Dare I hope????
Could Corey Haims be poised for a resurgence?
Should I not even say that out loud? (I was a huge fan of Corey Haim dating from Lucas – a performance which still holds up, by the way. He’s lovely in that movie.)
But … could he … come back? From his molar-selling eBay problems?? Could he step back into the limelight?
Dare I hope??????
There is an entire generation of people who will watch this at least once. And if it’s actually funny, the sky’s the limit.
Maybe I’ll watch The Lost Boys this weekend…
hahahaha It’s a total generational thing.
I was partial to the Haim-ster – but Feldman’s presence in Stand By Me is enough for me to cut him tons of slack!!
And you know who’s gotta do the soundtrack, right? Awesome.
I forgot about Stand By Me. The ubiquity of The Coreys will never again be matched.
Although,when you think about it, Tommy Lee Jones really gave it a college try after The Fugitive came out…
Lucas is a wonderful movie with one of the best scenes involving a Slow Clap (you know – the Slow Clap that only happens in movies) ever filmed.
The Slow Clap.
There’s a post in there somewhere. All about the Slow Clap. Its history in narrative film. Its inspirational qualities that are at odds with its monumental cheesiness.
The best part of the slowclap was when Charlie Sheen- who played the captain of the football team appropriately named “Cappie”- bangs on the door of his locker in sync with the clapping. Winona Ryder also visibly swoons. Not many can swoon like that.
My favorite Coreys movie is the often overlooked “Dream a Litle Dream” that was so bad it was BRILLIANT.
I call it “The Lucas Clap.”
I love Lucas so freaking much. I have so much to say about all of this but I have to run out the door. I’ll be back later.
Because, sure, the Slow Clap has been in many, many movies–but you’re right, it’s never been better than it was in Lucas–so Lucas deserves to claim the name. That’s why I call it “The Lucas Clap.”
I stole the Slow Clap from Roger Ebert – let me find his whole analysis of it – it’s hysterical.
Mejack – I know just the moment!! Yes- Charlie Sheen needed to hit the LOCKER to show his love for Lucas.
Genius.
Cheesy genius.
Dammit, I can’t find it – but he wrote a whole essay called The Slow Clap Syndrome – and it’s included in his Movie Glossary.
Other movies which involve a Slow Clap?
Scent of a Woman (an embarrassing version of the cliche – or I should say MORE embarrassing)
Can’t Buy Me Love has a nice Slow Clap …
OH, Lucas! What a fantastic movie. The Haims is kinda scary now…think he’ll be any good?
I know … he was so CUTE once upon a time. The thought of him auctioning his teeth off on eBay while living in his parents house is truly upsetting.
Not only was he cute but he was good!
Frankly, I don’t think it will be good. But … to quote Cashel in his prayer: dare I hope??
I’m gonna be optimistic jsut because it’s Corey Haim and I love him!
Dude: please keep your molars in hour head. You’re Corey Haim for God’s sake.
Erik – please come back.
We all need to talk about Lucas some more.
And the Slow Clap.
More examples of this cinematic pretense would be welcome!
Okay, I’m not really back yet, I’ll be back later for real, BUT, and I don’t think this is what you were looking for, but still, here’s a movie review where Ebert talks about the Slow Clap.
hahahahaha That’s perfect, Erik!
//You know the Slow Clap Scene, where the key character walks into the room and it falls silent? And everybody is alert and tense and waiting to see what will happen? And then one person slowly starts to clap, and then two, three, four, and then suddenly the tension breaks and everyone is clapping, even the sourpuss hold-outs? Can we agree that this scene is an ancient cliche? We can. And yet occasionally I am amazed when it works all the same.//
I wonder what was the first movie to do the Slow Clap.
The only Slow Clap I remember offhand is in The Enforcer with Jackie Chan and Danny Aiello.
I laughed at this from the article: “The Coreys would find the Coreys playing fictionalized versions of themselves, presumably because it would be funnier and less sad that way.” Ouch!
hahahaha I know!!!! Ouch indeed!
Jeremy Piven was in Lucas. He played a high school football player and he looked about 35.
My favorite Lucas moments:
1. Lucas’ band geeks friends discussing the teacher who commited suicide over a dental technician.
2. The chorus scene. Apparently the whole school had to participate in chorus.
3. Luke! Luke! Luke! Luke! Get that ball away a puke!
4. The second most unintetional homoerotic locker room scene of all time- (the first, of course, being Top Gun) that ended with Lucas sitting on a water fountain triumphantly shouting “You can’t make me quit! EVER!!!” The awesomeness.
5.Leukoplakia
I CANNOT BELIEVE I remember all of that. Yikes.
That’s right! I remember Piven in that now that you mention it!
I am shaking with laughter about your chorus observation from Lucas – so true!! hahahaha
Okay, here are my favorite moments:
— Cheesy I know, but Charlie Sheen and the girl doing laundry after the home economics spill. Now what school would have a laundry room like that, and also have it be completely empty and romantic? So so unrealistic. What – you just get to leave class for 40 minutes because you had a boo-boo with the blender? You get to go off BY YOURSELF into the basement and wash your shirt and also dry it? And miss class? I want to go to THAT high school.
— The revelation moment when we realize the hell that Lucas lives in. Gulp.
— The slow clap. I admit it. It gets me every time.
They shared gum in the laundry room. There is that touching moment where Cappie hands Maggie his gum to throw away and he realizes that she is NOT ALL GROSSED OUT by the gum like uptight Elise would be and is subsequently smited by Maggie. Moony eyes ensue.
Mejack –
Right! Because his girlfriend is snooty!
And isn’t his girlfriend Courtney Thorne-Smith?
And I’m sorry but that young actress’ weepy scene when she’s sitting next to Lucas’ bed in the hospital gets me every time!!
My first memory of the slow clap was a commercial for the Olympics (84 maybe?). Two guys working in the field stop what they’re doing and go see the torchbearer. Not really knowing what to do as the torch passes by, one of them starts clapping and you know the rest.
I may be wrong but I think there is a Slow Clap in the little-known Cary Grant film called People Will Talk where he plays a controversial gynecologist – who has interesting and unorthodox “methods” – and a pregnant girl comes to him and, in the 1950s lingo of the time, asks him to give her an abortion. He will not. And instead he marries her. So she can have the baby legitimately. Uhm – Cary? What??
It is SUCH a weird movie.
He has to overcome suspicion in the town – led by Hume Cronyn (of course). And I believe at the end of the film, if I am recalling correctly, he triumphs over narrow-mindedness and there is a slow clap involved.
hahaha I actually OWN this weird movie – so I will check it when I get a second.
Seriously: has anyone ever been involved with a real-life actual slow clap???
It is SUCH a Hollywood cliche – maybe even the worst one because it is not based on any recognizable truth whatsoever.
And yet …
I well up at the end of Lucas. I feel the power of the Slow Clap. I succumb.
I think the Hume Cronyn one had to do with Grant defending a dull-witted manservant he had that had been executed but didn’t die. Don’t ask me the name, though. I’d have to consult IMDB.
Rob – you saw that movie??? Have we discussed this before?
yes – there was a manservant. Who never spoke.
Until … in a dramatic moment – he DID!! He came back to life! Cary Grant took him in!
So so bizarre. Grant’s great though, as always.
I can’t believe you saw it! And do you happen to recall a slow clap? It would be at the end of the movie, of course. You can’t open a movie with a slow clap.
People will talk is the name of the film –
and Grant basically disowned it. When he would list the number of movies he did – he would leave off a couple that he thought were particularly bad. People Will Talk was one of them.
I thought he was fine (but uhm … I’m biased??) – especially at the end when he was conducting the orchestra.
Yes. he’s a controversial gynecologist AND an orchestra conductor!!
People Will Talk – 1951
I literally cannot imagine my life without IMDB. I use it every day.
I only barely remember it, red. I remember the man’s thoroughly absurd story at the end about how he bit Cary Grant as he was about to perform the autopsy, how he later killed the guy he was executed for killing AFTER he had been executed, and how he deadpanned the whole thing. I don’t know how he kept a straight face. I have almost no other recollection of that movie. If there was a slow clap, I don’t remember it.
As much as I love the movie Lucas, there’s one thing I can’t help but think while watching it: “That Lucas could stand a good shampoo.”
I loved all the old Corey movies. I can’t wait for this show.
Off topic, but there’s a Billy Wilder documentary on TCM right now to be followed by some BW movies.
I’ve tried to incorporate The Slow Clap a.k.a. The Lucas Clap into my life several times. I think I actually got it to happen in high school once, but I think it was in drama class one day and several people where in on it, so it wasn’t quite pure.
This is so completely beyond off-topic, but that reminds me of my friend Tom who always wanted life to be like a musical where people just started singing at random moments and he has this great story about this one time when he was in high school and he was on the soccer team and Tom had just heard that Sam Kinison was dead and as they were walking into the locker room after soccer practice he started to improvise a song about it (all I can remember is that the chorus had the line “Sam Kinison is dead” in it) and Tom’s the kind of guy that can get just about anyone to do just about anything and pretty quickly he had the entire soccer team improvising this song with him and dancing around the locker room.
I had such a crush on Corey Haim. Mostly because of Lucas. That was Corey Haim in his prime. The Corey Haim of Dream a Little Dream days and the Corey Haim of The Lost Boys days and the Corey Haim of Licence to Drive…I would say that those Corey Haim’s were all dorks, while the Corey Haim of Lucas was a geek…and Corey Haim as a geek is exponentially more crushable. (And I feel safe in dissing dorks because I am one. Nothing against dorks.)
I always thought that Corey would grow up to be such a hunk and it makes me sad when I think about him selling his teeth on ebay. So so sad.
It’s really weird that Feldman grew up to be the “normal” one.
Ohhhh I love the Slow Clap in Can’t Buy Me Love. Which begs the question…(and maybe you’ve already answered this, in another post, but I can’t remember)…I know you used to hate Patrick Dempsey with the heat of a thousand suns. Did you also hate Can’t Buy Me Love? And if you did, then did you reevaluate that hatred after you realized you were wrong about Dempsey? Because Can’t Buy Me Love makes me swoon. I love it so much. I fantasize about going on a date with a geeky lawnmower dude and scaling a wall with him and sitting in the cockpit of an abandoned plane and him showing me which constellation is which. Seriously. That movie ruined me because THAT sounds like the PERFECT date to me, and it hasn’t happened yet.
Yes, Courtney Thorne-Smith is the snooty girlfriend in Lucas.
And Kerri Green (who was also so great in The Goonies) played the girl who Lucas loved. I totally guffawed at your description of the laundrey room scene. I wanna go to that high school too! So funny.
I’ve said too much. But as far as the Haim/Feldman show goes…I feel like it’s going to be a disaster, yet I yearn for it to succeed because nothing would make me happier (okay, maybe that’s an overstatement, but still, I would be happy) to know that Corey Haim has gotten his life straightened out.
Sheila, I have to tell you this story.
I had a smoke with Corey Feldman’s Dad (and as far as my friends and I are concerned that is his name)by the pool on Father’s Day. One of my friends later asked, “I wonder if Corey called his dad today.” Like we know Corey. No. Just Corey Feldman’s Dad.
Erik –
I am completely in love with you right now.
//I think I actually got it to happen in high school once, but I think it was in drama class one day and several people where in on it, so it wasn’t quite pure. //
hahahahahahahahahahaha
And yes – I recently saw Can’t Buy Me Love (this was after I realized that Patrick Dempsey was off the charts on the hot scale) – and I thought he was ADORABLE in it. I HATED that movie when it first came out and it was what I based my hatred of him on. I must have been on drugs. Except I don’t do drugs. Maybe I was just having a bad time in my life and … Dempsey took the blame for it. I have no idea.
He was SO adorable. And also kind of heartbreaking and sincere.
I was a moron.
And I’ve got my fingers crossed for Corey Haim as well. Come on, dude, you can do it! So many people love you and remember you fondly!!
Erik – by the way,
Have you seen this video? It’s called Lecture Musical and it’s one of my favorite things ever. A group of musical theatre geeks in college actually break into song during a lecture – watch it unfold. They have obviously rehearsed it – but told no one their plans. The professor had no idea it was coming – but watch the other students laughing and watching – It’s absolute genius guerrilla theatre.
I accidentally started a slow clap. It was a hockey game – playoffs – and we were up one going into the third. We had a power play, maybe three seconds left to go before they got their guy back.
Now, a goalie will often whack his stick on the rink – thwack, thwack, thwack to count down the final seconds in a power play, to let his team know that they have to cover that guy who’s just about to get back into the play. So I did this just as the ref was lining everyone up, and my teammates, thinking I was just being inspirational, joined in – voila, Slow Clap.
//my teammates, thinking I was just being inspirational, joined in //
hahahaha Awesome!!
I’m crying right now. That is the most amazing this I’ve ever seen in my life–that guerilla musical in class. I wish I was that cool. They are my heros.
(And I’m so happy you’ve seen the light, re: Can’t Buy Me Love.)
I have to watch the Lecture Musical again and google the performance group and learn everything I can about them because I am so in love. Thank you for showing me that. Holy crap.
Erik – isn’t it just one of the happiest things EVER?
I love that lead kid. I love the professor who just gives up. I love love love it!!!
And all of the students who have been BLESSED with their lives turning into a musical for three amazing minutes! I love the looks on their faces. If I had been in that class, I think the rest of my college years would have sucked because nothing would have ever been able to top The Day My Lecture Class Turned Into A Musical, you know?
I love when the people planted in the audience join in … as though they are just irresistibly inspired to start singing. It’s hilarious!!!
My parents did the Slow Clap when The Man sent me Up The River for Knocking Off a bank. Not really, but I like the image.
Anyway, wasn’t there a Slow Clap at the end of Billy Jack, or did everyone just stand quietly along the side of the road as he drove off to jail? I think that might have been the iconic genesis of the Slow Clap.
Totally! “Inspired” is SO the right word–because the choreography has that feel–it totally feels like they aren’t plants in the audience, they’re just FEELING IT. It’s so fantastic.
I’ve just watched all of the videos on the prangstgrup website–the Lecture Musical is by far my favorite, but the Library Musical is pretty damn funny too, and so is the one called “Start-Up Sound.”