I hear a lot of people say we’re in the golden age of film and television, but the 90’s were filled with some of the greatest movies and TV shows of all time. I’m just going to talk about a few great 90’s movies. Not my favorite ones, just three that I recently rewatched and got a whole new experience from them.

 

MAN OF THE HOUSE

In case you haven’t seen this movie it stars a young teen idol from back in my day named JTT (Jonathan Taylor Thomas). For you young ones, he was sort of like the High School Musical Zac Efron from my childhood. For you even younger ones he was like the Justin Bieber of child actors, but before Bieber got his driver’s license and made all those terrible mistakes. Every girl in my class was obsessed with him, and all of the boys were jealous of him. Why couldn’t the girls be obsessed with me? Because I didn’t have that perfect haircut? Because I wasn’t Tim “The Toolman” Taylor’s sarcastic son? Because I wasn’t the voice of young Simba?

The plot of MAN OF THE HOUSE involves a young JTT and his mom (the lovely Farrah Fawcett), who have just moved to a new town after his D-bag dad left them (or maybe he died). Mom meets a new dude, Chevy Chase and JTT’s new purpose in life becomes to ruin this guy’s life.

Seeing this movie as a child you sympathize with JTT. This guy’s trying to sleep with your mom, dude! Get him the hell out of your house. EFF this goofy, old yuppie! Chevy Chase thinks he’s gonna come into JTT’s house with his silly old man jokes and win him over? I think not!

Seeing this movie as an “adult” you feel kind of bad for Chevy Chase. Why does this lady have to have such a little sh*t for a son? Can’t he just leave Chevy alone? Your mom can’t be alone forever, JTT. You’re gonna grow up and find someone to love and leave her one day and she’ll be all alone because you ruined her one chance at love. Chevy Chase should punch this stupid kid in the face.

If you haven’t seen Man of the House it might still be on HBOgo/HBOnow and you should definitely check it out. Along with every other JTT movie.

(See also the TV Series – Home Improvement)

 

VARSITY BLUES

 

Varsity Blues stars James Van Der Beek with a bunch of other stars, including a young Paul Walker, Amy Smart and Scott Caan. This is the “High School” movie that every parody high school movie was based on. You know, “the jocks with the footballs and the drinking the beers and the partying hard and doing whatever they want,” because small towns are run by high school athletes.

Watching this movie before entering high school was like being that kid in Billy Madison, “Gee, Billy. I can’t wait ‘til I go to hike school!”. You can join the football team (which I never did), and rule the campus (which I also never did). You’re excited to drink beer at all the crazy keg parties, and break stuff in stranger’s houses (which we maybe did a little bit). Go to a strip club and find out one of your teachers is a stripper (never happened). Get a girl to show you her whipped cream bikini (the only whipped cream bikini I’ve seen to date is Amy Smart’s in Varsity Blues. I’m starting to think these things don’t really exist in real life).

Watching this movie after high school and college it becomes a sad movie. All these small town hilly-billy kids had to live for was high school football. High School was their prime, after that it’s working at some crap store in that same town. Then one day you’ll have kids and you get to relive the “glory days” when they’re high school football players. I’m about to turn 30 and I still haven’t reached my prime. And these 15-18 year olds are throwing in the towel after three to four good years. Varsity Blues went from “the dream” to a nightmare of a movie.

Dear Mox (aka James Van Der Beek),

“I don’t want… your life.”

 

DROP DEAD FRED

This is a movie my sister and I loved to watch. A woman in her 20’s is revisited by her terribly inappropriate imaginary friend. So many jokes in this movie that we didn’t understand until later in life. Drop Dead Fred is one of the dirtiest kid movies I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen it way too many times as a kid. Maybe it wasn’t even a kids movie. Here are some horrible quotes from the movie:

 

Fred: [Looking up Polly’s skirt] Wow.

[Looks at Elizabeth and points up]

Fred: Cobwebs.

 

Young Elizabeth: Daddy, why don’t we throw mommy out the window? It won’t hurt her. She’ll land in the gladiolas.

Nigel: You shouldn’t say things like that about your mother… She might cut your head off.

 

[Fred looks up a woman’s dress]

Fred: No panties. No panties.

 

Fred: I’m not afraid of the megabeast!

Young Elizabeth: I’m not either, when she comes in here we’ll make her eat up all this mud!

Fred: Yeah… and then we’ll cut her head off…

Young Elizabeth: with scissors…

Fred: Yeah… and then we’ll make her eat it

Young Elizabeth: …make her eat her own head… with what?

Fred: Oh yeah, well I’ll eat her head then.

Young Elizabeth: And I’ll eat the rest of her!

Fred: Yeah! And then we’ll get up and poo her all over the table cause we’re not afraid of anything

Fred, Young Elizabeth: yeah, yeah YEAH!

 

All this freaky British imaginary friend does is get this poor girl into trouble the whole time. It’s still a great movie, I just can’t believe I was able to watch it so many times as a kid.

 

 

I’m sure there are other movies out there just like these, where your opinion changes depending on where you are in life. Watching Home Alone once you’re a parent may be totally terrifying. Instead of cheering on Kevin McCallister as he outsmarts the burglars, you’re just worried for the poor mom who has to deal with leaving her kid in a different country (and get ready for Home Alone 2, because the same mom is about to mess up once again). This is why movies are great, you can watch them over and over again and get a different message every time. So, for your homework this week* go back and re-watch an old movie from your childhood and see how it makes you feel now compared to when you first saw it.

*First ever Ferdi’s Learnings Homework assignment. I’m sure there’s a comment section below where you can tell me all about what movie you re-watched.