Safety Last

 

 Unsafe on Any Screen by Scott Phillips

I was browsing the books at the local used bookstore a couple of weeks ago, and I think I found my long lost twin brother.

Well, not really, since I only have one sibling and she's my sister.

But I did find a book written by someone who must have come from the same malcontent group of angels waiting in line to be born into this world.  The guy's name is Scott S. Phillips.

Not to be confused with the Scott Phillips of The Ice Harvest fame.  This Scott Phillips is also an author, but his output is as far removed from The Ice Harvest as, say Citizen Kane would be from Bloodsucking Pharaohs in Pittsburgh. 

Some of the other books written by this Scott Phillips are Pete Has Risen From the Grave and the screenplay for The Stink of Flesh.  Quality stuff, as you can probably tell...

According to the introduction, Phillips worked for a time as a movie critic for an alternative newspaper in Albuquerque, NM, The Weekly Alibi. As far as I can tell, it was probably something along the lines of a local alternative newspaper here in south Texas, The Austin Chronicle.

Anyway, by what I gather, Phillips was given free reign to watch whatever movies he wanted and write about them in his weekly column.  The type of movies he gravitated towards during this jaunt are a like a wish list for me to seek out in the future.  

My hero, whom I have mentioned before, Joe Bob Briggs, also did these kinds of movies when he wrote his column (although Briggs was doing recent releases that were then playing at the local drive-in.) 

The movies that Phillips covers run the gamut of time from the early 60's until the early 2000's., and he rates each one based on a scale he invented that comes in two parts: One is an Apes scale (in which he rates it from 0-5 as to how many greased apes he'd wrestle to watch said movie: ) being bad and 5 being pretty damn decent.) The second part of the rating system he calls the Bourbon scale (in which he rates on how many shots of bourbon he'd have to drink to wrestle those apes. In this case, the 0 is good and the 5 is near godawful).

It takes a twisted mind to watch some of these movies in the first place.  (And since I am 15 years sober, I have to avoid drinking bourbon or anything else to get up the gumption to watch movies.)

After reading this book, there are a number of them I have already watched, proving that we have some rapport in tastes.  The best part about his book is that no matter how bad he thinks a movie is, he makes most of them sound like they are worth giving them a shot.  One that falls into that category is The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, one that has been on my radar for some time.  I always say if someone tells me a movie is a crock of excrement that's like saying "I DARE YOU: to me.

I have reduced the number of movie books on my shelf over the last few months in anticipation of making a move to a new location, but this is one i will be keeping.

Quiggy