movies

Life moves pretty fast

Ferris Bueller and friends at the Chicago Museum of Art

Its’ the 40th anniversary of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off this month. 40 years!

I remember when it first came out. I read about it first in a school newspaper, where it was being reviewed by students. I read the first couple of paragraphs and loved the movie just from reading about it. Of course I eventually saw it. Many times, after that.

I probably still have that school newspaper somewhere, I saved them all.

Cher and Nicholas Cage; Moonstruck – Kitchen scene – best scene in the movie.

For years Ferris Bueller was my favorite movie. When I was asked on security questions to name my favorite movie, it was “Ferris Bueller,” and then it moved to “Moonstruck” and now it’s something else. Interesting that Ferris was released in 1986 and Moonstruck in 1987. Two wonderful years, in a perfect decade.

I still use the line, “I don’t even have a piece of shit, I have to envy your piece of shit.” I use it to this day when I am insulting something that someone has. It could be their car, but also their house, their dog, their whatever. I have used that line many times over the years.

As for Moonstruck, that was my favorite for years, too. There’s a scene in the movie where Danny Aiello gets out of the airport and goes to a cab and says, “Take me to 19 Cranberry.”

That sounded real to me. And so I went on an excursion to Brooklyn Heights one time and I found the exact address which was Cher’s house in the movie. They used the real address of the real house, in the movie.

I have gone back many times over the years, I’ve brought people with me to look at the house, to even pretend to kick the can on the corner like Cher does in the movie. I brought my mother to see it one time.

I saw Danny Aiello in the city one time and almost yelled that line out to him, but that would be stupid and I don’t usually do that when I see celebs, so I just walked by and didn’t say anything.

I love those movies yet I’ve never done a parody cartoon of Ferris or Moonstruck – something to think about i guess.

Here’s a video, “Behind the Scenes: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, which is the cast and others talking about the move, most of it in 1985-86. It just popped up last night as I was flipping through YouTube. A case of the internet reading my mind, again.

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

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It’s ‘Jaws’ time of year

It’s the 50th anniversary of Jaws this weekend. 50 years!

It’s one of my favorite movies. I think I’ve seen it over 50 times. I can repeat all the dialogue as they are saying it. NBC had a showing on Friday night, but they screwed up the whole thing by having a commercial every five minutes – totally annoying and not worth it.

You can see Jaws all over the place if you want to, so you don’t have to deal with NBC’s commercialization.

AMC or one of those channels is always showing it, mostly in summer months, but I’ve already seen it twice in the last month or so.

I grew up in Miami, so I was at the beach almost daily. Sometimes for an hour, sometimes for three or five hours. Sometimes with a lot of people, sometimes alone. And I’ve always been in the water – the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, and I’m happy to say in all those years, I have never come across a shark, not that I know of.

I’ve had stingrays, fly over my head, and I’ve had schools of hundreds of small fish swim around my body in shallow water – it’s very ticklish – but never sharks.

The thing about the movie is the town – Martha’s Vineyard, which is the town of Amity, in the movie. I am not so much into the climax secenes, the last part of the movie when they are out in the boat going after the shark. But of course the most famous line come from that, which I used in the cartoon above, “You’re going to need a bigger boat!”

That line was apparently adlibed at the moment by Roy Scheider, police chief, Martin Brody. He had tried using it in other scenes, but this time it was perfect. The line was actually used by the cast and crew throughout the filming of water scenes. The crew boat – the boat that was used for the cameras and film crew was too small and always a problem while shooting.

Every time something didn’t fit or there wasn’t room, an inside joke on the set, or rather out in the water, was, ‘”You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

Roy thought it was funny and would slip it in during takes at various parts of the movie, which of course were not used in the finished cut of the film, but the part where it did fit and was funny and added levity to the scene was just perfect and to this day, it is one of the most famous movie lines.

Another thing that I love, which I have never seen in other movies, is that in almost every scene, you hear the people speaking in the background – when they are on the beach or in town hall or wherever, or even in the kitchen in the house, you hear the background people speaking, along with the dialogue spoken by the main characters up front in the scene. Ever notice that?

I saw the Jaws animatronic used in the movie some years back at a Universal tour in Hollywood. It’s still so popular today. I think it was in the Gilligan’s Island lagoon, of all places.

I love the small town life. New England is one of my favorite places. I always think of moving there or near there for part of the year. Every time I tell someone that, I get, “But the winter! But the cold!” And that comes mostly from Miami people, who bundle up when it hits 70 degrees.

I would like to be up north for three seasons, and down in Miami for winters.

In a week I will be in Hudson New York for a cousin’s wedding. That’s some place I might consider. It’s almost New England, it’s a few miles from three New England states – Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut. At home, I often watch the NBC Connecticut 6 pm news on Roku, and I like it up there. One thing – I had to look up spelling for Massachusetts and Connecticut, so I guess it’s best that I learn how to spell the places before I consider moving there.

I go upstate pumpkin and apple picking every fall, but New York state people will tell you that where I go – Poughkeepsie (had to look that spelling up, too), Sleepy Hollow, etc. are not considered upstate, Upstate is further up the Hudson River, apparently.

So I’ll check out Hudson with my family next week and we may go to the Berkshires in Massachusetts, which I always wanted to see.

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Saying less is more

Do you ever avoid speaking about your favorite movie because it’s your favorite movie?

People bring it up in conversation or online or wherever – for various reasons, to discuss it or ask about it or just ask, “What’s your favorite movie?”

I avoid it for one reason – it’s the answer to so many of my security questions. I don’t want to put it out there what my favorite movie is.

I had one for a long time, then changed it to another. I didn’t do it on purpose, my favorite movie just changed, but it was almost like changing a password.

But here’s what everyone misses, sometimes on Facebook or places like that someone asks what year you graduated high school. I think that’s a red flag, too.

I was thinking when I interview people for my 10 With Tom column, which hasn’t been lately – I ask weird questions like that – not on purpose, I just ask random questions.

Lately, 10 With Tom has been just a list of things because after so many years I am having trouble getting people to answer my request for interviews. I’m not sure why. Maybe people are just being more cautious these days, which is a good thing, except when I want to interview them.

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