When I was 19-ish, my dog disappeared, only to turn up dead a day later, at the hands of a nearby neighbor’s Winnebago. It was a sad day for me, but devastating to my kid sister, who’s love for animals cripples her ability for rational thought to this day.

To soften the blow of our loss, I took sis to the movies to see Joe vs. The Volcano. This was the early nineties, when Tom Hanks was still a rising Superstar. We had a rotary phone, Poison had a hit record and bananas only cost a nickle…

You get the picture. You were there… Most of you.

ANYWAY, I should tell you all I’m a movie sucker. I get pulled in to the lousiest of picture shows. Major League is still my favorite baseball movie and I still laugh at the lunacy that is Let it Ride. I could give a shit about plot, honestly (and obviously). What I look for – What really sets a movie apart for me are mannerisms… And syntax. The way the luggage guy in Joe says, “May you live to be a thousand years old, sir.” Or the how Principal Rooney squeals in a frustration circle at the end of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

I just like the way some things sound and when they’re acted the right way, it’s kismet.

Joe vs The Volcano had a hundred of these moments for me. From the way Joe blinks at the broken Fluorescent light, to the way he dances on top of the tied-together luggage at sea. This movie, for me, was a feast to my senses. 90 minutes of pure joy, wrapped in an OCD fit that lasted for days. I spent hours afterward, going over every scene I could remember. The way he describes the “Brain cloud” at the doctors office and to Meg Ryan. The simple sip of that over-flowing martini on his last night in NY…. So many things, including the luggage guy. THAT guy should’ve won an Oscar for the three minutes he contributes to the film. His enthusiasm for luggage, coupled with his over-the-top hand and arm gestures, ON TOP of the luggage store set of one 1920s rotunda-type room, are a cinematic moment I’ve rewatched thousands of times.

Joe vs The Volcano taught me a lot about being funny, without necessarily writing a joke. The lessons I gathered from that movie have literally made me the man I am today. This simple, kind gesture towards my Sister as an adolescent, turned into an evening permanently burned into my broken psyche.

I know the movie is a bit formulaic and sappy… And the ending is kinda hokey. But who the Hell cares? The full box of stale candy isn’t what I’m all about… Those little nuggets of acting nougat and chewy one-liner centers are.

That was also a bit hokey, but you get my point.

They really should make a sequel to Joe. I could write it… And … It would go just… like… this (David Lee Roth plays in the background):

“This time, Joe has is joined by Indiana Jones and has to jump into a pit of Hellfire, before Indy has his brain sucked through his ear by witch doctor on the Nazi payroll. Meg Ryan makes a cameo as Joe’s recently ex-wife, with Jennifer Connelly staring as his new love interest.

The luggage guy returns as Joe’s dependable sidekick.

Narrated posthumously by Ozzie Davis.“

I’d pay $10 to see that… Preferably without one of my dogs dying.

Words, cheap beer and lies,

-FRS

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGLKnAvzlg4]