breakfast club Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It wasn't that long ago that documentaries carried the stigma of being educational first and entertaining second. As with foreign-language fare, an audience for them lingered on the fringe, and an industry was willing to offer them their very own awards, but they really weren't terribly high-profile box-office prospects... that is, until the '04-'05 summer successes of Fahrenheit 9/11 and March of the Penguins made it seem perfectly okay for audiences to see, and for studios to market, a film without so much as one measly explosion in it.

But then along comes American Teen: a film openly marketed as - and arugably assembled to be - anything but a documentary that finds itself underperforming in its current limited runs (it goes wide this Friday). Last May, I witnessed a group of young women leaving whatever indie they caught at Washington D.C's Landmark E Street Cinema as they approached the film's poster and wondered aloud if someone was remaking The Breakfast Club, with a tone that suggested neither horror nor concern, nor any great interest in the big, fat what-if scenario placed before them.

What I wonder now is, at what point did we begin to craft documentary filmmaking specifically to the masses, and then what happens when the masses simply don't show?

Over on Movie City News, LexG had a thought-provoking post under BYOB last Friday on which of the highly buzzed films of this excellent movie year will actually be remembered down the road. LexG posits that the best test of whether a film will stand the test of time among the film crowd is "whether it's directed by a world-class, etched-in-stone AUTEUR." Much interesting debate ensues in the comments: 1983 -- which do you remember more fondly? The Dresser or Vacation? Which is more revered, Fight Club or Green Mile? LexG argues that There Will Be Blood, Eastern Promises and Sweeney Todd are more likely to be remembered down the road than, say, Michael Clayton.

The discussion that follows is pretty interesting. Which are regarded to be the "best" years for movies (1939, 1975, 1983, 1997?) and which are the worst (the '80s in general?) Of course, it partly depends on what question you're really asking -- are the years and decades being evaluated by which films critics still regard as the best, or the ones they're most likely to pop into their DVD player again now?

I don't, as a general rule, rewatch movies a whole lot. Trying to stay on top of the current fare requires watching a lot of films as it is, especially staying on top of the indies, docs, and obscure foreigns; I just don't have time to rewatch films much. When I look back the movies that really made an impression at defining points of my own life, the ones that stand out are generally there for reasons of emotional attachment that may have nothing to do with how I would review the films critically.

ET, first and foremost, followed by Star Wars, Alien, The Goonies, Indiana Jones, Grease, Ghostbusters, Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Dr. Strangelove, Terms of Endearment, Good Will Hunting -- these are some of the movies that I saw in theaters when they first came out to which I have a strong enough emotional attachment that I'll re-watch them. And course there's a plethora of older films that I had the pleasure of discovering for myself at various key points in my life, all of which, to one degree or another, influenced me growing into a film dork person who loves movies.

Which year (or decade) do you think had the best movies? And what are some of your personal faves?

Remember when Anthony Michael Hall was the adorably dorky, scrawny little kid who wanted Samantha's panties? And the guy who wanted to kill himself with a flare gun because he failed shop? Well, the Anthony Michael Hall of the 21st century would kick that loser's ass! As we saw for the first time when he bullied poor Johnny Depp in Edward Scissorhands, Hall is now a freakishly large creature who also happens to star in USA's The Dead Zone, a show that's made him a star (at least among people who watch USA) once again.

The call of the silver screen remains strong, however, and Hall has started telling anyone who will listen about Life and Death in Las Vegas, a movie he wrote and is currently casting, with the goal of getting it in front of the camera by the end of the year. Apart from the fact that Hall is apparently trying to get Paris Hilton to play a role, the movie actually sounds sort of funny -- it's about "a bunch of people chasing an inheritance that they're all screwed out of by Wayne Newton." I mean, anything with Wayne Newton is comedy gold. Right?