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The Classics According to Keith - Short Circuit

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


SHORT CIRCUIT (1986)

STARS : Ally Sheedy, Steve Guttenberg, Fisher Stevens

THE PLOT : “Okay guys, everybody listen closely. I’ve got a great idea for a movie. We start with a man who has grown tired with the life that has been delegated to him. Looking to find a greater purpose and expand his emotional horizons, he revolts, learns English and spends much of the film actively pursued by his oppressors. Then, at the end, he finally eludes them for good by moving to a desolate place where the tormentors wouldn’t think to look, like Tennessee.”
“Sir, that movie has already been made. It was called Roots.”
“Shit. Okay, not a man but an alien. And not Tennessee but the moon.”
“That was also made. It’s called E.T.”
“GoddamnitI Fine. A Robot. And not the moon, but Montana.”
“Now we’re talking!”
So basically, there’s a sweet robot named Number 5 that is made to blow up shit for the military, like tanks and civilians. Then it gets struck by lighting and starts appreciating butterflies and sunrises, and becomes self-aware and posits on the meaning of life and the inevitability of death, and falls in love with a woman and speaks romantically and in clichés that it sees on TV. Then the government finds him and blows him up—but it’s not really him, it’s a replica and Number 5 escapes with his human friends to Montana.

THE POINT : Much like the robot in Short Circuit, there once was a sweet dude. He probably hooked up with chicks and smoked pinners and partied in the woods a lot. Then he got struck by lightning, and, also like the robot in Short Circuit, he became a fucking annoying, unoriginal emo asshole. Then that happened to like a million more sweet dudes. Then a Secondhand Serenade tune went platinum. Thanks a lot, nature….

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