The initial situation is quite fertile, grounded as it is in something so nearly universal as the Pygmalion impulse. A fourteen-year-old misfit -- academically "accelerated," a devotee of classical music, a connoisseur but not a collector of insects -- is the first person to lay eyes on the new girl in town (in her tennis togs, and of course in slow-motion: she's a smasher). The meeting takes place near the end of summer vacation and before she can have heard anything of his reputation, and with just enough time for him to have indoctrinated her with his bias against the "superficial" (a key concept with him) and his catch-phrase, "Keep an open mind" -- particularly applicable, for example, to older-woman-younger-man relationships (the girl, like the rest of the hero's classmates, is sixteen). But sure enough, once school is back in session and she is let loose in society at large, she turns out to think that something as "superficial" as cheerleading sounds like it might be "fun," as well as a good way to meet new people and be accepted. One of the people she meets and is accepted by is a football player. The football turn of events is not nearly so fertile, is really quite arid, having been thoroughly plundered in other movies; and the runty hero's suicidal entry into the athletic arena turns this would-be Woody Allen into a juvenile Jerry Lewis. The least that can be said is that he is not a success in this arena, a commendable restraint even though there is nothing restrained, or remotely respectful of the rules of the game, about the actual disaster that befalls him (with further recourse to slow-motion). Even at that, the movie finds a way to end on a freeze-frame of him with his arms raised above his head. (And the crowd, of course, goes wild!) Corey Haim, Kerri Green, Charlie Sheen; written and directed by David Seltzer. (1986) — Duncan Shepherd
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