Monday, August 3, 2009

Movies made in the eighties. Ya gotta love 'em. They're pretty horrible, most of them anyway. Soundtracks dripping with saxophone and keyboard music. (Romancing the Stone) Special effects that wouldn't convince a ten year old. (The Neverending Story) Scripts that seem like they're written by a ten year old. (Dirty Dancing)

When I watch any John Hughes movie now, I am embarrassed I once identified with it.

But these movies all had something that movies now lack. A sense of fun and freedom. Maybe they're not all polished and overproduced, but they had heart underneath that layer of cheese. (Goonies) I loved these cornball flicks as a kid and when I see them now, despite laughing at the ridiculousness of them, they're fun. Maybe I'm just nostalgic.

I could watch Jon Cryer dance to "Tenderness" at Trax in "Pretty in Pink" over and over and never get bored. Or laugh at Bill Murray getting slimed in "Ghostbusters". Or feel the anguish Mary Stuart Masterson felt when she helped her secret crush/friend practice kissing in "Some Kind of Wonderful".

Born at the right time, I was able to appreciate these movies for their simple purpose: for teens to identify with and laugh at. Simply to be entertained. On the surface, it seems like there is some pretty bad acting going on. But there is a sense of reality to it that only a teen watching a teen gets.

Nowadays, films are made to either be sleeper Oscar hopefuls or shiny box office smashes. (or fluffy Disney cult producers. Is anyone else sick of High School Musical yet?) And not all the 80's flicks were so horrible. "Raiders" of course is classic. As is "Out of Africa" and "Stand by Me."

This weekend I saw parts of "Mystic Pizza", "Ghostbusters" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". Love "em! Bad as they are, they bring me back to childhood and for that, to me they are classics.



Totally unrelated side thought for the day. People who say every kid after the second doesn't make a difference must have had their memory modified. It's much LOUDer.

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