rivercityvibe   “Puerile, smutty, schoolboy nonsense” – My Mom

I have talked before about my favorite movies. Y’all know of my deep love for the comedy classic Weird Science; of my abiding passion for the second Star Wars film (Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back); and I have mentioned before my admiration for Brit Gangster movies – including last year’s RocknRolla. I don’t think, however, I have mentioned that probably my favorite war film of all time (it competes with The Wild Geese) is Zulu, in which Michael Caine gives a career-defining performance as the officer in charge of the defense of Rourke’s Drift.

Well I have now.

So when I see a trailer like this one for Harry Brown – gritty Brit Gangster film starring Michael Caine, I get very, very excited:

All it needs is Kelly LeBrock’s rack and it would be my perfect movie. It is out on DVD in the New Year. I have pre-ordered it.

Yesterday was so great. After returning from my day-trip to the Big Peach (lame), I sank into my favorite armchair with a large Glenfiddich and received an encrypted report from my agent at the Playboy castings. This satisfactorily completed, I switched on the TV. Someone had been monkeying with it, because it was not on the Military Channel. It was on a channel called Encore Love (suspect…..) and, as fortune would have it, one of the best films ever made was beginning.

I am talking about Weird Science.

Q: Why are we wearing bras on our heads? A: Ritual.

Those who are old enough will recall the movie being one of John Hughes’ 80’s masterpieces (can we say National Lampoon’s Vacation, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Planes, Trains & Automobiles ?). It’s about two dweebs who make and use a hot babe with an early home computer, a telephone modem and an old copy of National Geographic.

The babe in question is English temptress Kelly LeBrock ( I have just looked her up on the usual source and found out she is not English at all and I have been living a lie for twenty years). She later, amusingly, married Steven Seagal (Hollywood style – it didn’t last) and then became a celebrity fat person, like Kirsty Alley.

That the movie is so awesome owes little to LeBrock, but a lot to the young actors (where [and who] are they now?). The drunk scene in the jazz club  and the ritual which accompanies the ‘manufacture’ of the perfect woman is priceless comedy, as is the dispatch of the mutant warriors who crash the boys’ party.

Bizarrely, Encore Love only awarded it a single star in its review. Not credible. Who are these idiots?

We have many readers who were not born when this movie came out, so here’s one of my favorite scenes  to give you the general idea:

For those who have seen it, you’ll appreciate my consternation at the fact that my brothers have never stopped calling me Chet……..