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Stand By Me or: The Less Desirables Movie of the Week

27 Saturday May 2017

Posted by TGBII in Movie Review

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a/perture Cinema, Bradley Gregg, Casey Siemesko, Corey Feldman, DVD.com, Gary Riley, IMDb, Jerry O'Connell, Keifer Sutherland, Netflix, Richard Dreyfus, River Phoenix, Rob Reiner, Rotten Tomatoes, Stand By Me, Stephen King, The Less Desirables, Wil Wheaton

Salutations™!!

a/perture cinema, the Official Movie Sponsor of The Less Desirables, presents The Less Desirables Movies of the Week, Stand By Me (1986), starring Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman and Jerry O’Connell.

Stand_By_Me_1986_American_Theatrical_Release_Poster

©Columbia Pictures

 

Per IMDb: “After the death of a friend, a writer recounts a boyhood journey to find the body of a missing boy.”

The film starts with a writer (Richard Dreyfus) sitting in his car in the middle of a field with a confused, not-able-to-believe-it look on his face. He rereads a newspaper article about an attorney who was stabbed to death while trying to break up a fight in a fast food restaurant. This leads him to start telling a story of his childhood, his best friend, who was the attorney and two of their pals, who were a bit challenged in their own way.

The story is about Gordie (Wheaton), Chris (Phoenix), Teddy (Feldman) and Vern (O’Connell) and their trek to find the dead body of a boy their age that had been hit by a train and a county-wide search was going on to locate him. Turns out that Vern overheard his brother Billy (Casey Siemesko) and his fellow hoodlum Charlie Hogan (Gary Riley) say they found the body while ditching a stolen car. Vern knew the vicinity where the body was from the description his brother told. Billy and Charlie were part of a bigger gang involving Chris’ brother Eyeball (Bradley Gregg) and Ace Merrill played by a very young Keifer Sutherland. It was a race to find the body if anyone did.

Gordie’s brother Dennis had been killed in a car accident earlier that year and his parents had pretty much written him off. Chris’ whole family were pretty less desirable, except Chris, who tried his best to do the right thing and set the peace. Teddy’s dad was a former veteran who probably suffered from PTSD (although that wasn’t mentioned) and had a bit of a drinking problem. He held Teddy’s ear to a stove and burned it half off. His dad was in a mental institution. Vern was an overweight kid who was a bit of a screwup, but he was a lovable screwup. Any more and I’d be giving away all the good parts. Watch it for yourself.

I have stated before and I’ll state it again, I love films where adults are recounting their childhood with VO (voice overs) as the narrator. The Sandlot was another of those and Now and Then was another. This happened to be narrated by one of my favorite voices, Richard Dreyfus.  He didn’t step on the story too much. He actually allowed the younger actors to take charge and tell their story and each of them were fantastic in their roles. Wil Wheaton went on to play on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Corey Feldman was a staple in many late 80s films, especially alongside Cory Haim. Jerry O’Connell grew up to be a non-fat kid that is a pretty good actor and is now married to Rebecca Romijn. The tragedy, however, is River Phoenix who passed away from a drug overdose at the age of 23 just outside of Johnny Depp’s Rainbow Room Lounge in LA. Such talent that was snuffed out by fate and bad decisions.

This happens to be my second favorite film of all time, right behind another adaptation of a Stephen King work; you’ll have to wait for that one. The pie eating scene from one of Gordie’s stories is both gross and hilarious all at the same time. Rob Reiner did a fantastic job of directing this and the screenplay adaption was spot on with little divergence of the original work. Again, watch it.

Rotten Tomatoes has it at 91% Fresh with an Audience Score of 94%. Wow. IMDb has it at 8.1 stars out of 10. It’s only available via Netflix‘s DVD.com I have it on DVD and it was one that was watched with my son, 3B. I rate this film 5 stars out of 5. One, I think it’s worth that rating and two, it holds such a nostalgic place in my heart. The soundtrack is fantastic as well and I wore out a copy of it on cassette and now own it on CD. Have you seen it? What did you think? Do you agree or disagree with me? What would you like to read/hear me review?

Until tomorrow, same blog channel…
Scorp out!

—
“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?” – The Writer

Gremlins or: The Less Desirables Movie of the Week

24 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by TGBII in Movie Review, Uncategorized

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a/perture Cinema, Amazon Prime, Chris Columbus, Chuck Jones, Corey Feldman, Frank Welker, Gremlins, Howie Mandel, Hoyt Axton, IMDb, Joe Dante, Judge Reinhold, Michael Winslow, Peter Cullen, Phoebe Cates, Polly Holliday, Rotten Tomatoes, Steven Spielberg, The Less Desirables, Zack Galligan

Salutations™!!

a/perture cinema, the Official Movie Sponsor of The Less Desirables, presents The Less Desirables Movie of the Week, Gremlins (1984), starring Zack Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Howie Mandel and Hoyt Axton.

Per IMDb: “A boy inadvertently breaks three important rules concerning his new pet and unleashes a horde of malevolently mischievous monsters on a small town.”

gremlins1

©Amblin Entertainment

A struggling inventor of total crap, Randall Peltzer (Axton) is in Chinatown trying to score a sale on his totally useless Bathroom Buddy All-in-One gadget. He is trying to sell to an old Chinese antique owner when he hears a noise. It’s the sound of a mogwai, which in Chinese culture and lore is a kind of demon that inflicts harm upon humans. In this film, however, it’s a cute little “furby-like” animal. He wants it to give to his son, but the old man isn’t having it. The old man’s grandson is flabbergasted that he won’t accept $200 for the creature. The kid goes behind his granddad’s back and sells the mogwai to Randall. The kid tells Randall that there are three rules about mogwai that cannot, under any circumstances, be broken: keep them out of the light, don’t get them wet and no matter what, no matter how much they beg, never, ever get them wet.

Of course, Randall says okay and journeys back home to give his son, Billy (Galligan) the gift and gives him the rules. Billy, although an adult who works in a bank, is a bit scatterbrained and aloof about much of anything. He has a hard time keeping the mogwai, named “Gizmo” (voiced by Mandel) out of the light. His little pal, Pete (Corey Feldman) spills a glass of water onto Gizmo, which spawns a new mogwai every time one gets wet. Stripe (voiced by the voice of Fred, Scooby Doo and Megatron, Frank Welker), the leader of the new batch of mogwai is a bit unruly and the rest follow him, except Gizmo. They eat through the power cord of Billy’s clock and he thinks it’s before midnight – it’s not. This turns the cute furry mogwai into green slimy monsters or “gremlins.” These gremlins wreak havoc on the town. How? And, do Billy and his friends stop the critters? You’ll have to watch and find out.

A few things that stand out about this film to me. First, the B list all stars that appeared in this film: Judge Reinhold (who had been caught flogging the bishop to this film’s co-star Phoebe Cates just two years prior in Fast Times at Ridgemont High), Corey Feldman, animation legend Chuck Jones, Peter Cullen (Optimus Prime), Michael Winslow (the sound effects guy) and Polly Holliday who played Flo (“kiss my grits”) on TV’s Alice. Second, I have come to realize that no era of film requires the suspension of disbelief more than any almost every film released in the 1980s. Don’t get me wrong, I love 80s movies but when I go back and watch them now, even beyond the primitive special effects, which are endearing, really, they reek of K-R-A-F-T… Not even Velveeta (yes, still made by Kraft), but the cheap-o kind of imitation cheese.

I haven’t seen this film since the late 80s/early 90s and I now know why. I asked The BCPF if she wanted to watch it with me, this morning, and she declined. She knew better. The story is campy. The acting, quite suspect. It’s not a great film. However, there’s a nostalgia factor that comes into play. I was 13 when the film came out and I thought it was hilarious and fun. It’s still fun, beyond the parts that are borderline stupid. So, great or not, I still “like” it. It was produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Chris Columbus. It was directed by Joe Dante.

Rotten Tomatoes has it at 85% Fresh with an Audience Score of 77%. I think the critic’s consensus from RT says it best: Whether you choose to see it as a statement on consumer culture or simply a special effects-heavy popcorn flick, Gremlins is a minor classic. IMDb has it at 7.2 stars out of 10. I picked this film because it’s considered a Christmas film and I wanted to do something that wasn’t an ordinary Christmas flick. I watched the film on Amazon Prime and rate it 3 out of 5 stars.

Have you seen it? What did you think? What would you like to read/hear me review?

Until tomorrow, same blog channel…
Scorp out!

—
“Now I have another reason to hate Christmas.” – Kate Beringer (Cates)

The Lost Boys or: The Less Desirables Movie of the Week

25 Saturday Jul 2015

Posted by TGBII in Movie Review

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Tags

a/perture Cinema, Corey Feldman, Corey Haim, Dianne Wiest, Echo and the Bunnymen, Ed Herrmann, Elton John, INXS, Jami Gertz, Jason Patric, Joel Schumacher, Kiefer Sutherland, Netflix, Roger Daltry, Rotten Tomatoes, Run-DMC, The Doors, The Less Desirables, The Lost Boys

Salutations™!!

a/perture Cinema, the Official Movie Sponsor of The Less Desirables, presents The Lost Boys, The Less Desirables Movie of the Week. It is from 1987 and stars Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, Jason Patric, Jami Gertz and Kiefer Sutherland.

IMDb’s synopsis: “After moving to a new town, two brothers are convinced that the area is frequented by vampires.” That’s a horrible synopsis, but I guess it’s not far from what’s happening.thelostboys

Michael and Sam Emerson, two brothers played by Patric and Haim, respectively, move in with their grandfather in Santa Carla, California along with their mother, Lucy (played by Dianne Wiest) and weird things start happening, like people start disappearing. The Frog brothers, played by Feldman and Jamison Newlander run a comic shop and amateur vampire extermination business and attempt to show Sam that he needs to be cautious of vampires. Well, someone should have told his older brother that.

Michael, being both sucked in by a pretty girl named Star and hazed as the “new guy,” has to prove his manliness to a group of young thugs led by Kiefer Sutherland. Whether it’s following the gang in a motorcycle race or drinking ancient “blood” out of a bottle. Drinking that blood makes Michael start acting strangely, whether it means he is “flying” after falling from a bridge, becoming very sensitive to sunlight or having a hunger for blood whether it’s his brother’s or not.

Meanwhile, Lucy starts a relationship with a video rental store owner named Max, played by the late, great Ed Herrmann. She went looking for him during the day, after having to leave their date early because Sam was freaking out over Michael’s weird transformation. She gets attacked by his dog who is only protecting his master. She has him come over and Michael invites him in to their house. Hmmm.

The Frog brothers and Sam become convinced that Max is the head vampire and by killing him they would turn Michael and the other “halflings” back to full human status. They try to show his reflection missing in a mirror, splash him with holy water, inundate him with garlic, anything you see in the basic canon of vampire fodder and it all falls shy of working. He appears to be human.

Well, a big showdown happens between the vampires and humans and it’s a bloodbath (pun intended). The main vampire is destroyed and Michael, Star (Jami Gertz) and Laddie are returned to human status. The revelation of the main vampire is predictable but still fun.

The film is a thriller but has a lot of comedic elements, especially around the Frog brothers and Sam. I was 16 or 17 at the time and was into the vampire elements. I loved mullets and though Keifer Sutherland’s was the best ever; in fact, I wanted one like that, but my hair was too fine to stand up like that. So, I have a place in my heart for this film and yes, it really does go beyond wanting that mullet. I thought the storyline, being a vampire film in the 1980s, was plausible and the execution was pretty good. The soundtrack was great, featuring Echo and the Bunnymen’s cover of the Doors classic, “People are Strange.” Also on the soundtrack: INXS, Roger Daltrey’s version of “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” by Elton John and Run-DMC’s version of “Walk This Way,” among others.

Rotten Tomatoes has it rated as 72% Fresh while the Audience Score is 86%. I tend to fall on that side, however, most of mine is nostalgic and I’m okay with that. It was directed by Joel Schumacher and I watched it on Netflix. I am rating it 4 Stars. Have you seen it? Do you agree with me? What films would you like to see me review? Hit me up on all the proper forms of social media (or here) and I’ll do what I can to review it.

Until tomorrow, same blog channel…
Scorp out!

—
“One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach; all the damn vampires.” – Grandpa (Barnard Hughes)

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