"Joe Bob Goes to the
Drive-In" for 12/3/93
cutline: [TK]
By Joe Bob Briggs
Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine,
Texas
Sometimes
people say to me, "Joe Bob, you are SUCH a whiny liberal."
And
sometimes people say to me, "Joe Bob, you are such a goldang redneck
right-winger."
And
sometimes people say to me, "What the HECK are you anyhow?"
And
I don't get it. I don't get this liberal-conservative thing. So I'm gonna turn
it back around on you people that think this way:
What
the HECK are you talking about?
I
mean, I could understand using "liberal" and "conservative"
to talk about people in the fifties. But I HONESTLY don't know what a liberal
or a conservative IS.
When
I think of a liberal, I think of some paunchy guy wearing a bad toupee who
teaches sociology at a junior college in Vermont and drinks too much white wine
and organizes rallies about South Africa and hates the Ku Klux Klan. He assumes
that, if you're not just like him, then you must LOVE the Ku Klux Klan, and so
he hates you, too.
When
I think of a conservative, I think of a guy with an 80-dollar haircut who works
in Marketing and has shoes that match his belt. He loves people like Ted Turner
and Lee Iacocca and Tom Clancy, and he eats too many lobster dinners and says
"kick butt" all the time, as in "Boy, did we KICK BUTT
today." He assumes that, if you're not just like him, then you must be one
of the welfare cheaters that's running this country into the ground.
I
HATE these people. Both kinds.
Of
course, I can already hear the people who are agreeing with me--people like
Unitarians, who think "We can all get along together if we just accept ALL
points of view."
I
hate these people, too. You can't accept ALL points of view. Most points of
view are absolute bullstuff.
Or
the Libertarians--the ones who say, "Well, we're LIBERALS on social
issues, like race, and we're CONSERVATIVES on economic issues, like free
enterprise."
These
people are obnoxious because they're whole philosophy assumes we're all able to
do exactly the same things, and that we should pull ourselves up by our
bootstraps, because there are no retarded people in the world. If you really
believe in a free-enterprise dog-eat-dog world, where the strongest survive,
then you don't care if the retarded people get eaten up by the stronger people.
So
anyhow, once and for all, I'm not a LIBERAL. I'm not a CONSERVATIVE. I'm not a
Unitarian, a Libertarian, a Free-thinker, a right-winger, a left-winger, a
Commie, a Whig, or a member of the Bull Moose Party.
I
hate all political creeds equally.
I'm
just an old grouch.
Hope
this clears everything up.
Speaking
of screwed-up politics, the weirdest people in New York City can always be
found in the films of the master, Larry Cohen, creator of "It's
Alive!," "The Stuff," "Maniac Cop," "Q: The
Winged Serpent," and many other classics. And the man has done it again
with "The Ambulance," starring Eric Roberts as a GOOD GUY, and Larry
Cohen regular James Earl Jones as a zonked-out cop, and--best of all--Red
Buttons as a 74-year-old New York Post reporter with indigestion and a heart
problem who's convinced he's gonna win the Pulitzer Prize if he can help Eric
figure why an evil ambulance is terrorizing the streets of the Apple, picking
up diabetics and taking them away to some place where they're Never Seen Again.
Eric
gets into the case because he has the hots for a woman he sees on his
lunchbreak every day. He's just starting to make an impression on her, by
acting like a total jerkola goofball, when suddenly she collapses on the
pavement at 57th and Fifth. Five minutes later the ambulance shows up and
trundles her off to the hospital from mad-doctor hell, which is one flight up
from a trendy Soho disco, where NOBODY WILL EVER NOTICE.
Pretty
soon we find out that the creepola doctor is using the abducted diabetics for
his controversial experiments with pig-pancreas transplants. If they survive
the surgery, he sells them to other research labs for further elective surgery.
Meanwhile, we have lots of snappy patter, unexpected plot twists, motor vehicle
chases, and completely original New York characters talking in completely
original ways, as only Larry Cohen can do it.
Larry
Cohen is the only guy I know of who makes movies so quirky that, if one of em
comes on cable that you've never seen before, you can tell after ONE SCENE that
it's a Larry Cohen flick. There's no such thing as a sane character in a Cohen
movie, for one thing. And there's also no such thing as a scene that ends.
Every Cohen movie is one long scene--usually a nightmare.
Four
dead bodies. Night-stick strangling. Six motor vehicle chases, with crash and
burn. Runaway stretcher-on-the-street, a la Jerry Lewis. Three fistfights. Kung
Fu. Chloroform Fu. Ambulance Fu. Bed-pan Fu. Drive-In Academy Award nominations
for Janine Turner, as the gal that Eric Roberts is drooling over when she
collapses on the street, causing him to give up everything else in his life in
an attempt to find her, for saying "They were gonna sell me, like an
animal"; Stan Lee, the comic-book genius, for playing the editor of Marvel
Comics, and doing a dang fine job; Eric Braeden, as the dreary doctor, for
saying "Yes, I will eventually kill you, but I assure you you'll be in
perfect health when you die"; James Earl Jones, as the gum-chewing
lieutenant, for saying "One thing about women, they always turn up";
and Red Buttons, as the cantankerous old reporter, for saying "How many
patients have you killed today, Nurse Feinstein?"
Three
stars.
Joe
Bob says check it out.
JOE BOB'S ADVICE TO THE
HOPELESS
Victory Over Communism! The Twin City
Drive-In, on Volunteer Parkway in Bristol, Tenn., has been operated by the same
couple--Bo and Margaret Diggs--ever since it opened in 1950, and just finished
another great season. In 1977 the screen was knocked down by a tornado, but
they quickly rebuilt and moved forward. Todd Wyatt reminds us that, with
eternal vigilance, the drive-in will never die. To discuss the meaning of life
with Joe Bob, or to get free junk in the mail and his world-famous newsletter,
"The Joe Bob Report," 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,
If you haven't tried "born
again," don't knock it. I've been young and old, and you have only been
young. If you hang around a while longer you might change your mind and see
your friend is not as dumb as you think. Oh well, you do have a choice, and
when you breathe your last, it's heaven or hell.
Sincerely,
John W. Hale
Altamonte Springs,
Fla.
Dear John:
Once you've seen Myrtle Beach in the
winter, "hell" has no power to scare you.
Dear Joe Bob:
It's a bit redundant hearing from the
sniveling whiners who accuse you of being politically incorrect and offensive,
yet persist in reading your column. See, they know they like it, but they can't
admit that, so they have to turn it into something nasty.
I don't actually watch the movies you
review, but I wouldn't miss your Sunday column because it's funny, well-written,
and informative. I am a vegetarian, Goddess-loving, artist, wife, and mother of
two small children. But I feel sorry for people who are so locked into the
dogma of their own lives that they are actually self-censored.
To the astonishment of some of the yuppies
surrounding me, I prefer Metallica to spineless New Age drone music. Joe Bob,
you too are giving us a good time while having one yourself. People as
self-important as your critics ought to get a seat in Congress. Instead of
funding schools and environmental action, they could pass legislation regarding
the placement of drive-ins with relation to laundromats. If it hasn't already
been done.
Sincerely,
Rebecca Hale
Incline Village, Nev.
Dear Rebecca:
I'm with you. I hate those noisy
laundromats interfering with traffic on the weekends.
Dear Joe Bob:
A while back, you were telling about that
professor in Berkeley who finally noticed that most horror flicks are really
pro-feminist. Heck, what took her so long?
Did Leatherface ever get the girl at the
end of the Chainsaw movies? What about Michael Meyers? And I don't even want to
think about what happened to those guys in "I Spit On Your Grave."
Ouch!!
And it's getting worse! We now have a whole
new crop of dangerous women terrorizing men. A while back, there was a big
to-do over movies about killer lesbians and how unfair it was and that real
lesbians don't carry icepicks. Heck, now even the women who're not from Beruit
aren't safe to be around anymore. We got Madonna boffing men to death, Jodie
Foster shooting amateur tailors, and women doin' female bonding during
cross-country crime sprees. What's next? Killer Kelly Girls? Oh--its been done.
I know movies are just make-believe (except
documentaries like "Alive," "JFK," and "The Hunt For
Red October"), but what if people see one of these new mean women movies
and takes it to heart? Oh-oh, my wife just got back from the Multi-Mega-Plex
Cinema 25, so I better wrap this up. Anyway, . . . Honey, what are you doin' with
that cattle prod? dcl;kfjlke;hoiurfh,.kncv,x mc.ldmsjclsm c.a/
smc.,lmdslkfjlkskmls,,m.,.
David L. Hall
Richmond, Calif.
Dear David:
I'm just sick of being treated like a
piece of MEAT, for the benefit of women's juvenile fantasies, aren't you?
Dear Joe Bob,
Got another reject for your Friday night
train to oblivion: "Christopher Columbus: The Discovery." I'm worn
out with all these VERY expensiv-o movies that GO nowhere: rolled in a lot of
dough ($$$) AND dough (pastry), but half-baked in both cases.
Ordinarily you'd think with all the exposed
breasts that this flick would turn into a drive-in movie epic, but not even you
will be able to tolerate it. The boobs, au naturelle, are without benefit of
either silicone or lifelong support slings. Some of them DROOP.
That wouldn't do much for the fantasy life
of your devoted viewers who like to think that breasts stay forever at
mid-chest level. Sigh.
Rachel Ward is a coquettish, informal
version of Queen Isabella running a sublimated sex game with Columbus. How
believable is THAT, with Torquemada sitting at their elbow? He's her CONFESSOR!
In fact, how believable is Torquemada, as "rendered" by super-fat
Brando? Torquemada was into self-denial, man, and here comes Marlon rolling
along in bountiful gluttony. It's gotta be a joke, right?
Maybe I've misread it, and Brando's the
comic relief. His acting ranges from rolling his eyes to the right--meaning
look out, buddy, you're close to the edge--and rolling em to the left--meaning,
"I've gotcha, you S.O.B." But, I didn't misread Tom Selleck as a dud
version of King Ferdinand. All I could think of watching Selleck was how hot he
must be in all that velvet. I believe that's all he could think of, too.
It makes me SAD, all that money gone to
waste. Not my money, at any rate. I saw it at the $3.75 matinee, having got a
"whiff" of the oncoming stench from the cast of characters.
One redeeming note: George Corraface
(Columbus) has REALLY GOOD TEETH. He'll go places.
Bye now,
Kay Gunn
Dallas
Dear Kay:
That remains the best review of
"Christopher Columbus" I've ever read. I think it was the
"Rachel Ward as Queen Isabella" that got to me, even more than Brando.
Joe Bob,
The 5 per cent of our present 350-to-400
million populace is using 50 per cent of the world's cocaine production at $300
billion a year (for 20-second coffee rush). At least three to four million
hardcore users. Ultimate paranoid "aid as a bio-war" project paid for
by the taxpayers used by some group that worships the pyramids. And we aren't
finished yet! Davy Crockett Project 1964 U.S. Department was a nuclear weapon
that fits on an engine stand. Elmer Fudd--does that mean the Playboy bunnies,
too? Right?
Dallas homocide rate number one in nation
and was--early eighties--number two wealthiest city in the U.S.A. under
Houston, Texas. No longer true for some odd reason. Cannot see why need a
reply.
Robert Gunn
Dallas
Dear Robert:
Cannot see why need a question, either.
© 1993 Joe Bob Briggs All Rights Reserved