Flashback Friday: The Good Son (1993)

When one chooses to become an actor, they don’t choose (if they are able to make a decent living) to play the same type of character over and over again. Which is why the choice to play against type is exciting The question is, will this actor succeed in playing a role that the audience does not see coming?

In the 1993 film, The Good Son, Mark (Elijah Wood) has just lost his mother. When his father goes on a business trip to Asia, he is sent Maine to stay with his aunt and uncle. Mark spends his days with his cousin Henry (Macaulay Culkin). Henry initially seems like the average kid. Somewhere along the way, he starts to show a side of himself that is darker and scarier than Mark could have ever imagined.

Back in the day, the reviewers had mixed responses to the film. To be completely honest, I have not seen the movie in full. I just remember seeing part of it in the early 90’s and getting chills watching Culkin play this child who is far from Kevin McCallister as you can get.

Do I recommend it? Maybe.

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Throwback Thursday-Forever Young (1992)

Love, especially romantic love, often pushes us into decisions we might not have otherwise made.

In the 1992 movie Forever Young, Daniel McCormick (Mel Gibson) is a test pilot in pre World War II America. His sweetheart, Helen (Isabel Glasser) is injured and comatose due to an accident. The doctors are not confident that she will wake up from the coma. Not wanting to watch Helen die, Daniel agrees to be the guinea pig in a newly built cryogenic freezing chamber. The plan is that Daniel is to be woken up in a year, after Helen has passed away.  Instead of waking up a year later, Daniel wakes up 53 years later, in 1992.

He is woken up by Nat Cooper (Elijah Wood), a young boy living with his single mother, Claire Cooper (Jamie Lee Curtis).  While Daniel is trying to adjust to the fact that he woke up in 1992, his body is also aging rapidly. Can he find Helen in this new era or will he die, not knowing her fate?

Written by  J.J. Abrams, this film is the perfect blend of science fiction and romance.  Neither genre overtakes the other, allowing the best elements of both romance and science fiction to come together and gel into the best of both worlds.

I recommend it.