The rumors about a Pretty in Pink sequel have been spreading like wildfire on the Internerd lately, have you noticed?
The cinetrix, for one, has no idea whether or not these rumors are true or even whether she wants them to be true. Leaving aside my strong suspicion that Annie Potts today might look younger than she did in 1986, how will the filmmakers ever get the Diceman, Gina Gershon, Kristy Swanson, or Dweezil to reprise their blink and you'll miss 'em turns? Oh, right.
A confession. The cinetrix once had the temerity to devote an entire grad school paper to the way the soundtrack works in Pretty in Pink. While it verged on academic Marxism [various songs offering preselected identities, yes, but always rooted in consumerism blah blah. Basically, think the Hot Topic model of rebellion], it was pretty good, actually. There's nothing like doing a close reading of the bastardized version of the Psych Furs song for credit. And I do mean bastardized. Forget the addition of the Clarence Clemons-style saxophone: The bits of the lyrics that make it on screen completely efface that the song was originally about a doormat used by men. Don't believe me? I watched that opening credit sequence a thousand times. You get fetishized bits of Miss Molly, and when she's finally revealed, the vocals cut out at the chorus to make her image synonymous with "pretty in pink." Movie magic, kids.
But even though I've spent a lot of time with that flick over the years, and I've owned not one but two copies of the Pretty in Pink novelization that includes the original "Andie stays with Duckie" ending, and I can bore you to tears with stories about how OMD ran out of money recording "If You Leave" to go with the reshot ending, I just don't see what unanswered questions remain. It was about high school--everything is life or death then.
Now, though, Blane and Andie are the ones doing edgy theater and indie flicks, and Duckie is the sellout, playing insipid second banana to Charlie Sheen [so good in Ferris] on a sitcom. Nobody wants to see a movie about that, do they? I think a far bolder move would be to reassemble the principals and have them do something completely different, as though all memories of their tortured adolescence at Shermer High had been removed by Lacuna, Inc.
And with that, I'm off like a dirty shirt.
