"Better Off Dead" is hilarious and is an obvious companion/double feature to "One Crazy Summer" which is also a "Savage" Steve Holland directed and written vehicle. This came out first though, and it seemed to show a lot of promise and originality for his career. I would say though, that neither film is without its flaws. They both kinda check out towards the end of the movie and drag (I blame bad 1980s mainstream music, but I'd definitely keep Van Halen) in some parts.
But, I digress, there's just too many good lines, characters and kool animation sequences to dislike these movies. As for Mr. Savage, you can find him banking in the gawd-awful world of tweeny-bopper fare such as "Drake & Josh", "Big Time Rush", and "LIzzie McGuire". Yikes. Well, at least he's working. I see that "Jonas Brothers" is one of his credits. I can't begin to tell you how glad I am those losers have lost their 15 minutes.
As I said, there so many great scenes and characters in the earlier part of the film. John Cusack is Lane, a suicidal teen (hello "Harold And Maude")with a brother named Badger, We have the late Vincent Schiavelli as the teacher everyone is inthralled with (just a couple of years earlier playing yet another teacher in "Fast Times At Ridgemont High"). Curtis Armstrong (just after playing "Revenge Of The Nerds" fav, Booger) as Charles De Mar, John Cusack's 3 high school years left back, glue-sniffing buddy. Dan Schnieder is "Ricky" who crochets and snorts nasal spray. He is also the guy responsible for "ICarly". haha. He's pictured in the second pin, which is taken from a screenshot of a gift he gives French exchange student Monique for Christmas. She is played (with a bad accent) by Diane Franklin, who I remembered as a princess in "Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure". She plays keys (terribly) in their band at the end.
Also there's character actor, Taylor Negron as the mailman and one of the many who ask Lane (John Cusack) if he could "take out Beth" (Amanda Wyss' character who dumps him). Funny enough, he was born in Greendale, California which is the setting for "Better Off Dead". Kim Darby (who plays the mom who gives everybody tv dinners for Christmas) is also in one of those 1970s Warner Archives DVD-R movies I've wanted to see called "Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark".
UPDATE: Apparently the remake of this movie just came out.
For some odd reason, both the DVD and recently, Blu-Ray version of "Better Off Dead" do not have any special features. I think the Blu-Ray has a trailer, but that's it? What's that all about?
I used a poster for the group shot button. At this point, I didn't quite have the hang of using the "Clone" tool on Photoshop, so I should probably go back and improve on the design. The second, as I said, is a screenshot of a framed picture of "Ricky" that I reformatted into a circle shape.
I have always loved this movie. I've probably seen it like 50 times at least. But John Cusack ruined it for me! Apparently he is a total dick if you ask him about that movie and he thinks it was total garbage and below him. Although I can't say that I'm totally surprised - as much as I like him as an actor I don't think I've ever heard anything good about his personality in real life. Oh well.
ReplyDeletehaha, that's hilarious. I didn't know he was a total dick. I had to laugh at a post I read from a friend about how Neil Patrick Harris thought that "Purple People Eater" was he worst acting role. Didn't "The Smurfs" just come out?
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