I've got a fresh new column up over at Forces of Geek: This month, I'm examining 1985's Gotcha! in waaaay too much detail. Gotcha! is not the sort of film that holds up well under scrutiny. In fact, it's thoroughly obnoxious from start to finish. Still, Paris and West Berlin in the mid-Eighties both look fantastic, and Linda Fiorentino is awfully pretty, so there's that.My review is here.
Comments
Great review, Morgan, as always!
And speaking of things that seem vaguely unreal: It struck me as so bizarre in Gotcha! that, after lovingly establishing Anthony Edwards' crackerjack shooting skills in the first five minutes, this aspect of his character would be totally forgotten when he's on the run from the KGB in Germany, until the last couple of minutes of the film when he's back in Los Angeles. Argh. It's a frustrating movie.
On the one hand, kids can take out their aggressions at other kids in a non-lethal way, thus (hopefully) averting real violence.
On the other hand, maybe it's not such a great idea to plant the whole 'let's shoot my classmates' idea in anyone's head.
I miss Berlin in the 80's The KaDeWe... U-Bahns and S-Bahns... Might have to watch Gotcha just to reminisce.
1988: We crossed on foot at Checkpoint Charlie to get into East Berlin, right? (Unlike Anthony Edwards's character, you and I were smart enough not to mouth off to the border guards.) And then we crossed back into West Germany (heading to Frankfurt) by train from... Erfurt? I'm looking at a map, and that seems right. We stayed in Eisenach, Halle, and Erfurt in East Germany, I think. Probably other places I'm forgetting.
Let's see, we visited: Berlin, Jerchel, Halle, Naumberg, Eisenach, Ohlweiler and Frankfurt-Langen on our 1988 trip. I remember Erfurt too - not sure why it wasn't listed on the itinerary.
I also remember the train ride out of East Germany, and the guards by the side of the road who were instructed to shoot anyone getting on/off the train.
I remember Jerchel and Naumburg, but I'd swear I'd never heard the word Ohlweiler before. It looks like it's pretty far west, about midway between Frankfurt and the border to France -- must've been at the tail end of our trip?
We packed in a whole lot of places (and a whole lot of host families) in a very short time. It's all kind of a blur now.
Here's my itinerary from the Germany trip, if you have the stomach to handle all my inane comments about Berlin at the age of 17.
I started to transcribe my travel journal literally - then petered out - and never got a chance to edit for content.
...it's all so fuzzy.
We played some sort of game there - and not cards, which we were playing all throughout East Germany. I'm thinking it was some sort of memory game, but I could be wrong.
Heh. Cows and bathrooms :-)
We played some sort of game there - and not cards, which we were playing all throughout East Germany. I'm thinking it was some sort of memory game, but I could be wrong.
Not sure if this is what you're thinking of, but we did play with the Top-Ass cards there -- a simple Google search has reassured me that, yes, this is a perfectly legit, if poorly named, card game in Germany. I've been able to find Top-Ass cards with bikes and with cars on them online; I believe the set we were playing with had airplanes?
Again, fuzzy.