Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.PCS 1/10/84; site mtgzz.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!columbia!topaz!packard!ihnp1!ihnp4!houxm!mtuxo!mtgzz!leeper From: leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) Newsgroups: net.movies,net.sf-lovers Subject: WEIRD SCIENCE Message-ID: <1034@mtgzz.UUCP> Date: Thu, 8-Aug-85 16:48:16 EDT Article-I.D.: mtgzz.1034 Posted: Thu Aug 8 16:48:16 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 11-Aug-85 07:30:07 EDT Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Holmdel NJ Lines: 47 Xref: linus net.movies:5588 net.sf-lovers:8228 WEIRD SCIENCE A film review by Mark R. Leeper Capsule review: The worst theatrical film I've seen this summer is a montage of stupid jokes which has a home computer creating a 22-year-old sexpot who teaches two young clods how to go out and get girls. Pander, pander, pander. Back in the 1950's, science fiction filmmakers discovered a new force, atomic energy, which they claimed could do all sorts of interesting things. It could make people and animals grow to incredible sizes or shrink or become indestructible. Whatever kind of weird fantasy they wanted to get on the screen, they could explain it with atomic energy. Luckily, we are out of that phase. Filmwriters now use computers instead. Logic does not have to apply as long as there is a computer present. The worst example to date, and the worst film I have seen in a theater this summer, is WEIRD SCIENCE. The story deals with two 15-year-old high school misfits--add 30 I.Q. points and they'd be nerds--who build a simulation of a girl on their home computer. They feed it pictures of what they want her to look like (I can't feed pictures to MY home computer) and it creates a real three-dimensional girl. (Well, you can do anything with computers, can't you?) Much of this garbage plotting could be overlooked if once they got through this premise they did something reasonable with it. They didn't. The computer simulation (who looks like a 22-year-old sexpot) sets out to teach the boys how to get girls and have sex. There is about a half-hour's worth of bad plot to follow, and it is padded out to feature length with a series of stupid non sequitur scenes. In one scene, the boys go to a black bar and win over the patrons by talking jive, drinking whiskey, and smoking cigars. Yes, they do. In another scene, we see the boys waking up the next morning. We see one boy's feet sticking out from under the covers, but lo and behold, his head turns out to be at that end of the bed and he's just balanced his shoes on the pillow. Lots of big laughs like that. Also lots of really funny vomit and flatulence jokes. Whoopee. John Hughes both wrote and directed this film, so the screenwriter got the director he deserved (and vice versa). Even beyond the basic premise, there are giant holes in the logic. Lisa (the sexpot) has all sorts of knowledge that there is no way she could have. She is able to manipulate matter in impossible ways; she can even "cloud men's minds." This is a low -2 film burrowing its way to -3 (on the -4 to +4 scale). Mark R. Leeper ...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper