Subject: ow ow! ow!
I'm half an hour into this piece of sh*t, and the tragedy so far is realizing that with the budget they must have had, they couldn't have paid Prochnow a fraction of what he should have gotten to debase himself like THIS. Ack! Barf! Ptooey! Turning it off isn't an option either, because he's actually a major character (as opposed to the Big Cheese Villain who only shows up twice in the whole movie). And just to be perverse, they made him look great.
Why? Why? Why? Why?
Excuse me. He's not onscreen at the moment, so I'm going to go get a migraine now.
Subject: Oh, GOD.
Now he's in a car chasing a Sea World tour bus that one of his "bitches" hopped onto to get away from him. Please come kill me.
Subject: I am not hysterical
any more, so before I get that way again I'd like to exercise my amazing powers of grasping the obvious by making a prediction. At the end of the movie Prochnow is going to die a delicate and tasteful death. NOT! Yeah - oh, here we go. He's eating dinner while having some poor shmuck tortured in front of him.
Subject: Uh-huh.
He just pushed a girl out of a helicopter; the good guy is struggling with him; and the pilot's been shot. Anybody want to go for "SPLAT"?
No, no - they're over water. He's going to fall in and get eaten by a shark 'cause he had someone eaten by a shark at the beginning of the movie.
Ha! There he goes. HA! There's the shark. He's toast.
I'm terribly disappointed, really... the way this was going for a while, I was betting on something good, like exploding eyeballs. Hollywood sure has gone downhill.
Subject: It's called
HURRICANE SMITH and stars Carl Weathers. And Jürgen Prochnow. If I had only known... I'd have invited myself over and made you watch it with me. Probably wouldn't have been a good idea, though - I can't imagine what kind of shape I'd be in right now if you were around. As it was, I laughed myself into a total stupor over that car chase.
Did I mention that it takes place in Australia? The nicest touch is that Prochnow's character was named Charlie. Nobody who speaks with that accent is called "Charlie." I had to rewind 5 minutes' worth after hearing that because I missed that much while I was sitting there muttering "Charlie?! What the...?"
I didn't get around to telling you this before his death became reasonably imminent, but there was a scene where he was lying on a bed with a buck-naked woman who was crawling all over him - but he was fully dressed except for bare feet(?). That one caused mental problems too. I had just gotten around to speculating that Jürgen Prochnow has a tattoo on his chest that says "Mother" when, in fact, after cutting away to another scene they did show him for an entire second with the shirt unbuttoned to the waist. There's no tattoo, but the shirt got buttoned up again mighty fast (A. He didn't have time. B. He wouldn't have done it under the circumstances.) There's definitely something going on with that. When I find out what it is, you'll be the first to know. You're welcome.
Subject: I forgot
to answer your question. He was not eating spaghetti during the torture scene (and actually, "torture" probably isn't the right word - it was more of a bloody beating). He was dining on eggs sunny-side up, very improperly cooked bacon, and a piece of toast.
I, on the other hand, was trying to eat barbequed chicken at the time.
Oh...and I figured out the shirt thing; it wasn't that nefarious. I had it when I made the comment about his not having time to button his shirt. He DIDN'T have time to button his shirt; he certainly didn't have time to put on his clothes. If he hadn't been dressed in that scene, he'd have had to finish the rest of the movie in his underwear (or less). Despite what you may think, I would not have considered that a good thing except insofar as it would have enhanced the already high comedy value of this flick. Obviously the director realized that and opted to take the classy route. (Dripping with sarcasm, in case you missed it. Ack! Barf! Ptooey!)
Subject: I'm trying to find the words
...to describe the feelings I had after watching HURRICANE SMITH. And I can't come up with any.
Our favorite part (for some reason) was when the cops arrived at the house, with Griffo in the lead, and they start shooting the beejesus outta everyone...and Jürgen came out with Julie the Hostage...A megaphone blared out, "THIS IS THE POLICE"...Well no sh*t, Sherlock...I wanted Jürgen to get his own bullhorn to exclaim, "THIS IS THE BAD GUY."
Oh, just tell me it was all you hoped it would be, and more.
Thanks, by the way... I never picked up on that thing with the cops.
You know when Smith and Jenks total the boat house by crashing their boat into it, Jürgen is still busy with that woman in bed... and the wreck is shown mainly in slow motion, with maximum noise and industrial-sized debris crashing to the ground... and there's a real quick shot of Jürgen raising his head while all that is going on.
I want him to say, "Did you hear something?" so bad that all my analytical processes shut down for the rest of the movie. I hardly know what happens after that, except that
1) Jürgen reacts to major mass destruction in the backyard by grabbing a handgun, and
2) having done that, gets right in front of the giant plate glass to see what's going on.
For some reason this whole series of moves just takes me right out of it for the duration. The entire cast could have recreated the big dance number from SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER after that and I wouldn't have noticed.
Yeah, that was a pretty good scene too...
So Damien (Jenks/Shanks,Jerkwad, whatever) has a massive hole in the middle of his back, but he manages to get up, walk outside just in time to kill a badguy who had a bead on Smith...gives him a thumbs up, then disgorges a gallon of blood from his mouth as he slides down the wall. Sheesh, what adrenaline will do for a greasy pimp!
I'm a helicopter pilot...I've just been shot...the badguy and the good guy are fighting...and I'm going to hover over Shark Central at a height of 400 ft.
I keep looking at your comment about the helicopter pilot in HURRICANE SMITH...Evidently he managed to land the good guys safely after Jürgen's new name became Charlie Chum*... So I was trying to figure out why the script called for him to get shot in the first place... Reasoned it was to explain why he didn't just land the chopper after the fight started in the back seat... But if he couldn't land it then, he couldn't land it five minutes later either, could he? (Of course he also couldn't keep it in the air that long, but if he hadn't it would have spoiled the whole movie. You have to allow SOME artistic license.)
You know what they should have done? After Jürgen got croaked, the good guys should have bailed and swum back to shore - 'cause the sharks wouldn't bother them, 'cause the sharks were too busy picking Jürgen's remains out of their teeth.
No, I got it: good guys jump into the water; the pilot expires; and the chopper crashes into the ocean just inches away from our heroes - wiping out all the sharks in the process! HOORAY!
*Unless Smith took over the piloting after he climbed back inside... Like I said, I missed an awful lot in the last few minutes of this film.
Smith had to rescue Julie from the other helicopter skid...and then he asked if the pilot was ok. ("I'll be all right, mate.")...and so then they all flew home.
Hmmm, alternate endings...How about Charlie falling on a shark, knocking it unconscious, then the helicopter falling on Charlie, knocking HIM unconscious, and then they and the audience will be unconscious together.
You guys are SOOOO right about "Charlie." What a screamingly inappropriate handle! Let's think up some more! ... Mikey?? ... Biff? ... Randy??
Hey - Randy!!