Hot Tub Time Machine: A well-respected cultural touchstone? Maybe! In the last week alone the ridiculous time-travel comedy has gotten a rave review from Jeffrey Wells (in typical Wells fashion, he said that anyone who doesn't find Machine funny is "dead inside") and been mentioned on 30 Rock (though Liz Lemon didn't seem like a fan). And now it even makes an appearance in the Old Grey Lady herself, The New York Times. In today's Arts & Leisure section the film's four stars--John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson and Clark Duke--discuss all things 80s during a roundtable discussion. The questions cover everything you'd expect--Michael Jackson, The A-Team--and the answers range from fairly straight (Robinson) to funny (Corddry) to "trying to hard to be funny" (Duke). And then there's John Cusack...
Q. In the 1980s what did you think you'd be doing with your life in the year 2010?
JOHN CUSACK I remember very clearly being at the 1985 Super Bowl half-time show, on mushrooms. I hoped that I would be out of the '80s in 2010. They frightened me, and I remain in fear. It might have been the psilocybin.
What the what? Lloyd Dobler was on psychedelic drugs? But he was such a nice boy! Well, maybe not that nice:
Q. If you had to choose between the films of John Hughes or the films of Savage Steve Holland, which would you go with?
CUSACK I was only in one of the John Hughes films, and I never saw the other ones. I didn't understand them. I kept hearing a really hip 40-year-old person talking in teenagers' mouths. And I was in two movies with Steve Holland. So I don't think I would choose. I don't think I would have an opinion.
Normally when movie stars deny seeing the projects of other colleagues, it's because they don't want to be caught saying something derogatory (if you can't say something nice...). Not Cusack though, who seems fine with giving a backhanded complement to a beloved (and, hello, deceased!) icon. Somewhere, Molly Ringwald is organizing an angry mob.
ยท Remembering Those Awesome '80s With 'Hot Tub' Boys [New York Times]