episode 3
two of a kind
okay, okay. so
maybe i shouldn't really define this peculiar stinkbomb as a "movie everyone should
see". but i contend that if sheer escapist entertainment, bizarre spectacle and
intellectual stimulation are valid criteria for recommending a picture than i am merely
being a responsible friend for recommending this to you.
"two of a kind" is a bizarre, bizarre train wreck
of a movie, on many different levels. it is a post "grease" vehicle for
the magic combination of olivia newton-john and john travolta, and what better way to
recapture the successes of a disco-era 1950's nostalgia lighthearted teen musical romp
than by casting the stars in a highly conceptual non-musical love story set under the
auspices of the pending end of the world complete with satan singing beatles songs,
charles durning and scatman caruthers playing bitter angels, time travel, the mafia,
terrorist hostage situations, edible sunglasses, bank robbery and gene hackman as the
voice of god who has decided that the humanity is an experiment that failed so he is
giving up and bringing everybody up to heaven?
the plot, pacing, style, characters and overall feel of
this movie are so uncomfortable it boggles the mind. how it ever saw the light of
day, and how so many relatively talented and high powered actors got involved is a mystery
that will never be solved. this is one of those movies where as you watch it you can
FEEL how many times it was rewritten and reedited to try (unsuccessfully) to salvage some
sort of cohesive whole.
several aspects or scenes to watch for:
the scene in the restaurant where charles durning and
the devil are having an argument, and are stopping, rewinding and fast forwarding the
actual fabric of time by yelling out "stop!" "forward!"
"rewind!" (apparently angels and the devil have this power). they
manipulate our hero and heroine for a while, leaving people suspended in mid air and
whatnot, until god gets tired of their childishness and causes a thunderstorm in the
restaurant....
the scene where john travolta (who robbed the
bank that olivia newton john worked at, only she took the money and gave him a big bag of
nothing) comes to o.n.,j's acting class (coincidentally just when her acting coach
is trying to get her to tap into her feelings of fear about the robbery), and she sees him
and gives the performance of a lifetime, because (get it?) she's not performing, she's
really scared, but because it's the wooden olivia newton john trying to act we dont really
understand what's going on, because she just seems so weird and fake, shrieking and
stuff....(the moment where their eyes meet is one to savor. rewind it a few times. you
will thank me for it.)
the soundtrack is awesome. twist of fate is a
rocking goddamn tune. olivia newton johns ballads are pretty good, but her upbeat
numbers are really where its at.
the philosophical and religious implications of
this movie trying to make noble the desire of these angels and the devil basically working
together to convince god that he shouldn't let all of the humans in the world into heaven,
mostly just because then they would be out of a job.
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