realgenius

The Classics According to Keith - Real Genius

Every Time I Die frontman Keith Buckley waxes cinematic on the more important films of our time. Sort of. 

 

 

REAL GENIUS (1985)

 

STARS: Val Kilmer, Gabe Jarret, William Atherton

 

THE PLOT: This is undoubtedly the pioneer film in which a zany rabble-rouser, who knows a thing or two about fun, shows a bunch of hidebound squares the value of letting their hair down. Chris Knight (Kilmer) is basically Van Wilder’s grandfather. He and 15-year-old Mitch Taylor (Jarret) are hired by the contemptible asshole Professor Jerry Hathaway (played by Atherton, who has “vile” down to a science) to build a 5-megawatt laser. Seeing it as an opportunity to advance their careers and bore 95 percent of the audience with the kind of terminology Dennis Miller would jerk off Dr. Gregory House to, the boys hit the lab. After a string of college parties, atrocious puns and some major setbacks, they finally realize that bromide is an excimer, frozen in its excited state, and is possible to synthesize in an argon matrix. No shit, Sherlock. Obviously this theory works and the laser is handed over to Hathaway who immediately turns it over to the government, who had hired him to develop a weapon that could vaporize people from space. C’mon guys. Really? You didn’t realize that when building a very high-powered, portable laser operating at one megajoule per liter that all you needed was a tracking device and a large spinning mirror and you’d have a weapon? Give me a break. Real genius my ass. Good luck getting your laser back, dummies. 

 

THE POINT: Once I finally sat down after my solo, four-minute standing ovation upon this film’s conclusion, I began to understand that the real genius as referenced by the title was not Val Kilmer’s character simply because he devised a laser. Nor was it Gabe Jarret’s character for his assistance in eliminating mankind. No, it was director Martha Coolidge who has, through the medium of film, shown a generation of shiftless, witless, unfunny and tremendously self important dickheads that being in a band is not your only career option.

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