“Less Than Zero” (1987) is an underrated MASTERPIECE & lowkey better than the book

“Less Than Zero” (1987) is an underrated MASTERPIECE & lowkey better than the book

Crack is whack!

Andrew McCarthy is a wet blanket in everything.

My partner can't understand why I love this movie so much. But, then, he wasn't born in 1969. And, "Hazy Shade Of Winter" was *everything* in 1987. I'd say that it's one of few cases where I vastly prefer the cover to the original, which is not bad by any means.

Personally, I loved this film when I watched it and decided to rewatch it today (it is on Starz) and loved it even more than I did years ago. I actually think it’s a film that aged well, and is something that is better when you watch it years later. It’s one of those films that if revisited by critics, the ratings will be very different than they were back in 1987 (similar to The Shining).

Robert Downey Jr. gives an Oscar worthy performance in this. He is superb. I’ve never been a big fan but he was amazing. McCarthy and Gertz are fine, but Spader and RDJ act circles around them, granted they had characters where they could play it up more.

The cinematography and color palette used are gorgeous. The score is amazing. It’s actually a great film and kind of the most honest depiction of drug addiction from an 80s film.

OP: brevity

r4 "Personally, I loved this film"

Personally you did? As opposed to professionally? Ok

R6 you don’t know what personally means? As opposed to what others say about it.

I saw this in the theatre when it came out and was blown away by how gorgeous they made LA look. The cinematography was fantastic, all of the leads beautifully lit at the peak of their beauty. Even strung-out RDJ looked beautiful.

Like everything else BEE did it seemed so exaggerated. Like were all people in LA in the mid-80s so shallow and cruel? Was everyone who went to Buckley then like this - this was modelled on Buckley, correct?

From the title, I thought it was going to be about Trump's IQ.

r7 Oh, sweetie.

"Personally, I loved this film."

"I loved this film."

R8 he never claimed everyone was like this. The three characters were rich peoples kids, and he was inspired to write the book because so many rich people’s teens were doing drugs in LA in the 80s.

I cried at the end when Julian kicked the bucket. The music was so beautiful and the shot of the three of them sitting in the car in the desert…it was really moving.

R10 at least educate yourself. At least ATTEMPT to. At least before coming for an educated adult.

Adding personally to a statement is still grammatically correct.

So even at a young age I was a big movie nerd.

I didn't see this movie in theaters (too young), but I saw it on HBO at some point, and was MEMORIZED.

I ... guess I was an late 80's kid? The music. The cinematography. I love this movie.

No actor was Oscar worthy or anything, but, kind of Like Top Gun Maverick, this movie hit every beat it needed to at the time.

Rogert Ebert, love him or hate him, gave this movie 4 starts, and I think they are well deserved.

R8 you claimed to be born in 1988 based on your posting history…

R14 sounds like you didn’t watch the film if you’re comparing a low budget film about teenage drug addicts to a massive studio blockbuster like Top Gun….

And RDJ was Oscar nomination worthy.

You're very embarrassed. I hope you're able to calm down. I hope you'll try to write in complete sentences at some point.

Hap was the only sexy male character in the movie.

"Lowkey" better? Is it goals? Are you here for it?

R18 we didn’t watch the movie for “sexy men”. This isn’t Magic Mike.

Wanna explain how you were born in 2005 on some posts, 1988 on some posts, yet was able to watch a film that came out in 1987 in theaters?

I'm not the same poster as r18 (two separate posters) nor have I ever claimed to be born in '88, at least not in any recent posts.

Obsessive use of posting trolldar to stalk other DLers is weird.

R21 weird, since you’re the one who taught us how to do it. You don’t often, based on your posting history.

Bitch please, I don't instruct people here on anything. Stop lying for your crazy audience here.

Boring movie, boring thread, horrible Downey, the most inauthentic smug-ass in the business.

[quote] Wanna explain how you were born in 2005 on some posts, 1988 on some posts, yet was able to watch a film that came out in 1987 in theaters?

Lol. You need to check your crystal ball or whatever it is you use to devine the characteristics of other posters. Are you new here? I have made none of the claims you attribute to me.

Here's a clue. Block me and you will see what I have posted.

R14? Is English your first language?

That said, I never read the book, but I [italic]loved[/italic] this movie. I've watched it many times.

Perhaps I'll watch it again soon.

[quote] And, "Hazy Shade Of Winter" was *everything* in 1987.

No it wasn’t.

Absurd nonsense.

r3 They did such a great cover of that song!

R14 a movie nerd would never compare Less Than Zero to Top Gun. A more appropriate film to compare it to would be a film like Basketball Diaries. Comparing this to Top Gun is like comparing Basketball Diaries to Avatar. It just doesn’t make sense, there is no relation between the two and they’re two very different films with very different budgets aimed at very different audiences.

r29 You ok?

I loved everything about this movie. RDJ turns in a great performance. Spader and McCartney were both hot in it too.

R24 nothing about this film was boring. It was only 90 minutes and flew by. There was always music in the background and it felt very atmospheric despite being about drug addiction.

RDJ is good at playing big, which he did during some of his drug fueled scenes but he also played it quiet at times in this, and did great. The stairwell scene where Blair and Clay find him borderline ODd was sad and stuck with me all these years. His death was so sad I cried when I first watched it.

R30 you clearly do not have reading comprehension on top of not understanding you don’t compare a $8 million dollar budget film about drug addiction to a $200 million dollar budget film about the Air Force. Why are you on this thread? You haven’t even watched the film. You were born in 2005.

r33 You're talking to a different person, sweetie. I haven't been back and forth with you. I just chimed in because whatever that person said seemed to send you way over the top.

I saw this movie when it came out and never saw it again. A friend and I went to it, we agreed Downey was good, but that was about it. I remember near the start, Andrew McCarthy sitting on his bed looking forlorn and for some reason it was funny. Jamie Gertz (not a bad actress) was apparently miscast because she was not good. Her very obvious Chicago accent seemed incongruous. I don't think anyone in the audience (New England suburb) identified with this poor little rich kids.

*these, not this

The thing is, the utter nihilism of the movie was quite different from a lot of the cinematic fare geared towards younger audiences at the time. That's one of the reasons why it stood out for me as a teenager.

Jami Gertz was always so pretty to me. My mother loved her in The Lost Boys, which came out earlier that same year, and part of why she was cast in this after filming The Lost Boys. They wanted to appeal to both young and older people alike, so cast people that could appeal to teens due to recent successes but weren’t offensively youthful to where it would alienate adults, like Molly Ringwald or someone like that.

There is a fan edit dedicated to the Julian character and his entire trajectory is so sad. He was even worse in the book though.

A friend of mine was friends with Alexis Arquette and Alexis got my friend on the set as an extra in the downstairs club scene, he has some significant screen time in it also. He also got to be on the set a couple of days and told us that Downey was ALWAYS high during the shoot.

What’s the movie like this that has Phoebe Cates as someone’s wife?

No this was the one that had Jami Gertz as a High Fashion Model R40.

[quote] You haven’t even watched the film. You were born in 2005.

Ignore it or have a good laugh, r30

I love the book, the movie, and the soundtrack. The ennui we showed while smoking cigarettes while listening to the Bangles sing Hazy Shad of Winter will never be duplicated.

It didn't seem realistic at all. It did seem like a movie that they made following test screening results. Nothing genuine.

Well it was made and then shown to test screener audiences and then rushed to reshoots to make it lighter and make the Blair and Julian characters more repentant. The young people who watched it hated how neither character was repentant of their drug use. They cut a bunch of Blair’s drug use out. Shes a drug addict too but in the movie we just see her use cocaine a few times.

The studio ruined what was originally a very dark and edgy script and had it rewritten numerous times. They also changed the Clay character to be more of a clean, straight man who was assertive when needed to be.

The studio became so conservative with this film that they had a scene featuring the Red Hot Chili Peppers performing destroyed. They filmed the scene with the RHCP already but the guys were shirtless and sweaty and the studio heads felt it was “inappropriate” so they had it DESTROYED.

they took out the ass sex too.

Well it’s implied that Julian is forced to have gay sex r46. Again, you make it sound like it was hot and consensual. It wasn’t. Julian owed Rip $50k for all the drugs but didn’t have the money so Rip forced him into prostitution, making him sell his body to gay men. It was very dark and disgusting.

As stated, the studio needed the film to be sellable to younger people as well as older aka commercial so they took all that out. But there is a scene where Clay finds Julian in a bedroom with his underwear down, on his knees in front of a man and pulls him out of there. It’s a sad situation.

RDJ sucking dick for drugs? I don't buy it.

How about Bright Lights, Big City? Is that movie better than its reputation then?

[quote]Bright Lights, Big City

COMA BABY

R48 RDJ wasn’t. Julian was. It’s a film. Not a documentary. And he wasn’t doing it for drugs. He was doing it to help pay off his debt. I thought you watched it…

This YouTuber does videos on films and his attraction to nihilism in films and nihilistic characters from a young age. He did one on Clay in this film, and how the film version was made into a good and safe guy for the audience by Hollywood but in the book he isn’t that at all. He actually feels Clay in the book is a more iconic character than Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, but of course American Psycho and Bateman are Bret Easton Ellis’s most iconic book/character because the film version remained true to the book and kept him nihilistic.

He feels them changing Clay from a lost soul who is completely disconnected from the world and numb to his life and everyone in it who dives into drugs and other bad habits just to feel something to a safe everyday man was a mistake.

so subversive and sexual. the book even more so

Another good watch.

R51, I was making a joke about RDJ in the 80s and 90s, but whatever.

I’d like to see this remade and be closer to the book..which I loved.

I liked the Rules of Attraction book even more. I have read it several times. I liked the film too..I think it’s underrated. Plus, our Faye is in it!

Oh yes...such a true masterpiece!

GIRL IN WOMEN'S BATHROOM, WITH NOSE BLEEDING FROM COKE-SNIFFING : (giggling) "Uh-oh... rusty pipes!"

JAMI GERTZ: (angrily flouncing out): "Call a plumber!"

I actually enjoyed the book. Read it long after I saw the movie though. I was initially shocked (retroactively) at how far the movie strays from the book.

But it quickly dawned on me: There really isn’t much in terms of plot in the book. It’s a character study. So of course they had to change it up.

R39 not possible. His drug addiction started after this. That’s well documented.

I watched it recently and was really impressed by RDJ. His voice and eyes made him a star.

R57 both lines happened but not like that. Blair says call a plumber after the two women scold her for dumping the cocaine down the sink.

R58 many young people loved that book when it came out. It was a smash hit. The book is so dark to the point I found it kinda scary. All the characters are rich kids who are so devoid of feeling anything and numb to the world they live that they do bad shit just to have something to do. Julian doesn’t die in the book but like that one reviewer said, if he did die in the book his friends wouldn’t even care. They were incapable of caring because they couldn’t feel anything. They were surrounded by wealth but all so empty and lost, doing drugs and all types of bad shit for a rush and to feel something.

In the movie, they’re all caring and sympathetic characters. The book version they’re all fucked up rich kids with nothing better to do.

I know a woman from an affluent family who graduated from High School in LA in 1985, and she said there was so much cocaine in wealthy/affluent circles and places in LA at the time. So many teens in her school were doing cocaine at the time. She kept away from it and is still thankful today she did. Many turned out fine but some did become addicted.

Less Than Zero (the book) came out that year and she ended up reading it and 100% thought of some of the people she knew and related it to them. Young pretty people from rich families doing bad shit just because, and incapable of having empathy for anyone.

R59, RDJ has said he was surrounded by drugs growing up and started smoking marijuana with his dad around the age of 8.

[quote]What’s the movie like this that has Phoebe Cates as someone’s wife?

Bright Lights, Big City.

This might sound odd, but this was the first film I ever saw that scared me sexually.

As a gayling, I would have done anything to see a naked man- let alone anyone half as beautiful as RDJ was in this film -and yet, when I saw RDJ nude before the man violating him, it was the most disturbing and unsexy thing I had ever seen.

I remember Pauline Kael said of Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet that her beauty in her nude scenes seemed that of a totally helpless - anything sexual was subsumed to her status as a victim.

It took me a long time to watch anything with RDJ in it.

I think he gave the most fearless performance of an actor of his generation in this film.

R64 yes. He used to do weed. He didn’t start the hard shit until after this movie.

Are you comparing weed to cocaine and meth?

Bright Lights, Big City is another popular Gen X book that was huge.

Andrew McCarthy discussing how the original script he received when he signed on was nothing like the final film. The studio execs forced them to water it down A LOT to sell it.

R67, his asshole father gave him weed as an eight-year old child. By the time RDJ was 12 he was abusing alcohol. Does that sound healthy or normal?

R67, the post at r39 said he was always high. Didn't specify the drug he was high on. Are you saying weed doesn't get a person high?

RDJ praising the director of the film. This is from 5 years ago. The director hated his experience with the studio system while filming this movie. The FOX studio interference was terrible on this film. As bad as their interference on Alien 3.

It was the first time I watched a film where I wished I could break into the film and comfort and save a character.

The second time was Sheryl Lee in Twin Peaks.

RDJ was fine while filming this. You can even see interviews of him from 1987 and he was calm and normal. Watch some of his 90s interviews. You could tell he was “off”

It got really bad by the mid 90s. His infamous 1996 Letterman interview where you could tell he was high. He had coke jaw and kept moving his mouth around.

Gertz is a billionaire now I believe.

R75 I would have loved to fuck him when he came down from that high but was still garrulous and horny.

OP I remember watching this film on cable as a kid so I decided to rewatch based on your post. OMG the horns of Crazy In Love are featured in a scene but it’s not the Chi Lite song. I have never heard any other song used that sample. What is it. I had to stop watching just to list that.

R78 what song?

The Chi-Lites Are you my woman made famous by Beyonce on Crazy in Love. It’s around the 15:30 mark of the film. How has this never been talked about. The song sounds very 80s, free range or backbeat. Fuck the word is losing me on the genre of music it’s called.

Jamie Hertz used it be a real beauty.

Jami GERTZ is still beautiful. And very very rich.

How she became worth over $8 billion

Here’s my 2 star Letterbox review:

“At a certain point, some movies stop being good or bad and just become fascinating artefacts of their time.”

I don’t think it is a product of its time. That’s why when people watch it now they tend to like it more than they did when it initially came out. Nothing about it outside of the 80s and some set designs and wardrobe was 80s. The story can be placed in any decade. Drug addiction is at the highest it’s been since the 80s. The story focuses on 3 friends and one is a drug addict, the other dabbles and the other doesn’t at all. It isn’t an “80s” story so it works and never feels dated.

R85 It is also beautifully shot. And RDJ is such a magnetic force on screen. I swear he is the white Gen X version of myself lol. I’m enjoying it. I see why people say the lead was miscast. He just doesn’t seem like he is from LA, but Jamie and RDJ do.

There is no E on the end of JAMI.

“Are You My Woman?” was remade for the soundtrack by a group called The Black Flames. I remember first hearing “Crazy In Love” and automatically thinking hey, she sampled that song from Less Than Zero.

R88 Thank you. Im like I know those are those iconic horns.

In the movie they all just hung around various houses being bored, getting wasted, having random sex. When I saw the movie and there was this huge party with all those multiple TV screens that looked like some MTV video, I thought, "this is not the LA depicted in the book."

I think probably the most surprising thing for me in the book at the time was how (early in the book) the main character, Clay, who had a girlfriend, went home with another young guy after a party. This was another thing that the movie didn't get into. The lead character was bisexual.

I remember thinking it was very out of the ordinary for the lead character to finally come to a kind of druggy, hazy epiphany and say (about a lot of guys raping an underage girl who they've drugged and who's passed out and maybe tied down, I forget) "This isn't right." It almost made me laugh out loud. It took him the whole book, almost to come to the conclusion that that wasn't a nice thing to be doing. Mind you, I understood what Ellis was trying to do, but it also made the character seem like a total lame-brain you would never want to know.

Sorry, that should have read, "In the book, they all just hung around various houses being bored, getting wasted..."

I love this movie! Brad Pitt is listed as uncredited extra on IMDB but I’ve seen him.

Have not seen him.

Love this film. It’s one of my alternative Christmas movies. RDJ is superb.

Brad Pitt is an extra in this scene. He's wearing sunglasses, a pink and white tank top and he's dancing. Keep looking at the left side of the screen for the first 6 seconds...

R90 that’s exactly why the character was rewritten for the movie. That was actually the first thing Fox execs noted when they hired the first guy to write the screenplay, Clay can’t be amoral, Clay can’t be a druggie, Clay can’t be bisexual, Clay can’t be passive to what is happening around him. Having a character like that lead a book is fine but people were not gonna take well to a character like that in the 1980s. The lead character needed to be someone the audience felt comfortable with for it to be a commercial film. If this was an indie film it wouldn’t matter as much but they wanted to try to bank off the books massive success so they needed the film to be as commercial as possible so the first thing that needed to work was the lead. That is also why they cast McCarthy, he had a very clean All-American good image. Teen girls liked him (Pretty in Pink & St Elmo’s Fire) and adults were at least impartial to him. He wasn’t offensive in any way.

I think that is part of why BEE ended up finally appreciating and liking the film years later. I think he himself finally realized and acknowledged the film couldn’t be sold had it been a loyal adaptation of his novel.

A loyal adaptation could be made today though, but in 1987 that wasn’t gonna fly.

R92 he’s an extra in a party scene. Extra is the key word.

I always find it funny some people view this as a Christmas movie. Same with Die Hard.

[quote] If this was an indie film it wouldn’t matter as much but they wanted to try to bank off the books massive success so they needed the film to be as commercial as possible so the first thing that needed to work was the lead

Why would you try to bank off a book's massive success by making a film that no one who read the book is going to recognize as being like the book?

Rich-kid nihilism was 'cool' in the '80s, so was bisexuality. I think the Julian character was innovative in that in some ways he's basically the Sophie character from Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge, BUT redone as a guy. These "nice kids who go to the dark side" characters have been popular in literature but it's usually a woman.

R99 bisexuality was not popular outside of wealthy circles. You live in a bubble of make believe.

Give me an example of teenage nihilism on film that was a big success.

Bisexuality was popular in the 80s? For women, yes. Not for men. A bi man was automatically a faggot to most.

Who is this poster always trying to rewrite history?

I still marvel at the fact that Jami Gertz is THE richest actress in Hollywood now. Who woulda ever thunk it?

[quote][R92] he’s an extra in a party scene. Extra is the key word.

See R95.

R100, R101 Did I saw it was "popular"? I said it was cool. Why was Less Than Zero a best selling book, with a bisexual protagonist? Because people hated the idea?

R104 you think people bought a new book because the lead was bi? Young people bought the book because the reviews it got and it was controversial at the time. They viewed his bisexuality as one of the depravities he did as a fucked up rich kid and druggie. It was not written nor viewed as “cool”. It was viewed as depraved.

R104 tell me you haven’t read the book without telling me you haven’t read the book.

The book doesn’t explore his bisexuality as “cool”. It is one of the many things that shows the reader just how twisted and fucked up Clay is.

Jami Gertz is crazy wealthy, but I would argue that Salma Hayek, through marriage, is wealthier. Her husband’s family, the Pinaults, are reported to be worth over $25 billion.

Yes, but Salma married a billionaire. It’s not the same. That isn’t her wealth. If he dumped her she wouldn’t get a penny. They signed a prenup.

Jami didn’t marry a billionaire. He wasn’t that when they married. She used her money alongside his to invest and make a fortune.

It’s not surprising that the studio wanted a redemption story. The traditional dramatic arc of movies is overcoming something and having a resolution, or something close to it, at the end. A story that ends as messy at it begins just doesn’t fit the idea of what most studio executives, even today, think satisfies the general public.

R108, neither one made it themselves and to argue that any of Gertz’s acting money helped her husband’s success is ridiculous. The firm he and few others founded in 1990 after the collapse of the firm several of them worked for raised $400 million in seed money.

Whatever Gertz was able to contribute was chump change.

Chump change or not, if she walked away from her marriage, Jami is walking away with billions.

R111 exactly. Unlike Salma.

If, if, if. Move the goalposts to suit your argument if you really need the validation of being the smartest anonymous commenter in a thread on an obscure website.

However, both are still married and Salma’s husband is still wealthier.

Nothing sums up the 80s more than Jamie Gertz's curled lip look of disdain.

Also, Gertz could have signed a prenup too. When she married her husband he was already a senior vice president at Drexel Burnham Lambert, the fifth largest investment bank in the U.S.

she's got a magic pussy. i only congratulate her.

R115. the Three billion is her money. They are worth close to 11 altogether. So prenup or not, she walks away with 3 billion of her own money, in her name, doesn't have to fight her husband for it. She invested wisely and made out. It's as simple as that. She is the wealthier than whomever r113 is positing. A wife's husband's money is not her money. Trust me, Selma doesn't have her hands on 3 billion dollars worth of anything.

She and RDJ Jr would have made some beautiful children.

R117, how do you the particulars of the division of their assets?

R119 it’s well documented online. Together they have around $11 billion. $3 billion is hers. That is what happens when you invest wisely. Salma only has her pussy to count on if her husband leaves her.

Some of you guys demean women so blatantly on this site it’s just crazy. Anyways can we return the discussion back to the film.

R120, link to well-documented proof?

Don't forget those giant tits R120. She'll never let her love for eating pussy get in the way of her and a rich man.

But she didn’t make her money acting so it’s silly to call “the richest actor” or whatever. At one time, she had a moderately successful acting career. Then she did something else.

Can we get back to talking about the movie?

I don't care about Jami Gertz's bank account.

R32 your clip wasn’t working for me. I had to find it. I will post it here in case it didn’t work for anyone else either

R40 Phoebe Cates played the wife of Michael J Fox's spiraling cokehead stock broker in Bright Lights, Big City.

The names are just perfect - Blair, Clay, Julian

Jami Gertz is one of my favorite '80s actresses. I was always mesmerized by her long raven hair, her bone structure and her thick ChicAAHgo accent. She's great in a bit role as Vincent Spano's kid sister in ALPHABET CITY.

Jami, Elaine Wilkes and Haviland Morris are all hilarious in the infamous haircutting scene in Sixteen Candles.

Jami Gertz and Phoebe Cates are both legends with Gen X. Outside of that generation they aren’t well known but they were Gen X stars.

BOOTS St. Claire!

RDJ was beautiful, but he paled next to Jason Patric. Jason and Jami acted in multiple projects together, including the horrible Solarbabies right before The Lost Boys.

[quote]I don't care about Jami Gertz's bank account.

I'd love just a fraction of it.

RDJ is more interesting looking and knows how to act with his eyes.

Would be fantastic if there's any footage from the original to produce an extended or alternative cut of the film. Clay sticks out as an anomaly within the cast of characters.

Esthetically, the 80s material culture on display makes this a great depiction of a very specific demographic, but Clay is far too clean. This movie is making me think of Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, but, without the humor (Alice is a goddamned GIFT).

But -- I can't spare a square!

Some people are very clean….

Patric is conventionally attractive and never had RDJ's feral, fey aura or energy.

Patrick is a very very handsome man. But something about RDJ and those eyes. And also he can legit black. In Tropic thunder he legit looks like a black man.

Patrick also never had RDJ career. Comparing them is ridiculous.

RDJ has a mild case of Hillary Clinton eyes.

I love Jami Gertz, but she was miscast here. Even so, her performance has grown on me. She does vulnerability well.

My mother loved Jami as Muffy in Square Pegs. She was a big fan of the show while it was on.

[quote]Patrick also never had RDJ career. Comparing them is ridiculous.

The comparison was based on their looks, genius. Their careers were not the topic of conversation.

The studio knew what they were doing when they changed Clay. The book version would have never flown with test audiences. Hell, if Julian and Blair didn’t fly with test audiences to the point reshoots had to happen and like 90% of the scenes showing Blair doing drugs were cut (mind you, this was all already watered down from the book), they certainly would have never accepted a protagonist like Clay from the novel.

Clay in the book upset me so much, especially in the second half of the book. His passivity was too much for me. He is the archetype of a wealthy, spoiled 80s LA teenager. He is a disaffected individual and highly detached. I actually found him kind of scary. He witnesses a 12 YO girl get forcibly doped up with heroine by a grown man and then raped, and he just walks away. He knows his best friend is being forcibly whored out to random gay men and even acts as a voyeur and does nothing to help Julian. You could see that what was happening to Julian was starting to mess with him mentally (like when he couldn’t play the arcade game because the sight of all those hot dogs were too much for him to handle) and Clay just ignored it. At the end Blair is pretty much begging for him to show emotion and he sits in silence, staring at a sign with a blank look until she finally drives off and out of his life.

Clay was so detached and numb to the world and everything around him that he never had an emotional response to anything, not even the most shocking or vile situations. I would hate to be around someone like him, and yes, people like that exist.

Book Clay would have never flown on film in 1987. Hell, today people would hate him but I think with streaming they would take the risk of having a protagonist like that.

R146 to be fair, Clay does show disgust for the rape that happens, so for once he did feel SOMETHING. And him choosing to go back to college after break is a good sign.

R147 that is true. The point still stands that he never does anything when Rip rapes the minor.

There are many characters in the book who aren’t in the movie either, probably for the better. It wouldn’t work having random friends in a 90 minute film. If they ever remake it I hope it’s a miniseries. Also, in the book Rip is only Julian’s drug dealer but not his pimp. Fill is his pimp in the book and calls Julian his “best boy” but is still awful to him and even abuses him.

[quote] tell me you haven’t read the book without telling me you haven’t read the book. The book doesn’t explore his bisexuality as “cool”. It is one of the many things that shows the reader just how twisted and fucked up Clay is.

R106 I was the poster on this thread who brought up the fact that Clay is bisexual in the book. No one had mentioned it until then. I also brought up for the first time Clay witnessing the underage girl drugged and raped and how he barely responded. Probably a good chance that I read the book. I actually read it more than once.

First, I strongly disagree with your assumption that Clay's bisexuality "shows the reader just how twisted and fucked up Clay is." That's a pretty bi-phobic statement and apparently was your subjective takeaway which I doubt a lot of other people would agree with.

I never said the book "explores his bisexuality as cool". I said that during the time period (and I meant in things like pop culture - music videos, pop music, print ads for fashion, whatever) bisexuality was being presented as something cool or let's say fashionable. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, I don't know, but I did not say the book explores anything. I said the book was a best seller and had a bisexual lead character, my point being that had bisexuality not been on the radar, people probably would not have accepted this premise.

I really like Jami on Stand Standing with Sally Struthers playing her mother in law. I’ll always remember the episode where her awkward/cute teenage son, played by Taylor Ball, was embarrassed by his gigantic penis. It was an entire episode. Brave work.

Yeah, whenever I think of Jamie her work with Sally Struthers on Still Standing is the first thing I think of. They were fucking hysterical together. Especially when Jamie was pushing Sally around in her wheelchair and she lost control of it and sally went down the stairs. They were a great combo.

My mom liked that show.

Swoosie Kurtz was funny as hell on Still Standing too. That was an underappreciated little show. It never failed to make me laugh.

[quote]Yeah, whenever I think of Jamie

JAMI, NO “E.”

R149 you not understanding the book or reading between the lines just shows this isn’t a book for you.

You brought up those points because you googled them.

R149 bisexuality was never promoted as cool in the 80s. Ever. You weren’t even around. Look at your posting history. It’s very telling.

Androgyny was cool. Not bisexuality. You clearly don’t even know what that is.

RDJ did a terrific job. He was exceptional

I think the thing that really struck me at the time was that RDJ trashed himself visually. He didn't keep Julian looking pretty. He was a sweaty, increasingly poorly-dressed and disheveled mess. His near-OD and subsequent drying out are harrowing, because they look clinical. You feel like you can smell it and it's horrifying.

R158 he was playing a DRUG ADDICT. He didn’t have say in that.

I watched this once when I was 13 or something and had no life experience much less drug experiences. I should watch it again because the montage above of Julian actually made me cry. I have known some Julians…. Some made it out alive and others didn’t.

R159, are you actually saying he was just flopping about, being all addicted to drugs, and not actually, you know, acting?

Do you have a favorite diaper?

I think R159 is referring to the hair / makeup / wardrobe and directorial choices that an actor usually has less say in - especially one at the start of his career, as RDJ was here.

But good costumes can only get you so far - RDJ really went “full scumbag” and pulled off an incredible performance. Whatever his demons and problems; he has always been an extraordinarily talented actor.

Further more, even if RDJ had had the star clout to stay relatively pretty (as you see in other movies) we now know enough about him that he wouldn't have wanted to.

The consistent crud on the corners of RDJ's mouth as Julian slips deeper into his addiction was a good touch from the make-up department.

R156 You have posted 45 times in this thread --almost a third of the posts. So I guess that means you're an authority of some kind. Or just a thread hog.

I fucking hated Piggy.

Who Piggy?!

Thanks for this thread. I found my copy of the book and read it this weekend. Yes, it differs from the film significantly. In one scene Clay goes with Julian to a hotel to meet a guy than Finn told him to have sex with to get paid. Clay goes with him and just watches as they fuck for a few hours. He doesn't leave because he wants to see how bad it gets. In the film, I believe he catches Julian sucking off a goy and pulls him out of the room.

Also, as was discussed above, Julian wasn't exactly having sex for drugs. He was paying off his drug debt, and his pimp, Finn, kept him high so he would be compliant with the sex stuff.

And I guess the movie people insisted Julian die in the end so he gets some kind of punishment for his sins.

Also, though Clay witnessed the gang rape of the girl, he left the room and didn't want to be a part of it. Sure, he hung out with the guys later, but I think it was something that he was kind of non-judgmental about as it concerned his friends.

Also, him leaving LA at the end kind of signaled that he wanted to leave this whole scene behind, like he was done with it all.

R168 how cute that you googled the book and are posting the same shit posted upthread but in different wording.

Whatever, r169. I did indeed read the book this weekend and just posted my thoughts about some things mentioned in this thread. You want page cites? The scene in the hotel with the guy is pp. 172-176. The scene with the young girl is pp. 188-190. Penguin paperback, published 1986 (a year after the hardcover).

lol. Google really has people thinking googling info on a book is the same as actually reading a book.

They’re all blonde in the book, too, if I remember correctly.

Yes, they’re all blonde and good looking rich kids. Clay’s appearance is never fully described but he blonde, tall and fit but pale skinned.

Blaire is beautiful, tall and blonde.

Julian is blonde and his only physical description is he is VERY skinny. He’s become a heroine addict and a prostitute to pay off his debts. He is fed drugs by his pimp to keep him compliant.

There are other characters in the book too. It isn’t just those 3.

I think BEE describes everyone as being blonde. It’s like the kids in Village of the Damned except they’re all rich, spoiled Beverly Hills teens/young adults.

[quote] In the film, I believe he catches Julian sucking off a goy and pulls him out of the room.

He wasn't Jewish?