I have this very cherished collection of mid to late 80s memories of being up late with my dad in the glow of the TV, just along for the ride for whatever he felt like watching, just happy to still be awake and not yet sent to bed. There were the black and white WW1 and WW2 documentaries the original History channel was known for before reality TV. Lots of black and white general Patton riding grainy tanks around to voiceover. Sportsball, of course. And although my father was a man of very little culture, he did get down on the occasional movie. It was always interesting to see which ones made him laugh, or grabbed his attention. Like watching lightning strike. Very rare.
One movie that he liked, that I remember watching more than once with him, was La Bamba- the movie about Ritchie Vallens. My dad loved the song, I remember, but all I remembered about the movie was “the day the music died” ending, and the very last scene- which of him and his brother racing up a hill together as it fades to black.
I watched it recently and it choked me up a bit. For the movie’s sake, and for thinking about my dad. It’s a movie about brothers. No wonder he liked it. The main character isn’t even Ritchie, it’s his brother Bob- pictured above, who is a real piece of shit through most of the movie. He steals Ritchie’s girl, played by Elizabeth Pena one of the most underrated feminine icons of the late 80s, knocks her up. Abuses her. Is a total deadbeat and drunk. Reckless and hostile, except to his brother who you can tell he loves. They have a very uncomplicated brotherly relationship of unconditional love, despite being radically different, and despite bob being borderline evil and menacing.
Eventually they have their falling out, where Ritchie calls him out for being such a sack of shit, and Bob laments how Ritchie got a head start in life because he was their father’s real child, whereas bob was from another man and was shunned. They don’t speak for a while. Bob gets his shit together, starts being good to his children and baby mama, and right before Ritchie takes his final plane ride, they talk on the phone and bro out and talk about how they’re brothers and everything is water under the bridge, and it got me.
I see why it got my dad too. We are both brothers. I have two, he had 4 but one died leaving 3. I wonder if the movie reminded him of his brother who, like Ritchie, also died when he was 17 years old. 2 left, my uncles Joel and Jack. My Dad and his siblings came out named in this order: Jack, Jill, Jim, Joel, Jeff, Jerry......Mary.
You might remember Elizabeth Pena from Batteries Not Included, Jacob’s Ladder, Vibes (with Jeff Goldblum and Cindi Lauper, another 80s crush), and Down And Out In Beverly Hills. I remember not being at all attracted to her as a kid. Blondes were always more my forte. But I always remembered her, for deep reasons, and going back and watching that whole catalogue of late 80s movies as an adult in the 2000s and 2010s, I developed a bit of a post mortem childhood crush on most of the roles she played.
There is something about her that is incredibly feminine. Strong in feminine ways, and vulnerable in feminine ways. In Batteries Not Included (pictured above) she is pregnant and alone (vulnerable), but at the same time very tough and no nonsense with her coming baby and potential suitors and her future.
There is this high but contained energy and feral passion in every little motivated gesture and movement she makes. Very in touch with the present. Very sensual. But also, a darkness. The primal “chaos” of “the feminine.” Her role in Jacob’s Ladder as a Jezebel, a kind of succubus keeping him in his purgatory while she fucks demons on the dance floor perfectly nailed the Old World witchy nature of women, paired perfectly and naturally with the soft and the maternal. Somehow.
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