Thursday, December 8, 2016

Directorial Debut: Cameron Crowe's SAY ANYTHING





Hello Film Fanatics, Lisa here!!! Hope you are all getting ready for the holidays. As you all know, I am an 80s movie fan. This week I'm doing our weekly installment of DIRECTORIAL DEBUT, where we look at some of the best, most interesting, and iconic directors and the films that started their careers. The director I'm reviewing is none other than the fantastic Cameron Crowe. SAY ANYTHING, a great coming of age story starring Ione Skye and John Cusack, was his, you guessed it, directorial debut. A little known fact about Crowe is that he wrote the book that inspired the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I just thought that was so cool and showed Crowe's potential early on. Say Anything was just the start of greater things to come for this up and coming director and writer.


Before delving into the world of directing, Crowe was a contributing editor for Rolling Stone and he still writes for them. I'm mentioning this because I think that being a great writer makes someone an even greater director. His directorial debut, Say Anything, was one of my favorite movies from the '80s because I loved the chemistry between John Cusack and Ione Skye. Despite being young, I knew their love was real because of the obstacles they overcame. I also had a major crush on Cusack. :) But, what girl in the '80s didn't????

So, what made Say Anything different from other coming of age stories in the 1980s?  It had a more serious tone to it. You have two very different young people who fall in love. One is the beautiful valedictorian (Ione Skye as Diane Court), and the other is an aspiring kickboxer (John Cusack as Lloyd Dobler). Her father disapproves of the match. Lloyd uses a boombox, playing "In Your Eyes," to win her back. In my opinion, this scene is one of the most iconic in cinematic history.

What tore these two apart initially was Diane's father, who only wanted the best for her, or maybe it was really what was best for him. Sometimes parents try to control their children because they feel they are losing them to someone else. Diane's father was definitely afraid of losing her. I loved this film because it portrayed a strained father-daughter relationship realistically.

Cameron Crowe's films have started careers and have showed us that rock 'n roll will never die! His film, Say Anything helped him achieve his goal as a screenwriter and director. Robert Ebert even called Say Anything one of the best films of the year. Well, he gets no argument from me on that one. It also has a 98% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so I'm not the only one who loves this film.

This film is strong because of its acting and writing. I felt it was authentic and showed the obstacles we must face finding love and ourselves.

Lisa's Score: 8.5/10

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