The Breakfast Club

Nothing says the 1980's like a John Hughes film. You would probably find it very difficult to find someone who hasn't seen a John Hughes. Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, and The Breakfast Club are iconic films for not only the 1980's, but for teenagers all across America to this day. I mean John Hughes really does seem to capture the way ALL teenagers seen their parents and cliques in High School, right? Parents suxx, my life is hard, you're a bully, blah, blah, blah. This might have been true back when Reagan was President, but for me I never had a problem in High School with how I got along with people or how I got along with my parents. This is why The Breakfast Club does nothing for me and I kind of really dislike the film because I can't relate to any of these characters because my home life wasn't shit.

All these kids had the stereotypical cliques, the jock, popular girl, nerd, badass, and the loner. You see these stereotypes in every movie that shows High School students, but for me in High School I never was really apart of a set clique. I played football and was the Captain of the wrestling team much like Andy in the film, but I got good grades like Brian, and I hung out with a lot of the loners in school who are still some of my best friends. So on the John Hughes scale where do I fit in?

This film really angers me because I see no point in it. These 5 kids send an entire day discussing their shitty home lives, how their parents are bringing some of them to their breaking points, how they thought about suicide, the effects that bullying, teenage sex, drugs, the whole shabang. This is usually deep conversation that many only have when they are around the ones that they truly feel safe and comfortable with and these 5 share their inner most secrets with complete strangers! Then none of them even learn anything from these deep emotional conversations! They leave and go their separate ways and will continue to be the same fucked up individuals they were from the very beginning of the film. Bender will still be the trouble maker, Brian will still get good grades, Claire will still be rich and popular, Andy will still wrestle, and Allison will still be weird even after her charity Claire makeover. No one changes and I don't see how that is good for a film. These five will continue to talk shit about one another and be terrible people like none of their thought provoking conversations ever took place so then why did this film need to take place?

I was also very bothered by the Claire and Allison makeover at the end of the film. It really grinds my gears when you have an outcast like Allison change into something she is not because that is what society says a girl needs to look like. I mean why couldn't they focus on her awesome drawing skills? Why does it always have to come back to lipstick and eyeliner. Like the reading says, " However rather than tolerating or celebrating the differences between the women of different classes, the film actualizes the promises made by the ads aimed at women in the 1980's, saying that anyone can become a member of the upper class as long as she acquires and correctly uses the right stuff." Allison is probably my favorite character in the film because she is less like any rel clique in High School. She knows about the world, like when she talks about running away, she's free spirited, she isn't tied down to the pressures that the other cliques have, and she speaks her mind. But as soon as she gets that makeover she is just like all the other pretty girls out their and her identity is erased by of course, THE RICH UPPER CLASS!

I don't get this film, I don't know why people like it, and I will probably never watch it again. On a completely unrelated rant why is it called The Breakfast Club? They never eat breakfast! And why is Andy, a wrestler who needs to maintain his weight, eating 3 sandwiches, a bag of chips, a box of cookies, a gallon of milk, an apple, and a banana if he has a meet in a week?  Anyway I can see what John Hughes was going for with the 1980's social classes, but for me it just came out all wrong.

Sincerely Yours,

Someone who does not enjoy The Breakfast Club

Desperately Seeking Susan

Desperately Seeking Susan was a film that I will probably never watch again in my life. Romantic Comedies  never really did anything for me and there's always too much coincidence in these films to draw me in because at times they are just frustrating to watch. This film is especially hard to watch because we all grew up with cell phones and if all of the characters just had the latest IPhone none of this would have ever happened because they all could have just Snapchatted, Vined, Instagramed, Tweeted, Face Timed, Facebooked, and Texted where they all were. This film really bugged me. All of the characters seemed dumb. All they had to do is sit down Madonna with Gary and post amnesia Roberta with Dez and explain what they hell was going on using their adult vocabularies, but no Dez just thinks Roberta is being funny and Madonna is crazy doing whatever she wants by not telling Gary a god damn thing. But I guess that is the allure of Madonna and why this film is so popular in giving her more street cred.

I can see the argument that Madonna is a third wave feminist in the fact that she doesn't need a man to help her and she lives on her own. She dresses how she wants, does what she wants, takes what she wants, sleeps with who she wants, she is a strong independent woman. And where I am all for that and for other women to be doing those exact same things, seeing Madonna's character still aggravated me. In the film she just felt like I AM MADONNA AND I CAN DO BAD ALL BY MYSELF! I mean she was with a guy who got killed after she left his hotel room and she was like, "Well this sucks, but whatever." I mean you should show some sort of emotion especially at the end of the film when you probably figure out that you are the reason that that man was murdered because you felt you could just steal things from anyone you want. And then Madonna meets Gary and goes through all of Roberta's things and wrecks his house and takes his car. Who does she think she is wrecking other people's homes and just shrugging it off. I did not see Madonna as a feminist in this film. She was more of thug. She bossed people around, stole, cheated, and ruined everything she touched.

I did however really like Roberta in this film. Life shouldn't be a drag like her life was. I mean her life with Gary looked to be like it would have been more fun to watch paint dry on a house than to be stuck in that relationship. Roberta took it upon herself to get out and to find a little adventure in her life even if it meant stalking someone from the personal ads. She got out there to get some excitement and that's what she got. She transformed into a version of Susan that wasn't personality wise like Susan and it changed her spirit. It allowed her to get out of a boring shitty relationship and lead her to get out there and find a new love. Good for you Roberta!

I understand that Madonna is supposed to be like she is because of the Virgin/Whore archetype, but I just couldn't get behind that. i understand she was acting, dressing, and doing all of these things in the film because that was who Madonna was and it shocked a lot of people. And like the saying goes "sex sells", so if Madonna and her record company are making money based on this persona that she was putting on then more power to her.

Purple Pain

What is up movie buffs. Welcome back to a new episode of Bill's 1980's blog post. On today's agenda we are going to take a look at Prince's Purple Rain, a film so bad that it did the impossible, made millions of dollars thus launching the success of Prince and his band to likes that they had never seen. This film was a hard one to watch especially being a film student. I had a hard time keeping up with the plot, the acting was absolutely atrocious, and what little character development there was made no sense. This film was up there with some of my classic bad films I watch for enjoyment, Tommy Wiseau's The Room and Claudio Fragasso's Troll 2. I could not imagine a film such as Purple Rain even be considered by Hollywood producers this day in age. It baffles me to think that this film even got made in 1984. Then I realized something. The reason this film did so good in theaters, like the reading says the film grossed over 100 million dollars on a measly budget of 7.5 million, is because of the fact that every human who saw this must have been ridiculously high off their knockers on cocaine!

But in all seriousness there is no amount of coke that could get me back into a room to watch this film again, but I can see why it was made and thus did so successful. The 1980's was the start of something never seen before MUSIC TELEVISION! Move over Grandma, no more sock hops and gramophones it's the age of visual music. This was an exciting time to be a musician because for the first time you could now not only dominate the radio airwaves, but also the television! That's a win win when it comes to making money through promoting your music, and in a business where it's all about making money no one was complaining. Kids in the 1980's were just sick of listening to the radio like their dumb parents did, they craved something more and the got it with MTV and music videos. Music videos really are an art. They are usually mini stories that are told in 2 to 5 minutes, or in Michael Jackson's case 14 minutes, that have to hook you in that amount of time or you're going to change the channel. That's pretty impressive to do, but artist like Prince and MJ were pulling it off thus leading to some big corporate fat cat to get the bright idea to take these musicians and their songs and give kids what they really want, a hour and a half music video!!!!!!

So now you have Prince, Prince's songs, Prince's music videos, Prince's movie, Prince's Academy Award win, and Prince's domination on the music billboard for a long ass time. This is what the article refers to as "synergy" and hot damn if it didn't turn out that this "synergy" was good at promoting Prince and making everyone a boat load of money. Who cares if the plot doesn't make sense, the acting blows, Prince and the rest of the film treat women like punching bags, as long as in the end of the day you have millions of dollars and success to show for it. You as an audience are sitting through one long Prince commercial, and you don't even care because as long as Prince is up there shirtless humping a guitar amp vigorously while singing one of his hit songs your eyes are glued to the screen.

 In the article it points out how these record corporations manipulate you into going along with paying to see an almost two hour Prince film/concert. "The single "When Doves Cry" debuted on vinyl and video 3 months prior to the film's release. The appearance of the album in mid-June was over a month before the film's debut." (260) So you got the hit song on the radio and on MTV for two months constantly, and then another month being inundated with the whole album that everyone is listening to, and then what's this! A film based on the constant bombardment that has been filling your radio and TV for the past quarter of the year! Sing me up! It's rather quite ingenious.

All and all I hated Purple Rain. I just don not see the value in this film other than to sell copious amounts of Prince merchandise. If I wanted to see Prince sing in concert I would go see him in concert, not sit in a theater watching Prince play someone who isn't Prince, but is Prince, play his music to a crowd of people while you sit in a crowd of theater people. You won this time Prince. You and your sweet motorcycle and cool pirate clothes.