Well, we knew the honeymoon had to end eventually; after nearly four months of being arguably the world’s most consistently Pauly Shore-positive podcast, we’ve finally found a movie we just plain don’t like. In the Army Now is brazen military propaganda, weirdly racist, and perhaps worst of all, not very funny. But hey, at least the soundtrack has a pretty cool ZZ Top song!
A quick note on the audio quality: We once again had a laggy Internet connection, and somehow lost Callie’s local audio, so you’ll notice significantly more crosstalk than usual on this one (and that’s coming from two people with a pretty high tolerance for crosstalk). Your patience and understanding is appreciated!
Video version:
00:00:00 Trailer for In the Army Now (Daniel Petrie Jr., 1994)
00:06:15 We talked about the Jeffrey Katzenberg/Totally London kerfuffle in our Son in Law episode
We’re now a month into our year-long immersion into the filmography of Pauly Shore, and we’re finally watching a Pauly Shore film! Actually, make that one and a half Pauly Shore films, because we’re pairing his motion picture debut, 1992’s Encino Man, with his (rightfully) lesser-known role in the same year’s Kid n Play vehicle, Class Act. If you’re worried about keeping the movies straight, though, don’t be: he’s pretty much the same character in both. We’ll pick up again in two weeks with Son in Law–see you then, buuu-ddies!
Here’s the video version (unfortunately you’ll have to look at our mugs more than in past episodes, since Encino Man is a Disney I.P. and they don’t play around with copyright):
00:00:00 Trailer for Encino Man (Les Mayfield, 1992)
The podcast event literally no one asked for has finally arrived! From February 2024 until whenever we’ve had enough, we’re taking you on a journey through what we genuinely believe is the underrated filmography of the Weasel himself, Pauly Shore. Join us in this introductory episode as we explain why we’re doing this to ourselves (and to you) and take a quick jog through the random roles that resulted in one of the greatest characters in 20th century American literature.
But first, you’ll notice there’s something a little different this time: Given the importance of the visual medium to our current topic of discussion, we’re experimenting with video! As you can see from the first episode, the experiment hasn’t been an unqualified success; there was some pretty terrible lag on Zach’s end that has been preserved at the beginning for explanatory/comedic effect. We will troubleshoot this moving forward, but in the meantime, enjoy watching our audio swim in and out of sync while the video footage struggles to catch up with our lips! Welcome to the future!
00:01:23 Our infamous episodes on the KISS memoirs (Gene, Ace, Peter, Paul)
Our year-long deep dive on the cinematic oeuvre of Mike Myers officially kicks off with Wayne’s World, and it’s arguably all downhill from here. Join us for some genuine gushing about one of our all-time favorite movies (even though we’re both in agreement that Mike may actually be the worst part). Remember to leave your comments about Wayne’s World, Mike’s pre-film career, or next month’s So I Married an Axe Murderer–we’re collecting feedback to read in the next episode!
Last month marked the 25th anniversary of the release of House Party: the definitive early ’90s African American teen comedy, starring pop-rappers Kid ‘n Play and directed by Reginald Hudlin. So what better time than now to look back and recall the classic film, the sequels it spawned, and the moment in urban youth culture it inimitably captured and preserved? If you have fond memories of the House Party films, read this post and you just might learn something new–especially about the franchise’s lesser-seen third and fourth installments.
The original House Party, an expanded remake of a student film Hudlin made while attending Harvard University in 1986, structures itself loosely around a single day in the lives of a group of high school seniors. Peter, a.k.a. “Play” (Christopher “Play” Martin), is throwing the titular house party while his parents are out of town. His friend Christopher, or “Kid” (Christopher “Kid” Reid), wants to use the party as an opportunity to showcase his “dope lyrics” as an M.C., but his plans are jeopardized when he runs afoul of the school bullies: hulking “Stab” and “Zilla” and diminutive, squeaky-voiced “Pee Wee,” played respectively by real-life brothers Paul Anthony, Brian “B-Fine,” and Lucien “Bowlegged Lou” George of the R&B group Full Force. Also attending the festivities are Tisha Campbell as the “bougie” upper-class girl, Sidney, who harbors a crush on Kid; A.J. Johnson as her worldly friend from the projects, Sharane; and Martin Lawrence–in only his second feature film role, after Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing(1989)–as Bilal, the party’s irascible D.J.
