Dream a Little Dream

While the latter 1980s were absolutely gagged with lame body-switching comedies like the listless Vice Versa and Like Father, Like Son, I found something entirely different and actually inspiring in Dream a Little Dream. Buoyed by strong performances, Dream is not at all what you'd expect it would be. Much to my surprise, it is actually a smart, witty, intelligent and touching look at old age and adolecence by way of new age philosophy. Corey Feldman gives one of his best performances, and no, that's not a joke, and Haim is never better anywhere than he is in his small role as the oddball best friend Dinger. Obviously it didn't hurt to have a three time Oscar nominee like the late, great Jason Robards on board. This movie really does have something for everyone, and I'm being a hundred percent serious. So many "oh so serious" types like to bash movies like this, but I'm a writer, and I love good, interesting movies, and I truly see this as one of them. What a terrific, quirky little gem produced by the Two Coreys before midnight, January 1st, 1990 when their careers suddenly spiralled down the toilet. Funny, touching, and utterly enjoyable.

Great coming of age vehicle for Corey Feldman, who once again shows the potential he did in "Stand By Me" earlier in his career. Bobby Keller (Feldman) is a teenager with unusual problems. When an older man who lives down the street (Robards) tries a transcendental experiment in order to extend the lives of him and his skeptical but humoring wife (Laurie), they quite literally become trapped in the bodies of Keller and his dream girl, Lainie (Salenger).

Bobby must figure out how to switch back to his own body by a certain deadline or be trapped. Worse is the fact that Lainie doesn't know what's happened to her, so Bobby has little time to win her and convince her of their predicament before she will be lost forever.

Although Haim is annoying (as usual) as Feldman's buddy "Dinger" (puh-leez), the movie has some funny moments (like when Robards' character is trying to teach Feldman's how to be suave and Feldman is trying to teach Robards how to be inconspicuous) and some sweet ones, (like when Bobby is trying to win Lainie's heart).

Although some of it may be too precocious for the younger kids (and too dorky for the more sophsticated older teens), I found it to be fun and nostalgic. Great movie for a rainy day.

The third film to feature both Corey Feldman and Corey Haim, this time Feldman is the lead, and Haim gets to play the second fiddle character. Feldman plays Bobby, who likes to take a short cut through an old man's yard. One day, he gets into a bike accident in the middle of the night in his yard with his future love interest (Meredith Salenger). When Bobby awakes he realizes that he is in the old man's body. Haim of course dosen't believe it and frequently says his usual sarcastic lines while William McNamara plays a high school jock who is kind of the on-and-off bully/friend to Bobby. Of course we can't forget the list of veteran actors in the film, we have Academy Award winners Jason Robards and Piper Laurie playing the elderly couple, character actor Harry Dean Stanton plays the weird neighbor and TV veteran actress Susan Blakely also has a small cameo role. I liked the film and the hard rock in roll music in the film is a blast! It can be a little hard to follow and confussing at times, but it's a fine family film.

Corey Feldman's apparent real-life obsession with Michael Jackson really shone through in this movie. It was distracting, which is probably a good thing in this case.

The storyline was so disjointed and flawed that it pretty much makes every other movie made in 1989 look like an Oscar hopeful.

I've lost a little bit of respect and admiration from my friend who recommended this movie. Is he alright?

I'm still confused...

I loved this movie when it came out originally. It was disjointed, as was the fashion then in movie making. I still love it, but it honestly hasn't held up that well. This last time it seemed that they must have edited out some key parts. There is a sweet love story and a coming-of-age parallel story involved, some partial character development of admittedly one-dimensional caricatures of human beings, but I still love this movie. It must be the nostalgia.

I guess that there is a mandatory rule that I mention two of the teen stars, Corey Feldman and Corey Haim. They see kind of quintessential characters which reminds me that it's time to rewatch The Lost Boys.