#786. Mock Squid Soup: Better Off Dead

via Entertainment Weekly

I'm the mock squid this month!  (To be clear, there is no "mock squid" in the Mock Squid Soup club.  "Mock" refers to the proprietor of What's up, Mock?, just as "Squid" refers to the host of Armchair Squid; Mock and Squid are the founders of our little film society.  As far as I know, there is no "Soup."  Although if there were, what would be your pleasure, and do you often have soup while watching movies?)

I'm the theoretical mock squid because this is the first month in which I have not seen the selected movie, 1985's Better Off Dead, starring someone who is apparently obsessed with Q-tips.  Incidentally, if you remove said Q-tips, the pictured actor looks a little like How I Met Your Mother's Josh Radnor.  Upon reflection, Better Off Dead could almost read like something Radnor's character Ted Mosby would have done.  This sounds all too plausible, actually...

But the actor in question is not Josh Radnor, it's John Cusack, who is famously tall.  Although he's really only 6'2", which would be short for, say, a professional wrestler, or Shaq.  Apparently Tom Cruise is not the only short actor...

Cusack would be a pretty good reason for me to have watched Better Off Dead (although I had every intention to, and simply let the calendar get away from me).  He's pretty darn great in Grosse Pointe Blank (which is itself pretty darn great in general!), and Martian Child is quite amusing.  That is more or less the extent of my first-hand experience with John Cusack.  I've probably seen more of his sister Joan's work.  Or maybe it just seems that way?

I've never seen Say Anything..., which features one of the iconic images of '80s movies, John holding a boombox above his head (this is one of those things that cannot be duplicated today, along with disco), but, and no offense to Mock Squid Soup or Better Off Dead, I would probably prefer to have watched Say Anything... as my '80s John Cusack movie over Better Off Dead.

I'm sorely deficient in my '80s teen angst movies in general.  I've never even seen The Breakfast Club.  I did see Risky Business, which features Tom Cruise, a shorter actor than John Cusack (although Shaq is taller).  Also, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and of course Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, which was excellent.  Does Back to the Future count, or does the image of Michael J. Fox and the actress playing his mom in the backseat of a car cancel out that sick guitar solo?  Jumping gigawatts!

Bueller?