Stay ConnectedHere on the Large Marge Sent Us podcast, Sweety and Sweetie are our names and nostalgia is our game! Once a week (or more if you’re lucky!) we watch movies from the 80s and 90s that shaped our childhoods and then have a sisterly chat about them. We usually sing songs and there’s about a 100% chance we’ll crack up with bouts of laughter. We hope you will too! So come join us and step back into a time when life was good and the movies were even better
Logo created lovingly by Frankie Donlon.
The Gnome Mobile! The Gnome Mobile! Hunting for gnomes in the Gnome Mobile! The Gnome Mobile is a fringe Disney classic from 1967 - you either have never heard of this film or wore out a VHS copy of it and had the theme song in your head for the duration of the mid 90s. Starring The Mary Poppins kids and some well known actors from 1940s cinema, The Gnome Mobile is a cautionary tale about deforestation, dating in the gnome world and sleep apnea. We'll talk about 1960s Disney classics from our parents childhood that we grew to know and love and why gnomes are so cool (remember David the Gnome?!). Plus many, many rounds of The Gnome Mobile song which we can never really get right!
Celebrating its 35th birthday this year, Just One of the Guys, is the 1980s entry into the gender swap movie genre! Terri, is a smart albeit hot senior at a California high school. When she loses out on a writing contest that would have guaranteed her a summer internship at a local paper, she cries sexism, and in an effort to prove it dresses up as a guy named Terry, enrolls herself in the rival high school, and plans to enter the contest all over again. Along the way she meets and falls in love with cute, but insecure Rick, dumps her boyfriend who she determines was only after her for her looks, and helps her brother pop his cherry. This is an 80s film in its best sense, full of lots of improbabilities and sappy happy endings. We'll talk about other gender swap movies we're familiar with, how people wore a lot of leather in the 80s, and what happened to jock straps!?
Time for a stalker flick! Swimfan, from 2002, tells the story of a hot shot swim team star, Ben, who makes the mistake of a having a one time bone with the new girl in town because ... we're not sure even why! Dude has a GF! But boy huge mistake - as she turns out to be a nut bar and a half and makes his life a living hell. Stalker flicks are like the happy medium between drama and horror movie, and a theme Hollywood just won't let go of. Whether it's crazy female on male(Fatal Attraction style), male on male friend sitch (Cable Guy), or female on female roommate sitch (Single White Female), who doesn't love an entertaining bit of stalking? We'll talk about unexpected lead Erika Christenson, how Sweetie knows someone who was once Jesse Bradford's ballroom dancing partner, and all the fun early 2000-ish things that make an appearance in this movie!
1983's Risky Business is a weird ass film, but it found its way into the 80s pop culture Hall of the Fame with one slide across the floor from a pants less kid wearing sunglasses! Starring a baby Tom Cruise, Rebecca DeMornay and Balki (!), Risky Business is like a combination Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Skin-a-Max. Yuppy Soft Core Porn! It may also have something to say about 80s consumerism culture, prostitution, and the lengths men go to have sex! This movie is a tad too old for the Sweeties as it came out the year elder Sweetie was born, but we certainly see its contribution to film culture and the career of Tom Cruise and at the very least its role in popularizing Wayfarer sunglasses. We'll talk about our on going favorite theme - hooker with a heart of gold, how someone thought they could get into Princeton with crappy SAT scores and a B average, and if this movie is in fact one long wet dream slash nightmare of an 18 year old boy? Just take those old records off the shelf!
Week four of quarantine finds us covering a great early 2000s time capsule, Josie and the Pussycats from 2001! In honor of the late, great Adam Schlesinger, who wrote the bopping title track Pretend to Be Nice, we dipped our toes into this satire about corporate greed and the power of girl and boy teen pop groups of the late 90s/early 2000s. This movie plops us right back to our own high school days and we've never been happier! We talk about how popular TRL and Delia's was at the time, how one lick of a power chord/sight of a hip hugger jeans sends us right back to the year 2000, and now that streaming killed the video star, what is the next big trend in music going to be?!!
Week four in quarantine and we're doing the first movie in our favorite action franchise ... Mission Impossible! From 1996 and starring the one, the only Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible is a reboot of the classic TV show that spawned the never forgotten phrase, "This message will self destruct in 5 seconds ... kabloom!". While it took about 20 years to figure out the plot of this film (NOC list, Job 3:14, the "mole"), it's a pretty fun film with some excellent spy gadgets and a Jon Voight mask to boot! We'll talk about why we love this franchise so much and why the role of Ethan Hunt is perfect for Tom Cruise, the famous dangling scene, and well lots o'spy stuff! Hope you're "hanging" in there just like Tom Cruise in this movie!
Week three of quarantine over here and we're revisiting another 90s gem, Free Willy! From 1993, Free Willy capitalized on the 90s trend of making movies about animals with incredible connections with people and also sparking a dust up about aquariums and the morality of keeping giant, wild animals in tiny cramped tanks! This movie was a big deal when we were kids and the accompanying song by MJ was an even bigger deal. We thought it was a little blah on this rewatch but still cried! Must be the social distancing! We'll talk about how whales scare Sweety still because they are shark adjacent, our love for Lori Petty, and randomly fall into a long discussion about our elementary school spring concerts. Gooood times. a
Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme ... we did another classic Disney cartoon! Beauty in the Beast, from 1991, was the second fairy tale cartoon from the 90s that captured our little princess hearts. We were obsessed with protagonist Belle, a whip-smart book lover stuck in a small French town and being perpetually harassed by the village rake, Gaston. When her father gets imprisoned in a castle by a hideous Beast, she trades her life for his and is forced to live with the Beast and his bevy of anthropomorphic servants. Little does she know, the Beast is under a spell (and is really a hot prince!) and if he doesn't find a gal to love in the next day, he will be forced to live as a Beast for eternity! Can she overlook his beastly ways and love the man within?? We'll sing ALLLLL the songs for you, tell the story of how we did a live action lip syncing version for our elderly neighbors when we were kids, and talk about the endless creep-skate powers of men with long, wet, stringy hair.
With news that Tom Hanks has the corona virus, the world went batshit crazy! Don't you touch our Tom Hanks, you dirty COVID-19 bastard! As a shout out to our favorite actor and hoping he has a speedy recovery + to perk us all up after this week from pandemic hell, we did You've Got Mail! From 1998, You've Got Mail is a near perfect film and COZY with a capital "C". Maybe it's the classic take on New York, it's journey through multiple seasons or all those Meg Ryan cardigan sweater sets, but this movie is stinking adorable! A favorite of Carol's and now ours too, we still quote it nearly weekly (That caviar is a garnish!) and cry buckets at the sweet ending. We'll talk about our thoughts on Tom Hanks being our times Jimmy Stewart, what the hell happened to Meg Ryan, and what a weird time the late 90s was looking back - when Starbucks and email were considered "new".
From 1994, Blank Check is essentially a rip off of Home Alone but way less fun! Preston Waters is sick of his penny pinching parents and rude siblings and thinks money will buy him happiness and freedom to get the life that he wants. When a guy runs over his bike and gives him a blank check to buy himself a new one, Preston takes it upon himself to fill it out to CASH and give himself a million dollars! All his problems are solved! Or are they?? This movie is helllla whack, from it's totally unrealistic plot - that an 11 year old would be able to buy a house and rent a limo with a driver for a week to the inconceivable romance story line they cooked up between Shay Stanley, FBI agent undercover slash bank teller and Preston. For the love of Pete! We'll talk about when we first realized money was a concept and that we should earn some for ourselves, what we would buy with a million dollars when we were kids (hint hint Littlest Pet Shops, that's who!), and the crazy double standard that exists where its acceptable for men of any age to be lady killers, even if you're an 11 year old. The world is your oyster gentlemen! Barrrrrf.
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