Air America

Air America
By Peter John Gardner

Remember a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away when Mel Gibson was known more as a likeable guy that women adored? You know, back when we knew him as Martin Riggs and Mad Max? He was a guy's guy, the type of guy that other guys can respect and would have a beer with even though women drool over him constantly. That pretty much died when the world heard what kinds of things the guy says when he's drunk. Now he's almost in Tom Cruise territory. The guy still looks good and is a competent actor, but his religious views and erratic behavior rotated the public's opinion of him.

Watching Air America, it brought me back to that time when Mel Gibson was cool. His wiseass sense of humor meshes well with Downey's natural eccentricities. I'm sure I would've enjoyed this movie a lot more if I hadn't watched numerous other Vietnam era movies for this project and Project Stallone. If "All Along the Watchtower" was in this movie, I would've lost it completely.

Yes, this is another Vietnam era movie in Downey's filmography. He plays Billy, an ace helicopter pilot that is recruited by the US government after he is fired from his job as a traffic reporter for the local news. Quick note: his actions that cost him his job are hilarious, and I desperately wish someone would do that in real life. Anywho, the government wants him to be part of a super secret team of pilots that drop supplies over Laos, and he's teamed up with Gene Ryack (Mel). Turns out that all the pilots involved have their own little black market gigs, and Billy quickly realizes that these are some sketchy folks. Eventually, Billy and Gene find out they are actually patsies for a heroin smuggling operation. According to Wikipedia, the plot of this film is based on a true story and comes from a book of the same name by Christopher Robbins.

The operation's motto is "Anything, Anywhere, Anytime", and they technically don't exist as far as the public is concerned. Now I could make a point about how important it is to know what is going on behind the scenes with your employer and not just blindly follow orders, but with an economy and job market that's shrinking faster than a penis in a cold shower, it's better to just hold on to what you have. As for me, I'm signing up for helicopter lessons so that one day I can be a traffic reporter.

Chances Are

Chances Are
By Peter John Gardner

Ah, incest. What better subject to tie a family friendly romantic comedy around? If the threat of incest can produce laughs in Back to the Future, why not in a rom-com? It's one of those things that is funny when it happens in the movies but not when it occurs in real life, kind of like stepping in dog shit or worse yet, having the dog actually shit on you.

Chances Are is actually an enjoyable movie with no dog shit. Shooter McGavin (I don't know what the guy's real name is, and I don't care to find out. He'll always be Shooter McGavin to me) plays a lawyer named Louie Jeffries. Louie is married to Corinne (Cybil Shephard). On their first anniversary, Louie gets hit by a car and dies.

How come every film depiction of Heaven makes it out to be this boring place in the clouds where everyone is white and just stand around talking? Why is there always a long line to get in? I don't want to spend my life a good person just to stand around and talk with white people in the clouds for eternity. I'd rather go to Hell. At least they play Slayer there.

Upon his arrival to Heaven, Louie rushes to the reincarnation lane and demands to return to Earth post haste. He's got a family and an important court case to attend to. Of course being reincarnated as a completely different infant at that very moment is the logical thing to do. Whatever. I'll buy it. Skip ahead a few years and we meet Louie's reincarnation Alex Finch (Downey) who is a Yale student about to graduate. While working in the library, he meets a girl named Miranda who he falls in love with.

Miranda's mother is Corinne, Finch's previous incarnation's wife. Since Shooter McGavin wasn't injected with memory wiping serum in Heaven, all of the memories of his previous life come flooding back into his head. He wants his girlfriend's/daughter's mom which is actually is wife. Thus, a sick love triangle ensues. Complicating matters is family friend Louie Philip who is trying to get into Corinne's pants. Trust me, it makes sense in the movie.

Skip to the end, and Finch eventually gets his previous memory wiped and ends up with Miranda. Corinne, knowing at this point that Finch is actually Louie, is cool with it. Seriously. Corinne doesn't mind that her dead husband, even though his memory has been wiped, is now having sex with their daughter. Ok, different body and memory erased, BUT STILL! That doesn't disturb her at all? If gender roles were reversed and I was in Corinne's position, I don't think I'd be ok with my son banging a body once inhabited by my now deceased wife. This is the happiest ending to a movie I've seen that involves incest. Incestually ever after.

True Believer

True Believer
By Peter John Gardner

After watching this film, I now fully understand why studios and directors almost always hire attractive people to play the protagonists in the movies. When you've a main character that looks like a skinned poodle, it's hard to follow the film because the viewer either has a hard time watching the absurd looking lead or they cannot take their eyes off the train wreck of costume design.

This is the first Robert Downey Jr. movie that I've watched where he's not the one with the most ridiculous haircut. That coveted prize would go to the main lead Eddie Dodd played by James Woods. Mr. Dodd used to be a hot shit civil rights lawyer back in the sixties who has turned into a defense lawyer mainly for drug dealers because they pay him well. In private, Dodd still reminisces about the sixties which is once AGAIN soundtracked by Jimi Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower".

Oddly enough, it's Downey that plays the straight man in this movie rather than the weirdo sidekick. Fresh out of law school, Roger Baron (Downey) is hired by Dodd to be his clerk. Roger is crushed to find out that his idol now works to set cocaine dealers free instead of the vague civil rights stuff that he used to do which the movie never really explains.

One night, a plot device comes into Dodd's office. It's an Asian woman and her daughter pleading with Dodd to help her son who she feels has been wrongly imprisoned for 8 years after allegedly stabbing the guy. Why she waited 8 years to fight the case, we do not know. Dodd initially refuses because that's not his "specialty" and shows the women to the door, but after smoking a joint and listening to Jimi, he decides to take the case. What follows is a paint-by-numbers crime/courtroom drama that would be an episode of Law and Order if it weren't for the presence of Woods, Downey, and a few recognizable "Hey! It's that guy!" faces.

I enjoy courtroom dramas as much as the next guy, but as I stated earlier, this one was hard to watch. Not because of the subject matter, but because of James Woods's hair. Never before has a character's haircut bothered me so much that I have trouble following the movie. Throughout the entire film, Eddie Dodd has a neo-Def Leppard style mullet. It's unusually curly and tied back in a ponytail. It looks like a small poodle died on top of his head. At first, I thought that his character was meant to look shitty because he's been out of his game for a while, and he'd cut it once the plot got going but no. For an hour and 45 minutes, you have to watch James Woods with this wig that, with a little more white, could pass for a Revolutionary War recreation actor's wig. During the final courtroom sequence, I really wanted James Woods to untie the ponytail, wave the freed mullet around in the air, and sneer to the bad guy, "Justice has been SERVED".

What I learned from this movie pretty much boils down to haircuts. If I have a bad haircut, people won't take me seriously and wouldn't want to follow my adventures in life. If I have a good haircut, then people would just to take it for granted because everyone should have a good haircut, and I'd have to find something else to differentiate myself from the rest of the pack.

1969

1969
By Peter John Gardner

I finished my initial draft for this film last Monday before the election. Since the plot to this movie is so threadbare, it became a smug, "Why I voted for Barack Obama" speech that you've read in countless other outlets. After watching the reactions from both sides to President Elect Obama's victory, I felt inclined to restart this entry from scratch, for better or worse.

With a movie like 1969, it's nearly impossible to write something that doesn't involve politics unless I wanted to center an entire post around Robert Downey Jr's fluxuating hairstyles throughout the 80s. I think I'll save that for a less topical movie.

1969 has a paper thin plot that you've probably already seen if you've watched any other movie documenting that time period or an episode of "The Wonder Years". The film stars Kiefer Sutherland and Robert Downey Jr. as two recent high school grads. They are both vehemently opposed to the Vietnam War, and Kiefer scoffs at his brother for enlisting which causes a rift between him and his father. Kiefer's brother dies in the war, and the father and son are forced to reconcile their differences over America's involvement in Vietnam. Once again, Downey is saddled with the "kooky best friend" role while Winona Ryder plays Kiefer's girlfriend but doesn't really do anything to advance the plot.

It doesn't matter which end of the political spectrum one may fall on, this is a divided nation of stubborn people. Forty years ago, we were divided over civil rights and the Vietnam War. Now we are divided over civil rights and the Iraq War. History washes, rinses, and repeats itself. What caused me to step back and decide not to talk about why I made the right choice for president is the straight up animosity coming from the other side regarding my candidate. Two days after the election, I was driving down Red Bug Lake Rd. when a white van started tailgating me so closely that they could probably tell that I was listening to Prince. When the vehicle pulled next to me, it started to push me to the right to the point where half of my car was off the road. When the van eventually whipped in front of me, I saw a McCain/Palin sticker as well as a sticker that said "REDEFEAT COMMUNISM" underneath a picture of a red Obama. Presumably this was done because I have two Obama stickers on the back of my car. So basically my life was threatened because this person doesn't know the actual definition of communism.

But there are annoyances on the winning side too. It's one thing for the winning side to gloat; after all we did have to suffer through 8 years of neo conservative rhetoric led by Captain Asshole, but it's time to stop rubbing it in people's faces. Remember how annoyed we would get having to see Bush/Cheney stickers years into that presidency? People that voted for McCain are people too who simply have a different philosophy on issues. Yes some are crazy, but so are some lefties.

The fact that people took a step forward and voted in the first African-American president is astonishing and a historic moment. I know it's easy to be on the winning side and say that it's time to get behind the leader and focus on fixing our broken country, so I won't do that. Not only for the aforementioned reason but because people won't. People are different and come in all shapes and sizes. They don't have to like our country's president just because you're on the winning team. They have a right to not like the guy and not support his decisions too. I encourage all people that didn't vote for Obama to keep him under the same watch and scrutiny that we gave President Bush because lord only knows that our eyes will still be clouded by the thrill of winning and thus blindly support any decision he makes.

Finally, no more movies set during this time period are allowed to use Jimi Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower" anymore. Seriously, future generations are going to think that this is the only song Vietnam soldier's were allowed to listen to.

Johnny Be Good

Johnny Be Good
By Peter Johnny Gardner

One of the pivotal films of my teenage years was The Breakfast Club, the iconic 80s time capsule of high school stereotypes bonding during a Saturday of detention. I must have seen it dozens of times, and my friends and I would frequently act out scenes from the film to amuse ourselves and try to figure out which stereotype other people we knew would be classified as. I think it was decided that I'm somewhere in between the nerd and the troublemaker.

Skip ahead a few years, and Johnny Be Good came along to mindfuck everyone who had started typecasting the actors from The Breakfast Club. Fans of The Breakfast Club, imagine watching a movie where Anthony Michael Hall is playing the arrogant jock and the principal is playing a coach. First off, there is little depth to Hall's Johnny, so throughout the entire 90 minutes of this movie, one could give a flying fucking rat's ass whether or not this asshole decides to give into the temptation being offered by rival colleges as they compete to get Johnny, all-star high school football player, to be on their team. They do so by offering money, drugs, and prostitutes. I should've played more sports in school. It would've made getting into college much more fun. The film's title wonders if Johnny will be good and avoid the temptation while I wonder who thought that would be a clever title and if they are still working in Hollywood today.

Along for the ride is Robert Downey Jr once again playing the eccentric friend. I wonder how much of Downey himself he brought to his role because a lot of his behavior and rants throughout the film mirror the way you see him in interviews and other movies? His character doesn't advance the plot at all and only serves as comic relief in a movie that's filled with enough weird moments to the point where I found myself saying, "Wha...?" instead of laughing. Two examples: in order to let Johnny visit his teenage daughter (Uma!), the girl's father, a sheriff, orders Johnny and Downey to play a game of football on the front lawn of his house with a handcuffed convict. Ok. Also, when Johnny and Downey find out that Coach Dick has been pushing Johnny toward a particular school because of a lucrative coaching contract, the two friends decide to get him back by ordering a bunch of pizzas to his house (believable) and hiring trapeze artists and a fucking elephant to come marching onto his front lawn (Wha...?).

I guess this is the first turkey I've run across in Downey's filmography because there's no other reason to watch this movie other than to see Downey be weird and Uma Thurman in skintight, flesh colored pajamas. All this film did for me was remind me how much it used to irk me that football players would get cushy scholarships into universities despite their lack of useful intellect while the rest of us had to bust ass in school, score high on standardized tests, and write silly letters to schools explaining why they should accept us. It's not fair that someone should get into a better school than me based on their athletic skill instead of their mind.

Less Than Zero

Less Than Zero
By Peter John Gardner

I spent the more interesting half of my teenage years in a town called Vero Beach. Vero is a quiet little town on the east coast of Florida that mainly attracts retired folks. One doesn't move there looking for opportunity. It's a place that you go to when you want to settle down somewhere quiet. Due to the rampant elderly population in the town, city officials never really gave much thought to the younger people living there. If you're a teenager in Vero Beach, there was nothing to do but go to the mall, wreak havoc at Wal-Mart at night, and find places to skateboard that are just hidden enough so that you don't have to worry about a cop telling you to go skate somewhere else when there isn't anywhere else to skate. So what happens when you have a decent size youth demographic in a small town with nothing to do? Many (not all) turn to drugs. When you have nowhere to go on Friday night, having some friends over and getting high is a viable option.

Less Than Zero has sort of the same setting, but instead of a bunch of bored poor kids getting high, it's a bunch of bored rich kids getting high. This movie is sort of like a post-high school brat pack movie. These kids aren't dealing with petty high school problems anymore, they're all getting fucked up and having promiscuous sex with each other. The plot involves Clay, Andrew McCarthy, coming home from college during a winter break to find that his ex-girlfriend, Jami Gertz, and his best friend, RDJ with another bad haircut, both have nasty drug habits. Contrary to the book, Clay is portrayed here as a boy scout type that aims to rescue his friends.

What bothers me about drug use is not the user, but the way some non-users treat drug users. Friends shouldn't abandon each other simply because one doesn't know what to do with him/herself other than self destruct. I see drug use as a cry for help. Most drug users don't want to be users, but they self medicate because that's the only way they know how to deal with their pain. People think that drug users are doing it to themselves and that it is their own fault that they've fucked up their lives. That is true, but I think it is a friend's duty to try to help the user out of whatever is bothering them so much that they feel the need to escape reality and slowly self destruct. It's a tough thing to do, especially if the friend in need is addicted to something heavy like heroin, and it takes multiple tries to pull them out of their own abyss. Drug addiction is a choice, yes, but it's also a symptom of a deeper issue, and abandoning a friend that has gone down the road of self destruction is just pushing the problem away, just like how the user is trying to push their problems away.

The Pick Up Artist

The Pick Up Artist
By Peter John Gardner

You can probably guess the plot of this movie just by the title. Yes, Robert Downey Jr. plays a womanizer, and since this is the 80s, the plot is typical rom-com formula. Downey plays a guy named Jack Jericho, a name better suited for a superhero's pseudonym, who specializes in cheesy pick up lines that are so bad that the only way a woman would fall for them is if a movie script required them to. Of course, he eventually meets a woman he can't have, played here by Molly Ringwald, because she is the daughter of a mob boss...and who better to play a mob boss than Harvey Keitel! I wouldn't mess around with a girl if I knew that her father was Harvey Keitel.

Skip to the end, they face some complications but eventually end up together. Save your four dollars for a gallon of gas.

Downey's character in this film was hard for me to identify with, or even like for that matter. He plays the type of guy that gets all the women based solely on his looks. He could say anything to them, and it wouldn't matter because they'd fall for him anyway. Jack Jericho is the movie version of, "Why is she dating THAT douchebag?". That is a phrase that I say more than I'd like to.

The flip side of the coin isn't fun. I am in no way, shape, or form a good pick up artist. I have no game, and any girl that has taken any remote interest in me can attest to that. My relationships and sexual encounters with women are usually something that I passively fall into instead of aggressively pursue. I have to be beaten on the head with a club before I notice that I'm being noticed by the opposite sex.

There's a reason for that. Like I said, my game sucks. I always feel like I'm being creepy if I start making flirty remarks. There's always that lingering feeling in the back of my head of, "What if it's unwanted? Everything would be awkward from now on".

I prefer to be the pursuee rather than the pursuer because it lets me know that I'm wanted. I'm a very passive person, so it makes sense for me to be attracted more to aggressive women, a girl that's not afraid to go after the shy, quiet guy. Besides, I'm a horrible liar, and a woman would know that I'm full of shit when I make a fake compliment. "Gertrude? That's one of the most beautiful names I've ever heard!".

Still, it's a well known fact that girls like to be pursued too, and it's a fine line between being polite, coming on to her, and straight up sleaziness. One has to find that balance that says, "It's cool if we're friends, but I really, really like you". Sadly, this movie doesn't provide the answers. Instead, it told me that lines like, "Did anyone ever tell you that you have the face of a Botticelli and the body of a Degas?" are ok, and that Harvey Keitel can say the word "Hell" while his mouth is clearly saying "fuck". Clearly, he's a ventriloquist. Just one more reason to be afraid of that guy.

Back to School

Back to School
By Peter John Gardner

There were three things running through my mind while watching Back To School:

a) Rodney Dangerfield's character in this film is nearly the exact same character that he played in Caddyshack. They even use a still from Caddyshack in the opening montage.

b) How the heck did they get Kurt Vonnegut to appear in this film? Was he friends with Rodney Dangerfield or something?

c) Is Downey's character supposed to be gay?

None of these thoughts are relevant to this entry, but I had to put them somewhere. Back to School is a 1986 Rodney Dangerfield vehicle that is actually pretty enjoyable and has managed to age surprisingly well over the years. When he discovers his wife cheating on him at a party, wealthy retail tycoon Stanley Melon (Dangerfield) decides to go visit his son in college to find solace. Upon his arrival, Melon finds out that Melon Jr. is considering dropping out, so in order to show solidarity with his son, he decides to register for school with him. Downey's role here is Melon Jr's eccentric, communist (?) roommate. He isn't given much to do in the film other than hang around Melon Jr. all the time.

And as they say, hilarity ensues.

Back To School is the second Downey Jr. movie in a row to feature Oingo Boingo on the soundtrack, and not only do they also appear onscreen performing at one of Melon's parties, but singer Danny Elfman (you know, the guy that scores pretty much every Tim Burton movie) composed the score. Late comedian Sam Kinison also has a small role as a professor even though his role is essentially Sam Kinison in a suit, and in a weird coincidence, the guy who played Paulie in all of the Rocky films plays Dangerfield's limo driver/bodyguard in this film. He still looks, talks, and acts like Paulie in this film. One has to wonder if that's what this guy is like in real life.

And how the fuck did they get Kurt Vonnegut to appear?

Stanley Melon is a smart businessman, and this is reiterated throughout the film. During his first day of economics class, Stanley is correcting the professor and informing the class of ways to cut costs when starting a new business. Stanley's a smart guy, and a point that film makes is that not everything you need to know in the world is learned in a classroom. Two years after graduating college, I can honestly say that I think I've learned more useful things about life post-college than before. University is the first step into the real world, a place where a young adult can be exposed to other ideas that they might not otherwise have the opportunity to, but it is still a relatively sheltered environment. While in school, students are still interacting with other students and not the average Joe Six-Pack who has no idea who Kurt Vonnegut is. So it goes.

On the flip side, Melon's character also demonstrates some of the negative qualities that one who grew up in the real world without any college experience could have. He thinks he can buy his way out of anything, and he doesn't "have the time" to read books.

I fucking hate when people say that they don't have time to read books. Yes, you do. No one says you have to read a book all at once, and there is so much more you can get out of a book than a movie. To me, this is the equivalent of an overweight person that says they don't have time to exercise. Bullshit. If you have 15 minutes to go through the McDonald's drive-thru, you've got 15 minutes to go for a fucking jog around the block every day. College theoretically eradicates the laziness to learn from people.

At the end of the day, it's a combination of both sides that make for a balanced person, I suppose. There's the hard lessons that ones learns in the real world, but college teaches people to structure what they know and what they learn, forces hard work of a different kind. One could hire Vonnegut himself to write a paper about the work of Kurt Vonnegut like Dangerfield's character in the movie, or they could read his work themselves and get absorbed in his genius. One could also learn about widgets and fictional labor costs in class, but it isn't until you're actually faced with a real life version of the task that you learn the complications that arise from it.

Weird Science

Weird Science
By Peter John Gardner

One of the main differences between Project Downey Jr. and Project Stallone is that with this current project, I'd actually get to watch movies that I like as opposed to direct to video releases that I wouldn't even touch with your credit card, so it was a pleasant surprise to find out that Weird Science was next on my list of movies to watch.

RDJ plays one of the school bullies that humiliate our heroes on a daily basis and tries to woo our heroes computer generated dream girl Lisa. It's kinda hard to buy since Downey was still pretty scrawny at this point in his career. When 80s Anthony Michael Hall looks like he could take you in a fight, it's time to hit the gym. Perhaps that was the point of casting RDJ, even a scrawny wimp like him could beat up these two main characters.

For those that didn't grow up in the 80s, Weird Science is a campy teenage comedy written and directed by John Hughes about two nerds that decide to create the perfect woman. They do so by hacking into the mainframe of the Pentagon, wearing bras on their heads, and feeding pictures of swimsuit models and crossword puzzles into a scanner as well as a video clip of David Lee Roth.

Because every guy wants his dream girl to be just like David Lee Roth...?

Anyway, out comes Kelly Lebrock, who didn't even seem like that perfect of a woman back in the 80s, and hijinks ensue as the two nerds use their dream girl to get back at the bullies, an abusive older brother (Bill Paxton!), and try to win the hearts of two "real" girls from their high school.

What is a perfect woman if not something created in the mind of a man himself? No woman is perfect and neither is any man. A relationship is built not only upon a foundation of similarities and common interests between the two, but it also survives off of the way two people handle their partner's differences. If I had a super-computer like the one used by Gary and Wyatt in the film, and I could create what would theoretically be the perfect woman for me, would she actually be perfect? And what about the involuntary servitude inflicted upon Lisa in this film? A lot of men out there probably have wet dreams about that, but I prefer a woman with a mind of her own. One who has just enough similarities shared with me so that we're on the same wavelength, but enough differences that we would actually have stuff to talk and debate about. Overcoming those differences is what makes a healthy relationship.

Now, after reading that last paragraph, one who hasn't seen the film might infer that Lisa is a brainless drone that does whatever the two main characters want, but that's not the case. To her credit (and Gary and Wyatt's for that matter), Lisa is quite intelligent, often pointing the characters in the correct moral direction, and she never sleeps with them. You can't make a perfect companion. The perfect companion is someone that is much like you, but also different. It's like a puzzle. Two pieces that are exactly the same won't fit together, but the two pieces that are curvy and loopy will fill the gaps of the other.

Introduction and Tuff Turf

Introduction and Tuff Turf
By Peter John Gardner

Why am I doing this to myself again? Subjecting myself to every film in an actor's ouevre in search of meaning and purpose to my own life and writing about it like this kind of thing matters? Why couldn't I come up with something more original as a followup to Project Stallone?

The career of Robert Downey Jr. has been fascinating to watch. Falling into a calvacade of drug abuse and arrests at the height of his success only to overcome his own demons and find mainstream summer blockbuster success. Whereas Robert Downey Jr. was synonymous with drug arrest in the ninties, he is now respected as a talented, gifted actor with a wide array of downright deep films ripe with character study, diversity, and style.

He's also been in some really shitty ones too.

With Stallone, all too often the plot of each films essentially fell into one of three templates:
a) Badass (cop, rescue worker, etc.) going after a bad guy that has screwed him over somehow.
b) Underdog overcomes impossible odds.
c) Ill advised attempt at comedy.

I don't claim to be a great writer at all, so I'll be the first to admit that after the motonony had started to settle in, I would fall back on just making fun of the movie. Nothing wrong with that yet I was ignoring the point of my own agenda for the project. When I'm watching the same three types characters over and over again, it became difficult to find any new insight in Stallone's films. Downey's filmography has many films that have been Academy Award nominated in different areas and contain diverse genres, plots, and characters. The idea here is that perhaps I'll get more enlightenment out of films that actually contain some depth to them, the same as I would after reading an amazing book. Don't worry though. He's also been in a ton of really bad movies, so you'll have still have your share of me having to endure 110 minutes of cinematc torture of my will to live because that's always funny.

Which brings me to Tuff Turf, the first film that Downey is credited on from Netflix.

Tuff Turf is an 80s film so dated that it gives its time frame away with the godawful synth pop song in the opening credits. The movie stars James Spader in yet another take on The Outsiders/West Side Story template. Spader plays Morgan Hiller, the new kid in town. He's had problems with authority at previous schools. When he arrives at a new school, it isn't long before he's at odds with the local gang. After a scuffle upon meeting each other, Morgan wins over the heart of the gang leader's girlfriend, who had pretty awesome 80s hair, and a final showdown between Spader and the rival gang happens.

Haven't seen that plot anywhere before.

It's Downey's performance that makes this movie bearable. He plays the friend that Spader's character meets at school that warns him of the rival gangs and ends up in the middle of everything while Spader has to save him. It's a typical character for this type of movie, but Downey's charming eccentricities are already apparent in his first film role. Cetain one-liners that Downey's character gets wouldn't feel place in films where Downey had input into the film's production.

Still, all of the characters in the film are very two dimensional, and Downey's is no exception. I guess in a way, I was a lot like Downey's character when I was in high school. I never actually got in fights, but I was always around other people's fights. Even though I'd try to remove myself from where I'd actually be in a fight in school, I would still be the first on the frontlines to watch one whenever one would break out. Downey's there too, moussed up hair and all.

"Life is not a puzzle to be solved; it is a mystery to be lived." That's a line spoken in the film, but if you Google it, it seems more like an old proverb than an actual piece of intellect given to us by the scriptwriter of Tuff Turf, but let's go with it. I attacked Project Stallone with a goal of trying to figure my life out through The Italian Stallion's films. Upon further reflection, I'm not sure if I came up with a kind of clear answer. Sure, I had lots of good experiences come out of the project, but was I wiser? Begging the question, should I be wiser? Why not just go along for the ride, dig into these films, see what I can find, but keep in mind that these aren't films meant to answer life questions, and that life is meant to be lived through experience instead of pop culture?

Oh crap, I think I blew my character arc in the first entry.