80s Movie Review - Big

Director: Penny Marshall
Genre: Comedy/ Drama/ Romance
Runtime: 104 minutes
Year: 1988
Starring: Tom Hanks, Robert Loggia, Elizabeth Perkins, John Heard, Debra Jo Rupp, Jared Rushton, Jon Lovitz

Description: When a boy wishes to be big at a magic wish machine, he wakes up the next morning and finds himself in an adult body.

Review: It has been done several times: characters that wake up in a different body. “Freaky Friday”, “13 Going on 30”, “Vice Versa”. “Big” is from 1988, but still the best film with this theme. “Big” is original, funny and touching. Because who hasn’t dreamed of being big as a kid?

Josh is a 13-year old teenager from New Jersey. While visiting a carnival, he is too short to go on a cool ride. He feels humiliated. As frustrated as Josh is, he throws a coin in a machine that claims to grant wishes. He wishes to be big. The next morning Josh wakes up in the body of a 30-year old man. Because nobody but his best friend Billy believes him, he decides to go to New York. He finds a simple job at a toy manufacture. Josh gets a promotion and co-worker Susan falls in love with him. Josh realized that being an adult is a lot harder than he thought.

For most people Tom Hanks became famous in the 90s, but in the 80s he showed us his comedic talent. Just look at “Splash”, “Bachelor Party”, “The Burbs” and ”Money Pit”. “Big” was probably his big break, not only because of his humor, also for his sense of drama. And Tom Hanks is constantly believable as a boy trapped in a man’s body.

What makes this such a strong film, besides the script and Tom Hanks’ performance, is that “Big” speaks to both kids and adults. For kids the film is funny and relatable. Adults will realize that you should never lose the kid inside and that adulthood is not easy. “Big” is an ode to childhood.

“Big” is a classic in the comedy genre and is filled with humor. Tom Hanks is without a doubt one of the best and most believable actors in Hollywood (to me THE best) and he proofs that in “Big”.

Rating: 5/ 5

100 Movie Challenge 2017 - # 68: Happiness

Director: Tod Solondz
Genre: Drama
Runtime: 134 minutes
Year: 1998
Starring: Jane Adams, Dylan Baker, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jon Lovitz, Jared Harris, Lara Flynn Boyle, Molly Shannon

Description: The lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.

Review: Looking for a film about happy families, happy relationships and happy people. Then “Happiness” is not your movie. It’s a very misleading title. The people in this movie are anything but happy and happiness is not present.
We follow several people. Like Joy Jordan, who claims to be very happy but isn’t everything but that. She is super nice, but is humiliated and broken over and over again. Her sister Trish thinks she has it all, but she doesn’t know that her husband jerks off to teen magazines and likes young boys. And he openly discusses sex with their young son. And then there is Alan, a lonely single man, who calls random women and talks dirty to them.
I guess “Happiness” isn’t for me.

Rating: 2/ 5

100 Movie Challenge 2017 - # 33: Mother's Day

Director: Garry Marshall
Genre: Drama/ Comedy
Runtime: 118 minutes
Year: 2016
Starring: Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson, Jason Sudeikis, Julia Roberts, Britt Robertson, Timothy Olyphant, Shay Mitchell, Sarah Chalke, Jon Lovitz, Hector Elizondo, Larry Miller, Jack Whitehall

Description: Three generations come together in the week leading up to Mother's Day.

Review: Mother’s Day is the day that we celebrate all the great mothers on the planet. They deserved their own film, but this is not really the tribute I was hoping for.
We follow several stories revolving around mothers a week before Mother’s Day. Jesse has to solve a fight with her mother, but also kept it a secret that she married an Indian man and together they have a son. Her sister also hides something, the fact that she is gay. Kristen is adopted and wants to meet her biological mom: career lady Miranda. Sandy has to share mother’s day with her ex-husband’s new wife, who is much younger than her. And Bradley and his daughters are still struggling after their wife/ mother’s death.
We had “New Year’s Eve” and “Valentine’s Day”, which weren’t all that great to begin with. “Mother’s Day” isn’t either. I liked Jennifer Aniston, but I always like her. But the rest of the cast is a bit bland. And that story of Jess was just oo ridiculous. She and her sister kept such a big secret, because their parents are pretty racist and not very open minded. And everything is forgiven and forgotten in literally one second. Not believable at all.
I don’t think “Mother’s Day” is film that would make a lot of mothers happy. It’s hardly funny, super cliché and predictable. Out of all the assemble films with multiple storylines, that eventually cross paths, there is only one film in this genre that wins. And it’s not by Garry Marshall (it’s “Love Actually”, in case you were wondering). So if you want to watch a film with your mom on mother’s day, don’t watch this.

Rating: 2/ 5

100 Movie Challenge 2015 - # 126: Hotel Transylvania

Director: Genndy Tartakovsky

Genre: Animation/ Comedy/ Family

Runtime: 91 minutes

Year: 2012

Starring: Adam Sandler, Selena Gomez, Steve Buscemi, Kevin James, Andy Samberg, David Spade, Fran Drescher, Jon Lovitz, Molly Shannon, Cee-Lo Green, Rob Riggle, Chris Parnell

Description: Dracula (Adan Sandler), who operates a high-end resort away from the human world, goes into overprotective mode when a boy (Andy Samberg) discovers the resort and falls for the count's teen-aged daughter (Selena Gomez).

Review: Prejudices are everywhere: in our society kids are afraid of monster, but in the monster society kids are thought the be afraid of people. And not without reason, because the men armed with pitchforks and fire are a true threat to vampires, werewolves and zombies. But times change. Dracula, who is a lot nicer than you might think, build a giant castle behind a haunted forest and a creepy cemetery and turned it into Hotel Transylvania. Monsters can come over but it’s human-free.

Besides the owner of a hotel, Dracula is a single dad of Mavis, who just turned 118. This means not only a big party, but Mavis is a grown up now. And she is allowed to go outside and discover the world. Dracula pulled off some tricks so that Mavis will never go outside again. When this works, Dracula is glad that he succeeded in protecting Mavis. That is until they are visited by Jonathan, a human backpacker.

The animation by Sony doesn’t only look good, the humor is outstanding and well dosed and it’s enjoyable for the entire family. Some jokes are a bit easy, but the overall humor is great. The story might be predictable, but who cares. “Hotel Transylvania” is a very entertaining amination, perfect for some quality time with the family. Or just for fun off course.

Rating: 3,5/ 5