Homework (1982) User Reviews

Humorless comedy

[rosscinema · 4/10 · 6 May 2005]

This is one of those teen sex comedies that seems to possess all the same ingredients as others in the genre but when it was over I can honestly say that I never found even one scene the least bit funny. Story is about a high school senior named Tommy (Michael Morgan) who thinks about sex so much that his grades start to suffer and he's forced to go to a psychologist (Carrie Snodgress) but he is also having trouble with his girlfriend Sheila (Erin Donovan) who spends her time swimming in the family pool to try and make the swim team.

*****SPOILER ALERT***** One day Tommy and his best friend Ralph (Lanny Horn) decide to put a band together for the talent show and this seems to occupy his time but he's still hopelessly horny and dreams of girls throwing themselves at him. Sheila's mother Diana (Joan Collins) starts to remember the good old days when she was a teenager messing around with boys in the front seat of cars and one day she takes a good look at Tommy which results in her taking his virginity.

This was directed by James Beshears who never did direct another film although he did go on to a very successful career working behind the scenes. His lack of directorial skills is painfully evident as scenes are edited together in the most amateurish way and the use of flashbacks are downright clumsy looking. This was released into theaters in 1982 but it was actually filmed in 1979 and it's very easy to see how the times had changed in those years because characters talk about disco music and wear Jim Morrison t-shirts with bell bottoms. As I stated this film really has no humor and one can't help but think that everyone connected with the making of this had no idea of what comedy is. In one truly uncomfortable scene the characters Sheila and Lisa start picking on the black chick Cookie (Renee Harris) about her not knowing how to swim and being a virgin. If that wasn't bad enough than how funny is it when Lisa visits her rock star idol and ends up catching gonorrhea? Yeah, that's always a knee slapper! To be honest I did (almost) grin when one of Tommy's teachers starts yelling at him about his grades slipping and shouting "continue like this and you'll be a garbage man!" The main point of the film is of course to watch the sexy Joan Collins bed a young man but the scenes have a body double and it's (once again) horribly edited. There is one question that I hope readers of this can help me with and it's with the identity of the actress who played the blond buxom nurse in the fantasy sequence. If anyone knows her name I would greatly appreciate it. This film sat in moth balls for a few years until the television show "Dynasty" became a hit and Collins suddenly erupted as a hot commodity which prompted the studios to dust this off and shoved it into theaters, but lets be real, compared to the rest of the horny teenager flicks this is a very cheap and badly made effort that offers very little to viewers.

A mess

[Groverdox · 3/10 · 2 January 2019]

A young man sits doing his math homework. He pulls out a porno mag and begins to fantasize about the model in the magazine being photographed by some other guy. This would make sense if he were gay, and wants to become a fashion photographer. But he is supposed to be straight. If the picture led him to fantasize, wouldn't the fantasy be sexual somehow?

The boy has a more interesting fantasy a little bit later, where he imagines himself comatose in hospital due to lack of sex, and has two sexy nurses, one of whom bares her breasts.

The movie appears to have a better budget than most '80s teen sex comedies. It features more locations and actors, though no one makes any impression.

I believe the movie is supposed to be about a young man, luckless in sex, being seduced by Joan Collins. She is barely in it, and all her scenes seem separate from the rest of the movie. No wonder - according to Wikipedia, they were filmed two years apart from the rest of the "movie". The whole thing has the same disconnected feeling.

There is a smoking hot French teacher, who should have been the one to seduce the protagonist - not Collins. In one bizarre scene, she offers to tutor one of the other kids, and he comes to her house and talks to her in fluent French, impressing her. She speaks English, presumably because the actress couldn't fake it in French. Why didn't they just make her a science teacher or something?

Google offers some hints about Collins' lack of real participation: she filmed her part two years before the rest, in a minor role, and the filmmakers edited the movie - and marketed it - to make it look like she played a main role. She sued them, particularly for using a body double in a later scene to make it look like she got naked.

B-movie god Wings Hauser makes an appearance at the halfway mark. He apparently plays some kind of rock star. What is he doing in this movie?

There are also scenes with an African American family that don't seem related to the movie's main story, if you can really say it has one.

The kid speaking French to his teacher is apparently, actually, French. I don't know why they didn't introduce that earlier. This movie is very confusing.

The protagonist finally meets Collins with only fifteen minutes left to go. So much for the whole "virginal loser seduced by sexy Dame" plotline.

And then the movie ends, without having resolved, or even really established, anything.

Thank god it's over.

All lies

[BandSAboutMovies · 2/10 · 12 June 2021]

You know, I always thought that this movie had Joan Collins in it. And yeah, it does. But it also doesn't. That's because the day before the film's premiere, Collins - along with Betty Thomas, Carrie Snodgress and Lee Purcell who said they made the movie under false pretenses, not knowing it was going to be a sex comedy - took legal action to get their names removed from this movie.

Collins claimed that the film's advertising was misleading and she was right. That's because she had only performed in a minor supporting role shot two whole years earlier in the time before Dynasty made her a big star. Homework now had her in a sex scene with an obvious body double and that image was featured in all of the advertising until a federal court ordered those ads to stop.

Jensen Farley Pictures, you did it again.

This may be the only movie that James Beshears ever directed, but he also edited Luigi Cozzi's Hercules and The Incredible Melting Man. Recently, he's served as the editorial and post-production executive on animated movies like The Boss Baby, Trolls and the Shrek films.

Bait and switch in the worst way; and the bait wasn't that fresh either.

[jsparacino · 1/10 · 31 January 2006]

This movie was billed as the next best thing to "Private Lessons". The movie was marketed on the misperceived sex goddess status of Joan Collins. She never goes Mary Kay LeTourneau. All you get to see is a really weak teen soap opera. My sister, her fiancé,and I went to this movie and left it with the same reaction we had to Porkies; a triumph of marketing for not a lot of movie. Joan Collins does some flashbacks of her youth and then she was an active participant in romance; it was a low level rip off of the Graduate. The teen band sequence was a bad version of the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland OK kids, let's put on a show. The end was not even very climactic; the two male leads walking out of a movie theater and talking of trying to make a movie just like when they started a band.

Odd in an ordinary way.

[superc13 · 5/10 · 23 November 2000]

I suppose you could call it a feature length after school special. Homework touches on some strange subjects though (I wish after school specials had been this interesting) including having sex with your girlfriends mom and how to cope with getting vd from a rock star. It's somewhat likeable, but I recommend watching it for the camp value alone.

How did this miss a Razzie Award?

[bkoganbing · 1/10 · 17 August 2019]

It never ceases to amaze me that in these films such good looking players are always cast as kids who can't seem to get anywhere with women. Positively ludicrous but I think films like Homework aren't to stimulate the mind. They operate somewhat south of the border.

Michael Morgan who I learned was Yvonne DeCarlo's son has sex on his mind all the time. He's even seeing the school guidance counselor Carrie Snodgrass who certainly has done better work.

He's trying very hard to score with next door neighbor Erin Donovan. But she only wants to make the swim team and she's constantly in the pool. But her mom Joan Collins gets her mojo going every time she sees Morgan. Guess what happens?

There's also a subplot with the same issue as Morgan's friend Lanny Horn tries to lose his virginity and it's French teacher Lee Purcell gives private lessons.

Morgan and Horn look they would have women lining up for them. Just once I'd like to see one of these films made with somebody who really hasn't gotten to first base yet. That will never happen.

Sadly I learned Michael Morgan was a homcide victim in 1999 and the case was never solved. A tragedy also is that this is the poor man's career role.

Amateur filmmaking at the pinnacle of its cheesiness.

[imbluzclooby · 1/10 · 19 December 2014]

Within 5 minutes of this teenage romp we see a shaggy hair blonde kid scribbling in his notebook under the bedroom lamp, dream sequences about Porn-actresses being photographed by sleazy men and the same young man and his friend smoking a joint at their lockers while subsequently ogling half naked girls through a door vent. When a movie starts out this cheesy you are immediately forewarned of what you are getting into or what one might think they hope to donate their precious time to, a guilty pleasure. Unfortunately, Homework doesn't get any better. Joan Collins, as the tigress who allures young Michael, ends up looking shoddy and lascivious instead of the wise seductress she is meant to be. This movie is filled with 3rd rate acting and the directing is what one would expect from a novice High School student directing his first movie. The film looks so bad that you could easily mistake this for 16mm or even 8mm. Usually I can laugh and enjoy these old teen movies for the freak value and nostalgic curios they offer. But not this one. Oddly enough, the movie ends on a strangely sad note with the two male friends walking down Hollywood Boulevard whereupon they strike up a conversation about the possibility of making it in motion pictures. The credits roll and this moody ballad about trying to be a star ends this horrible picture. Are we supposed to feel morose? Happy? Inspired? More like ripped off.

An awful waste of time

[alexlehm · 2/10 · 20 November 2006]

This has to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I assume that was supposed to build on movies like Fame as well as your usual teen high school comedy, but this movie fails in every aspect. At less than 90 minutes, the film is still too long and boring, the dialogue is rather silly and the music/rock star image being portrayed is quite odd, even for the time. The movie features some gratuitous nudity, but even these scenes are rather dumb. The whole styling reminds me of Boogie Nights era adult movies, but is seriously lacking in appeal. Most of the actors were (and stayed) unknown, at least one scene is done with a body double.

If you see this movie advertised in your TV program guide, my suggestion is change the channel immediately and watch Class instead.

'Empire of the Ants' Not the Nadir of Joan Collins' Career After All

[ascheland · 4/10 · 6 August 2014]

I remember seeing trailers for "Homework" when it was released in 1982, hyping it as an older woman-younger man sex comedy à la "My Tutor," "Private Lessons" or "Class." I didn't want to see it in 1982 but sought it out recently thinking that, if nothing else, it would be fun to watch Joan Collins go into full-on vixen mode and make teen-age boys squirm. And that would be fun were "Homework" made as a Joan Collins vehicle designed to capitalize on/poke fun at her "Dynasty" fame. But it turns out "Homework" was made in 1979, when Collins' career was in a free-fall and she was appearing in movies like "The Stud" and "Empire of the Ants." She may be one of the biggest names in the cast, but not big enough to ensure this turd got distributed… until 1982, when Collins was the queen of prime time.

The actual star of "Homework" is the late Michael Morgan. Morgan, who brings to mind a very young (and less interesting) Owen Wilson, is Tommy, a whiny teen so preoccupied by his virginity that he's failing his classes and needing to see a therapist (Carrie Snodgress, another slumming actress in the cast). Not helping is Sheila (Erin Donovan), the girl to whom Tommy wants to lose his virginity, if he could just get her to stop her obsessive quest to make the swim team. While Sheila swims Tommy and his friend Ralph (Lanny Horn) decide to form a band, The Flies ("The kind on your pants!"). It's the forming of the band, not Tommy getting laid, that is the main driver of "Homework"'s shambling story. Sprinkled throughout the movie are fantasy sequences (the only parts of the movie that appear to be shot in the 1980s) that seem to exist solely to pad the runtime with some extra T&A, using an obvious stand-in for Morgan. Joan Collins plays Sheila's mom, by the way. She spends most of her 15 minutes of screen time reminiscing about her teen years (flashback to the 1950s for more bare breasts!) while her husband takes a shower off camera. A stand-in takes over when Collins' character finally gives in to her awakened desires, a sex scene that would have been anticlimactic, so to speak, even if Collins had done her own nudity. (Though she was not averse to doing nude scenes in other movies, Collins refused to take anything off for "Homework," a choice made because of money rather than modesty, I imagine.)

Despite being totally inept, "Homework" is intermittently entertaining, like a scene in which a class is shown a poorly animated, 1960s-era V.D. scare film. There are also some surprising dark moments, such as when it's revealed that The Flies' drummer is abused by his father. Dan Safran and Maurice Peterson's mess of a screenplay doesn't seem to know which direction to go — teen sex comedy? coming of age dramedy? let's put on a show-style semi-musical? — and director James Beshears only makes things worse. Were this movie a little more tasteless and a lot more memorable it could easily be the "Myra Breckinridge" of teen comedies. Instead, it's a reminder of just how dire things had become for Joan Collins before she joined the cast of "Dynasty."

Your Dog Wouldn't Even Eat This Homework

[NoDakTatum · 1/10 · 10 October 2023]

This sad little sex comedy is more infamous for one of its stars suing to get her name taken off of the film. She probably shouldn't have signed onto this thing to begin with. Tommy (Michael Morgan) is your typical high school student, if all high school students were being portrayed by twenty year olds. He's obsessed with having sex, believes that all his fellow students and friends are doing it, and now his grades are suffering because of it. He's seeing a counselor (a very sad looking, formerly Oscar-nominated Carrie Snodgress) with little luck, and his swim team-obsessed girlfriend Sheila (Erin Donovan) is ignoring him as she begins to train 24/7 for a big meet. Tommy and his best friend Ralph (Lanny Horn) decide to form a band after listening to some lousy music (we don't get to hear that music, that would have required effort on the film makers' part), and the rest of the film deals with the various band members' home lives and sexual escapades as they prepare for their debut at a senior talent show.

I remember when this film came out, and the huge stink Joan Collins made about it. Her scenes are bizarrely edited into the plot, she has dialogue with a character who is never seen onscreen, and at one point she is supposed to be conversing with other cast members even though they are by an outdoor pool and she is inside in a kitchen. Most famously, her character (Sheila's mother) has sex with Tommy and the film makers recruited a body double in a bad wig to perform the scene. All of the advertising centered on Collins' sex scene since she was having a career resurgence thanks to the television series "Dynasty," and she was not happy. Like I alluded to, the film is so bad, the body double sex scene would have been the least of my worries although the body double is mentioned in the end credits.

Aside from all the statutory crimes happening in the film, what else is wrong with it? Once those end credits do roll, after a scene that would have set up a sequel, you realize that there are a ton of dangling subplots that are never resolved. So much time is wasted on Sheila in the pool, training her little heart out, and you're not going to tell us how she did at the swim meet? One of the band member's dads is a gruff military man/Hollywood cliche who is overly strict and can't be reasoned with (*yawn*, says this proud Air Force Brat), and there's a French teacher who keeps trying to tutor male students at her house at night- a plot point that, like the teacher, is either incredibly naive or incredibly stupid. It's fun to see Wings Hauser and Betty Thomas in early roles, this was filmed in 1979 and shelved until Collins was suddenly a hot item again, and a sassy medical receptionist played by Beverly Todd had me laughing out loud. The students are shown a film about venereal disease that was also funny, the film makers should have cut their losses and just gave us ninety minutes of Todd smarting off to these dumb teens about their newly diagnosed gonorrhea. The editing is terrible, the sleaze factor is high, Tommy's fantasies are weird, and I was checking the running time counter on my old DVD/VCR combo unit constantly. With all this going on, there's a surprising lack of curse words. They must have jettisoned the profanity to make room for Tommy's visit to a sympathetic prostitute/another Hollywood cliche, or boring rehearsals that make the band Mystery from the disastrous Julia Roberts vehicle "Satisfaction" (1988) look like the Beatles. I'm not going to lie, I was about fourteen years old when this came out and knew I had to see it if Collins was going to be nekkid in it. It seemed like EVERYONE watched "Dynasty," or knew of it, and my puberty-frazzled mind spun. Forty years later, I now know better.

Contains strong female nudity, sexual content, strong sexual references, strong adult situations, drug abuse, tobacco use.

a minor classic

[adidaz-1 · 8/10 · 10 April 2007]

first, a few warnings: 1 - do not go into this film looking for Joan Collins' sex amazingness. frankly, what year is this and why am i watching movies with Joan Collins' middle aged hoping for steamy steamy? 2 - who cares when this movie was released. it is sincerely a product of its time (1979) and just because it couldn't find a distributor until 1982 is more the fault of the people dumb enough not to green light this sucker into theatres. 3 - prepare to be blown away if cultural artifacts that nail their subject matter are at all yr thing.

okay. let's be honest. we're watching a teen movie from the late seventies hoping that it'll be good. and my god, it is great.

judging by the cover and the things i had heard about this film i was expecting sort of a lower rent My Tutor (an amazing film released by one of the all time greats, Crown Internation) but instead what I got was a lovely, less pat and trite, smarter, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. That film was more showy and less involved with the concerns of young people growing up and trying to find their place in the world while dealing with all the perfect teen concerns: VD, Sex, Fame, Love, Sex, Ambition, Sex, and hangin' out. But it is all done with a subtle hand that never blatantly exploits any of the feelings of its characters. Although it does exploit sexual fantasies par excellance but who can honestly complain about nudity? I mean, the rock star fantasy had with girls undressing the lead singer of the super rock star high school group? If I went to a show like that they would automatically be my new favourite band.

It captures the era in LA absolutely marvelously. The kind prostitutes, the teenage dreams of fame that seem so easy to achieve, the sassy venereal disease clinic nurses, the feathered los angeles surfer hair, the aching for it bored suburban moms, and the theatres showing Ecstasy Girls(!!!).

Homework is like no other film, book, or song (maybe not song, but oh they're so short aren't they?) in encapsulating a certain time, place, and feeling. If you're up for some escapism, into a simpler more gentle time, then check this'n out.

Also, the outdated sexual awareness 16mm that they show in class is easily worth the price of admission. Who knew that slang for gonorrhea comprises of such terms as "Gleen" and "Old Joe" as well as many other bits of insanity that I'm sad I've never had in my vocabulary.

In case my excitement over this movie wasn't apparent enough, consider it so. God love this film and can someone please tell me why James Beshears never made another film? Sheesh. Must have been those wretched eighties. Haha.

Loved it!

[Maurice219 · 10/10 · 21 June 2001]

It wasn't perfect, and that's why it's so cool. Lots of emotion, and you can tell it's from a true story. And catch Betty Thomas! I saw it on Showtime a long time ago but I just rented it and it really brought back memories. Joan Collins' role is short but bitchin.

Slick production

[bevo-13678 · 10/10 · 30 March 2020]

I liked the really good acting and the bits where you could see the boom mic

Schlocky teen "rite of passage" film

[lor_ · 19 January 2023]

My review was written in August 1982 after a Times Square screening.

"Homework" is a very poorly-made sex comedy about a high school boy's problems in losing his virginity. Filmed circa 1979 with the alternate title "Growing Pains", picture predates Jensen Farley's hit pickup "Private Lessons", but offers exploitation possibilities as a followup release.

Evidencing plentiful post-production doctoring (mainly in the form of added nude scenes), "Homework" is truly a mixed bag, alternating dead-serious (bordering on pathos at times) depictions of the problems young teen Tommy (Michael Morgan) with poor-taste gags and softcore sex. Episodic screenplay also covers his pals' antics: Ralph (Lanny Horn) with a crush on the cute substitute French teacher (Lee Purcell); g.f. Sheila (Erin Donovan) obsessed with swim team practice and Lisa (Shell Kepler) hoping to use their vocal group The Flies as a stepping stone.

Plot payoff has Sheila's mom Diana (Joan Collins) lusting after young Tommy and finally introducing him to sex (with the aid of poorly matched double Joy Michael, who also portrays Diana at age 16 in several crudely inserted flashback scenes).

"Homework" ironically also strikes a blow against serious-minded efforts in the exploitation field. While out-and-out silly and frivolous teen pics are easy to watch (viz., the many American International and Crown International hits of the last two decades), this film's serious scenes clash with viewer's expectations and the rest of the package. It is dreary and tedious to see Tommy pouring his problems out to school psychologist Dr. Delingua (Carrie Snodgress) or traipse around the seamy Sunset Strip, forlorn amidst a barrage of sexual enticements. Instead of being funny, his bed scene of impotency with a hooker is distasteful. Documentary-trained lighting cameraman Paul Goldsmith stresses source lighting for a "realistic" look, which runs counter to the comedy and results in dim, ugly interiors.

Well-known adult cast plays second-fiddle to the kids, with Collins a steady trouper even when assigned to staring at a kid's jeans-clad crotch for a whole scene. Purcell is winning as the nervous teacher, though her role and that of the psychologist played by Snodgress are peripheral. Betty Thomas (later of "Hill St. Blues") has a ten-second bit part as rock star Wings Hauser's secretary. Biggest laughs of the film go to Mel ("Little Shop of Horrors") Welles and Beverly Todd, as doctor and clinic receptionist.