Mr. Blog Goes to the Movies: Grease and Grease 2

March 30, 2011

excerpted from August 27, 2007

“Endless summer” my ass. According to the NYC DOE, summer ends on August 30^th. Thanks Randi.

To commemorate the season, a couple of quickie classic summer movie reviews.

Grease

This is a documentary about a year in the life of students at Rydell High, a school in South Africa during apartheid. There are no black people in Rydell High.

Rydell High is a last chance school. It is populated by 30-year olds who have severe psychological complexes in which they believe they are teenagers and wear plastic looking leather jackets in a vain attempt to act tough.

Bobby Wheeler plays Ken Ickie, a Japanese exchange student. It is good to see him working. Bobby Wheeler was once a taxi driver in NYC who took small parts in low budget productions by day and drove a cab by night. This is his biggest role, a twenty-eight year old acting sixteen. Way to go!

Ken Ickie is the leader of the T-Bones, a gang who likes barbeque. Their girls are the Pink Ladies, led by Pinky Tuscadero and her sister Leather, who was in a rock band back in Milwaukee.

This is their senior year. Most of them are looking forward to a life of extended juvenile delinquency, but Ken Ickie is working on restoring a car which he thinks will get him a spot on the Tokyo Drift circuit. Nicknamed “Greasy Lightening,” the gang has totally tricked it out: custom rims and chrome, neon, GPS, the works. Greasy Lightening looks great, but since the T-Bones all flunked shop class it has no engine. Looks great, though.

Grease is renowned for its soundtrack, with many of its songs becoming pop hits. These songs receive continual airplay, and in 2002 “Beauty School Dropout” was covered by Marilyn Manson.

Overall, Grease is the perfect summer film- silly and distinctly not thought-provoking. From the early scenes of Master Thespian Sid Caesar as the gruff but loveable coach to the finale where the gang piles into Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and flies away, this reviewer had only one thought- where’s Adrian Zmed? I know he’s in the sequel, wasn’t he in this one too?

Did You Know? This film featured a small cameo by future “Battlefield Earth” star John Travolta.

Thought I didn’t like Grease? Here’s Grease 2. (And Bonus Fat Chicks!)

from September 1, 2007

People say I don’t rant enough. Well screw that! I’m gonna rant baby, and about some serious nonsense too!

I was watching TV the other day and they had some real crap on. Not the usual crap- extremely crappy crap. Thanks VH1! Go to Hell. Anyway, I’d read some review somewhere online somewhere of Grease and thought I’d watch it since A- It was on and B- I wanted to do something nasty to punish myself for having the god-awful bad sense to be a teacher. Well, it wasn’t Grease. It was Grease 2. Two! Grease frickin’ 2! Who the fuck thought it would be a good idea to make a Grease 2? Did Europe have a Bubonic Plaque 2? Did Princess Di have a second bad night in that French tunnel?

OK, I get it, the first one made money so they had to make a second. Like Battlestar Galactica became a worldwide hit (I’m bullshitting here- it was cancelled after like one season.) so they followed it with Galactica 1980 and it starred Lorne Green, an annoying brainy kid, and a couple of dicks who kind of sort of act like Starbuck and Apollo but weren’t Starbuck and Apollo. At least Johnny Bravo fit the suit! Where were the Cylons? They did the show without the freakin’ bad guys! They didn’t even have the damn robot dog! Who watched that show besides me? I got two words for you- Space Scouts. If you watched that show you know what I’m talking about . That show wasn’t just bad, it was a painful Ass-Hell show.

But Grease 2 (screw it- do your own underlining. And I ain’t gonna bother with no good grammar neither!) was worse. They took all of the background and minor characters and brought them back. They brought back the same sets. They even brought back the same plot! What they didn’t do was bring back the stars. Believe it or not, they cast a cast (yeah, cast a cast) of people even less talented than the original actors. I know what you’re thinking- “BULLSHIT! It’s impossible to cast a less talented actor than John Travolta. I saw Battlefield Earth!” But they did. Leading the cast is Adrian Zmed (snicker snicker ha ha!) “Zmed.” That’s one of those female things, right? Like a woman goes to the gynecologist for a pap smear and a zmed exam?

Here are the selected highlights of Mr. “Zmed’s” career from imdb.com:

-Shira-The Vampire Samurai

-Honey I Shrunk The Kids: The TV Show

-Little Insects, as the voice of “Sir Sneekleberry”

and 72 episodes of TJ Hooker, which I will claim to my dying breath is William Shatner at his finest.

Then there is some lummox named “Maxwell Caulfield.” I put that in quotes because I’m sure that’s an assumed name. How am I so sure, I just think so. Get it? I “assumed” it’s an “assumed” name. (Don’t like that joke? Tough. Like you’re paying for this?)

Here are some selected highlights of this jerk’s imdb:

–

That’s not a mistake- Grease 2 is, by far, the biggest highlight of his career. And it was his first credit! This dick sank even lower than Grease 2!

Genuine decent actress Michelle Puh-Fieffer is there. (Not that she’s any good here. This film would turn Anthony Quinn into Carrot Top.) I’m pretty split about her. She’s either pretty hot or pretty skanky depending on my mood. But then I remember that she did shit like this and I’m totally turned off her again.

The plot is- look, if you saw the first film you saw this one, but with two exceptions:

1- The songs are far, far worse.

2- The producers were geniuses! GENIUSES! DAMN RIGHT I’M PUTTING THIS IN CAPS! Get this- they gave the Danny part to the girl, and gave the Sandy part to the guy. Yes! They reversed the genders! WOW! (Damn, they should have done this in drag! It would have been even worse!)

As far as sequels go this is better than World War Two, but not as good as The Revenge of the Sith.

Damn, I love writing reviews where I didn’t actually watch the movie. After the opening credits I started to flip around the channels and found blog-worthy paydirt on BCAT- Brooklyn Community Access Television- AKA- “we’ll show anything.” This is a channel where anything gets on the air if you can pay the fee. Got a low-res jpeg of your dog? They’ll show it. Most of the shows are done by either

1- jerks who think they’re funny and rope in friends and family to film them doing “funny” things,

2- jerks who think they are smart and rope in friends and family to film them calling Bush a “dwad,” or

3- jerks who take their video cameras into clubs and mack on women.

DISCLAIMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am going to be using very offensive terms to describe women. Now bear in mind I am referring to certain very specific women, all of whom are, and here I am being very very truthful, all of whom are over 450 pounds. Reread that again right here- over 450 pounds. So any of the stuff I say is directed solely at them and their big fat asses, not at all directed to any of the women on my friends list, all of whom are very slim, attractive, and sexy. You ladies know I love you, to quote Keith Hernandez.

Goddesses is a show by, for, and about extremely obese women. The purpose of the show is to show that big huge tractor-like women can be hot too. Let me clue them in- no they can’t! They have so much hanging flesh under their arms that they can trim it off and create a whole new person. They are all sweating badly under the studio lights. They all have eight or nine chins. They are big slobs! And I’m just talking about the parts that can fit in frame.

(And before you point it out- yes, I am overweight. But these women would be overweight if they were, say, a platoon of tanks.)

This show I saw had the “Goddesses” going to a club (that they rented) to have a fashion show (of clothes they designed) and dance with men (that they already knew.) Fine. No problem. Let them have fun. Let them delude themselves. I don’t care. If it makes them feel good to crowd 8 of them into a room with a capacity of 150, fine.

None of that was bad, really. None of that was a problem. None of that mattered to me.

Until.

The.

Wet.

T.

Shirt.

Contest.

THEY HAD A FRIGGING WET T-SHIRT CONTEST. THEY WALKED OUT ON  THE DANCE FLOOR IN THIN WHITE T-SHIRTS AND THE GUYS DRENCHED THEM WITH WATER. It was at this point that I went blind. Remember the part in Return of The Jedi where Jabba the Hutt had some girls dancing for him? One of the girls was big and fat and had eight breasts. The first girl looked like Both Jabba and the girl, stuffed in the same shirt. AND THEY THOUGHT THIS WAS SEXY!

It was not.

And the guys acted like this was a Girls Gone Wild video. Who are these guys? No, no, I really don’t want to know who would sell their soul to the devil and have to act like this turns them on and really have to go home and have sex with these house-like females. Some things should remain unknown.

This was train-wreck TV at its best/worst. You know it is awful. You know that it might harm you. But you can’t look away.

Still, it was better than Grease 2.

So I bet you’re wondering how much of this show I watched? Did I watch it all? Tape it and replay it? Do I secretly watch this in the wee hours of the morning? Christ, what is wrong with you people? I saw nearly 9 whole minutes of this before I ran through the channels again and finally settled on Spongebob Squarepants. Then I blocked the channel for good.

So to wrap this up, if you are ever up in the middle of the night and have to choose between watching Grease 2 or Goddesses, stick with Grease 2. This is the only possible scenario in which I would ever recommend Grease 2. Grease 2 may make you want to take your own life, but Goddesses may actually kill you.

Serious and thoughtful feedback is welcomed and encouraged.

Tags: bmj2k, Grease, John Travolta, Mr. Blog, Mr. Blog's Tepid Ride, Mr. BTR, reviews