It took me forty years, but I finally saw UHF, a cult classic that all my childhood friends would quote incessantly. "Red SNAPPER!" "Conan... the Librarian!" "Gandhi... II!" and so on.
This movie is very smart and funny from beginning to end, but it's funny in a weird, niche way, and it's obvious to see how this ended up a cult classic rather than a normal classic. Weird Al Yankovic is a guy with a huge imagination but little real ambition - until his uncle wins a local TV station in a poker game, and appoints Weird Al as the manager.
Weird Al immediately begins a reform of strange programming ("Volcano Worshippers Hour"), including a tremendously popular show featuring the station janitor Stanley Spadowsky (played hilariously by Michael Richards, who deserves many accolades). But he incurs the wrath of the local network affiliate, and all kinds of adventures happen.
This is very entertaining and highly recommended - the fake commercials on the network ("Strip Solitaire!") are worth the price of admission by itself. Great stuff.
This is my favorite Stephen King adaptation. I saw this with my dad at a pretty young age, but it really holds up - directed by the master David Cronenberg, this is a fascinating movie about a man who is given the gift of Second Sight after he's in a coma for five years following a terrible accident.
The real gem here is Christopher Walken, who is truly masterful as Johnny Smith, the English teacher who is blessed/cursed with the ability to "read" people when he touches them. For a time, he tries to help people (including the police), but then - burdened under the weight of the gift - he retreats from the world.
This movie has a tremendous soundtrack and overall atmosphere and is highly recommended. A++.
Another movie I saw with my dad, this is the story of the 1919 Black Sox scandal, where the Chicago White Sox threw the World Series in the service of powerful gamblers, and eight players were thrown out of baseball forever.
The cast is fantastic, from John Cusack to David Straithern to Charlie Sheen to John Mahoney to Christopher Lloyd and so on. The recreation of 1919 feels very accurate, and the movie is very adept at creating tension. Recommended.
If it weren't for Dirty Dancing, this would easily be the best movie I saw today. Richard Gere plays a Navy brat who enters Officer Candidate School to become a Navy pilot... except that he carries a TON of baggage with him (mother committed suicide, father is an uncaring whoremonger) that he has to overcome in 13 weeks... partially by falling in love with Debra Winger.
But the most memorable part of the movie, easily, is the drill instructor Foley, played by Louis Gosset Jr. He's AMAZING, creating a completely believable character out of whole cloth, a character who pushes and pushes Gere but always with an unspoken desire for him to succeed, despite the harshness of the method - he's a surrogate father. And perhaps, in some ways, Winger is a surrogate mother, and Gere is recreating the childhood figures he never had.
Either way, the movie is great and highly recommended.
This is a real classic - I honestly cannot believe Patrick Swayze is no longer with us, his character is so vibrant and present.
Jennifer Gray is the Baby of a family who travels to the Catskills to a resort for the summer. She learns to dance that summer, and a whole lot more - she becomes a young woman, and learns what it means to take a stand. Swayze is the dance instructor who first holds disdain for her, and eventually falls for her honesty and strength and beauty. Jerry Orbach is fantastic as Baby's doctor father. The cast is fantastic front to back, and the movie was an enormous hit when it came out - for good reason. This is excellent stuff. A++
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