Life Beyond Thunderdome: Girls Just Want to Have Fun

My column at Forces of Geek is up. This month? A look at 1985's Girls Just Want to Have Fun, starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Helen Hunt.

(It's four a.m. We just had a small earthquake. Here's the thing about earthquakes: After the 1994 Northridge quake (aka the "stand in the doorway and listen in the darkness to all of your belongings crashing down around you" quake), even the insignificant ones have sort of a discombobulating effect on me. So I'm going to fix a cup of tea now and have a bit of a cry, if no one has any objections.)

Site news: White Collar and Psych are both done until summer, but FlashForward (hey, remember that show?) starts up again this week, and V returns at the end of the month. So things will start picking up again soon.

Comments

Ingrid Richter said…
Excellent review, Morgan! I could be wrong, but didn't Cyndi Lauper refuse to give the rights to her song to "Girls Just Want to Have Fun"?

The only reason I remember this is that "Night of the Comet" actually *did* get the song rights for their mall scene. Very odd.
Morgan Richter said…
Yeah, I've heard that Cyndi refused to give the rights (didn't want to mention that in the review, because I thought it might be apocryphal). In any case, they use a cover version in the movie -- maybe the producers were too cheap to buy the rights to Cyndi's original.

Night of the Comets > Girls Just Want to Have Fun.
Ingrid Richter said…
My respect for Cyndi Lauper just doubled :-)

BTW, "apocryphal" is such an awesome word...
Anonymous said…
Great review! It's not a good movie, but if it's ever on tv I'll set aside time to watch it. What can I say -- I'm a sucker for cheesy, unoriginal 80s teen flicks. That Cyndi Lauper refused to give the rights for her song to be used for this film only makes me dig Cyndi more.

I believe more conflicts in life should be settled with a dance-off.
Morgan Richter said…
Is there no conflict too great to be settled by a dance-off?

I hear you with the unapologetic love of cheesy '80s films. Something about cornball teen flicks from that decade really speaks to my soul.

I was trying to work this into my review, but it kept drifting me too far out on a tangent: Girls Just Want To Have Fun is Hairspray: Plucky teen competes for spot on local dance show, clashes with snobby rival, wins the heart of cute boy.

I've worked with Jonathan Silverman when he guest-hosted Talk Soup, and he's awesome in person: cool and smart and funny. It pained me to realize he was playing such a dud role in this. On the other hand, Shannen Doherty is just delightful. Who knew?
Great review of GJWHF.

Night of the Comet is super-rad. I'm constantly trying to convince people a remake with Mindy Kaling and Marjane Satrapi starring as post-modern Vals would be excellent. This is probably one of the reasons I'm a slacker social worker and not a producer of some sort.

PS regarding Silverman (who was great in Psych), I recently re-watched My Best Friend is a Vampire and decided Evan Mirand had a kind of weird, slightly beefier and less charming, Jonathan Silverman quality about him.
Morgan Richter said…
Next month's column is going to be Night of the Comet. Love that movie. It is, as you say, super-rad. I'm actually surprised no one has tried to remake it yet (post-apocalyptic, heavily-armed Valley Girls! There's a built-in audience for that.)

You know, I've never seen My Best Friend is a Vampire. This seems like a grave oversight.