Sign Me Up...'Police Academy"

Police Academy (1984)

Rated R

Starring Steve Guttenberg, Michael Winslow, Kim Cattrall, G.W. Bailey, Bubba Smith, George Gaynes, David Graf, Leslie Easterbrook,

Directed by Hugh Wilson

The Story:

In response to a crisis, the standards for Police Academy entrance are lowered.
A lot.
This is the story of those recruits attending the Police Academy.
Heaven help us all.

There are 2 types of people in this world.

Those that enjoyed Police Academy. And those that are wrong.

I am firmly in the first camp, and I'll give the declining quality of the next 5 installments...

But come on, the first one is gold.

It still holds up, it's still funny, and it's still just as much dumb fun now as it was over 30 years ago.

The cast is filled with great character actors and the so likable he's got a career pass, Steve Guttenberg as the star.

G.W. Bailey is hilarious as Lt. Harris who wants nothing more than these dirtbags to go home.

Rapid fire jokes and situations were the order of the day, and this movie never fails to make me laugh.

It's making the streaming rounds on Netflix as of this writing, which is where I stumbled upon it the other night and thought, "why not"?

It may not be a masterpiece, but it's a guilty pleasure that I had the opportunity to see when it premiered in 1984 (thanks Dad!) and have been a fan of ever since.

Final Grade: B+

It Took Nearly 30 Years For This "Cocoon" To Be Watched Again

Cocoon (1985)

Rated PG-13

Starring Don Ameche, Wilfred Brimley, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Maureen Stapleton, Brian Dennehy, Steve Guttenberg, Tawhnee Welch

Directed by Ron Howard

The Story:

An alien race (Dennehy, Welch) return to Earth to bring home 20 of their own they had to leave behind centuries earlier.  They charter a boat from a local Florida captain (Guttenberg) and put them in a swimming pool to revive them.  However, a group of local senior citizens (Ameche, Brimley, Cronyn) have been breaking in to use that pool.  When the regenerative powers of the pool have an unexpected fountain of youth quality, the group comes back with the aliens blessing, but things are going to get bad in a hurry.

It's been a long time since I've seen this one.

First things first, it holds up pretty well from start to finish.

The acting is great, and the assembled cast is wonderful.

Ron Howard pulls together a great cast of actors and gave them plum roles in their careers.

Just because they are getting older, that doesn't mean they still can't act, and the cast pulls it off wonderfully.

Don Ameche won a Best Supporting Actor award for his role.  It's a great performance, but after all these years, he really has probably the least screen time of all the actors.

The special effects are a bit on the cheesy side, but there really aren't a whole lot of them.

It was nice to revisit the film, and it was fun to watch again.

Final Grade: B

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: It's probably been over 20 years since I last saw it.  Still pretty good, but not quite as good as I remembered.