Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Brilliant and touching

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

1st watched 3/8/2011 -- 4 out of 10(Dir-Savage Steve Holland): Dumb little comedy romance with some animation thrown in has a couple of funny moments but the overall silly David vs. Goliath plot line where the weaker hero-type fights against a snot-nosed rich guy over his dignity is old and part of too many movies. The movie starts as a couple of high school graduates, played by John Cusack and Curtis Armstrong, decide to spend their summer at Nantucket Island looking for fun and a break away from their normal life before they have to make any longterm decisions. Demi Moore, plays the obvious eventual love interest to the main character, Hoops(who is named this despite the fact that he can't play basketball very well -- it was a parental hope). Instead Hoops is trying to get into Art school and trying to create a project to enter(this is the drawings we see throughout the movie). What happens is the movie presents us with a series of crazy characters and events making an overall crazy summer(thus the title). The crazy characters include an uncle who locked himself up in a room hoping to win a radio show millionaire contest, Bobcat Goldthwait -- playing one of the twins, who has one of the funnier scenes where he trounces around as godzilla recreating a scene from one of the monster's movies where he destroys a fake town with him screaming and smoke coming out his nostrils, and a young girl with a deformed dog where she puts a spell on anyone that laughs or says bad things about it. The gags are not the problem and are plentiful, and sometimes funny but the commonplace storyline with cardboard comedy-movie characters that are not developed is what holds this movie back. Overall this movie is really not that unique or funny despite it's attempts at being just that.

This is beyond stupid. Two high school graduates travel to Nantucket for the summer and find situations there that are absolutely revolting.Demi Moore co-stars in this one. As the film was in 1986, was Ashton Kutcher just a babe in the woods at that time?Moore's grandfather has died and his home is on the verge of being sold to ruthless people with a father and son who bring a new meaning to the term mean.Bobcat Goldthwait, with that obnoxious voice is in the film, as well as two brothers, who make dumb and dumber look more and more intelligent.The writing is absolutely ridiculous. Highlights of the stupidity are where one person says to the other: "Did you ever notice that when people die, they go alphabetically in the papers?" I rest my case.

Affable aspiring cartoonist Hoops McCann (a wonderfully engaging performance by John Cusack) and his best buddy George (the deliciously deadpan Joel Murray) go to Nantucket for the summer following graduation from high school. Hoops, George, and several newfound pals come to the aid of Cassandra (Demi Moore at her most charming), a singer who's family house is being threatened with demolition by the greedy Beckersted clan. Writer/director Savage Steve Holland offers an often hilariously wacky and zesty nonstop barrage of admittedly broad and dumb, but still very funny jokes. The constant madcap lunacy has a real giddy, good-natured and infectiously inane vitality to it that's impossible to either dislike or resist. Moreover, the lively and enthusiastic acting from a fine game cast adds immensely to the zany merriment: Bobcat Goldthwait as the spastic Egg Stork, Tom Villard as his goofy brother Clay, Curtis Armstrong as the sweet Ack Ack Raymond, Mark Metcalf as evil rich jerk Aquilla Beckersted, Matt Mulhern as the mean Teddy, Kimberly Foster as the fetching Cookie, Joe Flaherty as the gung-ho General Raymond, William Hickey as cranky Old Man Beckersted, Jeremy Piven as smug preppy bully Ty, and John Matuszak as hulking biker Stan. Isidore Mankofsky's slick cinematography, the hip thrashy soundtrack, Cory Lerios' cool rockin' score, and the funky animation are all uniformly excellent. Single funniest scene: Egg in a Godzilla suit terrorizing a posh dinner party. An absolute hoot.

A very funny, warm hearted movie, it never fails to make me laugh when watching it. A shame it was never a bigger hit considering so many absolutely awful films did better. All the actors were brilliant in their roles. John Cusack, among a few of the others, has gone on to bigger films but for my mind, this is one of his best, along with Grosse Pointe Blank and Better Off Dead. Some great scenes, terrific lines and an explosively funny finale. The commentary on the DVD by Savage Steve Holland, Bobcat Goldthwaite and Curtis Armstrong is terrific as well. There's not many films you enjoy in your teens that you still love in your thirties and onwards, but this is one of them for me. A true gem.