un-Valentines Day

CHASING AMY (1997)



I must confess that, once upon a time, I was a fan of Kevin Smith. This was long before he was Doomsday’s favorite podcaster and radio personality. Smith began his career as a filmmaker, and like the James Bond series of yesteryears, would release a movie every two years. His work could be geeky and juvenile but it would also be layered with sincere human emotions. Case in point: Chasing Amy. It tells the story of a comic book artist who falls in love with a bi-sexual woman and then becomes insecure about their incompatible mating history. To put it simply: it’s about hooking up with someone out of your league. But Smith is smart enough to avoid the trappings of a young male perspective and creates a fully fleshed female counterpart with her own clear point-of-view. It results in a demographically neutral romantic comedy.

I saw Yoga Hosers in a theater.

Did I just say that out loud?

TRUE ROMANCE (1993)



This movie... is dumb. It starts out innocently. Christian Slater, basically playing Quentin Tarantino, is a loser working at a comic book store. On his birthday, his boss pays for a hooker (played somewhat iconically by Patricia Arquette) to sleep with him. They fall in love right after because the script was written by a pre-fame Tarantino who was in his 20’s and working minimum wage at a video store. Now this is where the movie falls apart... and I’ve been saying this since the early days of CS!... so my reaction has been consistent every time I watch it. Anyway, so the Christian Slater character goes visit Patricia Arquette’s pimp, played brilliantly by Gary Oldman, and ends up killing him and stealing his drugs. So now people go after them to get the drugs back and that pretty much is the rest of the movie. So this fantasy story about two idiots falling in love after one night of a business transaction, turns into a silly crime drama. We’re quick to call-out romantic comedies for nonsensical plots but give shit like this a free pass? And this isn’t some MeToo re-evaluation of the movie. I’ve been saying this for almost 20 years.

OVERBOARD (1987)



They remade this movie by gender-swapping the roles cause god forgive you make a screwball comedy about a man tricking a woman in the MeToo era. The original is about a spoiled brat rich woman, played by Goldie Hawn, who falls off her yacht and gets amnesia. She's "rescued" by a widowed father of three, played by Kurt Russell, who tricks her into thinking she's his wife and mother of his children. What follows is an innocent sitcom style comedy about a rich person learning to be one of us regular folks.

LAST TANGO IN PARIS (1972)



Even as a hormone driven teenager, I couldn't quite relate to Last Tango in Paris. It's a story centered around anonymous sex between an older man and young woman but the characters are too morally incomprehensible to incite any eroticism.

A lot has been said about Last Tango in Paris in the MeToo era, a topic tailor made for a PG Cooper video essay, and while there's certainly exaggeration in the arguments being made, it's not an incorrect assessment.

Marlon Brando stars as a grieving widow who engages in violent sex with a young woman, played by troubled actress Maria Schneider, who accepts it cause she's bored by her love life. These themes have every right to be explored, but unfortunately, the movie has no interest in doing so. It addresses it, yes, but it doesn't care to explore it. The movie seems more invested in exploiting the young woman. It feels like the movie was made for guys who get off on porn where the male performer slaps the woman around and then ejaculates on her eyeball.

BONNIE’S KIDS (1972)



Woman and her lover steal money and go on the run. There’s actually more to it than that, but why spoil the fun? It’s a fun little drive-in film.

NATURAL BORN KILLERS (1994)



I have issues with True Romance but at least it ain't Natural Born Killers. Oliver Stone's acid trip adaptation of Tarantino's nonsensical script is headache inducing. It stars Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis as lovers and serial killers glorified by the media. We see their origin, their crime spree, their capture and finally their escape. Both actors are good. The supporting cast is okay, I guess. Robert Downey Jr is in an entirely different movie. But whatever. That's the least of this movie's problems. Stone opted to use mixed media to tell the story, which is actually in Tarantino's script. The notion that Stone did a complete overhaul of Tarantino's script is an exaggeration. But anyway, while mixed media had logic and function in something like JFK, here it's like watching an acid dipped rock video on 1990's MTV. It's just there to distract you from the fact that the story and characters aren't as deep as the movie wants you to think.

As Good As It Gets (1997)








I’ll agree the movie is longer than it needed to be. Greg Kinnear didn’t need to be beat up by male prostitutes. It could have just been random crooks. But whatever. I don’t care about that. As Good As It Gets is charming as hell. A perfect PhantomKnight movie. Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt earned those Oscars. Although it’s disappointing that Helen Hunt’s breasts didn’t get Best Supporting Actress.


Doomsday Dracula thebtskink 1godzillafan

Question: how great was December 1997?

Scream 2. Tomorrow Never Dies. Titanic. Mouse Hunt. As Good As It Gets. Jackie Brown.

If PG Cooper ever gets a DeLorean and wants to hang out with young me, go to December 1997. What a great month of movie watching.

Raise your hand if you watched Jackie Brown with your parents and it got super awkward when Robert De Niro was banging Bridget Fonda in the kitchen. Kate Winslet naked in Titanic was nothing. I didn’t even blink.

How dare you forget Home Alone 3.  

Can we skip As Good as It Gets?