BIG SODA & POPCORN
Summer Movie Showdown!!
It’s summertime and the much-hyped blockbusters are going strong. While I love special effects explosions and $25 million stars as much as anybody, these hot months are a good time to enjoy the simpler things in life. For me, that includes the movies of my childhood. They just take me back to the days when my biggest problem was deciding what flavor AirHead to get from the pool concession stand. They all have a special place, but just for fun, check out what happens when I put eight of these films up against each other in arbitrary matchups with absolutely no discernible criteria…
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) vs. Dazed and Confused (1993)
Cast: The ensemble casts in these two films are ridiculous, even if none of them were actually stars at the time they were released. However, Fast Times had three future winners of the Best Actor Oscar, while the cast of Dazed is a better fit for the next pseudo-celebrity reality TV competition (“Grocery Shopping with the Stars,” perhaps?). Fast Times gets the nod here also because of the casting “what-ifs”: Geena Davis, Diane Keaton, Carrie Fisher, Sharon Stone, Helen Hunt and Brooke Shields all auditioned for the role of Stacy, while Sean Penn’s role as stoner Jeff Spicoli was initially offered to John Travolta (WTF?) and Christopher Reeve (seriously, WTF?).
Winner: Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Performances: With the exception of Penn as a burnout class clown, these two pictures don’t exactly contain any performances I’d consider to be a stretch from the actors. Ben Affleck as an overbearing bully with a sense of self-entitlement? Hardly shocking. Matthew McConaughey as a creepy stoner who preys on teenage girls? I think that was last week’s cover story from People Magazine. Judge Reinhold getting caught while pleasuring himself to thoughts of Phoebe Cates? That probably still happens monthly. With that in mind, Fast Times takes this category on the strength of Ray Walston’s Mr. Hand, the paranoid history teacher who is convinced that all teens are on dope.
Winner: Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Miscellaneous: Fast Times has one major intangible that Dazed just can’t match: Phoebe Cates topless by the pool. Doesn’t anyone f**king knock anymore?
Winner: Fast Times at Ridgemont High
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Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989) vs. Space Camp (1986)
Plot: Here we have a showdown of a familiar genre from my childhood: a science experiment goes terribly awry and a group of kids inherit a zany adventure from it—instead of being horribly maimed like you’d expect. In Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, we have a floundering inventor trying to perfect his shrink ray (an odd choice for 5’4” Rick Moranis), which eventually turns on four youths, leading to their difficult trek through a suburban backyard at 1% of their original size. With Space Camp, we find a ragtag group of kids who are purposely launched into space by a meddling sentient robot named Jinx. Sure, being tiny, riding a friendly ant and swimming in a bowl of Cheerios might sound like a blast, but Lea Thompson landed a space shuttle, Joaquin Phoenix performed a space walk, and Tate Donovan got to pretend to be cool for once.
Winner: Space Camp
Cast: Tom Skerritt, ‘nuff said.
Winner: Space Camp in a landslide
Bad Decision Avoidance: Honey, I Shrunk the Kids opted against the name “Teenie Weenies,” while Space Camp was released six months after the Challenger explosion.
Winner: Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
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The Sandlot (1993) vs. Meatballs (1979)
Rich Kid Rivals: Camp Mohawk or The Tigers? No matter who they are, everyone enjoys seeing the underdog stick it to the annoying, rich white kids. The Mohawk douches were particularly annoying, but they lost their claim to fame to a young boy in a cross-country meet. You just can’t come back from that. The Tigers, on the other hand, were destroyed by the Sandlot kids, but they still had shiny new bikes, sleek uniforms, and probably girlfriends that Ham and Yeah-Yeah drooled over.
Winner: The Sandlot
Sequels: Neither of these films produced any stellar sequels worth your viewing time, I just wanted an excuse to talk about The Sandlot: Heading Home. Luke Perry (yeah, I said it, so what?) plays Tommy “Santa” Santorelli, an egocentric major league star playing for the Dodgers who is knocked out by a wild pitch and sent back in time to his days as a 12-year old at the Sandlot. Suspense builds (kinda) as we wonder if Tommy will ever revert back to the kid who just loved playing the game with his buddies. Then we remember that it’s a made-for-TV movie from ABC Family. You guess how it ends.
Winner: The Sandlot
Least Motivational Moment: Before the second day of the big Olympiad against Camp Mohawk, Bill Murray leads his campers in a chant of “It Just Doesn’t Matter.” I get goosebumps just thinking about it.
Winner: Meatballs
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Stand By Me (1986) vs. Now and Then (1995)
Cast: Damn, Jerry O’Connell was fat in 1986. It inspires me to know that he overcame childhood obesity to later impregnate a supermodel. With that in mind, let’s assess these casts based on some of their future jobs. Keifer Sutherland: The Caller in Phone Booth. Melanie Griffith: Hooker in Milk Money. Corey Feldman: Reality TV washout. Demi Moore: Stripper in Striptease. Wil Wheaton: Columnist for a Dungeons & Dragons-themed magazine. Rosie O’Donnell: Bondage-loving undercover cop in Exit to Eden.
Winner: Nobody
WTF Factor: This is a no-brainer. I’m supposed to believe that young Christina Ricci grew up into Rosie O’Donnell? Rosie could eat four Riccis at Sunday brunch. I think this film might be the reason Ricci has survived the past ten years on a diet consisting of meth, saltines and human blood. It might also explain Black Snake Moan.
Winner: Now and Then
Quotable Quotes: “If I could only have one food to eat for the rest of my life? That’s easy. Pez. Cherry-flavored Pez. No question about it.”
Winner: Stand By Me
***Comments? Suggestions? Want to make fun of Big Soda for actually watching “Now and Then”? Big Soda can be reached at bigsoda@themixtapemonster.com ***
