EXCALIBUR (1981)

Its been awhile since my last post and basically 2016 got away from me. Its not as though I didn't watch tons of bad movies, because I did. Mostly, life has a way of getting ahead of you. But in the time I wasn't writing about my favorite hobby, I was traveling, doing other kinds of writing and getting married. But thankfully (for me anyway), I watched this with my husband the other night and as we riffed away, it dawned on me that I missed writing for this blog and I set out to make things right.

So we're getting a new King Arthur movie this year.  Did you know you wanted one? Well, no matter what you're answer, the good people at Warner Bros are going to give you one anyway.

Look, I'll throw money at it, that's for sure. I enjoy Charlie Hunnam, Guy Ritchie and that quick style editing that feeds my ADD.

However, this put me in mind of a King Arthur movie from years past and unfortunately, its not the one with Kiera Knightly looking sad while she shoots arrows. Unfortunately, its not Disney's Sword and the Stone, which is delightful and shows how much any story is improved with a wizard singing about doing the dishes. Instead, its this one:

So I did some hunting and I found it. It really wasn't that hard to find actually.

Here's your film overview - its over the top lovely but if you asked me to recount the story of Arthur based on this movie alone and not on anything else I'd read or watched. There's a lot of story packed in, so basically, Arthur is born out of deeply upsetting circumstances, which somehow involves Excalibur stuck in a stone. He falls ass backwards into the most important job of the country, marries a woman who flirts with everyone, sets up Knights, Inc. His wife cheats on him, which he takes the blame for. Then there's another deeply upsetting scene where his sister has a baby with him, which leads to that kid declaring war. And somehow the Holy Grail fits in.

That being said, the main takeaway here is that Arthur becomes King of England by doing very little and he maintains that statue of accomplishments until his death where people still have to do all the work for him.

One thing I didn't realize was how many well known actors got started in this:

Like Helen Mirren!

Liam Neeson!

Patrick Stewart! The villain from Casino Royale AND Doctor Strange!

This movie introduces us to Merlin, who's style of interacting is using forcefully punctuated sentences that are always being shouted. Sometimes its louder than other times, but for the most part, he's either shouting out of anger or he's shouting out of vindictive glee.

He will find something to yell at you about...

Or rub your face in the fact your mortality is aggressively stupid to him.

And then there's Arthur, who while the actor portraying him is clearly talented, However, this is a man who accidentally got hired as king and immediately started delegating tasks to everyone around him.

I know that according to legend, Merlin instilled Arthur with the power to turn into animals to see things from another persepective, but if this movie is to be believed, I think Merlin just took him aside and said, "Listen, if you complain with enough confidence, people will just do whatever you want to get you to shut up."

And it totally works -

Arthur sees Guinevere and after one conversation, he demands Merlin force her to fall in love with him.

Which sort of works. But keep in mind this...

When you're wife is giving this look to your best employee, its time to read the writing on the wall.

It just leads to running off into the woods...

where there is no dress code.

"Look, I'll fix Excalibur for you one more time, but if it happens again, you're going to have to find some other lady in the next lake over to do it for you."

At one point, through the film's logic which I didn't quite follow, Arthur makes it his mission to find the Holy Grail. And by "his mission" I mean, "sends out his knights to go find it while he lays in bed". Thankfully, the last one came back, minus clothes, while Arthur downed what was in it and said. "Hey, Percival, you wanna go wash your feet next time?"

Two very upsetting things happen in this movie and Merlin is sort of responsible for both.

First of all, Merlin gives the green light for Arthur's biological father to go rape Arthur's mother...

Despite the fact it was this dance that threw him into fits of desire.

Secondly, Arthur's sister, Morgana pulls the old "I dare you to show me how smart you are!" gag on him, steals his magic and promptly sleeps with Arthur.

Arthur was not the only man in the kingdom. She had options, is all I'm saying.

And it needs to be said, she gives birth to the smuggest kid in all of human history.

And since when is gold armor considered acceptable play clothes for children?

It should also go without saying that an afterschool program would have benefitted this kid to no end.

But regardless, Morgana's son, Mordred then quickly grows into the smuggest man in history.

So in the end, Arthur gets Merlin to fight his battle for him but implementing a fog which throws off Mordred and his troops because there was no mention of fog in the weather forecast. (Yes, that was actually said).

And so, with the kingdom restored and having fully apologized to Guinevere for her cheating on him, his work is done. He is carried away on a ship to live on....

While Excalibur is dumped into the sea like garbage. However, littering is a crime and the higher powers that be will simply not allow it.

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TROOP BEVERLY HILLS (1988)

Lets talk about this masterpiece. Chances are, you've already seen it, loved it and think about it  and stumbled on this post. If so, then lets chat about what's possibly the finest film ever made. At least the best ever made about being a Girl Scout in Beverly Hills.

If you don't know what its about, well all you need to know is that Shelley Long IS Phyllis Neffler, a soon to be divorcee living in Beverly Hills, who takes over her daughters Wilderness Girls troop and teaches them what its really like to survive life. You know who really gets the life lesson here? Phyllis Neffler. And she does it in glorious 80s style.

So instead of going through characters and themes of this movie, lets talk about the important lessons we learned from this movie.

1.  Always look on the positive side of things.

Its hard to get Phyllis down. Her husband is leaving her and has forced a mirror in her face of what her life is REALLY about. Despite it being harsh news, she takes it like a champ and decides to challenge herself doing something she's never done before.  Hello, Wilderness Girls!

2.   Money isn't everything, but friends and family are.

Something about these kids brings this out. Phyllis' social life is a bit of a mystery. She has her Joan Collins-esque friend...

...who's fabulous in her own way, but what kind of support does she really have? Hello, Wilderness Girls! Where would she be without them? Like in my life, there's this woman named Marilyn in the finance department who sends out emails saying we need to cut back on Office Depot orders but she's not realizing that if you have friends in other departments, they can make orders for you.

3.  You can take anything and make it glamorous.

I hate camping. I've never been, but I can tell you now - nothing about it appeals to me. So when I see the way Phyllis Neffler camps, sign me up. She made fondue and took the girls to the Beverly Hills Hotel. Seriously, SIGN ME UP.

4.   If you're unsure of anything in life, then make it your own.

Phyllis took a drab Wilderness Girls dress and turned it into MAGIC.

The structuring of that jacket isn't what makes it magic. Its the fact that she saw something she didn't like and did something about it. I hate khaki, but she makes a strong case for it. Marilyn from Finance likes to send out excel spreadsheet templates that make no sense. You take those templates and give her a pie chart. Shuts them up everytime.

5.  There is no enemy too great that you can't take on.

Meet the Red Feathers. Sure, Tori Spelling is a member, but the important thing to consider is that every enemy has a weakness. There's was also the one thing getting them ahead, which was their "Kill or be Killed" attitude. Maybe it works in the here and now, but it will catch up with you when you leave your mother in a ditch with a broken ankle.

6.  How to sell cookies.

Instead of going to door to door, make the market come to you. Stake out Jane Fonda's Workout gym chains or coordinate a fabulous pool party at your house. Everyone likes cookies - including Marilyn from finance who takes the boxes in the breakroom home with her every week.

And never underestimate the power of working the crowd with a heart pumping choreographed number:

7.   If you don't like how people make you earn their approval, then make your own merit badges.

Maybe you'll never be in a situation where you have to learn how to make a campfire or bind a wound. Thats because that's not crucial to your environment. That's when Phyllis stepped it up and had her girls learn truly useful things like how to appraise jewelry and how to be active in your community.

Those are some fabulous patches.

8.  You can't "win" him back. You can only make yourself attractive for the world.

Man, Freddy. This guy made all of his money with Phyllis at his side and then traded her in for a younger and hotter real estate agent. If your goals of self improvement involve winning a man back, then you're doing it wrong. Win yourself back. If he's a real man, he'll see what he's missing.

9.  Never let the bullies get you down.

Despite the emotional beat down Velda gave Phyllis, it never stopped her from offering her a smile and a cappucino. Velda never came around, but it didn't matter in the end. Phyllis got to be the poster woman for Wilderness leadership and Velda settled back for a career in customer service. That's how the universe works sometimes.

Also never get married in Reno. Because reasons.

10. Dress for the person you are, not the person that others want you to be.

Look, I take a stand against wearing sweatpants to work (although Marilyn in Finance feels differently as she has given up on life altogether), but other than that, every day is your own occassion and dress for whatever comes your way. 

I don't know how one would sit in this either but does it really matter?

Is it culturally insensitive when you're teaching the value of turquoise to all cultures?

Bet you don't give up on gardening as quickly if you're wearing this.

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The Ewok Adventure: Caravan of Courage

Once upon a time, many months ago, I posted a entry about my experience watching Battle for Endor. Since its been so long since my last entry, I thought I'd pick things up and visit the previous chapter to the Ewok saga - sort of the Attack of the Clones to A New Hope, if you will.

The last time I watched a movie for you, was Last Action Hero which featured Arnold Schwarzenegger doing his Arnold Schwarzeneggingist to portray a human actor, which as we all know, he failed on all fronts. This time I around, I watched a film where the majority of the actors are fuzzy bears with spears (and they say there's no diversity in Hollywood), all displaying more emotion, and more depth of character.

So lets begin...

I'd imagine the pitch for this made for TV epic began with a producer and a network executive in a office somewhere:

Producer: "So our writers have a couple of storylines they'd like to share with you--"
Executives: One of them better be about Ewoks. Kids love ewoks."
(Producer furiously starts scribbling notes one of the scripts)
Producer: Yep, got one right here. Its about a ewok and definitely not a jedi on a quest.
Executive: You know whats hot right now? That kid from E.T.
Producer: The boy who played Elliot? Don't remember his name but I guess we could...
Executive: Sure, get him too if you can get the girl.
Producer: Drew Barrymore?
Executive: Is that her name?

And so on from there.  Basically try to imagine if Cindy and Peter Brady got marooned on Endor, and that one Ewok you remember from Return of the Jedi spent the whole movie flailing around and screwing everything up, you basically have a Caravan of Courage...

Which I can say there is a caravan, but there's very little courage.  Mr. and Mrs Brady get lost while trying to find their kids, leaving their jobs to the figment of George Lucas' imagination.

The kids wander into the Ewok village where Cindy, sorry "Cyndal" gets sick, blows their cover and throws the whole village in danger of contracting whatever virus she has but is foreign to them.

It should come as no surprise that this little angel is the best actor in the whole production. She cries real tears, she shows concern at the scene she's in and she speaks her lines as opposed to shouting them like Peter Brady-Kenobi.

Before all this started, we were introduced to Wicket, aka, the only Ewok you remembered distinctively from Return of the Jedi, sets the precedent for what he'll be doing for the rest of the movie: Flailing his arms like a mutant panda and screwing everything up. Like this scene where he nearly sends his father (? I think. Relationships among Ewoks aren't clearly outlined) to a free fall of a death.

In a decision that required no deliberation, no planning and no forthought, the Ewoks decide to help the Brady kids find their parents. Probably because no one wants human kids around with free floating viruses that would no doubt be fatal to a fragile immune system.

Regardless, they head out on their "caravan of courage" which really is just 60 minutes of them wandering all over various landscapes, stumbling into dangerous situations either caused by Wicket or Peter Brady.

Awwwww.....

Look, I realize that Star Wars was ahead of its time with its special effects and there are just some things that you can't do for television in the early '80s. Which can be the only explanation for why a monster made of Play-doh comes out and tries to kill everyone.

Apparently it was terrifying, even though you could see the fingerprints on the clay.

 

 For those of you concerned with your childhood being killed at this point, may I remind you that that time has long past and I'm just here cleaning it up.

Most of this movie is narrated by a burly voiced narrator who reads it the same way one might read a childrens book.

"And so the children walked from dense forest to desert, back to dense forest where something jumped out at them and back into desert where Peter Brady complained the whole time."

"Peter had a lot of unresolved anger issues which led him to threaten forest creatures with firearms at the drop of a hat. But they pressed on, hoping he would snap out of it."

Lets go back into the forest, where the childrens' minds are open just long enough to come face to face with this horrible demon possesed dried apple head.

And Peter Brady kind of sort of uses the "force." Which he only does once and never does again when bigger things happen. Why? you ask. Its a good question, but it seems the movie quickly said, "Hey, what's that over there!" which we then did and the movie quickly ran out of the room, jumped into its car and we didn't hear from it again.

"So the children and the Ewoks wandered into this cave, and thought it'd be fun to climb this spiderweb. It was kind of dangerous when a spider was dangled down on a string and victoriously swatted away.

But they pressed on and made it to the other side, which they happened to realize led to where their parents were held hostage. They weren't expecting that."

I don't know what this thing is, all we know that it grabbed Mr. and Mrs Brady, stuck them in a tiny cage. I also know it has a disproportionately small mouth that an Ewok couldn't fit through. But hey, its George Lucas' universe, we're just stuck wondering what on earth he's doing.

 I'm not defending the actions of kidnapping and terror but you have to admit this thing is probably just really lonely and wanted something to take care of. He lives in a cave that's really hard to get to and hygiene is not a priority. People don't come around and he's not getting invited to any book clubs.

In the end, they rescue Mr. and Mrs. Brady, push the monster off a cliff and get one of their own killed. All three of these events were done with very little excitement, and there was some dull surprise at losing their fellow Ewok brother. Cyndal cried a little, but the important lesson  here is that when someone close to you dies in a horribly tragic way (say, falling to their death by rock slide and/or monster) its best to move on as quickly as possible. According to these Ewoks, they just forgot about the entire incident completely...

...and then they wrote a happy song about it. Because it was indeed a caravan chock full of courage (courage being dull surprise as you wander through one someone dangerous incident after the other)

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