Furdell Classic Cinema Theatre, Vol. II: Zapped!

The Film: Zapped! (1982)

Punctuation in the title? And how!

They were going for: What if Carrie was a dude, and she went to Ridgemont High?

They ended up with: What if someone with amazing powers fell in love with a sociopath?

What did the pitch meeting look like?

Cast of characters:
a. Scott Baio (Charles from Charles in Charge) plays science nerd Barney, our telekinetic "hero", shown here concentrating very hard...on acting.
b. Willie Aames (Buddy from Charles in Charge) is Peyton, Barney's idiot horndog friend.
c. Someone not from Charles in Charge plays Bernadette, Barney's nerd-hot love interest. As we'll see, she's evil to the core.
d. Scatman Crothers (The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island) coaches Barney's baseball team. We'll be referring to him as Coach Shining.
e. Undersexed teacher Miss Burnhart doesn't figure into the plot much, but she'll be the only returning character in the straight-to-video sequel, Zapped Again!, to be reviewed at a later date.
f. A sexy girl in a pink sweater as herself.

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

Plot Synopsis:
We're introduced to Barney in his high school lab, which apparently only he has access to. He's working on a couple of projects -- growing orchids for the principal, and administering THC to mice which he then puts into tiny SCUBA gear and dunks into fish tanks.

When Barney isn't looking, Coach Shining accidentally pours Barney's experimental orchid growth fluid into Barney's marijuana extract oil. Not long after, Barney's idiot friend Peyton unwittingly adds the reactive ingredient: beer. Barney feeds some of the secret formula to a mouse, which then gains the ultimate superpower: Mind Over Cheese. And it causes Barney to drop the vial of secret formula on the ground. In a bright flash and a plume of smoke, Barney...is Zapped!

After "accidentally" tearing the sexy girl's sweater off with his mind, Barney begins to realize that he's gained telekinetic powers. In short order, he masters those powers, floating half a dozen objects at once with great precision, all in front of a big open window. It doesn't take long for Peyton and nosy journalism student Bernadette to take notice. They all decide -- for some reason -- that they should keep Barney's powers a secret.

Now, this is where the movie gets kind of weird. From here on in, Barney uses his powers in almost every scene...but always frivolously (at best). He never saves any lives or rights any wrongs or even is particularly helpful to anyone. One of the first things he does with his powers is cheat at a baseball game. After nine innings of physics-bending psychological warfare, the opposing team's pitcher actually sits down on the mound and cries. Bernadette, looking on from the bleachers...seems to approve. It's notable that this wasn't set up as being a particularly important game.

Barney spends much of the movie using his powers to get Peyton laid, generally by shaming the sexy sweater girl's beefy college-student boyfriend. I want to make something clear: Peyton does not deserve to have sex with the sweater girl. Actually he's kind of an asshole. But, with help from Barney's powers and his own shameless lies, he does eventually convince sweater girl to have sex with him...and of course he surreptitiously sets his camera to automatically photograph their congress. That's classy.

Something else I want to make clear: Bernadette knows about all of this, and she finds it charming.

INTERLUDE: This movie is more random-scenes-strung-together than plot, really, and a lot of it can be ignored. But the best part of the film must be when Barney and Bernadette incinerate Barney's marijuana plants, and Coach Shining accidentally gets a lungful.

End interlude. Barney continues to charm Bernadette by terrorizing strangers with his powers. In this montage they progress from casual flirtation to full-on sexy time. Note: his mother is afraid to enter her own house without a crucifix because Barney deliberately convinced his parents that he and his wooden dummy were possessed by demons.

I included the entire montage, including the queasy sex scene at the end, against my better judgment. But you see my point: it's not the tube socks that turned her on. It's the willful chaos Barney causes to people who were just minding their own business.

Ah, but then Barney crosses the line: Peyton convinces him to cheat at roulette. Upon discovering that Barney plans to use his powers for profit rather than just the usual random acts of pure terror, Bernadette throws a fit.

When Bernadette stops returning Barney's calls, he hits the bottle and spends a drunken night on his laboratory floor. The next morning he runs into Bernadette on campus and apologizes for gambling. Baio is surprisingly moving in this scene, as an all-powerful boy so smitten that he's willing to commit himself purely to profit-free chaos.

BARNEY
Bernadette, I'm sorry....about the gambling, about acting like an idiot. I'm through with it, it's over. Bernadette, please, don't be mad at me. Go to the prom with me. I mean, we have fun together, don't we? I've never felt this way with anyone before.

She agrees to meet him at the prom. Peyton is prom king, and Sexy Sweater Girl -- who's back with the beefy college guy -- is prom queen, so that's awkward. For no particular reason other than to show up Beefy College Guy, Peyton shows off his sex photo (which Sexy Sweater Girl, up until this point, did not know existed). Quite reasonably, Beefy College Guy takes a swing at Peyton, who is complete slime. Barney sees this, and concentrates...

Now at this point maybe Barney could use his power to stop College Guy's fist from moving, or to push him away. That would have worked fine. But instead, he rips off Sweater Girl's prom dress (and sees everything). And then he rips off everyone else's clothes -- much to their perplexing delight. Barney has now become an agent of pure chaos; note Bernadette's naked glee.

In the end, Barney is hit in the face by a floating bra, and loses his powers...or does he? No, he does not. He was just faking for some reason, and he flies Bernadette home. The end.

Final analysis: This was my first viewing of Zapped!, and, having seen Zapped Again! more than once, I had certain expectations. Those expectations were definitely defied. The film famously ends with that prom scene, and Barney using his powers to tear off everyone's clothes...but unlike the protagonist in the sequel, Barney doesn't seem all that interested in actually looking at people naked, and I think that gives Zapped! its unintentional depth. This is a rare sex comedy in which the main characters are unrepentant, unpunished villains whose only motivation is the senseless humiliation of their peers. Improbably thought-provoking.

The Female Perspective^TM with Julia Katz:
I was confused at first why his parents were so critical of him, like what did he do that was so bad. But then when he started with the dummy stuff, okay, that might raise a red flag...They had to bring a priest in to exorcise the dummy demons. Were they religious weirdos, or were they just really freaked out?
When I saw that scene where they were playing tennis together, it was kind of one scene in a string of scenes where you see him cheating with his power. And his girlfriend knows his powers. He makes the ball change direction and she just gives him this look like "Oh you." I would be like, "You come over here so I can step on your balls." Because that's not cool. That would be annoying to anybody. (Note from Andrew: Julia started to nod off during Coach Shining's weed dream, but I nudged her and she seemed to stay awake for the remainder of the film.)

Logical conclusion

For a while now McCain's last leg seems to be the "close connection" between Obama and Bill Ayers, which McCain finds "troubling." He won't say exactly why it's troubling. Think about it: Obama had an "association" with a man who once bombed the Pentagon, one about which McCain says we don't know the whole truth. I think I've figured it out...

...McCain thinks that as president, Obama plans to bomb the Pentagon.

And with a Democrat majority in the House and Senate, we'd be powerless to stop him. Oh. My. God.

POLITICS SIDE NOTE
Q: Who's the most liberal senator?
A: Whichever one just secured the Democrat nomination for president, of course.

Google "most liberal senator" and you'll find that the top 9 out of 10 results include "Obama" in the title. No surprise there; it's a talking point you've heard at least a few times if you're remotely interested in the election. (Note: if you're not remotely interested in the election, I will be reviewing Zapped! for Furdell Classic Cinema Theatre Vol. II. Keep hitting the "refresh" button.)

But if you add the name "kerry" to that search string...well, anyone who can remember back four years will tell you the results are predictable.

Furdell Classic Cinema Theatre, Vol. I: Stewardess School

The Film: Stewardess School (1986)

Genre: Bawdy sex comedy, unless that's redundant

Can the entire film be reduced to one animated gif?:

Who are we ripping off?: It's just a more sexist Police Academy, which released its third entry ("Back In Training") a few months before Stewardess School came out.

Made-Up Slang: Stewardesses often refer to themselves as "stews" and to the title institution as "Stew School," much like how newsies talk about selling "papes."

Recognizable cast members:
a. Conan the Barbarian's girlfriend as Wanda, whose primary function in this film is to comically lift and throw people out of things.
b. Veronica Mars's mom as Cindy, the most miscast biker chick in the history of the medium, unless the script called for extreme cognitive dissonance. If you dressed up the girl next door in leather, that would be Cindy. In one scene, she mischievously swaps the tape of boring classical music at a stuffy party with...a tape of slightly more up-tempo alto-sax music.
c. Jack Tripper's wife from Three's a Crowd plays Kelly, unthreatening love interest for protagonist Philo and chronic klutz. Her best scenes often involve accidental scrotum injuries.
d. Marty McFly's sister is Jolean, the obligatory fat stewardess. In one key scene, she sneaks to the fridge for a snack.
e. Ralph Malph plays Philo's idiot horndog friend Bunkle. We're all familiar with the idiot horndog friend character, who drives much of the action with his comical failed attempts to get laid.
f. I don't actually recognize the actress who plays former hooker Sugar DuBois, but according to Wikipedia she attended Julliard. To give you some idea of her range, she once played "Dan's Date" in an episode of Night Court.

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

Plot Synposis:
Legally blind Philo and his idiot horndog friend Bunkle are thrown out of pilot school because they're legally blind and an idiot, respectively. Bunkle somehow convinces Philo that Stew School is the next best thing, because they'd still be in airplanes. This is inherently wacky because it's 1986, so all stewardesses are either women or very, very gay.

(Seriously, why is nobody this gay anymore?)

We're treated to a series of vignettes in which each member of our ragtag group of misfits decides to enroll, usually due to parental coersion or legal obligation. Next we meet the school's authority figures. The school is run by Roger Weidermeyer (no, really), who only seems to be interested in the bottom line and will thus accept even the most misfitty of students; our main antagonist will be instructor Miss Grummet (again, really), who quite reasonably thinks Weidermeyer's low standards are ruining the school's credibility. Before this film is done, she will faceplant into a toilet.

The first half of the film is devoted to Miss Grummet's gleeful attempts to expel as many students as possible. In one scene, she challenges the gang to a stewardess simulation excercise in which they must serve a planeful of professional "passengers" -- and if you thought the stewardesses were wacky...!

Ultimately, Miss Grummet is overruled by Weidermeyer, who sends the entire crew off to a new, family-owned airline called Stromboli Air (after Carl Stromboli offers Weidermeyer a bribe in exchange for a full crew). Even though they're mostly inept and completely unprepared, they immediately set off for their first flight. The stakes are high, because Miss Grummet is there for some reason, and also one of the passengers -- it could be any of them! -- is an FAA inspector sent to evaluate the crew.

Our heroes are doomed from the outset, though, as one of their passengers is a very twitchy lunatic with a large bomb. In this scene, he drugs the passenger next to him in order to cause a distraction.

To calm that passenger down, the entire stewardess crew holds him down while Sugar Dubois administers a soothing blowjob. Meanwhile, the mad bomber sets a timer on his explosive device, knocks out the pilot, and jumps from the plane. Bunkle fails to defuse the bomb, so it blows a hole in the side of the plane; luckily, Jolean plugs the hole with her fat ass.

(Notice that in the preceeding scene, the plane appeared to be empty of passengers. Very sloppy, makers of Stewardess School. Very sloppy.)

Philo, whose contact lenses were knocked out in a turbulence-related mishap, lands the plane with help from the rest of the crew. But our heroes aren't out of the woods yet. For reasons I don't care to remember, Stromboli Air ends up on trial. (Some of our loyal lawyer readers might be able to help me out here.) Will the stews keep their jobs? It all rests on the testimony of the secret FAA inspector...and it's...the freaked out guy who got the blowjob! Case dismissed!

Final analysis: I first saw this film on "USA Up All Night" in my youth, and it's possible that my love of Stewardess School is steeped in nostalgia. On the other hand, this is inarguably one of the greatest films of all time. It's a master class in boob reaction shots (see animated gif above). Best of all it's under 90 minutes, which -- thanks to the inverse relationship of film quality to duration -- makes it more than twice as good as Lawrence of Arabia. I give it my best rating yet: Eight Suitcases to the Crotch.

The Female Perspective^TM with Julia Katz: Who was this movie made for, is my first question. Was this movie made for really horny guys, who could relate to the horny guys in the movie? I don't know. Just, why? Why make this movie? I don't know. I guess I liked the scene where the fat chick dove into the floatation device and it exploded, and then they were all wet. That was classic. Oh, you know what was funny too? The scene where, I don't know if you'd call him the dean, where he introduces them all to Stewardess School, and all he could do is stare at that chick's boobs. Remember that? Oh yeah, and then he had an erection and he couldn't step away from the podium. How many more sexual antics could you put in a movie? (Note from Andrew: Julia stayed awake through this entire movie.)

I like Boston?

Late last year my first viewing of Purple Rain turned me into an unironic Prince fan, which is weird because I'm not an unironic anything.

Now it seems that, thanks to Rock Band 2, I'm becoming an unironic Boston fan. You know how some groups can have a bunch of hits ("Something About You," "Rock and Roll Band," "Piece of Mind," "More Than a Feeling") that are really all basically the same song, but it's okay because it's a really good song? Or how all the James Bond movies are essentially interchangeable, but you still know that "Named after your father perhaps?" is what Connery said to Plenty O'Toole in Diamonds Are Forever?

As goes North Dakota, so goes the nation. Wait, what?

Things are looking worse and worse for McCain. Even North Dakota is slowly turning blue. It seems likely that he'll suffer an impossible defeat: not just against a Democrat, but against a black guy. In America. Oh my god.

Nobody's been saying it so I will: I don't think McCain can win with Palin. I think it's a longshot but his only chance is to dump her now, explain that he chose her based on bad advice and that he recognizes the error and is making an adjustment.

This week we learned that she's not just dangerously incompetent; she's dangerously incompetent at best. She's even turned off Christopher Freaking Hitchens, a man who refers to Obama's anti-war supporters as "the surrender faction" and who, as one of maybe three atheists who are more annoying than me, I find it very confusing to always disagree with.

Palin's multitude of truly bizarre interview gaffes, disturbing scandals, and hilarious soundbytes have added up to the point where conservative pundits can't even plausibly complain about sexism anymore, and liberal pundits (well, Bill Maher anyway) have become comfortable referring to Palin as a "bimbo" or a "stewardess" without repudiation. Or maybe it's not that the conservatives aren't able to defend Palin -- maybe they're unwilling.

So that's my advice, McCain: one last Hail Mary pass. Dump Palin, pick up Huckabee even though you can't stand him, and you might get the conservative base back. You don't have much hope with independents either way at this point, but an audible couldn't hurt. Yes, you'll look even more "erratic," but then as a losing campaign you can't really help but scramble.

Well that came out of nowhere

So it seems the Connecticut Supreme Court overturned that state's gay marriage ban. Wow. Maybe all these states putting an unconstitutional discriminatory law on the books is actually speeding up the process rather than slowing it down?

On that note, in November, in between sessions of furious nail-biting while I watch the presidential election results come in, I'll be keeping one eye on California.

Gays have been marrying in California for about four months now, and the state doesn't seem to have crumbled into the sea, and the rivers still run with what appears to be water. Hopefully this will convince California voters to vote no on Proposition 8, which would ammend the state's constitution to explicitly ban gay marriage. (Supposedly, this would not work retroactively -- which means George Takai is safe. But still.)

Polling shows a tight race on Prop 8, so don't forget to pester all your California friends and relatives to vote "no". As we see it, California tends to lead the way in American equal rights progress; if they're not ready for gay marriage, we can't imagine the rest of the country is. But if California votes down Prop 8, that could be a very good sign for the future of equal rights in this country.

Furdell.com stands at the forefront of the internet, again!

Slate's cover article compares the Iraq War to the film Red Dawn. Gee, Slate, it looks like Furdell.com only scooped you by, oh, about five years. (Actually, Slate was also scooped five years ago by itself, but I'd like to point out that I also scooped that article by about a month.)

This year's Slate article also gets points off for crediting John Milius as "Conan auteur", when we all know that Conan the Barbarian could not have existed with anyone other than screenwriter Oliver Stone and star Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Why are you not running to theaters? Like now?

Opening today in theaters near you: Beverly Hills Chihuahua, which is both a long-awaited sequel to Beverly Hilla Ninja and a long-awaited adaptation of a series of Taco Bell commercials.

Actual conversation I had at work, when a preview aired:

ME: Oh, look, it's a movie based on those Taco Bell ads.

HIM: I loved those ads! I hope the movie version doesn't ruin it.

Now is the time for obsessive websurfing

I've added to our extensive sidebar -- for one month and change only -- the projected electoral college map provided by electoral-vote.com, a site that I visit daily...assuming it's late in a leap year. Yes, the mysterious Votemaster did predict a Kerry win in 2004, but in his/her defense that one was a bit of a squeaker.

I would like to stress that this temporary addition will in no way affect the Random Jimmy Olsen Generator 5000^tm, which is still located safely at the bottom of the sidebar. Remember, Furdell.com is your only source on the web for random covers of Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen.

Biden and Palin agree: No to gay marriage!

First of all I would just like to say that I am definitely not "live-blogging" the VP debate. I'm far too busy playing Palin Bingo.

We're about 45 minutes into the debate and the candidates agree on one thing: they're both against gay marriage. (This should come as no surprise to anyone who's followed their positions, but it's never fun to hear it.) Biden's position at least appears to be colored by the idea that "marriage" is intrinsically religious, as he suggests that it's the religious groups who need to make that specific decision.

Biden also explicitly states that Obama's White House will protect the full equal civil rights of homosexual couples. He lists two or three -- hospital visitation, property rights -- and notably leaves out parents' rights. Palin, in her response, doesn't seem to understand that rights like hospital visitation aren't currently easily available to unmarried couples.

Those of you who agree with me that the government should keep religion out of its policies might be interested in Bill Maher's movie Religulous, which comes out tomorrow and might be terrible, or maybe not.

Oh, Biden just called McCain out for saying he wouldn't talk to Spain. And I'm totally not liveblogging.