Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

Jack had been eager to see this since the cardboard ad appeared in the lobby of one of our local cinemas. And we laughed many times at this raunchy, profane, stupid, rip-off of Back to the Future (part I, the only one!) where HTTM's past is BTTF's present. Star/producer John Cusack enlisted his co-writer of Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) and High Fidelity (2000) Steve Pink (director of Accepted (2006), another Peter Pan-ish comedy) to direct this, along with co-writers Sean Anders and John Morris (She's Out of My League (2010), which I haven't seen, but Mary Ellen couldn't remember which gags were in which movie after seeing both SOOML and HTTM in the same day with her son). Cusack (I listed my favorites in 2012) plays Adam, one of the three straight men to Rob Corddry's (probably best known for The Daily Show, he's been in plenty of movies including Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008) and W. as Ari Fleischer) manic Lou. The other two are Craig Robinson (best known as Darryl on The Office, but has been in movies, e.g. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007) and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian) and 24 year old Clark Duke, who has been acting since he was 7. I was glad to note that we saw the actors mentioned above on the screen the whole time, with the young doppelgängers only seen in mirrors. Rife with errors (here's a short list with spoilers, especially first and last), the movie lets us put our brains on auto for an hour and a half, which was nice, considering some of the dour art films we've seen lately. We were wild 30-somethings in the 80s (OK, I was), and the characters are supposed to be late teenagers, but I listened to a lot of that music (here's a carefully compiled list by a fan) and wore big hair, shoulder pads, and popped collars, just like in the movie! The wardrobe and hair are really fun and over the top. Marty McFly's down vest is in evidence, too. And Crispin Glover, the original George McFly, has a silly part, worth the price of admission. Back to the Future's plot started in 1985 and he traveled to 1955. This one travels to 1986 but an eagle eye posted on the imdb link above that the LED readout on the hot tub (which looked a lot like the DeLorean's) said 2006 at the beginning of the movie and 2010 at the end. Gee, I wonder: was the release of this masterpiece delayed?

Sadly, no bonus at the end of the credits, but one from the middle: "and introducing William Zabka," refers to the actor who played the bully in The Karate Kid (1984) and has a cameo in HTTM. If you loved The Hangover you will like this one (but Jack reminded me today, "It's no Zombieland").