Pretty Smart

No, not the closing credits - I wouldn't recommend you stay that long! No, I'm talking about the opening credits! The first 5 minutes is all I recommend you sit through, as it is the only thing that contains anything related to a plot, and you get to sit through a rockin' song! If you can stay awake any longer than that, I commend you!

Where can we get copy of soundtrack? Or copy of beginning credit song?

Without doubt, this is a not good film, but it is not a particularly poor film either. It has stupid characters and bits of plain stupidity, such as vomiting over a guy having hair on his back, but the film does have enough going for it that it works as lightly amusing stuff. If not worth watching twice, there's enough to give it at least one go, especially for fans of Patricia Arquette. As the main character's best friend, Arquette adds a lot of dimension to her character. Although she is sexy and appears well educated in such areas on the outside, she is actually naive and innocent on the inside, and unaware of so much in the adult world. Arquette is certainly a radiant light in the film's cast, which includes Dennis Cole in a terrible performance playing a typical sleaze-bag with no dimension at all. The acting of the film is not terribly good in general, but Arquette is excellent and Tricia Leigh Fisher in the lead has a few earnest moments when her face is not covered up by overdone makeup.

The other aspect of the film that causes it to rise above the lemon mark is the music. The title song is excellent and the music is generally bouncy throughout in a playful way, like during the tennis matches, and it is in a fashion that captures the rebellious, "in it just to have fun" attitudes of the 1980s perfectly. All that said, it is still bad film, if not a terrible one. There are so many over-the-top racial stereotypes, especially Swedish, that it goes beyond being funny and just becomes stupid. There is also some awful narration by an ageing character added in for the sole purpose of adding a lame joke to the end of the film when the narrator is revealed. The narration is clumsy and serves no purpose in advancing what is being shown. For example, he says "here come the sisters" as the two sisters in the film rock up to the school. Overall, this may not be terrible, but neither is it a good film. It is amusing towards the end and it has a few virtues that prevent it from being absolute trash, plus a memorable line "A rose, bud?" - but that is not quite enough to make it great viewing.

Pretty Smart is like a collision between two movies. I'll call the first one, the one I believe we were intended to see, Pretty Smart. The second one, that fits so badly with the first I conclude it must have been shoehorned in by producers eyeing sleaze value, I'll call Pretty Awful.

Pretty Smart is about two teenage girls, sisters, who are sent to a boarding school in Greece. They are completely different, and are immediately incorporated into the two ruling cliques that fit them the best: the preens, for the perfect, snide, overachieving one and the "subs" for the punk girl.

At first the punk girl tries to get herself thrown out, but ends up realising she has more in common with her fellow subs, and perhaps even her sister, than she realised.

So far, so good, for a positive, enjoyable movie aimed at teen girls, which is buoyed by the energy and freshness not only of Patricia Arquette, who makes her debut appearance in a supporting role, but also Tricia Leigh Fisher (that rhymes), who plays the lead role.

But wait! Here comes Pretty Awful.

Pretty Awful is a movie about a sleazy principal at the Greek school who supposedly has cameras hidden all over the school so that he can watch and record them undressing, showering, having pillow fights in their underwear (is there any other way to have them?), and in one bizarre sequence, pretending to punch each other with boxing gloves while also in their underwear.

It is not remotely believable, even for one second, that the low rent sleaze this principal watches in his office could come from anywhere other than the bargain bin of an adult entertainment store. It doesn't help when some of this footage, while supposedly being broadcast live from the students' rooms, is shown to us multiple times. That's right: the same footage is repeated, the producers apparently hoping we wouldn't notice, or wouldn't care.

The first movie brings fresh, young talent.

The second movie brings the dregs of softcore film circa 1987.

That the principal is also a drug dealer hardly seems to matter; it's barely explained, I guess so that the forced, ridiculous happy ending won't require much explanation either. That's the inevitable moment where the two movies meet and the first can't wait to shake off the stench of the latter, which is why we get an extended ending dealing with both scenarios.

I knew which one I preferred, but by trying to have it both ways you don't end up with two movies for the price of one; instead you get about a half of a good movie, and maybe one fifth of a terrible one.

Ogling the girls at Ogilvy...

I don't care what the negative reviewers say of it, I liked it. Especially remembered for the come-uppance Crawley gets coming to him at the end when the girls chant "Crawley, Crawley, Crawley", evoking images of relentless persecution. I had a tough time finding it on DVD years ago, the search went on for very, very long. It was years since I had first seen it, and the movie was different from what I remembered, but I was just relieved to finally own it in a proper way. VHS sucks!

A feast for 80s fans. The look is very, very 80s (well, duh! of course! and you can't get any better than the real thing) in a good way. Download the trailer on VuClip for a quick sneak peek.

Maybe the negative voices are from viewers who were offended? Hidden cameras and a stash of sneaked videotaped indiscretions are bound to anger the prudes out there. People, it's all just a lot of fun, lighten up! Consider it a little jewel from the Late Eighties.