It’s a bittersweet feeling to realize you’ve peaked, but at least when I look back up at my personal zenith I can honestly say, “not bad.”
I have been a reviewer of American films for over 25 years, first in the form of letters to the editor of my local penny saver and now for the popular website Medium. In 1997, at the beginning of my career I wrote a review I have not since, and now accept I will never out do.
Was it a review for “Goodwill Hunting” you ask? “Contact,” mayhaps? Perhaps Sly Stalone’s personal best “Cop Land”? Nay, dear reader twas not these nor any of the other amazing, amazing movies to grace the silver screen that year.
The very height of my creative prowess came at the hands (or should I say… paws?) of one Airward J. Bud.
When I watched Air Bud for the first time I thought it was the biggest piece of dog crap I had ever seen in my life, pun INTENDED! As the credits rolled I turned to my roommate and without even thinking about it just said “Air bud? More like Air DUD.” He laughed. I laughed. By the time he was done laughing I still had way more laughing to do, that’s when I knew I hit gold.
With a review title that good, it’s honestly all you need, but the muses were not done with me yet. What proceeded to flow from my fingers and into my Microsoft Word free trial was one of the most scathing indictments of an artistic work since the arrest of Lenny Bruce. I had a lot to work on since the central premise of this film is that a DOG could play basketball!
Seriously, a dog playing basketball, how ridiculous is that? Rule or no rule, it’s just absurd. I really hammered that point home in my review and it must have been successful, because to my knowledge a sequel to “Air Bud” has never been attempted.
I don’t think that dog has even worked again, and for the sake of our moviegoing eyeballs, I pray he never does.
None of my subsequent reviews, each brilliant in their own right, have captured the majesty of “Air Dud.” Not “She is certainly NOT all that!” (She’s All That, 1999) not “More like the Woke-trix!” (Matrix Resurrections, 2021) not even “Nope is right!” (Nope, 2022.) But still I march on.
Sometimes an artist just gets it right the first time I suppose. Arthur Conan Doyle never wrote a word before penning “Sherlock Holmes,” and while he never matched the success of that work, we all still remember him, just as future generations will remember me, the guy who proved “Air Bud” was a stupid movie.
Unless I can write something that convinces Disney to put a little more eye candy in “She Hulk,” I’ll just have to accept “Air Dud” as my legacy.