Earth Girls Are Easy (1988)

Earth Girls Are Easy (1988)

Director:

Julien Temple

Writers:

Julie Brown

Charlie Coffey

Terrance E. McNally

Starring:

Geena Davis

Jeff Goldblum

Damon Wayans

Jim Carrey

Julie Brown

Michael McKean

Charles Rocket

Blurb:

A Southern California girl befriends three furry aliens after their spaceship lands in her swimming pool.

Review:

Earth Girls Are Easy is the epitome of an 80s movie on steroids. It’s got the fashion, it’s got the music, it’s got young, sexy Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis. Plus, Jim Carey before anyone knew him and Damon Wayans early in his movie career. It is so crazy and ridiculous it was not a surprise to learn that there were issues behind to scenes with the director.

Valerie, Geena Davis, discovers that her long-term boyfriend/fiancé has been having sex with women that weren’t her. She reacts how every woman would. She “sings” while destroying all of his stuff around the house. She smashes his Commodore PC with a bowling ball rolled down skis. Thankfully for her, horny aliens spot her the next day, sunbathing and crash land on Earth.

The aliens are covered in fur and don’t initially speak English, but after hours of watching TV and gallons of Nair, they’re mostly assimilated into the local culture. Mac, Wiploc, and Zeebo are revealed to be young, attractive men with the hair removed. They have incredibly long tongues and a love touch that consumes the person they touch with affection. They are definitely compatible with humans, and sex with them seems to be out of this world. *smirk* Basically, human men would not stand a chance if these aliens decided to take over.

Thankfully(?), that’s not their end goal. They just want their ship dried out and ready to take off, which happens after a few musical numbers, armed robbery, arrests, and a close encounter with a medical professional. As they fly off, Valerie fights off the love touched advances of her ex to tell Mac she wants to go with him. Since he’s her, Mr. Right, he, of course, takes her. I assume that Wiploc and Zeebo continue to be sexually frustrated until they make it back to their homeworld since Valeria cock blocked them at every opportunity.

4/5

The Good Liar (2019)

The Good Liar (2019)

Director:

Bill Condon

Writer:

Jeffrey Hatcher

Starring:

Helen Mirren

Ian McKellen

Russell Tovey

Jim Carter

Blurb:

Consummate con man Roy Courtnay has set his sights on his latest mark: the recently widowed Betty McLeish, worth millions. But this time, what should have been a simple swindle escalates into a cat-and-mouse game with the ultimate stakes.

Review:

**Trigger warning for rape**

I’ve had The Good Liar on my to-watch list on HBO for a while. Mainly because I love Helen Mirren, and with the inclusion of Ian McKellen, I knew the movie had to be good. I was not wrong.

You discover fairly quickly that McKellen’s character is a con man. It takes you a little bit longer to learn just how far he’s willing to take it. I was shocked to see it, but it made the twist at the end absolutely believable.

Mirren’s character, Betty, came off as smart and capable. She seemed to be looking more for companionship than love. She wasn’t a pushover, but she was trusting. Still, I loved that she noticed when he slipped up in his con. It was always little things that could easily be explained away, but she noticed them. She was sharp.

I won’t reveal the twist, but I definitely didn’t see it coming. The ending was a great payoff after the twist was revealed, too, so things weren’t ended on a sour note. The Good Liar was an entertaining film that I’m glad I could take the time to watch.

4/5

Back to the Future (1985)

The Great Movie Re-Watch

Back to the Future (1985)

Director:

Robert Zemeckis

Writers:

Robert Zemeckis

Bob Gale

Starring:

Michael J. Fox

Christopher Lloyd

Lea Thompson

Crispin Glover

Thomas F. Wilson

Blurb:

Marty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent thirty years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the eccentric scientist Doc Brown.

Thoughts:

Would I like Back to the Future as much if there was no nostalgia attached to it? I don’t think so. However, it’s impossible for me to separate the two. Time travel stories always get an extra point from me because I love the idea of time travel and people out of time. That love is in big part because I watched Back to the Future at a young age. See the problem? It’s always been there and so the two are tied together.

Marty is a fucking idiot. At least he’s consistent though. He starts the film cranking a giant speaker up to the highest settings and then having it explode in his face causing what is going to be lifelong hearing damage. From there it’s just downhill. Doc has just shown him time travel is possible in the DeLorean if he reaches 88 mph. So naturally when he’s running from the Libyan terrorists (yikes) he decides to hit 90 mph all the while with a date to the 1950s set and ready to go. Then he acts surprised that he time traveled. Moron.

The list goes on with regards to the times Marty doesn’t take things to their logical conclusion. He can’t possibly make things easy for himself, the entire story is fixing his screw ups. I get it, it’s supposed to be entertaining, but it wears after the first few times he screws up his parent’s potential relationship. After meeting his parents as teenagers all you can really say, though, is at least he’s not a pervert.

George McFly is a peeping tom. He’s a cute kid with a great face, but he climbs trees and watches women undress. Meanwhile, Loraine needs to be taught how to masturbate cause damn girl is thirsty. She not only strips a man of his pants but studies his underwear enough to know what’s written around the band. She’s also so ready to fall in love that if any kind of meet cute approaches her she starts the process. She’s infatuated with Marty until George gives her an obvious line and you can see her switching her interest when Marty then gets into a fight with Biff bringing her attentions back on him.

I get why Loraine would be attracted to Marty when he confronts Biff for basically sexually assaulting her in the middle of the cafeteria. (Seriously, Strickland you have no issues with sexual assault of one of your students but god forbid they get into a fight??? Slacker.) Of course she’s going to be attracted to the person that saves her.

Side note, after all Marty had seen how could he not know his plan at the dance to get his parents back together would fail? She was so clearly into him that there would be no assault if he did anything. There would have been no hesitation on her part. He ends up failing so much that things work out for him. *cough* white men fail up *cough*

Biff is one of the worst villains in film history. He has no redeeming traits and nothing from his past could justify his behavior. The man quite possibly raped Loraine in the parking lot. That’s all it took to push George to live up to his potential, though. He needed to unwittingly stumble upon a rape in progress. *rolling eyes*

When I list it all out like that it’s difficult to see why I like Back to the Future. The time travel is really the only thing. Even Doc is a bit suspicious. Why is he hanging out with a teenage boy, really? The first movie was never my favorite. I’m hoping that my issues with the first movie aren’t in the second one as well. I’ll find out in a couple of years.

And now it’s time for Random Facts from the Wikipedia Article!

-A couple reviewers at the time of release compared Back to the Future to It’s a Wonderful Life. All I’ve got to say to that is what the fuck where these people smoking?

– Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty and had filmed several weeks’ worth of material before they replaced him. He still got paid, though.

– Jeff Goldblum was considered for the role of Doc Brown (wtf)

-Chuck Berry did not give them the rights to use “Johnny B. Goode” until the day before filming.

And that’s the end of another edition of Random Facts I Learned from the Wikipedia Article!

Next up, The Goonies.

Clue (1985)

The Great Movie Re-Watch

Clue (1985)

Director:

Jonathan Lynn

Writers:

John Landis

Jonathan Lynn

Starring:

Eileen Brennan

Tim Curry

Madeline Kahn

Christopher Lloyd

Michael McKean

Martin Mull

Lesley Ann Warren

Colleen Camp

Blurb:

Six guests are anonymously invited to a strange mansion for dinner, but after their host is killed, they must cooperate with the staff to identify the murderer as the bodies pile up.

Thoughts:

I’ve watched Clue recently. That didn’t stop me from wanting to watch it again, though. Tim Curry is so amazing. The way he does the final “reveal” three different times is so much fun to watch. He’s running around and talking so fast that it’s hard to keep up, and he’s freaking out the guests. I love it.

I assume at this point that everyone already knows the biggest trivia fact from Clue. In case someone doesn’t know, here it is:

There were four endings originally filmed. One was immediately tossed as not being good. The other three were attached randomly to the end of the film, and theaters got completely different ones. It’s an interesting gimmick, but audiences didn’t seem to appreciate it. However, when it was released on home media, all three were included at the end.

The multiple endings set the movie apart and are one of my favorite parts of the film. I’m glad that decision was made.

Recently, there have been talks of a remake, with Ryan Reynolds attached to the film. I love Reynolds, but I have no idea how this would even be done. There’s no way they’ll be able to match the original. With all the recent board games to movie projects being made, I have no hopes for anything good coming out of this. Seriously, Hollywood do something original, leave older movie alone. Especially ones that have reached cult status.

Currently Reading 02-19-21

Now that I’ve finished reading The Roommate I’m moving on to Ready Player Two. When Ready Player One came out I loved it. I gave it to my dad as a Christmas present and everything. The millions of references didn’t bother me because I loved the world of the OASIS so much. It’s been a few years since I’ve read the book, but I was not impressed with the movie. I’ve changed since Ready Player One came out, but so has the world. I’m concerned that Cline didn’t take those changes into account with this sequel. I’ll just have to read it and find out.