Homework

I had never heard about this 1982 movie titled "Homework", from director James Beshears, prior to stumbling upon it by random chance here in 2025. And with it being a movie that I had never seen before, of course I opted to check it out and give it a fair chance.

The storyline in the movie, as written by Maurice Peterson and Don Safran, failed to entertain me. The movie felt insanely random and erratic, as the narrative was all over the place, yet nowhere all at once.

But I suppose that fans of Joan Collins might enjoy this movie, in some odd and bizarre way, as you get to see her without a top.

Of the entire cast ensemble, I was only familiar with Joan Collins and Wings Hauser. The acting performances in the movie were fair. The acting performances in the movie were fair, despite the fact that the storyline was rubbish.

The music in the movie was insanely annoying to listen to.

This is definitely not a movie that I would recommend you to waste 89 minutes on watching.

My rating of director James Beshears's 1982 movie "Homework" lands on a generous two out of ten stars.

This movie was billed as the next best thing to "Private Lessons". The movie was marketed on the misperceived sex goddess status of Joan Collins. She never goes Mary Kay LeTourneau. All you get to see is a really weak teen soap opera. My sister, her fiancé,and I went to this movie and left it with the same reaction we had to Porkies; a triumph of marketing for not a lot of movie. Joan Collins does some flashbacks of her youth and then she was an active participant in romance; it was a low level rip off of the Graduate. The teen band sequence was a bad version of the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland OK kids, let's put on a show. The end was not even very climactic; the two male leads walking out of a movie theater and talking of trying to make a movie just like when they started a band.

A young man sits doing his math homework. He pulls out a porno mag and begins to fantasize about the model in the magazine being photographed by some other guy. This would make sense if he were gay, and wants to become a fashion photographer. But he is supposed to be straight. If the picture led him to fantasize, wouldn't the fantasy be sexual somehow?

The boy has a more interesting fantasy a little bit later, where he imagines himself comatose in hospital due to lack of sex, and has two sexy nurses, one of whom bares her breasts.

The movie appears to have a better budget than most '80s teen sex comedies. It features more locations and actors, though no one makes any impression.

I believe the movie is supposed to be about a young man, luckless in sex, being seduced by Joan Collins. She is barely in it, and all her scenes seem separate from the rest of the movie. No wonder - according to Wikipedia, they were filmed two years apart from the rest of the "movie". The whole thing has the same disconnected feeling.

There is a smoking hot French teacher, who should have been the one to seduce the protagonist - not Collins. In one bizarre scene, she offers to tutor one of the other kids, and he comes to her house and talks to her in fluent French, impressing her. She speaks English, presumably because the actress couldn't fake it in French. Why didn't they just make her a science teacher or something?

Google offers some hints about Collins' lack of real participation: she filmed her part two years before the rest, in a minor role, and the filmmakers edited the movie - and marketed it - to make it look like she played a main role. She sued them, particularly for using a body double in a later scene to make it look like she got naked.

B-movie god Wings Hauser makes an appearance at the halfway mark. He apparently plays some kind of rock star. What is he doing in this movie?

There are also scenes with an African American family that don't seem related to the movie's main story, if you can really say it has one.

The kid speaking French to his teacher is apparently, actually, French. I don't know why they didn't introduce that earlier. This movie is very confusing.

The protagonist finally meets Collins with only fifteen minutes left to go. So much for the whole "virginal loser seduced by sexy Dame" plotline.

And then the movie ends, without having resolved, or even really established, anything.

Thank god it's over.

It never ceases to amaze me that in these films such good looking players are always cast as kids who can't seem to get anywhere with women. Positively ludicrous but I think films like Homework aren't to stimulate the mind. They operate somewhat south of the border.

Michael Morgan who I learned was Yvonne DeCarlo's son has sex on his mind all the time. He's even seeing the school guidance counselor Carrie Snodgrass who certainly has done better work.

He's trying very hard to score with next door neighbor Erin Donovan. But she only wants to make the swim team and she's constantly in the pool. But her mom Joan Collins gets her mojo going every time she sees Morgan. Guess what happens?

There's also a subplot with the same issue as Morgan's friend Lanny Horn tries to lose his virginity and it's French teacher Lee Purcell gives private lessons.

Morgan and Horn look they would have women lining up for them. Just once I'd like to see one of these films made with somebody who really hasn't gotten to first base yet. That will never happen.

Sadly I learned Michael Morgan was a homcide victim in 1999 and the case was never solved. A tragedy also is that this is the poor man's career role.

Within 5 minutes of this teenage romp we see a shaggy hair blonde kid scribbling in his notebook under the bedroom lamp, dream sequences about Porn-actresses being photographed by sleazy men and the same young man and his friend smoking a joint at their lockers while subsequently ogling half naked girls through a door vent. When a movie starts out this cheesy you are immediately forewarned of what you are getting into or what one might think they hope to donate their precious time to, a guilty pleasure. Unfortunately, Homework doesn't get any better. Joan Collins, as the tigress who allures young Michael, ends up looking shoddy and lascivious instead of the wise seductress she is meant to be. This movie is filled with 3rd rate acting and the directing is what one would expect from a novice High School student directing his first movie. The film looks so bad that you could easily mistake this for 16mm or even 8mm. Usually I can laugh and enjoy these old teen movies for the freak value and nostalgic curios they offer. But not this one. Oddly enough, the movie ends on a strangely sad note with the two male friends walking down Hollywood Boulevard whereupon they strike up a conversation about the possibility of making it in motion pictures. The credits roll and this moody ballad about trying to be a star ends this horrible picture. Are we supposed to feel morose? Happy? Inspired? More like ripped off.