Obscure Movie of the Week: Playing For Keeps

In an on-going weekly segment we'll have here on this post (and frankly, it's something we'll hope that brings Bsmoked & Mackenzie to write maybe a column or two a year), this one's in honr of Travis RoastBeef, who's been trying to find this movie like Jake Gittes in Chinatown trying to figure up why Faye Dunaway's character is so fucked up. Leave it to Mackenzie to finally find this movie: Playing for Keeps (1986). A movie I literally never knew existed, but now it seems to have quite a history a part from Travis' love for it:

• Really the film debut for future Oscar-winner Playing for Keeps, and they seem to now market whatever market there is for the movie around her appearance (in fact, she's billed , "And introducing Marisa Tomei as Tracy!"
• Written by a couple of guys named Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein, who would later start Miramax films and make way for the great movies we love of the 1990's.
• Not a good movie, and if you look at the trailer at this link, it's likened obviously to Footloose and Satisfaction (no, not the Stones song, the Julia Roberts/Justine Bateman flick).
• Has your typical cheesy 80's soundtrack of songs, including the obiquitous "I'm So Excited" by the Pointer Sisters, and what would be considered throaway songs from the likes of Peter Frampton, Pete Townshend, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark(that's OMD, yeah you know me, to those in the know), and, hold on...wait for it, wait for it....Phil Collins.
• Uhm....other than that, it's really a movie that Travis RoastBeef and three other people remember.

Interestingly enough, it's up 33% on the imdb.com movie meter, which is WAAAY higher than Heath Ledger's. Which means Travis has some serious pull, becuase this means way too many people have been trying to find this movie. I frankly have nothing else to add to this mess, other than to say there's an imdb poster named OKCRay who has this shoutout for Travis:

"I have a copy of the PLAYING FOR KEEPS soundtrack on CD, and most of the songs have either "play for keeps" or "playing for keeps" somewhere in the lyrics."

Don't worry, Husker signing day is Tuesday, we'll have some coverage there and we'll go back to regularly scheduled programming then. But nominations for next week's movie of the week (and Trav, feel free to write next week's edition) are being accepted now.

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This Week's Sign That Rolling Stone is Bored

Rolling Stone is asking readers (the few that are left) to come up with the All-Time Greatest 80's Movie Songs. I can't remember what song was in Howard the Duck, but if "Holiday Road" by Lindsey Buckingham from National Lampoon's Vacation doesn't top the list, well then, the list doesn't really count now, does it?

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Alright, Alright, Alright: A List Worth Looking Into

Alright, alright, alright. Somebody finally put together a very good list of the all-time top-10 high school movies (with two glaring omissions, which I'll get to below). It got all of the usual suspects (Dazed and Confused, Rebel Without A Cause, Fast Times at Ridgemont High), as well as a very big surprise in My Bodyguard , a movie I remember watching on cable as a kid and thought I was the only person who ever saw it and actually liked it. Of course, I also thought the guy who played the bodyguard (Adam Baldwin) was Vincent D'Onofrio, and that just made me more freaked out when I saw Full Metal Jacket for the first time.

But there are two movies I have no idea how they missed:

1. American Graffiti: I started reading the list from 10 down, and I figured that this one would certainly be ranked #1. It's NOWHERE ON THE LIST! How is this possible? I love Rushmore as much as anyone, but does that movie really exemplify how one felt in high school? Not like American Graffiti does. The premise is simple: It's the last day before Curt Henderson (Richard Dreyfuss) flies away to college. The rest of his friends know it's their last day of freedom too, and things will never be the same after Dreyfuss gets on that plane. No other film comes close to matching the last summer before going off to college like Graffiti. It's set in the early '60's, but it could have worked in any era. How this one isn't in the top 5 is inexcusable. There's no other way around it. Christ, the movie was nominated for Best Picture!
2. Ferris Bueller's Day Off: Like Graffiti, the entire movie is set in one day, only this time, it's during the school year, as our hero Ferris (Matthew Broderick at his finest) tries to play the ultimate game of hooky. Everyone knows the story, he gets his sad-sack loser of a friend Cameron (Alan Ruck) and super hot girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara, who I haven't seen in a movie since, which is a shame because she still looks gorgeous) to skip school on a picture perfect day in beautiful Chicago. I know John Hughes fans are raising their hands right now also nominating Sixteen Candles (an underrated movie that holds up incredibly well, despite the somewhat racist scenes with Long Duck Dong) and The Breakfast Club (also holds up well, but where else did people go to school to spend 8 hours on a SATURDAY for detention?). Bueller's the winner here, because everyone gets that itch their senior year where they want a day to thumb their nose at everyone and go out and play and be the envy of everyone else stuck in class.
   

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