That’s My Story and I’m Stickin’ to It

So we are heading to the “Liar Liar” Geocaching Event on Saturday morning; which was all part of the plan. We drove up the overpass on Route 55 and down the ramp to the hamlet of Deptford NJ where to our wondering eyes did see a traveling carnival being set up in the parking lot of a closed down movie theater.

“Can we go?” shouted two of the three kids from the backseat of our SUV.

“No.” I said listening to the groans of disappointment gush from over from the backseat.

“Why not, Dad?” Chick 3.0 asked. “It would be fun.”

“There!” I said pointing at the attractions from our view at the stoplight, “That’s why not.” Four sets of eyes surveyed the rickety view. Half constructed rides that twirled, dropped or rotated at amazing spleen crushing speeds. There were names like “The Gut-Masher”, the “Vomit-Tron” and “The Mangler”. I could have sworn that the letters were shaped like broken bones on that one. In my mind’s eye I could see the unforgiving gas engines turning gears, pulling chains that made the wobbly, poorly constructed rides work. In my imagination I could see a man with a hook for a hand turn in our direction and scream through the greasy smoke of the funnel cakes and hot dog carts, “DO YOU KNOW HOW I LOST THIS?”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Chick 2.0 asked.

Before I could explain to my 13 year-old exactly what was wrong with that Mother Hen spoke, “I use to love going to the fair.”

“This is not a fair – it’s an Erector Set gone horribly awry!”

“What’s an Erector Set?” Chick 3.0 asked.

Mother Hen smiled. “Let’s take a look at what they’re doing.”

“I don’t know, Carnies don’t like to be disturbed.” I said.

“Carnies?” Chick 1.0 asked with a grin on her face.

“People who work at carnivals and traveling fairs – carnies.”

“So will they have games?” Chick 1.0 asked. “I love to play the games.”

“Games! I think you have to sign a waiver to play ‘em.” I said.

“Oh come on, it’s not that bad.” Mother Hen said. “Come on, let’s see what they’re up to.”

The light turned green and instead of driving straight to the event I turned into the parking lot. We made our way to the outskirts of the fair where workers looked up from their toils and watched us with untrusting eyes.

“Isn’t this cool!” Chick 2.0 said. I smiled at the workers as our SUV moved further on into the bowels of the fair.

We could see two men suspended on harnesses trying to secure a HUGE bowling ball to the top of a set of cartoonishly rendered bowling pins. They must have been 30 feet in the air. There was a sign underneath them that read, “Mad Jack’s Beyond Bowl-A-Drome”.

“They have games!” Chick 1.0 said.

A figure stepped in front of our SUV. I was going slowly but it still jarred us as I stomped on the brakes. No lie, this guy was dressed just like Indiana Jones. I didn’t know if he was a carnie, a sci-fi convention attendee, a mental patient or a geocacher. I just didn’t know. However, I did know that he was pretty faithful to the character from the fedora adorning his stubble-chinned head to the Mark VII British gasmask bag hanging to his left side. He had the beaten leather jacket, the bullwhip and a holster on his right hip that I was praying did not hold a Webley Mark VI like Indy’s did. He sneered at me and purposefully walked to my side of the SUV. Unfortunately, I already had the window down.

“Just what do you think you’re doin’ here?” Indy asked.

“We were curious and wanted to take a look.” I said.

“We ain’t open yet.” Indy said. Another worker who bore a striking resemblance to Chunk from “The Goonies” came over and stood just by Indy’s shoulder. Chunk was looking inside our SUV with that one good eye of his. I could see that he had Summer Teeth dentition – some are here, some are there.

“So when do you open?” I asked.

“When we are not being interrupted by trespassers.”

“Yah.” Chunk said. “Trespassers.”

“Trespassers? This is a public lot. We might be future customers.” I said although neither Indy nor I believed the later part of what I had just said.

“You’re trespassers!” Indy said. I’m sure he was going to say something else but an ear splitting CRACK interrupted him. As it turns out the two guys working on that huge bowling ball they sheared the bolts off of the thing and gravity was about to have its way with anything or anyone standing in its way. I saw the look of fear race across Indy’s and Chunk’s faces as the bowling ball… I’m sorry that’s not right… the BOWLING BALL crashed down and began to roll towards us. Sensing impending doom Indiana Jones ran past us with the Huge Bowling Ball in hot pursuit.

“INDIANA, INDIANA!” Chunk cried as he ran after him. He had a bit of a limp but this did not stop him from aiding his friend.

The five of us stared at the scene, jaws open. “All right then.” I said. “Who’s hungry?” Mother Hen looked in my direction as I put the SUV into drive and we made our way to Joe & Sue’s Liar Liar Breakfast Event (which was GREAT by the way).

Now if I could only get the theme to “Raiders of the Lost Ark” out of my head. Den da da da, Den da da!

My Movie Wish List

“A work of art is never completed, just abandoned.” – Guillaume Apollinaire

That’s a great quote from someone I have absolutely no idea about of whom they are. I heard George Lucas paraphrase it by substituting the word “film” for “art”. Hold on a tick; let’s check out Wikipedia…

Searching…

Searching…

Ok, here we are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume_Apollinaire. “He (Guillaume Apollinaire) was a French poet, writer and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother. Among the foremost poets of the early 20th century, he is credited with coining the word “surrealism” and writing one of the earliest works described as surrealist, the play, “Les Mamelles de Tiresias” (1917, later used as the basis for an opera in 1947). Two years after being wounded in World War I, he died at 38 of the Spanish Flu during the pandemic.”

There you go; you learn something new every day.

Anyway, let me get back on topic; please forgive me Gentle Reader; I saw a bright shiny thing.

As a Fan Boy and Movie Geek it occurs to me that there are certain movies that I would like to see happen; certain films that just ache to be made – stories that deserve to be completed and told. The last blog got me to thinking what other movies need to be completed, or rather, which films would benefit from having their plots move forward. Sequels are rarely as good as their predecessor; that being said, here is a list of films that I would like to see come to fruition. Yes, the majority of this list may be pure adolescent wish fulfillment but I’m ok with that. I’ve always enjoyed the concept of being entertained at the movies – if I wanted to weep I’d watch the news. I would pay hard money on opening night to go see at the local multiplex and I think the viewing public would be too. Without further ado here’s my list in no particular order…

1. Blade Runner II. Ridley Scott needs to be at the helm once more. I want more replicants, an older Gaff (portrayed by Edward James Olmos once more) who is a Blade Runner himself and the final answer as to if Rick Deckard was a replicant or not. For the record – I think he was.

2. Snake Plissken. John Carpenter needs to come out of his self-imposed retirement and make this movie. Kurt Russell needs to reprise this role one more time. There were plans at one time to make “Escape from Planet Earth” but they fell through when “Escape from L.A.” went belly up in the theaters. It did well on DVD and the anti-hero, Snake has always been one of my personal favorites. I'm with ya Kurt... or rather, Mr. Russell.

3. The Dark Knight Returns. How’s this for a recipe – make the third film in the current trilogy with the Riddler as the bad guy and then take some time off. Really. Now transplant the exact cast and crew into the future and make Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns”. It simply could not miss. Amazing stuff and worth the wait.

4. Hellboy III. See: http://evilchickenscratch.blogspot.com/2008/07/hellboy-ii-golden-army.html for all my reasons.

5. Iron Man II. John Favreau must helm and Robert Downey Jr. must reprise his role as Tony Stark – in fact, the whole cast needs to return. It has been reported that they don’t want to rush into a cookie cutter sequel and this brings a smile to my beating geek heart. With the momentum of Iron Man II they just need to keep rolling and make “Ultimate Avengers”. It looks like Marvel Films is gearing up for this to happen and I’m all a-tingle. This will Rock. Favreau should helm the project. He gets it; not only that – he wants to share it. “What’s ‘it’?” you may ask. ‘It’ is a love and appreciation for the characters and world of Marvel Comics. ‘Nuff said.

6. Mad Max IV. You could argue that Mad Max has already had his transition from losing his humanity (Mad Max), discovering that he is still part of the human race (The Road Warrior), and rejoining humanity (in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome) but there is a part of me that just wants more. Mad Max needs to restart civilization; that would be a good destiny for Max.

7. King Conan: Crown of Iron. Sure Schwarzenegger is the governor of California but this is more important. Since the presidency in the United States is out why not a kingdom? Conan, in Robert E. Howard’s series becomes King so why not have it happen on the big screen? John Milius would be my choice to direct.

8. Evil Dead IV (or Army of Darkness II). Sam Rami must direct and Bruce Campbell must reprise the role of Ash. I’d love to see an older Ash up to his elbows in Deadite bad guys at the S-mart. Sharpen the old chainsaw and clean the boomstick. Groovy.

9. Indiana Jones. Yep, I don’t want to see it end and if the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull showed us anything, then there is still a lot of life left in this series. Now there’s another generation of Jones’ to keep up with.

10. Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League. This will never be made since I believe I am the only Buckaroo Banzai fan on the eastern seaboard. I’d love to see it happen but this is the long shot on a list of long shots. It would be great to see as many of the original cast reprise their roles for the twenty-first century though. Make mine Yoyodyne.

11. Goonies II. Hear me out – who wouldn’t want to see this film happen? It would need the original cast and their kids as they protect the “Goon Docks” from some new threat. If I were pitching it I’d call it “The Big Chill” meets… well, “The Goonies”. It would be a fun night at the movies.

12. 2061 – Odyssey Three. I’d love to see this one happen; of course I wish that Roy Scheider was still with us to reprise the role of Dr. Heywood Floyd. It would be great to see what the aliens from the monolith and the HAL 9000 are up to on the big screen once more. Hey – who knows, it could happen.

So there’s my dozen. I know that there is nothing new under the sun and it’s hard enough to launch anything that is ‘new’ in the movie marketplace today but still there’s a place in my matinee heart for these potential flicks.

So, did I miss anything?