Movie Catch Up – Oscars Edition

The Post –

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A cover-up that spanned four U.S. Presidents pushed the country’s first female newspaper publisher and a hard-driving editor to join an unprecedented battle between the press and the government. IMDB.

I found this movie difficult to engage with. Maybe you have to know the story better to understand all the moving parts going on here. I did love the acting overall. Seeing Bradley Whitford and Meryl Streep together on screen was even better than I expected it would be, and it seemed to me that he worked on that character to make him as Non Josh-Lyman as possible, the voice was different to the point I did not know it was him talking at times.

Meryl gave her usual fabulous performance but for me, watching Meryl play a lovely person is not at all a stretch of her abilities, nor is it half as much fun as watching her play someone unlikeable or someone who is demanding and even dare I say it bitchy. To date my favourite performance of hers is in The Devil Wears Prada. That character was something amazing to see.

Bob Odenkirk was great in this movie and if you are not watching him in Better Call Saul you are missing out on an amazing performance from him there, too. Jesse Plemons – another Breaking Bad alum – was equally brilliant, and of course Tom Hanks was fantastic as always.

Overall there were too many characters and too many balls in the air and at some point I gave up trying to follow along with the story and just sat back and admired the performances. Usually when I watch a movie like this I want to know more about the events when the credits roll I am already on the Googles and Tubes looking things up, but this was not such an occasion for me.

I’m not sure this particular story required a two hour film to document it and I certainly do not think it required a cast – and crew because when it is Spielberg you know that is a big deal as well – of this magnitude.

Definitely not the best movie of the year, nor the best newspaper movie of recent times. Spotlight was my personal favorite and I think one reason for that was keeping the cast smaller and also not letting the story go off on so many tangents unrelated to the story being told.

Meryl being interrupted mid-speech for some random persons retirement in order to take a very important phone call involving most of the incredibly large cast in various different locations was a little out there for me. Not sure whether that really happened, it may well have, but it seemed like a bridge too far.

There were also some moments where I was reminded that I was watching a movie. I don’t know about you but when I drive around in my car there is no special light that shines on my face in order to light it just so, and then just to hammer the point home they zoomed in. I know Spielberg is a great director but sometimes less is more. :)

Out of the three movies I mention here today, this is the one I did not love. I liked it and the cast was great, but given the choice I would suggest one of the other movies below.

I, Tonya –

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Competitive ice skater Tonya Harding rises amongst the ranks at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, but her future in the activity is thrown into doubt when her ex-husband intervenes. IMDB.

This movie is marketed as a black comedy but if you have ever experienced any kind of abuse in your life there is not very much funny about it. I am glad I did not see this in a cinema with people laughing at the abuse scenes, I did read reports of that happening.

I found this movie to be terribly sad in a lot of different ways and I have always felt very sad about this particular story. There is a moment in the movie where Margot Robbie as Tonya summed things up very tidily as follows –

“I thought being famous was gonna be fun. I was loved, for a minute. Then I was hated. Then I was just a punchline.”

– but there was an aspect she forgot to mention. The years and years of training and competition that both Tonya and Nancy had put in to get to the Olympics in the first place. The many years of getting up at the crack of dawn, the hard work, all that effort..

These two ladies were both very talented skaters, Tonya perhaps even more so than Nancy. The loss of all of that for both of them due to “the incident”, it is incredibly sad.

There were times when I felt like this was a domestic violence operetta set to bad 80’s music. If not for the absolutely incredible performances of Margot Robbie, Alison Janney and Sebastian Stan, I could not recommend this movie. But given those performances, I have to recommend it.

Alison Janney plays the mother of Tonya Harding, LaVona Golden, who is a real person just as bizarre as the on screen version. Those of us who are Alison Janney fans already know she is incredibly talented and she has shown us her talent many times in too many roles to mention, the most notable and well known being CJ from The West Wing. But those past performances were eclipsed by this one. I have never seen anything like it and all I can say is WOW. Just, wow.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbings, Missouri

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A mother personally challenges the local authorities to solve her daughter’s murder when they fail to catch the culprit. IMDB.

This was by far the best movie I have seen in a long time, and yet I am fairly sure that it will not win the awards that it should because of The Post.

Sometimes movies perform a bit of a magical trick with a character and this particular movie performs that trick with almost all the characters – where you feel one way about them to begin with, then they take what you feel and turn it completely around.

Most of the characters in this movie have moments where you think they are doing the wrong thing, and then moments where you think they are doing the right thing, or vice versa. And in the middle of all of that, there is a terribly sad story happening for one particular character. This movie will have you hating a character then absolutely cheering for them. It will leave you wanting more and wondering what happens next.

Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson all put in incredible performances though I believe in this instance Sam might be the winner of best performance in this particular movie thanks to some amazing writing and the character he is playing. Some of the supporting cast also shine brightly, and the town itself is almost a character in the story.

I do not want to spoil any of this for you by telling you anything which makes it difficult to write a review. I will just tell you to go and see it, and BYO tissues. And I want to see the sequel to this movie, there has to be one surely! You can’t leave us hanging like that pretty please?

You can see the Oscars today live from midday on Nine and it will air again from 7:30pm on Gem.

Here are the 2018 Oscar Nominees.

Remember last year, when The Terrible Incident happened? “They Got the Wrong Envelope!”: The Oral History of Oscar’s Epic Best Picture Fiasco.

While on the entertainment subject, here are two great articles about MASH. ‘M*A*S*H’ Finale, 35 Years Later: Untold Stories of One of TV’s Most Important Shows and Memories of ‘M*A*S*H’: Inside Stories of the Most Famous Episodes (and Castings).

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I don’t know about the rest of you, but I grew up watching MASH reruns 5 days a week. I really loved that show. :) Peace out David Ogden Stiers who played Major Charles Emerson Winchester III.

Movie Reviews, television shows

Sense and Sensibility

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This week marks 20 years since Sense and Sensibility was released. The main cast includes –

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Emma Thompson as Elinor – she also wrote the screenplay and won an Oscar for it, too!

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Kate Winslet as Marianne – this movie was filmed two years before she got on Titanic.

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Hugh Grant as Edward – Pre squidgy around the edges Hugh.

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Gemma Jones as Mrs Dashwood – also known as Bridget Jones’s Mum.

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The two love interests for Marianne could not possibly be any more different – Alan Rickman plays Colonel Brandon – Greg Wise plays Willoughby.

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Other notable appearances – Robert Hardy as Sir John Middleton – I loved him as Siegfried in All Creatures Great And Small, too. Elizabeth Spriggs as Mrs Jennings. Harriet Walter as Fanny Dashwood – Hugh Laurie as Mr Palmer which was quite a surprise!

Adaptations of books can go either way – they can be very well done as this one was, or they can be completely changed and bear little resemblance to the book they were adapted from.

When an adaptation is well done, they can often add scenes which you begin to wish were originally placed in the book. In this movie there is a fantastic scene at the start where Edward and Elinor are trying to coax Margaret – a geography nut who loves her Atlas – out from a hiding place by placing rivers in completely wrong countries.

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There were quite a lot of scenes added at the beginning to show the developing relationship between Edward and Elinor. You get an idea of how many of these scenes were added when you consider it took them 20 minutes for the first 20 *pages* of the book to be shown on screen.

This movie does remove one important scene from the book however it is not especially missed – the scene where Willoughby goes to speak with Elinor at the home of the Palmers while Marianne is very ill.

I think the highest compliment one can pay to a movie is to say there is nothing about it they would change if they could. I would not add anything, I would not remove anything. I would not put the Willoughby scene back in.

This particular movie is as close to perfect as any Austen adaptation has ever been – it is probably my favourite Austen movie because you must take Pride and Prejudice out of the running – that is a 6 part mini series, not a movie – I will not refer to that absolutely dreadful Keira Knightley movie version, as I prefer to forget that it exists. Apologies if you happen to like it. :)

If you are a fan of Jane Austen, this movie should be somewhere in your movie collection. :)

Movie Reviews

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade

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This movie is by far my most favourite of the Indiana Jones trilogy. But there are four, you say. Not in my world. I do not own the fourth, nor have I seen the fourth. Perhaps this is down to movie snobbery, perhaps it is down to reading some bad reviews..

No, I will admit it isn’t either of those things. It is that the third movie essentially ends at the greatest point possible – Indiana and his Dad riding into the sunset, literally. They could not improve on such perfection. I could not fathom a fourth movie. I never got around to seeing it.

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Why is this movie my favourite of the three? This was sheer genius on the part of the movie people – taking a character we already know, love, and care about, and then raising the stakes by adding in the father of that character. Despite their long estrangement, it is apparent these two people care about each other.

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The choice of Sean Connery as Henry Jones Sr was a deeply inspired one. Sean Connery and Harrison Ford have some amazing chemistry together – but when you add in some brilliant writing, well, movie magic does not get any better than this. All these two have to do is look at each other and it is comedy gold. There are some of my most favourite movie lines of all time hidden away in here.

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Our situation has not improved.

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River Phoenix plays a young Indiana Jones and that was also the best choice possible. Released four years before his untimely death, he is fantastic and believable as young Indy. What a career he would have had! It is a great shame.

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Michael Byrne plays one of my favourite baddies of all time in this movie. He is deeply hateable as Vogel the Nazi.

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Alison Doody is incredible as Dr Elsa Schneider.

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Did we ever think that Indiana Jones would meet Adolf Hitler?

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I prefer this meeting, myself.

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I love that they actually went to Jordan to film the Al-Khazneh scenes. It looks completely like it has been filmed via green screen in the movie but they really did go there.

The scene where Walter Donovan sips from the wrong grail and then instantly ages and dies is a little scary, especially for younger audiences, but it is very well done.

Overall, this movie is a incredibly watchable over and over again, and I say that as someone who had this on laserdisc back in the days of sound lounges selling speaker systems, I have seen some of the scenes in this movie more times than I could ever count, and even to this day I get caught up in what is going on in the movie rather than what I am supposed to be doing – in this case, taking screenshots took a lot longer than it normally does.

For those of us with arachnophobia, there are thankfully zero spiders in this film. For those who do not like snakes, there are some snakes right at the beginning when we learn the origins of Indiana disliking them. There are also quite a lot of rats at one point.

As far as action movies go, this one has a little less action than most – however the snappy dialog between Indy and his Dad more than makes up for it. If you have it at home and have not seen it for a while, re-watch! ;)

Here is an awesome article to read if you want to know more – 15 Things You Might Not Know About ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ – plus Wikipedia has more info on the movie overall.

FYI – I realise there are some movies I love which I have never written about here, so during 2016 I plan to change that, adding one movie review each month to the post schedule. :)

Movie Reviews

Broken Arrow

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The first time I ever saw a clip from Broken Arrow was at a product night for surround sound, back in the mid-90’s when there was no such thing as downloading a movie and people were into having movie sound at home.

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Already being a big fan of both Christian Slater and John Travolta I would have been going to see this movie at the cinema purely based on their being in it.

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When I heard that Samantha Mathis was going to be the lead female actress I was even more excited to see it. I was such a fan of Christian and Samantha together in Pump Up The Volume.

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So the storyline goes like this – Captain Hale (Slater) and Major Deakins (Travolta) are taking a stealth bomber out on an “exercise” over Utah with two nuclear weapons. Deakins wants to steal the weapons and he has everything all planned out, including ejecting Hale from the plane as a surprise to himself. Hale, understandably not a fan of any of these plans, teams up with a park ranger (Mathis) to try and foil the theft.

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John Travolta is suitably bad-a** in this film

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Alas poor helicopters! I did not anticipate the massive amount of violence towards helicopters which appears in this film. They crash and blow up *four* of them. Plus they crash a stealth bomber.

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It is my opinion that this movie contains a lot of brilliant lines but by far the best one is “Would you mind not shooting at the thermonuclear weapons?” said through the clenched teeth of John Travolta.

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The scenery should get credit as a co-star because it is utterly gorgeous.

It had been so long since I had seen this movie, the copy I own is on VHS video. I was sure I had it on dvd and searched the movie shelf to no avail. I asked The Other Half if he knew where it was and he told me we did not own it on DVD.

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Oops, small movie fail – this aircraft is being towed, you do not need the person with the lighted wands as well. :) There are quite a lot of movie fails in this movie however that does not stop it from being awesome and worth watching.

Overall the film is great if you want an action movie where you can go along for a ride and not have to think too much. Beware though, if you do start thinking, you’ll see a raft of errors, continuity fails and goofs. If you have a helicopter phobia, this film might be best avoided.

And a final Christian Slater note – the hair is too short to do that awfully cute flopsy thing he has going in some of his other movies, plus the eyebrows are not quite dark enough to have them make their usual impact. I am a big fan of his. I have already mentioned he is a man I love to watch, so of course I would enjoy any movie with him in it.

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Thanks to Darylisms Tumblr for the gif – I searched high and low for one photo that would do proper justice to the well groomed eyebrows of Christian Slater and none of them did, but this gif image does. :)

Movie Reviews

Night At The Museum

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Rami Malek and Ben Stiller in Night At The Museum

When I was in primary school, my favourite book was From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg. The book is about two kids who run away from home to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

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For about 20 years I forgot the name of the book and did a lot of trying to find it. Eventually I posted a question somewhere on the web and received the name of the book as the answer, so I ordered it and settled in to revisit an old favourite. It was just as great as I remembered it to be.

Growing up my Grandma – Granny as we called her – would take us on the tram to Adelaide. From there we would catch the beeline bus to North Terrace and visit one of two places – the South Australian Museum or the Art Gallery of South Australia. Sometimes we would go down to the River Torrens and catch Popeye around to the Adelaide Zoo. For many years these were my favourite places in the entire world.

Whenever we visited the Museum, I would imagine what I would do if I was able to take up residence there. We spent a lot of time in the room full of rocks and minerals and all the cabinets were locked – maybe if I lived there, I could find the key and open up those cabinets.

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Ahkmenrah attempts to broker a peace between Larry and Attila The Hun

So it came to me as a surprise that I somehow had missed out on the awesomeness of the Night at the Museum movies. I discovered them thanks to my present fan obsession – Rami Malek is in the movies as the Pharaoh Ahkmenrah.

The storyline goes a little like this – Larry (Ben Stiller) gets a job as the night guard in the American Museum of Natural History. Unknown to most of the world, the museum contains a magical tablet which makes all the exhibits spring to life at sundown. If they are outside when the sun rises, they will turn to dust, so it is important that the night guard keeps everyone *in* as well as keeping other people out.

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Robin Williams plays Teddy Roosevelt

Robin Williams is in all 3 films and the final film was one of four not yet released at the time of his death. While my favourite Robin Williams role will always be John Keating from Dead Poets Society, followed of course by Mrs Doubtfire, this role is in third place, for me anyway. I also loved that he spent a lot of time on a horse.

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Part of the fun of the following movies is the new historical characters appearing plus the new locations. Movie 2 has Amy Adams as Amelia Earheart and Hank Azaria is hilarious as the very angry Egyptian raised from the dead. I thought the second was the best of the films – Amy Adams was so fantastic in it.

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Movie 3 has Dan Stevens as Sir Lancelot and Rebel Wilson as a British museum security guard. Plus Hugh Jackman makes an appearance. But beware, this movie you might need to BYO tissue box.

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Rami Malek is incredibly believable as the Pharaoh Ahkmenrah. For much of the first movie, he is locked in his sarcophagus desperately trying to get out, and there is a level of fear created around his being able to escape. But when he is eventually released towards the end of the movie, he is just delightful and not scary at all. Sadly he is missing for a lot of the second movie, but in the third he is present for most of the movie.

It should be made clear that I am not usually a Ben Stiller fan but I did enjoy him in these movies. I think the biggest problem for me, with him, is he seems like he is about to burst out laughing the entire time he is on the screen. Kind of like Jerry Seinfeld who just never could keep a poker face.

If you watch the out-takes, he does laugh a lot. But then again how could you not laugh at Ricky Gervais and Robin Williams? And Jerry had to contend with 3 very funny people but worst of all, Julia Louis Dreyfus. There are lots of Seinfeld bloopers on youtube.

If you have not seen these movies and you love a museum and/or historical figures, you will probably deeply love these movies. When people talk about movie magic, I think they are talking about movies exactly like these. :)

Over To You –

Which historical figure would you want to bring back to life and talk to? What would you do if you could live inside a museum or art gallery? What museum would you most like to take the magical tablet to?

Here are the trailers for all 3 Night at the Museum movies.

Movie Reviews

The Rover – Weirdest 2014 Movie

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It might be a little known fact about Snoskred, but there are certain actors and actresses whose careers I follow. Wherever they might lead, I am along for the ride. Put two of them together, and I will be at the movies faster than you can blink.

This year, my follow-ment of people – plus the fact it was filmed in South Australia, a place I grew up in – brought me to this movie you may never have heard of. I will not be surprised if you did not hear of it, as it opened in about 2 theatres in Australia. Before I saw the film, the limited release was surprising to me. These are two big name stars that I really love to watch – Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson.

The premise of the film goes like this – from IMDB – 10 years after a global economic collapse, a hardened loner (Guy Pearce) pursues the men who stole his only possession, his car. Along the way, he captures one of the thieves’ brother (Robert Pattinson), and the duo form an uneasy bond during the dangerous journey.

After I saw the movie, the limited release surprised me only in that it got released at all. The second surprising fact is that the car Guy Pearce is desperately chasing is a Holden Commodore. Me, I’ve always been a Ford girl, so this entire premise is alien to me. I could understand if the car were a Ford Falcon.. :)

The premise above is sort of what happens. I’ll tell you below some of really happens, with some screenshots. Now I might venture into spoiler territory in a little bit here, so I’ll put in a read more tag, and if you want to know more, you’ll have to click through. Plus, this will be a long post with a lot of screenshots.

Of course my saying that assumes you might want to see the movie, and there are two excellent performances here in amongst a lot of nothingness and oddness, but having seen the movie I’ve got to say I wouldn’t really recommend it unless you are a serious fan of one of these two actors. Here’s why.

Continue reading

About Snoskred, celebrities, Men I Love To Watch, Movie Reviews, movies

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

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This movie changed my life in enormous and incredible ways and somewhat ironically I spent 6 months of year 11 taking constant Snoskred Days Off from school. I can’t believe I have not written about this movie here already.

If you have not seen this movie you really need to see it, especially right now in this crazy world of mobile phones, the internet, etc. The movie is a comedy but the overall message of the film is summed up in this one line from Ferris –

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

What do I love about this movie?

Ferris

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Ferris Bueller is played by Matthew Broderick. Ferris talks directly to the audience, from the very start of the movie. He knows we are there, and he knows we are watching, and his talking to us involves us in what is happening..

Ferris is all seeing and all knowing, omnipresent, talented, not a fan of Isms, has a computer, does NOT have a car and Ferris is pretty upset about that. At the start of the movie Ferris tries on a lot of different outfits while waiting for Cameron to come over and pick him up.

Here are a few of them –

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Hard to imagine anyone wearing those sandals could be as cool as Ferris is!

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Cameron

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Brilliantly played by Alan Ruck, Cameron is a person lost within himself.

He is angry yet scared, needy yet there for Ferris, sick yet completely fine, desperate to please yet wanting to not give a f**k.. pretty much a typical teenager, at least as teenagers were when I was growing up. Cameron has a car, too!

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Jeannie

Jeannie

Do you know where she is. Do you know when she’ll be back.
Do you know.. anything.

Jeannie is unfortunate enough to be the sister of Ferris Bueller. She cannot understand why he gets to skip school when she has to go.

Played by Jennifer Grey who just one year later would play the iconic Baby Houseman in Dirty Dancing, Jeannie is full of rage and fun to watch , especially when she ends up in the police station and meets.. well.. a guy. That guy.

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Other Characters

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Sloane

– played by Mia Sara – is the girlfriend of Ferris Bueller and of course she is pretty fantastic because someone as fantastic as Ferris would not be with someone less fantastic than himself. Ferris has to invent a way to get Sloane out of school so she could be a part of the day off, which leads us to Grace and Ed.

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Grace

– is played wonderfully by Edie McClurg who just a year later would be in another John Hughes movie I love called Planes Trains and Automobiles.

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Edward Rooney

– did not achieve this position in life by having some snot-nosed punk leave his cheese out in the wind. Ed decides to try and find Ferris and ends up hanging out at the home of Ferris, meeting his dog, and various flower delivery people. Because every man and his dog wants to send Ferris flowers.

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There is also a campaign to Save Ferris going on..

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The Car

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So Cameron has a father, who loves this Ferrari he restored. And to pick Sloane up from school he needs a beautiful car. So, Ferris talks Cameron into taking the car out.

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They leave it at a garage with a car care professional. This guy.

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Would you leave your Ferrari with this guy? I’m going to go with no, myself. And I would be right, because before Ferris and Co have even walked down the street from the garage, Car Guy and his friend are taking off for destinations unknown in the car.

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So during their day out, among other things, Ferris and Co eat pancreas at a snobby restaurant –

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Ferris talks to us via the mirror of a pretty amazing looking bathroom –

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They visit an Art Gallery –

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Ferris gets on a parade float –

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They return Cameron to his home which is absolutely gorgeous

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Then Ferris drops Sloane home and realises he only has five minutes to get to his place before his parents get home, and he no longer has a car, so he has to run. Which is an awesome sequence.

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There is more to this movie but I am not going to spoil it for you. You’ll just have to watch it to get the full story.

The movie was released in Australia on the 21st of August 1986. I was 11 years old. I am not sure when I saw the movie – it was not at the cinema I know that much. It was more likely once it was released on video. Our family was one of the first people to sign up at the newly opened local video store, and we were one of the first families in the street to own a VCR. My Dad was the general manager of the family business which was an electronics store.

Speaking of one of the first, Ferris *was* going to tell a little lie to a radio station while being interviewed in the movie, and this was actually cut into the original trailer and had to be quickly removed from both the trailer and the movie after the Challenger disaster. What was the lie?

I’m the first Chicago area youth to be selected to participate in a space shuttle mission.

The full original script can be seen on IMDB via this link – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Original Script.

When I did see this movie, little nuggets of it stayed with me and inspired me. Most kids taking days off school would want to hang out at video arcades or places where they could have “fun” – for me, fun was learning. The days I took off I would end up at the Museum, the Botanic Gardens if the weather was good, the Art Gallery, the State Library. These places became sanctuaries for me and I still hold a special place for them in my heart..

From the Wikipedia entry for Ferris Buellers Day Off

According to John Hughes, the scene at the Art Institute of Chicago was “a self-indulgent scene of mine—which was a place of refuge for me, I went there quite a bit, I loved it. I knew all the paintings, the building. This was a chance for me to go back into this building and show the paintings that were my favorite.” The museum had not been shot in, until the producers of the film approached them.

It is pretty amazing that a movie – and a comedy movie at that – managed to communicate this concept of places of refuge to me as a teenager.

If you have not seen this movie, it is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking a copy up. :) Also there is a brilliant commentary track by John Hughes – who is sadly no longer with us – the track is well worth a listen, he tells you a lot about locations, shooting the movie and other fascinating stories. So make sure the movie you buy/rent has the commentary track on it.

Here is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off on IMDB.

If you enjoyed this review, you might also enjoy these other reviews.

Pump Up The Volume
William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
The Pirate Movie
Chocolat
Shakespeare In Love
Dead Poets Society

Movie Reviews, movies

This Day Is Still Infamous To Me..

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August 29, 2008. That date will forever be stamped in my mind. 6 years ago..

August is a month with a lot of those dates – the 12, my Dad’s birthday. The 16th, the death of Elvis.

Probably the image above has given away what I am talking about. Those are the feet of John “Walnuts” McCain and Sarah Palin, as seen on the day that John McCain announced she was going to be the vice presidential candidate.

Thank the deities, the horrible possibility of that woman being one heartbeat away from the nuclear codes never came to pass.

I am sure one day a woman will be in that position, a woman will even be president. But they will deserve to be there, not be picked just because someone is desperate to shake things up in a campaign, barely vetted or asked any questions before being thrown into the spotlight a mere 2 days after first meeting the presidential candidate.

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If you have never seen the movie Game Change which tells the story of how Palin came to be chosen.. the story of the campaign staff trying to prepare her for media interviews and epically failing.. the story of how she pretty much melted down under the fierce spotlight and the pure perfection of Tina Fey portraying her on Saturday Night Live.. the story of how she wanted to give a speech after they lost the election and was firmly rebuffed by campaign staff and when she wouldn’t listen to them, by John McCain himself as no vice presidential candidate gives a speech when they lose..

It is such a great movie that it joins movies like Tootsie, Groundhog Day, Mrs Doubtfire, The Devil Wears Prada, Notting Hill, Pretty Woman, and many others on the quite long list of movies I cannot possibly flick away from – once I stumble on them playing, I’m stuck there watching them until they end.

It has Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin and she is absolutely amazing. even better than the Tina Fey impersonations and Tina Fey looks scarily like a doppelganger of Sarah Palin. It has Ed Harris who is downright unrecognisable as John McCain. It has Sarah Paulson as the long suffering Nicole Wallace, and it has Woody Harrelson as Steve Schmidt.

We’re only just over two years away from the next US election and the long, seemingly never-ending primary season will begin in January 2016. Fingers crossed any memorable dates next time will be for good reasons.

Movie Reviews, movies, Sarah Palin, US Elections, US Politics

Things I’ve Been Watching – Movies

Argo

This is one of the best movies I have seen in a long, long time. I’m no Affleck fan – though I did enjoy him in Bounce – I usually find him wooden, as though every facial muscle has been botoxed, nothing moves. However I went into this knowing there was a great supporting cast and an interesting story so I wasn’t so worried about that. Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Victor Garber.. these were all great performances. Bryan Cranston continues to amaze with his talent to completely vanish inside the character he is playing.

I personally would have suggested Affleck focus on the directing and find someone to play the main role that was not himself. However it worked quite well in this case. I guess the character he was playing needed to be pretty unflappable and wooden plays as unflappable nicely. Regardless he did an incredible job of directing this movie. It was a rollercoaster ride of awesomeness.

One of the best things about this movie in my opinion is the travelling back in time – things like stewardess uniforms, eyeglass frames, clothes, furniture, cars, hairstyles.. all of it looked like it jumped directly out of 1979 onto the screen.

This movie was fantastic and I highly recommend it. 6 thumbs up from Snoskred! :) Click here for the IMDB listing.

Flight

Any movie that involves a plane as one of the major characters, I’m there. Sounds weird when you put it like that, but being an aviation nut the usual thing you see in a movie is a happy jumbo landing at random airport when x character moves away etc. A movie where the story is about something going wrong with a plane and what happens as a result is interesting to me.

When you put that kind of story with someone like Harrison Ford (see Random Hearts) it becomes a movie that whenever I stumble across it on the cable I am glued to the chair, until it ends. Even though there is not so much about the plane in there, it has Harrison Ford and aviator sunglasses, so..

Flight was not another Random Hearts sadly. I don’t think the entire movie is a re-watch. The first half of the movie possibly. The crash sequence is on the edge of your seat stuff and it is extremely well done. However, it goes mucho downhillo from there.

Because the pilot (Denzel Washington) is an alcoholic and takes drugs as well and was under the influence of these while flying and is generally not a nice person, but he was the only person who could possibly have crash landed this plane as well as he did even if he was drunk and high and he meets up with this random woman at the hospital blah blah yadda yadda I have no idea what the rest of this movie was about because my brain drifted off and created a much more fascinating movie.

Where the pilot was not an alcoholic and in fact the movie was not so much about the pilot and his issues as it was about finding out what went wrong with the plane, kind of like a fictional big screen air crash investigations.

I have been reading lately that Denzel Washington is not the nicest of people in real life which may have colored my view of this movie. And contrary to Ben Affleck, Denzel spends much of the movie with a sulky or angry look on his face.

There was a great scene where the night before the NTSB investigation, they put Denzel’s character in a hotel having dried him out and they have emptied the minibar. But did they think to make sure the interlocking door into the next room was locked? No sir, and so Denzel has himself a few drinks drinks the entire contents of the minibar. A condition that can only be fixed with the arrival of a cocaine toting John Goodman (fantastic as always).

On the plus side, it did contain Tamara Tunie usually only seen on Law and Order – SVU – as a flight attendant and she was brilliant as she always is. So for that alone I give it one thumb up. Click here for the IMDB listing.

Movie Reviews, movies

Abu Dhabi Doo..

Look. I love Sex and The City as much as most people out there who own a television set and have seen the show more than once. I have seen the whole series several times over. There were cringeworthy moments but these were more than made up for by the fashion, the glitter, the hair, the shoes, the ladies, the gorgeous men..

I saw the first movie and it was pretty good. Mildly annoying in places, but generally good. There was full frontal male nudity which is always an epic win as far as I am concerned. ;)

I read the reviews of the second movie and decided to wait till it arrived on dvd from Quickflix. I am so glad I did wait but then again.. I almost regret sitting through it. Twice. The second time for the commentary track.

I pity the poor men who were dragged along to this movie. It took an hour of screen time for them to even leave to go to Abu Dhabi, then it took an hour and a half for the rest of it to play out! If not for the gorgeous outfits, shoes and general prettiness, I would not have made it through the movie at all. I almost switched it off when they karaoke sang I am woman but they all had sparkly outfits on and I was dazed by the glitter..

Listening to the commentary track I understood better the reasons why it was so over the top but there was never an explanation for the two and a half hour running time.

Some of the jokes fell so flat.. eg Abu Dhabi Doo.. that was plain disturbing especially coming from the normally sane Miranda.

I cannot possibly imagine a third movie but if one were made, such is my addiction that I would watch it. Only once the next time, though!

Movie Reviews, movies, Quickflix