Directed by Savage Steve Holland
Released August 8th, 1986
Written by Savage Steve Holland
Movie Synopsis Courtesy of IMDB
"An aspiring teenage cartoonist and his friends come to the aid of a singer trying to save her family property from developers."
So many of you are going to be surprised by this, I actually enjoyed this movie! Which is surprising for two reasons. One, it is clearly a stupid movie. I mean just watch the trailer if you haven't seen the movie before.
That guy's voice in itself explains a lot. But reason two that it is surprising that I enjoyed this movie is because I am not a huge John Cusack fan. I can honestly say, though, I enjoyed his performance in this movie. Maybe because compared to most of the other characters he was the normal one? Even more normal than his strange character in Say Anything...
Now I think the reason that I didn't mind this kind of stupid movie is because it was done with a purpose. The whole movie is a metaphor. The movie itself is a comic book and trying to bring you into the world that Hoops creates with his drawings. I mean this is shown right away at the start of the movie. "Generic High School" I mean really? Could you be anymore, well generic? Then you add in the over the top characters who are either stereotypes of a typical character or are so over the top that they are ridicules like in comic books. Anyone from the bikers, to the little girls who tease Squid, the bad guy looking like a creepy/sketchy man, and don't forget the Stork twins.
These characters are so over the top that pulling them straight from a comic book is the only way to describe them and their actions.
Speaking of their actions. The girls' faces getting stuck in those awful positions, the car clearly wasn't going to make that boat, the Stork twins being well twins, the car being able to pull away while still connected to the gas pump? All of these things are not possible or believable in real life. But in this movie they just made sense because well everything was over the top.
So there were two things that somewhat bothered me in this movie, both are minor but I think they make a difference. The first being, why is Hoops scared of boats and water? That was never explained nor did anyone question it. Did he have a traumatic experience? Did someone he knew die in water? What is it? I think if we had known the back story to this then him captaining the boat at the end would have been more impactful and more "heroic" in terms of the comic book feel of the movie.
The second thing that bothered me was the inconsistency of Hoops' animations and drawings. I will go into why I liked them in a second, but it felt like this part of the story was lost along the way and became an after thought. In the middle and towards the end of the movie there was almost no mention of the cartoons and the big deal that he needs to have a comic done in order to get into art school! That is kind of a big deal! Plus using the animations helped add to the movie so when a huge chunk of that was missing in the middle I felt like we were missing out.
Now, I think the use of those animations was so fun and original! Especially opening the movie with them.
While they can be very dark and somewhat morbid, that only helped the character development of Hoops because let's be real teenagers are going to think of some dark stuff when they are trying to come up with a story. The impressive part in all of this, is the different levels of the drawings. From the use of full on cartoon, to pencil drawing, to animation on his paper, to moving the drawings with his hands, and finally the drawings themselves. This level of animation couldn't have been easy especially in the 80s, but it was really cool to see and I wish they would have incorporated it more!
The last thing I want to talk about is one of my 80s rants. Drive-in movies! Ah, I wish these haven't disappeared from society. It is rare to find one of these, I know the closest one to me in about an hour and a half away! Ugh. There is just something more intimate about going to a drive-in with a date. Yes, I know back when they were popular they were just an excuse for making-out in the car. But I am talking about the intimate part of being alone watching a movie with someone. And no it is not the same as "Netflix and Chill" or watching a movie in bed. It is just the two of you in the car, you don't have to listen to other people's commentary or laughter, you could actually talk during the movie, instead of now-a-days when you clearly can't in a theatre. Being able to bring your own snacks, blankets, hell you didn't even have to really get dressed if you didn't want to because you never had to leave your car (well unless you forgot to bring snacks). Yes, I know you could do all of this at home, but being able to go out on a date is more, I don't know special. I just picture what it would have been like on a snowy or rainy day, going to the drive-in with your blankets and snacks, hearing the rain outside and enjoying a movie. I don't know why but that just sounds very romantic and fun to me. But hey, obviously I am an 80s girl so it makes sense.
Well that's all for this week. Hopefully I will get a Halloween movie in before the season passes!
George Calamari: "Hey, Hoops, you ever notice how people die in alphabetical order?"
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