# Real Genius: The Appreciation Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 29, 2007, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-genius-the-appreciation-thread/413616 "2007-07-29T20:28:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-genius-the-appreciation-thread/413616/61 "2007-08-02T11:33:20Z")
[QUOTE=Nawth Chucka] Pardon?? \*Better Off Dead \* is hee-larious! It’s absurd and fun and tackles important teen issues, like being called out to ski against the school king for the affections of your ex-girlfriend when it’s soooo obvious the French exchange student is hot for you. Who among us **hasn’t** walked in Lane’s shoes? [/QUOTE] I think the film is great, until… oh what the hell, I’ll spoiler it since the film isn’t related to the thread: Until the French exchange student reveals she can speak English. From there, it’s disappointing in comparison to the excellent first half. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-genius-the-appreciation-thread/413616/62 "2007-08-02T15:05:38Z")
[QUOTE=Ferret Herder] I think the film is great, until… oh what the hell, I’ll spoiler it since the film isn’t related to the thread: Until the French exchange student reveals she can speak English. From there, it’s disappointing in comparison to the excellent first half. [/QUOTE] “If you lived in zees house, you would preteend to not speak Engleesh, too!” I think the key to “getting” _Better Off Dead_ is to realize that it’s not actually an 'Eighties teen comedy but a satire of 'Eightes teen comedies, more in line with National Lampoon-type films rather than John Hughes. Not a great movie, but at least a sporatically amusing one, and the ‘French’ girl (whose accent is terrible) is cute with engine grease on her face. Besides, how can you not like a movie with a line like, “Sorry your mom blew up, Ricky.” Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-genius-the-appreciation-thread/413616/63 "2007-08-02T18:36:40Z")
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train] “If you lived in zees house, you would preteend to not speak Engleesh, too!” [/QUOTE] “'e keeps putting heez testacles all ovair me!” A good movie, but not as good as _One Crazy Summer._ ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-genius-the-appreciation-thread/413616/64 "2007-08-02T18:55:51Z")
Say, what’s Michelle Meyrink doing these days? Apart from kids and Buddhism? When was her latest film role? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-genius-the-appreciation-thread/413616/65 "2007-08-02T19:21:00Z")
She stopped acting entirely shortly after RG’s release. ---
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-genius-the-appreciation-thread/413616/66 "2007-08-02T19:39:35Z")
At least she went out on top. And speaking of _Better Off Dead_, there’s a great interview with Ricky [here](http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/cat_better_off_dead_tribute.php) . But going back to Real Genius, the ‘DEI’ thing is very cool. I never caught that. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-genius-the-appreciation-thread/413616/67 "2007-08-02T19:52:29Z")
[QUOTE=Sefton] At least she went out on top. And speaking of _Better Off Dead_, there’s a great interview with Ricky [here](http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/cat_better_off_dead_tribute.php) . [/QUOTE] Ricky was the fat kid in _Head of the Class_?! I never knew that! ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-genius-the-appreciation-thread/413616/68 "2007-08-02T19:53:59Z")
I saw [Nice Girls Don’t Explode](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093617/) (Ms. Meyrink’s last starring role) on cable because I was intrigued by the title. Strange movie. ---
**Author:** ![dannyness](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b77776/32.png) [@dannyness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dannyness)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-genius-the-appreciation-thread/413616/69 "2007-08-02T20:13:23Z")
“The colon.” (pause while glancing at plastic model) “What _does_ it look like” ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-genius-the-appreciation-thread/413616/70 "2007-08-02T20:29:28Z")
That’s not a bad little resume: > [@](#): > > Meyrink is remembered for her role as hyperactive geek whiz-kid Jordan Cochran in the 1985 movie Real Genius. Other films she appeared in included Valley Girl (1983) as Suzi Brent, The Outsiders (1983) as Marcia, Revenge of the Nerds (1984) as Judy. ---
**Author:** ![mlai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@mlai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlai)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2007, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-genius-the-appreciation-thread/413616/71 "2007-08-03T10:56:37Z")
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train] It comes from the slogan of Dabney Hovse (“Dabney Eats It”), which one of the seven residential houses on campus. (Like Princeton University, Caltech long ago abolished the fraternity system, or rather, asked it to voluntarily disband, and replaced it with a collection of residential houses that are kind of a cross between very loosely run dormatories and the traditional residential college system of the Oxford/Cambridge tradition. The residences themselves vary from being kind of plainish sprawling boarding house affairs (North hovses) to beautiful pseudo-Classical architecture (South hovses) and large flagstoned courtyards.) [Here](http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/dei/) is some hypothesis of origins of the phrase, but I take no responsibility for the authenticity thereof. I seem to recall some SDMB poster being a former Darb but I don’t recall who, and a search doesn’t turn up anything. Stranger [/QUOTE] This is really tangential, but this is the only time where I’ve felt qualified to talk about anything. Honestly, to current Darbs, “DEI” isn’t really a slogan anymore. Sure, it has been in the past, but now the acronym just refers to our really gross rec room (in which li’l homeless me currently resides). None of the Flems ever, ever use the retort “FEIF”, which stands for “Fleming eats it faster”. All of our perky and overenthusiastic tour guides (none of whom are Darbs) really play up this cornball history though. That being said, watching the movie is like opening up a weird hyper-exaggerated time capsule from the '80s, but some of what I see in the film is pretty much what goes on today. Also, and this is very nitpicky: The word “house”, when referring to the north houses, takes a “u”, because only the south hovses have that inscription over them. Furthermore, there are 8 houses now. Avery was built in 1996, but it’s a pretty dismal and forgettable place. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2007, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-genius-the-appreciation-thread/413616/72 "2007-08-03T12:04:07Z")
**Antonius** – that’s my fault. I don’t think Stranger endorsed it, and doesn’t deserve blame. Sorry – I spent too much time working on vibrational emission in the IR (where symmetry does prevent emission from dimers), and forgot this was in the UV electronic range. And I shoulda known , with examples like fluorine and nitrogen. I didn’t know about the early cases of true excimer lasing, though. Somehow, my instructors never mentioned those. And a quick loook through my references shows no mention of them either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-genius-the-appreciation-thread/413616.md?page=3)