YMMV / Grosse Pointe Blank

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• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Debi mentions in passing that her apartment burned down on Devil's Night. The night before Halloween, which is known by the people of Detroit as "Devil's Night" was originally intended as a night of mischief, but starting in The '70s, it was a night where a lot of arson went down, with its peak reached in the mid to late 1980s, which saw no fewer than eight hundred fires being set in one single night. Things have gotten better in the 21st century, thanks in large part to community groups that formed specifically to prevent the arsons, in an effort known as "Angel's Night."
• Awesome Music: A score composed by Joe Strummer, no less, plus many excellent 80s numbers.
• California Doubling: There are no palm trees in suburban Detroit.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In June 2012, a story broke that someone actually did try to hire a killer in Grosse Pointe.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In one scene, a gas station clerk is seen playing Doom on an arcade machine, even though it hasn't been released on the arcades as of now. Yet:
  • About two decades later, porting Doom on many other computer-like devices and beyond, including printers and calculators, has become a trend and achieved a memetic status. Things came full circle when Doom has been indeed ported as an arcade machine'' within Doom itself!
  • The promotional artwork for Doom (2016) featured its own Doom arcade machine◊.
• Jerkass Woobie: Martin Q. Blank. Father heavily implied to have been an alcoholic and Martin still resents him after many years being dead, returns home to find out that the place where he grew up is now a mini-mart and his mother is in the asylum with an advanced case of dementia (or some other neurological disorder), he is neurotic, and has become an assassin.
• Retroactive Recognition: Jenna Elfman made her film debut here (as the classmate of Martin and Debi who's in a neck brace and talking about a near-death experience).
• Tear Jerker: Martin's visits to his parents. His mother's dementia is so bad she forgets who he is after a few moments, and his relationship with his father is implied to be seething with resentment.

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