8.17.18

As I go back through these movies from the mid to late 1980’s I’m kind of amazed how many of them feature some variation of the same “white person wants to move to (insert major US city) and become a super wealthy white person and then life will be perfect” storyline. Did other cultures/races make these types of movies and I just didn’t see them? Is there a rom-com from 1987 where Forrest Whittaker really wants a Rolls Royce and the key to the executive washroom? I’m guessing no. But maybe this is why I moved to NYC after college to try to become a rich white person...although my year there mostly involved stuffing and licking envelopes at various temp gigs, watching VHS tapes alone in my shoebox apartment in pre-charcuterie bar Queens, unwisely refusing to party with The Strokes...followed by moving home to wait tables for the rest of my life. ANYWAY....Secret of My Success stars a fresh offa Back to the Future Michael J Fox as a Kansas farm boy who heads to NYC to become the next Donald Trump or some such bullshit. He tells his mom he’s gonna be such a big deal he’ll have his own secretary and he’ll force her to order Chinese food for him! I should mention right now that, while there are thankfully no racist jokes in this movie (not even any goofy asians), it is sexist as all get out! The opening credits roll and there’s a sweet ass title tune by that one band that does “Sister Christian” where the lyrics explain everything that’s gonna happen in the movie. I love that shit. I wish movies still had title songs that played over the opening credits. Anyway...Michael J Fox gets to NYC and of course he can’t get hired to do squat...so he calls his distant Uncle Howard...who just so happens to be the president of a fancy pants, non-specific multinational corporation. He’s also a huge jerk....but he gives the kid a job in the mail room. On the way out of his interview he bumps into Helen Slater at a drinking fountain. That’s right...the star of The Legend of Billie Jean! Now there’s a friggin’ movie we need to talk about! But here Helen Slater is the most 80’s looking person to be in an 80’s movie in all of the 80’s....kind of like Princess Di buy with bigger eyeglasses and higher shoulder pads. Fox watches her drink from the water fountain in slow motion and is immediately in love. It’s the most erotic water fountain drinking scene ever...and probably the reason for the PG-13 rating. Anyway, dude hates working in the mail room. Not much of interest happens there...except that one day where he’s called upon to drive a rich executive’s wife to her mansion in Greenwich. She gives him booze, throws him in the swimming pool, tears his bathing suit off, and forces him to have sex with her. It’s hilarious! Also: rape. But then...oh shit!...it turns out her husband is Uncle Howard!! He just balled his auntie Vera! I have a feeling this is gonna come up again later in the film. Back in NYC, Fox wanders into an empty office...answers a ringing telephone....makes some sort of vague business decision...and then BAM!...he decides he can just give himself a phony name and act like an executive and everyone will think he is one! It’s probably the dumbest fucking plot twist in history. I mean...don’t they have an HR department at this company?? Don’t people recognize that he’s the same dude who delivers the mail everyday?? No one says shit about it...except for Uncle Frank from Home Alone...who is all “look what you did, you little jerk!” But Fox is all “it’s cool man...I work here...you’ll get a memo.” And he’s all “fine.” So Fox starts showing up to meetings and he immediately knows more about the business than everyone else. Dude is walking on sunshine. We know this because there is a montage set to the song “Walking on Sunshine” where Fox runs through the office high-fiving and joking with the same people who ignore him when he delivers their mail (which he still does, btw). Now that he’s a high-powered executive he goes all in on sexually harassing Helen Slater. Of course it turns out she’s balling Uncle Howard on the sly because of course she is. She relents and starts balling Michael J Fox. It all leads to a climax in the office of a walk-in health clinic where Fox, Slater, Uncle Howard, and Auntie Vera all show up and find out they are sharing the same case of gonorrhea! Actually, that’s a lie. The whole cast heads to Uncle Howard’s mansion for the weekend and there they find out that everyone is schtupping everyone else...and that Fox isn’t really an executive. Back in NYC Fox is cleaning out his office (seriously...you let this dude back in the building after this shit??) when he decides to head upstairs and barge in on a board meeting where the company is about to be taken over from the “sometime’s dead is better” old timer from the original Pet Semetary. Somehow Fox convinces the old timer that he’d be better suited to run the company...and the old timer agrees...so Uncle Howard is hustled out by security. Michael J Fox is now the president of the company and wealthy and Helen Slater loves him. They put on tuxedos and take a limousine to the opera because that is the RICHEST WHITEST thing you can do! The end.