Author Archives: Dazzling Erin

I Watched Catch Me If You Can (1989, Dir. by Stephen Sommers)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

I hated Grind so much that I decided to watch another movie to get it out of my head.  I’m glad I did because, for my second movie, I picked a good one.

Catch Me If You Can takes place in Minnesota.  The school board is planning on closing down Cathedral High School unless the school can raise $200,000.  Class president Melissa (Loryn Locklin) takes charge of the fundraising drive but, even though she pours her heart into all of the car washes and bake sales, she’s only been able to raise $19,000.  Dylan Malone (Matt Lattanzi, who was married to Olivia Newton-John) is the school bad boy, who is always late to class because he’s busy racing other cars on the country roads near the school.  The principal (Geoffrey Lewis) gives Dylan an option.  He can either help Melissa or he can go to detention.  Dylan’s idea of helping is to take the money that Melissa has raised and bet on the illegal races that he’s entering.  At first, it works.  But when the Fat Man (M. Emmet Walsh) challenges Dylan to race his best man and then tells his racer to cheat, Dylan and Melissa lose all the money.  The Fat Man has a proposition.  The Fat Man dares Dylan to enter an impossible, timed race.  If Dylan wins, he’ll make the double the money that he lost and he and Melissa will be able to save the school. Dylan agrees.  Luckily, it turns out that the school’s principal is also the legendary Fast Freddie, the only person to ever win the Fat Man’s race.

It may not be anyone’s idea of great art but Catch Me If You Can is still a delightful and fun 80s teen movie, complete with a nerdy sidekick who turns out to be secretly cool, a bad boy with a heart of gold and a mullet, and a big football game at the end.  The plot doesn’t even make sense but the cast gave it their all and, as someone who took part in way too many car wash fund raisers in high school, I knew exactly what Melissa was going through!  I’ll admit that, towards the end of the film when everyone was counting down how many seconds Dylan had to make it to the finish line, I got a little caught up in the moment and I may have even cheered a little.  Catch Me If You Can is a wonderful slice of 80s goodness.

So, I Watched Grind (2003, Dir. by Casey La Scala)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Grind is about four annoying skaters who are obsessed with bodily functions and who want to get sponsored so they travel across the country and try to con their way into competing in events.  Adam Brody plays the skater who lets them use his college fund to pay for their road trip, which was really stupid of him to do.  They got sponsored but not because they’re any good.  They just happen to meet a skater named Jamie (Jennifer Morrison) who knows their hero (Jason London) and helps them out because she’s nice.  I’m nice too but I wouldn’t have helped out those chuckleheads.  I guess the lesson here is that you should just stand around and eventually, someone will give you some money.

When I started Grind, I thought it seemed familiar but I could have sworn that I have never seen it before.  Then Matt (Vince Vieluf), one of the most disgusting character to ever appear in a movie, told a woman that he was a representative of the “Release Them Twins Foundation,” and I remembered that, when this movie came out, MTV used to show the commercial for it a hundred times a day. I remembered thinking, at the time, that it looked like the dumbest movie ever made and it turns out I was right.

If I had to choose between rewatching Grind or watching two hours of projectile vomit, it wouldn’t be a choice because they’re pretty much the same thing.

Moments #22: That Ugly Old Swing

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

This backyard swing may not have looked like much.

The first night in my current house, I stood in the kitchen and looked out the window at the backyard and I said, “That swing has got to go.”  The wood looked old.  The chain was rusted.  It was an ugly old swing, left behind by the house’s former owners.  It was easy to dismiss but, the first time I sat in that swing and I let the wind gently rock me back and forth, I fell in love with it.

It was my place to go if I was feeling down or if I just needed some time to myself.  If the world was getting too chaotic or if I came home hating my job or cursing biology, I would sit on that swing and the gentle rocking would take all of my troubles.

That swing went from being an eyesore to being home.

A little over a year ago, our town got hit by a violent storm.  Throughout the night, rain pounded on the roof, the wind shook the windows, thunder made the house tremble, and the flashes of lightning were so bright and frequent that I barely noticed that the power can gone out.  In the morning, when the rain had finally become a drizzle, my sister and I stepped outside.  Our backyard was flooded and littered with debris.  Our neighbor’s tree had collapsed, smashing his fence and then crashing into our yard.

Underneath the tree were the crushed remains of the swing.

I was upset, even though I knew it was just something that no one could have controlled.  I didn’t blame my neighbor.  I certainly didn’t blame the tree.  I didn’t even blame the storm.  There was no one to blame.  I guess we were lucky.  If the tree had fallen in a different direction, it would have hit our house.  If the cats had been outside, it could have fallen on them.  When we cleaned up the backyard, we didn’t find any dead squirrels, birds, or possums under the tree.  It could have been so much worse.

The man who lived across the street helped us to move the remains of the swing out of our backyard.  We put it on the curb so that the city could pick it up.  Because of the storm, the debris left by the storm were not picked up for three weeks.  But the swing only lasted a day on the curb before someone — I don’t know who — picked it up.  I take some comfort that someone took it, rather than it being tossed in a garbage truck.  The swing is serving a purpose somewhere.

One year later, I still miss that ugly old swing.  I guess I always will.

Previous Moments:

  1. My Dolphin by Case Wright
  2. His Name Was Zac by Lisa Marie Bowman
  3. The Neighborhood, This Morning by Erin Nicole
  4. The Neighborhood, This Afternoon by Erin Nicole
  5. Walking In The Rain by Erin Nicole
  6. The Abandoned RV by Erin Nicole
  7. A Visit To The Cemetery by Erin Nicole
  8. The Woman In The Hallway by Lisa Marie Bowman
  9. Visiting Another Cemetery by Erin Nicole
  10. The Alley Series by Erin Nicole
  11. Exploring The Red House by Erin Nicole
  12. The Halloween That Nearly Wasn’t by Erin Nicole
  13. Watchers and Followers by Erin Nicole
  14. Visitors by Erin Nicole
  15. Fighting by Case Wright
  16. Walking In The Fog by Erin Nicole
  17. A Spider Does What It Can by Erin Nicole
  18. Downtown Richardson, In The Rain by Erin Nicole
  19. Me, our kids, and ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD! by Bradley Crain
  20. The Statues of SMU by Erin Nicole
  21. Exploring the Back Yard Of An Abandoned House by Erin Nicole