Speaker 1: What kind of a show you guys.
Speaker 2: Putting on here today?
Speaker 3: You're not interested in armed now? No, look, we're going
Speaker 3: to do this thing. We're going to have a conversation.
Speaker 4: Hey, film spotters, Josh here with Adam this weekend, the
Speaker 4: definitive eighties high school comedy The Breakfast Club is back
Speaker 4: in theaters for its fortieth anniversary. Fortieth anniversary, still influential, Adam,
Speaker 4: I think we both got news about a new release,
Speaker 4: an India release called Pools that I believe is playing
Speaker 4: right about now at Music Box Theater. Check that for sure.
Speaker 4: I know they had their premiere there not too long ago,
Speaker 4: and they described it as being influenced at Chicago made
Speaker 4: and set and being influenced by John Hughes comedies of
Speaker 4: the eighties like The Breakfast Club.
Speaker 5: So yeah, definitely a movie that.
Speaker 4: Is still affecting films and filmmakers many few decades on here,
Speaker 4: and we wanted to share with you.
Speaker 5: Are safe could cow review? Now?
Speaker 4: We did this back for The Breakfast Club's thirtieth anniverse,
Speaker 4: which was in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: That's right, and we're not just busting it out for
Speaker 2: its fortieth. It's also timely because this weekend September seventh,
Speaker 2: and on Wednesday, September tenth, commemorating its fortieth anniversary. There
Speaker 2: are going to be special theatrical screenings around the country.
Speaker 2: If I can find a link with more details about that,
Speaker 2: we'll post it in the show notes. Wherever you're listening
Speaker 2: to the podcast, you can try to find it there. Otherwise,
Speaker 2: just google it, look for it around you. Hopefully it
Speaker 2: will be playing near you, especially if you haven't seen
Speaker 2: it in maybe thirty years or so, or maybe somehow
Speaker 2: you've never seen The Breakfast Club at all, or maybe
Speaker 2: you're now you're our age and you have kids who
Speaker 2: are the age that maybe we were when you saw
Speaker 2: the film, when we saw the film for the first time,
Speaker 2: and they can actually experienced it for the first time
Speaker 2: on the big screen. This is your opportunity to see it.
Speaker 2: September seventh, September tenth.
Speaker 4: Now we're pulling this review, as I said, from the
Speaker 4: Film Spotting Archives, Adam, And if you want access to
Speaker 4: these archives all the time, all you have to do
Speaker 4: is join the Film Spotting Family. That's where you'll get
Speaker 4: those reviews. You'll get top fives and more going back
Speaker 4: to two thousand and five. So archive access just one
Speaker 4: of the benefits you get as a member of the family,
Speaker 4: and you can learn more about all of that at
Speaker 4: film spottingfamily dot com. For now here, enjoy our Sacred
Speaker 4: Cow review of The Breakfast Club.
Speaker 6: What do you say we closed that door?
Speaker 3: We can't have any kind of part of the burning
Speaker 3: checking us out every few seconds. You know, the doors
Speaker 3: is supposed to stay open, So why don't you just
Speaker 3: shut up? As for other people in here, you know
Speaker 3: you can come see.
Speaker 7: I knew you had to be smart to be a wrestler.
Speaker 3: The hell you do to judge anybody anyway? Really, you know, Benda,
Speaker 3: you don't even count. I mean, if you disappear forever,
Speaker 3: it wouldn't make any differences. Well, not even exist at
Speaker 3: this school.
Speaker 7: Well I'll just run right out and join the wrestling team.
Speaker 6: Maybe the prep club too, student council.
Speaker 3: They wouldn't take you.
Speaker 7: I'm hurt.
Speaker 4: Our Sacred Cow selection this time Adam is a movie
Speaker 4: that's maybe not sacred to cinophiles in general, but it
Speaker 4: certainly is to those of our generation. The Breakfast Club
Speaker 4: John Hughes chamber piece about five high schoolers stuck together
Speaker 4: for a Saturday of detention came out in nineteen eighty five, Yes,
Speaker 4: thirty years ago. You and I were not quite yet
Speaker 4: in our teens then, but I know I at least
Speaker 4: was already fascinated by all things teenager. I'm guessing I
Speaker 4: didn't actually see the movie until it came out on
Speaker 4: video most likely, but at that point I did watch
Speaker 4: it enough times that I could predict most of the
Speaker 4: lines of dialogue during this revisit. Judging by your brief
Speaker 4: review on Letterbox, your revisit was a blissful trip down
Speaker 4: memory lane.
Speaker 5: Five stars.
Speaker 4: That's as high as it goes on letters Are you
Speaker 4: aware of that were five stars?
Speaker 5: Okay?
Speaker 4: I'm guessing one reason for this lavish rating is because
Speaker 4: you picked up on a secondary level of wisdom to
Speaker 4: the movie when watching it now as an adult.
Speaker 5: Oh, one of the things.
Speaker 4: You noted in your review was the truthfulness of an
Speaker 4: observation made by Allison the basket Case, played by Ali Sheety,
Speaker 4: who contends that we all become our parents. So what
Speaker 4: was it like to watch The Breakfast Club now, not
Speaker 4: as a kid, but as a parent, And how do
Speaker 4: you feel about Allison's other observation When you grow up
Speaker 4: your heart dies, is your heart Dead, Adam, is that
Speaker 4: five star rating just a shameless attempt to prove otherwise.
Speaker 2: It might be you might be onto something that is
Speaker 2: a little bit melodramatic. But I love that line, and
Speaker 2: I'll get to why in a moment. First, though, I
Speaker 2: do hope there's a little bit of magic in the air.
Speaker 2: Did you catch that when this film opens and you
Speaker 2: get that opening voiceover that the date is the exact
Speaker 2: same date we are sitting here to record tonight.
Speaker 1: By Mark hitting twenty fourth.
Speaker 2: Wow, it's March twenty fourth, nineteen eighty four, that Saturday,
Speaker 2: thirty one years ago. They shot it before it came out,
Speaker 2: clearly eighty five, but it's exactly the night. So, like
Speaker 2: I said, hopefully that'll bring something to this discussion, and
Speaker 2: it is for me. Forget being able to predict certain lines.
Speaker 2: This was a unique Sacred Cow experience. We've always seen
Speaker 2: the movies first, that's what makes them Sacred Cows. We're
Speaker 2: revisiting them, But in this case I could quote, and
Speaker 2: to the annoyance of my wife, did quote eighty percent
Speaker 2: of the movie as it was going on. I don't
Speaker 2: know to get to your question that watching it as
Speaker 2: a parent really came into play for me. My son
Speaker 2: Holden just turned thirteen. He's a huge nerd. He would
Speaker 2: be the Brian here and he would use that term
Speaker 2: to describe himself and do it with pride. High school
Speaker 2: is hard, but I'm fairly constantly worried about my kids already.
Speaker 2: I'm a high dread kind of guy. More significant to
Speaker 2: me was seeing it as an adult. When I'm not
Speaker 2: the same age, or, as you noted, a little bit
Speaker 2: younger than these kids. Maybe I can't directly relate to
Speaker 2: their day to day problems. Besides having a different perspective,
Speaker 2: I was also just more aware of it as a movie,
Speaker 2: how it's constructed, and hopefully we'll get to that a
Speaker 2: little bit as well. I think that line from Alison
Speaker 2: Ali Sheety, though, is one of the keys to the
Speaker 2: Breakfast Club in terms of why it holds up so
Speaker 2: well thirty years later. It's not just that it was.
Speaker 2: I think that I can recall anyway the first movie
Speaker 2: to simultaneously establish these high school archetypes while deconstructing them.
Speaker 2: It's how seriously John Hughes takes these kids' concerns and
Speaker 2: how thoroughly he explores them amidst all of this comedy,
Speaker 2: sometimes broad silly comedy, he goes to some really dark,
Speaker 2: serious places and he does it as well. In Ferris
Speaker 2: Buehler's Day Off. If you think about Cameron his daddy issues,
Speaker 2: destroying the beloved Ferrari at the end of that movie.
Speaker 2: I always found that tonal shift in Ferris Bueller a
Speaker 2: little bit cumbersome, a little bit hard to overcome because
Speaker 2: it's such a heavy moment. And then it's sort of like, Oh,
Speaker 2: we're back to Ferris Bueller running around backyards, and we're
Speaker 2: just supposed to forget everything Cameron's going to face and
Speaker 2: everything he's been through. But Emilio Estevez's monologue here about
Speaker 2: three quarters the way through this movie about what he
Speaker 2: did to get intolration, Yeah, and why good, that's even
Speaker 2: darker than anything with Cameron, that unbroken take that underscores
Speaker 2: the weight of it. That character isn't just telling a story.
Speaker 2: He seems to be channeling something deep from within Anthony
Speaker 2: Michael Hall's breakdown as well. Hughes is trying, i think,
Speaker 2: in succeeding at making us laugh, but he's clearly using
Speaker 2: these characters and this setting to really wrestle with something
Speaker 2: wrestling with whether you can overcome your nature, your upbringing,
Speaker 2: or if you're doomed to become your parents, can you
Speaker 2: stop your heart from dying? I think that for me,
Speaker 2: Josh is what makes this movie so timeless and universal.
Speaker 2: Almost everyone, but especially any junior high kid or high
Speaker 2: school kid, no matter what generation, can relate to. That fear,
Speaker 2: along with everything else in the movie, is dealing with
Speaker 2: as far as establishing your identity, retaining your individuality while
Speaker 2: being part of a group, trying to be accepted within
Speaker 2: that group or culture. So yeah, this movie really did
Speaker 2: hit me about the same way it hit me thirty
Speaker 2: years ago, which is something I wasn't expecting because I
Speaker 2: hadn't seen it since then. Maybe actually in high school,
Speaker 2: I remember showing it to my now wife because she
Speaker 2: had never seen it, but I was still of that
Speaker 2: age I was in high school. It really did resonate
Speaker 2: with me.
Speaker 4: Was it just recently last week? I think with Cinderella
Speaker 4: probably we talked about children's films for a younger age group,
Speaker 4: how it's important to respect that audience's intelligence, and the
Speaker 4: same thing happens for teen audiences, where the filmmakers will
Speaker 4: often consider let's just give them the lowest common denominator.
Speaker 4: The Breakfast Club does not do that. It's very interested
Speaker 4: in these kids, not as archetypes, as stereotypes as ways
Speaker 4: to get some funny jokes out. It's interested in their
Speaker 4: stories and the universality of their experiences. The bullying thing
Speaker 4: that you mentioned Andrew's monologue is an amazing sustained sequence,
Speaker 4: especially when you think about in nineteen eighty five. Clearly
Speaker 4: that was something that educators were aware of, but it
Speaker 4: was nowhere near to the degree of attention it gets
Speaker 4: today in terms of experts coming into our schools and
Speaker 4: having sessions with kids about being proactive about keeping.
Speaker 5: This at bay.
Speaker 1: But the complexity of it too, why he does That's why.
Speaker 4: I'm talking to emotional awareness of understanding here. Well before
Speaker 4: this was a common thing that people were digging into
Speaker 4: of what led to it and how this is an
Speaker 4: The act was an expression of Andrew responding to how
Speaker 4: his father treated him, and just the really haunting line
Speaker 4: that Andrew says, how do you apologize for something like that?
Speaker 3: There's no way. It's all because of me, my own man.
Speaker 3: I fucking hate him. He's like this, It's like this
Speaker 3: mindless machine that I can't even relate to anymore. Andrew,
Speaker 3: You've got to be number one. I won't tolerate any
Speaker 3: lousures in this family. Your intensity is for shit?
Speaker 1: When when when.
Speaker 3: Your son?
Speaker 4: I mean, what movie would not only acknowledge that the
Speaker 4: kid is thinking about his action, just move beyond the action.
Speaker 4: Most teen movies that deal with bullying are centered around
Speaker 4: the act of bullying itself. And here's something considering the
Speaker 4: aftermath and considering the sorrow on the part of the offender.
Speaker 4: And we could talk about the way that the movie
Speaker 4: gives almost every character in this film a chance to
Speaker 4: consider who they are in that deep of a manner.
Speaker 4: So I think this absolutely stands up. It did for
Speaker 4: me as well. I didn't go quite as crazy for
Speaker 4: it as you did. And maybe we can talk about.
Speaker 1: Why I probably did. I backed off a little bit
Speaker 1: or younger either, did you?
Speaker 4: Oh all, I remember when I watched it is just thinking, yeah,
Speaker 4: I loved it, and just thinking like, is this what
Speaker 4: high school's like?
Speaker 5: Wow?
Speaker 4: You know it was kind of this because we were
Speaker 4: both younger than the people in the story. You're kind
Speaker 4: of looking at it as a primer with it. And
Speaker 4: so that's why the dialogue would stick in my head.
Speaker 4: It was almost like you're packing these things so that
Speaker 4: you'll be ready when you get to high school. That's
Speaker 4: what I remember taking it in as at that point.
Speaker 4: But here, you know, it does just speak across generations
Speaker 4: and across decades.
Speaker 5: I would put it up there.
Speaker 4: A couple of titles that work similarly in the teen
Speaker 4: genre would be Splendor in the Grass decades earlier in
Speaker 4: terms of just getting at that idea of you know,
Speaker 4: puppy love much more focusing on sexuality, Yeah.
Speaker 1: For sure, sexuality and sexual attention and.
Speaker 4: That aspect of being a teenager. And then something more
Speaker 4: recent Scott Pilgrim Versus the World. There is another movie
Speaker 4: that I came out of and just thinking, man that
Speaker 4: gets it, that manages to get at the heart of
Speaker 4: what it was like to be a teenager. And these movies,
Speaker 4: all three of those movies, they don't just get the
Speaker 4: look right. They don't just get the dialogue right. I
Speaker 4: might argue that The Breakfast Club does not get the
Speaker 4: dialogue right, and a lot of situations in terms of
Speaker 4: the phrases they use. But what these movies I'll do
Speaker 4: is they embody the experience in such a way and
Speaker 4: this film. Hughes does it primarily for the attention that
Speaker 4: he gives to the characters and also the cast. I mean,
Speaker 4: this thing would not work as well as it does
Speaker 4: without this phenomenal cast, and we can maybe talk about
Speaker 4: who we think rises to the top. I finally came
Speaker 4: up with an answer after wrestling with that a little bit.
Speaker 1: My son wrestling. Is that a Q maybe a big
Speaker 1: Estavez fan?
Speaker 5: No, I went another direction.
Speaker 2: Well, I didn't really think about it in those terms,
Speaker 2: but I did discover that I did appreciate these performances
Speaker 2: beyond what I remember as a kid liking the movie
Speaker 2: overall and not really judging those performances. Here, being a
Speaker 2: little more objective or distance from it, I was able
Speaker 2: to see them as what they are. I think they
Speaker 2: are all really good, really strong performances. But I want
Speaker 2: to go back to the opening of the film, because
Speaker 2: all of these kids, this is the first thing I
Speaker 2: said out loud as Sarah and I were watching the movie.
Speaker 2: I'm like, all these kids are being driven to school
Speaker 2: by their parents, and yet they seem to me like
Speaker 2: maybe juniors or seniors. Maybe Brian is the youngest. He
Speaker 2: might be fifteen, a sophomore but otherwise they all seem
Speaker 2: like they're of driving age, but they're being dropped off
Speaker 2: by their parents.
Speaker 1: That seems so weird.
Speaker 2: And of course then I thought about it for a
Speaker 2: minute as that sequence played out, and I realized, it's.
Speaker 1: All about that parent, it really is.
Speaker 2: And you see what he is doing, what he accomplishes
Speaker 2: there is he immediately gives us a window into their psyches.
Speaker 2: We see where they're coming from, and for example, we
Speaker 2: understand the disconnect between Claire and her dad, the academic
Speaker 2: pressure and demands of Brian's mom, the athletic pressure and
Speaker 2: demands of Andrew's dad, that blatant disregard of Allison's parent.
Speaker 2: I don't even think we know who it is. They
Speaker 2: just don't even acknowledge her and drive away. And of
Speaker 2: course the loner bender who hilariously walks right in front
Speaker 2: of the car without stopping. He's the one who comes
Speaker 2: in by himself, no parent who cares about him. So
Speaker 2: the whole movie set up right there, all those dynamics
Speaker 2: that we need to see, and before we discover them
Speaker 2: to be a certain type, we get to see them
Speaker 2: as people and see that baggage that they're carrying with them.
Speaker 2: Before they begin any of these interactions or these confrontations
Speaker 2: with each other. It of course sets up the whole
Speaker 2: trajectory of the story, as I said, but it also
Speaker 2: gives us some insight that the other characters don't have.
Speaker 2: I think it actually establishes a neat layer of subtext
Speaker 2: to a lot of those interactions and confrontations that we
Speaker 2: wouldn't otherwise be aware of. A perfect example is when
Speaker 2: Bender does his impersonation of what it's like at the
Speaker 2: Johnson resident the cuts to Anthony Michael Hall and his reaction.
Speaker 2: You can read it as he's hurt because he's being
Speaker 2: made fun of, But because we know what the dynamic
Speaker 2: really is like at home, we as a viewer appreciate
Speaker 2: that on a different level. We see through it a
Speaker 2: little bit and we recognize that he's not just hurt
Speaker 2: it being made fun of. He's actually hurt because he
Speaker 2: wishes his home life was probably that way, and it's
Speaker 2: not that way at all. So there are double layers
Speaker 2: to a lot of what's going on in this film.
Speaker 2: And we were talking about how quotable this is. And
Speaker 2: for me in fifth grade when I saw this movie,
Speaker 2: we watched it hundreds of times I mean probably not hundreds,
Speaker 2: but it felt like it and we did know every
Speaker 2: single line. So one of the questions I was really
Speaker 2: wondering as I sat down to watch it now, like
Speaker 2: I said, at least twenty years since I last saw it,
Speaker 2: it was could it make me laugh? Could I actually
Speaker 2: laugh out loud when I know all the lines, I
Speaker 2: know all the jokes and what's coming. I laughed a lot.
Speaker 2: I laughed out loud a lot of this movie. And
Speaker 2: it wasn't at the big, broader jokes. The things that
Speaker 2: did make me laugh a lot as a nine or
Speaker 2: ten year old. It was the reactions, the expressions on
Speaker 2: their faces, the overall absurdity of some of those moments,
Speaker 2: like Bender and Brian Judd Nelson and Anthony Michael Hall
Speaker 2: taking their coats off at the same time, and Ryan
Speaker 2: acquiesces when Bender kind of shoots him a dirty look,
Speaker 2: like are you copying me or something? And it's not
Speaker 2: just that he decides to stop and put his coat
Speaker 2: back on, that's funny enough, it's that he then rubs
Speaker 2: his hands together like he's cold and he really wants
Speaker 2: to put his jacket back on, but he feels the
Speaker 2: need to put on that show is really funny. The
Speaker 2: look Bender gives him when he does the I'm a
Speaker 2: Walrus bit and he puts the pen on his lip.
Speaker 2: Those bits for me that I maybe didn't laugh so
Speaker 2: hard at, like I said, however many years ago, were
Speaker 2: really funny to me this time.
Speaker 4: A lot of those are the social cues that the
Speaker 4: film just nails in how teens walk into a room
Speaker 4: and it's immediately perhaps you know, it still happens when
Speaker 4: you're adult, of course, but never more so as heightened
Speaker 4: as when you're a teen. You're immediately staking your place,
Speaker 4: and it captures how that's done through gestures and through
Speaker 4: looks and those sorts of things. So life at Bry's
Speaker 4: that scene is perhaps the standout to me. I had
Speaker 4: three scenes that I want to make sure we talked okay,
Speaker 4: and we got to the first one already, Estevez's confession
Speaker 4: of bowling. I think that's crucial, and I think he's
Speaker 4: fantastic in it, and I like how Hughes uses the
Speaker 4: camera there too, as you said, unbroken, but also moving
Speaker 4: around to include all of them in this conversation. This
Speaker 4: was much more visually sophisticated than I would have expected
Speaker 4: in revisiting it. But the other two scenes I wanted
Speaker 4: to talk about are who I do give my MVP
Speaker 4: award again, not that we need to, but to Judd Nelson, Yeah,
Speaker 4: and life at Bryce the way that goes from this
Speaker 4: comic impersonation that's.
Speaker 5: Also so bitter.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's just so clear that the reason this
Speaker 4: really bothers him is because his home life is not
Speaker 4: like that too, And as much fun as he's making
Speaker 4: of Brian, that he's also just furious because of this
Speaker 4: other element going on. And then how it transitioned to
Speaker 4: the impression of life at his house, which is really scary.
Speaker 4: I mean, Nelson and we got to talk about this
Speaker 4: as well, how he treats Claire, because I think we
Speaker 4: look at that differently, people in general would look at
Speaker 4: that differently than they did in nineteen eighty five. And
Speaker 4: he's scary with her too. But I think that's a
Speaker 4: very good element of the performance. I love the different
Speaker 4: levels that Nelson brings to this. Even when he has
Speaker 4: that early standoff with Vernon and he gets the four
Speaker 4: or eight extra weeks of detention, there's that.
Speaker 5: Moment got Chay, Yeah, there's that.
Speaker 4: Moment where he turns away and you can see that. Okay,
Speaker 4: most high school comedies would play that up.
Speaker 5: Purely for Trump the rebel.
Speaker 4: He's the rebel, but they hold it that one extra
Speaker 4: beat so that he shows he's pissed at himself.
Speaker 5: Yeah, for him leeing self control.
Speaker 4: He can't believe he did it.
Speaker 5: So those are two things.
Speaker 4: The other one goes to Nelson too, and it is
Speaker 4: that early one where it's it's a sexual harassment slash
Speaker 4: seduction of Claire and watching that very early on where
Speaker 4: he's trying to find out, you know what, how sexually
Speaker 4: experienced she is. He's flirting with her at the same
Speaker 4: time she's acting repulse but also pulling back enough here
Speaker 4: and there to I don't want to say toy with him,
Speaker 4: but to give him the hint that she's still listening.
Speaker 5: Let's just put it that way for sure, all right.
Speaker 4: So in nineteen eighty five, and as a kid, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm taking.
Speaker 5: That as Wow, is this guy cool?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 4: And you'll hear from women too, or I think I
Speaker 4: saw it on It might have been the film's finding
Speaker 4: Facebook feed. That's where girls fell in love with John Bender,
Speaker 4: that bad boy.
Speaker 7: What's yours?
Speaker 3: Claire? Claire Claire.
Speaker 2: It's a family name.
Speaker 7: Oh it's a fat girl's name. Oh, thank you, you're welcome.
Speaker 7: Not fat, well, not a present, but I could see
Speaker 7: you really pushing maximum density.
Speaker 3: You see.
Speaker 6: I'm not sure if you know this, but there are
Speaker 6: two kinds of fat people.
Speaker 3: There's fat people that were born to be fat, and
Speaker 3: there's fat.
Speaker 6: People that were once thin but they became fat. So
Speaker 6: when you look at them, you can sort of see
Speaker 6: that thin person inside.
Speaker 7: You see you're gonna get married, You're gonna squeeze out
Speaker 7: a few puppies. And then, oh, I've.
Speaker 6: Seen finger gestures from such a pristine girl.
Speaker 1: Not that pristine.
Speaker 6: Are you a virgin? I'll bet you a million dollars
Speaker 6: that you are.
Speaker 4: You read that scene today where we're much more attuned
Speaker 4: to things like sexual harassment, and it reads very creepily.
Speaker 4: But I think that's good as well, because it speaks
Speaker 4: to the authenticity. So we could say we could put
Speaker 4: a politically correct label on this and say, oh, breakfast
Speaker 4: Club is so dated because of scenes like that, but
Speaker 4: I think it speaks to an authenticity again of the
Speaker 4: social cues of how girls and guys, whether it's right
Speaker 4: or wrong, do interact and how they handle those sorts
Speaker 4: of interactions. Now, the one place where we might want
Speaker 4: to talk about does the movie make a misstep is
Speaker 4: in following through on where does that relationship go by
Speaker 4: the end of the film. A Is that believable? And
Speaker 4: B is that maybe getting us to root for something
Speaker 4: that really is unhealthy. I'm still trying to work my
Speaker 4: way through that because people read the ending differently as well.
Speaker 4: Whether or not Bender and Claire do end up together
Speaker 4: or was this kind of a one off flirtation thing.
Speaker 2: Well, let's just go ahead and get to it, because
Speaker 2: I don't want to sidetrack the whole review with it.
Speaker 2: But for me, it's not as problematic because I do
Speaker 2: see it as more of a one off type of thing.
Speaker 2: I don't think come Monday, Bender and Claire are holding
Speaker 2: hands with each other walking down the hall, or he's
Speaker 2: showing up at her house and angering her father. I
Speaker 2: see this as a one time act of kindness and
Speaker 2: compassion and deciding to call a truce.
Speaker 1: But that's it.
Speaker 2: I don't see them embarking on any kind of a
Speaker 2: relationship with each other.
Speaker 5: Okay, I wouldn't go quite that far.
Speaker 4: I don't think they're holding hands on Monday either. But
Speaker 4: I think the movie wants you to believe there is
Speaker 4: a relationship that will continue there, and I think in
Speaker 4: having us root for that is where we might want
Speaker 4: to say, uh, okay, I don't know if that's that's
Speaker 4: quite so healthy. But that also brings to mind somebody
Speaker 4: I thought of after watching this, how did they not
Speaker 4: make the sequel The Breakfast Club Monday Morning and let
Speaker 4: us know, you know, what really happened to these kids
Speaker 4: when they showed up that day. I'm totally with you.
Speaker 4: Nobody even gave each other a second glance. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 4: as hopeful as this movie wants to be, if it
Speaker 4: really stayed true and was as authentic as it is
Speaker 4: to these kids that Monday morning would be they don't
Speaker 4: know each other.
Speaker 2: Well, maybe we'll come back to this. It is sort
Speaker 2: of like Before Sunrise in a little bit where you win.
Speaker 2: Six months later, what's going to happen? And the key
Speaker 2: question uestion for thirty years And that's one of the
Speaker 2: beauties of this film as well, is that we still
Speaker 2: have that question to ask and ponder in debate because
Speaker 2: we don't know the answer. But I'm with you, except
Speaker 2: I would say Josh. A second glance is exactly what
Speaker 2: they do and no more. I think we get the
Speaker 2: second glance. I think there's a little bit social queue.
Speaker 4: Where they try to let each other know that they
Speaker 4: remember said right. Anyone else sees.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. But that's what bender.
Speaker 2: I appreciated him as a young man, as a young
Speaker 2: kid because I respected his verbal dexterity and his sort
Speaker 2: of just rebellious spirit.
Speaker 1: It probably was look.
Speaker 2: I wasn't growing up watching scooball comedy, So watching someone
Speaker 2: who is that quick and that witty and able to
Speaker 2: disarm people the way he was that was attractive to
Speaker 2: me at that age. I didn't really see it as
Speaker 2: a performance in anything deeper than that until watching it
Speaker 2: this time. I do love his costuming as well. I
Speaker 2: picked him as one of the top five Halloween costumes
Speaker 2: I'd wear fast this past October. But you watch it,
Speaker 2: it's such a hodgepodge of looks. He's grabbing an all
Speaker 2: these different places to try to form some kind of identity.
Speaker 2: You've got the flannel before flannel was a look, the boots,
Speaker 2: those hand glove things he's wearing a little bit, there's
Speaker 2: some of that kind of biker, rebel, criminal thing. But
Speaker 2: there's also a guy wearing that overcoat like he's a prep.
Speaker 2: You know, he really is just grasping at anything, and
Speaker 2: I think that applies to a lot of the characters here.
Speaker 2: But you're right in terms of the performance, that sense
Speaker 2: of anger and resentment but also pain that underlies everything here.
Speaker 2: You realize watching it this time that he's overcompensating for everything.
Speaker 2: That confident routine really is just completely enact with him.
Speaker 2: And what is underlying everything is that fear that everything
Speaker 2: Andrew says to him at one point is accurate. Oh,
Speaker 2: just that he really doesn't matter, and that comes through
Speaker 2: in Nelson's performance.
Speaker 4: And Claire calls him out on it too, And that's
Speaker 4: where I like the ring Wall performance where she definitely
Speaker 4: has those strong moments where she gives it back to
Speaker 4: him and lay great bear. She sees through all of
Speaker 4: that because she's doing similar things. They're all doing similar things,
Speaker 4: so they all know what they're doing, but who's going
Speaker 4: to admit to it. Well, first of all, they're going
Speaker 4: to call each other out on it.
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Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2: And I think that as we talk about the look
Speaker 2: of this film, you mentioned that it was more visually
Speaker 2: sophisticated than you.
Speaker 1: Remember it or would have even noticed it. That's right.
Speaker 2: I think that shot, though, that unbroken take that rotates
Speaker 2: around the group, is probably the only shot that really
Speaker 2: calls attention to itself in the film. But what I
Speaker 2: noticed this time, and this is one of those bits
Speaker 2: on the show here where audio certainly doesn't help us.
Speaker 2: A video essay would be much more instructive, because what
Speaker 2: I loved is is the editing. I really noticed this
Speaker 2: time how much of the movie is made by the cutting,
Speaker 2: because it's not visually audacious, and it has so many
Speaker 2: memorable lines of dialogue in it. I think everybody focuses
Speaker 2: on the writing, and they give Hughes All this credit
Speaker 2: as a screenwriter but all of the relationships, the character dynamics,
Speaker 2: it's all revealed in the silences, in the looks on
Speaker 2: their faces, in their reactions, because it really is all
Speaker 2: about their perceptions of each other, and not only that,
Speaker 2: how we perceive their perceptions. So, as I said before,
Speaker 2: everything is loaded, So when you cut to a reaction shot,
Speaker 2: you're really focused on how they're taking that in and
Speaker 2: what that tells you about how they see themselves, how
Speaker 2: they see the person who's talking. That is something certainly
Speaker 2: at age nine or ten I didn't catch on too,
Speaker 2: but it's there. It really is in those decisions and
Speaker 2: think about that. That has to be pretty formally rigorous
Speaker 2: because you've got pretty much the whole film, five people
Speaker 2: sitting around each other, and depending on how they shot it,
Speaker 2: and depending on how he was visualized it and maybe
Speaker 2: storyboarded it or not, there was probably a lot of
Speaker 2: coverage options to cut to, so the editor could have
Speaker 2: gone in a lot of different directions, but it's very precise.
Speaker 2: Every cut is done for a reason, and every cut
Speaker 2: does have some meaning. And that was something, as I said,
Speaker 2: that caught me by surprise this.
Speaker 4: Time for a movie that primarily takes place within that library,
Speaker 4: it does not feel static at all.
Speaker 5: And when they get out.
Speaker 4: Of the library, I noticed too that there's some nice
Speaker 4: framing of individuals or even them as a group within
Speaker 4: these long institutional halls, and you could just tell that
Speaker 4: care has been taken in trying to place them within
Speaker 4: this landscape and alienate them a little bit. I mean,
Speaker 4: we don only get too carried away and that you're
Speaker 4: going to put this in and it's going to wow
Speaker 4: you with its cinematography. Now, but compared to most team
Speaker 4: comedies where the cameras just PLoP down and they go
Speaker 4: for the gags, it really does have another level going on.
Speaker 4: In the soundtrack too, a little bit with there's the
Speaker 4: moment in particular. I think the same thing happens later on,
Speaker 4: but the one I'm thinking of is very early on
Speaker 4: when Vernon slams the door shut and Bender screams the
Speaker 4: FU and it echoes in a way, and we cut
Speaker 4: to Vernon and we were not quite sure whether Bender
Speaker 4: even said it or if this is something that you know,
Speaker 4: this is just how Vernon.
Speaker 8: Sees these kids.
Speaker 1: It's interesting and.
Speaker 4: It's amplified and there's just a little some nicely clever
Speaker 4: bits going on.
Speaker 1: Like that for sure, Carl, What can I ask you
Speaker 1: a question?
Speaker 7: Sure? How does one become a janitor? Do you want
Speaker 7: to be a janitor?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 6: I just want to know how one becomes a janitor
Speaker 6: because Andrew here is very interested in pursuing a career
Speaker 6: in the custodia arts.
Speaker 7: Oh really, do you guys think I'm just someth untouchable peasant,
Speaker 7: sir pon?
Speaker 3: You know, maybe so.
Speaker 7: Falling a broom around after shitheads like you. For the
Speaker 7: last eight years, I've learned a couple of things. I
Speaker 7: look through your letters, look through your lockers. I listened
Speaker 7: to your conversations. You don't know that, but I do.
Speaker 7: I am the eye and ears of this institution, my friends.
Speaker 2: Now, I thought it'd be interesting to hear from one
Speaker 2: of the key figures in the movie, Carl, the janitor,
Speaker 2: John Capelos, was available for us to talk to and
Speaker 2: do an interview with, and obviously it seemed like a
Speaker 2: perfect fit for this thirtieth anniversary review of The Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2: And even though we couldn't do it, Golden Joe Tosso,
Speaker 2: our amazing co producer, was available to conduct the interview.
Speaker 2: He took some of my questions worked in a few
Speaker 2: of his own, and Joe got John Capelos's take on
Speaker 2: why he thinks the movie resonated so strongly with audiences
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty five and why it continues to.
Speaker 6: I think because it hits on universal truths that are
Speaker 6: always going to be there. In adolescence. There's fear, there's
Speaker 6: a fear of failure, there's sort of dealing with your
Speaker 6: parents and all the sort of the incumbent issues that
Speaker 6: you know, and you walk away from the film going,
Speaker 6: wait a minute, what just happened? Here was a sort
Speaker 6: of a Catharsis for these people. And I think that
Speaker 6: kids continually relate to this movie because it addresses teenage
Speaker 6: acts and it doesn't talk down to them period.
Speaker 2: I really responded to the fact that all of their
Speaker 2: problems don't get solved, and I don't know that I
Speaker 2: expected that, knowing the movie as well as I did,
Speaker 2: but I think a lot of teen movies might have
Speaker 2: gone there. They overcome their differences temporarily, they don't correct
Speaker 2: themselves or each other. Nobody gets fixed. I think here
Speaker 2: watching this movie, they don't absolve each other for their
Speaker 2: deficiencies and their foibles because of course they can't. That's
Speaker 2: not reality. And I think that gets back to what
Speaker 2: you were saying in terms of authenticity. This is a
Speaker 2: reprieve from those lives, but they're going to get back
Speaker 2: to those lives. And to use the word that I
Speaker 2: think is so appropriate. We heard from Carl the janitor
Speaker 2: John Kapolos, it's catharsis. There is a sense of Catharsis
Speaker 2: at the end of this film, and I was thinking
Speaker 2: about why that final shot, that final frame of Bender
Speaker 2: with his fist up in the air, why that gives
Speaker 2: you this sense of triumph when at the end the
Speaker 2: day you think nothing much has really changed here. And
Speaker 2: actually Diablo Cody, the screenwriter, is on the DVD and
Speaker 2: she talks about it as it's of course playing very
Speaker 2: memorably to the Simple Mind song Don't You Forget About Me.
Speaker 2: She says, it's just about a saturday in detention, but
Speaker 2: you feel like a battle has been won, And she's right,
Speaker 2: you do somehow feel like a battle has been won,
Speaker 2: or at least some kind of blow has been struck, right,
Speaker 2: something decisive has happened, even if it's not going to
Speaker 2: change everything forever, some kind of blow has been struck
Speaker 2: against conformity, against complacency, falling into those roles and those
Speaker 2: prior beliefs about each other and ultimately about compassion. And
Speaker 2: that's what I was hinting at when I said they'll
Speaker 2: at least give each other that second look. I think
Speaker 2: that second look is that bit of compassion. So lots
Speaker 2: of C words there, but catharsis is a big one
Speaker 2: as well as compassion.
Speaker 5: I think the right word is reprieve. I think that's
Speaker 5: dead on.
Speaker 4: And the difference is that this is a reprieve that
Speaker 4: you feel is formative. So if it does not have
Speaker 4: a practical effect on Monday morning, the hope is it
Speaker 4: will gradually as they move on with their lives. All right,
Speaker 4: So let me pump the brakes a little bit on
Speaker 4: this saw, this enthusiasm, and.
Speaker 1: Just ask.
Speaker 4: I can ruin that they just have to, you know,
Speaker 4: one of us has to be a little bit reasonable
Speaker 4: about the breakfast club. Some of the dialogue, it seems
Speaker 4: like I feel like Hughes understands kids much better than
Speaker 4: maybe he understood how they talked things like eat my shorts.
Speaker 4: And you know, no one in whatever grade I was,
Speaker 4: sixth or fifth would say that, no there's a lot
Speaker 4: of lines like that, the dance montage to I mean,
Speaker 4: I know, are they high at that point?
Speaker 5: Is that the excuse we give them.
Speaker 2: Right, which I don't think anybody really reacts to being
Speaker 2: high that way.
Speaker 1: Everyone gets menik like they're on PCP or something.
Speaker 4: And then they're doing these routines together. I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: he had fun with it, but as a kid, I
Speaker 4: thought that was pretty corny.
Speaker 1: So I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think those lines, Josh, it did occur to me
Speaker 2: when he says eat my shorts, and there were maybe
Speaker 2: one or two other bendor lines where I thought I
Speaker 2: don't think he would say it that way. But those
Speaker 2: are so compensated for by all of the other really
Speaker 2: insightful lines and those pieces of dialogue like you already
Speaker 2: touched on where you get the end of a scene
Speaker 2: with a line like Andrew recognizing, how do you apologize
Speaker 2: for that? There are too many good lines like that
Speaker 2: where you just.
Speaker 5: Think that's why the clunkers stand down. Yeah, maybe.
Speaker 1: At all.
Speaker 2: No, that really isn't, especially when as I was saying
Speaker 2: a couple of other things, I like Paul Gleeson as
Speaker 2: he's phenomenal, and this is sort of like when Roger
Speaker 2: Ebert revisited the Graduate after I think thirty years of
Speaker 2: thirty five years, and he was kind of negative on
Speaker 2: the movie, and he told that story about how when
Speaker 2: he was a kid, he saw the guy at the
Speaker 2: pool party giving Benjamin Braddick advice about plastics and he
Speaker 2: laughed at him like everybody else did in the audience.
Speaker 1: And now thirty years later he thinks.
Speaker 2: Plastics not a bad idea, right, he has that different
Speaker 2: perspective being an older man. Well, Paul Gleeson as Vernon
Speaker 2: at that time was nothing but an adversary and antagon
Speaker 2: who didn't understand these kids. He was purely the enemy.
Speaker 2: But it's not a surprise that Hughes gives him that
Speaker 2: scene with Carl in the basement of the school, and
Speaker 2: you get a sense of his own disillusionment with his
Speaker 2: role and what he's doing there at the school. Why
Speaker 2: he's even there at the school on a Saturday at
Speaker 2: all for someone who should be in a loftier position.
Speaker 2: I mean thirty one, I think he said thirty one
Speaker 2: thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not about redeeming him.
Speaker 2: It's not about us ever sighting with him against the kids,
Speaker 2: but it is at least a little bit about getting
Speaker 2: his perspective, and I think that's enough having a little
Speaker 2: bit of empathy for where he's coming from as well.
Speaker 2: It makes him a more interesting figure when you have
Speaker 2: that bit of empathy for him. And I do think
Speaker 2: that Carl's line to Vernon underscores another key moment in
Speaker 2: the movie for me, along with Allison's line, which is listen,
Speaker 2: vern if you were sixteen, what would you think of you?
Speaker 2: That's something that he probably hadn't thought of until Carl
Speaker 2: said that to him, really forced himself to look at
Speaker 2: it that way and wondered how far he's come and
Speaker 2: how much he has changed in this process. And watching
Speaker 2: this movie again, when they cut to him in his
Speaker 2: office and he's isolated in there while they're isolated in
Speaker 2: that library setting, you are keenly aware of his isolation
Speaker 2: and his loneliness and a sense that he's being punished
Speaker 2: as well. He has to sit there, as we said
Speaker 2: on this Saturday, that's what his life has amounted to.
Speaker 2: That probably isn't what he envisioned when he started out,
Speaker 2: as Karl alludes to in that conversation, all he has
Speaker 2: really going for him is power or some sense of respect,
Speaker 2: and the kids don't even give him that, so of
Speaker 2: course imagine how he's then going to behave. But again,
Speaker 2: I never felt any empathy for Vernon before, or recognized
Speaker 2: any of myself in Vernon, and now as I watch it,
Speaker 2: I realize that there is a lot more tunem than that.
Speaker 8: Well.
Speaker 4: Gleason makes him more than the butt of the joke
Speaker 4: for sure, I mean he is the literal butt of
Speaker 4: the joke in many instances, but because of that scene
Speaker 4: you mentioned, and he's also not just a cardboard villain,
Speaker 4: because his villainy, if you can even and use that word,
Speaker 4: ties into what I think really this movie is spending
Speaker 4: a lot of time considering and it's parental failure. He
Speaker 4: is treating these kids, or relating to them power the
Speaker 4: word you use, the same way that it appears most
Speaker 4: of their parents relate to them, this authoritarian power dynamic.
Speaker 4: He just puts that into place at school, that's what
Speaker 4: they're experiencing at home, And if anything, the movie is
Speaker 4: this argument that there are more to your kids or
Speaker 4: the teenage experience than just keeping them in line and
Speaker 4: making sure they do what they're supposed.
Speaker 2: To do right there is at least one more topic
Speaker 2: I want to get into before we finalize this review,
Speaker 2: but I thought it would make sense to hear a
Speaker 2: little bit more from John Kapolos. Of course, Carl the
Speaker 2: janitor here in this movie. As I was talking about
Speaker 2: that conversation in the basement and the relationship between Carl
Speaker 2: and Vernon, I wanted Joe to ask him about the
Speaker 2: fact that he seems to be articulating one of the
Speaker 2: key l of the movie, almost given the theme of
Speaker 2: the movie to bestow on Vernon and the audience, and
Speaker 2: I wanted his sense of his function as a character
Speaker 2: in the movie to me.
Speaker 6: A lot of what Carl does is kind of underlines,
Speaker 6: as one would say, the theme of the film, but
Speaker 6: also underlines the notion that you you have dreams, you
Speaker 6: have aspirations, you have things you want to be, but
Speaker 6: be prepared because they are going to be crushed. And
Speaker 6: you think the detention is difficult, and you think that
Speaker 6: this world that you're in right now is difficult, you know,
Speaker 6: stay tuned. And there was a monologue that I delivered
Speaker 6: that told them world, they're all going to be like
Speaker 6: twenty five thirty years like today, right. I told Mollie
Speaker 6: that she's going to have stretch marks from here to Zion.
Speaker 6: She's going to have five kids, a Ford suburban. She's
Speaker 6: going to be drinking too much, and her husband's not
Speaker 6: going to pay attention to her. You know, have fun
Speaker 6: with that. And I told Michael he's going to be
Speaker 6: a big lawyer, is going to work in a big
Speaker 6: loop law firm. He's going to be big money and
Speaker 6: he's going to have a big heart attack and a
Speaker 6: big funeral at forty two. I told Emilio that he's
Speaker 6: going to be a failed athlete and he's going to
Speaker 6: be a gym teacher for the rest of his life
Speaker 6: and living vicariously through his son, like his father is
Speaker 6: living through him, and on and on it goes Judd Nelson.
Speaker 6: I said, well, you're going to spend five years at Attica,
Speaker 6: four years in Chino, you know, for armed robbery, and
Speaker 6: I sort of enumerated this long list of crimes that
Speaker 6: he's going to commit. And Ali Sheedy failed loft artist
Speaker 6: in New York, living off the kindness of strangers, etc.
Speaker 1: So it was a.
Speaker 6: Really great thing because in a way that expressed like, hey,
Speaker 6: you know, you think you got it tough now stay tuned,
Speaker 6: and in a way he was sort of senior buzzkill.
Speaker 2: So John goes on to explain that DeeDee Allen the editor,
Speaker 2: and John he was ultimately decided to leave that monologue
Speaker 2: out of the film. Obviously it's not there, and boy
Speaker 2: are we grateful, right? I mean, can you imagine if
Speaker 2: all of that was unloaded on those kids and us
Speaker 2: as an audience, it have been totally heavy handed, and
Speaker 2: it would have been unnecessary. And now that I'm thinking
Speaker 2: about that smart choice by d d Allen, and I'm
Speaker 2: thinking of my comments earlier about how sophisticated the editing
Speaker 2: is in this film. Just before I sat down here,
Speaker 2: I thought D d Allen he mentioned her by name,
Speaker 2: otherwise I probably would have failed to That sounds really familiar.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna look her up on IMDb and see what
Speaker 2: else she has done, And of course what we see
Speaker 2: is just a few movies like The Hustler, Bonnie and Clyde, Surproco,
Speaker 2: Dog Day Afternoon Reds.
Speaker 5: Nice.
Speaker 2: She's done, She's done some work, and it certainly was
Speaker 2: a case where she had the right instinct to lose
Speaker 2: that monologue. Though it does explain Josh why when he
Speaker 2: says that line about the clock, by the way, is
Speaker 2: twenty minutes fast. They really react to that, and I
Speaker 2: noticed watching it this time, they seemed almost overreact to it,
Speaker 2: like it was a better little closing jab than it is. Well,
Speaker 2: it's because that was the kicker to that monologue, which
Speaker 2: would have been much funnier.
Speaker 4: And they also keep a slight variation on that. Bender
Speaker 4: delivers a little bit of that that's true to Claire,
Speaker 4: so we get a tap that's funny. He describes Carl
Speaker 4: as a buzzkill because he struck me on this watch
Speaker 4: as being pretty zen actually.
Speaker 5: And this model of a guy who.
Speaker 4: Maybe didn't end up where you know he envisioned, but
Speaker 4: few people do and take it as.
Speaker 5: It comes, and it is.
Speaker 4: It's a really good performance. Yeah, it does, sir, for
Speaker 4: as little screen time as he got, serves a crucial
Speaker 4: function for the film.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, I told you I had one more area
Speaker 2: I wanted to get into. I just would be remiss.
Speaker 2: I think we'd be remiss if we didn't go down
Speaker 2: this path. You talked about Claire and Bender and that
Speaker 2: relationship maybe being more problematic. But I'm going to get
Speaker 2: to another clip here that I want to prompt you
Speaker 2: with Josh a little bit, because back in two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven, I interviewed Ellen Page and Diablo Cody for
Speaker 2: the movie Juno, and I asked Cody about an Entertainment
Speaker 2: Weekly article I had read that she was interviewed for
Speaker 2: where she referenced angela chase from My so called Life
Speaker 2: as a bit of a template for Juno similar sensibilities,
Speaker 2: and I asked her if she had any others, and
Speaker 2: she mentioned ghost a World, but basically said, it's kind
Speaker 2: of sad that I can only think of a couple
Speaker 2: of examples of these kind of strong female characters on screen.
Speaker 2: And so then I asked Ellen Page if she could
Speaker 2: think of any others, and that led her to Ali.
Speaker 9: Shety that Ali Sheedy gets all pretty in the end
Speaker 9: for the boy. I can't believe that this is like
Speaker 9: an iconic breaking barriers movie. I am sorry for all
Speaker 9: the lovers at the breakfast club, but when I first
Speaker 9: saw that, I was like traumatized. Really, the unique girl
Speaker 9: totally changes herself.
Speaker 3: It's so strange that you brought that up, because I
Speaker 3: had discussed that with somebody earlier today.
Speaker 9: Actually, the whole Ali Shady thing at the end is
Speaker 9: deeply distressing, and for what Emilia asked OFVZ.
Speaker 1: You know, but he's a wrestler.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I want to know, Josh, did you find
Speaker 2: it deeply distressing that transformation that Alison makes at the
Speaker 2: end of the film. Cody is all over the Breakfast
Speaker 2: Club thirtieth Anniversary Blu Ray. She's in documentary. She does
Speaker 2: love this movie and praises it considerably. But they ask
Speaker 2: her about this and she doesn't back down from saying
Speaker 2: that she sees it as a little bit of a
Speaker 2: betrayal of that character, Allison selling out.
Speaker 5: What do you think totally with her?
Speaker 4: Really the point, oh, come on to the point that
Speaker 4: even my self, my eleven year old self recognized, I
Speaker 4: can distinctly remember that being a let down for me
Speaker 4: as a boy because one of the characters that I
Speaker 4: probably I mean, I wasn't like I would say, being
Speaker 4: an introvert as a kid. I remember being feeling connected
Speaker 4: to the Ali Sheety character to that degree that there's
Speaker 4: really no type in that film that I identified with
Speaker 4: when I was in high school. They're probably just too broad,
Speaker 4: nobody really does. But I very much liked her character.
Speaker 4: Let me put it that way.
Speaker 1: I thought I thought she would in the performance, just.
Speaker 4: You know, someone who was really cool in that sort
Speaker 4: of in the background watching what's going on, probably smarter
Speaker 4: than maybe even Brian and dolling it out only when
Speaker 4: it was necessary. So I really liked Allison, and I
Speaker 4: remember being like, what is this now? No, this is
Speaker 4: no good beyond not even just not buying the romantic
Speaker 4: element of it, but this sort of what they're getting
Speaker 4: at more is like, this is not her, this is
Speaker 4: not you know, doesn't need to happen.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I'm with them on that.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, I definitely see the argument for sure, but
Speaker 2: I didn't see it that way as a kid, and
Speaker 2: I still don't completely see it that way now. And
Speaker 2: I think it is worth noting the specific words that
Speaker 2: Ellen Page used there where she talks about how she
Speaker 2: can't believe people regard it as some kind of big
Speaker 2: breaking barriers movie and that Allison's some kind of feminist
Speaker 2: icon or something. I don't think that's something I would argue,
Speaker 2: and I've never heard anyone else argue it. So if
Speaker 2: she was coming to the movie with that weight, expecting
Speaker 2: it to live up to that, I think the movie
Speaker 2: probably really would disappoint I suppose too, I would ask,
Speaker 2: and I'm legitimately asking. I don't have this answer. Maybe
Speaker 2: other people will share their opinion. Is something that is
Speaker 2: not feminist then anti feminist? Because I don't know that
Speaker 2: it's exactly.
Speaker 4: It's beyond that. I mean, it's the makeover.
Speaker 1: The makeover is never no, I agree to an extent.
Speaker 5: It's just a bad trope.
Speaker 1: I agree to an extent. But here's here is my
Speaker 1: one counter.
Speaker 2: And this is my genuine response to it, and it
Speaker 2: was the response when I was a kid. Does Alison
Speaker 2: really change herself for Andy? Is there a transformation or
Speaker 2: more of a reveal of who she really might be?
Speaker 2: Because that's how I see it. I think his comment
Speaker 2: to her is important. The first thing he says to her, actually,
Speaker 2: the first thing he verbalizes is I can see your
Speaker 2: face he finally sees her at the end of the film,
Speaker 2: rather than who she's been up to this point, a girl,
Speaker 2: as I saw it, and as I see it, literally
Speaker 2: hiding behind the unkempt hair and bangs and the black eyeliner.
Speaker 2: So I'd be distressed by it more if that character
Speaker 2: I ever felt was really comfortable in her own skin
Speaker 2: and she compromised her identity to win the affection of
Speaker 2: a boy. But I don't think she compromises her identity
Speaker 2: because she's still trying to discover it, just like everyone else.
Speaker 2: And so, yes, in hindsight, would be better if she
Speaker 2: didn't put the blush on her cheeks? Would it be
Speaker 2: better if maybe she didn't strip down to that pink shirt?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, maybe so.
Speaker 2: But for me, it's more about stripping away than adding.
Speaker 2: And I think that's exactly what suggested, is that a
Speaker 2: mask has been removed, not added, by the makeup.
Speaker 4: That could very well be what they were going for,
Speaker 4: but the method they took is hack made and problematic.
Speaker 5: There's no way around that.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know that I completely buy that, but
Speaker 2: I see the argument I think too. To bolster my argument,
Speaker 2: I'll just say, how great is it that her final
Speaker 2: moment with Andrew is her stealing the patch off his jacket,
Speaker 2: Just in case we thought, well, she's no longer the
Speaker 2: basket case she prettied herself all up. All of her
Speaker 2: problems have been solved by this little makeover, and now
Speaker 2: she's like everyone else, just conforming to the way high
Speaker 2: school is. Nope, she rips off that patch, and I
Speaker 2: just think that's one of those great little touches that
Speaker 2: shows how in sync Hughes was with these characters, even
Speaker 2: after a little bit of misstepping with how that reveal
Speaker 2: goes down.
Speaker 4: Unless she's going to put it on her own letterman jacket,
Speaker 4: you know, then the transformation's completely Maybe.
Speaker 1: That was going to happen. That would be fine, That
Speaker 1: would be fine.
Speaker 2: Okay, there is a lot more I think we could
Speaker 2: talk about with The Breakfast Club, But wow, I think
Speaker 2: we've talked enough, so we cover to go ahead and
Speaker 2: close out there. Oh je up, I'll be.
Speaker 7: I've done so.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe I'm gonna recommend Josh that ten years
Speaker 2: from now we give The Breakfast Club another look, see
Speaker 2: how we come at that movie for its fiftieth anniversary,
Speaker 2: because you know, I'm sure it came up in that conversation.
Speaker 1: I didn't re listen to it. I don't want to
Speaker 1: re listen to it.
Speaker 2: Maybe I will ten years from now and see how
Speaker 2: I wrestled with it upon that revisit. But that movie,
Speaker 2: for me was one of the first movies I remember
Speaker 2: incessantly quoting and thinking was not only hilarious but also profound,
Speaker 2: you know, and I was I was like ten, you know,
Speaker 2: so whatever profound meant at ten, I thought that movie.
Speaker 4: Was it was a peek into the high schooler's life, right,
Speaker 4: that's what you were giving.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
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