Movies that HBO showed me a million times as a child

When you run a 24 hour cable movie network, the economics of the situation dictate that not all 24 hours will be broadcasting quality fare. You're gonna have some gaps to fill in the low rated time slots that will need to be filled with dirt-cheap shitty movies that will be utilized so often you'd think they were in the public domain.

Thanks to this phenomenon, I was able to become intimately familiar with several PG-13 gems as a child. Here now is my childhood:


Just One of the Guys

Terry is an aspiring journalist/30 year old high school senior that is absolutely convinced that she isn't nominated for a top journalism prize because she's a woman. Her solution? Transfer high schools, dress up like a boy, and get into fights with the "Sweep the Leg" asshole from Karate Kid (He plays an asshole in this one too...typecast!).



Sidekicks/Ladybugs


Unfortunately it's hard to NOT choose sides in the great "Ladybugs/Sidekicks" debate. Personally I prefer the action packed Sidekicks (Two points for featuring Winnie Cooper and Bull from Night Court, Negative one point for Joe Piscopo). But no matter what side you fall in the matter, I think we can all agree that these two movies pretty much encapsulate the full Brandis experience.



Berry Gordy's the Last Dragon

Not a single ethnic group gets by unscathed in this funky-fresh kung fu epic. I kind of imagine this is what went down a lot in the pre-Gulianni New York City.



Little Giants

The Sandlot + Football and Rick Moranis - Charm = Little Giants.



Dutch

Ed O'Neil's crowning achievement.



Weekend at Bernie's 2

A Weekend at Bernie's sequel that's inexplicably set in the Caribbean? Sound like someone parlayed a crappy directing job into a paid vacation. I'm not sure I've ever ever seen the first one, but I feel like I've gotten the jist.

Combating Gas Prices the Only Way I Know How...

Would anyone pay for my drive across country if I promised to only listen to Billy Joel's "Movin' Out" on a loop?


(Update: Apparently people would. For those keeping track, that would involve hearing "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" 497.14 times over 29 hours, providing I hit no traffic.......Someone please talk me out of this.)

It's not writing...it's typing.

It's getting harder and harder to be an outlaw in this world.  

In order to break free and set out on a vagabond's life ridin' the rails of the US of A, free from worry or care, I would first have to pay off two credit cards, find an apartment sublet, and finish out the terms of a five year car lease.  At that point, I could could conceivably go off the grid.  But even then, I would probably still have to stop in whatever small town I happened to be in at the time, and find some free Wi-Fi to check email.

This is the Twenty-first century.

Gone are the days when you can find fleeting romance in the form of a Mexican woman named Terry sitting in the bus seat next to you.  If you've ever ridden a Greyhound bus in the last decade, you know that Kerouac's America is dead.

It's too scary to hitchhike, and even scarier to live without adequate insurance coverage, so my "On the Road" adventure will not be so daring as to hop in the back of cars headed towards Mexico in search of Jazz and that damn Dean Moriarty.  

No, my adventure will just be an uprooting of my midwestern possessions and a move out west to see what kinds of people they keep out there.