list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around College Road Trip on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/College_Road_Trip/334283/default.aspx Title: College Road Trip
Year: 2008
Director: Roger Kumble
Plot: A high-school student (Raven Symone) with noble dreams of becoming a public defender sets out to visit potential universities in the company of her father (Martin Lawrence) -- an overprotective cop -- in this road trip comedy produced by Andrew Gunn and directed by Roger Kumble. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 3
Number of Lists: 3
Number of blog posts: 4
SpoutRating: 2
]]>Sun, 19 Jul 2009 02:48:55 GMTCollege Road Trip2008Roger KumbleA high-school student (Raven Symone) with noble dreams of becoming a public defender sets out to visit potential universities in the company of her father (<a href="http://www.spout.com/players/P____40942/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Martin Lawrence</a>) -- an overprotective cop -- in this road trip comedy produced by Andrew Gunn and directed by Roger Kumble. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide3Slightly Tagged (1-5)342http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/s334283.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/College_Road_Trip/334283/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/the_mow/archive/2009/7/18/43187.aspx Post By: The_MOW
Post To: The_MOW Blog
Post Date: 7/18/2009 10:48:55 PM
Body: "Melanie Porter" (Raven-Symone) has finally come to lock horns with her father (Martin Lawrence) after growing up as "Daddy's Little Girl." She wants to go to Georgetown University, but he is way too over-protective, and demands that she Northwestern University, which is less than 30-minutes from the family home.She plans a college road trip with two friends (Brenda Song and Margo Harshman), but good old daddy has plans for him to take her on the trip himself.Everything goes wrong for "Melanie" on the trip, which includes her father recruiting fellow police officers to stage an outrageous scene to get her to go to Northwestern to her brainiac brother (Eshaya Draper), stowing away with the family pig in their father's police vehicle.Now, the foursome have to get to Georgetown before "Melanie's" dreams come crashing to the ground.I have to say this is one of the most predictable movies I've seen in some time. You knew during the opening credits that there was going to be comedic bumps in the proverbial road, with the two main characters fighting all the way until they bond again at the end of the film.I wasn't too impressed with the humor. Again, due to the predictability of the movie. I probably laughed six times the entire movie. Most of the jokes you've seen in other movies, and are done better in those movies. The gags were not set up well if you ask me, and you knew the punchline was coming just as the comedic scenes were starting.I also did not like the performances of Donny Osmond and his on-screen daughter played by Molly Ephraim. There is such a thing as being too over-the-top, and they were. Personally, I don't think either were happy with thier roles, as, to me, they seemed to have forced their performances a bit too much.On the other hand, Martin and Raven-Symone were pretty good together, and did a fairly good job at being a comedy team -- with her being the "straight man" to Martin as the comic. I've flipped passed Raven-Symone's TV series when they are in the middle of a comedic moment. In the show, she seems to be forcing herself at the comedy. Here, she was more comfortable.The supporting cast was completely under used. It seemed to me that characters showed up when needed in the script. There was very little character development in these characters beyond of being told who they were, and how they related to the main characters. Mostly, the supporting cast were either used in comedic scenes, or to set up plot twists.As for the soundtrack, it's mostly well-known tunes heard for decades, sometimes in other movies and television shows. There isn't any of the major names from Disney like the Jonas Brothers or Miley Cyrus on the soundtrack. It's the original artists you hear like the Jackson 5. You also only get one original song in the movie, sung on-screen by Raven-Symone in a funny moment on a tour bus filled with karaoke-singing Japanese tourists. The song itself was upbeat, and is easy to dance to, but you won't be singing it for weeks after.I couldn't really get into this movie, thanks to it being so predictable. However, there are a few good laughs and pretty good performances from Raven-Symone and Martin which barely carry the movie. I would have to say save this one for a rainy day when there is nothing else on.
]]>Sun, 19 Jul 2009 02:48:55 GMTThe_MOWThe_MOW Blog7/18/2009 10:48:55 PM"Melanie Porter" (Raven-Symone) has finally come to lock horns with her father (Martin Lawrence) after growing up as "Daddy's Little Girl." She wants to go to Georgetown University, but he is way too over-protective, and demands that she Northwestern University, which is less than 30-minutes from the family home.She plans a college road trip with two friends (Brenda Song and Margo Harshman), but good old daddy has plans for him to take her on the trip himself.Everything goes wrong for "Melanie" on the trip, which includes her father recruiting fellow police officers to stage an outrageous scene to get her to go to Northwestern to her brainiac brother (Eshaya Draper), stowing away with the family pig in their father's police vehicle.Now, the foursome have to get to Georgetown before "Melanie's" dreams come crashing to the ground.I have to say this is one of the most predictable movies I've seen in some time. You knew during the opening credits that there was going to be comedic bumps in the proverbial road, with the two main characters fighting all the way until they bond again at the end of the film.I wasn't too impressed with the humor. Again, due to the predictability of the movie. I probably laughed six times the entire movie. Most of the jokes you've seen in other movies, and are done better in those movies. The gags were not set up well if you ask me, and you knew the punchline was coming just as the comedic scenes were starting.I also did not like the performances of Donny Osmond and his on-screen daughter played by Molly Ephraim. There is such a thing as being too over-the-top, and they were. Personally, I don't think either were happy with thier roles, as, to me, they seemed to have forced their performances a bit too much.On the other hand, Martin and Raven-Symone were pretty good together, and did a fairly good job at being a comedy team -- with her being the "straight man" to Martin as the comic. I've flipped passed Raven-Symone's TV series when they are in the middle of a comedic moment. In the show, she seems to be forcing herself at the comedy. Here, she was more comfortable.The supporting cast was completely under used. It seemed to me that characters showed up when needed in the script. There was very little character development in these characters beyond of being told who they were, and how they related to the main characters. Mostly, the supporting cast were either used in comedic scenes, or to set up plot twists.As for the soundtrack, it's mostly well-known tunes heard for decades, sometimes in other movies and television shows. There isn't any of the major names from Disney like the Jonas Brothers or Miley Cyrus on the soundtrack. It's the original artists you hear like the Jackson 5. You also only get one original song in the movie, sung on-screen by Raven-Symone in a funny moment on a tour bus filled with karaoke-singing Japanese tourists. The song itself was upbeat, and is easy to dance to, but you won't be singing it for weeks after.I couldn't really get into this movie, thanks to it being so predictable. However, there are a few good laughs and pretty good performances from Raven-Symone and Martin which barely carry the movie. I would have to say save this one for a rainy day when there is nothing else on. http://www.spout.com/blogs/tenenbaums/archive/2008/10/8/36031.aspx Post By: Tenenbaums
Post To: Tenenbaums Blog
Post Date: 10/8/2008 12:09:05 PM
Body: I've recently watched a string of bad movies.They're not bad as in they never should have been made. It's more disappointing than that. They're bad because a good idea and often talent was wasted on poor execution.I should have known better than to throw away my time on them. They were all released in the dumping ground casually referred to as the Spring Season. Few decent U.S. films debut during this time. It's home for stupid family fare featuring Martin Lawrence (College Road Trip and Wild Hogs) and now random offerings from this year's unexpected double-dipper, Dennis Quaid. 2007 was a rare exception to the rule with Zodiac, Grindhouse, and the widely liked but personally loathed 300. Typically, it's an overall mess.The films that I ignored post-Oscar rush and pre-Summer Blockbuster are now on DVD and at the library. Since now I don't have to pay to see them, the slightest bit of interest that I suppressed in March and April by staying home now looks at me every day at work and has, in several cases, followed me home.The results have not been pretty.Smart People looked like another potential Wonder Boys. It was not. Thomas Hayden Church's performance was the only bright spot, but Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Ellen Page were wasted. The trailer for Vantage Point looked great. The actual thing was far from it. The movie makes you wonder what kind of dirt the director had on Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt, Forrest Whitaker, Matthew Fox, and, yes, Quaid.Then there's Stop-Loss, which holds a special place in my heart. It's the first movie that I've watched alone and couldn't get through.*I won't see just any movie. Pass the Grey Poupon. Since there are so many new releases in addition to the monstrous back-log of DVDs and videos, I can only see so many and the ones I choose to see must meet a certain criteria to even be considered. So, if I'm watching a film, it's certifiably special.Of the films I see, I like 95% of them. Of the sour 5%, I'll watch them to their completion because, up until now, my hope in them has been rewarded by enough imagination and intrigue on their part to keep me away from the Eject button. When the credits roll, I may not have liked what I've seen overall (see above titles), but, as was expected when the film became personally desirable, it had its moments. I wouldn't recommend these films, but they're not total disasters.Stop-Loss, however, is a class-5 hurricane hitting Cape Cod. It's hard to imagine a more heavy-handed approach to the Iraq war, and that's saying a lot. Give credit to co-writer/director Kimberly Peirce (who guided Hilary Swank to her first Oscar in Boys Don't Cry) for bluntly stating the opinions of returning (and subsequently departing) soldiers that aren't always voiced. These thoughts are genuine and I agree with them. They are also the same thing that Mr. Bullhorn is spouting in front of the White House.The ridiculously wooden dialogue and Ryan Phillippe at his unexpected worst (did they tape him when he was working out his Texas accent in rehearsals?) combined with a hokey plot to ruin a great concept. The hardships of this generation of soldiers' home lives had yet to be explored in a major film, but Stop-Loss does no justice to our military. The film adds to the pile of recent failed attempts to translate the current conflict to the screen, and had me skipping scenes by the half-hour mark. Unfortunately (or fortunately for my free time), the beginning of each new DVD chapter began with the same dumb talk or events that plagued the film's start. When the credits showed up, I was glad to be done. It's doubly disappointing that I was forced to skim through the rest because the opening Iraq combat scenes were done so well. Peirce does a fantastic job of depicting the mammoth tension of Baghdad roadblocks and of putting the audience amidst the squad as they fall under attack. She should have stayed in the Middle East and taken most of the Spring releases with her.But it's not all a pile of poo.Drillbit Taylor was awful on most fronts, but there was enough charm and general Owen-Wilsonness to elicit a positive feeling. Most surprising was In Bruges, a.k.a. Colin Farrell's Coming Out Party. Witty dialogue: check. Great acting: check. Expert direction and cinematography: check, check. Everything I could want from a film is found in this sleepy Belgium town. Plus, Mr. Consistency (Ralph Fiennes) is there in a role that rivals his Voldemort, Tooth Fairy (Red Dragon), and Amon Goeth (Schindler's List) for Most Menacing. The guy can play bad and play it very well.But these two bright spots (one, really) don't excuse the regularity of stinkers during this time of the year. Spring should be left for Oscar-nominated films that were given little or no release to be screened at the national level. Often, excellent foreign films will trickle in during this time, and they're welcome, too. Studios are cheating audiences and themselves by putting out sub-par material Spring after Spring. Filmgoers deserve more. Spring is an opportunity for catching up on the under-appreciated foreign, indie, documentary, and short films. We should continually be celebrating the best, not being fed soggy leftovers. Anything less is not good enough.Are you with me?*My fiancee Sarah embraces the attitude that you don't have to finish a book if you don't like it or don't want to. I agree with that, but since I read about 1/10 as many titles as she does in a year, the books I choose meet an even harder criteria than the films I see. If you look at my GoodReads ratings, you won't find anything I read outside of school that I didn't at least like (and, more than likely, loved). She also, according to the frequency in which she conks out on the sofa, believes that you don't have to finish a film. With Stop-Loss, despite my rigorous initial screening process, perhaps I've come to agree with that, too. It's not that I didn't believe you could drop a film; I'd just never been pushed to the point of losing faith in a film ever getting better. Still, since I continue to keep up my guard, I don't expect to repeat the Stop-Loss massacre very often.
]]>Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:09:05 GMTTenenbaumsTenenbaums Blog10/8/2008 12:09:05 PMI've recently watched a string of bad movies.They're not bad as in they never should have been made. It's more disappointing than that. They're bad because a good idea and often talent was wasted on poor execution.I should have known better than to throw away my time on them. They were all released in the dumping ground casually referred to as the Spring Season. Few decent U.S. films debut during this time. It's home for stupid family fare featuring Martin Lawrence (College Road Trip and Wild Hogs) and now random offerings from this year's unexpected double-dipper, Dennis Quaid. 2007 was a rare exception to the rule with Zodiac, Grindhouse, and the widely liked but personally loathed 300. Typically, it's an overall mess.The films that I ignored post-Oscar rush and pre-Summer Blockbuster are now on DVD and at the library. Since now I don't have to pay to see them, the slightest bit of interest that I suppressed in March and April by staying home now looks at me every day at work and has, in several cases, followed me home.The results have not been pretty.Smart People looked like another potential Wonder Boys. It was not. Thomas Hayden Church's performance was the only bright spot, but Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Ellen Page were wasted. The trailer for Vantage Point looked great. The actual thing was far from it. The movie makes you wonder what kind of dirt the director had on Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt, Forrest Whitaker, Matthew Fox, and, yes, Quaid.Then there's Stop-Loss, which holds a special place in my heart. It's the first movie that I've watched alone and couldn't get through.*I won't see just any movie. Pass the Grey Poupon. Since there are so many new releases in addition to the monstrous back-log of DVDs and videos, I can only see so many and the ones I choose to see must meet a certain criteria to even be considered. So, if I'm watching a film, it's certifiably special.Of the films I see, I like 95% of them. Of the sour 5%, I'll watch them to their completion because, up until now, my hope in them has been rewarded by enough imagination and intrigue on their part to keep me away from the Eject button. When the credits roll, I may not have liked what I've seen overall (see above titles), but, as was expected when the film became personally desirable, it had its moments. I wouldn't recommend these films, but they're not total disasters.Stop-Loss, however, is a class-5 hurricane hitting Cape Cod. It's hard to imagine a more heavy-handed approach to the Iraq war, and that's saying a lot. Give credit to co-writer/director Kimberly Peirce (who guided Hilary Swank to her first Oscar in Boys Don't Cry) for bluntly stating the opinions of returning (and subsequently departing) soldiers that aren't always voiced. These thoughts are genuine and I agree with them. They are also the same thing that Mr. Bullhorn is spouting in front of the White House.The ridiculously wooden dialogue and Ryan Phillippe at his unexpected worst (did they tape him when he was working out his Texas accent in rehearsals?) combined with a hokey plot to ruin a great concept. The hardships of this generation of soldiers' home lives had yet to be explored in a major film, but Stop-Loss does no justice to our military. The film adds to the pile of recent failed attempts to translate the current conflict to the screen, and had me skipping scenes by the half-hour mark. Unfortunately (or fortunately for my free time), the beginning of each new DVD chapter began with the same dumb talk or events that plagued the film's start. When the credits showed up, I was glad to be done. It's doubly disappointing that I was forced to skim through the rest because the opening Iraq combat scenes were done so well. Peirce does a fantastic job of depicting the mammoth tension of Baghdad roadblocks and of putting the audience amidst the squad as they fall under attack. She should have stayed in the Middle East and taken most of the Spring releases with her.But it's not all a pile of poo.Drillbit Taylor was awful on most fronts, but there was enough charm and general Owen-Wilsonness to elicit a positive feeling. Most surprising was In Bruges, a.k.a. Colin Farrell's Coming Out Party. Witty dialogue: check. Great acting: check. Expert direction and cinematography: check, check. Everything I could want from a film is found in this sleepy Belgium town. Plus, Mr. Consistency (Ralph Fiennes) is there in a role that rivals his Voldemort, Tooth Fairy (Red Dragon), and Amon Goeth (Schindler's List) for Most Menacing. The guy can play bad and play it very well.But these two bright spots (one, really) don't excuse the regularity of stinkers during this time of the year. Spring should be left for Oscar-nominated films that were given little or no release to be screened at the national level. Often, excellent foreign films will trickle in during this time, and they're welcome, too. Studios are cheating audiences and themselves by putting out sub-par material Spring after Spring. Filmgoers deserve more. Spring is an opportunity for catching up on the under-appreciated foreign, indie, documentary, and short films. We should continually be celebrating the best, not being fed soggy leftovers. Anything less is not good enough.Are you with me?*My fiancee Sarah embraces the attitude that you don't have to finish a book if you don't like it or don't want to. I agree with that, but since I read about 1/10 as many titles as she does in a year, the books I choose meet an even harder criteria than the films I see. If you look at my GoodReads ratings, you won't find anything I read outside of school that I didn't at least like (and, more than likely, loved). She also, according to the frequency in which she conks out on the sofa, believes that you don't have to finish a film. With Stop-Loss, despite my rigorous initial screening process, perhaps I've come to agree with that, too. It's not that I didn't believe you could drop a film; I'd just never been pushed to the point of losing faith in a film ever getting better. Still, since I continue to keep up my guard, I don't expect to repeat the Stop-Loss massacre very often. http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/8/26/34417.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 8/26/2008 6:01:05 PM
Body: I never went to a normal college, never lived in a proper dorm or experienced fraternity hazing or even rush week from an inside viewpoint. I went to an urban art school and then a commuter school. And though I grew up in a college town and later worked on the campus of another college I didn’t attend, I feel like I don’t have the proper perspective with which to judge most college movies and college kid characters as being true to life. This probably explains why I enjoy so many bad movies set in colleges and/or involving college students. I bet I could even check out a double feature of The House Bunny and College and have a good time at the movies. Of course, I do have some semblance of good taste, and I also recognize that none of the following movies are anywhere near the quality of my favorite college movies (including Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman, the Marx Brothers’ Horse Feathers and the Frat Pack’s Old School), or even the beloved Animal House, which I regrettably find to be highly overrated (no, that doesn’t mean I dislike it or think it’s bad or unfunny). The ten movies on today’s list are merely guilty pleasures that I can’t stop appreciating no matter how hard I try or how old I get. Teen Wolf Too - Certainly basketball is overused in high school and college sports movies, but following hoops with boxing gloves was an odd choice for this Teen Wolf sequel. It was almost as bad as having the popular jock character be on the wrestling team or, worse, a diver (see Back to School below). But despite the change of sport, the repeat of plot and the unfortunate recasting of the character “Stiles”, Teen Wolf Too has at least one enjoyable element: Jason Bateman. Even before he won our favor with Arrested Development and roles since, Bateman was quite a likable presence here. Sure, it’s not as good as the first movie, but does it really deserve that paltry 2.6 rating on the IMDb? Back to School - Having gone back to college after a long hiatus, I have a very special place in my heart for this movie. But I’ve had multiple levels of appreciation since first seeing it 22 years ago. Originally, as a kid, I just liked Rodney Dangerfield. In high school, my favorite character was “Derek,” the freaky friend played by Robert Downey Jr. Later, I got into Oingo Boingo/Danny Elfman and favored their appearance. And almost finally, when Kurt Vonnegut became my favorite writer, his cameo was the coolest thing in the world (as an added bonus: Keith Gordon, who plays Dangerfield’s son in the movie, went on to direct an adaptation of Vonnegut’s “Mother Night”). In a way, the movie isn’t too underrated; it has a decent 6.1 rating on the IMDb and a very good 87% on Rotten Tomatoes. Still, I’m always shocked that more people aren’t huge fans. PCU - I’ve already claimed my pre-hip appreciation for Jason Bateman (I even loved Valerie/Valerie’s Family/The Hogan Family, so there!), and now I must admit to having been a fan of Jeremy Piven since the beginning, too (Lucas has always been one of my favorite teen movies). I don’t know how often it’s watched these days, but looking back on it now, PCU seems to be a great souvenir from its time. Also, I’ll always remember it as the movie that taught me not to wear a band’s t-shirt to their concert and informed me of the fact that at any given time, there’s either a Michael Caine or a Gene Hackman movie being aired on television. Midnight Madness - I know it’s considered a cult classic now, but it truly deserves to be an actual classic. Is it not as popular or as widely seen as other college movies because it involves a college activity that isn’t centered around drinking or sex (there is at least the Pabst brewery)? When I first went away to college, I was nailed to the X (meaning I was straight-edge and didn’t drink or do drugs), so I would have loved it if there’d been scavenger hunts instead of keggers (actually, where I went, there wasn’t either), even if I’d already been arrested while participating in a hunt in high school. By the way, speaking of underrated scavenger hunt movies, where’s the DVD release of Scavenger Hunt already? Up the Creek - I guess not everyone has an appreciation for movies featuring Stephen Furst, despite his prominence in the king of college movies, Animal House. He followed that by appearing in both of my beloved scavenger hunt movies (see #4) and then later reuniting with his Delta brother Tim Matheson in this movie, which as a kid I always thought of as like a live-action, R-rated remake of Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown. Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise - It lacked the boobs and the bush, and its premise was pretty weak, even for being something of a redo of the first film’s plot. However, if you’ve ever seen the subsequent sequels, it’s clear that it could have been worse. Personally, I like the parts with James Hong, Bradley Whitford (always a well-played snake) and the song “No on 15″ (see the video above). Higher Learning - I tend to hate movies that so categorically divide the supposed social hierarchies of high school and college — maybe I just went to an abnormal high school, but it never seemed that distinct to me — and I don’t especially like the way this movie defines people by the music they listen to, but I have as much appreciation for Higher Learning as I do for The Breakfast Club and Crash, each of which I consider to be more about using thin characters as vehicles for ideas rather than about real people and a narrative story. Happy Together - No, I’m not referring to the Wong Kar-Wai film. Rather, the 1989 movie starring Patrick Dempsey and Helen Slater. Maybe it’s just the fact that my only college roommate was a girl. But that was intentional, unlike the scenario of this movie. Prior to its relevance to my life, though, it was merely great for featuring Supergirl (and Billie Jean) topless. Pumpkin - After so many high school and college movies in which the handsome guy or pretty girl ultimately falls for the “ugly” guy/girl, it was quite an interesting concept to have the “ugly” one be a mentally handicapped, as well as socially handicapped, person. Road Trip - Thanks to Martin Lawrence and Raven-Symone, I now have to specify that I don’t mean College Road Trip. I also have to note that I think it would be a much better movie if Tom Green wasn’t in it. Also, compared to Old School, which was also written by Scot Armstrong and Todd Phillips and directed by Phillips, it’s got about a tenth of the laughs, if even that much. Surprisingly, however, Andy Dick is actually tolerable in Road Trip and not in Old School. Is it just me, or should DJ Qualls be doing better for himself these days? Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Tue, 26 Aug 2008 22:01:05 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com8/26/2008 6:01:05 PM I never went to a normal college, never lived in a proper dorm or experienced fraternity hazing or even rush week from an inside viewpoint. I went to an urban art school and then a commuter school. And though I grew up in a college town and later worked on the campus of another college I didn’t attend, I feel like I don’t have the proper perspective with which to judge most college movies and college kid characters as being true to life. This probably explains why I enjoy so many bad movies set in colleges and/or involving college students. I bet I could even check out a double feature of The House Bunny and College and have a good time at the movies. Of course, I do have some semblance of good taste, and I also recognize that none of the following movies are anywhere near the quality of my favorite college movies (including Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman, the Marx Brothers’ Horse Feathers and the Frat Pack’s Old School), or even the beloved Animal House, which I regrettably find to be highly overrated (no, that doesn’t mean I dislike it or think it’s bad or unfunny). The ten movies on today’s list are merely guilty pleasures that I can’t stop appreciating no matter how hard I try or how old I get. Teen Wolf Too - Certainly basketball is overused in high school and college sports movies, but following hoops with boxing gloves was an odd choice for this Teen Wolf sequel. It was almost as bad as having the popular jock character be on the wrestling team or, worse, a diver (see Back to School below). But despite the change of sport, the repeat of plot and the unfortunate recasting of the character “Stiles”, Teen Wolf Too has at least one enjoyable element: Jason Bateman. Even before he won our favor with Arrested Development and roles since, Bateman was quite a likable presence here. Sure, it’s not as good as the first movie, but does it really deserve that paltry 2.6 rating on the IMDb? Back to School - Having gone back to college after a long hiatus, I have a very special place in my heart for this movie. But I’ve had multiple levels of appreciation since first seeing it 22 years ago. Originally, as a kid, I just liked Rodney Dangerfield. In high school, my favorite character was “Derek,” the freaky friend played by Robert Downey Jr. Later, I got into Oingo Boingo/Danny Elfman and favored their appearance. And almost finally, when Kurt Vonnegut became my favorite writer, his cameo was the coolest thing in the world (as an added bonus: Keith Gordon, who plays Dangerfield’s son in the movie, went on to direct an adaptation of Vonnegut’s “Mother Night”). In a way, the movie isn’t too underrated; it has a decent 6.1 rating on the IMDb and a very good 87% on Rotten Tomatoes. Still, I’m always shocked that more people aren’t huge fans. PCU - I’ve already claimed my pre-hip appreciation for Jason Bateman (I even loved Valerie/Valerie’s Family/The Hogan Family, so there!), and now I must admit to having been a fan of Jeremy Piven since the beginning, too (Lucas has always been one of my favorite teen movies). I don’t know how often it’s watched these days, but looking back on it now, PCU seems to be a great souvenir from its time. Also, I’ll always remember it as the movie that taught me not to wear a band’s t-shirt to their concert and informed me of the fact that at any given time, there’s either a Michael Caine or a Gene Hackman movie being aired on television. Midnight Madness - I know it’s considered a cult classic now, but it truly deserves to be an actual classic. Is it not as popular or as widely seen as other college movies because it involves a college activity that isn’t centered around drinking or sex (there is at least the Pabst brewery)? When I first went away to college, I was nailed to the X (meaning I was straight-edge and didn’t drink or do drugs), so I would have loved it if there’d been scavenger hunts instead of keggers (actually, where I went, there wasn’t either), even if I’d already been arrested while participating in a hunt in high school. By the way, speaking of underrated scavenger hunt movies, where’s the DVD release of Scavenger Hunt already? Up the Creek - I guess not everyone has an appreciation for movies featuring Stephen Furst, despite his prominence in the king of college movies, Animal House. He followed that by appearing in both of my beloved scavenger hunt movies (see #4) and then later reuniting with his Delta brother Tim Matheson in this movie, which as a kid I always thought of as like a live-action, R-rated remake of Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown. Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise - It lacked the boobs and the bush, and its premise was pretty weak, even for being something of a redo of the first film’s plot. However, if you’ve ever seen the subsequent sequels, it’s clear that it could have been worse. Personally, I like the parts with James Hong, Bradley Whitford (always a well-played snake) and the song “No on 15″ (see the video above). Higher Learning - I tend to hate movies that so categorically divide the supposed social hierarchies of high school and college — maybe I just went to an abnormal high school, but it never seemed that distinct to me — and I don’t especially like the way this movie defines people by the music they listen to, but I have as much appreciation for Higher Learning as I do for The Breakfast Club and Crash, each of which I consider to be more about using thin characters as vehicles for ideas rather than about real people and a narrative story. Happy Together - No, I’m not referring to the Wong Kar-Wai film. Rather, the 1989 movie starring Patrick Dempsey and Helen Slater. Maybe it’s just the fact that my only college roommate was a girl. But that was intentional, unlike the scenario of this movie. Prior to its relevance to my life, though, it was merely great for featuring Supergirl (and Billie Jean) topless. Pumpkin - After so many high school and college movies in which the handsome guy or pretty girl ultimately falls for the “ugly” guy/girl, it was quite an interesting concept to have the “ugly” one be a mentally handicapped, as well as socially handicapped, person. Road Trip - Thanks to Martin Lawrence and Raven-Symone, I now have to specify that I don’t mean College Road Trip. I also have to note that I think it would be a much better movie if Tom Green wasn’t in it. Also, compared to Old School, which was also written by Scot Armstrong and Todd Phillips and directed by Phillips, it’s got about a tenth of the laughs, if even that much. Surprisingly, however, Andy Dick is actually tolerable in Road Trip and not in Old School. Is it just me, or should DJ Qualls be doing better for himself these days? Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/614boys/archive/2008/3/20/26436.aspx Post By: 614boys
Post To: 614boys Blog
Post Date: 3/20/2008 2:02:57 PM
Body: it is a good movie
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