Words Seem Out Of Place

Quick-hit movie reviews for the masses. Mike Figgis's Leaving Las Vegas  received overwhelming praise from critics upon release in 1995, with Roger Ebert even naming it the best film of the year. It's an extremely dark and harrowing portrait of a despondent man named Ben (Nicolas Cage) trying to drink himself to death in Vegas, while the age-old hooker with a heart of gold trope means that call girl Sera (Elisabeth Shue) falls in love with Ben, and works against increasingly difficult odds to try and save him from himself. The central performances by Cage (who won an Academy Award for Best Actor) and Shue (who was nominated for Best Actress and really should've won) are exceptional, so it's unfortunate that Figgis chose to drape nearly every scene in the film with jazz standards (several sung by Sting and Don Henley), or bluesy laments. The score and soundtrack just feel overdone. It's a minor miracle Cage and Shue still register so effectively—and powerful...

Elisabeth Shue's iconic 1980s wardrobe in Adventures in Babysitting (1987) is forever burned into the brains of Gen Xers everywhere—thanks in no small part to constant cable TV airings of the film in the late '80s and early '90s. Even today, it's impossible to see a women wearing a beige overcoat without seeing Shue, in that film, in my head. If it hasn't already happened, the ensemble should be preserved forever in the Smithsonian. After all, it's an essential reminder of our shoulder-padded youth. Adventures in Babysitting  turned thirty this year. Reaching the point in your life where you can add thirty years to the age you were when you first saw a movie is utterly depressing. Eh, let's not wallow in our own decaying states. Instead, let's celebrate a little film that meant something to many of us as children, even if today its flaws are easier to spot (some dated stereotypes being chief among them). Adventures isn't nearly as strong as a...