The Witches of Eastwick

The crowd control on the extras was top notch. When the director told people to fidget and look bored at the beginning school thing, they all did it without fail, even the kid that falls asleep and drops his stick on the cymbal, breaking the silence surrounding the dude talking.

The wind they put in along with the instant downpour signifying Nicholson's character coming to town was great, too.

Streets are wet in Eastwick and nothing else looked like it rained recently. I notice it in every single movie.

The three women as best friends was a good dynamic. I know Nicholson's character is supposed to be the devil, I think, and the shit talking gossip between them is always good.

I like how they have written the Daryl Van Horne character, because it feels like it was written specifically for Nicholson. I don't think anyone else could pull off this kind of chaotic insane, yet incredibly sexy and erotic at the same time. Also, the fact they gave him the greaseball tiny ponytail that was so common in that era is hilarious, especially mixed with the clothing of the time.

The humor in the writing is on par, and the chemistry between the four main characters is all the same but different. He basically causes the women to double down on the internal passions they have and forces it to the surface, all to seduce. It works and doesn't feel...gross...even after all these years.

The devout religious woman going off on the atrocities of mankind while her husband is trying to feed her oatmeal and it going all over the place is really well acted as well.

Foley and post did well making sure that the lightning strike and flash happened exactly at the cheers clink of the glasses.

There's an underlying score in this film, as with most, very little silence to be had in that regard. It mostly works, but I wish people would stop trying to force viewers to feel something and just trust that they will with what they are actually watching with scene and dialogue.

Eastwick borrowed from Mary Poppins, having laughter allow you to float. Not Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which is the fizzy lifting drinks and the bubbles in the chamber.

The woman puking up all the cherry pits and slowly losing her sanity will always be one of my favorite scenes in cinema. The way they did it, the water actually splashed up around her face while it came out, like projectile puke does, and it is staged in such a way that it doesn't look like the shit is being power pushed through a hose attached to the side of her face.

I also enjoy the fact that the women start to cause weird shit to happen around them based on whatever emotion they are feeling.

The pomegranate scene, where Nicholson is smashing the shit all over his face and causing the cramps and pain to Sukie. Is that a pomegranate? No, it isn't. It's a tamarillo. I just looked it up. I have never even seen one of those in real life. Which is funnier than it should be, because a tamarillo's other name is the tree tomato, so the fruit that made me hate raw tomatoes is one.

The practicals in this movie are so good. The puking. The feathers flying. The gradual dishevelment of Nicholson's character. Nicholson killing it with the giant string of puke slobber hanging from his lip.

I'd probably puke for real if I had to have goop like that hanging off my face. I can't even imagine how that shit tasted or the texture of it, because it was supposed to be slobber, but it wasn't. They got close though.

Saw a fuck up in the hospital scene with Sukie's sores on her face. One shot there are one or two and they are barely visible, look back at her five seconds later and they are big and really visible. More than likely makeup, and the DP not paying attention between takes.

The growling and snarling noises he makes when he is going back to the house, driving all fucked up and wild. The shot from the inside of the car and the rig following the driver are on point. The window and scenery visuals through the glass remind me of Toonces the Driving Cat from SNL, and those shots like that haven't gotten much better looking, even after almost 40 years.

The stunt doubles in this movie took a beating too.

The giant creature through the kitchen window ending up into a tiny head that squeaked and popped out of existence always makes me laugh. Putting a laugh marker after a scene like that does the entire thing the justice it deserves and makes it 100 times better.

I'm honestly surprised they never made a sequel of some kind to this movie, because the way it ends it leaves it open for one. The women talking about wanting him back, and then the boys rolling up to the TVs and he appears and talks to them, before they come up and shut the entire movie off to a pinpoint and credits roll.

Nobody took it back to a theater, but the material did keep going twice. Updike wrote a sequel novel, The Widows of Eastwick, in 2008, set three decades on with the three of them remarried and widowed. And ABC ran a series called Eastwick starting in September 2009, with Paul Gross as Darryl Van Horne and Rebecca Romijn, Lindsay Price and Jaime Ray Newman as the witches. It was cancelled inside its first season.