The charms and delights of Pretty in Pink

I absolutely and sincerely love John Hughes' Pretty in Pink. It does have some strikes against it, I freely admit - it's dated at this point (and it feels like it), the dialogue is often clunky, the whole "rich boy with girl from the wrong side of the tracks" conceit is both cliche and often mishandled, it has some deeply cheesy moments, and the prom dress Molly Ringwald's Andie fashions for herself is quite possibly the most heinous garment ever committed to film. Seriously:



It's so terrible. I have seen this movie quite a few times, and I honestly can't figure out how she even got the damned thing on. I think the filmmakers must have had to sew poor Molly Ringwald into it. It's choker-tight around her neck and sack-like everywhere else. This thing hurts my feelings, it's so ugly.

Even with all that, though, this movie is truly affecting and wonderful. Part of it is because John Hughes is just a damned genius when it comes to teen films - he's so good at getting the right ambience, at mining tender and poignant moments out of hackneyed situations and pulling terrific performances out of his young actors. This is particularly true for James Spader, who I adore - only three years after Pretty in Pink, he would star in the classic indie film sex, lies and videotape - who is a brilliant, sleazy presence, swanning around the school in sock-free loafers and linen leisure suits. It's obvious that he's a star in the making. Molly Ringwald is excellent as always, with an occasionally petulant good-girl vulnerability that makes her a thrill to watch. Jon Cryer is a joy to watch as the quirky, lovelorn Duckie, who sets the goddamn screen on fire when he does a dance to - of all the songs - Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness." (Seriously.) Even Andrew McCarthy, who grew on me upon repeat viewings, is easy to dismiss as a bland pretty boy (his character's name is Blane, which Duckie hilariously dismisses as a "household appliance), but there's something quietly wonderful about him, too. His indecisive, weak-willed character is perfectly suited to him (something of a backhanded compliment, I know), and he has this meek, slightly pained smile that he affects, and it's stunningly effective. He isn't the most dynamic performer, and it's probable that he just lucked into the role, but I actually think he's kind of perfect in it.

As with so many great teen films, it has a lot of style, from the stellar new wave soundtrack to the thrifty, of-the-moment clothing. I know I came down hard on that prom dress, but I love Duckie's prom outfit almost as much as I loathe that dress: a blue smoking jacket, black pants, a bolo tie, and white loafers. I would have loved to have had a prom date who was outfitted in such a way. Duckie, you did prom right. His style is pretty killer in the whole movie, actually - flamboyant and offbeat but also surprisingly current. He pretty much looks like a modern hipster, in a lot of ways.



It's Duckie, and his lovelorn aching for Andie, that makes the film. I may have mentioned this before on this blog (I certainly intended to, at any rate), but I love the decision not to have them end up together. I love that the fact that he wants her the most, and deserves her, doesn't mean she'll love him back - or even that they'll be right for each other. A lesser film would have had him "earn" her, but that isn't the point. That isn't how these decisions are made. It makes the conclusion infinitely more effective, having him let go of that particular dream in favor of new ones. R.I.P. John Hughes, you brilliant devil.

Characters: a devolutionary chain.

Okay, so I'm taking a medical leave this semester to try to figure out this body shit. As you might expect, this has led to me having WAY TOO MUCH free time on my hands (and I've only been home again for a few days...) It'll get better, I think - there will be some temping jobs in my future, and my mom is suggesting that I go to bartending school (hooray for marketable skills!) but in the meantime, I'm left to my own devices and coming up with shit like this.

So it has come to my attention recently that pretty much all of my favorite pop culture characters are basically THE SAME PERSON. Charismatic, witty, highly sexualized, and self-absorbed, with terrible pasts, intelligence, and a healthy level of cynicism, and a somewhat sociopathic view of the world. No, seriously, it'll become more and more clear. Let's start with a perennial favorite:


Dr. Gregory House

I love this show a lot, even though it's kind of devolved into mostly shittiness for the last couple of seasons. It basically kind of sucks now, but as long as House himself is there, doing his thing, I will keep watching. I love him so much. He is so funny and brilliant and complex and dynamic and Hugh Laurie plays him so goddamned brilliantly. I have had numerous dreams in which House and I are best friends. (I actually think he and I would get along quite well, as weird as that sounds.)

Okay, so House? Change his occupation from a doctor to an advertising executive, make him about 20 years younger, and make him gay, and we have...


Brian Kinney

Much like House, Queer as Folk's Brian has a strange sort of mythology surrounding him, with an appeal that can only really be understood by a big fan of the show who watches continuously. Deeply cynical and ridiculously selfish, Brian nonetheless has frighteningly keen observational skills (much like House) and an incredibly warm heart that he hides unbelievably well. He also utterly makes the show. I mean, yeah, the smut is fun, but without the character of Brian pretty much all of the emotional and dramatic plots would fall flat. He is just so fucking beautiful. I can't watch the show that much anymore, because it makes me unbelievably depressed, but Brian makes it worth it, as does Gale Harold's acting. In real life, Gale is both very straight and very shy, mild-mannered, and unassuming. Holy. Fuck.

Okay, so take Brian, make him straight again (sorry Bri!), make him a teenager, plop him down in the 80's, and you have...


John Bender

Yes. Evie and I actually discovered this one last summer. I've been in love with Bender for God-knows-how-long, since it's been years and years since I first saw the Breakfast Club, and upon the first viewing I fell hard. There's just nothing like a wrong side of the tracks bad boy with a fucking razor-sharp wit and a hardon for Molly Ringwald. I mean, can you blame me? I'm probably doomed to fall for a hilarious sociopath.

Now, take Bender, make him a girl, make him prettier (because as fuckable as he is, I think we can all agree that Judd Nelson would make a fuggin' fugly girl), put her in modern times and give her a big dose of compassion. What results?


Veronica Mars

Yeah, it all comes back around to Veronica. It's a devolutionary chain, yo! They are all the same.damn.people. And I'm out.

Y'know when you have some caffeine to prepare yourself to work/give yourself more energy, and instead of making you more awake and focused, you just get sort of scatterbrained and sleepily jittery?

Yeah. That's what's happening with me right now. I had some chai to work on this paper (and ugh, I'm tired because the goddamned cats were in and out of my room all night, wanting to CUDDLE and PLAY!) and instead of it increasing my focus, it's just made me kind of jittery and nervous. Besides I'm freaking out a little about going back to school, mostly for various emotional reasons, and this is seriously not helping. At all.

I don't know. I mean, on a certain level I'm glad that I had work to do over this break since it kept my brain from atrophying in absence of school, and all (and obviously I'm grateful that I got the extensions, because there was no way in hell I would have been able to get it done with all the seizures I was having in the last few weeks of the semester), but ugh, it really does suck to have work to do when on winter break like this. I'm freaked, is what I'm saying. I never feel totally comfortable at school, and I'm so much lonelier and sicker there - like, always.

I do always do better spring semester than the fall one, though, because I'm going towards more light and warmth and longer days, as opposed to fall semester, when I'm going towards darker and darker and colder and colder and it's like some kind of hellish descent. Fall semester really fucking sucks. All the time.

Also? Grateful for these paper topics. It's been an American Studies-heavy semester (next semester is going to be an English-heavy one, and I anticipate it being way harder), so in the past couple of weeks I've written on Trainspotting, Citizen Kane, His Girl Friday, Twin Peaks, and now Mad Men. (The Twin Peaks research also got me a chance to correspond with Ms. Sherilyn Fenn, a.k.a. Twin Peaks' Audrey Horne - a fangirl's dream, if ever there was one. She was a peach.) Not that there aren't difficulties associated with this shit, because trust me, there are, but it's much easier when you're studying something you really find to be a lot of fun.

All this popular culture studies stuff has really given me a new appreciation for aesthetics. I've been following lots of variously aesthetic-focused blogs and I really do think it's just as valid as the study of anything else - I don't see why substance and style have to be pried apart and differentiated (they certainly aren't in film), or why styles and aesthetic can't be every bit as thought-provoking as a "higher" form of culture. And I don't think one has to be "trained" in this stuff to appreciate it - you just have to have a good eye for what you find beautiful and visually arresting, and cultivate and seek out what you like and find compelling. Sure, having studied art or film or fashion helps, but I don't think it's a requirement if you have a natural compulsion towards it.

I caught Vertigo on TV the other night after the Golden Globes (which were really good this year! Good show, good show), and it's still one of my favorites. Just hits all the right notes - dramatic and romantic and tragic and deeply creepy. Kim Novak gives the shivers - good AND bad ones! (Jimmy Stewart just gives me the bad ones.) She's exquisite. My favorite scenes are the early ones, seeing her dreamlike, haunted wanderings around San Francisco, her obsession with the portrait (that portrait still gives me major fucking creeps), her almost out-of-body hurling herself into the San Francisco bay. The sensuality, the paranoia, the obsession - it's all some of my favorite stuff.

And who could forget that fucking hair swirl?

More shivers. I read this terrifically creepy short story by Joyce Carol Oates called "Fat Man My Love" about Hitchcock from the perspective of one of his blondes. She's great when she's not completely grossing me out, which can definitely happen. I can kind of overdose on her stories a little bit and end up a bit woozy.

Enough morbidity! Let's see some aesthetic perfection! ANTM again, here. From the "short cycle," Ms. Rae Weisz:

Fucking perfect.

Also, my absolute all-time favorite photo from that show: Cycle 11's Lauren Brie:


I feel a little better now. And now, to the paper-writing!

New obsessions

So I was going to do "new obsessions and new health crap" in here, but the "health crap" is a story for another day. Suffice it to say that a close friend may have temporal lobe epilepsy, and if she has it, the likelihood of my ALSO having it is exceedingly high, since we basically have the same exact symptoms (except that I actually have the full-out seizures.) It's weird that I am hoping and hoping to have epilepsy, and even weirder that I am hoping that my friend has it, but to have a diagnosis and an explanation...to have the validation in the face of those fucking doctors who called them "pseudo-seizures" when I would lose most of my vision, my ability to speak, my ability to hold a pen, my ability to swallow, sometimes my ability to fucking breathe, while in full-body convulsions on the floor. (What exactly about that is "pseudo"?) And for those people in high school who said I was faking them, to the nurse who wanted me to see psychiatrists and who would try to peel me off the floor while I was convulsing and wouldn't let me lie down, because she apparently thought that her powers of convincing me would somehow stave off my neurological symptoms...

Okay, so that was a rant. *Cough* Didn't mean for that to go on for so long. Whatever. I have a lot more about those seizures on my mind, a lot of it kind of...poetic and spiritual stuff. Which I may put in here at some point. I don't know.

Anyway, new obsessions. So, my mom changed the Netflix address to my Smith mail, since she never uses it when I'm not home (argh!). Netflix has started recommending "TV sitcoms" to me (vomit) due to my interest in the Office, 30 Rock, Arrested Development, Entourage, Scrubs, etc, etc. Most of the suggested sitcoms I roll my eyes at, but I saw How I Met Your Mother in there, a show that has been vigorously recommended to me, and I said, "eh, why the hell not." And I ordered it. After all, how can you not love this man:



How I ask you? HOW? (This picture was actually my desktop for a couple of months, before it was replaced with the History Boys.) I didn't know that the show also stars Jason Segel, whom I also love.

Anyway, the point is, it's funny. Really, really, really funny. Like, where I have to pause the DVD so that I can sit there and laugh. And let me tell you, I was in serious need of that this week.

In addition to these illustrious television sitcoms, I've also been watching classics (see my rash of Hitchcock viewing a few posts down.) I watched A Streetcar Named Desire the other night, which I really enjoyed (I do love the hell out of Vivien Leigh), and tonight I watched East of Eden, which made me weep like a baby. I was a little annoyed by the happy ending - it seemed a bit of a letdown to me after all the dramatic conflict, just to have it be resolved in the last three minutes, but that's neither here nor there. What is both here AND there is that James Dean? So fucking great in it. And so fucking heartbreaking. I know what people made all the fuss about now. Not just because he's so damn beautiful, although there is no doubt that he was:


But he broke my heart in that movie. And I know, I know, tortured bad boys are kind of my kryptonite (in all areas of my life, unfortunately...), but I dare you to watch that and not see it pull at your heart. Maybe it has something to do with my terrible relationship with my own father, or maybe it's because I've just seen too many unhappy boys turn into broken young men, but it affected me more than any film has in a long time.

Well, I went to see Cuentos de Eva Luna with Lisa (and some HopKids) last night. It was really great - reminded me of how much I love Isabel Allende. I've read Eva Luna, but not the sequel, Stories of Eva Luna, on which the play is based (one of very few Isabel Allende books I actually haven't read - I'm pretty sure I've read all her novels at this point.) Back in high school, and when I was entering college, one of the big things that motivated me to continue taking Spanish to a higher and higher level was so that I could read her books in the original Spanish. Of course, I've totally abandoned that...I haven't taken Spanish since my junior year of high school and therefore have lost almost all of it, but maybe I'll take it up again someday.

It was odd to me to see a play after not actually having been involved with one in so long - because I could imagine the work that went into it, imagine the endless rehearsals and the set designing and the lighting fuckups and the constant line-forgetting, because I've done it before, and at the same time be unable to see it, since I was only seeing the finished product. It felt kind of strange.

I do miss acting occasionally. It was never a passion of mine or anything, but I did really like it in spite of my horrible stage fright which I never got over, no matter how many times I was up in front of an audience. I think I was good at it, at least reasonably. People always told me they could never see my nerves when I was onstage, even though on the inside I always felt like vomiting all over my shoes.

By far and away the best role I ever had (and the most fun I ever had doing a play, which is even more important for my purposes) was as Gwendolen in the Importance of Being Earnest junior year. Part of it was the role and the play itself, which was so funny and so fantastic, but also the fact that Evie was Cecily and we had such a ridiculous amount of fun doing it together. The Gwendolen-Cecily dynamic is fairly accurate for the two of us, too (not that we ever hated each other, but our general characters.) So naturally that made it even more fun.

So in the past 24 hours I've watched 3 Hitchcock movies. Who's surprised? I'm not surprised. I do tend to get obsessive about these things. I was taking advantage of my Netflix's "instant queue" feature, and so I watched Psycho last night (not the best one to choose to watch late in the day, let me tell you), Vertigo earlier this afternoon, and Dial M for Murder later this afternoon. Psycho I found terrifying, Dial M for Murder was entertaining (and, my God, I could watch a whole film of close-ups of Grace Kelly's face - she is absolutely astounding), but Vertigo was the one that really got to me, especially after reading further reviews. The layers of manipulation, of creation and destruction and insanity, was so intense and so affecting. I also thought it interesting (and strange) to read that people had apparently at first criticized Kim Novak's acting as poor and overly stiff, because I thought she was absolutely wonderful. It was certainly one hell of a role, but I thought she was great. (Then again, what do I know? This was certainly my reaction to it, though.)

Psycho definitely fucked with my mind as well, although in a different way. It was so terrifying because so much of what happens in that movie is so simple and so plausible. The characters are ordinary people who get in complicated situations, and one man who, although he is undoubtedly completely criminally insane, is...normal in a way, too. Even after I knew he was a killer I found myself watching with a strange sense of sympathy, because of the obvious way that Hitchcock turned him into the protagonist. Whether you hate him or not, you are inside his head in some way and waiting to see what happens to him. (Also, if by some chance there are film buffs reading this, I apologize. These are the observations of a novice!)

What I really, really want to see is his adaptation of Rebecca. I absolutely love the book, and I'm sure his adaptation is fantastic. However, for some bizarre reason, it is not available on Netflix. What the hell, Netflix? WHY YOU GOTTA LET ME DOWN LIKE THAT? They might have it at the video rental place here, though. They have the craziest things there, so I'm told.

Parting thoughts: a couple of weeks ago, Lisa and I were randomly combing Northampton, going to record stores, used clothing places, and so forth - the usual haunts - and we went to this antique store which had a lot of things I really loved (and I generally strongly dislike antique stores, so that's saying a hell of a lot.) One of the things I came across was an illustrated children's book by Edward Gorey, which I now really wished I'd picked up, especially as it was only 1.25 or somewhere around there. Google image offers the following illustration, among many others:

Maybe I'm showing my 19 years of age and my wannabe gothiness a little too much, but I really, really enjoy his artwork and aesthetic. Dark and childlike and playful. I really wish I'd picked up that book now.