Pop Culture Happy Hour - We Rewatch The Movies We Loved As Teens

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

This summer marks Pop Culture Happy Hour's 15th birthday. We decided to re-watch the movies we loved at 15 with fresh eyes, and of course, some of them have aged better than others. Today on the show, we revisit the movies we loved as teens — including Chicago, Back to the Future, The Breakfast Club, and The Hunger. Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopcultureSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

This summer marks Pop Culture Happy Hour's 15th birthday. So we've been thinking a lot about the movies we loved when we were 15. We decided to re-watch those movies with fresh eyes. And, of course, some of them have aged better than others. I'm Linda Holmes. And I'm Stephen Thompson. Today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, we're revisiting the movies we loved when we were teenagers. Joining us today are our co-hosts, Aisha Harris.

Hey, Aisha. Hello, when prepared to be on brand today. And Glenn Weldon, hey Glenn? Hey, yes, at various ways we are ruthlessly predictable. We are nothing, if not ourselves. So the only problem with this assignment is that y'all listening are going to figure out pretty quickly how old we all are. But here goes, Linda Holmes, kick us off. Give us a movie you loved when you were 15.

Well, Stephen and friends, I made a decision that my interpretation of this would be not just to pick something that I loved when I was 15, but that I loved because I was 15, that I think at other times it would not have worked as well. So I chose the 1985 film The Breakfast Club. If you are not familiar with this movie, it involves five high school students who are assigned all-day detention on Saturday and, Andrew, the jock, played by Emilio Estevez. There's Claire, the sort of popular girl, played by Molly Ringwald. There is Allison, played by Ali Sheedy, who is sort of the odd duck girl with the hair in her face and the dark makeup and stuff. The dandruff. Indeed.

Anthony Michael Hall plays Brian, who is the nerd. And Judd Nelson plays Bender, who is the, like, bad boy, I guess, is the theory. also well known for the performance by the great Paul Gleason as Vernon, the vice principal, who is in charge of them during that day. The gender politics of this movie are legitimately appalling. It ends with four of these students paired off in romantic pairings, Bender and Claire and Andrew and Allison. you know, Andrew and Allison get together after she gets a makeover and Claire and Bender get together despite the fact that he relentlessly sexually harassed her from the minute that they met, essentially. The other interesting thing I will say to the side about that relationship is that this came out the year that Molly Ringwald turned 17 and Judd Nelson turned 26. And when you watch it, they look it. And so it particularly, in retrospect, watching it now, it's amazing how much he looks like a menacing cream, who is a genuine threat to this high school student and the fact that they then turn into a thing where they kiss at the end?

Oh, does not work at all. I have to ask first, were any of you ever at any point in your life, breakfast club people? Oh, very much so. I was a breakfast club person. I was a stand by me person. I was definitely a coming of age gaggle of kids in the 80s movie person. So, yeah, I loved this film when I saw it. I have not watched it since.

Yeah, I would never consider myself a breakfast club person, but it was always on TV. So that is how I walk. I don't even know if I've actually seen it from beginning to end, but I feel like I've seen most of it. And I've definitely seen the ending many, many times. Yeah, same. I've never seen this film, but you run past it when you were switching. channels on basic cable back in the day, but, you know, I knew myself well enough even then that, you know, teenagers having feelings in high school, three strikes and I'm out, you know?

I mean, and I never understood. Lydia, you said something fascinating to me. I loved this because I was 15. I'd never understood that phenomenon of people in high school watching films about high school. No, thank you. I'm fine. Mean girls came out when I was in high school, loved it. I think there's exceptions. Like, there are movies that speak to a very particular moment in your life. And I can see how Breakfast Club would be. that movie for a certain generation. Well, despite the fact that it does not age well, despite the fact that there is a lot of serious overacting in this movie is one thing that I will say if you go back and watch it. The core of it that I think got me at that time, it maybe even didn't get me at that time,

but the thing I like best about it now is that the underlying thesis is that everyone is miserable. And you think in high school that everyone is happy except you. And everyone else's life is easier. And everyone else doesn't feel all the screwed up things that you feel. And what they learn over this day of this movie is that they all are miserable about something. And does that extend well to like everyone is equally unhappy in high school? No. Everyone has an equal number of problems.

of course not, right? However, I do think there's something to be said for the idea that many people, when they're older, look back at high school and realize that the people they thought were having a really easy time were not necessarily. If you could do a version of this movie without all of the sexual harassment and the makeover and the odd homophobic slur, then maybe. As it is, it is something that, like I said, I think I loved because I was 15. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. I don't know how 15-year-olds now feel about it.

It was also, I remember my classmates when I was around that age, loved this movie. So it's like, it's enduring in a way that is both bewildering, but I also kind of get it. I mean, youthful disaffection is universal. This is true. Timeless and universal. So that is the Breakfast Club. Great pick, Holmesie. Aisha Harris, you were not a child in 1980s.

No, I was not. I also wasn't yet born. But that's besides the point. Oh, Aisha Harris. Come on, man. That was implied. You didn't have to say it out loud. Sorry.

Anyway, I have six words I will start with. I know them. I know what they are. Ah, yes, yes. Of course, my pick. As I said, I was going to be on brand. I was a theater kid. And Chicago, when that came out, I was obsessed.

Of course, this is the 2002 musical, which won Best Picture, directed by Rob Marshall, written by Bill Condon. And at some point in early high school, I became obsessed with Fossie, and I became obsessed with the Broadway musical Fossi, which I did not get to see. But there was like a recording of it that was made. And I watched that, and that's where I discovered Chicago, and I became obsessed. So when it was announced that they were making Chicago into a movie musical, I was very, very excited. I was obsessed with the 1996 revival Broadway recording, which starred Bibi Newworth as Vell McCelley and Anne-Kinley as Ron King as Roxy Hart. The 1975 Broadway version was the original version, Candor and Ed, with the choreo and the book was co-written by Bob Bossy. And it's set during the Jazz Age, Jazz, Jazz, Jazz.

And it's playing off of Chicago's notoriety for, you know, sensational murders committed by women. in that era. These characters are loosely inspired by real-life women who were accused of murder. This is the show that has such classic songs as Cell Block Tangle, which you just heard, which features six merry murderesses describing murders they may or may not have committed, and why. And he kept on screaming, you've been screwing the milkman. And then he ran into my knife.

He ran into my knife ten times. And the cast in this movie is so freaking stacked. have Renee Zelleweger playing Roxy Hart, Catherine Zeta Jones playing Velma Kelly. And they're basically these two women who are both like vaudeville. Roxie's kind of a wannabe. It's also got a little bit of all about Eve going on in here because Roxy is obsessed with Velma and wants to be just like her. They both wind up in prison for murder and are trying to get off. Richard Geer plays Billy Flynn. He is Smarmy. He is the lawyer who's like going to say whatever it is to get these women off and not get hanged. Queen Latifah is matron, Mama Morton.

She is the woman who is overseeing the prison. Glenn, you're nodding your head here. I know you've seen this. I love it. I love it now. I will be obnoxious. And both Stephen and Linda have not seen this film. So guys, take five because I'm going to talk to my to my gal, Aisha, here for a bit.

I saw B.B. Newworth and N. Ranking on Broadway. See, Aisha, there's advantages to being old. Exactly. Cell Black Tango is the thing that emerges from this piece. It is timeless. If just it plays in every gay bar I've ever been in. There's a couple of gay versions. One of them features Jeremy Jordan, Ben Platt, and Leslie Odom Jr.

Oh, yes. I remember that one. That's a great one. And, you know, Faust and I are now middle-aged gay men. We live in the country. Eggs are expensive. And Faust has broached the idea of raising chickens. And I have no interest in that.

But I've told them the only way I will agree to this is if I can call them the chickies in my pen. And if we name them, pop six, squish, uh-oh, Ciceroon, lipchits. So those are my terms. Oh, I love it. Yes. It's funny because, like, I probably, I saw this movie two or three times in theaters, which was like a rarity, especially when I was 15 and, like, movie tickets were expensive when you didn't have a job.

And then I got it on DVD and I probably watched, I don't know how many times I've seen this movie. But I will say, having rewatched it now for the first time in over a decade, which is crazy to think about, I realize that this movie is like edited two. The High Heavens by Martin Wash, who won the Oscar for this. But when you think about choreography and Fosse and adapting Fossy, it's like, you want to see that choreography. And there's so much editing happening in a lot of these numbers. That would be like my one critique of this film, which is a pretty big one because the numbers are, that's what you come here for.

I feel like that's a recurring critique of Rob Marshall's direction. Yes, very much so. Even when there's so much cutting, I just, I love, the music is so good. Like, Kandir and Ub. The music's so good. They were in it. Yeah, it's probably surprising to at least some people that I have never actually sat down and watched this. That was my next topic, Linda.

Fix it. I am a musicals person. I am a movie musicals person. But in my head, I always sort musicals into roughly city musicals, country musicals, and tragedy musicals. And there is a stripe within the city musical that is. the Fossey stripe. And that has never been my particular thing. And it's not a, I don't like or admire him or the people that he worked with. But the Fossie stuff has just never been what lights me up particularly. And so some of the holes in my movie musical watching history are

Fossie and Fossie adjacent stuff. That's fair. Last thing I will say is that this was the same year that I went to a musical theater summer dance camp. Okay. Talk about on brand. Yes. And we learned to the choreography to sew blocktangle in this movie. It was amazing. It was so fun.

And it was one of the happiest moments of my life. I love that for you. I love that for young Aisha. Yeah. All right. So that is Chicago. I'm going to go next. And to back up slightly, my parents got cable in 1983 when I was 11 years old.

not just basic cable, but premium channels, HBO, Showtime, Cinemax. And I decided to go with a movie that came out shortly before my 13th birthday, but that I watched on HBO approximately one million times when I was 15, back to the future. Heard of it. Yes. Now, watching this movie today, it is very hard to untangle the nesting doll of nostalgia that is this movie. Because in 2025, I'm feeling nostalgia for 1985 and for 1985's interpretation of 1955 and kind of get lost in the endless nostalgia loops that this film is dealing. But then miss how just completely delightful it is.

It's hard to overstate how much it imprinted on me. You know, Michael J. Fox on that skateboard as the epitome of cool circa 1985. Leah Thompson, kind of an underwritten character, but certainly an early pop culture crush. Crispin Glover getting to be his weird self in the most mainstream project imaginable. What? You're George McFly. Yeah, who are you? And a view of time travel that actually took paradoxes seriously.

I loved this film so much in 1985. And even though, like, weirdly enough, I know. never sought out the sequels. I've never seen Back to the Future two or three. Wait, really? Yeah. Oh, interesting. To me, this felt like a perfect, complete story as it was. I loved the fact that there's this kind of coda that's promising sequels. I'm perfectly happy that the sequels exist, but I never went back and sought them out. To me, this film was just perfect as it was. Are there elements of it that have not aged perfectly? I mean, it is 1985. First of all, it is guaranteed just by virtue of being made in 1985 that elements of it. I mean, like Huey Lewis,

is kind of the face of cool. Yeah. Though, honestly, that Huey Lewis cameo where he's like, you're just too darn loud, is really funny, even if you don't know what's Huey Lewis. You have, of course, that ridiculous scene where Marty McFly plays Johnny Be Good.

All right, guys, listen to this is the blues riff and B. Watch me for the changes and try and keep up, okay? Invents rock and roll. Yeah. But by that point, honestly, it's a victory lap. Like, that whole scene where he's playing Johnny Be Good doesn't really make any sense. It's just satisfying. It's coming on the heels of Crispin Glover getting the best of Biff Tannen and you're cheering in the theater. Anyway, to me, little bits and pieces of it haven't aged perfectly, obviously, but it is such an airtight, enormously entertaining, really well-thought-out film.

And, you know, news flash, great in 1985, still great in 2025. That's back to the future. This was another one that was always on TV. And I gotta agree. It's a fun movie. I've also seen the sequels, but I could not tell you what happened. One of them, I think they go into the West. It's a Western. There's a Wild West component.

And I think, too, is the one that's all about sports betting. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's why I don't remember it. Yeah. Yeah, I don't have a strong opinion about this film. I rented it with the family. It felt like, you know, we watched it. And then I kind of forgot about it.

I remember thinking, though, that we were following the wrong person. And I thought Doc Brown was a lot more interesting than Marty McFly. Shocked. I'm shocked. But you are right. Christopher Lloyd as Doc is phenomenal. Yes. The entire narrative thrust of this movie is extraordinarily strange, both because he is potentially dating his mother and his mother is hot for him in 195.

That's a very odd story. And then I can't remember who it is. I think it's John Mulaney who has a bit about how his best friend is this old scientist to never. Everyone seems to think that's very normal. The movie explains that. He's like an apprentice. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

But if you can get past those things, it is a really entertaining movie. It is a great star moment for Michael J. Fox. So I, listen, I have nothing but warm feelings about this movie despite its oddity. Also, fun ride at the Universal Studios back in the day. Curiously, the mom plotline was not part of that ride. I mean, how would they do that exactly? I know, I know. Let's not spend any time to think about that.

All right, that is Back to the Future. My pick for a favorite movie when I was 15. Glenn Weldon, somehow, I am guessing, that you did not pick back to the future. Didn't, no. I picked The Hunger, a film about sexy lesbian vampires because, of course I did. I mean, I was at 15, contained your shock, insufferable. I was a self-styled Cineast.

I was mainlining Cissel and Ebert. I was reading Pauline Kale and a New Yorker. I went to the Ritz V in Philly pretty much every weekend to see whatever they recommended. I was desperate to not see films I could see at the local, you know, Eric Twin. I needed to get into the city.

I needed to... Oh, the Eric Twin. Now, I like some of those movies at the Ritz V. And I didn't like others, but here's the thing. I pretended to love them all because that was about, I don't know,

proving something to my friends and family, to myself. But the one I was most curious to Rizze it was The Hunger. That was directed by Tony Scott. It was his first film. Tony Scott, of course, went on to direct pretty much every dad movie you can think of. Top Gun, Days of Thunder, Crimson Tide. In this film, Catherine Deneuve plays a sexy vampire,

very heavily moosed 1940s hair and big 1980 shoulder pads. David Bowie plays her lover, who she turned a few hundred years back, but now is suddenly aging rapidly. So he goes to see a gerontologist. And that's the kind of pulse-pounding excitement you can expect from this film. The gerontologist is played by Susan Sarandon. And David Bowie soon enough starts getting Mrs. Rochester, right? He gets locked away in the attic while downstairs in Dunov's incredible, like 1980s townhouse.

She and Sarandon are getting together, right? The sisters are doing it for themselves. So there was a period of time. when I would make movies my identity. You know, and I would go around telling everybody about the performances and the cinematography. And with this one, I probably mentioned to a lot of people how much I really enjoyed the lesbian sex scenes in it

because that's something that straight heterosexual boys like, right? Lesbian sex scenes? So I've heard. Look, I lived in suburban Philly. I pretended to like classic rock and the Eagles. This is one more thing I could pretend to like. Oh, yeah. The point is.

I so desperately wanted to seem sophisticated adult worldly, right? Anything, to be anything but this middle class suburban teenage dweeb that I was. And I thought this film would get me there. I thought adults like sophisticated adult things. Watch this film again this weekend for the first time in 42 years. And came away with a realization that if I'd had earlier in life, it would have saved me a lot of grief, which is this. When people say sophisticated, what they're.

mean is boring. So unforgivably so serious, given the subject matter, right? And I remembered it being incredibly stylish and artfully shot with all these shafts of light, you know, and cutting people into these, you know, film noir shadows through this haze. And I went back and watched and there is a lot of smoke, but that's not a design choice. It's just a byproduct of the fact that everyone smokes in every scene of this movie. The only design element this thing has is that every Florida ceiling window of Catherine Donov's

townhouse is always open and every window has these gauzy white curtains that are always blowing into the house day and night because vampires don't care about energy efficiency and everything is shot through these gauzy white curtains and so I sat there watching it and like is this camp

and I think no I think the sensibility would have to be a lot queer for it to be camp like there's lesbian vampires well you'd think but I think the reason it doesn't feel queer at all is because the sex scenes between Surrend and De Nerve are just pure male gaze. G-A-Z-E, not male gaze, G-A-Y-S, because there's no male gaze anywhere near this film. Everything that happens happens above the waste. And when Susan Serendon and Catherine Deneuve kiss, it's like they're shaken hands at a regional sales meeting. You know what I mean? There's nothing going on. Stephen, you'll get me here. The only thing, the film that holds up is the opening credits because they are interspersed with scenes of Deneuve and Bowie picking up another couple in a nightclub, one of them is Anne Magnuson.

The reason it holds up is that the band playing in this club is Bauhaus. And so a lot of the opening credits is just the great Peter Murphy, staring down the barrel of the camera and singing Bella Lagos is dear. The rats have left the belt. The victims have been bled red bell wet lines of black box. I want to see this movie. I was going to say, you're making this movie sound good. See the opening credits and then zip through it.

You know, this was an interesting exercise for me because unlike y'all's, like this film has not. permeated the consciousness in any way. It's just a thing that I liked when I was a kid. And it doesn't say flattering things about me, actually, that I imprinted on this. I'm fascinated to hear you say how boring it is, specifically because of what you said about Tony Scott, which is, you know, went on to direct, you know, as you said, Top Gun and Days of Thunder and, you know, movies that good or bad are supposed to be thrilling. And Top Gun contains one of the gayest scenes in movie history. That's true.

Yes. That's totally true. It sounds like somehow he made vampires unqueer. That takes a lot of work to do. It takes some doing. Yeah, it takes some doing. All right. Well, that is The Hunger, 15-year-old Glenn, pursing his lips, chin in hand.

Exactly. How hot, right, guys, right? Guys, hot, right? Ooh, Mama. All right, well, we want to know what movies did you love when you were 15. Tell us how much younger you are than we are. Find us at Facebook.com slash PCHH. That brings us to the end of our show, Linda Holmes, Glenn Weldon, Aisha Harris.

Thanks so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you. And happy anniversary, y'all. Yeah, right? Yeah, happy 15. Happy anniversary. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger and Havsafathamah

and edited by Jessica Reedy and Mike Katzif. Hello, Come In, provides us. our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson, and we will see you all next time.