New On Netflix: The Outsiders

What’s most remarkable about Francis Ford Coppola‘s earnest (perhaps a bit too earnest) adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s novel about young hoodlums growing up on the wrong side of the tracks isn’t the acting, writing, directing or anything like that. It’s the fact that almost everybody in Hollywood who was vaguely in their teens or early 20s is in this movie. You’ve got C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Emilio Estevez, Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, Diane Lane and Leif Garrett, all before they would take their places at different levels of “famous.” The film, for the record, is a melodramatic mess, but it’s still a joy to watch these kids at work and play — and a little nostalgia never hurt anyone. “Ponyboy!”