Risky Business: Classic Or Dud

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If Nick D is right then this thread is compulsory, making it the first time I have started a thread with NO IDEA of what it's about.

― Tom, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Tom, starting threads with no idea what it's about = very good idea. Witness my pasta sex vs. burger sex one.

'Risky Business' confused me when I saw it aged 14 or so, alone in my bedroom. I didn't understand the plot. He was setting himself up as some kind of pimp, right? That's terrible!

But the Ally-referenced subway climax was very sexy indeed. There was something about the way he took off her knickers. And, as I said, Phil Collins' 'In the Air Tonight' was a strangely seductive choice of musical accompaniment. In fact, the whole film has a weird soundtrack - isn't it mostly done by Tangerine Dream?

Tom Cruise in it = hot boy action, there's no doubt.

― Nick, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

risky business is most definitely a classic. i can't remember much of it, but i remember liking it

― gareth, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Best quote ever about Risky Business: "You know, my parents go out of town. I don't start a brothel. I just kind of lay on the floor in the living room and don't clean up."

― Ally, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

A lot of the soundtrack is by Tang Dream. It's ages since I've seen said pic, but as I remember, the music worked quite well. On it's own, it was manky. I like the "kind of lay on the floor" quote.

xoxo

― Norman Fay, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

I told him he should start a brothel. He'd be a totally good pimp, way better than Tom Cruise.

― Ally, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Completely DUD. That living room scene (with Tompy dancing in his boxershorts) is pure torture. Sex in the subway is arousing? Not when it's Tom. Of course it was better with Rebecca than with Nicole in Eyes Wide Shut. If I remember well Rebecca was subjected to a quick - and of course for her painful - fuck on the stairs. The only good thing is that Tom Cruise didn't clap his hands. He has this annoying way of clapping his hands at least once (in a movie).

― nathalie (nathalie), Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

I still masterbate in time with tom cruise.

― anthony, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Blimey (I guess).

I hate his fucking teeth. And Nathalie don't forget Tom has to stamp his feet in every single movie, it symbolizes anger I have been told, you know the absence of The Smile.

― Omar, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

anthony - was wondering how longi t would take one of us queer boys to bring up masturbating to tom in undies shaking his barely-post pubescent butt. classic, and it inspired an alf-version as well.

― Geoff, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

I think it was a semenal queer moment ( pun intended). That and Top Gun which was the best gay love story of

― anthony, Friday, 3 August 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

I'd just like to assert that Risky Business is actually based on a true story, ie. my pre-college experience. You may all line up to have sex with me now.

Also I look good in briefs.

― Dave M., Friday, 3 August 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

but can u dance?

― Geoff, Friday, 3 August 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

6 months pass...

"My name is Joel Goodson. I deal in human fufillment. I once grossed over $8000 in one night. Time of your life, huh kid?" This movie has absolute classic written all over it. The great characters, music, and classic lines are some of the many reasons why this film holds up and all the John Hughes movies are stuck squarely in the eighties. And the dark tone makes the tense moments (Porshe, interview) more pulse-pounding, which in turn makes the comic payoffs that much more explosively funny. One of my all time favorites- "I've got a trig midterm tomorrow and..."

― Ryan Evans, Wednesday, 6 February 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

3 years pass...

is it any good?

― anthony easton (anthony), Thursday, 25 August 2005 08:58 (7 years ago) Permalink

1 year passes...

Just saw this for the first time, and I was totally confused about what the witer/director's intent was. Obviously the movie aimed to be something a bit more than your typical coming-of-age story, but it wasn't quite clear what the director's view was about free enterprise: was he pro or against? It felt like the way the whole pimping operation was portrayed made Joel a hero, but then again he lost the money to the real pimp, but then again he got accepted to Princeton... And the movie's atttitude towards the prostitutes was weird too: on one hand they weren't portrayed as your typical pathetic victims, but on the other hand they felt almost too clean and wholesome. As a whole the movie felt like it was trying to do an early satire on eighties get-rich culture, but too often it kept falling back to teen comedy.

― Tuomas, Monday, 30 July 2007 10:41 (5 years ago) Permalink

I love the style of it, it's a very attractive film (visually and musically) and wouldn't get made today. The main story and chain of events is so preposterous from the nature of Lana to the salvaging of Joel's Dad's car to how much they manage to plan and experience over what is presumably just a weekend...but in the end like the Princeton interviewer guy I'm won over by the sheer style and charm of the fantasy. That's the 80s for you.

― blueski, Monday, 30 July 2007 11:01 (5 years ago) Permalink

I want to know why Paul Brickman didn't make more films because this seemed like such a stylish well directed affair.

― blueski, Monday, 30 July 2007 11:03 (5 years ago) Permalink

I think the movie takes place within one week or so: Joel is seen going to school on several mornings, and the parents return on Saturday, so the party takes place on Friday evening.

According to IMDb:

SPOILER: Writer/Director 'Paul Brickman' had a completely different ending for the film with a rather pessimistic tone, with Joel being denied admission to Princeton and he and Lana sitting on the roof of a building overlooking the city pondering his future and hers, and for once Lana lets her guard down. The studio however, wanted a "feel good" ending, because this was the popular theme of teen movies at the time, so both versions were shot and shown to a test audience and it was agreed that their preference would be the ending for the film.

This is kinda weird, since the studio-approved "feel good" ending makes it even bigger a satire, since Joel gets to Princeton presumable because the interviewer guy is so impressed by his pimping, so "Princeton needs people like him". The omitted ending would've been less satirical and more typical for this kind of a film.

― Tuomas, Monday, 30 July 2007 11:14 (5 years ago) Permalink

8 months pass...

this is such a great movie

― max, Friday, 4 April 2008 05:50 (5 years ago) Permalink

6 months pass...

25th anniv DVD out, with Brickman's original ending included.

I probably haven't seen it in 20 years. It seems to me Cruise found the ceiling of his talent here; if only he hadn't been encouraged to go "beyond" it.

― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 9 October 2008 20:07 (4 years ago) Permalink

"original ending"?

this movie is horrible

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 9 October 2008 20:10 (4 years ago) Permalink

oh sorry didn't see above posts nevermind

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 9 October 2008 20:12 (4 years ago) Permalink

Pauline Kael compared the Cruise character to Antoine Doinel! But then went on:

There's a stale cuteness in the idea; it's like a George Bernard Shaw play rewritten for a cast of ducks and geese. Directing his first feature, the screenwriter Paul Brickman is overdeliberate, and his control is so tight that there are no incidental pleasures--there's nothing but the one thin situation. De Mornay's Lana is the only person left with any trace of individuality; she's mysterious, supple--a golden blonde with an inward-directed smile, like Veronica Lake, but taller and with a greater range of expressiveness.

― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 9 October 2008 20:16 (4 years ago) Permalink

2 years pass...

Watching this for the first time since seeing it with my dad (my idea) when I was 12.

Love the hyper-accurate geography in the chase scenes and otherwise.

Love young Joey Pants.

Curtis Armstrong auditioned for Downey's role in Less Than Zero.

The Tang Dream soundtrack is actually, effectively raunchy.

This would make a great double bill with Collateral. Cruise basically gives the same line readings and runs the same way.

― The Freewheelin' Rebecca Black (Eazy), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 03:34 (1 year ago) Permalink

Oops, meant to say: I wonder if Curtis Armstrong auditioned for Downey's role in Less Than Zero.

― The Freewheelin' Rebecca Black (Eazy), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 03:35 (1 year ago) Permalink

It's as if Michael Mann made a John Hughes script.

― The Freewheelin' Rebecca Black (Eazy), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 04:41 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117801630?refCatId=13&query=paul+brickman

While nearly every young actor had auditioned for the role of Joel, including Sean Penn, Gary Sinise, Kevin Bacon and John Cusack, none quite fit the bill. The producers went so far as to shoot a screen test with Kevin Anderson opposite "Will & Grace" star Megan Mullally, but no one was convinced that they'd met the match.

― The Pocket Rebecca de Mornay (Eazy), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 05:07 (1 year ago) Permalink

8 months pass...

It's as if Michael Mann made a John Hughes script.

― The Freewheelin' Rebecca Black (Eazy), Monday, August 22, 2011 11:41 PM (8 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

except the script is way better than anything john hughes wrote!

love this movie.

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Monday, 21 May 2012 17:52 (11 months ago) Permalink

Yes, this is good movie!

― โตเกียวเหมียวเหมียว aka Bulgarian Tourist Chamber (Mount Cleaners), Monday, 21 May 2012 18:10 (11 months ago) Permalink

the director has crazy control over the tone of a movie that should/could have been all over the place.

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Monday, 21 May 2012 18:47 (11 months ago) Permalink

huh i didn't know about the alternate ending, i want to see that.

― wack nerd zinging in the dead of night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 21 May 2012 21:49 (11 months ago) Permalink

Could totally see this again after all these decades. Been listening to the T-Dream soundtrack which is ace.

― Hierophantiasis (Jon Lewis), Monday, 21 May 2012 21:51 (11 months ago) Permalink

The strange un-charm of Tom Cruise is noticeable even here.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 21 May 2012 21:51 (11 months ago) Permalink

it's kind of an appropriate un-charm for michael mann's ~vibe~ though...

― Hierophantiasis (Jon Lewis), Monday, 21 May 2012 22:08 (11 months ago) Permalink

it's not actually michael mann.

cruise is cute here! he actually seems like an 18 year old. something started to go horribly wrong around top gun era though.

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Tuesday, 22 May 2012 02:16 (11 months ago) Permalink

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