Tommy Boy (1995)

Director: Peter Segal

Cast: Chris Farley, David Spade, Bo Derek, Brian Dennehy

Have I Seen it Before: Experiencing the main crux of my adolescence in the mid-90s, it was essentially required viewing. At some point, I had recorded an airing off of HBO, and I probably watched it more than I strictly had to.

Then again, I have the strongest memory of being no more than twelve, seeing Farley during an appearance on The Tonight Show and saying out loud. “Well, he’s not going to live very long.”

I was a weird kid, though.

Did I Like It: Generally accepted to be Farley’s greatest movie, I couldn’t help but wonder if that said more about the shortness of his career than anything else. Could it hold up after all of these years? Could anything?

Probably not. The film is 90 minutes of warmed over Capra-esque aww-shucks-ness with a few moments of Farley being Farley to fill the trailers and get the opening weekend grosses up. Farley can be funny, but after being on a bit of a Saturday Night Live jag lately after the one-two punch of the show’s 50th anniversary coupled with last year’s Saturday Night (2024) I think I’ve come to the conclusion that Farley’s manic energy could never be correctly captured by a feature film. It needed to be on display in live TV, where one could see him become a tornado, and then have to ask themselves whether or not they really saw what they just saw. Farley excelled at that. It’s what elevated him from just another featured player on the show, and that quality might have had some part in killing him.

Then again, I could be wrong. Had he lived, Farley might have found layers we never knew he had. If that had been the case, this film might have been forgotten altogether. It certainly wouldn’t hold up.

First Blood (1982)

Director: Ted Kotcheff

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, Brian Dennehy, David Caruso

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: Wildly—and I do mean wildly—inconsistent tiling of the series aside, is there a series that starts in a place so different than what it eventually (and almost immediately after this film’s runtime ends) becomes? Given that this first film that features Rambo (Stallone) portrays him as an live current of PTSD that eventually collapses into an emotional meltdown which subsequently leads to his surrender, I don’t think that other sharp left turn exists. It would be like Robocop spending his first film as a florist working through an oedipal complex.

That may read as snark, but I really think that makes this film fascinating. There are few major movie stars who have usually been fueled by their ego than Stallone, so those brief instances where he sheds that baggage* are stark and can’t be ignored.

The film also presents an interesting political paradox. In 2023 it’s hard to fathom a film that steadfastly sympathizes with Vietnam veterans (to the point of never really reckoning with the notion that the war should never have happened in the first place) and inescapably comes to the conclusion that all cops have a predilection for bastardy**.

Taken on its own merits, it’s hard to find fault in a movie that resoundingly embraces such conflicting ideas (that an action movie can approach any idea makes the whole affair seem quaint). It’s also so refreshing that Stallone leaved well enough alone and let the film stand on its own for all time…

Oh, wait. Not only does he compulsively and irrationally go back to the well here, to the point where endless bouts as Rocky seem restrained by comparison… But I took the bait and bought the entire series on iTunes. Now I have to watch them. I have nothing but dread in my bones. All I can hope is that Rambo will kill me swiftly before I bring myself to watch Rambo: Last Blood (2019) again.

*Even the early Rocky films can’t completely shed this impulse, only Creed (2015) comes anywhere close.

**At least those not played by David Caruso…