No WONDER South Park Hates This Movie

As I noted in a previous blog post, Hollyweird has problems with histree. It doesn't always work for their script writers, or hysterical revisionists.

Entertainment -- someone's notion of it -- must NOT be undercut by the more boring historical facts.

Let me be clear: I am a lousy movie reviewer. But that's okay; I tend to review lousy movies. Belatedly.

And I digress.

But first, let me digress further: Johnny Depp was not at Pearl Harbor. If he had been, you can bet that the makers of the bomb of a movie -- Pearl Harbor (2001) -- would have had him knock down a Japanese plane with his parrot. And he'd of probably made Kate Beckinsale, too. Arrrrr.

The director of Pearl Harbor (2001) -- the dude what purloined my name so I'd get phonecalls from folks wanting a shot at bad moviedom -- took a few characters, inserted a few real events, and mixed in all sorts of marginal plot twists and bad acting opportunities, to create an improbable (un)epic. While it was painful to watch from a historic and bad acting perspective -- and I didn't until about '07 -- it made a song in Team America: World Police, make me laugh for hours.

The precis: two lads grow up together, one idolizing the other, and they wind up in the US Army Air Corps, being trained by a famous and very historical character, the King of the Calculated Risk, Jimmy Doolittle. They both meet a nurse when they are joining -- before they've been through "arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-meeeeeeeeeeeee training, sir!" -- and one becomes her love interest after getting a double shot of his baby's inoculations. Then, just when things could get interesting, he decides to join the RAF to fight the Germans, leaving his life-long buddy behind, who then sorta-kinda knocks up the first guy's girl. The first dude comes back from the dead, by way of the English Channel and London pubs -- and the two friends fight over da goil widda bun in the oven that neither knows is bakin' -- the night before the Japanese screw up everyone's Christmas plans. Then, in the fire of the Japanese attack, they sort of get back to being friends amidst the CGI wreckage of Pearl Harbor. THEN they go on to 'volunteer' for a 'secret mission' and rejoin their historical trainer, Jimmy Doolittle, to fly two of the B-25s to bomb Japan. The girlfriend stealer ultimately dies (while the girlfriend listens in on the radio back at Pearl Harbor, to radio calls from the raid), and the original girlfriend-getter marries the girl and raises the friends' kid, and they live a life of bad acting happy-ever-after.

This duo is, I suppose, meant to loosely portray two US Army Air Corps pilots who would make a bit of a name for themselves on the morning of December 7, 1941. Very, verrrrrrrrrry loosely.

NOW...as with any lousy review of a lousy movie, where to begin...

*BUZZZZZZZZZZER* When the two lads were playing 'chicken' in P-40s during flight training, and at the suggested time being portrayed (1939-1940), Jimmy Doolittle was not training pilots. "Eh..details", as my name purloiner probably said. For that matter, pilot training was about a two year process at that time. But and again...details.

*BUZZZZZZZZZZZER* The two pilots being loosely portrayed -- Lt. Kenneth Taylor and Lt. George Welch -- didn't grow up together. Didn't have the same girlfriend. Neither flew with the RAF. Neither flew in hawaiian shirts. They did react to the attack on Hawaii by getting to their planes -- parked at a smaller auxiliary airfield not visited by the Japanese that morning -- and did go onto, in their P-40 Warhawk fighters, engage and destroy 7 Japanese aircraft that fateful morning.

*BUZZZZZZZZZZZER* After which, they did not go onto be solicited by Jimmy Doolittle to participate in the April 1942 epic raid on Tokyo. Pilots previously trained to fly the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber, and coming from the Seventeenth Bombardment Group (Thirty-Fourth, Thirty-Seventh, and Ninety-Fifth Squadrons) and Eighty-Ninth Reconnaissance Squadron, were used for that one.

*BUZZZZZZZZZZZZER* Yes, a lowly submariner type DID come up with a notion for bombing Japan, that eventually got the approval of FDR. But the lowly submariner NEVER made the pitch directly to the Prez. *BONK BONK bad script writer and worse FDR impersonator*

*BUZZZZZZZZZZZER* On the Doolittle Raid, radios were removed from the aircraft, to prevent inadvertent chatter that the Japanese could use to RDF (Radio Direction Finding) the aircraft, and be forewarned of the incoming raid. There was no 'plane to plane' chatter. And therefore *BUZZZZZZZZZZZZER* the nursey couldn't have listened in on the raid from Pearl Harbor, 'cuz NOBODY COULD. But, in this particular director's world, what good is a secret mission, if it's kept secret by silly sh** like 'radio silence'? That ain't fair! CALL WIKILEAKS!

*BUZZZZZZZZZZZER* On the Doolittle Raid, the planes did not bomb in sync, nor, once they were west of Japan, did they see each other or fly together.

*BUZZZZZZZZZZZER* The Medal of Honor was awarded to Colonel Doolittle, NOT the bad-acting character poortrayed by Ben AFLAC.

I'm sure that, were I to subject myself to a second round of the movie, more *BUZZZZZZZER*s would result. But that was plenty enough.

Tho', it is with mirth that I listen to the soundtrack from Team America -- World Police, and enjoy hearing my name pilloried in the song Pearl Harbor Sucked, And I Miss You. Knowing, of course, that the song is directed at the director, not yours truly. But still...*grin*.

Bottom line: I give this movie one-half unfinished acting lesson. My pet rock, Seymour, just gives it a phffffffffffffffffffft. Though, he did think Kate Beckinsale was hawt. I tended to agree.

Next up on my lousy reviews for lousy movies...dunno. But there's no shortage of Hollyweird historical implausibilities. Look for a few more of these to take the place of the diminishing

scambait posts. Sorry, Prince Abdul Aba Hussein Achmed CamelPucky...youse demoted, finoke!

Night of the Tomatoes

While my pet rock, Seymour, has recently decided that he wants to learn meterology, I may have to curtail this pursuit, if he's going to try combining real science with science fiction, HIS way. Especially when the genesis of it is a verbal gaffe by a real weathercaster.

The other day, a local weather maven (and hottie) was discussing with morning show hosts the agreement that all were "sick of winter", and were more than ready for spring. Then, she went onto remind listeners of what spring could bring: the kind of conditions that generate severe thunderstorms, unbelievably large hail, powerful microbursts and downdrafts, and those vortex leviathans that make for all kinds of inexplicable geographic rearrangement.

She's so meterologically sexy when she talks like that, but I digress.

Whatever she was thinking at the time of speaking, she apparently crossed two subjects in the translation, as she spoke of the usual probability of "tomatoes on the Eastern Plains".

Tomatoes?

The morning show hosts didn't let that one by. They had some fun at her expense.

Unfortunately, neither did my pet rock let the opportunity by, but his *TOING* was of a different notion.

Instead of focusing on the humor in the faux pas, Seymour -- overnight, while I attempted to sleep -- apparently scribbled furiously on about every sheet of paper I had left in the place, crafting what he calls a 'script' for a movie. One Seymour insists combines twists of Nature, man's meddling with same, and the injection of imagination from a mind full of..er...something, to be fleshed out by a special effects studio, and made into a movie called...Night Of The Tomatoes.

I read it. It sucks (figuratively AND literally).

"Does NOT!"

I'll let you read key excerpts from his script, and YOU decide.

In a plot sure to gain acclaim and impetus with the vegetable rights movement, unscrupulous government bureaucrats and businessmen -- all represented as conservatives, Seymour insists, because Hollyweird won't make a movie about unscrupulous liberals -- work clandestinely to engineer genetically-enhanced "super tomatoes" on a confidential, well-guarded government preserve in eastern Colorado, and in the heart of Colorado's "Tornado Alley". On one fateful late May day, summer of '10, a mesocyclonic supercell thunderstorm hits the area head-on, with a resulting tornado plowing right through the heart of the preserve. And in a metomorphosis explainable by neither Man, science or Science Fiction Theatre 3000, one of the largest, genetically-enhanced tomatoes, combines with the fury of Nature, creating....an F-5 Tomato.

This just plain has "bad" written all over it.

"Does NOT!"

At any rate...as the killer veg advances to the east, acclaimed researchers and storm chasers swarm into the path of the wrathful supercondiment, seeking answers to not only how did this happen, but how they can stop it before it garners an Academy Award for Worst Picture in the History of Cinema.

"Will NOT!"

In one of what Seymour insists is a more seminal, gripping sequence of the movie, two researchers -- somehow interconnected sexually in an on-the-rocks relationship that only dire peril and bad script-writing can change* -- encounter the relentless, ravaging leviathan along the I-70 corridor, approaching Genoa, and the "chase" is on (along with the really BAD dialogue..."is NOT!"):

Female: Oh my GAWD...there it is...it's BEHIND US!" *into cell phone*...it's an F-5...we have an F-5 tomato on the ground, moving east at a high rate of speed! Are you tracking?

(Response from person on the other end of the phone is the equivalent of DUUUHHHHH, of COURSE WE'RE TRACKING, with suitably colorful metaphorics accompanying).

Male: Have we got time to deploy?

Female: Deploy WHAT? We have TOTO, not HOTDOG!

Male: Let's get OUT OF HERE!

(music uptempos as the "chase" is on...after a few moments and credulity-stretching scenes of tomatic destruction in their wake, the dialogue resumes)

Female: It's closing on us! FASTER!

Male: I...I can't believe this...it..it HUNTS!

Female: *glares at him*...that's NOT in the script...

Male: I know...but we best get our Heinzes outta here!
Female: *another glare*...keep it up, buddyboy...

(music uptempos more...)

Female: you need to go FASTER! FASTER!!!

Male: I'm trying! It seems determined to ketchup!

Female: *sound of bone-jarring THWACK*...you just HADDA say that, didn't ya?

Male: What are you getting all stewed over?

Female: *another bone-jarring TWHACK*

Male: *into cell phone*..Ow..we have debris..I say again, we have debris!

Female: one more bad pun, and you're gonna think DEBRIS, lizard lips...

Before the climax ripens -- and before he finds himself in the soup and she can paste him for one more pun -- the movie is wisely cancelled by Paramount, only to be picked up by The Cartoon Channel and the South Park gang.

"Is NOT!"

Night of the Tomatoes. A real chili-ing meterological thriller.

*TWHACK* Ow...

*this appears borrowed from the movie Twister, only more poorly-written..."IS NOT!"