Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: #29 - Adventures in Babysitting

Moving up on my list of favorite movies of all time, we come to the twenty-ninth spot on the list. From 1987 starring Elisabeth Shue, we've got Adventures in Babysitting.

Elisabeth Shue plays Chris Parker, a seventeen-year-old high school student tasked with watching two kids for the night, Brad and Sarah, while their parents go to a banquet in downtown Chicago. When Chris's friend Brenda runs away from home and gets stranded in the city, Chris takes Brad, Sarah and Brad's idiot next-door neighbor and friend Daryl into the city to retrieve her. Their car breaks down on the interstate, forcing them to hitch a ride with an insane tow-truck driver that detours them to his home where he beats up a guy sleeping with his wife. The kids hide in a car to avoid that, but the car they're hiding in gets hijacked. The kids wind up in a auto-parts-ring. Daryl steals a Playboy that has illegal car part orders on it. As they flee from the strip shop, they wind up in jazz club and WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON THIS MOVIE?!

No but seriously, one detour to the next, the kids have the worst night of babysitting in the world. This movie made me terrified of big cities. You see all the shitty parts of Chicago, and this is in the 80's. You see slums, you see gangs, you see trashy neighborhoods...everything.

Being an 80's comedy (somewhat), there's also some great scenes. I mentioned that fleeing from the strip-shop bad guys, the kids wind up in a jazz club where they're told by the lead singer of the band (Jazz legend Albert Collins) that "nobody leaves this place without singing the blues." Literally ON THE FLY they come up with a song called "The Babysitting Blues" and sing it to a standing ovation. It's the most ridiculous, 80's thing you'll find and it's my absolute favorite scene from the whole movie.

Speaking of "The Babysitting Blues", this movie also has other great pop and R&B songs that appear on the soundtrack. Edwin Starr's "Twenty Five Miles", Percy Sledge's "Just Can't Stop", and even that one 50's pop hit from the Crystals, "Then He Kissed Me".

There's even a scene where you see Vincent D'Onofrio play a mechanic named Dawson who's supposed to be similar-looking to the Marvel Comic's hero Thor, whom Sarah is obsessed with. It is through him that...

You know what? I don't want to spoil too much more. If you haven't seen it and are looking to kill an hour and forty-five minutes, I'd say give it a go. You may love it, you may hate it. It's cheesy because it's the 80's, but it's also pretty gritty, even for a so-called family movie. I mean, it's a family movie that has car-part-dealing-murderers chasing a group of kids with the intent of kidnapping or even killing them. You be the judge.

Just whatever you do...don't watch the crappy Disney Channel remake. They toned everything down to the point where it's laughably bad. They replaced "The Babysitting Blues" scene with a fucking rap battle. Do I even have to say more?