I decided to putter around the apartment while I recorded this movie, but that was scuttled when the chick's leg with the mile-high blue platform shoe emerged from the bus. I laughed. I remember platform shoes - had a pair of my own. The laughs kept coming. So I sat down and watched the movie.
It's not great cinema, but it doesn't have to be. "Thank God It's Friday" is a silly, goofy, infectious bit of fun about a disparate group of people who converge on a disco one night, each with their own agenda. A couple of teeny-boppers want to enter the dance contest and spend most of the movie trying to crash the place. A suburban couple show up - the woman wants a good time, but the man is so uptight he spends all his time whining until, that is, he meets a disco chick with lots of pills, and he becomes Party Guy. And so on. There's also Donna Summer. Love Donna Summer!
There are so many characters and story lines going on that it's a miracle the writers kept them all straight. They manage to intersect at the right moments, making for some comic situations. There are some moments that made me uncomfortable, however, and they need to be brought up. The drugs, for one thing. They may have seemed innocuous at the time, but in reality they wrecked a lot of lives. Also, one lone young woman elects to go home with several guys to booze and soak in a jacuzzi. I found that sad and creepy. In hindsight, hedonism did have its price. Watch this movie with a group of people, remembering that you need to take it for what it is, a relic of a time and place - and feeling - that is long gone.
It's not great cinema, but it doesn't have to be. "Thank God It's Friday" is a silly, goofy, infectious bit of fun about a disparate group of people who converge on a disco one night, each with their own agenda. A couple of teeny-boppers want to enter the dance contest and spend most of the movie trying to crash the place. A suburban couple show up - the woman wants a good time, but the man is so uptight he spends all his time whining until, that is, he meets a disco chick with lots of pills, and he becomes Party Guy. And so on. There's also Donna Summer. Love Donna Summer!
There are so many characters and story lines going on that it's a miracle the writers kept them all straight. They manage to intersect at the right moments, making for some comic situations. There are some moments that made me uncomfortable, however, and they need to be brought up. The drugs, for one thing. They may have seemed innocuous at the time, but in reality they wrecked a lot of lives. Also, one lone young woman elects to go home with several guys to booze and soak in a jacuzzi. I found that sad and creepy. In hindsight, hedonism did have its price. Watch this movie with a group of people, remembering that you need to take it for what it is, a relic of a time and place - and feeling - that is long gone.