Non-Guilty Pleasures: BRING IT ON

In my senior year of high school, some friends suggested we all go get something to eat and go see a movie. At the fast-food joint, I was more fascinated that a friend of mine liked pepper on his French fries than what we were about to see—some cheerleader movie called Bring it On which I expected to hate. I’m fairly sure I was just going along for the ride, something to do. What I saw, instead, was one of the most quotable teen comedies ever, only to be replaced four years later by Mean Girls.

While writing last week’s non-guilty pleasure essay on the Police Academy franchise, I had no need to go back and watch the movies. I know them scene by scene. But, when I realized my other guilty pleasure franchise began with Peyton Reed’s Bring it On, I was compelled to rewatch at least the first through third films. I suppose I should be slightly embarrassed being in my early forties and loving a film series about cheerleaders, but it’s not as if the actors in these films were teenagers. Like Saved by the Bell and other teen fare, young twenty-year-olds who look nothing like teens portray the high schoolers. So, frankly, if there’s judgment, I would judge the judger, whose mind must be sicker than mine.

But pretty women are far from the only reason to love these movies. Jessica Bendinger, the screenwriter of the original (who later wrote and directed the criminally underrated gymnastic comedy Stick It) helped create a perfect movie. While there are the usual comic complications, the original Bring it On is picture-perfect—fast, funny, energetic, full of fun music, and (of course) spirit fingers.

It is also, in its own way, dealing with a serious subject—that of privileged teens in predominantly white areas of California competing against inner-city, mostly black areas of L. A. When Kirsten Dunst’s cheer captain realizes all the routines her inherited team have been doing have been ripped off by a much better squad, her life is shattered. It is not played by Dunst for laughs. There is a moment when she is riding back to San Diego with Eliza Dushku (one of my favorite actresses) and says, “I am just cheerleading.” In most movies, this would be ironic, and you would laugh. But, performed by a great actor, there’s some kind of un-ironical seriousness that makes you root for her.

Now, what do I mean when I say Bring it On is a perfect movie? Yeah, it’s no masterpiece, but can we call it the Godfather of cheerleading movies? When 2009’s Fired Up!, another underrated movie, explored a cheerleading camp in which all the attendees can quote every line, almost cult-like, there is some truth to this. Fired Up! is a parody, but its worship of Bring it On, while amusing, is apt because the movie is hilarious, engaging, as said above infinitely quotable and, dare I say it, even life-affirming?

When the original more than doubled its budget, sequels were inevitable. The results have been in the original spirit to barely entertaining and, yet, because they stem from a great movie, they are watchable in their own way. Okay, only one is truly watchable—and we’ll get to that. But just like with Police Academy sequels, they have their own surprises.

Four years after the original, the first in many direct-to-DVD sequels began. While Bring it On Again shares the same producers (and nothing else), it is a completely different story. Well, actually, it’s the same story except this time it’s about college cheerleading. It suffers from being perhaps the least funny of any of the movies. You can tell fairly on when the Dean of California State College cuts funding from almost every department except its seven-time National Championship winners, the cheerleading squad, run by a true villain, played by Bree Turner. The original film had no villains, just two teams vying for the same spot—being the best. In this one, the Dean is a cartoon character, the two leads are completely nondescript, (the DVD cover showcases the minor character of Monica in the foreground, but the film’s “star” is Anne Judson-Yager who does not have a Wikipedia page and that’s probably for the best), but, watching it again, there were two things that did stand out: 1) there’s an activist student who does nothing but grumble about the patriarchy and pout (so, a prediction of our present time of whining, I suppose) and 2) one truly wonderful moment. I can’t tell you exactly how many times I’ve said, “Don’t be all up in my Kool-Aid,” but I can at least thank the movie for that.

Now for the switcheroo. Bring it On is a perfect movie, but Bring it On: All or Nothing is my personal favorite (like I prefer Police Academy 4 to 1). I would say it’s just as quotable and even manages to go deeper into the original racial tensions than the first movie as Hayden Panettiere’s character is forced to move to an inner-city school and somehow meld with a squad that breaks boundaries in lieu of being champions. The film is a delight despite the presence of Solange Knowles-Smith as the team captain; Solange, like her sister Beyoncé, cannot act. That being said, it does better than its predecessor in having more than one funny line, my particular favorite being, “Some of my best friends live next door to black people.” How these films are looked at now in our polarized, tribalistic age, I don’t know. But I still enjoy them. The third film also matches the feel of the original too in its use of pop music, especially the early work Rihanna (when it was fun) and Gwen Stefani in her “Hollaback Girl” phase.

The next film was Bring it On: In it to Win It. While it is directed by the same director as All or Nothing, it doesn’t have half the energy which is most likely due to a sad “Jets vs. Sharks” plot (literally) and lackluster performances by Ashley Benson, Cassie Scerbo, and Jennifer Tisdale. This is the Bring it On film that most feels like a Hallmark movie with its romance subplot. While third film could said to be shameless because Rihanna is featured because the grand prize is dancing with her in an alternative version of “Pon de Replay,” this one is a lot more shameless, tying in its parent company’s resort (Universal Orlando) and Ashley Tisdale, sister of Jennifer, who was attempting a solo career at the time and appears in the film.

The last of the original five (which should have been enough) was Bring it On: Fight to the Finish. It’s not a bad movie. Christina Millian stars and provides music. They really tried with her, but she just never caught on like most of her contemporaries. It is nice to see the film explore more of a Latin feel (though Leti’s presence in All or Nothing is a lot more fun), but otherwise it is a swap on All or Nothing with an inner-city girl going to a pristine WASP school. It is the point in the series where treading water was the way.

I’m embarrassed to say (or perhaps I shouldn’t be) that I have not seen the last two in the series, Bring it On: Worldwide Cheersmack, which was made a full eight years after Fight to the Finish, nor the “horror” spin-off Bring it On: Cheer or Die. I’m almost tempted to be cheersmacked because Vivica A. Fox, one of my favorite comic actresses, is in the movie, but being not much of a horror film fanatic, the likelihood of seeing Cheer or Die is slim. Though, who knows? Maybe in October, it could be a fun watch.

Cheerleader movies have a reputation for being exploitative and prurient, going back to the drive-in theaters of the 1970s. While there is a lot of sexual humor in the Bring it On films, I don’t think they fit into that category. They are fun and they especially enjoy lampooning that one girl in high school everyone hates from Whitney in the first one to Winnie in the third. The films are about being one’s self, breaking down barriers, and joy. That is why they are in another of my series of “non-guilty” pleasures. And, if you don’t like it—well, this is my website and it is not a cheerocracy.

Non-Guilty Pleasures: POLICE ACADEMY

We all have guilty pleasures. Seemingly, these would be interests that might be embarrassing to most folks, but I’ve rarely felt guilt about my particular batch. After all, mine are almost always comedy films and I believe to be the most well-rounded person you can be, you ought to learn to enjoy the widest variety of humor, from fart jokes to Oscar Wilde. For the next few weeks, I’ll be talking about some of these pleasures for which I feel no guilt.

When my father passed away in 2021, I went into two modes 1) being of use to mom and attending to her needs rather than mine and 2) I went into an infant-like state by watching comfort films—films from my childhood that distracted me even when I had seen them so many times, I could recite every word.

In the back corner of my closet are a bunch of wood-paneled VHS holders. VHS, of course, was the primary technology and, even though I haven’t bought one since they went out of circulation, my collection is still pretty massive. It didn’t take me long combing through the comedy section (yes, they are divided by genre—something I’ve been unable to do with the DVDs because it would take too much time I don’t have) to realize what I wanted to watch were the Police Academy movies.

While the original six films were all financially successful, from the very first, they were given criminal drubbing by critics. Roger Ebert, my favorite critic, predicted the original 1984 Police Academy would be the bad movie other bad movies would be judged by. He could not have foreseen The Room or Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, I guess. But, as a film critic myself (one of my few paid writing gigs in life), I wonder if I would have been as harsh. Ebert was quick to enjoy movies that emulated the movies he loved as a kid, sometimes being the only person to give a good review to dreck like Baby’s Day Out and Benji: The Hunted. For me, the slapstick (and slightly prurient) comedy of the Police Academy films represented my childhood. 

I can remember when the animated series was aired, I asked my parents for the complete action figure set. By the time Christmas rolled around, the figurines were not ready, and we got a similar promise that the toymakers of Star Wars figures gave during a time of overwhelming demand. We got a letter that we would be receiving the figurines and I think the only one I ever received was “House,” a minor character in the fourth film, Citizens on Patrol.

I can also remember in 1993 when the great blizzard came (yes, to Alabama), the power went off while a rented copy of a Police Academy movie was in the machine. It took weeks for the power to return and I was just happy the eject button worked and the tape had not been destroyed (they were my favorite movies to rent). So, in honor of Mahoney, Tackleberry, Hightower, Jones, and (of course) Captain Harris, here are the Police Academy films ranked from worst to best (even guilty pleasures can be ranked despite one’s “liking” all of them).

7. Police Academy: Mission to Moscow

It is a universal truth that the final film in the series ranks last. The first American film to be shot in Russia after the alleged disintegration of the U. S. S. R., my favorite review of it came from Leonard Maltin. He said if the Cold War had still been on, it might have made a good weapon: “it could bore people to death.” It has its moments and Ron Perlman’s villain using a Tetris-like game for money laundering is not the worst idea for a premise, but this one came years after Part 6. In the heyday, they made a movie a year, but by the time of Moscow, the rhythm and pacing were off. I mean, they were never terrific, but the jokes in this one iare, indeed, no-good-nik.

6. Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach

While technically number 6 is worse, the fifth installment is a disappointment on a much deeper level. Steve Guttenberg had headlined the first four films but could not appear due to being cast in Three Men and a Baby. Without Mahoney, our hero was gone and replaced by Commandant Lassard’s nephew, played by Matt McCoy. There is nothing wrong with Mr. McCoy—he had some great moments on Seinfeld (Lloyd Braun)—but he was no replacement. Watching RenéAuberjonois ham it up as a ridiculous cartoon villain should be fun but isn’t. Knowing the talent of the man, some of the things he had to do for a paycheck were truly sad.

5. Police Academy 6: City Under Siege

Technically, this is the film that broke the running streak, not opening at number one. Directed by The Bob Newhart Show’s Peter Bonerz, it has less a reason to exist than any of the others. The only thing that keeps it from being dead last is a great showcase for the talents of Michael Winslow, particularly his Jimi Hendrix one-man-show and karate scenes near the end. It is always fun to see Kenneth Mars on screen, this time as the villain. He looked a bit like a cartoon himself, so he fit within the franchise’s mode.

4. Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment

The second venture is notable for the inclusion of Commandant Lassard’s brother played by Howard Hesseman and the introduction of an unlikely comedy duo: Tim Kazurinsky and Bobcat Goldthwait. But, even without the R-rating, this film somehow turns out cruder than the first. The graduates battle a gang of ruffians in a film that screams 1985 in its color palette and tone. It is rarely funny except for a great moment with Sgt. Hooks (the late Marion Ramsey). That being said, if I were making Hollywood movies in the eighties and Bobcat Goldthwait came along, I’m not sure what I would have known to do with him. His best performance in film is as Zed, a perfect introduction to a comic persona that was very left-field at the time (the American equivalent of Rik Mayall’s British alternative comedy) and even refreshing.

3. Police Academy 3: Back in Training

Rarely is a third film in a series any good and there is no exception here, but it holds a higher place on the list for one reason and one reason alone: the introduction of a rival academy led by Commandant Mauser (Art Metrano). Replacing Captain Harris for two of the films, he does make a good foil for the struggling cops and, since the film is essentially one long prank on him, there are worse gags in the annals of ‘80s comedy.

2. Police Academy

Even the most die-hard fans of the franchise love the 1984 original the most, but I don’t. Police Academy was part of a trend in the early ‘80s of “snobs vs. slobs” films like Caddyshack. These movies were rated R and, while profitable, Hollywood figured out very quickly they could make more money on PG-rated comedies and, therefore, Police Academy took a safer route after the second film, one of the first with a PG-13 rating. The R-rated comedy did not make a comeback until Judd Apatow’s brief time as the king of Hollywood. But Police Academy is a child’s franchise. There are no academies like the one depicted in the films of course and it is a comic fantasy whose primary audience are 8–10-year-old kids, especially boys. Because this one has the hardest edge, it is too silly for adults and yet still not as exciting enough for kids and teens (despite the brief nudity). But it did start the whole trouble. After it, the opening march theme by Robert Folk became a frequent background noise in my home. The full musical theme is really quite good music.

1.     Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol

I cannot, for the life of me, understand why this is one of the 0% Rotten Tomatoes movies. Once Warner Bros. figured out they were making films for kids, Citizens on Patrol is the best of that milieu. It has an engaging premise: the academy is soliciting help and understanding from the community and begins a program for regular folks to assist the police and make the world a better place—at least Toronto, where most of the films were shot. It is a perfect showoff of the entire original gang, including Captain Harris whose performance in this one is, by far, the best. Hot air balloon rides, Sharon Stone and Colleen Camp, the poetry circle “Jean Jean Made a Machine…” and, of course, the film introduction of David Spade as a rad skateboarder (with Tony Hawk as his understudy). Is there anything not to like?

Beneath the 'Berg: The Director Who Wouldn't Grow Up

Several years ago, I received one of my infrequent birthday presents from an associate who was a fellow movie lover. When I opened the package, I didn’t want to seem dismayed, so I thanked him. Inside, I wondered why he had given me a large coffee-table book on Steven Spielberg. He knew the ‘Berg and I had “issues.” I realize I come from a different time and that I’m often a contrarian, but I admire a lot of what Spielberg has accomplished in his life. Those who shared the years of my childhood were all influenced in one way or another by one of the most profitable directors on Earth. Yet, as I grew older, I began to see cracks in the perfect veneer.

I imagine one of the first movies I ever saw was E. T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. Released a year before my birth, it is a film that is said to be magical and very touching. Aside from terrific performances by the actors (especially Henry Thomas), I always found it boring. This was years before our attention spans sputtered into nothing. It indeed does have some moments of movie magic (and, as always, a beautiful score by John Williams), but the plodding plot and the length of time between magic routinely put me to sleep and my VHS copy was used (along with Fantasia) to stave off insomnia, which has been a lifelong problem. But it is not just the film’s length and slowness that gives me issues.

I had a recent discussion so social media with a brilliant friend in which we bandied about on Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan for several hours. I think my major beef was Spielberg’s sentimentality. There’s a reason he made Hook. He never grew up. Part of this is something special because a lot of his films deal with childhood, children, and their point of view of the world. But the problem with sentimentality and someone who makes movies with a perfect sheen is the product is wide, not deep and leaves open so many opportunities for emotional manipulation.

No one likes to cry at movies and art the way I do. The tears are never of sadness, but a recognition of aesthetic beauty. While most people cry when Mufasa dies in the The Lion King, I cry when the herds bow down to Simba in the film’s opening moments (the opening is the best thing about the film). But I’ve never felt emotion for a Spielberg film—wistfulness, maybe—but not true emotion. Some directors are rather frank about their enjoyment in manipulating an audience. And most of the masters do, but they never show it. Spielberg ain’t so lucky. I can smell the cues a mile away and that prevents me from actually experiencing the sensation. When Hitchcock manipulates you, you have a big grin on your face. You don’t mind it because he’s smarter than you. Spielberg’s films appeal to almost everybody and, perhaps for that reason, the manipulation is rarely clever.

Let’s take a look at some of the biggies so I can express my problems. We recently had the 50^thanniversary of Jaws, most certainly a milestone in filmmaking. I’ve never found it particularly scary, but there is a certain fascination in seeing Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss work together. Vastly different from Peter Benchley’s novel (a fun read), today Jaws looks cheap and has the disadvantage of existing in a bizarre outgrowth of this century with people having a rather odd fascination (and love) of Great Whites.

None of these are the reasons I resent the film. As William Goldman pointed out, no single movie of the twentieth century changed cinema the way it did—and not for the better. After producers realized the kind of money they could make, the smaller, grittier films of the late sixties and early seventies (my favorite period) went by the wayside. Films could no longer open, play, and find their audience. All that mattered was that some teenager bought a ticket to your movie on the opening weekend. Spielberg (in tandem with Lucas) were the precursors of our Marvel problem today. They made amusement park rides—fun, most of them—but not films.

After the flop 1941, Spielberg rode high in the early ‘80s with fantasy. Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom were much like the Star Wars films—homages to the film serials of the ‘30s. The difference between those serials and the previously mentioned films is they had bigger budgets and most people seeing the movies between 1981 and 1984 didn’t know the swashbuckling pulp of the serials. To them, it was unique. But it never was. It was a retread and regression. I have, I admit, a soft spot for Temple of Doom. If you can believe it, it came with a Happy Meal when I was nine.

In the mid-80s, Spielberg began trying to wear the suit of an important director. He directed perhaps his most manipulative movie, The Color Purple, a misandrist piece of work that he had no business making. Aside from giving us the first commercial glimpses of what Whoopi Goldberg could do (there are no traces of her talent left as she makes her living as a political pundit), Purple sanitized Alice Walker’s book as Spielberg sanitizes everything, including the worst event in the 20^th century, but more on that later. After Empire of the Sun, Spielberg went back to his stock stuff for five years, producing one hit and one miss. The hit was the last Indiana Jones movie. Yeah, I said it. The miss was Hook, which wasted everyone’s time. Rather than doing a version of Peter Pan (which would have been autobiographical for Spielberg) he gave us a grim, garbled mess that elaborated on a mythology that, frankly, helped lead the world into an extended infantilization—most people escape teenage thinking now in their late thirties.

But 1993 was the year. Back to back, Spielberg would show us his consummate action skills with Jurassic Park (which I think everyone likes, including me) and Schindler’s List. Oh, no. He’s not going to say anything bad about Schindler’s List is he? Yes, I am. All I have to say is simply this: when you take a subject about the greatest failure of Western Civilization and play with the audience in the fake-out shower sequence, you should be fined at the least. As Terry Gilliam pointed out, Schindler’s List is not a story about the Holocaust where millions upon millions died—it’s a story of a minor (but still extraordinary) success. It’s a movie, I suppose, about hope—and the Shoah is not a story of hope. It is a story of evil. It might have been best never to have made it. I think that would have been more respectful.

After Jurassic Park, Spielberg whizzed in many different directions. He attempted to shoehorn one of his more prominent themes (parents and children) into an unintentionally funny sequel to Park, he made his real war movie Saving Private Ryan, and finished a Stanley Kubrick passion project. In my lively discussion with my friend, I held out that Ryan has an absolutely stunning beginning and then a plot that peters and peters out until we’re in a bombed-out church talking about the boys’ “first time.” I think Ryan is as sentimental as any of his films, not the major drama most people see. By the way, sentimentalism is never good. Sentiment can be life-affirming, but it’s a different thing and Spielberg doesn’t understand the difference between the two.

The early 2000s, I think, saw some of his best work. I see no flaws in Minority Report or Catch Me if You Can. The latter is the type of film he would have made had he lived in the early years of cinema. The major reason the film works is due to Leonardo DiCaprio, but Spielberg’s film is timeless now. In equal parts funny and actually touching, I think it’s his best work overall. Just because he deals with bigger themes in his more gigantic films doesn’t mean that he always had the assured hand. Catch is made by a true professional, which I’ve never argued Spielberg wasn’t. I never tire of watching it.

After it, there are definite stinkers. I think War of the Worlds is probably one of the ten most wastes of time I’ve ever seen on film. Lincoln is wonderful, but as disappointing as Hook in the sense that I would have loved to have seen a John Adams-style biopic of Lincoln directed by Spielberg. I got a movie about passing legislation. No, Steven. I want to see him grow up, save the Union, and be shot at Ford’s Theatre. He could have done that rather well, but he didn’t.

The last film I’ll discuss is West Side Story. Though a film about teenage gang violence in the 1950s, it is perhaps his most sentimental film. Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’ original film is a masterpiece—one of the best musical films of all times. Spielberg’s is tiresome with too much dialogue (some of it in Spanish un-subtitled which was Spielberg trying to get with the times but instead it just alienated the majority of its audience who hated it) and a miserably bad performance by Ansel Elgort, who’s got the screen presence of a rotting mushroom.

As a blog post, this is not as comprehensive as I’d hoped and I’m not even sure I’ve made my point except to say it is good to be young at heart, but there is a time to leave the milk and learn to chew meat. There is a time for emotion and a time for sentiment, but never emotional manipulation. There used to be a time when you go to the pictures and see a grown-up movie. Spielberg is one of the reasons those works go straight to Netflix today. They’re the better films, but they don’t make hundreds of millions of dollars, so they must be pointless, right?

Spielberg is approaching 80 and he will most likely never slow down. That’s fine; everyone should be allowed to do their work. But do yourself a favor and compare a list of the films Spielberg has produced and the films he has directed. You’ll see how much better the former is: Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, The Land Before Time, Arachnophobia, Twister, the Coen Bros.’ True Grit. He’s a great producer, executive or otherwise. He brings out greatness in actors, writers, and others for sure. But I hold to my point. There’s a reason why All the President’s Men was called the thinking person’s Jaws. I don’t want to insult anyone, but perhaps you understand my meaning. How much of his iceberg is beneath? Surprisingly little.