I ‘ve been having sort of a sleepy robotic day, listening to the end of a Sarah Dessen book. She writes YA books for girls in a boiler plate style that’s really not too interesting but that I find deeply enjoyable. After Outlander, which is really pretty violent and disturbing despite being pretty awesome, I needed something comforting so I flipped back through my audiobook library to Whatever Happened to Goodbye. A newer Sarah Dessen book. In straightforward and relatable terms Dessen crafts engaging stories about girls, usually 17, coming to terms with rough spots in their lives and finding new friendships and reconciling with old ones or family, and usually scoring a sweet, intelligent, sensitive boy in the process. There’s pretty much always a happy ending, though not necessarily a picture perfect one, and they’re just a fun listen. There’s not much to be analyzed in them though, they’re pretty honest about what they are and fairly mindless, though certainly proficient, in their pacing and plotting.
It was nice to listen to and be momentarily absorbed into a 17 year old world way better than the one I populated, with waaaay nicer people in it. When it was over though, I was delighted to find a new Filmspotting SVU, like an unexpected present!, was on my ipod. Even more fun, the theme was 80s movies, with a larger review of Top Gun. Listening to Allison and Matt talking about these movies put me in a past further away than 17, more like 7. I’ll disclose that I was born in 1985, and I was a pretty sensitive kid. I got spooked easily then, just as I do still now (my boyfriend can attest to this as recently as a few weeks ago, when a mere movie preview about exorcising a Jewish box demon from a possessed little girl reduced me to a shaking mess). So in any case, I missed out on a lot of movies that people my age saw when they were pretty young. Still, naturally, I did end up seeing plenty non Disney/not really little kids’ movies. Thinking back, a lot of the “adult movies” I watched when I was young were actually movies released in the ’70s or even earlier. John Wayne movies, Star Wars, Dr. Zhivago, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, The Graduate… (Yes I loved The Graduate as a fairly young kid. A portent of my weirdness to come) I remember being furious with my parents when they wouldn’t let me stay up late to finish watching, of all things, The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston… I really enjoyed those sweeping and epic Technicolor old Hollywood type movies that most kids would have been bored to tears by. I wanted storytelling on a grand scope with a good heart and lots of plot and didn’t mind sitting through 3 hours of Russian melodrama to get it. It’s funny to think about… I think I’m less patient with movies now at 27 than I was at 10, certainly I cringe at the idea of another viewing of Dr. Zhivago, though that is a movie I have great affection for. I also liked that these movies were set in such different circumstances from my own. A lot of those 80s movies just hit too close to home, why did I want to watch a bunch of kids run around suburbia when I was living in a swampy one myself? If in my free time I was pretending to be a knight with a trash can lid as a shield, bashing my brothers over the head with child sized plastic golf club and demanding they call me “M’Lady” then I certainly didn’t want to watch a movie with no magic, or not set in England or the old West or anywhere else far far away.
But as I said, there were a few that slipped through. Most of them meet “far far away” criteria, though not all. There are plenty of movies I discovered as a teenager or an adult that I won’t include here. Better off Dead, Say Anything, Sixteen Candles, even The Princess Bride I saw when I was older and really enjoyed, but I can’t say they’re really truly “80s” movies for me, more like movies I discovered when I had shaken off the 80s. Below are five movies I saw when I was a kid, all released in the 80s, all I’m certain you’ve heard of. Since you probably already know the plots even, I’ll just go ahead and give my specific experiences with them here. Each movie was a memorable experience for me, in one way or another anyhow.
Dirty Dancing (1987) This movie was my very own sex education class. To be sure, I knew what sex was and that it resulted in babies at this point, but I didn’t really understand what the big deal about it was until watching this movie. My impression: It seemed to be hot and messy and made a lot of people upset and screamy and have to have abortions. Yes, this movie had the charming side effect of educating me about abortions, albeit in a rather muddled and terrifying way. Also Patrick Swayze was just flat out not my type. Rather than swooning when he came on the screen I thought he was sort of meat headed and irritating. The idea of sex, already confusing and troubling, was even more disconcerting when connected to Swayze. (I would later feel much more comfortable with it connected to John Cusack, much more my speed). The first time I saw this movie my Mom fast forwarded through the “sex” scene, but it just made it stand out MORE to me and seem even more troubling, like it was something to hastily sweep under the rug. I loathed dance class so the dancing scenes did nothing for me, overall, this movie was just not a big hit with me. Later, as a senior in high school, my otherwise beloved english teacher caved into a bunch of girl’s insistence on seeing it as a special “treat” after our AP exam was over. I grumbled, but was in the minority. So I put up with two hours of hormonal but sheltered teenage girls shrieking every time Swayze came onscreen. I have to say it was one of the worst movie watching experiences I have ever had. I can’t say when exactly I saw it again… several years later. Maybe over a college summer break… but all of a sudden, for the first time ever, I enjoyed it. I knew the songs! I knew the story! Perhaps most importantly, sex wasn’t scary anymore… Though this will never be my favorite movie, I found that it was actually something I’d somehow developed affection for over the years. It felt like growing up.
Willow (1988) This is still one of my favorite movies. One of the first real hardcore fantasy films I ever saw, I was sucked right in. Val Kilmer is hilarious, the story is a lot of fun, and the ending is downright charming with a soaring cheesy 80s soundtrack. Honestly, I can’t think of anything bad to say about this movie. I love it.
The Karate Kid (1984) Not being a huge sports movie type this is an exception in that from the first I fell in love. While it’s attractive to kids’ because of its simple outsider story, cool karate fight scenes, and jazzy training montages what I really connected to was Daniel’s relationship with Mr. Miyagi, who I thought was pretty much the coolest old guy ever. There’s one scene in particular, where Daniel comes in to train like usual, and Miyagi is instead dressed formally in Military attire, completely smashed. Up until then they’d had a very straightforward Master and Student relationship, but this scene shakes it up a bit. Daniel learns that Miyagi’s family actually died in a Japanese internment camp while Miyagi was in fact fighting in WWII for the USA. Daniel ends up putting Mr. Miyagi to bed, comforting him as he cries. This is a really touching, memorable scene and not one I think you would find in kids’ movies today (Pixar perhaps being the exception). It led me ask a lot of questions about Japanese internment camps of my parents and I remember being furious on behalf of those held in them. The injustice and cruelty of it that I had been taught (so far) in school America was above. I felt betrayed and let down by my entire country, but really it’s for the better to learn these things early… certainly I would soon learn a multitude of horrors about my own country, and it made the ending of The Karate Kid all that much more satisfying anyhow. Wipe on. Wipe off.
Top Gun (1986) Like Dirty Dancing, I wasn’t a huge fan of this movie until I saw it more recently. First of all, my father demanded that we all be completely silent during the flying scenes… which I found incredibly boring and was exactly when I thought it best to start up conversation and ask lots of questions (This is an annoying habit I still possess. As soon as action starts on the screen, I lose interest and bring up whatever is on my mind that I feel is more weighty and interesting… Give me long scenes of dialogue any day I say). In any case, I was bored by the planes and all the military nonsense. I just wanted no part of that. And then Goose dies… Well. For a long time after that I would demand up front before viewing any movie whether any of the characters die. That will ruin the movie, it was explained to me over and over, we can’t tell you that. It did not stop me from frantically and repeatedly asking during viewing “Does he die now? Is he about to die? Will he die now?”. Goose’s death seemed like such a betrayal. You have this fun, easy going movie and suddenly WHAM, one of the best characters is just dead… just like that. And not even for a good reason! It’s a stupid pointless meaningless and accidental death. It was alarming to me in the extreme and made me distrustful of cinema as a whole for awhile. What I did like about this movie, though, was Tom Cruise. I still like Tom Cruise, despite what he may be like personally, I think I’ll always be taken with him as an actor. More my type than Swayze, after seeing this movie, I was officially a fan of Tom Cruise.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) So far, though I found relatable things about all the aforementioned movies, they were still pretty escapist and full of foreign experiences. Ferris Bueller though, was pretty familiar. While upon seeing it I was instantly deeply in love with Matthew Broderick, it was Cameron who I immediately identified with. I loved watching this movie as a kid, I loved the way Ferris talked right to the camera, I loved how witty and friendly and smart he was, most of all I loved how above everything he was, how he didn’t let things bother him. Ferris Bueller was everything I wished I could be, transcendant of any school click, loved by everyone, with creative and intelligent ideas… capable of what was essentially magic. For a long time, this was in fact my favorite movie. Now though, it’s sort of painful to watch. I am not like Ferris Bueller. I was never like Ferris Bueller. I will never be like Ferris Bueller. I knew this all along of course, but for some reason when I was little and saw this movie, I thought maybe there was a chance, or even just that the fact that people like that existed was a wonderful enough thing. Deep down though, I knew I was like Cameron. I’ve been Cameron all along. This is one I don’t re-watch much now, I’ve just seen it so many times, and I feel like I’ve sent that car flying off that cliff, somewhere, somehow at some point, it went crashing down and I moved on. I still get super excited whenever I see Alan Ruck in a role though (Check out Ghost Town, which is a good movie starring Ricky Gervais) it’s as though it’s confirmation that Cameron too has transcended all the bullshit Ferris so easily bypassed, and is now manifesting quietly out there in the world, as happy as he can be.
And that’s all for this Friday. I’m tired, and have had bad news and a bad few weeks. I feel like travelling, like a long long vacation, but I won’t get one until the summer. I hope to go to Oregon, to drink good beer and see some mountains, but I suppose we’ll see what happens.
Out Loud Writing 