Risky Business
I watched this movie on TV the other day. Great movie. There are so many good parts, but one amazing part that I keep thinking back to is towards the end of the movie, when Joel is out "selling" the idea of turning his parents house into a brothel.
He is at a cheeseburger hut with two high school losers. He asks the fatter of the two to go through all the money he spent on a girl. Joel goes through the accounting, food, movies, parking (the fat loser corrects him on one expense), but Joel points out another - gas. He totals up how much the fat loser spend, around $60 in total. And he asks what happened. His response:
"She slept with Jacobson."
And then the best part...the skinny loser, right next to him, erupts in laughter, laughing uncontrollably at his friend. A brilliant moment in the history of high school cinema.
2 comments:
This film - the greatest high school movie (with the exception of Dazed and Confused) was filmed in my hometown of Highland Park. I can point out all the landmarks, the Highland Park theater they drive by in the Porsche which is screening Annie. Tickets used to be $1.50 Among the films I saw there is E.T. - the first film I saw in a theater, and I had chickenpox - also Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Amadeus, Out of Africa, Muppets take Manhattan, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome...
The small diner they hang out in towards the beginning is Shelton's about two blocks from the house I grew up in.
But most importantly this film possesses my favorite line in cinema...Tom Cruise and Havard bound Curtis Armstrong , two preppy lily white high schoolers are being followed frantically by street hood Joe Pantiolano when Armstrong (aka Boogar in Revenge of the Nerds) sickly says, "I have a trig mid-term tommorrow and I'm being chased by Guido the killer pimp."
Ahh, the north shore suburbs.
armstrong's booger in revenge of the nerds is one of the finest parts of that deservedly celebrated film. that being said, his work in risky business, while less flashy, carries a lot more depth....
...the scene you described is not just funny. there is a serious element of these guys being totally out of their place, armstrong reacts in fear, while cruise's character shows a hint of courage (the exact opposite from the set up, in which cruise is revealed to be shy around girls and armstrong, a cocky-harvard bound smart aleck).
and it is one of this film's great strengths, balancing the humor with a good deal of seriousness - rebecca demornay's situation, joel's anxiety about parents and college, and that haunting soundtrack....
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