Fire Eating Ghost Lovers and a Hobo: Goodman in Always (1989)

Our main man keeps getting set ablaze in Señor Spielbergo’s passion project.

A decent sketch of “Al Yackey,” who almost explodes, then sees his best bud explode. Explode.

“[John Goodman is] every bit as serious an actor as Robert Deniro and Montgomery Clift.”

That’s how Steven Spielberg described our guy after directing him in Always, a remake of the 1943 film A Guy Named Joe. Goodman took the role to work with Spielberg, but also to act with Holly Hunter again: “We had a great time together making Raising Arizona. She’s a powerhouse.”

Dumb Fact: Dalton Trumbo wrote A Guy Named Joe, and Goodman later appears in his 2015 biopic, Trumbo.

Dumber Fact: Spielberg is one-degree of separation from both the Nazi capuchin Monkey in Raiders of the Lost Ark, as well as his inspired-by-real-life pet capuchin Monkey in The Fabelmans.

Also, he’s one-degree from chilled Monkey brains in Temple of Doom. Delicious!

An okay sketch of the Nazi capuchin in Raiders. Bad monkey! Stop collaborating with Nazis, monkey!

Goodman plays “Al Yackey,” the best friend of “Pete” (Richard Dreyfuss), both “Fire Eater” pilots who douse forest fires using tanker planes. When Al’s plane catches fire, Pete sacrifices his life to save his best buddy, then comes back as a ‘spiritus’ ghost to inspire another pilot.

Dumb Fact: Dreyfuss is also one-degree of separation from Lily Tomlin’s capuchin Monkey in Krippendorf’s Tribe.

Should we start buying stock in capuchin Monkeys? They’re everywhere!

An okay sketch of Goodman’s plane, his plane, his plane is on fire. We do need some water, don’t let the muthafucka burn!

However, Pete is more interested in haunting his special lady “Dorinda” (Holly Hunter) than in mentoring “Ted” (Brad Johnson), a clueless dork of an aspiring pilot who can’t do anything right, including getting grease on Al which engulfs his cigar in flames.

It seems discriminatory not to mentor any Chimps as Fire Eaters. They’re overqualified, they’ve flown into outer space for crying out loud. Why not train them to fight forest fires? They live in the forest, let ’em fight for their home!

A Chimp would be more competent than Ted, anyway.

Dumb Fact: Chalk this up as another joint where Goodman cuts a rug, this time dancing with Holly Hunter. His explosive grace continues to be impressive.

Dumber Fact: Audrey Hepburn plays Pete’s spirit guide “Hap” in this, her final role.

Dumbest Fact: Johnson’s performance as Ted is confounding. Is he nailing it as an awkward dimbulb, or is he just a shitty actor? It’s impossible to tell!

There is one scene where Goodman is allowed to flex his dramatic acting muscle, when Al confronts Dorinda, telling her she quit on life after Pete died. It’s an undeniable bit of craft, with Al’s sad but loving anger filling the room.

A bad sketch of Al laughing at SNL moments before telling Dorinda to get clap her clap shit clap together clap, honey!

Dumb Fact: Before the scene mentioned above, Al watches an old Saturday Night Live sketch on TV, with Dan Aykroyd as Julia Child.

Spielberg had already worked with Aykroyd a bunch (1941, The Blues Brothers, Temple of Doom). Goodman used to do a Child impression himself on Citizen Kafka radio, would host and appear on SNL himself dozens of times starting the same year in 1989, and of course would collaborate plenty with Aykroyd in the future.

SO MUCH INTERTEXT!

The plot thickens when Pete channels his voice through a crazy old hobo to tell Ted to stick with flying, but dumb dummy Ted thinks the message means he’s supposed to win Dorinda’s heart. And Al keeps trying to hook Dorinda and Ted up too! What a pal!

Dumb Fact: Spielberg is sometimes astonishingly bad at broad comedy, like in a scene when Dorinda goes overboard to pass off a store-bought dinner as her own cooking to impress Ted. Oof. It’s cringe. Cringe cringe cringe.

Dumber Fact: We’ve actually seen the same scene in a Goodman joint before, in Punchline, only then it was Sally Field pretending she cooked dinner. Hack!

Al takes a back seat in the third act, where Pete, Dorinda, and Ted eventually work things out in a fiery climax that’s equal parts thrilling and kinda depressing. Overall it’s an uneven outing for Spielberg, but his new friendship with Goodman means they worked together plenty more, as we’ll see.

It may have gotten confusing with all the capuchin talk, but there are sadly no primates in this motion picture.

Although, apparently Audrey Hepburn’s childhood nickname was “Monkey,” so in a way that does mean there is a Monkey in Always. But, in another more important way… nah. The bar is low, but it probably shouldn’t go that low.

I wonder if Hepburn was supposed to be a capuchin “Monkey,” cuz that’d make a matching fivesome connected to this movie. Capuchin! Gimme two-thousand shares of Capuchin!

Next time in our stupid odyssey, John Goodman will be live, in New York, on Saturday night.

Is it a long-running television sketch comedy and musical performance program?

Is it a revival of the disco-version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream on Broadway?

Is he busking for spare change on a subway platform?

You’ll have to read the next John Goodman and an Ape to find out!

It’s a cliffhanger.

CLIFFHANGER!

Running Ape Count: Still 6

Dumb Fact: Apes are excellent at hanging from cliffs.