Sunday, November 27, 2011

Thwarted Nemesis/Galvanic!

What comes on at three in the morning, you ask? I will tell you what comes on at three in the morning: an action movie called RADICAL JACK. In the portion I saw, Radical Jack's nemesis is looking for him, so Radical Jack (Billy Ray Cyrus [!]) hides under a bed. Radical Jack's thwarted nemesis goes back and reports to the big crime boss, the kind of chief bad guy who seems to run the whole town, like Ben Gazzara in ROAD HOUSE, I think - didn't he run a town? I remember he had a polar bear in his house, which is a pretty good sign that you are running the town. In any case, RADICAL JACK seemed to be going for a ROAD HOUSE vibe from the little I saw of it. So the guy says to the crime boss, "He [Radical Jack] has definitely left town. We looked everywhere for him!" And the viewer is led to think, EXCEPT UNDER THE BED! Then the crime boss says of Radical Jack, "Even the CIA hasn't been able to find this guy for the past five years." And the viewer thinks, BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T LOOK UNDER THE BED! Radical Jack's love interest is played by Dedee Pfeiffer. I wondered if she might be Michelle Pfeiffer's less successful sister, so I checked the "internet" and the "internet" told me yes. In conclusion, I have been leafing through Stephen Sondheim's new book LOOK, I MADE A HAT. Mr. Sondheim writes, "Of all forms of contemporary pop music, rap is the closest to traditional musical theater." Later he calls the "Rock Island" number from THE MUSIC MAN "startling and galvanic... it is in fact the forerunner of rap." That has nothing to do with what I was talking about, but it is interesting and I thought I'd cram it in there for you anyway.