Friday, August 9, 2013

Way to Go Moments in Adventures in Babysitting



Adventures in Babysitting rests comfortably in my family's "Best Movies of All Time" canon. Here it sits alongside other such masterpieces as, Baby Boom, Overboard, and, The Chipmunk Adventure. We all have them--movies that you and your family members hold a special connection to. Movies that you know by heart and that you would gladly pick watching over some legit masterpiece any day. No, these are not Oscar winners, or National Film Archive nominees. These are pieces of your SOUL.

Adventures in Babysitting actually happens to be a highly entertaining bit of film if I do say so myself. I still think it can stand up against most dated 'teen' comedies of its day and plus it has Elisabeth Shue AND Vincent D'onofrio plays a surly mechanic with a secret identity of Thor, God of Thunder. Also, he's blonde and skinny--who knew?



While perusing channels the other night, my sister and I came across the highly evocative ending scene. And by evocative I mean it makes you want to grab Sarah by her Thor helmet and yell things. Naturally it was this moment where I realized that I could write an entire post of Way to Go Moments using the entirety of Adventures in Babysitting. Remember 'Way to Go Moments'? I miss those bitches.

Way to Go: Chris' Mom

Who lets their kid borrow the station wagon, when the station wagon doesn't have a spare???? Isn't that the first rule of parenting? Yeah, I'm pretty sure it is look:

Rules of Parenting

1. Make sure there is a spare
2. Don't kill them


Thanks to Chris' mother, the kids and Chris are stranded on a busy Chicago highway with a flat tire and no spare.



Granted, how would she have known Chris would take the kids into the city to pick up her friend from the depths of hell/bus station?


 Minor details. Chris' Mom, you should be ashamed of yourself!

Way to Go: Pruitt


While at first, Pruitt does a good deed in picking up Chris and kids. He even has that old kooky charm that only a crazy guy with one hand can have. But then, he goes and ruins everything by getting so mad at his cheating wife that he endangers the lives of everyone, by taking a gun out of his glove box and shooting up the joint. Worst of all---he turns one tiny flat tire into a bullet ridden windshield.

Of course, he sort of makes up for this by saving the kids from mean sleaze creep at the hospital and for paying for the windshield. So OK Pruitt? You cool, you cool.

**** BONUS TRIVIA**** Pruitt is Tom Noonan's brother in real life!

Way to Go: Bad Guys

It's not like these bad guys are running a hole in the wall, chop shop operation. They seem like they have things pretty together. The chop shop runs smoothly. They can supply coffee. They hold regular business meetings. They have working phones. Why then---do these guys think it's a good idea to write down very, very important meeting notes on the centerfold of a Playboy? Somebody get these guys some note pads. Come on!

Also way to go Bad Guys for sending this guy in to do the negotiations with the kids.



No wonder Sarah makes a run for it and goes out the window of a skyscraper. Dude is creepy as fuck.


Way to Go: Sarah

Sarah does a few things that make me shout angrily. First off, she abandons the group, chocolate eclair in MITTENED hand and decides the time is ripe to do a little window shopping on the creepy nighttime streets of Chicago.



Due to this, she gets herself into a spot of trouble.After meeting the bad guys face to face, Sarah's spots her Dad's building and makes a run for it. Hoping to ambush her parents at their swanky soiree, she instead somehow picks a vacant and under construction floor instead. Upon exiting this derelict cavern, Sarah calls out, "Mom? Dad?......" Ummmm yes your parents are definitely on this floor, because why wouldn't they be? This is obviously the happening place to be.

Now, instead of saying 'oops let me try another floor,' Sarah sticks around a little too long and gets caught by one of the bad guys. In such a dire situation, Sarah makes the only logical decision she can think of. SHE GOES OUT THE FRICKIN WINDOW OF A SKYSCRAPER.



As if that wasn't bad enough, she then slides further down and starts ambling her way across windows!!!



I just can't even deal with this decision making. I can't!


Way to Go: Graydon



Apparently Sarah isn't the only one capable of making the worst decisions in the world. Bad guy Graydon who after his brilliant plan of hoisting Sarah up by a rope fails, decides the best way to save her and the Playboy Magazine is by going out the window after her!! You know because you can do so much then--like, pick her up and throw her back up into the window and....OH RIGHT you can't. You can't do anything now either because you're stuck on the outside of a fucking sky scraper.


When will people LEARN?! YOU SHOULD NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES GO OUT THE WINDOW OF A SKYSCRAPER!!!


3 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice! Let's focus however on the fact that Brenda should be shot in the neck for being the primary reason for this acid washed Odyssey! I just hate Brenda!

Andre Dumas said...

Ha, very true very true--although I cannot fault her, for without Brenda there would be no Adventures in Babysitting. Also the bus station scenes are probably my favorite.

CashBailey said...

Useless trivia time! In Australia this movie was called A NIGHT ON THE TOWN.

Maybe some marketing genius changed it because we don't really have a tradition of babysitting as strong as the US.