Up the Academy (1980)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Good movie but grossly overrated

Good concept, poorly executed.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

When you have a comedy franchise as massive as Mad magazine, it seems that surely there must be some movie they could get out of it. This is that movie and it ended up being the only movie that ever had the Mad name on it. Actually, it doesn't even count as that. The creators of Mad magazine did in fact have their names removed from this film and have disowned it. I remember reading about this on Cracked.com where it said one of the movie's main jokes is that there's a pedophile. They honestly must not have seen the whole thing as that's barely in the film at all.The creators admitted that it was influenced by "National Lampoon's Animal House", another movie based on a comedy magazine. At least their magazine didn't last as long. The movie mostly suffers from having really unlikeable characters and dumb jokes. The general guy farted twice and didn't even do it a third time! I've still seen far worse movies and I wish the creators of those ones would disown them too. I just saw no satire or parody factor in this at all. *1/2

That's what my friend Brian said about this movie after about an hour of it. He wasn't able to keep from dozing off. I had been ranting about how execrable it was and finally I relented and played it, having run out of adjectives for "boring". Imagine if you will, the pinnacle of hack-work. Something so uninspired, so impossibly dreadful, that all you want to do after viewing it is sit alone in the dark and not speak to anybody. Some people labor under the illusion that this movie is watchable. It is not, not under any form of narcotic or brain damage. I would ONLY recommend this to someone in order to help them understand how truly unbearable it is. Don't believe me? Gather 'round. Granted, as a nation, we in America don't always portray Middle Eastern peoples in a tasteful manner. But how about a kid in a sheik outfit bowing in salaam-fashion to a stack of Castrol motor oil bottles? You'll find that here. GET IT? THE ARAB WORSHIPS OIL. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Having the kid fly planes into a skyscraper would've been more appropriate. Who in their right mind would think that was a funny joke? It's not even close to "cleverly offensive". It just sucks and makes you want to punch whomever got paid to write that bit in the face. In the middle of the film, a five-man singing group called the "Landmines" takes the stage at an officers' ball. Okay- are you ready? The joke is THEY SING TERRIBLY AND OFF-KEY. Why did I write that in caps also? Because the joke is POUND, POUND, POUNDED INTO YOUR HEAD with a marathon of HORRENDOUS sight gags. They start off mediocre enough; glasses cracking, punch tumblers shattering... then there is, I am 100% serious, a two-frame stop-motion sequence of A WOMAN'S SHOES COMING OFF. You read that correctly- the music was so bad, in one frame, the woman's feet have shoes on. In the very next- the shoes are off!!! Get it, because the music was so bad, her shoes came off! What the F???? Then there is an endless montage of stock footage to drive home the point that the SINGING IS BAD. If any human being actually suffered through this scene in the theater without running like hell, I would be astonished. This movie is honestly like a practical joke to see how fast people would bolt out the doors. Robert Downey Sr. directs comedy the way his son commands respect by staying drug-free. Badly. Other things to watch out for:1. The popular music shoehorned in wherever possible. Every time Liceman appears, a really inappropriate Iggy Pop song plays. Plus all the actors do their best to act like it got really chilly for some reason.2. Barbara Bach's criminally awful accent. She sounds like she's trying to talk like a baby while rolling a marble around on her tongue. There is no nudity, and there are several scenes where the boys all moan and writhe from a glimpse of her cleavage, like they're in a community school acting class and they've been directed to act like aroused retarded people. 3. Liceman feeds his revolting dog a condom. Remember; when this movie came out throwing in "abortion" and "condom" was seen as "edgy". 4. Tom Poston plays a mincing, boy-hungry pedophile, back when Hollywood thought "pedophile" and "homosexual" were one in the same. Flat-out embarrassing. 5. Watch the ending. Nothing is wrong with your VCR. That is actually the ending. Tell me that doesn't make you want to explode everyone who's ever made any movie, ever. Watch this at your own risk. Up The Academy has been known to actually make other movies, like The Jerk or Blazing Saddles, less funny simply by placing the videotape near them.

A screwball, sophomoric, made-on-a-shoestring fluff-of-a-cheapo by the mentally 'very questionable' folks over at Mad Magazine, this hum-dinger of a bomb was Ralph 'Karate Kid' Macchios' feature film debut. As lame, dunced-up and pointy-headed as this flick is, on a slow night [reeeeeeally slow!], I can't seem to stop myself from pulling this one off the shelf, now and again and vegging out in front of it with a bag of chips, a cold drink and a box of rotten fruit for throwing!Check out Ralphs 'New Yawk by-way-of-corner store' drawl; check out the smoldering munitions insctrutor [by way of lovely Barbara Bach] who knows her way around a fully loaded 'weapon'! Check out the young misanthrope rejects from a geek festival who become Ralphs cohorts in misadventure in this dust bin disaster and most of all...most of all, sit up straight for the over starched commandant when he's on screen or you may get a stiff "DO IT AGAINNNNNN!" reproach from him! He's a very disturbed egg that one! And in need a a very BIG pill!.Dumb as this movie is, it's one of those i keep coming back to because it's lovable, way [WAY!] off the quirk-meter and just a friggin' hoot!

I saw "Mad Magazine's Up the Academy" when it was first released in 1980. Just after I saw it, I read that the editors and publisher of Mad Magazine disowned the flick. In fact, I understand that the scenes of the guy in the Alfred E. Newman outfit have been cut from the movie. Also I read that supporting player Ron Leibman was so disgusted with the movie he had his credit removed. This movie had high school kids masturbating in the classroom, references to "hot beef injection" and many, many, MANY other scatological and sexually perverse goings on. Its nonsensical filth disgusted everyone who saw it in 1980.In other words, "Up the Academy" was a visionary creation, 20 years ahead it's time. Of course, this certainly doesn't mean it was any good.