Saturday, April 29, 2017

Young Hunks

We all have our favorite actors that we gravitate to see whatever movie they star in. If they are a good actor and especially brought in lots of box office money, the actor probably has a long list of movies to his or her credit. We usually love them because the men are rugged or sensitive or funny. Most of the time they are really handsome or strong. There is one movie you should see just because there are a number of actors staring in it when they were just starting out their acting careers as teens. Guys like Rob Lowe, Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio, C. Thomas Howell, Emilio Estevez, Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Sofia Coppola  and Diane Lane to name just a few amazing actors. There is one movie worth seeing again just because they all are acting in it. The movie is called The Outsiders.Image result for the outsiders cast
This movie was released 1/3rd   a Century ago but it is still engaging and interesting today. It was released in 1983. There are scenes where the entire cast of young hunks are saying lines. Who even cares what they are saying, it is fun to see these young men try so hard at the acting thing.  The casting director Janet Hirshenson should get an award for having a good eye and seeing talent from such young successful actors and putting them all in just one film. The movie also had an amazing director Francis Ford Coppola. The story was written by a woman, Susan E. Hinton.  She manages to capture that struggle that all late teens go through with their new identity as they step into adulthood.
Related imageThe book was written at a time when women still were not being taken seriously in the publishing world. The publishers suggested her to just put S.E. Hinton as her name to look like perhaps a man wrote the novel. They reviewed books with a bias and thought that a girl wouldn’t know anything about men’s issues. She knew plenty and the book was published in 1967. The novel is now considered a classic and a pioneer in the pop fiction category. They recently published the 50th Anniversary Edition of the novel still in print.  The   novel has sold more than 10 million copies and is translated into dozens of languages. Many schools across the country require students to read the novel as part of their curriculum. She began writing the novel when she was only 15 years old. She wrote most of the book when she was a junior in high school. That year she got a D in her creative writing class. Her teacher needs to apologize to this woman. The book is the perfect read for any seventh or eight   grader to read. It is an emotional book written about teens written by a teenager.
Sometimes I think of West Side Story where teens are in gangs and always fighting with someone. West Side Story  was about the race conflict between whites and Spanish. This is about conflicts between the rich and poor grease students at school. Rob Lowe’s character is called Soda Pop and C. Thomas Howell’s character is called Pony Boy. So laugh and just be at awe in the great acting of our all so young and familiar actors once again. 

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