When I was growing up in the 1970s there really was such a thing as feminism. I guess today’s feminists would call it “old school” feminism. But this was, to my eyes, as one of four kids scrambling around after our young single mother, something to bear in mind looking forward. My mother wasn’t really a feminist but she was someone educated feminists would likely defend in an ethics class: unmarried, not religious, working and raising kids. It came at a cost to her and it came at a cost to us. Had she been a feminist in thought and ideas she might have pointed her three daughters more towards education, teaching them that strength comes from awareness, intelligence from curiosity, and power from knowledge. Her lessons, though she did the very best she could, were more about this: most men are creeps, if you’re going to marry make sure you marry a rich man, and work very very hard, save your pennies because you don’t know where your next meal might be coming from: these are the goals of the desperate – and it was into this atmosphere that her daughters were raised. Her son seemed to take things in stride – after all, he was born into a culture that, for a handsome white male, opportunities did not depend on a husband, but simply on whether he took them or not: the choice was his.

But you’d have to have been completely out of it not to take notice of the feminist movement in Los Angeles in the 1970s, especially in Topanga where we were growing up. Women did not wear bras and in fact, they burned their bras. Can you imagine such a thing happening today? It simply wouldn’t. There is no such thing as a woman who would ever, in a million years, proudly burn her bra. In the age of Victoria’s Secret (I am a slave to this) and the female icons of our day, bras are a vital piece of clothing. I own many of them and love all of them; to that end, I am not sure what bra burning accomplished at all. Was our goal to be able to let it all hang low, like the tribal women in certain places in Africa? Or was it: men don’t wear them so why should we?

My bras.

I used to see my mother come upon women who probably were feminists. Certainly my best friend’s mother, with whom I spent a good deal of my childhood, was one — educated, observant, forward-thinking. But something happened in the 1980s — that check the feminists wrote was never really cashed. It just got worse in the 1990s and now it seems like you have to fight hard to get anywhere without also being desired sexually. The media, if you’ll allow one sweeping, unsubstantiated generalization, seems to have become a yawning chasm of the male gaze. There is no end to it. Women should rule the world. But we don’t, BLANCHE, we don’t.

I read with great interest this column by Carina Chocano for the New York Times on two movies that seem

If, as the film historian David Thomson wrote, “Pretty Woman” was a film about “three very compelling items in the American dream: sex, shopping and transformation,” then “Thelma and Louise” was a film about another dream: sex, not shopping and transformation. Yet in the end, only one of these fantasies could prove triumphant — and it’s not the one I believed in back in 1990s San Francisco.

The character of the ingénue in literature often functions as a transitional figure: at the end of the 19th century, for example, she embodied the instability of the moment as the Victorian era shifted into the modern one. Girls of my generation were transitional, too: we were generational ingénues, moving from one sense of identity to another. And identity, as about a million people from Joan Didion to Jean-Paul Sartre to Oliver Sacks have observed, is really about narrative. It’s a story you tell yourself about yourself, but it’s also a story others tell you about you.

For the few years after the release of “Thelma and Louise,” the culture seemed unusually and (in hindsight) unbelievably receptive to the plaintive howls of a generation of girls who, as I did, felt exiled from the culture. Within a few more years, though, the whole thing would be supplanted by a far more chipper, more palatable, more profitable version of itself. It’s now nearly impossible to imagine a time, not so long ago, when popular culture was more interested in cool girls than hot girls — or a cultural moment in which girls could become iconic for airing their grievances and not simply their dirty laundry. As it turned out, it was a quick traverse from “revolution grrrl-style now” to “girl power,” as Riot Grrrls gave way to Spice Girls and the dominant pop-culture narrative about femininity went the way of “Sex and the City.” And Carrie Bradshaw (among others) stands pretty clearly as a descendant of Vivian, not of Thelma or Louise.

Ultimately, “Pretty Woman” wasn’t a love story; it was a money story. Its logic depended on a disconnect between character and narrative, between image and meaning, between money and value, and that made it not cluelessly traditional but thoroughly postmodern. Revisiting “Thelma and Louise” recently, I was struck by how dated it seemed, how much a product of its time. And “Pretty Woman,” it turns out, wasn’t a throwback at all. It was the future.

My only beef with this piece, which I think pretty much says what I’ve been ruminating on for a few years now, about why the role of women in film and in media has become so … so … disposable, is that Thelma and Louise was controversial during its time not just because it was supposedly feminist, but because it wasn’t: many people complained that the only kind of liberating that went on was that they just got sexier as the movie went along. Chocano says that Pretty Woman was the future – it was. But so was Thelma and Louise because this movie was the starting point for the eroticizing of girl women and violence. This is so commonplace now that most people don’t even recognize it – but it’s the notion that a sexy woman on film can only really be sexy if she does some high kicks, lays out a villain or two, pulls out a gun and shoots someone. In Thelma and Louise, they start out feeling remorse for what they’ve done. But as the movie goes on, their remorse is less and less.

Unfortunately, the movie ends with the two women driving off the cliff and ending their lives. While I thought it was a great movie overall, this ending has always left me less than satisfied. I don’t think that women and minorities always have to be role models in movies. And they don’t always have to do the right thing. But they should, at the very least, be true to their characters. Neither of those two women were quitters to me. And ending their lives like that? It seemed out of character to me. But then again, what do I know.

I saw Catfish. I hated it. I wrote up a review. But the comments were too much for me to take — they got personal — so I removed the review. But people still come here to discuss it and want to know what I thought of it. I probably was too impulsive removing it – I tend to be too impulsive about a lot of things – but it wasn’t worth the grief, that’s the truth. But here is what I thought of the movie, for one of the readers here – Chris – who asked me.

First, I didn’t think it was “fake” particularly. What I do think about that part of it is that we know these dudes filmed everything in their lives. So we know it’s not unusual that a camera would be around filming events that happen on a daily basis, from the mundane to the profane. But this much we do know, we older people who have been around long enough to remember life before video cameras even — this idea of living in public, living a life either online (as Angela did) or on video (as they dudes did) means that you have to do eventually become a performer in your life: you have to give your audience what they want.

For Lev and co. that meant they knew exactly what kind of extraordinary story they were stumbling upon and, to me, they were performing for the cameras in the ongoing narrative that was their lives. And for Angela, well, we know what that was about. Heartbreaking as it was, it was also a kind of performing.

I came out of it being repulsed by the boys, sympathetic of Angela and her family. Mostly I was grossed out that once they found out the real story that they pinned the camera on her and then decided to use that story to become famous. It was, to me, exploitative and opportunistic. I know a lot of people disagree with this. And here’s why: there are a lot of Angelas and a lot of Nevs out there. To varying degrees.

Angela’s heartbreak, her sad story, is the only part of the film of any worth at all. And the reason is that her truth is the only truth revealed. My main gripe with the film itself is that they don’t turn the cameras back on themselves and reveal their own truths. Why did Nev fall for what any intelligent person could see was an illusion?

What was he looking for? What did he expect to find? It was so obvious to anyone who uses Facebook — and this is where the opportunistic part comes in — that it is virtually impossible for a girl who looks like THAT to have only a small handful of “friends.” My 12 year old daughter has more friends than the fake Megan had. So that should have been a red flag right there.

But more than that, if the filmmakers felt they were mature enough to expose this story to the world — which they were not — then they should have had the balls to turn the camera on themselves: why did they want to tell this story? Why was it important to THEM to show this woman’s life. When Werner Herzog made Grizzly Man he did not just let the film rest on how weird Timothy Treadwell was and how ironic and absurd his death was – no. Herzog asks the tough questions about nature, about humanity, about our desire to see the footage of Treadwell being attacked. That is what is called being a true artist and a responsible documentarian. It is not enough to find something “weird, dude,” throw it up on camera and call it a day. The depth was lacking. The point was lacking.

However, that said – on the positive side, internet immigrants (as opposed to natives) might be shocked, shocked to find that people actually fake their identities on the web. Most probably don’t go to the lengths Angela did; she was clearly both arrogant enough to think she had it all under control, and in love with Nev enough that she lied to herself about what she was doing to herself, to him, potentially, and ultimately, to her family.

I have never thought “oh poor Angela.” She is diabolical. She probably knows it. What grossed me out was the exploitation from people who should have known better, the insult to injury of the film’s marketing campaign, and mostly, the people who weren’t part of the clusterfuck being dragged into it and humiliated all the same – the daughter (s), the husband, the disabled stepsons. It isn’t worth a dumb movie to expose those people to the world and do that kind of damage.

Many people will disagree with this, as there are a good many out there who fell in love with this film. I totally appreciate that, I really do. But for me, I was just grossed out by them. I think they should be putting their talents elsewhere. And I hope Nev has lost his virginity by now.

I’ve been running my Oscars website for eleven years. It used to be called Oscarwatch.com until I was sued for copyright infringement. I changed the site to Awards Daily and it has never been more popular, or profitable. I have always been embarrassed to admit to “real people out there in the world” what I do because their answer is always the same: The Oscars are meaningless. That is when they are being charitable. What they usually say is “the Oscars are so lame.” And that has been sort of true but for every once in a while when their role in the whole ugly game shifts ever so slightly in a more interesting direction.

What I have finally concluded, though, after these many years of day in and day out Oscar watching is that they don’t vote for the best. They vote for their favorite. They vote for what they “like” best. That makes it far less of a meaningful award than if they were looking at things that matter in the long run. Films that have lasting impact are not films that are easily digested in one viewing, I don’t think. Frankly, it’s a miracle the great films that have won managed to impress the 6,000 people who vote on the awards, chief among them the last four of five wins: No Country for Old Men, The Departed, The Hurt Locker. Slumdog Millionaire is even a better film than the film that is about to sweep the Oscars.

The funny part is, I got into the Oscar watching business knowing this. My premise when I started was “how was it that a movie like Citizen Kane lost against a movie like How Green Was My Valley.” My pursuit of this question took me, again and again, down the road of cynicism, like everyone else in the world who thinks the Oscars are meaningless because of their bad choices. Well, it’s a mixed bag, isn’t it. The Oscars have many fans too – they have fans who love their history, for instance. Journalists will always lead an obit with “Academy Award winner so and so” as if that means anything at all. What it means is that they were once popular with their peers.

The King’s Speech is a very very good film. It is held up by one of the year’s best performances in Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush. It is a film that is affecting people everywhere. Who wouldn’t be affected by it though? It is a tried and true sentimental formula that works. There is nothing new here. There is nothing innovative. It is simply a good story that may or may not be completely true. It’s mostly true. The performances are true. But what is most astonishing about this year’s Best Picture winner (all over but the shouting) is how bland it is standing next to the admittedly more difficult to respond to emotionally but brilliant nonetheless main rival, The Social Network.

Nothing about The Social Network makes sense to people “out there in the world.” They see it and they think it’s good – but they don’t recognize its greatness right off the bat. The critics did. The critics put their full might behind the film because, guess what, it needed it. And even that wasn’t enough.

Why does it matter to me that a film like The Social Network win the Best Picture Oscar? Because it would mean that, as my friend Scott Feinberg once said, the Academy Awards can step out of their pre-programmed go-vote-like-a-lemming mold and give a better written, better directed film their win. It would be nothing short of a miracle if this happened. It won’t. And this year will go down as one of the most baffling of all. The King’s Speech winning not just over The Social Network, but over Black Swan, Inception, True Grit, Winter’s Bone — it is such a giant mistake on their part. The actors should win. The screenwriter. But the best picture of 2010 is, in no way, shape or form, The King’s Speech. No one can even argue that with a straight face. People vote for it ONLY because they like the characters.

And if that’s so, if that’s what it really is when you boil it down, then there is no point in thinking or hoping that anything is ever going to really change. So, it’s now a matter of seeing them for what they really are: one small step up from the People’s Choice awards.

I make a living off of the Oscar race. I make a good living, in fact. But I have never felt so much like it was the grandest of all time-wasters as I do during this, the worst Oscar year since Crash. Even with Crash, we didn’t see it coming. With the King’s Speech I saw it coming but I couldn’t believe, refused to believe, that any thinking body would give that film its award for Best Picture with all of these other magnificent films to choose from.

It is the Oscar race itself that is wrong. The King’s Speech people did not want to be in the Oscar race particularly (although you don’t make a period film with hints of Nazi-ism and not think about the Oscars). But it was a formula that was having an impact on audiences. It was testing extremely well. The critics tend to vote on films that are different from what came before. Or they vote on cinematic excellence. We are now seeing just how the Oscar race really works and believe me, folks, it is not a pretty picture.

I have to admit that my opinion on the whole thing, on the Oscars, on my participation in the race is at an all-time low. I’m simply grossed out by the process anymore. It’s just such a grand waste of my precious time I don’t even know where to begin to try to dig myself out. I can’t imagine beginning another year of a futile exercise of choosing the most watered down winner.

The only way to continue with it is to recognize them and accept them for what they are. It’s like Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People (a great film that beat a better film, Raging Bull) — Judd Hirsch tells Timothy Hutton that he just has to accept the limitations of his cold, unfeeling mother who loved her other son more. Her lack of love for him was no reflection on him. Just as their majority vote is no reflection on the better films that were made this year. Only conclusion: they mean nothing.

So I will have to be satisfied with this conclusion. Eleven years later. Why did Citizen Kane lose the Oscar for Best Picture? They liked the other movie better.

“But I was 19 and drunk.”
“And blogging.”
“And blogging.”

I am not sure if I’m going to do a top ten for my other site. The Oscar race seems to be about many things.

1. The Social Network

Calling out The Social Network for the best film of 2010 is one of the easiest things I’ve had to do all year. Watching a good movie should be easy. It manages to touch on so many things at once: the break-up of two friends, the design of a network that brings people together by someone who didn’t “have two friends to rub together.” No movie had yet to delve into the way many of us live our lives now until Sorkin and Fincher, and producer Scott Rudin, got their hands on this story – and what a story it is. If it were only about Facebook, though, it woudn’t be very good. This one is about the filmmaking – the collaborative team of creators who were simply on the same wavelength: director David Fincher, writer Aaron Sorkin, Jesse Eisenberg, and the composers Trent Reznor and Atticus.

When I think about the themes in The Social Network I cannot help but see it as a movie about right now. It is that. But it is also about being 19. It is about being an angry young man who had Aaron Sorkin’s dialogue as weaponry. Can you imagine being able to say lines like “I don’t care much about money but right now I could buy Mount Auburn street take the Phoenix Club and turn it into my ping pong room.” After he says those lines two things happen: the people around him wilt (in pity and in horror), and Mark (Eisenberg) withdraws into himself momentarily as if even he couldn’t control what he was saying.

And so people might be tempted to think, who is this punk kid and why should I care about him? And the truth is, you are under no obligation to do such a thing. You are in the position to judge him, as we all do, believing that if we separate him from us our own inner punks disappear. Is that why we need the alternate reality cinema provides, particularly in the Oscar race where Best Picture winners are always supposed to feature good people doing good things? Movies, then, shift from being art to being flattering mirrors.

The word “friend” has a new meaning now, as does the word “like.” To Facebook is a verb. The infiltration of Facebook to our online and offline lives is now immeasurable. How it was thought up, who thought it up IS interesting, IS important. How Sorkin and Fincher tell the story, though, is art. We’re reflected back to ourselves and maybe some of us don’t like what we see. When I look at Mark Zuckerberg the character I don’t see someone who screwed over the Winklevoss twins.

I see someone whose desire for success was stronger than friendship, loyalty and his own good word; he knew that the Winklevoss twins had an almost-good idea. Instead of making their idea better and turning them into the gods they were undoubtedly destined to be, he stole a base. He skipped ahead, put them off until he could launch his own better idea. He can take full credit for having done that, but he never would have done it if the Winklevoss twins hadn’t come to him with their half-baked idea, “Match.com for Harvard guys.”

And the rest.

2. Black Swan

3. True Grit

4. Inception

5. Another Year

6. Blue Valentine

7. Winter’s Bone

8. Shutter Island

9. The Ghost Writer

10. 127 Hours

11. The Pat Tillman Story

12. The Town

13. Biutiful

14. The Housemaid

15. Rabbit Hole

Ah, Internet. There are no direct consequences for the kind of cruelty displayed day in and day out here. The anonymous comment, the comment at all, can be so rife with fervor it isn’t so hard to see how a Hitler was made. When I wrote about Catfish recently, in two separate posts, I got more comments on those pieces than on any (maybe the Dr. Laura/racist one got more). I don’t get comments here, really, because I don’t write here very often. I mostly get them more over on my other site, Awards Daily, where the discussion is about the Oscar race. Even over there, though, you’d be surprised (or maybe not) at the level of cruelty displayed on a daily basis. This, dolled out without remorse. There is no remorse because there are no consequences, there is no accounting.

I wonder about the nature of mean comments. It’s obvious that they reveal our general cowardly natures; not a one of these people would ever dare say such a thing to my, or any other human being’s, face. Men are generally taught not to fling insults at women but no one cares on the net if you’re a woman or not – the insults and verbal abuse fly. I kind of like this because no one wants to be treated better, necessarily, just for having been born a woman.

So I’m not necessarily judging those who come here, disagree with what I wrote, but then feel the need to lob, what is the equivalent of, ape shit back at me. An angry primate is angry primate. They want to hurl the most offensive vitriol they can. And if they can’t fling their dung, they find the words that match. It is so much more effective, though, to keep the focus on the topic at hand. Not as satisfying, though, is it.

My usual practice is to delete the truly offensive ones. Sometimes I alter the text just for my own good fun. Sometimes I leave them up. I remain fascinated by this aspect of our internet life. Will it ever change the way we deal with people in the real world? When the lady behind the counter at the market tells you she voted for Sarah Palin will you fling an internet-like comment at her like “you’re so stupid, why don’t you crawl under a rock and rot you fat pig.” Even a comment-fail like that one would sound so harsh said out loud.

I don’t know if we will evolve that way or not. Our communication seems to be perfectly content to be compartmentalized. And until someone really makes a big deal out of how mean people can be, how utterly cruel we are at our core, it will continue. We are a warring species. We are competitive. We are petty. We are capable of the best of things. And god knows, the worst of things.

What I tap out here on a semi-regular basis is just my own thoughts. I don’t have a targeted audience and I don’t really even have an audience at all. I am no threat to the makers of Catfish (other than my disdain for their film, which would never have been an Oscar contender anyway, not a chance). I put my opinion out there so I have to expect all manner of commenting to come my way. I am surprised at the level of vitriol, though. I will say that. Perplexing.

Would it be a scary thing to admit to having seen a movie so many times you not only know every line, but every sound and piece of music? I happened to be looking around the great website Drew’s Script-o-rama and came upon The Silence of the Lambs. I love how it is all smashed together so that it reads like poetry:

Yeah. Jack Crawford must be very busy indeed
if he’s recruiting help from the student body.
Busy hunting that new one: Buffalo Bill.
What a naughty boy he is.
Do you know why he’s called Buffalo Bill?
Please tell me. The newspapers won’t say.
It started as a bad joke in Kansas City Homicide.
They said “This one likes to skin his humps.”
Why do you think he removes their skins, Agent Starling?
Thrill me with your acumen.
It excites him. Most serial killers keep some sort of trophies from their victims.
- I didn’t. – No. No, you ate yours.
You send that through now.

I’m deleting this post but will leave some of the comments up. I can’t take it anymore, truth be told. Too many strange Catfish fanatics. So I’ll leave it at this, to keep a little peace and harmony in my life.

One of my favorite (magic) moments from one of my favorite films:

Oy vey, sometimes it sucks being a girl. I look at women on TV and in shopping malls and I think, “really? I’m one of THEM?” The ones that talk all high and girly and wear perfume and dress up and such? They seem like they are on another planet to me. Perhaps I have too much testosterone in me or something. That would actually explain quite a lot. Nothing I want to go into at the moment. However, The Pioneer Woman did a camera giveaway and in it she asked her readers to name their favorite movies. Her readership is probably 80% female. I’m guessing. It could very well be 98%. And judging by this list? The only truly surprising thing about it is how far down on the list Titanic is. I also can’t believe some good movies made the list, considering how — what is the word — female and annoying we are.

So, check it out. Popular themes among women appear to be princesses (some things never die), rescue fantasies, Julia Robert, Meg Ryan, Nora Ephron movies – and look how high The Blind Side is. Christians! I just … my top 50 would look SO different from this. I’m not judging. Really. The Princess Bride is a fine film. Favorite film of all time? Er, um. I think I am from a different planet where the women don’t care if a prince rescues them or not. The list:

1. The Princess Bride (1075)
2. Gone with the Wind (795)
3. The Sound of Music (691)
4. Steel Magnolias (641)
6. Dirty Dancing (604)
7. The Shawshank Redemption (536)
8. Pretty Woman (470)
9. The Notebook (427)
11. Love Actually (356)
12. You’ve Got Mail (349)
13. The Blind Side (309)
14. The Wizard of Oz (294)
15. Big (282)
16. Sweet Home Alabama (233)
17. Grease (231)
19. Forrest Gump (221)
20. Lord of the Rings (220)
21. It’s a Wonderful Life (193)
23. To Kill a Mockingbird (173)
25. Star Wars (135)
26. Sleepless in Seattle (133)
27. Braveheart (127)
28. Casablanca (116)
29. The Godfather (116)
30. Up (107)
76. Singin’ in the Rain (106)
31. Out of Africa (105)
32. Mary Poppins (101)
33. Tombstone (98)
34. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (95)
35. Remember the Titans (93)
36. Titanic (85)
37. Good Will Hunting (83)
38. Notting Hill (83)
39. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (75)
40. Moulin Rouge! (75)
42. Field of Dreams (73)
43. The Little Mermaid (70)
44. My Fair Lady (69)
45. Almost Famous (68)
46. The Usual Suspects (67)
47. Dances with Wolves (67)
48. Top Gun (66)
49. Beauty and the Beast (64)
50. Gladiator (63)

A random top fifty from me after the jump (I mean, my list would probably change depending on what day you asked me — but it would NOT look like the above — with one or two exceptions perhaps).

These are ordered but only in terms how quickly they pop into my head. I can’t really do the “what’s the best film” list – only by the ones I can remember that I love.

1. Citizen Kane
2. Raging Bull
3. Annie Hall
4. Casablanca
5. Taxi Driver
6. The Godfather
7. The Godfather II
8. Fargo
9. Goodfellas
10. Jaws
11. All the President’s Men
12. Shakespeare in Love
13. The Departed
14. Notorious
15. Psycho
16. The Birds
17. Rear Window
18. No Country for Old Men
19. The Hurt Locker
20. The Big Lebowski
21. Blue Velvet
22. It’s a Wonderful Life
23. Manhattan
24. Hannah and Her Sisters
25. Mean Girls
26. Breaking Away
27. The Bad News Bears
28. The Exorcist
29. A Fish Called Wanda
30. Monty Python and The Meaning of Life
31. Unbearable Lightness of Being
32. The Dark Knight
33. Misery
34. Letters from Iwo Jima
35. The Philadelphia Story
36. Schindler’s List
37. E.T.
38. Lost in Translation
39. Husbands and Wives
40. Hannah and Her Sisters
41. The Social Network
42. Tootsie
43. Chinatown
44. Frantic
45. The Last Picture Show
46. Terms of Endearment
47. Top Hat
48. Inception
49. Reservoir Dogs
50. When Harry Met Sally

Honestly, I could do fifty more quite easily. I love movies. Movies have saved my life. In all of the ways a life can be saved.

When the Breakfast Club first came out, I was a teenager myself. I was just a year or two out of high school. I don’t even remember where I was or what I was doing. I probably was commuting to Santa Barbara, attending the city college up there, and had some involvement with a theater group. I remember this because I was given an assistant director position and quickly began dating the lead actor. The play had something to do with Henry David Thoreau. This is neither here nor there except that I vividly remember no being pretty enough to be cast as either of the two lead. One of the actresses who was pretty enough, told me she’d been trained at the Los Angeles Theater Academy. Not too long after my relationship with that actor ended (how could it go? I was 19, he was 31), I fled to Los Angeles to attend the Theater Academy. Much fun, that. But that is a story for another day.

I remember The Breakfast Club not being a very cool film to like. If you hung out with my crowd, John Hughes was lame and the Brat Pack were a group of entitled, talentless hacks. The worst of the bunch, to us, was Ally Sheedy. For some reason, she was the object of our scorn. We didn’t like the character she played in the film, none of it rang true at all. The only slight uptick from the film for us was Judd Nelson, the object of our young girl fantasies.

Cut to: I’m sitting there watching it with my 12 year-old daughter and all I can say is, “don’t ever fall for a guy like that.” I’m speaking of the character Judd Nelson plays – the tough dude John Bender. I know that, even as I try my hardest to tell her what a loser he is and how he’s going nowhere, and how abusive he would be, and how weird it is that Molly Ringwald throws herself at him – I knew that my words rang false. Girls will always fall for Judd Nelson in that film. Why? Because he’s sexy and there ain’t no damn thing we can do about that.

But don’t tell my daughter I said that. Keep her believing my prophetic words that resisting that temptation is a life decision for the better.

I didn’t know if she would like The Breakfast Club or not. And I’d forgotten about the pot scene. “What’s getting stoned like?” Yeah, uh, how about them Lakers?

The Breakfast Club isn’t what I’d remembered. It is a surprisingly moving, very truthful, well written, well acted teen masterpiece. My daughter said “I loved that movie.” And now she wants to see it again. And probably again and again.

Here’s the weird part, though: her favorite character was Ally Sheedy! She liked her the most in every way – her hair, her makeup, her manner, her weirdness.

Every one of those performances is pitch perfect. I decided I wouldn’t tell her about the shocking physical change of Anthony Michael Hall.

So, here’s to YOU John Hughes, may you rest in peace knowing that you really did have an opus in The Breakfast Club. And not only did it speak for my generation (even if we didn’t know it), you also speak for generations to follow.

And here’s to YOU Ally Sheedy and Molly Ringwald and Emelio Estevez.

And here’s to YOU Judd Nelson, you hot thing, you.