I Want to Be Your Ideal Man: Grease (1978)

Most Romantic Moment #4

I Love this musical. My best friend Carson and I were obsessed with it when we were eight years old. We used to watch it over and over, knew every song by heart, and could do the hand jive in our sleep. Grease was definitely the word.

So the movie is set in the 1950s, you know one of my favorite decades.

Sandy is from Australia and visiting the American beach for summer vacation (winter in Australia). She meets Danny is also away at the beach and the two meet and fall head over heels for each other. But Sandy has to back home, with both thinking they would never see each other again.

School’s back in session, and we see Danny is the hottest and coolest guy in school.

He and his gang are ready to finish their senior year when he gets the biggest surprise of his life, Sandy is in school. Can this designated bad boy and good girl make a relationship work?

Throw in a car racing challenge, dance contest, Frankie Avalon, and amazing songs.

Most Romantic Moment: I Will Do What I Can to Get You Back

So throughout the whole film we see that Danny is all about “his reputation”.

Sleeping around with girls, not caring about what happens to them but just using and losing…

See ya!

However when he meets Sandy that changes. At first he tries to keep to his “tomcattin” ways, but realizes that’s not what he wants; he wants Sandy. But how to win her back?

Hmm…

As Sandy is a cheerleader, he decides to go out for a team sport going from greaser to jock. (Which was a big deal then. Remember Daryl in The Outsiders and how he was able to cross over into Soc territory if he wanted to because of football? Ponyboy too was offered that as well but he wouldn’t give up his cigarettes for track). But Danny doesn’t really mean it, he’s just doing it to try and win Sandy back at this moment. But because he doesn’t put his whole heart into it, he messes up again and again; ditching her for another girl to win the dance contest and giving her his “ring of commitment” in order to make out.

Men

But none of these work, Sandy is a high quality girl and she won’t have some pretender, she needs something real.

So Danny realizes that if he loves her, he needs to stop the pretending and kidding around. He is going to have to do something really drastic to show Sandy he truly cares about her.

So he decides to quit the T-Birds

Now contrary to what some bloggers say, he is not just putting a “cardigan on”. The sweater is a symbol that he is completely changing his life. By changing the T-Bird leather jacket to the cardigan with his “letter for track” on it, he’s not only saying that he is giving up the “fast” lifestyle, the parting with all these other women, the reputation of never settling down; but that he is going to be something more stable and trustworthy. Something that she can rely on and that will be there for her.

As he tells the other boys, he grown out of that, and is instead looking forward to a future with Sandy, not just a “playdate”.

“Danny Zuko: Oh c’mon you guys…You know you mean a lot to me…it’s just that Sandy does too. And I’m going to do anything I can to get her…“ 

After all, what’s comfortable, can be worn anywhere, and something that makes you feel relaxed, supported, and warm…a leather jacket or a cardigan?

To start Romance is in the Air:Part IV from the beginning, go to I Can’t Pretend, I Have to Be: Casual Sex? (1988)

For the previous post, go to Business is Business, But Your Happiness is More Important: Borrowed Hearts (1997)

For more on Grease, go to Why Were You Driven Away?

For more musicals, go to Marry Me: Gigi (1958)

For more period films, go to I Choose You: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

Tuesday the 17th: Psych (2009)

I knew we never should have come back here

So this episode of Psych is a parody of Friday the 13th, hence the Tuesday the 17th. I thought that since we don’t have a Friday the 13th or a Tuesday the 17th, so I thought it would be awesome to have this on Friday the 17th, so its a combination of both.

So for those of you who aren’t Psych fans, the series is about a guy, Shawn Spencer, who pretends to be a psychic and works with the Santa Barbara Police Department. His BFF, Burton “Gus” Guster, helps him out. He works with Head detective Carlton Lassiter and junior detective Juliet O’Hara.

*Spolier Alert*

So the episode starts off with Shawn and Gus in their preteens at summer camp. They are being picked up by Shawn’s dad, and Shawn is pissed. He is mad at for Gus choosing Jason as a partner over him for the piñata contest. (They picked the name Jason in reference to the boy and later killer, Jason Voorhees.) As we transition to the present we get a the theme song from Friday the 13th series and a creepy view of Shawn’s piñata, Rick Astley, stuck under the water.

20 years later a girl, Annie (named after the stupid Annie that is killed in the original Friday the 13th) is sitting down watching one of the Friday the 13th films.

Ren Stevens: What? Honey, you’re chased by six mutants, and you just decided to take a shower?

She decides to go off, when the phone rings like When a Stranger Calls.

But its just her friends and she tells them she is feeling sick and going to stay home. All of a sudden she is attacked from behind!!!

Back at the Psych building, Shawn and Gus find Shawn’s old summer camp piñata hanging outside their building. Jason did it as a joke as he came to ask the two to help them. Jason is reopening the summer camp this upcoming Friday, but one of his counselors, Annie, is missing. Shawn doesn’t want to return, but Gus convinces him to go back there.

There the two meet Billy (named after Billy in Scream), the jock and fitness counselor; Clive, the nerd and the water instructor; and Sissy, the damsel in distress in charge of arts and crafts. They start investigating, when Jason starts acting weird. He keeps speaking strange and walking around with a dummy.

They start breaking up into twos and singles, which angers Shawn as everyone is breaking the horror film rules. Never split up!

While they go off into the woods, Billy gets taken by the killer.

They all meet up again, at 6:00 minus Billy. Sissy shows Gus and Shawn the laundry room; in which they discover Annie’s pjs, covered in blood.

Shawn gets freaked out and calls Juliet O’Hara from the SBPD to come down and check things out. She gets everyone to stay inside the cabin.  When Jason leaves, Shawn chases after him. As he is running and looking for him, he notices the laundry room going again. He goes inside and finds Annie’s strangled body. After that, a man in a potato bag (like that in Butterfinger the 13th) chases after him. Shawn screams and runs away.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Only to be caught by the killer!

But all is not what it seems. Shawn figures out that Jason is behind it all and that it is merely a camp created to scare people. The counselors are actors. People pay to come and get scared out of their minds. It’s like living a horror movie, except you know you will survive in the end.

So everyone goes back to the cabin and celebrates the “rehearsal” of the event.

Everything is great until Shawn spots a dead body in the pond.

Victim #1

They all pull him out and discover that it is the creepy janitor. There is a huge storm that starts up, causing no to be able to leave. Or come to them.

All have to wait until it blows over. They decide to play strip cribbage, as stupid as the strip monopoly they play in Friday the 13th.

Well I don’t make out alive. Must have been too much strip monopoly.

Billy ends up being the one who looses all his clothes. And you know what that means…..Yep let the bodies hit the floor.

After the janitor, Annie is killed and then Billy when he goes to check the breaker after the lights go out.

Shawn figures out that it is Clive and goes after Billy, finding his dead body. Juliet chases Annie down and discovers that she is dead too. They go looking for Clive and find him fighting with Gus. One gets knocked into the pool and Shawn jumps into the pool thinking it was Gus. It’s not, it’s Clive!!!

AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Clive tries to attack Shawn, letting him know that the reason he is doing so is because his father died at this camp and he wanted to get revenge.

Very similar to the orginal Friday the 13th film

Luckily Juliet manages to shoot him before he can harm Shawn.

The episode ends with Shawn, Gus, and Juliet looking off into the distance. Thinking about the horror they’ve witnessed.

You know how the original Friday the 13th ended, with Jason coming out of the water? Well, they parodied that too, except with Rock Astley.

To start Horrorfest III from the beginning, go to Even A Man Pure of Heart

To go to the previous post, go to Part X: The Movie List that Would Not Die!

For more on Psych, go to At the End of the Rainbow

For more Friday the 13th (1980), go to Camp Blood

For more on Shawn Spencer, go to Treat Her Right

For more parodies of horror films, go to What’s Your Favorite Scary Movie?

For more on summer camp, go to Someone Very Special

For more of my fav songs, go to It’s Happening Again, Isn’t It?