I’ m going to come back yet again to what has become a familiar refrain: It is terribly, terribly advantageous to have a vast DVD/video collection. To be able to see and re-see and re-re-see good films, pictures that really seize you and don’ t let go, whenever you want to and have the time to see them, is truly Heaven on Earth. And the latest additions to this compilation are two teen films, Beach Balls and Fired Up.
A couple of admissions need to be made before going any further. First, these kind of pictures are in no sense valuable in an artistic or even in a creative sense. Indeed, the acting in these films, by and large, can best be described as “barely passable.” And the pictures are chock-full of the sort of plot and character and dialogue implausibilities that Not Another Teen Movie sent up with gusto (In his much-praised memoir Tab Hunter Confidential, that 1950s teen heartthrob wrote, in reference to the “actors” with whom he worked while making a 1960s beach film: “Making a film about the hang-loose, carefree surfing life was an excuse for some of them to…clown [sic] around, intentionally screwing up takes.” In point of fact, Beach Balls and Fired Up and their ilk, like literally all of the 1960s beach pictures, aren’ t really worthy of being taken seriously by anybody, including those who are working on them).
So, why, I hear you enquiring, are films like Beach Balls and Fired Up deserving to be seen?
For two reasons.
First, they have a youthful energy, a to-hell-with-it spirit that make young folks such a joy to be around. It doesn’ t have anything to do with any quality in the performances or in the scripts or in the production; it’ s more like an air that pervades the flicks. You get carried along by their brio, despite the considerable incompetence in all the aesthetic areas.
Second–and this really completes the films–the girls in these pictures are SO BITCHIN’ HOT! The young women in these flicks, from the leads to the supporting players to the extras, are yummy, yummy, YUMMY! There’s enough youthful estrogen in these films to power an entire slew of music videos. Indeed, the gals in these teen flicks are so delectable that they’ d have the Baywatch babes aggressively firming up their Lycras.
Something else you should know before we begin: I shall at all times refer to the players in these pictures by their “character” names, not their real names. This is partly because the performers in Beach Balls and Fired Up were and still are unknowns, and partly because said players, for all the beauty and the charm and the sexiness of the females, do not in the final analysis have anything that is all that special concerning them. They are, in point of fact, pretty much interchangeable.
Having said all that, we shall now get to the highpoints of each film. We lead off with Beach Balls:
.Any time lead female character Wendy, who eventually hooks up with lead male character Charlie Harrison, appears on the beach in a bikini. That girl genuinely has a body that not only won’ t stop, but refuses to even slow down.
.The scene where Charlie’s religious-fanatic mother orders him into the house and, as he goes inside and said mother closes the door, Scully, Charlie’ s best friend, calls after her: “Good-bye, Mrs. Cleaver. Say hello to Ward for me.”
.At one point, Charlie’s Mom huffs to Charlie, regarding Scully: “I don’ t want you hanging around that boy. He comes from an unsavory family.” Charlie: “So do I.”
.In one scene, a black bikini top washes up upon the shore and stops at Charlie and Scully’s feet. Eventually, they discover that it belongs to a hot mama, which we ourselves learn due to the sight of a foxy older blonde chick running upon the shore with her hands covering her ample bosom.
.During a getting-to-know-you discussion, Wendy tells Charlie that her lifeguard brother is a Young Republican who, according to her, watches her like a hawk. “I used to like my brother,” she tells Charlie. “I know what you mean,” Charlie replies. “I used to like my sister [Kathleen, a pious virgin who called the cops when Charlie committed a relatively minor offense]. I even used to like my Mom.”
.At one point, due to Charlie’s machinations, little sis Kathleen is on a date with Doug, Wendy’ s aforementioned lifeguard brother. Through different happenings, Doug comes to fear that he’ s homosexual, which stirs the passion Kathleen has always had for him. “I consider myself a person of high moral values,” Kathleen intones, eagerly undressing. “But I couldn’ t live with myself if I didn’ t help out a fine, upstanding young man in his time of crisis.”
.Later, Kathleen and Doug are “doing it” bare-ass naked in Doug’ s car, Kathleen on top. Doug, in the heat of passion, begins moaning Kathleen’ s name. “Will you shut up and focus on me?” she demands, pulling his face downward to where he’ s looking directly at her. “Focus!”
.Near the conclusion of Beach Balls, Doug is shown approaching his lifeguard’ s tower and holding one of two drinks up to Kathleen, who is sitting, queen-like, upon the tower. She imperiously tells him that he got her the wrong drink. The shot of her saying that reveals that her bod is almost as smokin’-hot as Wendy’ s.
All right. Now we move to the highlights of Fired Up:
.The school which our young heroes, namely Nick and Sean, attend has as its namesake–are you ready?–Richard Nixon-pardoner Jerry Ford (And the Tigers, the cheerleading squad who figure heavily in the film is–hear this now–also named after Ford).
.There are, not one, not two, but three, count ‘em, three utterly fantastic music montages in the picture: the American Juniors cover of the classic Jackson Five song “ABC” (sung while Nick and Sean are at cheer camp hitting–successfully–upon wannabe cheerleaders), “Turnaround,” by Christian TV (sung while Nick, Sean, and the cheer college’ s trainees are preparing for the upcoming cheerleading faceoff), and “That’ s Not My Name,” by The Dog Dogs (sung during the first part of said climactic cheerleading competition).
.The lone African-American cheerleader at Nick and Sean’ s school, during a cook-out, telling her sister cheerleaders: “Martin Luther King had a dream. I have a dream. It’ s to beat the crap out of those other cheerleaders. And if I’ m shallow, well, Dr. King was shallow.”
.The scene where Nick and Sean arrive at cheer college and, upon getting out of the bus, give the place a firm once-over, where we see legions upon legions of TOTALLY HOT young babes in short shorts and ankle-revealing sneakers stretching, exercising with each other, knee-bending, et al. Says Sean, justly taken with it all: “I think the bus crashed and we’ ve gone to Heaven.”
.At one point, the boys suggest that they and the girls go down to the lake and practice their cheers. One girl points out that they didn’ t bring their bikinis. Counters another girl: “Well, we can go in our underwear, which is all a bikini is, anyway.”
.The moonlight cheerleading practice at the lake, where we get to feast our eyes upon some of the hottest, sexiest young female bods since, well, the salad days of Baywatch (Near the end, our girl, paired off with Nick, freely exposes her breasts).
.In another scene, the entire college sits watching scenes from the first Bring It On film with Kirsten Dunst and, as they do, they mockingly say the dialogue along with the characters, clearly transmitting the fact that they in no sense take said picture seriously.
It was the esteemed novelist Jackie Collins who once discoursed concerning “the two qualities an actress needs most…likability and (beddability).” Judging by that criterion, the female players of Beach Balls and Fired Up most assuredly have what it takes to succeed. Duane Brooks www.yahoo.com
