Number Four - Top Gun for Fun

Now this film, Top Gun, is not in the AFI list but I do list it as a film in the list of films that you have to see sometime in your lifetime. So I sat down with some popcorn (yes really) and took a look.
 

What a film! The navy. The fighter pilots. The aerial combatting. The macho nature. The male bonding and comradery. The gay subtext!! Jezz, it was all throughout the film. Especially in the first twenty minutes when it was full of lines like "I think I got a hard on." "Don't tease me." It was literally chocca block full of talk about "johnsons", "hard ons" and various other metaphors for male genitalia and sex. It also doesn't help the film the film trying to look macho by having the guys constantly dripping with sweat, spending half the time topless, or just standing around in their pants/towel and playing volleyball to the tune of "Playing With the Boys". PLUS the fact there's only, really, one female character, whose name is Charlie (Kerry McGillis) (could be easily played by a man) and that she's not really in it that much, and that the relationship with her and Maverick (Tom Cruise) seems to play second fiddle to the relationships playing out with the guys in the Navy.

Don't get me wrong there's nothing wrong with having homosexual tones in a film, I'm not a prude or anything, but I'm not completely sure that the filmmakers realisd they were making the film that way. It seems like they were aiming for macho buddy film, but instead played it up so much that they got the opposite. Well, that's my theory. And obviously, it's no suprise to anyone that the film has these tones, I just thought I'd give my view on it.

As for the other aspects of the film, well, actually I found it kind of hard to overlook the naff homo-erotic-ness of the whole thing, which actually made the film hilarious. I couldn't take it that seriously. And after a while when (Spoiler Alert) Goose dies and the film becomes more dramatic I actually found myself getting a bit bored. Maybe I don't get the film as it seems very directed towards men.

The acting is adequate but nothing amazing, Cruise delivers as usual, occasionally giving his trademark fist clenches. I do think this is a film that needs to be seen, but I don't really know how well it has stood the test of time. Some people I know love it, but they are a guys. So watch it, as at least you can have a good laugh, or, ladies, if you are so inclined, have a good goggle at a young, toned Mr Cruise. Also check out Hot Shots as well as it does a good mocking of the film, may even be better.

Number Seven - Michael Cerra doing what he does best...?

As I am probably not going to get Yankee Doodle Dandee here's some contemporary filler:

Youth in Revolt is a comedy about teenager Nick Twisp, played by michael Cerra, who is finding life is hard and getting him down. He lives with his mother, Jean Smart, who is more into her younger, layabout boyfriend, played excellently by Zach Galifianakis (of Hangover fame) than her son. Nick is struggling along in life and taking it on the chin, until one day he meets the girl of his dreams Sheenie, Portia Doubleday, who makes him realise he needs to change, he needs to toughen up, he needs Francois Dillinger!

I have to admit when I saw the trailer for this film it looked mildly amusing, but nothing special. Yet another film of Michael Cerra playing the same feminine-like nice guy. However the supporting cast swayed me into giving this film a go. And I'm glad I did. The parents and parental figures in this film are played so well that you can't help but yell "good for you" when Nick/Francois bite back. Twisp's mother and boyfriends (the second of which is played by the slightly scary Ray Liotta) are so wonderfully impatient, neglectful and selfish, they create, along with Sheenie, the perfect catalyst for Nick's rebellion. And speaking of Sheenie, she comes across as a confident and smart girl without being portrayed as a "bitch" which can always be a danger with confident female characters.

Of course, as was expected, Michael Cerra is once again playing the shy nice guy, but I was interested to see how his alter ego Francois would work out. There is maybe not enough of this darker side of Nick but what I did see I liked. The dress sense of Francois was strange, but I'm guessing it's supposed to be of European styling...? His appearance overall was amusing, most probably on purpose, his meagre moustache is genius, but there was definately a difference with the type of dialogue Francois was spitting out, which was pleasantly very funny. However, after saying that I still think that Michael Cerra was probably playing it safe by taking this role on, as a majority of the time he is still playing the nice guy, and it seems Cerra is testing the water with his alter-ego rather than plunging in and going for something totally different. Guess we'll have to wait till Edgar Wright's adaptation of Scott Pilgrim for that.

Overall, the film was better than I thought, not qiute sure if that was because I went in with low expectations or not. The cast as a whole are great! A small role from Steve Buscemi is very welcome in this film, he is a consistently good actor anyway, and Fred Willard turns out (yet another) hilarious performance as Nick's activist neighbour (look out for the scene where they eat mushrooms!). The film is not overly long and the humour is more grown-up than that of usual movies with teenage lead characters, think along the lines of Juno. I also liked the message that the film seems to be telling me, perhaps as a nice-guy (or girl) myself, that sometimes you have to stand up for yourself, sometimes you need to raise a little hell to get your point across, sometimes it's good to be bad.