Naked Cheerleaders Are Funny! Robot Conquest Is Funny! Mandy Moore’s Underwear Is Frou-Frou!

McBifurcations and Bloviations
Random dribbles on the passing (trash) cultural scene….

You’re Fired!… UP!
The uproarious cheerleader comedy Fired Up was rightly overlooked in theaters due to Sony Pictures’ misguided insistence on its carrying a carcinogenic PG-13 rating.

The shame of this is that Fired Up is the funniest Hollywood studio comedy in years.

The DVD corrects Sony’s attempted abortion by restoring Kate French’s topless scene and adding even more wickedly witty dialogue, which the cast delivers (I dare declare) brilliantly.

Especially rich are Eric Christian Olson as one of the machine-gun-tongued gridiron Romeos and Juliette Goglia as a wheeler dealer kid sister, the ultimate junior varsity update of Clint Howard’s Eaglebauer from Rock-N-Roll High School (1979).

Despite its lineage, Fired Up reminded me not so much of any previous pom-pom spectacles as it did of the classic sitcom Bosom Buddies, in terms of inventive writing, the rat-a-tat rhythm of the jokes, and a pair of likeable, charismatic heroes transforming a formula set-up (horny jocks sneak into the all-girl camp in hopes of scoring big) into something original and, most importantly, hilarious.

Fired Up is a riot and deserves a severe cult following, like, now. Let’s make this happen, team!

*

Edelstein Must Not Be Destroyed
David Edelstein became my favorite film critic in print back in the ’80s, when I was a teenager and he was the lone sane movie reviewer at the Village Voice.

Currently at New York magazine, Edelstein remains the best in the business.

Any time I’m not waxing mongoloidal about some actress’s nipples and, instead, attempting something like heady cinematic analysis, this is the man I’m imitating.

*

¡Sí, Señor Computer!
The Strange Case of Señor Computer (2001) is a black-and-white no-fi sci-fi gem that I initially picked up for a couple of bucks, years ago, at Mondo Kim’s on St. Mark’s Place.

It’s a Frankenstein-esque parable about a dorky inventor who concocts the titular robot in hope that it will teach him how better to cope socially and romantically.

The robot names itself Ike and, in a gut-busting moment after watching Bewitched, it dials every Darren Stevens in the phone book to alert him that his wife is “a sorceress.”

Ike eventually way out-suaves his creator, leading to inevitable heartbreak.

The beguiling, thought-provoking Strange Case was written and directed by the improbably named Tom Sawyer, whose only other credit seems to be Señor Computer, the 1997 short from which this feature was adapted.

Amazon’s got copies for sale. As with Fired Up, here is a cult that deserves to come into being, as surely as the pride of McMahon & Tate Advertising deserves to know the truth about his black-magic-conjuring spouse.

*

More Moore, Moore!
The A section of my iTunes library kicks off with ABBA, Abigail, Ace Frehley, Alice Cooper, Anal Cunt, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, and The Archies.

In keeping with my dual female-dairy-equipment fixation on the tiniest of titlets and the most jamambo of monster-jugs, my preferred modes of music tend to careen between the sweetest of pop and the heaviest of metal.

This leads us to “I Could Break Your Heart Any Day of the Week”, the new single from prissy, but eminently likable (and chesty!), Top 40 diva turned chick-flick mainstay Mandy Moore.

As usual, I first heard the song while watching the video, and the great Rachel Everso immediately pointed out that its synthesized harpsichord-and-hand-claps progression is lifted almost directly from “How Much Love” by Leo Sayer.

Do click those links to watch both videos and compare.

And then ponder, as I have relentlessly, the bizarrely aborted comical payoff toward which the entire Mandy Moore clip drives - and then swerves off a cliff into a sea of limpness.

The “I Could Break Your Heart” video’s lone gag – and it is a good one – is that Mandy plays this chick in a trench coat who’s inexplicably hanging out at a karate school, presumably on some sort of mission that we will happily wait to see play out.

After a few solid minutes of her merely leaning on a wall, seeming to be waiting for someone or something, a muy musculoso sensei lumbers in. Mandy opens her coat, distracts him with her killer body, and power-kicks him right in the schnuts. Then she turns and struts out.

As noted, it’s a great one-joke idea, and the song (again, as previously established by Mr. Sayer) is irresistible. But Mandy’s wardrobe choice castrates the entire endeavor, way more potently than even her hard-swung  pump to the karate guy’s groin possible could.

For it to work, when she flashes the karate instructor, it should be implied that Mandy is nude or, at least, we should see her in a bikini.

Instead, Mandy is clad in some whalebone 1840s undergarment get-up that may have once been described as a “slip”, but looks more like – and covers even more flesh than – Cinderella’s ball gown.

And thus the gag is rendered essentially indecipherable.

To wit: Is this hulking martial-arts bruiser a connoisseur of Victorian-era finery? Otherwise, what exactly is so stupefying to him?

Despite her early jailbait MTV efforts and some wickedly hot near-nudity in movies – plus dying young in A Walk to Remember (2002), which moved me uncomfortably close to producing waterworks (from my eyes, for once) – Mandy does come off as prudish and Buzz-Killington-esque, and this costume choice is enough of a bummer to make the video a head-scratching classic.

Regardless, here’s hoping “I Could Break Your Heart Any Day of the Week” is one of the monster jams of Summer 2009.

Please note: The last section of this blog post is the most important piece to have ever appeared on McBeardo.com. In fact, it may be the most important thing I - or anyone else - will write. Ever. Bask in this moment.

Browse Timeline

• « The Cum Shots of a Conservative
• » Hang (Yourself) In There - Top 100 Cult Movie Nude Scenes IS Coming!

Comments ( 4 )

Add a Comment