SUMMER SCHOOL (1987)

Carefree gym instructor Mark Harmon is ready for some summer vacation!  He's got tickets to Hawaii for him and his hot girlfriend, he's got his Hawaiian shirt, he's got his sunglasses, he's got his leis around his neck and right as the bell rings...he's blackmailed into teaching summer school.  On top of that, his girlfriend dumps him.  Resigned to his fate, he meets his students and they're a bunch of losers, but at least they're entertaining losers.

Maybe it's because I first saw SUMMER SCHOOL when I was still a kid and I actually visualized high school would be like this, but for whatever reason I love this movie.  The school setting (I'm almost positive it's the same high school from THE KARATE KID) is bright and sunny, Shawnee Smith, the beach scenes are pretty, the character development are entertaining, two of the students love THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE series (one even has images and a button from THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 on his bedroom wall, plus a number of other awesome horror posters!), 80's music, a MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL reference, an Iron Maiden "Life After Death" shirt, the rivalry between Harmon and the vice principal isn't overly mean-spirited and seems pretty realistic, they go on field trips, plenty of hot babes.  Even after dozens of viewings this summer school is still fun!  SUMMER SCHOOL is one of those movies that I can just watch over and over and always enjoy it.

If you're a fan of light-hearted 80's comedies then you'll probably enjoy SUMMER SCHOOL.  Only sad note: no nudity.

[Updated 2022: If you love this movie, then check out the audio commentary on the blu-ray. Trust me.]

 

ARMAGEDDON (1998)

A massive asteroid, named Dottie, is headed directly for Earth and our only hope is that two super Space Shuttles can take a group of oil drilling badasses up into space, slingshot them around the moon and land on Dottie's ass so they can give her a nuclear enema that'll blow that bitch out of the sky. Yasujiro Ozu it's not.

Nope, it's Michael Bay. So check your brain at the door and get ready for some cheesy, goofy bullshit filled with helicopters flying in front of sunsets, explosions, slow motion overdose, frantic editing, rugged saintly-like tough guys, product placement, camera spin, Aerosmith power ballad overdose and some of the worse dialogue ever written. "Miss Stamper? Colonel Willie Sharp, United States Air Force, ma'am. Requesting permission to shake the hand of the daughter of the bravest man I've ever met." Ooowwwch! That line just gave me instant terminal butt cancer. Better go watch DEADLY PREY.

For a 90's disaster movie, ARMAGEDDON is about as big and dumb as it gets.  It's awesome! The disaster is "a global killer", the characters are bigger than life and the director has no shame. One of the biggest guilty pleasure movies of the 90's.

Little known (untrue) fact: In the unproduced ARMAGEDDON 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO, literally 1 second after everybody finished hugging each other that the end of the first film, everybody on Earth immediately went back to hating the living fuck out of each other for totally unimportant reasons like skin colour, money, genitals and imaginary creators.