Sunday 27 September 2009

(500) Films Of Empire - Day 12 - Swayze Tribute



Sunday began with a DVD screening for the cast of the 24 hour musical which I had the to be a part of in August.

I hadn't done any onstage musical theatre since sixth year in secondary school but through writing for Student Show the last couple of years I know a lot of people on the Aberdeen Am Dram scene and they invited me to be part of the show where we found out what we would be performing on the Friday night (Anything Goes by the way), and performed it to an audience on Saturday

It was a chance for the cast to see what they achieved during the longest 24 hours of their lives from an audience's perspective, and they should all be very proud of what we acheived. I can honestly say it was one of the best days of my life... or should I say "I had the time of my life"...


A busy week lies ahead as we have our Operations Manager up to help us prepare for the battle that lies ahead when the new Cineworld opens at the end of October.


So Sunday became movie marathon day, with a Back To The Future double bill and a Patrick Swayze tribute evening.


23 – Back To The Future – 5 stars

It is a rare example of a perfect film.

498 – Back To The Future Part 2 – 3 stars

Unlike the first one, this has dated unfortunately. Mainly due to the fact that the year they go to in the future is 2015. That's right, six years from now. In six years time we will have flying cars! OK, maybe not but I do want Mattel to make me a hoverboard. Who didn't want one of these when the movie came out?!

Can't be watched on it's own, as it is really the first part of the double bill with the third one (as they were written and filmed together), but I couldn't do it as the third part is not on the list.

Also just too confusing for some people with paradox-causing plot holes popping up all over the place.

The TV was hosting a Patrick Swayze tribute night with Channel 5 playing Dirty Dancing and BBC1 screening Point Break (which I'd never seen before).

405 – Dirty Dancing – 3 stars

This is normally voted the favourite film by girls, so why so low on this list? Must have been a majority of male geeks voting for this list (and some with a secret love for this film, a guilty pleasure?). Have blogged about it recently but first time in years that I'd seen it. Still cheesy as hell but I can't really find anything bad to say about it. Interesting to see the choreography was by Kenny Ortega of High School Musical fame.

197 – Point Break – 3 stars

Yes, they poked fun at it in Hot Fuzz, but this is probably the best Simpson/Bruckheimer/Bay film that wasn't actually a Simpson/Bruckheimer/Bay film. After seeing Hurt Locker recently, Kathryn Bigelow is arguably the best female director working today. It has one of the best chases of all time, Patrick Swayze was never better than in this film (sorry girls), and even more homoerotic subtext than Top Gun.

5 comments:

  1. The book Uglies by Scott Westerfield has hoverboards in it as well, and he talks about the science behind them - they work with magnets. Old railroad, trolley, streetcar, or any kind of rails, plus the ore found in river beds works well. I don't think it would be too hard!

    I wasn't fond of BTF 2, I did get a kick out of 3 in the Wild West.

    My favorite Swayze film? Roadhouse. It is awful, but every time it is on TV on a Saturday afternoon I get sucked in.

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  2. I prefer the third one to the second one. Some of the Spaghetti Western references are really good.
    Shame Roadhouse isn't on the list, not many actors can seamlessly switch from doing the mambo to ripping a man's throat out!

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  3. YOU HADN'T SEEN POINT BREAK?! Oh my God! If I'd known I would have sorted that long ago. I think your 3 star rating is unfair. Point Break is infinitely better than BTTF 2. And one could argue that the homo-subtext pushes it to a 5 star...

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  4. Haven't seen Point Break before! I can't see a picture of Ronald Regan without thinking of this film.

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  5. I'm sorry OK! That is the purpose of the challenge though, to finally watch all these films that I should have (I'm sure there are bigger skeletons in my closet than Point Break!)
    By the end of the 365 days hopefully I should have made amends for any glaring omissions!

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