Um Sonho Diferente

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.

The third film to feature both Corey Feldman and Corey Haim, this time Feldman is the lead, and Haim gets to play the second fiddle character. Feldman plays Bobby, who likes to take a short cut through an old man's yard. One day, he gets into a bike accident in the middle of the night in his yard with his future love interest (Meredith Salenger). When Bobby awakes he realizes that he is in the old man's body. Haim of course dosen't believe it and frequently says his usual sarcastic lines while William McNamara plays a high school jock who is kind of the on-and-off bully/friend to Bobby. Of course we can't forget the list of veteran actors in the film, we have Academy Award winners Jason Robards and Piper Laurie playing the elderly couple, character actor Harry Dean Stanton plays the weird neighbor and TV veteran actress Susan Blakely also has a small cameo role. I liked the film and the hard rock in roll music in the film is a blast! It can be a little hard to follow and confussing at times, but it's a fine family film.

While the latter 1980s were absolutely gagged with lame body-switching comedies like the listless Vice Versa and Like Father, Like Son, I found something entirely different and actually inspiring in Dream a Little Dream. Buoyed by strong performances, Dream is not at all what you'd expect it would be. Much to my surprise, it is actually a smart, witty, intelligent and touching look at old age and adolecence by way of new age philosophy. Corey Feldman gives one of his best performances, and no, that's not a joke, and Haim is never better anywhere than he is in his small role as the oddball best friend Dinger. Obviously it didn't hurt to have a three time Oscar nominee like the late, great Jason Robards on board. This movie really does have something for everyone, and I'm being a hundred percent serious. So many "oh so serious" types like to bash movies like this, but I'm a writer, and I love good, interesting movies, and I truly see this as one of them. What a terrific, quirky little gem produced by the Two Coreys before midnight, January 1st, 1990 when their careers suddenly spiralled down the toilet. Funny, touching, and utterly enjoyable.

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.