Project Downey Jr.

Home For the Holidays

2010-03-06T10:03:00.000-08:00

Home For the Holidays
By Peter John Gardner

There comes a point in most people's lives where they experience a shift in attitude toward the holiday season. It's usually around the same time they reach adulthood and realize that you can't spend much longer than 8 hours with your family for the sake of your own sanity. The older you get, the more settled you become in your own life, so when you go home for the holidays, it's like walking into a time capsule where you set your mind back to your childhood and remember how you dealt with everyone's idiosyncrasies. I don't consider it a negative attitude. It's more like having to prepare yourself for having your mom wipe the 'schmutz' off your face and doing battle with your siblings over the remote control.

Home For the Holidays addresses this issue. Holly Hunter plays Claudia, an art restorer recently fired from her job and flies home to her parents' house for Thanksgiving. Also attending the festivities are Claudia's conservative sister Joanne, played by Cynthia Stevenson, and her gay brother Tommy, played by Mr. Downey Jr. Tommy brought a 'friend' of his home with him named Leo (Dylan McDermott) even though Claudia was under the impression that he's in a serious relationship with a guy named Jack.

The film captures a lot of awkward holiday moments. There is a scene at the airport which shows a group of grown adults talking on the phone to, presumably, their parents and saying things like, "Yes, I'm bringing my vitamins. Yes, I brushed my teeth this morning." No matter how old one gets, parents will always be parents. To this day, my mother still calls and/or e-mails me to make sure I'm taking my vitamins, and reminds me to say, "Thank you" whenever I receive something. Because, you know, I never learned manners in my 29 years.

Directed by Jodie Foster, Home For the Holidays spends the majority of its time documenting these little scenarios that we all face during the holidays. Especially touching is the relationship with Claudia and Tommy, who even though they've lived separate lives since moving out of their parents' home, they still immediately click and fall back into the beats of their relationship and clearly have always depended on each other to help them through their family's craziness.

By the end of the film, we learn that Tommy brought along Leo not as a new lover, but as a potential match for his sister. Of course they fall in love, and Leo hops on Claudia's plane to be with her. It must be nice to have a gay sibling to hook you up with a potential mate.

These days I don't spend much time at home when it's the holidays. Not only is it difficult to stand your ground as an adult when you're under your parents' roof, but the more family members that show up, the more old wounds get opened up. Either that, or everyone facetiously pretends that everything is awesome and no one has a bone to pick with anyone. That just makes things worse. Not wanting to solve problems with family members just deepens wounds and causes the family gatherings to feel more like an awkward lunch with your upper management than a warm, loving environment.

It should be noted to any readers that knew me in high school that Robert Downey Jr. sports the EXACT same haircut I used to have, as well as the same wardrobe of oversized sweaters and jeans. I like to think that Downey caught a glimpse of me one day and thought to himself, "Now there's a guy with style. I should ape that for my next film."

Richard III

2010-02-21T07:34:00.000-08:00

Richard III
By Peter John Gardner

Every time a Shakespeare play was assigned reading in one of my high school classes, a common complaint heard from the peanut gallery of future brilliant minds was, "Why do we have to read this shit?" To a student that's uninterested in the material, the plays are boring, hard to understand, and contain plots that have become cliche hundreds of years later. I call it "The Nirvana Effect". It's all about context. If one is just now digesting something by Shakespeare/Nirvana, they're most likely going to compare it to a more contemporary work that used the same template but enhanced. But at the time of release, Shakespeare/Nirvana was groundbreaking stuff.

What's remarkable about Shakespeare is that if you take his plays, many of them still work if you just change the setting to a different time and place. Richard III takes the classic Shakespeare work and sets it in 1930's era England. Well, less like the real England and more like a bizarro world version where England is a fascist regime during World War II. The story follows Richard, the younger brother of King Edward IV, and his murderous quest to overthrow his brother from the king's throne. Richard manipulates and murders his way to the top, at one point even having his own brother Clarence executed just so that he could shift the blame onto Edward and accelerate the death of the ailing King.

Playing Richard is the always excellent Ian McKellen whose overacting brings out a slightly comical side to the character. McKellen doesn't play Richard like he would in a stuffy old theater in Great Britain. Instead he plays him the same way he would later play Magneto in the X-Men films. Robert Downey Jr. plays Lord Rivers, brother of Queen Elizabeth, and makes the odd choice of using an American accent in the film. Throughout the first half of the film, Rivers is the primary thorn in Richard's side, and halfway through the film, Downey has one of the more entertaining death scenes in this type of film which I wouldn't dare spoiling.

Back to why we still read Shakespeare. It's apparent while watching this film adaptation that one could take the themes of misuse of power and trust and apply them to any modern government. An easy analogy would be the Bush administrations use of the politics of fear throughout their term. Sure, being the big bad tough guy on the block may work in the short term, but how much good will toward us from countries around the world did we destroy because of it all? A more rudimentary example would be a co-worker that steps on other co-workers and makes false accusations about them to the boss in order to further their own career. Sure, stepping on people is one way to the top, but once you get there, people will resent you for it.

Could somebody take this play and set it during modern America? Perhaps, as there will always be a place for a cautionary tale about the abuse of power and the morality of what it takes to acquire power. Whether or not you want to place Democrats or Republicans as the totalitarian rules is up to your own politics. Personally, I would tweak things so that the Richard III turns into the story of how Jay Leno took over the Tonight Show...twice. Jay III, starring Richard Gere as Jay Leno, coming soon to a theater near you.

Only You

2009-09-20T15:28:00.000-07:00

Only You
By Peter John Gardner

My stance on romantic comedies is the same as my stance on mayonnaise. It serves a purpose in the world, many people are fans, nothing against it, but it's just not my cup of tea. That being said, I went into this movie pretending that Robert Downey Jr's character was really Tony Stark and the events in this movie are what happens before Iron Man. It made the whole experience a little easier to bare.

Only You is your basic, sugary sweet romantic comedy that defies logic in order to get the two leads together. The story goes like this. When she was a little girl, Faith (Marisa Tomei) learned from a Ouija board that the man she would marry would be named Damon Bradley. Flash forward to her adulthood, Faith is about to marry another man. While she is getting fitted for her dress, Faith receives a phone call from one of her fiancee's friends informing her that he will be unable to attend the wedding because he's in Europe. His name? Damon Bradley.

So like any woman with good sense, Faith pretty much drops her wedding plans and trots off to Europe to track down Damon Bradley. It doesn't matter how much in love she is with ohwhatshisname that she's about to marry. The Ouija board guy is for real, and they're soul mates!

While chasing some stranger like a madwoman, Faith accidentally bumps into Peter played by Robert Downey Jr. Peter finds out who Faith is looking for, and introduces himself as Damon Bradley. Immediately, Faith's attitude toward Peter changes and they have a romantic night together. Well it's romantic until Peter drops the ball by telling her that he's not really Damon Bradley.

Right here, I was thinking that the message of the movie is that all guys with the name Peter must pretend to be somebody else in order to get laid.

Faith continues her search for Damon because no matter how perfect her night with Peter was, he's not her soul mate. Peter starts tagging along in her quest for Damon in a really creepy way that most women would think that it's time for a restraining order, but the movie needs him there, so he's there. The movie shows that Peter might really be her soul mate because of all the little things they have in common and what a great guy Peter really is. Eventually Faith meets Damon at a posh hotel in Italy thanks to a tip from Peter. When Damon pushes things forward a little too fast, Peter intervenes and proceeds to fight Damon. Of course we find out Damon is a fake, and Peter set up the whole thing to win Faith over. She was not amused.

Later in the movie, we find out that the name Damon Bradley was faked by one of Faith's friends on the Ouija board through an excruciating subplot involving Faith's sister-in-law. At the end, we're at an airport when Peter and Faith hear the name "Damon Bradley" being called for on one of the PAs. The two rush to see him. In the middle of the awkward conversation between Faith and Damon, Peter excuses himself to his flight. Damon realizes that Peter really loves Faith and vice versa, so he convinces Faith that Peter is really the one for her. Cue Faith running to catch up to Peter's plane where she's swept off her feet and they live happily ever after. Romantic comedy concluded.

I thought about writing something exploring whether the notion of soulmates is real or we just tell ourselves that when we meet someone that we're compatible with, but I can't overlook this atrocity to guys with the name Peter. Faith and Peter had a great night together, and she dumps him as soon as she finds out that his name is not the same as one she got from a Ouija board 20 some odd years ago. Yeah, he lied at first saying he was Damon, but that's of little importance. He just needed an "in", or else a beautiful woman like Faith would never give him the time of day.

Even after she warms up to Peter, she still doesn't want to pursue anything romantic with him. This is the story of the life of most Peters. He's a great guy, generous, funny, but a little quirky (this is Robert Downey Jr), yet Faith continues to pursue someone that may or may not exist. It's not until she meets the real Damon, who turns out to be rather average looking, that she decides she wants something with Peter. If I were Peter, my first question would be, "What changed your mind?" Does it matter? It shouldn't, but it does. This movie is really about how it's bad luck in the field of romance to have the name Peter.

Natural Born Killers

2009-09-11T12:14:00.000-07:00

Natural Born Killers
By Peter John Gardner

"It's just murder. All God's creatures do it. You look in the forests and you see species killing other species, our species killing all species including the forests, and we just call it industry, not murder." - Mickey Knox

In 1991, a young writer was having trouble finding funding for the production of one of his scripts entitled Natural Born Killers. Producing the film would be too expensive for the up-and-comer, so he sold the script for $10,000 and used that money to fund his directorial debut. That debut became "Reservoir Dogs" and that writer was a young Quentin Tarantino.

Long story short, the producers that bought the script partnered with Oliver Stone and reworked the film from Tarantino's original vision. The film shifted its focus from the celebrity gossip reporter Wayne Gale to the killers themselves, Mickey and Mallory. Instead of the film's narrative being about the exploitation of violence in the media, the film also became a loose character study of the killers themselves.

Natural Born Killers was criticized upon its release for "glorifying violence", but the film doesn't do that. While it tries to figure out what make Mickey and Mallory tick, it never goes out of its way to portray them as sympathetic characters nor does it ever imply that what they're doing is "cool". Even by 90s standards, the film isn't really that violent to begin with. Sure, lots of people get shot, but it's not a movie padded with gore.

The film can be divided in half. The first half is the Mickey and Mallory Show. We follow Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis in their roles as Mickey and Mallory Knox as they gush over each other and kill anyone that rubs them the wrong way. Inevitably, they get caught and the second half of the film chronicles their time in prison and subsequent escape. Also onboard is Tom Sizemore as a sleazy detective tracking the killers, Tommy Lee Jones as a batshit insane prison warden, and Robert Downey Jr. as a celebrity gossip reporter hoping that his post-Superbowl interview with Mickey Knox will be the defining moment in his journalistic career.

Basically, the film is an exploration of the media's obsession with violence, fresh off the very public trials of OJ Simpson and the Menendez Brothers. Are we making anti-heroes out of these people just by giving them coverage 24/7 in the news? It was a hot topic at the time, but 15 years later, it seems somewhat irrelevant. Since then, many people have stopped watching the news just because they are tired of hearing "bad news" or the most common excuse, "It depresses me". With the exception of the Beltway Sniper a few years back, killers don't really get top bill in the news anymore. But that's just cable tv. In 2009, news has other ways of getting around.

Think about it. Even though the press was locked out of Iran after their fraudulent election earlier this year, Iranians took to social networking sites to let the world know what was going on in their country. People were finding out about Iranians being beaten in the streets through Twitter while CNN was covering a "Jon & Kate Plus 8" story. Even if the media didn't give coverage to attention craving madmen, they'd still find a way to make their voices heard. Imagine a serial killer that leaves a trail of murdered bodies and then posts a confession on Youtube about it. Or after every murder, the killer lets his followers on Twitter know about it before the police.

One other thing that made me think while watching this movie. Rodney Dangerfield plays Mallory's physically and sexually abusive father in this movie. Now imagine having Rodney Dangerfield as your dad. Forget his character in the movie. It's basically Rodney with a few incest jokes thrown in. Imagine being raised by a guy that makes his living on the fact that his insecurities prevent him from feeling any respect from his peers, so he constantly complains about it. Imagine being a toddler and seeing Rodney's bug eyes staring at you in your crib. That's the stuff nightmares and killers are made of.

Hail Caesar

2009-08-26T12:24:00.000-07:00

Hail Caesar
By Peter John Gardner

One of the main reasons I decided to take on the work of Robert Downey Jr. after the completion of Project Stallone was because I thought that films featuring Downey would typically be better than the majority of Stallone films I had to endure, thus making this project a little more painless. I thought I was right until I got to Hail Caesar.

In one sentence, this movie is basically Anthony Michael Hall's masturbatory fantasy about being a rock star. Directed by Hall, the film follows Julius Caesar (yes, that's his character's actual name) on his quest for fame and the approval of his girlfriend. Caesar as a character isn't likeable at all, and he comes across less like an early 90s alternative rocker and more like some douchebag fraternity boy that happens to know how to play a little bit of guitar. Oddly enough, Hall bears more than a passing resemblence to FOX News's misinformant Glenn Beck so the movie is a lot more fun if you pretend that it's Glenn Beck and not Julius Caesar.

The plot finds Caesar with his struggling rock band that makes Bill & Ted's Wyld Stallions look like The Beatles trying to catch a break. At the same time, Caesar is dating the daughter of a wealthy eraser factory owner that is obsessed with guns and Ronald Reagan. His daughter is a complete, hoighty toighty snob that seems to have nothing but contempt for Caesar, leaving the viewer to wonder why they're even dating. Dad's not too fond of his daughter dating a "lower class" rock musician, so he hatches a plan to get Julius out of the picture. In order for Caesar to continue dating this uppity wench, he has to come up with $100,000 within six months. For some reason that is never explained, the dad gets Caesar a job at the pencil eraser factory to help get him started. Soon enough, Caesar is promoted to manager and uncovers some sketchy activities going on at the factory that he can use as blackmail. Hijinks ensue as well as cocaine fueled cameos from Judd Nelson, Samuel L. Jackson, and Robert Downey Jr. Downey's role is as a record label exec whose first appearance is preceded by a bizarre dance sequence in his office than can only be explained by the use of cocaine from everyone involved.

This film is an unfunny mess with vague themes of true love and not "selling out". Since Anthony Michael Hall didn't really sell me on his role as a struggling musician, and Downey's appearance is the cinematic equivalent of an all night cocaine bender, I'm going to focus instead on Samuel L. Jackson's role as the mailman. It's a small role, and most of the time Jackson is getting attacked by the dogs at Caesar's house. He eventually quits the mailman job and takes on other thankless jobs, like digging a hole in front of the Caesar house.

"Four years of college for this?" mutters Jackson. Jackson's character obviously was an English major in college. English majors typically go through four years of school to arrive at two destinations: a) Become an English teacher, or b) Do something that has nothing to do with English where you frequently get shit on, take on mundane jobs, and wonder why you spent all that money on tuition. Life frequently puts me in positions where I'm just doing what I'm supposed to do, and instead of an obstacle or challenge, it's a fucking dog chasing after me that I have to deal with (metaphorically speaking, of course). You can't fight the dog, that would be animal cruelty. You have to run away and hope that you don't get a piece of flesh ripped off of your leg.

Short Cuts

2009-08-15T11:41:00.000-07:00

Short Cuts
By Peter John Gardner

Fate and choice are two opposing forces that have been explored to death in the arts, yet we always return to these themes because they're something mankind will most likely never figure out. How much of our life is dictated by fate, and how much is through our own choice? Was it fate to make certain choices in life? Is it a choice to believe in fate? What happens when fate and choice collide? Is your head ready to explode yet?

Short Cuts is a very long film based on short stories that explore these themes. Some of the stories run parallel to each, some characters meet characters from other stories, but everything and everyone is not intertwined and connected into one larger story like Magnolia. There are 22 principal characters in the film, yet director Robert Altman paces the film properly so that the viewer never loses track of what's happening to whom. There's a story involving Matthew Modine, Julianne Moore, Fred Ward, Anne Archer, and Huey Lewis (of all people!) that explores failing marriages and a dead body. Concurrently, we've got Lily Tomlin and Tom Waits playing a dysfunctional couple who accidentally hit the child of Bruce Davison and Andie MacDowell. Bruce and Andie are already knee deep in problems of their own including an irate Lyle Lovett as a baker and Jack Lemmon giving advice on infidelity. Meanwhile, Lily Tomlin's daughter is married to Robert Downey Jr. who plays an odd man that is aroused by sadism. Downey also has the distinction of being the first time I've seen a character in a movie awakened by his own fart. Finally, there's a story of Tim Robbins as a bad cop whose oblivious wife is friends with Moore's character. It sounds like a lot to keep up with, but the movie gives everyone enough breathing space, and ties the stories together

Was it luck or fate that these characters cross each others' paths? Short Cuts leaves it up to the viewer to decide. With this in mind, and as a man that doesn't believe in fate, I tried looking back on my own life to figure out if fate did indeed play a role or if everything is just the result of luck, choice, and coincidence. If I had never left Texas when my parents divorced, I would have never met the beautiful people that I consider my friends now. Was that fate or just trying to adapt and survive?

With romantic relationships, the phrase "meant to be" pops up in the more serious ones. Was it really meant to be or are the two people involved just really good at compromise and decency? When the relationship ends, was it because it "wasn't meant to be" or is it because one or the other made some bad decisions? Who decides what exactly is "meant to be"?

A phrase that I loathe is "every thing happens for a reason". As a staunch atheist that doesn't believe in fate, the phrase itself makes me sigh, yet there is truth to it. I don't think that some outside force whether it be fate or a deity makes things happen to a person, but I do believe that the reason things happen is to teach something. I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I've tried to walk away from each one of life's fuckups and disasters having learned something through the experience. That something may not become apparent until long after the fact. Am I a wise man? Fuck no. Am I wiser than I was ten years ago? Certainly.

Am I wiser after writing this article? Doubtful.

Heart and Souls

2009-01-23T16:50:00.000-08:00

Heart and Souls
By Peter John Gardner

Allow me to start this one off by saying that I loved this movie. I normally don't care for warm hearted, romantic comedies for the whole family, but this movie kept me smiling throughout and is just plain cute. That being said, the following entry will be overthinking a movie that does not require any thinking at all for the sake of a good read.

The film starts off somewhere in the 1950s where we follow four individuals making one last mistake in their lives before they all take a bus ride home. The bus crashes into a car where a woman is giving birth, and instead of being pulled up to Heaven, the recently deceased get stuck with the newborn child. They aren't allowed to leave the child because they are bound by some kind of invisible wall around the child.

So these four people hang around young Thomas 24/7 and entertain themselves by entertaining him. As the child grows up, family and school faculty grow concerned with Thomas's "imaginary friends". One night, the four dead babysitters overhear a fight between Thomas's mother and father about what to do with their child that they think could be schizophrenic. The spirits decide to become invisible and let Thomas grow up to lead a normal life.

Flash forward to the future where we find Thomas has grown up into yuppie banker that doesn't seem to have the time for anyone. The dead spirits are still hanging around Thomas all day, but he can't hear or see them anymore. They just follow him around and comment on his life. When the bus to Heaven finally arives, the spirits find out that they were left on Earth so that they could use Thomas to fix their mistakes (think Quantum Leap), so they strike a deal with the bus driver to come back a little later after they tie up their loose ends. Hilarity ensues and Downey is a tour-de-force of physical comedy whenever he is possessed by one of the spirits.

The circumstances of the spirits' lives and Thomas's in the film had me asking myself all sorts of questions concerning the logistics of the situation. So these four people are bound to Thomas until they Quantum Leap their problems and are not allowed any privacy. Do the spirits go to the bathroom? What do they talk about with each other for eternity? Did any of the two males have sex with either of the two females?

And what about poor Thomas? These four people have watched him every time he's taken a shit, picked his nose, had sex, masturbated, or stuck a finger up his own ass. Think about that. What if this is actually what happens when you die? You get stuck with three other people as the guardian angels of a newborn baby. Or think about your own life right now. That time you didn't wash your hands after taking a hefty number two at the office? The time you rubbed one out in bed while your wife was sleeping? Or how about when you stuck your finger up your own ass just to see what would happen? Four strangers could have been watching you, and one of them could be played by Tom Sizemore.

Chaplin

2009-01-21T16:45:00.000-08:00

Chaplin
By Peter John Gardner

Some people out there were born to do what they do. It's hard to imagine hearing the voice of Aretha Franklin or Thom Yorke and not think that they were born to sing. Kurt Vonnegut and Ernest Hemingway were born to write and Charlie Chaplin was born to entertain. Starting in his early childhood, he was already memorizing songs to sing and devising characters to make us laugh. After watching the film version of Chaplin's life, I now firmly believe that Robert Downey Jr. was born to act. Downey doesn't so much portray Charles Chaplin. It's more like he was possessed by the man himself. Everything from the drunken man routine, to Chaplin's famous character 'The Tramp', to Chaplin himself Downey nails. With 'The Tramp' makeup on, it's easy to forget that it's not actually Chaplin we're watching.

Downey isn't the only actor that brought his A-game to the film. He surrounded by an excellent supporting cast that includes Anthony Hopkins, Dan Aykroyd, Kevin Kline, Moira Kelly, Marisa Tomei, Milla Jovovich, James Woods, and David Duchovney in the only role that I've seen him play where he's not obsessed with sex and/or aliens. Everyone involved does a phenomenal job as the people that shaped Charlie Chaplin's life.

The story of Chaplin's life is framed using an elderly Chaplin discussing the details of his autobiography to his publisher/ghostwriter. Chaplin's life story is quite remarkable. After making a name for himself in British theater, Chaplin is recruited to America to work in the blossoming moving picture industry. We see the development of Chaplin's most famous characters and Charles's own entrepreneurship as he starts making movies himself. Along the way, Charlie courts and fails with a number of lovers, is branded a Communist sympathizer by the US government (damn liberal Hollywood!), and eventually moves back to England out of frustration and disgust with the government's communist witchhunt.

Some followup research proved that some elements in the movie were dramatized, which is to be expected, but there was one scene in particular I thought was written specifically for the film that turned out to be completely factual. At the age of five, Chaplin's mother fell ill during a musical number at a theater. To quell the angry masses in the crowd, Charlie himself went up there and finished the song and dance. Born entertainer.

At the age of 28, I'm still trying to figure out what Peter Gardner was born to do. I tried sports and various other hobbies growing up and quickly lost interest in them. I'll admit that I'm a nerd and that books and video games interested me more as a youth, but when I reached that crucial age at the end of high school where everyone starts asking you what do you want to do with your life, I couldn't think of a good answer. I would look at schools and potential fields of study and just shrug my shoulders. I didn't know what I wanted to do, and I figured that the standard two years of general education courses would enlighten me.

After I completed those courses and received my AA degree, I took a break from school to work full time while I figured out what I wanted to do next because at that point, I still had no idea. There were areas that I was better at than others like Computer Science, English, and History, but none of them tickled my fancy enough to want to pursue a career in that field. I eventually settled on getting a degree in English/Creative Writing because that is arguably what I do best. Was I born to write? I doubt that. Was I born to teach? I don't think so. One thing I do know is that I was born to do something or else I wouldn't be here. Maybe I was born just to endure all of Stallone and Downey's films. What a life.

Soapdish

2009-01-04T08:18:00.000-08:00

Soapdish
By Peter John Gardner

Soapdish is a comedic soap opera about a soap opera. By nature I shouldn't have liked this movie. The movie does smell of aged cheese at times, but having said that, the film works on all levels. It even has a twist ending which I dare not reveal here because it provided me with the biggest laugh I got from the film.

The film takes a loose soap opera template to tell the story of the backstage drama of a show called The Sun Also Sets (Random thought: Imagine a soap opera based on The Sun Also Rises!) and the show's resident diva Celeste played by Sally Field. Celeste's life is in turmoil since her lover left her. She wants off the show but knows that it'll be the end of her career if she does. Her only support in the production is the show's head writer Rose (Whoopi Goldberg). Montana Moorehead (Cathy Moriarity) is her younger co-star that wants Celeste off the show so that she can become the show's new darling. She cockteases the show's producer David Barnes (Downey) to try to make that happen. We also have a young actress that literally budges her way onto the show played by Elizabeth Shue that turns out to be Celeste's niece. Finally, there's Kevin Kline's Jeffrey Anderson, a former cast member and lover of Celeste's that is now performing Death of A Salesman for deaf, elderly people in Florida that David and Montana lure back to the show hoping his presence will frustrate Celeste and force her to quit.

For a movie with this many subplots and characters roaming around at once, everything flows together beautifully, and you never lose track of what's going on. The movie even throws a few saw-it-coming-but-still curveballs the way that a real soap opera would (Lori is actually Celeste's daughter? Who woulda thunk?).

If the moral of this film is to lead a life without drama, I can't get behind it. Let me elaborate. Some situations in life I consider drama. The rest is just life. Drama is the kind of negative, soap opera-y type stuff that people could avoid if they wanted to but don't. I don't necessarily like drama, and I try to do whatever I can to avoid the kind of drama that seems to follow other people around on a daily basis, but what's the fun in life if there aren't any asinine conflicts that cause a headache for a week but provide me something to laugh about later? I'm not saying people should start cheating on their significant other or try to get someone fired at their job because they don't like them, but if there's not at least a little bit of drama in our lives then the movie that they make about you after you die would either be extremely boring or be forced to take creative liberties in order to make it interesting. Would you really want a cinematic depiction of you shitting on a salad bar because nothing interesting happened in your life?

Air America

2008-12-28T09:05:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-02T13:04:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-24T09:12:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-11T19:41:00.000-08:00

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

2008-10-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-30T07:52:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-01T08:52:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-18T08:20:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-29T07:46:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-14T20:45:00.000-07:00

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.