Dream a Little Dream

So far it's just a bunch of random scenes and montages and hip sounding music and the Corey's seemingly improv-ing the whole movie. Wow. Is it me?

I loved this movie when it came out originally. It was disjointed, as was the fashion then in movie making. I still love it, but it honestly hasn't held up that well. This last time it seemed that they must have edited out some key parts. There is a sweet love story and a coming-of-age parallel story involved, some partial character development of admittedly one-dimensional caricatures of human beings, but I still love this movie. It must be the nostalgia.

I guess that there is a mandatory rule that I mention two of the teen stars, Corey Feldman and Corey Haim. They see kind of quintessential characters which reminds me that it's time to rewatch The Lost Boys.

Great coming of age vehicle for Corey Feldman, who once again shows the potential he did in "Stand By Me" earlier in his career. Bobby Keller (Feldman) is a teenager with unusual problems. When an older man who lives down the street (Robards) tries a transcendental experiment in order to extend the lives of him and his skeptical but humoring wife (Laurie), they quite literally become trapped in the bodies of Keller and his dream girl, Lainie (Salenger).

Bobby must figure out how to switch back to his own body by a certain deadline or be trapped. Worse is the fact that Lainie doesn't know what's happened to her, so Bobby has little time to win her and convince her of their predicament before she will be lost forever.

Although Haim is annoying (as usual) as Feldman's buddy "Dinger" (puh-leez), the movie has some funny moments (like when Robards' character is trying to teach Feldman's how to be suave and Feldman is trying to teach Robards how to be inconspicuous) and some sweet ones, (like when Bobby is trying to win Lainie's heart).

Although some of it may be too precocious for the younger kids (and too dorky for the more sophsticated older teens), I found it to be fun and nostalgic. Great movie for a rainy day.

Transfer of consciousness movies were really piling up ever since the Disney Studios came out with the first Freaky Friday during the 80s and 90s. In the case of Dream A Little Dream it only goes one way.

Senior citizen Jason Robards tells his wife Piper Laurie that he's been doing a lot of transcendental meditation and he tells her quite matter of factly that one night he will go to sleep, will himself into a coma and move into the mind of another. Unfortunately the mind he occupies is that of Corey Feldman a rather vapid teen who's got two things on his mind.

The first is he does like Michael Jackson and Feldman does a mean moonwalk. The second is Meredith Salenger who is the girlfriend of jock William McNamara. The only one who has some grasp of how Feldman has changed from within is best friend Corey Haim.

The best scenes are when Feldman goes to sleep and then he can contact Robards. Those dream sequences have both learning a lot about each other.

Usually Corey Haim is in the lead and Feldman is the second banana. It was nice to see them change this up.

Dream A Little Dream besides reviving a great pop standard is nice and innocuous teen flick that still holds up well.

What is "Dream A Little Dream"? No one knows, but somebody in the late 80's seemed to have had the following idea: let's make another movie with the two Coreys about something that kids love to see at the moment. Yeah, let's make a body swapping movie or something. We could put in some rad clothes and hip music. To top it all off we'll have Jason Robards in a side role, how about that?

Well, the result is a mess as you can image. The story is practically non-existent. Corey Feldman - whose acting is horrid in this movie, by the way - has to fret for something because of something that we are not exactly sure about. As we're trying to figure out why we're too stupid to figure out what's going on, we are constantly bombarded with a soundtrack of old and then current songs about "Dreams".

It's kinda fun and intriguing to watch such a train wreck. The characters are less than believable, the fashion is the worst you've ever seen in a movie. You've never seen a movie like this at all. It's a rare member of the romance/sci-fi/mind swapping/coming of age/drama/comedy-genre. Or something.

Lovers of the obscure, this is your movie!