Mikey Is Now 25. Feel Old Yet? "Look Who's Talking"

Look Who's Talking (1989)
Rated PG-13 for language

Starring  John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, George Segal, Olympia Dukakis and Bruce Willis

Directed and Written by Amy Heckerling

The Story:

Mollie (Alley) is an accountant whose biggest client (Segal) is having an affair with her.  And then along comes unplanned baby, Mikey (Willis).  When Mollie goes into labor, she takes a cab driven by James (Travolta) to the hospital.  You can guess how this romantic comedy unfolds at this point, no?

Another Heckerling masterpiece.

Funny dialogue, great characters and wonderful music that helps tell the story is one of Heckerlings many attributes.

This film gets overlooked between Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless, but deserves to be mentioned with those cinema gems as well.

While everyone claims that Travolta enjoyed a career comeback in 1994 with Pulp Fiction, this was only 5 years earlier, so it's not like he had completely dropped off the map.  Alley was enjoying her tenure on Cheers and Bruce Willis was finishing up his Moonlighting stint and about to be Mr. Movie Star.

Lightning in a bottle that wasn't quite as successful with the subsequent sequels, but is still charmingly fun(ny) 25 years later.

Final Grade: B+

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: Yes to both, I'd forgotten how much fun this movie really was.

Today We Unveil A "Blast From the Past"

A lot has changed over the years...

The Story: 

Calvin and Helen Webber (Christopher Walken & Sissy Spacek) are expectant parents in the 1960s.  Of course Calvin being a true American, he's ready for the Commies and has built a marvelous bomb shelter under their home.  Fate steps in, and sure enough, the Webbers are forced to use it.  Sealed in for 35 years, they raise their son, Adam (Brendan Fraser) but the day has come when they must go to the surface for supplies.  Adam heads up to get the supplies, and the hope of finding a bride.  And that's when Adam meets Eve (Alicia Silverstone).

It's like destiny!

I proudly admit, I love this movie.

It's both sappy sweet, and funny.

Brendan Fraser gives one of his best performances as the literal thinking Adam who is shocked to see what the world has become compared to what he has grown up learning about it.  He's the wide-eyed boy with a heart of gold and not a cynical bone in his body.

His chance encounter with Eve of course is the perfect balancing act.  She's cynical to the very core, and yet there's something sweet about Adam that makes her unable to be as mean as she could be whenever he's around.

This is Silverstone's second best movie for me, behind Clueless.  Unless you count Batman and Robin.

And nobody I know counts Batman and Robin.

:)

Walken is genius, as always.  His manic persona works effortlessly in this movie, and he's wonderful every moment he's onscreen.

Spacek balances nicely as the loving, but tired of being underground wife.  Thankfully, she's packed almost enough alcohol  to keep her from going insane.

I would be remiss if I don't mention Dave Foley's performance as Eve's best friend.  He's hilarious in his admiration of Adam's lifestyle and helps bridge the gap between Eve and Adam and shows them the obvious clues in their relationship that they are missing.

It's a little charmer, and you can't help but root for Adam in all of his endeavors.

Plus there is the hope and wish that maybe, just maybe, life was as nice as he pictures it in his head.

Final Grade: B+... easy.  Probably A-/A range for me.

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: I do own, and it used to get watched quite a bit, but hadn't seen the light of day in about 5 years.  It was a nice reminder of how fun the movie really is.

Love at First Bite? "Vamps"

That bites!

The Story:

Two vampires in New York, Goody (Alicia Silverstone) and Stacy (Krysten Ritter) mostly enjoy their night life.  Taking college courses at night and working as exterminators to catch rats and drink their blood.  Yep, they and many other vampires have shunned human blood and concentrate on the vermin of New York as their sustenance.  Ah, but when the Van Helsing family moves to New York, the girls' existence is about to get really complicated...

Following up the latest viewing of Clueless, I wondered whatever happened to Amy Heckerling?

Turns out she wrote and directed this one last year, and brought back Alicia Silverstone (and Wallace Shawn!) in the process.

I'm not sure if she gave up on Hollywood, or vice versa, but there just hasn't been very much Amy Heckerling product in quite some time.

She comes out of the gate in 1982 with Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and then enjoys success again in High School in 1995 with Clueless.

Other than that, her career is filled with long gaps from the Director's chair, and even longer since she's had a box office hit.

Vamps apparently didn't help her much, which is a shame, because it is a cute little movie.

Perhaps that was the problem?    It's nothing special that screamed "I must be a movie" instead of something that could have been made for tv.

Her cast is impressive, with Sigourney Weaver playing the stem vampire that turned both Goody and Stacy.  As it turns out, only stems can turn people into vampires, and if a stem is injured or killed, it will have repercussions on the entire line of vampires that the stem had created.

So you can see where the plot device is coming from.

Either way, it's still a better film than Twilight.

: )

Final Grade: B-

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: Mostly harmless fun.  Not Heckerling's best, but it's a  movie that I could watch again with no problem.

She's Hardly a "Wild Child". More Like a Spoiled Brat.

Where's Mrs. Garrett when you need her?

I now realize that joke has sailed over the heads of at least a generation, maybe more, of people.

:: sigh::

The Story:

Spoiled girl Poppy (Emma Roberts) is driving her widowed dad (Aidan Quinn) up the wall.  When her latest stunt pushes him over the edge, he ships her off to an English boarding school to learn some manners.  The headmistress, Miss Kinglsey (Natasha Richardson) has her work cut out for her, because Poppy has no desire to be there, and is going to push the limits and try to get expelled.  However, the more she pushes, strange things begin to happen, and Poppy is on her road to discovering some things about herself, and her family, that will change her forever...

Hopefully for the better.

Well, this movie is only 5 years old, so we've returned to more recent cinematic history.

Don't get too comfortable, if you've learned anything reading these reviews, I'm all over the map with what gets viewed. : )

First, this is a bittersweet movie to watch because it is Natasha Richardson's last performance.  She was a great actress who suffered a terrible skiing accident that robbed the world of decades of more of her work.  She comes from the Redgrave line of actresses, so you know you're getting quality whenever she was onscreen.

Second, there are movies that men, by design, are not the target audience for.  If I was single, or had only boys or no children, the odds of me watching this, or a thousand other teen girl comedies would likely have never entered my head.

Lucky for me, I have some wonderful girls, and I get to watch this, and other films like it with them.

Like all genres, there are some that absolutely stink up the joint.  Then there are classics that I could watch anytime, say Clueless or Mean Girls for example.

Then you have a little charmer like this one that falls short of greatness, but rises well above putrid. :)

Much of that credit has to go to Emma Roberts, whom I enjoy as an actress as much or more than I dislike her Aunt Julia for doing the same profession. : )

She plays a spoiled brat really well, but not one that is so far gone that you cannot believe the change of heart she has as the movie goes on.

To have a totally unlikeable lead character would have done this movie no good, and she balances the role nicely with that of her goody two-shoes version of Nancy Drew that she had done previously.

Yes, I've seen that one too, but that's a review for another time.

: )

Final Grade: B

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: Watched it again for the first time in five years.  I knew I had seen it before, but it was like watching it for the first time.  Not rushing out to buy it, but I suspect I'll see it again in a few years as the next girls in my house get older.  No objections. :)

100 Greatest Movies of All Time...That I Own. # 49 ~ Clueless

Back to Back Heckerling!

What can I say, the lady gets High School!  Here, she weaves Jane Austen's Emma into the ritzy life of Southern California High Schools and comes away with Clueless.

To summarize, Cher (Alicia Silverstone) wants to make everyone happy, for purely selfish reasons, and so begins to attempt to match-make for many people in and around her life.  From the teachers to her friends, she just can't help herself.

Unfortunately, Cher can't seem to find that elusive Mr. Right for herself, although he may be much closer than she can even begin to imagine.

The dialogue and situations are tremendously funny, and the actors all do a great job.

Much like Fast Times, Clueless unleashed a group of young actors on the public who were just making their starts in the business, or who had not received much exposure on the Silver Screen.

Alicia Silverstone is the most obvious.  Some TV movies and some music videos were her claim to fame.  Then there was the late Brittany Murphy and Stacey Dash as her two best friends.

On the guy side of things Breckin Meyer and Donald Faison played love interests in the tale, but my favorite was Paul Rudd in the first role I ever saw him in.  Hilarious in his part as an ex-son-in-law, he was an overnight sensation...almost a decade after his appearance in this movie. : )

Following Fast Times lead of a strong supporting cast of older character actors, Dan Hedaya won my favorite character as Cher's put upon father, and I've already listed my favorite line from the film.

One I'm saving for the guys that show up on my doorstep to court my daughters.

>: )