The New Guy

I can’t believe that I forgot to bring this up last night. My short term memory must have completely disappeared over the past few years. You can keep the binge drinking comments to yourself, thank you very much. Anyway, the Simpsons did a great effort Sunday night to make me rethink my claim that they have jumped the shark. One, they had a great bit about restraining orders and the guy who remembers that his father taught him that winners never quit and never say die. Trust me, any guy who has tried to pull off the Say Anything move, which means every guy, knows that bit is funny.

What almost made me roll off the couch laughing was the following. Otto can barely control the bus on an icy hill so they break out the chains. As in the kids are dragging the bus up the hill. Uter: “This reminds me of Fitzcarraldo.” Nelson (punching him): “That movie was flawed.” Now there are only two groups of people who get that joke 1) fans of German film director Werner Herzog and 2) fans of the band The Frames who have an entire song based on the movie. I’m in the latter category along with maybe five thousand other people. It’s jokes like that that make the Simpsons cool.

Ok, so I watched The New Guy again tonight. Which if I’m not mistaken I also watched exactly two years ago. My future biographers along with those of you who have been part of the EC experience will know why this is important. Lots of good things in the movie. First of all, any movie with Lyle Lovett in it, including Lyle going “You’re never too old to change” is going to be a good movie. Also, there are enough cameos in the movie to make it a better parody of teen movies than Not Another Teen Movie. I mean you’ve got Vanilla Ice, Kool Moe Dee, Henry Rollins, Tony Hawk, David fuckin Hasselhoff, what else can you ask for? There is even a cameo that wasn’t a cameo then but is now, as Jai from Queer Eye is in the movie. Wow, I guess he really was an actor.

(Oh yeah, and Eliza Dushku. ‘Nuff said.)

Of course, the entire reason why I watched the movie was for inspiration. I’ve somehow found myself in the same situation as I was in two years ago, with a great need to reinvent myself and take control. Which is what the movie is about, in a weird teen comedy sort of way. I know that I am little too old to be taking my cues from movies about high school but if I’ve found one thing out these past few months is that real life is still like high school. You can still feel like an outcast, still feel picked on, still hate the jocks, all the cliques still exist. The fun thing is now you actually know how to change things and take control. All I know is that I watched the flick and now I feel like taking on the world. And hey, ending up with Eliza Dushku (or Zooey Deschanel for that matter) wouldn’t be a bad way to finish things up.

Tomorrow, quite possibly the best film of the decade, The Tao of Steve. The only film that has become its own philosophy. Well, besides The Matrix and Road House. Later.