Shit. Rest in Peace John Hughes, 1950 – 2009. After the success of the
, we were brimful of ideas for the next Great Atomic Power film splurge, but John Hughes’ death on the 6th of August put paid to all of that: a John Hughes marathon it had to be. The films define exactly what it meant to be a girl growing up in suburban America in the early 1980s – something to which we can all, every single one of us, relate. Seriously, all of us. In fact, if you do meet someone who doesn’t respond on some simple basic level to these Hughes’ films, then it’s time to move to an isolated area and start stock-piling weapons and canned goods, because you’ve just encountered one of the first scouts from the pod-person invasion force. Unless they’re over the age of 30. People over the age of 30’s hearts are dead, and wouldn’t be expected to have any emotional reaction to anything except for money or power.
So here we go. We’re starting late, so we’re only going for three of the best and we’re sticking to films he directed. We’re kicking off with Hughes’ directorial debut 16 Candles, freshening it up a bit with the Steve Martin and John Candy road movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and then finishing up with the ultimate John Hughes teen movie: The Breakfast Club. Foodwise we’re going to keep this thing all-American: pretzels, filter coffee and canned Budweiser. Since we’re pretty old already (26 – Jesus Christ!), we’ll need to be sure to keep ourselves in the mind of a 16 year old girl from Illinois circa 1984. To that end, we’re going to give each film a get-me ratio out of ten, depending on how in touch the film is with the youth of America, and conversely we’ll be keeping a tally of how many authority figures who just don’t get it each film contains. Since we’re also sneering vultures from 2009, we’ll also be keeping a count of how many pieces of driving 80s electro-pop each film contains. Enough yackin’. Let’s get started.
16 CANDLES
We’re kicking off with the first film that John Hughes directed and it happens to be my favourite. It also happened to be the film that catapulted Brat Packers Molly Ringwald (playing Samantha) and Anthony Michael Hall (as Farmer Ted) to fame. This film is pretty much high-school gold. People say that in all film there are only really seven plots. But in teen movies there are only two, and this film takes on both. For the main plot we have the standard ‘awkward but pretty girl is in love with the popular kid’ storyline. Sub-plot is the ‘nerd tries to lose his virginity’ mainstay. How can you go wrong? I’ll tell you how. By having a ridiculously boozey lunch with your parents, following it up with an afternoon in the pub drinking beer and whiskey, before going home to watch a Louis Theroux documentary on how crystal meth has ruined the lives of people living in Fresno, California, featuring genuinely appalling stories of parental abuse, just as your hangover settles in. That’s how you ruin a John Hughes film.
10.20Kick-off. I forgot that the film doesn’t start too strong, although that could just be the hangover making it worse. Molly Ringwald’s family are running around in a rush because her older sister is getting married in a few days. The kid brother is a serious annoyance who gets given way to much time to deliver his shitty throw-away lines. To make matters worse, he looks just a bit too much like an overweight Kevin Bacon for me to feel comfortable.
10.20Wut? It started with Saudi subtitles. I like it. They bring an exotic flavour to the proceedings. If there's one thing Joe's flat lacks it's exotic flavour. I'll tell you what it doesn't lack. JOES! BCOS THEIRS TOO OF US!!!!
10.21Hey it's that guy! What's he in again? Mister Clean Shirt. You know who I mean. Oh, there's Molly. Faced like a smushed basket of strawberries.
10.23Molly’s peeved at her family for forgetting her 16th birthday. It’s like they don’t even know she exists. In revenge, she’s pouting at them so hard that her dad actually begs her to stop.
10.23 Too snappy. Can't keep up.
10.24We’re at high school now. Hughes gives us a panorama of daily life to a soundtrack of starchy new wave. All the kids are tapping their brand-name trainers to the new wave beat. Can they hear the soundtrack? The soundtrack to their own lives? How do you get power like that?
By the way, I’m a massive fan of American high school movies. I’m not picky, I like anything so much as set in a high school: Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Heathers, early Buffy, anything really. I have no idea why, I just love them, and always have since I was young. It’s getting a little creepy now that I’m almost a decade past secondary school, but I’m still young inside, and that’s what counts, right?
10.25 Hi-power electro-funk track sets the tone nicely. I feel like I'm skate boarding down the school corridor myself.
10.26Molly’s friend has a helluva perm. Must have taken hours. Molly’s moaning about how her parents didn’t get her a Trans AM for her birthday. I understand how she feels. In fact, I’ve just watched an hour long documentary about crystal meth featuring a woman whose parents were also meth-heads that allowed their dealer to rape their daughter in exchange for cheaper amphetamines. Sometimes parents just don’t get it.
10.27 So Molly is under 16 in this film? This is all highly sexualised. Highly. John Hughes may be dead, but he was dead wrong (morally) if you ask me too. Go ahead and ask me.
10.27There he is. It’s the first appearance of Samantha’s slightly sinister prettyboy love interest, Jake Ryan. He’s played by some male model who really cannot act. Top marks for the paisley tank-top though.
The other Joe, after a full 7 minutes of near-fatal exposure to Molly Ringwald and her mind-expanding pout, has just announced that she’s “pretty hot in her own way”. Jesus fucking Christ, the kids these days have no fucking respect.
10.29The girls are walking down the corridor, discussing Ryan. They’ve got authentic teenage workbooks with “Rave Up!” and “I Confess” written on them. The symbolism. The symbolism.
Meanwhile, Jake Ryan’s in the gym explaining that he likes Samantha more than his own current girlfriend, Caroline to some ‘roided-up giant who looks like he could have gone to school with Bruce Springsteen and who presumably has a name like Rudy or Cheech. Rudy/Cheech doesn’t get why Jake would go for Molly Ringwald (“Jake, she’s a child”) rather than Caroline (“a wo-man”).
10.30 Yep I guess Molly is kind of hot. I told Joe and he acted as if I'd told him that the Holocaust was "quite bad". Calm down. If you like her that much just go and marry her. It's easy to do that these days, what with the internet and email
WHOA BOOBS. Suddenly there are boobs on the screen. No warning. Boobs and ass. Makes you think how films these days never have boobs. They just have Megan Fox leaning over things in jeans. Where did we go wrong, society?
On a separate note I love how in these films they always say "party". "Hey, you wanna party?" "Do you know if Heidi likes to party?" "Let's go somewhere and party." "How much does it cost to party with you?"
10.30 Cut to boobs. Boobs in the shower. Caroline’s. Samantha and Permirella are ogling her in the changing rooms. Oh yeah, this is art.
10.31 Fucking nerds. They can't party.
10.32 Still lacking a Trans AM, Molly has to suffer the ultimate indignity: taking the nerd bus. The nerds on the bus are actually pretty cool though – the ones facing her are wearing jockstraps on their heads. Further down, one geek is busting forth with a wigged out beatnik kazoo solo apparently based on a Russian folk tune. It’s the nerd party bus.
10.33 And speaking of cool nerds, the film’s about to get a whole lot more watchable. Anthony Michael Hall strides down the bus like a freshman Darth Vader. He’s less a nerd that a douche-bag, if you appreciate the fine distinction. He’s pretty insistent that Molly go with him to the dance later, but Molly refuses, because he’s a “total fag”. He gets his own back by sniffing Molly’s hair whenever she’s not looking.
10.28We have Cusac! Anthony Michael Hall (AMH) just wants to party with Molly Ringworm. But Molly calls him a "total fag". Joe doesn't know who Joan Cusac is. Total fag.
10.34 Samantha returns home to find her house infested with grandparents here for the wedding. John Hughes had a real way with grandparents (see Weird Science if you don’t trust me and think that I’m lying). There are two sets here: one old Hollywood/Miami Beach set and one ma ’n’ pa apple pie set. Needless to say, Samantha doesn’t take it too well. Out comes the pout once again.
10.35 We’re inside an authentic teenage girl’s room, complete with Culture Club memorabilia, ballerina shoes on the wall and a Sammy Hagar Poster. Van motherfucking Halen, yeah!
10.35 Considering Molly Ringfinger has a Culture Club poster in her room she's in position to call anyone a homosexual slur.
10.36First appearance of Long Duk Dong, the film’s racist oriental. He’s pretty notorious in the racist oriental stakes, even if nowhere near the Mickey Rooney (at least he’s played by a Japanese actor). Long Duk Dong comes with an authentic Chinese accent (basically no ‘r’s), Chinese gong noise and Chinese name
Just in case you didn’t get the hilarious pun in Long Duk Dong’s name (Long? Duk? Dong? Like a duck’s penis? But long? Only it’s a name, see?), the stupid pain in the arse younger brother is here to spell it out for you: “he’s named after a duck’s dork”. The little brother is impossible to watch. He’s got all the marks of a crystal meth user too.
10.28 Cue racism. But is it racism? I mean Long Fuck Kong or whatever they called him is actually a pretty authentic depiction of your average oriental gentleman. My university was chock full of such "Charlie Chans" (as they like to be known), and as I remember they often referred to Shit Fuck Dong as a kind of role-model. Tee hee, when they say his name in the film a gong sounds! BECAUSE CYMBALS ARE CHINESE!
10.39 I don’t get Samantha’s bride to be elder sister. The actress playing her clearly had ridiculous amounts of plastic surgery done, with the result that she looks like an alien. Why did they cast her? There’s no suggestion that she’s had plastic surgery in the film. If can’t figure it out. The other Joe thinks that she’s meant to look ‘perfect’ for the 80s audience. Could be. What she does look like is Michael Jackson, and not in his prime either.
10.40 The weird, badly-conceived dinner scene with Ling Long Dink is so poorly acted it's like a David Lynch flashback. Where's the dwarf?
10.40 Samantha’s low-level family difficulties continue when she is forced to take Long Duk Dong along to the dance to “help him assimilate”.
10.41 All girls' lipstick in the 1980s was made from Games Workship paint. Specifically the "Titillating Pink" colour. That's right, I know my G to the motherfucking W. Back off or I'll shoot you with my bolt gun.
10.41 We’re at the school dance now. Check out the nerds! There’s a dude with a visor, there’s a dwarf nerd, there’s a chubby teenage John Cusack nerd. All the nerd food groups are covered. I think Anthony Michael Hall is their elected king.
10.43Samantha’s dancing away on her own, trying to catch Jake’s eye, when AMH bursts in and starts doing this bizarre gazelle dance to the backdrop of some sort of rockabilly new wave hybrid.
10.44 AMH fluctuating effortlessly between endearing nerd and sinister rapist. Good acting.
10.45Hall’s informed all his nerd minions that Molly Ringwald’s his girlfriend. They don’t believe him, and bet him a dozen floppy disks that he’s lying. Using floppy disks as currency reminds me of simpler times, before computer inflation made the floppy disk an anachronism. To prove it, he’s got to show them Molly’s underwear.
10.45 Joe just called the Korean character "a random slope".
10.46 Everyone’s got someone to dance with. Jake’s with busty Caroline, Permirella’s dancing with a stylised 80s bad boy, even Long Duk Dong has a butch gym rat. Samantha’s got no one, except for the Geek, but who wants a geek?
The other Joe reckons that Long Duk Dong must be Korean, presumably because of the triple-barrelled vaguely Korean name. He’s already put more effort into Dong’s character than the scriptwriter, director and actor put together, by a factor of five.
10.50 Molly’s weeping on her own in a half built car, which for some reason is in a school room. Meanwhile, Anthony Michael Hall’s still out to impress by singing her songs and trying to be all deep and meaningful. He understands how Samantha feels to have her birthday forgotten (“I’d freak if my family forgot my birthday”). I understand too. In fact, I’ve just watched an hour long documentary about crystal meth featuring a young girl who’s unsuccessfully trying to convince her mother to stay off tweak because she hates having to spend her nights trailing condemned housing across suburban Californian in order to find her mother and stop her from having group sex with random strangers due to the fact that the drug removes all inhibitions. Sometimes parents just don’t get it.
10.53 AMH tried to rape Molly Ringbinder. Twice! It's nice though. He says that no one gets him. Maybe that's because you're trying to rape them Anthony? Uh oh he and Molly are bonding. Connecting. She says she likes this other guy. Jake. Jake The Snake Roberts. We all like Jake The Snake Roberts Molly. But he'll never notice you unless you buy him some crack.
10.55 After winning her over by telling her that he knows Jake, AMH gets his panties.
10.56 Jake Ryan and girlfriend Caroline are dancing to synthetic 80s funk. She’s a bit stuck up: “I like to day dream that we’re the richest most popular adults in town” she says, forgetting that in John Hughes-ville adulthood is a crippling psychological disease. Caroline’s forcing Jake to throw a party at his parent’s house, but he’s not into it. They start having a weird repressed fight.
10.58 I just remembered that the guy that wrote this is dead.
10.57 Wow. Jake just used the “Don’t have a cow” line. Was that ever actually a phrase? I thought that was just a Simpsons joke. Maybe it’s an early Simpsons reference.
10.58 Jake doesn't have a cow – let alone a snake. A black geek just wandered onto screen momentarily. Pretty sure he went on to be in TV On The Radio.
10.59 The Geeks have got hold of the underpants and are charging other freshmen $1 to see them. I like them. They’re enterprising.
11.00 Molly gets driven home by Long Duk Dong, who’s now cool, with a cigarette and sunglasses to prove it. He’s on his way to Ryan’s party.
11.01 Cut to parents meeting their future in-laws who are “greasy bohunks”. This film has a lot of hate. They’re some sort of Polish Mafiosi – the dad’s in video games, but dabbles in personal loans and politics, the mum dresses in a shell suit: both clear signs.
11.10 Sorry. Cigarette break. There's full 80s party Armageddon on the screen. It's a John Hughes party so everyone's having "fun" and everything's all "crazy" like the adults would never understand. Cusac (the boy one) is in a neck brace and can't do shit.
11.20 After a quick break, we’re back, to the vision of 80s house party perfection. Jake’s house filled with nubile teenagers. If this was classic period Buffy, a zombie invasion would be imminent. Jake’s not into the party at all, of course. No-good but amply bosomed girlfriend Caroline is blind drunk. Long Duk Dong and his butch girl friend are horsing around somewhere in the background.
11.20 Is Lim Dik Honk's transformation into a coke-snorting LA party whore a sly commentary on the Asian world's rapid assimilation of immoral Western habits? A loss of identity and self.
11.21 Anthony Michael Hall and his two nerd lieutenants arrive. John Cusack’s nervous about going to a senior’s party (“won’t we get pounded?”), but Hall’s on side to persuade him (“Relax, would you? We have seventy dollars and a pair of girl’s underpants. We're safe as kittens.”). Anthony Michael Hall basically kidnaps every single scene that he’s in, murders it, then leaves its dead body behind with a note taunting the cops.
11.24 Jake’s morosely pacing around his bedroom, trying to phone Molly’s house, not knowing that her grandparents are staying in her room. He’s oblivious to the fact that his girlfriend has drunkenly caught her hair in the door and is trapped outside, mewling. Meanwhile Patti Smith is blaring in the background. That’s what the kids listen to.
11.25 You can tell Jake's a nice guy because his shirt is tucked into his trousers.
11.26 Having woken up the grandparents by calling, Jake’s trying to impress them by stammering like a good polite US teen. “Is there a Samantha Baker present and may I converse with her briefly?” Jesus. What a cretin.
11.27 Jake's face is so immediately forgettable that every time he appears I have to ask Joe who he is. It's like a white grape with biro-drawn specks for eyes.
11.27 Meanwhile, blondie’s getting a haircut from her giggling friends. They won’t be giggling so much when they realise that they’ve just committed an assault occasioning actual bodily harm (following the authority of DPP v Smith). Admittedly this is an English case, but I’m sure no right-minded American jury would fail to convict two such monsters.
11.28 Jake’s stomping around the aftermath of the party. Generic blues pap is playing in the background. His house is wrecked. Not that he’s bearing it well. To be honest, I suspect that Jacob Ryan is a major kill-joy. While clearing up, he finds Anthony Michael Hall, who’s been trapped under a glass table by bullies.
11.29 Agh! AMH was squished under a table. Scary. There's a Miike Takeshi in John Hughes bursting to get out. Well, not any more. He's dead.
11.33 Anthony Michael Hall’s already landed on his feet. He’s busy mixing a martini for Jake while giving him advice on how to handle girls. Since she gave him her knickers, the Geek’s become Samantha’s biggest fan, and he’s singing her praises to Jake.
11.35 Jesus. Jake’s just declared that if he wanted a “piece of ass”, he could go upstairs to Caroline, who’s passed out, and “violate her ten different ways” – he’s got a rapey side to go with the puritan streak. What a catch. No wonder Molly’s after him.
11.37 Jake's in a face-to-face act-off with AMH. No contest. It's like watching (insert famously strong pugilist) fight (insert notoriously wimpy television personality).
11.38 As a reward, Jake lets the Geek drive his girlfriend Caroline home in his father’s ridiculously expensive Rolls Royce, despite the fact that AMH is drunk and has no driver’s license. Just to top off his callousness, he announces to Hall that “she’s totally gone – have fun!” Yep, that’s right. The film’s hero just encouraged a drunken stranger to rape his girlfriend. What a catch.
Incidentally, there’s a cute bit where the two boys convince Caroline that Anthony Michael Hall is actually Jake Ryan. I don’t know about criminal law in Illinois, but in the UK inducing another person to consent to sexual intercourse by impersonating someone known to that person (e.g. a boyfriend) is conclusive proof that the sex was not in fact consensual and that rape has therefore occurred despite consent apparently having been given (section 76(2)(b) Sexual Offences Act, codifying the decision in Regina v Elbekkay). Looks like Anthony Michael Hall will be joining Caroline’s two friends where they all belong. In prison.
11.40 A highly sinister date-rape scenario is unfolding. It's amazing how much levity you can lend a situation simply by scoring it with synth-funk.
11.47 Molly’s now complaining that she’s being forced to go to watch her sister get married. Her life is pretty unbearable. I really feel for her.
11.49 A classic Hughes motif, I believe, is all the members of a family arguing madly as they pile into a car. Dong's lost his mind by this point. Sent over the edge thanks to Hughes' racist script. All the old people in the film are beating him for some reason. He is a barely human entity. Hughes affords him no dignity.
11.51 We’re at the wedding now. The plastic elder sister is having her period and has taken muscle relaxants, which makes her act like an idiot. Cue shitty physical comedy, for which the actress is uniquely ill-suited.
Meanwhile, Caroline and Anthony Michael Hall, now calling himself ‘Farmer Ted’, wake up in Jake’s dad’s Rolls. She doesn’t remember who he is, but does remember that he was “wild last night”.
11.52 No one gets hangovers in the 80s. They just wake up and go "what happened?"
11.53 Jake’s stomping around, trying to find if Samantha’s at home. He meets Dong, whom he apparently beat up last night for drunkenly making a pass at him. He’s just managed to add ‘violent homophobe’ to his list of tempting characteristics.
11.57 Awesome doo-wop music just swooped in like a napalm strike.
11.59 Film's rapping up. It was alright I guess. Film's message: if you're going to cast AMH he's going to rape something.
12.02 Samantha and her family all file out after a disastrous wedding to find Jake waiting with a car. Sam and Jake finally talk. Cut to a scene where Molly Ringwald blows out candles on a birthday cake while Jake stares at her. There we go: Happy ending. Phew.
That film was way less good than I remember. Could have done with more Anthony Michael Hall, although that’s true of any film I could name. In fairness to the film though, my hangover’s only just started to lift and I’m a touch grouchy just now.
The "Get Me" factor 8/10 This film got me. What I'm all about.
Know-nothing authority figures A reasonable six.
Hi-NRG 80s music Just two tracks. But good tracks.
PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES
Right. Film number two: Planes, Trains and Automobiles. This one’s a John Hughes film that appeals to adults too. It’s a classic road movie. And how could you go wrong by casting Steve Martin at the height of his genius next to a still-breathing John Candy? What a magical combination. A holiday season treat (for Americans): two business men attempting to get back home to Chicago in time for Thanksgiving learn valuable life lessons. For this film we’re allowed to crack open the Budweiser: excellent news for my hangover. For nourishment, I’ve also got some authentic donuts.
12.08 Other Joe got pretty lucid suddenly. Just after we passed midnight. I forgot he's a "night dude". Uh oh. Here come the Krispy Kreams! Prepare for glucose! Coffee, beer, grapes and doughnuts. Meal of champeeens.
12.13 The film starts in New York, with Steve Martin, a stuck-up businessman, sitting impatiently in a meeting, while staring at a ticket marked ‘Chicago, O’Hare’. That’s where he’s trying to go ladies and gentlemen.
12.14 Steve Martin's glorious, waxen face. Full disclosure: I worship this man and won't be finding fault with him this evening.
12.15 Steve’s out, and he’s wearing a fedora that’s snappy as hell. For some reason he has to race Kevin Bacon for a taxi to the accompaniment of electro-funk music. The film suggests that this sort of thing was typical for 80s New York. I actually have no memory of Kevin Bacon being in this film, even though it’s probably his most memorable non-paedophile role.
12.16 Ah yes, the Bacon cameo. It's become fashionable to associate Kevin Bacon with paedophiles. I assume that this is because he has played a paedophile on screen. But only once. I prefer to associate him forever with this role. A man who runs for a taxi.
12.16 Steve Martin: a man who can take pratfalls and make them funny. Must remember not to upset Joe by doing anything other than slavishly praising Steve Martin: he’s a Steve Martin fan. Actually, fan is a polite term for what he is. The ASBO uses a different wording. Avoiding insulting Steve shouldn’t be too hard though – the man is genuinely funny.
12.17 Serious Hi-NRG electro-tom joyless blast of 80s cocaine music.
12.17 A mysterious overweight man just stole Steve and Kev’s taxi, leading to some genuinely funny fuming. It’s JC himself.
12.18 Steve Martin's cute and lovely family all have fringes. Real big fringes that make you uncomfortable.
12.20 Martin’s arrived at the airport to find his plane’s delayed and that he’s sitting opposite Candy who, true to his loveable family fun persona, is reading a pornographic novel called ‘Canadian Mounted’. Those crazy Canadianists. Steve Martin’s character is acting deliberately cold towards him.
12.21 Jonh Candy… HE'S DEAD! A little Storm Troopers of Death joke there for all the parody-thrash-metal fans in the house. I know you guys are out there. Guys?
12.22 Steve’s been bumped from first class to steerage and who does he have to sit next to? You guessed right.
12.23 How to make an obese man even less appetising? Give him a pencil-thin, shit-coloured moustache.
12.23 JC’s character, Del Gryffin, just used the sweetly folksy term ‘Chowderhead’, a few seconds before segueing alarmingly into the disgusting by betting Steve six dollars and his “right nut”. Sheesh. He’s a shower curtain salesman apparently. He’s got a big trunk with all his stuff in it.
I think Steve Martin’s character is meant to be ridiculously stuck up. To prove it, he doesn’t eat junk food. In the 80s that practically makes him a communist.
12.24 Candy's dead. Hughes is dead. Steve Martin's next. It's the curse of Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
12.25 The plane’s been grounded due to bad weather so our two heroes are stuck in Wichita, which my American knowledge tells me is in Kansas, where Dorothy comes from. Kansas is snowier than it looks in The Wizard of Oz, but that’s an old film and may be out of date. JC is talking about his wife and how much he loves her, present tense. I know he’s dead and all, but I don’t much care for John Candy’s moustache.
12.27 Faced with having to spend a night camped at the airport, Steve allows himself to be talked into going to some motel which JC sold shower curtains to. They get taken in a rockingly 80s taxicab.
12.29 Turns out there’s only one double bed for the two of them. For some reason this is underlined by some crackly techno music. In all fairness to Steve, I would also be a little bit reticent about spending the night in bed with a stranger who looks like John Candy who’s tempted me out to a lonely motel room on a flimsy pretext.
12.31 Del spends time staring at the photo of his Nancy Reagan lookalike wife while Steve Martin skips and jumps in the shower. Steve Martin really is a very hairy man – not hairy like Sean Connery or my dad though (hair on the back, forehead, teeth etc), Martin’s hair is still in all the normal places, just in abnormal concentration.
12.32 Tee hee! They have to share a bed! Tee hee! What's the big fucking deal? Two guys. In a bed. It's not like John Candy is going to wait for Steve to go to sleep before masturbating into his eye.
12.13 I guess it is a little strange. Steve in bed next to John Candy. Little did Steve know that John Candy would soon be a corpse. HE'S GOING TO DIE!!
12.34 John Candy is hawking and spitting away and – you know what? – it’s actually really funny. These were two very funny comedians. The expectoration provokes their first fight: Steve Martin’s character goes so far as to suggest that Del Gryffin’s so boring that you’d have to shoot yourself in the head to talk to him, which is a little harsh. However he redeems himself with the line “Didn’t you notice that when you started talking I started reading the vomit bag?”
12.37 Zing! Candy just won the argument by shouting “I talk too much, I also listen too much. But I like me, my wife likes me!” Look, I’m going to go right ahead and spoil the plot for all of you: Candy’s wife is already dead. Every time he talks about her in the present tense, it’s the light comedy equivalent of Norman Bates dressing up in his dead mother’s skin and randomly stabbing girls to death in the shower.
12.39 Axl Rose just burgled their room.
12.40 It's that bit where they wake up and they're spooning. Classic fat man/thin man dynamics.
12.40 That stupid “those aren’t pillows” line never made any sense (they’re actually Steve Martin’s arse cheeks by the way, in case you haven’t seen the film). Watching Martin and Candy overcompensate (“so, did you seen the Bears game?”) is still pretty funny though.
12.46 They’ve decided to catch a train to Chicago, so they’re having to hitch a ride on a truck owned by a nightmare hillbilly. He’s worse than anything in Deliverance. Here’s him describing his wife: “her first baby came out sideways, didn’t scream or nothing”. However, note that unlike Deliverance, no actual rape occurs, unless it happens off-screen.
12.48 Steve Martin’s character is still being a hard-hearted Scrooge bastard. Del obviously wants to be his friend. Everyone on this train is wearing a cowboy hat, like something out of the Wild West. The train stops at Jefferson City. It’s the bus to St Louis from here.
12.14 Now they're on some kind of Greyhound style cross-country bus. I feel for them.
I've been on those buses. They are disgusting and the people on them on sub-human piles of barely sentient excrement. Seriously, there would be points when I would look around and honestly wonder if my fellow passengers even knew where their destinations were. I suspect they just walk onto Greyhound buses, spend the journey farting and eating chocolate, then get on another Greyhound bus.
12.53 Neither of them have any money, so JC tries selling his shower curtains to children and old people under the pretence of them being fine ivory jewelry. For such a sweet character, he’s awfully ready to commit fraud. Steve’s through with him though, and the pair split up.
12.55 Ever since The Jerk Steve Martin has never been allowed to spazz out on film. Massive shame. No one spazzes out like Steve. But then he has no one to blame but himself. He got typecast as a square. He's been in comedy-stasis for decades.
12.58 Massive HI-NRG jazz-tinged electro. Huge ugly scratching samples over the top of it. Like an eight-year-old with a Casio.
12.59 Stock character alert: disinterested woman working behind the check-in desk in the airport. There's a big queue, but she doesn't care! Oh wow. Steve Martin just said "fuck" about a million times. Profanity is funny in the hands of John Hughes.
1.00 Steve’s now stuck in St Louis. For some reason the car that he hired isn’t there. While trekking back through the snow he slips and falls down a viaduct. By the time he gets back to the hire station, he’s in a bad mood. There follows exactly two full minutes of some of the most intense swearing ever committed to celluloid. I guess I should have expected it after all the bum jokes, but it’s still a whole lot of cussing for a family film.
1.01 You put John Candy in a bow-tie and you get a racist-looking teddy bear. A racist-looking teddy bear that WOULD SOON BE DEAD.
1.02 After picking a fight with a random man to a back-drop of what I guess is Rokkit-era Herbie Hancock, Steve gets beaten into the path of an on-coming car, which turns out to be driven by JC!
1.04 The pair are driving home now. ‘Mess-Around‘ by Ray Charles is ruling their car radio. It’s really unfair how good US radio is in comparison to British radio. At any time of the day, an American citizen views it as his or her right to be able to turn on the radio and get bombarded with awesome classic rock songs. Somehow the number one economy in the world is able to go through the day without the sound of Christopher Fucking Moyles vomiting all over himself, sucking the vomit down and then vomiting it all back up again every morning. That’s probably why the US
is the number one economy in the world. After all, Chris Moyles and his ilk were noticeably absent from England’s 18th century glory days.
1.05 They just mentioned Larry Bird and his ball handling. Joe knows all about this Larry Bird. Knows suspicious amounts about him if you ask me. It makes me realise that I don’t actually know anything about Joe and his past. Who is he?
1:07 Joe seems surprised that I know some NBA trivia. Deal with it. I'm Mr Sport.
1:10 John Candy is playing some pretty mean air-piano here. Sadly Candy's fingers were too fat in real life to allow him a career as a musician of any kind. Luckily he was able to earn a crust as an obese clown on the silver screen.
1.12 John Candy makes an excellent pantomime Satan.
12.15 It's that bit with Candy as a freaky, freaky devil. That scene stayed with me throughout my childhood. Like the ear-leech scene from Wrath of Khan. KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!
1.16 After surviving a near-crash, it turns out that the car is on fire due to a cigarette that Del threw in the back. Steve’s wallet is toast, literally. Cue a great bit of physical comedy, cumulating in Martin falling over Del’s trunk.
If this was a Coen brothers film, loveable John Candy’s trunk would turn out to have his dead wife’s head in it. It isn’t a Coen brothers film though. It’s a John Hughes film. So no head.
12.19 This whole film is one massive, slow-burning homo romance. Every so often they cut away to Steve's wife, fretting somewhere. But it doesn't detract from the main narrative thrust: A lingering build-up to a terrifying, all-male tryst.
1.20 They’ve got to a new motel, but there’s only one room, meaning that John Candy has to sit alone in the burnt out wreckage of the car, muttering to himself like a mental patient, until Steve Martin pityfucks him and allows him inside.
12.22 John Candy just said a line that ended with "…when I'm dead and buried". Little did he know he would soon be dead and buried.
1.23 This is my favourite scene of the film. Steve and John are polishing off the mini-bar. For each drink, they do a little skit. For example, when they hit the rum they pretend to be Jamaican. It really works for some reason.
1.27 JC and Steve are driving along in the buggered corpse of their car, listening to Bill Monroe’s bluegrass classic ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky’. Suddenly out of nowhere hops the dude from Spinal Tap, who impounds what’s left of the vehicle.
1:30 Snigger. Joe just asked if one of the sounds on the score was "a keyboard?" What kind of an octogenarian question is that? A more appropriate phrasing would have been: "Was that oscillation provided by a TS404 or a Prophet-5?"
1.32 They hitch a ride on a frozen food truck the remaining distance to Chicago and split up on the train platform. Only at this point does Steve Martin put two and two together and realise that John Candy’s wife is dead and that he’s going to spend Thanksgiving alone and weeping in a train station.
1:33 They're saying goodbye to each other now. No one's exchanging emails though. And this is pre-Facebook. Goodbye was goodbye in those days. Steve is on the train reminiscing about his fat, stupid, annoying friend. A synth-choir is achieving orgasm in the background.
1:34 And now here's the bit where Steve goes back to the station and Candy is still there because his wife's been dead for eight years, identifying the fat man as a delusional, depressive psychopath with multiple-personality disorder.
1.35 Steve’s finally home. We get to meet his family, including his son with a terrifying bowl haircut.
1:36 Steve invites Candy into his house and introducers the fortuitous, fat fabricator to his family. He is overwhelmed wit joy. The credits roll and we are spared the scene where Candy's eyes flash open at 3am, preceeding his trance-like walk from the guest's bedroom into the kids' room. He isn't even conscious. The hacking, shrieking scene of carnage which transpires is horrific. Steve Martin has no one to blame but himself.
1.37 Another happy ending, as Steve Martin flaunts how happy his family is in front of the grief-stricken Del Gryffen.
The "Get Me" factor 2/10 This totally didn't "get" me.
Know-nothing authority figures Just one. Steve.
Hi-NRG 80s music An awesome, pumping six.
THE BREAKFAST CLUB
We’ve built the edifice, now it’s time for the key-stone. When people think of John Hughes’ legacy, this film is what pops into their heads. Five teenagers: a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal find themselves in detention for a morning. Although initially distrustful, they end up baring their souls and overcoming their differences, at the same time learning valuable life lessons. It’s pretty self-indulgent, but still classic nonetheless. Along with St Elmo’s Fire (which manages to be even shallower and more 80s) it’s the classic Brat Pack vehicle. Check it: Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy, all in one place. Throw in Demi Moore and Rob Lowe and you’d have the whole set.
1.51 One minute in and the cretin sat next to me is already singing "Don't youuuu, forget about me! Don't! Don't Don't! Don't you!" etc. I'm tired.
1.52 The film starts with a David Bowie quote about “the children that you spit on”, immediately ratcheting up the ‘get-me’ points.
1.53 What the hell is this shit? All teenagers are AIDS. You can quote me on that. I don't care if you feel alienated or unloved. Take some vitamins. Lift some weights. Go for a walk.
1.54 Anthony Michael Hall reads his essay about their identity as the camera pans over the front of Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois. “You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. That's the way we saw each other at seven o'clock this morning. We were brainwashed.” More ‘get-me’ points. Meanwhile, the cast assembles at the High School, ready for a morning’s detention.
1.55 The other Joe’s finally woken up to the fact that Molly Ringwald is a babe. Schwing! Too late Joe, too late. She’s all mine.
1.52 Judd Nelson. Who of course went on to be one of the biggest film stars of his day. His day of course, being in 20 years time where he finds fame as a 60-year-old character actor. In this film Judd is a greasy outlaw. I can see a lot of my younger brother in him.
1.56 Look at Judd Nelson stomp. He’s the bad boy. He dresses kind of grungey in a heavy metal way. He actually looks a lot like Joe’s younger brother. A whole lot. Studded fingerless leather gloves are due a comeback by the way.
1.57 Shit is that Vince McMahon? Maybe he's looking for Jake The Snake from 16 Candles. Too late Vince. You should have nailed that moustachioed addict to a contract while you had the chance. Seriously though, this guy is rocking exactly the same flying collar and baggy suit that Vince made his trademark about 10 years ago.
1.58 Paul Gleason is busy onscreen offering himself as a living sacrifice to the typecasting gods. Paul Gleason’s acting career RIP 1985. From here on it’s nothing but years of replaying this same role.
For some reason the Principal is dressed in a leisure suit and carrying three prominently displayed HB pencils in his hand. Symbolism?
1.59 Everyone in this film is actually trying to act (bar the adult characters). Molly’s reduced the pout to near-human proportions, AMH’s is really downplaying his role, Emilio’s just being Emilio Estevez and Judd Nelson is going all Stanislavski on our arse. That just leaves Sheedy, who thankfully doesn’t get to talk much.
2:00 Not sure about AMH in this one. It's like he's on a leash. Maybe he was aware that if he acted to even 10 percent of his actual ability he would completely overshadow Estevez who – let's be honest – is like a cross between Martin Sheen and an ambulatory cone.
2.03 Judd Nelson’s character, Bender, is terrorising the other students by singing Cream’s ‘Sunshine of your Love’ with accompanying air guitar. Emilio, the Jock, and Judd are about to clash. Have you ever noticed how Emilio Estevez somehow always manages to act himself out of the films he’s in? He’s a barely noticeable presence.
2.04 Use of the term ‘Richie’ years before Pretty In Pink. This film was like so ahead of its time.
2.05 I think that John Hughes envisioned Bender as a sort of troubled philosopher. Look how he mocks Molly and Emilio, throwing their own arguments back in their faces. He’s a modern day trash can Diogenes.
2:06 I actually went to detention a few times back in the "day". It was nothing like this though. If pressed, I would definitely say I was the Emilio Estevez of the detention room. Then again I am the Emelio Estevez of most things – including my office, family dinner table, bus to work and squalid glory hole.
2.08 The team just collaborated to unscrew the door to block out the Principal’s office – the first signs of unity.
2:09 Sticking together. Working together. Just like that Canned Heat song: "Come on now people/ Let's get on the ball/ And work together!" That's what these awful, shit-eating oiks are doing. But to what ends? What do they think they'll accomplish? It's been like, decades since this film came out and the directors dead, the leading man's career went nowhere, the love interest also went nowhere and the woman who did the catering was decapitated by a threshing machine by a roadside in Iowa. They should have just given up. It's pointless.
2.10 Bender just told the Principal to “Eat my shorts” – another phrase that I thought was just a Simpsons joke. Judd Nelson’s character seems to be getting a suspiciously large amount of screen time.
2.11 Why does Judd have a grey streak through his hair? He's SO FRICKIN ANGRY his hair changed colour.
2.12 Good use of layered vocal tracks for Judd Nelson’s scream of rage. Good stuff. Interesting Judd Nelson fact: Judd was so into method acting, that he remained in character throughout filming, leading to claims that he was bullying Molly Ringwald on set.
2.13 Bender is playing air lap steel guitar. Was this what troubled youths spent their time doing in the 80s? Pretending to play lap steel guitar? It’s like another world. An Eden.
2.14Judd/Bender impressed Molly by lighting a match off his shoe. She really was impressed too. Shit, that's nothing. I can cook bacon just by punching it. Molly's skin is made of actual peach by the way.
2.14 Judd Nelson is passing his time ripping up a hardback edition of Moliere. Why is it that US teens always go on about Moliere (alongside the two other US teen classics, Moby Dick and Poe’s stories)? Is he on the syllabus there? What a random detour into world literature that is.
2.15 The "kooky" one shouldn't be in detention – she should be sectioned. She's seriously mentally ill.
2.16 First parent issue of the film: Molly Ringwald’s character, popular girl Claire, feels that her parents only use her to get back at each other. Bender racks up the ‘get-me’ points with “you’re an idiot anyway, but if you say you get along with your parents, you’re a liar too”.
2.18 Holy fucking ass why do people even pretend to like this film? I can see Joe's pretence fading next to me. Even he can't maintain the blind optimism needed to see this film as anything other than a dated, unfunny, inelegant slog through a script so laboured it makes Holby City look like Chekhov. If you walked in on a detention room like the one in The Breakfast Club you'd walk out again really quickly and then gas the lot of them. Precocious bastards.
2.20 Good bit of rasslin’. Emilio, the Jock, who wrestles for the school, just took down Judd like a butcher taking down a side of beef. Bender whips out a knife and threatens to kill him, but doesn’t follow up. To be honest, he’d probably already forgotten Emilio Estevez’ existence. if I wasn’t keeping notes, I know I would have.
2.21 The janitor’s the bridegroom from the first film, John Kapelos.
2.23 Meanwhile, the Principal’s on his own, building a rotating tower out of five HB pencils and a paper cup. Where did he get all those pencils from? Did he steal the remaining two? The character’s a mystery.
2.24 Ally Sheedy, the basketcase, and Emilio, are comparing why they’re in detention. It’s a lot like prison. This film is a lot like classic Oz. Adebesi’ll pop up in a second and start raping everything in sight.
2.25 You know the weird one – Sheedy – could pass herself off as any member of avant-garde Japanese drone-rock trio Boris.
2.27 For someone so fucked up, Bender’s got an awfully literary streak. He just referred to sex as “riding the hobbyhorse”, like he was something out of the fucking Renaissance.
2.28 Molly just said that she thinks it's good for a guy to be a virgin. I better go and get my hymen restored.
2.28 Judd just threw a coke can to Sheedy, who’s staring at a Prince lp. That’s probably the most 80s moment in all cinema. All it needs is a white kid rocking out to saxophone music and it’d be a rap.
2.29 OMG! She's eating SUSHI! GROSS! WTF?
2.30 Basket case is eating a sugar sandwich and everyone is staring at her like some form of mutant. What’s wrong with a good sugar sandwich?
2.32 This is Bender’s big moment. He’s the only character in the film actually suffering from parental abuse. Cue some insane overacting, complete with howling and ape-like vaults over scenery.
2.33 Jesus calm down Bender. Stop freaking out and jumping over things. You'll scare all the casting directors in Hollywood. Too late.
2.34 Emilio’s character just shattered his good-guy image by threatening the Brain. Anthony Michael Hall is criminally underused in this film. Criminally. And I know the law, I’m a solicitor.
I got to say, it’s now 2.34 in the morning and I’m in a seriously advanced stage of hangover. Watching John Hughes films is not where I want to be. The worst thing is that I’m supposed to be the John Hughes fan. Me! Joe’s only doing it on sufferance. But while watching these films about teens learning valuable life lessons, I’m learning a valuable life lesson all of my own. The lesson that I’m learning from these John Hughes films is that I don’t actually like John Hughes films at all. The end.
2.14 Judd/Bender promises to get the rest of the cast high. Using the drugs. John Hughes knew all about the drugs. Not first-hand or anything. He just knew they existed. The drugs.
2.36 The kids are going for a walk to get some drugs. Bender’s got a red handkerchief tied to his leg, while Emilio’s got blue shoes on – perhaps they clash so much because of their different gang affiliations. Just a thought. It’s as rational as anything else in this film.
There follows a ridiculous Scooby-Do style sequence where the kids are chased by the Principal in and out of various doors to the sound of faceless new wave. It really jars with the rest of the film.
2.37 Bender, who has dragged all the others out here so that he can get drugs, decides to selflessly sacrifice himself so that the others can get away. That said, what is the sacrifice? He’s already got detention for all time. What else can the schooling system do to him?
2.39Bender sacrifices himself for the good of his peers and somewhere Ayn Rand tuts loudly.
2.40 Here we go, Paul Gleason has locked Judd Nelson in a cupboard (the Oz comparisons just keep coming). Now he’s threatening him, despite the fact that he’s a helpless child. The Principal actually goes so far as to call Bender a “gutless turd” (a figure of speech that shouldn’t be too closely analysed) for not punching him and allowing him to fight in self-defence. Adults are all monsters.
2.41 I was drunk when I wrote these notes and I was drunk when I typed them up weeks later. What does that say about me? It says that I'm the Bender of the group. I know I said I was the Emilio Estevez of the group but I was going through a phase. We all go through an Estevez phase, right?
2.43 Bender’s escaped the Hole by crawling through the ceiling and he’s now under the table, staring at Molly Ringwald’s vagina. I’m about tired enough to find this film amusing on its own terms.
2.45 Strangely ambient, non-sexual crotch close-up. (Molly Ringwald's, not Judd's.)
2.44 There goes Bender’s literary streak again: he just called Anthony Michael Hall ‘Ahab’
In the meantime, here’s a roundup of what we’ve learnt about the characters so far:
AMH, the brain: a bit of a non-character. His only characteristic is that he does well at school. Parent issue: as yet not explained
Emilio, the athlete: your basic jock, but generally nice with it. Fancies Molly’s character, but is so forgettable I doubt she notices. Parent issue: as yet unexplained
Sheedy, the basket-case: the ‘weird’ girl. keeps squeaking, but hasn’t really been a feature otherwise. Parent issue: as yet unexplained
Molly, the princess: cool girl at school. A bit shallow. Still a virgin. Parent issue: her parents only buy her things to get back at each other.
Judd, the criminal: started threatening, but later revealed himself to be a troubled philosopher with a heart of gold. Looks and dresses a lot like Joe’s brother. Parent issue: his father is genuinely abusive.
2.45 Joe excitedly forewarns me about the imminent arrival of a terrible, incongruous blues riff. And there it is. For some reason it's meant to signify "being high" because all the kids are smoking weed and "getting high. Whoever John Hughes asked about the effects of marijuana must have lied to him.
"Oh yeah John, I smoke all the time. It's basically like hearing and playing blues music constantly."
Emilio has a toke and goes insane, literally punching himself in the face. Then he screams and all the plate glass around his shatters. Then I wonder why I'm watching this.
2.46 The kids are now getting to know each other. To pass the time, they’re busting out the drugses. John Hughes obviously saw smoking marijuana as somehow being a black pastime, so we’re treated to some dopey 12-bar blues and the sight of Anthony Michael Hall in sunglasses speaking in southern black dialect. John Hughes obviously thought that the idea of a nerd speaking like a black man was hilarious, because he repeats the same joke in his next film Weird Science.
2.47 Emilio comes out of a side room, smoking, tears off his jacket and proceeds to make a great case for how well jocks can rock out when they care to do so. Look at him backflip! Go Emilio go! For some reason the classroom has a Confederate flag in the corner.
2.48 The Principal is downstairs, going through the students’ confidential files, when the Janitor catches him. Apparently looking at the confidential files is forbidden, which begs the question what they’re for? Surely the Principal is the person that makes the rules in the school? Who gets to read the files if not the Principal? Why would a school keep files that are so confidential that they can never be read by anyone? What is in these confidential files, and which shadowy figures write them? This some Kafkaesque shit right here. Anyway, the Principal is convinced and has to bribe the Janitor to keep quiet.
2.50 Bender has a plastic wallet filled with pictures of his girlfriends. His efficiently organised infidelity is obviously having a powerful sexual effect on Molly’s character.
2.51 Is "sporto" even an insult? The guy likes sport. That's like calling me "felcho".
2.52 Here we go, it’s Sheedy’s time in the sun. The film was front-loaded with Bender, but now we’re in Basket case’s world. Which is a shame, because her character’s one dimensional and Sheedy can’t even over-act as well as Judd Nelson.
The role’s actually pretty strange to watch nowadays. It’s hard to remember that you didn’t really have a mainstream alternative in the 80s – there was just the mainstream and the underground. Basket case is meant to be a genuine outsider, without any neat teenage niche to fit into. In my head I keep making Basket case into a Goth or an Emo, which she isn’t.
2.54 Why is Basket case like she is? Because her parents ignore her and her home life is “unsatisfactory”.
2.58 Sheedy’s character is claiming to be a nymphomaniac. She was sent to a therapist, but she slept with him. Apparently it wasn’t technically rape, she explains, because she paid him.
The other Joe just asked me whether it is true that the law allows you to have sex with a child if he or she pays you. Jesus.
2.58 Emilio uses his charisma to get Sheedy to open up. The same charisma he would later use to coach the Mighty Ducks to great success in the 90s.
2.59 Turns out that Basket’s not a nymphomaniac. She’s a compulsive liar. Cool. Emilio’s getting a lot of screen-time just now, but is still totally forgettable. You could take him out of this film entirely without changing a thing.
3:00 I'm so tired. I'm not even enjoying this a little bit. I feel sick from all the sugar and caffeine. Even Molly Ringwald now just looks like Matt Lucas in a copper wig.
3.02 Emilio’s parent issue is now revealed: his dad likes to talk about his school days and, as a result, Emilio was forced to tape up a nerd’s bottom. The causality eludes me right now, but then it’s 3am and I’m not in the best of moods. Emilio’s weeping away.
3:03 Emilio does some big, weepy acting. Apparently his sport-obsessed father shouts "Win! Win! Win! Win!" at him. My dad shouted something similar at me. "Wind! Wind! Wind! Wind!" He was a massive fan of wind, my dad.
3.04 This conversation really annoys me. The Brain is upset that he’s failing Shop (American for Design Technology), which he only took because it was easy. Bender takes offence at this, and suggests that Shop is just as important as Physics, because the world needs people to make lamps. He wins the discussion. I mean, that’s tripe. DT is patently the dum-dum subject. I think what riles me is the way that the film just goes along with Bender without offering a counter argument.
3.08“It just happens. When you grow up, your heart dies”. That’s basically the John Hughes motto right there.
3:09 No John Hughes. Your heart dies when YOU die. But you learned that too late.
3.10 Ha ha. Molly Ringwald just accused Bender of going to “Heavy Metal Vomit Parties”. She lo-o-oves him.
3:11 It's been a long time since I went to a Heavy Metal Vomit Party. I've gotten so comfortable holding Diarrhea Discos.
3.12 Enough of this already: I’ve just watched people cry for 10 minutes. Everyone’s fucking weeping. Stop it! If I wanted tedious scenes of people leaking out the eyes while talking about themselves, I’d watch Spiderman.
3.15 That’s better, some dancing. Molly’s 80s dance is amazing. Ten out of ten.
3.19 Molly’s just given Basket case a make-over. She looks really all American now. Like something out of the Mid-West – enormous chin. It’s like she stepped straight out of the Russ Meyer beauty parlour.
3.21 Joe is very good at writing notes while staring dead-eyed at the TV screen. Maybe that’s something you learn as a journalist. It’s a tad unheimlich though.
3:22 The film's not quite over but I don't care. I'm not watching anymore. They are all crying. Then they start dancing. Then they are all suddenly pairing off and kissing.
3.23 Everyone’s getting together faster than you can say “what the fuck? this makes no sense”. Emilio and the newly made-over Sheedy have hooked up. Meanwhile Claire and Bender are getting close for some reason. Only Anthony Michael Hall’s left alone, but that’s okay, because he’s a brain, and he only fancies computers. On a side note, Anthony Michael Hall and Molly Ringwald did actually date for a while after this film came out.
Anthony Michael Hall reads out his final essay about how they’ve all changed and how they’re now the Breakfast Club. Judd Nelson punches the sky. The end.
3:25 What the hell was all that about? That whole thing? That whole massive chunk of time that I just spent watching over-earnest teenagers shout, pout at and then kiss each other. Fuck John Hughes and his worm-eaten face.
The "Get Me" factor 9/10 This got me. Big time
Know-nothing authority figures Five. A bunch of parents and the teacher.
Hi-NRG 80s music Just four.
At this point if Avatar turns out to be a bad film it wouldn't be a disappointment. The word 'disappointment' connotes anticipation, excitement and high expectations. Right-thinking people no longer have any of these things regarding Avatar. Instead we are simply hoping the film will be bad in an entertaining or unimaginable way. To do that it will have to steer clear of cliches. Cliches which the film seems destined to resort to. Here are the things Avatar should NOT do.
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