Life Moves Pretty Fast

Life Moves Pretty Fast, The Lessons We Learned from Eighties Movies (And Why We Don't Learn Them from Movies Anymore), by Hadley Freeman, Simon & Schuster 2016

Ah, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, that iconic hooky trip out of  school, out of the house and into that red hand-built Ferrari replica?  Everybody's got favorite scenes - mine is Ferris on a float in the middle of a parade, doing  "Twist and Shout."  Somehow he and Cameron and Sloane managed to cram a decade of adventures into one flash day.  

And then there is everything we learned from Bill Murray - But What About Bob?,  and super cool - Eddie Murphy in  Beverly Hills Cop.  Come to think of it, the Eighties weren't so bad if you could manage the fines from the video store.

But fun aside, Hadley Freeman purports to highlight life lessons from her collection in of eighties characters.  She considers how the changes between movies then and movies today say so much about society's expectations of women, young people, and art.  The book is filled with behind the scenes stories, personal anecdotes, life lessons, and sharp analysis - from how John Hughes discovered Molly Ringwald - hey but do you really care? - to how the friendship between Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi influenced EVERYTHING.  

Here are the 80s favorites that Freeman  claims have got it all - comedy, life advice for teens, thriller action, love and sex and family fun.  Wow,  and to think these gems appeared almost over thirty years ago:

Comedy:  Three Men and a Baby, Hannah and Her Sisters, Ghostbusters

Teenage advice:  Pretty in Pink, Say Anything, The Breakfast Club, Mystic Pizza

Thriller Action:  Die Hard, Beverly Hills Cop, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Love and sex:  9 1/2 Weeks, Splash, About Last Night, The Big Chill, Bull Durham

Family Fun:  The Little Mermaid, ET, Big, Parenthood, Lean on Me.