Oh, it’s my turn to present my book report to the class? (Aw shit, fuck, shit, fuck) –what? Yes, Mr. Diaz, I did do the book report this time. Of course I’ll get up and read it. Um, yeah, the, uh, book I read is called…is called –“The ‘Burbs”! Yes, the book I read is called “The ‘Burbs” by, uh, Tom –Thomas Hanks. It is a black psycho-comedy about life in a suburb along Mayfield Place. The star, I mean “protagonist” is Ray Petersen and Mr. Petersen has a week off from work, but decides that he wants to spend his vacation lounging around his quaint suburban home. That’s why the movie –I mean, book is called “The ‘Burbs” because it’s short for “suburbs”.
Anyway, Ray tries to make his life more exciting by investigating his weird, new, next-door neighbors: The Klopeks. The front lawn is dead, no one has ever seen them come out, and no one has ever met the inhabitants of the large spooky house. So Ray and his neighbors Art, who is a slacker, and Rumsfield, who is a military fanatic and a satirical version of Donald Rumsfeld, do their best to find out about The Klopeks. And Corey Feldman is in it, too…and when I say that Corey Feldman is in it, I must be speaking gibberish because how could he be in it since it is a book after all. What I meant to say was that the character Ricky Butler is described by Thomas Hanks as looking “like Corey Feldman”. That’s what I meant.
Anyway, Ray, Art, and Rumsfield start to realize that there is something very wrong with the Klopeks’ odd behavior. The only person they see ever come out of the Klopek home is the guy from “Children of the Corn”, the red haired one, and he stuffs these, like, really huge garbage bags into the trash. They know that there has to be a body in those bags, but it starts to rain so they can’t check them until morning, which they do, but they don’t find anything, so they assume that the “Children of the Corn” guy must have switched the bags during the night. It is at this point in the book that Ray’s son reveals that he has seen the Klopeks digging in the backyard of their home before, which is a use of foreshadowing because of they way he says it and stuff. Then, they realize that the old guy from up the street is missing when his dog is found wandering around and the neighbors break into his house to check on him, only find his toupee, which is a symbol for death, I think, according to the author’s themes.
Art suggests that the Klopeks are crazy, satanic, psycho killers and this causes Ray to have this creepy dream where he imagines he is a human sacrifice and the characters, um, are, uh, represented are allegories for mass murderers. That’s when Ray’s dog digs up a femur bone from the fence on the Klopeks’ property and they go over and invite themselves in for a neighborly visit. The Klopeks are the guy from “Children of the Corn”, some strange, old, German guy, and the guy who played the lead Illinois Nazi in the “Blues Brothers”, which costarred Dan Aykroyd who starred with Tom Hanks in “Dragnet”…but that’s irrelevant, except that Thomas Hanks, the author, uh, shares the same, um, name as the actor, Tom Hanks. Um, when they go over to the house, Ray finds the old guy’s toupee that they slipped into the mailbox, which implies that the Klopeks went back into the house. So Ray, Art, and Rumsfield decide to break into the house while the Klopeks are away for the day since the Illinois Nazi is a famous doctor or something. Ray and Art break in while Rumsfield watches from his roof and Corey Feldman throws a party. They find this giant furnace used for burning human remains in the basement and start digging, but don’t find anything.
The climax of the movie comes when the Klopeks return home and find their house occupied so they go and get the cops and Art is telling Ray to get out of there and Corey Feldman called the pizza guy and Tom Hanks is still digging and hits a gas line and the house blows up and shit…BOOM! But, Tom Hanks didn’t die, he walks out of the house all banged up and stuff and there is a bunch of people and Tom Hank’s wife, Princess Leia, comes home from visiting her family and a bunch of crazy stuff happens: the Illinois Nazi tries to kill Tom Hanks in the back of the ambulance after pretending to be normal, but the “Children of the Corn” guy swerves out of the pizza guy’s way and crashes the ambulance into Art’s house, so Tom Hanks and the Illinois Nazi go flying out into the street on a gurney, hitting the Klopek’s car, causing the trunk to pop open, revealing a whole butt load of human bones and skulls.
Everything is chaotic: Art’s wife, who you didn’t see the whole movie comes home, the house is on fire, and Rumsfield beats up the “Children of the Corn” guy. In the very end, Tom Hanks and Princess Leia decide to go on vacation to get away from what Tom Hanks wanted in the first place, which was to be at home in “The ‘Burbs” and it’s a really good movie I saw this weekend on television and you should see it and oh my God, I just keep on talking, I think it’s a nervous reaction because I didn’t do the book report and I lied and I’m sorry, Mr. Diaz, and I’m on my way to the principal’s office right now.
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