Pinball Summer (1981)

Sadly Over-hyped

good back-story, and good acting

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

The original title "Pinball Summer" is more thematic, but there is a fair amount of picking up/pulling/scoring and mostly just making out in this juvenile offering. Generally, films with this type of cast fall into one of two categories: horror in particular slasher films in which even the gorgeous girls get killed, and half-baked scatological escapades in which testosterone-filled teens and young men chase girls who are often more than willing to get caught. There is usually a virgin of course, as well as a nerd and an alpha male/bully. Other characters include exasperated older people, and occasionally cops who are out to spoil the fun.All those elements are present here, but the film doesn't succeed. The plot, such as it is, is about a pinball competition with a long run-up into it. On the plus side, nobody gets killed, and as the bad guys are more idiots than thugs, there are no villains with a capital V either, so no real triumph, certainly not over evil. There is a soundtrack, but even that is half-hearted. Watch a slasher flick next time.

I first saw this movie on TV when I was about 12 or 13 and liked it. Then I purchased the movie on DVD in 2004 and have watched it several times since then. Although I find it cheesy and pretty much plot less, I think it shows quite well what summers were like for teenagers back in the late 70's early 80's. There is always stuff going on from beginning to end and the music is awesome! The bikers are funny and there's a bunch of nice girls and nice cars! Also interesting to see La Ronde amusement park as well as what seems to be Lachine or Beaconsfield as some of the shooting locations. A good movie from yesterdays!

I really enjoyed this cheaply madcap, low-brow Canadian teen sex comedy… as I found it hard not be smitten by its passionate shenanigans. Not much goes on… well actually, yes there's a lot going (schools out and summer awaits with teens running wild and getting in all sorts of trouble), but its something like a senseless parade lynch together than anything that really resembles a story. It's basically plot-less (although the film does feature two guys trying to impress two sisters and there's a pinball competition which could be seen as the backbone to all of this fooling about), instead it's made up of spontaneously breezy episodes where it just wants to break out a song interlude every five minutes. In which case it does, as someone was definitely popping coins in the jukebox hooking up those bouncy, if unbelievably cheesy tracks. So why think about it though, it promises fun with its constant raunchiness, carefree slapstick and crass jokes. Dialogues are crude, but comically cheeky ("Come on Steve, at least he got the measurements right"). The girls are voluptuous in their skimpy outfits, the guys are rowdily juvenile and the grown-ups are just clueless. It's all stereotypical, but that's the charm. Michael Zelniker and Carl Marotte are amusing as the goofball lads, while the beautiful Karen Stephen and Helen Ude (sister of Claudia) give typically sweet performances as their girlfriends. Thomas Kovacs is picture-perfect in his role as the snake-like Bert, a biker who gets around with three buddies. Also having memorable parts are the curvy Joy Boushel (just wait for strip pinball), Joey McNamara, J Robert Maze and Matthew Steven as a spoiled rich kid. Director George Mihalka ("My Bloody Valentine") plays it in a farcical manner, by teasing with the camera and frenetically letting it unfold. "Well isn't it Tarzan and his three apes."

This movie is a golden feast bursting with the delicious flavours of a grade A hamburger cooked to perfection and shoved into an exhaust pipe during some well executed tomfoolery. Few directors have burst on the scene with as much promise as a young George Mihalka in 1979, truly a time which we all remember as the Pinball Summer. With the ballsy grit of a Canadian Martin Scorcese who was half circus clown and half inbred madman, Mihalka was the name on the tip of many film industry tongues that year. This homo-erotic masterpiece - scored to perfection by songwriting team Jay Boivin & Germaine Gauthier A.K.A. The Rock'n'Roll Genius Twin Set - had people expecting great things from the young maverick. Stars Michael Zelniker and Tom Kovacs became overnight sensation heartthrob superstars in the gay sections of Montreal ghettos. The plot, following the exploits of two fun loving idiots who constantly screw over other people for no reason, was of immeasurable influence to some of the biggest comedy hits of the next decade. Films such as Police Academy and Snowboard Academy took the patented Pinball Summer formula of mixing a wacky, mischievous protagonist with the occasional naked boobies and added their own elements like 'funny black guy' or 'short nerd who is also dumb' or in some cases 'poop snowman.'This influence can not be accurately gauged by the film's commercial success, as it failed to ignite at the box office during a year which the a short lived 'Pinball Craze of 79/80' was sucking the disposable income from an estimated 90% of America's illiterate youth. (The original tagline of "Pinball Was their Vietnam" didn't seem to help much either) Fortunately, several discarded prints of the film found their way into the right hands and began making the rounds at some of Hollywood's most lavish coke parties. Before long Pinball Summer was not only the hippest movie to feature at coke parties across America, it became an in-joke which served as a passkey into the cocaine culture that ruled the 80's. Those who didn't know the right references from Pinball Summer simply weren't allowed access to the back rooms of the presidential suites or anywhere on Roberts Evans' property, and in some cases were badly beaten out of paranoid suspicion.While most of the cast shunned the poison apple of Hollywood and went back to working as happy garbagemen in various townships across Quebec, a hungry George Mihalka kept at it. And while his career never reached the heights that his mother had predicted after such an astonishing debut, there are many critics who feel that 14 projects and 16 years later Mihalka finally bested himself with the straight to video favorite 'Deceptions 2: Edge of Deception.' D2 transplanted many of the dominant themes of his early work into the thriving genre of the erotic thriller, and opened the doors for the radical visionary to bring the his message to a new generation with a new set of problems. In 1995 D2 was unleashed on VHS to a world far more complex and less fun loving than that of 1979. A world where Pinball is sadly no longer the answer. Thank God naked boobies can still make a difference.