Movie Review: Johnny Lingo

Johnny Lingo is a unique little slice of LDS cultural lagniappe, and as such is very easy to take for granted. Anyone raised in the Church is familiar with the story, and the concept of being an '8-cow wife' (more on this in a second) and the other distinctive aspects of the 'movie,' which at 29-minutes long is more a one-episode TV mini-series than a movie, but whatever.

We start off with Johnny Lingo, ruggedly handsome dude and all-around good guy, who is Polynesian and yet has a name that sounds like he was one of Patrick Swayze's surfer gang members from Point Break.

Johnny Lingo is interested in marrying a girl named Mahana, and shows up at Mahana's house to bargain with her dad...

Pictured here, sporting his very best 'Velma' haircut.

...and his best friend, the enigmatic and nameless 'counselor' of completely indeterminate age and gender.

If you gave me a million dollars I still couldn't tell you if this is a man or a woman.

Poor Mahana is (figuratively) beaten down by her dad and, with no modern Disney movies around, has no way of knowing she just needs to believe in herself, and would it kill you to put on some makeup or something?

Mahana: for when you're attracted for some reason to the 4-day heroin binge look.

Dad thinks Mahana is worth, at best, 3 cows, but Johnny blows everyone's minds when he declares that he will pay 8 COWS for Mahana. This is the cow equivalent of demanding to pay $2,000 for USA For Africa's "We are the World" on 8-track. This despite Dad exclaiming, "Mahana, you ugly!" just moments before.

"You're no Adam Levine yourself, Dad."

Anyway, despite Dad's doubts, Johnny Lingo makes good on the cow thing, and shows up to whisk Mahana away to places unknown, 'visiting many islands.' They get married (apparently - it's off-screen), but the shoot really hits the fan when some juvenile delinquents make up a mean anti-Mahana chant at the wedding dinner, and Johnny Lingo runs them off with a nonsense threat.

"Kooie Phlay!!!"

Around this point I'd like to mention that the film didn't apparently have any lights for the shoot and thus filmed about 25% of the movie by, apparently, moonlight.

Johnny and Mahana Lingo take off in his 8-cowpower boat and that's the last we see of them until the end, when a shopkeeper guy (oh sorry, there was a shopkeeper guy) hears that the Lingos are finally back from their honeymoon. He arrives to deliver something that Johnny had put on layaway, and discovers Mahana's Dad leaving in disgust, mumbling that Johnny Lingo had 'cheated him.' Baffled, the shopkeeper goes into the Lingo's house to discover...

Someone got a JC Penney card...

Mahana is pretty now! Or at least she smiles a little more. You see, all she needed was a little nurturing, a new wardrobe, some makeup, a nearly total make-over, a haircut, a pedicure, a manicure, posture lessons, an eyebrow plucking, a completely different personality, and a wealthy/attractive husband who excessively spoils you, and poof! She's hot and emotionally stable, just like that!

And all it took was love, and several thousands of dollars.

The shopkeeper pervs out on Mahana and almost literally starts drooling on himself until Mahana, realizing that things are getting weird and not a little bit uncomfortable, excuses herself to attend to an urgent errand involving walking over to the beach for no reason.

OK pal, let's reel it back in a little...

Johnny Lingo helpfully explains to the shopkeeper that blah blah blah something believe in yourself blah blah possibly plastic sugery, you too can be hot like us. 

I give it 8 cows out of 8. And if you want to, you can watch the entire movie here.

Book Review: President Me, by Adam Carolla

OK, the book cover is dumb. I know that. It looks silly. My wife has told me this many times. But I have read all of Adam's books, and each one is funnier than the last. President Me is no exception.

The interesting thing about how he 'wrote' the book is that he reportedly did it by calling someone up while he was stuck in traffic in LA every day and by dictating it to them. They would transcribe it and edit it together later. He's basically so productive that he felt like sitting in a car was a waste of productivity that he couldn't tolerate, so he decided to write a book.

And that's mainly the recurring theme of the book - hard work is what leads to success, not government welfare or luck. Much of the book is political, and, despite some salty language in places, it's really funny, particularly because of how non-politically correct he is. Things that wouldn't have been controversial at all 20 years ago are now side-splitters. He's pretty fearless.

If I hadn't have had a library copy, I would have highlighted about half the book. As it is, I took a few pictures of some parts I really liked. Here are two of them:

And let me say this quickly about "community organizers." We sing the praises of "community,' but why is it the more that word appears in your life the worse off you are? If you go to a community clinic, community college, or are represented by a community organizer, you're in tough shape. The only time you want the word "community" to describe part of your lifestyle is when the word "gated" is in front of it.

And also this part:

[About Elizabeth Waren saying that the 'system' is rigged against people] Stop telling people the system is rigged and that the deck is stacked against them. Tell them to forget the deck and focus on themselves. But you won't convey that message because if you tell your constituency to actually do something for themselves, they won't elect you to do it for them. You have to keep preaching how they system is rigged and that they'll never get a fair shot so they'll elect you to unrig it. That's how your party stays in power - a perpetual-motion machine of hopelessness.

There's stuff like this on nearly every page. And after reading the whole book, I'm pretty much ready to go door to door to get signatures to draft Adam into the actual 2016 election.