Watched December 9, 2022
1993
Director: Rob Bowman
Mitchell "Goose" Goosen (Shane McDermott) is a laid back So-Cal dude. He rollerblades with his buddy to the beach to go surfing. Then they walk back home carrying their boards and blades. Mitchell comes home to his parents telling him they got a grant to study in Australia for 6 months. He's psyched! Australia's got surfing but he can't miss that much school. So he is sent to his Aunt & Uncle in Cincinnati for the Winter!
Mitchell brings his surfboard for no reason, it really shows how out of his element he is. His cousin Wiley (Seth Green) is a weirdo. Mitchell's California house is modern, whereas the Cincinnati house is grandma cozy vibes. California and Cincinnati couldn't be more different! Goose is set up on a cot in Wiley's basement room that has a hodge podge decor of motorcycle posters, an Eraserhead poster and hair metal bands.
Goose's first class in his temporary new high school is speech where everyone gets up and says their name and deal. Jack Black plays a bully who likes video games. Mitchell is a cool California dude who loves surfing. Wiley pretends to be into hockey, his dad is but he really isn't. Two girls drool over Mitchell and have a fantasy sequence of him sitting in swim trunks. After class, the main hockey dude is mad that his girlfriend is talking to Mitchell. Apparently there is non-school affiliated hockey games with this group playing the preps. Two of their players are out that day, so they force Wiley to play. Wiley gets hurt so Mitchell is brought in. He scores a goal in the wrong net and they are all pissed. Before playing hockey, Mitchell was sitting in the stands and he meets Nikki (Brittney Powell).
After the ice hockey game went bad, the hockey bullies play pranks on Mitchell all over school. They soak all the toilet paper while he's pooping, then infer that he didn't wipe and walked around with shit on his butt? They steal his clothes while he showers, but he finds some combination of clothes so he doesn't leave the locker room totally nude. They fill his locker with sand and dump water on him on the stairwell.
Mitchell is bummed. The weather gets slightly nicer and his rollerblades arrive in the mail, yay! He goes out and runs into Nikki and takes her to a botanical garden greenhouse and skates around her. They makes a date for Friday but Mitchell said that he's hanging out with Wiley. Nikki brings her friend Gloria (Alana Ubach) so they can double date. Fashion montage of Wiley figuring out his look for the night. At first Gloria is not into Wiley. Mitchell and Nikki walk on the riverwalk and kiss then they all go to the teen diner. But the main hockey bully is Nikki's brother and he doesn't want her hanging out with Mitchell. He tries to fight Mitchell but Mitchell is too chill. But Mitchell makes the mistake of saying he'll be leaving town soon so there's nothing keeping him there. This makes Nikki upset and she runs off.
Mitch makes some rollerblading buddies, they skate around town on ramps and stuff. They run into a rematch street hockey game beteween the bullies and the preps. Mitchell ends up pantsing the main prep and you see his ball in his jock strap (?!) After this the bullies come to Wiley's house and tell Mitch how cool he is. They ask if he can help them with the devil's backbone race against the preps. It's a hill to waterfront race where a certain amount of each team needs to get to the finish line to win. The two teams set off down the hill and a bunch of folks eat it. Some preps make it. Mitch falls or something, then jumps off a flatbed truck. Mitchell ends up helping the main bully up and they skate together to the finish line into a huge crowd. Wiley and Gloria kiss and Mitch and Nikki kiss. The End.
Mitchell has no growth. He doesn't want to go to Cincinnati, he thinks it'll suck and it does. Even with him being chill then doing the Devil's backbone race doesn't change that he'll head back to California at the end of the semester.
One idea to have some sort of arc is that Mitchell used to not be chill and get into fights but surfing helps him calm down so when he's prompted to fight he could turn to rollerblading. The other could be having some sort of stakes about staying in Cincinnati, like falling for Nikki makes him was to graduate high school there. His parents should have gotten an grant to study somewhere landlocked not Australia, or any other place not know for surfing, also they have schools in Australia where Mitchell could have gone for a semester. The rollerblading is whatever, it's too muddled with hockey and surfing. Not X-treme enough either. Mitchell falls flat for me. Also two too many showers scenes.
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