Jan 1, 2008

Crashes and Kisses for the New Year, With Bonus Video!

(That's right! Stay tuned for a Troutdale Councilor Canfield BONUS VIDEO! But, first, the blog post.)
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Why watch only one movie with friends on New Year's Eve? Why not watch crash scenes from a lot of movies? And that's what we did.

First up: the train crash scene from The Fugitive. Our friend Mike had a special surprise after watching this, - he had a DVD showing "the making of" the crash scene, courtesy of the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad. Awesome.

Then we watched the following crash sequences:

U.S. Marshals Yeah, let the criminal go to the bathroom a few minutes before landing. Didn't you see The Fugitive? Duh!

Con Air- the aircraft "landing" is hokey, fakey, crappy, and not at all realistic. I think that's why I love it. And who WOULDN'T want to end their Vegas vacation by crash-landing the length of the strip?

Flight of the Phoenix- I didn't care for this crappy excuse for a remake at all. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film was disliked with a "rotten" rating of 29%. The film had 33 fresh ratings, and 79 rotten ratings, with an average rating of 4.8/10. The sequel's crash scene was ok, though. The 1965 original with Jimmy Stewart , however, was fantastic.

Entrapment- Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones trapped on the sky bridge of the Petronas Twin Towers-not a crash scene, but WOW what an action sequence! If you want to get a bad case of vertigo, watch this! (A suggestion was floated that as long as we had the DVD cued up, we could also watch Catherine Zeta-Jones' "trouble" with that laser security system, but the wives pointed out that technically speaking, that part of the movie wasn't a "crash". Oh well.)

Titanic -Three guesses. What objects collided? . As you may remember, the audience is led to believe that the collision could have been avoided if the two peeping tom sailors on iceberg watch hadn't been busy ogling the make-out session between the blockbuster-crossed lovers.

Viewing of this crash scene descended into making fun of the movie. If there were a contest for the best imitation of a waterlogged and frozen Rose croaking "come back, come back", I'd win hands down.

Star Wars- Return of the Jedi
Watching the destruction of a Death Star on New Years Eve is a sure sign of good tidings for the new year. Except when you keep watching the movie and witness the sugar-coated dancing and celebrating Ewoks. Those puppet things in their shag carpet costumes nearly made me puke. And I hadn't had anything to drink yet! George Lucas, your Ewoks stink! A foreshadow of Jar Jar Binks, the most annoying movie character of all time, to be sure.

After all those crash scenes and crash characters, we decided to play Jenga, that build-the-tower- until-it-crashes game! The exciting part of this particular event was that we played on a GLASS TABLE!!

Before you could say "more chocolate fondue, please", midnight was approaching. While I was roundly shamed for making fun of Ryan Seacrest and Dick Clark instead of watching the descent of the Times Square News Year's Eve Ball, champagne glasses were filled to the brim.

At midnight, the best part of New Year's Eve, of course, is to give that Happy New Year kiss at the stroke of midnight!! And that's what the Mrs. and I did! Woo hoo!

(Remember the New Years parties when you were single, and all the single women ran for cover at the stroke of midnight? You don't? Never mind, then.) Being happily married means a guaranteed New Year's kiss.

All in all, a great New Year's Eve!

And now for the New Year's VIDEO BONUS! Here's a spoof of the The Fugitive's crash scene:

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