Lost Angels

Not too bad. It's about these "mental" institutions for teens that were popular in the '80's. I remember seeing the advertisements for these sorts of places back then. "Spring Shadows Glen" and whatnot. As I recall they collapsed in a wave of scandals around the time this movie came out. It's also about alienated teen-agers who have no clue about how fortunate they are, and revel in misery and violence for no apparent reason. And it's also about how a kid can be influenced by older bad kids. Gotta seem tough, you know. The film explored the intersections of these phenomena pretty well, at least until the ending which seemed to belong to a different movie. Donald Sutherland turned in his usual top-notch work. The main character was somebody named Adam Horovitz, who I understand was a member of one of those boy bands that were so popular back then. He does a pretty creditable job with his "tortured teen" role. So many singers and athletes appear in movies that you've got to wonder how hard dramatic acting really is. Anyway this film is OK. Check it out.

My mom worked in a mental ward for teenagers, and this movie captures that environment very well (the writer either worked in one or did his research). Amy Locaine is so sweet and screwed up at the same time. Mr. Beasty Boy does a good job as the confused protag, and I especially like how the story and filmmarkers don't judge these kids with speeches about morals from the adult characters -- but instead ask hard questions like: "What do you want [in your life]?" Sutherland is great in his role and totally believable. Worth a rent or watching on cable. Too bad this movie didn't get more attention.

Adam Horowitz a.k.a. King AdRock of the Beastie Boys puts in a surprisingly good performance as a troubled teen here, but overall the film is pretty unremarkable. King AdRock and Donald Sutherland? That lineup has cult classic written all over it, but unfortunately, there really ain't a whole lot going on here. There are some great scenes where Adrock gets mad, gets in fights or complains about things, but they are the only high points. Worth watching if you're a Beasties fan, if only to see that Adrock is actually a good actor, but that's it. The film is slow moving and very serious and not even Adrock and Donald Sutherland can save it. Adrock should get back into acting, he's funny as hell, too.

Being a teenager in the 80s and growing up in the Los Angeles area myself, this movie appealed to me because of the obvious relate-ability to it. Adrock sure did a stupendous job, especially being that it was his debut in a film. We always think of him as the crazy, funny and party-animal beastie boy, but here he was a dramatic, lost and frustrated protagonist looking to find his way amongst a myriad of issues. This film depicts the consequences of Reaganomics and how the 80s culture-especially amongst white Americans-worshiped greed and money. In this quest to have all the better things in life-which often was because of both the father and mother having careers-the kids become lost and bored and turned to things like drugs, sex, booze, partying non-stop, recklessness, gangs etc. It is interesting how a motif is the Latino gang lifestyle (his nickname was "chino") and how many young white males succumbed to that, especially in Southern California, in their quest to want to feel apart of something and seem important. Little did they know, but the filmmakers foreshadowed a major theme of the 1990s by doing this. The plot was mediocre, but it was the superb acting by Sutherland and Horovitz, and their chemistry along with how the film captured the end result of what happens when greed is god (this film was made in 89) and a seque into the the problems that these lost kids continued on with in the 90s. By that token, it is now a cult classic. I hear many people complain about the ending; I do not think the ending was too bad. Sure, it seems sugarcoated, but the protagonist found himself through the feeling he was able to care for someone else--the Donald Sutherland character. Because of this, he found his way back home.

The technologist tribe gave you idiots all this leisure time, from the steam engine to the washing machine to the little glow-box spy-tech phones you glue to your heads. And this is what the privileged upper-class white boys to with that leisure time. Not to learn and explore and care and improve, but to just become wastrels. This is not an entertainment movie but more a documentary about the collapse of American greatness. That old saw, "From rags to riches to rags, in three generations" is evident here. I don't know who is worse, the phony grinding strivers, or their juvenile delinquents.

Yeah, the production values are dated, but this is still a well-made flick. When I lived in Silicon Valley I commented how San Jose did not really have a ghetto, like Cleveland and Detroit, cities I had also lived in. A guy I met at traffic school (the second one run like a therapy session) told me the real wastrels were in Mountain View, the rich suburb. He explained the parents did not raise their kids. They just gave 'em 300-dollar shoes and a car, and told them to not bother them. So the kids ran wild. But since mommy and daddy were middle-class, they could buy their kids out of trouble, unlike in the inner city.

I also saw the middle-class kids trying to be bad, whether it was with Mafia wanna-bees in Cleveland or outlaw motorcycle gangs in Cali. One nice thing is that it is not hard to cast this movie in LA. These nepo-baby wastrels are everywhere. Perhaps the whole acting profession is a form of delinquency.

So a whole lot of this movie rang true, though it is a bit '80s dated. If you can apply the principles to today, the story still holds up. After all, going to a party-school college and taking a party major is just a more socially acceptable form of juvenile delinquency. A solid 7, good to kill time until Astrid comes on PBS at 10:00.