Bruno Mars loves Mary Jane: Zendaya from Spider-Man: Homecoming accidentally resembles vintage MJ in the "Versace on the Floor" video

This is the 11th of 13 or 14 all-new blog posts that are being posted on a monthly basis until this blog's final post in December 2017.

WARNING: Spoilers for Spider-Man: Homecoming ahead.

The best thing about Pee-wee's Big Holiday is that it will introduce a new generation of viewers to Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

"You ever been in a fight?," wonders Joe Manganiello--who stars as himself in the new Netflix original movie Pee-wee's Big Holiday--to Pee-wee Herman (Paul Reubens), the Magic Mike star's new best friend, as Joe realizes Pee-wee has never left his hometown of Fairville and has basically lived an uneventful life.

"No," replies Pee-wee.

"You ever broken a rule?"

"No."

"You ever had two women fight over you?"

But this time Pee-wee has to pause for a couple of beats to try to remember. If you've been down with Pee-wee since the classic 1985 Tim Burton movie Pee-wee's Big Adventure (or maybe even as far back as The Pee-wee Herman Show, Reubens' early '80s L.A. stage show at the Roxy, which the Groundlings alum revived on Broadway to much success in 2010), you might recall that the bow-tied man-child had to choose between the affections of a really hot Italian trapeze artist played by Valeria Golino--her hotness is the most rewatchable part of 1988's poorly received Big Top Pee-wee, the last Pee-wee flick--and a schoolteacher played by Penelope Ann Miller during Big Top. In this age of meta-humor permeating everything from Rick and Morty to Deadpool, you'd expect Pee-wee to break the fourth wall, wink at the audience and make a reference to that love triangle from 28 years ago.

But Pee-wee doesn't do so. He instead replies with "Have I? No." Or maybe Reubens is indeed referencing the last movie, and the brief pause is his way of saying, "Yeah, the public was right: Big Top Pee-wee was kind of a mistake. But enough about that movie!"

Whatever the case, Pee-wee movies aren't known for being constantly self-aware and meta like the Muppet movies. Pee-wee's Big Holiday, which centers on Pee-wee's cross-country odyssey to attend Joe's star-studded birthday party at his Manhattan penthouse, doesn't really acknowledge any of the events from the prior Pee-wee movies because it actually takes place in its own separate continuity, just like how the Randal Kleiser-directed Big Top doesn't take place in the same continuity as Pee-wee's Big Adventure's. Certain traits of Pee-wee's will always remain constant--the red bow tie, the too-small gray suit, the white shoes, the mischievous giggling, the Rube Goldberg gadgets, the weird animal sidekicks (whether they're puppets or actual animals)--but Reubens has interestingly always rebooted his own character in each Pee-wee project, including the beloved and timeless Pee-wee's Playhouse. Even after 38 years of man-child antics, Pee-wee's basically still a work-in-progress.

You know the amiable Pee-wee who hosted a Saturday morning kids' show that was meant for all ages--aside from an occasional double entendre related to Miss Yvonne, the most beautiful woman in Puppetland, or an L.A. Law-era Jimmy Smits cameoing as a repairman who catches Miss Yvonne's eye and suggestively talks about his "tools" and knowing how to use them? That Pee-wee was quite different from the more devilish Pee-wee who attached mirrors to his shoes to peek at girls' panties in the not-for-kids Pee-wee Herman Show, which was a parody of the type of old-fashioned, Howdy Doody-ish kids' show Pee-wee's Playhouse would later channel in a much less parodic fashion that was also still somehow subversive, due mostly to the presence of then-unprecedented-on-American-TV characters like a black cowboy and an animated Latino superhero who speaks only in unsubtitled Spanish.



One of the funniest running jokes in Pee-wee's Big Adventure centers on Pee-wee's obliviousness to how much Dottie (future legendary voice actor E.G. Daily), the pretty bike shop employee who tries to cajole him into taking her out to the drive-in, is in love with him. He's more in love with his bike. It's a riff on the weird behavior of little boys who think the opposite sex is yucky and haven't quite figured out yet that the opposite sex--or whatever sex they'll later become attracted to--isn't really so yucky. In another bit of soft rebooting way before the term existed, Big Top rebooted the "Ew, girls are gross" Pee-wee as a slightly more mature Pee-wee who juggles two women and gets laid off-screen.

Big Top turned Pee-wee into yet another conventional rom-com lead, and it wasn't what the public wanted from Reubens at the time. They weren't interested in a more sensitive and lovey-dovey Pee-wee (they also clearly wanted to see the playhouse itself make the jump to the big screen, not Pee-wee in some '50s circus movie). The public was right: Big Top's elimination of one of Big Adventure's best running jokes ended up sapping Pee-wee of a lot of the comic anarchy that made Big Adventure so enjoyable and endlessly rewatchable.

But Reubens' refusal to repeat himself in Big Top, even when it results in artistic failure, is also one of the most admirable things about the Pee-wee movies as a comedy franchise in a world of comedy franchises that misguidedly believe that constantly rehashing jokes is a wise creative move. When the audience wanted Pee-wee to remain asexual, Reubens pushed against that. Or when the audience was itching for the immensely popular likes of Chairy, Pterri and Conky 2000 to share the big screen with Pee-wee, Reubens gave them a talking pig instead.

Throwback Thursday: Bridesmaids

Every Throwback Thursday, I pull out from my desk cabinet--with my eyes closed--a movie ticket stub I didn't throw away, and then I discuss the movie on the ticket. Today, instead of drawing some random ticket, I'm intentionally pulling out the ticket that says "Bridesmaids" because of last week's release of the enjoyably subversive Spy, the third--and certainly not the last--film in a bunch of collaborations between Melissa McCarthy and director Paul Feig, whose successful partnership started with Bridesmaids.

The 2011 smash hit Bridesmaids may be the first Judd Apatow-produced comedy where I prefer the unrated cut on Blu-ray/DVD over the shorter theatrical cut. Unrated cuts of Apatow comedies usually wind up with a little too much filler--these already two-hour-plus comedies end up becoming even longer--but the unrated Bridesmaids cut rules over them all, simply because it contains a genuinely funny scene that should have been part of the theatrical cut. It's when star/co-screenwriter Kristen Wiig's character Annie (named after Annie Mumolo, Wiig's Bridesmaids writing partner)--a single lady in her late 30s who's not enjoying the loneliness of the single life and is worried that she's being similarly shunted aside by her bride-to-be best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph)--gets grilled by the inquisitive son of one of her blind dates. The kid, who, of course, has no filter, is too young to understand that his questions and comments are on the rude side ("Your hair looks burned").



I can see why it was excised. Paul Feig--a longtime master of cringe comedy, whether it was in the episodes he directed for The Office or the material he wrote for Freaks and Geeks, the classic Feig/Apatow collabo that lifted tons of real-life cringeworthy moments from the adolescences of both Feig and Apatow--must have felt that Annie had been through enough humiliating moments in the theatrical cut already, and this awkward living room talk with the little boy was one too many. But the uncomfortable talk amusingly points out how Annie's douchey fuckbuddy Ted (an uncredited Jon Hamm)--the most evil character in the film, even more so than Rose Byrne's character, who, unlike Ted, actually changes and becomes less evil over the course of the film--behaves exactly like this kid. "Your hair looks burned" and "My grandma died where your sitting... right where your underpants are..." are lines that could have easily come out of Ted's mouth.

Also, I'm a connoisseur of scenes where actors are trying their damnedest not to laugh. Towards the end of the living room scene, Wiig can be seen breaking character and laughing, just like when she had to turn her face away from the camera during her MacGruber sex scene with Will Forte because his weird-sounding moans and the sweat droplets landing on her face were causing her to corpse. Part of the enjoyment of the living room scene is due to Wiig's own enjoyment of interacting with this weird kid, and her reactions bring to mind Eddie Murphy's visible amusement over Bronson Pinchot's ad-libs during Beverly Hills Cop, which Elvis Mitchell once pointed out as a rare moment of Murphy getting a kick out of letting another comedic performer upstage him.

In fact, quite a few of the other deleted scenes that made it to Bridesmaids' extended cut contain shots of actors corpsing or trying to hide it. The audio commentary even points out when Byrne--so good as Annie's wealthy and ultra-competitive nemesis Helen--is corpsing behind an airplane seat that's shielding her lips from the camera. She does it while watching Melissa McCarthy improvise dialogue as Megan--the amusingly unfiltered, Guy Fieri bowling-shirt-clad character who landed McCarthy a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination and kicked off a De Niro/Scorsese-style partnership with Feig that's continued with The Heat, Spy and next year's all-female Ghostbusters reboot featuring Thor as the new Janine--during Megan's attempt to seduce her seat neighbor (McCarthy's real-life husband, Tammy director Ben Falcone) as Annie's experiencing her pill-induced airborne meltdown. Also, Byrne's eyes are clearly saying, "Aw shit, Kristen, please don't cause me to corpse during this take," when she sees Wiig singing gospel in an old-timey voice. That's how funny the material in Bridesmaids was: not even the actors whom you'd expect not to corpse because of their largely non-comedic bodies of work (Byrne is best known for that hilarious knee-slapper of a show, Damages) were immune to corpsing.



Speaking of immunity, I've always been immune to chick flicks. During the holiday season, I'm allergic to Love Actually. I prefer Johnnie To over Johnny Depp. So I wouldn't have given Bridesmaids the time of day had I not known the Freaks and Geeks duo of Feig and Apatow was involved. But any time those two join forces, the results are bound to be terrific, and, of course, Bridesmaids turned out to be better than the average chick flick. It makes sharp observations about class issues (Annie is still reeling from the failure of her Milwaukee bakery, which she made the mistake of opening during the recession, and her economic woes are partly to blame for the dissolution of her friendship with Lillian) and the excesses and absurdities of American wedding culture. It doesn't end with Annie making a clichéd rom-com run through the city streets to tell Chris O'Dowd's cop character she loves him. Old SNL buddies Wiig and Rudolph (I love how her character's parents are Franklin Ajaye and Miss Yvonne) have chemistry for days, including during their one dramatic scene together. Feig's ability to let all six of the female principals--many of whom are, by the way, Groundlings alums--shine comedically makes me eager to see him handle the Ghostbusters reboot that's set to drop in summer 2016. The cameo by Wilson Phillips of "Hold On" fame makes for a good gag about Helen's competitive nature, even though Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle's use of "Hold On" remains funnier.

Oh yeah, and the film is consistently hilarious. You're left wanting more of Annie and the new friends she's made from her duties as maid of honor, but at the same time, you're relieved that Wiig--whose movie canon, as Vanity Fair once said a year before she had her first massive hit with Bridesmaids, has been an acting lesson on how to be funny without being the loudest person in the room--never gave in to greed and rejected the idea of a Bridesmaids sequel. Except for The Great Muppet Caper, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Police Story 3: Supercop, Addams Family Values, 2011's The Muppets, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas and 22 Jump Street, modern-day (as in post-Star Wars) comedy movie sequels have never been any good, and I get the feeling Wiig is aware of that. "We knew during the first one, this was it," said Wiig to Harper's Bazaar in 2013. A sequel would be as pointless as one of Annie's many blind-dates-gone-bad.

"Rock Box" Track of the Day: The Bar-Kays, "Too Hot to Stop"

Song: "Too Hot to Stop" by The Bar-Kays
Released: 1976
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: It accompanies both the Foxy Brown-style opening credits of Superbad and Bernie Mac's slap-happy entrance scene in Head of State. In Superbad, "Too Hot to Stop" was an immediate sign that the Apatow production's soundtrack was going to be anything but irritatingly twee ("I want to tongue kiss whoever decided to keep the movie devoid of any twee music. Seriously, I do. Preferably with a Curtis Mayfield song blasting," wrote film blogger Kim Morgan in 2007). The 1976 tune is from the Mercury Records-era incarnation of The Bar-Kays, which opted for more of a P-Funk-influenced sound than the Stax-era incarnation that gave us 1967's "Soul Finger" (a classic I first heard while watching Spies Like Us as a kid).

Because of its line "I don't mind if I'm considered uncool," "Too Hot to Stop" was a fitting choice for a film that involves a kid like McLovin who doesn't care how uncool he looks when he tries to spit game. Too bad Superbad couldn't find some way to work in The Bar-Kays' equally fitting 1981 jam "Freaky Behavior" during the party scenes or the moments of awkward second base.

"Rock Box" Track of the Day: Vampire Weekend, "A-Punk"

Song: "A-Punk" by the yacht-rocker-wardrobe-loving band Vampire Weekend
Released: 2008
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: I have no idea what exactly this song's about, but it opens my second favorite Adam McKay movie after Anchorman. In addition to Step Brothers, "A-Punk" has also been featured on the Britcom The Inbetweeners.

The foul-mouthed Step Brothers premieres tonight at 8 on FX with all of its f-words gone and one of its best gags--the sight of demure Mary Steenburgen unleashing an f-bomb--ruined.

"Rock Box" Track of the Day: Brother Noland, "Coconut Girl"

Song: "Coconut Girl" by Brother Noland
Released: 1982
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: It's featured in Pineapple Express.
Which moment in Pineapple Express does it appear?: It accompanies the montage of pothead Dale (Seth Rogen) and his dealer Saul (current Best Actor Oscar nominee James Franco, in a performance I thought he should have been nominated for) hanging out with a trio of tough-talking kids they sold weed to. Dale and Saul's interaction with "Chachi" and his friends is reminiscent of the naturalistic scenes between the kids and Paul Schneider's railroad worker character in Pineapple Express director David Gordon Green's earlier film, the much more serious George Washington. Who knew Green would turn out to be such a good comedy director in Pineapple Express and Eastbound & Down? (Green's next film reunites him with Franco and Danny McBride--it's Your Highness, the medieval comedy that's become an Internet sensation because of, mmm, Natalie Portman in a thong).

Yesterday's "Rock Box" track was part of a Sym-Bionic Titan episode that was a source of minor controversy. Today's "Rock Box" track is also tied to some controversy--in England, that is. Pineapple Express was more controversial in England than it was here in America. Because they found the stoner kids sequence offensive, the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification), the English equivalent of the MPAA, gave the film an 18 certificate (their NC-17), which Columbia Pictures didn't want. The studio was shooting for a 15 for their release, so Columbia, Rogen and the Judd Apatow-led producers agreed to delete the stoner kids sequence to get a 15. Yeah, that BBFC uproar really stopped British kids from sneaking in to Pineapple Express like The Green Hornet said he used to do as a kid in order to glimpse racier fare when he noted that "I've been seeing R-rated movies since I was 12 years old and I'm okay!"

The maligned-in-the-U.K. sequence gives some nice exposure to a catchy tune I never heard before. "Coconut Girl," which was a radio hit in Brother Noland's home state of Hawaii, is an example of a sound called "Jawaiian," a genre that mixes Caribbean and Hawaiian elements. According to a 1992 Billboard article, the Jawaiian sound exploded in Hawaii in 1990 before peaking sales-wise in 1991.

From Honolulu magazine's 2010 "100 Years of Hawaiian Music" article:

Jawaiian became the scapegoat of choice for Hawaiian music buffs lamenting the decline of traditional culture. Not that it did anything to quell the reggae takeover. “If you talk to Hawaiian music purists, they revile Jawaiian,” says Amy Stillman. “If you talk to the rank and file, though, they love it. As soon as they’re out of halau, that’s what’s on the radio on the drive home. It’s expressing thoughts and sentiments that are relevant, in a musical language that is relevant.”

"Rock Box" Track of the Day: The Who, "I'm One"

Song: "I'm One" by The Who (because today is 1/11/11)
Released: 1973
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: It's featured in the 2000 Freaks and Geeks episode "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers."
Which moment in "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers" does it appear?: The wordless sequence where latchkey kid Bill Haverchuck (Martin Starr) comes home from school looking rather miserable after a not-so-great day, makes himself a grilled cheese (with chocolate cake on the side), flips on Dinah Shore's talk show Dinah! and laughs his ass off to a set by Dinah's guest comic Garry Shandling.

During the outstanding two-part WTF episode where he interviewed Freaks and Geeks writer/producer Judd Apatow, host Marc Maron said the "I'm One" sequence was the Freaks and Geeks moment that resonated with him the most because it relates to how "comedy was really one of the few things that made [Apatow and I] happy, that made us feel good, that took away the pain, that gave us the sense that things were going to be okay."

Apatow, who co-wrote "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers," lifted the "I'm One" sequence from his own life as a child of divorced parents who found refuge in comedy and watched hours of stand-ups on talk shows after school. "I was at my fantasy world watching Michael Keaton do stand-up on The Mike Douglas Show, and I couldn't have been happier," Apatow told Maron. "I look back on it as a great time. I don't think, 'Oh, that was so sad. I was alone in my room.' I was like Bill, laughing my ass off, watching Jay Leno in 1979 on The Mike Douglas Show."

During the filming of the sequence, Apatow and "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers" co-writer Bob Nickman got Starr to laugh so hard by telling him the dirtiest jokes off-camera. Both funny and poignant (it's Apatow's ultimate salute to his mentor and Larry Sanders Show boss Shandling, whom Apatow first met as a teen when he interviewed him for the high school radio show that Maron played excerpts from on WTF), the sequence is one of many reasons why viewers like myself love Freaks and Geeks, and it's enhanced by The Who's 1973 track from Quadrophenia.

Because the freaks half of the episode revolved around a Who concert, every existing song during "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers" is a Who track, except for "Summer Breeze" by Seals and Crofts (this was a few years before the CSI franchise introduced the band's songs to a new generation of viewers). No other track on the show perfectly encapsulates Bill, the geek who's most comfortable in his own skin and with his lot in life ("I'm a loser--no chance to win") and doesn't care what others think of him ("And I can see/That this is me"). His sense of humor helps take away the pain.

"Rock Box" Track of the Day: The Roots, "Here I Come"

Song: "Here I Come" by The Roots featuring Malik B. & Dice Raw
Released: 2006
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: It's featured in Superbad. (It also appears in the Hancock closing credits.) "Here I Come" is the most upbeat (and party-friendly, hence its inclusion in Superbad) track on 2006's Game Theory, The Roots' most militant and brooding-sounding album. Game Theory was a bold move for their first album for Def Jam, a label that many feared would interfere with The Roots' sound and force the band to be more mainstream (luckily, Def Jam's been hands-off). You may be more familiar with the faster-paced version of "Here I Come" that The Roots perform each weeknight during the opening titles and end credits of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Dammit, Fallon! That was supposed to be the theme song for my talk show! You know, the one I host in my basement with my special guests, a cardboard cutout of Liza Minnelli and a cardboard cutout of Jerry Lewis?
Which moment in Superbad does it appear?: The scene where Jonah Hill, Michael Cera and Christopher Mintz-Plasse finally arrive at Emma Stone's party.

Speaking of Superbad, last night's Daily Show superimposed the face of a crying John Boehner from 60 Minutes over the body of McLovin while he lost his virginity in the movie. That cracked my ish up.

Hear Black Thought, Malik B. and Dice Raw disturb the peace.

All the other "Rock Box" Tracks of the Day from this week:
Classic & 86, "Ridin'"
Pulp, "Like a Friend"
Run-DMC, "Rock Box"
The Crystal Method, "Starting Over"

Recappin' and yappin'

Because of the Judd Apatow media empire's success with The 40-Year-Old Virgin and this summer's Knocked Up, Alan Sepinwall has been recapping episodes of Apatow's earlier work, the cult favorite Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000), all summer long on his What's Alan Watching? blog. Sepinwall ought to compile his insightful recaps into a book--maybe a Freaks and Geeks Compendium like that Star Trek Compendium tome I bought when I was a kid and was into Star Trek reruns. I recommend checking out Alan's recaps, as well as the interesting fan discussions in the comments section. If you're a Freaks and Geeks fan like I am, you probably already have read two or three of the recaps.

The recaps have made me want to dust off my limited edition Freaks and Geeks yearbook box set and revisit some of the eps, especially one of my personal favorites that Alan has recapped, "Girlfriends and Boyfriends," which features some great non-verbal acting by Linda Cardellini and John Francis Daley. The scene between them at the end of "Girlfriends and Boyfriends," in which Lindsay comes home from her bizarre Styx-scored evening with Nick and watches her brother Sam get stuck on the phone with Cindy Sanders, who's prattling on and on about the jock she's crushing on, is my favorite Lindsay/Sam moment, as well as one of my favorite scenes in the whole series. The way Lindsay and Sam interact in this scene is a lot like how I interact with my older sister.

Alan's posts have even made me want to watch the last three or four eps, including the series finale, "Discos and Dragons," all eps I never saw because I was so bummed about the show's cancellation.