- 1991movierewind
Episode #50: Career Opportunities
Listen to Episode 50 of the Podcast here while you enjoy the show notes.
SUMMARY - In Career Opportunities, pathological liar Jim Dodge (played by Frank Whaley) can’t hold a job and his parents are sick of boarding him for free. Before kicking him out, Jim will have one more chance by working at Target as the overnight cleaner. Alone on the job, and locked in the store, it's tough to take work seriously. It’s even tougher when he discovers that his crush Josie McClellan (played by Jennifer Connelly) has been hiding in the store.
Screenplay by John Hughes; Directed by Bryan Gordon, and released on March 29, 1991.
COMING ATTRACTIONS
It has been a while since we've watched a video with commercials or previews/trailers on it. This time we only get a single commercial for Universal Studios Florida
It was much different than what we saw on Cape Fear's VHS. This was straightforward and showed a family interacting with various attractions, sometimes in a green screen.
FILM DISCUSSION
We found Frank Whaley's Jim Dodge to be a combination of Ferris Bueller and Ducky from "Pretty in Pink."
A compulsive liar that virtually the whole town knows, he seeks the approval and attention of these three younger kids.
Our first interaction with Jennifer Connelly's Josie was confusing, although it seems the characters all were too.
Last ditch effort for Jim to get his stuff together, he's working at Target and "locked" inside by the custodian who needed more screen time.
We've never seen a store look close to this messy and Jim really makes things worse
Part of the appeal of the movie is running wild in a store alone. They don't really talk about the consequence of opening and using so much merchandise, though
There's a lot of crashing into stuff in this movie.
Josie is locked in Target as well so that allows them to have conversations and interact.
Their chemistry is solid and the conversations they have are well-done, but it's a small percentage of the movie.
Conflict is added through the two robbers and they are reminiscent of the Wet Bandits from "Home Alone"
But we also have a dumb sub-plot of Jim's dad guilt eating all through the night because his son has to work a job?
Josie's dad enlists the sheriff to help find his daughter.
A lot of wacky bumbling shenanigans happen, but in a way that seems completely unfinished or not fully thought out.
Even though it's not overly so, this is one of the more sexually suggestive John Hughes movies and that is a bit strange.
Anyway, things work out in the end, but we don't fully understand how or why, because many threads are left untied and everything "resolves" in a couple minutes out of nowhere.
Awards Talk: None at all. Not even an MTV Movie Awards mention, which is slightly strange.
TRUE CRIME & POP CULTURE
This week we skip true crime and TV.
We discuss this recent article discussing the 30th Anniversary of the movie and what was a semi-controversial movie poster
On to Music, here were the Top 5 songs from the Billboard top 100 this week
1) Coming Out of the Dark - Gloria Estefan
2) One More Try - Timmy T.
3) This House - Tracie Spencer
4) Hold You Tight - Tara Kemp
5) I’ve Been Thinking About You - LondonBeat
In our Whitney Houston watch: The Star Spangled Banner showed up this week at #20 which is the highest on the charts we've seen so far in our podcast.
RANKINGS & RATINGS
Nikki 1-5 star scale - 2 out of 5
Jon 0-4 star scale - 1 1/2 out of 4
Would you watch it again? - There were bits and pieces of this that we liked and we don't actively dislike the movie but it is a lesser John Hughes script. So, if it was part of Hughes festival or retrospective, then yeah. If it happened to be on TV, we wouldn't necessarily turn it off. But if given the choice between this and any 1980s movie John Hughes wrote, this is an easy pass.
If you want to watch Career Opportunities, as of this recording in February 2022, it’s available on Digital Rental, VHS, DVD. Check your local listings.
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Join us next time for our Best of Year One show where we will discuss the first 50 movies and give out fun awards based on what we've seen so far.
