For the second meeting of the Onionheads Movie Club, I chose the movie Three O'Clock High. It was a movie I thoroughly enjoyed as a kid, but haven't really heard a whole lot about since. I think at the meeting I was the only one who had even heard of it.
The movie stars Casey Siemaszko (Back to the Future, Back to the Future II) as the unlucky nerd, Jerry Mitchell, who has been assigned to write an article for the school newspaper on the new kid in school. The new kid jost happens to be the notorious bully, Buddy Revelle (Richard Tyson from Kindergarten Cop). Things all go downhill for Jerry when he happens to pat Buddy's arm and Buddy hates to be touched. As a punishment for Jerry's crime, Buddy challenges him to a fight after school at exactly 3:00.
GOOD:
The acting was good and the characters were cast very well. You really do feel sorry for Casey Siemazko and Richard Tyson plays the ginormous Buddy to perfection. I thought the storyline was great. Even though the movie is geared toward highschoolers, I could still put myself in Jerry's shoes, wondering how he would ever get out of the mess he had gotten into. Even the camera work was good. It had some timely slow-mo's and super fast zooms, and you really felt the pressure Jerry was under everytime the clocked ticked forward with a big boom. To add to all of this there was the appearance of a slim, but still bald Jeffery Tambor (Arrested Development, The Larry Sanders Show) as Mr. Rice.
BAD:
If I have to pick out something bad about this movie, it would be the character of Jerry's female companion Franny. She had some weird goth thing about her and I am not sure whether we were supposed to think she was hot or just really odd. Her character was pretty expendable since we already had Jerry's sister, the hot blonde new girl, and the somewhat sexy teacher to fill in all the female roles.
DATED:
The movie dated itself in the way you would expect a high school movie of the '80s would. The clothes and hairstyles are all unmistakably 1987. Other than that, the movie did a fair job of staying relevant. Bullies were around in 1987, they were around when I was in high school in the '90s and they will probably be around when my kids go to high school (although they probably won't wear skin tight jeans, boots, and leather jackets).
Rating as a kid: 4 stars out of 5
Rating as an adult: 4 stars out of 5
I really enjoyed this movie. Some of the things I didn't get at age 10, I picked up on as an adult. If I came across this movie while zooming through the channels, I would definitely stop and watch it again.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Cloak and Dagger
The Onionheads Movie Club had it's inaugural movie premier on August 8, 2008, the luckiest day of the year. But maybe not so lucky for this 1984 "Family Action" movie staring Henry Thomas (E.T.) and Dabney Coleman (War Games). I have to admit that I watched this movie fully expecting it to be a "lost classic".
The basic plot is that Davey's hero is an imaginary spy named Jack Flack who is played by Colman. Coleman also plays Davey's military father with whom his relationship is strained. Davey witnesses a murder, but before the man dies he gives Davey an Atari cartridge ("Cloak and Dagger") and tells him to protect it because it contains secret FBI files. Davey must protect the files with the help of Jack Flack and naturally his father, Hal, doesn't believe any of it. In the end Davey realizes that Jack Flack is no substitute for his real father and his father learns to believe his son.
The Good:
Henry Thomas and Dabney Coleman are very good actors, probably too good for the surrounding cast (more on that later). Coleman's Jack Flack is a cool character, played well, and wears a sweet grey leather jacket. The plot is very nice with a great ending scene were Davey's hero comes walking away from a huge explosion. However, as he walks slow motion from the fire you can't see whether it is Jack Flack or his father Hal. It's his father, of course, which leads to a touching embrace...freeze...credits.
The Bad:
I realize that Christina Nigra was just a young actress at the time, but man was she terrible. In fact this movie is full of terrible actors. I guess as a kid you don't notice that so much. Just as an aside, they keep calling the Cloak and Dagger Atari game a "tape" through the movie. I don't know if they thought that kids wouldn't know the word "cartridge", but there is no tape in an Atari game. It is solid state electronics.
The Dated:
Aside from the constant Atari references, the only real dated part of the movie was the idea that the kids could just roam all over the city and no one seems to care. At one point Davey has a toy squirt gun full of fake blood and he's just running around a bunch of security gaurds and they could care less. Davey's dad also leaves for a "double shift" at work and just leaves Davey at home and tell him to stay out of trouble. That'll get you 5 to 10 these days.
The Surprising:
This movie rolls along with typical "family movie" jokes and style. Then all of a sudden people are running around shooting each other with silencers on their guns (uzzies). At one point Davey actually kills one of the bad guys. Kids films in the 80's were violent!
Rating from my memory of this movie as a kid: 5 out of 5 stars
Rating from watching it again as an adult: 3 out of 5 stars
I liked it, but probably wouldn't watch it again unless my son wants to watch it some day.
The basic plot is that Davey's hero is an imaginary spy named Jack Flack who is played by Colman. Coleman also plays Davey's military father with whom his relationship is strained. Davey witnesses a murder, but before the man dies he gives Davey an Atari cartridge ("Cloak and Dagger") and tells him to protect it because it contains secret FBI files. Davey must protect the files with the help of Jack Flack and naturally his father, Hal, doesn't believe any of it. In the end Davey realizes that Jack Flack is no substitute for his real father and his father learns to believe his son.
The Good:
Henry Thomas and Dabney Coleman are very good actors, probably too good for the surrounding cast (more on that later). Coleman's Jack Flack is a cool character, played well, and wears a sweet grey leather jacket. The plot is very nice with a great ending scene were Davey's hero comes walking away from a huge explosion. However, as he walks slow motion from the fire you can't see whether it is Jack Flack or his father Hal. It's his father, of course, which leads to a touching embrace...freeze...credits.
The Bad:
I realize that Christina Nigra was just a young actress at the time, but man was she terrible. In fact this movie is full of terrible actors. I guess as a kid you don't notice that so much. Just as an aside, they keep calling the Cloak and Dagger Atari game a "tape" through the movie. I don't know if they thought that kids wouldn't know the word "cartridge", but there is no tape in an Atari game. It is solid state electronics.
The Dated:
Aside from the constant Atari references, the only real dated part of the movie was the idea that the kids could just roam all over the city and no one seems to care. At one point Davey has a toy squirt gun full of fake blood and he's just running around a bunch of security gaurds and they could care less. Davey's dad also leaves for a "double shift" at work and just leaves Davey at home and tell him to stay out of trouble. That'll get you 5 to 10 these days.
The Surprising:
This movie rolls along with typical "family movie" jokes and style. Then all of a sudden people are running around shooting each other with silencers on their guns (uzzies). At one point Davey actually kills one of the bad guys. Kids films in the 80's were violent!
Rating from my memory of this movie as a kid: 5 out of 5 stars
Rating from watching it again as an adult: 3 out of 5 stars
I liked it, but probably wouldn't watch it again unless my son wants to watch it some day.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)