Joysticks

... like no other movie of it's time, this low budget exploitation GEM literally embodies the 1980s like no other. "Joysticks," capturing the time of video arcades and gaming, when it was still something new and mind blowing. Those who are able to leave their pretentions at the door can be transported back to a world without the tiresome worries of adult responsibility, that short lived time when getting laid and hanging with our friends while looking like rock stars at all times was our only concern . The plot is simple : a middle-aged jackass thinks his Valley girl daughter is wasting her life hanging at the local video arcade, so he embarks on a campaign to close the place down. Here ensues a classic "Generation War" as the local kids, the "Vidiots" shut the old guy down at every turn. "Joysticks" is loaded with color, music, quck cuts, T&A, and best of all... comedy that is so completely wacky that it's actually funny. If you were born in the 70s and were lucky enough to have that coveted cable TV box in your home, chances are that THIS movie is locked into your psyche for all time. Yeah, they used to show "Joysticks" on the Showtime channel, which was racier than the more family friendly HBO, and they would only air it after 10pm because of all that T&A.. I guess they had the idea that the kids would be in their beds that late at night, but that was a misjudgement. The parents were asleep, oblivious to all the fun the kids were having with movies like this. Watching this today is certainly an experience, a real nostalgia overload. There were countless teen oriented movies like this, but "Joysticks" with its otherworldly set design and shameless juvenile humor and objectification of women, stands out as the King of them all. Show this one to your teenaged kids, and make them jealous that they were born too late.

I purchased this movie on VHS on a sellout day at a video shop that was selling old movies... i think i payed $2. very original content, in the same line as under the mountain (director Peter Jackson) or brain dead... if you like this sort of thing then you will like this movie. yeah its about a bunch of kids who love their arcade, and some old idiots get their nephews to try to close down the video parlor. it comes down to a head to head challenge on an arcade game to decide if the video parlor will stay or be shut down... very funny looking at the style of cloths they wore, and typical of that era their are the punks and the squares

Joe Don Baker (along way from his Walking Tall glory days, he'd bounce back though) plays Joseph Rutter a father who is mad that his daughter is always hanging out at the local video arcade. He crusades to shut it down, but the management and the other local arcaders have something to say about that. Cue 'hijinks and misadventures' and gaming contests. This movie can and will trick you into thinking it's going to be a fun, if totally guilty pleasure, film at the beginning. The opening theme song is amazingly memorable in that '80's kitchy kind of way that you can't help but smile. The first, I don't know, maybe 10 minutes seem to reinforce that you'll be in for a forgotten classic of teen sex movies of yesterday. But then it goes wrong, horribly wrong. The jokes turn stale, everyone involved grows slightly more stupid (not that they were anywhere close to MENSA members before, but you know what I mean) And the movie just loses pretty much everything it may have had going for it, ceasing to be fun or even entertaining. I really wonder if there will ever be a good film centered around video games (in all likelihood not, but one can dream)

My Grade: D

Eye Candy:Kym Malin & Kim Michel get topless; Erin Halligan shows all

Thank you all for your support of this wonderfully perverse piece of classic entertainment! When Mickey Epps and I wrote the original screenplay we never thought it would turn into a piece of movie memorabilia. Sex comedies in the 80's will never return (that could be good or bad), but nonetheless, playing video games topless or in your underwear is now done in the privacy of the home and no longer in video arcades. So, worry not, you naysayers of this pulchritudinous adventure in film-making, you will not see a sequel to this movie. But because of it, I'm sure you've created a number of memorable moments in your own personal histories at various drive-ins and the back rows of the movie theaters! Long live teen sex comedies... long live perverted, out-of-work, over-aged, have nothing better to do writers... like myself!!!!!

A beautiful majestic and taut thriller set against the backdrop of a suburban video arcade. Joe Don Baker gives us a towering performance as the cliched angry parent wanting to shut the arcade down. It's amazing that even now, 20 years later, the film still inspires, still excites and still amazes even the most jaded movie viewer. If there is a God, I know that even he must get a smile on his face from the pointless nudity and hours upon hours of video game playing that this movie portrays with such raw tenacity and such POWER! 10/10. Long live "Joysticks!"