Over the Christmas period (New Years Eve to be exact - and my birthday incidentally) I was in Auckland and decided to check out one of those massive Book, CD and DVD clearance sales that they hold at the ASB showgrounds each year.
I picked up a couple of average books, perused the CDs which were hardly priced for a bargain-basement sale, tried to count how many copies of Take That's comeback album were for sale (before realising that I'd have to enlist NASA to help me with the calculations) and half-heartedly headed to the DVD section.
Crap. Crap. Public Domain Crap. Crap. Take That comeback concert crap. Crap...
Then I spotted it.
In a shitty, flimsy plastic case with a cover that looked like it was colour photocopied by an Asian DVD piracy cartel sat the film that would become my latest trash obsession.
The 1990 comedy/romance/high school/WTF masterpiece; GETTING LUCKY
This is gonna be a spoiler-heavy review. There are images and dialogue in this film that simply MUST be shared. I will probably be straining the blog-post word limit with this one too...
Upon first glance, GETTING LUCKY looks like a cheesy, 80s high school sex comedy with goofy characters desperate to get laid, overbearing jocks who stand between the nerdy virgin and the head cheerleader and at least one scene involving spying on girls in their locker room. For all intents and purposes this is exactly what GETTING LUCKY is - with one key difference... this film has a leprechaun.
Yep. A top-o-th'-mornin', fiddly-de-de-potatoes, drunk Irish Leprechaun. Named "Lepkey". More on him later, lets start at the beginning.
GETTING LUCKY opens with some soft-focus, slow-motion upskirt shots of a cheerleading squad doin' their thing, all set to a late-80s drum-machine/synthesiser beat. Its the kind of scene that can only be one thing; the (wet?) dream of a stereotype.
Introducing Bill - our lovable, cloying, virginal nerd who wakes up from his ultra-erotic fantasy only to get dressed at a pace that could favourably be described as "glacial". After skipping breakfast - much to the chagrin of his improbably Jewish mother - Bill climbs aboard his bike which appears pre-loaded with two MASSIVE and FULL garbage bags strapped to it (he literally has to nestle in between the two bags) and sets sail for... the recycling centre.
Turns out Bill is both (a) trying to save money for College and (b) a raging environmentalist who spouts lyrical about world peace and the merits of saving the planet - Bill is literally a whinier, scrawnier version of Bono.
After putting some cans into a recycling machine and receiving around 50 cents, Bill sighs and laments that there HAS to be an easier way to make money...
Cue Bill's unnamed friend (who probably does have a name that I cant remember). Friend looks and sounds like Keanu Reeves during his Bill-n-Ted period and, inexplicably, rides a skateboard everywhere whilst clutching a Saxophone (my theory is that the Friend character is capitalising on the success of a 1990 pop culture hit by channelling both Bart AND Lisa Simpson). Friend informs the downtrodden Bill that there has recently been a job advertised at their high-school gym! Holy crap! Its the answer to all Bill's financial worries!
Unfortunately the job title is "Towel Boy" and the job description lists responsibilities as "Picking up towels", "Cleaning rancid milk off the floor", "Getting abused by buff naked jocks" and "Trying not to raise the ire of the lecherous, mouth-breathing coach who says stuff like 'tighter! tighter!' and 'get on in there!' with as much emotion as a guy asking a call girl if she offers a discount for off-peak hours".
Despite the crummy nature of the work, Bill-the-Towel-boy soon meets the rest of the principle cast - Head Cheerleader and uberbabe Chrissie Schackler and muscle-bound Chief Jock Tony Chanuka - in an unfortunate and entirely predictable way which provides Chanuka with a reason to make Bill's life a living Hell.
But... things take a turn for the better as Bill is walking home and spies a glass bottle lying on the ground. He tries to put it in a recycling bin - only for the bottle to come flying back out and hit him in the back of the head! Bill attempts to slam-dunk the bottle in a "comical" fashion over and over and over again for several agonising minutes (I swear, this scene lasts for about a week) until he finally hears a tiny, squeaky voice...
Peering inside the beer bottle Bill spies a small, aggressively Irish wee fella who informs him that he is a Leprechaun and that his name is "Lepkey" ("Leprechaun" + "Lucky" was the best theory I could come up with). According to Lepkey, his punishment for being a drunk was to be turned into a leprechaun and imprisoned in a beer bottle. Oh, and if he grants someone three wishes he will be free!
Of course this kick-starts a "hilarious" chain of events involving misunderstood wishes, bad puns and every Irish stereotype from here to the Blarney Stone. Throughout the rest of the film:
* Tony tries to pressure Chrissie to go all the way several times, only to be foiled by increasingly ridiculous distractions
* Tony complements Chrissie's mom's hair waaay too enthusiastically
* Bill wishes for a Ferrari and ends up with a Pinto
* Somehow two detectives are persuaded to start tailing Bill, believing that he is a drug dealer (???)
* Bill and Chrissie go on a date to a mini-golf course and the entire dating montage is set to a god-awful 80s ballad in which the singer (who sounds like one of the Proclaimers) warbles "Your Heart makes a hooooole in oooooone!"
* Tony gets really optimistic by bringing TWO DOZEN condoms to the Drive-In
* Chrissie accuses Bill of having the hots for the "French foreign exchange student" who looks like Tina Turner and sounds like Pepe Le Pew
*Bill makes the most retarded wish of all time after dropping Chrissie off by soliloquising "I wish I knew what she were up to... If only I could get in there and see if she were okay... I wish I were a cat..."
Oh, and THIS happens (Not entirely SFW)
But the real genius of the film is apparent during the long-winded and horribly-paced "climax". Its here where the writer/director's obvious $1200-a-day LSD habit really started to show...
[SPOILER CITY]
Bill and Chrissie get married. This could logically be the end of the film. But...
On their way from the wedding they are driving down a country road all happy and stuff, when who should come barrelling up beside them but TONY CHANUKA!
Chanuka commandeers the car, with Chrissie screaming helplessly, after hurling Bill from the driver's seat and guns it.
Stunned and alone, Bill looks around the deserted fields for someone to help him. Then, on the horizon, appears the help Bill needed so badly. Help in the form of a freaking BARBARIAN riding not one, but TWO HORSES. This dude, who was probably a stunt double for Ahh-nuld during his CONAN period, has one foot planted on the back of a seperate horse and is hooning down a hill at a pretty decent speed. God, I wish there was a picture of this somewhere on the internet...
Bill approaches Barbarian-guy and asks if he can borrow one of his horses. The response to this question:
"But I have two feet! I need both my horses!"
Oh well, thinks Bill - who surely has resigned himself to the fact that Tony Chanuka is probably trying to get into his bride's wedding dress at this very second - before Barbarian/Deus Ex Machina tells Bill
"But I do have another horse!"
And lo, a dirty white horse appears, literally from NOWHERE, enabling Bill to ride off to save Chrissie.
Barbarian guy then calls Bill an asshole (nobody knows why) and rides his two horses like a pair of skis into the sunset, never to be seen again.
After some riding, Bill spots Tony and Chrissie, who have ended up in a field close to a couple having a picnic under a tree. Bill and Tony proceed to pry shish kebabs out of the picnicking couple's hands and starts HAVING A DUEL. Like using the kebab stakes as fencing rapiers. This goes on for much longer than it should.
Bill wins somehow, Tony is defeated, Chrissie swoons and the people whose lunch has just been destroyed give Bill a standing ovation. Roll credits right? Nope.
Just like the third LORD OF THE RINGS, GETTING LUCKY takes about eight hours to end. But instead of finishing the film at the conclusion of the Kebab battle and ending on a high note (high as in the director was high when he shot it) the movie then drags its feet for another eternity as Bill and Chrissie prepare to spend their first night of wedded bliss together in a crappy motel room - only to be invaded by the police who have literally nothing better to do than keep tabs on a high school nerd. Then it ends. Finally.
Jeez this is a long, rambling review. I think I'm gonna post it and do any edits that it needs when its not nearly 1am and my brain doesn't hurt. Should probably put a conclusion in there too...
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