Only If It's Neat

I’m not going to lie. It’s been a really shitty couple of months. Year, actually. Decade? It’s been a long road. It’s not important to get into here. And just when it looks like something good might happen, I manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of certain victory. I guess I should focus on the positive. At least I’m getting better at destroying the things I love. Expedient. Anyway, I’ve lost much of my appetite for watching movies at home lately. If you know me (which you don’t, because this is the internet) you know that’s not right. I have made it to the theater four times in the last week, which is also out of the ordinary. TABLOID, THE TRIP, and PAGE ONE are all very good. 30 MINUTES OR LESS was a very enjoyable midnight movie, which I laughed at quite a bit. Nothing revolutionary. Your mileage may vary. In keeping with my tradition of not writing about new movies, I will not be saying more on these films (yet…never say never, although I never posted my pages of thoughts on THE TREE OF LIFE, and don’t plan to until I’ve seen it more than twice).

Isn't this great? It's like The Weekly Reader did a serialized version of FANDANGO.

Instead, I’m going to focus on 1985’s FANDANGO. Minor spoilers after the jump, along with my apologies for the quality of the screencaps. I do not possess the proper technology for capturing from a VHS.

Some movies just speak to you, and others speak to you at the exact right moment. The first is a magical experience that is not to be taken for granted. The second has only happened to me a handful of times, never planned for. One was a viewing of DOWN BY LAW that happened to take place after I had just been released from the Orleans Parish Prison. Needless to say, one of the oddest senses of Déjà vu I’ve ever had. Another was when my childhood best friend and I watched FANDANGO. He was just about to go into the Army, and I was about to embark on a lost decade. We were enjoying what was clearly the end of us. And then we watched a movie about just that.

Gardner Barnes (Kevin Costner) sits in a ruffled tuxedo and cowboy boots, slumped in an armchair, ever present broken sunglasses on his face. He throws darts at a photo tacked to a corkboard, a photo of him and his ex (Suzy Amis) in happier times, cheek to cheek. Every dart lands squarely on Gardner’s face, and whether this is on purpose or accidental, he nonetheless tears down her side of the picture and crumples it up, throwing it to the floor. He's got a party to see to as the leader of the Groovers, his band of fraternity brothers that includes Phil Hicks (Judd Nelson), a crew-cut wearing, gung ho type who is also incurably geeky, and who is excited to make the leap from ROTC to Vietnam;  Kenneth Waggoner (Sam Robards) who is engaged to be married; Dorman (Chuck Bush) the large, jewfro wearing bookish seminary student; and a fifth guy, who imdb tells me is Lester Griffin (Brian Cesak), spends nearly the entire film passed out and crammed into the back window of Phil’s car. He looks kind of like Jon Heder when he’s upright and is often literally carried around by Dorman. At one point the other four use him as a pillow.

As the Groovers celebrate their graduation, Kenneth reveals that he’s calling off his wedding as he has been drafted. Instead of being upset by this, Gardner is ecstatic- his deferment is up, too, and this gives them the perfect excuse for one final fandango. Since Phil’s car is the only car left (Gardner has sold his for the beer at the party) they load it up, and begin their quest for Dom, who is supposedly buried near the Mexican border and an essential part of their journey.

I don’t really feel like I need to go through this one point by point. I don’t have anything interesting to say about the film as a whole. I love how fast it starts up, and how it breaks down even faster. It’s neat that it manages to incorporate planes, trains and automobiles in their quest south. And aside from the few moments it leans a little too heavy on the Vietnam premonitions (most especially in the turn taken in the graveyard scene), it really is just a very enjoyable, goofy romp that actually moved me to tears a few times, notably during Costner’s big speech toward the end. How much of that is my baggage that I bring to this film is negotiable. The power that Costner had is not. I really feel for him in this film, and I don’t mean just his character. At one point he gives a pep talk to Judd Nelson through a rolled up car window and locked door, running at full speed to keep up with the moving automobile, in Texas, in a black tuxedo. That’s commitment. It really saddens me to look over what became of his acting career, how dour and joyless his performances became. Just looking at FANDANGO (still my favorite film he’s ever been in) and SILVERADO, it’s hard to imagine this live wire becoming so bland so quickly. For a long time I claimed that THE UNTOUCHABLES was his best casting ever, if only because Elliot Ness is supposed to be flavorless compared to everyone around him. Not that I have anything against THE UNTOUCHABLES.

A few more things. First, Elizabeth Daily is in this film. I have had the biggest crush on her forever. Then I realized that she was the voice of Tommy Pickles. Now I have the biggest crush on her that I find slightly disturbing. Second, I could have done with just the one appearance of Truman Sparks (Marvin J. McIntyre), the hippy-dippy skydiving instructor and pilot. Don’t get me wrong, I love his introduction in the short shorts and the milk all over his face, and all of his instruction to Phil (ARCH! ARCH!) is priceless, but a little pothead humor* goes a long way. This and the bits where we see Kevin Costner’s dreams, either waking or literal, are the only real missteps (although I do have to admit the stunt flying in this film is amazing). Third, apparently Steven Spielberg took his name off this film when he saw the finished product, which is disappointing to say the least. Fourth, Quentin Tarantino is an outspoken fan of this film, which happens to feature a scene of Sam Robards car surfing with the aid of several belts fastened together…

Which brings me back to the beginning. Me and my friend. Watching this movie around eleven years ago. We don’t really see each other anymore, not for any reason other than life getting in the way, the years fogging our vision. We never really got a proper goodbye, and neither do most of the characters in this film. But the ones that do will clearly remember them for the rest of their lives.

“Here’s to us, by god. To us, and that, and privileges of youth. Here’s to us and what we were.”

“And what we’ll be.”

*I should note that this friend of mine and I spent our final years of high school consuming all manner of drugs. We were about to pass a bong that I had just loaded prior to the skydiving scene (another example of this being the right film at the right time). My friend looked from the screen, with a moronic, laughable pothead character, to me, offering a smoldering bong. The look on his face as he shook his head ‘no’ is branded on my brain, one of the most cutting and precise moments of judgment I’ve ever felt. I wasn’t hurt: I knew he was right.