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Forum namePass The Popcorn
Topic subjectDo you think The Breakfast Club would be a hit among teens
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=6&topic_id=386054
386054, Do you think The Breakfast Club would be a hit among teens
Posted by Gemini_Two_One, Tue Jul-15-08 12:31 PM
If it was release today?


!sig!

"I used to rock and roll all night and party ev-er-ry day. Then it was every other day. Now I'm lucky if I can find half an hour a week in which to get funky." - Homer Simpson
386055, Yes.
Posted by SoulHonky, Tue Jul-15-08 12:49 PM
They'd have to update it a bit but it would be a huge succcess IMO. Look at the crap teen movies out today. The adjusted gross was 88 million. I think it would do around that, if not Juno numbers (143 million).
386056, The crap movies are what inspired the question
Posted by Gemini_Two_One, Tue Jul-15-08 12:54 PM
I could see updated versions of Weird Science and Ferris Bueller's being highly successful, but I wondered if they would want to watch a movie that basically takes place in a library and has more dialogue.


!sig!

"I used to rock and roll all night and party ev-er-ry day. Then it was every other day. Now I'm lucky if I can find half an hour a week in which to get funky." - Homer Simpson
386062, Well before we all get on our "When I was their age" high horse...
Posted by SoulHonky, Tue Jul-15-08 01:25 PM
Before Superbad unseated it, the highest grossing high school comedy was Porky's. It made over 100 million in 1982 (246 million in adjust gross).

My point about the crap movies out today is that I think kids would flock to an actual thoughtful film that they could relate to (and I think a lot of adults would also check it out as well).

I know a lot of people like to say "Well look at the crap kids watch nowadays" but honestly, what else are they going to see? And it's not like they are making these current teen comedies big hits. The only films to break into the top ten grossing high school comedies (according to box office mojo) are Superbad, Mean Girls, and Bring It On.

I think Hollywood vastly underestimates the teen audience.*

* Although don't ask me to explain how High School Musical became such a huge hit.
386128, High School Musical = Disney Channel's base of little kids
Posted by Kuahmel, Tue Jul-15-08 05:30 PM
People the characters' ages watch MTV and BET.
386057, Great ?uestion
Posted by kid, Tue Jul-15-08 12:56 PM
My answer is, I'd hope so.

But then again, have you seen some of the crap teens watch/listen to?
I don't know if people like to think while watching movies anymore, and there weren't any explosions or gratuitous sex scenes.




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386076, definitely.
Posted by come on people, Tue Jul-15-08 02:24 PM
but it'd have to star ashley tisdale & corbin bleu.
386077, definitely.
Posted by come on people, Tue Jul-15-08 02:25 PM
but it'd have to star ashley tisdale & corbin bleu.
386085, sure.
Posted by come on people, Tue Jul-15-08 03:20 PM
but it'd have to star ashley tisdale & corbin bleu.
386092, I guess so.
Posted by tappenzee, Tue Jul-15-08 03:44 PM
but it'd have to star ashley tisdale & corbin bleu.
386093, possibly
Posted by tappenzee, Tue Jul-15-08 03:45 PM
but it'd have to star ashley tisdale & corbin bleu.
386094, maybe
Posted by tappenzee, Tue Jul-15-08 03:45 PM
but it'd have to star ashley tisdale & corbin bleu.
386095, FUCK no
Posted by tappenzee, Tue Jul-15-08 03:45 PM
but it'd have to star ashley tisdale & corbin bleu.
386104, This one has to be an hour later
Posted by SoulHonky, Tue Jul-15-08 04:11 PM
I could see the three posts by mistake but when he posted the same thing again an hour later, SMH
387198, LOL.
Posted by The_Blue_Ninja_Turtle, Fri Jul-18-08 07:52 PM
386481, Nope
Posted by Never, Wed Jul-16-08 07:26 PM
Neither would Weird Science, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Better Off Dead, or any of those movies that defined teen years during the 80s.

386490, yes
Posted by Odyssee, Wed Jul-16-08 08:32 PM
they're eating up everything else from the 80s
386587, As long as they cast it the same way, with 30 somethings as Juniors
Posted by Ceej, Thu Jul-17-08 08:19 AM
Still one of my all time favs
387614, Definitely n/m
Posted by unohoo, Sat Jul-19-08 10:43 PM
387616, Sure, but would The Last American Virgin?
Posted by Marauder21, Sat Jul-19-08 10:50 PM
Sadly, it would not even be possible today.
388673, The Last American Virgin
Posted by Lyterall, Tue Jul-22-08 02:55 PM
WOW! Funny you brought up this film. I found it on DVD like 5 years ago. Not near as funny as Breakfast Club, but a good 80's flick. But the real funny thing, is that i actually created a outline of a script for a remake of The Last American Virgin. Minus the measuring of the d!cks scene. So GAY! (No HOMO). But, i think the Last American Virgin would do way better as a remake than The Breakfast Club. Less people have seen it and you could modernize it, with much more "envelope pushing" material.

Lyterall appears courtesy of
Midnight Heat Ent./Planet Ill

The new album "Stop Looking At Me" coming Winter 2009.... just waite and listen!
388074, Am I the only person who dislikes "The Breakfast Club"?
Posted by Mole, Mon Jul-21-08 01:02 PM
I'm beginning to think so. I didn't see the movie until I was well out of high school (last year, in fact), and maybe I'm just not from the generation it was aimed at, but I don't think it reflected my experience at that age at all. Here's an essay I wrote about it for my paper, which is only slightly tongue-in-cheek:

"The Breakfast Club: John Hughes' Teenage Lobotomy

I was born in 1982. Technically, this makes me a Child of the ’80s. As such, there are certain things I am supposed to reflexively feel a connection to. Like Nintendo. And Thundercats. And, of course, The Breakfast Club.

Now, I know that last one sounds absurd. I was 3 years old when that movie came out. I had no concept of high school at that age, let alone the social stratification of youth. I didn’t even really know that people are different from each other. Everyone seemed pretty much the same to me; some were shorter, others were taller, but if you were in my line of sight, you were basically my friend. So how could I connect with something I couldn’t comprehend?

Simple answer: I didn’t.

It wasn't until recently that I actually saw The Breakfast Club, John Hughes’ much adored film about five disparate teenagers who, over the course of eight hours stuck in Saturday detention, discover a common ground between them they never knew existed. And even after having been churned through the public school system and experiencing clique culture and serving one or two Saturday detentions myself, I still don’t understand it. Clarification: I don’t understand why it’s so beloved.

Let’s ignore the obviously ridiculous moments — the weed smoking scene in which Emilio Estevez inexplicably transforms into a gymnast and shatters a glass door with his voice; the pointless dance sequence set to Karla DeVito’s “We Are Not Alone”; the long, melodramatic, schizophrenic conversation that serves as the story’s climax — and focus on the film’s central theme: Beneath the superficial categorizations that divide us, young people are really all the same. The implication is that we don’t truly become individuals until entering adulthood — at which point, “your heart dies,” as Ally Sheedy so memorably reminds us. Basically, The Breakfast Club is paean to conformity.

Which, of course, means John Hughes is a fascist.

OK, maybe “fascist” is too strong a word. But what Hughes is celebrating here is not our differences — you know, the stuff that makes people interesting — but the way in which we are alike, suggesting that, deep down, we are just carbon copies of one another, and if we can only submit to that fact, our lives will improve. Look at what happens: After everyone realizes they essentially share the same fucked-up home life, each character begins dropping their personal identities. Sheedy’s Allison, the group’s biggest outcast, allows Molly Ringwald’s Claire to give her a more socially acceptable makeover, and she suddenly falls for Estevez’s Andy, the blandest of the bunch. Bender, the misfit, compromises his anti-authoritarian, anti-bourgeois stance and hooks up with Claire, the spoiled rich girl. It’s no wonder they only produce one essay at the end, describing “who they think they are”: They are now the same boring person. And they’re supposed to be happy about it.

This analysis might appear antithetical to what Hughes intended. “After all,” you say, “isn’t insecure jock Andy’s existential crisis that he is incapable of thinking for himself? Isn’t the whole movie about breaking the unwritten rules of teenage society and seeing people for who they really are?”

Don’t be so naïve. Hughes uses sentimentality to mask his true intentions. Take Principal Vernon, “the villain.” He is the most singular character in the movie, and he is miserable. In one of the film’s least remembered scenes, he laments that after 25 years in education, he feels the kids have turned on him. “Come on, Vern,” says Carl, the janitor. “The kids haven’t changed, you have.” And this is presented as a negative virtue.

To John Hughes, change is bad. This is why all his “classic” films are about adolescence: He sees teenagers as smiling automatons and adults as depressed individualists. And this is why there will never be a Breakfast Club 2: Once his characters grow up and develop minds of their own, Hughes abandons them.

“You wanna see something funny?” Vernon tells the group at one point. “You go visit John Bender in five years. You’ll see how goddamned funny he is.” Right — maybe he’ll have left suburban Illinois, gotten a job, traveled the world, forgotten all about this one random day in detention and actually formed his own opinions about the world. And who wants to see that?"


388670, RE: Am I the only person who dislikes "The Breakfast Club"?
Posted by Lyterall, Tue Jul-22-08 02:51 PM
My god!!!!! This is OKP, not a spread in a magazine. Another movie that you hate and that i like. Wowzerz. Im starting to think that you have bad taste in movies. Maybe its because you are a MOLE and dont get out often??? Hmmmm?

Lyterall appears courtesy of
Midnight Heat Ent./Planet Ill

The new album "Stop Looking At Me" coming Winter 2009.... just waite and listen!
388676, Do u hate The Princess Bride as well??
Posted by Ceej, Tue Jul-22-08 02:57 PM
389084, Andre The Giant
Posted by Lyterall, Wed Jul-23-08 06:54 PM
I've seen that movie as a kid and remember not really liking it. Too boring for my taste. Only thing i really remember was that Andre The Giant was in it.

Lyterall appears courtesy of
Midnight Heat Ent./Planet Ill

The new album "Stop Looking At Me" coming Winter 2009.... just waite and listen!
389183, You clearly have no soul
Posted by Ceej, Thu Jul-24-08 07:44 AM
389315, I also hate puppies and the laughter of children. Problem?
Posted by Mole, Thu Jul-24-08 12:45 PM
No, I just felt Hughes was TRYING to make a film about breaking down the walls that keep people (well, different kinds of white people, anyway) separated from each other but it ended up saying, "All kids are essentially the same, and given the opportunity they all want to conform to the ideal." And for a movie that is supposed to transcend its generation, I don't feel like it represented my '90s high school experience at all.
390005, tahts ebcause your 90's experience wasn't teh same as their 80's
Posted by Cold Truth, Sun Jul-27-08 01:44 AM
experience

yeah, thats it

or because it's a movie.

thats the most plausable. it's a movie. a story. a story you don't like, and thats fine. i have yet to watch somehing on television or the big screen taht accurately represents anything i dealt with as a kid. not that i had anything resembling a normal childhood, but that sorta drives the point home. you don't have to relate to every aspect of the film to relate to elements on their own.

and yuo completely misconstrue the message. it's not so much that we are all the same so much as there are common denominators the run through each of us. no matter how different, there are things that we can relate to each other about. and it highlighted some of the various insecurities each of them had. the jockslife seemed perfect, but it wasn't the asshole seemed like some guy who just wanted to be an asshole, but that wasn't the case either.

so,they all come to an understanding of each other, and seeing that they do, in fact share a lot of similar issues.

who cares if it's an "accurate" representation of your high school life? or an 80's high school life, for that matter?

>No, I just felt Hughes was TRYING to make a film about
>breaking down the walls that keep people (well, different
>kinds of white people, anyway) separated from each other but
>it ended up saying, "All kids are essentially the same, and
>given the opportunity they all want to conform to the ideal."
>And for a movie that is supposed to transcend its generation,

transcendency is a bit strong.... btu it was a great movie that has stood the test of time and is fondly remembered by many.

>I don't feel like it represented my '90s high school
>experience at all.

two different eras, completely, but then since when was this a prerequisite for enjoying a movie, even a relatable one? matter of fact, the movie had zilch to do with showcasing a high school experience. it was the story of ONE experience that was shared by five kids.
389105, that's funny, I was just talking about that with a few teens today
Posted by DJR, Wed Jul-23-08 09:19 PM
I coach a 14-15 year old baseball team and a few of them started talking about that movie. I was surprised they even knew it. They liked it.
389192, have you guys seen that JCPenney commercial?
Posted by disco dj, Thu Jul-24-08 08:13 AM
maybe it's only shown in the Midwest, but it's basically a fashion ad set in the same school and library with kids from today filling in the same roles.


and yes, they did the stupid dance scene.




389505, They had to recreate that set
Posted by Gemini_Two_One, Thu Jul-24-08 07:34 PM
Because the library was a set in the basketball court and that high school is now a police station.


!sig!

"I used to rock and roll all night and party ev-er-ry day. Then it was every other day. Now I'm lucky if I can find half an hour a week in which to get funky." - Homer Simpson
389507, I thought it was shot at New Trier HS in suburban Chicago.
Posted by disco dj, Thu Jul-24-08 07:40 PM
I know it closed and re-opened as Freshmen only, but I don't know if the whole school relocated or whatever...


390020, Nah, it was Maine North H.S.
Posted by Gemini_Two_One, Sun Jul-27-08 06:45 AM

http://www.movielocationsguide.com/Breakfast_Club,_The/filming_locations

!sig!

"I used to rock and roll all night and party ev-er-ry day. Then it was every other day. Now I'm lucky if I can find half an hour a week in which to get funky." - Homer Simpson
390000, Would the Molly Ringwald nude scene be in this?
Posted by Yadgyu, Sun Jul-27-08 12:51 AM
See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGr985_7pNk