Aged well...

You know? I've probably frassed about this before but I can name the films that I've walked out on from the movie theatre over time. "High Spirits", "The Witches", and the last five minutes of "Joe Versus the Volcano". (1988-1990 were fickle viewing years for me...shup. If it didn't have Van Damme or Swayze in it, it was probably considered unwatchable then. Shup)

That last one...I don't really know why I hated it so much. I didn't connect with the humor, I didn't get the Meg trifecta (and to be clear, all movies with her should have been as dry as "When Harry Met Sally" in my mind. As all movies with Hanks should have been vehicles for his quirky humor ala' "Dragnet" or "Bachelor Party". THAT's how I liked my two leads.) And I'm gonna catch hell for this, but I also thought it was kinda...weird. Brain clouds, and Lloyd Bridges (again, why was he acting so weird?!?) and floating luggage, and WHY IN THE NAME OF F#CK ARE THERE THREE OF HER?!?!?

To be fair, most everything between the ages of 12-15 (depending on your stage of development) can be easily dismissed as being "weird" and followed with an eye roll. "Whatever" didn't catch on until my high school years immediately after. Heck, my 9th grade girlfriend Tracy called me "weird" at lunch on day. We broke up a week later. And I was heartsick.

Years later, thanks to the magic of teh interwebs, I was able to synch up the writer/director to the movie. (Which blew my mind. Of my mind being blown, all I can say is it was and still is the little things that often trip me out.) I had a good old JPS boner in my middle years of college, even agreeing to guest-act in an ex-SO's student production of "Savage in Limbo" after I was done with college I liked it so much. (And really? I think it was kinda my best work. Really) So to find out this guy wrote what I was certain to have remembered as a steaming turd of a film...well all I could say was that some stage writer/directors should probably stay away from different mediums. That is all.

So color me surprised when Moda comes over with it as a choice of films for the night. ("The Wire" was a bunk DVD and I wasn't feeling up for the heavy drama of "Notes on a Frassdal") I know that Moda loves that movie, going as far as to quoting it occasionally. I kept my grandfatherly opinion to myself and said we should watch "Joe" since it seemed like the lesser of two evils.

And from the opening credits, I thought: "Is this a different movie than I remember?"

For starters, I laughed a lot more. (At one point when Mo asked if Ossie Davis was Abe Vigoda) and I "got"it a lot more. Maybe it's 13 years working as a cube jockey, but I realized that this film was pretty damn subversive. In fact, it probably hasn't had an equal since "Office Space" came out in '99. And the f#cked up thing of it is, I kinda thought it'd make for a funny play.

It would be minimalist, sure. But the three Megs could be played by the same actress. I was seeing Ari as the luggage seller. I was ("Amanda Plummer is in this too?") and ("Ohhhhh...that's why he sees the three Megs) and ("That is a funny line")...there was a lonely poignancy about it. And I could relate a bit more.

So there...

...It should be noted in today's rant that I also would love to do a staged version of "A Fish Called Wanda". And yes, I'd like to be Otto. Shup.