pass this information along to you.
This column will also contain recently breaking news from the world of film. I'm not horribly interested in the who's-dating-who type gossip unless it involves Meg Ryan, me and a time machine, so I'll be sticking mainly to the box office numbers, upcoming films and the sequel to Mac and Me that I know will eventually come if I pray hard enough.
And finally, this column will be completed each week with a short review of a film that I have seen for the first time during the week. It could be a classic film, it could be a new release, or...uhhh, I guess it could be a new release of a classic. (Jay winks).
Now truth be told, the main reason I accepted this column was because my absolute favorite holiday of the year is upcoming...HALLOWEEN! I don't know what it is. Perhaps it's the fact that it's the one-day of the year when paganism and the occult are not only tolerated, but encouraged. Perhaps it's the fact that it's the one-day of the year where I can lurk in my van in a fake mustache and offer children candies without being automatically labeled a predator. Perhaps it's the guy on the corner who looks like he hasn't bathed since the French n' Indian War, yet expects you to jump at the opportunity to sink your teeth into one of his hand rolled popcorn balls. Perhaps I just love to beach myself on the sofa and peel the labels off of those orange and black-wrappered peanut butter candies that every cheap skate on the block tosses into my lap each year. Or perhaps it's just the general feeling of tomfoolery and hijinx in the air during this time each year.
Everybody has a prank, a trick or a scare up their sleeves that they can't wait to unleash. Even though one can normally see the rust and loose wiring on the candy bowl long before the plastic hand springs from the bottom to spook them, it's just fun as the old coot trying to pull our chains is normally fussing about staying off of his lawn and writing his senator suggesting the euthanasia of "kids today". I'll be sharing some of my favorite Halloween pranks with you in the upcoming weeks leading up to the holiday as part of a special 411Movies HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN!
My favorite part of the holiday however would have to be the movies. As a child, I anxiously awaited the programming that would be shown in the days leading up to Halloween almost as much as the dozens of packs of Smarties and Bottle Caps that neighborhood misers would hand out. Whether it was The Creature from the Black Lagoon, IT, The Night of the Living Dead or simply a hokey family film with a spooky theme, I watched. I was inseparable from the television when shows like The Simpsons and Home Improvement ran their annual Halloween episodes and wished death upon Sandy Duncan of the timelessly dopey Hogan Family when some plot twist long escaping my memory turned the family into zombies. I would even repeatedly watch "Mr. Boogedy" on HBO, a bizarre kids film about a retired author who moves into a haunted house and, with the help of his children, sucks the evil Mr. Boogedy into the eternally damning confines of a vacuum bag. Oddly I can't find a single shred of evidence online or in any other avenue that so much as proves the existence of this film, but if anyone knows where I can procure a copy of it or remembers further details, please drop me a line as I would love to review it as part of the HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN!
For whatever reason, it seems like Halloween has fallen as an American institution and become just another gimmick holiday like Arbor Day or Groundhogs day. Horror film marathons and Halloween episodes of my favorite shows are no longer as prevalent, spooky walk-in haunted house shaped candy displays in my grocery store no longer exist and the luster of Halloween seems to have been lost somewhere along the way. I am NOT about to sit back and let this happen and I would hope that neither are you, so for the next month, we are going to pay proper homage to the day of further fattening our youth, the day of dressing like Satan and asking people we don't know for handouts, Hallow-FUCKING-ween!
For the next month in this column, you will be treated to reviews of some of the best (and worst) Halloween and horror-themed movies of all time. And with one of these movies playing two times a week on campus in the student movie theatre, Ken Anderson and I will be there to cover everything that happens on the screen and off as the booze is usually flowing and ol' Adultery Anderson is always willing to wet his whistle on any tart that breathes! The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre plays on the big screen Wednesday so that will probably be our first feature and though Jessica Biel was scary enough for me in Summer Catch, we'll compare the original film to Mary Camdin's new remake of the cult classic once I get a chance to check it out on the big screen.
But now, I give to you the Halloween Movie featured in Chapter 1 of An Introduction to Film:
Garfield's Halloween Adventure!
Alright, you caught me. It's not actually technically a movie, but I was working on short notice here. Never the less, Garfield's Halloween Special was amongst my favorite animated holiday specials as a child and I would rank it directly beside Garfield's Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas and The Masters of the Universe Christmas special, recently acquired by Ken, that saw Skeletor convert to Christianity and distribute gifts to the children.
Garfield's Halloween Special was amongst the many of the previously mentioned jewels that was a staple of holiday television about a decade ago yet is no longer shown in October despite the fact that roughly one million cable and satellite stations now exist. Luckily through the magic of internet piracy, I was able to locate a copy of the special relatively easily on Kazaa. Just watch out for Buttercup22 sending you a Kazaa instant message saying "Hello, I only chat with guys who have over 1,000 mp3 files on their computer." Yarrr.
Our Halloween Movie begins with Garfield sleeping in his catbox as Binky the Clown comes onto his television early in the morning. Binky is a rude and spastic clown, but that doesn't necessarily make him evil. Binky is quick to let Garfield know that people who don't want to do jumping jacks before the sun comes up are not only lazy, but "worthless"! Maybe he is evil. Garfield, reaching for the remote, hits the only button on the controller, a big red "off" button, just as Binky informs him that today is Halloween, a day when candy is up for grabs. As the television turns off, Garfield's eyes light up as he begins to realize just what Halloween is.
As the opening montage hits, I realize that ten years passing have wizened me up to just how incredibly lazy the cartoonists responsible for Garfield were. When Garfield feels the urge to speak, his mouth never moves and often times a scene will last for upwards of thirty seconds without so much as a single frame change. To make matters worse, Garfield is sometimes speaking, and sometimes we are just listening to him think. However, when his mouth never moves and most of his conversation is with a mute dog incapable of responding, trying to figure out just what the hell is going on isn't nearly as easy as it was when I was a kid, lending ever more credence to to the belief that I have been getting progressively dumber since my intelligence peaked around the age of nine.
The saga continues with a song and dance routine by the cat about candy that, even by 80's standards, seemed incredibly lazy as well, though we'll generously credit that to artistic integrity in trying to stick with the central theme of Garfield's lethargic nature. Garfield walk's to the kitchen where the questionably asexual John Arbuckle is gutting a pumpkin with a little bit too much of a gleam in his never changing expression. As John scoops out the seeds, Garfield scares the middle aged man by simply saying "boo", causing the jack-o-lantern to fly into the sky as the cranium sized hole that I guess is common on the bottom of most cartoon pumpkins becomes lodged over John's head in an impromptu moment of slapstick.
John gives Garfield his blessing to go trick-or-treating and offers the cat some of his tray of breakfast before he departs. Garfield initially passes, saving room for candy but soon he sticks his head back in the frame: "Oh maybe I'll have a cinnamon roll...(exits frame)...(enters frame)..."Oh maybe some tea and a croooo-sant...(exits frame)...(enters frame)...(Garfield picks John's entire tray up and walks off frame)". It's probably the kind of scene you have to see to appreciate, but it still made me laugh after all of these years.
After snookering Odie into trick-or-treating with him so that he can take home twice the booty, Garfield and the dumb canine head to the attic to look for costumes. And where would these costumes be in the attic? In the treasure chest of course, because a treasure chest full of costumes in an asexual middle aged man's hollowed out roof isn't as uncommon as The Man would lead us to believe.
After a song and dance number entitled "What Should I Be" that sees Garfield dressed as a vampire, a "big fat Halloween cat" in black pajamas, an alien going out on the town and a plethora of others things, the unlikely duo finally decide to be Pirates. Now one would have to think that John Arbuckle's pirate costume would never fit a couple of house pets who don't even reach his knees, but luckily his peg leg must have been of the one-size-fits-all variety.
Dressed to kill, Garfield and Odie bid farewell to John while Garfield claims his lasagna in the name of the queen, following with a line that never left my memory in a decade away from the cartoon: "Who be the landlubber who be pillaging me lasarrrgna". Again, you really have to see it, but I laughed. They hit the town, do another song and dance number called "The one thing I'm not is a scaredy-cat", probably meant as a comic play off of the fact that Garfield IS a cat. Soon, they are filling their bags full of candy from strangers probably thinking "look at the cute kids dressed like beasts dressed like pirates" and wondering why the orange one's mouth didn't move when he threatened to introduce his broadsword to her curtains.
We now hit what was then called a station break. Old commercials really give me the creeps, especially when your video quality has eroded to the point where they have a foggy, almost nightmarish quality to them as one with a coughing woman running nervously through the smokey "Halls® of Medicine" did. As if this wasn't bothersome enough as it was, the next commercial was a borderline ploy at brainwash.
Truth be told --and I'm not saying this for comedic or filler purposes-- I was terrified of the Quaker Oats man as a child and my mom would have to turn the container backwards at all times in the pantry so that I wouldn't have a nervous breakdown during the night. With erie music playing, "It's the Right Thing to Do" flashing on my screen and the enigmatic Quaker staring a hole through me, all that's missing is a subliminal track saying "Kill the King" to drive me to assassinate someone without thinking twice. Good lord.
When we return, Garfield and Odie find a rowboat and decide to steal it. They didn't have the keys, so I'm guessing it was hot wired in attempt to reach the other side of the lake where another residential neighborhood --and more importantly-- more candy lies. When they reach the other side, they walk up to an old house as a storm begins to brew. No one answers, so they just barge into the house, marking their second felony in less than 120 seconds. Garfield I would have expected it from, but not Odie. As the two warm beside the fire and discuss how no one is home, they turn around to see:
HOLY SHIT! This scene ranks up with the two biggest scares that I ever had as a child alongside the first time that I witnessed Large Marge's eyes popping out of her head in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. This old man was terrifying enough as it was visually, but when he began to speak it really made me realize that maybe these thirty seconds of dialogue were the catalyst for my life getting so off track and never recovering. In probably the best scary old man voice west of Vincent Price, the old man said the following:
"Shut up you two...that's enough to stop an old man's ticker. You picked a poooor night to come visiting my friends. This could be the worst night of your lives. What I'm about to tell you...has never been told to another living soul. This island has a secret, a deep, dark secret it has held for a hundred years. One hundred years ago a ruthless band of pirates held up this very house. They had looted many ships and were pursued by government troops. They were so heavily laden with their ill-gotten gains that they had to bury their treasure before they escaped the island. On that stormy night, they signed a contract written in blood. They vowed to return for the treasure one hundred years later on Halloween night at the stroke of midnight, even if it meant returning from the grave."
(lightning strikes).
(Garfield to Odie) "Should we believe this?"
"BELLLLLIEVE my friends. The pirates had a ten year old cabin boy. I was that boy. I was there. I never took the treasure because they would have found me. There is no escaping them. They know we are here, they KNOW who we are!"
Words can not do justice the delivery of this old man and it's worth hunting down the video just for this scene, because it will cause to lose some serious sleep. As Garfield and Odie panick, the old man darts out of the door and rows their boat away all at a speed completely amazing for a 110 year old man, marking the third major felony in roughly four minutes now.
Now I don't want to seem sassy, but I have some major problems with this speech. For starters, I don't know if you have ever tried to plan a party for pirates, but I sure have and I'll tell you this: If you want the Pirates to reunite at the stroke of midnight, you tell them to arrive at 11:30 because Pirates are notoriously bad about punctuality. Come to think of it, I don't think Pirates even existed 100 years ago. And even if they did, Bic didn't start producing blood pens until AT LEAST the 70's. Plus, if the Pirates took the house hostage, why would the cabin boy just happen to be living there 100 years later, especially when the evil pirates were returning? Is giving a house to the cabin boy once you have held up the house common practice, because I typically give it to the chamber maid?
The clock strikes midnight and Garfield and Odie panic, a hysteria that only gets worse when they see a ghost pirate ship on the horizon.
As the ghost pirates reach land, Garfield and friend hide in the house in a cabinet. The pirates enter the house and pull the treasure from the ground. As the chest opens, we see the see the stereotypical treasure of crowns, scepters and various forms of coin and bullion. But Odie sneezes and only then do the ghost pirates discover him, thus killing the myth of the ghouls "knowing where you are". The two run for it, but without the boat they are forced to swim for it. But Garfield can't swim, so Odie rescues him and together, they escape the Pirates, find their candy miraculously and walk home.
As the heart wrenching saga comes to a close, Garfield thanks Odie for saving him and offers him his share of the candy, a bounty the cat originally planned to keep for himself, as the special comes to an end teaching the kids a valuable lesson. If you plan to trick-or-treat anywhere this year that requires several song and dance routines and a stolen rowboat to reach, make sure to bring a retarded dog with you to save your ass.
~THE END~
Though you may have thought I was a little hard on the Garfield Halloween Special, it actually holds a very special place in my heart. It's the type of film that definitely would be much more appreciated by someone who has seen it as a kid, but I think the overall vibe and the ridiculously creepy scene in the house are enough to make me recommend it to anyone looking for a special something to spice up their Halloween festivities this year. Good luck finding it anywhere legally, but like I said Kazaa usually has at least two users online offering it at any given time.
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I hope that you enjoyed Chapter 1 of Introduction to Film.onestly enjoyed bringing it to you much more than a wrestling column and it only took me about an hour to put together so I would keep an eye out for upcoming chapters as often as twice a week on a good week leading up to Halloween. With midterms crawling closer, Miami/FSU in our house next weekend and other obligations, I really can't commit to anything too deadlined though so I would just advise to check back to 411Movies often for future chapters of Introduction to Film.
Until next time, remember "Cinema is a lie which makes us realize a truth" (James Broughton) so for Christ sake if you're going to steal any boats this week, do watch out for those ghost pirates.
