Grosse Pointe Blank and... the other one

Today we went over to Subrata and Susan's for a barbecue and to see a couple of John Cusack movies.

First up was Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), which I've wanted to see for a while since it came out around the same time as my own 10-year high school reunion (as did Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion, which I also haven't seen). In it, Cusack plays Martin Blank, a professional assassin who goes to his 10-year high school reunion and meets his ex-girlfriend Debi (Minnie Driver), whom he stood up at their prom when he ran off to join the army. Blank unpretentiously tells people what he does, knowing that no one will believe him. Meanwhile, he's also in town on business, and some other unfinished business follows him there, too.

The movie is sharp and funny, with many laugh-out-loud lines. It's also moving at times, taking itself seriously in some things and not others. It mainly works because of Cusack's performance being caught between two worlds, his fairly dull high school classmates and his high-pressure life of paranoia and death. Plus, it proves that there's no set-up so ridiculous that it can't be made more so by the addition of Dan Aykroyd. It's a fun film, go see it.

Then we went back 12 years and watched Better Off Dead (1985), one of Cusack's earliest films. He plays Lane Meyer, a high school student whose girlfriend (Amanda Wyss, sporting exactly the same hairstyle as a woman I had a crush on in high school) dumps him for the captain of the ski team. Lane then spends the film torn between trying to win her back, or kill himself. Eventually he hooks up with French exchange student Monique (Diane Franklin) instead.

The story is a farce (with some unfortunate moments of situation comedy thrown in), and as a sequence of vignettes has some funny moments. But overall I rate it as "forgettable", albeit a step up from some of the other teenage comedies of the day. Mostly I think I'm just not this film's target audience (nor was I back in high school).

I spent much of the day feeling kind of glum. I'm not sure why. I think I'd partly wanted to get more done at home, writing journal entries and researching which digital camera to buy and otherwise making some progress on my projects. I'd also spent the past two days with this vague feeling like Something Very Bad was going to happen, but I didn't know what or why or when (or why I felt this way). Just some random angst, maybe. Overall this left me feeling somewhat disconnected from everyone else at the barbecue, since I rattled on to Chad about playing poker, spilled mustard on my shirt, and otherwise got lost in making a series of one-liners about the films.

I had a good time, but I felt like I wasn't all there. I guess I just get in that sort of mood sometimes.