Grandview, U.S.A.
August. 03,1984 RLife in the small town of Grandview, Illinois is one that is just like any other city or town. Tim Pearson, soon to be graduating high school wants to go to Florida to study oceanography. He meets Michelle "Mike" Cody and is attracted to her. She runs the local Demolition Derby place. Ernie "Slam" Webster is one of the drivers in the derby whose wife is cheating on him and wants to later on be with Mike. Tim falls for Mike and a big love triangle is about to happen.
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Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .
It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.
Lighthearted teen drama, directed by Randal Kleiser, fresh from "Grease" and "Blue Lagoon" box office hits, which like "Footloose" it was set in rural America, in this case a Midwestern small-town called Grandview, features a cast of the 80's 'usual suspects' in this particular genre such as Jamie Lee Curtis, C.Thomas Howell, Patrick Swayze, John & Joan Cusack, John Philbin and Jennifer Jason Leigh, among others.The movie surely looks good and perfectly fits in the 80's visuals and the general tone, with that appealing 'small town vibe'; a bit cheesy in parts with over-the-top characters and campy acting & dialogue delivering, pumped with an emblematic 80's rock /pop soundtrack, performed by Air Supply, Jack Mack and the Heart Attack, Eddie & the Tide or The Pointer Sisters and even with some staged musical numbers MTV style in Howell's dream sequences, choreographed by the star Patrick Swayze and his wife Lisa Niemi, on the other hand the weak part is the way the story was written and presented to the screen, which seriously lacks focus with a myriad of sub-plots among the characters which turned the main plot, whatever it was, into a sub-plot itself.18 years old's high school graduate, Tim Pearson (Howell) lives in Grandview and wants to leave the small town to go to Florida to be an oceanographer, against his father's will; 27 years old's and divorced tomboy, Michelle 'Mike' Cody (Jamie Lee Curtis), which owns a Speedrome after her father died of a heart attack, fights to retain it open against Tim's dad, Roger Pearson (Ramon Bieri), who wants to buy the land to built a golf course & a wealthy resort and Ernie 'Slam' Webster (Patrick Swayze), a speed racer in Cody's circuit, a frustrated husband of the shameless and unfaithful, Candy Webster (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who's having an affair with the way older & sleazy salesman, Donny Vinton (Troy Donahue). "Slam" and "Mike" always had a crush on each other, although they have never dated, but when "Slam" finally leaves Candy, after a physical confront with her wife's lover and tries to pursuit his happiness alongside "Mike", it may be too late, because his former crush is starting to feel the hots for the much younger Tim...If the plot's summary sounds like a 'teen soap opera", it's because is close to being it, but after all it's a Randal Kleiser flick and his own style of being cheerful, dreamy, mawkishly sentimental and corny, it's once again, very patent here.Jamie Lee Curtis, in all of her sexiness, leads "Grandview U.S.A." in her second adult role, following the success in the previous year of "Trading Places", trying to distance herself from being typecast in another horror / slasher film as the iconic "Scream Queen" in service; C. Thomas Howell, still a bit green in his acting and Patrick Swayze, in a thankless role, both still fresh from their work as the brothers Curtis in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Outsiders", reunite here in the same year that they also performed together in the John Milius' cult-movie, "Red Dawn".The supporting cast is full of familiar faces: from the 50's heartthrob, Troy Donahue, which performed his sleazy role so 'hammy' that almost looks like a parody, to the "Police Academy" Sgt. Jones', Michael Winslow and the Cusack brothers (even if you blink, you will miss Joan's tiny part on screen); John Philbin, who surprisingly delivers a good performance as the mentally retarded "Cowboy", and the character actors Ramon Bieri, M. Emmet Walsh & the always great, William Windom.The sex / nude scenes between Jamie Lee and C. Thomas Howell look a bit awkward and odd, not only because the age difference is noticeable (Howell looks like a callow kid next to a matured Jamie), but also that he was underage during principal photography, i don't know how it passed through the censors, maybe it was one the mysteries from that decade, whatever it happened during the 80's, it stayed in the 80's...In short, "Grandview U.S.A." is a movie aimed to the devoted fans of 80's teen movies, which love this genre and can truly appreciate it, even when they aren't that good like in this particular case, for the general viewers, it's better skip this one and go rent / buy something else.
This movie was a real waste of some good talent. Big name stars that could not do much to help this stinker. As I recall, it was a dud in the theaters, so I'd imagine after paying the talent, they lost money.The story is stupid & 1/2 way into it, you find yourself saying "who cares?" This movie has the same dumb storyline as the movie Roadhouse David vs Goliath. Why should anyone care about trying to save a broken down demolition derby racetrack?...Mike (Jamie Lee) would be smart to sell it, take the money & run, thus saving us from the pain of watching her & the other losers from trying to save it.The only highlight is seeing Jamie Lee naked.It was filmed in a little one-horse town in central Illinois, I have been through there several times. I'll bet people there still talk about it. Not much else to do there but watch the stoplights change.
This is the first 1 I've ever given a movie at the IMDb. There are some true dogs in the wide world of cinema, and this one is king of the scrap heap.Unmoving setting, snore-worthy climax, angry married people sleeping around, choreographer Patrick Swayze sporting his usual Labrador retriever look; a sad-eyed Jamie Lee Curtis (believably, must say) reprises another unconventional woman with father issues; a couple of a-romantic love affairs with a heavy scene of pseudo BDSM, and people doing it in moving (!?) cars; and a ceaseless string of unfunny clichés about post-adolescence in the mid-80s, complete with silly spoofs on MTV (back when MTV actually played music videos.) Avoid. But if you do indulge, look for the bad cameos of Michael Winslow as Spencer, Grandview's most visible Black man. Let's just say, Winslow made his mark as the um, "vocal talent", in the Police Academy series, wildly popular in the mid-late 80s. 1 deep regret out of 10, but don't take my word for it; Jamie Lee reportedly said so, herself. A screening will leave you with no doubts as to why.
Even with a nice midwestern setting and a truly honest effort to make a film that most people could relate to on some level, this movie just comes up way short. I just stopped caring about these characters about halfway in, and I spent the remainder of the film waiting for the predictable ending to take place. It's not that this is a bad film, but I would call it generic, and it has a basic storyline that would be familiar to most movie-goers. I'm quite certain that you can easily find a better film than this next time you're looking to kill some time with a movie.