Maybe the dingo ate your baby.

Seinfeld

2.9: The Stranded

The Premise

George and Elaine are stranded at a party in Long Island, with a disgruntled hostess.

Observational

Another episode that doesn’t quite come together. It has an all-time classic moment (Elaine’s riff on Meryl Streep in A Cry in the Dark) and some reasonablt effective sequences (Kramer’s arrival at the party house, George’s indignation over being short-changed) but it’s front-loaded with all the good material and limps to the finish line. Larry David may well have agreed; he was responsible for delaying its airdate until the third season (it’s in the correct order on the DVD collection).

If George is going to win, he usually has to lose even more resoundingly. The trip to Long Island is at his behest, since he has a chance with work colleague Ava (hearing his apparent enthusiasm over a real estate deal does not compute, it must be said). And her forwardness unsettles him, first resulting in a randomly classical literature-sounding response (“I long for you”) and then desperation (“I can’t perform under pressure”). It gets worse when he realises the repercussions of dating a work colleague (“Every day is a date”) and he reaches the only decision he can in order to end the anxiety (“I have no choice. I’m quitting”). Cue out-of-work George (although his demise comes a couple of episodes later, in spectacular fashion), ripe for material and the introduction of his parents.

If he reverses out of that situation, his approach to dealing with the money he feels is owed is to dig his heels in. He attempts to steal medicine from the same store we saw in the opening (“I have to do this. It’s a matter of honour”) and ends up being arrested. But ending with George and Jerry swapping incarceration stories feels off (maybe if Larry Charles had written this one the exaggeration would play better). His reasoning for his date’s advances is a nicely self-deprecating, however (“I don’t know. Maybe a safe fell on her head”).

Jerry and Elaine’s boredom and frustration at a party where they have nothing in common with those they’re stuck talking to no one to talk to is skilfully sustained from the moment they arrive (“Yeah, this has disaster written all over it”). Jerry’s the one forwarding the anti-social ethos this time (“Have a bunch of strangers treat your house like a hotel room”) and everything goes wrong. Their attempts to signal each other when they get into an awkward conversation never connect, so they have to amuse themselves by taking the piss out of their co-guests. Jerry explains where he gets the inspiration for his material (“I hear a voice”) while Elaine confounds Gwen, who won’t stop talking about her fi-ancé in particularly shrill tones (“Maybe the dingo ate your baby”).

The dingo exchange is a delightful Elaine “crazy” moment, her getting worked up over the wearing of fur less so. Jerry’s “Pendant? Those bastards!” when he eventually does come to Elaine’s aid is gleefully over-the-top. We also hear about “the Code” from Jerry; George gets to take the car because he has scored. The duo’s pain as they attempt to pass conversation while their hostess is on the verge of evicting them is palpable.

So it’s a relief to have Kramer disorganised arrival, at 2am and having knocked on every door in the area (he knows the numbers of the address, just no what order they come in). He peers in through the window, causing the hostess to scream out in horror. And, although he comes to their rescue, since he couldn’t get the top on his convertible up both Elaine and Jerry catch a chill. Following this, Matt Goldman, David and Seinfeld are stuck for how to continue the story and fix on a bit of a stiff.

The Michael Chiklis plotline just doesn’t work. As Steve, the apparently meek and mild host of the party, it’s certainly something different from Chilkis’ work on The Shield, he turns up at Jerry’s apartment to indulge in his own bit of carousing. Even with Kramer around, there’s a dearth of real laughs and it leads to a weak conclusion where Jerry is arrested for solicitation.

Quotable

George: You haven’t won. You may think you’ve won but you haven’t. You know why, because it’s not over. This is not over. I’m not forgetting what’s happening here. You have my ten dollars. I will get it back. It’s all right. It’s not over. I’m going now. Goodbye. I will be back. Ho-ho-hoo.

Man: Where do you get your material?

Jerry: I hear a voice.

Man: What kind of voice?

Jerry: A man’s voice. But he speaks German so I have to get it translated.

Gwen: Ellen, have you seen my fi-ancé? I have lost my fi-ancé, the poor baby.

Elaine: Maybe the dingo ate your baby.

Gwen: What?

Elaine: The dingo ate your baby.

George: That’s a lot of pressure. “Make love to me.” What am I, in the circus? I can’t perform under pressure.

Verdict:

Comments

We live in a twilight world.

Tenet (2020)
(SPOILERS) I’ve endured a fair few confusingly-executed action sequences in movies – more than enough, actually – but I don’t think I’ve previously had the odd experience of being on the edge of my seat during one while simultaneously failing to understand its objectives and how those objectives are being attempted. Which happened a few times during Tenet. If I stroll over to the Wiki page and read the plot synopsis, it is fairly explicable (fairly) but as a first dive into this Christopher Nolan film, I frequently found it, if not impenetrable, then most definitely opaque.

She was addicted to Tums for a while.

Marriage Story (2019)
(SPOILERS) I don’t tend to fall heavily for Noah Baumbach fare. He’s undoubtedly a distinctive voice – even if his collaborations with Wes Anderson are the least of that director’s efforts – but his devotion to an exclusive, rarefied New York bubble becomes ever more off-putting with each new project. And ever more identifiable as being a lesser chronicler of the city’s privileged quirks than his now disinherited forbear Woody Allen, who at his peak mastered a balancing act between the insightful, hilarious and self-effacing. Marriage Story finds Baumbach going yet again where Woody went before, this time brushing up against the director’s Ingmar Bergman fixation.

You can’t climb a ladder, no. But you can skip like a goat into a bar.

Juno and the Paycock (1930)
(SPOILERS) Hitchcock’s second sound feature. Such was the lustre of this technological advance that a wordy play was picked. By Sean O’Casey, upon whom Hitchcock based the prophet of doom at the end of The Birds. Juno and the Paycock, set in 1922 during the Irish Civil War, begins as a broad comedy of domestic manners, but by the end has descended into full-blown Greek (or Catholic) tragedy. As such, it’s an uneven but still watchable affair, even if Hitch does nothing to disguise its stage origins.

Anything can happen in Little Storping. Anything at all.

The Avengers 2.22: Murdersville
Brian Clemens' witty take on village life gone bad is one of the highlights of the fifth season. Inspired by Bad Day at Black Rock, one wonders how much Murdersville's premise of unsettling impulses lurking beneath an idyllic surface were set to influence both Straw Dogs and The Wicker Mana few years later (one could also suggest it premeditates the brand of backwoods horrors soon to be found in American cinema from the likes of Wes Craven and Tobe Hooper).

The protocol actually says that most Tersies will say this has to be a dream.

Jupiter Ascending (2015)
(SPOILERS) The Wachowski siblings’ wildly patchy career continues apace. They bespoiled a great thing with The Matrix sequels (I liked the first, not the second), misfired with Speed Racer (bubble-gum visuals aside, hijinks and comedy ain’t their forte) and recently delivered the Marmite Sense8 for Netflix (I was somewhere in between on it). Their only slam-dunk since The Matrix put them on the movie map is Cloud Atlas, and even that’s a case of rising above its limitations (mostly prosthetic-based). Jupiter Ascending, their latest cinema outing and first stab at space opera, elevates their lesser works by default, however. It manages to be tone deaf in all the areas that count, and sadly fetches up at the bottom of their filmography pile.

This is a case where the roundly damning verdicts have sadly been largely on the ball. What’s most baffling about the picture is that, after a reasonably engaging set-up, it determinedly bores the pants off you. I haven’t enco…

Seems silly, doesn't it? A wedding. Given everything that's going on.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I (2010)
(SPOILERS) What’s good in the first part of the dubiously split (of course it was done for the art) final instalment in the Harry Potter saga is very good, let down somewhat by decisions to include material that would otherwise have been rightly excised and the sometimes-meandering travelogue. Even there, aspects of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I can be quite rewarding, taking on the tone of an apocalyptic ‘70s aftermath movie or episode of Survivors (the original version), as our teenage heroes (some now twentysomethings) sleep rough, squabble, and try to salvage a plan. The main problem is that the frequently strong material requires a robust structure to get the best from it.

He tasks me. He tasks me, and I shall have him.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
(1982)
(SPOILERS) I don’t love Star Trek, but I do love Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. That probably isn’t just me, but a common refrain of many a non-devotee of the series. Although, it used to apply to The Voyage Home (the funny one, with the whales, the Star Trek even the target audience for Three Men and a Baby could enjoy). Unfortunately, its high regard has also become the desperate, self-destructive, song-and-verse, be-all-and-end-all of the overlords of the franchise itself, in whichever iteration, it seems. This is understandable to an extent, as Khan is that rare movie sequel made to transcendent effect on almost every level, and one that stands the test of time every bit as well (better, even) as when it was first unveiled.

My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet, Django, and these are our horses, Fritz, and Tony.

Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?

Batman (1989)
(SPOILERS) There’s Jaws, there’s Star Wars, and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy, to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “mainly boring”.

Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the system when Burton did it (even…

When I barked, I was enormous.

Dean Spanley (2008)
(SPOILERS) There is such a profusion of average, respectable – but immaculately made – British period drama held up for instant adulation, it’s hardly surprising that, when something truly worthy of acclaim comes along, it should be singularly ignored. To be fair, Dean Spanleywas well liked by critics upon its release, but its subsequent impact has proved disappointingly slight. Based on Lord Dunsany’s 1939 novella, My Talks with Dean Spanley, our narrator relates how the titular Dean’s imbibification of a moderate quantity of Imperial Tokay (“too syrupy”, is the conclusion reached by both members of the Fisk family regarding this Hungarian wine) precludes his recollection of a past life as a dog.

Inevitably, reviews pounced on the chance to reference Dean Spanley as a literal shaggy dog story, so I shall get that out of the way now. While the phrase is more than fitting, it serves to underrepresent how affecting the picture is when it has cause to be, as does any re…

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog