Saturday, January 2, 2010

Day Two: Private Benjamin

Private Benjamin

Starring:
-Goldie Hawn
-Eileen Brennan
-Armand Assante

Directed by: Howard Zieff

Screenplay Credits: Nancy Meyers, Charles Shyer, & Harvey Miller

MPAA Rating: R

“When Judy Benjamin was eight years old, she confessed her life’s desire to her best friend. ‘All I want,’ Judy whispered, ‘is a big house… nice clothes, two closets, a live-in maid, and a professional man for a husband.’ Today, all of Judy’s dreams come true.

So begins Judy’s adventure. Goldie Hawn stands at the altar on her wedding day, exchanging rings with a curly-headed Jew. Golly, she looks exactly like her daughter Kate! Mazel tov. Boy, these Jews sure can dance, and they REALLY know how to party. Guess all those years wandering in the desert really taught them a thing or two about get-togethers.

Goldie happily opens some gifts, but has issues with an ottoman given to her by a certain guest.

“Mr. Waxman, I wanted upholstered balls.” – Judy

Goldie’s new Jew hubby Yale tries to get freaky in the limo before they leave the party, then her folks give them a big check to start their new life together on. Here we see that, once the festivities are over, Judy’s dad is less than attentive. Cut to the honeymoon. Goldie and Yale get frisky in the bathroom floor and, after the big finish, Yale goes limp and Goldie’s a widow.

Cut to Yale’s funeral.

Yale’s Mother: Judith, if you can remember… sniff, sniff… what were Yale’s last words?
Judy: I’m coming.

Judy, alone in a hotel room, calls a late night radio talk show and sobs to the host. There is one particular caller who seems to empathize, claiming that what Judy needs is “guidance, security, good friends, and a healthy dose of self-confidence.” The caller – Jim- says he can help her find a new life. The next thing you know, Judy meets Jim in front of a building and he’s speaking German and leading her into the United States Army Recruiting Station. He shows her pictures of condos and yachts, professing, “the Army’s the best kept secret in the world.” Jim sweet talks her and before you know it she’s taking another vow and on a bus headed toward 6 weeks of basic training.

The drill sergeant – a fit looking black man named Ross- calls twice for Private Benjamin, and Private Winters (who looks suspiciously like P.J. Soles in a brown wig) steps smugly forward and announces that she knows where Private Benjamin is.

Cut to Sergeant Ross waking the sleeping Benjamin, literally throwing her out of the bus, and ordering her to do ten pushups. She then gets her fatigues and is shown to the barracks.

“Excuse me sir, is green the only color these come in? Where are the yachts?” – Judy

Enter Captain Lewis (aka Eileen Brennan). Judy is unimpressed and starts filing her nails. It is here we discover that Private Winters actually is P.J. Soles in a brown wig. Not only that, her character is a huge brownnoser. Benjamin approaches Lewis and starts whining about everything. Lewis plays along, but it isn’t a surprise when she asks to see Judy’s toothbrush.

Cut to a shot of Judy kneeling at the porcelain throne, electric toothbrush in hand. By the time she finishes scrubbing the bathroom, it is early morning. The second Benjamin collapses onto her bed, Ross snaps on the light and loudly starts rousting the troops. Judy yawns her way through orientation and we enter a hellish Army training montage while Craig T. Nelson and Eileen Brennan flirt in a jeep.

Some tough private steals Judy’s blanket and when she tries to get it back, a catfight ensues. Eileen Brennan grabs Craig T. Nelson’s butt and Sergeant Black Man drives up announcing trouble. Cut to Private Benjamin atop a fence, tangled in barbed wire. Captain Lewis punishes the entire squad and makes them march in a circle in the rain. The other women blast Benjamin and when Ross dismisses them, he sends Judy inside.

Surprise! It’s her folks, and boy are they P.O.’ed. They tell Judy they’ve told all their friends she’s sick in a mental institution. Her father is a total putz, and slams her self-esteem with beauties like: “You never were a smart girl.” And “You are obviously incapable of making your own decisions.”

Captain Lewis rushes out with a clipboard and thrusts it in Goldie’s face with a pen. All she has to do is sign and she can go home. But Benjamin comes down with a case of Twisted Sister and decides she’s not gonna take it anymore. She refuses to sign and chooses to stay in basic training. She sets her jaw, salutes, and we finally get to a montage of her firm, fit, and kicking basic training butt. But, if you’re anything like me, you’re wondering when Armand Assante is finally going to appear, and whether or not he’ll be shirtless. You’re also probably wondering if Eileen Brennan wears dentures.

Now it’s time for the war games. It’s inevitable that in every comedy war movie there will be at least one combat simulation exercise. Goldie and her girls are assigned a swamp to guard, but first they have to find it. They wander through the woods awhile, then sit around a campfire smoking pot and laughing about their romantic histories.

“I had an orgasm once… but I was alone.” – Private Soyer

The next day, the girls are wandering around lost when they encounter an enemy jeep. They rip up Private Tough Chick’s fancy red bra and panties and use them as arm bands, pretending to be on the red team instead of the blue. This enables them to capture the jeep and head for the command tent to capture red leader Captain Craig T. Nelson.

They reach the tent and burst in to find Private Winters naked and moaning on Nelson’s lap, proving that P.J. Soles refuses to appear in a film unless she can at some point appear semi-nude.

Winters feeds her blue teammates some story about being captured by Nelson, but Goldie doesn’t buy it and takes them both prisoner. The ballsy Blues continue the charade by driving through the forest announcing over the loudspeaker that the Blue team has surrendered and the red team should follow the jeep. Of course they do, and they’re all captured. Goldie and her crew are greatly congratulated by Thornbush, the head honcho, and he gives them a chopper lift back to the barracks where they have a dance party.

Captain (Come On) Eileen interrupts looking all drunk and belligerently orders them to clean everything. Apparently she’s bitter after getting shamed in front of like, the whole entire army, and now she’s been transferred to a new post.

“Let’s not keep in touch, shall we?” – Captain Lewis

The girls then sneak over to Lewis’ room, break into the bathroom, and monkey with the showerhead. Naturally, Lewis steps in, turns on the water, and gets covered in blue paint so that she looks like some sort of Smurf reject swamp thing.

Goldie’s troop finally makes it to graduation. Lewis rolls in looking all undead and covered in geisha makeup and the graduates go out to celebrate.

Inexplicably, a cheesy Asain man tries to pick Judy up at the bar, so she’s thrilled when an old friend spots her and takes her over to see the folks and, at long last, French gynecologist Armand Assante. The angels sing. He has a dumb French name, so we’ll just call him Armand and pretend that he’s kissing us. Gosh, he’s good looking. Judy can speak a few words of French, so she and Armand giggle and dance.

“Well, if I knew you better, I’d show you my dog tag.” – Judy

Cut to Judy and Armand feeling each other up by a mailbox. She’s reluctant to hop straight into the sack with a man she’s only just met, but I’ve found that when propositioned by a doctor with an accent who looks like Armand Assante, it’s best to just go with it.

Judy holds out until he says the magic words: I’m Jewish. Then we quickly cut to the two of them moaning. Vive la France. Goldie says, “Now I know what I’ve been faking all these years.”

Well, of course honey! What did you expect? He’s a gynecologist!

They shake hands in front of the hotel and Goldie winds up in front of the assignment board, where she finds out she’s the first woman Thornbird. Apparently that means skydiving and never having to wear a bra. Whoop tee doo.

Judy chickens out in the sky, so Thornbush tells her she doesn’t have to jump and makes a grab for her. He starts ripping his fatigues off, which proved to be a sure fire way of making Goldie jump. She plays her cards well and gets transferred to – you guess it – Europe. Look out, Armand. Homegirl is headed your way and she’s ready for Round II.

Goldie gets up the nerve to go visit Armand, who welcomes her with open arms and takes her back to his fabulous French estate where they… er… enjoy each others company.

Armand wears short shorts, very romantically says, “I could get used to you,” and the dog wets on the rug.

Cut to Goldie addressing the council and coming face to face with Captain Lewis since Lewis, well… “blue” herself. Goldie’s back in bed with Armand discussing his Communist ex-girlfriend and there are shots of them frenching in France. Unfortunately for Goldie, Lewis has been spying on her and Armand and is pretty unhappy about it.

“If Patton were alive, he would slap your face.” – Lewis

Goldie’s got a choice. It’s either Armand or the Army. Goldie chooses Armand (as any sane woman would) and starts planning the wedding. Of course, Goldie’s still all worked up about Armand’s ex-girlfriend Claire and Armand says, “I love you, I want to be together forever, let’s have a baby, sign this pre-nup.” What a man.

Armand gets Goldie to dye her hair red, which makes her look like her character in Death Becomes Her. She accuses Armand of sleeping with the maid and Armand was late for the wedding because he had been to see Claire.

This part of the movie drags a bit, and makes me want to straighten Goldie’s hair.

She walks down the aisle for a third time and, for the third time it ain’t working. She has flashbacks to her wedding to Yale and breaks it off with Armand. But he’s not the type to go quietly into that dark night so he tries to stop her, confessing that he slept with the maid, but only once when Judy was “acting crazy.”

“Henri, you’re such a schmuck.” – Judy

She then punches him and (presumably) marches her toned hide right back into the army, but not before tossing her veil a la Mary Tyler Moore.

Overall, not my favorite, but it had some good lines. I wouldn’t call it a feel good movie, and it isn’t laugh out loud hilarious, but it’s fair to middlin’.

I give it a B-.

So far so good, movie watchers! Until tomorrow, I am

Off in search of popcorn,

M. Hollywood

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