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Love them or hate them, you’ve got to hand it to John Hughes movies: they’re pretty fascinating little ’80s time capsules. Pretty in Pink, for one, has just been released on DVD, and is worth gazing at for the ridiculous outfits as well as the stellar soundtrack. Molly Ringwald plays a poor high school girl with a wicked sense of style who’s shunned by the popular Aryan girls, while being worshipped by one of the school’s outcasts (Jon Cryer). In what must be his only non-ironic role, Harry Dean Stanton plays her father, a maudlin out-of-work drunk who longs for his wife, who left the family years earlier. This is a pretty bloody weak entry in the haves-date-have-nots
genre, with Ringwald smitten with Andrew McCarthy, a so-called “Richie.”
But hey, we weren’t looking for depth, were we? Just keep focusing
on those hairdos (or hair-don’ts, as they probably should be referred
to), that cool music and, best of all, those baby-faced actors who’ve
become more familiar over the years. Spot James Spader, Gina Gershon,
Dweezil Zappa and Andrew “Dice” Clay among them. (Okay,
some of them have become more familiar over the years.) For me, the
big mystery is, what happened to Cryer? This kid should have gone far-he’s
the best thing about this movie. : |