I've been on an "older" movie run lately...
Gremlins (1984)
Phoebe Cates is impossibly cute.
The mom is pretty badass in this movie. Kicks a lot of Gremlin butt - including nuking one in a microwave. She looked familiar so I looked her up on IMDB. She was also in
Stand By Me (Gordie's sad mom),
Back to the Future (Lorain's mom/Marty's grandma when he goes back to the 50s), and
Footloose (Kevin Bacon's mom).
The dad is a whacky inventor in the film (who the fuck has a convention on Christmas Eve?) and given this is a Spielberg film, there are definite similarities between this character and Data in Goonies (which came out 1 year later) with his mostly non-working gadgets.
Gizmo is still an adorable pet. The Gremlins are still awesomely mischievous.
I thought about showing this to my little nieces (ages 7 to 10) since it is a bit of a Christmas movie and it's PG - glad I didn't. Probably a little too scary - and Phoebe Cates has a scene where she found out Santa wasn't real because her Dad died trying to sneak down the chimney and they found him 5 days later when his body started to stink from decomposition - LOL
6.5/10
Worth the watch. Good, campy fun.
Gizmo driving the Barbie car is still classic...