Movie Review: The Hotel New Hampshire (1984)

Genre: Dramedy  

Director: Tony Richardson  

Starring: Jodie Foster, Rob Lowe, Beau Bridges, Nastassja Kinski, Wilford Brimley, Matthew Modine, Amanda Plummer, Wallace Shawn  

Running Time: 110 minutes  

Synopsis: It's the 1950s, and dreamer Win Berry (Beau Bridges) converts an abandoned school into a hotel. His teenaged children John (Rob Lowe) and Franny (Jodie Foster) are incestuously attracted to each other, while their brother Frank (Paul McCrane) comes out as gay. Bad-boy high school footballer Chip (Matthew Modine) inflicts a life-long trauma on Franny, and over the years the family endures many adventures, including a relocation to Vienna, and encounters with Win's friend Freud (Wallace Shawn), and a girl in a bear costume (Nastassja Kinski).

What Works Well: The adaptation of John Irving's novel is committed to an original assortment of unconventional characters, unexpected incidents, and challenging themes, riding on a foundation of tragedy as a foundation for life's journey. Death is the Berry family's constant, and often unexpected, companion, but this does not prevent the pursuit of dreams, pleasure, and sometimes miraculous achievements despite shocking setbacks. 

What Does Not Work As Well: In a case of stuffing too much of the book onto the screen, the outcome is too quirky for its own good, with serious incidents of rape, incest, terrorism, and suicide almost dismissively caught up in merriment. Director Tony Richardson rarely pauses long enough to allow true emotions to surface, and further degrades his work with some ill-considered and unworthy Benny Hill-like fast-motion sequences. 

Key Quote:

Multiple characters: Keep passing the open windows.

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Movie Review: Holiday In The Wild (2019)

Genre: Romance  

Director: Ernie Barbarash  

Starring: Rob Lowe, Kristin Davis  

Running Time: 86 minutes  

Synopsis: Immediately after her son heads off to college, wealthy New Yorker Kate Conrad (Kristin Davis) is shocked when her businessman husband announces the end of their marriage and also departs. She sets off alone to a Zambia safari vacation, where she meets hunky and eligible small plane pilot Derek Hollistan (Rob Lowe), who also works at an elephant sanctuary. Kate has training as a veterinarian and decides to stay at the sanctuary to help care for the elephants. A thorny romance blossoms with Derek as Christmas approaches

What Works Well: Some of the African scenery is pleasant, and the elephants are adorable.

What Does Not Work As Well: A nauseating Hallmark-level movie set in Africa, wedging-in a Christmas theme because this is what Hallmark-type movies do. The human actors are embarrassed by the talented elephants, the writing is atrocious, all the dramatic moments are contrived, key secondary characters are barely defined beyond "bad husband" and "lusty vamp" and then just disappear, and the on-the-rails plot never deviates from utter predictability.

Key Quote:

Derek (referring to a buffalo): Some people say it's the most dangerous animal out here. But it's not.

Kate: What IS?

Derek: We are.

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Movie Review: Masquerade (1988)

Genre: Romance Crime Thriller  

Director: Bob Swaim  

Starring: Rob Lowe, Meg Tilly, Kim Cattrall, Doug Savant, John Glover, Dana Delany  

Running Time: 91 minutes  

Synopsis: In the wealthy Hamptons, Tim Whalen (Rob Lowe) is a brash but penniless yacht captain-for-hire having an affair with Brooke (Kim Cattrall), the wife of his boss. Tim's head is turned by the arrival of enigmatic wealthy heiress Olivia Lawrence (Meg Tilly). They start a romance, and Tim is introduced to Olivia's despicable step-father Gateworth (John Glover) and her high school crush Mike McGill (Doug Savant), now a police officer. Love blossoms between Tim and Olivia, but all is not what it seems. 

What Works Well: The sheer audacity of a soapy plot packing several sharp twists, steamy sex and nudity, greedy snakes slithering in the gardens of the wealthy, and true love between a mismatched couple, has to be saluted. John Barry provides a luxurious music score to accompany the tony surroundings, and the cast members fully buy into the chicanery. John Glover as the perpetually drunk and always contemptible step-father wins the deliciously over-the-top award. 

What Does Not Work As Well: Most of the characters are interesting enough to deserve more background context, but the short running time imposes truncation. Of course none of the criminal plot elements make the least bit of sense, and actions serve the script at the expense of common sense. Once the double-crosses and character improvisations kick into gear, the dissonance of pure lunacy dominates.

Key Quote:

Gateworth: You don't think. I think. You perform.

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Movie Review: Sex Tape (2014)

A raunchy comedy, Sex Tape delivers on modest expectations through the story of a couple accidentally oversharing the best sex of their married life.

Married couple Annie and Jay (Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel) used to enjoy a vigorous sex life, until kids came along. Now often too busy and exhausted, they rarely have time for physical intimacy. Jay is a music producer who saves and shares playlists on numerous iPads, while Annie runs a popular mommy blog, now attracting interest from a major corporation run by Hank Rosenbaum (Rob Lowe).

When a rare opportunity arises and they have the house to themselves, Annie and Jay have trouble rediscovering their sexual spark until they hit upon the idea of filming themselves having sex and performing every move from The Joy of Sex. After the three hour marathon session, Jay delays erasing the file then falls victim to the vagaries of cloud storage and synching. Soon the sex tape is uploaded onto iPads in the hands of all their friends and relatives, plus the mailman. Annie and Jay scramble to track down all the file copies before it's too late.

Directed by Jake Kasdan and written by Kate Angelo, Sex Tape unambiguously aims for cheap laughs and mostly finds its targets. This is unfiltered adult comedy with flashes of nudity and plenty of sex, peeking behind the curtain of middle class bedrooms, all played for hit-and-miss humour with obvious stretches of improvised dialogue.

The vibe between Annie and Jay helps keep the material afloat. Diaz and Segel play to their strengths and create an in-synch couple embracing a healthy sex life, not shying away from sex's many less-than-perfect moments, working as a team, and maintaining a (mostly) even keel to try and recover the embarrassing tape. And in-between the yucks are some frank discussions about the impact of kids on married sex, and on-line pornography's prevalence and societal context.

But the thin material is often stretched and exposed. Jay's level of technological incompetence is difficult to believe, a sequence at Hank Rosenbaum's mansion alternates between funny and overcooked, while a blackmail sub-plot includes the awkward involvement of a kid.

In addition to Lowe, the supporting cast includes Rob Corddry and Ellie Kemper as Robbie and Tess, Annie and Jay's best friends. They play a prominent role and add zing to the madcap adventures. Jack Black makes a late and uncredited but noteworthy appearance, doling our unlikely relationship advice. When sexual escapades are unintentionally set loose, surprising wisdom can be found in a nondescript warehouse housing a porn empire.



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Movie Review: Oxford Blues (1984)

A romantic sports drama and comedy, Oxford Blues showcases Rob Lowe's burgeoning charisma but stumbles into stuffy rooms full of cliches.

In Las Vegas, Nick Di Angelo (Lowe) is a brash high school graduate and aspiring rower. He is working as a valet while scamming his way up the waiting list towards admission at Oxford University, where he intends to win the heart of Lady Victoria (Vicky) Wingate (Amanda Pays). After a big night with a generous cougar (Gail Strickland), Nick heads to England.

At Oxford he bumps into fellow American Rona (Ally Sheedy), and finds Vicky engaged to the aristocratic Colin Fisher (Julian Sands). Rowing coach Simon Rutledge (Alan Howard) introduces Nick to the rowing team coxed by Rona, but Nick is a loner and resists the concept of teamwork. He makes progress romancing Vicky and ignores Rona's interest, but his short-tempered me-first attitude antagonises his classmates and the university administration.

Applying healthy doses of the ugly American abroad, old fashioned rebellion exemplified by a leather jacket, and stereotypical British classist stuffiness luxuriating within the walls of a venerable institution, Oxford Blues appears to seek out every overly-familiar chestnut. The story of an outsider disrupting traditions to grab what he wants and in the process learning what it takes to succeed in life is as quaint as they come, and writer/director Robert Boris adds little in the way of zest.

But to his credit Boris does navigate a scenic path around teen-oriented college comedies, sports dramas, a romantic triangle with touches of humour, and coming-of-age lessons in life. The on-location filming conveys a sense of place, while the de rigueur 1980s musical montage features Nick getting to grips with being part of a rowing team, and is the film's best moment. Unfortunately the opportunity to delve just a bit deeper into some of rowing's traditions and mechanics is missed.

The plot logic is flighty at best, this Oxford a place where hardly anyone appears to attend classes or stress about academic performance, while the blue-blooded Lady Victoria is quick to invite Nick's pawing.

However, Rob Lowe at 20 years old does not care much for rationality, as he radiates star potential and glides through campus fueled by searing eyes and that hair. He owns the self deprecating opportunities and convinces as a single-minded young man bulldozing his way towards what he wants until force meets wall. And at Oxford, the walls are built to last longer than the stamina of a young American.

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Movie Review: Thank You For Smoking (2005)

A workplace dramatic comedy, Thank You For Smoking examines the distasteful careers of those who lobby for industries that knowingly kill people. With biting satire, the story of a cigarette industry spokesperson cleverly humanizes the monsters behind the seemingly heartless statements.

Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) is the charismatic public face for the Academy of Tobacco Studies, an industry-funded advocacy group pumping out dubious science and responding to attacks on big tobacco. Nick is really good at his job, and becomes a well-known and publicly reviled figure, to the point of receiving death threats. His regular lunch companions include Polly (Maria Bello) and Bobby Jay (David Koechner), who hold similar jobs for the alcohol and firearms industries respectively.

Nick's nemeses includes Senator Ortolan Finistirre (William H. Macy), who is leading the charge for more graphic warnings on cigarette packages. With sales figures falling, Nick impresses his boss "BR" (J.K. Simmons) and tobacco tycoon "the Captain" (Robert Duvall) by suggesting that the industry pay for high profile movie stars to start smoking again in big-budget productions. This leads to a surreal meeting with Hollywood uber talent representative Jeff Megall (Rob Lowe).

Nick is divorced, but is nevertheless trying to be good dad to his inquisitive son Joey (Cameron Bright), who joins Nick on some of his business travels. On one trip they visit the actor Lorne Lutch (Sam Elliott), better known as the iconic Marlboro Man, but who is now dying of cancer. Meanwhile investigative journalist Heather Holloway (Katie Holmes) wants to profile Nick, and they start a scorching sexual relationship over a series of interviews. Just when everything appears to be going swimmingly well for Nick, his career is suddenly disrupted on all fronts.

The first major feature written and directed by Jason Reitman, Thank You For Smoking takes a clever look at the distasteful edges of a free civil society. Through the character of Nick, the film explores the themes of freedom of choice, fatherhood in the face of notoriety, and a capitalistic, hypocritical society where politicians and industrialists wage battle. Everything and everyone has a price, cheese can be compared to cigarettes, the dream machine of Hollywood is a giant advertising space, and science is the first casualty amidst the sleaze, spin, and scandal.

Produced on a modest budget, Thank You For Smoking is sly, witty, and compact at 92 minutes. Reitman packs the film with quick vignettes from Nick's life, the film unfolding with a mischievous attitude to match Nick's unapologetic stance. Nick's task is not about proving that cigarettes don't kill; rather, it's about obfuscating his way through the next argument so that the relevant facts are buried in an avalanche of spin.

The film succeeds in turning Nick into not quite a hero, but rather a necessary presence, a product of a system that refuses to curtail freedom and allows every accused the right to buy the best defence. That a smart, handsome and charismatic man is attracted to the job is then simply a matter of matching talent to the professional requirement, no different than a slick lawyer standing up for a seemingly blatantly guilty defendant in court.

Reitman also offers up Nick as a victim. As the face of a reviled industry, Nick not only has to deal with maniacs out to harm him, but his son also suffers the misfortune of having a nationally despised father. Nick is not deterred, and insists on exposing young Joey to the world of lobbying and advocacy. Joey gets to see the behind the scenes world where a dying man gets to choose between a briefcase full of money and freedom of speech, and where movie agents control how many smoke rings will be puffed on screen, and for what price.

Aaron Eckhart picks up the film and runs with it, enjoying one of the most prominent roles of his screen career and maximizing the impish side of his persona to create a man who is likeable in spite of himself. All the supporting cast members get into the swing of events and deliver rollicking support, with Elliott, Simmons, Duvall, Holmes and Macy enjoying their moments despite relatively limited screen time.

Every operator, no matter how slick, has a weakness, and Nick is about to discover his vulnerability in the most publicly humiliating way. He magnetism breeds overconfidence, and he will face his greatest crisis just when his industry needs him the most. However, in a society built on selling without conscience, there will always be welcome space for the modern fast talking, quick thinking confidence man.

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Movie Review: Class (1983)

A high school sex comedy, Class boasts a remarkable cast and appears intent on exploring some serious issues before getting lost in a tonal no-man's land.

Jonathan (Andrew McCarthy) is a new senior student at the exclusive all-boys Vernon Academy somewhere in New England. His roommate is the fun-loving "Skip" (Rob Lowe), who comes from a rich and established family. After trading painfully embarrassing pranks, Jonathan and Skip become good friends.

Skip encourages the tentative Jonathan to take a weekend trip to Chicago to gain confidence in his dealings with women. Jonathan does so, and to his surprise meets and starts a torrid sexual affair with the much older Ellen (Jacqueline Bisset). Having a mature woman as a lover changes Jonathan, as he gains immeasurably in confidence and becomes one of the most popular boys at Vernon. But when Christmas break arrives and Jonathan heads off to meet Skip's family, he is in for a huge shock.

Directed by Lewis John Carlino, Class struggles to define itself. The film spends a lot of time on routine campus high-jinx inspired by Animal House and its countless imitators. But gradually the narrative shifts uncomfortably towards the complications stemming from a sex drenched relationship between a younger man and an older woman. Serious themes are suddenly scattered across the screen. Lust is confused with love, troublesome stalking phone calls are introduced, and the loneliness of the emotionally abandoned rich wife emerges as a potential interesting plot line.

But the script by Jim Kouf and David Greenwalt is capable of introducing weighty matters but proves clueless in dealing with them once hatched. Class stumbles into awkward territory where a host of unresolved ideas run headlong into a rudimentary comedy, and the mess ends with an embarrassing fist fight that reveals nothing except the limitation of the writing.

Andrew McCarthy (in his debut) and Rob Lowe do establish a credible rapport of friendship that builds during the film and adds a dose of interest. Jacqueline Bisset plays off her screen persona as a sexpot, here becoming the dream mature woman capable of transforming an adolescent into adulthood in one night.

The three principals are supported by a talented supporting crew, with John Cusack (also in his debut), Alan Ruck, Casey Siemaszko, Virginia Madsen and Joan Cusack appearing as students. Stuart Margolin is the mysterious mustached investigator who descends on the school late in the proceedings to uncover wrong-doings, and Cliff Robertson is Skip's father. It's an unusually deep cast for what is ultimately an underdeveloped and lightweight high school romp, and the surprisingly good acting talent set against the bumpy script adds to the film's identity crisis.

Class is not without its merits, but the curriculum is a most messy muddle.

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The Movies Of Rob Lowe

All movies starring Rob Lowe and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

The Outsiders (1983)

Class (1983)

The Hotel New Hampshire (1984)

Oxford Blues (1984)

St. Elmo's Fire (1985)

About Last Night...(1986)

Masquerade (1988)

Wayne's World (1992)

Mulholland Falls (1996, uncredited)

Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery (1997, uncredited)

Contact (1997)

Thank You For Smoking (2005)

Sex Tape (2014)

The Interview (2014, uncredited, as himself)

Holiday In The Wild (2019)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: St. Elmo's Fire (1985)

A post-graduation coming-of-age drama and one of the essential Brat Pack movies, St. Elmo's Fire is crowded with stereotypes but nevertheless captures the angst of transitioning from the campus to the real world.

Seven friends in their early twenties are facing life soon after graduating from Georgetown University. Alec (Judd Nelson) and Leslie (Ally Sheedy) are living together, and while he is working as a political aid and ready to get married, she wants to wait. Kevin (Andrew McCarthy) is an aspiring writer and frequently hangs out with Alec and Leslie. Kevin's roommate is Kirby (Emilio Estevez), who has ambitions to study law but currently works as a waiter at St. Elmo's Bar, the group's favourite hang-out.

Billy (Rob Lowe) is the bad boy, a saxophone player with no career path, already estranged from his wife and infant child. Nevertheless, Wendy (Mare Winningham), a social worker, is deeply in love with him. Finally, Jules (Demi Moore) is a party girl and already sucked into a materialistic life she can't afford.

Alec can't help but cheat on Leslie as he waits for her to agree to get married, while Kevin harbours a secret crush on another member of the group. Kirby openly lusts after Dale (Andie MacDowell), a doctor who graduated a few years earlier, and starts stalking her. Billy and Wendy have a falling out, and she comes under pressure from her father (Martin Balsam) to marry a boring man and get into her family's greeting card franchise business. Jules seeks a short-cut to financial stability by starting an affair with her married boss. As the seven struggle to deal with the responsibilities of adulthood, their friendships are stretched to the breaking point.

The seven characters of St. Elmo's Fire are undoubtedly self-centred, over-dramatic, and generally quite irritating. Not one of them appears to have charted a logical emotional or career path, and their behaviour is more suitable to snotty high schoolers than university graduates. Allowing for the film's tilt towards the dysfunctionally exaggerated, St. Elmo's Fire does deliver some succulent drama. There is enough romance, lust, and irresponsibility going on to fill a few seasons' worth of guilty pleasure television, and director Joel Schumacher packages his movie with glossy wrapping paper and the nostalgia of early adulthood, when every little independent decision seemed like a monumental moment.

The script, by Schumacher and Carl Kurlander, creates characters that are vivid and memorable rather than unique. Each of the seven represents a broad societal pie slice, and there is no holding back on the amount of filling. Billy's rebel without a cause is all long haired, ear-ringed, unfocused imprudence, Wendy's goody two-shoes dresses like the Mayflower pilgrims, and Jules' slutty material girl lives life according to a Madonna soundtrack. Kirby's infatuation with Dale would qualify as a crime outside a movie script, but here is played for laughs, Kevin's dreamy-eyed long-haired aspiring writer drips idealistic romanticism, and Alec's out of control libido would condemn him as a sex addict. Leslie just barely qualifies as closest to rational, but even she quickly hops into a bed with a new lover at the first hint of a fight with Alec.

With the subtleties being pummeled, there is no need for textured acting, and no one ever accused the Brat Packers of excellence in the performing arts. Fulfilling the function of pretty faces representing their generation's excesses rather than intense dramatists, the seven actors dive into their strictly defined roles and embody them energetically, without ever moving beyond the obvious. Nelson, Lowe and Moore get to stretch the most, but even they are confined to stock displays of anger generated by hormones adjusting from the campus cocoon to the cold real world. Estevez, as a little boy lost in a horrible role, suffers the most.

The theme song St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion) is quite outstanding. Written by David Foster and performed by John Parr, it is overused throughout the film, but does capture the energetic anguish of responsibility. In St. Elmo's Fire growing up is hard to do, but at least it looks and sounds good.

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Movie Review: About Last Night... (1986)

A romantic drama, About Last Night... delves into the dynamics of the dating scene, and an intense modern relationship sparked by sex but threatened by lack of maturity. The film is a surprisingly raw and pleasurably painful exploration of the highs and lows of infatuation.

In Chicago, Danny (Rob Lowe) and Bernie (James Belushi) are best friends and co-workers at a restaurant supply business. They chase after women and sex for sport, but then Danny meets Debbie (Demi Moore), who works in marketing, and after terrific first date sex, they develop a serious and fierce physical attraction. Bernie and Debbie's roommate Joan (Elizabeth Perkins), a kindergarten teacher, are jealous of the rapidly building chemistry between Danny and Debbie, but they are helpless to stop it. Debbie quickly moves into Danny's apartment.

But then the realities of life start to intrude, as Danny brings his work pressures home with him, while Debbie is eager for the relationship to evolve from lust into love and a long term commitment. With Bernie and Joan doing little to help the lovers adapt to life as a couple, the burgeoning romance comes under stress, and neither Danny nor Debbie are well equipped to navigate the churning waters of togetherness.

[Debbie and Joan are watching from a distance as their friend Pat flirts with a group of guys at the bar:]
Joan: Oh god, Pat's going in for the kill. Oh my! That was a nice turn.
Debbie: With just a hint of giddiness.
Joan: Her big move should be coming up any moment. The combination hair flip with a giggle.
Debbie: There is a 3.2 level of difficulty here. Joan let's see if she can pull it off.
Joan: This is it... this is it... Oh Yes!
Debbie: Oh Yes! Yes! Oh Bravo! Bravo! 9.0!

Within the churn of an overheated dating carousel, Danny and Debbie find a lake of tranquility but go through their courtship backwards, starting with sex, then togetherness, and finally trying to get to know each other. It's a sequence that is bound to encounter plenty of bumps, and indeed About Last Night... is more about the troubles than the pleasures of a couple. Past relationships, work pressure, unhelpful best friends and unsynchronized expectations all crash into the apartment once Debbie moves in, and neither of them is prepared to answer the questions thrown by life onto committed couples.

[Joan is reading a story for her Kindergarten class]
Joan: 'And the Virgin Mary descended upon... '
Kid #1: What's a virgin?
Joan: A virgin is someone who's never had sex.
Kid #2: What's sex?
Joan: Sex is something men and women do to make a baby.
Kid #3: Are you a virgin?
Joan: No.
Kid #3: Do you have a baby?
Joan: No. People who don't want babies also have sex.
Kid #3: What for?
Joan: For about 10 or 15 minutes.

With a longish running length of close to two hours, About Last Night... takes its time in creating four interesting characters. Debbie and Danny are individually capable, physically attractive, sexually stunning, but potentially hopeless as a twosome. Bernie and Joan are much more prominent than the token friends often thrown into romantic movies. Here they play a continuous role and generate a source of disruptive tension, as they maintain the single, searching life while Debbie and Danny embark on a trial of what comes next. Director Edward Zwick patiently builds the central relationship over a period of one year, the changing seasons and succession of holidays marking milestones in a passion born in the spring and already floundering badly by winter.

Refreshingly raunchy in its depiction of sex between a couple who initially can't keep their hands off each other, the script by Tim Kazurinsky and Denise DeClue is always looking for the subtle differences between men and women, Debbie's quiet yearning for signs of long term commitment finally crashing against Danny's unexpurgated bachelor tendencies.

And while About Last Night... avoids all frat boy humour, there are plenty of clever touches and sharp commentary on everything from dating habits to the ups and down of friendships as represented by Bernie and Joan.

Bernie: You know something Joan, if you didn't have a pussy there'd be a bounty on your head.
Joan: And you are a schizophrenic, psychopathic, maladjusted social misfit who is clearly in the middle of a very deep homosexual panic.
Bernie: So you want to dance or what?

Both Rob Lowe and Demi Moore deliver exceptional performances, among the best of their respective careers. Lowe captures Danny as a young man swept off his feet but tortured by his inability to understand what comes after great sex. Torn between his old life as represented by Bernie and all the opportunity and mystery offered by a possible life partner, Lowe finds the vulnerability of a seemingly confident man suddenly confronting a load heavier than he can carry.

Even better is Moore, her performance as Debbie filled with determination clashing with disillusionment as the man of her dreams fails to live up to fairy tale expectations. Debbie is less a work in progress than Danny, and Moore conveys a woman buffeted by a near miss: the almost perfect man who may just glance off target.

Danny: I think I thought it was going to be different than it...
Debbie: Than what it was really like? Me, too. Maybe we were just - too naive.
Danny: Yeah, maybe. Maybe we knew too much.

Heartfelt and genuine, About Last Night... is about everything that happens after the magic of the first night meets the cold light of day.

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Movie Review: The Outsiders (1983)

The adaptation of S.E. Hinton's youth-in-peril novel, The Outsiders is a sombre affair. Francis Ford Coppola finds the drama amongst the scrappy youth caught between childhood and adulthood, but cannot locate the soul of their anguish.

It's 1965 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the Greasers are a gang of tough kids from broken homes on the wrong side of the tracks. Ponyboy (C. Thomas Howell) is quiet and sensitive but still a Greaser, while his eldest brother Darrel (Patrick Swayze) is violent and struggling to cope with head-of-the-family responsibilities now that their parents are dead. Middle brother Sodapop (Rob Lowe) is often caught between Ponyboy and Darrel. Ponyboy's best friend is the knife-wielding, baby-faced Johnny (Ralph Macchio), and the other Greasers include Two Bit (Emilio Estevez), Steve (Tom Cruise) and Tim (Glenn Withrow). The unofficial leader of the Greasers is Dallas (Matt Dillon), who has only recently been released from jail.

While walking home, Ponyboy is attacked by members of the Socs, a rival gang of wealthier kids. Later, after Ponyboy and Johnny spend some time with middle-class girls Cherry (Diane Lane) and Marcia (Michelle Meyrink), the Socs show up to settle scores. With Ponyboy outnumbered and almost being drowned by the Socs, Johnny springs into action and uses his knife to kill one Soc and scare away the others. Dallas helps Ponyboy and Johnny to escape and hide-out in an abandoned church. But the Socs want revenge in the form of an all-out brawl between the gangs, while Ponyboy, Dallas and Johnny encounter an unexpected opportunity for heroism that takes a tragic turn.

Coppola assembled what proved to be quite the spectacular cast of young talent for The Outsiders. Rarely has a film brought together so many young actors who would go on to have long and successful careers. Ironically, Howell and Macchio, the two most prominent Greasers, would eventually have relatively lower profile adult success compared to Cruise, Swayze, Dillon, Lowe, Estevez and Lane. The talent on display enhances The Outsiders, as even small roles like Two Bit, Sodapop and Cherry are well worth watching.

In terms of the drama, The Outsiders recounts a sad story but without finding a spark to elevate it onto any sort of emotional plain. The Greasers are deserving of empathy, kids cast adrift with not a capable parent in sight, but not enough is ever revealed about them to make them anything other than kids who are likely to get into trouble. There are some touching and quiet moments as Ponyboy and Johnny hide out in an isolated church for several days, reading Gone With The Wind and sharing their innermost thoughts, but the serenity is delivered at some cost in plausibility: street-tough 14 year old kids suddenly behaving like rational adults requires quite the mental leap.

And the film cannot do much to overcome the weaknesses and derivatives in the original narrative. There are some strong whiffs of Romeo And Juliet without the romance and West Side Story without the music, while the brawl appears to mostly serve as an artificial kinetic jolt to enliven an otherwise downbeat final 60 minutes.

The 2005 "Complete Novel" re-release, a director's cut by another name, reinserts deleted scenes and adds 22 minutes to the running time. Most of the additions occur at the front end to better establish Ponyboy, the Greasers, and the context of the gang rivalry, creating a more cohesive experience. However, the complete abandonment of Carmine Coppola's evocative orchestral score, replaced by contemporary high-tempo mid-1960s hits, is a change with debatable merits.

The Outsiders has talent behind and in front of the camera that surpasses the material. The Greasers are worth a look, but the experience is not all that slick.

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Movie Review: Wayne's World (1992)

A movie about exactly nothing nevertheless became a long-lasting cultural phenomenon, and catapulted Mike Myers into the front row of 1990's movie comics.

Based on sketch segments featured on Saturday Night Live, Wayne's World centres on the misadventures of Wayne (Myers) and his buddy Garth (Dana Carvey). In a Chicago suburb, they are the hosts of a late-night local community TV show about...not much beyond their vacuous thoughts on music and babes, broadcasting on a shoestring budget from Wayne's basement.

Network TV executive Benjamin Kane (Rob Lowe) spots Wayne's World while his wife is channel surfing through the dead corpses of late-night TV shows, and sees the potential of connecting with a young hip audience by taking the show onto his network and having it sponsored by a video arcade tycoon. As Wayne and Garth get ready to take their show to a wider audience, both Wayne and Benjamin lust over local rock singer Cassandra Wong (Tia Carrere).

None of the plot matters, of course. Wayne's World is all about Myers and Carvey having fun with their characters and introducing into the cultural lexicon "...Not!", "Excellent!", "Schwing!" "Party On!" and "Babelicious!". Myers plays Wayne as the insanely happy and perpetually smiling every guy, leaving Carvey to steal the movie as the clearly unhinged and dangerously shy Garth.

Lowe and Carrere hang on for dear life as director Penelope Spheeris allows Myers and Carvey to do everything contrary to normal movie-making etiquette, from talking to the camera to setting off on irreverent tangents, such as Carvey bashing out a terrific drum solo just for the hell of it, and having discussions about Milwaukee's name origins backstage with Alice Cooper.

Wayne, Garth and their buddies singing along and head-banging to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody while crammed into the light blue AMC Pacer is an enduring classic scene. And just to emphasize that all the rules are being broken, the film offers three separate endings, none of them remotely serious.

Wayne's World is both a cultural landmark and a lot of pure original fun.

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