[Dean's World] Dean: Best '80s Teen Movies?

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Posted by Dean:
Best '80s Teen Movies?
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1154690988.shtml


   Faster Than The World [1]has a good discussion going.

   There was something interesting about teen movies in the '80s, and I
   don't think this is just me: somehow, while the stories were still
   contrived and had their own weaknesses, the writing seemed to improve
   noticeably. This may be my own arrogance because I came of age in the
   late '70s and early '80s, but I don't think so. When I look at movies
   specifically aimed at teenagers in, say, the 1960s, I see bad science
   fiction movies and things like the Gidget movies. Whereas movies like
   [2]Better Off Dead and [3]Risky Business and [4]The Breakfast Club and
   [5]Sixteen Candles, while simplistic and sometimes silly, tended to
   talk up to their teen audience and not down to it. Although the genre
   definitely still had its stereotypes--it seemed to be little but a sea
   of upper middle class white suburbanite kids, for example--a lot of
   these movies are still remembered fondly for their fairly honest look
   at the emotional turbulence of adolescence and the struggles of
   reaching adulthood in a complicated world.

   But then again there was also entirely enjoyable fluff like [6]Porky's
   and [7]Ferris Bueller's Day Off and [8]Adventures in Babysitting. And
   there's not a thing wrong with enjoyable fluff.

   Hmm. You know, when I look at my list, I notice a trend: most of these
   movies (all of which are probably my favorite), I see that [9]director
   John Hughes is associated with almost half of them. I'd really never
   noticed that before, but an awful lot of the movies that affected me
   powerfully as a teenager involved this guy.

References

   1. http://fasterthantheworld.com/2006/08/post_68.html
   2. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005JKFA/sr=1-1/qid=1154690061/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-6898127-6848050?ie=UTF8&s=dvd/deansworld01-20
   3. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0790732203/sr=1-1/qid=1154690220/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-6898127-6848050?ie=UTF8&s=dvd/deansworld01-20
   4. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000A98ZP/sr=1-1/qid=1154690249/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-6898127-6848050?ie=UTF8&s=dvd/deansworld01-20
   5. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00008438T/sr=1-1/qid=1154690297/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-6898127-6848050?ie=UTF8&s=dvd/deansworld01-20
   6. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/6305168903/sr=1-1/qid=1154690701/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-6898127-6848050?ie=UTF8&s=dvd/deansworld01-20
   7. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00001MXXH/sr=1-1/qid=1154690728/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-6898127-6848050?ie=UTF8&s=dvd/deansworld01-20
   8. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/6305428050/sr=1-1/qid=1154690813/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-6898127-6848050?ie=UTF8&s=dvd/deansworld01-20
   9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hughes_%28film_director%29