Writer (book AND screenplay) /Director: Stephen Chbosky
Type: Coming-of-age high school dramedy
Cast:
Charlie- Logan Lerman
Charlie's mom- Kate Walsh
Charlie's dad- Dylan McDermott
Charlie's sister, Candace- Nina Dobrev
Sam- Emma Watson
Patrick- Ezra Miller
Brad- Johnny Simmons (young Neil from "Scott Pilgrim vs. the world")
Mary Elizabeth- Mae Whitman
Alice- Erin Wilhelmi
Aunt Helen- Melanie Lynskey
Dr. Burton- Joan Cusack
English teacher, Mr. Anderson- Paul Rudd
Personal Exposition- My Life as a Wallflower
Yet another topic that begs for an AA reference:
"Hi, my name is... and I'm a wallflower."
Other than my time participating in concert choir, high school musicals, that's probably the best way I could describe myself in high school. I was a wallflower... and I was okay with that. Most of this was to maintain my grades. Can't say that I'm a huge nerd because my grades were above-average (I believe I was 136/522) so I wasn't exactly among the best and brightest.
And the rest of it... I just have trouble making friends. I'm afraid to participate socially because when I was younger, I had a few experiences where I wanted to get involved and nobody wanted to hang out with me. Either because I was weird or they thought they were better than me.
Ultimately, that wound up defining a lot of my social life. I've had occasions where I made a friend or two, but a year later, they'd make other friends. People with stronger personalities that I didn't feel I could compete with for my former friend's attention. I got really lucky in middle school when I had classes with a couple of the same people and things naturally worked themselves out.
But high school kinda felt like hell because, except for lunch period one year and concert choir, I never hung out with anybody. Just didn't have that confidence to put myself out there to form friendships.
Then in college, my junior year, a couple people started asking me to hang out with them... they were a bunch of weirdoes too and I couldn't imagine why they were interested in me. But after a while (can't remember if it was weeks or months), I took a chance simply because I was in no position to turn down friends.
(So I guess you could say that was my "Cady Heron meets the Plastics" moment).
It's a little trickier in the workplace... because I want to maintain the façade of professionalism, but I also don't want to come off as a snob or worse because I don't socialize. What I need to do, I think, is learn how to read people so I know which ones I can be gregarious with and which I can't.
I'm not sure if that makes me more of a wallflower or a people-pleaser. :P
Exposition
I'd seen this book on the shelves for a couple years, intrigued by the title. But I think I need the extra push from the fact it'd become a movie... I didn't get to see it until it came out on DVD (thanks a lot, Hollywood, and your stupid wide-release-only movies).
According to my Goodreads page, I read this within a month. But if I didn't pace myself, I could have done it within a day. It was the most compelling book I'd read in a long time.
The first one I devoured and connected with since "Twilight" (fall of 2008) and the first that affected me personally since "The Giver" (2000-2001)- where it stayed with me for weeks afterwards.
I guess you could call it divine intervention or perfect timing, but it was like this book was something I needed to read because it corresponded with something I was going through.
Or what I had been going through a while... periods of depression where it was hard for me to participate in my own life... being unemployed, putting all this energy into the application and interviews processes, and my efforts going unrewarded... [this went on between 2011-2013 and I finally got "the call" last March]
The Book
Spoilers Ahead for who we hadn't read or seen this book/movieThe book wound up being different than I pictured it would be. I thought it'd just be about a shy protagonist struggling to survive high school. I didn't know Charlie had a history of depression or that his best friend had committed suicide. Or had any idea about the troubling secret in his past that he'd just come to grips with.
This was a heavy book in a lot of places. I remember multiple times where Charlie talked about bursting into tears, crying and such. Some was warranted as were the periods of depression and loneliness he experienced. I've had those kinds of moments myself. But after a while, I started to feel self-conscious about him being so emotional all the time. All while hoping "please don't have this be a reoccurring thing in the movie."
The book had a lot of sex and drugs. Not that I'm totally vanilla about all that. I just never grew up around all that. At least not until college where half the population were smokers and some of my roommates frequented frat parties and such. Charlie recalled a situation he was in where he was at a party and walked in on a girl being forced to give a guy a blow job. His new friend Patrick was gay and had a complicated relationship with a football player. After his [football player's] father caught them together, Patrick started taking Charlie to a certain park where he'd pick up random guys. And his other friend Sam used to have a reputation- when she was a freshman, she got taken to a lot of parties, got drunk and such...
They don't sugar coat much in this book. It's realistic, but not to the point where it's overbearing.
I remember reading it was one of those books that got challenged by school systems. With all the sex and drugs, it's hard to imagine why that might be.
There was also another scene that stuck with me. Throughout the book, Charlie's sister was really mean to him. Her boyfriend hit her once and their parents found out later on. But there was a point where she asked Charlie to take her to the abortion clinic.
What shocked me most was that their parents never found out about it, and in a way, that's a good thing. For both parties.
Despite everything going on, how challenging some of it was to get through emotionally, it was a cathartic read. I loved that Charlie was an avid reader. His narratives read the way I often write. They meander, touching on multiple topics at once, and just going on forever. And I didn't get sick of it. Loved the way he talked about the book he read for class (and that Mr. Anderson gave him for additional reading).
Mr. Anderson was such a great character. Probably will go down as one of my favorite fictional teachers because he was very supportive of Charlie. I liked him so much that I was afraid that of some big reveal later on that would undo this amazing teacher-student relationship he and Charlie had.
All the characters were defined so well that you could either relate to them because you saw yourself in them or people you knew.
The Movie
Because I'd already read and loved the book, I really didn't need to worry about not liking the movie. I already knew Logan Lerman from the Percy Jackson series. Of course Emma Watson from the "Harry Potter" series. Nina Dobrev ("Vampire Diaries"), who didn't look anything like how I read the character in the book, played his older sister.
Overall, I was very pleased with it as a teen movie and also as a book-to-movie adaptation. A couple of scenes didn't make the cut. Most were for good reason (toned down the sexual content and Charlie only had one major breakdown scene, which was in the epic 3rd act climax... I write that as if it were a cliché, but I felt like it was handled very well). One scene I kinda missed was Charlie taking his sister to the abortion clinic because that was a great bonding scene for them. Luckily, that was available via the DVD extras.
I liked how it was approached as a dark comedy where it knew where to be light, but also to go very dark. And it did so without completely losing me. Certain movie overdo it with the drama and I never felt that here.
The tunnel scene is probably the most iconic in the book, where Charlie says "I feel infinite"... that was done so well... it was really something special.
All of the actors played their roles so well. Especially loved Ezra Miller as Patrick. I'd only seen him in one other movie since ("Beware the Gonzo"), but he was born to play this character. Nobody else could have made him so hilarious and also grounded and angsty.
I'd never seen "Parenthood," but I can't imagine anyone else playing Mary Elizabeth (the opinionated Buddhist vegan) except Mae Whitman.
With him playing so many idiots, it's good to see Paul Rudd play a nice straight character with a really good moral compass... my only nitpick was that Mr. Anderson wasn't in the movie nearly enough for my tastes :P
Great use of music throughout. I'd only heard "Asleep" by The Smiths one other time... and it was part of the "Sucker Punch" soundtrack. Personally, I still prefer Emily Browning's voice to those lyrics :shrug: but that's just me.
Using "Come on Eileen" at the homecoming dance was inspired... especially how it was like Charlie's soundtrack for when he approached the dance floor to meet up with Sam and Patrick... and that's saying a lot because I HATED this song. I still don't like it a whole lot (sounds like a bunch of hillbillies who can barely carry a note), but I can't help appreciating in this one instance.
Then David Bowie's "Heroes" for "The Tunnel" scene... powerful stuff... wow
Aunt Helen and Dr. Burton
As for comparing to the two mediums (book vs. movie), the movie did one thing that the book really didn't... it explained Aunt Helen's presence in Charlie's life, their relationship and how it contributed to him being [pardon the language] fucked him up.
Towards the end of the book, something happened in the 3rd act that resulted in Charlie being hospitalized... to me, it was very vague and never fully explained.
I literally had to read on Goodreads.com (where I posted my review of the book) that Aunt Helen molested him. Then other people commented how he psychologically exhibited those signs of abuse throughout the book- how it explained him being so emotional and such...
Not so much the fact that it happened to him, but I was frustrated that so many people picked up on this and I had no idea. Frankly, it made me feel like an idiot because to them, it was glaringly obvious.
In my personal defense, I had never experienced any of that and never personally knew anyone who experienced any of that... so how am I supposed to pick up on that?
I was also thrown off because Charlie kept saying Aunt Helen was his favorite person and he had nothing but good things to say about her. [Another thing that should be very obvious... that sense of shame and betrayal because it was at the hands of someone you really cared about and trusted].
And the way I read her character in the book, she read a lot older to me... someone as beautiful and young as Melanie Lynskey surely didn't come to mind. I expected someone much older with some gray-hair at least.
They were kinda vague about it in the movie too, but there was a bit of pay-off at the end. Where it was addressed. The breakdown scene begins where Charlie and Sam start kissing and she's rubbing his leg, startling him to the point where he stops... this image flashes on the screen multiple times and we see Aunt Helen's face intermingle where she says "don't wake your sister"...
Joan Cusack is in this movie only for a couple scenes as his doctor at the hospital. I loved her in this. She had such a comforting on-screen presence. One of those actresses I'd only see so much of, but enjoy being around them when they're doing their thing on screen. She was really good to Charlie where he was having difficulties. Definitely a quality over quantity type of deal.
Other Comments
Both medias have their give and take. I miss hearing Charlie's thought-provoking narratives, how he spoke about the books he read. The characters were represented well in both versions.
One negative I can derive is that we really didn't see much of his parents. Not a lot of interaction between them. I watched one of the deleted scenes and the writer/director talked about how great Kate Walsh was in it... I appreciated that she was good in the scene. I just wish the movie spent more time on her and his dad. I never fully connected with either of them.
This is one of those movies where, later on, I would like to see it with commentary. Just getting to know some of the actors more. Getting inside the director's head... it's amazing to me that the guy who wrote the book got to write the screenplay and direct the movie... it's so rare where writers have so much freedom with their material.
Apparently, John Hughes had bought the rights to it... but the movie got put on hold after his death. I read that it was Emma Watson's favorite book and I'd been under the impression she was the reason the movie happened at all. As much as I love John Hughes, I'm glad that this movie went to someone else. His work is great and I will love him forever for his Brat Pack movies, but something like this... I don't think it would have worked out quite as well with him behind the camera.
This movie was ultimately the reason I watched "Rocky Horror Picture Show" a couple years ago... I wanted to understand the whole phenomenon of it... I still don't quite get it :P but I'm still interested in giving it another go. Only next time, I'd like to watch with other people and preferably at an earlier hour so I don't FALL ASLEEP halfway through.
The last thing I remembered was the "Touch Me" musical number and I woke up halfway through the cabaret scene... I didn't know what the fuck was going on! Reading the synopsis later on, it said how they were coerced into it... I missed that entirely, so mentally, I wasn't engaged for the final 40 minutes.
I promise, I'm really good with weird :P but I'd like another chance to wrap my head around all that.
This is going to sound a little messed up, but I'll try to explain this:
This is one of those movies I like to watch when I'm going through something... where I'm feeling down on myself, lacking energy, PMSing or whatever reason... in an odd sort of way, it makes me feel better...
Not so much the "other people have it worse than you" cliché as the fact that it feels kinda good to explore things I'm feeling through these characters. It's healing :shrug:
That's all I can say, really... plus the fact I should see it with my friends, Sam and Dave, at one point so we can experience all those feels together :P
[has it really been 10 years?
...as of July 5th, apparently it will be]
Code-name: Brick
Director: Adam McKay
Writers: Adam McKay and Will Ferrell
Notable Producers: Judd Apatow, (executive) David O. Russell
Type: Frat Pack Comedy
Cast:
Ron Burgundy- Will Ferrell
Veronica Corningstone- Christina Applegate
Brian Fantana- Paul Rudd
Champ Kind- David Koechner
Brick Tamland- Steve Carell
Channel 4 news exec Ed Harken- Fred Willard
Wes Mantooth of the Channel 9 newsteam- Vince Vaughn
Cameos:
Jack Black as the biker Ron hit with a burrito
Luke Wilson as the anchorman of Channel 2 news
Tim Robbins as the anchorman of the Public News Network
Ben Stiller as the anchorman of the Spanish Language News
Seth Rogen as the "eager cameraman"
Write-up:
Introduction
Up until this movie came out, I thought Will Ferrell was an idiot.
...how's that for an introduction? :-P
Seriously, what little I saw him, his sense of humor to me was nothing but idiocy and stupidity. He was nothing but an unfunny man-child and I just didn't get the hype after him.
But when I saw the trailer of "Anchorman," I couldn't explain why but I felt like I had to see it. The idea of a movie about people in a newsroom, a comedy no less... it just looked like one of those "so crazy but just might work" sort of things.
Not that I thought it was crazy. It just looked legitimately funny. And it absolutely was.
Plot, Characters and So On
Something this insanely awesome can't really be sectioned off too much. Everything is more or less interrelated.
Ron Burgundy is THE anchorman with perfect hair, a dog named Baxter and mad jazz flute skills.
Brian Fantana does all the reporting on the streets, is a bit of a womanizer and believes that 80% of the time, his potent Sex Panther cologne works every time.
Champ Kind is an overenthusiastic sport guy who may be a tad possessive with little sense of personal boundaries.
Brick Tamland is the rarely late weatherman with an IQ of 48 who loves lamp and enjoys a good pair of slacks.
And Veronica Corningstone is the new woman [the first ever female reporter] on the block of the Channel 4 new station who soon rises to the role of co-anchor.
Before this movie, I only knew three actors.
Besides Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd (who I was happy didn't disappear with the rest of the "Clueless" cast) and Christina Appelgate (who my family knew as Kelly Bundy on "Married with Children").
David Koechner, I'd seen a couple times doing similar roles to Will Ferrell. Not terribly funny and a bit of an idiot. Including cameos on "The Office" and a small role in "Get Smart"... both are gigs he probably got because of Steve Carell.
Steve Carell
He deserves his own subheading :P
and let's just say he had me from "
This was my first ever encounter with Steve Carell and it made me a fan for life.
I'm not sure if I made this connection with him before or after my dad saw the movie and said "the weatherman is hilarious"... but either way, every one of his lines is funny because it's so idiotic but he says it with confidence.
It all began with: "Right now, it’s 82 degrees in our fair city, and compare that to 48 degrees in the upper Northwest and 38 degrees in the Middle East."
One of the most lovable idiots you'll ever find on film.
It took me a little while to find the humor in "The Office," and Michael Scott is also a bit of an idiot, but he's got a big heart and really cares about the people around him.
I'd seen plenty of Steve Carell since and [not knowing of his involvement in Comedy Central satire] I predicted he'd become a big star.
His films have been a little uneven. For every "Get Smart" and "Dinner with Schmucks," there's a "Crazy Stupid Love" (which became a complete buzzkill when we found out Emma Stone with his daughter and he wasn't okay with her dating Ryan Gosling... so quick to turn on his newest male best friend).
But nothing beats:
"I love lamp" and "LOUD NOISES!"
Back to the Story...
The Channel Four news team has been #1 in the San Diego area for what feels like forever.
Then we're introduced to the newest addition: Veronica Corningstone.
Such a testosterone embroiled workplace, it's obvious where this is going:
she's the latest conquest and all the men fail miserably.
However innocent, Brick had the best idea with his invitation to "that pants party"...
Champ did a seemingly innocent reach-around, which was insanely obvious.
Brian was the second most memorable after Brick and not in the best way: his Sex Panther cologne resulted in a hazmat chemical shower.
Then Ron did the phony workout thing where he pretends to do 100 reps on his "guns" and says his arms are tired from doing so many.
He does however get her attention with a good date where he plays jazz flute and they wind up in "Pleasure Town" when they return to his place.
However, it does not last long as Ron finds himself in a "glass case of emotion" and the studio has no choice but to have Veronica anchor in his place...
Aside from being a chauvinistic pig, the things to remember about Ron Burgundy is that the only thing he loves more than poetry and a glass of Scotch is his dog Baxter...
who gets punted off a bridge by this biker Ron hits with a burrito he carelessly throws out a window...
Yeah, this would have only worked in this movie and with Jack Black playing the biker. And in any other context, Will Ferrell in the phone booth would have just not been funny.
He's crying unintelligibly to Brian Fantana
"Bad man punted Baxter... on the bridge... I hit him with a burrito!"
Even more ridiculous, what sells it for me is when he's just crying, Brian asks him to repeat himself and he keeps doing so at a higher volume :-P hilarious every time
The end result of this entire episode is that Veronica is a hit with the ratings and the guys have no choice but to deal with the fact she's Ron's new co-anchor.
This boils to the point where the guys get in a 5-way bilingual new station brawl with the other news teams.
In other words, let the cameos fly!
Everyone from Luke Wilson to Tim Robbins to Ben Stiller show up... the only person missing is Owen Wilson, who didn't even show up in the sequel... maybe he was off doing another Wes Anderson movie :-P
Again, Brick steals the show on numerous occasions.
Before they even start fighting, we see him standing with the Channel 9 news team, laughing with them.
Everyone takes out their weapons and he has a hand grenade
("Brick where you'd get the hand grenade?" [he responds with no chance of expression] "I don't know")
When the fight breaks out, we see him waving it around, yelling, but never actually see him use it. But he does kill a dude with a trident... very randomly but hilariously.
When all the guys' schemes to get Veronica fired don't work, she pulls something of her own armed with another important bit of information:
"Ron will read ANYTHING that's on the teleprompter"... if you remember from a scene earlier on, there's a question mark in there and he pronounces it...
so... yeah, he unintentionally verbally flips off all of San Diego and is forced to resign...
For this 10 minute period, the movie is back to being Will Ferrell-grade unwatchable. The dude's miserable with a long phony beard.
Lucky for him, though, his ship comes back in when Veronica disappears in the midst of the biggest ratings grab in the San Diego news world...
Yeah, a new panda is being born at the zoo... they must really be starving for stories over there...
Ironically, that part of the storyline is 100% inaccurate. This movie takes place in the 70's and pandas didn't arrive in San Diego until 1987. Considering who's doing the writing, though, we know they're not complete geniuses.
Ron shows up to save the day and, yeah, Baxter is alive and well and arrives to save Ron and Veronica from the grizzlies. Wes Mantooth also gains the courage to tell Ron how he really feels, that as much as he dislikes him, he respects the hell out of him :P
We get a little bit of an epilogue, explaining where the news team wound up.
A couple memorable jokes is that Champ is sued for sexual harassment by Terry Bradshaw and Brick has 10 kids and is an advisor to George W. Bush... in other words, liberal Hollywood is poking fun at the Republican administration :shrug: what can you do, right?
Legacy and Sequel
I'm not entirely sure how big a hit this movie was when it first came out. I believe it was and it only gained more of a following as the years went by.
The lines hold up really well. YouTube is chock full of montages where people segued their favorite quotes and scenes together.
Anyone who didn't know the song at the time like I did also learned a little something about "Afternoon Delight" which the guys sang in a pretty darn good 4-part harmony.
News of a sequel had been on the horizon for years and last year it finally happened. To promote it, Ron Burgundy appeared in several Dodge Durango ads, released an autobiography and even got his own Ben & Jerry's ice cream.
Sadly, "Scotchy Scotch Scotch" does not contain any actual scotch... it does however contain ample swirls of BUTTERscotch. I'm not the biggest fan of the stuff, but I did try it. It wasn't bad, but Stephen Colbert's "AmeriCone Dream" still is way better 8-)
As for the sequel... well, it's hit and miss for me... mostly missing.
I had issues with it like I did with the Sherlock Holmes sequel... they tried to up the ante a little too much and it kinda blew up in their face.
Namely, the humor is a little more extreme, going for the gross-out moments or pushing the envelope in general...
Ron is 100x the idiot he was in the previous film. He and Veronica are married with a kid, but they aren't exactly the most stable family. The kid adores him despite the fact he spends zero time with him. Their relationship is tested when Veronica gets a promotion and he doesn't and they wind up separating.
Ron's follow-up job is at a SeaWorld... being a marine biology major and animal lover in general, I was embarrassed with how that scene played out...
He's proposed the idea for a 24/7 news network (kinda like CNN) and "gets the band back together." Champ owns a KFC type place (where the overwought dialogue and puns get tiresome within 5 minutes). Brian is a cat photographer (hilariously because he talks to them as if he's shooting nude models). And Brick makes a cameo where he cries his way through a eulogy AT HIS OWN FUNERAL... now that's just priceless :-P
I think the part that really lost it for me was when Ron ice skates (which I kinda didn't appreciate on the surface since I saw this a few months after the Olympics... no way he could do a quadruple toe-loop) and the rival anchor played by James Marsden causes an accident where he is blinded.
Geesh, the logic of the quadruple toe-loop held more water than that BS.
And the BS continued. Veronica nursed Ron back to health and helped rehabilitate him with the intention of getting her family back together... to the point where she hid from him that a procedure could be done to get his sight back.
Even more idiotic was her starting a cat fight with one of the girls at the news station who had been sweet on Ron. Just, why? She didn't want Ron anymore so why is it her business that he's moving on with someone else?
Probably the worst joke of a scene in the movie was when Ron met the new girlfriend's family and tried to speak all ghetto so they'd understand him. Never mind idiotic, but insensitive... makes me want to ask if Will Ferrell's black friends still talk to him.
At the finale we have the return of the news team fight, but after the first five minutes it just goes too far... Harrison Ford turns into a freaking werewolf and Kanye West (who's already one of my least favorite people in the world) says he's got an idea for Michael Jackson... :facepalm: just no...
The only good thing about the movie was the story arc where they gave Brick the perfect love interest, played by Kristen Wiig.
Coming Soon
Independence Day is next weekend and in an odd sort of way, my next movie plays into that vein.
It got some people talking politics, those who chose to read between the lines.
It got other people, me included, excited with the special effects ALONE
Even after seeing the "true" winner, I still maintain it was robbed at the Oscars in its given year...
Code-name: Christian
Writer/Director: Amy Heckerling
[Loosely based on "Emma" by Jane Austen]
Type: chick flick, high school dramedy
Cast:
Cher- Alicia Silverstone
Dionne- Stacey Dash
Josh- Paul Rudd
Tai- Brittany Murphy
Amber- Elisa Donovan
Murray- Donald Faison
Travis- Breckin Meyer
Elton- Jeremy Sisto
Debate professor Mr. Hall- Wallace Shawn
Ms. Geist- Twink Caplan
Gym Teacher Ms. Stoeger- Julie Brown
Cher's dad- Dan Hedaya
Christian- Justin Walker
Write-up:
As much as I love the 80's, which is home to the original "Valley Girl," I found that movie boring and I'm not a fan of Nicholas Cage in his goofy roles.
"Clueless" is the movie I go to for that iconic brand of girl culture.
Maybe a year or so ago, I also saw Gwyneth Paltrow's version of "Emma," the Jane Austen novel this movie is supposedly based on.
I think I spent most of the movie trying to refute that claim.
Yeah, the story has its similarities, but again, it's just not "Clueless."
It's just as much girl culture as it is high school culture. This is one of those rare occasions where the protagonist is one of the most popular girls in school, and she really isn't all bad. Her greatest fault is that she's extremely superficial and takes things for granted because her dad's a super rich litigator.
And her actions throughout the film to change that motivated by her desire to prove her former brother-in-law that he's wrong about her.
Why is his opinion so important to her? I'm not entirely sure. My guess is that she's used to everyone liking her and she wants to convert the one person who doesn't. Plus, he lives in her Beverly Hills mansion with her, so the teasing thrown in her direction is constant.
I guess you could say that I've been a fan of this movie as long as it's been around. My earliest memory was watching the movie with my friend, Pat, and the biggest thing that stood out was the conundrum of Christian.
More on him later.
In chick flick fashion, it's something I could watch hundreds of times and not get sick of it. The story is still very relatable and there's a character in it for everybody, whether you identify with them personally, want to be them or knew people like them. Probably the greatest thing about it for me is that there's always some treasure to be found in it. As you get older, some references and quotes become clearer.
Before I go into the cast, here's IMDB's trivial list of "what-if cast members"
Other people who auditioned for "Clueless" included Reese Witherspoon (Cher), Terrance Howard (Murray), Jeremy Renner (Christian & Josh), Zooey Deschanel (Cher & Amber), Owen Wilson (Travis), Leah Remini (Tai), Seth Green (Travis), Lauryn Hill (Dionne).and
Paul Rudd also auditioned as Murray, Christian and Elton.
All of these characters became big in their own ways. Some of which, I didn't even know they were acting in the 90's because they came to my attention in the last 10 years.
Except for Paul Rudd, Brittany Murphy, Breckin Meyer, Donald Faison, and Jeremy Sisto, the majority of the young cast are best known for their given roles.
Even the star Alicia Silverstone. She got as far as the fanboy disaster known as "Batman & Robin" and really hasn't been heard from outside of one or two cameos and direct-to-DVD films.
The guy who plays her dad, Dan Heyada, I'd only seen in a similar role in the SNL-inspired film "The Night at the Roxbury." In a word, Mel Horowitz is a "ball-buster," doesn't take excuses from anyone. It goes with the territory of his professional life. As an on-screen dad, he has varying shades of protectiveness, bravado, and his unique brand of kindness. In some ways (less exaggerated, of course), he's a lot like my dad, so that's one part of it that drives it home for me.
Another piece of myself I see in this movie comes from Tai. I didn't need the "Which Clueless Character Are You?" quiz I took recently to tell me that. She's the new girl that Cher and Dionne "adopt," take under their wing and give her the tools she needs to survive Bronson Alcott High School. Not that I'd ever been "the new girl," but she's socially awkward, kinda shy and sometimes, I wish I had Cher as a "life coach."
Possibly following Josh's example, she advised Tai to
- read one non-school book a week ("Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus")
- improve her vocabulary ("I hope not sporadically")
- improve her physique ("and my buns, they don't feel nothin' like steel")
- try to do something good for mankind or the environment
The only bit of advice that went array went array in a MAJOR way.
Of course, I'm talking about the Elton debacle here.
Cher finds high school boys so vastly immature that she can't see herself dating them, but she tries to set up Tai with Elton. Gently nudging her in his direction. Taking her to a party where he'll be there and gets them to dance together (I dare you to say you didn't know "Rollin' with the Homies" before seeing this movie!).
Unfortunately, he misinterprets her intentions, thinking she's the one into him and the horror didn't end with him abandoning her at a gas station. And the bad karma continued with her later into the film where Tai ended up becoming a monster that outdid her in the popularity department. (Although not to the same degree as Cady Heron in "Mean Girls," another Amy Heckerling production).
Before Tai came along, we got to know Cher as the popular girl who knew how to schmooze teachers into changing her grades. All except for Mr. Hall, her debate professor (Wallace Shawn, otherwise known as Rex from the Toy Story movies or that "inconceivable girl" from "The Princess Bride") and Ms. Geist.
Her solution, ultimately, was setting them up and magically, that improved everyone's grades. Ah, only in the movies would that ever happen.
But it's definitely worth Cher's dad's response to her C in debate turning into an A;
"I couldn't be happier than if they were based on real grades."
It's always interesting to see how teachers are portrayed on film and how iconic they can be sometimes. My friend Pat and I still look back on and bring up Ms. Stoeger in gym class:
"Cher! Earth to Cher! Come in, Cher!"
By the way, not all female gym teachers are same-sex oriented. One of my middle school gym teachers was married to the brother of one of my other gym teachers. But that's just one example.
Speaking of same-sex oriented, now's the time to bring Christian to the discussion.
He's the transfer student that joins Cher's debate class in the spring semester and she falls head over heels for him. She pulls out all the stops to get him to notice her. Drawing attention to her mouth, dropping her pen for him to pick up, sending gifts to herself... The one bit of advice I actually tried was "showing more skin." One day, I wore a nicer top to school to get my crush to notice me at our lunch table. I did get the reaction I wanted, but it was more like shock and it only lasted for a moment :-P oh well
So she did get a couple dates with him.
The first one was to a dance party where they ended up running into Tai and Josh was nice enough to dance with her. But my favorite part of that was before they even left the house.
Mel: Cher, come in here... what is that?
Cher: A dress
Mel: Says who?
Cher: Calvin Klein
Mel: It looks like underwear. Go put something over it
Cher: Daddy, I was just going to...
Worth a laugh every time I watch 8-)
The second was one-on-one. Cher did all her preparations, most don't go as well as she hoped nd he ends up high-tailing it in the middle of "Spartacus" (he had a thing for Tony Curtis) when she starts to get fresh.
It took a guy's perspective for Cher and Dionne to realize one of this movie's biggest bombshells: Christian was gay.
That stuck with me for the first couple years because I really didn't know what it meant. All I really grasped was that Cher and Christian were not going to happen as a couple.
Ironically, I had a friend named Christian who I had a crush on for maybe a couple months and he came out of the closet a couple years later. Apparently, it took me years to become perceptive in such things because I fell for two gay men in high school.
Every now and then, it happens with actors too... as if it's bad enough that you don't have a chance with them because you don't run in the same social circles. :-P
But once this realization comes and goes, Christian becomes a fixture in Cher's life as one of her best shopping partners. And we all know how much Cher loves to shop. (I'm not a girly girl who loves clothes shopping, but this quick short scene makes me wish I had a best gay to shop with too).
It's a shame that the newer generations who see this movie won't know what Polaroids are. When she shops, Cher trusts them over mirrors any day.
One scene all of us can relate to is where Cher fails her driving test. My weakness was parallel parking (just like Judy Funnie in "Doug"). Cher was just a terrible driver in general on the day where it mattered most. It was only a matter of time before she found her kryptonite, the one situation she couldn't talk her way out of.
And the timing of it causes a rift between her and Tai, who drops the ultimate insult:
"You're a virgin who can't drive."
Probably one of the strongest themes this movie has is not to trust a book by its cover or trust first impressions of people.
Tai hit it off with the ever-tardy skateboarder Travis because they have things in common and Cher talks her out of it because he's a stone that "no self-respecting girl ever dates"... and by the end of the movie, she realizes she was wrong about him.
The same thing with Josh, who she ends up falling head over heels for.
I mean, how could you not? Paul Rudd, he's one of those people I am so happy that they're still acting and doing really well in the industry. I remember seeing him cast in "Anchorman" and the movies that followed... I almost always enjoy watching him and he's still as good looking as he was in this, his first big movie role.
Brittany Murphy, I kept up with a lot of her movies after this one... heck, I think I had to be told it was her because she was blonde in every other role after this one. Uptown Girls, Just Married (ok, that one was bad), Little Black Book (cringe-worthy at times)... it sucks what happened to her a couple years ago. She was gone too soon :(
Yeah, is it that obvious how much I love this movie? :-P
It's iconic, it's quotable, great cast and great story.
***
The next two weeks will focus on more dramatic films that got Oscar buzz in recent years.
The first one is a Best Picture winner I still argue against... but seeing it was a uniquely breath-taking, pulse-quickening, intense experience.
:-P I think I might have given it away already, but oh well, so be it.
