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.