In need of mindless entertainment to distract me from my computer woes last night, I bought and watched the new “deluxe” edition of the movie Road House with Patrick Swayze.
I should state up front that the movie itself would be a guilty pleasure for me, if I ever felt guilty over anything. It’s fun to watch and very high with the cheese factor. As one of the people in the included features put it, “you can tune in any time and not feel you missed important plot.”
The deluxe edition has a feature about the movie (cute, especially since it appears the people involved have no illusions over the peculiar place in pop culture their movie has landed), a feature asking real bouncers what they think (not bad), sneak peek at the straight-to-DVD Road House 2 which left me utterly unmoved, and, the reason I bought it, the commentaries.
The director’s commentary is boring. Skip it and go straight to the real treasure, the guest commentary by Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier. Apparently they went on about Road House during a commentary of one of their own movies and got invited to come do this one, and it’s freaking hilarious.
When they’re not spouting behind-the-scenes facts clearly cribbed from imdb (at times you can hear them looking them up), they’re talking about the zeigist of the movie or the constant homoerotic themes or the utter greatness of how bad it is or why anyone would want to have sex against a rough brick wall or on a sloping roof.
When they have nothing else to say they swipe lines from ChuckNorrisFacts.com to talk about how tough Swayze’s character Dalton is. “Dalton does not go hunting, as that would admit the possibility of failure. Dalton goes killing.” “Dalton doesn’t read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.” It’s so silly it’s funny, especially when they can barely get the lines out because they’re laughing too hard.
I kinda like the movie, but with the dialogue turned off and these two guys talking for two hours, it may be the best thing I’ve seen this summer.