Fireballs

(Charlie Wiener, 1987)
I started with the last of the loose and autonomous cycle of tax shelter "Balls" films - Meatballs, Screwballs, Oddballs, Goofballs, etc etc - which actually bear more of an affinity with Porky's than with Ivan Reitman's breakthrough: boys, boobs, beer, and attempted belly laughs. I said attempted. This is probably the cheapest and least competent of the lot - not automatically a bad thing since smut is not improved by slickness. But these people really, really don't know what they are doing. From humorous talking parrot to the worst mullet in all cinema to the zaynee beer-hatted wildman, these guys took a sow's ear of a genre and made it into a bowel movement. The best thing you can say about it is that the relief fire crew from Japan doesn't wear buck teeth and pointy hats - unfortunately they don't do anything else, either. I am petty enough to hope no one on the creative team got laid for their efforts.