Mourning | The Musings & Artful Blunders of Scott D. Southard

When you visit rottentomatoes.com, they only give Jumanji a score of 50%. Ouch. Roger Ebert called it “gloomy” and Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave it only a C+ implying that the story did not live up to the special effects. Double Ouch.

Yes, Jumanji is not a perfect film. There are moments that make me squirm, like when Robin Williams is attacking some wild vines with a sword and shouts “Harvest time!” That is not the only embarrassing shout in the film, later Judy (played by a young Kirsten Dunst) holds a checkout lane gun up at a person’s eyes and shouts “Price check!” To help emphasize the bad joke, the camera cuts to the cash register where it declares “no sale.”

Not to be a grinch, but many of the classics we love aren’t perfect. I’ll even give you a cherished example. In The Wizard of Oz, when the witch orders out her monkey army to get Dorothy she references a scene that was edited from the film. She explains to her monkeys that she had sent out bugs to tire them out first. Of course, we don’t see the fabled “jitterbug” scene happen (and probably for very good reason, it sounds incredibly cheesy). But, unless you know the history of the film, this really doesn’t make any sense at all. What bugs? What did the bugs do to them? How does a bug bother a scarecrow and a man made of tin?

Now in saying all that, I’m not comparing The Wizard of Oz to Jumanji, even though they both have many similar themes (returning to a home, forging a new family, friendship, etc.) and buy into the great myth that underlines most children stories (a normal child swept away into an adventure to find they are special). The Wizard of Oz is a classic and will never disappear. I can’t say the same for Jumanji in the future, and that makes me a little sad. There is a good chance that over time it might become nothing more than another chapter in all those future biographies of Robin Williams that are certainly being planned right now.

I love the film Jumanji. It is comfort food on the screen for me. And since the tragic death of Robin Williams (our hero Alan Parrish) I have watched it three times… and there is a good chance I might be watching it again soon.

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For two years I had the awful song “Convoy” stuck in my head. I hummed it as a I went into work, sometimes sang the chorus out loud on the drive home, and had even been known to mumble it under my breath while walking down hallways.

[On a side note, did you know the creator of that song is Chip Davis? For those that don’t recognize that name, he went on after that success to create Mannheim Steamroller, which was formed on the bad notion that 80’s synthesizers would sound great with classic old instruments like a harpsichord… and then put it to the test with Christmas music. It’s astonishing the amount of musical torture that man has to answer for once he makes it to the pearly gates.]

My wife was in graduate school, and it fell on my shoulders to pay the bills and the rent. We had just moved back to Michigan from Los Angeles. On the day we arrived back in my home state there was a major power outage throughout the region. I made a joke to the movers that our return must have caused it. The movers actually believed me (thinking I did something with a plug, I guess) until I explained it was a joke. That failed joke moment, as well as the power outage, were both foreboding signs for the two years ahead that my wife and I should have taken.

While I thought having an MFA in writing from one of the best writing schools in the country was pretty awesome, most businesses didn’t agree with me. Actually, I could see the expression of confusion cross over employer’s faces each time it came up and I had to on numerous occasions answer the question, “Why are you here?”

A very good question, Mr. Employer! Of course, a better question I have tried to answer since then is where does such a person with such a degree belong at all? Continue reading →