AN EXPLANANTION

christopher funderburg

Back when we were in college at SUNY Purchase, John Cribbs and I lived together in a tiny apartment in nearby White Plains, NY. While we used to travel down to NYC's Angelika Film Center quite often to see movies, it was still a bit of a jaunt to get down there. In what must've been I think 1999, I was on a little bit of an Emir Kusturica kick - and, as with all embarrassing phases, it was because of a girl. A young lady I was desperately in love with happened to be a big fan of Kusturica's (extremely terrible) Arizona Dream. I developed a bit of Stockholm Syndrome and came to believe that I, too, was a big fan of  Arizona Dream. His newest film, Black Cat, White Cat had recently debuted, so I had been reading a bunch of articles and whatnot about him. Keep in mind, this was the early days of internet, so I couldn't just go online and find out every good goddamned thing there is to know about Kusturica - obscure films and offbeat filmmakers still were mysterious and opportunities to see their more seldom seen work rarely presented themselves. You had to work to hunt things down and seize those opportunities as they came up. It sucked, but I still kinda miss it.

Anyhoo, at one point, the Angelika's newspaper ad listed Underground for a couple midnight shows. Since I had Kusturica on the brain, it seemed clear as day they were giving his inglorious cult comedy a couple screenings to capitalize on Black Cat, White Cat's release. Remember, there was no internet to really check any further: the newspaper ad says "Underground," Kusturica's film is a cult comedy, this is clearly what's going down. So, I convinced John to trek down to the city to see it. John, unencumbered by the foolishness of young love, didn't really particularly give a shit about seeing Underground, so I had to convince him a little bit. He was rightfully concerned about the parking situation on a Friday night. To this day, John has an unbelievable knack for getting parking tickets while in New York. It's like we turn around for two seconds and then, out of nowhere, he has a $115 fine for something like his tire being a little bit up on the curb. But really, in his heart, he's always up for a midnight movie, so he drove us down to the corner of Mercer and Houston.

We find parking, head up to the theater and look at the list of titles at the box office. No Underground.

Instead, showing at midnight, there is something called The Underground Comedy Movie.

"Chris, let's just go get a cheesesteak or something. That place that only serves peanut butter sandwiches might still be open."
"But we came down here to see a movie. Let's go check that other one out."
"Really, I don't know, Chris, I just feel like the whole idea is busted, coming down here and everything. Let's just cut our loses. I just... I have a bad feeling about this one."
"Man, I want to go to something. We can go to that all-night place that only serves grilled cheese sandwiches after the movie. Besides, how bad could it be? It might even be good!"

I'm sorry, John. I'm so, so sorry.

Yes, The Underground Comedy Movie was directed by and stars Vince Offer, the Slap-chop/ShamWow guy arrested for beating up a prostitue. He gave me a poster after the screenig, which John and I tore to pieces.