Kid Flicks: 3 Ninjas

Every family has a movie (or movies) that, for one reason or another, takes the VCR/DVD Player hostage and receives more repeat viewings than it deserves. In our house, some of those movies were Sister Act, D2: The Mighty Ducks, and The Meteor Man. These are just some of the movies I want to write about in my new series, Kid Flicks.

LIGHT UP THE EYES, BOYS!

LIGHT UP THE EYES!

My brother and I lived and breathed 3 Ninjas. For us, it wasn't corny at all. In fact, it was more than a movie, it was a step-by-step training manual for becoming a ninja.

What little kid didn't want to be a ninja? Movies like 3 Ninjas were just an excuse for siblings to practice karate on one another. And "practicing karate" was just an excuse to kick the hell out of each other while screaming loudly. "HI-YAH!" "LIGHT UP THE EYES!" "YOU MADE DAD LEAVE!"

When I was young, I hated visiting my grandparents. Old people, in general, made me uneasy. But Rocky, Colt, and Tum Tum's grandpa was pretty different than mine. Theirs was a ninja. Mine was a mailman. Theirs was inexplicably Japanese. Mine was white, just like the rest of us.

Maybe if my grandpa gave me throwing stars and a food-related nickname, he'd get a phone call every once in a while.

I recently showed my wife 3 Ninjas. She'd never seen it before. Needless to say, she didn't love it. In fact, she didn't make it all the way through. Whitney, if you're reading this, you already know I can cut off family for not supporting my 3 Ninjas love. Maybe you give it another chance, yeah?

Most Memorable 3 Ninjas Images:
1. The "Light up the eyes!" dummy
2. That disgusting old babysitter lady in the closet with pizza all over her disgusting face.
3. Ohhhh! The masks with the light-up eyes! They'd let you know when your parents were coming. Best invention ever.

Month of Foreign: Day Two: Porco Rosso

Sometimes I feel late on the Miyazaki bandwagon but then I remember that My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service were childhood favorites. Some of his later films, arguably his post popular, like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away didn't cast their magic spells over me. I never thought they were bad, they just didn't keep my interest. But after watching Ponyo and Porco Rosso, I think I'm ready to revisit them. I loved these two.

Have you seen Porco Rosso? What did you think?

350th Post

These people are excited about He Shot Cyrus' 350th post!

You should be too.

They made me a celebratory quilt.

You should too.

Miraculous Merch: Your Favorite Directors

Retrowhale's Etsy Shop has quite a collection of rad stuff. My favorite are these movie director coasters. Pictured above are: Roman Polanski, Quentin Tarantino, Woody Allen, Jim Jarmusch (my second favorite), Stanley Kubrick, Spike Jones, Peter Jackson, Sofia Coppola, Tim Burton, Wes Anderson, Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee (my third favorite), Steven Soderbergh, The Coen Brothers, and Francis Ford Coppola (my absolute favorite). Apart from being used as coasters, they can also be used as wall hangings! My house is going to be covered in these guys. Retrowhale is really talented deserves to become a millionaire off of these things. So buy a bunch of them. Christmas, Kwanzaa, birthdays, etc. Even Thursday can be special with merch like this.

3 Best Friends Marathon: Movies Featuring Cross-Dressing

Sylvia Scarlett (1935): Somehow this movie dodged my radar for twenty-five years. Katherine Hepburn (who I love) dresses up as a fellah to avoid the coppers. She's doesn't really look like a boy but seems to trick everyone with her deep voice and pants. She and her fugitive father meet up with Cary Grant (donning a terrible cockney accent) and a British maid and naturally, they start a traveling comedy show. It's a weird movie but along with Adam's Rib, Born Yesterday, My Fair Lady, and The Philadelphia Story, has convinced me to see everything George Cukor ever directed.

Just One of the Guys (1985): I was having trouble deciding which cross-dressing movie to choose. I narrowed it down between Glen or Glenda, Tootsie, and In Like Flint. Then I showed Whitney the trailer for Just One of the Guys and she begged me to choose it. She's chosen some of my recommendations for previous marathons (you can thank me for The Initiation) so I returned the favor. This is one of your typical "girl dresses up like a boy for equality" movies. It's like Yentl with more nudity. "We Love the 80s" loves this movie. That meant that I knew the ending before we even put the DVD in. But it was great, 80s teen-com. Really underrated.

I Was a Male War Bride (1949): Two Cary Grant movies in one night! We're classy. In this one, Cary Grant plays a French military man (donning absolutely no accent at all) who falls in love with Ann Sheridan, an American military gal who gets on his last nerve. When they decide to get married, they have to go through U.S. Military-grade red tape and Grant is forced to stay awake for about three days straight. Honestly, hoping Grant finds a bed to sleep in becomes a bigger subplot than their trip around the world. If you're only watching this for the cross-dressing, be prepared to wait about an hour and half to see it.

Month of Foreign: Day One: The Official Story

My preferred method of killing two birds is by using one stone. The 1,001 Movies You Must See Club chose Luis Puenzo's Argentine political mystery, The Official Story, for this week's film. Whitney, an active member of the prestigious club, decided to capitalize on the situation by kicking off our Month of Foreign with the same movie.

When a middle-class teacher, Alicia, starts to suspect that her adoptive daughter Gaby might have been taken from a pregnant captor of Argentine's Dirty War (1976-1983), she begins to unravel the secrets surrounding Gaby's past. She finds dead ends wherever she turns. Her husband, a strict traditionalist, tell her not to ask questions. Her priest dismisses her concerns and tells her to honor God's will. The hospitals refuses to help her look into the records taken during the War. Alicia refuses to give up and eventually she beings finding out more than she bargained for.

Foreign films always find the most adorable and talented child actors. Remember the little girl in The Fall? Or the kid from Cinema Paradiso? Whoever cast Analia Castro to play Gaby in The Official Story knew what they were doing. This little doe-eyed angel outshone everyone she shared a scene with. It was important to find a girl who the audience would immediately attach themselves to because Gaby not only serves as the center of this story but also serves as a reminder of the uncountable abducted, tortured, and murdered Argentine citizens from this time.

The film carries itself through its characters. The story would make complete sense to anyone, even including people with no knowledge of Argentine history or culture. And while there are attempts to catch viewers up, the expository dialogue is minimal and presented in interesting ways. Some have referred to Story as a thriller but that's inaccurate by present-day definitions. Instead of a run-of-the-mill psychological or political thriller, The Official Story is really more of a mystery film with political undertones. You become more and more attached to Alicia and Gaby as the movie progresses and by the end, instead of being scared for them, feeling of sadness creep in and eventually a blunt sense of acceptance takes over. The mystery is solved but the Alicia's reactions are ambiguous. In fact, the end of the film is ambiguous. And after a months of foreign films, I'm sure I'll have had my share of ambiguity.

Thanks For Writing - April 2010 Winner

The comments were counted. The name was drawn. April 2010's Thanks for Writing winner is none other than TJMAC510 from The Movie Encyclopedia. He really put the work in this month and I appreciate it. He has one week to send his name & mailing address to heshotcyrus@hotmail.com

A huge thanks to everyone who contributed comments this month. Reading your comments makes the work worthwhile. And if you didn't win, don't worry, this month's contest begins...NOW!