ROMANCING THE STONE: Joan (a romance novelist) and Jack (a rugged Indiana Jones-ish guy) are in Colombia. More specifically, they are in a slimy wet cave in Colombia, looking eerily similar in their damp beige outfits and identically hair-colored hair. Their treasure map indicates that this cave houses the 'treasure,' which must be very valuable, because the bad guys want the treasure map as ransom for Joan’s annoying sister Elaine, whom they have kidnapped.

Anyway, in the cave. Jack is mucking around in a wet muddy hole as Joan wrings her hands nearby. Finally, Jack pulls up an object, presumbably the treasure, and Joan’s eyes widen in anticipation. Unfortunately, the slime-covered object in Jack’s hands is a cheap kitschy ceramic bunny statue, something you might buy in a dollar store for 99 cents. Joan and Jack look disappointed. Suddenly, Joan remembers that in her last novel, the priceless treasure was hidden inside of a kitschy cheap statue. Jack breaks open the statue, and there inside it is the large green jewel. Voila.

After running around in the rain for a while more, Joan and Jack are finally trapped by bad Colombian guys with machine guns. Jack has the stone hidden somewhere in his pants, and, planning on kicking it into the ocean to spite the bad guys, lets it slither down his leg onto his shoe. All eyes turn to Jack’s shoe, upon which is now sitting the large green stone.

FABRICATED IRONIC TWIST ENDING: ‘What is that?’ says a bad guy. Jack looks confused. ‘The treasure...?’ he replies, unsure. ‘That!? That is just a hunk of green-tinted plastic!’ says bad guy. ‘The treasure is a bunny statue! A bunny statue – our Columbian national treasure! Where is it, fool?!’ Jack and Joan look guilty and deeply worried. They soon perish under a hail of Colombian machine gun fire, as the bad guys weep for their broken priceless bunny.

THE CUTTING EDGE: is a predictable ice skating movie circa 1991. It’s about a bratty Olympic-bound doubles figure skater name Kate (the description of 'ice queen' works for her on multiple levels) who dumps skating partners like they were yesterday’s caviar. Along comes Doug Doursey, a hockey player who was hit in the head with a puck and now has some kind of peripheral vision problem that prevents him from returning to the game. Kate's coach, a Ukrainian with a heart of gold beneath his gruff manner and Santa-esque physique, convinces Doug to figureskate with Kate. They exchange verbal and physical jabs on the rink that progress from dumb and mildly annoying to sexually charged and moderately annoying.

(Occasionally, during small dramatic peaks in the movie, Doug walks alone at night, under falling snow, against a background of non-descript stone mansions. Whenever Doug is upset, he looks like he is storing acorns in his cheeks, kind of like a squirrel.)

Anyway, a running joke in the movie is when, as she and Doug practice together in her private rink, Kate stops skating suddenly, causing Doug to lose balance and crash onto the ice. She then skates away, chanting ‘Toe pick, toe pick,’ with her demonic laughter trailing behind her like a veil. Indulge me here, and let us make a brief foray into:

MEDIOCRE 1980’S MOVIES, TRANSFORMED HALFWAY THROUGH INTO GORY SLASHER FLICKS: Doug drops Kate one too many times as they practice their controversial “grab her by the ankles and spin her wildly, like a human propeller blade gone insane” move, and the film makes an abrupt turn from romantic fluff to a ‘Blades of Blood’ horror movie. As Kate rises from the ice, wincing from the many bruises covering her body, her eyes glaze over and the corner of her mouth develops an uncontrollable twitch. Snapping under the weight of a lifetime of high expectations and restrictions in the name of competition, she kills everyone she knows, one by one, in a darkly lit rink, using as her weapon a single blade off of her first set of figure skates...

All right, back to reality. The movie actually ends with Doug and Kate kissing on the ice, spotlights pouring pools of light onto the center of the rink, after their perfectly executed final routine at the 199- Olympic Games. The scary propeller move went off without a hitch.

FABRICATED IRONIC TWIST ENDING: Right after this kiss, it is announced in many languages over the crackling PA that 'prolonged intimate contact' is considered a technicality and they are disqualified. A riot erupts in the stadium and Kate goes berserk, shrieking 'Toe pick, toe pick!' at the top her lungs, while chasing after the child skaters who pick up the flowers off of the ice...

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