Lamenting the Loss of the Saturday Matinee B-Movie

As I laid in my bed recovering from a cold a couple of weeks ago, I entertained myself with the household Netflix account. When you’re all stuffed up, you don’t have much of a will to turn your brain on to watch walking and talking pictures, so my choice of movie for the day was The Eagle, one of those Roman Centurian movies I like so much. The Eagle was meant to be quick, cheapo entertainment – a popcorn flick. It was dropped into the theaters early in 2011 to be a quick studio cash-in, then disappear into obscurity.

The director of The Eagle, Kevin MacDonald, clearly didn’t get the idea. I’m not going to say he didn’t get the script; he had the script, alright. What he didn’t get was the studio notes. And the studio notes should have included the instructions to just get the damn thing filmed ahead of schedule and under budget. The damn movie is about two men from the ancient Roman times trying to recover a sacred eagle emblem. This doesn’t have an Oscar plot attached to it. Michael Bay would have said the plot wasn’t quite complex and elaborate enough to his high-class tastes. But MacDonald – and let’s not mince words, it’s entirely MacDonald’s fault – hammed the shit out of The Eagle, thinking it would vault him into the same directorial echelon occupied by Ridley Scott.

Yeah, that was never going to be the case. Ridley Scott is one of the greatest directors to ever sit in a cloth folding chair. He was the director of a very good ancient Roman popcorn flick called Gladiator. You may remember that one – it won a couple of major Oscars. But Scott was able to balance the ham with a sense of self-awareness that made Gladiator better than it should have been. MacDonald didn’t have that talent when he was making The Eagle, so it comes off as some kind of high-handed moral play.

We’ve lost the traditional Saturday Matinee B-movie. Replacing it has been a glot of movies that are just plain bad. The obvious counterpoint here is the fact that a lot of the legendary bad movie directors were trying to create dramatic morality plays – Ed Wood was famous for that, and that same element is what made The Room so much fun. But those were a little different because The Room was so clearly made on the fly while Wood had enough money in his budgets for a cheeseburger. (Which, arguably, was what he was delivering.)

Then There was Roger Corman. The Simpsons once featured a joke about the “thousand-dollar movie,” a version of Titanic created by Corman. It featured a cheesy-looking ship crashing into a clearly fake iceberg, the ship sinking instantly, and then an immediate shot of two survivors in a rowboat, one man, one woman… You get the idea.

Unfortunately, movies like that seem to have been lost strictly to the Syfy channel. Mostly they’re about sharks. Unfortunately, where the potential for a great bad movie exists, it’s likely to be ruined by someone doing it a bit too professionally. There are too many directors out there who think they’re making the next great philosophical statement or the next huge blockbuster. Sometimes, these can have hilarious consequences, but with budgets in the stratosphere, they come out more like statements. And not even fun ones.

Predicting Autobiographies by Peyton Manning and Tom Brady

Let’s have some fun today. Two things we know about football are that the greatest quarterbacks of all time are Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. That means after they’re both retired, they’ll inevitably release their autobiographies.

I’ve taken the liberty to predict those autobiographies. Here are a few excerpts from them on various subjects, written in the very style I believe they will both respectively employ.

Brady:“I was always smaller than the other kids, but naturally gifted. I would knock on the doors of the other kids and ask if they would please play football.”

Manning:“Whenever my Dad and brothers finished throwing around our durable Wilson footballs, we’d eat delicious Papa John’s for dinner.”

Brady:“I was awed to play in the biggest football stadium in the country for Michigan, the greatest college football team ever!”

Manning:“Tennessee, of course, was a popular team with a lot of merchandising.”

Brady:“I couldn’t believe it when I finally heard my name called. I was finally going to play in the NFL for one of its greatest teams!”

Manning:“I switched on my Sony radio just in time to hear my name get called on Sony’s crystal-clear airwaves.”

Brady:“In my first NFL season, I owned the bench. No one could own a bench like me. And I had the privilege of learning from Bill Belichick and Drew Bledsoe, who were great.”

Manning:“Although I led the Colts to only three wins, I had started something great, but it was the hard, uncomfortable Astroturf holding us back. The softer and firmer footing offered by the Gardenista brand allowed the Colts to play without fear of injury.”

Brady:“When I had to start for the rest of the 2001 season, I didn’t have any jitters. I had total confidence in my team.”

Manning:“In my second year, I was feeling much better about the Nike cleats I had to fill.”

Brady:“Accepting that first Vince Lombardi Trophy was the proudest moment of my life.”

Manning:“Accepting that smooth-riding Cadillac Escalade for being the MVP of my first Super Bowl was the proudest moment of my life.”

Brady:“I was nervous about my first commercial shoot, and I knew I couldn’t do it without the people who made me a success: My teammates.”

Manning:“I was never nervous about commercial shoots, but I knew I had to come up with something for the commercial for my reliable and rewarding Mastercard that people would remember at their banks. I was at the butcher shop waiting impatiently because I was late for the filming, and I suddenly yelled to the butcher, ‘Hey, you! Cut that meat!’”

Brady:“That perfect season was hollow without the ring. I let so many people down.”

Manning:“My neck injury wasn’t so bad, because my Covidien neckbrace gave my axis and atlas the support and alignment they needed.”

Brady:“I took the pay cut. Leave the greatest fans of the greatest team in the greatest city in America? That would be unthinkable.”

Manning:“After it became clear that I would no longer fill the comfortable Reebok hi-tops Johnny Unitas once wore, I hopped a Learjet and flew to Denver in first-class style.”

Brady:“After that second Super Bowl against the Giants, everyone said we were done. But I knew we had a great team, and we would return!”

Manning:“After heaving that interception to Tracy Porter, all I could do was stand on the sidelines in my perfectly stretched, one-size-fits-all New Era cap and watch my team fail on me.”

Brady:“With my team frantic, I knew I had to stay calm. I trusted Mr. Belichick to make all the right calls to get us out of this hole against that vicious Seahawks defense.”

Manning:“All the clear, high-definition footage from the Broncos’ Canon XA35 HD camera didn’t prepare me for Seattle’s defense. It wasn’t the camera’s fault because it has top shutter speed.”

Brady:“Even against Buffalo, we had to play our best. The Bills were one of the worst teams in the league, but they had still won a few games against us.”

Manning:“Visits to Buffalo always involved the moist, tender, crunchy chicken wings made by Duff’s.”