80's Teen Movies :: the classic, the obscure & everything in between: 1/5

"72 hours of liberty to forget everything the Navy ever taught them"

Three navy recruits - Webster, Bunker and Fricker - are given their first weekend pass which they use to spend 72 hours partying in LA. But before leaving boot camp, the guys decide to have a little mercy on fellow recruit and friendless nerd, Lester Gidley, who ends up tagging along on their party-hard three day trip.

First stop - unsurprisingly - strip club, where they fail in their attempts to pick up any women. So it's off to Venice beach, girl picking-up attempt #2, where Bunker sets his sights on aerobics instructor Tina Wells. Trying to impress her and failing miserably leads the boys to their next stop, an aerobics center where Bunker's dream girl works. Again, Bunker's offers for a date are turned down, but he isn't about to give up.

Back at the motel, Webster is scouring the newspaper and finds an ad for 'Kimono My Place Massage', which he and the guys decide to call, setting Lester up a date with 'Chop Suzi'. They have a fun time of spying on him while the Thai massage 'pro' does her stuff.

Next day and the boys are off on a tour around LA with Bunker leading the way through Melrose Avenue, home to 'the baddest clothes in all of Los Angeles'. Once they leave the New Wave neighbourhood, they head off to Bunker's old turf, which turns out to be a bad idea when the guys come face to face with a gang from Bunker's past, known as the Mau Maus. Dressed (badly) in bright orange and animal print with cut off vests and headbands, the Mau Maus, complete with war drums blasting out of their boom box, challenge Bunker to a fight. Alls well that ends well when the cops show up just in time to stop a fist bashing.

Later that evening, the arrogant Fricker gets himself a stand up gig at a place known as the comedy castle, which is again another bad idea when he stinks out the audience totally and completely. The only upside is the fact he meets fellow comedienne and Catholic girl Heidi. Meanwhile, Webster is on a disastrous date with the annoyingly fake Cindy, who he ditches at the last minute.

Sunday - the final day of freedom - and the guys go along to a dance. Fricker inviting Heidi, Bunker convincing Tina to show, Lester miraculously setting up his own date with a girl called Tawny, and Webster going alone until meeting Tawny's pretty cousin Maxine. Finally, the guys have fulfilled their wishes for the weekend, and, having each met the girl of their dreams, it's off to boot camp once again.

VERDICT: ★

I don't think it can be put much simpler: don't see it. Weekend Pass is an indistinguishably boring flick from Crown that has virtually no redeeming qualities. The only novelty and plus note about the whole movie is the array of early '80s LA scenery - beaches, nightlife, and especially the underground hotspot, Melrose Avenue, which was a real fun little segment of film. It really captures the New Wave crowd of the times (if only for a few minutes) and it's great to catch a glimpse of what is described on Wikipedia as:

"The eastern end of the district, which runs from Fairfax to Highland Avenue, became a popular underground and new wave shopping area in the early 1980s, featuring the opening of stores such as Vinyl Fetish and Retail Slut, both of which closed several years ago. The Burger That Ate L.A., a landmark fast food stand, was replaced with a Starbucks in recent years, and the area has witnessed an upsurge in tourism and a significant decrease of the underground and countercultural elements. The original Johnny Rockets opened in this part of Melrose in 1986."

IMAGES/VIDEOS: [trailer]

SOUNDTRACK:

1. Weekend Pass - Robbie Baer
2. All Night Love - Robbie Baer & Beth Beaudin
3. Hard As A Rock - Michael Fennelly
4. Beach Nut - John & Robbie Baer
5. LA Extra (Read About Me) - John Baer
6. Free Me From The Night Life - Andrea Robinson

"Roll over Meatballs, the Oddballs are ready for summer camp!"

When a bunch of preteen lads have nothing better to do with their summer, where do they go? Camp Bottomout, of course, owned by Mama Fratelli's alcoholic male counterpart, Hardy Bassett. He hates kids, he hates work and he hates his newly acquired camp. When the bus pulls up just after running down an Indiana Jones lookalike, the mayhem begins - mummified bodies in the bunk beds, insane kid vampires hidden in trunks, and an aerobics session with a homosexual cokehead who sniffs a little too much before exercising himself to death. You call that fun?

In come our three main characters, Chris, Og and Francois - three twelve year old lads who spend their time spying on the girls across the lake at Camp Bountiful. Little do they realise that the camp is owned by the money grabbing Skinner who, along with his airhead son Chadwick, are in the process of hatching a plan to demolish the boys' camp and build a shopping mall in its place. Being the calculating 'businessman' that he is, Skinner bypasses the idea of simply buying the camp and instead decides to use Bassett's granddaughter Jennifer as bait for a scam.

The plan is well underway and when Jennifer turns up at camp to help out, Skinner dishes out orders for Chadwick to 'seduce her and marry her!' in order to inherit Bassett's land, to which his son replies: 'what does seduce mean?'. Before long, Chadwick is off to Camp Bottomout, his first attempts leading him nowhere. With his car at the bottom of a river and Jennifer totally uninterested, he retreats back to daddy to work out plan B. And plan B fails when Chadwick is chased from the camp by some dude in a bear suit.

In the meantime, Francois and Og are busy.. well.. ogling over camp nurse Miss Kitten, while Chris is desperately in love with Jennifer. Throw a horny sex ed teacher and a screwy punk kid into the equation and you've got trouble. After an unsuccessful field trip to a local bar in the effort of picking up some chicks, the guys return to camp just prior to the Bottomout/Bountiful dance, the setting for the grand finale of Skinner's conniving arrangements. It turns out to be perfect timing when the camp loudspeaker is accidentally switched on, revealing his scheme to the entire party and leaving him looking pathetic.

It seems that the camp has been saved and the villains long gone, until Bassett reveals the sad truth. The kids are disheartened to learn that Camp Bottomout is no more, sold for $300,000 to the sleazy Skinner. But allowing the place to be torn down is the last thing on their minds.

VERDICT: ★

Odd Balls, also known as Screwballs Vacation and All Shook Up (how many names does this movie need?!) is an insanely bad Canadian Meatballs ripoff, with the budget of half a shoestring and the acting talents of a goldfish. The humour is mindnumbingly terrible:

"We already have a social director honey, Billy Wankey"
"Billy Wankey! He's a convicted child molester!"
"..and he'll work for free".

It took me three occasions to finally sit through this abomination from start to finish. Losing a good few brain cells is pretty much all you'll get out of Odd Balls, and the nonsensical scenes and lack of any real plot leaves you wondering why and how movies like this are made, let alone given DVD releases. 2004 saw Pegasus DVD in the UK bring this one out, sold for next to nothing, along with many other forgotten titles, including Preppies [1984], Wacko [1983], and the surprisingly enjoyable 1985 movie, Breaking All the Rules. But Odd Balls is one summer camp movie that should have been thrown to the dogs way back in '84.

IMAGES/VIDEOS:

SOUNDTRACK:

None available.

Weekend Pass [1984]

Odd Balls [1984]