Inexplicable Book Review: The Men Who Would Be King (Spielberg!)

I really enjoy books about Hollywood. One that I had bookmarked to read for a while has been The Men Who Would Be Kings, which ended up being a great read by Nicole LaPorte. It basically chronicles the rise and fall of DreamWorks, which now only exists as a shell of itself, as opposed to the grand new studio originally imagined by Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

When it was originally formed in 1994, they envisioned it becoming another great movie studio, a la Paramount and Universal and MGM. However, problems started from almost day one - Spielberg did some hit movies for other companies, as opposed to directing them for DreamWorks. It didn't help that Katzenberg, who revitalized Disney, flopped with most of his early animation efforts before Shrek: Antz, The Prince of Egypt and The Road To El Dorado were all costly and barely broke even, or flopped badly. It wasn't until Saving Private Ryan (1998), American Beauty (1999), and Gladiator (2000) that the company had some film success, followed by Shrek in 2001. The Ring and Old School were surprising successes, but because they lacked confidence in Will Ferrell and Judd Apatow and Adam McKay, the price for Anchorman skyrocketed from less than $1 million (script only) to more than $4 million, as other companies got into a bidding war.

If you're into a sort of "inside Hollywood" tale, it's fascinating to read about the dynamics between the three mega-partners, and how Spielberg essentially served as a whiny kid for his own company. Almost everything was catered toward Spielberg as the Grand Creator, only for him to not really live up to expectations, and to provide floundering management. I whipped through the 500ish pages in about a week.

A show I'm unusually excited for - Covert Affairs

I will admit that I have had a minor crush on Piper Perabo after seeing her in my teens in Coyote Ugly. Now, the movie really wasn't what I was expecting as a 16-year-old male, but I thought she was quite pleasant in it as the cute blonde singer who has to be coerced a bit into joining a ridiculous bar where the staff dancers for money, but they're not strippers or whores. From the previews, I was expecting Cocktail minus Tom Cruise and plus hot chicks, but it wasn't horrible as far as romantic comedies go.

Note about Coyote Ugly: It has cameos from some surprising people. Johnny Knoxville in a pre-Jackass role? Alex Borstein (Lois from Family Guy and a regular on MadTV as a bidding auction lady? Tom Brady's baby-momma Bridget Moynahan? Kaitlin "Sweet Dee" Olson in a minor role???

Back on to the topic of Perabo though, she's starring in a new USA drama, Covert Affairs. It premieres Tuesday, and it looks like the perfect, breezy sort of show that USA has become known for.

Perabo plays Annie Walker, a young CIA employee that has recently been promoted to a field operative. The commercials for the show present her in a great light - She is equal parts plucky, sexy and vulnerable. Yes, I'm basing my thoughts of Perabo a lot on her appearance, but I've always thought of her as a mixture of all three based on Coyote Ugly and her appearances on late night talk shows.

Since there is the CIA element at play, one of my friends described Covert Affairs as Burn Notice with a female lead. I said that would be nice, since she can act, as opposed to the guy who plays Michael Weston. (Sorry Jeffrey Donovan, but Bruce Campbell is the only reason to watch that show now.) I'll be watching Tuesday night though, and hoping that Covert Affairs can live up to my expectations.

Inexplicable Movie Review: Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead

One of the first women I ever recall being attractive was Christina Applegate. However, it wasn't from her inspired performance as a dumb blonde on the Ed O'Neill vehicle Married With Children. Nope - I remember her from the cinematic classic Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead.

According to the release date, I was seven when the movie came out in June of 1991. I know I didn't see it in theaters though, so I was more likely in the eight to 10-year-old range.

(Note to any kids reading this in 2020: Back in the day, we had these blocky things called "tapes", which were played by a boxy black thing called a "VCR". Don't ask what VCR stood for, because nobody knew. Anyway, how your parents acquired new movies was via having two old VCRs, and then while one tape played, you used the other VCR with a blank tape to record. Normally, you rented the tape from Stop & Shop... Yeah, they rented movies back in the day, well, them and Almacs. What's Almacs? ... nevermind, I'm sorry I started this whole aside.)

Anyway, Don't Tell Mom starred Applegate as Sue Ellen Crandall, and as you can imagine from the title, a babysitter does die in the film. However, from the title and the beautiful Applegate's presence, you'd think it was some sort of silly teen slasher. Not true! It is instead more of a 1980s "we left the kids alone!" neglect film. Imagine Home Alone without the violence, or a 1980s film teenager film where you actually see the parents a bit.

Specifically, Sue Ellen's mom is in the film for about five minutes. Sue Ellen just wants to veg out and tan in the warm summer months of California, but mom leaves her and the rest of her kids with the world's bitchiest babysitter for two months. Mom is going to Australia for some reason. In true 1980s / 1990s movie fashion, it isn't really explained how a single mom with five kids is able to take off the Australia for a couple months, and on top of that, how she can also afford to leave a big wad of cash with the babysitter. Also, for what it's worth, the babysitter dies in her sleep in the first 20 minutes. The kids leave her body in a trunk at a cemetery with a note attached: "Nice old lady inside. Died of natural causes."

The rest of the family is a hodgepodge of stereotypes. Kenny is a heavy metal loving stoner of an indeterminable age, 15-ish Zach loves the ladies, 13-ish Melissa is a tomboy and young kid Walter loves game shows. Kenny and Sue Ellen (who is billed as 17) get the majority of the screen time though.

Don't Tell Mom isn't actually a good movie, but it is good in the way that The Wizard is good. It is shameless and unapologetic 1990s fluff, straight down to the generic clown fast food restaurant that Sue Ellen is forced to work at to make ends meet. She goes from this to being able to bluff her way to a fashion job, based on her forging the resume of a fashion executive. (One confusing aspect of this plotline: If you were a fashion executive, wouldn't you just take one look at Christina Applegate and go, "Hey, maybe you should give the modeling thing a try!")

Of course, since Sue Ellen is living a lie, this results in 1) a funny transition period and 2) a conniving co-worker catching her in the lie and 3) a final scene where she succeeds wildly anyway, but is busted and forced to come clean. All of this happens, and oddly enough, David Duchovny [right] is involved in one of his first roles as a lecherous sort of advertising executive, or some made-up bullshit like that. Go figure.

Again, none of this is high cinema. However, it is a great flick, and Christina Applegate sure does look hot in it, and there is a fashion show at the end that also features some other good-looking friends of hers. So, yeah, the movie has that going for it too, which is nice.

The Almacs photo come from this excellent site, which has a bunch of info about the old Rhode Island chain. The top photo comes from an Entertainment Weekly slideshow thingy on the best movie titles.

Inexplicable Movie Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles does not need tinkering, Michael Bay.

I'm normally pretty OK with movies being remade, even if they're popular titles from my past. For example, the first Transformers didn't completely suck, even if the second one was complete and utter trash. The Karate Kid was a classic, but I agree with Bill Simmons when he states that certain aspects of it feel completely dated; I think it might be hard for some kids now to relate to movies that have absolutely no computer, cell phone or Internet presence. The new Karate Kid doesn't look great to me, but it also doesn't look like complete ass.

I'm more confused by the news that Michael Bay is remaking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Uh, esqueeze me? Baking soda? What the heck is wrong with TMNT?

The movie holds up great, which isn't to say that it is a legitimately great movie. It is a bad movie aimed at kids, and it makes absolutely no attempt to be high art. With the ridiculous premise of turtles and a rat exposed to radiation who then learn kung-fu from the rat because he's originally from Japan, it would damn near be impossible to get an Oscar nomination. The turtles make lame jokes that are funny to kids, and so-bad-they're-funny to me now that I'm an adult.

It also helps the camp / humor value that everything about the movie is out of central casting and predictable, and logically unexplainable. You know, like how there is a secret army in New York City, led by a dude with a bladed helmet, and who seems to have a general who barely speaks English. They entice underage teenagers to join their super-serious martial arts gang with cigarettes, arcade games and skateboarding ramps. (Note about movies of this ilk, and a good idea for an Airplane! style spoof: What exactly is in it for all the super-serious henchmen of these movies? I'll even give you a title - Hench. Like, duh.)

There are also plenty of fight scenes, and most of them hold up well because they feature Three Stooges-style slapstick. ha ha, Michelangelo is on his back and spinning to trip up Foot Soldiers! Donatello just spit water in that guy's face! Oh, now the turtles are ordering pizza, and the Domino's guy (hi product placement!) can't find them because they live in a sewer, ha ha!

Given how ridiculous and great everything already is, why does their need to be a remake? Well, besides the obvious reason that Michael Bay would like to make lots of money. There are two directions they can go with this, both of which would suck:

- Make it like Batman Begins, which would mean super realistic and gritty... except that they're mutant ninja turtles?

- Copy the animated shows and go even more slapstick. However, the recent animated shows have sucked, so I can't see them doing big business. And hey, remember a couple years ago when they went this route and that movie sucked because it was slow and plodding?

In conclusion, Michael Bay please do not mess around with my movie. And also, don't you dare think of remaking The Wizard.

Inexplicable Movie Review: Must Love Dogs

I watched Must Love Dogs the other night, and I was pleasantly surprised by what a good little romantic comedy movie it was. Is it among the upper echelon of John Cusack movies? Not really, since Say Anything is still the undisputed king in my book, followed by the frustrating but good Serendipity. However, it is a really watchable movie.

Part of this is due to the 45-year-old Diane Lane, who was around 39 or 40 when she filmed this movie, and looks impossibly good. I have no idea why she is so famous - Her IMDB has a bunch of stuff I haven't heard of. After seeing her in this movie though, I can definitely see why Bill Simmons has named the team of hot older ladies the Diane Lane All-Stars though.

Must Love Dogs falls apart a bit though because it relies SO much on Cusack and Lane to provide all of the entertainment. Yeah, they're pretty great, as is Lane's dad in the movie, even though he is kind of sleazy. But there are several ridiculous characters and plot aspects of the movie:

- Lane's entire family is full of horrible people. The very first scene of the movie, we learn that she has split up with her husband, and all the members of her family are gathering at her house with pictures of potential dates for her. Ugh. Nobody actually does that! wtf, movie? Her sister Carol is the worst offender, as she posts Lane's picture (from her high school graduation) and profile on an Internet dating site without her permission.

- John Cusack's character apparently sells boats, except that he doesn't manage to actually sell any of them, which his lawyer friend makes fun of him for in the movie. If that's the case... How the heck did he afford a house??? If they mention Cusack's source of money in the movie at all, I missed it. Apparently, he lives in a nice house because a woman like Diane Lane would want him to live in a nice house so that she could fall in love with him.

- The rival of Cusack for Lane's affection is a somewhat-hunky dad, who's son goes to the preschool that Lane teaches at. (Side note: Lane as a teacher is ridiculously cute and warm, and overshadows her other scenes in the film.) However, the movie completely glosses over that he cheated on his first wife and Lane knows! Yet, she never ONCE contemplates this in the movie! A cheating guy is like the number one "hate this pig" type for women; look at the venomous reaction Tiger Woods is getting. I am to believe that Diane "Super Cougar" Lane would not have the slightest hesitation about a dude that cheated on his wife? REALLY?

- There is a farcical moment so telegraphed that I called it seconds before it happened. Like, we're talking something you would see in She's All That or Drives Me Crazy or some other horrible tween romantic comedy. That, and a scene where Lane goes nuts and signs up for like 50 Internet dating sites, are the most unrealistic scenes of the film.

With the above issues, Must Love Dogs is more in the "cheesy fun" romance movie category as opposed to legitimately good. I still enjoyed it, because Cusack and Lane are so god damn cute together, but the rest of the movie is unintentionally funny.

Grade: C+

The photo of Lane and Cusack from the movie is from this blog. The Diane Lane photo is from this site.

Inexplicable Movie Review: Why Rugrats sucks

Rugrats sucks, so a picture from a good cartoon of the era instead.

One of my past professions, substitute teaching, gave me plenty of time to watch lots of bad movies and to critique them against better movies. This is really far less fascinating than it sounds, and I'm sure it sounds less than fascinating to begin with.

Anyway, children's movies are a fairly common occurrence, since I was subbing for teenagers and tweens. And lately, that has made me evaluate why Rugrats really, really sucks as compared to a classic Disney movie, like Pinocchio. This applies even if said Disney classic is in Spanish. There is a certain quality and wit to a classic Disney movie, a basic level of competence, that is just not present in all this modern cartoon crap.

Let's get specific and talk about Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, which is a lovingly redundant title for a crass and unsophisticated movie. Pretty much all of the humor derives from tired jokes (Making fun of Euro-Disney, ha, gold Jerry!) and the babies throwing up and shitting themselves. Just remember this next time you see a movie like The Hammer get an R.

I never really understood the appeal of Rugrats. It came out when I was just a bit too old for it, so that could be one reason. While it's clearly a step above absolute tripe / little kid programming like Barney and Lamb Chop's Sing Along, I think it is clearly a rung below Doug. I vaguely recall my sister, who is four years younger than I am, being pretty into Rugrats.

Anyway, their Paris movie is pretty god damn awful. I'm not sure why, but I was showing it for middle school French classes, even though there isn't that much French in the movie. I can understand not wanting to show, say, Les Mis to sixth graders, since that movie has a bunch of torture scenes. But there has to be a better compromise movie than Paris Rugrats. Why not an adaptation of Le Petit Prince or Asterix? Both are more faithful to the French language than Rugrats, or the other bizarre, tangential French movie I had to watch, Passport to Paris starring the Olsen twins.

If you sincerely care, the plot of the movie revolves around the babies acting like babies, and Chuckie trying to hook his dad up with a new mom. Somehow, Angelica gets involved, and things get stupid and not funny. I highly recommend the film if you're trying to fall asleep, because I almost did at several points.

The picture from an actual good Nickelodeon show is from this Tumblr site.

Inexplicable Movie Review: The Wizard (again)

Expanding on my thoughts from yesterday, there are plenty of reasons why you should run out and rent The Wizard immediately.

1) There is a bunch of footage of old video games being played by an autistic kid. I'm not sure why, but this is somehow fascinating to me, even though the clips are only 10 to 20 seconds each. In the course of the movie, he plays Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Double Dragon and Ninja Gaiden prominently, not to mention the Super Mario Brothers 3 orgy at the end of the movie, which is essentially a five-minute sneak preview for the game (at least at the time).

Of course, this brings to light some of the great, silly, illogical parts of the movie. For example, when he is playing Super Mario Brothers 3, Jimmy finds the warp whistle hidden in the first fortress, which should be effing impossible unless you know where to look for it. You have to have the raccoon tail / leaf (whatever it's called) that lays you fly above the screen, on top of a wall, and into an adjacent room with the warp whistle. And for some reason, this makes Jimmy's score counter double or triple, which does not actually happen in the game! Jimmy uses this to eventually beat Lucas, and the pig-tailed girl, who serves as the Meg Griffin of the competition for Jimmy and Lucas to beat up on.

Honestly, if you don't have realism in your shameless promotional movies that have video games, what can you trust?

2) Touching on the video games again, there is also a montage of games being played in an arcade, as Jimmy is trying to learn how to beat a bunch of different games; the games in the tournament are unknown. Ninja Gaiden is the opening round game, which is actually kind of appropriate - It is a tough game, and it does have a score meter.

However, there are also several games that they practice in the arcade that clearly wouldn't be used, unless Nintendo was effing stupid. They also waste a lot of money calling the Nintendo Game Counselor line, which I'm sure made a ton of parents happy as their kids stupidly called whenever they got stuck in a game. I never really understood the point of this - Most old NES games rely on the simple formula of ducking, attacking or running past whatever thing is attacking you. It's a matter of memorizing patters and reacting, which you don't really need a "game counselor" for.

3) In a comical scene, the character played by Beau Bridges - he's related to Jimmy somehow, I think he might be his natural dad - is rambling about some shit in Zelda 2. The thing is, when the camera pans to what he is playing, he's just slashing things in some town, and it makes absolutely no sense with what he's saying. It's as if they gave him a script, then intentionally made an effort to make him look like an asshole who didn't know anything about the game he was playing. Hey, editing truck, you could have at least helped a brother out by splicing in some scenes from Zelda 2 that at least made sense for the scene.

4) Final thing for now - The Wizard was one of the last movies that had kids completely independent and not reliant on adults for things in 1980s fashion, to the point where you question if every authority in the movie is effing insane.

Rilo Kiley, Fred Savage and an autistic kid essentially hitchhike across the country, using money they win by scamming people at video games, with the goal of making it to L.A. to play in a $25,000 video game tournament. The only adult that is remotely helpful is a truck driver named Spanky that the girl knows, which is somewhat odd and creepy when you really ponder it. I don't think they really ever explain how Haley (Rilo Kiley) lives; it is implied or said that her dad is a truck driver and out the picture. Fred Savage runs away from his parents with Jimmy, his half-brother, and they are able to elude all adults in their way.

Meanwhile, there is a menacing "child finder" dude after them, because apparently in 1989, nobody would say shit if they saw three children just wandering around the country. I live in a rural area and remember being asked by cops twice where I was going after school as I was walking home or to a friend's house; I don't think I would have been able to accomplish a journey of several hundred miles with no adult interference.

Anyway, I've got to go cover a meeting, so I might do a third part to this at a future date.

The Fred Savage photo from The Wizard I found at this blog.

Inexplicable Movie Review: The Wizard

The Wizard is a common punching bag for movie reviewers, but really, when the movie dropped in 1989, it was noticeable for two very cool reasons, at least to my five-year-old mind:

1) The Power Glove. The scene with Lukas is rightfully mocked now, but at the time, the Power Glove looked like the coolest effing thing just about ever. According to a pretty trustworthy source, the Angry Video Game Nerd, it is god damn awful to actually play a game with, but hey, it still does look cool.

2) The preview of Super Mario Brothers 3, which was a good and proper sequel to the original game, as opposed to the weird game known as Super Mario Brothers 2 in the states. For some reason, I remember getting SMB3 relatively early in my youth, which was rare because I normally only got bargain-priced games. I somehow managed to avoid getting the ultimate horrible bargain game, Home Alone, at least.

Anyway, looking at the history of video game movies, you'd be hard pressed to say that The Wizard was in the bottom five. Yeah, it was essentially a 90-minute advertisement for Nintendo, but at least it was an enjoyable ad with decent actors like Fred Savage and Christian Slater and Beau Bridges and the girl who would become Rilo Kiley. While none of them are really award winners, they give at least capable performances.

The Wizard is just kind of an average movie to me, especially when compared to other "kids" movies of the time frame - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Honey I Shrunk Every God Damn Thing Ever don't hold up as well either. The Wizard is also not a colossal cluster eff, like most video game movies, excluding Mortal Kombat, which is shocking from its sheer competence. But, that's a discussion for another time, and another review.

(Actually, I might expand on this whole entry at some point... I feel like I'm rushing things a bit, whereas it would be good to REALLY get into all of The Wizard's amazing parts.)

Inexplicable Movie Review: Congo

Seriously, this is a scene from Congo.

Because I couldn't think of anything better to write about tonight, I decided to write an inexplicable movie review. School isn't quite back in session yet, at least not for substitute teachers, so I set my sights on a fertile commercial movie - Congo.

The main appeal of Congo as a cheesy bad movie can be summed up in one line: Killer gorillas get shot by lasers. If that sounds appealing at all to you, then there is a good chance you will enjoy Congo. There are also some surprisingly good characters because of three actors involved - Ernie Hudson, Tim Curry and Laura Linney.

Congo does have some weird, convulated plot that I'll try to sum up. Basically, an expedition from Big Evil Company goes into the jungles of - wait for it - Congo, in order to find a super-valuable supply of blue diamonds. Now, these diamonds aren't valuable because they're diamonds, but because they are apparently super-potent sources of energy that can be used in the satellites used by Big Evil Company.

Of course, something bad happens to the expedition, as they are seemingly killed by something. Laura Linney plays a good scientist for the evil company, and she gets charged with a salvage mission, since her fiance was on the first expedition. Along the way, or for some unknown reason, she meets some superpussy guy who is teaching a gorilla named Amy sign language.

Ernie Hudson (a.k.a. the black guy in Ghostbusters) is the leader of the new expedition, and he is a sort of super awesome hired gun. He is by far the coolest character of the movie, since he gets cool lines like, "I'm known as the great white hunter, although I happen to be black." He is basically the super cool black guy of the movie, like, well, Billy Dee Williams in every movie.

The other stand-out character would be Tim Curry as a sleazy, kinda-rich guy who is financing a portion of the expedition, or some such nonsense. It really doesn't make much sense, but Curry gets some good lines. Linney is also good, in that she's not super annoying like Amy the Gorilla and her wimpy handler, who's name I refuse to look up.

Anyway, back to the reason why you need to watch this movie: Lots of gorillas get shot, by machine guns first, and then by lasers. I really don't know why this is so satisfying to watch, but it is. Most of the rest of the movie is forgettably bad, but hey, watch it with a friend or two, and you'll have plenty of content for your own MST3K session.

Scheduling note

Because I'm running a bit late today on various projects, the music diary will have to be posted tomorrow - Sorry folks!

In lieu of that, All About Steve, which has my name in the title and Sandra Bullock as a blonde, really... looks awful. How dare they besmirch my name! I guess there is The Sweetest Thing potential, where an awful movie is actually decent because of profanity and inappropriate behavior, but gads, the trailer makes it look like an awful dating movie that Kate Hudson would normally star in.

The Philosophy of the Flying V

Uh oh, look at all these wacky kids! You know craziness will ensue!

Sometimes I forget that other people on the Internet, you know, write stuff. But by chance, I stumbled upon this blog the other day, which is really quite grand, and specifically, this post, about the top 10 selfish sports teams of the 1990s. The relevant overlap to this post I'm crafting right now would be the following paragraph about D2: The Mighty Ducks:

Question: How does a team that barely makes it to the post season in their crappy neighborhood hockey league get selected to represent our nation in the Junior Olympic Goodwill games? Coach Gordon Bombay that's how. I understand hiring Bombay as your coach. The man is an innovator, I mean the flying V? Come on, that's just good hockey. But why choose the whole Mighty Ducks team for Team USA? You're going to tell me that Goldberg was the best goalie our country had to offer?

I concur with bricksexplode (or Josh, his actual name). (And also, creepily enough, he and I have practically the same take and story about Wake Up Ron Burgandy.) Even as a 10-year-old kid, the second Mighty Ducks movie was so implausible to me that it ruined all of the good feelings created in the first one. The series morphed from a plausible story of a team of misfits to a ridiculous farce of a movie with no basis in reality. The final installment is actually somewhat realistic, but I am apparently the only person in the world who enjoys watching it.

The first movie, while no cinematic masterpiece, was a great movie of its type. Just about any kid can relate to being a sort of outcast portrayed in the movie, especially a geeky young kid like myself. Even though I never had (and still haven't) ice skated, there are obvious parallels between other sports and other movies - Little League (The Bad News Bears), Pop Warner football (Little Giants, even though it came out later), basketball (... um, I'm sure there is one I'm forgetting).

It also had a memorable cast of characters with easily-identifiable counterparts in my everyday life. While they weren't exact matches with my friends, there were shared traits: the brash-talking Jessie, the smart-alecky Averman, the fat kid no one actually wanted to hang out with (Goldberg), and the big tough guy Fulton.

D1 is the classic underdog tale, on ice, and you feel great when they win the championship. The story is as predictible as a Subway sandwich - what else would you expect from Disney, or from a $5 footlong? - but ultimately somewhat believable and satisfying.

The second is just pure "let's make a buck!" fuckery that made me eventually dislike all these movies from Disney. As bricksexplode brings up, the most ludicrous idea is that a team that barely made the playoffs in a Minnesota youth hockey league would represent the United States. I grew up in the woods of Rhode Island, and even our Little League all-star team that would try to qualify for the Little League World Series would be a combination of the best players from all the league's teams. (Speaking to my athletic prowess as a kid, I never came close to making one.)

Deciding to just reunite the whole team is so transparent and shitty, and the opening scenes are some of the worst of the movie. Looking back at it as a 25-year-old, there are a couple plausible ways you could do it. First, instead of setting the movie in Los Angeles, why not have these games come to Minnesota? Then it is more plausible that you'd have to use the Ducks. Or, failing that, at least have some flashback scenes with the Ducks winning a couple regional tournaments and earning their way to L.A. Or, because the kids all live in the same area, and are roughly the same age, why not just have the sequel take place (brace yourself) a year later? Because I had played Little League, D2 immediately seemed fake to me, because even as a kid I realized that shit with L.A. would never happen.

Okay though, looking past that - What the fuck did Iceland ever do to you, Disney? Like, seriously, it is bad enough that they have a horrible, false country name (according to weather.com, Iceland is roughly the same weather-wise as New England right now). Hey Mouse, why do you have to shit all over them by making them the obviously-Soviet Union inspired enemy? Either make up a fake country or leave the Icelanders alone.

Anyway, the Ducks recruit some players from other parts of the country for no good reason. I mean, non-movie, they're to include some non-white people in the cast, but in-movie, Gordon Bombay hates them and barely plays any of them. I don't think most return for the third movie, which is great, except for the Goon, who is clearly not even close to being the right age for D2 and D3. The Ducks also recruit a young, trash-talking Kenan Thompson in his film debut, and he is kind of OK despite using a preposterous shot. Also, really, he's playing street hockey out in L.A.? Not basketball? Not skateboarding? Not surfing? L.A. does have that intense hockey tradition, after all.

The whole movie is effing absurd, and if you like D2 the most out of the three, I don't know what's wrong with you. Pull yourself together! Oddly enough, I think it was too much overt zaniness even for Disney, because they went the opposite direction for D3. I actually like that movie because it is super serious and (shockingly) focuses on hockey from time to time. It is plausible (at least in terms of the movie world) that a private school would recruit the Ducks, because the dominant Rhode Island private schools mostly cherry pick their athletes from Rhode Island public schools. D3 also has some redeeming value with the introduction of their new coach. He lacks the charm of Gordon Bombay, but he is an interesting character at least.