movies

I commented on the movie version of the play, "Homo erectus," when I heard about it a couple of years ago, in a timeless post, titled "[Tom] Arnold will play Rog, a gay caveman."

Well, as might have been expected from a kooky caveman comedy featuring Gary Busey and porn star Ron Jeremy, "Homo erectus" failed to find an audience.

But not all the news is bad. Now the movie has been picked up by the masters of comedic judgment:

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost two years since we interviewed Adam Rifkin about his film Homo Erectus. Unfortunately, the caveman comedy never got a wide release, but there is hope for it on DVD - this is the kind of movie that smacks of becoming a cult favorite. Don’t look for it under the old name though. When the picture was picked up by National Lampoons, it received a title change - National Lampoon’s Stoned Age, which hits DVD on January 20th.

My first reaction to the title was that it sounds a lot more sophomoric than the cultural commentary Rifkin told me about during our interview. Then again, Homo Erectus wasn’t exactly a title that said “high class satire,” so if National Lampoons thinks this is a good title change, so be it - it’s not like they’ve been wrong before.

So at last, you can own it yourself. Here's National Lampoon's Stoned Age at Amazon:

But don't confuse it for the 1994 movie of a very similar title, The Stoned Age. Which you might actually prefer, if you tend to go for sleeper classics with bong humor:

Hey, whatever floats your boat. Just don't get either of them for me...

Am I the only one who noticed that the pictures of an "uncontacted" tribe in the Amazon were released the same week as the Indiana Jones movie, in which an uncontacted Amazonian tribe is a major plot point?

Anthropologists have known about the group for some 20 years but released the images now to call attention to fast-encroaching development near the Indians' home in the dense jungles near Peru.

OK, so I get it. It's all an allegory. The "city of gold" represents the wealth of the untrammeled forest. And the Soviets are the fast-encroaching developers. And the indigenous people are ... the indigenous people!

And Indiana Jones is... um... the grave-robbing anthropologist who does nothing for the natives and leaves the forest a despoiled wasteland?

Oh well.

I like Culture Matters' take:

While I certainly agree that small pockets of cultural diversity should not be aggressively assimilated, I feel a little queasy that we have to sell the drive for cultural autonomy and respect for foraging peoples with the whole 'never seen a white man' drivel. The term 'uncontacted' is part of the problem; 'isolated' would be better, as these groups have seldom 'never seen a white man.' They usually have developed a habit of reacting hostilely when they do, perhaps suggesting that it's not so much lack of contact, but certain kinds of contact that they have experienced.

The FUNAI website, for example, is very clear that four isolated groups living in the region in which the aerial photographs were taken in late April and early May have been observed for twenty years, and the FUNAI site focuses on the news that the groups appear to be reasonably healthy (which is news). They put the photographs up with the statement that they are for 'cultural dissemination'...

"Cultural dissemination" along with international movie releases? Maybe we'll get a release about Roswell too?

That's the last line of this news item about the cast of the upcoming movie, "Homo Erectus: A Caveman Comedy":

The film centers on Ishbo ([Adam] Rifkin), a philosophical caveman who loves Fardart ([Ali] Larter), but she only has eyes for Ishbo's studly, dimwitted brother, Thudnik ([Hayes] MacArthur). [Kill Bill's David] Carradine and [Rocky's Talia] Shire will play Ishbo's parents, while [Tom] Arnold will play Rog, a gay caveman.

Hmmm...a philosophical caveman? Would that be like Johnny Hart?

The whole thing reminds me of Caveman, a movie from 1981 where Ringo Starr and Dennis Quaid compete for Shelley Long (!). Man, I thought that movie was great when I was 9! Maybe it made me an anthropologist....

OK, I've snapped out of it.