McHale's Navy

Tom Arnold - in what should really be standard naval dress uniform.

List your top 5 things that you want to see in a movie. Go on, I’ll wait.

Ok, if you listed puppies, friendship, cute dresses, Jennifer Aniston and that poof from The Notebook, then you’re clearly either a girl or Julian Clary, because that shit sucks my balls. However, if you answered with Tom Arnold, Bruce Campbell, Tim Curry, war boats and movies from 1997, then you answered correctly, and have probably already seen the movie I’m about to talk about. Because you’re probably a pretty cool guy, like Tom Selleck. Only without the short shorts.

Is it just me, or does the thought of Magnum P.I’s crotch give everyone nightmares? It looks as if someone has tried, unsuccessfully, to tie down a bale of steel wool with a couple of tea-towels tied together. It’s just a bulging mass of black, wiry despair.

Wow, we are getting really off track here.

McHale’s Navy came to my TV on VHS and delighted the hell out of my (admittedly easily entertained) thirteen year old brain. It was funny, and not particularly clever, as well as being relatively well stocked in the explosions department, so it was enjoyed by my whole family too. Looking back now I get a lot more of the jokes than I did when I was younger, so it’s worth a watch even if you are well into your spinster years by now. After all, momma’s gotta watch her stories.

The movie, funnily enough, shares a few key themes with the 1962 television series of the same name. Unfortunately one of those things is Ernest Borgnine. I’m pretty sure this guy is dead and is being cleverly animated by a series of ropes and pulleys, and maybe a couple of pipe-cleaners. Not unlike the actual events that inspired a heart-moving movie called “Weekend at Bernie’s”. Other similarities include the plot and probably the number of DVDs sold.

The story revolves around Quinton McHale, a retired Lieutenant Commander in the US Navy, who spends his retirement brewing beer, distributing contraban and generally being a dick on the small island nation of San Moreno (which appears to be somewhere near Cuba and is not to be mistaken for the actual Republic of San Moreno). Then his quiet world is turned upside down when his old nemesis, Vladikov – the second best terrorist in the world, moves in and begins to take over the island to build a nuclear missile silo. This doesn’t sit well with old McHale, mostly because it’s bad for business, so he puts together his old crew and tries to send Vlad back where he came from.

It has pretty much everything you could ask for in a bad 90’s comedy. There are bar fights in Cuba, motorbikes that pop out of PT boats, pigs that like cable car rides and bad Russian accents aplenty. They even show Tim Curry’s arse, and it has a tattoo on it of Tom Arnold’s face. I’m not even lying about that. It’s a real thing. And Tim Curry’s all pissed about it because he, unlike most of us – I hope - doesn’t seem to think that a tattoo of Tom Arnold’s smiling face on your butt is a cool thing. Hell, it’s was cooler than the Dennis Rodman tattoo I have on my arse. Fuck you Dennis Rodman, and fuck those 2 movies you were in. Double Team was a piece of shit.

Anyway, there is a bit more to this movie. Actually I only really described the first 20 minutes. But I’ll leave the rest for you to discover on your own, so you can feel clever. Lets just say there are quite a fair number of shenanigans, much tom-foolery and the occasional hijinks and leave it at that.

And, in the rather unlikely event that this film needs more selling points, did I mention that his crew contains Bruce Campbell? Yes, The Chin himself. There is also the rainbow tolerance coalition with the token black guy, the asian guy, the dumb white guy and a few hispanics just to balance it out into a consistant shade. Oh, and French Stuart. I don’t get why people put French Stewart in movies. His fucking eyes are shut all the time. How does he see? This guy squints more than a half-baked Chinese man in a ‘stare at the sun’ contest. And that voice, it’s agony. I feel like I should be merciful and just put him down like a sick dog. He sounds like a Jew with a blocked nose, as if you recorded Fran Drescher imitating Gary Coleman.

Speaking of Tom Arnold (oh yeah, did you see that smooth plug?), how drunk did that guy have to be to stick it to Roseanne Barr? Jesus Christ, you’d need to drip-feed me about a gallon of rubbing alcohol to look at that thing. And he married her. The man must have an iron constitution, or maybe she’s just a really beautiful person on the inside. Or maybe he was just drunk a lot. I guess we’ll never know.

Anyway, back to the movie at hand. It’s a great show with some hilarious quotes and amusingly ludicrous situations. You’ll enjoy watching it, and i bet even your kids will. There are even plenty of jokes for young and old, as lame or outright ridiculous as they may be, so it’s worth sitting down with the family to watch. With some popcorn. If you think you can stomach 108 minutes of French Stuart’s nasally blunderings.

Die Hard: With a Vengeance

My darkest sexual desire. It's totally not gay.

I fucking love this movie. I love it like Heath Ledger loves prescription meds. If it asked me to rim-romp it’s stank-tube then I would happily, and hungrily, oblige. Die Hard is a testament to what one man can do with a white singlet, a drinking problem and a penchant for reckless endangerment. It’s a man’s film for men, and maybe lesbians if they like explosions and Bruce Willis (and from some of the dykes I’ve seen, Bruce Willis is an improvement).

For those of you shamefully unfamiliar wih the Die Hard series, let me give you a quick run down.

Die Hard - Bruce Willis has to go to some bullshit Christmas party being hosted by Mr Sulu’s dad because his bitch wife asks him to. Then Professor Snape comes along with a sweet beard and starts killing asian men in their 50’s. Now, this doesn’t sit well with John McClane (Willis) because if anyone kills people, it’s him. So he kills a bunch of people, stops the safe from being cracked, befriends Carl Winslow and throws Alan Rickman off the 32nd floor of Nakatomi Towers. He does all this whilst sick with no shoes and a bad case of jetlag. Impressed yet?

Die Hard 2: Die Harder – Bruce willis teams up with Detective Sipowicz and a half dozen jelly-filled donuts to stop a bunch of ex-military mercenaries from taking over an airport in a hostage situation while his wife’s plane circles overhead, being unable to land. He has 58 minutes to stop their plot before he plane runs out of fuel and crashes. Man, this woman is more trouble than she’s worth. Anyway, the military sends in special forces to deal with the terrorist issue, only to discover that they’re been in cahoots with the mercs the whole time in an elaborate plot to steal a plane and rescue some hispanic drug lord who is also the dictator of the fictional nation of Val Verde. Mi Gusta! So McClane kills a bunch of people and makes Dennis Franz look like a competant security guard. Then he blows up a plane full of bad guys. Still not impressed?

Die Hard 3: Die Harderer – Opening credits roll. A building explodes 10 seconds in. This scene should aptly set the tone for the rest of the movie. So Bruce Willis is “working on a nice, fat suspension” when he gets forcibly reinstated to play an unbelievably sweet game of ‘Simon Says’ with a crazed East German (Jeremy Irons) and Samuel L. Jackson by walking the streets of Harlem with a sandwich board that says “I hate niggers”. Subtlety wasn’t his strong point, I’ll admit. So he teams up with his signature singlet and the amusingly racist Sammy J. to stop a bomb on a train, run over mimes, solve puzzles, cover a fat man in pancake syrup and foil the plans of Simon (who turns out to be Alan Rickmans brother) by shooting a shit load of people and wearing a bloodied singlet. If you’re not impressed by now I’d really look into getting medicated for being super lame.

There is a fourth film in the series and a soon to be fifth installment, titled Die Harder Still and Die Hardest, respectively. I wish I was serious there, because they actually called them Live Free or Die Hard (and pathetically Die Hard 4.0 in Australia, like it needs a fucking update or something to bugfix out Justin Long, the twat. Grow a proper moustache you hipster cunt.) and A Good Day to Die Hard. Just terrible. The guy who came up with those titles is clearly this generations Hemingway. I’m sorry those sentences dragged on a bit, I just really hate that guy’s face.

Willis and Jackson have an amusing relationship, kind of like cocktail of equal parts mutual hate and respect. It works well in the film and, accompanied by Jackson’s seemingly endless supply of “I don’t need help from whitey” attitude, gives birth to humorous situations like Mrs. Wayans births welfare cheques. I mean kids. This neenish tart duo reminds me a lot of Miami Vice, only without the bad hair and homosexual innuendo. “Blow me.” “I’ll drive this truck up your arse.” On second thought, scratch that.

Bruce Willis is the king. Sure he’s not the biggest, or the strongest, or even the least wig wearing guy in Hollywood. But what he is is the Bruce Willisiest. He has that shit in droves. Bruce Willis sweats machismo and bullets made of pepperoni and chinese porn magazines. Combine that raw arse-kicking power with John McClanes distinct lack of mental maturity and you have about 215 lbs of testosterone and singlet powered justice. This guy kills dozens of people with a surprising amount of casualness.

Jeremy Irons was amazing. His performance is definately a highlight of the movie. He’s criminal sociopathy and witty repartee in a blue tank top. I’m not sure the role would have been as good as it was had another actor stepped in to play Simon.

This isn’t a movie for math teachers or hippies or people who aren’t cool. This is a movie for people who can tell the difference between good moustache and a bad lip rug. It’s a movie about justice. It’s a movie about social equality. It’s a movie about singlets. But mostly it’s a movie about how being a bad-ass get’s you what you want, as long as what you want is to kick a metric ton of arse and look cool doing it. It’s funny, it’s clever and it had a very good story under all the punches and bullets and black jokes.

If you’ve never seen it, then I feel sorry for you because you’re probably a math teacher with an old man moustache. If you have, then watch it again, because you know you want to.
 
I wonder what Bruce Willis uses to get those pesky blood and oil stains out of his whites?

Me? What do I use to keep black stains off my whites? A hose.


Just kidding folks, I only use a hose to keep them off my front lawn.

Highlander

Runner-Up: 1986 Big Head Competition - behind Ted Danson.

1986 was an important year for Gay Rights. New Zealand equalized the age of consent for homosexual relationships. New York City passes its first anti-discrimination bill. C. Everett Koop, Surgeon General of the United States, publishes the first government publications for the public on gay safe sex practices in the battle against AIDS. And one film dares to ask the question, “Are you a faggot, Nash?”

Highlander is arguably the best thing ever made, ever. By anyone. And by arguably I mean definitely. I’d compare it to being in a Tijuana whore-house with US$8 in your pocket. It makes “First Blood” look like “Weekend at Bernie’s”. It makes Kirsten Dunst look like Tommy Lee Jones’ neck. Let’s just say that I like it, and leave it at that.

The story goes that at some point in the 1600’s or something, Connor McLeod (played by Christopher Lambert) is fatally wounded in a battle with some dirt men but, much to everyone’s surprise, he makes a full recovery just in time for dinner. His people claim he is possessed by the devil and he is exiled, to live in some castle with a hot girl with big bosoms. What a rough hand to be dealt. Immortal and living in a castle with some girl you could, in all likelihood, bend over your knee and milk. Rough. Then along comes Ramirez (Sean Connery) to tell him all about how he is an immortal and has a whole stack of awesome super powers (chief among them being unable to die). Ramirez teaches McLeod all he’d need to know in preparation for the Quickening – a time when all immortals will feel a strong pull to a far away land to fight one another, to the last (and a sweet sound track), for the ultimate prize. (Hint: the prize is mortality)

What kind of bullshit prize is that? Mortality. I’ve got it and I don’t even want it. That’s like offering a man with 20-20 vision partial blindness. I’d fight NOT to get the prize. It’s like some crappy ‘participation award’ your kid gets at school because we don’t want them to know they’re really not good at something. “Oh no, that kid has feelings, but can’t run 100 metres to save himself from a sexual predator, whatever shall we do?” Participation award (and probably a stern bumming from said predator).

You have to admire the casting director’s enthusiasm here. You’ve got a Frenchman playing a Scot, a Scotsman playing a Spaniard, Clancy Brown as the villain and the WHOLE GOD DAMN SOUNDTRACK IS QUEEN. Holy shit! I don’t even care if the studio had no idea what ‘a nationality’ was, that shit is a minor detail. Amazingly this is Christopher Lambert’s first major Hollywood role, and he does quite well considering he is cast opposite Sean Connery. This guy’s voice can open more legs than a clearance sale on spreader-bars. It’s like honey poured over Rohypnol.

So if the movie hasn’t yet frazzled your dangly bits, get ready for some face-rocking-off...ing. It’s about burly men who travel around cutting each other’s heads off. That’s it. Oh, and there are Nazi’s. What more could you want? A sweet scene with lightning making cars explodes? That’s thrown in at no extra charge. This single greatest experience you can have without a bucket of grease and a fresh corpse.

What’s that? You’re complaining about spoilers? You haven’t seen the best movie ever made in the 25 fucking years it’s been out? What are you doing with your life? Because you sure as shit ain’t living it. Watch it. Watch it twice. Get it tattooed to your butt. Give small kids real sword and get them to re-enact the movie scene for scene.

On second thought, you probably shouldn’t. At least until you sign a waiver stating it was totally your idea and had nothing to do with my suggesting it. In text. On the internet.

I just thank God that they never made any sequels, TV cartoon spin-offs, animes, videogames or comics that would have ruined the greatness of this timeless classic. Nope, none whatsoever. Also, I couldn’t find a place in this review to make fun of Christopher Lambert’s accent. Oh well, next time.