Godzilla 2014

So first off I need to say that there is a line down below where you should stop reading if you have not already seen the new Godzilla. There are spoilers, but it is more than that. I really want you to go see it, and after many years I have come to the conclusion that most reviews, even if they do not contain spoilers of actual plot points, really ruin movies for me. What I want out of a pre-viewing review is some eye witness testimony as to whether or not the movie is worth my time and money. Often I get instead intelligent deconstructions of what makes the movie tick which ultimately colors my own viewing experience.

After I have seen a movie and I am looking back on the experience, I want criticism; intelligent input from others that I can agree or disagree with and help expand my understanding of what I have seen. Most of this blog is formulated in this way because I am mostly reviewing old movies. The tension between these two points, however, is implicit in most pop cultural reviews, and has influenced how I am now structuring my music blog.

So here is my un-intelligent, pre-viewing review: Go see it. It is very good. If you are the kind of person who likes monster movies you will at least have a good time. If you are a fan of the Godzilla series you will likely wet yourself. Fair notice: I am a fan of Godzilla movies so take that into account.

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Intelligent commentary follows. There are also spoilers.

Jesus fuck Godzilla is a nearly perfect movie. I think I nearly creamed my pants when he ripped the monster’s head off. He did a fucking mic-drop with a severed head. That is metal.

What is odd is that the reviews are pretty middle of the road, between 75% and 80% positive on most of the sites I have seen. Some reviews are particularly harsh, one saying that the movie was the only thing that could make the 1998 Godzilla look good by comparison. I think that guy works for The Economist so I guess anything that isn’t douche guys playing golf is going to be bad to him.

Ok Ben focus.

It is tough to find a concise way to review a Godzilla movie. The franchise has such a rich history, touching on so many key aspects of the history of cinema and the globalization of culture. I think the key thing here is that this movie not only takes its subject matter seriously, it does it in a way that is respectful to the Godzilla mythos while simultaneously being the most satisfying modern example of a monster movie I have seen in the modern era.

Monster movies began, as a genre, as an offshoot of horror: humanity forced to confront its helplessness in the world. Very Lovecraftian, in plot if not in prose, but 60 years on there are a lot of reasons to expect failure. The most obvious reason is that, in the modern era of cheap CGI, getting audiences to be seriously disturbed by a big monster is nearly quite difficult. Everyone has big monsters now. Lord of the Rings had one of the scariest monsters of the century (so far) and it was seen off by what we were visually convinced was a person the size of a child. More to the point, with the sci fi channel cranking out a shitty monster movie a week and even their monsters don’t look half bad, you know we are suffering from an over-abundance of monster riches.

Audience ennui at CGI monsters is a real problem for a monster movie. I guess this is obvious but it goes to such a deep level that I think it bears some elaboration. No matter how you want to spin your monster movie (sci fi epic, adventure story, classic horror) the key emotional punch is going to come from the mortal dread we are supposed to feel at having an animal that is bigger than us that cannot be controlled. This tension is the fuel that makes any of these plots work. In your basic action movie it is not enough to have dudes with guns. They need to be convincingly bad and convincingly threatening. Blue Collar Everyman is not going to try and stop people who are just holding up a bank. They need to kill someone and then threaten his family or he will be too cool to care, and the entire movie falls apart.

By definition, forces of nature cannot be intentionally cruel, so making them terrifying requires us as the audience to feel that they represent something so completely out of control that their undirected energy could realistically kill us and people we love completely by accident, that such a death is a bad thing, and that their very existence is sinister and threatens our way of life. Over exposure to giant monster CGI makes this dread exceptionally difficult to manufacture, meaning no amount of punchy one liners and shirtless posing by big name stars will guarantee your typical studio flick profitability.

Nonetheless, we seem to be in the midst of a monster movie silver age. We are no longer as impressed by the special effects, but a generation of directors and writers have come a long that have the desire and know-how to make a good monster movie. It is hard to set a solid start date, but since 2000 we have seen Sector 9, Super 8, Cloverfield, and several others that have definitely impressed. I think Cloverfield was the first concerted attempt to get back to the Frankenstein roots of the genre. Even if it wasn’t the greatest movie in terms of the plot, it was a huge improvement on the post Spielberg world of 90s monster flicks.

To delve into what Cloverfield did, it basically said “Look. Even when you are making ‘Scream 37: The One Where No One Cares’ you don’t just have a guy in a mask walk in and be like ‘I’ma kill you I guess.’ We have this whole bang of trick we can use to build tension. Why are we just having the monster just walking around?” In other words, reduce monster screen time, bring action to the human and the individual level, and for god’s sake keep the action going, none of this is new or revolutionary, but the density of the pacing was amped way up. Sure, this serves to cover for a lack of true character development, but in this kind of movie that isn’t necessary. Remember when you learned not all stories need a moral? Not all stories need character development. What they need is emotional impact and progression. They have to draw the audience into the world of the movie, suspend disbelief, and care about what happens. Is this cheap emotional manipulation? Yes but not everything is Citizen Kane. Sometimes you just need Mac N Cheese, and sometimes you just need resolution. This is not to say these movies can’t have wider social implications, but it can’t detract from the momentum.

The ideal, of course, is to balance the momentum against the delivery of a good story. I think Super 8 is probably the best example of such a blissful state, and I am going to return to it, but I think Pacific Rim is the most interesting in terms of a discussion of Godzilla. Pacific Rim did not shy away from camp. To the contrary, camp and a modern approach to pacing in what separates Pacific Rim from Transformers. Both have shitty, poorly developed non-characters that are tangential to watching big things punch each other. Transformers dwells on its failing. It invites you in, makes a big pot of shitty tea that you get to sip and contemplate as the movie shows you what a terrible person everyone involved in it truly is. Pacific Rim starts with big things punching things and moves on to more big things punching things, takes a break for big dudes with big moustaches, there’s is some gross stuff, and then we are back to robots fighting monsters. Obviously I would rather watch a good movie, but the movie is competent. It uses its strengths to hide its weaknesses while you are in the theater, and the weaknesses only become clear later.

This is more or less what I expected from the new Godzilla. There is a lot of background to pay homage to and I expected any modern movie maker who could get money from the studios to more of less fail in the emotional impact side but cover it up with a big dose of camp, punching, and Easter eggs for fans. As a Fan I am resignedly ok with this.

Actually this is not true. The above was what I was hoping for. The thing that gave me hope. I don’t want to spend time here discussing the entire history of the Godzilla franchise, but there are a lot of low points, and the lowest of those low points came when American studios got involved. Son of Godzilla may be nearly unwatchably dumb, but it at least is a Godzilla movie, unlike the 1998 movie staring an iguana on crack, and at least it is not actively racist like the 1956 American reshoot starring Raymond Burr. When I heard an American studio was taking another stab at Godzilla I was actually pretty angry. Hadn’t they learned their lesson? But, one thing led to another, the trailer was good and I learned that the team that had rebooted Batman was in charge of this one. So I went in with moderate expectations.

Instead, as the credits rolled, I turned to my wife and said “that movie was perfect.”

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t actually think it was perfect, and I should say that there was a fair amount of fan service, but the movie was a thrill and the Easter eggs were so subtle a non fan would probably not notice them.

I always feel the need to moderate expectations and claims in my reviews. We live in a cynical age and I have cynical friends. I will say that the characters here don’t have a ton of emotional depth and are obvious archetypes. It is super convenient that the American bomb squad soldier lead grew up in Japan and manages to luck his way into being at every important place over the course of the movie’s plot. And his continual efforts to get home being sidetracked by events might get old, given the sheer number of times it happens over the course of the movie. But these weaknesses are usually addressed or covered in a way that makes the in theater experience seamless.

For example. The protagonist (whose name I never cared to learn) has an emotionally evocative story arc despite having the personality of cardboard. Sure, you know he loves Wife because they tell you he does in a few short scenes involving them trying to have sex, only to be interrupted by the phone, but the actress (an Olsen apparently. The other one though.) is convincing and you are never put in a position of going “why does he care?” Instead it is built into his main personality train and emotional arc: He is torn between a desire to stay home and be there for his family, and the duties and responsibilities that will allow him to create a real life and future for his family. This emotional focus of the movie is created quickly, quietly, and often while also forwarding the main plot.

In any Kaiju movie the high point is the monster fights, and this is true here as well, though I think in a way you might not expect. Though the climactic battle is an intensely satisfying slugfest, the focus is, as much as possible, on the human scale: lots of shots of feet and glimpses of the fight in the distance, between buildings. In the foreground are humans caught up in this event and their attempts to survive. Though they move around and through debris and rubble thrown off by the monsters, they do not do so with a grin and sunglasses and a cool soundtrack. They are actually obstructed by the obstructions, often injured or killed, and the result is a situation that is confusing and convincing.

Overarching everything is a vice-like cling to the horror story at the root of the entire plot. Though children are saved and families reunited, ultimately Godzilla is what saves humanity. Our efforts at changing events only create situations that the protagonists ultimately have to work twice as hard to undo. They beat you over the head with the point, but I think it is refreshing to have an American movie that has such an overarching theme.

Others may disagree with my high estimate of this movie, given some of its weaker elements, but ultimately I have to say that this movie left me quite literally on the front left edge of my seat. As the credits rolled I realized that I felt the way people must have felt when they first saw monster movies. I actually felt scared by a movie about a gigantic monster. Even Super 8 did not deliver that kind of thrill. Sure, Godzilla is not as good in terms of writing and characters. The movie delivered on the visual side in a way I have not experienced in a long time, and I do not mean that they had killer CGI. I mean, they did, if you care about that kind of thing. I mean that they used the entire length and breadth of the cinematographic toolset to keep the viewer completely enmeshed in the things on screen. Every piece of manipulation they could throw at you, they did. If you think this sounds boring or cliché, I will agree. But it is meta cliché. They pound the audience with constant manipulation. Its not like the old days where you would get a beat to appreciate running people, a beat to see a foot coming down, a beat to see one guy crushed. In this movie you get a small girl being dragged through a mob of people away from an oncoming tidal wave while machine gun fire and monster screams go by in the background all in one beat. They fight tooth and nail, they lie cheat and steal to keep you completely absorbed in their movie and I think we owe them some credit for putting in the effort.

Emperors New Grooove.

This evening myself and the wife got suuuuper drunk and watched The Emperor's New Grove, the film credited with destroying the dusney corporations ability to make movies. Thing is its actually aamovie and not actually in my movie collection.

Thjng is its not a disney movie. I mean disney made iit , butbit plahs more lkke a WB short. It never takes itself seriojsly, the villians are as sympathetic as the heroes, lots of anachronisms. So, wjy even bother being disney? Ln the other hand the first part is like a direct growth off of aladin. Like a bulb. Or cancer. So i mean thats ok. And the movie was super fun. Its just obvs that disney comllrtelg lost their way as a company. Eriting good fables shouldnt be hard. Just dont fuck over yiur writers. But thats very hsr for them. They have a challene in that catagory. So sorry disney. Sorry aboutbuour not fuckinf writers challenge. And emerors new groove wasnt as bad as pll say. Did this on mah phun.  pretty fun movie, despite david spade. And despite being a netflix.

Anger Management

Anger Management has some wonderful, subtle performances by some great actors at the height of their craft. No other movie has harnessed so many great talents, lights of their generation, to such an excruciating emotional maelstrom of a film. Sandler and Nicolson are brilliant, delivering tight dialogue in well directed performances of an ill advised and humorless pantomime of a comedy. The film reminds me of a scene from Tintin in the Congo, where Tintin, surrounded by angry Chimps, kills one, and skins it, and dons its skin. Tintin then systematically lures the chimps into ambushes. The chimps, thinking he is a friend, relative, or neighbor, suspect nothing. Gladly they run to him, sure of the embrace of a cherished comrade. He mows them down cheerfully, and they perish, bewildered.

Anger Management is the cinematic equivalent of Tintin, and we are the chimps. Wearing the desiccated, rotting skin of the American Comedy, the film has all the moves down. A young couple whose romantic attachment is unproven, but we take it on faith and because she is hott. A misunderstanding occurs that unbalances the status quo, but we know that we will all leave improved by the dénouement, and they will get married.

Such a film is anger management. There are no surprises or twists. Sitting through such a predictable journey would be tedious at best if it were not for the laughs and the delicate character moments. This is the part of the convention Anger Management chooses to challenge. Boldly, this movie decides to not be funny, gives no relatable side characters, or indeed any characters that remain on screen for more than two minutes, and in general stridently steers the course of not being entertaining at all. The effect is like being in a train crash on a glass train. You can see the disaster coming, but not only can you not look away, you know that running for the exit will only make the disaster follow you. As the cars ahead dissolve into shards and blood, you know your turn will come. And yet you sit, watching, as the next horrible thing to happen to the protagonist churns closer.

In all honestly I don’t really think those responsible for this film did this on purpose. There are too many moments where they try to tell jokes. The jokes just aren’t funny, and they are too widely spaced to build momentum. Which is funny, because everything else about this film is fine. Great even. The acting, as I said, is at times brilliant. The script, apart from its complete lack of comedy and painful derivativenss, is a perfectly fine comedy script. The plot moves quickly, at a good pace, things are given proper time to develop, dialogue is given time to breathe without getting overly weighty…and then there are just no jokes. It’s not even like the situation is funny because its too real. We all feel at times like the entire world is a big conspiracy to make us suffer. Well in this case it is, but its for our protagonists own good. Whoop de fuckin do. Hilarious. Hand me my fucking tissues, I need to wipe the tears because of my laughter. Oh wait no, I just need you to get close so I can fucking strangle something.

The film manages to avoid being boring by being painful. The soundtrack sucks. The great acting only serves to draw you in to the bullshit being heaped upon the protagonist for no payoff. Same with the script, cinematography, lighting, sets. Uh. Makeup. Fuck this film and everyone associated with it.

Our universe is filled with amazing things. Things like stars. just because there are a near infinite number of them dosen't mean we have to waste them on a crap fest like this. I will give this film a brown dwarf, which is like half a star. And that's only because of the acting. And because fuck brown dwarfs. Useless interstellar douchebags. Using up all our hydrogen and not even producing warmth for gods sakes.

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Uh...wow. Yeah, the last time I watched this movie was on Thanksgiving Day 2008, while working at a pharmacy with only the pharmacist on duty and my laptop to entertain me (with no wifi). We paused the movie whenever a customer would come in or the phone would ring, which happened to be just frequently enough to help(?) with the pacing problem this movie has. And oh, dear GOD I totally forgot that this entire movie was just one long, dragged-out attempt to push the protagonist into getting angry and acting on it. It's uncomfortable, absolutely, and the Mr. only got up once and left the room screaming OH MY GOD...bless his heart.

As a lady-type, I gotta say [SPOILER ALERT] that the explanation of the set-up given at the end is awful. It just feeds into the idea that many men have that women are just trying to trap them into proposing or whatever (or forcing them to re-enact a traumatic event from their childhood in front of ALL OF YANKEE STADIUM). Also? Screaming "porker" at Heather Graham?? I get the joke, yeah, but it's stupid. Sure, the movie is about a guy who has commitment, PDA and DEFINITE anger issues. But the sad, few and far between jokes could have been made without being at the expense of the female characters (of which there are 5 - the girlfriend, the actress, two porn actresses, and a middle-aged lady with one line who recognizes the porn actresses).

Actually the lady recognizing the porn actresses is one of the two jokes in the movie I actually found really funny. The other was Jack Nicholson's crazy-eyed smiling and nodding across the bar at Adam Sandler hitting on Heather Graham (a brilliant sight-gag that I should probably track a .gif down for and put here).

How terrifyingly hilarious is that??! You love it.

Anyway, that all said...I have no need to watch this movie again. Or, more fairly...I have no need to keep this DVD taking up space in our lives when it could be solidifying the idea to some other 20- or 30-something guy that all women will hatch maniacally elaborate plans to rope them into marriage. I, luckily, don't have to convince the Mr. that I'm not trying to do that BECAUSE MY PLAN ALREADY WORKED, MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Ahem. I mean...no it didn't.

Shut up.

Rating: 2/5. One star for each actual funny joke. Any takers?

An American Tail: Fievel Goes West

Fievel is a fucking idiot. It is required for the plot, of course, that Fievel's family be given impetus to go west. But they would have a better chance of survival without him. Childish antics are excusable in those without experience. But Fievel already saw the results of overly enthusiastic confrontation with the Cossacks in the first movie, making his confrontation of the cats in the second incomprehensible. And his family saw the results of unprepared emigration. For that matter they've mourned his loss like five times. You'd think someone would learn.

This is a sequel. And it hurts. This movie's strengths and weaknesses are exactly opposite those of the first, while somehow working extremely hard to cram the entire plot of the first movie into the first half of the second. As the first teaches that not every cat is bad, the second teaches that everyone we've been taught to hate is secretly trying to kill us even if they say they are not (except Dom DeLuise and his girlfriend). The first was sensitive to historical tensions, whereas the second is extremely racist. The first has poor production values and a well paced plot, and the second has a bizarrely paced plot and glossy production. The only thing that hasn't changed is the awkward, randomly placed musical numbers, about which the less said the better. Suffice it to say that every time I think this movie is about to do something good it fucks it up.

Which is not to say this movie is bad. Its far better than any Disney sequel. But just as with Disney sequels it seeks to pad the original plot with cliches and borrowed tropes, none of which make any fucking sense together. Sure, the first one had plot holes. This one has plot voids. Aching caverns of nonsense and pandering to audience expectations that rage in every fiber of my being. I had low expectations of the first movie due to the marketing for this one, and fuck, FUCK was my impression of this movie right. curse you Steven Spielberg, curse your all consuming need to over expose and destroy every piece of Jewish subculture. Your smarmy Steve Jobs beard will rue this day, MARK MY WORDS.

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Ahem. So, the impression from the mrs. is coming again from having seen the movie as a child, and not  again for years. So. Um. Yeah, I gotta go with my better half on his impressions of this one. It's bad. Like...not the animated LOTR bad, but like...Star Wars prequel bad. Overly focus grouped, stealing anything that got a laugh from  the first one, etc.

Speaking of stealing and of Star Wars, there's a particularly heinous scene where a character (which is used as comic relief) is revered by some "natives" as a god. Does this sound familiar?  Like C3PO and the Ewoks? It was weirdly similar. But the worst part was the depiction of mouse "Indians." That alone would keep me from showing this movie to kids until they were old enough to have a coherent conversation about the depiction of race in media.

Anyway, this keyboard is terrible, this movie was terrible, and if it wasn't part of a double disk with the first movie, it'd be offering it up for grabs. But, as the first movie is actually kind of awesome, we're keeping it.
2/5 stars...but sadly staying in the collection.

An American Tale

What can I say about An American Tale that has not been said by other, more competent, more Nostalgia Chick commentators? Her various reviews of Don Blueth's career is a key piece of background to this story that I am just going to not touch because her reviews are so good. Nonetheless I must carry on, for the sake of the project, and because I think, as a Jewish history enthusiast, I do have something to contribute here, maybe.

This is another one of those movies I missed (I was 2 when it came out) and never saw despite various recommendations. It is somewhat surprising that I was never forced to watch it on one of the many Jewish youth outings I endured, given that this is the tale of a family of Jewish immigrants, but religious youth activities seem, in retrospect, carefully calculated to make me loath everything in all creation, so exposing me to a well made film instead of a shitty suburban comedy was probably never in the cards.

For those of you who haven't seen the movie, a short summary. Fievel and his family are Jewish mice living in Russia. their home is destroyed in a Pogrom and they decide to move to America, a land where there are reportedly no cats and the streets are paved with cheese. Fievel is washed overboard during the crossing, but washes up on the shores of Liberty Island. Once on land Fievel sees the good and the bad in New York, being sold into child slavery, making new friends, getting attacked by cats, and falling in with a streetwise native and a middle class reformouse. They come up with a plan to rid New York of the cats, which succeeds, and Fievel is reunited with his family.


This story is predictable in many ways, especially for those who grew up on the east coast as part of the culture of the New York City region. The story is populated by stereotypes and caricatures that are familiar, and often telegraphed before even showing up onscreen. For example, as soon as a character said "lets go see Honest Tom downtown, he knows everyone!' I knew I was about to meet a drunken, corrupt Tammany type with an Irish accent. And yet this movie works really really well. The movie is honest to an amazing degree about the history of the groups involved, and neither sugar coats dark realities nor plays them for laughs. 
The example often used is the Pogrom in Russian, wherin shadowy shapes of men and horses shoot people down in the streets and burn houses as cats chase down mice. This is indeed a very dark way to begin a movie, and despite the somewhat fantastical inclusion of anthropomorphic mice represents a stunningly realistic view of the lawlessness and chaos that characterized Tzarist Russia's relationship to the Jews. From a narrative standpoint the direct juxtoposition of the human event (pogrom) with a mouse event (attack by a pack of oddly dog like cats.) serves to ease the viewer into the nature of this anthropromorphized world. This is something often left out of the anthropromorphized animals genre. It definitely makes this easier to watch as an adult than, say, Disney's Robin Hood. 
Another fantastic example of this movie being honest with its viewers about historical realities is the aforementioned Honest Tom. Tom is an exceptionally corrupt, exceptionally drunk Irish politician. He is constantly after people's votes, and in his first introduction he is adding a dead man to his list of "ghost voters." He clearly has sinister, selfish motives, which makes his antics, while funny, somewhat unnerving. Yet he is seen providing obvious service to both the protagonists and the public at large, even at great personal risk. This was indeed a key aspect of the American Immigrant experience, and remains so to this day. 
For those at the bottom of the social and economic ladder, the legitimate economy often does not provide resources necessary for daily life. Ties of ethnic and emotional loyalty in an alien environment are the currency of organized crime, but also provide the informal networks that allow communities to lift themselves out of poverty. Especially in the absence of outside assistance, such corrupt criminal systems play a key role in the American immigrant experience. The classic example of this, or course, was the Tammany system in New York, where the swelling Irish population supported corrupt politicians in return for help with food, fuel in the winter, and jobs. The same could also be said of the Italian mob and even the Jewish Purple Gang. None of these organizations operated without initial local support, and were only effectively destroyed when outside economic opportunities and the killing of innocent bystanders turned their public against them.
Such corrupt organizations were often key in helping the country do amazing things like build the Transcontinental Railroad, and fight Facism, but the dark side of this is that those who head these systems are, as in legitimate economic enterprises, out for personal gain and not necessarily the public good. Public money is the price they demand for their goods and services, money which could have been used to provide the goods and services more efficiently, and more directly, without lining anyone's pockets. Those who question the system are effectively eliminated, which means the system can never adapt to changed circumstances, while in extreme cases the public ends up owing more allegiance to whichever faction provides them their goods and services than they owe to the state. This is called a patronage system, and if left unchecked translates into a subversion of any legitimate political process. Corrupt systems can smooth the way for amazing achievements, but ultimately corruption rots a system with cynical inefficiency and waste. A child is unlikely to understand this all directly from the few interactions with Honest Tom, but the DNA of this is there, ready for those who learn enough to extract it, and I appreciate the honestly.
Which is not to say I do not have some serious critiques. As a movie the plot seems oddly rushed with a massive cast of characters that you never get to know well, in the process of confronting the protagonist with  constantly shifting challenges that are easily escaped. There are a couple reasons this works, despite what is outwardly somewhat poor writing. First, it should be noted that this is an Oddesy clone. Not in the direct, Warriors kind of way, but from a narrative standpoint. While almost all plots involve a journey, Oddesy clones present a literal journey, where a mobile main character, on what should be a simple quest ("get home" "find my parents") is presented with exotic challenges usually in the form of characters that come to symbolize a place.  Particularly good entries into this genre tie many or most of these characters together at the end. Given the length restrictions of a kids movie, and the goal of providing the viewer with a wide ranging introduction to the salient features of the New York Immigrant Experience, these obstacles were going to have to be overcome quickly. As such the movie is almost more a series of vignettes of the pitfalls and opportunities presented by life in New York City at this time period, but it is kept interesting by the fast pace of the plot and the clear devotion of the protagonist to his quest.
The musical sequences are, in comparison to Disney musicals, rough and unpolished. This should probably not be a major concern to me since I hate musical numbers, but it was initially pretty jarring. That said the music being unpolished makes more sense coming from a child, especially from one coming from a peasent background without fancy studios and singing coaches. 
That's basically my take. I feel I should also point out that the art is breathtaking. Especially since this is a double feature paked with extras this one is a keeper. 5/5









The only criticism I really have that I have no resolution to is the cats. They growl, they snarl, they run in packs. Has Don Blueth ever met a cat? I think he is thinking of dogs. Protip. 

That Fresh Blog Scent; Adventures in Babysitting

Tom Says; So here we are again. This time myself and my gal Friday are doing a joint blog of the unwatched movies in our collection. Since we are watching together we will both throw in our two cents. We will also be rating out of five, which is new, and if we decide to ditch the movie leave a comment and it is yours. You've been warned.

As I am me we must begin at the beginning. We skipped 12 Monkeys and 40 Yr Old Virgin, so I feel like I should give some account of those movies. 12 Monkeys rules, as does Terry Gilliam. As someone who has worked a lot of shitty jobs with a lot of people much dumber and emotionally vapid than myself, and as someone who lost their virginity rather late, 40 Year Old Virgin hit a bit too close to home for the concept to be funny, while not being otherwise funny enough to compensate. A Mighty Wind is really fantastic. Which brings us to Adventures in Babysitting.

I had never seen this movie. I didn't watch a lot of movies before college, and the few I was forced to watch on class trips tended to make me hate the movies I tend to think of as "Light Hearted Middle Class Family Comedies." Predictable pedantic putridity wherin the mores of "conventional" society are challenged by unfamiliar situations that push characters out of their comfort zone, only to return them safely without ever challenging the economic or social basis of those conventions. A lesson is learned that tends to make the protagonist more selfish or hedonistic.

Adventures in Babysitting is hardly the worst offender in this category, but being a product of the Disney Corporation it doth sit at the right hand of the master. The story revolves around a painfully naive, painfully suburban Chris Parker who ends up babysitting because her date is canceled. Apparently this is the fate of all single women. Anyway, her best friend runs away from home, to the Chicago bus station, and asks Chris to pick her up. The fact that her friend is freeing from what is broadly hinted to be an abusive home is played for laughs. The Chicago bus station is played as a gateway to the realm of madness.  The kids blackmail Chris into taking them along. Hilarity ensues.

I feel like it is not necessary to continue a detailed plot synopsis from here because, while there are numerous twists and turns, they manage to be largely predictable in context. For example, Chris' date says he can't make it because his sister is sick. Spoiler alert! This is a lie. The scary large tow truck driver with the hook hand? Friendly! Things are not as they seem! Your stereotypes are challenged! Wacky!  

Despite my intense initial rage at these movies, they are also more than the sum of their parts, and there are good entries in this genre. A lot of it is down to pacing, and this movie does a really good job of keeping things going while still allowing character moments. While never really seriously examining the background of the suburban/ urban divide and its implications on American culture, and while it does reinforce this divide while also encouraging distrust of the mentally ill and poor, I just watched a bunch of James Bond movies, so I will say that it manages to avoid overt racism. Although the only black people in the movie are criminals, even if some of those criminals are nice at heart. And they weren't forced to be criminals, either, they chose that lifestyle because they "like the danger." Let me start over.

Adventures in babysitting is not as classist or racist as Mein Kampf, or the Tea Party. The cloying, subconscious racism is not usually very distracting, while the classism is the type of thing you just have to get used to or else put your tv through the head of a Fox commentator. Back to nice things.

The twists are thoroughly predictable, but there sure are a lot of them, and that helps with the pacing. The film is only as sexist as it is racist, but it gets points for a heroine who is assertive without wearing a catsuit, and a little girl character who is obsessed with superheroes.

This is really what saves this movie. Much as Ferris Beuller is only watchable because of Ben Sein and its killer soundtrack, Adventures in Babysitting is saved by a cast of charming characters. From the homicidal fugitive tow truck driver with a heart of gold to the car thief with a heart of gold, there are a plethora of unique characters here, which is good because there are so many they would probably run together otherwise. I was kind of left wishing the protagonist, who was so boring he didn't even get mentioned in the above synopsis, had just been left out so as to give his perverted best friend more air time.

This movie is basically a tightly edited and scripted mess. A product of its time that has not aged well in many ways, good pacing and likable characters keep the whole thing together. The acting is not stellar, but manages to just not be apparent which is what you probably want in a movie like this. I am unlikely to watch this again, but if you really want a light comedy to watch you could do worse. You horrific capitalist bastard.

3/5


Gal Friday here! I think Tom gives a great synopsis and description of the good and bad of this movie, but I have a slightly different take, having watched it as a kid (numerous times), and not seeing for the first time tonight. Most of what prompted me to pick this up in the 2.99 bargains was that nostalgia factor that I thought this movie was badass when I was a sheltered little suburbanite getting a taste of what the big scary "city" was like. Unfortunately, that just reinforced cliches about race relations and socioeconomic divisions between the suburbs and the inner city.

This is, of course, not at all what I consciously took from this movie as a kid. To give a little background, this movie came out in 1987, so I wasn't even 10 when I saw it for the first time. I suppose I identified with Sara, the Thor-worshipping babysittee, though I didn't read comics at that time, and I was confused as hell about all the Thor references, to be honest. I didn't actually understand them until tonight (gasp!). Pretty much all the dangerous events (save one major one) are met by Sara with giggles and "This is great!" which made it less horrifying for kids, I suppose? There were several points tonight when I mused aloud that I couldn't believe my parents let me watch this as a preadolescent, not the least of which was when the 17-year-old babysitter (played by then-24-year-old Elisabeth Shue) threatened two gangs with a knife while stuck with 3 kids in her care on an El-train, saying "Don't FUCK with the Babysitter!"

While I mention the 7 year age discrepancy in the protagonist's age, I should also mention that my feelings on Brad, the elder sibling of Sara's, were that I equated him with Wil Wheaton; or to be fair, Wesley Crusher. That young, out-of-place but deserves more respect than he gets, nice, unassuming '80s guy. Yup, him. There's an unrequited love subplot, but I gotta agree with my coreviewer that Brad's most important role in this movie is to play the straight man to Anthony Rapp's Daryl. Wait, did I say Anthony Rapp? Why yes, Mr. Mark Cohen, of the original Broadway cast of RENT, as a Playboy-stealing, smartmouthed teenager. Poor Brad is overshadowed by basically every dude in this movie. It wasn't until Keith Coogan (Brad) played Kenny in Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead (wow, he had a babysitter-filled career) that I thought of him as hot.

Until he cut off his hair, but that's a different story. I should point out here that he also was the voice of Tod in the Fox and the Hound, just to make you uncomfortable with my last declaration.

So to get back to that socioeconomic divide, something I found interesting to see this now as an adult was that while all the people we see from the suburbs are wealthy and white, not all of the city cast is not. The skeeviest of the bad guys is white:

Creepy Motherfucker.

...and the nicest of the "bad" guys is black. And also cute: 

Yum.

So, how did the movie hold up for me nostalgia-wise? Well, it was interesting; it still hit the points I liked as a kid for me, but there was that added awareness that did detract a bit. There were so many cliches, and it is campy and predictable in a weird way. Would I watch it again? Probably, but not often enough to necessitate keeping the DVD. I'd agree with the prior rating of 3/5.

Verdict: Free to a good home.