The Breakfast Club

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4 Movies That Need To Be Revived For New Generation (By Guest Blogger, Katie Porter)

Whilst researching this article, I enlisted the help of friends on social media and found myself inundated with a huge list of films that they would love to introduce to Generation Y and Z.

Everything from the iconic ET, Stand By Me, The Lost Boys and WarGames.

Don’t worry – we’re sticking to life-affirming (rather than running for the hills) for this list!

Here are my 4 movies to be revived for new generations to love and enjoy, just like we did.

The Breakfast Club (1985)

One for the teenagers. From the explosive opening chords of “Don’t You Forget About Me”, to the David Bowie quote crashing through the screen, The Breakfast Club has to be one of the most memorable movies of the 80s.

John Hughes was king of the Brat-Pack teen-flick. And there was no film that more acutely defined the social construct of the playground than this fantastic comedy, exploding the existential angst that made high-school the worst (and the best) place on the planet. It told our story – at a time when we were desperate to know who we were.

Each of the characters were a playground archetype – The Brain, The Athlete, The Basket Case, The Princess and The Criminal – played with such pitch-perfect performances that we saw a bit of ourselves in all of them.

The five, who would never normally mix, are thrust together during a Saturday detention, led by the tyrannical Mr Vernon. They discover that their differences are only skin deep, with a warmth that avoids schmaltz and a humour that makes you wish you were there.

Rammed full of quotables, my favourite has to be from John “The Criminal” Bender to the rather-too-suave, beige-suited Richard “Dick” Vernon – “Does Barry Manilow know that you raid his wardrobe?”

The Goonies (1985)

Steven Spielberg had hit full throttle by 1985, with a string of massive worldwide successes including ET, Poltergeist and Gremlins. His golden touch continued with this coming-of-age classic about a gang of misfits trying to save their beloved hometown from the bulldozer of evil developers.

The Goonies was the adventure that every big kid wishes they’d had. With a treasure map, classic  bumbling bad-guys, the fumbling awkwardness of burgeoning romance, and a hideous monster who turns out to save the day – this was the movie with all the gifts: funny, heart-warming and dramatic in equal measure.

And if your kids haven’t seen it yet, I totally envy your Sunday afternoon viewing for one of the best family favourites ever made.

Bugsy Malone (1976)

Alan Parker is a genius. How can you deny it when he’s been responsible for some of the most iconic movies of the past 50 years? From the high-tension drama of Midnight Express and the gritty, bitter-sweet unrequited promise of The Commitments, to the mad-cap joy of the splurge gun, the tea-cup “gin” and the speak-easy with the unforgettable Bugsy Malone. The younger generation may know Bugzy Malone as the “grime reviver”, but there’s very little chance that they won’t be dragged in to the zany world of Fat Sam’s Grand Slam with this enduring classic.

The world of the adult, portrayed by a cast of children, has a charm and that no other children’s film had ever managed. This was one VHS cassette that got worked VERY hard.

Bugsy Malone was the film that securely cemented Jodie Foster as the one-to-watch, along with a young Dexter Fletcher and, of course, Scott Baio in the title role.

With a collection of some of the most memorable songs a musical has ever produced, Bugsy Malone has to be a timeless winner that will never grow old.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

This was one of the greats. A classic tale of the squeaky-clean bad-kid who gets away with it, enjoying a sneaky taste of what adulthood might offer along the way.

Ferris and his girlfriend, Sloane, convince best friend, Cameron, to steal his dad’s prized possession: an immaculate 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder. They spend the day  sight-seeing around Chicago, eating dinner in expensive restaurants, lip-syncing during street parties (like you do), all the while shaking off the trail of the suspiciously evil head-teacher, Mr Rooney.

This movie perfectly celebrates the transition of the child into the adult, with all the optimism of what life might offer.

If you’re looking for a great movie that the whole family can enjoy time and time again, this is the one!

Parents, aunts, uncles and babysitters of the world – this is a call to action to share these classics with our younger brethren.

Have a great time catching up on some of the movies that made us who we are, with (hopefully) a similar effect on the generations after us.

Katie Porter is an aspiring writer, movie lover, and part of the team at Seatup. In her free time, she enjoys exploring her home state Colorado and plays in women’s amateur rugby league.

4 Comments Posted on Nostalgia, People, Recaps, Uncategorized

Movie Guy, at Your Service: My Top 11-25 Favorites

What do your favorite movies say about you?

Our favorite movies are loaded with subconscious connections to our own ways of thinking and our own lives.  And that’s why no movie critic can ever truly release a list of the best movies ever made.  Because that list would simply reflect that critic, not the general population. 

After having recently posted my own Top Ten favorites (Movie Guy, at Your Service: My Top Ten Favorites), here in my 300th post on Scenic Route Snapshots, I am now releasing the list of my Top 11-25 favorite movies of all time:

#11) About a Boy

#12) Elizabethtown

#13) A Christmas Story

#14) Zoolander

#15) Supersize Me (assuming that documentaries count)

#16) Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)

#17) Mrs. Doubtfire

#18) That Thing You Do

#19) The Wedding Singer

#20) Big

#21) Dumb and Dumber

#22) Napoleon Dynamite

#23) The Breakfast Club

#24) Pineapple Express

#25) One Hour Photo

I have been asked several times about my Number Four favorite movie of my all time, Sideways (2004).  It’s one that most people who I know in real life didn’t like, if they’ve even seen it.  I can totally see why people wouldn’t like it- a bipolar lead character (Miles, played by Paul Giamatti), a sex-crazed idiot sidekick (Jack, played by Thomas Haden Church), a good bit of comical frontal male nudity (by the man who played Tom on LOST), and no definite plot.  But I do solidly love this movie.  In fact, I also give it the award for “The Most Re-watchable Movie”.  And surely that’s another reason it ended up as #4. 

In keeping with the theme of this post, I am choosing to use Sideways as an example of how a favorite movie can say a lot about the person who loves it. I’ve said before that what makes a good movie is not its actors, budget, or plot- but instead it’s all about the characters (and of course the actor’s ability to act). 

Sideways is a character movie.  The main four characters (and pretty much only four characters of the movie) are all believable.  None of their lives are impressive.  They are very ordinary people.  And they are all quite flawed and that makes them more human than a lot of movie characters.

It wasn’t until I saw the movie for the 10th time, last weekend, that I finally picked up on the toned-down parallel between the types of wine and the characters, as well as the amount of passion for wine they had compared with their desire for meaningful human relationships.

I love the fact that the movie takes place in Napa Valley and integrates the culture of wine tasting.  It’s such a beautiful, unique place.  I was intrigued by Napa Valley the first time I saw the movie in 2005. 

Of course, three years later I conveniently married a girl from Sacramento, which means that I’ve been able to go wine tasting several times out there where the movie was filmed.  Just as Sideways makes it seem cool to take a road trip through Napa Valley and taste wine, the truth is, it really is that cool.  A perfect place for a road trip and a perfect place to get lost (which we do just about every time we go out there).

If nothing else, Sideways plays out like an adult, R-rated version of Dumb and Dumber.  The climax of the movie makes the “naked in public” nightmare a reality when Miles (Paul Giamatti) has to sneak into a house to retrieve Jack’s (Thomas Haden Church) wallet, after Jack just woke him up in the middle of the night after having ran several miles naked from across town. 

The entire soundtrack of the movie, with one exception when the song “Two Tickets to Paradise” is heard in the background of a bar, is jazz.  I like jazz a lot.  That’s one of the reasons I’m such a fan of The Pink Panther cartoon show.

Lastly, if it weren’t for a few scenes where Jack uses a cell phone, the movie could have very easily taken place in 1993.  Or 1989.  Or 1986.  Sideways has a really timeless, classic feel to it. 

So in review, the random elements of the movie that subconsciously connected to my own life were the following: a character-driven plot (I’m a people person), parallels between the wines and the people who drink them (I love undertoned themes), remniscent of Dumb and Dumber (obviously another one of my favorite movies), retro feel (I’m a fan of time travel), a jazzy soundtrack (it’s groovy), a beautiful location (that also doubles as my wife’s hometown region), a road trip driven-plot (I love road trips) and a scene involving a man having to run naked in public (I have that “naked in pubic” dream several times a year, and I plan to do a post on it soon).

How does a movie become a favorite?  It’s all about those subconscious connections between our own lives and the images, moods, and stories we see on the screen.  Either they’re there or they’re not.

2 Comments Posted on Nostalgia, People, Storytelling, Uncategorized

I Was Born in a Small Town

While movies we watch tend to portray life in the “big city” because it’s more practical to film in larger cities, I would say that the settings of Country songs portray what life was like for most of us while growing up, whether the hometown is in the South or not. In fact, I can’t really think of anyone I personally know who grew up in the heart of a big city. Small towns and suburbs seem to be much more relevant to America as I know it, compared to the city life I grew up seeing on John Hughes’ movies set in Chicago (like The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) and Saved by the Bell which was set near Los Angeles. Somewhere between Seinfeld and Little House on the Prairie is the setting of my real life.

Spending my first 18 years in Fort Payne, Alabama, it seemed everyone I knew pretty much knew everything about me. Actually, I should say that everyone knew everything about everyone. There was no avoiding it. I graduated in a class of 183 students, most of whom I knew from at least Kindergarten. Their parents had seen me grow up. We pretty much all went to one of four main churches (either Baptist or Methodist).

Just saying the name “Fort Payne” has the same connotation to me as the word “cousin” or “aunt” or “1st grade teacher”- people who knew me as a kid that cried when E.T. had to leave Elliot to go back to his home planet. People who I could never try to act too cool around- they simply know me too well. That’s what my hometown is to me.

And that’s not a bad thing, at all. There definitely is a unique comfort in a home town. Hence the word “home”.

Back in February, my wife and I had a free weekend so we decided to spend it at a free bed-and-breakfast in Fort Payne (my parents’ house). We noticed how quiet and peaceful the city is. The opposite of the life we often know in Nashville. My wife wanted to take a driving tour of the place, so since I had already shown her the tourist spots (the canyon and the waterfall) I decided to drive her around the neighborhoods I spent time in.

As I drove up the big hill where we as Cub Scouts had a box car race, I saw my friend Alex Igou’s dad working in the yard. My wife was amazed that he knew who I was right away and that we talked a good 10 minutes before we went on our way to get some coffee at the local coffee shop. Which is owned and ran by my other friend Alex Pate’s mom. While there, the other customers who came in also greeted me by name. That caused my wife to say, “Do you know EVERYBODY in this town?!”

Pretty much. Nearly all 13,000 of them. Or I would least be recognized as “Jack Shell’s boy”. I learned that the same reasons an 18-year old kid was ready to leave his small hometown on Graduation Day became the same reasons I found the town endearing today, ten years later.

The town that for a brief time in 1989 held the record for the world’s largest cake. The town that the Country music super-group Alabama put on the map. The town with the self-proclaimed title “Sock Capitol of the World”, which is proudly displayed on the green Fort Payne City Limits sign with the word “capitol” being misspelled. Maybe one day they’ll finally fix that sign.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Payne

This article was posted in The Franklin News of Franklin, TX in July 2009.