Pretty In Pink [1986] [DVD]

As a working mum, bought these DVD's to entertain teenagers during summer holidays from school. As a family we enjoy music and I feel they were well worth the money as they have been watched numerous times.

Okay, I am only 24 and so was just 4 years old when this movie came out. My sister however, is six years older than me and used to watch this film all the time. We eventually started watching it together and have come to love it.

I must say though, we do spend a lot of time taking the mick out of it. The music is fantastic and the acting is brilliant. I loved the whole idea of the opposite sides of the tracks getting together no matter what but I am not sure about some of the thinkology.

For example at the end when Andie arrives at the Prom, and the Duck Man is there for her, Blain comes over and says that he always believed in her but she never believed in him. This always gets me frustrated because Andie did believe in him, she believed him when he asked her to the prom and believed in him enough to keep ringing his house when he avoided her calls like a wimp.

I DO NOT get that Andrew McCarthy is good looking or a heart throb but maybe it's an era thing. Anyway, despite this annoying factor in the movie, I think this film is a keeper for all time.

Somehow it just makes you feel a certain way when watching it and cheers you up.

One thing me and my sister and everyone else we know who has watched this film will never understand is why, for goodness sake was that dress thought to be Pretty? Okay, Andie had alternative styling and that was fine, but through the whole "I'm going to go to the prom anyway and show them all" dress making scene, you sit on the edge of your seet and can't wait to see what it will look like. And then she steps out to show her dad and it's like deflating a balloon.

The thing was shapeless and ugly, the good thing was that Molly Ringwald looked pretty and her hair was fabulous.

A special mention must go to Duckie who is, not only funny and brilliant in this movie but delivers the best line in the whole film, "Blain, his name is Blain? That's not a name, it's a major appliance." Fabulous!

All in all a great film I will keep a copy of forever.

A very welcome reissue in DVD format. Another "right of passage" film from the John Hughes stable, with a Romeo and Juliet slant. Molly Ringwald is perfectly cast, again, as Andie, a misfit high school student, who is facing convention and prejudice in the face. Also stars a very young James Spader (Stargate SG1 film fame) who has improved with age. Andie falls for Blain,"that's not a name it's a food mixer" played by Andrew McCarthy - another stalwart of late 80s brat-pack movies. Blain comes from the right side of the tracks, where as Andie is not so comfortably off and has her own quirky fashion style, who is into vintage clothes before it came fashionable this season. Andie has another suitor "Duckie" who is similarly unconventional, whose efforts to win Andie's affections are not subtle and he acts like a lovesick teenager.

A splendid feelgood movie with a soundtrack that will send you straight back to the "alternative 80s" when I was young - The Smiths, OMD (maybe not so alternative), New Order and of course the wonderful Psychedelic Furs "Pretty in Pink" whose lyrics do not match the film's plot but who cares - it's a cracking song!