Joysticks

Okay, so Joysticks is poorly made. But I for one find it rather nostalgic. This movie has something about it. Whether it's the fact that it takes place in the summer (which gives it a relaxed feeling) or that it displays a culture I never knew, I find this film totally addictive. I suppose it's just that it's different from most comedy's you see today (they definately don't make movies like they used to). Something like that could only happen on film in the 80's.

Anyway, if you were around when all this was really going on, I really reccommend you see this. Trust me, you'll love it!

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!!!!!

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

It was that bad. I've occasionally rented a video that I fell asleep during and didn't bother to rewatch, or just didn't finish watching--period. But this was the only movie I ever paid admission to see that I didn't finish watching--and that's saying a lot for me. Joe Don Baker must have really needed some quick money to star in this stinker.

The dubious honors given this film are well supported. This is, without question, among the most moronic comedies ever made. Quite interesting as a time capsule of the early 1980s, however, and a real gas for anyone who was a youngster at that time. The plot concerns a popular video arcade in danger of being closed down by nogoodnik Joe Don Baker. Who cares about that, though...

...you rented this to see boobs.

Oh, yes you did!

Singular boobs. Pairs of boobs. Clusters, caboodles, and constellations of boobs. Yes...JOYSTICKS is a veritable wall of boob, and while you're bouncing in Boobtown, you can also enjoy some of the most sophomoric humor ever offered in the long, rich history of teen sex comedies. As an extra bonus, you get a Valley Girl, and a gang of comically overaccessorized "punkers", the likes of which were commonplace as guest villains on network crime shows throughout the 80s(tri-color frightwigs, bondage gear, eyeliner to the ankles, heavy chains...yeah, you remember...).

Shamefully fun trash, if you don't mind hitting the kill-switch on your brain for 90 minutes. Wakka Wakka Wakka.

4/10.