Why I Love the Movie

Modern Girls

by

Leigh A. Godfrey

And speaking of secret dreams, for a while (a long time ago) my secret dream was to meet John Taylor from Duran Duran and have him fall madly in love with me. Which may explain some of why I love the movie Modern Girls. See, in this obscure B-movie gem, CeCe (played by the perky Cynthia Gibb), one of the three "modern girls" of the title, is at a nightclub and in walks Bruno X, the "dreamiest" rock star on MTV. Encouraged to go for it by her cynical friend Margo (Daphne Zuniga, whom I have now seen around town twice, leading me to believe the next time I see her I have to tell her how much I love her in this movie), CeCe literally falls on top of Bruno and it's love at first sight for the hot rocker. But the two are separated when the club is raided: "I can’t go that way, they're checking IDs . . . I'm only 19!" CeCe sadly wails as Bruno is hustled out the door by his manager. And thus our "wacky night on the town" flick is set up for us.

But I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. First, you must meet the modern girls themselves.

Modern Girls is set in Los Angeles and tells the tale of three young ladies whose only concern is where they will be going out that night. At the start of the film we find out that Kelly (Virginia Madsen) is the pretty one, as we watch all the boys fawn over her at the pet store where she works. CeCe is the wild one. This is illustrated by the fact that in her job as a cosmetic counter employee, she gives a matronly woman a makeover featuring Siouxsie Sioux-style eye shadow, which gets CeCe promptly fired. Finally, Margo is the aloof (read: bitchy) one. We are first introduced to her at her job as a telemarketer, where she is rude to the customers. She clearly hates being on the phone, and isn't very good at her job. Of course, this is ironic, as just hours later we see her networking on the phone like an old pro as she wangles entrance into the hottest clubs for herself and her two friends. Margo is also the voice of reason. It is she that tells Kelly to give up her no-good DJ boyfriend Brad because he doesn't appreciate her.

But again, I'm getting ahead of myself. But it's just so exciting talking about this movie. It’s like stealing a bunch of $300 hair bows when you have more than enough money to pay for them!

Anyway, the three girls are roommates and clearly, die-hard partiers. As soon as they get home, Margo gets on the phone to find out the place to be that night, and CeCe sets her alarm for 10:30 pm so she can nap in anticipation for a big night out. The alarm rings, and we are treated to a montage of CeCe trying on various hideous outfits that I assume are supposed to be a vague representation of the gamut of clothing available to young recently unemployed girls living in LA in the 80s. But it really just looks like someone raided a B-movie costume designer's closet. (Oh, wait – someone did!)

As to the music backing this montage, please see my North Shore review for my comment on B-movie soundtracks of the 80s.

Anyway, she finally ends up with this crazy-ass outfit that involves a weird boa that is not made out of feathers and a purse that looks like a rock. Need I mention, this is not and never was thought of as cool. Margo represents in a black short skirt, a Michael Jackson-esque jacket with a myriad of zippers and humongous shoulder pads, fishnets, long blue velveteen gloves, and one diamante earring that is dangly and one that is not. Sadly, this was considered relatively cool in the 80s, when fashion was as questionable as Winona's defense that she was shoplifting because her director told her to do so.

But where is Kelly, you might ask? That is the very question posed by Clifford, Kelly's date for the night, who shows up at the apartment as eager as one of the puppies in Kelly's pet shop. Now what poor Clifford doesn't know, but what Margo and CeCe do, is that Kelly has slipped out to go be slutty with bad boy Brad while Margo and CeCe were napping. And she took the car! See, these girls are poor, therefore they share a car. And everyone knows that living in LA you have to have a car. But Margo, after sneaking a glance out the window to see Cliff's styling vintage convertible, has a cunning plan. They will tell Cliff that they are meeting Kelly at the club, so as to get a ride there. This, to me, is a stroke of scriptwriting genius. Because who didn't make friends with some dork who drove when they were without license and/or car?

Don't say you didn't because we ALL did.

Anyway, CeCe decides to spend a little time watching MTV with Cliff and here is where we are introduced to the fabulous Bruno X. As we are treated to a snippet of his video for "Safire" (pronounced Sa-Far-Aye), Cliff says: "Who is that guy?" Now, the discerning viewer will instantly see that Bruno X is Cliff with a British accent. (That's right, both characters are played by actor Clayton Rohner, who also starred in another personal 80s favorite of mine Just One of the Guys.) But CeCe shrilly exclaims: "What planet are you from? It’s Bruno X.” Cliff is not impressed, the subject is dropped, Margo appears, and they are on their way. Now I have to mention both Margo and CeCe think that Cliff is a complete dork, I think mainly because he is wearing this cool vintage sweater and drives an old car. But I probably do not need to mention that clearly this makes Cliff way cooler than Margo and CeCe will ever hope to be. I mean, a purse that looks like a rock? One long earring and one short one? Puh-lease.

Anyway, they roll up to the club and CeCe explains the rules of being a Modern Girl to Cliff: "We never pay for parking, and we never carry cash, and we never buy our own drinks. And we never wait in line." All things I honor. Well, except for the never carrying cash and never buying your own drinks. A true Modern Girl always buys her own drinks. Or, better yet, befriends the bartender who pours her free drinks all night. (See all Tammy Tonic reviews.)

They go inside (cue bad synth music no one's ever heard of) and Kelly, in a dress that is a cross between Stevie Nicks and Jessica McClintock, is writhing all over Brad who is sporting a striped tank top, white pants with suspenders and a mullet. (And Cliff is a dork?) Cliff is despondent and manages to make Margo feel bad for about two seconds when he tells her if she just wanted a ride she should have asked. She tells him she'll buy him a drink, which she accomplishes by heading to the bar and picking out the most yuppified blow-dried guy out of the bunch and asks him to buy her not one, but three drinks. And then she doesn't even put out!

Cut to aforementioned scene with Bruno X's entry. I guess there was a point of making über-dork Cliff and über-stud Bruno X the same actor, but I don't know what it is. Maybe the irony that they are chasing all over town for a guy that is right under their nose all along? A metaphor for the complicated male-female relationships of the time? Cheaper than paying two actors? You be the judge.

So Bruno is gone, Kelly has also been swept away in the post-raid crush, and much to Margo's chagrin CeCe demands that Cliff follow Bruno's limo. A goofy limo chase thus ensues, culminating in the trio having very un-PC terrorist-looking dudes pointing guns at them (please don't make me explain this because I don't think I can).

After proclaiming that a drink will cheer them up, Margo, CeCe, and Cliff head to the goth club the Gloom Room, and the girls proceed to give Cliffy a makeover which basically consists of them spiking up his hair with some Finesse hair spray and having him smoke a color-coordinated Sherman cigarette. And by lighting his cigarette CeCe uncovers the clue to Bruno X’s whereabouts with some hotel matches. CeCe calls the hotel but they are not going to give the sad groupie his room number. However, the girls get the brilliant idea to have Cliffy call and impersonate Bruno X! Ingenious! He finds out that Bruno is wanted on the set of his hot music video for the hit single “Bond of Addiction,” which is being shot on Melrose Ave.

The trio heads to Melrose and wanders around the video set until the director spots Cliffy and forces him to act as a stand-in for Bruno X, and Cliffy finds his inner rock star as he puts on a trench coat and dances with some Addicted to Love style dancers. In the meantime, the real Bruno X phones the video director to call off the shoot because he “met some dream girl in a club and is looking for her.” (Yup, that would be CeCe.) CeCe tries to grab the phone and then interrogates the director, who claims that he couldn’t hear Bruno because of all the birds in the background. Remember this, as it factors into Kelly’s pet store job. And it's about this time that CeCe remembers to tell Margo that Kelly has gone off to Sharkey’s with two druggies. Cliffy asks where Sharkey’s is, and the terrible trio is off to rescue her.

Cut to wee Kelly, who has gone of to a biker bar with a wacky couple that has scored some Ecstasy. After taking a pill, Kelly rolls around on a pool table enticing every freak in the bar until Cliffy, Margo, and CeCe break in with same loopy story about nuclear waste and radiation (no, I’m not kidding) and rescue Kelly from certain gang rape.

Margo gives Kelly a talking to: “You think a good rape is like a good cigar?” and Kelly just giggles in her Ecstasy haze.

Then there is a whole scene of rain in the convertible and two flat tires in the cool car and Cliffy getting mad at the girls and all of them walking for miles through Hollywood and a bus full of tourists mistaking Cliff for Bruno X and finally, they all end up in a Ford Fiesta that Cliff uses to give driving lessons. (See he is a dork; he’s a driving instructor!) But along the way, Cliff and Margo almost make out and you see the love a growing, although Cliff thinks “Margo is too cool to care about anyone.”

But I question that, as she is still sporting that one long earring look.

Anyway, after they are installed in the very uncool car, Kelly informs the girls she sold a bunch of exotic birds to a guy that was opening a club that night: “Club Voodoo.” Even Margo thinks it is too exclusive for them to get into but they give it a shot. It looks as though our heroines are going to be humiliated by a long wait in line, but the bouncer spots Cliffy in his Bruno X persona and lets them all in. When inside, CeCe finds out that Bruno X had been there and done an incredible “word jazz poem kind of thing” and dedicated it to her before taking off. But she manages to find his very drunk manager tucked away in a corner of the bar, and he tells her that Bruno X will be leaving from the Santa Monica Airport at 7 am. In the meantime, much to Margo’s chagrin (again), Kelly has decided in her waning Ecstasy haze she’s going to put the big moves on Cliff. But right at the moment of truth, Kelly sees Brad and gets all despondent and crazy and goes off with this psycho stalker guy in the midst of a fruit fight that has ensued (don’t ask).

Margo, CeCe, and Cliff luckily find out from the slutty girl who likes to take pictures of herself (again, don’t ask) that the psycho guy is indeed psycho, so they race off the follow them. After a not so exciting car chase, they end up at the fountain off Los Feliz Blvd., where Kelly is once again nearly raped and subsequently saved by her friends. However, in the course of saving her they are arrested and taken to the police station, leaving poor CeCe lamenting over ever meeting Bruno at the airport at 7 am.

Out of jail, Cliff and Margo finally have their kissing moment in the parking lot of the prison, and they all race off to get CeCe to the airport on time. But inexplicably, once there, reunited with the hottest rock star of the moment, CeCe questions the wisdom of running off with Bruno X. And here’s where I say: What? You’re nineteen. You’ve just lost your job. You’ve got the hottest rock star of the moment telling you you’re fabulous, he’ll buy you whatever you want, and he wants to take you away with him. And he’s cute. And you already know he’s a good kisser. Do you go? Hell, yeah you do. Oh sorry, but not if you’re stupid old CeCe, who decides that she needs to stay, because of her friends. How lame is that? I hate that so much, it’s the one false note in this otherwise beautiful reminder of the fun-loving 80s.

So I guess the real reason why I love the movie Modern Girls is, excepting the lame ending, in a badly illustrated cheesy storyline kind of way it was exactly what I did as a teenager. Taking naps before going out at 11pm. Getting onto the guest lists of all the cool nightclubs. Wearing bad Siouxsie Sioux eye makeup. Making out with rock star Charlie Sexton, who was the Bruno X of his day. Having wacky adventures with people you just met. Doing tons of Ecstasy and almost getting gang raped in a biker bar. Oh wait—well, except for the last part, it’s pretty much just like a part of my life that I remember fondly. Only with slightly worse music and clothes.

Just slightly though. Too bad we didn't think to shoplift our wardrobe from Saks.