The Dreams of Dylan McKay

So I’ve gotten way back into 90210 reruns. They’re kind of the only thing getting me through the work week at this point. I watch two episodes a day, but I fast-forward any scene that Andrea is in and any scene where Jamie “How Do You Talk to an Angel” Walters picks up his guitar, so it only takes me about an hour to knock out both. Anyway, I’m immersed in the Brenda’s-gone-but-sweet-Kelly-Kapowski-has-come-to-take-her-place-
only-she's-not-sweet-but-kind-of-evil episodes. You know, where Brandon is always talking about the “task force” and Steve looks like he’s 45. Anyway, I just saw what might be the most ridiculous piece of television ever created. Dylan has turned to booze, tits (Tiffany Amber’s) and speed balls to cope with the fact that his dad blew up in a car and the people he thought were his family (dead dad’s ex-lover and Dylan's half-sister) were actually grifters and they convinced him to put all of his money into an environmental science venture, but then they actually robbed him of his millions and headed out of the country. So, Dylan does a little coke and a little horse and drives his car off a cliff. That brings us to the episode that we need to talk about.

“The Dreams of Dylan McKay”
Dylan is in a coma and the director just watched a David Lynch movie. This “dreamscape” episode will give you more laughs than even the finest comedy. They want it to have the feel of "Twin Peaks," but it kind of comes off like this psychological softcore I once caught where this girl experiences a sexual awakening in the moments of her death and nothing is what it seems. Anyway, the dialogue is amazing, and the bold attempts at surrealism (e.g., midget in a costume, drug dealer in the hellmouth, doctors and nurses in pseudo fetish gear) are more Grieco than Grieco. It’s almost impossible to make it through the entire episode even when you do fast-forward Andrea (who,by the way, makes Steve look youthful), but if you come across it you should definitely give it a shot. I know it’s TV, but I’m giving it 3 ½-Griecos.

Happy Birthday BTS!

Friday is BTS' birthday. He, like myself, has now reached the age of 30. Sure, we're both doing well in our older age, but we shant sleep until Shrift, our Goth-rave-double-crucifixion-laden retlelling of Footloose comes to the big screen and takes the world by storm. Anyway, in honor of BTS, I am reposting the final game of the first-ever Grieco March Madness tournament, which BTS won. Happy Birthday, dude.

Mazes and Monsters vs. Left Behind

What a long strange Grieco it’s been. We have finally made it to the championship and things have turned out a bit differently than I thought they would, which is kind of strange because, you know, I pick who wins. Anyway, the #1 and #2 seeds have all fallen by the wayside, leaving us with a head-to-head battle between (3)Mazes and Monsters from the Boxleitner Bracket and (4)Left Behind from the Voight Bracket. Both films have proven time and time again that they have what it takes to win it all. In order to decide who walks away with the trophy I now turn my focus to an aspect of the films that has not been fully explored: the supporting casts.

Upper-crust Gamers vs. A Man Called Carpathia
We already know about Tommy Hanks and Kirk "Big Baby" Cameron. Both have lead their films to the final game and both have earned a spot in the GIK Hall of Fame (to be housed in Des Plaines, IL). That brings us to the rest of the players.The fact that the Hamptons-dwelling Ivy League types in Mazes and Monsters even play "Mazes and Monsters" makes them an intriguing bunch. Each brings his or her own take on what it is to be a Frenetic, a Holy Man, a “Maze Controller,” or a Fighter. The standout of the group is Frelich (Chris Makepeace of My Bodyguard fame) who, in the so-called real world, wears a different wacky hat in almost every scene and tries to kill himself. It is Frelich who leads the group to the abandoned mines, it is Frelich who comes up with the costumes from the theatre department, and it is Frelich who brings the embodiment of a Gorvil to life through his imagination and some clever lighting. In fact, in the beginning you kind of think Frelich is the one who’s gonna go batshit crazy. Now, we’ve talked about the way the gamers deliver their lines in that earnest fashion, but I have to admit at times there is a weird feeling as though they (Frelich included) might just give up the gaming and start getting it on with each other in some sort of bizarre staged reading of the as yet un-produced, Magik: A Sexy Gathering.

The whole underground revolutionary group that’s trying to bring down the Antichrist in Left Behind is top-rate. There’s the pilot whose whole family (minus his angry daughter) got taken up to heaven, but he didn’t because he was banging a stewardess (Kirk’s real-life wife) who is now going to work for the U.N. There’s the hypocrite preacher, and there's the hot girl who’s real sweet and knows a lot about computers but wasn’t saved because she has pagan tattoos and is obviously way into sex. However, it is the Cold-War-style Nicolae Carpathia who truly elevates the film. He oozes evil and communism and that’s totally what you want from the guy who will bring Hell to the world until, you know, “He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen,” or something like that. Carpathia has the cold stare and charming smile of the Son of Lucifer. I mean, he’s so cool I’m pretty sure that more than one young Christian has caught himself rooting for The Beast.

The Winner
This is it, y’all. We’re finally here. Mazes and Monsters has captured the hearts and minds of many a GIK reader. Some would even say that the commissioner has developed a bias for this bold piece that tries its best to make nerds (rich or otherwise) look like freaked-out mental cases who want so desperately to be included that they’ll immerse themselves completely in a world of fantasy. However, their HP has hit 0 and their Level 4 Druid’s got nothing left in his pouch. The polyhedron die rolls no more! Left Behind is just perfect in every way. It’s structure, FX, acting, and design want so badly to be a mega-hit. You can almost hear the director arguing with himself as he debates whether or not to throw in some witty line like “Suck on that, Antichrist,” only to accept at the last minute that he isn’t making a Hollywood picture, he's making an anti-Hollywood picture. Left Behind, ignored in the original bracket, resurrects itself to become the first ever GIK tournament champion! That's right baby! You left Mr. Cameron open on the outside and he knocked down the key threes all night! I'm talkin to you Rona Jaffe! Your kids' fantasy novel was good but you couldn't hold off the Lord! That young man's a real diaper dandy and if he stays in school he's gonna be cutting down a lot of nets!Congratulations to Kirk and the gang, and thanks to all of you who have stuck with this thing over the last two weeks.

I miss Phil Hartman, y'all.

Man, they started showing reruns of "News Radio" (one of the greatest shows of all time) on Nick at Nite, and one of the episodes I watched last night was the one where John Ritter comes to the station as Dr. Frank. It made me sad. I've never really gotten over the Phil Hartman thing, and Ritter is a genius in my book. I don't know. It just sucks. If anyone has a specific episode of "News Radio," "SNL," or "Three's Company" that they belive highlights the comic gifts of these two men, I'd love to chat about them, or if there's a movie out there that I've missed starring one or the other or both please let me know.

On a Grieco note: I'm trying to get work in order and then I shall make yet another triumphant return to the world of brilliant cinema.

Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?

Just a quick note that has nothing to do with Grieco or bad movies. Some of you might be interested to know that after many years "Pinky and the Brain" and "Animaniacs" are coming out on DVD tomorrow. I don't know how you feel about these shows, but the episode of "Pinky and the Brain" in which Pinky designs shiny pants in order to bring the world closer together is one of the greatest things I've ever seen on television. If you never watched them when you were too old to be watching them anyway, you should check them out now. There are far too few cartoons about the quest for world domination these days.

Real Dragons, Bro. Real Dragons

If you’re a regular GIK reader you know that I’m a big fan of dragon pictures. I’ve delved into the lore of the mighty beast of yore by reviewing such films as Darkest Knight and Dragonslayer, and Reign of Fire is secretly one of my favorite movies. But my friends I do believe I may have just seen the boldest dragon film of all time. A masterpiece that leaves the others lying in a heap of tarnished gold much like the one that ancient Smaug did lord over.

Dragon’s World: A Fantasy Made Real
The lovely Sherpa surprised me with this gem, having sneaked it on to our Netflix list without me knowing, and thank Odin she did. Dragon’s World was made for animal planet and it’s set up as a documentary (actually two interconnected documentaries) that presupposes the existence of dragons. One of the documentaries is basically “Walking with Dragons.” It uses the same effects as the “Walking with Dinosaurs,” “Walking with Humans,” “Walking with Pants,” etc. This portion of the film follows the evolution of the dragon from prehistoric times to the middle ages. It starts with a scene of a dragon battling a T. Rex, which is pretty much like every dream I had when I was seven. It then explains how the dragon survived the catastrophic event that killed the dinosaurs (there was a water dragon, y’all). After that, it follows the dragon’s reemergence in Asia and its eventual noble last stand against some honorless knights in the Romanian Mountains.

Now, the Walking with Dragons-type piece is intercut with a documentary about a modern day hipster paleontologist who is the laughingstock of the scientific community because he believes in dragons. Well, wouldn’t you know that a strange carcass shows up in the mountains of Romania and he flies off to check it out. Of course, it’s the skeleton of a dragon, and he eventually finds a dragon’s nest, or lair if you will, and discovers the remains of the mighty female dragon that has become the protagonist of the other documentary (note: the “Walking with” portion of the film is narrated by Ian Holm. That’s Bilbo, bitches.)

This piece is awesome. I mean it has all of these pseudoscientific explanations as to why the dragon could fly and breathe fire, and to one who wants to believe they sound totally plausible. I imagine to an objective viewer they sound ridiculous, but screw objective viewers, I’m talking about freaking dragons. I do, however, wish one of the explanations would have been “it could fly because it was effing magick y’all,” but somehow that must have ended up on the cutting room floor. I’m still giving this movie or special or whatever it is 4-Griecos, though. Seriously, you have to see it. Oh, and they totally hint that dragons might still be out there. Chip Chip!

The Return of Clubber

I shit you not. Rocky and Clubber have returned. One shall step back into the ring and the other shall commentate. If you haven't watched the trailer for Rocky Balboa (clever title), you must do so immediately.

Pants!

I had a chance to sip free cola and eat free BBQ at a bold corporate music event last night. Some doucebag won $20,000 for writing a song that I'm pretty sure one of my cats could bang out, and the featured guest of the evening, Macy Gray, didn't show. I imagine she was wandering the streets of Austin, desperate to get her hands on some crack and potato salad. Anyway, she wasn't missed, for a band called Pants from the noble state of North Carolina did fill the mighty hall with purest metal. Yes, a friend that I've known since first grade is in the band, but that kinship did not sway my opinion. Pants' "Pants: A Rock Opera" simply kicks ass. To quote my aforementioned friend, "The rock is pure danger." Even if the ancient art of turning base music into gold is lost on you, you must check out Pants. Seriously, they trotted out a bald, tatooed Monk character who can totally wail in front of a middle-aged corporate crowd, and they have a song about the fearsome Double Snake, a creature that is too terrifying even to discuss, because it's like two snakes. It was awesome. Listen for yourself at http://pantsrocks.com/

Pants promo photo is taken from pantsrocks.com and is subject to copyright.

The Dreaded Re-run

The year is more than half over and I'm trying to adjust to my new work schedule, so I thought it would be a good time to look back at the predictions I made at the beginning of the year to see how I was doing. Just so you know, Ocean's 13 is in pre-production and a shark kind of flies in that stupid Uma Thurman super ex-girlfriend movie. The Cubs...well that's another story. Oh, and in my humble opinion, I think if you missed the last GIK post you missed a pretty good one, so check it out.

2006: Year of the Grieco
When I arrived in my hometown of Dallas for Christmas I realized that I hadn’t gotten enough presents for my friends and family. In a last minute effort to rectify the situation I drove my sweet-ass Hyundai to what I’m fairly sure is the largest Tom Thumb in the world. After grabbing various gift cards, several “holiday” bags of Cheetohs, and a nutcracker that does the running man I headed to the checkout line. While the woman in front of me complained about how she just couldn’t find Steak-ums anymore, I perused the tabloids as I am wont to do. All of the best ones (those in black & white) were offering their predictions for the coming year. There are too many forecasts to cover, but let’s just say you, me, and the world’s fattest baby are in for some serious stuff in ’06.

Reading these predictions made me realize that for too long I have neglected the one-hour training I received from some guy in Louisiana when I got my telephone psychic job. I decided to give my powers of prognostication a workout and to do my best to make the actress who played Miss Cleo proud. Wait. Kids, I’m only joking. There really is a Miss Cleo, and on one special night each year she dresses up in a quasi-Jamaican accent and tells all the good boys and girls who have lovers in prison, a fear of dying alone, or an unquenchable thirst for Pop-Tarts and Robitussin exactly what they need to do to make everything OK. Whew! That was close. I would never forgive myself if I ruined things for the little ones. Anyway, without further Grieco, here are my predictions for the New Year.

1. It will finally be revealed that Sarah Jessica Parker is actually that nerdy dude who plays Mitch in Real Genius.

2. My prayers will be answered and Colin Farrell, Russell Crowe, and Eva Longoria will be sucked into a worm hole and deposited on a planet where drunken louts, overrated boorish Aussies, and photo-op whores are forced to work as production assistants on a straight-to-video re-imagining of Godspell.

3. In fulfillment of Prophecy, Grieco’s post-apocalyptic wasteland zombie picture, Raiders of the Damned, will shock the world and break all previous opening weekend box office records.

4. Dako Fa-Fa will raise an army of super-intelligent spider monkeys bent on world domination. She’ll also take on the role of a 12 year-old Eleanor Roosevelt in a life-spanning biopic that will also star Charlize Theron and Shirley MacLaine. All three women will be simply delightful in the film.

5. Sharks will take to the sky.

6. The Cruise-Holmes baby will be born and it’s ability to manipulate both time and space will make us all feel bad for doubting Scientology luminaries like Vinnie Barbarino, Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, and that chick who played Dharma.

7. Ocean’s 13 will go into production, but the level of self-satisfaction and masturbatory filmmaking involved will actually cause Soderbergh and the entire cast (except Don Cheadle) to explode in a brilliant display over Clooney’s Lake Como villa.

8. The Chicago Cubs will win the World Series.

9. Special Agent Dale Cooper will get out of the Black Lodge

10. You, gentle reader, will pass this post onto ten of your friends, thus keeping the chain alive. After all, Chet Dinkins of Missouri failed to pass this post on in the allotted time and three days later he found himself working in a call center selling radio ads disguised as PSAs to people who despised him from the moment they heard his voice, while the middle-aged women in the ½-cubicles next to him showed each other the shirts they had made with iron-on pictures of their cats and the guy across the aisle talked about how the community bathroom in the men’s boarding house he lived in was a great place to practice his singing even though it reeked of month-old urine. OK, that was totally me. I had that job in Chicago. There is no Chet Dinkins. But still, if you could pass this on to even like one or two people it would totally help me out, because Burning Man is coming up and I really need something nice to wear.

Thank Grieco It's Friday

So, I’ve returned to the regular workforce. It was a sad day, but my current situation has driven me to leave the house and join the rest of the world in long commutes and fluorescent lighting. Truth be told, it’s a pretty cool job, and very soon it will be a part-time gig, so I’ll still get to spend a few days a week working in my robe. But it took me only two full days in the office to remember how tired the whole real job thing makes me. By the time 11:00 rolled around on Friday night I was exhausted. I took the opportunity to sip on some magic juice, recline on the couch, and settle in for a weekend fit for a fifty year-old. Then, something beautiful happened. As I scanned through various channels, I came upon the Lifetime Movie Network, and I (along with the lovely Sherpa) was able to catch the last half-hour of a Grieco piece I didn’t even know existed.

It was Him or Us
We were thrust right into the action. A sweaty, semi-bloated Grieco is holding his ex-girlfriend and her parents (the mom is played by Anne Jillian) hostage at gunpoint. As he swigs from a non-descript bottle of booze and sniffs continually as though he’s just dying for some coke, Grieco alternates between moments of quiet rage and moments of yelling rage. Seriously, the switch between the two happens on like every line, so Grieco looks kind of like a maniac and kind of like he was giving the director two different takes on the character to choose from, but the director just decided to combine them. As Grieco berates his ex for cheating on him or pretending to cheat on him (it got a little confusing), he wears his sleeveless vest thing with pride and sports eyebrows that are clearly not of this world. Amidst the profuse sweating and stumbling around the house for no apparent reason, Grieco shouts lines like “I’m not stupid!” and “I’m not dense!” with the force of fallen star. As subtlety gets murdered inside the home, the police negotiator tries to talk Grieco down from the outside. (note: one of the cops or something is played by Will Wheaton. The unstoppable Grieco/Wheaton combination would resurface later in a little film I like to call Book of Days.) Anyway, the negotiator brings Grieco’s mom in to try and talk him down, and this makes Grieco start saying all of his lines like a little kid. It’s fucking awesome. OK, so Grieco drops the ex’s dad by whacking him over the head with a rifle, thus raising the stakes and making it imperative for the family to escape and take the old man to the hospital. While the ex-girlfriend distracts Grieco, Ann Jillian climbs through a hole in the basement ceiling, fights through some serious editing problems, gets out of the house, sneaks back into the room where she keeps her .22, and moves in on Grieco who is yelling to the ex, “Our love can’t survive this universe. We’ll be together in another universe!” Ann Jillian then has a sweet slow-mo entrance, and as Grieco turns to see her, she kills him, because…you know…it was him or us.

I can only assume that Acts I and II of this picture are as totally Grieco as Act III. I know I mentioned the man’s eyebrows already, but they’re really doing the work up there, and one of Ann Jillian’s kids who escapes to the outside before the shit goes down is played by little Virgin Camden from “7^th Heaven” sporting a wicked mullet. As you know, if Grieco appears in a film it automatically gets an extra 1 ½-Griecos. Now, I don’t feel right judging the entire movie, not having seen how Grieco came to have a rifle, a pistol he holds sideways, and a few hostages, but I do feel comfortable giving the final 30 minutes of It was Him or Us 4-Griecos (see ratings).

Next Friday, if work has beat you down, flip on the old Lifetime Movie Network, you might just be pleasantly surprised. I mean, y’all need to learn more about a woman who was lured into having an affair by a charming older man only to find out that he was married and secretly hated retarded children, so to get even she took up a post as a crossing guard at the school where his daughter went and tempted the child with lollipops and moonbeams and then kidnapped her, demanding that her father publicly humiliate himself by stating in a court of law that he was both an adulterer and a hater of the mentally challenged, but in the end she learns that she doesn’t need to get even to be strong, she only needs herself… she only needs herself, y’all.

Happy ID4!

Dear World,

I hope everyone had a great holiday celebrating our victory over the invading aliens. Things looked bleak in those days of battle, but thanks to our former-war hero Amercian President, a hip street-smart scientist, a drunken lout, a fast-talikng pilot, a variety of stereotypes, and some really bad dialogue, victory was ours!

Let us not forget those who fell in this war against the aliens that kind of look like a hybrid of the alien from Alien and the Predator from Predator, but look nothing like the aliens from Alien vs. Predator (AVP if you're nasty). Yes, we lost many along the way: the gay Jewish man who seemed to encapsulate both of the those noble groups with his sheer subtlety; the pseudo-hippy-flower-child who welcomed the aliens (and starred in "Saved by the Bell: The College Years") only to be destroyed atop the Los Angeles skyline; and the First Lady, who before she died, passed on some comforting words to the lovely stripper who will make the aformentioned cocksure pilot a heck of a wife.

We must now remain focused on the goals ahead and guard ourselves against further attacks from these aliens in a sequel that I can't believe hasn't been made. Seriously, it seemed like a no-brainer, but I guess Hollywood was more concerned with chronicling Riddick and breaking back mountains. However, the threat of future alien attacks is always present, and therefore we must never drop our guard or take our liberty for granted, for if we do, the aliens have already won.

#5