Hot Dog, le film

While the plot and acting leave quite a bit to be desired, this film is well worth the sit-through for the fabulous scenery -- particularly newcomer Tracy Smith and the ultraluminous Shannon Tweed. Ms. Tweed, a Playboy Playmate of the Year, makes full use of her physical talents to steal every scene in which she participates.

David Naughton gets top billing, but we all know his career peaked as the Dr Pepper spokesperson.

I liked the movie from the 80s on. It's true that many of the activities portrayed are not appropriate today. Of course a lot of people hate this movie, but they generally hate this genre of movie, anyway, right?! I was especially moved by the sex scene with Harkin (Patrick Houser) and Sunny (Tracy N. Smith), the guitar serenade (written by folkie John Stewart), the hot tub scene with Shannon Tweed, and the gondola scene. It's very rare for such sex scenes to move me in other like movies of that period: I think that director Peter Markle handled the sex scenes very tastefully.... The skiing scenes were also really well done, also, but one often may see that the stunt skiers are different from the actors (duh!).

It's true, also, that some of the plot contains dumb male humor. However: I remember the names of the actors that I liked in the key romantic and sex scenes, and some others, so the movie did move me....

Previous entries have trashed this movie, as though it aspired to compete at Cannes and fell woefully short. Lighten-up. This movie was clearly made as a low-budget retread of the time honored "underdog overcomes arrogant favorite" and "boy-meets-girl, boy loses girl, boy wins back girl" themes played out on skis. Think Caddyshack with snow. Is it cheesy? You bet. Is it sophomoric? Certainly. Is it more fun than any other non-Warren Miller ski movie? No doubt. If you want a fun, sometimes silly, mindless ski movie, well, go no further. If you want a "highbrow" skiing movie, well, good luck, no one's made one yet. If you want painful, self important preposterousness try watching Aspen Extreme. Now there's a ski movie with delusions of grandeur. At any rate, Hot Dog never takes itself seriously, and if it suffers for it's gratuitous nudity and simple-minded plot, well, it isn't the first, and won't be the last. But it certainly never pretends to be anything other than what it is - campy low-budget fun with some good non-choreographed ski scenes. Disclaimer: If you don't ski, don't love skiing, or never lived in a ski-town for a season, some of this movie's "charm" may be lost on you.

I saw this one in a Fairfield, Ct theater with a bunch of fellow tanked-up theater circuit employees, and we loved it! Sure it's stupid! Who cares? My cardinal rule with comedy is that it doesn't have to be highbrow to be funny; if a comedy makes you laugh, it has succeeded.

The predictable "snobs vs slobs" comedy is given the novel twist of having the slobs actually be highly proficient at their field of expertise, in this case "hot dog" skiing. While the comedy is pretty standard, the scenes on the slopes are standouts, particularly the spectacular Chinese Downhill race. And let us not forget that living proof of the existence of the Goddess, Shannon Tweed. The only thing that she's missing is the giant seashell that she looks like she stepped out of!!!

As for the heroes of the film, if you've ever gone seriously skiing, you know these guys. The raging alcoholic, the stoner, the foreign expert, the annoying new-kid-on-the-slopes/phenom, the thermonuclear ski goddess... They're all here. And don't miss the scene that features Mitch ryder's rockin' cover of Prince's "When You Were Mine." Kick back some tallboys and check it out!

With the possible exception of Cusack's Better Off Dead (which only includes a bit of skiing).

In response to whoever wrote something like "if you like Chocolat and the Piano, you're not going to like this." I loved Chocolat. I loved the Piano. And I also sincerely love Hot Dog the movie. And just so I don't seem like a simpering love-it-all. I hated Lord of the Rings, the Return of the King (the Two Towers was excellent, this one just did not know when to end and had nothing new to give). But back to Hot Dog....

This film actually seems more like a 70's flick than an 80's flick. Unabashedly sexual, friendly, self-absorbed but not self-conscious, Hot Dog is absolutely uncaring of the way the world takes it. It does not fit into the 80's scheme of things. It has more than its share of titillation, but it is not coldly calculated soft-porn trash ala "Hardbodies." Hot Dog is more like Caddyshack but with ski stunts instead of star power.

Hot dog is about the joys of hedonism and self assertion, plain and simple. It captures a brief moment in time just before Aids and the war on drugs would make everyone very nervous about who they are and what values they espouse. Which is also why no one has come close to making as good a ski movie as Hot Dog. What little I've seen since has been nothing but toned down Hollywood pap for the family market. Perhaps it cannot be done.

Despite Shannon Tweed's plastic tits (although, did they have silicone implants back then?) and some very bad singing (and I don't mean Duran Duran - which was awesome!) this is a very fun and strangely honest film. Definitely worth checking out.

Plus - it did coin the household phrase "Chinese Downhill." Which no one on the slopes I frequented had ever heard of before Hot Dog. How many B-pictures can claim that!