Jan 7, 2010

Brave Font Choices Aside

I'm not only reviewing about the 90s, I'm reviewing through the 90s.

Sometimes movies come up. Not sometimes- always. And not movies- life. And movies are one of the best parts of life, which I just bested myself and 3 sentences in. Way to start this review. Because this review is about Airheads. A movie filling the vacant lot of marketing for the early 90s metal loving teenager. And that's where the movie success lies- to me anyway- the movie attached itself to a specific brand of loner, that other loners find comfort in not being that certain brand of loner. And maybe Airheads isn't successful at that as much as I recall. But what I do recall is I was 7 when this movie came out (parenthetical pause) and associate this movie with my 7 year old best friend's oldest brother, who was 15-16, and this was his favorite movie. Think about my mind frame here. Kenny, the 15-16 year old metal head, was the coolest thing ever- he talked back to his parents and swore and he would play the opening riffs of Iron Man in his garage. Now that's a teenager ladies and gentleman. And knowing this is his favorite movie has always put this on a high shelf for me to avoid reaching.

But here I am- all reached and now holding and coddling (and fizzalting and murderballing). Let's just cut some of this meat of the bone for a second: Brendan Fraser stars. Ooo boy. I can say this is his best movie, but I feel better saying this is a movie he is in that I can watch. Brendan Fraser not your poison? Well we have Adam Sandler. I'm not going to fault him for his character. Instead I'm going to ignore it and solely focus my attention on the third starring member of the Lone Rangers (they can't pluralize that)--- Steve Buscemi. The only believable member of the band? Absotuvely. Disappears into another person that is so specific to a certain type of the overall metal head that you know a guy exactly like him, and now like that guy better because Steve Buscemi nailed his character in a movie? Always. Did he have the best line in the movie? Debatable - he chanted Rodney King for no real reason, he also said Lemmy is God, which is a great fact to believe in blindly. I'm not going to dwell on how great Steve Buscemi is because I already did, but we have a fine performance from Chris Farley, who died, and now we cherish everything he is in because he isn't in things anymore. We also have 'wish we have more' Joe Mantegna, Reg E. Kathey, and Judd Nelson. But the best scenes, the ones stolen to outshine the entire movie itself (probably- why else would I watch airheads? I'm questioning my motives now)- Michael Richards seems like he has his own movie within Airheads. Crawling through air ducts is some tough acting, and to make every inch of movement so enjoyable as only the Mike Rich can do--- its beauty. I said scenes and I did have another in mind: Michael McKean's in depth look at radio station money grubbing culminating in his character's tied down to a chair trying to open a door with his tounge and mouth acting- which if there was a youtube click I would post and there would be a million hits to. That story was recently made funnier by a friend who told me they tried to imitate McKean's door trick when they were a kid and got hit in the mouth by their mom- hilarious- and really why I even wrote about Airheads in the first place. I need a conclusion- Airheads, what you were trying to be I'm not buying- this is no great cult rock n roll, against the corporation, metal rules movie. It's a movie where people I like watching act, get to act. And that's all I ever wanted. Ever feather ferver.

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