TITLE:   The Jerk
DATE:   1979                                         
GENRE: Classic Cult Comedy
RUNNING TIME: 1hr 34 min
RATING: R
FORMAT: Dvd
SCRIPT: Steve Martin and Carl Gottleib
DIRECTOR: Carl Reiner
STARRING: Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Catlin Adams, Mabel King,

"No matter what the times are, a strong comedy is always welcome."- Steve Martin

This was in some production notes on the DVD extras in 26th Anniversary Edition of Steve Martin and Carl Gottlieb's "The Jerk" directed by Carl Reiner. For some reason I have always had a soft spot for Steve Martin in many of his older films such as "The Man with Two Brains", "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid", "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and his appearances on "Saturday Night Live" . I believe the quote that started this review has special wisdom that I couldn't have said better myself. His special type of humor, offbeat humor, really really offbeat humor had me laughing more in the first ten minutes of this movie than I have in a total of 3 or 4 months.

 The beginning of the film  he reveals that he was "born a poor black child". In a matter moments later upon identifying that he feels different that of his beloved poor share cropper family (possibly tipped off by his unusual irregular sense of rhythm) and runs sobbing to his room, his loving mother confides in him that he was adopted and raised as one their own. Steve Martin looks his mother (played by Mabel King) and with tears streaming from his eyes and chokes forward  "You mean... I'm gonna stay this color?" He then embarks on a rags to riches story spawning from a need to find "his special purpose."

 With his earnest performance, Steve Martin more than solidifies well placed punch lines at the end of some of the best physical and situational gags that I can say that I can't remember laughing out loud so much at a movie in recent memory. It it very refreshing to revisit this classic comedy gem, in a time where many modern comedies try too hard to be clever (and usually seems a little forced) thus not being very funny; or on the opposite side of the spectrum, many modern comedies are over the top with a cynical mean spirited comedy ethic. Steve Martin's "The Jerk" is a welcomed oasis in recent times when we work too hard, take our lives way too seriously, and are begging for a comedic savior to give us that honest therapeutic guttural laugh. I highly recommend adding this film to your collection to pull out once in a while when you need to melt some troubles away,  like during a needed vacation.

This is  TJPARSONS, and I hope you enjoy the film.

What I am saying is that I don't go out and pay damn near 10 bucks to see a movie when I got boxes of DVDs and Videos waiting to be watched.  It's gotta be something special.  Something that screams out to me, "Watch me!". 

So the Friday the 13th remake comes to town. 

Sounds like the setup of a dirty joke, doesn't it?  So Jason Vorhees goes into a movie theater... 

Well, it was a dirty joke and the joke was on me.

First, a bit of disclosure.

I am not one of those anti-remake people.  True, 99% suck but the upside is we get nice reissues of the original movies on DVD we would never get.  Do you think there would be an uncut My Bloody Valentine without the remake?  No.  Those snazzy new DVDs of the first Fridays with part 3 in head-ache inducing 3D?  Never would have happened without these money grubbing remakes. 

And who knows, maybe one day we will get another The Thing or The Fly, remakes that actually built on the original movie instead of rehashing or just plain reducing what made the first one great into pablum for the masses of prepubescent girls and weak-kneed teenagers that thought the Chainsaw remake was scary as hell.

Until then we got a white trash Michael Myers with a Nazareth soundtrack and Ethan Hawke trying to be a bad ass in Precinct 13.  (Son, you may be a good actor but you sure as hell ain't Austin Stoker.)

And we get the new Friday.

Deep breath. 

Try not to cuss.

Too much.

You know, I actually had hopes for this one.  As much as I love the series, and I do love it, there is not too much to screw up here.  The plot line is simple.  Hulking mongoloid who witnesses his mother's decapitation kills teenagers.  Repeat.  Sure, he turned into a hulking ZOMBIE mongoloid later on.  And he fought a psychic.  And went to space.  And fought a magic child molester.  Still, the basics are simple.  Large retarded man-child in the woods, choppin' meat..  Easy, right?

Wrong.

These guys screwed the pooch then sold the video rights.  It's like instead of remaking the series, they remade the bad reviews.

Maybe the characters were one dimensional, but they were memorable.  Sure we all hated Shelly with his Jew-fro and practical jokes that were not that practical nor were they jokes but we felt bad for the jackass when he tried to score with the hot Latino chick Vera and struck out.

Are we gonna remember the knuckleheads in this new movie?  Hell, I can barely remember their faces.  There was the guy who sang Sister Christian.  There was the guy from Supernatural who was looking for this sister and who did the whole look pensive thing he does well and in every episode.  There was the sister whose last line to Mister Vorhees should be tattooed on the forehead of whoever wrote it so they can be bitchslapped by anyone literate enough to read such crap or who has a friend that can read it for them and is nice enough to pass on the bad news.  And then there was the black guy.

Don't get me started on racism in movies.  It's a conversation you will surely regret as it will turn into a rant filled with obscenities.  I will tell you how King Kong is nothing but a parable to keep black folks away from the white women.  (A king in his land, brought here in chains...was doing fine til he chased the blond home.)  Slasher flicks have been labeled racist in the fact that the black characters always die early.  And I admit, there is some validity to that.  But never NEVER did the Fridays have a black character die in such a way that it was like a visual racist pun.

He died in the woodpile.

A woodpile that was about 200 feet from where the wood was chopped.

That was still pretty damn far away from the house.

Why would a woodpile be so damn far away from the chopping area, yet not right next to the woodpile?

So there would be a Nubian in the fuel supply.

I thought it as I watch the dude fall then I got mad at myself when I did.  Then I got pissed off at whoever wrote it.  Even if they had never heard the line, someone along the line had to have and said nothing, thinking it was funny.

Now I will carefully climb off my soap box.

I could get into the whole Jason taking a hostage, Jason being able to rig a sweet alarm system throughout the woods, Jason being, it seems, the first Mongoloid master electrician or Jason scurrying through a series of tunnels like a Viet Cong in a bad Chuck Norris movie.  But I won't.

You see, a lot of people actually enjoyed this movie.  On one of those web forum things I go to, one guy said maybe those who hated are just too old to enjoy these movies anymore.  You just can't identify with the teenagers anymore, he says.  Who knows, maybe he is right.  Maybe I am getting too old for this shit.

All I know is I watched my childhood get fingered for a hour and a half and I paid for the privilege and am sick about it.  You see, when sex and money are intertwined someone is a whore.  I just gottta figure out if it was those who made the movie or me.

 

R.R. Moore

 

See, I had a buddy over for Chinese take out one night and as we were eating I turned on the TV.  Wasn't much on so I threw it over to AMC to see what was on and to my surprise there was Road House.  (They have changed the definition of Classics on that station.)  Well, I hadn't seen it in awhile so I left it.  Turns out, he had never seen it and it was pretty early on, so we settled in.

Long after the food was gone, there were were sitting in my kitchen watching Road House.  We were there til the last ass was kicked and the bear fell on the fat guy.  And all I could do is think to myself is "Why?".