Curly Sue
Hey, Do You Remember...?
Christopher Schrader
4.8 • 676 Ratings
🗓️ 9 May 2014
⏱️ 95 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Well this one isn't exactly the way Chris, Donna, and Carlos remembered it. It's a problematic premise to begin with, but we were positive that a film written and directed by the legendary John Hughes would confidently tackle those complications head-on.
Sadly, this is not one of his finer efforts. Chris thinks the lack of any real conflict between the main characters makes the film a little boring, Carlos can't make any sense of the illogical legal subplot, and Donna's not sure who she's supposed to be rooting for here.
Topics include: The film's inconsistent characterization of Grey, the numerous problems with Bill's revelation about his relationship to Curly Sue, a debate about Alisan Porter's performance (the boys are quite fond of her), the mixed messages in this story, the moments we still enjoy, and quite a few tangents - including a look back at one of Chris' traumatizing day camp experiences and the various points at which Donna has hit rock bottom.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, do you remember Curly Sue? |
| 0:06.6 | Hello and welcome, Hey, do you remember, Hey Hey Do You Remember, a show where we reminisce about a movie or TV series we grew up with, then take off the rose tinted glasses to see how it holds up today. |
| 0:32.2 | I'm Chris. |
| 0:33.0 | I'm Donna. |
| 0:33.9 | And I'm Carlos. |
| 0:35.0 | And today we're revisiting Curly Sue. |
| 0:52.9 | Thank you. Donna. And I'm Carlos. And today we're revisiting Curly Sue. Scruffy Vagabond, Bill Dancer, and his young companion Curly Sue managed to scrape by |
| 0:57.9 | traversing big cities and running scams on wealthy marks. They hit the jackpot when they set their |
| 1:02.9 | sights on Gray Ellison, a frigid divorce lawyer who eventually sets the pair up in her lavish penthouse. |
| 1:09.0 | This movie came out in 91, so I guess rape was invented |
| 1:11.8 | in 1992. Curly Sue was the last film John Hughes directed, and it's widely regarded as one of his |
| 1:18.4 | worst. There are certainly some tonal incongruities, and it definitely feels like Hughes |
| 1:22.6 | might have been running on fumes at this point, but the movie still contains many of the |
| 1:26.3 | trademark elements that made his earlier work so successful. |
| 1:29.6 | Some of it sticks, some of it doesn't, but why is that? |
| 1:32.8 | This film has been accused of being too saccharine and transparently manipulative. |
| 1:36.9 | Were audiences and critics just becoming too cognizant of the bag of tricks Hughes kept |
| 1:40.7 | reaching into for these stories? |
| 1:42.5 | And if so, does this movie work any better if we |
| 1:45.0 | remove it from that context and try to view it more objectively two decades later? We'll touch |
| 1:50.2 | on all of that and more in just a second. But first, Donna, what do you remember about Curly Sue? |
| 1:55.7 | So I remember going to see this movie in the theaters. |
... |
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