8/10
Entertaining "Anti-establishment" comedy
15 August 2005
I saw this one for the first and last time on late-night TV in 1987. This remark might be asking for it, but this movie was my answer to Animal House (which I never got too attached to). As far as I can remember it, a group of teenagers at a military academy ignore the faculty and the "gung ho" students, and make friends with a group of "hippies" (though they're more understated than the usual movie kind, which is why I use quotation marks). The one part I didn't like was a bizarre scene about a cat and a microwave (a famous urban legend, I think). Instead of being a dark comedy scene, it was a completely serious scene (as I remember), but EITHER WAY, it seemed pointless. (Although with an idea like that, serious is at least more ORIGINAL than comical, in spite of what people seem to think.) The main seriousness of the story had the characters dreading the idea of reaching draft age, especially with the other characters' influence. Another thing I do remember is that the "period" songs were worked into the movie in a pretty clever way, unlike countless period movies, which really POUR them on. (Like "Mellow Yellow" by Donovan during the banana smoking scene, which had some point to it.) The one character that really stays with me was one nicknamed "Choo-Choo", because his hobby was trying to sabotage the local train tracks. It was a kind of therapy, because he'd been a cadet himself, and he'd been tied to the tracks as a prank. I just saw in these listings that David Caruso was in it. I've never seen an entire "N.Y.P.D." or "C.S.I.", but hearing that is a whole other thing.
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