Better Off Dead, revisited

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Mon Sep 04, 2023 5:34 am

I watched this over the weekend, remembering that it was pretty funny in the theater in 1985. It just doesn't hold up, even with an aardvark suit. I had to try really hard to pretend the twenty somethings were high school kids and French foreign exchange students were hot. ( we had one stay with us one summer when I was fifteen)

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Mon Sep 04, 2023 10:41 am

I don't know that I have heard of this movie. What would you say it is about?

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Mon Sep 04, 2023 10:54 am

I never got a chance to add to the post this morning. Let me get on a real keyboard....

It's 1985 and My brother comes home from the movies with his girlfriend, telling me I have got to see this movie, there's one part I just HAVE GOT to see. Well, OK I'll bite. Better Off Dead was pretty funny and the part with the aardvark suit did make me smile. I'm not including a plot synopsis, my carpal tunnel is acting up and it hurts to type, please IMDB here...

At 57 years old I found myself checking out Lane's mom because she was kinda hot, even if she was really dippy. I bet she was something in the bedroom though. The 'kids' in the move were pretty shallow overall, something which I don't remember catching as a teen. Obviously teenage suicide is not a great topic to make fun of these days but it was funny back in the go-go 80s. Oh, and the clothes.. well, it WAS the fashion. Are there clothes fashions for the 2000s or the 2010s or the 2020s? I feel we lost clothing as the mark of an era around 1995, after the grunge look became mainstream. I wanted the movie to be as funny when I saw it for the first time and it wasn't, it couldn't be, it wasn't made for grown ups.

THE
SO MATURE
I COULD JUST SHIT
AARDVARK

Casual Observer · Post by **Casual Observer** » Tue Sep 05, 2023 10:07 am

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Mon Sep 04, 2023 10:41 amI don't know that I have heard of this movie. What would you say it is about?

Oh, god, there is just so much to like about this movie. It's not about the plot or the characters or anything except every single scene is packed full of visual and situational gags. Every single scene has something to laugh at, everything from Booger and the Nerds jock to the square roomate from MASH thrown in. I even get a kick out of the Aardvark suit on Aardvark's behalf. It's a classic 80's slapstick comedy in the vein of Nerds and Cannonball Run.

My wife and I watch this again at least once a year.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Sep 05, 2023 2:13 pm

This is a movie?

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Tue Sep 05, 2023 3:26 pm

I think it's me, picking the flaws like it's real instead of just mindlessly enjoying it. I2ve been on a media old man rant for a while now.

Is this in the One Crazy Summer universe? I think it is.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Sep 05, 2023 6:10 pm

It was in theaters? In the US? I've never heard of it.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Sep 05, 2023 7:53 pm

I thought I had heard about all the big 1980s movies. This is alarming.

Casual Observer · Post by **Casual Observer** » Tue Sep 05, 2023 10:45 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Tue Sep 05, 2023 7:53 pm I thought I had heard about all the big 1980s movies. This is alarming.

Whole planet huh

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Wed Sep 06, 2023 8:05 pm

There was a time when I probably would have called it one of the greatest 80s movies. Kind of like a Zucker brothers movie catered more specifically to teenagers. I probably spent more time with One Crazy Summer since it was shown even more often on HBO (and I even enjoyed How I Got Into College), but Better Off Dead seemed the most cinematically-respectable of the three and even was a good example of the 80s ski movie.

Like Aardvark, I tried to watch it again within the last year. I did't make it very far. But it was great in my youth!

I guess the director does children's shows for Disney and Netflix these days, and it's a big mystery why John Cusack decided one day that he hated him and never spoke to him again.

nessman · Post by **nessman** » Sat Nov 04, 2023 9:19 am

It's a classic cult movie...

It has a pushy paper route kid ("I want my 2 dollars!!"), a pair of Asian brothers who learned English by watching The Wide World of Sports with Howard Cosell, and a fat kid named Ricky with some hilariously shitty dance moves. Oh and of course, the obligatory hot (for the time) French exchange student who is made to eat French Fries at her American host's home.

Toss in a supporting cast featuring the guy who played "Booger" from Revenge of the Nerds, Pee Wee Herman's girlfriend in Pee Wee's Big Adventure and the always weird/creepy Vincent Schiavelli - and what's not to love about this movie??

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Sat Nov 04, 2023 10:47 am

I loved it a lot more when I was 19, that's all I'm gonna say.

THE
ALL GROWED
UP AND EVERYTHING
AARDVARK

Better Off Dead, revisited

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