Adventures In Babysitting

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Once again, the guys dove deep into the 80s in search of a movie that, while being timeless, still managed to convey the feel of the times.

And that movie is Adventures In Babysitting, starring Elisabeth Shue as Chris, a cute-as-a-button 17-year-old who loves her boyfriend, Mike (Bradley Whitford). When Mike cancels their big date because his sister is sick, Chris is left with few options...She can either hang around with her terminally depressed friend Brenda (Penelope Ann Miller), or she can take a babysitting job watching Brad (Keith Coogan), a 14-year-old who is madly in love with her, and his sister Sara (Maia Brewton), a 9-year old who is obsessed with Marvel Comics' Thor.

My god! Not the guy from Revenge of the Nerds!

Trying to avoid both problems, she tries to push the job off on Brenda, but to no avail, and is left with no other choice but to go handle things herself. Once she gets everybody squared away and the kids' parents out of the house, Chris gets a call from Brenda, who has run away from home and found herself stranded at the bus station in downtown Chicago, and begs Chris to come and rescue her.

After a little protesting (one has to wonder whether Chris even likes Brenda, possibly only wanting to keep her around to make sure that there is always someone less nerdy around), Chris agrees to get her out of there, and the kids attempt to blackmail her into taking them along for the ride. As they are leaving, Brad's incredibly pervy friend Daryl (Anthony Rapp, looking like a lost Weasley brother--Shemp Weasley, perhaps) also manages to get swept into the adventure. (You know...the one that's in babysitting...)

Like most tow truck drivers, he wants to wear your skin

Thus begins a series of increasingy unlikely events, including meeting a tow truck driver (John Ford Noonan) with a hook hand and a cheating wife, the world's friendliest car thief (Calvin Levels), the only African-American in the Mafia (Don Canada), a guy named Dawson (Vincent Philip D'Onofrio) who may or may not be Thor, Albert King (yes, that Albert King), and a frat dude (George Newborn) who may be the true love Chris was lip-synching about at the beginning of the movie.

Meanwhile, Brenda is on her own little adventure at the bus station, where she encounters a creepy guy with a gun, a lady who steals her glasses, an old guy she evicts from the phone booth he's living in, a rat that she thinks is a kitten, a hot dog vendor who won't accept checks, and any number of weirdos that make up the fabric of what was 1980s Chicago. (And probably still do.)

So many homeless wieners around...

Will Chris and the kids get to Brenda before she is forced to sell her body on the street for bus fare? (Mind you, this is teenage, clumsy Penelope Ann Miller; not the smokin' hot Penelope Ann Miller we know and touch ourselves to today.) Will they make it home before Brad and Sara's parents do? Will anyone see to it that Daryl gets some sort of therapy for his sex addiction? You'll have to tune in to find out!

Jake is concerned for Sara, who displays a number of traits that make him wonder whether she might be some sort of sociopath, or possibly just straight-up psychotic. He also wonders what happened with Vincent D'Onofrio between this movie and Full Metal Jacket.

Seriously...

Larry loves this movie, and cheerfully revels in the goofiness of it all. He also loves the soundtrack, as do the others, and waxes enthusiastic about "The Babysitter Blues", which Chris, Brad, Sara, and Dary perform with Albert King at a blues bar, because "nobody gets outta here without singin' the blues."

This next one is called "The Really Super White Kid Blues"...

Derek also enjoyed the movie. And while he shares Larry's excitement of the soundtrack, although he cannot agree less about "The Babysitter Blues". It's...kinda cheesy. He and the others marvel over the fact that now, about 30 years later, Elisabeth Shue is still as cute as she was back then. Maybe there's some sort of "Picture of Dorian Gray" thing going on somewhere or something. Or possibly voodoo.

So tie down the kids, stretch out on the couch, and download this week's episode!