Author Archives: Dazzling Erin

I Watched The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969, Dir. by Robert Butler)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Medfield College has a problem.  No one takes the college seriously.  Maybe if the college could win the big college quiz show, people would finally stop laughing at Medfield but the students are not academically talented.  Professor Quigley (William Schallert) thinks that the college needs to finally buy a new-fangled device called a computer.  The Dean (Joe Flynn) says that there’s no way any college can afford something as expensive as that!  Luckily, businessman and gangster A.J. Arno (Cesar Romero) is willing to donate one of his computers.  It takes several students to move the computer into the lab because the computer is huge.

Medfield finally has a computer but are the students smart enough to win that quiz show?  Popular jock Dexter Riley (Kurt Russell) happens to be in the lab during a freak thunderstorm.  When both he and the computer get struck by lightning at the same time, it leads to Dexter becoming a human computer.  He suddenly knows everything.  He can speak any language and solve any equation.  He can answer any question/  Whenever anyone shines a light into Dexter’s ear, they see circuit boards.  No one really cares that none of this makes sense.  Medfield is going to win that quiz show for sure!  But first, Dexter is going to have to escape from Arno, who fears Dexter now knows all the details about his gambling ring.

Watching this Disney film was a real eye-opener for me.  Computers are such a part of my everyday life that it was strange seeing a college making such a big deal about getting one.  The computer that Medfield got looked more like the type of computer that NASA used to go to the moon than the ones that were in my high school computer lab.  I was worried that no one seemed to care that Dexter had a circuit board in his head.  Not even Dexter seemed to care.  It was also funny to me that all he had to do was get struck by lightning while standing near a computer and suddenly, he knew how to speak every language and solve every problem.  I use a computer everyday and I can still only speak English and Spanish.  I feel like I’m getting cheated.

The whole movie was absolutely ludicrous but I did enjoy watching this movie.  It was too sweet, innocent, and good-natured not to enjoy.  There was nothing realistic about the movie but it was nice to imagine a world where everyone gets along, the bad guys are all too buffoonish to really be dangerous, and a serious knock on the head leads to thing returning to normal instead of permanent brain damage.  Kurt Russell was only 18 when he made The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes but he could already carry a movie.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day From The Pulps

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

by Enoch Bolles

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  I’ll be wearing green and celebrating my Irish heritage today.  Luckily, the pulps are here to help us get into the mood.  Unfortunately, the pulps didn’t always focus on the positive things about Ireland but, for that, we’ve got countless Hallmark movies!  Enjoy St. Patrick’s Day with a little pulp art!

Artist Unknown

by Chris Schaare

by Edward Mortlemans

by George Gross

by Hunter Barker

by James Avati

by James Meese

by Robert McGinnis

Take A Trip Through Time With St. Patrick’s Day

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

St. Patrick’s Day has a long history in the United States.  In the 19th century, when the Irish were regularly discriminated against, St. Patrick’s Day was a chance to show pride in one’s heritage and to also show off the unity of the Irish community.  Now, of course, St. Patrick’s Day is a day when everyone celebrates Irish, even people don’t have a drop of Irish blood in them!  Here are a few vintage of images of St. Patrick’s Day in America, through the years!

1872

1874

1874

1890s

1904

1908

1909

1913

1919

1949

1951

1955

I Watched Touchback (2012, Dir. by Don Handfield)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

When he was in high school, Scott Murphy (Brian Presley) was nicknamed “Mr. Football.”  He was the best high school player in Ohio and everyone knew he was going to make it far in the NFL.  His dreams of football stardom ended on the night of the big game when his leg was shattered during a running play.  Twenty years later, Scott is still living in his small town.  He owns a farm that he can’t make the payments on and crops that he can’t bring in.  When Scott learns that he is to he honored at the next high school football team for taking the team to the state championship years ago, it causes him to break down.  He attempts to commit suicide but, when he passes out from inhaling carbon monoxide, he doesn’t die.  Instead, he wakes up as a high school student in 1991.

Scott has his second chance.  The championship game is coming up and, if Scott can keep from getting injured, he’ll be able to accept his scholarship to Ohio State and go on to the NFL.  He makes sure to introduce himself to his future wife Macy (Melanie Lynesky) so he won’t lose her.  He befriends the kids that he picked on the first time he was in high school.  When a college scout tells him that his scholarship will not be rescinded if he chooses to sit out the big game, Scott decides to stay on the bench but then his coach (Kurt Russell) explains how much the game means to the people in the town.  Scott realizes he has to play for them but can he get through the game without getting injured a second time?

What would you do if you had a second chance?  That’s something that everyone wonders.  If I had a second chance to relive my senior year of high school, I would take more risks, worry less about the unimportant stuff, and try to be nicer to everyone and not just the members of my social circle.  If I knew I was going to suffer a life-changing injury, I would probably go out of my way to make sure it didn’t happen.  That’s where Touchback loses me because I just don’t think Scott would have played in that game, no matter how eloquent the coach was.  If Scott had sat out the game, the town might have lost the championship but Scott could have gone on to the NFL, still married Macy, and his family wouldn’t be struggling to make ends meet on the family farm.

If I didn’t really believe Scott would have made the decision that he made, there were still parts of Touchback that I liked.  Kurt Russell was a great coach.  I liked the way the town rallied to Scott, even when he was at his lowest and about ready to give up.  That’s one thing I love about close-knit communities.  They take care of each other.

I Watched Dreamer (2005, Dir. by John Gatins)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Dreamer is based on the true story of a horse that did something that few horses have managed to do.  It broke a bone but it still managed to make a comeback as a racehorse.

I love horses, which is why I’m not a fan of horseracing.  I find horseracing to be cruel.  The horses, which have an innate need to follow the orders of whoever is riding it, will literally run themselves to death to try to keep their jockeys happy.  When you add that many racehorses are kept in deplorable conditions and that, with insurance, they are often worth more dead than alive, you have a sport that brings out the worst in a lot of people.  Horses are wonderful animals because they are so loyal.  That loyalty deserves better than being shot because they broke a leg due to their trainer’s negligence.

Given how I feel about horseracing, I’m amazed that I liked Dreamer when I saw it in the theaters and I was surprised that I still liked it when I watched it this weekend.  I guess it’s because the horse in Dreamer is not euthanized.  She would have been euthanized if not for the fact that her trainer (Kurt Russell) brought his daughter (Dakota Fanning) to work with him that day.  Russell loses his job but he does gain a horse.  After the horse recovers from its injury, Russell hopes to breed the horse.  It turn out that the horse cannot have a foal but it can still race.  With Russell and Fanning’s help, the horse returns to competition and shows up everyone who gave up on her.  Russell and Fanning refuse to give up on the horse and the horse doesn’t give up on herself.  Along the way, Russell and Fanning finally spend time together as father and daughter and Russell reconnects with his wife, Elisabeth Shue, and his father, Kris Kristofferson.  Everyone involved gives a good job.  The movie may be predictable but there aren’t any false notes in any of the performances.  I not only wanted the horse to get better but I wanted the family to grow closer and I was happy when both those things happened.

Dreamer is a good family movie.  If only every trainer was as kind and willing to admit his mistakes as Kurt Russell is in this film.  There’s nothing surprising about Dreamer but it’s still a movie that makes me cheer.  It makes me cheer in a way that a real horse race never would.