The Goonies

As a kid in the 80s TV kept me company after school every day until dinner time or until I got kicked outside to play in the yard.  I remember every day for probably all of 88 and 89 when my grandma asked me what movie I wanted to watch I always said The Goonies.  I loved sitting on her couch and having Goonie adventures with my Goonie friends.  I've owned that movie (and Tommy Boy, which is tied for my #1 best movie) in every medium I've ever used, including VHS, DVD, UMD (the entire reason I bought a PSP was to watch movies in situations where I would otherwise have been expected to be social) and MP3 for my iPod and external hard drive, and I'll get it on whatever comes next.  Once when I lived overseas and my husband was off doing military things, I watched it all the way through, then again with the commentary... and then again to see what they were all talking about.  That's six hours of Goonies in a row and I've been tempted to do it again. 

Over the years, those kids have taken turns being my best friend (as I'm sure you can well imagine there's historically been a shortage of non-imaginary best friends).  Mouth and Data, played by Corey Feldman and Jonathan Ke Quan, shared my heart as the 'cute boys' of the movie back then and they were among my first celebrity crushes.  Yes, the first of MANY.  In general, my favorite Goonie has been Mikey although I really did, and still do, relate to poor Stef, who felt like she was babysitting except she wasn't getting paid.

I feel like I could probably pretty reliably say that everyone's favorite moments are brought to you by Chunk, played by Jeff Cohen.  From the movie theater barf to the Truffle Shuffle to my personal favorite, the moment where the Fratellis take away his ice cream spoon and he is distraught!

That cracks me up every time. 

Make sure to tell me your favorite part in the comments and which kid is/was your favorite.  Also, if you've never seen the music video that Cyndi Lauper made for the movie, get ready to live! https://youtu.be/LxLhytQ67fs

And lastly, just as a side note: I wasn't ever really into Brand as a kid or like... ever. But right now, as an adult, Josh Brolin is HOT.
And that's all. 

Never say die, my friends.

Home Alone

Okay, I know that I have two Christmas movies on my top ten list, and neither of them is Home Alone.  I know that.  But here's the thing: What I have to say about Home Alone is much more interesting than "I just like it SOOOOO MUCH!!!" Which is what I would have ended up writing about either Elf or A Christmas Story. 

So, listen.  If you were a girl born roughly 30-35 years ago and you say you never had a crush on Macaulay Culkin... well, that's just nuts.  I have no reason to trust you anymore unless you just weren't into boys at all.  Which I guess is an excuse, but it's the ONLY one.  He had the cute-boy looks but you knew he was really a bad boy underneath it all.  First of all, he was terrifying in The Good Son and if you didn't watch that you were cheated.  There's currently a movie with the same name on Netflix but don't let it fool you.  You probably just missed your chance to see Macaulay Culkin and Elijah Wood in a scary movie, and Mack (that's what I called him; we were in pretend preteen love) was truly, truly frightening. At least he was to a kid.  I haven't seen it since then. Also, he hung out with Michael Jackson and divorced his parents and got married when he was 17.  He even wrote a book called Junior and if you ever find it, it is your immediate responsibility to get it into my hands, like, yesterday.  Don't ever forget that!

Okay, sorry.  Back to the movie. 

I would guess that Home Alone is probably the most universally popular Christmas movie of all time.  It's also one of the few movies that I can watch with my husband and our preschool-age kids that we all enjoy.  The music, for one thing, is beautiful even though it's a comedy and that somehow works.  Now, when you hear the word genius, you might think of just science and math but John Williams is definitely a musical genius.  Like, what is the movie with the best score that you can think of? Star Wars? Jaws? Harry Potter? Indiana Jones?  John Williams.  It's all John Williams.  Plus over 250 more movies and TV shows! That guy... he can afford to give out full-size Snickers at Halloween, you know what I mean?

My favorite part of Home Alone, though, was not even Kevin or the music.  It's Daniel Stern's piercing shriek, after which he smashes Joe Pesci's ribs to bits with a crowbar in the tarantula scene.

Those two are the perfect pair for this movie and I'm glad to say that if either of them has ever made a bad movie, I haven't seen it.  Joe Pesci has an interesting life story, too.  In fact, that's another book I'd read like my life depended on it.  Someone tell Joe Pesci to write a book right away.  Tell him I said. 

Alright, then.  I've got tons more I could say (some of it even about the movie!) but I'm worried I'll end up assigning you more homework.  I'll check in with you next week and of course I'll keep up with your comments to see how you're coming with Pesci and with the Culkin book.  I also expect to see an argument or two from those of you who've seen a bad movie starring one of the Wet Bandits.  I'd actually like to watch it.

Well, that's my two cents on Home Alone.  Keep the change, ya filthy animal.

NKOTB

When I was very young -young enough to need a babysitter- my mom used to leave me in the care of the local teenage girl.  Okay, so there was more than ONE teenage girl...but certainly not more than five or six.  It was a tiny town.  Heather was our go-to and I loved her to death until I gave her attitude so bad that she passed me on to her sister, Sarah.  I liked Sarah a lot because she was younger and a fun sitter, but I really missed Heather because she always brought music with her when she came.  I don't remember everything she brought over but I do remember a few.  My favorites were New Edition, The Boys and... drumroll, please... New Kids on the Block! Man, once I heard NKOTB, I was an instant Blockhead! I think I liked them before any of my friends, and I know for sure that I was still obsessed long after they had all moved on to Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer. 

Oh, I listened to Hammertime and practiced the 2L2Quit hand motions with Stephanie over and over on the playground until I got it right.  I spent a lot of time with Milli Vanilli and Billy Ray Cyrus in my Walkman, too.  But the New Kids were always my #1.  I had the bed sheets, the bath towel, the dolls, magazine posters hung all over my room, I read NKOTB novels and got their tapes for birthdays.  I  remember I spent hours every day all summer in my friend Danielle's backyard with our other friend Crystal trying to make the Step By Step choreography work with only three people.  Those were the days before everyone could just go around recording every moment of their lives, but I assume we looked like professional dancers and sounded exactly like three Debbie Gibsons covering the New Kids.  We must have.  I'm sure of it. 

I also remember pretty clearly arguing who was the best New Kid. Crystal loved Jordan and Danielle preferred Donnie, but I was always changing my mind.  While I think I maintained a strict stance of either Danny or Jon for the sake of argument (Who can remember these things? It was 25 years ago.  Wait... 25 years!?), they each had a turn as my favorite.  Well, except for Donnie.  He always scared me.  Quite sensible, in my opinion, even now.  Joey was the youngest and looked so sweet; Jordan and Jonathan had those pretty eyelashes and I have always been a sucker for those eyelashes; Danny... well, Danny works out.  He's still my choice of the five guys. 

They keep themselves busy these days touring with other boy bands and they usually do a cruise with fans each year, so if you have a spare gazillion dollars lying around feel free to grab me a ticket.  Christmas is coming up, you know.  They're all on Twitter, and they're kind of fun to follow, especially if you want updates on tours and stuff. If you want links, just ask in the comments and I'll find them for you.  I'd really like to read about everyone else's NKOTB memories too, I know I'm not the only one who begged for a subscription to Bop Magazine trying to get new posters! Make your case in the comment section for cutest guy or tell me which video you learned the choreography to.  Hopefully you will all be flooded with memories like I am, because I'd sure like to hear about them.  Also, make sure to subscribe.  There will be more to read next week that you won't want to miss!

And now for your enjoyment, my current NKOTB shirt.  Don't get too jealous!

Stephen King

This one... may be lengthy. But that's totally fitting because the subject is Stephen King, the wordiest mofo in the business.  I have a little story about Stephen King.  Actually, I have a bunch.  I'll most likely end up posting stories about him a few times.  For today, though, I'll just start at the beginning.  When I was a kid I read a lot.  I don't ever remember reading many picture books, just Little Critter and The Berenstain Bears.   I read a lot of chapter books about little kids like myself and I read them quickly. After I got tired of re-reading all my own books, I began to go to my mom's bookshelf and read whatever she had there.  Like I said, I was really young, so I forget what kind of books I read at first, but I clearly remember when I got to Cujo, my first King novel.  I was eight years old, and I was used to scary movies, so I was sure I'd be fine.  Just a few pages in I stopped where I was and took the book nervously to my mom.

"Mom, are you sure I can read this?" I asked.  "It has bad words in it."
"Hey, if you can read it... you're big enough to read it."

Now, clearly the 80s was a different time.  Looking back I realize that my favorite movie, The Goonies (and most kids' movies at the time), were filled with cussing.  I just never noticed until I went to show those old movies to my own kids.  Oops.  That doesn't fly nowadays.  Anyway, when I took that book back to my room to read it, I just sat at first and thought about what my mom had said.  It seemed I was done with the days where the grown-ups controlled what went into my head.  The fact that my skill level was sufficient to read this adult book meant that I was advanced enough to read anything anybody had ever written about anyone.  It meant that if I could sound it out, I could know it.

So there I was, eight years old, and I realized that I didn't need someone else to approve of my thoughts.  That's pretty liberating for such a little kid.  It's kind of exciting even now, and I'm glad I recognized it in the moment.  I don't know if everyone sees it that way, but I'd love to hear if anyone else has a similar story.  Put yours in the comments if you have one, because I'm very interested in reading it, and learning whether it was a book, a movie, music or something else altogether that did it for you.  You know, it's funny.  A few years ago he did a reading in New Orleans (through Octavia Books, found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/octaviabooks) and I was one of the first few people to buy a ticket.  My friend and I got there hours early and there were only about 8 or 10 people ahead of us.  We sat all afternoon and evening with a huge line forming behind us. 

When the woman who introduced him started to speak, I started to cry.  Yes, already.  I mean, not like Sanjaya Girl or anything. Just slow, silent tears that basically didn't stop until I was on my way home.  In my defense, I'd just had a baby and my hormones were all over the place.  Two years later I went to see The Jacksons while I was 8 months pregnant with my second one. Full. On.  Sobbing.  But that's a story for another day.  At the end of the Stephen King event, there was a Q&A and the line was crazy long.  I considered standing there anyway, but I just couldn't think of anything to say.  You read that right, as long winded as I am, as overdramatic with my stories, as talented as I am at pointless rambling... I couldn't even think of a single thing to tell the man I owe most of that to.  I just sat there trying to come up with something, anything to say.  I wish so desperately that it had occurred to me to tell him the story of how Cujo led to my own little renaissance and began to lead me out of the Dark Ages that I consider childhood to be.     

All I wanted at the time was something to tell him that would make him remember me.  After all, I'll remember seeing him for the rest of my life, you know? Of course, sitting on the front row in a room full of 1,000 people and silently weeping all Annie-Wilkes-style may have done the trick, so mission probably accomplished. 

*shrug*

Anyway, a few more pictures for your enjoyment: 

Movie Night

I got the idea in my head one day to do a weekly Movie Night with my friends and family and it was really a success.  We had themed snacks and tried to match the movies to the appropriate time of year.  It was so fun! There were five of us and we all picked ten movies, so that after one year we all watched each other's favorite movies together as a group.  It was a fun way to get to know each other better because a person's top ten list can say a lot about them.  This will be one of my shorter posts, but you should learn a little bit about me from it.  Please, post your top ten in the comments so I can learn a little about you, too (I know it's tough to keep it down to ten but usually 12 or 15 is a doable goal).  Maybe sometime I'll do an entire 'list' post to tell you my favorite TV shows, books, songs... who knows what else.  In no particular order, here are my top ten favorite movies:

• Tommy Boy
• The Goonies
• Fight Club
• The Color Purple
• Elf
• A Christmas Story
• Fame
• Chorus Line
• You've Got Mail
• The Mighty Ducks 2

Bonus: A few that barely missed the top ten are Slumdog Millionaire, Hairspray, Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction and Jersey Boys. 

Mitch Grassi

In my last post, I mentioned that I had mailed two letters, and the first one was obviously to Steven Moffat, so by now you're all (both?  haha) probably wondering who got the second one.  As the title suggests, it was Mitch Grassi, the tenor from the Grammy-award-winning, super-famous a cappella group Pentatonix.  I kind of hate to single out one member of a group when all of them are so hugely talented (and that Avi ain't too hard on the eyes, either).  In fact, Mitch doesn't even do lead vocals on most of their songs.  That would be Scott Hoying, who's the other half of Superfruit, an adorably fun YouTube sensation (maybe leave the small kids home while you watch their videos, though).  Here's what I wrote to Mitch, adjusted a bit to better fit the format around here.  He's another super busy guy, with a nearly constant touring schedule so I'm not sure I expect a response but if I get one, you'll hear about it.

"I just love Mitch's voice so deeply, down to the very core of my being because of the way it hits me.  It's not the way it sounds, but the way it feels. It feels sweet, clear, effortless and golden; so, so golden.  Have you ever been outside on the beach or in a field during sunset?  You know the exact moment that the air turns to gold? Everyone looks backlit from every direction and they're all wearing those glistening auras.  You can feel that halo subconsciously even while you're having too much fun in the moment to acknowledge it.  When Mitch Grassi sings Valentine, he pours that gold into me and it just... hits me.  It stops me in my tracks every single time, draws the air from my lungs and makes me nostalgic for a moment that I didn't even know was important to me.  But it is important.  Because creating that kind of beauty is, simply put, impossible.  To accomplish the impossible is what life is about, and it's a wonderful thing to witness." 

So basically, I played it totally cool.

Check them out on Youtube or watch their documentary on Netflix
Look at their website http://pentatonixthealbum.ptxofficial.com/
On Twitter, find:
Pentatonix https://twitter.com/PTXofficial
Scott https://twitter.com/scotthoying
Kirstin https://twitter.com/kirstin_taylor
Avi https://twitter.com/Avi_Kaplan
Kevin https://twitter.com/KOlusola
Mitch https://twitter.com/mitchgrassi
Superfruit https://twitter.com/SUP3RFRUIT

Steven Moffat

Strangely enough, the only two letters I've written to celebrities so far were not to people I've admired for decades, or who shaped my psyche as a child.  My first one was to Steven Moffat, the head writer for Doctor Who.  I sent off my rough draft without making any sort of copy so I don't really remember it well enough to relate it all to you now.  Off to a great start with this blogging thing, eh?  It was a very short, quick note about how the first episode of this season (The Magician's Apprentice) was the best episode of anything that I've ever seen. 

Now, you'll see in the future that I exaggerate and speak mostly in hyperbole, but honestly I stand by what I said this time.  The jokes were all winners, the surprises all worked for me and we all knew the cliffhanger ending was coming so the only disappointment there was that it came too soon. One of Moffat's strengths is suspense.  The man can build suspense like no other! He plants questions in your mind and makes you think everything is a clue.  If I had a nickel for every time he had me overthinking an issue until I made myself so crazy that the actual answer was a let-down... well, my pocket would jingle when I walked, I guess.  But this episode, the suspense was agonizing (in a good way, of course) but the payoffs were equally huge.  It was so good that I grabbed a pen and wrote my first piece of fan mail the next day. 

Man, now I'm hoping I didn't oversell it so that anyone who hasn't seen it thinks I'm some sort of crackpot after they do! Aaaaaanyway...

I only included this story because, guess what?  HE WROTE BACK! Actually, there's that exaggeration I told you that you could expect.  It was really just TL;DR in postcard form.  An assistant sent it, but he signed it himself, and I'm totally willing to tell myself that that's what happened and it's definitely not a stamped-on signature.  Don't be silly, of course it's not!  Okay, it is.  But I still love my little postcard either way.  Here it is:

So that's my bit of excitement for today.  I thought it was a great place to start.  If you have any questions or comments, leave them below.  In the mean time, go check out Doctor Who, why dontcha? It's on Netflix and it's seriously the best if you like Sci-Fi at all.

***Edit- The Netflix goons took away our precious Doctor! It's not on there anymore.***

Thanks For Stopping By!

Hi, my name's Tina.  Welcome to my blog, I hope you like it. I think you'll find it to be part review, part fangirling and part biography.   I expect plenty of self-indulgent nostalgia too, so feel free to wear your Debbie Gibson shirt each week. 

So here's where it started: I sat down to write a fan letter the other day and it occurred to me that, even though it took me nearly 35 years to write to a celebrity, fame- specifically the fame of others- has genuinely shaped who I am as a person.  Gary Coleman taught me that everyone's feelings are complex and valid, the Coreys taught me to stay away from drugs and Roseanne taught me to thrive, even when I knew I couldn't.  My plan is to show you who has affected me and how, and whenever possible I'll send a (probably abridged) handwritten version to anyone involved.  If I get a response back, I'll always let you know because that's obviously the most exciting part.  Of course, sometimes it won't be possible to send letters to... ya know... the great beyond.  I'll just have to hope that Larry Linville and Jane Austin are reading my blog for themselves (and that they're not the only ones!). 

Some of my posts will be fairly long and some will just be simple reviews.  You can probably count on spoilers, because everything I've seen or read is from before my first kid was born a half a decade ago.  Feel free to post your own stories and opinions in the comments section each week.  We should have a ton of fun!