Excerpts From A Cluttered Mind #4
1970s Iron Man comics; Simian Mobile Disco; Six Degrees of Kevin Costner; An Interesting Fact about a gross-out rom-com.
An Interesting Fact about “There’s Something About Mary”
Warren, Ted and Mary aged 16. Use your imagination.
The first time me and the missus watched There’s Something About Mary with the kids there was an Awkward Moment when Daughter #2 enquired exactly what had happened in the “hair gel scene”.
Daughter #1 took her into the kitchen to explain. I don’t know exactly what was said. The door was shut. But all we heard after a minute or two was “THAT’S GROSS!”
If anybody’s interested, I’ve got a “good parenting” course coming out soon. Watch this space.
There’s Something About Mary is one of the best-loved films of the 90s, certainly in my family. A gross-out romantic comedy with a feelgood ending in which the hero gets the girl, against all odds and indeed logic.
The original shooting script for the movie has a very different ending.
If you’ve seen the film you will recall the final scene.
If you haven’t seen the film, why on earth not? Go find it somewhere, you won’t regret it. You can always read the rest of this later. I’ll still be here.
See? Told you.
Now where were we? Ah yes.
In the film’s final scene, Ted manfully gives up his claim on Mary because he realises he is not right for her, saying Brett Favre (the real-life NFL star) is the man for her.
But Mary comes after him, says that Ted is the one she wants, they kiss and that is that, more or less.
The original shooting script diverges from the final script, just after Mary has told him from the other side of the street that she loves him. (I’ve retained the capital letters from the script).
MARY - Get over here.
TED - Really?
MARY - Really.
The BEAMING Ted starts walking across the street.
Suddenly a BUS WHIZZES BY AND SMACKS TED BROADSIDE. He bounces around under the bus like a rag doll, then finally squirts out the back end and TUMBLES TO A LIMP STOP.
Mary SCREAMS and runs toward the body as a CROWD begins to gather.
MARY - Ted, no, no....!
She starts giving him CPR. Somebody covers him with a blanket.
Just then, another CAR WHIZZES OVER HIS FEET like speedbumps. The
crowd winces.
MARY - Somebody hold up traffic!
(beat)
Come on, Ted. Come on. Tell me you're going to be okay.
Then Ted takes a deep breath and his eyes flutter open.
TED - Mary....Oh Mary, I love you.
Mary's smile is as bright as the light from heaven.
MARY - I love you too, Ted.
(beat)
I think I always have.
As the two lovebirds kiss, a LADY CALLS OUT:
LADY - Over here! I found his foot! It was in the storm drain!
ON THE LADY as she holds up a SEVERED FOOT in a cloth.
MARY - All right, everyone, let's fan out and look for the penis!
As Ted REACTS to this, we pull UP, UP, UP, and
FADE OUT.
THE END
So bear in mind, next time you watch There’s Something About Mary and wince at the zipper scene, the dog-snogging, the aforementioned hair gel scene, etc, etc, etc, just remember - it could have been way worse!
I’m not sure how the process worked to change the ending, but I would have loved to have heard that conversation.
And at least now I know that should I ever be lucky enough to meet Cameron Diaz, I will now have a question to ask her without looking like a burbling fool. Or potentially being slapped.
This Week I Have Been Mostly…
Reading…
Seventies Iron Man Comics
“Iron Man, Iron Man, does whatever an iron can,
Irons shirts - any size - trousers too (not the flies),
Tin can? NO! ” It’s the Iron Man!”
On the matter of TV shows and films I am of the opinion that hard copies are the way forward, since nobody can take them away from you.
And maybe in an ideal world where old comics were widely and cheaply available that would be the case, but even then I’m not so sure.
After years of resisting digital comics I have come round to them.
You get a beautifully-rendered copy of pretty much whichever comic you want, looking better than a print copy ever could, especially an original print copy, if you can bear to take it out of its mylar bag and read it, carefully, with tweezers.
Ten dollars a month gets you access to pretty much the entire Marvel collection, around the same for DC. And you can cancel any time you like.
And you can read a LOT of comics in a month.
And when you take into account declining eyesight in the core target audience, that is to say, those of us for whom Silver and Bronze Age comics are not retro but part of our childhood, a tenner a month to read whatever you want from the era seems like a very good deal.
So this month I am reading through the 70s run of a couple of titles including the “Golden Avenger”, Iron Man.
It always bothered me that they called him “Golden” when he hadn’t in fact been completely golden since 1963, and then not for very long.
I suppose during the Cold War a hero called “The Red Avenger” may not have played well with the parents of middle America.
The above comic is from 1976 and features twin alien space vampires the Blood Brothers, who were unfortunately introduced at the same time as Thanos and thus will never really have the same place in fandom’s hearts.
They were always a favourite of mine because they were so bloody horrible and totally uncompromising; there was no reasoning with them, no chance of any sort of banter. The miserable sods.
Just as well they were reasonably easy to defeat - all you had to do was split them up and keep them away from each other and they were shit. Like many other pairs of brothers.
Listening To…
“Attack Decay Sustain Release” by Simian Mobile Disco (2007)
I came to this one late, on the back of seeing the “band” playing one of the best gigs I’ve ever seen, at Koko in Camden, a converted Victorian theatre, with Chromehoof supporting, complete with giant robot, some time in early 2009.
I wasn’t too familiar with their work although I did see the parent band, indie-disco darlings Simian, a few years earlier.
I have absolutely no idea what tracks they played. It was a wonderful hour’s set with no gaps, no talking to the audience, just a thousand people going apeshit gig-cum-indoor-rave in one of the grandest concert venues in London.
I immediately downloaded Attack Decay Sustain Release, their debut album from 2007, which is, as I’d expected and hoped, very much a reflection of the “live” sound.
Listening to it almost twenty years on, it stands up really well. I used to have the track Sleep Deprivation as my wake-up alarm - give it a go if you have trouble getting up, its perfect. Starts off reasonably quiet but then kicks in loud enough to get you properly awake, but tuneful and happy enough to put a smile on yer face.
Six Degrees Of Separation to Kevin Costner
One day I swear I will write the definitive defence of Kevin Costner’s big-budget, low return 1995 film Waterworld.
Much derided by everyone at the time with the exception of me and the missus, and also some random bloke I got chatting to in a pub in London around 2006. If you’re out there, Steve, say hi.
My appreciation of KC pretty much begins and ends with Waterworld, which made this week’s Six Steps a little difficult. But I got there in the end.
This week’s starting point, provided once again by a wife selected completely at random, is Seth Green, a Screen God round ours for his time on Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
Somewhat peremptorily written out of the show in my opinion but I guess once Joss Whedon decided he wanted Willow to be gay, the writing was on the wall for Seth’s much-loved turn as her boyf, the slack-jawed, slacker Oz, comfortably the coolest on-screen werewolf ever.
Austin Powers (International Man Of Mystery) (1997) - dir Jay Roach
Okay, Scott and Mrs. Kensington didn’t get a scene together that I can recall, but they WERE both in the film, honest.
A couple of years before his Buffy years, Seth played the idiot son of the villainous Doctor Evil in the first Austin Powers movie, which also featured Elizabeth Hurley as Austin’s Emma Peel-style sidekick Mrs. Kensington.
Rowing With The Wind (1988) - dir. Gonzalo Suarez
Rowing With The Wind tells a version of the true tale of how a teenage girl, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Lizzie McInnerny) came to write Frankenstein, the first science-fiction novel.
Liz Hurley plays her companion Claire Clairmon while Hugh Grant portrays Lord Byron, which shows that the role of Daniel Cleaver in Bridget Jones’ Diary was not his first bad-boy role.
Paddington 2 (2017) - dir. Paul King
Without context, this appears to be more horrifying than “Heretic”
If you look up “scene-chewing” on Wikipedia you will see a picture of Hugh Grant in this film. To be fair, he IS supposed to be portraying a pretentious actor, and the performance is tremendous fun and wholly appropriate for the role, so I’m inclined to give him a pass.
In a lesser but still crucial role in the film, Joel Fry plays the postman.
Cruella (2021) - dir. Craig Gillespie
Horace (Paul Walter Hauser), Cruella (Emma Stone) and Jasper (Joel Gray). Note solitary dog being carried by Horace. You have to start somewhere.
Joel Gray has appeared in a variety of roles since he was in Sky’s sitcom Trollied, and he is never anything short of excellent, but to me he will always be Leighton, the childlike, honest and gullible “perfect employee” whose only ambition in life was to work at the supermarket Valco. (motto “Serves you right”).
Oh man, I need to do a piece on Trollied at some point, don’t I? That show was so much better than it needed to be.
Disney’s excellent Cruella which tells of Cruella de Vil’s early years in an Anakin Skywalker / Darth vader style retcon, set in the London Cinematic Universe (along with Austin Powers and Paddington, come to think of it).
Gray plays Jasper, the “thin and stupid” henchman one according to Dodie Smith’s book, but in this prequel something of a mentor to Cruella (Emma Stone), at least initially.
Cruella is a good movie, one of quite a few recent, decent takes on “the early years of unpleasant characters” - Wonka, Young Sheldon - but I do worry where this might end.
Vlad As A Lad? Young Adolf? Teenage Genghis? (Khan live with him, Khan live without him. Actually Mel Brooks may have alreay done that, I forget).
Zombieland (2009) - dir. Ruben Fleischer
Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), Wichita (Emma Stone), Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) and Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) consider whether faggot racing would be enough of a diversion for them to escape
Quite a few years before Cruella, Emma Stone made her name starring with Woody Harrelson in Zombieland as one of four survivors of a zombie apocalypse trying to make their way to a safe haven.
The film’s combination of comedy, some excellent acting performances from the four leads horrible kills (including the demise of Bill Murray, playing himself), comedy and some excellent acting performances made it the biggest zombie film in American box-office history (until overtaken by World War Z)
The Highwaymen (2019) - dir. John Lee Hancock
Maney Gault (Woody Harrelson and Frank Hamer (Kevin Costner) come out of retirement for one last big job.
And finally, we achieve full Costner on the sixth and final turn with this Netflix film about two retired Texas Rangers in the 1930s who are trying to track down notorious escaped criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.
Originally conceived in 2005 as a possible late-career vehicle for Paul Newman and Robert Redford, an idea somewhat ruined by Newman’s death in 2008, it was eventually made and released in 2019.
Next time, a different Kevin. And a different starting point. If you would like to suggest either or both please go ahead and let me know in the comments below, the missus is getting a bit fed up.
Other stuff you might enjoy from Talk About Pop Culture:
Spotify Playlist based on this newsletter
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Excerpts From A Cluttered Mind #2
Excerpts From A Cluttered Mind #1
Bridginton In Peru: Mad About The Bear
Seven Characters Who Took The Sudden Ending Of A Relationship Very Well, Considering
"If anybody’s interested, I’ve got a “good parenting” course coming out soon. Watch this space." 😄