(list of movies follows the introduction)
Being a kid is fun, and you look ahead to the rest of your life as this long, never-ending adventure that awaits. Then as you finally reach adulthood, your childhood can seem like a blur and you sometimes wish you could wind the clock back. In between these two passages of life is a brief stint of time that some may call the best years of your life. It’s the biggest time of change in an individuals life; physically, mentally, emotionally and socially. And as much as we’re led to believe it’s a make or break time for us all, it’s seriously overrated. Of course, I’m talking about the teenage years.
I suppose it all starts
when you turn 13. Not that it’s like a case of waking up on the day
of that birthday and having changed overnight. It’s a gradual
change, until some changes actually do seem to come overnight, i.e.
the hormonal kind. I was lucky to have my voice break gradually and
never uttered a word where my tone of voice shifted from high and
young to almost manly halfway through a sentence. Although, some of
my classmates had that occur once (or multiple times) usually when
the teacher called upon them to read in front of the class. And as
awkward as it was for the boy becoming a man, it was hilarious for
the rest of his peers listening on.
The start of the teens
are marked by the commencement of high school. I was 12 when I
started Year 7 in 1995, and turned 13 in October of that year, which
was part of the older group of students in the year level, with many
other students turning 13 in the early months of the following year.
I came from primary school with a few mates in tow, some of which
stayed close by, while others drifted off to other friendship groups.
And I quickly made new friends in my year level. I’m lucky to have
most of these mates still around today, 21 years after starting high
school. That is a blessing, and our friendship remains strong.
The high school I went
to was in my hometown of Dandenong; a suburb that was home to over 100 nationalities
from around the world, and my high school was a central educational provider for the
South-Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. And my year level in particular
was very segregated into its cultural groups. You had the Aussies or
“The Skips”, amongst the most popular boys in the year level,
then the other groups consisted of the Asians, the Wogs, the Homies
(usually Mauritian, Samoan, Indonesian, etc) then there was the group
I was a part of, which was a mix of cultures. Most of us were Australian born but had parents from other parts of the world that
didn’t quite fit into the cultural groups mentioned above. My
parents were from Scotland, and the rest of my group consisted of
Croatian, Hungarian, Sri Lankan, Cambodian, Irish, Polish, Serbian,
and whatever else was around. And I’m proud to say my friendship
group didn’t consist of the more popular, good looking or cool guys
(although my mum said I was cool). But we had character, each with
our own opinions, personalities and quirks. And the majority of these
guys are the mates I still have to this day; the majority of which
were also groomsmen (and best man) at my wedding. And the various former
co-students I’ve run into over the years are in awe that we have
remained friends and still hang out to this day. The truth is, I just can’t get
rid of the bastards ha-ha
As the teenage years
passed by, often quickly but just as vaguely, we grew taller, broader
and a little more mature. As the group bonded and we found common
interests, my mates and I found a shared pastime that united us all.
Going to the movies.
I was already an avid
movie watcher, but going to the movies replaced just renting
videos from Blockbuster. Yes, the now collapsed video store was
booming back in the 90’s. And as luck (or fate) would have it,
there was a cinema at the local shopping centre a five minute walk
from my house. As this was in the same town as our high school, my
mates frequented the area even though they lived in the neighbouring
suburbs. It would only take a series of 5-10 phone calls lasting a
record time of 15 seconds each to ask what they were all doing, followed
with myself offering to see a movie, making a time to meet up, and it
was locked in. One by one, we all arrived at the Village Cinemas in
the Dandenong Plaza Shopping Centre, and usually decided what to see
on the spot. Back when a student ticket price was a pathetic $6.50,
and you could get a Coke and popcorn for a few bucks more, going to
the movies became a monthly thing for our group (and close to a
fortnightly thing for me). Sometimes we’d even take the train into
the city and visit Melbourne’s Crown Casino, home to a larger
version of the Village Cinemas, and watch the odd movie there,
followed by a walk around the city streets.
And that’s what we
did.
As I discovered the
movies I will review for you here, I was going through my own
experience of adolescence. I was a quiet kid, and this continued into
the high school years. But I saw the start of my five years at St.
John’s Regional College as a chance to stand out and form my own
identity, amongst a year level of over 150 other students. I didn’t
stand out physically, and didn’t always speak up in class.
Musically, I was getting into the grunge scene, listening to the
likes of Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Soundgarden for hours on end via my
cassette player / radio at home. I started to grow my hair long (much
to the distaste of my parents) and quietly assumed my part in Year 7
class of 1995. The louder students of the year level quickly made
their presence known and became the centre of attention in every
class but I seemed to get on with them and pretty much every other
student in our year level and didn’t cause a stir. All the way
through high school, I was not totally engaged in the education on
offer. There were a lot of students in my day (about 1500) in a
school that seemed to acknowledge the “high achievers” more than
the quiet ones and I hung around in the background. I wasn’t
totally disengaged, as I did take part in a few Inter-School Sports
carnivals over the years, and excelled in subjects like Media,
English and Literature. It wasn’t until about Year 10, when I had
my bodily growth spurt and achieved my quest to have the longest hair of any
other boy in my year level. That reached its peak, spanning past my
shoulders, but was respectably kept tied back and clean.
But in the summer
holidays between 1998 and 1999, I just stopped brushing my hair. My
way to rebel I guess. Yeah, I know. Not a huge act of rebellion, but
I was a quiet teen remember that. The twist to this rebellion against
the hair brush was that I kept my hair tied back and slowly but
surely my hair started to matt itself into something that resembled a
birds nest. Eventually my mum noticed what I had done and freaked
out. And so the long-haired days of Brian McAleer were over. It was
cut off by my sister, and what was left was essentially two pieces of
chunky brown hair. I took them outside the house and threw them into
a tree down the street, figuring some bird could use them for a nest
of their own. True story.
Then as Year 11 began
in February 1999, I returned to school with a small bit of salvaged
hair on top, an extremely close under cut and another foot
of body growth added on top for good measure. The new look surprised
everyone in my year level for sure, and for the first time in high
school, the girls started to notice me. It was kind of cool. No
relationships would eventuate for me in high school, despite a couple
of crushes I had on some girls who may or may not have known. I was
the quiet one, and didn’t put myself forward. Looking back now I
would have benefited from that just for a confidence boost, but at
the time, you make your choices. I did, and I chose to be at school
without really being at school. I looked forward to leaving
those walls at the end of the year 2000 so much, because I knew out
in the real world I could get noticed, I could do what I wanted to
and have the freedom of choice. To me, high school was an
institution. It still is in my opinion…
Would I say I was an
immature teen? No. A naïve one? Sure. Did I get into trouble? No.
Did I do enough to stay out of trouble? I tried. I just sort of
drifted through high school, and focused on the two or three subjects
that had my interest. I did the odd thing or two in class (usually
homework related) that concerned some teachers, but nothing to put my
schooling at risk. I felt the place to really be me was outside of
school. I dabbled in a few various interests, such as playing
softball for the Dandenong Eagles, and camping with my cousins and
uncles during the school holidays. Of course, it was all about the
movies and for the first time when I was about 14, I went to the
movies by myself. It was a liberating experience, and I can’t
recall what movie it was, but I felt grown up and was having fun, so
it was a win both ways. When I couldn’t go to the movies, I rented
them. The Blockbuster Video store in Dandenong was about a 15 minute
walk from my house. Often, my dad would offer to drive me and/or my
sisters down there on the weekend to rent movies, and I was usually
allowed to get 3 of the 5 weekly videos you’d rent in one go. I
couldn’t have my own card until I was 16, so until then I borrowed
my dads. I would get pocket money around the $20 mark once a month or
so, and I was an expert at making that last. I didn’t spend money
on much else, apart from the occasional packet of chips or bottle
of Coke. So I made use of my funds and walked down to the video store
with the dog, left him tied up outside the large glass windows so he
could easily watch me inside, and take my sweet-ass time selecting my
five weekly videos.
One of the beautiful
things about the almost totally defunct video store scene was walking up and
down the aisle, running my finger along the spines of the hundreds or
thousands of videos, either waiting to spot something I knew, or stop
on a title that caught my eye. I began spreading my viewing interests
far and wide, renting movies where I knew what to expect (comedy or
action) but also renting movies of which I had no idea what to expect
(drama, art house and some horrors). Thinking back to the movies of
my childhood, I would rent them from time to time, their subsequent
sequels if they existed, but more often it was renting the movies I
wasn’t allowed to watch as a kid. Depending on which clerk was
working at the video store at the time (and I knew them all) I would
rent the action movies of Arnold Schwarzenegger or the endless
sequels to Freddy Kruger and Friday the 13th. Often, they would let me rent whatever I brought up to the counter. Other times, I wasn’t
always lucky in renting the ones that had age restrictions, so I
bided my time.
Getting into movies at
the cinema above my age limit was easier, because they often didn’t
ask for my age or ID. As I started heavily going to the movies at age
14, I wanted to see the movies that were rated MA15+, which was
almost all of them. I got into all of them without any trouble. Then
when I reached age 17, getting into any movie was never a problem,
even the R18+ ones. Whatever I missed at the movies, I waited
patiently for on video, and I always made sure to watch every movie
trailer at the start of each cassette tape to see what was coming out
and when. Back at Blockbuster, I would go down and put my name on the
list to be called the day a movie was released. I had to see it first
day, and with my dad’s card and a few bucks I walked down and
collected my video. Then when I got my own video card, I started
renting even more movies, and as my first job followed in 2000 at the
age of 17, going to movies and renting them was my life. One of the
first things I purchased with the earnings of my first job was a new
TV and my very first DVD player.
The main thing I got
out of watching movies as a teen was a window to the world. As I
said, I envisioned my life beginning after school, and since I would
turn 18 only days before graduating in October 2000, I wasn’t going
to waste any time starting my life as an adult. Movies were my
connection to the outside world, and they helped me through some sad
and lonely times as a teen. I would relate to the characters on
screen and fall in love with them and their stories. Of course, most
if not all of the movies I watched being Hollywood productions, I
started to dream about visiting that far off place of wonder and
possibility – America. When I was in Year 10, a friend of my older
sister returned from the United States, having just worked on a
summer camp. I listened to her stories about working with American
kids, running activities, swimming in a lake, and then visiting
places like Disneyland and New York City once camp was over. It
sounded totally awesome and an experience I was very keen to live one day. I
would eventually do it myself, in the year 2004. But that’s another
story…
The other thing I got
from the movies of my teens was help in figuring out some of those
big questions that plague you as an adolescent. Who am I? What will I
do with my life? Where do I fit in? Do I fit in at all? What will she
think? What will he think? What will my parents think? And on and on.
I found answers to these questions in many of the movies I watched. I
didn’t find my school was very supportive in addressing and
answering these questions. I attended a Catholic high school that was
less concerned with youth development and more concerned with trying
to impart an impressive image on the rest of the community and
“teaching” us all to be good Catholics. Whatever! Where was the
youth engagement? I didn’t see it. I didn't feel totally supported at school. And being an only boy in a
family full of girls, I had to learn how to enjoy my own company. And
I did. Hence the ability to watch so many movies alone, starting my
life-long love affair with the stories of the silver screen.
The films of my teens
are a mixed bunch of stories. Of course, many of them reflect the
trends of the time, which during the mid to late nineties were
slasher flicks, comedies about reclusives or drop-kick teens, and also
some films about adulthood portraying that chapter of life as an
exciting adventure, where you could be anyone, do anything and go
anywhere. Movies showed me that world, and each review I’m about to
share with you is a story in my teenage years, continuing the
tradition from the movies of my childhood as an integral part of my
formation, and giving birth to the goals and dreams of my adult
years, which I continue to chase to this day.
Here are the reviews...
Spanking the Monkey
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Scream 2
The X-Files Movie
Disturbing Behavior
The Opposite of Sex
Can't Hardly Wait
The Faculty
Cruel Intentions
American Pie
Final Destination
Go
Dazed and Confused
Conclusion
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