DVD Blog-entary: Labyrinth

Hello, Blog-entary fans (or random blog visitors)! It’s Friday, which means it’s blog-entary day.  What’s that, you ask?  Simply put, I watch a movie and type whatever nonsense thoughts and trivia come into my head, perhaps slap in some GIF-spam and call it a post.  You watch along, or just snark along.  Easy, right?

This week, since Footloose was so much fun, I’ve gone with another nostalgic favourite:  Labyrinth.

Also known as the movie that starred David Bowie’s package or the movie that made us all lust for/want to be him, Labyrinth is one of the films I’ve seen at least a hundred times.  It never gets old, and it’s not simply because Bowie is insanely hot in leather pants.  Who doesn’t relate to wanting to escape life?  Who actually enjoys babysitting their siblings?  Wicked stepmother?  A classic!  The music is fun and it features Jim Henson creations.  Really, what more do you need?

Grab a drink or two, grab a snack perhaps, and settle in as I watch a timeless tale of dangers untold and Goblin City.

Press Play

• Our story begins, like Harry Potter, with an owl…. named Hedwig.  Okay, I’m making that up, but since Hedwig is pretty fucking awesome, the owl that is Jareth is now Hedwig.

• God, how intelligent were these filmmakers?  Not only did they cast Bowie, but they let him write and sing all the songs.  Mrrowr!  (What?  I have an unnatural love of Bowie in this movie.  Get used to it – and his balls.  The glass ones, pervs.)
• Frolicking baby Jennifer Connelly is so ridiculously young.  She looks like an extra from a Florence + The Machine video, which makes her fashion forward and awesome.
• Oh crap!  You’re late for baby slave duty!  Run, Sarah!  Run so we can have a rainy montage to more Bowie!

• I love how Sarah gives no fucks about running through people’s yards.
• Bitch!  God, her stepmother even has the cliche french twist.  She’s also a cow for sending the dog into the garage.  Why do you have pets if you don’t want to care for them properly?
• Anthem cry of all teens:  “I can’t do anything right, can I?”
• Stepmommy, maybe she treats you like a fairy story character because her entire room is decked out in freaking fantasy paraphernalia?
• God, she is so whiny!  She hates it when they talk to her, she hates when they don’t, she hates babysitting because it interferes with the dates she doesn’t have because she’s actually DJ Tanner (I mean, check the clothes now:  Full House, baby!).

• Denial, Candace.  Moving on.  Why is this baby dressed like Waldo?

• You know, this story isn’t impressing Toby.  Maybe read him some quality writing *snort* like Fifty Shades of Grey *flails and dies at association of “quality” and “Fifty Shades Of Failtastic Fanfiction”.

• Wish it, girl!  Hedwig-Jareth is listening!
• Seriously?  Aren’t you a fan of this damn play?  Get the lines right, you failed actress-to-be.
• God, even the goblins think you’re dense.
• Maybe this kid is colicky.  Maybe you should drug him.
• And with a magic click of the light switch, bye-bye baby!
• Yeah, the baby’s going to just answer your question.  “I’m not crying because a dude with a huge package picked me up and took me home.”
• Hedwig!  Yeah!
• Man, she sucks at observation!  How do her parents trust her to watch her navel lint, never mind a baby?
• Sparkling!Bowie arrives, and the swooning begins.  “Go to your room and play with your toys.  I wanna watch.”

• Why is she crying over the baby now?  Like, crocodile tears much?
• Half these goblins look like deranged chihuahuas.
• “Oh fine!  Here, try and solve it since you won’t be my Lolita!”

• “It doesn’t look that hard.”  That’s what she said.
• Bwahahaha:  and after a grown man pervs on a teenager, we meet Hoggle, who’s taking a leak.  This movie is great children’s fare!

• “Oh, excuse me!”  *shake dry*  “Hello, baby!  I’d love to help you, but I’m busy killing Tinkerbell’s cranky sisters.”
• The running gag with everyone butchering poor Hoggle’s name is awesome.  It’s not even a hard name.  First pun:  Horrible.
• Again, it’s not that hard but she couldn’t find the door.  Uh huh.  Sarah, you talk a lot of smack.
• Name two:  Hogwart.  And with that, she steps into the labyrinth to chase down the baby she wished away. Because she loves him now, or something.
• You can tell Jareth is GLAMOROUS! because even the trees sparkle in this place.
• Next, Sarah meets a British worm, who of course does what anyone with a British accent would do:

• The best part of this sequence is that Sarah the know-it-all doesn’t bother to ask why.  Why should she go this way and not that way?  Why does she rush off?  It makes me laugh every time she screws herself into the long way to the castle.
• I love her lipstick arrows.  It’s actually clever, aside from the whole unfair spinning tiles courtesy of the goblins.
• And now, the very best part of the whole damn movie:  Magic Dance.  You know what that means, right?  Dance, everyone!

• After our dance interlude, Sarah throws another temper tantrum about the unfairness of a villain’s labyrinth, tries to solve a riddle and fails, and falls into an oubliette.  You go, girl!
• Hoggle gets sent to trick her into heading back to the beginning.  It’s hilarious since he obviously has a boner for Sarah (are pretty girls rare in this kingdom or what?) and yet, he reluctantly tries to be evil.  Instead, he starts helping her, acting all concerned and caring…
• I love the false alarms, especially the one that begs to say his line because it’s been so long.
• And then, Jareth appears.  He’s not happy that Hoggle is macking on his woman and wearing her class pin bracelet.  You can tell he’s not happy because his package is in plain sight but not… hard.

• Name three:  Hedgewart.  Bwahahaha.  Dude should get a name change.
• Of course, Sarah’s gotta be a know-it-all again and call the labyrinth a piece of cake.  “Nah nah, less hours for you, bitch!  By the way, here comes a bad-ass boulder creation to kill you.  Kisses, bye!”

• Jareth is starting to doubt Sarah’s commitment to Sparkle Motion.
• “Just what we need:  a ladder.”  “What for?”  “Oh, uh…. escape, yeah!”
• Sarah is totes in the wrong.  Stealing his jewels after he took her as far as he could, just as he promised.  Y’know, this movie is non-stop testicles:  balls, jewels, Bowie’s package on display…
• “It’s so stimulating being your hat.”
• Oh yay!  Ludo time!  Poor beast.  He’s being attacked by Goblins with rabid living fetus critters for weapons.  Speaking of:  um, wtf?
• Hoggle is the only one with common sense:  “She’ll never get to the centre!”  Without others leading her, she really wouldn’t ever make it.
• Dude, even the cobwebs sparkle in Jareth’s world.

• Speaking of Jareth, he is really not happy that all of these people keep helping this girl. They’re ruining his plans for a new goblin minion and a hot piece of ass.  But hey, he’s got a plan.  A peachy-keen one, made from his ball.  The crystal one, pervs!

“Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahbulous!”

• Now that we’re all sunshine and kittens, it’s time for the Fireys to show up to scare the crap out of Sarah and children alike.   This is our second dance montage, and it’s pretty awesome.  Chilly down!

• Hoggle comes back and, of course, she kisses him in thanks, triggering Jareth’s magical promise to make him royalty of the stench variety.  At least we’re reunited with Ludo as a result.

• Word, Ludo!   The trio manages to reach a lovely bridge, where an adorable fox named Sir Didymus awaits to be all Gandalf on their asses.

• After some lame attempts by Hoggle to defeat the critter, Ludo picks him up and is not remotely bothered by his defenses.  However, Sarah is polite enough to grow a brain cell and simply ask permission to pass.  Access granted!  See, Jareth?  That’s all you gotta do.
• Anyway, Ludo is friends with everyone, rocks included.  He asks his stony buddies to save them from walking in sewer water from the Middle Ages and Sarah is spared a fate worse than sex with a gym sock condom.  I’m pretty sure this bog hatched the toad that Lisa changes Chet into in Weird Science (end aside).
• Now Sir Didymus and his steed, Ambrosius, have joined the labyrinth party. It’s an entourage for Sarah to whine at!
• Notice how Toby is perfectly content in Jareth’s care.  He’s not a bad baby at all.  Sarah just sucks at childcare, probably because she’s an overgrown petulant toddler.
• Hoggle caves and gives Sarah the peach and well…. it’s apparently laced with some serious hallucinogenics.

• What does Jareth do?  Play with his balls, of course!

• Sarah is transported to the Lolita Ball, a costume party where Jareth can mack on her all he likes while she forgets all about that stupid baby brother of hers.  He also gets to show off his package again, as well as his bedazzled jacket.

• “O hai!  I’m the horny beast and that is not remotely a sexual innuendo because this is a family film.  Really!  Dance?”

• “Um… should the world be spinning like this?  I can taste colours.”

• After her horrible drug trip, she pulls a Jim Morrison and breaks on through to the other side.  She ends up in the garbage dump, which is where I’m sure at least a few drug users have ended up after a wicked ass party, and harasses a packrat goblin.  She suddenly realizes they’re kindred and Sarah is a hoarder in the making when it comes to Broadway World memorabilia and sets her up with a hunchback of junk.
• Is it weird that I’m mildly annoyed that Sarah doesn’t put on her magic dress of Florence Welch-ness before leaving her room?  Her clothes are REALLY unappealing.
• The something you were looking for is in Bowie’s pants!  It’s hard to miss, Sarah.
• Oh, yeah:  the baby.  I guess you should save him
• Hoggle realizes that the peach failed and knows that means Jareth will NOT be happy and will likely castrate him, so he rushes off to ensure Sarah wins and he gets to keep his jewels.
• Sir Didymus is the worst knight ever.  No sense of stealth.
• Bad ass Transformer time!  Or is it a Megazord or whatever it is the Power Rangers drive around?
• Sarah really shouldn’t forgive Hoggle,  I don’t care if he did hijack a Megazord.
• Welcome to the Goblin City, which is really just a slum for Smurfs, best I can tell.
• Jareth calls out the guard…. and uh, shouldn’t the lazy bastards have been out guarding all along?  I mean sure, Sarah sucks at solving labyrinths, but why take any chances, right?
• The Goblins fail horribly at defending the castle.  Jareth realizes that he has a staff of stupids and is very unhappy.  Why is Sarah not mesmerized by his balls?

• The gang manages to use the magic of Ludo’s rock calls and arrives at the castle, where Sarah suddenly remembers that all of this is based on a goddamn play she reads every day and tells them, “I gotta do this on my own, peeps!  Chill here.”  Y’know, why didn’t she just remember the story and know the way through the stupid labyrinth?

So Jareth’s hidden the baby in a maze within the castle and Sarah is unamused.  It does provide Bowie with an excuse to sing a lament about Sarah’s lack of love for him (and ungrateful attitude towards his wish fulfillment efforts).

• “Peek-a-boo!”

• “Bitch! You suck!  You’re seriously choosing a baby over ME?  I’m DAVID BOWIE!  IN LEATHER!”
• This is ridiculous.  A baby is outrunning you Sarah.  And now he’s suicidal and ready to jump to his death to avoid you.  He hates you, Sarah.
• Bowie changes outfits again, going for one last assault with his package.  These pants are ridiculous.  I’m surprised Sarah can look him in the eye, never mind recite the play.  He even offers her another (crystal) ball to try and shake her gaze downward!
• It works:  she blanks on the line again.
• “You have no power over me!”  Oh noes!  The magic repellant!  Jareth is banished into Hedwig form and delivers Sarah and the baby home in time for parental arrival.  The baby’s finally asleep, Sarah.  Yet another favour the Goblin King did for your whiny ass.
• Sarah packs away her preciouses and suddenly hallucinates her new BFFs in the mirror.  Who needs toys when you have LSD, right?  Party time!

And with one last reprise of Underground, we’re out with a flapping of Hedwig’s wings!

Thanks for joining me again for a musical picspam and ramble.  I try to do these every Friday, time permitting.  Hey, did you know that Toby is related to one of the filmmaker people?  Credits are informative.  ANYWAY, stay cool like Bowie and feel free to suggest future blog-entaries.  I’ll catch you later.