Stranded at the Drive-In

by Garry Mulholland

  And what about this whole Faction thing that has become increasingly popular and accepted? When did it become OK to fictionalise the lives of people when they are still alive? Is this a good or bad thing? Why don’t these people sue? Is it because being portrayed for all eternity as an utter tosspot is still better than being ignored? When asked about the film by Oprah Winfrey, the real Zuckerberg said, ‘This is my life. So I know it’s not so dramatic.’ But once they make a Hollywood blockbuster about you, is it really your life any more? Complete strangers believe they know you and your darkest secrets. Is that the final irony, that the big winners of today get to own everything – except themselves?

  All of these questions and more will almost certainly be answered by future cinematic images of teens. Now The Social Network has been a success, one expects that movie execs are trawling the sewers of pulp fiction and reality TV, looking for true teens to fictionalise. Some of them will be Zuckerbergs. Others will, I suspect, be real-life versions of Claireece Precious Jones (see Precious, here), parading their most degrading dirty linen in front of us in order to keep hope alive and make themselves immortal. The thing that will affect the teen movie most in the future will be the abolition of privacy, something that the protagonists of The Social Network have done much to establish. After all these visions, in the films in this book, of incest and paedophilia, parental violence and rampant bullying, extreme violence and sexual nihilism . . . what stories will film need to tell to satiate our jaded palates? Can’t be sure. But I think the strange success of The Social Network may offer clues. More talking than sex or violence. Wildly fictionalised accounts of recent events. People you can’t love, but you do recognise. A comforting message hiding behind a cool disregard for hugging and learning. And a pale young man, sitting at a computer, hitting the refresh button, waiting for a message that never comes, isolated by a method of communication that is killing human interaction and that he invented himself. ‘I can’t connect,’ Zuckerberg says, at the beginning of his journey to riches. The kids used to go to the drive-in and watch themselves with others. Now they watch themselves at home, in the dark, alone. We’ve come a long way in 57 years. From the Atomic Age to atomised. But we’ve still washed up in the same place. Stranded.

  MOVIES THAT DIDN’T MAKE IT

  So . . . you’ve invested in this here weighty tome. And cheers, by the way. But you’ve done what most people do in these situations and rifled through the index to find your favourite teen movie . . . and it isn’t there. Because you love this film so much, you can only imagine that I’ve failed to do my research and completely forgotten it, and you’re now preparing that stiff letter to Orion evoking the Trades Descriptions Act. Let me save you the bother. I did see your favourite teen movie. I don’t like it. Or, at least, I don’t like it enough to put it in my Top 100 list. Hence this here epilogue, where I briefly explain my reasons for omitting what I suspect are the best known and loved teen movies that didn’t make the cut.

  I figured I’d kick off with the movie which, if conversations I’ve had about the book over the last 18 months are anything to go by, is the absence which will upset most readers of an ’80s vintage. Alan Parker’s Fame (1980) spawned hit records, a wildly popular spin-off TV series and a craze for leg warmers. But, really, don’t be taken in by your nostalgia. Its an awful, awful movie, packed with scenery-chewing bad acting, gags that aren’t funny, rubbish songs, terrible dancing and, in Leroy, the least convincing Angry Black Boy From The Projects in cinematic history. Plus its stage school setting is the beginning of the whole thing about masses of young people believing that they are entitled to be famous just ’cos they really, really want it. Which they’re not. So I hate it. While we’re on the subject of the erratic Parker, his Birdy (1984) has enough adolescent flashback in it to count as a teen movie, but it’s also a laughable hippy throwback whereby Matthew Modine escapes his Vietnam experiences by imagining he’s a bird, which involves him crouching a lot and occasionally making a bird noise, while Nicholas Cage keeps wailing ‘Birdeee!!!’ at him through broken teeth. Why didn’t they just call a Viet vet? Viet vet! No? Tough crowd.

  The ’80s is the decade most associated with the American teen movie. But the deluge of films made, blended with Reagan-era politics, ensured there were plenty of mediocrities and utter dogs. Even The Teen Master John Hughes was not unaffected. Sixteen Candles (1984) nearly got in because it is Hughes’s first directorial stab at the high school movie and stars the sainted Molly Ringwald (see The Breakfast Club, here, Pretty In Pink, here), but later and better Hughes movies render it redundant. Some Kind Of Wonderful (1987) is just a lame-ass gender-switch Pretty In Pink. And Weird Science (1985), in which two high school losers make a ‘perfect’ woman with, like, weird science, is Hughes’s sterling attempt to win the Most Sexist Feminist Backlash Teen Movie Of The Reagan Era award, but isn’t vile enough to match up to Porky’s (1982), Revenge Of The Nerds (1984) or bizarre pre-Reagan Israeli entry Lemon Popsicle (1978).

  Still, in the gratuitous offence stakes, even that set of bitch-baiting bottom-feeders have to genuflect in the general direction of the extraordinary Soul Man (1986), in which a blacked-up C. Thomas Howell (see The Outsiders, here) takes pills to make himself African-American so he can get a scholarship to Harvard. I know. I barely know where to start, but I’ll finish by pointing out that Leslie Nielsen, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and – Gawd help us – James Earl Jones were somehow dragged into this black and white minstrel revival attempt. Rumours of a remake with Justin Bieber and Morgan Freeman were unconfirmed at press time.

  Sticking with the ’80s, Cameron Crowe’s two stabs at high school movies, Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982, written by Crowe, directed by Amy Heckerling) and Say Anything (1989) are star-studded and often cited as ‘intelligent’ and ‘adult’ takes on the teen movie genre. But, like all Crowe movies, they are actually bland exercises in self-regarding middlebrow cool. Pump Up The Volume (1990) is in a similar vein, undercutting a great performance by Christian Slater (see Heathers, here) as a rebel pirate DJ with its ludicrous fight-the-power plot.

  The enduring appeal of the I Was A Teenage Werewolf (see here) idea sired a couple of hugely popular ’80s remixes. The Lost Boys (1987) is stylish and influential but ultimately soulless, while Teen Wolf (1985) is an embarrassment. Mystifyingly, the latter remained cultish enough to justify a current TV series revival.

  At least Teen Wolf wasn’t meant to be scary. But I remain consistently baffled by the continuing success of Sean S. Cunningham’s teen slasher megahit Friday The 13th (1980). A slew of sequels, Jason merchandise and spin-offs, an awful recent remake, and still the cheap and nasty original is so clunky and badly shot that not even a young Kevin Bacon (see Footloose, here) can save it. Similarly, the presence of Scream Queen Jamie Lee Curtis (see Halloween, here) isn’t enough to make 1980 Canadian teen horrors Terror Train and Prom Night any less predictable than their titles suggest. Far closer to sneaking in, slasher-wise, was I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), but its ingeniously daft crime-and-punishment plotting just doesn’t have the savage wit of even the worst of the Final Destination (see here) movies.

  I Know What’s star Freddie Prinze Jr – probably better known these days as Mr Sarah Michelle Gellar – popped up again in She’s All That (1999), an attempt to give George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion (aka My Fair Lady) a high school makeover. He needn’t have bothered. The same year’s 10 Things I Hate About You, which tried the same trick on Shakespeare’s The Taming Of The Shrew, has a few choice moments due to a strong cast, including Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (see Mysterious Skin, here), but just isn’t a tale designed to survive these post-feminist times. But the worst of the teened-up literary classics comes courtesy of one of those serious and respected American art directors. My Own Private Idaho (1991) sees Gus Van Sant (see Elephant, here) update Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays by way of a book about gay hustlers, a B.52’s song, River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves and make a godaw
ful mess that somehow bestowed cool upon everybody involved. The early ’90s was just trying so hard not to be the ’80s that any old pretentious cack seemed preferable to Police Academy 5.

  While we’re on the subject of Keanu, I, like, totally get how influential Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) and Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) are. But the only actual funny thing is when they grin moronically and play air guitar and a guitar screeches, and I don’t think you can really base two movies on one gag. Wayne’s World (1992) and its sequel are much, much funnier, but Wayne and Garth aren’t teens. It’s the same joke as Harold And Kumar Get The Munchies (2004); that is, the main characters are much too old to be behaving like this.

  From the other side of that spectrum, Confessions Of A Teenage Drama Queen (2004) and The Karate Kid (1984) are both cute enough enterprises. But, despite featuring teen protagonists, they are both clearly aimed at pre-teen children.

  There are two good reasons why Dead Poet’s Society (1989) isn’t here. One is Robin. The other is Williams. If I were commissioned to write books on The Top 100 Movies About Enchanted Board Games, The Top 100 Movies About Rebellious DJs in Vietnam Army Bases and The Top 100 Happy Days Spin-Offs Involving An Alien, I would still find a way to not include Robin Williams. O Captain, my Captain, my big hairy arse.

  Dead Poet’s Society is part of a tradition of movies about inspiring teachers who triumph against the overwhelming odds of not being Sidney Poitier (see To Sir, With Love, here). The most infamously awful was Dangerous Minds (1995) which reckoned we’d buy ethnic savages being tamed by Michele Pfeiffer, but did give the world ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ by Coolio so fair play. Not quite as patronising (but almost) was Freedom Writers (2007), where Hilary Swank played another real-life white teacher who apparently gets ghetto sainthood for, you know, doing her job.

  There were a few movies I expected to include and was surprised how disappointed I was when seeing them for the first time in many years. I loved Big Wednesday back in 1978, but obviously surfing and post-Vietnam hand-wringing doesn’t do it for me any more, so macho screenwriting legend John Milius is represented solely by Red Dawn (see here). Neither Richard Linklater’s subUrbia (1996) nor Penelope Spheeris’s Suburbia (1984) are dramatic or insightful enough to hold the attention, despite the track records of their directors and the authenticity of their settings.

  The biggest surprise omission, from my perspective anyway, was Alan Clarke’s Scum (1979), the controversial punk-era borstal exposé from the director of Made In Britain (see here). The movie made Ray Winstone a star and induced a generation or two of geezers to shout ‘OO’s The Daddy Now?’ at each other after one too many lagers. But fuck me has it dated, with its Chim Chim Cheree accents and hysterical, depressing tone which seemed to suggest that every petty crim was just an oppressed anti-establishment revolutionary-in-waiting. It had an evil sister too, called Scrubbers (1983), which almost crept into the book on account of starring the most comically butch women ever featured in a movie. But, Kathy Burke aside, the acting was just too appalling, and most of the prisoners looked 40.

  Other Brit rejects included Bronco Bullfrog (1970), a London-based docu-drama which has a cult following derived from its documenting of the mod-meets-skinhead subculture known as suedehead. All very worthy, all very dull, much like Richard Ayoade’s Submarine (2010), apart from the worthy bit. Another surprise for me was just how awful Bill Forsyth’s hit Scottish school comedy Gregory’s Girl (1981) is 30 years after seeming revolutionary. My generation just hadn’t seen ourselves depicted onscreen unless we were in borstal, rioting in Brighton or training a kestrel. So we ignored the lousy direction, awful acting, terrible incidental music . . . things you can’t ignore three decades later. Not guilty of any of the above is tough Brixton reggae drama Babylon (1980). It just didn’t quite make the Top 100, and this was partly because I’d written about it in my rock movies book Popcorn, and had little else to say.

  The same goes for high school movie spoof Rock ’n’ Roll High School (1979), which, while being lovable cult entertainment, is in the end made by the presence of the Ramones, Mary Woronov (see Night Of The Comet, p. 241) and P.J. Soles (see Carrie, here and Halloween, here), rather than the gags. The post-Scary Movie teen spoof Not Another Teen Movie (2001) has its moments, but the cynicism is wearing.

  African-American teen cinema is notable only by its absence. John Singleton’s Boyz N The Hood felt like a major movie in 1991, again, because no one had seen the lives of ordinary black American kids in a mainstream movie before. But two decades later the sentimentality and one-dimensional preachiness is dated and cloying, and has been put firmly in its place by the extraordinary achievement that was Season Four of TV cop show The Wire. The same goes for fellow teen gangsta dramas Juice (1992) and Menace II Society (1993). African-American teen comedies Cooley High (1975) and House Party (1990) are worth a look for the lurid depictions of the fashions and dance styles of their time. You’ll wait a long time for a laugh, though.

  It’s not all about Hollywood, of course. I was very excited about seeing critically acclaimed Mexican teen movie Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001), but then it turned out to be puerile male wish-fulfilment after all. Mon Père, Ce Héros (1991), with its sly take on a semi-incestuous father–daughter relationship, was a contender, but, like the same year’s Flirting, the Australian teen drama that introduced Nicole Kidman to the world, it was just a little slow and cosy. Also from Australia and presenting a future superstar, Romper Stomper (1992) went all out to give us some Alan Clarke-style shock-horror about fascist skinheads but would have been comically bad without the intensity and authority of Russell Crowe. Michael Haneke is a taste I’m increasingly chuffed not to have acquired, and his Benny’s Video (1992) is just a duller and nastier take on the themes of Elephant.

  And it’s back to The States for the home straight. High School Confidential (1958) and Gidget (1959) made an early teen movie case for inclusion but The Cool And The Crazy (see here) and Where The Boys Are (see here), respectively, make better fists of similar themes. More recently, teen madness drama Girl, Interrupted (1999) undercuts a great cast with rather too much hugging and learning, Hal Hartley’s Trust (1991) starts in the middle of nowhere and decides to stay there, and Coppola’s Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) is Back To The Future (see here) on valium. One oddity worth tracking down is The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane (1976), a novelistic forerunner of Hard Candy (see here) starring Martin Sheen (see Badlands, here) as the paedophile and Jodie Foster as the lone teen heroine. A little too self-conscious and disjointed to merit inclusion, but great acting.

  The teen movie has, as I’ve argued elsewhere, reached its peak as a sub-genre since the beginning of the new century. Cue seven movies that only failed to make the list because there were just too many recent crackers to include them all. Freaky Friday (2003) updated a lightweight Disney body swap comedy from 1976 (which also starred Jodie Foster) to charming effect by teaming Lindsay Lohan (see Mean Girls, p. 424) and Jamie Lee Curtis (see Halloween, here); Winter’s Bone (2010) was a gritty American gothic thriller with a teen protagonist; and Kick Ass was a neat subversion of the superhero genre sadly scuppered by a jarring, over-violent last act.

  Our last near-misses all feature talents struggling to match the excellence of Juno (see here). Diablo Cody’s follow-up screenplay to Juno, Jennifer’s Body (2009), couldn’t quite pull off its teen femme serial killer conceit. Nick And Norah’s Infinite Playlist (2008) and Youth In Revolt (2009) make you worry for Michael Cera’s prospects of playing anything else but gentle teen misfits well into his sixties. Final nod goes to the greatest young acting talent of her generation, Ellen Page. Roller derby comedy Whip It (2009) is probably Number 101 when it comes right down to it, not least because it’s the first movie directed by Drew Barrymore (see Scream, here and Donnie Darko, here).

  INDEX

  A Boy And His Dog ref 1

  A Clockwork Orange ref 1

  A Nightmare On Elm Street
ref 1

  A Taste Of Honey ref 1

  American Graffiti ref 1

  American Pie ref 1

  Back To The Future ref 1

  Badlands ref 1

  Battle Royale ref 1

  Beat Girl ref 1

  Before Sunrise ref 1

  Black Christmas ref 1

  Bring It On ref 1

  Bully ref 1

  But I’m A Cheerleader ref 1

  Carrie ref 1

  City Of God ref 1

  Class Of 1984 ref 1

  Clueless ref 1

  Cruel Intentions ref 1

  Dazed And Confused ref 1

  Dirty Dancing ref 1

  Dogtooth ref 1

  Donnie Darko ref 1

  Edward Scissorhands ref 1

  Election ref 1

  Elephant ref 1

  Ferris Bueller’s Day Off ref 1

  Final Destination ref 1

  Fish Tank ref 1

  Footloose ref 1

  Ghost World ref 1

  Ginger Snaps ref 1

  Grease ref 1

  Hairspray ref 1

  Halloween ref 1

  Hard Candy ref 1

  Harold And Maude ref 1

  Heathers ref 1

  Heavenly Creatures ref 1