Review of "Caddyshack"

Review of "Caddyshack"

You guys remember Caddyshack? Of course you do. Or do you? It’s been like 30 years since it came out. I just watched a documentary on the classic sports comedy and was inspired to watch it again. Here’s what I remembered about it before tonight in approximate order of most vivid memory:

1. Animatronic gopher dancing to I’m Alright by Kenny Loggins.


2. The golf course exploding to the 1812 Overture at the end.


3. Bill Murray’s over-the-top character, specifically the self-narrated cabbage-mutilation scene.


4. The old man’s best round of golf in the hurricane, culminating in a lightning strike.


5. Rodney Dangerfield’s awkward, ridiculous golf swing and his awkward, ridiculous eyes.

Having loved this as a child and having just watched it mere days ago, I am now questioning just what else I’ve been able to trick myself into believing over the years. This is not a good movie. I question whether or not I ever really liked it now. It’s possible because I haven’t seen it in about 25 years that I just bought into all the cult hype that has strangely grown over time and merely assumed I liked it. Or more likely, just said I did to fit in (he was even more insecure back in high school). Sure, Murray and Dangerfield are still funny if you enjoy cartoons and/or fart jokes. But I don’t.

This movie was made in an obviously different time period of feature length film. One in which sound mixing was just not important enough to the editors. I’m not a proponent of the MTV quick cut version of film, but the pacing in this was ridiculous. What the hell was with the boat scene between Dangerfield and Ted Knight? It was 5-7 minutes of wasted time and probably not much money. In 1993, Universal Studios had the guts to cut a multi-million dollar scene of the island blowing up at the end of Jurassic Park. I don’t see why they couldn’t have thrown away a glorified dinghy for the sake of continuity. And the pool scene was so overhyped in this documentary. Another wasted 5-7 minutes. No laughs, no plot development, no reason for it to be in there. What a let-down.

Speaking of plot, there apparently originally was one. Because of the need to get all these stars more screen time, the producers kinda threw it away. This is the reason, but still doesn’t grant them a pardon. Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase and Ted Knight are all in this movie and none of them are the main character. When watching this again, I really could care less about Michael O’Keefe. So much of the plot was trimmed out in favor of Dangerfield’s eye bulge and Murray’s mumbles that I couldn’t root for his character’s ambitions or desires. And what the hell was the point of the broad? She banged both Chase’s character and O’Keefe’s character and that was it. No development, no explanation. I’m all for gratuitous slutiness, but there wasn’t even an attempt to make it make sense. And that theme followed the film throughout.

I still enjoyed the parts that I remembered. I especially enjoyed the documentary glancing a little too casually over the part where they took the golf club owners out to dinner and blew up their golf course. And like Harold Ramis – first-time director – said, having an animatronic gopher dancing in the first scene kinda let them off the hook for having a plot or following any kind of rules whatsoever. I do not want to rid the world of all copies of this movie, I just want to get it out of the #2 spot on ESPN's best sports movies of all time (below Hoosiers) and the #2 spot in Bravo’s Funniest Movies of All Time (below Animal House. Of course, any list with Arthur in the top 10 can probably be completely discounted). 4 bugs (out of 10).

Still Standing Right Here...

Identity Indemnity

Identity Indemnity

Somebody stole my identity. I finally made it!

So there’s a standard stock joke that all hack comics tell in reference to identity theft since it became a popular term about 10 years ago that ends in some version of “I feel sorry for them” or “Now they have a ton of debt and bad credit.” It’s stupid, but effective, however annoying for those of us who can’t even aspire to the smaller debt and better credit that a comic likely has. That being the case, this little act of thievery could be my lucky break.

It started last night when I couldn’t sign into my iTunes library to play “I’m Different” by Randy Newman. In this day and age, I have probably 10 different passwords for different things and my computer has been ill of late, so I figured I just couldn’t remember the correct password. But when I went to retrieve it, iTunes told me that my account didn’t exist. That’s weird.

Cut to the following day. I got a phone call from a strange number at 8:53am and they didn’t leave a message. I got another call from them at 10:53am and they hung up before I could get to it. Then again at 12:53pm. I don’t know what kind of program calls every 2 hours on the 53rd minute, but I was curious to find out. I was able to get to it this time. It was indeed an automated message, but it connected me upon my answer to the Bank of America. I’ve had things like this happen before. It’s never been good. I figured I missed a payment or accidentally didn’t use my home branch to withdraw money and it cost me an extra $1,500 and overdrew my entire savings account and they were going to start seizing my assets, which at this point in my life is basically a television and half a container of sushi rice.

Nope. They told me there was some suspicious activity on my credit card and wanted to know if I made these purchases. I’ve gotten this phone call twice before, both times it was me. Once I had used a couple different ATMs to download the last $600 to buy a car that wasn’t even worth that much. Then I was called because I kept mysteriously buying gas at these stations all along route 70 every couple hours or so from Cincinnati to Baltimore. Weird, I know! But at the inconvenience of a phone call, I wasn’t too upset. This time, however, I think they were onto something.

I had allegedly made two purchases earlier that morning for $41 and $45 on iTunes. That rung a bell. They may be onto something here. Last night made a little more sense now. So what I surmised is that somebody hacked into my iTunes account and that only. Or else they made some really specific decisions with the credit card info they had. The end result of that conversation is that they would take those charges off my credit card (which were the only fraudulent ones made) and they’d cancel the old card and issue me a new one. Sweet. Back to normal.

However, I logged onto my Bank of America account today to find that the savings and checking account were still there, but the credit account was gone. I’ve lost my wallet several times and needed to cancel my credit card and have them issue me a new one, but I’ve never had an account disappear like that. And if $10,000 in debt just disappeared because of some bank error in my favor that isn’t in a game of monopoly, that would be the best thing that’s ever happened to me and don’t tell Jen I said that, because I’m not kidding. I love you, honey – but $10,000 in debt just vanished? That’s the kind of miracle only Fletch could pull off. Guess I probably should have banked with Chevy Chase (groans are welcomed and somewhat encouraged at this point).

Just in case it was the unwitting error of some intern, I’m not making a financial move. No debit charges, no downloading money, no logging onto my account for a while. I’m lying completely still like I was being attacked by a black bear. Or a brown bear. Or a polar bear, whichever one you’re supposed to play dead around. Wait. Brown, lie down – black, fight back. OK, scratch that. Make it a brown bear. A huge brown bear who is not going to eat me, but looking to give me my $10,000 in debt back. It’s about now, I realize I should have used a different analogy. The point is, those hack comics who all say they want somebody to steal their identity to inherit all their debt. Well, I may have the opportunity to live it. Which serves them right for being so much less funny and yet still having more stage time than I do.

Funny Money II

Funny Money II

One interesting point of the trip we took was that we stayed in a different city with different people every night. From Sunday to Sunday, Tony stayed in a different city with different people for 8 nights in a row. That probably beats my record, if I actually kept one. WE did a lot of driving and not a lot of actual staying. I lost my hat, and when asked where I lost it, I said "Florida" because that's about as specific as I could get. Oh well. Maybe I'll go back to the pink ones.

Well, I'm gonna stay in Boone for this next quote in hopes that I'll never have to take you guys back here. Actually, this is a corollary quote to yesterdays. Chris went up to the ATM worrying that it was going to laugh at his puny little bank. He came back to the car excited and
with money. The following conversation ensued:

Quote Of the Day 3/30/99

Tanis: "So it didn't laugh at your bank?"
Tony: "Of course not. Nobody laughs at Chevy Chase. Did you see Fletch?"


I've always been more of a Steve Guttenburg fan myself.

Burning down the funny farm,

Tom Arnold.


Still Standing Right Here...

Funny Money

Funny Money

Sorry about the delay guys, but that last message gave me a hernia. That and I went on Spring Break. Me, Tony, and Meawad high tailed it outta Baltimore and made a B-line for sunny Florida. But we stopped in Boone, NC first, and as Drew, my Bennigans colleague put it, "why?" Well, in anticipation of having an excruciatingly exciting week, we figured that we'd begin by depleting our senses of all extraneous stimulation. And that's when we wound up bowling in Boone.

So anyway, since I've lived in the area for about 6 years now, I'm kinda numb to hearing it anymore, but for those of you who don't know, there's a city in MD called Chevy Chase. I don't know why, but there is. This is common knowledge to me and everybody in Maryland, but some
hick-type folk local to Boone have no idea of this city. Well, Tony, Wadzilla, and me were in Boone visiting a friend from home in PA who goes to school there, and Chris said that he needed to stop at an ATM to get money. He then grew concerned that he wouldn't be allowed to get money out because the ATM might have never heard of his bank. So Kevin asked him what his bank was called. After Chris told him, he responded...

Quote Of the Day 3/29/99

"You trust putting your money in a bank called... Chevy Chase Bank?"

-Boone Man, Come together with your ham.


And he got his lawyer from the law offices of Murray, Akroid, and Guttenburg INC.

Boone or bust,

Dustin.


Still Standing Right Here...