June 1, 2008 - June 7, 2008

The Monday Movie Quiz #178

Nice people doing nice things.

Surely there's a familiar face or two there to help you out (if you need it). Another case of a remake not holding a candle to the original-- but what is it? If you know, send me an email with the title by late Sunday night. If you're right, you'll have a reservation at next week's winner's circle retreat.

Posted by Steve Monaco at June 2, 2008 2:07 AM

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

"Damn, thanks for making me remember this bubble gum piece of trash." "Terrible." "The quizzes have been so good lately-- what happened?" Yes, there was scorn aplenty this week, both for the quiz movie in question, Little Darlings (1980), and for yours truly for choosing it in the first place.

And I agree with everybody-- it's a rotten movie that looks even worse now, offensive and boring in equal measure. As you can tell from the above poster's tasteful slogan, it was (or wanted to be) a cuddly sex comedy revolving around a hymen-losing contest between the two stars. (The victor's spoils? $100! As one quiz winner pointed out, "A dreadful idea for a movie in 1980, now the inspiration for dozens of reality TV series.")

So yeah, Little Darlings sucks as a movie and always did. But it is interesting to look at its cast today, and see who were the stars then and who are now.

Of course, the best known star of the moment is none other than Cynthia Nixon of Sex in the City. 28 years ago in this movie, she played an obnoxious (yet chaste) little hippie girl named Sunshine. (According to a recent NYT profile of Nixon, her real-life neck-themed nickname is "Bronty," as in brontosaurus.) She wasn't the only noxious child actor in the cast who would go on to better things-- Nixon's picture clue mate, Matt Dillon, has since done some great work (Drugstore Cowboy) and big movies (Crash), but back then, "he always seemed to play the type of kid you wanted to punch in the face." (It was a really hostile bunch of email this week!)

While Nixon and Dillon were just starting out with Little Darlings (it was his second film and her first), Tatum O'Neal and Kristy McNichol, the film's stars (then), were possibly the two most popular girl actors at the time. Today, neither is little more than the answer to a trivia question.

O'Neal had nowhere to go but down after winning the Oscar at the age of ten (for Paper Moon), and by 1980 she was just about through. I think the above screenshot is truly a window into Tatum's soul at the time-- as the bigger star, she picked which role she wanted, and she chose to play a character who dressed like that!

Kristy McNichol is better remembered, both for her TV work of that time and later. The only thing she seemed to get from making Little Darlings was a tobacco jones, and in a few years, her movie career was pretty much over, too. Today, she's reported to be a drama teacher at a private school in California.

Here's where I'd include a Youtube clip of some kind, but fuck it, no way! I'll just mention for the stray masochist that the whole stinking movie can be found here, posted in chunks, like the ones Little Darlings blows. (By the way, there's one bit of genuine good news about the film: there's no DVD!)

So congratulations and profuse apologies to the following disgruntled winners: Wayne Palmer, Thomas Miller, Shelley, Nancy Louise Rutherford, Corey Anderson, Dean Carlson, Shannon M. Quinlan, Jack Sparks, Michael Mattson, Ron Frigstad, John Middleton, Bill Hearne, Shaun Faulkner, Song-Un Lee, Paul Rignell, Bob Redwing, Donald Greene, Christina O'Sullivan, Fred Lorence, Vince Tuss, and E. Yarber.

Posted by Steve Monaco at June 1, 2008 11:28 PM

« May 25, 2008 - May 31, 2008 | Main | June 8, 2008 - June 14, 2008 »