Series 1: Alf
Season 1
As someone raised by a television in the 1980’s it should be no shock that I love the show Alf. I love the premise that an alien would crash into someone’s garage and a. they would be able to hide not only the alien but the SPACESHIP lodged in the roof and b. they would keep said alien as a member of the family. I mean, if this happened in 2011 and the family didn’t shoot the alien on sight with a gun from their in home arsenal, they would immediately call a reality television producer to sell their show. There is no privacy in America anymore, writes the blogger.
Highlights of season one include Alf falling in love with the Tanner’s teenage daughter, and their son’s food group school pageant. I still sing “Asparagus, asparagus, it sits upon your table!” and then mumble “What happened to Aunt Mable?” decades later.
I want to mention that a few weeks ago my friend, and fellow pop culture enthusiast, Kelli linked me to this blog. She thought it was hysterical, and I simply found it offensive. Not only that, but I’m actually concerned about this person, Rembert. I mean, I can understand not having seen an entire series, but to be totally in the dark about the premise of Alf? Really? Spencer is eight years younger than I am, born in 1985, and was fairly pop culturally bankrupt when we met regarding 80’s television but he knew about the show Alf. (The movie Weird Science was another matter, the fact that I didn’t pop a vessel over that is one for the record books. [Editor’s Note: I knew about it, I just hadn’t seen it.]) I am almost certain this person was raised in a closet, or a dark basement, or was home schooled in South Dakota. (His name is Rembert, this is entirely possible.)
DVD 4: Anchorman
I do not like this movie. I just don’t. No matter how many times I watch it I will probably never like it. I am an anomaly of my age group, apparently. I don’t even have serious Will Farrel issues, I just think this is a crappy movie that was made during a time when people couldn’t say no to him. Sometimes we need to say no to famous people.* It’s sad, because I love Christina Applegate and Paul Rudd.** I do not recommend this movie, unless you’re going to do a shot every time Ron Burgundy says Scotch.
DVD 5: Anything Else
I feel like I should like Woody Allen more. He’s just the kind of cerebral humor that I should be into; I mean, I’m a sarcastic, darkly humored Yankee. I’m pretty sure that having a “meh” attitude about Woody Allen puts me in danger of losing all kinds of New England credibility, but there you have it. I actually don’t remember having watched this movie before. And, as usual, it wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great (which is how I feel about most of Woody Allen’s work). Jason Biggs is affable and sympathetic as usual, and Christina Ricci makes you want to trip her… as usual. (I hate saying that, I mean, she was so great when she was a kid, but Christina Ricci fell prey to the Hollywood weight loss machine a long time ago, and I can’t watch her without reliving my years as an actively engaged bulimic and wanting to stage an intervention. It’s also hard to like someone who has a scene where the husband from Ghost Whisperer is feeling her up under the guise of a medical exam.) This film even has Stockard Channing, which is usually a game winner for me, but at the end I simply thought, “Well, check it off the list.”
DVD 6: April Fool’s Day
I saw this movie for the first time in the fourth grade at a slumber party at my own house. (You know, with the enormous, top loading VCR.) I think we’ve established that I was watching terribly inappropriate movies from a young age, but the idea that an entire gaggle of girls was allowed to hang out at my house and watch this movie when we were all nine years old was not lost on me as I re-watched it this morning while running on the elliptical like a hamster on a wheel.
It is very much a typical, 1980’s horror movie: 9 college students, isolated from help, people start dying… and everyone is trying to have sex. Along with some horror movie standard actors (including Ken Olandt of Leprechaun and Amy Steel from Friday the 13th Part 2) you have Thomas F. Wilson – none other than Biff from Back to the Future! Most of the actors in this movie are recognizable, if not famous now, so I feel like it’s worth watching if only to play, “Hey, that’s the girl from [Fill In The Blank].” But, April Fools is a pretty solid horror movie besides. Relative to the movies being released today, it’s probably a little predictable (I won’t give away the big twists here, although I think it would be forgivable given that the movie was released in 1986) but the story is good, the acting is better than most 1980’s horror movies, and at the time it was an original premise. It made me a little homesick for childhood watching it this morning and made me wish Spencer was up for watching horror movies – this is one I’d like to share with him. (Or, you know, anyone. If anyone is interested.)
Next up? Getting out of order a little and reviewing Holiday Horror movies in keeping with the season. After that, traditional holiday films, and then back for more Alf.
*Madonna, I’m looking at you. You know you wish someone had vaulted Truth or Dare and never let it out the door. We’ll touch on this again when we get to Blossom seasons 1&2 as the writers of that show did the most masterful spoof of that mess ever.
**Although, Paul? Do you have a gambling habit or something, because you will never convince me that you did My Idiot Brother for the love of the craft—the love of the money, for the blow, maybe.