PRETTY IN PINK (1986)

Some people might get PRETTY IN PINK mixed up with SIXTEEN CANDLES.  If this happens to you, just remember that SIXTEEN CANDLES is the funny romantic comedy, whereas PRETTY IN PINK is the kinda downer romantic drama.  Also SIXTEEN CANDLES has Long Duk Dong "Ohh, sexy girlfriend!"

Poor (literally) Molly Ringwald lives on the wrong side of the tracks, but for whatever reason still gets to go to high school with the wealthy preppies.  The lead alpha male preppy (James Spader) wants to bang Molly, but she always tells him to fuck off.  Enter the sensitive preppy (Andrew McCarthy) who has a heart of gold and looks like he's 25.  Molly goes goo-goo for him, much to the chagrin of her best friend Duckie who is secretly in love with Molly despite the fact that he's obviously gay.  Anyways, stuff happens...preppies vs. whatever the hell Molly and Duckie were, Molly's dad is too lazy to get a job, Duckie dances around like an idiot, James Spader acts like a cad, 80's music is played, Molly's older female friend has a million costume changes and so on.  It's a lot of fun and I've seen it many times, but when you think about it: Molly never had many dating choices.  It all came down to Duckie and the wimpy McCarthy who seemed to like her, but at the same time didn't really seem too sincere.

Oh well, it's no SIXTEEN CANDLES, but it's still an enjoyable mid-80's high school drama.  The fashions alone are worth checking it out.

JFA

Hey, it's ol' girl from PRIVATE RESORT!

TOTAL RECALL (2012)

A hundred years from now war has left all but Australia and parts of Europe uninhabitable.  For whatever reason the people in Australia travel each day through the Earth and work at factories in Europe.  I'm not really sure why.  Anyway, factory worker Colin Farrell is unhappy with his life (even though he has an attractive wife), so he goes to a artificial memory implanter to get some spy memories installed and low and behold: he's already a spy!  Right then the fuzz bust in and start killing everybody.  Farrell escapes, but now he's on the run and even worse, his hot wife is also out to kill him.  Ends up Farrell is in the middle of a epic battle between Europe and the "terrorists" of Australia who don't like the way the Europeans are treating them.

Sounds convoluted (and it is), but I don't really care cause all I want to see a fun sci-fi action movie.  Any semblance to a well-told story is just a bonus.  Fortunately there are a few cool action scenes (the elevator chase, "the Fall" sequence), but unfortunately the filmmakers unwisely chose to pollute their own film with almost nonstop lens flares.  It was nuts.  Imagine watching a normal movie with some asshole constantly shining a flashlight in your face and that's what this movie was like.  I've never seen anything like it before and I hope I never see anything like it ever again.  Also, I wasn't impressed with Bryan Cranston as the bad guy.  He's a great actor, but he didn't come off as evil enough and that fight scene between him and Farrell was sad.

Not a bad story and some of the action scenes were fun, but the lens flares nearly ruin the film.  Worth a single watch only.  Oh yeah, the three-titted character from the original is back.

Original - Total Recall (1990)