It's a great way to say "I love you" and yet, it doesn't work.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve thought there were only two great Cusack movies. Now, it’s safe to say that I think there’s a third. How late to the party am I on that revelation? 21 years. But hey, better late than never. Right?

A Brief Synopsis of “Say Anything..”: Boy and Girl graduate from high school. Eric Stoltz throws a party. Jeremy Piven acts like an asshat while hiding his receding hair line. Fraiser’s dad totally screws over some old people. Pens become important. Boy and Girl make it through the first 5 minutes of a flight. Roll credits. Oh, and in the middle of all of this, Joan Cusack gets like 10 lines and a paycheck.

What makes “Say Anything…” a PCBS? At some point in your life, you or someone you know has held a boom box, speaker, ipod or other music producing item up in the air in homage to this movie. People still love to quote this movie and until now, I have to admit that I didn’t quite get what “I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen” quite meant (but I still laughed politely). Part of me thinks that this movie informed teenage relationships throughout the late 80’s and 90’s. Everyone knew a Diane, wanted to be Lloyd and totally tried to avoid all the Corey’s in the world (seriously, she’s a poster child for everything wrong with allowing teenagers to think for themselves).

How does it look in the rear view mirror? For me, “Say Anything…” informs two other movies that have always had a special place in my pop culture heart: “Grosse Pointe Blank” and “High Fidelity.” Those two movies are basically two alternate universes where Lloyd and Diane never lasted. I get that at the end of “Say Anything…” Cameron Crowe is trying to tell us that everything will work out for Lloyd and Diane, but what if it hadn’t?

Option 1: Lloyd goes into the military, tests off the charts for his ability to separate his emotions from his ability to kill and becomes a CIA hitman…only to go very successfully pro in the assassin business but ultimately lose his taste for it and long to return to his high school days and the original girl of his dreams (here played by Minnie Driver). With “Grosse Pointe Blank”, we’re get a glimpse of just how far down that kickboxing rabbit hole Lloyd could have gone. Ultimately, he’s a still a smart, funny, charismatic guy…but he’s a killer, conflicted by his choices and still yearning for his Diane…or in this case, Debbie.

Option 2: Lloyd and Diane don’t work out in the long run and he engages in a series of ever stranger monogamous relationship. When we catch up with him, it’s 15 years later, his latest flame is leaving him for the 2nd time and he’s stuck in the navel gazing, self-monologuing spiral he started when he was driving around town talking about the 7-11 where he and Diane had their first date and the street where they had their first kiss. Still obsessed with music (although not with Peter Gabriel), he tries to go back and figure out how it all went wrong with all the women he’s ever driven away…a road that could easily track all the way back to Diane.

And so in my mind, seeing “Say Anything…” creates an even broader Cusack Multiverse. Demonstrating the origin story of characters like Martin Blank and Rob Gordon through the eyes of Lloyd Dobler and just what could have made them into the men (or manchilds) that they become. But don’t ask me to explain how U.S. Marshall Vince Larkin fits in to all this…because fuck if I know.

Final Thoughts: “Say Anything…” is definitely the first thing that I’ve encountered in this experiment that I might actually hang on to for a while (Sorry Tomb Raider and Use Your Illusion, but more on those later). “Grosse Pointe Blank” was one of the first movies that really spoke to me on a personal level. I saw it with a good friend the summer after I graduated high school and it was just the right combination of message, moments and timing to really stick with me after all these years(…and it’s about a contract killer, which is probably a bad sign). “High Fidelity” has always been my downer go to movie. I mean, I understand that it’s a comedy at heart, but it’s got some really sad moments and always has a way of making me feel better when I’m feeling down. I give all the credit to “I Stole My Mom’s Wheelchair” and Joan Cusack really enjoying her job.

“Say Anything…” isn’t the movie I always thought it was. And Lloyd’s iconic pose with the boom box didn’t work the way I always thought it did. But I’m ok with that. I am not, however, ok with 65 songs about one guy. Seriously Corey, get over it.

If Nancy doesn't wake up screaming, it's because she hasn't read the last 10 pages of the script yet...

Let me start off by saying that I think it’s hard to watch any movie made over 20 years ago and not laugh at what passed for special effects back then. That being said, I wish I had been in the room when somebody pitched the “Johnny Depp gets sucked into the bed and then a fountain geyser of blood comes shooting out of it” scene. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

A Brief Synopsis of “A Nightmare on Elm Street”: Small town USA is tormented by the random deaths of four teenagers at the hands of Freddie Kruger, a child murderer that was killed by an angry mob of PTA parents in the past. Freddie is killing the teenagers one by one in the one place their parents can’t protect them: their dreams. Nancy and her gang of motley stereo-types (“I’m the rebel without a cause!” “I’m the girl who loves the bad boy even though he’s always putting me down and using me for sex!” “I’m Johnny Depp and I’m laying the ground work for Skeet Ulrich’s future career!”) In the end, Nancy tries to confront Kruger with Johnny Depp somehow watching over her as she dreams. She fails, Depps gets sucked into the afore mentioned plasma gusher in his bed and Nancy ends up dreaming her way into a convertible with the rest of her dead friends that we’re left to believe was actually Freddie Kruger…as a car…because he can totally turn himself into a convertible.

What makes “A Nightmare on Elm Street” a PCBS? It was pretty obvious to me that this was a big time blind spot in my pop culture knowledge when I read that they were rebooting the series with all new actors and hopefully an all new script. If something is big enough to get the reboot and I’ve not even seen the original, that’s a blind spot. It’s also of note that going into this, my only real detailed knowledge of the “Nightmare on Elm Street” cannon came from “Treehouse of Horror VI” where Groundskeeper Willie steps into the Krueger role and begins murdering the students of Springfield Elementary. Again, if it’s big enough for Groundskeeper Willie to get involved with then I should at least know what it was.

How does it look in the rear view mirror? Well, I’m sorry to say that “A Nightmare on Elm Street” didn’t give me nightmares. It didn’t even give me trouble sleeping (which is amazing as a mis-guided and pre-spoiled viewing of “Paranormal Activity” last fall had me sleeping with the lights on for weeks). In fact, the movie made me laugh…alot. And here are some of the reasons why:

• When confronted with her daughter’s inability to sleep after having a nightmare (that somehow resulted in four slash marks across the front of her nightgown that had to have been caused by her daughter clawing at herself in her sleep) Tina’s mom suggests that her daughter “better stop that kinda dreamin.” Thanks, Matlock.
• The use of the term “Finger Knives!” to describe the razor glove that Kruger wears is just too close to “Finger Lasers!” to not be funny
• Knowing that there’s a killer on the loose that’s hunting down teenagers in their sleep because she and some other PTA zealots formed a posse and killed him, Nancy’s mom not only has her in a hot bath but then decides to bring her a glass of warm milk. That’s just straight up terrible parenting. I get that Nancy’s mom, wracked by the guilt of all the unlawful revenge murdering in her past, has become a bit of a booze hound but still, trying to get your kid to sleep when the thing that’s trying to kill them can do just that only when Nancy is sleeping is just plain stupid.
• Speaking of that bath, what the hell is Nancy thinking? She’s been pulling a Jessie Spano for days trying to stay awake but now she suddenly thinks that a nice, warm bath is the answer to her problems? “Calgon, take me a–oh shit, there’s no bottom on this bathtub!” (Classy points to Wes Craven for not one but two awkward shots of Freddie’s finger knives coming up between Nancy’s legs in the tub. That’s just master film making.)
• At the time, this wouldn’t have been a problem. But since I have the benefit of 26 years of hindsight I can officially say that it’s impossible to take the guy who played the voice of Roger Rabbit seriously as any sort of medical professional. Charles Fleischer shows up as “Dr. King” (again, classy) the lead physician studying Nancy’s sleep patterns. He’s the guy who does goofy voices, not the guy who analyzes brain wave read outs.
• Johnny Depp’s big line of the movie “Morality sucks.” Doesn’t he know that the virginal kids live in horror movies while the slutty ones die? Except in this movie they all died in the end. So…yeah…he should have hit that.

Final Thoughts: No, it’s not a particularly great movie but “A Nightmare on Elm Street” is still an important part of our pop culture heritage. Freddie’s gone on to appear in a bazillion sequels, he’s fought Jason, Will Smith rapped about him and he’s even getting the big reboot treatment later this year. I feel a little bit better now that I know where it all started. Plus, I now know that Johnny Depp’s body contains 18x more fluid than any other person on the planet. Now that should help us all sleep a little bit better. Sweet Dreams!