Perfect

OK, I know this is a bad, bad movie. It's not like I have any "diamond in the rough" illusions about this actually being a good movie that's merely misunderstood. So why is it that I watch it every time it's on? I honestly love watching this film!

Maybe it's the dated 80s setting and the "studly" guys that look utterly homosexual now. Perhaps it's the great lines, like Anne De Salvo looking directly into the camera and saying, "C'mon, guys, make me suffer," or Matthew Reed (in his one and only screen role) saying, "It was love at first sight. I took one look at those tits and my whole body got hard!" It could be John Travolta going through his aerobics routine with a sock in his jock, or Larraine Newman straddling the leg-spreader, proving that not every woman looks sexy in a leotard.

Of course there's Jamie Lee Curtis calling Travolta a "sphincter muscle" three different times. There's also Jann Wenner gyrating his fat gut during the closing credits. How about the pointless scene where hundreds of Boy George fans storm the hotel, or Curtis "deleting" Travolta's article by merely backspacing (What kind of word processor is that)? There's even the premise that Rolling Stone is a serious news magazine - HAW HAW HAW!

I seriously can't recommend paying money for this, but it's worth a watch if it comes on a local channel just for the sheer badness of it all. This is the definitive nadir of Travolta's career (check that...it is better than Battlefield Earth, but what isn't?) After this, even Look Who's Talking Now looks brilliant.

SPOILER: "The Hitcher" (young C. Thomas Howell) and "Risky Business" came out, Wes Craven was doing his "Nightmare on Elm Street" series...so what did we young people have for drama? This.

If you need a laugh now, you may want to tune in. While Jamie Lee Curtis tries to elevate this, it is simply not elevate-able.

Laraine Newman and Marilu Henner are gym groupies with no self-esteem, (Marilu gets the Chippendale man though, so it's all good). John Travolta as a semi-literate writer at "Rolling Stone". (We know he is good, because in the end he goes to jail for protecting a source). There are some scenes with Jann Wenner and Lauren Hutton, apparently the then in-crowd, at a party.

The really sad part about this is that there really were people like this; the gym was a sense of self-esteem;(along with anorexia). Aerobics class became the next singles hang-out as the song "Masquerade" blares out, while everyone obsesses over plastic surgery and the perfect body (The Laraine Newman character is particularly pathetic).

We see the superficiality. Has anything changed? Indeed, they could remake this with Jessica Simpson as the lead. Someone get on the phone to CAA!.

Really, "Perfect" is not the tactical warhead everyone seems to be implying. This is not on the same level as 80s catastrophes like "Megaforce", "Grease 2", "Howard the Duck", or (heaven help us) "Staying Alive". "Perfect" is nothing more than tragic misfire from extremely talented director James Bridges ("The Paper Chase", "Urban Cowboy") that makes the dire mistake of treating the aerobics, health club fad of the mid-80s as a serious cultural phenomenon (ugh).

It also helped to derail John Travolta's career for the better part of a decade - sad, because all one has to do is take a look at his outstanding performances in "Blow Out" and "Urban Cowboy" and realize that his acting in "Perfect" was just fine (if a bit low key). It's a shame, he could have made a lot of great movies while he was stuck in dreck like "The Experts" and strange late 80s Altman theatre pieces like Pinter's "The Dumb Waiter" (with Tom Conti!).

Travolta plays a Rolling Stone journalist hot on the trail of a big story about how health clubs are the new pick-up joints, replacing singles bars. He meets "The Pied Piper of aerobics teachers" Jamie Lee Curtis, a former Olymic swimmer who was once burned by a journalist over a piece about how she was having an affair with her coach. Of course, she and Travolta hook up and Travolta meets some other folks who frequent the gym, who are like supporting characters in a David Lynch movie (I'm unsure if the director intended to portray them as weird as they come off).

Real-life Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner shows up to essentially play himself (not very well) and, in the film's most laughable detail, Travolta writes a version of his story portraying health clubs as Emersonian watering holes of the future (or something like that).

It's all kind of bloated and weird, but really not that bad. Travolta's actually pretty good. Jamie Lee Curtis looks great but comes off as slightly grouchy, but she was probably directed that way.

Don't miss Travolta's notorious pelvic thrust sequence (you can't miss it).

Adam Lawrence (John Travolta) is a relentless, cynical Rolling Stone reporter from New York. He is in Los Angeles to track down an elusive interview. He has a second idea to write about fitness clubs as the new singles bars. He tries to interview instructor Jessie Wilson (Jamie Lee Curtis) known as the "aerobics pied piper" at The Sport Connection. She refuses due to a previous reporter who wrote that she had an affair with her swim coach. He interviews customers like Sally (Marilu Henner) and Linda (Laraine Newman) who is described by another as "the most used piece of equipment in the gym". He is being pressured to testify about his other interview and hand over his notes. When Adam hands in a sincere story about health clubs, the editor rewrites it as a take down piece digging up the old story about Jessie.

This movie is hopelessly dated. It was probably dated and cheesy even at the time of its release. The aerobics scenes are too extended. They feel like cheesy music videos. I actually don't mind the story. Travolta and Curtis are fine actors. The movie is sincere in the writing. However, it can never truly escape the cheese factor.

A legendary flop and a legendarily bad movie, this mess is part three in a career-killing trilogy of Travolta's that also includes "Staying Alive" and "Two of a Kind". It took him a long time to bounce back. It also stalled Curtis's career for a while until "A Fish Called Wanda" rescued her. The story, such as it is, concerns Travolta, a Rolling Stone magazine reporter, looking for a story angle within a huge gymnasium at the height of the aerobics and fitness craze. He's already working on another more important story, but wants this as a back-up in case an all-important interview falls through. He zeroes in on high-profile aerobics instructor Curtis who has a huge following (which often kisses her on the mouth following one of her workouts!) Unfortunately, she's had a major disaster with a reporter in the past and resists being interviewed for his story. In order for there to be a movie, he must wear her down and get her assistance even though there are 90 other instructors at this mega-gym. The film is very unfocused and disjointed throughout. It tries to be too many things: a reflection of investigative journalism, an ethics drama, an examination of self-esteem issues, a music video crash-course in Jazzercise and, most obviously, a jiggle movie with emphasis on lycra-clad spread legs and tight behinds. The script is so crass and stupid with ludicrous lines like, "You're a sphincter muscle..." (this one is repeated often!) and unnecessary subplots which lead nowhere. Travolta is awful. He speaks his lines with his mouth almost open, stares blankly with no skill at conveying what's on his mind and, in the films most celebratedly horrendous scene, gyrates his bulging crotch at the camera ad nauseam while sweat trickles down his pale, clammy face and body. Curtis looks very fresh and attractive most of the film (if a bit sexually ambiguous) eschewing the huge hair and heavy make-up of the times. Her character is a little too self-righteous, but her acting is better than anyone else around. Wenner, a non-actor, provides a jarring presence whenever he appears because he (along with several other "real" people cast in the film) hasn't got the polish to really sell his role even though it reflects his position in real life (as the founder of Rolling Stone!) Most of the other actors in the film either overact horrendously or flat-line. More importantly, the audience does not care about anyone in the film and so does not care when various events and revelations come about. There is some inherent camp value in revisiting the hilarious workout clothes of the 80's and in hearing the bouncy, tacky music of the era, but the movie is way too long for it's subject matter and the music montages wear out their welcome very quickly. And for all the sweating and gyration, there are no sex scenes in the film. Look out for pansexual Burt Reynolds look-alike (and alleged Travolta bed partner) Barresi in the cast as a gym rat eager to show off his body.