It's time to watch the 1987 film The Last Fling and yammer on and on about it!
This film - starring John Ritter - is about a man and a woman who are both looking for love. I believe it was the first and last movie to tackle that theme.
So let's look back, fondly, together.
OK, good: classic 1980s movie theme song gets things going. I think this song is called Synthesizers.
1st scene opens with a pair of legs, and as we pan up those legs are attached to a pretty lady!
Anyway,
John Ritter's character's named Phillip. I guessed Rick so I was really really close.
"what do you say Phillip, how about a little cardiovascular activity to start your day off right?"
(jumping jacks, five sets of 25).
The woman's cats were a BIG part of this first scene, and that's not a great sign because they were cats. I love cats, on many occasions more than people. But if cat 1 and cat 2 are two of the main characters in the opening scene of the movie and neither can talk because this isn't animated, we may be in for a long hour and 17 minutes.
Scene 1 thankfully over, but that leads to the opening credits and just an excruciating tune.
I'll call it "doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo doo doo doo," because that was most of the song.
OK.....guest stars! (what does that actually mean? isn't everyone just IN the movie?)
Randee Heller, or, the mom from Karate Kid.
(guest)
I already have a good feeling I'm going to really dislike the mom from Karate Kid as someone else in this movie.
come on. Paul Sand?
I am one of (unofficially) seven people who remember Paul Sand from the movie Teen Wolf Too. He played "Coach Finstock" and now I have to watch him a second time. It's not fair.
Kate Zentall! ok I think that's enough with the credits.
Quick check and this song is "The Dream Goes On", vocals by Peter Hix.
I'm so glad it finally ended.
No.
I really thought that was it.
Alright this time it ended.
We're now introduced to Walt, who runs a newspaper stand. And right after he and Phillip perform the classic "guy drives up to newspaper stand at red light and buys paper", Walt, screaming, praises Phillip for his womanizing, then yells "you're my hero!" as he's driving away!
Walt, is everything ok?
No, it isn't. But I think Walt exists because it was important to establish several times within the first seven minutes of the film that Phillip does well with the ladies and we've done that.
Also, Walt has a crush on Phillip and unlike my crush on Amanda Viti in 3rd grade, it is not adorable.
I have a feeling Paul Sand is coming up soon to also ask if Phillip "got lucky" or something like that.
Yep, here he is.
"Linda, Phil's here to brag about his sexual escapades!"
jesus, we get it. The ladies like Phil.
"Jack" is Paul Sand's character. And not surprising, he's extremely irritating.
Phil shows disinterest in continuing the relationship with the woman from the previous night (possibly because she had between 4-11 cats) and that the jumping from woman to woman thing is "not right", and Jack yells
"what's this not right thing, what are you talking about?! LA Magazine listed her as one of the 10 most eligible women in the city!"
the way he says 'city'? italics aren't enough, so here's his face a few times
Phillip: "I mean take sex. Sex has become something I have...you know? You have dinner, you have the measles, you have sex."
and after Phil asks what there is to believe in if not finding a true love, Jack says
"well you know you can always believe in the tooth fairy, I hear she's single."
"you have the measles"?
the tooth fairy?
who wrote this nonsense?
no, actually, who read it and said OK, let's begin filming?
"I just keep thinking, what if my Ms. Right has run off with Mr. Close Enough"
Scene, please end.
ok, there we go, thank goodness.
--
Gloria has been introduced!
And we meet Randee Heller's character, and friend No. 2
and everyone is at a Raiders game I guess.
It's Raiders-Broncos because someone just yelled "I got Broncos tickets here, 40-yard line".
Isn't this in Los Angeles?
Anyway, Jason is Gloria's fiance and he's a big Raiders fan and a terrible actor, and I think Phil is going to try and get Gloria to not marry Jason later in the movie. Let's see what happens (that's what is going to happen).
Let's also meet Jason's friends, who are these two people:
The guy on the left is too cool for podiatry school and the guy on the right has had 26 Bud Lights.
11 of those Bud Lights are a secret.
I liked the few seconds footage of an actual Broncos-Raiders game they threw in, but then we cut to the crowd pretending to react to it and everything is terrible again.
Here's Jason screaming "way to move!" after the Raiders make a tackle on a kick off.
You know, "way to move!", what you scream when your team makes a tackle on a kick off.
No! Why is the opening song back again?!
doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo!
doo-doo-doo-dooo-doo-doo-doo-doo!
I thought we lost this song back in scene 1. Remember? We said we were going that way and pointed in one direction, the song said it had to get up early in the morning and started walking in the other direction, and we thought that was it.
But now obviously we're at the Los Angeles Zoo.
Phil and Gloria meet for the first time at the zoo while trying to coax a bear out of the water each with one, single peanut.
If there's anything I've learned about bears it's that they prefer eating very very small things being thrown at them.
Both Phil and Gloria love the show The Honeymooners! Everybody laughs, everybody falls in love! The bear eats a peanut! Movie over. Right?
It looks like no.
Some quick things:
- Phil breaks up with woman from scene 1
- At one point in her life Gloria "jumped up on stage to sing with Bob Seger", according to Randee Heller's character (still no name)
- Wait, is it Mimi? The mom from Karate Kid's name in this movie is Mimi. This movie is extremely disappointing.
- Mimi has two children, one an infant she keeps feeding (over-feeding?) in this scene. Who is the father? One of the dullards from the Raiders game? What the hell is going on?
- Male stripper scene. I guess it's Gloria's bachelorette party? The guy who played the stripper was an actual stripper, no question about it. They probably had to stop him - Cobra!...Cobra!! cut!
- 28:59: breasts. Female nudity for whatever reason. Jason is having an affair with a woman "in Las Vegas" (they talked about it during the football scene: Gloria was mad because she had to hear from her friends that "the men were going to Las Vegas" and so she skipped off to the zoo).
Anyway, Gloria calls and the woman answers while Jason is in the shower howling like a wolf?
That part was exactly as bad as it sounds.
So now Gloria is sure Jason is cheating on her and she'll definitely call Phil (she got his number at the zoo).
Alright, so....
Gloria invited Phil to go with her to Acapulco!
They met at a zoo 14 hours ago.
I wrote Acupoco, Alcopoco, Alcipooko (didn't write alcaponeco)....then I got it: Acapulco.
Who else is in this movie? A.C. SLATER
He plays kid desk clerk who scams silly gringos out of many many many american dollars.
The car A.C. Slater rented them caught on fire, so they have to run away from the car.
They may have overdone it a bit. Was Phil IN the car for a few minutes while it burned?
Either way, they escaped down the street, arms flailing. And I'm assuming will go and try to get their deposit back from A.C. Slater, but he fled the scene as soon as the transaction was completed so it doesn't even matter.
Phil and Gloria are stranded in Acapulco until....yes. YES. A truck full of spanish folks stops and picks them up.
Then, everyone is uncomfortable
until Bob Seger's "Katmandu" starts playing, Gloria starts singing, then dancing, then everyone is dancing and one of the most improbable scenes in film history concludes 45 seconds or so later with everyone goodbye-laughing.
Now we have several minutes of Phil and Gloria and pleasant misunderstandings......hopefully we don't reprise the first song of the movie....
nothing so far, good....
we do have some running away on the beach, I had a feeling a bit of that was coming....but still no first song....
"Marsha, wait!" (forgot, Gloria told Phil her name was Marsha)
"Par Avion" by Mike and the Mechanics during the marsha/gloria-phil love-making scene.
an actual pretty good song!
we found something good about this movie. I predict we go right back to nonsense.....
Yes.
Phil wakes up and Gloria is gone, he looks for her but she instead left a video telling him that it was a mistake and that she's getting married.
So she's gone and Phil is probably headed into some kind of spiral while Gloria's life continues with Jason but it's unsatisfying. That should've been the name of this movie: Gloria's Life Continues With Jason and it's Unsatisfying While Phil Heads Into Some Kind of Spiral.
So - next two scenes involve Gloria and Mimi talking about chicken and rice, and Phil's mother setting him up with a woman. The first scene isn't worth discussing, it's 70 seconds of nothing. And really, the second isn't much either, except for the fact that Phil's mother is so desperate for him to meet someone (AND SETTLE DOWN) that she invites both he and the non-English speaking "Sonia" over to her house and the only thing Sonia can say is "hi".
Seriously, the woman says hi three times and nothing else.
Phillip's mother: "I just want you to be happy."
Well get him some (Sonia's native language) lessons!
Very important scene where Gloria and Jason talk about chicken and rice (again with the chicken and rice?) and argue over how to put the dishes in the dishwasher.
Final line is from Gloria: "one of these days Jason, bang zoom, to the moon!"
that was difficult to go through.
1:01 into it and Walt returns. And he has a wife?.....he is dragging her over so maybe he doesn't actually have a wife as much as he's kidnapped a woman and made her become his wife? I can't imagine anyone marrying Walt.
the dragging:
Phil: "I didn't recognize you away from the stand"
he looks exactly the same, with I think the same suit on.
They talk about finding the right person and how Walt and Sophia have been married for 30 years and then Walt and Sophia scurry off so Walt can "buy Sophia a malted"? Why do these two characters exist?
Couple scenes later Phil is "going to find Marsha" and he breaks into - where? - the place they stayed in in Acapulco? I don't know what is going on.
Now Phil is headed to some prison in a latin country somewhere.
OK -
He's bailed out, but there's no question now that Phil is going to spend the rest of the movie trying to stop Marsha/Gloria from getting married.
- Phil goes to Jason's house and finds out Marsha's name is Gloria Franklin, then to a floral shop to send flowers to "every Franklin in LA". Followed by a delivery boy spending I guess most of his Tuesday delivering flowers and this goofiness is accompanied by a song called "Hard Workin' World", which may somehow be worse than the theme song. It was only a few seconds long thankfully, but he delivers to dozens of people and finally the last delivery is to Gloria. This movie is 53 minutes too long.
56.
- Great, Jack and Linda are back. Linda, fine. But Jack? I had hoped he was gone for good, but he's definitely going to figure prominently in some upcoming scene....
- Gloria calls Phil.....nothing accomplished except Phil begins to actually lose his mind
then they meet - "oh Phillip, it can't work. we've already paid the caterer, the florist, we have reservations in the Bahamas..."
PHIL, THEY PAID THE CATERER
Now Gloria left and Phil is going to try and find her. For the rest of the movie. And he is running, then driving, and some of the montage music they didn't use in the Rocky movies is playing...really weird 80s sounds, and Jack, in his pajamas, is now basically being forced to drive Phil around while he searches for the location of Gloria's wedding ceremony. And Jack complains the entire time, like he was kidnapped. And in a way he kind of was....but he could have easily just said no. This is exactly how I expected this movie to end.
few things:
* of course he's in his pajamas
* at one point Linda says "shut up and drive Jack", which isn't very nice
* Jack: "I can't believe you two are making me do this"
who is making you do this? you're a grown man, just say "no I won't drive you around like a maniac, without any shoes on, running red lights and going the wrong way down one-way streets while you try to find this random ceremony in a city of 3 million people"
Phil finally gets to his destination and he's punched by a groomsman who I think was Bill Walton? and is left out on some outdoor patio where he better stay or, I'm assuming, else.
Gloria finds Phil and they talk about their feelings. Gloria's last words(?): "goodbye Phil"
cut to zoo....
Phil wandering around, muttering to himself.....and there's Gloria, in her wedding dress. She's just here to tell him one, final time that it could never work and she's getting married to Jason. AND THE WEDDING IS HAPPENING IN LEMUR FOREST.
No, no. Gloria in fact ran away from Jason and now she and Phil are smooching, then they walk off into the sunset.
Thank you, movie, for finally ending.