Sylvester Stallone's arm-wrestler-trucker-single-father epic Over the Top was probably the butchest movie I liked as a kid. To this day, it's the only Stallone flick that I have a real working knowledge of (must check out Rhinestone one of these days!). I didn't see Over the Top in the theater, but I remember counting down the seconds until it came out on video. The reason? I was completely obsessed with Kenny Loggins' AC-synth schmaltz "Meet Me Halfway," which is featured heavily in the film (and, in turn, featured the film heavily in its heavily rotated video). That's right, a power ballad is what drew me to a movie that at least strives to be stacked with testosterone. As with most things in my life, where there's will, there is gaaaaaaaaay.
Inspired by the arm-wrestling doc Pulling John, I recently rewatched Over the Top for the first time in probably 15 years and could not believe how amazing it was. Finally, a movie that lives up to its name! It pops off the screen like a vein in Stallone's arm. It celebrates deadbeat dads and young boys who look like Demi Moore, alike. Fucking Giorgio Moroder did the score. It is so trashy that it thinks BRUT is not only something not to be embarrassed about, it's something to flaunt. It basically has everything I could ever ask for in a movie. People who throw around Troll 2 and Showgirls when they talk about "best worst movies" need to turn their caps around and get their act together because Over the Top is exactly where it's at. Come, let's pick it apart using the criteria for terrible movies that I laid out in my first terrible-hunting post. We're starting with incompetence, and this is really, really all that needs to be said about that (or about the movie, period):
They couldn't even get their character's name right! What's not to love?
As a postscript to last week's Céline Dion Is Still Amazing video, here are some shots of various audience members in rapture that I collected while gathering clips from Céline Through the Eyes of the World and the Taking Chances Tour DVD. Really, these people are awesome enough to make me want to start a Tumblr on her fans. People of Céline would be to People of Walmart what Red Lobster is to Long John Silver's. I just know it!
Anyway, these are presented without my commentary. I think you'll agree that the commentary displayed on these people's faces is commentary enough. Glowstick guy beckons you in...
Here's another one for the "Things I Wish I Made" file. I seem to remember The Wow Report doing a similar cut of Tyra saying "me" and "I" soon after the show debuted, but now I can't find it. Whatever, this one covers more ground and much more fat ass. [via Videogum]
(Thanks to Gabe at Videogum for agreeing to host this -- I figured it'd be rejected by YouTube faster than Sinbad was by Donald Trump.)
Ever since I posted the supercut closest to my heart, "I'm Not Here To Make Friends," about two years ago, people have urged me to explore other reality show clichés via the medium. One repeated suggestion is, "Throw him/me under the bus." I've resisted so far because that seems like a phrase that extends way, way beyond reality TV in a way that "I'm not here to make friends," doesn't (it's just more practical in its potential use), and its obviousness is furthermore enough to make hunting down those clips a monumental task.
However, I started watching The Apprentice for the first time this season (mostly for Bret Michaels – I covered all three seasons of Rock of Love for work and loved every saliva/other stuff-drenched second of it), and was immediately taken by how often "under the bus" was said on this show alone. "Great, a wrap-up supercut of all the different utterances is how I'll cover the show!" I thought (at this point in my professional life, it feels very strange to follow a reality show and not write anything about it).
I was very happy with my idea until I realized it's been done before – officially by NBC last season, no less (though I have no idea how that NBC video played, though, because it is no longer available). I realized this midway through my clips-gathering and was tempted to scrap the idea immediately. But then it occurred to me that it's even more insane that this "under the bus" refrain is a phenomenon documented by a source as official as the channel that airs the show, and yet it endures in spades. Maybe these competing celebs aren't paying attention. Maybe they're being told by producers to say it whenever possible. Maybe they're self-scripting out of respect for the Donald (who has obvious affinity for the phrase). Maybe the very concept of being clichéd is lost on these people. Maybe throwing someone under the bus is as infectious as the negativity that precedes it (or the paranoia that causes accusing someone else of doing so).
Whatever. One thing's for sure: people say it a lot, and repetition is hilarious. That observation is a cliché, too, but one I embrace wholeheartedly.
Update: This is mind-blowing: according to Newsweek "William Safire, the author of Safire's Political Dictionary, traced the popularization of the phrase back to Cyndi Lauper, who jauntily tossed her critics 'under the bus' after the release of her debut album She's So Unusual in 1983." So that's why she says it so much! She's proud! [via the Videogum comments]
I figured last Friday's trek to Atlantic City to see Diana Ross perform would be yet another stop on the Camp Express that is my life. At this point I figured she was delightfully batty enough to put on a show beyond her control. Around the time I secured the tickets, my father warned me that he saw her 15 years ago and she was terrible. I told him that was no warning -- that was what I was hoping. I wondered if she might pee her pants. I was stupid for even entertaining the thought, though -- as I found out from my seat in 1,600-capacity Ceasar's Palace Circus Maxiumus Theater, this woman only wears gowns. Obviously!
Less obviously, she was spectacular. Though her choreography never amounts to much more than pacing the stage, stretching her arms out to the sides to make herself larger than larger than life and using her hands to make sure her giant hair is as giant as it was last time she checked (inevitably, 15 seconds ago), her show never sagged. Her thin, reed-in-the-wind pipes were as close to top form as they'll ever be, remarkably clear and immediately recovering from any cracks and missed notes. I never thought anyone could mistake Ross for a powerhouse vocalist (it would be like making mansions out of anthills), but it was easy to do so during the blues section of this greatest-hits themed show, especially during Lady Sings the Blues' "Don't Explain." Like any great rhythm and blues singer, she told the songs whatever way she could, her voice filled with history, emotional volatility and good old charisma.
She introduced that section "for all the jazz lovers out there." What a cheeseball. Indeed, between the frequent impressive displays of showmanship, there were plenty of deliciously eye-roll worthy moments. "This one's dedicated to each of you with my love...it's 'Endless Love,'" she said before singing both parts of the famous duet (and if there's anything that displays the exact opposite of that song's titular concept, it must be singing an established duet solo). During that number's first verse and chorus, an ornate orchid sat on the LED behind her. Then it changed to a shot of petals. Then, a butterfly amongst lilies. After, she explained that the photographs were shot by her son, Ross (named after...her last name, I guess?). Speaking of flowers, at one point someone threw a bouquet up onstage and she pantomimed bending down so that a security guard at the foot of the stage would hand them to her. It was very pre-verbal toddler of her.
Her wardrobe choices frequently made me pray for the soul of the Muppet she was responsible for slaughtering. She wore a floor-length fluorescent green fur, a boa that looked like it was made of plantain-sized ruby red feathers, a princess dress with ruffles big enough for a giant's duvet cover that she had to lift half of to move, a gold-green-orange mass of shine and a puffy shawl that looked like it was made of a lemon-flavored afro (not all at once, though). Just watching her maneuver made me assume that her level of self-awareness is very high. Is there any real difference between masochism and being in on such a joke? (Indeed, at the end of the show before the Michael Jackson-tribute encore, she asked the utterly rapturous crowd filled with Atlantic City's version of WASPs and women dressed like Sylvester, "Not bad for an aging diva, huh?" They didn't think so, either.)
Best of all, probably, were her interjections. Among them:
"Do you hear them? They're horns!"
"We're going back! Memories! Reflections!"
"Motown!"
"Do you all feel the music out there?" (This was before telling us that she didn't believe we did.)
"Do you know this song?" (This was after singing, "First I was afraid, I was petrified," the first lines of an obscure track called "I Will Survive" that isn't a karaoke staple that our pop culture sings in its sleep or anything.)
"If you need me, call me!" (This she said at the very end of the show, although she neglected to leave her number. Must have been a mistake. Maybe next time?)
At times, she yelled at her musical support ("I can't hear the voices!" she said testily to the backup singers), but best of all was when she yelled at the crowd. "Diana Ross starts on time!" she snorted at some latecomers finding their seats, coating the song she was singing, Spiral Starecase's ridiculously chipper "More Today Than Yesterday," with irony. During the following number, "You Can't Hurry Love," she shouted, "No! No! No!" She made her band stop playing and then launched into a somewhat bizarre rant that went, "You shouldn't do this! Even in theaters in New York, you don't walk down and stand up in front of everybody!"
As YouTubeable moments go, this was the only thing that came close to one, and she was in control the entire time. Her level of competence is almost eerie. How fortunate for her.
I thought I was done with this cycle of ANTM (and then I thought I was really done), and I only watched this week's clip show to see if anyone said, "I'm not here to make friends," (they didn't). But I'm glad I did watch it because it was enjoyable and enlightening (the secret of the marshmallow mouth-stuffing was revealed: they were playing a game called "Chubby Bunny"). At times, even, it was a mixture of both, like in the clip above, which features Angelea serving Andre Leon Talley Alizé. Obviously, the joke lies in watching someone so supposedly high class stoop down to the gutter and drink a commoner's drink. However, instead of irony, I think this might actually reflect a greater truth about A.L.T. and his career. After all, isn't ANTM is the Alizé of the fashion world? It's not good for you or your reputation and you'd probably be better of not partaking, but goddamn its completely mind-numbing charm irresistible.
The feature-length documentary Céline Through the Eyes of the World arrived on DVD last week with an additional hour of footage (!!!) and to little fanfare. I find that mystifying as, it contains most of the insanity you see above (I grabbed some other stuff from the simultaneous release of the Taking Chances World Tour DVD). I can't believe that someone hasn't already made this! Anyway, as promised, above is the official sequel to my Céline Dion Is Amazing video. Time is only going to get kinder to her as she enters the throes batty-old-ladydom. Get used to this kind of thing -- it isn't going anywhere (except crazy!).
Here's that other idea I mentioned yesterday: a cut-up conversation between the two greatest thinkers of our time ANTM Cycle 9's Bianca and Cycle 13's Laura. I figured you might like some nonsense with your nonsense, and I also wanted to pay tribute to the greatest invention of the century so far (Top Model Lounge, duh!).
So many props go to Justin Stockman for inspiring this idea.
Raina said that the final battle on this 14th cycle of America's Next Top Model came down to fun and flirty versus focused and fierce. I say fuck that noise, it's finished.
