Hot Dog... The Movie

source: Hot Dog... The Movie

This movie deserves recognition for one important reason: it came up with a name for lousy endings. At the end of this very forgettable 1984 ski movie the protagonists decide to settle their quarrels by competing in a "Chinese Downhill." In one of the movie's few jokes, an Asian companion of the heroes, who has heretofore not uttered a word of English asks, "What the fu@k is a Chinese Downhill?" Allow me to answer that question. A Chinese Downhill is any movie ending that lacking any shred of originality, purpose, or reason simply devolves into a chaotic and completely stupid string of car chases, mindless violence, death, and mayhem. This boring cliché is to be expected of a low-rent mess of a movie like Hot Dog but some viewers expect something a little more sophisticated in big-budget productions, many of which make Hot Dog look like Citizen Kane. A paroxysm of bomb blasts and gunfire is a pretty lousy substitute for good writing, it's not even a substitute for really bad writing. I have said before that if the trailer for a movie has more than one explosion you can almost bank on the fact that the film will be a complete piece of sh#@, and you can double-down on that if the actors are shown diving away from a bomb blast going at the speed of sound as if they are dodging a lazily tossed beach ball. If the end of the movie has a host of explosions and people diving out of the way it means that the writers (bad movies almost always have lots of writers) had nothing in the way of ideas on how to bring their story to a close.

Screenwriting in the 80's must have been nice. You could write your movie, and then if you're stuck for an ending, simply introduce the concept of some athletic competition that will arbitrarily allow your protagonist to triumph. `Hot Dog…the Movie' is a nonsensical bit of garbage that is funny only when broken down to its basic elements (*, skiing, and weary character paradigms) and then mocked unmercifully. If the extended sex scenes (particularly the random wet t-shirt scene where women are forced on stage and an orgy ensues) were removed, and the skiing montages were reduced to their essence, you'd have a solid 25-minute film. About the length of a sitcom. And no, I don't consider extended nudity or scenes of super slow-motion ski jumping to be redeeming factors. Now to the characters. Why exactly are we supposed to empathize with Harkin after he cheats on Sunny? He then actually ensues to berate Sunny for her behavior, a nice example of the sexual double standard of this film. Then two scenes later, it's as if nothing ever happened and they're back in love. I can only assume that the film was shot out of sequence and the actors neglected to read the other parts of the script. Also, are we supposed to like Sunny? Why? Because she got kicked out of another guy's truck? Hell, I would have kicked her out of my vehicle; she spends half the movie being snotty to everybody. No, my guess, given this movie's moral code, is that we're supposed to like her because we've seen her breasts. I enjoy b-movies quite a bit, but I really couldn't bring myself to enjoy `Hot Dog…the Movie'. There just wasn't enough movie in it, just sex, random athletic endeavors, and jerks.

The snow always seemed an odd choice as a setting for a sex comedy. There's only one reason people watch movies like these, and that's to see nudity. It makes sense to set these at the beach, because at least there one expects to see more skin than they would in the suburbs or the city. But on the ski slopes? Why would one disrobe there? There could only be one reason why the producers decided to set "Hot Dog: The Movie" in a place so cold you need more clothes, not less: they needed something basic and arbitrary to separate their movie from the glut of other similar films flooding the market in the '80s. I guess they were also trying to cash in on the skiing fad, if that's what it was. The fact is, there is not enough nudity in this movie - despite the presence of softcore queen Shannon Tweed - to make it worth watching for anyone other than hardcore skiing aficionados. Even they might be annoyed at the idiocy of moments such as when one of the bad guys pushes a button on his belt and his helmet starts pumping out exhaust, making the guys behind him cough and gag. Or when the skiers all apparently become indestructible and start crashing through tables and glass. Try not to think of Sonny Bono during most of the movie, or cringe when one guy hits a tree. This all happens during the big race at the movie's finish. Getting there takes some effort. The movie is tedious and stupid. Consider the good guys, who have a collection of character traits that make them more pitiful than sympathetic. One is obviously an alcoholic, with little bottles of booze in every pocket of his ski vest. Is this supposed to be funny? Another is constantly plastering his face with zinc cream and propositioning women so that they can throw their drinks in his patchy white face. At one point he climbs into a gondola alone, while his friends have already taken to the sky, and they watch him get it on with some random girl who has no reason to be doing that. But never mind - his friends cheer him on although they have no way of knowing what he's doing. Their POV shots reveal nothing but the back of their friend's head. There is also a cardboard cut out bad guy, an Austrian with a great head of hair who acts like a huge jerk from his first appearance, because if someone cut you out of cardboard, you better do everything to make sure you fit the shape they made. Of course it ends up being the hero versus the bad guy, but the thing is, these two aren't the only ones in the competition, all the way up 'til the end. When the other good guys root for the hero, they seem to forget to, you know, root for themselves as well? Or do they know they're in a movie where they've been relegated to buddy status? There is very little nudity and a lot of skiing, which looks like someone lurching from side to side monotonously toward the camera. There is also a "freestyle skiing" round, where the skiers spin around like there's a rat in their pants they're trying to get rid of. It's a boring and stupid movie, and it's hard to imagine anyone enjoying it.

Im so sick of hearing another 80s cheesy movie for christ sakes it was the 80s they didnt have the technology or money to put into a movie. If you love to party and love to laugh then ull love this movie if a geek who loves star wars (theres a gay 80s movie) then ur probably one of these idiots who said this movie was gay. I love this movie and still watch it today as with a tone of other low budget 80s movies.

In reading username farnum's review, I couldn't help but laugh at the memory of David Naughton singing that stupid disco song Makin' It on Solid Gold..."I'm solid gold, I've got the goods"... I didn't know there was anyone out there who still remembers it besides me. I must agree unfortunately that his career definetly peaked with the Pepper Ads, and should probably stick to hocking soda (if that's even still an option for him now). This movie is guilty of every conceivable error in judgement by the writers, the director, and even the studio who allowed this truly bad 80's flick to be put out. Bad dialogue, bad acting, no discernable plot structure and given that I am a woman, too much T&A...(Exactly how much silicone did they actually PUT into Shannon Tweed anyway)?! Strange woman, she seemed more interested in Sunny than in Harkin. Why couldn't they have had Harkin gliding around naked on his back in that jaccuzzi instead of Shannon? Sunny treated Harkin like crap througout the entire movie. I guess being a hot babe counts enough with some men that they won't require you to have a personality. And that guitar serenade by Harkin to Sunny!! That went beyond embarrassing, to actually being painful for the viewer. Although the movie had some pretty good music in it by Duran Duran and Al Jareau, I found it annoying that they kept rewinding the songs over and over so that the tracks wouldn't finish up before the scene did. Despite the obvious problems though, I still laughed. I first saw it when it came out on HBO when I was 17, and just caught it again the other day. I found myself laughing in all the same places. I'm not sure what that says about me exactly since I am now a mature professional woman of 35, but it's true. That ski lift scene with the guy who had sunblock on his nose and the little ski bunny was quite memorable (as I'm sure it was for him as well)! I couldn't help but wonder if that sort of thing happens on ski lifts on a routine basis. Being a southern woman who has never made it to the slopes, I wouldn't know. In any event, if you've got any teenager still left in you, you should be able to get through it without feeling as though you've wasted too much of your time. As movies go in general I'd give it a 4 out of 10, but on the laugh scale it goes up to maybe a 7.

First rate T&A flick. Bizarre party scenes, seemingly endless amounts of nudity and a guitar serenade so mind-numbingly awful, it leaves you screaming for more! Shannon Tweed looks superb in this, as do all the other featured babes. See how many times you rewind the scene in which our ski hero, commenting on his smarmy German idol, mutters "He's the BEST!" Horrible, yet curiously endearing. You be the judge. 9/10 on the mondo movie scale.

How can people put down this movie? It is a classic raucous comedy from the 1980's. There is lot of nudity, and their may be some ethnic stereotyping, but I remember this as being my favorite movie from when my family first got a VCR. The skiing sequences are filmed beautifully, from a time when extreme skiing was just being born. If you are a fan of Warren Miller, you'll probably enjoy the scenes from the competition, and also the free-skiing. But who can forget the classic Chinese Downhill scene? I saw this movie on cable last night, and it's still as good as it ever was.

With the possible exception of Cusack's Better Off Dead (which only includes a bit of skiing). In response to whoever wrote something like "if you like Chocolat and the Piano, you're not going to like this." I loved Chocolat. I loved the Piano. And I also sincerely love Hot Dog the movie. And just so I don't seem like a simpering love-it-all. I hated Lord of the Rings, the Return of the King (the Two Towers was excellent, this one just did not know when to end and had nothing new to give). But back to Hot Dog.... This film actually seems more like a 70's flick than an 80's flick. Unabashedly sexual, friendly, self-absorbed but not self-conscious, Hot Dog is absolutely uncaring of the way the world takes it. It does not fit into the 80's scheme of things. It has more than its share of titillation, but it is not coldly calculated soft-* trash ala "Hardbodies." Hot Dog is more like Caddyshack but with ski stunts instead of star power. Hot dog is about the joys of hedonism and self assertion, plain and simple. It captures a brief moment in time just before Aids and the war on drugs would make everyone very nervous about who they are and what values they espouse. Which is also why no one has come close to making as good a ski movie as Hot Dog. What little I've seen since has been nothing but toned down Hollywood pap for the family market. Perhaps it cannot be done. Despite Shannon Tweed's plastic tits (although, did they have silicone implants back then?) and some very bad singing (and I don't mean Duran Duran - which was awesome!) this is a very fun and strangely honest film. Definitely worth checking out. Plus - it did coin the household phrase "Chinese Downhill." Which no one on the slopes I frequented had ever heard of before Hot Dog. How many B-pictures can claim that!

This movie was loosely based on actual experiences of the screenplay's author from his life as a ski bum hanging around the effervescent atmosphere of Squaw Valley. The "Chinese Downhill" was a real event at Squaw for many years (cancelled after a spectator was tragically killed after a collision with a participant/skier). If you're lucky, you may get to ride the lift with George/"Slasher" who still skis there regularly. Don't try and keep up though. Living in a ski town near Squaw, I actually know a guy whose whole life changed after watching "Hot Dog". He moved to Tahoe and he's an instructor there right now. Can a movie like this change someone's life? It already has. BTW, the 20th anniversary of the movie's party in 2004 at Squaw Valey was a hoot, with most of the original cast making an appearance, and the crowd dressed in vintage gear and reciting lines during the movie's screening. Maybe a 25th?