Up the Creek (1984)

Posted on January 13, 2015 | Leave a comment

up the creek

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Win the raft race.

Bob McGraw (Tim Matheson) is a lazy college student who has taken out over 30 student loans under false names that has allowed him to remain in the school for 12 years. When the school’s dean (John Hillerman) finds out about it he threatens to have him expelled unless he and his buddies (Stephan Furst, Dan Monahan, Sandy Helberg) can win the annual raft race, which is something the school hasn’t done in many years. The four agree to do it once the dean promises them free degrees, but they find things to be tough going as not only must they fight the mighty rapids, but also some Ivy League preppies that will sink to any cheating low to win and a team of marines disgruntled at being disqualified.

This film seems like an odd career move for director Robert Butler who had just come off tremendous critical success with his directing of several early episodes of the ground breaking series ‘Hill Street Blues’ as well as his creation of the slick ‘Remington Steele’ TV-series and the dark/edgy Night of the Juggler film yet here he reverts back to his Disney roots doing a sort of updated, raunchy 80’s version of his Medfield College films that starred Kurt Russell. Unfortunately this one isn’t half as clever and entertaining as those were and in a lot of ways just as silly and childish. The only thing he gets right is the filming done on the Deschutes River in Oregon, which manages to have a few nifty shots of the rafts going down the rapids, but that is about it.

Matheson is the one thing that manages to hold it together playing an amusing caricature of a slacker that remains on-target throughout. Jennifer Runyon as an attractive blonde that he meets up with is gorgeous and perfect eye candy even though she has no nude scenes despite being the hottest female in the film. Furst has a few funny moments in a clichéd role of a gluttonous, overweight character, but it’s the dog named Chuck that ends up being the real scene stealer especially during a diverting game of charades.

Unfortunately the film is unable to hold the balance between being silly and raunchy. In fact after the first 20 minutes there is very little adult humor or nudity at all and what we get left with is a live action cartoon that is more lame than funny. The repetitive hijinks by the competing teams are campy and tiresome and the fact that Matheson and his crew are constantly able to rebuild their inflatable raft after it gets repeatedly destroyed makes no sense. The film would have worked better had it scraped the dumb humor altogether and focused solely on the race as that is the only time that it ever gets even slightly interesting.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: April 6, 1984

Runtime: 1Hour 36Minutes

Rated R

Director: Robert Butler

Studio: Orion Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD-R, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Campy Comedy, College Life, Movies with Nudity

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Nobody’s Perfekt (1981)

Posted on January 10, 2015 | 3 comments

nobodys perfekt 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: Crazies fight city hall.

Dibley (Gabe Kaplan) who suffers from unpredictable memory loss, Swaboda (Alex Karras) who thinks his mother is still alive and with him at all times even when she really isn’t and Walter (Robert Klein) who has a split personality that can turn him from a gangster to Bette Davis at any given moment decide to steal an army tank and use it to force the mayor (Arthur Rosenberg) to pay for a new car when their old one gets damaged after driving through one of the city’s potholes. They get Dibley’s girlfriend Carol (Susan Clark) to go along with the scheme and in the process get caught up with a robbery of an armed bankroll truck.

If it was possible to give this thing a negative number rating I would and I seriously considered it, but decided to be generous and give it a 0 even though this thing has to be one of the dumbest comedies ever made. I’ve seen a lot of them, but at least they usually had one or two funny gags even if the rest fell flat, but this one has none. The humor is at a 6-year-old’s level and is painfully stupid from beginning to end without a shred of believability. It also features what has to be one of the slowest, most drawn out and boring car chases ever to be put on film

Mental illness is no laughing matter and the way it gets portrayed here could be considered offensive. Screenwriter Tony Kenrick, who also wrote the novel from which this film is based as well as director Peter Bonerz have clearly not done any research on the topic and portray those afflicted with it in the most sophomoric and benign way possible. In reality these characters would not have been able to hold down regular jobs like they do here and even if they did they would have been quickly fired once their mental problems became easily apparent. They would also most likely be on medications and even institutionalized instead of freely gallivanting around and only seeing an inept shrink (portrayed by Paul Stewart in a very clichéd send-up of Sigmund Freud) once a week who seems to have no insight on how to help them.

The ‘normal’ characters are just as annoyingly stupid. When the trio decide they want to steal a tank from a local plant that makes them they have Kaplan pretend to be from a ‘top secret’ government organization that tricks one of the employees, which is played here by director Bonerz, into believing that his company is secretly selling the tanks to the Soviets without him ever demanding any evidence or proof.

Kaplan may have been a great stand-up comedian and in recent years a good poker player, but as an actor he is one of the worst. In fact I always felt he was  the weakest link in the Welcome Back Kotter show as he always said his lines like he was reading them off of cue cards while constantly conveying a sheepish grin and here he is no better. Former football player Karras and fellow comedian Klein are equally weak. Only Clark is good, but why she would choose to do this after appearing in so much critical acclaimed stuff during the 70’s is a mystery, but she most likely did it to stay close to her then husband Karras and still manages to look great in a bikini.

If the filmmakers really thought that the American public would find this funny then they are the ones suffering from mental illness as only a mentally ill person could possibly find it amusing and if you watch it all the way through you more than likely will become one.

My Rating: 0 out of 10

Released: August 7, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 36Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Peter Bonerz

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD-R, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Farce, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in Florida, Obscure Movies

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Macon County Line (1974)

Posted on January 4, 2015 | 1 comment

macon county line 3

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Sheriff attacks innocent trio.

The year is 1954 and Chris and Wayne Dixon (played by real-life brothers Alan and Jesse Vint) are two brothers traveling through the Deep South for one last hurrah before joining boot camp. Along the way they pick up attractive hitch-hiker Jenny (Cheryl Waters) and the three appear ready to party it up when their car suddenly breaks down in front of an isolated country home. Unbeknownst to them the home’s inhabitant (Joan Blackman) has been murdered and when her husband, who just so happens to be the county sheriff, (Max Baer Jr.) arrives to find the carnage he immediately suspects it’s the kids sleeping in the nearby car. Thus begins a wild night chase through the country backwoods as the three try desperately to outrun a man with an unrelenting rage while pleading with him that they are innocent.

The film is a definite step above the average drive-in fare of that era with characters that manage to avoid the usual stereotypes and clichés. The 1950’s are painted in a little more of an edgier way and populated by people that are much more crass than what you will find in an old episode of ‘Leave it to Beaver’ or some sanitized recreation of that period, which I found to be refreshing. The music, particularly La Vern Baker’s gospel tinged opening song and Bobbie Gentry’s closing one is great and really helps to create a definitive mood. There are also two really good flashback sequences including a dimly lighted, moody one dealing with police brutality of a criminal and an ‘interrogation’ scene done at a police station that isn’t bad either.

Unfortunately the story is thin and hinges solely on the frantic chase that takes up the movie’s final 20 minutes, which is well edited and even features a twist ending, but up to then it is rather uneventful with too much time spent on the trio’s visit with a dimwitted auto mechanic (played by Geoffrey Lewis) that adds unnecessary comic relief.  There is also an ill-advised, dream-like segment where Jenny and Chris decide to take off their clothes and make love in some stagnant water found inside an old, rusted circular drinking trough in an abandoned barn that not only takes away from the film’s grittiness, but also seemed extremely unhygienic as well. I was also expecting more car chases especially with all he nicely refurbished vintage cars that appear, but the only one that they do have gets shot at night and the camera focuses more on the driver’s nervous faces in a cheesy melodramatic style than on the automobiles.

The film was produced and co-written by Max Baer Jr. who is better known as Jethro from the hit 60’s TV-series ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’ and in fact he wrote the story for this movie on the back of some Hillbilly scripts during breaks in filming. Although this was filmed in Sacramento the location is supposed to be the south and could’ve been either Georgia, Tennessee, or Alabama as all three of those states have a Macon County, but the real irony is that the two brother are from Chicago and we even see a close-up of their Illinois plate, which also has a Macon County although it’s likely the story wasn’t set in that one.

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My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: August 8, 1974

Runtime: 1Hour 28Minutes

Rated R

Director: Richard Compton

Studio: American International Pictures

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Action/Adventure, Buddy Movies, Cult, Low Budget, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity, Police Drama, Road Movies

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Get Crazy (1983)

Posted on January 1, 2015 | Leave a comment

Capture 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Save the Saturn Theater.

Stagehand Neil (Daniel Stern) who works for concert promoter Max Wolfe (Allen Garfield) has his hands full trying to put together a New Year’s Eve bash to welcome in 1983. First he must deal with a persnickety fire marshal (Robert Picardo), an arrogant rock star (Malcolm McDowell) and raucous, stoned fans who will stop at nothing to get into the event even if they haven’t paid. He also must try to stop Colin Beverly (Ed Begley Jr.) who wants to blow up the theater and replace it with a high rise business building. They’ve even planted a bomb in the place that is set to go off when the clock strikes midnight unless Neil can somehow get to it first.

The film is directed by Allan Arkush who also did the cult hit Rock ‘N’ Roll High School and it has similar cartoonish, slam-bang paced gags as well as featuring some of the same actors including Paul Bartel who appears here as a Dr. wearing a blood splattered white coat and Mary Woronov. It also makes a playful reference to that film by having one of the characters (Stacey Nelkin) wearing a Ramones T-shirt. I ended up preferring this movie to that one as the humor has more of a satirical edge.

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It’s all loosely based on Arkush’s experiences working at the Fillmore East Rock Palace between the years of 1968 to 1971. He initially wanted to make it more of a realistic, subtle comedy, but was only able to get it funded when he agreed to turn into an Airplane-like formula, but it still succeeds anyway. In fact one of the things I really liked about this film is it gives the viewer despite its exaggerated nature a good composite of what things are like for someone who would work at one of these places and the audience seems genuinely raucous and very much like what you would find at a wild rock party of that era.

Stern is likable in the lead and Miles Chapin is engaging as his would-be nemesis. Begley is a bit boring as the villain in a type of role that doesn’t take advantage of his talents, but singer Lou Reed as a songwriter going through a creative bloc who uses bits of random conversations that he hears as ‘inspiration’ for his lyrics is quite funny. The true scene stealer though is McDowell who sings two knock-out songs that are better than the ones done by the rock bands.

Although it was made and takes place during the 80’s  it still seems much more like a 70’s movie especially with the free-basing drug use, which had become out-of-style during the ‘just say no’ decade as well as unprotected sex between strangers. However, McDowell’s conversation with his talking penis while inside a dingy bathroom more than makes up for any of the film’s other shortcomings. I also got a kick out of the poster of him that features giant roaming eyes and a moving tongue.

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My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: August 5, 1983

Runtime: 1Hour 32Minutes

Rated R

Director: Allan Arkush

Studio: Embassy Pictures

Available: VHS

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Posted in 80's Movies, Campy Comedy, Cult, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Musical, Obscure Movies

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The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989)

Posted on December 30, 2014 | Leave a comment

adventures of baron 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Where fantasy meets silliness.

A touring stage company in some unnamed European city during the 18th century is putting on a production of fictional character Baron Munchausen’s fanciful life when it gets interrupted by an elderly man (John Neville) insisting that he is the real Baron and who then takes center stage to narrate his adventures from his perspective. Unfortunately an army of Turks are also invading the city at the same time, which forces him to escape via a hot air balloon made of women’s undergarments.  With him is a young stowaway named Sally (Sarah Polley) and together they try to round up a group of elite men with unique abilities, which they will use to team up against the Turks and hopefully win back the city while also meeting many odd characters and going through a myriad of zany, mystical scenarios.

The film’s dazzling production ran 24 million over budget only to then bomb at the box office but the intoxicating special effects almost make it worth it while it also remains kid friendly with action sequences that are pleasantly cartoonish and innuendos that are too subtle for them to catch. The balloon made of women’s underwear is great and as well as watching the trio get swallowed up by a giant sea monster whose head resembles that of an island. I also liked the angel of death scenes and wished those had been played up more. Even the little things like seeing a tiny grain of sand slither its way down the thin glass tube of an hourglass is fun. The colorful sets are dazzling and the whole thing gets saturated with a visual flair that is quite impressive.

Although she has complained in subsequent interviews about her experience working in this film and dealing with director Terry Gilliam Polley’s presence adds a lot with a performance that is completely on-target the whole way. She’s one of those child characters that is cute without it being forced, which is a major feat in itself. Robin Williams is hilarious as a giant floating head in a part that was intended for Sean Connery who I don’t think would have done it half as well.  I also got a real kick out of Oliver Reed as a jealous god and Uma Thurman as his stunning wife Venus, which is technically her film debut, but due to budget delays this came out after two of her other films had already released.

The only real complaint about the movie is the plot or lack thereof. I loved the creativity, but after a while it starts to become dizzying and senseless. Gilliam’s other films like Time Bandits, which like this movie is part of his trilogy of imagination, at least had a discernable story that sucked you in and in Brazil it made great satirical jabs at modern day society, but here we get none of that. It becomes silly and surreal for no reason, which when factored in with its giant production cost and manpower turns it into a supremely wasted effort. Don’t get me wrong it’s amusing and engaging enough to be entertaining, but when it’s all over it is also quite forgettable.

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My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: March 10, 1989

Runtime: 2Hours 6Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Terry Gilliam

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Campy Comedy, Movies Based on Novels, Movies for the Whole Family, Surreal/Fantasy

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Fedora (1978)

Posted on December 27, 2014 | 1 comment

fedora 3

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Old actress stays young.

This Review Contains Spoilers!

Barry ‘Dutch’ Detweiler (William Holden) is a struggling film director looking to make a big splash by trying to convince a reclusive Greta Garbo-like actress (Marthe Keller) to come out of retirement and star in his next big picture. He however, has trouble getting into contact with her as she resides on a secluded island estate in Greece. Finally after giving his script to her plastic surgeon (Jose Ferrer) he is able to meet her, but finds things to be on a strange side as she looks almost ageless and living with an authoritative Countess (Hildegard Knef) and personal secretary (Frances Sternhagen) who treat her like she is a child and refuse to let her out of their sight. As Barry investigates further he unravels the dark secret that the three share and the shocking reason why Fedora never seems to age.

Based on a short story by actor-turned-author Tom Tryon this was director Billy Wilder’s second-to-last film and as legendary as he is it was surprising to me why this film has never been released to DVD despite the fact that all of his other ones have. However, after viewing it the reason became clear as this is a real dud and a great director’s worst movie. The plot is poorly thought out and leaves a bundle of loopholes. In fact the believability is so low that it’s hard to get into it at all and the big twist that occurs near the middle where Fedora’s secret is exposed, which is that the old, ugly Countess is the real Fedora while the woman masquerading as the young looking one is really her daughter, is not surprising as I had suspected it from the very beginning. The acting and melodramatics are so much on a goofy soap opera level that the studio ended up dropping the film from its distribution when test audiences were found laughing in all the wrong places.

The island residence used to represent Fedora’s secluded home appeared rather old and rundown and the interiors were a bit cramped and not looking as luxurious as one would expect for a rich actress and Holden’s character is able to invade the place a bit too easily. I also thought the idea that the young Fedora would be constantly seen wearing white gloves to supposedly to cover up how young looking her hands were and thus tip people off that she really wasn’t an old woman at all didn’t make any sense as the daughter had already made three movies under the guise as being the old Fedora and it is impossible to believe that she would have been allowed to wear gloves through all of those roles.

The part where the Holden’s character gets knocked unconscious is equally stupid. For one thing he is not taken to a hospital, but instead back to his seedy hotel where he lies in bed for a whole a week before finally, miraculously regaining his consciousness. However, if a person is knocked out for that long a period it almost inevitably leads to a coma and how where they able to feed him and give him water? A hospital could’ve hooked him up to an IV that a dingy hotel wouldn’t have, which most likely would have had him dying from dehydration long before he makes his magically recovery and for someone who was hit over the head so violently you would expect some bruising, swelling and cuts and yet Holden wakes up without a single scratch on him!

The plastic surgery angle is another mess. Supposedly the whole reason Fedora got her daughter to pretend to be her is after she had some experimental surgery done on her face that became botched and made her too ugly to look at and yet one can see far worse plastic surgery disasters by observing many of today’s actresses attending your average Hollywood gala. Since the movie gets so over-the-top with its melodrama anyways they really should have made her face much more grotesque and thus given the viewer and film a lasting image.

Initially Marthe Keller was expected to play both the young and older Fedora, but when it was found that she had an allergic reaction to the old age makeup that was used Knef was then hired to play the part of the countess. Since their voices did not sound similar German actress Inga Bunsch dubbed for both of them, but her excessively deep voice gets really annoying to listen to.

After watching this film I came to the conclusion that Wilder had fallen into the same trap as his famous Norma Desmond character from Sunset Boulevard as he seems to be clinging too much to sentiments and a filmmaking style from a bygone era that no longer has relevance and unfortunately embarrasses himself in the process.

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My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: May 30, 1978

Runtime: 1Hour 54Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Billy Wilder

Studio: Lorimar

Available: VHS

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Short Stories, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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Christmas Vacation (1989)

Posted on December 25, 2014 | Leave a comment

christmas vacation 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Christmas at the Griswold’s.

It’s the season to be merry and to celebrate Clark (Chevy Chase) gets a tree that is too big for their house and his hopes of installing a backyard pool are dashed when his holiday bonus check doesn’t arrive. Meanwhile their home gets crammed with in-laws including his hillbilly cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) who never ceases to be obnoxious and crude.

I first saw this movie upon its release and didn’t much care for it, but upon second viewing I found it a bit more appealing. The humor isn’t exactly sophisticated or original, but manages to be amiable enough to be entertaining. Some of my favorite moments were just the small things like the way Clark angrily kicks the toy Santa in his front yard when he can’t get his outdoor Christmas lights to work or even the goofy reindeer glasses that Clark and Eddie drink eggnog out of. Clark’s innuendo filled stammering when aroused by a beautiful young saleslady is nothing new, but always funny especially with the way Chase does it. The running dialogue is full of amusing lines and good enough to spring up Quote-a-long film showings of this picture at many chain theaters including the Alamo Drafthouse Theater here in Texas.

Even though it has acquired a fervent cult following and been judged a ‘classic’ by some it still has its fair share of issues. For one thing they had too many in-laws over to fit into that mid-sized house and I wondered where they all slept and showing Rusty their teenage son sleeping in the same bed with his teenage sister seemed to border on the perverse. The film also has a frustrating tendency to not follow through with all of its gags including the part where Clark falls through the floorboards of his attic and into the top bunk bed of son’s bedroom below, which I’m sure would’ve caused a lot of issues, but we’re never shown it. The virtually plotless script by John Hughes, which relies solely on rapid-fire gags becomes a bit derivative and tedious by the final half-hour and is saved only by a funny squirrel attack as well as an S.W.A.T. team ambush. I also felt a bit uncomfortable laughing at a cat getting electrocuted, which the studio was going to cut, but then left in when it proved popular with test audiences

Young Juliette Lewis is cute and my favorite of the rotating Audrey’s. Beverly D’Angelo is the hottest MILF out there and I was a little shocked at the way she seems to grab Chase directly on his crotch during the S.W.A.T scene. I liked the veteran cast that made up the grandparents, but outside a few cryptic lines by E.G. Marshall they are essentially wasted especially Doris Roberts and Diane Ladd who play the two grandmothers and don’t have more than a few lines between them. Quaid is a scene stealer, but he gets a bit crude in spots. It’s fun seeing Mae Questal best known as the voice of Betty Boop and Olive Oyl in her final film role as a daffy, elderly aunt and I also enjoyed Nicholas Guest and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the Griswold’s neighbors. They are portrayed as being this annoyingly pretentious, trendy yuppie couple, but the truth is I started to sympathize with them as their house continually gets damaged by Clark’s mishaps and I would have ended up being even more outraged and confrontational than they were had I been in their spot.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: December 1, 1989

Runtime: 1Hour 37Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Jeremiah Chechik

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Christmas Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Cult, Farce, Movies that take place in Chicago

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Elves (1989)

Posted on December 24, 2014 | Leave a comment

elves 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: This elf isn’t friendly.

Kirsten (Julie Austin) feels Christmas has become too commercialized and dreads the season only to find out something that will make her hate it even worse as her evil Grandfather (Borah Silver) who has Nazi ties has apparently selected her to breed with an elf in order to create a superior human race. Now she must work with Mike McGavin (Dan Haggerty) an out of work department store Santa to not only evade her grandfather and his men, but also the elf that now runs wild.

Despite the title there is actually only one elf and it’s not a very good looking one at that. Not only does his appearance resemble the character in Troll, but you never actually get to see an entire body shot of him. You will only see close-up shots from the chest up or close-ups of his tiny feet or hands that look to be that of a puppets. This was most likely because they didn’t have the budget or talent to create a full body suit for someone to wear, but the effect lessens the horror, which isn’t too high to begin with. His hands are so tiny that it would have been impossible for him to shoot a gun let alone hold one, which he does do in one scene anyways, and it also gave me the belief that with his small stature he couldn’t have been that threatening and one could’ve easily just have kicked him away and been done with it.

Haggerty, who most will remember from the 70’s TV-series Life and Times of Grizzly Adams actually does pretty good in an otherwise thankless part. I almost felt that if he would just do away with his trademark mountain man look more parts might open up for him and he wouldn’t be subjugated to having to do this crap, but in any event his presence is the only reason I’m giving this 1 point instead of 0. The rest of the cast flunks including the bad guys with their fake sounding German accents and the bland females with the only exception being Deanna Lund as the hateful mother who has a nude scene, which isn’t bad.

The story is farfetched, convoluted and ultimately boring. The special effects are unimpressive and the action poorly paced leaving way for long intervals where nothing seems to happen. It looks like it was shot on video and then transferred to film, which only accentuates its cheap production values. Outside of a pretty good bathtub death and a shot of an elf fetus inside the womb this film as little to offer or recommend and should not be put on anyone’s Christmas list unless they’ve been really, really bad.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released Date: December 10, 1989

Runtime: 1Hour 29Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Jeffrey Mandel

Studio: Action International Pictures

Available: VHS

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Posted in 80's Movies, Christmas Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Horror, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Slasher/Gore

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Adventures in Babysitting (1987)

Posted on December 22, 2014 | 3 comments

adventures in babysitting 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: She’s got babysittin’ blues.

After being stood up on a date high school senior Chris Parker (Elisabeth Shue) decides to take one last babysitting job. It is for the Anderson family and their two children: 7-year-old Sara (Maia Brewton) and her 15-year-old brother Brad (Keith Coogan), who secretly has a crush on Chris. Things start out okay, but then her best friend Brenda (Penelope Ann Miller) calls stating that she is stranded at a rundown bus station and needs Chris’s help to get home. Despite her better judgment Chris decides to pack up the kids into her mother’s station wagon as well as Brad’s friend Darryl (Anthony Rapp) and takes them into the city to save her friend only to end up dealing with one disaster after another.

Shue’s presence, in her first starring role, is what really makes this movie work. She is not only beautiful, but shows perfect comic timing and despite the fact that she was already 24 at the time of filming still looks like a teen albeit on the very mature side. The kids though aren’t as good and although they do grow on you a bit as the movie progresses it would’ve worked better had she been babysitting a family of mutes. The Brad character is too bland and clean-cut, his friend Darryl is too obnoxious and the young Sara, who wears a stupid looking, winged, metal helmet for almost the entire movie comes off like an annoying little brat.

Miller’s Brenda character is the most irritating as she is ditzy and airheaded to the extreme and her scenes come off as forced humor at its worst. Since all the calamity starts when they get a flat tire I thought they could’ve used a different motivation for driving into the city, like going for ice cream or to a movie and cut the Brenda character out completely since it ends up being the film’s weakest part.

Although the setting is in Chicago and most of the scenes were filmed there a few of them weren’t including the frat house party, the restaurant scene and Anderson’s residence which were all done in Toronto. Either way it tends to paint Chicago in an unflattering light by playing up its urban stigma and for a film that seems squarely aimed at the preteen crowd it has some surprisingly edgy elements including 17-year-old prostitutes, a story thread dealing with a Playboy centerfold and even a few F-bombs.

However, on the whole it’s quite funny and entertaining; much funnier than I was expecting. I even found myself sitting on the edge of my seat in a few places including the scene where they have to walk across some ceiling rafters to escape from the bad guys as well as a tense, well-filmed climatic segment done on the glass roof of a skyscraper. The segment where Chris narrates her babysitting adventures to the background music of a blues band is great and her line “Don’t fuck with the babysitter!” which she states to an intimidating gang leader is classic.

In many ways this is quite similar to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but better. The comic scenarios aren’t quite as over-the-top, the adults aren’t so painfully stupid and the main character is thankfully not as smug. Like in Ferris there is also an amusing moment shown after the end credits, which I found to be just as funny.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: July 1, 1987

Runtime: 1Hour 42Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Chris Columbus

Studio: Buena Vista Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Farce, Movies that take place in Chicago

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Class of 1999 (1990)

Posted on December 18, 2014 | Leave a comment

class of 1999 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: The teachers are robots.

The year is 1999 and American high schools are running rampant with drugs and gang warfare. In an attempt to try to regain some control administrators have hired on a company run by Dr. Bob Forrest (Stacy Keach) who has created teachers who look human, but are actually robots capable of exerting extreme punishment on those students who get out-of-line. A Seattle high school is chosen as a venue to test these robots out with Miles Langford (Malcolm McDowell) being the only human instructor made aware of these other teacher’s identities. At first things go well and civil behavior from the unruly teens is attained, but then the teachers get out-of-control where even their creators are unable to rein them in, so it is up to some rebel teen students lead by Cody (Cody Culp) to fight them off and stop them.

This is a sort-of sequel to writer/director Mark L. Lester’s earlier Class of 1984 and in many ways on a low budget scale it’s alright. I watched this film with my Cinema Terrible group here in Austin where we get together each month to watch two really bad movies. Usually everyone spends the time making fun at what they are watching, but this film surprisingly kept them quiet and captivated, which no one had initially expected. Lester has directed 33 of these types of films since 1971 and he knows how to deliver. His product certainly isn’t on an Academy Award winning level, but for those looking for some cheap non-think entertainment with a fast pace and decent effects then this ain’t too bad.

The best element of the film is John P. Ryan, Pam Grier and Patrick Kilpatrick as the three teacher robots. Ryan especially owns the screen during all of his scenes and the part where he takes some difficult students one-by-one over his knee and gives them a nice long, hard spanking is without question the best moment of the whole movie. Grier though is good too and during the climatic sequence she runs around essentially topless with her chest ripped open and her computer parts exposed, which I found to be well done. McDowell is the only one of the familiar names who is wasted and apparently only worked 2 days on the production.

The film’s biggest issue is that it has no sense of humor despite its over-the-top campy premise. The teen cast show minimal acting ability and their characters come off like walking, talking clichés. In a lot of ways this film would have been better had the evil teacher robots been portrayed as ‘the good guys’ and instead of being annihilated at the end by the students they were the ones who eradicated all of the mouthy, crude and disrespectful teens, which some would consider to be much more of a ‘happy ending’.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: May 11, 1990

Runtime: 1Hour 33Minutes

Rated R

Director: Mark L. Lester

Studio: Vestron Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

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Posted in 90's Movies, Action/Adventure, Adolescence/High School, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Sci-Fi, Thrillers/Suspense

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