Hey Folks, Harry here... There is a movie called PUMPKIN that's coming from Coppola's deal at MGM and... Ok, I have to just be upfront with this. Many of you have noticed that there was something wrong with John Robie since the beginning... That he didn't just seem right in the noggin. Well, to try and calm him down we put him in an isolation tank for 2 weeks, he got out, went to see PUMPKIN... and this is what happened. Now realize... he's talking about a film that is real... that was shot.... and that will be realeased in a theater.... Now... Now I'm just saying I can't believe this movie exists... It's so rightly wrong that I... I nearly shat and peed myself 4 times reading this review.... and the discus... dear God... the discus....
Hi all.
You know, we need something.
On this woeful day we need something that unites us, that bonds us with love, hope and a wondrous sense of being. We need something that reminds us that we are alive, living in this moment, and breathing our breaths collectively. We need that thing that ignites our spirit and lets us soar among the heavens where we all so deservedly belong. We need to be brought together, and to unite arm in arm, and to speak with gilded voice as one. We need to make fun of retarded kids.
Not the real ones, mind you. Just the ones we see in bad movies. Like Pumpkin, the upcoming film from Francis Ford Coppola’s American Zoetroppe ‘ten films for ten million’ deal. One hundred million dollars equals ten films budgeted at ten million dollars apiece. Get it? "Jeepers Creepers" was the first of these to be released. "Hopefully it’ll be the last," I hear the grand collective yell. Well that’s a lousy attitude, I kick back, because if "Jeepers" is the last one we won’t have the joy of seeing a flop-haired retarded boy woo a woozy, boozy Christina Ricci in what can only be described as the "The Day The Clown Cried" of the mentally handicapped.
The mentally handicapped rule of thumb in non-comedies is as follows: If a character is supposed to be retarded, the actor playing that character will "do do doh" up the dialogue so fiercely that the character in no way, shape or form resembles anyone with an actual mental handicap. Watch a movie like "The Other Sister" (which was originally titled "Damn This Bitch Be Crazy!") with a real, live handicapped person. I have. Do you know what happens? Well usually they shit themselves. Kidding! In my experience the handicapped person gazes at the screen with a look of total befuddlement because they have shit themselves. Kidding again; they look at the screen confusedly because they have no clue what this amazing new creature is. It doesn’t act like them, it doesn’t act like anyone they know. It doesn’t even act like a human being. Point being that it’s perfectly fine to make fun of mentally handicapped characters in movies because they’re working on a different plain of existence.
The movie "Pumpkin" is about Pumpkin Romanoff (Hank Harris, trying as hard as he can not to do what’s described in the above paragraph and almost pulling it off), a mentally handicapped athlete that is paired with vixen sorority girl Carolyn McDuffy (Christina Ricci, puffy hot). For the purposes of this let’s call the character lil’ Miss Fakey McImplausible. Fakey is along to act as a sort of foster trainer, basically working with the kid so her sorority gets a good reputation and can win a doofy "best sorority" contest. Whisper whisper they’d have a better reputation if they didn’t let fatties pledge whisper what? Hey who said that?!
As time passes Fakey actually starts to fall for Pumpkin. I don’t question the fact that a non-handicapped girl would fall for a handicapped boy. I question the fact that a non-handicapped girl would fall for an idiot. But that’s beside the point; all this is making Carolyn’s jock boyfriend (Christopher Lee) mad. Casting Lee was a huge gambit, and right away it clues you into the tone of the film. Lee playing a twenty-something football jock is something to behold, and he infuses the performance with such spry energy that you can’t help but smile every second he’s on screen. He… shit, wait… oooh, my bad. A generic teen actor actually plays the part of the jock boyfriend. Sorry.
Fakey falls deeper for the Pumpkin, they kiss then they fondle then they fuck and everyone finds out and it’s a scandal. She’s kicked out of her sorority, her ‘friends’ want nothing to do with her and she doesn’t want to see Pumpkin. Pumpkin is despondent not only because he has lost the girl but also because his name is as retarded as he is. Fakey comes back to the boy, though, and Pumpkin shows up at the big swanky sorority dance. In a white tux, no less! With his retarded jock friends, no less! Good man, Pumpkin! Jocky McJock shows up too, and he and Pumpkin take that shit right out to the parking lot! For real! Sorority chicks and fuzzy-haired mock-retard actors cheer on the fight, Fakey bites her nails and what do you know, Pumpkin wins! And the Jock is so despondent he gets drunk and drives his car off a cliff! I’m not kidding!
Fakey and Pumpkin can’t stay together, though; it’s just too much for her to take. They break apart, but she comes to the Special Olympics. Pumpkin is a discus man. Jocky ex-boyfriend has come around, too; though he can’t play sports anymore because he’s in a wheelchair he can coach! Good man! Fakey sees Pumpkin, she just can’t hold back that lovin’ and the two walk off into the sunset, hand in hand. And I am so blown away. Someone told me that Coppola actually cried at a screening of Pumpkin. The fact that he cried makes me cry. Buckets.
But hell, I might be way off here. I mean where else are you going to hear dialogue like this:
"Hep me tro da dicus! Yuuuu, yuuu hep me tro da dicus! Sumbady, sumbady hep me tro da dicus far!"
At the NuArt? Not bloody likely! I didn’t count one actual retard in "Our Lady of the Assassins." And the guy behind the camera doesn’t count.
Ah shit, man…
I really didn’t give this thing a fair review. It’s a little better than I let it on with some decent character work and I supposed it might be a little touching it you let it be and okay, I made up that dialogue too. Forgive me if I’ve been a little glib but it’s about all I’ve got right now. I still haven’t heard if an old friend of mine was in the place, and I keep hearing these little signs – a person’s description, a pilot’s name that matches that of an old girlfriend and shit, is she related? – that give me pause to think I’m connected with this more than I want to be. And it’s more than things that I can rationally figure that unsettle me. I’m scared that something is going to shatter through the window above my desk and reach in and grab me, or something’s going to break down my door and tear me from my home. That something’s going to reach up and take me as I lay in bed and that I won’t be able to do anything about it. Scared that the walls of this place aren’t strong enough, scared that I won’t be able to pull my covers tight enough, scared that there’s a big red target on my head and something is going to rain down from the sky and squash me. You hear jets sporadically now, taking off from LAX with supplies and men and women who will help in the relief efforts. I never thought that the sound of a jet would frighten me.
But I’m not going to keep thinking like that. All of us are right now, to some degree, but we’re all not going to keep thinking like that. Because we know that nothing is going to break through the windows because we know that what is here is too strong, and we know that this shall pass like all other things and like all other things we will be standing at the end, together and vital and one. It’ll all be okay, not because it has to be and not because it just will but because man can never be defeated by that which is less than him.
And maybe in a little while, if we’ve still got some smart ass left in us, we’ll be making fun of retarded kids. But only the ones we see in the movies.
Peace and prayers and little apologies to the Pumpkin people for ragging on them for the sake of a laugh.
John Robie out.
