When I was a kid, late night movies were all about letters. Oh, I'm not talking about
PG and
R. Uh-uh. I'm talking about the letters that preceded the actual start of the film. Letters such as
L and
V. Those were cool, but nothing to stay up until 3 for.
BN might be interesting, so too
SC. But
N was the letter that my friends and I would stand up and cheer for. You'd give up Saturday morning for N. Remember kids, we didn't always have the internet to meet the salacious needs of growing boys.
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| 1983. When boobs ruled the earth. |
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| That Veronica Vaughn is one piece of ice. |
Is it getting awkward in here? No, relax. I honestly didn't even know what I was getting myself into when I DVR'd this one months ago. Seriously, right about the time I started this blog, I began recording random movies left and right. Most have been sitting there forever. Last night, I decided I'd watch the shortest one and that so happened to be the 80's sex-romp,
Private School. Two words: Oh. My.
Let me get this out of the way:
this movie sucks. There's no story. At all. The only semblance of plot is that our two main characters, Jim and Christine (played by Matthew Modine and Phoebe Cates), want to have sex. Yep. They've decided it's time to
get-it-on. Woo. Weee. And for some reason, the super-hot, yet (surprise!) super-bitch Jordan wants to do him instead. Yes, friends, that's it. If that sounds interesting to you, well, you should probably go outside more. Or read. Reading's cool.
If you're still here, congratulations. You love
movies. Oh, wait. You didn't say movies,
did you? You said
boobies. Well, dear reader, this movie delivers in spades. Honestly. Maybe movies today have become too conservative to overflow in female nudity (for awhile however, it seemed like the
dong was making a comeback - thank you,
Dirk Diggler), but in the 80's, the objectification of women was funny! We have to watch them shower, we have to. Oh, and if their shirt rips open and they run away in horror? We laugh and point. Then we laugh some more! Maybe even a high-five and a thumbs up!
So many scenes in this movie, while titillating, were shameful, too. I kept thinking to myself,
that's assualt, brotha. They play a videogame that has two buttons:
thrust and
withdraw. Crass, I tell you. Crass.
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| Betsy Russell (third from left) hates shirts. Hates them. |
13 Signs it's an 80's flick:
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Reading aloud from a romance novel? Who does that?
Oh, wait. Everyone. |
- Everyone dances like Elaine. I mean, everyone.
- The soundtrack is relentless. I mean how many full songs are we going to play? A shit-ton.
- Someone drinks a can of RC Cola. In an arcade.
- More than one scene takes place at a pay phone.
- The finger-in-the-mouth gesture is used.
- Spoken line: "Hot beef injection." Yep.
- Going on a panty-raid? Bosom Buddies-style drag is somehow a legitimate disguise.
- All female's pants must be higher than their bellybuttons. Like, for sure!
- There's a nice car. There's a pool. You know what happens next. And some guy will dive over a table. In slow motion.
- The screen freezes and it turns into a portrait style painting a la Family Ties.
- Parents Weekend at school? We should have a bikini volleyball game. Totally rad!
- People go cross-eyed to express sexual frustration. Cross-eyed! I mean, really.
- Old men fondling high school girls? Hysterical! Oh, 1983! You rascal!
Before I go, I will let you in an on old theory of mine. I used to believe that if more than two girls were hanging out (yes, we can say sleepover, I was like, 13 when I developed this theory), everybody ended up shirtless. Yes. Boobs maybe, but bras definitely. No girl ever,
ever, confirmed this, but I
held firm. Pretty sure the fine American who wrote this one believed the exact same thing.
And then put it to film.
