The Boy who Could Fly (1986) FULL WATCH ALONG w/ Mia

I'm 52 and my little sister when this came out got it on VHS for her bday and she watched this nearly every day. I remember liking it the first couple times I had to watch it. But rewatching it I just have to say how great Fred Gwynne (the uncle) is. I grew up watching him in The Munsters. And i had such a huge crush on Lucy Deakins back then, between her in this and The Great Outdoors She was great. Guess she's a big time lawyer now, so good for her. Obviously smart enough to get out of Hollywood before it corrupted her and smart enough to graduate from Harvard law. That's good. And of course Jay Underwoods performance as Eric I thought and still think was fantastic. The mannerisms, his movements, his expressions. One thing about this that kinda hit close to home is I had a friend in the 80s that was non verbal autistic. Because of this movie I chose to try be there for Brian and help him and of course keep the idiot bullies away in school. After a couple years he started to talk. One thing that still blows my mind is I could give him broken junk electronics like my old stereo that fell off a shelf and a broken cordless phone and he fixed both. Very smart. I have a nephew and niece that are both autistic but not at the extent as Eric is here. But still have their challenges but both way smarter than a lot of people realize. But back to this film.. one thing about a lot of 80s movies they were really good at mixing real life and fantasy. Here we have a story about a broken family needing to find a way to heal, taking a uncle who's a drunk, and having an autistic boy help everyone heal and do better in life and showing the world that autism isn't a mental illness, in fact quite the opposite. And back then you're right people didn't understand autism it was really becoming a topic in the mid 80s. What's horrible is not only how the world perceived them but think about all the stories of the past burning people and hanging them cause "they got the devil in them" and wonder how many of them were just autistic? Horrible to think about.

Ryan Towell