From: prufrock@leland.Stanford.EDU (Scot N Gibson)
Subject: Re: Favorite lines from Heathers
Summary: Scrape, scrape, slide...(Sound of me getting my soapbox out).
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 92 22:27:48 GMT

DISCLAIMER CONCERNING SUBJECT OF MESSAGE:
----------------------------------------
The following article is about HEATHERS.  If you don't want to read
it and you are using rn, please press 'n' now.  If you never want to
read anything with this subject again, then press K (note the
capitalization.)  That will add it to your kill file.  


In article <1gg2b5INNle5@athena.sdsu.edu> larryr@saturn.sdsu.edu (Larry Riedel) writes:
>I must confess that I did have several gender-specific thoughts about
>Winona Ryder.  In fact, I think one of them was a pun on her last name.
>I also wish Brenda Walsh could look like Shannen Doherty did in this
>movie.

How were those thoughts gender specific?  I certainly didn't have
those thoughts, and I know several women who probably did have 
them. :)


>>  Brilliant movie.
>
>Really?  In what way(s)?
>
>
>Larry


Well, have you ever seen or read "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe" by
Edward Albee?  The play is one of my favorites, as is the movie.  One
of the great things about the story is that Albee created a set of
characters that were so cruel and caustic that one is tempted to say
that they could never exist; however, almost everyone who has ever
seen or read the movie/play finds that the characters remind them of
people they know.  

These characters are brilliant in many ways.  They allow us to hate
them with impunity, because we know they are too evil to actually
exist.  They are also allowed, because of this quality, to do things
that everyone has always wanted to do, but couldn't possibly.  This
device is a wonderful thing, in my opinion.

Well, obviously, Heathers uses the same device, and to an even greater
degree.  Not only could the characters never exist (because they are
just *too* evil), but neither could the high school.  Sure, the school
reminds me of my high school in many ways (cliques, dippy and uncaring
administrators, cheerleaders, pep rallies, etc.), but everything is
taken to such an extreme, is so *stylized*, that it takes on the
qualities that Albee's characters in "...Wolfe".  Basically, the
school itself is the main character of the movie, and it is a great
character.  

This unrealistic-yet-lifelike cast of characters allow us to suspend
reality and let all of the awful things that our superegos would
hardly even let us contemplate, happen.  It's *great*.

Also, like the movie version of "...Wolfe" (with Liz Taylor and
Richard Burton), "Heathers" is very well acted.  And, again like
"...Wolfe", almost every line from the movie is so witty that it's
quotable.  (My favorie line from "...Wolfe" is given by the fabulous
Liz:  "I swear if you existed, I'd divorce you.")  

I could actually go on and on.  When I said that the movie is
brilliant, I wasn't exaggerating.  It really is on my top ten movie
list, along with "Lawrence of Arabia", "Annie Hall", and "Dr.
Strangelove".  

Well, you asked for it.  Why didn't you like it?  I know lots of
people who's taste in movies I respect who just can't deal with black
comedy.  

--scoT

-- 
 ______  | Scot N. Gibson  | "At times, indeed, almost ridiculous-- |
 \    /  | Stanford Univ.  |  Almost, at times, the Fool."          |
  \  /   +-----------------+-------------+             - T.S. Eliot |
   \/    | prufrock@leland.stanford.edu  |--------------------------+
Newsgroups: alt.tv.bh90210