I know that aging is a part of life and that we all go through it, but it always takes a small inconsequential moment to make you realize just how far away from your twenties you are. It never really hit me till this week. I was watching CNN Headline News and saw a story about the house from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (the one where the car goes out the second story window) is being sold, and the announcer called the film a classic. A classic? No, a classic film is Casablanca or The Searchers. Ferris Bueller is only about twenty-four years old……which technically would put it in classic territory. It’s depressing when you realize the things you enjoyed in college are new considered to be so old they are classic. What’s even more depressing, I’m listening to the local oldies station because they now play Robert Plant and Bruce Springsteen. I know I”m not hip and with it anymore (to be honest I never really was) but I never really felt like I had been passed by till now. Is this what a mid-life crisis feels like? If so I’m not about to go out and find a woman half my age to prove I still got it, my wife would kill me.
Archive for May, 2009
When I was a kid I love the old Adam West version of Batman, you can catch reruns of it on the American Life Network along with The Green Hornet on Friday nights. Though not as enjoyable at forty as it was when I was ten, the show still has the ability to charm. A few years back I missed the TV reunion movie they did Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt, but recently was able to rent the DVD. The film is actually two movies in one. The main plot is a campy spoof of their old show with West and Ward attending a charity car auction where the Batmobile is being sold. It gets stolen and West drags a reluctant Ward along, convinced they are better suited to running down the thief than the police. While tracing the clues deliberately left by the criminal they realize the solution is buried somewhere in the history of the show and look back over it’s two and half season run. The main plot is amusing as West gets to bust out into the Batusi with Julie Newmar and continually sticks Ward with the bill everywhere they stop, the ironic joke at the end of the film is that Ward is rich and easily afforded the layout. tThe fourth wall is continually broken as West comments on Lyle Wagner’s naration as it’s being read and will glance at his watch periodically and let the audience know it is time for a commercial break. One of the best lines is when they are attacked in a bar by a group of henchmen and the slightly delusional and overly excited West deadpans that it is nothing they haven’t face before, while the more realistic and concerned Ward quips that back then they had stunt doubles, before engaging in a Batman style fight complete with Bam and Pow flashing across the screen. The second part of the film is told in flashbacks which traces the show from the casting of the pilot to it’s overnight success through it’s eventual decline and eventual cancelation. Along the way you learn about the shows problem with the censors over Ward’s prominant bulge, how Ward ended up doing all of his own stunts because it was cheaper, he was paid $350 a week while his stuntman was paid $100 per stunt. The on set fighting among the stars due to West’s tendancy to block Ward from the camera and talk over him to lengthen his own screen time, and both of their notorious sexual excapades with female fans which is ironically balanced against parents groups contending the TV characters appear to be gay. An added treat is the showing of Lyle Wagner’s actual screen test when he wa the front runner for the title role, which showed West had the necessary lighter touch and was the perfec t choice. The docudrama part of the film was so much more interesting than the send up plot that I wish they had just made the film about West and Ward remembering the show for an interview and had the entire ninty minutes to tell story of the show’s history with the twoo stars sharing narration, there seemed to be so much more that wasn’t gone into.
So I’m cruising around Netflix awhile back looking to see if they have any El Santo movies, I have a weakness for luchadores movies, (who knew vampires and werewolves can be defeated with wrestling moves?) and came upon a strange title, Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter. Sounded intriguing, so I pop it to the top of my queue. Not sure what to expect, I was a still little surprised when it turned out to not be a Mexican horror film but a low budget Canadian horror/ comedy, and that it was not the late Rudolfo Huerta nor his son or grandson under the silver mask, but an actor impersonating the greatest of all luchadores. The plot involves Jesus returning to to our world so that he can begin building his father’s Heavenly kingdom on Earth, but finds that there is a major vampire infestation in Calgary Canada. Even worse, they have developed a way to move in the daylight. So Jesus cuts his hair, shaves his beard, pierces his ears and trades in his robe and sandals for a t-shirt, jeans and boots and prepares to do battle. Joined by gun toting Mary Magnum from the militant wing of the Catholic Church and importing God’s greatest warrior against evil, El Santo, from Mexico, Jesus carves some stakes and shows off of his impressive martial arts fighting moves not only against the undead but also a group of atheists who are ticked off about his return contradicting their whole “he doesn’t exist” stance. This is not a movie for everyone, especially if you are easily offended by the idea of the Son of God being portrayed as the ultimate fighter, or the fact that he ends up in a physical romantic relationship at the end of the film. Fans of South Park or Dogma will probably get a kick out of the absurdity of the whole thing. I’m of two minds myself. On the one hand it offends my deep seated core beliefs from attending Sunday School, which makes it difficult for me to accept the image of Jesus going all Rambo and throwing stakes into vampires with the accuracy of a ninja, on the other hand it is hard not to laugh when he defeats a bar full off vampires by blessing a glass of beer and tossing it in their faces or the image of him preparing for battle by eating a sandwich loaded with a ton of garlic.
