10 Unjustly Forgotten Films By Famous Directors

9. Chris Columbus- Adventures In Babysitting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FOQNuKcf7s Before Chris Columbus became the director of such blockbusters as Home Alone 1 & 2, Mrs. Doubtfire, and the first two Harry Potter movies, he was just a lowly screenwriter, producing scripts for such modern classics as Gremlins, The Goonies, and Young Sherlock Holmes. Columbus' real ambition, however, was to be a director, and with one eye toward that dream, he kept his other eye on the roam, looking for projects that he felt would make a good directing vehicle. He found one in David Simkins' script for Adventures in Babysitting, a script that had been written in the 1960s; the project, however, had fallen into development hell in the 1970s. Columbus felt that the material was ripe for revision and the script went through an extensive re-write, updating the script for an '80s audience. Columbus then took the script to producer Debra Hill, who, apparently not having had enough of troubled babysitters after producing John Carpenter's horror classic Halloween, agreed to be executive producer of the film. Incidentally, if you look closely, you can see Halloween playing on a TV toward the beginning of the film (along with a really weird-looking gangster flick that looks like the Dick Tracy movie before the Dick Tracy movie was the Dick Tracy movie, if that made any sense at all). The story revolves around a teenager, Chris Parker (Elisabeth Shue), who, in the middle of a babysitting job, gets a call from her nervous-wreck friend, Brenda (Penelope Ann Miller). Brenda, whose attempt at running away from home has been thwarted due to a lack of funds, asks Chris to come and pick her up at a bus station deep in the heart of Chicago. Against her better judgment, Chris takes her three young charges, hyperactive and Thor-obsessed Sara (Maia Brewton), love-struck (with Chris) Brad (Keith Coogan), and all-around weirdo Daryl (Anthony Rapp) with her to rescue her friend. All goes well until Chris' mom's station wagon has a blowout on the Chicago Expressway. This event starts a chain reaction that has the group running from a band of car thieves, intervening in gang fights on subway trains, climbing on the outside of skyscrapers, crashing frat parties, and singing in blues bars. Chris and the kids' adventures are intercut with a number of hilarious scenes concerning Brenda's night at the bus station (the "rat scene" and the "hot dog scene" are particularly funny). Columbus' debut is still his best film; the script is well-written and moves at a fast pace, leaving the audience breathless but excited to get to the next adventure. The film makes you care about the characters; as the challenges the main characters face get more and more difficult and more and more dangerous, one finds oneself growing concerned for the characters' safety. And did I mention the film is hilarious? The film is a joke-a-minute romp, a lot of the jokes having a playfully dirty undertone to them, causing the film to grow funnier as one grows older. Honestly, it's amazing that Touchstone Pictures distributed this picture, being associated with Disney; with all the dirty jokes and the fact that the plot revolves around the chase after an extremely valuable Playboy magazine, one would think that the film was too dirty for Walt Disney's company. Not in the Eisner era, I guess. Oh, and this film has a wonderful soundtrack of R&B/soul tunes. If you're an aficionado of such music (as I am), this movie's worth seeing for the soundtrack alone. I'm not sure why this film has fallen through the cracks; it made a solid profit at the box office and everybody who sees it seems to love it. Oh, well. The film is being re-discovered, and that's something to be grateful for. This film can also be watched in its entirety on Youtube, if you're interested.