Liveblogging Cannonball Run II

OK, so the first Cannonball Run wasn't so great. But man, did they improve on it 1,000-fold with the sequel.

Ahh, are you surprised? That's right: in fact, CRII may be the definitive movie of the 1980s. It's attained the vaunted "Keep until I delete" status on my TiVo. Here, I'll watch it, and tell you what I'm thinking as it happens, IN REAL TIME. The Internet has never been more useful.

0:01: You know it's going to be a good movie when Ricardo Montalban shows up in the first minute. Even better: he plays the father of Jamie Farr's character from the last movie. That's right: a Mexican actor is playing an Arabian shiek. That's just the kind of movie this is.

0:11: Burt Reynolds is the "Human Bomb." How appropriate. And Dom is Captain Chaos. It's a living!

0:12: Dom Abuse Watch: Burt just shoved hay in Dom's mouth and slapped him. Dom says, "What a grouch!"

0:13: Oh good, now Dom is playing a Don Corleone-type character. Don Canneloni. It gets better: he's complaining because competing mafia families are horning in on his territory. The other families are the Rigatones, the Tortellinis, the Fettucinis and the Raviolis. Remember, somebody got paid to write this.

0:15: Are you ready for this? The Don's son is played by none other than perpetual Match Game panelist Charles Nelson Reilly. That is casting genius.

0:17: The Lamborghini babes are hotter this time. Catherine Bach, a.k.a. Daisy Duke, is one of them. Automatically that makes this a better movie.

0:18: Also a good sign: Jackie Chan is teamed up with Richard Keil, a.k.a. Jaws from the James Bond movies. Via their combined awesomeness, I don't see how they could possibly lose this race.

0:20: Dean Martin just gave two empty glasses to his date and said, "When I make a dry martini, I make a dry martini." That joke would be funnier if I were eight years old.

0:23: Jackie Chan asked for a drink, and the bartender says, "Does anyone here speak Oriental?" That's just the kind of movie this is. Oh, but then Richard Kiel stood up for Jackie. I'm telling you: there's a lot of buzz around that team.

0:28: Uh-oh, Telly Savalas is shaking down Charles Nelson Reilly. I assume that regularly happened in real life as well.

0:30: Ahh, Tony Danza shows up. "I'm your nephew Tony from Brooklyn," he says. Sadly, his character's name is supposed to be Terry. That's just the kind of movie this is.

0:32: I just realized Tony Danza is typecast here. He previously starred in a movie called Going Ape! opposite a chimpanzee, and here he's going to have to do it again; the car he'll be driving comes custom fitted with a chimp.

0:33: Marilu Henner and Shirley MacLaine (wow, poor follow-up choice to Terms of Endearment) show up in nun outfits, because they're in a play. (For some reason, I always confused Marilu Henner with Mary Lou Retton. But that's just me.) Anyway, they're going to hitch a ride to the East coast with Burt and Dom in order to get to Broadway. Hijinks sure to ensue.

0:37: Dom DeLuise just called Burt "sexy". It sounded frighteningly sincere.

0:43: The race is starting! And to celebrate that, the song "Cannonball" by Menudo is playing on the soundtrack. "I look at you and feel the thunder... ooh, it hits me like a cannonball. Like a cannnnnnnnn-onnnnballlllll!" (Check out the music video here... it takes in place inside a giant pinball game! RAD TO THE MAX!)

0:45: Oops, Bigfoot the monster truck is in the race, and just crushed a car. Also, there's a subplot involving mobsters trying to capture Jamie Farr, using an increasingly cartoonish array of gizmos. This movie ROCKS.

0:46: Smokies after Jackie and Kiel! Ooooh, but they have afterburner, and the amazing "speed-up-the-film" driving technique.

0:47: First occurrence of a chimpanzee flipping an old lady the bird in American cinema. And then the old lady inexplicably drives through a wall. She must have thought it was a farmer's market.

0:48: One of the nuns, Marilu, is coming on to Dom, in his Captain Chaos outfit. I never thought I would see DeLuise used as a sex object on film. Uh-oh, but now Fred Dreyer, a.k.a. Hunter, is after them! Ohh, but then he spun out for no reason, exploded, and drove into a ditch. I should have expected that.

0:52: I just realized that the crackpot mayor from Out of This World is Jamie Farr's slave. How could you not love that? You couldn't. Not love it, that is. (Come to think of it, Burt was the voice of Evie's alien dad. If anyone ever asks to play Six Degrees of Evie, I'll be ready.)

0:53: "Stars and Stripes Forever" is playing, but with random sound effects replacing certain notes, to make it wackier.

0:55: Uh oh, Burt, Dom, Marilu and Shirley got pulled over. But somehow, they talk their way out of it and in the process pick up Jim Nabors, playing Gomer Pyle. Excuse me, make that "Homer Lyle." I'll bet he knows Seymour Goldfarb.

1:00: Tony Danza's fighting with the monkey. Now the monkey is driving. Oops, the monkey just drove them through a house. Now that's comedy.

1:02: Jackie and Keil just pulled up to a fruit stand populated by bikers, oddly enough. This is NOT going to end well.

1:02:20: Kung-fu fighting commencing.

1:04: The nuns: changed outfits. Shirley MacLaine: not wearing pants. Just underwear. Explanation: not given. Kimberly is filing an official protest.

1:08: Time for the highlight of the movie: ex-Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann shows up as "Mack" the mechanic. And he takes part in this immortal exchange with the Lamborghini babes:

[Jill and Marcie are looking under the hood of their car. Mack is gazing at their breasts]
Marcie: Does it look bad?
Mack: Not from where I'm standing.
Jill: Oh, can you fix it then?
Mack: Honey, I've got a tool that'll fix anything.

Say it ain't so, Joe!

This is a career defining moment for Theismann, even more than getting his leg broken by Lawrence Taylor. (Which I do not have a video clip of, people. Stop Google searching for that.) It's so weird hearing him say this line after watching him all these years doing NFL broadcasts. I keep expecting him to blurt out, "You CANNOT race a Lamorghini wearing jumpsuits like that in the National Football League!"

If I see him around town, I'm totally going to ask where's his tool that will fix anything. I can't believe his acting career never panned out. I was thinking spinoff series.

1:14: Jim Nabors' acting technique simply dominates the screen.

1:18: Marilu snuggles up to Dom and says, "I've been waiting for this!" I may never have sex again.

1:19: What movie pits Don Knotts and Tim Conway against a chimpanzee in a slap fight? You've got it... only Cannonball Run II. Don Knotts should be in every movie, anyway. Aaaaaand, the chimp wins. I expected that.

1:21: Uh-oh, Jamie Farr's been kidnapped by Charles Nelson Reilly. I never thought I'd ever type those words, but now I have.

1:22: Frank Sinatra's now become involved. Dean and Sammy are asking him for help. The Frank vs. Dean-and-Sammy chemistry parallels nicely with Burt vs. Don.

1:24: Now there's some dressing in drag involved in the plan to get back Jamie Farr. Burt, Dom and Sammy do a drag show and perform "Stop in the Name of Love." Didn't they have actual women racers with them they could have used? Yeah, I know, never mind.

1:34: Girls in bikins just came out of nowhere to become involed in the climactic showdown with Telly Savalas. I should have expected that.

1:35: Both the monkey and Joe Theismann are kicking ass in this fight. I should have expected that.

1:36: Daisy Duke is holding off the bad guys with a fire hose.

1:38: Richard Keil just threw Telly Savalas into orbit. Literally. I love this movie.

1:40: Jamie Farr just raised the purse from $1 million to $2 million. Catherine Bach says, "How many zeros in that!?" Joe Theismann says, "I don't know!!" Same number of zeros as before, guys.

1:41: And now a reprise of "Cannonball" by Menudo! En espanol! And a piece of animation by Ralph Bakshi! And Jackie Chan playing Pac-Man on the Atari 2600! It's the big finish, people!

1:43: Race over, and they didn't mess up like the last movie and treat the first person who arrived as the winner. That's why we had the punch cards, people.

1:45: The movie ends as all movies should: with Ricardo Montalban kissing a chimpanzee. That's just the kind of movie this is.

1:46: The traditional Hal Needham End Credit Out-takes! Dom keeps flubbing his lines, and Frank Sinatra really looks like he's going to kill him. That should have made the final cut.

Well, I'm afraid that's it, seeing as how there are no more Cannonball Run films. Unless somebody out there wants to write some Cannonball Run fan fiction.

Oh, OK. Good. Somebody already did.

Wow.

James - 11:01 PM