Friday Morning Videos: Endless Love

I thought of this song to post as an exceedingly lovey-lovey-supa-lovey song to celebrate the end of DOMA, Prop 8, and the dawn of an era when Jade Butterfield (no kidding, that’s her name) would be played by Tom Cruise, as Jude, or David Axelrod would be Jodie Foster, as Denise.

And then I looked up the movie, and watched the video, and I almost regret my choice.

A few fun facts about the cast of the 1981 Zeffirelli film:

• James Spader plays Brooke Shields’ brother, and he is credited as Jimmy Spader. I assume he is a dick.
• Jami Gertz is ALSO in this, making it a Less Than Zero twofer!
• Ian Ziering plays Brooke Shields’ brother, as well.
• Robert Altman is in it. As a hotel manager. Huh?

I’ve never seen the movie, but based on the storyline on imdb, I think I might have to, because it sounds really, really fucking awful, like on a level with “Ice Castles,” complete with the easy-listening theme song.

Two young kids fall in love with each other. But the passion is too consuming for the parents of Jade. The parents try to stop them from seeing each other. But when this doesn’t work David burns down the house and is sent away. This doesn’t stop him from seeing her. When he gets out he goes to look for her. But in the end the passion for his first love is too strong and she has to leave or this love will kill both of them.

If I’d seen it when I was 15, I bet it would’ve blown Dirty Dancing out of the water. But now I’m 38. And while I can’t judge how he burned down the house or how Jade Butterfield really feels or anything, that bloodless description is creepy in the extreme, and I’m with Mr. and Mrs. Butterfield in the “Stay Away from My 15-Year-Old Daughter, Asshole” camp.

Honestly, I’m really annoyed that I didn’t read about this earlier, because my husband’s out of town and I totally would’ve watched it on Netflix tomorrow night. Now I’m going to have to wait until he leaves town again, or else I’ll never get agreement to watch it. Once, the promise of a nudish Brooke Shields would’ve been enough, but now we have daughters. Two of them. And because of that: ew.

In case you miss it in the video: yes, Mum is watching them have sex in front of the fire, and she doesn’t run down the steps with a baseball bat. She knows what her daughter looks like; she should keep a baseball handy at all times. Possibly a retractable one, hidden up her sleeve. Also, knives are small and fit nicely into leg holsters.

But let’s forget about all that, and bear witness to the softcore porn that is apparently fairly unscandalous for the hetero crowd. Imagine a naked RDJ instead of Brooke Shields, and it does make it much, much more fun to watch.