"This particular missing person, so far as you are concerned, Inspector, is no longer missing. ...The Mannfred case is closed. It was never open. Clear?"
Just watched the original BBC miniseries of Edge of Darkness too. It has a similar plotline (minus the cannibals) - although it relates to the "underground" nature of the nuclear industry, and the deliberate subversion of the trades unions by the intelligence services in the interests of government/corporate policy. It wouldn't get made nowadays. By which I mean, it's really good.
EDIT: And that goes for The Breakfast Club as well. It's really good, and it wouldn't get made nowadays. Courtney Love's favourite film, it is - or it was back when she wrote her Lollapalooza Diary for Melody Maker in the nineties, which was the first time I remember taking a mild liking to her. I've never got beyond a mild liking, but she writes well. She might've changed her mind about her favourite film by now, I suppose. I wouldn't put it past her!
For the record, though, and if I remember right, she lined up the characters and their (then) contemporary rockstar Lollapalooza equivalents like this:
John Bender = Kurt. Kurt was already dead by this point, but she said he was a lot like Bender - outwardly tough (forced to be so, by necessity - it didn't come natural) but inwardly tender, thoughtful, and nowhere near hardened enough to put himself up against the types of people that he was, by necessity, going out of his way to challenge - people like the Principal Richard Vernon, who can't back down without destroying their own entire lives and worldviews. Nobody can go up against those people, I suppose. Not unless they are prepared to destroy them.
I think she compared Principal Vernon to Billy Corgan. Uptight, obsessed with status and hierarchy, madly obsequious to his betters, and needlessly hard on those below. But my memory's not that good, so it's best to just assume that that is my own opinion of Billy Corgan coming through. Or at least Courtney's own opinion of him, which is no better than mine. Still, she coulda picked Trent Reznor. Same thing really.
I am absolutely certain, though, that she compared Brian Johnson to Stephen Malkmus, of Pavement. He is the nerd, the geek, the outsider, eternally trying to fit in, but with a bubbling undercurrent of deeply personal and hidden extremism that goes far above and beyond the ideas of the apparently cool high school rebels. Brian was the only one who would probably end up doing some real good in the world, funnily enough. Or if not good, bad. I agreed with her on that, but probably only 'cos I really like Stephen Malkmus and Pavement.
Lastly, I think she equated the selective-mute girl Allison with PJ Harvey... which is just dumb. No way would PJ Harvey let somebody else do her make-up. No way.
Anyways, we all know that the real hero of the film was Carl the Janitor. He knew all.
