Weird Science (1985)

Just in case you haven't noticed, I've been watching a lot of teen movies from the 80s and 90s lately, partially because I don't have a lot of time and these movies are fairly short, partially because they've been on my list forever. Weird Science is one of those, and it ended up there because it's a John Hughes film. 

The story follows Gary (Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith), two very unpopular high school nerds who are not accepted by their peers — while the girls ignore them, the boys bully and embarrass them. One night, they are watching Frankenstein on the TV and they come up with the idea of creating their own creature using a computer program, only instead of a monster they want to create a gorgeous woman who can help them socially. Their experiment proves successful, and they create their perfect woman, Lisa (Kelly LeBrock). 

Thursday Movie Picks: True Crime

Whether it’s a movie, a TV series or a book, crime is a genre that always compels me, even more so if based on a true story, which is exactly what we are asked to pick for the first Thursday of May for Wandering Through the Shelves’s weekly series Thursday Movie Picks. Without further ado, here are my picks — I kinda cheated this week though.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

I've been meaning to check out Ferris Bueller's Day Off since I saw the musical scene in Easy A but, for a reason or another — the latest being the idiotic idea to watch Step Brothers — I kept putting it off. 

The film follows a day in the life of Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick), a popular high school student who gets away with everything. On this particular day, he fakes sick to take a day off from school and enjoy Chicago with his best friend, Cameron (Alan Ruck), and his girlfriend, Sloane (Mia Sara), while trying to outwit Ed Rooney (Jeffrey Jones), the suspicious school principal who wants to prove Ferris is not sick, and his sister, Jeanie (Jennifer Grey), who is sick of her brother getting away with his tricks all the time. 

St. Vincent (2014)

I love Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy and Naomi Watts so passing St. Vincent was not an option for me, even more so if you consider the film got a Globe nomination for Best Comedy/Musical. Unfortunately, my cinema didn't show it, I missed it and it took me more than four years to catch up.

The story follows Vincent (Bill Murray), an old, grumpy and alcoholic Vietnam veteran who lives alone and gambles regularly and whose only friend is a Russian sex worker named Daka (Naomi Watts). When Maggie Bronstein (Melissa McCarty), a med-tech divorcée, moves to the next-door house with her eleven-year-old son, Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher), Vicent offers to babysit him for money and he soon turns out to be exactly the mentor Oliver needs as the kid has to deal with his parents' divorce and the new school.