Thursday, April 3, 2008

cave girl award

Ewwwffh...
That's my review of CAVE GIRL, a 1985 comedy. Or travesty, rather. The writing is putridly, insipidly juvenile. I found this film reading an Amazon.com review which called it "stupid, but charming" (they were halfway right). Taken with a desire for a slice of 80s camp, and more to the point, curious to see a beautiful blonde bathing cave girl...
Why did i even watch this longer than ninety seconds? I could actually only stomach the second half in fast forward. I mean, it was just...it was sooooo...i don't even know whether the acting was as bad as the writing. It probably was, but the writing was so bad that it could have swallowed up any number of promising acting careers. One could only feel a deep sense of shame that people actually had to say these lines aloud. The only possible reason to watch the film, the naked cave girl frivolity, was quite underwhelming as well. I recommend this film to no one, i repeat NO ONE. So why am i committing minutes of my life to writing about it? Because there was an amazing performance buried underneath the awfulness. The lead actress, Cynthia Thompson, whose career started and ended in the 80s. What a terrible shame. She's one of the fortunate actors not forced to speak English, except for that which she parrots back to our time traveling high school geek hero (who is thirty, like all the other high schoolers). It doesn't hit you at first, but at a certain point her performance reaches out and gobsmacks you. She is just so unaffected and silly in the scenes where he tries to teach her English. Fed the most retch-inducing lines in the world, she somehow radiates pure endearment and funniness. Every other actor was just reading lines. It's hard to realize any of this with your stomach churning, but Cynthia, if you're still out there (her IMDB site didn't reveal much), bless you for all you did. We shall invent a new award based on your work: transcendant performance in an unwatchable film. The Cave Girl Award.
And it strikes me now, the only reason i would ever have any human watch this film. For i reaffirm, i am in NO WAY attempting to entice anyone into watching this. If you ever do meet someone who has voluntarily watched it, i want you to peer very deep and long into their soul. But...if i were teaching acting students who had professional aspirations, i would make them watch it from beginning to end, then ask them how badly they want this profession. Are they prepared to do a film of this caliber, to put food on the table? I would then make each of them say the worst line of the film, with 100% commitment.
Thank you, Cynthia. You deserved a million times better.

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