Life Moves Pretty Fast
Hadley Freeman
Life Moves Pretty Fast
Hadley Freeman
Hadley Freeman brings us her personalised guide to American movies from the 1980s - why they are brilliant, what they meant to her, and how they influenced movie-making forever.
For Hadley Freeman, American moves of the 1980s have simply got it all. Comedy in Three Men and a Baby, Hannah and Her Sisters, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future and Trading Places; all a teenager needs to know - in Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Say Anything, The Breakfast Club and Mystic Pizza; the ultimate in action - Top Gun, Die Hard, Young Sherlock Holmes, Beverly Hills Cop and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom; love and sex - in 9 ½ Weeks, Splash, About Last Night, The Big Chill, Bull Durham; and family fun - in The Little Mermaid, ET, Big, Parenthood and Lean On Me.
Born in the late 1970s, Hadley grew up on a well-rounded diet of these movies, her entire view of the world, adult relations and expectations of what her life might hold was forged by these cult classics. In this personalised guide, she puts her obsessive movie geekery to good use, detailing the decades key players, genres and tropes, and how exactly the friendship between Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi influenced the evolution of comedy. She looks back to a cinematic world in which bankers are invariably evil, despite this being the decade of Wall Street, where children are always wiser than adults, and science is embraced with an intense enthusiasm, and the future viewed with excitement. She considers how the changes between movies then and movies today say so much about pop culture’s and society’s changing expectations of women, young people and art, and explains why Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles should be put on school syllabuses immediately.
Review
Bronte Coates
If you’re looking for something fun and frothy to read as you snuggle under the doona this winter, Life Moves Pretty Fast would be an ideal pick. Hadley Freeman’s personalised handbook to North American movies from the 1980s is a friendly blend of cinephilia and autobiography. As a guide, Freeman is charming with limitless enthusiasm for her topic. She’s more fangirl than critic and, in truth, Life Moves Pretty Fast is really a love letter disguised as a book – an ode to Baby’s dance montage in Dirty Dancing, to Andie Walsh’s ugly prom dress in Pretty in Pink, and to ‘uber-nerd’ Rick Moranis.
In many ways, Life Moves Pretty Fast is a product of the digital age (Freeman is already known as a fashion journalist and columnist, and runs a blog about eighties films) and has that snappy, gossipy quality I associate with the internet. The chapters close with lists of things like ‘Best Love Songs’ or ‘Steve Guttenberg Moments’, while footnotes often lead to funny remarks, or forays into scandals. I was particularly fascinated by Freeman’s analysis of Hollywood, and how it has changed over the last thirty years – her chapters on Steel Magnolias and Eddie Murphy were stand-outs.
Given Freeman’s zeal, it helps to already be a fan of eighties movies which, happily, I am. I was all too willing to be swept up by Freeman’s gusto – at least, for the most part. I was not so easily swayed by her chapter on Tim Burton’s Batman, in which she criticises Christopher Nolan’s adaptation, but I suspect this has much to do with my own personal obsession with the superhero story. And Freeman, for her part, is endearingly candid about her own obsessions and makes no apology for simply selecting the films that matter to her. She writes, ‘This is not an encyclopaedia of eighties moves. If you want that, buy an encyclopaedia (although probably the last time you saw an encyclopaedia was in the eighties).’
This item is not currently in-stock. It can be ordered online and is expected to ship in approx 2 weeks
Our stock data is updated periodically, and availability may change throughout the day for in-demand items. Please call the relevant shop for the most current stock information. Prices are subject to change without notice.
Sign in or become a Readings Member to add this title to a wishlist.