Everything's More Fun In Pigtails!

Summer Vacation....

"Tune in, groove on, bust out."

Why, hello there. It's been a while, my lovelies. Apparently I decided to take a blog summer vacation. Who knew? I don't know why, but I just haven't been in the zone or inspired to sit down and take the time to write much outside of a Bar Tuesday review (and I even have two of those I haven't gotten to yet!). On the one hand, I have been keeping pretty busy this summer, which is always a good and fun thing because we know that will all change when fall TV starts, but on the other hand I fear my summer vacation may turn into a fall one, then winter....

I don't know, maybe I'm just getting old and crotchety and I'll be back here posting away as soon as September hits. Or maybe it's because I'm getting old and outgrowing all of it. I'm going to be 35 next month and I am not looking forward to it. That is OLD, y'all. I'm going to be out of the target 18-34 demographic! NO! Does this mean I'm going to have to start watching Diagnosis Murder repeats? I REFUSE.

Ahem.

Anyway, as I was saying, things have changed since I started my blog way back in January of 2003. Things have happened, life has happened and I have been happy to go through a lot of it with you guys. Maybe that's what will keep me coming back. However, I'm not in my 20's anymore - I initially set up a blog just to keep myself in the habit of writing. I had been out of it a little bit and wanted to keep at it to keep my writing "muscles" toned. The practice helped me in developing a stronger voice in my writing and my blog found me a lot of fantastic friends. This is another reason that I may come back and hang around more often, although I now have other ways of keeping in touch with them. As my age keeps creeping, life keeps happening to and all around me - friends are married and having babies and chnaging careers and going back to school and all kinds of things. Our priorities and wants and needs in life evolve, mine included. Perhaps the need to write just to write has gone away for me - maybe there's more important and other things for me right now. Maybe they're waiting in Brooklyn. Who knows? One can hope for more, right?

I guess what all of this senseless rambling is trying to say is, "Hi. I'm here checking in, but who knows how long I'll keep checking in for. I'll probably take most of the summer off, but before I do, here's a highlight of some things I've been up to instead of being here." Wow, I should have just said that from the get-go.

So lete's do this - the highlights of my adventures since my last entry. Shall we?

- Connecticon. PEOPLE, Connecticon was an AMAZING event. As I probably mentioned before, Paul and I are going to be having our own public access variety show so we have started filming some of our adventures for it. A friend of ours works at the convention center in Hartford, Connecticut and told us all about this anime/comic convention that she worked last year. Paul and I thought it sounded like the perfect place to film some stuff, and it was beyond our wildest dreams. The convention ran from Friday-Sunday and after going on the Sunday, we had wished that we had gone to the whole thing. We were there for almost 6 hours just fascinated by everyone and everything. It was the best. We need to go to more of it next year. And we need to go to the furry convention in October that someone told us about. But I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. First, let's start with the ensembles. We heard that people dressed in all kinds of costumes and such for it, but my brother pooh-poohed my idea of wearing my Wonder Woman costume (Next year!), so we opted to just dress in bright, fun outfits. Paul pulled one of his thrift store finds from the other public access show that we guest hosted, thinking he would stick out a little, but as we found out, we were pretty underdressed. Anyhoo, here's what we wore:



To give you a partial understanding as to why we felt underdressed when we got there, here is a woman who I quickly became obsessed with and stalked for a good half hour before approaching her:



She was AWESOME. She was also the one who gave us the tip about the Furry Convention, which is something I simply need to be at. I wonder if I can get a monkey head for it. Anyway, there was so much to do and see at the convention. First, there were the people themselves. You really didn't even need to do anything more than just hang out with the people. They were all so nice, too. There were a lot of people with "free hugs" signs and impromptu song & dance parties were breaking out everywhere you went. I believe that Paul and I joined into a dance to a Pokemon-related song, but I'm still not sure. We enjoyed whatever it was. Aside from that, there were video game rooms, dice, card and board game tables, larp-related swordfighting tournaments, etc. There was also a huge shopping area with vendors selling all sorts of things and another room upstairs where artists were selling their stuff. You could get drawings commissioned, so Paul took advantage of that after seeing one of the examples shown on one table. So here, for only $10, is a personal sketch of Paul sitting on the toilet:



What is better than that?

Well, I would imagine some video clips would work out better. We ended up taking about 45 minutes of footage, but here's a 4 minute teaser video I made to whet people's appetite for the full show. Enjoy:



Oh, Connecticon - we love you.

- Dating in the Dark - People, I am obsessed. Have you seen this show? If not, get thee to abc.com immediately and watch it there. I LOVE IT. It's so ridiculous but I got sucked right in. If you haven't heard about it, it's a dating show that features 3 girls and 3 guys each episode who go on a series of dates in a room that is completely black. They can't see ANYTHING. After 3 days, each person gets to pick one person to see lit up. After they see what the chose person looks like, then they decide to either meet that person upstairs on an outdoor balcony to go on another date after the show is done or else walk out the front door. Here's what I love - when someone is waiting anxiously on the balcony for their desired mate to come out and meet them they can look right down and watch the person leave out the front door if they are not interested. So you've got this poor guy up on the balcony all excited and then you see the girl wheeling her suitcase right the hell out of there and not look back. It's so great. What's even better is watching the reactions of the people when they finally see the others in the light. They only light one person at a time, so the other is left in the dark to react and we get to watch them all mentally say, "Yeeesh!" Then they go back and shit talk with the other contestants. It's so great, just watch. Guilty, guilty pleasure. Mondays at 10!

- THIS. I have already requested one for my birthday. That is a must have item if I've ever seen one.

- Still revisiting movies from my youth from time to time, and I just watched Purple Rain. That movie? SUCKS. Oh my God. I think I'd only seen the TV edit when I was younger and I didn't remember most of it. I just remembered the lake part and clips that were in the music videos from the movie. But seriously, why is that movie so bad? Do people know this? Are they distracted by the good music? Because that is the only good thing about it. Now I love me some Morris Day, but are we supposed to believe that he is a straight man in that movie? And what purpose does Jerome serve on stage? Honestly, watch the performance of The Bird and tell me why Jerome is there. Give the guy a tambourine or something. But the acting? Oh my God. And the horrible message!!! So Prince - wait, "THE KID" - sorry, so The Kid watches his father beat the shit out of his mother all the time and then he hits his girlfriend on MORE THAN ONE OCCASION and both women stay with them? And The Kid never even apologizes? That shit is messed up. Appolonia should have stomped on his tiny ass with one of his high heels. I can't even imagine what Under the Cherry Moon is like. I don't even want to know. All I know is that this movie does not stand up at ALL. It's so bad. The music, however, does hold up. How can it not? Although I had no idea what Darling Nikki was about when I was listening to the LP in 1984. That's probably best, since I was 10. Buy the album, skip the movie.

- Tinted Windows!! The guys, or as I like to call them, "James Iha, the drummer from Cheap Trick, the guitarist from Fountains of Wayne, and Taylor Hanson on lead vocals" are doing a couple of shows this summer and one of them happened to be in Boston on Monday, so you know I was there. After the first week of indecision about some of it, the whole album completely grew on me and is just so good. They've got an 80's retro power-pop thing going on and I like it. The funny thing about seeing them live is that it looks like a bunch of dads who invited the neighborhood kid to come and sing with them while they jam. Still - they sounded really good, and it was really cool to see Mr. Iha play. As always, pictures:





You can't really see in those two pictures, but Taylor's ass was unbelievable that night. He's usually hiding it behind keyboards or not wearing jeans like this or something, but it was mesmerizing. I tried to crop it out of another picture but it still doesn't do it justice and just makes me look majorly creepy:



Maybe a video clip I took will show it off better. Taylor's looking fine, and that's James Iha to his right:



I also love the novelty of Taylor telling me that I'm his Cha Cha. I don't know what that means, but I want to be his cha cha. IF he gets rid of that stupid tiny Nonytail. Yuck.


So that's some of what's been happening here. What's been going on in your neck of the woods?

Revisiting Movies From My Youth: The Good Son

Y'all - what the hell was I doing in 1993 that made me think this was a good movie?

Technically, this isn't even really a movie from my youth since I was 19 when it came out, but I think it still qualifies as a movie for me to revisit and see if it holds up and is as good as I thought it was back in the day. I remembered this movie during a debate over Elijah Wood's hotness the other day - the only thing that does hold up in re-watching this movie is my assertion that this is the movie that made me think Elijah Wood was going to grow up to be way cuter than he did. Now I'm not saying that Elijah Wood is ugly now - he's not bad, but he held so much more potential. These days he's quirky cute instead of being raging hot like I had predicted.

ANYWAY - back to this cinematic masterpiece. In the words of Farrah on my current guilty pleasure, Rock of Love: Bus, "What the French?" What the French, indeed. First of all, why the hell is this movie rated R? There's mild violence but all of the actual acts of violence take place off-camera. Other than that, it has ONE profanity in the whole movie, and it is Macauley Culkin dropping an f-bomb. I used to think that was the best scene of the movie - so badass, look at little Macauley and his lips that always make him look like he has on lipstick! But then again, I did only see this movie once before and it was in the theater in 1993. And if my memory serves correct, I had 2 major surgeries that year so it's possible that I was doped up on some meds when I saw this. It's the only explanation I can come up with for why I ever thought this movie was awesome. I mean, look at this trailer:



Besides showing you almost the entire movie, the cheesiness of that should have been a warning. I still can't believe I sat through the entire thing when I rewatched it the other night. Four minutes in I was thinking, "What have I done?" But I kept it on, hoping that possibly heavily-medicated 19 year-old me couldn't have been so crazy as to think this movie was awesome without a reason. So I waited for it to get better. In fact, I waited an entire hour and 22 minutes for it to get better, and at the one hour and 22 minute mark it finally got better because the credits rolled and it was over. It was painful, friends. What was wrong with me in 1993?

Final Result: Like I even have to say it. Oh Slow Rollers....

_____________________________________

Adding Insult to Injury Movie of the Day: I followed up the sheer shittiness of The Good Son with a viewing of the 1979 Roller Disco movie Roller Boogie 2 days later. All you need to know is that it stars Linda Blair as a rich girl who is off to Julliard but dreams of winning a roller boogie contest instead. Seriously:



At the end, The Professor turned to me and hissed, "Oh, you OWE me." He's got a point there.

3 More Movies From My Youth & Another NYC Jaunt

Oh, hi there.

I have been a bad updater lately – sorry! But there have been Things and things happening which have kept me incredibly busy - which is good, but it has also kept me away from home and my computer where I could be telling you about some of the things that have been happening (but maybe not one Thing). Phew. But I’m home today so I can finally update! And I have so many things that I’ve been meaning to write about that I’m going to have to just give quick notes on them because have I mentioned that there have been things and Things? And I may have gone just a little bit crazy there. But in the last 8 days I have been doing some of the following activities: hanging out in NYC, sleeping, seeing Radiohead in concert (and willing them to play Karma Police, one of the only songs of theirs that I know), working, going on a date, watching Project Runway, going to a Bar Tuesday, going on another date, sleeping some more, playing wiffleball, spitting in public, and going to the movies. Guess which two I’m not going to talk about.

Anyway, so yes – it’s been busy in sockgirlie land, but here’s two things I’ve been meaning to blog about:

- Updates in the Revisiting Movies From My Youth Project - Since the Teen Witch debacle, I’ve watched The Flamingo Kid, Short Circuit, and Cloak & Dagger. I didn’t remember a thing about The Flamingo Kid since I only saw it once in the theater and that was in 1984, so yeah. I didn’t really have high expectations going into it, but it was surprisingly pretty good. And since it was set in the 50’s or 60’s, that helped with it not feeing dates. But let me tell you, Matt Dillon was HOT, my friends. It totally validated my crush on him from back then. Then came Part II in the mini-Fisher Stevens film fest with Short Circuit. Again, I didn’t remember much about this one at all, but everyone is always going on about it still so I had very high expectations going in. Sadly, I was a little disappointed. It was still very entertaining, but much more so when I was younger. Plus, I had issues with Fisher Stevens playing the wacky Indian sidekick to the Gute. It actually took me about 40 minutes to realize that it was Fisher Stevens playing the character, and then when I did, I found it a little offensive because clearly he was wearing a black wig and dark brown makeup. I was just sitting in my room by myself talking to the screen, saying, “Why is Fisher Stevens in brownface? Should I find this offensive? Because I do. Should it not be because it’s a comedy? But no, it’s not like it’s part of the plot like Soul Man or Tropic Thunder. They’re actually just trying to pass him off as an Indian. This is…not right.” Then there was the matter of the really bad wig being worn by Ally Sheedy’s stunt double. I may have rewound that scene three times. But other than that, the movie was cute – but still – why, Fisher, why?

That brings us to Cloak & Dagger, another one I haven’t seen since probably 1985. Y’all? That movie rules. I went into it expecting it to be lame, but it was awesome. Gotta love little Henry Thomas. Plus, I had one of those “Oh yeah, this scene” moments when the old couple shows up and the woman goes to take off her glove. I remembered that one from back in the day. Creepy and awesome. Out of the last 3 – actually, out of all of them so far, this was probably my favorite. Next up? Summer School and Who’s That Girl.

- NYC Again, Again! - I had last Monday off from work, so I decided to head to NYC that Sunday for a fun little end-of-summer overnight jaunt. I’m not due to go to the city again until the end of September and I found an insanely good deal on a hotel, so I decided to head south for a girls night out with my pal Karyn. And once again, I ended up at a hotel with glass walls in the bathroom:



Seriously, what is with all of these glass walls in the bathrooms? NO ONE WANTS TO LOOK IN THERE!!!

ANYhoodle - of course, no trip to the city would be complete without a stop at the National Underground, so that’s where we decided to meet up. I arrived a little early and was happy to find Matt there working the door since he’s usually off on Sundays. Sasha came and met up with us a few minutes later, and then Joey rolled in back from an out of town show a little while after that. I wasn’t expecting to see Mr. DeGraw this time around, so it was a nice surprise when he popped in. The bar is nice and chill on Sunday nights, which was relaxing. There was also the matter of this awesome saloon band playing:



Those guys ruled. I was talking to one of them after the set and he was telling me about his upcoming project based on the Great American Songbook idea, but instead it would be playing the Non-Great American Songbook. I need to attend that. And there had better be some Disco Duck.

Anyway, the next band to come on was just some guys from other bands getting together to play and it was all very laid-back with their friends coming up to sing on some songs and stuff. Sasha jumped in and sang a few Rolling Stones numbers:



And then later, I jumped in on one. That’s right, people – I SANG AT THE NATIONAL UNDERGROUND. I was beyond thrilled, to say the least. I totally want to do it again.

While we were at the bar, Karyn and I befriended this adorable Australian boy who was in town for a wedding, so we invited him along with us when we headed out to check out two other bars. Aussie Wes came with us, and lucky for him, because he was able to be there to witness my first giant NYC rat sighting. For some odd reason, I was not creeped out at all. I was all, "Cool! A giant rat!" I am not normal. Anyway, we headed over to one of Karyn's pal's bar, but when we got there it was already closed, so we made our way over to a karaoke bar right down the street that Frito had told me about. Sasha and I had stopped in earlier to do a tune, and there was hardly anyone there. When Karyn, Wes and I went back, it was the same way so we were able to sing right away. Karyn is an observer when it comes to singing (one of these days, lady), but Wes got right on up there and rocked the mic hard. I brought out the Bjork just so I could scream my head off. It was so much fun. Wes - you can come out with us anytime you're back in the states:



Karyn left her black hair at home that night, but in September there may be a Ravenhead Trio wreaking havoc. NYC, you have been warned.


SO - there are a few things that have been happening. The spitting in public thing will get its own post next time when you will hear about my trip with David to the county fair yesterday. I can still smell the smells from it and lo, it is not pretty.

What The F*ck Did I Just Watch? The Teen Witch Edition

I never thought I'd say this, but for the first time I can call my best friend Lucy a LIAR. As you all know, I've recently started a project in which I am revisiting movies from my youth to see how they hold up today, now that I'm an old lady. I was originally only going to watch movies I had previously seen, but because I got some suggestions from trustworthy (or so I thought) people, I added a few movies to the list that I hadn't had the pleasure of seeing in my younger days. The 1989 "masterpiece" Teen Witch is one of those movies, and it was enthusiastically suggested by Lucy. I believe she used the word "awesome" to describe it, while adding emphatically that I had to watch it. Since Lucy has never lied to me or steered me wrong before, I happily added it to my list. Then I watched it the other night.

People...oh my God. I immediately picked up the phone and left Lucy a voice mail yelling at her about what I just sat through. I don't believe I threatened her, but I should have, because have you seen this thing?? Apparently it was made to be a member of the Teen Wolf family, a sort of Teen Creature Cousin or something. All I know is that I sensed something very bad was about to unfold before my eyes about two minutes in, and I was right. My mind has tried to block out most of what I witnessed to preserve my sanity (what little I have of it to begin with), so I decided I would just list off the notes I jotted down while watching it to tell you about the "highlights." (Oh yes, I started taking notes as soon as our heroine stepped foot into her high school and there was a trio of rapping students there to welcome her. And not just any rappers - they were three white guys sporting blazers, popped collars and rolled up jeans and they were breakdancing poorly.) Let's take a look at my notes, shall we?

- The first one is what I just said about the hallway rappers performing a little ditty called High School Blues - now, I haven't revisited another particular movie yet (it's on the list), but I can already tell you that High School Blues is NO Babysitting Blues.

- Every so-called nerd in the school has curly red hair and giant black square-framed glasses. Oh, and the guys wear bowties. So true to high school life!

- The girls all wear tiny purple leotards to gym class - what high school has people dressing like Madonna in her Hung Up video for gym class? These things are so high-cut that there had to have been a waxer on staff. Gee, don't I feel foolish for wearing shorts and a t-shirt to gym class in 1989. OH - and then in the locker room, the head cheerleader decides to play a new song that she made a routine up for and the scene turns into a full-fledged Busby Berkeley-style dance sequence. I was literally looking at my TV and asking, "What is going on right now?" Then I shook my fist at Lucy.

- The "hunk" of the movie actually pulls a Fonz and hits the school's soda machine to get the witch's stuck can to come out. AY!

- What the hell is up with her pig-looking douchebag of a brother? (My notes actually say this. He's awful.)

- Okay, so our friend the Teen Witch casts a spell to make herself the most popular girl in school. So how do we know that she now is? Well, everyone is following her around, the girls are all copying her hairstyle, and there are BANNERS ALL OVER THE SCHOOL with her name on them. Some just say "Louise," but others say things like "We Love Louise" or "Louise Rocks." What principal is allowing this to happen? And seriously, they are everywhere. There's a whole popular girl montage that is just utterly ridiculous. At one point, she has to sneak out the back door of her house because there is a giant crowd of students on her lawn with signs proclaiming their love for her. They are even chanting, "We want Louise! We want Louise!" WTF? Who wrote this shit?

- In one scene, Teen Witch Louise finally gets to go on a romantic outing with her dream guy, "hunk" Brad, and he leads her upstairs in this abandoned house where he stands there shirtless and does all kinds of ridiculous poses like he is in the International Male catalog. I actually think I had a poster of one of those poses when I was in 9th grade. He was on a bike.

- Teen Witch stars the awesome Zelda Rubinstein, who many of you may know from the Poltergeist movies. She's the creepy short woman who always plays a psychic. And surprise, she's playing one again here. However, she is also CLEARLY reading her lines in some scenes, which is a shame, because as I mentioned, Zelda is awesome. (Now Robyn Lively, on the other hand, cannot be forgiven as easily as she was also in Dream a Little Dream 2, which recently earned the title of The Worst Movie I Have Ever Seen.)

- Countdown to the time when a character finally utters the phrase "Geez, Louise" after all of the mayhem that the Teen Witch is causing? About 58 minutes. Wow, I thought it would be sooner than that.

- Romantic date #2 with hunky Brad, in which he actually takes her out on the lake in a rowboat. A rowboat - really? Bleah.

- What in the world are these people wearing to the prom??? Spandex mini-dresses? What?! Bolo ties and jeans? To the prom? Is that a turtleneck and a cotton skirt? WHAT?!!

- Ow, wow - this kissing scene is one of the least attractive I've ever seen. What messy kissers. Why is it going on so long? Why can't either one of them kiss? Is this a joke? This is disgusting.

And then, the movie just kind of ends abruptly. There's the climax, but no denouement - it just...ends. And things aren't explained all too clearly, which doesn't really matter, because it's stupid to begin with. What a stupid and ridiculous movie.

Since I didn't see it in my youth and hold no nostalgic value to it, I am giving this one a DEFINITE does not hold up. At all. It's awful. YOU MUST SEE IT. Seriously, it has to be seen to be believed. Especially since there is a musical version of it in the works. I am not even kidding.

Behold, the trailer:

Here is some of the Popular Girl montage - and seriously, this is an actual un-doctored scene from the movie, and not a Robin Sparkles video:

RENT IT.

P.S. I will get you, Lucy! (She is still claiming that it's good, although she hasn't seen it since 1991. I'm making her watch it again and see if she still backs up that claim.)

Revisiting Old Movies: The Pick-Up Artist

"Did anyone ever tell you that you have the face of a Botticelli and the body of a Degas?"

This line, along with the business of Robert Downey Jr. putting old parking tickets on his windshield so he wouldn't get any more are the only two things that I remembered from this movie. I believe the only time I saw it was in the theater when it came out in 1987, and I really don't remember that it wasn't actually a romantic comedy as I had thought. Now wouldn't this trailer for it make you think it was? (I love that he was still going by 'Robert Downey then.):



So yeah - the movie ended up being more of a drama with some cute parts. Would you know that it was about Molly Ringwald trying to help her alcoholic father pay off his mob debt from that trailer? Of course, this is all happening while Robert Downey Jr. is trying to woo her, but still. And there are crazy amounts of people in it - some had small roles, but still. You get Dennis Hopper, Harvey Keitel, Victoria Jackson, Vanessa Williams, Danny Aiello and Lorraine Bracco in addition to Ringwald and my boy Robert.

So does it hold up? Pretty much. It's fun seeing Robert Downey Jr. all young and manic and Molly Ringwald looks gorgeous. It didn't knock my socks off, but it was pleasantly entertaining. Not too bad at all!

And thank you all for the awesome suggestions - I've added quite a few more to my list. Next up? The Flamingo Kid. I remember absolutely nothing from that one. Stay tuned!

Revisiting Movies From My Youth: The Queue So Far

Oh man, you guys have sent in some fantastic suggestions for my experiment of watching movies from my youth to see if they hold up today. Keep them coming! Just leave me a comment or drop me an e-mail.

So here is what I have in my Netflix Queue so far: The Flamingo Kid, Eddie & The Cruisers (and the sequel - that is never a good sign), Teen Witch, Cloak & Dagger, Summer School, Top Secret!, Stand By Me, The Secret of My Success, Adventures in Babysitting, Short Circuit, War Games, Blind Date, Back to School, Spies Like Us, The Cannonball Run, Spaceballs, Three Amigos, Mannequin, The Private Eyes, Transylvania 6-5000, Soul Man, Hiding Out, Breakin' & Breakin' II: Electric Boogaloo, Lucas, Some Kind of Wonderful, The Karate Kid, Desperately Seeking Susan, The 'Burbs, Who's That Girl?, Purple Rain, Big Business, Mr. Mom, The Money Pit, Loverboy, Moving Violations, Modern Problems, One Crazy Summer, and Seems Like Old Times. What else should I revisit? I'm open to things I haven't seen before as well (I only have two on the list so far, Teen Witch and Moving Violations.)

This is going to be a long one, but fun!

Revisiting Movies From My Youth: The Journey Begins

So last month I got the idea of re-watching movies from my youth to see if they hold up now that I'm an old lady and all. This came about after I re-watched Dream a Little Dream and subsequently scarred my mind by watching the sequel. The horror, people. THE HORROR.

Anyway, after that I had some things going on for a few weeks, so the only movie I was able to squeeze in was the George Hamilton horror-movie spoof Love at First Bite. I was quite wary going into that one, but surprisingly, it was still pretty good. It's a bit dated, but anything made in 1979 is going to be. Outside of that, it was rather enjoyable. Arte Johnson is cute as Rrrrrrenfield, and it's the whitest I've ever seen George Hamilton, who is pretty fantastic in it. I think the last time I saw the movie was when I was about 8 or 10, so all I remembered was the scene when a family thinks that the vampire bat is a black chicken and try to catch it to eat it. Aside from that, I remembered nothing, so the movie was a pleasant surprise.

After I watched that, I still had some things going on, but now everything has mostly calmed down so I am able to commit myself fully to this whole business. I've got 25 movies waiting in my Netflix queue, and I'm going to try to watch at least one a week if I can. I'm also looking for additional suggestions to add to the list, so leave those in the comments! There are some movies that I see all the time or that I own that I know hold up, so I won't be revisiting those. Some of these are: Better Off Dead, which is my all-time favorite movie, Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, Foul Play, Midnight Madness, The Goonies, Say Anthing, Dirty Dancing, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, License to Drive, and both Airplane! movies. Some things are just classics. But do leave me some suggestions - let's see what you've got!

Now, back to business. This week I watched Teen Wolf

, a movie that I had completely forgotten anything about. And you know what? Teen Wolf is still a damn good movie. It actually holds up! Sure, Michael J. Fox and most of the other actors (guy who plays Stiles, I'm looking at you) look far too old to be in high school, but that's how Hollywood rolls. I'm not going to go back and re-watch the Teen Wolf cartoon now - don't be crazy - but the movie is still quite good. And seeing that the movie was so good, the people involved should have just left it at that instead of bringing us Teen Wolf Too two years later. And I really should have left it at the first one myself, but the DVD came as a double feature of both movies, so I decided to kill some free time today and watch the sequel. I had never seen in before, and I adore Jason Bateman, so I figured, "How bad could it be?"

People - it is bad.

And I was still so optimistic at the beginning when I noticed that it was written by Tim Kring, aka The Creator of Heroes, and I was thrilled to see Kim Darby in it, aka The Mom from Better Off Dead, but my optimism quickly faded as the movie started to turn into a really bad ripoff and attempted replication of the first movie. First of all, only two of the five characters that are in both movies are played by the same actors, and the recasting of the others was not good. Stiles has turned into I don't even know what. And both movies have the same formula and plot, but it was done much better in the first one. There is just NO originality in the sequel whatsoever. It just copies the first, but makes small changes so it won't be completely identical, but the changes are not good.

The sequel is the story of Todd Howard, who is the cousin of Michael J. Fox's character in the original. He's starting college on an athletic scholarship that he got even though he has never played a sport in his life and was a band geek. He's a science nerd and wants to be a veterinarian. If he's such a smarty-pants nerd, shouldn't he really be questioning how he got the scholarship? And it's for BOXING, which - really? Do a lot of colleges have a large boxing team? This one sure filled the gymnasium with fans. Boxing???!! So of course, the coach knows that Todd has werewolves in his family, so he chose him even though neither of Todd's parents were werewolves and he has never shown any signs. You know, of course, that this is when Todd suddenly starts going all wolf-y. He even has the same First-Sign-Of-The-Wolf-style showdown with a cranky old lady in the college registration office like Michael J. Fox had with the cranky old man in the liquor store in the first movie with the whole red eyes and demonic voice demanding something that no one else was able to get before them. I actually said to my TV, "Seriously? This again?"

And really, let's get back to the boxing thing again because my head is still swimming. Now, the whole werewolf playing basketball thing in the first one was bad enough, but it was charming enough that I was able to suspend my disbelief for it. However, I really don't think anyone is going to say that a college boy boxing a werewolf is fair ir even remotely safe. Yet there they are, letting the werewolf beat the shit out of kids and send them flying over the ropes into tables and such. So ridiculous. And why do all of the women immediately go crazy for the wolfmen? It's not like he turned into George Clooney, people. He's a WOLFMAN, and I'm talking a werewolf here, not like Wolfman Jack, who, conicidentally, ruled. What is the attraction to a hairy bastard with fangs and long fingernails? That's what would have done me in right there - guys with long fingernails give me the heebie-jeebies. But seriously - Michael J. Fox and Jason Bateman are both adorable guys - why are they only attractive to most of the women when covered in fur and wearing leisure suits? AND, in Bateman's case, performing a song and dance number to the classic tune Do You Love Me. No, really - he does that. And, to top it all off, both of them turn into royal douchebags when they become the wolf. Ladies, you all need help. Little nerdy Michael J. Fox and Jason Bateman is what it's all about, not some jackass wolf. I mean, Bateman grew up to be Michael Effing Bluth, for crying out loud!

Ahem.

Sorry about that. Anyway, the bottom line is that if you're looking for a fun movie from your past to re-watch, definitely go for Teen Wolf. If you're looking for a really bad rip-off of Teen Wolf that is painful to even sit through in some parts, make someone you don't like very much watch the sequel. I mean, come on - a BOXING WOLF??? That's just illegal.

Next up: The Pick-Up Artist. And don't forget to leave your suggestions for movies in the comments!

Dream A Little Dream Of Me....

Now that Summer TV has arrived and my viewing schedule has been whittled down to almost nothing, I have been spending some of my free nights watching DVDs. Some are TV shows that I’m re-watching or finally catching for the first time, while some are movies starring Cillian Murphy during which I spend all of my time staring at him and responding to his dialogue with outbursts of, “My God, look at him,” and “Why are you so hot?!” instead of paying attention to the actual plot (my recent re-watching of Batman Begins was a bit easier as he isn’t in too many scenes to distract me.). However, I have also decided to pepper my Netflix Queue with some movies from my youth that I haven’t seen in ages to see how they hold up now that I’m an old lady and all.

First on my list was Dream a Little Dream, which wasn’t really chosen to see how it held up, but more to see if I could understand it any better. I had only seen the movie once in the theater during its opening weekend back in 1989, so I didn’t remember too much about it. What I did recall was Corey Haim having red hair and a broken leg and not being in it much, Jason Robards being old and crotchety, and Corey Feldman dressing up and dancing like Michael Jackson. Aside from those minor details, the one big thing I remembered was walking out of the theater not knowing what the hell the movie was about - it made no sense. I didn’t know if I was too blinded by my love for Corey Haim to figure out what was going on, but as I said, he wasn’t in it that much, so I decided that 19 years later, it was time for me to know what the hell that movie was about.
Oh my God.

Do you guys know how BAD that movie is? How did I not know that? It had to definitely be the Haim factor clouding things. I mean, it was no Lost Boys or License to Drive, which explains the lack of repeat viewings, but I don’t remember thinking it was horrible, just not “great.” I think it must have been the cloud of the Haim, or maybe I hadn’t really grasped the concept of a bad movie yet, because that movie is HORRIBLE. I was sitting there watching it, just saying to my TV, “This is so bad…I can’t believe how bad this is…This is actually embarrassing – I feel bad for them…Why am I still watching this? Oh God, OH MY GOD.”

Some observations and thoughts:

- First of all, the movie still didn’t make complete sense, but it did a little bit more than it used to, so I felt better about that. However, there are still many WTF things about it all.

- Secondly, Corey Haim is still the best part of the movie – he may not be in it much, but those are the scenes I didn’t actually mind watching. His character doesn’t really serve much of a purpose at all, but I think they just needed another Corey/Corey movie so they stuck him in there. In any case, I remember why I had his Teen Beat and Big Bopper posters all over my room – boy was adorable. [Piper Laurie gets an honorable mention for making it through the movie relatively unscathed as well.]

- That Michael Jackson dance scene? Oy. Even worse than I remembered. I believe this took place around the time when Feldman was always hanging around the Neverland Ranch. Poor Meredith Salenger for having to pretend to enjoy that nonsense – that was some good acting by that girl there.

- Okay, so Jason Robards is into some existential dream-state shit and while he and his wife are on the lawn in their pajamas meditating or performing voodoo or whatever, Corey Feldman comes barreling through the yard on his bike and smashes into his crush (played by Meredith Salenger and her ripped acid-washed jeans), somehow causing Jason Robards to disappear and take over Corey Feldman’s body. With no body for Corey Feldman’s character to take over, he then exists in the dreams of the old man, who is trapped in Feldman’s body. So it’s like Freaky Friday and 18 Again and Vice Versa except that we don’t get the indignity of Jason Robards trying to act like a teenager because HE DISAPPEARS into thin air. Make sense? No? Exactly. Did I mention that at the same time, the old man’s wife also disappears? Old Man/Corey Feldman believes that she has taken over Meredith Salenger’s body, but it never really makes it clear if that completely took place. There are only hints of the old lady in there – the rest is Salenger. SO – when Old Man/Feldman (OM/F) wakes up the next day, he goes looking for his wife. As soon as he utters the dialogue asking, “Where is she,” a song on the soundtrack kicks in, repeating, “Where is she?” It is ridiculous, yet hilarious at the same time. The song then resurfaces a few times throughout the movie, sometimes just popping up to echo a brief, “Where is she,” and sometimes just appearing in instrumental form while Corey Feldman looks plaintive and really thinking, “Where is she?” Of course, I started singing along after a while, laughing all alone like an ass while desperately pleading, “Wheeeeere is she?” I may need to download that song now. [Also featured in the movie a couple of times is Michael Damian’s hit cover version of Rock On, which I can say nothing bad about because he is Danny Romalotti and I loved that song.]

- The bullies at school (I can’t imagine why Corey Feldman would be getting bullied, what with the Michael Jackson thing and all) are all quite fond of calling everyone queers and fags, which was kind of jarring as I’m not used to really hearing that in movies anymore. No uses of ‘gaylord,” though. - At the end, Corey Feldman tries to get Meredith Salenger to recreate the meditation/voodoo shit on the lawn, but they get interrupted and it’s TOO LATE! because there is some sort of deadline before the old man’s wife is gone forever and Jason Robards gets stuck on Corey Feldman’s body, that hooligan! But it’s TOO LATE! The sadness…the woe! But then the next morning everyone is back in their own bodies and Jason Robards and his wife reappear. There is absolutely no explanation why. Everyone is just all happy and hunky dory and go on their merry ways. HOW? WHY?? WTF?! Oh, and Corey Feldman still goes on to dress up like Michael Jackson and dance like an asshole. But we’ll get to that…. So – in summation: I still don’t understand the ending or why the people disappeared, Corey Haim rocks (even with red hair and not much else to do in the movie), everyone is a queer, and “Where is she?” It’s just awful. You should watch it.

After I had recovered from the shock of how bad Dream a Little Dream actually was now that I had seen it as an adult, I remembered that they had made a straight-to-video sequel six years later (?!). I went online to see what in the world they could have continued in terms of that storyline and found this opening line of the plot summary: “Dinger and Bobby's adventure starts when a pair of magical sunglasses arrive at the door.” I didn’t even read any further – I just hit the magic “Add” button and put that shit on the top of my queue. I was sold on the phrase “magical sunglasses” alone. Besides, how much worse could this thing be than the original?

Friends – this makes the first one look Oscar-worthy. It is just…oh…I can’t even explain how bad it is. Actually, I can, because it now holds the title of The Worst Movie I Have Ever Seen, and let me tell you right now, I have seen some bad movies (for the curious, that title was previously held by Jack Frost 2).

So how exactly do you make a sequel to Dream a Little Dream (which wasn’t even a hit to begin with)? You don’t, really. This movie has almost nothing to do with the first one aside from the fact that the Coreys play the same characters (even down to the dyed-red hair for Haim) and they mention the old man because he is the one who sends them the magical sunglasses…YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH. Dun dun dun! (Any sane person would have turned the movie off at about the 5-minute mark, but when they started talking about the old man, I foolishly believed that they would explain the first movie better – they tease, and you think they will, but they never do.) Also, Corey Haim’s character has taken to researching some of the same existential dream-state shit as the old man even though his character had nothing to do with any of it in the first movie. By the way, Corey Haim remains absent from most of this movie as well, and he is still the only good thing about any of the scenes he is in, even if he is paunchy.

Once again, some observations and thoughts:

- Upon watching this movie, I started to wonder how Corey Feldman had a successful career prior to this. His acting is horrific – it’s like watching someone performing in a local commercial. I felt like I was trapped at an elementary school play or something. I couldn’t believe it. Then I started to worry that I was crazy – but no, he was good in The Goonies, right? Steven Spielberg wouldn’t be this blind, would he? It was all very bizarre. And the movie is ALL Feldman’s fault, too. His name is all over the credits, including him being one of the producers. Did I mention that he wrote some songs and “performs” them? One plays over the opening credits and it is like listening to goats having sex. I was actually sitting in front of my TV with my hand covering my mouth in horror and disbelief.

- Corey Haim winds up in jail, where he meditates/performs voodoo/whatever with a biker so he can try to communicate with Corey Feldman through his dreams.

- Corey Feldman dreams about and then meets a street preacher and proceeds to get up on the preacher’s box and out-preach him. This has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, except that the preacher is outside of a building Feldman needs to go to. Basically, this movie is Corey Feldman’s love letter to himself, because there are many scenes that have no purpose except to show how Corey Feldman thinks that he is awesome. Of course, all these scenes further prove is that he is not awesome, but actually a giant, massive tool.

- The “magical sunglasses” are actually a set of two – the wearer of one pair can make the person wearing the other pair do whatever he/she wants. So what do other people want Corey Feldman to do? Why dress up like Michael Jackson and dance around like an asshole. AGAIN. SIX YEARS AFTER IT WASN’T COOL THE FIRST TIME. Years after Michael Jackson stopped being even remotely relevant, actually. When that scene started, I literally threw my hands up in the air and shouted that this could not possibly be appearing on my TV screen. But sadly, it was. Even worse? He was “singing” this time, and it was another one the songs he must have written for the movie. The lyrics even include the expected line, “Come on and dream a little dream of me.”

Feldman – what happened, man? I mean, I never really liked you that much to begin with – I was always a Haim girl, but this really, really made me want to find you and slap you.

The rest of the movie is just as shit-tastic, but rather than try to explain it, I believe the trailer for it does most of the talking, as it pretty much shows you the entire movie in 2 minutes. And fear not, the Michael Jackson dance and song is featured front and center:

Just think - that trailer actually makes the movie look a lot better than it is. You don't even want to know the horrors of the actual full-length thing. The memory haunts me.

Final verdict: For an enjoyable "I can't believe this movie is so bad" experience, watch the first one. Then tell me what the hell is going on. In terms of the sequel, that two-minute trailer is more than anyone ever needs to see. I wouldn't wish the full-length movie on my worst enemy.

Next up in Movies Pam Hasn't Seen Since She Was Young And Is Now Re-Watching As An Adult: Love at First Bite - I think I saw this when I was about 8 years old and only remember one scene of it. Oh lord, what am I in for?