Up the Academy (1980)

An outrageous comedy about the wildest bunch of cadets ever to wreak havoc on a military academy. Starring Ralph Macchio ("My Cousin Vinny") Tom Poston ("The Bob Newhart Show") and Barbara Bach ("The Spy Who Loved Me") this film is an out-of-control riot from start to finish!Running Time: 87 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 012569759213 Manufacturer No: 75921 Product Description

So bad you can smell it

And yes, I gave it 5 stars. Its greatness is in how bad it is. It's even edited poorly...And yet this is what makes it hilarious. Although there are a few jokes that are actually quite funny. I agree with other reviewers that the soundtrack is awesome - Nick Lowe, Cheap Trick, Boomtown Rats, Iggy Pop, etc. I put this right up there with "Boom!" as one of the best bad movies ever made. Even though he disowned the film and his involvement in it, Ron Liebman as Major Vaughn Liceman is priceless. "Say it Again!" May 25, 2008

Four Friends

Hate this school they go to, they abuse the school as much as they can. December 23, 2007

High School Flashback

Not a great movie by any stretch, but enough goofy laughs and sophomoric humor to keep you interested and chuckling throughout. A funny and self depricating acting turn by Emmy winner Ron Liebman as the wormy, sadisitc, and sleazy Major Liceman; interesting that his part is uncredited. It always cracks me up that when he walks into a room a chill wind precedes him and makes everyone shiver in his presence. Also a good representative soundtrack of the very late 70s/early 80s that is topped off by the Baby's singing Midnight Rendezvous. July 24, 2007

"Geez, I don't remember this barbed wire in any of the brochures."

After National Lampoon's success with Animal House (1978), MAD Magazine tried its hand in movies with this film, titled Up the Academy (1980). The Result? It was considered so bad MAD Magazine's founder William Gaines actually paid Warner Brothers to remove any references to MAD Magazine upon release to home video. So why does the reference to Mad appear on the DVD release? Well, seems Time Warner has since bought MAD Magazine, and reinstated all previously removed references (seems your money was well spent, Bill)...directed by Robert Downey Sr. (Putney Swope, Greaser's Palace), the film features Wendell Brown (Dreams Don't Die), Tommy Citera (Forty Deuce), Hutch Parker (credited as J. Hutchison), and Ralph Macchio (The Karate Kid, My Cousin Vinny), in his very first film. Also appearing is Ron Leibman (The Hot Rock, Norma Rae), Tom Poston ("The Steve Allen Show"), Ian Wolfe (The Terminal Man), Harry Teinowitz (The Package), Antonio `Huggy Bear' Fargas ("Starsky and Hutch"), Stacey Nelkin (Halloween III: Season of the Witch), and former Bond girl Barbara Bach (The Spy Who Loved Me).

As the movie begins we meet four teenage boys, all troublemakers and delinquents, whose families are preparing to send them off to military school. There's Chooch (Macchio), who apparently has no respect for his mobster roots, Eisenhower `Ike' MacArthur (Brown), a pot smoking son of Baptist preacher who can't keep his hands off his stepmother, Oliver (Parker), who knocked up his girlfriend Candy (Nelkin), threatening his father's mayoral candidacy, and Hash (Citera), the son of a wealthy sheik and persistent pickpocket. As the boys arrive at the Sheldon R. Weinberg Military Academy they soon find themselves in a world of suck under the watchful eye of a sadistic, narcissistic, psychotic sleaze named Major Vaughn Liceman (Leibman). After a few run ins with Liceman, the boys get a new roommate named Rodney Ververgaert (Teinowitz), a nasally, chubby, snickering, arsonist who's fairly annoying, but seems to share a common bond with his bunkmates in their hatred for Liceman. Anyway, the boys, sans Chooch, sneak out to visit a neighboring school for girls called the Mildred S. Butch Academy, so Oliver can visit Candy, but the foursome gets busted as they return. Not only that, but Liceman's got compromising photos of Oliver and Candy, which he uses to blackmail the boys threatening to use them to mess up Oliver's father's mayoral bid. The boys retaliate by setting Liceman up, with Candy's help, during a mixer, and obtaining their own embarrassing photos, resulting in a sort of standoff. Eventually Liceman and the boys come to an agreement, one that includes whoever wins the soccer game set to be played between the faculty and the students on the upcoming parents weekend will get all the photos, but seeing how the faculty has never lost, the boys will have to come up with a plan to settle Liceman's hash once and for all...

Where William Gaines ultimately failed in keeping the MAD Magazine (the magazine had virtually nothing to do with the content of the film) name off this film, actor Ron Leibman succeded, as you'll not see him listed anywhere in the credits, promotional materials, or even the theatrical trailer. I'm unsure his specific reasons for his requesting this, but I've read it had something to do with a falling out he had with producers (seems there was more than one person who didn't wish to see this film released). It's kind of funny as Leibman's performance as the main antagonist is probably the most memorable of the film. Anyway, where Animal House succeded, Up the Academy failed miserably (it's not that people just didn't like the film, but they actually hated it). My opinion on the matter, besides the fact Up the Academy had not one tenth the charm or humor of Animal House, was that while Animal House was set at a university, something a large number of people could relate to, Up the Academy is set at a military academy, something a lot of people probably couldn't relate to...there's lots of other faults too, like the weak writing, unlikable main characters, unfunny situations, and so on. But despite all that, I still somewhat enjoy this film ever since I saw it on cable back in the early 1980s. Why? It's hard to explain...perhaps the salacious humor, which is fairly politically inncorrect, appeals to the juvenilistic tendencies I still harbor. Upon watching the film again last night a number of the crude gags didn't hold up as well (the senile, flatuent commandant) , but there were some that made me laugh. One of the funniest parts for me occurred during the mixer dance, as Major Liceman is trying unsuccessful to pick up on some female officers from the visiting girls academy. He'd come up to one of them, make some innoculous small talk, and then slip in some weird, fetistic request involving rope and feathers which would usually elicit a "What the fudge?" response from the women. Another hilarious bit was Tom Poston's ultra effeminate character of Master Sergeant Skip Sisson. He wasn't in the film that much but whenever he popped up, it usually made me laugh. It wasn't so much the homersexual overtones that made me laugh, but the fact they were so exaggerated. The most memorable bits of dialog come from Liebman's character, the first being the phrase `Say it again!', one he often use on cadets who forgot to address him as `sir', and another occuring as Hash the Arab has a run in with Liceman, the latter chastising the former for wearing his Arab headdress and claiming it's `not regulation and it makes you stand out like a turd in the punchbowl.' Liceman uses the `turd in a punchbowl' reference a couple of times, after which someone, while at the mixer, actually puts a turd in the punchbowl. A couple of other positive aspects include Barbara Bach and Stacey Nelkin, both of whom have minor roles but look amazing. Bach plays an instructor specializing in cleavage and phallic armaments while Nelkin plays Candy, Oliver's buxom and easy on the eyes girlfriend. While this film is rated R, it's not due to any nekkidness, but mainly because of language. Another aspect of the film I really liked is the soundtrack, which features performances by Blondie, Cheap Trick, Sammy Hagar, Iggy & The Stooges, The Kinks, Nick Lowe, and Lou Reed, to name a few. All in all the film is mainly a curiosity, one that probably won't appeal to most other than a handful of those, like myself, who caught it on cable during their misspent youth.

The picture on this DVD release, presented in widescreen (2.35:1) anamorphic, looks remarkably good, much better than I would have expected (heck, I wasn't even expecting a widescreen release), and the Dolby Digital stereo audio, available in both English and French, comes through well. There's not much in the way of extras other than subtitles in English, French, and Spanish, and a theatrical trailer, which includes various shots of a statue of MAD's spokesman Alfred E. Newman in military garb, ones that weren't included in the film's release.

Cookieman108
November 6, 2006

I Was A Teenage Extra , I Was A Teenage Extra !!

What more could possibly be said about a movie that almost wasn't.....? Originally titled "The Brave Young Men Of Weinberg", MAD magazine entered the picture early on and bought the rights and titled it "MAD Magazine Presents...Up The Academy". This movie was filmed in Salina, Kansas at an actual boys military academy and I was an extra, in the bleacher shots during the soccer scenes. I met Ralph Macchio, and this was his first movie, and he was quite excited about it. He was discovered tap dancing in a laundromat.... true story. This explains the no-reason scene of him tap dancing in the barracks on his way out of the room. Anyway, he went on to be the new cast member (a rebellious teen character) on EIGHT IS ENOUGH, before taking off in films like KARATE KID, etc. I still have the copy of the check I was paid for my 3 weeks as a stand-in/extra. Ahhh, those teenage memories,lol. True, this movie would never have won any awards, but sometimes teenage movies are made for teenage minds. And this is one of them. Ranks right up there with OVER THE EDGE and MEATBALLS. Enjoy. February 24, 2006

More reviews at Amazon.com ...