“High school is the bottom. Being a teenager sucks! But that’s the point! Surviving it is the whole point!”

-Christian Slater from “Pump Up The Volume”

High school. Like all of you, I do not miss those years and you couldn’t pay me enough to go back to all that nonsense. The peer pressure, the rejection, the heartache, the unfulfilled longings, and all that pressure that is unloaded on us by our parents when it comes to getting into a good college. Still, I keep wondering what it is like for the kids of today. They get to deal with all the new advances in technology that I never got to deal with back then, but has the way we deal with each other in high school changed? Are people nicer now after the needless tragedies that were Columbine among others? Or have things simply gotten worse? After you see “American Teen,” I think you will agree that things as a teenager and in high school are neither better nor worse. In fact, everything remains the same. There are the cliques, the pressure to get into the right college, and there are those who fit in, and those who don’t and feel endlessly rejected. It’s been close to 15 years since I graduated from high school, and kids still go through the same crap. My step niece is about to start high school, so you can imagine how worried I am about her.

“American Teen” is a documentary directed by Nanette Burstein, and she has previously directed “The Kid Stays In The Picture” and “On The Ropes.” Here, she gives more or less “The Breakfast Club” as a documentary as she follows the lives of various teenagers as they go through their senior year at small town Indiana high school. Nanette has crafted a very absorbing documentary that follows the lives of these people, and how they get through a year that is tough and full of immense pressure for all of them. There is nothing really edgy about this film, and it doesn’t really deal with much with drugs, sex, or school violence. What Nanette succeeds in doing here is taking these stereotypes of the jock, the nerd, the rebel, and the beautiful, and she turns them upside down as she looks closely at the personalities that inhabit them. She has gone on record and said that she considers herself a part of the “John Hughes generation,” and it’s very interesting how she takes that and makes into a movie filled with real people.

Now, I haven’t seen these other documentaries like “The Hills” or “The Real World,” or for that matter, any of the many documentaries that can be seen on PBS. Therefore, I cannot really compare them to this particular film. All the same, I think this one has a lot more to offer those who view, and I think it is also good viewing for those who are in high school now and who think they are the only ones going through what they go through. It’s important for them to know that they are not alone, and that we also need to listen to what they have to say.

Of all the people in this movie, the one that comes across as the most appealing is Hannah Bailey, the liberal rebel of the highly conservative town where this film takes place. She starts off the movie as a free spirit of a person, and deep down, she is the person that many of us really wanted to be like: free spirited and not concerned of how others think of her. However, that part of her is forever shattered when her boyfriend who she was madly in love with, ends up breaking up with her after they have made out. Her emotional devastation is hard to witness as we all have dealt with the harsh pangs of young love. Hannah ends up getting so depressed that she cannot bring herself to go to school in fear of what others will think of her. With her breakup comes a feeling of worthlessness that can easily engulf a young person and change who they are. Throughout the movie, Hannah’s journey is the most interesting, and she is the one that you really root for.

We also have Jake Tusing who is considered the nerd of the picture with a face ravaged with acne that cries out endlessly for a dermatologist. Jake is a guy that you at times feel sorry for, and later cringe at when he talks. A painfully shy kid who still suffers from the emotional scars brought upon him in junior high, we see him be visibly uncomfortable when he is around large groups of people. In many ways, he becomes his own worst enemy as we his defenses go up as his attempts to stick with a girlfriend after he gets one ends up failing. We start to see him push people away before they have the chance to do the same to him. Jake almost threatens to be like Heather Matarazzo’s character from “Welcome To The Dollhouse” as he goes from being likable to unlikable throughout the movie.

Then there is Colin Clemens (no relation to Roger) who is the star of the high school basketball team in a town where basketball is like a religion everyone follows. We see him as his dad keeps pressuring him to make those shots in the game when he is not doing his Elvis impersonation act for the local senior citizens who refuse to believe that he is dead. The amount of pressure comes from the fact that Colin’s family does not have enough money to send him to college, and that his best hope is to impress the college recruiters so that he can get a basketball scholarship. Colin comes across as a good kid whose parental influence leads him to make some crucial and painful mistakes in the film, but who comes around to become a better person and teammate by the film’s end.

Finally, we have the most popular person at the school that is a bitch beyond repair when you cross her. Her name is Megan Krizmanich, and she is the daughter of a prominent local surgeon, the student council vice president, and the homecoming queen. She is what many of us may call “little miss perfect” even if she is far from it. She is like Rachel McAdam’s character of Regina George from “Mean Girls” in that she is one of the most popular people in high school as well as one of the most loathed (from the audience’s perspective anyway). She is under enormous pressure to get accepted to Notre Dame, as all her family members (except for one who died prematurely) have gotten accepted to Notre Dame. I won’t spoil it if she gets in or not, but when she gets the letter from the school, her expression isn’t so much happiness or sadness as it is sheer relief that this part of her life is now past.

One of the taglines of this movie is “which one were you?” But in many ways, you should be able to see a bit of yourself in any of these people irregardless of what high school stereotype you ended up in. The pressures, the heartaches, the isolation; we have all experienced it all. After seeing this movie, you may have felt like you lived through your high school years once again. The high school pecking order on the social ladder has not changed at all, and it remains an emotional boiling pot in the adolescent lives of kids.

“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

-Kurt Russell from “Escape From LA”

I wanted to get to know these kids more and more as the film went on, and I wanted them (the majority of them anyway) to succeed in what they wanted to do, and I wanted them to be happy. Happiness can be in such short supply when you are in high school at times. The movie is filled with animated interludes which seek to illustrate the inner lives of its main characters. With Jake, we see him as the hero of those “Legend of Zelda” games he loves to play, rescuing the princess who he longs to have as a girlfriend. With Colin, we see his dream of playing on an NCAA team when he gets out of college. Hannah’s animation interlude illustrates her painful post-break up existence as she feels so differently about herself, and how she is afraid that she will end up like her mother who is manic depressive. Then you have Megan’s moment which you can’t help but laugh at some as she sees Notre Dame as this heavenly existence where she can meet a diverse crowd of people who are nothing like the people she picks on at her high school.

I saw this movie at the Arclight Cinemas in Los Angeles, and this is a great movie to watch with an audience because everyone in the audience (including you) has a strong emotional reaction to what is going on throughout. We share in Hannah’s heartbreak, and in her triumphs as she ends being the real hero of the movie. We cringe and laugh at the socially awkward Jake as he stumbles through conversations with potential girlfriends. When he talks, you can’t help but put your hands in your face and shake your face. With Megan, you feel a hatred and resentment that is eased up a little as you get to know her a little better. All the same, she reminds me of that one blonde cheerleader who interrupted the Shakespeare class by saying:

“THERE IS A RUN IN MY NYLONS!”

All that said, “American Teen” is by no means a perfect documentary. It does feel a bit staged here and there, and it probably was in some cases. Also, while the movie does get deep into its subjects, part of me wished that it went a little deeper. We see that Hannah’s best friend is gay guy who is always there for her when she her self-esteem plummets, but we never really get to him and how he deals with living in a very conservative town. I also wanted to see more of the adults in the movie, and how they raised their children. We complain about the way kids act, but a lot of that has to do with the way their parents spoil them rotten. Trust me, this was a big problem in the town that I grew up in.

Granted, Nanette wanted to this film to be shown from as much of the teenagers’ lives as possible, but the adults factor into this more than we see here. While the movie does show the relationship that Colin has with his Elvis impersonating dad, we don’t get that as much with the other kids. Megan ends up committing a slanderous act of vandalism that she does end up getting busted for, but her dad isn’t so much mad at her for doing it as he is with her not being able to keep from being caught (wha???). You have to wonder what kind of values these kids are being instilled with from their parents because they are not always healthy.

We also see Hannah’s manic depressive mother battling with her over Hannah’s decision to move to San Francisco to pursue a career in TV/Film. Hannah is so determined to get out of Indiana and lead a life that is anything but mundane, and we want to see her accomplish that no matter what the odds are. But her mother ends up telling her that she is “not special.” This is one of the movie’s most wounding moments, and I think that any parent who tells their child that should be bitch-slapped. The world is tough enough as it is without our parents breaking us down like that. That is so wrong!

There is also a good deal of bleeping out of language in this movie. The movie is rated PG-13 despite the f-word being mentioned a couple of times. If the MPAA thinks that they are trying to protect the kids old enough to see this movie from the bad words contained in it, then they have failed. You wouldn’t believe the amount of bad language that I heard in junior high and in high school. It dwarfs the language heard in this movie easily by comparison. It reminds me of Roger Ebert’s argument that “The Breakfast Club” should have been PG-13 instead of R because he felt that the movie was more than appropriate for teenagers. I couldn’t agree more, and the beeping out of “bad” language is ridiculous and only draws more attention to what the MPAA is trying to suppress.

Still, despite its flaws, I still really liked “American Teen” for what it is, and for opening themselves in a way that many others would have been scared off from doing. Whatever you think about this movie, you have to give these kids that because what they did will forever be captured on celluloid and will be burned into our memories forever, regardless of whether they want us to see them differently from how they came across here. It will be interesting to see a follow up to this movie on the kids lives several years from now, and how they have moved on from those brutally painful years. I’m not talking so much about the effect of the movie itself, but the effect their years in high school have on their lives today. They have nowhere to go but up at this point.

Go Hannah!

***1/2 out of ****

After bringing in sell out crowds last week with the John Carpenter Tribute, the Aero Theater in Santa Monica brought in another big crowd out to see director Savage Steve Holland talk about his two classic comedies from the 1980’s, “Better Off Dead” and “One Crazy Summer.” But the big attraction of the evening was indeed “Better Off Dead” which still has a huge following 23 years (jesus!) after its release in 1985. Like many movies of our youth, the movie was a flop at the box office and was eviscerated by critics. Siskel & Ebert gave it two thumbs down, and Peter Travers (the usually astute critic from Rolling Stone magazine) tore it apart limb from limb. But in the end, it found its audience like many other movies do, on video, cable, regular television, and eventually DVD. Now, you would be hard pressed to find anyone your age that hasn’t seen this movie and loved it.

Back in the 80’s, a negative review from Siskel & Ebert might have kept me from seeing the movie as I watched their show all the time. This was in part because I never got to go out to the movies much back then, and movie review shows like theirs were the closest I could ever get to it. Fortunately, my best friend from elementary school informed me that it was actually really good. So the following weekend, I rented it from the local video store, and my brother and I were laughing like crazy as we were watching “Airplane.” After all these years, “Better Off Dead” remains one of my favorite movies from the 80’s, and it has not lost any of its power to amuse. This was made clear by the response from the audience, many of which have seen this movie hundreds of times (10% of the audience there were watching it for the first time).

For those of you who haven’t seen it (where have you been?), “Better Off Dead” follows Lane Meyer (John Cusack), a teenager with an obsession for skiing and an even bigger obsession for his girlfriend Beth (Amanda Wyss). However, after to failing to make it on the high school skiing team, Beth dumps for the Captain of the team. Lane despairs of this and tries to kill himself in various ways, but never succeeds. Throughout the film, he has to deal with a crazed paperboy (“I WANT MY TWO DOLLARS!”), his mother’s horrific ways of cooking, his dad’s insistence on doing something about his Camaro which has remained immobile on his front lawn, his kid brother who plays with real laser guns and gets books on how to pick up “trashy woman,” and with a lovely foreign exchange student who has the misfortune of staying with the dorkheads…ahem… The Smiths next door with Ricky, a terminal nerd if there ever was one.

People adore this movie so much, and I think it was influence on a lot of writers and filmmakers today. This can especially be seen when you look at one of the best comedies so far this year, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” which has more or less the same plot.

After “Better Off Dead” was over and the end credits were finished, Savage Steve Holland was brought to the stage to an ecstatic applause from the fans there. Dressed in jeans and a white buttoned down shirt with a green baseball cap, he was ever so happy to see all the people who came out to see this movie he did so long ago. So thrilled with the response, he couldn’t have been a nicer or more happy guy to meet. Along with director Holland was Diane Franklin who played the French exchange student Monique Junot. Even though she’s now married and has two kids, she really doesn’t look like she has aged a day since the original release of the movie (seriously). Also along for the screening was actor Curtis Armstrong who plays Lane’s best friend, Charles de Mar. Curtis has worked a lot with director Holland, and he is also best known as Booger from the “Revenge of the Nerds” movies.

Savage Steve Holland said that the movie was indeed inspired by real life experiences of his own. Back in the day, he did have a girlfriend who dumped him for someone else, and he did think about committing suicide. One scene in the movie shows John Cusack tying an extension cord around his neck in his garage. Savage had talked about doing the same thing and attaching it to a pole in the garage while standing on a plastic garbage can. As he was doing this, he said that he became unbelievably terrified and couldn’t go through with it. Then the lid of the garbage can fell through and he fell into it, and the pipe above him broke, water came out, and he almost drowned in that same garbage can. His mother ended up coming into the garage to see what was going on, and she ended up yelling at him for breaking the pipe.

Savage had ended up making a short film regarding this subject in his life. It was intended to be serious, but it ended up getting the opposite reaction. People laughed, and they laughed hard at it. I’m sure we are as glad as he is that he didn’t succeed in killing himself, for then we would have been denied one of the funniest comedies many of us have ever seen.

“Better Off Dead” had ended up doing so well in test screenings that Warner Brothers (which had released the movie at that time) ended up giving him a whole lot more money to Savage so that he could make his next big movie, “One Crazy Summer.” The studio was so convinced they had a big hit on their hands, and they wanted to seize on the next opportunity to work with this young director. Unfortunately, “Better Off Dead” did not do well in its initial release, and while he did get the opportunity to make “One Crazy Summer,” Savage said that he was soon confined to “movie hell.” This was the place where you go where if your movie doesn’t do well on its first week let alone, all those friends you thought you had in Hollywood stop calling you and stop taking your calls.

One fan asked Savage what the difference was between the making of “Better Off Dead” and “One Crazy Summer.” With “Better Off Dead” he said, he had total creative freedom in making it and had no one looking over his shoulder. This made it the best experience he has ever had making a movie, and he has never had that same experience ever since. With “One Crazy Summer,” it was much different because he had a lot more money involved in making it, and the studio executives were on the set watching his every move. This may have been primarily a result of their initial response of when Savage first screened “Better Off Dead” for them. They apparently came out of horrified at what he did as though he made a sequel to the John Water’s cult classic “Pink Flamingos.”

Diane Franklin, as it turns out, is not actually French. After all these years, I was convinced that she was. She said that her father is in fact German, so that may account for her looking like she is from another country. As for the French accent, she said that she did take French back in high school and was very good at, and the accent itself came to her very easily. When she came in to read for the movie, she was actually up for both Beth and Monique. Diane’s daughter was in the audience (and foolishly tried to convince the audience that she was not actually related to her mother), and asked her if she was more interested in the part of Monique or Beth. I think the answer was pretty apparent when she said that she came into the audition as a French actress trying to master an American accent. She said that making “Better Off Dead” is still the best experience that she has ever had as an actress. On Savage, she said that he did a great job of creating a fun and comfortable atmosphere for all the actors to work in, and that he gave everyone a lot of freedom to play around with the characters.

One person had commented on another movie Diane had done called “The Last American Virgin,” and how the ending of the movie was one of the most depressing that he had ever seen (haven’t seen it, so I can’t possibly spoil it for you). Diane said that she had heard about a screening of that film at a drive inn movie theater, and how the audience members ended up throwing their popcorn at the screen and cussing out her character when she did whatever she did. It’s safe to say that she has had a more than memorable career in movies. Aside from “Better Off Dead” and “The Last American Virgin,” she also was in “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” and “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey” where she again did her flawless French accent.

Diane also confirmed that it was a woman who did the skiing sequences in the movie for her, and not a man as many had assumed. Savage noted that her stunt double actually looked almost exactly like her, and the only thing separating the two of them was the stunt double’s tan.

Also up for the roles of Beth and Monique was Elizabeth Daily who appears during the scene at the school dance singing the title track to the movie. But in the end, it was determined that Elizabeth was just “too hot” for either role.

Curtis Armstrong, who has been a regular in a lot of Savage’s films, came up with some of the more memorable aspects of the character he played. The scene where that bastard ski captain asks what Beth’s name is, and he quickly replies “Charles de Mar” was all his. That did a get a big laugh from the audience at the screening that evening. Curtis also came up with the top hat that Charles de Mar wears throughout the movie, and he said that it was inspired by his love for The Beatles and (in particular) George Harrison. Those familiar with The Beatles may very well know what he means. Armstrong also came up with the idea of bringing along that jar with the dead pig in it (I always wondered what that was). Curtis however could not take credit for one of the very best lines that Savage wrote for him in the movie:

“I have been going to this high school for seven and a half years. I’m no dummy!”

Curtis also talked about this brief conversation he had with the actress who played John Cusack’s mother in the film, Kim Darby. At one point while the both of them were on a break from filming, Kim came up to Curtis in his trailer, took him by the shoulders and told him:

“Watch out! They’re trying to destroy you!”

After that, she left his trailer and never spoke to him again. What the hell?

Savage also alluded to some deleted scenes that were taken out of the movie. Among them was how Lane’s mother Jenny (played wonderfully by Kim Darby) actually belonged to the cult of Gumby, and one scene showed her at the airport collecting money for the cult. Test audiences found that scene much too weird, so it was cut. There was another deleted scene that I would love to have seen where Lane’s father Al (the priceless David Ogden Stiers) comes home to find his wife vacuuming the lawn. One other cut out scene shows Lane trying to practice the theme to the TV show “Flipper” among the saxophone, and there is a seal there that ends up applauding another person when they do a better job of performing it than Lane does. Also, the scene of the paperboy falling off the cliff actually lasted a lot longer as Savage had about three minutes of that moment in the film. However, it gave the test audiences a rather sickened reaction, and the length that it ended up at in the film is just right as it is.

As for a special edition of the DVD release, there was no clear answer as to whether that will ever happen. Paramount did release the movie on DVD for the first time several years ago, but aside from showing the movie in widescreen, there were no special features of any kind. There wasn’t even a trailer for the movie on there either, and you’d figure that Paramount would at least have the decency to put that on the DVD release, but I guess they were unaware of the cult following this movie has. Shame!

If there is anything that seriously dampens the moods of all the fans of “Better Off Dead,” it is the rumors that the star of the movie, John Cusack, hates this movie. Savage responded that he got along great with John while they were making the movie, and that he really wanted John to like the movie as much as he did. Before they began shooting “One Crazy Summer,” Savage got the cast members of the film to hang out with each other in Cape Cod so that they could become comfortable with one another. During their time there, someone did a screening of the movie which they all went to. Twenty or so minutes into the screening, John walked out of the theater. Savage figured that he had to take a call or something, but he never did come back to the screen apparently. Savage later caught up with John to see what the problem was, and John told him that the movie was horrible and that it didn’t work at all. To this day Savage said, this is really a sore point for John that he is increasingly reluctant to acknowledge. This really brought the crowd down as John really did some of his best work as teen actor here.

Someone else from the audience also asked how Rupert Hine came to score the movie. One of the companies involved in the making of “Better Off Dead” was A&M records, and they also had worked on soundtracks for other films of the time like “The Breakfast Club.” Rupert was a featured performer on that soundtrack, but had never actually done a score for a film before. “Better Off Dead” was his first effort as a film composer, and the resulting soundtrack release from the film is awesome indeed. Right now, it appears to be out of print, so you will have to look especially hard for it. I still have my vinyl and CD copies of the soundtrack, and I am never getting rid of them, ever!

This evening was a lot of fun for everyone involved, and it says a lot about movie that lasts in the minds of many people decades after its release. All the fans who asked questions made it clear that this movie is one of their all time favorites, and that they still love watching it from time to time. One fan proudly proclaimed that this film is “bar none, the greatest movie ever made.” Such a fan this guy was, he got the director to sign an authentic air filter for a 1967 Camaro, just like the car that is prominently featured in this movie. Along with that, this diehard fan also had the original vinyl release of the soundtrack with him, as well as the original script of the movie. Can you dare to doubt this man’s love for this movie?

By the way, this same fan also pointed out that there is actually a website dedicated to the 1967 Camaro from the movie called Better Off Dead Camaro (http://www.betteroffdeadcamaro.com/). The site details the history of that specific Camaro used in the movie, and it even has details on how to restore the car to pristine condition.

Savage, Diane, and Curtis stayed around the Q & A was over to sign autographs for all the fans, and they even stayed for the second feature of the evening, “One Crazy Summer,” which was made right after “Better Off Dead.” While not as good as “Better Off Dead,” “One Crazy Summer” still does have its moments of sheer hilarity that had us laughing like crazy. The movie is especially notable for the scene stealing performance of Bob Goldthwait who ends up getting himself stuck inside a Godzilla costume and running around like crazy when someone accidentally throws a lit cigarette into the top of the costume.

Ever since the box office failures of “Better Off Dead” and “One Crazy Summer,” Savage Steve Holland has been relegated to working in television on shows like “Shasta McNasty,” “Zoey 101,” and “Lizzie McGuire” among others. However, it looks like he is about to make his comeback in films as he is currently directing the film “Legally Blondes.” This film does not feature Reese Witherspoon or the character she played in the last two movies, but actually focuses on two blonde girls and the things that happen to them. Savage promised us that it would be “really sweet.” Also, he has been hired to write “Howard Stern’s Porky’s,” and there should be no doubt that Howard will make this version all his own.

“Better Off Dead” more than deserves its place as one of the best comedies to come out of the 1980’s. This is a movie that John Cusack should really proud of alongside his other 80’s movies like “Say Anything.” Seeing it on the big screen at the Aero Theater with a packed audience gave me one of the best times I’ve had at the movies this year. What else can you say about a movie in which Steven Williams utters one of the most famous lines in cinema history?

“Now that's a real shame when folks be throwin' away a perfectly good white boy like that.”


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