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HOMER & EDDIE
Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky
Released in 1989
Starring Whoopi Goldberg as Eddie Cervi and James Belushi as Homer Lanza
A Whoopi Goldberg film I've never seen before. A surprisingly good Whoopi Goldberg film. Not great, but not bad. Not as bad as I feared it might be when it first started.
This is Whoopi Goldberg meets Forrest Gump and goes on a joyride with him. Basically. Movie begins with Homer Lanza (James Belushi), a mentally retarded man who leaves his home to go to Oregon to see his dying father. He packs a suitcase, puts on a hat and heads for the highway. He hitchhikes and a car stops for him -- but oh, no. The driver, John Waters (yeah, the director of Pink Flamingos), and another guy, point a gun at him and rob him!
He goes to a little diner, run by Anne Ramsey (that throaty, nasty momma from Throw Momma From the Train), and tries to steal some candy, since he has no money now. She catches him and he leaves, winding up in a junkyard inside Whoopi Goldberg's car. Her name is Eddie, short for Edwina, and she is apparently an escaped mental patient. She freaks out upon waking up and finding him in her car, and then she proceeds to rob him, finding not a dime. She offers to drive him to Oregon and off we go.
Despite a kind of lukewarm and weak, worrisome beginning.... Homer & Eddie eventually settles into a rhythm that's interesting and not as godawful as I thought it might be. But it is a strange, quirky little movie indeed. Eddie (Whoopi) is actually a semi-decent character and the film is better than some of the other Whoopi Goldberg vehicles I've encountered, such as Burglar. We are treated to scenes where she robs convenience stores and kills the innocent cashier with her trusty gun. She's an awful woman, but she is mentally ill, and it's a movie, so whatever. She treats Homer to lunch and stiffs the restaurant with a stolen credit card. An Asian guy (I think he was Asian?) chases after them with a hatchet.
The BEST moment of the movie -- the BEST -- is an unintentionally hilarious scene where she's in a bathroom with James Belushi (no, she's not transgender) and she has a kind of schizophrenic freakout.
She starts BANGING her head against a bathroom mirror -- suddenly, BOOM, we see her head smack the mirror and crack it all over. I don't know why, but the sight of Whoopi Goldberg's braids breaking a bathroom mirror had me laughing and laughing, rewinding the scene about 20 times. I thought I'd never finish the movie.
Hopefully after I've finished writing this review, I'll find a GIF of that particular mirror shattering moment, but I doubt it exists (but who knows with the internet?)
We're in luck -- I found this (but the movie is funnier than this picture):
Anyway -- so you never really know where the movie is gonna go next. She takes Homer to a whorehouse. Her cousin is the prostitute, and she's a big, older black lady in glasses. Whoopi doesn't have the $30 to pay her hooker cousin, so she goes and robs a convenience store to get the cash, killing another sales clerk in the process. She couldn't just stiff the whorehouse -- the hooker is family, afterall.
We learn that Eddie has a brain tumor. A walnut sized tumor that her brain is wrapped around. An operation cannot save her. She's gonna die in a month. There's a trip to a cemetery -- Eddie/Whoopi finds the grave of her mother, whom she didn't know die. She has a little imaginary chat with her dead mother in the graveyard.
Basically, the film keeps going until Homer does arrive in Oregon to see his dying father. But here's the thing -- are his parents really excited to see him? He hasn't seen them in years.... they kinda weren't thrilled with him after a baseball hit him in the head and made him retarded.
Homer & Eddie is a nice little movie. Better than I thought it'd be. It drags a little, though. I figured I'd turn the thing off early in the film, but I guess it kept me interested. By the time they finally got to Oregon, I had to see how it all resolved itself. Will Homer's father be glad to see him? Will Eddie change her ways and stop killing people and maybe find Jesus?
Check it out sometime if you've got nothing to do and you're in the mood for an odd, stupid, yet endearing motion picture about traveling pals heading for a change in their lives. You'll even see Hollywood billboard queen Angelyne - yes, Angelyne - that blonde bimbo from Earth Girls are Easy - she's in this, too!
Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky
Released in 1989
Starring Whoopi Goldberg as Eddie Cervi and James Belushi as Homer Lanza
A Whoopi Goldberg film I've never seen before. A surprisingly good Whoopi Goldberg film. Not great, but not bad. Not as bad as I feared it might be when it first started.
This is Whoopi Goldberg meets Forrest Gump and goes on a joyride with him. Basically. Movie begins with Homer Lanza (James Belushi), a mentally retarded man who leaves his home to go to Oregon to see his dying father. He packs a suitcase, puts on a hat and heads for the highway. He hitchhikes and a car stops for him -- but oh, no. The driver, John Waters (yeah, the director of Pink Flamingos), and another guy, point a gun at him and rob him!
He goes to a little diner, run by Anne Ramsey (that throaty, nasty momma from Throw Momma From the Train), and tries to steal some candy, since he has no money now. She catches him and he leaves, winding up in a junkyard inside Whoopi Goldberg's car. Her name is Eddie, short for Edwina, and she is apparently an escaped mental patient. She freaks out upon waking up and finding him in her car, and then she proceeds to rob him, finding not a dime. She offers to drive him to Oregon and off we go.
Despite a kind of lukewarm and weak, worrisome beginning.... Homer & Eddie eventually settles into a rhythm that's interesting and not as godawful as I thought it might be. But it is a strange, quirky little movie indeed. Eddie (Whoopi) is actually a semi-decent character and the film is better than some of the other Whoopi Goldberg vehicles I've encountered, such as Burglar. We are treated to scenes where she robs convenience stores and kills the innocent cashier with her trusty gun. She's an awful woman, but she is mentally ill, and it's a movie, so whatever. She treats Homer to lunch and stiffs the restaurant with a stolen credit card. An Asian guy (I think he was Asian?) chases after them with a hatchet.
The BEST moment of the movie -- the BEST -- is an unintentionally hilarious scene where she's in a bathroom with James Belushi (no, she's not transgender) and she has a kind of schizophrenic freakout.
She starts BANGING her head against a bathroom mirror -- suddenly, BOOM, we see her head smack the mirror and crack it all over. I don't know why, but the sight of Whoopi Goldberg's braids breaking a bathroom mirror had me laughing and laughing, rewinding the scene about 20 times. I thought I'd never finish the movie.
Hopefully after I've finished writing this review, I'll find a GIF of that particular mirror shattering moment, but I doubt it exists (but who knows with the internet?)
We're in luck -- I found this (but the movie is funnier than this picture):
Anyway -- so you never really know where the movie is gonna go next. She takes Homer to a whorehouse. Her cousin is the prostitute, and she's a big, older black lady in glasses. Whoopi doesn't have the $30 to pay her hooker cousin, so she goes and robs a convenience store to get the cash, killing another sales clerk in the process. She couldn't just stiff the whorehouse -- the hooker is family, afterall.
We learn that Eddie has a brain tumor. A walnut sized tumor that her brain is wrapped around. An operation cannot save her. She's gonna die in a month. There's a trip to a cemetery -- Eddie/Whoopi finds the grave of her mother, whom she didn't know die. She has a little imaginary chat with her dead mother in the graveyard.
Basically, the film keeps going until Homer does arrive in Oregon to see his dying father. But here's the thing -- are his parents really excited to see him? He hasn't seen them in years.... they kinda weren't thrilled with him after a baseball hit him in the head and made him retarded.
Homer & Eddie is a nice little movie. Better than I thought it'd be. It drags a little, though. I figured I'd turn the thing off early in the film, but I guess it kept me interested. By the time they finally got to Oregon, I had to see how it all resolved itself. Will Homer's father be glad to see him? Will Eddie change her ways and stop killing people and maybe find Jesus?
Check it out sometime if you've got nothing to do and you're in the mood for an odd, stupid, yet endearing motion picture about traveling pals heading for a change in their lives. You'll even see Hollywood billboard queen Angelyne - yes, Angelyne - that blonde bimbo from Earth Girls are Easy - she's in this, too!