I post about movies here. If anyone remembers the random movie posts I did on The Shinmaru Zone/myOtaku, these will essentially be the same thing. Hope you all enjoy them!
All posts will have minor spoilers, and I do not use spoiler tags in this world, so read with caution.
Few movies have the sheer balls Heathers has.
Suicide is a tricky subject made trickier when teenagers are involved. In a sensitive world, suicide is handled in a delicate way -- there's grief, remorse and a desire to remember the deceased in a positive light. But sometimes this can also lead to the core causes of suicide being swept away or buried; the truth is harsh, so we want to avoid it.
Heathers is not interested in avoiding the problems. Instead, it sets a harsh eye on them and brutally examines how the world sees the tragic self-destruction of teenagers.
There are four girls who rule Westerburg High School -- Heather Chandler (Kim Walker), Heather Duke (Shannen Doherty), Heather McNamara (Lisanne Falk) and Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder). The Heathers intimidate lesser teens with their boundless popularity, and Chandler is their cruel dictator. However, Veronica doesn't always approve of the Heathers' activities; she can often be found shaking her head in the background while the Heathers mock students such as Martha "Dumptruck" Dunnstock, although Veronica is hesitant to stand up to the rest of the group.
Then J.D. (Christian Slater) appears and immediately catches Veronica's eye. In his first day at Westerburg, J.D. pulls a gun on the school bullies, Kurt (Lance Fenton) and Ram (Patrick Labyorteaux), and shoots blanks at them. He seems to be immune to the power of the Heathers. J.D. is not too concerned with popularity; he just does what he wants when he wants. Soon, he and Veronica are dating.
The relationship takes a turn when Veronica and J.D. stop by Heather Chandler's house. As revenge for her humiliating treatment at a frat party the night before, Veronica mixes a milk and orange juice drink to make Chandler sick. J.D. fills a cup with drain cleaner and jokes that he should give it to Chandler so that she will drink it and die. While J.D. distracts Veronica with a kiss, she accidentally takes the cup of drain cleaner, which Chandler drinks before dying. Veronica is horrified, but J.D. urges her to forge a suicide note to avail them of any suspicion. Soon the entire town mourns the tragic suicide of Heather Chandler.
This is the core of the movie. When Heather Chandler dies, nobody remembers the evil asshole who dominated the school and destroyed the self-esteem of so many people. Instead, she becomes a martyr. Students see suicide as the hip thing to do because the hippest person at Westerburg chose to kill herself. Teens kill themselves left and right because they want to be remembered as being just as cool as the Heathers.
I think I am making this sound much more serious than Heathers is up to this point. The movie is serious in its own way, but it handles things in such a gleefully dark way. At Heather Chandler's funeral, for instance, everyone puts on the air of being saddened by the horrible tragedy of her death, but as they pray over her coffin, their thoughts reveal otherwise. In their way, the mourners are as superficial as Heather Chandler -- they mourn because they are still in her hip grip, not because they truly cared about her.
Another of Heathers' strong points is the dialogue. It is difficult to capture the way teenagers speak -- not just the words they use, but the way they use them. When writing teens, the temptation is always to be self-consciously cool and hip (hell, I'll admit to giving in to that temptation more often than not). Heathers does this, too, but it gets it right. The way the dialogue is written and delivered stays true to the way teenagers act. These characters act with puffed-up bravado and invent colorful slang that will set themselves apart from the pack. They speak with confidence even though they don't have any to speak of. It's an act that teens haven't mastered because they have not lived long enough to be subtle with it. They haven't perfected their identity.
This problem of identity is the movie's main point about suicide. Many who seriously consider it find themselves on the outskirts of society, or at least feeling as if they are on the outskirts, without any help. Heather Chandler's suicide opens the floodgates but still does not offer any help. It is glorified and chattered about ad nauseam, but everyone is content with that. Nobody confronts the problem. A student -- one with actual issues -- fails to commit suicide and is mocked because she is clearly "trying to be one of the cool kids." Many people growing up need something to latch onto -- a person, an idea, something -- to help them form the basis of who they are. The idea of Heather Chandler's suicide becomes a point of identity for the Westerburg kids, so they follow along because they believe they have nothing else or nobody else to reach out to.
In this movie, they really do not have anything else, because everyone is so wrapped up in their groupthink that they are ignoring the destruction going on all around them.
Anyway, Jesus, this turned out way different than I thought it would. There's more to the movie, but I'm not going to give it all away. The main point is Heathers is a great movie, funny as hell with a lot to say, and you should all see it if you have not already.
EDIT: Continuing the videos! In this clip from Heathers, J.D. and Veronica first meet each other.
Every once in a while on my old blogs, I would whip out one of these movie posts because 1) I like watching movies and writing about them, and 2) People always like recommendations. I haven't written about movies in a while, and I miss it. Therefore, I have created a world dedicated to the movies. Yay!
If anyone wants to recommend a movie for me to watch and write about, feel free to do so in the comments. I'm open to anything from any era in any language in any genre about anything. I've watched enough movies to know that preconceived notions mean jack shit -- if a movie is good enough, it will be enjoyable regardless of what it's about.
And here is a rough list of the movies I've seen for anyone remotely interested. I'm pretty sure I've forgotten a few, so it's not complete, but it's as complete as my memory is likely to get.
My sole caveat is that I only write about movies I like. I'd rather this world did not turn into some festering den of negativity. The lone exception to this is if I REALLY hate the movie and think I could make something funny out of the post (which would explain when I posted about Oldboy, haha). Like the Library of Loons, I'm also open to having guest posters contribute -- we all have unique frames of reference regarding movies, so it'd be nice to have multiple voices contributing to this world.
Anyway! On to the first post ... (These posts will all include minor spoilers, by the way, but nothing major. Trust me.)
"Fast Eddie" Felson (Paul Newman) is a small-time pool hustler with big-time talent. He scratches a living by traveling America with his manager, feigning a lack of talent and cleaning out everyone in pool halls. But that is not all Felson is searching for.
One night, Felson enters a pool hall and waits. Later in the evening, the greatest pool player in the world, Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason), steps inside and agrees to play Felson at $200 a game. Felson loses at first but soon pushes Fats to his limits and increases the stakes to $1,000 per game. Fats' manager, pro gambler Bert Gordon (George C. Scott), watches the match unfold and supplies Fats with more money as Felson wins game after game.
However, Felson's arrogance prevents him from beating Fats. Felson refuses to end the game; he wants Fats to cry mercy. After a marathon match, Fats eventually breaks down Felson and cleans him out of everything but $200. Felson hightails it out of town and works at dives all around, hustling more small-time money and dreaming of once again challenging Fats and claiming his title of greatest pool player in the world.
The Hustler is an amazing portrait of pure obsession and destruction. Beating Fats is all Felson can think about afterward; Fats took away the thing that made Felson more than just another man, and he made Felson a nobody. Felson humiliates himself by playing in the most run-down, filthy pool halls to keep himself alive. But he never loses his desire to avenge his defeat and crush Fats through any means possible.
Felson does have a way out, though. He meets a young woman, Sarah Packard (Piper Laurie), at a bus terminal and eventually moves in with her. She's just as broken as he is, but in Felson she sees someone who can help her become whole again, and she also believes she can help him repair his life after first resisting him.
Some of the best scenes in the movie involve Felson and Packard trying to make their relationship work but failing, because Felson's obsession swallows up every part of his life. Later in the movie, Felson does something that essentially guarantees the destruction of his relationship with Packard, and her reaction to it is heartbreaking. It's obvious why Piper Laurie was nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this -- the desperation she feels in pulling her life together and holding on to Felson is always apparent, but she doesn't go over the top with it or devolve into melodramatic nonsense.
Can't say enough about the other actors, either. Paul Newman is almost always great. He plays Felson with just the kick of arrogance he needs, and beyond the surface, there's that look in his eyes that betrays the fear he feels that everything he worked for will amount to nothing. Jackie Gleason is cool and confident as Fats, and, interestingly, he's kind of melancholy too. He knows the life Felson is working for; it's not a good one. George C. Scott is just an evil, evil bastard as Gordon. He's just a straight-up legitimately awful human being.
Besides the great story and acting, though, I also love the whole look of the movie. Great use of the black-and-white film medium. The scenes in the pool halls are basically lit with dinky swinging lamps, and they provide some cool looking shadows in those scenes. The way the pool scenes are set up is also interesting -- they're played through fast, with angles changing constantly. That frenetic pace shows the tenuous grip the pool players have on their place in the world and the energy they must expend to keep their place at the top. Watching Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason play pool doesn't get boring, although it helps that the movie doesn't have too much pool in it.
The Hustler is an excellent movie with a story that will never be dated because it deals so strongly with themes of obsession, desperation and broken humanity (the only thing that dates it, really, is the amount of money Fats and Felson play for, haha). It's a movie that deserves to live on and continually be recognized for the strong movie it is.
