Long before "Thank God it's Friday" became an end of the week mantra for the work-weary or the name of an overpriced restaurant chain with servers decked out in more pins and badges than an eighties voc tech student's jean vest, it was the title of this particular movie, a disjointed tribute to dance culture of the 1970s that probably unwittingly drove the last nail into disco's coffin instead.Growing up smack dab in the middle of said phenomenon, I have to admit, I haaaaated disco as a grade schooler, having already sold my soul for rock n' roll around the time Donna Summer first felt love.Of course, being faced with the improbable mess that is today's pop culture has me nostalgic for most things seventies these days, including some pumping disco tunes of the era, as evidenced by all the boogie fever one might encounter should my 70's mp3 mix fall into their hands.I'd first forced myself all the way through tonight's movie in the cable box days, hoping to glimpse some sexual situations or a stray boob while my parents were changing guardwatch on protecting my innocence, and of course, I ended up hating the fucking thing, and even hating myself a little for sitting through it.
So, last week, while zooted at the bar and challenged to scribble down some movies for the Netflix queue, I decided to give this one another look, thinking my judgment might be less harsh the second time around, thirty-plus years later.It just so happens that Friday is a cinematic atrocity, less a movie than a series of unfunny vignettes involving headache-inducingly annoying characters whose grating personalities are only matched by their atrocious, dated seventies fashions, with appearances by funk/soul outfit Commodores and disco diva Donna Summer not helping matters at all.Also sinking with the spinning mirrored ball and tacky polyester slacks here are Berlin's frontwoman, Terri Nunn, Mews Small, who you'll remember as Jack Nicholson's lady friend, Candy, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest(1975), John "The Wanderers" Friedrich, Debra "Officer and a Gentleman" Winger, and lanky schnoz Jeff Goldblum as a Porsche-driving, disco owner/lothario.Think about that for a second.
Columbia's Torch Lady loves the nightlife and has got to boogie on the disco rooooooound, oh yeah.Wait, what?
After watching an animated version of Columbia's logo disco dancing(!), we're introduced to lots of characters, all tied together by an LA discotheque called "The Zoo", none of them particularly interesting.Tony(Jeff Goldblum), the owner, looks like a Jewish Tony Manero after being stretched on a rack and/or starved half to death, trying to put the moves on a young married woman with a Dorothy Hamill hairdo named Sue(Andrea Howard), who's looking for some fun with a half-buttoned top, and win a money bet with the DJ, to the dismay of her uptight accountant-husband, Dave(Mark Lonow), who, in turn, is being fed various drugs and re-dubbed "Babakazoo" by a dental hygienist-in-a-bright-red-Chaka-Khan-lookin' wig named Jackie(Mews Small), in attempt to loosen him up and get his boogie on.Then there's aspiring singer, Nicole(Donna Summer), who just wants to get up there on the miniscule stage and sing her little heart out, dammit.Frannie and Jeannie(Valerie Landsburg, Terri Nunn) are two high school girls trying to sneak their way into the club so they can win the dance contest and use the prize money to buy tickets to a KISS concert.Want more?Bobby Speed(Ray Vitte) is the first-time DJ copping radio airtime by booking Commodores to play the dance contest, only their equipment is in a van driven by "Wrong Way" Floyd(DeWayne Jessie), and that cat is m.i.a.!Jennifer(Debra Winger) is a new girl in town being shown the nightlife by her friend Maddy(Robin Menken) who warns her to stay away from creeps in polyester, before, you guessed it, breaking camp with a couple of polyester creeps herself.Carl and Ken(Paul Jabara, John Friedrich) arrive in a beat up VW convertible after toking a jib and smashing into Tony's Porsche.Everybody's smashing into the Porsche, get it?
"Yeah, Das Black Milk.Don't even try to tell me you've never heard of us..."
Add to the equation a couple of star-crossed computer dating misfits(she's a stiltish grade school teacher, he's a punchy fat garbage collector) and Marv Gomez(Chick Vennera), a guy who's only concern is "danseeng!Everytheeng else is boolsheet!", and who goes by the nickname:Leatherman.Sue recognizes Tony for the slimy shitbag liar he is, but her husband's preoccupied with Jackie, and banged out of his mind on drugs, judging by his mid-dance floor swandive onto a high trapeze holding a guy in a Tarzan costume, during which he accidentally removes the dude's loincloth with his head and takes a faceful of bare male ass before plummetting to the ground in front of his wife.Maybe the most unintentionally funny thing I've ever seen, rewound several times.Nicole finally gets her shot, sings "Last Dance"(Evidentally thirty years of not hearing that song hasn't warmed me up to it very much), and hooks up with the DJ.Frannie gets Leatherman to be her dance partner, and they win the prize money.Jennifer, a clumsy oaf as evidenced by several unfunny pratfalls throughout the production, stumbles into Ken(who's been taught to dance by Leatherman outside the club, through a clumsy and awkward solo disco dance sequence on the top of parked cars) and they hit it off.Carl, the nearsighted dork with the Jew-fro, ends up locked on a stairwell with one of Tony's scantily dressed throwaways.They boogie.Wrong Way finally makes it to the club with the instruments after having to pretend to play them over piped-in music to various police officers who keep pulling him over for speeding.Stop, you're killing me.The Commodores play a couple of songs while decked out in freaky astronaut costumes.Lionel Richie's 'fro is woofin'.So yeah, all's well that ends well, I guess.Except I'll never get that hour and twenty-plus minutes back that I just wasted.Get down, muthafuckas!
Possibly the least impressive dance choreography sequence ever filmed.Nice moves, jagoff.
You may have seen director Klane's other work, apart for his rejected Grease sequel("Greasier".I shit you not.), like Weekend at Bernies II(1993) and, uh, yeah that's it.After testing for the role of Princess Leia in Star Wars(1977), the ever-gorgeous Terri Nunn appeared on television a whole lot before singing "The Metro" with her aforementioned band.Chick "Leatherman" Vennera did voice work on Pinky and the Brain and Animaniacs.Andrea Howard also appeared in The Nude Bomb(1980).Jeff Goldblum, who got his start in Hollywood as "Freak No. 1" in Death Wish(1974), also scored genre work in movies like The Fly(1986) and The Fly II(1989), The Sentinel(1976), and the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.I'm actually surprised anyone involved here went on to have any semblance of a career in movies afterwards.On the scale, it earns a single Wop for that pisser of a stunt mistake above, and some of the soundtrack, perhaps.You'll do better reminiscing upon the booty-shaking decade elsewhere, I'm sure.Avoid like a post-show couch with G.G. Allin.
The only thing worse than accidentally smashing your face into some dude's bare ass during a stunt in a disco movie, is ending up here as a screenshot as a result.
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