Joe Bob's Drive In Review
by Joe Bob Briggs
January 19, 1997
"The Last Way Out"
This baby that Wanda Bodine is gonna have-which I did NOT father, even though we haven't
had a blood test yet, and I don't care what it says, I'm hiring Barry Scheck-as I was saying, this baby that Wanda Bodine is gonna have is a boy. We know this because she went down to the Grapevine Clinic and had one of those
amnio-centrifugal DUIs in her IUDs. And the little critter inside her basically
looks like a cigar smudge on an ivory ashtray, except there's this one little protruding hickory stick, if you know what I mean
and I think you do.
Anyhow, ever since Wanda found out it's gonna be a boy, she's been going around boring the whole universe to tears by telling us what she's gonna name it. One week it was all the names that end in "ad." Chad, Thad, Tad and even Vlad. I said, "Wanda, I think Vlad is the name of a Romanian vampire."
And she said, "Oh, you already HATE HIM!" And she burst into tears for absolutely no reason and refused to stop until I beat her over the head with a throw pillow.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make to Wanda is that you can't just go throwing names out into midair when the baby hasn't even been BORN yet. You need to LOOK AT THE KID, AFTER HE'S BORN, to know what to name him. Isn't that what you do with a dog? How do you know he's gonna be a "Chad," which I looked up, by the way, and it's a Celtic name that means "warring defender"?
"Good choice," I told Wanda, "if only because I know he's gonna have to be fending YOU off for the next 20 years." And she started bawling like a hyena again. I looked up all her other names, too. Thad means "wise" in Jewish. ("What are you gonna do, slap a beanie on him and cut the skin off his ying-yang?") "Tad" is Welsh for "father." ("Isn't it a little SOON to be thinking about THAT? You expect him to get some girl in the hospital nursery pregnant?") And Vlad means "universal ruler" in Russian.
For a while she decided the kid would be named Cameron. I pointed out that this means "crooked nose" in Celtic, Gaelic and Scottish, so she could humiliate the kid in three DIFFERENT languages. Then she changed to Flynn, which means "son of the red-haired man" in Gaelic, and I went:
"Bingo! Use that one! Everybody will think you slept with Jimbo McWithers."
But she just kept right on, like the meaning of the name didn't mean diddly-squat, so finally I gave up and told her to just go ahead and GIVE the kid some name that means "scourge of the wind-whistling spaceman," but wouldn't it make more sense if you just waited till the kid started bawling and THEN decided on a name? Look into his eyes, till you SEE SOMETHING in there, and then I think it would just naturally OCCUR to you. "It's HIS dadblamed name, Wanda. HE'S gonna have to live with it, not you."
Ask me if she listened to me. Just ask me. And speaking of little unexpected surprises in the mail, Mark Steensland, the one-man film industry of Sacramento, Calif., just sent me his latest epic, and it's called "The Last Way Out," starring Kurt Johnson as a reformed kidnapper who forgets to tell his new wife that, uh, oh yeah, honey, uh, if anybody finds out what I did two years ago, I might go to Death Row. But it's OK, because Kurt intends to make a go of it at his new auto-repair shop where he works with a lovable but incompetent ex-con named Tony.
When a bank turns down his loan application, though, Kurt ends up ALMOST robbing a convenience store, then, while mulling the meaning of life in the parking lot, knocking down and beating to a pulp the two guys who DO try to rob the same convenience store. Suddenly he's a media hero, and that alerts the sleazeball ex-partners who didn't much care for Kurt after he ran off with the million-dollar ransom two years ago. But Kurt had a good reason. They executed the 6-year-old boy who was kidnapped. In other words, a WHOLE lot of plot getting in the way of the story here, but it's a caper movie so that's sort of OK. The problem is, Mark is trying to pull a Tarantino, but without the cussin,' without the serious gunplay and without the garbonzas. We don't even get so much as a NIPPLE here. And the big climax heist is supposed to take place at...a multiplex cinema! However, I did add one star to Mark's score for having the head bad guy use the phrase "if you know what I mean, and I think you do."
He obviously copies from the BEST.
Three dead bodies. No breasts. Brain-shooting. Two
fistfights. Bloody knee wound. Scalding coffee to the face. Steel-rod pummelling. Wine bottle head-bashing. Face-bashing
with an anti-theft device. Gun battle.
Drive-In Academy Award nominations for ...
Kevin Reed, as the sarcastic low-life gang leader who
says, "Cops would just love to know who you REALLY are," and, "I told you to follow him, not GO OUT with
him!"
Kurt Johnson, as the sensitive capital criminal who wants to be a family man, for saying, "Leave my wife out
of this!"
Katie Brown, as the clueless wife who says, "Come to bed?" and, "You can start by telling me how sorry you
are."
Karyn Casl, as the jealous ex-gun moll who sulks around
motel rooms, acting conflicted. And Mark Steensland, the writer, producer and director, for daring to use black
and white.
Drive-In Noir. Two and a half stars.
Joe Bob says check it out.
© 1997 Joe Bob Briggs All Rights Reserved