Dream a Little Dream (1989)

[Mofo Rising]

I'm an '80s kid, and I watched this movie quite a lot back when it was playing endlessly on HBO. I recall liking it (I believe we had it recorded on VHS tape). Part of that reason is because the song "Dream a Little Dream" is a great song, the other reason is because it played endlessly on HBO. I think, if you wanted, you could get quite a nice essay written about the shared experience of all the movies HBO played in the '80s.

Anyway, it came up in my Netflix queue, so I watched it again today. I liked it. Not a great movie by any means, but still pretty entertaining, if you can get past the complete ridiculousness of it.

So this was the Coreys at the height of their bizarre powers. Of the two, I think that Corey Haim actually had a bit of '80s teen charisma about himself. "What time is it? Why did I look at my wrist? I've never worn a watch, why did I look at my wrist?" Time has told the story about Corey Haim, but he was entertaining here. I can't really say the same about Feldman. His befuddling fascination with turning himself into a Michael Jackson imitator still makes not a lot of sense.

At any rate, there's a bit of an interesting story this movie flirts with but never quite finds. It was the '80s, so you have to accept that veteran actors Jason Robards and Piper Laurie play second fiddles to the extremities of fashion disasters that '80s teens were supposedly obsessed with.

The movie is a bit too long. The climax with the misguided douchebag played by William McNamara (an actor I inexplicably despise) just kind of ends with no repercussions. Why?

What makes the movie is Meredith Salenger. I don't know if she's a good actor or not, but she spends a large a majority of the movie dancing around in a leotard. Meredith Salenger is very interesting when she's dancing around in a leotard.

I wouldn't recommend this movie to anybody who didn't grow up in the '80s, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting upon rewatch. It's not good, but certainly not the worst way to spend a President's Day afternoon.

[Jack]

At any rate, there's a bit of an interesting story this movie flirts with but never quite finds.

Yup.  I wrote a review of it and said "Somewhere, buried perhaps a mile and a half beneath this music video / slapstick comedy of a movie, is a sweet little love story just trying to get out. Too bad no one involved cared too much about that."

I think I only bought it because of Meredith Salenger's spandex scenes 

[JayJayM12]

I, too remember watching this one endlessly on HBO 'back in the day'.  I loved it as a kid, but it would be interesting to see what I thought of it through my 'adult' eyes.  I'll have to check it out on Netflix...

On an only somewhat related note - another Corey/Corey classic that I remember loving as a kid popped up on cable the other night, so I sat down and watched it.  License To Drive DOES NOT hold up...  But, it was never as good as Dream A Little Dream - just a goofy flick that almost seemed like a cross between Ferris Bueller and Adventures In Babysitting.  Dream A Little Dream seemed to have much more ambitious goals as a movie...

[movie masochist]

I also watched this on HBO back in the day.  I have bonded with many people over the movies we watched incessantly on HBO.  Poltergeist and Popeye:The Movie come to mind.

Dream a Little Dream was a quirky little movie.  I haven't watched it in years, but I remember enjoying it.  I watched an interview with Corey Feldman a few years back where he said that one of the questions people asked him most frequently was "Did you ever get together with Meredith Salenger??"  Apparently she is the reason *a lot* of people watched this one. 

thebestbadmovies.com

[BoyScoutKevin]

Meredith Salenger

A heck of a good actress. No spandex, but watch her first credited screen appearance, when she was about 15 or so, as the title character in "The Journey of Natty Gann." Her father has to leave town to look for work, and she hits the road to look for him, eventually hooking up with John Cusack, before she finds her father in some lumbercamp or the other. I put it down as being one of the best performances by a teenage actress I've ever seen.

[retrorussell]

I think, if you wanted, you could get quite a nice essay written about the shared experience of all the movies HBO played in the '80s.

I smell a new topic