Top 10 Favorite Seinfeld Episodes

As we know, I am one of the most 14 noted "Seinfeld" scholars on the planet. (No? Quick, tell me, where did Elaine grow up? DON'T GOOGLE IT! TELL ME! ......... Yeah, that's what I thought.) Which is why it's surprising I've never made a list of Top 10 "Seinfeld" Episodes. Then again, it might not be surprising at all. How in the name of Sidra Holland does one go about creating a Top 10 "Seinfeld" Episodes list? What's the criteria? Most definitive? Most influential on the culture? Most influential on future TV? Or just your favorites? Yeah, that's really the only way to go. Favorites. Thus, I must re-stress that word - favorites.

This is not a definitive list of the ten best "Seinfeld" episodes. No way. Too subjective. It's why you won't find "The Contest" or "The Boyfriend" or "The Marine Biologist" or "The Soup Nazi", though, frankly in many ways "The Soup Nazi" is kinda overrated. Seriously. "The Chinese Woman" or "The Alternate Side", to name just a couple, take it to school, man. No, this is a list of my totally partial and completely personal ten favorite episodes. That's it. The ones I could (and have) watched over and over and over and over. Let's get to it.

(Note: Ryan McNeil of The Matinee just had a fantastic post in relation to making lists such as these, a post with which I mostly agree, and yet here I am making a Top 10 List two days later. One, I actually typed up this list a couple weeks ago. Two, I've seen every "Seinfeld" episode, most of them numerous times, and am entirely qualified to do this. Just so you know. But you should still read his post. It's very interesting.)

My Top 10 Favorite "Seinfeld" Episodes  

10. The Fusilli Jerry. A brilliantly structured episode in which the main topics are "moves" (sexual & romantic), Kramer being the recipient of an "Assman" vanity license plate and our first introduction to an auto mechanic named David Puddy. The capping line (via Frank Costanza) gets my vote as the greatest in the show's history, precisely because it is built up to so perfectly: "Million to one shot, doc. Million to one."

9. The Label Maker. Jerry has two tickets to The Super Bowl but can't make it because of The Drake's wedding. He gives them to Tim Watley. Chaos ensues - including, but not limited to, a re-gifted label maker, RISK ("the game of world domination, being played by two guys who can barely run their own lives"), and an apartment with hardwood floors and a velvet couch. Not only is this Newman's finest episode ("Who goes to the Super Bowl with their mailman?"), it's fast-moving, ceaselessly hilarious and builds to a conclusion that calls back to an earlier episode and proves once and for all that no idea of George Costanza's is really ever all that good.

8. The Hamptons. "Seinfeld's" ode to the bedroom farce involves the gang and Jerry and George's lady friends traveling to the infamous Long Island getaway spot to "see the bay-bee." Inevitably, things go awry. The "bay-bee" turns out to be the ugliest baby in the history of civilization, Kramer is arrested for poaching lobsters, everyone but George gets to see his girlfriend topless, and, most notoriously, George's relationship is eventually undone by, uh, "shrinkage." Great lines and great setpieces, one after another. My favorite (out of context) line: "Easy big fella." My favorite setpiece: Kramer telling George they saw his girlfriend topless and Jerry's reaction in the background. Personal Memory: My best friend, a fellow "Seinfeld" zealot, a New Yorker now for many years, leaving me a message once long ago that simply said: "Nick! I'm in the Hamptons! I'M IN THE HAMPTONS!!!"

7. The Wig Master. Perhaps most famous as the episode in which Kramer briefly and mistakenly metamorphoses into a pimp and is arrested at the infamous Jiffy Park, the episode takes its title from Susan's flamboyant friend who winds up as a house guest at George's apartment, much, of course, to his dismay. Aside from the pimp fiasco there aren't a lot of famously uproarious sequences here but, oh, is there some grand stuff bubbling below the surface. Champagne Coolies. George trying to glean info from a parking lot hooker, offering to pay her for her time and then asking if she has change for a twenty. George's reaction when The Wig Master displays how much work he's done - "Very nice." You just have to hear it. And the exchange that on certain days I think is the greatest in the show's whole history.

Jerry: "I'd like to return this jacket."
Saleswoman: "Certainly. May I ask why?"
Jerry: "For spite."
Saleswoman: "Spite?"
Jerry: "That's right. I don't care for the salesman who sold it to me."

6. The Fix Up. Jerry and Elaine decide to fix up George ("My dream is to become hopeless") with Elaine's friend Cynthia ("You can be young and bitter - I'm maybe not as bitter I'm going to be ten years from now, but I'm bitter"). In of the series' absolute greatest sequences, George grills Jerry about his potential date, finally agrees to go and it ends up both much better and much worse than anyone could have expected, culminating in several pitiful but hilarious fist fights. Also, Kramer's friend Bob Sackamano gets a job at a condom factory. This is more critical than you might realize.

That's right, kids, long before Bryan Cranston was "Breaking Bad" he was Tim Watley. And don't you forget it.

5. The Mom And Pop Store. George buys a Chrysler Lebaron because it once (possibly) belonged to Jon Voight. Did it? A chewed up pencil, a bite mark on Kramer's arm and Tim Watley's Thanksgiving-eve party all factor into the mix to attempt to find out for sure. Meanwhile Elaine's extensive knowledge of big band records leads to Mr. Pitt's infamous Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade mishap and Kramer's friendship that goes horribly wrong with a local Mom And Pop Store leads to a conclusion straight outta "Midnight Cowboy." And yes, I make a point to rewatch this episode every Thanksgiving. "I suppose if I'd suggested Liam Neeson Day you'd all be pattin' me on the back!"

4. The Phone Message. This is an earlier episode when the show's rhythms were much slower and easy-going. Elaine and Kramer are barely even it and the main plot - George leaving several messages in increasing anger on a woman's answering machine ("I'd like another shot at the coffee just so I could spit it in your face!") which prompts George to recruit Jerry to scheme to get into the woman's apartment and replace the answering machine tape - is, uh, just slightly dated. (Oh, to be able to replace a bad voicemail, or to be able to hang up when you realize you weren't mentally prepared to make the call but your number has already appeared on the girl's caller id. Yeah, and cellphones are all for the better. Give me a freaking break.) But that's okay because the interplay between Jerry and George from beginning to end and George's galaxy-sized neurosis here are both unbelievably hysterical and something to which I can totally relate. This is my second favorite scene in the history of "Seinfeld." (I also think Carol might have been the best woman that ever entered Georgie Boy's life. I'm still sorry she got away.)

3. The Pez Dispenser. This episode has so much going on but still manages to tie it all together beautifully and effortlessly with magnificent dialogue peppered throughout. George is dating the concert pianist Noelle except Elaine laughs at her recital when Jerry puts a pez dispenser on her leg and George forces Elaine to keep her mouth shut, though meanwhile George is also concerned he has no "hand" in the relationship and only gains "hand" by, on the advice of Kramer, who has joined the polar bear club and fashioned an idea for a cologne that smells like the beach, turning to a "pre-emptive break-up" and taking control of the relationship before it completely backfires at an intervention at Jerry's apartment for fellow comedian Richie who's hooked on drugs when a polar bear buddy of Kramer tells a joke that makes Elaine laugh in front of Noelle, though, worry not, because Richie gets off drugs when he instead becomes hooked on......pez. I don't care what anyone says, before, then, after, now, whichever, whatever, they never have and never will make 'em as good as this one.

2. The Dinner Party. The quartet, on their way to a dinner party, separate so that Jerry & Elaine can buy a cake and George & Kramer can buy a bottle of wine. Things break down. Essentially this is just another variation on the trip to "The Chinese Restaurant" and to "The Parking Garage" but not as cleverly plotted - that Saddam Hussein thing at the end is a little weak. But still......I personally think it's the single most quotable "Seinfeld" episode of all time. "Look to the cookie, Elaine, look to the cookie." "Cinnamon takes a backseat to no babka!" "We can put a man on the moon but we're still basically very stupid!" "I don't drink wine. I drink Pepsi." "Imagine if we didn't bring the wine! We'd be shunned by society! Outcasts! 'Where's your wine?! Get out!'" Not to mention it's also the Gortex episode ("You like saying Gortex, don't you?"). Whatever weaknesses it may have, I can get lost in the language of this one every time.

1. The Race. This is the one, baby. The best 20 minutes of TV I've ever seen, masterfully weaving into its awesome narrative three variations on the shade of red - Santa, Superman and Communism, all while giving each one of its characters a strong storyline. Jerry, dating a woman named - ahem - Lois, re-facing his long lost nemesis Duncan Meyer, whom he falsely beat in a high school race when he got a head start no one noticed. Elaine dating a communist whom she accidentally gets blacklisted at his favorite Chinese restaurant. George dating a communist and getting sent to Cuba by George Steinbrenner to scout Castro's prime baseball talent. Kramer becoming a department store Santa and spouting communist propaganda to children. "No, don't you see, kid? You're being bamboozled!" And all leading to Jerry re-racing Duncan and getting yet another mistaken false start which means that essentially this entire episode is all about furthering a lie. Which, in many ways, is the moral of the whole "Seinfeld" universe.

Also, this is the single greatest scene in the show's whole run.

Larry The Coffee Shop Manager: The Most Tragic Character In The Seinfeld Universe

(Way back on Easter Sunday my friend Rory was in Chicago and we went out for brunch and then stuck around at the bar to toss back a few afternoon beers because that's what people like Rory and I do on Easter Sunday and I pitched him the idea for my hypothetical collegiate dissertation. Here is a significantly condensed version of that hypothetical dissertation.)

George Costanza's plight on the landmark TV show "Seinfeld" was tragic, and of this there can be no doubt. It was so tragic that in a one-on-one, mano-a-mano showdown with a survivor of the Andrea Doria shipwreck to determine whose life was more tragic and, thus, who would claim a fantastic Manhattan apartment, George Costanza won going away. And yet......the guy worked for the Yankees. He made a Pilot for NBC. The Marisa Tomei kinda dug him (until he mucked it up). He dated the woman who played Jessie St. Vincent in "Boogie Nights" and if he just hadn't gone in the pool...... George Costanza's existence was tragic, sure, but his lifelong tragedy pales mightily in comparison to the ongoing tragedy of the manager of Monk's Diner, Larry.

Played by Lawrence Mandley, Larry was glimpsed in a mere six episodes out of the show's whole 180 episode run. He was first seen in Season 4's "The Outing", in which Jerry and George are mistakenly outed as gay men, and he shows up to admonish George for raising his voice inside the coffee shop. "If you boys cannot control yourselves..." His last scene was in Season 8's "The Abstinence" when he appeared to admonish Kramer for smoking inside the coffee shop. This is to say that both times we saw Larry he was irritated and that, essentially, was his singular character trait - irritation. Every time he appeared onscreen he was irritated. Even when he didn't get a line he was irritated, such as in the famed "Soup Nazi" episode when George starts making out with Susan right there in the coffee shop booth to anger Jerry which prompts Jerry to start making out with "Schmoopie" right across from them which leads to Larry, in the background, off to the left, hands on hips, appearing and looking awfully - say it with me! - irritated. We don't see him bust up the party, but we know he does.

Despite the fact that in all probability Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer gave his diner more business than anyone else in all of New York, Larry could not have cared one iota less. If they misbehaved, they misbehaved. If they brought in outside syrup, they brought in outside syrup and he would threaten to confiscate it, regulars or not. No discrimination. But more than anything, more than the classic moment in which he and his whole staff are enlisted by Jerry in an attempt to figure just what makes a man most attractive to a woman, the two episodes that most define the misbegotten tragedy of Larry are two episodes in which he does not even appear.

The 4th season finale primarily featured the taping of the "Jerry" pilot but one of the hour long episode's subplots involved Elaine's anger with the new manager of Monk's appearing to only hire, uh, shall we say, as one of the characters does, "large breasted women." It turns out that all the women are simply the daughters of the new manager, but that's not the point. The point is, it's a new manager! What happened to Larry? Did he quit? Did he sell the place? Did he move to Nassau to open a little restaurant on the beach?

But then the very next year, Season 5, in the episode in which Courtney Cox appears as Jerry's "pretend wife" who turns up once again as the coffee shop manager but......Larry. Remember, he was glimpsed as manager prior to the Season 4 Finale. So......what are we to assume? That Larry bought the place back. That the "large breasted women" weren't really the new manager's daughters and he was forced out? Who knows. What we do know is Larry not only had his chance to get out of the sluggish life of Monk's but he did get out! And then he returned to it entirely of his own choosing! That's tragic.

The series finale, as you most likely recall, involved our quartet standing on trial and numerous secondary characters from the past returning to testify. From Sidra Holland to Mrs. Choate, from Joe Bookman to "The Low Talker". Even characters that don't get to testify are seen - Ramon the Pool Guy, The Rabbi, Mr. Lippman. But do you know what secondary character you don't see? Larry, that's who. And do you know why? Because he had to work. Of course, he had to work! You don't think he wanted to be there?! He had to deal with those idiots seven days a week! He probably had testimony to put 'em away for 10-20! But who's gonna make Monk's run? Larry was so loyal to a job he clearly hated that he didn't even get to be on the one episode of that show that everyone watched.

No real "Seinfeld" fan was happy that day when the show ended. In fact, probably the only person who jumped for joy when Jerry decided to call it quits and the show went dark was Larry. Dude finally got a day off.

A Mid Point Review

As the dog days of summer thankfully draw closer to the end, it's time to look back as a means to know it's finally time to look forward.

Favorite Movie Of 2011 (so far): "Cold Weather".

Favorite Performance Of 2011 (so far): John C. Reilly, "Terri."



Favorite Single Scene Of 2011 (so far): from "Midnight In Paris" (no spoilers in case you haven't seen it, but it features this guy).

Favorite Guilty Pleasure Moment Of 2011 (so far): in "Super 8" when the kids enlist the older stoner and his car to get them back into the cordoned off town. Don't ask me why, I just loved that little bit.

Friday's Old Fashioned: Boom Town

Featuring several of the most acclaimed stars of the era, "Boom Town" (1940) re-proves that not all films of Hollywood's so-called Golden Age live up to that moniker. No, in fact it might suggest that Hollywood's ongoing trend of combining star power with a throw all the paint from all the cans against the wall and see how it looks theory of moviemaking was very much alive and not so well long ago.

Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy are, respectively, "Big" John McMasters and "Square" John Sand (i.e. Shorty) two oil wildcatters who initially bump heads but quickly join forces, pilfer drilling equipment from local businessman Luther Aldrich (Frank Morgan) and set up a well that only yields saltwater. Busted. Rather than high-tail out of town, they convince Aldrich to loan them more equipment by agreeing to cut him in on a percentage of their next well, a well which just so happens to go boom. At this point, the film, directed by Jack Conway, has got some game. Gable and Tracy have a solid chemistry and the two men looking like, well, Gable and Tracy brought to mind the classic Prairie Home Companion sketch Lives of the Cowboys with the two guys out on the range, arguing, dreaming, eating steak and drinking whiskey, and one of them - Square John - dreaming of the girl he loves back home.

Soon that girl will enter the picture because, of course, Hollywood law stipulates that the female must appear. And the movie begins to slip and slide. She's Elizabeth Bartlett (Claudette Colbert), though Square John calls her "Betsy" because he has to because otherwise Big John will know straight away who she is and if he does then he can't fall in love with her and they can't get married the night they meet to put into place the requisite love triangle and because of the requisite love triangle Big John and Square John flip a coin to see who gets possession of the oil field. Square John wins. But don't presume this the end of the story. God, no.

Each man will go from top to bottom and then back so neither one of the two main stars can ever appear to be too much brighter than the other one. It fulfills the necessary rock 'em, sock 'em quotient with 1.) Fire 2.) Gunfire and 3.) Fisticuffs. A second love triangle appears when Big John and Betsy wind up living posh in New York except Big John finds himself maybe, kinda, sorta getting involved on the sly with the vixen Karen Vanmeer (Hedy Lamarr), the former adviser of Big John's rival whom he's hired away, and which becomes problematic when Square John turns back up to find work with Big John and suspects the two are having an affair and, thus, to attempt to re-win Betsy suggests marriage to Karen who turns it down because she sees what he's up to which leads to the two men getting into the aforementioned fisticuffs which happens directly before it turns out Big John is being taken to court for having violated the Sherman Antitrust Act which leads to - you guessed it! - The Big Courtroom Speech.

Don't get me wrong, if anyone could ably deliver The Big Courtroom Speech it's Spencer Tracy, but it's enlightening in a very disturbing way to see that even in 1940 those same devices screenwriters fall back on nowadays without shame were in use. Not unlike most big budget, star driven spectaculars of today it goes overboard with the gravy but skimps on the mashed potatoes, going a whole lot of places and, eventually, ending up nowhere.

Well, nowhere might be the wrong word, because in the end the film winds up right where it started, with the two Johns returning to their roots as go-for-broke wildcatters and you can't help but wish the film had never departed these confines.

Call me crazy but the whole second half of the film I was yearning for Big John to ditch Besty and run away with Karen. It seemed as if Hedy Lamarr was privy to a world were drama might just know how to be dramatic and romance might just know how to be romantic and where character and charisma might trump lame plot twists. I suppose cheering for a husband to ditch his wife makes me a bad person. But I guarantee it would have made for a better movie.

Kicking and Screaming (Part 4)

- Max drinks beer on "his" chair. Grover stands off to the side, drinking his own beer.

Max: "You know what I wish? I wish we were just going off to war. Or retiring. I wish I was just retiring after a lifetime of hard labor."

- Suddenly, there is a noise outside. Max instantly drops to the floor.

Max: "Get down!"
Grover: "Why?"
Max: "It's the cookie man. The guy who goes door-to-door selling cookies. I saw him earlier in the neighborhood."

- Grover, slowly, reluctantly, joins Max on the floor.

Max: "He is so hard to say no to. Just stay down. I can't handle him. He'll go away soon."
Grover: "How long do we have to stay down here?
Max: "Go away, cookie man."

Kicking and Screaming (Part 3)

Skippy: "Ah, the fan. The trusty fan. Everyone brings this to school, uses it for about three or four days and then shoves it in the closet for the remainder of the semester."
Miami: "I use that fan all the time. All the time."

Kicking and Screaming (Part 2)

Chet: "You know what I noticed near the end of the book, when Grady goes to the prison? That the violence, which has up to then had a ferocious energy about it, departed from the emotional violence and became terrifyingly brutal and real. And particularly after he left the prison, and he went to find that horse...I found the descriptions of the horse to be, frankly, astonishingly beautiful, and yet disturbingly arousing. What are your thoughts?"
Otis: "Uh, yeah. Yeah. Definitely. You're, uh, you're right on, I think. You've really pinned down what it is about the book. Uh, definitely with the the prison when, uh, when Grady is, uh...he's...there's violence. There's a lot of violence. And it's like night and day. And when Grady, uh, when he saw all those horses, like you were saying, uh...and it was arousing. It was violently arousing."
Chet: "Otis, have you read this book?"
Otis: "Yeah." (Pause) "No."

Kate Winslet: Badass

But then we already knew that.

Now we just know it again.

Kicking and Screaming (Part 1)

Grover: "Czechoslovakia is just the worst place to go. The way I see it, eventually you'll make your life in the States. Why run away now? You're just postponing that get started year."
Jane: "I'm not postponing anything. I'm postponing months of emotional paralysis."
Grover: "Exactly. It's a bad idea to go directly. The paralysis is just gonna wait for you when you get..."

-Jane takes out a notepad and scribbles.

Grover: "What are you writing?"
Jane: "Some notes."
Grover: "Will you stop writing what I'm saying? Can we have one spontaneous conversation where my dialogue doesn't end up in your next story? What if I want this material?"
Jane: "We'll see who gets it first."
Grover: "Okay. Let me borrow your pen. I'm gonna write, 'Selfish girl abandons helpless boy for overrated country.'"
Jane: "Overrated? You've never even been to Prague."
Grover: "Oh, I've been to Prague." (Pause.) "Well, I haven't been to Prague been to Prague. But I know that thing. I know that 'stop shaving your armpits, read The Unbearable Lightness of Being, fall in love with a sculptor, now I realize how bad American coffee is' thing."
Jane: "Beer. They have good beer there."
Grover: "'How bad American beer is' thing." (Pause.) "'How bad American beer is' thing."
Jane: "Yeah. I heard you the first time."

Friday's Old Fashioned: All About Eve

It is the 40th birthday party of Margo Channing (Bette Davis), the larger than life Broadway star, and she is angry, depressed, and growing suspicious of this young Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) who has imbued her way into Margo's inner circle. Margo's guests see what is going on with her. "We know you, we've seen you like this before. Is it over? Or just beginning?" asks one. At this question Margo inhales her martini, strides up the nearby stairs, turns, and then lets loose that hydrogen bomb of dialogue: "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night." I mean, damn, when you see it, when you finally see it, the whole thing, in its proper context, what a moment!

Made in 1950, written and directed by Joseph Mankiewicz, the legendary "All About Eve" is a story about love, deception, greed, lust and unbridled enthusiasm. At the conclusion of a performance Margo's friend Karen (Celeste Holm), the wife of author of the play in which Margo headlines, ushers a seemingly unsuspecting young fawn named Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) backstage to meet her heroine, her idol, her paramour, and instantly Eve begins showering Margo with flattery. Need I say Margo eats it up? That's what the biggest and brightest stars do, after all, and in no time at all Eve has wormed her way into Margo's inner circle, charming the proverbial pants off just about everyone, save for Margo's mandatory and curmudgeonly maid (Thelma Ritter), becoming Margo's "assistant" and then her "understudy" and eventually, by scheming and wheeling and dealing and using the various men in Margo's life, as well as gaining crucial assistance from legendary theater critic Addison DeWitt (George Sanders), the Perez Hilton of his day, supplanting Margo atop the theater food chain.

This is the synopsis. This synopsis is pointless. "All About Eve" puts pedal to metal and not only does it not take prisoners, it actively grabs hold of its would-have-been prisoners and hurls them over the nearest cliff to the jagged rocks below. This film simply must be seen to be believed and even when you see the performance of Bette Davis you might not still believe it.

Hyperbole is my trait but seriously, man, Davis in "All About Eve" has got to go down in the annals as one of the great screen performances of all time. She lays it on thick with every line but never overdoes it, she turns up the volume but never blows out the speakers. Within the film's story she may get suckered but Davis herself does not, lording over the twats all around with an expression that more often than not suggests "F--- you, I'm Bette Davis." She was Kobe Bryant before Kobe Bryant. Just jaw dropping stuff. Well, except for when Marilyn Monroe turns up.

Wait, what? Marilyn Monroe? Yes, she's in this movie. Did you know she was in this movie? I sure didn't, not the first time I watched it, at least, but suddenly, miraculously there she was in the same manner as the fetching new girl at school who sashays through the lunch room and unwittingly causes every guy there to swoon as every other girl eyes her with contempt. "I don't want to make trouble," she coos. "All I want is a drink." And she says it so innocently, so devoid of showmanship, and all the while looking like, well, you know, Marilyn Monroe. Many actors and actresses have stolen scenes but none of them ever stole one with such ease and grace.

"Lloyd says Margo compensates for underplaying on the stage by overplaying reality." - Karen 

If Monroe's casual virtue represents a world of entertainment when everyone looked at the entertainers without the entertainers having to scream "LOOK AT ME!" then Bette Davis and Anne Baxter represent the coming world of entertainment where everyone looks at the entertainers because usually the entertainers are screaming "LOOK AT ME!" Forty two years before MTV showed what happens when people stopped being polite and started getting "real" there was "All About Eve." Margo Channing and Eve Harrington were L.C. and Heidi way before L.C. and Heidi. (Wait, did I just reference L.C. and Heidi? O.M.G.)



Margo and Eve are always flopping histrionically onto beds and crying to ensure that other people see and/or hear them cry. They both often talk in this way where they are not looking directly at the person they are addressing as if they do not particularly care what that person thinks even though all the while they are watching that person from the corner of their eye because, in reality, they care a whole lot about what that person thinks. The only time we really see Margo let down her guard is when she is stranded in a car on a backroad with Karen and no one else is around to see it. Margo lets Eve into her inner circle to be nice, maybe, kinda, but really she lets her in because she totally digs this young fawn lavishing her with attention, catering to her whims, and generally treating her like a goddess. But, of course, in truth Eve is doin' it for The Fame because she's got a taste for champagne and endless fortune.

Most crucially, though, when the time comes for Eve's star-making turn on the stage the movie refrains from actually showing us the performance. To repeat, the performance given by this future award winning actress is not even shown which suggests that the peformance itself is less important than the fact she has achieved celebrity. What she has done matters not at all compared to what she has become. Status is the end game for Eve Harrington.

Patrick Goldstein, critic for the L.A. Times, has written that "Bonnie and Clyde" was "the first modern American movie." Not to disparage the award-winning Goldstein - or "Bonnie and Clyde", a movie which I love fervently, a movie whose poster I have on my home office wall - but I politely beg to differ.

Conan The Foreshadower

Often movies we greatly enjoyed as kids do not only fail to hold up but turn out to be rather awful in our old age. "Conan The Destroyer", Arnold Schwarzenegger's 1984 follow-up to his "Conan The Barbarian" (remake I'm not seeing to be released this Friday!), was a film I took to like Sienna Miller to a bottle of red wine the summer evening I watched it in my first house on venerable Waukee Avenue on HBO back in those wondrous days when HBO still had this opening to its Saturday night movies, which makes me so nostalgic I'm pretty sure I just shed a few tears.

Anyway, "Conan The Destroyer", was the "epic" tale of Conan himself and a sufficiently motley crew escorting young princess Jehnna (Olivia d'Abo) on a dangerous quest to obtain a precious jewel only she can touch, a jewel which will bring to life the god Dagoth and resurrect Conan's long lost love. I was so taken with this movie about "the days of high adventure" that I can remember the following afternoon pretending to pull apart prison bars stashed behind a waterfall to enter the majestic castle and slay Dagoth myself.

The years go by. You revisit it, perhaps hoping to achieve a whiff of scented youth. And aside from a fairly bodacious opening credits sequence, it's a little...uh...rough. A little laborious. The special effects are down on their luck and the acting is uniformly not so much wooden as the equivalent of an all Maine Lobstermen production of "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof" and just how is it that the majestic castle into which they sneak is seen in an establishing shot as being in the desert only to have a waterfall with lush greenery directly behind it? As I suspected, "Conan The Destroyer" turned out to be nothing more than another childhood illusion.

But was it? Was it actually trying to tell me something long before I would ever have had any true hope of realizing it? Was it a pre-cursor to oh so much importance? I'm not talking about its star going on to become governor of California, of course, because that had no bearing on my life. Ditto Wilt Chamberlain's hulking character being tasked to protect an, ahem, virgin princess seven years before his book in which he claimed to have slept with, cough, cough, 20,000 women.

No, I'm talking about Tracey Walter starring as Arnold's bumbling, comic relief sidekick being the same Tracey Walter in rather, shall we say, lewd fashion triggering my favorite "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" episode. "This is a stinking, dirty hellhole of a town."

I'm talking about Olivia d'Abo, eleven years after starring as Jehnna, starring as Jane in "Kicking and Screaming" which is, to me, and a certain section of my friends, perhaps the most quotable movie of all time. The same Jane who gets maybe my favorite quote in maybe the most quotable movie of all time - "You might want to slow down. There's no alcohol in that."

I'm talking about Grace Jones as the crazy stick-wielding part-time thief who joins Conan's crew, the same Grace Jones of whom one Lady Gaga has said, and I quote, "She's like my Jesus."

Am I suggesting that as I sat in my basement in 1986 (the same year a girl named Stefani Germanotta was born) watching "Conan The Destroyer" that I should have realized what was on the horizon? That Charlie Kelly would become Gen X's Cosmo Kramer (initals, anyone, initials???) That d'Abo would go on to essentially become the dream girl for those of us scotch drinking wannabe literary types who really would just rather sit around and try to think of the name of every "Friday the 13th" movie ("It's 'Jason Lives.'") than write anything meaningful. That I would not only become obsessed with eurodance but specifically become obsessed with a eurodance inspired artist who liked to wear weird things on her head?

Not necessarily. After all, I do tend to read just a bit too much into things. I'm really just suggesting that parents of America taking their kids to see the "Conan The Barbarian" remake this weekend should be forewarned. Who knows, perhaps a portion of your son's future existence in some strange way revolves around Rose McGowan, Rachel Nichols and Ron Perlman and you don't even know it.

Attack the Block

The summer of 2011 features two takes on the theme of Kids vs. Aliens. The American version, of course, was J.J. Abrams' supremely Spielbergian "Super 8" in which our child heroes were wholesome Midwesterners trying to film a movie set against the backdrop of an alien run amok who, really, was just sorta misunderstood. The British version is Joe Cornish's "Attack the Block", and it's, uh, a tad different.

One firework-laden evening in London, Sam (Jodie Whittaker), a young nurse with a very real, very fetching nose, is walking home after her shift. Five hooded, masked, partially armed teenage thugs stop her, rob her of her phone and her cash, and go so far as to knock her down. But a strange explosion from the sky allows her to escape. It seems aliens have come to this particular block in London, to attack the block, so to speak, and now our protagonist must fend them off.

Okay, so clearly Sam is our protagonist because there is no way five violent thugs who just assaulted a woman, for God's sake, could possibly be our protagonists. Wait, what? They are our protagonists? How does that work then? I mean, can you imagine pitching that opening to an American studio? "But how can we root for five thugs?" they'd ask. "Well," you'd respond," the same way people like me used to root for the Pistons' Bad Boys Teams." And then they'd politely ask you to leave.

But don't presume this means Sam gets moved out of the picture. She doesn't. She eventually will team up with our quintet of teenage rebels, led by the aptly named Moses (John Boyega, oozing charisma), who off one of these pesky aliens in the beginning which they promptly take for safekeeping to the safest place on the block, the weed room of a couple ne'er do well drug dealers (Nick Frost & Jumayn Hunter). Little do they know, though, that the aliens, sort of like wolverines as re-imagined by H.R. Giger, will keep coming in droves. The kids will fight back. Sam will fight back. They will fight back together.

There is very little backstory going on in "Attack the Block." It establishes the premise and then goes and never really stops until the closing credits roll. And what it does most cleverly of all, beyond any and all of its varying action sequences and its sort of grand, beautiful climax in which Moses outraces who-knows-how-many alien wolverines with this operatic electronic music accompanying his run on the soundtrack, is gently bring the audience around to caring for these kids, much like Sam will eventually reach that same conclusion. It's bold to trust your audience to have that sort of patience and I commend Cornish for doing so.

After all, when those evil aliens finally show up, as so many movies keep promising, there's a strong chance you won't get to pick and choose who's gonna be in the foxhole with you. Nut up and get along. Or else.

If You'd Like To Visit Grenoble...

...but don't have the means and you want to see "Midnight In Paris" without seeing it, just read Max's post at Anomalous Material. It's the front-runner for my favorite blog post of 2011.

Film Fanaticism: Marine Drive In San Francisco

Ten years ago this month I was in California. It was the time between my relocation from dreaded Arizona back home to Iowa but first I meandered solo through the Golden State with just my Tempo and everything I owned. It was glorious! L.A. and The Rose Bowl to San Luis Opisbo to Big Sur to Monterey to Half Moon Bay to San Fran and north to the Redwoods and down and over to Yosemite.........sigh. What a week. Of course, when I was in San Francisco I made time to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge but, more importantly, I made time to walk along Marine Drive with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. Why, you ask?

On Christmas Day 1986 my parents decided our family was attending a showing of "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home." Please make no mistake, I'm no Trekkie. I have got the order of "Star Trek" films confused before on this blog (possibly because I haven't seen them all) and been lambasted. I had no idea when watching J.J. Abrams' reboot whether or not he was being faithful to what had come before and, frankly, didn't care. My favorite moments in "Star Trek" history are all the cheesiest ones possible from the original TV series. The more nuts and bolts it is, the more scientific, the less it interests me. And that's why I think on that particular December 25th I responded to "The Voyage Home" so ecstatically. There was time travel, sure, but that was just a crutch to get the "Star Trek" gang to the present day and cut loose.

Oh, it's corny humor. My God, is it corny. It's as corny as a Eugene Levy hosted bar mitzvah mixed with Garrison Keillor's monologue about all the Lutheran ministers on the pontoon boat. But you need corny humor now and again. You can't survive solely on dry, acidic humor. That'll tear your stomach in two.

My favorite portion of the whole "Star Trek" universe (the little that I've seen of it, anyway) is the moment after our noble heroes Kirk and Spock have been jettisoned from the whale institute in Sausalito, CA where Spock has gone swimming with a couple humpbacks, much to the chagrin of their fiery tour guide Gillian (Catherine Hicks). The duo strolls down Marine Drive, the breathtaking vista of the Golden Gate Bridge behind them, squabbling when Gillian pulls up in her pickup truck and offers them a lift. What follows is not so much Roddenberry as it is the Marx Brothers. And it's why when I was in San Francisco I found myself sauntering down Marine Drive, toward the city, replaying the scene in my addled mind......

KIRK: "There she is, from the Institute. If we play our cards right, we may be able to find out when those whales are leaving."
SPOCK: "How will playing cards help?"
GILLIAN: "Well, if it isn't Robin Hood and Friar Tuck. Where're you fellas heading?"
KIRK: "Back to San Francisco."
GILLIAN: "Came all the way down here to jump in and swim with the kiddies, huh?"
KIRK: "There's very little point in my trying to explain."

GILLIAN: "Yeah, I'll buy that. What about him?"
KIRK: "Him? He's harmless. Back in the sixties he was part of the Free Speech movement at Berkeley. I think he did a little too much LDS."
GILLIAN: "LDS? ...Come on then, let me give you a lift. I have a notorious weakness for hard luck cases, that's why I work with whales."
KIRK: "We don't want to be any trouble."
GILLIAN: "You've already been that. C'mon."

-Kirk and Spock climb in the truck. Gillian resumes driving.

KIRK: "Well, thank you very much."
GILLIAN: "Don't mention it. And don't try anything either. I've got a tire iron right where I can get at it." (to Spock) "So, you were at Berkeley?"
SPOCK: "I was not."

(Author's Note: That's my favorite part in the whole thing. "You were at Berkeley?" - "I was not." Cracks.Me.Up.)

KIRK:" Memory problems, too."
GILLIAN: "What about you? Where are you from?"
KIRK: "Iowa."
GILLIAN: "Oh, a landlubber. Come on, what the hell were you guys really trying to do back there? It wasn't some kinda macho thing, was it? Because if that's all, I'll be real disappointed. I really hate that macho stuff."
KIRK: "Can I ask you a question?"
GILLIAN: "Go ahead."
KIRK: "What's going to happen when you release the whales?"

GILLIAN: "They're gonna have to take their chances."
KIRK: "What does that mean, exactly? Take their chances?"
GILLIAN: "It means they'll be at risk from whale hunters...same as the rest of the humpbacks. What did you mean when you said all that stuff back at the Institute about extinction?"
SPOCK: "I meant-"
KIRK: "He meant what you said on the tour, that if things keep going the way they are, humpbacks will disappear forever."
GILLIAN: "That's not what he said, farm boy. 'Admiral, if we were to assume those whales are ours to do with as we please, we would be as guilty as those who caused'-past tense-'their extinction.' I have a photographic memory. I see words."
SPOCK (to KIRK): "Are you sure it isn't time for a colorful metaphor?"
GILLIAN: "You're not one of those guys from the military, are you? Trying to teach whales to retrieve torpedoes, or some dipshit stuff like that?"
KIRK: "No, ma'am. No dipshit."
GILLIAN: "Well, good, that's one thing I'd of let you off right here."
SPOCK: "Gracie is pregnant."

-Gillian brings the truck screaming to halt.

GILLIAN: "All right. Who are you? And don't jerk me around any more. I want to know how you know that."
KIRK: "We can't tell you that. ...Please, let me finish. I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm towards the whales. In fact, we may be able to help you in ways that, frankly, you couldn't possibly imagine."
GILLIAN: "Or believe, I'll bet."
KIRK: "Very likely. You're not exactly catching us at our best."
SPOCK: "That much is certain."
KIRK: "I have got a hunch we'd all be a lot happier discussing this over dinner. What do you say?"
GILLIAN: "You guys like Italian?"
SPOCK: "No."
KIRK: "Yes."
SPOCK: "No."
KIRK: "Yes. I love Italian. And so do you."
SPOCK: "Yes."

Feature Presentations

In the ongoing effort to make Cinema Romantico more cohesive I have decided to implement a couple feature presentations. One, in theory, will be weekly and one, in theory, will show itself whenever the mood should strike.

The first I'm officially naming Friday's Old Fashioned. Named after the popular after hours cocktail, it is to be an every Friday post in which I watch for the first time or re-visit a classic film. I go through serious spurts of classic film watching and, other than back during Oscar season, I have been a drought for awhile. This, I feel, will help aid a critical rejuvenation. It will all begin next Friday with "All About Eve", which, on the strength of Andy's post at his Film Emporium, I re-watched, much to my delight, allowing me to form a few new thoughts.

The photo I took of Lincoln Center when I was bonding with it in May because I HAD to bond with it because "Black Swan" was filmed/set there. Duh.

The second I'm naming Film Fanaticism. This is an ode to how I/we give so much of ourselves to the movies and probably, more often than not, take it 27 steps further than the "normal" populace would ever find rational. If this doesn't make complete sense, well, just wait 'til the inagural post tomorrow and it will. Trust me.

Wish us luck. We may or may not need it. (We probably do.)

Re-Naming The Best Movie Line Of 2010

"The Texas Ranger presses on......alone." - Matt Damon, "True Grit"

(You have to hear it. You just have to hear it. In fact, I'm beginning to suspect Matt Damon is the best comic actor working today.)

"Life Moves Pretty Fast"

Considering I was raised a hard knock youth on the rough and tumble streets of west central Iowa......wait, that's not right. Let me rephrase......considering I was raised by a loving family on the pleasant streets of west central Iowa it's perhaps odd that a seminal film of my youth would be John Singleton's debut opus "Boyz N The Hood" (1991) but few films I saw in those years were as involving or moving. And for quite awhile Cuba Gooding Jr. was Tre Styles. He was no one else. When he turned up in "A Few Good Men" as Cpl. Carl Hammaker, nope, he was still Tre Styles. When he escorted Dustin Hoffmann everywhere via helicopter in "Outbreak", nope, he was still Tre Styles. Until......

"Jerry Maguire." As obsessed as I currently am with Cameron Crowe's "Elizabethtown" is how obsessed I once was with his "Jerry Maguire." And at that moment Cuba Gooding Jr. stopped being Tre Styles and became NFL wide receiver Rod Tidwell. "If I gotta ride your ass like Zorro, you gonna show me the money." And, as far as I'm concerned, that's who he remains to this day. Cuba Gooding Jr.? Star of "Snow Dogs" and too numerous to mention direct to the bargain DVD bin "thrillers"? Nope. He's Rod.

I will admit to a fondness for the 2005 Christmas-themed film "The Family Stone." Oh, it's mostly tepid, certainly, but I harbor a small crush on Rachel McAdams in that film and it's the only movie I ever saw at Chicago's old Esquire Theater before they closed it down and, well, most of all I dig the scene when Sarah Jessica Parker's tightwad Meredith Morton finally loosens up and gets down on Christmas Eve night to Maxine Nightingale's "Right Back Where We Started From."

I Netflix this movie every December and skip through a great deal of it just to get to these moments between Luke Wilson's Berkeley-ized documentary filmmaker and Sarah Jessica Parker at the townie bar. I like it when he says to her "You have a freak flag, you just don't fly it" because it always reminds me to keep my freak flag at full mast. I like when we are introduced to Paul Schneider's Brad, a long ago flame of Rachel McAdams' character, and the way he plays this guy as someone who is just so nice and genuine and so, so, so clueless about women. And most of all I like when "Right Back Where We Started From" comes on the jukebox and she makes Brad dance with her because......I don't know. I just do. Maybe because I like how she gives him love advice in the midst of cutting a rug but probably because I just like busting a move to a song I cherish and that's what she's doing in that moment. I really dig it. And every time I've ever heard that song for the last six years I've thought of Sarah Jessica shimmying. Until......

I think what I loved so much about Lissie's after-Lollapalooza show on Saturday night (Sunday morning) at the so-called Back Porch of House of Blues was how it was all so unexpected. I didn't even know it was happening until about 36 hours before it did. I didn't expect to meet a husband & wife from Orange County who scheduled their family vacation to Chicago specifically so their 19 year old son could attend Lollapalooza, their 19 year old son who they smuggled into a 21+ only show not so he could drink but just so he could hear the music, their 19 year old son who at an autograph session slipped Lykke Li his phone #. I didn't expect to watch the show down front with a lovely girl who doubled as Lissie's friend since the 7th grade (Lissie hails from Rock Island, Illinois). I didn't expect to pay $9.50 for a Maker's on the rocks. I didn't expect Lissie's voice in person to be the closest I'll ever get to having heard Janis Joplin's voice in person. And I did not in any way, shape, or form expect Lissie to play a cover of "Right Back Where I Started From."

Lissie is known for hella good covers (that always underscore how good the song is in the first place while still re-inventing it) but if I'd made a list of potential covers for that evening's show beforehand "Right Back Where I Started From" probably wouldn't have cracked the Top 73,000. But she did, and she and her two man band rocked it. They rocked it. And I danced and I sang along because I have a freak flag, damn it, and I was flying it.

I'll probably still Netflix "The Family Stone" this December but that song will never make me think of Sarah Jessica shimmying again.

Come To Chicago And See Marilyn's Underwear!

If you didn't know the city of Chicago recently added a brand new landmark to its so-called Magnificent Mile in the form of a statue of Marilyn Monroe - specifically the famed likeness of her from Billy Wilder's "The Seven Year Itch." This doubles as arguably the most famous image in cinematic history from a film for which no one can tell you the synopsis. I think Marilyn is an out-of-work chorus girl and she ends up having to transport secret Cold War documents from New York to Moscow when she inadvertantly becomes part of the Bolshoi, but I could be mistaken.

What the late Norma Jeane Baker has to do with Chicago I have no idea when considering she was born and raised a Los Angeleno and "The Seven Year Itch" was a New York film but then, you know, I'm rarely consulted on these types of issues.

What concerns me is that as I passed the statute yesterday I noticed a preponderance of what appeared to be parents and their kids mingling around and directly beneath the statue, which is to say these innocent young children were chilling directly beneath Marilyn Monroe's underwear.

Is just me or is that wrong?

Then again, if I had a baby girl I would totally dress her up like Lady Gaga ("You're taking your newborn girl home from the hospital in a miniature meat dress?"). So perhaps I shouldn't be dispensing wisdom.

I Heart This Link

Sam, my colleague over at AM, recently on his own site Duke at the Movies briefly turned his attention from the cinema to the concert and wrote about seeing one Paul McCartney down Addison from me at Wrigley Field.

And despite the fact that I've never particuarly been a Beatles fan (my favorite Beatles tune comes from, ahem, Ringo) and am, in fact, a Stones guy through and through, well, Sam makes that all for naught and perfectly gets across how the best concerts always, always are not only about the music but about life too.

That's why I thought I'd offer this most amazing of links on the 1 year anniversary of my seeing Lady Gaga live at Lollapalooza. I know what Sam's saying and I love how he said it.

Nearly two years since this Ra Ra Riot show and I still have this crummy photo of it saved on my phone so I can pull it up any time and remember how awesome that night was.

Episodes: Time Capsule, Parks and Recreation

Andrew of Encore Entertainment is a hosting a blog-a-thon in which we are asked to name our "favorite scripted television episode of the last TV season." I was so glad when he decided to do this because I've been looking for an excuse to write about this episode for months.

Earnest, eager Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), deputy director of the Parks and Recreation department of Pawnee, Indiana, "the Akron of southwest of Indiana", has come up with an idea to bury a time capsule filled with hand-picked items by her department's staff to document what life was like during their time in Pawnee. It seems innocent enough, until a man, Kelly (Will Forte), turns up and asks that the "Twilight" book series be added as one of the pieces of documentation. Sweetly, Leslie refuses. Kelly therefore adamantly, but pleasantly, chains himself to a pipe in Leslie's office with the proclamation that he won't leave until "Twilight" find its way into the precious capsule.

The expectation at this point is obvious. An escalating war of wills between Leslie and Kelly as he harasses her and eventually gets her to read "Twilight". Except......eh, not quite. Kelly does give Leslie a copy of "Twlight" to read, yes, but she doesn't much like it. Instead she discovers the book is the property of Kelly's daughter and ferrets out the root of the protest: Kelly got divorced a couple years ago and now hopes to win his way back into his daughter's heart via this stunt. And having come clean he concedes that it seems like a fairly ridiculous notion and shakes his head and says "You don't have to put 'Twilight' in the time capsule." Cut to Leslie with all her colleagues saying: "I think we should put 'Twilight' in the time capsule." These developments are soooooooooooooo true to its main character that in this era of senseless plotting it almost kinda baffles.

But, of course, once she agrees to this request there will be more requests which leads to a town hall meeting where the citizens of Pawnee debate what should and should not go into the time capsule which leads to the potential formation of at least nine different time capsules before finally Leslie hits on the idea of simply having the only capsule artifact be a video tape of the town hall meeting.

He's Ron Swanson and he's pretty much The Man.

Here's the thing: the episode isn't really all that funny. I mean, it's funny, sure, of course, but in little ways, in Nick Offerman's Ron Swanson (i.e. The Best Character On TV) dismissing the town hall meeting as "a crackpot convention" or Adam Scott's endless parade of subtly hilarious reaction shots to various absurdity throughout the "crackpot convention" or Aziz Ansari's ultra-not-as-suave-as-he-thinks Tom Haverford upon being asked by Kelly "Do you know who else knows something about heartbreak?" replying "Kenneth Babyface Edmonds?" But it's rarely, if ever, knee-slapping, laughing-so-hard-I-can't-breathe kinda laughter.

Okay, I take that back. Actually the part where Rob Lowe's (an actor I've never liked in anything but who I love on "Parks and Rec") Chris Traeger (at present the acting City Manager) - who has chosen to assist the hapless but good-hearted shoeshine-stand man Andy Dwyer in his quest to re-win the affection of the uberly, ginormously dry April Ludgate - says to the camera "Why do I want to help Andy? Because he's a good person. And I like good people." at which point Andy makes like a monkey in the background with Chris's souped-up athletic shoes at which point, like a proud father, Chris beams at the camera is side-splitting.

"Parks and Recreation" is an embodiment of that term you so often hear tossed around - character comedy. And that's critical, and it's critical because I like these characters. I like all these characters, even the unlikeable ones because, God bless 'em, they are who they are and make no bones about it. They are defiantly themselves, which, in a way, is the whole point of that lone video tape placed in the time capsule.

Like us, love us, can't stand us, indifferent to us, this is Pawnee and this is who we are. And we're okay with it.