New Year's Resolution; Fright Night, Terminator 2: Judgement Day

Hello again. For 2008 my New Year's Resolution is to not let this blog die! I will be attempting to post regularly. First of all, I did indeed reach my goal of 200 movies last year. I will be posting writeups of last year's movies, starting from the beginning of the year, hopefully once a day. At the same time, I will be posting reviews of movies from this year as I watch them. So far, I do not have a goal regarding my movie watching this year. I haven't yet decided if I want to try for 200 again, especially since I've so far seen only four movies. I will keep you updated. So, without further ado, 2 reviews from this year.

1. Fright Night - **

2. Terminator 2: Judgement Day - *1/2So, I didn't particularly like either of these movies, but I think I enjoyed Fright Night more because I was expecting much less and ended up not hating it as much as I thought I might. The most awesome thing about Fright Night was, of course, Chris Sarandon's wardrobe. So much 80s awesomeness. And I liked Roddy McDowall, he was pretty adorable and I really liked his fake white hair. I did not like the freaky kid, I can't remember what his name was in the movie but that it was something weird. Let's see here, IMDB says, oh yes, "Evil" Ed. His character was annoying and kind of pointless really. Steve told me that that actor was well respected for a second in the 80s and that he came to the Bridge Theater when they played Fright Night at Midnite Mass and that he was really messed up and it was kind of sad. So...I feel kind of bad for hating him so much in the movie. Anyway, back to the movie, it was fine, I guess, except that it was lame and all the sexy stuff was creepy and gross, especially when the girl from Married...With Children looks like she's going to blow Chris Sarandon in that weird dance club they run into for whatever reason...yeah.

Terminator 2 I was much more disappointed in, and I was especially disappointed in Arnold's performance. Geez, he was so lackadaisical. I was expecting more excitement, but everybody was so dull. Also, I had never realized how gross Linda Hamilton is, maybe because I'm not sure that I've ever seen any of her movies before this one. (I guess I should mention that I'd never seen any of the Terminator movies before this) Anyway, yeah, Linda Hamilton is yuck. Her grossing me out so much really took away from any joy I may have found watching this film. Two things that were neat about this movie were, 1. Budnick from Salute Your Shorts plays little Eddie Furlong's friend in the beginning, and 2. the woman who plays "Gwen, Night Nurse." Steve and I both commented that her voice was really familiar, so I looked her up on good ol' IMDB and discovered that she played Susan Leffert's mom in LA Confidential (Susan Lefferts is the gal who gets killed at the Night Owl). The really interesting thing about this actress, whose name happens to be Gwenda Deacon, is that she has appeared in 3 movies; Terminator 2, released in 1991, LA Confidential, released in 1997, and Joy Ride, released in 2001. I haven't seen Joy Ride, but IMDB tells me she played a character named "Truck Stop Waitress." She has no bio on IMDB and no wikipedia page. A google search reveals nothing. Who is this woman? She has to be some gaffer's mom or something, right? It just seems so strange, 3 teensy roles in 3 fairly big movies with an average of 5 years between each role? If anyone has any info on her, I'm dying to know what the deal is.

To wrap it up, if I had to watch an Arnold movie, I'd rather watch Total Recall, because it is not lame, and Edward Furlong isn't in it.

mel