She Likes to Watch

Movie T-shirts, posters let you wear your fandom on your sleeve

Hot Topic sells a selection of "Kick-Ass" T-shirts.

Hot Topic is the bane of every hipster’s existence.

Founded in 1988, the retail chain specializes in fashion apparel and accessories inspired by popular bands, movies and television shows. By making once-exclusive trends available to the mall-going masses, of course, the company has sublimated every subculture it’s touched.

That said, Hot Topic does occasionally make some pretty cool T-shirts.

The latest additions to its pop culture collection are five designs inspired by the hit movie “Kick-Ass,” about a wannabe superhero who finds himself woefully underequipped for crimefighting.

My personal favorite is a shirt bearing the movie’s tongue-in-cheek slogan: “With no power comes no responsibility.” Superhero-loving shopaholics rejoice!

I’ll continue my spring cleaning spree today with several links aimed at the consumer in you.

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Have you always dreamed of owning John Belushi’s “College” sweatshirt from “Animal House”? What about Jeff Bridge’s Asian-inspired tee from “The Big Lebowski,” or Kurt Russell’s “Fu Manchu” tank top from “Big Trouble in Little China”?

Then Found Item Clothing is for you.

This online clothing retailer specializes in replicating your favorite fashion finds from your favorite films. Its vast inventory includes scaly “Godzilla” slippers, the classic tuxedo T-shirt and tees inspired by “Caddyshack,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Real Genius” and “Revenge of the Nerds.”

Found Item Clothing also sells some sweet designer shirts, and a few music-inspired items — including a replica T-shirt from Led Zeppelin’s landmark 1977 North American Tour.

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Fans can discover the high end of film fashion at ISawItIn.com.

Dedicated to finding the fabulous styles seen in “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Twilight” and other fashion-forward films, the site tracks down the actual clothes worn by your favorite celebs — as well as similar items from other retailers.

ISawItIn.com places a heavy emphasis on romantic comedies such as “It’s Complicated” and “P.S. I Love You,” but there’s a sprinkling of more serious fare including “Avatar,” “The Blind Side” and “Inglourious Basterds.”

Get out those credit cards!

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As far as movie-related clothing retailers go, Mondo Tees is at the top of the pack.

The company works with a number of fantastic graphic designers to offer products that truly capture the spirit of the originals. Frequent collaborators include the folks at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and SXSW.

Just check out these recent offerings: T-shirts and posters inspired by “Night of the Living Dead,” “Plan Nine From Outer Space” and “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.”

Have you ever seen anything so beautiful in your life?

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Here are a few more mouth-watering links:

• Check out the full collection of Alamo Drafthouse posters right here. (A quick glance reveals “Bullitt,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.”)
• Graphic designer Olly Moss has a splendid selection of film posters, including red-and-black renditions of “Die Hard,” “The Great Dictator” and “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”
• Meanwhile, artful blogger Spacesick has created “I Can Read Movies,” a slick series reimagining popular movies as 1960s novels. I’d pick up a copy of “Space Jam.” Wouldn’t you?

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Image courtesy of HotTopic.com.

A trio of high school friends play hooky in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."

Celebrate John Hughes’ legacy with “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”

During Sunday’s Academy Award ceremony, members of Hollywood’s beloved Brat Pack stood up to commemorate a fallen friend.

Matthew Broderick, Molly Ringwald and others came to celebrate John Hughes, the director who gave a voice to 1980s teenage angst. His films, which included “Pretty in Pink,” “Sixteen Candles,” “Some Kind of Wonderful” and “The Breakfast Club, perfectly captured the pain of being young — from first crushes to tight-knit social cliques.

One of Hughes’ best-known odes to the trials and tribulations of teen life, of course, is “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

Ferris (Matthew Broderick) feigns sickness in order to spend a beautiful spring day with his girlfriend (Mia Sara) and his best friend (Alan Ruck) in downtown Chicago.

The ruse fools almost everyone, including his fellow students. But Ferris’ sister (Jennifer Gray) and the school’s Dean of Students, Mr. Rooney (Jeffrey Jones), smell a rat.

Watch “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” at 7:30 p.m. tonight at the Fremont theater, 1025 Monterey St. in San Luis Obispo. Tickets are $7.50.

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On Wednesday, film noir fans are in for a treat.

I will personally be hosting a screening of “Sunset Boulevard,” Billy Wilder’s classic tale of murder, madness and show business.

Struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) first stumbles upon a palatial Sunset Boulevard home while looking for a place to hide his car from debt collectors. The massive mansion, it turns out, belongs to Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a silent film star now clinging to the shreds of her faded beauty and failed career.

“I know you. You’re Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big,” Joe remarks in one of the film’s most famous exchanges.

“I am big,” Norma replies haughtily. “It’s the pictures that got small.”

Joe moves into the mansion and becomes Norma’s friend, editor and lover. When he falls for young aspiring writer Betty Schaefer, however, the affair pushes the mentally fragile Norma into total madness.

Considered one of Wilder’s finest films, “Sunset Boulevard” is a brilliantly bitter critique of Hollywood’s “Dream Factory” status.

The film netted three Oscars — Best Score, Best Original Screenplay and Best Art Direction. (Back in the day, there were seperate categories for black-and-white and color films.)

“Sunset Boulevard” screens at 5 p.m. Wednesday at the San Luis Obispo library, 995 Palm St. in San Luis Obispo.

The screening series “Film Noir: Movies in the Shadows” continues April 14 with “Asphalt Jungle.”

In honor of director John Hughes, let’s have a “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”

Just Michael Jackson, filmmaker John Hughes was the voice of a generation.

Hughes, who died yesterday at age 59, was best known for writing and directing the most popular ensemble comedies of the ’80s.

“Pretty in Pink.” “Sixteen Candles.” “Some Kind of Wonderful.”  “The Breakfast Club.” “Weird Science.” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

Each movie chronicled the crushing pain and fleeting joy of adolescent life — the simple thrills of TV, music and video games, the social awkwardness of high school cliques, the terrifying, yet thrilling prospect of puppy love.

Hughes’ heroes, the founding members of the Brat Pack, became our best friends and first crushes.

We pined for freckled redhead Molly Ringwald and dark-eyed brunette Ally Sheedy. We dreamed of tossing the football around with Judd Nelson and Emilio Estevez, of playing hooky with Matthew Broderick or attending a Mathletes match with Anthony Michael Hall.

Whether you were a brain or a beauty, a jock or a freak, you knew those characters — Hughes’ characters — were talking to directly to you.

Hughe’s career as a writer and director took off in the early 1980s with such hits as “National Lampoon’s Vacation” and “Sixteen Candles.” The latter launched his most lasting legacy — as the chronicler and chief confessor of middle-class high schoolers everywhere.

Of course, Hughes didn’t limit himself to teen comedies. He paired Steve Martin and John Candy with hilarious results in “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” brought Candy back in “Uncle Buck” and helmed the hugely successful “Home Alone” series — the pinnacle of Macaulay Culkin’s stardom.

Hughes’ latter-day writing credits included the Jennifer Lopez vehicle “Maid in Manhattan” and “Drillbit Taylor,” which stars Owen Wilson as an inept bodyguard hired by two bullied boys.

Despite such flops as “Flubber” and “Curly Sue,” Hughes’ filmmaking legacy remains one of funny, affectionate films that never cease to delight.

That’s why I advocate celebrating Hughes with a holiday dedicated to his most popular film, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

It’d take place around the same time of year that a certain trio of teenagers (Broderick, Alan Ruck and Mia Sara) played hooky in downtown Chicago.

The only question is, exactly when is “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off?”

The movie takes place in the springtime toward the end of the school year. Yet filming for “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” began Sept. 9, 1985, and ended Nov. 22, 1985.

The Von Steuben Day parade, featured in the scene in which Ferris lipsyncs to The Beatles’ “Twist and Shout,” typically takes place in Chicago in mid-September.

Maybe it’s best to link a Hughes holiday to the movie’s release date: June 11, 1986.

Either way, I think John Hughes some sort of special recognition — a holiday, a parade, a tribute concert featuring the ska punk band Save Ferris (which takes its name from one of the movie’s most famous running gags).

We, as children of the ’80s, owe him that much.

This week’s films reveal a love of life, both spiritual and physical

Every 12 years, millions of people trek to Allahabad, India, in search of peace, harmony and spiritual unity.

Their goal is the intersection of India’s holiest rivers, the Ganges and the Yamuna, Their gathering, a spectacular spiritual festival, is known as the the Kumbh Mela.

It’s the subject of the 2004 documentary “Shortcut to Nirvana,” which screens tonight in San Luis Obispo.

Filmmakers Maurizio Benazzo and Nick Day chronicle the 2001 Kumbh Mela through the eyes of several Westerners and an ebullient young Hindu monk, Swami Krishnanand. Along the way, they encounter some of India’s most respected holy men, as well as His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
The result is a colorful, chaotic look at a spiritual journey shared by as many as 70 million people. Compare that to the pilgrims who traveled to Rome to pay final respects to Pope John Paul II — estimated at a mere million.

“Shortcut to Nirvana” plays at 7 p.m. tonight at the San Luis Obispo public library, 995 Palm St. in San Luis Obispo.

A $5 donation is suggested.

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“Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

– “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”

Young people could pick a far worse role model than Ferris Bueller, the protagonist of the classic ’80s comedy “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

Sure, the high school senior skips school and spends the entire day seeing the sights in a “borrowed” Ferrari. Sure, he wrecks said priceless automobile and gets his best friend in deep, deep trouble.

But Ferris also teaches us a lesson — about life, freedom and The Beatles’ “Twist and Shout.”

In “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” Ferris (Matthew Broderick) feigns sickness in order to spend a beautiful spring day with his girlfriend (Mia Sara) and his best friend (Alan Ruck) in downtown Chicago.

The ruse fools almost everyone, including his fellow students, who launch a townwide effort to “Save Ferris.” But his sister (Jennifer Gray) and the school’s Dean of Students, Mr. Rooney (Jeffrey Jones), smell a rat.

Writer-director John Hughes gave us many of the decade’s most beloved movies, including “Sixteen Candles,” “Pretty in Pink” and “The Breakfast Club.” But it’s “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” that stands out as the most unabashedly and unapologetically fun.

“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” screens at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Wednesday at The Palm Theatre, 817 Palm St. in San Luis Obispo.

’80s mania spawns a DVD series

Paramount Pictures loves the 1980s. Paramount also loves making a quick buck.

By now, you may have noticed the covers of your favorite ’80s movies peeking out of grocery store checkout lanes and video kiosks. Was that “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” wedged between People and O magazine? “Some Kind of Wonderful” squeezed between the chewing gum and sunflower seeds?
Here’s why: Paramount is releasing 40 of your favorites from the era, all tarted up in a series titled (what else?) “I Love the ’80s.”

Repackaging the decade’s hits in pastel slip-covers , the studio doesn’t exactly splurge on the extras. In fact, few of these titles offer little more than a theatrical trailer and French subtitles.

Each “’80s Edition” comes with a “Music of the ’80s” CD featuring songs by Echo and the Bunnymen, Erasure and INXS and a-ha.

Most of the movie choices make sense.

What DVD collection, after all, is complete without a copy of “Airplane!”, “Top Gun” or “Pretty in Pink”? The same goes for “Friday the 13th,” “Footloose,” “Ferris Bueller.” All fun. All classics.

Other, more serious titles such as “Reds” and “Witness” also have their place.

“Grease 2,” on the other hand, seems like a peculiar choice. And there are other odd additions: “Rustler’s Rhapsody.” “Summer School.” “Hot Pursuit.” There must be “King David” fans out there, but I’m not sure everyone would enjoy watching the infamous “Richard Gere in a diaper” scene.

Movie buffs should skip this series in favor of superior special special editions. There are far better versions out there, with much better making-of documentaries, directors’ commentaries and other extras. Most of them probably carry the same sticker price, too.

Still, if you can’t resist buying that copy of “Beverly Hills Cop” along with your bread and milk, well, I can hardly blame you.