We all know how it ended, so you'd think The Late Shift would be all about the whos, hows and whys. What we really get (aside from parade of forgettable,spineless executives)is a scapegoat in the form of Jay Leno's agent, Helen Kushnick (played here by Kathy Bates). Bates won a Golden Globe for her performance, but it's painfully obvious that she's simply phoning in (on a giant 90s car phone) a stock, fat 'n' sassy performance amped up to 10 on the retarded scale. Seriously, in the scene where she goes apeshit and knocks everything off her desk... it's just shockingly bad. Even more shocking is to think about what we used to accept as quality programming even as recently as 1996. This is HBO! The folks that gave us Oz, Sex and the City and The Sopranos. This crap makes Arli$$ look like friggin' Schindler's List. But I digress.

A lot of folks give props to John Michael Higgins' portrayal of David Letterman, and he deserves it. What begins as a pretty decent impression slowly becomes a fully developed character as we begin to glimpse the paranoia and distrust at the core of Letterman's character. Poor Daniel Roebuck, on the other hand, must have drawn the short straw.

Roebuck seemes like a genuinely nice guy, but anyone tasked with pulling off that lithpy, lilting Jay Leno voice is destined to look like a fool. And I haven't even mentioned the Leno make-up yet. Yup, they go for the full-on false chin. In fact, the jowl and chin prosthetic is so ridiculous that he looked more like Rocky Dennis than Jay Leno. And stuuupid? Do they play Leno stupid? He is waaay in the dark about everything going on around him. Of course, it's supposed to make him sympathetic, but he comes off as an inept manchild. He will hold onto his late night show. He will love it and pet it and call it George! Pathetic.

The Late Shift is a neat little curio of the early 90s late night wars, but beyond that it has little to offer. But I am psyched for the next two entries into what will surely be a trilogy of Jay Leno sticking it to other, more talented television hosts. Conan's royal screwing in 2010 will be the Empire Strikes Back of the series, while Jimmy Fallon's inevitable shafting in 2027 will bring it all to a close.

Or will it?

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The Notorious Bettie Page

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Idiocracy
(2006)

The first time that I saw Office Space, I was among the vast majority of people who were amused but not overly impressed by the film in its initial release. Now, it's hard to deny that the movie was one of the most grossly underrated and influential films of the nineties. It was a silly little movie that skewered American culture on the sly. You know, the kind of movie that slants reality so minutely that you are forced to laugh at how ridiculous your own life is. Idiocracy, Mike Judge's long-awaited follow-up, forgoes all subtlety in favor of a headlong attack on American low-culture, and it is this "take no prisoners" tactic that I think is the film's biggest flaw.

Luke Wilson plays Joe Bauers, a slacker in a soldier's uniform, who is enlisted to test a "Human Hibernation" program. Along with a prostitute named Rita (played by Maya Rudolph) he is cryogenically frozen to be thawed in a year's time. After some epic bumbling on the part of government officials, the experiment is forgotten and essentially buried. Five hundred years later the pair defrost in a future where, instead of advancing, the human race has devolved into grunting, tv-addicted louts with no ability to take care of themselves. The regressed Americans quickly identify the "faggy-talking" Bauers as an outsider and attempt to arrest him for crimes he didn't commit. A game of functionally retarded cat and mouse ensues as Joe and Rita attempt to locate a time machine that the populace has long since forgotten how to repair.

Ironically, it's the things that most other movies do quite poorly that Judge gets right in Idiocracy. In lesser hands the convoluted voice-over explanation of exactly how the world fell into stupidity would have brought the action of the film to a screeching halt. Judge, however, uses the narration to catapult the audience into the storyline with a hilarious comparison between the reproductive tendencies of cultured Americans and hillbillies. The premise is a hard sell, but one I bought into with gusto.

Make no mistake. There is much in Idiocracy to laugh at (there are countless sight-gags that had me laughing out loud!), but often the laughs seem to come too easy. In Office Space, Mike Judge exposed the hilarious hypocrisies and inanities of life in the very demographic the film was aimed at. It was a risky venture, but one that paid off in spades ... eventually. In Idiocracy, though, you can't help feeling that Judge is poking fun at "those" people. It's easy comedy, and when you aim for the easy targets certain ethical questions begin to arise. When I see the future's most popular television program, "Ow! My Balls!" I honestly don't know whether I'm laughing at the descendants of WWE loving hillbillies or (now this is scary) WITH them!

In the end, coming out of Idiocracy, I feel a lot like I did coming out of Office Space. Sure it was amusing, but it didn't do a lot of things to impress me. And with this movie, I can't imagine that opinion changing a lot. I dunno... check in with me again in five hundred years.

Here's a movie clip, fag.

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Fraternity Vacation
(1985)

Okay. So, I'm breaking the rules. Not "breaking" them so much as bending them, really. Though not explicitly stated, the perameters of a "Teen Sex Comedy Festival" implies high school hijinx. As you probably surmise from the title, Fraternity Vacation is not a high school movie, but instead centers around a group of college buddies heading to Palm Springs for winter break. While Joe and "Mother" seem to be relatively "experienced" members of the Theta Pi Sigma fraternity, geeky pledge Wendell Tvedt is an eighteen year old with a severe case of arrested development. So by my estimation, that puts hime in about the same boat as most other protagonists we've encountered so far.

Upon arriving in Palm Springs the trio run into a pair of rival members of a more upscale fraternity who prove to be intent on ruining spring break for the "Theta Pigs." Joe and Mother refuse to take the abuse lying down... or maybe I'm better off saying that while refusing to take the abuse, they do indeed make a bet as to which fraternity will be the first to be lying down naked with local hottie Ashley Taylor (Sheree J. Wilson). Hijinx ensue as the two fraternities hatch elaborate schemes to fenagle their way into Ms. Taylor's undergarments.

With Mother and Joe preoccupied, Wendell is left to his own devices and strikes up a friendship with Nicole Ferret (played by "Married With Children's" Amanda Bearse), the daughter of the local police chief. Without the guidance of his frat brothers, Wendell is forced to take trial and error approach to this whole party with the opposite sex thing. As you would probably expect, a series of missteps lands Wendell in hot water with the local po-po and threatens to end his relationship with Nicole.

The movie is just as formulaic as it sounds and offers up a twist ending that Ronnie Milsap saw coming. Aside from an interesting, pre-photoshop porn-faking scene, there's not much here to hold your attention. Fraternity Vacation is probably most notable because it is one of the earliest screen credits for Tim Robbins, who plays embodies the role of Larry "Mother" Tucker with such zeal that you just know he's destined for success in producing didactic, one-act plays that no one actually wants to see. But probably more interesting is the career of Stephen Geoffreys who plays Wendell Tvedt.

Fraternity Vacation followed up Stephen's supporting role in the cable tv standard Heaven Help Us. Afterward, he parlayed his notoriety into a starring role in Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund's directorial debut, 976-Evil in 1989. In 1991, after a string of television appearances and straight to video roles Geoffreys left the mainstream spotlight and entered the world of... wait for it... gay porn! Yes, between 1991 and 2002 Stephen Geoffreys assumed multiple stage names (Larry Bert, Stephan Bordeaux, Sam Ritter ) and produced such adult, man-on-man classics as, Mechanics Bi Day... Lube Job Bi Night, Latin Crotch Rockets, and who can forget Leather Intrusion 4: Down to the Wire.

Anyway, I guess that Fraternity Vacation is like a reminder of a time when things were simpler. You know, back in the days when if you put down money on a sex bet... hetero sex was implied. Of course, those days are gone, but we still have the warm memories and of course, the trailer to keep us warm at night.

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The Last American Virgin
(1982)

As far as straight up 80s sex comedies go, this one is probably the one that I remember more than the other films that I have been reviewing. While I haven't seen it in almost twenty years, back in the day I would watch it every time I came across it on HBO.

I didn't know it at the time, but The Last American Virgin was essentially a remake of the cult Israeli hit, Eskimo Limon that set its sexually charged coming of age tale in the sixties. Producers Golan-Globus brought Limon director Boaz Davidson to the states to work his magic on the American youth culture of the day. The resulting film was not nearly the phenomenon that the original Israeli film, but is still a decent film in a genre with more than its share of turds.

Gary (Lawrence Monoson) is your average high school guy. He works for the local pizza shop and hustles to get the keys to the delivery car on the weekend. Of course, the weekends are what he lives for. Hanging out with his two buddies, the hunky Rick and the chunky David, is top priority. Together, they get themselves in ever more bizarre situations in a seemingly futile quest to "score."

As is the case with most "regular guys" in these movies, Gary's interest in the fairer sex actually goes a bit deeper than just getting them into the backseat of the pizza wagon. In fact, Gary suffers from a classic case of "love at first sight." From afar, he sets his eyes on the beautiful Karen only to find out that Rick has already claimed her for himself. Serious teenage drama ensues, culminating in an end that, even when I was ten years old, made me think, "Damn! That's a downer."

Lawrence Monoson as Gary is a lanky, gawky, shnozz-heavy protagonist and as I was re-watching this movie, I couldn't help but imagine that I was watching some sort of bizarro prequel to Everybody Loves Raymond. Yeah, I find it comforting to think that he's a teenage Ray Barone, an everyteen being torn in two by his simultaneous drives to follow his heart and his wang. And I have to say, imagining that he'll eventually settle down with Patricia Heaton and have a happy family life helps me swallow that kick to the groin ending much better.

One thing that Monoson has going for him is the fact that he was 16 during filming, and I can't believe that his buddies were much older. While most "high schoolers" in these types of films are played by actors well into their twenties, it is refreshing to see performers that look the part, but still have the chops to play out some serious teenage drama. Of course, this begs the question, "How much of the awkward reaction to the parade of grinding, half-naked, women the trio encounters was actual 'acting' and how much was just teenagers being awkward teenagers?" My guess is, not much, but then again, does it matter?

This movie has the typical schemes and failed sexual exploits as other films in the genre (i.e. visits to the neighborhood nympho and local prostitute), but the one scene that left me scratching my head was a lockerroom scene in which Gary and David break out rulers and measure an entire gym class worth of man-muscle. Yes, you heard me right. There's a big ole homo-erotic scene featuring highschool boys comparing their "equipment." Seeing Gary and David looking at one another and laughing as a parade of boys in tighty whities step up to display their junk was actually a little bit disturbing. But then again, I'm probably feeling the exact same thing that every woman in the world feels during those scenes where young ladies are randomly hanging out in their skivvies when a pillow fight breaks out. You know, what's good for the goose and all that.

As far as the genre goes, this one is pretty decent. It does a good job at balancing the absurdity and real drama of modern (in the eighties) teenage life and peppering it with the bawdiness we expect from this type of movie. It's no Fast Times, but comes closer to capturing what made that movie classic than any other film of the day.

Shake it up!

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For a brief, glorious period back in the day, probably about the time when I was in the fifth or sixth grade, our family had HBO. Now, we weren't allowed to tell people we had HBO, because we had one of those nifty little decoder devices that allowed you yo just flip a switch and descramble the signal to premium channels (Illegal? You bet!). We didn't have it terribly long before the cable company's technology sent the homemade descrambler the way of the Dodo, but it was fun while it lasted.

What I remember most about that time is staying up late on the weekends, well after everyone else had hit the hay, and watching the movies that came on in the wee hours. You know the ones. Post-Porkys, Post-Fast Times teen flicks that followed a group of horndog guys through their misadventures trying to "score." Well, I thought it would be interesting to revisit five or six of these movies for a little series of reviews.

My Tutor
(1983)

In this taboo tweaking tale, a rich man hires a tutor to help raise his son's test scores in order to gain entry into the hallowed halls of Yale. Before long, the attractive, older woman is teaching the young man much more than daddy bargained for.

As the film opens we find over-privileged, vaguely effeminate, and infinitely whiny Bobby Chrystal (Matt Lattanzi) failing to make the grade on a final exam, but the real humiliation comes later that evening when he and his two bumbling buddies can't even seal the deal at (horror of horrors) the local whore house. The next day, things go from bad to worse when Bobby learns that his father will be cutting his summer vacation short by hiring a live-in tutor to help him pass the test.

Television vet, Caren Kaye plays part-time tutor/part-time aerobics instructor (seriously, are all the women in these movies aerobics instructors?), Terry Green who arrives at the sprawling Chrystal estate to tutor young Bobby in... wait for it... French. Of course, it's not long before the two begin making like the bunnies do. As their relationship develops, it soon becomes clear that the end of the summer not only brings with it the dreaded French exam, but also the end to Ms. Green's horizontal tutelage.

It's hard to say why My Tutor stood out in my mind as one of the better of the 80s teen sex romps from back in the day. It certainly couldn't have been the riveting story. Re-watching it, I was kinda surprised by how simplistic the plot was. It seemed like the filmmakers tried to go the Fast Times at Ridgemont High route and mix comedy with realistic teen drama, but the stakes in this one were just too low and the characters completely unsympathetic. Really, I'm sure that my infatuation with this movie had more to do with the fact that the BPMs (boobies per minute) clocked in astoundingly high. Seriously, I might have to watch this one again with a stop watch to calculate the avaerage amount of time between boob exposure. It can't be more than five minutes.

More than anything else, this movie is interesting because it is the film debut of Crispin Glover, and while the goofy Jack character is underdeveolped at best, you can still see the beginnings of Glover's bizarre onscreen persona. It's like he purposely uses that strange phrasing he does to give this peripheral character in a subpar movie a real presence. Also worth noting in this film are two gloriously cringe-inducing songs that represent all t hat is simultaneously good and bad in this genre. The My Tutor theme is a porntastic, falsetto-groove that'd sound just at home in one of those local commercials as in a feature film. "The First Time We Make Love" tries to be a sweetly endearing ode to love and affection, but falls short as the smarmy soundtrack to statutory rape. Even taking these interesting aspects into consideration, unless you're some kind of 80s Skin Flick completist, I suppose you don't have much reason to check this one out. Giving the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt... the subject matter might have been sexy in the eighties, but in a post-Mary Kay Letourneau world, it'll probably just make you wanna take a shower.

Random scooter wipe-out from My Tutor.

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