It’s been an interesting last six weeks or so.

We went from living life as normal, to lockdowns and now the Government is looking at easing restrictions. And since all sport was cancelled and some of my night jobs ceased, I have had some serious time available to catch up or re-watch or just watch.

I’ve got another post coming of the new stuff I’ve sunk my teeth into but I’ve also re-watched quite a few films because they’ve either come up on my payTV box or in the case of Tarantino, I wanted to watch an earlier flick before devoting time to “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood”.

“Remember The Titans” is an Amercan Gridiron film, based on a true story of a segregrated U.S high school, which became integrated in the early 70’s and how the integration between black and whites happened within the schools and via the football team, within society.

“Any Given Sunday” is a fictionalised story of an NFL team, with a coaching staff mentality of “win at all costs” even if it meant hiding the truth of the players injuries from the players themselves, who then risked permanent incapacity if they played.

Both sports movies offer different perspectives of what sport means to people and how it can be used to connect or divide people.

“Meet The Parents” is one of those comedy flicks that is still good to watch regardless how long ago it was released. Robert DeNiro is wonderful in this role. That scene when Ben Stiller digs a hole for himself, about milking cats, is classic. Stiller then goes on to stay, that he can milk anything with nipples, and DeNiro just nails the comeback line after a bit of silence, saying, “well I got nipples, can you milk me?”.

Plus the airport scene as a bonus, when the really eager flight announcer will not let him board the plane because Stiller is sitting in a row she hasn’t called for boarding, even though there is no one else waiting before or after him.

I’m a Tarantino fan and before I started to watch “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood”, I needed to get into a Tarantino mindset. So I grabbed my DVD of “Inglorious Basterds”.

Now and then, when Tarantino makes a film, he normally has another movie within the film playing.

In this one, you have a German war hero, who is pulled from the battlefield and put into a propaganda movie by Goebbels about his war exploits. So you get to see that propaganda movie on the big screen.

And the way Tarantino’s flick plays out, the viewer gets to watch the people from the actual movie, watching the propaganda movie on the big screen, while three other plots are being carried out at the same time.

Brilliant. And of course you have betrayal, mayhem, fire, bullets and the Tarantino famous dialogue.

So how many rock songs can you fit into a movie?

If you watch “Hot Tub Time Machine” you will hear a lot of tracks. I first saw it many years ago and it came up again on my PayTV box.

“Turn Up The Radio” from Autograph kicks it off. “(I Just) Died in Your Arms” from Cutting Crew is there. Two big rock hits, even though Cutting Crew was classed as more pop soft rock.

“Cry Tough” and “Talk Dirty To Me” from Poison are played while the fake Poison band from the movie performs em live. “I Want to Know What Love Is” from Foreigner appears.

“Keep Your Eye on the Money”, “Home Sweet Home” and “Kick Start My Heart” from Mötley Crüe are all there. The “Keep Your Eye On The Money” track is interesting because it really is an obscure track. Even “Smooth Up in Ya” from the BulletBoys also appears.

But none of the songs mentioned above appear on the official soundtrack, except for “Home Sweet Home”. If you purchased the soundtrack, you would have gotten a lot of pop songs and dance songs and new wave songs. The only rocks songs on the soundtrack which I know are “What You Need” from INXS, “Modern Love” from David Bowie and “Jessie’s Girl” from Rick Springfield.

It’s strange how there isn’t any AC/DC, Bon Jovi, Kiss, Whitesnake, Judas Priest, Ozzy, Van Halen, Quiet Riot, Ratt or even Europe with “The Final Countdown”. Especially for an 80s coming of age movie. Maybe the licensing costs were too high.

As for the movie, it’s got some laughs, like the American Pie movies. A bunch of dudes whose lives are at breaking point, end up going back to a pivotal moment in time. By the end of it we got Lougle instead of Google because rock and rollers in the past don’t care about the butterfly effect.