"Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In" for 3/6/92
cutline: Dennis Hopper tells Jodie Foster that, sure, he's a hitman who kidnapped her and forced her to put on a black negligee at gunpoint, but they can have a wonderful life together, in "Back Track."
By Joe Bob Briggs
Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, Texas
You notice how everybody uses this word "dysfunctional" all the time, like:
"You're dysfunctional!"
"I was in a very dysfunctional relationship." (Translation: he was a jerk.)
"I grew up in a dysfunctional family." (Translation: we yelled a lot.)
But the ones that get me are the people who are PROUD of it. They want you to know just how dysfunctional they are. They'll tell you how they were SOOOO dysfunctional that it shaped their personality forever and so now they'll never be able to have a lasting relationship because blah blah blah and they keep changing the color of their hair because this dysfunctional thing happened and they're insecure now and blah blah blah and keep using this word, over and over again, like "I'm dysfunctional, and my FAMILY was dysfunctional, and I'm attracted to dysfunctional people," and after a while you wanna say "why don't all you dysfunctionals get up a softball team or something?" As my grandma used to say, "That boy needs a hobby."
Anyhow, listen to me:
When you're 14 years old, MAYBE you can blame your parents for doing all this dysfunctional stuff that screwed you up.
When you're 34 years old, you are what's known in America as a "grown-up."
You can't blame it on THEM anymore! Understand?
They might have screwed up the first 14, but the last 20 are YOURS.
This whole "dysfunctional" thing is some kind of psychiatrist deal, isn't it? They invented it to make more money.
Cause we all know how life works, right?
You're born.
You make up a bunch of goals and plans.
You don't do any of em.
A bunch of stuff you didn't think of comes along and makes you into something you didn't wanna be.
You whine about being "dysfunctional."
You eat a lot of Mexican food.
You die.
This isn't anything new. This is the way it's always been.
Get over it, okay?
I don't wanna have to explain this again.
Speaking of all the reasons we think up to have kinky sex, there's this movie called "Back Track" that Dennis Hopper directed and starred in about three years ago, and it's been in two or three different versions, and now it's coming out on video in its entirety, something called the "complete director's cut."
We've got some MAJOR dysfunctional sex going on here. Dennis Hopper is a hitman hired to kill Jodie Foster, an "environmental artist" who witnessed a mob shooting. But most of the time he just stares at polaroids of her in her underwear and makes squeaky noises on a tenor saxophone. Next he starts stealing her lingerie so that when he finds her he can handcuff her, put a gun to her head, and dress her up like a hooker.
That's not the kinky part, though.
The kinky part is that she LIKES it.
Remember how creepy he was in "Blue Velvet"?
This time he's off the scale.
Twenty-four dead bodies. Two breasts. Totem pole burning. Throat slashing. Aardvarking. Gratuitous argument over "what is Art?" The only movie ever made that portrays a man throwing snowballs--Hostess Snowballs. Gratuitous Vincent Price. Handcuff Fu. Exploding refinery. Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Bob Dylan, as a chainsaw artist, for having no reason to be in this movie but doing it anyway; Jodie Foster, for putting on six different outfits from Victoria's Secret and saying "Men have no imagination"; And Big Dennis, the kinkiest man alive, for saying "There's something going on here that I really don't understand, but I like it."
Exactly. Four stars.
Joe Bob says check it out.
JOE BOB'S ADVICE TO THE HOPELESS
Republican Alert! The Sunset Drive-In, at Highway 113 and County Road 27 in Davis, Calif., is being eyed like raw meat by local vulture developers. But fortunately the current plan to turn it into a miniature golf course, driving range, batting-cage facility and arcade is gonna be denied because it might "impact" the endangered Swainson's hawk. I'm not making this up. Tell these people to let it be a dad-blamed DRIVE-IN, like God intended, and the hawks can dive-bomb the hot dog stand for all we care. Michael Finnegan of Davis reminds us that, without eternal vigilance, it can happen here. To discuss the meaning of life with Joe Bob, or to get free junk in the mail and Joe Bob's world-famous "We Are the Weird" newsletter, write Joe Bob Briggs, P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, TX 75221. Joe Bob's Fax line is always open: 214-368-2310.
Dear Joe Bob,
As a doctoral student in medieval literature, I have been puzzled by an intellectual conundrum which has doubtless troubled you, too. The subject--"Friday the 13th," parts one through infinity. The question--Jason Voorhees: Why a Dutch guy?
I think I've found the answer in an essay on medieval Dutch drama: "The lovers . . . grow passionate, and send the Sinnekins [tempter-commentators] away so that they may be alone together. A curtain is drawn over their subsequent activities. The Sinnekins . . . ultimately decide to interrupt the lovers by opening the curtain, but when they do a terrifying sight is revealed--Death with a spear, about to stab the embracing couple IN FLAGRANTE DELICTO." Looks like the ultimate origin of one of the "seminal" drive-in murders of our time, if you know what I mean, and I would postulate that you do.
James McNelis, M.A.
University of Washington
Seattle
Dear
Professor Jimbo:
It just makes me puke that Paramount
Pictures would go to the Dutch Medieval Research Library like that, rip off a
story, capitalize on it, exploit actors with it, and run around delicto-ing
everyone's flagrante.
You mean a guy that sick is not even
American?
I'm having trouble with this.
Dear Joe Bob,
I was just wondering what your opinions were on the "Pregnant-Demi-Naked on the Vanity Fair cover" ordeal. Thanks.
Anthony Martin
Guerneville, Calif.
Dear
Anthony:
There's something to be said for tubal ligation, isn't there?
Editor (San Francisco Chronicle):
It's no wonder that Joe Bob Briggs becomes hysterical when he hears Robert Bly's vision of maleness. I mean, Briggs is about as sensitive as an aluminum foil condom. J.B. is so desensitized that the only things that excite him are chain-sawed breasts and S&M images.
Briggs sounds like the kind of guy who has to spin his literary tires to make up for his insecurities about being male. Such macho behavior is a way dysfunctional men try to make up for their micro-maleness and for their inability to have healthy human relations. The guy has made a career out of cheerleading gratuitous violence in exploitation flicks and delighting in cruelty and human suffering. All this coupled with his sophomoric motivation to relentlessly count body parts I guess makes him the spokesman for what is healthy and wholesome in men.
Brigg's juvenile exposition about Bly rings as true as a Coors commercial pandering about the good old hippie days . . .
Instead of wallowing in the rancid stench of the Bush hell realm of cruelty and corpses, I hope he will wake up and smell the roses.
Jim McCann
Santa Cruz, Calif.
Dear
Jimbo:
I am violently opposed to cruelty and corpses. However, I couldn't help wondering what your head would look like on a stick.
Dear Joe Bob--
I couldn't believe it when I read Jim McCann's letter. The sad thing about Jim McCann is that he probably thinks he's the greatest, coolest, most sensitive dude around. Unfortunately, he has the depth perception of a bad 3-D movie. Hence, his girlfriend probably wears Birkenstocks. And they probably talk only on a party line, not understanding the importance of those sexy private lines.
My friend, Cheryl Cline, and I have decided that, even if you get yourself thrown out of every newspaper in the world, you'll always be the first post-dude feminist of the 90's to us, and the coolest high sheriff of free speech in cowboy boots that ever hit the popular consciousness.
Keep up the good work, dude!
Yers,
William Breiding
San Francisco
Dear
Bill:
Post-dude feminist, huh?
I like it. I don't understand it, but I like it.
Dear Joe Bob,
I am the Sales Director and disc jockey for the K-UTE Student Run Radio here at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Our school newspaper, the Daily Chronicle, was running your weekly syndicated column. I emphasize WAS. For reasons that neither I nor any other self-respecting intellectual can begin to imagine or comprehend, your column was cancelled. We, your devout fans, feel very deprived and want to right this terrible injustice. We demand our weekly dose of Joe Bob! In order to attempt to right this incredible wrong, the station would like to receive your weekly syndicated column on a pre-recorded tape so that I can air it on my show.
Thank you for your support in helping us deal with the awful blow of being cut off from your glorious wisdom.
Sincerely,
Kathleen Matthews
University of Utah
Salt Lake City
Dear
Kathleen:
I used to do my column for the radio,
but that meant actually getting up in the morning and going to the radio
station and sitting for a LONG time in a room with no windows and listening to
guys named Ernie say "air check" a lot. So I don't do that anymore.
I know what happened. A group called Women in Communications complained that my column was sexist and that it should be censored. There are LOTS of groups out there with names like "Women in Communications" that believe in censorship instead of "Communications." They don't have any power, except when you get a wimpy editor who takes them seriously.
© 1992 Joe Bob Briggs All Rights Reserved