I almost expect people to say, “Aren’t you tired of watching T.V. yet?”
Let me assure you, dear readers, the answer is now and forever will be NO.
Real time television, new episodes of current shows, the end of the holidays (and oh so many long weekends) and my actually leaving the house to be social have slowed my roll a little around these parts, and for that I apologize.*
Bruiser
This movie was painful. It tried too hard to labor over a point that was easily made. He wakes up wearing a white/faceless mask because he is so mild-mannered that he could start killing people and on one would even notice! So he starts killing all the people who don’t give him the recognition and respect he deserves! There are a lot of other movies that deal with this subject far more deftly. “Underdog loses his mind” can be seen in Falling Down, “guy who can get away with murder” can be seen in American Psycho. Done and done. Also the whole, “Waaaaah, everyone treats me like crap” deal makes me tired. See Bad Influence for a proper treatment of this fragile, white, male ego nursing.
The ‘Burbs
Tom Hanks should have kept making movies like this. Like this, and The Money Pit, Turner and Hooch, and Big. (But not Splash.) He had to go and make Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, and start taking himself too seriously, and now we’re not allowed to laugh anymore. Way to go, Tom Hanks, you murdered laughter by becoming a dramatic actor. You left us with Seth Rogen and later-day Judd Apatow, and for that I can never forgive you.
I saw this movie in the theater when it came out, and I have loved it ever since. I can recite entire conversations verbatim. It is hysterically funny and really captures the spirit of the suburbs in the 80’s before they became another way for Americans to live next door to people they didn’t have to, or want to, talk to.
Bubba Ho-Tep
So, I don’t like Elvis at all. (It’s a case of classical conditioning.) I do like Bruce Campbell, and I like mummies all right, but this movie didn’t do anything for me. It was slow moving, and first-person narration in film doesn’t do a lot for me. Meh.
Blossom Seasons 1 & 2
I just bought this box set this fall and had watched it already, but I love it so much that watching it again so soon was no great sacrifice (which is a good sign with DVD’s that you own). I was the target demographic for Blossom when it came out. I was on the verge of turning 13 when it premiered, I am female, and I was a smart, sarcastic kid. (Yes, I did have an oversized, floppy, velvet hat with a large flower on it. Come at me, bro.)
Blossom’s appeal is that it’s a pretty accurate portrayal of being a teenage girl in the early 90’s. Just before the angst that made the grunge scene, and before Angela of My So Called Life captured so many of our lives in our later high school years, the first two seasons of Blossom captured the innocence that I associate with so many of my middle and high school’s firsts—first kisses, first dates, etc. More than any of this, the relationship of Blossom and Six is an almost perfect mirror for the friendships that I had in middle and high school: spending so much time together that you finished one another’s sentences, eating pizza, and talking about boys, boys, homework, and then boys again. I know it’s a huge disappointment to men everywhere, but the sleepover depiction is Blossom is about as real as it gets. We danced around, listening to the same CD or music video over and over again (or watching the same movies over and over again), ate too much junk food, and did all kinds of crazy crap to our hair and skin. And it was the best, only to later be rivaled by living in an all girls’ dormitory in college, which was a nine-month slumber party until everyone started having boys come over and sleep in their rooms.
Highlights of Blossom Seasons 1 & 2 are definitely guest star centric. Everyone who was anyone in the 1990’s was on this show. Partial list: Stephen Dorff, Estelle Getty, Will Smith, Rhea Perlman, Salt N Pepa, C+C Music Factory, Phylicia Rashad, Giovanni Ribisi, Neil Patrick Harris, Don King, David Faustino, Justin Whalin, ALF, Jane Leeves, David Cassidy, Jere Burns, Dick Clark, Dinah Manoff, Warren Littlefield, David Lascher, and Omar Gooding.
Also, the spoof they did of Madonna’s Truth or Dare was amazing. I often wonder if Madonna regrets that rockumentary, and then I remember she is Madonna and that shame and humility have no place in her life.
Next up: The Bob Newhart Show, Bullet Proof Monk, Bye Bye Birdie, and Cabin Fever. We’ll still have one season of one show in the B’s (Boy Meets World), but it still feels like progress!
*I should, maybe, do some kind of update about the shows that pack our DVRs** full during the week, but that will require some serious thought on my part.
**The only way to get HD in the town where we live is to have DVRs, we have three HD televisions and two DVRs. My exact response when I realize we needed two of them to have high def in the living room and master bedroom was to gleefully clap my hands together and whisper, “We’ll never miss a show again.”