Back to the Future part III; Buttermilk Biscuits

Back to the Future part III (1990)

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Had I seen this before: Yes

Before we get into it, I think it's important to establish that the first rule of Lighthearted Time Travel Fiction is: you do not ask too many questions about Lighthearted Time Travel Fiction. This post will not be addressing any particular scientific or engineering hangups regarding the logistics of the BTTFCU. Things happen the way they do for storytelling purposes and in this space we accept that without any particular angst.

Except. 

There is, for me, one choice in this very fluffy confection of a movie that casts a dark cloud of confusion and consternation, and I'd like to just get it out of the way up top: why does Marty's PATERNAL great-great-grandmother look identical to his mother? His paternal great-great-grandfather looks identical to him, sure, makes sense, and they couldn't use Crispin Glover any more by this point so Michael J. Fox in a double role it is. But his great-great-grandfather on his father's side should not be married to a woman who looks the same as the woman his father married! Especially since we, the audience, have already put in a lot of work to try not to think about the incest-y vibe of Marty's relationship with his mother in the first movie. And now you have them as a married couple! Why is this happening?? I understand that the answer is: so that Lea Thompson could be in this movie, and I do approve of putting Lea Thompson in movies, just for the record. But it raises some serious concerns about the diversity of the Hill Valley gene pool and the fact that it does not alarm Marty in any way is a distraction to me. Does he have other things on his mind? Sure. But I don't.

Oh, I guess I should say at this point that if you are not already intimately familiar with the first Back to the Future movie, you should...fix that. Okay, good talk!

The overarching premise of the movie is very simple: it's Back to the Future again, but they're in the Wild West. This third installment followed astoundingly close on the heels of the first sequel, which was Back to the Future again but everything is more confusing and also kind of a bummer. (I am showing my bias here, but my favorite part of Back to the Future Part II is when it ends with a full trailer for Part III like "can you believe we already have this one ready to go???" and my least favorite parts of Part III are when characters reference things I don't care about from Part II.) Some of the reasons I personally find Part III more successful than Part II are as follows: 1) it came out when I was ten years old and that is the exact perfect age for this; 2) the presence of Mary Steenburgen makes my heart feel calm and happy; 3) it's actually pretty straightforward for a time-travel movie with two previous installments; 4) everyone just seems to be having a very good time making a Western, which in turn leads me to have a very good time watching them do it.

Aside from my body's visceral rejection of Michael J. Fox and Lea Thompson as a couple, given that they are canonically mother and son in my brain, I think the main reason this oversight bothers me is that this is a wildly detail-oriented movie in so many other respects. A quick overview of the extensive trivia section of this film's IMDb page: when Marty first mentions the name Clint Eastwood to the 50's version of Doc, who does not know who that is, there are two movie posters in the background featuring young, not-yet-famous Clint Eastwood; the saloon in 1885 is in the same spot as the cafes from the other time periods; the "Statler" family sells horses in the 1800s, Studebakers in the 50s, and Toyotas in the 80s; likewise, the same family has owned all the wagon/vehicles full of manure, possibly the franchises' most unfortunate trademark; when they dedicate the clock tower in the 1800s, the fireworks are in the same pattern as the lightning strike from the first movie; in the 50s you can see the clock in Doc's bathroom that he references hanging in the first movie. And many, many, many, other things but I am bored of transcribing them now--the point is, all that careful continuity and poor Lea Thompson's bloodline is just a mess, constantly marrying into the McFly family for some reason.

All the performances in this are where they need to be--Michael J. Fox is still boyish and adorable (although at 29 he is starting to strain the "teenager" thing somewhat), Christopher Lloyd is turned all the way up, Mary Steenburgen is like a human Xanax as always. But I want to give a special shout-out to Tom Wilson for not only gamely giving life to one of the most energetically hateable villains (or, family of villains) of the late 20th century, but also for doing his own horse stunts in this movie. The lasso too! I see you and your dedication to the craft, Tom Wilson.

My favorite fun detail: Marty is going from the 1950s to the 1880s, so he dresses in the best 50s western wear he can find, which have a very mid-century atomic theme. Fun detail from my own life: due to the way Christopher Lloyd says it in these movies, I definitely thought the expression was "Greats Gott" until I was like...much older than one would guess. Detail pertinent to the current blog theme, which is now concluding: this is by far the most Monument Valley of any movie I've watched since Stagecoach--they were definitely really out there and it looks great. It is funny that the plan is to walk back to Hill Valley from there, which I believe is in California and therefore hundreds of miles away, but because this does not bring to mind any inbreeding-related complications we're going to let that one go.

Line I repeated quietly to myself: "Greats Gott!"

Is it under two hours:  With two minutes to spare

In conclusion: I think it's nice that in this film, rather than giving Marty credit for basically inventing rock n' roll via his bootstrap-paradox influence on Chuck Berry, it just gives him credit for inventing the game of Frisbee, which is only stealing valor from some random 19th century Yale students.

Buttermilk Biscuits from The Cozy Cook

You know what they eat in this movie? Biscuits, corn on the cob, potatoes, and buckshot-filled rabbit. And? Not a single bean. Which is the actual reason I enjoyed this movie, and also know that it is not a true Western.

Up next: A brief Summer 2022 box office roundup

Midnight Run; Fried Chicken

Midnight Run (1988)

Director: Martin Brest

Had I seen this before: No

Here is a list of movies that until very recently were all the same movie in my brain: Midnight Run, Midnight Express, The Running Man, Marathon Man. And I'll be honest, Lawnmower Man is sort of hanging around the edges of this situation as well. These are, I am guessing, fully distinct and individual films. But for a long time they were rattling around in my head as a sort of giant amorphous sci-fi action drama that does not interest me but seems to involve a man or perhaps several men running at night and/or mowing a lawn. Now imagine my surprise upon discovering that Midnight Run is in fact an action comedy starring Robert De Niro as a grumpy bounty hunter and Charles Grodin as an accountant who embezzled a great deal of money from a mob boss, and that it is approximately as violent and serious in tone as the movie Sister Act. 

It also stars Dennis Farina wearing one of the strangest articles of clothing ever featured in a major motion picture, which was probably the deciding factor in whether to dedicate a post to this movie or not. There was a point when I thought to myself "I'm not sure they spend enough time in the Southwest for this one to count" but it was outweighed by "I need a place to talk about this...thing that Dennis Farina is wearing." It's like a shiny gray dress shirt, with a collar, that almost but doesn't exactly match his sharkskin pants. But then his entire mid-torso is overtaken by a section of Cliff Huxtable-esque sweater that sort of looks like a gray and black checkerboard with a white rope loosely tied in a knot in the shape of an upside-down pretzel underneath it. He's wearing this in scenes where he is establishing himself as a scary Mafia heavy, and although the movie is overall a comedy I think the outfit is legit? This is just where we were, sartorially, with gangsters by 1988? Which actually does make sense if you consider the continuum of mob fashion from The Godfather to The Sopranos--we've finally found the missing link and it's a knot in the shape of a pretzel on a section of sweater that I would have picked out from Mervyn's in second grade.*

Not to even mention the various outfits on my guy Joey Pants in this thing.**

Much as I was slightly surprised to realize, when watching 3:10 to Yuma, that I was sort of just watching Stagecoach again, I was slightly surprised to realize, when watching Midnight Run, that I was sort of just watching 3:10 to Yuma again. A man with a difficult past has to get a prisoner to a certain place by a certain time, with outside forces violently trying to stop him. In the process, the relationship between the two deepens, then changes entirely. At various points the prisoner attempts to sway the man by offering to pay more than his bounty in exchange for his release, but the man is steadfastly unwilling to abandon his principles. There is a young teen child that I have absolutely no use for. The prisoner is manipulative but strangely sexy.

No? Just me? Hard to say how much my positive reaction to this movie is just based on how much I adore the lord of deadpan Charles Grodin and the faces he makes. Well, really just that one face. But what a face! His silent but evident pain at being surrounded by humanity is deeply relatable. I must have seen The Great Muppet Caper at a very young age and for some reason took away a fascination with the blandly handsome, unsmiling villain that I have never been able to shake. I liked the surrounding movie but I loved watching Grodin be the most mild, boring pain in De Niro's ass at every turn. I'm confident that if Ben Wade started in on me and my brown eyes I would be like "okay man, whatever." But if Jonathan "The Duke" Mardukas told he told me he couldn't fly due to his aviaphobia, acrophobia, and claustrophobia, I would believe him and arrange alternate transportation across the country. If he sternly insisted on checking on all the twenties in my till due to a rash of counterfeit bills being passed in the area, I would let him clean me out. We're not quite at Judy Maxwell levels of willing devotion, but we're in the ballpark. (I was going to apologize for devolving into thirstiness here but you know what? It's not my fault movies are full of quirkily charismatic people--as a matter of fact, I recently rewatched both Jaws and All That Jazz and you'd better hope I never have a reason to get going on Roy Scheider because whew what a smokeshow.)

I found the movie itself almost weirdly comforting, in that you very quickly know what kind of film you're in--a straight-down-the-line 80s action comedy (nothing too serious or graphic, one fake-looking punch will immediately knock a character out, it's rated R solely because of swearing, eventually the two leads absolutely must be handcuffed together, etc.). And Martin Brest does a good job as a director of assuring you that he has this thing under control, so you can just enjoy the ride. (Brest's filmography is absolutely wild by the way, including Beverly Hills Cop and Scent of a Woman and ending with Gigli. Gigli!!! He hasn't made a film since 2003! Now that Ben and J Lo are BACK BABY should we consider petitioning to release Martin Brest from director jail? Much to think about.)

Line I repeated quietly to myself: "I'm a white-collar criminal."

Is it under two hours: Not quite

In conclusion: This is not the most Southwestern of movies, since they go all the way from New York to Los Angeles, but one of the best gags--the attempted theft of a vehicle--takes place there, so we're counting it.

Crispy Buttermilk Fried Chicken from Food and Wine

"Why would you eat that?" The Duke asks De Niro's bounty hunter as he tears into a piece of fried chicken. "Why do something that you know is not good for you?"

"Why? Cause it tastes good."

Up next: The end of a trilogy and the end of our Southwest Summer Road Trip series

*In case my wordsmithery was insufficient:

**More like Joey Vests am I right:

3:10 to Yuma; Baked Potatoes

3:10 to Yuma (2007)

Director: James Mangold

Had I seen this before: No

I thought I would throw in another serious Western before this particular blog-theme locomotive runs out of steam, a moment which is fast-approaching on the horizon. There were a couple of Southwest-filmed contenders on my list, including what I understand to be widely regarded as a classic of the genre, The Outlaw Josie Wales, but the phrases "Clint Eastwood," "fueled by hatred," "seeking vengeance," and "Confederate guerrilla unit" conspired to activate my self-care instinct and shut down that idea. This movie, by comparison--"guy's gotta get another guy on a train"--felt like a somewhat gentler emotional hill to climb.

This is a remake of a 1957 film, which I have not seen, but I was sort of interested in where the genre was in 2007, almost 70 years post-Stagecoach. The answer turns out to be...largely still doing Stagecoach, in some ways! But I mean, why fix it if it ain't broke, you know? Of course, Stagecoach had one thing that this one did not, which was women who were actual characters. But both movies boast a ragtag group of people, including a prisoner (who is variously on- and off-leash depending on the circumstances), who have to travel across the southwest by horse and attempt to avoid Sharknado attack. The two leads are Dan Evans, played by Christian Bale (very serious, very put-upon, very stoic rancher who lost his foot in the Civil War and needs a cash infusion to keep the ranch afloat, which is why he volunteers to transport this dangerous prisoner to the titular train) and Ben Wade, played by Russell Crowe (charming-ish sociopath outlaw with an almost-American accent who kills a lot of people with essentially no regard for anything but also--get this--draws little sketches of things that he finds inspiring).

One thing I liked about this movie was that the characters said each other's names a lot, so they were easy to remember. Another thing I liked was that they said the name of the movie about 26 times. "I'm putting him on the 3:10 to Yuma prison," "Gotta make the 3:10 to Yuma," etc. Love it. Keeping that goal in sight. Makes it extra funny when the train turns out to be late. I was also happy to see Peter Fonda again, this time playing a Pinkerton hired to stop Wade and his gang. I was...not especially surprised to see him meet yet another brutal fate.

One thing I did not like about this movie was the intermittent presence of Dan's eager-to-help young teen son. I understand why he was there, emotional-stakes-wise, but I kept forgetting about him when he wasn't on screen and every time he suddenly popped up I thought "ugh now I gotta worry about this kid again" and also "is that Dylan Minnette because he looks like Dylan Minnette." Now, I don't want to spoil too much but it was not Dylan Minnette, it was Logan Lerman. However, if you look at a picture of Logan Lerman in 3:10 to Yuma and then  pictures of him and Dylan Minnette today I think you will agree with me that young Logan Lerman looks more like current Dylan Minnette than he looks like current Logan Lerman. Everybody with me? Okay.

Now let's discuss the other face I had trouble placing, which was Vinessa Shaw playing one of the only two women in this film, both of whom are solely there to be attractive and concerned about their men. "Where do I know her from?" I thought every time she was on screen. "She was in...something...that I've seen a lot," I told myself as Ben Wade sketched her lounging form in order to demonstrate that although he is a remorseless killer he still appreciates beauty. "For some reason I feel that she is my enemy." Anyway, to my great shame, I could not place her and had to consult IMDb post-watch, where it turns out she was the love interest in--no, not Hocus Pocus, you millennial nerds, I was too old for Hocus Pocus--the fully demented 1992 comedy Ladybugs staring Rodney Dangerfield and Jackée Harry and Jonathan Brandis, on whomst I had the most colossal crush imaginable. Due to said crush, I watched Ladybugs dozens of times and in the process apparently developed a lifelong antipathy toward Vinessa Shaw, who, in that film, ends up with my man. 

Anyway. You might have noticed that I sort of feel like talking about anything but this actual movie, probably because it's a pretty good movie that I mostly enjoyed but didn't fully connect with and it's quite serious and 100% focused on questions of masculinity, which is fine, but occasionally I resent how often I am asked to consider questions of masculinity and how rarely the men in my life are asked to consider questions of femininity and I guess this is one of those times. (Erica, you don't have to keep watching James Mangold movies, you can just let men have them I know! I know. But still.) I kept having trouble getting on the same page as the movie in terms of how it feels about its characters versus how I felt about its characters. The funniest example is Ben Wade himself, who to me is a perfectly good, compelling villain but to the movie is literally the most dangerous human to ever exist on earth. Every time he starts talking to someone considered vulnerable (a woman or an annoyingly present young teen, for example) everybody freaks out. "Don't listen to him!!! Don't let him talk to you!!!" like he's Hannibal Lecter and he's about to convince you to swallow your own tongue because you insulted Agent Starling. Meanwhile, his actual diabolical sweet-talk usually amounts to, like, "I love women with green eyes." And then, hilariously, this seems to be working on Dan's wife. I mean, I know Dan is sort of a drag, but pull yourself together, Gretchen Mol! Good grief.

I'm also not sure the movie and I agree on whether Dan's single-mindedness is a virtue or a tragic flaw or both. I guess the fact that it's a little ambiguous is actually a point in the movie's favor, because when the credits rolled I said "hmmm," but then did spend quite a lot of time thinking about it afterward. Like I said, I mostly liked this movie but in the last act I had trouble getting on board with the characters' journeys, I believe due to a couple of weak links in the screenwriting. But the performances almost overcome all that and I had a pretty good time with them anyway. I might not really get why you do the things you do, but shine on, you crazy diamonds.

Line I repeated quietly to myself laughed at because, of course: "Where's the 3:10 to Yuma?" "Running late, I suppose."

Is it under two hours: Close, but no cigar

In conclusion: In the writing of this post I discovered that the top question people ask Google about Dylan Minnette is "Was Dylan Minnette born with ears?" and not the more logical "Is Dylan Minnette just grown-up Logan Lerman?" so there's...that.

Air-Fryer Baked Potatoes from Natasha's Kitchen

Like in Stagecoach, the characters sit down and share one meal that you bet your ass involves beans. But it also involves Russell Crowe waving a pretty good-looking baked potato around on a fork that he will later use to kill someone. (...the fork. Not the potato.) Did Gretchen Mol's character have an air fryer in 1880s Arizona? Probably not. But technically, neither do I--just an oven that claims to have an air fryer setting. Regardless, these potatoes were fluffy and cooked through and would probably be good for fortifying yourself against a strangely-accented man talking about the fact that your eyes are green.

Up next: Essentially this movie again, but with jokes and a happy ending

Raising Arizona; Vintage Jell-O Salad

Raising Arizona (1987)

Director: Joel and Ethan Coen

Had I seen this before: Yes

First of all, I suspect this film was my introduction to the Coen brothers, given that it came out when I was a young but relatively aware kid and I cannot now recall a time before I had seen it. As such, it probably played a somewhat outsized role in the formation of my taste in movies to the point that I almost avoided covering it here because I'm not even sure how to talk about it (cut to me sobbing in the car like Holly Hunter, wailing "I just love it so mu-hu-hu-uch"). Is Raising Arizona the reason I am drawn to things that are delightfully off-kilter but keep you at a safe emotional distance? Heightened reality with a sort of dream logic? Dialogue that no real humans would say but that my brain rewinds and replays in order to appreciate each word, like a string of beautiful polished stones in bizarre colors? Characters that would make an excellent couples costume at Halloween? John Goodman, generally?

In order to avoid a blog-length tautology--I like this movie because it's good, it's entertaining because of how good it is, etc.--I'm going to dig down a little bit into how it pulls off what it does, which at first blush seems absolutely impossible. If you have never seen Raising Arizona, here is what the movie is about: H.I. ("Hi") McDunnough, played by Nic Cage at maybe his most endearing, is a repeat-offender petty thief. Ed, played by Holly Hunter, is the police officer who repeatedly books him. They fall in love, get married, Hi goes straight with a factory job, and they start trying for a baby only to discover that Ed is infertile. What they do not do next is take the Up-montage-route of making elaborate and adventurous travel plans that they will never actually follow through on as a couple. What they do instead is, upon seeing a news story that locally-famous furniture salesman Nathan Arizona and his wife have just welcomed quintuplets that are almost "more than [they] can handle," decide that the best course of action is to...take one. Of the babies. An entire human child. And they do!

This is, prima facie, a very upsetting premise. Every time I start this movie I think "the kidnapping thing is going to bother me too much this time." Child in danger, no thank you. Bereft mother, absolutely not. I am a person who noped out of the first season of Stranger Things mostly because the idea of waking up one morning to discover that one of my children was not in their bed was so overwhelming to me that it drowned out all the "fun" aspects of the rest of the show. How can this possibly be a movie that I love from top to bottom every time I watch it? 

Here is, I think, the most important factor: Nathan Jr/Junior/Hi Jr/Ed Jr/Glen Jr/Gale Jr is not actually an entire human child in an emotional sense. I have personally birthed and been the primary caretaker for two human babies and have, through various birthday parties and playdates and such, been exposed to many more. Nathan Jr. is not like those babies. He does not whine. He does not cry. He does not demand to be picked up. He does not lose his mind if you leave his sight for 90 seconds to go to the bathroom. When you set him down in a crib he just sits there. If you hand him a bottle he quietly drinks it. If you burn rubber in your getaway car that you forgot to put him and his car seat into because you were so distracted by trying to get away from the scene of the robbery you just committed, he and the car seat will still be sitting calmly right in the middle of the road where you left them. It is intimated that he defecates, but he does not make the tell-tale concentrating face when he does it. He is maybe--maybe--comparable to an extraordinarily well-trained dog. 

He also causes most of the adults he comes in contact with to either fall so helplessly in love with him as to immediately feel the intense need to adopt him and name him after themselves or to become consumed by the idea of cashing in on the reward for returning him (and sometimes both). He is purely a baby-shaped MacGuffin. As soon as the initial kidnapping occurs, Mrs. Arizona and the other babies are removed from the action, leaving only Nathan Arizona Sr.--a man whose catchphrase is "Do it my way or watch your butt!"--as the avatar for Jr.'s rightful family. Because his father seems more incensed at this disruption to his schedule than heartbroken about his missing child, the emotional stakes are set on a low burn, leaving room for hijinks to flourish unimpeded. 

None of the characters are really real--you might be invested in the overall happiness and well-being of Hi and Ed, but this is a film that includes a credit for "Feisty Hayseed." Everyone in this universe is turned up somewhere between two and seventeen notches. A lot of it comes down to the way the Coens write dialogue (and manage to cast people who can convincingly pull it off). They explained in an interview about this film that they wanted the characters' lines to reflect local dialect as well as their presumed reading material: magazines and the Bible. In explaining Ed's infertility, for example, Hi tells us that "Edwina's insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase." Something about confident dummies in fiction who casually sprinkle a bit of King Jamesian flare into their rhetoric always works for me, even though the universe I personally live in is full of confident dummies who are actively destroying literally everything. No charm. No flare. 

Anyway, I'm not sure why you're still here reading this when you could be watching John Goodman and William Forsythe playing escaped-convict-turned-irritating-houseguest brothers ("We released ourselves on our own recognizance")? Or Sam McMurray playing Hi's Polish-joke-spewing self-awareness-lacking wife-swap-attempting boss ("I'm talking about what they call nowadays an open marriage")? Or Frances McDormand in sparkling high comedy mode playing his baby-advice-giving wife ("You gotta give 'em dep-tet boosters yearly or else they'll develop lockjaw and night vision")? I can't imagine whatever you're up to today is a better use of your time than suddenly realizing that you're not worried about the baby and you're not sure why.

Line I repeated quietly to myself: "You and me's just a fool's paradise"

Is it under two hours:  Yes

In conclusion: I may have sorted out more or less how the movie gently guides you away from anxiety about a stolen child, but damned if I know how they manage to bring it back around and make me cry at the final voice over every time.

Vintage Jell-O Ginger Upper Salad from Delishably

There's a lot of food in this movie, presumably because the Coens are deeply keyed into what I personally care about as a viewer. One of the things that keeps everything nicely dreamlike is the fact that the movie seems to be set around the time it was released, in the late 80s, but there is a throwback aspect to the costumes and set design that give it a vaguely 60s feel. (I was around in the 80s and I definitely don't remember so many women at the grocery store with curlers in their hair, for example). The food is no exception--when Hi's terrible boss brings his family over ("decent people" according to Ed) the spread has a sort of mid-everything feel (-century, -western) down to the jiggly Jell-o mold being manhandled by a toddler. 

Up next: I inadvertently watch Peter Fonda get shot again

Easy Rider; Deep-Dish Blackberry Pie

Easy Rider (1969)

Director: Dennis Hopper

Had I seen this before: Yes, a long time ago

In my last post I indicated that I watched this movie "immediately" after Lost in America, which, if I'm being honest, is not exactly what happened. What happened was, I more or less immediately went to the library and checked out the DVD and then set it on top of the DVD player and proceeded to watch several other movies that were more appealing to me in the moment instead, up to and including 1995's own neon demon Batman Forever. Why, you may be wondering, was I more interested in a kiss from a rose than a widely-referenced, era-defining classic? Because I vaguely remembered it being serious and kind of boring and depressing and about boys who had a lot of ideas about themselves. And I'm not going to sit here and tell you that it absolutely is not any of those things, but this was a case of low expectations being a boon to the movie-watching experience, which was not exactly transcendent but not at all terrible either.

First of all, a huge percentage of this movie is just footage of the leads driving through late-60s America on motorcycles, which is a pleasant sort of travelogue. One of my favorite aspects of older movies is just a chance to be immersed in a world that existed before I was born. Let me see those clothes and hairstyles and phones and signs and what kind of dishes and glasses they used and how they decorated houses and shops, I can't get enough of it. So I appreciated being given significant lengths of time to just be immersed in the specific world that they were navigating. I also appreciated the true independent filmmaking at work, the low-budget, do-it-yourself-ness of the thing. 

The leads themselves are not what I personally consider the best hang, although they were intermittently interesting. Billy, played by Dennis Hopper, is all jumpy energy and unpredictable tangents emerging from under his impressively wooly 'stache. He says "man" a lot, man. He's the kind of character who is fairly compelling on screen but you would absolutely not want to get corned by at a party. Wyatt/Captain America, played by Peter Fonda, is taciturn to a degree that is sometimes frustrating, although probably a necessary counterpoint to Hopper. They both make me nervous.

Evergreen reminder that I am not a film scholar, which I feel I always have to apologize for when approaching an important movie. So I don't know what I'm talking about! Read a book if you want well-researched context! But I thought it was interesting that the avatars for the counterculture in this movie are the two cocaine-smuggling dirtbags, contrasted with the seed-sowing, free-loving hippie commune where they are briefly guests. (Full disclosure regarding my personal temperament: the only time I related to Billy was when he was like "I have to get out of this corny-ass commune this second.") I did like the complexity inherent in the fact that the "protagonists" are pretty hard to root for and are ultimately a failure in basically every sense, but you also can't get on board with the violently reactionary country that rejects them. (I mean, maybe you can? In which case, what are you doing here? Did we go to high school together?)

Anyway, the only character I was actually interested in was Jack Nicholson's soused southern lawyer, probably because his was the only part that actually involved written lines rather than just stoned on-camera musings. He's also a good actor! Don't know if y'all had heard. He is basically the movie's only source of humor--not that he's a jokester or whatever, but he's doing that wry Jack thing and he has some real weirdo quirks that I found compelling. His energy is mercurial in a way that's more fascinating than threatening, which is really saying something because generally speaking Jack Nicholson is nothing if not a walking cloud of sinister energy. Like, I'm slightly ashamed to say it, but his ideas are intriguing to me and I would like to subscribe to his newsletter. I felt a palpable upswing in my engagement with the movie when his character showed up, and a matching downshift when he was spoiler spoiler spoiler murdered. I wouldn't say it was an emotional reaction to the situation--just slightly bummed to be back with only Billy and Captain America for a while until, of course, they spoiler spoiler spoiler are also murdered! By entirely different rednecks! 

Anyway, the moral of this film is that if you set off across this great land of ours and look like a dirty long-haired hippie on a bike, the chances that some white guy in a pickup truck will shoot you are approaching 100%. Probably safer to look like an ad executive in a Winnebago.

Line I repeated quietly to myself: "Mime troupe?"

Is it under two hours:  Yes

In conclusion: In case you were wondering about the corrupting influence of this film, it did make me want to smoke weed and listen to someone's surprisingly detailed theory about aliens; it did not make me want to drop acid with sex workers in a New Orleans cemetery.

Deep-Dish Blackberry Pie from Louisiana Kitchen & Culture

Pretty early on, the main characters are served a family-style meal at a large homestead. "Please don't be beans," I thought urgently, right before watching a huge scoop of beans hit the plate. Later, they eat at the hippie commune--not beans, please--and I'm going to say the food was largely unidentifiable, but almost certainly bean or bean-adjacent. By the time they pull up to a rural Louisiana diner boasting "HOME MADE PIES," my optimism had waned. "Please...eat a pie," I begged half-heartedly, knowing deep in my soul that they would not. Turns out they don't eat anything at that diner, of course, but it was too late. My mind was made up. So here is a pie that they might have enjoyed had they not been summarily rejected by rural America based on their appearance and, I'm guessing, their odor. Anyway, I had this pie for breakfast three days in a row and my life was slightly better for it.

Up next: The funniest movie ever made about child abduction

Romy and Michele's High School Reunion; Businesswoman's Special

Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997)

Director: David Mirkin

Had I seen this before: Oh yes

When we rolled into Tucson, AZ on day four of our long journey, I had an inexplicably warm, fuzzy feeling about the place. Was it because I knew Tucson was home to one of the world's best regular human bartenders? In part. Was it because we'd spent the past few days in culturally hostile waters and there are only so many weird threatening signs about what people would like to do to you with their many guns that you can take before a place stops being charming, at which point finding yourself back in a normal city is a huge relief? I'm certain that probably played a role. But at the end of the day, I realized that the reason the very idea of Tucson releases a little hit of dopamine in my brain is because I've spent so many pleasant hours of my life with the Sagebrush High Class of 1987.

So, let's just get this part out of the way: 

ME: I don't like when comedies are mean-spirited

ALSO ME: My favorite part of this movie is Janeane Garafalo's character, whose arc is "sarcastic unhappy person" > "sarcastic person who is thrilled to realize that she made someone else unhappy in high school and therefore was not at the bottom of the social food chain"

So, that's maybe the difference between falling in love with something as a teenager in the 90s and approaching it for the first time now, as a tired and apparently emotionally delicate middle-aged person. (I would also argue that in this case the movie itself seems to love and value its characters with all their jagged edges, and there's a difference. There's a difference.) Anyway, this is your official disclaimer that I am aware of its flaws. The weight stuff in particular has aged weirdly (don't put thin actresses in fat suits in flashbacks for the gag, sigh), although most of the weight stuff is the main characters' feelings about their own bodies, which unfortunately was a pretty realistic depiction of being a woman in 1997. Or...ever. But in case you are unaware or have forgotten, we were supposed to be skinny skinny in the late 90s.

But this is a funny movie about female friendship between two weirdos, which is almost always going to get me. Muriel's Wedding is probably my personal pinnacle for the genre, and Barb and Starr Go to Vista Del Mar is a recent entry that I really enjoyed. But compared to the very prickly and sometimes sad Muriel's Wedding, Romy and Michele just goes down so easy, all top-notch pop music and bright colors. It's about two friends who have what looks to me to be a pretty ideal Venice Beach-based 90s lifestyle, who decide they are not impressive enough for their old classmates and need to lie about their occupations, but eventually come back around to being their odd, colorful selves.

It has great comic performances from Lisa Kudrow (a lot of Phoebe Buffay in the mannerisms, but it works) and Mira Sorvino (this is a good movie to watch if you want to be super pissed about what happened to her career!) in the leads. It has the aforementioned Janeane Garafolo, my acerbic brunette queen. Her line delivery when Romy asks if anyone has ever told her that smoking can kill you and she says "No, never!" (small gasp and head tilt) "Thank you!" is in my personal Sarcasm Hall of Fame. It has a climactic dance number that is both so silly and so very good. It has a twelve-and-a-half minute dream sequence that does telegraph itself as such but...maybe a bit too subtly for first-time viewers, which is a truly wild move that I love. That part in particular rewards re-watching, as there are about a thousand clues that you are dealing with dream logic once you know ("I couldn't find my top" being one of the biggest), but because the comedy is already slightly surreal in the "real world" it's a little hard to untangle at first. That's some confident filmmaking. And as the viewer, what a gift--you suddenly realize that you get to watch them go to the reunion all over again, this time with slightly fewer people flying over limousines or having entirely different faces or having a whole ballroom filled just with pictures of them alone.

It also has plenty of cacti, and in an exciting first for this Southwest Movie series, nary a gun nor bowl of beans.

One of the things that's comforting about this movie for me personally is that flashbacks from 1997 to 1987 are very clearly delineated by music and fashion and various aesthetic ephemera (see also: The Wedding Singer), and it recalls a time when I was aware enough of these things to spot all the jokes. Whereas now, I am an old person whose music and fashion choices calcified many years ago (circa 1997) and whose middle-schooler is surprisingly unhelpful in such matters, and if you showed me a movie scene that takes place in 2012 it's possible that I would be like "hmm, that's only a fifth generation iPhone" or whatever but probably not. 

It can be strangely hard to write about things I really like because I have to fight the urge to go full Chris Farley Show on it ("Remember when Michele sang 'Wells Fargo Wagon' with a little Ronnie Howard lisp and then said 'I love The Music Man!'? That was awesome") but at least the existence of an oral history in Vogue proves I'm not alone. (The most gratifying discovery for me is that the director of this movie also believes Elizabeth Holmes stole Romy's voice and accent! I absolutely cannot be convinced otherwise!) Along with the unapologetic weirdness and the quotable lines, this movie has a couple of moments that I find genuinely moving, both of which center around one friend comforting another after a humiliation. Despite having seen this many times and it not being a particularly sentimental film, I did tear up on this re-watch at one point and yes I am doing absolutely fine mentally thank you for asking. It's a small thing that grounds it juuuuuust enough to make the emotional payoffs at the end worthwhile.

One of many lines I repeated quietly to myself I worked very hard to not say along with the movie because Dan was watching it for the first time and I was trying not to be obnoxious: "Would you excuse me? I cut my foot before and my shoe is filling up with blood."

Is it under two hours: Yes, a zippy 92 minutes

In conclusion: It's still, 25 years later, not that common to see two women leading this or any type of comedy, which, for the record, I will absolutely buy a ticket to see in the theaters, just putting that out there, this is me waving my dollar around and attempting to vote with it, Hollywood.

Businesswoman's Special (The Best Black Bean Burgers) from Sally's Baking Addiction

"What kind of business you all in?" Romy and Michele eat a lot in this movie, which I appreciate, but most of it is junk food (it was tempting to try out Romy's fat-free diet of "nothing but gummy bears, jelly beans, and candy corns," but, you know...candy corn is out of season). But they stop at a diner on the way to Tucson in order to try out their businesswoman costumes and end up settling for burgers, fries, and Cokes when the diner waitress is confused by their request for a "businesswoman's special." I updated it slightly to black beans burgers because I feel like in 2022 that diner might have a vegetarian option. It was very professional.

Up next: A man, a dream, and a Winnebago

Lost in America; Microwave Grilled Cheese

Lost in America (1985)

Director: Albert Brooks

Had I seen this before: No

First, in keeping with the general tone of this movie, an airing of grievances: the poster has Monument Valley in the background but it is not featured in the film at all. There is a distinct lack of sweeping views and total absence of guns or beans. It does spend the bulk of the movie in Arizona and have a very uncomfortable relationship with the idea of Native Americans, though, so we are not too far afield. Anyway, sometimes you embark on an adventure and think it's going to go a certain way and then things go off the rails almost immediately and all you can do is yell exasperatedly for the duration.

We're back in deep oh yikes is this what Boomers were like in their thirties? territory with this one, although this movie is certainly less sympathetic to its protagonists' flaws and more enthusiastic about punishing them at every turn than The Big Chill was. Even if you don't already know that the premise of the movie involves a cross-country road trip, it's immediately obvious that our main couple, David and Linda Howard (played by Albert Brooks and Julie Hagerty), are about to hit a crisis point in their orderly L.A. yuppie lives. They are in the midst of packing everything up for a big move to an expensive new house that they both seem ambivalent about at best, and in full existential crisis about at worst. Meanwhile, David is anxiously anticipating a basically guaranteed promotion, which of course in movie language means an absolutely not happening promotion. Feeling undervalued and bristling at the fact that Linda has just described him as "responsible" and no longer wanting to be trapped by his...I dunno, extremely comfortable life and significant material wealth I guess? David rage-quits, convinces Linda to do the same, cashes everything out, and buys a Winnebago.

The plan: drop out of society "like in Easy Rider." Now, I had not watched Easy Rider in a long time when I watched this film, but I was pretty sure I remembered that it did not end happily. (Spoiler for future blog posts I guess but I did immediately watch Easy Rider after this and: confirmed.) At first glance, this might seem like an odd template for ones life goals, but assuming David is the same age as Albert Brooks in real life, he would have been 22-years-old when he saw Easy Rider in the theater twelve years earlier and presumably not since. So it absolutely tracks that what he would be remembering is the feeling of being young and the beauty shots of wide open spaces and sleeping under the stars and the lack of less-qualified coworkers who steal your promotion and Mercedes Benz salesmen who become impatient while you ponder leather versus faux-leather interiors. He would not necessarily be remembering all the...other stuff that happens in that movie, which I will discuss anon.

To be clear, this is a comedy, and the movie knows that it is a funny and absurd choice. The preposterousness is underscored by the blaring "Born to Be Wild" as the Howards' gargantuan new vehicle sails down the highway and out of Los Angeles. Their first stop is Las Vegas, where they plan to renew their marriage vows as a way to kick off their brand new lease on life. I will say this--I genuinely appreciated that David's itchiness to escape the bonds of society does not include an itchiness to escape his spouse. The whole enterprise is a team effort from the start. It would actually be pretty infuriating if it were otherwise, considering how lovely Julie Hagerty is and how very tolerant her character is of David's whole thing. But I thought it was worth noting that, much like another misguided, hijinx-prone white dude with a penchant for the open road , David is a Wife Guy.

Which is actually going to be pretty crucial momentarily, as the stop in Vegas goes about as badly as a stop in Vegas can, barring prison or death. Whether or not you are likely to enjoy this movie largely depends on how you feel about Albert Brooks being neurotic and/or freaking out and/or attempting to talk his way out of bad situations. I suggest you watch the scene where he tries to negotiate with Garry Marshall's casino manager and gauge whether an extra 90 minutes of that sort of thing is for you. Mine was a household divided on the matter. It probably helps if you, like me, are generally delighted by Garry Marshall in part because of Paul F. Tompkins, whereas if you, like Dan, are under the impression that this might be a real casino manager without significant improvisational skills you might be left a little cold. (Regardless, you are likely to be left cold by the fact that David says not once but TWICE in this film that part of his dream is to "touch Indians." Ew, David!)

I won't tell you how long the Howards last on their quest to find themselves in the vastness of this nation, but I will say that it is less time than we personally spent on our road trip. And so they find themselves, inevitably, more or less where they started, because it turns out that who they are was yuppies all along.

Line I repeated quietly to myself: "I'm insane and responsible. This is a potent combination."

Is it under two hours:  Yes

In conclusion: Not all of us were, in fact, born to be wild.

Microwave Grilled Cheese from Beeyond Cereal

I think the most 80s thing about this movie is the characters' incredible enthusiasm for microwave technology. The fact that their new Winnebago is outfitted with a microwave that has a "browning element" gives the Howards a real thrill. "Boy! I never really tasted melted cheese on toast before," David exclaims, when the trip is still fresh and the outstretched road is still promising. "I must have eaten it a million times but this is the first time I've really tasted it." I just have a regular microwave in a regular house that I can't drive around anywhere, so I had to get a toaster involved. I tasted the cheese, but only the normal amount.

Up next: Get your motor runnin'

Wild Wild West; Boeuf en Daube

Wild Wild West (1999)

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld

Had I seen this before: Yes, when it first came out

I'll be honest, what I was hoping for here was a sort of reverse-Tombstone situation wherein the weight of 23 years of everyone agreeing that this is a terrible movie would be somewhat at odds with the actual experience of watching it. After all, I think we can agree that movie audiences of 1999 truly did not know how good they had it, myself included, and it's possible that a reject from '99 would be a perfectly serviceable little piece of entertainment. So I went in armed with this optimism, a mild nostalgia for the summer I was 19, and a degree of comfort in the knowledge that my tolerance for Kenneth Branagh Doing Too Much is very high indeed.

Anyway, my apologies to the fine denizens of of the last century: you were right. It's pretty bad.

The most I laughed in regards to this movie was not at anything in the film itself, but rather at this fact from IMDb: "This movie underwent costly re-shoots in an attempt to inject some humor, after it was found that test audiences weren't sure if it was supposed to be a comedy." Hahahaha whoops! Oh dear. Well, I will say this for the final product: I was extremely clear on the fact that it was supposed to be a comedy. So they succeeded on that front.

To my 2022 mind, most of the problems with this movie were problems that plagued many, many studio comedies of the time, namely: racism, homophobia, sexism, ableism, etc. A lot of punching down. A truly incredible, almost herculean amount of leering. Are you interested in watching every man on screen act as though they have never encountered boobs or butts before? You're in so much luck. Nary a female butt goes unremarked-upon. And then there is the fact that the top IMDb quote for this movie is just a scene where Will Smith and Kenneth Branagh exchange racist and ableist insults. And here's where I admit that I did not hate Branagh's villain, I mostly just hated that every single joke at his expense was about his disability rather than his being evil and having very bad ideas and an intentional facial hair situation that is, I think, fair game. It was also a terrible mistake, big mistake, huge, to double-cast Kevin Kline as both the president of the United States and a man who impersonates the president of the United States if you did not want this particular viewer to immediately start pining for a far superior film.

But this made me wonder why people at the time rejected this movie, because all the -isms and -phobias were pretty standard stuff in that era and didn't tend to sink comedies on their own. My best guess is that, like me, audiences spent a lot of the runtime asking themselves "Who is this movie for?" Many parts of it are extremely cartoonish--Bugs Bunny's and Inspector Gadget's prints are all over this thing--which makes it seem like it was made for children. Will Smith literally pulls the Bugs-dressed-as-a-sexy-lady-to-distract-the-villain move, punches are sometimes accompanied by a ringing bell sound effect, etc. But it's also doing the 90s/00s thing of reviving a television show from the 1960s, so the opening credits make it seem like it's trying to hit some boomer nostalgia, which in 1999 would be solidly middle-aged people. But it's also full of jokes that are pretty raunchy and don't especially seem right for either of those groups. It's like the villain is Yosemite Sam with Foghorn Leghorn's accent but he's a horrifying war criminal who brags pretty explicitly about his steampunk sex devices. So what it ends up feeling like is some producers getting as far as "Will Smith in a big budget summer movie" and reckoning everything else would just work itself out. A real Icarus-ass move, as it turns out.

Now here is the part where I reveal that, much like Kevin Kline's master of disguise secret agent, I have only been wearing the costume of someone who appropriately disliked this unfortunate mess of a film. In reality, despite everything listed above and more, I did not hate the experience of watching it overall. I certainly frowned and cringed and sighed a bit and did all the things one does. But, I dunno, Barry Sonnenfeld is a real director who knows how to put a movie together! It's visually pretty interesting, Smith and Kline are doing what they can (Kline in particular saves a handful of tough punchlines through sheer will), I'm sorry to say, again, that that Branagh kinda works for me here, and so does Ted Levine as a somewhat grotesque secondary villain. Poor Salma Hayek is saddled with an absolute non-character, but, you know....great gowns, beautiful gowns, etc. I have an unfortunate weakness for the steampunk aesthetic. Politics aside, of course, I like the weird black and white Confederate spider flag that Branagh designs. I don't want to say I'm feeling any sort of way about my country at the moment but the part of his evil plan that was just returning some parts of it to various corners of Europe was slightly intriguing. Maybe we roll it back a bit further? Like pre-15th century or so? (Happy Independence Day!) I like that the heroes have a "driver" who takes them places but he's a full-on train conductor. I like that one of Branagh's sexy lady henchmen (???) is named Munitia because she is in charge of guns, it's like a joke that wandered off of the Austin Powers set and got lost. I also love Monument Valley very much--it is basically the linchpin of this whole summer blog theme--and wish that it hadn't been relegated to obvious green screen.

Line I repeated quietly to myself lip-synced along with over the closing credits: "You don't wanna see my hand where my hip be at!"

Is it under two hours:  Mercifully, yes

In conclusion: For me, this movie was much like the giant mechanical spider at its center--it definitely cost too much money to put together, it's clunky and unwieldy, it doesn't work very well or make much sense, but it is sort of interesting to look at for a while.

Beef Daube from The Kitchn

Hey, you know what this movie has going for it that many do not? A scene where a character actually cooks food and another character eats it and they discuss the culinary technique! Salma Hayek drops through the top of the train car via...sigh...giant spring (don't ask) and there is Kevin Kline, dishing up dinner, describing how cooking the beef in a daube, a French clay pot, causes it to be exceptionally tender. I don't have a daube but I do have a Staub, which is French, so it counts. And you know what? It made some damn tender beef. Salma, feel free to drop in any time.

Up next: We have this high school reunion to go to, and we need to show up in a really cool car