The first half of “Weird Science” (1985) is so good – classic teen comedy from writer/director John Hughes – you forget how badly the second half runs off the rails. Rejects from “Mad Max?” Cruise missiles? Bill Paxton as Jabba the Hutt? Granted, the ship rights itself for a semi-sensible ending that’s a cross between “Risky Business” and “Sixteen Candles” but you’re left wondering what could have been. Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith are classic high school dorks who use early computer technology to build a beautiful woman (Kelly LeBrock) for immoral purposes. She ends up teaching them a valuable lesson.
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I went into “Valley Girl” (1983) thinking it was going to be a broader comedy about, well, San Fernando Valley girls (actually, “Clueless” comes closer to that space 12 years later). This is more of a by-the-book teen romance featuring class conflict between Hollywood punk hunk Nicolas Cage and suburban sweetheart Deborah Foreman (who, at 21, looked too old to be playing a high school junior). That doesn’t make it a bad movie, but the better part is its visual love letter to the neon, music and fashion of early 1980s Los Angeles. Looking back, it’s a pretty-in-pink time capsule.
There are people for whom “The Outsiders” (1983) is in their top 10 all-time films. Some rank it No. 1. Like some others are with “The Breakfast Club,” this film about teenage outcasts spoke to them. I saw it when I was 52, not 15, so the impact wasn’t the same. But I can see director Francis Ford Coppola was trying to translate the deep thoughts S.E. Hinton was working through in her novel. Messages about class, about teenage angst – the kinds of things that might resonate deeply with someone. So even thought I didn’t get it, I get it.
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