Playing for Keeps

... but you gotta love that great song by Sister Sledge, "Here To Stay" as the plucky teens fix up the house. I bought the soundtrack for that one song.

I remember all the MTV spotlights on this movie, all the cheesy videos put out in an effort to promote it, along with "Fire With Fire" and "American Anthem." Great nostalgia for an 80s fan, but man does it stink.

Well, I grew up and still live near in the town where this was filmed. I saw part of this film on TV first. It was pretty unnerving to flip the channel and see familiar streets and buildings being broadcast; like being in the Twilight Zone.

The only reason I purchased this movie was because of where it was filmed. The town has undergone some changes since the movie was made, so it's a nice nostalgic scrapbook of sorts. The movie itself is cheesy, corny, and rather poorly done like most teen oriented films of the 80's, though it had a LOT of potential... I must say, I'm quite surprised to see it out on DVD - wish I had known that before going to eBay and buying it on VHS!

If you like cheese, small-town people made to look like dumb hicks, and teen power, then this is a must see. Otherwise, if you're not from the area it was filmed, it's almost a waste of time.

Almost...it *is* pretty funny as long as you're not taking the movie seriously and considering it a drama like the little sticker on the box says....

Yes, it was shot in 1983 in Honesdale PA. The name of the hotel when it was open in real life was Bethany Colony. After it had been closed for awhile it was used by the studio to make this movie. The Honesdale High School senior class were in the movie in the graduation scene. Unfortunately, the studio left the hotel in worse condition than when they found it. I've never seen it but would love to so I am trying to find a copy. Sounds like a DVD version I will never see but luckily I still have a VHS player! I was only 11 when it was filmed but remember the movie being filmed when I lived in Honesdale. Never knew the stars in it or that it was Miramax's first film. I'll have to let the rest of my friends know that.

...in September 1986 when I was 13 and caught it on opening weekend - the only weekend it appeared at a theater - because it sucked so bad no one saw it besides me and some others that barely helped it crack that weekend's top 10 grossing film. Just glancing at this IMDb page reminded me that it remains one of the WORST movies I've ever seen. Don't torture friends or family with this stinker unless you don't want to associate with them anymore. Where do I start? The trailer with the exploding toilet received heavy exposure on MTV, where I suppose the Weinstein brothers got a favor thrown their way for advertising this bomb of bombs, or the horrible acting and non-existent script. If you're looking for good 1980s flicks marketed towards younger moviegoers, anything is better than this with the exception of "St. Elmo's Fire". Find "Fast Times At Ridgemont High," "The Breakfast Club," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," "Say Anything," "Heathers" or "The River's Edge" - just don't go near "Playing For Keeps."

I loved PLAYING FOR KEEPS when it was released in '86; I went to see it three times, and bought the soundtrack at least twice on cassette (I kept wearing it out). What can I say? I was 12. It was, at the very least, my introduction to Pete Townshend and, eventually, The Who. Last year I found the CD for a dollar in a cutout bin, and I'm shamelessly wallowing in it right now. (I'm in full-tilt cheesy '80s soundtrack mode - I've already run through BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, and I've got HIDING OUT ready to go.)

Speaking of $1 finds, I recently came across a beat-up VHS tape of PLAYING FOR KEEPS, and since a DVD release seems unlikely ever to happen, is there any other way to revisit something I enjoyed in seventh grade?

After watching the tape, I wondered how I could have found such an inane, simpleminded movie so appealing. The best part is right at the top - the opening credits, with Townshend's spirited "Life to Life" starting things off. Or, at least the beginning was joyful in another time; the credits are interspersed with images of New York City, including a tinted, fractured photo-negative of the World Trade Center. The movie now, at least to me, starts off on a melancholy note, but the montage is fairly brief, and unrelated to the main story.

Most of the movie is set in some generic, podunk New England burg, where it's Conservative Establishment vs. Idealistic Youth as our heroes plan to change a dilapidated hotel into a rock and roll manor (the reason that a large hotel was first built in such a remote location with no visible amenities in its vicinity is never given). Thinking this premise is somehow simultaneously predictable, stock, unlikely and implausible is letting the screenwriters off easy. I guess it goes without saying that this hotel turns out to be supremely gaudy and not the least bit cool; the production reeks of early MTV - it's replete with garish neon, acid wash denim, musical montages, and "Thriller"-era choreography, including break dancing.

The credits are really the only part of PLAYING FOR KEEPS that doesn't make me gag now. The movie itself is unrelentingly shoddy and drowning in clichés, occasionally surfacing for inept acting and astonishingly lamebrained dialogue. (And the obligatory invocation of the movie's title couldn't have possibly been delivered with more agonizing ham-handedness.) No wonder that the cast, with one notable exception, continues to toil in obscurity.

That exception is, of course, Marisa Tomei. PLAYING FOR KEEPS will be invaluable for the future Friar's Club Roast in her honor. I doubt even her biggest fans are aware of this movie, for which she must be grateful. PLAYING FOR KEEPS also the answer to a fine trivia question; how many people would know that this is the only directorial effort by Bob Weinstein? Miramax should package the DVD with director's commentary. I'd love to hear what co-writers & directors Bob and Harvey Weinstein have to say about this skeleton, and surely most of the cast could take some time off from their oh-so-busy schedules to record a separate cast track.

Now that I've come clean about PLAYING FOR KEEPS, I should go ahead and disown other cinematic indiscretions from my youth. I better start rumaging through the bargain bins for used VHS tapes of RAD and MILLION DOLLAR MYSTERY to expunge any lingering fondness for those equally banal movies.