Perfeição

If you're going to watch this movie you have to take it for what it is, eye candy. A cheesy love story about a gym trainer and a reporter. I enjoyed Jamie Lee's acting, she made the film worth watching as she always brings light to her films. As always John Travolta gives his usual performance, if you're a fan of Travolta then I recommend giving this one a try. I do like the deeper meaning/message of the movie, people go to the gym because they believe if they look perfect someone will love them. I don't like that it's stated in the film, "Nothing is wrong with wanting to be perfect, to be loved." But it's nice that the movie has a deeper message then just a shallow storyline.

I first saw this movie some years ago on TV having missed it at the cinema, and found it very entertaining. The story and 'visuals', though not fantastic, was I think good enough to hold the shortest of attention spans. Mine included. The film is set in a health club in Los Angeles, with John Travolta starring as an ace investigative reporter for real-life mag Rolling Stone. It also features a brilliant funked-up disco soundtrack, featuring long forgotten artists like Jermaine Jackson, Jermaine Stewart, and Carol Lynn Towns, and follows Travolta's charchter as he writes a piece about the health club scene, and courts one of the fitness instructors there, played by Jaimie Lee Curtis. Unbeknownst to her, he's using her and some of her patrons, in order to write a sleazy story for his voracious boss played by the real Rolling Stone editor. It's not hard to guess what happens next, as Travolta and Curtis fall for each other, Curtis finds a copy of his article on his computer which causes conflict between them, and we get to see some fine acting from Jaimie Lee during those scenes. Travolta decides to kill the story, but his angered boss enlists the help of photographer played by Anne DeSalvo, in order to rewrite it without Travolta's knowledge.

But the best parts of the film, has to be scenes set during Curtis' classes (the visuals I mentioned earlier). Along with the pumping disco soundtrack, these scenes are excillerating to watch - and not just for the sexy hard bodies. When this film appeared again on TV recently, I just had to record it, and watch it all over again. Not because I'm perverted you understand, but because it's so...kitsch, and seems to be indicative of the silly hedonistic LA scene of the early 1980s. It has some truly funny moments also. Watch for the scene where Travolta searches for Jaimie Lee in a hotel holding a convention, which features Boy George look-alikes. It's hilarious!!

Really, "Perfect" is not the tactical warhead everyone seems to be implying. This is not on the same level as 80s catastrophes like "Megaforce", "Grease 2", "Howard the Duck", or (heaven help us) "Staying Alive". "Perfect" is nothing more than tragic misfire from extremely talented director James Bridges ("The Paper Chase", "Urban Cowboy") that makes the dire mistake of treating the aerobics, health club fad of the mid-80s as a serious cultural phenomenon (ugh).

It also helped to derail John Travolta's career for the better part of a decade - sad, because all one has to do is take a look at his outstanding performances in "Blow Out" and "Urban Cowboy" and realize that his acting in "Perfect" was just fine (if a bit low key). It's a shame, he could have made a lot of great movies while he was stuck in dreck like "The Experts" and strange late 80s Altman theatre pieces like Pinter's "The Dumb Waiter" (with Tom Conti!).

Travolta plays a Rolling Stone journalist hot on the trail of a big story about how health clubs are the new pick-up joints, replacing singles bars. He meets "The Pied Piper of aerobics teachers" Jamie Lee Curtis, a former Olymic swimmer who was once burned by a journalist over a piece about how she was having an affair with her coach. Of course, she and Travolta hook up and Travolta meets some other folks who frequent the gym, who are like supporting characters in a David Lynch movie (I'm unsure if the director intended to portray them as weird as they come off).

Real-life Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner shows up to essentially play himself (not very well) and, in the film's most laughable detail, Travolta writes a version of his story portraying health clubs as Emersonian watering holes of the future (or something like that).

It's all kind of bloated and weird, but really not that bad. Travolta's actually pretty good. Jamie Lee Curtis looks great but comes off as slightly grouchy, but she was probably directed that way.

Don't miss Travolta's notorious pelvic thrust sequence (you can't miss it).

OK, I know this is a bad, bad movie. It's not like I have any "diamond in the rough" illusions about this actually being a good movie that's merely misunderstood. So why is it that I watch it every time it's on? I honestly love watching this film!

Maybe it's the dated 80s setting and the "studly" guys that look utterly homosexual now. Perhaps it's the great lines, like Anne De Salvo looking directly into the camera and saying, "C'mon, guys, make me suffer," or Matthew Reed (in his one and only screen role) saying, "It was love at first sight. I took one look at those tits and my whole body got hard!" It could be John Travolta going through his aerobics routine with a sock in his jock, or Larraine Newman straddling the leg-spreader, proving that not every woman looks sexy in a leotard.

Of course there's Jamie Lee Curtis calling Travolta a "sphincter muscle" three different times. There's also Jann Wenner gyrating his fat gut during the closing credits. How about the pointless scene where hundreds of Boy George fans storm the hotel, or Curtis "deleting" Travolta's article by merely backspacing (What kind of word processor is that)? There's even the premise that Rolling Stone is a serious news magazine - HAW HAW HAW!

I seriously can't recommend paying money for this, but it's worth a watch if it comes on a local channel just for the sheer badness of it all. This is the definitive nadir of Travolta's career (check that...it is better than Battlefield Earth, but what isn't?) After this, even Look Who's Talking Now looks brilliant.

This film was only recently brought to my attention, I've so far watched it five times. Why? Because I'm a writer who loves to study effective character work in effective screenplays. The fact that this film received a Razzie nomination for worst screenplay only serves to invalidate the Razzies for me rather than changing my opinion of this film.

The way some reviews even mention the fact that the film was a flop as though that validates their opinion that it was awful. So The Thing (1982) was awful then? Or Blade Runner the same year. There are many reasons for films to flop, marketing for instance, or how about the fact that it was competing with Rambo II, The Goonies, Brewster's Millions, hell even Beverly Hills Cop released six months earlier was still doing good business then.

The summer of 1985 was saturated with hits, and here they threw this little character driven narrative into that environment, I don't understand how they thought it could have been a hit frankly. Kids wouldn't get it, frankly adults who just wanted to see Jamie Lee Curtis in a leotard probably wouldn't get it.

It's a story about a reporter (Travolta) who, at the start of the film, has the gumption to use women to get a story; a man who had no conscience about that behaviour. Until that is he falls in love with a woman (Curtis) he is trying to use for a story. His love for her challenges his self perception and forces him to rethink his ways as he tries to save himself from a broken heart.

The film centres around a health club where he finds women obsessed with the pursuit of physical perfection (at least by their perception). Women who believe it is the only way they will ever be loved. Thematically it's quite tragic, and I was a little underwhelmed by the writer's lack of any real insight into that cultural problem but figured that was symptomatic of what was understood about mental health in the 1980s compared to today, so I forgive him that.

If you're not afraid of character driven narratives, like most people who only watch mainstream films, then you should find this film enjoyable. The pacing is a little slow and they linger for far too long on the aerobics sessions (although not if you're watching for pervy reasons) but if you can get past that and get behind the character's story then you should enjoy it.