#56 - The Blue Lagoon (1980)

Now, I know that this movie has never appeared on any "Best of..." lists, but every once in awhile it gets bantered about in conversation and I always have to admit that I've never seen it.  This admission doesn't elicit much shock (like when I tell people I've never seen The Matrix, for example) from the listeners, but I have been told several times that I should see it, if for nothing else than its elaborate and odd coming-of-age-ness.  This is in addition to a very young Brooke Shields and a very naked slash almost naked Christopher Atkins.

LOL. Mr. Feeny is in the movie in the first few minutes, too.

I really like the part where they're trying to sing Christmas carols and they keep stopping after the first line.  It made me think of the years of language acquisition they've lost, as they only have some pictures with captions on them to increase their vocabulary.  Otherwise, the only words they can use are the ones they acquired before being shipwrecked on the island.

Some of the parts of the movie have this "nature documentary" feel to them, like the octopus eating the crap, or the big fish attacking the smaller fish Richard is trying to reel in, or the crab crawling out of the dead man's mouth.  I kinda wanted there to be a voice-over narration during those parts.  Yeah, I'm probably the only one.

Of course, the kind of the big picture is the young pair's realization and subsequent exploration of their burgeoning sexuality.  It makes sense that the film spends about fifteen consecutive minutes on it, since what else is there to do on the island, really, once you've discovered what sex is?

Overall, I mean I know that it's never been presented as some sort of great movie, but I don't know... I really liked it.  There was some beautiful scenery, a nice score, a story that was interesting and not at all hackneyed....  I'm probably in the minority, but I thought the acting was pretty great, too.  I mean, they sucked, they really did.  But when your x years old but you have the vocabulary, social skills, and ideologues of  y years old when you were shipwrecked, you're not going to be totally couth and refined all the time.  And the ridiculous temper outburst with the forced dialogue and weird intonation? Sounded like a y year-old kid to me.

This is one of the neat things about this blog; I absolutely guarantee that I wasn't supposed to like this movie as much as I did, but I'm sure as hell not going to make any apologies for it.

Score: 8.5/10