Film Review: LOOSE CANNONS (1990, Bob Clark)

Stars: ? of 5.
Running Time: 94 minutes.
Tag-line: "A comedy with personality... lots of them."
Notable Cast or Crew: Gene Hackman (THE CONVERSATION, UNFORGIVEN), Dan Aykroyd (DOCTOR DETROIT, GHOSTBUSTERS, DRIVING MISS DAISY), Dom DeLuise (THE CANNONBALL RUN, MUNCHIE), Ronny Cox (ROBOCOP, TOTAL RECALL, DELIVERANCE), Robert Prosky (CHRISTINE, LAST ACTION HERO, GREMLINS 2), Paul Koslo (VANISHING POINT, FREEBIE AND THE BEAN, ROBOT JOX), Leon Rippy (STARGATE, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER), David Alan Grier (IN LIVING COLOR, JUMANJI), Tobin Bell ("Jigsaw" in the SAW movies), Bill Fagerbakke (Mick Garris' THE STAND, SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS).  Music by Paul Zaza (PROM NIGHT, PORKY'S).  Written by Richard Matheson (THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN, I AM LEGEND, THE TWILIGHT ZONE), Richard Christian Matheson (THREE O' CLOCK HIGH, AMAZING STORIES), and Bob Clark (BLACK CHRISTMAS, A CHRISTMAS STORY, PORKY'S).
Best One-liner: "Humpty Dumpty's back on the wall!"

How do we imagine our art will be digested?  At the perfect time and place, by the perfect audience?  When I was eleven years old, I watched AMERICAN GRAFFITI, because I loved George Lucas and his STAR WARS.  I liked it, but didn't really get it.  I wasn't old enough.  Saw it again when I was nineteen.  I was beginning to understand.  Take Noah Baumbach's KICKING AND SCREAMING: it's a film about listless college graduates entering the real world.  I rented it with my friends, on VHS, the last week of college before commencement.  We loved it, but I didn't realize how hard it could hit until I watched it four months later, scraping along in a dirty, rented room.  I don't think they should assign THE GREAT GATSBY to high school kids.  I don't think you can properly unravel it until you've had a dream and tried to chase it.
Naturally, all of this begs the question: when is the proper time to watch LOOSE CANNONS?

LOOSE CANNONS purports to be a loose and zany collection of scenes arranged into a buddy cop comedy involving split personalities.

Indeed, the film itself suffers from multiple personality disorder: it is produced by Aaron Spelling and René Dupont; the former built a television empire founded on garish, bourgeois romantic fantasy (THE LOVE BOAT, MELROSE PLACE, DYNASTY, BEVERLY HILLS 90210, SUNSET BEACH, etc.) and the latter produced films for Charles Chaplin and Stanley Kubrick (A KING IN NEW YORK and LOLITA, respectively).  It is written by horror/sci-fi legend Richard Matheson (who wrote some of the best TWILIGHT ZONES and serious novels like SOMEWHERE IN TIME and WHAT DREAMS MAY COME) and his son, Richard Christian Matheson.  It is directed and co-written by Bob Clark, who brought us family fare like A CHRISTMAS STORY, teen sex comedies like PORKY'S, holiday slashers like BLACK CHRISTMAS, and indescribable musical trainwrecks like RHINESTONE.  It stars an A-list dramatic actor (Gene Hackman) and a (then) A-list comedic actor (Dan Aykroyd).

It co-stars Dom DeLuise and an entire battery of "that guy!" character actors from gritty crime flicks of the 70s and 80s.  It features a soundtrack from Paul Zaza, who oversaw the horror-disco-sanity of PROM NIGHT.  The plot involves Nazi sex tapes and S&M and one-liners and mental illness––hey, what is this, anyway?  Who was this made for?  Who was meant to digest it? And when? 

In 1990, Siskel and Ebert described it as "the cop-buddy comedy that hits new lows in an undisputed field."  It was a financial failure, recouping only $5 million of a $15 million budget.  In 2015, it holds a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.  As far as I know, it has not secured a cult following in the interim, even among bad movie aficionados.  For twenty-five years, unmoored, adrift, LOOSE CANNONS has not found its audience.  It has not yet discovered its proper time and place.  How does one judge such a film?  I'm not even quite sure it is a film; it may very well be a ghost on the haunt.

Gene Hackman's cat is named "Camus."  Dan Aykroyd is afraid to go to an S&M club, "not that I'm a Trudy Prudy or anything like that."

Do we blame this for EXIT TO EDEN? 

The club has go-go dancers wearing KISS-style body paint and this is distressing to Dan Aykroyd.

Aykroyd says "I always annoy people.  I don't mean to."  It is something of an understatement.

At different points throughout the film, Aykroyd "becomes" The Road Runner, Scotty for STAR TREK, The Cowardly Lion, and The Wicked Witch.  It is explained that he is only this way because he was tortured by a Columbian named "Armando."

We, however, were tortured by a Canadian named Aykroyd?

Aykroyd and Hackman drive around in a battered old station wagon full of kitty litter.

 "I have a hole in my ass."  ––"That's why they call you an asshole!"
 
Later, the station wagon smashes into a stack of crates filled with chickens.

 Gene Hackman wields a blunderbuss.
 
Dom DeLuise appears, looking like latter-day Orson Welles, wearing a King of Hearts costume

and, later, vests made from the upholstery of grandmothers' couches.

He exclaims "They're fucking with the wrong Jew this time!"

This is because he's involved in a international conspiracy searching for a snuff/pornographic/ritual sex-suicide film starring Adolf Hitler and the guy (Robert Prosky) who's going to be the next German chancellor.


"I saw a movie, XXX-style, only this one starred Hitler and a couple of other guys!" 

Paul Koslo plays a Nazi, who waves a gun around and does Nazi things.

Ronny Cox plays an FBI handler, who sure has his hands full with these two.

David Alan Grier shows up and tries to pretend he's not actually in the movie.

"How do you know the killer's German," asks Gene Hackman.  "Because there's no peepee hole on the boxers," says Dan Aykroyd.

Dom DeLuise is rolled around in a wheelchair.  This is supposed to make us smile because he is a fat man.  It actually makes us smile because Dom DeLuise is a warm and sympathetic human being who inspires warm feelings everywhere he goes.

We begin to wonder if GHOSTBUSTERS would have been insufferable if it didn't also have Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson.

"Let me know if you ever find yourself, kid, cause I'd love to meet you," says Gene Hackman.

And somewhere between it's first and ninety-fourth minute, the film ends.  What was it?  I 'm not sure.  It all happened so fast, officer...

So when and where was LOOSE CANNONS' proper time and place?  If I had watched it on some other evening, at some other point in my life, would it have really "clicked" with me?  For all I know, this film is a triggering device for some as-of-yet-unhatched MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE-style plot, and that's it's proper time and place.  Or perhaps it was Calgary in 2013, when frames from a discarded reel of LOOSE CANNONS were discovered in a Canadian landfill, prompting an employee to believe he'd stumbled upon the remains of an actual snuff film.  It was finally determined to be a staged murder when Calgary police realized the man doing the murdering was Dan Aykroyd.

His name cleared, Aykroyd said "The movie should have been left in the landfill where it belongs."

Perhaps that is it's time and place.  This impossible confluence of writers, actors, and producers––arthouse, grindhouse, and studio system alike––converging on a genre that was mostly played out by 1990, on a film that was seen and loved by almost no one.  Rotting away, unseen, unsung...  Perhaps this landfill copy of LOOSE CANNONS, this temporary piece of crime scene evidence, ought to be screened as-is, DECASIA-style, as an art installation piece reminding us of this fine line between fiction and non-fiction, between sanity and madness.  What's the half-life of celluloid?  We'd better screen it while there's still something left, before we can no longer properly loop the reel across the spools and project.  Maybe the cannons are loose, not because they're a hot-doggin' cop and his mentally ill partner; maybe they're loose because the cannons are fleeting, life is fleeting, the cannons are slip, slipping away.

LOOSE CANNONS, ladies and gentlemen.

–Sean Gill

Only now does it occur to me... BEVERLY HILLS COP II

Only now does it occur to me... that the COBRA/BEVERLY HILLS COP connections have been overtly referenced on film.

So I'd known for some time that the script that became COBRA was originally written as "BEVERLY HILLS COP," and it was going to star Sylvester Stallone in the now iconic Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) role. What I didn't know was that the makers of BEVERLY HILLS COP II decked out Billy Rosewood's (Judge Reinhold) home with Sylvester Stallone posters

RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II seen behind MIDNIGHT RUN's John Ashton.

including COBRA himself, who merits a confused look from Eddie Murphy.

Axel Foley, meet your grandfather/weird Cannon Film half-brother.


Then, Stallone continues to cast his shadow over BEVERLY HILLS COP II:  it co-stars crazed Dane, COBRA lead, and Stallone then-wife Brigitte Nielsen.

I have to say that I never thought I'd ever see a whacky, New Wave Nielsen attempt to assassinate Ronny Cox (DELIVERANCE, TOTAL RECALL, ROBOCOP) in broad daylight.


AIEEE!

So this movie is basically one big Stallone lovefest–

Er- let's not tell Sly about this, okay?

 P.S.– Also, is that Dean Stockwell?

Yeah, I guess so.  Hey, he doesn't really feel up to it, either.

Film Review: VISION QUEST (1985, Harold Becker)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 105 minutes.
Tag-line: "All he needed was a lucky break. Then one day she moved in."
Notable Cast or Crew: Matthew Modine (FULL METAL JACKET, THE BLACKOUT), Linda Fiorentino (GOTCHA!, AFTER HOURS), Ronny Cox (ROBOCOP, TOTAL RECALL), Charles Hallahan (THE THING, FATAL BEAUTY), MADONNA (BODY OF EVIDENCE, DICK TRACY), Forest Whitaker (BIRD, GHOST DOG), Frank Jasper (FREEWAY MANIAC), J.C. Quinn (THE ABYSS, TURNER & HOOCH). Music (ostensibly) by Tangerine Dream. Screenplay by Darryl Ponicsan (novelist of THE LAST DETAIL and CINDERELLA LIBERTY).
Best one-liner: "SHUTE? Shute's a monster! A genuine geratoid! His own father has to use a livewire to keep him from fuckin' the fireplace!"

VISION QUEST is one of those unsung 80's workhorses- it's not flashy, it's not glitzy, it's not silly. And aside from a brief, refreshingly low-key early appearance by Madonna (her first movie role aside from a student film, A CERTAIN SACRIFICE, which she later tried to have banned), it's not populated with the biggest of stars or the slickest of production values. Shot on location in ramshackle diners, hotel kitchens, and sweaty high school gymnasiums in Spokane, Washington, it has a genuine, blue-collared determination to it. High school is not depicted as some nonstop keg party where the 'rents are on that everlasting "weekend getaway" and every teen has got a bedroom tricked out more elaborately than Pee-Wee's playhouse (a representation which I certainly enjoy in the proper context). Instead, it's filled with true-to-life characters who have to balance extracurriculars with thankless jobs and uncertain futures. On the surface, I suppose you could say that it's about wrestling. Generally, my feeling on sports movies is that if they don't involve soul-crushing performances by Stacy Keach & Susan Tyrrell (FAT CITY), dog skulls (THE BLOOD OF HEROES), pedestrian casualties (DEATH RACE 2000), or Sub-Zeros who become just plain zeros (THE RUNNING MAN), then they're going to be an uphill battle. But this isn't a sports movie. Not exactly. It's about the solitary, spiritual journey that every person must one day embark upon- that critical juncture when you must decide upon the answer to that weighty question- 'How to live?'

Based on Terry Davis' 1979 award-winning Young Adult novel (which was called "the truest novel about growing up since THE CATCHER IN THE RYE" by John Irving) and directed by the generally skillful Harold Becker (CITY HALL, TAPS, SEA OF LOVE...and MALICE), our story revolves around the eighteen year-old Louden Swain (Matthew Modine) and his desire to imbue his life with purpose by dropping twenty-some pounds and challenging Brian Shute, the menacing titan state wrestling champion. Along the way, he develops a sort of relationship with a New Jersey wandering artist (Linda Fiorentino, in her screen debut), who's on her way to San Francisco... and crashing at his house. The plot is deceptively simple, and though it lends itself to some rockin' montage sequences, it's a film very much in the mold of other slice-of-life quotidian storytellers like Vittorio de Sica or Satyajit Ray. And while that claim may seem (and may in fact be) ridiculous, VISION QUEST succeeds in getting you to take it seriously enough that the teased Jersey hair, the silver (astronaut?) track suit,

an odd athletic formation that involves purple jumpsuits & a raging circular movement, and even the presence of Madonna never distract you, never send you on a nostalgia tangent, never extract you from the pure, human drama.

The cast is excellent. Modine is committed, connected, and living the role. Fiorentino is taking that whole 'sexy deadpan' thing that she does and is running with it.

Charles Hallahan is appropriately gruff and appropriately supportive as the Coach, and, as a side note, he worked alongside Madonna twice– with this and BODY OF EVIDENCE. Maybe she was a closet fan of THE THING and pulled a couple of strings? Speaking of Madonna, she shows up merely as a singer on stage at the Big Foot Tavern, singing "Crazy for You" and "The Gambler." Hoping to bank more on Madonna and less on the thoughtful storytelling, the studio marketed the film on more than a few occasions as CRAZY FOR YOU.

Madonna: not the focal point of VISION QUEST.

Annnyway, Ronny Cox, the icy corporate villain of ROBOCOP and TOTAL RECALL, plays against type as Modine's encouraging, working-class pop (!), and it's a joy to watch. J.C. Quinn is tearing it up as a ragged but kindly arm-wrestlin' co-worker of Modine's.

Forest Whitaker has a bit part as a lighthearted fellow wrestler who doesn't quite qualify as comic relief, but he's got a palpable joie de vivre and he'd work again with Modine some years later on Abel Ferrara's MARY.

The soundtrack is solid, though calling it a Tangerine Dream one is extremely misleading. They only show up a little over an hour in to offer some of their patented, tense 'fiercely pulsating montage music.' The rest of the soundtrack belongs to satisfying 80's rockers like Foreigner, Journey, Don Henley, Sammy Hagar, and Red Rider, whose classic rock radio standby "Lunatic Fringe" is used in such a way that it now makes one think of of Modine working out in a gym instead of Holocaust denying.

Along the way, there's nosebleeds, jealousy, road trips, fainting spells, and martial arts tips from a creepy dude in a hotel room. When it all comes down to it, it's the rare sports film where you actually care about who wins. And you care because you really have no idea which way it's going to go.


Hallahan is impressed by Modine's fortitude.

In all, it's a mature, muted look at the formative years. My one complaint is that a near-rape scene is forgiven too easily, but on the whole it deals with sexuality in such a frank, honest way that I have no choice but to admire it. As far as I can tell, it's become a cult hit with the 'high school wrestling' crowd, and that probably has more to do with a loving attention to every grapplin' detail than the rich, character-driven monologues, but I can live with that. Four stars.

-Sean Gill

Michael Ironside Fanfiction: "SEE YOU AT THE CAST PARTY, IRONSIDE"

SEE YOU AT THE CAST PARTY, IRONSIDE:

A STORY FROM THE SET OF TOTAL RECALL TOLD IN FIVE CHAPTERS
BY SEAN GILL

1

The year was 1989. The place: Mexico City. A heavyset, scraggly-bearded man strode purposefully though a cavernous soundstage, forcefully clutching a wrinkled piece of paper. The fellow doing the striding was Mickey Jones. Renaissance Man. Drummer for Bob Dylan. Best friend of Michael Ironside.

‘Burly Miner’ in TOTAL RECALL- whose set, as a matter of fact, was the one through which he was stomping with such insolence. It was the last day of shooting, which should have been a day of joy, a day of reflection, a day for the cast and crew to look upon their accomplishments with pride and to feel that tingling satisfaction of a job well done. But none of these things were on Mickey’s mind. Mickey was pissed, and, by God, it took a hell of a lot to get Mickey pissed. He paused at the door marked “Ironside.” No light issued forth from within. Dammit, he’s not here yet. I’ll just leave it, Mickey thought. He turned the knob and gingerly peered inside– a silhouette. Teeth gleaming in the darkness. Shit, someone’s there! Before he could react, the lights popped on with a bang to reveal… Ironside.
“Jesus God, Mike, you scared the hell outta me!”
Ironside chuckled. A deep, dark, throaty laugh. He absent-mindedly picked his teeth with what appeared to be a small metal spike. “Sorry about that…” He lifted his feet up, resting them on the counter as he stared off, deep in thought.
“Have you been here all night, Mike?”
“‘Have I been here all night… Mike?’ Yes, Mickey, I have. Been thinking about CHAINDANCE.”
“Oh, yeah. How’s that script coming along?”
Ironside lowered his feet from the counter and swiveled to face Mickey. “Why don’t you tell me what brings you here in such a state? Talk to me, Mickey.”
“It’s like this, Mike–” and Mickey offered the half-crumpled sheet. Ironside took it, unfolded it on the counter, and smoothed it with his palm. As he read the what the page contained, his eyes widened, then narrowed. His eyebrows contorted with rage. His teeth clenched.
“Jesus, Mike, your mouth!”
Sure enough, Ironside had accidentally bitten the metal toothspike, breaking it cleanly into two halves, which clattered on the counter. “Don’t worry about it, Mickey- worry about this!!!”
Ironside gestured to the paper, which, typed in Comic Sans font, said something like:

“ATTN: Cast and Crew. I regret to inform you that there will be no TOTAL RECALL cast party tonight, at least not in the traditional sense. It will be a Euro-centric private party open only to myself and Mr. Schwarzenegger. B.Y.O. Campari. We regret any inconvenience. Sincerely, your director, Paul Verhoeven.”

The statement was followed by this photograph:


Ironside was up in a flash, his fist already blasting a hole through his dressing room mirror. Slivers of the reflective glass and chunks of wooden frame crumbled onto the floor.

“A lotta people worked on this film, Mickey. THIS IS BULLSHIT!,” Ironside roared.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa- calm, down, man!”
“I even brought several twelve-packs of Labatt Maximum Ice, expressly for this occasion!”
“It’s okay, Mike– we can drink those Labatts in my trailer- watch a hockey game or something. I wouldn’t have told you if I thought it’d make you this angry–”
Just then, a hulking figure appeared behind Mickey in the doorway. It was Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“Hach-hach-ha-ha-ha! Good mohrning,” Arnie remarked. “Seee yew aht the cast pahr-ty, Irohnside! Hach-hach-ha-ha!,” and just as quickly as he’d arrived, Arnie was gone.
“Now that’s not right,” Mickey admitted. “It wasn’t like this on V, was it?”
“No, Mickey, it wasn’t.”
“Are you, okay, Mike? What are you thinking?”
Ironside stared intently at the space where Schwarzenegger used to be. “He’s dead,” Ironside snarled. “He and his Dutch buddy, both.”
“What!?!,” Mickey shouted, incredulously.
“And when I’ve finished… I’m going to eat them.”

2

“Whaat do you think of this wuhnnn?,” Arnie inquired, as Sharon Stone apathetically thumbed through a series of glossy photographs.
“It’s fine, they’re all fine,” Sharon replied. Her motivation in saying so was an attempt to escape the conversation as quickly as possible.
“Yesss, but which one do you like the behst??”
“What are you two looking at?” said Rachel Ticotin, interrupting. She was immediately sorry that she had asked. But it was the perfect opportunity for Sharon Stone to make a break for it, and she did precisely that.
“Thaaank you for ahsking. Paul und I just had these tah-ken at Kayy-Mahrt. Which one do you like thee behst?” Arnie held up two photos which looked like this:




Rachel examined the photos for close to a minute, unsure of what to say. “Well, actually, they’re both fine. I like them both.”
“Meee too.” Arnold smiled in genuine contentment.

~~~

“Did he pull any shit like this on ROBOCOP?,” inquired Ironside.
“Well. Not really,” answered Ronny Cox. “It’s just… maybe just don’t take it so personally. If you got into acting for the cast parties- I, uh, think you’re gonna end up disappointed.”
“That’s not why I’m mad- it’s the principle of the thing. I’d just as soon go back to roofing.”
“Come on, Michael. Don’t talk like that. Calm down. Let me tell you a story...."

"I was working on this flick called TANGIERS with Ronald Lacey. He’d just gotten off of a Spielberg shoot- RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. He played Toht, the Nazi with the coat-hanger- yeah, you know who I’m talking about. Well, anyway, the whole time we’re shootin’, he just can’t drop it. ‘Oh, Spielberg’s craft services were so much better,’ and this and that and the other. And I just got to thinkin’ about Spielberg’s craft services. My mouth is watering. We’re out in the middle of nowhere in Morocco, and all I can think about is some other director’s caterer. Anyway, yeah, it affected my performance a little bit. And I learned a valuable lesson about acting that day… about myself.”
Just then, Sharon Stone strode in. “Talkin’ about craft services, huh? Best I ever had- you’re not gonna believe this– POLICE ACADEMY 4: CITIZENS ON PATROL. Of course you had to eat it while sittin’ across the table from Bobcat Goldthwait…”
“We’re not talking about craft services– we’re talking about this cast party bullshit!,” exclaimed Ironside.


“Well, I think it’s all a cheap shot at you, actually, Mike,” said Sharon with a touch of maleficence.

“He’s rubbin’ it in that you were his third choice for Richter. You know he called Kurtwood and Robert Davi first, right?”
Ironside bared his teeth.
Ronny frowned. “Whoa-whoa- that’s out of line, Sharon, and you know it. Apologize to Michael.”
“No,” said Sharon, snidely. Then she spun on the balls of her feet and promptly strolled out the door.
“Is that true, Ronny?”
“Noo…I don’t think so.”
“I’m crashing that party tonight, Ronny. Are you in?”
“Ehhh, I got a flight back at 6 PM. You should come, too. You got HIGHLANDER 2: THE QUICKENING coming up, right? That’s exciting, right? Maybe you should focus on that. It’s not good to get wrapped up in all this negative energy, Mikey.”

3

Ironside sat in his dressing room, dejected. It was almost 8:00 PM. The shoot was over. Crews were tearing down the last of the set, and soon, they’d be taking away the makeshift dressing room. Ironside stared at the broken mirror. They’ll probably take that shit outta my paycheck, he mused. He contemplated his next move. Sure, he could do Labatts and hockey with Mickey. He could work a little more on CHAINDANCE. He could even get an early start on those wig-fittings for HIGHLANDER 2. But Arnie’s taunting words hung over him like a poisonous shroud: “Seee yew aht the cast pahr-ty, Irohnside! Hach-hach-ha-ha!” Son of a bitch must pay, thought Ironside. He clenched and gritted his teeth as a sound emerged which approximated that of several grinding millstones gone haywire. Something clicked in his mind, and he flashed back to NOWHERE TO HIDE- on one of the days when Amy Madigan’s husband, Ed Harris, had visited the set. “Let me tell you something, Mike,” Ed had said.

“These people will shit on you. They will hire you, they will work you like a dog, and then they will shit on you. They will even dress you in cardigans. But you must not let that happen. You must kill them. And you must kill them with your bare hands… Alright, let’s go have a drink.” Ironside smiled. He missed hanging out with Ed Harris. But then he felt something sharp prickling the palms of his hands. He looked down, only to realize that he’d been thinking so intensely about Ed Harris that he’d shattered the armrests on his chair. He released his grip, and the floor was sprinkled with two handfuls of splinters and sawdust. Ironside stood up, and began the long walk to the trailer marked “Schwarzenegger,” his course of action now clear.

4

“Doez yowhr person prefehr me in RUNNINGH MAN or TWINZ?,” Schwarzenegger inquired. Verhoeven stared at the card in his hand.
“Umm… RUNNING MAN, I guess.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Paul Verhoeven were locked in a rousing game of Subjective “Guess Who.” Schwarzenegger flipped down a few faces, faces who looked like they wouldn’t enjoy having the sort of good time that TWINS had to offer. After a moment, Verhoeven asked, “Is your person Peter?”
“No,” replied Arnie, “It’s Claire.”
“Wait a fucking second, I turned down Claire like six questions ago.”
“Whutt wus the quest-schun?”
“Uhh…uhh…it was, uh– that’s right- it was ‘Does your person wear panties?,’ and you said YES, when clearly she doesn’t.”
“I am sorry, Paull. I deed not mean to ruin your game.”
“No, it’s alright, it’s just uh- just, uh, don’t worry about it. Get me some more Campari.” Arnie reached across the couch and grabbed Paul in a bear hug.
“I am so sorry I have roo-inned your game, Paull.”

But just then, the door to the trailer was separated from its hinges through sheer force of Ironside, who stood in the doorway now, his eyes wild and teeth gleaming. He approached Arnie and Paul, who quivered senselessly in fear. They had never seen Ironside look quite this terrifying during the entirety of the shoot.

His shadow loomed over the couch. But suddenly, Arnie let loose with an enormous, goofy smile. Ironside rumpled his eyebrows in brief bewilderment.
“Loook behindh you, Mike-ahl!”
Ironside knew better than to fall for this pitiful deception, yet he couldn’t resist. He turned around, and through the trailer’s doorway saw: the rightful TOTAL RECALL cast party.
“Hach-hach-haa-haaa! We really goht Mike-ahl, didn’t we, Paull!,” Arnie shouted with babyish exuberance. Verhoeven shivered uncontrollably, unable to shake the image of a murderous Ironside from his mind’s eye.

“Uhhh…yeah. Yeah, we did,” Paul muttered.

5

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” said Mickey Jones as he sipped on a Labatt Maximum Ice.
“It’s alright, Mickey, I, uh, knew the whole time,” replied Ironside, “by the way, did you know that only Labatt possesses the power of ice brewing, and only ice brewing can create Labatt Maximum Ice?”
“Yeah,” said Mickey, “I know.”
“Hach-hach-haa-haaa! We really goht you, Mike-ahl, didn’t we! Hach-hach-haaa, what fun!,” Arnie exclaimed, as he walked over to Ironside.

Arnie chomped on a piece of cake covered in red frosting and blue lettering, the full extent of which was undecipherable (but if it had been, you could see it once said, “Get your ass to Mars”). With one calculated movement, Ironside flipped up the bottom of Arnie’s plate, dunking his face in the frosting. Ironside smiled.
“Hach-hach-haaa-haa! Now you haf got-ten meee back! Hach-hach-haa!!”
“Something like that,” said Ironside coldly.
“Hey loook, it’s Benn-y!,” declared Arnie as he spotted Mel Johnson, Jr. making his way through the crowd.
“Hey, Arnold, you remember me, I’m Mel Johnson, Junior!,” screamed Mel Johnson, Jr.
“Hach-hach-hach-haaa! I lovve you guys!,” announced Arnie as he enveloped Mickey, Ironside, and Mel with an enormous hug. Ironside pursed his lips. A sensation of melancholy washed over him. He hadn’t had this much fun in a long time, and he hated to see it all end. But then Ironside winced and perished the thought because he knew CHAINDANCE would be just as much- if not more- fun, and he wouldn’t even need to leave Canada to have it. Ironside took a swig of his Labatt Maximum Ice. Life was good.

THE END