Lucas

This blog post about LUCAS (1986) is the third of three posts that discuss unique movies about the sport of American football.

 

The romantic comedy and drama movie LUCAS stars Corey Haim as a precocious child named Lucas. Lucas appreciates nature and classical music. He is intelligent but prejudged by others because of his appearance. He is small in stature and on the surface unpretentious. Because of these qualities, aside from students in the school marching band, other teenagers do not socialize with him.

Maggie (Kerri Green) is new in town and meets Lucas during the summer break before school starts. Lucas introduces Maggie to bugs and classical music. Maggie introduces Lucas to tennis and gives him a ride in her convertible car. One-on-one these friends make a great pair, but Lucas desires more.

Eventually, Maggie meets other teenagers in the community, including Cappie (Charlie Sheen). Maggie develops feelings for Cappie, who Lucas calls “superficial,” and Cappie is attracted to Maggie, but has a cheerleader girlfriend named Alise (Courtney Thorne-Smith). When Cappie suggests Maggie become a cheerleader, Alise gets angry at him.

Lucas thinks cheerleading is as superficial as football. However, he puts energy into capturing Maggie and joins the school’s football team. He makes this decision based on observing Maggie’s admiration for football player Cappie. Ironically, Lucas focuses on football and Maggie, but does not notice his marching band classmate Rina (Winona Ryder) likes him.

The football coach (Guy Boyd) obviously does not want Lucas on the team, but Lucas shows up to practice in uniform quoting laws about how he is supposed to be given a fair opportunity. No one takes Lucas seriously and he ends up in Principal Kaiser’s (Garrett M. Brown) office, creating his own superficial circumstances by telling the principal his father is a lawyer. Truthfully, Lucas’ father is an alcoholic and he does not live in the affluent neighborhood he takes Maggie to during summer break. Rina already knows these aspects about Lucas’ life, but he does not spend time with her outside of band class. Instead he chooses to impress cheerleader Maggie whom he has no chance of romancing.

LUCAS is not just about football, but the sport does represent a fair portion of the story. In Lucas’ perspective football players and cheerleaders are superficial, yet he uses the sport to get what he wants. Unfortunately, Maggie never returns his affections, but his bravery in playing the sport, risking physical injuries garners him respect from his peers.

Summer School

This blog entry about the movie SUMMER SCHOOL (1987) is the fourth of four entries discussing movies about school, teachers, and education.

In the comedy film SUMMER SCHOOL Freddy Shoop (Mark Harmon) is a physical education (P.E.) teacher who must teach summer school when another teacher, Mr. Dearadorian (played by the film’s director Carl Reiner), at the fictional Oceanfront High School wins the lottery and quits at the last minute. Mr. Shoop is in the parking lot literally putting a suitcase in his car for a trip to Hawaii when Vice Principal Phil Gillis (Robin Thomas) approaches him about teaching remedial English for summer school. Amusingly his girlfriend, Kim (Amy Stock), goes to Hawaii without him instead of postponing the vacation until summer school ends.

SUMMER SCHOOL presents some serious issues in a humorous manner. On the first day of class it becomes apparent that the reluctant Mr. Shoop should not be teaching a group of underachieving students. They are easily distracted and one of the students is dyslexic. But reality sinks in when Vice Principal Gillis reminds Mr. Shoop he is up for tenure and can lose his job. Most jobs have a probation period. For teachers in California the probation period is two school years of satisfactory performance. On the first day of the third school year the teacher is tenured. It is difficult to fire a teacher who earns tenure.

Since Mr. Shoop is forced to teach, he realizes he does not know how to teach. He receives help from Robin Bishop (Kirstie Alley), a teacher who instructs an honors class. Today at many schools students can only attend summer school if they, like Mr. Shoop’s students, fail a course. This is due to budgetary reasons; however, in the 1980’s students were certainly able to attend summer school for enrichment.

The only way Mr. Shoop gets his students to study is by negotiating with them: Denise (Kelly Jo Minter) needs driving lessons so Mr. Shoop becomes her driving instructor. Rhonda (Shawnee Smith) is pregnant so Mr. Shoop becomes her Lamaze partner. Kevin (Patrick Labyorteaux) plays football so Mr. Shoop gives him lessons. Pam (Courtney Thorne-Smith) needs a place to live so Mr. Shoop lets her move in with him. Dave (Gary Riley) has a party at Mr. Shoop’s house with Mr. Shoop’s permission. Larry (Ken Olandt) sleeps in class so Mr. Shoop has a bed in the classroom. Chainsaw (Dean Cameron) gets to arrange a screening of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE in class.

Despite the wackiness, the students improve academically. SUMMER SCHOOL is a fun movie that serves as an escape because no school would allow much of what happens in the story. If you need to laugh SUMMER SCHOOL may be a good movie to put on your watchlist, even if you have seen it before.