SHERDOG MOVIE CLUB: Week 85 Discussion - Tuff Turf

[Cubo de Sangre]

I remember hating it, but yeah I guess it might have pulled another crowd. I don't recall much buzz about it though.

I thought it was ok. You got a guy getting chicks to explicitly talk about their sex lives on video so he can masturbate to it. You never wanted to give that a go?

 

[MusterX]

Hell yeah, Back To School was the shit.

It's amazing how tech has changed us culturally and socially since then. 80's flicks are a glimpse of the long lost, never to return, analogue past that I grew up in and loved. So yeah, I can relate.

You could be writing my biography.

Yes, and it can't be explained to people who didn't experience it. There is a dividing line, the world before the information age, and the world after and they are distinctly different. I happen to be old enough to have experienced both.

As far as writing your biography, 1980-1999 was a helluva run. Decades that remarkable are not likely to be repeated in my lifetime.

 

[MusterX]

Remember parking lot fights? Guys used to have beefs and schedule the fight after school, then you'd spend all day getting each other pumped to see them fight, unless you were going to be in it then you hang with your buddies all day and they talk shit about the other guy. Sometimes a really good one would be held at the football field, if it was off season.

Also, muscle cars (I had mustangs), doughnuts, and school parking lots were made for each other.

But the movie had a security guard, so I thought it was funny he'd catch a guy for riding a bike and not see or hear those cars peeling out and spinning around the lot.

Do I remember parking lot fights? Let me tell you something. I still remember we had a guy at my high school named Tommy Baker who apparently failed about 4 grades and he was literally Buddy Revell incarnate. This is not hyperbole at all, he was a feared individual and wore a leather jacket.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Do I remember parking lot fights? Let me tell you something. I still remember we had a guy at my high school named Tommy Baker who apparently failed about 4 grades and he was literally Buddy Revell incarnate. This is not hyperbole at all, he was a feared individual and wore a leather jacket.

Did he carry brass knuckles?

 

[MusterX]

Did he carry brass knuckles?

I don't know if he specifically had any brass knuckles but I do remember he drove a Trans Am and he went to jail because he pulled a club out in the parking lot and beat a couple guys down with it.

 

[sickc0d3r]

I thought it was ok. You got a guy getting chicks to explicitly talk about their sex lives on video so he can masturbate to it. You never wanted to give that a go?

I am recalling more about it now... yeah, I am pretty sure I was disappointed in the lack of nudity for me to use during happy time. Looking on IMDB it did pretty well for a low budget flick and was well liked, so I guess I need to rewatch.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

I am recalling more about it now... yeah, I am pretty sure I was disappointed in the lack of nudity...

Concurred. But conceptually it's a pretty hot movie. Plus you got the guy banging his wife's sister arc.

 

[sickc0d3r]

Do I remember parking lot fights? Let me tell you something. I still remember we had a guy at my high school named Tommy Baker who apparently failed about 4 grades and he was literally Buddy Revell incarnate. This is not hyperbole at all, he was a feared individual and wore a leather jacket.

Oh yes, we had our share of mean sob's, ala Banion from Dazed and Confused. And being teens without cell phone cams and whatnot, it was just word of mouth gossip from eyewitness accounts that made their reputation.

 

[MusterX]

Oh yes, we had our share of mean sob's, ala Banion from Dazed and Confused. And being teens without cell phone cams and whatnot, it was just word of mouth gossip from eyewitness accounts that made their reputation.

ahahaha, O'Banion from Dazed and Confused. The struggle is real.

That group of guys is interchangeable with real groups of assholes from the 80's and 90's just like them. Every town in America had that group of guys lol.

 

[Guestx]

Yea but you must admit that the milestones are what make the decade. For me, my first car, first girlfriend, first beer, first job, everything came in the 80's. So its a big decade for me. The 90's were a big decade for me as well because I partied a lot in the 90's....a......lot.

I think for me I think less in terms of milestones--individual events--and think more about the general shit that I was up to around that time and who I was hanging out with.

For me, the late 80s/early 90s was characterized by my absolute obsession with martial arts: my friends and I getting together to practice martial arts together, playing games like Ninja Gaiden, watching movies like Bloodsport and Revenge of the Ninja, and so on.

Then the next period I jump to is the late 90s and early 00s, which is characterized by hanging out with my friend Brian (who I met at my first job as a clerk at a grocery store), playing Playstation, listening to nu-metal, and dreaming about all the cool shit we were going to do in the future.

So check this out. Those guys went back to that exact 7-11 in 2014 and filmed it to see the differences in people. In 2014 they were 48 years old. Its interesting the comments section on YouTube for the first video and then the comments on the follow up 27 years later are completely different.

That's pretty interesting.

I'm trying to figure out if these guys just walked in and started filming or if they cleared it with the manager first. Because it seems to be the former, but you'd think that whoever is running the store would be like, "Hey, you guys can't do that shit in here."

In any case, that first video from the 80s is pretty fucking rad.

 

[Guestx]

Did he carry brass knuckles?

Brass knuckles and a switchblade. That's what you need to be legit.

Speaking of which, the moment in Tuff Turf when that guy goes up to his girlfriend and says "I need your blade" and she pulls a switchblade out of her bra was truly bizarre, especially since those two didn't seem to be gang-affiliated or anything like that.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Brass knuckles and a switchblade. That's what you need to be legit.

Speaking of which, the moment in Tuff Turf when that guy goes up to his girlfriend and says "I need your blade" and she pulls a switchblade out of her bra was truly bizarre, especially since those two didn't seem to be gang-affiliated or anything like that.

You didn't just think to yourself "That's my kind of woman!"?

 

[the muntjac]

LOL, yes. I was definitely like, "Why isn't this guy in jail already?"

But since they did decide to go in the direction they did, there are a couple of things this movie lacked that it really needed.

1. Karate
2. Nunchucks

I mean, c'mon, this is a movie from 1985 about a high school kid who has to take on a gang of bullies. It really is something of a travesty that he was not a black belt in karate (or I would also accept taekwondo) and that at no point in the film is a pair of nunchucks brought out.

He could've even used this book to learn how to use them:

Holy shit, that didn’t even cross my mind. Since Morgan is some rich kid from a well-to-do family, surely he took some karate lessons along with those piano lessons. Come to think of it, this is sort of sounding like Karate Kid now.

 

[Guestx]

Holy shit, that didn’t even cross my mind. Since Morgan is some rich kid from a well-to-do family, surely he took some karate lessons along with those piano lessons. Come to think of it, this is sort of sounding like Karate Kid now.

Add in karate and the movie gets a full extra point from me.

 

[the muntjac]

All I’m learning in this thread is that I was born too late. To Muster’s point, being that I was born in ‘85, the 90s and early 2000s was my growing up time, but I watched tons of movies and listened to tons of music from the 80s during that time, so I always have identified with the decade even if I don’t remember it. Although, the 90s arguably had the greatest cartoons of all time, so that worked out for me.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

All I’m learning in this thread is that I was born too late. To Muster’s point, being that I was born in ‘85, the 90s and early 2000s was my growing up time, but I watched tons of movies and listened to tons of music from the 80s during that time, so I always have identified with the decade even if I don’t remember it. Although, the 90s arguably had the greatest cartoons of all time, so that worked out for me.

If you like Metal or Hardcore, the '80's pretty much crushed.

 

[europe1]

1. I wish @chickenluver didn't leave the club so that I could have someone my own age to talk to


2. James Spader in this movie has about the same relationship to his leather jacket as Ryan Gosling has to his jacket in Drive.

3. Kim Richards is a babe. She consist of about 50% hair. She's a former child actor. She's the pigtails girl whom gets shoot and killed in the beginning of Assult on Precient 13. I guess doing that kind of shit will traumatizing you into growing up an making Tuff Turf.

4. This is such a cool -- if cheesy -- way of introducing the films theme. Spader has this poster of Albert Einstein on the wall. Obviously, the quote refeers to himself, feeling that he is of lofty potential yet facing opposition from those who cannot understand him (through violence with the Paul Mones or a lack of understanding from his mother). As the film begins, cochroaches are crawling over Einstein's visage. This communicates the theme of the film -- Spader is Einstein and the coachroaches are the vermin (Mones and his friends) trying to destroy him and sully his soul. Spader shoots them with his dart gun -- just as he dart-guns one of Mones henchmen in the face at the ending of the film.

I kind of think this theme got lost a little bit in the whole lovestory drama. The film also ambles into a class-drama -- but doesn't really expand upon it or integrate it into the whole Spader learning to become whom he wants to be theme. That's a thing I think the film could have done better. Like, maybe if Spader realized more that Kim Richards had grown up facing challanges that he never faced growing up with riches. You know, broaden his horizon and all that. Instead it leans more on the "tough to be rich" angle. Speaking off...

6. This is just a minor, general tidbit. But I've always found it hilarious how in American movies people are presented as poor or down-on-their-luck yet still living in freaking houses. Spader's dad now works as a cab driver yet their house has a freaking front lawn! And this is supposed to be a tough neighborhood! I know that basic housing-designs are very different in America -- with the abundance of land and all that -- but it always just seemed so hilarious to me. You'd be considered loaded if you had that where I'm from. Yet in movies like this they threat it like they're living in the projects or something.

7. This is a really, really fun film. Especially the first half. The second half tries to play it more as a serious drama which abandons it's characteristic strenghts. Plus some of the plotpoints don't really pan out.

It works so wonderfully because it unblinkingly plays into 80's-excess. The clothes are outlandish. The parties are over-the-top. Live-band playing is in a boom period. The conflicts are outlandish. Peoples actions and mannerims are not-quite theatric but something akin to it. The movie almost feels like it exists in an realm of unreality. It's one of those movies that feels like it takes place in a parallell universe that's very similar to ours but is different in some strange, iconic manners. I love films that do that. It really is a cumulative effect that creates a specific, charming ambiance.

8. Paul Mones coerces Kim Richard's into marrying him? And her pops makes the decision for her? What is this -- a chivalric epic romance?

9. Something about James Spader's voice makes him feel a lot older than he is.

10. Even the "crash the country club" scene is good in this movie. Those can be so cringy -- but here it was geniunelly charming. Again, it's playing in that realm of unreality which makes cringy shit like that work.

It's Rebel Without A Cause, meets Footloose, meets West Side Story, and it's a trip.

After awhile, I was expecting every scene to be accompanied with a live band playing. Even the scene in the shower where Morgan is being whipped with the towel/lock combo, I imagined a 7-piece band standing in the corner looking on in horror, yet still playing.

This would make an excellent double-feature with Streets of Fire.

Anyways, it was kinda hard to be able to discern which decade this movie came ou-- Okay, I can't finish that sentence,

She's attractive and did a great job in this movie, so why didn't she work more? That's weird.

Classical child-actor burnout, maybe?

 

[the muntjac]

Kim Richards is a babe. She consist of about 50% hair. She's a former child actor. She's the pigtails girl whom gets shoot and killed in the beginning of Assult on Precient 13. I guess doing that kind of shit will traumatizing you into growing up an making Tuff Turf.

You just blew my mind with this revelation. I remember the first time I saw that scene, and for some reason I laughed really hard when the goon shoots her. There is just something absurdly hilarious about it.

Carpenter was apparently trying to be pretty edgy by depicting a little girl getting shot in cold blood, and not pulling away from it either. It’s not done like we see him aim the gun and pull the trigger, then cut to the ice cream falling and hitting the ground. No. We see the blood splatter impact right on her chest. This is why when the ice cream guy messes up my order, I just keep walking.

 

[europe1]

You just blew my mind with this revelation. I remember the first time I saw that scene, and for some reason I laughed really hard when the goon shoots her. There is just something absurdly hilarious about it.

Carpenter was apparently trying to be pretty edgy by depicting a little girl getting shot in cold blood, and not pulling away from it either. It’s not done like we see him aim the gun and pull the trigger, then cut to the ice cream falling and hitting the ground. No. We see the blood splatter impact right on her chest.

I'm more amazed by what a bait-and-switch it is. We expect the ice cream guy to get shoot. And then she just appears and gets gundown in less than a second!

This is why when the ice cream guy messes up my order, I just keep walking.

I am also traumatized by ice cream vendors... but for different reasons.

 

[sickc0d3r]

1. I wish @chickenluver didn't leave the club so that I could have someone my own age to talk to


2. James Spader in this movie has about the same relationship to his leather jacket as Ryan Gosling has to his jacket in Drive.

3. Kim Richards is a babe. She consist of about 50% hair. She's a former child actor. She's the pigtails girl whom gets shoot and killed in the beginning of Assult on Precient 13. I guess doing that kind of shit will traumatizing you into growing up an making Tuff Turf.

4. This is such a cool -- if cheesy -- way of introducing the films theme. Spader has this poster of Albert Einstein on the wall. Obviously, the quote refeers to himself, feeling that he is of lofty potential yet facing opposition from those who cannot understand him (through violence with the Paul Mones or a lack of understanding from his mother). As the film begins, cochroaches are crawling over Einstein's visage. This communicates the theme of the film -- Spader is Einstein and the coachroaches are the vermin (Mones and his friends) trying to destroy him and sully his soul. Spader shoots them with his dart gun -- just as he dart-guns one of Mones henchmen in the face at the ending of the film.

I kind of think this theme got lost a little bit in the whole lovestory drama. The film also ambles into a class-drama -- but doesn't really expand upon it or integrate it into the whole Spader learning to become whom he wants to be theme. That's a thing I think the film could have done better. Like, maybe if Spader realized more that Kim Richards had grown up facing challanges that he never faced growing up with riches. You know, broaden his horizon and all that. Instead it leans more on the "tough to be rich" angle. Speaking off...

6. This is just a minor, general tidbit. But I've always found it hilarious how in American movies people are presented as poor or down-on-their-luck yet still living in freaking houses. Spader's dad now works as a cab driver yet their house has a freaking front lawn! And this is supposed to be a tough neighborhood! I know that basic housing-designs are very different in America -- with the abundance of land and all that -- but it always just seemed so hilarious to me. You'd be considered loaded if you had that where I'm from. Yet in movies like this they threat it like they're living in the projects or something.

7. This is a really, really fun film. Especially the first half. The second half tries to play it more as a serious drama which abandons it's characteristic strenghts. Plus some of the plotpoints don't really pan out.

It works so wonderfully because it unblinkingly plays into 80's-excess. The clothes are outlandish. The parties are over-the-top. Live-band playing is in a boom period. The conflicts are outlandish. Peoples actions and mannerims are not-quite theatric but something akin to it. The movie almost feels like it exists in an realm of unreality. It's one of those movies that feels like it takes place in a parallell universe that's very similar to ours but is different in some strange, iconic manners. I love films that do that. It really is a cumulative effect that creates a specific, charming ambiance.

8. Paul Mones coerces Kim Richard's into marrying him? And her pops makes the decision for her? What is this -- a chivalric epic romance?

9. Something about James Spader's voice makes him feel a lot older than he is.

10. Even the "crash the country club" scene is good in this movie. Those can be so cringy -- but here it was geniunelly charming. Again, it's playing in that realm of unreality which makes cringy shit like that work.







This would make an excellent double-feature with Streets of Fire.







Classical child-actor burnout, maybe?

Holy shit that's a good review. I like the cut of your jib.