Posted in Flashback Fridays
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As a teenager I think, for the most part, I watched most of the typical teen movies. I was a follower of the Brat Pack and saw everything that starred Molly Ringwald. Every now and then I get a craving for one of those movies that I haven't seen for eons. Most recently it was Sixteen Candles, so over the summer I ordered it from Netflix and watched it alone one night after everyone had gone to bed. Again, I found that what amused and delighted you when you were 13, does absolutely nothing for you when you're 35. I didn't laugh, but I did cry....over the hour and half that I wasted. It won't fail though....in about two years I'll do the same thing with Pretty in Pink or The Breakfast Club. Some deep-seeded need for nostalgia will rise up, and I won't be able to help myself. There's one 80s teen movie, however, that is the exception in that it is fairly decent. I can watch it whenever I want and not feel dumber because of it. It's this one....
This movie actually may have changed the course of my life. I saw this movie the summer of 1989, right before my senior year of highschool, with my then-boyfriend of about nine months or so. I was totally blown away by John Cusack's character of Lloyd Dobler. He was quirky and believable and smart. And I kept thinking, "This is the same guy who plays one of Anthony Michael Hall's cohorts in Sixteen Candles?!" It's no wonder he's one of the few 80s teen actors to go onto have a prolific career. Anyway, I was sitting there in the theater, beside my boyfriend, when on the screen a couple's love story was playing out that made ours look like plain oatmeal. I couldn't help it, but I was comparing. I was measuring. And I didn't think that so-and-so beside me was making the cut. In the scene of the movie after the break-up, Lloyd goes to Dianne's house and holds up his boom box while a cultish Peter Gabriel song is playing into her open window. My heart stopped. I knew that so-and-so would never do that. And I knew that whoever I was going to be with for the rest of my life just had to have that in him. Just to make sure, I eventually broke up to see if he would. He didn't. He just kept trying to get back together in other boring ways, which I just found irritating. This is the song, by the way, with scenes from the movie... See what I mean? Kinda gets under your skin, doesn't it? Personally, I'm thankful to that movie and to that boom-box-over-the-head song, because a year later I met Big D, who is in every way even better than Lloyd Dobler. He is quirkier, funnier, smarter and can do the worm. Thanks Mr. Cusack for opening my eyes to the greener pastures! Would you like to join us in flashing back to another time, another place? C'mon....it's fun! Sign in with the link to your post below, so we can come share!
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