Risky Business

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Risky Business is a 1983 film written and directed by Paul Brickman. Considered a breakout film for actor Tom Cruise (in the role of Joel Goodson), the movie is about a suburban Chicago teenager. While his parents are on vacation, Joel sinks his father's Porsche 928 into Lake Michigan. To raise money for the repairs, Joel runs a brothel in his parents' Glencoe house.

The film also stars Rebecca De Mornay as Lana, Joe Pantoliano as Guido, Curtis Armstrong as Miles, Richard Masur as the Princeton University interviewer, and Bronson Pinchot as Barry.

The movie's iconic sequence is the one in which Cruise dances and lip syncs in his underwear to Bob Seger's classic song "Old Time Rock & Roll".

The film is considered to be a social and political satire by many critics. One critic went so far as to imply that Cruise's famous dance sequence was a metaphor for the loose period of freedom after the Vietnam war. Whatever the truth of this, the film as a whole is a very thorough look at the rites of passage of a young man becoming an adult. The film's cinematography and existentialist moments have been compared to the film American Beauty, with one critic calling Risky Business a sort of prequel.

Taglines:

There's a time for playing it safe and a time for Risky Business.
Meet the model son who's been good too long.

Quotes

"Sometimes you just gotta say 'What the fuck!'." Miles tells this to Joel early in the film, and Joel later says this to the interviewer from Princeton University.

Guido (to Joel): "In a sluggish economy, never ever fuck with another man's livelihood."

Trivia

The scene of Tom Cruise dancing around in his underwear to Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock 'n' Roll" is one of the movie's most famous scenes. This scene was later parodied in the Simpsons episode Homer the Heretic, in an episode of the television series ALF, in the "Canasta Master" episode of the comedy series The Nanny, in the South Park in the episode 416 - "The Wacky Molestation Adventure", in the film The Guru, and twice on Saturday Night Live: once by Ron Reagan (1986) and once by Nicole Kidman.

The Crystal Egg from ep218 of The O.C.

The Crystal Egg makes an appearance in episode 218 of The O.C. called "The Risky Business" which aired on April 7, 2005. The episode's plot involves the egg being put up for a charity auction but is stolen by a main season 2 character. The episode then centers on the characters trying to get back the egg. The episode also includes a remake of the famous "throwing the egg like a football" scene where a main character dives and catches it just before it hits the ground and breaks. Tangerine Dream's "Love on a Real Train" is also played during the episode.

The series finale of Arrested Development (February 2006) has a sign reading "Risky Business" raised in the office after the Bluth Company stock improves and it is implied that one of the workers was inspired to re-create the famous dancing scene, but fails and injures himself by sliding into a ladder.

External links

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