Watching - March 2021

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

As I write this, I am listening to Wayne Newton's "Danke Schoen", which can only mean one thing: we watched the incomparable Ferris Bueller. Z hadn't seen it and no further excuse was needed for us all to watch it again, on our Saturday pizza 'n' movie night. Great fun, as always - I was worried that I wouldn't enjoy it, as I have seen it so many times, but it was and is brilliant. And yes, you can get bogged down with carping about how entitled Ferris is, or about some of the more dated scenes (Ferris dashing past two women in bikinis and then stopping to introduce himself) but I think to do so is largely pointless. It's nearly forty years old, for goodness' sake. Just enjoy it as a slice of eighties escapism.

High School Musical (2006)

HSM first entered our lives when K was about five, I think, and so is forever known in our house as "Highsical Musical", because that's what she called it at the time. I have sometimes described my relationship with it as being down to a kind of Stockholm Syndrome but, crassness aside, I really do love this film now - as does the whole family, and we can basically all talk and sing along with the whole thing.

High School Musical 2 (2007)

... and so the following evening we watched the second HSM. Notably less keen-ness from the family (two of whom disappeared from the living room half-way through), and possibly because it's not quite as good as the first one. Still, plenty to smile about.

High School Musical 3: Senior Year (2008)

The dining room was still out of action (being decorated) so we were eating dinner in the living room and that was apparently reason to continue our theme of the last few nights. Enough excuses though - once you're in the HSM world this is a great finish to the trilogy and ties off all ends satisfactorily. I don't think we'll go on to Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure though.

Friends With Benefits (2011)

I watched this about a year ago on a whim (on Now TV iirc), not because I knew anything about it but because it sounded like a cool film. I really enjoyed it, bought the DVD and wanted to come back to it. It's sparky, sassy, sexy and probably a bunch of other things beginning with 's' that I can't think of right now; Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake (neither of whom I knew anything about, as actors anyway, before this) are great together, and if there are couple of slightly disjointed moments on second watching, it doesn't detract from the film for me. A bit cliched perhaps (it's a very standard romcom story arc) but no worse for it - great fun.

The Muppets (2011)

For some reason this has 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, which was partly why we watched it (on B's suggestion). It's not that good (TMDB's 66% is more realistic) but it's pleasingly meta to begin with, even if the plot becomes pretty standard ("we can do it if we all pull together!"), and it's a nice family film. For adult, there's enough cameos to make spotting them entertaining - my favourite was Dave Grohl as a substitute Animal - and B and I were happy to realise that the reason we knew the main song was because Sara Cox uses it in her show.

The Truman Show (1998)

I showed this to Z last year on the off-chance and was slightly surprised he liked it. But he did, and it was his choice this evening. A classic, of course, even if (as always) the details don't bear too much thinking about (so Meryl says she wants a baby, but actually she's an actor, so really that makes her ... errr).