I know, you weren’t remotely expecting this movie to go with Big Fish. At the end, maybe you will. As for who’s in this movie, there’s Kathy Bates, George C Scott, and James Van Der Beek as the pretty boy asshole. Just sit back, and enjoy the plum.
Start Film
So we have your main character, Angus Bethune, and he’s a big boy. Rick is Angus’ arch-nemesis, and he always pisses him off, so Angus tends to punch Rick a lot. Good for him. Don’t fuck with the fat kid. Angus has a crush on Melissa. Angus keeps breaking Rick’s nose, and of course, Rick is dating Melissa as they get older. Poor Angus. Rick gets everything. Teenage Rick is played by James Van Der. Ohhh, Melissa played Lex Murphy in Jurassic Park, so we got some star power, of sorts.
Angus and Rick both play football, you can guess that Angus is the big guy on the offensive line, and Rick is the QB, because all QB’s are dickheads in movies, unless it’s Remember The Titans. During a game, Rick throws an interception, Angus hits the guy who got the interception, so he fumbled, and Rick snags the ball and runs for a touchdown. Angus gets no props, it was all about Rick….yet again. Angus has an opportunity at a nice school, Jefferson. I can’t tell if that’s a college or another, better high school.
Meg, Angus’ mom, played by Kathy Bates, is a truck driver. She’s awesome. After they arm wrestle, Angus gets to wake up grandpa, played by George C Scott. How do we wake up grandpa? With a loud record playing a trumpet or bugle, I believe it is called Reveille. Meg is bitching about Grandpa getting married to a girl 30 years younger. Good for him.
Angus’ buddy is this little dude named Troy. The guy who plays Troy was in The Mist. Ahhh, the mid 90’s. Some of the attire, bloody hell. I thought it was dumb then and it hasn’t improved since. In the hallway, Rick talks some shit to Troy and Angus, so Angus shoves Rick on his bitch ass. The principal threatens to suspend Angus if he can’t control his temper, which will result in not getting accepted into Jefferson.
Grandpa is one of those old dudes that sit in the park and play chess with other old dudes. That’s the fucking dream. Angus gets some great advice from Grandpa: “Screw ’em!”.
At school, it’s school spirit day, everybody is wearing blue, except for the oblivious Angus. Who hasn’t said fuck it before? I used to say fuck it on St. Patrick’s Day. Time to find out who the king and queen of the Freshmen Winter Ball, and Rick gets to announce it. The queen is Melissa….duh. The king is…..Angus and everybody turn in unison. It is so silly, but it worked on some weird level. This movie is cliched, no doubt, BUT I loved it being about the fat kid. Believe it or not, I can somehow relate. Troy pulled the fire alarm to try to spare Angus some of the attention. Angus doesn’t want to go to the Winter Ball, and Troy is like, fuck it, you get to dance with Melissa. There’s the moment in the hallway, it’s just Melissa, Angus, and Troy. Angus totally blew it, but that’s the magic of these type of movies.
Hey, Angus made a Nightmare on Elm Street reference. So, Angus is terrified to talk to Melissa and has no idea how to dance. Troy wants to do a slight makeover on Angus, and they turned his hair, well it’s fucking awful. Grandpa gets sick of listening to Angus’ whining and keeps telling him to shut up and boost his morale. Angus is worried about sweating too much. Once again, I can relate. Grandpa brings Angus to a dance teacher to learn. We are treated to Hot Hot Hot. Awesome. There’s a montage of ridiculousness. Terrific.
Time to get Angus a suit, but the black suit doesn’t fit him well at all, and that’s the color Angus wants to try his best to fit in. The color that they do have is plum. Angus whines and Grandpa says Screw ’em. Troy brings a blow-up doll, dressed up, and her name is Wanda. Time for Angus to practice dancing. Troy is video recording the practice. If you don’t see where this is going, I just don’t know what to tell you. Go watch every episode of Saved By The Bell until it all makes sense dammit!!! There’s the great Green Day song “J.A.R.”. Another montage of Angus studying and learning dance, and watching an exercise tape, and jamming out of course.
Angus is lifting weights and hears Rick winning a radio contest. Yes, he is that asshole. At school, Rick and his 2 jock sidekicks are dicks to Troy, and Troy lets them know that Angus can actually dance. The sidekicks are worried about Angus really knowing how to dance. They hang Troy on his locker because that’s what dicks do in high school. In the locker room, Angus is missing his shirt, and this starts a confrontation, and Troy gets a great yo motha joke in. They then shove Troy in the locker and try to get Angus to fight Rick so he gets suspended. Angus’ underwear is also missing. Yup, it’s a case of Salute Your Shorts, up on the flagpole. Really, like that’s worse than getting pants’d all the time. High schoolers are asses. Oh, and to make matters worse, Melissa is now out and Angus is terrified that she will see it before they get it down. They get it down, and the wind blows the undies into Melissa’s face. Classic.
Angus and Troy are walking to get a ride or walk home, something, and Rick and his cronies kidnap Troy. They want Troy to help them embarrass Angus some more. Troy refuses, so he gets hurt for it. Poor Troy, getting bullied. Angus finds his grandpa in the park and he complains about Rick. Angus just wants to break Rick’s nose, but grandpa tries to give him some advice. Grandpa says Angus will be a coward if he punches Rick or if he doesn’t go to the dance. Angus calls him a fool. Grandpa doesn’t give a fuck. I love that old man.
Meg tells grandpa that she doesn’t want Angus to go to the dance and face the embarrassment. She is sick of her boy getting picked on. Grandpa says that it used to happen to her back when she was in school. Momma just wants her boy to be treated fair, and Grandpa wants to toughen him up. Meg catches Angus dancing with Wanda. They have their little moment. The next day, Troy brings Rick something, and you should know what that is by now. It was done in shadowy silhouettes.
It’s grandpa’s wedding day. Grandpa’s future wife, she ain’t bad. Good for him. Her name is April. Grandpa looks awesome in his white and blue ensemble. Angus apologizes for the other day, but grandpa can’t remember, so he ain’t worried. Angus says that Grandpa has some balls. Grandpa gives some advice, he says that Superman isn’t brave, he’s indestructible. There’s a difference, you don’t have to worry about being brave when you can’t be hurt. Angus says that he’s not brave though, and he isn’t indestructible. Angus gives this long pep talk to himself, and Grandpa has fallen asleep, as is the usual. Time to play the song. But this time, Grandpa ain’t moving. Saaaad panda moment. Angus comes downstairs crying, and Meg instantly knows. Angus makes his way to the park to the chess table. He moves a pawn forward and lays the king down, and the old dude understood. Of course, there is some sappy music. Troy meets up with Angus, and Troy’s arm is in a sling or cast, poor kid. Troy is trying to be supportive, but Angus snaps at him. Angus says that Troy doesn’t know how it feels. Troy responds he knows what it’s like too, just a different way.
Angus is throwing away the wedding decorations, and there’s April with a box and a bag. Angus invites her in. The watch’s alarm goes off, it was for Grandpa’s pills, so she would ensure that she remembered. The box she has is for Angus, and it’s the fucking plum suit. Fuck yeah!!!! I personally love the suit, despite everybody else hating on it, fucking “haters”. Man, I loathe that term. Angus is scared about the dance, so he moved his interview up to that night for Jefferson and voiding the dance. This interview guy is a cross-eyed, pretentious asshole, and he reminds me a bit of Chris Parnell. He wants to see Angus’ science experiment. The experiment is like the chaos theory about normalcy and able to hold out long enough of the system, basically, his point is there is no normal. He now blows off the interviewer to go to the dance.
Troy tells Angus that Rick is gonna do something tonight, and Angus is a dick to Troy. They have a little fight. But they walk in together anyway, because that’s what dude’s do. Rick makes fun of the suit, as you would expect. It’s time for the king and queen to get together and prepare for their big entrance. Rick is a dick to the very last moment. Both Angus and Melissa are very nervous and awkward. The principal tells Angus and Melissa how it’s gonna work, and Angus has the unruly task of pinning the flower on Melissa. The 2 make small talk, and she’s worried about people staring at them, and this takes Angus by surprise. They get introduced to a nice rousing applause.
Of course, this is when the joke happens. They have the tape from Troy and they play it on the TV. Poor Angus. Both Angus and Melissa are horrified. Melissa runs off. Angus runs off. He is fuming. The principal stops Rick from going outside, making the exception for the king and queen. Angus finds Melissa, and she is crying, and Angus apologizes to her. She is so pissed at Rick, she’s not mad at Angus. Melissa goes on talking about being tired of who she is. She admits to being bulimic. She asks if he knows what it is, and he’s like, I’m a fat kid, of course, I do. Fat guys are funny. He eases her a bit, and he warns her that he can’t dance, and she is like determined, it will be fine.
They make their way to the center of the floor, and we get Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You”, and it’s a great song for this. Melissa slows Angus down and helps him with the dance. Troy is happy for his boy. Angus and Melissa have this great dance, it’s mellow but sweet. After it’s over, they get a nice applause, she smiles at him, and the music goes back to whatever. Rick acts like a dick to Melissa and he keeps shoving Angus, and he punches Angus. Wow, way to go Rick. Rick said that it’s a good thing that he’s leaving. Angus gets up and fucking goes nutso on his bitchass. There’s this whole speech about being normal. Angus basically verbally undresses Rick about him being “normal”. Annnnd applause from the crowd. Angus walks away, but Melissa wants to dance one more dance with Angus. Fat guy gets the chick. Angus walks over to Troy and invites him to join them in dancing. Rick walks past Troy, and Troy clocks him with his cast and breaks Rick’s nose. Melissa wants Angus to walk her home.
He walks her home. Of course they stop on the porch, and of course, she kisses him on the cheek, and gives him the smile and goes inside. That’s basically like getting laid for a fat dude at that age. Rick got suspended. Angus got accepted to Jefferson, but he didn’t go, he said Screw ’em.
End film
TLDR
What did we learn from this film?
We learned that fat guy are almost always awesome. We have shit for self-esteem, but we are funny. When pushed, fat guys can be hosses, for like 30 seconds before we are winded. Not all fat guys are slow either. The best part about being a fat guy is that while we still may be self-conscious, by and large, we just don’t give a fuck, unless it’s about our hidden penis. Nothing you can do about that except to lose some mother fucking weight. The reality is that there is no such thing as normal, and it’s a good thing. If you are reading this, you probably know that. In high school, we don’t have perspective at all, so we long to be accepted and normal. Nowadays, I have a few small handful of friends that like or respect me, and fuck the rest of them. Seriously, fuck most of the people. Don’t worry about other people’s opinions. Don’t worry about other people’s drama, don’t bother spreading your drama, because nobody reasonable gives a fuck. The ones that do, they are the people always stirring the pot so to speak, so fuck them. We also learned that plum is an awesome color on fat guys.
Rating: 5.5 – I have seen this at least 4-5 times, so it is over a 5, just really silly. It’s like Dirty Dancing in that it’s a mediocre film, but the nostalgia makes me believe that it’s a better movie than it really is. In reality, it’s probably in the 4’s, but I do like this movie. Grandpa was the best part of it. The soundtrack is pure nostalgia. Angus was played competently. I would have preferred Kathy Bates having more screen time, but it was never really about her. Rick and Melissa were played well, and Troy was great for the role, but I wish Troy had been a different character. He was too much like Screech from Saved By The Bell for me.J.A.R. is still a great song though.
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
- Atlas Entertainment
- British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
- New Line Cinema
- Quality Entertainment
- Syalis DA
- Tele München Fernseh Produktionsgesellschaft (TMG)
- Television Française
- Turner Pictures (I)
- Télévision Française 1 (TF1)
Please go find a copy and support the creators.