The Movie Man - Summer Trip 2005

As any Goliard reader worth their salt is well aware, the Movie Man hasn't been on the staff payroll for several years now. It fact this geezing, wheezing Goliard original has only been seen around the offices once during that period when he dropped by unannounced to give us a list of his top summer films. And that was a year or so ago so imagine our surprise when he ambled into the offices the other day with an expense report to submit just as if he'd been grinding out reviews day in and day out for the past year.
    "Hey Pops, how's the prostate, colon, and rectum?" the first editor that saw him inquired. "Weren't you having some problems down in the ass area. Good to see you on your feet. We thought you might have expired. You know where the bathroom is if you've got any issues."
    "No issues for now," said the Movie Man. "Except that my accountant advised that I should drop off this expense account." The MM proffered a typed out page. "I'm going about paying my taxes."
    "Taxes? It's the middle of the summer."
    "I got an extension."
    "Extension? But you don't even have a job."
    The Movie Man scratched his beard and shuffled his feet. "Well that's one of the problems."
    The editor scanned the page briefly and tried to hand it back to the Movie Man who had shoved his hands in his pockets and wouldn't take it. The editor had no choice but to look the page over again.
    "This seems to be for a trip you just took. Why would we foot the bill for some pleasure jaunt around the southwest when you haven't reviewed any movies for us in over a year?"
    "That's true enough," said the Movie Man hobbling over to the humidor and helping himself to the biggest cigar. "But I need to put down that I work somewhere for tax reasons and in order to do that I need documented proof. You know, paperwork." He borrowed some scissors off a desk to clip the cigar tip and, as he did so, tobacco showered across a fashion editor's lay out. "Something like a signed expense report would work fine."
    "Well I'm sure that's probably the case," said the editor scratching his head. "But by my way of thinking, and please correct me if you know differently, we would only pay the expenses of a person who actually did some work for us. We're barely getting by here as it is." He looked again at the page. "And frankly, it doesn't seem in our best financial interests to pick up the tab for, lets see, 37 cigars, some soft core porn, and 4000 some odd miles traveled unless we're getting some pretty damn good movie reviews in return."
    "I can give you the reviews. I've got the movies listed right there."
    The editor squinted down the single page. "Mr. and Mrs. Smith?"
    My review is "Not good," said the Movie Man.
    "Batman Begins?"
    "Better than some of the other Batmen."
    "The Longest Yard?"
    "Kind of funny. Not bad."
    "And what's this? Mad Hot Ballroom? I've never even heard of it."
    "Excellent film. It's about inner city kids learning to dance."
    "And that's it?"
    "For now it is."
    The editor sighed and took a pen from behind his ear. "Alright, I'll sign this for you on one condition. You let us post it on the Goliard for all to see. And get your ailing ass out there and do some real reviews. Where's your 2005 summer list? Bring that in at least."
     The Movie Man turned to go, clutching his freshly signed report and gave an ashy wave to the room that hopefully was meant to suggest that as soon as he got his taxes figured out, he'd be back after he put some reviews together.
     "Who's that old dude?" asked a new kid from the photog pool.
     "Oh he used to work here once upon a time," said the editor. "Seems to have some kind of a screw loose these days."

Archive of MovieMan Movie Reviews

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Top Ten - Summer 2004

Movie Man's Top and Bottom Five for 2001

Movie Man's Top and Bottom Ten for 2002