Dave Barry Is Not Taking This Sitting Down (16 page)

I was watching this, wondering what product was being advertised (Bicycles? Dietary fiber? Lucent?) and the announcer said: “Aren’t there enough reasons in
your
life to talk to your doctor about Zocor?”

The announcer did not say what “Zocor” is. It
sounds
like the evil ruler of the Planet Wombax. I figure it’s a medical drug, although I have no idea what it does. And so, instead of enjoying my favorite TV show, I was lying there wondering if I should be talking to my doctor about Zocor. My doctor is named Curt, and the only time I go to his office is when I am experiencing a clear-cut medical symptom, such as an arrow sticking out of my head. So mainly I see Curt when I happen to sit near him at a sporting event, and he’s voicing medical opinions such as “HE STINKS!” and “CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW BAD THIS GUY STINKS??” This would not be a good time to ask him what he thinks about Zocor (“IT STINKS!”).

Television has become infested with commercials for drugs that we’re supposed to ask our doctors about. Usually the announcer says something scary like, “If you’re one of the 337 million people who suffer
from parabolical distabulation of the frenulum, ask your doctor about Varvacron. Do it now. Don’t wait until you develop boils the size of fondue pots.”

At that point, you’re thinking, “Gosh, I better get some Varvacron!”

Then the announcer tells you the side effects.

“In some patients,” he says, “Varvacron causes stomach discomfort and the growth of an extra hand coming out of the forehead. Also, one patient turned into a lemur. Do not use Varvacron if you are now taking, or have recently shaken hands with anybody who is taking, Fladamol, Lavadil, Fromagil, Havadam, Lexavon, Clamadam, Gungadin, or breath mints. Discontinue use if your eyeballs suddenly get way smaller. Pregnant women should not even be watching this commercial.”

So basically, the message of these drug commercials is:

1. You need this drug.
   
2. This drug might kill you.
   

I realize that the drug companies, by running these commercials, are trying to make me an informed medical consumer. But I don’t WANT to be an informed medical consumer. I liked it better when my only medical responsibility was to stick out my tongue. That was the health-care system I grew up under, which was called “The Dr. Mortimer Cohn Health-Care System,” named for my family doctor when I was growing up in Armonk, New York.

Under this system, if you got sick, your mom took you to see Dr. Cohn, and he looked at your throat, then he wrote out a prescription in a Secret Medical Code that neither you nor the CIA could understand. The only person who could understand it was Mr. DiGiacinto, who ran the Armonk Pharmacy, where you went to get some mystery pills and a half-gallon of Sealtest chocolate ice cream, which was a critical element of this health-care system. I would never have dreamed of talking to Dr. Cohn about Zocor or any other topic, because the
longer you stayed in his office, the greater the danger that he might suddenly decide to give you a “booster shot.”

We did have TV commercials for medical products back then, but these were non-scary, straightforward commercials that the layperson could understand. For example, there was one for a headache remedy—I think it was Anacin—that showed the interior of an actual cartoon of a human head, so you could see the three medical causes of headaches: a hammer, a spring, and a lightning bolt. There was a commercial for Colgate toothpaste with Gardol, which had strong medical benefits, as proven by the fact that when a baseball player threw a ball at the announcer’s head, it (the ball) bounced off an Invisible Protective Shield. There was a commercial for a product called “Serutan.” I was never sure what it did, but it was definitely effective, because the announcer came right out and stated—bear in mind that the Food and Drug Administration has never disputed this claim—that “Serutan” is “natures” spelled backward.

You, the medical consumer, were not required to ask your doctor about any of these products. You just looked at the commercial and said, “A hammer! No wonder my head aches!” And none of these products had side effects, except Colgate, which, in addition to deflecting baseballs, attracted the opposite sex.

I miss those days, when we weren’t constantly being nagged to talk to our doctors, and we also didn’t have a clue how many grams of fat were in our Sealtest chocolate ice cream. Life was simpler then, as opposed to now, when watching TV sometimes makes me so nervous that I have to consume a certain medical product. I know it’s effective, because it’s “reeb” spelled backward.

A
s a noted film critic, I assume that you are eager to read my impressions of
Eyes Wide Shut
, the controversial much-discussed final film in the
oeuvre
of Stanley Kubrick, or, as he was known to those of us who considered him a close personal friend before he died, “Stan.”

What is one to make of
Eyes Wide Shut
? Is this the
chef d’oeuvre
, the
pièce de résistance
if you will, of this legendary cinematic
auteur?
Does it possess the penultimate exigency, the insouciant
escargot
, the
frisson de voiture
of Stan’s earlier work? Or does it succumb to the inevitable
bouillabaisse en route
that every great
roman à clef
experiences when he reaches the point that the great French director Renault Citroën once, in a moment of
pique
, described as
fromage de la parapluie
(literally, “umbrella cheese”)?

These are, indeed, some questions. And if one is to truly address them, one has an obligation, as a noted cultural commentator as well as a human being, to have some direct knowledge of the film in question. Thus it was that this critic—reluctantly pausing in his ongoing project of reading the complete unabridged works of Marcel Proust in the original French handwriting in a drafty room with poor lighting—went to the cinematic theater for a personal firsthand viewing of
Eyes Wide Shut
.

This critic will not, as the great Italian director Ronzoni Sono Buoni used to say, “beat around amongst the shrubbery.” This critic
will come right out—at risk of violating the First Rule of serious cinematic criticism (“Avoid clear sentences”)—and tell you exactly what
Eyes Wide Shut
is about: It is about two and a half hours long. That is frankly more time than this critic can afford to spend in a cinema, because at this critic’s current rate of cinema-concession-snack consumption (CCSC), which is one box of Goobers per 45 minutes of film viewing, this critic would soon develop what the great German director Audi Porsche Messerschmitt referred to as
ahugengrossenbiggenfattenheinie
. After two and a half hours, it would take a construction crane to hoist this critic back out of his seat.

And so this critic elected to instead view another film playing at the same theater,
Lake Placid
, which is about half as long as
Eyes Wide Shut
, but involves even less actual viewing time if you, like this critic, close your eyes tight for certain scenes, such as the one at the beginning where a scuba diver is swimming in the lake and something grabs him from underwater, so his friend tries to rescue him by pulling him back into the boat, and the only really positive thing you can say about the diver at that point is that, if he had survived, he would never again have had to worry about finding pants in his size, if you get this critic’s drift.

Lake Placid
explores a classic literary theme—a theme that has fascinated artists from Homer to Shakespeare to Milton to Milton’s younger brother, Arnold, namely: What happens when an Asian crocodile swims over from Asia and winds up in a secluded lake in Maine, where it grows to a length of 30 feet?

The answer is: some serious chomping. Because naturally, after the crocodile eats half of the diver in the opening scene, more people immediately show up and insist on swimming in the lake with their legs dangling down invitingly like big fat corn dogs with feet. One of the great mysteries of the cinema is why characters insist on plunging into bodies of water known to contain hungry irate marine life-forms with mouths the size of two-car garages. More than once this critic has been tempted to shout, “GET OUT OF THE WATER,
YOU CRETINS!” But of course the characters cannot hear. Also, there some risk associated with spraying semi-chewed Goobers into the hair of the person sitting in the row ahead.

And so the audience of
Lake Placid
—which, for the showing attended by this critic, consisted mostly of large families who apparently had mistaken the theater for the Playtime Day-Care Center for Loud Hyperactive Children—can only sit and chew helplessly as the crocodile eats various minor characters, not to mention a bear, a moose, and part of a helicopter. This sets the stage for the film’s climactic scene, in which—this critic is not making this scene up—the heroes lure the crocodile into a trap by flying the injured helicopter over the lake and dangling from it, in a sling at the end of a long cable, a
live cow
. Not since the heyday of the great Japanese director Nissan Kawasaki has this critic seen a more effective cinematic use of airborne livestock. If that cow does not win an Oscar for Best Supported Actor, then this critic will have some very harsh words for somebody.

In conclusion,
Lake Placid
is a worthy addition to the cinematic
genre
of Movies Where Body Parts Frequently Wash Ashore. As for
Eyes Wide Shut:
Although this critic has not seen it personally, cinematic sources say that it has a certain
je ne sais quoi
(literally, “movie stars naked”). So this critic is giving both of these fine films two thumbs up. That’s a total of four thumbs up. So it’s a good thing that spares are washing ashore.

A
t this juncture in the time parameter we once again proudly present “Ask Mister Language Person,” the No. 1 rated language column in the United States according to a recent J. D. Power and Associates survey of consumers with imaginary steel plates in their heads. The philosophy of this column is simple: If you do not use correct grammar, people will lose respect for you, and they will burn down your house. So let’s stop beating around a dead horse and cut right to the mustard with our first question: