Over
30 years ago, when still in my 20s, I bought in UK big box ex-rental VHS
videocassette format a 1986 movie entitled Jocks,
directed by Steve Carver, as it looked to be from much the same lightweight
genre of slightly bawdy but harmless slapstick fun as the Porky's and Lemon Popsicle
series aimed primarily at guys of my (then) tender, callow generation that I'd
previously watched and enjoyed back in the day. However, I somehow never got
around to watching this particular movie, which has stayed unopened, unviewed,
and scarcely even remembered by me on my video/DVD shelves ever since, with the
years (and decades) rolling on by – until 6 June 2020, that
is.
This was
when, as part of an intermittent but ongoing 1970s/1980s movies & TV
quasi-nostalgia trip that I've been embarking upon for some months now, I
finally did watch it. And when I say quasi-nostalgia, I mean that what I'm
watching a lot of right now are films and TV series first screened during that
specific time period but which I never managed to view back then, e.g. Hell Comes To Frogtown, The Great Land of Small, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Grace Quigley, Gemini Man, Manimal).
And
yes indeed, Jocks was exactly what
I'd expected, but what I hadn't expected was discovering just how much the
intervening years have evidently transformed me. Had I watched it straight
after buying it, this movie would no doubt have provided me with plenty of
laugh-out-loud moments. As it was, it was mildly amusing, passing 90 minutes or
so pleasantly enough but also entirely unmemorably. The plot of Jocks revolves around the desperate
attempts by an American college's tennis coach (played by Richard Roundtree) to
keep his youthful, unruly team of players out of trouble in Las Vegas the night
before their big match – but that sentence alone is enough to prophesy the comedy
mayhem that inevitably results!
Apart
from Roundtree, the only other – albeit decidedly unexpected – famous name in
the cast list is none other than Christopher Lee (and with not a vampire in
sight either!). Having said that, when I purchased this movie's videocassette I
remember thinking that the actor depicted on its box's front cover (pictured above)
was Patrick Dempsey, but when I watched the movie I discovered that he wasn't
in it at all. Instead, the lead actor was one Scott Strader, whose character,
nicknamed The Kid by his team mates, is clearly meant to be the guy portrayed
on the cover, yet looks nothing like the latter – very strange! Check out the front
cover picture here and see what you think.
Anyway,
as noted above, for me Jocks provided
some much-needed light, undemanding viewing tonight, hearkening back to a much less
complicated and far less troubled time than the one in which we are presently
living, that's for sure. However, in so doing, it also brought home to me how
so many things are not only very much a product of their time, but also a
product of ours, specifically the time when we originally encountered them, and
that ideally we should enjoy them then, rather than letting too much time slip
by before belatedly attempting to do so.
I
originally encountered Jocks in the
1980s, and to derive the fun from it that I could have done – should have done
– the 1980s is when I ought to have watched it. Procrastination, they say, is
the thief of time – and also of laughter, apparently. Or, to look at it from a
slightly different perspective, nostalgia isn't what it used to be
Anyway,
here
is an official trailer to show you what to expect in Jocks; and, at least right now, here
is the entire movie free to watch on YouTube.
And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!
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