Tuesday, May 23, 2023

THE ROCKETEER: THERE'S JUST SOMETHING ABOUT A 1930s JETPACK


 




 

















Luke Russert: we deserve a break, a rest. let's go to the Cannes Film Festival. my dad got us tickets. they're screening Asteroid City, Wes's new film.  

the trio dodge the paparazzi and sit on the WAY FAR END of the theater in the nosebleed balcony seats as the show starts to flicker. 
Luke: did you see the Monte Carlo yachts on the way in? they're the tugboats this year.
Lindy Lenz: yeah. it's cool all the yachts are electric this year, all powered down below in the hull from Uncle Sam the diamond.

i'm feeling down. i crawl into one of the bungalow slits hidden in the ceiling and invite Lindy to come snuggle with me in bed.
me: Jen R and i used to cuddle like this. i miss her. i want her to be my BEDMATE FOR LIFE, i always want to be spooning her in bed, even when we're at work. all the good women are ALWAYS GONE, ALWAYS NEVER AROUND.
Lindy: i know, dear. and thanks a lot. have you told her how you feel?
me: she's NEVER AROUND.
Lindy: you gotta move your body. in a nonsexual way. you gotta get up again and move around, jump up and down as you dance, get your blood pumping, get the circulation going, get out of this confined space with the low ceiling and yearn for another tightness, listen to some Tina Turner music and get DOWN!!! 

Wes Anderson on stage: i know this is super weird, guys, it's strange days at Blake Holsey High. this club is even more exclusive than the Illuminati, i mean to get a ticket HERE to watch a movie exclusively HERE IN THIS VENUE, i mean like only 9 people are ever given tickets, you know? it is a DREAM to watch a film at Cannes, NOBODY HAS ACCESS.
Billy Campbell in the Rocketeer suit with his burnished helmet off bumrushing the stage: i am soy bomb. no my helmet will not explode. i came up with all the ideas for Star Wars and everything and especially all this Asteroid City crap, i came up with it first, all the rocket stuff in this space movie is from the '90s and me.  
security tackles Billy to the ground but he bounces back up.

me: thank you. i feel inspired again. thanks, Lindz.
Lindy: Lindz Lenz? say it.
me: okay fine, YOU inspire me.
Lindy: let's get back to work.
Luke: right.

Luke: the monastery is right over there around this island. walking on water, no boat required. well that's convenient...
water convent: ...
Luke: the monastery has a boat port, how cute.
Aaron Rodgers: how quaint.
Thomas Merton: you wanna fight about it, you washed-up Jets quarterback? i never played sports and imma STILL grind your nose down.
Abbot Butt: i'm afraid i can't offer you weary travelers any provisions except for one Fruit Rollup on a silver platter at night i toss into the monastery basement where you're shackled up in chains. 
Lindy: my sex life hasn't been this kinky since that Madonna concert at the mall.
Luke: save all that basement wine for me. where do you think Oldo is now? where'd that nut scamper off to? we've searched everywhere.

Lindy: in order to find Oldo we gotta piece Starscream back together.
Lindy does all this painstaking work herself, it takes 9 years, but finally Starscream is all back together like a nursery-rhyme egg.
Starscream: want some water? my fingers are tin mugs.
Lindy: no water, just Courvoisier in Benadryl. 
Starscream: after you drink it, that'll work as lubricant for me. i'm scanning for Oldo now across the breadth of this planet with my fixed both meanings orbital tracking lazers.........THERE HE IS!!!
Luke: OLDO!!! WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN?!!!
Oldo: i was hiking and hiding, i was playing solitaire with my stick, i was holing up to forget the world. lost on a mountain? yeah but it's not what you think. my name is Julian Sands and i don't want to talk about it. i don't want to talk to you unless you agree to a safari in the desert.

Lindy: take it from here, you know what to do.
me: right.
i take Starscream to the nursing home i work at. Starscream transforms into a vacuum and i vacuum up my room there for the first time, ALL those nasty tiny pebbles of kitty litter seeped into my carpet. 
me: thank you. but i'm able-bodied. do you want to help a VERY SPECIAL LADY who's crippled at the moment by humanity's ignorance?
Starscream: sure. i'm gonna like having a woman boss after Megatron.
the old lady in question is Fuerza who's elderly and frail and bedridden and is convalescing next to a brown fern.
Fuerza: *whispering to the fourth wall* of course this is all for show, call it an AI experiment. 
Starscream: how can i help you, miss?
Fuerza: transform yourself into my commode.
Starscream: can you bend?
Fuerza: i'm on my broken knees until you marry me.
Starscream: with smell or without smell?
Fuerza: with. i want the stench of URINE ON ALL FOUR WALLS. the breath mint was the worst invention of man, i made you so you'd be able to talk to each other with your BAD BREATHS and be natural about it.
Starscream: ma'am, it seems me as a commode is not fitting onto your perfect butt. i'm gonna have to break apart the lid of your toilet so the commode can fit.
Fuerza: oh my perfect butt. every night my perfect human butt on your robot face...

Sir Alec Guinness: Kind Hearts and Coronets, i played ALL 25 PARTS OF THE MOTION PICTURE AT THE SAME TIME.
Queen Elizabeth II wearing a coronet: we are not amused.
Karen Carpenter: are we on the soundtrack?
Gerard Way: are we? see, EVERYONE thinks it's Freddy not Freddie Mercury!!! i will never meet with Joe Rogan...
Alec: that was back in the day when movies were made on a budget of a wad of gum. the '30s, the '40s. i was doing Jedi mind tricks WAY BEFORE i Obi-Wan-Kenobi'd your arse.

Marie biscuit: i never get soggy...
Goya Maria: you'd think i'd be a salsa biscuit. but i'm actually a chocolate biscuit that you can't resist despite your better judgment. we're voting for Biden in 2024...

Viennetta: cafeteria cake.........served only at Westwood Junior High...
Pasqually: they used my concertina to pattern the ice-cream cake's famous ridges.
Ruffles: ...

LeBron: basketball? yeah i think i'm done with basketball. i'm thinking of becoming a United Nations ambassador...

Celtics: we didn't get swept, we have pride, Celtic pride...

Steve Miller Band "Abracadabra": i feel the magic when i touch your breast uh dress...

Eye Luggage: The Rocketeer and go.
Jennifer Connelly: makes no sense, why wasn't i NAKED in this? OHHHH NOW I SEE, this is a DISNEY MOVIE!!!...
Dirg: right? i mean why have Jennifer Connelly at all if she can't get naked? why have her ONLY in a nice white chiffon silky ballroom dinner dress?
Jennifer: we were all happy when we thought you were gone forever, Dirg.

The Rocketeer: what a LOVELY LILTING NAME!!! freeform flow off the tongue. and it's so 1930s, too.
Eye: a lot of goth is informed by the 1930s. not in a good way.
The Rocketeer: it's like combining Musketeer with a rocket and a leather cape. has that buccaneer whimsy of airy Errol Flynn. 

Jennifer Connelly: and the IRONIC thing is that in the Rocketeer comic books my character is actually a NUDE MODEL!!! a Bettie Page-like hourglass-figure woman. see? i was PERFECT CASTING after all!!!
Baby Esther: people still don't believe I, a black jazz singer named Esther Jones in the '20s and '30s, was the inspiration for Betty Boop. but i was.
Jennifer: that Kane v. Fleischer sounds like it was one FUN court case to watch.

Jennifer Connelly: sigh, i didn't get Titanic so i guess i'll do this...

Laertus's dad: a period superhero film with all the period pieces and sets and design and look of 1938 Los Angeles. i love all this stuff. i love all this Old Hollywood stuff.
Dirg: isn't this around the time period when Satanism started to gain strength in Los Angeles? secret meetings in linoleum kitchens with the drapes drawn from noon to 1PM...
Laertus's dad: oh and keep the ART DECO poster!!! that's rad square-lined art, and it's already Oscars-ready!!! don't go with that bland pedestrian standard poster with the three leads' faces on it, that poster sucked.

Billy Campbell: i was PERFECT CASTING, i have that punchable-face quality, i look like i simply LEAPED out of the pages of a comic book.........but that didn't help my fortunes any. this was supposed to be a trilogy but the other two movies were never made for lack of funds. i was all ready to have a career playing squeaky-clean good guys but instead i turned to the DARK SIDE and became the villain of The 4400. taking a 365-day yacht ride alone in the Pacific Ocean after getting rejected to play Superman at my LAST audition will do that to a man.

Alan Arkin: i am everybody's Jewish grandfather. i am Adam Arkin's father. in fact the Rocketeer set here will later be used to film Chicago Hope. i had to have played Einstein at some point in my career, right?

Timothy Dalton: why didn't this movie do well? i was James Bond at the time. get it? me in my James Bond jetpack, twinsies...

Terry O'Quinn: i know how we can beat the Nazis. keep the Spruce Goose, America's secret weapon, keep it hidden on an island with polar bears, nobody will ever find it.

Paul Sorvino: aren't i better at playing the bad guy than the good guy? my face screams GANGSTER, how did i ever pull off playing a cop on Law & Order?...

Jon Polito: i have that everyman person-who-works-at-a-garage face. i must have played Super Mario at one point at least once, right?

Clint Howard: i'm no monk...

Melora Hardin: i have a beautiful singing voice, which will never be used again. i can sing hip-hop not just lounge. i look weird with brown hair.

Tiny Ron Taylor: my nickname is ironic. i coulda helped the Lakers win this year. Lothar? am i in Excalibur?

Pat Crawford Brown: i have one of those '90s faces, you know? you've seen my face, you recognize my face from that '90s show you used to watch...

Laertus: this truly does have a '90s feel to it. doing the '30s in the '90s.

Billy: Cliff Secord. like second, second-best, appropriate, a second-rate superhero. seacliff. like a sea cord, the cord i used to tug my private yacht all around the world, the seven seas, i stole that yacht because it was a cord without an anchor... 

Dave Stevens: what is it with comic-book creator nerds like me? all of us as a community, all us comics writers, we all need to marry a woman who looks like Bettie Page.
Paul Dini: i'm the same way.
Bruce Timm: i WANT to be like you two men...

Takahashi: yes my name is Wes, don't i have a Wes of a face?...

Michael Eisner: i wanted the helmet to be an astronaut's helmet to coincide with the big NASA launch. now that Elon Musk has bought outer space i don't give a fuck about pub no more.
Fuerza: that Musk money can only take you so far, he's only bought your solar system, when you zoom out your solar system is merely inside a giant black hole...
Takahashi: yeah. and instead you made the helmet looking like the superhero should have been named the Gold Hornet. like a Venture Bros. villain reject. it made me want to start on the live-action Green Hornet movie soon and next...

Eye: this is a bizarre opening scene. is this a movie set or are these in fact REAL gangster Ford coupe cars from the 1930s?...

Cliff: i fly my plane to advertise Bumblebee Tuna. i'm a stunt pilot who does flips, it's the 1930s so i only do ONE FLIP and crash into a barn and die. 

Neville Sinclair: Neville as in the chamberlain who appeased the Nazis...

Lothar by the hospital bed: this is my REAL FACE. i know, it looks like the prosthetic makeup used on my face was gobs of clay. Clayface anyone? i look like a Judge Doom goon reject from Who Framed Roger Rabbit... 

Peabody: i'm an airplane mechanic. i hang around. airplane garages are surprisingly tiny. why am i named Peevy? shouldn't it be Peaby?
Cliff: you irritate me, that's why.

Cliff: what do you think it is? it breathes fire like a dragon.
Peevy: looks like a 1930s vacuum cleaner.

and now this is Buck Rogers.
Roger Ebert: wanna make papier-mache volcanos with me? we'll make the lava from sparklers.

Errol Flynn: i was not a Nazi sympathizer. i just like Roman architecture for my mansion, honest...

Neville: i look like the guy from Princess Bride but with a thinner face...

Neville: i shall not kill you, i shall merely rearrange the flowers on your corsage with my Zorro saber...

Neville: and now we're filming some swashbuckling Anthony Bourdain pirate epic. what's this movie called? Young Frankenstein. i see. call me when my understudy Larry Olivier is ready.
acting: acting is acting as if you're not acting.
Shia LaBeouf: i wish i could teach it...

and now this is Call The Midwife. it's one of yours, no it's one of mine, the one phone in the lobby open for all the girls for all their gentleman callers like in Facts of Life.

Mrs. Pye: don't eat her pie. if he tries anything i'll bonk him over the head with my Olive Oyl watercan... 

Jennifer Connelly: let's see that pennystore motion picture about that dime Betty Boop.
Cliff: can't. copyrights, many court cases.

Jennifer Pizarro: the Curtiss, that's MY biplane.
Jen R: no that's MY twin biplane, it has the Sjogren's stick to pilot it.
Snoopy: no it's MY plane. the Red Baron hates root beer, that was the problem. reminded him of how nice Austria USED to be, painful memories.

Peevy: you got extra gascans in this jalopy?
Cliff: they're in the truckbed not the cabin.
Peevy: that was stupid of you. everyone in this time period drives a 1937 brown Ford pickup truck, classic Depression-era...

the roadside cafe was named after the original Yale bulldog...

Joe Johnston: this diner scene is proving too complicated and difficult.
Walt Disney: look at me, Joe, I MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE. only Disney can do this, only Disney can turn a comic book into a movie. HBO won't do this for you. and fuck Showtime.
Michael Jackson: listen to Uncle Walt, Joe. plus, St. Cyril's is a block away...

FBI: we're the FBI in the 1930s, we have to MOW DOWN every rickety shack of a house along a dirt road with our Tommy guns using 100,000 taxpayer bullets.

Beemans Gum: the Chekhov's Gun of this movie...
Laertus: i love how you use the gum. if you introduce the gum in the beginning, make sure it's the solution in the end...

the South Seas Club was originally called We're The Pirates of the Old Black Sea...

Jennifer Connelly: this club looks like the Iceberg Lounge from Batman.
Batman: yeah it's very deceiving. what's with all the glitz and glamour? this is only a couple years removed from the Great Depression, people are still LOW AND POOR and drive on dust wearing a brown jacket. the blue champagne soap bubbles and the giant pink seashell are a nice touch tho.

W.C. Fields: hey chickadee, i like your two tits i mean your two giant globes, one is Earth, one is Mars.
Jennifer Connelly: sir, i find you abhorrent and repellent. how can you not like children and dogs? how can you take a baby's lollipop away? how can you ignore a dog on the street? you will never get in this dress.
Greykid: i put a fire hydrant in your bed.
W.C. Fields: *speaking normally* great, my entire act was for naught. they said you could make a life if you knew how to Vaudeville...

Jennifer: you used a date-rape drug on me?
Neville: no my darling, it's knock-out gas on a handkerchief, it's chloroform on a napkin, chloroform is classy.
Jennifer: wait, my dress had a zipper this whole time?...

Griffith Observatory: no need for a set. use the REAL Griffith Observatory, it already looks like the 1930s...
Howard Hughes: and my office looks like the Citizen Kane fireplace...

Howard Hughes: i'm Elon Musk but good.

Disney: what's with our fascination with the Nazis?
Walt Disney: don't look at me.........i'm no Errol Flynn.........i kinda look like him but that's it...
Howard Hughes: i look like Walt Disney not Errol Flynn...

Howard Hughes: do i look like Doc Savage to you? the creator of Venture Bros.? is my wife Bettie Page in a saber-toothed-tiger loincloth? i was smiling when she wore that smilodon. i could play the father on Venture Bros. in the live-action remake, i have the perfect bald head for it...

Cliff: this is SCARY STUFF, why do the Nazis have better animators than us?
Batman: yeah that was the thing, people romanticized the 1930s but it was a TERRIBLE TIME. the Nazis were gaining strength, people literally thought the Nazis wold TAKE OVER THE ENTIRE WORLD. dystopia directly approaching... 

Batman: bring back zeppelins!!! right? they were so grand and noble, like massive whales in the sky. the da Vinci flying machine in giant gortex. commercial zeppelins in airports instead of airplanes. make the skies beautiful again, colorful again, it doesn't always have to end in yellow fire and grey smoke. i want to learn the electric guitar...    

Paul Sorvino: i may be a mook but i'm an American mook. i ain't no Kraut.........Kraut isn't much of an insult, calling someone a Nazi is far more nefarious. far more lethal and dangerous. Nazi really cuts down deep, Nazi really hurts. 

is it really worth $400,000 to blow up the Hollywoodland sign? just keep it up as Hollywoodland, it's a better name anyway...

Neville: i got the Third Reich on my side!!!
Cliff: i got gum.

Neville: oh shit i thought our war airship zeppelin was the Lindbergh...

Neville: this is all mommy's fault, she never gave me swimming lessons. can i still be a good guy who fights a mummy?...

Jennifer Connelly: is it just me or does Cliff's biplane now have MY FACE on it?... 

Billy Campbell: we did massive Pizza Hut and M&Ms cross-promotional campaigns advertising this but it did no good, nothing moved the needle in the slightest. back then Pizza Hut was indie and the M&Ms didn't talk. people really thought i was going to be the next Spider-Man. even the Nintendo video game of The Rocketeer SUCKED, it was voted THE WORST VIDEO GAME OF ALL TIME. hey, why didn't we do a BEEMANS GUM campaign with this film?!!! bring back Beemans Gum for the '90s!!! now in Blue Raspberry and Mondo Mustard!!! this fine period piece, perfect to promote pepsin. sigh. g'night folks. i still have the jetpack under my waterbed...  




  




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