Happy Spring, Moviecyclers!

Tomorrow morning I get to depart on my first family vacation in 2 years! The destination? The island of Kauai in our most tropical U.S. state!

My kids and I are super excited and I thought it would be cool to highlight one of my very favorite movies set in Hawaii – 50 First Dates.

This is probably on my top 20 list of fave flicks, which is unusual because I normally am lukewarm towards Adam Sandler, but this one makes me laugh and tear up every time I watch it.

The story follows Sandler as Henry Roth, the ultimate bachelor spending every night with a different tourist in need of an island fling. No strings attached and he can be whoever they need him to be…..for one night.  Then he goes to great lengths to ensure the lovely ladies never call him again.

Then he meets Lucy (Drew Barrymore). A beautiful girl sitting in an island cafe, making houses with her waffles.  Henry joins her and they have a wonderful time and agree to have a 2nd date – a major first for Henry. The next day he arrives to find that Lucy has no memory of meeting him. Or any new memories after a near fatal car accident the year before.  She just lives the same day over and over.

What follows is an amazingly adorable story of a man who must make the woman of his dreams fall in love with him every single day and convince her that they can make a life together….even if she can’t remember it.

This movie is filled with a hilarious supporting cast. Rob Schneider, Lusia Strus, Dan Akroyd, Blake Clark and others  provide non-stop giggles. So do a few choice marine animals. Henry works at an aquarium and his walrus sidekicks are awesome.

My favorite supporting character has to be Sean Astin as Lucy’s brother Doug, a steroid-injecting, mesh shirt-wearing hothead with a wicked lisp. I barely recognized him the first time I saw it and his jokes always make me laugh the most.

This film has it all – great cast, great jokes, the ability to see Adam Sandler in some kind of romantic light (at least they point out that his head is shaped like an egg), a beautiful island setting and an amazing soundtrack that will put you into a laid back mood.

If you haven’t seen this movie, come on down to Moviecycle and we will set you up with a copy for $6.99 or less ( I am pretty sure I saw a copy on our sale table…). You won’t be sorry.

Aloha!

Summer Time woke up and stretched extra hard. She got out of bed, went to the window and pulled back the curtains with a smile.

“What the *#@%!”, she shouted in frustration. The view outside her window was of a slightly soggy Saturday morning.

“This is why I hardly ever visit Seattle! Maybe if I hang out for awhile, the fog will burn off and I can go outside and be warm.” She flopped back on the bed and  looked at the clock.

“I need something to do,” she mumbled. “I know! I’ll go get some movies from that store my friend Moon told me about. Moviecycle in Ballard! She said they have all kinds of cool flicks for real cheap.”

Summer hopped up and assessed herself in the mirror. Spiky gold hair, cupcake pajama bottoms and a Care Bear t-shirt (Sunshine Bear…of course).  She nodded to her reflection in approval and threw on her yellow Converse and Rat City Roller Girls hoodie. Keys in hand, she booked it to Ballard.

The cute little store was  nestled between a gourmet food shop and yoga studio. Darth Vader stared at her through the window as she walked in the open door (pausing for a moment to check out the bin out front…$2.99! Wow!).

The store was funky and covered in tons of movie posters while mellow tunes flowed from the speakers. The clerk smiled and greeted Summer pleasantly, asking if she had any questions.

“I am gonna browse, thanks though!” Summer shared a smile with the friendly clerk.

The new releases caught her eye, all for only $9.99. Book of Eli was supposed to be really good. And that new Michael Cera movie, Youth in Revolt was hilarious according to Moon. Kristen Bell in When In Rome. She is always a cutie. Summer was stoked to see they also had Legion and The Lovely Bones. Two movies she hadn’t caught in the theater. Cool!

Ooooh, speaking of cool. They had a whole wall devoted to cool things! The Wall O’ Cool! 4 Quentin Tarantino movies, 2 Monty Pythons, All About Eve, Fight Club, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Fargo. Summer laughed as she discovered they had The Care Bears Movie,  Labyrinth, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Classic kid flicks.

Wow! Look, there’s Death at a Funeral (the cool British version), Donnie Darko, Chasing Amy, American Splendor (didn’t Harvey Pekar just pass away? Paul Giamatti did a decent job playing him.), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Superman, E.T., Knocked Up…..the list of cool titles just kept going.

Summer felt overwhelmed.

Luckily, the clerk helpfully pointed out that she could get three cool movies for only $20! Anything $8 or less and she would be golden.

Summer grabbed The Care Bears Movie, The Darjeeling Limited and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (that one was always her favorite…the scene with the monkey brains just makes her laugh and gag all at the same time…it’s great).

Summer looked longingly at the rest of the store ( “TV shows! Foreign films and stand-up comedy? I will have to come back.”)

The clerk rang her up quickly, checking each disc to make sure they were in good shape. A smile and her change and Summer was out the door headed home to veg out and watch movies until it was time to go outside and shine.

The End

(By the way, you get that she is fictional and we still have those cool movies on the shelf. Just wanted to make sure that was clear…..)

The Book of Eli was not a movie I was initially drawn to when it appeared in theaters. The lone wanderer in a post-apocalyptic world is not my favorite plot line, and the religious tones of the film put me off as well.

I thought I would give it a try though when it rolled into the store. I was surprised at how engaged I became right off the bat. I had forgotten how well the Hughes brothers can direct.

The beginning of the film relies on visuals mostly and that can be a hard thing to pull off unless it is done right. Denzel Washington plays his Eli character with quiet humor that made me like him right away. And honestly it has been awhile since I liked him in anything.

The action sequences were awesome, one in particular towards the beginning actual made me giggle it was so cool. Washington did many of his own stunts for the hand to hand combat stuff, and the results paid off.

Story was good (nice twist ending), hero was good (Washington redeemed himself a bit for me), villain was great (Gary Oldman…can’t go wrong there!), and the visuals were stunning.

This is definitely a movie worth watching!