From big-budget monstrosities like Twister to stereotypical Sundance fodder such as Rudderless, Oklahoma loves to make a big deal out of any major movies that grace us with their cinematic presence. We’ll close busy streets and demolish entire towns, legalize the murder of hookers and even open a branch of Scientology in Mayfair Village, happily catering to Hollywood’s each and every need, even if it’s only for a split-second scene of Orlando Bloom blankly looking at the OKC National Memorial. Anything that can get us some of that sweet Big League City recognition!
But, for some reason, we didn’t do any of that for Pauly Shore’s 1994 comedy In the Army Now.
There was no big premiere at Penn Square Mall, no autograph signings with the Weiz at Sound Warehouse, no magnet school drama teachers bragging about how they were extras…nothing. What was it about this particular Ft. Sill-lensed motion picture that turned Oklahoma off?
It wasn’t a bad film, per se. It’s actually pretty good by Pauly Shore standards, falling somewhere between Son-In-Law and Bio-Dome. I’d like to think that Gazette Classic film critic (and personal mentor) John Pickard would have called it “a delightfully ribald takedown of the military industrial complex.”
I almost caught In the Army Now at the dollar movie theater on Northwest Expressway, the one that had those “Star Wars lightshow” hallways, but ditched the scene to walk a few miles up the road to the new Best Buy when the girl who said she’d meet me in the arcade stood me up. That day I purchased Sting’s Ten Summoner’s Tales and a diet Crystal Pepsi in my fit of depression, but would eventually go on to rent Army once or twice from Sound Warehouse, even coupling it with Major Payne the following year as a special tribute to the men and women who risk their lives for me through selfless acts of heroism.