Say Anything (1989)

I wanted to watch a romantic movie for February, but I had no interest in menstruating so I didn't want it to be too girlie. The magical world of the 80s was the obvious destination...a place where anything is possible...a land where a woman can have sex with a duck or a robot and it's totally acceptable (Howard the Duck and Short Circuit respectively).

I had never seen Say Anything before. I was certainly aware of the legendary boombox scene and its iconic status, but we had never crossed paths...until now.

So here we have a story about an average dude named Lloyd (played by John Cusack when his "John Cuack" schtick was still fresh) who dreams of being a pioneer in the exciting world of kickboxing. But those plans are railroaded when the hottest valedictorian in the history of education (Seriously? Has Cameron Crowe ever met a smart chick?) bewitches him with her "stick-in-the-mud" mentality and her creepy loyalty to Frasier's father (who is also her father) in an attempt to blackmail Lloyd for a nursing home Ponzi scheme!

Or maybe that's not what happened at all...

Ok, I admit, I didn't really...get it. Whatever is supposed to make this movie so iconic, I just didn't see it. I get that it avoided most of the clichés of the genre driven into the ground earlier in the decade by John Hughes, but I didn't find Crowe's movie any less unrealistic. I've still never been to "that movie party" where every teenager in the entire town converges on a single home and no one seems to notice or care. We've still got the "dark night of the soul" moment where the couple breaks up momentarily...which occurs in this movie FOR NO REASON! Then Diane returns to Lloyd only after learning of her father's thievery when she needs someone. Not very romantic.

And can we talk about the whole "Dad's stealing from the nursing home residents" B-storyline? What the hell was that? It seemed so random. And who the hell tells their dad that they just got banged in the back of a Malibu by some trench coat-wearing loser? WEIRD!

And while we're talking about it, have any of these filmmakers ever actually tried to have sex in the backseat of a car? It's the worst! It's about 0% romantic so they need to stop presenting it like it's anything but the worst thing two naked people could possibly do. It's the equivalent of sitting in that seat on the school bus where the tire is...except you're naked and trying to hump something.

And I have to admit, after the iconic boombox scene came and went, I literally said, "That's it?" I was expecting so much more. Diane couldn't even drag her ass out of bed to check the whole thing out. She never even saw it! Get your ass out of bed, bitch! Someone is playing the shit out of Peter Gabriel!

What I did enjoy, however, was...the pen. The bitch breaks up with the dude and sends him off with...a pen. Man, that was awesome. I bought a shitload of pens just so I can go around pissing people off and then giving them a pen as a parting gift. Booya!

Why It's Not as Good as People Say it is:

Here's the bottom line: Some Kind of Wonderful is a better movie.

Best Quote:

Lloyd: Kickboxing. Sport of the future (He was right!).

Mac and Me = The Greatest Movie Ever Made

It's official.

Mac and Me is now the greatest movie ever made by Man.

At the beginning of February, Mac and Me became the most-viewed film on Captain 69's Retro Movie Review, clocking in at over 3100 views and finally surpassing long-time view leader, The Princess Bride. It seemed unlikely that a movie starring both Kevin Arnold from The Wonder Years and Andre the Giant would ever be surpassed, but their mighty reign at the top finally came to an end at the hands of a kid in a wheelchair and a shitty-looking puppet starring in what is essentially an hour-and-a-half commercial for McDonalds and Coke.

For those of you not familiar with Mac and Me, I can sum up the movie's greatness in two scenes.

The first is a scene where the writer, director, and everyone else involved thought it would be a good idea to have a kid in a wheelchair fall off a cliff and fall into a lake...and they were RIGHT! Check it out!

The other scene is the infamous dance scene that occurs in the middle of the movie where a random choreographed dance breaks out in the middle of a McDonalds. The best part is that only white people are allowed to dance inside. The blacks have to dance OUTSIDE the restaurant. Watch and try not to dance along!





In conclusion, Mac and Me > every other movie ever made.

Thank you.