SPRING FEVER (1982)

TWO VERY FORGETTABLE FLICKS DEBUT

Philadelphia Daily News (PA) - March 9, 1983

Author: JOE BALTAKE, Daily News Movie Reviewer

Regarding two of the new films that opened over the weekend, let me just say this: If I had more time, I would have been briefer:

"SPRING FEVER" A comedy starring Susan Anton, Jessica Walter and Frank Converse. Introducing Carling Bassett. Directed by Joseph L. Scanlan. Written by Stuart Gillard and Fred Stefan. Music by Fred Mollin. Running Time: 100 minutes. In area theaters. (Screened at the Ellisberg Cinema, New Jersey)

The print ads for this film loom as yet another message to and from middle America: It shows two bikini-clad young women dousing a not-so-unhappy stud with light beer. Specifically, they're spraying the foam in his crotch area.

I bring up this dubious ad, not because it titillated me, but because it has absolutely nothing to do with what goes on in the movie. One would be hard put to find either a beach or light beer in "Spring Fever," a throwaway comedy about a tennis tournament for teenage girls.

True, the central teen character (Carling Bassett) does get to jog on the beach, but she's wearing a sweat suit. And, yes, her show-girl mama (Susan Anton) does get to drink beer in the bar where she picks up men.

So much for beach-and-beer action in "Spring Fever" (even the title doesn't make sense!), a large part of which is devoted to the competition between the little girls in general and between the mothers (Anton and a wicked Jessica Walter) in particular. The clowning and bickering are terribly forced and, before long, "Spring Fever" seems nothing more than an extended (and endless) commercial for Nike sneakers, Dunlop tennis racquets, Bain de Soleil, Anton's teeth and her beer.

I'm not sure, however, if it's the same light beer used in the ads.

One great scene: Anton singing to herself and catty Walter slipping her a bill for her services.

"TIME WALKER"

An action thriller starring Ben Murphy, Nina Axelrod, Kevin Brophy and James Karen. Directed by Tom Kennedy. Adapted by Tom Friedman and Karen Levitt from a story by Jason Williams and Friedman. Music by Richard Band. Running Time: 90 minutes. In area theaters (Screened at Budco Community, Barclay Farm, N.J.)

This movie bears a tenuous relationship to those old Mummy horror movies that were the bane of the '50s and still haunt certain TV channels on Saturday afternoons.

Its lone claim to fame, however, has nothing to do with the resurrection of a decrepit movie genre, but with its thorough lack of style. "time walker" is a veritable textbook example on how to make a horror film on the cheap - and without mirrors.

By restricting the action of his film to a college campus and by wrapping his monstrous thing in mummy garb, director Tom Kennedy had half of his film made. The remainder of it dotes on people who should know better (college profs, the police, brainy doctors) doing all the wrong things and going in all the wrong places on the misty campus.

Kennedy's mummy rises from his sarcophagus when a larky frat brother steals the five precious stones hidden in the tomb. Throughout the rest of the tilm, this "time walker" - a mummy from another galaxy - roams the campus, retrieving his stones and literally scorching the wrongdoers.

The cast is aptly flighty, risky and gabby, particularly Kevin Brophy as the fraternity house goof-off whose theft triggers the mayhem, and Nina Axelrod, a strong-willed, straight-haired blonde who gets to scream into the moonlight.

Note in Passing: I previewed "time walker" at South Jersey's Community Theater on the last day of the theater's existence. It is slated to become a restaurant. A sad farewell to yet another movie house. . .

Parental Guide: Both films are rated PG, both pretty much for their language.

MY CHAUFFEUR (1986)

'CHAUFFEUR' SURE TO DRIVE YOU NUTS

Miami Herald, The (FL)

March 20, 1986

Author: BILL COSFORD Herald Movie Critic


A genuinely weird sense of humor is at work in My Chauffeur, a comedy about a Madonna wanna-be who finds work with a Beverly Hills limousine service staffed by crusty old misogynists.
"You're deluded," says the limo boss to Casey, a flighty young woman. "Oooh. I've never had a 'lude in my life," says
Casey.

That kind of thing.

My Chauffeur has moments of pure daffiness, unhinged stuff. But it is also the most ineptly made comedy in years, so badly made that it is ultimately unwatchable.

The film is such a catalog of blunders that it might well
serve as a film-school training tool. Continuity, that concept by which one shot within a scene seems logically to follow another, even though they may have been filmed at different times, is simply abandoned here. In one scene, an old driver is seen struggling hopelessly to light his pipe, which has broken apart and is in two pieces; when the camera cuts away and pulls back for a wide shot of the other drivers, there's the old man in the back, puffing contentedly and holding a cup of coffee that seems magically to have sprung into his hand. In another, a performance by a rock band, the singer's agent refers to the "stadium," when the performance is clearly taking place in a small room.

The script is similarly jumbled: In the opening scenes,
Casey arrives, desperate for the job despite the fact that the other drivers don't want her around. A scene later and she is no longer interested, and has to be persuaded to stay on. A scene later, she desperately wants the job again. The entire film is disconnected in this way; the direction is wretched.

But it is no worse than the performance by Deborah Foreman as Casey, who is by turns and for no apparent reason slatternly and sweetly innocent. Foreman grins throughout her performance, no matter what is happening, whether she is happy, menaced, confused, angry. Like the rest of the cast, which includes the strange magicians Penn and Teller as well as E.G. Marshall and Howard Hesseman, she appears to have performing skills, and even has her moments. But like the film, she is more often simply bad.

My Chauffeur (R) *

CAST: Deborah Foreman, Sam Jones, Sean McClory, Howard Hesseman, E.G. Marshall, Penn Jillette, Teller.

CREDITS: Director: David Beaird. Producer: Marilyn J. Tenser. Screenwriter: David Beaird. Cinematographer: Harry Mathias.

A Crown International Pictures release. Running time: 97 minutes. Vulgar language, nudity, sexual situations.

Herald movie critics rate movies from zero to four stars.

**** Excellent *** 1/2 Very Good

*** Good ** 1/2 Worth Seeing ** Fair

* Poor Zero: Worthless

MALIBU BIKINI SHOP / HARDBODIES 2 (1986)

TAKE ONE DEADLY HORROR FILM AND TWO JIGGLE MOVIES AND STAY HOME

Seattle Post-Intelligencer - October 14, 1986

Author: William Arnold P-I Film Critic

It used to be that movie distributors saved their lowest exploitation films for the summer audience. But with the vast number of hungry multiplex screens and an overall glut in exploitation production, the dogs of August now pop up all year long.

This week, for instance, a vacuum in the release schedule has invited a trio of summer-style exploitation pictures to hit town - a horror film, the long-delayed ''Deadly Friend''; and two beach pictures, ''Malibu Bikini Shop'' and ''Hardbodies 2.''

The first of these, Wes Craven's ''Deadly Friend,'' is a fairly routine ''teen-age Frankenstein'' movie reportedly bumped from the summer's schedule because of last-minute exhibitor anxiety over the failure of the previous summer's cycle of teen-age Frankenstein movies.

Based on a book by Diana Henstell, the film is about a teen-age genius (Matthew Laborteaux, of TV's ''Little House on the Prairie'') who implants an artificial-intelligence chip into the cortex of his brain-dead girlfriend.

In true Frankenstein tradition, the girl-monster soon runs amok and, faster than you can say Boris Karloff, is twisting off the head of her abusive, sicko father and doing in the grouchy neighbor who had earlier stolen her basketball.

Under the direction of horror veteran Wes Craven, this film treads the narrow line between satire and playing it straight rather well, and is always technically a cut or two above the level of the average exploitation horror vehicle.

But the film is so predictable and so unremarkable in every way that anyone who thought Craven's ''Nightmare on Elm Street'' heralded the advent of a daring new horror -movie talent will find ''Deadly Friend'' a considerable disappointment.

Over in the next auditorium we have something called ''Malibu Bikini Shop,'' which was filmed in Santa Monica and Venice, and has nothing at all to do with Malibu (the title on the print I saw did not even mention Malibu - it was called ''The Bikini Shop'').

In any case, the film is a jiggle comedy about two odd-couple brothers who inherit a bikini specialty shop that is in rather (you should pardon the word) shaky financial condition, and have to mount a massive bikini promotion to save the place from extinction.

In its heart of hearts, this movie is an old-fashioned late '50s ''nudie'' and exists as an excuse to show topless and scantily clad women in a variety of peekaboo, teasing poses and situations.

But the young cast is surprisingly appealing; the script is never really vulgar. Director David Wechter has worked in a couple of very stylish video- style fantasy sequences. And a good supporting cast of Hollywood veterans (among them Frank Nelson, Kathleen Freeman and Jay Robinson) all help make this innocuous little movie a lot more tolerable than its title and premise might imply.

There are, however, no such redeeming features to ''Hardbodies 2,'' a sequel to last year's ''Hardbodies'' and the second summer T&A movie of the week.

Loosely a comedy about an American movie company filming on location in the Mediterranean, this one is straight, soft-core pornography that goes out of its way to be crude and vulgar every chance it gets.

Like ''Malibu,'' the dominant visual motif is the bare breast, but instead of teasing his audience, director Mark Griffiths absolutely overwhelms it with breast montages.

Indeed, his movie is virtually a documentary on the mammary organ - and one that is so overdone and thoroughly unimaginative that even the most dedicated connoisseurs of skin will probably be bored by it.

Memo: MOVIE REVIEW

(1) ** Deadly Friend, directed by Wes Craven. Written by Bruce Joel Rubin. Cast: Matthew Laborteaux, Kristy Swanson, Michael Sharrett. Warner Bros. Several theaters. Rated R.

(2) ** Malibu Bikini Beach, directed and written by David Wechter. Cast: Michael David Wright, Bruce Greenwood, Barbra Horan, Jay Robinson, Frank Nelson. International Cinema. Several theaters. Rated R.

(3) * Hardbodies 2, directed by Mark Griffiths. Written by Mark Griffiths and Curtis Scott Wilmot. Cast: Brad Zutaut, James Karen, Alba Francesca, Roberta Collins. Cinetel Films. Several theaters. Rated R.

WEEKEND WARRIORS (1986)

`WARRIORS` WEEKEND PASS TO BOREDOM

Sun-Sentinel - October 27, 1986

Author: ROGER HURLBURT, Entertainment Writer

Ever wonder why America has never been invaded by Romania?

Well, if we have slept at ease these many nights since August 1961, it`s because the Hollywood, Calif., branch of the Air National Guard has been ever vigilant.

In between their sophomoric branks, crude sexual jokes and dirty story get- togethers, the lads in uniform have kept us safe from the "slimy Commie hordes threatening to end civilization as we know it."

At least that`s the premise of director Bert (I`m-not-sure-what-I-really-do-in- show-business) Convy`s comedy film Weekend Warriors. While the film has one, possible two moments that garner a genuine laugh, this film should have remained AWOL.

The plot is utterly preposterous: The year is 1961 and a group of Hollywood film studio fellas -- actors, bit players, budding screenwriters, stuntmen and makeup artists -- are trying to stay out of regular military service by doing weekend stints at an Air National Guard base. Whew!

Sgt. Burge (Vic Tayback) is the gung-ho sort trying to whip the guys into shape. Good luck. Col. Archer (Lloyd Bridges) offers little encouragement; he`s a former actor who appeared in 86 "B" westerns ("and died in all of them.")

Add one more to the list, Lloyd.

This group of wisenheimers are tough to control. There`s a twerp, a macho man, a wise guy and a ring leader, the latter played by Chris Lemmon, son of actor Jack Lemmon.

And when the inactive status of these characters is suddenly classified as "active" -- much to the horror of Congressman Balljoy (Graham Jarvis) -- things really get out of hand.

So does the film. Guess who`s coming to watch a formal inspection? Why, none other than the Ambassador of Romania. Makes sense.

Aside from a brief chase between a Jeep and a truck laden with bottled water and an unspeakable "mooning" demonstration in the cafeteria, Weekend Warriors is a three-day pass to boredom.

Lemmon isn`t bad, but his material is. The rest of the cast walks through the film in one-take fashion. The finale, a cheap swipe of the funny ending to Bill Murray`s Stripes, has potential, but falls flat.

The R rating might make you think there`s lots of jiggle and flesh. Not so. The smattering of coarse language is gratuitous, too.

Save a few bucks; watch for this one in the video stores real soon

CLASS OF NUKE 'EM HIGH (1986)

`NUKE 'EM': TOXIC WASTE

The Record (New Jersey) - December 12, 1986

Author: By Will Joyner, Staff Writer: The Record
1/2@

CLASS OF NUKE 'EM HIGH: Directed by Richard Haines and Samuel Weil. Written by Haines, Mark Rudnitsky, Lloyd Kaufman, and Stuart Strutin. Photography, Michael Mayers. Special effects and makeup, Scott Coulter and Brian Quinn. With Janelle Brady (Chrissy), Gilbert Brenton (Warren), Robert Prichard (Spike), R. L. Ryan (Mr. Paley), James Nugent Vernon (Eddie), and others. Produced by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz. Released by Troma Inc. Opens locally today. Running time: 78 minutes. Rated R: nudity, profanity, excessive violence and gore.

"Class of Nuke 'Em High," the latest from infamous Troma Inc., takes up where "The Toxic Avenger" left off earlier this year somewhere in North Jersey, along the outer limits of gleeful bad taste.

Actually, the Avenger himself doesn't show his ghastly mug for that, we must somehow wait for "Toxic Avenger II" but we do get another glimpse of his environmentally troubled hometown, Tromaville, which continues to look a lot like Jersey City.

"The Toxic Avenger," which exploited the timely question of nuclear-waste transport to serve up a trashy spread of horror effects and violence, was, heaven help us, something of a cult hit.

"Class of Nuke 'Em High," which slightly modifies the formula by adding a faulty nuclear-power plant, is and here I'm speaking very relatively and checking most of my professional ethics at the door a better-made movie. Maybe, heaven please help us, it won't be quite awful enough for bad-film fans, and will disappear quickly.

In this chapter of Tromaville's annals, teen-agers at the town's high school are having their highly questionable constitutions further altered by leakage from a nearby power plant. The water fountains spew blue goo. The Cretins, once the school's honor students, deal a home-grown marijuana that provides what they proudly call a "nuclear high. "

The story shakily revolves around an all-American couple, Chrissy and Warren (Janelle Brady and Gilbert Brenton), whose virginity preoccupies most of Tromaville High's population. The two are tricked into sampling the tainted drugs, and promptly go all the way sexually and in other physical ways that I can't bring myself to describe. Revenge is called for, without a doubt.

Unlike its predecessor, "Class of Nuke 'Em High" looks professionally photographed. The X-ray and laserlike special effects are a little higher tech. The skin-shriveling reveals more attention to gruesome detail. The costumes, especially those given to the futuristic Cretins, have a twisted sort of style.

"Dialogue" is still too optimistic a term to attach to the screenplay, but this plot gains coherence because most of the action takes place on the campus of a single school (a Bergen County institution that should want to remain nameless). The direction, by Troma veterans Richard Haines and Samuel Weil, is at least innocuous.

FRATERNITY VACATION / RAPPIN' / GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN (1985)

A TRIO OF FILMS FOR YOUNG SET

Philadelphia Daily News (PA) - May 23, 1985

Author: JOE BALTAKE, Daily News Movie Reviewer





* "Fraternity Vacation." A comedy starring Stephen Geoffreys. Directed by James Frawley from a screenplay by Lindsay Harrison. Photographed by Paul Ryan. Music by Brad Fiedel. Running time: 89 minutes. A New World release.





* "Rappin'." A comedy with music staring Mario Van Peebles and Tasia Valenza. Directed by Joel Silberg from a screenplay by Robert Litz and Adam Friedman. Photographed by David Garfinkel. Music by Michael Linn. Running time: 92 minutes. A Cannon release.






* "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." A comedy with music starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Helen Hunt. Directed by Alan Metter from a screenplayby Amy Spies. Photographed by Thomas Ackerman. Music by Thomas Newman. Running time: 87 minutes. A New World release. All three films are in area theaters.

Wendell Tvedt, see, is this nerd from Iowa State who heads to Palm Springs with two of his buddies for a little leching.

Wendell is the central character of "Fraternity Vacation," one of three new "youth-oriented" films that opened here recently and that come with inch-deep matinee substance.

He's a kid who simply wants to have a nice, cozy time with the cute daughter of the Palm Springs police chief (a situation that is trouble in itself), but whose good buddies get him involved in a creepy competition involving a pair of rival fraternity brothers and a pretty virgin.

Wendell's also a virgin, and as played by Stephen Geoffreys (recently of ''Heaven Help Us"), he looks like what might result if the young Jack Nicholson of "Little Shop of Horrors " mated with Jerry Lewis' Julius Kelp
from "The Nutty Professor."

Naturally, Wendell - who does a mean Wayne Newton imitation - turns out to be a natural, a better swordsman than any of the other four guys, all of whom fancy themselves Tom Selleck clones.

"Fraternity Party" is a wretched film. A colleague compared it to two dogs checking each other out. However, any movie that advances the notion that Wayne Newton is more sexually formidable than Tom Selleck gets my vote. Quality has nothing to do with it.

"Rappin'," from the director who gave us the original "Breakin'," is another ghetto-ized Mickey and Judy romp, in which the film's Mickey (Mario Van Peebles) - named John "Rappin' " Hood - gets out of jail, cleans up his native Pittsburgh (of not only gang warfare, but also greedy land development) and wins a recording contract.

He gets the girl, too (soap star Tasia Valenza). Everything has been sanitized and sugarized in the urban world here, so much so that the original Mickey and Judy look like cynical J.D.s by comparison.

But at least "Rappin' " has a semblance of a plot. "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" simply continues the dance contest that started with "Saturday Night Fever" and "Grease" and continued with "Fame," "Flashdance," ''Footloose" and the two "Breakin' " films. It's . . . bouncy.

Sarah Jessica Parker, nevertheless, is engaging as a nice Catholic girl trying to hide her penchant for sexy dance gyrations from her hard-nosed daddy.

WEIRD SCIENCE (1985)

STRA-A-ANGE A PAIR OF NEW MOVIES DEMONSTRATES HOW FUNNY THE NIGHTMARISH CAN BE

San Jose Mercury News (CA) - August 2, 1985

Author: GLENN LOVELL, Mercury News Film Writer

THERE'S some seriously weird stuff going on at the movies these days. We're talking cuckoo-crazy, as in stra-a-ange. But don't be alarmed. The odd goings-on in "Fright Night" and "Weird Science" (both opening today) will have you laughing so hard you'll almost forget your fears.

Almost -- but not quite.

As every spooky spoof from "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" to "Ghostbusters" reminds us, the horror genre with its creaky cliches and moldy monsters is perfect for teasing.

And that's exactly what the two young filmmakers behind today's new arrivals have done, in films that flit easily from the stylish to the silly, from the erotic to the eerie.

And with this range working for them, it's a safe bet that both will become required summertime viewing for the out-of- school-and-ready-to- howl set.

The more conventional "Fright Night" is an ingenious reworking of the Dracula legend. Only here the hero is a small-town kid with a vivid imagination, the vampire is a Valentino-suave neighbor played by Chris Sarandon, and the fearless vampire killer is a cowardly horror -movie star who's now hosting a "Creature Feature"-type TV program.

But don't go expecting another zany "Love at First Bite" lark. Though there are laughs aplenty in "Fright Night," written and directed by Tom Holland, there are also wonderfully nauseating makeup and bat effects that will have you hiding under your seat.

Indeed, Holland, who wrote "Psycho II" and last summer's overlooked "Cloak & Dagger," has whipped up the best tongue- in-cheek chiller since Joe Dante's "The Howling." And just as the Dante film revitalized the werewolf yarn, "Fright Night" gives the vampire melodrama a much-needed transfusion of humor and suspense.

And just as you think Holland has played his last devilish prank, he one-ups himself with more gruesome surprises and throwaway comedy touches (like the vampire throwing sparks by dragging his long fingernails along a banister).

Newcomer William Ragsdale plays Charley Brewster, a horror - movie buff who spies new neighbor Jerry Dandrige (Sarandon) with his next luscious victim. Charley spends the rest of the movie trying to convince his mom and friends that the mutilation murders being reported nightly are the work of an honest-to-gosh vampire.

Making matters even more frustrating is the fact that Dandrige is a smug charmer who mocks Charley's every feeble attempt to expose him. Like all the best fiends, Dandrige delights in taunting his adversary.

And when he really gets mad, Dandrige puts the bite on Charley's girlfriend Amy (Amanda Bearse) and his already wacked-out buddy (Stephen Geoffreys of "Fraternity Vacation").

Holland, who doesn't always play fair with vampire lore and logic, has great fun making his hero squirm. At every turn Dandrige outsmarts his young crucifix-wielding opponent (Roddy McDowall as the TV show host). Worse, that blankety-blank bloodsucker mesmerizes Amy at the local disco in what has to be one of the hottest, funniest seduction scenes in recent years.

Sarandon really comes into his own as the supercilious vampire who becomes a howling, red-eyed banshee from hell when miffed. Geoffreys is also a scream as the freaky friend who's basically an insecure loser. This is really the old Renfield/ Igor role given a New Wave slant.

Credit Richard Edlund of "Ghostbusters" fame with the amazing visual effects, which include an appallingly graphic reverse transformation from wolf to boy and a dive-bombing vampire bat that's about the size of B-52 bomber.

What Edlund's makeup people do to Bearse's lovely smile in the final basement crypt scenes will have you tossing in your sleep for weeks to come.

'Weird Science" is something else again -- a deliriously funny mix of "National Lampoon's Animal House," "Risky Business," "The Road Warrior" and such vintage Disney hoots as "The Shaggy Dog" and "The Absent-Minded Professor."

Since we're title-dropping, we should add that it's a color-tinted print of that 1935 classic, "The Bride of Frankenstein," that inspires our two young nerd heroes to show up the preppy bullies at school by creating their very own dream girl.

''Just like Frankenstein -- 'cept cuter," drools Gary (Anthony Michael Hall of "Sixteen Candles" and "Breakfast Club").

''I'm not digging up any dead girls," whines the shyer Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith), who lives in mortal terror of his older brother, the snarling CroMagnum (sic) with the boot-camp crewcut.

Of course things have been refined a bit since Dr. Frankenstein's days on the moor. Now our heroes blend computer science with voodoo and a bit of old-fashioned studio fog to create a living doll named Lisa (Kelly LeBrock of "The Woman in Red").

Their toughest decision: Whether to favor boobs over brains.

''I want her to live. I want her to breathe. I want her to aerobicize," Gary rants in a hilarious variation on the original Frankenstein's exultant "It lives!"

As it turns out, Lisa is as bright and brassy as she is beautiful. And this works out just fine, because she can protect her horny creators from threatening elders, as well as lecture them on the importance of friends who "like you for what you are, not what you pretend to be."

In other words, the boys have hit the jackpot -- a centerfold nanny who shelters them at night and showers with them in the morning.

''Weird Science" runs out of things to say and do, so eventually it resorts to repetitious sight gags and effects as well as the obligatory car chase. But there's still more to howl over here than in any five other teen comedies.

Once again John Hughes ("Sixteen Candles" and "The Breakfast Club"), who also wrote the script, proves himself a master at capturing high-school angst. His young Frankensteins possess all the intensity and nervousness of real misfits, not the cartoonish "Goonies" variety.

And Mitchell-Smith and Hall complement each other beautifully. The former is charming and painfully shy; the latter mouthy and naughty. The mix results in some of the year's funniest moments -- first at a blues bar (where Hall becomes a rappin' "Saaay whaaat?" soul brother), then at a wild and crazy party that's crashed by a Pershing missile and a gang of motorcycle mutants straight out of "Mad Max."

''Weird Science" is a weird concoction all right -- weird, wonderful and unexpected.

Fright Night

(star)(star)(star) 1/2

R (fleeting nudity, nauseating makeup effects)

Cast: Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale, Roddy McDowall Director-screenwriter: Tom Holland

Studio: Released by Columbia Pictures

Weird Science

(star)(star)(star)

PG-13 (profanity, nudity,

emphasis on sex)

Cast: Anthony Michael Hall, Kelly LeBrock, Ilan Mitchell-Smith

Director-screenwriter: John Hughes

Studio: Released by Universal Pictures