Happy Father's Day! - movies that make me think of my dad

Happy Father's Day to all you Dads out there!

I called my dad this morning to wish him a good one and at the same time, on the History Channel, they were showing "Tombstone" (1994) - one of the movies I always watch with my dad... I took it as a sign. And an excuse to write a blog this fine afternoon :)

When I lived at home, I watched plenty of movies with my dad... we've seen some good ones, we've seen some bad ones, but the point is, we've seen them together.

Here's just a few movies that automatically make me think of my dad (in no particular order):

- Tombstone - "I have two guns, one for each of ya" "Why Ike, whatever do you mean?" "I'm your Huckleberry" And the lists of quotes goes on and on and on - Val Kilmer did the performance of his career playing Doc Holiday in this film, and the rest of the ensemble isn't too shabby either (Kurt Russell makes for a great Wyatt Earp, flanked by his brothers, played by Bill Paxton and Sam Elliot... good times). I remember first seeing this movie at my dad's parents house and we thought it was a fun movie so we bought it on VHS when we got home from vacation. And then we watched it over and over and over again... and I still love it!

- The Big Lebowski - Somebody gave my dad a copy of the DVD with his name taped over John Goodman's on the front cover - though my dad doesn't look like Goodman, nor does he act as crazy as the character of Walter in the movie. We love this movie because we love The Dude and Walter... that scene where Walter shakes out the coffee can full of Donnie's ashes and the wind blows it all over The Dude... PRICELESS. "The Dude abides." Indeed he does... (also, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, as Brandt, makes this face... I believe it's when he's in Lebowski's car... you'll know it when you see it... it's too funny)

- The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - Two words: ABBA turd

- Tremors - While my dad enjoys all of the Tremors movies, I can only tolerate the first (A Tremors movie with out Kevin Bacon is just not worth watching, in my opinion). Even so, the first Tremors movie is awesome. It's so cheesetastic which makes it that much better. Our favorite scene is where Val and Earl are trying to outrun the Graboid ("We can make it! We can make it!") and they leap across that concrete gully and smash into the other side and then the dialogue that follows is great:
Earl: Knocked itself cold.
Val: Cold my ass. It's dead. We killed it. We killed it! (to the carcass) F**K YOU!
But the line we say most often to each other is "They're under the ground!" (twangy accent and all)

- The Sandlot - This is a movie that everyone in the family likes a lot (You're killing me Smalls!), but the scene that most makes me think of my dad is when the kids are at the carnival and they each take a big piece of chewing tobacco and then hop on that tilting ride and then they all get sick and hurl all over themselves and everyone else on that ride. It makes me laugh just thinking about it :)

- Elf - "I'm here, with my dad, and we never met. And he wants me to sing him a song... I was adopted, but you didn't know I was born. But I'm here now. I found you. Daddy! And, guess what? I love you. I love you. I LOVE YOOOOOOOOOOOOU!"

- any SNL "Best Of" DVD - I saw the "Best of Mike Myers" is on TV tonight... my mom and dad bought me that VHS for my birthday (or was it Christmas?) many, many years ago. "Well you know my name is Simon... and I like to do drawrings" :) My dad got me hooked on SNL when I was in high school and I have been watching faithfully every week ever since. One of my favorite sketches (that my dad also likes) is when the DeMarco brothers (Kattan and Parnell) are auditioning to be backup dancers for Bon Jovi - and they start air guitaring/air keyboarding... too funny! But one of my dad's favorite sketches ever is, you guessed it, the Cowbell sketch. It's not that funny to me, but when I'm watching it with my dad, it becomes one of the funniest things I've ever seen because I get a kick out of him getting a kick out of Walken. :)

Happy Father's Day, Papa Bear. I love you man :)