There’s a guilty pleasure I have around the holidays, a little movie from 1985 called Better Off Dead. Here’s the premise from Google:
Lane Meyer (John Cusack) is a teen with a peculiar family and a bizarre fixation with his girlfriend, Beth (Amanda Wyss). When Beth dumps Lane, he decides to kill himself, making bumbling attempts at suicide. Outside of his morbid endeavors, Lane spends time with his oddball buddy, Charles (Curtis Armstrong), and befriends Monique (Diane Franklin), a visiting French student. Eventually, Lane resolves to race Beth’s obnoxious new beau on the ski slopes, with unexpected results.
It’s a movie that shouldn’t work, but somehow does. It’s part screwball comedy, part rom-com, and part ski movie. There’re elements like the drag-racing Ree brothers, one who can’t speak English and the other learned watching Wide World of Sports and talks like Howard Cosell. Lane’s little brother sends away for mail-order scams that are somehow legitimate. His mom’s cooking moves off the plate under its own power. Lane’s creative side talks to him though his sketches and (I kid you not) claymation. And let’s not forget the psychotic paperboy who is after Lane the whole movie trying to collect two dollars.
It’s quotable, it’s irreverent, and it’s pure 80s cheese. I gets me every time. It’s a movie I can point to and say “that’s how my mind works.” It’s not always commercial, but it is entertaining. It’s also a trap. There’s a reason it’s a cult-classic and hasn’t inspired a slew of knock-offs: it’s hard to define, it spreads itself thin setting up and paying off the jokes, it makes light of suicide. I don’t think it’s a movie that would get made today. Meanwhile, they’re still making Terminator and Rambo movies, and Top Gun is getting a sequel.
I have to remember that in the wide world of ideas, some of mine will be more attractive and easily understood than others. I don’t know how popular the Badlands Born series will be, so far it’s a story searching for an audience. I’m proud of it, I know it’s a story I had to write, and I will write more so long as people keep reading it. I also know that maybe I can take what makes Badlands Born special and do something else in the same way John Cusack went on to make Grosse Pointe Blank and High Fidelity. Not necessarily blockbusters, but at least movies more people have seen and enjoyed.
What do you think?
P.S. The results from the blurb contest? Blurb 2.
