Latest news with #Heckerling
Daily Mirror
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Cult classic 90s comedy shaped a generation finally streaming on Netflix
Clueless was a hit with critics and audiences alike and quickly became a cultural touchstone - not to mention a huge box office success. The film was followed by a TV series spin-off, which ran for three seasons from 1996 to 1999. A timeless classic that culturally influenced and mirrored an entire generation of audiences has arrived on Netflix. What would subsequently inspire countless Halloween outfits, endless quotations and a lasting place in pop culture history initially began as a television pilot in 1993. "Twentieth Century Fox said they wanted a show about teenagers - but not the nerds. They wanted it to be about the cool kids," revealed writer and director Amy Heckerling in a DVD-exclusive special feature. Heckerling, who had studied Jane Austen's Emma during her university years, chose to craft a contemporary take on the character. "I started to think, 'What's the larger context for that kind of a 'nothing can go wrong, always looks through rose-coloured glasses' kind of girl? So I tried to take all the things that were in this sort of pretty 1800s world and see what that would be like if it was in Beverly Hills." This gave birth to Clueless - the 1995 teen comedy featuring Cher Horowitz, a well-off, fashionable and perpetually upbeat secondary school pupil in Beverly Hills, who embarks on helping others whilst managing friendships, romances and her own personal development, reports the Express. Together with her best mate Dionne (both named after famous singers), Cher chooses to give new transfer pupil Tai a makeover and steer her through the school's social pecking order - only to discover herself experiencing a transformation of her own. Almost 30 years later, the film's appeal remains intact. One viewer said: "Alicia Silverstone is pure gold". One viewer added: "It might be 30 years old now, but it still stands the test of time. An enjoyable movie that doesn't feel old and is as relevant now as it was then." Another hailed it as "by far the best movie ever made about rich teenagers. It's so funny you'll watch it over and over again. This movie is a solid classic for life." For many who grew up with it, Clueless is more than just a comedy. "As a kid of the 90s, I always enjoy watching it. The fashion, the dialogues... it's a feelgood film. It's a shame (teen) films are not like that anymore," another fan expressed. Smart, stylish and endlessly quotable, Clueless is seen by many as the ultimate teen movie of its era - and as one reviewer put it: "If you haven't seen this film, then you're missing out on what it felt like to be a teenager in the 90s. A+." Clueless is now available to stream on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Disney+ and more.
Time Magazine
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
'Clueless' Proved Amy Heckerling Was Brilliant. But It's Not Her Only Stroke of Genius
How do you measure the worth of a filmmaker's career? Do you tick off box-office returns, or the awards lined up on a shelf? Which is a better determination of success, a string of hits or a film that lives on in the cultural imagination for decades, and counting? Or how about this: Can you measure a career in terms of generosity of spirit? Writer-director Amy Heckerling's Clueless turns 30 on Aug. 19, and if she'd made no other movies, this delightful modern reimagining of Jane Austen's Emma would have been an accomplishment by itself. Alicia Silverstone's Cher, a Beverly Hills high school student with a closet of riotous and costly mix-and-match outfits and a knack for negotiating higher grades without actually earning them, comes off as shallow and spoiled. But there's kindness and decency there too: she tries her hand at matchmaking, at first to further her own aims, only to realize that she likes bringing people together. She's too pragmatic to want love for herself, until she's forced to acknowledge that she's fallen for the guy she'd always thought of as an annoying brother figure, Paul Rudd's Josh, the son of her father's ex-wife. Clueless is both original (credit Heckerling with bringing the phrase As if! into the lexicon) and expertly crafted (its smart, breezy gags are strung together as gracefully as a strand of pearls). It also shows great affection for its characters, even while mocking them gently. When Cher refers to one of the great sword-and-sandal epics as 'Sporadicus,' you love her more, not less: she's not demeaning movies and experiences that are unfamiliar to her—she's just so eager that she bungles some of the specifics. That's the Heckerling touch, the mark of a filmmaker who has always led with confidence rather than ego—which is why the industry, incapable of grasping the difference between the two, never knew what to make of her, not even after she'd made one of the greatest teen movies of the 1980s, if not all time, 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Maybe it takes an outlier to make comedies that endure, as Clueless and Fast Times have. And maybe the lesson of Heckerling's checkerboard career isn't that today's fractured world of filmmaking needs more people who know how to play the game—it's that we need more outliers who play on their own terms. Today we regularly and openly champion women filmmakers, to the point where it can feel performative. But Heckerling and a small group of her contemporaries—like her friend Joan Micklin Silver, who'd self-financed her first film, the marvelous immigrant-in-New York story Hester Street (1975)—were striving to make films when women directors were still treated as interlopers, not to be trusted with big studio budgets. At 28 the Bronx-born Heckerling—a graduate of New York University, with a master's in film from the American Film Institute—made her feature debut with Fast Times, adapted from Cameron Crowe's book about teenage life in a Southern California high school. Fast Times was like no other teen movie at the time, particularly for the unvarnished way it presented teen pregnancy—and abortion. Universal, the studio behind the film, nearly backed off when early test audiences responded negatively to that abortion subplot. The executives eventually relented, and Fast Times did well enough at the box office that Heckerling got to make two more films in quick succession: 1984's gangster spoof Johnny Dangerously, which didn't make money, and 1985's National Lampoon's European Vacation, which did. But Heckerling's biggest hit would be the 1989 comedy Look Who's Talking, starring Kirstie Alley as a single mother whose son—first as an infant and then as a toddler—wisecracks like a sailor on shore leave, though only the audience can hear it. (Bruce Willis provides the kid's voice.) The gimmick looks broad on paper, but the movie is both fun and stealthily forthright, a mischievously sympathetic film about a modern mom trying to hold it all together by herself. Sometimes the best way to deal with the most serious subjects is to treat them like a lark. Next, Heckerling took on one of the movie's two sequels, 1990's Look Who's Talking Too. Clueless would arrive five years later—but as adored as the film is today, it was only a moderate hit at the time. Heckerling's language has always been the mainstream comedy—a surefire way to get the guys at the top to take you seriously—which may explain why, since Clueless, she's never had the career she deserved. Her last feature was 2012's amiable horror comedy Vamps, starring Silverstone and Krysten Ritter as vampire girls who strive to hang on to their vampirific youth (they feast only on rats' blood) rather than be forced to age like humans. Since then, Heckerling has worked in television—directing episodes of Gossip Girl and Amazon Prime's Red Oaks—and has turned Clueless into a musical, now playing in London's West End. But let's track back to the idea of what it means to get 'the career you deserve.' That's what happens when you deliver profits to executives. But what if you've made good or even terrific movies that have simply failed to land? Heckerling's so-called failures are better movies, with more heart, than many other comedy directors' successes. In the 2000 Loser, Jason Biggs plays Paul, a sweet but unhip Midwestern kid who gets a scholarship to NYU, only to be met with the sneering savagery of his rich-kid roommates. His crush, Mena Suvari's spiky, perceptive Dora, is involved with one of her professors (a weaselly Greg Kinnear). Loser is sharp and unyielding when it comes to human cruelty and boorishness; as always, Heckerling reserves her scrappy tenderness for the characters who deserve it. You really see that affection in 2007's I Could Never Be Your Woman, a film that, thanks to distribution-rights issues beyond Heckerling's control, was never released in U.S. theaters, going straight to DVD. Michelle Pfeiffer plays Rosie, a writer and producer on a TV show about entitled but seemingly average teenagers. (Heckerling based the movie on her own experience adapting Clueless into a television series in the late 1990s.) Rosie is in her mid-40s and divorced, with an 11-year-old daughter (Saoirse Ronan, in her film debut). She hasn't dated in forever. Then a new actor, Paul Rudd's late-20-something Adam, signs on for her show. She's reluctantly attracted to him. Is she too old? Is he too young? Most men wouldn't entertain those questions for long, but they hit Rosie hard. Pfeiffer vests Rosie's self-doubt with effervescent energy. There's no need to feel sorry for her—but you can't help wanting the best for her. Though Paramount had initially bought the script for I Could Never Be Your Woman, the studio declined to make the movie. 'There was some concern about doing a movie with an older female protagonist—not everybody's favorite demographic,' Heckerling told Entertainment Weekly in 2008. She went with an independent producer, which is where the movie's distribution woes began. Today, it's easy to stream if you seek it out, though relatively few people even know it exists. And that's how a brisk, intelligent movie ends up languishing. It could happen to anyone, and it happened to Heckerling. In the early 2000s, when many of us were complaining about the lack of smart romantic comedies for adults, this picture, one with charm and bite, was hiding in plain view. Now, at a time when the big-studio theatrical release barely exists, it's like a shining relic from a lost era. If this is what you leave behind when you haven't had the career you deserve, maybe that just means you've made a series of right choices. Anyone who thinks of them as wrong turns is the real loser.
7NEWS
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- 7NEWS
From ‘as if!' to cultural icon: Clueless turns 30 and proves it's more than just a pretty plaid skirt
How can it be that Clueless, a thoroughly modern social comedy, is now a period piece? When Clueless came out in July 1995, it was fresh and exciting, an update of, at the time, a 180-year-old novel by Jane Austen. Rather than Regency England, it was 1990s Beverly Hills, and the references were Ren & Stimpy, the Bosnian War, Coolio and Cindy Crawford's Buns of Steel. Friends, it's been 30 years. Clueless and Emma may have been almost two centuries apart, but themes were timeless with their story about personal growth, social structures, and, of course, love. But what made Clueless so beloved is that it centred a character who was, above all, an optimist. For its lovable hero, Cher Horowitz, things will work out. Why wouldn't they? Just as she tells her ex-stepbrother Josh, who expresses scepticism that she could get her teachers to change the grades on her report card, that she had 'done it every other semester'. Perhaps that's the secret to Clueless' enduring power. Earlier this year, its writer and director Amy Heckerling told the British podcast, Script Apart: 'When you're not so happy about the way things are going in the world, you could escape to this place of sunshine and fantasy and somewhat lovable characters, for the most part.' Clueless changed the game, it supercharged teen movies which had been quiet after their 1980s peak, heralding the next decade of youth stories, and embedding the film's snappy, specific lexicon into the wider culture – 'As if!', 'Whatever!', 'Way harsh', 'buggin'' and 'I was surfing the crimson wave'. It even created its own sub-genre of teen literary adaptations, which included 10 Things I Hate About You/Taming of the Shrew, Easy A/The Scarlet Letter, Cruel Intentions/Les Liaisons Dangereuses, She's All That/Pygmalion, She's the Man/Twelfth Night and O/Othello. Mona May's costumes – Cher had 63 outfit changes – had every girl and woman aged between 10 and 49 rushing out to buy plaid skirts and argyle prints. If you couldn't procure a fluff-topped pen, you made your own with supplies from Lincraft. It didn't matter if you couldn't afford 'totally important designer' Azzedine Alaia, you could still be part of the Clueless phenomenon. But it almost didn't happen at all. Heckerling's second film was the 1982 teen riot Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which featured among its all-star cast of young up-and-comers Sean Penn, Nicolas Cage and Jennifer Jason Leigh. It was the early Reagan era, and Fast Times was loose – it had sex, drinking, an abortion storyline and nudity. It was also a commercial success, but 40 years ago, there were even fewer opportunities for women directors than there are now, and Heckerling didn't get the leg-up in her career that should've been forthcoming. She had to write the Look Who's Talking movies so she could direct something, and by the early 1990s, was scouring for her next project. At the time, Fox was looking for a teen TV series, and Clueless started life as a show called No Worries. Heckerling wrote the pilot, which had all the main characters that would eventually end up in Clueless, and Fox passed. Heckerling changed agents, and her new rep, Ken Stovitz, took one look and said, 'This is a movie'. But still no one was biting. The feedback was that there weren't enough boys in the script, and you're not going to get male audiences to come and see a movie about girls. Every studio passed. That is, until Scott Rudin, a powerful producer who has since been put in the doghouse over many, many allegations over decades of abusive and bullying behaviour, read the script and liked it. Once Rudin was attached, it became hot property. Alicia Silverstone was 17 years old during the casting process and had only one notable film to her name, The Crush, but she was known as the girl in the Aerosmith videos. Heckerling loved her, but the studio insisted she see more actors, which included Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, Keri Russell, Reese Witherspoon, Gwyneth Paltrow, and even Angelina Jolie – the latter was deemed 'too knowing' to play the innocent Cher, according to an oral history published by Vanity Fair. Heckerling recalled that casting the role of Josh was the hardest. Ben Affleck read for it at one point, and so did Zach Braff. When Paul Rudd came in, he had also read for Christian and Elton, and he eventually booked Josh, after he screen-tested well with Silverstone. Brittany Murphy was a shoo-in for Tai from the start. Heckerling remembered her as 'so bouncy and giggly and just so young, when you saw her, you just smiled'. In fact, even the actors who didn't get Clueless reads like a who's-who – Seth Green and Jeremy Renner for Travis, Terence Howard and Dave Chappelle for Murray, and Lauryn Hill for Dionne. Sarah Michelle Gellar was offered the role of Amber, but the soap she was on at the time, All My Children, wouldn't release her for the two weeks of filming. Similarly, Jerry Orbach couldn't get off Law & Order to play Cher's dad, Mel. In a moment of life imitating art, during filming in Los Angeles, Rudd was mugged at gunpoint in a car park, just like Cher, and the Clueless script was in the backpack he surrendered to the assailant. He told GQ in 2009: 'I just remember the sounds of it, I remember people in the parking lot being really freaked out. But I just got very calm. Then I had to go to work the next day. It was a scene at a club. I was dancing, and I had just been shot at the night before.' One of the film's most iconic line readings – when Cher mispronounces Haitians as Hai-ti-ians – was an accident. Silverstone genuinely didn't know how to say it, and Heckerling loved it so much, she kept it. That scene was recreated last year for a Rakuten Super Bowl ad with Silverstone and a version of that famous yellow plaid skirt suit. Clueless came to define mid-1990s teen culture, and given its enormous success — a $US56 million ($AUD85m) box office from a $US12m budget — everyone wanted a piece of it. Every studio cried out for teen film scripts, and the next five years saw a saturation, culminating in the avalanche of 1999 during which at least a dozen major films in the genre were released, including Never Been Kissed, 10 Things I Hate About You and Jawbreaker. In a full circle moment, the year after Clueless's release, ABC commissioned a TV spin-off, but without Silverstone, Rudd, Murphy or Meyer, who didn't return. The roles of Cher and Josh were recast with Rachel Blanchard and David Lascher, but Stacey Dash, Donald Faison, Elisa Donovan, Twink Caplan and Wallace Shawn reprised their characters. It lasted three seasons, but that still wasn't the end for Clueless. Heckerling adapted her film for a stage musical in 2018, initially as a jukebox musical, but reopened earlier this year with original songs. And there's a TV sequel in the works with Silverstone on board. Even though Clueless was a tectonic film that recharted the course of teen movies and culture, the one person who didn't do as well out of it as she should have was Heckerling. 'If you're George Lucas and you create Star Wars, and then suddenly science fiction is acceptable after not being for so long, you're golden,' Heckerling told Script Apart. 'But I was just like, 'What am I going to do next?'.' Not that much, it turned out. Heckerling wrote and directed teen movie Loser, starring American Pie's Jason Biggs and Mena Suvari in 2000, reunited with Rudd for largely forgotten 2007 rom-com I Could Never Be Your Woman and with Silverstone for little-seen 2012 horror comedy Vamps. But she'll always have Clueless. We'll always have Clueless. Thirty years on and still as sharp, bright and winning as ever.
Los Angeles Times
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
30 years of ‘Clueless,' plus the week's best movies in L.A.
Hello! I'm Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies. We are pleased to exclusively announce that the Egyptian Theatre will host the U.S. premiere of the new 4K restoration of Charlie Chaplin's 'The Gold Rush' on June 26, the 100th anniversary of the film's premiere at that same venue in 1925. The restoration premiered as part of the Cannes Classics section at the recent Cannes Film Festival. On June 26, the restoration will screen in more than 70 countries, with the Egyptian being the exclusive engagement in the U.S. Film historian Jeffrey Vance, author of the 2003 book 'Chaplin: Genius of the Cinema,' will introduce the screening. Reproductions of the original film program will be available for 25 cents, the same price that it cost in 1925. 'The Gold Rush' features Chaplin in his iconic Little Tramp character, searching for his fortune prospecting for gold, and features some of his most famous moments on-screen. The restoration, carried out by Cineteca di Bologna and L'Immagine Ritrovata, draws from materials sourced from archives all around the world, including the BFI Archive, George Eastman Museum and the Museum of Modern Art. Tickets are now available at On Saturday the Academy Museum will present a 30th anniversary screening of 'Clueless' in 35mm, with director Amy Heckerling, actors Alicia Silverstone, Elisa Donovan and Breckin Meyer, costume designer Mona May and casting director Marcia Ross all scheduled to attend for a Q&A. Written by Heckerling, the film is a loose adaptation of Jane Austen's 'Emma' relocated to affluent 1990s Beverly Hills. Cher Horowitz (Silverstone), a popular and fashionable teenager, sets about playing matchmaker for a new classmate, Tai (Brittany Murphy), enlisting her best friend Dionne (Stacey Dash) to help. Paul Rudd, in his feature debut, plays Cher's stepbrother. In his original review, Kenneth Turan called the film 'a wickedly funny teen-age farce from writer-director Amy Heckerling that, like its heroine, turns out to have more to it than anyone could anticipate. … Put together with verve and style, 'Clueless' is a sweet-natured satire of L.A.'s over-pampered youth that gets more fun out of high school than most people had attending it.' In the summer of 2020, Justin Chang interviewed Heckerling, who spoke about writing Cher's voice-over narration and getting into the mind of the character by saying, 'Once you get into her head, then it just goes. It's not the voice of God. It's the voice of that person. And you get into it, and it's not necessarily what the writer needs — it's what the writer wants you to think that person is thinking. And that's a lot of fun to do. It's like, as a writer, you're also playing a character.' The 'Clueless' screening opens a series on teen movies that will run through July 10. Other titles include 'Bring It On,' 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off,' 'Adventures in Babysitting,' and 'Saved!' all in 35mm, along with 'Napoleon Dynamite,' 'Dope,' 'Love, Simon' and '10 Things I Hate About You.' Also on Saturday will be another 35mm 30th anniversary screening, with the UCLA Film & Television Archive showing writer-director Maria Maggenti's 'The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love.' A charming example of '90s indie filmmaking, the movie follows the burgeoning relationship between Evie (Nicole Parker) and Randy (Laurel Hollomon), two girls from opposite sides of the tracks who shouldn't particularly even be friends, let alone romantically drawn to each other. In his original review of the film, Peter Rainer wrote, 'The experience of first love is a movie perennial but rarely is it believably rendered. The best thing going for 'The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love' — an amateurish, sweet, little piddle of a movie — is that it captures a bit of the freshness, and the awkwardness, of the moment. … They seem like real people, and so their budding romance strikes a few remembered chords.' In a June 1995 profile of Maggenti by Chris Riemenschneider, the filmmaker talked about her inspirations in making the film. 'I didn't make a niche-market film,' Maggenti said. 'It wasn't about 'Let's make a lesbian film, and a bunch of lesbians will go see it.' I wanted to make a film that people would enjoy, a film about an authentic human experience, and it happens to be with someone of the same sex.' 'Death Becomes Her' in 35mm On Sunday the Academy Museum will host a 35mm screening of Robert Zemeckis' 1992 'Death Becomes Her,' starring Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, Isabella Rossellini and Bruce Willis. Made with still-dazzling special effects work that should look spectacular in the Academy's David Geffen Theater, the film is about two women who go to great lengths to maintain their youthful appearance, including competing for the romantic affections of a top plastic surgeon. In his original review of the film, Kenneth Turan wrote, ''Death' gets progressively darker and darker, forgetting all about humor in its attempts to push the more mordant limits of its story. The three principals are game enough about all this, soldiering on until the end, but their characters, not having much to do that they haven't done before, tend to sound the same single notes they have since Frame One. 'There is something regrettable in all this, because by industry standards this picture does take a few risks, and few enough pictures in today's Hollywood take any at all. But even though 'Death Becomes Her' has no fear of being out on the edge, brazenness alone is no guarantee of success.' The film is screening as part of a 'Summer of Camp' series, that will also include 'Valley of the Dolls,' 'Sleepaway Camp,' 'Flash Gordon,' 'The Birdcage,' 'Lifeforce,' 'Serial Mom,' 'Disco Godfather,' 'To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar,' 'Showgirls' and 'Drop Dead Gorgeous' all in 35mm prints, plus 'Batman & Robin,' 'But I'm a Cheerleader' and more. There will also be triple features of the 'Austin Powers' movies and titles starring Joan Crawford and Elizabeth Taylor. Shock-A-Go-Go Film Festival The Shock-A-Go-Go Film Festival will settle into the Lumiere Cinema at the Music Hall on Saturday and Sunday. The highlight of this year's program will be the Saturday screenings of 1978's 'Piranha' and 1981's 'The Howling,' with director Joe Dante and star Belinda Balaski present for both. Dante is a masterful storyteller and unflinching in his recollections. Any opportunity to hear him talk is worth taking. Among the finest examples of the Roger Corman school of filmmaking (rooted in low-budget genre filmmaking but reaching unexpected heights), both 'Piranha' and 'The Howling' were written by John Sayles, who would go on to a notable career as a filmmaker in his own right. Also on Saturday will be will be a screening of 'Hellbound: Hellraiser II' with writer Peter Atkins and director Tony Randel present, as well as 'Return of the Living Dead 3' with director Brian Yuzna in person. Yuzna's 1989 cult classic 'Society' will also show. 'Personal Best' and 'Star 80' The New Beverly is featuring a double-bill of movies starring Mariel Hemingway on Monday and Tuesday: Robert Towne's 1982 'Personal Best' and Bob Fosse's 'Star 80' from 1983. 'Personal Best' was the directorial debut for the Oscar-winning 'Chinatown' screenwriter Robert Towne, who died in July of last year. The film stars Hemingway as a rising track star who falls in love with an older athlete, played by real-life Olympic track and field athlete Patrice Donnelly. Both are training for the 1980 Olympics. The film was noteworthy at the time for its frank depiction of a lesbian relationship, as well as its focus on the athletes at work. A January 1982 profile of Towne by Dale Pollack found him in a suite at the Westwood Marquis Hotel (now the W) 'filled with typewriters, phones, vodka bottles and stacks of yellowing newspapers.' In a sign of the moment (and mindset) in which he was making it, Towne took some objection to classifying 'Personal Best' as a gay-themed film, saying, 'I don't think in any way this is a lesbian or homosexual movie. What I'm interested in is how you deal with a society that encourages competition, and still care about other people. These two women are in love with each other. In order to place emphasis on who they're making love to, you have to show it. But there are only two minutes of sex in the film; there are two hours of competition.' I know I've talked about Bob Fosse and 'Star 80' around these parts a number of times before, but for me it always rates a mention. Thinking of the film specifically in relation to 'Personal Best' is worthwhile, as both films meditate on the use and meaning of women's bodies. Few films are as unsparing and dispiriting in their depiction of the star machinery of Hollywood as 'Star 80.' Hemingway plays Dorothy Stratten, the Playboy Playmate turned actor who was brutally murdered by her ex-husband and manager, played with psychotic commitment by Eric Roberts. In her original review of the film, Sheila Benson called it 'creepy' and added, 'Worst of all, there is a feeling of complicity that is not far from voyeurism that you get as part of 'Star 80's' audience, sitting through the increasingly morbid tightening of the story.' Two local theaters are finding unique ways to support their communities this summer. Vidiots is launching Movie Den, a program of tween and teen-centric matinees focused on engaging a new generation of film lovers. Underwritten by Mubi and Golden Globe Foundation, screenings will take place in the venue's microcinema. Tickets are $2 and popcorn is free. Titles in the program include 'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,' 'Princess Mononoke,' 'Rear Window,' 'La Bamba,' 'Hairspray,' 'The Half of It,' 'Hot Rod' and more. In a statement, Maggie Mackay, executive director of Vidiots Foundation, said, 'As a mom to teens and a member of a community that has been through so much this year, it was important to me and our team that we try to make what we know will be a hard summer for so many a little easier, by expanding programming with an intention to get us out of the house, off devices and reconnected.' The Gardena Cinema, the last family-run independent single-screen indoor movie theater in South Los Angeles, will have free screenings this weekend as part of Pluto TV's Free Movie Weekend at indie movie theaters across the country. Oscar-winning filmmaker Sean Baker — who did a Times interview from the Gardena last year and appeared there again just last weekend — has partnered with Pluto TV to support their program. Screening for free at the Gardena this weekend will be 'Grease,' 'Saturday Night Fever' and 1984's 'Ghostbusters.'
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Clueless' Musical Director Has 'No Interest In Being Modern,' Will Stick With 1995 Themes And Fashion
1990s teen hit Clueless has been brought to the stage of London's West End by the film's original writer and director Amy Heckerling, who has focused on keeping the 90s theme integral to the story. Heckerling told BBC News that she has 'no interest in being modern,' and has stuck closely to the original story. The 1995 film, inspired by Jane Austen's novel Emma and starring Alicia Silverstone as lead character Cher and took $88million at the box office. It was credited with inspiring similar teen school dramas including Mean Girls, Gossip Girl and Legally Blonde. More from Deadline Shout! Studios Takes North America For Alicia Silverstone & Karl Glusman Thriller 'Pretty Thing' Alicia Silverstone, Oliver Hudson, Jameela Jamil, Pierson Fode & Melissa Joan Hart To Star In Netflix Rom-Com 'A Merry Little Ex-Mas' Alicia Silverstone To Star In 'Irish Blood' Series For Acorn TV And she admitted neither the original film nor the musical are documents of real LA life for most citizens. Heckerling told the BBC she wished the original film had been a musical, because ''there were natural moments in the script where characters could have sung.' Scottish singer KT Tunstall has composed an original score for the show, and she told the BBC she was inspired by the original film soundtrack. She called the new score 'a mixtape of all your favourite 90s bangers.' She said: 'You really have to think about whether a song fits the structure and flow of the story and whether it actually helps the audience understand the narrative better. Besides the story and music, the show sticks with the 1990s theme when it comes to the fashions. Characters are seen carrying pagers, listening to their music on Walkman stereos, omnipresent in that era. The original film also starred Stacey Dash, Brittany Murphy and Paul Rudd in his debut role. It was produced by Scott Rudin and Robert Lawrence. Best of Deadline TV Show Book Adaptations Arriving In 2025 So Far Book-To-Movie Adaptations Coming Out In 2025 Everything We Know About 'Freakier Friday' So Far
