Ski School (1991)

Redundant and unnecessary.

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

"Ski School" is surely one of the better teen comedies of its genre. This is not saying much, I know: you could watch a hundred of these movies and not laugh even once, so their value as comedies is nil, and despite their designation as "boob comedies", "teen sex flicks", "t'n a fests", whatever you want to call them, they actually tend to be really light on the sex and nudity.What puts "Ski School" a cut above the average is that it's actually entertaining. It benefits from the charisma of Dean Cameron, a man whose eyebrows you surely remember if you've ever seen him in a movie. It is the old rich kids vs. the party animals set up, with the action taking place on a ski slope. I've seen this before with water skiers (Meatballs 4), white water rafters (Up the Creek), video game arcades (Joysticks (ugh)), diving (Back to School), and, uh, skiing (Hot Dog: The Movie).In probably all of these movies the heroes battle it out in their respective leisure activity with rich, serious, smarmy guys who seem to always have blonde hair. Do movies associate blondness with money, or just arrogance?So you see, setting the action on a ski slope was hardly original. What is something different, though, is that the movie actually generates a sense of excitement in the final scenes. You know who's going to win, obviously, but I wasn't bored watching. As a matter of fact, the movie is never boring, and that is enough to elevate it above 99% of teen sex comedies.

Ski School focuses on the party crazy, fun loving, ski students of the supposedly infamous "Section 8" of a ski camp of some sort. The very premise of the movie is extremely bizarre. Who goes to ski school? Who takes skiing this seriously? The party skiers clearly don't care about skiing, so why do they spend money to go to ski school? Why are the school's instructors such jerks to the dudes they're supposed to be teaching? Why are there 26 year olds going to ski school, shouldn't they have a job or something? These are all questions I thought, and are completely unanswerable in any mental capacity. Thankfully, the movie contains some purely excellent dialogue to make up for any plot shortcomings. There are some true pearls of wisdom to be gleaned from this film, such as, "It's not about how far you go, it's about how go you far", and "to succeed, you have to lose your mind". I'm pretty sure that's exactly what Tom Brady tells his huddles before he leads game winning drives. Some highlights: The "competition" at the end of the movie comes out of nowhere and it becomes painfully obvious that the no-talent-ass-clown writers of this great movie had no idea where it was going and basically took out a how to guide on how to write endings to horrible straight-to-DVD releases, you suffer through obvious stock footage of god knows what kind of ski events and the scoring of the events is definitely not based on anything whatsoever (besides, perhaps, how much neon you fit on you team uniform). Another highlight is related to the stock footage which they just abuse during this film....count how many times you see this tower advertising "Rossignol" snowboards (only the finest companies wanted to put their name in this film), I counted 53. The biggest sponser of the movie, Labatt Blue (I was shocked it wasn't Natty Light), provides the highlight of the film for me. At the "climax" of the movie, Section 8 shows up to the final "race" with a bunch of half naked bitties and a bunch of Labatt Blue (true bro-style) and just starts ragin on the mountain before they ski (obviously in good ol' the days before Sonny Bono ruined it for us all, i mean seriously the whole movie you see people skiing WHILE drinking, I'm talking beer in hand, it looks incredible). To accomplish this amount of large-scale raging, they send a sled FILLED with cases of delicious Labatt Blue down the hill...I think I shed a single tear at the glory of this scene.

This is one of those movies that some people remember forever. Incredible funny quotes and situations, very nice ladies, some great ski stuff and a perfect atmosphere !! I have never seen Dean Cameron in another movie but this one. He is SO FUNNY !!!!! The story is very simple. It's a ski competition. Several teams compete for the title, but Section 1 and Section 8 are the main ones. In Section 1 you have the well behaved guys, always practicing and trying to do their best. In Section 8 rules chaos, party, girls and a LOT of beer !! Who will get the girls and win the competition ? If you want to relax and have some laughs, this is the right movie. But I tell you now ... After seeing this movie ... You will want to become a PARTY BEAST !"So put that in your pipe, and smoke it mister!"

Sure, this flick would never be an Oscar contender, but does anyone really give a flying monkey! The important thing is that you can sit back, view this mayhem, and chuckle yourself into convulsions! Rising star of the slopes John E. Roland (Tom Breznahan, brother of Kevin and star of horror flicks such as The Brain (1988), Twice Dead (1988) and Mirror, Mirror (1990)), winds up in the infamous section 8, a collection of party animals led by Dave Marshack (a very amusing Dean Cameron - why this guy never became famous beats the hell out of me?), who is far more interested in beer and babes - who wouldn't be!!!, rather than being the saint of the slopes. Along with other members Ed (Patrick Labortyeaux, brother of Matthew) and "Fitz" Fitgerald (who equally matches Dean Cameron is the comedy department, who, too, deserves more these days), they set out to claim the mountain and win the annual event when they learn they're being forced out of their accommodation, due to their rowdy nature. Throw in some gorgeous females, most notably the stunning Charlie Spradling (wife of Jason London), and you have all the ingredients of a cult classic. Sadly, only Dean Cameron was to return for the sequel, due to financial difficulties. He, alone, makes the sequel worthwhile. So, settle in one evening, grab some beer and pizzas, then sit back and take in this madcap flick!