MY MOVIE SHELF: An Officer and a Gentleman

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 176  Days to go: 179

Movie #201:  An Officer and a Gentleman

Young Richard Gere could get it. When the movie opens and you see him standing there (as Zack Mayo) in his tank undershirt and too-long hair, all muscled arms and sex appeal, it’s already got your full attention.

Zack is a bad boy, a troubled youth, trying to make good, trying to be somebody worthwhile instead of growing up like his piece of shit father (Robert Loggia). He’s joined the navy and is going to attend their Aviation Candidate School so he can be an officer and fly jets. He wants to fit in, but he still carries a lot of his past baggage around with him.

The regiment is full of great characters, all full and rich and going through different obstacles in their quest to finish the program (more than half will quit before it’s through), but three people particularly influence Mayo’s tenure at the base: his friend and fellow candidate Sid Worley (David Keith), the local woman he starts seeing on his weekend leaves, Paula (Debra Winger), and his Sergeant (Louis Gossett Jr.).

Lou Gossett Jr. is amazing in this. An Officer and a Gentleman scored two Oscars back in its day, and it’s no surprise he got one, for Best Supporting Actor. He’s as hard and as abusive as any stereotypical drill sergeant in any movie ever, but he has a lot of heart, too. The one woman candidate in their regiment, he knows she probably doesn’t have the physical strength to pass, but he’s constantly impressed by her drive and her dedication. Meanwhile, Zack has no problem doing all the physical challenges, but he’s a disrespectful prick who thinks he’s got the whole place wired. Sgt. Foley pushes Zack, and calls out his arrogant attitude, forcing him to face who he is and what his weaknesses are. He calls him Mayo-NAISE because it’s funny and because drill sergeants aren’t that original. He kicks the shit out of him literally and figuratively, and gets him to ugly cry that he’s “got nowhere else to go!” It’s pretty great.

Paula, meanwhile, is an anomaly to Zack. At first he tries to treat her like he has every other woman he’s ever known, but they’ve all been just one night stands for him. She awesomely calls him out on it, tells him he’s got no manners and treats women like whores and she’s not going to put up with it. She likes him but she won’t let him walk all over her. He’s been warned about local girls that like to trap themselves a naval officer by getting pregnant, but Paula’s not interested in that. She knows he’s only there for a couple of months and she wants to have fun while she can. She has dreams and aspirations. She wants to have a better life, too, and she makes Mayo better just by virtue of being in her presence. He’s never had a girlfriend before. He doesn’t know what it’s like to care for someone and have her care for him. His mother killed herself when he was a young teen and his father was a drunk and a good-for-nothing, and at some point Zack started believing that he had no one in the world to count on but himself. His growing intimacy with Paula fascinates and terrifies him. At one point he tries to just stop calling, stop seeing her, but he sees her at a bar with another man and he can’t stay away. He’s drawn to her, and as much as he tries to fight it, he loves her. She makes him a better man.

It’s Sid, though, who really turns Mayo’s world around. Sid’s father and older brother both went through this same program, and when his brother died in Vietnam, Sid joined the program to live up to his parents’ expectations. He has a moral code — when he thinks his girlfriend might be pregnant, he can’t fathom not being a part of his kid’s life, despite Zack’s arguments — and he always tries to do the right thing. He’s a great student and a good friend. He challenges Zack’s selfishness and his bullshit, so when things fall apart for him, Zack can’t understand and is hurt and angry all over again that he let himself get close to someone. At the same time, though, it’s Sid’s legacy that Zack will always remember, that he’ll keep inside him always. Ultimately, I think it’s Sid’s influence that leads Zack to the paper factory after graduation. Zack realizes how important it is, because Sid knew it was important. It’s like he’s finally grown up.

An Officer and a Gentleman is such a fantastic film. I don’t even know how or when I first watched it, only that my mother loved it and it somehow got passed on to me — for which I’m eternally grateful. It’s a rich and satisfying film. It’s an unexpected romance from a hard-as-nails man’s perspective. It’s a coming of age film about a full-grown adult. It’s about self-discovery and learning how to be a better person and how to live a better life than the one you’ve been dealt. And it’s got an awesome theme song. It’s just so, so great. I love it to pieces.

“Way to go, Paula! Way to go!”

MY MOVIE SHELF: Necessary Roughness

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 185  Days to go: 185

Movie #192:  Necessary Roughness

A football movie next in line on a football Saturday? It’s like kismet. Only I didn’t want to use up all my football mojo before the Big Game, so I had to wait to put Necessary Roughness on. Blissfully, I couldn’t think of better circumstances to watch honestly one of my absolute favorite sports movies.

Welcome to Texas State University, home of the Fighting Armadillos, a fictional college coming off a national championship and facing massive sanctions for illegal payoffs and drug use and boosters. Enter Ed Gennero (the ubiquitous early ’90s presence of Hector Elizondo), a no-nonsense coach intent on fielding an honest team, even with only one returning player (Charlie Banks, played by recent Wipeout contestant Andrew Lauer) and almost everyone playing Ironman (both offense and defense).

Notable roster includes:

Paul Blake (Scott Bakula) at Quarterback. Blake was a high school phenom over fifteen years earlier, but never entered college due to family issues. Can he fit in with these young kids as “the arm of the Armadillos?” Uh, duh. Bakula has always been one of the sexiest older men in the world to me, and I’m sure part of the reason I was so drawn to this movie is because it starred him (Quantum Leap being one of my absolute favorite shows at the time). He’s athletic and musical, can pull off brooding and funny, and he is extremely well put together. Even better, he doesn’t become a college quarterback and take up with some 20-year-old hottie with daddy issues, he falls for his Journalism professor, Suzanne Carter (Harley Jane Kozak), making age-appropriate romance in a silly sports movie truly compelling.

Comedian Sinbad shows up in this — a perfect vehicle for him honestly — as Andre Krimm, a science professor who quit football with a year of eligibility left and joins the team as a defensive leader. “Andre does not eat raw meat, ’cause Andre is a vegetarian,” but he does like to “pa-ar-ar-tay.”

Jason Bateman! Jason Bateman is hilarious, eons before Arrested Development and Horrible Bosses made him an absurdist straight man extraordinaire, as Edison, a pampered playboy rich kid who has cheerleaders do his homework for him but buckles down with Krimm to pass all his exams and maintain eligibility. The greatest offense he can think of is someone punching his quarterback after being bought a beer.

Samoan Peter Tuiasosopo plays center Manumana the Slender, and is basically adorable, as well as honorable and sweet and totally great. Especially with regard to the team’s kicker, women’s soccer star Lucy Draper, played by Kathy Ireland. “She’s got some foot.” “And it keeps getting better on the way up.” Of course, when she’s welcomed to football with a hard hit to the turf, she welcomes the balls of a Kansas Jayhawk linebacker to her foot, so it all works out.

The Texas Penitentiary team shows up for a practice scrimmage, too, populated by, among others, Ed “Too Tall” Jones, Herschel Walker, Tony Dorsett, Dick Butkus, Evander Holyfield, Jerry Rice, and Jim Kelly.

As for non-players, you have Rob Schneider in his best role ever, as Armadillos announcer Chuck Neiderman, and having a WHOLE lot of fun up there in the booth, and making great use of his signature fumbalaya, fumbleruski, etc. schtick. “In a typhoon, it’s anybody’s game!” Then there’s Larry Miller in ridiculously bad cardigans as football hating Dean Elias, being “firm but fair” and creeping on Suzanne. (“It hurts when they poke you in the chest like that.”) But no one tops Robert Loggia as Defensive Coach Rig, who gets all the best lines and plays up his gruff, biting persona to maximum hilarity. Before Rig brings on Blake, he muses that if Gennero is going to “build an offense around a guy who throws like Edward Scissorhands, we’re going to be playing a hell of a lot of defense.” And when Gennero encourages Featherstone (Duane Davis) to keep his eye on the ball, Coach Rig suggests, “And keep your hands on the ball.”

“Holy Columbus Ohio” this is a funny goddamn movie.

As funny as it is, though, what makes Necessary Roughness great — despite it being a kind of standard underdog sports movie — is that they aren’t managing to win an unlikely championship or anything like that. No, they lose every game but one (which they tie) going into the final against the (also fictional) Texas Colts. It’s a messy, ugly end to a messy, ugly season, but Blake makes them a sexy, sexy promise: “We get into that endzone, you’re not going to feel any pain.”

If you need more than that in a sports film, you might just be asking for too much.