You're not fooling anybody, Bender. The next
screw that falls out is gonna be you.
Eat my shorts. What was that?
Eat my shorts.
You just bought yourself another Saturday, mister. Oh,
I'm crushed. You just bought one more right there. Well, I'm free the Saturday after
that. Beyond that, I'm gonna have to check my calendar. Good. Because it's gonna be
filled. We'll keep going. You want another one?
Say the word. Just say the word. Instead of going to prison, you'll come here.
Are you through? No. I'm doing society a
favor. So? That's another one right now. I've got you for the rest of your
natural-born life if you don't watch your step. You want another one? Yes.
You got it! You got another one right there! That's another one, pal!
Cut it out! You through?
Not even close. Bye. Good. You got one more
right there. You really think I give a shit? Another.
You through? How many is that? That's 7, including when
we first came in and you asked Mr. Vernon here whether Barry Manilow knew
that he raided his closet. Now it's 8. You stay out of it. Excuse me,
sir, it's 7. Shut up, peewee.
It's Two Dads, One Movie. It's the podcast where two middle-aged dads
sit around and to shoot the shit about the movies of the '80s and '90s.
Here are your hosts, Steve Paulo and Nick Briana.
Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of Two Dads, One Movie.
I'm Steve. And I'm Nick. And today we are continuing our walk down Two Dads,
Two Decades through the 1980s to 1985 and the
teen coming-of-age comedy drama classic, The Breakfast Club.
Yeah. Nick, this is like, you know, one of the classic John Hughes
movies. You picked this for us. Tell us a little bit about your history with
The Breakfast Club and why you chose it for 1985. Yeah, I actually didn't watch
this much early on, but in recent years, this is one that my wife and
my daughter and I have watched together a couple of times, and I'd seen it
in the past. But I thought just in light of you picking Fast
Times at Ridgemont High a few weeks ago, it would be cool to kind of
check in on the teen high school situation. Yeah. You know, with a few
of these movies. And I know we might have some more coming up too.
But yeah, I just would be wondering how this would
look to me under, uh, the lens of like trying to analyze it and talk
about it for an hour and a half instead of just sitting there and letting
it wash over me like it has so many times. So, uh, interesting cast,
you know, kind of the first big role for some people and others who were
like popping in at different points throughout the '80s. And John Hughes,
you know, one of our favorites here on the pod. So, uh,
yeah, I thought this might be a fun one to talk about, and it's a
mix-up from all the explosions and gunshot wounds that I'm used to
recommending for the show. I was gonna— I think we've definitely moved several steps away
from January at this point, where, you know, there was a nice little run there
of lots of action, and that's great. But like, yeah, we've, we've been, you know
what, last week was Ghostbusters, week before that was Strange Brew, and then Fast Times.
So, you know, we're getting a better mix, I think, of like the kinds of
movies that, that we grew up watching to, to some extent. For myself, for The
Breakfast Club, like, this was a movie I probably would have seen for the first
time sometime in high school, uh, not earlier than that.
Um, you know, I didn't really— I don't think I appreciated it as much at
the time. It felt like because it was, you know, when we were in high
school and these kids in this movie, whatever, they're not really kids, the actors,
but when they're in high school, it all felt so different. It was like,
wow, school, you know, things aren't like that anymore. It's such a different world,
you know, now that we're in the mid to late '90s and not the mid-'80s.
And then in retrospect, as I've gotten older, this has looked more and more like
my childhood. Yeah. As time has gone on and I go, oh, oh no,
never mind. That really was like that. And it's almost like it's not for high
schoolers because you need a little perspective on high school to fully enjoy it,
you know? Absolutely correct. I think that's really, really an accurate statement about most of
John Hughes's teen comedies, which he was so famous for, is they really are about
retrospecting on your own teenage years and seeing
yourself in these people often, especially in this movie, a little bit in all of
them, right? I mean, they're really, it's, you know, I don't think they're all such
kind of caricatures in some way. It's probably hard for you to look back and
go like, well, I was exactly this person or that person, but we all kind
of experienced a lot of these similar things. [Speaker:JASON] For sure. [Speaker:ADAM] I also feel
like looking back at this now as a parent gave me a very different view.
I don't think I've watched it in the last like 10+ years, you know,
give or take, since I had my, you know, my wife had our first child.
And so there were elements of this movie that hit way different, and we'll get
into it obviously as we get to those scenes, but really hit me so differently
being a parent and looking at it kind of from that perspective. I also
wanna like just point out, this is one of the two kind of what we
might call the primary Brat Pack movies. The kind of common accepted
definition of who is in the Brat Pack is basically you were either in this
movie or St. Elmo's Fire or both. They both came out in 1985. St.
Elmo's Fire was basically this cast minus Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall, but plus
Rob Lowe and Andrew McCarthy. So that pretty much rounds out, you know, the brat
pack, as it were. Obviously there was a lot of other actors and actresses— Demi
Moore, John Cusack, you know, who were sort of, uh, associated with but not really
core to it. They kind of rose above it a little bit. It's like saying
that Beyoncé was in Destiny's Child. It's like, she's Beyoncé, you know. There is that,
but there are also people who, who didn't necessarily have great careers spectacular careers,
like, I don't know, like Matt Dillon. Yeah. Is like kind of associated with this
group because, you know, even Matthew Broderick, you know, the people like that, Jennifer Grey,
who were in those kinds of movies at the time, but not necessarily with this
core group. Right. Like, as an example, if you think about these are kind of
the first Brat Pack movies in that these are the movies that helped define the
term, but The Outsiders came out a few years before this. What, Sixteen Candles came
out before this. And those are obviously clearly associated movies, you know. But I think
it's interesting to, to kind of look at this movie remembering that this
was kind of such a cultural thing. Totally. Yeah. And how it defined the way
Americans looked at Hollywood at this time. Right. Really interesting. Cool. All right.
Well, hey, let's jump into the facts on The Breakfast Club. Yes, sir. All right.
The Breakfast Club was released on February 15th, 1985, with an R
rating and a running time of 98 minutes. Crisp. Written and directed by the
incomparable John Hughes, starring literally starring
7 people total. But really, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald,
probably your kind of top 3 cast members. Rotten Rotten Tomatoes score,
87%. Not a surprise. On IMDb, a really hearty,
healthy 7.8. Also not a surprise to me. And then Siskel and Ebert
gave this one two thumbs up. So kind of like critically acclaimed all around.
The crowd likes and everything. No awards at the time that it came out
to speak of that I could find, but it was added to the National Film
Registry in 2015, along with a lot of the other movies that we do.
Yeah, I noticed. And here's the— who decides on that? There is a board.
Yeah, there's a National Film Preservation Board. I don't know. We got to get on
that, baby. I don't know who— yeah, how it's selected.
Appointed by, is it like government associated or is it some private group that's
doing this? I honestly don't know. I just think it's a neat little thing to
point out these kind of, you know, really important movies that
have gotten that recognition. It would be funny if it was like super political and
we see like all these Kevin Sorbo direct-to-video movies getting put in there.
Deuce Bigelow is now on the National Film Registry. Yeah.
Here's the fun part about the facts on Breakfast Club.
$1 million to make. Now, it was 1985. I understand
you could do things for a lot cheaper, but when you have a movie set
entirely in one location, they never leave this school.
They do in the front of it. They do throughout it. They never leave the
school for any scene shot in this movie. The entire cast is like 13 people,
and the primary cast that is in 98%, 99% of the movie is
7 people, right? Because it's just the parents dropping them off or the other people.
Yeah, that's it. And so they— that's all though. All that shooting clearly was done
in a day. Yeah, I didn't look it up, but I bet this movie took
like a week to shoot at most. Like, just a quick thing. And so yeah,
it cost $1 million, it made $51.5 million at the box office. So at 51.5
times what it cost, which is the largest multiplier we've ever seen— Knox,
Nightmare on Elm Street— yeah, Nightmare on Elm Street was like 30 times or something
in that ballpark— is now dethroned officially with the release of this episode
for us. So yeah, so that— those are the facts on The Breakfast Club.
And yeah, man, let's dive into it. How do we kick this movie off?
I love how this just starts off because I was surprised, honestly,
when you went through the awards, there were no nominations, nothing for the song,
because I feel like this is really even detached from the movie, like just such
a great song and such a memorable song of the era, right? Absolutely.
So we don't get any visuals other than a black screen with yellow lettering
showing us the opening credits while we get almost the entire Don't You Forget About
My Song playing. And it's great. And I'm grooving to something that has
like no pictures on, like I'm already in on this movie. Like, I think it's
very effective how it just like— all right, people. And also if
they released this, maybe the song was out a little before the movie or something.
I don't know how that worked, but it's like if people knew the song and
then they get hit by it at the beginning, they would be super psyched about
that. I'm pretty sure I remember reading that this song was for the movie,
right? I think it was, it was, it was released, it was kind of— when
they put singles out, I don't know if it like just lead up to it
or I don't know how that kind of thing works. That's a good point.
Yeah. Um, but anyway, great, uh Great song
to start off. And then we get a David Bowie quote, right, on the screen,
which I forget exactly what it says, but something motivational, something based
about like, like, the kids are all right, leave them alone. It was— it's— I'm
paraphrasing. And then we see a little of the budget in action because the quote
like explodes and shatters, and then we're at the exterior of the high school.
It actually reminded me very significantly of the opening of The Thing,
John Carpenter's The Thing, where the, the, the logo like burns into the backdrop or
whatever. It's like, like that, but not as cool. Yeah, like something similar.
Um, yeah, so we get there and so we're in the front of Shermer High
School, right? This is fictional Shermer, Illinois, where all of the— basically all the
John Hughes films take place in one way or another. Uh, and you know,
the kids start arriving. We have, we have cars pulling up and, and we get
very briefly introduced to each of the, you know, people who are going to be
spending the hour and a half with, uh, the kids in detention and their parents.
And I think in one case a little sister. Um, but yeah, there's, there's,
there's not a whole lot of interactivity here, but we do get a little hint
as to like what each of them deals with when it comes to their parents.
Yes, a little bit of that. And I love in particular when Ally
Sheedy's character Allison shows up, is dropped off by what's clearly both of her parents,
or two adults sitting in the front of the car. And she gets out of
the car and they don't drive away immediately. And so she sort of like takes
a step towards the front window to like, to like maybe say goodbye or something.
And then they basically just speed off without her. And it's very— to me,
that was like the most poignant of the arrivals. Yeah. In a lot of ways.
Yeah. And she, you know, later it seems like she's almost putting on
the— she's trying to give off the effect of someone
who doesn't have both their parents and whose home life— so like maybe, you know,
she's lying about a lot of stuff later. But yeah, this is a great scene,
and I love a drop-off scene, kind of like the beginning of Airplane where we're
watching all the characters get dropped off at the beginning at the airport.
One thing that I spotted for the first time watching this,
there's kind of a Anthony Michael Hall voiceover where he's
kind of reading like the essay that they end up writing later, and it's showing
a montage of different shots from the school, you know, and the school that's closed
for the weekend, you know, so just papers out, whatever. And it shows the trophy
case, and there's a little thing that says Man of the Year for each year,
and it's Carl, the janitor. So Man of the Year. So it's
funny that that's like put in our face at the beginning because I think that
enhances your enjoyment of the movie if you kind of spot that early on.
Yeah, I noticed that too. I don't think I'd noticed it before, and I thought
to myself like, oh wow, yeah, so the dude really peaked in high school,
like, right? That's kind of the, the story there of Carl is, uh, yeah,
hey man, man of the year, good for you. You never really left, right?
You know, I will say he seems like a, like a pretty,
uh, thoughtful, like, you know, self-assured type guy when he's in
it later. Like, he doesn't seem like he hates his life doing what he's doing.
He doesn't hate his life because he never left the place where he was the
man. So there's an element, I think, of just, you know, the Peter Pan syndrome
of like, never had to actually grow up. High school. Yeah, exactly. Never had to
leave that place. He could still be a big man on campus in his own
mind. Right, but we are spending way too much time talking about Carl, that's for
sure. We'll be back, Carl. Absolutely. Um, yeah, so,
you know, we see everyone getting dropped off here, and, uh, Emilio Estevez's
dad is one of the cops from The Fugitive. That's very recognizable,
like Chicago. I swear he's one of those actors who's like, yeah,
I'll act in anything as long as it's filmed within the city limits of Chicago.
It's got to be inside the loop. So it's great to see him,
uh, taking a day off from chasing Richard Kimball. Um,
so yeah, there they end up, you know, having to spend their Saturday
school and they're inside the library. Yeah,
which is an amazingly like well-funded— it's crazy how nice
this school is. I mean, throughout this movie it's— they're like, oh, shit sucks.
And it's like, people would kill to have the resources that your school has in
1985. It's wild. Yeah, it's big two-story room, beautiful sculpture
like in the middle of it, like all, you know, yeah, it's really quite amazing.
And we are— they all kind of arrive, they find their seats.
We get introduced briefly to John Bender, Judd Nelson's character, who shows
up and kind of kicks Brian, who is played by Matthew Michael Hall, out of
the chair he apparently wants to sit in. Yeah, but they're all kind of getting
themselves situated. And I think it's interesting, we get the first indication that while all
these people are obviously in different, you know, social cliques within their high school,
Andy and Claire, the Emilio Estevez and Molly Ringwald characters,
are clearly more connected. Than any of the other 5— the other
3, rather. Um, because, you know, he is a jock, she is a popular girl,
and so therefore they run in a lot of the same circles. Um, and so
they're sitting at the kind of the same table, a seat between them, but like
basically with each other, and everybody else is spread out around the room.
And this is when we get to meet Paul Gleason. Paul Gleason.
And we love Paul Gleason, and we've seen him in Die Hard and Trading Places.
Love to hate him, really. Yeah, he— I— it's a face.
He's really good at it. He's very good at being kind of a despicable,
in-charge, like semi-incompetent type person, drunk on his
own power kind of idea. Oh, that's always it. And this, this killed me
when he comes in and he's, he's laying out, you know, what the day is
going to be like for them. He's like, it's 7:06 AM.
So this starts at 7 AM. That is absolutely
brutal. Can you think of yourself, high school era, having to wake up an hour
before you would for school to like go in? Is— oh yeah,
I mean, I think our school might have started at 7:30. I don't remember for
sure because I know senior year I didn't have a class until third period.
So like, do the late start, right? It was like 9 something before I had
to show up. Yeah, that would have been bad. So he's running down to them
and he's the hard ass. He's, you know, no talking, you know, no moving,
no sleeping. And by the end of this 9 hours, you got to write a
1,000-word essay about like who you think you are, right? Basically. And what did he
give them to write 1,000 words on? A single sheet of paper. I laughed
my ass off when he was handing out individual sheets of lined
paper and a pencil. Yeah. To write 1,000 words. Bitch, I couldn't do that
if my life depended on it. Right. It is physically impossible. To write unless
I could write the word I as in the singular pronoun.
Yeah. Over and over again. Maybe I could fit it. Maybe in front. Maybe.
And, you know, it's funny, he did point out, he said, and this is a
real essay, not 1,000 of the same word written in a row. It's definitely like,
all right, Bender, I've seen your ass here before. I know the kind of shit
you try to pull. Exactly. So then Bender, the Judd Nelson
character, is sassing back a little bit. So he's like, you know, are there any
questions? You guys sit here, be quiet, obey me. And he said,
Does Barry Manilow know that you raided his wardrobe? Yeah, right.
And he gets pissed off and he throws another Saturday. That's right. See you next
week, Bender. Yeah, exactly.
Um, when he leaves, uh, he leaves and now it's just the kids in the
library, right? And the door's propped open and it looks right into the open door
of his office across the hall, so he can kind of lean back in his
chair and peep in on him. Uh, there's a very funny thing where,
um, Bender and Brian, Anthony Michael Hall, are both
like taking their jackets off at the same time. And then Bender looks at
Brian and Brian is kind of like, oh, I can't do this at the same
time as you. And then pretends he blows into his hands and like zips his
sweater up again. Yeah. I just love that.
Oh my God. All right. So now we got our kids hanging out
here. Yep, exactly. Uh, and I, well, there's a couple of great lines. They basically
start arguing with each other for the most part. The initial, uh,
conversations and interactivity between the kids in detention is all acrimonious.
It's all aggressive, and it's mostly Bender. Bender's just kind of— he's
really poking his Molly Ringwald. Yeah, yeah, really getting in on everybody,
making fun of everybody else. Uh, and so Andy and Emilio Estevez like turns to
him, and there's just a line I absolutely love early on when he says,
'If I lose my temper, you're totaled, man.' I just love
that line. Got it right here. And they're just like— and then Bender responds like,
'Totally.' And he goes, 'Totally.' It's just like, it's so '80s. Yeah.
And it's so like all the threats back and forth, like all these things I
couldn't keep track of writing them down. But yeah, especially the stuff that Estevez
is saying. It's just like, oh, perfect, perfect. Um,
he also— so Bender insults, uh,
Estevez's character who's Gordo. What do we call him? Gordo? No, no, he's Andy.
Gordo's his character in Mighty Ducks. Oh, okay.
So Andy— oh no, it's because Bender calls him Sporto as
an insult. Yeah, which, which is jock. What a very funny— yeah,
haha, you're good at sports. I think it's more like, call me
Sporto, quit telling people I'm good Sports. You gotta remember, liking things and
caring about things is totally unfair. That's true. So that is having a commitment to
something is what he's making fun of. Like, yeah,
uh, Bender says something, uh, to Molly Ringwald about a hot beef injection,
I think. Uh, yes. So he's just being like very vulgar and gross,
and he's picking on her, and Andy's sticking up for her,
right, a little bit. And then Brian keeps kind of chiming in, like trying to
be a part of it, which is very funny because they're telling Bender— Andy and
Claire are telling Bender, you don't matter here. Yes, you don't, you don't, you might
as well not exist at this school. You don't do anything. You're not in any
clubs. Crazy initial insult, by the way, because that is like devastating.
The worst thing you can say is someone off the bat, like they did not
mess around at all. They went straight nuclear on him. And so when he reacts
really negatively, it really should come as no surprise to anybody. But yeah,
but Brian, they're talking about like this club, that club. I mean, this— I mean,
I'm in sports or whatever. You don't do anything. And Brian's in the back going
like, I'm in the Latin club, I'm in the math club, the physics club.
And Bender finally is like, what the hell are you talking like? You keep saying
stuff. What are you saying? What? And he asked Claire, are you in the math
club? She goes, that's an academic club. And he goes, what do you guys do
there? And he's like, oh, we talk about physics and math club. We talk about
math, you know. Oh, oh, we had a banquet at the end of the year
or whatever. And he goes, see, it's sort of social, demented and sad,
but social. Like, why is that different? And it's like, there is something I think
in this, and I'm going to point this out a few times, I think,
but in this watch through, I liked John Bender way more than I ever
remember liking John Bender. Yeah. He, comes with such— it's,
it's— he's so checking, like, he's not wrong, he's just an asshole, right? But he
comes with such honesty and immediately pokes holes in this. He's got near every
single person's weakness nailed down from the beginning. Like, he knows
what— whatever he doesn't know about himself, he has
an incredible amount of emotional intelligence to just be picking on people
this effectively. Yeah, well, I think he— I think he knows himself very, very well.
He's just figured out how to put up barriers and be defensive about things,
but he reads them for Phil. Oh my god, dude, this is Mike McD sitting
at the judges' table. Yes, he comes in and he's— I put you on all
your cards. I know what everyone's thinking. Yeah, and I feel the same way about
Bender because I really did enjoy him, and by the end of it was like,
oh, he's the star of the movie. Like, I see it. Yeah, he pushes
all the action forward. Like, he's the one making everything happen in this, but But
yeah, incredible beginning for him. Yeah, absolutely.
So one of the things that Bender does is he goes over to the door,
which has been propped up. Oh yeah. And he steals like the pin that keeps
it open, right? So it's like one of those pneumatic things. You take the little
pin out, it just doesn't have anything to like hold it open anymore. Like,
yeah, yeah, yeah, right. So then it shuts and obviously Vernon comes over and he's
pissed like, oh, what's going on? And he's like, well, this door has to be
open. So he tries to prop it open with a little folding chair and they're
like, It's not gonna happen. Somebody's like, the door is way
too heavy, sir. Yeah, it like slams and then it whips shut
in such a funny way. Like they added that effect. Oh, it's not from the
real door. Like they put a motor behind that and thank God they did.
I'll bet they chiseled off some of the budget. A crew member sitting behind the
thing just pushing it, just pushing it real hard from where you can't see it,
but the chair goes flying. Really like it. And then they put the most like
cumbersome magazine rack in there, like something they have brochures
on in a hotel lobby or whatever. And you can't even climb around it.
And, uh, Andy Emilio Estevez is really like hamming
it up trying to like get through, which is very funny. So I do like
that they're all kind of bonded because nobody ratted on Bender about what happened to
the door. And this is the very beginning of the day. It's interesting because you'd
think somebody in the— like, I feel like, I feel like Andy and Claire understand
well enough that that, you know, angering an authority figure doesn't do
anybody any good. I feel like just that— Allison doesn't talk to anybody at this
point anyway, so that doesn't— she's not going to get involved. And then I feel
like Brian probably wanted to say something, part of him did, but he's like,
I'm not gonna— like, Bender will be so mad at me. I'm not— like,
he's scared of Bender enough. So I feel like there's— it's not that they like
Bender, it's that they each have a reason for not bringing any attention on themselves
in a lot of ways. Um, I do love watching it. It's like, there's,
there's that door, but there's another— it's a double door. Why didn't they just open
the other damn door? Like, it's so weird. They didn't even try opening the other
door. The other thing My wife pointed out when we were watching this, she said
the door has one of those built-in door stops on
there. It's like they couldn't have taken that off. Nice. For the movie, it needed
to be this way for the movie, and that's fine. Um, but yeah, the door
slamming on that chair is absolutely hilarious. Yeah. Uh, uh, so,
so they're getting shit for this and they finally realize, okay, well, the door is
going to stay shut, whatever. Vernon is pissed because his day is already going sideways
and it's like 7:22 AM and,
uh, And Bender says to him kind of under his breath, eat my shorts.
Yeah, which is great. We got a lot of proto-Bart Simpson behavior like between this
and future films. Um, and they get into this great exchange
where it's like, okay, that's another Saturday. So you want another? He's like,
yeah. So, and him morphing from like being tough to being scared
to like seeing a look of this guy's really bullying me just like my fucking
dad does, which we see a few times in the movie. Like, I think this
is just such a great exchange because because he's not just the tough, like,
I don't care what happens to me guy in that moment. You really see him
crumbling under the weight of that. Well, and I think that the most impressive thing—
I 100% agree with you— and I think one of the most impressive parts for
both Judd Nelson and Paul Gleason as actors in this movie comes immediately after the
scene. So it's a very famous scene. In all honesty, it's probably the intro clip
that the audience heard before we started. I feel like that's what I'll pick.
But, you know, he basically says, I got you for the next 8 weeks.
Next 2 months of your life are here on Saturdays. Like, I got you,
right? And then Vernon leaves and Nelson
yells, or, you know, Bender yells, "Fuck you," like, as the door shuts, kind of
like hidden by the slam of the door. Both actors then breathe
out a sigh of frustration where they both make it absolutely clear
from their faces and body language that they know individually, "I went too far." Like
Vernon knows he went too far. That was stupid. He should not have done that.
You know, Bender knows he went too far. He should have shut the fuck up.
And that recognition, that recognition by both these characters of the fact that they just
got in a big dick swinging contest and both wished that they hadn't.
I think it's really powerful. Just moment for those actors. I think it's really
telling and kind of like just an interesting moment for each of them
because they move on from there. I mean, obviously nobody changes over this. Yeah,
but there is this moment of like, goddamn it. Like, you know, just that we've
all done that, that sigh of like, you know, sometimes you like mete out a
punishment to your kid for something that they did and you realize after the fact,
like, fuck, I took that too far. And then you got to ask yourself,
do I need to change anything? Do I not? Like, whatever. A lot of times
you just go, nope, what's done is done, let's just move forward. And they're doing
that here. But I really thought that— found that interesting from both of these characters,
right? Yeah. Oh, that's great. Yeah, I mean, they're— the tension between these
two guys is really fantastic.
So, and what Vernon says to Bender, I think before he leaves the room,
he says, you know, you should do something with your— spend more time trying
to do something with yourself and less time trying to impress people. Yeah. Which I
thought in the context of everything else Vernon has said, and I'm like, oh,
that's like a decent thing to say. I mean, that's not like a
mean thing that you don't say to a kid. 100%. Uh, it is, but it's
also like Vernon, you know, physician heal thyself. Like,
like, like, take your own damn advice, dude. Like, what he's saying is so evident
of a lack of self-reflection on his part because he's doing exactly the same thing.
He wants to appear powerful to these children. And throughout this whole movie,
he does not seem annoyed that he's there on a Saturday. He doesn't care.
He's got nothing better to do. He loves it. It's his little fiefdom. Yeah,
it's his little controlled area. Yeah, I don't imagine that Dick Vernon's
home life is very satisfying. No, a term we'll talk about later.
We get it. We have a few montages in this movie which I think are
really effective. When we get kind of a bored kids montage, you know, Bender's feeling
a little defeated and it's just all the different kids like, you know, they can't
do anything except stare at their essay paper. They're looking around,
they're changing positions. Ally Sheedy is making a really disgusting drawing
where she's shaking her head and then the dandruff is becoming snow. And I mean,
the picture is fantastic. It's a fantastic illustrator. But yeah, the dandruff snow
is going to harm the resale value of that, dude. Um, she also like
wraps, uh, like a little thread tightly around the end of her finger and it
turns purple. And for whatever reason, that always makes me cringe hard.
There's something about that that I'm like, I can feel it in my fingertips when
I see someone do that and it just does not make me feel good.
But that is a classic I'm bored thing to do. You know? Oh, if they
had some glue to like let dry on their hand and then peel it off.
Little rubber cement. Yeah, the best. Yeah,
we cut then to— I think it's just like at the end of that little
montage, we've got a point where Bender's like ripping pages out of books, right?
And it's like, which, as much as I did end up like Bender by the
end of this movie, this is fine. This is fucking infuriating. Like, yeah, you don't
have to do this shit. Like, it's just— anyway, but, uh, they do make fun
of him because he says like, oh, Moller is like so important, you know.
They correct him, it's Molière. And I love Brian goes, oh, I love his work.
Yeah, he goes, uh, he goes Molière really pumps my nads.
That's right, that's what Bender says. Another great phrase.
Yeah, and I— and Brian quietly being like, I, I love— I love
that kind of stuff. He is such a great— like, so innocent and
like, oh, like, no, this is school, we're supposed to like school and everything.
Like, I really— Anthony Michael Hall is fantastic. He really is.
Yeah. Um, and they're kind of talking about— I don't know,
just they start getting into their home life and stuff, parents and stuff. Yeah.
And Claire, Molly Ringwald, uh, starts talking about like her, her parents use
her and everything. So that's, you know, going to be a theme. Yeah, that they're
using her to make each other mad. Andy and Bender are kind of at each
other. Yeah, quite a bit. Yes, yes, because I think it's Bender is leaning into
Brian more, right, laying into him, and Andy kind of is like, hey man,
knock it off, right? I think that's where we're at. Uh, and basically Andy
takes Bender down, like they're about to fight, and Andy like gets him into like
an arm hold or something and slams him down into the ground before bouncing back
up. But it's like, you know, It's, it's a moment where Andy is showing like,
dude, you're the biggest guy here, Bender. Don't get me wrong, but you are not
like in total control. Like you don't get to just do whatever you want.
Right, right. But of course then Bender takes everything a step further by pulling a
switchblade. The official weapon of crime, should we say? Because there's
never a good guy switchblade. Almost never. No. Yeah, that's, I guess that's
true. It's only used to threaten or like ask for a wallet or whatever.
That's true. But yeah, that's That's crazy for him to escalate it that way.
And, and, you know, that's clearly like Andy is like, I'm not
you now. Like, that's not a world that I live in. No, exactly. But of
course, he— all— Bender also like, like stabs the blade into like the chair back
or whatever, and then Allison immediately grabs it and takes it. And it's
like you can't see her, but her hand comes from off screen and like takes
the blade. Okay, so she— I don't think it ever comes back. It's not Chekhov's
switchblade. It doesn't come back. But yeah, she takes it from him. So now he
doesn't have it. It's kind of a general klepto throughout. She's a little hoarder.
Yeah. Um, yeah,
now, uh, now Carl comes in. Yeah, I believe. And,
uh, and Carl says— he says hi to Brian. Oh, that's right.
Clearly, I'm sure he knows him just from— yeah, whatever. Brian's doing clubs after
school, like, he'd know. And just Brian seems like the kind of guy who would
say hi to a person working at school, like, hey, how's it going? And the
kid— and he might go like, hey, what's your name? My name's Brian. I'm Carl.
Brian, nice to meet you. And that's all it would take for Brian to remember
Carl's name for the rest of his life, because Brian's that kind of guy.
And then he would say hi, you know what I mean? So And he's not
the kind of kid who, if Carl says hi to him, is gonna give Carl
shit for it, right? He'll be all like, "Fuck you, janitor." Like, that's not
Brian, you know? So that's all it really is, but it does sort of like
indicate to the rest of the people in the room that like— Brian's like the
only one that sees that guy. There's that, yeah. As like, you know, someone else
who's there. Yeah, totally. And then Bender, you know, starts laying
into Carl, you know, "How does one become a janitor?" And just
being such a dick. I mean— think about a kid,
like a whatever he's supposed to be in this movie, 16, 17-year-old,
something like that, talking to a working adult
like that who does a job that's like an admirable job. Like, there's nothing wrong
with that job, necessary, appreciated. And talking to them like
that, it's like, oh, you piece of shit. Frankly, no offense really meant,
although maybe a little offense, to a kid that does not appear to have significant
prospects ahead of him. Like, this is a kid gearing towards
college and like some grand, you know, not that I accept it from like some
rich asshole kid, but you'd think, okay, at least I see where their smugness originates
from, right? This guy has no reason to be smug. No, Bender does. Like,
he's crazy. But then Carl cuts right into these kids, which is really
great. He doesn't hold back and he's talking about, oh, okay, you guys think you're
big? Like, yeah, I hear everything, I see everything. And it goes to what you're
saying about him needing to still be big man on campus. Because the way
he describes his position, he doesn't say, you know what,
you're someday you're going to know what it's like to work for a living or
whatever. He is like, I have power over you kids, just like I
did when my picture was in the fucking trophy case in the front of the
school. I am the eyes and ears of this institution, my friends, is what he
says. And it's like a little grandiose, a little, a little self, you know,
delusions of grandeur and whatever. But like, yeah, clearly Carl feels still plugged
in. Yes. And, and, and if not better than these people, certainly they're
equal, right? There's definitely no reason that he's not— no reason that he is in
any way inferior, yeah, to any of them. So plus he knows how they're doing
high school wrong, whereas he did it right. Yeah, right. Um,
so yeah, this is a great, great interaction. And then we get kind of another
little montage where they're all whistling together, the Colonel Bogey March. Okay.
Yeah, I knew— God, I fucking knew you knew that. I didn't even bother looking
it up. I was like, okay, Steve's got it. I always think of it as
like the classic summer camp marching song. Yes, totally. Like that's
the sort of thing I always think of. It's like, I think it was in,
I think I first saw it in the movie The Parent Trap, the old Hayley
Mills version when they all go, when the two girls meet in summer camp
away, there's a scene where they're all marching through whistling the Colonel Bogey
March. So yeah, but it's so funny that that song, I don't know what
the original words are. It's been the most weirded out song in the history of
the world. Cause the only ones I know are like, scrotum, it is a sack.
Of skin, like all those like versions of those.
Exactly. Yeah. Um, so, so it's lunchtime
now. Yeah, we're deep enough into the day where it's 11 AM.
They've been there for— oh wait, actually before lunch though, there's a scene where Bender,
uh, is looking through like a medical book or something and asks Claire if she
would date a guy with elephantitis of the nuts. Yes. You know, and like,
well, would you go on a date with him? Would you ride in his car?
You have to sit in the back because his nuts are going to take up
the second seat. Um, and they get into a little bit of like like,
are you a virgin? Are you— there's a lot of conversation about who's a virgin
throughout the whole movie. And, uh,
Brian basically is like, no, I'm like, like, I've laid
plenty of times, you know. He says, oh, with the— like, well, like, who?
And he goes, uh, she's from Canada, met her at Niagara Falls,
you wouldn't know her. And it's like the classic Canadian girlfriend, right? Yes. Um,
but then he's sort of like— and Bender's like, would you lay anybody around here?
And, and Brian kind of nods towards Claire and then goes,
you know, whatever. And it's One of the few like truly kind of shitty
things Brian does in the movie is sort of like let, you know, tell Bender
essentially that he has banged Claire. That's what he's claiming. And immediately Bender
calls him out on it by telling Claire he did this. And like there's this
whole awkward scene and Claire's basically just like, Brian, that was hella shitty. Why'd you
do that? And Brian apologizes. And this is the one thing about Brian is he's
like the only dude who like apologizes for shit for most of the movie.
I mean, he did not dig his feet in at all. And he told her
the truth about, he's like, you know what? I was actually just embarrassed to admit
this. Exactly. It's like, well, there you go, Brian. Exactly.
What a, what a mature man. Yeah. Um, yeah, that very
important scene, and I'm glad we, uh, we got into that. The Canadian girlfriend,
really, really funny. Um, I wrote down what everyone had for
lunch. Oh good. In case we care here. Okay, there's definitely one I want to
discuss, which is the whole Claire and Bender interaction, but I love— yeah, especially Andy's
insane lunch. Okay, so, uh, here's what we have
for lunch. We have Claire, we have the rich girl, we have She has the
official meal of snobs in the '80s, sushi, uh, which is just raw
fish, you know, it's just— and see, according to her, in rice and seaweed.
And it's for people who, like,
there's still people today in 2026 are like, oh, sushi?
It's like, have you ever been? There's a billion things you could get. It's crazy
for you to have that. So it's very funny that only, like, the rich girl
has her special container, brings her sushi, when now you can buy, like, 3 varieties
at AM/PM. Yeah, right. Yeah. Uh, not that
I would recommend that, by the way. Don't go buy gas station sushi. Don't do
that. Uh, Allison— Allison has some kind of a sandwich
with olive loaf on it, which she pulls off and flings it up and sticks
it to the ceiling. And then she has a bunch of Pixie Stix in there
she pours on her sandwich, and a little Ziploc bag of Captain Crunch
that she puts on her sandwich. Very Pee-wee's Big Adventure. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, very true. So, uh, that's her lunch. Um, Bender, of course,
he doesn't have anything. He's from a broken home. Uh, Brian has
a thermos full of Soup, right? A little juice box of apple juice
and a PB&J with a crust cut off. I mean, he's not wrong
because he refers— he says to Ben, when Bender sits down, says, well, what are
we having? Kind of thing. He goes, you know, probably just your normal lunch or
whatever. And then the first thing he pulls out is a thermos full of soup.
I go, I have never once in my life brought a thermos full of soup
to school. Like, I'm just saying, sandwich, yes, juice box, sure, you know, whatever.
Like, but like a thermos full of soup, that's, that's pretty advanced. That's advanced lunch,
dude. Totally. Yeah, AP lunch. Uh, okay,
and then Andy's lunch. Oh my God. All right, so we have a giant— and
this is like if we were familiar with the TV show Parker Lewis Can't Lose.
Yeah, Larry Kubiak, the bully from the show, always had this giant sack
for his lunch. It's a grocery— proto-Kubiak lunch. Yeah, big grocery bag here.
And Gordo pulls out 3, uh— sorry,
if you're gonna keep doing that, I'm gonna keep laughing at it.
Um, I even wrote Gordo. So Andy pulls out 3 sandwiches which are like
overstuffed, like deli, whatever. Yeah,
just a turkey sandwich, whatever. Big. A full-size bag of chips, right? Like a family-size
party bag of chips, right? And then, uh,
also a bag of cookies. Yeah. A quart of milk, an apple, and a
banana. Like, I, I, I don't want to do the
calorie— the caloric calculation here, but I also kind of want it done for me.
Like, just the sheer number of calories— because I get, like, the joke is,
right, he's an athlete, he's in training, it's in the season, so it's like,
you know, he's You got to keep eating because you're going to be working out,
you're going to do whatever. And I get that all, but this looks like— I
mean, it looks like 3,000 calories, give or take. Like the chips and cookies,
like, yeah, for sure. But he also doesn't have time to do that.
Well, that's the other thing is that, uh, the Vernis says they have 30 minutes
for lunch, right? So Andy better get cracking. He better
start Joey Chestnut-ing his, uh, sandwiches. He's gonna get through it real quick.
One of the interactions between Bender and Claire over her lunch is, you know,
he asked like, what is that? And she says Is it sushi? He goes,
and he kind of wrinkles his nose, goes, sushi? Like, but like he doesn't know.
And she says, yeah, it's rice and raw fish and seaweed.
And he says, you won't let a guy's tongue in your mouth, but you're gonna
eat that? And she's like, you know, looks at him disgusting, goes, can I eat?
And he goes, I don't know, give it a try. Yeah. I just love
that. He has some good lines. Very funny. Really funny.
One thing he does that I don't really like. Okay. He's doing this impression of
Brian's family. Oh yeah. 'Cause he's giving Brian a hard time for his lunch.
He's like, oh, how perfect, Brian. Because he's the last person left to bully who
hasn't taken his lunch out. So he's going to get there. There. And he's doing
a, oh, honey, our son is so— it's like Bender, you got better material.
You're right. That shit sucks. But they kind of get into
it about their families and they're like, well, what about your family?
You know? And he does an impression of his dad, which is
devastating. I mean, honestly, for his thing to be like lazy,
worthless, like, and his face changes completely and like
really, really, uh, tough, this scene. I mean,
great job by, yeah, by Judd Nelson. And clearly, you know,
it's, it's really obvious. I think even to the, to the— again, thinking of these
characters as children, right? Like, it's obviously they're all professional actors, but like the kids
are all reacting in a way where even if they're trying, even if like
Sandy says, like, oh, that sounds like made-up bullshit or whatever, they're still reacting like,
man, there's a reality to what he's doing that does— isn't something people make up,
right? There is like this authenticity to the way he's acting angry and shut
up, bitch, make me a pot pie or whatever. He says all this stuff And
when Andy calls Bender out on it, like, that's bullshit. That's what you want people
to think. You want people to think— that's when he shows him his scar.
He's got a forearm scar about the right size, you know, about the dimensions
of a nickel. Yeah, right. And he says, it's a cigar. That's what happens in
my house when you spill paint in the garage. And it's like— and that's when
Bender kind of loses it. And this is like one of the most— one of
the earliest vulnerable moments for Bender. Yeah, like, I don't think he wanted to reveal
that. I think he was pushed to reveal that by the way Andy was talking
to him, and he wanted to prove that he wasn't bullshitting, but he didn't actually
want to open up to these people in any way. Yeah, so he like kind
of storms off, and everybody else is pissed at Andy for at least a moment
of like, dude, that was, that was too far. Like, you— that was not cool.
How could I know? It's like, well, yeah, you can't know, but that's a good
reminder, kids. You never know the people you meet, right? The fuck they're dealing with.
Don't keep pushing someone. Yeah. Um,
yeah, I mean, really, uh, really gnarly. Yeah. And, uh,
then we have a little bit of comic relief. We see Vernon sitting at his
desk eating just a shitty looking lunch, and he pours coffee from a thermos and
it spills, but it looks like it's 90% just grounds. It looks like it's wet
coffee grounds. It really is crazy. Looks like sludge. He even makes a comment.
He kind of mutters to himself as he leaves. I didn't quite catch it,
but it's something about the coffee being terrible. Yeah, but I was like, why would
you even have that coffee? Like, what the fuck is that? It almost
looks like there's a scene in a movie, The Birdcage, we'll do someday where they
have Turkish coffee and one of the characters knows it's Turkish coffee and sips and
go, oh, Turkish coffee. How? What a delight. This is a rarity. And the other
person's like, what is this, sludge? It's like, yeah, I served you sludge. Like,
it's Turkish coffee. I don't think that was this. So this looks like, yeah,
Folgers that didn't work right or something. He didn't get the water hot enough.
The crystals didn't dissolve. But yeah. So then he has to, the key for that
though is he has to now go wander. He has to head off to the
bathroom to like, you know, get cleaned up or whatever. And I believe this is
where the kids take a little field trip to Bender's locker. So Vernon
has left his office and is wandering the halls. The kids now all leave the
library and are following Bender to his locker. And we get there and we have,
we saw a bunch of the lockers at the opening of the movie. And one
of them has this graffiti on it that's like, you open this locker and you
die or whatever. Also, weirdly, it looked like he had two of them, kind of
one above and one below. I don't know if he had two lockers, but yeah,
you're right. For the movie. Okay. And sure enough, he opens the locker
and it's got a guillotine in it that actually cuts the toes off of like
his gym shoes, it looks like, or something, which is like, man, you really should
be more careful what you keep in your locker if you're going to have a
fucking guillotine in it. Like, goddamn. But yeah, they are there to
grab marijuana. That's what they're there for. They're for Bender's pot stash.
And he's got like a series of paper bags. It's like Gordon's lunch
bag with Brian's lunch bag with Andy's lunch— yeah, Gordon. Fuck that
shit. His last name's Gordon. I'm not tripping,
am I? No, it's not. It's something else. Or no, you are tripping because it's
Andy something else. But like, no, but, uh, one of the things that I love
in this scene is like, it's, uh— well, actually, no, no, that's right. So I
was gonna ask you, and, and, you know, if you don't want to admit this
on the air, you don't have to, but did you smoke pot in high school?
Was that— oh, that was not true. Yeah. All right. All right. So first off,
the concept of keeping your marijuana in your locker at school is insane
to me. I knew lots of people who smoked pot in high school. Mom and
Dad, if you're listening, it definitely wasn't me. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. But a lot
of friends who did, and nobody would ever have it on campus if you could
help it. Right. Right. And you certainly wouldn't be leaving it in anything on campus.
So that's insane. But I cannot imagine this
is Chicago, you know, suburban Chicago in 1984. '84, I think technically we were
told the date is like fall of '84 when this actually takes place. Uh,
and that weed must have been the stemmiest, seediest, dirtiest, the most
terrible stuff. There's no way it was good. Oh, my buddy got the good shit
from Alberta. Yeah, like, yeah,
nightmare, nightmare stuff. No good at all. I was just thinking
when I was watching this, going, man, that must be some dirt-ass dirt weed.
Although we find out, uh, it does, uh, does the job. Also doesn't last
very long, if we're being honest about their They're fun times together. They don't last
very long when we get there, but yeah. So yeah, so they— this is when
then I think they realize as they start heading back, Vernon is also like— they
see him, they run into a section of the hall that's kind of like closed
off, right? They're like, oh shit, we're kind of screwed here. Yeah, Vernon's gonna be
back. And Bender takes off to distract him, like singing through the halls and making
noise and everything. Yeah, it's actually a really great moment for the whole— for the
whole group because they notice Vernon's in the halls and try to run around him,
and they get to a point where they could go one of two ways,
and Bender is suggesting they go go one way. And Andy says, no, no,
no, we got to go this way. We're done listening to you, pal. We're going
this way. Well, then that. And so essentially Andy leads them to this blocked off
hallway, at which point, like, they could all get in trouble. Bender decides
to sacrifice himself for the betterment of the group, which is so— it
comes out of left field, really. It's interesting in some ways. I mean, it's— if
you're looking at all the little signs that John Bender is a very self-aware person
throughout the beginning of this movie, it maybe isn't as surprising. But like,
I'm sure like to the characters, it's nearly shocking. Bender would act selflessly
in any way. But he shoves his weed into Brian's pants and, yeah, just like
running down the halls, hitting the locks on lockers and screaming and yelling. And Vernon
starts chasing him and the other kids are able to get back to the library
without any problem. Nothing happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, and it's
almost, you know, he knew that the— that he's gone too far at certain points.
Yeah, yeah. Um, and he's probably also like, whatever,
I'm already in the most trouble I could ever be. I'm gonna be here like
2 months. What are you gonna go throw another life sentence on my life sentence?
I give a fuck. Um, so, uh, so Vernon, you know,
grabs Bender, like, he, you know, brings him back there
and basically says, like, you guys want to laugh, like, visit Bender in
5 years. And he's really dressing him down in front of them, really embarrassing
them. And he takes him to this, you know, supply closet, and,
uh, and he's trying to get Bender to, like,
throw a punch, basically. Yeah, he's in his face He's like, you know, I make
$31,000 a year and I have a home and I'm not about to lose it
knocking you out right now, but it's all I want to do. Basically, like,
I'm going to find you in the future and I'm going to kick the shit
out of you. Yeah. Once you're 18 and you're no longer a student that I'm
in charge of in any way. Yeah. I'm going to beat the shit out of
you. And you just see Bender is just in— he's dissociating like
he's had to do with his dad his whole life. Exactly. And is just sitting
there kind of frozen. And, uh, yeah, really, me— Vernon pushes it
pretty far, pretty far before stopping. Way further than he ever would if he thought
for a second anyone would know. Yeah, like, that's the key. It's like, yeah,
what Vernon is saying to Bender in that moment— no one's ever gonna believe it.
That's the only reason he's doing it is he knows he can get away with
it. Uh, and this is the time when Bender is absolutely the most childlike.
You know, we're reminded that, again, we don't get exact ages for these kids,
but yeah, 16, 17— these are children. Yeah. And this is the one time where
Bender really looks small. And really looks like a kid again, is in
his sort of non-action towards Vernon in this moment.
Because here's the thing, like, I honestly believe just looking at these two people
standing next to each other, you know, if I was going to have to put
money on a fight between Paul Gleason and Judd Nelson, I'm picking Judd Nelson at
this stage in their lives for sure. But he also is a kid and isn't,
you know, like the consequences of what he would be doing are actually so
astronomical. He probably is frozen and even he couldn't make a reasonable decision to hit
Vernon. It wouldn't make sense to him at all. Yeah, yeah, to do that.
And, and I think again, that's another thing Vernon knows, having dealt with— you know,
there's no way this is the first John Bender he's ever dealt with, right?
This is not the first kid he's treated like this in his educator career.
And he might have been that, you know, at least as far as family background.
Like, you probably don't act the way Vernon does if he wasn't pushed around at
some point too. Yeah. Um, so Bender's— he's in the supply closet and
immediately is like, yeah, I'm gonna go back. He just goes up into the drop
ceiling like So we get a little, uh, John McClane from Bender.
I was actually funny. I was so prepared to be like, oh cool, he's climbing
through the vents, like we should make this thing. Nope, not through vents at all,
just drop ceilings. Yeah, acoustic tile, like no weight bearing whatsoever. He is
lucky that when he falls through the ceiling that it is to the upper
level of that library or he would be a dead man, right? If he had
fallen the full two stories of the library, we wouldn't be seeing any more John
Bender, but he is somehow aimed just right that he's able to land only
8 feet down and right. Okay, and it's out of the sight of Vernon,
so when he walks into the library, he doesn't notice that spot because it's,
you know, up around the corner. Yeah. Um, so Vernon hears a
ruckus. Yeah, so he comes in there and Bender, uh, you know,
he's back with the group, and Vernon comes in and Bender gets under the table
where Andy and Claire are sitting. Correct. And, uh, yeah,
Vernon's, uh, "Uh, what was that ruckus?" And then I think it was Brian who
says, "Uh, could you describe the ruckus, sir?" Yeah. And then, and then,
uh, uh, so we get a shot of what Bender sees, which is between,
uh, Claire's legs, under her skirt, sees her underwear. And he goes and he
puts his head basically between her knees. She initially gasps, but then
clearly clamps her knees down on the side of his head, which makes him yelp
out. Yes. And like, I think hit his head on the, the table. And they
all are like, like coughing and like, you know, slamming the table, like make noises.
And then one of them goes like, was that the ruckus that you were describing,
sir? No, that was not the ruckus. But once again, they're all
kind of— they're defending each other. It is. I mean, it's becoming a unified group
here, and we're just barely past lunch. Yeah, exactly. Uh,
yeah, so, so Vernon leaves, and Bender says, all right,
let's— oh, Vernon, uh, says something earlier before he took Bender
to supply closet. Yeah, he's like, oh, you know, I bet you have dope.
Like, what if I took your dope away? Basically, like, you don't care about anything
in your life except for me. You're talking about family, I'll say dope or whatever.
And he's like, oh, my dope's actually in Brian's, uh, pants right now. It's possible,
sir, it's in Brian's underwear right now. And then he asks Brian for his doobage.
Yes. Um, so we get it, we get a really
fun scene of them like passing around the joint and smoking.
A few highlights, uh, Brian Anthony Michael Hall at
this age, probably the best drunk/high actor of all
time between this, like, Weird Science and things. He is so funny and
he doesn't get— he doesn't get time to really eat up the screen in this,
but the little bits of him we get are good. For some reason, Emilio Estevez
turns into Jim Cotta and starts doing— starts doing like somersaults
and parkour down the hall and like doing all this Like the kind of hobby
horse, like, what do they call it? Like the, the, the, I don't know what
they call it. It's like the horse, like the pommel horse jumps over the book
stacks. Also though, before he gets to that, Andy does something that is so insane
to me that I'm sure I never noticed before this watching, this viewing of this
movie. He comes out of that like listening room or whatever he's in, right?
Yeah. With the music starting and everything and he hotboxes the smoke and
he takes another drag off of the joint he's got. It is still an inch
long. And he just flicks it like a cigarette butt. Who flicks a roach?
That's like— you can't do that. That's good stuff in Illinois in 1984.
Yeah, Bender should kill him for that alone.
Yeah. And then, uh, and then, you know, maybe a slightly less
ridiculous part, um, where they're jamming out to the music and,
uh, Andy gets behind the glass in the music room and he screams
and the glass just shatters. Still very ridiculous. I don't know if
we're supposed to believe he just yelled loud enough, 'cause it certainly wasn't, you know
how a lot of times there's like a running gag, I think, I feel like
especially when we were kids in entertainment of like an incredibly high pitch,
like soprano's vocal, you know, like singing could
shatter glass. But it had to do, as far as I remember, it had to
do with the high pitch. And Andy is not a high pitched, does not have
a high pitched voice. So I guess he's just supposedly loud enough to do it.
Like what the hell would happen? Just enough teen energy. You get enough weed into
a wrestler.
So this is, this is really fun. And it is like,
as much of this movie is just kind of people sitting around talking,
it's very realistic. Yeah, this takes us out of that. Yeah, you know,
a little bit. Yeah, but I think it's nice because it— things got very heavy
for a while. Yeah, it's not enough that I would put this in the genre
of fantasy films, like the way we do like with Groundhog Day, right? Is that
like, you know, they're not fantasy like Dungeons Dragons, but they're like fantastical
premises. Yeah, it's not that. We don't get to that level. Um, but it is,
yeah, there's like, it's a part comic relief, part just sort of like,
you can take a breath for a while. Um, and it's good because, you know,
we do lead up soon to some heavier shit, including like right away,
uh, Vernon's going through the faculty's confidential files, right? He's down in the
basement, he's going through confidence for finding out about mental health problems of his colleagues
and stuff, like really dirty shit. And that's when Carl walks in on him and
be like, hey, how's it going, Dick? Like, you know, and,
uh, they, you know, talk a little bit and basically Carl agrees to not rat
him out for $50. Yeah, yeah, another indicator how well Carl's life
is going for him. Well, and Vernon is just trying to be the eyes and
ears of the school like Carl is. He's just trying to do a little spying
there. Yeah, um, they're— after they've smoked, uh, weed, they're all
kind of going through each other's purses and wallets and everything. Yeah,
and, uh, turns out Allison had stolen Brian's wallet because she comes out with all
these details about him. Uh, this is a really funny detail of
the movie is that Brian has a fake ID and they're like, this is the
worst fake ID I've ever seen. It says you're 68 years old. What do you
need a fake ID for? And he says, so I can vote. Which is like
admitting to voter fraud, buddy. Like, that's, you know, now we know why the SAVE
Act is trying to make its way through Congress because of Brian and his,
uh, and his fake ID. But yeah, 68 years old, I don't think it's going
to work for him. I don't think he's going to ask for that.
No, it reminds me actually, when I, when I, we saw, I saw that scene
this time, it reminded me of, uh Superbad and the
whole McLovin. You ever see Superbad? Yeah, the whole McLovin thing.
And it was, you know, he made himself like 26. Why didn't you just
do it 21? Why'd you have to make yourself like 28 years old or whatever
it was? And he had an excuse for it, but it's like true. It's like,
man, you really got to pay attention. You can't just pick a random year.
No. You know what
I mean? Emilio has a line here where they're talking about, you know, your home
life is unsatisfying. And he says, everyone's home life is unsatisfying,
or we'd live with our parents forever. Yeah, it's such a great way of like
how a teen would be looking at that kind of thing. Yeah. Um, and he's
bonding a little bit with Allison a little bit. Yeah, Andy and Allison are bonding
a little bit. Um, Carl, I will say, with the scene
where he's talking to Vernon, because Carl's kind of like chilling, they're having a couple
old styles now. Yeah, yeah, right. They're having a couple beers. He has the most
Midwestern beer of all time. Like, it's really good. He has a great,
uh, 80s White Sox shirt on. Yeah, like the old school Tim Raines,
Carlton Fisk, like just, uh, one of the best logos.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Um, but yeah, like, uh, they're just,
they're chilling out there, Carl and Vern, and basically Vern's trying to talk about
how, oh, it's the kids that are failing us and they weep for the future
and all that kind of crap. And Carl's like, man, you're an idiot. Like,
this is, this is, you're just wrong. Like, like, this is what kids are.
Kids have always been like this. Like, no, no, there's no way. And I'd love—
there's a line where Vern goes, you know, I've keeps me up at night.
These are the kids who are going to take care of me when I'm older.
And Carl goes, wouldn't bet on it. Like, not the way you treat kids,
dude. Yeah. Yeah. So there's Carl kind of being a
little more wise than the guy who's trying to get $50 to not tell about
going through the files. So he, he's, he ebbs and flows a little bit.
With Carl, I think there's at least a little self-awareness that he
is who he is and, and is trying to relive things or whatever,
maybe, or like, you know, won't leave the school because of the comfort of him
being there and then the memories of it. But I think he is self-aware enough
to recognize that he's doing that. Yeah. And just, he's just okay with it for
whatever reason. It's like, that's fine. That's just how I roll. But I think that
gives him a little more kind of, you know, ability to look at other adults
around and go, now, are you doing the same thing that I'm doing? And you're
not self-aware about it? He can definitely point that out. Yeah. He can see himself
in them, you know? And now we get to one of the most important scenes
of the movie, really. So they are sitting on the floor.
It looks like they're upstairs in the library. They've all clearly kind of come down
off their highs, which is why I was saying about the weed wasn't that good
because it clear— everybody's pretty, pretty clear-eyed at this point. Yeah. It was like 20
minutes of the most high you've ever been. Right. And then kind of DMT or
something. I don't know what they did, but, but they are sitting there for 20
minutes. This scene takes place for, so it is, you know,
about a 20th of, you know, about, about a fifth of the movie takes place
in this scene. And the number of different topics that these kids go over in
this time is pretty amazing. It starts off with, with, you know, what's the
worst thing you'd do for $1 million? Like, really kind of your basic kind of
a would you rather or whatever. And it just goes into more and
more different things. They talk about sex and about virginity and like who has and
who hasn't. And then Allison out of nowhere pops up and is like, I'll do
anything sexual. I don't care. Yeah. And just, and everyone's like, what do you mean?
And she talks about how she bangs her therapist. Yeah. And it was like,
and everybody's kind of freaking out. Like, that is fucked up. Like, you, like,
that's, that's terrible. He's taking advantage of you. And there's a line that Allison says
here that I think I think is funny, but, but not
haha funny. More like underscoring the misunderstanding
of sex and consent that a lot of people have, especially young kids, which is
why they get— they can get taken care of. Well, they get taken advantage of
because horrible adults want to take advantage of them and try to, but a lot
of times it happens because children don't have a really solid understanding of what consent
is. Because she says, I don't think what he could do could actually be construed
as rape because I paid him. Yeah, for the therapy session, right? But it's That
is such an absolutely twisted concept around what is consent
and what is, you know, actively like, you know,
a normal sexual interaction. Right. Right. That it's kind of almost mind-blowing.
So it's like funny in that, like, I didn't laugh out loud at it,
but I was like, oh my gosh, she so misunderstands. But she was making— do
you think she was making a joke? Because I thought she was making that joke
because then she admitted that she— that none of that happened. Yeah. And that you
could be sure you could be right. The way I read it was that she
was— this was all part of the made-up part, and she was making it up
because that is how she would understand it would have gone down if it had
gone down. Like, that this was still within what she would see as
real if what had actually happened had happened. She does later admit it was all
made up. She's never— she's never done that. It was a way for her to,
you know— she basically— Claire, uh, accuses her of like using it as
a way to get Claire to admit that she's a virgin, right? And that maybe
that was part of it. But I think that when everything that— the way I
read it was everything Allison describes within her lie are things she thinks are actually
her imagining how it would be if it was real. If it happened, this is
what would have happened kind of thing. I could be wrong. It could have been
a little, but it's, I feel like that would be a very higher order thinking
for a teenager to really kind of understand the
levels of quote joke they're telling there. You know what I mean? Like, okay,
to be ironic now, probably not happening in that moment. It's pretty advanced for someone
who hasn't spoken yet in the movie. We haven't got a lot of indication that
she's like particularly be, you know, worldly with her thoughts necessarily,
right? So, but yeah, um, yeah, great scene here.
Um, Claire admits that, that she's a virgin, right? And Allison says,
you know, I, I am too. Like, I'm not a nympho, I'm a compulsive liar.
Yeah, exactly. Uh, and they get into like what they did to— oh yeah,
to end up in Saturday School. And Andy is talking about how,
oh, I taped Larry Lester's butt cheeks together. Yeah.
And, uh, and he was like, do you know him? And Brian was just— gave
a very much like, yeah, I know, like, like, I heard this story from my
friend. You piece of shit. Exactly. He's already heard the other side.
Yeah. Um, and the way that Andy tells the story
though is kind of showing a kid who learned— I
mean, he knows he should never have done it in the first place, but is
really realizing the impact of what he did to this kid because His
whole thing was, I need to bully because my dad needs me to be tough.
My dad needs me to be a champion. I'm pinning people even if I'm just
talking to some fucking kid on the bus. Yeah, like everyone's my opponent. I need
to defeat everybody, and I do that because of my dad, and my dad is
the biggest influence on my life. Fuck, I sent this kid home
and he has to tell his dad about that. Yeah, I've basically like
created my nightmare for this kid, you just to do
something that I don't want to do in the first place. Yeah, it's— Andy is
in the moment, it seems, discovering what empathy is. Yeah.
And understanding that we need to view the world not only through our
own eyes, but as much as we can through the eyes of the people around
us. Yeah. And at least consider what does this mean for their
life the way we're interacting with them, right? I mean, that's basic empathy.
And he— it's an abject lesson. It's one that he won't soon forget.
Andy, nor Larry Lester either. They're both going to remember this for the rest of
their lives. And, you know, to see that, that is one of the most
emotionally mature kind of, you know, moments in the film, I feel like, is Andy's
description of this and the way he describes it. He's near tears. Doesn't quite break
out in tears, but he is very near tears. Yeah. Talking about the influence his
dad has over him. And like you said, the realization that Larry has a
dad too. Yeah. He doesn't know anything about Larry's dad. He doesn't know how Larry's
dad will react. Like, you know, I know that like if my son came home
that way, like I would not, feel anything but love for my son and deal
with it. But there are parents out there who would blame the kid. Well,
if you weren't so weak, they wouldn't have done this to you. That kind of
thing. Maybe that's what Larry Lester's dad is like. So there is a really radical
sort of like maturity on display here by Andy
when really in a lot of ways he did the most immature thing to get
in there. Yeah. Right. I mean, I guess Claire's skipping school to shop is also
not very mature, but the kind of sophomoric immaturity
of action that Andy did is really kind of one of the main things that
we see, you know, or one of the most childish things we see of what
people— why people are here. Well, the thing he did, there's no benefit. At least
Claire goes and has a fun day. Yeah. The thing he did is only for
the purpose of doing that thing, right? Which gets, yeah, nothing for anybody
except to say, hey. Oh, and, and Andy then starts talking
about, you know, my dad only cares about my wrestling and everything. I sometimes I
wish my knee would give. That's right. So he could just forget about me.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, which is so crazy. It's dark. Uh, and then
Bender, you know, the, the true adult in the room chimes in with, uh,
hey, I think your dad and my dad should go bowling together, which great way.
If, and if you're ever in a real life moment of that kind of attention,
that is the perfect type of thing to say where you're showing like, I understand,
but also let's let a little air out of the room. And I'm not going
to make it about me. There's a way a lot of people try to commiserate
with people who are sharing vulnerable things that ends up making it about them.
Like, oh, well, I experienced this this to, right? Let me tell you about it,
or whatever. Which is like, you know, the speaker feels like they're trying to relate,
but the person who gave up the original story is now thinking, okay, now we'll
talk about you instead. Yeah. But the way Bender did this was, I'm in the
same boat as you, but he didn't put himself— he didn't center himself at all,
right? He's just, hey, I think these two assholes, we both know, really like each
other's story or anything like that. It was just like, it was a way to
say, very nice, I'm similar. And again, again, Bender, best character
in the movie. I never thought I would say that.
Let's see, we're talking about now, uh, special skills that
they have for some reason. And Claire's— they're, you know, is there anything you could
do that's special? And Claire's skill is that she holds her lipstick between her
boobs and like puts it on. I think that's much of a— like,
Molly Ringwald doesn't— no offense to her, she doesn't have particularly large bosom. I don't
think she could actually hold anything in between, like in her cleavage. But I think
she like tucked it into like her bra sort of and then put it on
her, right? Something like that. But you know, it's It's just interesting, like, yeah,
party trick thing, whatever. Um, and then, uh, he notices,
uh, Bender notices, I think, Claire's earrings. She has these diamond earrings on,
and again, now he's back in immature jealous, like,
you have things I don't have, and he's lashing out at her and talking about,
oh, those must be nice. Oh, what were they, a Christmas present? You know,
did you work a job to earn the money to buy those? You know,
yeah, he's going after her for it. You know, your parents just grant you everything.
You know what Christmas was like in my house. And then he has this great
speech about, you know, my dad gave me for Christmas a carton of cigarettes.
Smoke up, Johnny. Like, yeah. And the anger that he has,
every impression of his dad is just brutal. It is,
right? Yeah. And I'm sure well-earned. Yeah. Like, you know.
But yeah, then I think it's Brian then gets into a little bit of a
turn away from that topic where he starts asking, what's Monday going to be like?
Yeah, right. We're all going to leave here today. Tomorrow, Sunday, like, whatever. But then
Monday morning, we're all back at school. We're all back here together.
Are we friends? Like, I think of you as my friends now. Like, are we
friends? And this is one of the most heartbreaking sort of segments from here
for a few minutes in the movie, because Claire— and, and there's an element here
where you have Claire's— they yell at Claire, you're a bitch, because of what she
says. And it is super shitty. It's also incredibly self-aware. She is absolutely
saying to all of them what they're all thinking about the realities of
social life in high school, which is I'm popular, you're not. My friends
would never understand why I would even say hi to you. That's just going to
keep being reality. Yeah. Like you don't understand what it means, what I have to
do to maintain what I have. And it's obviously incredibly selfish. It is conceited.
They say you're being so conceited and it's like, you know, she is, but she's
also being incredibly pragmatic given the reality she finds herself in.
Right. And I don't have to like it, but I can respect it that she
is being so open and honest with that. Them about that and not just saying,
oh yeah, of course, and then, you know, fucking talking behind his back or
some shit later. Like, she's being incredibly open and honest about it. It's just a
real shitty thing to be honest about. It is. But she's also not saying it
in a dismissive way. She's just like, yeah, you know, unfortunately, no, I am not
going to talk to you next week, instead of like, ew. Right, fair.
Like, it's, uh, yeah, she's realizing kind of how—
which is the first step in improving, right, is just recognizing
what the fuck is going on. Yeah. So hopefully that leads to some growth for
Claire. But yeah, Brian is very upset by this,
you know, and he's going around the room saying like, would you talk to
me? And he's like, I wouldn't do this to any of you guys. Like,
we're friends after today. Well, you're worried about what your friends would think if you
said hi to me. He's like, my friends wouldn't care if I said hi to
you. And then Claire, again, kind of going into a little less mature,
says, well, your friends wouldn't mind because they look up to to us. And that's
just like, whoa. Which is, again, like, yeah, it's sort of like, it's wrong.
It's not the reality, but it is also a little bit
accurate in that the societal schism or
strata of high school has placed her and her friends higher than him
and his friends. And there is a reality of those above do not fraternize with
those below, and those below don't mind fraternizing with those above in general. Obviously there
are individuals that are different, but like, that's a reality. This was the kind of
thing that I never really thought of. Of when I was watching this movie younger
and now retrospecting so far with high school so far in the rearview, it's like,
nope, that is absolutely accurate. That is how things were. Even I, you know,
was not like a popular kid, but I had a lot of friends, a lot
of different friend groups, the theater stuff, like whatever, you know, kind of like all
over. There was definitely still a strata hierarchy at the time of
like, no, if that person talked to me, I'd be interested because they are higher
up than I am. Right. If there's this person way below me, it's like I
would say hi, but like I don't I don't particularly care one way or another.
Like, you know, I mean, there's an element of that, um, and it's super shitty,
but it's super real for children, for high schoolers.
It's so hard to understand that shit while you're in it. Yes. It's like,
damn it, if you could just have your 5 years older self advise you on
high school and like, it would be a breeze, you know? Help. Yes. Oh my
God. Yeah. And, um, it is nice like that there's this tension,
that Claire is honest and it doesn't turn into like, yeah, of course, right?
Like, we're— let's go to fairy tale. Yeah, right, exactly.
Yeah. Uh, they're kind of talking now about what Brian did
to get in there, or he offers this up. He's like, you know what I
did? Which again, nobody's really asking him about himself in
any way. Exactly, yeah, which is another example of that strata thing, right? But yeah,
he tells him he brought a gun to school. And this was hard to watch.
This was something that this time watching it, it almost brought me to tears.
'Cause now thinking again as a parent, this was less about thinking back to my
high school days and more about thinking ahead to my kids. Kids and thinking about
how Brian's parents, if they're at all good people, which we see his
mom is like angry at him for being in detention. She's angry about whatever,
but she probably doesn't know the whole story about why he had the gun in
the first place. I have to believe that if his parents had any
idea that the pressure they were putting on him was close to driving him to
suicide, that they would reevaluate their priorities. I have to believe that that's the case.
It might not be, but like in my headcanon, Brian's parents are oblivious,
not evil. For sure. You know? And so thinking about that and thinking about the
pressure that all kids put on themselves, even before parents add more,
is scary as hell. And so hearing him, and again,
kudos Anthony Michael Hall, it's a well-acted scene of talking about,
really, this is the best part, not talking about, it's in the moments and the
silences between his sentences that are the most powerful and are the
scariest as a parent because they're the things that your kids aren't saying that you
really have to worry about. Stuff he shouldn't say as he's going through his head.
Tense for me watching this. And I didn't— I don't remember ever being as affected
by this speech as I was this time. And I think, again, because I have
not seen this movie since I had kids and it's hard to watch.
And Brian's admittance that he's that close to, you know, I can't get an F.
Yeah, I can't. And if I get an F, even if I, you know,
whatever, even though I live with the F, it drags my grade point average for
the entire year down to a B. I can't have that. Yeah, my parents can't
have that. He is fully convinced. His parents would rather he be dead
than get an F. He believes that wholeheartedly. And that is
horrifying and terrifying as a parent. No, for sure. And that's a great
thing to bring up. And I mean, this movie, a lot of the movie is
about just the pressure or lack of interest that your parents show and like how
that can trickle down to you. But yeah, be nice to your damn kids.
Your kids are awesome. Your kids are beautiful. And it's fine what their grades
are. And life is fucking hard. And they're trying to figure it out. Exactly.
And we're all trying to figure out there's no fucking There's no guidebook for parents.
There's no guidebook for growing up. If you don't remember that from your own childhood,
think about it again. Yeah, because they are all just doing their best to get
through this world. Absolutely. Absolutely. No, that's really important.
Um, and so this is, this is a very heavy scene, but then Brian does
say at the end of it, he was like, well, they're like, well, where did
you get a gun? He's like, uh, it was, it was a flare gun.
It went off in my locker. So then they're all kind of burned it out,
you know. That's funny. So that's great. And it really— I'm not even I
don't know for sure, but I don't think you can kill yourself with a flare
gun. I don't know. I guess in the side of the head could still do
a lot of damage. Quickly. You could, you could cause yourself to die in a
very long and drawn out way. I suppose that's true. Right. Yeah. It's not nearly
as dangerous because I think it's Alice and asks, was it a handgun? He goes,
no, it was a flare gun. It's like, you know, if it had been a
pistol, clearly that is a killing machine, but a flare gun, yeah, it would have
been harder to get that job done. One thing, you know, one thing I
just thought of now though, we kind of see this with with Brian's embellishment of
his story, or like, you know, leaving out a very important detail. True.
And with Allison, you know, kind of the way that
these two characters who are kind of the least popular ones, the ones who don't
get a lot of attention, respond to getting attention from the
group. They're a little like— they're doing a little Enrico
Palazzo a little bit, you know, like, let me ham up this story a little
and, uh, and see where it goes. And then they realize, okay, well, let me
pull it back, you know. As soon as they get asked about it or pushed
on any of it, they immediately revert to honesty. Yeah, yeah. Whereas I feel like
Bill Bender consistently doubles down into whatever stance he's taking, right? And Brian and Allison
are the opposite. Um, okay, so we get this
heavy scene and this wraps up, and it's really, it's really great. We got them
dancing again. Yes, another, uh, really goofy-ass dance montage, which I
enjoy the shit out of, and one that's been like, you know, recreated by,
uh, by comedy troupes and different groups and on TV shows. It's really, it's a
very, very classic moment and really necessary after that 20 minutes of sitting on that
chair on the floor with them and ending with Brian's conversation about
nearly committing suicide, we really needed to like take a breath and like have
something just clean and palate cleansing happen. So this whole dance sequence, I think really
is meant to be that before we kind of wrap the movie up. Yeah.
And so it's, but that I feel like was the climax. I feel like the
conversations about what'll happen on Monday and Brian's thing and Allison being close to like
all that is the kind of the climax of the movie. And we're into Denouement
more than anything else else at this point. Yeah. So yeah, um, and I remember
when I, when I first saw this, so there's a scene of Claire with Allison
like, oh, let me, let me make you pretty. And then the way she makes
her, I'm like, I liked her before. I thought she looked better before. This is
kind of a weird look on her. Um, but she puts makeup on
Allison, and then they also— this is shitty too. This is kind of,
uh, pushing me more towards nobody learned any lessons. Okay, because They're like,
hey, you know, Vernon wanted us to write an essay, but really,
what's the point in all of us writing an essay? Hey, nerd, write our fucking
essay for us. And then Brian has to, you know, we're going to go hook
up. Why don't you write this essay for us, you fucking dork? I don't
disagree with you, but I do. I will point out Claire asked him
initially, Brian, you're going to do the essay no matter what, aren't you? And he
goes, yeah, I'm writing something like he was not going to leave without writing it.
So he's like, could you just like write something about all of us instead?
He's like, yeah, okay. I mean, that's essentially how it played out. I get what
you're saying. I did think that too, but then I also was kind of like,
he really was gonna write that essay one way or another. And he doesn't— he's
not the kind of person that gives a shit what effort other people are putting
into. Yeah, he's doing what he's told to do, and that's all that matters.
That makes sense. So I don't think he minds. And it's realistic too that like
whatever, whatever evolution results from this day that these characters had together,
they're not fully changed. Oh yeah, by the end of the day. Absolutely. It's not
transformative. Brian's still gonna do Brian shit. They're all, yeah, gonna do their stuff.
Yeah. Um, yeah, so Brian, uh, Brian's gonna write the essay, and there's a cool
like voiceover of him reading the essay, which is not a— not a thousand
words at all. Um, no, not close. And we have the students,
uh, getting picked up now. Yes. So we've got Claire and Bender have kind of
had a little romance. She gives him his diamond earring.
Really? Uh, quite something. It's almost like, uh, I feel like that is the rich
girl version of handing over the Letterman jacket, right?
Yeah. Yes, totally. Her custom chopsticks and her diamond
earring. Those chopsticks were nice. They were, they were good. She better bring those home.
Don't throw those out. Um, yeah, so they're all getting,
uh, picked up and stuff. And I think the last scene we get is,
uh, is Bender walking across the football field and does like a big
fist in the air like celebration. It's a little corny. And the song starts up.
It's a little corny. Yeah, we do get more of these. He like jumped super
high and did it. So in reality, all he does is throw a fist up.
That's much better. Yeah, the jumping would have been much worse. It's not Dragon Dragon
Ball Z, you know, like, um, one thing I wanted to point out in this
scene is, um, you know, Brian was— everybody's getting picked up by the same people
that dropped them off, essentially. Yeah, Brian is— was dropped off by his mom and
his little sister and picked up by a man, his dad, right? Yeah. Do you
know who that was? That was John Hughes. Oh, was it? Yeah, John Hughes
driving a car. And I feel like there's a moment where I, I want to
imagine there's a moment where John Hughes, like, the actress who played the mom had
to like leave, or like he needed to do a pickup shot like we didn't
quite get that, and now we're not going to bring that actress back. I'll just
get in the car. But yeah, but he's uncredited in the role as Brian.
Oh, that's so funny. Oh man.
Wow. What a— what a, uh, it's Breakfast Club. What a film.
Yeah, good stuff. It's a good one. Yeah, very much. You want to, uh,
you want to give us your wrap-up? Yeah, let me, let me give my wrap-up.
Uh, actually, I got a little factoid, uh, which I should have dropped earlier,
but the actual ages in real life of the different actors when this movie
was filmed here. Okay, we got Anthony Michael Hall, age 16.
Oh wow, okay. Uh, Molly Ringwald, age 16. Okay.
Emilio Estevez was like 21 or 22. Okay, turned 22 during filming.
Ally Sheedy, 21, and Judd Nelson, 24. Wow,
okay. Um, that makes a lot more sense now that in the same year
those three, the ones who were 20-plus, older in St. Elmo's Fire where they played
20-somethings, right? Like post-college, I think, even, right? So not
surprising then that Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall did not make it into that movie.
Yeah, would have been odd. Yeah, totally.
So this holds up for me. I mean, I thought I enjoyed watching
this a lot. I really cared about the characters. I thought this was a
great conversation and getting to get into like high school
psychology and the effect that your parents have on you and the effect that your
peer groups and like the different social stratas of high school and like this encapsulates
that really well. And even though this movie is 40 years old, I think this
is still relevant. Um, I think all
the themes here still hold up. I think all the character
types are still out there. Yep.
Um, I think, uh, yeah, man, I don't know what to pick apart
too much about this movie. I really did— the supporting cast, uh,
Carl and Vernon, were great. Uh, this is a 4 out of 5 for me.
This this is very enjoyable. I think I'd watch this again,
you know, 5 years from now or so. And, uh, I got a lot from
it, and I got a lot from this conversation. And it helps kind of like
bouncing those ideas off each other as we kind of try to understand this movie
as like mid-40s people who have kids or are going to have kids that age.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, for that, I think, you know, it's funny enough, I'm actually
right, kind of right where, where you are. Uh, I'll go ahead and just say
I'm also a 4 out of 5 on this movie. I think for me there
is, uh, there is so much that's still relatable. There's some stuff that doesn't hold
up. You know, there's an F-slur near the beginning of the movie that I
almost always knock the movie down a little. Yeah, it's like there's— well, actually there's
two because there's that and then Andy actually calls him. Oh, that's right. So,
you know, don't love that stuff, but that is of its time. I'm not going
to like freak out about that. But, you know, it does maybe knock down from
any kind of perfect level, right? We have stuff like that because it makes it
harder for me to want to share with my kids and stuff like that.
But in general, this is still an incredibly poignant movie. It's incredibly
well acted by a group of relatively young, as you just pointed out, maybe not
as young as they seem in the movie, but, you know, relatively young actors.
You know, Hughes at his height as far as writing goes. I mean,
really wonderfully scripted movie as well. And, you know,
how do you not like Paul Gleason as the heavy, right? If that guy ever
gets to— whenever he's the villain in something, it's fun. Yeah, it's quality. One of
our faves. Absolutely. So, yeah, I'm also a 4 out of 5 on The Breakfast
Club. That makes us 8 out of 10. And, you know, I think that's perfect.
This is absolutely a great movie. If you have not seen The Breakfast Club in
a long time, go back and check it out. I think especially if like Nick
and I, you kind of are at a different stage of life than the last
time you saw it, maybe it could really— there are perspectives you can take on
this movie that would never have occurred to you if you just— if you last
saw it when you were like in high school or college or something like that.
Yeah. So there you go. All right. Well, Steve, we're moving through the
'80s. We are. You're up next here. This was 1985, right?
So two dads, two decades. Moving on to 1986. And you
know what? We are going to stay very close to this movie. Okay. As it
turns out, and I got to be honest, I didn't really plan this out.
We were kind of going through and picking different years and stuff. And I immediately
saw the reminder that this particular movie came out in '86 and just, and I
penciled it in right away. And as it turns out, it's another written and directed
by John Hughes. We are going to see Shermer High School again. Okay.
Not nearly as much. The movie takes place in lots of different scenes and in
settings. But yeah, we're going to go to 1986 and we are going back
to suburban Chicago and then to the city itself because we are going to take
a day off with Ferris Bueller. Okay. Matthew Broderick,
Alan Ruck, Mia Sara, written and directed by John Hughes. This movie was for a
while, this was like one of my favorite movies of all time. We saw
Ghostbusters, I think last week. Yeah. And there was a time when that was literally
my favorite movie at a point in my life. Ferris Bueller maintained a top 5
position for for me for a lot of my life. I wouldn't put it there
now necessarily. I mean, we'll see after I watch it again, but, but there was
a time when I could have quoted most of this movie by heart, and it
really is just such a special piece of, of sort of like '80s teen
comedy culture, in my opinion. Nice. All right. Very cool.
All right. So that's a wrap. And if you like what you hear, please head
on over to Apple or Spotify and send us a 5-star review. It really helps
new people find the show. You can check out our website @twodads1movie.com.
That's the number 2 and the number 1. There you can sign up for an
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followed us on Instagram @twodads1movie. Once again, this has been The Breakfast Club,
another episode of Two Dads, One Movie. I'm Steve. And I'm Nick. Thank you so
much for listening, and we'll catch you next week. Thanks,