Goin' All the Way!

Be advised that anyone seeking out this low-budget teen sex comedy for an early appearance by Sherry Miller of "E.N.G" and "Queer As Folk" fame will be disappointed. The Sherrie Miller of this film is a completely separate person, a brunette who bears no resemblance whatsoever to the more famous Miller. Indeed, about the only interesting thing about this film is an early appearance by Eileen Davidson, though I doubt she lists it on her resume anymore.

I actually sometimes kind of like these 80's teen sex comedies provided they're completely ridiculous and don't at all remind me of actually BEING a teenager in the 80's. No problem with this one there, but it really doesn't have much going for it otherwise.

The protagonist "Arnie" like many, many cinematic teenagers is trying to "lose it" (and it's about damn time since the actor playing "Arnie" looks to be at least 25). Unfortunately, his girlfriend "Monica" won't put out. His annoying smart-ass best friend "Keith" is more fortunate because he has a very stupid girlfriend who thinks she'll get migraines if she DOESN'T have sex. "Arnie" also has another tantalizing possibility with a girl named "Candy" (Sherrie Miller), but she has a big dumb jock boyfriend (of course, "Arnie" also looks like a big dumb jock, so I'm not sure what the problem is there). Eileen Davidson plays a girl named "B.J.", but don't get too excited because it's short for "Betty Jean". Also, strangely for a school that seems to have maybe twenty (very overaged) "students" and one teacher (and where the only subject taught seems to be sex ed.), there is an entire clique of butch female weightlifters who take terrible revenge when any of their number is screwed over by a guy (they hold him down and shave his head--oh, the horror!). It all comes to a head at a very pathetic (even by high school standards) Sadie Hawkins dance where "Arnie" shows up with "Candy" and "Monica" shows up with an older smooth-talking record producer.

This movie never comes close to being funny and god knows it's not at all realistic. Eileen Davidson (who later played the bitch in "The House on Sorority Row" where she was far more believable as college graduate than a high school senior) and the never-to-be-seen-again Sherrie Miller are both very cute and sexy. They both provide some "T", but the only "A", unfortunately, comes courtesy of the big fat male jock. Miller does dance around at the Sadie Hawkins in a pair of cut-offs short enough to get any actual high school girl expelled (and unbelievably "Arnie" considers this a reason to break up with her!). But even that isn't enough to overcome the horrid music, which somehow manages to be even worse than the usual 80's music (although somehow this very low-rent movie got the rights to a terrible muzak version of the terrible Michael McDonald/Dooble Brother's song "Bit by Bit"). You do get to see roller boogie rinks, female mud wrestling, smoking in diners, and the flagrant flouting of underage drinking and open containers laws. I guess I do kind of miss a few things about the 80's, but movies like this aren't one of them.

"Goin' All The Way" is a largely unknown film today and most of the people who worked on it (with the most notable exception being Eileen Davidson) never did much else in their cinematic careers. And yet it is a painless little film (the short running time helps) that is not nearly as bad as you might have expected. Of course the outcome is predictable right from the opening scene, and after a while the lack of any strong story becomes noticeable. However, the film benefits from the winning, natural performances of its cast - their characters may be stereotypes but they are played with enough sincerity to become likable (they do look a bit too old to be high school seniors, though). If you're looking for laughs, you're most likely to get them during the classroom scenes. **1/2 out of 4.

Like an old VHS tape that's been eaten by the vcr.

This is one of the more boring entries in the endless '80s subgenre of teen sex comedy.

It involves two boys, one goofy and horny, the other shy and horny, and their girlfriends - promiscuous and frigid, respectively. The goofy kid goads the shy one into pushing his unwilling girlfriend into sex, leading to a predictable falling out, but, what do you know, maybe they'll kiss and make up before the curtains roll, for no reason other than that kind of an ending is required in a movie like this.

Scenes depicting characters outside of this tedium are strangely disjointed. You can tell the writers just brainstormed ideas and shoved them in wherever they'd fit. The only memorable character, a female weightlifter, coaxes a male character into the girls' gym with the promise of sex. She bares her breasts (why?) while he is ambushed by some other girls who shave his head, presumably as payback for some indiscretion with the wrong girl. What happens to this character? I don't think we see him again for the rest of the movie, but the characters all look alike, and have so little in the way of personality, it's hard to tell.

In another scene the same female weightlifter comes on, for real this time, to the movie's overweight slob. They apparently have sex, after which he inexplicably turns into an a-hole and kicks the big girl out of his car. What happens to him as a result of this behaviour seems to be the movie's only real example of continuity. See if you can guess what it is.

Oh, and one other thing this movie does (slightly) differently: there are plenty of movies in which horny guys get with "girls" who turn out to be men in drag. See "Hot Moves" for one example. The difference is that in "Goin' All the Way", these "drag queens" are quite obviously really female, completely taking the punchline out of the joke. We are supposed to be laughing at the hormone-induced idiocy of the young men, too eager for sex to realise their conquests aren't female... instead we're rolling our eyes at the cheap shot the filmmakers threw in there. I guess they couldn't get a real drag queen, so they just used real hot girls. They didn't even bother with the ol' sock in the crotch trick. I have never seen this cliché handled so badly.