The Dead Pool (1988) · 9:11am Sep 27th, 2019
So, it's been a few months since I've posted or really said anything here. How's it going? Hopefully you're doing well and life hasn't been too much of a booger. If it has, well, in the most general of ways I hope that you are able to see your way through whatever it is.
Things over here haven't really gone quite as planned this year for good and bad. On the good side I feel somewhat healthier than I have in awhile. The knee doesn't hurt so much anymore which is a plus. I also had an unusually relaxing time watching movies and the like in a hotel room earlier this month. Occasionally I even get more than four continuous hours of sleep. It's good.
On the downside I have been sidelined with injury or ailment more than I'd care for. Whatever sickness I had wasn't one I recognized but I did hear pneumonia mentioned so that was fun. The computer went down and took with it everything. Then it went down again and did it again. So that sort of killed a number of stories more or less which may or may not be a boon for the world if inconvenient for me. Heck today is the first day I can safely say it's acting stable.
On a different note I quit watching Friendship is Magic. It honestly just quit being entertaining on any level for me. That's not to say there weren't episodes leading up to when I stopped that I didn't enjoy. In fact there were a couple but, at the same time I also felt like I was watching a show spin its wheels and really do nothing, again. The episode that honestly did it was Student Counsel because I thought Starlight was at least a little smarter than that. I mean all she had to do was have posted hours, set up appointments and that's it.
Part of learning isn't constantly running to some authority figure to help you, it's getting out there the best you can and trying. You might fail but we all fail at one time or another. The trick is to keep trying to figure things out. Also, I detest Mudbriar so that didn't help either. It also didn't help that I read the synopsis for the next episode which involves Scootaloo maybe being forced to move away from her friends, however her parents are then convinced to let her stay after all. What a wasted opportunity for something that could have been done a season or two ago.
Think about it, at some point in most kids' lives one or more of their friends are going to leave for one reason or another. It might be because the parents got a new job or get divorced. It might be that the kid gets sick, someone gets arrested or whatever. The point is that the kid has to leave and things have to change. Even if the one kid who moved stays in contact with the friends back home things still change. Another friend or friends will slide into those spots. Interests will change even if just a little. A lot of times when you see one another again it changes so much that the relationship dissolves. It's not that you hate one another but you have different lives now.
Dealing with this between a couple of seasons and would have at least taught a valuable lesson (even if it required the kid being interested in the show for more than a year).
Speaking of change:
In 1971 Dirty Harry was a smash hit at the box office and made over thirty million dollars to a four million dollar budget. Periodically over the years a new Dirty Harry movie would come out do well at the box office and people would walk away generally pleased with the experience. However, by the time 1988 rolled around it seems as if audiences had tired of Harry Callahan and while the movie still made money it wasn't a smash hit either. That last movie was The Dead Pool.
In this film Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) has become a celebrity due to the fact that his testimony managed to bring about the conviction of a San Franciscan mob boss. Because of that he's immediately targeted for murder by the mobster's underlings. This plot then combines with the titular plot involving lists of celebrities in a game between four or so different people. Whoever has the most dead bodies wins.
This movie is fun if not spectacular. Eastwood delivers his usual gruff performance with various zingers along the way. The main suspect is a director named Peter Swan (Liam Neeson) who makes a lot of bloody horror films and thinks a lot of himself. The question though is Swan really the killer or is he being set up?
Now this movie is flawed. By this point Dirty Harry movies follow a basic blue print and doesn't deviate. It also is a bit sillier than previous installments. There's just something really weird about Harry Callahan being in a car chase with an RC car chasing him To be fair the toy is rigged to blow but it's just such a weird visual to have our hero trying to out run a toy in a real car. Add into it the completely random ways Callahan gets the occasional clue, the girl and a villain who is really not that menacing in spite of the damage he does. It does stand as a far cry from when Harry Callahan was trying to hunt down the Scorpio Killer.
In fact as a movie I might argue that this one really does come up short in a lot of areas. That said though it is still entertaining with Eastwood doing his thing and various eventually famous people popping in in cameos. I mean where else are you going to see Jim Carrey lip sync Welcome to the Jungle sort of dressed as a hair metal priest on a cheap clone of the set from The Exorcist?
It's a good time.
Dead Bodies: 15
Breasts: 0
Multiple shootings
1 capo car crunch
Knife to the everything
drug overdose
Car flambe
Harpooning
1 disposable partner
Kung Fu
RC Fu
gratuitous we're getting you off the streets scene
car chase fu
Shout outs:
Clint Eastwood as Harry Callahan for doing it the dirtiest way he can and for saying things like, "Well, opinions are like assholes. Everbody's got one."
Liam Neeson as the prickish director Peter Swan for saying things like "It's not a rip-off. It's a homage."
Jim Carrey as Johnny Squares the druggie metal singer.
Patricia Clarkson as Samantha Walker the go getter reporter who after getting saved by Harry says, "You're not paid enough," and when asked if she likes cops replies, "Only when they're not in my rear view mirror."
That's a shame. Your right at the end of the ride.
Glad to hear you’re doing better.
Yeah, it’s a good thing they ended the Dirty Harry series with this one. The next one would have probably been Harry Callahan hunting a serial murderer clown who operates out of a traveling circus or something.
I honestly had no idea they made more then one Dirty Harry movie.
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There are actually five of them.
Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, The Enforcer, Sudden Impact and The Dead Pool.
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And honestly as it was going along his partner would have been a small child whose father was killed by the clown. However, before that he'd have to be chewed out by his captain for using excessive force against a group of storm troopers who were stealing trash cans for a hobo in a junkyard.
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If I'm being honest I don't think I'm missing anything. They continue to bring back characters that we really never needed to see again and who are really just annoying. Nobody but Twilight and her immediate friends are allowed to really achieve or do anything of note. The villains are never really that threatening. I mean I can go on but, the best way I can put it is that after a certain point my watching the show was more out of an, it's a thing I do because I do it and not because it was that enjoyable or interesting.
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Callahan: “The question you’ve got to ask yourself is: ‘do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya? Punk?”
Clown: “HONK”
*BAM!*