Following Joe Queenan's footsteps: Don't try this at home
Posted at 10:26 PM on April 9, 2008
by Euan Kerr
I stumbled across a copy of Joe Queenan's 2000 collection of movie pieces "Confessions of a Cineplex Heckler: Celluloid tirades and escapades" the other day.
In it he reprises an idea from 1993 where he decided to scientifically test whether certain scenes in films are actually possible. All in the name of science he challenged a playground basketball champ to a one on one game like Woody Harrelson in "White men can't jump," tried to convince someone to give him a million dollars to sleep with his wife for one night as in "Indecent Proposal," and he tried dripping wax on himself as a method of foreplay as seen in "Body of Evidence." He concluded that all of the movies were wrong, and in particular the wax thing was really painful.
The only thing which did seem real was when he struck out in traffic on a busy New York street wearing sunglasses and a white stick a la Al Pacino in "Scent of a Woman." After the traffic stopped and he got safely to the other side three times he decided not to risk it anymore.
So my question is: what movie scenes in recent months would be worth putting to a reality test. I immediately think of whether it would be possible for a chain smoker to run a marathon as in "Run Fat Boy Run."
Any other suggestions?
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