Blind Spot: The Terminator (1984)

It’s been a strange and busy old month this month, what with Jenna’s new house and my family members seemingly dropping like flies, and I’m surprised we’ve managed to get together, but we did it! This might also be the second most fun I’ve ever had watching a movie with Jenna. I was about to say the absolute most fun, but then I remembered Sharknado.  Nothing will ever beat Sharknado but this did come pretty close, especially with the exceptional CGI work! I think we’re both a little embarrassed to have never seen our pick this month, but hey, better late than never! 

We were planning on watching Platoon for this month’s Blind Spot, but time and tiredness wouldn’t allow for it, and with Terminator Genisys out next month, it seemed like a suitable swap around.

If you didn’t know already, or had simply forgotten, The Terminator has been sent back in time to 1984 with one mission, to murder Sarah Connor, who, in the future, will give birth to John Connor, who in the future leads a war against machines and computers. Future John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time to protect Sarah...and now my head hurts. Did I get that right? Yep I think that's right...ish!

A fly on the wall would have had a great time whilst we were watching this.

‘Oh, he’s naked!’

‘Umm...he’s very much naked, oh my’

‘Where’d that other naked guy come from?!’

We also had a funny discussion over the plot twist (spoiler alert, obviously) which we had worked out fairly early on, which went something like this…

Jenna: Oh, what if Reese is actually Connor’s Father? Wait, how would that even work…

Allie: No, no, what if he was actually John Connor’s Father!

Jenna: ...That’s what I just said.

Allie: I thought you meant Sarah Connor’s Father!

Jenna: How would that make sense?!
This conversation was too funny and also spanned about 40 minutes - i.e. it took Allie a further 30 or so minutes to come up with the same theory as me but without realising I had already stated the same theory 30 minutes earlier! 30 minutes!! It was 10!

Sometimes I worry for us...but we do have fun when we watch movies together! Onto something more constructive though, I really did  enjoy watching The Terminator. I kind of wish I had done so years ago when I could appreciate the special effects, because watching them know was laughable. Some of the stop motion effects were really dodgy, but that’s just down to the time this was made. I’m sure we’ll all be poking fun at our recent special effects in years to come.  We shouldn't have found it funny because as Allie said it would have been great when it was realised THIRTY years ago, but it was a great giggle comparing the work to an episode of Thunderbirds and watching the scenes quite obviously change from prosthetic faces to real faces, real filming to stop motion!!

In fairness, looking past the graphics and CGI (or lack of it) this is a great Sci-fi movie, the concept is bloody brilliant (if you don't get tied up in time travel paradoxes as I did a couple of times while watching).  Its terrifying to think that in the future machines could take over the world.  Did anyone else think that the writers of Avengers: Age of Ultron may have taken some influence from Terminator?!  There seemed to be a lot of similarities in both the storylines and the robots.

This is a really hard one to score. If I put on a professional blogger hat and analysed the effects, cheesy dialogue, etc, then this would have a lower score, but we’ve always scored films on our enjoyment more than anything else!  As much as I took the piss out of the dialogue and the graphics I do have to account for when the film was released and the awesomeness of the story...

  

12 Days of Christmas - Day 2 Gremlins (1984)

This was out movie choice for the last Flick Chicks movie morning (the night consisted of tequila and Mexican food!!) although, I wasn't quite sure how this came into the Top 12 Christmas movies.  I also thought I had seen this film but after watching it I hadn't at all, I think maybe I have seen Gremlins 2 and have always believed it was number 1 - who knows!? 

I had the ultimate pleasure of watching Gremlins for the very first time, as I now begin to realise I must have seen nothing but Disney films as a child.

Anyway, this version of Gremlins starts with Randall Peltzer buying a Mogwai for his Son under the strict guidelines of NO bright lights, NO water and NO food after midnight.  Unfortunately, once back in Kingston Falls all three invariably happen (incredibly quickly!) leaving the town overrun by ugly green monsters with only Billy (Zack Galligan), Kate (Phoebe Cates) and Gizmo to save them.

I had forgotten how much I loved Gizmo, he is by far the highlight of the film.  Although this is listed as a horror, its too comical and entertaining (without cheap thrills) to be considered a horror, I would suggest an action film personally.  The story is original and even watching it now, it had aged pretty well, the Mogwai/gremlin animatronics and puppets are still impressive even now and I think the lack of CGI is what has made it last this well.

Gizmo is actually quite adorable, I didn't really see the attraction until I actually watched this. Honestly though I'd rather have the family dog! He was a total sweetheart! Considering the age of the film I totally agree, the animatronics are quite a wonder and definitely sets it on a higher bar than its CGI styled counterparts. I think it qualifies as a horror, it's just not quite as scary watching it as an adult!

I found some of the dialogue a bit cheesy and off putting but they brought Gizmo on screen and all was forgotten.  I also loved Billy's Mom played by Frances Lee McCain, she was completely and utterly badass, mutilating Gremlins left right and centre in kitchen appliances.  I have half a mind to withdraw my Women in Film Blogathon Contribution and swap Mary Poppins for this awesome Gremlin killing machine.  She didn't need any man to come and save her, she will save herself.

She was amazing. I loved her, she just threw one gremlin in the blender, stabbed a second, then microwaved another to death in just a few short moments, without batting an eyelid. What a legend! That scene alone qualifies this as a horror in my eyes.

Brilliantly comical and clever creature feature, fun for the whole family (but don't watch while you're eating!).  This has also reminded me that all I wanted for Christmas and Birthday's for about 2 years was a Gizmo doll, I may have to rethink this years Christmas list now!

This was a really unique Christmas film and I really enjoyed it. I got quite bored during the last part, the hunt for the gremlins took too long, but other than I thought it was great.

1984-a-thon: Footloose

What seems like forever ago, Jenna and I received our first non-automated email in our Flick Chicks inbox from Todd at Forgotten Films, inviting us to take part in his 1984-a-thon. We both jumped at the chance and Jenna quickly snagged up Footloose for us, which was a great choice.  

I have been meaning to watch Footloose properly for years and this meant we completed another Blogathon and covered a film on the Top 250 - win win!

I knew the film of course, and the song too, although I don't know many of the lyrics and tend to just sort of make them up. This was a great opportunity to watch a classic film for the first time, and also an excuse for Jenna & I to meet up as we haven't for ages!

For anyone who really doesn't know what Footloose is all about, a teenager raised in the city called Ren (Kevin Bacon) moves to the small town where popular music and dancing have been banned after a tragic incident years ago. Ren struggles to fit in at his new school, and also lands himself in a heap of trouble as he tries to shake up the rules.

As I suspected, Footloose was full of cheese. The group dance scenes in particular, where everyone in the group seems to know the same routine, and they're all in perfect synch. Those moments were great though, and you just can't help put smile and tap your feet along with the songs. My favourite scene is captured above, where Ren teaches his friend how to dance. He's just hopeless but it's a great comedy moment.  This was by far my favourite scene and probably the only point I really smiled in the film.

I think I may have enjoyed this more if I'd seen it back when it was new (difficult though being born in 1985), I just found it a little too cheesy and hard to watch it some places.  A point both me and Allie said at the time and have mentioned here is John Lithgow, I love him in everything I have seen him in, until now!  His long winded scenes put me to sleep, they were so boring, it was lucky this was a Flick Chicks movie night or I may have turned it off at one point.

Kevin Bacon's Ren was exactly what I expected, great!  He has charisma, the moves and was the highlight of the film.  Shame as much can't be said for Ariel, the preachers daughter, played by Lori Singer.  Singer may be a good actress (I haven't seen her in anything else to judge) but the character was horrid, she was a spoilt brat who always gets what she wants and I didn't buy into her as the love interest at all.  I would be surprised if anyone liked her let alone fell in love with her.  Sarah Jessica Parker's Rusty would have made a better lead in my opinion! 

For me, the only real thing that let the film down was John Lithgow's character, Rev. Shaw Moore. His scenes had far too much dialogue and I lost interest in his scenes very quickly. All in all though, Footloose was enjoyable to watch and I'm glad that Jenna chose us for it.

It's definitely the classic that is expected and had I not been annoyed at the preacher and the preachers daughter in every scene they were in, I would have probably scored it higher!

Thanks to Todd at Forgotten Films for inviting us to take part in this huge blogging event, it's been brilliant to see all of the entries that have been flooding in this week and I hope we can take part in something similar again in the near future! Ditto ;-)