Watch Baby It's You For Free

How sad is this?

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Those 80s films. The edgy without being too raunchy comedies, the romances with the great soundtracks. So many memorable ones. Baby Its You an early 80s offering that somehow eluded me, until today. The time frame was right in the wheelhouse of my fleeting youth. The stars, likable enough. So off we went...Where to begin? Spano is an attractive guy who's serviceable as an actor. And Arquette, she is a decent actress, not great - but she, to her credit, had that "it" quality, that something extra that always elevated her to the next level. She's one of those actresses who had a presence that drew you in and held you - normally. So where did this one go so very, very wrong?First, the soundtrack is memorable enough. The setting is 1966, and most of the music reflects this. Most, I say, because someone involved with this one was obviously a big Springsteen fan. So suddenly 2 or 3 of his songs pop up, songs that weren't released until several years after the film's '66 setting. Just a minor quibble, compared to what lies ahead.The emphasis of "Baby" revolves so much around the two leads that everyone else seems like a thrown in prop. No other character is really developed beyond being added for a scene or two, and with zero substance. But this doesn't begin to touch on the missteps here.If you're going to have such a heavy focus on the two leads, they better be able to carry a film. That is only going to happen with {1} likable characters, and {2} great chemistry. Its evident right from the go that this one is going for the good girl/guy from wrong side of the tracks mix we've seen so many times before. Spano's "Sheik" {yes, really} is not even good at being bad. He's just a hot mess, all over the map emotionally. Nothing about him is remotely likable. This results in Arquette's Jill being a bundle of lost confusion. Her choices, her reactions to his latest misstep, are even more befuddling than what he did to cause it. None of her decisions follow any path of sane logic. So the chemistry between the two leads is literally non-existent. As this one rolls along, and "Sheik" starts breaking down, defying school rules and authority {apparently because he can}, pulling a gun for no apparent reason, robbing a convenience store - or something - you're soon going to be wondering where its all headed, and more likely, how much longer you'll have to endure this wreck.Maybe "Sheik" and Jill could have made this film work, if they had something/anything to work with. The writing is awful, the dialogue is often agonizing, the pacing all wrong, the characters {all of them} as dull as baked dirt, every one as directionless as you'll at some point realize this entire flick to be.One quick example: "Sheik" during one of his aimless rants proclaims {not verbatim, don't hold it against me}, "There are only three things - God, Sinatra, and me!" And, well, that's as much of God as you'll ever see indicated in his life, in any shape or form.As for the ending? There's really only two possible tracks for something this unimaginative {no, not that they wind up together, or don't}. I wont give it away - not that there's much to give - but if you make it until the end, chances are you'll be left shaking your head, wondering what you just witnessed. Even more, you're going to want those two hours back.Oh, that one purpose I mentioned at the top? "Baby" should serve as a caution to any girl out there who thinks a bad boy is the way to go, as well as to any guy who wants to take that path to have his desires fulfilled: Just -- don't. Because its never going to lead to "happily ever after" - even if these writers here were far too clueless to even figure that much out.But if you're one of those folks who's traveled this road in life and wound up in a destructive relationship, only to see it dissolve, or worse yet, are still entrenched in it, then maybe this one's for you.

*** Contains Spoilers*** I first saw this film in ninth grade 23 years ago, and fell in love with it as a teenage girl. I saw it again the other day, and loved it just as much. It's flat out a great movie, and the chemistry between Vincent Spano and Rosanna Arquette is palpable. These two fantastic actors bring a warmth and sensitivity to their characters who would be otherwise unlikeable if played by any other actors. Arquette's innocent beauty and Spano's edgy good looks are perfect for these roles.When they meet in high school, Jill (Arquette) is a sheltered, pampered princess whose grand passion is acting in the school play. Sheik (Spano) is the new boy at school who sticks out like a sore thumb compared to all the schoolboys that Jill is surrounded by. His grand passion is Jill, and she's attracted to this dark and dangerous charmer. The fact that he's obsessive and volatile only make her more titilated, and when he kidnaps her and holds her and her friend at gunpoint (albeit it's an unloaded gun), she doesn't hesitate to date him again. Only later on in college does the experience come back to haunt her.While in her freshman year, Jill finds herself in Sheik's shoes in the sense that she's an outsider in the crowd she's surrounded with up at school. In high school, she was a big fish in a small pond. At college, she's a little fish in a large pond. When she seeks him out in Miami Beach where he's attempting to break into show business in a seedy little club, she ends up sleeping with him all the while knowing that they have no future because he's not the kind of man she can see settling down with. He's too volatile and obsessive for her somewhat still innocent liking, and their personalities just don't mesh together for any real future together. He's old-school macho and she's a liberated pseudohippy.The music is terrific-60's classics mixed with two of Jersey's finest, Springsteen and Sinatra that carry the storyline and add to the emotion of the film.Breakout performances by both stars, with strong support from Tracy Pollan, Matthew Modine and Liane Curtis (in a one-eighty from her role as Molly Ringwald's best friend in Sixteen Candles). This film is a coming of age love story for the ages, and it absolutely stands the test of time. A 10 of 10!

As the title says, this film is very moving, emotionally. So moving in fact, that it stayed with me for days after I saw it for the first time. Personally, I was initially sucked into this movie by the soundtrack. Some of the best songs from the mid-1960's are included in this picture. However, the soundtrack was not the only compelling aspect. This movie tended to be a lot more realistic than your average romantic film.This movie really allows the audience to ride the emotional roller-coaster right along with Jill (Rosanna Arquette) and Sheik (Vincent Spano), as they experience the peaks and valleys of first love. On top of that, the characters are very easy to relate to because we've all been there at one time or another with our own relationships. Although the movie is set in 1966-67, the underlying theme of the trials and tribulations of first love is something every generation can identify with.Although the storyline tends to slightly lose some steam after graduation, it gives the audience a chance to see life after high school for both Jill and Sheik, and how both of them deal with post-graduation life both together and separately. Even this part of movie (which I refer to as the second half) had some unexpected twists in store for the audience.Rosanna Arquette and Vincent Spano both turn in wonderful performances as the two lead characters. I honestly couldn't imagine the film with different actors playing those roles. The only thing I never understood was why the movie itself didn't get the push it so richly deserved, when it was initially released. It could have been a real sleeper hit, had it been promoted properly. However, that shouldn't take away from the overall quality of this film.

I echo the comments of the other review posted here. The movie seems very uneven, and that adds to its lure. The interaction of Spano and Arquette seems all at once real and surreal. Any movie which makes me think of it into the next day, must have significant substance. It is rare to consider "uneven" a positive quality to a movie, but somehow this one pulls it off..