Happy Independence Day

It just so happens that leading up to July 4th, the book I've been reading is "1776" by David McCullough. I actually started reading it without knowing what it's about. I was so amazed by "John Adams" that I bought "1776" sight unseen. That caused a slight problem later on.

It turns out that, whereas "John Adams" gives insight into the Revolutionary War from the perspective of the Continental Congress and diplomacy with Great Britain, "1776" is specifically about the war itself. George Washington, General Howe, the Battle of Long Island, strategy, the soldiers, cannons, it's all here. As fascinating as the subject of John Adams is, the war is even more fascinating and I was delighted and enthralled.

There was just one problem with going in blind that dawned on me slowly as I got further and further and realized how much attention was put into each detail... I kept looking at how far I was into the book and thinking "there's a long way to go here and not many pages to do it". It turns out the book is about the war ONLY DURING the year 1776, not a history of the entire war. I came into it only knowing the title but I should have paid more attention to it. 1776... I get it.

As much as I would have loved an entire history of the war, it still remains that the book is fantastic. If you only read one thing for Independence Day, I recommend "1776". And if you don't read that, read "John Adams". And if you don't read "John Adams" watch the series "John Adams" and if you don't watch the whole series, just watch the second episode. And if you don't watch the second episode, I don't know, I think I'm out.

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams

Rad Deleted Scenes - Epilogue

I thought I'd make just one more post about this since I'm sure everyone other than me is tired of it.

About 20 years ago me and a friend bonded over our mutual love of "Rad".

"I know 'Rad', he gets the Murray from the store!", I confidently told him.
"What? That's not in the movie."

And he was right, it wasn't in the movie. But I felt sure that there was something going on - surely I hadn't just made up a movie scene in my mind. There must be multiple versions. The version I rented from the video store must have had scenes that other VHSs didn't. Years later I started buying up tapes, trying to find another one like the one I had seen.

It didn't take too long before I was investing more money in Rad VHSs than I hoped to. I'm a pretty cheap guy and it's not a cheap habit, for anyone. The next phase was contacting Rad VHS sellers on eBay and simply asking them if the copy they were selling had extra scenes. I told them I'd pay more if it did, but this also was fruitless. Many, many messages to many, many people and no one had a special copy like the one of my youth.

The recent news proves that my memory was real, the scene was real and I was not crazy. So I have that. But it does raise another question. If my local video store's copy of Rad had a deleted scene and no other similar copy seems to exist... where did it come from? How?

Well someone on facebook might have a clue:

Is it a coincidence that this took place in the Philadelphia area and that's where I am too?

So the video store recorded a movie off of TV and offered it for rental? Keep in mind, this is before the widespread use of home printers so they can't just make a professional cover and put a VHS in it and pass it off as the real thing. I guess my best theory is that they had a real copy, someone didn't return it and they replaced it with a bootleg.

The funny thing about this idea, if it is what happened, is that my friend had watched his VHS so much he even memorized the movie advertisements before the movie and I... I don't remember any ads before the movie.

What Makes This Song Great? - Black

He's right about that piano. I never noticed how there was a guitar in this that sounded exactly like "Yellow Ledbetter". It's like they're ripping off themselves.

The Reason Why Switches are Clicky

Rad - The Deleted Scenes

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is finished. The end has come. The fifth and last Golden Ticket has just been found right here in Paraguay. The Rad deleted scenes have surfaced on The Facebook.

Many thanks to Corey Kearns of facebook who writes:
"Hi guys, these are the cut scenes from the movie. I recorded this in 1989 from Canadian cable. These scenes are not in the American release. Sorry for the quality but this tape is almost worn through from me watching it so much lol, LETS WALK THIS SUCKER"

And many thanks to Victor for sharing the link.

It feels like the end of an era. I can't believe it's over. Not only did we get the deleted scenes back but I HAVE CONFIRMED THAT THERE WAS THE MURRAY FROM THE STORE. I hope to ruminate on that in a future post.

I would venture to say historians will be examining and picking apart every detail of these scenes for decades. But here are a few initial observations:

• Every actor in these scenes appears to be an alien or android. Is this how the rest of the movie appears to people who haven't seen it a million times?
• Luke's parents appear to be his grandparents. Did they skip a generation?
• Luke's dinner scene with his "parents" mirrors the scene in Star Wars where Luke has dinner with his aunt and uncle on Tatooine. In fact it's very similar. Is it coincidence? Luke/Luke!
• More character development for Amy. She likes WHAM and Duran Duran and she has a waterbed. Whoah.
• When your parent confronts you in your room and you storm out, where do you go?
• Imdb describes the third scene as "An unnamed boy storms out of his house late at night." The unnamed boy looks so familiar, I thought I could name him, is it possible it's the guy who says "how about a hand for our rad dude?"... It could be the character Harold or Miles but I can't figure out which one is which.
• Bart Taylor doesn't know how to act drunk. The filmmakers were perhaps unsure of the effectiveness themselves and perhaps just decided to have actor just announce that he's "smashed". We can't compare to the script because that's been taken down though we know this scene is in the script in some form.
• The couple who announce that he's smashed is interesting - Rick and Katie. It looks like the guy from the beginning who's listing off colleges he's applying to is with Katie, Cru's fantasy. Is this coupling seen anywhere else?
• Blob is standing in the back of the drunk scene. What is he doing?
• There could have been an alternate timeline where Sgt. Smith arrests Bart for public drunkenness and Cru wins Helltrack because Bart's still stuck in jail. But events would change further because without Bart in the race, the Reynolds Twins would try to win themselves instead of taking Cru out. Perhaps in this alternate timeline Cru loses.
• Sgt. Smith charges Bart $1.05 but I'd like to think it's not for his sundae, it's the cost of not getting arrested - freedom costs a buck-o-five.
• Did Bart lose Helltrack because he was hungover? Did Bart almost win Helltrack whilst hungover?
• Mr. Pratt has the mannerisms of some sort of bicycle priest. He seems to say "Go now, my child... and ride in peace."
• Cru receives the bike of his dreams and his reaction is as if someone just died. Shouldn't this be a happy moment?
• Unrelated to the deleted scenes.... but I just noticed that an actress is credited as "Katie's Friend" but no one is credited as "Katie".

Again, it's not much, just my initial thoughts.

Best of the Worst - Bad Movie Scavenger Hunt

One of my favorite bad movie tropes is that period in the 80s when computers were depicted as performing magic. This episode has one of the best (several of the best) examples of that that I've ever seen.