Sometimes when people are sad, they shop. I am no different. Last weekend wasn’t the greatest but I am not going to get into that here. No here we talk about fun stuff! Last week, to celebrate my new job, I treated myself to two very on sale collections. And they arrived at just the right time.
#1) POLICE ACADEMY on Blu Ray:
All 7 movies in glorious HD and 1.0 sound. Wait…1.0?!?! I didn’t even know that existed. Well, anyway, it doesn’t matter because these are movies I don’t really need digitally re-mastered.
If I am being completely honest, these movies haven’t aged as well as some it’s fellow 80s counterparts so I don’t know if you come into this as a rookie, you might not enjoy it very much. Even the first one isn’t quite the classic that I remember but I still laughed at all the same places. However, if you have as many fond memories of this series as I do, this is a must buy. Especially at the cheap price I found it for.
I have never seen the 7th and I haven’t seen 2-5 in about 15 years at least. That makes me very excited because these were naughty movies I was allowed to watch. REVENGE OF THE NERDS was the other one. No PORKYS in my house. Although, truth be told I don’t think my parents remembered how nudey PA and REVENGE were. And I wasn’t going to remind them.
POLICE ACADEMY(1984) – Animal House at the Police Academy, best way to describe it. Not even close to classic AH is but still a good representation of the humor that made lots of money in the 1980s. Steve Guttenberg leads a rag tag group of misfits as they try to survive the training of G.W. Baily. Lots of very Not-PC humor in this one.
POLICE ACADEMY 2: THEIR FIRST ASSIGNMENT(1985) – They toned down the R-Rated stuff here and introduced us to Bobcat Goldwaith. Thank you for the latter at least.
POLICE ACADEMY 3: BACK IN TRAINING(1986) – Now official PG, the PA series became movies for 10 year olds, luckily I was 9 when this one came out so I LOVED IT! Plus, this was the first one I saw in theaters. Time for the Misfits to train some new misfits, including the bad guy from number 2, BOBCAT!!!
POLICE ACADEMY 4: CITIZENS ON PATROL(1987) – Did you know that anyone can make a citizen’s arrest!? That means if you see an illegal act, you can attempt to apprehend the perpetrator. Cool, right!?!? Don’t do it though. It’s kinda dangerous. They turned that idea into a movie and well, this was the last PA I saw in theaters. They did add a pre-BASIC INSTINCT Sharon Stone and a PRE-SNL David Spade! This was Steve Guttenberg’s last film but it did see the return of G.W. Baily’s Captain Harris who was sorely missed from 2 and 3. Honestly, Baily is fantastic and Harris is by far the best and most fun character.
POLICE ACADEMY 5: ASSIGNMENT MIAMI BEACH(1988) – I only kind of remember this one. They got a fake Mahoney and they were at the beach. Other than that, I can’t remember what this one is about at all.
POLICE ACADEMY 6: CITY UNDER SIEGE (1989)– I remember this one even less!
POLICE ACADEMY 7: MISSION TO MOSCOW(1994) – Can’t understand why they thought they needed a 5th and 6th let alone a 7th 5 years after PA5: MIAMI was released but here it is. This flick has one very noteworthy distinction, it was one of the few US productions at the time to be allowed to film in Russia. Although now I can’t wait to see it just for this!
Ron Perlman as Konstantine Konali fighting with George Gaynes as Commandant Eric Lassard. Mr. Warnimont v HELLBOY!
Buying this set proved timely since we unfortunately just lost George Gaynes(Cmdt Eric Lassard) at 98 years young over the weekend. He was one of the few Police Academy’ers to star in all 7 movies! The others being Michael Winslow(Sgt Jones), Leslie Easterbrook(Capt Callahan) and the late David Graf(Sgt Tackleberry).
In case you don’t remember George from here, do you remember Henry Warnimont from PUNKY BREWSTER?
All right everybody, collective “AWWWWW” Studio audience style.
#2) CLASSIC FURIOUS FISTS COLLECTION
The other box set I bought, I can’t wax poetic about it yet because I have never seen these movies. However, Sonny Chiba is the greatest Japanese film martial artist of all time. And if you side with Quentin Tarantino, you believe he is the greatest ever! This has 10 of his classic flicks plus 5 MA classics starring the likes of Bruce Li, Dragon Lee and Bruce Leung.
QT loves Sonny, as he showed in TRUE ROMANCE and then by casting him as a master sword maker in KILL BILL. That and my love for Martial Arts movies was enough to make this an easy purchase.
And this video makes me so excited to consume as much Sonny Chiba as my little eyes can handle.