Bright Lights, Big City (1988)

You are a painfully dated 1984 novel by Jay McInerney. You are about the coke-fuelled nightlife of emotionally dead New York magazine fact checkers.

You inspire an embarrassingly moronic 1988 movie starring Michael J Fox (You can at least be thankful you are not Doc Hollywood).

You are written in the rare and annoying second-person present narrative form.

Fox comes of age in this grim descent into yuppie hell. As a nice country boy hypnotized by the glitter of the Big Apple, he experiences life in the fast lane, sweats bullets, falls in with the cocaine crowd, and almost self-destructs.

While his life falls apart, Kiefer Sutherland, as his coke-sniffing pal, Dianne Wiest, as his dying mother, and Jason Robards, as his pickled boss, all lend excellent support, but it’s a newly matured Mr Fox who makes this movie seem like Oz photographed through the bottom of a double vodka martini.

Jamie Conway
Michael J. Fox
Tad Allagash
Kiefer Sutherland
Amanda
Phoebe Cates
Megan
Swoosie Kurtz
Clara Tillinghast
Frances Sternhagen
Vicky
Tracy Pollan
Mr. Vogel
John Houseman
Mother
Dianne Wiest
Alex Hardy
Jason Robards
Ferret Man
William Hickey
Michael
Charlie Schlatter
Rittenhouse
David Warrilow
Yasu Wade
Alec Mapa
Kathy
Gina Belafonte
Rich Vanier
Sam Robards
Stevie
Bernard Zette
Theresa
Jessica Lundy
Elaine
Kelly Lynch
Barbara
Annabelle Gurwitch
Walter Tyler
Russell Horton

Director
James Bridges

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