F This Movie! 371 - My Best Friend's Wedding

Margo Donohue of the Book vs. Movie podcast returns to help Patrick break up a wedding.



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Also discussed this episode: The Magnificent Seven (2016), Don't Breathe (2016), Dead Ringers (1988), Beware the Slenderman (2017)

Check out the Book vs. Movie podcast here and follow them on Twitter here.

F This Movie! 370 - Chasing Amy

Patrick and Rob DiCristino finally have something personal to say.



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Also discussed this episode: Prince of Darkness (1987), Cheap Thrills (2014), Train to Busan (2016), Creepers (1985), Death Race 2050 (2017), Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)

Night on Earth: In the Company of Strangers

by Cait Cannon

Street lamps cut through the interior of your car in 60 mile an hour flashes. In the strobing glow, your pupils dilate, you relax, and your more rigid social barriers soften. Growing up, this is where I had the most intimate conversations with my parents. I came out to my dad in a grocery store parking lot as Vermont snow fell, casting a weird yellow light on everything. I drove with my mom cross country, listening to a blend of books on tape and her life story...the earned trust made me feel like an adult. For me, there’s nothing like this brand of vulnerability. The talks you can have with strangers on a cross continental night flight or the eagerness to share secrets in dimly lit bars simply isn’t possible during the day. Evening light has a magic way of setting the stage for honesty—the physical environments and company stay the same, but as the sun dips low, the world slips into a social twilight zone.

Jim Jarmusch is no stranger to conversation; a story teller who is eager to showcase the minutiae of relationships through seemingly banal conversations, he paints vivid cityscapes of characters that play with the intimate relationships fostered after dark. In Night on Earth there is no sex or romance, but something perhaps deeper and more poignant: the sadness of missed connections and unique brand of intimacy you share with someone you know you’ll never see again.

Last winter I took an Uber home from a bar in Brooklyn. My mustachioed driver looked unbelievably like the Monopoly Man, wore a wifebeater, and talked nonstop. He told me how Brooklyn has changed throughout the years as we made our ascent to Queens, with me listening in the backseat, drunkenly doing a crossword puzzle on my phone. Somewhere between boroughs, our journey was interrupted by a woman passed out in the street. An ambulance had already arrived and we watched collect her under the flashing lights—my driver’s back hair sparkled before me. After the proverbial smoke had cleared, we drove in silence before picking up a couple who squeezed in beside me. The contrast was nothing short of surreal. The love-drunk couple whispered in each other’s ears as my driver struggled to express his feelings about the temporality of life, about how the girl’s mother will certainly cry upon discovering what happened. His monologue filtered through their smacking and carressing. ...In short, the ride was pretty awkward. We pulled up to my house after dropping off the uncomfortable pair and he told me he’d never forget our ride. Obviously, I haven’t either.

Jarmusch relies on this loneliness of city living and unlikely pairings to comment on intimacy in general. He has a conversation with the viewers through his cast of zany characters; we relate to them on levels we wouldn’t fathom, and they relate to each other in ways that seem impossible. Night on Earth is not a movie that is by any means rational. It swings between being very sweet, funny, and deeply saddening. We are given snippets of strangers’ lives, strangers we’ve all met on subway platforms or in lines at the pharmacy and are left to insert ourselves in the spaces he leaves undescribed. My interaction with the Monopoly Man Driver could have seamlessly fit into this tale, proving that although Jarmusch’s sample of life is a bit on the weirder side, it’s not too far off from what happens in cities at night.

The film traverses five cities: LA, Paris, New York, Rome and Helsinki. I’m not going to talk about all of them, because each short really deserves its own write up entirely. Instead, I’ll focus on my favorites, LA and Paris. In Los Angeles, we meet a young and very greasy Winona Ryder. Smacking her gum and smoking one cigarette after another, she is sort of a lone cowboy figure, navigating LA by herself in a dirty taxicab. After picking up a hoity toity casting agent with an impressive luggage set, Winona’s character is offered a starring role in an up and coming feature—a dream hard to pass up for many. Despite the done-up exec’s efforts to motivate Winona to want more of this life, the young girl is perfectly content following her dream of becoming a mechanic, because ultimately that’s her big fish, her dream to make real. It’s this anticlimactic failure to fulfill Cliche Big Dreams that makes this movie magic; it strips stories of their Hollywood glamour and makes them epically (and non-epically) real. A story of a spunky tomboy getting glammed up and making the big time is a dime a dozen. And also boring.

The Paris vignette is one I think about often. An immigrant from the Ivory Coast is nearing the end of his shift. After an infuriating ride with two drunken diplomats, he picks up a blind woman. Despite having just experienced a fair share of prejudice at the hands of the diplomats, he comments to himself that she probably won’t pay her fare. Immediately contradicting his assumptions, the woman engages with the driver, telling him when and where to make turns as she touches up her makeup. Fascinated, he watches her more closely than he watches the road, he interviews her, asking about her disability. He assumes so much about her life living as a blind person, similarly to how the diplomats assumed so much about him.

Patiently, however, she answers his questions about lovemaking, her experience at the movies, and we can see as the conversation goes on how he starts to regard her with a certain level of romance. Upon arriving at her destination, he tries to charge her less than her fare; in an act of charity or care or flirting, who knows. The woman, however, refuses to be infantilized and pays him more than what she owes. We see her walk away and hear the cab driver get into an accident off screen, she smiles, knowing it was because he was looking at her. We hear an argument between the drivers—heated and full of racial stereotyping. I like how again, this short backs into what we expect from a film. Had this exchange happened in any other movie, her blindness would have been romanticized, and their connection would have been something else entirely.

The anonymity of night time wraps us up like a confessional. Strangers, especially cab drivers (people we often don’t think twice about), meet countless of other strangers and share countless of awkward exchanges. Even when we’re trying to be by ourselves, in cities it’s impossible not to fumble and rub elbows with someone— consequently impacting each other’s lives. From stories we share at parties to encounters that are deeper and more important, Night of Earth makes real life slightly more beautiful, slightly more emotional, and slightly more real.

Off the Shelf: Raising Cain (Blu-ray)

by Erich Asperschlager

Hickory Dickory Dock. Cain has picked his lock.

In 1992, I was working as a dish washer at a summer camp. I was too young to have a car, so I glommed on to whichever older counselor with wheels made plans to drive to the nearest town on days off. One break, a group of us decided to go to the movies. Most everyone wanted to see Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven. I lobbied to see Brian De Palma’s Raising Cain, based solely on the commercials I had seen on the communal TV the staff lounge. I was outvoted, and probably for the best. Unforgiven went on to redefine modern westerns and win Best Picture. Raising Cain fell into relative obscurity for all but diehard De Palma fans and it would be 25 years before I got around to seeing the film that had tickled by early teenage imagination.

Scream Factory released Raising Cain earlier this Fall in one of their deluxe 2-disc “Collector’s Editions.” The main draw of this new set, beside the audiovisual upgrade that comes with the Blu-ray treatment, is the inclusion of the so-called “Director’s Cut” of the film. Although Brian De Palma wrote and directed Raising Cain, he was not entirely happy with the version that was released in theaters. Watching that cut of the film, it’s easy to see why.

Raising Cain is the story of a child psychologist (John Lithgow) who suffers from multiple personality disorder. After years of stability his psyche is shattered by two events: the re-emergence of a shadowy figure from his past, and the discovery that his wife Jenny (Lolita Davidovich) has rekindled an affair with the man (Steven Bauer) she was in love with before they met. It’s a tale of suspense, mystery, revenge, kidnapping, and murder in De Palma’s thrilling signature style. Unfortunately, it doesn’t entirely work.

The best things about Raising Cain are the best things about any of the director’s films. De Palma knows how to build tension in the disconnect between what the characters and audience know, and the dreamlike way he doles out that information. There are twists and shocking revelations. Bits of backstory come to light as the stakes ramp up to a corker of a finale. That story is brought to life by the performances of Davidovich, Bauer, Frances Sternhagen, and a host of character actors playing people who, though flawed, fit into a recognizable cinematic representation of reality. The wild card here is John Lithgow’s Carter Nix, aka. Cain, whose hidden split personality and tragic history amplify the human drama of his wife’s romantic entanglement, turning it into something even darker.

Raising Cain comes together by the end into a tight thriller, but the journey is fractured. The biggest problem with the theatrical cut of the film is that it reveals Lithgow’s character as psycho killer from nearly the opening scene. There’s no mystery, no ramp up. It focuses on Carter, Cain, and their father’s scheme first, with the more relatable stuff about his wife relegated to B-plot. We know he’s a troubled guy well before she does, and it makes her emotional struggle less impactful as a result. Who cares that an old flame is back on the scene when her husband is cracked and stealing babies?

The “Director’s Cut” on Disc Two fixes some of these issues. It saves the Carter/Cain reveal until after the infidelity plot is well-established, which sets up the kind of unnerving twist De Palma utilizes in films like Dressed to Kill. The problem is that to maintain the purity of the reveal, the two halves are stitched together with narration and non-chronological storytelling. It’s less jarring in one way, more jarring in another. The other oddity with this cut is that wasn’t technically De Palma’s doing. In 2012, fan and director Peet Gelderblom took a leaked copy of Raising Cain’s original screenplay and the DVD, copied the film into his computer and re-ordered the scenes to match De Palma’s vision for the film. “Raising Cain Re-Cut” garnered praise from critics and fans, and even got the coveted blessing of De Palma himself. The legendary director was instrumental in convincing Scream Factory to include Gelderblom’s edit in this set. The “Director’s Cut” is a fascinating counterpoint to Raising Cain‘s theatrical incarnation, but it doesn’t magically fix the film. For all its improvements, it still feels like a fan edit. As close as Gelderblom got to De Palma’s original intent, he was limited to material in the theatrical version; several planned sequences were lost forever on the cutting room floor. It’s a valiant effort, but maybe there’s no “fixing” Raising Cain — and that’s okay. Its messy approach to storytelling echoes Carter’s fragmented psyche and other characters’ fumbling to put the pieces together. Discordant as the dreamlike elements of the film may be, De Palma’s bold filmmaking carry Raising Cain through 91 arresting, imperfect minutes.

Whichever version of Raising Cain you prefer, Scream Factory delivers a gorgeous 1.85:1 1080p transfer. The film has a purposely hazy look that doesn’t detract from fine detail and rich color. Given the standard-def roots of Gelderblom’s cut, I assume whoever prepared it for Scream Factory re-cut it from better source materials. Whatever the process, there’s no difference in quality between the two versions. Both cuts have the same audio options: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 mixes, both crisp with clear dialogue and ample power behind the Pino Donaggio score.

The “Director’s Cut” on Disc Two is the most substantial bonus feature included in the Raising Cain: Collector’s Edition, but there is plenty more to enjoy. Disc One has interviews with John Lithgow, Steven Bauer, editor Paul Hirsch, Gregg Henry, Tom Bower, and Mel Harris that add up to more than an hour and half in total; along with the theatrical trailer and a stills gallery. Disc Two has two short featurettes focused on the Director’s Cut. In “Changing Cain: Brian De Palma’s Cult Classic Restored” (2:25), Gelderblom talks about the inspiration behind his re-edit and reactions to his work, while the longer, standard def “Raising Cain Re-Cut: A Video Essay” (13:02) gives the fan editor the space to discuss the film, and detailed differences between the two versions. The set also comes with a slip cover and reversible cover art if you prefer the original poster to the new design.

Raising Cain doesn’t make the best first impression. It’s too bad, because Brian De Palma’s psychological thriller has some delicious reveals. Scream Factory provides two excellent ways to watch the film, in equally gorgeous theatrical and re-cut versions. Neither edit completely captures what the director seems to be going for, but both are great fun and worth experiencing for De Palma’s mastery and John Lithgow’s fearless performance. Scream Factory adds even more bang for your Blu-ray buck with the addition of a hefty collection of retrospective interviews and (sadly too-brief) “Director’s Cut” making of featurettes. Two flawed cuts equal one fascinating mess.

Guiltless Pleasures: Spice World

by Adam Thas

There are movies that we tell others about proudly; we put our stamp of approval on them and send our gold stars out into the world hoping that others will find the same love and pleasure out of their runtime that we received. There are also the movies we enjoy ironically. The terrible, terrible, beautiful messes that are works of trainwreck poetry. This column isn’t about those movies. This is about our dirty secrets. These are movies we love but keep hidden under the proverbial floorboards that in one moment could discredit every one of our opinions in every conversation, the fatal blow to any heated movie conversation. Every one of us movie lovers have them, and this is about celebrating the movies that we feel no shame for enjoying but which still remain nameless too often. These are our guiltless pleasures.

In 2000, I spent many Friday nights trekking to the local Tower Records (Rest In Peace) with a few friends and wandering around the store with a few dollars burning a hole in my pocket. I remember it well: I found a Talking Heads CD and a copy of “Del the Funky Homosapien’s Greatest Hits” and walked up to the register. With my superior taste in music and my random comic book T-Shirt, I was the the vision of kick-ass. I strutted myself up to the register with my best friend Mike at my side and the guy behind the register rang me up. As the sale was going to be tallied, I saw right by the register in the bargain bin was one of my favorites. I picked it up and handed it to the man and declared loudly.

“Spice World on DVD for only $7.99? Hell yeah!” As I slammed it down on the counter. Mike just looked at me.

The register guy— with a sincerity rarely heard in this world— looked me in the eyes and said, “You have no soul.”

I smiled and gladly paid my $7.99, because you know what?

FUCK THAT GUY!

Because, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want! I want GIRL POWER! Yeah, I’m a Spice Girls fan, and more than that I’m a Spice World fan. Not ironically, the way we watch Troll 2, but as a genuine “I’m loving this” experience. It’s 93 minutes of absolute fun and, in my humble opinion, endlessly watchable.

Let’s get the bad out of the way (I said I liked it, not that it was perfect). It was clearly written in about five minutes and in some scenes the production value is that of three kids with a video camera in their backyard, but even a kid with a video camera can get it right occasionally.

What works best in Spice World are the Spice Girls. Whether you’re a fan of them or not, I will argue until I pass out that the Spice Girls are entertaining. The way they carry themselves on screen is endlessly engaging and I could just sit and watch them talk all day. They are completely over the top, but in Spice World in particular they are the anchor through the nonsense. There are moments where the girls are simply talking to each other or to someone else, delivering lines and finishing each others sentences in a way that builds off each other and has a rhythm to it that is charming. Of course it helps if you are aware of who the Spice Girls are before watching the movie, but Spice World gives each girl a moment to show their “character” and how each one of them works together in the group. I know that it’s a put-on, but it feels like these are girls who care about each other and I’m just excited I get to hang out with them for a while.

It does help that I do own multiple Spice Girls CDs and do not hold back my love for them. I can sing along with the hits and even a few of the deep tracks (Yeah, I said “deep tracks” when referring to the Spice Girls.), which works for me because every hit gets featured with it’s own performance. “Wannabe,” “Stop,” or, my personal favorite, an “unplugged” version of “Say You’ll be There” are all in there, and the performances of the songs are like watching a catchy music video. The girls can all dance, they are energetic and are doing what made them famous. The performances are super fun and paced in so that it breaks up the plot.

Which brings me to the plot. It’s essentially the 1997 equivalent of A Hard Day’s Night (JB just had a heart attack), where the girls visit and hang out with fans, perform, and jump forward and backward in time with little skits. So when I say it’s the equivalent to A Hard Day’s Night, I mean a shittier version. The plot is not why I pop in the DVD. It’s utter nonsense for more than half the running time. You just “hang-out” with the Spice Girls. There are running themes with a friend having a baby, a documentary crew, the paparazzi, and a huge live performance, but it’s just a way to get from one “skit” to the next. I am going to defend what the plot transforms into. Get ready—shit’s about to get real.

There is a running theme with two movie producers trying to get the Spice Girls into a movie. Near the end as the producers pitch the movie, the things he says actually start happening to the Spice Girls. At one point he says “Now the girls are on top of the bus” and we flash to the girls on the bus. The producers gradually add more and more danger until the girls' manager grabs him and says “HAVEN’T THESE GIRLS BEEN THROUGH ENOUGH!” Personally, as a movie pitched toward early teenage girls, this is kind of deep. A movie pitching itself in real time. It’s a unique element that you don’t see usually and for me it totally works. I genuinely laugh at the look on Baby Spice’s face when she opens the bottom of the bus and sees a bomb, or when a toy Spice-Bus jumps the London Bridge. It’s great.

Then there are the cameos. Yeah, there are some great cameos or even small bit parts that totally work for me. At one point, the girls meet up with Elton John and get served drinks from Elvis Costello. The only “controversy” surrounding the movie was that there is a scene and performance with Gary Glitter that was cut right before the movie release when it was discovered he’s into little kids. Probably my favorite bit part is that from Roger Moore. Roger Moore is probably best known for his role as Grandpa Bond, but in Spice World he plays the elusive producer for the Spice Girls who is constantly giving nonsensical advice. It’s hilarious and totally works for me. At one point, Roger Moore is sitting by himself in a room, talking on the phone while petting a tiny pig. Yeah, that exists...and it’s awesome.

Spice World has a 3.3 on IMDB, 36% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 32% on Metacritic, and was nominated for 11 Raspberries, where it won “Worst Actress(s)” for the Spice Girls. All of this proves that no one besides me knows what they’re talking about. Don’t believe me? Well you can rent it right now on Amazon for $3.99 in HD, which is a complete rip-off. You need to spend the $6 and own that shit! Trust me.

A Movie I'm Thankful For: You've Got Mail

by Adam Riske

You can’t judge a book by its cover.

Oscar bait films can be effective; they prime you into being susceptible to big emotions and deeper meaning, but it’s rare (and therefore more special) when a piece of popular entertainment burrows into your heart and soul. The movie that has always done that for me in Nora Ephron’s 1998 romantic comedy You’ve Got Mail. It’s the type of movie that even its fans would classify as disposable, but it’s always meant more to me than that. Some of that is the film’s doing and other parts of it are circumstantial.

You’ve Got Mail was the first movie I ever saw on a date. I’m always going to remember how I strategically picked this movie to be the “date movie” because it was a romance and I wanted to elicit those feelings out of my date that evening. I was 16, so (as 16-year olds who don’t know what they’re doing do) we went to Applebee’s for dinner and I pulled such rookie moves as writing “left cash on table” on the tip line of the receipt (as if leaving money on the table itself wasn’t indicator enough). In hindsight, the date was very much me playing the part of my dad. My mom and dad would often go to “dinner and a movie” dates and that’s what I thought you were supposed to do.

After seeing You’ve Got Mail for the first time, I resisted it. At 16, I didn’t really enjoy romantic movies mostly because they were “movies for girls.” But something sort of clicked with me in the months after seeing You’ve Got Mail in theaters. I had an urge to want to watch it again. The sad thing was, at the time, I was too self-conscious about this impulse, so I suppressed that feeling for probably about a year. Then the movie started showing up on cable and I would watch it again and again and again. It made me really happy even if I couldn’t admit it to anyone. I loved it in secret and that might be, perhaps, why my love of it grew so exponentially. When you discover the art that you respond to (that falls out of your societal norms) that’s when you begin to learn what defines you as a person. I am a romantic. That has served me very well and very poorly in my romantic relationships throughout the past 18 years, but there’s no hiding it. It’s who I am.

You’ve Got Mail came up again shortly thereafter as I entered college. I majored in Business (Finance to be exact) because I didn’t know what I wanted to major in and I felt like it would be a safe path to take while I figured things out. I learned soon that Finance wasn’t for me, but Marketing was. How I learned that was all thanks to a class I took as a pre-req for business school which was called Writing Analytically. In this class, we watched popular films and were asked to come up with a thesis and examine them based on that point we were trying to make. The whole purpose was to look deeper into “mainstream fare.” It just so happened that the first film we watched as a class was You’ve Got Mail. As I mentioned before, I was already a fan of You’ve Got Mail, but this time I was more susceptible to what deeper meaning there might be to the film. Then it clicked for me and I came up with a thesis, which was that the movie was saying that while traditional male business ideals (i.e. divide and conquer) were the status quo, it was the female business ideals (i.e. personalization, customer care) that were, basically, the key to making us all happy whether we were men or women. I got a B+ on that paper and, in retrospect, it was a bit naïve (being that I was not a “businessman” at that point and I was making broad gender generalizations) but it got me thinking and that was important as clumsy as the execution turned out to be. More importantly, I don’t think without that paper I would have accepted Patrick’s offer to write for F This Movie! It was, in a way, the first seed that eventually grew into a writing tree later on for analyzing movies. It helped me believe that I could do it.

You’ve Got Mail continued to be important to me during business school, too. The atmosphere was competitive and the edge I gave to myself was (and I’m not kidding) constantly asking myself “What would Joe Fox do?” Joe Fox is the male lead in You’ve Got Mail, played by Tom Hanks, and he had everything I thought I would need to become a success in business in my own life. He was cunning, he was personable and he had a good heart. Sometimes you hear a kid playing basketball imagines himself as the next Michael Jordan or LeBron James. Joe Fox was my career idol. After working for over 12 years, I realize how silly and again naïve that was, but now I get a good nostalgic tinge from that. My favorite realization is that being a successful businessperson has very little to do with just walking around with your best friend and not talking about work. Most scenes in You’ve Got Mail where they show Tom Hanks at work he’s just shooting the shit with Dave Chappelle. I might someday get to that level, but I’m certainly not there yet.

So I’m thankful for You’ve Got Mail for many circumstantial reasons, but there’s one now that I am thankful for it for that could only happen at the current state of my life. It’s a movie that gives adults hope that romantic love is still possible in your 30s (possibly 40s; the movie never states how old the Hanks and Meg Ryan characters are). In recent years, I’ve become disenchanted with dating and romance because it’s predominantly online, robbing it of spontaneity, romance and overinflating expectations. It’s like social media, where everything has to fit in your own personal bubble. Now dating (driven by online dating) is more akin to shopping than anything else, and G-d forbid if you or the other person deviates from that precious vision. But You’ve Got Mail is a movie made in the infancy of online dating and sees it as an exciting opportunity. It’s hard to get back to that way of thinking, but maybe it’s time for me to start thinking like Joe Fox again and believe that anything is possible – just this time in romance and not explicitly business.

I hope all of you have a happy and safe Thanksgiving and thank you for your support and friendship over the years. I look forward to many more weeks, months and years of laughing, thinking and spending time together.

F This Movie! - The Addams Family & Addams Family Values

Patrick and Adam Riske's podcast on the two Addams Family movies isn't the podcast you want but it's the podcast you need.



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Also discussed this episode: Frankie & Johnny (1991), The Doors (1991), Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016), Kevin Hart: What Now? (2016), Weiner-Dog (2016), Trolls (2016), Sing Street (2016), Viva (2007), The Frontier (2016)

Bossa Nova, Dude: The TMNT Trilogy

by Melissa Uhrin

They're gnarly, they're bitchin', they're uhhhh mega... uhhh.

...They're the little green mutant teens that just so happen to be pizza loving turtles.

We have successfully conquered Scary Movie Month, and now it's time to return to our regular lives, whatever that might look like. Mine comes in the form of revisiting two great movies from my childhood, and the third, well, I'll just ignore that until it requires my attention. As a kid, we watched the '80s television animated series, played the video game, had the action figures and used to play ninja fights all the time. I'm fairly certain we also had quite a few comics, but being over 25 years ago, I can't quite be sure of much aside from the fact that I was a giant nerd. So when the first live action feature film was released we of course watched it, bought it on VHS and consumed it as necessarily as air. Us and the rest of the world.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) directed by Steve Barron is easily one of my favourite movies from the '90s, possibly due to the sentimentality of long ago youth, and possibly due to the totally tubular awesomeness of the film. With live action, giant rubber suits with animatronic heads created by Jim Henson's Creature Shop, with three different actors required for each turtle (in-suit performer, face puppeteer and the voice actor), not to mention the relatable “real” characters for the first time outside of the animated universe, this film combined glorious amounts of awesomeness I had never before witnessed. The film's dark tone and dark characters, contrasted with our fun and exuberant heroes created a world any kid could easily lose themselves in. Hellacious, dudes.

Now, watching it as an adult (or as close as I'll ever come to being one), none of the fun or awe with which young me fell in love with it was lost. I laughed even more at all the radical jokes, held my breath as Raphael and Casey Jones battle it out in their initial meeting, and was annoyed with April O'Neil's dumb screaming. I even found beauty in the darkness of the sewers. The only thing that would have changed is an increased appreciation for what was, at the time, the second highest-grossing independent film of all time. (And I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but I really did see a junior Skeet Ulrich as a foot soldier in there!)

The following year (am I correct in my assumption that it was even before the first film had made it to VHS), we were rewarded for our love of the original, with the sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. All puns aside (well, sort of), this movie literally oozes of '80s and '90s nostalgia. It is in literal sharp contrast from the first film, being the light to the darkness, which is immediately noted in the opening scene. Fun, joking and playing with all the '80s and '90s items one might find in a time capsule from the era (era), our introduction to our favourite green ninjas is a playfully comedic piece, where no real danger is ever felt.

With this being my first ever time watching the trilogy from start to finish, the differences are glaring, right down to the change in voice actors and most obvious, April O'Neil's face has changed significantly. Judith Hoag was not asked to reprise her role of the famous reporter, primarily due to her complaints about the violence and darkness in the first film. (Which surprised me when I first read that as I didn't find the film to be all that violent. However, perhaps watching it on the heels of a month of beautiful bloody gore is not the best litmus test for violence.) Paige Turco took on the role, but perhaps the producers took to heart Hoag's concerns, as in the second film it is rare to see any of the turtles with weapons in hand. Even when Vanilla Ice is onstage dancing and chanting “Go Ninja Go Ninja Go,” it's mostly high kicks and dancing that defeats the enemy. Just like in real life.

Finally the third film, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III. (1993). Yep, we live in a world where four mutant turtles are transported back to 1600 Japan and are meant to defeat evil to fulfill a prophecy. Turtles riding horses. Turtles not needing to learn Japanese because everyone speaks English. Turtles that have fallen and can't get up.

I did not like this movie. Not even Corey Feldman reprising his voice role for Donatello could fix this for me.

In the same way that most of us can boast of belonging to one of the Houses of Hogwarts from the world of Harry Potter, we can just as easily relate to one of the teen turtles based on their qualities and mannerisms. Mine has always been Donatello, awkward, brainy and awkward again. His was the action figure I chose as a kid and whose personality I feel I most identify with both then and now.

Because, uuuhhhhh, you know, Chevy Nova.