Reviews

The movie was broadcast on network TV year or two after its theatrical release, which I didn't even know about until recently. I thought it was what they called at the time a "movie of the week", made for TV. Anyway, in high school at the time, I turned on the TV one night, and there it was. It made quite an impact me. The movie's main flaw is its slow pacing. Nonetheless, it's starts with a very strange premise. It then keeps the viewer's interest going, because you keep asking yourself, "Where are they going with this?'. Then it gets there, and it's unbelievable and SO unpredictable.

The direction is OK, but the performances are great. If they remade it today, graphic violence, profanity and maybe some nudity would be added. NONE of that was needed, because this movie takes the premise and defies the audience's expectations. That where its power comes from. It's best to go in cold, knowing as little as possible about. You will not be disappointed.

And what it did was bring the issue of AIDS to mainstream public consciousness. That, in the end, makes up for its many flaws.

Watching the movie today, it's easy to see that this is just an overrated melodrama. The characters are written so unrealistically. The Hanks character is one step short of a saint. The villains couldn't be more obvious if they were twirling their mustaches. The worst offender is the big speech by he father, played by Bob Castle. This was clearly written by a gay man with the character saying what he WOULD have liked his father to say, not what most father of gay men WERE saying at the time.

The movie won tons of awards -- it resonated with the political correctness of Hollywood at the time. Even the film's hit soundtrack, except for Peter Gabriel's "Lovetown", is plodding. However, it has dated badly and there's no reason to watch it today. IMHO, this prevented a Best Picture Award for Steven Spielberg and Best Actor Award for Hanks for "Saving Private Ryan", a VASTLY superior film. Check that out instead.

After decades of suing and counter-suing each other, the Splits finally, to the delight of their worldwide fan base, signed on to this reunion project. Their initial worldwide, maniacal success was followed by the inevitable tensions and decline. Things began to come to a head during the recording of "The Yellow Album". When Drooper took up with performance artist Cherry Cheetah, his songwriting style began to diverge sharply from that of his partner Fleegle. Meanwhile, Snorky, being a descendant of Indian elephants, embraced Transcendental Meditation in his songs. However, he had trouble coming up with a mantra that fit his three note, bicycle horn range, so he gave his songs to Bingo to sing.

Despite having a huge hit in the form of Fleegle's hymn-like title track for the "Let it Peel" album/film documentary, the group was no longer making up a mess o' fun. Over Fleegle's objections, Snorky, Bingo and Drooper hired shyster lawyer Willie Weasel to run their failing record label, Banana Records. Sadly, the group rode their Banana Buggies off into the sunset after that.

Drooper and Cherry ended up forming their "conceptual band", The Plastic Elastic Felines. Many of their albums consisted entirely of Cherry snarling and growling.

Fleegle ended up marrying photographer Rhonda Rottweiler. He decided to form the band Tails with her, ignoring the small detail that her paws had never been near a microphone or a keyboard.

Without Snorky writing songs for him, Bingo's solo career foundered. He spent way too much time partying with Keith Moon, who always had plenty of bananas around to feed Bingo's increasingly destructive habit. He was in and out of rehab with Dr. Jane Goodall several times.

After observing Snorky's wild stage antics (including stabbing his Hammond with his trunk), Greg Lake and Carl Palmer got excited about forming a new prog rock band with him. But they decided that "SLP" made for too klutzy a logo. The Snork ended up as a sideman with Barbra Streisand's band, where he became a beloved icon of the gay community.

As negotiations for this reunion film got underway, the script went through numerous rewrites. Directors came, went, and came again. Unfortunately, the group lost creative control as the project swung in a darker direction.

As one could imagine, the fans revolted. So, they planned a huge reunion tour for 2020, to be filmed for a feature film documentary in order to compensate. Of course, the pandemic derailed that. Damned COVID is NOT making up a mess o' fun! But we can keep hoping!

A few years later, I heard Paul interviewed on one of those call-in radio shows where he took a few questions. One guy called and asked him why he thought the movie wasn't a success. Paul actually answered, "Well, probably because it wasn't any good." Even though Paul himself disowned this box office bomb, my curiosity overcame my common sense, and I watched it.

I didn't find it as bad as much as it's pointless. It's really just a bunch of music video sequences connected by an almost non-existent plot featuring way underwritten characters, Paul in that ugly shirt on the album cover throughout, and a lot of padding - especially the pretentious "Eleanor's Dream" sequence. Paul obviously had a lot of ideas, but they were all too different to cohere into a consistent screenplay.

The low point is the "Silly Love Songs" part - what the hell was Paul thinking? Michael Jackson could have sued! On the other hand, I got a kick out of seeing George Martin in the studio and Dave Edmunds performing with Paul. I also found the performances of "Yesterday", "Here, There and Everywhere", "Wanderlust" and "For No One" quite moving. The brief scene with "Jim", is, I'm guessing, a touching tribute to Paul's father. Otherwise, it's another meaningless scene in a film full of them. The music ranges from pretty bad (the aforementioned "SLS" and the awful remake of "The Long and Winding Road", which accompanies a stupid driving montage) to quite good. But you can get the songs on the soundtrack album. Paul's talent is music making, not movie making, so buy the album and skip this, even of you're a big fan.

This is where I totally disagree with the other users. Thomas Ian Griffith was TOTALLY miscast as the dynamic, masculine Rock Hudson. Griffith gives such a milquetoast performance that it's not exactly a shock that his "Rock" is gay. Absolutely unbelievable in the role. Distracts from whether the script, direction and other actors are any good. Don't bother digging this up.

The movie is indeed based on true events as depicted in the book, "Brainwash", by Gene Church. Church actually attended one of these "employee motivational weekends" in the late 60's. While some of the details were changed (the group leaders were of the same gender as the groups, rather than opposite, as in the film), the movie is pretty much right on.

The film is now dated -- such "motivation" is based on flawed psychological theory and would be regarded as abuse today -- but still a fascinating view , very well done on an obviously low budget. The cast performs quite well, particularly Yvette Mimieux and Leo Rossi as the ice cold "motivators" and especially Walter Olkewicsz in the challenging role of the fat guy with low self-esteem.

It's not for the weak of heart and can still shock, even now, but fans of psychological thrillers will definitely enjoy it. Never released on DVD, it'll be a challenge to dig up an old VHS tape.