Mike_Yike

I just got done watching Leaving Las Vegas. It was on TCM. I remember what was said about the movie when it was released 30 years ago. It was said to be a good movie but depressing. I was not overly depressed by the movie, but I also did not think it was that good. I gave it a 7. I considered a 6. It was well-acted all the way through. There was kindness displayed in the movie, but it also had some scenes showing some violent and vile acts.

The film was a story about a hooker and a drunk who meet and then fall in love. The problem is, I don't know how that is possible. That is, I don't know how that can be done in real life. The trouble comes from the drunk's side of the equation. In the movie, the drunk was constantly, well, drunk, so he didn't know what he was doing or when it comes right down to it, what he was thinking. That's what being drunk is all about. And if he is drunk, how does a woman fall in love with him? He is not a real person. His actual personality is unknown, erased by alcohol. But maybe I'm being too critical. Yeah, maybe.

I couldn't quite give Skippy a 7. Close, but not quite. The film is like a Little Rascals episode only feature length, slightly more adult in atmosphere, and overall better written. One could look at Skippy as a glance back into what childhood looked like before the internet and really, before television. It isn't quite a perfect portrayal of those days, but it wouldn't be all that far off. Apparently, there is a companion piece, Sooky. If it should ever be shown on TCM, I'll make sure to see it. I say that as a nod to Skippy and its cast of kids, including Jackie Cooper, who 45 years later portrayed Clark Kent's boss, Perry White.

When this movie was first released, I saw it at a drive-in movie with my friend and my sister. It was the evening before a holiday, perhaps Christmas. We didn't have anything better to do so about 10 o'clock that night so we decided to take in a drive-in movie. We thought that would be a novel, amusing thing to do. My friend and I were 18, by sister 20. We were warned at the box office that the movie, their 2nd feature, The Gypsy Moths, would shutdown at midnight in mid movie. We decided that we really did not care and paid the 2 bucks anyway. True to their word, it shutdown at midnight. I waited over 50 years to see the last half hour. So anyway, it's an okay movie. Basically, an adult soap opera with the two main characters being middle age, the male, a skydiving performer. Just be forewarned, there are no shootouts, no car chases, not even a fistfight. Dialogue and character studies, that's it. Not bad for what it is, but it is what it is, so to speak.