Well, we've passed October 21, which for me is the day that embodies everything horrifying, so I'm calling a halt to the month of Halloween posts project. Though of course I will still be geeking out on all things horror-related from time to time. (I'm working on a theory that the horror comic may be the single best expression of the horror genre.)
On to a bunch of other crap I've been thinking about!
The Breakfast Club is the best John Hughes movie. I think he has weird streaks of both cruelty and sentimentality that mess up most of his movies--thus Sixteen Candles features the "humor" of kids in back braces (Joan Cusack!) and the fact that some people are---Asian! O, the hilarity! And comedies of cruelty like Ferris Bueller and Planes, Trains and Automobiles are wrecked by jarring transitions to mawkish, sentimental dramas at the end. (I mean, the kid crying about his relationship with his dad at the end of Ferris Bueller--where the hell did that come from?) But in the Breakfast Club, we've got Vernon and Bender to embody the cruelty, and Brian and Andy to embody the sentimentality, and it all seems to balance. Yeah, the ending is unrealistically sentimental--(Except for them making the geek do all the work while everybody else tends to getting laid--all too realistic!)--but hey, it's a movie.
Looking up John Hughes a while back, I saw that he still writes screenplays under the name of Edmond Dantes. Is he plotting an elaborate, ultimately self-defeating revenge? That might be kinda cool.
My reactions to Reaper and The Bionic Woman have flip-flopped since the premieres. While Sam still bugs the hell out of me on Reaper with his shocking wussiness with regards to the hot girl who is inexplicably fond of him, the characters of Sock and Satan are just so full of glee that it's hard not to like it, and it's fun to watch. Meanwhile, I still like the Bionic Woman, but it's just not fun enough. So very, very serious for a show about a woman with robotic limbs. Lighten up, Francis!
Caught Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny last week. While the theft of the pick has genius moments of Kyle's training paying off, overall the movie just wasn't very funny. It was charming and kind of fun, and Tim Robbins, Dave Grohl, and Meatloaf were all great, but, overall, I just didn't laugh very much. Given the movie's endorsement of weed as a spur to creativity, I had to wonder how high they were when they wrote the movie, and if they realized that stuff that seems funny to people who are high doesn't always seem that funny to people who aren't. Marijuana only ever made me tired, which is not a state I require chemical assistance to achieve, so I haven't touched it in about 20 years and don't know if being high might make this movie funnier. I suppose it probably couldn't hurt. Unless you're like me in your reaction to the drug, in which case you'll just be passed on the couch and it still won't seem funny.
