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cowboyfan1980
Reviews
Gus (1976)
Memories
I saw this movie at theater when I was 6. I made my dad take me at least 3 times because I could not get enough of it. The Supermarket scene is definitely the best scene in the whole film. I always got scared when Tom Bosley fell into the tank of lobsters because it looks so painful when he limps off down the isle with the lobsters hanging off his pants. Overall, this is a fun movie with lots of slapstick. To this day, I still remember the word that was used to get Gus to kick the ball: "Oyage!!" The live-action Disney film is a lost treasure and they just don't make them anymore like they did back in the 60's and 70's.
Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)
Great Film
Everybody seems to generally love this film and I am no exception. I have not viewed it since it aired in 1981 but, like everyone else who is leaving comments here, it creeped me out. It is a pretty heavy-handed movie for being made for television. The themes are intense, as is the violence, although I don't remember much gore. What does stick in my mind is the slow crawl camera shot when Bubba is hiding in the Scarecrow, up to the eye hole in the scarecrow. We see a single, trembling eye before Charles Durning and co take justice into their own hands. Very creepy! The other thing that I remember is Larry Drake's brief performance. He was so convincing as a semi-retarded man that it wasn't until I saw him in Darkman years later, that I discovered that he wasn't retarded. I had only seen him in this movie and on LA Law where he played mentally challenged characters. Great film. Hopefully, it will be released on DVD one of these days.
Senior Trip (1981)
Boring and unexpectedly unfunny.
I haven't seen this film since it first aired on TV back in the early 1980's so maybe it would view different today. However, there are several things that stuck out about the film after watching it. This film originally aired on CBS as a made for TV movie and was heavily touted as an "Animal House" type comedy with Scott Baio and company. The commercial focused heavily on the "senior class run amok in New York City" angle where various hijinks would ensue. Being the pre-pubescent boy that I was, I knew that television could only push the envelope so far but I watched with heavy anticipation for anything that was wild and crazy, like I had heard about in movies like "Animal House" and "Porky's." Sorely disappointed! Not only were there not very many parts that were funny, the whole movie was almost a Drama with heavy-handed issues that completely caught me off guard. If the movie had been advertised as a drama, I might have stayed away. **Spoilers Ahead.**
I was disturbed and confused at Scott Baio's character having an addiction to Heroin. At the time, I barely knew what heroin was much less why Scott Baio's character was constantly sneaking off into a men's room stall to shoot-up. The years have been kind to me for the most part so I don't think that I am remembering this part of the film wrong. Maybe he was diabetic, but I clearly remember him sneaking around to do his business and if he were diabetic, why all of the secrecy? Another scene that caught me off guard was the near-rape sequence of the main female character by the class-clown, goof-off character. If I remember the scene correctly, it started off much like a panty-raid scene would, innocently enough. The scene quickly changed when the class-clown guy gets his hi jinx plans foiled by the main female character. When his cover is blown, he gets angry and begins to unbuckle his pants to have his way with her. She is rescued, if I remember, by the Scott Baio character. Both this scene and the scenes of Scott Baio shooting up were pretty gutsy for TV at the time and I remember thinking that if the movie could get away with some of these things, why not make a better film with some of the same elements as "Animal House?" Finally, the last thing I remember is one of the lead male characters wanting to find himself to get in touch with his emotions and feelings or something. His character is very brooding and spends the majority of the film walking around New York in slow motion, while some stupid song about "The Eye of the Beholder" plays over the action. I could have accepted this if it weren't for the fact that the song was so horrible and really added to the whole downer feeling of the movie, and the fact that whenever the action called for this character to change locations by walking somewhere in New York, the same slow motion was used in tandem with this wretched piece of music and lyrics. I didn't know what "eye of the beholder" meant at the time but to this day, I cannot hear that phrase without thinking of this movie and that song.
All in all, a very disappointing movie mainly because the marketing team behind the film and at CBS sucker-punched me and probably many other viewers into thinking that this was going to be a wheels-off comedy in the mold of "Animal House."