For whatever reason, I was thinking of The Stupids movie today as I was out for a walk. The Stupids, which starred Tom Arnold and Jessica Lundy, is one of those movies that everyone should see once, not because it isn't an extremely stupid movie, but because it manages to do a handful of scenes almost perfectly: the bush-man scene, The Lloyd, "This is the worst fire extinguisher I've ever seen", Christopher Lee as The Stupids' imagination of what the insidious Sender plotting to steal everyone's mail must look like. In other words, it's one of those movies that nobody really cares much about, but somehow or other parts of it tend to end up on lists of people's favorite scenes. One of the scenes that has always stuck in my mind occurs when the Stupid children, Buster and Petunia, find their father unexpectedly gone in the morning; they jump to the conclusion that he has been kidnapped and decide to set out and find him. They need to leave a note for their mother, though, so Petunia dictates it to Buster:
Petunia: Take this down. 'We have gone to the police....'
Buster [concentrating hard as he writes]: '...the police...
Petunia: 'Dad has been kidnapped....'
Buster [still concentrating as he writes]: '...kidnapped...'
Petunia: 'Don't worry, we'll be back soon. Signed, Your Children.'
Buster: [still concentrating as he writes] '...your children...'
[Camera on the note Buster has written: 'The police kidnapped your children'.]
Not to say that they are stupid, obviously, but I am very sure that this is exactly how my students often take notes. All this is a roundabout way of saying that I think I should do something about it. I don't quite know what, though. Any ideas?
