Randomly Random Holiday Thoughts

I was up at the god-awful hour of 530am the night before New Years Eve, and I found out that Vanilla Ice aka Rob Van Winkle starred in a movie called "Cool as Ice" in 1991. The movie is like when you are driving down a highway and see a bad car accident, ambulances and all, and want to look away, but you can't. Eventually traffic slows down to a slow crawl because everyone is staring. Maybe it was the combination of just seeing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Part III, since I was in a 90's movie mood, but  it was pretty bad. The movie is about a guy, named Johnny, who is played by Vanilla Ice, who rides cross-country with his band. And yes, in a strange coincidence, he is a rapper. The movie even opens with Ice rapping in his usual flamboyant style...and the song's chorus (or hook) is sung by none other than the cell-phone tossing Naomi Campell, who appears in the opening. Johnny gets the bright idea to travel across country with his band mates, and along the way, meets Kathy (Kat) played by Kristin Minter, an honor student. She catches his eye, and he decides to stay in town long enough to get her attention. Meanwhile, the town is so supportive of Kathy excelling in school that a local news crew comes to interview her. In the interview, they talk to her father, who makes a lame attempt to cover his face. It is revealed later that her father was put into the Witness Protection Program and is found by the crooked cops looking for him, who just so happen to be watching the interview. At this point, Im laughing so hard that I can barely understand anything going on. Not only is this movie poorly acted, its storyline is predictable (Johnny must help Kat save her dad from the crooked cops who want to harm him while still managing to be cool and wear the flashiest pants ever designed), and the dialogue is terrible. An example:

Johnny goes to Kathy's house to see if she's home and possibly talk to her...instead of seeing her, he finds Kathy's mother, Ms. Winslow.

Johnny: Hey-yo, wasup ma'am? Ms. Winslow: Can I help you? Johnny: Yeah, I'm looking for Kat. Ms. Winslow: We don't have a cat. Johnny: Kathy, your daughter.

It's so bad, its good...well no actually, it sucks. I see movies like this and wonder, what Hollywood exec said, "Hey, let's greenlight a "hip-hop" remake of Rebel Without a Cause, and let's do it with Vanilla Ice! It'll bring in MILLIONS!" I hope it wasn't because V. Ice, his "down" nickname, said he was like the "James Dean of rap", and Rebel was Dean's most well-known movie. Cool as Ice was received so badly by critics that the director, David Kellogg, didn't work again for EIGHT years after this movie came out. He is now known for directing 1999's Inspector Gadget. Many reviewers said, and I agree, that the whole budget for the film must have been spent on V. Ice's wardrobe, since everyone else looks like they just kind of fell out of the second-hand clothes shop. Almost 20 years later, in Indiana, I bet James Dean is STILL rolling in his grave.

A.