When I decided on Real Genius for this week, I swear, I didn’t even need to watch it again for a refresher. We all have a a few movies we’ve spent a quantifiable portion of our lives watching. Mine are Robocop, Walt Disney’s Robin Hood and Real Genius. I saw this most awesome comedy for the first time when I was about 6 years old on my Aunt Jaq’s betamax. Technically a sleeper – taking in only around 13 million dollars in it’s 1985 theatrical run – Martha Coolidge’s college genius flick about the dangers of philosophically-devoid scientific progress helped launch Val Kilmer’s career as a film superstar, despite the horrible movie poster.
First off, I feel it’s important to give respect to movies with awesome opening credits. In 1995 David Fincher’s Se7en really changed the game in terms of telling a part of the story through opening credit artwork, but the tradition really goes back throughout film history with classics from the 30s and 40s giving an entire cast list to the orchestral soundtrack with border work giving clues to the upcoming film’s tone. When I was 6 I never caught on that the entire credit sequence (set to Carmen McRae’s “You Took Advantage of Me”) details the history of human weaponry from a cave-drawing inspired depiction of a neolithic men as stick-thin figures firing arrows with¬†long-bows and the development of iron-age weapons such as a halbard¬†and mace all the way through the early stages of pistols and atomic bombs. Had I any idea what I was looking at, I would have understood the opening scene¬†much better.
The movie opens on a very serious (if not a little farcical) CIA meeting discussing the hypothetical new laser weapon dubbed “Crossbow” which has the capacity to vaporize a human target from space – The evil CIA guy (played by character actor Ed Lauter, Seabiscuit, Starship Troopers 2) wants the laser as a “peace-time weapon” to eliminate threats before they become truly dangerous.
We jump from the Capitol Hill headquarters to a high school science fair where we meet our young hero, Mitch (Gabe Jarrett, Apollo 13, Frost/Nixon), presenting his science project laser. Mitch has been accepted at the age of just 15 years to the Cal-Tech-inspired fictional school – Pacific Tech, fictional in real life I mean – it’s real in the movie. As in, the kid doesn’t go to an imaginary school in terms of the narration of the story – to him the school is real. But to me, and most people watching this movie as a piece of fictional story-telling, the school¬†isn’t real. There are even “real” teachers and students already attending classes in this fictional world, whereas in the “real” world, where I’m sitting in my black rocking chair with my laptop, no school called “Pacific Tech” has ever really existed. Not only that, but Mitch has been tabbed to work on Dr. Hathaway’s (William Atherton, Die Hard, do you really need another movie credit after Die Hard??) personal team to develop the very same laser the CIA wants for their weapon – which of course is all very top secret, and unbeknownst to the team of unwitting sciency college geniuses. He will help lead the team with National Physics Club legend, Chris Knight (Iceman).
Kurt
A Note on Science Without Philosophy:
It’s one thing for a person to be experimenting on stone by chipping away at a stone with, say, a different stone, and making a rough, pointy tool, that through yet more experimenting it’s discovered that this new pointy rock does one hell of a job at puncturing the tough skin of roaming herds of animals that can very ably feed¬†said person and¬†their nomadic family. Far be it for¬†this early scientist¬†to be able to predict that very same stone would do so equally a hell of a job puncturing the not-so-tough skin of another person. It is a very different thing for a much more learned person to experiment with certain petroleum-based compounds that have a nasty habit of sticking to the skin and clothes of still yet other persons and that have a particular knack for being lit on fire and staying that way until the fuel burns out. In these little reviews of mine, I have a little¬†habit of my own for blaming all my personal philosophy on the lectures of Kurt Vonnegut, which might be a little less factual than I make it seem. In any case, Kurt (I feel I can refer to him by his first name considering he’s no longer around to take umbridge with it *sniffle*) makes it abundantly clear in his 1969 address to the American Physical Society (presented in whole in his collection Wampeters Foma and Granfalloons) that “old-fashioned scientists,” who were allowed to experiment on whatever they found interesting, or maybe whatever got them a steady paycheck, are no longer able to exist. Or at least to exist without blame. The more “modern” scientist is required to think about what it is on which he is experimenting or inventing and what it may do to other living people. I happen to agree with this. Quoting another completely fictional statement in a nearly completely fictional movie called Kingdom of Heaven, directed by Ridley Scott, the English-born King of Jerusalem, King Baldwin IV says to that movie’s hero that “When you stand before God you cannot say ‘but I was told by others to do thus’ or that ‘virtue was not convinient at the time.’ This will not suffice. Remember that.”
And oh my god is this an 80s movie. There are a grand total of¬†four musical montages throughout this movie. And by god if they’re not all fantastic:
Mitch studies as he gets into the school groove to “I’m Falling” by The C. S. Angels (which sounds AWEsome at 1.5 speed). Chris redidicates himself to his work to “Number One” performed by the immortal Chaz Jankel. The short montage during Dr. Hathaway’s final exam is set to the instrumental “You’re the Only Love” by Paul Hyde and the Payolas. And finally, as our group of heroes spies on the evil Dr. to learn his plans for the laser-weapon, we’re treated to “Standing in Line” by The Textones. Rock! Special thanks to music supervisors Becky Mancuso and Michael Papale for forever altering the course of my life.
It's Work Time
Not to mention of course the beyond incredible hair-styles (as it happens by the way, it turns out that 90s hairstyles were really only 80s hairstyles with a lot of water thrown on them, as depicted in the Future Beautician party scene, incidentally set to Don Henley’s “All She Wants to Do Is Dance.” Nice). This movie is solely responsible for my going close to 15 years of my life sans-sideburns. Who needs them? And after I left college having not found a single dorm hallway covered in sublimating ice nor a super-genius holing up in the abandoned steam tunnels under any of the campus buildings, life seemed just a little less colorful.
Jon Gries
Under-appreciated Actor of the Week: Jonathan Gries
For his consistent ability to portray the homeless as a humorous people in his appearances as Rusty in “Seinfeld.” For his incredible performances as Roger Linus in TV’s “Lost” and as the has-been football star Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite, Jon, I salute you.
So if you haven’t guessed by now, Chris and Mitch spend their time mostly out of¬†lecture halls¬†experimenting on different types of lasers to create a 5 megawatt laser for the purposes of passing Dr. Hathaway’s class. The Evil Dr. is constantly pressured by the CIA to produce a working laser, and Mitch grows to be a strong, mature man. Maturing, of course, is a rough and brutal process, and through pranks by eternal brown-nosing Kent (Robert Prescott, The Good Shepherd, Burn After Reading), and his blossoming libido (directed towards genius cutie Jordan played by 80s starlet Michelle Meyrink of The Outsiders and Nice Girls Don’t Explode), Mitch navigates his way through adolescence. Wow. That sounds like a horrible movie. It is, instead, through the incredibly sharp writing of Neal Israel, Pat Proft and Peter Torokvei, much more interesting than any accurate synopsis would make it seem.
In short, if you haven’t see this movie yet, then your next life objective ought to be fairly clear. Real Genius isn’t yet available on Blu-ray, but don’t let that discourage you from spending the 3 dollars on the DVD version – there is nothing in the movie that will benefit greatly from the 1080 treatment. And while it might be cool to see in HD¬†just how horribly the Pegasus wings were actually animated for the Tri-Mark logo, or to see each individual kernel in the iconic “popcorn scene,” the 480 clarity is more than enough to deliver the total awesomeness of the incredible amount of one-liners in store for you. In fact, if you still have a working VHS, save the couple of bucks and go with the 75 cent tape copy from Half.com. Sometimes, seeing a movie in its original presentation can add to the effect. There’s nothing like popping in the un-mastered Night of the Living Dead every once in a while. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss horizontal scrolling lines through my movies every so often. So buy this movie, and then love it.
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