Folks as wide ranging as Bradley Cooper, Kevin Spacey and Jay Mohr have done them, but ranking right up there is Kevin Pollak. I can only hope that, if I do my job as a parent correctly, my children will be repeating "good FOR you" long after I'm gone, even if they have no idea why or where it came from.It seems almost everyone has a Christopher Walken impression they can bust out, and given that actor’s distinct tone and cadence, it’s a fun one to do. These four seconds (were they in a trailer? Have I actually seen this movie and wiped it from memory? I honestly don't know!) have sustained me for more than a decade, and will only worm their way deeper and deeper into my frontal lobe the older I get. Still, I don't need to see the rest of the film. Maybe I'll find it while channel-flipping and resign myself to giving it a shot. Do they know what I'm talking about? Probably not. Someone says "good for you" and my brain cannot help but respond "good FOR you" - sometimes internally, and sometimes, when I'm with friends and family who have grown to tolerate my insufferable eccentricities, aloud. At this point in my life, they've become a reflex for me. To say I have spent years haunted by these four words, repeated and iterated upon just three times, would be an understatement. Who talks like this? Why is there the faintest hint of a question at the end of this repetition? Are these congratulations really as benevolent as they seem? In just three small words, a world of unsettling possibilities has opened up, whether we're ready for them or not. Simply by stressing the preposition, the whole mood has shifted, and we find ourselves in strange new territory. This is Walken doing an impression of someone doing an impression of him. "Good FOR you (?)" - And here we are at the crux of the matter. Whatever congratulations were initially called for are evidently important enough to bear not only repeating, but accentuation! It's not just "good," it's "GOOD." How deep does this rabbit hole go? I don't know why the "man" in question (I think it's Ben Stiller, but honestly that's not important) is being congratulated, but he's evidently done something worth commending, and who better to do so than Christopher Walken, looking like he left his bindle stick and can of beans back at the railyard? Color me intrigued. "Good for you, man." - Here we have the basic framing and set up. ![]() Let me break down why the simple recitation of "good for you" is so meaningful to me. High in college, maybe) and I think we don't talk enough about it. ![]() Inside some people are two wolves? Inside me is Christopher Walken repeating "good FOR you." This is just how I've lived since I first saw the scene (where? How? I have no idea. Nevertheless, even though I've never actually seen the movie, and really only took the minimal time and effort to figure out what it's about for the purpose of writing this blog, that four-second clip has been seared into my brain for years. Why was the movie such a dud? It might have something to do with the fact that, per a Wikipedia summary I just read, it's a feature length film about a guy who gets rich inventing a spray that makes dog shit disappear. Despite starring both Ben Stiller and Jack Black at the height of their Hollywood prowess, 2004's Envy was a massive flop, earning back less than half of its $40 million budget, and securing just one award nomination: a Razzie for "Worst Actor," which Stiller ultimately lost to George W. I'll admit that I've never seen the film this clip is from - and, from what I understand, most other people haven't either.
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