Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Schumacast, Episode 11: The Lost Boys (1987)


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We've finally reached one of the most defining films of Joel Schumacher's career as, taking inspiration from the rise of music videos, he built a film (and soundtrack) which burrowed into the cultural zeitgeist of a generation and influenced nearly every vampire story which came in its wake.


A huge thank you to J.D. DeMotte for joining us once again. Follow him on Twitter, and check out his shows Comics Are Awesome! and From the Pages on YouTube.

This episode discusses The Lost Boys (1987) IMDb. Wikipedia.


Our opening theme is "Letter", and our closing theme is "Veinblossom". Both songs were created by Jak Locke, and are used with permission.

Some bonus extras!

Joel Schumacher's music video for "Devil Inside" by INXS.


Joel Schumacher's music video for "Lost in the Shadows" by Lou Gramm.


Music video for "Beauty Has Her Way" by Mummy Calls.


Music video for "People Are Strange" by Echo & the Bunnymen.


Corey Feldman covering "Cry Little Sister".


God bless you, Tim Cappello. I will always believe.

2 comments:

Enbrethiliel said...

JMJ

I'm taking a break from my German podcasts to listen to this one. So, guten Tag!

Thinking of The Lost Boys reminds me what I said about St. Elmo's Fire. This is a movie I feel that I should like a lot more, but simply don't. So why is that?

Without rewatching it, I think I agree with Angie that Jason Patric is a weak lead. In the family and brother scenes, Corey Haim carries him a lot. Noel also makes a great point that Patric's character Michael isn't as well written as he could have been. He just goes along with things and doesn't question anything. Like, okay, Star is sexy, but are you really going to accept vampirism after having known her for a few days? (It doesn't help that Star is even flatter as a character.) Even Bella Swan took a lot longer and had more meaningful experiences with Edward Cullen before deciding she wanted to be a vampire!

As for Keifer Sutherland, I'm not a huge fan of him here. Despite being, like Angie, a "Spike girl."

J.D. reminds me that this is a Horror movie and a Comedy at the same time, and says that both work for him. My impressions were different: I liked this a lot better as a kids' Comedy. The scenes which were most alive for me were those in which Sam figures out that Michael is becoming a vampire and in which the Frog brothers try to help him expose Max. There's a sense of urgency and action in this thread of the plot that I don't recall in the Horror story. For me, the latter were like a string of music video dream sequences. So I'm not surprised to hear from Noel that the original source was a children's novel. The "older" stuff feels grafted on from MTV.

Speaking of children's novels, I do like the subtlety of the Peter Pan connection. I totally missed it the first time around, despite the title staring me in the face -- and I'm glad about that. It makes a rewatch more rewarding. (And if I had noticed it the first time, I'm sure it would have been at the expense of another theme, which I then would see more clearly in the rewatch. There are a lot of things going on in this movie, and though they don't all work for me, I can appreciate the ambition that wanted them all in there.) Max is such a Peter Pan figure that he even wants a mother for his band of lost boys. Which makes Lucy -- not Star!-- the Wendy figure. I remember reading an article somewhere that argued that Peter Pan is the actual villain of J.M. Barrie's story, because he kills the lost boys when they get too old.

Finally . . . OMG! I get quoted in the podcast!!! I had forgotten giving you that comment. Thanks for including my voice!

And before I knew I was going to make an "appearance," I was already planning to say the following. I'm not the sort who makes bucket lists, but if I were, one of the top entries would be: Do a podcast with Noel. Absolutely.

NoelCT said...

Lucy being the Wendy of the story makes a lot of sense given that I hear the original "children version" didn't even have a Star character (they were all boys - no Tinkerbell?) and the mother's name was Wendy.