Monday

I saw The Breakfast Club on Friday night, and I'd never seen it before. It's quite hard to assess a movie so attached to a time, a place, and a style - especially one you're quite alienated from. You feel you can't be critical of it because it meant so much to so many when it came out. In spite of that, it isn't taken seriously as cinema anymore. I can see why - the outcome is predictable, the blaming of parents simplistic, and the drug-taking scene embarrassing. But I also can't deny that I enjoyed it. The characters come to life and you engage with them. The performances are good. The soundtrack is tacky, but that's the fun of it. They never really resolve what's going to happen on Monday, and they're not really a 'club' since they only ever met once, but I don't think it matters too much. This movie was part of a generation's 'brat pack' movement (not the original one, and not the last) comprising several films of which I haven't seen many. Ferris Bueller's Day Off (by the same director) is tagged on to this, but it's much more sophisticated and doesn't include the same actors. Anyway, it made me think of the high-school comedy/drama in general as a genre, and how it has undergone quite a complex development. Today's gross-out comedies can hardly be said to be the pinnacle, but we have made some good dramas. Although normally the genre aims at representing contemporary high-school, I think the films that look back a few years are the best (American Graffiti, Dazed and Confused, etc). Their nostalgic appeal is hard to resist.