Up the Academy (1980)

This puber-comedy is a kind of mixture between 'Animal House' and 'Police Academy'. Four boys are sent, for different reasons, to a the Sheldon R. Wienberg military academy. The life of ... See full summary »

Director:

Robert Downey Sr.

Writers:

Tom Patchett, Jay Tarses

Stars:

Wendell Brown, Tommy Citera, Ralph Macchio

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Wendell Brown	...	Ike
Tommy Citera	...	Hash
Hutch Parker	...	Oliver (as J. Hutchison)
Ralph Macchio	...	Chooch
Harry Teinowitz	...	Rodney Ververgaert
Tom Poston	...	Sisson
Ian Wolfe	...	Commandant Causeway
Antonio Fargas	...	Coach
Stacey Nelkin	...	Candy
Barbara Bach	...	Bliss
Leonard Frey	...	Keck
Luke Andreas	...	Vitto
Candy Ann Brown	...	Nubia
King Coleman	...	Rev. MacArthur
Rosalie Citera	...	Mrs. Bombalazzi

Storyline

This puber-comedy is a kind of mixture between 'Animal House' and 'Police Academy'. Four boys are sent, for different reasons, to a the Sheldon R. Wienberg military academy. The life of dicipline asks a lot of the four geeks. Of course these boys know how to make a party out of the hard times. Will they be 'real men' after one year?

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Plot Keywords:

military school | foot closeup | spoof | funny arab | magazine tie in | 

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Taglines:

The education they got wasn't in books.

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Genres:

Comedy

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

6 June 1980 (USA)

Also Known As:

Mad Magazine Presents Up the Academy

Filming Locations:

Salina, Kansas, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros

Technical Specs

Runtime:

87 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Ralph Macchio's film debut.

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Goofs

When the soccer game is being announced, you can see Commandant Causeway is in the stands sitting next to his wife. Causeway reaches over and wraps his arm around Bliss. Then it cuts to a close-up of him, and you can clearly see Bliss is no longer next to him and that seat is empty. His wife also has a gas mask up to her face. Then it cuts back to Keck who is announcing Sisson's performance, and the gas mask is not on Causeway's wife's face, but instead resting on her lap. Then the camera goes to another close-up of Causeway who is asleep on Bliss's shoulder while his wife is itching her nose. But in the immediate next shot, she is setting the gas mask beside her.

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Quotes

Leisman: [pickup line] Tickle your ass with a feather?
Party Guest: I beg your pardon?
Leisman: It's particularly nasty weather.

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Crazy Credits

The end credits show the opening credits sequence in reverse (the toy soldiers are falling up instead of down).

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Soundtracks

"Girls"
Performed by David Johansen
Words & Music by David Johansen & Sylvain Sylvain
From his self-titled album (1978)

User Reviews

"It's like a gas leak"

That's what my friend Brian said about this movie after about an hour of it. He wasn't able to keep from dozing off. I had been ranting about how execrable it was and finally I relented and played it, having run out of adjectives for "boring".

Imagine if you will, the pinnacle of hack-work. Something so uninspired, so impossibly dreadful, that all you want to do after viewing it is sit alone in the dark and not speak to anybody. Some people labor under the illusion that this movie is watchable. It is not, not under any form of narcotic or brain damage. I would ONLY recommend this to someone in order to help them understand how truly unbearable it is. Don't believe me? Gather 'round.

Granted, as a nation, we in America don't always portray Middle Eastern peoples in a tasteful manner. But how about a kid in a sheik outfit bowing in salaam-fashion to a stack of Castrol motor oil bottles? You'll find that here. GET IT? THE ARAB WORSHIPS OIL. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Having the kid fly planes into a skyscraper would've been more appropriate. Who in their right mind would think that was a funny joke? It's not even close to "cleverly offensive". It just sucks and makes you want to punch whomever got paid to write that bit in the face.

In the middle of the film, a five-man singing group called the "Landmines" takes the stage at an officers' ball. Okay- are you ready? The joke is THEY SING TERRIBLY AND OFF-KEY. Why did I write that in caps also? Because the joke is POUND, POUND, POUNDED INTO YOUR HEAD with a marathon of HORRENDOUS sight gags. They start off mediocre enough; glasses cracking, punch tumblers shattering... then there is, I am 100% serious, a two-frame stop-motion sequence of A WOMAN'S SHOES COMING OFF. You read that correctly- the music was so bad, in one frame, the woman's feet have shoes on. In the very next- the shoes are off!!! Get it, because the music was so bad, her shoes came off! What the F????

Then there is an endless montage of stock footage to drive home the point that the SINGING IS BAD. If any human being actually suffered through this scene in the theater without running like hell, I would be astonished. This movie is honestly like a practical joke to see how fast people would bolt out the doors. Robert Downey Sr. directs comedy the way his son commands respect by staying drug-free. Badly. Other things to watch out for:

1. The popular music shoehorned in wherever possible. Every time Liceman appears, a really inappropriate Iggy Pop song plays. Plus all the actors do their best to act like it got really chilly for some reason.

2. Barbara Bach's criminally awful accent. She sounds like she's trying to talk like a baby while rolling a marble around on her tongue. There is no nudity, and there are several scenes where the boys all moan and writhe from a glimpse of her cleavage, like they're in a community school acting class and they've been directed to act like aroused retarded people.

3. Liceman feeds his revolting dog a condom. Remember; when this movie came out throwing in "abortion" and "condom" was seen as "edgy".

4. Tom Poston plays a mincing, boy-hungry pedophile, back when Hollywood thought "pedophile" and "homosexual" were one in the same. Flat-out embarrassing.

5. Watch the ending. Nothing is wrong with your VCR. That is actually the ending. Tell me that doesn't make you want to explode everyone who's ever made any movie, ever.

Watch this at your own risk. Up The Academy has been known to actually make other movies, like The Jerk or Blazing Saddles, less funny simply by placing the videotape near them.