{"id":9899,"date":"2010-03-10T09:13:12","date_gmt":"2010-03-10T14:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9899"},"modified":"2022-10-17T07:33:15","modified_gmt":"2022-10-17T11:33:15","slug":"r-i-p-corey-haim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9899","title":{"rendered":"R.I.P. Corey Haim"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nI suppose this won’t be much of a surprise to those of us who have followed Haim’s tailspin – and to those of us who fondly remembered his heyday in the 80s – but Corey Haim has died of an accidental overdose. <\/a> I’m sad about this one. Perhaps he is mainly remembered for his performance in The Lost Boys<\/i>, which he starred in with that OTHER troubled Corey – but I will always hold Haim in my heart for his beautiful strange performance in the under-rated Lucas<\/i>. I have been wanting to write Lucas<\/i> up for a while in my Under-Rated Movies Series (you can check out the other titles I reviewed here<\/a> – scroll to the bottom), and I am sorry I didn’t do it before now, when the movie will take on an elegiac mood. If you haven’t seen Lucas<\/i>, and I told you the plot, and I mentioned that Charlie Sheen is in it as the “cool kid” in school, you might write it off as regular old teenage fare. You would be wrong to do so. The script of Lucas<\/i> is sensitive and observant, and like the best of the movies made for this demographic, it takes note of the stereotypes, because we all know that high school is one of the most hierarchically-based times of our lives, but it also doesn’t accept that stereotypes are actually who we are<\/i>. In high school, we play roles. Or, more accurately, we are ASSIGNED roles. You’re the geek. You’re the hot chick. You’re the brain. You’re the jock. John Hughes was right. We all experienced that. Lucas<\/i> has some tricks up its sleeve, but not because it is interested in being tricky<\/i> – but because it knows that if you dig a little bit deeper, you will find humanity literally EVERYWHERE. Even in high school. Corey Haim plays a little isolated weirdo, who is obsessed with bugs. He rides around on his bicycle with a butterfly net stuck to the back. He is smarter than everyone else, and he knows it – he has that arrogance that can come from being REJECTED because you acutally, you know, use your brain. But Haim is wonderful in how he suggests the pain that is beneath that, the pain of rejection and alienation, not to mention the unspeakable awfulness of his home life, which is not even revealed until later in the movie. Lucas, on one of his summer bug-outings, meets a pretty redheaded girl, and they bond, in that time-out-of-time way that can happen during summer vacation, when more things are possible. Would they ever have become friends during the school year, in between classes? Probably not.<\/p>\n

I’ll write a better review of Lucas<\/i> in a bit, when I’ve had a chance to watch it again.<\/p>\n

But for right now I will say this: Corey Haim, as Lucas, creates an unforgettable character, flawed and annoying at times, but also heartbreaking and funny. He is that weird kid you might have overlooked at school, because of his weirdo hat and big weird glasses – he would have that label of WEIRD – but he embodies that character like he was born to play it. You ache for him. You LOVE him. You want to protect him, because he is so scrawny and little, but as the film goes on, and you watch him navigate, you realize that Lucas is no victim. He may be a pipsqueak, but he is doing the best he can, and his survival skills are strong indeed. He is nobody to feel sorry for. Lucas will go on to flourish out in the real world, where his brains will be praised and admired. For now, in high school, he tries to deflect rejection by having contempt for the social structures of the world in which he lives. He hates everyone. But that is a stance that cannot be sustained, for someone like Lucas. He’s not an anti-social poseur. He’s not a phony. He doesn’t wear black as a protest, he doesn’t rebel. He falls in love for the first time. And, wonder of wonders, this redheaded girl in a white skirt, actually seems WORTHY of his love. She is not portrayed as “out of his league”, or as a hottie from a mansion, or any other unimaginative trope from movies such as these. She is new in town, kind of lonely, nervous about school starting, and she’s a nice girl. She likes Lucas. He’s funny. He’s fun to hang out with.<\/p>\n

Corey Haim has been gone from the scene for a long long time. He burned out pretty quick. And I have mourned that loss. Because I will always ALWAYS think of him not as a hot young teen star, with slicked-up hair and sunglasses – but as the scrawny kid, on the cusp of being a real teenager, wearing a floppy hat and wielding a butterfly net. It’s rare that you see a young man at that age who can suggest such vulnerability, yet also such strength and smarts.<\/p>\n

Roger Ebert said of Haim in his review for Lucas<\/i><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Lucas is played by Corey Haim, who was Sally Field’s son in “Murphy’s Romance,” and he does not give one of those cute little boy performances that get on your nerves. He creates one of the most three-dimensional, complicated, interesting characters of any age in any recent movie. If he can continue to act this well, he will never become a half-forgotten child star, but will continue to grow into an important actor. He is that good.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes. He was.<\/p>\n

Rest in peace.<\/p>\n

\nMore love for Lucas<\/i> here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I suppose this won’t be much of a surprise to those of us who have followed Haim’s tailspin – and to those of us who fondly remembered his heyday in the 80s – but Corey Haim has died of an … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9899"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9899"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182526,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9899\/revisions\/182526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}