Fun Boss Movie Day: Hiding Out

Here's the tagline for this movie---ready?

"There's only one thing more frightening than murder...high school."

Really, that's all you need to know to deduce that it was made in 1987. Why were people in the 80's so fascinated with high school? (I say, hypocritically, with a printed off e-mail from my high school crush that I can't bear to throw away.)

Hiding Out was on Showtime last weekend and I was in heaven. I have a weakness for Jon Cryer. Not only because of Ducky--although it goes without saying that the character will live forever in film history--but also because I have a soft spot for cute, neurotic and slightly cocky underdogs a la Michael J. Fox.

So here's the plot of the movie: a successful stockbroker witnesses a murder and goes on the run, taking refuge with his cousin and pretending to be a high school student while he hides out from the mob. A really great performance by Jon Cryer as a 30-something guy (or maybe 28? I was trying to figure out what they could get away with) who unwittingly inspires the student body and falls in love with a high school senior after she writes a paper about how big of a crook Nixon was.

Best scene ever: Sitting in class as the grumpy history teacher berates the high school beauty (Annabeth Gish) for having the audacity to say such things about the old lady's hero, Nixon, Cryer guffaws and looks around for some shared sense of disbelief at her idiocy. The joke is, he's the only other one old enough to remember.

Yeah, it gets a little creepy sometimes thinking that the love story is probably statutory rape, but I'm pretty sure they never actually do the deed during the movie. And Cryer is incredibly boyish. That makes it okay anyway. Right?

91 stars in all it's 80's-montaging gloriousness. Netflix it immediately.

Fun Boss Movie Day: The Fast & the Furious 3

Yesterday during a depressive funk I watched the second half of the Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift (after the embarrassing-to-admit hour I spent on youtube watching kutegirl85 and others' compiled clips of, in their opinion, the best movie kisses of all time. For the record, Titanic is totally overrepresented.) Curiously, all of a sudden I felt a desire for two things I have never wanted before in my entire life: 1) a street-style racecar, and 2) a gun. It was like being an entirely different person. An enlightened person.

Also, this new, enlightened person had a little crush on one of the actors. Not the main character, not Little Bow Wow, not the bad guy, but the bad guy’s sort-of friend, the guy who dies near the end of the movie (…uh…spoiler alert.) I forget what his name was since I was mostly paying attention to his doll-like face and sweet Tokyo-drifting.

I kind of want to know if you can actually drive cars like this. And if cell phones work the way they do in this movie then I need to try and get one of those kind.

Fun Boss Movie Day: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Since I’m currently my own boss with a case of the Mondays, I decided to institute random Fun Boss Movie Day. So instead of cracking the whip over my own head all the time, I’m going to give myself a fancy new nickname and take an afternoon off to watch Val Kilmer’s best performance since Tombstone. That and Robert Downey, Jr. plays a pretty good functional idiot. Also, I need something to distract me from all the stress that Harry Potter is causing. With the release date approaching, Barnes & Noble and Amazon are in hyper-overdrive about pre-selling. This morning I almost had a heart attack because it was almost noon and I couldn’t decide if I should order online and make the deadline to have it shipped overnight, because what if the Barnes & Noble near me (and near 100,000 kids too young to read but with Park Slope parents) sold every copy before I was able to get one. The weirdest thing is that I’m not even sure I really care that much about getting it. I might just buy some cookies instead. Or, wait, have you seen those new Russell Stover Urban Chocolates that come in funky colors and flavors, like Sea Salt Caramel?