The Cheerleaders (1973, 84 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068364/
The Weird Wednesday offering this week is titled The Cheerleaders. Apparently this film was a "success" and spurred the making of a ton of similar cheerleader themed films. So let's see what "the godfather" of this genre has to offer.
The film mainly follows Jeannie (Stephanie Fondue) as she becomes a cheerleader and loses her virginity. There's about six other cheerleaders and some other football players and people that play roles but really Fondue is the only actor worth mentioning.
I will say right off that the bat that this film has quite the dialogue. Basically, the thought process in writing it must have been "well if we throw enough stupid jokes out there, at least a few of them will work, right?" So, at first the whole film is really stupid because these jokes are just that - really stupid. However, as the film goes on, we get more accustomed to this form of humor and so after about twenty minutes, we're finding the stupid / absurdest humor quite funny. They really are all quite juvenile jokes but they end up working. Eventually.
The next good thing about The Cheerleaders is how it goes about telling this plot. The plot is pathetic when you stand back and look at it. A girl wants to become a cheerleader because that's the only way she'll be able to lose her virginity. And sadly, this actually makes more sense than half of what the film throws out there. However, the great thing here is that the film doesn't care that it's stupid. It's going to throw this plot out there and you're going to follow it whether you like it or not. I mean, it really is just so incredibly moronic that it's impossible not to laugh at it while you plug along.
However, the bad of The Cheerleaders stands out much more. Honestly, it's hard not to knock the film for how stupid everything is. The plot is stupid, the characters are stupid, and they say stupid stuff. It somewhat works but sometimes the layers of idiocy just pile up too thick. Even pretty much going brain-dead while I watched this I had to just step back and say "Now wait a minute..." quite a few times.
Overall, I gave this film a 3/10. Sure it's zany and off-the-wall but it also falls flat in a lot of things that "actual movies" deliver. Also, a few borderline rape scenes really were just out of place and came off as creepy instead of funny.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment