The Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club is one of the most revered teen films of all time. Targeted toward a young audience, and even to adults, it brings a lot of parts about growing up in a certain society into one movie. It's the typical high school movie. As the reading says "The Breakfast Club's focus on cliques that come together seems like stating the obvious in today's multi-culty teen world".


Molly Ringwald's character in the film is very interesting. Everyone connects John Hughes and Molly Ringwald, especially because in the 80's they made 3 teen films together. "These are exceptional films because it is the figure of a young woman-Ringwald's character in all three- who struggles within or against the class constraints erected within their narratives. In all three films, Molly Ringwald does tend to play somewhat of the same character. In Pretty in Pink, Ringwald's character, Andie, is in a lower class than that of a popular boy, Blane. The two start a cross-class relationship, and Blane struggles with pressure from his jealous friend Steff. While in The Breakfast Club, Ringwald's character Claire is very wealthy and upper-class and she "struggles" with being so popular. Claire's character isn't as willing as Blane's to step outside her social class, and mentions that one of the reasons is because of her friends.



What angers me about The Breakfast Club is that you have faith that these 5 kids have realized something important during their 9 hour detention session together where they reveal a lot about their internal struggles with themselves and their parents. The reading says it perfectly: "The plot of the film is really that simple: after 9 hours of sharing soul-baring dialogue about sex, parents, school, and the future-not to mention dope smoking, spontaneous dancing, and evading and insulting the principal- the five go home." Yet this ambiguous ending is what makes the film somewhat exceptional. You can interpret that they've gone home and that the events of the day didn't alter their lives, and that stereotypes are inescapable, or you can have hope that maybe these kids will be different people on Monday when they walk down the hallway. Or you can realize that years and years into the future, the one day in detention isn't even remember-able (although in the magic of the film I hope this last one isn't true). I like to believe that when the 5 characters leave, they have realized something, yet I still am frustrated by the ending. After the intense circle where most of the secrets and dialogue happens, Claire asks Brian to write 1 paper for all of them-the popular girl asks the brain to do the homework-and then goes off to give Allison a makeover, because they way she looked wasn't good enough. And once Allison has her makeover, Andy seems to finally realize her beauty, while Claire goes and kisses John on the neck because "he wouldn't". At the end, Brian gets to kiss the paper, Andy kisses Allison, Claire kisses John, and you are like what the heck?! 4 of the characters leave in relationships and Brian is still stuck with academics? Frustrating. Just frustrating. Yet it all works.

 

I love John Bender.


I always wondered why he puts his fist in the air. Yes it is great but what makes him do that haha?

Desperately Seeking Susan

Desperately Seeking Susan wasn't similar to Purple Rain as I expected. This was actually a film with a story and no musical performances. One of Madonna's songs can be heard playing in a club, but that is the only reference to her musical career. Madonna's character of Susan isn't supposed to be her playing herself. The only aspect of that character that Madonna brought to it was the fashion, same as Prince as The Kid. I loved Madonna's wardrobe in this movie. It was punk chic and totally 80's fashion.




The fashion didn't surprise me, and I think that's because I expected it due to the time period and these days, Miley Cyrus is running around in jumpsuits and her underwear. Many stars have tried to attract attention through their fashion, and it works. People will talk about what they are wearing and why, and nit-pick outfits apart. This is how myself and society is used to seeing Lady Gaga:


Back in the 80's when Madonna was the first to use her sexuality as apart of her music and her career, it was big and shocking and it unsettled people. Now, its a normal thing, and its kind of sad that mostly women in the music industry believe they have to do things like this to be popular.

The storyline however did not impress me. It was so unrealistic and the irony of everything sorta pissed me off. The fact that everyone was just barely missing each other and missing solving this issue frustrated the hell out of me. But then you wouldn't have an hour and a half- to 2 hour film entertaining you. The only part of the film that kept me interested was watching Madonna on screen, and that was why this film worked.

Purple Rain

Purple Rain was a tactic for the music industry, and I can say that it was a success because it worked on me. The point of this film is to promote the music of Prince, and after watching this film, I went home and purchased multiple songs on iTunes. I couldn't get the music out of my head, and in the 80's with this film being broadcast in theaters, the soundtrack and Prince's career skyrocketed.


Being a film major, it's hard for me to not analyze the plot, even though many claim there is no plot point or characterization in this movie. I have to disagree with that. I understand the film being used as one big music video, however, there is a story line and there are characters who grow and change. The plot is about a young musician struggling to grow up and into his own. He struggles with his music career, his love life, and his family and personal drama. The plot is plenty complicated to me. The Kid had everything on the line and had to deal with it all at once. The family drama is the main source of the plot, being the one thing that domino affects onto his music career and love life. The Kid changes from the beginning of the film to the end, and it was nice and entertaining to watch. The quality of the film however is not it's strong suit. The music does carry the film, and those were the parts I enjoyed the most. The acting and production quality was not up to par and was often comedic to watch where you couldn't take most of the scenes too seriously.


Haha, I love this ^ An example of one of those ridiculous scenes.

Overall, I enjoyed this film very much and like I said, it had a job to due and it succeeded very well in that.