The two men behind Stumped, publisher Chris Neumer and editor Jackson Casey and their self-confessed and dehabilitating addiction to Melissa Joan Hartís triumph,

Drive Me Crazy

For a brief period in time in January and February, Stumped began receiving three copies of each individual screening cassette instead of the normal single copy from 20th Century Fox. On the outset, this was convenient, if nothing else. Instead of letting our free-lancers take the screeners home and return them later in the week, we were afforded the opportunity to just give the extras away.

One of those cassettes happened to be a screener for Drive Me Crazy.

Leaving a morning meeting, publisher Chris Neumer took me aside and gave me three movies to take home: Brokedown Palace, Best Laid Plans and Drive Me Crazy. I took the tapes and put them down on the end table in my living room. There they stayed, undisturbed, until a Friday night two weeks later.

After a trip to the Stumped video vault and the local video store had turned up nothing in the way of movies either Chris or I wanted to see, we furtively glanced at the pile on my end table, soon popping Drive Me Crazy into the VCR, rationalizing it didnít look anywhere near as bad as Brokedown Palace.

Twenty minutes later, with Chase Hammond (Adrian Grenier) and Nicole Maris (Melissa Joan Hart) together, working on making their respective ex-significant others jealous, Drive Me Crazy had sunk her claws into us.

Three days later, Chris stopped me in the hallway of our office. "Dammit, Jack," he began, "Do you know how many times Iíve seen Drive Me Crazy since we saw it last Friday?"

I started to laugh.

"Three times," he continued. "And I never see anything more than twice."

"Iím at five times," I grinned.

"What is it about that movie?" Chris asked me. "Why does Chase rock so much?"

"And why is Nicole so awesome?"

"Donít even get me started on Designated Dave," Chris said.

"Itís just Dave," I responded, quoting a line from the film. "Not Designated Dave."

"You mean I could be getting paid for this?" Chris shot back.

"Seniors rule," I agreed.

Two weeks passed, and with them Drive Me Crazyís street date (March 14), five more viewings and the Academy Awards.

I bumped into Chris in the hallway after the Oscars. "It got gyped," I told him.

"It didnít even get nominated," he said. "What the hell were those Academy members doing? If they were looking for a best film of ë99 they had it in the palm of their hands... and just ignored it. Now we know the whole thing is rigged."

A week and three more viewings later, the DVD arrived courtesy of Fox. Chris peeked his head in my office holding the DVD in his hand. "Tonight," he said. "My place."

After running through the special features, including a Britney Spears video and five trailers, we started the movie. Presented in its original 1.85:1 ratio, the Drive Me Crazy DVD allowed for Chris and I to watch the movie in the way director John Schultz intended to have it watched.

Sitting back on on his couch as Britneyís Drive Me Crazy played over the end credits, Chris glanced over at me.

"Where do you think the AFI would rank this on their top 100 list?" he asked me.

"Would or should?" I questioned. "Because it should be ranked number one. I just donít think theyíll have the guts to name it the best of all time."

Chris nodded, thinking. "Maybe number two," he said. "Orson Wellesí performance in Citizen Kane was almost Grenier-like."

I smiled at his remark and asked, "Do you think thereís any way Drive Me Crazy will ever get the recognition it deserves?"

"A column would be a start," he said, and pressed the play button again.