Christopher Zguris

Sunday, March 21st:

First rule- ANY Italian food deli/restaurant/catering in a small town the places their delivery menu at the el cheapo motel you’re at sucks. You might think- “I’m hungry- how bad can it really be?”. Well, “bad” in the depressing/what a waste of money and calories sense, not in the vomit in the toilet sense. Bad in the “the ingredients are correct but they’re all mixed up wrong maybe” sense.

Sidenote- If when you call for delivery they DON’T KNOW WHERE YOUR HOTEL IS you are really in a low-rent sort of motel. Is this bad? Well the bed’s clean, you can park close until to the room to throw your bags in, and they’ve got AMC on cable. As if the 2×4s (unfinished) holding up the sink wasn’t a clue as they stand up proudly visible from the front door to make sure there is NO confusion between you who rent this room and those who provide this room. You want overpriced french fries (with mustard mayo) in a sports bar with all-you-can-eat popcorn and “bartender” who may, or may NOT, understand the connection between tips and keeping my glass full, then you go to the Holiday Inn on the beach and pay 4x as much. But you’re not there, you’re here because it’s cheap and you only care about the clean bed and ready access to parking (as if you want to lug all your crap up to the 4th floor, down the hall make a left, then a right, then a left).

AMC when you’ve been driving all day is awesome, it’s mindless and usually has decent movies (especially when you’re mindless).

“The Crew”- never saw it, but actually quite good (although Burt Reynolds with face lifts disturbing, I remember seeing “Smokey And The Bandit” in the theater and I think it was one of the reasons I came to appreciate the open roads, although being in NYC the roads are less open). Now Richard Dreyfuss talking gangster, well, I don’t think so. He narrates the movie like he did in Stand By Me, but with an affected accent and wiseguy gangster talk. Think “Goodfellas” (on AMC earlier this evening) but with Richard Dryfuss/Stand By Me narration… Doesn’t work, does it?

And then we get to 4am on a Sunday morning and American Movie CLASSICS puts on… “Mr Mom.” Now yes at 4am what COULD they put on? It’s fill time and Mr Mom is as “fill” as you can get (other than the Michael Keaton movie when he”s an out-of-work car factory worker) or maybe the ’70s classic and Bigfoot Monster Truck breakout flick “Take This Job and Shove It” (I’m hoping that never makes it to AMC or DVD, some things are best left buried in time because they DO NOT age well… Much like Burt Reynolds I’m hesitant to suggest).

Back to 4am in Delaware, AMC, commercials for erectmed.com (a penis pump? The Pos-T-Vac?) and “Mr Mom:” this movie sucks. It sucked in the ’80s when the chronically and tragically unfunny Michael Keaton was the darling of Hollywood (“Mr Mom,” the car movie, other hits?) and it sucks now and probably is reaching in trying to get viewers for 5am penis pump commercials (pump by vague insinuation, not illustration, some things don’t belong on TV; free, paid, cable or otherwise).

I remember before DVDs and hundreds of cable channels (like AMC), back in the ’80s on summer vacation and/or weekends at the mercy of HBO’s scheduling dept there were staple filler movies: “One Of The Guys” and “Mr Mom” were most assuredly on the HBO go-to list. You need PG filler during the day, you go with “Mr Mom” and “One Of The Guys.” You need nighttime filler you go with “Tom Boy” (NOT Tommy Boy, “TOM BOY”…. Look it up), “American Ninja” (any of the series) or any of the Cynthia Rothrock flops (no offense to Cynthia, female karate movies are a no-joy for most guys. Sexist? Probably. Honest? Yes- the fact that maybe 6 people know what I’m talking about proves this out).

Back to the awful Michael Keaton and his breakout-awful movie “Mr Mom:” it truly is awful with neither comedic nor erotic qualities. You’d think with Ann Gillian and Terry Garr there’d at least be eye candy to distract from the overall mess of the movie, but you’d be wrong. First of all, the movie is awful beyond measure. Second of all, neither of these women in this movie are even remotely attractive. With bad 80s wardrobe and hairstyles (bad poofy short hair) they don’t help (I’m not convinced anyone wanted to see Anne Gillian with bad brown short hair standing in a surprisingly unappealing red nighty attempting to seduce Keaton’s character who is not surprisingly not interested). This assumes, of course, either of them are your cup of tea, so to speak. Interesting tie-in: Terry Garr in this movie and Richard Dreyfuss in previous both appeared in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

Back to Keaton- unfunny in a way worse than the guy from “The Mask” (not the lion face boy “Mask,” the funny(er) one with Cameron Diaz). That guy is often funny until he becomes tiresome in the “Please shut UP, Robin Williams” sort of way. Keaton never got to that level, meaning there was never a time when you didn’t want him to shut up. “Mr Mom” is an unfunny series of unfunny situations similar to “Land Of The Lost” but featuring the unfunny Michael Keaton written by the sometimes (long ago) funny John Hughes. “Next thing you’re strung out on bed spreads”…. “Could ANY actor make that line funny?” You might protest, and it would be a fair point, but – to my way of thinking – a good (and funny) actor can carry a bad script to make the movie at least passable (like the chick in “Tom Boy” or the guy in “Tommy Boy,” for that matter). We’ll leave aside the implications of suggesting Keaton knew Mr Mom sucked and just took the money (like a prostitute, but without a happy ending for anyone involved orgasmically or financially) .

“BATMAN” some will shout. Keaton did “BATMAN” and they’d be right, but he actually said (thankfully) very little and it was all Tim Burton. And most of the time it was someone OTHER than Keaton doing the work and wearing the costume. Burton, in further demonstration of his masterful work in telling a story and crafting characters kept Michael Keaton down to small brooding bits and pieces so that, in reality, Tim Burton’s Michael Keaton was just the right amount of Keaton in spite of having Keaton as the star of a movie in the exactly opposite way it was with Keaton starring in “Mr Mom.”

To not mention Martin Moll is to do a disservice to Moll, Mr Mom, and any attempt at a fair review. Moll provides nothing to Mr Mom, simple as that. He is a very exterior character, and neither adds nor subtracts from the tragedy that is “Mr Mom.”