Tuesday, August 24, 2010

bad/awesome flixxx review: The Wild Life (1984) (Cameron Crowe)



"It's casual"- Tom Drake

"It's my hair, isn't it? You don't like my hair."- Harry

Alahoyus! Now this is more like it! Another childhood awesome flick completely debunked! Well not completely... How could a movie starring Chris Penn, Eric Stoltz, Lea Thompson, with cameos by Ben Stein, Randy Quaid, Rick Moranis, Ron Wood, the "pussy wagon" guy from KILL BILL, and Lee Ving from Fear, written by Cameron Crowe as a follow up to "Fast Times...", and a score written by Eddie Van Halen possibly be anything but amazing?? Well watch this and find out... Bad/Awesome personified, all of those people trying their best to make a fantastic comedy with no discernable plot whatsoever- in THE WILD LIFE!!



It took me a very long time to find a copy of this. It has only ever been released on VHS and Laserdisc (I think because Cameron Crowe doesn't want it to get out that his name is attached to such a big flopping stinker... but wikipedia says its because of soundtrack issues... somebody in Steppenwolf is looking for the big bucks...). Its one of those movies that you try to remember the name of and then after explaining what it's about, everyone goes, "OHHHH YEEAHHH!" The fucking thing is worth watching to see Chris Penn try to out-Spicoli his brother as a super thin young wild buck. Seems like they got everyone to be in this thing. You'll even recognize the little brother as the "other" kid from WEIRD SCIENCE (opposite AMH {shorthand for Anthony Micheal Hall [duh]}).
Story goes (if you can call it that) its the end of summer. Almost time for school to be back in sesh. Tom Drake (Penn) and Bill Conrad (Stoltz) work at the bowling alley. Bill is outta school and getting his own place. He's recently busted up with his chick (Lea Thompson) who is porking this cop (who turns out to be married). Tom is like a local wrestling star wildman who goes out with this chick with terrible 80s hair and style who works in the mall at a shop with Rick Moranis (who fucking knocks it outta the park as always.)
Bill's lil brother is Jim who is tuff as shit and obsessed with Vietnam. He doesn't know if he'll go back to school yet or not, because he's fucked i guess.



Tom decides he want to marry his chick but she's like no way dude, yer crazy... He tells his buds that she said yes, and that they're gonna have a stag party. Bill's rent is too high, so he gets Tom to move in with him. They go to "Les Girls" and get in a huge slugout. Tom starts raging all the time, and pisses Bill off. Jim takes his buddy to meet Charlie (Quaid) a Nam vet. Charlie turns out to be a junkie, and Jim splits. Bill finds out about his chick porking the cop, and goes to tuff him up. He gets sauced, but his lil bro Jim fixed the pigs up real good, dig? Crash, Huge doughnut to the copmobile. Bill tries to pull it together in the 7th inning stretch only to come home to a rager to end all ragers in his swank bachelor pad, with Lee Ving the cable guy hanging and so many partyers that the place has no room. Tom and his wrestling buds take care of that by ker-smashing the wall down. "Lawsuit." Bill gets her in the closet. Tom kidnaps his girl. IF, (big if) IF you can find it... get some "burlacious gange buds" and it'll prolly be worth it. still gotta come up with a sweet rating system. one thumb up. one somewhere else.

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