DVD Project Part 6

Between the long weekends for the holidays and having a 24-hour bug I’ve managed to move through a lot of DVD in the past couple of weeks.

ALF: Seasons 3 and 4

Season 3 Highlights: There aren’t many, this entire season was kind of biding time until the baby was born. My favorite episodes are Hideaway (one of Willie’s coworkers is in the witness protection program) and Running Scared (ALF is blackmailed for being an illegal alien).
Season 4 Highlights: Season 4 has some great episodes, including my favorite, Hooked on a Feeling (ALF gets addicted to cotton). Fever is also pretty fantastic (ALF’s earth impaired immune system leads to him catching a cold).

I can’t remember the last time I watched season 4 of ALF. I kept waiting for the show to jump the shark, and halfway through the fourth season I decided that it was indiscernible. With a show as “out there” as ALF, there was never a real indicator of shark jumping – even when, at the end of season 2, Kate gets pregnant there is no Cousin Oliver feel about it. I went so far as to say I didn’t think that it ever really did jump the shark, because the entire concept was a little post shark jump.

And then the episode I Gotta Be Me came on, the penultimate episode in the series. Lynn, the Tanner’s now college-aged daughter, wants to go away for the weekend with her boyfriend (who is a mime, by the way), and her parents pretty much lose their minds, concerned about Lynn’s ability to make “good” and “responsible” decisions. Now… this episode aired in 1990. Lynn has been in college for over a year now. She’s 19 or 20 years old. Why are we having this episode now? Why didn’t we have the Lynn sex-scare episode while she was still in high school? If this series had been longer, this is where I would have said it jumped the shark.

ALF has what could be considered the worst series finale in all of television,* with our little alien friend being taken captive by the Alien Task Force and the viewer being left to believe that he’s going to be dissected. Apparently this is because it wasn’t supposed to be the last episode, it was supposed “to be continued,” and there was to be a second half to wrap things up. Instead viewers get a terrible made-for-TV movie which had none of the Tanner family in it. I don’t own it, and won’t be buying it.

Bad Influence: James Spader at his hottest, Rob Lowe at the height of his “bad boy” phase,** Single White Female for men… or an early cautionary tale about identity theft, your call. The only thing that really dates this movie, outside of the clothing and furniture (and oh, my god, the computer that James Spader uses at work), is that after Rob Lowe steals everything James Spader owns and sells it he calls him to let him know there is a box of stuff he couldn’t sell. Among these items? Spader’s passport. A great movie.

Bambi:
me: So, Bambi’s dad was kind of a deadbeat. I mean, the kid didn’t even know who he was!
Alison: Like Rudolph’s?
me: Well, not as emotionally abusive, just emotionally unavailable.
Alison: Which is just as bad in some ways
me: Seriously. THESE ARE KIDS MOVIES?
Alison: Back in ye olden Disney times fathering wasn’t very important
me: Teachin’ ‘em the hard knocks, yo. I suppose, he was a “captain of industry” of the deer world, what with being the great prince of the forest. Which, if we’re assigning royalty to forest animals, I think bears probably come in first, don’t you? They are decidedly pointier.
Alison: Are there any wild cats in that forest? Really, I’d say that moss should win. It makes oxygen.
me: Not as big as bears – bobcats and the like. Not pine trees?
Alison: Oh. Hm. Okay, maybe. Ents. That’s what bambi needs, more ents.
me: Fewer dying parents, that’s what Bambi needs.

Barefoot in the Park: This is one of my mother’s favorite movies. Jane Fonda is so young that my husband didn’t recognize her. Spencer hates Neil Simon plays, so he didn’t really watch it. Solid, funny, Robert Redford is handsome, and doesn’t look like he’s made of tanned cow hide.

Batman (1966): Someone on Miso rated this movie with two stars, and I can only think that they had to be born after 1990. This movie is so astoundingly campy that I don’t know how you can not love it. Bruce Wayne is the worst detective in the world. There is an actual round, hissing bomb! Adam West, he was the best Batman.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks: My love for Angela Lansbury is strong, but this movie is LONG, guys. Did they think that kids were going to sit through this? Even animated lions that play soccer and twee children with English accents can’t hold me attention for this long, guv’nuh. However, you have to give props to a children’s movie that not only has Nazis but a witch who brings to life an army of hollow armor. This is appropriate viewing, obviously.

Beowulf and Grendel: This poem should not be a movie. My husband loves this epic,*** but even he wants to drive the “please stop trying to make this happen” bus. (I think Angelina Jolie as a CGI monster in the even newer version really pushed him over the edge. [Editor’s Note: There has never been a good movie of this poem. I have seen them. I took a Beowulf class that …that made me watch. It made. Me. Watch.]) This movie is terrible, but I do appreciate that Gerard Butler*** as Beowulf is, occasionally, sarcastic and hilarious. (He is blonde in this movie and it’s all kinds of wrong.)

Two more things:

1. I joined Miso to track all of my viewing, not just the project.
2. I have decided I get one movie veto and one full series veto. I’ll explain this more when I get to the items that I am actually skipping.

*Mad About You is a strong contender, too.
**Remember when Rob Lowe made those sex tapes, and one of the girls was 16? No? That happened, look it up.
***I like this epic, but someone I loved and respected a great deal loved this epic a great deal, and it makes me angry when I think people don’t do it justice. [Editor’s Note: Not in fact about me, *although, I will pretend it also applies.]