Little Darlings and Baoding Balls

The Brown Panda Store

First off, let's talk about the NEW AND IMPROVED Brown Panda Store. I have finally started my eBay store and it is now up and running. You can continue to purchase your Baoding Balls from the old site, but I prefer to sell from my super-duper eBay Store: http://stores.ebay.com/The-Brown-Panda-Store

I have some super discounts and neat-o designs that just came in. The above-pictured Panda Baoding Balls are proving to be the best sellers I have on hand. Come on down to The Brown Panda Store today!!! http://stores.ebay.com/The-Brown-Panda-Store

Movie Review of the Day:

Little Darlings

Ok, I admit that I am a lover of trashy B-movies. I love the old drive-in flicks of my youth and I miss the old local grindhouse (Fresno's Manchester Cinema) where you could see two trashy B-movies for $2 or the drive-in (Fresno's Drive In next to Malibu Grand Prix) where you could see a double-feature for $5 a carload. I miss the sticky floors, the stale popcorn, the dazed-eyed ticket girls, and the ushers that didn't dare try to quiet people down or make them act civilized. It was a grand old time.

You see, that was the appeal of grindhouses and drive-ins. You could watch movies with friends on the cheap and have a rip-roaring good ol' time. The experience was more than movies... it was almost like a right-of-passage and it gave many young folks an appreciation for trashy cinema with scratched negatives and mis-synched sound. Plus, you got to socialize and hang out, which gave you something to look forward to on the weekends.

Today's kids don't have any of that in their lives. They rush home from school to check out some message board or social networking site and spend all weekend on the computer instead of eating stale popcorn, sticky Mike and Ike's, and drinking flat soda while watching a couple of exploitation flims with friends. So sad.

Do you remember going to school on Monday and reenacting the movie or spoiling the ending for those lamers who didn't go to the movies? How about telling everybody about who was making-out, who got in a fight, and who got dumped at the movies? Today kids just text-message the news or upload some stupid viral video. The art of story-telling and exaggeration has been lost on this generation. I pitty the fools.

Now on to the movie. Little Darlings is a guilty pleasure if I ever had one. Christy McNichol was the girl of my dreams when I saw this movie for the first time and she has continued to be quite an attractive woman throughout her troubled life. Her "butch" attitude, while being totally femenine, was what grabbed me. She was cute but you knew that she would probably slap the hell out you if you got out of line. I like that in a woman.

The story is about a group of teenage girls that go to summer camp and bet on which of the two of them will lose their virginity first. After that, they choose targets, or guys they want to be the ones they lose the virginity with. Unbeknownst to the adults, all the girls in camp bet money on the contest and divide into two "teams," each rooting and egging on either Ferris or Angel. At the same time, the girls engage in typical teenager acts of fun, such as food fights and other activities.
The girls involved in the contest are opposites and rivals: cynical, suspicious and streetwise poor girl Angel Bright (McNichol) and romantic rich girl Ferris Whitney (O'Neal). Both girls discover that "it" is not what they thought it was.

Tatum O'Neal was cute, but too stuck-up for my tastes. Her role was McNichol's foil, but at the hands of another girl who seemed to be the shrewdest of instigators. The contest was well-played and the entire film seemed totally plausable. I enjoyed the tension, the dialogue, and the conclusion. In all, it is a very solid film.

The young Cynthia Nixon (the Flower Child) was a plesant surprise and I rather enjoyed the fact that the girls in the film appeared to be the ages of the roles they were portraying. Much like the newer (and more shocking) film "Kids", this movie plays with the audience's perception of youth and innocence. It is pure exploitation at its finest.

Whenever this film comes on cable, I must stop what I am doing and watch it. I'll relive the night when I saw this movie at the Drive-in with my friends and we were praying for a nudie-shot that never came. I remember the $5 pizza that I bought from the snack bar that was not worth $1 and the flat and tepid Pepsi that I bought. I remember Josh, Alex, and Danny all making moves on their girls and me being too wrapped up in the movie to pay my girl too much attention.

I remember the drive up to Sky Harbor Road (the local Make-Out spot) in Josh's 1964 Chevy Impala and the fizzy pony-keg in the trunk. The view from Sky Harbor Road was beautiful (http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1005/1425482016_e7fdb51958.jpg?v=1190503278) and the evening was filled with laughter during that hot August night. Those were the times of my life and Little Darlings was there to guide me through it. I give this film an A+.

Baoding Balls and You:

You really need a pair of Baoding Balls to work off the tension from watching this movie. Armand Assante would approve: http://stores.ebay.com/The-Brown-Panda-Store