Great one-off movies

Caddyshack.

(I am a Truther. I deny the existence of that other thing.)

 

Dr. Strangelove
12 Angry Men
Stalag 17
The Great Escape
A Bridge Too Far
I guess a lot of war movies can fall into this category by default / definition.
Anyway, Dr. Strangelove tops my list. Love it. Love the ending song too, "We'll Meet Again".

 

Spinal Tap and Fast Times

 

"The Abyss" was a fine one-off.

And "Body Double," too.

 

"The Abyss" certainly left open the question of how we were going to relate to our newfound friends, and what kind of role Mr. and Mrs. Brigman were going to take in all of that.

 

"Good Will Hunting" seemed to be the kind of movie they'd eventually come back and do a sequel for, especially with the fairly extensive discussions between Damon and Affleck about what they'd be doing when they were 50, but with Robin Williams gone that rips a lot out of the heart of the story.

 

If Robbins could have even remotely resembled a decent pitcher, I'd totally buy into this story. That's pretty darn good.

However, Robbins' pitching delivery barely worked in the original, and even then it was only because he's supposed to be such a lunkhead, raw talent. But I imagine his real-life mechanics at age 40 would have been even worse, and would have made it difficult to suspend disbelief that he could have carved out a 15-year career, even as an innings-eater.

 

Yeah, the whole story would have depended on Nuke developing into an experienced, crafty old pitcher surviving on guile and control.

In the original it always looked like he was just chucking it.

 

I'm not sure where else they could have gone with the story, even if Williams were still alive. We got to the heart of Will's troubles in the original and, after that, he goes to see about the girl and begin what is presumably a successful life. It would be difficult to gin up a way to get back to the gritty surroundings of South Boston in any meaningful way.

But if they tried now, let's suppose Will returns for Sean's funeral, where do we even go from there? Will is hurt over the loss of his friend, sure. But so what? If you introduce some lame relationship drama with Minnie Driver, it just becomes the story of the midlife crisis of a middle-aged suburbanite who happens to be a genius.

It's kind of like how Ice Cube once responded to being told he'd gone soft after making a bunch of kids movies (I've paraphrased this story here before, I believe): He's not angry anymore because he achieved success beyond his wildest dreams. The reason for that success was the raw reality of his art when he was an angry 19-year-old coping with inner city strife. But you can't expect him to recapture that while living comfortably and happily in a Hollywood mansion. Same goes for Will Hunting. Any attempt to create that same feeling is doomed to fail because it will lack authenticity.

 

How about Crash and Annie have been on and off all these years, and now the club he's managing just made a trade with Tampa that includes a kid in Durham with a 100-mph fastball. He gets called up as Crash's team makes a playoff push and it turns out he's the son Nuke and Annie had and gave up for adoption when she and Crash were estranged for a year or so.

 

I've heard rumors of a possible sequel, but it's been nearly 30 years, and there has yet to be a "Spaceballs II: The Search for More Money"

 

Slight threadjack, but speaking of Bull Durham, I've often wondered what Crash's 21 days in the Show were like.

Figure that, back then, they had a 21-day DL. So likely, they brought him up because one of the other catchers got hurt. But, since he wasn't the main guy, figure that, over 21 days, maybe his team played 18 games, and he started, maybe four of those games, pinch-hit in a couple of others, and maybe came in once in a blowout and got an at-bat.

Now, he said on the bus that there were ungodly sliders, so figure that he had little success hitting. Maybe he got an average of four plate appearances in his starts, plus his two or three pinch hitting appearances and his blow-out game at-bat. So, maybe he got 20 plate appearances.

Maybe he walks a couple of times, but he strikes out a bunch on those sliders. He manages a couple of hits early in his run when the pitchers try to get heat by him, and he lucks out with a hit later on. So, by my wild reckoning, I figure he went around 3-for-18 in his 21-day run with a couple of walks. Major League catcher returns from the DL, the team sees that Crash is a solid fielder who can't hit big-league sliders and keep him at Triple-A.