Capsule Reviews: <i>Joysticks</i>

Capsule Reviews: Joysticks

Quick-hit movie reviews for the masses.

Greydon Clark's teensploitation paean to video arcades, Joysticks (1983) has to be one of the raunchiest films in a genre—1980s teen sex comedies—that was hardly lacking in raunch. Even the title is a smutty double entendre.

In the early '80s the burgeoning video arcade scene was frowned upon by square parents everywhere as a scummy din of inequity. That sleazy subculture is parodied with loving care in Joysticks—even if the arcade in the film has 100% more topless women than I ever remember from the arcades of my youth. This is the film that introduced the world to the old "hot dog in the cleavage" shot (yes, as stupid as it sounds), along with strip video gaming, the eight-bit update of the venerable strip poker sensation. A high class production, obviously.

In a film with every conceivable '80s stereotype (bodacious babes, bumbling nerds, out of touch adults, preposterous punkers), Corinne Bohrer (Police Academy 4) deserves special singling out for her eternally memorable performance as Valley Girl Patsy Rutter. Bohrer steals every scene she's in with her hysterical Valleyspeak and spectacularly emotive facial expressions. Seriously, she's extraordinary, a total laugh riot throughout. We're talking All-Time teensploitation greatness here.

Joysticks gives the granddaddy of '80s ribald teen sex comedies, Porky's (1982), a run for its money in terms of gratuitous T&A, groan-worthy comedy, and the number of brain cells you'll lose just from watching. Still, it serves as a time capsule, back to an era when kids with nothin' to do found salvation by jerking their joysticks around for pleasure. Sorry, I'll see myself out.

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