Chicks cannot hold their smoke, dat's what it is.

Ahh yes, The Breakfast Club has spurred much debate in our household on whether it is "good" or not. Realizing that art is 100% subjective we agreed to disagree but I still hold that The Breakfast Club is an influential movie and it has reason to be.

From a story telling standpoint, The Breakfast Club is perfect. It hits everything it sets out to do, without overtelling, or being something its not. The characters start as completely opposite from each other and the direction of the plot is developing and exploring the interaction between them, which the movie makes no effort to hide. There could have been some crisis, like the principle is in danger and they all have to work together to save him. No, the film has them sit in a room and talk. You may say it is boring, but to me, the exploration of these characters is compelling.

One of the main concern I felt was the inaccurate representation of a true teen, as they were all stereotypes. I think stereotypes are insanely bad scriptwriting... if they are left alone. If the point of the character was to introduce a stereotype (a zone of comfort in Campbell's story) and then break that mold, then it is intentional and should be looked at as such. In the second act, they act less and less like they did from beginning, hell they all sat around and smoked together.

I think that The Breakfast Club takes one of the oldest, easiest, and the most effective stories and by throwing in high school students, Hughes makes is so we can all relate. We have seen this story many times, a bunch of misfits and/or different classes are put in a situation where they are forced to spend time with each other. This time spent starts off difficult but usually ends in mutual respect for each other, as they have found out that they are not really that different, they just deal with problems in different ways. We have seen it in war movies, police enforcement movies, and tons of TV shows including Freaks and Geeks, the Inbetweeners, and most importantly Community... but i'll get to that. In Campbell's 12 steps, each of their character arcs start off in a place of comfort. For most this is the easiest ways to deal with the problems that become the point of the arc. In The Breakfast Club's case they fell into stereotypes to deal with their problems.

The kids problems is a big part of the movie and sure you can say that they are in high school, just write it off, forget about it. I can't take that seriously because the development in high school is the biggest part of figuring out who you want to be and how you want to be towards other people. You can see these kids struggling with that too, with Allison being ignored at home and spending the entire movie both alienating herself while simultaneously begging for attention. These kids need some guidance and they sure won't get it from the principle. They get it by realizing that other kids are having the same situations and it is what you make of it and how you deal with these that makes you a good person or not. Maybe you don't want to watch a movie about individualism and expression in hardship, fine, go watch The Rock lift weights and Schwarzenegger blow shit up but don't say it's a better movie.

The ending of the movie is left ambiguous and that is ok, it is intentional, and some of the best movies have ambiguous endings. We see most of them come together in some of the deepest ways, only for it to be fleeting, or not, we don't know. The endgame, to me, is not the point of the movie. Does Bender and Claire get together? Who cares, we know they have changed in some way and now they do what is best, disband and reflect (Campbell's 12th step). If the movie was about them getting together and will they or won't they is teased throughout the whole movie sure maybe we need an answer, but for all of these kids, the ambiguity is what makes them relatable, because they have a lot more life ahead of them and a lot more decisions to make.

Comparing The Breakfast Club to Community is where I get most of my opinion from. The pilot episode of Community draws heavily on the story that Breakfast Club shares, totally opposite people discovering how they can connect with each other. This works so well in television because it is an extremely flexible format with also has a great deal of emotional weight to it. In Community they all start off as basic stereotypes, but if you look at them now, in the 5th season, they all hold some of that same person they were but they had a chance to grow. The thing I love about Community is that it knows the show is about the characters and it gives them a chance to change. The characters aren't the butt of some science joke that is explained by the person put in the show solely to explain science jokes. This is why Community is better than Breakfast Club, in my opinion. Because it simply has more time. 

In short, Breakfast Club is a good movie. Not because it is so famous by all those teenagers, or that it put some famous things into pop culture, but because it knew what it wanted to do with the characters and performed that in a compelling way. 

Sincerely, 

The people who like The Breakfast Club club

Prince stays in the past

The importance of synergy has never been overlooked. I think it not only helps in the promotion of the material or person, but it also gives the product more units to sell. Prince had not only a movie but an album to double his profits. Sure it cost a lot more but in the long run I think it truly makes a difference.

Movies like Purple Rain hold a special place in history. I do not think that they can fully be appreciated without first realizing the culture where it came from e.g. it's hard to enjoy the Michael Jackson video game not knowing anything about Michael Jackson. This is why Purple Rain was different for me, and probably a lot of other students.

I do not know much about Prince. I know maybe one or two singles and I saw him perform at the Super Bowl. Ok... big deal he changed his name to a symbol, pretty awesome move, his songs are kinda catchy... I guess. Prince, as a person, doesn't resonate with me much. Maybe because his style has become outdated or overused by now and he has become more of an icon rather than a current artist. His impact on the music industry, and the media industry in fact is something that I feel thrives more than his fame.

Synergy and the marketing in Big Picture Hollywood is something that is happening in extreme proportions right now. Just last night I saw The Lego Movie, fantastic movie to say the least, but if you look at that as a current model of synergy, then it is doing way more than releasing a single and album and then making a movie. Legos were a building block toy, they now have video games, comics, mobile games, TV shows, music, and now a movie in Hollywood. They are a brand that has permeated almost every medium that is possible to release media on.

I think a brand like Lego is fairly easy to market though, it is a fairly simple idea. Bands on the other hand may have a hard time finding success in movie, let alone video games and anything else. KISS attempted to do it with a fairly successful comic book run and a less successful TV show. Another one that comes to mind is Rock n Roll High School which featured many artists including The Ramones.

I think that because music and performing music is such an abstract form of artistic expression it limits the accessibility of the movie to the general public. Sure everyone could have loved Prince when he was big, but would they love taking an hour and a half vacation into his mind... probably not. This is where Purple Rain lacks not only in the 80's, but now, because we are so far from the culture of Prince, this movie fails to resonate with me.

P.S. Wanna see a music movie by a band that surprisingly holds up? Tommy by The Who is excellent.