Jan 11
JohnFilm Club, Films club, film, the breakfast club
This week was the John Hughes classic film about a group of mismatched teenagers trapped, and ultimately united together, in detention.
Playing out the usual high-school archetypes are Molly Ringwald as the girly-girl, Emilio Estevez as the jock, Anthony Michael Hall as the geek, Judd Nelson as the rebel and Allison Reynolds as the arty loner.
“Now this is the thought that wakes me up in the middle of the night. That when I get older, these kids are going to take care of me.”
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
The film is entirely set in the school, with the students confined to the library by their stuffy, asshole of a principal. The group initially clash, however after a few altercations and a little self-sacrifice by Judd Nelson, the group begin to see past their respective archetypes and bond over some joints and casual mischief.
One cathartic conversation about the students fates and a quick dance break and detention is over and the kids all go home – after the popular kids break high-school social hierarchy and smooch the weirdoes though, obviously.
I want to like the film. It has cheesy 80’s music, decent acting performances and well observed script. But I just felt it was a bit slow going and the formation of the couples at the end just seemed tacked on. What about Brian eh? Emilio Estevez will be up to his armpits in clunge, he doesn’t need some weird girl. Will he still be kissing her on Monday?
“Dear Mr. Vernon, We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did *was* wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us – in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That’s the way we saw each other at 7:00 this morning. We were brainwashed.”
It’s a great film, it’s just not my film. I think people with more spectacular high-school experiences are the ones that love it but I’m completely indifferent towards mine.
Stick with it until the emotional finale though, it’s the best bit. Oh, and the dance break that follows it of course.
7/10
Trivia:
Emilio Estevez was originally going to play Bender, but Hughes couldn’t find someone to play Andrew Clark so Emilio agreed to play Clark.
The joke that Bender tells but never finishes (while crawling through the ceiling) actually has no punchline. According to Judd Nelson, he ad-libbed the line. Originally, he was supposed to tell a joke that would end when he came back into the library and said, "Forgot my pencil", but no one could come up with a joke for that punchline.
The dandruff that Allison shakes onto her pencilled drawing for snow was achieved by sprinkling Parmesan cheese.
The scene in which all characters sit in a circle on the floor in the library and tell stories about why they were in detention was not scripted. John Hughes told them all to ad-lib.
Jan 05
JohnFilm Club, Films club, film, johncox88, stand by me
Hello, welcome to the first meeting of my film club!
For those of you who don’t know what I’m on about, let me explain.
While ticking of which of IMDB.com’s top 250 films I’d watched I realised that there were a lot that I hadn’t seen that people always rave about. So I decided that this year I would watch a film every week. I think I will try and watch each film over a weekend and have the write-up on Mondays.
So this week’s film was ‘Stand By Me’, based on the novella by Stephen King and directed by Rob Reiner and starring River Phoenix, Will Wheaton, Corey Feldman and Jerry O’Connell.
The film is engineered to induce nostalgia. The main plot being framed by scenes of the writer, Gordie LaChance (Richard Dreyfuss, played as a boy by Will Wheaton) in the “present”. A device that separates the viewers from the actual story, in order to accompany the retrospective narration.
“I was 12 going on 13 the first time I saw a dead human being. It happened in the summer of 1959-a long time ago, but only if you measure in terms of years. I was living in a small town in Oregon called Castle Rock. There were only twelve hundred and eighty-one people. But to me, it was the whole world.”
The main narrative takes place over one Labour Day weekend in 1959 when Gordie and his three friends Chris Chambers (Phoenix), Teddy Duchamp (Feldman) and Vern Tessio (O’Connell) decide to go on an adventure. A weekend that epitomises the boys’ childhood whilst marking the inevitability of its end.
After following the story of a missing boy and overhearing his brother mention the location of the boy’s body, Vern has the idea to go and find it. Thinking of the glory and fame the boys will receive in their small town they agree and head off along the railway track.
“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?”
On their travels they encounter and angry junkyard owner, are almost run over by a train and get covered with leeches.
Eventually they find the body, however the local gang shows up and threatens to take the body. There’s a tense stand off as Gordie threatens him with a gun that Chris (Phoenix) had brought along. The gang leave and the boys decide it’s best to leave the body and make and anonymous call to the police.
They return to the town and say goodbye to each other, knowing that their lives will no longer be the same.
The futures of the boys are revealed by the narrator as he finishes his memoirs and takes his son and his friend out swimming.
“We’d only been gone two days, but somehow the town seemed different, smaller.”
I really enjoyed the film. The young actor’s performances were brilliant and the script was insightful and true to life, if a tad contrived.
The flaws of each character were nicely varied and well portrayed. The concepts of death and grieving were played out well and were actually rather touching.
It’s a haunting, and rewarding coming of age drama with touches of genuine humour.
I’d definitely watch it again.
Trivia:
While practicing his lines, Jerry O’Connell was incredibly impressed that, as an 11-year old, he was being allowed to swear.
Another actor was originally cast as The Writer. After those scenes were shot, Richard Dreyfuss was cast in the role and the scenes were re-shot with him.
When they were filming the scene where Gordie and Vern are about to be run over by the train, Will Wheaton and Jerry O’Connell did not look scared enough; In frustration Rob Reiner yelled at them to the point where they started crying and that’s when they were able to film the scene.
In an interview by Stephen King in the special features of the DVD, he reveals that the scene with the leeches actually did happen to him, when he was a child.
Dec 15
JohnFilm Club, Films club, Cox, film, John, johncox88
Hello and welcome to my film club!
In 2010, we (me) will embark on a journey through some of cinema’s greatest masterpieces, covering every possible genre and era of film-making!
The films will have a different theme each month but the styles and plots of each film should vary enough so you don’t get sick of the theme halfway through the month.
To watch these films, I would recommend signing up to some sort of mail-order rental service (e.g. LoveFilm) as you can usually get some pretty hefty free trials for them. They tend to have pretty substantial collections aswell so you shouldn’t have a problem finding most of the films there.
I’ll post at the end of each week with my thoughts of the films, to which you can leave comments. And I’ll possibly do video reviews at the end of each month.
None of you care, but I don’t care, so there.
Here is the line-up
January – Life and things
Week 1: Stand By Me
Week 2: The Breakfast Club
Week 3: Ghost World
Week 4: Good Will Hunting
February – Crime and Punishment
Week 1: The Shawshank Redemption
Week 2: Requiem For a Dream
Week 3: Mou Gaan Dou (Infernal Affairs)
Week 4: Do The Right Thing
March – Oldies
Week 1: Strangers On a Train
Week 2: Citizen Kane
Week 3: Some Like It Hot
Week 4: Singin’ In The Rain
April – rum ‘uns
Week 1: Mulholland Drive
Week 2: The City of Lost Children
Week 3: Blue Velvet
Week 4: Brazil
May – westerns
Week 1: Once Upon a Time In The West
Week 2: The Dollars Trilogy
Week 3: Inglorious Basterds
Week 4: No Country For Old Men
June – sci fi
Week 1: Metropolis
Week 2: Blade Runner (The Final Cut)
Week 3: Solaris (original version)
Week 4: Forbidden Planet
JuLy – scaries
Week 1: Let The Right One In
Week 2: The Descent
Week 3: Ink
Week 4: Ju-On
August – war, huh?
Week 1: Das Boot
Week 2: La Battaglia di Algeri
Week 3: The Deer Hunter
Week 4: There Will Be Blood
September – Look Eastwood
Week 1: Mystic River
Week 2: Letters From Iwo Jima
Week 3: Gran Torino
Week 4: Million Dollar Baby
October – look eastward
Week 1: Seven Samurai
Week 2: Akira
Week 3: Rashomon
Week 4: Princess Mononoke
November – There’s only one way to find out… fight!!!
Week 1: The Wrestler
Week 2: Enter The Dragon
Week 3: Oldboy
Week 4: Ong Bak
December – WAKE UP EVERYONE IT’S CHRISSMASSS
Week 1: Scrooged
Week 2: Home Alone
Week 3: It’s a Wonderful Life
Week 4: Die Hard
Mar 30
JohnFilms film, knowing, nicholas cage., review
Nicholas cage is a professor of Astrophysics at MIT and his son comes into possession of a string of numbers that give the date, position and death toll of all major disasters from the 50’s right up to the present day. So Nick sets off to stop them.
It’s a bit slow to get going, setting up the story and whatnot but there are a few little creepy psychological horror type moments which I liked. The disaster scenes are pretty intense and were actually quite scary. Seeing the (CGI) people running around on fire or being hit my a runaway subway train was actually quite affecting.
Around halfway into the film I was enjoying it. A lot.
However, the psychological horror elements are brought forward by a group of odd, pasty gentlemen that hassle the adult characters’ children. I wasn’t sure where the film-maker was going with this plot line but I let it slide since most of the scenes were rather scary and enjoyable.
The last disaster on the list seems to say that everyone in the world will die in a few days which would obviously be badtimes. Nick and his newly acquired lady-friend (the daughter of the girl that predicted the impending doom) set out to try and figure out what the fuck is going to happen.
I don’t want to ruin much, but by the 3/4 mark, the director has criss-crossed from disaster movie, to horror, to thriller and decides to add Sci-Fi to that list. It was at this point that my enjoyment of the film took a steep drop.
The origin of the code, the albinos and the like are all explained. It’s quite possibly one of the worst storyline cop-outs I’ve ever seen. It’s as if the writers couldn’t think of anywhere to go with the impending disaster scenario. That or they’re mentally defficicient.
The title is certainly quite ironic, if I’d known what happens at the end of the film I would most definitely not have watched it.
Suffers from Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull syndrome:
6/10
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