Berlin Alexanderplatz (5/2/00)
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David Arquette appeared this last evening on WCW Monday Nitro to fight a celebrity death match against Eric Bischoff; and Diamond Dallas Page was in his corner! — an indication, I’m sure, that the march of events has already rendered the following notice obsolescent:
Ready To Rumble. [Brian Robbins, 2000; written by Steven Brill.]
Everyone has a really dumb movie that he likes against his better judgment; and of course I have scores of them. This is one: — Dismayed and astounded by the unexpected defeat of their hero, putative WCW world heavyweight champion Oliver Platt, in a title match rescripted at the last minute in a backstage conference between Evil Promotor Joe Pantoliano and noted mat heavy Diamond Dallas Page, wrestling aficianados David Arquette and Scott Caan abandon productive careers as sewage truck drivers in their native Wyoming and set out upon a pilgrimage which leads them to Atlanta, New York, and finally the holy city of Las Vegas in search of redemption — not simply for their idol Platt [whom they do dimly understand to be as much actor as athlete], but for their conception of what he stands for, and for the nation of deranged wrestling fans who have founded their belief in themselves upon their belief in him. In the course of this spiritual odyssey they teach Van Halen to the Singing Nuns, party with the trailertrash of distant provinces, make the acquaintance of a number of authentic professional wrestlers [what
is reality, if not Bill Goldberg], inspect at close quarters the hooters of the fabulous Nitro Girls [led, for the purposes of this scenario, by designated Treacherous Cunt Rose McGowan], learn the wisdom of the Ancients of Wrestling at the feet of martialarts master Martin Landau, and make a date with destiny in a steel-cage death match for a million dollars and the championship belt. — Perhaps simply because the story does by design sail so close against the reefs of the usual Nauseating Hollywood Uplift, this is entirely hilarious: Arquette, having grown as an actor, can now play dumber than paint; Oliver Platt may have been an unlikely choice for the lead, but carries off the role of the boozeaddled King of the Ring with no little panache, accepting with good grace the necessity of setting some kind of alltime record for getting kicked in the crotch in a major motion picture; and I love what they did with sewage. — To be sure, I keep thinking this would have worked better as a story about a couple of halfwitted political operatives who seek out a washedup movie star and over his feeble inebriated protests that he never really played football for Notre Dame, led cavalry charges for the Confederate army, or fired torpedoes with the Hellcats of the Navy, sober him up, paper over the loathing felt for him by his family, convince him to believe in himself, orchestrate his comeback, and eventually despite his inability to master even the most trivial details of domestic or foreign policy get him elected President of the United States. — After all, though David Arquette is wonderfully risible in the uniform of the Wyoming State Patrol, I can’t help but think he would be even funnier as a campaign manager promoted to Attorney General. — But admittedly this would be fantastic.
____________Tempus fugit (2/8/00)
