Today's Blind Items - One Crazy Summer - Part One
With all apologies to the movie of the same name, I felt like it was the only title that fit the blind. A question I frequently get asked by people I work with and from readers is what made me want to be in this business. How did I get started? I think no matter what I would have ended up doing something in the music business. It was just inevitable because of some of the people I grew up with and the parts of the industry I was exposed to in my formative years. The rest of it, that first introduction to the world of Hollywood and its good and bad and very ugly side probably would not have happened except for that summer. A few of the people that I met that summer are still in my life. To say they have had a good career is an understatement. At the time I don't think anyone predicted it. With what I saw that summer, I'm not sure how any of them are even alive after all these years. Maybe it was just crazy to me because I had never seen anything like it. The just over the topness of it all. Like so many of my personal stories, this one came about because of an introduction.
I was not going to do much that summer. No real plans. My parents had plans for me. They wanted me to get a job. I didn't have a problem with working during the summer, but the job they wanted me to do was going to be a lot of work out in the hot sun for very little pay. They didn't want to finance me all summer. I saw their point then, and I see it now and I would do it, but I was hoping for something that would be at least a little more fun. Hello fun. Actually those were not the words that came out of the phone, but it was my old friend, sometime double dater and what she says is a too frequent visitor to this spot who called and said someone was looking for a production assistant on a movie and she thought of me and the next thing you know I was working on a movie. My first one. Away from home. This was going to be fun. It was fun. I had no problem being the go get guy and filling orders and running around town in a non-air conditioned van they gave me simply because it didn't have air conditioning. It was one of those jobs where even though I literally worked 15 hours a day and never stopped running around that it never felt like work. It was something entirely new and I couldn't get enough. The first week or ten days I was there it was only crew. There were no actors there, or at least none that I saw. This was all pre-production. Just a bunch of people trying to make everything smoother when the shooting started. All of the planning and preparation that went into those days was crazy. What was more crazy was that even though they worked that hard to make sure everything ran smoothly, nothing really did. It was not the fault of the crew or the director or anyone really. The problem was that with very few exceptions, the movie starred nothing but teens or those just out of their teens. I remember the first day when the lead portions of the cast arrived. I knew who the two males leads were and one of them I had watched a million times in a few of his movies. Even though he was still young, I think still just barely in his teens, his career was in a nosedive. Some bad decisions on his part and horrible decisions by his people had brought him to this set at this time. Lets call him FT. He looked like a mess. He looked old. Teenagers are not supposed to look old. They are not supposed to look like someone who is a decade older. OK sure, throw Lindsay Lohan's name out there or some person you knew in high school who smoked meth every day, but this was neither of those. Despite looking old he had an attitude. I guess a couple of failures were being bolstered by the bottle he had with him nearly all of the time. The only time he set the bottle down was to do lines of coke. I'm pretty sure that whatever the budget of this movie was, a good portion of it went to coke. To this day I have never seen a group of people do that much coke in my life. I have seen individuals do more, but as a collective whole, it is not even close.
I don't know if it was good or bad that my double dating friend showed up the day I met this person for the first time. Since that day she has been in and out of my life and is that constant in the background that ties parts of my life together. My friend was there because she took a day off from that thing she does. Back then she was still struggling, but doing so with a guy who shows up in an epic blind item that is still one of my favorites. My adventure with him was still a few years down the road.
When I saw this person for the first time, it took my breath away. Whenever I see her now or talk to her, if I think about that first day, it still happens. I remember two things. The way she spoke because she was trying out a southern accent and these massive gold hoop earrings she was wearing and would wear for most of the movie. We were about the same age. Total polar opposites. From the time we first said hello though we have always been friends. Lets call her MW.
The third member of this little acting troupe we will meet tomorrow.
so Lisa Loeb as the friend:
ReplyDeleteFT: River Phoenix?
Way way too vague.....
ReplyDeleteor FT: Christian Slater
ReplyDeleteGirl:Samantha Mathis
Film: Pump Up the Volume...
agreed:{
ReplyDeleteSo many teen movies to chose from, American Pie, Super Bad, Road Trip
ReplyDeleteI think we're looking late 80s-early 90s.
ReplyDeleteCorey Haim or Feldman or winding up being born eventually as the story goes along
ReplyDelete**both**
ReplyDeleteThe Breakfest Club
ReplyDeleteThe Lost Boys
ReplyDeleteThe clue "that thing she does" just screams Liv Tyler to me.
ReplyDeleteFT- Kiefer Sutherland
ReplyDeleteMW- Jami Gertz (?)
Less Than Zero
ReplyDeleteCould be Heathers
ReplyDeleteCould be Depp/ Winona in scissor hands. Didn't she wear a blind wig with hoops?...
FT- Jud Nelson (looked decades older) Breakfest Club
ReplyDeleteMW- Ally Sheedy- Breakfast Club (trying out a southern accent- Heart of Dixie)
Might as well throw another possible movie out there... Fast Times at Ridgemont High
FT- Sean Penn or Judge Reinhold
MW- Ally Sheedy or Phoebe Cates
Johnny B Goode
ReplyDeleteGirl with the earrings is Uma Thurman. The mess of a star is Anthony Michael Hall
Ok..one more!
ReplyDeleteMovie- Pretty in Pink
MW- Molly Ringwald (trying out a southern accent -movie- "Fresh Horses"..and she wore huge gold hoops in "Pretty in Pink"! I think she dated and def was in a movie with RDJ- "The Pick Up Artist" (epic blind goes to RDJ) )
FT- Jon Cryer or Andrew McCarthy...and just because I want to cover all bases,I'll add James Spader.
Double-dater is always Lisa Loeb, but that doesn't get us very far here. And date range would be late 80s / early 90s, like TheDudesaid.
ReplyDeleteShe probably wasn't struggling when she made Fresh Horses, her career had already peaked by then.
ReplyDeletethat's a great guess @ CindyC. Also starred Robert Downey Jr. who was looking partied out as well.
ReplyDeleteAnthony michael Hall & Robert Downey Jr. had done "Wierd Science" together a few years prior too so they probably had the same drug supplier
not getting where FT & MW comes in though--oh well,back to real life stuff...
ReplyDeleteThis is a little out of left field, but I think I've got this one. FT is Farmer Ted, Anthony Michael Hall's character in Sixteen Candles. Between Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, and Weird Science, we explain how Enty saw all FT's movies bunches of times. Anthony Michael Hall was NOT beaten down in Sixteen Candles, but he would have been pretty beaten down by the time he did Johnny Be Good in 1988. Johnny Be Good was Uma Thurman's debut, and she wore hoop earrings in it (do a google image search). MW is for Mia Wallace, Uma's character's name in Pulp Fiction. Robert Downey Jr is the other star of Johnny Be Good, who I assume will show up in the next blind. Johnny Be Good was filmed in Texas, where Lisa Loeb is from and where Enty has hinted that he's from.
ReplyDeleteMovie: 8 Seconds
ReplyDeleteLuke Perry, Stephen Baldwin and Renee Zellweger
Just For The Record..when i hear gold hooped earrings i only think of JENNIFER BEALS in FLASHDANCE!!! between her goldhoops & off the shoulder sweatshirt & not much else-she defined innocent sexiness
ReplyDeleteMW: Mia Wallace/Pulp Fiction?
ReplyDeleteFT - Sean Penn fast times
ReplyDeletemw Phoebe Cates
Planet J, I just saw your answer as I was typing,
OK, I change my anser, I agree with Dave S. and his guess
ReplyDeleteThanks back again! i feel good about this answer. It might be my first win on CNAN.
ReplyDeleteTrue. I'm probably way off by a mile,as usual..but it's fun to guess,anyway.
ReplyDeleteI haven't been reading this site long enough to know,that Lisa Loeb was Enty's double dating friend..after reading that,It threw a wrench into all of my guesses..sigh..oh well.:(
Hey - I got this one before Dave. It's my first victory here, don't ruin it for me. :-)
ReplyDeleteI like this answer!
ReplyDeleteI see you said this before Dave..so I'll say awesome to both of ya'll! lol
ReplyDeleteoooh riiiiight @slimshady. thanks
ReplyDeletenice one @Dave S. re:FT-never knew his name & he's only credited as "the geek" in "sixteen Candles"
ReplyDeleteSorry, Cindy, I was typing while you were posting. Great minds think alike.
ReplyDeleteSorry Cindy, my computer is acting wierd today on this site. It's taking a long time to post. My bad
ReplyDeleteI AGREE WITH CINDYC!!
great guess@CindyC!! i think yiu deserve a victory lap:)
ReplyDeletegreat supporting info@Dave...you guys covered everything with this one! cant wait for Part 3
I agree, but I am assuming the all time favorite blind he is talking about is the Mother's Day blind where they go to Amsterdam. I believe Scott Wolf was the popular guess for the actor, and the singer was believed to be Duncan Sheik. Quick Google search shows Duncan Sheik and Lisa Loeb are tied too. "Fellow singer/songwriter Duncan Sheik also played in the band during Lisa’s final year of college."
ReplyDeleteCoincidentally, there is a Douglas Fletcher who was a Production Assistant in Texas who is now Dallas County District Attorney...
ReplyDeleteFrom the IMDB page, it looks as if lots of people made a lot of connections on this film...
"but doing so with a guy who shows up in an epic blind item that is still one of my favorites. My adventure with him was still a few years down the road."
ReplyDeleteThis is the infamous Tarantino BI who lo and behold is in today's Random Photos. The gf must be Uma as y'all pointed it out so it all fits.
My first thought was Less Than Zero. RDJ, James Spader, Jami Gertz.
ReplyDeleteThanks to CindyC (and Dave S.) for the "Johnny Be Good" guess. It definitely does seem to be about Mike Hall, because Enty said he was still "barely in his teens" (Hall turned 20 in April of '88; the film was presumably shot during the summer of '87) and that he and his people had made some bad-to-horrible decisions. From a scan of Hall's wiki page, here they are:
ReplyDelete1985: Joins cast of SNL along with RDJ for Lorne Michaels's disastrous first year back. (Best remembered for the season ending with the studio "on fire" and Lorne only "saving" Jon Lovitz. [Dennis Miller would also return, but he wasn't part of the ensemble].)
1986: Turns down the role of Cameron (the Alan Ruck part) in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and the role of Ducky (the Jon Cryer ticket-to-stardom part) in "Pretty in Pink", both of which John Hughes wrote for him, because he didn't want to be typecast. Instead makes "Out of Bounds", a mediocre thriller.
1987: After eight months of contract negotiations and prep work for the part, turns down the lead in "Full Metal Jacket", which goes to Matthew Modine. Instead, spends a lovely summer shooting "Johnny Be Good" with RDJ and Uma. (Dude, it's KUBRICK! Take the part!)
A further clue is the title of the blind; as Enty notes, it brings to mind the 1986 Savage Steve Holland film, "One Crazy Summer". Which starred John Cusack, first seen as a supporting player in "Sixteen Candles", alongside Hall.
Nowadays, Hall somewhat resembles Robert Stack. It's creepy. And sad.
damn, came on here to say Johnny B Goode and its already on!! watched it a few weeks ago on Netflix and all I thought was...MCH is looking rough and RDJ looks off his face in every scene! But Uma was absolutely gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteMW=Mrs. Wallace (Uma Thurman, Pulp Fiction).
ReplyDeleteEnty referenced large hoop earrings in the first blind and Uma has those in spades in Johnny Be Good.
Nice job, guys!!
Also confirming Lisa Loeb as the double dater--her video for "Stay" was directed by Ethan Hawke, married to Uma Thurman.
ReplyDeleteYou nailed it, Dave! I came here to post this, too! Add to the list of movies "National Lampoon's Vacation" where AMH played Rusty.
ReplyDelete