Theme Song: Though not quite as overblown as Vision Quest in terms of soundtrack star-power, this album is loaded with original material by a smattering of studio producers and musicians.
“That Was Then…This Is Now” Randy Wayne and Carole Sue Hill take a swing at the title song. I hope you like synth stabs and uplifting choruses that repeat over and over while a sax blares!
“Rap Song” (Yes, that is the title). MC Terry T for the River Street Crew so enthusiastically wants you to have sex and “bust a nut” that it’s almost contagious. Who can argue with him? Scream, “Oh, yeah!” Despite being the best damn rapper, MC Terry T has no other credits on Discogs.
“Born Alone” sung by Kipp Lennon, who has done a lot of soundtrack work over his long-spanning career. Most interestingly, he sang the “Happy Birthday Lisa” song from The Simpsons episode featuring Michael Jackson.
“Experience” by Roach also shows up. This song was also used as the theme in The Joy of Sex (1984), and Roach’s only other credits are for the All The Right Moves soundtrack and Pumping Iron II: The Women. I’m assuming they were some type of studio conglomeration.
Interesting Dated References: This movie is an early example of a cinematic universe as characters from author S.E. Hinton’s other literary adaptations are referenced in That Was Then This Is Now.
Social Context: Emilio Estevez’s Hollywood equity must have been through the roof in 1984/85. Fresh off of Repo Man, he then appeared in St. Elmo’s Fire and Breakfast Club, all while co-writing and acting in this adaptation of Hinton’s novel That Was Then… This Is Now, a project he had been attempting to get off the ground since appearing in Hinton’s Tex (1982) and The Outsiders (1983).
It’s a lot to have on your plate and definitely explains why an overworked Estevez would take a lesser novel by a popular author and bloat it into a one hour and forty-two-minute slog complete with each scene beginning and ending with slow fades and culminating in a painstaking twelve-minute scene in which a woman pulls up to a friend’s house, exits her car, and takes a casserole to their front door.
Summary: Mark (Estevez, Nightmares) and Bryon (Craig Scheffer) are poor students with massive chips on their shoulders. They pal around town, harassing people and talking shit. Eventually, they visit the bar owned by their friend Charlie (Morgan Freeman, Teachers) and proceed to hustle some yokels at the pool.
This results in Charlie being shot and killed, followed by lots of half-baked character development as our two leads continue to have various run-ins around town.
They proceed to have altercations with local drunk girl Angela (an under-used Jill Schoelen, Thunder Alley, Hot Moves) whom Mark physically assaults by cutting her hair when she’s drunk, leading to beef with her brothers. Also eating up a bunch of slow fades is a storyline involving their mentorship of local misguided teen M&M, and talking with their random black friend Terry (Larry B. Scott).
Eventually, Mark is outed as a drug dealer who supplies pills to M&M and Bryon ends the friendship after a ten-minute chase scene then subsequently leaves town. This is easily an effective 60-minute made-for-television movie, but as an almost two-hour Hollywood movie with full-blaring synth soundtrack, it’s overbaked.
Worth Mentioning:
– Filmed in and around Minneapolis/St. Paul. Calhoun Square features in a few scenes, as well as additional locations detailed here.
– A bunch of rowdy teens congregate near a Fotomat at one point.
Poster and Box Art:
Effectively marketed with a prominent Estevez and nice typography elements, That Was Then This Is Now had a well-done marketing campaign to coincide with the average movie and soundtrack.
The fact that I get as excited as I do when a new film is posted proves that I have serious problems.