Better Off Dead

Just added the movie Better Off Dead to my DVD library.

Category: 80s Teen Angst

Subgenre: John Cusack

I remember catching I didn’t catch this movie at the theater but on cable, although where exactly I have not a clue. But I loved it. Because it was so different. I mean, a teen movie about suicide. Only Cusack would have attempted that. And he pulls it off masterfully.

Plus it’s got those cool claymation interludes. And an appearance by the scary guy from the Porky’s movies, which was written and directed by Bob Clark, the guy who directed A Christmas Story, which of course made Peter Billingsley forever famous as the round-faced  kid with glasses kid with a chubby for a Red Rider BB gun. Billingsley did some stuff post-A Christmas Story and finally came full circle when he played an actual elf in the Will Farrell vehicle, Elf. Since then he’s been executive producer on Iron Man and Four Christmases, and he directed Couples Retreat, which I heard wasn’t very good but still, at least he managed to stay out of the porn industry, which is more than you can say for his A Christmas Story co-star, Scott Schwartz, who got side-tracked into skin flick for a time, which sure was probably fun for a time but didn’t do much for his legit career. But apparently a Hollywood career is not dead until the actor is because recently Schwartz has been doing some stuff, small parts in small films.

Do you ever wonder if actors, when the make a comeback or return to the biz or whatever, get calls from actors they’d been in movies with a long time ago? Like do you think the guy that played Englberg or Rudy Stein in the original Bad News Bears movies has been trying to get in touch with Jack Earle Haley, who played Kelly Leak? Because the guy went from being like lost in Hollywood Siberia or someplace like that to Academy Awardy nominee. I mean, come on. Would you try to get in touch. I would. But then I have no shame. Sad but true.

Anyhoo… I haven’t yet had a chance to re-watched Better Off Dead. Thought I’d give it a run while on the tread mill but it will not play on our small DVD player. But I’ve got it on the shelf and that’s what matters, right.

Hollywood’s dimming stars

In keeping with my interest in not-so-famous, not-so-famous-anymore and never-really-was-all-that-famous-to-begin-with actors and such, check this video from slate.com taken during a visit a Hollywood Collectors Show.

Of the now “D-List” celebs featured in this video, I’ve met Lou Ferrigno, aka The Incredible Hulk, from the 70s TV series not the recent movies. At The Italian Heritage Festival held annually in Clarksburg, West Virginia, where my parents are from and where I still have relatives. Lou was the celebrity dago that year. Another year I shook Joe Dimaggio’s hand, but I was too young to know who he was. When my dad asked me if I knew who he was, I said, “Yeah. That’s the Mr. Coffee guy.”

I have never met Ami Dolenz, daughter of Mickey Dolenz of The Monkees, but man would I like to. Has she got some serious hooters or what? I have seen the movies Ticks. So bad it was cool! Although IMDB list it under the title of Infested. Actually she look like she’s had a pretty descent career. She was in Can’t Buy Me Love, another cool 80s Teen Angst film. Not twisted like Heathers. Very romantic, though. How could it not be, staring the teenage Patrick Dempsey, aka McDreamy. Ami played Fran, but I’m not exactly sure who that was. I’ve have to see it again. I should anyway. Dolenz also played Sloan in the TV version of Ferris Bueller. And this year she has two movies coming out: 1) 2012 Doomsday ; and 2) Room and Board.

War Inc.

Slate.com has a good article about John Cusack’s most recent film, War Inc. It didn’t have a big run at theaters and I missed it there but am looking fwd to watching it on DVD, as I do with  most of Cusacks’ movies. The suggestion in the article that War Inc is essentiall a remake of Grosse Pointe Blank set in a foreign country (it even includes John’s sister, Joan, as his secretary again) does not put me off a bit. Grosse Point Blank is not just one of Cusack’s best movies it is one of my favs. The wierd, off-beat humor is terriffic and signature to Cusack’s performances going way back.

I’m a big fan of 80s teen angst films, of which John Hughes is the recognized guru, but the non-Hughes films that Cusack did are among my very favorite. They include, Better Off Dead, a great dark comedy about teen suicide, Say Anything, one of the best teen angst movies of all time, and One Crazy Summer, which features a young Demi Moorer, pre-Bruce Willis and pre-boob job.

The article also mentions another recent film by Cusack, Grace is Gone, which I’ve also yet to see but currently have on hold hear at the libary where I work. Along with War Inc., the piece marks this as a sort of political activist phase for Cusack, but it points out that his kind of activism is different from those Tim Robbins ilk.

 The article also compares Cusack, as an actor, to Tom Hanks but with interesting differences. Check it:

Writing about Grace Is Gone in the New York Times, Stephen Holden called Cusack “Hollywood’s second most reliable nice guy, after Tom Hanks,” and while it’s indisputable that sheer likeability is essential to both actors’ personae, there’s something about the comparison that seems off. Maybe it’s that Hanks seems so solid, a bastion of family values and Hollywood bona fides, while the never-married, Chicago-based Cusack has a mercurial, off-kilter quality; fast-talking and fidgety, he always appears to be halfway out the door but eager to get in one last point before he goes.

The article concludes with the author speculating that Cusack would likely begin writing more of his own scripts, offering links to couple examples of the actor’s writing abilities. Such a move on Cusack’s part would be all to the good, as far as I am concerned.

For you consideration, John Cusack as Lloyd Dobler, reciting his career aspiration, a very GenX moment in movies:

I used to know this little speech verbatim and would recite it when asked about career aspirations.

And, Cusack as Lane Meyer, in Better Off Dead. the burger scene:

Great animation, eh.

For those of you who don’t reconginze the fat fuck boss, he’s from the Porky’s movies.