Roller Boogie

Friday, June 20, 2008

This came on TCM Undetground at like 3 or 4 in the morning, and Patrick and I couldn't stop watching. I feel like we must have watched something else on Friday, but nothing is coming to mind.

This is a good bad movie that may secretly be kinda actually good. I mean, it's terrible, but so profoundly silly and sometimes very entertaining, that you figure the fun might not be an accident. In fact, I'm pretty sure this is the case, since it was directed by the fellow who made Class of 1984 and Commando. Both those movies seems like below average B-movies on the surface, only upon closer inspection are a lot more fun and funny than you'd expect. Class of 1984 is probably his best overall, but Commando is such a strange and silly action picture that it will always hold a special place in my heart.

Roller Boogie has a lot of that silliness. It's a generic teen movie in most respects, except it takes place in a world where pretty much everybody roller skates all the time, and roller discos are the most popular thing ever. Linda Blair is the main character, and she's a musical genius destined for greatness, except FUCK THAT, she just wants to roller boogie. And she falls in love with a roller boogier from the wrong side of the tracks, and her parents disapprove, and then the owner of the local roller disco has to close the place down, so all the kids need to figure out how to save his business... etc.

A lot of the skating scenes are infectiously goofy fun, with all the cheesy music and disco lights and shit, and all sorts of silly shots of people doing crazy skating tricks and jumping over the camera and whatnot. A lot of the laughs come from the corny acting and writing and music and roller-boogie-ing, although they throw in some unexpected satire here and there that's kinda funny. Yeah, I kinda enjoyed this movie. It's a good bad movie that's maybe not as bad as it seems.