Thursday Movie Picks - Juvenile Delinquents

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the shenanigans by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

I'll admit, I was the farthest thing from a juvenile delinquent when I was a kid. I was such a rule-follower that I would often call out anyone who wasn't following the rules... until I realized that there was a social "rule" that kids just didn't do that to other kids unless you wanted your ass beat. I have always, however, enjoyed watching movies (and TV shows) about kids acting badly. Call it living vicariously through them, I guess. Here are some of my favorites.

Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955) The ultimate in teen angst, although it's easy to see a version of this that goes completely differently, because Jim Stark doesn't WANT to be a juvenile delinquent. But everyone around him sees him as one, so he becomes one. And that's not even the real tragedy of this, because poor Plato gets dragged down along with him. James Dean, Sal Mineo, and Natalie Wood couldn't possibly be better in this (there's a reason this remains Dean's most iconic performance), and Ray's near-operatic register for the thing perfectly captures the feeling of being a teenager, at the point in your life when no one seems to care about you, or even remember what it was like when they lived through it.

Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978) Yes, I know it's silly as all get-out, but Grease IS the word, even after all these years, and you simply will not find more charming juvenile delinquents than the T-Birds and the Pink Ladies. Yes, the ending is... not a great message for young girls, but the whole thing reads as such a fantasy that I don't think anyone watching could take it seriously. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John are unimprovable as star-crossed lovebirds Danny and Sandy, but the true stars are Didi Conn as beauty school drop-out Frenchie and the one and only Stockard Channing as ultimate "bad girl" Rizzo.

Bully (Larry Clark, 2001) And now, a much darker vision of juvenile delinquency. Based on the true story of the murder of Bobby Kent, Bully is unflinching in its depiction of teens doing terrible things, from drugs to sexual assault to emotional abuse to murder. Bobby is terribly abusive to his best friend Marty and girlfriend Ali. And not to mention Marty's girlfriend Lisa, who Bobby raped one time after beating Marty unconscious. So the three abuse victims decide to take matters into their own hands (and the hands of a few others, too) and kill him. As with all of Larry Clark's films, Bully walks the thin line between realism and exploitation, but for me this was a very powerful viewing, with tremendous performances, especially from Nick Stahl and Brad Renfro.

Thursday Movie Picks - Addiction

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

I'm gonna be honest, guys. Tuesday night wrecked me. Wednesday has been a haze; even my office, usually abuzz with activity and chatter, was dead silent. My voice is horse from all the screaming. My eyes are dried out from all the crying. My feet are sore from all the marching in protest. And my spirit is somewhat defeated from not knowing what to do. I don't have it in me to write a whole lot about this right now, so please, forgive me.

Let's just dive right in, shall we? The subject is addiction. The movies are:

Shame (Steve McQueen, 2011) Pretentious, only occasionally involving twaddle about sex addiction. Fassbender and Mulligan are the only reasons to see it and even then, I'm not sure they're worth the slog through every single goddamn well-trodden trope about addiction.

The Lost Weekend (Billy Wilder, 1945) Perhaps a bit over the top, but still powerful look at alcoholism. Ray Milland gives one of the best Best Actor Oscar-winning performances.

Bigger Than Life (Nicholas Ray, 1956) The best of these three, with the best lead performance, this time from James Mason as a schoolteacher who becomes addicted to cortisone. Nick Ray was a genius filmmaker, and this is well within his typical florid wheelhouse, which he turned into a sort of house of mirrors to critique the male-dominated American society of the 50s. Mason is nothing short of brilliant in the lead.

Thursday Movie Picks - Teen Angst

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join us by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and posting something about them.

Teen angst, this week's topic for Thursday Movie Picks, may look different for everyone, but it pretty much feels the same. Feelings so big that you can barely express them to anyone, let alone yourself. And that's the common thread with my picks - they are all deeply, DEEPLY felt in all aspects of their production.

Rebel Without A Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955) Has there been a better-filmed vision of teen angst than this one? James Dean's Jim Stark is what everyone remembers the film for (pretty tough to remember anything else in the movie when it practically opens with him drunkenly blaring "Ride of the Valkyries" and later slaying the line "YOU'RE TEARING ME APART!"), but Sal Mineo's Plato and especially Natalie Wood's Judy are even better visions of what it was like to be a misunderstood teenager in the 1950s, where suburban conformity and outward appearances meant everything. Nicholas Ray's florid direction sets the tone, and the entire cast responds in kind, performing on a near-operatic level that is totally appropriate given the emotions on display. There's a reason this one still resonates with teens now, 60 years(!!) later.

Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson, 1994) Based on the true story of two 1950s New Zealand girls who killed one of their mothers, Heavenly Creatures is a knockout of a film, one that came early in the careers of director Jackson and stars Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey, and that is very nearly the best work any of them have ever done. Like Rebel, this one puts its homosexual subtext only just barely beneath the surface, as it explores the close, nearly obsessive bond that forms between Pauline and Juliet, including the fantasy world they create... and what happens when their parents decide they are becoming too close. It's a stunning vision, with a completely unique tone that Jackson, along with his fantastic cast, perfectly balances on a knife's edge.

Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001) Has there ever been a character that looks more like contemporary teen angst than Jake Gyllenhaal's Donnie? Dark hair combed forward, with a haunted, far-away look in his eyes, this is turn-of-the-millennium teen angst incarnate. Kelly's film incorporates aspects of sci-fi and horror to give teen angst a physical presence in the form of Donnie's visions of an apocalyptic event and a man in a bunny suit. Donnie Darko is a weird, strange, unforgettable trip of a film.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Johnny Guitar

Written (and this week I use the term very loosely) as part of The Film Experience's Hit Me With Your Best Shot series, hosted as always by our benevolent overlord, Nathaniel.

Look, there are many things to love about Nicholas Ray's incredible, impossible western melodrama, Johnny Guitar: Joan Crawford's costumes. Joan Crawford's hair. Mercedes McCambridge's unhinged, nearly Faye Dunaway-as-Joan Crawford-level performance. And anyone would be perfectly justified in talking about the women in Johnny Guitar, because women so rarely get to take center stage in westerns. And anyone would be perfectly justified in talking about genre conventions, or the difference in masculine/feminine aesthetics/gender roles and how the film upholds and/or subverts them. It's a brilliant, incredibly entertaining to watch film.

But, as much as I love Johnny Guitar and Nicholas Ray, and as much as I love actresses, and as much as I love Crawford and ADORE McCambridge's performance here, I could give two shits about them right now, because Sterling Hayden.

STERLING

FUCKING

HAYDEN

He's such a fucking MAN and I just want him to look at me with those eyes and sing to me with that guitar (I do not care one bit if he can't really play) and touch me with those hands. He's one of my all-time biggest actor crushes and I do not care that the whole point of Hit Me With Your Best Shot is supposed to be about looking at a film and its cinematography and how one works in service of the other and how film is an incredible art form because...

 

Sterling Hayden.

But I suppose I do have something to say, because my pick for Best Shot I really do feel encapsulates a lot about this crazy film.

BEST SHOT

It just makes me laugh. Sterling Hayden, epitome of masculinity, holding a dainty, PERFECTLY CLEAN, bright blue & white teacup. If that isn't the whole of Johnny Guitar in one image, then I don't know what is.

...except that OH WAIT, maybe I do, because this film also contains this classic piece of WTF:

Best Shot Runner-Up

No, seriously. WHAT. THE. FUCK.

If you haven't seen Johnny Guitar, I don't blame you. The film has been notoriously difficult to find on DVD, and even then mostly in not-very-good prints. But it is out on Blu-Ray now, as well as on iTunes and Amazon Instant apparently, so now you have no excuse. Do yourself a favor and watch it. It is "out there" in a crazy, melodramatic, completely unique way.