Happy Campers (2001)

On the one hand, it is a pity that this movie has the make-up of a teen movie. Because it is at times, cleverly written, and well acted, with un-mainstream kind of takes. And the teen-flic make-up sets it up for thrashing by the peeps who don't take the time to watch this one a tat more closely. But F- them. This one should have had the following of a Rushmore Academy. One of the nice things about it, is that whenever it threatens to become a cliché, i.e. whenever one of the characters uses one of those cliché lines, it is immediately followed by an cliché exposing line! This is kinda refreshing. For example Swain says something that would be sold to us as a "Deep-And-Meaningful-Possibly-Oscar-Winning-Moment"- in ANY other teen-flic, and follows that up with a heartfelt 'I can't believe I just said that!' I apologize for not giving a better example of this. I'd have to watch it again to do so.More interestingly, I think it is the first time that I saw a 12 year old gay character in an American movie? Okay, so it wasn't explored very much, and was made explicit only at the end, but give the man credit for bringing it up in the first place. I'm sure the actor was 16, okay maybe 14, but he looked 12 at least. And the whole lesbian thing, it was nice to look at but not exploitive and left pleasantly unsolved. As were the romance(s). No clear-cut happy-ever-afters for these guys. It's like Coupling in that it tries to make interesting observations about the bizarre nature of female and male behaviour, in groups and opposite each other. And the seven voice-overs, yeah, maybe a bit annoying and the Indie-Powers-That-Be have declared that it is Foul and Trite to use voice-over, (but not Oscar nominated Danish top director Lars von Trier [ uk.imdb.com/name/nm0001885/ ] for example), BUT it is new, and it really tries to paint the story from different angles. Not Rashomon by a long shot of course, but still, it's way better than genre flics like 'She's all that' and '10 things I hate about you.'Actually, there's no comparison, the only thing they have in common with _Happy Campers_ is that the character are young teens. Period. Ultimately, this is about loss and coming of age, and the fact that some of us do have a great time at camp. And some us ... don't, not at all, no way José.There are some profound lines and insights. And also some nice quotes: On the first menstruation of a girl: "That was not a period, but an exclamation mark!" ...... New to me, anyways.

I watch it every other Sunday, just because it rocks. I watch requiem for a dream every other Sunday to snap me back into reality. Happy Campers is a great movie about a handful of counselors taking over camp for the director who umm, is electrified. Tales of love control and relations ensue. For a movie that never made it to the theaters it has a very independent feel to it, with plenty of cuts. If you want to get back to your teenage years without the raucous comedy of American Pie, see Happy Campers (which is a comedy, just not raucous). Dominique Swain is in this movie. With the success of Million Dollar Baby, i bet more people will rent this movie, if they can find it.

Spoilers herein.Films have the same mystery as love: you find the best experiences in the most unlikely places.This movie gives the impression of a Bull Murray stupidity: teenagers and sex along the lines of `Breakfast Club.' Its underscored by using C and D list actors. That's too bad, because this can be seen as fairly intelligent. Daniel Waters writes films that seem to saturate their home genre, yet transcend them in ways more subtle than parody or the faddish irony. His stance is pretty abstract. Take another look at `Hudson Hawk,' where he explores the very coherence ofrepresentation and cosmology from the twinkle in Willis' eye. Look at `Batman Returns,' the one where Tim Burton decided to do it right and intelligently.Now look at this in the context of the book, `Lolita.' That wasn't the first book that was about writing and untrusted narrative. It wasn't the first one where you were fooled into thinking about the story as a distraction while the author plays with how you perceive it. But it was the first one that really worked at a level of subliminal metanarrative.In that story, Humbert imagines that Dolores was engaged in wild sex as a 12 year old at camp. He removes her from camp to begin his own reality-bending obsession. His notion of child-sex is purified, innocent.Now look what we have here: a film about sex at a preteen camp, starring the same girl who recently played Lolita (Dolores), with a single obsessed adult, and lots of exploration of an abstract sort of sex.Very risky approach; very few will get it. But check out the name: Camp Weeping Dove. Check out the names, Wendy (`Peter Pan'), Pixel (and her crowns), and Oberon(`Midsummer Night's Dream'). Jasper and Talia have several classical associations. Check out the oddly out of place secondary stories about child abuse (Witchita, and `don't touch me'). Did you get the items mentioned in the scavenger hunt?Dominique Swain puzzles me. She does many of these quirky indies like Parker Posey. But no one knows they are clever.Here, she works her butt off, with an energy that shows that there must be abreakthrough project somewhere in her future,Ted's evaluation: 3 of 3 - Worth Watching.

I was mildly looking forward to seeing this movie because i think Brad Renfro is great,but i was sadly disapointed with it. It had a couple of funny moments but that was it. It ended up getting very black and i think it would of worked much better if it had taken a lighter approach. Also there were unneccessary 'Lesbian' scenes, which looked like they were put there to fill plot holes, it didn't work