La fièvre du printemps

Welcome to Florida!

Maybe your last vacation was just working two jobs instead of three - now you are in Eff Ell Lay. It would be immoral not to pursue women, beer and that evil dude from the Unsafe Buildings Commission.

Actually, the guy from the USC was really the only hole in the script. Why did he choose to join those thugs after he did the bit that he was paid off for? The rest of the film was coherent, the acting suberb (was it? I kept getting distracted by the actresses) and the beer keep flowing right along with the storyline.

I especially liked the part where O.T. swims through the water with a knife in his teeth. Could Coppola have come up with such imagery?

This movie is simple, mindless entertainment. Expecting it to be anything else is ludicrous. Not every movie has to have a deep, heartfelt meaning nor does every movie have to change the world. You watch this movie to relive your adolescent fantasies of what spring break was going to be like, or to relive your memories of what it really was.

Lookit, I know the humour is lame, and the plot is standard fare, but lets call a spade a spade. When this film came out, it had no intention of setting the world on fire, or raking in hordes of Oscars...it's just a teen movie.

I am a child of the 80s. In fact, Spring Break holds a very dear place in my heart as it was the first "R Rated" film I ever saw (I was 14 at the time) and it was merely fuel for my raging hormones, which was all it was supposed to be. There were millions of movies just like this in the 80s. However, as lame as this film could be considered, I strongly feel that the teen films we see now are far worse. At least the acting in this film is good (the actors did well with what they had to work with).

If nothing else, it's great to watch and remember our (fleeting) youth. I just got it on video and was afraid to watch it for fear that it was much worse than I remembered (after all, it WAS 1983 when I saw it last...19 years ago!!!). I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised. What more, even through all the bad hair and a wardrobe that makes us cringe and say "What were we thinking", the girls are still very beautiful and REAL!!! Nary an implant in sight!

Another highlight: .38 Special's "Caught Up In You" used in a great spot for the soundtrack.

Yeah, it's another 80s teen-geek-gets-laid-and-becomes-cool flick, but it's a good one!

As near as I can tell, this movie is about the four least funny dumbasses in the world going to Fort Lauderdale. I guess it's really not fair to say that they aren't funny, because there are no actual "jokes" per se in the film. Things happen, and the actors sort of react to everything as if they are being funny, but they're not. One guy keeps yelling, "Look at all these people! They're all having fun!" Obviously, he wasn't looking at the audience.

I think Perry Lang here is still playing Hewitt from his quintessential seventies retards-are-people-too movie, "Hewitt's Just Different." When he is trying to convey that his character is having a good time, he dumps a cup of beer over his head and goes "AAAAAAAAAAAH!"

There's lots of strangely homosexual undertones in this, too. You could make a good drinking game to it---each player picks a main character and has to drink every time that character does something latent, like when Paul (The Idolmaker) Land strips down to his jock in a hotel room before two guys he just met about ten seconds earlier.

This movie is so wrong-headed it's hard to pin down every moronic moment, but the nightclub musical numbers stand out as particularly inept. Harry Manfredini must have run through a lot of double-A batteries for his Casio scoring this flick. During these scenes everyone is clapping to their own imaginary beat, which never bears even a remote resemblance to the actual one. I haven't seen this much hopelessly caucasian clapping since the last time I watched "Wild Horse Saloon."

It's hard to believe that at one time this stuff was released in theaters, and that people stood in a line to see it. It's even harder to believe there are still people out there who love this crap (see previous user comments) without any irony whatsoever. I mean, I plan on taping it the next time it's on, but mostly because I find it endlessly entertaining to watch movies that look like they were made by people who had never seen a movie before.

The best thing I could possibly say about this was that the lady who owned the hotel played Eddie's mom in "Diner." And I don't even know why that's a good thing. Also, if you watch it on Comedy Central, listen for when they accidentally left in an F-word when they were editing the soundtrack. Our fun-loving protagonists are in a bar and a male wet t-shirt contest is announced (oh, one of THOSE bars) and one guy asks, "What do we have to do?" His buddy shouts back, very clearly, "Who the f___ cares?" I couldn't have put it better myself.

Charming Ft. Lauderdale spring break film from 1983. Would this movie ever win any awards for cinematic excellence? Not a chance. But then it never tries to be anything other than what it is; mindless spring break fun circa-1983, but with a difference. The movie has heart, treating its likable leads in a positive way rather than depicting them as the stupid, sex-crazed, goofs that most films of the time seem to prefer. In short, there are a LOT less worthwhile ways to spend 101 minutes.

Although this was my era, I never experienced spring break while in college myself (much to my ever-lasting dismay). But movies like this allow those of us spring break wannabe's who missed out, a way to share in the fun.

DON'T bother watching if you are looking for a deep, filmatic experience. Instead, simply celebrate the era and enjoy the good "clean" fun that was Florida's spring break, before 'girls gone wild'!