Wednesday, September 25, 2019

THE NEW BEVERLY HILLS GIRLS (1991) **


Michelle Bauer stars as a talent agent who narrates two stories.  In the first, a rock band waits at a gig for their drummer, Becky LeBeau who is running late.  Why is she running late, you ask?  Well, she’s way too busy playing with herself in the bathtub, that’s why!  When she finally gets to the studio, they belt out a rock song.  Oh, did I mention the one and only Linnea Quigley is the singer?  The song she does is no “Santa Monica Boulevard Boy”, but it’s not bad.  Then their agent brings them new outfits to wear, which means they all have to undress and change into them right there on the spot!  Becky takes lead on the next (okay) song and imagines herself singing in the nude.  Finally, to insure they get a record contract, Linnea bangs a sexy music exec while Becky watches.

The second story stars Michelle, who is overseeing a nude photography session.  Her photographer is kidnapped by a jealous rival and blackmails Michelle into selling her company.  Michelle’s models then decide to make like a bunch of half-assed Charlie’s Angels and try to rescue him. 

This segment is much longer than the first and not nearly as entertaining either.  It is padded with a bunch of nude modeling scenes, which takes some of the sting out of the sluggish second half.  More padding comes in the form of flashbacks of random sex scenes, including Linnea in a brief lesbian three-way.  Michelle herself gets a potentially good Girl on Girl scene (a flashback inside of a fantasy inside of a dream scene) that’s unfortunately ruined by a purple tint on the camera that makes it hard to tell what’s going on. 

The obvious inspirations here were MTV and The Playboy Channel.  The cheesecake nude, striptease, and sex scenes are like something out of a Playboy Video Centerfold, except they were shot with a grainy home movie camera and the sound kind of goes in and out.  These scenes also use too much slow motion, but I think that was only done to further pad out the running time.   

Ultimately, what we have here is an uneven hodgepodge.  The first story is only a half hour and moves at a fairly brisk pace.  The second is almost an hour.  Both have their moments, but Michelle’s story is awfully slow going.  What’s worse is the thoroughly awful rock song by a lame (all-male) band in the third act that stops things on a dime right when it should be heating up. 

I guess I’m being too harsh on The New Beverly Hills Girls.  After all, it’s not even really a movie; just an excuse to get a few of your favorite Scream Queens naked masquerading as a real movie.  Still, as far as Excuses-to-Get-Your Favorite-Scream-Queens-Naked-Masquerading-as-a-Real-Movie movies go, you can certainly do much worse.  

AKA:  Beverly Hills Girls.

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