Hawaiian Reeves

At times, a movie comes along that touches Hawaiian in his special place, and such movies must be remembered.

And since exactly none of the movies at this year’s Academy Awards touched me anywhere at all, I thought I might as well share some of them with you. Five in all. We’ll pretend they make up their own category and possibly name it later. Suggestions are appreciated.

Before getting into it, I should give you a better idea of what these movies really are. These are not, for example, the safe choices one might list as favorites on a Friendster profile while hoping others don’t find you either weird or boring. (Mine: Trick, Houseboat, Giant, Sixteen Candles, Elizabeth, Clueless, Dangerous Liasons, and Best in Show) Nor are they the kind of movies I might love in secret but never admit to anyone who doesn’t already know me. (Again, in the spirit of sharing: The Parent Trap, The Cutting Edge, Flashdance, Center Stage, I Love Trouble, most Elvis movies including Clambake, Blue Hawaii, and It Happened at the World’s Fair, the John Wayne films with Maureen O’Hara, and When in Rome, a very special straight-to-video release starring Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson.)

No, these movies do not belong on either of these lists. These movies are like trying to explain my love for Curb Your Enthusiasm or Wesley Willis. (If you don’t know Wesley, Chickencow and I Whooped Batman’s Ass are two personal favorites.) My relationship with these movies could be as inexplicable as my love for Nicolette Sheridan, as deep as my affection for Project Runway, or as shameful as my true appreciation for any bad picture of Ashlee Simpson. Which, I suppose, means that each of these is, in its own way, a little glimpse into the inner workings of my own little Hawaiian-shaped soul.

So here they are the nominees for..(whatever we’re calling this)

Freeway

OK, so maybe I was pretty happy that Reese won Sunday night, and maybe I like the fact that she doesn’t have arms the size of bicycle spokes and that her body actually looks better after having two children than it did before them. And maybe listening to her acceptance speech wasn’t nearly as entertaining as watching a close friend laugh himself to near tears at repeatedly watching Naomi Watts pick a wedgie while talking to a suspiciously lesbian-looking Roger Ebert during the ABC preshow, but it was still one of the better parts of the night for me. Reese was radiant, and made a painful movie more watchable for me (note to Joaquin Phoenix: Johnny Cash didn’t actually look like someone on the verge of a seizure while playing the guitar) and it’s really no surprise that I love Reese dearly, but it might be a surprise that I didn’t love her at all until I saw Freeway.

There’s something particularly special about this movie from beginning to end. Maybe it’s the Brooke Shields. Maybe it’s the crazed Kiefer Sutherland. Maybe it’s the white-trash Michael T. Weiss whose role is all too short. Or maybe it’s just Reese. From start to finish. Just trying to get to her grandmother’s house without being victimized by the Big Bad Wolf.

If you haven’t seen this, don’t mistakenly pick up the sequel Freeway 2, starring Natasha Lyonne. While I love that movie for a very different set of reasons, I’m really not so twisted as to recommend that film to anyone. At all. Ever.

Favorite line from Freeway: “My neck may not function, but I have not lost my smile.”

Kingpin

At times, I’m embarrassed to admit that I love this movie. But for all of the times I’m not ashamed of myself, I’m perfectly happy to watch it. I think it’s actually the best of the Farrelly Brothers movies. Granted, Vanessa Angel doesn’t even remotely compare to Cameron Diaz, but Kingpin showcases Bill Murray at his absolute finest. I like to watch this movie by myself. On Saturday nights. When I don’t have to explain myself or my sense of humor to anyone else in the world. The Randy Quaid can be fairly difficult to take at times, but the whole idea of man trying to recapture lost glory in the world of professional bowling makes me cry, as does Bill Murray’s translucent bowling ball with the rose trapped inside of it. Mostly because the aunt I had who overdosed at her own 40th birthday party had dead roses trapped in all kinds of crap inside her house.

Favorite line from Kingpin: “You must have a really wide foot. I think you got ‘em both.”

Napoleon Dynamite

I did a very bad thing the first time I watched Napoleon — I watched it with someone who wasn’t American. And he didn’t laugh. At all. And in fact, while I literally cried my way through the first half of the movie and repeatedly apologized for loving it so much, all he could do was stare and me blankly and ask if he sounded like Pedro. He did not, in fact, sound like Pedro, but apparently Venezuelans are as unsettled by the thought of sounding Mexican as I was by that dream I used to have when I was five where my mother had for some reason abandoned me in the middle of a grocery store while I was shirtless — it’s one of those fears that you never really outgrow, no matter how old you get. Thankfully, he finally started laughing at about 50 minutes in during the time machine joke because testicular trauma seems to be funny in almost any culture or accent.

In a double-down, double my shame sort of way, I have to admit that I dated someone who reminded me vaguely of Napoleon, and I went to high school with someone who may have actually been the basis for Napoleon(and no, they were not the same person). While the guy I dated was just a neurotic lawyer whose mother still bought his groceries, the high school kid was part of a larger tragic family with an odd last name, strange dietary habits, and an even more odd inability to comprehend their own lack of talent or appeal. His short-limbed sister tried out for the cheerleading squad so many times that it became easier to make her the costumed mascot than it was to say no again, and the Napoleon-clone was forever running for student council, drawing pictures for people, and singing in church. Maybe I like that movie because it’s just so disturbingly familiar. Or maybe I like it because it’s the best of both worlds in a way — I get a little taste of home without actually having to be there.

Favorite line from Napoleon Dynamite: “I caught you a delicious bass.”

Wild Things

I want to be really very clear in establishing that my love for this movie truly has nothing to do with the brief Kevin Bacon nude scene near the end. Seriously. I’m not into Kevin and never have been. In fact, I’ve only seen Footloose like 500 times because it oddly resonates with my mother and because we didn’t have cable when I was a kid and the local movie rental outpost was actually a counter in the small-town grocery store with about 100 titles. So it was Footloose and Grease. Often.

I do, however, love Wild Things for the Denise Richards. And again, the Bill Murray. And the Robert Wagner. And the Matt Dillon. And the way that on initial viewing, it really is impossible to figure out. I love that it gives me a girl fight that ends up in a pool, and a slow-motion car wash scene with girls in white. I love that I don’t feel compelled to think when I watch this movie and that I’m perfectly willing to be carried along in its slow-moving coastal Florida tide. I might even love this movie because it makes me forget that even though I think her brother is adorable, I really, really don’t like Neve Campbell.

Favorite line from Wild Things: withheld. I don’t want to make any new enemies or otherwise incriminate myself.

Welcome to Woop Woop

So really, honestly, this one was the hardest to bring myself to put on the list. I’m not going to tell you how many times I’ve seen this movie, but I will tell you that I won’t let myself own it. I’m not even going to lie and tell you that I only watch it because Jonathan Schaech is at least half-naked in it at all times. I won’t lie and say I like it because it’s Australian, because as much as I like Strictly Ballroom, I don’t like that movie because it’s Australian either.

It’s just that when I watch the hapless American criminal stumble into a dictatorial community of Australian outsiders who seem to make a living recycling garbage and grinding Kangaroos into dog food and who sing numbers from Rodgers and Hammerstein muscials, I think I have brief moments of clarity of what it might be like for someone else to stumble into the chaos that lives inside my own head. It’s true that there aren’t crossdressers or outback barflies hiding out in there, but there’s still something very familiar about the theme of some seemingly normal guy trapped in circumstances beyond his control from which he’d really, really rather just find a way to escape.

Favorite line from Welcome to Woop Woop: Don’t ask. Please. Just. Don’t. Ask.

In other news, I’ve now started seeing actual commercial for So Notorious. No wonder it’s been so difficult for me to sleep lately.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 7th, 2006 at 2:43 am and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.