09.03.07
Caveman
In anticipation of ABC’s new show “Cavemen,” I watched the 1981 movie Caveman. It was one of the best decisions I have made in quite a while.
Caveman stars Ringo Starr (yes, the Beatle) as Atouk, a caveman who is in love with this slutty cave girl Lana (Barabara Bach) who likes to stick her ass out and wiggle it around a lot. Only, Lana is already like caveman-married to the big guy (played by the same guy who was Sloth in The Goonies! Interesting trivia…)that is in charge of all the other cavemen. So Atouk tries to kidnap her but fails and then is ostracized from the tribe. Oh, there are also a lot of claymation-type dinosaurs and some funny dinosaur gags, like having them howl at the moon.
Now on his own, Atouk runs into his friend Lar (a really pretty Dennis Quaid - I had no idea Dennis Quaid used to look like this) and they pair up. Soon they meet Shelley Long and her blind dad and start a band of misfit cavemen. Eventually they encounter a big group of other misfits, including a black dude, some gay cavemen and an Asian caveman who speaks English. It is probably important to mention that there is no English dialogue in this movie. They speak in a grunt-y type caveman language. I thought this would detract from my experience, but it really didn’t.
Atouk convinces the other misfit cavemen (he also shows them all how to walk upright) to help him capture Lana and they do successfully kidnap her. But when all the cavemen start to pay too much attention to Lana, Shelly Long decides to reveal their whereabouts to the big caveman guy from the other tribe. So the other tribe attacks the misfits and takes all the women back with them, including Lana. Then somehow (I forget how), Atouk ends up in a fight with the huge guy and Lana like kicks him but Atouk wins the fight and he like hoists her up as his prize and carries her up on this big rock while Shelley Long cries but then he drops her because of course he is really in love with Shelley Long and just wanted to fuck with her head, like all cavemen like to do.
I thought that Ringo Starr did a really great job speaking caveman and prancing around in leather & fur. Shelley Long looked preposterous, but can you think of any time that Shelley Long wasn’t preposterous? OH! The misfit cavemen also invent rock & roll. That is a good scene.
All in all, the best parts of this movie were the dinosaur scenes because they were really cheesy and hilarious. I highly recommend Caveman and any other Ringo Starr films you can get your hands on. Personally, I’m going to go rent another old Dennis Quaid movie.