Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Day 4 - The Party Animal

The Party Animal

Pondo Sinatra is a 26 (or 22 depending on what you decide the movie want you to think) virgin, who's going to college to try and get some.  Unfortunately for him, the ladies want none of what he's selling.  Unfortunately for us, the movie is terrible.
I'm a huge fan of terrible 80's (and 90's) comedies.  Most of them can be pretty bad, but I can usually try and see the worthy in a number of them.  Whether it's the acting (with sympathetic or funny characters) or the direction (you know, a fantastic visual style that has no place in a movie like the one it's in), I find myself forgiving a lot of the movies faults.  But sometimes a movie just fails on all those levels.  This is one such film.
First off, the pacing on this film is glacial.  At under an hour and 20 minutes, this still was one of the longest-seeming films I've seen in a while.  And if you cut out the musical montages you'd have less than half the running time.  Now, I realize that this being an 80's film and all, montages aren't merely filler, but essential.  However, that doesn't give the filmmakers a license to cobble a pretty weak story around those montages, regardless of the coolness of the music that they got the rights to.
I would usually use this next paragraph to try and tell you some of the more positive aspects of the film, but I don't have much.  There's a weird interlude in a sex shop that reminded me of a Kevin Smith film in both the dialogue and the look.  But aside from a few random laughs , the film just isn't good.  And then there's the whole ending.  It's supposed to be one last joke, but it just seems sort of callous, and more of a reminder that the writer probably had no idea of how to end the film.

0 stars

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