movies

Christmas Vacation 1989

This is the one Christmas movie that I don’t think anyone can ever get tired of. Chevy Chase returns in the third installment of the Vacation series as Clarke W. Griswold as he tries desperately to maintain his sanity during the holidays with all of his relatives coming to stay under his roof and enduring all the mishaps along the way.

The movie, released in 1989, is always a ritual in our household to watch every Christmas , and the laughs are just as loud each time we watch it.

To kick off the festive season, where he decides to stay at home rather than go on a road trip, he takes Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo) and the kids, Audrey (Juliette Lewis) and Rusty (Johnny Galecki) to the mountains to find the perfect Griswold family Christmas tree. And it’s only the first of one hilarious scene after another, as we follow Clark and clan through one long laugh-fest, filled with surprises and fun.

The highlight of the movie for me (as I’m sure others) is the effort, the pain, and the sheer amount of lights that Clark puts up on the house. When they finally work (and blind the beegeezus out of the neighbours), there is a little bit of magic that all that effort has finally paid off. And, who hasn’t called people ‘Griswolds’ when you see over the top Christmas light displays that people have put up?

Enjoy the trailer:

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RIP Leslie Nielsen

Canandian actor Leslie Nielsen, famous for the classic comedies Flying High and the Naked Gun series, passed away today at the age of 84. According to Twitter and other social media networks, he died in hospital after suffering pneumonia.

His nephew, Doug Nielsen, told Canadian radio station CJOB that the actor had been in the hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Florida for 12 days and that “he just fell asleep and passed away” with family and friends by his side.

Nielsen starred in over 100 movies and he best known trait was for those one liners (often filled with sexual innuendo) spoken whilst oblivious to what mayhem was happening around him.

From an 80s perspective, 1988 saw the release of The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, where he played the bumbling detective Lieutenant Frank Drebin. Starring with him in the first of the trilogy was Priscilla Presley, George Kennedy, and O. J. Simpson.

Out of all his movies that he appeared in, this was his first starring role – and I think the slapstick was done so well that it set him up for the other two movies. Often sequels of movies are as funny as the first, but with Nielsen I think the opposite was true.

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80s hits return on the big screen

In what can only be described as a testament to the 80s, classics such as the A-Team and The Karate Kid are being remade to once again fill our screens with joy, but are they as good as the originals?

The A-Team first graced our TVs in 1983, and was full of mandatory explosions, fist fights and typical 80’s one-liners – not to forget the iconic characters. Who could forget Mr T? Immortalized in … well I’m not sure what but when anyone mentions the name, we all know who it is.

Karate Kid, released in 1984 was one of those kid-who-gets-bullied-and-then-kicks-ass-to-be-the-hero type of movies was so good it prompted 2 sequels and a ‘Next Karate Kid’ to come out. It might be just me, but I will always will think of Mr Miyagi as Arnold from Happy Days!

As for the new movies, check out these trailers:

A-TEAM

KARATE KID

Make your own mind up, but as good as they look, personally I think you cannot beat the originals.

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Revenge of the Nerds

Talk about an iconic movie of the 80s! Put together a few nerdy characters, college girls and buys, some catchy music and you have a great movie that you can watch over and over again without losing interest.

Lewis Skolnick (Robert Carradine) and Gilbert Lowe (Anthony Edwards) are nerds and best friends, both heading to Adams College to study computer science. Even the music and ‘nerdy’ jokes are great at the beginning, setting the theme for a typical callege loser-to-hero story – but in it’s own special way.

Lewis and Gilbert move into a freshmen dorm with other first-year students, and are immediately set upong by the Alpha Betas, a fraternity to which many members of the school’s football team belong. The leader of the Alphas is Stan Gable, played by Ted McGinley of Happy Days fame.

The team’s coach (John Goodman) uses his intimidation to overrule the school’s Administrative Dean Ulich (David Wohl) and has the Alpha Betas evict the freshmen from the dorm for their own purposes. lewis and Gilbert work with the other outcasts whose characters are revealed in more details, and finally renovate a run down house for their own.

The Alpha Betas and their associated sorority, the Pi Delta Pis, harrass the nerds, and the story evolves further with the boys being continually tormented when they are trying to get in good with the Lambda Lambda Lambdas (Tri-Lambs). Come along the female nerd sorority, the Omega Mu.

I must bring up the outstanding (?) character of Booger (Curtis Armstrong), someone that you would not associate in real life, but in the movie was a real hero and funny guy with his unique and careless attitude towards life.

The movie comes to a head, where one night Gilbert has enough of the bullying and storms in the homecoming pep rally that the Alpha Betas are involved with. With a bit of asisstance from other chapters of the Tri-Lambs, the nerds get their way, and Lewis gets his girl, who just happens to be a member of the Delta Pis.

Here is one of the main songs from the movie. Looking at it now makes me laugh as it seems so corny, but don’t forget it was 1984!

A great movie, and as I said before, one that you can watch over and over & still enjoy.

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