liable to fall in

-

"Teenagers seem to occupy a time warp of eternally unchanging preoccupations" (Ebert, 1981). I suppose we'll see this month. I'm finished with Porky's after tonight (and I so wanted to watch Porky's II: The Next Day and Porky's Revenge in my downtime this past week but I just didn't have time). Choosing four films to represent teenage, high school themes was difficult. Narrowing it down--like I did with action films--to the 1980s helped. On the one hand, that reduced my choices to about eight films (a much easier number to reduce further). On the other hand, it also stuck me back in my childhood in looking back at these films. I've got nostalgia for these movies, just as Porky's has nostalgia for the fifties. It's a simpler time, a more innocent time, when the world was ending and sex was on the big screen but I was constantly told how it was bad and I shouldn't even think about it.

Now, I don't think that I actually saw the first Porky's in the theater, but I had seen it and the second one before the third one was out in 1985. This next week's film I did not see in the theater either. For years, I only saw it on television so a certain... scene was not something in my head when adolescence came. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let us stay in Angel Beach for now. Or Pasadena, perhaps--where I went to high school, where I was in elementary school when I saw Porky's Revenge in the theater. That movie doesn't just start with Pee Wee's morning wood but shows us the dream that leads to it (even though, research demonstrates (and Beavis and Butt-Head would concur) that morning erections don't really come from sexual dreams). That is something a nine-year-old moviegoer remembers.

And, for the record, any attempt by my mother to cover my eyes just made me pay closer attention.

And, in retrospect, that was mostly just fine. Even movies like Porky's--so focused on sex--are pretty damn innocent compared to, say the thriller Scream for Help, which introduced ten year old me to the idea that sex did not have to be missionary... or did I already know that? I may have known it, but I think that might have been the first film in which I saw it...

And, it's an interesting thing to think about. What did I know and when did I know it? I certainly wasn't learning it at the Christian private school I attended. At least not in any classroom. And, there was no "talk" with either of my parents. There was a single sex ed video in high school, but it was more about puberty and the fact that girls could now get pregnant than any details about sex. Of course, by then, I'd seen plenty of sex on the big screen or on cable. Sure, by the standards of the church I grew up attending, it was sinful, but what did I care?

I was a lot like Calvin here:

If it was "bad" for me, I sought it out. To be fair, when it came to movie content, I sought out anything and everything. Movies were always a thing for me. When a new movie theater opened in Old Town in 1986, I just had to go see a movie there--seriously, the United Artists Marketplace opened December 4 and I went to see Heartbreak Ridge there that very weekend. Yes, 10-year-old me was the instigator for seeing a Clint Eastwood-starring military movie with my dad. I wouldn't be making lists of movies I was seeing for another decade or so, but I was definitely already making an effort to see a lot of movies.

A few years later--my senior year in high school--I worked a lot of Saturday nights as a parking attendant. I would get home around 11pm and then I would walk to Blockbuster Video and rent 3-4 movies and would usually stay up all night watching them. And, in case you are new to this blog, lately I watch at least one movie a day. So, me and film are very close. We've spent a lot of time together.

In this blog, I once said, "I've got plenty of memories wrapped up in movies, so much so I could probably frame my autobiography around them someday like Nick Hornby framed Fever Pitch" around his experience with football games. On the one hand, I could totally do that. On the other hand, I kind of already so, here, in this blog.

Anyway, high school continues tomorrow. (Plus, in class tomorrow night, I will be referencing some of the stuff I wrote about Moulin Ridge! a few weeks back.) As Porky's collapses, I leave Porky's behind. I leave Angel Beach for Ridgemont.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

la fille que j'aimera sera comme bon vin

-
Image
Phil Connors doesn’t speak French. While it might be reasonable to assume Phil does learn to play piano beyond the two songs we hear him play since this is at the point he is actually trying to better himself and affect the world around him in a positive way, the French bit is much earlier. It also comes from a bit in Rubin’s original screenplay, not with Rita but with “Tess Harper—Jefferson County Poetry Society.” Basically, it’s a clear example of Phil doing the same thing he does with Nancy in the movie; he makes stuff up to get what he wants. This is only Day 10 . He hasn’t gotten to the depression that arguably makes him realize he’s an actual human being like everyone else around him… I just realized, this also means he’s probably lying when he says, “Small town people are more real, more down-to-earth.” Later, he might actually believe it. But, at this point, each line is just a move to win over Rita. Anyway, in the original screenplay, Phil meets Tess like he meets Mary in ...
Read more

i've seen it over a hundred times

-
Image
As I write this, it’s Day 2 for Phil Connors on the DVD and my daughters are in the kitchen making a cake to celebrate Day 100 for me... photo should be below. The movie Phil had seen over 100 times (or so he tells Laraine) was Heidi II . It’s a “family classic” according to the Alpine Theater’s marquee. But, as I’ve mentioned before, it doesn’t exist. Originally, the movie that Phil could see every day if he wanted to do so was It’s a Wonderful Life . Danny Rubin’s ego—and this is his suggestion, not mine—made him believe Groundhog Day “a timeless quality and had the potential to become a film that could work for audiences for a very long time.” So, he put another such film on the marquee. But, “even believing that Groundhog Day was a potential classic, [Rubin] never was thinking of comparing it to It’s a Wonderful Life “— (I’d say putting that title on the marquee was Rubin deliberately comparing the two, but maybe that’s just me.) . Rubin continues: “But the similarities bet...
Read more

the wretch, concentred all in self

-
So, Rita thinks Phil’s defining characteristic is his egocentrism. At the point in the story that she quotes Sir Walter Scott, it’s Day 4 for Phil (See the previous entry for a list of Phil’s days) and I wouldn’t argue that he isn’t egocentric. He’s still a jerk, taking advantage of his situation for fun. He’s manipulated Nancy for sex, has gone out on his costumed date to see Heidi II with the woman in the French maid costume. He’s just figured out the whole lack-of-consequences side of things with the help of Ralph and Gus. And, he’s sitting around loading up on, well, probably every dessert the Tip Top Café offers. His focus at this point is very much himself. But, a closer look at the lines Rita quotes got me to thinking, is Phil the man unsung by minstrels because he’s too self-centered? What Rita quotes is some lines from Canto VI of Sir Walter Scott’s “The Lay of the Last Minstrel.” The larger poem involves some clans at war with one another, but this particular section invol...
Read more