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A review by mschlat
Life Moves Pretty Fast: The Lessons We Learned from Eighties Movies (and Why We Don't Learn Them from Movies Anymore) by Hadley Freeman
4.0
I was three parts thrilled and one part exasperated by this book. To start with the exasperation, the title should be Why Hadley Freeman Thinks Eighties Movies Are Objectively Better (and Why You Should Too). There's really not a lot about "lessons", at least in the moral or self-improvement sense. Instead, Freeman is focused (most of the time) on what eighties movies provided better than movies today, with a large focus on more positive feminist messages, a greater diversity of settings and characters, and more quotable quotes. She also repeatedly talks about the downfall of movies today (e.g., the reliance on tentpole franchises) with support from John Landis, Nancy Meyers, and Steven Soderburgh... and I just found this tiresome after awhile. (I don't disagree with her, but I didn't find these portions compelling reading.) And, to boot, Freeman is quite prone to digressions and autobiographical bits, which sometimes fit and sometimes don't.
And yet... every day I was reading this book, I was talking about it. I found Freeman's insights on sex positivity, the arc of Eddie Murphy's career, the strange conservative "maverick" male roles, the importance of Coming to America, the role of parents in Back to the Future (to name a few topics) fascinating. There's just a very appealing mix of social criticism and film history (especially about John Hughes) that I ate up with enthusiasm. And that enthusiasm is probably why the exasperation drove me crazy --- it's a wonderful but frustratingly uneven work.
One note: because of Freeman's interests, there are a lot of feminist takes and female-centered movies. (I learned quite a bit about Dirty Dancing thanks to some excellent explication and wasn't expecting to read about Beaches.) I liked this, but if your eighties movie memories are more focused on male-centered films, you may feel a lack. I would love for someone to apply this level of criticism to Weird Science and Real Genius.
And yet... every day I was reading this book, I was talking about it. I found Freeman's insights on sex positivity, the arc of Eddie Murphy's career, the strange conservative "maverick" male roles, the importance of Coming to America, the role of parents in Back to the Future (to name a few topics) fascinating. There's just a very appealing mix of social criticism and film history (especially about John Hughes) that I ate up with enthusiasm. And that enthusiasm is probably why the exasperation drove me crazy --- it's a wonderful but frustratingly uneven work.
One note: because of Freeman's interests, there are a lot of feminist takes and female-centered movies. (I learned quite a bit about Dirty Dancing thanks to some excellent explication and wasn't expecting to read about Beaches.) I liked this, but if your eighties movie memories are more focused on male-centered films, you may feel a lack. I would love for someone to apply this level of criticism to Weird Science and Real Genius.