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.

The Internet Anxiety

War Games has never been one of my favorites, hell I kind of down right dislike it. The dialogue is forced, every character is two dimensional, and events happen simply because the plot demanded it. But other than that, I am glad it is in this class because it reflects the social anxiety of the 80's concerning the internet. This is increasingly important, because the power and the mystique of the internet is still around today.

The article explains that when War Games was released it created a flurry of news articles and reports on if it could actually happen. So much so that it forced Congress to impose legislative acts regarding the internet. NORAD even had to come out and make a statement informing the public that a system of checks and balances are in place that present a "War Games Scenario."

To a filmmaker, this is the highest praise, starting a discussion about the themes in your movie that actually effect real world issues. The fact that a simple movie about government hacking can cause such a riot shows the publics anxiety about this unknown internet at the time. The internet was fairly new, for the public at least, and we did not know about it's true power. War Games showed the tip of the iceberg of what hackers really can do.

The older general in the movie represented the older generation. He was not embracing of the computer's power and wanted everything to be done the old fashioned way, with human involvement making the decisions, which is how it is always done at NORAD. Lightman and the tech guy at NORAD represented the newer generation. The tech guy showed that computers can take care of human error, and to some extent they can but the internet was in such a premature state that it would be irresponsible to base a system around that. Lightman showed the power of the internet in the hands of the teenager who knows exactly what they wanted to do.

The internet was a huge social anxiety, and I think it still is. The article describes it as a "hacker mystique" and I think that that is a completely accurate term. The fact that hackers have access to bank accounts, plane tickets, school grades, and government database, they can control the world. And when you control all of those, you do not want to be their enemy. The situation in War Games may not be completely possible with how NORAD is set up but it is still probable. And even then, hackers can find many other ways to control the outcome of something.

Today we still have that hacker mystique about us. 4chan with the click of a mouse can take down massive credit card company sites or find the address of any single person in the world. Get on their bad side and you will be in a world of hurt. Because of this, pushes have been trying to be made to get rid of the so called net neutrality, the fact that every piece of information on the internet should be treated the same and therefore the users should not be charged or discriminated based on what content they access. This of course flies in the face of 4chan and they backers of this act have been put on blast, so to speak, on the internet. I'm not sure how much the public fears the internet today, seeing as how it is ingrained into almost every aspect of our lives. I think the people that back acts like SOPA and similar ones are just like the General and fear net neutrality or they are using it as levereage to grab a profit with internet providers.

I am a strong supporter of net neutrality and I think that all information should be free. I understand that many social anxieties come from this debate and that social anxieties have been around since the birth of the internet, and I think they will always be here.

Considering the future: Blade Runner and Her.

The future has always been interpreted in vastly different ways, as it should. Everyone's idea of the future should be different, this is what lets everyone's ideas combine to create the future that we will one day inhabit. From Blade Runner to Back to the Future 2, the future can take radically different forms depending on one person's vision. The reading suggested that the future that Blade Runner took place in is something that we should strive for but I have to disagree, saying that the future from the new movie Her is the one we should be striving for.

In Blade Runner, future LA is a mix between Hong Kong, present day LA, and present day NYC. The mixture of all races, classes, and social statures is very prominent and is shown in the opening street scene. The reading brings up a good quote on how this is like present day LA with the "artificially controlled political chaos." Although I feel that most city planning is centered around this idea, it is mostly shown in Blade Runner how Harrison Ford is pushed and squeezes into a small booth to eat a dinner off the street. The city in Blade Runner feels like NYC because it is built upward. The opening show shows the vastness of the city, much like present day LA, but instead of it being fairly flat, the buildings are much much taller, spitting fire into the sky. The Asian influence is very present also with the all of the billboards and Asian residents.

The reading commends this future for it's mixing of cultures and shopping mall streets, but I don't necessarily think this is a comfortable life. I for one would not want to live there. Maybe it was all the rain, but the city looked very dark, depressed, and polluted by all the factories. I think a much more comfortable, and more realistic future, is the one presented in the new movie Her.

Her takes place in near future LA and draws influence from both present day LA and Shanghai. Future LA is not presented in a high tech way with floating cars, gadgets that solve everything, and a radically different city design. Her just simply shows a realistic future with just some minor differences. The city is more spread out. Unlike Blade Runner, there are an abundance of parks and flat areas that the main characters go to. that doesn't mean that there aren't any huge buildings. Many buildings from Shanghai were added into the city's skyline. The air looked clean also and everything had a slick look but not in a super futuristic way, it still felt comfortable.

I think that with the future, we also bring about new technology and new ideas to fix the problems were are faced with. The future may look bleak now, with problems that seem like there is no solution to but I have hope for the future and my hope is that we will all realize what has to be done. I don't think anyone would pick to live in Blade Runner LA over Her LA and I think that it is this that will save the future.

Blade Runner made choices about the future to further the story and I do not doubt the instances of these at all. A Blade Runner future could happen, there is no doubting that. But idealizing it like the reading does, picking out the small good that comes out of a future that is mostly destructive is counterintuitive to wishing for a future that includes the best of both movies. I have hope for the near future, I just hope it isn't filled with weird androids that look a little like David Bowie... hmm or do I.

AND ON THE EIGHTH DAY GOD CREATED REESES PIECES

The world is filled with stories. Everything we consume is a basic story. From the history class we attend, to the television we watch when we get home. And there is no doubt that stories need to have structure. A beginning and an end, inciting events, etc. Even seemingly plotless movies like Harmony Korine's Trash Humpers still retains at least some basic structure. By realizing how stories are told and why some stories are more popular than others, parallels can be drawn. Joseph Campbell picked up on this and wrote The Hero's Journey, and showed everyone that all stories are more or less the same.

Now, by saying that they are the same I am not saying that they are the same movie over and over again, although that happens from time to time cough Transformers cough. These are basic structure models that movies, and all stories are woven with and a good film takes this structure and makes something unique. There are some exceptions though, because there are good movies that do not follow this structure, some that come to mind are the Mobius Strip-esque movies that Charlie Kaufman writes. Now that we understand that most stories may be similar, we get into E.T. and the Christ Story.

Now Frank Tomasulo makes some good points in this article The Gospel according to Speilberg in E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial and I don't always disagree with him. Although I do find that some of his points are a bit of a stretch when saying that E.T. is expressly unique in mirroring the Christ story. Yes, it is a story of separation, trials of initiation, and return, but so is Superman and Harry Potter. The Christ story follows the same structure as The Hero's Journey and by comparing certain story elements that match up seems moot because they both follow the same structure.

I think it is a stretch when Tomasulo calls E.T.'s death a "high-tech crucifixion. Come on, what does that even mean?! In reality it was never fully shown what was killing E.T. but it was implied that it was because our earth could not sustain his life, plus all he ate was candy and that can't be good for you. Again, Tomasulo says there is even an "empty tomb" scene in both narratives. This is just a basic reveal and is not specific to the Christ story. Just because something was there and when someone looked it wasn't there does not mean that their intention was to reference the empty tomb in the Christ story.

Although E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial does hit some of the same plot points as the Christ story, their journey is in fact very different. Jesus was very much a leader in his life and people who followed him blindly did what he said. In E.T., if Elliot was not there E.T. surely would have died and even then he was only seen by few as "godly."

I'm not refuting the fact that there are many parallels between the two narratives. The white clothed, glowing heart image of E.T. is hard to argue. I think that Tomasulo argument was weak because E.T. is not specific enough to the Christ story and he was trying to find parallels that were not there between the two narratives to support his argument. It would have been much more cohesive to read an article about how they both mirrored Joseph Campbell's, The Hero's Journey and showed how they are both similar to that. 

Also, if we are going to worship an alien... it might was well be ALF.