GUEST POST by D.L. RichardsonPunk Chick FlicksIt seems as though writers are getting good creating their own genres. We have Young Adult and that gave birth to a term genre of New Adult. First we had Steam Punk. Now we have genres such as Trench Punk, Diesel Punk, Atom Punk, Dark Punk. I’m making up my own genre too, only it’s a genre for movies that I call Punk Chick Flick.
I define Punk Chick Flick as movies for chicks with an edge. They either have a tragic ending or dark, disturbing content, or even lots of violence all in the name of love. These are not Disney-type boy meets girl, boy fights for girl, boy wins girl movies. They have an edge of truth, and degree of coming of age, great soundtracks, costumes, outfits, hair and/or fabulous looking actors, and sometimes drugs and violence but only for the sake of the story. They’re movies that a lot of guys do like, but on they’re still best loved by girls.
Here’s a list of my top six Punk Chick Flicks and the reasons why I have them sitting in this new genre.
Tuff Turf
Starring James Spader and Robert Downey Jnr. Morgan Hiller (James Spader) moves to Los Angeles and chooses the wrong girl Frankie, (Kim Richards, I remember her from the TV series Diff’rent Strokes) to have a crush on. Frankie is attached to Nick, the leader of a gang who drives a cool car. Nick doesn’t like Morgan pursuing Frankie and shows it by nearly running Morgan down with his car. Morgan and his friend (Robert Downey Jnr) then take on the whole gang in a warehouse fight (What is it with boys fighting over girls that we girls just love love love!). The movie was released in 1985, and I was 15 at the time. I so wanted to be Frankie because she had great hair and clothes.
Interesting fact: it was Robert Downey Jr’s 50th birthday the other week.
Valley Girl
She’s cool. He’s hot. She’s from the Valley. He’s not. That’s the poster blurb for Valley Girl. Released in 1983, Nicolas Cage is very young in this movie. Nicolas Cage is Randy, a Hollywood Punk who crashes a party in the “Valley” and meets a Hollywood Girl, Julie. Randy isn’t liked by Julie’s friends, especially not by her Prom King boyfriend, Tommy. Randy does everything he can to convince Julie to dump Tommy. But Julie and Tommy are Prom Queen and King so what she do. Really, the prom is only a few days away. Fights ensue between Randy and Julie’s boyfriend Tommy at the prom, and Randy and Julie ride off into the night in a stretch limousine. The film grossed $1.8 million when it opened. The soundtrack is amazing with “I Melt With You” by Modern English, and a song by Josie Cotton titled “Johnny, Are You Queer?” that would probably never be allowed in any of today’s movies. The soundtrack was never actually released due to problems with licensing problems but Rhino Records did release a compilation of songs from the film in 1994. Technically it’s a romance comedy, but Nicolas Cage’s attempt at Punk helps push this movie across the line.
Interesting fact: Francis Ford Coppola, the director of Dracula, is the uncle of Nicholas Cage, the actor in Valley Girl.
The Crow
Forget flowers and chocolates, when your man comes back from the dead to avenge your brutal death by causing more brutal deaths, as Brandon Lee’s character Eric Draven does in this movie, you know that’s a sign of true love. The Crow is the movie adaptation of the comic strip by James O’Barr. Sadly, Brandon Lee died during this movie when one of the guns firing blanks shot real bullets instead.
Many scenes required being filmed by a body double. According to IMDb, (International Movie Database) the following scenes were completed after Lee's death:
· Draven first enters the apartment after digging himself out of his grave. The effects team digitally added footage of Lee walking through an alley to a scene in which he walks through a doorway. They added drops of water to the door frame to explain the drops of water on Lee's back.
· Draven puts on make-up. The effects team added Lee's face to the reflection in the shards of the mirror.
· Draven walks to the window, with the crow on his shoulder. A body double played this scene. The effects team added Lee's face during lightning flashes.
· Sarah visits the apartment. A double plays the scene. We don't see Draven's face.
This is perhaps my favorite love story of all time. Released in 1994, this film is dedicated to Brandon Lee and Eliza. Eliza Hutton was Brandon’s fiancée. They were to have been married less than two weeks after the film wrapped. I’m not sure if it’s this tragedy that makes this movie so special, and without it, would I wholeheartedly love it so much? I’m not sure. But it is a beautiful movie with a kick-ass soundtrack.
Light of Day
I haven’t seen this movie for a while because I only have it on VHS and I don’t have a VHS player anymore. (Who does!) I guess I’d better track down a DVD version.
BLURB:
Ethan James, Florida Bowman, and Jake Inala are three teenagers who need organ transplants. When they receive the organs of deceased CIA agent, Dylan Black, they inadvertently take on the task of completing the mission Dylan died midway through, that of deactivating bacteria bombs threatening millions of lives. The teenagers are kidnapped by a man who believes in the theory of feedback, that information is retained in the memory of organs, in this case those of the dead CIA agent. And their captor will stop at nothing to get the information retained inside their bodies. With their lives under threat, the memories stored in the CIA agent’s mind begin to awaken within each of them, except the one piece of information they are abducted for - the location of the bombs.Smashwords
EXCERPT
Wanting to run and actually running were two different things. For many reasons. My legs were like concrete pylons, numb from sitting on the plastic chair for so long. The acrid perfume wafted toward me again like an invisible web, trapping me to the seat. Miss Redkins blocked my exit, and the incessant beep-beep-beep of her phone from texting the encyclopedia acted like a sensor alarm. I’d never liked the sense of being trapped.
I nudged Melanie, and she begrudgingly moved over half an inch. No amount of fresh air would appease me. I should be the one up on stage, not Katrina.
“Sit where you can watch me,” Katrina had demanded during breakfast this morning.
“She’s practiced real hard,” Mom had added, kissing Katrina on the cheek. “She’s always wanted to be a dancer like her big sister.”
The spotlight dimmed. I wanted to cheer and applaud Katrina’s tiny feet in first position, but my heart had sunk to somewhere stinkier than the bottom of the trash can.
I slid down into the chair. If I had to be stuck here, at least I’d attempt to shrink into myself. Hiding behind my fringe would have been a good option, except that clips held my hair on top of my head. I couldn’t lift up the collar of my school blazer. It hung in my locker. I might have used the collar of my white shirt to shield my face from the crowd, but that look was so last year. My final hope lay in covering my face with my hands, but I doubted I’d be able to stop the flow of tears if I did.
Why couldn’t Katrina have been born with a bad kidney? She’d be in the audience and I’d be the one up there on the stage.
But Katrina didn’t have a defective kidney. She had a tutu and a dance coach.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Upcoming works include Curious, a limited edition bundling of three YA novels, a serialized science fiction novel, Fear of Falling Further the second anthology of short stories, and Poison in the Pond, a novella adapted from of an unpublished novel written in 1996.
She lives in Australia on the south coast with her husband and dog.
Author contactsEmail: dlrichardsonbooks@bigpond.comBlog: http://dlrichardsonwrites.blogspot.com
Website: www.dlrichardson.com Facebook: facebook.com/dlrichardsonbooks
Twitter: twitter.com/#!/DLRichardson1
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