80's Movies pt II

Nopa wrote a post about 80's movies on his site, coincidentally, I watched the Breakfast Club last night, and wanted to write a little about it.

The Breakfast Club... WTF?!
By Joseph Parcell

Upon watching John Hughes' "The Breakfast Club" I have some significant issues that I feel need to be addressed. I've seen this movie what seems like hundreds of times at least in parts on TBS, and had these same issues, but now I feel the need to list them.

First of all, The Brain, Brian Johnson, played by Anthony Michael Hall. The nerdy kid who is the only one who doesn't end up with a girl at the end. Brian is the only one who would still be friends with everyone on monday. Yet for being such a genius, he can't figure out how to make an elephant lamp in shop? He can't tell the difference between a handgun and a flare gun? And if he was going to kill himself, why do it at school, unless he wanted to do it "Jeremy" style. But he didn't seem particularly angry with the rest of the student body, so I doubt that was his intention.

Then there's The Jock, Andy Clark, played by the incredibly unjocky Emilio Estevez. The guy who duct taped the hairy kid's butt cheeks together, because he wanted everyone to think he was cool. Because that's what his old man would've wanted. The guy who wants to boof Allison after she becomes pretty (and makes out with her easily afterwards). When they ask him what his problem is, he doesn't answer until she says "He can't think for himself" to which he responds "She's right." The only major problem I had with Andy was when he told Bender "Hey wastoid, you can't blaze up in here." Did kids in the 80's really talk like that?

Of course, Allison Reynolds, The Basket-Case, played by Ally Sheedy was really the only cool one there at the beginning of the day, and by the end, became another popular kid conformist. She was way hotter in the "black shit." Then Claire "fixed" her and Andy and Brian kept staring at her, and she was acceptable. Screw that, she was so much better when she was using her dandruff to make snow on her covered bridge picture. And where did they get her pink clothes? And now that she is pretty and hooked up with the jock, is she now popular and therefore doesn't want to hang out with Brian on monday?

Speaking of which, the Princess, Claire Standish, Molly Ringwald. What a bitch, eh? She's all nice and sweet and everything towards the beginning of the film, even a little bit of a victim of John Bender, and you feel kind of sorry for her. But then she pulls a complete 180 at the end of the film. After screaming "I hate you" at Bender and crying her eyes out, she tells them all that she can't be friends with them on monday because they are all beneath her. Then she gets Brian to write her paper for her (and incidentally, everyone else). Then she goes and sneaks out of the library to make out with Bender in the janitors closet (after he's been tormenting her and making her cry all movie).

And Bender, The Criminal, played by Judd Nelson. He's just in it for the nookie. When Claire realizes this, she'll thing all men are pigs. Then in ten years, she'll find Brian again, and he'll be a millionaire genius, and then she'll try to hook up with him, but he'll shoot her down because he knows she sucks. I digress.

Overall, what kind of saturday detention goes THAT unsupervised. I had two of them in my lifetime, and there was a teacher in the room at all times. We didn't have anytime to blast music and dance, or sit around and learn each others deepest secrets, or smoke a lot of marijuana. If it was like that, in that really cool library, I think I'd go because I had nothing better to do too.

And as far as the letter saying who they thought they were...

Dear Mr. Vernon,

We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain and an athlete and a basket case a princess and a criminal.

Does that answer your question?

Sincerely yours,
the Breakfast Club.

They never found that out. I mean, they're all basket cases, and the basket case became a princess, but no one really learned anything. The princess was still just a princess who (typically) hooks up with the bad boy criminal who made her miserable, and he's still a just criminal. The brain is still just a brain, and won't get to hang out with the princess or the jock on monday, the basket case WAS cool because she was her own person, and the jock is still just a jock. I think the point they were actually trying to make is that they have much more in common than they previously thought.

I'll buy that.

-j