2009 Summer Movies

Haven't seen Food Inc, 500 Days Of Summer, The Cove or District 9 yet, so they could make a best-of list, but for now......

The Best........

The Hurt Locker - Stunning, tense. With top of the line performances from Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie; awesome, taut direction from Kathryn Bigelow; and a bad-ass script.

Up - Beautiful. Bittersweet. Devastating. Inspiring.

The Hangover - Simply put, funny as Hells.

Star Trek - Fun, exciting - what the new Star Wars trilogy should have been. Wish George Lucas had JJ Abrahms direct the new trilogy.


The Not-So-Best......

Ice Age 3 - Pretty harmless, but pointless stuff.

GI Joe - Actually had some fun sequences, and there's a great movie to be had here, somewhere. But Tatum as Duke? Duke's not a mumbler.

Funny People - I liked the look inside of comedians lives (though we've already seen it before), and it had some funny moments, but overall, it was hard to get into. Sandler was almost impossible to like/root for, and he did a great job actually with the role, but still, he was just too much of a prick.

Night At The Museum 2 - Eh, it was okay. Again, kinda pointless story-wise, but had some good moments here and there.

Could You Describe The Ruckus?

When I heard of John Hughes' passing yesterday, it really hit me. And when you sit back and think about how his writing has shaped us, our movies, everything, it sorta blows your mind.

What I always liked about his work was he was writing for us. And he knew us. He felt like he was one of us.

Just think about the movies he's written (and some he directed)...Mr. Mom, National Lampoon's Vacation, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Planes Trains & Automobiles, She's Having A Baby, Weird Science, Pretty In Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Some Kind Of Wonderful, The Great Outdoors, Uncle Buck, Home Alone, National Lampoon's European Vacation, Christmas Vacation, Curly Sue, Career Opportunities, etc.

"That's why they call them crushes. If they were easy, they'd call them something else." Sixteen Candles

For obvious reasons (and the name of this blog/current post) one of my faves is The Breakfast Club. It's an almost perfect film for me. The characters are priceless, and the writing is spot on. Terrific pacing, too.

It starts out as fun, a bit of a romp, but then quickly becomes something else - something meaningful.

Something about life.

It's how teens think, act. What they do. The shit they have to deal with. Popularity. Violence. Geekdom. Pressure. Love. Hate.

And you can see how he loved these characters. Because he gave them hearts. He gave all of his characters heart. I mean, who hasn't thought about life, what they're going to be, how are they going to get out of the funk they're in, etc.

Even Ferris Bueller, with all it's fun and attitude (and dance scenes), we think about what's ahead, and what we're leaving behind.

And then he grew up, and gave us Planes Traines & Automobiles, She's Having A Baby, some of his most accomplished works, in my opinion.

In Planes, he pulls a similar switcharoo. We start with Steve Martin dealing with the New Buddy From Hell, and how that evolves into a true friendship. And heartbreak, too, when we discover John Candy's character is basically homeless, mourning the loss of his beloved wife. That's heavy stuff for a comedy.

She's Having A Baby. The pressure, the panic, of fatherhood. Did I do the right thing? What am I doing? I'm going to be a father! But when it comes down to it, when his wife and baby are in distress, life slaps Kevin Bacon in the face - nothing else matters but them - and he wakes up, ready for fatherhood, to be a better husband. Funny? Maybe not, but real? Yup.

Even though his career seemed to be winding down (he wrote numerous screenplays under an alias - the Beethoven movies, a few Home Alone direct-to-Tv sequels), his resume is painfully impressive, and who knows what he still may have had up his sleeve.

Dear Mr. Vernon: We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it is we did wrong, but we think you're crazy for making us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question?

Sincerely yours,

The Breakfast Club.