Last Saturday at RumbleForeskins for college football, talk turned yet again to good old Horseplay U. This time in a sightly unique context. During Saturdays, Rumbles runs specials on gourmet hot dogs. For 3 bucks you can get a Pizza Dog, Chicago Dog, Carolina Dog, and more. I think there are like 10 or 12 options. I've had the Pizza Dog myself a few times over the years and it's edible, whatever that's worth. With that in mind, a conversation got started between Tommy, the bartender, and a number of the barflies/degenerate gamblers that swarm the joint each Saturday in the fall. Tommy, as I've mentioned before, hails from Alabama. He wears Bear Bryant attire each Saturday afternoon, right down to Bryant's signature Houndstooth hat. Tommy says to me, "What would be on a Bear Bryant Dog?" I responded that it would be soaked in Bourbon. Tommy then asks, "How about a Milosevic Dog?" I said it would come with vodka and a side of genocide. He then asks, "How about a Penn State Dog?" It didn't take me long to come up with an answer. I said, "Oh that's easy. There would just be a little chili on the tip of one end." And that did it. Several barflies spit out whatever libation they were currently consuming. Tommy said, "I should never have asked you that. You are a terrible person." Which is true, by the way. But can you imagine engaging your taste buds with a Penn State Dog? A raw wiener with just a dab of chili on one tip? Doesn't that make your stomach churn in horror?
I ran into my buddy Phil Sunday afternoon before Sunday Ticket got started. He showed me something on his phone that was astounding. And something that many of you will think is poetic justice or just desserts or whatever. Phil said that earlier in the week he was trying to dial his Mom. Her phone number contains 669 in it. Well, instead of entering 669, Phil typed in 666. Yes, the number of the beast from the old Bible. And guess who comes up in his phone when he types in 666. That's right, my name. That's close to scientific proof that I may indeed be, as many of you have long suspected, the devil himself...
 |
| The only good thing about Last Ounce Of Courage |
In Tuesday's super post on this blog, I mentioned the film Last Ounce Of Courage. It caught my attention because it received a 0% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I promised to go see this epic myself. And I did. I watched it yesterday at Regal Cinema by Friendly Center. Turns out, I had a private screening. I was the only person in the theater for the 4:05 showing. I'm glad nobody else was in there, because I was laughing at it throughout. It's gonna be difficult to describe what I saw, as I'm not a movie reviewer by trade. But I'll give it a shot. And whatever you do, trust me that what I'm describing is accurate. Because the last thing you want to do is endure the movie firsthand, only to find out that it's as bad as I said it was. The movie centers on old guy named Bob Revere. Bob is a pharmacist by trade. He's also the mayor of a small town called Mt. Columbus, located somewhere in the Rockies. Bob has troubles though. He son died in some unnamed war 14 years before the movie is set. His daughter-in-law has run out of town with his grandson, Christian. Yes, Christian Revere. I'm not making that up. Bob is hurting. You can see the pain in his eyes from grief and whatnot. His wife stands around looking at him with a forlorn face. Then the long lost daughter-in-law and grandson show up and move in with Bob and his wife on Thanksgiving. Christian, the grandson, is eager to learn more about his dead father. He rummages through a chest with old videotapes of his Dad and demands to watch them. Bob lets him. This causes 14 years of repressed feelings to float up in Bob. Meanwhile, as mayor, Bob laments that Jesus Christ has largely been removed from public displays during Christmastime. He watches Bill O'Reilly and learns that secular liberals are trying to outlaw Christmas. He gets angry. He decides to put up tons of Christmas decorations all over town. He even gets this Christmas tree and puts it up by town hall. The tree is bigger than the one in Rockefeller Center. Well, Bob's actions piss off some liberal group in DC. There's a gentleman named The Hammer, an Al Sharpton type played by Bill Williamson, who calls and threatens action against Bob if the Christmas stuff is not removed. That's the premise of the film. Bob has to deal with those damn liberals as well as come to grips with his feelings about his son's death, his grandson being around, his daughter-in-law, and, I forgot to mention this, the fact his daughter ran out on the family and hasn't been heard from in decades (don't worry, she shows up at the end of the movie). You can see the ending coming about 20 minutes into the movie. And it doesn't disappoint. As ridiculous as the premise is, the resolution is one of the stupidest, most implausible, poorly acted, poorly written, poorly directed, pieces of crap I have ever seen. Where the folks who came up with this idea that Christmas is disappearing from public in America is baffling. I went to the Christmas tree lighting in downtown Greensboro just a few years ago. There were thousands of people there. Bob and The Hammer get into these "debates" several times in the movie that center on this notion that there are liberals actively trying to destroy Christmas. Now, maybe there are some. But they aren't doing a very good job of destroying it. The political aspect of the movie is unwatchable as a result. Eventually Bob gets fired as mayor by the City Council after all the pressure from The Hammer. The huge Christmas tree is knocked over like that statue of Saddam Hussein. Then there's a silly Christmas miracle as folks wake up to the fact that Christmas is being stolen from them. Bob erects a cross on a building and gives an impassioned speech. Blah, blah, blah. Folks love him and the nasty liberals have been vanquished. On the personal side of things, young Christian comes to love his grandfather and fight against the local school banning Christmas. There's a whole part of the movie that involves the school Christmas pageant. Only since Christ has been banned from school, the show revolves around a space opera that's parallel to the story in the Bible surrounding Christ's birth. This part of the movie is even dumber than the part about Christmas being driven underground by liberals. Christian and 7 or 8 other tweens hatch a plan to high jack the Christmas show and put on the nativity story from the Bible. The plan is asinine. But it works!!! And at the end of the show, Christian has this screen come down on the stage and this A/V nerd play one of those videotapes I mentioned from that trunk with his Dad's stuff in it. The videotape Christian plays is the one of his father dying in combat. Really. His Mom is in the audience and everyone starts crying before they start standing one by one saluting. Bob isn't in the audience for the show. He'd been hauled off to jail for erecting that cross I mentioned. What law he was breaking was unclear to me. But Bob did get to hear the performance on a little transistor radio provided to him by this mysterious Jesus like figure that shows up in the film from time to time. He's then released from jail, walks outside, and the whole town is there! They sing Silent Night!!! That's how it ends. I have walked out on 2 movies in my life - Late For Dinner & The January Man. Last Ounce Of Courage is just as bad as those films. I only stayed so I could write about the resolution to all of Bob's issues. I'll tell you my favorite stupid thing in the movie. Bob rides a Harley from time to time. He's buddies with this biker club. They show up in the movie several times. Well, these bikers in the movie hang out at a joint called Knuckleheads. It's the most lame biker bar in the world. What I love about the scenes in the biker bar is that none of the bikers are drinking beer or whiskey. They're all drinking out of white Styrofoam cups. I think that tells you just how stupid and insulting the film is. Bikers in a biker bar drinking Cokes out of Styrofoam cups. What planet are the folks who made this movie living on?
No comments:
Post a Comment