Issue #4: Rich Kids

Hey, gang.

1979 was an awesome year. Walter Hill's The Warriors had hoodlums shooting each other dead in crowded movie theaters. Seminal English post-punk band Wire released their magnum opus, 154. A couple of ill-matched neurotics got drunk at a Columbus Day party and accidentally conceived another baby.

Me.

Also, Robert Altman executive-produced a movie that no one ever talks about.

Boy, that lobby card sure doesn't pique your interest. Fuck.

So, right, the movie was Robert M. Young's Rich Kids. It's the story of Franny Philips (Trini Alvarado), a 12 year-old girl whose well-meaning parents (John Lithgow, Kathryn Walker) are dancing around the issue of their pending divorce. Unfortunately, Franny understands perfectly well what's going on thanks to the insight of her sympathetic classmate, Jamie (Jeremy Levy). As the situation at home worsens, Franny distracts herself with pre-adolescent sexual curiosity and recurring visits to Jamie's father's incredible bachelor pad. Lessons are learned, parents eat shit, and life goes on.

It's not a stellar movie, but I'm mildly obsessed by it.... Let's explore that.

  
#1: The Location

Rich Kids is set entirely in Manhattan. And this isn't post-Disney, post-9/11 Manhattan -- this is fucking 1979, son. The locations used are jaw-dropping. Franny's Upper West Side brownstone; a neighborhood Italian restaurant with built-in bocce ball court; the posh progressive school the kids attend, or the aforementioned (Asian-themed) bachelor pad -- the film is seemingly built to stir envy in anyone whose childhood wasn't spent among the upper-class environs of '70s NYC.

Ralph D. Bode's cinematography seals the deal, and ensures that Rich Kids is, if nothing else, an amazing document of retro urban privilege.

#2: The Stewardess

This one is easy. There's a hot actress named Diane Stilwell playing a manipulative stewardess who's dating Jamie's dad (Terry Kiser).

She's cute, that's all. (I like the bangs, OK? Fuck off.)

#3: The Heart

Well, I'm kind of a sucker.

Yes, Judith Ross's script is a little rigid (though, kudos for the legit use of profanity); Lithgow doesn't exactly have to flex his acting chops; and Jeremy Levy comes across like "Silver Spoons"-era Jason Bateman's effete Jewish clone. All that aside, there's an old-school earnestness here that, frankly, provides a welcome 100-minute refuge from modern life.

Really, you know, I dig that Franny's parents unabashedly love her... just like I dig that the kids share their first kiss in front of a giant advent screen that's tuned-in to some shitty "late show" B-horror flick.

Plus, Jamie's dad has pet piranhas. I'm only human. 

Rich Kids is currently available on Netflix's streaming service. Check it out.


See you soon!