Joe Bob's 20 Flicks That Changed Movie History

National Review ^ | August 26, 2003 | Thud

[Pukin Dog]

Somewhat off-topic, but I saw a film last night called "Office Space". A friend of mine said it was an accurate portrait of the Computer industry. Can anyone tell me if this is true? I thought it was very funny, but if it is also true, then I know what is wrong with technology in America.

[Centurion2000]

It is so dead on it's scary.

[warchild9]

Office Space, while not very funny, portrayed some wincingly authentic situations anyone in big corporate life will experience.

[Pukin Dog]

Really? That is not good. I thought it was very funny, though.

[Pukin Dog]

You didnt think it was funny? Man, I was dying. The assault on the printer had me on the floor.

[Lurking Libertarian]

it's still startling to find that Briggs chose The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari as the first movie to discuss

Du musst Caligari werden!

[BMiles2112]

Watched it twice on Sunday. One of my favorites.

[Constitution Day]

Let's try not to forget the coversheets on our TPS reports, mmmkay?

[dfwgator]

"I could ... set the building on fire"

[Cooter]

I still remember Joe Bob's classic review of The Terminator from 1984:

Arnold the Barbarian drops buck- nekkid out of the sky and walks around sticking his arm through the stomachs of punk rockers in this cross between "The Road Warrior" and "Halloween," with some "Zombie" tossed in to make it disgusting. Arnold is a cyborg zapped into El Lay from the future whose mission is to wipe out Linda Hamilton so she can't give birth to the guy who's gonna kill him in the year 2029. So the A- Man gets him some Hell's Angeles threads and walks into a gun store and tells Dick Miller than he wants a 12-gauge auto-loader shotgun, a .45 long-slide heavy-duty handgun with laser sighting, a 9-millimeter pistol, and a Plasma rifle with a 40-watt range- finder and then Dick Miller says "Will there be anything else?" and the A-Man blows Dick away in slow motion and walks out of the store like a National Guard Armory with legs. Fortunately, Linda Hamilton knows the A-Man is breathing heavy, so she gets her OWN nekkid enforcer from the future--Michael Biehn. When HE lands nekkid in the alley, he has to run through a K-Mart with cops chasing him before he gets dressed and steals a shotgun and starts hanging around Linda Hamilton's apartment. Arnold blows away 20 or 30 guys when he gets insulted in a disco, but even when Michael pumps 12 shotgun holes through him, it doesn't matter. The A-Man just goes back to his motel room, carves up his arm, then sticks a knife directly in his eyeball and pulls out the eye and throws it in the sink. Then there's a lot of plot about where Arnold came from, and the nuclear war in the future, and blah blah blah, then a couple GREAT motor-vehicle chases where they almost catch Arnold, and then Arnold drives his car THROUGH the police station and kills about 20 cops, and then he shoots up a motel room, and then there's some more chases where Arnold's on a cycle, until a Mack Truck runs him over and bloodies him up. Now he's p.o.ed. From now on out, whenever you think he's dead-- he's not. Four breasts. Thirty-seven dead bodies. Two beasts. Dempster Dumpster truck destructor scene. Intestines roll. Forearms roll. Eyes roll. One pet iguana. Four motor vehicle chases, with crash-and-burn. Rat-eating refugees who set fires in their TV sets. Seven quarts blood. A 77 on the Vomit Meter. Written and directed by James Cameron.

[brbethke]

We have a copy in our company library. There's a waiting list to check it out.

[Pukin Dog]

Let's try not to forget the coversheets on our TPS reports, mmmkay?

Those would be the NEW coversheets, correct?

[BMiles2112]

"Did you get the memo?"

[Constitution Day]

"I could ... set the building on fire"

[RoughDobermann]

"I'm thinking about taking that new chick from Logistics. If things go right I might be showing her my O-face. You know: Oh! Oh!"

[Constitution Day]

Absolutely! I see you got the memo.

[SengirV]

A friend of mine said it was an accurate portrait of the Computer industry. Can anyone tell me if this is true?

Take away the actual WORK part of the job, and it is dead on.

[weegee]

So is there a list of all 20 films? I was a board certified drive-in critic for Joe Bob Briggs reviewing videotapes that would come in the mail several times a week (it's not that he didn't watch movies, but when there are 100 new tapes a week, he let a panel of experts get a crack at them so that he could determine which ones needed more attention). I mostly handled independent films (real films shot by one person and his friends) and later cult/reissues.

Sounds like an interesting book but I don't know how much of his information will be old hat to me. Maybe it will open some other peoples eyes to the history of cinema OUTSIDE of the Hollywood studios.

[warchild9]

I found the ghetto music irritating, and the whole techie schtick kind of annoying. And like I said, the right-on hits on corporate life were more painful than humorous. Maybe it's because the movie was so accurate in a Dilbert-kind of way caused me to find it unfunny.