Word: jill
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...meet all the usual denizens of such films: the clique of giggly, somewhat unattractive girls, the class slut who "likes it while [she's] doin' it" but feels shitty afterwards, the overprotective parents--"you need protein, you need fiber..."--the refined lady drama teacher and her prize student, Jill Rosen, the school's smart, pretty girl who heads the drama club and dreams of stardom, and who has always made everyone else jealous...
...Jill (played by a lovely newcomer, Rosanna Arquette) can't resist the long, lean body of a local thug named Albert "the Sheik". Although he's already been expelled from one high school, and doesn't look like a natural for St. Catherine's either, although he steals cars and drives something he calls the "ratmobile," although he says things like "You think I'm gonna make moves on you?", Jill finds herself suddenly necking passionately with him in dark movie houses and sneaking out of the house to hang out at a working class bar called Joey...
...nice Jewish girl who wears knocaocks and headbands, since he's Italian and wears three piece suits, their relationship can't be all roses. We never really see them having a conversation--maybe high school romances don't include such things--so it comes as no surprise when Jill, under pressure from teachers and parents to drop "that boy," works herself up into a rage after he sneaks into one of her drama rehearsals. Only after he kidnaps the girl and her friend, holding them at gunpoint in the backseat of the "rat" while his friend careens around Trenton, does...
...time. The scene in which our hero first tries to pick up our heroine in a parking lot must have been played out in about a million movies before this one. "What are you afraid of?" "You don't even know me." "Do you like driving fast?" But when Jill, after agreeing to go out with him, looks into her mirror later that day and shouts "you dope" we kind of like it. Schlock, but good...
...climactic pitch, whenever Sayles wants us to feel excited or depressed, he simply turns on the stereo. Instead of letting the players act, he pounds the mood home with driving rock. It's there when Sheik first strides into the school cafeteria. It's there when a wide-eyed Jill watches couples neck in Joey D's. It's there when the couple play hooky for a day drive down to the shore. And it's at Sarah Lawrence parties and late-night car chases and scenes in which Sheik drives non-stop from Miami to New York to confront...