QUICKSILVER (1986)

Hot shot stock trader Kevin Bacon loses all of his money (and his parent’s duckets) in a bad business deal. He gets depressed and decides to become a hot shot bicycle messenger instead. The End.

While doing research for this review, I was kinda surprised to discover that QUICKSILVER was a box office dud back in 1986. For some reason, I thought it was popular movie. But nope, it stunk up the joint so bad that it didn’t even make its budget back. Fun fact: in its 3rd week of release, QUICKSILVER was only a few hundred grand ahead of BACK TO THE FUTURE which was in its 35th week. Yikes!

Anyway, box office poison or not, I enjoyed watching QUICKSILVER (in 2024) for the nostalgic value but can understand why it didn’t connect with audiences back in 1986: it’s way too serious, the stock market stuff didn’t even make any sense, the soundtrack was weak and there just wasn’t enough Kevin Bacon. Audiences were probably expecting some kind of FOOTLOOSE-style party movie with everyday man Kevin pedaling in and out of traffic showing off his tight buns while romancing a local rich girl who is too snooty to date a lowly bicycle messenger.  (Think, Billy Joel's 1983 music video for Uptown Girl.)  They also probably expected it to be set in New York City, because even though I saw this movie back in the 1980’s I still expected it to be set in NYC! I totally forgot that it was set in San Francisco.

Solid acting, disjointed story that’s too depressing, weak direction, a cool looking person in the art gallery scene that needed way more screentime, up and down pace, exciting bicycle scenes, stock market storyline that probably alienated some audience members, good supporting cast, a quick Michael Myers (from HALLOWEEN II) sighting, an even quicker Al Leong sighting, wall ads for CORRUPT (1983) and THE HUNGER (1983), a car sparking before it grinds against a wall, zero nudity, zero gore, two depressing scenes with Kevin's spiritbroken parents that were huge bummers, an interesting bicycle / ballet dancing scene early on that I wish had changed the tone of the movie into something more uplifting, a backyard dinner scene that kinda reminded me of the backyard dinner scenes from the Fast & Furious movies.

Worth a watch for Bacon completionists, but nothing to get overly excited about. I'd love to see a remake or reboot.

BOYZ N THE HOOD (1991)

"They want us to kill ourselves."

1984. Ten-year-old Tre Styles lives with his single mother (Angela Bassett) n Los Angeles.  She can't handle his shit and sends him to live with his father, Jason "Furious" Styles (Laurence Fishburne) n the hood. Some STAND BY ME shit happens and suddenly it's 1991 and 17-year-old Tre is now 23-year-old Cuba Gooding Jr. who looks like he's 30 and hasn't slept n 4 days.  He also has a shirt with two random dots on it. N order to show off his shirt, he goes to a neighborhood BBQ party where we're introduced to the important characters n the film.  Namely, half-brothers Darren 'Doughboy' Baker (Ice Cube) and Ricky Baker (Morris Chestnut).  Doughboy and Ricky might be brothers, but they are very different.  Ricky is a football start who hopes to get a football scholarship while Doughboy is a drug dealing gang member.

What can I say about BOYZ N THE HOOD that hasn't already been said a billion times by people who actually get paid to write about such things?  Probably nothing. It's definitely a product of it's time and dated as fook, but it's still a great film and historically important.  It's also unfair to carelessly lump BOYZ N THE HOOD nto the "hood film" genre thinking that it's nothing but endless drive-bys and people randomly yelling "motherfucker", because BNTH is more of coming-of-age than anything else.  It just happens to take place n the hood.

Good pace, hit or miss acting, less violence than some might expect, Duck Hunt, awesome early 1990's Los Angeles scenery, uneven direction (that kinda adds to the film n a weird way), dude getting hit with a garbage can, so many loose ends n the script that is seems like the movie is more a fable than an actual story, multiple now iconic scenes and characters, actors that all (distractingly) look 5 years older than their characters (example: 22-year-old high school footballer applying for college), badass dated fashions, vintage cars, a Freddy Krueger reference, director cameo (Mailman), an Eazy-E dis, dated slang that I still use, male dominate story, interesting soundtrack that features everything from 2 Live Crew to The Five Stairsteps.

BOYZ N THE HOOD is mandatory viewing for anybody interesting n American Cinema or just good films n general, but for me personally the single greatest thing about BNTH isn't anything to do with the film itself, but instead its obvious influence on one of my favorite films: the 91-minute cut of 1995's FRIDAY.  Watch them back-to-back and you'll see what I'm talking about.  Hell...Cube's even wearing the same exact clothes n the opening scene of FRIDAY that he was wearing n the last scene of BOYZ N THE HOOD!  Half-dead motherfucker. Come on, sister!

If you need me, I'll be outside raking leaves n a yard with no trees.

[Fun fact: I remember going to Wal-Mart right after this film came out (and before I saw it) and being confused as to why so many people were walking around with baby pacifiers n their mouths.]

[Update 06/11/2024: This might be far-fetched, but could the scene in FRIDAY with Mrs. Parker watering her all dirt front yard, be a play on Furious Styles bagging up leaves in his treeless yard in BOYZ N THE HOOD?]