“Joy Boy!” my father exclaimed. I turned and shrugged, I had long been introduced to the Shatner, and my father had never called him that before, so I guessed he was talking about the detective.
“Who?” I asked, not knowing what was about to happen.
“Joy Boy… Peter Falk…”
“…” I responded.
“You’ve had a really deficient upbringing…” my father replied, he left the room and when he returned he popped a tape in the VCR, “Watch this…”
Pocketful of MiraclesSo I sat, and this wasn’t the first movie my father had made me watch. I had already seen Nightmare on El Street and that had tainted my opinion of movies.
But, this was the first movie with Peter Falk. I won’t say I was mesmerized, the movie is very sappy for a gangster flick, however Joy Boy was amazing.
After that my father and I started watching Columbo daily.
The Princess BrideSo a couple of years later another Joy Boy movie premiered, The Princess Bride.
It was a classic, just as the poster read: Fencing, Fighting, Killing. The perfect movie for a six-year old, I think we saw it at least ten time. So I’ve been looking for Joy Boy movies ever since. I even saw Made, and yes I am embarrassed to admit that.
Bye Bye, LoveI never really liked Mad About You, but that didn’t stop me from watching Bye Bye, Love. Eliza Dushku was in it.
Paul Reiser is a very funny neurotic; if you ever need an actor to over-react, he’s your man.
The Thing About My Folks
So I really didn’t know what to expect from The Thing About My Folks going into the movie. I knew Joy Boy and Reiser would be funny, but I wasn’t sure how well they’d play off each other.
It was amazing, it almost felt like they were related even down to the way they grated on each others nerves.
If you can’t tell I really liked this movie, and although I can’t relate to everything that happened I do have older sisters and our family connects mostly through the phone at a distance. And my father has bought an old car, though not in as good condition as the car in this movie.
This movie is about a son, trying to occupy his father after his mother has supposedly walked out. The son doesn’t really know his father, and who can really say they know their fathers? The adventure takes place over the course of two days as the sister track down the mother and the son breaks down fifty years of resentment and guilt over the bsby-boomer way he was raised. In the end the father and son and the mother make peace. A real tear jerker.
When I saw the movie, it still didn’t have distribution, so it could be awhile before it breaks out of the festival circuit. If or when it does, I would recommend seeing it. It’s worth seeing Joy Boy in another good movie.
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