SW Watches: A League of Their Own

There are going to be some short posts here, because there's not much to say about all of this, but I am going to document every movie I watch.

And that includes A League of Their Own, a movie that seems to run every Saturday on basic cable - somehow, somewhere.

As saccharine and formulaic as the movie is, it's also an important one.  It did a lot to discuss the transformation of women's roles in the US during World War II, and the strange way we deal with gender when it comes to sports (and it's pretty honest about the marketing of a League that wasn't what people were used to).

I'm not sure it's either the best performance by Geena Davis or Tom Hanks, but they're both pretty damn good and they go a long way to define the buddy-system that it never hurts to have at work (ask me about KP sometime.  She's pulled my bacon out of the fire for six years.).

SW Watches: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimenstion

We have a fairly recently instated rule at League HQ that Friday movies must be "fun".  It's the end of the work week for me, and Jamie's usually worn out by this point - so it's the kind of night when we'll put on something with more than two Amigos, but fewer than four.

But we've also run through the pile of lightweight comedies of late, and I dusted off a DVD I'd purchased probably ten years ago and put it in, and when the DVD menu came up, I learned:  Jamie had never seen The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension.  Or, as most folks call it, Buckaroo Banzai.  

yes, all of these people are in this movie, and more...

I first saw the movie during its theatrical run.  The Admiral, being no dummy, drove us all the way across town to the one cinema showing the film.  As I recall, Steanso and I loved the thing, totally and with no hint of irony.  I had no idea it was a throwback to the Doc Savage concept of the super-human leader with his trusty band of do-gooders.  I just knew it had everything I wanted in a movie at the time.  A brilliant neurosurgeon/ particle physicist/ martial artist/ rock star hero (and what right thinking kid didn't want to be that in the mid-80's?).  Aliens.  Other Dimensions.  Space Ships.  Ellen Barkin.

Signal Watch Watches: Thief (1981)

James Caan.  Michael Mann.  Tangerine Dream.  Crime-Noir.  Willie Nelson?

Heck, yes.