It was a promising idea to “reboot” the beach party films with Annette and Frankie in mid-life crisis, and a new set of younger surfers ready to take the helm. Swap in 80s kitsch for the old 60s kitsch. They just forgot to make it good.
Category: Capsule
There’s a zesty silliness to the 3rd Beach Party film that makes it a lot more fun than the 2nd (Muscle Beach Party), and certainly frothier than the 1st (Beach Party), even if I miss the latter’s sweaty tactility of its beach and party scenes.
I can see why this fourth (fifth if you count the Pajama Party spinoff) is considered the best of the series, though I still tip my hat to the original Beach Party.
Like the first Beach Party, this movie is fun when it’s about partying and surfing, less so when it leans on its story, which grows very thin by the end of the film.
I kept wanting this to go full Linklater and just show us the kids partying and surfing with no pretext, because those are the best bits.
Even with the framing story, this feels like some inessential shorts of familiar characters in stock sitcom plots stitched together.
What’s amazing about this movie is that every time you hit 2-3 minutes where you think you know where it is, it throws a curveball at you.
Here’s a quick rundown of the three films in this anthology:
Water and ham
Categories
The Elephant Man (1980)
Still a biopic with too many biopic-y moments. But it’s David Lynch so there’s plenty of weirdness, dual-sided themes, and moral grayness. (Though it is the most conventional Lynch I’ve seen.) Looks amazing, sounds brilliant (Lynch was the sound engineer, too!).
The makeup/prosthesis is masterpiece-level, and John Hurt is phenomenal underneath it, too. Observing a person gradually emerge from something that looks so viscerally grotesque is the film’s greatest strength.