1984 was probably THE signature film year for the 80's decade. All the coolest movies came out that year. Think about any good action movie, science fiction flick, or comedy movie from the 80's and I bet you it came out in 1984. Terminator. The Last Starfighter. Sixteen Candles. The Karate Kid. Ghostbusters. Gremlins. Red Dawn. Footloose. 2010. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Nightmare on Elm Street. Police Academy. Dune. Romancing the Stone. Repo Man. Beverly Hills Cop. Revenge of the Nerds. Bachelor Party. Conan the Destroyer. Children of the Corn. Splash. The Natural. Supergirl. Night of the Comet. Firestarter. Starman. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. Against All Odds. The Cotton Club. The Philadelphia Experiment. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. And of course, the Rosebud Beach Hotel.
I was 14 in 1984, and when you're a 14 year old boy, every so often (or in my case, 10 to 15 times a day), you just want to kick back and relax with a meaningless movie about tits and ass. You don't give a shit about plot, or special effects, the musical score, or whether the actors were believable in their roles. You just want to see boobs. I would have loved watching this movie back then. Unfortunately, I can't remember having ever seen it before. So either I missed it back then, or it's been erased from my memory by (a) aliens (b) government mind control experiments (c) too many drugs and beers (d) trying to blank out the 90's (e) advanced senility (f) time or (g) all of the above. Take your pick.
The Rosebud Beach Hotel, situated somewhere along Miami Beach, is a bit run-down, and something of a money pit. The old management is being replaced by a young man named Elliot (Peter Scolari), who happens to be dating Traci (Colleen Camp), who happens to be the daughter of the Hotel's owner, Mr. King (Christopher Lee). See, it's not only what you know, but who you know! Or in this case, who you know, that doesn't like you. See, Mr King wants Elliot, who has failed at every business venture his daughter has ever convinced Mr. King to put him in charge of, to fail one final time so he can convince his daughter to stop seeing him. As a backup plan, Mr. King has also financed a shady sneak named "Matches" to burn down the hotel so he can collect the insurance money. So either way, Mr. King is covered. Except for one tiny problem. Traci, who has a much better sense for business than her beau, has decided to come down and help Elliot run the Hotel.
I was going to put more, but I think that sets it up quite nicely. First off, let me say that I think this is probably the first time I have ever seen Christopher Lee in your basic T&A (tits and ass) movie. He has an impressive library of movies in his past, so it's entirely possible it's not the only one, but the only one I know of offhand. Also, Cherie Currie is in this movie as a maid. Yes, THAT Cherie Currie, who joined the band the Runaways (Joan Jett, Lita Ford, others) in the 1970s at 16, and was, of course, recently portrayed in the movie The Runaways by Dakota Fanning. I can remember seeing a couple other of Cherie Currie's movies back in the 80's (her movies never seemed very popular, for some reason, except for maybe Foxes, with jodie foster, which i didn't even know she was in, either), but I did not even have a clue that she actually had a twin sister, who appears with her in this movie. This movie also marks the one and only time the two Currie sisters ever appeared in a motion picture together. Also in this movie are Fran Drescher and Eddie Deezen, who I believe are the only other noteworthy actors among the cast.
Needless to say, in your basic T&A movie, there's a fair amount of tits and ass. I think most of the staff gets half-naked or fully naked at one time or another, and there's one hell of a party going on in the basement for about half the movie involving dozens of naked babes, pot, old ladies, and moonshine. And as it turns out, it's not as vile as it sounds. I'm pretty sure Christopher Lee does not, in fact, get naked at any time in this movie. No offense, Mr. Lee, and I think you'll agree with me on this, the movie is probably better off that way.
I am reminded of a story I read recently about one of the Game of Thrones actresses who has decided that she doesn't want to do nude scenes anymore. They didn't say who, but she was quoted as wanting to be remembered for her acting ability, not her boobs. I don't mean to sound like a sexist pig speaking to that actress here, but why can't you be remembered for both? Think of all the wonderful actresses who have built careers on nudity AND acting talent. Milla Jovovich, sci-fi goddess. Angelina Jolie, widely regarded as one of the most beautiful and humanitarian people in the world. I mean, you'd rather be regarded as a Dame Judy Dench than a Marilyn Monroe? I think Dench would have gone the Marilyn Monroe route if she had had the body for it, don't you think? And that's assuming she hasn't already, since I don't know her early career that well. Why limit yourself to just doing clothed roles? Why set yourself up as someone who simply WON'T take off her clothes, or in other words, an actress with an attitude? You lose a lot of parts you might otherwise have enjoyed playing that way. Even Betty White did nudes in her youth. I've seen pictures! But, what do I know, I guess it's each actress's personal decision. If I had boobs I probably couldn't take my hands off of them long enough to type this.
All in all, a decent movie. No monsters. Plenty of nudity. Several explosions. I think you even get to see Cherie Currie partially undressed at one point. Romance, true love, happy endings. No blood or guts. There is an alien, technically. Cherie Currie and her sister even belt out a few typical 80's tunes. But be quick if you want to see it on Netflix. It goes out of the watch instantly list in 2 days time. If you miss it, good luck finding it, because if I haven't seen that movie until today, and it came out in 1984, they obviously don't play it very often. lol
That may be it for today, unless I decide to watch more movies later. Memorial Day Weekend, traditionally the start of the summer season! But since we have a cold front sweeping through here and it's like 50 degrees out right now, I'm probably going to celebrate by watching a lot of movies indoors. lol Have a nice Memorial Day Weekend if I don't post again before it's over! :-D
No comments:
Post a Comment