Reviews
Best Men (1997)
uneven but hard to walk away from
This movie tells us an interesting, unusual, and uneven tale of angst, love, disaffection, and friendship. The groom, and four guys in the wedding party, are on their way to the wedding when one of them (who turns out to be the son of the town sheriff) decides to rob a bank, and all of them get involved. It is hard to imagine a more bizarre start to a story. The screenplay could have been a lot better; the characters could have been a lot better developed; the story could have been a lot more realistic. But in spite of all that, each time I tried to turn it off, something happened that kept me going, all the way to the end! There's a lot of movies that can't manage that trick. I wouldn't spend a lot of money to see it, but on the other hand, if it turns up on cable, and you want a change of pace, it's definitely worth a try. It might just hit you the right way.
The In Crowd (1988)
great dancing & music, in humorous teen-age growing-up story
The earlier review saying this is one of the worst movies ever made is obviously from someone who hasn't seen a lot of bad movies. All I can guess is that it brought back too many bad memories of the reviewer's teen-age years, teen-age angst being one of the things with which this movie deals. All in all, I found it quite enjoyable, especially because it made such good use of the music from the time, including Vince Guaraldi's big hit "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" (and when that song plays in the background, it is really telling you something about what is going to happen). The story line is not much, dealing with teen-age romance and growing pains, and with the difficulties of trying to fit into the currently popular styles, whatever they may be, but it's not terrible either. Joey Pants' speech in the classroom is a classic, and a lot of the other scenes in the movie transcend the story. I certainly wouldn't call it a great movie, but if you enjoyed "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", or "Some Kind of Wonderful", then you'll have a good time watching this one too.