DECONSTRUCTING HARRY
The Preshow Entertainment was Night Flight's Best Videos of 1984, and Bob Marley: Legend.
This was the second part of Night Flight for us. We didn't finish watching it last time. In case you don't remember (or know), Night Flight was on the then new USA Network. They'd run videos and more, like BAMBI VS. GODZILLA, and that all midget western musical, THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN. It was 20 years ago (today?) when I taped this particular show, a Best Of compilation. It began with Twisted Sister's WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT, which featured bad hair, bad teeth, and bad grammar. You remember this one; the family eating downstairs, and the kid upstairs running around his room with a guitar. Drill sergeant Dad (Mark Metcalf alert!) screams over the top at the boy, ending, with a somewhat Jim Steinman drama, "What do you want do with your life!!!!" The kid spins around and through incredible video effects, becomes Dee Snider. Next were commercials for the new Culture Club single which didn't hit, although they said it would (and was available on record or tape as CDs would become popular only a year later), and a Duran Duran Video 45, available in VHS or Beta.
Then came Ray Parker Jr. with GHOSTBUSTERS (what else could it have been?). This was the song that Huey Lewis sued for riff wrangling (settled out of court). It featured the most incongruous group of cameos ever assembled, each popping up in a window, one at a time, with their take on chanting the word "ghostbusters": Teri Garr, George Wendt, Irene Cara, Peter Falk, Chevy Chase, and, of course, more incredible effects. Which leads us to-
The Cars "You Might Think". Remember when (if you're old enough) some videos were actually great because they were thought out? Video effects were new and cheesy, so when a "Sledgehammer" came along, it was eye-popping. The Cars hired Charlex(still alive and strong today), who had done the cool new opening for SNL.
When that ended, Bob Marley came on. It's cool to like Bob Marley. But being more than cool, it turned out none of us did. So we chatted, using Bob as the bar band who just happens to be on.
October's Random Movie selection was DECONSTRUCTING HARRY. This may be Woody's last good movie (to date).
Woody plays Harry Block, a writer with writer's block (get it?). You have to stay on your toes to follow his alternating scenes of what is real life, and what is reenacted based on his books, which are thinly veiled accounts of things that occurred in his real life. Thinly veiled? Well, almost exact- he made one character taller.
A great cast pops up throughout, including Tobey Maguire, Robin Williams (in a brilliant, to Woody's merit, segment, where he is out of focus), Richard Benjamin, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Demi Moore, Eric Bogosian, Julie Kavner, Billy Crystal, Stanley Tucci, Mariel Hemmingway, Kirstie Alley, Elizabeth Shue, and lovably low-key Bob Balaban. And even Paul Giamatti, but I didn't notice him.
Sometimes repetitive, but oft times funny, HARRY is filled with visual gems (Harry driving upstate to receive an award with a hooker, a friend he bumped into on the street, and his son who he kidnapped from his ex), and verbal, ("Tradition is the illusion of permanence" and when questioned about choosing science over religion "if I have to choose between air conditioning and the Pope, I choose air conditioning").
In 1997, DECONSTRUCTING HARRY was nominated for Best Screenplay, and I believe it should have been. It's funny, smart, imaginative, and at times meaningful.
RECOMMENDED.
Tags: random movie club, deconstructing harry, woody allen, '80s videos, night flight
