Mubi Monday: That Sinking Feeling (1979)

The first feature from writer-director Bill Forsyth, That Sinking Feeling is a light-hearted crime caper that is full of the dry humour, great observations, and moments of surrealism that fans of Forsyth have appreciated throughout most of his filmography.

Set in a fictional city named Glasgow (which is, of course, just playing itself in the movie, but the insistence that it is a version removed from reality is the first gag in the film), viewers get to meet a group of young men who are all struggling in different ways. Almost all of them have had some dark thoughts, and they cannot see a way to start making a decent future for themselves. Until Ronnie (Robert Buchanan) has the great idea to steal a load of stainless steel sinks. It shouldn’t be the toughest robbery to pull off, and the ill-gotten gains will provide a lifeline to Ronnie and his mates.

While not exactly Ocean’s Eleven, in terms of the sophistication of the robbery and the stakes for those involved, there’s plenty here to admire and enjoy as Robbie leads his gang to what they all hope will be a successful score. They will need to get the timing right, they’ll need a van, and they will need a couple of decoys in the shape of two young men pretending to be cleaning women. This is a robbery planned by people without the money or resources to make everything plain and simple, and the continuous ingenuity, whether ideas seem likely to work or not, has viewers hoping that this motley crew of criminals will make a success of their plan.

Forsyth keeps everything quite nice and simple, and embraces the fact that he is making a film in 1970s Glasgow. The views may not be stunning or cinematic, and there might be what feels like constant rainfall, but that’s how people may think of Glasgow anyway. 

Buchanan is a likeable lead, a “crime boss” with a conscience, and he is surrounded by cast members who are all enjoyably atypical movie leads. Billy Greenless, John Hughes, Drew Burns, Alan Love, Derek Millar, and James Ramsey are all part of the fun, John Gordon Sinclair steals a couple of scenes, and Eddie Burt, playing a driver also named Eddie, provides an absolute highlight of the film in the third act.

Wonderfully witty and warm, this should appeal to anyone who is familiar with Forsyth’s work. It will appeal more to Scottish viewers, and especially those who can remember waiting beside a pay phone to receive a message from a friend, but everyone can enjoy the characters, the dialogue (including some excellent one-liners here and there), and the familiar concept of some underdogs trying to claim just one victory, however relatively small it may seem in the grand scheme of things.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

The Great Outdoors (1988)

The third, and final, collaboration, between writer John Hughes and director Howard Deutch, this is also their weakest. It's good fun, with two leads doing excellent work, but it's just a bit strangely divided between the storyline for the adults and a storyline following a smitten teen.

John Candy is Chet Ripley, the husband/father keen to give his family a proper holiday experience in a lakeside cabin. The Ripley family is unexpectedly joined by Roman Craig (Dan Aykroyd), Kate Craig (Annette Bening), and their twin daughters. Kate is the sister of Chet's wife, Connie (Stephanie Faracy), and it is very clear from the earliest scenes that the Craigs have a very different outlook on life than the Ripleys. 

The Great Outdoors works as well as it does for two reasons. First, the interplay between Aykroyd and Candy. Written as very opposite characters, Aykroyd revels in being obnoxious and having no class while Hughes very quickly becomes tired of his nonsense. Second, there are some very entertaining set-pieces spread throughout the runtime. There's the tale of an angry bear that was made bald, a restaurant that has a challenging steak on the menu, some thrilling time spent water-skiing, and a group of cute raccoons that just want to enjoy picking through the trash.

Although Aykroyd and Candy are both doing top work here, they're nicely complemented by Faracy and Bening, playing two sisters who have gone on very different paths in life. This was the theatrical movie debut for Bening, and it's arguably one of her simplest roles, but she's a natural onscreen presence. Faracy does well to avoid just being stuck as "the boring, nice one", and both women feel well-suited alongside their partners. Chris Young is the older of the Ripley sons, and he does just fine in his own storyline that sees him falling for the charms of a local girl, Cammie (Lucy Deakins), but both of these youngsters suffer from the teen movie dialogue jarring against the rest of the movie, which enjoys building and building the friction between the adults. You also get a fun small turn from Robert Prosky, and the other child actors do everything asked of them.

Deutch directs as competently as he usually does, and he once again stays nicely in line with the tone that Hughes provides. Although predictable from start to finish, the set-pieces work really well, and are given just the right of time to let the laughter build without overstaying their welcome. Lessons are due to be learned, different views clash with one another, and some of the one-liners are hilarious, helped by the performers delivering them.

Despite the better qualities, I'd still end up placing The Great Outdoors somewhere around the halfway mark if ranking the movies written by John Hughes. It's a lot of fun, yet nowhere near his best.

6/10

https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Sixteen Candles (1984)

Ahhhhh, Sixteen Candles. It's a film I have very fond memories of. I have owned it on VHS, I have owned it on DVD, and now I own it on a shiny blu-ray. And others feel the same way. It's also one of the most problematic '80s teen movies that isn't focused on sex (those films are on a whole other level, and I'm not wanting to get into an argument about them at this time). I'll get into all that soon enough.

Let me start by saying that I can accept what Sixteen Candles is, just as much today as I did back when I first saw it in the 1980s. It is a teen film that speaks to a certain demographic of teens, and features a cast impressively made up of many actors who actually were at the same age as their characters. Molly Ringwald is decent in the lead role, Samantha, and the plot revolves around the devastating (when you're that age anyway) fact that her family have forgotten that it is her 16th birthday. They're all busy prepping for her big sister's wedding. Samantha also pines for older hunk, Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling), and has to fend off the attention of a young geek credited as Geek (Anthony Michael Hall). Although she doesn't know it yet, Jake has taken an interest in Samantha, although he's currently going out with the gorgeous and popular Caroline (Haviland Morris).

With a great soundtrack, decent performances from the main cast members (Hall has always been my favourite though, and I also love the silly performances we get from Gedde Watanabe, Joan Cusack, John Cusack, and even a number of the adult characters), and the standard moments of wish-fulfilment, this is a template-setting directorial debut for Hughes, who was largely responsible for the stardom of Molly Ringwald in this decade, as well as the chart success of a number of musicians featured on the soundtracks of his movies.

Sixteen Candles still makes me laugh, although I laugh less than I used to. It bounces along from one almost-surreal moment to the next with so much energy that it's almost hard to think too critically about it as it plays out. Much like any big party you attended while at high school, things take on a different hue when you are recovering after the main event.

So let's discuss the problems with Sixteen Candles, problems that seem way more obvious now, but should also have been pretty obvious when it was first released.

A lot of people mention the fact that Jake is willing to give away his drunken girlfriend as if she's a) just a piece of his property he no longer has any use for, and b) deserving of whatever happens because of her drunken state and sexual confidence. They also mention the cringe-inducing inclusion of an Asian character named Long Duk Dong (name often accompanied by a gong sound, yes . . . a gong sound). The horribly inappropriate grandparents, the horny geek who won't take no for an answer, you've probably heard about these problems already. There are other problems though, some that we are perhaps only more attuned to nowadays. Like the following exchange -

Randy: And a big Trans Am in the driveway with a ribbon around it. And some incredible gorgeous guy that you meet like in France. And you do it on a cloud without getting pregnant or herpes.
Samantha: I don't need a cloud.
Randy: Just a pink dress and the guy, right?
Samantha: A black one.
Randy: A black guy?
Samantha: A black Trans Am, a pink guy.

That may look light and amusing enough,  but watch the film and the shock of Randy when she thinks her friend is on about "a black guy" and it just feels like an unnecessary reminder that writer-director John Hughes delivered films that were almost uniformly sliced up chunks of whiter-than-white Americana, no matter what bitter pill may have been slipped into some scenes. And that's not even mentioning the moment that has Jake Ryan gaslighting his girlfriend as he dances with her while thinking about Samantha.

It was always clear, I think, that Hughes was writing for a specific target audience. The lack of diversity in his cast (beyond class and clique archetypes) now sticks out like a sore thumb, although I am not sure I would ever want to hear him try to lend his voice to a central African American character. He wrote for those he felt he could identify with, or at least give a voice to.

Which is why, despite the problems, Hughes movies will always hold a special place in the hearts of those who discovered them at just the right age. As silly as it may seem, he wrote teen characters in the way we wanted them to be. They were very rarely realistic, or able to see beyond their own selfish problems that seemed huge, but there was a truth to the core of many of them. Because we always wanted to be better than our reality anyway, whether that means being the coolest rebel, the prettiest girl, the edgiest outcast, the nerdiest of the nerds, or any other pigeonhole we could fully inhabit and call our own. And when it comes to not being able to see beyond selfish problems that seem huge, that is most of our teenage years. Sadly, thanks to my arrested development, I think that lasted right up until my late twenties. I am glad that nobody was around to record the many conversations I used to have with friends when we thought we knew about love, life, sex, and heartbreak.

I've waffled on a bit more than I intended to, mainly because I didn't initially want to give as much time to addressing the aspects of the film that more enlightened modern viewers may take issue with. But I think it is important to remember that, taken as a whole, Hughes was trying to do something good, in giving teens their modern cinematic dream scenarios, and also giving young females a number of role models, even if they often ended up just wanting to end their school term with a perfect date/Prince Charming. We've moved on a lot since then, in many ways, but teenagers still spend an awful lot of time thinking about these things. We just forget how many hours in the day were spent dwelling on such issues, because we grew up and realised that our lives would more likely be directed by Mike Leigh than John Hughes.

7/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share 

Pretty In Pink (1986)

Despite not being able to remember the whole of Pretty In Pink, I was always a fan. I expect that a lot of people my age have fond memories of all of the teen films penned by John Hughes that were bestowed upon us throughout the 1980s. And this remains one of the more cherished titles.

It's all about a young woman named Andie (Molly Ringwald), who spends her time resenting the fact that she lives in the poor part of town, being wooed by the very persistent Duckie (Jon Cryer), and working in a record store with her older friend (Iona, played by Annie Potts). She's also hit on now and again by James Spader AKA the guy who was always the creepiest one in any movie high school, and finds herself the unexpected object of Andrew McCarthy's affections. He's a rich kid though, so neither of them are sure that it can really work between them.

Directed by Howard Deutch, featuring a collection of lively pop hits (with one or two classics slotted in between the contemporary tunes), and with a cast that features everyone mentioned above PLUS the great Harry Dean Stanton (playing Andie's father, and one of the great, sweetest, movie dads, for my money), Pretty In Pink has plenty to enjoy. The appeal is obvious, if you're watching this in the mindset of a teenager.

But watching it through the current world filter, a time of #metoo and #timesup, and it's hard not to view this as problematic, at best.

Andie basically spends most of the runtime being stalked, mainly by Duckie, but also by Steff (Spader), and by Blane (McCarthy, although he is less creepy and more adorable than the other two). It's good that the motivation for Steff is so obviously nasty - he just wants her because he can't get her - but not so good that Duckie was playing someone that viewers are supposed to root for. He's a complete asshole, and sums up the worst behaviour in boys who get upset about being stuck in "the friend zone" (the quotation marks are to emphasise that the phrase is bullshit anyway).

Think about it. You may have enjoyed watching the antics of Duckie the first time you saw this film. You may have laughed on numerous occasions. But he hangs around Andie as often as he can, be it at school, at her work, even outside the club she visits that he can't get into (while he chats to a doorman, played by Andrew Dice Clay). He calls her repeatedly. One scene shows Andie rolling her eyes as she deletes messages that have been received only minutes apart. He sets off the bloody alarm at her work, more than once, just to get some time with her. And that's before we even mention the conversation he has with Andie's father about his intentions, his total asshole turn when Andie gets to spend time with a boy she's attracted to, and his big moment of miming along to Try A Little Tenderness.

Oh, and that moment isn't quite how you remember it either. It's a lot of fun, and Cryer gives his all in the performance, but the sheer bravado of it all is seriously undercut by Ringwald looking on and realising that this guy is going to have his heart broken if he seriously thinks his persistence will pay off.

So many thoughts were battling in my mind while I watched the film this time around, thoughts that I don't think ever bothered the teenage me. Did Hughes intend things to have such a sinister undercurrent? Are our teen years just that fraught with danger (because, without excusing the behaviour, there's some hope in considering that these ARE girls and boys being shown here, as opposed to women and men)? Why did I never before realise that Gina Gershon was in this? Was the record shop named Trax just to emphasise that Andie lived on the wrong side of the tracks? Why did the 1980s never give us a comedy caper pairing up Annie Potts and Cyndi Lauper as two sisters out for shenanigans?

And why, despite the MAJOR flaws here, did I still smile and enjoy the end of this film? Characters are given a shot at redemption. I'm not sure if that makes up for a lot of their past behaviour, but it goes some way to making the preceding events that bit more palatable. Which maybe sums up how everyone feels as they look forward to life beyond high school.

6/10

Pick it up with a couple of better movies here.
American readers can pick it up here.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)

Written and directed by the fairly prolific John Hughes (he only directed about 8 movies, but wrote over 30), this road trip comedy marks a career high for the much-loved John Candy, while also providing a number of great moments for Steve Martin. Martin is, essentially, the straight man here but he's on top, tightly wound, form and works so well alongside Candy that the two individuals become one great, eminently watchable, duo.

Martin is Neal Page, a man desperately trying to get home to his wife and kids in time for Thanksgiving dinner. Unfortunately, he keeps finding his progress impeded, accidentally, by Del Griffith (Candy). When the two men eventually meet face to face, and introductions are made, things don't get any better. Del talks a lot, he has a number of annoying habits, and he seems to be a bit of a disaster at times. He also has a big heart, however, and does his best to help Neal get home. Neal, for his part, continues to get more and more irritated by Del, though it's hard to stay angry at the guy. But, despite flight delays and rental car problems and hotel rooms with only one bed, the objective remains the same - get home.

With an ending as sappy and manipulative as it is sweet and moving, John Hughes walks a fine line here between the great laughs and the emotional core that he gives the material. Thankfully, the central pairing of Martin and Candy make the material work a lot better than it would have in lesser hands. Martin oozes cynicism and, at times, loathing. Candy is a big ball of positivity, even as he bumbles his way forward while leaving a big mess in his wake. Hughes, however, writes great moments for both, treating both characters with equal favour. Candy may get a number of great lines and sweet moments, but Martin raises big laughs when his temper explodes on at least two occasions - one leading to him emphasising that not everything is an anecdote and the other leading to a classic, profanity-laden exchange with a car rental agent, played by Edie McClurg.

The cast also includes Laila Robins (playing the concerned Mrs. Page), Michael McKean in a small role as a traffic cop, Kevin Bacon in a cameo as a commuter racing for a taxi and Dylan Baker, in his first cinema feature role, as a hick with one of the most memorable lines in the entire movie.

Everything is topped off by a decent soundtrack, I've always particularly enjoyed the use of "Red River Rock" here, and paced perfectly for the 93 minute runtime. There are flaws, with the heavy-handed ending being the major one, but it's a hard movie to dislike. Especially around Thanksgiving time.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Planes-Trains-Automobiles-Blu-ray-Region/dp/B005DS0W8O/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1374360302&sr=8-2&keywords=planes%2C+trains+and+automobiles

Uncle Buck (1989)

Written and directed by John Hughes, this is a typical . . . . . . . John Hughes movie. But despite so many people having fond memories of it, thanks to the presence of the wonderful John Candy, it's not his best.

Candy plays the titular uncle, a man called upon to look after his nieces and nephew when his brother finds himself in a bind and with nobody else to turn to. Uncle Buck proceeds to cause a small amount of mayhem while doing his best to look after the kids, finding himself particularly messing up in his dealings with moody teenager Tia (Jean Louisa Kelly). This leads him to consider just where he is in his own life and just how he has been dealing with his own relationship (with Chanice, played by Amy Madigan).

Clocking in at just over an hour and a half, full of lively soundtrack moments and conversations that you would never really hear outside of John Hughes movies, this is an easy movie to enjoy. In fact, I've only ever met one person who couldn't stand it and that person is my wife (who is weird anyway . . . . . . . hence the fact that I was able to get her to marry me).

Candy is great in the main role, Jean Louisa Kelly does fine as the moody teenager causing him so much strife, Macaulay Culkin is very funny in one of his first major roles and so is Gaby Hoffmann. Amy Madigan does well as the woman who despairs of Buck while remaining in love with him, Laurie Metcalf steals a couple of scenes and Jay Underwood gets to be the young man, named "Bug", spending far too much time with Tia in an attempt to move the relationship along as quickly as possible (as Buck well knows).

There are many moments here that I enjoy - Candy being quizzed by Culkin, the killer line delivered to a shocked Suzanne Shepherd (playing a teacher trying to instil better behaviour in her young charges), every time Candy is unsubtly warning off Underwood - but, for some reason, the film just doesn't come together for me in a way that it does for many others. I can watch it from start to finish without being bored, but it's one I don't have to rush to ever watch again.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Double-Brewsters-Millions-Uncle-Buck/dp/B0058OABSY/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1370954757&sr=8-4&keywords=uncle+buck