Showing posts with label Kathleen Turner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kathleen Turner. Show all posts

Sunday, 6 April 2014

14 - Peggy Sue Got Married

Connection To Who Framed Roger Rabbit - Kathleen Turner
THE 1980s SUCKED!!! Do you want to know why? Because it seemed like so many films and TV series had nostalgia for the 50s and the 60s - which was yeah, through rose-tinted glasses cause there was a lot of shit that happened.

Peggy Sue Got Married - you can't help but think of Back To The Future, this was released a year after and involves somebody going back to an earlier time (in the case 1960), it's really where the similarity ends and it would be unfair on this movie if I kept comparing it to that iconic movie.

Kathleen Turner plays Peggy Sue who is attending her 25th high school reunion in the present (well as in 1986), just seperated from her school sweetheart Charlie (Nicolas Cage), she is made class Queen (alongside the King who was a class geek now turned millionaire), during which she faints and when she awakes she finds herself back in 1960.

Finding herself back in 1960 she is really confused but soon finds herself being able to have the courage to address rude classmates or tell a teacher that there is no use for algebra in the real word and she knows it for a fact. This also gives her a chance (of the inevitable) to remember why she fell in love with Charlie in the first place.

I liked this, it indeed made me feel nostalgia for a time and place that I was never there for, there is cute little references about the future (like her saying she'll go to Liverpool and discover The Beatles). The film also features quite a cast of before they were famous, besides Cage, who wasn't a breakout yet (who is director Francis Ford Coppola's nephew), there is Jim Carrey (playing naturally the class clown), Joan Allen (herself later a star of the 50's sit-com set Pleasantville), a young Helen Hunt and Coppola's own daughter Sofia.

Speaking of Cage, is choice for voice is weird an odd high pitched tone that a little bit dents the enjoyment of the movie but he doesn't grate completely 100%, Kathleen Turner though carries the movie great.

The music choice is typical of the nostalgia run of movies where all songs are still well known to this day (that's all that was played on the radio and at club it was always seems, I imagine songs get forgotten along the way in reality).

Overall, it's nowhere near the Coppola classics of the 70's, but it's a nice movie - that's not a complaint - and though going back to Back to the Future (what an awkward thing to say) it's a decent watch if somebody wants something a little bit the same.

13 - Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Connection To Frozen - both from the House Of Mouse, get that connection out the way before I use it much later since connections are only used once.
I feel like I should put a disclaimer right at the start of any of these I do about films I really loved as a youngling, because my love for these films never goes away and it feel like I probably won't right about them too objectively - it's likely I gush about them pretty much, because the 80's films some of them have gone through 4 decades with me ---

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (which doesn't have a ? right at the end) is to me an absolute classic and watching it even now in 2014 holds up still amazingly well - the animated and real life all seem like they are inhabiting the same world and Jessica Rabbit is still a sexy as hell character.

It is surprising how much of it is "grown up" with murders and an adorable animated shoe getting the dip, I think that it works in it's favour because it's a crime movie that just so happens the main suspect is a talking animated rabbit.

Going back to when I saw this as a kid I just loved the idea of all these characters being in the same world be it Dumbo or Donald and Daffy duelling it out on the pianos or Bugs and Mickey teaming up it's glorious to a kid who had seen these characters before come alive together.

For the human characters I really liked Bob Hoskins portrayal of Eddie Valiant, while it's obvious he struggles with the accent it's not really an issue as he the perfect foil to Roger. Christopher Lloyd plays Judge Doom is genuinely menacing even before his meltdown at the end.

For the animated characters Roger treads the line that I think was planned of being annoying, he's supposed to grate on Eddie and we see that but he's not supposed to grate on us and Jessica, is not surprisingly considered one of the sexiest cartoon characters of all time makes a wonderful femme fatale.

The twist of who framed RR is fairly obvious but that doesn't spoil the enjoyment of the movie one bit which is more a sign of the quality of the movie.

Overall the movie is fantastic, there is so much to enjoy - kids can love the characters while adults can enjoy that and it's story. It's not a surprise this film is so fondly remembered.