I watched and thoroughly enjoyed this classic film and was appalled to see the scathing remarks my fellow Internet users wrote about WEIRD SCIENCE. Their main criticisms of this film seemed to be based on the fact that it is a 1980s movie and therefore must be completely irrelevant and trashy, fourteen years later.
What?!?
Just because something is old, is it automatically defunct? Is anything from the 80s defined as crap, solely because it is from the 80s?
Well, I'd better go and throw myself off a bridge or something, because I was born in 1980 and therefore I must be Past My Use-By Date, and perhaps No Longer Of Any Relevance To This Glorious Decade.
But seriously folks. I realise that the 90s is a very anger-oriented decade, and people like to hate anything that isn't from the 90s just because it's fashionable to do so. But that just isn't what the art of film-making is about. Film-making is about being on the cutting edge, indeed, but it is also about respecting fine traditions laid down (gasp) in the past, even (shock, horror) in the 80s. Many 90s films, in their attempts to be avant-garde and completely different to everything from the past, just end up going overboard and get tripped up by their own self-conscious sensationalism.
But I digress. This film may indeed contain music and fashions that are different to the somewhat ridiculous contemporary 90s equivalents. But don't judge a book by its cover. Beneath the very 80s exterior lies a brilliantly funny movie, with themes and ideas that are just as relevant today as they were in the 1980s. And the special effects still look good today; they don't have that oh-so-clichéd 90s computer-generated tackiness. And what other film have you ever seen that involves a grand piano being launched from a chimney and landing on a summer-house? I give this film a solid *** and a half out of ****. And remember, what goes around comes around: People in 2013 will be laughing their heads off at the bad fashions, horrid music and corny special effects from the movies of 1999. The 80s have a certain timelessness, however, evident in such great movies as this one.
What?!?
Just because something is old, is it automatically defunct? Is anything from the 80s defined as crap, solely because it is from the 80s?
Well, I'd better go and throw myself off a bridge or something, because I was born in 1980 and therefore I must be Past My Use-By Date, and perhaps No Longer Of Any Relevance To This Glorious Decade.
But seriously folks. I realise that the 90s is a very anger-oriented decade, and people like to hate anything that isn't from the 90s just because it's fashionable to do so. But that just isn't what the art of film-making is about. Film-making is about being on the cutting edge, indeed, but it is also about respecting fine traditions laid down (gasp) in the past, even (shock, horror) in the 80s. Many 90s films, in their attempts to be avant-garde and completely different to everything from the past, just end up going overboard and get tripped up by their own self-conscious sensationalism.
But I digress. This film may indeed contain music and fashions that are different to the somewhat ridiculous contemporary 90s equivalents. But don't judge a book by its cover. Beneath the very 80s exterior lies a brilliantly funny movie, with themes and ideas that are just as relevant today as they were in the 1980s. And the special effects still look good today; they don't have that oh-so-clichéd 90s computer-generated tackiness. And what other film have you ever seen that involves a grand piano being launched from a chimney and landing on a summer-house? I give this film a solid *** and a half out of ****. And remember, what goes around comes around: People in 2013 will be laughing their heads off at the bad fashions, horrid music and corny special effects from the movies of 1999. The 80s have a certain timelessness, however, evident in such great movies as this one.