Hey @friendlyanimal, check out my succulent! I’ve had it for 3 months and have probably watered it 4 times. It’s going well!
Movie #3: The Sure Thing
Let me tell you all a secret: with a few notable exceptions (Love Actually, Forgetting Sarah Marshall), I kind of abhor romantic comedies. I don’t know why, I just do. I’m much more of a documentary, violent drama kind of gal (especially if it’s a period piece or a war drama!). But as you can clearly tell, when it comes to John Cusack, he’s a horse of a different color in my brain. I doubt that I would have enjoyed this film so much if he wasn’t the main character. But in all realness…
OKAY SO THIS MOVIE RULED. HARD. I don’t know what it was, a combination of awesome one-liners with a road trip movie that was actually funny and the adorable-ness that is always there when John Cusack is playing the typical college boy, but this film just really tickled something in me. I think I just really love it when the nerdy girl gets the cute boy (I can relate). I didn’t think this movie would be all that good since the summary reads like this: “Free-spirited Ivy League freshman ‘Gib’ Gibson makes plans to visit his friend in California over winter break with the promise of a hot babe waiting his arrival. But he’s stuck driving cross-country with studious Alison, who can’t stand him.” I kind of assumed it was just the two of ‘em driving cross country. But they don’t even have a car, they spend most of the time hitch hiking. Alison (Daphne Zuniga) can’t stand him (and she has a boyfriend), not because he’s annoying, but because she can’t figure him out. Through a series of hardships and calamities, Alison & Gib become friends and it’s obvious feelings are forming. The cutest part, I think, was when Alison got mad at Gib for trying to hit on his “sure thing” (a young Nicollette Sheridan) and she screams about him thinking love is like ordering a pizza and that he eats cheese balls and beer for breakfast (I can relate). Also when Gib taught Alison how to shotgun a beer, so cute! Of course they get together in the end, and Gib never hooks up with the sure thing (which, I still kind of don’t understand, a really hot girl in SoCal awaiting a dude from Northeastern just to bone her? Really?) and they kiss and it’s delightful (although the theme song played during the credits was HORRIBLE).
I really dug this quote, too: “What the hell’s wrong with being stupid once in awhile? Does everything you do always have to be sensible? Haven’t you ever thrown waterballoons off a roof? When you were a little kid didn’t you ever sprinkle Ivory flakes on the living room floor ‘cause you wanted to make it snow in July? Didn’t you ever get really shitfaced and maybe make a complete fool of yourself and still have an excellent time?”
Baby-faced John Cusack is a fuckin’ stud.
Next up: The Journey of Natty Gann (which seems…eh) but then it’s my personal favorite John Cusack movie, Better Off Dead!
Movie #2: Sixteen Candles.
I surprised most people when I told them I had never seen Sixteen Candles. I was never really an 80’s movie kind of kid growing up. In fact, I never really was a movies kind of person at all, at least not until this year and I got netflix and experienced a life change of huge proportions. ANYWAY. This movie was pretty much what I expected it to be. I can’t say I’m a big Molly Ringwald fan, though, her acting always leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Her characters always go from being vehemently angry to delightfully happy with the world in one quick swoop and I’m always left wanting more of a transition. But I didn’t watch this movie for Molly, did I?
I popped this movie in with my mom and my friend, Annie. Mom had never seen it and it had been quite a while for Annie, too. The movie had a weird racist undertone to it (every time Long Duck Dong came on screen a gong was hit?) but I can’t tell if it was meant to be funny or if it was just the 80’s and we were a little more overtly racist then? John Cusack was pretty forgettable in this movie. He had a few lines but overall what you would remember him by was the accessories he was wearing, the headsets and how he would talk to his friend through their headsets despite the fact that they were standing next to each other. His most endearing moment was when he was about to walk into Jake Ryan’s house with The Geek & Cliff and The Geek demanded he fix his hair and he yelped “I ALREADY DID!!”. Overall, this movie was enjoyable but it wasn’t because of John Cusack by any means.
“HEY DOUCHEBAG!”
And with that one line John Cusack’s career began. Class (1983) was Cusack’s debut comedy. Alongside stars Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy and Jacqueline Bisset, Cusack has his role as one of the boys in a prep school who reek havok on the school, smoke a lot of pot and work on getting Andrew McCarthy’s character laid. Obviously upstaged by Lowe, Cusack plays nicely alongside Alan Ruck as two seventeen year old boys who don’t give a fuck. As a minor character, Cusack’s character (Roscoe, by the way) is hardly fleshed out to a degree where one could fully assess his acting abilities. Suffice it to say, Cusack hardly steals any scenes from McCarthy or Lowe, but when he has a few seconds to himself, baby-faced Cusack knows how to play his audience. Frankly this movie has gotten me excited to see Cusack grow as an actor throughout his next few movies. I enjoyed this movie, but I’m no movie connoisseur. It’s enjoyable, it’s funny, and it’s an 80’s movie, I say see it sometime!
