Xanadu (1980)

Typically when I do these movie posts, I open with a bunch of credits: actors, directors, writers, composers, etc. But this is one of those cases where I don't find it necessary. 

The framework of "Xanadu," essentially is Gene Kelly (in his last movie), Olivia Newton-John, and Michael Beck (in probably his best known movie- for better or worse) featuring music written by E.L.O. (Electric Lights Orchestra).

The first time I heard anything about this movie was when we vacationed in New Orleans in summer 1999. We were shopping in a record store and my dad found the soundtrack. I think he said that he'd been looking for it a long time and finally found it. (I found the soundtrack for the Lion King sequel there as well... sure, its songs weren't as memorable as the Elton John work from the original, but dang, I loved that movie)...
So we'd listened to the soundrack a bunch of times before I'd even seen the movie. One of those listens, I distinctly remember was when we were driving to my uncle's funeral. "Don't Walk Away" is already a sad song in its own right, but the circumstances made it a little more emotional.
Years later, we finally found the movie at FYE... and I figured since it's turning 40 this year, it was worth a revisit. 

I didn't find out until much later that "Xanadu" was quite infamous as being one of the "worst" movies ever made... so bad that it got the distinction of the Golden Raspberry... The Razzie Awards pick the worst of the worst in movies every year. Prince even got a few himself- for the song "Sex Shooter" and his directing in "Under the Cherry Moon"... and of course the "Twilight" and "Fifty Shades" franchises have gotten hammered by them as well... 
I'll call movies however I like, but I sometimes feel like critics are too harsh on certain movies. This isn't to say any of these examples are perfect, but how harsh can you be to give a movie a special award for being really bad? 

A few years back, Internet personality Nostalgia Chick did a review on this. Looking at the opening credits, showing various aircraft flying around the Earth as the opening credits roll, she's like "Gene Kelly, Olivia Newton-John, E.L.O.... and a spaceship, oh, so it's about aliens?!"... it's not about aliens. One scene she nit-picked about in terms of "bad filmmaking" was "Suddenly" where Sonny and Kira are skating around a studio full of props-- and they skate around a scene of palm trees three or four times and the camera angle doesn't change once.

I imagined that if people had an issue with anything, it was the whole Muse storyline, especially when Sonny finds out Kira is a muse and tries to get her back and Zeus and Hera kept forgetting the difference between measures in time- a moment or forever- and when she says how they learned about "feelings" in some class they took in school... 
yeah, some of that dialogue is a bit cheesy and ridiculous, but I loved the whole concept about the muses inspiring people and the possibility of one falling in love with the person she's inspiring. 

The movie runs about 96 minutes... and the majority of that is musical numbers. The soundtrack has 10 songs and each of them got at least 5 minutes of screentime. Admittedly, there were a couple they could have done without because they didn't add a lot to the plot. Sonny and Kira spend so much time together throughout the movie and a bunch of them involve songs. "Suddenly" and "Don't Walk Away"-- the latter is a really beautifully drawn Don Bluth animated sequence, but it really comes out of nowhere and makes no sense (Nostalgia Chick might have labeled it a "big-lipped alligator moment"-- which is a running joke for a movie scene that's thrown in randomly, adds nothing to the plot, and is never mentioned again).
"All over the world" is used for a makeover/costume/dress-up montage. It's meant to be fun, but it verges on bizarre in a couple of spots- particularly when a bunch of extras are wearing spiderweb fishnets and there's a dude who thinks he's Spider-Man (seriously, what's with that guy?)

How the other songs were incorporated into the movie... "Magic" was the big hit on the 1980 Billboard charts, but it only really serves as background music for when Sonny and Kira have their first conversation. 
"I'm Alive" is the first production and it starts the movie with a BANG-- all the muses come alive from a mural in Venice Beach. They're also multi-racial, something that so many people want to see in movies nowadays, but wasn't nearly as appreciated back then because this movie was considered a commercial disaster. But yeah, what a scene that is-- it still gets me to this day. 
"Whenever You're Away" is a really cool dance duet between Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly-- trivia says that he choreographed it himself and his condition was a closed studio and only having a handful of people on set. Very classy. 
There's also this killer duet between a 40's big band and 80's rock band. And guess what-- the two songs fit together perfectly by the end. Seeing them come together in the movie- that's a really cool moment. I remember first hearing the song and preferring the 40's version because the 80's version was more like heavy metal and I'm not a fan of the genre. But then the song started to get going and the intensity of it mellowed a little bit. 

The craziest part of the movie overall was that it came out in 1980... the decade had barely started, yet it featured a lot of fashion and musical trends that would go on to define it. Like it or not, it influenced what the decade would become known for. 

Xanadu doesn't get referenced very often, but it's kinda funny whenever it surfaces... 
in Goldmember, the last Austin Powers movie, they're at the club and they're doing a roller skating scene that's reminsicent from the end of that movie.
And in "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," RDJ and Val Kilmer are watching a VHS tape and they're looking through the cast list to see who's in it. RDJ asks "Who's Michael Beck" and Val Kilmer is like "oh he was in Xanadu with Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton-John"...

in the trivia, it said that while the movie was panned, it's gained cult status and is popular among gays... Val Kilmer's character in that movie was gay, so I can't say that's too surprising he knew that. 

With pretty much every song, I remembered where they fit in the movie... but I completely forget about "Suspended in Time"... maybe because it's not an E.L.O. number. It's ONJ's "Hopelessly Devoted" moment in the movie. 
Geesh... so much good music, but my eyes welled up a bunch of times... nostalgia, but also there's some emotional moments in this thing. It may not be perfect, but it's still sad to see it end, but it's also nice that's a happy ending. 
Bleck- I can be such a sap sometimes... no matter how old I get, that's something that's never gonna change whether I like it or not. 

Summertime: Caddyshack (1980)

Director: Harold Ramis (RIP 2014)
Writers: Harold Ramis, Brian-Doyle Murray and Douglas Kenney

Cast:
Ty Webb- Chevy Chase
Judge Smails- Ted Knight (RIP 1986)
Al Czervik- Rodney Dangerfield (RIP 2004)
Danny Noonin- Michael O'Keefe
Maggie- Sarah Holcomb
Lacey- Cindy Morgan
Carl- Bill Murray

Write-up:

Introduction:
Music is much easier for me to categorize using the four seasons (although spring remains a mystery). For the most part, movies defy categorization and you don't necessarily have to watch them any time of year. The one exception being any movie featuring snow is better left for wintertime, unless of course you're in the mood for Christmas in July.

But since we've had our shore house, we set aside a few movies that we like to watch this time of year. By this point, it's become tradition.
Jaws & Independence Day will get their due on this blog within the next month. That much is a guarantee.

Guaranteed Hilarity (Or Your Money Back):

Warning: Spoilers and Spontaneous Movie Quoting Ahead

Pretty much anything involving Bill Murray and/or Harold Ramis in the 80's is golden.
If you're not laughing through at least 35% of their movies, you either don't have a pulse or you're too serious for your own good.
(This percentage, by the way... BS, I just made it up).

Then there's Bill Murray and Chevy Chase. SNL veterans by this point, their improvisation in this movie in particular... it's gold.

Chevy Chase plays one of the many golfers at Bushwood. Someone who with great skill, but he never bothers to keep score. He takes kind of a zen approach to the whole thing, which is cool, but when the time comes where he has to compete against other golfers, the results aren't as pretty.

Bill Murray, meanwhile, plays Carl the greens keeper. He's kinda slow, but he's also quite smart in an unexpected way... which sometimes can come off as demented.
His main objective throughout the movie- kill the gopher tearing up the golf course.

When first given this "mission" from the head greens keeper (with a HEAVY Scottish accent), he says, "If I kill all the golfers, they're gonna lock me up and throw away the key."
Since seeing this movie, when we see golfers in our backyard (which happens to include the 10th green on our community golf course), we call them "gophers."

We cut to several scenes where Carl is concocting gopher extermination plans... none ever go to plan. But with an animatronic gopher that cute, you really don't want to see him die on screen, do you?

The one round of dialogue everyone remembers is Carl's "Cinderella Story"... all improvised. Shortly after this, the priest asks Carl to caddy for him. During an epic thunderstorm of Biblical proportions (there's "10 Commandants" allusions everywhere!!). He's playing the best game of his life and doesn't want to stop and Carl's vote of confidence only encourages him.
"I'd keep playing. I don't think the heavy stuff's gonna come down for quite a while."
(Yet another quotable quote this movie has of dozens).

Other than the plastic explosives scene, Carl is at his most demented in the ONE scene Bill Murray and Chevy Chase have together. (Seriously, Harold Ramis realized he shot the entire movie without having them together, so he wrote that scene on the fly).
Ty's nervous about playing Smails in a big doubles golf tournament and Carl's suggestion is taking out his hamstring so he'll never play golf again.

:backs away very slowly:

Smails vs. Czervik:

Smails, of course, owns the golf course and Czervik is the obnoxious building tycoon that blows into town like a whirlwind.
The first several years we were watching this movie, I was totally on Smails' side. I mean, it's his golf course. He's very stodgy and professional and the other guy was only an annoyance. I mean, the dude ruins his new boat and can only say "hey, you scratched my anchor"
Being a little traditional and close to the vest myself, I really didn't like Rodney Dangerfield for the longest time...

I'm willing to bet seeing him in "Back to School" was the thing that radically altered my opinion of him... yeah, three guesses why I decided to watch that movie... it was actually pretty good for every reason BUT the reason I checked into it in the first place. GO FIGURE!

Minus the "you scratched my anchor" scene, you start to see after a while that Judge Smails really isn't a likely character either. His true colors start to come out during the big doubles golf tournament... yeah, that dude's a little unhinged too.

Rodney Dangerfield has kind of an unorthodox sense of humor... he's obnoxious and kinda buffers convention, but he does have a certain charm about him.
This is true even of the scene where he disrupts the dinner party at the clubhouse where he calls dinner "dog food" ("DOG FOOD?! AHHH!!!"), makes the band play "Boogie Wonderland" (will never hear that song without thinking of this guy, lol) and dances with Smails' wife.

Caddies and Lacey:

This movie is called "Caddyshack" for a reason... the focus really should be on the caddies that work at Bushwood during the summer.
Particularly Danny Noonin, who comes from a big family and needs the scholarship money to go to college... although he isn't quite sure what he wants to do. Only that he needs to do some brownnosing to get some extra attention.

Enter Judge Smails, who wants to know what Ty shoots in his golf game and gets that answer from Danny when he volunteers to caddy for him.
After looking the other way when Smails cheats, he gets one good tidbit: win the caddy tournament. Which he does with ease.

In other scenes, we see him canoodling with his friend Maggie (love her Irish accent) and being one of many mesmerized by Smails' granddaughter Lacey... who is probably the world's biggest tease.

Sure, she's a playmate in real life, but she kinda annoys me as much as she does Maggie- who obviously feels threatened by her flaunt-able sexuality.
I don't know how old her character is supposed to be... but the fact she messes around with Ty who is probably old enough to be her father... it doesn't sit well with me.
Rumor is that during their scenes together, a lot of improvisation was going on and Cindy Morgan did not like it.
That's some karma, I guess.

Danny gets two sex scenes... except for some frontal nudity with Lacey, they could have gotten away with a PG13 rating (if it existed back then).
First with Maggie- which leads to a pregnancy scare. Maggie's flip-out scene should be very serious, but with her accent, it's hard not laugh at certain points of it. The scene where she finds out that it's a false alarm and Danny's randomly on the course to see her... another great moment.
Then with Lacey, which ends up with Danny being chased out of the house by Smails... but not before a hilarious exchange between him and Smails' wife.

The final tournament is a great climax for the entire movie where all the characters get to participate in one fashion or another.
Danny even gets to play- substituting for Czervik, who feigns an injury after a ricocheted ball hits him in the arm- and does as well as the big boys.
Smails threatens to take the scholarship away from him, but with Czervik's endorsement ("I'll make it worth your while"), he might be fine.

Honorable Mention- Kenny Loggins:

"I'm All Right" is a pretty awesome way to begin his legacy of 80's soundtrack themes.

Final Quote:

Smails to Ty on Czervik's Rolls-Royce: Don't play games with me, Ty. Put that steering wheel back over there where it belongs!!

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

Director: Amy Heckerling [her debut- also did "Clueless"]
Writer: Cameron Crowe [also wrote/directed another 80's classic, "Say Anything..."]
Type: R-rated teen high school movie

Cast:

Brad Hamilton- Judge Reinhold
Spicoli- Sean Penn
Linda Barrett- Phoebes Cates
Stacy Hamilton- Jennifer Jason Leigh
Rat- Brian Backer
Mike Damone- Robert Romanus
Mr. Hand- Ray Walston (RIP- 2001)

Honorable mentions:
Nicolas Cage as a random dude in the bleachers at the football game
Forest Whittaker as Ridgemont High football star, Charles Jefferson

[With Nicolas Cage, it was his first silver screen appearance. He was then known as Nicolas Coppola, lied about his age when he auditioned for Brad, but didn't get it. Supposedly, his audition was too dark and he was only 17, so he couldn't work as many hours.]
**All credits go to IMDB

Write-up:

Opening Monologue- Skepticism

The first time I heard about this movie was from my 11th grade Social Studies teacher, Mr. Jablon. I think he said it was either one of his favorite movies or it was "the best movie." Mind you, this was ten years ago and I spent a great part of that year stressing out about grades and SAT scores.
I saw the movie a year or so later, but came away with little memory of it. I guess I expected the John Hughes 80's experience and wound up disappointed. I also saw the censored version, so die-hard fans like my dad would say I didn't really experience the movie.

Ten years later, we watched the movie on DVD [therefore completely uncensored] at the shore house.
I'm still of the opinion that it's not the best 80's high school I'd ever seen. On the John Hughes scale, grading it against his movies, I'd say it's better than "Weird Science" but not better than "Sixteen Candles." ["Pretty in Pink" is the next notch higher, followed by "Ferris Bueller" and "The Breakfast Club"]

In my view, the 80's was defined by a lot of high school movies. A genre that was more or less perfected in this decade and would later become predictable in later years [unless they're the rarities like "Clueless" and "Easy A" that either defined a generation or told an original/not-so-clichéd story].
In 1982, the genre was just coming into focus, but not completely hashed out.

One key example: this movie really doesn't have a plot. It had a couple of story arcs happening simultaneously, but there was never a central focus.
That may be why it was so hard for me to get hooked on this movie.

Another criticism that I can't help but echo: all the actors look too old to play high school kids. It's sometimes hard to find it believable as a high school movie.
At least Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall were teenagers when they did "Sixteen Candles."

SPOILER ALERT
Plot Lines and Highlights

1) Sean Penn giving an iconic unforgettable performance as Jeff Spicoli- the residential Ridgemont High burn-out- literally living the high life and we're simply alone for the ride.

This was, really, the only part of the movie I really remembered. This character who was totally rad [yeah, I'm typing this with a surfer dude accent]. How he was at constant odds with the teacher, Mr. Hand- perhaps THE BSer you don't BS [to paraphrase Jane Lynch in "Role Models"].

Two scenes that stand out with the two of them:
a) Spicoli orders pizza in class and Mr. Hand proceeds to give it away to the rest of the students (without having to say "I hope you brought enough for everybody")
b) Mr. Hand "wasting" 8 hours of Spicoli's time, tutoring him so he can pass the class

Spicoli also got away with the biggest transgression in epic fashion. He was driving the football star's sports car and, while distracted, got it in a wreck. But then he got it painted and blamed it on the rival football team.

2) Rat and Stacy are looking for love in all the wrong places... before they find each other, lose each other, and find each other again

maybe it's pure coincidence that Amy Heckerling had a mall scene in "Clueless" after introducing the iconic 80's shopping mall to film with "Ridgemont High"... the mere idea of the shopping mall is older, but this was the one of the first instances in pop culture where it was synonymous with "teen hangout spot"

This setting happens to be where we're introduced to these two characters. Rat's an usher at the movie theater and Stacy works with her friend Linda in the food court. He sees her across the way and spends the movie pursuing her, with the help of his scalper friend, Mike.

Stacy, meanwhile, is eager to lose her virginity. Linda gives her a crash course in oral sex using a carrot in the school cafeteria. This never comes to fruition on screen, which is probably the right way to go on this.
Her first is with a stereotypical hunky guy, but based on her expression, it wasn't what she thought it would be. It just seemed awkward.

One thing I will say for this movie: it has a hard R-rating. Not a soft R-rating that could be downgraded to PG13 when it was introduced in 1984.

When she and Rat finally go out, he foolishly forgets his wallet and calls Mike to bring it. Later that night, they're alone in her bedroom. (One of multiple scenes where she takes off her shirt and is magically not wearing a bra... between that and her sexual urges... I'm all for women taking charge, but I found that part of her character very off-putting).
For whatever reason, he's not entirely into it and bails before they get any further.

Stacy's next target: Mike. Perhaps to make Rat jealous enough to crawl back to her. Instead, this results in a pregnancy, an abortion and a revelation for multiple characters (in the view of themselves, their co-stars and the audience).

*Linda turns all the girls in the school against Mike after finding out he knocked her up and wasn't exactly helpful afterwards.
*Stacy finally slows down and resolves to look for a real relationship rather than a cheap one-night stand.
*However goofy he may be at times, Brad is the best big brother EVER

3) Brad Hamilton's various misadventures

Due to multiple unfortunate circumstances, Brad cannot hold onto a job. He was probably one of the main honor students when he was in school. A real teacher's pet/goody-two-shoes type. But he cannot catch a break.
The most hilarious: he gets fired after cursing out an irate unsatisfied customer. Honestly, the [customer] dude had it coming, very rude. In Brad's defense, he was following procedure. Having him fill out paperwork about his dissatisfaction. If not for the whole, "Mister, if you don't shut up I'm gonna kick one hundred percent of your ass!" comment, he might have gotten away scot-free.
[still love that quote, I burst out laughing and cheered during that part of the movie]

The most famous scene that all the guys remember about this movie is the Phoebe Cates fantasy sequence. The edited version I saw on TV stopped it just as it began, so I didn't see much of it.
Speaking to the nudity, Phoebe Cates was perfection.
Can anyone really blame Brad for getting hot and heavy about it? [Her reaction to walking in on him was priceless as well as authentic surprise... IMDB mentions it on their trivia page].Despite all those iffy moments [although for me, I didn't mind him nearly as much as the other characters did], Brad shined in the post-abortion scene. We see Stacy after the fact in the recovery room, telling the nurse that her boyfriend is waiting for her outside [she can't go home by herself], and goes downstairs to find Brad waiting for her. She didn't come out and say where she was going, but he looked out for her like a good big brother should.

And that karma rewards him in the final scene. His 3rd job in the span of this movie [burger world and the pirate restaurant were the others], which happens to be at your clichéd 7-11 type place that frequently gets robbed. Lucky for him, Spicoli was shopping at the time and had the genius idea to throw hot coffee in the would-be robber's face.
After which, Brad grabs his gun and holds him there until the police arrive.

"Way to go, Rosewood. You're some kinda cop, you know that."

[My love of "Beverly Hill Cop" also led me to this movie and kinda had me disappointed with the overall product... but this actor did not].

Probably the best part about this movie:

We find out what happens to all the characters afterwards. It's not a luxury we're often allowed, but in this case, it was nice to get some closure. It certainly provided more laughs, something I found this movie short on.

• Rat & Stacy get together and are taking it slow.
• Mike gets more bad karma when his scalping ways catch up with him... involving Ozzy Osbourne tickets.
• Linda moves in with her UC Riverside Abnormal Psychology professor [why she's taking that course, I have no idea... unless she got the idea from that field trip to the morgue... led by the actor who played the Subway ghost in "Ghost"].
• Spicoli blows the money he got for saving Brooke Shields from drowning on a Van Halen concert- for his birthday party.
• And yes, Mr. Hand still believes everyone's on drugs. Probably did until the day he died in 2001... well, the actor did. But Mr. Hand is definitely one of the most memorable movie teachers.

Final Word: Music

Gotta hand it to the 80's for their music and how it's often used in movies in clever ways.

One of the songs led me to write this entry in the first place. "Somebody's Baby" by Jackson Browne was on the radio this morning and played at least three times through the course of the movie... almost like it was Stacy's theme song.

I forget which song it was, maybe "We've got the beat" by The Go-Go's. But we heard it on the radio when we went out for dinner after watching this movie and the DJ namedropped the movie after it finished playing.

And I'd since heard "American Girl" at least three times. :P it was just a couple months ago where Kurt & Blaine performed it on "Glee" and I loved it, thinking how I hadn't heard the song in years and they did a great job with it.

4. Purple Rain (1984)

Code-name: MPLS

Director: Albert Magnoli
Writers: William Blinn & Albert Magnoli
Composers: Prince and The Revolution, John L. Nelson and Michel Colombier

Notable Awards and Nominations:
OSCAR- Best Original Song Score- Prince
[worth noting, this award was "retired" after this year]
nomination- Golden Globe- Best Original Song- "When Doves Cry" by Prince
[granted, he lost out to "I just called to say I love you" by Stevie Wonder, but STILL...]

Grammy- Best Instrumental Score Album for TV/Film- Prince, John L. Nelson, Wendy & Lisa
[note: I'm only including the following because Prince has amassed some Razzies over the years]
nomination- Razzie- Worst New Star- Patricia "Apollonia" Kotero
nomination- Razzie- Worst Original Song- "Sex Shooter" by Apollonia 6 (written by Prince ala his pseudonym Jamie Starr)

Cast:

[The Star]
Prince as The Kid

[The Actors]

Patricia Kotero as Apollonia*

Olga Karlatos as The Kid's mother

Clarence Williams III as The Kid's father, Francis L

[The Musicians- all playing themselves]

The Revolution

Wendy Melvoin

Lisa Coleman

Bobby Z

Brown Mark

Dr. [Matt] Fink
Jill Jones

The Time

Morris Day

Jerome Benton

Jesse Johnson

Jellybean Johnson

Paul Peterson

Gerald E. Hubbard Jr.

Mark Cardenas

Apollonia 6

Susan Moonsie

Brenda Bennett

*(also, obviously part of Apollonia 6)

Write-up:
Fair Warning: Spoilers and I predict this entry will run very long
An Introduction Unlike Any Other
My earliest exposure to Prince was the "1999" video, one of several my dad recorded off MTV in 1987...the visuals stuck with me as did the message (we watched it around Y2K time) but it didn't plant the seed I'd go on to follow years later (as was the case with "Hazy Shade of Winter" and "Less than Zero"...another LONG life-changing story).

My first Prince songs were the combination of "I would Die 4 U" and "Baby I'm a star," at the back of a mix CD my dad put together of Go-Go bars songs. The first song: blew my mind! The second: I felt ran a little too long. We had the "Purple Rain" album, but again, I didn't follow through.

If all that wasn't enough, had it not been for my dad's insistence, my 7-year journey with Prince might not have happened and I'd probably be a different person than I am now. (More on that later).
I have this thing where I dislike watching new movies when they're already in progress. I mean, that's understandable, right? Why get into the middle of something with no idea of what's going on? Even today that's STILL true :P Just this once, I made an exception.

I remembered a handful of events. I remembered being struck by Prince's neo-Mozart vibe. The strongest memory I had: those two songs being performed in the final 10 minutes of the film. It was a literal jaw-dropping over-the-moon-in-love moment. Never forgot it.
Two performances later (American Idol and GMA in 2006), it took the SuperBowl HalfTime show for me to FINALLY do my research on Prince. I returned home for spring break with a list of albums I wanted to get... and I knew I had to rent "Purple Rain" at Blockbuster so I can finally see the whole movie.

If I weren't dedicating a whole blog entry to this, I'd stop here with the cliché "..and the rest is history."

First Impression

Yeah, I think it's safe to say that this movie blew my goddam mind. I watched it in the privacy of my bedroom on my PS2. The music, of course, was amazing. Loved all the musical numbers. Got invested in the characters, felt my heart pound in the dramatic moments.
Then I heard the actual song for the first time. I still remember my mom coming into my room prior to dinnertime and saw that I was a hot mess, tears streaming down my face. It was a powerful moment.
I think within that time frame, I watched the movie 6 times because I didn't know the next time I'd be able to watch it... I think within that first year, I saw it 30+ times.... so yeah.

In a Nutshell

Prince plays The Kid, a struggling musician in Minneapolis who plays regularly at First Avenue with his band, The Revolution. Ultimately, he hopes to "make it" in the business so he'll be able to leave the abusive household he grew up in.
Morris Day, the charismatic leader of rival band The Time, hopes to muscle The Kid [i.e. his biggest competition] out of the club. Part of his master plan involves putting together a female singing group.
Also with aspirations to succeed in music, Apollonia is the new girl in town who quickly finds herself caught up in a love triangle between the two men.

All the while, The Kid deals with other conflicts. This Includes fighting against his inner demons [not wanting to turn into his father] and buffering insistences from the girls in his band [Lisa & Wendy] to add their music to the performances.

The Soundtrack and Performances

Save for the fact we miss out on music from The Time, Apollonia 6 and Dez Dickerson, and the fact I'm a little biased, this is the best movie soundtrack EVER. All 9 songs are well-executed and amazing (well, it's Prince, what do you expect?). The configuration is as tight as it gets. At its core, we have rock and pop, everything from ballads to laments to kick-ass party anthems.

One fun fact: we have "Darling Nikki" (track 5) to thank for Parental Advisory labels. Tipper Gore heard her daughter singing along to the risqué opening verse of this song and she went on a political rampage to keep other kids away from similar "filth."

It's hard to pick one favorite because they're all so good. The title track, of course, is one of the best power ballads ever. "The Beautiful Ones" is Passion and at times, a bit of a tearjerker. "When Doves Cry"... need I go on?

With 4 exceptions (I saw videos for "When Doves Cry" and "Let's go crazy" previously), I heard all of these songs for the first time in the context of the film. So naturally that's the first place my mind goes when I listen back.

Probably what makes the quality so great is the majority were recorded live. Specifically, on August 3rd 1983 at First Avenue, Wendy's live debut with The Revolution. Except for "Darling Nikki" (which Prince recorded by himself in the studio, as he often does to reach the peak of his ability), all of the performance numbers used these "live" tracks.
All of these performances are great, but my personal favorite is the often overlooked "Computer Blue."

It originally existed in a much longer capacity (try 12+ minutes!) but had to be cut down for a more cohesive album. Plus, the Prince/Apollonia duet "Take Me with U" needed the space more. "Darling Nikki" and "Purple Rain" overshadow it quite a bit due to shock value or overall excellence. I actually watched "Computer Blue" online by itself because I really love the choreography. Don't ask me why, I just do :shrug:

As for the other performance numbers, "Sex Shooter" by Apollonia 6 is strictly ear-candy (not so much singing ability) but love the look of it (costumes and choreography).
"The Bird" is one of the few memories I retained from that first encounter. My dad shook his head to it, saying how stupid a dance it was. :P I still LOL about that.
"Jungle Love," I really enjoy and still loathe the fact the version found on The Time's "Ice Cream Castles" album was recorded in the studio and not quite as sharp.

"Modernaire" by Dez Dickerson (when he left The Revolution after being with the band for years, Wendy took his place) is short and had pre-planned choreography ala the director Al Magnoli that only serves as a segue to the next scene, but a great 80's track nonetheless. It was officially released for the first time a year after becoming a fan.

This is also one of those rare cases where I actually sit through the ending credits--- because we revisit all the music again in the form of a mash-up.

The Acting

However momentous an occasion this was in my life and the life-changing results that followed, this gets my #4 spot because of some poor acting  :shrug: seeing as we're dealing with non-actors, that's to be expected.
For everyone (cast, crew and fans), the biggest standout was Clarence Williams III. Word is that the musicians came to the set whenever The Kid's father had a scene.

With almost everyone else, it feels like they are reading off a script. But again, this movie isn't about that so much as the heart and emotion that comes with the story being told.

Of the non-actors, Prince handled himself the best. Reading the script is one thing, but in the moments that count, he has his share of powerful moments. Most of which are actually non-verbal. How he holds himself on screen. The basement scenes, where a lot of drama happens, he draws us in with his emotions and brings them out in us as well. The first time I saw the movie, the aftermath of his father's suicide attempt freaked me out... how the music is so intense until it explodes, followed by The Kid himself.


Morris Day does give him a run for his money, though. Sure, he's about as egoistical as The Kid is, but he has incredible magnetism as a lady's man. Plus the duo of him and Jerome Benton is freaking hilarious. "The Password" sketch has you wondering if you'd stumbled into an Abbott & Costello routine. Definitely some great on-stage chemistry.

When Prince's previous girlfriend Denise Matthews (then known as Vanity) walked off the movie, Patricia Kotero was the only girl to audition for the female lead not wearing the "Vanity 6" look (namely, leather, stilettos and lingerie) and her glowing personality won her the role. Granted, she's not the best actress on set, but she's beautiful and so sweet that you want to root for her as much as the male leads. [What I hadn't found out as of yet is if Prince dubbed her Apollonia after Michael Corleone's ill-fated first wife in "The Godfather"]


Commentary and "Autobiography"

By this point I realize this post is running long.

Thanks to anyone who stuck with it so far...

Believe it or not, I am still holding back on this entry :P

This was Al Magnoli's first directing gig after graduating from film school at USC and I gotta give my props to him. He did an amazing job on this.
The commentary includes him, Producer Bob Cavallo and Director of Photography Donald E. Thorin. All kinds of "trade secrets" from Behind-The-Scenes-- you know, if you're into that sort of thing. This was the first movie where I listened to any commentary and got super invested in the making of.

Part of this movie's lure (other than Prince's screen presence) for me was the fact it was semi-autobiographical. Much was based on true events he went through at First Avenue, with his band... even with his father. Granted, the domestic violence was a Hollywood add-in, but two instances that did ring true: the quote "I would die for you" and the "never get married" scene.
All fans have their theories about what is true and what isn't and there's simply not enough room for to go into it.
But two things worthy of mention: the conflict between Prince, Wendy & Lisa (which were on and off until 1986 when he disbanded The Revolution) and the rivalry between Prince and Morris Day (granted, they're friendlier with one another in reality, good friends even).

The Purple Effect


I grew up on a lot of bubblegum pop. Some of the first CDs I bought were Britney Spears and boybands. So I really didn't know what to expect from actual musicians, which my folks had greater respect for.
I simply found Prince mesmerizing, like he had me in a spell. When he performs, there's nothing like it and his opposite off-stage persona never fails to intrigue me.

Of course I didn't, for a moment, had any idea what I was getting into once I dove into the purple abyss. Didn't realize how risqué his performances were, how raunchy his music was. I didn't grow up in a strict Puritan household :P but my attitude towards anything remotely sexual and explicit was simply "run in the other direction."
The fact was that I had to grow a thicker skin and I came out the other side a stronger person. Cussing doesn't bother me as much as it used to and the occasional movie sex scene doesn't either... just as long as it has bearing on the plot.
Ultimately, knowing that most of his music was handled with artistic integrity helped a lot.

Not surprisingly, my musical catalogue greatly increased. Most of it was Prince's music. Over time, I became interested in members of The Revolution. I fell in love with Wendy & Lisa's music (their self-titled album and Girl Bros especially). I checked into Morris Day and The Time after seeing their "Ice Cream Castles" video.
...I wound up going to see Morris Day and The Time in concert a couple years ago. They played all the songs from their 4 studio albums from back in the day and it was easily the best concert I'd been to. And I'll admit that I developed a secondary crush on Morris Day at one point as well.

I'm still waiting to see Prince in concert and to visit his hometown Minneapolis. If only to walk the streets he walked, breathe the same air... and I know for a fact a good friend I developed online correspondence through Prince is dying to have that experience with me.

For the record, I have close to 30 Prince albums and greatly enjoy almost all of them :P

And yeah, my bedroom also has purple paint... we had a brand new Toll Bros house with blank walls, I needed color and made that decision.

[Also, it should be noted: I LOVE this period of his career, but I HATE that it's the only thing people remember him for... you guys really need to widen your gaze... Or at the very least check into his new albums, "Art Official Age" and "Plectrum Electrum" (the latter featuring his new girl band 3rd Eye Girl), they're pretty fantastic]
 I had so much music of his that I had to get an iPod, something I fought against for years. Currently, the only music of his that I have on there are Purple Rain tracks and his two new albums.


I have Prince, ultimately, to thank for my blogging. When I began all this, I joined a messageboard site so I could learn about him from his knowledgeable, more experienced fanbase. I gained some notoriety for my passionate posts, but over time, I felt like that wasn't enough space. So I started a blog where I could document album reviews and miletones I made with Prince.


Google "DreamyPopRoyalty" and you'll find my old postings.
[broken down, that's how I feel about Prince... "Dreamy" is his spell-binding aura, "Pop" is one of many genres he covers and "Royalty" speaks for itself]
I don't discuss Prince nearly as much as I used to between 2007-2010 [aka "the Honeymoon period"], but when something newsworthy happens, I will bring it up ;)
http://dreamypoproyalty.wordpress.com/tag/prince/


Coming Soon


The movie that put Robert Downey Jr. on my radar

13. Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

Code-name: NRVS
(as seen on Cameron's license plate)

[my favorite quote of the whole movie, lol]

Writer/Director: John Hughes
Type: Brat Pack high school dramedy

Cast:
Ferris Bueller- Matthew Broderick
Cameron Frye- Alan Ruck
Sloane Peterson- Mia Sara
Jeanie Bueller- Jennifer Grey
Principal Ed Rooney- Jeffrey Jones
Grace- Edie McClurg
Mr. Bueller- Lyman Ward
Mrs. Bueller- Cindy Pickett
[Honorable Mentions]
Economics Teacher- Ben Stein
Junkie at Police Station- Charlie Sheen

Notable Nomination:
Golden Globe- Best Actor (comedy/musical)- Matthew BroderickWrite-up:

Opening Thoughts

Really closing in on the end here...
Of the 12 remaining, all but 4 are personal favorites of mine.
The other 4: I'd seen within the past 3 years that impressed me so much I couldn't not include them. And yeah, a couple of them were influenced by other people who claimed they deserved Oscars or described them as "sleepers" that gained notoriety as the years have gone by.

In this case of "Ferris Bueller"... I don't remember the logistics of how it came to my attention, when and why. I don't even remember if it was my first or 2nd John Hughes film... It's just always been a personal favorite, always worth a revisit when nothing else is on TV.
Seriously, it is on TV so often I never bothered getting it on DVD even though it's only $7.50.

Directing and Casting

John Hughes will get his due for sure in my blog because I'm a huge fan of his movies.
Not so much to the point I'd literally seen every one, but I'm working on it.

He's known for working with a certain group of actors and interestingly, "Ferris Bueller" doesn't fit into this dynamic at all. The closest connection we have to the Brat Pack is Charlie Sheen (his brother Emilio turned down the role of Cameron as did Anthony Michael Hall, for the same reason as "Pretty in Pink"-- didn't want to be typecast).

He's also known for always setting his movies in Chicago and having "Shermer" in some context. In this case, I believe it's the name of the town.
Supposedly, this movie was his love letter to the city, containing famous landmarks like the Sears Tower, attractions like the Art Institute of Chicago... even a local parade (Von Steuben Day Parade) featured in one of the film's most iconic scenes.

As Emma Stone called it in "Easy A," that "musical number for no apparent reason."
http://moviegoerconfessions.blogspot.com/2014/04/32-easy-2010.html
...I'm sure the Channel Awesome people would consider it a "big-lipped alligator moment"

So many big names auditioned for the title role (Rob Lowe, John Cusack, Jim Carrey, Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise, Eric Stoltz, RDJ)... I'd be curious to see Downey's version of Bueller (for my personal reasons obviously but also to see him have a GOOD role in an 80's movie)... even then, I wouldn't change any of the casting choices for this movie.

The key with Ferris was getting a guy who was charming and easy on the eyes. Exactly why John Hughes wanted Matthew Broderick: he made this character likeable.
Previous to this film, Matthew and Alan Ruck were in a stage of production of "Bilouxi Blues" together and when it came to finding Cameron, Matthew recommended Alan Ruck without hesitation because they got along so well. John Hughes had previously seen him at a "Breakfast Club" audition for the role of John Bender.

As for Sloane Peterson, Ferris's girlfriend, Molly Ringwald auditioned but missed out on the part because Mia Sara (who'd had few other roles since) had the special something John Hughes wanted for the part.
Matthew Broderick had charm, Mia Sara had elegance... funny enough, she was the only member of the trio who was a teenager.

I would have figured that Jennifer Grey did this before "Dirty Dancing" because it made more sense for her to play an antagonist after being such a goody-toe-shoes... but nope, the opposite is true and for me, it's still hard to believe it's the same person playing both these roles. I can't help but feel bad for her throughout this, particularly when she calls the cops, asking for help and they're more concerned about her "dying" brother than her safety. Imagine a slasher film with that scenario, the inane possibilities!

Ultimately, though, she does come around and decides to be the bigger person. Then again, someone had to put an end to Ed Rooney's manhunt.
Writing and Improvising

John Hughes wrote the "first draft" of the script in 6 days, but according to some behind-the-scenes gossip, this film's production was a particularly stressful one: both for him and the cast. Before the edits, the film ran for 2 hours and 45 minutes (roughly an hour longer than the final product). Even while they were shooting, he'd be doing all kinds of rewrites... what can you say? Either you view him negatively or consider the possibility he might be a genius... and as is often the case, geniuses can be difficult to work with.

On the plus side, this made room for some kick-ass improvisations.

Probably this movie's most underappreciated is Edie McClug, unforgettable as Principal Ed Rooney's secretary. Someone as rabid about catching Ferris as Ed Rooney (almost like Captain Ahab crazy), they need someone to humor them and at least try to keep them in line. She got her "training" at the Groundlings, a notable LA-based improv group who generated stars like dozens of SNL alums, Jon Lovitz... even Mr. Miyagi himself, Pat Morita.
Her best line in this movie: adding "they think he's a righteous dude" to the end of her laundry list of cliques that adore Ferris.
Just a great dynamic: her and Ed Rooney.

Another scene-stealer is, naturally, Ben Stein as the economics professor.
The roll-call scene was in the script, but his lecture on voo-doo economics and the Hawley-Smoot Tariff... that was all improvised on the spot. John Hughes simply told him to give a lecture, putting his economics degree to good use.
Very briefly in my 11th grade Social Studies class, my professor brought up the Hawley-Smoot Tariff, namedropping the movie in the process.

The best that Matthew Broderick came with [to the best of my knowledge]... "Never had one lesson," playing the clarinet badly. Emma Stone did better on that guitar in "Easy A" :P not that it was meant to be any good.

I suppose you could also say that Cameron's "Mr. Peterson" impression was an improvisation since he decided to base the voice on someone he and Matthew got to know quite well at their previous gig: Gene Saks (their "Bilouxi Blues" director).

Analyze This

Movies came up a couple times in my Psychology class in 12th grade.
We were talking about Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis model, which consisted of the ID, ego and superego.
In layman's terms, I guess, ego is the individual with the superego and ID being the angel and devil on the individual's shoulders instructing him what to do and what not to do.

Case in point: Ferris Bueller is the ID in the situation, wanting to go all out on this day off, not worrying about the consequences and such.
Cameron is the superego, which constantly bears the norms of society in mind and prefers to stay within those guidelines.

Fascinating stuff... and definitely an interesting way to look at this movie differently.
Sadly, for the record, I'm more of a Cameron than a Ferris, but that's probably a good thing... right?
Highlights

This are so many details to love about this movie it's hard to know where to begin. A lot of them are the little things. Certain quotes, certain pieces of music...

The most notable pieces of music:

• "Danke Schoen"- featured 4 times throughout the movie almost like it was a running joke or an undercurrent theme
• [what I call] Ferris's theme, "Oh Yeah" by Yello. (really no intelligible lyrics to speak off, but the "chicacha" when the music disappears... it's just oddly memorable)
• The Dream Academy's instrumental cover of The Smiths' "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" that plays during the museum scene... it just stirs me up inside, so beautiful and a perfect companion for this scene

During the trio's trek through Chicago, we see all kinds of good stuff. I love the Sears tower scene where Ferris says "anything looks peaceful from 1,353 feet" and Cameron's like "I think I see my dad..."
I just learned a couple years ago (as did a lot of other pop culture buffs) that they filmed at an actual Chicago Cubs game and it took place June 5 1985.
The Museum has no dialogue, just the music, but nonetheless one of the most powerful moments in the movie. Cameron having that existential moment with "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat.

Then there's the Frye household, which had been put on the market multiple times. The previous time I took note of a couple years ago, it was for $1.65M.
If I could afford, I think I'd be interested in taking it, even though the 1961 Ferrari GT250 doesn't come with it.
I remember hearing how much people freaked out about its ultimate fate in the movie, the Porsche from "Risky Business" still fresh in their minds... the reassurance came that it wasn't a real Ferrari, but a modified MG sports car.

Early on, what set this movie apart for me: Ferris Bueller breaking the 4th wall, talking to the audience (so much comedic gold there!), simply because it was something I'd never seen before.
It's part of the reason why Zack Morris from "Saved by the Bell" was based on this character because he did the same thing throughout the series.

Then there were a few random moments I can't help but enjoy every time.

• Cameron muttering "Ferris Bueller, you're my hero" after he almost drowns in a pool in a catatonic state after finding the Ferrari had over 3,000 miles on it (curse those valets! j/k, they were freaking hilarious)
• Jeanie ninja-kicking Rooney after discovering him in the house-- priceless
• the entire police station scene!

Jeanie finally gets a chance to air all her grievances and who better to listen than a total stranger.

It's well known that Charlie Sheen stayed awake for 48 hours straight to get the druggie look he has in his cameo. After his 2012 meltdown, I haven't been the biggest fan of his, but I still enjoy his 80's contributions. Especially in this small role. He's exactly what Jeanie needs: a sympathetic ear, but also someone to tell her like it is.

For whatever reason, one quote always stuck with me. He asks her name and she says "It's Jeanie, but my friends call me Shauna" and in the background we hear an echo "Shauna!" from what sounds like a 1950's quartet.

Whenever we hear the name Shauna spoken, my sister and I echo that one line.

And it's strange... such a random quote that has no bearing on the plot whatsoever :P

And despite all the comedic elements, we have a lot seriousness thrown in between so we get an education as well as a good time.
I'm not just talking about Ferris's "How to Fake Out Your Parents" monologue, but what's immediately after. Talking about his dislike of isms and he quotes John Lennon:

"'I don't believe in Beatles. I just believe in me.' Good Point there. After all he was the walrus... I could be the walrus." [hmm... John Hughes was a noted Beatles fan. I wonder if that's the reason Anthony Michael Hall did the 'walrus' line in "The Breakfast Club"]and of course the most poignant line at the beginning and end of the movie:

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

15. Beverly Hills Cops (1984)

Code-name: Red Meat

(the quote in question will come later on, no worries)

Director: Martin Brest (other credits includes Al Pacino's Oscar winning "Scent of a Woman" and the ill-fated Bennifer flick "Gigli")

Composer: Harold Faltermeyer

Type: cop film, dramedy, 80's classic

Cast:
Detective Axel Foley- Eddie Murphy
Inspector Todd- Gilbert R. Hill
Detective Billy Rosewood- Judge Reinhold
Sgt. Taggart- John Ashton
Victor Maitland- Steven Berkoff
Lt. Bogomil- Ronny Cox
Jeffrey- Paul Reiser
Jenny Summers-Lisa Eilbacher
Serge- Bronson Pinchot

Notable Win and Nominations:
Grammy- Best Album of Original TV/Movie score
nomination- OSCAR- Best Original Screenplay (Daniel Petrie Jr and Danilo Bach)
nomination- Golden Globe- Best Picture (comedy/musical)
nomination- Golden Globe- Best Actor in comedy/musical- Eddie Murphy

Write-up:

First ImpressionAgain, I don't know just how this movie came to my attention. I just remember picking it up at Blockbuster, interested in seeing a good comedy.
Eddie Murphy was always good for a few laughs and he did not disappoint. If I had to guess, this was after "Mulan" and one of the "Doctor Dolittle" movies... so the early 2000's for sure.
The only other thing that stood out to me was Billy Rosewood. The dude was just hilarious to me... still is, actually.

PlotEddie Murphy plays Axel Foley, a brash talented young detective in Detroit. After the opening credits, we catch up with him as he pulls off a drug bust... he succeeds, but in the process, a lot of public property was damaged. One of many things going array in his career.
The latest thing: one of Axel's friends is murdered outside his apartment after they had a night of drinking and gallivanting and his superior, Inspector Todd, forbids him from going near the case.

So what does Axel do? :-P he interprets the orders as "I don't want you doing this case in Detroit"... so he goes out to Beverly Hills to investigate on what little his friend Mikey told him about the latest job he got hooked up with. He sees their old friend Jenny Summers, asking about the guy who hired Mickey, and he winds up marching to his office. Only to get arrested by the authorities after he makes somewhat of a scene.

The Beverly Hills police decide to keep an eye on him to make sure he stays away from this case. While they fail at THAT, Axel cracks the case open and winds up getting help from the first team sent to "watch" him: the duo of Rosewood & Taggart.

If loving this movie wasn't enough incentive, hearing that those two guys would be back in the sequel did it for me. Whether the sequel is better, I'm not sure. I haven't seen either in a while, but both have great points worth a revisit.

Casting

Obviously the biggest part of this movie's success was Eddie Murphy. Not just because he made Axel Foley one cool cat, but he could improvise like nobody's business. In a way, I guess you could say he was an uncredited writer on this movie because they sometimes used his ideas when they were stuck on how to proceed on a given scene.
The most notable bit of improvisation: the "super cops" scene where Axel tells this story about how Rosewood/Taggart apprehended two thugs at a strip club. Eddie Murphy had this regiment of not doing any drugs, including coffee, while working on this movie. But after working long hours on this, he relented and started drinking coffee. The state he's in during the "super cops"  scene is the result of his first caffeine buzz on set.

It's hard for me to believe that Sylvester Stallone was originally cast for the lead and people like Scott Caan, Richard Pryor, Al Pacino and Mickey Rouke were also considered... for me, that just wouldn't work. It might not have been Eddie Murphy's first role, but it was certainly a "break-out" role for his career.
Part of the reason I wanted to see "Trading Places" and later on, "48 hours," which to me was a gross disappointment. The character he played there was no Axel Foley :P he didn't even get his own theme music (more on that later).

As for everyone else, I think I watched the 3rd Beethoven movie because Judge Reinhold was in it, but I have no memory of it, so it probably wasn't all that great. I think his first role was "Fast Times at Ridgemont HIgh," which again, I have no memory of, but I'm willing to go in for a rewatch because it IS a classic.
Maybe I was just expecting another brat pack-type 80's music, which it really wasn't.

Bronson Pinchot, who plays one of the art gallery employees Serge was in some TGIF sitcom... maybe it was "Step by Step," but again, it wasn't memorable to me. He's a good looking guy and this small role was memorable.

Steven Berkoff played Victor Maitland, a gentleman with quiet confidence and dastardliness, almost in the style of Alan Rickman in "Die Hard."
I didn't think of him much more than just another good movie villain. Then I saw him in "Under the Cherry Moon," a movie Prince starred in and directed in 1986. He and Jerome Benton (Morris Day's partner-in-crime in "Purple Rain") played gigalos that got rich by sleeping with wealthy divorced women. Then Christopher Tracy (Prince's character) falls in love with Mary Sharon (Kristen Scott Thomas's first role), initially after going after her for her $50M trust fund. She falls in love with him too, her daddy (Berkoff) gets angry (he wants her to marry another guy so their families can combine their fortunes) and *SPOILER ALERT* has him killed.

Sure, it's not the best written or directed movie, but killing him off was just senseless to me. But unlike "Less than Zero," I have yet to rewrite a more satisfying ending.
So yeah, I have a small vendetta against Steven Berkoff because of that movie (despite the fact he didn't pull the trigger himself... but then again James Spader only supplied Julian with the drugs that killed him at the end of "Less than Zero" and I have yet to get over that).... the fact "Beverly Hills Cop" came out before "Under the Cherry Moon" doesn't make me feel better about this... Steven Berkoff getting killed at the end of this movie only to come back to life as another character who kills Prince playing a role other than himself.

...all the more reason for me to prep myself with spoilers before seeing the next Avengers movie. If Ultron kills Tony Stark, there's no way I'm getting over that.

Anyway... back to business...


Music
I'll get the "small fries" out the way first.
A lot of great music in this movie, first of all.

The biggest stand-outs are the use of The Pointer Sisters and Patti LaBelle tracks. They feel like part of this movie's identity especially since they're used during the scenes with Axel Foley is in Beverly Hills.
As a little side-note, it was kinda cool on the part of the crew to show a lot of extras and scenery from Detroit and Beverly Hills, giving us a scene of the place Axel Foley is from and the dramatic difference between that and Beverly Hills. I guess you could say it's a "fish out of water" story, but Axel adapts better than anyone else I'd seen in that motif. He certainly stands out with how he looks and dresses, but gets along just fine.

One bit of music I want to draw attention to is at the strip club. The first couple times I watched this movie, I felt like it gave the strip club its own unique vibe and considering how the lyrics kept using the word "nasty" in a provocative way, it was perfect.
Years later, I found out that Prince wrote it for his girl group, Vanity 6. Once I watched the behind-the-scenes on the DVD to see if they mentioned him (I know Eddie Murphy's a big fan because he was at the red carpet for the premiere of "Purple Rain"), but they only said one of the strippers on set recommended it.

Of course, the most notable piece of music is the score. I'd mentioned Harold Faltermeyer briefly in my "Top Gun" review, but this is where he really shines. Watching the movie again just a few hours ago, I was marveling at the genius of how the music was used. Axel Foley has his own unique theme movie that's actually called "Axel F."
Critics of the 80's can nitpick all they want how cheesy it is to have this score carousing in the background, it pulls everything together. Throughout this, I took notice how it was used to paint the tone of the picture. How it explodes right off the bat and then quiets down to build the tension. Notably in one of the earlier scenes where Axel sees his apartment had been broken into, only to find it was his friend.
Then there are times where there's no music at all and it comes back to let us know that "the plot" has resumed.

And for the record, I had pieced together the main part and a few other pieces of "Axel F" on keyboard. It's just a matter of finding the right setting to get the same sound. Haven't found it yet, but then again, I only have a Yamaha.

Other Comments

Another thing I found fascinating, though somewhat disturbing: in the original script, Billy Rosewood dies in a massive chase/explosion scene. It was something Sylvester Stallone wrote but was later deemed too expensive a scene to shoot. Ultimately what saved Billy (Judge Reinhold): his chemistry with Taggart (John Ashton).
The two of them play off each other like an old married couple.

The "red meat" line; funny enough that was a scene improvised at the audition that got both of these guys their designated roles, and made it into the movie.
The set-up: Rosewood and Taggart are waiting in front of the Beverly Hills Palm Hotel for Axel to return (he was checking out a warehouse, following a lead about Mikey's murder). While killing time, we see a couple scenes of them where Billy makes a comment and we laugh at Taggart's reaction.
My favorite:
Billy (reading a magazine): Wow. You know, it says here that by the time the average American is fifty, he's got five pounds of undigested red meat in his bowels.
Taggart: Why are you telling me this? What makes you think I have any interest in that at all?
Billy: Well, you eat a lot of red meat.

GREAT chemistry between these two. Billy's the happy-go-lucky yet responsible young guy and Taggart is the stoic, by the rules, professional.

Lots of random scenes in general where things seemed so outlandish but they worked for the comedic aspects.
One priceless bit of pop culture from this movie: the banana in the tail pipe scene. Never mind that, I was bugging about the fact Axel had room service serve the cops in their stake-out unmarked car. That just blew my mind that he got away with that.
Pretty much, Axel can talk his way into anything, but getting out often proves to be the tricky part of the deal.

I also love how he starts to grow on the other cops. One of the big payoffs of the "super cops" dialogue: after Taggart blows up Axel's story with the truth, Axel explains how his story was working and they messed up; we get a smile from their boss, Lieutenant Bogomil.

A lesson that Taggart made sure NOT to forget at the end of the movie after this big shoot-out scene.
Speaking of which, Billy has some great comedic moments in these final moments. Firstly when he barely gets to run the Miranda rights past the gunmen at Victor Maitland's estate and then he tells Taggart how their predicament is reminding him of the end of "Butch Cassidy"... one of two reasons I wound up watching that movie ;)

As for the sequels: I'd seen both of them. I have next to no memory of the third, only that Billy returns but not Taggart and Serge gets a little extra scene time.
As for the 2nd one, it's like with the "Karate Kid," it stands up to the original really well, but I wouldn't necessary say it surpasses it. What I found hilarious about it: they reveal how Billy is a bit of a gun enthusiast with Axel and Taggart worrying that he might have issues with the amount of firepower he possesses.

"Billy, we gotta talk" is the running gag throughout the 2nd half of the movie.

17. The Land Before Time (1988)

Code-name: TBLT(yeah, at this point, I just got lazy)
...and that's the last surviving sketch I did when I was younger of these iconic characters (plus two notable "guest" characters from last in the series)

Director: Don Bluth
Composer: James Horner

Cast:
Littlefoot- Gabriel Damon
Cera- Candace Huston
Ducky- Judith Barsi (RIP 1978-1988)
Petrie- Will Ryan
Spike- Frank Welker
Littlefoot's mother- Helen Shaver
Narrator/Cera's dad/Rooter- Pat Hingle (RIP 2009)

...oops, my mistake, he played Cera's dad in the sequels...
Burke Byrnes played him in this movie and had only one line "Come Cera, Three-Horns never play with long necks"

Write-up:

Earliest Memories and Nostalgia

This movie and I go so far back that I don't remember the impact so much as what I've been told about the impact it had on me.
For starters, I was under the impression that this movie came out in 1989 because I remember that I was 3 when it was my favorite movie. To date myself even further, I'm told that I rented this from Blockbuster so many times that one of my grandmas bought the VHS for me. To this day, I still have it, and the last time I played it (2 years ago to prep for this entry)... well, it's still in perfect working condition.

Bits and pieces of images have stayed with me throughout the years. Some good, some bad. Two scenes in particular, I remember my reactions  to them so clearly.

Spoiler Alert
1) the T-rex sequence
[interestingly, Steven Spielberg approached Don Bluth, insisting he remove 10 minutes of finished film footage because it was deemed too intense for kids... despite his reservations, he followed his advice]

2) the aftermath of 1)- :sob: the death of Littlefoot's mother

Funny how when you're a kid, the things that stick with you the most are the things that either scared the beejezuz out of you or they make you cry your bloody eyes out...

Anyone who read my "Neverending Story" entry (I'll post the link for those curious or hadn't yet) knows how much Artax's death almost ruined the movie for me
http://moviegoerconfessions.blogspot.com/2013/05/80-neverending-story-1984.html

The last time I watched this movie, this particularly sad sequence was nowhere near as hard on me as Artax's death scene.
Heck, Littlefoot's grieving period lasted maybe 10 minutes and I was over it within the next 30 seconds.

But that was a rough scene to watch when I was a kid. I distinctly remember asking my mom  “why did she have to die?”and she kinda explained to me that parents can't always be together with their kids, it's just the way it works sometimes...

Somehow, I get the feeling that was enough reassurance for me that I was able to move past that.

Looking back on this movie after all these years, it's still a treasure. Despite the scary and sad moments sprinkled in between, it has a certain charm you simply don't see in movies anymore. It touched on some parts of me I hadn't gotten in touch with in years. The characters are lovable and memorable. The score is compelling... but for nostalgia's sake, I was balling my eyes out when the end credits came on that last time. :P

"If we hold on together" has a special place in my heart where I worked hard to learn how to play it on keyboard (all from memory), it was the first place I hear the name Diana Ross...

don't worry, I was okay after the first 30, er, maybe 60 seconds...

I actually I think I was more sad because the credits meant the movie was over and I was having SUCH a good time that I hated to see it end.

But gotta love the score in this movie (the fact James Horner stuck around for the first couple sequels was something  I never took for granted). After the song ends, more of the score plays to close things out.

One more funny moment before I go into more detail:
On the VHS, there was one commercial before the movie starts.
Pizza Hut being awesome lets you know that you're in the 80's. Seeing it again after all these years was such fun, like it was just yesterday I last watched it.

Basically, it's about a kid going to a friend's birthday party, his mom telling him via voiceover how to behave. OMG, thank God for YouTube :P
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4065smJLXk

The Storybtw, I'm willing to forgive those who didn't grow up with this movie, but for those who haven't seen it at all... shame on you

[Some impressive trivia]
Spielberg & Lucas were originally going for their own version of the "Rite of Spring" sequence from Disney's "Fantasia" but to make it more appealing for their young target audience, they changed gears and decided to make the characters talk

That was one of my favorite parts of "Fantasia"... up until the tar pit scene... that's hard to watch :(
anyway, moving on...

As a once-budding paleontologist (my career choice when I was in 2nd grade.. don't know why I didn't follow through with that aside from the fact all the dinosaurs had been dug up), I'd have to guess this takes place somewhere between 65-70 million years ago.

Plant life on prehistoric Earth was dying, so the dinosaurs are working their way towards the fabled "Great Valley."
In the opening act, we see a couple of our main characters hatch from their eggs. With Littlefoot's arrival, things get pretty dramatic in a hurry. Firstly, he's the only surviving egg in his family and secondly, because he almost gets taken by an oviraptor (a species that steals and eats eggs). But this is quickly alleviated by the cuteness factor :P not as cute as Ducky hatching, mind you, but still too cute.

Early on, we spend a lot of time with Littlefoot's herd where his mother finds a tree-star for him and tells him how they're going to get to the Great Valley. Along the way, he meets Cera and they have a good time playing until they're both alerted to the fact dinosaurs keep to their own kind.
That night, they wind up together again after chasing the same frog, but this gives way to the epic T-rex fight scene. Not only does Littlefoot lose his mother (:sob:), but "a "clash of continents" earthquake separates him from his grandparents and Cera from her family.

As I mentioned above, Littlefoot's grieving period lasts for a good 10 minutes. I never recalled it being so long and for a kid's movie (yeah, despite all the other dramatic things taking place), that's kinda depressing. We do get one moment of cuteness to break up the tension a bit, a bunch of pterodon babies fighting over a berry :P

Finding his tree-star again helps him remember his mother's directions to the Great Valley, convincing him to press forward, but we don't get taken out of this stupor until we meet Ducky. Shortly again, we meet Pterie, another pterodon who apparently can't fly... yeah, go figure...

Cera joins up with them later on as well, but not before she confronts the T-Rex, believed to be dead until her ramming shenanigans wake the beast up. Naturally, she uses this insistence (with her own edits obviously) to her advantage, easily impressing Littlefoot's new friends. In the reenactment, she accidentally launches Ducky several yards away from them, but she comes back with another dinosaur she met after he hatches.
So with Spike the stegosaurus, our quintet is complete.

Through the course of the rest of the movie, Littlefoot and Cera have their power struggles, vying for leader of the "herd" and deciding what their next route should be.
To this end, Littlefoot finds out he was wrong about the T-Rex being dead and Cera winds up taking everyone else the wrong direction. Luckily for Spike, Ducky and Petrie, Littlefoot helped them get out of the :gasp: tar pit they were in, which leads to some good laughs and ultimately putting Cera in her place.

The final obstacle: taking out the bad guy, which they do through a pretty elaborate plan that plenty of "edge of your seat" moments.
Petrie learns how to fly (yeah!! one of the best moments in animation history) and the sequence ends with the T-Rex dragging him into the water after the others knock him into the deep end with a boulder.

Now that I think about it, that's another moment I remember from my younger days... maybe even from the first time seeing it. There was this heavy moment of sadness, quickly followed by absolute JOY when it's revealed he survived.
Yeah!!

Littlefoot finds himself discouraged again, gets advice from his mother's spirit (this time in the form of a brontosaurus shaped cloud), which winds up leading him TO the Great Valley.
That reveal scene, how the sun undoes the shadows little by little and in one fell swoop, the entire valley is revealed, the music swelling with TRIUMPH.
YEAH!!
Thinking about it now, I'm getting all kinds of feels... it really is spectacular, particularly for 80's animation... not that I'm mocking my favorite decade, but considering this was done on paper... yeah, it's amazing.

Then we get final words from our narrator and... it's all over :sob:

The Characters

Doing this movie with talking dinosaurs was a good start... but without colorful characters, a movie like this just wouldn't work. Especially not in the world of animation.

Heck, these characters became so iconic and beloved that they launched a franchise of direct-to-VHS releases... granted, they went downhill within four years and none have the same *glow* as the original... just couldn't get enough of them.

I'll go in classic order :P

We have our starring apatosaurus/brontosaurus
[the story goes that brontosaurus was the original name, but palentologists had already discovered a similar longnecked dinosaur that they had dubbed Apatosaurus... I'm sorry, I'm gonna use brontosaurus because I just prefer the way that name sounds]

Littlefoot

my favorite character of the quintet :D
I can't quite explain why (or why I loved brontosaurus), it's just always been that way. But I'm guessing most of it is because he's the leader, one of the smartest members of the group, and brave... so many good qualities.

So naturally with all the arguments he and Cera have had over the years, I'm going to take his side. Because 9 times out of 10, he's usually right and she just wants to be right however wrong she is about a situation.

Interestingly, while watching this movie back, things were a little different. Things used to be black and white, but as stubborn as Cera can be, he had this share of stubbornness here too. Which is understandable with all the stuff going on, but it surprised on one or two occasions where he came almost bossy, although not as bad as...

Cera the triceratops...
where do I begin?

She certainly gets her stubbornness and attitude from her father, but that's not enough to sway my opinion. Littlefoot's the voice of reason in the group whereas Cera tends to make snap judgements and stuck with them until proven otherwise. Throughout this movie, she is a bit of a pain, being antagonizing and all that.
I think the only time I was really in her corner was in third movie, particularly when she chooses to stay Littlefoot's friend despite her father's reservations.
One fun fact: she was the only character who maintained the same voice from this movie across a couple sequels... namely all the good ones (per my opinion II-IV).

Ducky the sauralopus...
everyone thought parasauralopus, but one of my dinosaur posters had a species that looked much more similar to her.
Speaking of voice actors, for a quick moment, Judith Barsi's last role was in another Don Bluth animated film, a little movie called "All Dogs Go to Heaven." I didn't discover the tragedy that befell her until a couple years ago, just before I saw this movie again, and I delighted in every moment ("All Dogs Go to Heaven" on the other hand, the last 10 minutes including the credits got the waterworks going a bit).

She and Petrie have the youngest mindset among the characters.
No matter what's going on, she's always the optimist. She's ridiculously adorable (I literally shrunked up, unable to withstand her cuteness this previous watch), and her heart's always in the right place. Kudos for bringing her in to lift up the mood of this movie at its halfway point because that was certainly called for.

Petrie the pterodon...
His voice was done by Will Ryan in their film (as much as Don Bluth staple as Dom Deluise) and Jeff Bennett had done it ever since. That's of some comfort to me, as someone who flips out when voices change actors. A little consistency is very nice.

I always found him hilarious, giving me the most laughs throughout this movie. Kudos to Will Ryan for this voice that always has me in stitches. I'm still not sure if it's what comes out of his mouth or how it comes out of his mouth :P he's just so quirky and lovable.
He and Ducky balance quite well with him being the pessimist to Ducky's optimist in this movie. 
Of course it's hilarious when jokes are made about him not being able to fly, but when he finally does... again, what a great moment.

Spike the stegosaurus...
my 2nd least favorite character.

Out of no fault of his own, mind you, I just find kinda hard to connect when he's the only one who doesn't speak and his running gag is his insatiable appetite for food. There's less personality to work with, but throughout the sequels he does have his moments, when the words (maybe two EVER, lol) come out and when his loyalty for his friends and family shines through.

The Sequels and Other Legacies

I stuck it out with this series for a very long time and I'm surprised how many volumes it got up to. Finally got some closure on that because I hadn't checked in since I heard of a title that mentioned "Tinysauruses".

The last one I saw was The Great Longneck Migration, which was X... I'd missed 3 other sequels... even though Channel Awesome vlog personality & Don Bluth fanatic Marzgurl hated on most of the sequels, it sounds like I really didn't miss anything.

As I mentioned, my favorites were the first three sequels. I remember seeing II at Blockbuster, thrilled, and I enjoyed it so much I picked up every sequel since... sometimes without even renting them.

I was so fond of the series, great times watching them 8-)
My favorite was always part IV, 100% because of the designated "guest character" they introduced. I loved that Littlefoot met another longneck to play with and I loved Ali. Such a great character. The gist was that her migrating herd was passing through around a time Littlefoot's grandpa got sick and only a flower from their native land could cure him. But it was dubbed too dangerous to return to.
LIttlefoot's determined to go and asks Ali to tell him how to go there. Because she's shy around his friends (having been with only longnecks her whole life), she feels more comfortable if just the two of them go. But of course, it can't just be that way. Everyone winds up going to the Land of Mists one way or another.
So yeah, one of my fondest childhood memories was watching this movie countless times.
The song "It Takes All Sorts" is very nostalgic for me (since seeing the first trailer on III's VHS), but even that doesn't equate to the power of "If we hold on together."

Yeah, for whatever reason, they decided throughout the series to have three songs per movie. Great at first, but even I got tired of it after a while... especially after the first three sequels.

I forgot what age I was, but I wrote Universal Studios saying how I was a fan of the series and they actually replied to me. Even include a plastic figurine of Spike, which is in my tub full of dinosaurs in the basement, and dozens of sketches of the characters (I might have included one of my many drawings in the letter). The letter itself, I lost track of some time ago..
It also gave me a quick description of the next two movies, one where Chomper makes a second appearance and the other where Cera's nieces appear.

So among my questions, I asked if we'd see the characters as teenagers. Being with the series as long as I was, they gave me a BS answer... "if you continue to watch the movies, you will see them grow up with you"... they never got any older.

They did, however, go through new management starting from V onward.
Yep, the voice acting talents of Scott McAfee, Candace Huston, and Heather Hogan were gone... replaced with Thomas Dekker (one of several voice actors to play Littlefoot over the years), Anndi McAfee and Aria Noelle Curzon...

Regardless, I did stuck it out for a long time... I own V, VI, VII and VIII that I got on DVD... I rented IX and X, and more or less gave up. I found other interests an such, it happens.
I just didn't connect with them with the new cast the same way.

I also had one of the computer games growing up. It went through the chronology of the movie, scene by scene, and had all kinds of mini-games.

Coming Soon

Gonna stay animated for another week.
This time to my favorite Disney movie.